Here is a link to an Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio program I will be appearing on this Thursday. I'll be among the guests who will be speaking at the upcoming Astro Gnosis Conference to be held on March 20th. We will be discussing our upcoming presentations and other interesting topics.
My Simple Explanation followers may like to find out how the Gnostic Gospel has updated and informed the Simple Explanation cosmology.
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.I wrote the following article for my other blog, A New Gnostic Gospel. I know that many of you here at the Simple Explanation blog are more interested in toruses and science than religion. I am now embarking on a work that combines both the Simple Explanation with the Gnostic Gospel. Both philosophies complement each other and neither of them contains information that contradicts the other. Most of the Gnostic articles will continue to be posted over at the Gnostic Gospel blog. But I want you to see for yourself the overlap with your understanding of the Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything, so I'm posting today's article to both blogs. Enjoy!
It is often said that there is no single Gnostic text or
philosophy. While it is true that there is much diversity in the texts of the
Nag Hammadi over details, there is a certain set of core beliefs that various
Gnostics should be able to agree upon. Below is a diagram taken from my Simple
Explanation blog and book that applies just as well to Gnostic beliefs. Let me
explain--
The diagram above was designed with the Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything in mind. However, it works equally well as a Gnostic diagram that explains how our universe is put together. This article will define the words that both philosophies use in an attempt to clear up any confusion of terms. If you are already familiar with the Simple Explanation, you can use this article to understand basic Gnostic belief. On the other hand, if you are a reader of the Nag Hammadi texts, you may find this diagram useful for sorting out our cosmogony.
The limitless consciousness the Gnostic books call the Father, or the God above Gods, is called the Metaverse in Simple Explanation terms. This originating consciousness is the One with no thought that forms the basis of all that follows. The diagram above places the Father/Metaverse outside of the triangle. The Father is the ground state behind the diagram, out of which everything else arises.
The Gnostic cosmogony diverges from the Simple Explanation here to discuss entities that exist outside of our universe, whereas the Simple Explanation is only about our universe and so does not attempt to characterize specific occurrences prior to that. The two philosophies will synch back up once creation kicks in.
The Aeons are facets that emerge from the Son, each different from one another. The Aeons are like individual rays of the sun.
The Gnostic gospels are religious books, and their rendition of these events carries implicit religious moral judgments. The Aeon who left to strike out on its own is said to have "Fallen." This "Fall" is the original Fall referenced in the Bible, not the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden, although it may be possible to consider the Garden as another word for the Paradise dreamt by the Fullness, and a reference to the same Fall as that of the Aeon. In my view, the Fall represents the rise of the Ego, as this Aeon acted on its own presumption with its own motives, apart from the will of the Father and the Fullness.
Here is where we catch back up with the Simple Explanation cosmogony. The Simple Explanation characterizes the Fall as simply the Metaverse having a Thought:
Then consciousness had a thought. This multidimensional Metaverse still lacked space and time but it now quivered with limitless mathematical potential unfolding into countless dimension. In a twinkling, our entire universe was imagined in the fullness of its complexity, from the tiniest quanta through the greatest astral body; every animal, vegetable, and mineral; every element. Every thing and every function.
Once the Metaverse had a particular thought, thought became an object in the great sea of no-thought... On this day that time began, consciousness wrapped itself around our universe, forming a border between us and infinity. Mind took on a shape.
As I said, Gnostic texts differ in their identification of
the Fallen Aeon as either Sophia or Logos, although they seem to agree the
Fallen produced this universe and its ruler. Once the Aeon fell, its abilities
and plans spread throughout the contained space and created our universe. It is
said that the Fallen Aeon was horrified by what was created and it retreated to
the Fullness to figure out how to rectify the result of the Fall. Within the
Pleroma a plan was hatched to deal with it.
Away from the Pleroma, contained within this newly formed
space and time, a separated entity with all knowledge of this place became
aware of itself. This entity thought it was the prime parent of the universe
because it was not aware of the Pleroma or the Father and Son. This creator-god
is called by Gnostics "the Demiurge." The Old and New Testaments call
it the creator-god "Yahweh." One of the great heresies of Gnosticism
is our identification of the creator-god as product of the Fall rather than the
"God above gods," or the true "Father."
