Anagoge III – Shooting for the Existential Buzz

Previously in the Premiseless Imperative Series:
Introduction
Kimetikos I: Foundations
Kimetikos II: Theory
Kimetikos III: Practice
Anagoge I: If You Want to be Saved, Admit That You’re A Sinner
Anagoge II: Achtung, Babies!

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“The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds.”

– Georg Cantor

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The idea of God as Infinite is one of the oldest cliches in the book. It’s a basis for most religious systems in which God is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, and bigger than a breadbox. The idea is also a basis for all kinds of crazy philosophical speculation surrounding the idea of the “infinite regression,” which essentially involves every single dichtomy’s capacity to regress into an infinite number of permutations. An excellent example is Philip K. Dick’s Infinite Theophany, highly recommended for our purposes. Consider it a reading assignment!

Gnostic mythology also acknowledges the infinite nature of God– not the creator God, but the God above and beyond everything else, that to which we sometimes refer as the “Limitless Light,” or “The Great Invisible Spirit,” or “The Unknowable God.” Because it’s so freakin’ huge, so utterly infinite, it can’t even be described, because as soon as you start trying to describe it, you’re giving it a name, and giving something a name limits it. As some old buffalo-riding bat once said, “The Tao that can be named is not the Eternal Tao.” For this reason, in Gnostic literature, we often find this Ultimate God discussed in negative terms, such as the following from The Secret Book of John:

He is eternal, since he does not need anything. For he is total perfection. He did not lack anything, that he might be completed by it; rather he is always completely perfect in light. He is illimitable, since there is no one prior to him to set limits to him. He is unsearchable, since there exists no one prior to him to examine him. He is immeasurable, since there was no one prior to him to measure him. He is invisible, since no one saw him. He is eternal, since he exists eternally. He is ineffable, since no one was able to comprehend him to speak about him. He is unnameable, since there is no one prior to him to give him a name.

“He is immeasurable light, which is pure, holy (and) immaculate. He is ineffable, being perfect in incorruptibility. (He is) not in perfection, nor in blessedness, nor in divinity, but he is far superior. He is not corporeal nor is he incorporeal. He is neither large nor is he small. There is no way to say, ‘What is his quantity?’ or, ‘What is his quality?’, for no one can know him. He is not someone among (other) beings, rather he is far superior. Not that he is (simply) superior, but his essence does not partake in the aeons nor in time.

There’s a whole discussion we could have about describing God in the negative (“Via Negativa”), but we’ll leave that aside for now.

Getting a real, honest to goodness sense of this limitlessness can help us produce, within ourselves, an “existential buzz”– an indescribable feeling or awareness of the nature of the infinite. It’s like gnosis-lite, and it’s useful to occasionally shoot for an existential buzz, and recognize it when it happens. To shoot for the buzz, let’s take a look at infinity itself and see what we can do with it as a concept. Since infinity is pretty much one of the most common properties of God, getting to know infinity can really help somebody who is attempting to get to know God.

Infinity wears just as many masks, and is especially useful for those who pursue gnosis because of its wonderful predilection for paradox. Take good ol’ Zeno of Elea, famous for coming up with some excellent paradoxes that have boggled minds for millenium.

Suppose a very fast runner — such as mythical Atalanta — needs to run for the bus. Clearly before she reaches the bus stop she must run half-way, as Aristotle says. There’s no problem there; supposing a constant motion it will take her 1/2 the time to run half-way there and 1/2 the time to run the rest of the way. Now she must also run half-way to the half-way point — i.e., a 1/4 of the total distance — before she reaches the half-way point, but again she is left with a finite number of finite lengths to run, and plenty of time to do it. And before she reaches 1/4 of the way she must reach 1/2 of 1/4 = 1/8 of the way; and before that a 1/16; and so on. There is no problem at any finite point in this series, but what if the halving is carried out infinitely many times? The resulting series contains no first distance to run, for any possible first distance could be divided in half, and hence would not be first after all. However it does contain a final distance, namely 1/2 of the way; and a penultimate distance, 1/4 of the way; and a third to last distance, 1/8 of the way; and so on. Thus the series of distances that Atalanta is required to run is: …, then 1/16 of the way, then 1/8 of the way, then 1/4 of the way, and finally 1/2 of the way (of course we are not suggesting that she stops at the end of each segment and then starts running at the beginning of the next — we are thinking of her continuous run being composed of such parts). And now there is a problem, for this description of her run has her travelling an infinite number of finite distances, which, Zeno would have us conclude, must take an infinite time, which is to say it is never completed. And since the argument does not depend on the distance or who or what the mover is, it follows that no finite distance can ever be traveled, which is to say that all motion is impossible.

