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.
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.
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.
As L. P. Koch says, “… 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.”
This is why Schopenhauer, despite despising religion in general, Christianity in particular, and Judaism above all, nevertheless considered the conquest of paganism to be understandable and a step forward: pagan religions were entirely this-worldly, barely “religions” at all in our modern sense, lacking a sense for anything transcendent to everyday life. Only Christianity, or something like it, can serve to provide the masses, incapable of philosophical reflection, with something like a metaphysics to guide their lives.
I am afraid many people, people who usually were "introverted, independent of mind, unjustice and violence sensitive, ...", were decisively misled regarding Christianity by the behaviour of the self-appointed organization calling itself, and being called and believed by the world, the "Church of Christ", which has been, through most of the last twenty centuries, to borrow Stanislaw Lem's words, an anti-Church.
This power-addicted, world-enamoured organization has historically been so averse to Christianity and Christians, and above all Christ, that it has seen to it that organizations, groups, and individuals who were genuinely for Christ be physically doomed, or, at the very least, made them unable to work for Christ. Examples are Gnostics and the many "Gnostics", Marcionites, Cathars, and many others that have been on the receiving end of varying kinds and degrees of violence by the anti-Church.
Hardcore, full-grade Christianity is the farthest thing from something accessible, or with the capacity to be appealing, to the masses, or to be pacifying and an aid to the comfort and ease of not-so-brave minds and spirits.
Then of course, the message from Christ and the Spirit takes different shapes and colours for each class of mind and spirit present in humankind — since it can reach anyone.
“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.”
“the God of the Old Testament [Yahweh] is [indeed] the Demiurge, a wrathful, demanding, spiteful tribal God who created and rules over material reality”
While I read on and follow the hyperlinks, let me recommend “Universal Philosophy” by Jacqueline Berger (translated from French by Andrew Lander).
I do not intend this comment as harsh or excessively critical, but I think this is where we have a disagreement. Gnosticism is a trap if taken at face value. In my opinion, laying judgment on this reality is hubris. You seem to have dipped your toes in Nietzsche's philosophy just enough to reject mainstream or say exoteric christianity, but you have not dipped them enough in it to grasp what it means as a whole, or maybe you are unwilling to accept its conclusions. Indeed you are using essentially christian morality to condemn material reality. Who's to say that eating meat and plants is something bad? The process of absorbing life force, concentrating it in more powerful life forms can be seen as a positive power process, and indeed that is what life is and what life rewards : raw power. Again, shunning the game of life because power is "disgusting" or "corrupting" stems from christian morality.
When I say that, I do not intend to adhere in a cliche way to a nietzschean worldview : there are good elements in christian morality. But this is not what we need right now. It is not what will save us and our people from the shackles of technocrats, bankers, bureaucrats and globalists. Nature is not moral, it rewards the strongest and most powerful. What we need is a fundamentally life-affirming philosophy which does away with this christian allergy to power.
But then again, this depends on physiognomy. In times of chaos and uncertainty, some seek solace in drugs ; some others in base entertainment ; some, again, in the abstract and intellectual. As for myself, I refuse to quit. What we need more than ever are people willing and able to challenge the world and imprint their will on it.
As for Jung which I love, this conception of an Aquarius-based spirituality is not necessarily a rejection of material reality. It could be a raw acception of the natural order : man who carries his own sprititual water. This is what the symbolism of Aquarius is about. Actually, this is one thing which I liked a lot in your article : the idea that the next spirituality will be centered around the inner sanctity of men, ie "God will be found within men themselves".
Hi Thomas, nice and astute comment. I don't take it as excessively critical; I use negative feedback as a way for me to grow, so it's appreciated. In my post on philosophical pessimism (https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/philosophical-pessimism-a-denial), I wrote that there are two basic ways to respond to a pessimistic philosophy (the core arguments of which are pretty conclusively accurate, imo): one is a Schopenhauerian ascetic withdrawal, and the other is a Nietzschian will to power, an embracing of life and struggle regardless of the underlying reality. Personally I feel like both are good approaches and I personally try to straddle them. Many come out entirely one way or the other, as you seem to do in favor of Nietzsche (and which is fine, who's to say one is right vs. the other? It depends, as you say, on one's physiognomy).
