Mark’s Gnostic Movement, gave me a practical experience of spiritual realities, helping me to read into the teachings of Gnosis, not as a science fiction adventure story, but as a vividly clear instruction manual that brought spiritual and psychological depths right into my hands – allowing me to focus not on theories and ideas that were outside of me, or part of some distant set of rules and principles, but upon the amazing unfoldment of my own spiritual journey, and the blissful reality of being.
The Gnostic Movement (TGM) was an organization the likes of which is difficult to find these days. Attending TGM’s courses and events was highly valuable for me and I am always thankful for it. I experienced huge benefits in my life and in the relationships with the people around me. Prior to joining TGM I wasn’t happy with the careless way I was living but I didn’t have enough motivation or direction to change myself for the better and to pursue a more spiritual life. TGM gave me the means through courses based on Belzebuub’s teachings and, most of all, the necessary discipline and inspiration to pursue a more meaningful life, away from the recklessness that I had been used to.
TGM’s gradual and systematic method of teaching and training was simple and easy to grasp. The initial courses allowed me to quickly understand what it is all about. The amount of insights, help, and direction I received were more than enough to give me a boost to independently change my life for the better. Techniques like self-observation, meditation, awareness of the present moment, as well as studying dreams and experiences out of the body helped me give up a few very harmful habits as I understood that they didn’t really offer me anything constructive in my life. Giving up these bad habits usually came after studying myself and my reactions, retrospecting, and meditating on the detrimental effect they had on my life, including my health, and then coming to a deeper understanding of how my life and my interactions with others would change for the better if I would overcome them.
Practicing meditation in a group with my wife and a friend
The techniques themselves are very effective and I could quickly feel the tangible results. However, I only had repeated success when I practiced these techniques consistently and that’s where I saw one of the advantages of being part of a practice group. For example, it was not unusual for people even in the beginning of the courses to have astral experiences, to be conscious and travel out of the body during the times of sleep. This is a very interesting exercise and many people had experiences of this kind. With a bit of personal discipline and dedication one could verify the existence of another dimension. I did it a few times in those courses and it was amazing. It was very uplifting to discover that I can exist beyond my body.
Even though I could see the benefits of the exercises it was difficult to keep the initial enthusiasm in practicing on my own which led me to only scarce experiences here and there. Getting to join the more advanced courses gave me more direction and discipline. Although the core techniques taught in the advanced courses were the same like the ones taught in the introductory ones they were practiced more intensively in group settings and were given as homework for the week. I was giving feedback to experienced teachers on how my exercises were going throughout the week and they were giving me guidance for improvement and inspiration for further practice.
Getting to higher or advanced courses was not always easy. TGM had its standards and requirements like any other school. This was very helpful to me because it urged me to try harder than I did being on my own. It helped me value and take seriously what I was taught and practiced. The deeper I was getting into the practices and the teachings in general the more I was advancing through the courses. Furthermore, in more advanced courses I would work and interact with people that were more dedicated and that was an extra boost for me.
In the Teacher’s course I started being involved with tasks and projects concerning the administrative aspect of the organization and preparing to become a teacher. On a personal level, preparing to become a teacher and helping with tasks was always something that I found very beneficial. I could see how it was helping me personally as I was putting myself into situations where I would be helping others, rather than just thinking about myself and my immediate surroundings. I also got a lot of motivation while interacting and working with others with similar goals.
That’s me on the bottom right. We stopped to relax and for a chat after being out on a walk in the woods around the Gnostic Monastery that day.
Later on I became a teacher. It was my turn then to help and guide others which in turn was very helpful for myself as well. I needed to practice what I taught and learn to work with other teachers for the benefit of the students attending our courses. We were doing most of the workload for our groups as well as covering expenses for advertising, venues, and running costs. It was difficult but I had a great time teaching and learning from all the new people I was meeting in the courses.
Different centers from various countries would organize retreats usually once a year. I had attended a few of them. They always left me with a lot of inspiration, guidance, and lots of new friends. For a period of time I was helping a venue that accommodated retreats in Scotland, UK. We called it “The Gnostic Monastery.” It was a beautiful place, a small castle that had kept the romance of the medieval ages. People from around the world came for retreats and events. It felt very special. It’s beauty and the serenity of its surroundings were very helpful for our practices of meditation and walks in nature.
Looking back at my old ways, and seeing what I gained from TGM was like experiencing a shift of order in chaos, an opportunity to change and improve a lifestyle that was dragging me down. Although I had made previous efforts to change and search for the spiritual in my life, I lacked any kind of discipline. TGM allowed me to develop just that, along with giving me a methodology to learn and train.
I could see clearly that TGM was a school that lead its students step-by-step to understand the basic components of a practical spirituality that anyone could experience. The instruction was selflessly geared towards helping people have a space to get to the bottom of their own spiritual discipline, to understand and overcome barriers and obstacles, and to strengthen skills in concentration, focus, relaxation, and serenity. It is very sad that TGM is not around anymore; it is something I will always miss.
At the time I found The Gnostic Movement I wasn’t looking for a spiritual school, but did have a vague interest in non-physical phenomena like ghosts, dreams, and the afterlife. Things in my life seemed to nudge me in this direction—I was given books by several unrelated people about spiritual topics, and found myself wondering about the nature of reality, specifically what people experience as reality.
I looked at my friends and wondered why people would drink a lot of alcohol to alter their perception, for example, and which perception of reality was “real”—the intoxicated one or the sober one, since even the intoxicated state was very real to the person who was experiencing it.
I started reading a lot of books about esotericism, which were interesting but left me wishing I knew how to experience the things in the books more directly. Luckily, I came across Samael Aun Weor’s writings, and from there found the Mysticweb.org site with its online courses.
I signed up for the astral course first, but only read the topics and practiced very little. However once the self-discovery course started I really switched on—this was a course that contained all the information I had been wondering about—the perception of reality, what made people tick, etc. I’d always been sensitive to others’ emotions and the course gave me a way to find out about the mechanisms of thought and emotion in myself and others as I interacted with people in my life.
At the time I didn’t think of myself as in a crisis situation, but when one part of the self-knowledge course was emailed through that dealt with an inner problem I had been avoiding, it hit me hard. I could see how far off track I had gone in my life while searching for meaning, and realized that without getting serious about changing my personal flaws, it would lead to inevitable painful consequences.
At this point, I started taking The Gnostic Movement’s courses more seriously, doing the exercises that were assigned for “homework” and earnestly giving the spiritual practices taught my best effort. It took me a long time to have my first astral projection experience, but my dreams were quite vivid and I worked hard to remember them, so this was a huge help in confirming that there was something to all of this metaphysical study. I started dreaming about things before they would happen, or dreaming about places that other people had posted about on Mysticweb, which showed me I could learn and experience something tangible while I slept at night, and that this spiritual school I was getting involved with was real.
Despite finding the online courses very helpful, and having some results from the trying the practices, I found it a struggle to learn online without people to talk to face-to-face. My friends at the time weren’t interested in these subjects, and some of them didn’t understand the personal changes I was slowly making.
