/lit/ - Literature

>>16749163
Good thing no one cares about Gnostics.

reality is not what it seems

>>16749163
gnosticism, like, you realize something and then all your life is better? like achieving spiritual liberation? is that what you mean?

>>16749163
you missed it by 829 years bucko

>>16749169
Yeah, we get it, Aliens came a long time ago. Yawn!

I'd be honored by any recommendations for spiritual fiction. I've tried a few but the stories and plots are usually very unengaging. I thought Siddhartha was pretty boring. Thanks :]

>>16749271
oops I meant to post this as its own thread, sorry

>>16749271
I would look into tolstoy

Anyone got any of those schizo gnostic memes lying around? They're always a laugh

>>16749280
What am I, an ass doctor? Isn't he dead too?

>>16749280
>
Thanks man :] that's a little heavy for me especially because I usually listen to books at work but I'll look into it

What is the purpose of a "violent gnostic revolution"? Are you going t organize mass suicides to trigger the archons?

I’m just a squirrel tryna get a nut

The fuck is up with all the gnostic shilling on this website that has been going on for the past six months?

>>16750296
extremely loud minority

>>16749327
based

>>16750296
the quarantine has made people start question things

>>16750300
But what's the point? Gnosticism is a failed ideology. Why not shill neoplatonism, which is superior in every aspect?
>>16750302
Question what?

>>16749163
Based chad

>>16750305
>Why not shill neoplatonism, which is superior in every aspect?
This

I don't think there's any genuine Gnostics on this board. It's interesting to read about but i don't believe it's anything more than some people trying to be polemic and larping.

>>16750558
I don't really see the point in Gnosticism. The core tenet that differentiates it from Hermeticism, Neoplatonism or even Christianity is the belief that the material world is evil, whereas the aforementioned three would only agree that it is imperfect.
There's no real point in believing that the Demiurge is evil or misguided. If this is true, then it just relegates the problem of evil to the Monad, which is effectively the same thing as in Christianity.
I also don't understand the necessity for Gnosticism's complex cosmology.
Also, if Gnostics are right, then you don't lose anything by being a Christian. But if Christians are right, being a Gnostic puts distance between you and God.
So in the end, Christianity is the logical choice between the two.

>>16750296
I still prefer them to the christian and pagan LARPers.

>>16750598
I feel like that's a huge part of it, people into gnosticism seem to be more especially attracted to the demiurge, archon, and the material world being evil aspects. You can point them towards Neoplatonism and hermeticism but they don't seem to give a shit about the important points of it all (the metaphysics and monad/one aspects), and get focused on the more mundane aspects instead.

>>16749163

The Chad CONTEMPTUS MUNDI:

>knows that suffering is worthless in all ways
>knows that it potentially being teleologically justified does not make it good
>knows that him and an other constituting a greater whole is not good regardless of the whole's quality which is bad regardless
>knows that the cosmic wheel is a breaking wheel
>knows that civilization is not worth the dirt it's built on
>knows his body is not worth the excrement it produces
>his mere existence offends the phenomenal world
>the archons don't even know what his mind is
>one drop of his thought is lethal to men of the world

>>16750598
>>16750636
It's just a way for people to offload personal responsibility on a big, evil sky daddy.
Pretty much the sophisticated version of the stoner kid walking in late to class and exclaiming "it's not my fault, I was a mistake."

>>16750417
I think neoplatonism vs gnosticism debate is as stupid as buddhism vs advaita. You guys should just be friends.

>>16750738
I absolutely agree as a neoplatonist, we both want the same thing ultimately. We can debate, have a bit of fun at the expense of each-other, but in the end we should help one another

bump

>>16750598
I wish you midwits would keep your opinions to yourself, we're not impressed by neoplatonism and hermeticism because we're not first year undergrads who just ordered The Enneads. American, 18 - 21 years old.

>>16750636
stupid take, never read a book on gnostic thought. American, 20 - 25 years old.

>>16750731
le proverbial stoner kid.

American. 18 - 25 years old.

>>16750715
dangerously based

>>16752540
>dangerously based
Yes.
Luckily the human species is not capable of such thought.

>>16752540
kek literally zero (0) arguments
Keep crying, gnosticuck. Plotinus refuted your shitty excuse for a theology a couple millenia ago.

>>16752585
like I said, we're not midwits who just read The Enneads and now ordered Being & Time. look mommy we're doing philosophy lol. what's next kid, being vs. becoming? in a year are you gonna tell me about how the gnostics failed to reconcile heraclitus and parmenides (since it will take you that long to read heidegger)? lol give it a couple years kid, you don't even know which strain of gnosticism Plotinus was even reacting to

>>16752602
lmao that projection.
You are fucking boiling with rage. Gnostics are truly pathetic.