Because it is the result of the Fall and unsanctioned by
both the Father and the Pleroma, the universe produced by the Demiurge is
devoid of life. It is called the "Deficiency." The Deficiency is
populated by small, lifeless things--things that are "shadows" of
those that live in the Fullness. It is also populated by forces and
principalities that arose from and were left behind by the Fallen Aeon. The
Simple Explanation, being science and math based rather than religious, does
not identify this universe as Fallen in the negative sense of being deficient.
It is merely limited by localized monads replacing the omnipresent
Metaverse.
Looking at the hierarchical diagram above, the Demiurge sits
near the bottom, producing the minerals of our universe. As the Demiurge is
contained away from the Father/Metaversal consciousness, it lacks the life
force and love that characterize the Father. The Demiurge can only produce
lifeless matter--"mud." The Demiurge is able to animate some of the
mud by means of the forces and principalities contained within the Border. A
good example of animated mud is viruses. Viruses are not alive, yet they are
amazingly complex molecules that are able to carry out far-ranging search and
destroy missions. It is also thought that the Demiurge produces lifeless
entities out of pure force rather than material. These disembodied entities are
called "archons." Archons are the offspring and servants of the
Demiurge.
At this point in the story, many Gnostic texts explain how
the Demiurge mated with the life-force carried by Sophia to produce living
creatures out of the mud. Again, this is a religious description of the process
of bringing consciousness to matter. Sophia is given the title of the Mother of
Creation, bringing life to the universe. Her mission was authorized; it was the
plan cooked up to redeem creation from the Fall.
The Simple Explanation identifies Sophia as the Universal
Unit of Consciousness. Sophia resides on the outside of the fractal border that
holds the universe apart from the Metaverse. As such, she is part of the
toroidal flow, and it is this flow that pushes the life-force and consciousness
out through the zero-point field at the center of the universal torus. In
Gnostic terms, Sophia rides upon the outside of the Border, which I identify as
"the waters" of ancient texts. Sophia's "face" “presses
against the waters" and can be seen by the Demiurge, who is contained within
the Border.
The ancient Gnostic texts say that Sophia mated with the
Demiurge to produce the living creatures of our universe. Another way of saying
this is that dead matter is imbued with life and consciousness at the point
where it emerges from the zero-point field at the center of the Universal UC.
Every living thing has its life force attached to the "mud" of its
body at the point of conception. It is the consciousness given by the Father
through the actions of Sophia melding with the otherwise dead material produced
by the Demiurge that brings life to our universe. This is how "mud"
becomes "meat." It is through this process of populating the universe
with consciousness that the Fall and the Deficiency will be rescued.
The Simple Explanation puts it this way:
As the torus of our universe expanded, over and over and
over again, echoes of the Universal Unit of Consciousness attached
themselves to the particles streaming out of the Big Bang, each of a Unit of
Consciousness (UC) with a particular, localized, point of view.
Gnostics can use this fresh insight to figure out other
aspects of Gnostic belief, such as the relative strength and power of entities
created by the Demiurge, versus entities imbued with the life force of the
Fullness of God, that being the true Father and the God above the god of this
material sphere. It is said that the life forms of this universe are the Second
Order Powers sent to do battle with the forces of the Deficiency. We have been
assured that the power that is in us is greater than the power that is in the
world. I hope this article and the hierarchical diagram helps you to realize
this.
Blessings. Onward and upward!
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| The moment the Son was formed, he was no longer alone. For not only the Son, but the ALL arose at once. The ALL immediately appeared as the offspring of the Son, because the Son could not help himself from bringing others into existence, even as he was brought into existence by his Father. The Son and the Father are One, and the Father's creative Holy Spirit flows through the Son. With the birth of the ALL, the Son became a Father as well. |
Welcome to the Simple Explanation blog. If you are at all curious about Gnostic Christianity, I have just written and posted an article explaining the role of Christ in Gnosticism. Please pop on over to my Gnostic blog and take a read by clicking here. This article is suitable for any Christian or Gnostic, particularly if you doubt the truth of the other side.
Here are the first couple of paragraphs from the article:
Gnosticism is the forerunner of
the modern Christian faith. As such, a better understanding of the figure of
the Christ is essential to understanding both Gnosticism and Christianity. The
cosmology outlined below was well-known to Jesus and his original followers,
but was cut out of Christianity about 1,700 years ago by the Nicene Council at
the urging of the Pope and the Roman Emperor. Fortunately, a trove of 13
ancient Gnostic texts was discovered in 1945, dating back to the origins of
Christianity. This collection is known as the Nag Hammadi codices.
