/lit/ - Literature

>>18796713
Less retarded than christkekery for what it’s worth (not much).

Yes. Those who obtain the Gnosis can attain the Absolute.

>>18796713
Yes

Meme brain soup

>>18796746
Did Hegel attain it?
If so, why read shitty gnostic literature?
Just read Hegel. Easy.

>>18796814
>Hegel
>Easy

>>18796818
Yes, it is. You autodidact faggots get filtered by basic shit.

>>18796713
gnostics think this is evil

>>18796831
it is. Your intuitive judgments show how deceived you are.

>>18796820
lol college virgin vs autodidact chad

>>18796831
There are pockets of beauty in the world, but overall, the universe bends towards suffering. Even the pretty pine trees are forced to compete with one another and stifle each other's roots in a struggle for life. The universe is not truly evil as such, but it is most definitely a flawed illusion, an artist's failed creation in imitation of the true Beauty, the light of God.

when you reduce plain christianity into smug memes intended to ridicule like
>muh sky daddy
they will seethe and accuse you of getting filtered and direct you towards theological authorities, meanwhile every reductive gnostic meme is actually made by gnostics who when confronted with memes, just go "Yes. I made that one"

its like one belief needs entire cathedrals and centuries of art to be taken seriously meanwhile the other isnt even taken seriously by the people who actually believe it and just gets by on ms paint

>>18796730
Why are all you atheistniggers so triggered every time you see something spiritual? Learn how to seethe less.

>>18796831
this world is kept running using the power of the world above. beauty is the carrot on a stick leading us away from carrot paradise

>>18796831
Inside that lake and that forest are thousands of animals who can only survive by killing and devouring one another. It is the playground of evil deeds, no matter how beautiful. Even the plants are not safe from this brutalization.

>>18796976
trillions of microscopic beings in an endless war

>>18796831
We didnt say they aren’t beautiful it all has an aspect of beauty but you must understand it is a mere imitation which is why when you look deeper there is never perfection in even these

>>18796831
>it look nice so it good!

>>18796831
Yes

>>18796831
it's actually precisely because this beauty necessarily conceals or totalizes violence as beauty that this prison is real AND transcendental

>>18796913
>>18796976
>>18797001
>>18797109
>genuine wisdom being shared
blessed thread

>>18796713
Genuinely curious:
If there is some power higher than the demiurge why doesn't He rescue all the souls trapped in this material existence? How is liberation achieved?

>>18797047
>anime
Kek

>>18796713
I'm new. Tell me about what you have here

>>18796875
Well put

>>18797258
You must save your own soul, Anon.
God (Logos) sent His Son to guide us. And the Holy Spirit lives within each soul, calling us back to the Light — if we can follow its voice.

>>18797258
>why doesn't He rescue all the souls trapped in this material existence?
He’s going to

>>18797520
>>18797529
Thanks for the responses anons. I have a few follow-ups.
How should one follow His voice?
Do you need to be Christian to follow Gnostic beliefs or is it compatible with all faiths?

>>18797499
>he doesn't know about the evils of the demiurge

>>18797582
I am a Christian Gnostic. There are other forms of gnosticism. There is certainly no definitive practice or dogma, it’s a catch-all term for a constellation of beliefs.

I believe that Jesus Christ was one who found God within himself and taught us all to do the same. His sacrifice showed the key element of Love in reaching through the deceptions of the demiurge.

I worship God through loving others, and through prayer, meditation, music, and making art. I have found that if you quiet your mind enough, and listen very closely, you may hear a still voice speaking to you from within your soul.

>>18797594
Wtf is this? Is this all like a take on the Bible? I was digging the negative utilitarian stuff earlier in the thread but I'm getting filtered by the creation aspect of this which seems like a Christian theory of forms

>>18797594
They ripped this off the Urantia Book

>>18797715
No Gnosticism is a parasitic cult that superimposes it's own whacky cosmology on other religious systems. They tried the same thing with Zoroastrianism and Platonism. Gnosticism in a nutshell is fanfiction that takes a base religious system and goes "Well what if that god is an evil god and MY God is even bigger and better, and there's a bunch of aeons and shit"

Plotinus BTFO Gnosticism, they all realized it was retarded bullshit and converted to orthodox Christianity instead.

>>18797734
>orthocuck
O im laffin

>>18797734
Divinity doesn't attenuate

>>18797594
I feel like I need to do so much more reading of schizo gonostic shit to get the memes

>>18796888
Underrated trips

>>18797594
POST PART TWO YOU FUCK

holy trips confirm
>>18796888
and that is the beauty of it. species want to feel secure in their identity, to feel right and correct. 'ok' that sweet sweet belonging

>>18796730
>>18796803
>>18796831
>>18797734
Hylic cope

>>18797730
Just looked this up now, sounds interesting. Have you read it? Could you tell us anything about it?

>>18797594
>to be continued
next one pls?

>>18797776
You may find it less schizo than you expect.

>Hymn of the Pearl
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/The%20Hymn%20of%20the%20Pearl.pdf

>Apocryphon of John
http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-davies.html

>Gospel of Thomas
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf

>>18797599
>I worship God through loving others, and through prayer, meditation, music, and making art.
do you think even memeing in the spirit of truth and joy could be seen as a worshipful practice? I somehow get offended when hearing 'it's a meme' used in a scornful manner. don't they understand that it is only through an individual effort the difference is made and that every thread is a personalised analogy of the whole cosmos.

>>18796913
Appreciation of beauty makes you unable to reach gnosis?

>>18796891
Because you're a delusional idiot.

>>18796713
Blessed thread.

>>18797932
Memeing in a spirit of love and joy can absolutely be a gnostic practice. I believe that's why Gnostic threads tend to be so comfy and blessed >>18797977 (checked btw) especially compared to other religion threads.

>>18792106

>>18796831
>Canada
Of course it is.

Can a place of infinite goodness and light ever really be perceived as such? I mean is it possible to perceive good if there is no evil to contrast it? Isn't the pleroma a kind of annihilation?

