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An Inside Look at Stauros' Sophic Church

Aria Wellings January 17, 2037

Across the world, all eyes have been on the Republic of Stauros and the first steps of its so-called "unbreakable" stride- a hopeful euphemism for what in fact amounts to the unlawful annexation of its southern neighbors- and yet despite this, few have been able to glimpse inside two of the largest gears in Stauros' war machine: Ascension and the Sophic Church of Stauros.

Last month, we covered Ascension's organizational structure and the way that it has fed off of the Stauronian military-industrial complex into a private extension of the state, and we touched on its role as a coffer for the Sophic Church. This month's piece, however, is more focused on the church itself.

The story of the Sophic Church begins with what is now being called Third Awakening: the gradual rise in spirituality, magical thinking and religiosity that followed the tumult of the 10s and 20s. To learn more about it, check out our partners over at Sects Sell, who have an excellent series on the subject.

In the mid 10s, several grassroots Gnostic revival movements came together to form a single ecclesiastical society, united in their desire to dismantle current institutions and build something new. In the original structure, each of the seven movements would have a delegate on a unified council to handle various organizational concerns. By 2019, the organization had matured to the point that they united as a single church, and while the different sects' beliefs would not be fully syncretized until the reformation, July 13 of 2019 saw the foundation of the Sophic Church.

This early iteration of the Church is very different from the Church we know today. In keeping with its grassroots movement, each pastor was responsible for their own messaging and interpretation of the scripture, with the corollary that it could not directly contradict the Church's common doctrine. There was no discrete stratification, no questionable history, and significantly less secrecy.

Like so many other religious organizations, the 20s saw the Sophic Church expand rapidly, and it was during that expansion that something about the Church changed. With an ever growing tithing base providing consistent low-yield high-longevity capital, expanding its various premises to accommodate the sheer amount of churchgoers meant that they looked to outside investment. This is where Eliza Watts comes in— the same Eliza Watts who we mentioned last month when discussing the origins of Ascension, the Stauronian behemoth that handles everything from defense contracts to mineral processing.

Watts got her start in the late aughts as a financial advisor, leading the companies that she worked with to great success in exchange for a portion of their holdings. After the Great Recession, however, Watts found herself with no stable employment but an abundance of wealth, which saw her take up the role of a venture capitalist.

Watts developed a history of what can generously be called questionable investments prior to her involvement with the Church, mostly in wellness startups that quickly generated a large amount of revenue before drying up at an unusual pace— typically no longer than 18 months after Watts had sold her shares. She had dodged a number of fraud allegations but developed a reputation, and as other potential investors began to question the real value of Watts' holdings, she saw a marked decrease in her ability to exit these startups profitably. This meant that when the Sophic Church began looking for investors, Watts had become very, very interested.

While Watts' reputation was not unknown to the Church's leadership, the risks that losing her support might impose were far less than a startup in a similar position, as their tithing base would be far more loyal than simple customers. Furthermore, with the influx of money that would come from their congregation, they found themselves in need of a skilled financial advisor.

At the same time, within the Church leadership there were stirrings of discontent. Aiden Zoe, named for his patron Aeon (essentially a gnostic deity— an expression of the godhead), led his branch to become far and away the most popular of any of the seven. This would be unilaterally good news for the Church, if his teachings had not begun to stray from official doctrine. Other leaders of the Church questioned his faith, but were not prepared to risk alienating the large congregation that he had assembled by denouncing him— particularly not when faced with the potential for Eliza Watt to drive them into the ground after she grew tired of them.

While the internal politics of the Church at this point were generally kept under wraps, the eventual solution came in the form of the Reformation. Aiden, Watts, and a few more shrewd of the council worked together to reform the Church's doctrine, structure, and even compile books of scriptures.

This would eventually lead to the Sophic Church, and to help paint us a picture of the Church as it exists now, I spoke with a former member, who has requested that their identity not be revealed. I've transcribed our interview as follows.

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Aria Wellings: Good afternoon! Former Member: Afternoon to you, too.

AW: To start with, I was wondering if you could expound a bit more on what you mentioned when you first messaged me, about how the Church had changed since you joined it initially?

FM: See, you have to understand that in the earlier days of the Church, each of the seven branches tended to their own. Sure we agreed on parts of the Church's common doctrine, but we all drew from different scriptures, we had different internal organization, and we appealed to different kinds of folk. Aiden's branch, the one that the Church today was modeled after, was nothing like the others.

AW: How so?

