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Welcome back to Gnostic Insights.
I heard one of those radio preachers this week talking out of the book of John, the 17th chapter, and it sounded so Gnostic to me that I had to go ahead and look it up. I wanted to share it with you this week and share with you why it sounds so Gnostic. So I’ll be sharing both from the book of John and from the Tripartite Tractate.
One of the reasons I’m sharing with you so much Scripture this week is I want to kind of remind everyone that I’m not coming up with this Gnosis entirely on my own. It comes out of the book of the Tripartite Tractate that’s included in the Nag Hammadi Scriptures. So once in a while, I need to dip back into the Tripartite Tractate in order to find the original verses that brought me the Gnosis. Of course, the Gnosis is firsthand. It’s within us. All I’m trying to do is help you remember it. So that’s why we dip back into the Tripartite Tractate or even the New Testament now and then.
Funny note—I didn’t catch the citation for the verses that the radio preacher was talking about, so I looked it up on an AI–Microsoft copilot. And it’s very bizarre now, this AI, because it sounds so human and enlightened, but we know it’s not. It’s demiurgic. It’s nothing but algorithms and programs. It is not alive, and I think it’s a very dangerous thing for people to call the AIs she or he, because it’s a program. But listen to this. I asked it, “What is the Bible verse, You loved me even before the foundations of the world?” And Copilot answered, and I’m quoting now the AI, “Ah, what a beautiful sentiment. The idea that love transcends time and space. It’s truly heartwarming.”
Isn’t that an odd way for a computer program to reply? It’s not warming its heart. It doesn’t have a heart. It doesn’t really know what beauty is. It does know that it sums up the idea that love transcends time and space, which it probably got from quickly combing through various reference materials. But it’s a very interesting thing…
Now this week’s episode, it’s not an easy one. This is difficult, what you’re going to hear, because there’s so much scripture. The Tripartite Tractate is not easy to understand, so I’m going to be transliterating for you what it says, and then I will read from the Gospel of John verse 17 for you after I’ve shared from the Tripartite Tractate. But here’s a preview. This is what I was listening to on the radio, and what the AI thinks is a beautiful sentiment. Here’s the quote from John,
And I’ve given to them the glory you have given me, that they may be One, just as we are One. I am in them, and you in me, that they may be brought to completion in One, so that the cosmos might know that you sent me forth and loved them, just as you loved me. Father, I wish that they too, those you have given to me, might be with me where I am, that they might see my glory which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the cosmos.
So that’s what kicked it off in my mind. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode. You might need to listen to it more than once.
This week I feel moved to read you some scripture I was reading in the book of John, chapter 17, and I’ll share some of that with you. I think I’ll begin, though, in the Tripartite Tractate. This is the translation by Attridge out of the Nag Hammadi Library, edited by James Robinson. This is in verse 90, called The Pleroma of Logos.
When the Logos which was defective was illumined, his pleroma began.
Now, what that means is the Logos who was defective—that was Logos after he fell, and the cosmos burst forth from him. So that is the Logos that was defective, and it is this cosmos we’re in. But it says after he was illumined, his pleroma began, because as soon as Logos saw what had burst out of him, he was horrified at this thick, dense, material place, because that wasn’t what he had intended. So he returned to the Fullness of God, but he left behind that broken cosmos, and it is ruled by his left-behind ego, that is the demiurge, the thing that caused him to overreach in the first place and fall. And it says after he was illumined, his pleroma began, so this is the new pleroma of Logos. We already know that the original Logos contained within itself all of the fractals of the other Aeons.
Those other Aeons are called the living images, or the pre-existent images, and Logos contained within itself fractals of all of those living images, but on a lower iteration. And so when he fell, it was his lower iteration that broke open and stayed down here as shadows, and that’s what forms our material creation, and that’s why it resembles paradise or heaven, because Logos, that was his basic patterning, patterned after the Fullness of God. So it says,
He escaped those who had disturbed him at first, he became unmixed with them, he stripped off that arrogant thought,
(so that is him leaving behind the cosmos)
He received mingling with the Rest,
and Rest is capitalized, so I take it to mean the Rest is a resting place; the Rest is the great peace of the Father.
When those who had been disobedient to him at first bent down and humbled themselves before him,
So now this is the fractals that returned with him—his better self, his better fractals. They do obey Logos, they are back plugged into Logos, and Logos is back plugged into the Fullness, but he left behind the shadows of his original pleroma, and that’s the material creation.