>>16752611
cringe and ineffectual little nerd

Gnosticism is embarrassing
Literally Neoplatonism for immature crybabies
>nooo muh suffering
Shut the fuck up

>>16752620
seething

>>16752623
manichaeism has nothing to do with neoplatonism and is arguably the most prominent gnostic religion out of any of the main schools. don't know what you're talking about

>>16752633
Midwit take

>>16752631
keep at it bro at this rate you'll hit guenon in
a year. who knows? maybe whitehead in two!

>>16752638
>nooo you can't just know what you're talking about

I spit on you retards

>>16752642
>>16752646
kek cry harder

>>16752540
Ok but why not stop seething and namedropping philosophers you haven't read, and instead explaining why gnosticism makes sense? You haven't provided an argument against >>16750598. Telling people to read [book] and that they're midwits does not constitute an argument.

>>16752661
he hasn't provided an argument either shitwit. none of you do, it's just golly gee why does gnosticism have its own presuppositions and doesn't share any of those presuppositions with with the engineers of today's mono-culture against which it is diametrically opposed...

there's nothing to refute, only to mock.

>>16752695
Okay, so you have no argument and are just throwing a fit. I don't know what to tell you, keep sperging out I guess.

>>16752705
American. 18 - 21. Thinks "uh life doesn't seem that bad to me" is a well-constructed argument and demands a rebuttal.

>>16752695
>he hasn't provided an argument either
Read again.
There are no fundamental differences between gnostic theology and neoplatonist schools of thought. It is also compatible with hermetic teachings. The only difference is the way it chooses to qualify the Demiurge and its creation.
Fundamentally, gnostics are like rebellious children who have a kneejerk reaction against their father.

>>16750607
It's because christians and pagans are not LARPers, they're modern subcultures, while gnostics are the memelords.

>>16752725
>Fundamentally, gnostics are like rebellious children who have a kneejerk reaction against their father
Lmao this thread seems to have proven that well

>>16752727
But if god good why owie exist?? :( mommy sophia help

>>16752718
>American. 18 - 21.
No.
>uh life doesn't seem that bad to me
Yes.
You are weak and scared.

>>16752725
>There are no fundamental differences between gnostic theology and neoplatonist schools of thought.

no, it isn't you fucking retard, gnostics reject an orderly plotinian emanation

>the only difference

even the soul is debased in certain gnostic schools, it's not the only difference, gnostics categorically reject veneration or return to a One who is identified with a first cause.

>Fundamentally, gnostics are like rebellious children who have a kneejerk reaction against their father.

spare me your boomer takes, shitwit, clowns like you open wide for daddy and larp like you've always enjoyed the taste of shit-greased cock

Praise the Monad and strike down his foes.

>>16752736
>>16752739
suburban whitebread who trivialize suffering are not worth talking to.

>>16752733
I think we're seeing a lot of internet "neo-gnostics" lately because former redditor atheists feel the need to move on to a new provocative ideology, and their surface understanding of gnosticism perfectly scratches the "I fucking love science" simulation theory garbage

>>16752623
t. demiurge bootlicker

>>16752753
I accept your concession, worm.

>>16752754
It does have a kind of fedroa aura to it

>>16752760
you conceded the instant you made that post, your faggy man cave doesn't exactly deal the fatal blow to gnostic ontology you think it does

>>16752761
no not everything is reducible to gay american cultural phenomena, leave

>>16752761
Not to mention the hylic/psychic/pneumatic stuff. It allows the basement dwelling autist to feel superior without having to achieve anything, by virtue of holding on to the idea of gnosis.
Never mind that according to the original gnostic teachings it's literally impossible to achieve gnosis nowadays unless you were born in a Mandaean tribe which I doubt is the case for the seething autist ITT

>>16752756
>owie bad so me no like god :((
Gnosticism really is THE midwit philosophy

Why do retards who criticize Gnosticism have the shallowest takes on it? Is it due to feeling insecure that another group of internet nerds are forming their own interests instead of being needlessly contrarian faggots so they are accused of being larpers for having new beliefs?

>>16752746
>an orderly plotinian emanation
>reject veneration or return to a One who is identified with a first cause.
Yes, the only differences with neoplatonism aside from the conception of evil are retarded divergences on cosmology. Gnosticism is a joke.
>the rest of the post
Man you are absolutely seething in rage, you should really calm down.

