Gnosticism
Gnosis
YHVH and the Serpent
Gnostic concepts and terms
- Monad
- Pleroma
- Archons
- Sophia
- Demiurg
- Daemon
John the Baptist
Gnostic creation myths
Gnosis
Gnosticism is a school of philosophy, who used the greek term 'Gnosis', for a specific kind of mystic knowledge (inner knowledge, higher, direct knowledge of God). The movement arose in the 1st and 2nd century ad, contemporaneous with the first writings of the New Testament, described by Iranaeus as gnostikos. The word 'gnosticism' is only used in 17th century. 'Gn' is also in the word 'gene', knowledge is stored in DNA. One of the meanings of the G inside the masonic square and compass, symbol of sexual union, is gnosis (one can only gain knowledge and wisdom if male and female are in balance). Knowledge of God is not obtained from an external source, but through the knowledge of self, exploring the inner world (theme of Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz).
YHVH and the serpent (1st and 2nd group of slavemasters)
The first book of the Old Testament, the
book of Genesis contains a contradiction, an enigma, the problem of
origin of good and evil. The evil serpent seduces humans into sensual
pleasure. Christianity points the finger of blame to humans, especially
Eve for eating of the tree of knowledge but doesn't explain the origin
of evil, why a loving almighty God created a
tempting, evil serpent. It describes how Adam 'knew' his wife, giving
knowledge a sexual connotation. The gnostics considered the serpent as
good- eating from the tree of knowledge was not a sin, but a way of
liberating themselves.
In gnosticism the world is evil, created
by evil god- YHVH, an angry jealous god, who
told them not to eat from the tree to keep them in spiritual darkness.
The serpent people who worship the serpent of genesis were called
Ophites by Hyppolitus of Rome. Cainites and Ophidians started
worshipping the fallen angels, Lucifer the
serpent and Cain the child of Eve and Lucifer.
In their view a lower, evil creator god , YHVH of the Old testament,
Elohim of Genesis has created the material world as a mistake, a trap
and has trapped our divine spark (our intellect and spirit, our true
self ) in the material world. It has to be liberated through gnosis (to
reach our home, the higher realm).
Consciousness/God was seen as one point (male principle) in the middle of a circle (female principle), which is the zodiac: the word 'angel' derives from the angles from a circle. The constellation Snakeholder (Ophiuchus) was seen as the Golden Gate, a stargate for DNA activation, a door for spiritual rebirth, reuniting with trinity mother goddess m, the 13, in the middle of the 12 zodiac signs. The 12 disciples + Christ (Ophiuchus) = 13 zodiac signs.
Ophiuchus (Sophie or Isis, higher octave
of Scorpio, ego death ) depicts the Snakeholder, in Sumer Enki, in Egypt
Imhotep, in Greece Asclepios (son of Apollo, killed by Zeus for bringing
healing herbs, secret to immortality to humans), in Rome Mithras, in
Christianity Christ, wrestling and getting control of the serpent.
Ophiuchus has his foot on Scorpio, this represents Christ walking on
water (Scorpio being a water sign). Scorpio is the sign of death and
rebirth and is the only sign with three symbols. 13th cranial nerve
(terminal nerve, nerve zero, gate to oneness, the one eye, connected to
the trinity thalamus- pineal- pituary) connected to the 13th tribe, the
Tribe of Dan, with special DNA.
Ea (Enki), Sea or waters is a gnostic symbol for the world of matter or
of darkness into which the divine has sunk.
Knowledge or gnosis has a kabbalistic meaning, the hidden 11th sphere Da'ath, sexual knowledge. Like all spheres it is a connected to a planet, in this case Pluto and the star Sirius.
The apple, like the pentagram is a symbol of Venus. The eating of the apple is the taste of sensual pleasure, orgasm, the riding of the Kundalini serpent.
Gnostic concepts and terms
- Monad.
God is known as the Monad, the One (Neo is the One in 'The Matrix'). God
is the high source of the Pleroma, the region of light. The various
emanations of God are called æons. According to Hippolytus, this view
was inspired by the Pythagoreans (I Am the Python), who called the first thing that came
into existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the numbers,
which begat the point, begetting lines, etc. immovable, invisible,
intangible, ineffable; commonly, 'he' is seen as being hermaphroditic.