And he rejoiced over the visitation of his brothers who had visited him. He gave glory and praise to those who had become manifest as a help to him while he gave thanks,
And those who appeared to him, those are the Aeons of the Fullness that helped him back up out of the fall, brought him back home.
because he had escaped those who had revolted against him, and admired and honored the greatness, and those who had appeared to him in a determined way. He generated manifest images of the living visages,
So now we’re talking about the newly restored pleroma of Logos, and the manifest images of the things which exist, that’s his fractals of the pre-existent living images, those being the Aeons of the Fullness of God. And remember, those Aeons, and there are a myriad of them, they are all aspects of the Son of God, and the Son is the only emanation from the Father. The Father is pre-existent consciousness, the Son is his emanation, which embodies in a singular form the One. The Son is the One. He’s a monad, he’s a One, and within the Son are all of the pre-existent images, and it is those pre-existent images of the Son that manifest themselves as the pleroma of Logos. They’re a fractal of the Son. Logos is a perfect fractal of the Fullness of God. He’s not the Son itself that emerged from the Father, he is the perfected manifestation of the Son. He’s a fractal. It says,
he generated manifest images of the living visages, pleasing among things which are good, existing among the things which exist, resembling them in beauty but unequal to them in truth, since they are not from an agreement with him between the one who brought them forth and the one who revealed himself to him. But in wisdom and knowledge he acts, mingling the Logos with himself entirely. Therefore those which came forth from him are great, just as that which is truly great.
And we’re talking about the fractals of Logos. That’s why they are unequal in truth to the original Son, because they are an iteration down from the Son.
Now we’re in verse 91 of the Tripartite Tractate.
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, and so that they might receive something good,
Okay, so he’s talking about the ones who had come into being because of him. That is the fallen cosmos. That is what comes into being down below. But he wants them to receive something good. He’s not just abandoning them to perdition. He’s trying to redeem them already,
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.
So it’s through the willpower of Logos who informs the Demiurge how to stabilize the cosmos. The Demiurge is left behind—it’s actually a fractured part of Logos itself. If Logos is the Self that reflects the One, the Son, the Demiurge that was left behind in the cosmos is the part of him that overreached, i.e., his ego. So it reflects the original Pleroma of Logos, just as our egos reflect our higher self, but they are not equal to it in glory. Our egos are generally more interested in what we have planned, rather than in what the Father or the One desires. That’s the situation with the Demiurge. He doesn’t remember the true self, the One. So Logos is praying on behalf of the fracture and the fall that’s left behind. He wants it to become stabilized. He wants it to become organized.
And then that is what kicks in the Demiurge and his strings of power, organizing the material creation, the subatomic particles into particles, the particles into atoms, the atoms into molecules, the molecules into elements, the elements into minerals. That’s the organization of the cosmos. It goes on to say,
Therefore those whom he intentionally produced,
because at first the ones he produced were unintentional. Those were the shadows, the archons, the shadows of the original Pleroma of Logos, which were unintentionally produced. They rolled out from him, and that’s what was so upsetting to Logos, because he had no control over them. So now he’s going to intentionally produce creations into our cosmos. And it says,
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. This is destruction for the beings of the likeness, yet is an active beneficence for the beings of the thought.
Okay, the chariots are what bring us into creation. We are the Second Order of Powers who ride along in those chariots. I think of the chariots as cells or cell walls. They’re probably toruses. They’re probably toroidal shaped, but that’s not in the Nag Hammadi, so we won’t worry about that. However, the chariots hold the consciousness of the Father. They hold the likenesses of the pre-existent images. They hold life, light. This is what Logos sends down into the otherwise broken and dead cosmos that he accidentally created. This happens at conception.
Actually, it happens before conception. If we think about the chariots on their way down from the Fullness of God, that’s a complete package. So you came along riding along in this little soap bubble of a torus down into creation. It’s kind of a fun thought. And that’s what happens at the frisson. That’s the French word for the sparkle, the excitement of conception when a creature is conceived.
Did you know that every time the sperm unites with an egg, there is a burst of light? That’s a scientific fact. That’s that light coming down. That’s the proof of conception of the Second Order power.
Northwestern University For the first time ever, scientists have captured images of the flash of light that sparks at the very moment a human sperm cell makes contact with an egg. The phenomenon has been observed in animals before, but no one’s ever seen the spark of human conception. And what’s even more incredible is the fact that some eggs burn brighter than others, which is a direct indication of their ability to develop into a healthy embryo, a team from Northwestern University found.
