#gnostism

[character-of-all-time]

ROUND 1: THE DEMIURGE (gnosticism) VS YELLOW GUY (dont hug me im scared)

#demiurge #gnostism #dhmis #dont hug me im scared #yellow guy #tournament #now kill #h1

[sandypuggames]

HELL IS A PRISON - BREAK ITS BARS

HELLPIERCERS is a tactics TTRPG like no other. Gnostic-ascended demi-god Humanity has slain the false demiurge, reclaimed its divinity, and has set its communist sights against the last prison in existence - HELL 4E/Lancer inspired grid-combat paired with a rich and deep map game strategy layer bringing complex faction mechanics together ocean-deep customization options so that every Gnostic Warrior-Poet-God is utterly unique. The biggest Sandy Pug Games project yet, with art from @jnbutlerart and @leafie-draws, as well as pixel illustrations from @raul-volp2, HELLPIERCERS will be one of the most gloriously illustrated tomes in TTRPGs and we're on Kickstarter, right now.

Edit: Now fully funded and in our last 2 weeks!

#indie ttrpgs #kickstarter #crowdfunding #hellpiercers #gnostism #tactical rpg #map game

[shadowedexistens]

#kundalini #kabbalah #illustration #sketch #drawing #spiritual art #gnostism #gnosticism #spirituality #occultism #art

[kingoftheu]

#the owl house #owl house #emperor belos #the owl house belos #Belos #the owl house phillip wittebane #wittebane brothers #philip whittebane #belos is philip #jesus christ #christianity #gnostic christianity #gnostic teachings #gnosticism #gnostism #papa titan #king’s dad #titan #titans

[teenageascetic]

"Then Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that you are greatly loved by the Saviour, more than any other woman. Tell us those words of His that you remember, the things which you know and we don't, the teachings we never heard."

Mary answered, saying: "What is hidden from you I shall reveal to you. Whatever is unknown to you, and I remember, I will tell you."

And she began saying these words to them.

She said, "Once I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him:

'Lord, Rabouni, now I see you in this vision.

He answered me and said: 'Blessed are you Mary, for you do not waver at the sight of me. How wonderful you are! For this is where the treasure lies - in the nous, that place where heaven and earth meet, where deep understanding arises in the heart and mind."

I asked him this: 'Now tell me Lord, how does a person see such a vision, is it through their soul or through the Spirit?

asked him this: 'Now tell me Lord, how does a person see such a vision, is it through their soul or through the Spirit?

The Saviour answered: 'It is neither through the soul nor through the Spirit, but through the nous, the understanding which arises between the two, that is how the vision is seen."

-Gospel of Mary page 10.

#books #history #literature #religion #theology #mysticism #esotericism #religious #gnosticism #gnosis #gnostic teachings #gnostic gospel #gospel of mary #gnostic writing #esoterica #esoteric #gnostism #gnostic christianity #secret teaching #book quotes #book #reading #aesthetic #christian aesthetic #religious aesthetic #religious imagery #mary magdalene #ldr #ldr aesthetic #lan del rey

[the-frosty-mac]

Elder Scrolls 🤝 Homestuck

Complex metanarratives and deconstructions of their respective mediums hidden behind the veils of “normal” genres (open world fantasy rpg and point-and-click adventure game respectively) that take massive inspiration from gnostic myth and where the line between official media and fan media is way blurrier than you might expect.

Yaldabaoth is Caliborn is Lorkhan is Talos is Lord English is the Demiurge.

#homestuck #elder scrolls #tes #hiveswap #gnostism #the elder scrolls #morrowind #skyrim

[luceveritas]

Matter.

What is matter? Will it last forever? “All that is born, all that is created, all the elements of nature are interwoven and united with each other. All that is composed shall be decomposed; everything returns to its roots; matter returns to the origin of matter.” (The Gospel of Mary Magdalene) ✨

#gospel of mary #mary #mary magdalene #gnosticism #gnostic christianity #gnostic teachings #gnostism #gnostic gospels

[faerlithalgnomii]

#amberlynn reid #william blake #urizen #old #oc #chaos magick #gnostism

[chidorianima]

Magna Mater by Mathew William Webb.

#mother goddess #art #religion #gnostism #20th century #19th century

[arahith]

Gnosticism and The Locked Tomb

This got real long, real quick so I’m putting it under a cut, but if you’re at all interested in how the beliefs of a heretical sect of early Christianity mirror the events of the Locked Tomb series (i.e. how John’s boner means he’s the demiurge), please, read on!!

(Heads up! Gnosticism, like much of early Christianity, has anti-semitism baked in! It’s still an interesting theological lens to critique The Locked Tomb through, but just be aware that if you wanna dig deeper you’re gonna have some yikes moments!)

(Also heads up! Spoilers for Nona the Ninth ahead!)

(Also Also heads up! I am not a scholar on early Christian heresies! Take what I say with a grain of salt!)

So what is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism holds that there is an original hidden spiritual God and a not so nice lesser God (the demiurge) who did the creation of the material world thing. Humans can gain salvation through personal spiritual knowledge of the secret divine within themselves (gnosis) and denial of the material world. The school of thought took hold in a bunch of religions ‘round the Mediterranean at about the time that Christianity was starting to get a foothold (100-200 CE-ish).

