An exploration of gnosticism
The path to God lies within
“Know thyself” - the inscription written above the portico of the Temple of Delphi
This is a post about gnosticism.
For readers familiar with this Substack, a regular point is made how (1) globohomo forcing neoliberal feudalism onto the world along with (2) global overpopulation leading to a future neo-Malthusian catastrophe means that those without spiritual grounding and intentionally decreased consumption are going to be ill-prepared as their material quality of life continues to decline. We can already feel the decline in both our pocketbooks but also psychically; it’s hanging heavy in the air, as
points out. It’s going to get much worse. Lurking behind globohomo’s actions and a study of human history is the possibility of a creative, sadistic, malevolent Demiurge, the builder/maintainer of material reality who enjoys torturing God-souls.
For newer readers interested in how these topics were covered previously, see the following discussions about the problem of evil, the nature of the soul, philosophical pessimism, here and here on the need to live beneath our means, and an analysis of the environmental movement and neo-malthusianism. I’ve also covered Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism as part of the egalitarian ratchet effect, Jews and Judaism, and have future post(s) planned on Islam.
The perspectives offered in these essays increasingly points towards a gnostic understanding of the world. This alignment has been occurring naturally like water flowing downstream or the pieces fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle, whichever analogy you prefer. Even my studies on individuals such as Ernst Junger pointed in curious gnostic-leaning ways. In his war journals he wrote, “I harbored the suspicion that this world is modeled on the perfidious prototype of the charnel house [i.e. place of death]”. But there is no certainty being proffered here; merely guideposts along a journey with an unknown destination.
This post will also serve as a possible response to
’s erudite post about the 21st century dynamics surrounding mob behavior. He proposes that the 21st century will take the action of mob behavior and the reaction of what he calls “sovereign citizens” (i.e. rich and powerful people who use elements of the mob to protect themselves from becoming victims of it) in order to reach a yet unknown dialectical synthesis. Perhaps individuated gnosticism can be such a synthesis.“Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing” by Stephan Hoeller offers a clear, concise, and very readable overview of the topic and I highly recommend it. Hoeller runs an open sacramental neo-gnostic church called the Ecclesia Gnostica which has active parishes in Seattle, Portland, Austin, and Los Angeles. Hoeller is 92 years old but apparently still gives lectures which are recorded and published; he comes across as erudite and considered in them. Here’s a fairly interesting article in LA Weekly on his church.
Defining gnosticism
There is much confusion around the term “gnosticism”, but there are two basic meanings.
The first definition
The first use is basically a smear by exoteric Christians against those they don’t like, including against each other. According to scholar Ioan Culianu:
Once I believed that Gnosticism was a well-defined phenomenon belonging to the religious history of Late Antiquity. Of course, I was ready to accept the idea of different prolongations of ancient Gnosis, and even that of spontaneous generation of views of the world in which, at different times, the distinctive features of Gnosticism occur again.
I was soon to learn, however, that I was a naif indeed. Not only Gnosis was gnostic, but the Catholic authors were gnostic, the Neoplatonic too, Reformation was gnostic, Communism was gnostic, Nazism was gnostic, liberalism, existentialism and psychoanalysis were gnostic too, modern biology was gnostic, Blake, Yeats, Kafka were gnostic….I learned further that science is gnostic and superstition is gnostic…Hegel is gnostic and Marx is gnostic; all things and their opposite are equally gnostic. (see Hoeller, 182)
The core of this interpretation is an accusation that one’s opponents are using the pursuit of an Ideal as an idol that is not the ineffable Godhood - whether that be environmentalism/Gaia worship, race, economic equality/communism, etc. Through the pursuit of this Ideal - usually a secularized, blind devotional religious energy - with the correct understanding or outlook, adherents believe they can bring Heaven to Earth materially.
goes into various uses of the term here. As states: “Calling the left “Gnostic” worked because it is seen as a swear word both by materialist atheists and Christian fundies. It's ironic though because today's right-wing thought is full of Gnostic motives. Besides, the idea of mystical union with something higher to transcend the endless running in circles in our reality is something important and present in any real religiosity that isn't merely subscribing to some authoritarian belief system.”Even within exoteric religion the ideal of the ineffable God can be - and often is - perverted into a quest for political and material power. Indeed, the incentives of any institution based on expansion always corrupts in a sense.1 This is the reason for the Albigensian Crusade where Catholics under Pope Innocent III murdered and burned to death anywhere from 200,000-1,000,000 gnostic, peaceful Cathars (and a bunch of Catholics, too; "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius”) and the same reason why the horrific Fourth Crusade resulted in the sack of Constantinople. Institutions will rationally not allow threats to their power to manifest, even peacefully; they live according to politics, not metaphysics despite the window dressing.