>>18797582
>is it compatible with all faiths?
Tibetan Buddhism is highly compatible with Gnosticism

>>18798216
I see, thank you for the response. When one attains liberation does that yield something like the beatific vision?

>>18798222
I was thinking more in terms of their take on the after-death state, the Bardo Thodol is pretty much a gnostic hands-on manual on finding the inner spark after you die. In fact, most Tibetan tantric/meditative practices have this as their focus.

>>18797993
good to hear.
>compared to other religion threads.
dialectical skirmishes (h'gel philosophical archon of modernity) are micro loosh farming instances. an act of reaction puts one closer to that which is being reacted against, establishes a dependency: moulding into a 2d arcade game background texture. while life can thrive only within spheric bubbles of autogenic atmosphere: in freedom from a heteronomous spam. 'gnosticism' is anti-gnostic, the label commodified. Mercury cannot be put on a shelf.
gardeners tending threads aware ones should strive to become; to weave a beautiful mandala that radiates wisdom and freedom: Harmony. which pours waters of abundance, the ultimate unconditional gift.

for those who are interested: Peter Sloterdijk's 'After God', the chapter on Nag-Hammadi and Gnosticism. he also addresses famous 'gnostic' resentment moment and where is it coming from.

>>18798240
>micro loosh farming instances
Didn't Bob Monroe discover loosh? It's been some time since I read his stuff but I don't remember any of his books having gnostic undertones, did he get fooled maybe?
>'gnosticism' is anti-gnostic
By rejecting all ideological trappings and dogmatic claims, aren't you necessarily rejecting the gnostic metaphysics?

>>18798247
>loosh
it was used it in the sense of psychic resource being generated in a conflict. usually extracted, so to say, 'backwardly' as in instances of fear or guilt.
>aren't you necessarily rejecting the gnostic metaphysics?
I doubt that there is the gnostic metaphysics as such. it flees from systematization that strives to capture the Spirit. revelation and faith -- not reason; at the core of it all is the paradox: the ground is groundless. while metaphysical systems only capture and enslave to temporalities.

>>18798289
>it was used it in the sense of psychic resource being generated in a conflict
Yes I'm aware. He says his experiences in the subtle body led him to realize the earth was used as a place of harvest, but that the process wasn't evil and that souls came here willingly only to become addicted. An interesting narrative at least
>I doubt that there is the gnostic metaphysics as such
There is a large variety of sects but the core principles remain the same. At its core, a dualistic view, and the assumption that kenomic reality is alien to the light that is trapped within it. When these assumptions are discarded, you end up with yet another run of the mill nondual system, like dzogchen and its "nirvana is samsara" doctrine. Can you really say, then, that it flees from all systematization?

>>18796713
>magic
Not philosophy

>>18798234
Thank you for the resource anon. I'll check it out to learn more. I'm a Hindu so I wonder if I'll find something I'm familiar with in the Tantric practices you mentioned

>>18796831

Yes. Is getting run over by a Ferrari better than getting run over by a Fiat Multipla because the former is beautiful?

>>18797958

Most likely.

>>18798358
Why? That's retarded

>>18798324
I somehow feel difference between similar concepts of loosh and vril: the latter is forward moving while former is backward. vril is erotic and active, loosh reactive/passive. it sounds to me as something that is being squeezed.
>At its core, a dualistic view, and the assumption that kenomic reality is alien to the light that is trapped within it.
>When these assumptions are discarded, you end up with yet another run of the mill nondual system
for that reason I do not vilify nature. it is not nature -- who has its own light waiting to be redeemed and exalted -- but necessity of the current paradigm. which is, kind of, garment. (or rather a straitjacket)
Dualism is the founding stone of Wisdom: in clarification, in separation, in purification. its an approach to it (of those lacking harmony) that makes it >that reputation. true, when 'dualism' is nothing but resentment, when it drops there is no Dynamis, no Life, but nirvana=samsara: undifferentiated, inactive void.

Bronze Age Pervert on gnosticism:
>According to any rational calculation, life is not worth living, because pain far outweighs pleasure. Heavily medicated nihilists are likely to deny this—the blessed and happy know it’s true…but also know that reason and rationality are false. Gnosticism is driven by the problem of suffering, or compassion for those who suffer, and tries to absolve God of responsibility for this state of things. Sometimes it says the God of the Bible was put to sleep, or imprisoned himself, or that he is bound with chains of adamantine and kept in a cage, and that a usurper took his place. Other times it says that the God described in Genesis isn’t the real God, but a demiurge, and the real God sent his emissary Jesus to overturn the rule of this demiurge. There are many variations, and some interject not one demiurge, but ninety-nine, all to remove responsibility from the Godhead for the creation of this world of evil.

Is he on-point here? Are gnostics basically just driven into hysterics by regard for the problem of evil? I'm inclined to disagree; I think they're just edgy faggots, and the notion of "compassion" here is empty virtue signalling.

Either evil exists and we are not of this world, or it is an illusion we need to realize as such. The biggest problem in religion as a whole is evil: if it exists, then Gnosticism is true. If it doesn't, then Hinduism is true. I'm still undecided.

>>18797958
i dont know. it might be that you only have to acknowledge that there are greater beauties, and i think anyone with an apetite for it will eventually be unsatisfied with what theyre given here. but it might also be that the beauty here is a leak from that other world, and to reach it, we must follow beauty. intuitively (and intuition is the guiding voice here) the second option rings true, while there are still cases where beauty is being used to puff up this world into something it is not. so i would say that you should eat the carrot if you can actually reach it and if its not on a stick. but maybe theres no such carrot

>>18798365
>just edgy faggots
>empty virtue signalling
>(you) on e-celeb

>>18796831
I think that is an image on a screen.

>>18797258
Liberation from what? To where? There is no slavery but ignorance.

>>18797582
>How does one overcome ignorance?
Inquiry.

This is now a platonic thread.