However we’re gonna focus in on Christian Gnosticism for this post because The Locked Tomb is chockablock full of references to Christianity in specific. For Gnostic Christians, the God of the Old Testament is the malevolent creator God and Jesus is a messenger from the OG God sent down into the material world to guide people to divine knowledge. This eventually got branded a heresy and the Gnostics got booted from the club. (For a deeper dive into Gnosticism’s cosmology check out the Apocryphon of John, also known as the Secret Book of John. It’s WILD.)

Ok, but what does that have to do with The Locked Tomb Series?

Well, if you look at Jod as, not the Jesus figure he paints himself to be, but rather as a gnostic Old Testament God figure and Nona as a Jesus figure, it has an awful fucking lot.

In both GtN and HtN we get a lot of comparisons between John and Christ. First off the whole resurrects-the-dead-and-is-the-savior-of-the-universe thing? Classic Jesus. “The God who became man, and the man who became God” (HtN pg. 24) title is incredibly similar to the titles “Son of God” and “Son of Man” which are sometimes used together to describe the duality of Christ. His description of how his friends (later his lyctors) came to him and stuck by him through the end of the world paints them as disciple figures. Hell, they’re even called “saints” (GtN pg. 405). All the times John tries to get them to eat together in HtN have a very Last Supper vibe (especially once he’s betrayed with a kiss). 

But who’s the one shaping this narrative? John himself. He’s the one who crafted his titles, the titles of his “Saints”, the whole belief system of the empire was shaped by him. Before the Resurrection he certainly knows who Jesus was and afterwards he intentionally paints himself as this world’s Christ.*

John’s actions, however, paint him as a gnostic Old Testament God. For starters he made Alecto from “the dirt, my blood, my vomit, my bone.” (pg. 408) just like in Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” He is vengeful, wiping the whole world clean with nukes just like the flood. Just look at Genesis 6:13 (The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them.) and tell me that isn’t 100% John about to destroy the entire solar system to get back at a few hundred escaping billionaires. Later he leads his chosen people to bloody victory after bloody victory just like God leading his people back out of Egypt into Canaan. In that vein Canaan House is the promised land for his lyctors, his most loved people. 

In addition to all this John and his kingdom are described in very lush, materialistic, fleshy terms. From the intricate description of the doorways to the necromancer/cavaliear’s quarters (GtN pg. 96-97) to the pristine and showy regalia of Ianthe and Kiriona (NtN pg. 207) the emphasis is placed on the material instead of the spiritual. Even John’s proclivity to be the fandom bicycle fits into him being a demiurge figure. Sex was a huge no-no for gnostics. (The Acts of Thomas, another piece of gnostic apocrypha, has a whole story where it’s totally understandable to murder your girlfriend if she gets too horny.)

So if John is a demiurge figure instead of a Christ figure, who is Christ?

Nona! If you thought Muir was being a bit obvious with the John as Jesus signs, wait until you see how she writes Nona.

First off, if you’re talking humble, born-in-a-manger lifestyles, Nona’s got that. Pyrrha, Palamedes, and Camilla are constantly working their asses off to find enough food to eat. Their idea of splurging, after selling months’ worth of hoarded cigarettes, is some stale meat-filled pastries (NtN pg. 104). 

Nona is also held up as an apocalyptic savior figure by those around her. Blood of Eden sees her as a weapon, their own personal lyctor, who will swing the war in their favor and bring down the end of the empire. In early Christianity, Jesus’s proclamation that he would be back to save them and rain down destruction on those who persecute them was taken to mean he would be back literally any day now. “The stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”(Mark 13:25-26) and  “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man” (Mark 13:32). For the first couple of centuries of Christianity everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for the apocalypse and imminent salvation just like the Blood of Eden and their creeping deadline for results from Nona (NtN pg.155). 

One of Nona’s defining characteristics is her innocence. She’s 6 months old and a clean slate before that. She’s only ever had 3 tantrums and even in the one we see, she’s not moved by any sinister motives, just pure animal fear and anger (NtN pg. 275). Jesus is (usually) seen as pure and sinless, a blameless sacrificial lamb for the sins of mankind. 

Perhaps most obviously, Nona dies and is placed in the tomb, only to rise again.**

But what makes her a gnostic figure rather than a standard Christ figure is how Alecto, how knowledge of the divine, was in her all along and she only needed to remember to transcend herself and become something more. 

Ok, but what does this mean?

I don’t know!! But isn’t it interesting??

For one thing the series isn’t over. Things may happen that completely overturn this analysis in AtN. And for another thing Muir is a very good writer. It’s not as simple as antagonist-shaped peg fits into demiurge-shaped hole. It’s not a moralizing tale where all materiality is bad and all spirituality is good. John is a sympathetic and loving character in addition to being an absolute fucknugget. Nona is too comfortable in her innocence instead of truly owning up to the consequences of her actions. NtN doesn’t paint Nona’s moment of gnosis (her return to Alecto) as a wholly good thing. It recognizes what is lost and cherishes it. Divine knowledge is at best a bittersweet and profoundly uncanny thing. But that’s what’s so good about the books: They’re complicated.