>>16752767
>Never mind that according to the original gnostic teachings it's literally impossible to achieve gnosis

complete fabrication, you have no idea what you're talking about, gnosis isn't dependent on being born into a lineage or being recognized as possessing it by a master, you can't even get the basic shit right retard

>>16752774
>yay lots of things to eat :) god good

>>16752774
based retard. whatever kind of force/entity spawns birth into a material world is an evil one, and its name is attachment and ignorance

>>16752784
Why do retards who espouse Gnosticism have the shallowest takes on it? Is it due to feeling special that their group of internet nerds have picked up some obscure interest instead of being boring and mainstream so they accuse others of being wrong despite having been blown the fuck out throughout the entirety of history?

>>16752791
>divergences
>on cosmology

do you have any idea the liberties Plotinus took with Plato's cosmology? sorry is there a neoplatonic orthodoxy gnosticism is supposed to answer to? who has it? plotinus? proclus? lol ennead-thumping nerds need to get the fuck off this board

>>16752808
>blown the fuck out
>actually exterminated by the powers that be

you're almost as cringy as the fags on /tv/ that cheerlead for megacorporations. almost

>>16752796
>gnosis isn't dependent on being born into a lineage or being recognized as possessing it by a master,
Except it literally is lmao
Keep going you fucking brainlet, you are laughably unintelligent, even by /lit/ standards this is embarrassing
>>16752797
>whatever kind of force/entity spawns birth into a material world is an evil one
noooo god is mean because sometimes the world gives me owie :(

>>16752824
Get fucking REKT

>>16752812
>sorry is there a neoplatonic orthodoxy gnosticism is supposed to answer to?
I was addressing the issue of compatibility, learn to read
Gnosticism is a childish divergence from neoplatonic thought, period. Your incessant whining and desire to feel special by espousing a dead, refuted ideology will not change this.
Faggot

>>16752825
>Except it literally is lmao

No, you're self-selected into a school or lineage or ancestry (such as being a seed of Seth), you confirm it by your knowledge, not by another.

Read it and weep: you don't even know the fundamentals of the traditions you're denigrating.

>>16752840
y-your incessant whining! period! you just want to feel special! nyah! take that! im arguing!!!

lol stop

>>16752843
>you're self-selected
Imagine coping this hard.
Do you also smugly tell your parents they're hylics during dinner? lmao

>>16752846
>>16752846
>your incessant whining! period! you just want to feel special!
Yes
Now shut the fuck up, child. You'll grow out of this eventually

>>16752848
this is what """arguing""" with kids who can't distinguish gnosticism from hermeticism gets you. people pushing back on even the points that scholars unanimously agree upon.

gnosis is taken from a greek word meaning knowledge by ACQUAINTANCE.

lol stop with the stupid teenager analogies, we all know you're still in school

>>16752857
lol no my friend I'm afraid nearly 2,000 year old traditions aren't refuted by your gay american neuroses about feeling special and using 2,000 year old traditions to signal your intellectual status, develop a broader understanding of the world outside of your time and circle and never embarrass yourself like this again

>>16752870
Hermeticism is not transmitted knowledge, brainlet
>gnosis is taken from a greek word
Wow that's very impressive timmy, tell me more about your knowledge of greek words
Also you're wrong
>we all know
t.

>>16752890
lol hermeticism is only barely considered gnosticism, only poimandres is with its cosmogony and eschatology, otherwise its basically a hellenized version of the egyptian religion

>>16752540
dangerously based post

>>16752885
You make no sense whatsoever
>never embarrass yourself like this again
Says the guy who has not provided a single argument that isn't nonsensical and spent the last half-hour seething like a literal child

>>16752906
>hermeticism is only barely considered gnosticism
>barely
You mean not at all?

Can someone tell me how Gnosticism refutes Christianity?

>>16752928
No, Poimandres has distinct gnostic undertones, for example, the descent of the light-anthropos and the accretion of planetary organs as he falls into the world, organs which he will give up back during his ascent at death. this is a key gnostic motif.

>>16752911
you have nothing to say and are a stupid kid who has no real working knowledge of the traditions in question and can only work off memes and hope someone doesn't notice. you know what a gnostic would say to you ree'ing about how gnosticism deviates from an orderly platonic procession of energies? they'd say: Yes.

>>16752947
cope and seethe midwit

>>16752953
what did I say? I provide specifics and get memes. seethe in your eternal impotent rage retard

>>16752947
Not the same guy, I don't understand this shit at all. I thought gnosticism was the idea that the god who made this world was imperfect and that there existed a perfect God above him, and that we should seek to transcend material existence, so that gnosticism diverged from christianity since it claimed the OT and NT gods were different while they're the same for christians.
I don't understand what you guys are talking about, could someone explain?