I decided to attend a Gnostic Movement retreat in North America, and this ended up being a pivotal point in my life. The people I met at the retreat were real, normal, and actually cared about changing themselves through inner study, meditation, and so on. I was also impressed by how much of a help it was to learn about spirituality in person with others, so much more than what I had been doing online by myself.
After the retreat I decided that I really wanted to participate fully in The Gnostic Movement, and a year later moved 1,200 miles to attend a Gnostic center in person. During this time I became a trainee, and then later on participated as a teacher and member of the organization.
The Gnostic Movement gave me so many opportunities to learn about myself and see what it was like to work alongside others who wanted to bring spirituality to people who didn’t have it. Myself and the other trainees, teachers, and members were motivated to share and volunteer our time freely because we saw something valuable in the spirituality we were sharing—it is the thing that allows you to become something you’re not and to get rid of lower, more animalistic emotions and drives that weigh you down and make your experience of life mundane at best and hellish at worst.
There were times I experienced while working in the strength of the group at the centre that were magical. Shared experiences of entities in the astral, real learning about the kind of person I was in daily life, and overcoming all kinds of obstacles of in order to help other people find out about spirituality was part of my regular experience.
The friendships I made while in The Gnostic Movement were unlike any others. I have people today that I consider the same as a brother or sister; I trust them just the same as I would family, and it’s not just from the shared experiences of running a center and learning together over the years, but because I know we are all working on growing the spiritual part of ourselves, and eliminating the parts which cause people to cheat, hurt, be lazy, be selfish, and so on. Even just thinking of it from a purely logical point of view–wouldn’t you want your closest friends and the people who you spend the most time with to be the kind of people who are working on getting rid of all the darker aspects of human psychology and instead were developing qualities like love, care, and responsibility within themselves?
My time in The Gnostic Movement also gave me valuable work experience that I’ve benefited from personally. I started volunteering doing design work in the organization, and after a few years practice with doing graphics for posters, printed materials, and websites, I was able to take those skills and now currently work as a freelance graphic designer, even though my degree is in a different field. This suits me due to the convenience of being able to work from home or any location I choose.
Above all, The Gnostic Movement provided a very special, unique and safe space to explore spirituality for me and many other people, and this is something I will never forget. The course structure, the conducive environment at the centres for quiet reflective practices, and the encouragement of likeminded people to really take time to explore myself were invaluable. It’s quite rare to have people and an environment that supports you to really look deeply at your life like that, but The Gnostic Movement did this so well.
A core reason that The Gnostic Movement had this effect is because of the guidance and influence that Belzebuub had on the organization. I came to know him and work with him over the years, and can truly say that he is a genuine spiritual teacher and just an overall excellent human.
I met Belzebuub in person for the first time at an Australian retreat I attended in 2007, which was unexpected, and I wondered what he would be like. I was pleasantly surprised to find out he was a normal person, and not one of these guru type of spiritual figures that dons a certain persona to appeal to what you might think of as “spiritual.”
He looked just like a regular person you’d meet on the street but was so kind, and emanated a real warmth and care. Beyond that though, when he gave talks and explained about spiritual topics at the retreat, I was deeply struck by the wisdom, strength, and experience he had. It was like when you watch a professional athlete for example, and they make moving and performing extremely difficult feats with the human body look graceful and even simple–in the same way at that retreat Mark (Belzebuub) spoke and explained about non-physical things, like the inner workings of human psychology, in such a simple, yet profoundly deep way that his experience of those subjects was evident. I could tell he was a man who truly practiced what he was encouraging all of us to do.
The years have confirmed the same initial impression I had of Mark (Belzebuub), except that now I have even more respect for him after knowing him for a longer time. Besides being a genuine spiritual teacher that you can meet and learn from in the higher dimensions, I’ve observed through his actions that he is truly selfless, gives of his time and energy freely and asks for nothing in return, because he really just cares that people have access to spiritual knowledge. He will go through hardships and great lengths to uphold the truth, which is why it was amazing when The Gnostic Movement was around to have his guidance, and it’s just humbling now that it’s gone that he still continues to teach and give freely.
In February 2002 I took my first course with The Gnostic Movement which was the free online course about astral projection. I always had an interest in my dreams, some of which were quite vivid and lucid on rare occasions. Looking back, I can see I had some experiences of being conscious in the astral as a child although I didn’t understand that at the time.
Towards the end of my school days I found myself questioning aspects of the Christian religion I was brought up in along with some deep wonderings about life. This is when I had some spontaneous out-of-body experiences and one night I went to bed with a determination that I would become conscious in my dreams and to my amazement, I did.
Around this time (1990) I got the only book out from the local library (this was pre-Internet days!) which had some mention of astral travel in it after a close friend of mine told me about what astral travel is and I realized it matched with some of my experiences. I gave up very quickly though as the techniques described in the book to gain astral experiences were very complicated and seemed overly convoluted. A few years later my close friend had suddenly died and soon after it was like he came to see me one last time in a very lucid and vivid dream.
About nine years went by and I happened to see a poster near my job advertising a free self-knowledge course which caught my eye. I stopped to read it and noticed it said there was also a course on astral travel and that there was a website, called Mysticweb, about it all. I was excited to look up something of interest on this new thing called the Internet!
So I signed up for the next Astral course starting in a month’s time in February 2002. My interest having been piqued by that course, I went on to complete all the courses online to continue with my personal exploration into spirituality. The information presented was very interesting to me and it seemed to just ring true and be possible answers for many questions I had. There was a clarity and common sense to Mark’s explanations about Gnosis and what was really great was to try the various exercises which were straightforward enough to understand what to do. I enjoyed getting a new topic each week with an exercise to try, it was like a little adventure of discovery each week.
Mark gave practical advice and the exercises really helped me to begin delving into seeing more of my own world of thoughts, self-talk, drives, motivations, and reactions with the goal of becoming a better person through not acting negatively.
This appealed to me because I had quite an interest in psychology and the courses really helped me to start to see my own psychology from a fresh perspective, and it made a lot of sense. Also in the year before, I had tried to quit smoking but relapsed a couple times and was generally feeling, as a result of various situations in life, like I needed to be a better person. I was wanting peace through self-control and these free courses I stumbled upon seemed like they might have the tools to do so along with gaining mystical experiences (and indeed they did) which I was also already interested in prior to these courses. I wish I had access to these courses ten years earlier; I would have avoided a lot of grief.
I also delved into the recommended books by Samael Aun Weor and found them very succinctly insightful, inspiring, poetic, and mystical although sometimes a little harder to understand than Mark’s straightforward explanations.
Going through all the courses was like an adventure, I got so much out of each topic that it was exciting to see the next topic, there was a logical progression—building exercises and understanding so that the more advanced teachings of Gnosis could be understood in the right context. It really resonated with me that throughout all the courses, the gaining of one’s own practical direct experience was emphasized and to rely on that knowledge rather than blindly believing in anything that was taught.
My life became more purposeful and magical.
