Exactly! I don't see anything wrong with your account so it may just be one of the site oddities. You can go to c/Meta with the alt, and try creating a post with title and text as "Test", and if that works you can change the text to whatever question you have of admin; and if it doesn't you can message the mods of Meta, which include a copy to admin, though they've been a bit slow lately. Sometimes, not always, I can find someone who can help a technically stranded user if you want me to intervene.
I'm reading testimonies of people who had near death experiences, similar to the ones who took psychedelics. They all talk about a bright light they see. Most will keep walking toward the light, unaware of who built it or why.
Funny thing, all NDEs by definition involve people choosing not to continue with the light, because if they did we wouldn't hear back from them. This logically indicates that we can't judge the light as a trap (a negative), only as an experience that most people don't leave for whatever reason. The other primary aspect of NDEs, when it's not the light, is the pain, and those who have experienced that and succeeded in not continuing with it speak of it as to be avoided, whether or not they change their lives to avoid it in the future. While we can't judge that either, the testimony of the light as "good" and the pain as "evil" is exceptionally strong, myriads of reported cases that almost always fall in one of those two categories.
Skeptically, if NDEs don't reflect ultimate truth any more than our daily experience (technically they don't), that isn't overwhelming evidence for or against a particular conclusion about them. The line of evidence I go with is that logic dictates either there is a Greatest Thing (Monad) or nothing can be said to exist (nihilism), and that perfectly aligns with the NDE evidence. If we decided to be skeptical of the NDE light, we would still have the duty to rightly reflect the Monad in us regardless, and I think that practice in life will guide us aright when the trial of death comes. So it's fine to use skepticism to pare alternatives down, but if you pare everything then Nihilism is left, and if you uphold the Monad then attributes keep emanating from it that cannot be pared away and prove it as the source of all diversity. So if reincarnation was a trap, the best remedy would be right living today, and that's pretty much of what the Hindus say and they're the deepest thinkers on reincarnation.
If the Pharisees had the (knowledge) key to escape and hid it, its evidence would still be present in their system somewhere, wouldn't it? If we take Jesus's reported teaching in gospels and apocrypha at face value, he is pretty straightforward about epignosis (and the OT has many cognate teachings, starting with binah, da'ath, mada', sekhel), that he gives it freely by revelation (Matt. 11:27, Luke 24:31). What he tells us quietly we are free to proclaim loudly. So I think that knowing the Son, emulating the Christ, is that key to knowledge, and those Pharisees (not all) who rejected their traditions about Christ were the ones who hid it.
Origen syncretized the reward/punishment afterlife with the cyclical by theorizing (though not totally committing) that the righteous soul after a period of reward might lapse back and then would enter another cycle, which might also reincarnate. What happened afterward was that his corpus was widely respected but some took the cyclic teaching heavily and the church chose to issue a condemnation that moderated two extremes: they did not condemn Origen or his teaching in particular, but they did condemn an unspecified "corrupt apokatastasis" while holding that there was a valid and incorrupt apokatastasis. So it is left ambiguous what exactly they condemned. Personally I think it was the form of the teaching where individuation is erased as a phenomenon, because they were still holding onto echoes of gilgul where individuation is respected but the oversoul is still learning collectively. The immediate reason was that removal of individual responsibility was observed to encourage licentious living and so it was very practical, not theoretical. That again goes back to the best preparation being righteous living (pursuit of truth at all costs), and then whatever awaits one is as strong as possible in the grace God gives. Particularly, the early church was, I think, unanimous that martyrs had zero fear of death, that they were sustained by visions of Christ to endure great torments and that union with Christ is a form of remembering the preexistence as a concept in the Monadic consciousness.
Now, you're proposing a narrative where a later legalist church has learned tools of control from the Roman empire, and where they play up the fear of death for this purpose, which shifts the focus of righteous living toward legalism (human-verified righteousness) rather than Christian liberty (divine-verified righteousness). That phenomenon is present but I don't see it in the Origen story. The story of all the gnostics who did teach a trap in the afterlife is, I think, separate because it was almost complete by the 3rd century and the Origen kerfuffle was quite later (you might argue that Clement of Alexandria first syncretized gnosticism into a system that later became Origenism, but it had lost all of the character you're seeing in it and only retained echoes in their sophisticated collations).
But that still leaves the core unsettled. If one doesn't know a goal, one's category would be "seeker", one who hasn't found. If one thinks advancing toward the light is a trap, and one can be confident advancing toward the pain is certainly a trap, one is seeking what other alternative there is on either NDE or Scripture or Apocrypha evidence. This leads to ternary systems but they seem to come much later and I'm not sure what analogues they have in the gnostic and proto-Christian period.
Now something fresh comes to mind, and since I'm already typing at length I'll include it. It might be possible that the "good ending" includes the choice of the best eternal existences, which would be the Pauline category "whether in the body or out of the body I can't tell". Perhaps the individual can choose to restore the matrix, in its perfected form, building from the DNA stored by the earth, or can choose the opposite, to release the DNA and to retain a pure spiritual form. That would certainly remove the chief scandal between the gnostics and the traditionals! I'd want to run that idea through a few filters, but that might be the character of what you appear to want to describe. It's not literal anywhere that "approaching light" automatically equals "flesh trap"; I've generally presumed that flesh as we know it isn't flesh as it will be revealed (here another Pauline concept intervenes, the "spiritual body"; but let's take it from Peter instead, who prophesied that even pigs can have pure, kosher bodies, Acts 10). So while the gnostics and the trads agree that the present flesh is to be deprecated, the resolution might be that we need not argue over the question of whether anyone is or isn't forced to take flesh up again (even if it's transfigured). Perhaps it's a liberty issue.