This paradox shows us not only that infinity can be based on addition (i.e. infinity is everything all added together– it’s huge!), but can also be based on division (i.e. it’s theoretically possible to divide something an infinite number of times– it’s tiny!).

Look at it another way: suppose we want to measure a one-dimensional line. To do so, we first divide the line into halves. We then divide each half into another half, repeating ad infinitum. Do we ever reach a point at which we can add up all of the segments of the line and arrive at a single conclusive measurement? Since a point, an object existing in no dimensions, has no measurable length, any given one-dimensional surface contains an infinitely small number of zero-dimensional points. Extrapolating from this, since any one-dimensional surface has no measurable width, any two-dimensional object contains an infinitely small number of one-dimensional surfaces. And, of course, any three-dimensional object contains an infinitely small number of two-dimensional surfaces.

How does this then relate to “higher” dimensions? Well, each three-dimensional object exists in what we might call an “instance”– an infinitely small measurement of time. In other words, we measure time in hours, which are divided into minutes, which are divided into seconds, etc. etc. etc. Following the above logic, there are an infinite number of “instances” within each experience of space/time. Or, to turn this idea on its head, you are an infinite number of instances of a single four-dimensional object which is the sum of your instances! Were we able to look at you from the standpoint of a 4-d object, you’d resemble a sort of snake-like blob that simultaneously filled every single spacial location you occupied during your life. And a 5-d object would contain an infinite number of these snake-like blobs, ad infinitum!

Donnie Darko knows what I’m talkin’ about.

Now toss motion into the mix. Suppose we have a cylinder, like a soda can, and it’s painted blue on one third (vertically), red on one third, and yellow on the other third. Now suppose we lay this cylinder on its side, horizontally, and rotate this cylinder. How would this motion appear to someone on a two-dimensional plane which intersects the cylinder along its axis of rotation? The 2-d denizen wouldn’t see the entire cylinder, nor would she be able to percieve the motion of the rotation. Instead, depending on the speed of the rotation relative to the observer, she would see a series of colored lines flashing in a pattern: blue, red, yellow. If the cylinder rotates fast enough, the 2-d person wouldn’t see anything but a fuzzy gray line! With this in mind, what would a 4-d object look like to someone in the third dimension? What would 4-d odors smell like? Would we be able to “feel” a 4-d object?

Got that buzz yet? No? Let’s keep trying.

Our pal Georg Cantor, quoted above, is the father of set theory, and spent a hell of a lot of time thinking about infinity. He came up with the concept of the measurement of infinite sets using the Hebrew letter Aleph (א). Although the idea of a “set” of infinite items seems odd, Cantor, a devoutly religious man, had an interesting way of looking at the relationship between humanity and the universe using the language of infinite sets.

To Cantor, the human and the universe were equally important, and equally infinite. The macrocosm, thought Cantor, contains an infinite number of points. If we start with the universe, or God, and divide into two, and continue this process of division, we would never stop– we could go on for an infinite amount of time. However, said Cantor, the same can be said for any single object within that macrocosm, humanity included! No matter where one starts within the great chain of being, one can arrive at a manifestation of infinity! Every portion of infinity, said Cantor, contains infinity itself!

This is how infinite sets manifest; the infinite set of points within a human, for instance, is an infinitely large subset of the greater infinite set which contains the infinite set of points within the universe.

So, to continue, infinity is present within everything that exists. If God is infinite, then God is manifest within everything that exists.  As a being with infinite dimensions, God transcends space and time to such an extent that what we perceive as motion, change and time would by necessity appear as a single unit to God, as God would perceive every instant simultaneously. Thus, Existence as what has been, is now, and will be, as we perceive it, is defined by our own limitations! Now, if God exists outside of space and time and percieves it as a sort of motionless block, then God has access to any “instance” within space and time regardless of what we perceive as some kind of linear order.

