Lust (or Strength, Fortitude, Lust for Life) is numbered eleven and is a card of spontaneity and enthusiasm. This is the card which gives us the strength and nourishment we need to get through.We usually see a young innocent girl opening the jaws of a lion and peering in. She must be reasonably certain she can cope with the results of her actions! There is no sense of competition between the two. Here we see the literal meaning of the card – walking straight into the jaws of danger and relying upon our own experiences and quick-wittedness to see us through.Lust tells us to joyously accept life – to trust ourselves to make the right choices and to be able to deal with whatever happens. With trust and self-belief we can grow and work towards happiness and fulfilment.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Some centenarians testify they have lived more than a century because they smoked many cigarettes, drank a lot of booze, and ate a steady diet of junk food. Should the rest of us adapt their habits? Of course not. The likelihood of remaining healthy while following such an unsound regimen is infinitesimal. Just because a few lucky people miraculously thrived like that is not a sound argument for imitating them. I bring this to your attention, Aries, because the coming weeks will be an excellent time to upgrade your commitment to healthy habits. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to love your body better, this is it.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus stage magician Doug Henning had lavish ambitions. They served him well as he became a star performer in theater and on TV. “If I produce a 450-pound Bengal tiger,” he said, “it’s going to create a lot more wonder than if I produce a rabbit.” That’s the spirit I invite you to embrace in the coming weeks, Taurus. The cosmos is authorizing you to expand your understanding of what you can accomplish—and then accomplish it. Dream bigger dreams than you have previously dared.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The color of planet Earth is predominantly blue with green, brown and white mixed in. And for people all over the world, blue is more often their favorite color than any other. Why? In part because blue typically evokes peace, tranquility, security and stability. It’s often used in therapeutic environments, since it makes us feel more at ease about expressing our feelings. I bring these thoughts to your attention, Gemini, because you are entering a blue phase of your cycle. It will be a favorable time to harvest the benefits of relaxing and slowing down. You are more likely to feel at home with yourself and accept yourself just as you are.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, born under the sign of Cancer, says that ninety-five percent of our buying choices originate in our subconscious minds. Behavioral psychologist Susan Weinschenk believes ninety percent of all our decision-making is unconscious. But I propose that in the coming weeks, you increase the amount of conscious awareness you bring to sorting out your options. Cosmic energies will conspire in your favor if you do. You will receive unexpected boosts and generate creative enhancements if you resolve to rouse more lucid analysis and careful thoughtfulness.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A wealthy hedge fund manager named Raj Rajaratnam paid Leo singer Kenny Rogers $4 million to perform at his epic birthday party. But the night turned nightmarish for Rogers when Rajaratnam insisted that he sing his hit song “The Gambler” over and over again. Finally, after twelve repetitions, Rogers refused to do more. I wonder if you, too, might soon have to deal with a situation that’s too much of a good thing. My advice: Make sure all agreements between you and others are clear and firm. Get a guarantee that you will receive exactly what you want, and don’t do more than you have promised.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Now and then, zoologists decide that their classifications of species need to be revised and refined. For example, three subspecies of soft-furred, teardrop-shaped hedgehogs in Southeast Asia were recently elevated to distinct species of their own. They are no longer considered to be subspecies of Hylomys suillus, but are now named H. dorsalis, H. maxi, and H. peguensis. I bring this to your attention, Virgo, because I suspect that you, too, are ready for an upgrade to a new category all your own. It’s time for you to claim greater sovereignty. You will be wise to define how distinctive and unique you are, to distinguish yourself from influences that are superficially like you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): When mega-famous artist Pablo Picasso was asked how he felt about NASA landing people on the moon in 1969, he said, “It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it, and I don’t care.” I invite you to use his statement as one of your power mottoes in the coming weeks. Now is an excellent time to identify the experiences, influences, events and people about which you have absolutely zero interest. Once you do that, I predict you will have a rush of clear revelations about the most interesting experiences, influences, events and people you want in your future.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu made an observation that could serve as your watchword in the coming months. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,” he wrote, “while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” In my astrological opinion, Scorpio, you are now primed to embody and express these states with unique intensity. If you embrace the inspiring challenge of loving deeply and being loved deeply, you will reach new heights of strength and courage.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Many musical instruments must be constantly adjusted to ensure they stay in tune. This usually means that the note A above middle C vibrates at 440 cycles per second—with all other notes tuned in relation to it. Having sung in bands for years, I have seen how guitarists, bass players, violinists, and even drummers have to continually attend to their tuning during performances. Imagine the diligent finesse it takes to keep an entire orchestra of many instruments in tune with each other. I suspect that one of your jobs in the coming weeks, Sagittarius, will have similarities to this kind of management and coordination.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Dancing is always good for you, but it will be extra healthy and energizing in the next four weeks. I hope you will be inspired to dance as often as possible, even if you just do it alone in your kitchen or bedroom while listening to music that moves you. Do you need rational explanations for why this is a good idea? OK, here are the hard facts: Dancing reduces stress, raises serotonin levels, enhances well-being, and is excellent physical exercise. Here’s another motivational reason: Dancing literally makes you smarter. Scientific research clearly says so (tinyurl.com/SmartDancing). Furthermore: In the near future, you will be in a playful, sexy, exuberant phase of your astrological cycle.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Quo signo nata es?” is the Latin expression for “What’s your sign?” Did anyone in ancient Rome ever say that? Probably not, since it’s a modern idiom. However, astrology was very popular in that society and era. According to scholar Rhianna Padman in her essay “Astrology in Ancient Rome,” Romans “believed that the specific positions of celestial bodies at the moment of a person’s birth could greatly impact their life and character.” Back then, Thrasyllus of Mendes was a prominent astrologer who became a key advisor to Emperor Tiberius. Anyway, Aquarius, I bring “Quo signo nata es?” to your attention so as to inspire the following assignment: Update all your old favorite things. Put new spins on symbols and ideas that have served you for a long time. Take the best parts of your traditions and transplant them into the future.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The coming weeks will be an excellent time to declare amnesty about all matters affecting your close alliances. Dissolve grudges, please. Tussle less, play more. Relax your demands and expectations—and nicely ask your companions to relax their demands and expectations. If possible, forgive others and yourself for everything; failing that, forgive as much of everything as feels right. You might even convene a ritual in which you and your intimate collaborators chant the following affirmation: “We are gleefully free to reimagine and reinvent the ways we fit together!”
Homework: What ideas are you allergic to? What feelings make you sick? Can you immunize yourself against them? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com
““People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” ― Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18,1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely held as one of the most influential scientists. Best known for developing the theory of relativity, Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. Wikipedia
Lily Janiak August 12, 2024 Updated: August 20, 2024 (datebook.sfchronicle.com)
Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, left, as Prospero and Alex Camerino as Miranda in S.F. Shakes’ “The Tempest.”Photo: Neal Ormond/San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
If “The Tempest” is Shakespeare’s most enchanted play, Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe shows how its single most magical act is no spell or bit of conjuring, but forgiveness. And the formidable actor, in her debut Shakespeare performance, makes that miracle happen in three words.
