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Welcome back to Gnostic Insights.
Yesterday, that would be July 18th, 2024, I was a guest on Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio with my good Gnostic friend, Adrian Smith and, of course, Vance Socci and Miguel Conner, and we were discussing the Demiurge. That’s why I’m running this episode this week about the Demiurge. But I encourage you to go to YouTube to the Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio, to the episode that’s up this week now. It’s called Navigating These Gnostic Times.
Here’s an episode concerning the Demiurge and redeeming the Demiurge from 2022. I’ve edited it down quite a bit to make it a lot more palatable. I hope you enjoy it.
The redemption of the Demiurge is a two-step process. Part one had to do with bringing life into creation in the form of all of the Second Order Powers, who themselves are the living representations of the images of the Aeons above. Then part two of the redemption of this creation is the coming of the Christ along with the Third Order of Powers that the Christ contains, the Pleroma of the Christ. That’s the Third Order Powers. And the Third Order Powers come as a covering, as a redemption, for each and every one of the Second Order Powers. So it’s kind of a stacking situation, right? The Fall generated these fractals of the Aeons above, only smaller versions of those fractals because they come out of the broken body of a single Aeon named Logos.
And Logos contained within himself a smaller version, so to speak, a fractal of all of the other Aeons. And when Logos brought those to this material plane, this material plane was what they called a likeness, the likenesses of the Aeons above, but they were dead. They weren’t alive.
In a similar way that a mirror reflects ourselves, right? The mirror is a flat 2-D representation of my 3-D body. The material creation down here that started as the Fall of Logos is a likeness of the Aeons above in the Fullness of God—it’s a different, though, dimension, the way that the mirror is 2-D that reflects and backwards reflects, by the way, my 3-D reality.
Our material creation is a 3-D reality that reflects, and in an inverted way, the Aeons above.
So there’s a likeness of the images above for every one of the Aeons. And those likenesses are the egoic side or the broken side, the shadow side; they’re the inversion of the Aeons above. In order to redeem the Fall, in order to reclaim the body of Logos back up into the Fullness of God, to release it from this different plane that it has found itself on, the Second Order Powers, all of us living creatures, everything that contains the Holy Spirit, the spark of life, there’s one of us Second Order Powers for every one of the likenesses of the Demiurge of the Fall. And then, on top of us, there is a Third Order Power for every one of us Second Order Powers. And the Third Order Powers are the pleroma of the Christ that come along with the Christ to redeem creation.
What we’re talking about today comes from the part of the Tripartite Tractate that is called The Pleroma of the Logos, Section 9.
“When the Logos which was defective was illumined, his pleroma began.” So the Logos which was defective, that’s the Logos who has returned now to the Fullness of God, to his brothers back up in the Fullness. He abandoned his egoic broken unit of consciousness down here below. That’s why the Demiurge has no remembrance of the Fullness, because Logos himself, which carries the one spirit of the entirety of the Fullness and God, returned back to his home in the pleroma.
“Pleasing among things which are good, existing among the things which exist, resembling them in beauty, but unequal to them in truth, but in wisdom and knowledge he acts, mingling the Logos within himself entirely. Therefore, those which came forth from him are great, just as that which is truly great. After he was amazed at the beauty of the ones who had appeared to him, he professed gratitude for this visitation.”
“The Logos performed this activity through those from whom he had received aid for the stability of those who had come into being because of him,” that’s us, “and so that they might receive something good, since he thought to pray for the organization of all those who came forth from him, which is stabilized, so that it might make them established. Therefore, those whom he intentionally produced are in chariots, just as those who came into being, those who have appeared, so that they might pass through every place of things which are below, so that each one might be given the place which is constituted as he is.”
So remember, all of us down here below, we are each constituted after a particular Aeon, or a particular Aeon who is itself combinations of Aeons. Everything down below that is living is modeled after the Aeons of the Fullness of God. And so, when the Logos who was redeemed, that is the body of the Pleroma of the Christ which comes down, it’s constituted as everything that’s already down here, so that it can plug right into it. Every element of the Christ, that is, these Third Order of beings, which are the Pleroma of the Christ, every one of them has the ability to perfectly plug into and cover, cover with redemption, cover with love, cover with the knowledge of the Father, cover with the light of God, that bit of life that’s down here—trapped in this coexistent hellish type of world with the fallen Demiurge.
You know, each one of us is bonded to the material world by these bodies that we walk around in. So, “This is destruction for the beings of the likeness,” and those beings of the likeness, those are the archons and the fallen egos and our egos, “yet it is an act of beneficence for the beings of the thought.” And the beings of the thought, those are the pure images, that are kept pure up above. They have not been sullied by what has come about down here in this fallen world.
“A revelation of those who are from the ordinance,” the ordinance, those are the Aeons of the Fullness, because ordinance is another word for a Hierarchy, an order. So the beings of the ordinance, those are the Aeons of the Hierarchy of the Fullness.
“…which was a unity while suffering, while they are seeds which have not yet come to be by themselves.” And the reason the Aeons of the Fullness are suffering is because one of them, Logos, left them and fell and created this material world. And so the Fullness has been suffering ever since.
“The one who appeared was a countenance of the Father and of the harmony.” So we’re talking about the Christ now. “He was a garment composed of every grace and food, which is for those whom the Logos brought forth while praying and giving glory and honor. This is the one whom he glorified and honored while looking to those to whom he prayed, so that he might perfect them through the images which he had brought forth.” And those are the images of the ALL and the Fullness. Carrying on,
“The Logos added even more to their mutual assistance and to the hope of the promise, since they have joy and abundant rest and undefiled pleasures.”
See, we would like to have undefiled pleasures. So often our pleasures become defiled. And defiled means made icky, right? You start something because you like it and it’s really good, and then you overdo it and it becomes defiled. So, in the final economy, we will have undefiled pleasures.
