There was someone famous who said "we humans are a species with amnesia,". I just can't recall who at this moment.
funny
Jesus became the Christ, but Christ consciousness existed before Jesus and remains available after Jesus.
I'm looking into it. If we call it "Logos" and/or "Spirit of Christ", then of course.
He didn't come as the only son of God.
In John 3:16 it's "monogenes", the same term as for Isaac who had half-brothers, so literally not "only", but "only of the kind", unique. Would you agree his meaning is that he's unique?
"I and the Father are one,". Wasn't a claim of exclusive divinity, but a demonstration of inclusive divinity.
Maybe, that would require more cautious definition of those words.
Every soul is destined to make this same claim to achieve this same recognition.
This is something I'm not confident of. To be one with the Father would be to be timeless, for instance, and I'm not able to make any plans to be timeless. When Jesus specifies the meaning in more detail in John 17, he never attributes oneness with the Father to us, only to himself; but oneness with him is attributed to us. That seems important.
The church teaches Jesus was uniquely divine, different in kind from humanity.
I don't think it teaches Jesus was different in kind because it teaches he was fully human. If you speak of it as Jesus's "achievement of Christ consciousness", that is unique in being the first ever, and that is divine. The way in which we achieve Christ consciousness is spoken of as secondary in the groom-bride and head-body metaphors.
No, not become God. Remember, you are God.
Are you all of God? Or are you a water droplet in the sea, which is the sea in the sense that it is of the sea?
He remembered his divinity while maintaining humanity.
What does "remember" mean?
Not to start a new religion.
Correct, he taught total continuity with the covenants that came before.
Not to be worshipped as the exception but followed as the example.
Did you read my link about the meaning of "worship"?
He clearly told us we are the Monad in flesh. The Gospel of John proves it in plain Greek.
He did? It does? Why do readers of plain Greek not see it? How could we come to agreement on what the plain Greek proves? The Logos is not the Monad.
Now, do you see the difference with your statement "Consciousness in flesh", which is the how the Church puts it as well "God became flesh. That is the meaning of Incarnation.".
No I don't. I was attempting to summarize how you put it when you said "the consciousness that is God took human form". There's something unique about how Consciousness took on humanity in Jesus because it says he possessed the Spirit beyond measure, but we partake of the Spirit by measure. Which is why I ask you about definitions.
I object to the Church saying "obey Jesus", because the church replaced his commands/instructions/teachings with dogma.
Certainly if someone says "obey Jesus" but means "obey my interpretation of Jesus and not your own", that's a fault, which the church has engaged and for which I apologize.
merging with the Father
I read Jesus a lot and haven't seen him instruct that of us.
What Jesus revealed to Peter the night before the crucifixion wasn't about salvation or sin. It was practical instruction, a precise method for accessing what he called the pathway beyond the veil. Peter's fragmentary accounts buried in texts the early church deemed too dangerous described specific techniques for breaking through what Jesus identified as deliberate barriers blocking human consciousness from its source.
How would we know the difference between what one manuscript says Jesus said and what another says he said? Wouldn't historical evidence indicate which are more likely to be original and which derivative?
Within decades of his death, these practical instructions were stripped from Christian teaching, replaced with abstract concepts about faith and belief, dogma.
In the decades after his resurrection there is pretty good evidence that lots of instructions of all kinds were circulating and many openly disagreed with each other. It was not until 150 that there was a document, Irenaeus, where we start to see certain views clearly deprecated in favor of other views. Perhaps that's what you mean. Maybe you mean that some groups ceased to exist in the war of 66-73 and so their writings were "stripped" until rediscovered. But it seems the true instructions can be tested by various tests that work the same for everyone: authority, coherence, apostolicity, continuity, etc.
The question is, why was this specific knowledge so threatening that it had to be completely erased?
Doesn't matter now because:
The church can't erase it anymore because chosen ones are reading it now without the filter.
Yes, and from all I've read it only serves as counterpoint to what I already learned. If there were a binary disagreement then it would need to be decided based on marks like I listed above.
And these Jewish priests teach people ... to keep all the customs and traditions of the Jewish faith.
As they defined them. Those that didn't reflect Moses could be challenged by anyone, which is what Jesus did.
But according to the Bible, Jesus says, "No, what's important is not following the letter of the law, but following the spirit of God. What matters is the condition of your heart, not whether you perform the correct rituals.".
According to Matt. 5:18, 20, Jesus says, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled .... Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." It's Paul that says, "We should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter"; but also "We know that the law is spiritual", Rom. 7:6, 14. Jesus never contradicted Moses but served everything written in spirit and in truth (or else he would not be the Perfect one). Of the right of rabbis to interpret the law (and duty to interpret rightly), he said, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (Matt. 23:2-3).
And this creates a conflict because Jesus is essentially rebelling against the authority of the Jewish priests. That's why he had to die. So, the Christian Church has turned "obey the law of Moses" into "obey Jesus", this is what I object to.
More accurately, Jesus wasn't a rebel (again, he was the Perfect Man); he asserted his right to disagree with interpretation and contribute to it, and (I believe I said) the extremists among the Pharisees and others were the ones who perceived the threat and weren't then open-minded (though many were later). I presume you don't teach "obey the Law of Moses" even though Jesus taught it; but that's a different detailed discussion to get right. The finesse is, whatever Jesus taught, and teaches, is what we want.
Now Sophia was rebranded by the Church as temptation, error, or silence. And the "believers in Jesus" became the bride.
Not what I experience. Sophia is Wisdom and was clearly depicted in Prov. 8 and many other sources and accepted in early Christianity. They also believed in gnosis and Paul contrasted it with pseudognosis because not everything known is true gnosis. Now it does appear that by Augustine there was some rebranding of the tree of gnosis as being more like an evil rather than an occasion to evil, which is a loss of communication. The bride is a regular metaphor in Jesus, Paul, and John, and the body is also, and the two are one because a man's bride is his body. But they are one with him because they possess Sophia and that seals the identity.
Jesus came to show humans how to transcend the [adversary] and connect directly with the primordial source, the Monad.
This is where we get disconnected, because after Jesus affirms every serif of the Law of Moses, which affirms Yahweh, some gnostics (not all) separated Jesus from Yahweh and declared Yahweh to be the adversary and the physical to be the evil (even though Job separates Yahweh and the adversary). Yes, Jesus did teach transcendence of the adversary and connection with the Monad, and that part doesn't contradict the Bible. But if we then give the adversary more titles or narrative than he deserves, we're not fighting him very well.
The Gospel of Judas explicitly mentions that Jesus laughed at the disciples for praying to the Demiurge.
Judas: 'When he [came up to] his disciples sitting together praying over the bread, [he] laughed. The disciples said to him, "Master, why are you laughing at [our] prayer? What have we done? [This] is what's right." He answered and said to them, "I'm not laughing at you. You're not doing this because you want to, but because through this your God [will be] praised."' So, no Demiurge explicit or implicit, nothing about a false god, but only about reasons for behavior.