It’s near the close of San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s production, and Cooper-Anifowoshe’s Prospero has spent the whole play fuming about how his brother Antonio (David Everett Moore) usurped his dukedom and cast him a-sea 12 years ago. But now, after orchestrating a Rube Goldberg machine of a revenge plot on an uncharted, sprite-filled island, Prospero sees he’s tortured Antonio and his crew more than enough. It’s time to make amends, but Prospero’s still angry. Squeezing shut his eyes, hunching over, he digs deep inside himself, and all he can scrape up is: “I.” Followed by, “Do.” Both words, scaling Cooper-Anifowoshe’s whole vocal range, come out as if from drawing and quartering.
Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, left, as Prospero and Phoebe Chou on percussion in “The Tempest.”Photo: Neal Ormond/San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
Then, for the first time in the show, Prospero gazes upon his brother’s face, and Cooper-Anifowoshe releases the tension in her countenance and voice. Only in uttering “forgive” — and seeing the humanity in the object of forgiveness — does Prospero commit. Here, to say the word is to discover its meaning and rejoice in its liberating power.
Such a revelatory line reading is characteristic of Rotimi Agbabiaka’s production, which I saw Aug. 11 at Redwood City’s Red Morton Park.
Miranda (Alex Camerino, left), Ceres (Valerie Weak), Ferdinand (Nic Moore) and Iris (David Everett Moore) in San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s “The Tempest.”Photo: Neal Ormond/San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
Almost every cast member unveils something new and delicious. Hurling the insult “You bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog,” Adam KuveNiemann as Stefano speaks with the winking subtext, “Can you believe I get to say something this fun?” As Prospero’s daughter, Miranda, Alex Camerino is no blushing innocent, a common but boring interpretation of a girl whose only human contact has been her father. Instead, his Miranda has never been checked by social mores from letting loose big, awkward feelings. He explodes with distress, giddily overexplains and nearly passes out with lust whenever he gets close to newcomer Ferdinand (Nic Moore).
And then there’s Kevin Clarke as Ariel, Prospero’s fairy minion. Every entrance means a furrowed brow, splayed fingers and a struck pose; every utterance has the tinge of some sexy secret Ariel dare not whisper. But then, when the proceedings switch to serious, with record-scratching earnestness that could rip the play open, Ariel asks, “Do you love me, master?” The fact that the whole show doesn’t veer off script right there seems like a deliberate choice, an apt reminder that a 400-year-old text is a pulsing organism.
Kevin Clarke, left, as Ariel and Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe as Prospero in “The Tempest.”Photo: Neal Ormond/San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
Just as smart are Bethany Deal’s world-building, character-defining costumes. Miranda’s dress looks woven from different shades of seaweed. Ariel’s sheer top and iridescent harness give actors and audience permission to be silly. The way the drunkard Stephano (David Everett Moore) lets the two strands of his tie flop loose and his cummerbund creep up his chest attests to what an achievement it is he makes it out of bed each day.
Ferrying the whole show along is percussion performed onstage by Phoebe Chou. She doesn’t just give transitions rhythm and motion. She makes the show’s eponymous tempest into a cacophony, its spell casting into a rattling and chiming.
If the occasional slow patch or fuzzy focus muddies the show’s waters, the 100 minutes of “The Tempest” nonetheless showcase the company at its best. Here Shakespeare is not some rarefied arena for the hoity-toity but a ridiculous, relatable park-side jaunt — one where you learn that you can forgive someone even when you’re still mad.
“The Tempest”: Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Rotimi Agbabiaka. 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17. Through Sunday, Aug. 25. Red Morton Park, Vera Avenue at Valota Road, Redwood City. • 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 31-Sept. 8, plus Labor Day. McLaren Park’s Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, 40 John F. Shelley Drive, S.F. One hour, 40 minutes. Free. 415-558-0888. www.sfshakes.org
Follow:Lily JaniakLily Janiak joined the San Francisco Chronicle as theater critic in May 2016. Previously, her writing appeared in Theatre Bay Area, American Theatre, SF Weekly, the Village Voice and HowlRound. She holds a BA in theater studies from Yale and an MA in drama from San Francisco State.
There is more to this movement that you have yet had an inkling of, and the work of the T.S. [Theosophical Society] is linked with similar work that is secretly going on in all parts of the world… know you anything of the whole brotherhood and its ramifications? The old woman [Madame Blavatsky] is accused of untruthfulness and inaccuracy in her statements. “Ask no questions and you will receive no lies”. She is forbidden to say what she knows. You may cut her to pieces and she will not tell. Nay – she is ordered in cases of need to mislead people… – Mahatma Morya1
One of the more bizarre facets of the New Age movement is the belief in Ascended Masters. While this doctrine seems modern in its diverse applications, its origins are in the earliest machinations of Theosophical history.
The original advent of the Mahatmas was within the framework of the system developed by Madame Blavatsky. Later this system was modified, transformed and many would say distorted by various factional movements that developed within Theosophy. Certainly the Theosophy of Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant seems at odds with the esotericism found in the Secret Doctrine (Blavatsky’s major theosophical treatise). The problem was that the “Ascended Masters” mythos which began with Blavatsky took on a life of its own; when confronted with the egalitarian democracy of the USA, the Masters became democratic. And so, the Masters began to speak to everyone.
With the early “I AM” movements the Masters changed from “high and mighty” Hindu Supermen to homely religious figures, even including Jesus and Buddha. They also partook of American commercialism and the value of good marketing. Consumer culture and middle-class values became coupled with a lollie-pop version of the perennial wisdom. This reached its “nth” extent in such modern sects as the Church Universal and Triumphant of Elizabeth Claire Prophet. In some sense these Masters are also found in the more anarchistic experience of channelling, spiritualism and UFO cults. The Masters of the Aetherius Society, where Jesus comes from a sector on Mars, is a further extension of this weltanschauung.
What is the origin of this “Ascended Master” mythos? The traditional way of appraising this myth is to either accept it at face (faith) value or reject it totally as a construct of a mad Russian psychic who has seen just one too many spirits.
A painting of Madame Blavatsky andher masters Koot Hoomi, Morya andPrince Ragoczy.
However, the work of K. Paul Johnson (as found in such titles as The Masters Revealed and Initiates of the Theosophical Masters, State University of New York Press), offers an appealing alternative. By deconstructing Blavatsky’s life and work, Johnson has been able to decode her Master mythos as referring not to ethereal spectres but to living religious, political and esoteric figures.
He proves from her work that these figures (many of them at least) were involved in political agitation of various forms (including the liberation of India from the British), thus the cloaking of their identities was necessary. Blavatsky commandeered the earlier Freemasonic concept of Unknown Superiors or Secret Chiefs and used it as a gloss to cover the identities of her “comrades” in revolution.
While Blavatsky certainly understood the use of the Masters as metaphor, her followers did not. In a letter to Franz Hartmann, Blavatsky says:
…where you speak of the “army” of the deluded – and the “imaginary” Mahatmas of Olcott – you are absolutely and sadly right. Have I not seen the thing for nearly eight years? Have I not struggled and fought against Olcott’s ardent and gushing imagination and tried to stop him every day of my life.2
Throughout her works there are hints to the observant that the Mahatmas she had “created” were myths and figureheads to hide real figures. If we were to trace the development of the Master mythos within her work, we can clearly see it changing from “spirit” guides that appeared in her earlier spiritualistic period, to figures which are ambivalent, withdrawn and seem to be “more than human”.
