0018 So far, this origin story portrays the production of the cosmos and the descent of the soul.  Cosmic creation and personal destiny are thus linked through a spirit (formerly, the perspective) level virtually contextualizing an establishment (formerly, situation) level.  Obviously, we humans go into the content… er, personal level.

0019 The mindless rationality of Yaltabaoth determines both the universe and my person.  It stands in the way of my spark’s return to the Source.  My material body is a hindrance. My body and its concerns are subject to being situated by the builder god’s natural laws as well as the establishment’s laws and decrees.

0020 Is this starting to sound vaguely modern?

Burfeind traces a path from ancient to modern times.  So, it will probably come as no surprise that the best terminology for the ascent of the soul comes from the past two centuries.

Burfeind lists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as Gnostic thinkers.  They founded modern Western psychoanalysis.  They were trained in science and medicine, yet they produced terminology that associates to the personal level.  They formulated their ideas at a time when Gnosticism was constellating in the West in the form of social movements.

0021 What term captures concerns with the body in the situation of the natural laws and social norms?

Freud’s ego does.  The ego operates according to the reality principle.  It defines my actuality.  So, it goes into slot 2a.

The ego situates personal desires to accommodate to natural and social conditions.  These desires belong to the realm of possibility.  Freud called them “it”.  English translators turned “it” into the technical term “id”.

0022 The reality principle may be labeled id^real.  I can hear the reality principle in the phrases, “face it”, ‘that it’s”, “it’s too much”, “what about it” and so on.  Substitute the word “id” for “it”.  The reality principle is one current within the id.  The id allows many currents.  The logic of firstness is inclusive.  It allows contradictions.  So the id ought to go into slot 1a.

0023 The superego is the normal context in which the ego operates.  The superego internalizes the natural laws and social norms.  It goes into slot 3a.

0024 So far, the ego_2a constitutes one element of the personal level actuality.  It works to satisfy the superego_3a.  It fulfills the reality principle_1a.  If that was all, then I would expect the person to be an easily trained animal.  That is hardly the case.

Ah, this is where the spark must come into play.

0025 Freud’s Gnostic venture did not go far enough.  Freudian psychoanalysis aimed to strengthen the ego_2a.  To him, the ego was assaulted by other currents in the id besides id^real.  The goal of the analytic dyad was to show that these other currents were mere fantasies, generated in response to some clinical cause.

The clinical cause was typically a trauma experienced during childhood.  The symptom was an aberrant and insistent id^fantasy, making it difficult for the patient to maintain healthy ego function.  The client exhibited a fixation.

The technical term is “repetition disorder”.

Okay, what about that spark?

0026 At first, Carl Jung was a promising student of Freud.  Well, not quite.  Actually, he was already an established practitioner in the fledgling field of the psychological sciences. He started following Freud’s ideas.  Freud thought that he had found the person to inherit his intellectual legacy.

But then, Jung rebelled.

0027 The problem?

Freud insisted that id^fantasy was like a locomotive driven by the coal-burning engine of steamy sexuality.  Yes, Freud was fixated, at least for a while.  Other students proposed alternate engines, such as yearning for the mother’s breastand social status.  Yes, id^fantasy is a broad current within the id.  It is like the Euphrates compared to the Tigris of id^real.

0028 Carl Jung completed Freud’s Gnostic formulation by proposing why humans are not easily trained animals.  Jung said (more or less), “Yes, the ego works within the normal context of the superego.  Yes, the ego operates according to the desires of the reality principle, id^real.  But that is not all.  The ego is also responsible for the other element of the dyad in actuality.  The ego acts in the name of the other element in the dyad.”

What do I mean by “dyad in actuality”?

Actuality belongs to the category of secondness.  Secondness always contains at least two elements.  One affiliates to effect (in the broadest sense of the word).  The other affiliates to cause.  Ah, cause and effect?  That sure sounds like actuality.

The ego is like a cause (in the broadest sense of the word).

What is the other element in the personal-level dyad of actuality?

0029 The Self is another element.

The ego is responsible for the Self.  The ego acts in the Name of the Self.

However, the Self is watered by a different river within the id.  That river is id^fantasy.

0030 What is the Self?

It is the actuality emerging from the possibilities inherent in id^fantasy.  I know my Self through experiences that stimulate id^fantasy.  Most of these experiences are personal feelings that occur in the moment, as the ego acts within particular circumstances and for particular reasons consistent with id^real.

0031 The Socratic formula, “know your Self”, may be framed as, “Pay attention to what you feel as you go about your duties in this world of natural laws and social norms.”  In this way, you can train your fantasies to imagine virtuous situations, such as the situations depicted by Plato.

0032 Here is a diagram of how modern terms fit into the personal level.

0033 Jung discovered the element missing in Freud’s analysis.  At the same time, he generated a host of troubling questions.  For example, the Self is obviously outside of spoken language, since it does not operate according to the simple rule that ‘words refer to things and states of things’.  It bootstraps itself from feelings encountered during the operations of the ego.  It starts as a simple “I like this”  and “I don’t like that”.

Then, the Self becomes sophisticated enough to know that this is a sign of that.  Spoken utterances are not taken at face value.  The ego does that.  Instead, spoken utterances are incorporated as gestures that image or indicate something that I like or something that I don’t like.  Or, even more evocatively, the gestures picture and point to something that may be fantasized about and something that may not be fantasized about.  The Self is full of acquired tastes.

0034 The person flourishes when the ego takes responsibility for the Self and acts in the Name of the Self.  The id^fantasythat Freud attributed to some originating trauma is really a current of desire that the Self experiences over and over again.  Id^fantasy may express itself as desire or revulsion.  Sometimes, desire is revulsion and revulsion, desire.

