Gnostic Insights

The Father is consciousness itself, and off of that initial consciousness come fractals that are each a unit of consciousness. The Universal Unit of Consciousness that we call “the Son” is the largest fractal that we are aware of and it holds all of the blueprints and all of the potentialities for our entire universe, as thought arising out of the originating Father’s consciousness. Each one of the fractal iterations that come off of that Universal Unit of Consciousness also holds the potentiality of the Father as expressed by the Son. These fractal potentialities are first expressed as the combination of traits called the Pleroma of God, also known as the Fullness of God. When the Fullness sits in its unified perfection, ALL of the traits of the Son are on full display.

“While they were in the Father’s thought, that is, in the hidden depth, the depth knew them, but they were unable to know the depth in which they were. Nor was it possible for them to know themselves, nor for them to know anything else. That is, they were with the Father and they did not exist for themselves. Rather, they only had existence in the manner of a seed, so that it has been discovered that they were like a fetus.”

“The one who first thought of them, the Father, — not only so that they might exist for him, but also that they might exist for themselves as well, that they might then exist in his thought as mental substance and that they might exist for themselves too, — sowed a thought like a spermatic seed.”

So, in other words, the Father wants them to wake up. The Father is spreading consciousness, awakened consciousness, throughout the entire body of the Son. He doesn’t want them only to be unthinking constituents of the Son, making up the overall body of the Son. The Father wants them all to have their own existence and their own realizations, their own consciousness, their own Self. The Tripartite Tractate describes them “like seeds in need of gaining nourishment and growth.”

The Tripartite Tractate says that the first step in bringing awareness to the Totalities was to give them “the perfect idea of beneficence toward them.” Meaning that even though they didn’t yet know themselves, what they did know was that they were loved. That is all they knew: that they had a benefactor. Somebody cared for them and wanted only good for them. They awoke to Self realization because someone loved them. This beneficence was their first knowledge.

“There is no need for voice and spirit, mind and word, because there is no need to work at that which they desire to do, but on the pattern by which he was existing, so are those who have come forth from him, begetting everything which they desire. And the one whom they conceive of, and whom they speak about, and the one toward whom they move, and the one in whom they are, and the one whom they hymn, thereby glorifying him, he has sons. For this is their procreative power, like those from whom they have come, according to their mutual assistance, since they assist one another like the unbegotten ones.”

Welcome to this encore edition of A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel. Listening to this series of episodes again will open your eyes to understanding the nature of consciousness, our existence, and our purpose in this universe like never before. You will be amazed at how much more you understand by completing this review. Feel free to drop me a line using the Comments form at gnosticinsights.com. I’m very interested in you and how you are receiving this gnosis.

The Son reflects the Father’s boundless greatness and love. The Son possesses every trait of the Father, for the Son is a complete encapsulation of the Father in which it dwells. Every trait of the Father is expressed now as a singularity, and that singularity is called the Son.

And yet although it was a singular manifestation of the Father, the moment the Son was formed, it was no longer alone, for not only the Son, but what is called the ALL, or the Totalities, arose at once.  The ALL immediately appeared as the offspring of the Son, because the Son could not help itself from bringing others into existence, even as it was brought into existence by the Father. Because the Son is an emanation of the Father, it mirrors the Father’s creativity.

And so the Father knows itself and creates the Son, and the Son knows itself and creates the ALL…

Welcome to this encore edition of A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel. Listening to this series of 21 episodes again will open your eyes to understanding the nature of consciousness, our existence, and our purpose in this universe like never before. You will be amazed at how much more you understand by completing this review. Onward and upward!

Cyd Ropp, Ph. D.

Copyright 2022; all rights reserved

“Pleroma” is a common word in gnostic scriptures, and it has a particular meaning that only relates to the Gnostic Gospels. In fact, we gnostics are expecting to wind up at the end of days in a Pleroma that others usually call “Heaven.” Today, I’d like to take a closer look at Pleromas in order to discover where we all came from and where we will wind up at the end of days.

Pleroma is a Greek word for “all that which is contained within a body or organization.” The Pleroma of the Fullness of God is the Pleroma we most often refer to here at Gnostic Insights. The Pleroma of the Fullness of God is the sum total of all the individual characteristics and powers of the originating consciousness of the Father as manifested in the monad known as the Son. Here is how the Pleroma of the Fullness is described in the Tripartite Tractate:

“Each one of the aeons is a name, , each of the properties and powers of the Father, since he exists in many names, which are intermingled and harmonious with one another.  It is possible to speak of him because of the wealth of speech, just as the Father is a single name, because he is a unity, yet is innumerable in his properties and names…”

This first differentiation of the properties contained in the Son is known as the ALL or the Totalities. The Pleroma of the ALL is pictured as a central star with rays going out in all directions, yet unified without personal identity within the single body and will of the Son. When the Totalities of the ALL become self-aware, they name themselves and sort themselves into the Pleroma of the hierarchy of the Fullness of God.

“… the aeon of the Truth, since it is a unity and multiplicity, receives honor in the small and the great names according to the power of each to grasp it – by way of analogy – like a spring which is what it is, yet flows into streams and lakes and canals and branches, or like a root spread out beneath trees and branches with its fruit, or like a human body, which is partitioned in an indivisible way into members of members, primary members and secondary, great and small.”

This passage tells us that the aeon of the Truth—which is another word for the Fullness, or Pleroma, of God goes forth by way of fractal branching. You may review the concept of fractals by looking back to the Gnostic Insights episode called, “A Fractal Model of Human Nature,” posted May 18, 2021. which you can find at gnostic insights dot com under the tab, “Complete Episodes Library.” I’m also linking it in the transcript of this episode.

The Pleroma of Logos is the sum total of all of the fractals of the Aeons of the Fullness that exist as fractal iterations within the body of the Aeon known as Logos.

“This aeon was among those to whom was given wisdom, so that he could become pre-existent in each one’s thought. By that which he wills, will they be produced. Therefore, he received a wise nature in order to examine the hidden basis, since he is a wise fruit; for, the free will which was begotten with the Totalities was a cause for this one, such as to make him do what he desired, with no one to restrain him.”

My illustration for the Pleroma of Logos is to show Logos as a miniature copy of the Fullness of God, sitting at the top of the Fullness.

“This aeon was last to have brought forth by mutual assistance, and he was small in magnitude. And before he begot anything else for the glory of the will and in agreement with the Totalities, he acted, magnanimously, from an abundant love, and set out toward that which surrounds the perfect glory…”

So, this wise fruit called Logos left the Fullness and Fell out of harmony with the other Aeons, creating this apparently material world.

“The Logos himself caused it to happen, being complete and unitary, for the glory of the Father, whom he desired, and (he did so) being content with it, but those whom he wished to take hold of firmly he begot in shadows and copies and likenesses. For, he was not able to bear the sight of the light, but he looked into the depth and he doubted. Out of this there was a division – he became deeply troubled – and a turning away because of his self-doubt and division, forgetfulness and ignorance of himself and which is.”

The Pleroma of the Demiurge consists of the inversions of the Pleroma of Logos, broken out of the hierarchical pattern and scattered willy-nilly throughout the cosmos. The Pleroma of the Demiurge is not an orderly pyramidal stack, but rather a chaotic jumble of dark shadows.

“Like the Pleromas are the things which came into being from the arrogant thought, which are their (the Pleromas’) likenesses, copies, shadows, and phantasms, lacking reason and the light, these which belong to the vain thought, since they are not products of anything. Therefore, their end will be like their beginning: from that which did not exist (they are) to return once again to that which will not be…”

“They thought of themselves that they are beings existing by themselves and are without a source, since they do not see anything else existing before them. Therefore, they lived in disobedience and acts of rebellion, without having humbled themselves before the one because of whom they came into being. They wanted to command one another, overcoming one another in their vain ambition, while the glory which they possess contains a cause of the system which was to be.”

So, even though they fell out of the fallen Logos, they still possessed a reflection of the original glory of the Aeons of which they were imitations. And, it is that glory which is the Economy that was to be, that being our apparently material universe.

“They are likenesses of the things which are exalted. They were brought to a lust for power in each one of them, according to the greatness of the name of which each is a shadow, each one imagining that it is superior to his fellows.”

Logos was horrified by what he had produced because they would not recognize his authority. Logos abandoned the deficiency below and quickly returned to the Pleroma of the Fullness.

“The one whom he himself brought forth as a unitary Aeon rushed up to that which is his, and this kin of his in the Pleroma abandoned him who came to be in the defect along with those who had come forth from him in an imaginary way, since they are not his.”

“Him who came to be in the defect” is the name we call the Demiurge and it is the authority that rules the defect. Those who came forth from him in an imaginary way are the archons of the deficiency as well as the inert material world, or what I refer to as the “hard and rocky places.”

The reason we focus so much on the Aeons of the Fullness and Logos in particular here at Gnostic Insights is because the Pleroma of any living creature is the sum total of the Pleroma of the Demiurge—our material or hylic part that makes up our physical bodies—and the Pleroma of Logos after his return to the Fullness, when he prayed alongside the Aeons to bring life to the deficiency he had caused.

“The Logos turned to another opinion and another thought. Having turned away from evil, he turned toward the good things. Following the conversion came the thought of the things which exist and the prayer for the one who converted himself to the good. The one who is in the Pleroma was what he first prayed to and remembered [that is the One Self, his fractal of the Son]; then (he remembered) his brothers individually and (yet) always with one another [which is to say, each individual Aeon in its place and position in the Pleroma of the Fullness]; then all of them together [the Totality of the Fullness as a single Pleroma]; but before all of them, the Father [the originating source from which all consciousness flows]. The prayer of the agreement [among these nested fractal consciousnesses] was a help for him in his own return and (in that of) the Totality, for a cause of his remembering those who have existed from the first was his being remembered. This is the thought which calls out from afar, bringing him back.”

Since we Second Order Powers are fractal iterations of this Logos, newly restored to the Fullness, the path of remembrance is exactly the same for us as it was for Logos. We fractally replicate the Powers from which we were created.

This Pleroma of ours is called the Second Order of Powers, and we proceed out of the Pleroma of Logos. We Second Order Powers were created through the Totalities of the original Fullness giving glory to the Father alongside Logos. Together, they prayed with an intention to send life into the fallen world below. We came forth as fruit from the Pleroma of Logos, and the Pleroma of Logos was itself a fractal of the Fullness. We are called Second Order Powers to distinguish us from the First Order Powers—the Aeons of the Fullness—out of which we are fractal iterations, twice removed.

“All the spiritual places are in spiritual power [referring to the Pleromas Above]. They are separate from the beings of the thought [we Second Order Powers], since the power is established in an image, which is that which separates the Pleroma from the Logos [in other words, power flows from the original images contained within the Fullness of God], while the power which is active in prophesying about the things which will be [referring to a particular Aeon who embodies the concept of one who prophesies], directs the beings of the thought which have come into being [us] toward that which is pre-existent, and it does not permit them to mix with the things which have come into being through a vision of the things which are with him.” Meaning the spirit of prophesy impels us upward but does not impart to us its power.

“The beings of the thought which is outside are humble; they preserve the representation of the pleromatic, especially because of the sharing in the names by which they are beautiful.” Which is a very lovely way of saying that we Second Order Powers share the names and faces of the Aeons of the Fullness and, because of that, we are beautiful.

Our Second Order nature is good, and “greater than those of the likeness. For those belonging to the likeness also belong to a nature of falsehood.” Those belonging to the likeness are imitations of the Aeons, but lack their depth, powers, and nature. They are not fractals of the Aeon of Truth. And, while we come from the good thought, we tend to forget our true nature due to the “law of mutual combat” arising from this never-ending war against the imitations of the deficiency. Thus, we have forgotten our Selfs and need to remember. The vehicle for our remembrance is Christ and the Third Order Powers within the Pleroma of Christ.

“The order which was his [in other words, the Pleroma of Christ] came into being from him who ran on high and that which brought itself forth from him and from the entire perfection. The one who ran on high [Logos who returned to the realm Above] became for the one who was defective [the Demiurge] an intercessor with the emanation of the aeons which had come into being in accord with the things which exist [again, that would be us Second Order Powers because we are emanations of that which exists Above].” And, because of the fractal nature of creation, the mechanism of redemption of the Demiurge is the same mechanism for our redemption, as well.

“When he prayed to them, they consented joyously and willingly, since they were in agreement, and with harmonious consent, to aid the defective one. They gathered together, asking the Father with beneficent intent that there be aid from above, from the Father, for his glory, since the defective one could not become perfect in any other way, unless it was the will of the Pleroma of the Father, which he had drawn to himself, revealed, and given to the defective one. Then from the harmony, in a joyous willingness which had come into being, they brought forth the fruit, which was a begetting from the harmony, a unity, a possession of the Totalities, revealing the countenance of the Father, of whom the aeons thought as they gave glory and prayed for help for their brother with a wish in which the Father counted himself with them. Thus, it was willingly and gladly that they bring forth the fruit.”