When I had become stale and burnt out, lingering in addiction and grief, The Gnostic Movement and its courses by Mark/Belzebuub helped to lift me out of all that.
Now I had practical ways to raise myself out of the spiritual doldrums and seek answers to life’s deep questions which had always left me wondering with no idea how or if I could find out.
A school teacher once said that life is a mystery that has to be lived, not a puzzle that has to be solved but I could not connect with that line of thinking. Where I once was agnostic I came to be Gnostic which was far more fulfilling and filled the hole of a lack of an interactive spiritual connection to life and everything around me.
I decided I wanted to give the experiment a real go and see what happened. So I made some changes in my life whilst going through the initial courses; I stopped smoking for good since June 2002 as well as gradually stopping some other deleterious things. I was getting some lucid dreams again, much more than before the courses, so I wanted to build on all of that.
I started to have my first real consciously coming out of my body experiences and continuing lucid dreams, sometimes symbolic dreams and some waking up in dreams experiences which were very vivid and bright. It was very amazing to feel and see myself floating up out of my body or to be lying awake in bed and then realizing I was actually doing that in the astral and I could hear myself lightly snoring as if it was far away!
In various astral experiences I felt different sensations of my astral body separating from the physical such as: a feeling of electricity, a loud bone crack type sound, moaning voices (which I understand to have been my own subconscious), and feeling vibrations or feeling a swaying/swinging type sensation or a floaty feeling. I learned to recognize when I had projected into the astral even though it seemed like I was still lying down in the physical plane.
It took me a while to start to get some conscious astral experiences using the techniques taught. It was about ten months of practicing for the astral most nights when going to bed plus trying to be aware during the day. Some people get astral experiences a lot sooner than this and some take longer. I guess some people give up before they have put in enough time and quality of effort they need to, to get the experiences, and then say the techniques don’t work or the astral is not real. But I knew it was real and possible due to the spontaneous experiences I had in the past and others were reporting that the techniques worked for them so all that helped me to keep persevering.
Around March/April of 2003 I started going to The Gnostic Movement’s Sydney Center to meet others who were exploring the teachings of Gnosis after having had a number of astral experiences thanks to the techniques taught and having spent time on my own getting an understanding of the teachings and what it was all about and finding that the techniques worked.
Starting with the Advanced Investigation course again, I was attending twice a week in the evenings after work and in the later part of the year 2003 I started the Teacher’s Training course. Everyone there was friendly and supportive; it was a nice environment and great to be able to spend time with like-minded people and discuss many points about the teachings and to do practices together. I made some great friends there then who are still great friends today.
One day, after I had been attending the center for a while, whilst helping to clean the center I saw a room there I had not seen before and straightaway it triggered a memory of a very profound dream I had four or five years earlier (1998/1999) and the scene which played out took place in this exact room, there was no doubting it and no wishful thinking.
I was very struck by this enigmatic dream at the time I had it. I did not fully understand all of it but there was definitely the sense of a message being given by a higher power. I partially understood only a part of it and overall I had little understanding of the dream or the lesson it was trying to teach me.
Not having recalled or thought about nor understood this dream since I initially had it, now, years later having gone through Belzebuub’s courses, I completely understood what it was about. Here I was years later in the physical counterpart of where the dream took place in the astral and this physical place was somewhere I had never been before and it was in the mystical school that taught me what the dream meant! Because of Belzebuub’s courses I now understood the message, what it meant for me at that time in my life and what the lesson was overall. So this amazing experience was a very big verification for me that Belzebuub and the school The Gnostic Movement were the real deal. So naturally this helped propel me on to take the next level course, the Teacher’s Training course.
Compared to the path I was on previously, I was becoming a lot healthier as a result of being involved with The Gnostic Movement and going through the free courses written by Mark (Belzebuub), gaining a better appreciation for the gift of life and the need to take care of my physical body, and working to improve my psychology and overcome negativity.
There was a regular all-night astral practice in the center on a Saturday night for those in the more advanced courses. These were really great opportunities to practice for the astral and get some experiences. There was usually some success amongst the group during these night practices and at times it was very inspiring. I got some good experiences out of these sessions.
During my time as a trainee teacher and trying to delve more into seeing and improving my psychology, I remember going through a particularly hard time at my place of work.
I had a manager who at times would become quite unreasonably negative towards me. It was a difficult situation. I couldn’t say anything against them or I would probably make the situation worse and possibly lose my job. It became a struggle to go to work each day to possibly get berated.
What kept me going and helped me get through that was applying Mark’s explanations of the teachings. That is, I did my best to remain calm, to see my own negative thoughts going on and remove them, and try to learn from the situation rather than run away from it.
Seeing the horribleness of that person’s behavior gave me a great determination to remove the same elements from inside myself to change for the better. I would talk about the situation in the Teacher’s training course discussions and I received a lot of support from the group.
After a while the situation just suddenly changed, it got better and I no longer had that negativity directed towards me from that person although we still worked together.
As a teacher I started to give classes in the center and help more with the administration of running the center. I also started to help with some online tasks. In a way, being a teacher is a course in itself, as it helped bring up more valuable learning opportunities about myself and the spiritual work. In giving classes and guiding others I would get new insights about the topics in the courses and it would often be a timely reminder of something for my own inner work.
In early January 2007 I attended a week-long retreat for the first time and met other students and teachers from across Australia and some students from overseas. Mark/Belzebuub was also there and it was the first time I met him. It was a great retreat, it was wonderful to be out in nature, to meet everyone and to practice together and talk about the teachings and especially to meet Mark and hear his talks and advice, especially around the campfire at night. Sometimes he would say things like he knew exactly what you had been thinking without you having said it.
Mark was friendly, humorous, down-to-earth, and genuine. He reflected the teachings in his good and humble manner, and could speak quite powerfully about spirituality. You can see these same qualities in videos of him and in his writings. He has no pretense about him of being some sort of guru or sage; he is just interested in helping others understand about spirituality and to help everyone experience it for themselves without seeking to make any profit whatsoever out of it. How many other spiritual teachers can say the same?
This retreat was quite pivotal for me as I met Mark for the first time and found there really is something special about him. I met many other like-minded people and formed new friendships and unbeknownst to me at the time I met my future wife there.
At the end of July 2007, Mark visited the Sydney center for two nights and met with the trainees, teachers, and members of the center. A night had been organized for the trainee teachers, teachers, and members to gather at the center and meet with Mark. A few had prepared food which we all shared.
Mark was happy to see everyone and was interested in how we were going individually and in running the center. He gave some friendly suggestions about how some things could be improved and guided a short mantra practice. There were a few observational good-humored jokes thrown in as well. He was very appreciative of the hospitality he received and of the efforts made to keep the center running.
Over time, various activities took place other than just running courses such as putting up posters advertising the courses, a seminar on Gnostic Judas, repainting and decorating the center, movie/dinner nights, fundraising by selling second-hand items at car boot sales, or holding our own garage sales. All of these were good experiences learning how to deal with something new, in various situations which to learn about oneself, such as working together with others on manual tasks or planning an event whilst aiming to apply awareness and attention to detail to everything we were doing. Gnosis is about learning from the everyday situations of life; it is not just about sitting in a practice room trying to meditate.
