Matter is an illusion

My brother, Bill, and I had a good long talk the other day concerning what humans refer to as “death,” and its connection to the apparent material nature of the universe. Here’s the upshot of that conversation.

If you visit my gnostic websites or have bought your copy of A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel, you’ve seen my diagrams many times by now. Perhaps you remember that my own gnosis was unlocked through several years of contemplation on the simple phrase: “mud up, spirit down.” That little ditty eventually turned into these two diagrams:

These two diagrams blossomed out into my theory of everything that I call A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything, which you can read on the simple explanation blog or in the book, A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything. It has proven to be a robust theory of everything that continues to hold up.

Later, my own search for gnosis led me into the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi codices. I find the logical cosmology of the Tripartite Tractate to be the one that resonates with me, unlike the Sethian codices which have their gnosis packaged within an old-school type of mythology not unlike the complex, personified mythologies of other cultures and religions. Yet, if we stand back and take the long view of both Valentinian and Sethian gnostic belief, they have many overlapping features. This leads me to surmise that it is the Big Picture flow of consciousness unfolding, outflowing, and then re-enfolding that is the gnostic takeaway, not the particulars of the mythologies.

Whether we call it The Father in Christian gnosticism or The Source or Virgin Spirit in Sethian gnosticism, the matrix of all existence is ethereal consciousness itself—the originating consciousness that we and all sentient beings are heirs to. And whether you call the consciousness that flowed out of the originating Source the Son or the Sethian’s androgynous Barbelo—it is still the first and only monad produced by the originating consciousness.

But since he is as he is, he is a spring, which is not diminished by the water which abundantly flows from it. (Tripartite Tractate, verse 60)

Then that singular representation of consciousness fanned out into all possible variables of that consciousness—all that was, all that would ever be: the ALL and Fullness of God in the Tripartite Tractate and the Child in Sethian codices such as the Secret Book of John, culminating in an eventual separation called the Fall.

Just as the Father exists in the proper sense, the one before whom there was no one else and the one apart from whom there is no other unbegotten one, so too the Son exists in the proper sense, the one before whom there was no other, and after whom no other son exists… Furthermore, he has his fruit, that which is unknowable because of its surpassing greatness. Yet he wanted it to be known, because of the riches of his sweetness… (TTT, verse 57)

Then that singular representation of consciousness fanned out into all possible variables of that consciousness—all that was, all that would ever be: the ALL and Fullness of God in the Tripartite Tractate and the Child in Sethian codices such as the Secret Book of John, culminating in an eventual separation called the Fall.

For just as the Father is a unity and has revealed himself as Father for him alone, so too the Son was found to be a brother to himself alone, in virtue of the fact that he is unbegotten and without beginning… Being innumerable and illimitable, his offspring are indivisible. Those which exist have come forth from the Son and the Father like kisses, because of the multitude of some who kiss one another with a good, insatiable thought, the kiss being a unity, although it involves many kisses… This is the nature of the holy imperishable spirits, upon which the Son rests, since it is his essence, just as the Father rests upon the Son. (TTT, verse 58)

Both strains of gnostic thought describe an event where an Aeon’s free will deviated from the plan of the Fullness, resulting in the production of our material realm. This Aeon is called either Logos or Sophia, depending on which codex you are reading. Both names are imbued with tremendous knowledge and wisdom. Despite good intentions, the fruit of the fallen Aeon turned out to be lacking in the glorious attributes of the Source and the Fullness, producing a chaotic and unruly pleroma lacking true consciousness and life due to the separation from the will of the Fullness.

Instead of perfection, he saw a defect; instead of unification, he saw division, instead of stability, he saw disturbances; instead of rests, tumults. Neither was it possible for him to make them cease from loving disturbance, nor was it possible for him to destroy it. He was completely powerless, once his totality and his exaltation abandoned him. (TTT, verse 80)

We call the result of the Fall the deficiency, commonly referred to as the material cosmos. Here’s the Sethian take on the structure of our cosmos:

Yaldabaoth organized everything after the pattern of the first aeons that had come into being, so that he might create everything in an incorruptible form. (The Secret Book of John, verse 12)

The Tripartite Tractate adds this caution to the construction of the cosmos:

Those who came into being from the presumptuous thought resemble in fact the Fullnesses of whom they are imitations, though they are phantoms, shadows, and illusions, deprived of reason and light, belonging to this empty thought, being nobody’s offspring. (TTT, verse 78)

We Second Order Powers were subsequently fruited into this material realm by the will of the Fullness in order to restore the fallen Aeon to the Fullness and bring this material creation to an end.