The Apocryphon of John describes the Demiurge as ignorant of the true God above him.
Apocryphon: '[Sophia] intended to reveal an image from herself .... She brought it into being .... [She had created him in ignorance.] ... She named him Yaldabaoth .... Yadabaoth united with the thoughtlessness (aponoia) within him. He begot ruling authorities (exousia) modeling them on the incorruptible realms above .... [He is ignorant darkness.] ... This dim ruler has three names: Yaldabaoth is the first. Saklas is the second. Samael is the third. He is blasphemous through his thoughtlessness. He said "I am God, and there is no God but me!" since he didn’t know where his own Power originated.' So, first take, he is aware of incorruptible realms (aeons) above, but he denies other gods and accords the title "God" only to himself. Aponoia is not literally "thoughtlessness" but "separate thought". How much more reason not to accord him a name that might mean Yah Sabaoth, or a creative power that he doesn't have. When I look into the provenance of this apocryphon, I find that Sophia comes from the Ogdoad, and the Ogdoad appears derived from the Egyptian Ogdoad, indicating that the addition of Yaldabaoth to the story is also derivative from something Cainite. But when I read Jesus's statements about the satan in Scripture, they appear very accurate to his time and place and very wise in their eternal applicability. So how could we decide among these texts except by using historical tests? The fact that a text was suppressed doesn't mean it's automatically right, in fact it might well have been just too stupid to reproduce (as is true of so many ancient texts).
The Gnostics did not teach blind faith. They didn't preach obedience to external authority.
Oh, if you look at every ancient gnostic you'll find quite a few teaching blind faith and their own external authority. But that's because it's not monolithic. If you separate those out and seek whether there were good teachings of individuality among the rest, we might sift some good things out.
They claimed that within every person burns a fragment of the divine source, what they called the divine spark. To awaken that spark is to dissolve the archon's influence.
For instance. In Judaism and Christianity this accords with the image of God.
IMO, Jesus has always been a man.
Since he was conceived, yes.
Jesus was different only in degree of awareness and awakening to the rest of us.
That might be a formulation to use, I'll think about it.
That separation from God is impossible.
That might be valid too; I'd say a being that is separate from God is impossible. "Separation" being an abstract.
That heaven is a state of consciousness, not a distant location.
Jesus and Paul taught there were three heavens; we participate freely in the first, the air. I don't think the hierarchy of heavens is much different from the hierarchy of aeons.
This is why Jesus said, "Greater things than these shall you do,", have you ever thought why did he said that? Jesus didn't mean it metaphorically, he meant it literally.
Yes, John 14:12, we're doing greater works today. But a text search shows some variability in this concept. Of himself, he said, "The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him" (13:16), and, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (15:13). He also implied his works increase in the same way our works increase: "He will shew him [the Son] greater works than these, that ye may marvel" (5:20). But he also backs off temporally from the title of greater: "But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth" (Luke 22:26-27).
We think we're here trying to achieve these three things: immortality, reincarnation, and godhood.
That's fine enough. More accurately, I'd say that we speak of conferred immortality (aphtharsia, athanasia) rather than inherent immortality (aidios); a form of oversoul reincarnation (gilgul) rather than a form of transmigration reincarnation (punarjanman); and partaking of divine nature (theosis) rather than deification (apotheosis).
And the secret is love powering our imagination. IMO, we're here to imagine things. So this is the great secret of the universe. This is the secret that Gnostics have been trying to share with everybody, and which schools, science, government, religious institutions all the powers that be try to suppress because is a direct threat to this reality. This reality is false, it's just a simulation. But they want to make it real because they derive power from it.
Excluding the people who perceive a threat, what would be wrong with any of that in the rest of Christianity? Lots of Orthodox, and lots of Catholic and Protestant mystics, practice theosis quite well (hundreds of millions) without feeling threatened or abandoning earthly forms that they find helpful.
So I've given you the bold answers, including where I think a nuance is necessary because of a definition or a text. It seems that it's not necessary to give the adversary the credit you propose, or to advance a particular narrative, in order to advance in love, imagination, or pursuit of the greater. When two narratives do reach a point of contradiction, those pursuing truth will not be threatened but will find the resolution of peace.
There was someone famous who said "we humans are a species with amnesia,"... funny... What does "remember" mean?
I didn't start my reply with a joke, or a funny statement, I just anticipated your next question. I'm sure you've heard of archons, but you don't know exactly what is their purpose, since you're asking this question. The Nag Hammadi manuscripts spoke in depth about the archons and how our memories have been erased or reprogrammed by them. And here is the secret teaching of Jesus, if we bypass the archons we don’t get those memories back, we jump through the energy barrier that contains the archons and proceed directly to source. The manuscripts revealed this method to overcome them, not to fight them, but simply to remember. Not remembering in the usual sense, but a mystical recognition, a sudden inner knowing that pierces the veil of falsehood and reconnects you to the source. You know those moments when you hear something and can't quite explain why, but deep down you feel it's true. This is awakening your inner spark. And that awakening is what the archons fear most. Because the moment you truly see, it doesn't just dissolve the structure of deception. It opens your entire perception of reality itself. Archons don't fear weapons, rituals, or rebellion. It's clarity and inner knowing they fear most. Because clarity doesn't just burn through their shadow. It burns through the one that clouds your perception. Archons are not physical entities hiding in some corner of the universe. They are distortions of consciousness, echoes born when divine light entered the realm of matter and fragmented. They exist in the unseen layers of thought, emotion, and energy. And like reflections without substance, they are unable to exist on their own. That's why they're called parasites.
They depend on awareness that has forgotten itself. What sustains them? Your attention, your fear, your unconscious reaction to illusion. The archons manipulate through imitation. They copy reality but lack the creative spark of the divine. They are mimics, masters of counterfeit light. They whisper through collective belief in media in systems in endless conflict. The Gospel of Mary describes this as the kingdom of the flesh, a world where false powers stir desire and confusion until the soul forgets its own light. These forces aren't random. They are deliberate distortions, reflections of the archon's imitation of creation itself. They wear masks of authority and certainty, disguising limitation as logic and distraction as progress.