MahatmaKoot Hoomi
These figures were coupled with obvious slight of hand tricks (in Adyar), which the more critical might see as “camp” additions to a sideshow, a sideshow that was in some way meant to be seen through by those who possessed the perception. Blavatsky couldn’t tell you that the Masters were metaphors, but her behaviour, erratic descriptions and illusionist tricks would have done the job. These figures should not be seen as spiritual alone. Blavatsky’s view of “manipulating reality” was not that of an outside observer.
Mahatma Morya
Today, Theosophy may wish to paint her as a “saint”, however the available records show that she smoked (tobacco and hashish), swore and had a hell of a temper. Her political views were untempered and many of the “so-called” Mahatmas would not have been offended if we labelled them as terrorists. Many of the secret societies she worked with battled using every possible means to destroy what they saw as the “imperialist and capitalist” monster. They were revolutionaries or terrorists.
Accordingly, as time progressed real revolutionary spiritual figures were replaced with ethereal nonsense. The sad fact is that from this nonsense a whole “Ascended Master” movement developed, melding itself with spiritualism, channelling and other superficial spiritual forms. It has resulted in the counter-initiatory tradition of this time. When we see the original meaning behind the Master metaphor we start to appreciate the shallow vision of modern spirituality.
While there is truth in the original “Secret Chief” or “Unknown Superiors” teaching, this is very different from the egalitarian American package of “McDonald” Masters and apple pie wisdom.
Madame Blavatsky
The sources of light were seen as transmitting wisdom through a traditional hierarchical structure to those prepared to receive truth in both an experiential and cognitive form. It had little in common with political foment, eastern guruism or spiritualistic practice.
In a world where hierarchy is a dirty word and intellectual prowess is confused with elitism, it becomes difficult to expound the real ethos of Unknown Superiors in juxtaposition to the easy going, yet facile and vacuous messages of Ascended Masters, Extra Terrestrials and age-old spirits.
The most dangerous aspect of these new Masters is that they are not all benign; they do not all give “spiritualist” candy and meaningless cliches from the other side. Many of these UFO, Masters and Spirit guides are offering messages and encouragement which seem aligned to the development of a New World Order and collective forms of mind control.
We may accept that the Mahatmas of Blavatsky were metaphors alone, but it is a terrifying possibility that “principalities and dominions” may be using the Ascended Master mythos as a means of mass mind control. If leaders of modern spiritual movements are more than willing to open their minds and souls to any being who calls itself “Jesus”, or any spirit than seems benign, or any extraterrestrial who says it comes in peace, then the minds of their followers are surely in jeopardy.
In recent years various UFO cults have come to untimely ends and many others seem to be moving towards fascistic forms of social structure. It is possible that as the Kali Yuga accelerates the Ascended Master mythos will become more and more a mechanism of control.
The New Age is perhaps a little different than we thought. The age of Aquarius is dawning, however, Aquarius is ruled by Uranus (or Saturn in more ancient astrological forms). These planets are not those of enlightenment, but forces of dispersion, destruction and crisis. Saturn itself being the glyph on which the legends of Satan and Set were grafted.
The above article originally appeared on the (now defunct) Living Traditions website.
This article was published in New Dawn 74 (Sept-Oct 2002.
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About the Author
Robert Black has a long standing interest in Traditionalism, Esotericism, Occultism, Alternative Politics, Shamanism and the Perennial Wisdom. He regularly reviews books for New Dawn magazine and has contributed numerous articles over the years.
In the 1960s, a French intellectual came up with a novel theory on life in the 20th century. The basis of the theory was that in modern capitalist consumer societies like France, the United States and the West in general, authentic life had been replaced with its representation.
According to Guy Debord (1931–1994), we now live in societies in which individuals no longer actually experience events, but in which all action is instead conducted through the represented image. He called this “The Society of the Spectacle” (the work outlining his theory was published in French as La société du spectacle in 1967). Images, Debord said, have supplanted genuine human interaction.
Debord argued that the history of social life can be understood as “the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing.” In consumer society, social life is not about living, but about having; the Spectacle uses the image to convey what people need and must have.
A founding member of the radical Situationist International, Debord’s descriptions of human social life subsumed by technology and images are prophetic in light of the internet age now upon us.
The Spectacle is much greater than marketing and TV images. Debord argued that everything men and women once experienced directly – our ties to the natural and social worlds – had been incorporated into the Spectacle – a vast simulacrum – to be sold and fed back to us. Doomed to be simply passive consumers inside the Spectacle, men and women inescapably reinforce its dominance by giving it attention. The sun never sets, Debord dryly noted, “on the empire of modern passivity.” And in this passive state, we surrender ourselves to the Spectacle.
In his 1988 follow up Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle, Debord introduced the idea of the “integrated Spectacle,” the most hazardous and commanding form of Spectacle, which he posits operates today. This enlarged Spectacle is associated with liberal democracies marked by incessant technological development and a state of general secrecy. Society is governed and managed by ‘experts’ who invoke the terror or health threat to keep spectacular society in a constant state of fear and tension.
When we look back on our history, even from inside the Spectacle, we sometimes identify works of literature, art or cinema that accurately describe the reality of this modern world. One such breakthrough came in the form of the 1976 movie Network about a fictional TV network that airs almost anything for ratings.
Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, Network won four Academy Awards and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
This movie forecast the direction in which the Spectacle was taking the world: news as entertainment, soulless consumerism, selfish corporate interest, borderless liberal globalism, unscrupulous mainstream media antics.
News, in Network, is a business, and facts will bend to it. This is told, explicitly, in the climactic scene, when the head of the network’s parent company, Arthur Jensen, speaks to Howard Beale, the disenchanted news reader.
“There are no nations,” Jensen tells Beale. “There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars.” Everything is now determined by television; it can dictate geography. He looks into Beale’s bewildered face and tells him: “The world… is a business.”
Jensen’s rant continues. “You get up on your little twenty-one-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.” [Now we can include on that list Microsoft, Google, Apple, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bayer, etc.]
That night, in the movie, Beale goes on air to preach the corporate doctrine of Jensen:
“What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It’s the individual that’s finished. It’s the single, solitary human being that’s finished. It’s every single one of you out there that’s finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It’s a nation of some two-hundred-odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods.
“Well, the time has come to say, ‘Is de-humanization such a bad word?’ Because good or bad, that’s what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid – creatures that look human, but aren’t. The whole world, not just us. We’re just the most advanced country, so we’re getting there first. The whole world’s people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things….”
The above first appeared in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 12 No 3.
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About the Author
JASON JEFFREY holds an interest in a wide range of subjects including geopolitics, metapolitics, parapolitics, hidden history, spirituality, health, Gnosis, metaphysics and esotericism. He can be contacted at jason.jeffrey88@pm.me.
They teach the insidious doctrine that there is another God besides the Creator. – Irenaeus, Against Heresies
For many heretics have said that the God Of the Old Testament is one, and the God of the New Testament is another. – Ambrose, On the Holy Spirit, I, 4
Gnostics attributed the work of creation to a lesser deity or demiurge known as Ialdabaoth (also spelled Yaldabaoth or Jaldabaoth), but the notion of the demiurge was not a Gnostic invention. Nearly five hundred years before Christianity, Plato described a similar Creation scheme in his Timaeus. In fact, as we know from a number of pagan theogonies that have come down to us, the same formula existed throughout the ancient world.1
The story goes something like this: In the beginning the unknowable and self-begotten first principle emerges from watery chaos and gives birth to the gods. This primal being first cleaves in two, and then consorts with itself, thus producing the next divine pair. And so it goes. Each successive generation of gods gives rise to the next until the full pantheon emerges. At some point the cosmic clock begins to tick. The various responsibilities attending Creation are delegated, after which heaven and the earth are formed along with the stars, day and night, and the elements air, fire, and earth. Very late in the game living things appear, including, almost as an afterthought, the human race.
