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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 <being>.”
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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