Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. This week we’re going to review the relationship between fractal consciousness and the outflow of consciousness through Logos and the Aeons, and how the consciousness of Logos led to the Fall. I’ll be reading several verses from the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi books.
If you are new to Gnostic Insights, don’t worry about grasping everything I say. Just listen and go with the flow. The gnosis will reveal itself, so relax.
AEONS
“Each one of the aeons is a name, <that is>, each of the properties and powers of the Father, since he exists in many names, which are intermingled and harmonious with one another. It is possible to speak of him because of the wealth of speech, just as the Father is a single name, because he is a unity, yet is innumerable in his properties and names…”
The Aeons of the Fullness of God became self-aware by the giving of praise and glory to the Father. This giving of glory is not for God’s benefit, but for the Aeon’s benefit. It gave them a righteous task to perform alongside their neighbors, which brought them to self-awareness and gave each of them a unique identity. The Aeons are innumerable because they reflect the totality of an infinite consciousness.
“… the aeon of the Truth, since it is a unity and multiplicity, receives honor in the small and the great names according to the power of each to grasp it – by way of analogy – like a spring which is what it is, yet flows into streams and lakes and canals and branches, or like a root spread out beneath trees and branches with its fruit, or like a human body, which is partitioned in an indivisible way into members of members, primary members and secondary, great and small.”
LOGOS
The final Aeon that was produced as an emanation of the Pleroma of the Fullness arose by all of the Aeons giving glory together. The Fullness thus produced a final Aeon whom the Tripartite Tractate calls by the name Logos. Because Logos was produced through the entirety of the Pleroma giving glory as one, this Aeon possessed within itself all of the characteristics of the entire Pleroma.
This youngest Aeon carried within itself all of the traits of every other Aeon, perfect and complete. This was a very talented Aeon resembling the Son of God himself, who also carried all of the traits of the Aeons within its singular self. This final Aeon was named Logos, because he was also endowed with the ability to reason thoughtfully and to figure things out in a step-by-step manner. The word Logos in Greek means reason.
“This aeon was among those to whom was given wisdom, so that he could become pre-existent in each one’s thought. By that which he wills, will they be produced. Therefore, he received a wise nature in order to examine the hidden basis, since he is a wise fruit…”
All of the Aeons have free will, because the Father has free will and everything that emanates from the Father carries the attributes of the Father. The Tripartite Tractate says,
“for, the free will which was begotten with the Totalities was a cause for this one,” (this one being Logos), “such as to make him do what he desired, with no one to restrain him.”
“This aeon was last to have <been> brought forth by mutual assistance, and he was small in magnitude,” [referring, I think, to this concept of fractal iterations…]
“In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illustrated in successive magnifications of the Mandelbrot set. This exhibition of similar patterns at increasingly smaller scales is called self-similarity, also known as expanding symmetry or unfolding symmetry; if this replication is exactly the same at every scale, as in the Menger sponge, the shape is called affine self-similar.” [wikipedia]
The construction of a Menger sponge can be described as follows:
Begin with a cube.
Divide every face of the cube into nine squares in a similar manner to a Rubik’s Cube. This sub-divides the cube into 27 smaller cubes.
Remove the smaller cube in the middle of each face and remove the smaller cube in the center of the larger cube, leaving 20 smaller cubes. This is a level 1 Menger sponge (resembling a void cube).
Repeat steps two and three for each of the remaining smaller cubes and continue to iterate ad infinitum.
The second iteration gives a level 2 sponge, the third iteration gives a level 3 sponge, and so on. The Menger sponge itself is the limit of this process after an infinite number of iterations.
The reason we’re talking about fractals is because consciousness is a fractal. Consciousness rolls out from the Father very much in the manner of any other fractal, where you have the Father’s consciousness to begin with, and then it keeps dividing, dividing, dividing, dividing. It eventually winds up in us, in a fractal matter. And so we carry all of the attributes of the original pattern of the Father. We are fractals of the Father. The Aeons are fractals of the Father. Logos carried within himself fractals of the Father.