This grand Creation scheme was, with many variations, almost universal throughout the ancient world – and this includes the Greeks, despite that remarkable flowering of speculation about man, God, and the universe known as Greek philosophy. Most of the Greek philosophers, of course, were monotheists. Yet, with some exceptions, they managed to coexist with polytheism. The great thinkers were not fooled. They understood that mythology was to be taken figuratively, not literally. The purpose of philosophy was to delve deeper – and the true foundation was obviously monotheism. The gods of Olympus were entirely derivative.
The Gnostic Ialdabaoth has been translated as “begetter of Sabaoth,” which seems to have been a pejorative pun for YHWH Sabaoth, one of the names of Yahweh in the Old Testament. The demiurge, of course, was wholly foreign to Judaism. Whereas the monotheistic Greek philosophers often tolerated a proliferation of lesser deities, Judaism insisted on a single entity: Yahweh. By some accounts he was attended by a council of angels, but Yahweh remained the prime mover; he alone was responsible for Creation. Even today this remains one of Judaism’s distinguishing features.
Origins Within Judaism
Most scholars regard the demiurge as a Gnostic rebellion against Judaism.2 This may well be so, but it is important to realise that the demiurge was not a simple phenomenon. The rebellion involved a devaluation of the God of the Old Testament, which is partially explained by historical events – namely, the three failed Jewish revolts against Roman rule. The first and best known of these was the Jewish War of 66-73 CE. A second less well-known uprising was put down in 115-117 CE, during the rule of Trajan, and a third and final insurrection, the Bar Kokhba rebellion, was crushed in 135 CE.3 There is no doubt that these failed political revolts against Rome seriously undermined the prestige of Yahweh. And for this reason the inception of the Gnostic demiurge might date to as early as the period after 70 CE, the year of the cataclysmic destruction of the famous temple of Herod.
But political history does not tell the full story. The devaluation of Yahweh was also rooted in a process of religious reform that had been underway within Judaism for centuries, and which only attained its full fruition in the person of Jesus. To understand this reform, and how it came about, we must look to the Old Testament, in particular, to the seminal book of Job. (Many scholars have sought answers in Genesis, which is understandable, given that the demiurge is associated with Creation, but with less satisfactory results.)
Most Christians probably assume that the God of the Hebrews in the days of Abraham was the same as the God of Moses and, furthermore, that this God was also equivalent to the Father mentioned by Jesus with such love and devotion. Any such assumptions are false, however, but not because God changed. God’s nature, being absolute and eternal, never changes. What does change is human understanding. The human conception of God, the God concept, has changed many times over the course of history and will continue to evolve in the future. In a famous essay called “The God of the Fathers,” first published in 1929, the Old Testament scholar Albrecht Alt explored whether such a transformation had occurred at the time of Moses. Alt found clues in the Pentateuch suggesting that the Elohist scribe had amended the earliest accounts to bring the more archaic God-concept of the early Hebrews, the God of the patriarchs, in line with the later (and more pure) monotheism of Moses.4 Alt’s paper touched off a lively debate among biblical scholars that continues to this day.
The reform that we are about to discuss is another example of the sort of evolution observed by Alt. The need for reform of the Old Testament God-concept was real enough. While some Old Testament passages describe Yahweh as merciful, loyal, forgiving, and benevolent, he is at least as often portrayed as jealous, grouchy, wrathful, irritable, proud, boastful, unforgiving, temperamental, cruel, vengeful, and even bloodthirsty, prepared to sanction cold-blooded murder or mass slaughter, including the annihilation of entire cities. Given the numerous examples of God-sanctioned mayhem in scripture, it is no wonder that discriminating readers have sometimes doubted whether this same Yahweh can inspire our confidence and trust, to say nothing of love, devotion, respect and emulation. Oftentimes, fear and trembling seems a more likely human response. And while fear of divine retribution can be a powerful force for good, and, at times, perhaps, a necessary motivator, if the goal is to uplift humanity from a moral standpoint, the example set by Yahweh in the Old Testament falls short of inspirational (to say the least).
The Book of Job
The Old Testament Book of Job, whose author is unknown, has two main themes: the question of evil, and the character of Yahweh. Many scholars rightly regard Job, along with Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as representative of the high-water mark of the Old Testament.5 The central part of the book is a series of poems that was probably composed sometime in the fifth or sixth century BCE. Part folk tale, prophetic oracle, hymn, lamentation, didactic treatise, and epic, Job makes use of almost every genre in the Bible. The question it raises is no less pertinent today: Why does evil flourish while good people suffer? The answer the story provides broke sharply with Judaic tradition, and for this reason Job was surely controversial in its day. Tradition held that God would eventually reward the good man, regardless of his sufferings. Like the prophet Jeremiah, however (see Jeremiah 13:14, 24–25 and 15:6–7), the author of Job adopts a much more pessimistic outlook that probably reflects the bleak aftermath of the conquest and destruction of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar in the early sixth century BCE. Although the precise composition date of Job is not known, the book is obviously from the time of exile or later.6
The story openly portrays Yahweh in league with Satan. God torments the good man (Job) despite the fact that he keeps the Law and lives a morally upright life. Job’s many trials are the work of Satan, Yahweh’s servant (or possibly his son), who whispers false accusations in God’s ear and receives permission to punish Job in order to test him and expose the wickedness allegedly concealed in his heart. Job’s flocks are stripped from him, his servants are slaughtered, and his sons and daughters are killed in a mighty whirlwind. He himself is stricken with a terrible wasting disease that causes great suffering and brings him to the edge of the grave. Job’s body literally becomes an open wound. To make matters worse, Job’s wife and his friends also turn against him: His wife urges him to curse Yahweh and to abandon all faith in God; meanwhile, his friends make superficial religious cant and castigate Job for having the temerity to maintain his innocence. One after another they admonish him, insisting that because Yahweh is punishing him, ipso facto, he must be guilty. They advise him to submit quietly to his sufferings, which obviously have been ordained by God. But Job will have none of it. Like a rock he holds fast to principle. Stubbornly he maintains his innocence and insists upon justice. Yet, at the same time, he remains faithful to Yahweh, refusing to condemn or even criticise the Almighty.
What is shocking about the story is the ease with which Yahweh succumbs to Satan’s false witness about Job’s alleged faithlessness. Being omniscient, Yahweh should be able to easily verify Job’s goodness and constancy. But instead he hands Job over to Satan with a single proviso: “He is in your power,” Yahweh says. “But spare his life.” Though Job remains faithful throughout, before his terrible ordeal is done he curses the day of his birth. No less shocking is Yahweh’s failure to acquit Job even after his innocence has been established. There is to be no moment of truth and no justice under heaven. Instead of vanquishing Satan for making false accusations, Yahweh turns on the victim. Instead of offering solace and comfort to the innocent, he badgers Job and bullies him, sneers at him with rhetorical questions, and then confronts the hapless man with a mind-boggling display of divine wrath.