>>16752956
>i-i'm not seething you are
C O P E

>>16752963
that's what we're talking about. direct, intuitive knowledge of the difference between the NT and OT was enough to prove the self-proclaimed creator of the world was not the god of love. the god of love is a stranger to this universe, he is not a rehabilitated YHWH or whatever cope of the week is getting flung around these days.

>>16752746
>gnostics categorically reject veneration or return to a One who is identified with a first cause.
I thought the whole point was to reunite with the Monad. What do gnostics even want then?

>>16752978
Ok but what's this about gnosticism and platonism, neoplatonism, hermeticism...? I don't see any elements like kenoma or whatever thrown around in christian theology so why are they a core part of gnosticism?
Why should the creator of the world necessarily be evil? Does gnosticism really answer the problem of evil, since if the true God in the kenoma (or above it, sorry I really know jack shit about the cosmology) is infinitely good and omnipotent, shouldn't it be impossible for anything imperfect to arise from him even by proxy?
What does it imply to be aware that the NT and OT gods are different beings? Are christians damning themselves by worshiping Yahweh? But at the same time they worship Jesus, and isn't Christ supposed to be an emanation of the true God?
Do gnosticism and christianity diverge on more aspects than the NT/OT gods being different?

>>16749163
Either way you're still just posting and reading posts and will never actually do shit

>>16752996
No, they want reunion with the Pleroma which did not create this world (only derivatively, if you're a mitigated dualist) and stands in opposition to it. Plotinus' One does not stand in opposition with the world, only in continuity, even if it is the continuity of a plant vs. its "invisible" root.

>>16752932
From what I've heard (not really educated about Gnosticim), Jesus was sent by the Monad to liberate us by bringing the knowledge of gnosis, read Gospel of Thomas or something, idk.

>>16753004
1. Christianity, Gnosticism, Platonism have a bunch of the same resonances and points of emphasis. Platonism, Christianity, and Hermeticism to a lesser extent are pro-universe, pro-reality.

2. it's evident to anyone whose ontological frame of reference isn't the urban lifestyle. right now, billions of beings are being eaten alive, to say nothing of what humans are going through.

3. good God is not omnipotent, only good.

>>16752932
refutes their Bible by claiming the God of OT is a petty tyrant-god and the God of the NT is not Him redeemed, but another God entirely, and fundamentally opposed to his designs.

>>16753023
How does that refute christianity?
>>16753024
>pro-universe, pro-reality.
But they all acknowledge that this reality is imperfect and that we should strive towards the true reality above. That's not really incompatible with the gnostic view.
>it's evident
I feel like it's not that simple, if the entire arguments of two millenia of christianity could crumble from an intuitive realization, how did it survive so long? There are different ways to adress the problem of evil, not all of them require god to be evil, I think.
>only good
So the omnipotent god is indifferent?

>>16753024
>>16753040
By the way, you didn't answer my last three questions (which are the ones I'm most interested in).
>>16753029
>fundamentally opposed to his designs.
What about Matthew 5:17?

How truly 'gnostic' is the Gospel of Thomas?

>>16753040
>But they all acknowledge that this reality is imperfect and that we should strive towards the true reality above. That's not really incompatible with the gnostic view.

no, they see imperfection as a necessary ingredient for the actualization of the Good. Evil becomes the condition of the Good: gnostics reject this wholeheartedly, Good can and should never be dependent on any conditions outside of itself.

>if the entire arguments of two millenia of christianity could crumble from an intuitive realization, how did it survive so long?

vulgar christianity is a cult of the urban/civilizing god and opposed to questioning its directive. there is nothing more dangerous to that directive than the possibility that christian civilization is a ravenous vampire of the earth, seeing as how progressivism is basically secularized messianism.

>So the omnipotent god is indifferent?

no, he is powerless to rescue good from evil in the zone where evil reigns except by subterfuge or the sending of a Savior.

>>16753055
Christ is an emanation of the God of Light who reigns beyond causality and this meaningless carousel of birth and death. When Christians say they worship YHWH, they're trying to say they worship this light and love, too, but when they identify this light as the prime mover of the world, that's when the whole issue gets bungled.

the Book of Job understood this intuitively. it is the first truly gnostic text, in that it is the first text to take God to task for the failure to account for the discrepancy between his infinite morality and the finite morality of the creature.

>>16753040
>How does that refute christianity?
I don't know. I'm just saying that the central figure of Christianity (Jesus) is preaching gnosis according to the gospel I mentioned. So it's a matter of which gospel you choose to believe. What did Jesus really say and what he meant by it, basically.