“Not only did the aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise, which was written previously, but also they generated their own; for the aeons who give glory generated their countenance and their face. They were produced as an army for him, as for a king, since the beings of the thought have a powerful fellowship and an intermingled harmony. They came forth in a multifaceted form, in order that the one to whom help was to be given might see those to whom he had prayed for help. He also sees the one who gave it to him.”

So, you see by this passage, the Christ possesses fractals of all of the other Pleromas and Powers, from the Totalities as the undifferentiated ALL; from the Aeons of the Fullness as individual countenances; from the Father Above ALL Gods as His countenance—which is to say, the monad known as the Son; and from the Pleroma of Logos and all of his fractal faces as well as the Demiurge—his ego who fell. The Pleroma of the Christ is the Pleroma of Logos, plus the Pleroma of the Fullness, plus the monad of the Son, all together offering glory to the Father and praying for full salvation and restoration of the ego of Logos—the Demiurge—and we Second Order Powers. This Pleroma of the Christ is called the Third Order of Powers.

And he made manifest the agreement of the revelation of his union with them, which is his beloved Son… the one who is properly called “Savior” and “the Redeemer” and “the Well-Pleasing one” and “the Beloved,” “the one to whom prayers have been offered” and “the Christ” and “the Light of those appointed,” in accordance with the ones from whom he was brought forth, since he has become the names of the positions which were given to him. Yet, what other name may be applied to him except “the Son,” as we previously said, since he is the knowledge of the Father, whom he wanted them to know?”

In my illustrations, I picture the Christ as a singular light source that embodies the attributes of the Father and Son. The Pleroma of the Christ is known as the Third Order of Powers. These are not arrayed in a hierarchical stack like the Aeons of the Fullness, but rather as a central star that emanates rays after the pattern of the original ALL or Totalities of the Son, for they have no personal identities and only live to serve the  mission of the Christ.

The Tripartite Tractate says, in verses 123 and 124, “The final restoration, however, will take place after the ALL has manifested in him who is the Son, for the redemption began to be given among the humans who were in the flesh with his first-born and his love, the Son coming in the flesh, and the angels who were in Heaven having been found worthy of forming a community, a community in him on earth.”

The most accurate interpretation of these verses is that the angels were literally incarnated inside the body of Jesus, forming a community in him, living and dying with him. In the same way, all of our cells work as an integrated community inside each of us, devoted to taking care of the needs of our bodies.

The Pleroma of the Christ on Earth brings with it fractals of everybody in the Pleromas of the Totalities, the Fullness, and Logos. Christ is the manifestation of the Fullnesses of the God Above All Gods—the Holy Spirit—born into the material body of the Demiurge.

“As for the true baptism into which the members of the ALL descend and where they come into being, there is no other baptism except the one, and that is the redemption which takes place in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. After confession of faith has been made in those names and after one has believed that the things one has been told are real,” the end goal of redemption is return to the Father’s abode, that Paradise initially dreamed by the Fullnesses, where there is no death, no disease, no disappointment, and no deficiencies.

When scriptures say that we will return to the paradise where Christ is king, that refers to our eternal place within the Pleroma of the all-encompassing Christ. Even those who currently align themselves with the Demiurge’s lust for power and domination will receive the recompense of good things.

Here’s what the Tripartite Tractate says about the end days for those who currently deny the Father and the Christ: “as for those of the imitation who embrace the darkness and deny the light, even they will obtain direct vision, so they will no longer have to believe only on account of a small word produced by a voice, that this is how things are, for the restoration back to that which was is a single restoration, even if some are exalted because of this Economy having been set up as causes for the things that happened, unfolding numerous physical forces and taking pleasure in them. They, angels as well as humans, will obtain the kingdom, the confirmation, and the salvation. These, too, will be provided with dwelling places where they will dwell eternally after they have renounced the downward attraction of deficiency, and the power of the Fullness has pulled them upward on account of the great generosity and the sweetness of the pre-existent.”

The only forms banished to the outer darkness are those attributes of the deficiency that did not exist from the beginning—the shadows and phantoms of the imitation that bring nothing but death and destruction. These are shadows of the Aeons, so when the light comes, the light dispels the shadows and they vanish.

And there you have the completed cycle of Gnostic cosmology. The place Above that we Second Order Powers dimly remember as Paradise and to which we will return, will be within the Pleroma of the Christ. That eternal place is called the Third Economy. The First Economy was the Pleroma of Fullness of God. The Second Economy as a mixed creation of the Pleromas of Logos and his fallen ego—the Demiurge. The Third Economy will be an ongoing Paradise where there is no death or destruction. Where peace reigns supreme and there is only cooperation, fellowship, and true love. In Paradise there is nothing but life, and so the grass is always green, the flowers blossom endlessly, and every soul that has ever lived lives happily with their family, pets, and friends.

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By Cyd Ropp, Ph. D.

Copyright 2022; all rights reserved

The original economy was that of the Hierarchy of the Fullness, wherein every Aeon knew its place, position, and duties for cooperative overall functioning. Each of the Fullnesses lived in a state of joy, benevolence, and harmonious agreement, giving glory to the Father and never to each other or to themselves, according to the Tripartite Tractate, verse 86.

The Second Order of Powers was created in order to bring life and love into what is called the new economy or new organization. This new economy was in the mind of the Father all along, even before the Fall. It is a unique feature of the Tripartite Tractate that the book does not describe the Fall in terms of sin and blame, but rather as an event that was destined to come about in order to usher in a “new economy” that differed from the ethereal Pleroma where the Aeons dwell. 

In the previous episode called “Logos, his birth, inheritance, and fall,” the Tripartite Tractate explains, “the free will which was begotten with the Totalities was a cause for this one, such as to make him do what he desired, with no one to restrain him.

“The intent, then, of the Logos, who is this one, was good. … And before he begot anything else for the glory of the will and in agreement with the Totalities, he acted, magnanimously, from an abundant love, and set out toward that which surrounds the perfect glory…”

Thomassen translates the word “magnanimously” in the scripture above as “presumptuously.” “And before he had yet produced anything to the glory of the Will and in the union of the members of the ALL, he acted presumptuously, out of an overflowing love, and rushed forward toward that which surrounds the realm of perfect glory.” Given that translation, the movement that resulted in the Fall and the new economy was presumptuous thought, which we have been calling Ego. Yet the intention of Logos was good.

The Tripartite Tractate is unique in its gentle assessment of not blaming Logos for the Fall.  The book says that this act of disobedience by Logos was within the will of the Father after all, and it was necessary to usher in an organization that needed to come forth “for the revelation of the Fullness.”

The Tripartite Tractate says, “for it was not without the will of the Father that the Logos was produced, which is to say, not without it will he go forth. But he, the Father, had brought him forth for those about whom he knew that it was fitting that they should come into being.”

The Father knew what would happen and the Father found it fitting that Logos should be conceived as he was and take the action that he did. The Father knew that this was the path that would lead to material creation—the economy that was to come— “so that the things which have come to be might become an organization which would come into being.”

After the Fall, the Self of Logos rejoined his fellow Aeons above in the Fullness. Logos and the Totalities joined together to create a new fruit from their union that would bring life and love to the deficiency below. Logos in the Fullness brought forth these little ones of the Second Order out of his newly restored Pleroma so they could receive the life-giving light born from the thought of brotherly love of the pre-existent Fullnesses, in contrast to the phantoms that had arisen from the Fall. These Powers of Remembrance resembled the Aeons whose likenesses they were, and they were in harmony with themselves and with others of their kind. And, as you know by now, the Second Order of Powers manifests as every living thing that is on this planet Earth, from the cells on up through the humans.

The new Economy of the Second Order of Powers reflected a different method of doing business from their images in the Fullness. In the new Economy, the Powers vied for position and authority within a limited space known as the Boundary. Here, those of the imitation who continued to wholeheartedly embrace the shadows left over from the Fall actively fought against those of the remembrance. For their part, those of the remembrance forgot all about the values of the Fullness due to the law of mutual combat they were enacting against the deficiency. The new Powers acquired the same lust for domination and all of the other passions of this sort and wound up acting against itself on account of its rage. “It was during this endless war that a myriad of various kinds of matter and all sorts of Powers were mixed with one another and in great number.” This is from the Tripartite Tractate, verses 84 and 85. Clearly, another solution was required if peace were to enter the deficiency.

The endless war reflects our battle with the hylic nature of our universe and our material bodies. The life within us does battle against the non-living material created by the Demiurge. As our Self descends into this economy, the first spark unites with the material of the molecules making up the fertilized egg and it is the Self, replicating the patterns of the Fullness of God, that directs each organism’s growth. It is also the overall plan that directs evolution—as the “myriad of various kinds of matter and all sorts of Powers” become “mixed with one another and in great number.”

Remember that none of this was due to an error of planning. Rather, these steps were all necessary to bring about an Economy still to come. “For this reason, then, it is wrong to condemn the movement of Logos as the cause that made an ordained Economy come to pass. The Aeons of the Fullness took upon themselves the Fall that had happened as if it were their own, with concern, goodness and great kindness, for the one who had become deficient could be made perfect in no other way except by the Fullness of the Father.” That’s from verse 86.

Free will is at the core of our being. It was the free will of Logos that caused him to leave the Fullness and fall. It was the free will of the restored Logos and the Totalities that created the Second Order Powers. And it is the free will of the Powers, by way of our Aeonic inheritance, that directs ours lives here below. It is our own free will that causes us to forget about the Father and the Fullness of God from which we come. It is our own free will that allows us to bow to the rule of the Demiurge and dig our own graves. Because of the nature of free will, we turn to an outside source to assist our remembrance and salvation. This Aeon is known as the Christ.

“And so the Aeons of the Fullness, everyone individually and all of them collectively, gave glory in unison to their Father, while praying for help for the deficiency. They brought forth one that combined every attribute of the ALL, manifested in the image of the Father of whom they had been thinking when they gave glory and prayed for help. This one was called the Son of his will and of the good pleasure of the ALL. It is the knowledge of the Father who wished to become known. It is also described as holding authority vested in him from the beginning and the power needed to execute it. … The Aeons not only produced a singular fruit reflecting the Father, but that fruit also reflected their own individual countenances and aspects from their positions in the Hierarchy of the Fullness.”

In other words, we each have a one-to-one relationship with a fruit that comes in the image of each of us. We are able to recognize the Savior because it fits us and has our face. “In this manner, they went forth in a form that consisted of many forms, so that the one whom they were going to help should see those to whom he had prayed for help, as well as the one who brought it to him,” verse 87.

“Those redeemed by the light were made whole and complete. Those who were now enlightened felt the power of the Redeemer inside themselves, being together with him, sharing his suffering, relieving him little by little, making him grow, raising him up. …”

The Redeemed, “were produced as an army for him. As for a king in which those who belong to this thought share the command and are united in agreement. He also sowed in him invisibly a word designed for understanding and gave him the power to detach and dispel from himself those who were disobedient to him.

“Those of the imitation, on the other hand, were unprepared for the light, for they had come into being out of darkness and could not comprehend it. To them, the light came as a brief, terrifying flash, a leap and a blow that drove them deeper into the shadows of the abyss. To them, this utter darkness was home,” verse 89.

“The Logos who had fallen and then abandoned the deficiency he had created, decided to pray that the fixed Economy might attain all those who had gone forth from him, including those still clinging to the imitation. In this manner, Logos was also made right from the Fall, as those of the deficiency attained the Economy of the ALL and the Second Order of Powers united with the knowledge that had been given them,” verse 91.

“So those of the deficiency were found worthy of becoming rulers over the unspeakable darkness as their own property and the lot that fell to them. This is what he granted them, so that they too might become useful for the Economy that was to be and of which they were oblivious. And so it came to pass that every grace and food was contemplated through prayer, and they all came to be, for the word greatly increased mutual cooperation and expectant hope, and they experienced happiness, deep rest, and undefiled pleasures to the extent each was able to embrace them,” verse 92.

Now, what this is saying in Simple Explanation terms is that the fruit of the ALL and the Father becomes another fractal iteration of the universal unit of consciousness. But this iteration is not a fractal deriving from us, the Second Order of Powers. The Christ principle would be a perfect fractal iteration of the original Son and his Pleroma—the Hierarchy of the Fullness of God—taking into account the new information brought to it by the redeemed Logos concerning the goings-on in our bounded space. You could say that Logos and the Fullness have now amended the primary algorithm of this universe to include up-to-date data specific to each individual unit of consciousness in our space- time continuum. This new code represents patches to the fragmentary error code of the deficiency in order to end the stalemate and reestablish harmony and proper functioning of the Economy.

