Originally posted April 10, 2016
The keepers of the Library of Alexandria, and the upholders of the secret Mystery Initiations of Greece and Egypt (See Part 6), Gnosticism remains one of the most poignant parallels to scientific thought out of all mysticism. Deriving its concept of divinity from “gnosis,” which means knowledge, Gnosticism can very literally be considered a religion of knowledge. Yet it goes deeper than this, for even the word “knowledge” can still be a somewhat broad definition. The Gnostics taught that what was considered “God” or the “Tao” to others, for instance, was what they considered as the mother goddess “Sophia” (pronounced Soe – fie – ah). Sophia allegorically represented to the Gnostics the root of empirical, objective truth that had the potential to be seen and realized in any given formation or concept or entity.
The Gnostics as well taught that physical matter was a sort of inversion–a perversion of the metaphysical soul–and they considered good and evil as the duality between the metaphysical and physical realms, respectively. In a deeper sense, physical matter was seen as the ultimate obstruction to the ever-pervasive gnosis in all concepts, and because of this, it was seen as an obstacle to the soul, something that had to be understood and overcome first and foremost. However, this does not mean that Gnostic idea of physical matter could be equated to an evil akin to the Christian “Satan,” and ironically, the Gnostics considered Jehovah himself to be this type archetypal evil–an ultimate obstruction of gnosis–and they called Jehovah the “Demiurge.”
While the concept of the “Demiurge” is a wonderful speculation to have today, it unfortunately proved to be a major factor in the Catholic Church’s targeting and near-annihilation of Gnostic tradition. It is said that the Gnostics generally had a reputation for taking to the streets and instigating philosophical debates between people, especially with Christians, in a way that seems humorously reminiscent of something like ambush journalism.
A final important highlight of Gnostic ideology is the term that confuses the hell out of some people, completely awes others, and yet still causes some to scoff and shake their heads: the idea of the “archon.” Firstly, the primary reason that pseudo-intellectuals scoff at the idea of the metaphysical “archon” is because in ancient Greece, where Gnosticism was heavily prevalent (and upheld the Eleusinian Mysteries) “archon” was a pejorative term for a social elitist. While this is true, and the Gnostics obviously chose this for the metaphysic diction with the cultural definition in mind, it only takes a “Google Search” of the Nag Hammadi Scrolls and some basic reading to see that the context is blatantly much deeper than this.
The reasons that Gnostics considered Jehovah and physical matter as villainous concepts is because of their obstructive properties; essentially, the primary foundational root of these obstructive properties was considered “archon.” Thus, there is the dualism of the Sophianic gnosis and its inversion, the archon; objective truth and higher understanding, or subjective lies and the depths of un-corrected error. The part that gets really strange, is in the ways that the Gnostics described the archons. Far from being any social elitist, the archons were seen as metaphysical entities that attached onto “human error” by a modality that can be considered today as Hertz radio waves, theoretically. Today, it is basic scientific understanding that all human thoughts are emitted from the brain as Hertz waves, which are the same waves that radio transistors pick up and play stations with–so in this regard, “un-corrected human error” could be considered a condensed and reinforced Hertz wave pattern that is repeated throughout the person’s daily life, inhibiting them from achieving gnosis of themselves. Dr Stanislav Grof has laid some incredible groundwork into the psychology of the self-condensed and reinforced mental cycles, which he calls “CoEx System,” for brain pathways of condensed experience.
In relation to Gnostic scripture, the archons were seen as parasitic metaphysical waveforms that attached onto the physical emanation of human error, and fed off of it. To make it more clear, the archon was perceived as a physical happenstance, exterior to human thoughts, that played a direct role in obstructing gnosis and propagating human error. How much of this is allegory, and how much is to be taken literally is still highly debated among even the most learned postmodern Gnostic scholars. Some consider the Christian “demons” and this recurring theme of negative entities in religions as archons, and some branch out even further and connect these to extra-terrestrial activity, while others argue that this is solely an allegory for the parasitic nature of the energetic/metaphysical dependency that comes from un-corrected human error.
All in all, Gnosticism played a crucial addition to mysticism that was nearly wiped out of recorded history, and has barely survived. It proves to be a definitive precursor to modern-day empiricism as well, and provides a peek into today’s secret societies like Freemasonry, through its history with the Mystery Initiations of Greece and Egypt.
[accordion title=”Beginners Guide to Metaphysics – Continued” close=”0″]Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Eastern Mysticism: Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism
Part 3: Witchcraft: Paganism, Voodoo and Native American Mysticism
Part 4: Abrahamic Mysticism: Catholicism, Kabbalah and Islam
Part 5: Gnosticism
Part 6: The Mystery Initiations of Greece and Egypt
Part 7: Secret Societies: Freemasonry, Illuminati and Bohemian Grove
Part 8: Science and Mysticism Unified[/accordion]
Sources: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vida_alien/alien_archons02.htm, http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/nhl.pdf, http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mistic/gnostic01.htm