Jesus said, “The pharisees and scribes have taken the keys of knowledge (gnosis) and hidden them. They themselves have not entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to. You, however, be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”
Today, undoubtedly, the Lord would speak this way of the priests and clergy and seminaries of the exoteric and dogmatic Christian churches, for the keys of the holy mysteries and gnosis have been hidden and lost by the exterior church, and only in the congregations of the interior church can they now be found. Indeed, for hundreds of years, of necessity, the teachings and initiations of the apostolic succession have passed from master to disciple within secret societies. It was not the desire to hide the keys of the mysteries that forced the mystical orders to maintain their teachings and lineages in secret, but to avoid their total destruction at the hands of the dogmatic exterior church. Thus, today, congregations of the interior church are few and difficult to find. Their teachings and initiations are something alien to the majority who would call themselves Christians.
The institutions of dogmatic religion are physical expressions of the dominion of cosmic forces of ignorance. The cosmic forces of ignorance have usurped the divine authority of those chosen by God to bear forth the Light; these forces act to hinder, obstruct, and destroy the streams of the Light-transmission that the prophets and apostles of God bring into the world. Truly, the leaders of dogmatic religion are the blind leading the blind, devoid of the empowerment and higher awareness that direct spiritual and mystical experience naturally brings. This phenomenon has been present throughout the course of human history, and, just as in the time of Lord Yeshua, so it is now.
If you discover that the priests and clergy of the churches have hidden the keys of gnosis and have, ultimately, lost them altogether, what will you do?
If the Holy Spirit descends upon you, and you become on fire with the Lord, what will you do?
I tell you, it is time for a spiritual revolution, a holy revival of the mysteries and true Gnosis!
The Lord tells his disciples to become as “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” What is the meaning of “serpents” and “doves”? The serpent is a symbol of initiation and knowledge that transforms or heals. The dove is the symbol of purity, peace, and the flight of consciousness in ascent beyond the body. They are also allusions to the holy Shekinah below and the holy Shekinah above, thus an ascending and descending power of the Holy Spirit, what in the Eastern orders is called “Kundalini energy.” The Master tells the disciples to seek the awakening of this Divine presence and power within themselves and, thus, seek to enter into true Gnosis of God directly.
What are the keys of the mysteries and gnosis? They are practices of mystical prayer and prophetic meditation that create the conditions in consciousness for the aspirant to enter into the direct spiritual experience of the Truth and Light. Hence, they are spiritual disciplines that lead to the awakening of the Divine powers in the soul and the conscious union of the soul with God. Such mystical practices are empowered through initiations, transmissions of energy-intelligence, and shared experiences between an adept or master and his or her disciple. Gnosis is real power.