When the Tripartite Tractate speaks of forms consisting of many forms, this refers to the nested fractal hierarchies of our space that makes up all of the normal matter of our universe. Our universal unit of consciousness, the Holy Spirit of the Fullness of God, is continually pouring in information, values, love, and coherence. The Christ came into the world to redeem all of creation through his body and his blood, literally because his body and his blood instantiate the entire Fullness of the ALL. Redemption comes not only to those of us on Earth, but also to the Fullness above and to Logos in particular, the Aeon whose fall brought creation into existence. Each redeemed Second Order Power is unshackled from the ties that bind it to the material world, and in this manner, the creation of the Demiurge loses power to the Fullness.

The face of the revealed Christ, “possessed the word of the Son, together with his essence, his power, and his form. He was the one he desired and delighted in. He was the one who had been prayed for in love. This Aeon was light and a desire to set right, an openness for instruction and an eye designed for vision, qualities that it had from those above. Moreover, it was wisdom for his thought against the ones who were placed lower in the Economy, a word for speech, and other perfecting things of this kind.” That’s from verses 93 and 94 of the Tripartite Tractate.

Those who come along as the Army of Christ are unshackled from the chains that bind the material and psychical orders to this world, so much so, in fact, that they form a new Third Order of Powers, the spiritual ones. The Third Order are also known as the Assembly of Salvation, the Bride, the Church, and the Elect. The Tripartite Tractate mentions the name of Jesus only a couple of times, and the Savior and the Christ many more times than that. And, of course, the entire book begins with long discourses concerning the nature of the Father and the Son, but with no mention of Jesus who comes later as an instantiation of the Christ.

 Here is what it says about Jesus at this point in the story. This is from verse 117: “Because the seed of the promise about Jesus Christ had been deposited, whose revelation and unification we have ministered to, this promise now enabled instruction and a return to that which they had been from the beginning–that of which they possessed a drop, inciting them to return to it, which is what is called Redemption, and that means to be released from captivity and to obtain freedom. … Freedom is the knowledge of the truth which existed before the ignorance was ruling, forever, without beginning and without end, being something good and a salvation of things and a release from the servile nature in which they have suffered.”

Here the Gnostic Gospel claims that we humans and all of creation are the children, or fruit, of the spiritual realm, the Fullness. And we are redeemed by the body and the blood of Christ in the form of a drop of remembrance, a seed of the promise that now enables instruction and a return to that which we were from the beginning. Humans were endowed with reason so they could remember their true inheritance and repent of their tenacious claim to material life. This redemption comes easier to some than to others.

The Tripartite Tractate describes humanity coming to exist as three different types people—a reflection of their readiness to accept the redemption of the Savior: a spiritual type, a psychological type, and a material type, reproducing the fractal pattern of the three kinds of dispositions of the Logos before, during, and after the Fall. These three dispositions of Logos are his original Self which contained fractal images of the Totality; his egoic thought that propelled the Fall away from his Self and the Fullness; and his fallen bits and shadows that form the body of the Demiurge—this material world.

“The spiritual kind of human is like light from light and like spirit from spirit. It received knowledge straight away from the revelation when he remembered that which is superior and prayed for salvation. He has salvation without any uncertainty.” That’s from verse 118 and 119. The Tripartite Tractate identifies these types as “the prophets, the evangelists, the teachers of the word, whose job it is to help their brothers and sisters to remember the Father Above.”

Next comes the psychological kind, who “hesitated to accept knowledge of Him who appeared to it. It hesitated even more to run to Him in faith.” This type of person is content to have a pledge of assurance of things to come. They are satisfied to have a promise of a future Heaven, although they are in no hurry to get there. These are most of us folks who feel we’re doing just fine, leading mostly moral and comparatively upright lives, good family people, good citizens, realizing nobody’s perfect. We try to enact the Simple Golden rule by being helpful to our neighbors when needed.

The material kind, on the other hand, is alien in every respect. The Tripartite Tractate describes them as being “like darkness that avoids the shining light because it is dissolved by its manifestation, for it did not accept His coming and is even filled with hatred against the Lord because he revealed himself.” The Tripartite Tractate describes them as “those who arrogantly pride themselves in their vainglorious lust, who love temporary glory, who are oblivious to the fact that the power they have has been entrusted to them only for a limited time and period and for that reason have not acknowledged that the Son of God is the Lord of the ALL and the Savior, and who have failed to rid themselves either of their fury or their way of imitating those who are evil. They will receive judgment for their ignorance and their senselessness, and that judgment is suffering.” That’s from verses 120 and 121.

It is important to note that this verse describes the hylic humans as “imitating those who are evil.” It does not describe them as evil themselves. This is because every human being is a Second Order Power that comes from Above. Therefore every person contains the fractal patterns of the Fullness of God, and we can’t call that fractal “evil.” Despite their lack of reason, which comes from ignorance arising out of their forgetfulness, they are essentially children of God. And, as children of God, they will return to the Paradisical realm eventually, but not until they remember and relinquish their egoic narcissism.

I would describe these people as prideful materialists with no fear of God, because they reject sober contemplation of God. Some proudly call themselves scientists, still others academics. Some may be politicians, industrialists, tech giants, entertainers, or philandering priests and clerics. They are successful materialists who have no inclination to dethrone their narcissistic egos in favor of their One Self or the God Above All Gods. They mock believers, believing themselves superior to those poor, deluded fools. On the national and world stages, they seek to dismantle all religions and replace them with a secular government and elitist ruling class, falsely believing this will lead to paradise on Earth.

Yet, even these materialists who have been given temporary power and authority through the Demiurge will eventually recognize their need for the Savior, either through their bardo experiences after death or within increasingly less satisfying reincarnations. The Tripartite Tractate says of their redemption that the Church of the Elect will pray for them especially. It says, “As for the servants of the evil , though evil is worthy of destruction, they are in [???]. But because of the [Fullness] which is above all the worlds, which is their good thought and the fellowship, the Church will remember them as good friends and faithful servants, once she has received redemption from the one who gives requital. … She will give them their requital for all that which the Aeons will think about. He is an emanation from them, so that, just as Christ did his will which he brought forth and exalted the greatnesses of the Church and gave them to her, so will she be a thought for these. And to men he gives their eternal dwelling places, in which they will dwell, leaving behind the attraction toward the defect, while the power of the Pleroma pulls them up in the greatness of the generosity and the sweetness of the Aeon which pre-exists.” 

The Tripartite Tractate is a Christian book in that it names Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnation of the Christ. Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God and instructed his followers in the ways of virtue. Jesus did not ask to be worshipped or glorified. Rather, he continually redirected attention and praise to the Father. Jesus was both fully human, with human DNA inherited from his earthly mother, and fully God, entwined at conception with DNA inherited from his spiritual Father. Within the body and blood of Jesus flowed the perfect genomic instantiation of the Fullness of God and the Paradise dreamed by the Fullness, as do we all. We all instantiate the Fullness of God in our Second Order bodies. Through the Christ, restoration comes to the deficiency below, one fractal iteration at a time.

I think we will stop here for week and pick it up again next week. In our next episode we will hear about the final restoration of the Second Order of Powers and the Demiurge, and we will take a look at what is called the Final Economy that will replace this material cosmos.

Until then, I look forward to your comments and questions as we prepare to wrap up this Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel.

Remember—the simplest explanation of the Gnostic Gospel is already to be found in my easy-to-read book called The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated. You can find that book at amazon or by using the Buy the Book tab at gnostic insights dot com.

Until next week, onward and upward!

Cyd Ropp, Ph. D.

Copyright 2022; all rights reserved

This week I’ve been reviewing the Bardo Thodol, known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The full title of the Bardo Thodol can be translated as “Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State.” The Bardo Thodol is actually part of a larger volume called “The Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones.”  You may wonder why we are talking about this book because you may not consider it to be a gnostic text.

Here at Gnostic Insights, I look at gnosticism as the truth that comes from the Father and spreads out universally. Gnostic wisdom doesn’t have to come through what are considered to be historically Gnostic sources. A lot of people look at gnosticism as simply an historical sect and, because they think of it in historical terms, they only want to consider texts such as the Nag Hammadi scriptures or the Qumran scrolls. These are your traditional Gnostic texts. Here at Gnostic Insights, I have already shared with you some of the Tao te Ching, which is Chinese wisdom that also reflects the same universal truths that we look at in Gnostic scriptures. Here today I’d like to look at the Tibetan Book of the Dead in the same way to see what gnosis we can mine there.

The Bardo Thodol presents universal truths that have come through the Father and the Fullness by way of Tibetan Buddhism. However, one needn’t be a Tibetan Buddhist to appreciate the wisdom that has been shared through the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is interesting to note that, according to Tibetan tradition, the book is thought to have been written in the 8th century and then buried in the Gampo hills of central Tibet. Similar to our Nag Hammadi and Qumron scrolls, the Book of the Dead was buried and resurrected out of the ground centuries later. The same thing happened with the Tao te Ching, buried around 200 BC in two tombs and unearthed in the 1970’s.  It is almost as if these wisdom books needed to be buried and resurrected, perhaps to instruct the Demiurge by way of direct contact with his earth. Looking at these texts with modern eyes rather than through tradition allows us to examine their applicability to our current times. In any event, their burial and resurrection is reminiscent of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth—a fractal historical event.

You know that I say “onward and upward” when I sign off these weekly podcasts. That is because I think it’s extremely important to remember to go forward and look up. Thinking about onward and upward is something you can easily put into practice. You can think and say onward and upward many times a day. When you look backward and down, you are wallowing in fears, negative memes, and pain. Backward and down is historical; it has already passed and there’s nothing you can do about it here and now. The only way to correct your current circumstances is by moving forward and looking up toward the Father and the Fullness. That is the direction that allows you let go of negative memes and vices and embrace uplifting memes and virtues in their place.

I came by that expression many years ago while reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I found the book to be highly repetitive as it describes numerous realms of death, or what the Catholics would call Purgatory. A bardo is defined as that realm where souls go between incarnations. It is a liminal space, like a doorway, where one passes through on their way to somewhere else. In Tibetan Buddhism, one’s experience in the bardo after death affects your karma and the memes you will carry forward into the next life. If your life has been noble and righteous you will experience a positive bardo populated by helpful deities. If your life has been carnal and egoic, you will find yourself bouncing around from one hellacious bardo to the next on your way toward your next incarnation. The reason there are 14 such layers is because if one doesn’t go onward and upward, then you fall back and down into increasingly unpleasant bardos.

In order to assist the dying or recently deceased person to navigate the bardos, a loved one or cleric sits beside the person and reads the Bardo Thodol out loud. This serves a dual purpose of instructing the dead and also gives comfort to the reader. More spiritually adept people study the Bardo Thodol throughout their lifetimes in order to assure themselves of a good passage through the bardo and a more enlightened reincarnation. 

The Book of the Dead continually presents to the dying and deceased person what they are about to experience unless they realign themselves to go onward and upward. There are many detailed descriptions of both helpful and terrifying deities that inhabit the various bardos, but I noticed in my reading that the bottom line to escaping the negative bardos is always some version of onward and upward. Each of these bardos is basically resolved by remembering and moving towards the great white light of the Father, otherwise you find yourself falling back and down and it gets worse and worse and scarier and scarier with each level of descending bardos.

We don’t need to go through the frightening bardos if we remember to look up and go forward. As a Gnostic, you can go directly onward and upward when you shuffle off this mortal coil. When you die, your spirit carries on, your soul carries on, but you no longer have the material shroud surrounding you and, once the hylic material drops away, you’re able to see and discern more clearly. After the death of the material body, you are able to rise above the confusion and distractions of your entanglements with the Fallen world. However, people who, after death, continue to look backward at their life and continue to look down at their body with sorrow, regret, anger, and whatnot, can’t move onward and upward. They keep falling back and down until it becomes so uncomfortable and so frightening that they either run around looking for a new body to quickly inhabit so they can escape the bardos and return to the material plane, or they recognize the light, reverse course, and move onward and upward.

The goal of the Book of the Dead is to liberate souls from the wheel of earthly manifestation, because they prefer that we be up in Heaven or in one of the layers of Paradise rather than having to come back to Earth to be reincarnated again. One of the differences between Buddhism and Gnosticism is that Buddhists aspire to reach a final Heavenly realm where one’s personal identity disappears and their big S Self is fully absorbed back into the Father. Our Gnostic Gospel does not say that our identity will disappear after this material existence. After all, even the Aeons named themselves and sorted themselves into positions, ranks, and duties. We Second Order Powers appear to retain our sense of personal identity and we carry it with us into the next, post-material economy. The next economy to come is patterned from the Aeon’s dream of Paradise, and it is there we expect to land after liberation from this fallen world, with redeemed egos intact.