You also write, "Indeed you are using essentially christian morality to condemn material reality." Yes, this is true and an accurate criticism -- I still have internalized values of the Golden Rule, which I find to be just and beautiful. Things may simply be a struggle and will-to-power, a domination of one group versus another in an endless Game of Thrones, and internalized values of the Golden Rule may inhibit one from participating in the Game properly, but I personally prefer to look beyond the will-to-struggle to try to glimpse the ineffable. But I understand why you don't and my interpretation may not be ultimately accurate.
Also, I posted an aphorism of Emil Cioran in my last post, even though Cioran is too pessimistic even for me (and I'll cover him in a future post). In part it stated: "When a myth languishes and turns diaphanous, and the institution which sustains it turns clement and tolerant, problems acquire a pleasant elasticity. The weak point of a faith, the diminished degree of its vigor set up a tender void in men’s souls and render them receptive, though without permitting them to be blind, yet, to the superstitions which lie in wait for the future they darken already."
In other words, we are in an era of the collapse of faith -- and the possible solutions to it are a multitude, to the point that "problems acquire a pleasant elasticity." Is the solution a sort of pantheism and a return of a Nietzschian will to power? You're quite right that it could be.
The truth is the truth because it is the truth, not because it's Christian.
It then also happens that the truth is Christian, and Christ the truth — "Christian" in no way referring to the power-driven, world-enamoured organization that has believed itself, and been believed by the world, to be the Church of Christ, while, in most places and at most times, serving — with strong, even absolute, zeal and equal unawareness of Jesus, and the Gospel, the Spirit, as well as any truth and justice — the Enemy of Christ.
Is "Sin and Punishment" a Christian book? It is — Dostoevsky is the prime Christian writer. It is not a "Christian" work tough, neither was Dostoevsky a "Christian".
What is the masterwork about — what are all of the Russian's masterworks about?
The Law, of Good and Evil, and its being inescapable.
It can be ignored, opposed, denied; but it doesn't go away; it doesn't stop being the Law.
As for Nietzsche: was what was within his authentic being related to the Beyond-Man as literally represented in his work?
Or wasn't it the very opposite?
Nietzsche transcended man, when the Turin Horse event took place. He transcended man into Beyond-Man in the only real way that can be done.
Before we reach freedom, and the Bliss and the Glory, each of us must feel, see, the globality of the ache and sorrow and pain undergone by every other being.
Nietzsche was well on the way to that: that's why he "went insane" when he did.
The notion of a (flawed) Demiruge is fairly consistent with a more esoteric Judeo-Christian reading of the fall, that Lucifer was the chief of the Elohim (builders), those angels assigned to construct the physical world, and that Lucifer underwent some sort of wobble (pride/envy-related), by which the assignation into Matter became an imprisonment within it.
Ironically (or traditionally?), this would make the gnostic viewpoint Luciferian, or at least, Lucifer-empathic; and to that extent, I can sympathize with it, as well as with the devil/demiurge. Likewise I sympathize with what is maybe the central tenet of Gnosticism, that God can only be known directly via the awareness of the divine spark within us (making God-worship a "satanic" inversion: any God that can be named, or worshipped, is not the true-God).
Where I depart from it, and where I see it as perilously compatible with postmodernist, transhuman, woke follie a plusieurs, is in its simplistic rejection of physical (biological) reality as a trap, and therefore prescribing, or at least justifying, any and all means to "transcend" (escape from) matter (an error you address here). For me, it is our consciousness that has "fallen," due to an over-identification with physicality rather than with spiritual essence, but not the physical realm itself. The error is not in the stars but in ourselves, dear Brute-us. And "obey the law of Matter" is still principle number one, for me, when it comes to spirituality. "Transcendence means seeing the unseen as reflected in the material world, not overcoming the material world by declaring it irrelevant."
The broader or more general problem I have with a Gnostic paradigm is that it seems too close to a literalization of symbols that so easily slips into the kind of occultist methods and philosophies (and insanities) typical of cults like Scientology (w/ its own Gnostic parallels). Not that Christians (inc. Orthodox) can't make a similar error, but at least the Christian approach to the problem of evil doesn't blame it on God/reality, and tends to encourage a humbler, less proactive relationship to existence.