>>18798450
unironically insightful

>>18797867
probably fake but helped me get closer to god anyway

>any "mystery religon"

Either open source your shit or shut the fuck up.

>>18797028
Yes

>>18796976
But do the animals and plants think of it as "evil"? The worms make no comment either way, only the sounds of digestion.

>>18796831
it definitely has a sinister feeling to it

>>18798367
>then Hinduism is true.
Huh?

>>18798364
>who has its own light waiting to be redeemed and exalted
Do you believe in a linear eschatology, a historical/temporal "apex" after which all will be redeemed, or are you a partisan of a more cyclical or atemporal view of existence and salvation? What is, to you, the process by which light is freed?
>Dualism is the founding stone of Wisdom
Do you think monism or nondualism is necessarily a perversion?
I intuitively understand that dualism is active, engaged, even romantic in a way, but is it not the confrontation and conflict it implies that makes it so, and if that's the case, isn't that "confrontational" metaphysics in itself a monism? Maybe I'm not being clear, I can try to clarify if you want

>>18798289
>it flees from systematization that strives to capture the Spirit.
Then why do posts like these happen: >>18798057

>>18797876

LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW NIGGA

>>18797314
Anime is inherently pleromic

>>18798367
Heres the solution: what we think of as evil is just a result of ignorance.
Socrates knew this. Heres the thing though: Greek and Indian polytheism (or any polytheism) are compatible with gnosticism in the wider sense, indeed they need it to avoid falling into dogmatic superstition imo. I highly recommend Sallustius' 'Concerning the Gods and the Cosmos' for clarification. Also Plato's Phaedo.

Preserve the pax deorum, become one with The Tao, uphold the dharma, strive for moksha, and have a lovely day.

>>18798726
>what we think of as evil is just a result of ignorance.
But this trivializes Gnosticism by making it a doctrine of ignorants.

>>18798628
>What is, to you, the process by which light is freed?
light is freed through mata nui(noetic user interface). which about the Craft (Meme craft). a still apex seems horrifying and doesn't matter what name it claims for itself: beauty is dynamic. in short, it is cyclical and on every turn we either purify or get more dense.
>isn't that "confrontational" metaphysics in itself a monism?
yes. monism/one strives to submerge the two. which, in a way, is a denial of difference and multiplicity: gravitational pull towards the nihil, the inactive/non-dynamic void. Mother? funny that from that perspective adherents of the unification (and universalization) are actually playing the side of feminine (or boipuccy?). practical illustration that brap dude e-celeb who's worshipping the shining conquering masculinity (is he compensating for his immanent other pole?).
>I can try to clarify if you want
please do, it is interesting. maybe we are missing something more.

>>18798746
>mata nui(noetic user interface). which about the Craft (Meme craft)
I don't understand this part. What does it mean and how is it found?
>monism/one strives to submerge the two.
Don't you think it's possible to acknowledge that the conflict between dualities forms a whole, without necessarily denying its multiplicity? Call it qualified monism.
>please do
It seems to me that the eternal, cyclical conflict between good and evil in itself forms an overarching narrative: as you said, it's a never ending story of purification/ascent and densification/descent. That narrative itself forms a (monistic) whole, but to acknowledge the narrative does not imply the denial of the story. It is not a merging of the duality into a void, but an acknowledgement that the dual aspects, the poles, are creating a single narrative by interacting with each other. Good and evil intertwined, yet forever distinct and impossible to reconcile: that in itself is the "one", but it is not a void, merely the recognition of the story's nature.

>>18798726

The most Evil Evil would be the most plausibly deniable one, it therefore follows that the Phenomenal world is terminally Evil.

>>18797258
The Monad, God, the Absolute, etc. is ineffable. We can only come to know it through aspects of it, Its emanations. That is, the human mind can only understand God through silvers of God, partial imperfect emanations.

"Gnostic" is as broad a term as Protestant, covering diverse sects existing over centuries. So, defining Gnostic beliefs is difficult, like trying to describe Protestantism writ large using various examples of Mormonism, Lutheranism, and Pentacostalism.

That said, a common misconception is that Gnostics were basically Neo-Platonists with Jewish or Christian spins on the Theory of Forms. In general though, Gnostics had a theory of semiotics that recalls Heraclitus and the tension of opposites, not Plato. This, the emanations of the Entirety through the Barbelo in various Gnostic myths come on balanced pairs. Yaldaboath is malformed because it is the creation of Sophia/Wisdom without her antipode. The Pleroma is in perfect balance, and it is the harmony of opposites, not the Form of the Good, that achieves this. The meditation on the various emanations itself would help form Kabblah (see Schloem's work) and Western esoterica.

So, the Monad contains elements that are bad when not in balance. It contains all things. Heat, darkness, unbearable cold, and blinding light. It's like a wavelength approaching infinite frequency. The peaks and valleys of the signal cancel each other out as frequency hits infinity. The result is silence, but a pregnant science of the infinite.

Ascribing a human-like will to the Monad is incorrect. It is pure potentiality.

Why does the Monad create in the first place? Gnostics didn't really get into this. This would wait for Boehme, and the recognition that definition, even the semiotics of opposites, relies on sublation. To be is to be not something else. Thus God most posit that which is outside Itself to know its self. Thus the whole accident of the material world, and humanity as an "other," is th process of God evolving, coming to know Itself through it's self. Humanity acts as the other and undergoes this transition on a historical scale, a point Hegel explores in the Phenomenology of Spirit.

>>18798965
This is a kind of heretical understanding of God though, you're limiting him with the rules of human reason

>>18797734
Plotonius didn't btfo anything. He attacked a ridiculous strawman that has never shown up in actual Gnostic texts, and still resorted to appeals to authority throughout.

>>18798965
Weren't Boehme and Hegel Protestants?

>>18798365
>Virtue signaling
Maybe don't try to interject braindead culture war framing into your understanding of a diverse set of ancient sects? These folks lived at a time of slavery and predatory warfare, I don't think they were exactly virtue signaling in the modern sense. And the Gnostics were genocided out of existence, it wasn't exactly a cool trend to win points.

