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According to Gnostic cosmology, the Fall was not instigated by humans. It was most definitely not when Eve handed Adam an apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The Fall occurred way before that. Way before humans. Way before the creation of heaven and earth.
In fact, according to Gnostic cosmology, the Fall is what kicked off our material instantiation and set the stage for this universe to come into being. Here’s what happened.
When the Son arose from the ground state of the Father’s consciousness, the Son immediately differentiated itself into all of its infinite variety. Here is how I put it in my book, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated:
“The Son that arose is perfect, even as His Father is perfect, and He carries within His perfect form every quality of the Father.
“And yet, although it began as the singular manifestation of the Father, the moment the Son was formed, he was no longer alone. For not only the Son, but the All arose at once. Being the perfect image of the Father, the Son’s inherent creativity spread itself out into the All, like rays shining from a star.
“With the birth of the All, the Son became a Father. The originating Father, that consciousness so lonely and still for eternity, now had a child who had also borne fruit from his glory. In this way, the One begat the All. And the Father loved them All, as He loved His Son.
“The All, like the Father and Son, is infinite and limitless in scope and capability. Each individual ray emerges from the central seed of the Son, shining forth as one shared body. The Son intimately knows each facet of the All, for the All are all facets of Himself.
“They are concurrently one and many, One and All; a selfless diversity giving glory to their Father with a single song of praise.”
So we see that the flow of consciousness and Selfhood from the Father to the Son to the All is seamless and perfect. The perfection of the All at this stage of awakening implies that the All is nothing but the Father’s love and the infinite potential embodied in the Son, parceled out among the All.
Again, reading from my book, “The All glorified their Father with one mind, for only in the totality of their union could they reflect and exalt the Father’s greatness. However, this state of perfect communion did not last, for the members of the All soon became self-aware, and “it” became a “they.”
“The moment “it” became “they,” identities arose, and the Son’s rays fruited into individuals, each one distinct and self-aware. No longer a single seed singing the same song in unison, the All became aware of its plurality, and now they sang in harmony.”
So what we are seeing is the progression of consciousness from the undifferentiated Father, through the Father’s fractal differentiation of the Son, and then the Son’s fractal differentiation into the All. And at first, the All was a single entity. I want to call it a single organism, but that is not accurate, because there were no creatures yet; no organs, no organisms. If you go back and listen to the Gnostic Insights episode called “Slime Mold Pleroma” that you can find under the “Complete Episodes” tab at Gnostic Insights dot com, you can listen to a detailed description of the All and the Pleroma and how they function.
Quoting again from The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, “The Aeons of the All awakened to themselves in fulfilment of the Father’s desire for innumerable points of view. In this manner, the All fruited, and the Aeons of the Fullness became conscious of themselves and their individual capabilities.”
Another way of saying this in philosophical terminology is that, whereas the Son is a monad and the members of the All are each fractals of the Son monad and monads themselves, when they awakened to themselves they became monads with individual points of view. I think we can call this process the formation of Ego. We can call the monad quality of the All the “One Self” that is shared amongst them all, and then designate their individual points of view: “Egos.”
Again, quoting from my book, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, “The awakened Aeons sorted themselves into a mutually beneficial and cooperative colony—a hierarchy consisting of names, stations, ranks, duties, and locations. The instant the Aeons became self-aware, they arranged themselves into [what we call] the Fullness.
“Although the Aeons dwelt within the single body of the Fullness, they were each an independent self. Their variety required them to work together and remain in full agreement, for only through their union could they approach the Father’s greatness.”
Here at Gnostic Insights and at A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything blog and book, we call that cooperative spirit and pattern the Simple Golden Rule. The Simple Golden Rule says that in order to build something greater than any of us can build on our own, we need to reach out to our neighbors with love, information, and assistance, to work on a common project for the betterment of all. This pattern of cooperation is part of the Aeonic order that we here in this universe have inherited from Above. It is the Holy Spirit of love that fuels cooperation for the betterment of all.
At this point in the Gnostic cosmology, the Aeons have awakened to themselves as individual entities with personal points of view and particular stations and duties. We call this stage of development the Fullness of God, or the Fullness of the Totalities, or the Fullness of the All. It is also referred to as the Pleroma.
It is important to this discussion to note that at this stage of the Pleroma each Aeon possesses a Self that reflects the singularity of the One consciousness of the Father and Son, so its Self is identical to the Self of any Aeon. Each Aeon also possesses an Ego that reflects its particular identity, consisting of its name, position, station, and sphere of responsibility. This brand new Ego is not a bad thing; it is not self-centered or puffed up with its own importance. It is merely a designator that identifies a particular Aeon and manages the Aeon’s interactions with others.
In my mind, I picture the location of this Aeonic Ego as the outside skin of the Aeon, as the Ego’s focus is outward-looking—focusing as it does on the Aeon’s interaction with those outside of itself. In the hierarchy, those outside of an Aeon’s Self would be its neighboring Aeons. So the Aeonic Ego’s focus is on its relative position, power, place, and sphere of responsibility vis a vis its Aeonic neighbors.