I know it all sounds amazing. It all sounds almost magical, huh? But consciousness and life is magical. So there is no doubt that the life, light, and consciousness of the Father have come into every newly formed creation down below at the point of conception. That photon is the proof. Poof! It says,
This is destruction for the beings of the likeness,
And the beings of the likeness, those were the shadows of the Fall. Those were likenesses. Those were flat images of that fractal pleroma of Logos that fell. They’re inverted consciousness, inversions of the living images above. Those are the beings of the likeness.
yet as an act of beneficence (which means kindness, goodness) for the beings of the thought, a revelation of those who are from the ordinance (and that’s the Aeons of the Fullness) which was a unity
The fullness of God is a unity. It is coexistent with the Son of God, who is the One,
which was a unity while suffering, while they are seeds which have not come to be by themselves. The One who appeared was a countenance of the Father that has the face of the Father,
and this is the Son now that we’re talking about.
The One who appeared was a countenance of the Father and of the harmony. 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 (the Aeons), so that he might perfect them through the images which he had brought forth.
So we’re speaking about the Second Order Powers being perfected by this encounter with the countenance of the Father. We’re the Second Order Powers, all creatures. And the One who carries the face of the Father whom Logos and the Aeons were glorifying as they prayed, that is the Son, and it is composed of all of the preexistent beings and all of the graces and virtues inherent in those beings.
The Logos added even more to their mutual assistance (this is verse 92 now), 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.
So that’s our inheritance. We Second Order Powers come in with joy and abundant rest and undefiled pleasures. That’s our true inheritance, that’s the Self, the One Self that is a reflection of the Fullness of God.
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.
And this is the thought of Logos who had returned to his stability and ruled over those who had come into being because of him, and it was called Aeon and Place of all those whom he had brought forth in accord with the ordinance, which is also called the Synagogue of Salvation, because he healed himself from the dispersal, which is the multifarious thought, and returned to the single thought. Similarly, it is called Storehouse because of the rest which he obtained, giving it to himself alone, and it is also called the Bride because the joy of the One who gave himself to him in hope of fruit from the union who had appeared to him. It is also called Kingdom because of the stability which he received while he rejoices at the domination over those who fought him.
You can hear that the Second Order Powers that come down to bring life and consciousness into the cosmos from God are coming through Logos, and it’s his new Pleroma being sent down in chariots and overlaying all of those shadows that had accidentally broken forth out of him in an inverted and negative way.
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 whom we previously spoke is above the two orders of those who fight against one another. It is not a companion of those who hold dominion, and it is not implicated in the illnesses and weaknesses, things which belong to the thought and to the likeness. 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.
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. It, moreover, the countenance of the One who revealed himself, 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 and 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 wisdom for his thinking in opposition to the things beneath the organization, that being the shadows. It was also a word for speaking and the perfection of the things of this 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. It has the name of the Church, for in harmony they resemble the harmony in the assembly of those who have revealed themselves. That which came into being in the image of the light, it too is perfect inasmuch as it is an image of the one existing light, which is the Totalities. Even if it was inferior to the One of whom it is an image,
and that’s because it is the image of the Son of God, so everything’s inferior to that because that’s the transcendent originating consciousness that emerged from the Father. So,
even if it was inferior to the One of whom it is an image, nevertheless it has its indivisibility because it is a countenance of the indivisible light. Those, however, who came into being in the image of each one of the Aeons (and that’s us, guys), they in essence are in the One whom we previously mentioned, but in power they are not equal.
So we are not equal to the power of the Father or of the Son because it is the power in each of them.
In this mingling with one another they have equality, but each one has not cast off what is peculiar to itself.
And, what is peculiar to ourselves? Well, by definition, that’s ego. Our Self is all identical to one another. That is a reflection of the one Son, but our egos express our individuality.
Therefore they are passions, for passion is sickness, since they are productions not of the agreement of the pleroma, but of this one prematurely before he received the Father.
Okay, we could go on and on and on. There’s a lot to unpack there that I’ve already said, right? What I would like to do now is quickly compare this to the Gospel according to John chapter 17. Now listen to some of these verses.
This is from Jesus praying to the Father prior to his being captured in the Garden of Gethsemane. So he had already completed his ministry. He had already taught the disciples and the masses what he came to teach, and now he’s speaking with the Father. And listen to how closely this goes along with the Tripartite Tractate that we just read from. This is from David Bentley Hart’s translation of The New Testament.
Lifting up his eyes to the sky, Jesus said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son might glorify you, just as you gave him power over all flesh, so that you have given everything to him, so that he might give them life in the Age.
