This post is part of a series refuting false allegations made as part of a dedicated smear campaign against The Gnostic Movement and its spiritual teacher, Mark H Pritchard. To go to the main page on rebuffing the false allegations click here, or read the background to the smear campaign see here.
There have been allegations that The Gnostic Movement isolates its students, teachers, and members from society. In fact, rather than encouraging adherents to isolate or segregate themselves away from people, Gnosticism does the opposite—it encourages people to value their relationships and everyday interactions with others as a means for self-discovery and improving themselves. Belzebuub addresses this point stating, “The everyday interaction with people provides a wonderful opportunity for self-discovery…It is therefore useless to become a hermit or to live a solitary life away from society, because if we do we will lose all those opportunities to self-discover.” Many of our practitioners have stated that these teachings have helped them to become a better parent, spouse, and so on.
The Gnostic Movement teaches that there is learning to be gained from all relationships and interactions with others, including friends, family, work, one’s partner, and even humanity as a whole. As stated in the quote by Belzebuub, being active in life rather than withdrawn and solitary is actually essential in Gnosticism to achieve the goal of self-knowledge, and to be isolated from others would actually be counter-productive spiritually.
There are many examples of religions where committed adherents choose to live segregated from their community and to renounce their jobs, family life, or career aspirations. Many of these are mainstream religions, which are not considered “cults,” and their adherents are free and entitled to choose this lifestyle if they wish. Even Buddha himself left behind his family and all his possessions in order to fully dedicate himself to the search for life’s meaning, and Jesus spoke strongly about the conflict that would be caused within families from following him – between those who wanted to take up a fully spiritual life, and those family members who would try and keep them constrained to a mundane life.
In Gnosticism, people are also are free to choose how to practice their religion. There are no requirements in Gnosticism or The Gnostic Movement in relation to who one spends their time with or who one’s friends or partner should be, nor are there any requirements as to how people relate to their families.
Generally speaking, Gnostics have fulfilling professional and personal lives, maintaining jobs, spending time with their family and friends, and being active members of the community, like many other people. Claims that The Gnostic Movement seeks somehow to isolate people from others is false. Not only would this conflict with our teachings, but the active and rewarding lives of our many students, teachers, and members are a testament against these untrue claims.
Families Threatening and Under Threat Due to Smear Campaign
Instead, a number of people have found that their relationships and families have been threatened and damaged by the smear campaign. Key collaborators in the smear campaign have made unsolicited contact with a number of our member’s families (some of who are fathers themselves) to make their false allegations. One of our attendees has written her story of how her marriage and family was affected by the accusations of the smear campaign in her article A mother speaks out about how her religious freedoms have been threatened and the impact on her daughter.
Most prominently however, a mother has become involved in make false allegations in the smear campaign herself. She at some point came into contact with Vernon (one of the instigators of the smear campaign) and is now convinced of the false allegations of the smear campaign and that her daughter is in a “cult”. She uses a number of anonymous usernames, which at least include Veedia10, Wapradie, DeeM, BeFree2, and is the author of “our family’s experience” which is the only family experience on the site, and has contributed multiple videos to the smear campaign’s hate channel on YouTube (she is the blonde haired woman with her face blurred out).
Her daughter who is 30 years old, although portrayed as if she were a child on the site, has written a response to her mother’s attacks, which you can read in My Mum’s Attack on Belzebuub. She relates how her family life has been destroyed by the smear campaign, of how her mother has been psychologically affected and manipulated by the campaign, and is using it to try and “get her daughter” back by writing downright lies in order to harm Belzebuub and The Gnostic Movement.
Without going into too much detail about my personal life, I wanted to make a small comment on this allegation using my actual experience as an example.
My best friend is someone who is not practising Gnosticism. I was friends with them before Gnosis, and have continued to be so while a student, teacher, and now as a member. At no point in time has The Gnostic Movement, or anyone within it for that matter, told me I can’t see or speak with them. As such, I find it a ridiculous accusation or implication people have made that the movement somehow requires one to give up their friends.
