The Five Seals: Sethian Initiation
When this site walked the five Valentinian sacraments, it promised that the other great Gnostic school had its own approach, and the promise comes due today. The Sethians, the tradition behind the Secret Book of John, kept a summit rite they called the Five Seals, and almost everything about it differs from the Valentinian ladder except the number. Where the Valentinians climbed five separate rungs, the Sethians spoke of one rite, fivefold, administered at the climax of salvation itself. The texts guard its details closely, which is exactly what you would expect of a mystery, and what survives is enough to see the shape and to feel why it mattered. ...