The Monad is the self, the core who we are, center of field of
awareness. A human being consists of a self - soul (causal body)
-personality (mind heart body).
- Pleroma ( 'fullness', life force ) refers to the
totality of God's powers, the All (Pan), the universe, in Kabbalism
Kether, the Crown, emanating from the Ain Soph (eye of Sophia, the Great
Oz), symbolized by a full circle, the moon, zero. The heavenly pleroma
is the center of divine life, a region of light 'above' our world,
occupied by spiritual beings such as aeons (eternal beings, players) and
sometimes Archons. The mythical light of Kether, pleasure paradise,
eden=Roma, the dome of Jupiter, in modern times the Fuller dome,
Hollywood, internet. Sophia falls down to world of matter, trapped in a
mirrorball, falls in love with demiurge, to create earth.
(Macroprosopus, the big face vs small face, its mirror image) (black sun of
IHS jesuit emblem, false light of Lucifer)
The aeons are the various emanations of the superior God or Monad.
- Archons (the rulers) is the ancient way of
describing the parasitic consciousness (that thrives in dark matter),
lost their creative potential, ability to reproduce, has no love or
compassion. It infected other civilizations by inserting realities,
hosts who live in lower frequencies, caused the fall of consciousness.
They want earth as the heart, the jewel of their control system,
manipulating thought and emotions to harvest their energy farm. They try
to be part of the 'ascension' process of mankind, who still has creative
potential.
The Ophites believed in 7 archons (7 planets lucifer, 7 chakras):
Yaldaboath (Saturn), IAO (Jupiter), Astaphos (Venus), Sabbaoth (Mars), Adonais (Sun), Elaios (Mercury), Heraios (Moon). The last book of the Pistis
Sophia contains the myth of the capture of the rebellious archons, whose
leaders here appear as five in number. Paraplex, Hekate, Ariouth
(females), Typhon, Iachtanabas (males).
In the bible the third son of Adam and Eve is Seth, who created
offspring that survived the flood. He was said to be the first gnostic
(Set=sat-an). He represents a universal spiritual seed, allowing
knowledge of self.
Human beings were said to be created by the Craftsman.
In addition to a physical body, Valentinians believed that people were composed of three non-corporeal elements: a demonic part (chous), a rational soul (psyche), and a spiritual seed (pneuma). Human beings were divided into three types depending on which of the three natures is dominant within them. That is why Adam and Eve are described as having had three children who they named Cain, Abel and Seth. They are the prototypes of carnal (choic), animate (psychic) and spiritual (pneumatic) human beings (Noah's sons Ham, Japeth, Shem, in Shakespeare's The Tempest: Caliban, Stephano and Trinquilo) mind, body and spirit or desire, reason, spirit (the characters Caliban, Ariel, Prospero represents the Id, Ego, Superego).
To explain this analogy they used the image of a circle, with the
circumference representing the body, the radius representing the mind,
or lower self, and the centre representing the spirit. The body and mind
were seen as transient, while the spirit was seen as eternal and
everlasting, as it was part of God- Hylics, Psychics and Pneumatics,
identifying with body mind or soul, pure consciousness. In kabbalism
there are 3 circles of negative existence above Kether.
The Psychic stage is about coming to know and love all the aspects of
ourselves, both light and dark, and integrating them into one complete
whole. The primary purpose of this is to lessen our identification with
the ego, that part of us that tries to sabotage our growth. 4th stage is
the stage of gnosis, the knower. The initiate works his way up through
the 4 kabbalistic worlds (earth, water, air, fire -the four letters of
HVHY, the four letter word jews used for God)- each stage transition by
baptism, baptism of fire as last stage (symbol of phoenix in the James
Holmes Olympic ritual).
During this process, the initiates would learn to completely disengage
from the mind, or logical thinking self, instead training themselves to
simply observe with a state of detachment. When we are able to do this,
we find, as Shakespeare said, ‘that all the world’s a stage, and we are
merely players’, the illusionary nature of reality. Most of us go
through life acting out a series of roles, without really knowing the
essence of who we are. But before we can lose ourselves, we must first
have known ourselves.
