Aeons, Archons, Angels, or Aliens? A Gnostic Interpretation of Ancient Aliens Theory
Cyd Charise Ropp, Ph.D.
During the lost months of the 2020 shutdown, I spent much of my
time watching the History Channel series "Ancient Aliens." I began with a
skeptical mind, but was soon persuaded by the variety of evidence presented.
Many years earlier I had read Erich von Danikens’ Chariots of the Gods,
so I had the basic outline of ancient alien theory already in my head. I had
also read Whitley Streiber’s Communion when it came out, so I felt I had
a passing familiarity with the concept of alien abductions. But the evidence
presented on "Ancient Aliens" goes far beyond those early revelations. By this
point in time, only a dedicated naysayer could remain completely skeptical.
Here’s the ancient aliens theory: that a variety of aliens
from off-planet have been visiting our earth for thousands, if not millions, of
years. That the stories told around the world by ancient human cultures of gods
descending from the sky and living among them are true histories and not mere
fables. That ancient aliens have given knowledge to humanity, particularly technological
knowledge, to assist in the progress of human culture. That ancient aliens may
have edited our DNA to make us into the modern human form we see today, and
that they are possibly continuing to edit our DNA by means of alien abductions. Moreover, it is even suggested that our
entire ecosystem may have been seeded by aliens from the get-go, including the
placement of our moon to stabilize earth’s axis and to create tidal motion.
I persuaded my brother, Bill, to watch the program with me,
and so it is that we have watched and discussed every episode of their
15-season run that has been rebroadcast over the past couple of years, some
more than once. Yes, many of the stories presented in the series overlap, and
most of the evidence shows up time and again with the same commentary attached,
yet my brother and I have found the repetition helpful in our effort to discern
the truth of various aspects of the ancient aliens claim.
Bill and I are nothing if not open-minded, yet we anchor our
gullibility with an unusually well-developed sense of logic and critical
thinking. As you know, both of us are PhDs with specialties in Philosophy and Rhetoric, and we have both taught critical thinking and logic at universities. So
do not come away with the idea that we uncritically bought every claim hook,
line, and sinker.
We have paid special attention to the question continually
raised by the ancient aliens theorists—were these “gods” of the pre-flood era
merely misinterpreted alien visitors with alien tech? Are the “fallen angels”
of the Book Enoch angels from God, or were they actually ancient astronauts who
moved to earth and occasionally married human women? It is said that the
worldwide flood was sent by God to wipe out the angel-human offspring known as Nephilim.
What were the Nephilim and what God would have wiped out the entire earth and
everyone on it to kill them off, and how is it that some humans were spared by
warnings from “angels”?
As observed by the program’s resident theorists, these types
of stories can be taken as fables or as true histories and, if histories, are
these actually the Biblical God, angels, and the gods of ancient cultures, or
are they actually advanced, off-planet aliens who are apparently engaged in
disagreements over human destiny, with sometimes catastrophic consequences? These are the questions that have occupied
much discussion between Bill and me over the past couple of years, and they
have run on a parallel track to our Gnostic Theology pursuits as we untangle the
differences and origins of archons, aeons, angels, and fallen angels, and the
difference between the God Above All Gods and the God of this world. I am happy
to announce that we have turned a rhetorical corner and landed upon some sound
hypotheses at last. Perhaps you can use our analysis the next time you consider
the role of extra-terrestrials in our world.
I realize that the following memes I’m going to share with
you may sound new and strange unless you have previously studied gnostic
cosmology. If you are new to Gnostic Insights, I encourage you to go to the
GnosticInsights.com website and open the menu tab called “The Gnostic Gospel
Primer.” There you will find a Valentinian Gnostic cosmology based upon the
Tripartite Tractate book of the Nag Hammadi library. These initial eight
episodes lay out in a clear and understandable way the basic cosmology of our
universe and the origins of all things. The story is not difficult to
understand, but it helps to listen to it from the beginning and go in order.
There you will find episodes describing the God Above All Gods, as well as
entities known as Aeons which dwell in a space called the Fullness of God, also
known as the Pleroma. Aeons, by virtue of the fact that they dwell in the
Pleroma, are by definition a type of ET.