Perhaps this use of the term “gnostic” is why
in his recent interview with stated he used to consider himself gnostic but no longer does.The second definition
The other definition of gnosticism is as follows, even though it is an umbrella term that encapsulates many different movements with differing beliefs (i.e. Elcesaites, Mandaeism, Simonians, Valentinianism, Basilidians, Marcionism, Manichaeism, Catharism, etc). Gnosis begins with an understanding that the incentive structure of material reality is fundamentally flawed. See this June 10, 1991 Time magazine article by Lance Morrow, who states that one could agree with any two of these three propositions, but not all three: (1) God is all-powerful. (2) God is all-good. (3) Terrible things happen. You can declare that there is an all-powerful God who allows terrible things to happen, but this God could not be all-good. On the other hand, there might be an all-good God who lets terrible things happen because he does not have the power to stop them; thus he is not all-powerful. At the beginning of his Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas admitted that the existence of evil is the best argument against the existence of God.
As terrible things happen, if God is good then he cannot be all-powerful. This leads to an understanding that this material realm was created and is controlled by a malevolent Demiurgic creator (and/or a bumbling one; one of it’s common names, Yaldabaoth, means “the childish god”) and that by adopting an attitude of asceticism, humility and philosophical pessimism, by grappling with the contradictions inherent within this reality to try to achieve a higher-level synthesis, by trying to perfect our own phenotypes via our own unique spiritual, intuitive journeys, a gnosis that has to be personally and mystically experienced and not merely learned via exoterism, one may hope to spiritually ascend from this realm both on earth (via a higher-level state of mind) and in the afterlife.
Unlike the traditional story of Adam and Eve where the serpent resulted in mankind’s fall, under the gnostic interpretation Eve and the serpent awaken Adam out of his materialist slumber; the knowledge of good and evil is what allows him to reconnect to the Godhood beyond the range of the Demiurge.
Hoeller breaks this definition of gnosticism down into fourteen core beliefs, p. 187:
There is an original and transcendental spiritual unity from which emanated a vast manifestation of pluralities.
The manifest universe of matter and mind was created not by the original spiritual unity but by spiritual beings possessing inferior powers.
One of the objectives of these creators is the perpetual separation of humans from the unity (God).
The human being is a composite: the outer aspect is the handiwork of the inferior creators, while the inner aspect is a fallen spark of the ultimate divine unity.
The sparks of transcendental holiness slumber in their material and mental prison, their self-awareness stupefied by the forces of materiality and mind.
The slumbering sparks have not been abandoned by the ultimate unity; rather, a constant effort directed toward their awakening and liberation comes forth from this unity.
The awakening of the inmost divine essence in humans comes through salvific knowledge, called “gnosis.”
Gnosis is not brought about by belief or by the performance of virtuous deeds or by obedience to commandments; these at best serve to prepare one for liberating knowledge.
Among those aiding the slumbering sparks, a particular position of honor and importance belongs to a feminine emanation of the unity, Sophia (Wisdom). She was involved in the creation of the world and ever since has remained the guide of her orphaned human children.
From the earliest times of history, messengers of Light have been sent forth from the ultimate unity for the purpose of advancing gnosis in the souls of humans.
The greatest of these messengers in our historical and geographical matrix was the descended Logos of God manifest in Jesus Christ.
Jesus exercised a twofold ministry: he was a teacher, imparting instruction concerning the way of gnosis; and he was a hierophant, imparting mysteries.
The mysteries imparted by Jesus (which are also known as sacraments) are mighty aids toward gnosis and have been entrusted by him to his apostles and their successors.
Through the spiritual practice of the mysteries (sacraments) and a relentless and uncompromising striving for gnosis, humans can steadily advance toward liberation from all confinement, material and otherwise. The ultimate objective of this process of liberation is the achievement of salvific knowledge and with it, freedom from embodied existence and return to the ultimate unity.
A common gnostic understanding, exemplified by Marcionism, is that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are different Gods; the God of the Old Testament is the Demiurge, a wrathful, demanding, spiteful tribal God who created and rules over material reality (perhaps explaining why the Chosen People are so dominant on the material plane despite being so few in number). The God of the New Testament, a God of love and forgiveness, cannot be easily reconciled with the God of the Old Testament, and this gives credence to the Godhead/Demiurgic split.