0035 If the ego treats the Self properly, then the Self may well be happy.

0036 But, wait a minute.  What about that spark?

Christians formulate the polarity within the unity of my person as active soul (animates) body.  The modern formula is a little more Gnostic.  The polarity within the unity of my person is ego [taking responsibility for and acting in the Name of the]) Self.  In the virtual field produced by the actuality of Sophia, the Gnostic formulation takes one more step.  My ego concerns the material aspect of my person.  My Self constitutes the immaterial aspect of my person.

0037 Thus, the personal level sets the stage for the ascent of the Self to the Monad.  Through Gnostic myth and rituals, Sophia provides the secret knowledge, the symbols and the experiences that awaken the Self and call it to journey to the Source.

0038 Thus, my working model of the Gnostic origin myth described in chapter 1 of Burfeind’s book looks like this:

0039 Sophia delivers her message to the Self, not the ego.  The ego accounts for the Self.  So, in the interest of survival, the ego suppresses the experience of the call.

Now, I will compare my working model to Suarez’s model of mind-dependent being.

0040 During the 1600s, the Baroque scholastics, such as Francisco Suarez, tried to figure out mind-dependent beings.  Actually, they were features of mind-independent beings that could be taken by the mind to be mind-independent.  Privations, negations, self-contradictions and relations were classic examples.

0041 For example, there is a hole in a wall.  The hole actually is a place where the mind-independent wall does not exist, but everyone treats the hole as if it exists.  I encounter a wall.  The wall has a spot were it does not exist.  I immediately conclude this hole is real. I am upset about it.

0042 What is going on?

Actuality belongs to secondness.  Secondness is dyadic.  There should be two elements in the slot for actuality, even though only one element is typically listed.

On the content level, the encountered being_2a is one element.  It emerges from the potential of ‘something’ happening_1ain the normal context of ‘what is happening’_3a.

In the example, the wall_2a satisfies ‘something’ happening_1a.  But then, so does that hole_2a.  The missing section of the wall is where something is not happening.

The efficient intellect_2b projects a being that accounts for the encounter_2a.  This being is completely mind dependent, even though I regard it as mind-independent.  The accounting being_2a accounts for the encountered being_2a.  The accounting being says, “There is a hole in the wall.”

0043 Suarez’s discussion on ens rationis can be modeled as an interscope, just like the Gnostic origin myth.  The similarity is striking.

0044 The term “renvoi” is new.  Renvoi is the contiguity between accounting and encountered beings. Look at that wall.  I could call the hole a “privation”.  But, that would not be enough.  It’s not a privation of wall.  It is a hole in the wall.

0045 So, let me dwell on the comparison between the interscopes of the Gnostic origin myth and Suarez’ model of mind-dependent being.

0046 The Self is like the hole in the wall.  The wall is the seamless operation of the ego, within the framework of the superego, fulfilling the reality-principle desires of id^real.

My Self says, “None of this is ego-activity is about me.  Or is it?”

All sorts of feelings come bubbling up from id^fantasy.  Many of them are weird.  I label the actuality that encounters these feelings “my Self”.

0047 For the content-level, the comparison looks like this:

0048 What does this imply?

My ego is comparable to my efficient intellect projecting a being that accounts for my Self within the normal context of ‘what is happening’.

0049 This is exactly the opposite of what I would expect for the actuality emerging from id^real.

I expect that my ego would encounter the world.  Instead, my Self encounters the world.  My ego is responsible for and freely acts upon that encounter.  My efficient intellect projects my ego in order to account for my Self.

0050 Even more striking is that the ego brings to bear all the materiality of natural laws and social norms in its account of the Self’s encounter.  It’s like the ego starts by yelling, “Get that id^fantasy out of here.  Id^real will tell me what to do.”

Recall, the ego acts in the Name of the Self, but the ego does not necessarily take the Self into consideration.

0051 Hmmm.  Would that explain repetition disorders?

If my ego does not take responsibility for my Self, then he can ignore my id^fantasy.  So my Self, in response, will simply serve up the same encounter over and over again.

She says, “Deal with this, reality principle.  Take responsibility for what I like and what I don’t like.  Acknowledge my feelings.”

0052 Imagine a world where I only encounter real beings.  Or maybe, imagine a world without accounting beings.  I cannot notice a hole in the wall, because I cannot account for the wall itself.

I suppose my day would go like this:  Hunger.  I look for an encounter with real edible being.  I strive to avoid being eaten.  Oh, what’s that?  Ah.  Got it.  Yum.  Sleepy.

In a world filled with social norms, none of this flies.  I must cook food and share that food with others.  Sometimes I don’t enjoy what they like.  But, I have to eat.  Then, when I want to sleep, no one will permit it.  I have tasks to do.

The Self learns to enjoy these troubles.  Id^fantasy can adapt to almost anything.  I may not like my routine, but I can learn the art of enduring it.  It can learn to pray.  I can find joy in my routine.

0053 So, my Self compares to the encountered being.  Perhaps, my Self is better expressed as me encountering ‘my encounter with a real being’.

The Self is all about experience.  It is not about responsibility and freedom.  That goes with the ego.

0054 Next, allow me to compare the virtual nested forms in the realm of actuality. Suarez’s model of mind-dependent being is on the left.  The Gnostic origin myth is on the right.

0055 Even though these two virtual nested forms look very similar, there is one key difference.

0056 In Suarez’s discussion of mind-dependent being, the end point is alignment among all the elements in actuality.  The formal intellect reflectively judges the reckoning of the efficient intellect.  The accounting being projected by the efficient intellect ought to explain the encountered being.  Plus, the explanation should conform to a reality principle.