- Sophia. God (the Higher Self) wanted to experience
limitation, broke a piece off himself. The result is Sophia (Σoφíα,
Greek for "wisdom", philosophy=love of Sophia) the shard, symbolized by broken glass- similar to
Osiris who was cut up and had to be pieced together. Sophia descends
into the Abyss (physical reality). The further she descends, the further
from the light she goes, until eventually she is stopped by a power
known as the Limit, or Horus. At this point, her spirit journeys back to
God, while her physical, lower self remains in isolation. In her
confused state, Sophia struggles and grieves, as she longs to be
reunited with her father. In her struggle, she gives birth to, the
Demiurge, who having no other frame of reference, designs his own
kingdom, based on all that he knows about himself. The Demiurge then is
portrayed as more ignorant than evil.
The term Sophia refers to the final and lowest emanation of God. In most if not all versions of the gnostic myth, Sophia births the demiurge, who in turn brings about the creation of materiality. The positive or negative depiction of materiality thus resides a great deal on mythic depictions of Sophia's actions. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamoth in Ptolemy's version of the Valentinian gnostic myth. From the start, the divine power that enters this world is coded as feminine, and the evil rulers of this world experience an erotic attraction to it. Like Christians, a large faction of gnostics had and have a negative view on sex.
In Valentinianism, Sophia always stands absolutely at the center of the
system, and in some sense she seems to represent the supreme female
principle. The higher Sophia resides within the upper world. After
creating a disturbance, where she was cast down by the Demiurge
(Abrahamic God), and after her expiation to him, remained in the upper
world, but her premature offspring, "Sophia Achamoth", was removed from
the Pleroma, and becomes the heroine of the rest of the drama. This
fallen Sophia becomes a world creative power. two heis superior and
inferior mother
- The Demiurg, the Craftsman, Ahriman, El, Satan, and
Yahweh. Yaldaboath (=Samael) arrogant tyrant god (Ed
Harris as world designer Christopher in movie 'the Truman Show').
In Egypt the creator god Chnoubis, later Abraxas, a cockheaded figure
with serpent legs rooster (365 days of the year, Enlil, Saturn). The
demiurg is the guardian, the architect of the matrix (the Architect in
the Matrix reloaded). He is the only angel who was given free will.
Because of his divine nature, because he is a child of Sophia, he remembers the spiritual world and builds the material world as exact replica but full of corruption and decay, proclaimed himself as only god. He and his rulers create humans a spiritual being but it doesnt move, he is tricked by Wisdom into blowing his spirit into the being. he has blown his divine power from the Entirety into the human being. When the human being stands up, the human being is more intelligent and stronger than they are. Wisdom sends Afterthought to hide within the human being and to guide his thinking to the Entirety. wisdom seek to regain divine power that is now in human beings, demiurge tries to stop humans from remembering who they are.
According to the Secret Book, the rulers realize that Afterthought is
within Adam, and they try to take possession of her by creating a female
body in her image. When the rulers take a part of Adam and use it to
make Eve, Afterthought leaves Adam and goes into Eve.
But miraculously, this enables Wisdom to reveal herself more fully to
Adam. Adam then awakens from his forgetfulness and recognizes that his
true self is a fragment of the divine.The rulers next attempt to prevent
Adam and Eve from eating from the tree of —acquaintance with good and
evil—but once again, Afterthought helps them by appearing as an eagle
and encouraging them to eat from the tree. They do so, and their
thinking is raised. Yaldaboath enraged, chases them out of garden of Eden. The demiurg sees wisdom in Eve, tries to rape her, but wisdom is
unharmed. Cain and Abel are born from the rape (desire and reason), with Seth (spirit) as third child.
In Genesis God sends the flood to punish sinful
humanity for mating with fallen angels. when they do gain spiritual
knowledge, lower god sends a flood, an higher god protects Noah (sexual
waters). Jesus as a messenger sent to restore lost gnosis.
Logos – the divine ordering principle of the cosmos; personified as
Christ. Among the Mandaeans, Jesus was considered a mšiha kdaba or
"false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John the
Baptist.
Our apparent identity the Eidolon, not who we really are, but merely an
outer reflection, in modern terms the ego self.