FM: For one, a lot of what he preached didn't have any basis in history, in scripture, in anything really. He didn't call himself a prophet— no grifter worth their salt does— but others did, and so a prophet he became. Before he started running it, his branch was modeled after the Valentinians, but it was still a fairly tempered interpretation, you know? The thing about Aiden was that he had an eye for what people would latch onto. He was a performer, but he was more than just that. He could read people and give them exactly what. You didn't have to be a genius to pick up that there was a lot of animosity towards Christianity in those days, but he made good use of it by selling heresies.

AW: Sort of a modern day LaVey, then?

FM: He was certainly as charismatic, but I think that's a bad comparison if only because Satanism never had teeth. Unless you were really sold on the idea of Christians being persecuted, no one after the aughts really believed that the Satanists were sincere. It was all for show. You give someone raised Christian a bite of the Ophidians, now that's capital H heresy that'll send them reeling, and for Aiden that was something he could use.

AW: It sounds like you were against it? Aren't these just tenets of your faith?

FM: There's a difference between preaching something and using it as a selling point.

AW: That's definitely true— but how was his branch actually different besides him?

FM: Like I said, he incorporated everything that he could sensationalize, and part of that was the hierarchy. The Valentinians had it, sure, but he made himself an arbiter of it. He used it to make his people feel special, so they'd come back and get more affirmation. The people who might make a fuss, he used it as a basis to kick them out.

AW: I'm not familiar with this "hierarchy". Would you mind clarifying? The Church has become pretty famously opaque for non-members.

FM: Oh, I know. That was his and Watts' doing, writing the books, restricting access. They turned it into a cult, because what else could they do to reach the people who didn't want to be reached?

FM: To answer your question, though, the Valentinians say that there's three classes of people: the hylikoi, the psychikoi, and the pneumatikoi. The hylikoi are of the body, they have no hope of achieving gnosis. The psychikoi are of the mind, they are able to achieve gnosis, and with it salvation, while the pneumatikoi are the ones who are of the spirit, and are enlightened. What Aiden and Watts did, they took these categorizations and turned them into something like ranks, but I personally think of it as a caste.

AW: A caste system? Really?

FM: Really. See, Aiden wrote two books: the Blind Word, essentially just his "secret history of gnosticism", and the Light of Revelation, a cosmological treatise on the nature of the monad, the Aeons, the Archons, everything else.

FM: If you're hylikoi, a nonbeliever, an apostate, or anyone who hasn't taken the first sacrament, you can't read the Blind Word. It's not provided, and trying to get around the first sacrament will get you banned from the Church. You can have it taught to you, but that's it. That first sacrament is called the Grace of Salt, it's an annual thing where the leader judges your worthiness in front of the entire congregation. But here's the rub: the criteria are left to the congregation's leader, and they're under no obligation to explain themselves.

AW: So even if you're perfectly devout...

FM: If you're in any way undesirable, they'll never let you in further.

AW: Wow. So what happens if you get in?

FM: Then you become psychikoi. It's essentially letting you be a member of the Church, have access to the Blind Word, but not much else. I'd say that probably 75, 80 percent of people who attend services are psychikoi.

AW: That makes sense. But you said that psychikoi only have the potential for gnosis. what do you have to do to become pneumatikoi?

FM: Oh, that's a process. See, there's three types of pneumatikoi, according to the Church: the pneumatikoi syzygia, who are the highest, the garden variety pneumatikoi, and pneumatikoi orasika. You start by becoming an orasika, proving that you've memorized the entirety of the Blind Word as part of a three-day-long ritual called the Scales of Mercury. Once you've done that, a pneumatikos becomes your sponsor, who teaches you the Light of Revelation for a year, after which point you become baptized and choose a new name— they call this the Advent of Sulfur, and this ritual lasts for an entire week.

AW: So essentially, unless you devote years of your life to the Church, you're not going to heaven?

FM: Not quite heaven, but I'd rather not argue the finer points here.

AW: So what about the last one, the syzygia?

FM: That's where you draw your leaders for the Church from, where you get the most eager pastors and where the Heptarchy come from. For that, you undergo the nymphon sacrament— essentially a marriage bed shared with an Aeon, who's name you take as your surname.

AW: You don't mean the marriage bed in the literal sense I assume?

FM: I never participated in that ritual, and never saw it performed. It's one of the Church's most sacred rituals, and unlike the rest of Aiden's work, it's based on a historical practice.

AW: I see. Unfortunately, we're beginning to run out of time, but this was incredibly enlightening, and I'd love to perform another interview with you in the future!

FM: Of course. If I can get people to see that the Church isn't what it claims to be, then maybe we can have a chance for something more honest to come about. ---

And there you have it: an exclusive interview with a former Sophic with extensive knowledge of the Church's history and inner workings.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below and I'll be happy to answer to the best of my ability!

This is Aria Wellings with The Kea, a monthly digest serving Aoteroa and everywhere else

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