So why do we keep falling back and down? According to the Tibetan Buddhism way of thinking, if you get all the way to the 13th or 14th bardo and you still haven’t seen the light, you may find yourself reincarnating into a dog or a horse or some other creature even, rather than a human, depending upon your karma and what meme burdens you’re carrying. Although, between you and me, I don’t see why we should look upon other animals as lesser beings than humans; we are all Second Order Powers. No need to insult dogs and horses by calling their incarnation some kind of punishment! In the kind of Gnosticism that I’ve been teaching you, we also have karma, which are the consequences of your actions in the world. Karma is what comes from the things you do, and you can’t get away from it. So, if you commit some sort of terrible error in this life, then the karma of that error will attach to you, because you have created badness or sadness in the world. Your actions have enabled the delusion of the Demiurge that much more, and so that is a negative weight on your karma.

Fortunately for us Gnostics, we also have our One Self, capital S Self, to mitigate the effects of our karma. In Tibetan Buddhism they would refer to this as your inner Buddha, your enlightened soul, and we know that our Self is that One Self that we all share. Our Self is a fractal of the Fullness of God, all condensed down into our Self. So we always carry the gnosis with us. We always have the potential for gnosis, for reuniting with the Father through the Son. We always carry that inside of us, and we only need to realize that.

Here is what the Tripartite Tractate says about these things:

“Now the promise possessed the instruction and the return to what they are from the first, from which they possess the drop, so as to return to him, which is that which is called “the redemption.” And it is the release from the captivity and the acceptance of freedom. In its places, the captivity of those who were slaves of ignorance holds sway. The freedom is the knowledge of the truth which existed before the ignorance was ruling, forever without beginning and without end, being something good, and a salvation of things, and a release from the servile nature in which they have suffered.”

Interestingly enough, even though Tibetan Buddhism is an entirely different line of wisdom, located in a different part of the world, embedded in different historical and cultural traditions, they believe many of the same things that we Gnostics do. For example, Tibetan Buddhism believes in the Trinity. They happen to call it different words, but it is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the process of attaining salvation or Buddhahood and not having to reincarnate into the material world is the same. It’s the gnosis of having come from the Father; it’s the gnosis of recognizing the Aeons of the Fullness. It also requires the same act of stepping outside of your ego and letting go of the things that you hold near and dear in this world that you’ve been living in.

The Book of the Dead is relevant to our gnostic studies, because the only way to go onward and upward is to remove your egoic soul and your collection of memes that you hold near and dear—to remove those from the center of your being and re-enthrone the One Self. The Buddhists would call it putting the Buddha on the throne, enshrining your own personal Buddha. Throughout the Book of the Dead, they are expecting that the person who has died will have had some sort of spiritual education. They will have a guru or teacher that they follow. They will also have chosen a personal god, because they believe there are many different gods. They will have a teacher and it is expected that during the period of dying and then during the first couple of weeks after death, their teacher, or an enlightened person such as a monk from a local monastery, will sit with them and read the Book to them.

In our Western tradition, we would say it would be your guru or your minister or a friend that you trust implicitly and that you know to be a righteous person. It is expected that someone will sit with the dying person and then with their corpse and read the entirety of the Tibetan Book of the Dead out loud to the person, face-to-face and directly in their ear, so that the wisdom therein can be transmitted to the soul as it wanders around the bardos seeking redemption.

We Gnostics do not have to pass through layers of Hell in order to find redemption. Remember that the figure called the Christ has brought redemption to all of us. The Christ in our Western gnostic tradition is our guru and our personal deity, as they call it in the East. So you don’t have to feel as though this is some sort of pagan ritual where you have to find a God of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and pray to them. That’s not necessary, just like we don’t need to memorize names of Aeons or ritualistic incantations and practices in order to become enlightened or to know God or to rejoin the Elect after death. None of that is necessary.

All you need to know, if you wake up some day and find yourself in a bardo of the afterlife, is remember the Father and remember the Fullnesses, remember the Son and the Christ, and that memory will pull you in the upward and onward direction. So what I would recommend is that continually, as you are living this life day-to-day and hour by hour, think upon and remember the Fullness and the Father, or think upon and remember the redemption of the Christ and how it frees you from the delusions and attachments of this world.

You can abstract the Christ if you feel the need to. I don’t abstract the Christ. I am happy to believe in Jesus because I am from that Western tradition. So for me, my personal deity would be Jesus, the Christ. No harm, no foul, to believe in Jesus Christ. But you don’t necessarily have to believe in Jesus as the Christ. You can directly believe in the Fullness and the Son and the God Above All Gods, but realizing that Christ is the one that has saved you and pulled you out of the cycles of rebirth.

Do remember that it is not through our act but through the Christ’s act that we are saved. So that is why we have universal redemption. The Christ has done its job; all Second Order Powers will return to the heavenly realm above. We are all redeemed. We will all return to some form of Paradise, but it may take you a while to get there if you don’t believe that.

If you hate the Christ, if you hate the God Above All Gods, then you’re going to fall down down down down through those domains of Hell and your karma and meme shroud will require you to come back into this fallen world. It isn’t God doing it to you, it is your ego not recognizing the Self that resides within you; it’s your own ego rejecting the Fullness and the Father.

So let’s look at this now in terms of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and see what it’s like. Keep in mind that all of this material is being read out loud to a person who is dying, and then it is repeated to the dead body between three and seven times every day for the next couple of weeks, to continue their instruction in case they are wandering around the bardos. If the corpse is immediately taken up to Paradise, that isn’t necessary.

The Book says that the highest intellects ought most certainly to be liberated. But should they not be liberated, then, while in the intermediate state of the moments of death, they should “practice the transference which giveth automatic liberation by one’s merely remembering it.” Our definition of the highest intellects, those would be the Gnostics. In this case, intellect stands for gnosis, not intelligence.

Carrying on, “devotees of ordinary wit, ought most certainly to be freed thereby. But should they not be freed, then, while in the intermediate state, during the experiencing of reality, they should persevere in the listening to this great doctrine of liberation. By hearing accordingly, the devotee should at first examine the symptoms of death as they gradually appear in his dying body, allowing self liberation by observing the characteristics of the symptoms of death. Then, when all the symptoms of death are complete, he should apply the transference which conferreth liberation by merely remembering the process. If the transference hath been effectually employed, there’s no need to read the remainder of this book. But if the transference hath not been effectually employed, then this tool, which is the teaching, is to be read correctly and distinctly near the dead body.”

This passage shows us that we can observe the process of our own death and rather than feeling fear and clinging to memories and loved ones, we may contemplate our return to the Father and the Fullness. We may also count on redemption as promised by the Christ. This remembrance is what liberates us so that our Self may ascend, meme free and focused on God. Remember that the Second Order Powers is also called “those of the remembrance.”

In the Eastern tradition, the person speaking to the one who is dying says this: “Nobly born,” so-and-so, [use their name here]. So, for example, someone would say to me: “Nobly born Cyd, the time hath now come for thee to seek the path in reality. Thy breathing is about to cease, thy teacher hath set thee face-to-face before with the clear light, and now thou art about to experience it in its reality. In the bardo state, wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky and the naked, spotless intellect is like unto a transparent vacuum without circumference and without form, at this moment know thou thyself and abide in that state. At this moment, the first glimpsing of the bardo, of the clear light of reality,” and, by the way, to us Gnostics, we would call that clear light of reality the Father, “the clear light of reality, which is the infallible mind of the dark. This is experienced by all sentient beings, in those who have led an evil life and in those of unsound nerves. The above state endureth only so long as it would take to snap a finger again. In some it endureth as long as the time taken for the eating of a meal.”

Now stepping in to make a comment, I recognize this phrase from the Tripartite Tractate, that, to those who have rejected the Father upon death, the coming of the light is frightening and like lightning striking and only lasts for a moment.

Carrying on, “Nobly born, that which is called death is coming to thee. This is now the hour of death. By taking advantage of the death, I will so act for the good of all sentient beings, peopling the illimitable expanse of the heavens so as to obtain the perfect Buddhahood by resolving on love and compassion towards them and by directing my entire effort to the soul perfection, shaping the thoughts. Thus, especially at this time when the image of the clear light in the state after death can be realized for the benefit of all sentient beings, know that thou art in that state and resolve that thou wilt obtain the best boon of the state of the great symbol in which thou art. Even if I cannot realize it yet will I know this bardo and mastering the great body of the union in bardo will appear in whatever shape, will benefit all beings, whomsoever I will serve all sentient beings, infinite in number, as are the limits of the sky. Keeping thyself unseparated from this resolution, thou shouldst try to remember whatever devotional practices thou wert accustomed to and to perform them during thy lifetime. In saying this, the reader shall put his lips close to the ear and shall repeat it distinctly, clearly, impressing it upon the dying person so as to prevent his mind from wandering even for a moment, and say thus: ‘Reverend Sir, now that thou art experiencing the fundamental, clear light, try to abide in that state which now thou art experiencing nobly born. So-and-so listen, now thou art experiencing the radiance of the clear light of pure reality.’”

When my best friend was passing away in the hospital, she was an atheist and didn’t want to hear about God. So, how I put it to her was, “Lou, you might soon find yourself tumbling in a place as if you had been out body surfing in the ocean, and you’ll find yourself tumbling around and you’ll be lost. You won’t know which direction is up or down. But open your eyes and look for the light above the water. Look for the sun above the ocean. Raise your eyes and look for the light and swim upward, to it, swim upward. Remember this, look for the light and swim upward.” This would be an acceptable type of Western interpretation of the Buddhist instructions.

Back to the Book of the Dead. They say: “Now thou art experiencing the radiance of the clear light of pure reality. Recognize it, nobly born. Thy present intellect is in nature void, not formed into anything as regards characteristics or color, naturally void. This is the very reality. The all good. Thine own intellect, which is now void, yet not to be regarded as of the voidness of nothingness, but as being the intellect itself unobstructed, shining, thrilling and blissful is the very consciousness. The all good Buddha. Thine own consciousness not formed into anything in reality. Void and the intellect shining and blissful. These two are inseparable. The union of them is the state of perfect enlightenment.”

In gnostic terms we would say that this perfect enlightenment that they’re speaking of, your voidness, is the pure Self sitting on your throne of consciousness now because your ego has been stripped of its meme shroud.

Again, reading on, “Thine own consciousness, shining, void and inseparable from the great body of radiance, hath no birth nor death, and is the immutable light. Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own intellect to be Buddhahood,” or as we would call it Self or the Fullness of God, “and looking upon it as being thine own consciousness, is to keep thyself in the state of the divine mind of the Buddha. This will cause the naked consciousness to be recognized as the clear light, and thus recognizing that these are one and the same, you will become permanently united with the Father, and liberation will be certain.”

This is the essential message that the Bardo Thodol holds for us Gnostics. Most of the book and the reading to the dead is for the benefit of those who do not remember the gnosis of the Father and the Fullness. The remainder of the Book speaks of terrifying karmic-induced illusions, and the sound of wailings and sights of frightful apparitions of the Lords of Death. The reader of the Bardo Thodol continues to remind the corpse that, at any moment during these terrifying experiences, one need only remember to divert and go onward and upward toward the Father and the Fullness.

There are many horrifying descriptions and they go into great detail about each of the bardos as they get worse and worse and more and more frightening. They come to resemble the depictions of Hell that we Westerners are familiar with—paintings from the Dark Age, and the wrathful preaching of clerics who try to coerce people into righteousness. And that, of course, doesn’t work. But, at any time you realize the Hell you are in, you can turn your eyes upward and you will escape the torment.

When you go down down down into more and more terrifying and disturbing realms of the bardo, this is like our life, is it not? Are these bardos not a reflection of this creation, this demiurgic world in which we find ourselves? We can live in an enlightened, ascended state, in the midst of love and compassion, or we can strengthen our egos instead of our Self through the acquisition of worldly or demiurgic memes. This is how many people find themselves in extreme distress, extreme despair, even bouts of hallucinations of the same sort of visions that assail the dead in the lower domains of the bardos. Many people find themselves in those extreme forms of Hell even while they are alive.

The goal of Gnostic Insights is to help you raise your eyes upward and follow the light, the same light that would pull you out of these bardos if you were dead. Why not pull yourself out of these bardos here and now? The expression “to know thyself” is quite true, and the Self is the big S Self. That is what puts you in alignment with the Fullness and the Father. It’s best not to wait until death to discover your gnosis. This is the actual reason to pursue gnosis or to meditate upon the Father or to pray to the Son or to your personal deity, Jesus Christ. You prepare to transcend death while your body is still alive.