THE FALL
“The intent, then, of the Logos, who is this one, was good. When he had come forth, he gave glory to the Father, even if it led to something beyond possibility, since he had wanted to bring forth one who is perfect, from an agreement in which he had not been, and without having the command.”
“And before he begot anything else for the glory of the will and in agreement with the Totalities, he acted, magnanimously, from an abundant love, and set out toward that which surrounds the perfect glory…”
Thomassen translates the word “magnanimously” in the scripture above as “presumptuously.”
“And before he had yet produced anything to the glory of the Will and in the union of the members of the ALL, he acted presumptuously, out of an overflowing love, and rushed forward toward that which surrounds the realm of perfect glory.”
Given that translation, the movement that resulted in the Fall was presumptuous thought, which is a pretty good synonym for Ego. Yet the intention of Logos was good.
The Tripartite Tractate is unique in its gentle assessment of not blaming Logos for the Fall. The book says that this act of disobedience by Logos was within the will of the Father after all, and it was necessary to usher in an organization that needed to come forth “for the revelation of the Fullness.”
The Tripartite Tractate says,
“for it was not without the will of the Father that the Logos was produced, which is to say, not without it will he go forth. But he, the Father, had brought him forth for those about whom he knew that it was fitting that they should come into being”
So what that passage just said is that Logos, with that capability of acting on his own through will and reaching for the Father and instigating the Fall, was actually within the will of the Father after all. But it was like a secret. Because the Father brought Logos forth. The Father made Logos with all of the capabilities in order to bring us into being. So this was a necessary step. The Fall was a necessary step to usher in materiality out of the ethereal beings.
The Father knew what would happen and the Father found it fitting that Logos should be conceived as he was and take the action that he did. The Father knew that this was the path that would lead to material creation—the economy that was to come—
“so that the things which have come to be might become an organization which would come into being.”
What these verses are saying is the Fall of Logos was needed in order to create the next generation of fractals of the Aeons. This next generation of fractal iterations of the consciousness of the Father, the Son, and the Fullness would come into being in order that the Fullness would be revealed through them. We could say that it is through the Fruit that came from the Fullness into Fall that a new material Hierarchy of God on Earth was created. Logos doubtless thought he was going to instantiate Paradise with his Egoic act. What came instead was a Fall from the Fullness and the first experience of estrangement from the Father.
This, then, is the gnostic version of the original Fall, a movement of Ego away from reason, logic, interdependence, duty, and place, which led to the creation of this material universe.
You may wonder why we spend time figuring out things that happened so long ago that our universe wasn’t even created yet. The reason is because of that oft-repeated maxim: as above, so below. Logos may have been the first to let his Ego lead him astray but he was certainly not the last.
ARCHONS
“The Logos himself caused it to happen, being complete and unitary, for the glory of the Father, whom he desired, and (he did so) being content with it, but those whom he wished to take hold of firmly he begot in shadows and copies and likenesses. For, he was not able to bear the sight of the light, but he looked into the depth and he doubted. Out of this there was a division – he became deeply troubled – and a turning away because of his self-doubt and division, forgetfulness and ignorance of himself and <of that> which is.”
“Like the Pleromas are the things which came into being from the arrogant thought, which are their (the Pleromas’) likenesses, copies, shadows, and phantasms, lacking reason and the light, these which belong to the vain thought, since they are not products of anything. Therefore, their end will be like their beginning: from that which did not exist (they are) to return once again to that which will not be…”
“They thought of themselves that they are beings existing by themselves and are without a source, since they do not see anything else existing before them. Therefore, they lived in disobedience and acts of rebellion, without having humbled themselves before the one because of whom they came into being. They wanted to command one another, overcoming one another in their vain ambition, while the glory which they possess contains a cause of the system which was to be.”
With the introduction of the Archons of the Imitation we begin to see human nature emerging. When humans act outside of the will of the Father and the Fullness and center themselves on egoic dominance, they replicate the Archons’ striving for power and control.
