Founder of the Academy of Future Science, J.J. Hurtak, and his wife Desiree, discussed their recent book Pistis Sophia: Text and Commentary, which presents a 2,000 year old Gnostic manuscript and offers analysis. It's noteworthy that Mary Magdalene is shown to have a particularly important interaction with Jesus, and she is mentioned far more often than the other disciples in the ancient text, Desiree said.

The teachings in the book are said to take place in an eleven year period after the resurrection and J.J. suggested that Jesus may have evolved beyond physical form during this time. He characterized him as an angelic "ultraterrestrial," existing in a profound state of being that goes beyond what we call extraterrestrial.

The Hurtaks also drew connections between Egyptian cosmology and the teachings in the Pistis Sophia, as well as noting that some of the concepts about other realms or dimensions in the ancient text parallels investigations being done today in theoretical physics. Among their newest projects, is a video called The Light Body, which will be out in June, and some collaborative explorations with musicians such as Carlos Santana.

Spotlight on: Gnosticism

The Hurtaks discussed Pistis Sophia (Greek for Faith Wisdom), a 2,000 year old Gnostic text. Flourishing in the second century A.D., Gnosticism, from the Greek word gnosis meaning knowledge, was a mystical Christian religion that is thought to have had at least 60 sects. A core Gnostic belief was in "agape," or mystical love, as the pathway to knowledge of God, though it could only be arrived at through a difficult purging of material concerns. Interestingly, the term agnostic also stems from gnosis, and refers to the unknowable, a view which some ascribe to the nature of God.

Orthodox Christianity considered Gnostics to be heretical and they were persecuted to the point of being wiped out by the 13th century. Esoteric groups though such as the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and Kabbalists have kept alive some Gnostic ways of thought. And Carl Jung, the great 20th century psychotherapist, worked to reintroduce some Gnostic concepts to modern culture, viewing them as prototypes for "depth psychology."

Source: Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience