The Doctrine Of "The Pure Ones"

Note 1: Divine Love bears no relation to the degenerated human "love" that is venerated in this fallen world. Human "love" is lustful, selfish, possessive, conditional. Divine Love has nothing to do with desire or emotion. Divine Love, the Love of the Creator, is a universal, omnipresent, omnipotent, all-powerful force whose characteristics are unlimited, absolute and pure. This is why it has always been stated that 'God is Love' .

Note 2: The Cathars (the word "Cathar" means "pure one") were the preceding gnostic brotherhood on earth who lived in the South of France over 700 years ago. Their pure doctrine was deemed "heretical" by the Roman Church, who ordered them exterminated. Thus, the Albigensian Crusades came into being. Tens of thousands of Cathars and their supporters were burned at the stake, walled up in caves, or massacred in the thousands by the marauding, blood-thirsty "Army of the Pope". Although the Church succeeded in eradicating the physical threat, they failed miserably in their true aim, which was to eradicate the presence of the Gnosis on earth.

The fact that we are here today is proof positive that Gnosis, the "True Knowledge of God" can never be exterminated.

~ g

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The Occitan Cathars taught that God is Spirit. For all eternity, Love is absolute, perfect in itself, immutable (unchangeable), eternal and just. Nothing evil or transitory can exist in it or come from it. Consequently, its works can only be perfect, immutable, eternal, just and good, as pure in the end as the Fountain from which they flow.

If we contemplate this world, its imperfection, impermanence, and changeability are self-evident. The matter from which it is made is perishable and is the cause of innumerable evils and sufferings. This matter of life contains within it the principle of death, a death from which no man can escape.

Out of this opposition between imperfect matter and God's perfection, between a world full of misery and a God who is Love Itself, between creatures who are born only to die and a God who is eternal life, the Cathars came to the conclusion that an incompatibility exists between what is perfect and what isn't. Don't the foundations of modern philosophy establish the principle of cause and effect? If the cause is Immutable, so are its effects. Consequently, a being with a contradictory nature could not have created the terrestrial world and its creatures.

If the Creation is the work of a good God, why did He not make it perfect like Himself? And if he wanted to make it perfect and couldn't, it is obvious that He is neither all-powerful or perfect. If He could have made it perfect and didn't want to, he would be in conflict with the perfection of Love. Consequently, for the Cathars, God did not create the terrestrial world.

If so many things that happen in this world have nothing to do with Divine Providence and the will of God, then how do we believe that God is happy with so much disorder and confusion? And how to explain that all the creatures whose only purpose is to disturb and torture mankind come from a creator who is pure kindness for man? How can the fires and floods that destroy crops and cause the death of so many people or destroy the shacks of the poor be ascribed to this God? A God who is used by our enemies to justify our destruction, we who only wish for and seek the Truth? Such were the thoughts of the Albigensian Cathars.

And how could a perfect God give man a body whose ultimate destiny is death after having been tortured with all kinds of evils?

The Cathars saw far too much intent in visible creation to somehow deny it an intelligent origin. From the analogous principle of cause and effect, they deduced that bad effects came from bad causes and that our world, which could never have been created by a good God, had to have as its creator a bad principle. This dualist system bases itself in the fundamental opposition between Good and Evil. The Cathars believed that Evil was really nothing other than the negation, or absence, of Good.

When the devil tempted Christ -- "All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me" -- how could he offer it if it did not already belong to him? And how could it belong to him if he wasn't its creator? When John the Evangelist  speaks of "the children of God that are not born of flesh and blood," from whom do the children of flesh and blood come? Are not these children from another creator -- the "devil" -- who according to Christ's own words is "their Father"?

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the Father of it....He that is of God heareth God's words; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God" John 8:44, 47

For the Cathars, all passages of the New Testament that mention the Devil, or the fight between the flesh and the Spirit, or the old man who should be cast out (to make way for the New Man), or the world submerged in sin and darkness, were sufficient to demonstrate the antithesis between God, whose kingdom is not-of-this-Earth, and the true prince of this world, Lucifer.

The Kingdom of God is the invisible world, absolutely good and perfect, the world of Light: the Eternal City.

God is the "Creator" of all things, because "to create" signifies producing something that did not exist before. He also created matter, which before was non-existent. He created it from nothing*, but only from principle. It was Lucifer, himself a creature of God, who gave "shape" to matter; this was his principle.

Who is the cause of this world? Can you resolve this question?

*g: this sentence fragment is in error, for there is no such thing as "nothing". There is no empty space. All matter was created from God, The All. Think upon it. If God is The All, then where would He find "other" material to create with? The existence of some "other" sort of matter would mean that God is not The All, because there would be something that exists which is outside of God. Therefore, in order for the sentence to be more in line with truth, it should read: "He created it from Himself" If we take this one step further, we can conclude that God essentially permeates all matter, whether subtle or gross. The essence of the Divine is within every created thing, however these creations are not completely conscious of their innate Divinity).

END PART I

From "The Pure Ones" and Their Doctrine - Crusade Against the Grail - Otto Rahn

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