According to the Tripartite Tractate, in order to remain aligned with the Father’s Will, the Aeons needed to glorify only the Father and never themselves, nor any other Aeon, nor the Fullness as a whole. Furthermore, each Aeon of the hierarchy of the Pleroma was to give glory from its own location, using its own God-given talent and not borrowing the talent of its neighbors.
So far, so good. The Pleroma has a place for everyone, and everyone is in their place. But watch out—the Fall is about to occur. Here’s how I put it in The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated:
“The final Aeon produced by the Will of the Father was placed at the very top of the hierarchy.” I liken its positioning to placing the star or an angel on top of the Christmas tree.
“This youngest Aeon carried within its singular self all of the traits of every other Aeon, perfect and complete.” This was a very talented Aeon, resembling the Son of God Himself, who also carried all of the traits of the Aeons within its single Self. This final Aeon was named “Logos,” because he was also endowed with the ability to reason thoughtfully and to figure things out in a step by step manner.
However, this final Aeon of the Pleroma, Logos, was not equal to the Son because the Aeons are all fractals of the Son, and therefore an order of magnitude less than the Son. We could say that as a toy model car resembles a full-sized automobile, likewise Logos resembled the Son. And whereas the Son is directly nested into the Father and able to commune directly with the Father, the Aeons are a step or two removed from the Father and unable to plug directly into the Father’s greatness without risking annihilation. Because of the danger of coming face to face with the Originating Consciousness, the Father had set a boundary between Himself and His offspring, for their protection.
And now we are all set up for the Fall. Because the Ego of Logos marveled at himself in delight and wonder, for he saw in himself the beauty and perfection of the Fullness AND HE MISTOOK HIS OWN GRANDEUR FOR THAT OF THE SON AND THE ALL. Logos broke the Aeon’s basic rule and glorified himself.
It begs the question–why did this occur? If the Aeons are all perfectly aligned with each other and with the Father’s will, and if their Egos are in alignment with their true Selves and working according to the Simple Golden Rule, then why would Logos make such a huge misstep? Why and how did the Ego of Logos delude him into glorifying himself?
Given the inherent perfection of Logos, I think it has to do with circumstance. As the final Aeon, Logos was placed at the pinnacle of the hierarchy—at the very top of the pyramid. His location left him with no next door neighbors–he was up there all alone. There were none equal to him in position, rank, duties, or talents, and nothing located above him to stand between himself and the Father. Looking around, Logos saw none to equal himself up there on the top of the pyramid, and so his Ego understandably concluded he was superior to the other Aeons. This positioning was enough to cause Logos to consider himself worthy of reuniting with the Father. Consequently, Logos unilaterally launched himself upward toward the “realm of perfect glory,” forgetting all about his rightful position within the ecology of the Pleroma.
The Tripartite Tractate says not to blame Logos for the Fall, because Logos reached for God out of an abundance of love. Indeed, all of the Aeons yearned for communion with their Father, for the Father had planted His root deep within their hearts, and they recognized themselves as His branches and His fruit. Logos was trying to fulfill this inherent desire to reunite with the Father, and that was all good. The error was that Logos attempted to give glory to the Father without taking into consideration his place in the Fullness.
The Tripartite refers to the movement that resulted in the Fall as “presumptuous thought,” which is a pretty good description of Ego. Presumptuous thought on the part of Logos’ Ego was the original sin that brought about the Fall. And, motivated by this mistaken, presumptuous thought, Logos reached for the Illimitable, but the Father’s glory was too great to attain. Instead of reaching the highest heights, Logos stumbled and fell.
This is the true story of the original fall, a movement of Ego away from Reason, Logic, Interdependence, Duty, and Place. And this is the story of the rise of Ego over Logos, and the Fall that led to the creation of this universe. But we will leave that story for another day.
You may wonder why we spend time figuring out things that happened so long ago that our universe wasn’t even created yet. The reason is because of the often repeated maxim: As above, so below. While Logos may have been the first to let his Ego lead him astray, he was certainly not the last. We follow the same patterns of behavior as the Aeons, because the consciousness that flows from the Father into the Son into the Pleroma, also flows into us. We are called the fruit of the Pleroma—known as the Second Order of Powers–and we are subject to the same eternal laws that govern the Aeons. We possess the same Self that the Aeons possess, and we possess our own Egos that govern our interactions with our neighbors and the world that surrounds us. Our eternal Self continues to reflect the One Consciousness above. And our Egos soldier on, don’t they? Our Egos are so well developed that most of us mistake our Egos for our Self, as did Logos so long ago. If you would like to learn more about the distinction between Ego and Self, go back and listen to the Gnostic Insights episode called “Ego vs. Self.” You will find that episode at the top of the Complete Episodes Library page.
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