This ancient well in Sardinia, Italy, the Santa Christina
well, is said to represent the “keyhole shape” found throughout the ancient
world. To me, it looks like the Pleroma.
Ancient alien theorists speak of ETs directing evolution to create our intelligent hominid species. Ancient alien theorists call into question the mainstream theory of evolution. They rightly point out that this planet of ours has not been around long enough for evolution to have spontaneously bumbled upon our exquisite design. They even call into question the premise that life on earth evolved randomly from a primordial soup into ever-increasing complexity and function. “Pan-spermia” has been proposed as a method by which primitive alien life forms hitchhiked their way across the heavens on asteroids to seed our oceans. According to ancient alien theorists, ETs probably interfered throughout ancient history to promote life on earth, including many interventions in protohumans to direct our upward evolution.
I tend to agree with much of what they say about the
impossibility of Darwinian evolution to achieve our current biosphere. I invite
you to listen to the Gnostic Insights podcast called “Evolution and Conscious
Aeonic Design,” which you can find at the Gnostic Insights.com website menu
under the tab “Complete Episodes Library.” In that episode I call into question Darwinian
evolution in favor of the same sort of planned evolution promoted by the
ancient alien theorists. But where they identify “ETs” as the source, I
identify those ETs as Aeons of the Fullness directing evolution.
Episode Four of the Gnostic Insights Primer describes these
Aeons that came before this universe. The Aeons populate the Fullness of God in
the Pleroma, and they consist of names, places, personalities, powers, and
forces, all arranged in a hierarchy, each of them representing a quality of God
that would come to realization in this cosmos in which we dwell. It is through
their intervention in our universe that evolution occurs to bring about their
vision of our material cosmos. Simply
ascribing evolution to the intervention of flesh and blood ETs merely pushes
back the same ontological problems of random evolution—order cannot arise
spontaneously out of disorder. 52 card pickup never finds the cards stacked in
suits, and endless games of 52 card pickup over billions of years simply cannot
achieve endless results of order from chaos. The physics of entropy always wins
out. No matter how many times you toss the components of life up into the air,
they never assemble themselves into complex working structures on the way down.
What is true for physical evolution is also true of
technological innovation. Ancient alien theorists point out that our most
important technological innovations are often discovered simultaneously by
multiple inventors worldwide. Whether it’s old tech such as language, medicine,
metallurgy, and architecture, or new tech such as radio, relativity theory, and
the telephone, these inventions appear without evolutionary precedent, arriving
fully formed to multiple people, often through dreams and visions. The ancient
alien theorists ascribe these technological innovations to ETs guiding our
development, either through physical manifestation as the benevolent gods of
ancient earth cultures, or nowadays through the transpersonal field or Askashic
record. They suggest the Akashic record is a pre-scripted, computer-type code,
existing in a transdimensional space, that humans are programmed to access as
needed.
Ancient alien theorist include our DNA as a form of proof of
non-evolutionary technological leaps, as our modern human form does not appear
to have evolved from more primitive versions. Yes, there were numerous
protohumans, but they all mysteriously disappeared by the end of the last ice
age, or the time of the great flood.
I agree that there is a transpersonal field, which is the
repository of our collective memes—all that were, are, and will be. But I
ascribe this transpersonal field to the divine dimension of the mind of the
Universal Unit of Consciousness as described in my Simple Explanation blog and
book. And I would agree that we are triggered to access this field as needed.
It happens all the time in our daily lives for all sorts of information. Same
thing holds true for inventors who see a need and whose contemplation leads
them into the field for solutions.
The ancient alien theorists suggest that it is our
familiarity with the field that is leading us in the trans-human direction of
hooking our human brains up to a computer-mediated “cloud” so we can access
information on demand and even download our complete consciousness, thereby
achieving non-material immortality. Here I strongly disagree. I would say that
the force behind such a drive for incorporeal immortality has two motivations. One
motivation is our innate spiritual connectivity to the Fullness of God, the
Son, and the Father, which promises the continuation of our immortal souls
after death. The other motivation is from the other side of the coin—that of
the archonic desire to achieve god-like status, including omniscience and
immortality, without the benefit of God’s will and blessing. In other words,
it’s replay of the presumptuous thought that brought about the Fall of Logos.