Their influence doesn't come from force, but from forgetting. Because when you forget what you are, pure divine awareness, unbound by form, you fall asleep inside their dream. And yet, the Gnostics discovered a weakness. The archons cannot create. They can only replicate. They can't generate light. Only reflect it, distort it, invert it, and drain it. Just as they did with the teachings of Jesus. That means every moment you remember the source of your own light, their illusion flickers. Every breath taken in awareness, every thought seen clearly withdraws the energy that sustains them.
separated Jesus from Yahweh and declared Yahweh to be the adversary and the physical to be the evil
Yes, here is where we disagree, or where we get disconnected like you say. And I understand why you bring up so much "the adversary". Gnostics hold that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner. The blame for the world’s failings lies not with humans, but with the creator, the Demiurge. Which is exactly what I said "Jesus came to show humans how to transcend the Demiurge and connect directly with the primordial source, the Monad.". Church doctrine affirms that Yahweh is the supreme being, the only God, the creator of all things. But Gnostic Christianity, the original version, taught something completely different. In this understanding, Yahweh is the Demiurge, a powerful but limited being who created the material world without fully comprehending the Monad.
Yahweh worship can be traced back all the way to the ancient religion of Canaan. Yahweh was but one of many deities united under a figure known as El. Yahweh and Baal were merely two of El’s 70 children. According to the mythology, each child of El was given a region to look after. Baal ruled over Canaan while Yahweh, which was considered a lesser god, was assigned the land of Israel. In time, all other gods qualities were assimilated into Yahweh, who came to be referred to as El Shaddai: a title which roughly translates into English as “God Almighty.”. Because of the Church doctrine many people assume Yahweh and the Demiurge are the same entity.
Well, I ask because (as I guessed) you have a technical meaning for "remember": you call it "reconnect to source", which is not problematic. You also have some technical meanings that don't quite make sense to me, as in saying "archons cannot create" but referring to the "creator, the Demiurge". The reason I say "adversary" or "Samael" is that we can agree on this general character without agreeing on all his attributes. It seems to me that in most gnostic schemes Samael is an archon or less than one, so why should I credit him with "creating" if (as I agree) archons can't? Nor do I need to commit to any list of archons, because it seems to me that no gnostic teacher committed to the list of archons he was taught, but each had their own interpretation.
The core issue is the explanation of evil. In the Apocryphon you have Sophia conceiving nonconsensually, which is taken as evil because she is taken as having repented of it; and there's no explanation of why a good creature would commit evil. But in Isaiah and Ezekiel there are very specific analyses of why a good creature would commit evil: because he was tempted by that which does not exist, namely a creation being equal to the Creator. Further, the speech of Samael in Apocryphon seems clearly related to the speeches attributed to the adversary in Isaiah and Ezekiel, but the explanation of the origin of evil is missing and is substituted with bare language about Sophia. So I understand why people want to bypass the origin of evil by postulating that the Creator must be evil, but it's unnecessary because it's a good thing for a Creator to give creatures free will even if some of them commit evil. That is, the whole template added onto the older narrative is completely unneeded.
You've got some traditional skeptical teaching on the origin of Yahweh too. The "mythology" doesn't actually speak of 70 children, it is the oral tradition that is inferred around the text of Deut. 32:8-9, which only says Elyon (not etymologically related to El) separated the Adamites and Yahweh took the Israelites. But it's better to read this as a parallel about the same God under two names; there is no implied inferiority to Yahweh in any text. There is intense recent effort to imagine this whole structure of a polytheist interpretation and to smuggle Baal into this text from elsewhere, but it's not the plain reading or the historical development. Israelite worship always used the Divine Council monotheist model where gods (angels and archons) were ruled by one Judge and Lord (el and baal, both titles) whose personal name was Yahweh. When you compare the prior Semitic Hyksos model amply attested in Egypt's 14th and 15th dynasties, you see a clear Divine Council pattern emerging within Egyptian polytheism.
Now, we're sharing historical facts about Yahweh and about Samael. But we're judging authorities differently and siding with different agendas (and Conspiracies is well aware of the agendas of these various factions). We could appeal to the words of Jesus in the various texts, but we might then again end up siding with different valuations of those texts so the meta question remains. So our commitment to pursue truth at all costs must be tested as to whether we can agree on how to resolve the competing agendas. It seems to me that whatever source you take, you don't have Jesus teaching against Yahweh as he was understood. Specifically when Jesus quotes Ex. 3:15 in Matt. 22:32, he is referring to Yahweh and translating that name as "I am", thus affirming the name and not just the monism. There are many other direct and indirect references to Yahweh in his teaching. So how do we get around that to the idea that deprecation of Yahweh was original? It seems the gnostics were mostly Greeks who liked the new Sophia teaching but didn't like the Hebrew god and who made up an according responsive narrative. I don't see how to credit them with originality when there's a clear originality in the Gospel texts that goes against them.
that don't quite make sense to me, as in saying "archons cannot create" but referring to the "creator, the Demiurge"
The Demiurge creates through duality. He cannot create the unity of the Pleroma. He can only build a world based on friction, positive and negative, light and dark, predator and prey, good and evil. This material world is a flawed copy of the divine Pleroma, not the real thing but a simulation. So, archons created their own world but it's not real, it’s based on a simulation. Their influence comes from forgetting. When you forget that you are pure divine awareness, unbound by form, you fall asleep inside their dream.
You're not sure you're living in a simulation? pay attention. The moment you begin to raise your frequency, the matrix will notice. The simulation is designed to keep energy low, stable, and predictable. A state of homeostasis, from the Greek words “homeo” (meaning similar to) and “stasis” (meaning standing still). When you start glowing brighter, the system treats you like a virus, a foreign object that threatens the stability of the illusion. We could call this the matrix immune response.
In the Apocryphon you have Sophia conceiving nonconsensually, which is taken as evil because she is taken as having repented of it
Your take on this is either incorrect, or we have a different definition for evil. Sophia wanted to have a child. But she went about it in the wrong way, she conceived without the involvement of her male partner or the approval of the Father. Sophia immediately realized her horrible mistake and cast her child out of the Pleroma. To me, there is a difference between evil and mistake. It is correct to say Sophia repented, and the Father agreed to bring her back to the Pleroma once what had become lacking in her was restored to its natural fullness. I can see the mistake, but I don't see the evil here.
Moreover like I said before, look at Isaiah 45:7. "I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil,". The Hebrew word used here is raw. It means adversity, calamity, disaster, evil,". Yahweh does not say he allows evil. He says he creates it. He authors it. So, my interpretation: Sophia made a mistake and evil came later. So, if Yahweh creates evil, he is the architect of the matrix. And a matrix needs conflict to run. Without the war between good and evil, the script would stop and we might wake up. He needs the drama to keep you engaged. Which is exactly what we are witnessing in the world today.