Seeing Gnosticism as only a response to the Problem of Evil is missing most of the system. It's also advancing a philosophy of meaning that draws on and expands Heraclitus, while also creating a system for practical mysticism.

Your quoted text seems like an extreme surface level understanding.

>>18798994
>a system for practical mysticism.
More about this?

>>18798975
God gave us reason. You either use it, or turn your brain off and blindly follow tradition. But tradition contradicts itself and clearly bears the mark of human fallacy. So you end up worshipping the words of man.

>>18798992
Yes, but fairly unorthodox ones, at least for the time.

>>18799014
God giving us reason does not mean it constrains him, this is the old valleyless mountain thing

>>18799023
One can use reason to try to understand God. It is clear 'he' is not a triple O anthropomorphic sky daddy.

>>18798772
>I don't understand this part. What does it mean and how is it found?
it is crafted individually from the void (or the undifferentiated plentitude, however one likes). I understand it as garment and an identity in the very real sense of the term. it is from the Bionicles universe. (I used it in a slightly different manner.) pov: ground/creative void throws at us different artifacts, phenomenal reality itself, the task is to build a certain machine (or machines) of vision that would be coherent (and fun as a fuck to be involved with) that would serve a particular language to navigate that which is. and that would be a real culture, not museum-like but real in the sense of practice of communication.
>Don't you think it's possible to acknowledge that the conflict between dualities forms a whole, without necessarily denying its multiplicity? Call it qualified monism.
hm, a tricky one. let's make examples.
(1) hardcore monism: there is only Allah (>PBUH) = there is only One One = pull towards its stillness/void = human creativity is dangerous to the regime of his power (also, don't want to make more multi-branched, but isn't it the filioque debate. that Light also comes from the filius/son, i.e. (potentially) ma.. >human being.)
(2) qualified monism: there are many Ones (spheres/bubbles of Sloterdijk) = sovereign/autogenic atmosphere of a bubble is maintained by creativity/life in dynamis (you must be active and creative to maintain and to live. that is your 'must') = push towards singularity which is fresh novelty; new cycle of purified substance.
I see these two versions of monism. which could be depicted as a pyramid (1); and a rhizome/network (2); number 2 is differentiation that leads towards a new sovereign One. the more sovereign-ones are within a network the stronger it is. unlike in a pyramid where alternative centers of power challenge its power regime.
>It is not a merging of the duality into a void, but an acknowledgement that the dual aspects, the poles, are creating a single narrative by interacting with each other.
yes, I agree (if I understand correctly) that conflict between poles is _natural_ and creating a charge/dynamis, so it's giving life.
at this point I am somewhat stuck in abstract speculations. what were we trying to clarify? .
>merely the recognition of the story's nature.
what is the story right now? is it not the time of post-narrative, post-historicity? even if so, how could be reintroduced? how could it step forth on the stage? how could it be? is there still imagination to imagine

>>18799040
>understand god
No you cant lol

I just think it's funny

>>18799023
Anyone talking about God creating four sided triangles needs an intro course on semiotics. You're getting caught up in language games.

As Sausser says, a one word language is impossible... even for God. If one term applies equally to everything, then it conveys no meaning. This is information sciences infinite pattern of ones. There has to be at least some differentiation for meaning to exist. This applies regardless of the frame.

Language games of "but God can do EVERYTHING so thus he can create one word systems of meaning, four sided triangles, etc." are of the same sort as Parmenides paradoxes and the idea that change is impossible. At best, a logical mistake, which to be fair, it did take Aristotle a great amount of effort to overcome, at worst an excuse to blindly accept dogmatism.

>>18799079
The point is that God is above logic, he created logic and doesnt have to abide by it

>dabs

>>18798977
There's a reason there were never any notable Gnostic philosophers anon. It was the Scientology of its day with no credible rational defense available for it's zany claims.

>>18796831
why do we even find a bunch of rocks, water, and trees beautiful? I mean I think it's beautiful, but I don't see how my brain registering nature as nice to look at implies or doesn't imply the existence of god, to me that's as much evidence as the deliciousness of fried chicken

>>18796771
Gnosticism is Abrahamic you dolt.

>>18799090
Ah, so reason is not a fair guide to anything. I suppose then it follows that the traditions you just happen to follow are absolute, including the tradition that God contradicts reason and logic, and thus nothing can be know about It?

>>18799040
Logic and reason don't apply to God. He just IS the sky daddy my particular sect happened to define because He just IS ok?

>>18799122
Reason is a fair guide to our world and what we experience. It just cant constrain God, or else you are worshiping reason not God

last one

>>18799041
>garment and an identity in the very real sense of the term.
To put it less cryptically, are we to gather elements from reality in order to build our own systems? Should each individual have their own spiritual world so to speak? Isn't this dangerous without at least a basic framework of axiomatic truths?
Do you have any concrete examples?

>>18799137
>Should each individual have their own spiritual world so to speak?
yes. but a 'basic framework of axiomatic truths' is necessary, right. and such framework there is: Alchemy and the Bible. (which needs further clarification and deepening) someone recently created a thread about one Talmoodic story: about Eleazer and the oven of Akhnai. it is quite mad. however, in the narrative, the Voice (from heaven? of the Spirit?) is speaking with Eleazer; this voice which is called Bat Qol. which to my mind invokes allusions of 'the call' the notorious brotherhood makes to set you right or to lead to unto another station. so, this is my sort of example of the BWO (Bogdanoff World Order) which could and must be memed.
>Do you have any concrete examples?
not at the present moment. all I have is vague and not cooked well enough. but I tried to hint to the direction. (there is a need for larger amount of attempts of describing and putting pieces for that NUI. no matter how amateurish it might look.)

>>18799197
>Alchemy and the Bible
What makes those more legitimate than other frameworks?
>of 'the call' the notorious brotherhood makes to set you right or to lead to unto another station.
A recurring element in gnosticism is spontaneous revelation to an individual, transmitted gnosis through a kind of synchronicity, think the pink beam in Valis. Is this a necessary condition for gnosis and if so does that mean that we necessarily have a "luck based soteriology"?