In the end poor Job is beaten down and brought to his knees. But how can it be otherwise, given Yahweh’s overwhelming might? The rod of God is an awesome thing. In the end Job is reduced to a stuttering simpleton. He repents, even though he is innocent, and admits that he has been talking about things far beyond his ken. Having seen the omnipotence of Yahweh, he is prepared to eat dust. In this vein Job responds: “What reply can I give to you, I who carry no weight?” (Job 40:4; 42:2) In a final prose epilogue Yahweh shows a loving touch by restoring Job’s health and property, but there is no mention of restoring his dead servants and children. Indeed, the somewhat cheery conclusion feels out of step with the rest of the composition, as if a later scribe who was no less shocked than we by Yahweh’s repulsive behaviour added it to redeem God’s tarnished image. Indeed, so subversive is the Book of Job that it is remarkable the book was retained in the Bible. Probably the scribal “correction” saved it from being thrown out, this and the fact that Job is a literary masterpiece. Of course, even with its modified ending, the story is far from satisfactory. Job’s total submission in the face of brute force seems a lame solution to the problem of evil. Nonetheless, the book is momentous because the questions the story fails to resolve were to rebound over the centuries, as we shall see, and preoccupy the final books of the Old Testament.
Yahweh’s Deficiency
So what is the root of the matter in the story of Job? Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, points out in his able commentary Answer to Job that for all of his infinite power Yahweh ultimately damns himself. By humiliating Job, by making him eat dust, God unwittingly reveals his own deep character flaw, brutishness, while at the same time elevating the impotent but righteous human. Job may be powerless before the Almighty, yet he remains free to choose, and by choosing well he shows impressive moral strength. Indeed, Job’s fortitude stands in marked contrast with Yahweh’s rage and reproaches the deity’s ratification of evil. To be sure, Yahweh carries the day. With infinite power at his disposal, the outcome is not in doubt. Yet, from a moral standpoint Yahweh’s display of heavenly fireworks and thunder fails to impress. This is the beautiful and terrible irony of the story: that Job, despite his relative impotence, comes to stand in righteous judgment over God himself. As Jung put it:
We do not know whether Job realises this, but we do know from the numerous commentaries on Job that all succeeding ages have overlooked the fact that a kind of Moira… rules over Yahweh, causing him to give himself away so blatantly. Anyone can see how unwittingly he raises Job by humiliating him in the dust. By so doing he pronounces judgment on himself and gives man the moral satisfaction whose absence we [find] so painful in the Book of Job.7
The word Moira refers to fate or destiny. In Greek religion Moira was one of the three personified seasons that accompanied Zeus, and were often pictured hovering just above his shoulder. The point is that Zeus was governed by them even though he was the most important Greek deity. The mere thought that such a thing might also hold in monotheistic Judaism is shocking. Surely the Godhead cannot be subject to fate. It is God, after all, who determines the destinies of others. Nonetheless, from the story it is clear that despite his omnipotence Yahweh is lacking in something. Job apparently intuits this because in his suffering he asks: “But tell me, where does Wisdom come from? Where is understanding to be found?” (Job 28:12) In the very next verse Job answers his own question. “Wisdom?” he says. “It is fear of the Lord.” Here, as Jung notes, Job shows that he is unaware of his own achievement. He does not seem to understand that in holding firm, standing on his innocence, and insisting on justice he has won a tremendous moral victory, not just for himself, but for all mankind. Job’s answer may seem unsatisfactory, but it is important because during the apocalyptic age it became the grist for the scribal mill, as we shall see.
Now back to the problem raised by Jung, that Yahweh is ruled by fate: Even though Yahweh as God must have access to all knowledge, in the story of Job, as we have seen, he has neglected or forgotten, as Jung phrases it, “to consult his own omniscience.” It seems that Yahweh has been split off from a part of himself, which means that he is not fully conscious. Which is incredible! And what of his boasting? Indeed, what could possibly compel an all-powerful and all-knowing Being to stoop to bluster and threats in the first place? This discomfiting aspect of Yahweh’s behaviour, analysed long ago by the unknown author of the Secret Book of John, one of the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi, was the key Gnostic insight:
…he [Yahweh] said to them, ‘I am a jealous God and there is no other god beside me.’ But by announcing this he indicated to the angels who attended to him that there exists another God, for if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous?8
Of whom, indeed? No scholar in the modern era has understood the theological question implicit in the Book of Job better than the Gnostic scribe of old. Nor has anyone stated it more succinctly. While the phrase “I am a jealous God…” does not appear in the text of Job, it is implied, and it does occur in Exodus 20:5 and Isaiah 14:5–6. In addition, numerous other passages in the Old Testament, eg., Deuteronomy 4:35; 6:15–16; and 32:19–21 and Isaiah 4:8; 44:6; 45:5, 21; and 46:4, convey a similar meaning. In fact, Yahweh’s jealous tantrums are a prominent feature of the Old Testament, running through scripture like the surly residue of the old Canaanite storm god, which is precisely the point. It is of interest that the famous heretic hunter Irenaeus, writing two generations before Hippolytus, quotes the very same line about the jealous Yahweh in his lengthy treatise, Against Heresies.9 Was it mere coincidence that Irenaeus devoted the largest portion of his five-volume opus to an attempted refutation of the Gnostic demiurge? Or was it an accurate indication of the historical importance of Yahweh’s character defect? There is no question that the controversy surrounding the demiurge was one of the major battle lines separating the Gnostics from orthodox Christianity.
Let us now investigate why Yahweh would allow Satan’s experiment to be foisted on an innocent man. Jung was apparently intrigued by the same question, for he writes:
It is indeed no edifying spectacle to see how quickly Yahweh abandons his faithful servant [Job] to the evil spirit and lets him fall without compunction or pity into the abyss of… suffering. From the human point of view, Yahweh’s behaviour is so revolting that one has to ask oneself whether there is not a deeper motive hidden behind it. Has Yahweh some secret resistance against Job? That would explain his yielding to Satan. But what does man possess that God does not have?10
The psychologist goes on to suggest that Yahweh’s behaviour is driven by an ulterior concern, namely, the divine suspicion that our frail human consciousness is more keen than his own. The very idea is stunning! Consider, though, that driven by the ever-present knowledge of our own severe limitations as well as our relative impotence, we humans are required to cultivate consciousness simply to survive. We have little choice in the matter. Yahweh, on the other hand, has no such need for introspection because he is unchallenged, has no opposition, and encounters no obstacles; nothing requires him to reflect upon himself.
Stranger still is the conclusion that follows from a related question: Why would Yahweh instruct Satan to spare Job’s life? Judging from Yahweh’s sadistic behaviour, the reason can have nothing to do with compassion. Yahweh is perfectly content to wreak mayhem on Job without regret or remorse. Nor can the reason involve a former loyalty, namely, the Mosaic covenant; for the Book of Job reflects the period following the destruction of the first temple, when the old covenant must have seemed a moot article. In fact, in Job there is not the slightest pretense of a covenant. Why then does Yahweh spare Job’s life? Is it possible that he likes having someone around to hear him boast? Does he enjoy having someone present to witness his thundering about heaven? Can it be that Yahweh actually needs Job? Quite probably he does, which would explain Jung’s purpose in mentioning Moira, the season of destiny.