Mother Sophia births several divine beings like Christ, who takes from the Mother her share of divine spirit, then returns to the Fullness (Entirety, pleroma). Next, without divine spirit, the Mother emits a second being, whom Valentinus calls the Craftsman and the Almighty. This is the creator of this world and the God of Genesis. Valentinus, does not emphasize the recovery of stolen divine power. The Gospel of Thomas urged Christians to abstain from the world because it’s not their true home. Valentinus tells his disciples to 'abolish the world'. Instead of a cross, Jesus is nailed to a tree, and on this tree, he becomes 'fruit of the Father’s acquaintance'. People can eat the fruit, the crucified jesus in the Christian ritual of the Eucharist, and they can discover the Father within themselves.
Valentinus uses a book as a metaphor. 'All knowledge is the living book of the living, which is written in the Father’s heart and intellect.' No one can read this book, and no one even dares to pick it up, except Jesus. The Valentinians believed that everything comes from a single ultimate divine being, which they called the Deep and the Father. This world, the fallen aeon creates pneuma (spirit) and psyche (soul), matter (hule or chous) and craftsman god (ihvh). The ultimate father has a female consort Silence.
- Daemon. For Gnostics, the godman
Jesus symbolized the true identity true man, the Daemon, the
immortal Self. Often the eidolon, the incarnate self, is represented in
Gnostic myths by Jesus' 'twin brother' Thomas. (=Dydimus) Eidilon:
image (in Egypt: doll osiris eye idol, icon). The Daemon and Eidolon were
known as the heavenly twins, as they represent both light and dark
aspects of our being . Daemon= deity of the moon, golden age described
as populated with daemons. damian christ, identifying with the image
(lower self, ego-self), kills Sophia. Sophia falls and radiates. In the
gospel of Thomas the Kingdom will come when the outer is the inner, the
bigger the smaller, the man the woman, the image the image. sphere like
universe on the skin inside out, watching a bubble means living in the
bubble. (movie Labyrinth with Jennifer
Connelly, mirrorball eye, the lens through which we see reality)
The picture of Sophia, the eidolon, makes Sophia fall asleep. The
appearance of sexes is the consequence of first fall. The demiurge
creates a false Eve, Adam looks for Sophia in reflections of Binah.
The daemon and the eidolon represent the higher and lower self like body and shadow.
One became a gnostic through baptism, experiencing the luminous place, the Entirety. Elchasaite christians even baptised their food. Sirius was seen as the true sun, the true self, renewed and reborn. In the ritual of baptism, the old self is stripped away when one's clothing is removed, and a new self emerges from the baptismal waters like hidden sun from horizon. The initiate is anointed, receives eucharist. Angels were seen as male-matter as female so it meant the return of the derivative female element to the higher male element. A ritual or a symbol of the reunion with one’s true angelic self was called the bridal chamber (the thalamus that works as relay station, the fornax vault contains the pineal). Ultimate salvation is to be the union of the angelic male selves and the human female selves within the Fullness, the ultimate bridal chamber. The baptism was linked to alchemy, the process of blackening and whitening.
Decapitation and headhunting rituals were already performed by the Mayans, Aztecs, rise of sirius, sun behind the sun (subconscious, subliminal will), archetype of hidden god, headless man set-an (libra queen of swords cutting year in two) lion in passive form. kether=head. Sirius, or Set, was the original 'headless one' -the light of the lower region (the South) who was known (in Egypt) as An (the dog), hence Set-an (Satan), Lord of the infernal regions, the place of heat, later interpreted in a moral sense as 'hell'. Sirius was worshipped as John the Baptist as true son, true messiah. associated with the renewal of time cycles. Decapitation stands for ego death, the rise of the real sun, true will.
The god of the New Testament is more
loving and forgiving than the angry god from the Old Testament.
Jesus was said to have paid the price for humanity's sins to the Old
Testament god, and he brought a message of forgiveness and grace.
Therefore, Marcion said, Christians no longer needed the Jewish Bible as
Scripture.