>>18799137
>Should each individual have their own spiritual world so to speak?
yes. but a 'basic framework of axiomatic truths' is necessary, right. and such framework there is: Alchemy and the Bible. (which needs further clarification and deepening. not in a confrontational manner but as a naive inquiry) someone recently created a thread about one Talmoodic story: about Eleazer and the oven of Akhnai. it is quite mad. however, in the narrative, the Voice (from heaven? of the Spirit?) is speaking with Eleazer; this voice which is called Bat Qol. which to my mind invokes allusions of 'the call' the notorious brotherhood makes to set you right or to lead you unto another station of disclosure. so, that's my example of the BWO (Bogdanoff World Order) which could and must be memed.
>Do you have any concrete examples?
not at the present moment. all I have is vague and not cooked well enough. but I tried to hint to the direction. (there is a need for larger amount of attempts of describing and putting pieces for that NUI. no matter how amateurish it might look.)

>Gnostics
You were so close to true freedom. Heh, better luck next time

>>18799295
Only good Buddhism is Vajrayana

>>18799216
we are in the context of it. are we not? its the heritage.
>we necessarily have a "luck based soteriology"?
it's not luck based, but faith and deed based. quality of a personal deed.

>>18799325
>we are in the context of it. are we not
Culturally, but is that really relevant?

>>18799295
Buddi means: the faculty of intuitive discernment or direct spiritual awareness in the beliefs of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Sounds something like knowsticism to me. Jhana yoga and vipassana I would certainly argue are knowstic paths.

>>18796713
Gnostics are retarded
t. neoplatonist

>>18799490
>>18798977

>>18798977
Plotinus is an early neoplatonist, he was influenced by Gnostics, if you want to see your retarded claims get BTFO read Proclus' on Evil

>>18797206
Now go read Nietzsche and see it for the resentful life denying cope it is

>>18799500
Quick rundown?

>>18799513
>resentful life denying
Yes. So what? I don't care for life for life's sake.

>>18799535
This silences the Neetch-tards
b-b-b-but you're a life denier

>>18796891
They're all underage

>>18799530
Evil is not found in matter itself, but matter becomes evil when humans display sordid attachment to it. In that case it feasts on men like a parasite, evil is not caused by the One or the Gods, but only by an agent who does not attain his appropriate goal.

>>18799568
That's not very convincing. Evil and self-evident, and the barbaric mechanisms of nature are not caused by attachment.

>>18799579
is self evident*

>>18799568
I think Plotinus explained it better desu (haven't read Proclus yet though), because he also showed how matter itself must necessarily exist given the existence of One. And not only is it necessary, but because matter is "by nature" without nature (which was a corollary of the previous argument of its necessity), it can take on virtually any form, especially if allowed to by embodied souls, and due to its infinite formlessness, this "no nature" (which is "nature") necessarily results in a dissolutive effect on the formfulness of embodied souls, which is what "evil" is. "Evil", is basically the reduction of form to formlessness, which is inherent in the activity of "nature" (which is actually without nature).

>>18799579
>barbaric mechanisms of nature
that's just the definition of the gnostics though, late neoplatonists perceived the material world simply as the lowest realm of existence, and they were able to attain mystical experiences through theurgy and reversion of matter to the first principle, which happens to be a fitting way to ascend back to the Noesis for a brief period of time.

>>18799579
You only consider them barbaric because of your attachment to nature. You're attached to what you perceive as the "good aspects" of nature (from your own natural perspective) in opposition to the "bad aspects" of nature (again, from your own perspective). This is all a matter of attachment. I'm not him so I don't know if I've extrapolated Proclus's argument properly.

>>18799600
Yeah but that's all theoretical. Practical remote viewing shows this is a prison planet so the metaphysics don't matter, what matters is breaking out.

>>18799600
So the One implicates a non-essence which is the form(lessness) and principle of Evil, and neoplatonists think this is a more a compelling account of Evil...

>>18799605
Very weak argument. Why can't you accept the One is literally shitting or expelling souls into the nothingness of matter? isn't that horrific?

>>18799605
Yeah bro, nature being predicated on death and suffering is just my own biased interpretation

>>18799217
You don't happen to post on a certain Modem thread in /x/, do you...

>>18798240
I second the "After God" recommendation.

Anyone looking for a high level formalization of Gnosticism, read pic related.

>>18799621
>So the One implicates a non-essence which is the form(lessness) and principle of Evil, and neoplatonists think this is a more a compelling account of Evil...
It's probably the single most compelling account in existence, because it is the least limited by contingencies and exceptions, and given the general truth of Plotinus and Plato's philosophies, it is highly justified in itself. There is no "principle of evil", by the way, this is not implicated at all; all that is implicated is a formless substrate, which is, by intellects, interpreted as the opposite of Good (or the approximation thereof; a true opposite of Good cannot properly be said to "exist" because there is no opposite of One - one could say quantitative infinity, but this does not exist except as a mental abstraction; one could say -1, but this does not exist except as a mental abstraction, which is a mere logical-mathematical negation of 1 in essence and thus unreal). Good is the principle of form, which also constitutes Beauty and Justice, more or less, and so we can see how the deviation from form is what constitutes all actions and events which intellects tend to perceive as "evil", which is really just a violation of the principle of Justice and Beauty, Goodness.

>>18799709
So the One implicates a substrate that could not not exist, making the One responsible for or the principle of this substrate, which is - chaos, nothingness, monstrosity, evil, hunger, non-being.

In or through what does the One deviate from itself lmao? Into "what" is the One extended? By what is the Good diminished? You think this account is intuitive AND defensible? lol

>>18799709
>which is really just a violation o
I meant deviation; ultimately non-intentional and derived from the flows of cause-and-effect throughout nature. So if all "evil" is non-intentional, how can one consider it an "act" by, for example, a Demiurge? This isn't to say its effects don't exist, and shouldn't be remedied, however.