It isn’t a matter of studying and remembering the names of deities and angels or performing certain rituals, or making sure that you’re baptized before you die. That is all irrelevant. All that you need to know is to look upward. Remember the Fullnesses, remember the Father, and remember the Son. At the very least, remember your personal deity. If that is Jesus Christ, you remember Jesus and that he has promised that he will take you by the hand and lead you upward to the Father. This is what we need to accept now, on a daily basis, on an hourly basis, because if we are practiced in this while we are alive, we won’t have to learn it the hard way.

If you are curious about the torments of Hell, then go ahead and look up the Tibetan Book of the Dead. You can find a PDF of it for free on the internet and you can read all the details about all these bardos. I don’t recommend it because I know that many of the listeners to Gnostic Insights have embraced a form of Gnosticism where they feel like they have to immerse themselves into all of the variances of the archons and the inner workings of the Demiurge. No, you don’t. It is that kind of thinking that leads you into misery.

Once you become aware of these types of ethereal planes that are working on us at all times, the good bet is to repent and be redeemed now, sooner rather than later. Live out the remainder of your life in joy, recognizing your true Self is the reflection of the Fullness of God. Pray to your personal deity, mine being Jesus, pray on a regular basis that you might be freed from delusion.

For the souls that continue to resist and that don’t drop their earthly attachments or hold on to their ego itself, the Bardo Thodol says they will find themselves in the worst bardo, surrounded by blood drinking deities and being hacked to bits by swords. It says to offer up this prayer. So see.  Even then, one only needs to look onward and upward. Here is one of the last chance prayers: “Alas, when I am wandering in abandonment to fright, fear, and awe … When the divine bodies of the peaceful and of the wrathful are shining here, may the assurance of fearlessness be obtained and the bardo be recognized. When, by the power of evil karma, misery is being tasted, may the teaching deities dissipate that misery, when the natural sound of reality is reverberating like a thousand thunders, may they be transmuted into the sounds of these six syllables.” And those six syllables in Buddhism are om mani, padme hum, which means, “The Jewel Is In The Lotus.”

So in other words, what he’s saying is: don’t be afraid of the cacophony of the thunderous fear, but separate into these six godly syllables that every good Buddhist would already know.

“I beseech the gracious, compassionate one to protect me when suffering miseries of karmic propensities. May the blissfulness of the clear light dawn. May the five elements not rise up as enemies, but may I behold the realms of the five orders of the enlightened ones. Thus, in earnest faith and humility, offer up the prayer whereby all fears will vanish and Buddhahood undoubtedly will be won.”

Even those people who have fallen so far in their lifetime as to commit what are considered unforgivable sins, will be forgiven if they turn to the clear light of the Father upon death. It is a good thing to be reminded of right action and right thought, but even then, in my opinion, the thing that is most important is to turn your gaze directly upward to the Fullness of God, because we carry the Fullness of God within us and, according to Gnostics, we can achieve gnosis and we can achieve redemption and salvation through the Christ by simply remembering it.

Remember the Father always. Remember the Fullness of God. Take every opportunity that you can every single day to turn your eyes upward, and this will dispel fear and misery and despair. And that is one of the big lessons of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Turn your eyes upward, go to the good light.

We are nearing the end of this Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel. I need to hear from you now if you are confused over anything in this Simple Explanation; perhaps I can clear it up in the next episode before closing out the series. If you have questions or comments for me, please use the comments form that you will find at gnosticinsights.com  

Until next time, onward and upward, and God bless.

Cyd Ropp, Ph.D.

Copyright 2022; all rights reserved

Having completed, for now, our look at Gnostic Psychology, this week we will continue looking at the tripartite nature of the second order of powers, with a particular focus on our material bodies. The Tripartite Tractate says that, “Those who belong to the arrogant thought and those of the likeness are called ‘the Left,’ ‘Hylic,’ ‘the Dark Ones,’ and ‘the Last.’”

As we covered in the last episode, “After the Logos established each one in his order, both the images and the representations and the likenesses, he kept the Aeon of the images pure from all those who fight against it, since it is a place of joy. However, to those of the thought he revealed the thought which he had stripped from himself, desiring to draw them into a material union, for the sake of their system and dwelling place and in order that they might not any more rejoice in the glory of their environment and be dissolved, but might rather see their sickness in which they suffer, so that they might beget love and continuous searching after the one who is able to heal them of the inferiority.”

My previous theory of everything, A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything, gives material particles personalities and souls. We haven’t been able to do that with the Gnostic Gospel for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it doesn’t say anything like that in the Tripartite Tractate from which Gnostic Insights derives the cosmogeny of how everything works. What the Tripartite Tractate says is that the material is a likeness of the Aeon of the images, projected by the arrogant thought of the Fallen Demiurge. When Logos Fell, his pattern replicated down here below, but on a slower, thicker, mud level. The Demiurge only projects a shadow of Logos. In this manner, the Demiurge replicates, to the best of its ability, the Hierarchy of God as likenesses. These likenesses are the material particles.

The second reason the hylic can’t be considered to have conscious selves is a deduction from our first principle that consciousness comes from above, and the material that forms this cosmos originates from below. Matter arises from the Fall, from the presumptuous efforts of the Demiurge. Therefore, the particles, atoms, and molecules can’t be alive, because they lack consciousness. So now we need to understand why matter is dead in the Gnostic Gospel and yet seemingly alive in the Simple Explanation.

Here is the answer: in this universe, the material particles do not have conscious souls because they are reconstructions of the Demiurge, out of his memory of what the lower level Aeons and forces were like in his original home—the Pleroma of Logos. The matter is not a fractal of either the Fullness or of Logos; it is a memory from the imagination of the Demiurge. The material particles are not units of consciousness because they come from below, not above.

The Demiurge itself did not arise from the Fullness. The Demiurge is the overreaching ego of the Pleroma of Logos, and Logos is the blueprint from which he attempts to reconstruct the world. The Demiurge has to reconstruct those lower levels of the Pleroma entirely from his admittedly faulty memory. The hylic particles are not a fractal of the originating consciousness—they are an extension directly from the imagination of the Demiurge. The material level—the subatomic particles, atoms, molecules—are likenesses that the Demiurge created of how he should put things together.

If the Fullness is viewed as a pyramid and we apply the maxim of “as above, so below” and “as below, so above,” we can logically infer where the original images must reside. The images from which the hylic portion of this universe are copies must be those lower parts of the Hierarchy of the Fullness that down here constitute the physics of matter. Those base stones of the pyramid of the Hierarchy are represented here by their likenesses–the bosons and particles boiling up out of the quantum chaos of the Fall.

The shadows of those lower levels of the Hierarchy are two steps removed from their originals in the Fullness of God because they are shadows of Logos, and Logos himself was a fractal of the Fullness. The hylic level of the our universe is a shadowy copy of those Aeonic forms, slowed down and turned into mud. That mud forms the particles, atoms, and molecules of our universe. They are called the deficiency because they are not extensions of the consciousness of the Father. They are likenesses, imitations, of the pattern of Logos. When Logos Fell, his pattern replicated down here below, but on a slower, thicker, mud level. The Demiurge projects a shadow of Logos onto this universe.

In an ethereal sense, there is a place already in the original Fullness of God where those lower levels of the hierarchical pyramid serve as the prototype of the material particles in our universe. Except that in the Fullness they are alive; they are part of the Aeonic consciousness and they hang out with their Aeonic friends up there on that level. But down here on Earth these material particles are not fractals of those Aeons. They didn’t come from the top down as an emanation of consciousness. They are an imitation created by the Demiurge and that is why they have no consciousness of their own and are able to be organized from the bottom up. However, the original images, those Aeons from which they are pale derivatives, still exist in the Fullness of God because they never fell. The original forms stayed above in the Pleroma of God with the rest of the Fullness when Logos Fell.

The Tripartite Tractate  says the Aeons of the Pleroma did not suffer from the Fall as they were protected from the direct impact of the Fall by the Boundary between the two realms. Those little Aeons that resemble particles, the bottom-level building blocks of the Fullness, continue to exist in their Aeonic purity up above. What we see down here are just projections from the mind of the amnesiac Demiurge.

Here’s how the Tripartite Tractate puts it:

“All the spiritual places are in spiritual power. They are separate from the beings of the thought since the power is established in an image, which is that which separates the Pleroma from the Logos, while the power which is active in prophesying about the things which will be, directs the beings of the thought which have come into being toward that which is pre-existent, and it does not permit them to mix with the things which have come into being through a vision of the things which are with him.”

Meaning, the spiritual places are “up above” and separate from us beings of thought because we come from the Logos and not the Fullness. A futuristic prophesy directs us toward the pre-existent consciousness, and we are not permitted to mix our consciousness with the imaginary imitations of the Demiurge.

It turns out that the Simple Explanation view of matter is pre fall and also reflects the next economy after this current economy passes away. The matter here in our physical universe is only the superficial likeness of Aeonic forms and powers in the Fullness. These imitations of the Aeons are not units of consciousness. The matter is not from the Fullness; it is an imitation, a replication of the originals that remain in the Fullness. When all of the Demiurge is eventually redeemed and returned to the Pleroma of Logos in the Fullness, its material shadows will simply evaporate. The hylics are not conscious living beings; they are simply  imaginary creations of the Demiurge fitted to the Fall. The hylics will be replaced by the consciousness of the actual Fullness when this second-economy world is eventually exchanged for the third economy.

As an aside, in one sense the mythology of Sophia and Yaldabaoth of the Sethian strain of Gnosticism is right on the mark, because the Aeon who fell pushed out this aborted fetus called our material world; pushed it out, but only up to the molecular level, and that was the best it could do. That is why the material child of Sophia is stillborn. Soulless Yaldabaoth is the hylic monster incorporated into our bodies. And here’s where the mythology of the rape of Eve comes in, because the lifeblood and consciousness of Eve must mate with the dead matter of Yaldabaoth. In other words, in this existence, living and conscious second order powers must wed themselves in a one-to-one relationship with the molecules of the hylic body. The cells of our living flesh are intertwined with and dependent upon the non-living matter. This story of Yaldabaoth is a good example of a mythological explanation for a non-mythological process.

This explanation of the nature of the material likenesses that exist within the tripartite structure of us second order creatures also explains why we are able to claim there is no such thing as our spiritual death. We second order powers are extensions of the life and consciousness of the Father, coming through the units of consciousness carried within the Pleroma of Logos. We are eternal life and consciousness. We do not die;  we return home to the ethereal realm. Our bodies do not die either, for they were never alive to begin with. Our bodies are no more alive than the projections of likenesses on the movie or television screen. Fictional characters do not die when you turn off the set or walk out of the theater, for they were only projections. We need not mourn the passing of the hylic particles, for we are returning to eternal consciousness and they were merely shadows of the Fall. When we move on to the next economy, the hylic part of us will be replaced by the original images of their conscious counterparts in the Fullness. Then we will be truly 100% alive, from our Selfs down to our toes.

The Tripartite Tractate explains, “The first human being is a mixed formation, and a mixed creation, and a deposit of those of the left and those of the right, and a spiritual word whose attention is divided between each of the two substances from which he takes his being. Therefore, it is said that a paradise was planted for him, so that he might eat of the food of three kinds of tree, since it is a garden of the threefold order, and since it is that which gives enjoyment. … It was a work of providence, so that it might be found that it is a short time until man will receive the enjoyment of the things which are eternally good, in which is the place of rest. This the spirit ordained when he first planned that man should experience the great evil, which is death—that is complete ignorance of the Totality, and that he should experience all the evils which come from this and, after the deprivations and cares which are in these, that he should receive of the greatest good, which is life eternal, that is, firm knowledge of the Totalities and the reception of all good things.”

Now, jumping ahead to the final part of section three of the Tripartite Tractate, which contains many missing words due to damage of the original scroll, it says that after the revelation of the Christ and the final repentance and redemption of all living creatures, “the hylics will remain until the end for destruction… they would return once again to that which will not be. As they were… of use in the time that they were among them, although they were not…”

I’m going to end this episode by reading a few verses straight out of the Tripartite Tractate.

“Like that of all else is the creation of mankind as well. The spiritual Logos moved him invisibly, as he perfected him through the Demiurge and his angelic servants, who shared in the act of fashioning in multitudes, when he took counsel with his archons. Like a shadow is earthly man, so that he might be like those who are cut off from the Totalities. Also he is something prepared by all of them, those of the right and those of the left, since each one in the orders gives a form to the [body] in which it exists.”

