THE GNOSTIC MOVEMENT

The Gnostic Movement was a non-profit spiritual organization that ran free courses. It was founded in 1999 and closed in 2012.

The Gnostic Movement was originally established by British-born author Belzebuub in Australia and expanded to six other countries worldwide: Canada, the USA, the UK, Greece, Cyprus, and Malaysia. Its primary activity was spreading the Gnostic doctrine of Samael Aun Weor via its popular courses, which were taken by over ninety thousand people in over one hundred countries online and in study centers throughout the world.

Background to The Gnostic Movement

In the 1950s, Samael Aun Weor (born Victor Manuel Gomez) began teaching modern Gnosticism throughout Latin America. It was based upon the principles of Gnosis, a Greek word meaning knowledge gained from personal spiritual experience. He called his work the “doctrine of the synthesis,” because it explained what he said was the esoteric or hidden side of most of the world’s religious traditions and cultures, that of the path to personal spiritual transformation.

He founded the Universal Christian Gnostic Movement (UCGM) in South America in 1960, and when he passed away in 1977, his close disciple Rabolu (born Joaquin Amortegui Valbuena) took over its coordination and helped it to expand further throughout Europe.

Belzebuub and The Gnostic Movement

Mark (who wrote with his pen name Belzebuub) came across a group teaching Gnosis with the UCGM in the UK in 1990. He learned the practices and became a teacher of the organization himself later that year. In 1994 he moved overseas to Australia to open a UCGM center, and in 1998 he announced that he had reached the appropriate stage in his personal spiritual work whereby he uncovered and would begin teaching with the name of his consciousness, Belzebuub.

In 1999, just a few months before Rabolu passed away, Belzebuub along with other members of the UCGM in Australia founded a new organization called “The Gnostic Movement,” amalgamated it with the UCGM. Belzebuub was elected to coordinate it in 2000.

Structure and Online Courses

Being a non-profit organization and without many volunteers when it first started, Belzebuub considered that with the rapid advancement of the Internet at the time, putting together online courses would be a great way to reach people worldwide. He began the process of writing them week-by-week and participants were emailed a link to download the free PDF documents as the courses went along. Due to rampant plagiarism, to better protect them they were later compiled into books and eventually replaced with video summaries.

Belzebuub sought to clarify and present the Gnostic teachings in a manner suitable for the times. He organized everything into three eight (later nine) week courses, each with their own distinct subject category, so that each course would allow students to focus upon the practical aspects of the teachings and verify them via their own practice and experience. Although the courses were split into this structure, recommended works of Samael Aun Weor that contained virtually all the information given in the courses were freely available for download at any time from the websites.

In 2001, Belzebuub created his course in astral travel and dreams, which covered the process of astral projection, what to see and do in the astral plane, and the nature of dreams. Later that year he created a course in self-discovery, which explained about psychology and the components of the psyche from a spiritual perspective, and helped people to improve relationships, overcome addictions, and create order in life.

In 2002, Belzebuub created an esoteric course. This course was open to those who had taken the two introductory courses, and it covered more theoretical Gnostic topics such as karma and dharma, and the process of life and death. Its primary focus however, was explaining about the path to enlightenment, or “the esoteric path.” Later, Belzebuub created a course called “Advanced Investigation,” which students who had completed the previous three courses could join, and which was purely based on practicing the exercises learned in the previous three courses. After the investigation course, those who wished to teach within The Gnostic Movement could take the Teachers Course where they could train to be teachers by practicing giving lectures and guiding practices from the courses.

All the courses were optional and students could take them however many times they wished. Few ended up taking the later courses, while many students chose to participate in the introductory courses numerous times, as they enjoyed doing the group practices the courses provided.

Those that did take the Teachers Course could become qualified teachers when they were ready, and teachers that showed dedication and responsibility in their positions over time were invited to become members of the organization. The members in the various countries in which the organization was set up voluntarily formed boards and administered the organization democratically.

Websites

The Gnostic Movement had a main website for running its online courses and facilitating course forums and public forums. The latest iteration of courses was delivered through guided video talks and practices, examples of which can be seen below: