I seem to be able to trace many camps of thought to Gnostic sources, such as Dualists and Edgar Casey, and now with the resurfacing of the gospel of Judas, it seems Gnostics had a relevent role in early Christianity.

Checking out Gnostics on Wikipedia expands on these connections.

Images from the above Wikipedia link. Left, gnostic cross, right, carving depicting the dualistic nature of the universe.

Edgar Casey et al.

As for Edgar Casey, his works illustrate that the fall of man is the story of a similar struggle between the forces of light and dark, whereupon the material and spiritual realms are created, and spiritual beings became tainted or entrapped inside the material realm. Casey’s subconscious prophecies aim to reveal the underlying spiritual entities of material human bodies, which appear through time as various reincarnations. From this perspective the goal of man is to gain the secret knowledge to escape the prison of the material world and reunite with the spiritual realm of light. Casey points out that Christ is such a historical figure. Interestingly Casey elucidates the common Gnostic theme of sequential emanations of the supreme being of light, with each “bringing about a progressive corruption resulting in the eventual emergence of Ptahil, the god of darkness who had a hand in creating and henceforward rules the material realm.” (from wiki:Gnostics).

Casey’s recollections point out that historically in the time of Atlantis, such emanations resulted in a great war between those humans that sought the secret knowledge of divinity and those who rejected these ideas and entrusted their consciousness entirely to the material realm. The war resulted in the destruction of Atlantis and the migration of the 5 major races to the various modern day continents, something like the American South, American North, Africa, Europe, and Asia. If this is all true then today human culture seems to parallel this situation, as the debate between atheists and spiritualists (or using my own classification, between materialists/monists and dualists) progresses and develops. But it is important I think not to create to clear a division in one’s mind, as in truth ideas and camps supporting them are not as definitiely distinct as one might like. For example, there is a division within Gnostics on whether the material world is an inherently corrupt manifestation (thus the depiction of the universe as a prison and reality as dualist) or the material world is simply due to an error of perception, implying that all of nature is inherently divine as it is contained within the spiritual realm instead of being mutually exclusive of the divine (a form of monism). Likewise there is a division within Atheists who believe in higher forms of consciousness and historical direction emanating from humans and those who believe in a fundamental randomness in the course of the evolution of life. Thus the distinction is not simply between atheists and the religious.

As described, there is a radical form of Gnostic dualism, derived from the Persian region, in which the dualistic division between material and spiritual is defined most cleanly: creation is the result of an interaction between light and dark. There is also a milder form of Gnosticism from the Syrian-Egyptian region, which depicsts creation in successive manifestations or trials, in which the spirit becomes more and more entrapped in material reality until finally there exists a manifestation in which the spirit cannot freely return to the spiritual realm, except through the re-acquirement of the special knowledge, gnosis. This milder form of dualism seems to be that which Edgar Casey supports. In fact he specifically describes the successive manifestations (as well as the entire story of creation) in his book on Atlantis.

This idea is also supported by the fact that the milder Gnosticism seems to have been influenced by Christianity, vis a via the now recovered Gospels of Thomas and Judas. Casey himself was an avid Christian, and so may have simply followed in the footsteps of this Gnostic-Christian tradition. The idea is that there is a ladder of regions of light that one can transgress, bridging the realms of spirituality and materialism. The goddess of wisdom at some point emanated without a partner, resulting in the final emanation of the current material world (and subsequent entrapment). As the story goes, the supreme being manifested the savior, Christ, as man, along with the holy spirit, so that the entrapped men might be taught the gnosis of salvation. Hence the Gospel of Judas presents Judas as the only apostle who actually received the special knowledge from Christ, and who understood his mission to sacrifice Jesus so that he may return to the spiritual realm. Interestingly one of the scenes in this gospel is when Jesus laughs at the apostles when they are giving thanks for a meal together. The laughter is derision at the ignorance of the apostles, because they mistakenly give thanks to the creator of the material world, the demiurge/satan, from whom the material food they will eat derives. Jesus then challenges them to reveal their inner spiritual beings, and all fail to acknowledge this, except for Judas.

Thus the entwinement of the Syrian-Egyptian Gnostic camp with early Christianity.

Other sources and info

• [Atlantis]
• Apparently Carl Jung and William Blake were to have been influenced by Gnostic thought
• The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson, Gospel of Thomas
• Council of Nicaea
• Nag Hammadi Library
• National Geographic’s The Judas Gospel