This passage is saying that the Logos up above influences the Demiurge down here in this three-part construction of humankind. Logos moves the Demiurge to build up our material bodies without the Demiurge realizing the influence that Logos has on him. The Demiurge constructs our bodies out of a multitude of particles—a veritable galaxy of particles, atoms, and molecules that are put in place and held there through the rule of the Demiurge and its archonic controllers.

“The [body] which the Logos who was defective brought forth,” [that is the Demiurge], “who was in the sickness, did not resemble him,” [that is Logos], “because he brought it forth forgetfully, ignorantly, and defectively, and in all the other weak ways, although the Logos gave the first form through the Demiurge out of ignorance, so that he would learn that the exalted one exists, and would know that he needs him. This is what the prophet called “Living Spirit” and “Breath of the exalted aeons” and “the Invisible,” and this is the living soul which has given life to the power which was dead at first. For that which is dead is ignorance.”

In other words, the Demiurge is not a representation of the Logos because the Demiurge emerged from the Fall in chaotic ignorance. Into this chaos, Logos injected the Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the “Breath of the exalted Aeons,” in order to bring “life to the power which was dead at first.” The Tripartite Tractate equates ignorance with death and the Holy Spirit with life.

“It is fitting that we explain about the soul of the first human being, that it is from the spiritual Logos, while the creator thinks that it is his,” [and the creator is the Demiurge], “since it is from him, as from a mouth through which one breathes. The creator also sent down souls from his substance, since he, too, has a power of procreation, because he is something which has come into being from the representation of the Father. Also those of the left brought forth, as it were, men of their own, since they have the likeness of .”

Now, I don’t think that the “men” who are being created by the Demiurge are humans; I think that this is another word for the archons of the Demiurge. I don’t agree with the idea that there are material humans, second order powers, walking around that have been created by the Demiurge because that’s an impossibility. Humans are second order creations from the Pleroma of Logos and the Fullness working together to create us. The archons have the “likeness of being,” but they are not beings—they are likenesses, and we have already learned that likenesses are no more than shadows and projections of the Demiurge. The archons are created by the Demiurge because the Demiurge is, himself, an egoic representation of the Father above, and so his earthly bag of tricks includes the ability to procreate his version of life. But these creations of the Demiurge lack the living spirit that comes from above; they are projections of the ego of the Demiurge as he emulates the manner by which the Father extends consciousness into his emanations.

The Tripartite Tractate goes on to say that “The spiritual substance is a single thing and a single representation, and its weakness is the determination in many forms.”

So, what this is saying is that the “spiritual substance,” that Holy Spirit that we were just hearing about, is a single emanation of the Father. The “glory road” is one quality of life, consciousness, and love. Whereas the likenesses of the Demiurge, “its weakness,” comes in many forms. But, when people have their eyes onward and upward toward the Father and the Fullness, that is one single emanation, one loving determination, and everyone gets along. The determinations in many forms is why people don’t get along, why they have disagreements; why they can’t see eye to eye. It’s because the weakness has so many forms, and they are all based upon material and matter; it’s the hylic side.

 “As for the substance of the psychics,” [that is our psychological nature, our middle part of our being], “its determination is double, since it has the knowledge and the confession of the exalted one, and it is not inclined to evil, because of the inclination of the [good] thought. As for the material substance, its way is different and in many forms, and it was a weakness which existed in many types of inclination.”

If you focus all of your attention, all of your science and academic knowledge on the material, you’re only focusing on hylic. Whether it’s the hylic within our human body or the hylic material of the hard and rocky places of the universe. Science cannot find the truth of existence by studying the hylic because the hylic is not the truth. The hylic is the ignorance of existence. The truth of existence is the eternal knowledge of that which came from the beginning. Consciousness does not arise from the hylic; consciousness comes from above.

I hope you are benefitting from my presentation of gnosis from the Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel. This book is coming along well, and I hope to have a copy in your hands by Easter time. Meanwhile, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated is available now. The gnosis is the same as you hear on Gnostic Insights, but presented in a super simple, fully illustrated form for easier understanding.

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The Tripartite Nature of Humanity

By Cyd Ropp

Copyright 2022; all rights reserved

This week’s episode is going to look at what is called the tripartite nature of man. Now that we’ve finished my version of gnostic psychology, what I want to do is go back into the Tripartite Tractate and read some direct quotes out of it pertaining to the Tripartite’s description of what humanity’s composition is. So this week, in preparation, I did a very deep dive into two short sections of the Tripartite Tractate. One of those sections is the page immediately preceding section two, so it’s the end of section one.

This week I was reading both translations of the Tripartite Tractate that I have on hand. One of those versions is the translation by Attridge and Meuller, which is the same translation that you find out there at gnosis dot org, which you can read for free online. That Attridge and Meuller translation is the one that is also found in The Nag Hammadi Library book that you can buy, edited by James M Robinson, if you want to go to one of the booksellers and buy that. The other copy that I was reading from is the version of The Nag Hamadi Scriptures edited by Marvin Meyer, and you can also purchase that book. That one is translated by Einar Thomassen. It is helpful to go back and forth between the two different translations to try to broaden the understanding of the verses that are read, because one translator’s take on something is slightly different than the other translator’s take. So it’s helpful in that way to compare them

We humans and all second order powers have a three-part nature. This is why it’s called the Tripartite Tractate: tripartite, meaning three parts, tractate, book. It’s not just because this book is divided into three sections, which it happens to be, but it is because it describes the tripartite nature of God, the three-in-one. And, we humans are fractals of that tripartite system. The first part is our version of the monad of the Father, the Son, what is called our Self, with the big S. Self is what we call it here at Gnostic Insights; other people often refer to that as your spiritual aspect. The second part of the 3-part structure is called the psychical, our association with the Aeons of the Fullness, because we are representations of the Aeons of the Fullness; we are fractals of them. The psychical part is our psychological nature. It’s the part of us that thinks. Our third part is associated with the ego of Logos after the Fall. And our third part is the material level—the hylic.

So let me get back to the book here, and this is from the book edited by Myers. “To those who belong to the remembrance…” and that’s second order powers, because we are of the good thought, whereas the material world is of the presumptuous thought. The material world is based upon egoic strivings of Logos in particular, and we all carry that ego forward through our material aspect, so that’s called “those of the presumptuous thought.” That would be the material level, whereas “those of the remembrance” is the psychical level. That would be the psychological level—our thinking, our thoughts and the fact that we can remember that there is a Father above. We remember we were pre-existent consciousness because we are all of the remembrance. But, of course, we forget it. We get all tangled up with the material and we forget our higher nature.

Again, “To those who belong to the remembrance, however, he revealed the thought of which he had stripped himself with the intention that it should draw them into a communion with the material.”

So let’s think about that sentence. We second order powers, humans, we belong to the remembrance but also to Logos because we’re fractals of Logos himself.

“He revealed the thought of that which he had stripped from himself…” And what is that thought that he had stripped from himself? It’s his ego, it’s his presumptuous thought. Logos, after the Fall, finds himself down here below and he goes, what the heck did I do? He then stripped himself of the imitations of the likenesses. He stripped himself of the presumptuous thought. That presumptuous thought is his ego. He left that behind and Logos, “the best part of him,” that would be his noble thought, that would be his representations of all the images of the Fullness of God, he fled back up to the Fullness. He deserted the material plane and retreated back to the ethereal plane to go back home to his brothers in the Fullness of God.

Quoting the sentence again, “To those who belong to the remembrance.” That’s us. “He,” that’s Logos, “revealed the thought of which he had stripped himself.” So he gave us the egos. When we second order powers came down, we came not only with the good thoughts of the Fullness of God, but we came down with the presumptuous thought that Logos had peeled off of himself, that being his ego. And that is why we have both the higher Self and we have an egoic structure, the ego. But the ego is a reflection of the Fall.

“He revealed the thought of which he had stripped himself with the intention…” So why did he do that? Why did Logo saddle us with egos? “… with the intention that it should draw them into a communion with the material.”

If we didn’t have the ego making us want to cling to these material bodies, to this material instantiation, we wouldn’t have been able to meld ourselves to the material world. Our bodies are made up of the mud from the bottom up. Our bodies, the hard parts of our bodies, the subatomic particles, the particles, the atoms and the molecules, that is the material part of the Demiurge. That is demiurgic. It’s not evil, it’s just material. And it was given to in order for us to be able to stick the landing when we are born here into the world when we exit the ethereal plane and are literally born into this material world.

You know, we begin at the cellular level. Life comes in at the cellular level. The Demiurge has the power from the mud up through the molecules. But creatures, living creatures, all living creatures, from the bacteria on up—all the soft, squishy parts that coat the hard, rocky parts—that is the second order of powers. That is “those of the remembrance” at conception, coming in to that molecular level, coming on top of it and then through the pattern of the Fullness above as directed by Logos, because we are the actual fractals of Logos, not the fallen fractals of the Demiurge. The Fallen fractals of the ego of Logos is the material level only, but we of the remembrance, the psychical, that is the psychological, the thought-filled part—we come from the top down. So material is from the bottom up and it is demiurgic, but life and consciousness is from the top down. And that is aeonic—in particular, coming through the fractal of Logos.

So, all of the variabilities of life, even our very structure, when the material to which my psychical part is melded begins to develop from that original zygote and then becomes a creature, it’s the Hierarchy of the Fullness, it’s the patterns of the Hierarchy. It’s the consciousness of the Fullness of God coming along through, right down through our cellular level, and that’s what builds us up. It is indeed a form of intelligent design, and the intelligence is in Fullness, and we are brought up above the molecular level, at the cellular level on up, forming ourselves, forming our organ systems, forming our organisms, even then forming our communities outside of our bodies, our larger communities. It’s all according to the Simple Golden Rule, which is how the Aeons work.

We reach out to others at the living level to hold hands through free will and we cooperate with each other to build something bigger and better than ourselves. We come in as that single-cell and we have to build ourselves up into these organisms, and we do that by holding hands with others like ourselves and sharing information, sharing physical assistance, and sharing love and coherence, because love only comes from the top down. From the bottom up it’s the strong material control: it’s the bonds of the Demiurge; that stops at the molecular level. And then we are wedded to that material level through the love of the Fullness of God, and that continues our leveling up. But now it’s voluntary and now it’s through the Simple Golden Rule.

The Demiurge doesn’t know love. The Demiurge doesn’t remember the Father, it doesn’t remember the Fullness. It doesn’t know what love is—it is purely ego, it’s all about me. Of course, the Demiurge is also built upon the pattern of the Fullness of God, but he doesn’t remember that. So his version of “me” is to replicate the Fullness of God as best he can, but it’s only at the material level. It takes the love and consciousness coming from above to grow us on up beyond that.

So, let me read that sentence again: “To those who belong to the remembrance, however, he revealed the thought of which he had stripped himself with the intention that it should draw them into a communion with the material. This was in order to provide them with a structure and a dwelling place.”

Our psychical and spiritual levels are welded onto this material level to give us “a structure and a dwelling place,” but also in order that by being “drawn toward evil,” it says, but I think the materiality of the Fall is more like it; we don’t have to say it’s “evil” just yet. But anyway, “but in order that by being drawn toward evil, they should acquire a weak basis for their existence.”

This life we live is tenuous. It is a weak existence. That is why things die. If it had been a strong existence, we wouldn’t die; we would be immortal. But by requesting immortality at the material level, you would be holding yourself forever away from the eternal level. If you allow yourself to be wedded, let’s say in the manner of transhumanism, if you allow your consciousness or your psychical level, which is Aeonic, if you allow it to be materially welded forever to this material plane, then you are being held by the Demiurge very strongly in a strong grip, and you will never be able to exit: “death”. You will never be able to exit and go back home. Because we’re from above. Going back home for us means returning to the pleroma of Logos, means returning to the Fullness of God. And if you want to be a transhumanist and have your consciousness downloaded into a computer, you’re never going to make it back up there. See, it’s not a good idea.

By the way, I know that it’s a popular motif in science fiction, beginning back with Max Headroom, that you can download your consciousness into a computer matrix and survive in that manner. That is the hope and dream of the transhumanists—to achieve immortality through technological advancement. But, I think in terms of these gnostic gospels, that’s not really possible because our Self is a top-down phenomenon. Our Self is a reflection of the One. And our Self quickly flees back to the Fullness when given the chance, as Logos did after the Fall when Logos returned back to the Fullness. We are fractals of Logos and so we follow that pattern. Logos did not allow his Self to be captured down here by the material. Logos returned to the Fullness. So, I think that our Self will not be captured, willingly or unwillingly, into a computer matrix or metaverse.

What would be the thing that would be moved into the metaversal maxtrix?  It’s not our second order nature. It really isn’t our psychical level, because that is associated with the Aeons of the Fullness. We are those of the remembrance; we are not those of the material. Those of the material are the hylics.