0056 The Gnostic formula is different.  The virtual nested form in the realm of actuality never aligns.

0057 Why?

Yaltabaoth and the Establishment are monsters.  The ego is only concerned about the person’s material conditions.  The ego is slave to natural laws and social norms.  The ego is at the service of a corrupt material body that encases the pure immaterial spark of the Self.  There is no possibility of alignment.

0058 What is the Self to do?

The Self can admit defeat and just get used to it.  The Stoic says, “Live a life of quiet desperation.”

The Self can rebel and become the target of the wrath of Yaltabaoth and the Establishment.  That is the way of Icarus, who rebelled against his father Daedalus’ instructions.

The Self can submit to the ego’s demands and bow before the laws over and over again, finding joy in its own humiliation.

Or, the Self can escape and return to the Source.  Through secret knowledge, practices, rituals and incantations, the Self can experience Sophia.  It can find a way past ego and Establishment.  It can slip by Yaltabaoth.  It can get around the efficient intellect with its accounting being.  It can return to the Source.

0059 Here is a story.

A friend of mine lied to me in order to gain advantage.  Because I need to get along in my social circle, I cannot retaliate.

On a later occasion, my so-called friend shows me a photograph from before the lie.

“Who is that?” he asks.

“That is me.” I reply, trying to hide my disgust.  I would like to be the carefree and trusting person that I once was.  I am no longer that person.

My so-called friend smiles.  He confirms that I am the same person, as far as he is concerned.  He did not apologize.  He re-iterated the lie.  He re-enacted his advantage over me.

I think to myself, “So, this is what I get instead of an apology.”

0060 What happened in this story?

0061 In Suarez’s model, my efficient intellect projects an accounting being (my ego-response) into the second slot of the content-level actuality.  My ego-response accounts for the real encountered being (of my so-called friend’s actions).

My ego-response also reflects the situation, which emerges from ‘what is happening’.

I am too vulnerable to fight what he did.  I am too slow to respond.  Plus, he would gain even further by turning the group against me.

My ego-accounting being takes care of material me.

0062 If there was a possibility of us coming together, of honestly becoming friends again, he would have apologized.  Hey, I just thought of it. I should demand an apology.

It’s too late.

His act with the photograph shows that ‘he wants his cake and to eat it too’.  He wants me to be a friend as before as well as a chump that he lies to.  There is nothing I can do to stop that from happening.

0063 Here is Suarez’s model of the story.

0063 A momentary flash of reflective reason_2c opens a possibility_1a.

I could demand an apology.  But, that would start a fight.  What would I say?

0064 Maybe, I would say, “What type of friend are you, lying to me for advantage?”

But, then, he would say, “Well, what type of friend are you, for even mentioning this.”

Ah, the cruelty.  He obeys the rules, even as he defies their spirit.  I cannot.  He can bend the rules.  I cannot.  He can break the rules.  I cannot.  What am I to do?

0065 I hear a voice, “This is all the work of Yaltabaoth and the evil Establishment.  There is a way to get to a world where friends apologize for lying.  I will send secret knowledge for you to fly to the Source.”

0066 Who is Sophia gesturing to?

She addresses my Self, my immaterial me, not in words, but in fantasy.

0067 This is very different than what Christianity offers.  But, that is not my path at the moment.  

Instead, for now, this claim is left to the student.

0068 I would like to examine the contiguity between the two elements of the content-level dyad in actuality.  The technical term for this contiguity is a French word: renvoi.

What is the contiguity between accounting and encountered beings?

What is the contiguity between material (ego) and immaterial (Self) me?

0069 Of course, I cannot fully put these contiguities into words.  The Real defies spoken language.  Spoken language has to translate the Real into a system of differences. Spoken language cannot grasp the whole.

0070 Nevertheless, let me try.

0071 For Suarez’s model of ens rationis, the accounting being explains the encountered being.  I can write the dyad as accounting being [explains] encountered being.

Of course, anyone can ask, “What do I mean by the word ‘explain’?”  

I reply, “Look at the example.  The accounting being of this is a lie explains the encountered being of my so-called friend’s behavior.”

The accounting being offers a form to what is happening.

0072 For the working model of the meaning underlying the word “Gnosticism”, material me takes responsibility for immaterial me.  Obviously, my ego is free to act in the Name of my Self, because he dismisses my fantasy-induced feeling that I should get an apology.

My ego insists, “Oh no, forget that.  It is too dangerous.”

I can write that as ego [takes responsibility for and is free to act in Name of] Self.

0073 Yet, no Gnostic will ask, “What do I mean by responsibility and freedom?”

Why?

The Gnostic already knows.  Responsibility and freedom are projections of the evil and malignant Yaltabaoth and the Establishment.

The ego is in conflict with the Self.  My ego represses, suppresses, manipulates, takes advantage of, denies, repudiates (and the list goes on and on) my Self.  My ego is worried about this material world, not immaterial me.

Maybe, I can write this as ego [dominates and represses] Self.

0074 Now, let me compare the two renvoi.

0075 In Suarez’s model, renvoi ultimately makes sense of ‘what is happening’.  Renvoi supports the situational-level idea_1b that my friend is establishing that he can take advantage of me.

Renvoi is sensical.  The idea that situates renvoi is perfectly sensible in a world where there is no human perfection. After all, Suarez wrote in a tradition holding the concept of Original Sin.

0076 In the working model of Gnosticism, renvoi frames concerns of material me over immaterial me.  Renvoi supports the situation-level idea_1b that my friend ruthlessly participates in the evil inherent in all material concerns.