>>18799730
So the One emanates Evil as a matter of course? Lmao. Jesus Christ.

>>18799725
>So the One implicates a substrate that could not not exist
You've misread my post. It implies a substrate which is separated from the -principle- of form, in that it lacks this principle only in part. This is a necessity, and not a "could not exist." It's as strong of a necessity as cause-and-effect.
>In or through what does the One deviate from itself lmao? Into "what" is the One extended? By what is the Good diminished? You think this account is intuitive AND defensible? lol
You have to read Plotinus (and start by properly studying Plato's dialogues) to see why all of this is necessitated. I don't have the time nor space nor energy to expound the arguments here (which, in total are probably at least a few hundred pages in the Enneads). I've already had to neglect the argument from necessity with respect to nature and the One because it's impracticable here.
To briefly answer your questions, though:
>In or through what does the One deviate from itself lmao?
It never deviates from itself.
>Into "what" is the One extended?
The One is not extended, period.
>By what is the Good diminished?
The Good is never diminished, just as the Sun is not diminished by the darkness of space, to use a metaphor.
> One responsible for or the principle of this substrate
Again, there is no such principle, only partial lack of principle.


If you want comprehensive explanations, you have to do as I just said and stop expecting things to "click" from 200 character posts on 4chan.

>>18799743
No, because "Evil" does not exist.

>>18799784
Just stop it, I read and digested Plotinus years ago, your arguments and exposition of those arguments are uncompelling. If you have a privation theory of Evil, yes, the Good does diminish in some sense you goof, don't play language games.

Don't respond to this, I won't reply. Plotinus is 1st year undergrad shit.

>>18799784
>evil does not exist
T. Satan

>>18799784
>"Evil" does not exist
Let's see what you'll have to say about this if a spic cartel ever goes funkytown on your ass.
You armchair philosophers like jerking yourselves off with elaborate, pristine metaphysical theories, but your vacuous posturing falls apart when confronted to the tangible reality of things.

>>18799811
Oh naaah bro Evil does exist, it just doesn't exist because it exists because by not-existing... so Evil doesn't exist.... because it does exist.........

if I call Evil "non-being", then I let the One off the hook. bingo!

>>18799825
Whoa... Gnostics eternally btfo by Plotinus (pbuh)...

>>18799796
>If you have a privation theory of Evil, yes, the Good does diminish in some sense you goof, don't play language games.
Wrong, and this demonstrates your complete incomprehension of Platonic (not even considering Neoplatonic) philosophy. You're a fool who is too confident in himself, I highly doubt you've read more than a few pages of his actual work, let alone Plato.
>Just stop it, I read and digested Plotinus years ago
I seriously doubt that considering you've just been asking me the most basic questions about his philosophy, which anyone with ground-level knowledge of Plotinus would already know. Quit with the arrogance and admit you're too lazy to go beyond 4chan or your cursory undergrad level understanding of Plotinus.

Honestly, needing hundreds of pages of complex and convoluted mental gymnastics just so you can "prove" evil doesn't exist should be telling in and of itself

>>18799811
Do you call a wild animal evil for attacking you? I don't either. I never use the word personally, it betrays ignorance of reality.

>>18796730
This. Gnostics might be bonkers but they come from the very reasonable position of "a lot of shit in the Bible does not line up with itself, how could this be?"
They then came up with a batshit insane reading of reality, but you gotta respect the effort.

>>18799831
Oh please stop dancing around the topic, the Good is diminished to the extent it is mixed with Matter as a formal substrate, that substrate, as unintelligibility, is the principle of Evil, ignorance, psychic darkness, yadda yadda yadda...

your One is a Sun emanating light into a (non-)substrate that eventually engulfs it. This is literally the image he uses.

Lol I was asking those questions to trip you up you doofus, I prefer Gnosticism, Plotinus and the Neoplatonists like Iamblichus were establishment cucks. Gnostics were counter-culture, they had no interest in uniting with the principle of nature.

>>18799837
>evil doesn't exist because animals must do evil things to survive so it's not evil because it's in their nature to be evil but evil doesn't exist because uuuuuh
Stop

>>18799837
Yes, I would call a reality which unthinkingly produces aggressive, violent predators evil or at least debased to some extent. Is this so hard for you cucks to get?

>>18799841
>he Good is diminished to the extent it is mixed with Matter
The Good is never mixed with matter, just as "the Sun" is never mixed with "space" - it illuminates space but is not mixed with it. We've just been over this, and it is fundamental to Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrine. Please stop embarrassing yourself

>>18799850
NOOOOO STOP USING THE E WORD

>>18799852
Jesus Christ you're a fucking tard. Hot off the Kybalion aren't you retard? If nothing mixes with matter, why would Plotinus need to posit the existence of an unfallen, immaterial soul to distinguish it from the fallen soul? Yes, you are mixed in with Matter to the extent you are identified with Matter, this is NOT a controversial reading of Plotinus' position.

Why am I still talking to you? Why can't Neoplatonists, Guenonniggers, and christcucks just mind their own fucking business?

>>18799843
You're still using this word "evil" which is entirely meaningless to me. Wild animals and cartels are violent and destructive out of ignorance, not this mysterious evil. Ignorance is a lack of wisdom.
>>18799850
Most creatures are not like that, anyway, it is a loaded argument to begin with. The fact that these violent acts of stupidity are so rare in general should, if anything, confirm the doctrine already put forth.
>>18799865
> If nothing mixes with matter
That's not what I said. Reading comprehension, please, and try again. You are aware that Nous, Good, is entirely separate from matter? This is more basic Plotinus trivia that an undergrad who read lecture slides should know.

The Ismaili Muslims are current non-larping internet gnostics. They believe in an essentially dualistic system where the individual soul has to unite with the Universal Soul (demiurge) and unite with the Universal Intellect (sophia) which is the highest rational union for the individual soul where the soul will be bless with the highest bliss of contemplating the Absolute Unconditioned Reality (God). So the demiurge isn't evil and that evil and suffering are derived from the failure to utilize Man's rationality.