Again, what would be captured, then, in that metaversal matrix? Wouldn’t it be our meme shroud? See, the material types, the technicians, equate our meme shroud—our collection of experiences, our collections of beliefs, even our personalities—to learned behaviors after birth. They don’t think we come in with any programming. They don’t believe in intelligent design or a pre, eternal, consciousness. They think we begin with birth. They are not of the remembrance—they don’t remember where we come from because they are aligned with the Demiurge, and the Demiurge doesn’t remember where it comes from. But we aren’t created at birth, and we aren’t created at conception. We are created previous to that. We are created in the eternal, non-material realm. We are the fruit of the Aeons through Logos.

So, all that could be downloaded into the metaversal network will be our meme shroud—the things that attach to us on this material plane, the things that belong to the material—the things that did not exist from the beginning. And, is that your personality? Does that constitute your consciousness and your Self? Does it even constitute your thoughts and your psychical level? At best, it constitutes the fallen ego and everything it has acquired through karma—through the meme shroud attaching to any particular ego.  But your psychical self and your big S Self, those are eternal and they do not belong to the material realm, therefore I truly doubt they can be captured by the matrix of the technological metaverse.

And then, just think about this: what kind of matrix would that be to have only pure ego and pure meme shrouds surrounding you? You would literally be living in a land filled with narcissism, which is almost what we have now, but we don’t quite. Because we have, still, that little niggling remembrance, and the remembrance of the Father and remembrance of the Fullness and the virtues… that’s our conscience. Imagine living in a metaverse where there is no remembrance at all. That’s kind of like a description of hell. Just think about it.

And so it says right here, “so that we should acquire a weak basis for our existence so that instead of rejoicing unduly in the glory of their own environment and thereby remaining exiled, they might rather perceive the sickness they were suffering from,” that being the material fall, “and so acquire a consistent longing and seeking after the one who is able to heal them from this weakness.”

Well, that’s all we have time for today. I wanted to explain a lot more, but we didn’t get there, but I think I went over all of this so slowly that you get it by now, right? And I hope that you can relate what I’m reading to you back to the previous episodes we’ve had and back to these last four in particular, which was the psychological nature of humankind. Why? It is that we have a Self that reflects the One and we also have an ego that reflects the presumptuous thought of the Demiurge.

I really look forward to continuing this train of thought. Next week we’ll hit another sentence or two. We’re still working on writing the book, A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel. This is material that will go into that book. So I hope that in a couple or a few months, when all of these episodes are finished and collected and printed, that you will then buy the book.

Meanwhile, I hope you’re sharing these podcasts with friends that you trust—with other spiritual people. I hope you begin to share this information with your friends, or at least when the book comes out, you’ll share that. Meanwhile, you know there is a short little book that I wrote a few years ago called The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, and it’s everything that I’m sharing with you now, but just in a very short and easy-to-understand form. It’s only about 50 pages, but it has all of these concepts and all of these illustrations. The book I’m writing now is the deep explanation for all of that. It’s still The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated that we’re talking about. We’re talking about the Tripartite Tractate and pulling out more particularities out of the Tripartite, but we’re still working with the same material. So if you do not have a copy of The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, go ahead and buy one. It’s pretty handy. You can find it, of course, at Gnostic Insights dot com, under the tab, Buy the books, or you can find it at Amazon or at lulu dot com.

Until next week, onward and upward. And God bless us all.

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by Cyd Ropp, Ph. D.

Copyright 2022; all rights reserved

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights. My goal here at this podcast is to share with you information from the Nag Hammadi, primarily from the Tripartite Tractate, concerning the gnosis of our existence. The reason that it’s important to discover this gnosis is because gnosis is your personal reassurance that you are loved and not alone.

I know I promised you in the last episode that I would reveal this week how the Gnostic Gospel can help you rise above the mire you are currently stuck in. It is now time to look at the cravings that have taken you over and how to rid yourself of them, whether those cravings are for sex, drugs, social media, or whatever. To do this, we need to look at the meme shroud that is stuck to your Ego and how to rid yourself of those negative memes. Naturally, we will begin by talking about the Fullness of God.

Our conscious spirit comes from the God Above All Gods, passed down through the Son and on through the Aeons and the Fullness of God. This consciousness is a continuously flowing stream. We are embedded within the First Consciousness of the Father. We are not separated from that consciousness. We are a part of this great Being that precedes our material universe. The Tripartite Tractate says that we are not cut off from the Father, but rather the Father extends itself outward in an unbroken flow throughout the entirety of creation. This consciousness is the background matrix of not only our universe, but even before our universe began.

We are fractals of that loving consciousness and so our lives truly resonate to the Fullness of God. All else is delusion and distraction. All else leads to feelings of loss and abandonment. All of the stories and events that happen to us in our lives are fractal versions of things that have happened before, over and over again, at different levels and at different times in history. If you think about it, there are only so many stories and there really aren’t that many different things that can happen to you in your life. Sure, the characters, places, and details may be unique, but the patterns are the same. Stories of love and loss, loyalty and betrayal, safety and danger, delusion and gnosis. These stories and events all boil down to various versions of the large archetypes.

Jung’s psychology talked about how we all share the same mythical-level stories and characters. He got those archetypes, as it turns out, from the original Gnostics. So the archetypes that Jung speaks of, which I learned as simply Jung’s theory of transpersonal psychology, are not Jung’s ideas. These are eternal concepts that were preserved for us by the Nag Hammadi codices and other ancient Gnostic texts.

We are the fruit, or emanation, of the Fullness of God, and we share consciousness with the Aeons of the Fullness. All lifeforms are plugged into the Fullness of God, and we all remember the Fullness subconsciously. Gnosis is the remembered thoughts of the Fullness. The Aeonic patterns come to us and not only inform our psyches, they also give physical form to living creatures. Lifeforms don’t arise from the mud; they don’t aggregate upward from the molecular level on up, the way evolution suggests it does. That is an error. That is a materialist, demiurgic worldview. Life comes from above, along with consciousness. Matter comes from the bottom up, and it’s dead. Matter is a product of the Fall. Matter doesn’t come from the Pleroma of God, but rather from the Pleroma of the Demiurge.

Our personalities and our basic spiritual composition is precisely patterned upon the Aeons of the Pleroma in the Fullness of God. We come pre-loaded with virtuous memes of the Fullness. But, once we are instantiated here on this material plane, we acquire memes from each other. Everything you learn, everything you experience, everything you hate, everything you love, colors your interpretation of the world around you. So, our life is a combination of the pure knowledge that comes from Above, and that’s gnosis, as well as these loves and hates and knowledge that we acquire down here below. And those are the memes.

Another aspect that colors our interpretation of the world is our own personal karma. Karma is your record of the consequences of your actions. Your karma may or may not allow you to hear what someone else is saying because, as a consequence of prior actions, you are either open or closed to what they have to say. Your karma and your meme bundles pretty much determine how much gnosis you’re able to tap into. In our earthly realm we have generated a lot of memes, and the Demiurge has generated vices to counteract every Aeonic virtue. Vices are always demiurgic and are designed to entrap you and lead you away from gnosis. Vices are always built upon lies. And the problem with human-generated memes is that some of them are true and some of them aren’t true. Some of them are lies and some of them are hurtful, whereas the information that comes down to us directly from the Fullness of God, the gnosis, is all true. It’s all helpful, it’s all loving, it’s all good.

So, rather than spending all of our time delving into our earthly generated meme-cloud which has a lot of garbage in it, it’s a good idea to focus upward and tap directly into the gnosis that you can trust.

We’re not all affected by the same memes. We each have our own unique collection of memes. Just like in your house, you have your own unique possessions and your own unique wardrobe of clothes. We each have our own collection of beliefs, and I call those your meme bundle.  Memes pass us by largely unnoticed, because we filter out memes that we don’t resonate with. We acquire most of our memes from the culture that surrounds us. We are also born with a particular meme bundle that gives our personalities continuity from one lifetime to the next.

We come into each life with a bundle of memes carried over from previous lifetimes.  Your karma attracts the memes from your prior lifetimes. When this Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel book comes out, you will find a section on reincarnation in the appendix. You bring your memes with you into this lifetime via the magnetism of your personal karma. That’s why babies are different from one another. Babies do not come in as what is called tabula rasa—a blank slate. Babies come in with their own personalities and beliefs.

Once a unit of consciousness does acquire a meme, it’s part of the unique, vibratory bundle of that unit of consciousness. If you do not wish to continue holding that meme, then you have to actually detach it through either conscious will or disuse. You can’t keep using it and expect it to go away. Some memes are easy to detach because they don’t really fit in with your bundle of meme strings and chords. For example, you might acquire a set of memes from some friends that you go to school with, or you work with, but they aren’t really your closest friends and you don’t really embrace those values. And so, when you stop hanging around with them and you move away or you get a different group of friends or you go to another school or change jobs, you drop those memes just out of disuse; you forget about them because they weren’t really part of you. You then acquire new memes from the people you surround yourself with. This is why folks who quit drinking or taking drugs usually need to disassociate themselves from their old party crowd.

While some memes fall away of their own accord, other memes must be consciously detached and laid aside. Some memes are pernicious, and addictions are the behaviors associated with those pernicious memes. In the worldly course of events, unwanted memes must be detached through an effort of will, either through conscious disuse or by acquiring a competing, more desirable meme. Therapies such as emotional freedom technique (EFT) can help with that. EFT is a simple procedure that involves tapping on your body’s meridians while thinking about the memes you wish to dislodge. Many people find EFT effective, and you can learn to do it on your own. I’ll put a link to EFT in the transcript of this episode in case you are ready to try it. Within one’s spiritual tradition, memes may be surrendered to one’s higher power through prayer and meditation. Serenity is achieved as the memes are discarded.

At any point in time you can choose to lay down an unwanted meme. If you notice yourself carrying it around again, stop and lay it down again. You can use this as a visual metaphor. If you notice yourself invoking a meme out of habit, it’s very good that you notice. Stop and lay it down again. Walk away. You may need to lay down some neighboring memes as well, because sometimes these things come in sets; they come as bundles. So if you have a neighboring meme that is causing you to remember the bad meme, then you have to lay down those neighboring memes, too. This would include, for example, if you’re an alcoholic. It’s not a good idea to hang out bars if you have just gone straight and put down some heavy drugs. It’s not a good idea to hang out with those people again only because the partying meme bundles are invoked and you don’t want to re-invoke those meme bundles.

Some memes are very difficult to detach once they are acquired, because they have such an intense pattern that they cling tightly to your soul. Cigarettes used to have a glamorous attraction. They were always pictured in television programs and movies and the glamorous people smoked their cigarettes. They don’t do that so much anymore in the movies and the television, so they have less of a glamorous appeal. Emotionally evocative negative memes such as victimhood or jealousy are very difficult to detach because they have a synergistic coupling with thoughts and emotions.

For example, we know that post-traumatic stress has such a strong hold because a disturbing incident is married to the strong emotional reaction that it caused at the time. The memes surrounding the incident and your emotional reaction to it are woven into your personality structure, and they’re very difficult to get rid of. So in the case of PTSD, some sort of therapy is usually required to detach that meme from the person. If you don’t actively strive to detach that meme, it’s possible to be victimized by PTSD for the rest of your life, and that’s an extremely unpleasant situation to be in.

Therapies that may help detach negative memes include, for example, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a short-term talking therapy with a therapist that helps you to talk about and relive that dramatic event and the memes attached to it that have affected your life. When you talk about the incident and write about it and discuss it with the therapist, you are reframing what those thoughts are that come to you. You are pulling the fangs out of the tiger. Cognitive processing involves dislodging the memes associated with the event in your mind, and associating it with new memes. If, for example, you’re blaming yourself for something that happened, then you learn that you need not have blamed yourself. And if you can take the blame away from the thing, then that loosens the hold of that meme. So, cognitive behavioral therapy generally involves understanding and accepting that you were not responsible for the incident and it wasn’t your fault, no matter what you did or didn’t do, and this takes away its power.

My brother and I believe that the best method of approaching these very negative memes that you need to jettison is through hypnotherapy. My brother, Doctor Bill Puett, is a hypnotherapist. Bill takes people into their stressful situations where they can re-write that history. They make the negative event have a different outcome, which replaces the memes that occurred at the time of the original incident with different memes that have a better outcome. These new memes are the ones you carry forward as your memories from then on. It’s highly effective.

