Friday, November 8, 2019

If All Are Redeemed, Why Not Be Sinful?

One of the big heresies of gnosticism is that all second order powers are redeemed by Christ and all will someday return to the paradise of the Fullness. Yay! Everyone is going to heaven! No one is going to hell, not even the fallen angels. What joy!

This seems to fly in the face of Christian orthodoxy that promotes the idea that only those humans who confess a belief in Jesus as the Christ will make it into heaven, and those who don't believe in Jesus will go to an eternal damnation of suffering in hell. Conventional Christianity states that Jesus came to save humanity, but only those who acknowledge Jesus as the only Son of God and invite him into their hearts will be saved. This is the basis for all evangelism and all churches that follow the Nicene Creed--which is to say, all Christian churches, whether Catholic or Protestant.  This is why Christians are so keen on saving souls--they do not want you to suffer for eternity in hell.


The Gnostic Church begs to differ with that common interpretation of Christ's mission. According to the books of the Nag Hammadi library, all of creation will be redeemed and returned to the Fullness and the Father's home in heaven. All of creation. Everyone and everything will be made clean and pure and holy by the end. To borrow a popular expression: "It will all be good in the end; if it's not all good yet, then it's not yet the end." 


Gnosis refers to the ability to use reason and logic to arrive at spiritual truth. So, let's think together about this idea of Christ and redemption and who does or does not go to heaven. 

First, if Christ's redemption were a matter of your belief, then Christ's mission of salvation would be limited to what you believe. In other words, you would be the one holding the power of salvation, not Christ. Does that make any sense to you? Are you the one who redeems, or is Christ? Do you think Christ can't redeem the unwilling? Can you see how making your beliefs central to redemption actually limits the power of Christ? Can you see how that makes sinful humans more powerful than the mission of Christ's redemption? Limiting Christ to your belief, it seems to me, is the greater heresy than simply trusting Christ to accomplish the mission. It is Christ's job to redeem humanity, not yours.


Second, according to gnostic texts, all creatures, great and small, will be redeemed. This means that all creatures are going to heaven. My dog has never professed a belief in Jesus as the Christ, yet my dog is going to heaven. The fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the insects, the forest animals, all "second order powers" are redeemed by Christ.  It is the job of the Christ to redeem creation, irrespective of creation's ability to confess that fact.  Do you think that only good dogs go to heaven? Or nice fishes? Maybe only herbivores? Perhaps only parrots who can say "Jesus saves"?


Once we concede that it is only the Christ that can redeem, then what is the point of leading a virtuous life? Why not sin up until the end, have all kinds of "fun," and then waltz into heaven without repentance--i.e. feeling sorrow and regret--for what you've done. Are we allowed to sin willy-nilly with no negative consequences?


An even more profound question is, why were we created in the first place? 


According to the Tripartite Tractate, the Second Order Powers were created in order to rescue the fallen angel known as "Logos." 


from a previous article: The most perfect and complete of the individual aeons, Logos, crowned the top of the aeonic hierarchy. This single aeon consisted of all of the attributes of the good and perfect Fullness rolled into one individual.
Logos Crowns the Fullness
Logos had fallen from the Fullness and smashed to smithereens in a lower dimension. The broken bits of Logos scattered into space, forming our material universe along with a host of powers and personalities--demons, evil jinn, and archons. 

from a previous article: Logos imagined he could build the Paradise dreamt by the Fullness because he understood all of the plans and possessed all of the necessary talents. However, without the willing support of the Fullness, Logos was unable to give proper glory to the Father.
Logos Falling
As he reached for the Father, Logos stumbled and fell, shattering himself to bits.

Because the isolated glory of Logos was inadequate to the task, everything he produced as a result of that effort fell disastrously short. Where there had been unity with the Son and with his brethren in the Fullness, now there was “a division and a turning away.” The undiluted will expressed by the Fullness was splintered because Logos “could not bear to look at the light, but looked at the depths, and he faltered.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 77]

“What issued from his presumptuous thought and his arrogance had existed from something that itself was deficient; because of that, what was perfect in him left him and went upward to his own” in the Fullness, leaving the “sicknesses” behind in the darkness. [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 78]

The material space of our universe is known as "the deficiency," and "the imitation," and it was initially populated by nothing but the lost and fallen.

The fallen were not hated by the Father or the aeons of the Fullness. The fallen were mourned as lost, as a prodigal son or daughter is mourned by the parents who still love them. The Fullness loves the fallen and only wants them to return home.