The course content was regularly updated or restructured by Mark which helped to keep things alive and fresh. For example, in 2008 there was a new focus more on Gnostic Christianity. It was great to learn more about the early Gnostics and start to read those old texts which can be hard to understand but there is certainly something worthwhile within them. Having come from a Christian background myself it was very interesting to see more of this connection between Gnosis and Christianity and it helped fill in the hole of what I found missing in my mainstream Christian experience prior to The Gnostic Movement.
When I became a member of the Australian organization from August 2008, I started to help more on a national and international level serving on the Australian Board and the International Board and helping to run Australian retreats whilst still helping to run the Sydney center. I also helped with the extensive search for a potential retreat property where I learned a lot about real estate properties and council and fire department requirements which would apply to any proposed retreat property. It was very hard to find any suitable properties within TGM’s price range and all potential properties ended up being knocked out for one reason or another.
The Movement was run in a democratic way and all the members aimed to work harmoniously together and a lot of great things were achieved such as the Secret Quest project and website upgrades.
At times it was very busy having a regular full-time job plus helping to run classes at a center plus responsibilities I had as a member. I got a lot out of it though and what I did was all from my own choosing. I found being active and involved was a framework in which to learn and work upon inner states, and you had to manage and use your time well.
In my eleven-year involvement with The Gnostic Movement and Belzebuub’s courses as a student and as a teacher/member, I had a lot of positive experiences and learning which has helped me to grow in a number of positive ways. Here is a by-no-means exhaustive list that I can say I got from it all;
amazing astral experiences
great meditation experiences
a much better understanding of emotions
a much better understanding of dreams
more self confidence
public speaking experience
bookkeeping/accounting knowledge and experience
managerial experience
property market and property development knowledge
great friends
effective tools to reduce and eliminate negativity from my own psychology
more at peace / more self-control
more happiness
better relationships
a purposeful life
As I said before I can only wish I had found the courses earlier in my life.
It is very sad that The Gnostic Movement had to close down and there isn’t a place for people to gather who are interested in the spiritual work, as explained by Samael Aun Weor and by Mark/Belzebuub. I very much miss having the learning opportunities, the practice space, the guidance, and the great experiences it brought and wish I had done more when it was needed to defend it.
I’ve had an interest in spirituality for over 20 years, and almost 15 of them have been in The Gnostic Movement in Australia. From my first years within the Universal Christian Gnostic Movement of the New Order (UCGM) and then with the Gnostic Movement, I’ve found the courses and teachings over the years to be something special. These courses have helped me to find people that are like-minded who wish to share and experience the spiritual side of life.
I remember when I first started the courses way back in 1999. I had moved to Sydney from country NSW searching for a music career! Well, really a rock band to get involved in to be more exact. This brought me to Bondi where I got involved in the Bondi Wave (a youth music program run by the Waverley council). I was trying to break into the music scene at Bondi, meeting people and hanging out, but I found that I didn’t really like the music scene much as it seemed really pretentious and very self-indulgent. Although, by being in the Bondi Wave I found some friends, played music and talked as much as I could about spiritual things!
Time passed and one day around Bondi I saw a poster advertising a course in Astral Travel. Well I didn’t know much about the title of the course “Astral Travel” but the image on the poster of a person coming out of their body (the astral split) spoke volumes to me. Seeing the representation of the astral body leave the physical body astounded me and immediately caught my attention, as one time back in the country I had an experience which seemed just like that! I thought maybe that’s what happened to me that night and so I took down the details of the course and eventually attended the course in the latter half of that year.
I went to the introductory lecture and I remember a lady talking about the astral plane and the astral split, and all I remember is wanting to give the person a hug as the information just resonated with me. I felt that I had come across information that could explain the unusual experiences I had in my late teens to early 20’s. The lecture had some real interesting information in it that gave new information into experiences that happened to me that I couldn’t explain. It was clearer than other seminars, psychic fairs, expos, spiritual groups and lectures that I’d been to before, without the mumbo jumbo of answering a question without really answering it! The lecture was straight-forward and detailed. Wow, something that actually answered spiritual questions for once which wasn’t vague, or some dreamy idea of a spiritual ideal! After the introductory lecture (which was packed with people by the way) I thought that I’ll go to the course and see what it’s like!
I remember going to the first series of lectures and receiving information on more than just the astral or enlightenment, but the whole process of life: what we are within ourselves, why we have come to this planet, other dimensions, other beings, alchemy – the course covered just about everything and then even more. I really enjoyed it; it was great due to the friendly environment that the center provided and I also made some great new friends. We would get together after a lecture at a coffee shop and talk about the lecture and spirituality for hours. I have to admit it was a really happy experience and this really helped me as a person. At the time I was a shy person from a small country town in a big city which was hard to relate to, but when I met people that were deeply interested in spirituality and like-minded, it was a big relief. I found that I wasn’t alone in a search for spiritual principles and a spiritual way of life – there were people that I could relate to and understand where they were coming from.
The venue where the lectures took place was really active as there were other courses taking place there, and it seemed that a lot of people were involved with running the facility. I remember Mark (Belzebuub) and his wife gave many of the lectures, with his wife giving the majority of the lectures as Mark was ill at the time. They both came across as really nice people and gave a lot of time after the classes to talk to people and share their understanding of spirituality. I remember one time Mark, another person, and myself talking about dreams and on other occasions we would talks about cars and simple things, you know, everyday things too. I saw Mark came across as a gentle person, spoke very respectfully to people and seemed a very calm type of person. The early days of the courses were great for me. I found people who I could talk to about spiritual things, and came across information and practices in a really friendly environment that nurtured a deeper understanding of life. I would recommend those courses to anyone interested in spirituality today if they were still around!
As the courses went on, deeper and deeper information was given and everything was clearly explained, but it just wasn’t a theoretical or intellectual pursuit. The information was backed up by practices which helped to explore the information further. You could go to a lecture on astral travel for example and get specific practices to help you actually project and experience the astral for yourself, which helped to see the reality of the information presented in the courses. The information about dreams and dream interpretation was amazing and really brought dreams into a new spectrum of understanding for me. I really enjoyed that part of the course!
Once the course information had been given, the opportunity to participate in activities was possible and this was magical at times. Being part of developing projects and working together in a team was really helpful for personal development. Using the techniques of self-observation, mindfulness, intuition, and tapping into the consciousness and trying to activate it during activities, helped those jobs in many different ways. I discovered consciousness has the ability to understand things almost instantly. Through the techniques given on the courses, those times that I could tap into the consciousness and activate it was really special as it gave me a deeper understanding to the situation that was at hand – it was marvelous.
The Gnostic Movement offered so much that it’s hard to put it all down on paper, but the opportunities and potential that this information opened up to me is beyond words, except to say it was truly inspirational.