So I probably have several questions, so I'll try to focus them. So far you're narrating and really so am I. What's most unanswered to me is where the core teaching is to be found. What is the path to be taken to achieve one's heart's desire? And what is the nature of that desire? I haven't gleaned those, and at risk of being wrong I'll say it appears the path you recommend is to Know certain rules in the hope of remembering them in a postdeath confrontation, which would imply that one's duty in this life is to constantly study postdeath rules and would make it hard to live in the present. I've proposed instead that the entire life is about learning right living now and that all postdeath issues will be addressed by the preparations we make now and the patterns and disciplines that lead to the postdeath decisions. (In the same way, what I practice causes what I perceive myself doing in dreams: I have better dreams when I am practicing right living, because in the dream my unconscious habitually selects the right option without conscious will.) As to the second question, perhaps my untested suggestion that the best state is where the soul can choose its physical form or lack thereof might appeal to you. I don't know if I'd formally accept the suggestion myself, but since it has come to mind it can be tested like everything.
Last side point, just as a matter of politely requesting that you could do me a favor for my own sensibilities' sake. When you're speaking of the character you call demiurge, could you please stick to names I agree apply to that character (such as Samael or satan or Saklas), since it doesn't matter to you what you call him but it does matter to me? I only ask as an unimportant but helpful conversational bridge; if not I can accommodate but it might go slower.
I don't think it's the platform. I believe the issue is at my end. Anyway not much I can do about this for now, so I just have to live with it.
So if reincarnation was a trap, the best remedy would be right living today
I agree "right living" is absolutely the way to go. I don't find that to be much of a challenge for me... not any longer. The first advice I would give anyone is stop lying. Don’t even tell white lies.
If the Pharisees had the (knowledge) key to escape and hid it, its evidence would still be present in their system somewhere, wouldn't it?
Possibly, but not in plain sight. And access to the Vatican Library is limited to accredited researchers. And US has something called Sensitive compartmented information (SCI). SCI is not a classification, it is high-level clearance.
Now, you're proposing a narrative where a later legalist church has learned tools of control from the Roman empire
IMO, the church didn't learn from the Roman empire, the church was built as an institution to serve the empire. This was one of Paul's "innovations". Paul was focused on organization and structure. Jesus and his followers were very egalitarian. They didn't believe in hierarchy and shared everything in common. They lived simply. They didn't build institutions. But Paul insists that you need hierarchy and organization and structure to spread the message effectively. You need bishops and deacons and churches and formal procedures. So he's building churches all around the Roman Empire. He's creating an organizational structure. He's establishing protocols. This is not spiritual teaching. This is institution building.
It's not literal anywhere that "approaching light" automatically equals "flesh trap"
Going back to NDEs and if you read carefully their stories, the first thing you see is a light, radiant, irresistible. It draws you closer. Loved ones appear smiling, calling your name. A warmth fills you, and for a moment, you are certain this is heaven, this is home. But this may not be a light, for not all that shines is light. IMO, it is very possible this tunnel of light is a structure, a construction, a luminous snare woven by the archons to recycle you back into the cycle of death and rebirth. The comforting voices may not be your ancestors at all, but projections, illusions crafted to keep you from questioning where you truly are. The Hypostasis of the Archons talks of rulers who bind humanity in forgetfulness. The Apocryphon of John describes how the Demiurge fashioned the soul's prison, surrounding it with layers of deception. The Pistis Sophia, hints at the perilous journey of the soul through realms of judgement and false lights. So, yeah I think it's literal.
So, why does the light appear so irresistible? Why do souls return so willingly? perhaps it's the genius of the illusion. It appeals to your deepest longing, the longing to be safe, to be loved, to belong and be reunited with source. What better bait than the faces of those you cherished in life? What stronger tether than the promise of reunion? So, maybe the first part of the illusion is seduction, the dazzling light, the false reunion, then the second part is entanglement. There is a parallel with what we can observe the TPTB and their actions in our world today. The archons are forces who question, judge and weigh the soul, not to guide it toward liberation, but to bind it more tightly to the cycle of matter. Have you ever heard the sentence "life review"? NSDs describe being shown their deeds, feeling their emotions replayed, and being told that they must learn more lessons. But who is conducting this review? the archons, who are the judges, which is something that is hidden. The Gnostics would say this judgement does not come from the true source, but from the counterfeit rulers of this world. Judgement, even when it feels like it comes from the soul itself, is still part of the illusion. By convincing the soul that it has failed, that it must return to correct its mistakes, the archons ensure the cycle of reincarnation never ends. This makes sense to me, that's exactly what I would do if I was a parasite, an archon. I would want to make sure the supply of energy never ends. I think in the movie Matrix machines use humans as batteries not because humans make a good power source, but because doing this allows the machines to avoid committing genocide, as would otherwise be required by their laws.
it appears the path you recommend is to Know certain rules in the hope of remembering them in a postdeath confrontation, which would imply that one's duty in this life is to constantly study postdeath rules
This is not exactly correct. But, I will elaborate on this later, in a different message.
When you're speaking of the character you call demiurge, could you please stick to names I agree apply to that character (such as Samael or satan or Saklas), since it doesn't matter to you what you call him but it does matter to me
The demiurge (Greek demiurgos) is the being who created the world in Gnosticism. So, when referring to Gnostics manuscripts & texts it's very hard to replace Demiurge with something else. I'll try using Satan wherever makes sense. Outside of the Gnostics texts I have no issue using a different name. How about Lucifer, the god worshipped by Freemasons? that according to many high level Freemasons themselves. “That which we must say to a crowd is – We worship a God, but it is the God that one adores without superstition. To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th degrees – The Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian Doctrine. If Lucifer were not God, would Adonay whose deeds prove his cruelty, perfidy and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science, would Adonay and his priests, calumniate him? Yes, Lucifer is God" - Albert Pike 33° Freemason, Morals and Dogma page 321
But Paul insists that you need hierarchy and organization and structure to spread the message effectively. You need bishops and deacons and churches and formal procedures. So he's building churches all around the Roman Empire. He's creating an organizational structure. He's establishing protocols. This is not spiritual teaching. This is institution building.