The Second Order Powers were sent into this dimension for the purpose of engaging the fallen and helping them to return home. However, as the Second Order Powers entered this earthly dimension, they were immediately plunged into never-ending battle with the fallen. Due to the law of mutual combat, we temporarily forgot our Father in heaven and our mission of engagement and rescue. We were all infected with a host of fallen influences and fell into lifetimes of fear, regret, lust, and rage.

Those of the Deficiency are locked in endless war with those of the Remembrance
"The two orders fought against each other, struggling for command with such a result that they were engulfed by forces and material substances in accordance with the law of mutual combat, and they too acquired lust for domination and all the other passions of this sort; and consequently, empty vainglory pulls them all toward the desire of lust for domination, and not one of them remembers what is superior or confesses it" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 84].
We humans are Second Order Powers infected with many, many fallen influences that blind us to our true natures and our mission. These negative influences prefer the deficiency to the Fullness. These negative powers of the fall represent the opposite of the All and of all that makes us truly happy and fulfilled. The survival reflex of the imitation requires the Second Order Powers to be miserable and lost, because "misery loves company." They influence people to fight each other rather than fight and resist the evil fallen. Our lives become an endless and fruitless quest to find happiness through selfish pursuits. 

At this point in the gnostic story, the Father and the aeons of the Fullness produced a superior new entity--a Third Order Power--called "The Christ." It became the mission of the Christ to help the Second Order Powers remember and love the fallen so that the fallen could be redeemed.


Love is the only Power that can redeem the fallen. 


Why then, was a Third Order Power needed to accomplish the task that the Second Order Powers were sent to accomplish? Why populate creation with well-meaning but ignorant and confused Second Order Powers? Why not just send in the Christ to accomplish the redemption of fallen Logos in the first place? What is our function and purpose other than bumbling around in never-ending war with the fallen?


Because the fallen Logos must be loved and redeemed one fallen piece at a time. 


Imagine if the original body of Logos resembled a human form--like we might picture an angel in heaven looking something like us. Now, imagine that the heavenly body of Logos in the Fullness was comprised of the blueprint for every single potential body that would ever come to life in the imitation down here after the fall. Imagine the body of Logos falling from an immaterial dimension (the Fullness/heaven) and crashing and breaking apart into a lower, slower, thicker dimension (our material universe), and spilling out the blueprints for the material universe. 


Then, each of our material lives, and the parts that make us up, from the sub-atomic particles up through our bodies and our brains and everything, are themselves the parts of the fallen Logos that need redemption. Moreover, our personal stories, the drama that each human life enacts, are also stories of the fall, stories that need redemption. Every life tells stories of falls and redemption, temptation and overcoming, despair and triumph. And every time an archonic influence is defeated and stripped from your personal life, part of Logos is redeemed.


When we live a "virtuous" life, we are following the principles of the Father and the Fullness in heaven. And we are participants with Christ in redeeming the fall of Logos.  When we live a "sinful" life, we are succumbing to the demons of the fall and contributing to the chaos and despair of the deficiency.


Because we are, in actuality, children of the Fullness, we can only be truly happy when we act out of love, i.e. "virtue."  When we forget our place in the Fullness, we operate out of ignorance and are subject to the evil influences of the fall.  The fall can only produce misery, fear, rage, and lust--never love. Never happiness.

Here is the reason we strive to lead a virtuous life: because only virtue can make you happy. All else leads to despair and depression, because "the wages of sin is death."


The imitation does not bring happiness.  Despite a world full of false promises, vice can only bring ignorance and suffering, isolation, and despair. When you dwell in vice rather than virtue, your life is part of the problem and not part of the solution.  


The Christ brings redemption and remembrance of the Father and the Fullness, one bit, one piece, of the fall at a time. Every time you resist evil and turn a bad habit into a good habit, you have redeemed a piece of the fall.  When you redeem all of your bits and pieces, you will be fully redeemed and regain your home in the Fullness.  And when all Second Order Powers have accepted the remembrance and the redemption of the Christ, then Logos will be fully redeemed and this material universe can pass away. At  that point, Paradise, with all the love, peace, and happiness that implies, will be fully restored. 