It seems clear to me that our tech billionaires who are leading the way with
transhumanism and space exploration are themselves personally playing out the
Fall of Logos in their attempt to play God.
Again, if you have not listened to the Gnostic Insights
Primer episodes, you will find a full episode devoted to the Fall of Logos and
its cosmic consequences. You will find these episodes at the Gnostic
Insights.com website under the menu tab labeled “The Gnostic Gospel Primer.”
Ancient alien theorists suggest that ancient astronauts
developed our planet in order to create a sentient species fit to house the Ba,
or soul, as described by ancient Egyptians. They theorize that ETs created
humans to be vessels for souls, which implies that without their intervention,
creatures do not have souls. Of all the theories proposed, this one strikes me
as completely off-base. I would say that all creatures have souls. According to
Gnostic cosmology, all creatures are the fruit of the Aeons. The Aeons sent
their fruit into creation in order to populate creation with the Fullness of
God. This fruit is called the Second Order of Powers, and we are all Second
Order Powers, from bacteria on up to humans and beyond. If the universe is
indeed populated by extra terrestrial life forms, then these, too, would be
Second Order Powers because all life forms are. And all of us Second Order
Powers possess souls.
There is, however, one type of entity in the universe that
does not possess a soul, because these entities are not creatures from the
Fullness of God. These entities are called archons. Archons are the inverted
shadows of Aeons. Archons are incorporeal waves of entropy that emanate from
the Demiurge. Archons are not "fallen angels" because they never were
angels. We know these archons as demonic forces that frustrate and bedevil us in
order to feed off of our negative energy. The world's bad habits and cruelty
are shepherded by archons. They are the forces the Second Order Powers were
sent to do battle with in a never-ending war for dominion of the cosmos. For
more on this topic, listen to Episode Five of The Gnostic Gospel Primer called
"The Deficiency and Boundary."
Knowing what we know about archons, we can identify the
non-physical entity known as Satan as an archon. Satan is also called The
Accuser, and he is the source of temptation and illness, and the head of an
army of demons or archons. Traditional theology identifies Satan as a fallen
angel who rebelled against God because God elevated humans above angels. I
would reinterpret this myth in a Gnostic way by saying that the God against
whom Satan rebelled was not the Father God Above All Gods, but rather the God
of this world, who is called the Demiurge in Gnostic texts. It is the Demiurge
that Satan sprang from and it is the Demiurge with whom Satan struck the wager
concerning the fate of Job. Satan is also credited with advancing human
technology.
The archons appear to be very interested in advancing human
technology. I suspect this is because it is easier to distract, delude, and even
destroy humanity via technology than with any other means. Not only war
technology and weaponry, but more benign appearing helpful technologies. I'm
sure I don't need to tell you how destructive and divisive the internet has
become through the innovation of social media. And how appealing and
irresistible television has become! Then there is the realm of virtual reality—a
realm controlled by archons who want nothing more than to delude and ensnare
human souls. This type of delusion and division is the bread and butter of
archons. So, when ancient aliens theorists point out the leaps made in
technological innovation by the influence of incorporeal beings, I suspect
archons at play.
Which brings us to angels. Angels are described as beings
who appear to be trans-dimensional. By that I mean that sometimes they appear
as physical humans and sometimes they appear as incorporeal light beings. They
can physically touch humans, as when Peter was awakened in his prison cell by
an angel's touch, yet the same angel can pass through solid walls, as recounted
in Acts 12:7. It is said that angels were sent to earth to protect and assist
humans, and 70% of Americans believe they have a guardian angel. In Gnostic
cosmology, it appears that angels are a type of being created by the Fullness
of God, specifically for the benefit of humans, to assist them in the
never-ending war against the archons. Angels are possibly aeonic personalities
that have come from the Pleroma to assist. Therefore, when ancient alien
theorists tell of incidents where non-corporeal beings appear as light forms to
interfere in a positive manner with human technology, these are angels. Examples
of angelic interference include the occasions where mysterious forces have
appeared above U.S. ICBM sites and disabled nuclear-armed missles in their
silos. These beings have also appeared outside the windows of the International
Space Station and U.S. space missions to the moon.
