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.
Anne Linn