- The biblical Abel is the son of Adam and Eve and the brother of Cain, who slew him. Gnostic manuscripts, providing much more information about him, interpret Abel and the events of his life as allegorical rather than factual. This incensed the Christians of the day, and not much about that has changed.
In the first three centuries of Christianity, the potboiler of the day involved the paternity of Abel. It was a subject providing opportunity for speculation among both Christian and non-Christian Gnostic sects, and speculate they did. Suggested as his father are various notables.
Abel is the son of Eve without Adam because Eve, in Adam's absence and without his ever knowing about it, is seduced by the Archons, the rulers of the seven planets, who are ignorant of the existence of the Supreme Divinity. Another Gnostic manuscript describes the seduction of Eve by Ialdabaoth (similar to Satan), the ignorant creator of the lower, visible world. With Ialdabaoth, Eve gave birth to both Cain and Abel, the "accursed ones." Ialdabaoth and the Archons, who are said to have created Eve, are so attracted by her beauty that they lead her away from Adam and seduce her. In another account the God of Genesis, who the Gnostics believed to be Ialdabaoth, appeared as himself, or as the Serpent, and seduced Eve.
These astonishing accounts of cosmic powers seducing Eve express two important motifs of early Common Era Gnosticism: the entities of the supernal world are actively involved in the affairs of the physical world; and the particulars of the physical world are patterned on the activities of the universals in the supernal realms. This is clearly beyond heretical and enters the realm of apostasy. It also clearly seeks to express an intelligence of a much higher order than the Christian dogma. Therefore, it definitely needs to be stomped out.
Abel's birth was preceded by the birth of Cain, who had a murderous heart and who represents the inscrutable evil of those who prey upon others, those powered by forces as yet not fully understood. Cain is a necessary component to the symbolism expressed by the philosophy of Dualism, the Principle of opposing forces, a philosophy embraced by Gnosticism, Christianity, Judaism, and other religions, both major and minor.
As the son of ignorant Ialdabaoth, Abel is one his twelve powers. It would seem to make better sense if Cain were one of the ignorant creator's powers, but this is an expression of Emanationism, a descendant of Mesopotamian Dualism that embues Gnosticism. In Emanationism we realize the allegory as Ialdabaoth as a created god, a son of god, who has both "good" and "bad" created with him. To the uneducated Christians, this sounded way too much like denigrating Jesus and needed to be rectified.
This Gnostic version of the creation of Adam and Eve is one of my favorites and finds a mirror in the ancient Egyptian religion in which the god Khnum-Ra fashions humanity from clay on his potters's wheel. The beings of the supernal world, emanations of a hidden, infinite God, hand-made Adam and Eve from base Matter. In one account of this creation, the angels had to "borrow" earth from Matter, who loaned it to them. The children of Adam and Eve were born to them according to the biological laws of the natural world; intercourse and human birth.
The story of Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, the Archons, Ialdabaoth, God and the Serpent, a story steeped in symbolism, begins the structure upon which is built early Common Era Gnosticism, the most ambitious, esoteric, brilliant, and flawed religious philosophy ever conceived. But what sets it apart from all the others is its wisdom in knowing it is flawed and in its courage in illuminating the flaws. Humanity is the main flaw, of course, being the most intimate with Matter, and then anything that connects with humanity is corrupt, and that includes the next god up the line and the next planet. Problem is, the Gnostic light is so bright that it exposes the flaws in Christianity, as well. There's another good reason to put out the light.
But the ultimate condemnation of the Gnostics, and the one that brought about their demise by the Christians, was their stated relationship with the Divine which offended on many levels. By the inner path and by interior knowledge, by prophecy, vision and revelation, this philosophy seeks Gnosis: knowledge of the inconceivable, unbegotten God.
Adopted by the Gnostics are some of the heretical ideas of Aristotle. In this creation myth, Abel is also named Yave, who is set over two elements, fire and wind. Cain is Eloim, who is set over the other two elements, water and earth. Yave, fire and wind, is righteous and Eloim, water and earth, is unrighteous. The four elements, the constituents of matter, were elucidated by Aristotle. When he wrote of them, he considered them equal in rank and originating from the fifth element, quintessence--ether or spirit.
The Gnostic designation of Eloim and Yave for Cain and Abel is also a thinly disguised reference to the dualistic god of Judaism, Yahveh and Elohim, united by Moses into Jahveh Elohim, "Lord God." The Gnostics intended to convey that the "accursed ones" of the Bible included not only Cain and Abel but also Jahveh Elohim, who represents Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, the constituents of Matter. According to these correspondences the Hebrew God of the Old Testament is Ialdobaoth, the unrighteous god of Matter and the material world. Ialdabaoth indirectly originated from the supreme quintessence, who is not responsible for Ialdabaoth's existence nor diminished by it.
So there you go. According to this important Gnostic belief, the Christian god is actually the ignorant creator of the failed physical world, more like Satan, and is not to be worshipped but to be despised. Yep, we're gonna need Constantine's army for this!
"Farming in the world requires the cooperation of four essential elements. A harvest is gathered into the barn only as a result of the natural action of water, earth, wind, and light. God's farming likewise has four elements--faith, hope, love, and knowledge." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri)
- Also Abram. The biblical Abraham, patriarch of Judaism, was a citizen of Ur in the Sumerian half of Babylon. About 2000 BCE, Abraham's father, Terah, took Abraham and Abraham's wife Sarah and his grandson Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and emigrated from Ur. After Terah died, Abraham had a personal encounter with the Lord "Jehovah," who instructed Abraham that his descendants would become his Chosen People to reign in Canaan. In return, Abraham must obey Jehovah's commandments that all newborn males be circumcised on the eighth day after birth or, if converted, be circumcised upon conversion.
"Abraham circumcised the flesh of the foreskin, teaching us that it is proper to destroy the flesh." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic Papyri)
"His disciples said to him. "Is circumcision beneficial or not?" He said to them, "If it were beneficial, their father would beget then already circumcised from their mother." (The Gospel of Thomas, Gnostic papyri)
I surmise from this, Thomas would have had a similar philosophy regarding flying in airplanes.
The intervention of the supernal into human affairs is a popular, recurring theme in nearly all religions, interpreted to be God speaking to his people. But the Gnostics conceived of an infinite, hidden and unknowable God, one who would not, could not (without destroying us), personally intervene into the mundane affairs of humanity. They surmised, therefore, that any account of a personally intervening God is an account, not of God, but of an emanation of an emanation of God, divine but besmirched by its proximity to Matter. Most Gnostics believed the Old Testament Jehovah to be Ialdabaoth, the subordinate demiurge, inferior to the supreme divinity but ruler of the material world. They said it was Ialdabaoth who spoke with Abraham and made a covenant with him.
The Gnostic belief that the god of the Old Testament is a second-class god is confirmed, they said, by passages in the Bible wherein, by his own words, this god exposes himself as inferior.
Abraham was also an astrology teacher, apparently. According to the Hebrew Great Hekhaloth, Abraham and Enoch founded astrology. The Jews, in asserting their religion as superior to that of the Persians, claimed Zoroaster, the great religious leader of Persia, was Abraham's astrology student. Perhaps because of this connection to astrology, the Gnostic Ishma'ilites considered Abraham to be the head of the generation of the Perfect, to which Zoroaster belonged.
Abraham is important in all historical religions from this part of the world. Mohammed, founder of Islamism, claimed all Arabs were descended from Abraham. Although the bible gives Abraham's profession as that of a sheepherder, he may have been a merchant prince in Ur. When he left Ur, he took with him his extensive knowledge of the Babylon religion, the theology of Dualism, and this meant he was well versed in the celestial sciences, as recorded outside Jewish literature. In almost all accounts of him, Abraham, whoever he was or whatever he represents, was well-educated and an intellect who was inspired to lead the world to a higher order of existence.
Abrasax - Also Abraxas. This is the name that Basilides, an important Gnostic thinker and leader, gave to the great Creator-Archon who is usually known as Ialdabaoth. According to Basilides, Abrasax, the supreme divinity of the lower, visible world, comprised within himself the 365 gods who presided over the days of the year. In one system of numerology, the Greek letters of Abrasax have a mystical value of 365. Abrasax is identifiable with Osiris, the god of the Nile, because the Greek for Nile, Neilos, has a numerological value of 365. Also, the Gnostic sect, Mithras, a delineation of Persian theology, has a mystical value of 365.
Gnostics believed that this numerological equivalency of Mithra to Abrasax proved the divinity of both. Mithra is the spiritual intermediate principle of Persian Dualism identified as the sun god of Persia. Mithra brings the opposites of Dualism together within himself.
Abrasax, also defined as one of the guardians of the Aeons (supernal powers and eternal realms), is a strange divinity and represented the passage of Dualism into Emanationism, in which the highest order is actually One and not Two.
Abrasax is depicted on engraved gems with the head of a cock and legs of a serpent. Abrasax is associated with Aberamentho of mystical texts, who has the head of a cock. Worshipped by a Seth-Typhon cult in Egypt, who may have been the first UFO cult, Abrasax was portrayed by them as having an asses head and a serpent's body. Aberamentho is identified by this cult as Jesus, who they said transported himself and his followers into the upper realms of the universe to celestial ships manned by fantastic beings and flying in space. (Uh, oh. We know what that means!)
After the crucifixion of Jesus, Roman graffiti was found portraying Jesus on the cross as a man with the head of an ass. Another account of this animal-headed divinity involves Zacharias, who was struck dumb in the Temple at Jerusalem when he had a vision of a being with a human body and the head of an ass. When he reproached the Jews for worshipping such a god, they put him to death. After his terrible vision, the high-priests were instructed to carry little bells whenever they went into the temple. That way, God would hear the tinkling of the bells and have enough time to hide himself and not be caught in that ugly shape and figure.