You've got some traditional skeptical teaching on the origin of Yahweh too. The "mythology" doesn't actually speak of 70 children
I just did a search and several links pointed to this. I admit I haven't done much study in Canaanite mythology, maybe you're right and El had only 7 children. Or maybe only had two. It doesn't really matter to me, I don't care.
translating that name as "I am", thus affirming the name and not just the monism
Let's put some context around this. The soul that became Jesus had lived many times before. There were several of these incarnations that prepared the Christ's
soul. Adam, the first incarnation, where the soul first entered matter. Then it was Enoch who walked with God. Melchizedek, the mysterious priest king
without beginning or end. Joseph, son of Jacob, who saved his people through forgiveness. Joshua, who led the people into the promised land. Each life added
something essential. Each death taught something necessary. By the time this soul entered Mary's womb, it had been prepared through millennia of human experience to accomplish what no soul had done before. Achieve complete God consciousness while maintaining human form. This is why Jesus could say with authority "Before Abraham was born, I am." - John 8:58. He remembered his journey. He recognized his ancient purpose finally coming to fruition.
Jesus taught two levels of truth. parables for the masses, mysteries for the disciples, and many of the deepest mysteries were removed from scripture by church councils who feared people discovering their own divine nature. Jesus taught reincarnation openly, shocking many Christians. When he asked, "Who do men say I am?" his disciples answered, "Some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah," he didn't correct them. He was acknowledging the soul's journey through bodies.
Between ages 12 and 30, Jesus vanishes from the biblical record. The church says nothing happened worth recording. But, these were the years that transformed Jesus from gifted youth to Christ. Jesus studied in Egypt, in India, in Tibet, in Persia. Not because Jewish tradition was insufficient, but because the Christ message was universal, requiring universal preparation. The teaching, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" wasn't Jesus claiming exclusive access to Monad. He was saying the I am consciousness, the divine self-awareness he achieved is the way.
It seems the gnostics were mostly Greeks who liked the new Sophia teaching but didn't like the Hebrew god and who made up an according responsive narrative
Wow... I have yet to meet someone who is so into the OT as you are. And I know many jews.
Wow... I have yet to meet someone who is so into the OT as you are. And I know many jews.
Yes, as a covenant Christian I take the whole covenant seriously. I have always connected with the same mainstream conservative denomination, but have also studied the Hebrew roots of the covenant. And it's the testimony of Jews that the majority of them are secular and not interested in their own covenant to a high degree. Now, I came there because I observed that the historical Jesus (Yeshua) was "so into the OT". When Jesus says "I am" in John 8:58, he may be remembering humanity's journey but he is certainly invoking oneness with "Yahweh", which is the meaning of "I am" there (as proven by the immediate attempts to stone him in the next verse). He's not saying "I am Enoch", nobody took him to mean that at all, even with a nascent gilgul doctrine. So the whole idea that Yahweh is someone other than Jesus implies, when he upholds the mainstream Jewish view of Yahweh, doesn't really seem to come from Jesus.
This material world is a flawed copy of the divine Pleroma, not the real thing but a simulation.
You're quoting a system. It's more accurate to say that the Pleroma is the reality as conceived by the Monad consciousness, and the flawed copy is a map of reality as conceived by us faulty creatures. We are free to borrow from others' flawed copies (like the archons'), but we only awake when we are perceiving the reality substantially without flaws arising during duplication. So, not that the world is flawed, but that our relationship with it is flawed. (IMHO the whole spilling over of the question of evil into making the whole physical universe evil was one of the least useful things gnostics did; it drove several of them crazy because they ended up in rampant immorality, believing the physical so evil that they could not be blamed for partaking in adulteration and violence.)
When people say "it's a simulation" I agree because the Monad conceives it and that is indistinguishable from a simulation (as when I, or a computer, conceives something). But if, by "it's a simulation", you were to mean it's false or conceived by another than the Monad consciousness, then you'd be treating the physical as always requiring an archon as an intermediary. But I perceive the physical in the Monad without intermediary, so I have no need to give archons credit. I make mistakes in my perception, which are corrected in time by the Monad itself.
When you start glowing brighter, the system treats you like a virus, a foreign object that threatens the stability of the illusion.
It's happened to me. I assert my authority over the matrix and it retreats again.
To me, there is a difference between evil and mistake.
How could a perfect creature ever be mistaken though? It seems like "evil with extra steps". Perfect creature commits horrible imperfection and repents but that's not evil, but it explains why other creature isn't perfect but is evil and ignorant. (Y'know, it sounds just like what Satan would say when confronted, "it wasn't my fault because Wisdom's mistake made me so"; we call that "sus".) There was never a conception that Wisdom could ever be horribly mistaken and need repentance until this gnosis came along.
Isaiah 45:7.
Yeah, if we wanted to take a single verse and say it's consistent with Yahweh being the devil and creating evils, that wouldn't prove the proposition because it's also consistent with Yahweh being the Monad and creating evils. (This is shown by the facts that Isaiah speaks highly of Yahweh throughout, all readers took Yahweh to be the Monadic "I Am", all other Scriptures are consistent with Yahweh being the head of the Divine Council, and Jesus taught the same.)
Now, in interpretation, one is just "The Creator creates evils", i.e. he ordains bad things happening; this is shown by comparison with darkness (a relative absence of light), which would be a nonentity unless defined with respect to light. That's the simplest from context. But if we were to pretend that Isaiah really meant that Yahweh causes absolute evil, that too would not be problematic because it's like causing a vacuum: absolute evil is a complete absence, a nonentity, not something "created" in the ordinary sense but caused. You've interpreted "creating" as "authoring", but "authoring" is a technical word in theology that is distinguished: the author is the performer of an evil deed (as opposed to an abstract concept of evil).
The resolution is given in a very early text, Gen. 50:20, where Joseph teaches how good and evil wills are confluent: "Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good". It's possible for God to give the good gift of free will by which another thinks evil and for God to mean that that thinking of evil will work unto good. God is not doing evil by giving creatures limited free will.
But those are asides to show how many understand the text. The fact is that it doesn't logically show that Yahweh is an evil being and was never understood as such by its readers. If we are still in agreement that Samael did the first evil, then we keep that foundation. But as for evidence that Samael caused physical creation because he had some ability to create "dualism" (as if no emanation before had any duality to it), it's not forthcoming.
Jesus taught from both Gen. 1 and Gen. 2, which affirm that the physical creation was very good, indefinitely, without any need to do evil. You say "a matrix needs conflict to run", but this is belied by Gen. 1-2, and every good work done without conflict ever since. There is no conflict in the Pleroma in the Consciousness, it's one reality. It's possible for our maps of that reality to be completely unconflicted with it; that's being awake. It's possible to be in conflict (whether in body or in spirit, they both happen); that's accepting illusion.
So I'm listening to you but I'm not hearing the case be carried. And it doesn't seem to be that helpful to just say what you read vs. what I read. It seems that it'd be more helpful to agree on objective ways of interpreting these things because we are probably weighing our witnesses differently and making different judgments. I think truthfulness of witnesses can be weighed so objectively that all seekers of truth conclude the same.