0077 My Self wails, “All he wants to do is get ahead.”

0078 Renvoi is sensical.  In addition, renvoi includes the trampled feelings that constitute my Self.  Renvoi includes the practical fears of my ego.  The idea that situates renvoi is sensible, not to Suarez’s formal (Christian) intellect_2c, but to Sophia’s (Gnostic) call_2c.

0079 The next question that goes with the story is: What if I lost it?

What if I yelled at my friend, “Why did you lie to me, you evil monster?”

That would be a mistake, because it would turn the situation against me.

My ego would not allow that possibility.

0080 This answer brings me to a comparison between Suarez’s model and the model of the Gnostic origin myth in the realm of possibility.

0081 These two virtual nested forms put the previous discussion into a nutshell.

0082 The senses are engaged in order to fulfill the potential of ‘something happening’_1a. However, they are also tuned to the possibility of desire in the ‘something’ that happens_1a.

0083 A contiguity between accounting and encountered beings (renvoi) informs an idea that underlies the efficient intellect’s projection of an accounting being_1b

To complete the loop, the accounting being_2a triggers and fills in the content-level nested form_3a(2a(1a)).

0084 If the normal context is defined by my superego_3a, then the content-level nested form determines my social predicament.  My accounting being (my ego) explains my encounters in terms of who the world thinks I am supposed to be_1b(3a).

The problem is: My Self_2a is not who the world thinks I am supposed to be_1b.

0085 For Suarez, the terminus is the potential of coming together_1c in the normal context of reflective reason_3c.

For Gnosticism, the terminus is the Source_1c in the normal context of the inadequacy of this passing age_3c.

0086 The potential for coming together_1c says, “Pray for your friend’s conversion and forgive him.”

The Source_1c says, “Utopia is a world where friends do not lie to one another.  Ignore the material concerns of the world.  Fly to me.”

0087 This leads to a comparison of the virtual nested forms in the category of thirdness.

0088 This diagram suggests that any act that defies the superego will be processed as a normal context that defies reflexive reason that (in turn) goes with mindless rationality.

0089 Say what?

0090 The ego must remain responsible for the Self.  The ego must be free to act in the Name of the Self.

0091 But, if the ego suppresses, manipulates, ignores and denies the Self, then that is not good either.  Once the Self insists on getting attention, the person becomes hysterical.

The word “hysterical” derives from the same root as the scientific technical term “hysteresis”.  Hysteresis occurs when a material cannot recover from an imposed stress.  The Gnostic worldview plays on that image.  Hysteria occurs when something immaterial cannot recover from an imposed material stress.

0092 Gnosis is called “secret knowledge”.  The meaning of a Gnostic statement is never about what the Gnostic is talking about.  Sophia is Personified Wisdom for exactly this reason.  Look at the myth.  Sophia birthed the monster who created the current age.  At the same time, she aborted the same monster.  She hid him in a cloud.  Is that taking responsibility?  Is that acting in the Name of the Self?

Is that personified wisdom?

0093 Here is the next question: What is the pleroma_3c?  How does it compare to reflective reason_3c?

0094 Recall, in the Gnostic origin myth, the pleroma proceeds in aeons that culminate in Sophia’s Self-ish actions.  Obviously, these emanations are not in the clouds that Sophia put Yaltabaoth in.  I suppose that the male emanation that Sophia ignored remains outside the cloud.  After all, she did not abort His child.

She aborted Her child, after she realized her child as an “alien being”.

Is that the same as an “inconvenience”?

0095 Also, what about the Monad?

In the example, the Monad presents the image of an ideal that will appear in the coming age.  The coming age will be one where friends do not lie to one another.  That sounds like a future emanation of the pleroma, but it cannot be so, because my life is happening in the cloud, hidden from the pleroma.

0096 What does this imply?

I suppose, the Monad must contain the future end point of each age within the cloud.  The first pleroma ended in tragedy.  A second pleroma is linked to that cloud where Sophia hides Yaltabaoth.  The second pleroma is a mockery of the first.  Each age in our current Lebenswelt ends as a farce of a passing aeon.  Each age ends as one aborted Yaltabaoth replaces another.

0097 Why?

If the new age where friends do not lie to one another arrives, then it will become a new Establishment.  It will manifest itself as a new Yaltabaoth.  Plus, it will be as dysfunctional as the present Yaltabaoth, because people abuse and manipulate any set of natural laws and social regulations.

0098 So the next questions unfold.  Who is Sophia?  How is Sophia present in this world?

Before I address these questions, I return to Burfeind’s work.

Students should read chapters 2, 3 and 4 to complete Part 1.

0099 Consider the 13 traits of Gnosticism listed at the start of chapter 2.

The ego is concerned with material conditions.  The ego exhibits responsibility and freedom.

0100 What happens when the material world is declared evil?

The good immaterial Self hears Sophia’s call to return to the Source.  The Self must get around Yaltabaoth and the Establishment in order to do so.

0101 As far as the ego is concerned, the ways around Yaltabaoth and the Establishment are both unnatural (against the archons) and abnormal (against social tradition).  

0102 Here is one way to get around Yaltabaoth and the Establishment: The ego uses language one way.  Sophia uses language another way.  Gnosis undermines the traditional vocabulary.  Words gain alternate meanings.  Ego-supporting institutions, such as marriage and church, are re-purposed.

The word “subversion” fits.  The prefix “sub” means ‘below’.  The word “version” is “one expression of events”.

Someone may ask me, “What is your version of the story?”

I may reply, “Well, I would like to live in an honest world, where friends do not lie to one another.”