Into this tangled Judaic/Egyptian/Roman/Persian quarternity of Abrasax-Aberamentho-Jesus-Mithra came the Gnostics, who cleared up (?) the confusion by identifying Aberamentho-Abrasax as Ialdabaoth, the son of the god of the Old Testament, and Mithra as an Aeon, and Jesus as a divinized human, a man Christified by the Cosmic Christ force who merged with him.
"And it was in the place of the Darkness, and the fire, and the power of the mind, and the light, that human beings came into existence." (The Paraphrase of Shem, Gnostic papyri)
- In the Bible, Adam is the first human created by God. He becomes the husband of Eve and the father of Cain, Abel, Seth, and others. According to St. Paul, whose thinking was dominated by the concept of original sin, humanity is contaminated by the guilt of Adam, the first sinner. In Hebrew writings outside the Bible, Adam is symbolic, known as Adam Qadmon, the archetypal and primordial man, the Microprosopos (Lesser Countenance) of the Macroprosopos (Vast Countenance). The Adam of Gnosticism is no sinner, but is symbolic and prophetic, and the events of his life are allegorical.
Various Gnostic books were inspired by Adam, as channeled from him. He is called Adamas (Indomitable), The First Man, so named by the Chaldeans, Medes and Hebrews. According to the Gnostics, the name Adam is symbolic and is derived from the language of the angels. The name Adam is said to correspond to the four cardinal points and the four elements; fire, water, air and earth. Adam was called Thoth by Zosimos, who relates that Adam's spiritual name is Phos (light). This defines Adam as an angel of light. This is a much higher-order Adam than the one Christians are descended from.
In Gnosticism, the supernal beings of creation are composed of Light, from which they derive their powers. The ancients conceived of a great celestial drama wherein there is the continuous plotting on the part of the powers of Darkness to steal Light from the beings of light. The spirit Phos is tricked by the Archons (rulers of the seven planets) into putting on the body of Adam, a body born of fatality and formed of the four elements. The Archons hoped to trap Phos in matter and deprive him of his light. Zeus (of Greek mythology) in sympathy sent him Pandora, called Eve by the Hebrews.
In Greek mythology, Pandora opened the Box, releasing the ills of the world. The biblical Eve disturbed the tree of knowledge and unbalanced the Good and Evil synthesized on the tree. They flew apart into the dualistic thesis-antithesis relationship. This Hebrew account of the consequences of Eve's action symbolizes the divine dyad, the first opposites, as emanating from the unity of the supreme monad. So, Dualism, the essential philosophy of early Christianity and continuing, is suddenly the mere descendant of Emanationism of the Gnostics, and that makes the Christian god the red-headed stepchild of the supreme god who the Gnostics have the good sense to worship instead of the other flawed and corrupted one.
The blending of Greek mythology with Gnostic mythology is typical of the eclecticism of the Gnostics, who incorporated into their theology all elements which they believed complimented their concepts, and this is one reason their literature is so fascinating to me. They were very imaginative and inclusive and they sought vision and prophecy. On the negative side, they were a bunch of monks who didn't think all that much of women, nor did they believe women could ever be in the presence of the Supreme God because, they wrote, women are so susceptible to corruption. They have this in common with the Christians, that humanity's fall can be blamed on woman, whether she actually ate the forbidden fruit or opened the box or not.
In a complete heretical rewrite of the meaning of Genesis, the Gnostics proclaim Adam and Eve as having received the revelation of gnosis (Greek for knowledge) from the serpent, the anointed agent of the supreme divinity. In some Gnostic accounts the serpent, the errant son of Ialdabaoth, acts against his father's wishes and helps Adam and Eve. Ialdabaoth traps the couple in the prison of matter, and the serpent, determined that the pair should become aware of their serious situation, brings them Gnosis. As soon as they gain knowledge, their third eye chakra is opened and they see Ialdabaoth for what he is and no longer worship him. Ialdabaoth then ejects then from Paradise, along with his mutinous, scaley son.
The intellectual Gnostics considered these accounts of the first humans struggling with the cosmic powers to be more allegorical than actual. These accounts symbolize events occurring at the supernal level, as well an represent each humans individual, personal experiences in the struggle against Error. The symbolic Adam represents, in one respect, the fate of a humanity fallen from angelic grace, one that hopes its psychic power will be restored, that power taken from humanity by the fatality dispensed by the spheres (planets). Once restored, immortality can be recovered. Well, goodness! Could this be true?? Now, where did I put those Tarot cards?
Adam, who exists also in spirit, is said to have deposited in the Cave of Adam, where he and his descendants are buried, the gifts the Magi carried to Bethlehem. The Cave of Adam is also the Cave of Treasure. This cave is thought to be in Azerbaijan, or perhaps Persia (Iran). Adam is said to have dictated to Seth a book of wisdom in which he prophesied the birth of Jesus and the Deluge. In other accounts Adam, after death, inspired Seth to write the book. Seth passed this book on to his descendants, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch and Noah. Noah took the books onto the Ark and later passed them on to his descendants. This book, or books, may be a reference to the Book on the Sapphire Stone, a legend of the primitive Jews.
At the command of the Father, Adam created all the things seen in Heaven and Earth. In other accounts, he gives names to the creatures created by the Archon-angels. Adam credits the Father with having created 27 universes, all outside this heaven and earth. 12 of the universes are hidden from the angels, 7 more were created, then 5 more to contain the Spirits of the Power, and then 3 more for the Dwellings of the Angels.
There are various creation accounts regarding Adam. When he was created he was alive but inert. This is the Adam that Michelangelo depicts in the "Creation of Man" painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Ialdabaoth, the trickster, was himself tricked into breathing life into the inert Adam, making him resplendent. Adam became superior to his creator-angels who then jealously cast him into the nether realms, i.e. planet Earth.
According to a Greek account, borrowed from Persia, each of Adam's seven body parts was fabricated by each of the seven planets (including the sun and the moon) in its turn. Adam is the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm, the Microprosopos of the Macroprosopos. Uttering words of wisdom far beyond his own abilities, Adam was thought to be channeling (modern terminology) the supreme divinity. The creator-angels and the creator Mother believed his words were divinely spoken. She pitied Adam for this great power moving through him and sent him a spark, a thought of light called Zoe. But the creator-angels again forged together the four elements to make another creation in opposition to Adam. There now being two Adams, to satisfy Dualism, they then took the first Adam away to Paradise, where the delights are illusory.
In another account, Jesus is said to have descended to Eden three times to help Adam stand upright, to exercise the demons of mortality away from him, and to make him taste the Tree of Life, whereupon Adam gained gnosis of his ignorant creators. The Gnostics said that although Adam was never born, he died. In those early Common Era times, this piece of information became part of a riddle known throughout the Mediterranean world.
In the spirit of the Holy Trinity that was to come, there is an account of three Adam's. The first Adam (Adam of Light) is spirit-endowed and appeared on the first day. The second Adam is soul-endowed and appeared on the sixth day. The third Adam is a creature of the earth and appeared on the eighth day, Sunday, the day of "tranquillity of poverty." The third Adam is the father of humanity. The third Adam and his mate Eve were allotted lifespans of 1,000 years. Each of the Archons subtracted 10 years from their lives so that 930 years became their allotted time, years lived in pain and weakness and evil distraction. When Adam died he descended to hell, where all the residents there, everyone who had been born before the birth of Jesus, waited for their release facilitated by the advent of the descent of Jesus into hell.
"My son, do not allow your mind to stare downward, but rather let it look by means of the light at things above. For the light will always come from above." (The teachings of Silvanus, the Gnostic papyri)
Adamanous - From a Hermetic treatise "Upon the Creation of Man" attributed to Hermes, Adamanous is the Form of Forms, the template upon which humanity is patterned. Nous means 'mind.' In this Egyptian-Gnostic account of creation, the first man is Adamanous, a creation of Harous, who is himself the creation of the planets seeking spiritual expression. Above Harous, and enabling this creation, is the heavenly Virgin. Adamanous is the living microcosm patterned after the highest heavens. Harous channels the forces of the Archons into Adamanous, who is perfect in appearance, but ignorant and mute. Harous then channels the power of the stars into Adamanous so that he becomes intelligent and speaks. Even though the colossal Adamanous is as tall as the clouds and can hear the sound of the rotation of the planets, he worships Harous for his size, who is so tall he can touch the planets and any sign of the zodiac. Harous creates a mate for Adamanous, called Haivanous.
The planet Saturn, who is excluded from participation in these creations, becomes enraged and wishes to destroy both micro- and macrocosm. Harous invokes powers to constrain Saturn, and to bind all impure spirits to the four corners of the macrocosm where they are held as prisoners in watch-towers. Adamanous and Haivanous, now free from danger, parent 14 children - seven sets of twins, each pair a boy and a girl. The planets endow these children with their respective personalities and appearances. One direct descendant of this Gnostic mythology, besides the obvious planetary astrology, is the watch-towers mysticism involving the consciousnesses that are contained therein and also their functions. The idea of watch-towers endures throughout time to the present day, in mysticism.
"How has the existence which does not exist appeared from an existing power?" (Zostrianos, Gnostic papyri)
- The supernal beings comprising their eternal realms; the occult forces of the universe, the hierarchy of divine beings in the universe who are emanations of an utterly transcendent deity existing in negative existence, and who, in successive emanations, are the patterns and causation of material reality. Each successive Aeon of the universe is formed on the basis of the models in the layer above, with each Aeon less perfect than its model. The words "a new Aeon" refer to a spiritual rebirth.
"Their begetting is like a process of extension...They are a unity and a multiplicity." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)
The Aeons are the light-beings of the eternal, celestial drama, and all the world's a stage whereon the Aeons, through humanity and all of nature, actualize themselves. Beside these, historic persons and facts are sublimated half-way between the real and the symbolic, so that the events of the world seem to disappear beneath the weight of their symbolic content.