Here, an example from the Greeks may help. We know from the oldest extant account from Greek mythology, the Hymn of Demeter, that when Hades abducted Demeter’s beautiful daughter, Persephone, and took her to his realm of the dead, Demeter, the grain goddess, became so heartsick that she refused to extend her usual bounty upon the earth.11 Stricken by a year-long drought and resulting crop failures, humanity faced extreme privation, even mass starvation. In this dire circumstance mighty Zeus was compelled to intervene and arrange a compromise: Zeus ordained that henceforth Persephone would spend part of the year above ground with her mother, Demeter, and the rest below it with her new consort, Hades. And why would Zeus be concerned enough to intervene? Quite simply, something had to be done because a mass die-off of humanity would leave no human supplicants to perform the daily sacrifices and rituals in honour of the gods!12 Just as humankind needed the gods, so also did the Greek gods need humankind.
In the story of Job we find hints of a similar phenomenon. Yahweh makes Job suffer, yes, but he dare not exterminate him because he needs a living and breathing Job to honour and glorify his divine name. It is Yahweh’s fate to require worship. Of course, the relationship between God and human is not between equals. An enormous gulf separates Yahweh from the puny and subservient Job. Nevertheless, it is a reciprocal relationship. Yahweh needs humans as much as humans need him. The deeper conclusion to which this leads is never openly stated in the Book of Job. But it is certainly implied, which explains why Job was (and remains) so controversial: If Yahweh is subject to fate and if he requires worship, how can he truly be the penultimate Godhead, the first without a second? Of course, he cannot. Yahweh as presented in Job is but a figurehead, a demiurge on a par with Zeus and the other pagan storm gods.
Job’s query regarding Wisdom takes us to the heart of the matter, for Wisdom is the quality Yahweh lacks. The Greek word for her is Sophia. She is the Divine Mother, the feminine companion to God. She is well known in the East, where she is the active principle in the Godhead, with many names. In the various Hindu traditions she appears as Kali, Shakti, and Durga, among others. It is she who both manifests the world, sustains it, and transforms it. But, East or West, she is inseparable from the Godhead. In Judaism, however, awareness of her nature and importance was a late development. That it happened at all may have been due in no small part due to the anonymous scribe responsible for the Book of Job.
The problem is how to reconcile her gentle and wise nature with the gruff and irritable Yahweh. The temperamental patriarch of old stubbornly resists the intrusion of her feminine presence. The Hebrew God prefers to stand alone, imperious in his majesty, bristling with archetypal wrath. Indeed, in his raging aspect Yahweh is almost the antithesis of Wisdom. It is no wonder that many of the Old Testament descriptions of Yahweh closely resemble the old Canaanite gods El and Baal, the raw matter for so much of his composite character.13 In the sixth century BCE these dross elements were still very much in evidence.
The patriarchal storm God dies hard. Yet, change (i.e., evolve) God must, because from the moment the author of Job exposes Yahweh’s dark underside, his deficiency can no longer be ignored, neither on earth nor in heaven. Thus, we find her, Sophia, Wisdom, described in the eighth Proverb, where we are told that her presence is as old as Creation:
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no foundations abounding with water. When he established the heavens, I was there, When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was by him, as a master worksman, and I was daily in his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in his habitable earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. (Proverbs 8: 22–24, 27, 29–31)
Parts of Proverbs are very old and may even date to the time of Solomon, but the chapters about Wisdom, including the ones cited above, were composed much later, although an exact date has never been established. Dating Proverbs has proved difficult. Jung interpreted the presence of Wisdom as evidence of Greek influence and dated the above passage to the third or fourth century BCE.14 While this has yet to be confirmed, there is no doubt about the very late date of a similar description of Wisdom in Ecclesiasticus 24:3–30:
I came forth from the Most High, And I covered the earth like mist. I had my tent in the heights, and my throne in a pillar of cloud. Alone, I circled the vault of the sky, and I walked on the bottom of the deeps. Over the waves of the sea and over the whole earth, and over every people and nation I held sway. …From eternity, in the beginning, he created me, and for eternity I shall remain.
Here she is the spirit of God who broods upon the waters in the moment of Creation. Thus, there is no doubt about her antiquity. Yet, Ecclesiasticus dates to no earlier than around 200 BCE. The description is meant to be taken retroactively, but the passage itself was a late addition to scripture, and is firm evidence of a process of reform of the Jewish God concept.
The same theme also repeats in the Song of Songs, in Ecclesiastes, and again in the Book of Wisdom. All of these books are part of what is today known as the Wisdom literature. All were written after the time of Job, during the apocalyptic age, and all are heavily indebted to Job, again and again taking up themes that first appear in that book. For example, the preacher of Ecclesiastes 9:16-17 states: “Wisdom is better than might, but a poor man’s wisdom is never valued and his words are disregarded. The gentle words of the wise are heard above the shouts of a king of fools.” And in the Book of Wisdom 5:1–2 the scribe offers firm support for Job’s right to demand justice: “[T]he virtuous man stands up boldly to face those who have oppressed him, those who thought so little of his sufferings.”
In the Wisdom literature we also learn more about the nature of the great feminine companion to the Deity. As it happens, she is a marvelous boon to mankind. Wisdom 10:17 waxes eloquent about her:
To the saints she gave the wages of their labors; she led them by a marvelous road; she herself was their shelter by day and their starlight through the night.
And in the Song of Songs, which pretends to be the composition of Solomon (but isn’t), we find details of the wondrous union, or syzygy, of both sides of God, male and female.
The Wisdom Dialogue Continues
In the centuries before Jesus, the scribal dialogue about Yahweh’s better half (his feminine side) was played out in the last books of the Old Testament. This was a positive and important development because it produced a deeper awareness of the sublime attributes of the Godhead. The process continued in the person of Jesus, who campaigned vigorously against every kind of superstitious nonsense, including society’s morally reprehensible treatment of lepers.15 At issue, time and again, was the old Judaic belief in a vindictive God. The affirmation of Wisdom by Jesus is evidenced also by his respectful treatment of women. That this new awareness of the Divine Mother was also absorbed into Gnostic Christianity is confirmed by the text of the Naassene Sermon, which was embedded en toto in the Refutation of Hippolytus. The Sermon quotes a hymn honouring the Mother as the companion to the Father: “From thee [comes] Father and through thee [comes] Mother, two names immortal, progenitors of Aeons…”16 (Refutation 5.6.5)
We know from a lost scripture called the Gospel according to the Hebrews that Jesus made another extraordinary contribution to the Wisdom dialogue. Though this gospel was suppressed and thus did not survive, from the descriptions of early writers it seems that it closely followed the Gospel of Matthew, except that it was written in Hebrew or Aramaic instead of Greek; hence its name. The scripture was apparently so popular that it was referred to as the “fifth gospel.” Most important, it included the following key passage quoting Jesus, which was preserved (in two separate places) in the writings of Origen, and also in Saint Jerome: “Even now did my Mother the Holy Spirit take me by one of my hairs, and carry me away to the great Mountain of Tabor.”17 Here, the words of Jesus explicitly link the Holy Spirit with the Divine Mother; and virtually the same idea occurs in the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 101):
[Jesus said,] Whoever does not hate his father and his mother as I do cannot become a disciple to Me. And whoever does [not] love his father and his mother as I do cannot become a [disciple] to Me. For my mother [gave me falsehood], but [my] true [Mother] gave me life.18
The passage is also noteworthy for its use of the word life, a word specifically used by Jesus in reference to spiritual life. The idea that the Spirit (spiritual life) flows from the Divine Mother was unprecedented in Judaism, and thus was a momentous development in the West. But the idea had long been understood in the East. In the Hindu traditions the same Divine Mother who brings the world into existence and sustains it also makes available a very special form of her own divine Self: a divine grace that is the Eastern equivalent of the Holy Spirit. Hindus believe that by means of this extremely subtle energy, known as the Chitti Kundalini or the Shakti Kundalini, the Divine Mother brings about the dramatic reversal of the flow that leads to the heavenly source. Today, the living traditions of Hinduism describe this key concept of the reversal of the flow in almost exactly the same language used by Gnostics in the first centuries of Christianity. The only difference is that Hindus describe the “descent” of Spirit as an awakening from within. Either way, it is the decisive turning point in the spiritual life of the disciple.
