gnosticism | The Blog of Baphomet

In the first three parts of these musings, I have tried to honestly engage with some of the core beliefs of those groups of people that we currently categorise as “Gnostics”. As we have emphasised, the view that our world was the product of an imperfect craftsman often led to the belief that the realm of matter, the body and the earth needed to be escaped from.

In wrestling with my own discomfort with this perspective, I began considering hermeticism as a potentially more subtle interface between a shamanic/earth focused path and the transcendentalist impulse. Many of the complex cosmologies within the wider Hermetic tradition contain ladders of ascent (and descent) that seek to acknowledge that the divine may manifest in differing ways during different aeons. Given the apparent linearity of such maps, it could be easy to type-cast earlier stages as somehow “primitive” and thereby missing the subtlety of the mythic terrain that they are trying to describe. The gods of shamanism should not be type-cast as simplistic faces of animism; although their focus is inevitably more on the concerns of pre-industrial cycles, the intricacy of their stories reflect a complex of ideas that remain key to our embodied humanity. In contrast to the cosmic escape-plan envisaged by many dualistic Gnostics, the Hermetic perspective seeks a more integrated holism that endeavours to hold together the apparent disparity of above and below so as to synthesise a new position.

And when they were only halfway up…

Some contemporary practitioners seek to describe such a path as being that of non-dual gnosis, but for it to retain any connection with historic Gnostic traditions, it may be more accurate to describe it as ‘less-dual’ or a form of soft-dualism. While many view the concept of dualism as innately negative in nature, I would argue that it can still contain valuable insights if applied thoughtfully. As with many spatial religious metaphors, the sense of otherness and distance that they are seeking to evoke often relates to spiritual aspiration and longing. It’s interesting to consider how many magical traditions would be able to maintain a viable metaphysic without at least some sense of movement from our current state to a desired destination.

In seeking to actively engage with the dualism present in the primary texts of the Gnostics it would be easy to problematize the tensions that exist in the dynamics between the Pleroma, Sophia and the Demiurge. In contrast to this perspective, I find myself being curious about the manner in which they may be viewed as encapsulating the core process of how we as humans wrestle with dilemmas, of both our humanity and creativity. The threefold schema of hylic, psychic and pneumatic (approximately body, soul and spirit) reflects the dynamic tension that many of us experience in our lives. Those of us drawn to engaging with the Gnostic material are usually well aware of these dilemmas, and are rarely placated by either simple answers or promises of peace:

Jesus said, “Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will rule over all.” Gospel of Thomas v.2

To walk the path of the Magician often involves the conscious induction of those states of mind and body that will precipitate change. In contrast to my own more orthodox Nicene beginnings in which the Logos (word of God) was an external focus of belief, the path of the Gnostic explorer is one in which we seek both the joy and terror of the word entering our own flesh. The disquiet that we may experience leads to an awareness of our longing; a longing that only the stillness of the Pleroma and wisdom of Sophia will resolve.

In contrast to more catholic or sacramental forms of contemporary Gnostic practice, my own approach to accessing gnosis has been to utilise a form of “deep listening” practice that has many parallels with Buddhist inspired mindfulness practices and centering prayer.

It seems a somewhat obvious thing to say, but many of us live our lives very quickly, bombarded by information, struggling to get our bearings in a world that seems to be ever changing. If nothing else these stillness based approaches give us a chance to slow down. With more mental space at our disposal our ability to truly listen and therefore to learn takes on a radically different quality.Access to these states is rarely permanent, as the complex beauty of our own incarnation oscillates as part of Nature’s dance around us.

The warnings that magic is a dangerous path are in many ways accurate, but so potentially is the psychic death of not responding to the “still, small voice” of what we might become. In cultivating practices that seek to pull in the aeonic words of the logos, so we pursue the fabulously messy work of integration:

“Enlighten your mind…Light the lamp within you. Knock on yourself as upon a door upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on the road, it is impossible for you to go astray…Open the door for you so that you may know what it is.” The Teaching of Silvanus, The Nag Hammadi Library

In part 2 of this series I was experiencing serious flashbacks to part of my day job as a family psychotherapist. In seeking to grapple with the dynamics at play within Gnostic cosmology it didn’t feel that dissimilar to the issues that arise in the therapy room. In one corner we have the Pleroma as the somewhat distant father figure, seemingly critical of his wayward son’s attempts in the other corner, to make his way in the multiverse (“Dad you just don’t understand! I just want to create and make stuff happen!”). In the middle of this conflict we have a somewhat care-worn Sophia trying to mediate between these two. It’s not easy being caught in the middle between numinous perfection you respect and a wayward but creative rebel you don’t want to lose.