“He generated those whom he remembered at first when they were not with him. He generated them having the perfection. Now, while he who belongs to the vision is with him, he exists in hope and faith in the perfect Father as much as the Totalities. He appears to him before he mingles with him in order that the things which have come into being might not perish by looking upon the light, for they cannot accept the great exalted stature.” He’s generally talking about us now. This is the way the Christ comes to us—gently, so that we don’t just collapse in the glory of God.
“The thought of the Logos who had returned to his stability and ruled over those who had come into being because of him was called Aeon in place for all of those whom he brought forth in accord with the ordinance. It is also called the synagogue of salvation because he healed himself from the dispersal, which is the multifarious thought.”
And multifarious means divided. And so the multifarious thought is all of our individual egos that lead us into our own will without considering the will of the Father. The Christ leads us out of our egoic self-centered selves. The Christ leads us back into harmony with the One, with the Fullness, with the ALL, with the Son, with the Father. That is what it means to be healed from the multifarious thought. You step away from the ego that drives you into your own narcissistic behavior and you instead become one with the Fullness again, one with the Father, because we have the Christ within us. And the Christ is this wonderful combination of the Fullnesses, the ALL, and the Father, and all of the power that comes directly out of them and directly into us. So, again quoting,
“He healed himself from the dispersal, which is the multifarious thought, and returned to the single thought.” And the single thought, that’s the gnosis of the Father, the knowledge that you are loved and that you come from the Father and that you will return to the Father.
Similarly, quoting again, “It is called the storehouse because of the rest which he obtained, giving it to himself alone. It is also called the bride because of the joy of the one who gave himself to him in the hope of fruit from the union.” And the fruit from the union is going to be, or is, if you are a true Christian who has accepted the Christ and turned from the multifarious thought to the One Self, which is a pure reflection of the Christ and the power of God. The fruit of that union is a redeemed human being or a redeemed Second Order Power—that is the fruit of the union. Right now, the Second Order Powers are the fruit of the Fullness. But when the Christ comes into the Second Order Power, it now is a new creation. It is a new fruit.
“It is also called kingdom because of the stability which he receives while he rejoices at the domination of those who fought him. And it is called the joy of the Lord because of the gladness in which he clothed himself. With him is the light, giving him recompense for the good things which are in him. And with him is the thought of freedom.”
“The Aeon of which we previously spoke is above the two orders of those who fight against one another.” Okay, the two orders that fight against one another, that’s the archons and the fallen bits of the Demiurge, the material world, and the Second Order of Powers, which is all of us living things. “It is not a companion of those who hold dominion and is not implicated in the illnesses and weaknesses.” Things belonging to the thought and to the likenesses. The likenesses are those fallen parts.
“That in which the Logos set himself, perfect in joy, was an Aeon having the form of matter, but also having the constitution of the cause, which is the one who revealed himself.” And that is the way that conventional Christians think of Jesus, the Christ. That Jesus had the form of matter, that is, as a human walking around, but also the constitution of the cause, that is, he was one with the Father.
“The Aeon was an image of those things which are in the pleroma, those things which came into being from the abundance of the enjoyment of the One who exists joyously. Moreover, the countenance of the One who revealed himself and was in the sincerity and the attentiveness and the promise concerning the things for which he asked. It had the designation of the Son and his essence and his power in his form, who is the one whom he loved and in whom he was pleased, who was entreated in a loving way. It was light and was a desire to be established and an openness for instruction and an eye for vision, qualities which it had from the exalted ones. It was also a word for speaking and the perfection of the things of the sort. And it is these who took form with him, but according to the image of the pleroma, having their fathers, who are the ones who gave them life, each one being a copy of each one of the faces, which are the forms.”
The redeemed Pleroma of Logos, redeemed by the Christ, is the final resting place for the Demiurge once it remembers and recognizes its brothers in the Fullness and the Father of them all through the power of Christ, because it took that power of Christ coming in to this material world through us in order for the Demiurge to remember. The Third Order of Powers is called the aeon, the place, the thought of the Logos who returned to his stability. It’s known also as the synagogue of salvation, the storehouse, the bride, the kingdom, the church, the image of the light. It is set above the Second Order and the deficiency. It has the form of matter, but the constitution of the Christ, each one containing the Pleroma of the All.
These are the manifest images of the living visages, not arising from division, but from the unity of the aeons of the Father and the good original thought that existed prior to the rise of ego. While the Second Order Powers, us, each arose at the countenance of a single aeon, the Third Order Powers are in harmony and resemble the entire assembly of indivisible light. The Third Order Powers have not yet come into being. They are pure and joyful, the guarded seed of the promise awaiting their mission of coming with the Savior. They are first in the knowledge and glory of the Father, and that knowledge is freedom and release from captivity. They will proclaim the coming of the Savior to both angels and men.
The Third Order will be brought forth from the unified ALL with full remembrance of the Father to prepare the way for salvation and redemption. This is why my diagram of the final economy has moved them up to be nestled right beside the Christ, even above the Aeons of the Fullness. This Final Economy is the final disposition of our material universe and the Demiurge that rules it. It rests right within the larger consciousness of the ALL, the Son, and the Father.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. May I remind you, I’m raising money in order to self-publish A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel of the Tripartite Tractate. There were some publication problems, and now I’m having to publish it myself, and I very much thank my listeners who have volunteered money toward that end.
A couple of weeks ago, I said, if you would contribute $50 now, then when my book is published, and it’s going to be published very, very soon now, if you contribute $50, I will be more than happy to mail you a copy, a signed edition, from my house to your house. Thank you very much. I appreciate you so much.
Onward and upward!