"The entire system of the Aeons has a love and a longing for the perfect, complete discovery of the Father...who grants that he be conceived of in such a way as to be sought for." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)
"The Aeons are "places on the path which leads toward him...They are silent about the incomprehensibility of the Father, but they speak about the one who wishes to comprehend him...All the names which are great are kept there by the Aeons, names which the angels share." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)
"They are not crowded against one another, but to the contrary they are alive, existing in themselves and agreeing with one another, as they are from a single origin. Each of the aeons has ten thousand aeons in himself." (Zostrianos, Gnostic papyri)
Gnostics believed they could take their place in the Pleroma as Aeons, as humans who become divine and who function with powers and responsibilities of divinities.
"If you become spirit, it is the spirit which will be joined to you... If you become light, it is the light which will share with you. If you become one of those who belong above, it is those who belong above who will rest upon you." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri)
Aeons are the power of creation of the human body. Basilides, in a full blown expression of Emanationism, elaborated on five Aeons; Nous (Mind); The Word; Reflection; Wisdom and Force; and the Virtues, powers and angels who engendered a succession of emanations by which the world was created. Each emanation is a world complete, filled with angels and layers of firmaments ranging from vaporous idea to dense matter, and each stage of emanation is ruled by an administrative power. As generations of humanity progress, one successively following the other, so do the parallel macrocosmic generations of Aeons progress, one after the other but at a much slower rate. Expressed alchemically as 'As Above So Below,' humanity and the Aeons are linked together by a sacred cord.
In some Gnostic systems, heavenly bodies were systematically on a time schedule of seven aeons. Each planet with its planetary as Aeon, reigned at its assigned time for one millennium, during which time its powers determined the course of human events.
In one account of the creation of the cosmos, two Aeons, one masculine who governs all things, the other feminine who gives birth to all things, have neither beginning nor end. These two opposites generate an offspring - intangible space with no beginning or end, in which resides the androgynous Father who upholds, protects and nourishes all finite things. From this Father emanates one bindu after another, thoughts which drop into the field of time, break into opposites, and participate in the lower, visible world. I'm sure the Christians of any day can't relate to this at all, especially the idea that we are just a bindu, one of the droppings of a supreme deity. I'm not jiggy with it, either, although it parallels beliefs about Brahman during that time in the Indus Valley. I do believe completely in this next quote, though.
"I am in the process of becoming." (On the Origin of the World, Gnostic papyri)
- Popular Hermiticism involving magic and astrology, thought to have originated in Egypt about the time of the building of the pyramids, and as such, represents the practical application of a brand of Egyptian Gnostic-like philosophy.
Olympiodorus of Alexandria gave an alchemical interpretation to the Persons of Adam and Eve, saying they were composed of basic, integrated alchemical substances: fire, earth, mercury, sulphur, water and air. In this respect, they are symbolic of Prime Matter. Adam represents red earth, mercury, sulphur, soul and fire. Eve means white earth, philosopher's mercury, root of moisture and spirit. This is probably some of the basics of alchemy of the Middle Ages.
- Important and widely distributed Gnostic writings said to have originated from the spiritual realms and to have been, in modern terminology, channeled ("books written from God"). A channeled book, rather than a "divinely inspired" book, involves the knowledge and conversation of a spiritual entity. The text concerning Adamanous, Upon the Creation of Man, is channeled from Hermes, the spirit, and written by Tat (Thoth), the person. Through conversations with Tat, Hermes channels to him the mysteries of the Hebdomad, the Ogdoad, and the Ennead, the layered architecture of the celestial realms.
Many of the anonymous writers of the Hermetic texts said their manuscripts were channeled. Both groups attributed their books to the great spirits and prophets whom they believed were writing the books; Seth, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Abel, Cain, Sophia, Eve, Horea, Adam, Zoroaster, and the apostles. The Book of Foreigners, an allogeneous book, is a book channeled with spiritual entities described as foreigners, or aliens. I can relate to this because I channeled an entire book Lampoon Dictionary of Partycall Fizz666 from a great spirit called Sananda (ascended Jesus).
My allogeneous books are quite different, however, from the historically written ones. I don't step back as far as others to bring the material in because I really enjoy getting in the middle of it with my own personality and ideas and I feel very encouraged by my "aliens" to do so. It makes it a lot more fun. Also, I naturally believe my opinions have as much weight and importance as those of a "higher power," and this basically translates into comedy. I would call it "Divine Comedy" except someone already grabbed that title :)
In keeping with tradition, many authors of the manuscripts not said to be channeled remained anonymous, although the Gnostics of that time probably knew among themselves who Authors were. According to heresiologists, and many modern scholars, the crediting of writings to great prophets and spirits was done to give the books more validity and authority. It is more likely the writers, at least in the beginning, were crediting their books to the early human and the great spiritual entities whom they believed to be their guides. Since Gnostic manuscripts accurately relate that the Divine Messengers who give spiritual guidance and revelation remain as strangers in our world of time, the writers often guessed as to the identities of the spiritual guides with whom they were working.
The being I channeled identified himself to me as Sananda, the ascended Jesus, perhaps to inspire me to take it more seriously and stop everything and channel the book, which I did. It seemed like Jesus, though, because the gist is that we kick the tables from under the moneychangers at the temple of quantum physics, a kind of created religion in the field of science. Perhaps I could sell the book if I would just state that I went into a trance, like unto Edgar Cayce, so that profound words came flowing through my sleeping mouth, but the problem is that I enjoyed too much getting in there and throwing my own punches at the particle physicists since I had long resented their ridiculous claim to sanctified status on account of their golden calf Albert Einstein, onto whom I also landed several right hooks and a karate groin grab. It was extremely satisfying, so I can't honestly say I "Edgar Cayce'ed" the book. I did, however, as a not-unpleasant compromise, "Cheech and Chong" the book.
Jesus said to them. 'When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same...then will you enter the kingdom. (The Gospel of Thomas, Gnostic papyri)
- The principle of perfection in which opposites co-exist in harmony. In alchemy, the "union of the opposites" represents the attainment of perfect spiritual harmony. The separation of Eve from Adam symbolizes the breaking of an original androgynous unity. When God is conceived of as being an original monad, the creator exists as a single one, like the number one, before anything else comes into being. The further away one gets from the one, the more the division and the involvement in matter and thus the more the corruption.
Well, you can easily see the logic of this, if you think about it. And why wouldn't it be true? Applied to particle physics it absolutely reveals the spirituality-not of the entire field. A single particle with, theoretically, no more than one moving part would have no wiggle room for corruption, whereas something complex would have too many gears for some of them not to get broken at some point. Look at it in geometry and you can see the sense of it. By the time One gets to Five, there's plenty of space for Five to have picked up some negative input. This problem belonging to Five, or the pentagram, is that it is universally suspected of being the symbol of corruption, or the devil, however you want to think about it in a superstitious way.
That's why, in particle physics, the simple subatomic particles, represented here by One, are far more pure than the physicists smashing them, the complicated physicists and their complex smashing machines being the corrupting principle for the simpleton particles, thus represented by Six or 666 or, as I deliciously enjoy styling it, Fizz666 (physics). Six is also the Star of David, which accounts for another superstition having to do with the Jewish religion and the crucifixion of Christ and the ages-old resentment, actually hatred, associated with it. That hatred extends all the way back to the time of this early common era Gnostic literature, although it's found in Christianity, not Gnosticism. This is probably because, among other things, Gnostics couldn't find the metaphor in hatred and so had no use for it, placing them closer to One than Five and making them purer than Christians, another big reason they needed smashed like simple particles by Constantine's corrupted particle deccelerator army.
"For the end will receive a unitary existence just as the beginning is unitary." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)
- Son of the supreme divinity, issued by Him as a first Thought containing within himself all the archetypes of the abstract universes as macrocosmic shapes upon which all microcosms are patterned. These macrocosmic shapes are redistributed in varying degrees throughout the material universe (left). This concept inspired me so much that I wrote a book about it, Forms and Archetypes of the World Soul. Based on ancient drawings on the Kabala Tree of Life, I developed this image, left, as the pattern that indwells me, and all of us if activated. It is a hologram describing a innerdimensional multiverse filled with paths and portals, held together by Archangles, or Archangels, however you want to think about it. Until activated, there is only chaos within which can be temporarily organized by external, historical religions, but that's not permanent. The pattern has to be actualized for the person to be self-realized in an eternal way.
In Poimandres, an Hermetic treatise, the supreme divinity loved his child Anthropos and empowered him to create in His name. Anthropos' image is the pattern upon which the Archons fashioned Adam. Everything that exists is patterned on some part of the body of Anthropos, and its shape is determined by the celestial patterns contained by that body part of Anthropos. This idea also inspired me and I wrote another book, Interstellar Flight Portals, in which I suggest this complex, but very basic pattern, invisibly exists in space as a navigable Field Fabric.
Anthropos' brother is the Word. From the supreme divinity emanated Thought, then the Word (considered to mean Spirit), and then Matter. In other accounts, Word came first, followed by Anthropos, sometime called the demiurge. Word and Anthropos associated to create the seven planets whose rotation produced the lower, visible universe.
In an interesting development, the Gnostic Ophites deemed Anthropos to be the supreme divinity, rather than His son, which might be considered to be the first organized religious philosophy of atheism because it regards humanity as god. But it isn't atheistic in the same way we think of it, and it advances anthropology to a whole 'nother level.
"'Tell me, Lord, what the beginning of the path is,' he said. 'Love and goodness...And you will go via the path which you have known." (The Dialogue of the Savior, Gnostic papyri)
"For what is inside of you is what is outside of you." (The Thunder: Perfect Mind, Gnostic Papyri)
"This is the name of my city, 'Nine Gates.' Let us praise God as we are mindful that the tenth is the head." (The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, Gnostic papyri)
"Rabbi, in what way shall I reach Him-who-is, since all those powers and these hosts are armed against me?" (The First Apocalypse of James, Gnostic papyri)
- In astrology, we are known to be ruled by the planets. I think this entire concept descends from a very developed Gnostic philosophy that I call Archonology. The Archons are the seven planets, the base Powers who rule the lower, visible world. It was believed the Archons cut off humanity from the Aeons of the Powers, that they educate humanity in corruption, and block the knowledge of truth and wisdom. Thus, the Archon of Darkness prevents the souls of the passionate from passing to the Light.