The soul that became Jesus had lived many times before. There were several of these incarnations that prepared the Christ's soul. Adam, the first incarnation, where the soul first entered matter. Then it was Enoch who walked with God. Melchizedek, the mysterious priest king without beginning or end. Joseph, son of Jacob, who saved his people through forgiveness. Joshua, who led the people into the promised land.
Well, I've been asking everyone if reincarnation means gilgul or transmigration, and nobody answers. After that question, if Gen. 5 indicates that Adam was alive at Enoch's birth and lived more than 300 years afterward, how do you do reincarnation with bilocation? Then, how do you account for the increase in humans? What's the difference between those in this generation ensouled for the first time and those not? Then we get to the details of how it can be known who was what. And did Melchizedek die, or not? (It appears to me the particular argument you gave just started as a misreading of Heb. 7, where Melchidezek is like Jesus and people misread the tight rabbinical reasoning as if they are being equated. It's a metaphor just like saying "Hagar is Sinai".) I hope these don't sound skeptical, it's just that most reincarnation systems don't work these out and I'm wondering how they are resolved by people from within their systems.
When he asked, "Who do men say I am?" his disciples answered, "Some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah," he didn't correct them.
Heh! Haven't heard that argument. Technically, he corrected them separately when he said that Elijah was John. But I don't think he meant transmigration there, because he said it twofold: both John represents Elijah in some way (which might be called gilgul or oversoul if carefully defined), and Elijah has his own destiny. So he did deny being Elijah himself, and that means he didn't affirm being Jeremiah either.
So, I continue to appreciate your patience with my questions and interactions. Ultimately, when we get to a question of reality we're inferring from evidence to seek the best explanation. You're giving me lots of assertions from your experience, some of which I'm not engaging because they're not central enough IMHO. It wouldn't matter so much on what titles you give to Samael if it didn't undercut the actual Hebrew teaching about Yahweh that Jesus taught. "Yahweh" just means "I Am" and was taken as defining the attribute of self-existence that is monistic rather than emanated. But when Jesus many times claimed this attribute for himself, in his context he tied it to whatever was right about the covenant worship of Yahweh. What he taught didn't require attributing creation to something less than the First Consciousness. And if he was the Logos or First Emanation then that makes him firstborn of creation, and he affirmed that creation started out very good and could run just fine that way indefinitely. So, of all the trappings brought by gnosis, many of them need not be disputed, but the ones that lead to a difference in definition of the God whose divine nature we are partaking of, those are the ones where we would need to hammer out true vs. false.
funny
I'm looking into it. If we call it "Logos" and/or "Spirit of Christ", then of course.
In John 3:16 it's "monogenes", the same term as for Isaac who had half-brothers, so literally not "only", but "only of the kind", unique. Would you agree his meaning is that he's unique?
Maybe, that would require more cautious definition of those words.
This is something I'm not confident of. To be one with the Father would be to be timeless, for instance, and I'm not able to make any plans to be timeless. When Jesus specifies the meaning in more detail in John 17, he never attributes oneness with the Father to us, only to himself; but oneness with him is attributed to us. That seems important.
I don't think it teaches Jesus was different in kind because it teaches he was fully human. If you speak of it as Jesus's "achievement of Christ consciousness", that is unique in being the first ever, and that is divine. The way in which we achieve Christ consciousness is spoken of as secondary in the groom-bride and head-body metaphors.
Are you all of God? Or are you a water droplet in the sea, which is the sea in the sense that it is of the sea?
What does "remember" mean?
Correct, he taught total continuity with the covenants that came before.
Did you read my link about the meaning of "worship"?
He did? It does? Why do readers of plain Greek not see it? How could we come to agreement on what the plain Greek proves? The Logos is not the Monad.
No I don't. I was attempting to summarize how you put it when you said "the consciousness that is God took human form". There's something unique about how Consciousness took on humanity in Jesus because it says he possessed the Spirit beyond measure, but we partake of the Spirit by measure. Which is why I ask you about definitions.
Certainly if someone says "obey Jesus" but means "obey my interpretation of Jesus and not your own", that's a fault, which the church has engaged and for which I apologize.
I read Jesus a lot and haven't seen him instruct that of us.
How would we know the difference between what one manuscript says Jesus said and what another says he said? Wouldn't historical evidence indicate which are more likely to be original and which derivative?
In the decades after his resurrection there is pretty good evidence that lots of instructions of all kinds were circulating and many openly disagreed with each other. It was not until 150 that there was a document, Irenaeus, where we start to see certain views clearly deprecated in favor of other views. Perhaps that's what you mean. Maybe you mean that some groups ceased to exist in the war of 66-73 and so their writings were "stripped" until rediscovered. But it seems the true instructions can be tested by various tests that work the same for everyone: authority, coherence, apostolicity, continuity, etc.
Doesn't matter now because:
Yes, and from all I've read it only serves as counterpoint to what I already learned. If there were a binary disagreement then it would need to be decided based on marks like I listed above.
As they defined them. Those that didn't reflect Moses could be challenged by anyone, which is what Jesus did.
According to Matt. 5:18, 20, Jesus says, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled .... Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." It's Paul that says, "We should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter"; but also "We know that the law is spiritual", Rom. 7:6, 14. Jesus never contradicted Moses but served everything written in spirit and in truth (or else he would not be the Perfect one). Of the right of rabbis to interpret the law (and duty to interpret rightly), he said, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (Matt. 23:2-3).
More accurately, Jesus wasn't a rebel (again, he was the Perfect Man); he asserted his right to disagree with interpretation and contribute to it, and (I believe I said) the extremists among the Pharisees and others were the ones who perceived the threat and weren't then open-minded (though many were later). I presume you don't teach "obey the Law of Moses" even though Jesus taught it; but that's a different detailed discussion to get right. The finesse is, whatever Jesus taught, and teaches, is what we want.
Not what I experience. Sophia is Wisdom and was clearly depicted in Prov. 8 and many other sources and accepted in early Christianity. They also believed in gnosis and Paul contrasted it with pseudognosis because not everything known is true gnosis. Now it does appear that by Augustine there was some rebranding of the tree of gnosis as being more like an evil rather than an occasion to evil, which is a loss of communication. The bride is a regular metaphor in Jesus, Paul, and John, and the body is also, and the two are one because a man's bride is his body. But they are one with him because they possess Sophia and that seals the identity.
This is where we get disconnected, because after Jesus affirms every serif of the Law of Moses, which affirms Yahweh, some gnostics (not all) separated Jesus from Yahweh and declared Yahweh to be the adversary and the physical to be the evil (even though Job separates Yahweh and the adversary). Yes, Jesus did teach transcendence of the adversary and connection with the Monad, and that part doesn't contradict the Bible. But if we then give the adversary more titles or narrative than he deserves, we're not fighting him very well.