Here’s an interesting exercise: find a brick, or brick-shaped object, and draw a line from one end to the other. At one end write the number one. At the other, write the number 1000. Now make a few points on the brick with chalk– doesn’t matter where. Once you’ve made your points, touch each with a finger. Some points will be closer to one, some to 1000, some on top, some at the bottom. Do any of these points exist “before” the others? Is it more difficult to touch the points closer to 1 or to 1000? Is it tougher to touch the points on the top, or the bottom? What would the brick look like if you drew a dot on every single individual point on the brick’s surface?

Here’s another exercise: find a block of Swiss cheese– the kind with holes. Mark the cheese’s surface with the same 1-1000 line you made on the brick. This time, mark some increments on the line as well, say steps of ten or one-hundred. Now, carefully slice the cheese into sandwich-sized slices perpandicular to the line. Now, on each slice, assign each hole a distinguishing mark– let’s say letters. So on any given slice you’ll have hole A, hole B, hole C, etc. Try to make sure the holes you mark match their counterparts on the other slices. Now for the fun part: get some thread, and cut enough lengths of thread to represent each hole. So if you have six holes in each slice, you’ll want six pieces of thread. Label each piece of string A, B, C, etc., and then begin reconstructing the block of cheese by threading each piece of string through its corresponding holes in each slice.

And another exercise: try to come up with an algebraic formula representing God, the universe and humanity. Spend as much time as you like.

Eventually, at some point, all of this contemplation of the nature of infinity will give you that buzz. You’ll have a weird ideation about your relative location in the whole scheme of things, and sense the vastness as part of yourself. This isn’t some namby-pamby New Age “all is one” craziness– the idea is to cultivate the ability to call up this feeling at any time, in any place. Using the skills you’ve been developing, pay strict attention to this feeling, and you’ll begin to experience it more often, sometimes in relation to other objects around you.

When you can call up the existential buzz at will, you’re ready to continue.

Finally, another reading assignment: if you haven’t yet, read Flatland by E.A. Abbott. It’s a pretty fast, easy and funny read, well worth re-reading if you so desire!

An Illustrated Gnostic Monomyth

Before anything else was the LIMITLESS LIGHT….

We cannot, in fact, even truly say that the Limitless Light

“WAS”

because doing so limits it to a particular state of being, and it has no limit.  It has no color, no shape, no size, nothing.  There is not even a good verb to use to describe it.

The only way to understand the LIMITLESS LIGHT is by BECOMING the Limitless Light, in its entirety, and since we are in the World of Forms, we cannot do that.

The World of Forms, where we live,  is limited by things like time and space.

Even “Light” is not really an adequate term to use to describe the Limitless Light, because it is not like the light of, say,  the Sun:

….or the light of a fire:

… or especially the light of a lightbulb:

 

It is simply an indescribable Light in which no darkness exists to contrast it.

It is a lightless Light that cannot be seen, a soundless Sound that cannot be heard, an expressionless Passion that cannot be felt.

It cannot be measured, because nothing can stand outside of it to measure it.

Because nothing limits this Light, it contains

 

POSSIBILITIES

All of them!  Every last one!

Of course, in a Limitless Light with no

the only possibility is binary:  either it is the Limitless Light as Unity, one single Everything, or…

…it is not.  The only option of differentiation for something which has no limits is the experience of itself.

In other words,  it cannot rightly step outside of itself in order to experience itself, so it has to do so from within.

This necessitates a split within the Limitless Light.  In order to know itself, for itself, the Limitless Light had to divide into Two.  It did this with its first “thought,” the Observed, the first differentiation within the Limitless Light.

We call THE OBSERVER  “GOD, the FATHER,”  and we call THE OBSERVED “BARBELO, the MOTHER.”

This has nothing to do with human gender—it is a linguistic tool we use to help us understand the roles of God the Father and Barbelo.

Since the two, the Double Source, still exist as parts of the Limitless Light, we consider them equals, both permeated by the Light.  This permeation in which the Double Source emits is called the Pleroma, or Filling Up.