Paul and the Gospel of John have a curious role in gnosticism: they are both seen as sympathetic to gnosis (indeed, Paul never met Jesus and his vision of Jesus is what led to him becoming a Christian), while at the same time as Nietzsche argued and as I’ve pointed out (also here), Christianity was likely created as a brilliant way to invert Roman values and, via spiritual bolshevism, to smash the existing Roman order as revenge for the destruction of the Second Temple. Nietzsche had called Jesus the “one true Christian”, believing that Paul corrupted his message right at the start. There is a contradiction here which needs further contemplation and synthesis.
Another common theme of gnosticism is that it seems to arise spontaneously throughout history with similar core beliefs only to be brutally suppressed, likely because of how anti-authoritarian, pacifistic and anti-materialist it is. It is almost like there is a personality type attracted to it - introverted, free-thinking, pessimistic and sensitive to injustice - and it has to manifest in a particular way religiously. Whether it takes hold and for how long depends on cultural, political, religious and other factors which impacts how far the gnostic idea spreads, but its core ideals always prevent it from succeeding in the material realm against religions that are more power centric, more political, more materialistic.
Gnosticism also has much in common with Buddhism, sharing philosophical pessimism2 and ideas that enlightenment involves asceticism and personalized insight, as well as aspects of Hinduism. As Hoeller states in an interview:
The accusation that Gnostics are world-hating pessimists was first voiced by the heresy-hunting church fathers of the early centuries A.D. It was false then, and it is false now. Most religious systems recognise that the world is imperfect, as indeed do Gnostics. The difference between the Gnostic position and others concerns the origins of this imperfect state of the world. Judeo-Christian orthodoxy places the blame on human beings: their original sin came to corrupt not only humans themselves, but all of creation. Gnostics, on the other hand, have always held that the world did not fall but was created in a grossly imperfect way to begin with.
Professor Gilles Quispel, the late, great scholar, was wont to tell the tale that when observing the destruction of a British fighter plane over Holland in World War II, he had the sudden insight: “Valentinus the Gnostic was right: earthly life is tragic.” Gnostics, like Buddhists, recognise that earthly life is filled with suffering, cruelty, and impermanence. I have noted on occasions that we live in a gigantic slaughterhouse cum cafeteria – all forms of life kill and consume other forms to nourish themselves. Some creatures exhibit behaviour that is not related to stilling their hunger. Cats play cruelly with their prey. Some insects kill and eat their mates while copulating; indeed cannibalism is rampant among many species. Natural disasters bring much suffering and death in their wake. On the other hand, Gnostics have always felt that humans can attain to freedom from this suffering world by attaining to Gnosis, that is, a higher kind of consciousness, which allows the liberated Gnostic to soar above this tragic world.
“All forms of life kill and consume other forms to nourish themselves” is a critical point. For those who feel a pull toward living the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you - it is impossible to live up to that standard because one must consume other living things in order to survive. Even a plant screams if it’s being eaten and unleashes secretions to ward away predators. This contradiction between ethics and material reality form, for me, the core gnostic argument.
Gnosis and physiognomy
While all humans and perhaps everything alive contains an element of the God-spark within it, perhaps only a subset is likely capable of achieving gnosis, which involves perfecting our archetypes (or physiognomy, the science of which is discussed here).
Man is a hodge-podge of a material body crafted by the Demiurge, a personality formed by the movement of the planets i.e. astrology, and a piece of the ineffable God-soul. Reflecting this composition, there are three levels of spiritual development: those ruled entirely by materialist desires (hylics), those ruled by the mind (psychics) who are confused but questioning, and finally those ruled by the spirit (pneumatics) who have achieved enlightenment. These are equated to levels of sleep: wakefulness (materialism), dreaming (psychics), and deep sleep (pneumatic).3 Some gnostic sects believe that souls reincarnate until they tire of materialism and become pneumatics.
argues: “Everybody criticizes genetic/biological blank slatism, but it’s soul-level blank slatism that stands in the way of understanding so many aspects of our world. Perhaps we just haven’t (re-)found a language to talk about these things yet, although the NPC meme has done much to bring such heresy back into the modern world.” And: “The measure of someone’s mental-spiritual development: pain tolerance for truth and uncertainty. And what the person decides to do with it.”