0103 The subversion of the traditional meaning of words suggests that a version is being added below the surface version.  Burfeind labels this subversion with the word “phantasm”.

The medieval scholastics used the term in the same fashion.  “Phantasm” meant “what is going on in my head when I figure out me in the situation”.

0104 With Gnostic subversion, there are two simultaneous movements. Version corresponds to the ego. Sub- goes with the Self.

The ego version matches the word “reckoning”.  The Self’s subversion matches the word “phantasm”.

0105 In my example, I admitted to my so-called friend that he held a photograph of me.  My ego spoke in the Name of my Self.  That is how my ego reckons.

When I felt that this was not really true, my phantasm was subversive.

0106 Reckoning goes with Yaltabaoth and the Establishment.  In their… er… my world, me in the situation must be sensible.

Phantasm goes with… what?… the fog that surrounds Yaltabaoth and the Establishment?  It goes with me sneaking under (sub-) the current version of the sensible world.

Or maybe, like a bird, I fly above (super-) the current version of the sensible world.  I look down at all the ego-driven mortals and think, “If I change their social conditions, then they would no longer suffer in their material concerns.”

0107 The ego has direct access to speech-alone talk.  The ego can explain what it is doing and what it wants to do.  The ego can say what it plans and so forth.

The Self cannot explain what it is doing in speech-alone talk.  In this capacity, the Self is similar to hand talk.

0108 How does hand talk work?

Hand talk words image and indicate their referents.  They are also configured in a symbolic order.  The symbolic order turns the manual-brachial gestures (and their iconic and indexal sign-objects) into a language.

A symbolic order is a finite number of elements (in this case, manual-brachial gestures) arranged as a system of differences.  Once a symbolic order forms, then symbolic operations can be performed.  This is called “grammar”.

But, hand talk is more evocative than the symbolic operations of grammar.  It is more than language.  It represents the world through pictures and pointings.

0109 By analogy, Sophia calls the Self with a grammar where images and indications serve as word-gestures.

Thus, the first trait listed by Burfeind is this: The Monad’s namelessness is a fundamental premise.  The Monad is beyond speech-alone words.  Yet, the Monad is linguistic.

0110 Certainly, this makes no sense to the ego-driven world that imagines that words refer to things and states of things.

The language of the Monad is not supposed to make sense.  It is supposed to make nonsense.  The Self experiences a world where hand-talk word-gestures express things and states of things.  Sophia gestures to the Self through the things of the world.

0111 In their own subversive ways, the declarations within the Monad are sensible, even though they are detached from and hostile to the reality principle, id^real.

0112 For example, when Sophia called me in the example, her gestures inspired me to flee to a world where friends do not lie to one another.  This image supports id^fantasy.  This image does not support id^real.  My own ego-reckoning demonstrated that I live in a world where friends lie to one another.

0113 The 13 traits of Gnosticism, listed at the start of chapter 2, describe the visual language of Sophia.

0114 Chapters 3 and 4 of Burfeind’s text portrays Gnosticism as a Christian heresy.  To me, Gnosticism is more than just a Christian heresy.  Christian heresies are one branch of Gnosticism.  Gnosticism is very old.  It was already present when Christianity arrived.

So, my use of the term “Gnosticism” is broader than Burfeind’s.

0115 Gnosticism is opportunistic.  Any system of organizations and institutions is vulnerable to Gnostic infiltration.  This includes institutions as varied as secular democratic states following the French Revolution (in the West) and Islamic Autocrats (in the East).

In the West, the current manifestation is American Progressivism or Big Government (il)Liberalism.

In the East, Burfeind mentions the Sufis of the 11th century, who were very similar to the troubadours and Cathars in the West.

0116 One of the wonderful points that Burfeind makes in his history is this:  The word “heresy” means ‘choice’.

0117 The Gnostic choice is the decision to listen to the call of Sophia and to undermine the functionality of the ego.

The Gnostic choice places the Self into conflict with the ego.

0118 Christians call this choice heresy.  Other institutions and organizations will attach different labels, such as the pleroma-inspired terms “progressive” and “new age”.

0119 For Christians, orthodoxy aligns the Self with the ego.  “Orthodoxy” means correct practice.

For example, science and law have made great strides with orthodox practices, including ‘experiment with controls’ and ‘trial before a jury of peers’.  Unfortunately, these modern innovations do not have labels to apply to Gnostic penetration.  What are experiments without controls?  “Simulations”?  What are regulations when experts both accuse and judge their charges?  “Advocacy”?

0120 This makes me wonder:  How far can the Gnostic push and pull go?

On the personal level, here is one endpoint:  The Self switches place with superego.

0121 In order to imagine this, let me return to the working model.

0122 As the Gnostic caress begins, the Self and the ego are put into conflict.  The superego is not able to produce a normal context where the ego can freely act in the Name of the Self.  The ego gets blamed for the irresponsibility of the Self.

But, the Self is not acting responsibly or irresponsibly.  The Self is just encountering the feelings generated by id^fantasy.  The Self acts according to its likes and dislikes under the influence of distant alternate actuality: the perspective of Sophia.

0123 Note how both the superego_3a (directly) and Sophia_2c (virtually) contextualize the actuality of ego [responsible for, free to act in the Name of] Self_2a.  The logic of thirdness (denoted with the subscript “3” for superego and “c” for Sophia) is exclusive.  The superego consists of internalized “do and don’t”s and “yes and no”s that exclude other options.  Sophia is a perspective that operates to exclude Yaltabaoth and the Establishment, just as she, in the origin myth, hid the half-lion half-snake in a cloud.

0124 The superego_3c relies on the already poised desires of id^rea1_1a.  After all, id^real_1a wants to keep material me alive, uninjured and satiated. 

