Gnostic Gospel, Pt 7 -- Division Becomes the Imitation

Notice: There is now a separate blog dedicated to the New Gnostic Gospel. You can get there by clicking here.

Logos was the final aeon born from the will of the Son and the ALL. This singular being possessed the latent characteristics of the ALL, including the full variety of personalities, proclivities, powers, and positions arrayed in the Fullness. Each aeon of the Fullness was an individual who was also an integral part of the larger whole. So, too, Logos embodied all of these parts precisely situated within the whole that was himself.

The aeon named Logos sits atop the hierarchy of the Fullness

Over the course of illuminating the Gnostic Gospel, the Simple Explanation has designed a series of visual metaphors representing facets of Gnostic and Christian belief. For the fullest understanding of this article, you may wish to read the entire Gnostic Gospel Illuminated series from the beginning.  If you would prefer to first read the "Simple Gnostic Gospel, Part One: The Father, The Son, and the Birth of The ALL," click here.

When Logos overreached and fell into the darkness, he shattered into a confusing jumble of disconnected parts. These pieces of the shattered aeon were “sicknesses”: small, dark, ignorant, divided, and roiling with chaos. They reflected neither the glory of the originals in the Fullness, nor the ecology of the hierarchy. And, because they were no longer arranged in the pattern of the hierarchy, they forgot their functions and their names [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 77]

The shattered corpse of Logos gave rise to the imitations of the deficiency

"Those who had come into being did not know themselves, nor did they know the Fullness from which they had originated, nor did they know him who had become the cause of their existence. For since the Word was in such an unstable condition, he no longer attempted to bring forth offspring in the form of emissions... of glory. ...Instead, what he brought forth were feeble and small creatures, infected with the same sicknesses with which he himself had been infected." [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 80]

Because Logos had been reaching for the heights when he fell, the imitation born of the fall continued to be motivated by a desire “to reach the unreachable,” but now that upward drive was divorced from the goal of reaching for the glory of reunification with the Father. [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 77] With no recall of who or what came before, this upward drive was entirely self-interested, for those of the imitation had no cooperative arrangement amongst themselves.

What had been an upward pull to reunite the Fullnesses with the Father became an upward push arising out of each singleton, not for the glory of the Father, but for the vainglory of the individual. “For they desired to command one another and to lord it over them in their vain love of glory, and the glory that they acquired [from their striving] became the cause of the structure that was to be.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 79] In this manner, egoic striving for vainglory replaced glorious longing for the Father--ambition replaced God's Will.

The “offspring of the presumptuous thought”, as they came to be known, recognized neither Logos, the All, nor the Father as their progenitor. “They thought of themselves that only they existed and that they had no beginning, since they saw no one existing before them. For this reason they exhibited disobedience and rebellion, being unwilling to submit to the one who had brought them into existence.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 78]

"The Word, then, was the cause of these things coming into being, and he became increasingly desperate. He was dumbfounded. Instead of perfection he saw deficiency; instead of unity he saw division; instead of stability he saw disturbance; instead of rest, upheaval." Logos “was unable to bring their love of disturbance to an end, nor could he destroy it,” for Logos “had become powerless when his wholeness and his perfection had abandoned him” to become the deficiency. The deficiency took on an imitation of life on its own, becoming “the cause of the things that do not exist on their own account from the beginning.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 80]

These “irrational things” were condemned by Logos. “Because of that, what was perfect in him left him and went upward to his own [in the Fullness]. . . “The one who hastened on high [Logos] and the one who drew him to himself [The Son] did not remain idle, but they brought forth a fruit in the Fullness with a view to overthrowing what had come into being because of the deficiency.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 78]

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You may read more about the deficiency in this article: Implications of Dark Matter and Gnostic Cosmology.

Click here for the next Simple Explanation blog article: "The Simple Gnostic Gospel, Part Eight -- The Father, The Son, and the Birth of The ALL"

The Simple Explanation is using its method of meta-analysis to strip out the confusing elements of the various Gnostic Gospels to form a simple, coherent, creation story. I have chosen the Tripartite Tractate as the book out of the Nag Hammadi scriptures to focus on, because I find it to be the least confusing and most complete Gnostic account of the origins of the universe, with the fewest non-essential elements. You will not find lists of names and numbers here. Only the cosmology and its rationale. The purpose of this exposition of the Simple Gnostic Gospels is to clarify and simplify so that any person who cares to may fully understand the essential Gnostic truths.

Cyd and Munchkin working on the Gnostic Gospel

Gnostic Gospel, Pt 6 -- The Rise of the Deficiency

Notice: There is now a separate blog dedicated to the New Gnostic Gospel. You can get there by clicking here.

The most perfect and complete of the individual aeons, Logos, crowned the top of the aeonic hierarchy. This single aeon consisted of all of the attributes of the good and perfect Fullness rolled into one individual.