The Fruit of the ALL and the Father, the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer, the Advocate, the Light, the Beloved
from a previous article: The end goal of Redemption is return to the Father's abode--that Paradise dreamed by the Fullness, where there is no death, no disease, no disappointment, and no deficiencies. That Paradise where Christ is King and peace reigns supreme, and there is only cooperation, fellowship, and true love. In Paradise there is naught but life; so all the grass is green, and flowers blossom endlessly, and every soul that has ever lived, lives happily with their friends and families. 
The Christ will leave no one behind to condemnation and hell. What kind of unholy savior would that be!?

from a previous article: Thus the Called will condemn evil and will turn away from the rage that has consumed them, and they will be healed as they "acknowledge that they have an origin of their existence, and they desire to know what that is that exists before them" [Tripartite Tractate, v. 132].

"And even those who were brought forth from the desire of lust for domination, having inside them the seed that is lust for domination, will receive the recompense of good things if they have worked together with those who are predisposed toward good things, and provided they decide to do so deliberately, and are willing to abandon their vain love of temporary glory so as to do the command of the Lord of glory, and instead of that small temporary honor they will inherit the eternal kingdom" [Tripartite Tractate, v. 131, 132].

As for Those of the Imitation who embrace the darkness and deny the light, well, "even they will obtain direct vision, so that they will no longer have to believe only on account of a small word produced by a voice that this is how things are. For the restoration back to that which was is a single one. Even if some are exalted because of the economy, having been set up as causes for the things that happened, unfolding numerous physical forces and taking pleasure in them, they--angels as well as humans--will obtain the kingdom, the confirmation, and the salvation" [Tripartite Tractate, v. 133].

These, too, will be provided "with dwelling places where they will dwell eternally after they have renounced the downward attraction of deficiency, and the power of the Fullness has pulled them upward, on account of the great generosity and the sweetness of the preexistent aeon" [Tripartite Tractate, v. 136].

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Is Jesus the Christ? A Gnostic Perspective

Yes, Yeshua is a singular Anointed human, possessed by the Holy Spirit known as the Christ. 

Yeshua, whom we call Jesus in the west, was half human and half Christ, or you could also say, fully human and fully God, being comprised of human DNA on the mother's side and perfected, corrected DNA on the Father's side. This is why the virgin birth is an important facet of the story, for it left room at conception for the Holy Spirit to insert and entwine its perfect DNA code into the human egg.



Why did the Holy Spirit choose a Hebrew virgin to impregnate? Because the perfected DNA inserted into the mother of Jesus at his conception was designed to precisely fit and correct the corrupted Abrahamic code. You could say that the descendants of Abraham carried a genetic lineage that was particularly suitable to accept the Christ's DNA code.
Side view of DNA double helix encircled by a sliding clamp homotrimer. 



Yet, the Annointed human Jesus is not exactly identical to the Christ, for the Christ Itself existed long before the human child Jesus was born on Earth. 

The aeons of the Fullness "took upon themselves the Fall that had happened as if it were their own, with concern, goodness, and great kindness. . . for the one who had become deficient could be made perfect in no other way except by the Fullness of the Father" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 86].

And so the aeons of the Fullness, every one individually and ALL of them collectively, gave glory in unison to their Father, while praying for help for the Deficiency. 


They brought forth One that combined every attribute of the ALL manifested in the image of the Father "of whom they had been thinking when they gave glory and prayed for help" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 86]. 

The Christ Itself is the Fruit of the Eternal Father and the Aeons of the Fullness working together to save the inhabitants of Earth. 
The Christ had to wait until Earth had evolved enough for Homo sapiens to embody the correcting Code that would redeem Earth from its battle with the material imitation known as the Deficiency. 

This One was called "The Son of his Will" and "of the good pleasure of the ALL." It is "the knowledge of the Father, who wished to become known." It is also described as holding "authority vested in him from the beginning and the power needed to execute it" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 87, 88]. 

The aeons not only produced a singular Fruit reflecting the Father, but that Fruit also reflected their own individual countenances and aspects from their positions in the hierarchy of the Fullness. In this manner, they "went forth in a form that consisted of many forms, so that the one whom they were going to help should see those to whom he had prayed for help as well as the One who brought it to him" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 87]. 