Institutionalization took 300 years and has many contributors. But primitive Christianity had organic structure. Jesus says have deacons, Matt. 20:26, 23:11; the Twelve appointed servants with this function, Acts 6:1-6 (while Saul was still threatening murderously). The Eleven count themselves bishops and establish the appointment of new ones, Acts 1:20; Peter also affirms Jesus as bishop, 1 Peter 2:25. Jesus built a church, Matt. 16:18, 18:17; the apostles affirmed it, Acts 2:47, etc.; and Luke calls the structure plural churches of the brothers right at the time Saul gets saved, Acts 9:31; and John and Jesus confirm this plural structure repeatedly in Rev. 1-3 and 22. Procedure is fluid but I don't see a special difference between Paul being procedural and any others; the biggest procedure appears to be the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where Paul and many other church leaders all had equal standing. So I can be anti-institutionalism while still affirming that Jesus wanted a little free organic structure.
The Pistis Sophia, hints at the perilous journey of the soul through realms of judgement and false lights. So, yeah I think it's literal.
Okay, will look into it in time.
By convincing the soul that it has failed, that it must return to correct its mistakes, the archons ensure the cycle of reincarnation never ends.
I can't logically conclude that. 100% of our evidence is from those who didn't stay with the light, so in all those cases the person avoids a cycle of reincarnation. As for the rest we can't use the light evidence to determine their fates because they don't return or provide evidence; we can only use general data about reincarnation. But I don't know that it's that important; verifiable facts are important.
Yes, Lucifer is also a good name. I'm just not buying the evidence that he has any creative power.
Now, I've been exploring my hesitant suggestion yesterday, and it might work, namely that the righteous might get to make a free choice as described in Romans 14. Those whose conscience doesn't want a body of flesh might, in the apokatastasis, get the right not to carry one, while those whose conscience isn't troubled might get the right to carry one, and each is fully convinced in his own conscience and neither deprecates the other. I'm still exploring whether that's a useful theology otherwise, but in this case it really breaks down the wall between traditional and gnostic views of the corruption of the present universe because everyone can get what they want.
Institutionalization took 300 years and has many contributors
I understand. Since I will be speaking about Paul here I'm including u/Thisisnotanexit But, to me Paul or Saul of Taurus was not a real person. Or if it was could have been many individuals (assets). To me Paul is nothing more than an intelligence asset working on behalf of Roman imperial interests to neutralize the most dangerous threat the empire had ever faced, Jewish fanaticism. Something that the CIA & Mossad institution at that time would create/invent. That's what they do today 2,000 years later, think of it as the MKUltra program. What was the Roman empire then is the American (including Great Britain & Israel) empire today. Pax Romana became Pax Americana. That's why you have the Fasces symbol in the U.S. Congress. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Christianity did not spread because Jesus lived long enough to build it. It spread because Paul reinterpreted him for an empire. What most believers never examine is how theology, power, and historical context quietly reshaped Jesus's message after his death. What Jesus believed and taught is fundamentally different from what Christianity teaches us about Jesus. And that gap between the man and the myth, that distance between the teacher and the religion built in his name tells us something crucial about how power works, about how empires operate, about how ideas get transformed when they become useful to those in control. Initially it could have been someone called Saul who was born in Taurus. But, in order to understand how this works, you need to understand Roman history and politics. And you need to understand the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. And in fact, at this time in history, there were individuals who possess all three sets of knowledge. They were called Hellenists in the Roman Empire. If you were a Hellenist Jew, meaning you grew up with Greek education in a Roman context, you had access to all three major knowledge systems, the Hebrew Bible, Greek philosophy, and Roman history. And someone who fits this description was Saul from Taurus.
I believe you are familiar with Acts and the feud between James the Just and Paul. So I will skip that part. But his is how the story of Paul ends. He's in Rome. He can do whatever he wants. He can preach whatever he wants and no one can touch him. So who is this man? How does he have this power? He was in Jerusalem where a mob tried to kill him. Roman soldiers rescued him. He went to Rome and he told the Jewish leaders there, don't challenge me. And they backed down. Some even converted to his version of Christianity. Who is Paul really? So let's step back and look at all the questions in the story of Paul that don't make sense if we accept the official Christian narrative. First question, who is this guy? He has tremendous power and wealth. He has direct access to Roman authority at the highest levels. This is not normal for a religious preacher. This is someone with elite connections. Reminds me of someone recently in the news, Jefferey Epstein. Who also had elite connections and no one could touch him until they couldn't suppress the truth any longer. Then Epstein vanished, I know the official story says he committed suicide.
The other thing I find fascinating about the Paul story, Paul didn't quote Jesus. You would think that if Jesus was so important to Paul that Paul would constantly quote Jesus. He would reference Jesus's teachings. He would tell stories about what Jesus said and did. But Paul rarely quotes Jesus. Jesus's teachings, Jesus's sayings, Jesus's parables. Paul doesn't use them. Why not? If you had a vision of the founder of your religion, wouldn't you want to know everything he taught? Wouldn't you study his words carefully? But Paul doesn't seem interested in what Jesus actually said. And more importantly, the message that Paul preaches is fundamentally different from what Jesus taught. Jesus believed the kingdom of God is within us. Through generosity, through mercy, through good works, we can achieve salvation. Paul teaches it's belief in Jesus that matters. Only believe. You can do as much good as you want, but if you don't believe in Jesus as a son of God who died for your sins, you'll be damned to hell. So all those Buddhists, all those Hindus, all those doists who are living compassionate lives, helping others, seek enlightenment, too bad. They're going to burn in hell forever because they don't believe the specific Christian doctrine that Paul is teaching. This goes completely against the teachings of Jesus who said, "The kingdom of God is open to everyone who does good.". Jesus never said you have to believe in me specifically. He said follow the path. Do what's right. Love your neighbor. That's enough.