>>16753073
>imperfection as a necessary ingredient for the actualization of the Good.
Well, isn't that free will? If you are not able to do evil, you don't possess free will.
Evil doesn't strike me as the condition of the Good as much as the absence of it, or distance from it.
>Good can and should never be dependent on any conditions outside of itself.
But gnosticism is dualistic, doesn't this present Good as a monism?
>opposed to questioning its directive
So all christian theology is rationalization and mental gymnastics in your opinion?
>he is powerless
Then can he be called omnipotent?

>>16753088
>they identify this light as the prime mover of the world,
Ah, so this is the actual divergence.
What are its implications in terms of salvation?
Are christians condemned according to gnostics? And why would gnostics be condemned according to christians, since they fundamentally have the same object of worship?
On that subject, what is the gnostic stance on what happens after death? The hylic, pneumatic, psychic thing sounds strange to me, does it mean that if you don't reach a certain level of "enlightenment", your soul is destroyed?
> to take God to task for the failure to account for the discrepancy
Isn't the argument that's usually invoked the fact that an omniscient God need not justify his plans, which are beyond comprehension, to man? And that man has a limited perception of what good is?

>>16753114
>Well, isn't that free will? If you are not able to do evil, you don't possess free will.

no, gnostics aren't so myopic as to locate evil squarely in the domain of man, through the law of hunger/nutrition it pervades the natural realm too. if you believe man is single-handedly responsible for predation in nature you don't get out much. more christian urbanism poisoning a mature and objective vision of reality.

>But gnosticism is dualistic, doesn't this present Good as a monism?

Good and Evil are self-existent and self-defined, they are light and darkness without determination, not light and darkness as two ends of the same spectrum.

there is no omnipotent God in any gnostic tradition, even Marcion's Alien (though he isn't a gnostic) is not omnipotent though he exists in a condition of infinite non-relation to the cosmic prison. no omnipotence, no problem of evil.

>>16753139
I didn't say man was the only being able to do evil, I said free will was a prerequisite for the existence of evil.
>self-existent and self-defined
So evil is not the absence of good?
>there is no omnipotent God in any gnostic tradition
I see, that's interesting. What is the first mover then? What is the original substance of existence from which everything arises?

>>16753132
the implications are never to identify your project of salvation with the world's, or more importantly, with world history itself, as if the world is evolving to be redeemed with you. no, that just protracts your enslavement to it. it uses you like a battery to evolve complex biological and social systems to perpetuate itself endlessly and needlessly.

Valentinus compromised with the fact of the christian faithful by calling them psychics, halfway between the material and pneumatic races. and gnostics are condemned by christians because gnostics hate the creator of this world, while Christians venerate him.

your soul is indeed destroyed, or at least shuttled back into the cosmic power-system. the degree you are attached to the world is the degree to which your soul "sinks" after death. as you give up illusions, you rise on an inverted gravity.

>Isn't the argument that's usually invoked the fact that an omniscient God need not justify his plans, which are beyond comprehension, to man?

miserable cope by the demons of this world. literally the "i know what's best for you" argument. a god of love does not play historical games with the infinitely suffering, finite creature. you can see how immature and undeveloped vulgar christian thought is the more and more they use these infantilizing metaphors of God being a parent, man being an unruly child, etc. which doesn't hold out because parents work with their children's deficiencies, whatever they may be, they don't weave their bodies and minds ex nihilo

>>16753168
there are two original substances if you're a hard dualist, not one, and this universe is the site of intersection between these two substances, it is NOT the progressive degradation/dissipation of a single substance.

>>16753173
>never to identify your project of salvation with the world's
Well, I think salvation is an individual process. I'm not sure what the official christian stance on this is.
>as if the world is evolving to be redeemed with you.
Is gnosticism anti-hegelian?
>while Christians venerate him.
Here's the thing: if you (mistakenly, according to gnostics) believe Yahweh is Jesus, and therefore venerate both Christ and the creator of the material world, does it necessarily imply that you are attached to the material and therefore that your soul is condemned?
Don't a lot of christian mystics, through ascetism mostly, "reject" the material or at least aim to transcend it?
>the degree you are attached to the world is the degree to which your soul "sinks" after death. as you give up illusions, you rise on an inverted gravity.
This sounds kind of eastern-like. Can gnosis be likened to stream-entry? What does it mean to give up illusions, aside from not being attached to material existence?
Does salvation in gnosticism not depend at all on other virtues?
>i know what's best for you
Why should man be able to comprehend god or his plan?

Sorry if there's lots of questions, I'm just very interested in this and whenever I ask about gnosticism/christianity conflicts on 4chan I get meme answers.