The Fruit of the ALL first shone its light on those of the Second Order of Powers who had lost their vision and wanted to see again. These Powers had a small inkling that something higher existed prior to them, and they were not surprised by the revelation of the Light. They greeted the Light, "with inexpressible joy," and gladly bowed down before it. 
Those of the Remembrance joyfully greeted the Light.
Those redeemed by the Light were made whole and complete. They were given access to "chariots" like those of the aeons, able to carry them throughout all of the regions and activities contained within the Boundary. Because the Christ carried knowledge from the ALL and the Fullness, and power from the Father, their chariots brought the order of the hierarchy to all corners of the universe, and organized systems began to appear, displacing the chaos of the Imitation. Riding these chariots, "each one may obtain his fixed place in accordance with what he is" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 91]. 
We are accustomed to seeing DNA depicted from a side view, as an intertwined helix. From the top view, DNA looks more like a cathedral window, or a chariot wheel.
Those who were now enlightened felt the power of the Redeemer inside themselves, "being together with him, sharing his suffering, relieving him little by little, making him grow, raising him up" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 90].

The Redeemed "were produced as an army for him, as for a king, in which those who belong to this thought share the command and are united in agreement. They went forth in a form that consisted of many forms. . .  [He] also sowed in him, invisibly, a word designed for understanding and gave him the power to detach and dispel from himself those who were disobedient to him" [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 88].


The mission of the Christ is to "save" and "redeem" that which was in error and return it to the perfection of the aeons of the Fullness. Redemption is provided to those who willingly seek to realign their corrupted code to the perfection, the Glory, of the originating source code, the Father.  

"Those of the Remembrance" are the souls who vaguely remember and seek out their original spiritual home that existed prior to the material creation of the cosmos. When presented with the Redeemer, the Christ, they quickly remember their Father and the Fullness from whence they came. The Christian church presents the Christ as Jesus hanging on the cross. Those who are "Born Again" experience a mystical union with the Divine while in the act of "giving glory" to God.

Those who do not recognize the Christ in the form of Jesus will eventually recognize the Christ. Sooner or later it is the soul's journey to return to its non-material origin as a child of the Fullness and the Father above. There will be no denying by the end of time, for ALL will be redeemed and returned to the glory of the Fullness by the correcting power of the Christ.

A major difference between Orthodox Christianity and Gnostic Christianity is that the power of the Christ is not dependent on whether or not you believe in Jesus. The Christ will Redeem all souls from the Fall and the Deficiency of this fallen, material cosmos, whether or not you believe it. If salvation was dependent upon each mortal's personal beliefs, then you would have to conclude that personal belief outweighs the power of the Christ. Christ's mission to return all souls to their original, heavenly domain is more powerful than a human's belief system. 

The Christ will Redeem all souls sooner or later. The only question that remains is how long do you wish to suffer the despair, rage, and confusion that comes from separation from the Father and the Fullness?
The cross represents the bridge of top to bottom: Spiritual realm to material realm; and side to side: reaching out with love to your neighbors for the betterment of all.

Friday, September 13, 2019

Glorify God, Not Men. An aeon article reprint with Gnostic Commentary

As explained in my book, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, the aeons of the Fullness had a few rules. One of the rules was that they were to glorify God, and not each other. They were not to glorify themselves (pride/narcissism), nor their neighbors (misplaced praise), nor the pleroma of the aeons as a group. They were to keep their focus upon the Father and the Son. 

“If the members of the ALL had risen to give glory according to the individual powers of each, they would have brought forth a glory that was only a semblance of the Father, who himself is the ALL." [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 68] Thus, creation would have been doomed from the outset to never comprehend the full glory of either the Father or itself.

Prior to the Fall, the aeons of the Fullness sat in perfect equilibrium in their hierarchy of ranks, stations, and names. They were a congress of one accord, meaning they agreed on everything and they cooperated together to bring about a single dream of Paradise. 


In their desire to give glory to the Father, that is, to align themselves with the Will of the Creator, aeons of the Fullness were required to follow these rules:

1. Give glory to the Father, not to the Fullness. Aeons were to remain aligned with the Son and not shift their focus to the Fullness as a whole.

2. Give glory to the Father, not to individual aeons. Aeons were to remain always mindful of the Father and not to give glory to themselves and their talented neighbors as individuals.

3. Give glory to the Father to the best of your own ability. An aeon was to give glory from its own location in the hierarchy. They were not to sidle up next to an aeon who appeared closer to the Father in order to borrow that aeon’s station to give better glory. Rather, the individual was to develop its own voice and talents through the process of giving glory to the Father. [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 74]

It is said that although the Father put an unquenchable thirst to align themselves with the One into the minds of the Fullness, he did not reveal to them the Father's ineffable nature and the impossibility of reuniting with him and surviving to tell the tale. This was doubtless to keep alive the hope of reunification with the Father as a motive for giving glory. [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 75]

The above admonitions work for humans, too, as we are the Fruit of the Aeons. We are fractal patterns of the aeons of the Fullness, projected onto this 3-D world as a result of the Fall. The more we instantiate the values of the aeons and the Father, the happier humans are. Our democratic institutions are patterned after the Fullness. 