Gnostics say that this material world was constructed by the Demiurge as a fallen imitation of the Paradise that exists on the ethereal plane. We think of this cosmos as being material in contrast to the ethereal nature of the originating consciousness of the Father, Son, and Fullness of God. But, as my brother needs to remind me from time to time, there is no such thing as matter. Matter itself is an illusion. In other words, there is no dualism.

What we think of as matter disappears under close inspection. Indeed, the solidity of matter disappears into wave forms at high magnification. Scientists and philosophers used to think of the smallest bits of matter as particles of solid stuff. But with the advent of quantum physics and more sophisticated devices to examine so-called particles, we find that material is actually composed of probabilities, waves, and interactions. This new understanding of the nature of physical reality has made possible previously unimaginable advances in quantum computing and even teleportation and faster-than-light communication.

We can apply our gnostic understanding to these advances in physics. Indeed, quantum physics gives a mechanism for the “mud up, spirit down” gnosis and the manner by which the Demiurge brings order to the universe. The Demiurge manipulates the fallen pleroma to mimic the structures of the ethereal plane but it can’t mimic the consciousness of life. The Demiurge imposes order upon the deficiency by copying the mechanism of the Simple Golden Rule of cooperation but it can’t mimic the free will and consciousness of the Fullnesses’ true cooperative spirit.

Consciousness equals life. This is why matter is inert—it lacks consciousness. The Demiurge is the overarching mind behind all material interactions and appearances. This is why matter is inherently opposed to life. We Second Order Powers were sent into this material cosmos to bring life, light, and love into the cosmos for the redemption and enlightenment of the Demiurge. Our mission is to remind the Demiurge of its origin and its “better half” up in the ethereal plane through our demonstrations of life, consciousness, and love.

We Second Order Powers are the children of the Aeons of the Fullness. We bring all of the attributes of the Fullness into the material plane when we are born into this world. Unfortunately, we forget our true mission due to the “law of mutual combat” that we pick up down here. We spend our time battling the Demiurge and its forces rather than loving each other and cooperating according to the Simple Golden Rule. We find ourselves battling a never-ending war between life and death.

Tragically, the further we drift from our primary mission, the deeper we become entangled with the demiurgic powers below. The ethics of the Fullness becomes diluted and unrecognizable. Virtues are displaced by vices. Egoic aggrandizement replaces our Aeonic Self. Glorifying the Father descends into vain glory and glorification of idols. In our modern times, these idols are likely to be celebrities and sports figures instead of the wood and stone idols of prior generations. We attempt to plug the holes with material possessions that cannot, by their very nature, satisfy our souls.

To realize that this cosmos is not material can help us realize that our battles are as imaginary as the imitations of the deficiency. The atheistic position that we are simply material without souls is the absolute inversion of this realization. There is no such thing as material. Our bodies are not truly physical. The universe and its demiurgic constructions are all imitations. We are only soul.

We are spiritual beings fruited by the Aeons of the Fullness. We are loved and protected by our aeonic parents. When we remember that fact, we can invoke that protection. It is the Aeons who pray to the Father for our well-being. The Aeons do battle on our behalf against the principalities and powers of darkness. Moreover, we each have our own Third Order Powers assigned to us for our ultimate redemption by the Christ. We can choose to live with that remembrance. This is what the New Testament refers to as “putting on the armor of God:”

As for the rest, be empowered by the Lord and by the force of his might. Put on God’s panoply (full armor), so that you are able to withstand the Slanderer’s wiles, Because we are wrestling not against blood and flesh, but against the Archons, against the Powers, against the Cosmic Rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the celestial places. Therefore, take up God’s panoply, so that on the evil day you might be able to resist and, having accomplished all things, take your stand. Take your stand, therefore, girding your loins with truth, and donning the breastplate of justice, And pulling up the straps under your feet in preparation for the good tidings of peace, Above all taking up the shield of the faith, with which you will be able to quench the flaming darts of the wicked one; And put on your helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is God’s utterance.(Hart’s translation of Ephesians 6:10-18)

And of course, this all boils down to practicing virtue, not vice, resisting the wiles of the archons and the Demiurge, loving each other and demonstrating love for all, and bringing remembrance to the Demiurge. When we are able to complete our mission with the help of Christ, this so-called material shadow will disappear, and we will all find ourselves above with the Aeons in the Fullness of God.

Onward and upward, and God bless us all.