In order for God the Father to observe Barbelo, Barbelo must return to the source, the Limitless Light, thereby giving birth to a third principle within her.

Her decision to return to the source was the third principle (the motion of  BARBELO), that of the desire to return to the source that the Limitless Light might know itself.

Thus, we say that Barbelo is the preexistent Virgin who gave birth to the all, the womb of the whole differentiated realm of BEING.

This principle is the Great Androgynous CHRISTOS, the perfected Son/Daughter of the Limitless Light as God the Father.

Note the “vesica pisces,” the familiar Christian fish symbol created by the intersection of God and Barbelo.

When God the Father saw how beautiful and wonderful was the Christos, he gave him a share of Immortality and Imperishability and Perfection, which filled him with the Limitless Light, and supplied him with Nous, the principle of Mind, through which the Christos could continue the process of differentiation that the Limitless Light might continue to know itself.

The Christos, with the Mind, desired to continue the process of differentiation by returning to the Source, the Limitless Light.  In so doing, the process continued and the Limitless Light began bilocating further, splitting into all possible Doubles.

These Doubles are called the AEONS, as they exist in a time beyond Time, as projections of the Limitless Light in his manifestation as God the Father and Barbelo and the Christos.

The Doubles are not split into straightforward opposites, but instead are split into neutralizing Twins of differentiation.  Imagine the process of Creation running backwards—the Twins come together in a flash of light and ascend into undifferentiated spirit-light.

This whole process of emanation still takes place within the Limitless Light, which uses the process to learn about itself.

In the realm of all possibilities, one possibility will always be limitation.  Since all possibilities must occur for the Limitless Light to truly know itself, inevitably a limit arises, beyond which one’s wisdom becomes incomplete.  Eventually, the process results in Pistis Sophia, Faith Wisdom.

This Aeon always lies farthest away from the source of the Limitless Light.

Desiring to know what lies beyond this point—in other words, to participate, through ignorance in an act of creation—Pistis Sophia gives birth to YALDABAOTH, the DEMIURGE, also called Saklas or Samael, a serpent-shaped being with the head of a lion.

Yaldabaoth is thrust into the realms beyond the perception of the Limitless Light, into the Void beyond the differentiation, the Materia—our realm of perception.

As with any newborn,  Yaldabaoth’s attention is drawn towards the sound and the light.  Looking beyond the border between he and his mother, Yaldabaoth sees the Pleroma, obscured by the border of ignorance, and assumes that he perceives his own reflection.

“I am all,” he says.  “There is none apart from me.  I am the

ONE TRUE GOD.”

Sophia, peering down in repentant realization of her error and wishing to save her child from the darkness of ignorance, replies, “Child, you are in error!  My child, come through to me!” (Which translates, so says one text, to yalta baoth.)

This realization, that something greater than he exists, drove Yaldabaoth mad with envy and jealousy.  Thus does he tell us, in a Demiurgic Verse within Scripture, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

The true God, the Father, has no others of which to be jealous.

Choosing to ignore his mother, the disobedient Demiurge cast her from his realm, but only after he had been tricked into stealing a portion of her Limitless Light:

This portion in hand, he set about creating his own material realm.

He seperated the energy from the matter, the land from the water, the Earth from the Heavens.

He did not truly separate them, but set up the illusion that these things are separate, indeed, that all things are separate from one another.  This is because he was separated from the realms above by the abyss of ignorance, which kept the Limitless Light from knowing that part of itself.

After creating these distinctions, the Demiurge began mirroring the Aeons from above in the form of the ARCHONS.

These Archons, numberless, are ruled by Seven Kings and Twelve Princes—the days of the week and signs of the Zodiac—and mirror the divine Twin Aeons of the Pleroma.

Yaldabaoth and the Archons then set about creating the Garden of Eden, and placed Sophia’s portion of the Limitless Light into the Tree of Gnosis,  just as Sophia knew he would.

Finally, hazily recollecting the image of the Divine Androgynous Christos, Yaldabaoth and the Archons set about creating humankind.  Thus do the Demiurgic Verses tell us, in the plural and not the singular form, that Yaldabaoth and the Archons created mankind as male and female to mirror the Aeonic Twins of the Pleroma.  “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

The Demiurge breathed life and a soul into the lifeless body he created, but the body would not stir, as it contained no portion of the Limitless Light.

