Cordova And The Black Arts

The general population fell into a great depression following the failure of the Crusades. God favored the Muslims over his own people, and it was unthinkable! Minstrels and troubadours sang melancholy songs about how God had betrayed them. The people were disenchanted by the Church and by Christianity.

Around this time the Bogomil’s moved out of Bulgaria through Constantinople and Italy and then finally settled into fortified areas in southern France after they had been decimated by Muslim armies.

Now I’m going to have to refresh your memory about the Bogomil’s. The Bogomil’s lived in that area of the caucuses, mountain regions, that is called Eastern Europe or the Balkans. I’ve been trying to trace the thread of Organic Gnosticism from that area to the present so this is a very important addition because the Bogomil’s where there in Eastern Europe long before Christianity. In all likelihood, they were influenced strongly by Zoroastrianism and various ancient goddess religions.

I believe that the continuing thread of Organic Gnosticism traveled with the Bogomil’s to finally end up in southern France. Now, southern France was the promised land for heretics. It was the classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft and it was from southern France that witchcraft spread across to all of Europe in later years.

Southern France was unique as a meeting ground of cultures. It was a melting pot of all kinds of races, cultures and religious beliefs. It was actually the highpoint of civilization at the time.

Southern France was filled with Jews and Saracens as well. Rabbis held public schools everywhere and formed bonds between Christians and Arabs through their trading exchanges in Salerno and Cordova.

Cordova was the seat of black magic where the arts and sciences were turned to criminal purposes, such as the creation of distillations, syrups, ointments, and surgical instruments as well as the study of Arabic numbers, arithmetic and algebra. In addition to those forbidden subjects the Kabbalistic teachings of Jews were a tremendous influence on the non-Christian population in that area. So southern France was the big meeting point as I trace Organic Gnosticism and its arrival in southern France with the Bogomil’s.

The Languedoc region had always been the hotbed of heresy and a problem for the Church that just wouldn’t go away. But it included the entire population in southern France. They were totally disenchanted by the teachings of the Church and now were being influenced even more strongly by other non-Christian beliefs.

We’ve already mentioned that the Social Enforcers were represented by Christians who were trying to establish moral teachings upon the population. The Rational Atheists were represented by Jews that didn’t really believe in an afterlife, but believed in logic and reason.

The Arabs were leading in the medical sciences and if anybody was interested in studying these things, they would study from the Arabs because Christianity had plunged the rest of Europe into the dark ages.

We hear a lot about the Languedoc region in southern France. There have been movies about that mysterious area and this is the area where a new form of Manicheanism developed.

Manicheanism existed centuries before and it got stamped out by the Church. But these same old ideas sprang up again among this new group of people called the Cathars.

Somehow Organic Gnosticism also sprang up again in the use of the energies of the physical body to develop the soul. In particular, Tantric practices and love relationships applied for the purposes of spiritual development and soul growth, and it was experiential. It appealed to the non-educated as well as to the educated elite.

We are also going to see how these secret Tantric teachings were incorporated into alchemy, and guess where alchemy had its start? Right here in Salerno and Cordova because this was the central meeting spot. This was the hub of activity.

This entire area was a great threat to the authority of the Catholic Church which was really having some bad problems at the time.

As we talk about distillations, syrups, ointments, surgical instruments and the study of mathematics and the other sciences you can just imagine the excitement that existed in that entire area. Just imagine the passion, the vitality that existed.

Especially in contrast to the repression. In contrast to the inquisitions that were happening elsewhere. This is where the excitement was. This is where the vital life force of the entire Western mystery traditions coalesced in a confluence of emerging sources.

But the important thing here is the reemergence of Organic Gnosticism and how it could very easily be traced to the arrival of the Bogomil’s into that area of southern France.

PS: I have started a new Facebook discussion group called Organic Gnosticism. Feel free to join if you are interested.