>>16753181
What is the reason for this dualism?
Maybe that's a stupid question, but if there is only "one" then this question need not be asked (since there is nothing to compare the "one" to, and it is therefore self-evident/self-affirming) but doesn't a dualism imply a necessity?

What is the gnostic stance on saints and on liturgy in the broad sense?

>>16753213
>Is gnosticism anti-hegelian?

Yes. no true gnostic would identify history with the process of the Absolute restoring itself to itself. they see history as an incontinence in the divine, not a consolidation or movement of self-reconciliation.

world-time is evil and vampiric.

once again, civilization's trajectory is grafted onto God's. if God is brought down to the world and dependent on the world for the fulfillment of his nature (all neo-hermeticisms), then it is not gnostic, but archonic.

vulgar christianity doesn't pursue negation far enough, believes heaven is just a more celestial version of the world we already have, when the point is to leave any and all coordinates of the cosmic prison behind, and that includes the most formal ones, like space and time.

salvation only depends on knowledge. everything follows from that.

>why should man be able to comprehend god or his plan?

The modus operandi of an infinite, omnipotent, all-loving God cannot and should not be obscurity and obfuscation. my intuition tells me this. I read statements like that as just spiritualized complacency. there is no karmic accountant balancing the books of suffering. that's just fat, "happy", warm urbanites projecting, yet again.

>>16753220
No, if there is One the question needs to be asked all the more: where does this cut internal to the One come from? whence this opposition? dualism is much cleaner. take Good and Evil as brute facts and go from there.

>>16753269
>no true gnostic would identify history with the process of the Absolute restoring itself to itself.
So gnostics have a different conception of the apocalypse as what is described in Revelations?
>neo-hermeticism
I don't really understand the gnostic/hermetic relationship. Isn't hermeticism also a dualism, but more broadly applicable? The Tabula Smaragdina seems to be its own thing.
>believes heaven is just a more celestial version of the world we already have
Gnostics want to go back to the pleroma, right? What is the pleroma "like"?
Also iirc heaven is not really described in the Bible, there is no indication that it is located in space and time like the material world.
>salvation only depends on knowledge
But knowledge and detachment aren't the same. And what kind of knowledge is that? Can you be saved without being a gnostic initiate?

>>16753253
>Jesus said: The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of knowledge (and) have hidden them. They did not go in, and those who wished to go in they did not allow. But you, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves
Liturgy is based, but the church as an institution isn't

>>16753294
eschatologically dualist traditions like Manichaeism believe the end of the universe will purify the good souls of the universe, not the universe itself. the universe and its demons (I'm mixing things up here, cosmos is actually a good thing in Manichaeism, but just think of the "universe" as simply referring to "the powers of matter") are condemned eternally to their own prison.

there are hints the Pleroma is individuationist, that we're not talking a river melting back into the sea (the standard new age/managerial capitalist telos; becoming One with the Whole), but an ocean melting into a drop, becoming an absolute individual and not sinking back into a frothing mass of energy (the Demiurge)

you are saved to the extent you identify with the light in yourself as opposed to being dependent on the light/"Sun" of this world: that monad by which all other beings are coordinated and ontologically dependent on. that makes the Monad the Protagonist of reality and the creature just an extra in the background of his meaningless drama

>>16753278
>dualism is much cleaner.
But shouldn't the question of why the very substance of reality is dualistic be asked? Or should it be taken as an axiom?

>>16753480
taken as an axiom. why should it be one? reality is certainly unified, but it is not UNITARY, and that is a key distinction.

>>16753326
>the end of the universe
Is Revelations considered non canon? I know there are other apocalyptical texts in the Nag Hammadi so I'm wondering how standard christian eschatology ties into this.
>we're not talking a river melting back into the sea (the standard new age/managerial capitalist telos; becoming One with the Whole), but an ocean melting into a drop, becoming an absolute individual
I understand the former intuitively, the erasure of the self into an overarching whole, but I don't understand how the ocean can "melt into a drop". What does it mean for the conscious experience? If Pleroma is fullness outside of space and time, shouldn't souls be intergrated into it but lose their individual (imperfect, since they are part of a whole) substance? Or is Pleroma incomprehensible in essence and I'm not seeing the big picture?
>you identify with the light in yourself as opposed to being dependent on the light/"Sun" of this world
Inner light being the spark of divinity that Christ came to save, and the Sun of the world being the Demiurge?
Then the essence of salvation in gnosticism, if I understand correctly, it reliance on Christ, but the acknowledgement that Christ is also a part of oneself (I'm not sure if this is antithetical to christian teachings) and that salvation through Christ is the same as salvation through "self".
>>16753315
What about saints?
Also, do gnostics really believe that the serpent was Christ? What do they think of Lucifer and Satan then?