For me, this is as good an explanation as any. How else can you explain how some people act, in terms of completely lacking in empathy, except for when they see a road kill or some other thing having to do with animals and not people. Because, when it comes to people, it seems their hearts close up shop and they retreat into some kind of isolationist position in which they can only see as far as what they want and not even what their neighbors want. They exist as islands helping no one and not even themselves. So ok, I think the Archons have cut them off from the Aeons and are educating them in how to be stingy opportunists instead of divine humans. Not exactly a common diagnosis of their disease but it works beautifully for me because it elevates me from a position of mundane, angry finger pointing to one of pondering the higher powers and their curious motivations. That is the power of ancient Gnosticism, to lift us in our thoughts, through metaphor, to some higher plane, but the negative of Gnosticism is in its condemnation of the material world as a very dark, dangerous and diseased plane.
The Archons were seduced by Norea, Barbelo, Helen, Sophia, and the Virgin of Light to deprive them of their allotment of divine Light. The ancients always knew the moment the Archons were being seduced. When bolts of lightning flashed across the dark skies of night, the Archons were being violently dispossessed of their Light, in much the same way as subatomic particles are being dispossessed of their light by particle accelerators. As Above, So Below, you know. We can upend that, just FYI, because we have the Pattern Indwelling us (see above), gifted straight to us from the Monad. We're not the Archons' sheep, by any means, despite what the Gnostics thought.
The Archons are sometimes portrayed as having human bodies with the heads of animals. In Chaldean astrology, the Archons are the Guardians of the gateways leading from one planetary sphere to another. When souls, after death, re-ascend the spheres to the higher heavens, they must encounter the Archons guarding the gateways, who will yield only to certain passwords. The Gnostics drew up meticulous lists of passwords the Archons would accept and had them tattooed onto their bodies in case of emergency. As the souls re-ascend the spheres and encounter the Archons, they are in danger of losing their way in the middle places, the places between the paths and the spheres.
And in particular three of then will seize you they who sit as toll collectors...When you come into their power, one of them who is their guard will say to you, 'Who are you or where are you from?' You are to say to him, 'I am a son. and I am from the Father.' He will say to you, 'What sort of son are you, and to what father do you belong?' You are to say to him, 'I am from the Pre-existent Father, and a son in the Pre-existent One'...When he also says to you, 'Where will you go?' you are to say to him, 'To the place from which I have come, there shall I return.' And if you say these things, you will escape their attacks. (The First Apocalypse of James, Gnostic papyri)
If you're a woman and you want to pass this Archon guard, you will need to lie about your sex and hope he doesn't notice because he will turn you back and tell you to come back after becoming a man. That's because, according to the Gnostics, women are not qualified to enter into the presence of the Father. In Gnostic literature Jesus is said to have made fun of this belief, to even have made jokes about it, much to the chagrin of the Apostles. When they said Magdalene, whom he apparently pushed on them as his main Apostle whether they liked it or not, would not be able to pass through to the higher realms on account of her sex, Jesus replied in amusement that at the last moment he would transform her into a man. Thanks, Bro, and a high five to you!
In Book of the Treatise According to the Mystery, Jesus describes the Archons as being 72 in number, each having 8 powers. In some accounts the Archons, in their constant battle against the Good, contrived to have Jesus crucified. The word "archangel" may be derived from "archon-angel," or from the Ark (sometimes "Arc") of the Covenant that was guarded by two angels -- arkangels or arcangels. St. Paul referred to the Archons of this world as "Princes of the Aeon."
"Strive to rid yourselves of anger and jealousy." (The Dialogue of the Savior, Gnostic papyri)
- A Gnostic sect which claimed to be knowledgeable about the planets, could invoke their powers, and could understand the harmony of the spheres. The Archontici made use of a book called Symphonia, in which are unusual sequences of seven vowel sounds, each corresponding mystically to one of the planets and expressing the harmony of the spheres. The Archontici taught that the biblical Seth had been taken up to heaven for 40 days to speak with God and to learn of the inferior, visible world. Two of their prophets, Martiades and Marsanes, were taken up to heaven for three days to explore its secrets after having studied the Archontici mysteries.
The names Martiades and Marsanes may be taken from Mashya (Martya) and Mashyane (Martyani), Persian for the first man and first woman. If so, the Archontici are descendants of ancient Persian theology. Martana and Martos, two prophetesses adored as goddesses by the baptist sect of the Sampseans, also were taken up into heaven for three days, a further evidence of Persian theology as an important part of Gnosticism. UFOlogists, or course, know what this "taken up to heaven" actually means.
"When a certain astronomer, who was present, asked the Lord Jesus. whether he had studied astronomy?, The Lord Jesus replied, and told him the number of the spheres and heavenly bodies, as also their triangular, square, and sextile aspect; their progressive and retrograde motion; their size and several prognostications; and other things which the reason of man had never discovered." (The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ, Gnostic papyri)
- The "Laws of Physics" of the ancient world. Astrology is said to have originated in Babylonia, Chaldaea, and Egypt. Classical astrology was a widely accepted system of cosmogony in which the physical world, its occupants and events were under the influence of the heavenly bodies, from which dominion there was no escape. By looking up into the dome of night, the ancients derived from the starry heavens a system of correspondences and beliefs in which the physical and spiritual nature of humanity mirrored that of the celestial inhabitants of the heavenly realms. They recognized in the movement of the stars the Aeons of the Powers of their theology, and noted the Pole star, the ruler of the heavens with the brilliant beings of light revolving around it.
Opposite the Pole star were the realms of the kingdoms of Darkness, and far in the East was situated the Mountain of Lights. From the East, the stars, the beings of light, rose to sit on their astral thrones as the moon worked to collect from them their light. At the break of dawn, the sun began to wage his war against the stars, which retreated wisely for awhile into the realms of darkness.
Below the sphere of the stars revolved the seven Archons, the planets. Some Gnostics exempted from these the ships of the Sun and the Moon, replacing them, to keep the count up to seven, with the head and tail of the constellation Draco, wherein are enthroned the four Aces of the tarot deck, in mysticism of a later date that probably descended from this. It was Draco who ate the sun and the moon during eclipses, and it was through the body of Draco that souls were forced to pass in descent into the abysses of hell. The long line of souls form Draco, whose tail descends even into the deepest, darkest realms of hell.
In the incarnational process, each soul descends to birth from heaven by successively passing from one planet, one Archon, to another. The Archons dispense a positive and negative influence on each soul an it passes by so that it taken on the properties of both. The soul at birth is gifted with these positive and negative qualities, upon which it draws during a lifetime. Finally, at the moment of incarnation, the soul takes on the properties of Matter; Fire, Water, Air, and Earth.
"The soul that had been cast down went to a body which had been prepared for it." (The Apocalypse of Paul, Gnostic papyri)
Ok, that quote is pretty negative and I can't go along with that. It makes the entirety of the human a result of some bad behavior at a higher level of being. "The soul that had been cast down," for whatever reason, we are not to know except that most likely it committed the Gnostic sin of yearning for the bright lights below, kind of the same way people in the country are drawn to the bright lights of the city. It "went to a body which had been prepared for it," implying that the lovemaking of humans serves no purpose except to prepare bodies for bad souls. Now really, this is very dark, too dark for me, but not apparently for the Sethians. And of course it makes sense it's attributed to Paul, who was himself consumed with the idea of original sin which, btw, is still a dominant feature of Christianity to this day. I was raised on it, I was asked to accept it that I had started out in the material world doomed by sin that I couldn't even remember the pleasure of committing. I never did buy it, I still don't.
It was believed that the Archons played upon the negative attributions of the soul to turn a person away from truth and knowledge, while the good angels worked with the positive planetary attributions to bring the person to enlightenment and gnosis. Within one's body, the Aeons of Light and the Aeons of Darkness waged a war for the human soul. At the end of life, the soul begins its re-ascent to its heavenly origins, with ease of passage to the uppermost realms determined by the quality of the Soul's deeds on earth and the acquisition of gnosis (spiritual knowledge). As the soul re-ascends, it sheds the planetary influences as though they are layers of astral clothing until, as pure spirit, the soul returns to the celestial realm of origin. As it passes by each planet, it must pass through the portals guarded by the planetary ruler, usually the Archons.
In order to pass through the gateways and ascend to the next sphere, it must supply the guardian of the portal with a password. Without knowledge of the passwords, the soul will be pulled into the rotation of the sphere to revolve there forever or until an amnesty is given. Many Gnostics believed Saboath the Good, who regulated the movement of the heavens, proclaimed a periodic amnesty, affected by the reversal of the rotation of the spheres. The souls released from their ceaseless movement around the spheres (later called the Astral Plane) then ascend or descend, depending upon their characteristics. In some Gnostic texts, it is Jesus who reverses the rotation of the spheres. In that early Common Era, it was believed the reversal would neutralize the Egyptian astrologers and diviners who, after Jesus' action, no longer professed the truth. Jesus is also said to have made the knowledge of the passwords a part of his teachings.
Those astrological beliefs found their way into Hebrew mysticism, along with the addition of elements of Hellenistic astrology, such as the idea that the planets furnish themselves with Chariot-Thrones. When the deity is seen enthroned on a chariot, it shows a cultural diffusion. In this system of astrology, the planetary rulers (not the Archons) furnish themselves with moveable thrones because they reign over the rotation and movement of the planets. This chariot-throne, Merkaba, is a favorite image in Jewish mysticism. Merkaba is draped with a cosmic veil which, when lowered, prevents those of the material realms from viewing the palaces (Hekhaloth) of the celestial realms in which are held the preexistent images of all things manifest, the form of forms.