More than 1,900 years after the fact it is very difficult for us to comprehend the extent of the calamity that enveloped Judea during 66–73 CE, and again in 115 and 135 CE. From the riveting account of Josephus, the consequences must have been horrific, much worse than the damage wreaked by Nebuchadnezzar six centuries before. In the act of breaching the walls of Jerusalem and destroying the great temple, the Roman general Titus proved the prophecies of the apocalyptic age to be a colossal failure, indeed, a collective fantasy. Many Jews survived the siege, the famine, and the final battle only to be crucified. Tens of thousands of others were carried off into slavery, or were thrown to the lions in the great Coliseum of Rome. Traumatised by war, many Jews in its aftermath must have questioned their faith, including the darker attributes of Yahweh. In 1927 a scholar named A. Marmorstein found evidence of this in rabbinical texts.19 For Jews who had believed in the grand apocalyptic vision, there were only three possible options. According to scholar Robert Grant, they could rewrite the apocalypse and postpone history; they could explain the failed prognostications by trying to show that the sacred writings had been misinterpreted; or they could simply abandon their faith.20
Little has been written about the war’s impact on the first Christian community of the Nazarenes. One scholar who did study the matter, S. G. F. Brandon, concluded that the impact was no less horrendous.21 The war scattered Jewish Christians far and wide. And if the followers of Jesus were as angry with their Jewish brothers as they were with the Romans, they had good reason: the zealots had hijacked Judaism and brought ruin upon the nation. For which reason Jewish Christians probably shared the conviction that if only more people had listened to Jesus, events might have turned out very differently. Anyone with an eye in his head, after all, could see that the zealots had been blind. The entire nation had been led off the cliff like a pack of lemmings. To think the fools had believed that Yahweh would come down out of the sky and destroy the Romans! Where was Yahweh? Was he sleeping? Or was something the matter with the national God concept?
The scattered remnants of the original Jerusalem Church found it difficult to regroup. We know that Roman pursuit continued, and was intense.22 Eventually, Jewish Christian sects did emerge, including the Ebionites and Elchaisites, and held on in places like Alexandria. But Jews would never again dominate the Jesus movement. The war and the subsequent Jewish revolts had set in motion a great reshuffling of men and ideas, and out of the rubble emerged Gentile Christianity.
So began a new phase of the Wisdom dialogue within the rich and diverse literature of Gnostic Christianity; and Alexandria was one of the primary cauldrons. Increasingly, the teachings of Jesus passed into Gentile hands. Probably for this reason, as time passed, there was less sympathy for Yahweh’s noisy tantrums, less tolerance for the residue of the old pagan storm god. There may also have been a feeling that the Wisdom literature did not go far enough. To many it probably seemed that events had completely discredited the Jewish God along with his people. Thus, the God of the Jews suffered the fate history has always accorded losers. Yahweh was demoted to the lesser status of a demiurge. To be sure, the Fathers of the Church vociferously resisted this trend. Irenaeus devoted much of his leaden prose, including the greatest portion of Against Heresies, to refuting the Gnostic “error.”23
Notwithstanding the views of men like Irenaeus, the Gnostic repudiation of Yahweh was not apostasy. Indeed, to many Christians it must have seemed like an advance. Certainly the demotion of Yahweh was not the end of God or heaven. The Godhead, after all, had not changed. What had changed was the concept of God, which simply reconstituted itself in human understanding. Indeed, the sloughing off of the less desirable elements in Yahweh’s character surely helped many to clarify the nature of the Godhead, and thus was a positive development. Yahweh was rechristened Saklas, “the fool,” and Samael, “the blind.” Behind Yahweh, unseen by him, stood Wisdom (the Divine Mother, Sophia, Achamoth, the Ogdoad, Barbelo, and so forth), now recognised as the true boss. Yahweh was simply the hired man. Above Wisdom, indeed, over all, presided the incomprehensible Father about whom Jesus had spoken in such loving terms.24 It is interesting to note that although Wisdom was often ranked below the Father, their relationship was intimate: Wisdom was an integral part of the Godhead.
The fate of the old Yahweh was not a happy one. Some of the more extreme Gnostics dealt harshly with him. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, one of the Gnostic scriptures found at Nag Hammadi, Ialdabaoth is cast down into dark Tartarus, the hellish realm beneath Hades where the Titans had been hurled after the defeat of Cronus.25
Just as it is difficult for us moderns to understand the full measure of the destruction wreaked upon Judea by the Romans, so also it is difficult to apprehend the Gnostic resynthesis that occurred in the war’s aftermath, and why, especially from the perspective of places like Alexandria, that reform was so necessary.
Reprinted with permission from ‘The Demiurge and the Wisdom Dialogue’, Chapter 8 of Mark Gaffney’s book Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes: The Initiatory Teachings of the Last Supper, Inner Traditions, Bear & Co., Rochester, VT 05767, USA. Copyright 2004 by Mark H. Gaffney.
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Footnotes
For a detailed study of various Greek theogonies see M.L. West’s brilliant book, The Orphic Poems, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983; for a look at the Egyptian theogony see Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert, The Orion Mystery, New York, Crown Books, 1994; for a discussion of the Sumerian gods see Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1963, chapter 4.
Most scholars have followed Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, Boston, Beacon Press, 1958, pp. 92-93.
For a good discussion see Yehoshafat Harkabi, The Bar Kokhba Syndrome, Chappaqua, NY, Rossel Books, 1983.
Also see Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1968, p. 168; also see Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1973, pp. 3-75.
For example, see Michael Grant, The History of Ancient Israel, New York, Scribners, 1984, p. 175.
W.F. Albright noted the absence of references in Job to any of the prophetic books, and cited this as evidence that Job was composed before these books, i.e., in the seventh century BCE, or even earlier. Albright drew the same conclusion based on allusions in Job to Chaldea. But I take a very different view. Where Jeremiah criticises King and nation Job goes farther and critiques God himself, that is, the all male God concept that is pervasive even in the Books of Jeremiah and Isaiah. There was good reason for Job to stand apart! Allusions to Chaldea also point to a late (post-exilic) rather than an early date. The presence of the Son of Man in Ezekiel, Second Isaiah, and Job all points to a common eastern source. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, 1968, pp. 260-261.
Carl G. Jung, Answer to Job, trans. by R.C. Hull, Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 1958, p. 23.
James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1977, p. 106.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I, 29, 4; 30, 6.
Jung, Answer to Job, p. 13.
R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofman, and Carl A.P. Ruck, The Road to Eleusis, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1978, p. 59.
Ibid, p. 67.