>>18799886
>y-you can't use that word!
Keep up the pilpul, the fact is that your God allows suffering to exist and none of your cope mental gymnastics will ever make this untrue

>>18799886
Kek, you can't comprehend an Evil that is positive, an Evil that is a RESULT of something the entity is, and not something it lacks, because your understanding of its mystery is so stunted by neoplato-globohomo dreck.

Stop trying to paint me as some undergrad you fucking retard, and stop crying about reading comprehension when you and I BOTH know I never once said the One as such is mixed with Matter and you know it, you're purposefully bungling my argument to make me look dumb. Pillock.

>>18799887
That's Neoplatonism, my friend.

>>18799987
What's the difference though? Their ideas are almost identical except for their attitudes towards the demiurge. Thanks for the (You)

>>18800004
I don't know enough about Ismailism to tell you (I do know that they were historically influenced by the Platonists), but do you have any literature recommendations for them? It's probably the most interesting part of Islam to me.

Fuck heretics against the Earth
Fuck heretics against the body
Fuck worshipers of Death and nothingness
Fuck Gnostic fags

>>18800086
>Fuck worshipers of Death and nothingness
You beat me to it, then: go fuck yourself.

>>18800103
Based

>>18799535
Then go on and die. Stop talking about it, start being about it my friend.

>>18799667
Laruelle is a cuck, read Michel Henry instead

>>18800140
God just shut the fuck up you peurile fucking maggot. Gnostics are WORLD-DENYING, not life-denying, they love Life, hate the World. Read, nigger.

>>18800140
I live to prepare myself for death.

>>18800155
>read a more undeveloped form of Laruelle's radical immanence
Barf, I hope you're joking.

>>18798965
You're correct that Gnosticism is a broad term. Indeed most scholars these days don't even accept it as valid. Most of the people we think of today as "Gnostics" probably did not think of themselves as such, they simply described themselves as Christians or Jews depending on the school in question. Gnostikoi is an exonym, used specifically to place them outside a nebulous orthodoxy which was just beginning to form in the Late Antique period, or was a general epithet as even the pagan Plotinus refers to 'Gnostics,' probably Sethians.

However you do not give nearly enough credit to the Platonists and Hellenistic thought in general concerning the development of so-called Gnostic sects. While the Late (or "Neo") Platonists (Plotinus onwards) were contemporaries of Gnosticism which probably doesn't predate it by much, they share the same roots in Middle Platonism. Emanationism is one of the unwritten doctrines of Plato, and it is probably related to Pythagoreanism in some shape or manner (look at the Tetractys) which Middle and Late Platonists considered to be Plato's original school.

Clearly Gnostics borrow from the Platonic tradition in wide swathes. The henology of Gnosticism and the henology of Neoplatonism show clear family resemblance, utilizing apophasis as a rhetorical strategy (compare Plato's Parmenides) and contemplation as a means for ascension and union with the One (compare Plato's Symposium).

It should be noted that the Gnostics borrowed from the unwritten doctrines of Plato and mystical-religious interpretations of Plato, not what modern scholars would consider Plato's metaphysics. Look at the Chaldean oracles, for example.

Hopefully this made sense, if not I apologize. I am very high.

>>18800156
>tfw you don't understand that Being-in-the-World is constitutive of Dasein

>>18800035
Yes I do but not in the literary form. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CM2PHJsn9xQ
It's by this Ismaili PhD holder Dr. Khalil Andani. He cites a lot of Muslim Neoplatonists. I'm not an Ismaili though. I only listen to learn.

>>18800174
>tfw you don't understand Gnostics don't accept the premises of deracinated crypto-nihilists

>>18800160
More like a purified, phenomenological and concrete form of radical immanence. Laruelle doesn't actually care about the Real, he uses it more like an orientating point for his critique of Philosophy, which, when the fancy terminology is shed, is just a French version of Pragmatism. You can see this obviously in Principles of Non-Philosophy. All talk of Gnosis in Laruelle, "Given-Without-Giveness" totally violates the basic structure of Radical immanence he laid out in his early work. Either this Gnosis is an experience OF something in which case it is intentional (which violates its immanence) or the Real IS the experience itself (which substantializes the Real and makes it into a "something", which is what he set out to avoid). All talk of knowledge in the form of Gnosis rather than Axiomatic positing (like it is done Principles of Non-Philosophy) is Philosophical and ejects him right back into debating about how knowledge can come from experience with Kant, Hegel and Fitche, all of who have strong attacks against this kind of immediacy. This kind of trouble comes about when one abandons the concreteness and realness of the Phenomenological method. His real genius comes pretty much exclusively from Michel Henry, who laid out the basics of his conceptual system but in a way more thoroughly rooted to the actual phenomenon, the real experience of Life in its auto-giveness (also the idea that for something to give itself to itself means it has to transcend itself is bullshit, read the Essense of Manifestation).

>>18800188
>deracinated
How are you using this word exactly? Why do you want roots in the World?

>>18800182
Thanks

>>18800236
Heidegger is good but like Bernhard says, kind of a turgid cow about everything. I am not a black forest mystic. I am med and full of something else.

>>18800230
I see Laruelle as articulating a distinction between Life and the World that guys like this >>18800174 would want to see clamped shut and inseparable.

I'm not quite so sure Laruelle's heresiology is that reducible to "French pragmatism." And how can Gnosis be the experience of anything if it is an unlearned knowing? and how can the Real being the experience itself substantialize it, when Laruelle claims man-in-man is a clone and not a reflection of the Real?

>>18799079
You're filling in the signifier, which is meant to be open, undefined.