 

Meanwhile, Sophia had returned to the Aeons of the Limitless Light and had repented of everything, and a plan had been set in motion.  God the Father sent Aeons into the realms of the Demiurge, where they took the form of the Archons, saying to him, “Bring forth the Light you stole from your Mother and breathe a small portion of it into his face that he might move.”

Saklas did just this, and the man, Adam, arose with a portion of Spirit.

Such was the nature of the Spirit within him that the Demiurge and the Archons became jealous of their own creation and determined to remove the portion of Spirit from his body.  Little did they realize that they were doing so according to the plan of God the Father.

The Archons set Adam over the Garden of Eden, instructing him that he might eat of any of the trees of the Garden, but not the Tree of Gnosis; otherwise, if he ate of it, he would die.

They said this, however, according to the will of God the Father, who knew that if they told him this in such a fashion he would be more likely to eat the fruit.

The Archons then cast Adam into the deep sleep of ignorance and attempt to remove the spirit from his body.  In so doing, they create the female, Eve, the image of Sophia and of Barbelo above her.

When Adam awakens and sees Eve, who contains a portion of the Limitless Light, the Spirit, she lifts her veil and he experiences the gnosis of Holy Sophia, and remembers his true nature as part of the Limitless Light trapped in the realm of Illusions.  This is because they now both contain the spark of the Limitless Light, and recognizing this spark in others grants true wisdom.

Meanwhile, Holy Sophia, Wisdom, appearing as a serpent,

and the Logos, Reason, appearing as an Eagle,

descend into the Tree of Knowledge.  The Holy Sophia represents Barbelo, and the Logos represents the Christos, and thus do we honor both as our Saviours and comforters.  They instruct Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit, knowing that Saklas hid the Portion of the Limitless Light therein.  They did this knowing that by doing so the two would forever contain a portion of the Limitless Light and the Gnosis of who they are, where they came from, where they would go after they die, and that their descendents would recognize these things when awakened to the spark within.

This is why we say, according to This Way, that GNOSIS = AWAKENING (WORD + WISDOM).

Unfortunately, the Materia is too differentiated, too far from the realm of the Limitless Light’s perfection to allow for redemption by the Totality.  When the Archons see what happened, that Adam and Eve knew them for the false gods they are, they become incensed.  Saklas sets off immediately after Adam and Eve, but they hide from him, ashamed to have been servants to a false deity, especially after their gnosis of the Limitless Light within.

Finding them, Saklas and the Archons decide to take a different approach to maintaining control over humanity and keeping them in ignorance.  They build a Prison of Black Iron, the World of Forms, and weave beautiful and appealing illusions within its walls.  The illusions stupify Adam and Eve, who lose sight of their gnosis and perpetuate the race of humanity within the confines of the Black Iron Prison.

That they contain sparks of the Limitless Light, however, allows an entry point for the Christos and Sophia, and has allowed a Secret Underground of awakened individuals to return to the prison from the Realms of the Totality and activate the Divine Seed within each of us, allowing us to achieve gnosis and saving us from the imperfections of the World of Forms.

Throughout history, again and again, the Christos and Sophia have returned to the World of Forms, allowing the Pleroma to expand within its walls.  No matter how many Empires the Archons manage to create, no matter how many times they strengthen the walls of the Black Iron Prison, they cannot keep the Christos and Sophia from returning to us.  They tried to drown the entire world in a great deluge, but God the Father saved the family of Noah, who released Sophia’s gnosis back into the world in the form of a dove.  They established the archetypal Empire of Impelled Control in Rome, but the Logos descended into our saviour Jesus Christ and awakened his disciples to the Limitless Light.  They established the Empire of Total Destruction with the creation of the Atomic Bomb and its detonation in 1945, but the Logos and Sophia manifested months later in the collection of Words of Wisdom in codices discovered at Nag Hammadi.

They continue to create Empire—as said Philip Dick, “The Empire Never Ended”— but Sophia and the Logos continue to teach us how to resist, how to attain gnosis and thus bring about the redemption of the corrupted realms of the Demiurge.