I discovered the teachings of Gnosis in January 1997, when I came across a flyer at the University of Technology in Sydney, where I was working. It was only a small flyer posted on a billboard promoting a free talk on the topic of Esoteric Psychology by an organisation called The Universal Christian Gnostic Movement of the New Order. Beside it I saw a couple of their other flyers about other free lectures, on Intuition and Astral Travel. What really appealed to me was the esoteric psychology and intuition topics, I hadn’t heard of Astral Travel so I didn’t know what it was. The flyers also stood out to one of my closest friends who I worked with at that time and she suggested we go together to check them out, especially since they were free and you could just turn up.
We showed up to the Bondi Junction Community hall for the first of the three lectures and I saw a crowd of people hanging around outside in the pavilion area waiting for the lecture to start. There was such a broad mix of people from all walks of life, as Sydney is quite a cosmopolitan city, and because of its coastline of famous beaches it attracts a surf culture and lifestyle. I was really pleasantly surprised to see such a wide array of people to this first topic on esoteric psychology, people I wouldn’t have thought would be interested in these spiritual topics but happy to find out were.
We all made our way into the community hall, greeted by some of the people I had seen outside who were part of the night’s event, some people looked like they had just come from work, just as we had. We found a couple of chairs free, sat down, and waited for the talk to begin.
I was interested to see how it was going to unfold, because it was quite a unique topic and an interesting perspective on psychology that I hadn’t heard about before. I had an interest in psychology for a very long time, I even had started my degree with the hope of studying psychology, but after the first semester I realised it wasn’t really the type of psychology that I was hoping it was going to be. I felt it missed something, and it didn’t make sense to me to study it from such a clinical perspective where I couldn’t relate to it. I had hoped it was going to be able to provide the understanding and the know-how of how and why we think, feel and act the way we do and from a first-hand perspective. Mainly because I wanted to apply it myself in my life, because I was looking to learn how I could be happy, to overcome a sense of sadness and deep unhappiness that kept bringing things down in my life. A few months before that night’s lecture, I remember wondering if there even was any real way I could learn about myself. Were there people who could teach about it in some real way, especially as I developed panic attacks literally overnight and I just didn’t want my life to be overcome by this debilitating fear. I remember praying and asking for some type of school where I could learn this special psychology that I was thinking of. I didn’t realise as I sat waiting for the lecture to begin, that the wish that I had made back then, was about to be answered in the lecture that was just about to begin.
A man walked up to the front, dressed simply and with no airs about him and began to speak with this broad accent, which I later came to learn was Welsh. He introduced himself as Mark and he came across as quite a nice ordinary person. He welcomed us to the talk and spoke briefly about the organisation the Universal Christian Gnostic Movement of the New Order, who he was a teacher of, he talked a little about how it was a non-profit organisation that was run on donations which was good to know as I was wondering how they were able to offer the talks free of charge, and if there was some kind of catch or hidden cost, but there wasn’t any. I was surprised to discover people shared spirituality in this kind of way and it felt very authentic and natural to know that they did.
When Mark (Belzebuub) began the actual talk, his explanation about the topic and how we can learn to study our own psychology was a real ‘wow’ for me. Finally here was someone talking about the very thing I was interested in. Explaining about how they teach people to do this, and what really struck a chord with me was Mark’s explanation about how we can learn to observe our own thoughts and feelings and from there we can learn to change and experience a true and more meaningful happiness. I was really in awe, because this was the first time I heard someone talk about psychology in the way that I had been looking to learn about it, from that first hand direct experience. Mark gave the talk simply and clearly, and when he was going through the examples it really surprised me because I thought he was talking about me. I was so happy to actually find a real way to overcome those things in myself, and the way it all happened began to show me that there was somehow a tangible connection to praying.
From those inspiring three talks that week, my friend and I went on to take the course that followed suit, which was mostly held at the Bondi Junction study centre. Mark (Belzebuub) was a teacher there and he created a very uplifting and inviting ambience in that place. He, along with other teachers, ran the courses with a lot of care, dedication and gave up a lot of their time to people, staying back for hours after the evening course to answer more questions that people had. They were always surrounded by people queuing up to ask them questions, and I’d often wanted to chat with them too but there were just too many people in the queue and my shyness held me back, but as I continued with the courses and got involved with the projects of the organisation I got to work with them very closely and more than made up for lost time 🙂
I really enjoyed the talks Mark gave, and felt uplifted to keep going with the exercises and try to learn about them. Mark’s witty sense of humour was also very refreshing and he has such a gentle and caring vibe about him which I found very sincere. He brought a lot of clarity to things I wanted to understand, and I was really inspired by the topics he gave and the practices we did. He always would make sure to start and finish each topic on time, respecting people’s time, and always answered questions with respect, understanding and patience. If he didn’t know something he would say so, which I found very refreshing, or if he was explaining complex topics that were part of later stages of spiritual development he would acknowledge that. His authenticity and genuineness was really unique and has always stood out about him. Even though the courses and the information was free I began to see how valuable this information was, and with those exercises, little by little, I verified and began to see the huge potential they had.
Sometimes Mark was unwell, and wasn’t always able to take the class. Sometimes he’d come down to the cafe area if he was feeling well enough just to say hi and chat with people. His natural approach to spirituality helped me a great deal to understand that these teachings didn’t mean I had to run to a mountain side to study, and that I could apply it in my life with all that life brought my way, and that was really useful to learn.
Those 25 weeks were very magical, this synergy began to appear from week to week where my friend and I would have these incredibly deep chats that extended from the previous week’s talk, and each following week we’d discover the topic was on the very things we had just been discussing. The synchronicity was really amazing and this is how this first course unfolded for a lot of people, not just us.
I got a lot out of the mindfulness exercises at work and home, and I could see my relationship with people, especially at work where I was constantly interacting with students, professors, colleagues and so on, starting to improve little by little, and I began to see how important mindfulness/ awareness is in being able to listen, understand and resolve situations with care. Even though my efforts were small they made a huge difference to me and I could feel that it made a difference even in small ways to the people I was dealing with.
The reality of these teachings really began to make sense when I began to apply them in my life. I found the effectiveness of the self knowledge exercises were most noticeable when it came to overcoming panic attacks. At the same time I was undertaking this Gnostic course, I also had begun to see a psychologist that came highly recommended to me by a friend to help me overcome panic attacks. After only a few weeks into these meetings with the psychologist she suddenly took me by surprise by telling me that I didn’t need to keep coming to meet with her. She said that the things I was learning in Gnosis was helping me a great deal and that I didn’t need to keep coming to see her. I was really shocked to hear her say that, not because what she said wasn’t true, but because as a psychologist I didn’t expect it from her, but she was right. If it hadn’t been for Gnosis, like many people who suffer from this debilitating attack of fear, I’d still be struggling to live my life with any real sense of stability and happiness. I still experience aspects of fear but it doesn’t grip me in the same way, and I know how to overcome every tiny instance of it too.
