The Restoration is a restoration of the ancient Gnostic Schools. We recognize that they all have the same core but have preferred different aesthetic expressions of the truth. This means that all schools, churches, and orders that provide the Gnosis are equal.  Discussions between the various groups are thus only questions regarding the optimal form and practice.

 

Restoration Gnostics are concerned with the language of the Gnostic traditions.  Many years of Pistisistic use of many common concepts in the Jewish and Christian traditions have set an indelible color on important terminology. Since language creates reality, it is important to re-establish the flexibility of the concepts by explicitly reinterpreting them.

 

Gnosis is further conveyed in many organizations that had their origin in the period before the First World War. It is therefore suitable for Restoration Gnostics to seek these expressions in their older structures for inspiration and further development of the tradition. 

 

The form of the Gnostic story will always be told in ways that do not alienate modern man from its core. This means that different media and adaptation through storytelling is important to secure a future audience.

 

In working with the Restoration Gnostics the personal experience with the mystery is always of primary importance. This experience has emerged out of the source of the tradition, and is now the living expression of Gnosticism, the old source material being thus of secondary importance.

 

A good understanding of the content and implied meaning of the source texts is required so as to be able to be free from their limitations. This requires that Restoration Gnostics also hold a good academic understanding of source material, so they know what may be changed without dissolving the individuality of the particular tradition.

 

Restoration Gnostics must be able to create their own Gnostic writings based on their own acquaintance with the Mystery. 

 

The Truth, which is described as the Mystery, is constant. Its expression is flexible and dependant on the era and the culture in which it is revealed.

 

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Source: Ødegaard, Rune. The Key: Sethian Gnosticism in the Postmodern World, pp. 116-117. Referenced with permission of the author.