Another thing that bothers me, why is Paul so focused on organization? The heart of religion should be spiritual truth, spiritual experience, direct connection with the divine. But Paul doesn't really care about that. He cares about structure. He cares about building churches. He cares about appointing bishops and deacons. He cares about establishing procedures for who's in charge and how decisions are made and how to handle internal disputes. This is not spirituality. This is institution building. This is creating a power structure. why does Paul get in trouble with the Jews? And why do the Romans always save him? In every confrontation, the pattern is the same. Jews accuse Paul. Romans protect Paul. Jews try to hurt Paul. Romans rescue Paul over and over. If Paul were just a religious teacher who happened to be be a Roman citizen, you might see this once, maybe twice, but it's a consistent pattern throughout his entire career. The Romans are always there to protect him. Always. That suggests something more than coincidence. That suggests coordination. To be fair, Christians do have an explanation. The Christian explanation is that Paul was part of God's divine plan. Jesus brought spiritual truth into the world. Jesus taught the way of salvation. But it was Paul who created the structure and organization that allowed Christianity to spread throughout the world. I'm not buying it, but nevertheless it is an explanation.
I'm going to make an analogy here with the McDonalds franchise, because I think could highlight something important. In the 1950s, McDonald's was one restaurant in California run by the McDonalds brothers. They had great hamburgers. They had a good system, but it was just one location. Then a man named Ray Kroc visited the restaurant and he saw the potential. He said to the brothers, "Let me scale this out. Let me create a franchise model. Let me convince other people to open McDonald's restaurants all across America and eventually the world.". And the brother said, "Okay.". And Ray Kroc became one of the greatest salesman in history. He drove everywhere. He held meetings. He convinced people. And because Ray Kroc was such an effective salesman, McDonald's became the largest restaurant empire in the world. The Christian narrative says it's the same with Paul. Jesus was a founder who had the true message. But Paul was a business manager who created the system that allow the message to spread. Jesus taught spiritual truth. Paul built an organization that could spread that truth to millions of people across the entire Roman Empire and eventually across the entire world. But here's a problem with this analogy. Jesus was not selling hamburgers. In fact, Jesus hated hamburgers. Metaphorically speaking, the central message of Jesus is that wealth is wrong, business is wrong, hierarchy is wrong, organization and power structures are corruptions of spiritual truth. What matters is a direct experience of the divine spark in your own heart. Jesus explicitly rejected the idea that you need intermediaries, you don't need priests, you don't need institutions, you don't need buildings, the kingdom of God is within you, it's accessible directly. So even though the Christian explanation is that Paul was Jesus's business manager, the problem is Jesus didn't want a business manager. Jesus believed that institutionalizing spirituality destroys it. Each person has to discover truth for themselves to their own inner journey.
What Jesus believed and taught is fundamentally different from what Christianity teaches us about Jesus.
So say many. All agree on following Jesus, then all diverge on what that means. The grammaticohistorical Jesus is the real Jesus, anything else is just imagination.
Jesus believed the kingdom of God is within us. Through generosity, through mercy, through good works, we can achieve salvation. Paul teaches it's belief in Jesus that matters. Only believe.
"The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21): Yes, Jesus taught the kingdom within.
"Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matt. 23:23): Yes, Jesus taught works.
"Thy faith hath saved thee" (Luke 7:50, 18:42): Jesus also taught faith.
"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9): Yes, Paul taught faith.
"The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17): Paul also taught the kingdom within.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12): Paul also taught works.
I guess I'm not seeing the dichotomy. There is a difficulty for those who think messages of faith and works are in contradiction, but classical theology resolved the tension between James and Paul long ago.
So all those Buddhists, all those Hindus, all those doists who are living compassionate lives, helping others, seek enlightenment, too bad. They're going to burn in hell forever because they don't believe the specific Christian doctrine that Paul is teaching.
That's not Paul, and Christians shouldn't teach it. Paul taught that they are judged innocent or guilty by the law found in their own hearts, Rom. 2:13-16, answering this exact objection in its original terms. Again, no dichotomy seen.
Jesus never said you have to believe in me specifically. He said follow the path.
Sorry, Dot: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1). Nothing about following paths or ways turns up, but "I am the way" (John 14:6) and "Follow me" (18 times, including John 21:19). See, those are history texts that people accept about what he actually taught and they speak for themselves, and when you use their language to say something else it invites a question as to what is meant. On structure, I'll repeat my findings:
Jesus says have deacons, Matt. 20:26, 23:11; the Twelve appointed servants with this function, Acts 6:1-6 (while Saul was still threatening murderously). The Eleven count themselves bishops and establish the appointment of new ones, Acts 1:20; Peter also affirms Jesus as bishop, 1 Peter 2:25. Jesus built a church, Matt. 16:18, 18:17; the apostles affirmed it, Acts 2:47, etc.; and Luke calls the structure plural churches of the brothers right at the time Saul gets saved, Acts 9:31; and John and Jesus confirm this plural structure repeatedly in Rev. 1-3 and 22. Procedure is fluid but I don't see a special difference between Paul being procedural and any others; the biggest procedure appears to be the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where Paul and many other church leaders all had equal standing. So I can be anti-institutionalism while still affirming that Jesus wanted a little free organic structure.
why does Paul get in trouble with the Jews?