Here is a secular article that says the same thing... reprinted from the blog called "aeon.com"
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Let us now stop praising famous men (and women)


After the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris nearly burned down in April, the French luxury-goods magnate François-Henri Pinault was celebrated for committing €100 million to reconstruct what he called ‘this jewel of our heritage’ and ushering in a flood of donations from other benefactors and companies. Though an impressive figure in the abstract, Pinault’s commitment reflected only 0.3 per cent of his family fortune. If he instead had the average net wealth for a French household and donated 0.3 per cent of his fortune, his commitment would total about €840. Not an insignificant sum for an average Frenchman, but who would refuse to give that sum if it garnered the praise and notoriety that followed Pinault’s donation?

We live in an age of excessive praise for the wealthy and powerful. The upper echelons of society bathe in a sea of honours, awards and celebrity. We see it in the glossy magazines and at the so-called ideas festivals, where billionaires are fawned over for their bons mots. We applaud philanthropists for their largesse, even if their charity will do little ultimate good for society, and even if their conduct in acquiring their fortune was reprehensible. We commend them for dabbling in politics or pushing school reform, before we see any results, and even if we have reason to doubt the good that they will do.

To criticise our praise for the wealthy and powerful as excessive inevitably raises the question of meritocracy. To what extent do we live in a meritocracy, and is that a good or a bad thing? Meritocracy is a form of social organisation that is founded on praise and blame. People signal who deserves power and status by praising them for their character, their talent, their productivity and their actions, and who merits demotion in status and power by blaming them for their vices, their ineptitude and their failings. Insofar as people’s assessments of praise and blame are accurate, they will promote those deemed better up in the hierarchy of power and status, and demote those deemed worse down. Better people will do better things with their superior power and status. When the system works, we have an aristocracy – rule by the finest people. Or so thinkers from Aristotle onward have thought.

This system doesn’t work and can’t work on its own terms. Assessments of praise and blame tend to reflect existing hierarchies of power and status, thereby reifying them. This is because praise and blame have as much to do with the person judging as the person being judged. If everyone in a meritocracy wants to get ahead, assessments of praise and blame will be influenced by whatever helps people to get ahead – namely heaping praise on the powerful and respected, and castigating those without power and status. This is obviously true with meritocracies that most people explicitly reject, such as white supremacy and patriarchy – hierarchies drawn along racial and gender lines. These systems have persisted despite the baseless moral judgments on which they are grounded, because those living within the system are incentivised to see such judgments as legitimate. Meritocracies in general convince those within the system to echo the moral assessments on which they are based as objective and justified, when in fact they are shaped not by objective criteria but by the qualities of the powerful. Praise and blame are ideological blinders that uphold the legitimacy of the meritocratic hierarchy. If we take a more critical look at ourselves and our moral assessments, we will be better able to remove those blinders.

The smog of praise that permeates the upper echelons of society is a product of perverse incentives. As individuals, we tend to praise others and to court praise, because we want to win good will from others and receive confirmation of others’ good will. What’s more, we have an even stronger incentive to praise people who are wealthy and powerful, because winning their goodwill secures their premium support, and the wealthy and powerful are, in turn, more readily able to court praise from others. The more elite someone is, the more likely he is to crowd-surf on the praise of the many lesser folks seeking his favour. And insofar as our age of massive inequality creates people who are wealthier and more powerful, to that extent will the wave of excessive praise swell. We can even anticipate this tendency generating a negative feedback loop: praise of the wealthy and powerful affirms that they are good people deserving their fortune, which can, in turn, augment their wealth and influence, which thereby attracts even more praise.

The effects of excessive praise on conduct are also worth concern. Praising people, even those who deserve praise, can actually have a negative effect on their behaviour. There are many psychological studies demonstrating that people are susceptible to moral compensation. That is, when people feel that they have engaged in good behaviour, they also feel that it gives them licence to act badly in the future. The converse also holds: when people feel that they have engaged in bad behaviour, they also feel that they should make up for it by acting better in the future. If these studies hold up, they appear to upend the social consequences of praise and blame: praising people excessively can lead them to act badly, while blame puts them on notice and reinforces good behaviour. And insofar as this effect is more likely to influence wealthy and powerful people – those who can, thanks to their resources and influence, do more – it magnifies the harm of their bad conduct.