>>16753487
>why should it be one?
For me it's an intuitive thing. All things are reducible to a singular unit; something that is dual can be generally reduced to a singular unit that divides itself. So to think that duality is axiomatic and not resulting from a division, but instead is its own "fullness" seems kind of strange to me and difficult to grasp.

>>16753527
out of everything I've read few have ever gone into Revelations and its gnostic resonances. fair to say it's just more heeb twaddle by heebs. marcion had nothing to say about it.

I would say the Pleroma is either: that which you want to be integrated into anyways, or some kind of zone or phase-space where individualities are retained after death. something of the Inner Man surviving without discombobulating again back into some Whole or Abyss or Ocean. rule of thumb: the Pleroma is always what does justice to our intuition of light, truth, beauty, it's where the buck stops when it comes to ontological gotchas.

>Then the essence of salvation in gnosticism, if I understand correctly, it reliance on Christ, but the acknowledgement that Christ is also a part of oneself (I'm not sure if this is antithetical to christian teachings) and that salvation through Christ is the same as salvation through "self".

correct, Christ is the Interior Sun/Inner Man, because only from the interior can a revolt against the injustice of the universe be gleaned and mounted (as opposed to pacified and dismissed, like with Job's cuck friends).

not all gnostics believe the serpent was christ. in some texts (the Book of Baruch I think?) the serpent is still an agent of the demiurge. but the point in any case is to invert the coordinates of the procedure: you don't fall from the garden, the garden itself (as a spatiotemporal realm) is already fallen. what comes from outside the system is grace, not satan, because satan is already here.

>>16753535
even Zizek admits a duality, but internal to the One. either you accept dualism or you twist yourself into pretzels trying to make intelligible the One being differentiated from itself. I'll take the former.

the more sophisticated solution is: a dualism of an immanently split One (the universe as a unified field, what you're talking about) and an Alien God who transcends each and every yin/yang dichotomy of a closed system.

>>16753567
>more heeb twaddle by heebs
Wait I thought gnostics aknowledged the NT as canon.
>phase-space where individualities are retained after death
This is unrelated and maybe a sophomoric comparison but it makes me think of the declassified descriptions of the holographic nature of material reality in what was called the "gateway". Is appears similar in substance at least, but I don't want to venture into assuming underlying mechanics to the cosmology we're discussing or get into new age crap. The theological implications were omitted from the report anyway.
>marcion
What do you make of the council of Rome?
>the Inner Man surviving without discombobulating again back into some Whole or Abyss or Ocean
>always what does justice to our intuition of light, truth, beauty,
Then it is ideal, though unknowable in our current situation. In that regard it's the same thing as the conventional christian heaven, but the emphasis placed on the self might be where theological divergences arise
I'm not sure how to reconcile the conservation of indviduality with the rejection of space-time as an inherent property of what is fallen/imperfect/evil, do you know any reading material on this subject? Among the gnostic apocrypha preferably
>a revolt against the injustice of the universe be gleaned and mounted
Do you think the universe is evil due to the malevolence of its creator, or that it is imperfect due to his ignorance?

>>16753582
>twist yourself into pretzels trying to make intelligible the One being differentiated from itself.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the neoplatonist conception is that of the One being impossible to grasp anyway, isn't it? Which would imply that the duality you're talking about is a simplification of an incomprehensible One?
>an Alien God who transcends each and every yin/yang dichotomy of a closed system
Encompassing the split one you're talking about? What is the necessity of this Alien God if we're assuming the all-encompassing duality of things to be a pseudo-monism like you said?

>>16749163
>Why yes, I have been possessed by a memetic pandemic unleashed on the internet in the early 90's that has evolved into a culture of mutually reinforcing delusion and psychological control.
https://pastebin.com/4s91qRn6
While too conceptual to be of any transformative value to the public at large, this idea goes to the heart of today’s viral efforts, and is certainly understood by those who consider themselves soldiers in the meme wars. Biological viruses are only successful when they are able to turn their host cells into manufacturing plants for more viruses. The virus interpolates its genetic material into the DNA code of the cell, so that the cell will begin reproducing the virus. Eventually the cell divides or explodes, releasing many copies of the infected code. This is how a whole organism can become infected with a single virus; the code has iterated millions of times. The strategy of these Internet viral manifestos is to use the iterative potential of the computer nets to spread memes about viruses housed within units that are themselves viruses. The virus 23 strain even makes reference to chaos math and the predictions of some fractal influenced observers that the world itself will reach a critical mathematical moment of “singularity” near the turn of the millennium. The virus writer exploits a chaotic device—the computer-generated media virus—to spread the conceptual and spiritual implications of chaos mathematics.
Written in 1996. Sounds scarily relevant now, doesn't it?