Judas: 'When he [came up to] his disciples sitting together praying over the bread, [he] laughed. The disciples said to him, "Master, why are you laughing at [our] prayer? What have we done? [This] is what's right." He answered and said to them, "I'm not laughing at you. You're not doing this because you want to, but because through this your God [will be] praised."' So, no Demiurge explicit or implicit, nothing about a false god, but only about reasons for behavior.
Apocryphon: '[Sophia] intended to reveal an image from herself .... She brought it into being .... [She had created him in ignorance.] ... She named him Yaldabaoth .... Yadabaoth united with the thoughtlessness (aponoia) within him. He begot ruling authorities (exousia) modeling them on the incorruptible realms above .... [He is ignorant darkness.] ... This dim ruler has three names: Yaldabaoth is the first. Saklas is the second. Samael is the third. He is blasphemous through his thoughtlessness. He said "I am God, and there is no God but me!" since he didn’t know where his own Power originated.' So, first take, he is aware of incorruptible realms (aeons) above, but he denies other gods and accords the title "God" only to himself. Aponoia is not literally "thoughtlessness" but "separate thought". How much more reason not to accord him a name that might mean Yah Sabaoth, or a creative power that he doesn't have. When I look into the provenance of this apocryphon, I find that Sophia comes from the Ogdoad, and the Ogdoad appears derived from the Egyptian Ogdoad, indicating that the addition of Yaldabaoth to the story is also derivative from something Cainite. But when I read Jesus's statements about the satan in Scripture, they appear very accurate to his time and place and very wise in their eternal applicability. So how could we decide among these texts except by using historical tests? The fact that a text was suppressed doesn't mean it's automatically right, in fact it might well have been just too stupid to reproduce (as is true of so many ancient texts).
Oh, if you look at every ancient gnostic you'll find quite a few teaching blind faith and their own external authority. But that's because it's not monolithic. If you separate those out and seek whether there were good teachings of individuality among the rest, we might sift some good things out.
For instance. In Judaism and Christianity this accords with the image of God.
Since he was conceived, yes.
That might be a formulation to use, I'll think about it.
That might be valid too; I'd say a being that is separate from God is impossible. "Separation" being an abstract.
Jesus and Paul taught there were three heavens; we participate freely in the first, the air. I don't think the hierarchy of heavens is much different from the hierarchy of aeons.
Yes, John 14:12, we're doing greater works today. But a text search shows some variability in this concept. Of himself, he said, "The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him" (13:16), and, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (15:13). He also implied his works increase in the same way our works increase: "He will shew him [the Son] greater works than these, that ye may marvel" (5:20). But he also backs off temporally from the title of greater: "But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth" (Luke 22:26-27).
That's fine enough. More accurately, I'd say that we speak of conferred immortality (aphtharsia, athanasia) rather than inherent immortality (aidios); a form of oversoul reincarnation (gilgul) rather than a form of transmigration reincarnation (punarjanman); and partaking of divine nature (theosis) rather than deification (apotheosis).
Excluding the people who perceive a threat, what would be wrong with any of that in the rest of Christianity? Lots of Orthodox, and lots of Catholic and Protestant mystics, practice theosis quite well (hundreds of millions) without feeling threatened or abandoning earthly forms that they find helpful.
So I've given you the bold answers, including where I think a nuance is necessary because of a definition or a text. It seems that it's not necessary to give the adversary the credit you propose, or to advance a particular narrative, in order to advance in love, imagination, or pursuit of the greater. When two narratives do reach a point of contradiction, those pursuing truth will not be threatened but will find the resolution of peace.
I didn't start my reply with a joke, or a funny statement, I just anticipated your next question. I'm sure you've heard of archons, but you don't know exactly what is their purpose, since you're asking this question. The Nag Hammadi manuscripts spoke in depth about the archons and how our memories have been erased or reprogrammed by them. And here is the secret teaching of Jesus, if we bypass the archons we don’t get those memories back, we jump through the energy barrier that contains the archons and proceed directly to source. The manuscripts revealed this method to overcome them, not to fight them, but simply to remember. Not remembering in the usual sense, but a mystical recognition, a sudden inner knowing that pierces the veil of falsehood and reconnects you to the source. You know those moments when you hear something and can't quite explain why, but deep down you feel it's true. This is awakening your inner spark. And that awakening is what the archons fear most. Because the moment you truly see, it doesn't just dissolve the structure of deception. It opens your entire perception of reality itself. Archons don't fear weapons, rituals, or rebellion. It's clarity and inner knowing they fear most. Because clarity doesn't just burn through their shadow. It burns through the one that clouds your perception. Archons are not physical entities hiding in some corner of the universe. They are distortions of consciousness, echoes born when divine light entered the realm of matter and fragmented. They exist in the unseen layers of thought, emotion, and energy. And like reflections without substance, they are unable to exist on their own. That's why they're called parasites.
They depend on awareness that has forgotten itself. What sustains them? Your attention, your fear, your unconscious reaction to illusion. The archons manipulate through imitation. They copy reality but lack the creative spark of the divine. They are mimics, masters of counterfeit light. They whisper through collective belief in media in systems in endless conflict. The Gospel of Mary describes this as the kingdom of the flesh, a world where false powers stir desire and confusion until the soul forgets its own light. These forces aren't random. They are deliberate distortions, reflections of the archon's imitation of creation itself. They wear masks of authority and certainty, disguising limitation as logic and distraction as progress.
Their influence doesn't come from force, but from forgetting. Because when you forget what you are, pure divine awareness, unbound by form, you fall asleep inside their dream. And yet, the Gnostics discovered a weakness. The archons cannot create. They can only replicate. They can't generate light. Only reflect it, distort it, invert it, and drain it. Just as they did with the teachings of Jesus. That means every moment you remember the source of your own light, their illusion flickers. Every breath taken in awareness, every thought seen clearly withdraws the energy that sustains them.
Yes, here is where we disagree, or where we get disconnected like you say. And I understand why you bring up so much "the adversary". Gnostics hold that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner. The blame for the world’s failings lies not with humans, but with the creator, the Demiurge. Which is exactly what I said "Jesus came to show humans how to transcend the Demiurge and connect directly with the primordial source, the Monad.". Church doctrine affirms that Yahweh is the supreme being, the only God, the creator of all things. But Gnostic Christianity, the original version, taught something completely different. In this understanding, Yahweh is the Demiurge, a powerful but limited being who created the material world without fully comprehending the Monad.
Yahweh worship can be traced back all the way to the ancient religion of Canaan. Yahweh was but one of many deities united under a figure known as El. Yahweh and Baal were merely two of El’s 70 children. According to the mythology, each child of El was given a region to look after. Baal ruled over Canaan while Yahweh, which was considered a lesser god, was assigned the land of Israel. In time, all other gods qualities were assimilated into Yahweh, who came to be referred to as El Shaddai: a title which roughly translates into English as “God Almighty.”. Because of the Church doctrine many people assume Yahweh and the Demiurge are the same entity.
