Leaps of Consciousness

In 1945, two locals found a 60 cm buried jar while digging near a cliff about 11 km north-east of Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Nag Hammadi lies about 600 km south of Cairo on the Nile. Hoping to find gold, Muhammed 'Ali broke open the jar only to find many papyrus books. The many documents were divided up amongst the seven people present. 'Ali took his share home where his widowed mother used some to feed the fire. The find includes 13 ancient books (codices) containing 52 texts which are now all in the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

These secret Gnostic writings from the time of Christ were presumably buried to protect them from destruction by the 'authorities'. They include The Gospel of Truth, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip and The Gospel of the Egyptians which all shed new light on the interpretation and content of the Bible.

Various scholars wanted to be the first to publish the works, but the lengthy commentaries caused delays. Eventually, US scholar James Robinson sped things up, and Brill published the first full collection in English between 1972-1984 as the Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices. There is also a 17-volume English edition The Coptic Gnostic Library.

The best introduction is Elaine Pagel’s The Gnostic Gospels below.

The Nag Hammaddi find included The Gospel of Thomas, in which Jesus says ‘the two eyes are made as one.’ We have two eyes but a single point of awareness. Douglas Harding uses this quote in his book The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth in which he includes simple exercises to become aware of this and our true nature.

References

Media	Author	Title
Book	Elaine Pagels	The Gnostic Gospels