Meritocracies try to establish objective criteria to justify social hierarchies. Nowadays, entry into the elite often has to do with having the right r̩sum̩: Oxbridge or Ivy League degrees, a stint at the best consulting firm or investment bank, service in politics or government, writing a book or giving a TED talk about your work. These r̩sum̩ items are supposed to establish the talent, judgment and character of the people in question. People with such r̩sum̩s receive respect and esteem Рeven though their accomplishments are the predictable consequences of being born into the right family, knowing the right people, and swimming with the current. For the ambitious Рand meritocracies feed ambition Рthese r̩sum̩ items are primarily credentials for acquiring greater power and status. There is no reason for the public to accept such credentials as being an objectively valid base for praise.

If we want to foster a truly democratic society – a society in which we treat each other as equals – we must rein in such excessive praise and the perverse incentives that encourage it. We should aim for the opposite extreme, toward withholding praise and being more circumspect about the wealthy and powerful, to restore balance. As Justice Louis Brandeis, who witnessed our previous Gilded Age, might have said: ‘We may have democracy, or we may have praise showered on the heads of a few, but we can’t have both.’Aeon counter – do not remove

David V Johnson
This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Aeon Byte Appearance of Cyd on youtube, Presenting The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated

Here is Cyd's youtube presentation of The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated on Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio, with Miguel Conner. The show lasts over an hour and a half and was streamed live on June 28, 2019. This interview presents Cyd's gnostic illustrations with in-depth descriptions, why's, and wherefore's. 


 The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated bookstore

Friday, June 7, 2019

Gnostic Gospel Illuminations -- An Illustrated Cosmology



The following illustrations and descriptions are excerpted from my book, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated. These illustrations present the essence of Gnostic cosmology, demonstrating the manner by which an illimitable consciousness became One who became Many, and the relationship between those Above, and those of us here Below.

1.

Imagine nothing exists but pure consciousness, without thought. No images, no structure or form. No thing at all. Timeless. Still. Quiet. Alone.

2.

The Child exists as the Absolute having a thought. As the Father knowing Itself.  The Son is a complete and perfect sampling of the Father in which it dwells, as a bucket of sea water represents the sea. Every trait of the Father, expressed in the singularity of the Son. A perfect fractal. The Son is called The First Glory.

3.

The moment the Son was formed, he was no longer alone. For not only the Son, but the ALL arose at once. The ALL immediately appeared as the offspring of the Son, because the Son could not help himself from bringing others into existence, even as he was brought into existence by his Father. The Son and the Father are One, and the Father's creative Holy Spirit flows through the Son. With the birth of the ALL, the Son became a Father as well.

4.

The One begat the ALL, and the Father loved them ALL, even as He loved His Son. The ALL is called the Second Glory, the Joy of the Lord, and the Pre-Existent Church. The ALL glorified their Father with one mind, for only in their totality could they reflect and exalt their Father's greatness. This state did not last, for the members of the ALL soon became self-aware, and "it" became "they."

5.


 The moment identities arose, the Son's rays fruited into individual selves, each one distinct and self-aware.

6.

The Aeons of the ALL awakened to themselves in fulfillment 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.

7.


The awakened Aeons sorted themselves into a mutually beneficial and cooperative colony -- a hierarchy consisting of names, stations, ranks, duties, and locations. Each Aeon occupies a unique place and perspective in the union of the Fullness. The Hierarchy of the Fullness prefigures every pattern and relationship that would eventually become our universe.

8.

As DNA anticipates an organism and a blueprint promises a building, the Fullness dreamed of a perfect plan for Paradise. The newly self-aware Aeons were not separated from the One, for their Father was the Son who embodied the traits of the Formless One, and His Holy Spirit flowed throughout them as a reassuring presence. Although the Aeons dwelt within the single body of the Fullness, they were each an independent entity. Their variety required them to work together and remain in full agreement in order to remain aligned with the Glory of the One.

9.