If for example someone drifts apart naturally from some friends due to their interests changing that’s one thing, and that’s happened to me before (I also met a great new group of friends since taking up Gnosis I should add). But I wonder who in the world this hasn’t happened to at some point in their lives? For example, consider who one is friends with in high school or university and how as you grow and choose new pursuits in life you drift apart from most of them naturally. This isn’t something that would only happen to a Gnostic!
I feel to regret something like this happening later and then attempt to actually blame losing that friend on The Gnostic Movement, or sillier still, its spiritual teacher Belzebuub, is in my view ridiculous.
I also agree with the other points made in this particular refutation and think it’s great to have all this being clarified on this site.
It is as you say Jordan, ridiculous.
What I have seen is that the Gnostic teachings as given by Belzebuub, in fact help you with your family and friends.
I have come closer to my family than I ever was before. I learned to forgive my parents, for mistakes I once blamed them, and love them deeper. I learned to understand feelings of negativity, I once had and overcome them. I learned to be patient. To listen and not to judge.
On the other, it is possible to get lost in your search for spirituality and start thinking that you are better than everyone else. This can create a distance between you and loved ones. But this has nothing to do with the Gnostic teachings, but how an individual handles a new found world of spirituality.
Yes Eleni,
I agree – it is how an individual handles their relationships, lives, and tasks that can make things go negatively for them. It is not the teachings that are creating this – it is the individual.
I share your experience Eleni. Gnosis has improved ALL my relationships beyond anything they were before! I have learned to forgive and also to enjoy people for who they are. That makes family situations much nicer.
The last point you mention is very real though, I have seen that sort of fanaticism within myself, but again as you mention, that has nothing to do with the Gnostic teachings which in fact through practice allow you to understand and overcome it.
Gnosis has helped me in every aspect of my life and most noticeably in relationships. The integrity, honesty, genuine warmth and understanding is found, fostered and valued interaction with others.
Gnosis has helped me deal with interpersonal relationships at work, with friends, to being a husband, to supporting loved ones through death. It is based in life and sustained by love.
That’s a nice way of describing it Scott. It has been my experience as well.
Gnosis has done nothing but help me in developing my relationships in my life.
Friendships with friends and family have been strengthened due to being more honest and respectful. At work, everything is more productive and meaningful. I am much healthier. What’s more is Gnosis has opened a door to having a relationship with the spiritual, something that I never thought would be possible, let alone have.
Jordan, I agree it’s ridiculous to blame the ”not seeing friends anymore” on something. I remember playing football when I was younger and the friends that I had then. Then I went to university and didn’t see the football friends anymore. I guess I could have blamed uni for that, but truth is I was more interested in what was happening at uni rather than worrying about all the friends I didn’t see anymore (Not that if I did see them I wasn’t happy, of course I was and was interested in what they were up to). It’s a natural part of life.
Gnosis has helped me in many different ways to have a much better relationship with my family and friends. My friends also include former students of The Gnostic Movement who have chosen different paths.
Within the movement no one as ever tried to stop me from being friends with non-Gnostics, it’s quite the contrary.
It is a different story with former students who try to spread lies about us, in this case it is quite normal to stop pursuing a friendship.
Gnosis has improved relationships in my life, starting with my family. It’s not as if I had bad relationships before Gnosis or anything but its only made good relationships better. I’ve gained more patience and understanding and consideration, and this has improved the way I treat others in many ways.
I find it ridiculous to think that Gnosis has made me “isolated” from my family as I regularly catch up with my parents and siblings, and I’ve learned to appreciate their company more.
As for my partner, she and I were together before we came across Gnosis and practising Gnosis has only deepened our love and made our relationship more enriching and happy.
Over the years there are some friends I’ve naturally drifted apart from, but as Jordan pointed out that is pretty normal and happens to most people anyway, and in my case probably would have happened anyway whether I took up Gnosis or not. It’s not as if anyone has ever told me who I can and cannot be friends with.
Gnosis has also helped in my professional life. I was at university when I came across this information and I noticed my grades actually went up when I applied the teachings. Learning how to overcome laziness, be aware and focused on what I’m doing and to use my time well helped me very much with my studies. It has continued to help in my career since, and to work well with colleagues and the boss’s that I’ve had, as well as government officials and business people from around the world that I deal with.