>>16749163
Gnosticism and neoplatonism is metaphysical incelibacy, an ontological cuck cage that cannot imagine beyond itself.

>>16753666
>Wait I thought gnostics aknowledged the NT as canon.

only selectively. again, marcion (though not technically a gnostic), only dealt with Luke.

I think the evil is ignorance, because ignorance isn't a passive absence of knowledge but something that actively militates against it. see: the powerful men of this world, or even just sadists and degenerates. are they inertial, passively waiting to be filled by knowledge? no, they are just as animated as any saint or monk.

probably the best introduction would be Jung's 7 Sermons of the Dead. now he sees the pleroma as a threat to individuation, but still aliied to the interior sun.

>>16753686
again, if duality is an obfuscation or misrecognition of the One, then the One is responsible for that misrecognition and we're back to why I should venerate a blind, dumb, deaf, and mute singularity that spits out beauty as indifferently as it does monsters.

the distinction is between a just universe - one which is always equalizing, abhors a vacuum and extremes - and a good one. in the former, death is the condition of love. in the latter, love is love, goodness unalloyed.

>>16753690
>that pic
big if true

>>16753735
I see it as a representation of a dynamic that is independent of it, that has its roots in a metaphysical conflict between being and becoming. Creationism vs. evolution is the most visible and superficial expression of this conflict.

>>16753769
What's important in considering this is that philosophy is something that every thinking human being does, it is inherent to language itself, but of course not everyone engages philosophically at the same level.

>>16753733
>the One is responsible for that misrecognition and we're back to why I should venerate a blind, dumb, deaf, and mute singularity
Why couldn't the one be entirely transcendent instead of being constrained by the logic of its dualism?
This argument could also be extended to dualism itself. Isn't it possible for a transcendent reality (what you, or another poster, called an "Alien God") to have generated the material directly, which would make dualism unnecessary or redundant? Since your perception of "goodness unalloyed" is dependent on your current intuitive understanding or intellectualization of this universe, but it doesn't seem impossible for the overarching reality to simply be different in nature to this one, instead of contiguous, in which case all hypotheses fall flat. I don't know if I'm making sense

>>16752906
>a hellenized version of the egyptian religion
Is it, really?

>>16753819
if we're back to Ones making Manys, we're just back to Christianity and Neoplatonism. gnosticism is a complete inversion of standard metaphysical procedure

>>16753826
Yes.

>>16753831
>Ones making Manys
What I'm getting at is that, if you start from the bottom (this material universe) instead of imagning what the generating process is, you could imagine that this perceivable reality is made through an unqualifiable process: created from an "object" of unqualifiable nature, not inherently reducible to a One, nor to Manys.

>>16753866
whatever principle that perceives this universe as unjust, horrid, unsatisfactory, either originates with the One or Object and it is schizophrenic and self-lacerating, or it doesn't and the universe can go to hell. "god works in mysterious ways" is not tenable to a mature mind

>>16753878
>"god works in mysterious ways"
That's not what I implied, just that the essence of reality might not be entirely comprehensible with our current means. Like trying to observe something that you're currently a part of, you would lack the required overarching vision. It doesn't mean that your intuition of the universe being unsatisfactory is wrong, but that the reasons for it being as such could be outside of the frameworks that have been envisioned up to now.

>>16753903
You keep missing the point. The point is that revolting against the inherent injustice of the universe (from predation to social systems) isn't incumbent on us waiting for the "full picture". Who cares about the full picture if at ground level beings are suffering? And to pretend like a knowledge of the totality is even possible is an anti-gnostic fantasy, knowledge of God converted into knowledge of the world, not to redeem us from the world but, again, to keep justifying it.

People think the HUSTLE and BUSTLE of cities refutes the preceding billion+ years of natural struggle. No.

>>16754085
>revolting against the inherent injustice of the universe (from predation to social systems) isn't incumbent on us waiting for the "full picture"
Ok, I understand your point of view.
There are still things I find murky and unclear but I'll try doing my own research. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions

>>16754085
Only dumbass prey animals think predation is unjust

>>16754396
Cringe, another fat nerd larping as a tiger. Miss me with that shit.

Sell neoplatonism to me,who knows nothing.

>>16750305
>Gnosticism is a failed ideology. Why not shill neoplatonism, which is superior in every aspect?
The fact that you can even talk about these ideologies in this way, as if they were commodities on a supermarket shelf, is proof that the postmodernists were right.

>>16753726
>Becoming
Yeah BECOMING A TRANNY more like it ahahahahah!!!