So far we have identified Aeons, archons, and angels as
entities who insert themselves into human affairs. But what of actual
off-world, flesh and blood ETs from other planets and galaxies? Do they really
exist? Yes, the remainder of encounters appear to be ETs. Ancient alien
theorists propose that in the days before the flood, "gods" lived
side by side with humans and occasionally took human women as sexual partners.
These ETs claimed to have come from the star systems of Sirius and Orion in
particular. These ETs had advanced technologies that they shared with the
humans around them. They designed the ancient monolithic structures, including
the pyramids found around the earth on every continent. They were the ones who
used their tech to levitate gigantic boulders into place in stone structures
all over the earth. Many of them appeared to have elongated skulls and green or
blue skin. Some of them had reptilian, birdlike, or insectoid features, and
some appeared to have non-human heads of canines, lions, and other animals. The
Book of Enoch reports that some ETs mated with human women and produced
monstrous offspring known as the Nephilim.
Enoch says that the great flood unleashed to cleanse the earth of these
hybrid abominations, as they were not part of God's plan for humanity. After
the flood, the ETs on earth seem to have retreated or gone into hiding.
Occasional modern sightings of strange humanoid creatures living deep
underground, under the ocean, or under the ice of Antarctica, hint at their
possible continued presence.
Just as we are planning to do, it is likely that ETs sent
out their own exploration and colonization missions, and that some of them came
to planet earth. They probably had the same motivations that our own tech
billionaires have—preservation of their genetic line against future
catastrophes married to the archonic drive to be as gods and terraform worlds
to their own ends. There is also pictorial evidence that some of these ETs may
have been robots given the task of seeking out and terraforming worlds. It is
also quite possible that the civilizations that sent out the ET missions have
already destroyed themselves through plague or warfare.
Finally, let us turn to the question of the ultimate ET:
God. Who and What Is He?
Episode Two of the Gnostic Insights podcasts describes the
attributes of the Father, also known as the God Above All Gods. Briefly, the
Father is the Illimitable, Eternal, Omniscient Consciousness that underlies our
reality. The Father does not look or sound like anything. He doesn’t hold conversations the way we do. The
Father is undifferentiated consciousness itself. This Consciousness is the
ground state from which all subsequent events emerge.
Possibly the most egregious heresy in Gnosticism is the
proposition that the God of the Old Testament, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the
Jealous God of the Hebrews, Yahweh, or Jehovah, is not the Father on High that
Jesus called Father. The God of this earth is known to Gnostics as the
Demiurge, and He arose as a result of the Fall of Logos the Aeon due to Logos’s
presumptuous thought. To learn more about this topic in depth, please listen to
Episode Four of the Gnostic Insights podcast.
The God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, is more tangible than
the Father Above. Yahweh has discussions with humans as well as with entities
such as Satan. He uses language and engages in prolonged conversations, as when
He gave precise building instructions for the ark to Noah. He even makes wagers
over Job and appears to change his mind regarding the sacrifice of Isaac. When people refer to God as an old white man
with a beard, it is the image of the Demiurge to which they refer, not the
undifferentiated consciousness of the Father. This Demiurge character is the
God Yahweh, the God of this world and the God of the Hebrews especially. It is
the Demiurge that has a special relationship with the children of Abraham.
Yahweh takes care of the Hebrews when they pray to Him and follow His rules,
and He has arranged a variety of cataclysms, plagues, and floods, to preserve
their particular line of DNA. Yahweh favors the Hebrews in battles.
Therefore, it seems to me that when ancient alien theorists refer to God as having sent the world wide cataclysm and flood that wiped out the Nephilim and all but about 3,000 surviving humans, it is the work of the Demiurge calling himself God. This is the jealous God who wants sole control of the earth and the God who is angered by uppity archons like Satan and other "fallen angels." This is the God who wants Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on the mountain as a show of faith. But it was a true angel of the true Father Above who stayed Abraham's hand and saved Isaac's life. It is the Demiurge who tired of his people's captivity in Egypt and sent the plagues so the Pharoah would release the Hebrew slaves and who parted the seas to make good their escape. But it was true angels from the true God who protected the Hebrews during their 40 year trek through the desert, guiding them with their light bodies and feeding them with mana.
Well, there you have it. Aeons, archons, angels, or aliens? I hope these distinctions help you sort out the ancient aliens theory.