The Valentinian tradition of gnosticism draws a sharp distinction
between the human Jesus and the divine Jesus. The human Jesus was born
the true son of Mary and Joseph. By a special dispensation, his body is
consubstantial with Sophia and her spiritual seed. When he was thirty
years old, he went to John the Baptist to be baptized. As soon as he
went down into the water, the divine Savior, the 'Spirit of the Thought
of the Father', descended on him in the form of a dove (symbol of venus
lucifer, divine love). This is the real "virgin birth" and resurrection
from the dead, for he was reborn of the virgin Spirit.
In Valentinian gnosticism, Mary Magdalene was an
important member of this inner circle. She is seen as an image of the
lower Sophia and is described as Jesus' consort in the Gospel of Philip.
Jesus special relationship with Mary Magdalene is the relationship
between our higher male selves and human female selves (in kabbalism
malkuth). In Gospel of Mary, Savior tells Mary that the human soul will
need to ascend past certain hostile powers, such as Darkness, Desire,
and Ignorance. She came in conflict with other apostles, called
'strange'. She is a derivation of the material world from the passions
of Sophia.
Redemption
According to the Valentinians, people manifest their true nature by
their response to the message of Jesus. Using the parable of the sower
(Matthew 13:1-8), they explain that through Jesus, Sophia sows the
spiritual seed in all who hear the message. In some people the seed
'falls on the path' and they do not respond at all. Such people are
carnal by nature. In others the seed is choked by the thorns which are
worldly concerns (Damian Thorne cain). They are hesitant and are unable
to go beyond the level of rational explanations. Such people are
dominated by their rational element or soul. In others, the seed was
planted "in good earth" and they bear spiritual fruit. Such people are
Gnostic or spiritual Christians.
A figure unique to Valentinian Gnosticism is that of Horos
(the Limiter), related to the Egyptian Horus.
The task of Horos is to separate the fallen Aeons from the upper world
of Aeons. At the same time he becomes a kind of world-creative power,
who in this capacity helps to construct an ordered world out of Sophia
and her passions. He is also called Stauros (cross, taurus king of
pentacles), (Stavros Blofeld). (rose earthly soul + cross divine soul).Speculations about the Stauros are older than Christianity: Plato had
already stated that the World-Soul, the one point consciousness in the
middle of the circle revealed itself in the form of the letter Chi (X),
the figure in the heavens by the intersecting orbits of the sun and the
planetary ecliptic. Since through this double orbit all the movements of
the heavenly powers are determined, so all 'becoming' and all life
depends on it, the World-Soul appears in the form of an X, or a cross
(used by Aryans, Templars, Order of Malta, British Union Jack, Order of
St. John,..).chiro cross px, pointing to Sirius (osiris risen, x=24th
letter).
The cross can also stand for the Aeon on whom depends the ordering and
life of the world, and thus Horos-Stauros appears as the first redeemer
of Sophia from her passions, and as the orderer of the creation of the
world, as a Christian Redeemer. In the Gospel of Peter, the Cross itself
is depicted as speaking and even floating out of the tomb.
The parasitic consciousness that rules earth, has no creativity, it can
only invert so good becomes evil, evil becomes good.
Birth is a sort of death (of the multidimensional self), a fall of
consciousness, fall in a dreamworld. This is the murder mystery of
Osiris/Christ/Sophia/Hiram Abiff, of Eve biting the apple, Persephone
biting a pomegranate, tasting sensual pleasure, after which we lose
innocence and conncetion to the higher world, are expelled from the
garden, fall like the angel lucifer.
The call of Sophia is the question 'who am i ?' (Alice
in Wonderland is asked 'who r you'), which starts the journey of the Fool to look for the answer. He who
searches her, searches in reflections, based on his memory. The third
sphere Binah, connected to Saturn, is the divine mother, compared to a
mirror palace. Dante in his Divine Comedy has Beatrice as guide, divine
wisdom, the Divine Feminine, pictured as a beautiful woman.
The Book of Enoch teaches that the greatest crime that the fallen angels
commit, is teaching humans what takes place in heaven. In Genesis the
serpent promises the fruit of the tree of knowledge will make man a
God.(the promise of Mephistoteles to Faust). The word demon comes from
the greek word Daemon, entities that exist between the world of man and
the world of god, such as Apollo, and extraordinary human beings, such
as Herakles. To the Greeks the daemon was the higher self, guardian
spirit of man. When the d(a)emons were identified with the fallen
angels, they gained the status of utter evil. In grimoires (Lemegeton,
lesser key of Solomon, grimorium verum) these negative aspects of the
self are summoned.