Gnosis teaches you how to relate to others well, and it has helped me to have fulfilling relationships in my professional and personal life. The interaction with others is important in Gnosticism, and is important to being human, so I also find the claims that Gnostics like myself are somehow being “isolated” from society ridiculous and I don’t know what this is based upon.
What I have lived is that The Gnostic Movement’s teachings have helped me with my family, my friends, and my job. These teachings are the way that shows me how to be better a person, to see and understand what I need to do to improve my life, to be a real friend, to give my best shot at my job every day.
These allegations about families and friends are untrue, are different – the opposite to The Gnostic Movement’s teachings.
I have friends who are in The Gnostic Movement and friends who are not, I have time to see them, my relationship with my family is getting better and more real.
These allegations are trying to create a sense of prison in the lives of people but that is untrue: The Gnostic Movement’s teachings give freedom, hope and love in my life.
Just wanted to throw in my two cents. I’m a teacher with the Gnostic Movement and my two closest friends from school a decade ago are still very much a part of my life and still very close to me, neither of them are in Gnosis but are happy I’ve found something I’m so interested in. I’m closer to my parents than I ever have been too, except maybe when I was a baby… I was pretty dependent back then
If someone stops being in contact with someone that’s an individual choice and isn’t just sad but weird to blame someone or something else for in my opinion.
I also agree with what everyone else has said. Gnosis has helped me a ton with my personal relationships, especially it has helped me to be mature with my family relationships, rather than holding grudges against people for things they did in the past or mistakes that were made. I’ve come to realize that we are all in the same boat, and it would be unfair to hold grudges against people for their flaws when I’ve got all the same flaws myself.
Learning to forgive and love people as they are has been a blessing for me in my life, so I’m not sure where the “weird and isolated” relationship accusations plays into all this, personally.
I can definitely echo what has been said but in an even deeper and serious way.
Actually before Gnosis, I did not have a really good relationship with my family. We had some deep issues from childhood that made me living in another country the easiest way to deal with them: by being far far away and having little or no contact with them.
Going back to my country to visit my family was something extremely stressful and something I was not particularly looking forward – adding to that an extreme fear of flying… It was a recipe for disaster. I remember trying to understand the different issues that had fractured my relationship with my parents and brothers, I wanted to repair the relationships but I did not know how to do that. I saw psychologists, I opened my heart to my family explaining things to them the best that I could, and one could say that things had improved a lot – yet as an example any long conversation between my mother and I would end up in disagreements, impatience, or just not listening. My father and I were barely talking, and pretty much, I had no relationship with my brothers.
Yet whether or not, you have issues with your family, there is a love and a bond that can never be removed. And it was not the way I wanted to lead my life but I did not know anything else, though my therapist had told me I was one of her fastest patient at moving things along, I was hitting a brick wall.
Then I came across Gnosis – and it’s not like my relationships with my family changed overnight – but id did over the years, and I finally was able to learn to understand myself better, and to break that brick wall I had been facing for several years. I was finally able to understand my family better. I could see their love for me underneath our disagreement and care. And I could see objectively my own mistakes and theirs and was able to move on. Gnosis gave me that – it gave me strength and it changed me for the better because I worked toward that change. Now I look forward to go see my family, I miss them, I want to know what is happening in their lives, and I want to be there to support them in times of need.
I guess I did have friends with whom I lost connection with over the last 10 years, but it was not intentional and I guess it was from both parties – so I would not say that Gnosis made me give up on friends. But I would also say that thanks to Gnosis, I have made some really exceptional friendship – some of them you are lucky to find in a lifetime. As anyone grows in their lives, we change and what we do and like to do changes. It is a fact of life.
I agree with everyone’s sentiments here. It’s pretty absurd to assume being a practitioner of Belzebuub’s teachings makes you isolate yourself from others. Personally, what I find isolating is the fact that there are people out there trying to make us seem like we are some strange cult. I echo what others have said – these teachings have only benefited my personal relationships and continue to do so since every day I learn more and more about how to love.