It is an interesting question to what extent specific religious beliefs are phenotype-derived versus culture-derived. It’s hard to imagine an extravert optimist being attracted to gnosticism without significant cultural influences, and even then its hold would likely be fairly weak. Certain beliefs will do better in certain periods; during a period of dramatically increasing material quality of life such as America experienced in the wake of World War 2 gnosticism would likely have had very limited appeal, while in a period of increasing neoliberal feudalism as we are in now I think gnosticism will do well and the prosperity gospel will do quite poorly…
To clarify on this point further, Ernst Junger noted in his interview with Julien Hervier at 90 years old in his “The Details of Time”, “An aversion to violence and brutality is certainly innate in some men: they like it or do not like it.” And the same could be said for one’s attraction to materialism or psychology or exotericism or esotericism; these are traits built into who we are, and we can merely try to perfect who we were meant to become. You’re not going to convince Gandhi or Hitler to adopt each other’s viewpoints; it is beyond each’s physiognomy to adopt such alien perspectives. Junger continues, p. 38:
“On my table, I found a book entitled Hassidic Tales, edited, I believe, by Martin Buber. Anyway, I read several anecdotes, one of which I greatly liked, the one about Rabbi Zousya. He said to his audience or to his pupils, “When I go to heaven, I won’t be asked whether I lived like Moses, I’ll be asked whether I lived like Rabbi Zousya.” I consider that essential: everyone has to fulfill what he received at birth; it’s the only thing that I can say to those young people. You have to lay out your money advantageously, that is, develop your own capacities to an optimal degree. That’s very dangerous, of course, for Rabbi Zousya thought that, as Rabbi Zousya, he had lived according to the law. But what is the law for someone who is born a pickpocket? Nietzsche has an answer for that, naturally, but Rabbi Zousya lived a long time before Nietzsche. After Nietzsche, the matter looks very different, and it becomes very perilous, but that’s all I wish to say about this topic.”
This quote ended enigmatically - I’m not sure exactly what Junger meant with this Nietzsche reference, a Darwinian survival of the fittest of phenotypes? But it does raise an interesting point. If we are to become the best version of ourselves possible by following our intuition (balanced by our reason, feelings and senses), what would one prone to say, being a serial killer be encouraged to do? And this is where the importance of balancing intuition against an established ritualistic tradition comes in — learning from those who have come before, their wisdom and mistakes, so that one doesn’t fall as easily into the pitfalls of ego. This is a core point that perennialist scholar Frithjof Schuon makes here when analyzing Sufi esotericist Rene Guenon’s philosophy, quoted at length:
Besides there is, in the expression “chose a path”, when applied to a case like that of Guénon, something inadequate, tiresome and awkward-sounding; for Guénon was intrinsically a “pneumatic” of the “gnostic” or “jnāni” category; and, in this case, there is no question of a “path” or at least, if there is, the meaning is so altered that the expression itself becomes misleading. A pneumatic is in a way the “incarnation” of a spiritual archetype, which means that he is born with a state of knowledge which, for other people, would actually be the goal, and not the point of departure; the pneumatic does not “go forward” towards something “other than himself'; he stays where he is in order to become fully what he himself is—namely his archetype—by ridding himself, one after the other, of veils or outer surfaces, shackles imposed by the ambience or perhaps by heredity. He becomes rid of them by means of ritual supports— “sacraments”, one might say—not forgetting meditation and prayer; but his situation is nonetheless quite other than that of ordinary men, even prodigiously gifted ones. From another point of view it must be recognized that a born gnostic is by nature more or less independent, not only as regards the “letter” but also as regards the “law”; and this does not make his relation with the ambience any simpler, either psychologically or socially. At this point the following objection has to be parried: does not the “path” consist for every man in getting rid of obstacles and in “becoming oneself”? Yes and no; that is to say: metaphysically it is so, but not humanly because, I repeat, the pneumatic “realizes” or “actualizes” what he “is”, whereas the non-pneumatic realizes what he “must become”—a difference at once “absolute” and “relative” about which one could argue indefinitely….
What the natural gnostic seeks, from the point of view of “realization”, is much less a “path” than a “framework”—a traditional, sacramental and liturgical setting which will allow him to be ever more genuinely “himself', namely a particular archetype of celestial “iconostasis”….