Logos Crowns the Fullness

Over the course of illuminating the Gnostic Gospel, the Simple Explanation has designed a series of visual metaphors representing facets of Gnostic and Christian belief. For the fullest understanding of this article, you may wish to read the entire Gnostic Gospel Illuminated series from the beginning.  If you would prefer to first read the "Simple Gnostic Gospel, Part One: The Father, The Son, and the Birth of The ALL," click here.

Logos mistook itself for the Fullness.

Logos Mistakes Itself for the Entire Fullness

Logos decided to give glory to the Source of its awakening and launched itself from the hierarchy in an attempt to reconnect with the Father. Logos believed his personal will was sufficient to reach the Father, without the will of the united Fullness to add to his own.

Logos Attempts to Reach the Father and Falls

Logos imagined he could build the Paradise dreamt by the Fullness because he understood all of the plans and possessed all of the necessary talents. However, without the willing support of the Fullness, Logos was unable to give proper glory to the Father.

Logos Falling

As he reached for the Father, Logos stumbled and fell, shattering himself to bits.

Because the isolated glory of Logos was inadequate to the task, everything he produced as a result of that effort fell disastrously short. Where there had been unity with the Son and with his brethren in the Fullness, now there was “a division and a turning away.” The undiluted will expressed by the Fullness was splintered because Logos “could not bear to look at the light, but looked at the depths, and he faltered.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 77]

“What issued from his presumptuous thought and his arrogance had existed from something that itself was deficient; because of that, what was perfect in him left him and went upward to his own” in the Fullness, leaving the “sicknesses” behind in the darkness. [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 78]

The Deficiency Resembles Disordered Phantoms of the Aeons

“From the faltering and division came oblivion and ignorance of oneself and of that which is.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 77]  Presumptuous thought and arrogance was left in place of wisdom.

“Those who came into being from the presumptuous thought resemble in fact the Fullnesses of whom they are imitations, though they are phantoms, shadows, and illusions, deprived of reason and light, belonging to this empty thought, being nobody’s offspring. . .  In their own eyes, however, they are great and powerful beings, more beautiful than the names [of their originals in the Fullness], though they are only their shadows.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 78]

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Read the next article in the series: The Simple Gnostic Gospel, Part Seven: "Division Becomes the Imitation"

Those readers who are put off by the name "God" or other religious words like the "Father," the "Son," and the "Holy Spirit," are free to continue using more modern memes like "consciousness" and "self-awareness," "algorithms" and "fractals." You may study these same topics in my Simple Explanation blog and book. However, if you are already familiar with Hebrew and Christian memes, then you will understand these Gnostic writings without needing to first dip into the Simple Explanation, and so you may skip the following translation.

The Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything refers to the Father as the Metaverse, that which is above our Universe.

The Simple Explanation calls the Son the Universal Unit of Consciousness, because while identical to the Father, or Metaverse, this all-knowing consciousness is now also a singular Unit. In fractal terms, the Son is the first iteration of the pattern of consciousness. 

The ALL is every thing that will ever be, in potential. They began as unrealized fractal iterations of the pattern of the Son. This is the second iteration of the singular Unit, which carries the formulae of our universe. 

The Fullness represents the expressed fractals of the third iteration: the proliferation of singular Units of Consciousness. These fractals are called "aeons," and they have multiplied into the potential of all forms, processes, and personalities. In same way that an individual's DNA carries its species' potential form, so each unit of consciousness carries within itself the complete pattern of creation. 

The ongoing cooperation amongst the Fullness is the prototype for the Simple Explanation's Golden Rule, which the Simple Explanation puts it this way: "In order for units of consciousness to join and work together for the greater good, they need to share relevant information, they need to assist one another's efforts, and they need to love one another."   

In the same way that the ALL sat in unitary perfection together while singing the same song of praise, so do we all instantiate the pattern of cooperation needed to "get the job done" when we work together for the greater good, without selfish motive. So, too, the Fullness, though differentiated into units of consciousness with individual stations and ranks, dreams of a Paradise where everyone knows their job and does it in perfect cooperation with others for the benefit of all. 

Logos represents the best possible single individual that could ever exist, for its personality contains the formula for every good thing possible. Yet, even then, Logos was unable to create on his own because he lacked the "will" to carry it out. The will is what the Simple Explanation identifies as the coherent, pre-energetic potential that enters our universe through the portal of here and now. The will would be the Metaversal information streaming into our universe via the singularity at the center of the Universal Unit of Consciousness. While Logos identified himself with the Universal UC, Logos was mistaken, for he deviated from the Universal algorithm when his individual will conflicted with the will of the Fullness. 

The phantoms produced by the Fall are not fractal iterations of the Son. They are broken code. The phantoms cannot replicate on their own; they lack activation by the Source at the center, as they are generated away from the metaversal portal in what the Simple Explanation used to call the doughy ring of the donut.

But don't worry about translating back and forth between the Simple Explanation and the Gnostic Gospel. Use whichever type of language appeals to you--it is the same truth.

A Simple Explanation of Gnostic Cosmology

Notice: There is now a separate blog dedicated to the New Gnostic Gospel. You can get there by clicking here. This was the original mapping of the new Gnostic Gospel. These concepts have been more colorfully illustrated, although the original mapping still holds up. You may find all of this in its most simple form in my book, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated.