And yet, the remnant of glory they retain through the ego of Logos still possesses the fractal formula of the Fullness, making it possible for the Demiurge to create the cosmos.
“They are likenesses of the things which are exalted. They were brought to a lust for power in each one of them, according to the greatness of the name of which each is a shadow, each one imagining that it is superior to his fellows.”
“The one whom he himself brought forth as a unitary Aeon rushed up to that which is his, and this kin of his in the Pleroma abandoned him who came to be in the defect along with those who had come forth from him in an imaginary way, since they are not his.”
THE BOUNDARY
As Logos retreated to its own in the Fullness, the Father placed a Boundary around the area containing that which had been produced as a consequence of the Fall. The purpose of this Boundary was to separate finitude from infinity, ignorance from truth, and light from darkness.
The Boundary
Another essential purpose of the Boundary was to establish an “economy” for a system about to unfold. And economy is another word for an ecology. Things have to be in relationship to one another in order to be able to work with one another. So the boundary was required to be put around the fallen bits, the shadows, the imitations of the Pleroma of Logos. They were put inside of a bounded space in order to push them together so that the ecology might be established.
“The Father and the Totalities drew away from him, so that the limit which the Father had set might be established – for it is not from grasping the incomprehensibility but by the will of the Father, – and furthermore, (they withdrew) so that the things which have come to be might become an organization which would come into being. If it were to come, it would not come into being by the manifestation of the Pleroma. Therefore, it is not fitting to criticize the movement which is the Logos, but it is fitting that we should say about the movement of the Logos that it is a cause of an organization which has been destined to come about.”
The Boundary Contains Chaos
We can think of this Boundary as a bubble containing our universe. You can picture these chaotic imitations as quantum foam. Quantum foam is the lowest level of instantiation in this universe of ours, and quantum foam is characterized by randomness and chaos. It does not work together. It is popping in and out of the universe, constantly producing matter and anti-matter that cancel out and destroy each other. Consequently nothing is building; nothing is able to reach out to level up. They lack the Golden Rule of cooperation because they came from the Fall rather than from the Fullness.
The Fullness of God
The Simple Golden Rule requires units of consciousness to work together with their neighbors to share information, assistance, and loving coherence on a single project that benefits ALL. This results in the hierarchical configuration because cooperation always results in the higher the fewer.
Archons cannot level up. It requires conscious control to replicate the Golden Rule. Archons do not have consciousness. They are programs.
THE RISE OF THE DEMIURGE
The Demiurge went about organizing this universe out of the quantum foam:
“over those who belong to the likeness, he set the word of beauty, so that he might bring them into a form.”
The Demiurge, by the way, is the ego of Logos that was left behind in the Fall. Logos himself, his unitary self, beat it back up to the fullness as quickly as he could. And he abandoned the results of the Fall, because he couldn’t bring order to the Fall. What he abandoned down below was that overreaching ego that caused the Fall in the first place. That ego takes on the name of the Demiurge. It’s the ego of Logos that controls the matter that has been formed by the Fall.
At first the Demiurge established energetic waves, then subatomic particles followed by atomic particles. Everything according to “the higher, the fewer” pattern. The particles combine to make atoms; the atoms combine to make molecules; the molecules combine make elements; the elements combine to make minerals and the aggregations of minerals, and that is the limit of the God of this universe. The Demiurge can only level up to the mineral level. All of the hard, rocky places in our material universe are the handiwork of the Demiurge.
The Demiurge keeps chaos at bay by forbidding free will in his subjects
We don’t come from the Demiurge; the Demiurge is only in charge of the material universe. The Demiurge is in charge of the mud, the material, the hard rocky places–at the small scale the dirt and the elements, and at the large scale the rocky planets and the stars in the heavens. If there are creatures on a planet, they coat the outside of the dead rocky planet. Life only comes from the Father. Life is top-down. Death is bottom-up.
Mud Up
I hope you got something out of this episode.
God bless us all, and onward and upward!
watch the neat video below of zooming in to the Mandlebrot set!