Gnostic creation myths
Forethought or Barbelo is the Invisible Spirit’s thought about itself (universal womb, androgynous), a realm for Gods thoughts, Aeons (Prior Acquaintance, Incorruptibility, Eternal Life, and Truth). Invisible spirit gazes at Barbelo and this gaze begets a luminous spark, which becomes a new Aeon, the anointed one or christ. invisible spirit-barbelo-christ as trinity father- mother-son. 12 aeons, led by the Luminaries (Harmozel, oroaiael, dauethiai, and eleleth) have abstract names that indicate aspects of God, such as Word, Perception, Intelligence, Peace, and Wisdom.
Wisdom (Sophia) the lowest aeon, begins to think her own thoughts,
independent of invisible spirit and creates ugly imperfect being
Yaldaboath. Ashamed, she casts it outside Entirety. A realm of formless
matter, Yaldaboath uses to create the material universe. Because he came
from Entirety, he has a dim memory of what the spiritual world is like
and formed this universe as a kind of replica of it. But because of his
ignorance and the imperfection of matter, the universe we live is like
the spiritual but flawed, full of corruption and decay.
Yaldaboath proclaims itself as the only god. Wisdom-Sophia inspires
Yaldaboath to create humanity and projects a divine image (Elohim 'let
us make man in our image'). First they create a purely spiritual human
being, than material body for the soul-body ( in genesis creation of
humans is narrated twice).
Wisdom persuades Yaldaboath to blow his spirit into the human being.
He breathes his divine power from the Entirety into the human being.
When the the human being is more intelligent and stronger than they are and
Yaldaboath has blown his share of divine power.Y make a body of dirt and
put the spiritual human being into it. The idea is to obscure and
obstruct the human being’s thinking and to prevent him from realizing
his superiority over them. Barbelo sends Wisdom in the form of
Afterthought to hide within the human being and to guide his thinking.
Wisdom seeks to regain divine power that Y has stolen and is now present
in humanity while Y and his rulers try to prevent human beings from
realizing that this power is within them and stop them from worshipping
the higher God. This struggle continues to this day. The rulers realize
that Afterthought is within Adam, and they try to take possession of her
by creating a female body in her image. When the rulers take a part of
Adam and use it to make Eve, Afterthought leaves Adam and goes into Eve.
But miraculously, this enables Wisdom to reveal herself more fully to
Adam. Adam then awakens from his forgetfulness and recognizes that his
true self is a fragment of the divine.
The rulers next attempt to prevent Adam and Eve from eating from the
tree of gnosis acquaintance with good and evil—but once again,
Afterthought helps them by appearing as an eagle and encouraging them to
eat from the tree. They do so, and their thinking is raised. Y is
enraged that adam and eve realize he is not the real god and expels them
from the garden.
Y sees Afterthought and Wisdom is in Eve so tries to rape her. Barbelo
sends divine beings to take wisdom out of eve so Y fails to harm wisdom.
From this rape, cain and abel are born. The desire for sex is from the
rulers but sex is not entirely bad because adam and eve have sex and
beget Seth, symbolic father of all the people with the divine power in
them.
The rulers give Adam and Eve water of forgetfulness and they fall into
oblivion.
In Genesis, God wants to destroy humanity through the flood and Christians accept it as a righteous punishment for the sins of humanity (Moon=Sin). Yaldaboath sends his evil angels to mate with human women. The demiurg controls our decisions through fate, which can operate through the stars. According to the Gnostics, Barbelo has acted through Jesus so humans can liberate themselves from fate, through gnosis.
The ultimate god of the gnostics cannot be seen, they follow a philosophical path, similar to the doctrine of Plato. Erotic love leads to god, a journey of increasingly abstract love (Amor) for beauty (tiferet heart christ). story of the Foreigner (seth) self knowledge as knowledge of god.
Tiferet is the divine core, Christ
consciousness (cc33) gnosis, inner knowing. Osiris/christ has to be re-membered, resurrected.
Sometimes this process ended in self-deification, becoming like Apollo
the rising sun- Antiochos wore the radiate crown of Helios-Apollo.