The final Aeon produced by the will of the Father was placed at the very top of the hierarchy. This youngest Aeon carried within its singular self all of the traits of every other Aeon of the Fullness. It also possessed wisdom and curiosity. It is known by various names -- here we call it "Logos," which is Greek for knowledge and wisdom. This final Aeon beheld its own perfection and mistook itself for the Fullness. Mistakenly believing itself to be equal to the totality of the ALL, Logos unilaterally launched itself upward toward the realm of perfect glory, abandoning its proper position and duties.  

10.

Motivated by a mistaken, presumptuous thought, Logos overreached. Instead of reuniting with the Father, Logos stumbled and fell. This is called The Fall.

11.

These scattered pieces of the fallen Aeon emerged as poor, weak imitations of the Aeons above. And, because they were no longer arranged in the hierarchy, they lacked places, functions, and names. Rather than acting out of unity, the dark ones manifested disturbance, upheaval, and confusion. They were feeble, small, and unruly, lacking in wisdom. They thought they were all there was and they only admired themselves, arising as they did from division. Personal ambition eclipsed the Father's will.

12.

The Fall gave rise to a Boundary that separated those who had remained with the Father and the Fullness from the imitations that spilled forth. The Fallen Aeon was repelled by its creation and retreated to its own in the Fullness. The Boundary hardened, encircling a limited space where a finite economy could emerge, separating finitude from infinity, ignorance from truth, light from darkness.

13.

With the blessing of the Father, Logos and the Fullness produced a Second Order of Powers patterned after themselves. This new fruit embodied better abilities than those of the imitation; whereas those of the imitation were blind to the glory of the Father, this new fruit dreamed of Paradise and the ALL, giving them a good disposition. With that good thought, they worked in harmony and love, after the fashion of their parents above.

14.

It was decided that the Second Order of Powers would enter the deficiency one by one, from the lowest stations on up, in their full profusion of functions and forms. In this manner, the deficiency came to be populated with Powers from the Fullness.

15.

Whenever the Second Order of Powers came upon those of the imitation, they naturally attempted to overthrow them out of an inherent sense of self-righteousness. With great zeal, those of the Remembrance pitted themselves against those of the imitation, forgetting themselves and their origin. Due to the Law of Mutual Combat, the Second Order of Powers became infected with the same lust for dominion that ruled those of the imitation, and the two Orders entered a Never-ending War over resources in the bounded ecology of the economy.

16.

The Second Order Powers battle the imitation, hoping for rescue from Above.

17.

The Aeons produced a new fruit bearing the image of their Father. This One Fruit then took on many forms so those of the Remembrance would be able to recognize and welcome their Redeemer. The Christ took charge of the economy and proceeded to carry out His revelation, one soul at time.

18.

Those of the Remembrance joyfully greeted the Light, and they were awakened from their ignorance and made whole. 

19.

Those of the Remembrance were given chariots like those of the Aeons that could traverse all realms, great and small, establishing order. Working in concert with knowledge from the Fullness and power from the Father, the Redeemer's chariots brought the cooperative hierarchy to creation, and organized systems began to replace the chaos of the imitation.

20.

The Redeemed Third Order Powers find themselves in the world, but they are no longer of the world. Meanwhile, the Second Order Powers continue to battle those who cling to the imitation, both refusing to abandon their rage for redemption.

21.

This is the mystery of the birth of the Christ--that the inconceivable, ineffable, invisible, and ungraspable One was conceived, expressed, made visible, and able to be held, touched, and cradled by humans. Human beings were designed by the Aeons to become the "truly existent living images" of themselves they had always imagined themselves to be in their dreams of Paradise. Repentance allows one to grasp the love of the Father and so return home to Paradise.

22.

The symbol of the cross bridges top to bottom--Holy Spirit to creation--and side-to-side--reconciliation and harmony within creation. Jesus of Nazareth represents the Fullness of God entwined at conception with human DNA: the perfect material instantiation of the Father and the Fullness, bringing restoration not only to the Second Order Powers but to the Fallen Aeon as well. 

23.

The final sorting of Judgment Day, where every creature chooses its desired place in the Paradise offered to all. The only forms banished to the outer darkness called Hades will be the shadows and phantoms of the imitation that bring nothing but sorrow, death, and destruction, for these have no place in Paradise. 

24.

The final economy

25.

We all dream of the Paradise of the Aeons, where there is naught but life; so all the grass is green, and flowers blossom endlessly, and every soul that has ever lived, lives happily with their friends and families for evermore.
[
"The Prologue and the Promise" by Robert McCall was a popular image of Paradise that once graced the walls of Disney's Florida EPCOT Center.]