0125 Sophia_2c relies on the ever-experimenting desires of id^fantasy_1a.

Sometimes, Sophia_2c will inspire a gestural-body feeling_1b that will fool the ego_2a into putting her message_1b into words.  Other times, the ego_2a will note an item in the world out there that is immediately rejected by id^real, but appeals to id^fantasy.  In these cases, the Self_2a becomes more aware of a call to be contextualized by Sophia_2c, rather than by the superego_3a.

0126 Sometimes, Sophia_2c will appear in an origin myth that is so ancient that no one knows how old it is or where it came from.  Some say that it came from prehistoric Iran.

0127 Sophia appears as Personified Wisdom.  As her call strengthens, the superego_3a becomes less and less effectual and more and more like Yaltabaoth and the Establishment_2b.  These situation-level actualities are not about context.  They are not about perspective.  They are about rules and laws and getting on with the world of material concerns.

Indeed, the superego_3a is virtually situated by the mindless rationality_3b of the current age_3c.  No wonder it_3a acts more and more like deterministic natural laws and rigid social norms when under the pressure of Sophia’s message.  The superego can become as mindless as Yaltabaoth and the Establishment.

0128 At the moment of Self-contextualization, the superego_3a becomes a parody of what it once was.  The superego_3abecomes the actuality_2a that it sought to control.  It_3a replaces the ego_2a.  The ego_2a replaces the Self_2a.  The Self_2aascends_3a under the illumination of Sophia_2c.  The Self_3a becomes the new content-level normal context.

0129 The personal-level nested form now recapitulates the cosmic levels of the Gnostic origin myth.  The Self_3a puts the actuality of the superego and ego into a normal context, just as Sophia_2c puts Yaltabaoth and the Establishment_2binto perspective.

I call the result, the elite model of the Gnostic origin myth. 

0130 The expert in Gnostic rites and myth may reach Self-actualization. Or, should I say, Self-contextualization?  The Self becomes master of the actuality of the person.  The person is reduced to a shell of conditioning and concerns for material well-being.  The shell is just a random actuality, existing within the normal context of the Self_3a.

In sum, my own superego(ego(id^real))_2a is reduced to a thing.  The body is merely a tool (and therefore, can be used as an instrument for erotic and other pleasures according to the will of the Self).

0131 This reduction is unimaginable.

In the world of ancient Rome, Gnostic adepts could not be missed.  They were freaks.  They could be walking talking skeletons or attractive magicians capable of seducing anyone with their charms.  They were experts in Sophia’s secret knowledge and they did not need any certificates to prove it.  They literally embodied the reduction of the superego to a shell of actuality.

0132 The modern Self does not follow these ancient ways.  Instead, the damned actuality of my own superego(ego(id^real))_2a is projected onto others.

When a modern elite Gnostic accuses others, the modern Gnostic reveals the fixation that his Self_3a refuses to contextualize.

If that actuality_2a is cruelty, the elite Gnostic Self_3a will accuse others of cruelty.

The Gnostic elite can never acknowledge, in his Self_3a, the cruelty that he projects onto others.

0133 If that is not enough, educational certificates substitute for the embodiment of secret knowledge.

Professors in state-funded universities and similar experts occupy well-paid and secure positions, irrespective of their conditioning and material concerns.  Their positions are tenured.  So, it seems that their own conditioning and material concerns can be admitted.  But, they cannot be admitted.

0134 Instead, the actuality of their own superego [causes] ego(id^real) is projected onto others.  In particular, it is attached to those who can never attain elite status.

0135 Uneducated (rather, uncertified) folk will always be slaves to their superego.  

Among these are the people who hold traditional views of how (now infiltrated) institutions work.  These idiots actually think that marriage is about children and churches are about worshipping the one true God.

These ego-driven morons actually believe the old-time mission statements.  They will be barred from attaining elite positions.  Gnostics promote Gnostics.  Laws on affirmative action do the rest.  The little folk are shuttled off to clerical positions by Gnostic alliances internal and external to any penetrated institution.

0136 Why?

Little folk will always be ego-driven.  Their superegos are intact.  They will never be members of the Gnostic elites.

0137 The implications of this projection go far in explaining academic and television theories of cultural conflict.  Academic theories are substantiated by surveys worded in order to produce statistically significant evidence.  Television theories are substantiated by a theatrical example broadcast over and over again.

0138 These theories go like this:

The un-enlightened non-elites are conditioned to respond to any situation like the stupid morons that they are.  Social conditioning is internalized as the superego. The superego causes the ego.  The ego is the way that the person applies its conditioning to ‘what is encountered’.  The ego will always be informed by an ignorant and inadequate reality principle in the normal context of a rigid and traditional superego.

The proposed contiguity between conditioning and response, that is, the causation between superego and ego(id^real), is called “scientific”.  However, this renvoi accomplishes only one thing.  It supports theories manufactured by an elite Gnostic community.

0139 Here is a familiar example.

Whenever a big and tragic event happens, the event will be attributed on television (over and over again) to some prior conditioning or undesirable ego-related thing.  For example, the gun is blamed for a shooting incident.

The involved persons are reduced to examples of the proposed super-ego [causes] ego(id^real) actuality of conditioning and response.

The Gnostic elites assert, “Of course, if we outlawed guns, the shooting incident would never have occurred.”

(This reduction ignores the incidents that would be potentiated if guns were outlawed, such as incidents characteristic of a totalitarian state.)

0140 Television elites pontificate these wish-filled theories.

Why?

Their Self-promoting announcements demonstrate their elite status.