Your meme bundle is the key to transformation. This is why, whenever I list the vices on the left and the virtues on the right, these things are pretty well-balanced. You can exchange any vice for a virtue for immediate relief. If you are a person, let’s say, who’s afraid of loss, you don’t think there’s enough love or material in this world to go around. This meme makes you needy and greedy. You want to hold on to every object and person that you have out of a sense of security. That is not a positive mental attitude. It’s best to lay down that fear, and the greediness and clinging that comes from it, and look over on the virtue side of the ledger to see what can you replace it with. If I think there’s not enough to go around and I’m going to be left out, then what can I say to myself to invoke a new meme to replace it? I might say, “God loves me. There’s plenty to go around. The Fullness provides for all of us. I am loved and I will be cared for.” Our will power is sufficient to drop the negative memes. We can do it ourselves, but therapy may help you identify which memes need dropping and may assist in the process.

In the New Testament, it is taught that when Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to preach, he told them not to take anything with them whatsoever. They weren’t to take a suit case; they weren’t to take an extra pair of sandals. They weren’t to take any money. They were to go out on faith that the Father would provide for them. They were to go from village to village with absolutely no possessions and trust that the universe would provide for their needs. This was more than simply a physical instruction. It was also part of the meme bundle Jesus passed over to his disciples as a demonstration of their faith. They were not to bring along their own extra bundles of things or thoughts. They simply went out with the power of God. This is an example of laying down your earthly memes.

We get along well with people that share the same memes that we do. And there is generally misunderstanding and even hostility amongst people who do not share the same memes. We are currently in a situation in our culture where we have been artificially pushed apart. Media and social media, under the control of the Demiurge, have completely pushed us apart, so there is very little overlap of memes. If you try to cross ideological boundaries and share with people who have little in common with your memes, then there is hostility, anger, and mistrust. But, of course, underneath all the memes, we are all the same, we are all One. We are all part of the continuous flow of love and coherence from the Originating Source of consciousness—the Father.

Right now people are holding on strongly to their memes. They have been taught revolutionary memes for a great reset and they don’t care what you think or how you feel about it. They are attempting to force their memes upon you. It’s a lot easier to go along with the meme bundle that they’re attempting to hand off, but you don’t have to do that. Look inside of yourself, center yourself, commune with the Fullness of God, look to the Father, and concentrate your attention on gnosis.

Only the Father’s love and gnosis can pull you out of the destructive meme patterns you have acquired. You cannot do this only through your own will power. You need to move your Ego off of the throne of your personality and allow your eternal Self to guide your thoughts and behavior. The first step to putting your true Self on the throne is to align yourself with the Father’s love. You need to set down the confusing and hurtful memes in order to let your Self and God’s love shine through. Remember, if it’s hurtful, then it’s not from Above. Let it go.

By the way, these detached memes don’t evaporate into nothingness. They continue to exist in the universal meme shroud we call the Akashic Record or the Transpersonal space. They will eventually evaporate at the end of time, because only that which exists from the beginning will continue into eternity. Since we are fractals of the Father’s Fullness, our consciousness is eternal.

Before I go, let me remind you of the virtues of the ALL and the vices of the Demiurge.

If you’re struggling with some memes or if you have some questions that you would like to ask me, I would very much appreciate hearing from you. You can leave a comment on my Gnostic Insights dot com website, using the Comments form on the Contact Us page. Go ahead and write to me, and I’ll write back.

God bless you. Onward and upward.

Cyd Ropp, Ph. D.

Copyright 2022; all rights reserved

For the past couple of episodes, I have laid out for you my and my brother’s theory of a new Gnostic Psychology. If you have not listened to those episodes, I recommend that you go the gnostic insights dot com home page and click on the tab you will find there labelled “A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel.” That tab will take you to links to all of the episodes of this current series.  You may wish to begin at the first episode listed and work your way up to this episode, which is the 16th in the series. Or, if you are in a hurry to learn about Gnostic Psychology, you will find those prior two episodes called “Human Nature: Gnostic Psychology parts 1 and 2.  As I mentioned before, this material is not necessarily easy; it’s probably at the level of an advanced university Psychology course, so don’t worry if some of it is hard to grasp. Today’s episode may be more relatable, as it applies in a less theoretical way to our lives and lived experiences.

I was treated to lunch the other day by a friend who considers herself non-religious and overtly anti-Christian. We usually avoid talking about both politics and religion, because we disagree on almost everything. So I was pleased and surprised when she said to me over a plate of sushi, “These books you write may be all well and good, but so what? What’s so special about your beliefs and why should I care?” 

I knew this opening would be brief, and I felt that I needed to give her a quick and persuasive answer, so I talked a little about originating consciousness pre-existing outside of herself, and how that basic idea takes a person out of purely ego-centric thinking by acknowledging a greater power that came before. She nodded her agreement to that and said she had no problem with that. Seeing that the door was still open, I then offered her the idea that most people have hope that they will go to Heaven when they die because they long to see their loved ones again after they pass on. I said that having an assurance of Heaven is a powerful belief, because it takes away the fear of death. To this, my friend answered that she doesn’t fear death because she believes she will just blink out into blackness, and who cares after that, right? I nodded and said I agree with that reasoning, except that’s probably not what happens, so that would be a false belief. But I can see why she wouldn’t be worried. I shrugged and said we’d find out soon enough after we pass over from this material life. We then moved right on to other, less challenging, topics.

After pondering our conversation the next day, I realized that the “So what?” answers I offered her don’t really answer the bigger question of why any of this matters in the first place. Why should anyone care about The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated or the Gnostic Insights podcast? Here’s what I came up with to offer as an over-arching concept that comes before and frames the very questions we addressed, such as recognizing the Father and what happens after you die. What I had offered her was the content, or the memes, of gnostic belief. But even before sharing information, a person needs a scaffolding upon which they can hang their questions and find their answers. It’s a way of coming to gnosis. It’s your ideological framework.

Our worldview, or ideology, is the larger frame through which we view the world. We humans are built to make sense of the world around us. When things don’t make sense, we feel puzzled, lost, even frightened or depressed. We humans all need to believe in something—anything. I would say it’s in the nature of us Second Order Powers, because we were created as reasonable beings. A worldview is the scaffolding upon which we hang our observations and expectations. It is a very big framework because we need to be able to make some sense of the world in order to discern our reason for living.

A person’s worldview isn’t necessarily spiritual or religious. A non-religious person may believe in their political party and its policies. Different political parties have differing goals for society and different, often opposing, methods for achieving those goals. Those who are not political, may believe in sports. They may devote their spare time and mental energy into following teams and statistics and attending games. Their life is built around seasons and schedules and ESPN. Others may devote their lives to loving nature. Their causes are ecological, and they concentrate their energy in the direction of preserving habitats and protecting the planet’s flora and fauna. They may view weather patterns in terms of climate change, and they may even take an anti-human stance in favor of Earth First. Still others put their faith in technology. They believe mechanical innovation can save the world and humanity. They trust in trans-humanism and are eager to install technological enhancements to improve the human body.

These affiliations all represent people’s ideologies. Their belief system determines their observations and their actions. One person will look at a given set of facts and come to a conclusion based upon their ideological memes; while another person may look at the same facts and come to a completely different conclusion and course of action. This is no surprise, because everyone has a worldview that filters incoming and outgoing energy and memes. A fascinating thing about ideologies is that most people are not even aware that there is such a thing as competing ideologies. Their own ideology is what is called “naturalized,” which means that they hold it so deeply that they do not recognize it as an ideology and that there may be other valid points of view. They don’t realize that their own worldview shapes and filters what they see and the options open for their behavior. They think that those who disagree with them are wrong, crazy, or evil.

For example, in the field of health and disease, conventional versus alternative healthcare is a major ideological divide. One’s ideology determines whether or not you trust medicine or you trust nature. It was this ideological schism that my own doctoral dissertation focused on, particularly the field of medical-model hospital births versus traditional midwife-assisted homebirths. If you are interested in this topic and curious enough to read my dissertation, it is available at lulu dot com. Just search for my name, Cyd Ropp, at lulu, and you will find my books, including The Rhetoric of Childbirth: The Trial of a California Midwife in both paperback and ebook.

Religious orientation is, of course, a basic ideological framework. For religious folks, their religion frames their worldview. Observant adherents frame their interpretations of the world and their reactions to the world through the lens of their religion, whatever that religion may be. To be faithfully “true” or “observant” means that a person does their best to live their life according to the precepts laid down by their religious leaders and the Holy Books they believe in. Here at Gnostic Insights, I am promoting Christian Gnosticism, and the Holy Book is the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi codices in combination with the New Testament.

These various ideologies all have predictable outcomes if they’re halfway good ideologies or worldviews. The Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything, of course, is called “of everything” because it is a theory of everything that pretty much answers all questions you might pose. However, it is not religious at all. It is secular, which means non-religious. The Simple Explanation uses logic, deduction, math, and science as the framework, or ideology, to observe and make observations and predictions.  You can also find the Simple Explanation book at the lulu dot com website or on Amazon.

Here is the bottom line about ideologies. Either you have an ideology that comforts you and that frames your worldview, or you don’t.

Aside from their particular and divergent beliefs, people who have a positive worldview are more or less passionate about doing something right for the world. Whether they be political activists or humanists who believe in the power of people, or observant religious people who believe in enacting God’s will on earth—whatever their passion is—they feel the emotional security of having something, anything, to believe in. Even hedonism is an ideology, albeit a Demiurgic, egoic ideology. A hedonist is someone who believes that pleasure and self-satisfaction is the highest calling. To that end, a hedonist may be passionate about indulging their desires for food, sex, power, drugs, or fame. Unfortunately for them, their pursuit of pleasure will never satisfy their cravings, because they are trying to plug a spiritual hole with worldly pleasure.

If someone doesn’t hold any worldview at all, then those people cannot help but feel confused and distressed because they have nothing that helps them make sense of their experiences. A person who doesn’t hold a worldview is not living their lives fully or passionately, because they are not dedicated to a cause greater than themselves. These people feel as though they just don’t understand what the heck is going on. They don’t get it at all. People who lack an ideology have no clue as to whether this or that is true. They have no basis of judgment, because they lack an ideological framework through which they can make sense of the world. They are just fumbling around in the dark, continually puzzled and either saddened or, just as likely, numb. This absolute lack of a worldview is utterly destructive to one’s confidence and self-esteem. It also leaves people vulnerable to the influence of cults.

A recent study called “Cult membership: What factors contribute to joining or leaving?” by M. Rousselet, et. al., identifies “a deep dissatisfaction with life and a need for personal development” as the reason people turn to cults. Cults provide a ready-made ideology that gives recruits an ideological structure to believe in. This ideology causes an instant sense of relief as their lack of structure is filled by the cult’s meme bundle. The cult also provides community to lonely people who lack a trustworthy social network, and a direction and purpose to the lost. The study calls these cults “wolfs in sheep’s clothing” because the initial relief and happiness found in the bosom of the cult quickly turns into “traps of pain and torture.”

We know from our Gnostic studies that “traps of pain and torture” do not come from the Father or the Fullness of God. Pain and torture is the specialty of the Demiurge. Cults are a spiritual dead-end, and they are very difficult to escape from. Cults rely upon the imposition of an overarching worldview that is only held by that cult. Cults also count upon charismatic leadership and obedience to that leader, which short-circuits the recruit’s ability to think for themselves. The cult leader replaces one’s connection with the Father by a connection to the Demiurge.

The Gnostic Gospel worldview is not a cult. The way you can tell this is by Gnosticism’s direct connection to the originating source of consciousness—the Father—and not to any human leader. This is precisely why the Gnostics were wiped out by Catholicism between 300 and 400 AD. Gnosis comes directly from the Father, and not through a Pope or any other charismatic religious or political leader. Gnosis encourages a personal relationship with the God Above All Gods. Gnosis does not rely upon rituals or secret practices of any kind to achieve spiritual goals. No human can give you gnosis. No earthly community can replace your heavenly community in the Fullness of God. Gnosis fills you with love and joy, not fear and commandments.

And that is why I share this gnosis with you. I promote a Gnostic worldview to people who are either dissatisfied with their current ideology or who are lost and searching for a healthy worldview to believe in. I believe the Gnostic Gospel will be helpful to people, because that’s one of the predictable outcomes of my gnostic philosophy—helping others in the manner of the Simple Golden Rule.

Our next episode will discuss in detail exactly how the Gnostic Gospel as presented here at Gnostic Insights can help you rise above the mire you are currently stuck in. We will look at the cravings that have taken you over and how to rid yourself of them, whether those cravings are for sex, drugs, or whatever. We will look at the meme shroud that is stuck to your Ego and how to rid yourself of negative memes. We will talk about the role of the Demiurge and its gang of archons that keep you enslaved to negative memes. And we will speak of a better, more human and positive, Gnostic ideology that can bring you peace, spiritual security, and true joy as you rediscover your own, inherent, Self.