Same reason Peter, John, and the rest got in trouble with "the Jews" before and after Paul's activity. Those Jews who didn't believe Jesus didn't believe any of his apostles.
Metaphorically speaking, the central message of Jesus is that wealth is wrong, business is wrong, hierarchy is wrong, organization and power structures are corruptions of spiritual truth. What matters is a direct experience of the divine spark in your own heart. Jesus explicitly rejected the idea that you need intermediaries, you don't need priests, you don't need institutions, you don't need buildings, the kingdom of God is within you, it's accessible directly.
Now you're getting to the meat! Some McDonald's locations sell sludge where the McDonalds had sold high-quality beef. And some blame could be laid on Kroc for that. But in this analogy, the blame falls much more on a long train of deviations from Jesus, historically documented in all 21 centuries since. Jesus on earth did appoint managers, he gave different offices to the apostles and also had many front men and sales workers to prepare some of his appearances. Paul says that his visions of Jesus were of the same kind and appeals to them as proof that Jesus did want him as a manager (not of an organization but of an organism, the living bride). The test of that vision is in what Paul did, and historically what he did was not problematic on the fronts you describe when compared to the Medicis, say, as the first example to come to mind.
So I've read it all but I don't see it as a difference between Jesus and the received Paul figure. I see it as a difference between Jesus and churchianity, from the popes on down. I'm all for constructive criticism of Christianity and restoration of the true historical Jesus, because it never lets me down and it explains exactly when and where I run with or against the institutional churches.
Exactly! I don't see anything wrong with your account so it may just be one of the site oddities. You can go to c/Meta with the alt, and try creating a post with title and text as "Test", and if that works you can change the text to whatever question you have of admin; and if it doesn't you can message the mods of Meta, which include a copy to admin, though they've been a bit slow lately. Sometimes, not always, I can find someone who can help a technically stranded user if you want me to intervene.
Funny thing, all NDEs by definition involve people choosing not to continue with the light, because if they did we wouldn't hear back from them. This logically indicates that we can't judge the light as a trap (a negative), only as an experience that most people don't leave for whatever reason. The other primary aspect of NDEs, when it's not the light, is the pain, and those who have experienced that and succeeded in not continuing with it speak of it as to be avoided, whether or not they change their lives to avoid it in the future. While we can't judge that either, the testimony of the light as "good" and the pain as "evil" is exceptionally strong, myriads of reported cases that almost always fall in one of those two categories.
Skeptically, if NDEs don't reflect ultimate truth any more than our daily experience (technically they don't), that isn't overwhelming evidence for or against a particular conclusion about them. The line of evidence I go with is that logic dictates either there is a Greatest Thing (Monad) or nothing can be said to exist (nihilism), and that perfectly aligns with the NDE evidence. If we decided to be skeptical of the NDE light, we would still have the duty to rightly reflect the Monad in us regardless, and I think that practice in life will guide us aright when the trial of death comes. So it's fine to use skepticism to pare alternatives down, but if you pare everything then Nihilism is left, and if you uphold the Monad then attributes keep emanating from it that cannot be pared away and prove it as the source of all diversity. So if reincarnation was a trap, the best remedy would be right living today, and that's pretty much of what the Hindus say and they're the deepest thinkers on reincarnation.
If the Pharisees had the (knowledge) key to escape and hid it, its evidence would still be present in their system somewhere, wouldn't it? If we take Jesus's reported teaching in gospels and apocrypha at face value, he is pretty straightforward about epignosis (and the OT has many cognate teachings, starting with binah, da'ath, mada', sekhel), that he gives it freely by revelation (Matt. 11:27, Luke 24:31). What he tells us quietly we are free to proclaim loudly. So I think that knowing the Son, emulating the Christ, is that key to knowledge, and those Pharisees (not all) who rejected their traditions about Christ were the ones who hid it.
Origen syncretized the reward/punishment afterlife with the cyclical by theorizing (though not totally committing) that the righteous soul after a period of reward might lapse back and then would enter another cycle, which might also reincarnate. What happened afterward was that his corpus was widely respected but some took the cyclic teaching heavily and the church chose to issue a condemnation that moderated two extremes: they did not condemn Origen or his teaching in particular, but they did condemn an unspecified "corrupt apokatastasis" while holding that there was a valid and incorrupt apokatastasis. So it is left ambiguous what exactly they condemned. Personally I think it was the form of the teaching where individuation is erased as a phenomenon, because they were still holding onto echoes of gilgul where individuation is respected but the oversoul is still learning collectively. The immediate reason was that removal of individual responsibility was observed to encourage licentious living and so it was very practical, not theoretical. That again goes back to the best preparation being righteous living (pursuit of truth at all costs), and then whatever awaits one is as strong as possible in the grace God gives. Particularly, the early church was, I think, unanimous that martyrs had zero fear of death, that they were sustained by visions of Christ to endure great torments and that union with Christ is a form of remembering the preexistence as a concept in the Monadic consciousness.
Now, you're proposing a narrative where a later legalist church has learned tools of control from the Roman empire, and where they play up the fear of death for this purpose, which shifts the focus of righteous living toward legalism (human-verified righteousness) rather than Christian liberty (divine-verified righteousness). That phenomenon is present but I don't see it in the Origen story. The story of all the gnostics who did teach a trap in the afterlife is, I think, separate because it was almost complete by the 3rd century and the Origen kerfuffle was quite later (you might argue that Clement of Alexandria first syncretized gnosticism into a system that later became Origenism, but it had lost all of the character you're seeing in it and only retained echoes in their sophisticated collations).
But that still leaves the core unsettled. If one doesn't know a goal, one's category would be "seeker", one who hasn't found. If one thinks advancing toward the light is a trap, and one can be confident advancing toward the pain is certainly a trap, one is seeking what other alternative there is on either NDE or Scripture or Apocrypha evidence. This leads to ternary systems but they seem to come much later and I'm not sure what analogues they have in the gnostic and proto-Christian period.
Now something fresh comes to mind, and since I'm already typing at length I'll include it. It might be possible that the "good ending" includes the choice of the best eternal existences, which would be the Pauline category "whether in the body or out of the body I can't tell". Perhaps the individual can choose to restore the matrix, in its perfected form, building from the DNA stored by the earth, or can choose the opposite, to release the DNA and to retain a pure spiritual form. That would certainly remove the chief scandal between the gnostics and the traditionals! I'd want to run that idea through a few filters, but that might be the character of what you appear to want to describe. It's not literal anywhere that "approaching light" automatically equals "flesh trap"; I've generally presumed that flesh as we know it isn't flesh as it will be revealed (here another Pauline concept intervenes, the "spiritual body"; but let's take it from Peter instead, who prophesied that even pigs can have pure, kosher bodies, Acts 10). So while the gnostics and the trads agree that the present flesh is to be deprecated, the resolution might be that we need not argue over the question of whether anyone is or isn't forced to take flesh up again (even if it's transfigured). Perhaps it's a liberty issue.
So I probably have several questions, so I'll try to focus them. So far you're narrating and really so am I. What's most unanswered to me is where the core teaching is to be found. What is the path to be taken to achieve one's heart's desire? And what is the nature of that desire? I haven't gleaned those, and at risk of being wrong I'll say it appears the path you recommend is to Know certain rules in the hope of remembering them in a postdeath confrontation, which would imply that one's duty in this life is to constantly study postdeath rules and would make it hard to live in the present. I've proposed instead that the entire life is about learning right living now and that all postdeath issues will be addressed by the preparations we make now and the patterns and disciplines that lead to the postdeath decisions. (In the same way, what I practice causes what I perceive myself doing in dreams: I have better dreams when I am practicing right living, because in the dream my unconscious habitually selects the right option without conscious will.) As to the second question, perhaps my untested suggestion that the best state is where the soul can choose its physical form or lack thereof might appeal to you. I don't know if I'd formally accept the suggestion myself, but since it has come to mind it can be tested like everything.
Last side point, just as a matter of politely requesting that you could do me a favor for my own sensibilities' sake. When you're speaking of the character you call demiurge, could you please stick to names I agree apply to that character (such as Samael or satan or Saklas), since it doesn't matter to you what you call him but it does matter to me? I only ask as an unimportant but helpful conversational bridge; if not I can accommodate but it might go slower.
I don't think it's the platform. I believe the issue is at my end. Anyway not much I can do about this for now, so I just have to live with it.
I agree "right living" is absolutely the way to go. I don't find that to be much of a challenge for me... not any longer. The first advice I would give anyone is stop lying. Don’t even tell white lies.
Possibly, but not in plain sight. And access to the Vatican Library is limited to accredited researchers. And US has something called Sensitive compartmented information (SCI). SCI is not a classification, it is high-level clearance.
IMO, the church didn't learn from the Roman empire, the church was built as an institution to serve the empire. This was one of Paul's "innovations". Paul was focused on organization and structure. Jesus and his followers were very egalitarian. They didn't believe in hierarchy and shared everything in common. They lived simply. They didn't build institutions. But Paul insists that you need hierarchy and organization and structure to spread the message effectively. You need bishops and deacons and churches and formal procedures. So he's building churches all around the Roman Empire. He's creating an organizational structure. He's establishing protocols. This is not spiritual teaching. This is institution building.
Going back to NDEs and if you read carefully their stories, the first thing you see is a light, radiant, irresistible. It draws you closer. Loved ones appear smiling, calling your name. A warmth fills you, and for a moment, you are certain this is heaven, this is home. But this may not be a light, for not all that shines is light. IMO, it is very possible this tunnel of light is a structure, a construction, a luminous snare woven by the archons to recycle you back into the cycle of death and rebirth. The comforting voices may not be your ancestors at all, but projections, illusions crafted to keep you from questioning where you truly are. The Hypostasis of the Archons talks of rulers who bind humanity in forgetfulness. The Apocryphon of John describes how the Demiurge fashioned the soul's prison, surrounding it with layers of deception. The Pistis Sophia, hints at the perilous journey of the soul through realms of judgement and false lights. So, yeah I think it's literal.
So, why does the light appear so irresistible? Why do souls return so willingly? perhaps it's the genius of the illusion. It appeals to your deepest longing, the longing to be safe, to be loved, to belong and be reunited with source. What better bait than the faces of those you cherished in life? What stronger tether than the promise of reunion? So, maybe the first part of the illusion is seduction, the dazzling light, the false reunion, then the second part is entanglement. There is a parallel with what we can observe the TPTB and their actions in our world today. The archons are forces who question, judge and weigh the soul, not to guide it toward liberation, but to bind it more tightly to the cycle of matter. Have you ever heard the sentence "life review"? NSDs describe being shown their deeds, feeling their emotions replayed, and being told that they must learn more lessons. But who is conducting this review? the archons, who are the judges, which is something that is hidden. The Gnostics would say this judgement does not come from the true source, but from the counterfeit rulers of this world. Judgement, even when it feels like it comes from the soul itself, is still part of the illusion. By convincing the soul that it has failed, that it must return to correct its mistakes, the archons ensure the cycle of reincarnation never ends. This makes sense to me, that's exactly what I would do if I was a parasite, an archon. I would want to make sure the supply of energy never ends. I think in the movie Matrix machines use humans as batteries not because humans make a good power source, but because doing this allows the machines to avoid committing genocide, as would otherwise be required by their laws.