For me, the Book of Job offers the best theodicy, in appropriately simple terms that can't really be read too literally, but that essentially boil down to: yes this world of matter is the domain of Satan; yes, God allows Satan to have jurisdiction over our lives to a degree that is confounding, and often appalling, to our rational minds. But no, this doesn't make God either evil or powerless, only working in ways that we can't ever grok with our minds, at least until we shift our point of identification fully away from the local to the cosmic (assuming this is even possible) and get down with Objective Reality. Such a shift begins (as well as ends) with the acceptance (quoting I think Alexander Pope): whatever is, is right.
It begins as a matter of faith (insofar as evil is part of reality, it must be there for a purpose); and it ends as an experience of gnosis (what we perceived as evil is no longer real, since what we perceived as our individual relationship to evil has fundamentally changed).
Paradoxically, this does seem to involve locking horns with evil (Jacob's wrestling with the angel, the testing of Job, Christ's crucifixion), and "saying No in thunder" to the devil-demiurge (quote from Melville).
I would disagree that incentive structure of material reality is fundamentally flawed. Before the advent of human civilization, all of nature lived in perfect harmony with each other. Both cooperative and predatory survival strategies can be successful. Surviving does require you to hurt vegetation to live at bare minimum but that's the only inherently "evil" aspect of nature I can think of. I grew out of my gnostic phase because it seemed to me that nature is neutral to good and evil, the bad just stands out because it's more upsetting.
Hi Anomie, yes, gnosticism is intimately tied into philosophical pessimism. If one is a philosophical optimist one is very unlikely to find its message to resonate, I think.
Check James C. Scott’s book “Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earliest States”
Scott’s work encourages us to rethink our assumptions about human progress and the benefits of civilization. He suggests that the costs of early state formation, including increased inequality, exploitation, and environmental degradation, should be more carefully considered..
This is how it all started, the downfall of the homo sapience.
Thanks for the article and references to Carl Jung. Ghost Dance type revival with bad timing leading to escapism and self destructive behavior? This is part of my story. The highlights include drinking some beers with a member of AIM who took over the Federal bldg and shooting the breeze with Red Cloud's great-grandson Jack who was starting a horse preserve in the 2000s. Surviving and recovering from Cointelpro and Demiurge attacks (psychic intrusion, unbelievable timing, street theatre, electronic harassment) in hindsight was more manageable with a knowledge of archetypal initiation, FBI goon squads and trauma based personality change. One day at a time.
Every christian I’ve ever met believes the “kingdom is inside” in theory, but in practice, they will never go further than the most superficial glance inside themselves. The kingdom requires deep meditation, deep thought. Christianity is and was always an esoteric religion, ie. internal, like Guénon’s Sufism.
I’ve been using the term ‘Realisation’ for ages but yesterday started calling it Gnosis again, ie. one knows. Nice read, thanks.
> 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.
Well nearly every reference to Hell and the sinners getting sent to the lake of fire is from the New Testament.
Very interesting post, a topic which seems to be gaining more interest.
What I find curious is the heavy use of symbolism that seems to unite world religions around the worship of Saturn as the god of time and material reality, the titan who consumed his children. Perhaps Saturn, Satan and the malevolent Demiurge are all names for the same beast that rules over the material plane.
After watching this clip, I've been meaning to read Twain's The Chronicle of Young Satan.
Here is Gnosticism viewed from a distant perch, rather than from inner workings.
Honestly, there is simply too much packed into this essay to comment upon. It deserves a much more significant examination, and in providing simple short commentary there is always the factor of interpretation.
However, I will add my 2 cents.
Regarding NPCs: This has much to do with the counterfeit spirit, that the essence of NPCs is created from a lesser state, from a borrowed soul, and upon death that soul returns to its source.
Much of the confusion arises because the self must be remembered. This is why the rulers severely shortened the lifespan, to make it easier for the genuine generation to believe they are the NPCs.
Regarding everything is Gnostic: NO. Cyberpunk is not Gnostic. Catholics are not Gnostic. Science is anything but Gnostic. The fundamental error here is an objectification of type. There are levels to experience where there is no direct objective equivalent, only a flow and a result.
Regarding the age: The previous age, which we are now seriously beginning to shed, saw the affliction of the Female. This has its roots in the affliction of the Divine Mother Herself. Her correction has been fulfilled, and now the feminine nature can heal from her affiction. Some say that the Star has already appeared, that laid to rest the curse of the Templari, that we have returned to Templar time, in which the male and the female are reconciled at last. The stars determine all completion, and even for the most reticent, the evidence is incontrovertible that the new Aeon is now being formed.