Since people are still landing on and reading this post, let me tell you that this has been laid out and beautifully illustrated in "The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated" book. 

I also have a podcast now dedicated to fully explaining all of these Gnostic concepts in Simple Explanation form. click here to go to Gnostic Insights

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Here's a first look at what I've been working on lately [back in 2015]. I'll be writing an article about the Gnostic gospels soon. Meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy these first fruits. 

Gnostic Cosmology according to the Tripartite Tractate, by Cyd Ropp, Ph.D.

These diagrams are my visual representations of the "Tripartite Tractate." The Tripartite Tractate is one book of the collection known as the Nag Hammadi scriptures that were discovered buried in the Egyptian desert in 1945. The Nag Hammadi texts were buried sometime in the 3rd century by monks who sought to preserve and protect them from those who wanted to weed them out as heresies as they designed the official shape of the Christian religion. 

After studying the Tripartite Tractate, I can see why the early Pope did not want this to make it into the Bible.  For one thing, the Christ figure, the "Son of God," is not all perfect and all powerful, as portrayed in the Christian Bible; matter of fact, Logos is directly implicated in the Fall. For another thing, salvation is a personal, mystical affair conferred directly by the Father through Logos, not something conferred by preaching or baptism. Thirdly, the cosmology presented here makes clear that those who, shall we say, struggle for righteousness against a sinful world are not necessarily doing God's work, but are caught in an endless war against the "evil doers," and have themselves fallen into some sort of earthly death trap. 

As I said, the complete article is underway. Meanwhile, for those of you who want to get started, here it is in picture form. On the big poster above, start at the upper left corner and read clockwise. Our earthly situation is portrayed in the middle of the diagram. Salvation and the end of the world comes in the form of the pyramid at the lower left. Below are various sections of the diagram presented on their own. If you have already been studying Gnostic cosmology, these diagrams will clarify various terms and activities. If you haven't already been studying this, then these diagrams will be super confusing so don't worry about it. All will be revealed in good time. 

In terms of A Simple Explanation, this cosmology begins prior to "in the beginning..." and proceeds through the formation of Units of Consciousness and the appearance of our physical universe, and concludes with the final collapse of the universe.  It also takes place during the life cycle of each and every Unit of Consciousness, as it is a Fractal Pattern that repeats itself over and over again. Those of you who have read A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything will recognize the role of the hierarchical distribution and the role of toroidal flow in the final reorganization of creation.  

The First Glory, The Son of the Father. First differentiation after the Undifferentiated Unity of the Metaversal Father.

The Second Glory. The Son has realized it is comprised of many traits of the Father. These traits are called "aeons" in Gnostic terminology. When they're all grouped together they are called the Fullness, or the All. Many differentiations but total harmony. Once these traits are named, they fall out of undifferentiated harmony and rearrange themselves into the pyramidal hierarchy depicted below.

The Fruit of the Third Glory is the offspring of the All in perfect arrangement of hierarchy. This stage in creation is known as the First Order of Powers. Everyone and everything knows its place and is happy.  The final Aeon to arrive at the top of the pyramid, known in the Tripartite Tractate as "Presumptuous Thought," looks down at the hierarchy and sees them all arranged underneath him. This gives that Aeon the idea that he is in charge of the pyramid. He reaches upward to reinsert the pyramid into the Metaverse. This is done without authorization or position. This results in The Fall.

The Fall tumbles the pyramid of Aeons out of arrangement. They Fall into confusion, Chaos. They are dispersed and alone for the first time, cut off from each other and the All. This is now called the Deficiency, and the Imitation. Logos panics and abandons the Imitation and retreats back to the All. God the Father also retreats in horror from the Deficiency, which throws up a Boundary containing the Imitation. Logos and the All try to rescue their abandoned children by praying for them and thus giving them the Remembrance of Who and What they used to be, before the Fall.

The prayers of Logos and the All results in the Second Order of Powers. There are now two types of creatures: those of the Deficiency who have no belief in who or what came before, and those of the Remembrance, who have come to themselves through "Repentance" and "Conversion" and recall their fellow Aeons and their place with the Father in the Fullness. Rather than rejoining Logos and the All, those of the Remembrance choose to do battle with those of the Imitation. They are locked in an endless righteous War where no one can win.

 Release from the Endless War comes by intervention of the Father and the Fullness working together. They produce the Living Image of the All and the Father--the Christ. The Christ places himself upon the Lost like a garment that restores perfection and fills the Lost with inexpressible Joy, giving them the Logos that enables them to detach and dispel delusion. This results in the Third Order of Powers--the Aeons of the Images--that now carry within themselves the Seed of the Word.

The final Order of Creation is called The Economy and The Consolidation. All three types of creatures are represented: those of the imitation, those of the remembrance, and those who have been redeemed by Christ. This drawing is a pyramidal shaped "core sample" of creation. The small figure at the lower right is a cutaway view of creation, with the center of the donut mapping to the top of the pyramid.