However, given her proclivity to reference biblical sources, I think it’s a worthwhile activity to investigate the text with more obscure Christian philosophies in mind. If nothing else, it’s really fun.

--------------------------------------------------------------

* An argument could be made that he is a failed Christ figure instead of just a false Christ figure. The line on page 471 in NtN “For she so loved the world that she had given them John” is almost word for word John 3:16 and is not influenced by him at all.

** While not evidence of Nona being a gnostic Christ figure, Muir’s mirroring of famous depictions of the passion of Jesus in those final scenes down in the depths of the Ninth is wicked clever. It’s not an exact match in posture to a traditional Pietà (depiction of Mary cradling the dead Christ) but Pyrrha carrying Nona down from the megatruck (NtN pg. 443-459) and then her and Paul talking to Nona while she lay by the heater (NtnN pg. 459-462) very strongly call up the Pietà vibe (Fig. 1, Pietà by Titian, 1576). But the bit where she’s carried “Kiriona’s arms beneath her shoulders, Pyrrha’s beneath her hips.” (NtN pg. 470) is exactly the way the Deposition (taking Jesus off the cross) is always depicted. (Fig. 2, The Deposition by Michelangelo, 1555)

*** Ok, I know there isn’t anything this references back to in the body of the post, but you’re still reading, which means you’re still interested. If apocrypha, heresies, and the history of the bible interest you (or you just want to bone up on all these bible references before Alecto comes out) then you should check out Apocrypals! It’s a podcast where 2 non-believers read through the bible and try not to be jerks about it. Not only is it incredibly engaging, it’s also funny as fuck and one of my fav podcasts ever.

#the locked tomb #Nona the Ninth #nona spoilers #gnostism #gideon the ninth #im sorry this got so long im just very excitable

[opallotus]

All will speak individually of where they have come from and how they were set in the place of rest. They will quickly return and receive from that place, the place where they once stood. They will taste of that place, be fed, and grow. And their own place of rest is their fullness. All the emanations from the father are fullnesses. All his emanations have their roots in the one who made them all grow out of himself. He assigned their destinies. They all were seen to be perfected in their own thought. That place their thought reaches is their root. It makes them soar to the father. They reach his head, which is their rest, and they stay near it and, as it were, touch him and kiss his face.

They are the ones who possess something majestic, some part of immeasurable greatness, as they strain toward the singular and perfect One who is there for them. They do not descend into Hades. They have neither envy nor moaning, nor is death in them. But they rest in him who rests, without weariness or confusion about truth. They are truth, and the father is in them, and they are in the father, since they are perfect, inseparable from him who is good. Such is the place of the blessed. This is their place.

Children like this the father loves.

—The Gospel of Truth

#the gospel of truth #gnostism #dharma #philosophy

[loneberry]

Mary Magdalene with myrrh and a red egg

“According to tradition, after Jesus' Ascension into heaven, the Magdalene—a wealthy woman of some importance—boldly presented herself to the Emperor Tiberius Caesar in Rome to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ, with an egg in hand to illustrate her message.

“Holding the egg out to him, she exclaimed for the first time what is now the universal Easter proclamation among Christians, "Christ is risen!"

“The emperor, mocking her, said that Jesus had no more risen than the egg in her hand was red. Immediately, the egg turned red as a sign from God to illustrate the truth of her message. …

“Why would Mary Magdalene bring an egg to talk about Jesus with the Roman Emperor?

“In another tradition, it is said that Mary Magdalene brought a basket of white boiled eggs with her on Easter morning to the tomb of Jesus—perhaps as a meal for herself and the others as they waited for someone to roll the stone away. When she arrived at the site of the Resurrection, finding the stone already rolled away, she also found that the eggs in her basket had turned into bright shades of color.”

.

.

From one mystical egg girl to another.

The story of the lost (“gnostic” but not really) Gospel of Mary Magdalene. I love this YouTuber’s content.

#religon #mary magdalene #gnostism #christianity #easter #myrrh #eggs #orthodox christianity #Youtube

[artofthemindblog]

Umberto Eco on Fascist Perennialism

  “The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counter-revolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of them indulgently accepted by the Roman Pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had  remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages – in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little known religions of Asia. 

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice"; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a silver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth. 

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism. 

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.”

--Umberto Eco, Ur Fascism

#umberto eco #ur fascism #Fascism #Traditionalism #Perennialism #Gnostism #Gnosis #neoplatonism #antiplatonism #western esotericism #prisca theologia #syncretism #mysticism #marx and mysticism

[lolipop1920art]

Barbelo and Sophia

This still makes me happy.

Some Gnostic beings

#gnostism #My art #cw eye

[shadowedexistens]

#spiritual #art #gnostism #occultism #enlightment #abstract #sketch #pencil #space #galaxy art #drawing

[totallyuncool01]

Everything we know, everything we experience, everything around us is fanfic written by the gods.

#metaphysics #gnostism #partytime