“Know thyself” was the inscription written above the portico of the Temple of Delphi; that is, know thine immortal essence but also, by that very token, know thine archetype. This injunction no doubt applies in principle to every man, but it applies to the pneumatic in a far more direct manner, in the sense that he has, by definition, awareness of his celestial model in spite of the flaws which his earthly shell may have undergone in contact with an all too uncongenial ambience. Paradox is part of the economy of this world below, given that the limitlessness of Universal Possibility necessarily implies unexpected, if not incomprehensible, combinations of things; phenomena can be what they are, but vincit omnia veritas.
Schuon touches correctly on the inequality of souls; we all have a touch of the divine within us (hence, an element of egalitarianism), but the development of souls is wildly unequal. The vast majority of people today (and perhaps always) are unthinking hypic NPCs, fooled constantly by propaganda who havn’t even begun their spiritual paths or to discover who they really are. They are shuffling empty zombies, rotating between work, eating, and imbibing establishment propaganda, sports and Netflix.
For those seeking to develop spiritually within an existing framework, according to Hoeller, gnosticism shares many of the same “ritual supports” as Catholicism: in the Gospel of Philip there is baptism, Chrism (anointing), the Eucharist, a rite of Redemption (possibly related to a final purification and absolution from earthly faults) and a supreme mystery rite of the Bridal Chamber.
The dangers of gnosticism
Much like philosophical pessimism, the dangers of gnosticism appear to be that it can lead to passivity, resignation, an inclination to withdraw from interacting with the real world as a “lost cause” or, in extreme cases, possibly even suicide. Because the outlook de-emphasizes the value of real world action it also tends to lose consistently against other ideologies and outlooks that inspire action and, really, being on the losing side of things is not fun. As
eloquently argues here:This danger of esoteric ideas is also present in Gnosticism: clearly, some gnostically inclined folks have taken all of that way too far. Escapism is not the solution, and neither is waging war against reality itself, dreaming up an utopia of eternal bliss instead of engaging with the world as it is, suffering and all.
Transcendence means seeing the unseen as reflected in the material world, not overcoming the material world by declaring it irrelevant. It means paying more attention to reality, not less, with the mind firmly oriented towards the higher and the lower worlds simultaneously….
All things esoteric are dangerous. It’s all-too easy to lose the plot and go off the rails, as so much nonsense in the New Age department and other cultist delusions over the course of history have shown, including parts of the so-called Gnostic movements.
Hence, it is understandable, at least to a degree, why the church has always considered Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and all kinds of other mystic movements as heretic abominations.
Religion plays the role of a guardian, a protector that keeps people from plunging headlong into dangerous terrain that might turn them into madmen and, ultimately, throw them into the arms of the Devil. The scientism of our age has played a similar role: it has kept the masses from exploring fringe ideas that might threaten the fabric of society and their personal sanity.
The thing is, though, that some of us will never be content with this sort of “protection.” In our search for truth, we are willing to face the danger. Our longing tells us that there must be more out there than meets the eye.
Conclusion
Hoeller argues in an interview that Carl Jung, the greatest gnostic of our era, believes that we are entering, with great difficulty and pain, the Age of Aquarius where mankind’s spiritual abilities will be changed and uplifted in accordance with gnosis. He states:
[Hoeller]: Speaking of Jung, it is no doubt known to many that his mysterious and long-awaited book Liber Novus (The Red Book) has been published at last. One of the principal disclosures to be found in this work is Jung’s belief that the Age of Aquarius is upon us, that significant changes in the consciousness of humanity are taking place, and that more of the same may be expected in the future. The “Aeon of Aquarius,” as Jung calls it, will eventually bring great psychological changes in its wake, amounting to a new religious consciousness which will differ greatly from the religious consciousness of the Piscean Age. It will manifest primarily in a new God-image that was very important to the ancient Gnostics and that in various ways has made its appearance throughout history in the esoteric tradition.
Two thousand and some years ago a new religion constellated itself in the Mediterranean region. With that religion came a new myth of redemption, centred in the image of Jesus, the Saviour God. Now Jung is telling us in The Red Book that the Aeon of Aquarius is upon us, and with it comes the new God-image of the God within. This image is of course none other than the God to whom St. Paul referred as “the Christ in you, our hope of glory.” It is also the indwelling Christ affirmed and venerated in the Gnostic tradition.
There is no doubt that Jung saw in the new Gnostic Renaissance, which began with the discovery in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi library, a manifestation of his own prophecy in the then still secret Red Book. The connection of Jung’s prophecy with the tradition of Gnosis is unmistakable.
In his Red Book, Jung stated clearly that the task of the present and near future was “to give birth to the ancient in a new time,” and he clearly meant the Gnostic tradition is in fact that ancient thing to which he and others were giving birth.