Well, I ask because (as I guessed) you have a technical meaning for "remember": you call it "reconnect to source", which is not problematic. You also have some technical meanings that don't quite make sense to me, as in saying "archons cannot create" but referring to the "creator, the Demiurge". The reason I say "adversary" or "Samael" is that we can agree on this general character without agreeing on all his attributes. It seems to me that in most gnostic schemes Samael is an archon or less than one, so why should I credit him with "creating" if (as I agree) archons can't? Nor do I need to commit to any list of archons, because it seems to me that no gnostic teacher committed to the list of archons he was taught, but each had their own interpretation.
The core issue is the explanation of evil. In the Apocryphon you have Sophia conceiving nonconsensually, which is taken as evil because she is taken as having repented of it; and there's no explanation of why a good creature would commit evil. But in Isaiah and Ezekiel there are very specific analyses of why a good creature would commit evil: because he was tempted by that which does not exist, namely a creation being equal to the Creator. Further, the speech of Samael in Apocryphon seems clearly related to the speeches attributed to the adversary in Isaiah and Ezekiel, but the explanation of the origin of evil is missing and is substituted with bare language about Sophia. So I understand why people want to bypass the origin of evil by postulating that the Creator must be evil, but it's unnecessary because it's a good thing for a Creator to give creatures free will even if some of them commit evil. That is, the whole template added onto the older narrative is completely unneeded.
You've got some traditional skeptical teaching on the origin of Yahweh too. The "mythology" doesn't actually speak of 70 children, it is the oral tradition that is inferred around the text of Deut. 32:8-9, which only says Elyon (not etymologically related to El) separated the Adamites and Yahweh took the Israelites. But it's better to read this as a parallel about the same God under two names; there is no implied inferiority to Yahweh in any text. There is intense recent effort to imagine this whole structure of a polytheist interpretation and to smuggle Baal into this text from elsewhere, but it's not the plain reading or the historical development. Israelite worship always used the Divine Council monotheist model where gods (angels and archons) were ruled by one Judge and Lord (el and baal, both titles) whose personal name was Yahweh. When you compare the prior Semitic Hyksos model amply attested in Egypt's 14th and 15th dynasties, you see a clear Divine Council pattern emerging within Egyptian polytheism.
Now, we're sharing historical facts about Yahweh and about Samael. But we're judging authorities differently and siding with different agendas (and Conspiracies is well aware of the agendas of these various factions). We could appeal to the words of Jesus in the various texts, but we might then again end up siding with different valuations of those texts so the meta question remains. So our commitment to pursue truth at all costs must be tested as to whether we can agree on how to resolve the competing agendas. It seems to me that whatever source you take, you don't have Jesus teaching against Yahweh as he was understood. Specifically when Jesus quotes Ex. 3:15 in Matt. 22:32, he is referring to Yahweh and translating that name as "I am", thus affirming the name and not just the monism. There are many other direct and indirect references to Yahweh in his teaching. So how do we get around that to the idea that deprecation of Yahweh was original? It seems the gnostics were mostly Greeks who liked the new Sophia teaching but didn't like the Hebrew god and who made up an according responsive narrative. I don't see how to credit them with originality when there's a clear originality in the Gospel texts that goes against them.
The Demiurge creates through duality. He cannot create the unity of the Pleroma. He can only build a world based on friction, positive and negative, light and dark, predator and prey, good and evil. This material world is a flawed copy of the divine Pleroma, not the real thing but a simulation. So, archons created their own world but it's not real, it’s based on a simulation. Their influence comes from forgetting. When you forget that you are pure divine awareness, unbound by form, you fall asleep inside their dream.
You're not sure you're living in a simulation? pay attention. The moment you begin to raise your frequency, the matrix will notice. The simulation is designed to keep energy low, stable, and predictable. A state of homeostasis, from the Greek words “homeo” (meaning similar to) and “stasis” (meaning standing still). When you start glowing brighter, the system treats you like a virus, a foreign object that threatens the stability of the illusion. We could call this the matrix immune response.
Your take on this is either incorrect, or we have a different definition for evil. Sophia wanted to have a child. But she went about it in the wrong way, she conceived without the involvement of her male partner or the approval of the Father. Sophia immediately realized her horrible mistake and cast her child out of the Pleroma. To me, there is a difference between evil and mistake. It is correct to say Sophia repented, and the Father agreed to bring her back to the Pleroma once what had become lacking in her was restored to its natural fullness. I can see the mistake, but I don't see the evil here.
Moreover like I said before, look at Isaiah 45:7. "I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil,". The Hebrew word used here is raw. It means adversity, calamity, disaster, evil,". Yahweh does not say he allows evil. He says he creates it. He authors it. So, my interpretation: Sophia made a mistake and evil came later. So, if Yahweh creates evil, he is the architect of the matrix. And a matrix needs conflict to run. Without the war between good and evil, the script would stop and we might wake up. He needs the drama to keep you engaged. Which is exactly what we are witnessing in the world today.
I just did a search and several links pointed to this. I admit I haven't done much study in Canaanite mythology, maybe you're right and El had only 7 children. Or maybe only had two. It doesn't really matter to me, I don't care.
Let's put some context around this. The soul that became Jesus had lived many times before. There were several of these incarnations that prepared the Christ's soul. Adam, the first incarnation, where the soul first entered matter. Then it was Enoch who walked with God. Melchizedek, the mysterious priest king without beginning or end. Joseph, son of Jacob, who saved his people through forgiveness. Joshua, who led the people into the promised land. Each life added something essential. Each death taught something necessary. By the time this soul entered Mary's womb, it had been prepared through millennia of human experience to accomplish what no soul had done before. Achieve complete God consciousness while maintaining human form. This is why Jesus could say with authority "Before Abraham was born, I am." - John 8:58. He remembered his journey. He recognized his ancient purpose finally coming to fruition.
Jesus taught two levels of truth. parables for the masses, mysteries for the disciples, and many of the deepest mysteries were removed from scripture by church councils who feared people discovering their own divine nature. Jesus taught reincarnation openly, shocking many Christians. When he asked, "Who do men say I am?" his disciples answered, "Some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah," he didn't correct them. He was acknowledging the soul's journey through bodies.
Between ages 12 and 30, Jesus vanishes from the biblical record. The church says nothing happened worth recording. But, these were the years that transformed Jesus from gifted youth to Christ. Jesus studied in Egypt, in India, in Tibet, in Persia. Not because Jewish tradition was insufficient, but because the Christ message was universal, requiring universal preparation. The teaching, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" wasn't Jesus claiming exclusive access to Monad. He was saying the I am consciousness, the divine self-awareness he achieved is the way.
Wow... I have yet to meet someone who is so into the OT as you are. And I know many jews.
