The Secret Knowledge of the Universe

How Gnosticism fuels conspiracy and the deception of crunchy moms.

In last week’s article, I spoke on dualism and how it affects our view of the body. Today’s article is going to continue on that note, how dualism and Gnosticism go hand in hand, and how Gnosticism has permeated our culture, including influencing the crunchy mamas and conspiracy theorists.

Perhaps you have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’ll summarize briefly my health journey, and the disquieting trends I noticed. It started out innocently enough, I had a health concern of which the mainstream medical system washed their hands. I became more interested in holistic health and started following some women on Instagram who taught pro-metabolic eating. I learned good and helpful things from these pages, and don’t know where my health would be without them. I followed them for awhile after, ignoring the subtle nudge from the Holy Spirit that I had learned what I needed to from them and could move on. Suddenly their content started shifting from crunchiness and pro-metabolic eating, to posts about tapping into your feminine energy, or using other vague esoteric terms such as Source or divine feminine. I couldn’t put my finger on what felt uncomfortable, but decided to take a step back. One day I went down the rabbit hole of Gnosticism, started connecting the dots, and hence this post as a result. If I had listened to the Holy Spirit, I wouldn’t now be having to discern this all, but perhaps this article can help you as well, if you’re as hard headed as me. It isn’t just in the crunchy world though, the spirit of Gnosticism is creeping into all areas of the internet and social media, and is widespread in our culture.

What is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism comes from the Greek words: Gnosis- knowledge and Gnostikos- “good at knowing”. Gnosticism blended various religions together into a collection of spiritual beliefs that the material world and the body are evil and flawed, and your spirit is good. The Gnostics emphasized personal spiritual knowledge over authority and orthodoxy (established doctrine, (Webster’s)) and promoted looking inward to find God. Salvation to them was knowledge of the hidden divine. They believed the secret knowledge of the universe would bring self actualization and completeness. They believed you could achieve transcendence by intuitive means and that humans have the divine spark within; that if we have the secret knowledge, we can find our inner God and escape our bodies. This is why it’s so deceptive. Because we do search for God with our hearts, their idea can sound correct. The defining line, however, is this: God is not within an unsaved person. We are sinful creatures separated from God, and once we accept Jesus into our hearts, then the Holy Spirit is laid upon us and dwells within us. It is not that He is part of us, just waiting to be found. Humans bodies, animals and plants all are created and kept alive by the mystery of God as well. This is still not the divine spark, however. God is still above and beyond the universe He created, even though it is held together by His will.

The Gnostics were influenced by Plato’s theory of dualism. The ancient philosopher believed God would not create imperfect bodies or an evil world. Plato believed the body was lesser and the spirit was elevated. He believed we were spiritual beings encased in a human meat suit. Some Gnostics took that to mean that they should deny their flesh of everything including food and sex. On the other hand, some said nothing you did with the body mattered, which produced all kinds of gross acts of sin. This is also a deception of the theology of the body. Our bodies are made good by God in Genesis, they became broken by the fall, and one day our bodies will be made new. (Genesis 1, 1 Corinthians 15:35-58)

The parallels in our present day are evident. Some hate their bodies and punish themselves by starving themselves. Some people say what you do with your body doesn’t matter, and chase pleasure, sensuality, and self gratification. Others defy authority and organized doctrine and instead follow their own personal spiritual knowledge, declaring that the church is too rigid.

However, Bible states to love the Lord with your heart, soul, mind, spirit and strength (Mark 12:30) - the body and soul as a holistic unit. This is why, like I said in my last article, how we treat our bodies matters.

Gnostics believed humans have forgotten the peace of God within, and once everyone is awakened, we will all be reunited with God. They believe that a second god who was evil, created an evil world and we must be freed from our evil bodies, to be reunited with the good we once knew. They believed themselves to be the true root of Christianity.[1] You can see hints of Gnosticism in those who have deconstructed from Christianity, by saying they have unveiled the secret knowledge and that all religion is dogma and a container to keep you trapped. Some believe that Christ was not a man, did not come to save, but to speak the ‘truth’, as a teacher. Others say Christ was not even a human, but a frequency meant to teach us to remember what we have forgotten and awaken to the divine within. I personally know people who believe Christ is only one of the ways to God. This is dangerous thinking, because:

1. We have no truth within, and there is only one way to the Father, through Jesus Christ. “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the father but by me” John 14:6.

2. It removes the need to come to God through Christ by repentance, obedience, and faith. We are saved by grace through faith, not by some hidden truth. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV

3. it destroys the belief that Jesus was God and human. In order to be an acceptable replacement sacrificed for us, He had to come in human bodily form.

“Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.” Hebrews 2:14-17 NLT (bolding mine)

The Pride of Life:

Gnosticism is not the original evil, however. It is part of ‘the pride of life’ as 1 John 2: 15-16 explains:

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh (bodily and worldly pleasure), the lust of the eyes (coveting the things of the world), and the pride of life (fame and knowledge) —is not of the Father but is of the world. (bolding and words in parenthesis are mine for more clarity)

All temptation by Satan comes under these three lusts.

This article from Got Questions.org helps to pinpoint what the underlying sin of Gnosticism is: “Here is the essence of the pride of life—anything that exalts us above our station and offers the illusion of God-like qualities, wherein we boast in arrogance and worldly wisdom. Eve wanted to be like God in her knowledge, not content to live in a perfect world under His perfect grace and care for her. Satan tried these same three temptations on Christ during His 40 days in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11).” [2] (bolding mine)

Note the terms, “illusion of God-like qualities” and “in her knowledge”. They sound very familiar to what we’ve been dissecting.

The whole pride of life sin starts innocently. We have a health concern and the medical system fails us, so we turn to online holistic methods. We apply them, find healing and suddenly feel like we've uncovered hidden knowledge. Perhaps it has been hidden, by sin and humans trying to make money over actually healing, but now the devil is getting us on the other side of the same coin by thinking we have the knowledge of life. This creates pride and arrogance. How many crunchy moms do you know (and I've been there, sigh) who stand on their hill to die on, whether that be seed oils, toxins, anti-vaccine, home birth, etc. They have this rigid mindset they do not back down from, because they are right and they have done their research. Again, it's not that the knowledge is good or bad (dualism!), it's that they have come to worship it over grace, humility, and love.

The ones who push back against crunchy moms are no better; they rant and rail against the foolishness and absurdity of worrying about food dyes. They have a point, when it comes to the pride and obsession over it all, but is not their own outrage the same pride of the crunchy mom: “I know better”? Where is the peacemaking, humility, and love that Paul preached, on either side? “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;” Romans 12:10

Dangers in Social Media:

With that being said, what is the big deal about social media and Gnosticism? Many of the health influencers online are following a path that is starting to deviate from simple natural living, and are instead blending it with Gnosticism and New Age practices. Many crunchy influencers consider themselves free-spirited; choosing to buy organic, start homesteading, protest vaccines, avoid processed foods, are holistic and have a beef with the dualism of the medical system. Some, however, have become bored of promoting whole food eating habits and avoiding anything unnatural, and are switching up their content by blending in new age theories such as ‘energy healing’, ‘the divine feminine’, ‘Christ is a frequency’, or that we have the ‘divine spark within’. They claim if we just had the secret knowledge to uncover it, we could become perfect whole human beings. Most of these influencers I have observed have come out of fundamental Christian cultures and have deconstructed so far that they have been deceived into the new age/new thought belief. They appeal to people who have had health issues, cleaned up their life of toxins, and still realize that not all of their issues or health conditions can be cured by being holistic. Their underlying message is that if you can't find complete physical healing through a non-toxic life with just the right food, perhaps you just need to clear yourself of negative energies, or tap into your divine feminine and become more your highest self to finally arrive and feel whole.

The reason this is also hard to discern is that much of it is truth seeded with deception, (the devil’s favorite tool). Many of them are blending their old Christian beliefs with New Age/New Thought and it can be hard to decipher the truth if you have a shallow knowledge of theology. We are energetic beings and everything does have a frequency. We do have an intuition and instinct God-given and for us to use. We have masculine and feminine traits, the males having predominantly masculine and the females the predominantly feminine. But we don’t have to spend time focusing on frequencies, obsessing over our feminine energy or uncovering the hidden truth. They claim love is the highest frequency, but in actuality, God is love, and deserves to be named first. Femininity, truth and ‘high vibration living’ have been built by God into the code of the Bible. We don’t have to seek those things out or even know about them, we just need to follow God and know His Word.

Eating whole foods and staying away from processed food, as well as estrogenic substances, toxic chemicals, and any other thing detrimental to human health, is healthy for us. It is also true that plenty of health conditions are caused by stress or imbalances and can be healed holistically by addressing the root cause. But we must remember that the true ‘root cause’ is our sin nature and that it is healed only by Jesus alone. No modality can ever truly cure us of being human, broken by the Fall and sin.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:23-26 NKJV

The deception of the holistic world does not mean being healthy or seeking out alternative methods is wrong, but that it turns from seeking knowledge about health, to suddenly becoming a worship of knowledge and health. It is easy to believe that if their health knowledge saved us, therefore it must be true and right and if they pointed us to it, then everything else they promote must also be true. But some influencers have also been deceived by worship of knowledge. You can see it by their righteous attitude about how they know the best. They have the secrets to health and wellness, and now can show you how to access the happiness and completeness of your soul, by following their advice. (or buying their protocol, for the low, low price of $999.) Any school of thought or healing modality or mindset towards healing that does places self over God is going to deceive you.