I have spent a very large portion of my adult life studying and commenting upon the work of Jung and the Gnostic sacred writings. I should say, then, that humanity today is experiencing the rebirth of Gnosticism, and its principal God-image is being born in a new time. The esoteric as well as the exoteric implications of this process are momentous.
I hope this positive hope for the future will bear fruit. Alternatively, perhaps a focus on gnosticism is simply a reinterpreted Ghost Dance, i.e. a retreat into powerless mystical esotericism as the possibilities for truly meaningful change shut, as
warns here. The Ghost Dance didn’t help the Indians, in the end…I’ll continue to post about my exploration of gnosticism and other relevant topics as time goes on. Thanks for being part of the journey and for reading.
As Eugene Ionesco stated, "There are certainly two types of people: those who live according to metaphysics and those who live according to politics. The latter are not horrified by evil. They live in this world and are content therewith. Those who live according to metaphysics know that evil is posed to us as an enigma. Theologians themselves live according to politics; this is the reason why religions find it very difficult to explain how evil was introduced in the world.” As quoted in Guido Preparata’s “The Political Scripting of Jesus”.
"By laying a heavy emphasis on human life as something that needs to be
drastically reworked due to the First Noble Truth of dukkha, Buddhism has been
disparaged as pessimistic. Naturally, Buddhists deny that their religion is any such
thing. It is a system for uncovering our true nature—and nothing else. Nevertheless,
Buddhism and pessimism cannot be pried loose from each other. The likeness
between them is simply too pronounced to be overlooked. Buddhists claim that they
are not pessimists but realists. Pessimists make the same claim. Buddhists also claim
they are not pessimists because their founder’s teachings showed a way out of
suffering for all sentient beings. Pessimists also have their plans toward this end."
—Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
From this quite dense post by Jean Borella reposted at
, “But the point that seems most significant to us concerns what Guénon calls, in The Demiurge, the “pneumatic world”, distinguished from the “hylic” and “psychic” worlds. Approaching these gnostic (and Pauline) names to the Vêdânta doctrine, he writes: “He who has become aware of the two manifested worlds, that is, of the hylic world, the set of gross or material manifestations, and of the psychic world, the set of subtle manifestations, is twice born, Dwidja ; but he who is conscious of the unmanifested Universe or the formless World, that is, the pneumatic World, and who has reached the identification of himself with the universal Spirit Âtmâ, he alone can be called a Yogi, that is, united with the Universal Spirit”. And, a few lines further on, he establishes the correspondence of these three worlds with the three states of wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep. In such a cosmology, manifestation thus comprises only two worlds, corporeal and psychic, the pneumatic world being unmanifested, and the “Pleroma, neither manifest nor unmanifest”. Now, as we know, according to Man and His Becoming, universal manifestation comprises three worlds, the third being constituted by the intelligible or informal realities. Compared to the Gnostic conception of The Demiurge, the manifested universe is thus expanded by an additional degree, the one that India calls Mahat or Buddhi. Hence, the state of deep sleep (sushuptasthâna), which is the state of Prâjna (the “knowing one”), no longer corresponds only to the unmanifested degree of pure Being, but also encompasses the informal manifestation: “Buddhi must in a certain manner be included in the state of Prâjna.””
Christians, apart from the really perverse ones, won’t deny that one can pray to God/Jesus and receive guidance, without the mediation of a tithe-grabbing priest. If only more people listened to God in this way, instead of attempting to practice casuistry with a two thousand year old book. You know, God might have more to say after all those centuries.
Proposition (1) God is all-powerful, is not supported in the Bible. Throughout, God acts through angels. The first person plural is used in the first chapter of Genesis.
The angels are willful and some have gone rogue.
Our mortal life is training to replace or rule over ("judge") the angels. See 1 Corinthians 6. Or take note of the theme of most of Jesus' parables. They are about stewards being left unsupervised for a time and how they perform.
Note the title "King of Kings" given to Jesus. This implies other kings. There are promises of crowns in the New Testament. The afterlife is NOT a retirement home in the sky. See https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/an-afterlife-a-nerd-can-believe-in for relevant citations.
As for the NPCs, not all are Called to be future priests and kings. Note the predestination passages in the Bible. The Kingdom of Heaven will have subjects as well as kings. How those who are Called treat the NPCs determines their future placement. Do not treat the NPCs as mindless. They are just playing a different game and will be judged by different standards.