Not long after I moved into the second stage of the Gnostic Courses, the UCGM closed down and I was concerned that I may not be able to continue to study the self knowledge courses. They took the last class in 1999, which is where I also thankfully met my husband in that last round. I really valued everything I was learning and I was really happy to hear that Mark (Belzebuub) was going to continue to teach Gnosis but under the new organisation called The Gnostic Movement.
I started learning more, but I still had these fears, but as the courses continued I got strength to keep going, and I got the chance to take the Astral Travel course when it began which was awesome! It really helped me to push through the fears and actually experience astral projection, which was a real ‘wow’ and I was excited to have finally been able to experience it, and from there on I really wanted to go to the astral more and see and learn what I could, and I began to have more out of body experiences.
As part of those courses, they were offering a teachers training course, and as I was able to overcome the panic attacks I wanted to see if I could take it up and give it a go. I trained with quite a few other people and enjoyed it a lot. I saw many more aspects about myself and that helped me to see my approach to life in a way I hadn’t seen before, and gradually learnt to overcome my shyness too.
I wanted to help The Gnostic Movement in any way I could because I could see it was a really good cause. It was uplifting to be able to be part of those projects, and working on them with people from all over the world was so great. Being part of the forums and meeting people from all over the world on those online courses was strengthening and inspiring. I really enjoyed being part of a team of people working on projects of all kinds. And as the organisation grew internationally I got the opportunity to partake in projects with people all around the world, developing course posters, teaching on the online course forums with other teachers, managing events and also local ones like the stalls we had at Mind Body Spirit Festivals. I also worked on projects directly with Mark and I learnt a lot from those times, his sincere care for others always stood out to me and I appreciated it so much.
As part of The Gnostic Movement, Mark organised the first retreat, and it was the first time I had attended a retreat. That first retreat at Perisher Valley in NSW was amazing. I got the chance to spend those 5 days dedicated to learning about the exercises. I only attended two of the many retreats that were held, but I got so much from them, especially the early morning asanas and the meditations in the afternoon. I also gained a more natural approach towards awareness just through those walks we took in the forests and parks. We would sit in the warm evening air and sing songs and chant mantras to nice instruments that people brought with them. I got to meet people from the online courses and the forums who were from other countries at the retreats and it was just so great to finally put a face to the name and talk in person. These retreats kept happening and their feedback was great, people got a lot out of Mark’s talks and the practices and it inspired me hearing about other people’s experiences and could relate to how strengthened they felt from them.
As time went by, I got more involved in the projects and the volunteering that was offered through them. I learnt so many great skills that opened up really incredible job opportunities for me, like the ability to take on large commercial project management jobs. A lot of my current skills now are from my volunteer days in The Gnostic Movement and I definitely wouldn’t have acquired them in any other way, except by having to have paid huge amounts of money for training and study. But the volunteering did more than give me skills, it gave me experience in the field and that’s what made a big difference in being able to do well in the job.
But the most wonderful thing I got from studying the teachings of Gnosis was the ability to learn about myself in a meaningful and real way. It really meant a lot to me, because I suffered so much from unhappiness, fear and anger, that getting a glimpse into how I can change and actually not feel that way was very valuable for me. Moreso reading the books that were part of the courses were so insightful and helped me to understand things, that today I still go back to them as I keep trying to learn.
Reflecting on all those amazing and wonderful years in the organisation, I find it such a loss for people today to not have the same opportunities and environment to learn, be inspired and experience these transformational teachings as I did. Being with others in such a dynamic school was just so uplifting and it strengthened my resolve and focus to practice, learn and experience Gnosis.
I truly hope that one day such an authentic spiritual school will re-emerge again, because I’m hoping myself that I can be part of it again, and it would be great that other people can again too.
Growing up in France in a mainly atheist family, spirituality was an unknown concept to me. Religion and all belief systems (atheism included) were often ridiculed, yet I was somewhat familiar with the existence of something beyond what our eyes can see, as poltergeist activities were quite regular happenings in our home (e.g. furniture moving/dragging on their own, many strange and inexplicable sounds, appliances on/off switches starting on their own etc.) As well, I was having very vivid lucid dreams and occasional dream premonitions about my day-to-day life, which were always accurate.
As a teenager, I really wanted to understand the reasons and source behind the paranormal events I had experienced, but I was faced with disbelief or ridicule if I talked about it to my friends. I had no one really to ask about or knew of any source of knowledge to refer to. The internet did not exist back then, and because religion was looked down and ridiculed in my home, I never thought of looking into religious texts for any explanations of the unexplained. So time passed, and with it, I stopped questioning things as I had nowhere to look.
As a young adult, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area (USA). By age 25, I was living the American Dream, life was good, at least it should have been yet I had a deep sense of dissatisfaction. No matter what I had or did, I felt like I was missing something essential, and I often felt a deep uneasiness in my heart. The questions that had haunted me as a child were slowly resurfacing: “Why are we here? What is this all for?”
One day during my commute, an interview about lucid dreaming was being played on the radio. As I was driving, I listened intently to what was discussed. I was just amazed that this was being discussed on the radio! However the overall context or reason to pursue lucid dreaming seemed whimsical at best according to this interview, and I was left disappointed. I remember turning the radio off and thinking “this is what I want to do, but not like that.”
Fast forward to a couple of years later, when a couple from Australia moved in the apartment next door. We quickly became fast friends as we were all foreigners living abroad, and I really appreciated both of their generosity, honesty, and sense of care and responsibility that I could see in all that they did. They were all around a really nice couple – people that made you feel right at home, and with whom I never felt judged for any mistakes I would make or inappropriate things I’d say.
Unbeknown to me, they were members of The Gnostic Movement, and had moved from Melbourne, Australia to establish a Gnostic Centre in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In that same Autumn of 2005, they were starting a class on Dreams & Out-Of-Body Experiences based on the books by Belzebuub. After learning about the course by chance, and discussing the topic with them, I just could not wait to attend the class. What really got me interested is that they explained to me that lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences can be used to learn about why we are here, about what happens when we die, and about our soul/spirit/higher self – they termed that type of understanding and knowledge as “Gnosis”. I was quite unfamiliar with the term, but I understood it as meaning gaining knowledge about life and ourselves based on personal experience. This was something that I could relate to; it made a lot of sense to me.
I bought the book A Course in Astral Travel & Dreams by Mark (Belzebuub) to go along the class, which I read very carefully and with a BIG grain of salt. Due to my upbringing, I was extremely wary of beliefs, but the content of the book was very straight-forward and Belzebuub encouraged much questioning instead of pushing or stating theories on the reader.
The class followed the book to a T, but with the addition of being able to try the various practices taught in the book with other people and take part in live Q&A with the teachers, and talk and share tips among other students. From being on my own growing up and never having been able to discuss about the metaphysical and supernatural to now being in the open among many other people relating the experiences we had during the week was truly magical. What a difference! I remember the great enthusiasm and support that the students and teachers had for one another over the 9 weeks – it was really helpful, and it worked! Within 6 weeks of the course, I had my first conscious and fully aware out-of-body experience, followed by another astral projection experience where I was able to verify what was happening in another location. It was definitely life-changing to realize that I do exist outside of my body, and that there is more to life than what I can see. But not only that, the uneasiness in my heart eased up a bit – I felt that I was finally holding onto something meaningful.