In ancient Judaism, the Lord Saboath, Lord of the Seven Planets, sits the chariot-throne at the Pole Star. In Gnosticism, the Propater, primordial Father, is this Aeon standing motionless, the master of the Pole upon the constellation of the Chariot (Auriga), with the Aeon Sophia beside him. Dwelling in the zenith of the heavens, each is served by myriads of angels, the circumpolar stars, who spin around the dome of the sky in a flurry of activity and energy. This idea is seen as a hidden, large pictograph on the Phaistos Disk that I found by using a connect-the-dots method to reveal it. I think it probably is a representation, among other things, of the Pole Star surrounded by the seven planets.
In the mind of an Ancient encountering this astral phenomenen or the North Star and surrounding stars, it just makes sense that there is higher level intelligence at work here and not just a burning chunk of space junk randomly surrounded by planets as a result of a Big Bang explosion/screw up, where the Original One just frickin' blew up. You can see that even physicists buy into this ancient Monad concept, and their whole theory of the universe is based upon it, even though they're supposed to be real advanced scientists. That's one reason why I want them to keep their moneygrubbing, corrupted paws off of subatomic particles until such time as we can know more about what the heck is going on in the universe. In the meantime, I know the North Star is just twinkling space junk but I still think there is intelligence at work here and, in my mind at least, this Phaistos Disk image proves it.
"Those whom he intentionally produced are in chariots..." (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)
"He created the curtain between the immortals and those that came afterward." (The Sophia of Jesus Christ, Gnostic papyri)
"A veil exists between the world above and the realms that are below." (Hypostasis of the Archons, Gnostic papyri)
"The veil at first concealed how God controlled the creation, but...the veil is rent and the things inside are revealed..."(The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri)
The guardians of rabbinical orthodoxy discouraged contemplation of the meaning of the chariot-throne. In Christian orthodoxy, the original meaning of the chariot-throne is discarded and replaced by the Divine Chariot-Throne, appropriated to the worship of God. The Divine Chariot-Throne is powered by Cherubim.
"Do not make the kingdom of heaven a desert within you." (The Apocryphon of James, Gnostic papyri)
- The first of the twelve powers engendered by Ialdabaoth when he united himself with the ignorance that is in him. Thoth means "truth." Athoth means "without truth," or "untrue." Athoth and the other powers are obliged to have two names. One name, when spoken, evokes their powers, while the other name weakens and reduces their powers. Ideas like this show the dawning of the idea of magical powers in religion, later to be squashed out as heretical. Only God has magical powers, doncha know. We don't because, why? We're just bodies produced to hold bad souls that got booted out of heaven. And that ridiculously negative concept still has a hold on modern historical religion. If you don't believe it try whipping out a deck of Tarot cards around any Jehovah's Witnesses. Oy vey.
- The Gnostic sect established by Audius, a Syrian of Mesopotamia and an ascetic, who established monasteries and fought against the loose conduct of the clergy. The Audians re-established themselves in the 5th century CE, and again in the 8th century CE. Audius is noted for his teaching of the five creators of the human body who impart seven substances or elements to it; Wisdom, Intelligence, Elohim, Adonai, Royalty, Zeal, and Thought. Audius taught that Eve's offspring were begotten by the Aeons (lower powers) and not by Adam. Elohim and Adonai are both names for God, and it seems to me there are quite a few people running around campaigning on behalf of those two substances, fueled by Zeal, and completely missing out on, or just flat ignoring, the other three - Wisdom, Intelligence and Thought. It's especially lovely when they're in your face babbling on about it and causing you to have to lean heavily on personal forebearance to keep from pointing out to them that they are lacking the essential other three. This is what the biblical Job would call a "trial." So far, I am passing it but just barely.
- After converting from Gnosticism to Christianity, St. Augustine wrote so extensively and brilliantly against Gnosticism that he was sainted for his efforts. St. Augustine was a Gnostic for nine years, a "hearer" of the Manichaean sect. A "hearer" was not a part of that sect which practiced a strict asceticism. The Manichaean ascetics ate only fruit and refused to eat anything which had to be killed to be eaten. Their second level of devotees, called "hearers,'' were not required to practice asceticism.
St. Augustine accused the Manichaean of selecting from Gnostic religious thought that which they liked and discarding the rest. "Even the New Testament scriptures," he wrote, "as though they had been falsified, are read by them so that they take from them what they want and reject what they do not want, and give preference to several apocryphal writings, as if they contained the whole truth.'' Guilty as charged, St. Augustine selected from Manichaeism what he wanted, condemned as ignorant that which he did not want, and bequeathed to medieval Christianity the parts of Gnostic philosophy that he liked. He later admitted he had found some gold in the Gnostic "mud."
St. Augustine, like many Christian leaders, abandoned Gnosticism for Christianity, probably when it became lucrative to do so, as is wont in the religion business. While the Hebrews ignored their mystics, the Christians, whose orthodoxy had yet to be established, could not afford that luxury, so that St. Augustine could still find a podium to stand on. And lo! stands he still upon it! Christian theology was solidified into orthodoxy by the Christian heresiologists and their furious refutation of Gnostic doctrines. Works exactly the same way in politics.
- The feminine Power who emanates from the supreme divinity (Father) and who is the Word. Barbelo who? She got dropped completely in literature later on as having any influence at all on anything at all, but here she is the Mother of the Living, no less.
Barbelo is called the Mother of the Living and dwells in the 8th heaven with the Cosmic Christ force (distinct from Jesus). This definition of location may derive from her identification with Sophia, who was espoused by Jesus, elevated by him to a higher heaven, and dwelt there with him. Barbelo may derive from the Egyptian "BLBILE," which looks incredibly like Bible and means "seed," or from a Semitic expression "B'arb'e Eloha, meaning "God in four Powers," the supreme entities, the Tetrad. She may be considered to be the feminine aspect of God and is the celestial Mother in those sects classified historically as "the adepts of the Mother.'' The Gnostic sect, Barbelognostics, venerated Barbelo.
Ok, I have solved the mystery of what happened to Barbelo. There was just no place for her at all in patriarchal religions since the one and only slot for Divine Woman was alloted to Mary for the simple reason, of course, that she gave birth to the man who is the central figure in the patriarchal Christian religions. And I say that, not as a feminist, but as an objective observer pointing out the obvious regarding the path the historical religions took from as far back as the Sacred Oak at Dodona. The other two "women" slots available came with them significant negative public relation issues, one position being that of blatantly disobedient Eve, who ate of the tree after being told not to by two men, God the Father and Adam and, the other position, held by the hooker Magdalene to whom Jesus was so devoted that it could have been for no other reason than vicariously lusting after her, or maybe not so vicariously, depending on which Gnostic sect you hailed from. Christians knew, of course, he had no interest in her at all except to help her stop hooking. Well, that's just lovely, isn't it?
Barbelo, an emanation of the Father, emanated an Aeon of her own in imitation of Him. This power was Ialdabaoth, the ignorant (of his parentage) demiurge and creator of the lower, visible world. Her repentance of this birth is said to bring about the first stage of the salvation of this world. As part of her repentance, she seduced the Archons (planets) to rob them of their seed of power (Light) over this world. When a bolt of lightning flashes across the night sky, it signifies the moment that Barbelo divests the Archons of their light.
- (154-222 CE) He was the founder of Syrian poetry and was, at one time, an important Gnostic. Bardesan, who later abandoned Gnosticism, taught that the body of Jesus was spiritual because the Holy Spirit, Sophia, had descended upon Mary. Here is another Gnostic teaching involving the positioning of a divine woman between the powers of Heaven and Earth. She also got edited out of the final sacred version of the Holy Truth. Bardeson taught the Chaldaean astrology theory that the heavenly bodies (planets), called chronocrators, or markers of time, were distributed among seven aeons or cycles, so that each reigned, in its turn, for a thousand years. He also taught the Three Principles.
- The angel who is the Tree of Life in Paradise. Also a Gnostic prophet identified with Zoroaster. The angel Baruch is said to have been sent by Elohim to give instructions to the Jews so they would turn towards God, who also sent Hercules to give instructions to the Gentiles. I guess they sent Hercules as a kind of enforcer in case the Gentiles didn't want to accept the Gnostic version of God. At least Elohim got it right who to send where.
In the days of King Herod, God sent the angel Baruch to Nazareth to find the 12 year-old Jesus and impart to him the gnosis. The angel Naas (the Tree of Good and Evil and the Serpent) later tried to have Jesus crucified on the cross. He was foiled in his efforts because Jesus abandoned his body on the cross and ascended into the highest heavens. In some accounts, the trickery of Naas backfires on him and, in his efforts to have Jesus crucified, he winds up on the cross himself. In this unusual crucifixion story, Jesus hovers invisible above the cross jeering down at the Romans, who have been fooled by this illusion and who are jeering up at Naas whom they mistake for Jesus.
In Nicodemus, written sometime before 400 CE by an orthodox Christian writer (not Nicodemus), Satan says, "I tempted him (Jesus) and stirred up my old people the Jews with zeal and anger against him." Satan, who is preparing for the descent of Jesus into hell, goes on to say he is responsible for every aspect of the crucifixion.
Many Gnostics could not bear the thought that Jesus died at the hands of the Romans and the Archons. Others simply refused to accept it, believing Jesus had the power to avoid this ignoble death and did so. This is major heresy, the idea that Jesus was not a volunteer in his efforts to save our souls but instead saved himself from crucifixion.