Twentieth century archaeology established the prevalence of goddess worship in ancient Israeli folk religion. Which was in sharp contrast with the official state religion: the pure Yahwism of the temple priesthood. For some reason, although Yahweh assimilated to himself the various epithets and qualities of male Canaanite gods such as Baal and El, the same did not happen with the pagan goddess. Ephraim Stern, “Pagan Yahweism”, Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June 2001, p. 21. Also see Israel Finklestein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, New York, Free Press, 2001, pp. 241-241.
According to W.F. Albright the eighth Proverb swarms with Canaanite words and expressions that refer to the pagan goddess. Albright dated it to as early as the seventh century BCE. Yet, as Albright notes, paeans to Wisdom can be found in the literature from Ugarit dating back well into the second millennium BCE. All of this is curious. If Wisdom entered into Judaism as early as Albright asserts, how then do we explain the all male character of Yahweh? Albright never explained this. The fact is that Yahweh did not assimilate aspects of Wisdom until very late. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1940, p. 368.
If the late Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin is correct, the village of Bethany was a leper’s colony in the first century. Hershel Shanks, ed., Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, New York, Random House, 1992, p. 104. In which case Jesus surely defiled himself in the eyes of the Essenes and other strict Jews by spending time there. Matthew 21:17; 26:6; Mark 11:11; 14:3; Luke 24:50; John 11:1; 12:1. His visits were probably meant as a strong protest against the extremism of Jewish purity laws. The Jews were a superstitious people, as evidenced by the Old Testament, a people who regarded leprosy as a curse visited upon the wicked. II Kings 5:7; II Chronicles 26:20. Consider the case of Miriam, sister of Moses, who, we are told, was so stricken because she opposed her brother’s leadership during the wanderings in the wilderness. Numbers 12:9-10. That the incident is spurious, an obvious scribal attempt to inflate the image of the patriarch Moses, is attested by the Book of Jasher, which describes the same events in a very different light. (Jasher is mentioned in Joshua 10:12-13 and II Samuel 1:18-27.) Jasher was regarded as a lost book, until a copy turned up in England in 1721. It was first published in 1829. Albinus Flaccus Alcuinus, The Book of Jasher, Kessinger Publishing (reprint), Montana, 1829. The contrast with the Numbers version of events is remarkable. In Jasher 12-15 Miriam’s stature as a prophetess is so great that she overshadows even her brother. In Jasher 12 it is Miriam, not Moses, who finds water in the desert. Miriam’s importance is affirmed in the Talmud, which assigns her a status equal with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Aaron, and even Moses, the only woman so named. Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, New York, Avon Books, 1978, p. 117. Although Numbers 12:9-10 describes Miriam’s sudden attack of leprosy as an angry intervention by Yahweh, in Jasher leprosy is never mentioned. The punishment meted out to Miriam is more credible. Moses places his sister under house arrest for reasons of political expedience. Moreover, he is forced to release her when Miriam’s many supporters flock to her defense. Miriam is even credited with an important oral relic, the “Song of the Sea” (also known as the “Song of Miriam”), which established her unique place in Hebrew history. The song celebrates the Red Sea crossing, and is archaic, one of the oldest fragments of oral tradition in the Bible. All of this appears to have been understood by the Naassenes. The Sermon mentions Miriam and describes her as “the one who is sought after.” (Ref., 5.8.2). King Uzziah was another Old Testament figure cursed by leprosy. Uzziah was stricken for entering (and thus defiling) the temple sanctuary. II Chronicles 26:19-21. Curious that no such fate was visited upon Pompey, the Roman general who was despised for a similar offense.
The hymn refers to the hermaphroditic Primal Man. But clearly his androgynous nature mirrors the Godhead. The very next line even states that, “the knowledge of him [Primal Man] is the originating principle of the capacity for knowledge of God.”
Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1924, pp. 1-2.
Robinson, 1977, pp. 128-129.
Cited in Robert M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, New York, Columbia U. Press, 1966, (chapter 6, n. 23), p.33.
Grant, 1966, p. 35.
S.G.F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church, London, S.P.C.K., 1951, chapter 9.
In his history Eusebius reports that the Romans pursued the family of David for many years. The successor of James the Just was finally hunted down and executed during the reign of Trajan. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, chapters 11,12, and 32.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4, 4.
For an abundance of detail see the Secret Book (Apocryphon) of John, Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, p. 98.
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About the Author
Mark H. Gaffney is an environmentalist and peace activist who holds a BSc in physical science. He has written a number of books including Dimona: The Third Temple (1989), Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes (2004), The 9/11 Mystery Plane and the Vanishing of America (2008), Black 9/11 (2012; 2nd ed. 2016), his latest being Deep History and the Ages of Man. Mark can be contacted at markhgaffney@earthlink.net.
“We can count on so few people to go that hard way with us,” Adrienne Rich wrote in framing her superb definition of honorable human relationships. It is a cruelty of life that, along the way, people who once appeared fitted to the task crumble in character when the going gets hard in that natural way hardship has of visiting all human lives.
The profound disruption of relationship rupture, they observe, is related to our earliest attachments and the way our system processes separation from our primary caregivers — a primal response not singular to the human animal:
Take a puppy away from his mother, place him alone in a wicker pen, and you will witness the universal mammalian reaction to the rupture of an attachment bond — a reflection of the limbic architecture mammals share. Short separations provoke an acute response known as protest, while prolonged separations yield the physiologic state of despair.
A lone puppy first enters the protest phase. He paces tirelessly, scanning his surroundings from all vantage points, barking, scratching vainly at the floor. He makes energetic and abortive attempts at scaling the walls of his prison, tumbling into a heap with each failure. He lets out a piteous whine, high-pitched and grating. Every aspect of his behavior broadcasts his distress, the same discomfort that all social mammals show when deprived of those to whom they are attached. Even young rats evidence protest: when their mother is absent they emit nonstop ultrasonic cries, a plaintive chorus inaudible to our dull ape ears.
Behaviorally and psychologically, the despair phase begins when fretfulness, which can manifest as anxiety in humans, collapses into lethargy — a condition that often accompanies depression. But abrupt and prolonged separation produces something much more than psychological havoc — it unleashes a full-system somatic shock. Various studies have demonstrated that cardiovascular function, hormone levels, and immune response are all disrupted. Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon capture the result unambiguously:
Relationship rupture is a severe bodily strain… Prolonged separation affects more than feelings. A number of somatic parameters go haywire in despair. Because separation deranges the body, losing relationships can cause physical illness.
But harrowing as this reality of intimacy and its ruptures may be, it also intimates something wonderfully assuring in its mirror-image — just like painful relationships can so dysregulate us, healthy relationships can regulate us and recalibrate our limbic system, forged in our earliest attachments.
The solution to the eternal riddle of trust emerges as both banal and profound — simply the practice of continually refining our discernment about character and cultivating intimate relationships of the kind life’s hard edges cannot rupture, with people who are the human equivalent not of poison but of medicine, and endeavoring to become such people ourselves for the emotional ecosystems of those we love.
Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon write:
A relationship is a physiologic process, as real and as potent as any pill or surgical procedure.
[…]
Total self-sufficiency turns out to be a daydream whose bubble is burst by the sharp edge of the limbic brain. Stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them.
Take a puppy away from his mother, place him alone in a wicker pen, and you will witness the universal mammalian reaction to the rupture of an attachment bond — a reflection of the limbic architecture mammals share. Short separations provoke an acute response known as protest, while prolonged separations yield the physiologic state of despair.