Is there really only one way to find out…?

Like most families however, drawing in the perspectives of the wider system can bring new and interesting insights that provide balance and richness to stories that can easily get swamped with focusing on difficulty (a “problem saturated narrative”). In the case of Gnostic mythology, I was wondering whether the Aeons and Archons might help.

As intimated at the beginning of this series, Gnostic cosmologies are notoriously complicated and for much of the time it’s hard enough to know what’s going on, let alone what it might signify! At the risk of over-simplification, Aeons tend to be viewed as extensions or hypostases of the Pleroma (and generally therefore viewed as the good guys) while the Archons are seen as having their origin from the realm of the Demiurge and connected to the “challenges” associated with the material realm. In some Gnostic schemas, those of us awakened to the divine spark within (the “Pneumatic”) must ascend through a number of layers or hierarchies associated with the Archons in order to reunite with the Pleroma. The methods employed on such a journey are manifold – magical passwords may be sought in order to level-up, and groups such as the Sethians seemed to have a complex system of baptisms used for opening up these realms.

For those of us with any connection to the wider Western magical tradition this will hopefully feel like familiar territory. With its heady reliance on Neo-Platonism, the Qabalistic tree of life and various systems of yogic psycho-physiology (Chakras any one?) most “Western” magicians will probably have a fairly ingrained sense that they should be either ascending or descending to something. While the use of such maps may be prone to the danger of getting stuck in taking either them or ourselves too seriously, they can provide helpful tools in seeking to avoid premature maturation.

While we could expend much energy debating whether enlightenment is a gradual or immediate experience of a non-dual nature, I’ll cut to the chase and let you know that it’s probably both 🙂 We may have glimpses of Samadhi or angelic epiphanies, but human nature usually dictates that we want to explore and “unpack” the significance of what such experiences might mean and how we should then live. This idea of a gradual unfolding also permeates psychological models such as Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” and Erik Erikson’s “Stages of Psychosocial Development” as they grapple with the challenges we often need to meet in being alive. Developmental research such as that done by Paul Gilbert (cf. The Compassionate Mind) also point towards the reality that our need to examine such complexity from a multiplicity of angles, is innately connected to the evolution of the human brain as it has sought to understand and prioritise the competing needs of human existence.

Our engagement with these different stages can take either an adversarial or integrative approach, depending on our chosen worldview. The archonic model can be helpful in that it provides us with a means for understanding the pervasive influence of “the spirits of the age” in perpetuating the dominant discourses of the cultures we are situated within. The Gnostics were often keen to resist these forces in that they were viewed as compounding the Demiurge’s imprisonment of human consciousness. Via the adoption of anarcho-magical strategies (including both asceticism and antinomianism) the Gnostic explorer actively sought to limit the impact of these forces so as to realise their true pneumatic nature.

Rulers can be useful conceptual devices

While such an approach may be understandable from a more dualistic perspective, we may want to question its wisdom in relation to our psychological well-being. If we view these challenges as being largely archonic and problematic, while a combative approach may provide an initial burst of anger fuelled resistance, we may rightly wonder about the sustainability of engaging in such conflict.

In this series of posts we have already touched on the way in which radical dualism was incorporated as one voice within the Corpus Hermeticum, and for myself it is within the broader Hermetic and Western alchemical traditions that we find a potent synthesis of the integrative and adversarial positions. Via the process of seeking to transform lead into gold, the practitioner works with resistance at both a macro and microcosmic level so as to bring change. Magicians are often those who choose to walk the treacherous path of transmuting those substances which others seek to avoid. The initiate’s vows of “Daring, Willing, Knowing and keeping Silent” challenge them to confront those obstacles within themselves formed by either genetic make-up or environmental conditioning. Arguably part of the ‘Great Work’ that we pursue in daring to “immanentize the eschaton” is the transformation of our Archons in order to make them Aeonic opportunities of becoming.