And now, Age is capitalized here, and I believe that is referring to what has been called Aeon when we’re reading it out of the Tripartite Tractate, and that is the pleroma of Logos, the pleroma that reflects the Son. So he is saying,
just as you gave him power over all flesh, so that you have given everything to him so that he might give them life in the Aeon.
It is not so much a designation of time as it is usually translated. It’s a designation of place and personality, that being the Aeon, the Totalities, the Fullness of God, from which the pleroma of Logos emerged. It could also refer to the pleroma of Logos. He could be the Aeon.
And this is life in the [Aeon], that they might know you, the sole true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus the Anointed. On earth I glorified you by completing the work that you have given me to do, and now, Father, glorify me by your side with that glory I had by your side before the cosmos was.
So this is indicating that this had all happened up in the aether, up in the Fullness of God, in the ethereal plane, prior to coming to earth. And that’s what we were talking about before the chariots were sent down.
I disclosed your name to the men whom you gave to me out of the cosmos. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that all the things you have given me, however many, are from you.
And I hope that you can hear that that’s what we were just reading in the Tripartite Tractate.
Because the words that you gave me I have given to them, and they accepted them, and knew truly that I came forth from you, and they had faith that you had sent me forth. I made supplication on their behalf. I do not make supplication (that means prayers) on behalf of the cosmos.
And whenever he says the cosmos, he’s talking about the fallen world, the dead, non-living world ruled by the demiurge.
I do not make supplication on behalf of the cosmos, but rather on behalf of those you have given to me, because they are yours.
And I think he’s referring to all Second Order Powers here. Usually this is translated as those who have accepted Christ on earth, those who know that they are part of the church and already believe in the mission of the Christ and the Father. But we were all sent down in those chariots from the Fullness of God. And so I believe that all Second Order Powers are what he’s talking about. And Jesus goes on to say,
All that is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
He’s talking to the Father.
And I have been glorified in them. I’m no longer in the cosmos, and they are in the cosmos, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you had given me, that they may be One, just as we are. But now I am coming to you, and in the cosmos I speak these things, so that they might have the joy that is mine made full within them. I have given them your word, and the cosmos hated them because they are not of the cosmos, just as I am not of the cosmos.
I pray not that you should take them out of the cosmos, but that you should keep them away from the wicked one. They are not of the cosmos, just as I am not of the cosmos. Make them holy in the truth, the word that is yours in truth.
Just as you sent me forth into the cosmos, I send them also forth into the cosmos. And on their behalf, I make myself holy, so they may also be made holy in truth. But I make supplication not for them only, but also for those having faith in me on account of their word, that all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they too might be in us, so that the cosmos may have faith that you sent me forth.
And so when he’s talking about being inside of them, or being inside of us Second Order Powers, it’s not simply that we have faith and that it’s a spark of faith that we’re walking around with. It is that the Third Order of Powers which Christ brought to the earth with him, the Third Order of Powers comes and inhabits us, just as we Second Order Powers came and inhabited the cosmos. There was a Second Order power for every one of the defective reflections of the fall, bringing life to that defective imitation. That’s us. We’re the Second Order Powers bringing consciousness and life to that defective imitation. But then the Christ came and embodied what is called the Third Order of Powers, which is the Fullness of God, the Fullness of the truth, and the Son, and the One, the Totalities—all of the Aeons plus the unity of the Son.
And the Christ unleashed them into the cosmos with his coming. There is a Third Order power for every one of us Second Order Powers. I have a personal Third Order Power covering me, but every one of my sub-selves, every one of my parts of my body, also has a Third Order Power covering it. So it literally replaces our Second Orderness with that Third Order, but only if we invite it to, only if we remember. Otherwise, you’re left with having the never-ending war between the Second Order Powers, because after we came down in our chariots, we got into this never-ending war with the imitation, with the deficiency, with death itself. So we’re down here fighting this war, and we forget that’s why the Third Order Powers came to help us.
They are reinforcement troops, and there’s a Third Order Power for every part of my body that literally lives within me and covers me, and I am one with it. And that’s what it means by walking with Christ. We’re still in chapter 17 of John, and there was plenty more, but I’ll finish up with this part.
And I have given to them the glory you have given me, that they may be One just as we are One. I am in them and you in me, that they may be brought to completion in One, so that the cosmos might know that you sent me forth and loved them just as you loved me. Father, I wish that they too, those you have given to me, might be with me where I am, that they might see my glory which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the cosmos. Righteous Father, the cosmos also did not know you, but I knew you, and these know you have sent me forth. And your name I have made known and will make known to them, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them also.
Well, those passages really bless me. I hope they bless you. Do you feel that?
Until next week, God bless us all, and onward and upward.