Regarding the will for death: There is no knowledge here without an abundance of pain. Pain both obscures and wounds, reveals and relents. It does not matter if the Gnostic is a warrior Templar, or a barefooted lover of our Vanadis. The Gnostics throughout written history have been viciously hounded and persecuted, murdered through inhumane and beastial acts, usually by those who claim some road to redemption for themselves. Quaint, yet true.
The last of the Cathari passed in the darkness of the great cave, before a tide of such self righteous hate that the effect has been to leave a horrible wound that cannot be healed. This was the final affront to the Ministry of the Magdalene.
The sheer loss of the Marcionites who perished willingly was added to this wound, as were the sufferings in the death camps of Scythiopolis, built by the self righteous ones, the near countless insults and performances of ignorance and the adoration of error, perfecting in darkness a condition which leads always to death upon this place.
Thus the Gnostic does not dream for death or suicide, but must enter it to divine its mystery.
In essence then, Gnosticism, if we wish to even call it that, has very little, if anything to do with an established structure, codified sets of beliefs, or an objective rational framework.
Please understand this commentary is not intended to belittle this piece. I actually enjoyed it, an extremely well written exploration. I only hope to add, or provide perspective from a different point of view.
Have you read Far Journeys by Robert Monroe? A lot of overlaps between his findings and what you write here - the universe was created by an all powerful being and Earth was created by a powerful spiritual being in order to harvest energy produced by the lived experiences of those with a divine spark
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.
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.
As L. P. Koch says, “… 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.”
This is why Schopenhauer, despite despising religion in general, Christianity in particular, and Judaism above all, nevertheless considered the conquest of paganism to be understandable and a step forward: pagan religions were entirely this-worldly, barely “religions” at all in our modern sense, lacking a sense for anything transcendent to everyday life. Only Christianity, or something like it, can serve to provide the masses, incapable of philosophical reflection, with something like a metaphysics to guide their lives.
I am afraid many people, people who usually were "introverted, independent of mind, unjustice and violence sensitive, ...", were decisively misled regarding Christianity by the behaviour of the self-appointed organization calling itself, and being called and believed by the world, the "Church of Christ", which has been, through most of the last twenty centuries, to borrow Stanislaw Lem's words, an anti-Church.
This power-addicted, world-enamoured organization has historically been so averse to Christianity and Christians, and above all Christ, that it has seen to it that organizations, groups, and individuals who were genuinely for Christ be physically doomed, or, at the very least, made them unable to work for Christ. Examples are Gnostics and the many "Gnostics", Marcionites, Cathars, and many others that have been on the receiving end of varying kinds and degrees of violence by the anti-Church.
Hardcore, full-grade Christianity is the farthest thing from something accessible, or with the capacity to be appealing, to the masses, or to be pacifying and an aid to the comfort and ease of not-so-brave minds and spirits.
Then of course, the message from Christ and the Spirit takes different shapes and colours for each class of mind and spirit present in humankind — since it can reach anyone.
“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.”
“the God of the Old Testament [Yahweh] is [indeed] the Demiurge, a wrathful, demanding, spiteful tribal God who created and rules over material reality”
While I read on and follow the hyperlinks, let me recommend “Universal Philosophy” by Jacqueline Berger (translated from French by Andrew Lander).
Shared.
I do not intend this comment as harsh or excessively critical, but I think this is where we have a disagreement. Gnosticism is a trap if taken at face value. In my opinion, laying judgment on this reality is hubris. You seem to have dipped your toes in Nietzsche's philosophy just enough to reject mainstream or say exoteric christianity, but you have not dipped them enough in it to grasp what it means as a whole, or maybe you are unwilling to accept its conclusions. Indeed you are using essentially christian morality to condemn material reality. Who's to say that eating meat and plants is something bad? The process of absorbing life force, concentrating it in more powerful life forms can be seen as a positive power process, and indeed that is what life is and what life rewards : raw power. Again, shunning the game of life because power is "disgusting" or "corrupting" stems from christian morality.
When I say that, I do not intend to adhere in a cliche way to a nietzschean worldview : there are good elements in christian morality. But this is not what we need right now. It is not what will save us and our people from the shackles of technocrats, bankers, bureaucrats and globalists. Nature is not moral, it rewards the strongest and most powerful. What we need is a fundamentally life-affirming philosophy which does away with this christian allergy to power.
