Gnostic Insights

This week I had the pleasure of talking with New York musician, intellectual provocateur, poet, and podcaster--Tessa Lena. In this episode, Tessa shares some Russian history with us as well as delivering a large dose of gnosis from her heart. We will finish up the interview in the next episode, so be sure to subscribe to Gnostic Insights, if you haven't already.

Visit Tessa Lena's substack by clicking here.

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Cyd translates the arcane language of the Tripartite Tractate into understandable words to describe the genesis of the archons and their relationship to the Demiurge and this material universe. Who or what are these "beautiful likenesses" that mistake themselves for the Aeons of the Fullness?

"The thought of the archons is not barren--all that they thought about they have as potential offspring: fighters, warriors, troublemakers, apostates, disobedient beings, lovers of power..." (The Tripartite Tractate)

Antifa rioters, 2019

When Logos Fell, his egoic bits and pieces shattered and scattered, becoming the lost little shadows of the deficiency. Logos was horrified at what had happened and at the unruly, disobedient parts of himself that were now loose and rolling around down here below. Logos fled the deficiency and returned to the Fullness, praying for help from the Father and his aeonic brothers to assist with cleaning up the spill.

When Logos returned to the Fullness, his Pleroma was born out of the parts of himself that had become self-aware as a result of the Fall. These parts of Logos, his Pleroma, represented the better part of each and every piece of himself that had broken out and remained below as shadows of the Fall. It is the Fullness of the Pleroma of Logos that forms the body of the Redeemer who comes back down to the deficiency, one piece at a time, to restore love and memory to the Demiurge, helping him remember the gnosis that will return him to the Fullness and bring the eventual end to this deficiency we call materialism.

Logos contains with itself representations of all the other Aeons of the Fullness. That's Logos sitting up there on top of the Fullness.

Logos forgets about his duties as part of the Fullness and makes a unilateral decision to launch himself upward to reunite with the Father. Instead of rejoining the Glory of the Illimitable, Logos Falls.

After the Fall, Logos produced disobedient shadows of himself that became material.

We Second Order Powers are caught here in the material universe, fighting a never-ending war with forces of the deficiency. Logos prayed to the Father while looking at his brothers in the Fullness. This prayer resulted in the ordination of the Third Order of Powers, the Christ. The mission of the Christ is to reenter the material world, one piece at a time, until all of the pieces are redeemed.

If you find these podcasts helpful, please consider donating to help Cyd cover the cost. And remember to subscribe to Gnostic Insights so you don’t miss a single episode!

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This episode takes a look at one of the slides I will be sharing during my presentation at the Astro Gnosis Conference that will take place in Mexico on March 20. Miguel Conner of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio invited me to be one of the featured speakers on day one of the conference; thank you, Miguel! If you would like to attend, you can check out the conference page here: Astro Gnosis Conference - Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio (thegodabovegod.com)

Today's talk will explain the following diagram that combines concepts from my books, A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything and The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated. Here's the diagram:

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If you find these podcasts helpful, please consider donating to help Cyd cover the cost. And remember to subscribe to Gnostic Insights so you don’t miss a single episode!

This week we look at two "Gnostic Gospels" known as Tractate 7 ("That the Greatest Human Evil Is Unacquaintance with God") and Poimandres. These tractates are considered "Hermetic" works, unlike the book we usually study which is considered a "Valentinian" tractate. These two tracts, purportedly written by a Greco-Egyptian god known as Hermes Trismegistus, support the concepts we have been studying, particularly as it relates to "acquaintance," their word for gnosis. Here we find that the ancient Egyptians were also believers in the Father and the Fullness Above as the singular source of Truth and the gnosis that comes through pure intellect.

The Fullness of God is a hierarchy consisting of all facets of the Son's names, places, and powers that prefigures our material universe. This "entirety" is the fount of acquaintance with God.

"People, where are you rushing, so intoxicated and having so fully drunk the strong wine of reasoning unaccompanied by acquaintance? You cannot hold it; already you are about to throw it up. Stop, get sober! Look up with the eyes of the mind--and if you cannot all do so, at least those of you who can! For the imperfection that comes from unacquaintance [lack of gnosis] is flooding the entire earth, corrupting the soul along with the body that encloses it and preventing it from putting in at the havens of safety." Tractate 7

"Why, O inhabitants of earth, have you given yourselves up to death, even though you have the ability to share in immortality? Repent, O you who have traveled with error and participated in lack of acquaintance! Depart from the darksome light, share in immortality, give up corruption!" Poimandres

This episode explains the gnostic belief in universal salvation of all living creatures--considered one of the great heresies of Gnosticism. As if that weren't enough heresy for one episode, we also explain the nature of God and the difference between the God of the Hebrew's Old Testament and the God Above All Gods of the Gnostic scriptures. When Jesus referred to "my father in Heaven," who was He referring to?

The Fullness of God is a hierarchical arrangement of Aeons. The final Aeon added to the top of the Fullness was named Logos, and Logos carried within itself small fractals of all the other Aeons.

The final Aeon mistakes himself for the Fullness.

The final Aeon tries to reunite with the Father on his own, but Falls out of the Fullness instead and breaks apart. The best part of Logos retreats back to the ethereal Fullness. The part that is left behind in the material plane is called the Demiurge.

Cyd sits down with a new friend who has just read The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated for the first time. She is obviously far along in her gnostic journey and her questions and observations are right on point. We sat at the kitchen table and shared gnosis for a couple of hours. Here is the second half hour of our conversation.

This is a wide-ranging conversation that touches on an amazing array of gnosis.

The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated is a very simple presentation of classic, Valentinian gnosis. Non-scholastic; illustrations by cyd.

