Gnosticism & Hermeticism Redux

Inferno

Misha Rogov

Made me think of this Italo Calvino line:

“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”


― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

The Fire and the Wolf: Cormac McCarthy on what matters.

Lewis Coyne

... Life itself is presented as a constant struggle, as Alicia tells us in Stella Maris: "imperilment is bottomless. As long as you are breathing, you can always be more scared".

Sometimes the struggles of McCarthy's protagonists are their own doing: the result of ignorance, greed, or misguided sentiment. But sometimes, the bloodshed and trauma are turbo-charged by powerful and malevolent beings – characters like the ruthless polymath Judge Holden in Blood Meridian or the Terminator-like assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. Even if we never meet Yaldabaoth in McCarthy's books, both Chigurh and Judge Holden are eerily reminiscent of his supernatural sentinels, the Archons. 

However despicable McCarthy may show some individual humans to be, humans as such possess a great worth. Why? Because they "carry the fire": the possibility for goodness and recognition of beauty. 

In us, McCarthy seems to be saying, is the divine spark of God. Again this comes out strongest in The Road precisely because we're forced to confront the prospect of human extinction there. With terrible clarity, the father now sees his son as holy – better, he sees the holiness in his son. The boy is described as the "word of God" and "glowing in that waste like a tabernacle." With his purity of heart, the boy represents the best that humanity can be: doing what's right and trying to steer his father away from wrong. He burns like a beacon, shining all the brighter in the dark.

“And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there”. 

After last year’s Astro-Gnostic conference and some extended jungle experience, I want to revisit some comparisons between ‘gnosticism’ and ‘animism’ -whatever they happen to be.

And in particular I want to make the case for how the assertion that the cosmos is a prison built by an evil God and the cosmos is a community of beings can share co-presence in the same overall framework. So this is a gathering of thoughts in that general direction.

Download the audio version here or watch along on YouTube

Gnosticism is infamous for its conception of the cosmos as the creation of the satanic Demiurge. But along with this entity is a retinue of demonic cosmic powers or Archons that act as co-creators and wardens of this prison universe. Join me as I explore the origins, nature and function of the Archons. From their terrible origins as primeval excretions of the Demiurge, to their dreadful creation of the human physical and psychical body - even a renegade Archon that defied the Demiurge and is even said to have created Jesus Christ. The Archons are an often overshadowed aspect of Gnosticism. Let's trace their origins in the demonization of Yahweh, the Cosmic Daimons and Greco-Egyptian Magic.

A roundtable conversation hosted by the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam moderated by Dr. Lucinda Martin, between dr. Justin Sledge of Esoterica and prof. dr. Wouter Hanegraaff on the topic Hermes and Hermeticism, Then and Today.

Interest in Gnosticism and Gnostic texts has exploded since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library. However, Gnostic Scriptures began to be discovered as early the 18th century. In 1769, a Gnostic codex came to light that combined ancient mystical ascent literature, gnostic cosmological speculation of the lower Aeons and celestial "Treasuries of Light," along with the quasi-magical rituals, baptisms, ciphers and seals to ascend into the realm of Light. These two incredibly complex volumes are now known to scholars as the Books of Jeu, after the Demiurge of the text, and are not only the most complete and complex manuals of ritual ascent but also the only illustrated Gnostic texts from antiquity. Join me as I explore one of the most complex and yet understudied texts of ancient Gnosticism - the 2 Books of Jeu.

While ancient philosophy disagreed on many things, there was broad agreement that the gods were good and the universe a beautiful, divinely made home. However, by the 2nd century CE a scandalous, renegade position emerged that argued that physical reality was created as a cosmic prison by a demonic Crafter - The Demiurge. Variously known as Ialdabaoth, Samael and Saklas, the malevolent Demiurge was one of the core components of what we know call "Gnosticism." But how did this shift happen, how did the Demiurge become evil.

In this first episode in a series on the Demiurge, we explore the earliest movement in this direction: (1) the origins of the Demiurge in Plato and (2) How the Israelite god Yahweh came to be demonized and associated with the Egyptian demonic deity Seth in the anti-Judaic polemics of the ancient world.

Future episodes will cover the rise of Marcion and this Theology and finally a comparison of the various manifestations of the Demiurge in Sethian and Valentinian literature. This episode is collaboration with scholar and friend @m.davidlitwa - check out his companion video and subscribe to his channel for deep dives on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Ancient Mystery Religions and early Christianity.

[Laird]

Those are some striking and disturbing visuals to accompany dark and heavy yet somehow bittersweet music.

Those are some striking and disturbing visuals to accompany dark and heavy yet somehow bittersweet music.

I liked how without any lyrics, just audio & visuals, they make a good summary of the Gnostic position.

(Which isn't to say *I* accept this position, just that I find it interesting!)

While ancient philosophy disagreed on many things, there was broad agreement that the gods were good and the universe a beautiful, divinely made home. However, by the 2nd century CE a scandalous, renegade position emerged that argued that physical reality was created as a cosmic prison by a demonic Crafter - The Demiurge. Variously known as Ialdabaoth, Samael and Saklas, the malevolent Demiurge was one of the core components of what we know call "Gnosticism." But how did this shift happen, how did the Demiurge become evil? In this second episode we'll explore how polemics between early Christians and Jews seem to have posited that opponents of the Gospel had "the Father of Satan" as their Father." Who is this primordially evil "Father of Satan"? Further, we will dive into the theology of Marcion who developed early Christian scriptures and theology that concluded that the Creator of the Cosmos and the 'God' of the Old Testament was, in fact, a wicked, demonic being contrasted to the loving, divine Christ.