Yes, as a covenant Christian I take the whole covenant seriously. I have always connected with the same mainstream conservative denomination, but have also studied the Hebrew roots of the covenant. And it's the testimony of Jews that the majority of them are secular and not interested in their own covenant to a high degree. Now, I came there because I observed that the historical Jesus (Yeshua) was "so into the OT". When Jesus says "I am" in John 8:58, he may be remembering humanity's journey but he is certainly invoking oneness with "Yahweh", which is the meaning of "I am" there (as proven by the immediate attempts to stone him in the next verse). He's not saying "I am Enoch", nobody took him to mean that at all, even with a nascent gilgul doctrine. So the whole idea that Yahweh is someone other than Jesus implies, when he upholds the mainstream Jewish view of Yahweh, doesn't really seem to come from Jesus.
You're quoting a system. It's more accurate to say that the Pleroma is the reality as conceived by the Monad consciousness, and the flawed copy is a map of reality as conceived by us faulty creatures. We are free to borrow from others' flawed copies (like the archons'), but we only awake when we are perceiving the reality substantially without flaws arising during duplication. So, not that the world is flawed, but that our relationship with it is flawed. (IMHO the whole spilling over of the question of evil into making the whole physical universe evil was one of the least useful things gnostics did; it drove several of them crazy because they ended up in rampant immorality, believing the physical so evil that they could not be blamed for partaking in adulteration and violence.)
When people say "it's a simulation" I agree because the Monad conceives it and that is indistinguishable from a simulation (as when I, or a computer, conceives something). But if, by "it's a simulation", you were to mean it's false or conceived by another than the Monad consciousness, then you'd be treating the physical as always requiring an archon as an intermediary. But I perceive the physical in the Monad without intermediary, so I have no need to give archons credit. I make mistakes in my perception, which are corrected in time by the Monad itself.
It's happened to me. I assert my authority over the matrix and it retreats again.
How could a perfect creature ever be mistaken though? It seems like "evil with extra steps". Perfect creature commits horrible imperfection and repents but that's not evil, but it explains why other creature isn't perfect but is evil and ignorant. (Y'know, it sounds just like what Satan would say when confronted, "it wasn't my fault because Wisdom's mistake made me so"; we call that "sus".) There was never a conception that Wisdom could ever be horribly mistaken and need repentance until this gnosis came along.
Yeah, if we wanted to take a single verse and say it's consistent with Yahweh being the devil and creating evils, that wouldn't prove the proposition because it's also consistent with Yahweh being the Monad and creating evils. (This is shown by the facts that Isaiah speaks highly of Yahweh throughout, all readers took Yahweh to be the Monadic "I Am", all other Scriptures are consistent with Yahweh being the head of the Divine Council, and Jesus taught the same.)
Now, in interpretation, one is just "The Creator creates evils", i.e. he ordains bad things happening; this is shown by comparison with darkness (a relative absence of light), which would be a nonentity unless defined with respect to light. That's the simplest from context. But if we were to pretend that Isaiah really meant that Yahweh causes absolute evil, that too would not be problematic because it's like causing a vacuum: absolute evil is a complete absence, a nonentity, not something "created" in the ordinary sense but caused. You've interpreted "creating" as "authoring", but "authoring" is a technical word in theology that is distinguished: the author is the performer of an evil deed (as opposed to an abstract concept of evil).
The resolution is given in a very early text, Gen. 50:20, where Joseph teaches how good and evil wills are confluent: "Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good". It's possible for God to give the good gift of free will by which another thinks evil and for God to mean that that thinking of evil will work unto good. God is not doing evil by giving creatures limited free will.
But those are asides to show how many understand the text. The fact is that it doesn't logically show that Yahweh is an evil being and was never understood as such by its readers. If we are still in agreement that Samael did the first evil, then we keep that foundation. But as for evidence that Samael caused physical creation because he had some ability to create "dualism" (as if no emanation before had any duality to it), it's not forthcoming.
Jesus taught from both Gen. 1 and Gen. 2, which affirm that the physical creation was very good, indefinitely, without any need to do evil. You say "a matrix needs conflict to run", but this is belied by Gen. 1-2, and every good work done without conflict ever since. There is no conflict in the Pleroma in the Consciousness, it's one reality. It's possible for our maps of that reality to be completely unconflicted with it; that's being awake. It's possible to be in conflict (whether in body or in spirit, they both happen); that's accepting illusion.
So I'm listening to you but I'm not hearing the case be carried. And it doesn't seem to be that helpful to just say what you read vs. what I read. It seems that it'd be more helpful to agree on objective ways of interpreting these things because we are probably weighing our witnesses differently and making different judgments. I think truthfulness of witnesses can be weighed so objectively that all seekers of truth conclude the same.
Well, I've been asking everyone if reincarnation means gilgul or transmigration, and nobody answers. After that question, if Gen. 5 indicates that Adam was alive at Enoch's birth and lived more than 300 years afterward, how do you do reincarnation with bilocation? Then, how do you account for the increase in humans? What's the difference between those in this generation ensouled for the first time and those not? Then we get to the details of how it can be known who was what. And did Melchizedek die, or not? (It appears to me the particular argument you gave just started as a misreading of Heb. 7, where Melchidezek is like Jesus and people misread the tight rabbinical reasoning as if they are being equated. It's a metaphor just like saying "Hagar is Sinai".) I hope these don't sound skeptical, it's just that most reincarnation systems don't work these out and I'm wondering how they are resolved by people from within their systems.
Heh! Haven't heard that argument. Technically, he corrected them separately when he said that Elijah was John. But I don't think he meant transmigration there, because he said it twofold: both John represents Elijah in some way (which might be called gilgul or oversoul if carefully defined), and Elijah has his own destiny. So he did deny being Elijah himself, and that means he didn't affirm being Jeremiah either.
So, I continue to appreciate your patience with my questions and interactions. Ultimately, when we get to a question of reality we're inferring from evidence to seek the best explanation. You're giving me lots of assertions from your experience, some of which I'm not engaging because they're not central enough IMHO. It wouldn't matter so much on what titles you give to Samael if it didn't undercut the actual Hebrew teaching about Yahweh that Jesus taught. "Yahweh" just means "I Am" and was taken as defining the attribute of self-existence that is monistic rather than emanated. But when Jesus many times claimed this attribute for himself, in his context he tied it to whatever was right about the covenant worship of Yahweh. What he taught didn't require attributing creation to something less than the First Consciousness. And if he was the Logos or First Emanation then that makes him firstborn of creation, and he affirmed that creation started out very good and could run just fine that way indefinitely. So, of all the trappings brought by gnosis, many of them need not be disputed, but the ones that lead to a difference in definition of the God whose divine nature we are partaking of, those are the ones where we would need to hammer out true vs. false.