The next course that they were running at the beginning of 2006 was on Self-Knowledge for Inner Peace – this class really piqued my curiosity, I had always wondered why I would say things that I did not mean or think, yet would say them anyway. Or why I would do something I did not really want to do but still gave in and did it anyway? I had no idea what “self-knowledge” was about and I never thought that it was possible to change in a real and permanent way. So imagine my surprise when I learned that there is such a thing as “Inner Change” and that there were techniques that could be learned and applied to achieve such a feat!
However, some complications arose in my life and I had to skip a few of the classes. Thankfully, they were running the same class on Self-Knowledge the following term in anticipation of a retreat happening in the upcoming summer which focused on self-knowledge techniques. Circumstances in my life improved, and I was able to resume attending the Gnostic center. I became much more interested in what The Gnostic Movement was all about, how it had started with Samael Aun Weor, followed by Rabolu and then being taught by Belzebuub. I also spent a lot of time in-between classes interrogating my friend about Gnosis, her experiences, what she had learned over the years and what she had gained. Our conversations lasted sometimes for hours, and I felt I had missed out on so many opportunities to learn about the spiritual side of life having been boxed in my secular and atheist upbringing. My friend respected my skepticism and never once tried to remove my doubts about anything I questioned.
In that summer 2006, I attended my first Gnostic retreat – it was the first time ever that I was attending a retreat of any kind, and I just had simply an amazing time – I was such a newbie in so many ways! And everyone there was so welcoming, friendly and easy-going. I remember the first evening, we all gathered in the rented retreat hall, there must have been well over 30 people from all around the world, and we chanted a mantra. The energy created from that group mantra was something I had never experienced before – it felt like something within me had become alive with the sound we had chanted all together. It was surreal and beautiful. The rest of the retreat was spent on various types of meditation, walks in beautiful old forests, and the catered meals were excellent. There was great care and attention paid to people’s needs and while there was a set schedule, it was flexible and activities would change due to bad weather or people’s yearning to understand certain practices better. As I was recovering from an illness, I appreciated that no one was obligated in any way to attend any activity. The environment felt very safe and unintruding. The retreat finished on a high note literally with an evening of music and singing – and this was a lot of fun. I left the retreat feeling energized, and I had such an amazing time really. I could not wait for the next one 🙂
A few months thereafter, Belzebuub came over to the Bay Area from Canada and the UK, as he was on a book tour. I was very much looking forward to meeting with him, but I was also quite apprehensive about it. He organized several meet-up times to talk with the beginners (of whom I was part of) and advanced students alike at the SFBA center, where he could meet people and answer any questions we may have. This was a really good experience – I remember thinking how nice and approachable he was. He just had no air of superiority, instead it was quite the opposite, a gentle and unimposing humility which was really a breath of fresh air. The discussions were meaningful, inspiring and useful. I remember being able to get a sense of direction as well as several metaphysical experiences which reinforced the veracity behind The Gnostic Movement and Belzebuub as a spiritual author. As his book tour came to an end, they left.
I continued with my interest in Gnosis, and attended whatever class was being taught at the centre, and helped out in as many ways as possible, such as helping out at a Mind, Body & Spirit festival in San Jose. I kept on with the practices at home and at work. I felt the uneasiness in my heart being lifted, I was happier, more fulfilled, but I was still wondering if it was a placebo effect of being surrounded by spirituality or if it was the real thing – how would I really know if Gnosis worked or not?
A few months later, I got an opportunity to find out. At the time, the Gnostic Movement was searching for a dedicated property where it could run retreats. After having attended the retreat the year before, I was totally backing up the idea of TGM owning its own retreat, as that meant more gatherings like the one I had gone to could happen throughout the year. So I grabbed the chance to go check on a potential retreat property in the middle of the USA when it came up, to go help assess it. The trip involved taking 4 different planes (2 each-ways) and instead of freaking out about flying like I usually did, I found myself busily planning the hotel reservation, and packing my bags. I grabbed a book for the plane ride, and went to the airport. I started to have some of my old fears resurfacing, but I applied some of the self-knowledge techniques I had learned from The Gnostic Movement (TGM), and I remember when the plane took off feeling a sense of freedom instead of crippling fear. I was actually in shock that I was not freaking out and panicking – I had control over myself, and that is when I realized that even though self-knowledge was simple at heart, it had amazing possibilities, and inner change was a reality. I did not have to live in fear, or anxiety. This was another breakthrough for me.
I had experienced life outside of the body, and I had been able to conquer a deep-rooted fear of flying as well as being able to correct difficult personal situations thanks to what I had learned from The Gnostic Movement. I now knew that these teachings were real, and that thanks to The Gnostic Movement, my life had changed for the better. I wanted to pass this on so that others could benefit as I had done, so I decided to train to become a teacher of The Gnostic Movement.
In mid-2007, Belzebuub moved to the San Francisco Bay Area – and he and his wife often attended the SF Bay Area center where they both gave numerous talks as well as simple chats. We celebrated many occasions all together, both at people’s homes and at the SF Bay Area center such as Thanksgiving, weddings, and Christmas dinners. They were both very supportive towards all the students, teachers and members alike. It was very clear from the get-go that all they wanted to do and did was to help others benefit and learn about the life-changing teachings of Gnosis. Many times, Mark (Belzebuub) expressed how this path of inner transformation is for everyone – how every individual has this ability, this extraordinary ability to change and reach the goal of awakening/salvation. He and his wife worked tirelessly to help spread these teachings to the world so that anyone could have access to them.
In mid-2008, I became a teacher of The Gnostic Movement, and later in the year a member of the organization. Over the next 4 years, I held various official positions within the organization and helped out wherever I was able to: from creating a café at the center, translating work, doing real-estate searching as well as visiting potential suitable properties to establish a spiritual retreat, to cooking for the team renovating our new larger center, as well as helping to coordinate the center’s weekly activities, retreat days and its online advertising. My health often stopped me from doing more and all I wanted to do, but I was thankful to get the support and understanding of everyone around me. Yet during all this busy time, my life was getting more and more in order: I was promoted twice at my work, and met my husband who was also a member of The Gnostic Movement. I have learned many new skills thanks to my volunteering activities within The Gnostic Movement, and through practicing Gnosticism was able to turn around various difficult and personal situations into positive and fruitful ones. Over these years, I had numerous meetings in which Mark would provide guidance and he was never pushy or imposing– he was always open to suggestions and it was great and simple to work with him.
Looking back, my time with The Gnostic Movement was something I hold very, very dear – the legacy of Samael Aun Weor’s teachings through the personal efforts of Belzebuub gave me the opportunity to be part of an esoteric school which was priceless, and to come into contact with the spiritual side of life – the side I had yearned all my life to know about but was unable until I came across The Gnostic Movement. It provided the safety of a supportive learning environment, the guidance to reach knowledge and understanding of a spiritual kind, and a common ground for people to come together and practice the spirituality of their choice. The Gnostic Movement was really a one-of-a-kind school, one in which people would often recount seeing each other in out-of-body experiences, where magical times were had, and where the opportunities to learn about life and higher truths thrived.