0141 This same mind-trick works for big and happy events, like a public ceremony where victims forgive their offender.

The televisionairies say, “The offender did it only because he was conditioned… oh look… here is something that explains the event. The victims are conditioned by the builder gods and their establishment to forgive the faults of others.  This explains why the victims are fools for publicly forgiving their offender.  In fact, they are no different than the offender.”

0142 Here is a take-home lesson:

Any presentation of a personal-level dyad of super-ego [causes] ego(id^real) should serve as a clue that this particular condescending individual considers herself or himself to be a member of the Gnostic elite.  The immaterial Self_3abrings an exercise in apparent scientific material causality_2a into relation with the potential of id^fantasy_1a.

0143 How do these Gnostic models compare to Christianity?

Can I produce a model for Christianity similar to the working model of the Gnostic origin story?

The model should defy Gnostic formulations.  Otherwise, Gnostic infiltrates in the church would not be called “choices”.

0144 Here is how I would replace elements of the Gnostic origin myth with Christian terms.

One God would go into the slot for the pleroma_3c.  The emanations of the pleroma become creative acts by the one God.

The Holy Spirit would replace Personified Wisdom_2c.  The Holy Spirit, like Sophia, may be treated as a Person.

The truth would go into the slot for the Monad_1c.

0145 In a previous example, the image of a world where friends do not lie to friends belonged to the Monad.

Of course, the Gnostic image is not Real.  The Christian truth entertains a similar, but drastically more realistic, version.  It is the image of a world where the truth of the friend’s lie is revealed.

Obviously, I cannot spiritually migrate to this world.  This is a world where the One God_3c contextualizes truth_1c.  This is the world created by the One True God_3c.

0146 Rationality accessible to humans as (fallen) images of God substitutes for mindless rationality_3b.

Yahweh goes into Yaltabaoth’s slot.

However, Yahweh is not Yaltabaoth.  Yaltabaoth operates under a regime of mindless rationality.  Yahweh is much more clever.  Read the Bible to see.

0147 God’s active will goes into the slot of the potential determining my form_1b.  I would not be here without God’s active will.

0148 The sacraments instituted by the Christian church replaces the superego_3a.

0149 In this regard, Burfeind reports an interesting observation in the political sciences.

Voting patterns between liturgical and pietist Christian traditions differ.

0150 How do these traditions differ?

The liturgical traditions regard the sacraments as sacred.  Pietist traditions do not.  The pietist view the sacraments as symbols.

For the liturgical traditions, the sacraments constitute the normal context of ritual activity.  In this, they serve like a superego (a repository of rules and aphorisms).

For the pietist traditions, the gathering calls the Holy Spirit.  In the normal context of the Holy Spirit’s movement, the bread and wine are served as symbols of Christ.

These two traditions re-enact the different normal contexts_3a contending for the ego_2a and id^real_2a.

0151 Here are the different voting patterns:

Liturgical traditions tend to vote to reduce centralization of political power.

Pietist traditions tend to vote to increase centralized political power.

Voting to increase central power is a marker for Gnostic values.  This marker seems reasonable.  Self-anointed Gnostic elites tend to congregate in institutional positions where livelihood is guaranteed, such as government bureaucracies.

0152 The sacramental habituation_3a (a super-ego_3a, so to speak) of the liturgical traditions seems to resist temptations to elevate the Self into the normal context of the personal level.  The pietist traditions do not have this habituation.

If the sacraments replace the superego_3a, then the person_2a becomes the union of ego_2a and Self_2a.

0153 If I experience myself as a person (rather than a Self), then my person would correspond to the encountered being in Suarez’s model.

Jesus would correspond to the accounting being_2a.

The dyad in actuality_2a becomes Jesus and my person.  The contiguity between the two fits the old medieval depiction of the relation between grace (as actual) and nature (as actual): Grace inflows nature.

So the personal-level dyad would be rendered as Jesus (redeems, graces, inspires…) person_2a.

0154 Finally, the potential of God’s passive will replaces the id^fantasy_1a.  God’s passive will underlies the actuality of Jesus [feeds] person_2a.

Thus, God’s passive will turns my life into a theodrama.

0155 The resulting model is strikingly different from the Gnostic origin myth, even though I merely substituted Christian terms for Gnostic elements.

0156 Plus, the situation-level nested form is no longer evil.

Is that not odd?

0157 Another oddity is how the Holy Spirit and the sacraments are not in opposition.

The virtual nested form in actuality goes like this: 

The person_2a experiences baptism_1a and is drawn into a sacramental life_3a, where Jesus [blesses, instructs, inspires…] the person_2a. The sacraments_3a draw the person_2a into contiguity with Christ_2a.  The Father_2b virtually situates the person in the accounting of Christ_2a.  The Holy Spirit_2c virtually brings the Father_2b into relation to the person in contiguity with Christ_2a. The Father_2b and the Son_2a reveal the Holy Spirit_2c.

0158 Of course, this is not the only relational model of Christian concepts.

However, it raises disturbing questions.

Why would Christian terms fit so convincingly into the model for the Gnostic origin myth?

Plus, why would the placements so directly refute the Gnostic origin myth?

0159 At the same time, I can also see the potential of subversion.

Gnosticism is an opportunistic religion.

0160 In chapter 3, Burfeind relates this story:

Around 1100AD, once Christianity was established to the West and Islam to the East, political consolidation gave the Gnostic myth an opportunity.  Each religion became the Establishment.  Gnostic heresies appeared.  To the West, they were the Cathars.  To the East, they were the Sufis.  Both Cathars and Sufis wrote poetry, celebrated God using metaphors of erotic love, and drank a lot.  The Establishments of the West and East tried to suppress these movements.