I want to stop right here and remind myself and the reader, as well, that these writers were actually living in the middle of the Roman Empire, which had to be one of the worst times in history to be alive, and thinking and trying to comprehend what was going on in the world and where they fit in. To them I apologize for my comical critique of their religions and I promise to try harder to be more respectful but I doubt it's going to work out. But at least I know where they were when they were writing these things. In a bad place at a bad time. They were rationalizing like crazy because they had to in order to make sense of it, and no wonder they believed the world to be a dark, dangerous and punishing place with a close proximity to hell. The Roman Empire made sure that is was. That anything good ever came out of Italy after the Romans got done with it is a self-evident miracle that does not require any religious beliefs but simply speaks for itself.
- An important Gnostic teacher of Alexandria, Egypt, who claimed that he and his son, Isadore, had been bequeathed secret discourses by the Apostle Matthias, who had received them from Jesus in personal conversations with him. Basilides composed a commentary on the canonical Gospels in 24 books. The psychologist C.G. Jung sometimes wrote pseudonymously under "Basilides," who often wrote under the names of Barcabbas and Barcoph. Basilides taught Dualism and reincarnation. He said that Christ was not man but the appearance of man, a manifested illusion who made Simon of Cyrene appear to look like Jesus and who changed the perceptions of all who saw the crucifixion. Jesus stayed close by and mocked the Romans for their mistake, while the Romans mocked Simon, who they thought was Jesus.
That must have brought many people comfort who could not stand the idea that the Romans actually and sucessfully murdered Jesus. It just could not be.
Basilides taught the doctrine of the primordial principles and that Ialdabaoth and his much wiser son, Sabaoth, created the visible world. Basilides and Isadore introduced into Gnostic
thought the concept of the counterfeiting spirit and taught that the human soul is composed of three parts; spirit, matter, and counterfeiting spirit.
Of Dualism, Basilides wrote this incredibly beautiful paragraph, and it makes me understand why Jung admired Basilides so much:
"Some among them have said that the principles of all things are two in number; and it is to these that they ascribe good and evil, saying that these principles are without beginning and unbegotten. More precisely, in the beginning there were the light and the darkness which had arisen out of themselves...While each in itself, each of them led the life that was proper and suitable to it... But after each principle had arrived at the knowledge of the other, the darkness, having beheld the light, was seized with desire for it as for something better, pursued it and wanted to mingle with, and to take part in it. Such was the behavior of the darkness, whilst the light would not admit into itself anything of the darkness whatsoever, or even of desire for it. For all that, the light was seized with a desire to look at the darkness and, as it were in a mirror, did look at it: and thus, upon the darkness was projected only a reflection - something like a single color of the light - although the light had done no more than to look and then withdraw, without having taken up the smallest portion of the darkness. But the darkness, itself, seized upon this look from the light..."
Basilides taught that the unbegotten father engendered five Aeons, or eternal realms. These were: Nous (Mind); Word; Reflection; Wisdom and Force; and Virtue, a succession of emanations, each a heaven. The final heaven is filled with angels who create the visible world, among them Ialdabaoth and Sabaoth. Basilides said that the Jews recognize the lord of the angels as Yahweh, but that those have all become corrupt. So the Unbegotten Father sent his only Son, Nous or Christ, to liberate from the Corrupt all who believe in him. By means of passwords and secret names, the believers may re-ascend through the lower heavens, eluding the Archons.
Basilides gave to the creator of the lower world the name Abraxas, numerologically 365. He said Abraxas, once created to rule over the lower world, mistakenly believed himself to be the supreme divinity. He built up layers of heavens unto the 8th heaven (Ogdoad), whereupon he enthroned himself and his son, and proceeded to rule with goodness. Abraxas later discovered his error in thinking himself supreme, and became enraged and perverse, ruling as an unrighteous god and causing the lower world to become corrupt.
Theories such as these by Basilides have caused scholars to suggest that Gnosticism, with its catalogue of unrighteous creators of corrupt Earth, was mostly a reaction against the reigning Hellenism which viewed the created world as a beautiful, orderly, and symmetrically perfect creation, the best of all possible worlds. The Gnostics rejected this philosophy, but they included into their religious philosophy the ideas of the Greeks, especially Homer, Plato, Philo, Pythagoras, and others. According to modern scholars, it was this eclecticism which weakened their theology and caused the Christian doctors of that time to condemn then as fanciful thinkers and heretics. Obviously, there is a great deal more to Gnosticism than just a bad, delayed reaction to Hellenism.
In one of his most enduring doctrines, Basilides wrote that God, once omnipresent, retreated from the universe, freeing it for the process of creation, but leaving behind a residue of Himself. This concept found a permanent home in Judaism. This essence of God, called the Holy Spirit, is discovered and personally experienced through gnosis. But in Gnosticism, which takes it much further than just the withdrawal of the creator, the Holy Spirit manifests itself in one's life as a comforter (Paraclete) and as a creative force, the Process of Creation personified. Often called an angel or spirit guide, the Holy Spirit forms a partnership, a spiritual marriage, with a physically manifest person for the purpose of elevating that person through Gnosis to higher spiritual evolution. This is a ancient concept that I dearly love and I wrote a book about it entitled, Heavenly Partners.
"Therefore the mystery of intercourse is performed in secret, in order that the two sexes might not disgrace themselves in front of many who do not experience that reality. For each of them (the sexes) contributes its begetting. For if it happens in the presence of those who do not understand the reality, (it is) laughable and unbelievable. And, moreover, they are holy mysteries, of both words and deeds because not only are they not heard but also they are not seen." (Asclepius, Gnostic papyri)
That is correct. They do not speak words (except the rare "living voice") and they are invisible.
- The rebellious angel Azezel whom the angel Raphael, on God's orders, placed in chains and cast into the desert of Dudael, which lies East of Eden. (Zazel rules Saturn, the malefic planet. Perhaps Dudael is on Saturn and Saturn is East of Eden?)
Interestingly, to me at least, these angel names and place names ending in "el" refer to divine beings and their realms. So, even if they are negative in concept and desperately to be avoided, they are still somewhere high up in the chain of command in this hierarchical vision or the world and represent only a short sojourn for the woeful and soon to be repentant spiritual traveler.
"If you do not fast as regards the world, you will not find the kingdom." (Words of Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas, Gnostic papyri)
- In astrological literature, this book, said to have been given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, details a multitude of powers useful for protection against base powers. It tells of the "hydria that are in Egypt," serpent-demons banished by King Solomon and stored in seven bronze vases. In the Arkhangelike, a magician may gain power over these demons by reminding them of their imprisonment by Solomon in hydria of bronze.
Goes something like this:
Magician, "Do as I tell you right his minute!" Sometimes I wonder if anyone else in the world appreciates my sense of humor besides me, but this doesn't have very much to do with early common era Gnosticism except to say that, as far as I can find, these Gnostics had no sense of humor whatsoever, perhaps because they feared for their lives every single day.
King Solomon magically trapped seven demons in seven bronze vases. He sent the vases from Jerusalem to Egypt, entrusting their care to the Egyptian priests, who used a book against them called "The Seven Heavens," supposedly written by Solomon. The vases, called Khalkhydras, were made of electrum (an alloy of silver and gold) and engraved with magical formulae.
"For when you appear in the world, dark Nature will shake against you, together with winds and a demon, that they may destroy the insight." (The Paraphrase of Shem, Gnostic papyri)
- An Arab writing instructing seekers of marvels to dig for treasure in the area of Hamra-Dum near the cliff tombs. These instructions were never followed, but a great marvel was discovered there in 1945 when the Gnostic manuscripts were found buried in an earthenware jar.
- Also Cave of the Magi. In this Gnostic text, Adam, the first of a long line of prophets, predicts that he will be buried by Seth in this cave, and that near this cave the Magi will await the announcement of the birth of the Savior. Inside the cave are the treasures which the Magi will take to Bethlehem upon the birth of Jesus. One manuscript sites this cave in the Mountain of Victories to the east of Shyr, a grotto called The Cave of Treasures of the Life of the Silence. This cave legend is probably of Persian origin.
"What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either." (The Sentences of Sextus, Gnostic papyri)
...that sounds vaguely familiar...
- The biblical Cain, son of Adam and Eve, killed his younger brother Abel. Cain is said to have been conceived by Eve after she ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, so that Satan is Cain's father. In Gnostic thought, Cain, Abel and Seth are symbolic representations of the Three Principles; Darkness (Cain), Light (Seth), and intermediate (Abel). Gnostics foretold the rise of three human races - material, psychic, and spiritual which are symbolically pre-figured by Cain, Abel, and Seth. Cain also means the Sun. Cain is said to have the face of a cat. In superstitious lore, the black cat has come to signify evil.
- Like all Gnostics, the Cainites were seekers of salvation. But this extremist Gnostic sect gave little credence to the idea that salvation comes through gnosis. The Cainites believed so strongly that Yahweh of the Old Testament is the unrighteous creator, and that the creation is utterly corrupt, that they venerated the accursed of the Bible - the Serpent, Cain, Judas, and the Sodomites. For the Cainites, practices deemed wicked and forbidden were a means to salvation. I think the Cainites are fully functional in our world today but under another name. Doesn't change who they are, though, according to this worldview.
The Cainites believed that those who polarized on the side of Right would soon find themselves, in another lifetime, swung like a pendulum to the side of wrong, from whence they required, and would receive, salvation. They pre-empted this cycle by polarizing to wrong so they could be saved sooner. Their prophets were Cain, Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites. They used a Gospel of Judas and supposedly had a book entitled Against the Hystera (womb). They called the unrighteous creator of the lower world Hystera.
- A Gnostic leader, and eclectic religious philosopher, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, (ca. 130 CE), and who believed in reincarnation. His son, Epiphanius, added to his teachings but died at the age of 17. The Carpocratians and the disciples of the son built a temple to Epiphanius on the isle of Samos. These followers also built icons of Christ, Pythagoras, and Plato. When Marcellina, a follower of Carpocrates, moved to Rome, she took with her icons of Christ, St. Paul, Homer, and Pythagoras, to whom she burnt incense. Much later on in time, she would be deemed to be a follower of the "Masters," great humans who ascended into a self divinity. This does not fly, however, with Christianity, then or now, as exclusion rather than inclusion is their main principle.