But then again, this depends on physiognomy. In times of chaos and uncertainty, some seek solace in drugs ; some others in base entertainment ; some, again, in the abstract and intellectual. As for myself, I refuse to quit. What we need more than ever are people willing and able to challenge the world and imprint their will on it.
As for Jung which I love, this conception of an Aquarius-based spirituality is not necessarily a rejection of material reality. It could be a raw acception of the natural order : man who carries his own sprititual water. This is what the symbolism of Aquarius is about. Actually, this is one thing which I liked a lot in your article : the idea that the next spirituality will be centered around the inner sanctity of men, ie "God will be found within men themselves".
Hi Thomas, nice and astute comment. I don't take it as excessively critical; I use negative feedback as a way for me to grow, so it's appreciated. In my post on philosophical pessimism (https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/philosophical-pessimism-a-denial), I wrote that there are two basic ways to respond to a pessimistic philosophy (the core arguments of which are pretty conclusively accurate, imo): one is a Schopenhauerian ascetic withdrawal, and the other is a Nietzschian will to power, an embracing of life and struggle regardless of the underlying reality. Personally I feel like both are good approaches and I personally try to straddle them. Many come out entirely one way or the other, as you seem to do in favor of Nietzsche (and which is fine, who's to say one is right vs. the other? It depends, as you say, on one's physiognomy).
You also write, "Indeed you are using essentially christian morality to condemn material reality." Yes, this is true and an accurate criticism -- I still have internalized values of the Golden Rule, which I find to be just and beautiful. Things may simply be a struggle and will-to-power, a domination of one group versus another in an endless Game of Thrones, and internalized values of the Golden Rule may inhibit one from participating in the Game properly, but I personally prefer to look beyond the will-to-struggle to try to glimpse the ineffable. But I understand why you don't and my interpretation may not be ultimately accurate.
Also, I posted an aphorism of Emil Cioran in my last post, even though Cioran is too pessimistic even for me (and I'll cover him in a future post). In part it stated: "When a myth languishes and turns diaphanous, and the institution which sustains it turns clement and tolerant, problems acquire a pleasant elasticity. The weak point of a faith, the diminished degree of its vigor set up a tender void in men’s souls and render them receptive, though without permitting them to be blind, yet, to the superstitions which lie in wait for the future they darken already."
In other words, we are in an era of the collapse of faith -- and the possible solutions to it are a multitude, to the point that "problems acquire a pleasant elasticity." Is the solution a sort of pantheism and a return of a Nietzschian will to power? You're quite right that it could be.
The truth is the truth because it is the truth, not because it's Christian.
It then also happens that the truth is Christian, and Christ the truth — "Christian" in no way referring to the power-driven, world-enamoured organization that has believed itself, and been believed by the world, to be the Church of Christ, while, in most places and at most times, serving — with strong, even absolute, zeal and equal unawareness of Jesus, and the Gospel, the Spirit, as well as any truth and justice — the Enemy of Christ.
Is "Sin and Punishment" a Christian book? It is — Dostoevsky is the prime Christian writer. It is not a "Christian" work tough, neither was Dostoevsky a "Christian".
What is the masterwork about — what are all of the Russian's masterworks about?
The Law, of Good and Evil, and its being inescapable.
It can be ignored, opposed, denied; but it doesn't go away; it doesn't stop being the Law.
As for Nietzsche: was what was within his authentic being related to the Beyond-Man as literally represented in his work?
Or wasn't it the very opposite?
Nietzsche transcended man, when the Turin Horse event took place. He transcended man into Beyond-Man in the only real way that can be done.
Before we reach freedom, and the Bliss and the Glory, each of us must feel, see, the globality of the ache and sorrow and pain undergone by every other being.
Nietzsche was well on the way to that: that's why he "went insane" when he did.
Hey Neo,
the reason I no longer subscribe to gnosticism is something I've touched on in a few comments at SS, including here: https://childrenofjob.substack.com/p/empire-of-the-mind-hidden-hebrew/comment/51627049 and here: https://childrenofjob.substack.com/p/an-empty-identity-the-conspiring/comment/55509576
The notion of a (flawed) Demiruge is fairly consistent with a more esoteric Judeo-Christian reading of the fall, that Lucifer was the chief of the Elohim (builders), those angels assigned to construct the physical world, and that Lucifer underwent some sort of wobble (pride/envy-related), by which the assignation into Matter became an imprisonment within it.