0162 In chapter 4, Burfeind brings the story to modern times.  In the next section, I comment on the sequence.

0163 What about the troubadours?  What about modern Cultural Studies?

Troubadours sang of courtly love.  The knight was in love with the Lady of the Big House.

The love was not consummated, at least not according to the songs, because that would violate the repressive norms of the tribal… er, feudal tradition, as well as the church.  So the knight pledged to defend the honor of the Lady.  The Lady, in turn, silently pined for the knight.  She carried a small token of him everywhere she went.

0164 Oh, I can hear the mournful lyrics of unrequited love!

0165 The knight is torn between his ego and his Self.

His ego is the part of him that swore fealty to the Lord of the Big House.  The knight’s ego has to work to keep order for the Lord.  He has to break up the occasional peasant brawls.  He has to fight bandits.  The peasants, of course, admire him for this.  He is the only one who actually does stuff for them.

His Self is the part of him that resonates with the troubadour’s song.  Sophia has a word for him.  That word is “honor”.  He loves the Lady of the Big House.  He yearns to defend her honor.

0166 Of course, the conflict may resolve in a tragic fashion.  The Gnostic message may give way to the elitist model.  The knight’s Self may take charge.  He may look down on the Lord of the Big House as a stooge of royal traditions.

0167 Here is the elitist model of this troubadour’s tale:

0168 There is comedy in this image.

The knight as an immaterial Self is funny.  The fellow has a horse, armor, and sword.  He knocks the heads of peasants.  He mortally wounds bandits.  Yet, he defines his person as the Lady’s unrequited love.  Actually, he defines himself in quiet opposition to the Lord of the Big House.

0169 Is that goofy?

0170 The knight as Self mimics the immaterial world contextualizing the material world, just as the honor of the Lady of the Big House puts the laws and traditions of feudal society into perspective.

0171 Yet, the knight as Self also puts the Lord of the Big House into a normal context.  The Lord of the Big House is no longer a human.  He is a thing, expressing material concerns.  He is a shell of evil matter.  The Lord of the Big House is merely the puppet of the conditions that he was born into.  He is a slave to the feudal world’s reality principles.

0172 Even though all the characters in the troubadour’s musical drama are nominally Christian, the Gnostic infiltration affects more than the church.  It penetrates the economic and military power structures in feudal society.  Since feudal society subsists on loyalty oaths, any knight who adopted Gnosticism would be dangerous to his duke or lord.

0173 Here is a story that ended up as a troubadour’s song:

A duke returns from a long and treacherous journey, doing the bidding of the king.  The lady of the big house offers him a cup, a poisoned chalice.  With one sip, the duke slumps on his throne.  The duchess cries for help.  Who arrives first, but the dedicated knight?

0174 The troubadour sings, “The king’s work was too much. The duke fell from the overwhelming burdens of this evil and material world. The knight claimed his soul mate and they flew to a spiritual union.”

0175 If I were the duke’s cousin, ruling a neighboring fiefdom, what would I think upon hearing the troubadour’s song?  My cousin was a person, not some puppet of his royal conditioning.  He was in fine health.  The king’s duties did not kill him.

0176 Once the Self_3a puts the superego [causes] the ego(id^real)_2a into the box of actuality and projects that immanent causality onto others, then the Self_3a has no constraints_1b.  Natural laws and traditional social norms_2b are no longer relevant.

This is the logic behind Burfeind’s observation that Gnostic theory never applies to the theoretician.

The damned actuality_2a of the elite Self_3a has been packaged and sent to the Other_2b.

The Self_3a is now contextualized by Sophia_2c, personified by the Lady of the Big House.

0177 Now, consider today’s Cultural Studies.  Here is a typical presentation:

The behaviors of subject A are determined by social tradition A’.  The (super-ego related) A’ causes the (ego-related) material concerns of A, explaining why objections to (the Self-promoting) policy B are merely artifacts of now-rejected cultural conditioning.

0177 How does this match the troubadour’s song?

The Cultural Studies person replaces the knight as a Gnostic elite_3a.

A fantasy-rich organizational objective, policy B, replaces the unattainable Lady of the Big House_2c.  

Policy B puts the natural laws and pre-“scientific” social norms_2b of subject A_2a into perspective.

The concerns and behaviors of subject A go into the slot formerly reserved for the Lord of the Big House_2a.

Indeed, subject A_2a has no idea what is going to happen to him on the basis of Policy B.  Neither did the Lord of the Big House once the knight and his lady became Self-actualized.

Folk theories based on the reality principle replace id^real.

Gnostic scientific theories replace id^fantasy.

0178 Finally, coming together through purely cultural accounts replaces the spiritual union of lover and beloved_1c. 

Cultural studies propose that biological differences are irrelevant compared to cultural conditioning. This happens to be true in the case of race. But, race is the rare exception. 

Therefore, all cultural conditioning compares to racism.

0179 (Needless to say, no faction of Christianity has ever declared belonging to a race to be sinful.  This is discussed in a Primer on An Infrasovereign Religion, number 8 in the series.  Biology is not a moral decision.  Biology sets the stage for moral decisions.)

0180 The resulting model looks like this:

0181 So, let me say this plainly.

When a cultural studies agent (whether in academics or on television) states that opposition to policy B is due to racism, this is a code for a projection of ‘the damned ego-actuality of the accuser’ onto ‘those who operate according to the reality principle’.

The elite Gnostic is really posturing, “I am not like the ones I accuse. Plus, I cannot defend policy B on grounds of the reality principle.  In fact, my support of policy B is a signal that I am above the reality principle.  I am an expert compared to the dunces who oppose policy B.”