- A Gnostic sect surviving into the 14th century. The Cathars were burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic church, supposedly for their heretical teachings regarding each individual's responsibility for the development, quality, and care of the soul. More likely, they were burned because of the great number of converts from Christianity to Catharism and all the donations that went along with that, especially the bequeathals at death.
The Cathars believed that a woman must first become a man before being admitted into heaven. It was widely believed that women, the embodiment of Eve and the weaker sex, were more submissive to the cosmic powers that ruled the Earth, and that only men were strong enough to stand up to these powers and defeat them. They thought, however, that androgyny is synonymous with perfection.
The Cathars preserved the Gnostic belief that all things existed first in the form of a metaphysical template or idea before becoming physically manifest.
"Jesus said 'Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being." (The Gospel of Thomas, Gnostic papyri)
Like most Gnostics, the Cathars believed that the physical body is a corpse and a prison. Some Gnostics even refused to have children because procreation traps another spirit in the prison of the physical body and the physical world.
"This world is a corpse-eater. All the things eaten in it themselves die also...The world came about through a mistake.'' (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri)
- A 2nd century opponent of Christianity and Gnosticism (especially the Gnostic Ophites), who said that Christians derived their Gospels from Plato, Heraclitus, the Stoics, the Jews, Egyptians, Persians, and the Cabiri. This is the same attack the Christians leveled against the Gnostics. Both Celsus and the canonical Gospels and Epistles warned against following prophets who usually claim to be god or the son of god or the divine spirit, who talk of the end of the world, and who prophesy that the sinful will die when the world ends. These prophets say that all who follow them will be saved, will rise again, and be preserved forever, while all non-believers will be destroyed. Exactly my point. Principle of Exclusion, also part of Gnosticism.
Celsus knew of the existence of the now lost Ophite manuscript, Diagram. The alchemist, Paracelsus, famous for his outrageous lectures and beliefs, (but considered by some to the father of Pharmacology) may have taken his name from this Celsus.
- According to some Gnostic sects, the universe began with Chaos, from which are taken the patterns of the universe. This is an ancient idea dating back to at least 1,600 BCE, evidenced by the creator of the Phaistos Disk in which the Disk is the chaotic universe and the matching pictographs connected reveal the patterns hidden in chaos.
Darkness and Obscurity are said to have emerged from Chaos. Other Gnostic sects believed Chaos to be the material world which takes its patterns from those of the macrouniverse. In these accounts, Chaos emerged from Darkness. Chaos is conceived of as a power and as having gods with their powers, an well as demons, some of which are Leviathan and the Hydra of Eden. These demons are often described as having seven heads, a symbolism carried over into Cabalistic Gnosticism as the Qliphoth. Turmoil (chaos) is a naturally occurring and predictable force and therefore a power of its own.
"But it was by the will of the father of the entirety that they all came into being - after the pattern of all the things above - so that the sun of chaos might be attained." (The Hypostasis of the Archons, Gnostic papyri)
- Also, Nag Hammadi Library, written in the first centuries of our era and buried in an earthenware jar about 400 CE. Comprised of 12 books, plus 8 leaves removed from a 13th book and tucked inside the front cover of the 6th. The books contain 52 tractates written on papyrus and bound in the form of a codex, a modern type book, rather than scroll. The codices are bound in leather and, with the exception of two books, each codex has a flap extending from the fore edge of the front cover and a thong used to hold the codex closed. The tractates are written in Coptic, the Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet. Most are written in Sahidic, the Coptic dialect of Upper Egypt. The manuscripts were transcribed from Greek into Coptic by Copts, said to be the only true descendants of the ancient Egyptians. These Copts were Sethian Gnostics.
The codices were found buried at the foot of the cliff-tombs of Gebel el-Tarif in Egypt, a place once called Shenesit-Chenoboskion, Shenesit meaning "the acacias of Seth." They bring forward from ancient times some of the major religious beliefs of the Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, Chaldaeans, Persians, Babylonians, and Sumerians. Serving an essential historical link in the understanding of ancient thought, and providing insight into the origins of astrology and Hermeticism, the manuscripts supply precious information regarding the formation and elucidation of Dualism, the oldest religious philosophy on Earth. The Egyptian Gnostics, always under siege by the uninitiated ecclesiastics of the heresy-seeking early Christian church, were threatened with banishment and/or death, should they be found in possession of their blasphemous literature. To preserve their books from destruction, the Sethians buried them.
- The Gnostic writers did not borrow from the canonical Gospels, as it is known that the canonical Gospels were not in general circulation when early Common Era Gnosticism came into being. Their apocrypha are attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, who received secret teachings from him, and Thomas, Philip, Matthias, John and Peter. The Gnostic books do not attempt to disown the canonical Gospels, but attempt to impart revelations of a higher order, and that is, no doubt, one of the main reasons the Christians were out to get them.
The Gnostic concept of time differs from the Christian and Hellenistic concepts. Hellenism conceived of time as being circular, cyclic, and under the influence of astrological movements which decide and regulate its course. The Christian concept describes time as being rectilinear, like a scroll unrolling from the beginning of time to the end of time. The Gnostics conceived of time as a duality, existing as timelessness at the spiritual level and as temporal at the physical level, with physical beings subject to the fatality inherent in cyclic time. Between the world of time and the world of timelessness is a limit, Horos, which is a frontier absolute and impassable. Salvation occurs when the timeless intervenes into the temporal, when the Saviors, who remain strangers in the world of time, bring the gnosis, the revelation of the higher world that awakens the neophyte to recollection of the original spiritual nature. Gnosis places one beyond the danger of the spheres and their powers.
- Above the Earth are the heavenly spheres, one enveloping the other, higher and higher, and vaster. In succession are the Hebdomad, the Planets (the Rulers of Destiny), the twelve Aeons (the Zodiac), and then the Place of the Midst with the holy baptism and the seals. Above that is the Ogdoad, the Places of the Right, and the Treasure of the Light with twelve Saviors and emanations of the seven voices, the five trees, and the amens. Above that is the Ennead and the place of those who have received the Gnosis. Finally, above all else is the Pleroma.
The geography of hell also predominates. Amente, an Egyptian word meaning hell, is used in Gnostic and Hermetic books to describe a kingdom landscaped with abysses, populated by demons and ruled by the great demon, Sacla. Abadon is one of the angels of the abyss. In this layered architecture of hell are abysses of various depths, the deepest being the most terrible place of punishment and adjustment.
Each person is said to have two spirits; the spirit of truth and the spirit of perversity. Truth comes from the Source of Light, and perversity comes from the Abyss of Darkness. Those who walk in the light and practice righteousness are under the dominion of the Prince of Light. Those who walk in the way of Darkness are ruled by the Angel of Darkness. Within a person these forces wage war for the human soul.
- The counterfeiting spirit is the third part of the make-up of the soul, with spirit and matter the other two. The counterfeiting spirit grows in the child by carnal nourishment. After death, it bears witness against the soul for all the sins it has made it commit. The counterfeiting spirit is also called the Additional Soul, who weighs one down and drags one into sin. The counterfeiting spirit is subject to the influence of the Archons of Fatality, who originally placed it there when the spirit descended the spheres to human birth. This negative attribute combats the action of the Light and fights against the Divine Spark which is also in a person. As the Divine Spark works to uplift the person to truth, knowledge and wisdom, the counterfeiting spirit tries to drag the person into sin and degradation. This concept is of Persian origin and is part of the microcosm/macrocosm doctrine.
The concept of the counterfeiting spirit is found in The Second Book of Hermas, called his Commands, composed before 210 CE, by Hermas, brother to Pius, bishop of Rome. This book was considered righteous by the heresiologists Ireneus, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and Athanasius, and was read aloud in churches. The book describes the duel of the angel of righteousness with the angel of iniquity.
This is a concept we are still very familiar with, the idea that sits on the right shoulder an angel trying to lead us to the light and sits on the left shoulder a devil trying to lead us to corruption. I would suggest that in many cases I have witnessed, the devil is winning out. I think it must be because of all the sweet treats it offers as reward for bad doing. Most of us have a sweet tooth, although this theory of mine is not mentioned anywhere in the Gnostic literature I have read. Guess they overlooked it.
- A supernal power that begot seven androgynous offspring. The males are Jealousy, Wrath, Tears, Sighing, Suffering, Lamentation, Bitter Weeping. The females are Wrath, Pain, Lust, Sighing, Curse, Bitterness, Quarrelsomeness. In early Common Era Gnostic thought, death is the release from the prison of matter and the irreversible moment of transformation from one stage and experience of existence into another. After death, the soul ascends the path taken from spiritual existence to birth, when the soul fell into the temporal world of fatality and time.
Whenever I read Tarot cards, I can always tell if the Death card is coming up so I remind the person I'm reading for not to panic when they see that card because it isn't what it seems. Then I turn over the card and sure enough there it is. And it really isn't what it seems. I like the Gnostic take on death because they see it as far more meaningful an event that we usually do as the absolute end of life. Gnosticism sees it as the beginning of a new kind of existence, one without a physical body and worth rejoicing on account of that, and also the return to Source - the pre-life dimension.
We fear death more than anything else, even more than stroke or cancer or Alzheimer's, and we see every disease as dreadful not just because it is a disease but because we fear it's the path that leads straight to death. Today, a man on my floor in the building died and had been there for several days before anyone knew it. When I opened my door to go downstairs I wondered what that awful smell was, like a dead racoon, and when I turned the corner and saw the policeman sitting on a bench in front of the elevator writing his report, I then knew what the awful smell was. I wonder if we would fear death less if it emitted the smell of roses, or perhaps if accompanying the horrible event, a sudden flock of blue butterflies appeared out of nowhere. Would we then be less fearful of it? I think probably so.