Ironically (or traditionally?), this would make the gnostic viewpoint Luciferian, or at least, Lucifer-empathic; and to that extent, I can sympathize with it, as well as with the devil/demiurge. Likewise I sympathize with what is maybe the central tenet of Gnosticism, that God can only be known directly via the awareness of the divine spark within us (making God-worship a "satanic" inversion: any God that can be named, or worshipped, is not the true-God).
Where I depart from it, and where I see it as perilously compatible with postmodernist, transhuman, woke follie a plusieurs, is in its simplistic rejection of physical (biological) reality as a trap, and therefore prescribing, or at least justifying, any and all means to "transcend" (escape from) matter (an error you address here). For me, it is our consciousness that has "fallen," due to an over-identification with physicality rather than with spiritual essence, but not the physical realm itself. The error is not in the stars but in ourselves, dear Brute-us. And "obey the law of Matter" is still principle number one, for me, when it comes to spirituality. "Transcendence means seeing the unseen as reflected in the material world, not overcoming the material world by declaring it irrelevant."
The broader or more general problem I have with a Gnostic paradigm is that it seems too close to a literalization of symbols that so easily slips into the kind of occultist methods and philosophies (and insanities) typical of cults like Scientology (w/ its own Gnostic parallels). Not that Christians (inc. Orthodox) can't make a similar error, but at least the Christian approach to the problem of evil doesn't blame it on God/reality, and tends to encourage a humbler, less proactive relationship to existence.
For me, the Book of Job offers the best theodicy, in appropriately simple terms that can't really be read too literally, but that essentially boil down to: yes this world of matter is the domain of Satan; yes, God allows Satan to have jurisdiction over our lives to a degree that is confounding, and often appalling, to our rational minds. But no, this doesn't make God either evil or powerless, only working in ways that we can't ever grok with our minds, at least until we shift our point of identification fully away from the local to the cosmic (assuming this is even possible) and get down with Objective Reality. Such a shift begins (as well as ends) with the acceptance (quoting I think Alexander Pope): whatever is, is right.
It begins as a matter of faith (insofar as evil is part of reality, it must be there for a purpose); and it ends as an experience of gnosis (what we perceived as evil is no longer real, since what we perceived as our individual relationship to evil has fundamentally changed).
Paradoxically, this does seem to involve locking horns with evil (Jacob's wrestling with the angel, the testing of Job, Christ's crucifixion), and "saying No in thunder" to the devil-demiurge (quote from Melville).
I would disagree that incentive structure of material reality is fundamentally flawed. Before the advent of human civilization, all of nature lived in perfect harmony with each other. Both cooperative and predatory survival strategies can be successful. Surviving does require you to hurt vegetation to live at bare minimum but that's the only inherently "evil" aspect of nature I can think of. I grew out of my gnostic phase because it seemed to me that nature is neutral to good and evil, the bad just stands out because it's more upsetting.
Hi Anomie, yes, gnosticism is intimately tied into philosophical pessimism. If one is a philosophical optimist one is very unlikely to find its message to resonate, I think.
Check James C. Scott’s book “Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earliest States”
Scott’s work encourages us to rethink our assumptions about human progress and the benefits of civilization. He suggests that the costs of early state formation, including increased inequality, exploitation, and environmental degradation, should be more carefully considered..
This is how it all started, the downfall of the homo sapience.
You might be interested in the Ethical Skeptic's embrace of Gnosticism: https://theethicalskeptic.substack.com/p/the-heart-of-gnosticism
He has scientific support, the Master Exothermic Core-Mantle Decoupling – Dzhanibekov Oscillation (ECDO) Theory: https://theethicalskeptic.com/2024/05/23/master-exothermic-core-mantle-decoupling-dzhanibekov-oscillation-theory (The comments in article 3 are a revelation. The Ethical Skeptic, genius from another dimension, brilliant chronicler of the mRNA democide, is discussing Archons!)
Thanks Petronius, I will check it out.
Whatever metaphysical belief you have, once it becomes political, whatever truth there is becomes enveloped in an ideological illusion.