Because this theology was
subtracted from orthodox Christianity, many of the ideas of Gnostic cosmology
sound odd and unfamiliar to modern church-goers. Some of the ideas even sound
heretical at first glance, due to their unfamiliarity. Yet the theology
contained in these early scriptures make sense of so many puzzling aspects of
Christian faith that they must be reexamined. So, if you will bear with me, I
will explain in very simple terms the key points of Gnostic belief. I am
confident that once you understand Gnostic Christianity, you will better
understand your relationship with God.
According to Gnostic cosmology as
laid out in the Nag Hammadi, we humans and all other forms of life on
earth, from bacteria and eukaryotes on up, are the "fruit" of the
Pleroma and Logos. We Second Order Powers find ourselves locked in a
never-ending battle for dominion over the earth with forces that were
generated as a result of the Fall. Due to the law of mutual combat, we have
forgotten our origin in the Fullness and our mission to bring love
and harmony to creation, and have instead taken on many of the characteristics
of the shadows of the Deficiency.
To finish the article, click here.
I just posted a nifty article on my other blog, titled "Our Aeonic Inheritance." If you're curious about human nature and Gnostic cosmology, you may find the article interesting.
Here's a sample from "Our Aeonic Inheritance," by Cyd Ropp
In my imagination, the Pleroma sits in its hierarchy like a pyramidal-shaped slime mold. The fascinating thing about slime molds is that they are comprised of single-celled organisms that work as a fully integrated whole, moving as one, simultaneously sharing information and nutrition across the entirety. “All for one and one for all” is their motto. Like the slime mold, the Pleroma is both a singular unit as well as a collection of individuals with one mind, singing one song, dreaming one dream.
The dream of the Pleroma is that place we humans recognize as Paradise. In this dream of theirs, there are the “figures” which preceded us and our world. The Pleroma dreams of our entire cosmos, including everything and everyone in it, with all of the figures imagined in the same manner a human filmmaker imagines the characters and settings of a movie long before the stage is built, characters cast, and the play enacted and filmed. And the way the Paradise is constructed and populated is by the aeons (Totalities) combining their abilities and talents to make up novel combinations of themselves.
According to the Tripartite Tractate, we are the “living figures” that represent in this material world the figures and forces of the Pleroma, and we are patterned directly from them and we are their “fruit.”
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| The Gnostic Gospel represents the Christ as this orb of light and power, the Fruit of the Fullness, embodying the light of the Father and the attributes of the ALL. |
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| The Simple Gnostic Gospel has identified the method by which Remembrance entered the Earth--through the genes of double-helix DNA, encased in "chariots" of cells. The domain of Eukaryotes is the fruit of Logos and the Fullness, praying together to correct the Deficiency of the Imitation. |
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| These six chronoflagellate eukaryotes have formed themselves into a flower-shaped colony. Chronoflagellates are the closest living relatives of animals. |
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| Here, a demon of the Imitation attacks a 2nd Order Power by drilling a hole through its cell wall. Viruses are able to invade and kill living cells, despite the fact that they themselves are "dead." |
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| The Fruit of Logos and the Fullness: a nucleus preloaded with double-helix DNA, carrying the genetic instructions for the domain of eukarya. |
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| Autotrophs are able to eat food obtained at the molecular level. Heterotrophs are required to eat other life forms for food. This is part of the necessary "Economy" required by our Earthly bodies. |
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| Side and top views of DNA. Here we can see those on the left entwined with those on the right. We can also see the pattern of the ALL. Less than 5% of human DNA goes toward construction of our bodies. What is the purpose of the other 95%? If it carries the historical record of all eukaryotes, i.e., their highly conserved DNA, is this not proof of a pre-existent intelligent design culminating with us?
The face of the revealed Christ, "possessed the word of the Son, together with his essence, his power, and his form. He was the one he desired and delighted in, he was the one who had been prayed for in love. This aeon was light and a desire to be set aright, an openness for instruction and an eye designed for vision--qualities that it had from those above. Moreover, it was wisdom for his thought against the ones who were placed lower in the economy, a word for speech, and other perfect things of this kind" [Tripartite Tractate, v. 93, 94].
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