This is not exactly correct. But, I will elaborate on this later, in a different message.
The demiurge (Greek demiurgos) is the being who created the world in Gnosticism. So, when referring to Gnostics manuscripts & texts it's very hard to replace Demiurge with something else. I'll try using Satan wherever makes sense. Outside of the Gnostics texts I have no issue using a different name. How about Lucifer, the god worshipped by Freemasons? that according to many high level Freemasons themselves. “That which we must say to a crowd is – We worship a God, but it is the God that one adores without superstition. To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th degrees – The Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian Doctrine. If Lucifer were not God, would Adonay whose deeds prove his cruelty, perfidy and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science, would Adonay and his priests, calumniate him? Yes, Lucifer is God" - Albert Pike 33° Freemason, Morals and Dogma page 321
Institutionalization took 300 years and has many contributors. But primitive Christianity had organic structure. Jesus says have deacons, Matt. 20:26, 23:11; the Twelve appointed servants with this function, Acts 6:1-6 (while Saul was still threatening murderously). The Eleven count themselves bishops and establish the appointment of new ones, Acts 1:20; Peter also affirms Jesus as bishop, 1 Peter 2:25. Jesus built a church, Matt. 16:18, 18:17; the apostles affirmed it, Acts 2:47, etc.; and Luke calls the structure plural churches of the brothers right at the time Saul gets saved, Acts 9:31; and John and Jesus confirm this plural structure repeatedly in Rev. 1-3 and 22. Procedure is fluid but I don't see a special difference between Paul being procedural and any others; the biggest procedure appears to be the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where Paul and many other church leaders all had equal standing. So I can be anti-institutionalism while still affirming that Jesus wanted a little free organic structure.
Okay, will look into it in time.
I can't logically conclude that. 100% of our evidence is from those who didn't stay with the light, so in all those cases the person avoids a cycle of reincarnation. As for the rest we can't use the light evidence to determine their fates because they don't return or provide evidence; we can only use general data about reincarnation. But I don't know that it's that important; verifiable facts are important.
Yes, Lucifer is also a good name. I'm just not buying the evidence that he has any creative power.
Now, I've been exploring my hesitant suggestion yesterday, and it might work, namely that the righteous might get to make a free choice as described in Romans 14. Those whose conscience doesn't want a body of flesh might, in the apokatastasis, get the right not to carry one, while those whose conscience isn't troubled might get the right to carry one, and each is fully convinced in his own conscience and neither deprecates the other. I'm still exploring whether that's a useful theology otherwise, but in this case it really breaks down the wall between traditional and gnostic views of the corruption of the present universe because everyone can get what they want.
I understand. Since I will be speaking about Paul here I'm including u/Thisisnotanexit But, to me Paul or Saul of Taurus was not a real person. Or if it was could have been many individuals (assets). To me Paul is nothing more than an intelligence asset working on behalf of Roman imperial interests to neutralize the most dangerous threat the empire had ever faced, Jewish fanaticism. Something that the CIA & Mossad institution at that time would create/invent. That's what they do today 2,000 years later, think of it as the MKUltra program. What was the Roman empire then is the American (including Great Britain & Israel) empire today. Pax Romana became Pax Americana. That's why you have the Fasces symbol in the U.S. Congress. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Christianity did not spread because Jesus lived long enough to build it. It spread because Paul reinterpreted him for an empire. What most believers never examine is how theology, power, and historical context quietly reshaped Jesus's message after his death. What Jesus believed and taught is fundamentally different from what Christianity teaches us about Jesus. And that gap between the man and the myth, that distance between the teacher and the religion built in his name tells us something crucial about how power works, about how empires operate, about how ideas get transformed when they become useful to those in control. Initially it could have been someone called Saul who was born in Taurus. But, in order to understand how this works, you need to understand Roman history and politics. And you need to understand the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. And in fact, at this time in history, there were individuals who possess all three sets of knowledge. They were called Hellenists in the Roman Empire. If you were a Hellenist Jew, meaning you grew up with Greek education in a Roman context, you had access to all three major knowledge systems, the Hebrew Bible, Greek philosophy, and Roman history. And someone who fits this description was Saul from Taurus.
I believe you are familiar with Acts and the feud between James the Just and Paul. So I will skip that part. But his is how the story of Paul ends. He's in Rome. He can do whatever he wants. He can preach whatever he wants and no one can touch him. So who is this man? How does he have this power? He was in Jerusalem where a mob tried to kill him. Roman soldiers rescued him. He went to Rome and he told the Jewish leaders there, don't challenge me. And they backed down. Some even converted to his version of Christianity. Who is Paul really? So let's step back and look at all the questions in the story of Paul that don't make sense if we accept the official Christian narrative. First question, who is this guy? He has tremendous power and wealth. He has direct access to Roman authority at the highest levels. This is not normal for a religious preacher. This is someone with elite connections. Reminds me of someone recently in the news, Jefferey Epstein. Who also had elite connections and no one could touch him until they couldn't suppress the truth any longer. Then Epstein vanished, I know the official story says he committed suicide.