The hierarchy of the Pleroma is shaped like a pyramid. The higher, the fewer.

The hierarchy of our bodies is patterned after the hierarchy of the Pleroma. This diagram is from A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything.

Cyd's Simple Explanation theory of everything is fully consistent with the gnostic gospel, written prior to the author's reading of the Nag Hammadi codices. Whereas the Gnostic Gospel Illuminated is written in religious terminology, the Simple Explanation is written with secular language for those who reject religion and prefer to discuss consciousness, toruses, and fractals.

Our material universe may be shaped like a torus. This is explained in A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything.

Cyd's rainbow slinky torus with a smaller slinky nested inside. This is the sculpture discussed during this episode.

Cyd's chalk drawings of toroidal dynamics are among the earliest torus images to be found on google. You may see all of the chalk drawings at the simple explanation blog. https://asimpleexplanation.blogspot.com/2010/02/drawings-of-toroidal-forces-universal.html

The Simple Golden Rule: Units of consciousness reach out to their neighbors to share information, assistance, and love, with their focus on the project in the middle, to build the next level up. This leveling up can only be accomplished with Golden Rule cooperation, building something together for the betterment of all.

The Simple Golden Rule is patterned after the cooperative spirit of the Aeons of the Pleroma. It is how everything in our universe builds better.

Lack of cooperation arises from selfish egoism and can only destroy but never build. Destruction is a material, entropic activity, whereas building for the betterment of all is a selfless, Aeonic activity based on love.

Cyd sits down with a new friend who has just read The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated for the first time. She is obviously far along in her gnostic journey and her questions and observations are right on point. We sat at the kitchen table and shared gnosis for a couple of hours. Here is the first half hour of our conversation. You will hear the dog playing with his squeaker toy and other random noises... Part Two of this conversation will continue next week.

clear and simple gnosis for your consideration

The above list contrasts the traits of the Father with the traits of the Demiurge. When people live on the left side of the list in the land of vices, they may experience momentary pleasure; but it is an imitation of the joy experienced on the right side of the list in the land of virtue and it always disappoints in the end.

Logos forgets the rest of the Pleroma, which sets up the Fall. The Fallen Logos will become the Demiurge of this material universe. The Demiurge has amnesia regarding the Father and the Pleroma because he had forgotten them as he Fell. Consequently, the Demiurge is characterized by his god-sized ego.

We Second Order Powers are caught in the Endless War here below.

Football player Nick Foles gives glory to God during a game, deflecting the glory away from himself.

Transpersonal psychology deals with mystical and spiritual experiences of the human psyche. "Transpersonal memory" is defined as memories that are shared at a cultural level, rather than a personal level. Transpersonal memories reveal themselves in many ways, through societal archetypes and archetypal dreams, through sub-conscious assumptions, stereotypes, and expectations, and through strange occurances such as the "100th Monkey" phenomenon.

Transpersonal consciousness, the Akashic record, and morphogenetic fields are all names for the "mind of God" that informs our universe and saturates our space. This external memory is shared by us all. How does it work and how can you tap into this limitless wisdom?

Left and Right

by Cyd Ropp

I noticed something interesting the other day, while I was thinking about vice and virtue. In the Nag Hammadi, vice is referred to as being on the left, and virtue as being on the right. The Tripartite Tractate puts it this way:

To each one he gave a name.... Those belonging to the thought and those of the representation are called "the Right Ones" and "Psychic" and "the Fiery Ones" and "the Middle Ones." Those who belong to the arrogant thought and those of the likeness are called "the Left", "Hylic", "the Dark Ones," and "the Last."

The "thought" refers back to the Father's originating thought—that being what is called The Son. The Son is the thought of the Father, and it is this thought that starts everything. "Those of the representation" are the Aeons and those that come from the Aeons—they represent the values of the Thought, or the Son.

"Those who belong to the arrogant thought" refers to the Fall of Logos away from the original thought. Literally it refers to the departure of Ego away from Reason and Logic. As we have discussed here on Gnostic Insights, "arrogant thought" is another word for "ego." And here at gnostic insights "ego" is the imitation of the One Self we all embody and share. Ego is the counterfeit embodiment of the Son, or originating consciousness. Ego takes care of the individual rather than the whole. Ego is concerned with personal needs and desires rather than the needs and desires of one's neighbors.

You can listen to these previous episodes for an in-depth exploration of Ego compared to Self:

Ego vs. Self

I Am Not Me--the Self

Ego's Shroud

You can find these episodes and more under the Complete Episodes tab at the GnosticInsights.com website.

Back to the Tripartite Tractate quote—

Those who belong to the arrogant thought and those of the likeness are called "the Left", "Hylic", "the Dark Ones," and "the Last."

The "likenesses" referred to on the left are the archons of the deficiency that were formed as copies of "the representations" of the Aeons of the Pleroma.  So you have Likenesses on the Left, and Representations on the Right. These Likenesses on the one hand and Representations on the other hand, reflect the values of the Left and the values of the Right. This is what distinguishes Gnostic Left from Right. Another word for these ones on the Left is "hylic," which means materialist. Another word for the ones on the Right is "Psychic," which in Gnosticism refers to those with a soul.  Although here at Gnostic Insights, we would say everyone has a soul, it's just that hylic humans don't acknowledge the soul.  And, we've had a lot of discussions about that; whether or not consciousness, which could be another word for soul, whether or not consciousness is an inherent quality that preexists or whether consciousness is like a by-product of the meat bodies that we wear, or even mathematical nodes in some sort of a grand algorithm.  One type of individual has an orientation to the material and personal needs,