It was not just a shame that it had to close but a terrible loss, not just for people who were in it, but also for all the people who missed out to be part of it and discover this potential of inner transformation that we each and all carry within, only waiting to be tapped into.
I first came across The Gnostic Movement in 2005, while searching for astral projection online. I’d already had experiences with astral travel, but at the time I had no guidance and I felt afraid and confused about it. For a while, I stopped practicing, but I started to miss the sense of being connected with something unseen. Something magical, mysterious. Eventually, I started looking online for more about astral projection. That’s when I came across The Gnostic Movement and its courses.
I was staying at a boarding school in Norway at the time, and I remember I downloaded the PDFs onto my computer and read them in my room.
I remember feeling doubtful about some of the things I was learning, like how to protect myself in the astral plane, and was shocked to find that they actually worked. It made me want to know more.
What interested me the most, though, was the course on self-knowledge. The idea of inner change fascinated me. I longed for something different because I was pretty miserable at the time and stuck in my anxieties. I dreamed of a life where I was free from all my fears and worries.
I kept re-doing the courses, becoming a little more interested each time. But I was also doing other things that kept me distracted.
I decided to travel to the U.S. for my first retreat in 2006. I remember being nervous, but somehow it felt very right. Everything I was learning felt very right like it was what I had been looking for since I was a child. I had always felt a strange restlessness growing up. A sense that I needed to remember something, but no matter how hard I tried I could not think of what that thing was. I was deeply interested in life and death and spirituality but had no one to teach me, or to talk to me about it. And I wanted to be good but could see that I had things inside of me that I could not control, that made it impossible for me to be the person I wanted to be. Through the Gnostic Movement’s courses, I got to observe and learn about those things, and start changing them.
At the retreat, we practiced awareness a lot. It was taking place in beautiful California, and we went for walks among the redwoods, which felt very sacred to me. A sacred forest of ancient trees. I remember practicing what I was being taught, and suddenly feeling as though my vision was expanding, as though something was being removed from my eyes and I could see more clearly. I returned home and kept doing practices. It felt like I had been given a gift, and that there was much more to discover.
A bit later on I decided to go on a retreat in Australia. One night while I was there, I dreamt of the spiritual teacher Belzebuub, and he asked me a question. I woke up and went for breakfast at the retreat, and was told that Belzebuub had just arrived unexpectedly. I was shocked. How could I have seen him in a dream just before? The first time I met him I was afraid of him, barely daring to look at him. What would he think of me?
At some point, though, I got to sit opposite to him while eating dinner. I was still afraid to look at him, but he was so friendly, asking me questions. One time I shared something that had happened to me. A great loss I had gone through in my family. I remember expecting a certain reaction from him. A cold, distant reaction perhaps. Something I supposed a spiritual teacher would have, a person that’s sort of above the rest of us, above worldly things. But the look he gave me took me totally off guard. It was so full of compassion and understanding that it brought me to tears. It was as though he knew the gravity of what had happened, something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel. He was very supportive, wanting to talk with me further. I got to ask him questions and felt very looked after.
The next time I met him in person was after I moved to the U.S. Then too I had a dream about him before he showed up one day, at a wedding I was attending. There were many occasions where I met him and felt looked after in little ways. If only in a look or a smile, or a comment that meant something to me personally. It was like he knew what was happening, what prayers and hopes I had spoken to the divine silently.
Another moment that stood out for me was at a retreat in Canada. I was running a bit late for a practice, and most people had gathered already. I was taking off my shoes in the area outside the practice room when Belzebuub walked in. Suddenly the place was filled with the most amazing fragrance of flowers. It felt like something out of this world, something that can’t be found here.
Through The Gnostic Movement, I learned about love. It’s where I found something that felt very real and deep, endlessly so. It’s where I learned to have a real connection with the divine, something I had longed for since I was a child. I had been involved in other things before that. Reiki, healing circles, and paid a lot of money for it. In The Gnostic Movement, everything was given for free.
I had finally found something that was teaching me about life and how to live it.
I participated in TGM’s activity from 2007 when I started my first course on astral projection and dreams. Step by step I took all the courses, all the books and information were given there, in order to start my own spiritual path.
It could be a matter of my personality or/and the experiences I would like to have in my life. But nevertheless, the thing is that these teachings and the whole approach of TGM to the spiritual fitted very well with me and from the beginning, I felt it was something I was looking for, intentionally or not.
Something that gave a great boost to my life and actually changed it, was a clear experience of “how things work”. Having so many ideas till then about what I should do with my life, the picture I got from these teachings put things into a bigger perspective and made the purpose of life more valuable for me.
The structure of the courses and of the whole organisation reflected the principles and the values the teachers were representing at their courses. That felt to me like something fundamental for something like this organisation’s activity to grow and flourish, as actually it did. Things were in line with the physical law, clear and tidy, if there were any misunderstandings, the members were trying to resolve them as soon as possible. In that way, I don’t say that people there were like angels of course, but inside their human capacity they had a way of wanting and trying to approach the divine will and to act according to the divine law and universal principles.
That was something that stood out to me a lot because I had the chance throughout the time in TGM to experience that things work in a different way when someone put themselves at the service of the divine instead of materialistic or superficial aims of life.
For example, when together with some friends we started a centre for the purpose of running the courses, we tried to do it like creating something spiritual, in order to serve spiritual purposes and not materialistic or personal ambitions. That I think had a huge impact on the centre’s activity, as well as on the personal spiritual development of the participants. I think people were coming into the centre and could feel this warmth and they were leaving with bright faces.
Another example of how things worked inside TGM is related to the activity and the connection between the participants. Throughout the years I was practising, I cooperated with other participants/students of TGM, and special relationship bonds were created between us. Of course maybe in every group of people, where people are working together for the same purpose, they develop a special relationship and affinity between them. Because of the nature of TGM activity, I think the connection between its members could be even stronger.
Great proof of that came to me when TGM closed. That period was very crucial for me but the boost I had received from the courses and from the activity of the organisation gave me certain guidance how I should move from then on.
I’m grateful for the relationships I made throughout this time in TGM and since Belzebuub is still with humanity, giving his teachings with one or another ways, I feel like things are still moving without a Movement.
The closure of TGM though is a tragedy. It’s something that could be avoided, depending on its member’s vigil activity, especially during the time where it was under attack. I’m taking part of the responsibility I own and a great lesson which is part of (what I said before) “how things work” and of course “don’t work” sometimes, for the benefit of humanity.
I have a lot of nice memories from several retreats, workshops, courses, and people I met and activities on TGM’s projects that are staying within me, and together with my studies there they formed the foundations of my spiritual development. I feel grateful especially to Belzebuub for that!!
For me finding the teachings of The Gnostic Movement was by no means an easy process. I was searching for a very long time, through a myriad of disinformation, before I stumbled across them.
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