The other thing I find fascinating about the Paul story, Paul didn't quote Jesus. You would think that if Jesus was so important to Paul that Paul would constantly quote Jesus. He would reference Jesus's teachings. He would tell stories about what Jesus said and did. But Paul rarely quotes Jesus. Jesus's teachings, Jesus's sayings, Jesus's parables. Paul doesn't use them. Why not? If you had a vision of the founder of your religion, wouldn't you want to know everything he taught? Wouldn't you study his words carefully? But Paul doesn't seem interested in what Jesus actually said. And more importantly, the message that Paul preaches is fundamentally different from what Jesus taught. Jesus believed the kingdom of God is within us. Through generosity, through mercy, through good works, we can achieve salvation. Paul teaches it's belief in Jesus that matters. Only believe. You can do as much good as you want, but if you don't believe in Jesus as a son of God who died for your sins, you'll be damned to hell. So all those Buddhists, all those Hindus, all those doists who are living compassionate lives, helping others, seek enlightenment, too bad. They're going to burn in hell forever because they don't believe the specific Christian doctrine that Paul is teaching. This goes completely against the teachings of Jesus who said, "The kingdom of God is open to everyone who does good.". Jesus never said you have to believe in me specifically. He said follow the path. Do what's right. Love your neighbor. That's enough.
Another thing that bothers me, why is Paul so focused on organization? The heart of religion should be spiritual truth, spiritual experience, direct connection with the divine. But Paul doesn't really care about that. He cares about structure. He cares about building churches. He cares about appointing bishops and deacons. He cares about establishing procedures for who's in charge and how decisions are made and how to handle internal disputes. This is not spirituality. This is institution building. This is creating a power structure. why does Paul get in trouble with the Jews? And why do the Romans always save him? In every confrontation, the pattern is the same. Jews accuse Paul. Romans protect Paul. Jews try to hurt Paul. Romans rescue Paul over and over. If Paul were just a religious teacher who happened to be be a Roman citizen, you might see this once, maybe twice, but it's a consistent pattern throughout his entire career. The Romans are always there to protect him. Always. That suggests something more than coincidence. That suggests coordination. To be fair, Christians do have an explanation. The Christian explanation is that Paul was part of God's divine plan. Jesus brought spiritual truth into the world. Jesus taught the way of salvation. But it was Paul who created the structure and organization that allowed Christianity to spread throughout the world. I'm not buying it, but nevertheless it is an explanation.
I'm going to make an analogy here with the McDonalds franchise, because I think could highlight something important. In the 1950s, McDonald's was one restaurant in California run by the McDonalds brothers. They had great hamburgers. They had a good system, but it was just one location. Then a man named Ray Kroc visited the restaurant and he saw the potential. He said to the brothers, "Let me scale this out. Let me create a franchise model. Let me convince other people to open McDonald's restaurants all across America and eventually the world.". And the brother said, "Okay.". And Ray Kroc became one of the greatest salesman in history. He drove everywhere. He held meetings. He convinced people. And because Ray Kroc was such an effective salesman, McDonald's became the largest restaurant empire in the world. The Christian narrative says it's the same with Paul. Jesus was a founder who had the true message. But Paul was a business manager who created the system that allow the message to spread. Jesus taught spiritual truth. Paul built an organization that could spread that truth to millions of people across the entire Roman Empire and eventually across the entire world. But here's a problem with this analogy. Jesus was not selling hamburgers. In fact, Jesus hated hamburgers. Metaphorically speaking, the central message of Jesus is that wealth is wrong, business is wrong, hierarchy is wrong, organization and power structures are corruptions of spiritual truth. What matters is a direct experience of the divine spark in your own heart. Jesus explicitly rejected the idea that you need intermediaries, you don't need priests, you don't need institutions, you don't need buildings, the kingdom of God is within you, it's accessible directly. So even though the Christian explanation is that Paul was Jesus's business manager, the problem is Jesus didn't want a business manager. Jesus believed that institutionalizing spirituality destroys it. Each person has to discover truth for themselves to their own inner journey.
So say many. All agree on following Jesus, then all diverge on what that means. The grammaticohistorical Jesus is the real Jesus, anything else is just imagination.
"The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21): Yes, Jesus taught the kingdom within.
"Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matt. 23:23): Yes, Jesus taught works.
"Thy faith hath saved thee" (Luke 7:50, 18:42): Jesus also taught faith.
"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9): Yes, Paul taught faith.
"The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17): Paul also taught the kingdom within.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12): Paul also taught works.
I guess I'm not seeing the dichotomy. There is a difficulty for those who think messages of faith and works are in contradiction, but classical theology resolved the tension between James and Paul long ago.
That's not Paul, and Christians shouldn't teach it. Paul taught that they are judged innocent or guilty by the law found in their own hearts, Rom. 2:13-16, answering this exact objection in its original terms. Again, no dichotomy seen.
Sorry, Dot: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1). Nothing about following paths or ways turns up, but "I am the way" (John 14:6) and "Follow me" (18 times, including John 21:19). See, those are history texts that people accept about what he actually taught and they speak for themselves, and when you use their language to say something else it invites a question as to what is meant. On structure, I'll repeat my findings:
Same reason Peter, John, and the rest got in trouble with "the Jews" before and after Paul's activity. Those Jews who didn't believe Jesus didn't believe any of his apostles.
Now you're getting to the meat! Some McDonald's locations sell sludge where the McDonalds had sold high-quality beef. And some blame could be laid on Kroc for that. But in this analogy, the blame falls much more on a long train of deviations from Jesus, historically documented in all 21 centuries since. Jesus on earth did appoint managers, he gave different offices to the apostles and also had many front men and sales workers to prepare some of his appearances. Paul says that his visions of Jesus were of the same kind and appeals to them as proof that Jesus did want him as a manager (not of an organization but of an organism, the living bride). The test of that vision is in what Paul did, and historically what he did was not problematic on the fronts you describe when compared to the Medicis, say, as the first example to come to mind.
So I've read it all but I don't see it as a difference between Jesus and the received Paul figure. I see it as a difference between Jesus and churchianity, from the popes on down. I'm all for constructive criticism of Christianity and restoration of the true historical Jesus, because it never lets me down and it explains exactly when and where I run with or against the institutional churches.