The danger lies in worshipping the created over the creator. “Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Romans 1:25 NKJV

Conspiracy Theories:

Once the seed of secret knowledge is planted, it doesn’t seem long before people are also sucked into conspiracy theories. The whole basis of conspiracy theory is built on knowing secret knowledge, and soon escalates into a person becoming self righteous in said knowledge. They become part of an esoteric group that definitely knows the truth about the underpinnings of the government, ‘One World Order”, the earth being flat, or any other sinister plot. It’s the ‘pride of life’ all over again. And it doesn’t matter so much whether any of this knowledge is true or not, but that they’re marinating in pride and self-sufficiency instead of placing the world affairs in the hands of God.

What is truth? All of us, body, mind and soul are under the curse of sin and must be brought under the blood and redemption of Jesus. The Word says to crucify your flesh. Flesh in this instance means the old carnal sin nature, the person you were before you were saved and redeemed. So, every day we die to the old self, and walk in faith and obedience as our new selves- children of God. We have no divinity. There is no god within us that we need to awaken or remember. We don't operate out of our own strength or divinity to be pure, righteous, holy, or impose our own rules so as to be holy, but we turn to God and let Him do the work. We simply follow in obedience. We no longer have to produce our own righteousness or follow a list of rules to keep our salvation. We listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and our fellow Christians as to how we need to change. We let God determine what we need to become more holy, not relying on what we think we need. Gnosticism believes it is up to us to find the secret knowledge, and thus be saved by it. Legalism does the same thing; we attempt salvation by what we know. There is nothing new under the sun. Gnosticism is tempting because it is esoteric; it promises a secret knowledge of the universe that only the exclusive know.

Theology is important:

With Gnosticism being defined, but also very deceptive and hard to point out, how do we discern true doctrine from heresy? It starts with knowing your theology. Theology is the study of religious faith, practice, and experience. (Websters)

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.” I John 4:1-3 NKJV

Take note of what it says: ‘any spirit that does not confess that Jesus has come, in the flesh’. This is a very easy indicator of someone’s beliefs. Do they confess Jesus? We must have a firm and grounded knowledge of our beliefs and whether they are based on the word of God or not. This is why knowing the doctrines of our Christian faith is so vital. Doctrines are a principle or position or the body of principles in a branch of knowledge or system of belief (Websters) A principle is a comprehensive and fundamental (original source) law. (Websters)

Therefore, to know the doctrines is to know the original laws of Christian faith. Got Questions.org explains that “the Bible itself reveals what is essential to the Christian faith. The essentials are the resurrection of Christ, the gospel, the deity of Christ, salvation by God’s grace, salvation through Jesus Christ alone, monotheism, and the Holy Trinity. These are the basic doctrinal elements that we should understand and believe if we are followers of Jesus Christ.”[3]

Another way to discern a true Christian is by the Apostolic creed. The Apostolic creed was a beautiful verbal summary of the basics of Christianity. It was passed around the believers because there was not yet a written copy of the Bible. Reciting it helped them remember what they believed in. We can use the Apostolic creed and the doctrines to discern the spirits of the age.

The Apostolic Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places

Any school of thought or practice or person that does not claim that:

1.There is one God who is the creator of earth

2. Jesus was his son conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a human woman,

3. Jesus came as God in human form

4. was crucified on the cross,

5. that he died for us, (and that we are sinful human beings who are forever separated from God by our sin but are redeemed by Jesus and his sacrifice)

6. was buried and rose again and was resurrected

is a false teaching. This is why it is vital to know your doctrine. It is the foundation of your faith and holds you through any false doctrine, deconstruction, or deception.

I hope that Part 2 helped you discern the deception of Gnosticism. Next week in Part 3, I will point out the influences of New Agism and New Thought in all of this as well.

Resources for further reading:

· The Bible Doctrine and Practice

· This article by Phylicia Masonheimer explains what is core doctrine. Core doctrine is the essentials of all Christian faith no matter the denomination.

· I also recommend her book Every Woman a Theologian. As the description says, this book will help you “identify your existing beliefs about God, salvation, and the Christian life” and “understand theological concepts without feeling overwhelmed or inadequate” and “grow closer to the heart of God”. It does not elevate one denominational belief above another but simply summarized each point of view. I found it strengthened my faith and gave me gratitude for my own church and the doctrines it upholds.

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[1] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.html

[2] https://www.gotquestions.org/pride-of-life.html

[3] https://www.gotquestions.org/essentials-Christian-faith.html