Thanks for the article and references to Carl Jung. Ghost Dance type revival with bad timing leading to escapism and self destructive behavior? This is part of my story. The highlights include drinking some beers with a member of AIM who took over the Federal bldg and shooting the breeze with Red Cloud's great-grandson Jack who was starting a horse preserve in the 2000s. Surviving and recovering from Cointelpro and Demiurge attacks (psychic intrusion, unbelievable timing, street theatre, electronic harassment) in hindsight was more manageable with a knowledge of archetypal initiation, FBI goon squads and trauma based personality change. One day at a time.
Every christian I’ve ever met believes the “kingdom is inside” in theory, but in practice, they will never go further than the most superficial glance inside themselves. The kingdom requires deep meditation, deep thought. Christianity is and was always an esoteric religion, ie. internal, like Guénon’s Sufism.
I’ve been using the term ‘Realisation’ for ages but yesterday started calling it Gnosis again, ie. one knows. Nice read, thanks.
> 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.
Well nearly every reference to Hell and the sinners getting sent to the lake of fire is from the New Testament.
Very interesting post, a topic which seems to be gaining more interest.
What I find curious is the heavy use of symbolism that seems to unite world religions around the worship of Saturn as the god of time and material reality, the titan who consumed his children. Perhaps Saturn, Satan and the malevolent Demiurge are all names for the same beast that rules over the material plane.
After watching this clip, I've been meaning to read Twain's The Chronicle of Young Satan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntf5_ue2Lzw
A fascinating article.
Here is Gnosticism viewed from a distant perch, rather than from inner workings.
Honestly, there is simply too much packed into this essay to comment upon. It deserves a much more significant examination, and in providing simple short commentary there is always the factor of interpretation.
However, I will add my 2 cents.
Regarding NPCs: This has much to do with the counterfeit spirit, that the essence of NPCs is created from a lesser state, from a borrowed soul, and upon death that soul returns to its source.
Much of the confusion arises because the self must be remembered. This is why the rulers severely shortened the lifespan, to make it easier for the genuine generation to believe they are the NPCs.
Regarding everything is Gnostic: NO. Cyberpunk is not Gnostic. Catholics are not Gnostic. Science is anything but Gnostic. The fundamental error here is an objectification of type. There are levels to experience where there is no direct objective equivalent, only a flow and a result.
Regarding the age: The previous age, which we are now seriously beginning to shed, saw the affliction of the Female. This has its roots in the affliction of the Divine Mother Herself. Her correction has been fulfilled, and now the feminine nature can heal from her affiction. Some say that the Star has already appeared, that laid to rest the curse of the Templari, that we have returned to Templar time, in which the male and the female are reconciled at last. The stars determine all completion, and even for the most reticent, the evidence is incontrovertible that the new Aeon is now being formed.
Regarding the will for death: There is no knowledge here without an abundance of pain. Pain both obscures and wounds, reveals and relents. It does not matter if the Gnostic is a warrior Templar, or a barefooted lover of our Vanadis. The Gnostics throughout written history have been viciously hounded and persecuted, murdered through inhumane and beastial acts, usually by those who claim some road to redemption for themselves. Quaint, yet true.
The last of the Cathari passed in the darkness of the great cave, before a tide of such self righteous hate that the effect has been to leave a horrible wound that cannot be healed. This was the final affront to the Ministry of the Magdalene.
The sheer loss of the Marcionites who perished willingly was added to this wound, as were the sufferings in the death camps of Scythiopolis, built by the self righteous ones, the near countless insults and performances of ignorance and the adoration of error, perfecting in darkness a condition which leads always to death upon this place.
Thus the Gnostic does not dream for death or suicide, but must enter it to divine its mystery.
In essence then, Gnosticism, if we wish to even call it that, has very little, if anything to do with an established structure, codified sets of beliefs, or an objective rational framework.
Please understand this commentary is not intended to belittle this piece. I actually enjoyed it, an extremely well written exploration. I only hope to add, or provide perspective from a different point of view.
Thanks Mike, I always appreciate your feedback.
Have you read Far Journeys by Robert Monroe? A lot of overlaps between his findings and what you write here - the universe was created by an all powerful being and Earth was created by a powerful spiritual being in order to harvest energy produced by the lived experiences of those with a divine spark
I havn't, I will look it up, thank you.