I wonder if the Powers That Be, Whoever They Be, could be persuaded to perhaps change the circumstances surrounding death so that butterflies and roses were involved but I would guess not. In actuality, the decomposition that begins at the moment of death, and that leads to that awful smell, is perfectly natural and in fact makes total sense. Everything that is in our body keeping us alive all of a sudden takes on a new purpose when we die and becomes the process which begins our spiritual return to Source and, paralleling that, our physical return to source - organic matter. If only it didn't smell so bad. The good/bad news is that, being dead, we can't smell it. And maybe that's the perfect logic behind it. What difference does it make how bad it smells if we're dead and can't smell it?
"For if only words which bear testimony were effecting salvation, the whole world would endure this thing and would be saved." (The Testimony of Truth, Gnostic papyri)
- Thirty-six ten degree divisions of the zodiac. Egypt had a mystical astrology which included fantastic figures of decans, borrowed by Hellenistic astrology and all the middle ages of the east and west. Pharaonic astrology lent visages to the constellations and the decans. Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius was concerned mainly with the 36 decans and the parts of the body ruled by them. The Book of Pistis-Sophia describes the mysterious seals imprinted by decans on the hands, skull and rest of the body during its formation. The god of the 7th heaven is surrounded by archangels, decans and angels. Decanates are phases of 10 degrees of each sign of the zodiac.
"The lamp of the body is the mind." (The Dialogue of the Savior, Gnostic papyri)
- The monastery of the abbot Palamun near the cliff tombs of Gebel et-Tarif where the Gnostic manuscripts were found. The manuscripts were very likely transcribed from Greek into Coptic at this Gnostic monastery. The monks of Palamun were hermits, considered Prophets, who led lives of strict asceticism. By withdrawing from the social world with all its distractions, and by becoming the solitary ones, they could gain the mystical and spiritual experience necessary to light the way for others.
"There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world." (Words of Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas, Gnostic papyri)
- A lost Ophite book diagramming their cosmogony. This work may have been a source for the diagrammatic outline of the Cabala Tree of Life (left). According to the Diagram, in the beginning is the infinite abyss and rising from there had been an infinite light and Father of all, the First Man (Kether). From him emanated a thought, the Son of Man (Chokmah), and then was emanated a feminine principle, the Holy Spirit, the First Woman, Mother of the Living (Binah). From these three and highest powers was born Christ (Tiphareth). In the far depths below them were elements of chaos and the abyss, water and darkness. Out of the waters of the abyss arose the androgyne Sophia (Malkuth) who fell down as far as the waters beneath, where matter clung to her and weighed her down. The strength of the light above her helped her raise herself up, where, outstretched, she forms the visible heavens and Horos, the Limit.
Sophia gives birth to a son from whom six others are born. The seventh son, Ialdabaoth, is filled with a desire for matter and produces a serpent, the same serpent who coaxed Adam and Eve in Paradise to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The serpent is then cast down to earth where, in imitation of his father, he produces six sons who, together with himself, make up the seven devils (Qlippoth) who are ceaselessly at war with the human race - Adam and Eve - who are also cast down. In this cosmogony, as in the cabalistic texts, salvation occurs when Sophia, the dew of light, is reunited with the Father above.
According to Celsus, the esoteric Ophite Diagram contains a diagram of ten spheres circumscribed by one large sphere. The manuscript is filled with references to the Tree of Life, to re-ascent to the spiritual realms, and to metaphysical doors that open automatically. Mentioned are spheres within spheres, smaller spheres overshadowed by larger spheres, and barriers shaped like a double-axe. It could be conjected that 'barrier' is the symbolic meaning of the double-axe sword in Minoan art. Everywhere there is the Tree of Life and a resurrection from the tree.
Ptolemy, one of the greatest astronomers and geographers of ancient times, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, about 150 CE, described the outer world as being ten spheres circumscribed by one large sphere, just like that of the inner world of the Diagram. The Cabala Tree of Life is said to illustrate realities of both inner and outer worlds. All of these, the Cabala Tree of Life, possibly the Diagram of the Ophites, and the world-view of Ptolemy originate from some common, more ancient, source.
- In antiquity, this constellation is identified as the axis of the world because 4000 years ago its star, Alpha, represented the North Pole. The axis has now shifted to Polaris of the Little Bear, our present Pole Star. The Dragon is called "Teli" in the Sepher Yetsira. Teli, sometimes described an having seven heads, is called the Great Serpent of Evil. The names and crowns on the seven heads of the serpent are those of the Edomite Kings, the descendants of Esau, who sold his birthright to his brother. The Edomite Kings symbolize chaos and injustice.
In the Sepher Yetsira the Dragon, Teli, is indispensable to the order of the world, so long as he keeps to his place. He is a great servant whose head reaches high above the earth and into the abyss. Teli turns the spheres (planets) from east to west and north to south. Without him, there would be no will to produce any created thing. This is the mystery of Paradise and the fall of man. As long as the good and the evil were linked together on the tree, Teli kept his place. When the harmony of the opposites on the tree was disturbed, Teli (identical to the Qlippoth) rose up to usurp Paradise, and Adam and Eve were cast out, constituting the "Fall of Man."
"Suddenly he revealed himself to them, approaching them in the form of lightning...Because of this, they were afraid and fell down, since they were not able to bear the appearance of the light which struck them...Therefore they fell down to the pit of ignorance which is called 'the Outer Darkness,' and 'Chaos' and 'Hades' and 'the Abyss.'" (The Tripartite Tractate, Gnostic papyri)
- The oldest philosophy on Earth, as old as humanity, and the root of Gnosticism. Ancient Babylon and Persia first elucidated the philosophy of Dualism into a format that was accepted by a population. Platonic dualism stresses the difference between the visible/illusory world and the invisible/real world. Dualism is the philosophy of the cosmic duality of Truth and Error, Above (spiritual) and Below (material), and of the individual duality of body and soul. Paradise is the place of the synthesis of opposites, the state of being where every pair of opposites is united in a perfect sphere of harmony.
Dualism is a sentiment, a profound awareness, which can be awakened in anyone without their ever having knowledge of Gnosticism or ancient Persian and Babylonian cosmogonies. For this reason, a majority of religions are built around this concept of Dualism. Duality is an aspect of the One. Without duality, without opposites to unite, there can be no unity. Without separation, there can be no joy in union. The Manichaeans taught that gnosis amounted to the knowledge of duality, and that attainment of the gnosis causes the glow of the inner light within a person. The Manichaeans taught that the Holy Spirit brings the gnosis.
"When the Holy Spirit came, he revealed to us the way of truth and taught us that there are two Natures, that of the Light and that of the Darkness, separated from each other since the beginning."
Most Gnostics conceived of duality as occurring first as Light and Dark, second as Male and Female, and third as Truth and Error. The ruling powers of Error, Ialdabaoth and the Archons, were ignorant of the existence of the supreme divinity.
"Error is empty, having nothing inside." "When knowledge draws near it, error becomes upset and does not know what to do. From this ignorance comes evil. As soon as God is known, 'ignorance
vanishes of itself, as the darkness vanishes when light appears.' (The Gospel of Truth, Gnostic papyri)
Error, an indirect emanation of the supreme divinity, was not always corrupt, just ignorant of its parentage. In this ignorance, the power assumed itself to be the highest god and ruled with goodness. It was not until the proud power realized there were higher powers that it set itself upon its present course of corruption. Even a divinity can fall from grace when guilty of ignorance and pride, two qualities leading straight to corruption. And when that divinity falls, so do its dominions.
It was this concept of duality, among others, that St. Augustine, a Manichaean for nine years, bequeathed to medieval Christianity. Nowhere is evil more magnificently depicted than in the Gothic art and architecture of the middle ages. The Christian Bible accords Satan a kingdom of its own. Satan, characterized as ruler of hell, is a cardboard figure compared to the interesting, intelligent, human, powerful, and corrupt Ialdabaoth of Gnosticism.
When will we ever rise above dualistic thinking? It's so hard to rise above it because it's comforting to so many to adopt it as a resident philosophy. With a left and right side of the brain, we embrace dualism without even thinking about it. But rising above it is what there is to do, or better still, allowing the rest of the world to come be part of the big circle. That is non-hierarchical thinking and as long as we predicate the workings of a universe on a linear model we are always going to be trapped in dualistic thinking. This is why Gnosis is so important and also why we don't get it from historical religions. There just isn't any benefit for them to release us from the bondage of dualism. They make mad buck off it and so, there you go. Life is like the Maze of Daedalus, you have to find your own way out and the only way out is the way you got in, in reverse. Oh, hang on. What if, when you die from one world, you are automatically born into another, either phsically, as before, or nonphysically, and you just keep on trucking that way?
The flayed and stretched-out skins of the Archons form the sky, a mythology similar to that of the Egyptian goddess Nut, whose body forms the sky. Left, this pictograph found on the Phaistos Disk, the inspiration from which this Gnosticism book comes is, I think, from ancient Egypt and the idea of the goddess Nut. Eventually, after some transformations in which it becomes the Golden Fleece sought after by Jason and the Argonauts, this idea becomes the theory of the Archons forming the sky with their stretched-out skins (imnsho).
Barbelo | Bardeson of Edessa | Baruch | Basilides | Behemoth | Book of Archangels | Book of Buried Pearls | Book of the Cave of Treasure
Serpent-Demons, "No way."
Magician, "Remember how Solomon stored you in those bronze vases way back when? Well, get ready."
Serpent-Demons, "Oh God, no! We'll do as you say!"
Cain | Cainites | Carpocrates | Cathars | Celsus | Chaos | Chenoboskion Manuscripts | Christianity | Cosmogony of the Gnostics | Counterfeiting Spirit
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Copyright Notice - Disk of the World - Text and images copyrighted March 21, 1993-2025, Claire Grace Watson, B.A., M.S.T., U.S. Copyright and under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, All rights reserved. No part of this web page may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