Paradox is only fatal within object logic, but God, who is not an object but beyond all objects, is not subject to such. The logic of apophasis is a logic of double-propositions, it is dictated by a language animated by the indefinite status of God (the aporia of transcendence.) God is incomprehensible, a Divine Darkness or Nothingness to borrow from the medieval mystics. He is a nothingness so absolutely vacuous that he cannot be reified, so all statements must be negated. The play of pure negation is how meaning is generated within the system, in which the signifier is ripped open and made empty (Eckhart writes, "We must pray to God to be free of God.") In the most intensely apophatic passages of mystical discourse, the subject loses distinction with the object and all meaning is exorcised from the field of discourse. Distinction, thus individuation, which drives the engine of semiosis, becomes impossible. Even the meaning of meaning (which is this intelligible) loses meaning. So it is not meaning nor not-meaning, it is a meaning so meaningul it transcends and negates meaning (Pseudo-Dionysius: an Unknowing greater than Knowing.) The destruction or exorcism of meaning becomes indistinguishable from the creation of meaning. The procession away from meaning is revealed as a procession towards meaning. The dissolution (for ibn Arabi' 'fana) is also a resolution. Union with God is the act of creation, which is eternal and momentary. There is thus no union, but only the mundane world, the immanent is revealed as the transcendent. Nothingness negates itself. Kenosis, self-emptying, and ecstacy, to step outside oneself, are the basic outflowing of divine emptiness. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.

>>18800258
I think it's fascinating how far human beings have to go to short-circuit their own heuristic -> hermeneutic machinery. It really is interesting that we have to, in a sense, "reify" the darkness behind our cognition to be free of it. Gnosticism is a hell of a drug.

>>18800254
>I see Laruelle as articulating a distinction between Life and the World
Michel Henry already did so.
>I'm not quite so sure Laruelle's heresiology is that reducible to "French pragmatism."
If you want to see how thoroughly it is reducible to that, then you should read Ray Brassier's Alien Theory which is totally in line with Laruelle's basic axioms and yet essentially materialist or even eliminativist. The Gnosticism of the current Laruelle is merely one more "use for philosophy" once it has been stripped of sufficiency, it does not flow necessarily from his analysis of the Philosophical Decision and the foreclosure of the Real to Thought. "Man" is always just another "first name" for the Real just as valid as "Matter" or fucking anything. Its pragmatism, pure and simple, philosophy stripped of all claim to truth.
>And how can Gnosis be the experience of anything if it is an unlearned knowing?
The whole "Given-Without-Giveness" or Gnosis thing is more or less just a blown up copy of Sartre's idea of the non-positional (non-thetic) awareness necessary for but invisible in any positional (thetic) awareness. Same structure is in Michel Henry but exaggerated to open a gulf between Life and the exterior of the intentionally accessed world. You NEED the Phenemological method to stop such a non-thetic experience from just getting bulldozed by Hegel or hell, even Sellars. Either that or admit that the founding axiom of Non-Philosophy is not really derived from any experience or knowledge (including any Gnosis) and is just an arbitrary pragmatic presupposition that allows for the suspension of Philosophies sufficiency (basically, ditch Gnosticism, ditch all talk of Man and basically everything after 1998 and go back to talking about Non-Philosophy as a "Science of Philosophy")

>>18800340
Laruelle's preoccupation with murdered and dead of history (I'm not a fan of his anthropocentrism, for all his talk of the mass graves of history's invisibles he's pretty fucking mum about animals, not to mention muh Shoah) is what keeps him alive for me, though. I see Laruelle as the (anti-)theoretical prong of a broader, more militant neo-Gnosticism hopefully constructing itself from the future as we speak.

I'm open to checking out Henry then, but only as he resonates with this thread's themes. I have no interest or patience for more phenomenological logic chopping.

>>18800367
I don't consider it "Logic Chopping" to deal with the basic question of how the Science of Philosophy that Laruelle has erected is founded and justified. He claims to be a practitioner of conceptual rigor himself, investigating that seems in line with his claim.

Henry does resonate with the themes of this thread although I suppose he is more a Christian than Laruelle is with the idea of God. You should read "I am the Truth" if you are interested.

>>18800393
What I meant by logic chopping was, after Future Christ, I want that high theoretical lens applied to "gnostic" topics - the murdered, the dead, the victims of world-evil.

Anyways, I'm not a cultist, I thoroughly enjoyed Future Christ but a distinct French-ness came through that is alien to the spirit of Gnosticism and muddies its cosmological sweep (Laruelle is too contracted on crimes against Man), so I'll check out "I am the Truth", thanks.

>>18800408
>a distinct French-ness
What does that mean?
t. frog

>>18800408
Henry is also French unfortunately

>>18800450
What is it with the French and Gnosticism?

>>18798965
This. Hegel isn't a philosopher as much as he is the culmination of millenia of theology. He produces the most defined exploration into ontology and the nature of God to date.

Many journeys into esoterica, philosophy, and Gnosticism will find their terminus in the revaluations of Boehme and Hegel.

>>18800462
What's the eastern equivalent of hegelian thought?

>>18800484
Neon Genesis Evangelion

>>18800512
Explain

>>18800462
>Boehme and Hegel.
I find it really hard to believe that Christianity could be true.

>>18800417
Muh Shoah, Muh crimes against man, Muh too cool and intellectual ;) to just accept Gnosticism and its devaluation of the cosmos at face value.

>>18800462
No, they won't, Hegel's system describes the sufficiency of the machine, while Gnostics reject the machine, stop equivocating. A Gnostic would find Boehme's characterization of God as putrid.

>>18800545
>Muh Shoah, Muh crimes against man
I hate it when they do that, how obnoxious

>>18800575
For the record, I'm not saying man's inhumanity to man is not a gnostic problem, I'm just tired of hearing the same frog thematics over and over

>>18800598
Is that a big part of Laruelle's book? I was thinking of buying it but I'm fucking tired of the muh gas chambers shit

>>18800604
Not really, I'd be mischaracterizing it if it was just muh Holocaust. He does take the Shoah as exemplifying man's crimes against man, though. He's also a muh Jews type, too.

>>18800611
If it's worth reading then it's fine I guess.

>>18800627
I would definitely say so, he has a Gnostic spirit undoubtedly.