01:15 Introduction
   
Gene: Hello David.
   
David: Hello Gene.
   
Gene: Here we go.
   
David: Yeah. This the first actual text that we’re going to dig into, so yeah, here we go… but, before we get started, as always, I want to remind everyone that Show Notes, Chapter Markers, and Transcripts for all of our episode are available on our web site, WayOfTheHermit.com. I also wanted to again remind everyone that the 2024 Symposium on Masonic Esoterika, which is jointly sponsored by the Tennessee Scottish Rite and the Tennessee Lodge of Research, is scheduled for October 19 at the Tennessee Grand Lodge, in Nashville.
   
Gene: I’ve got the schedule.
   
David: OK.
   
Gene: In the morning session, the speakers are George Ladd, on “The Stone Which the Builders Rejected,” Mike Neulander on “The Essenes and Freemasonry, ” and Joe Kindoll on “The Rosicrucian Roots of Freemasonry.” And then in the afternoon, the speakers are Ben Wallace on “The Middle Chamber Program”, which we’ve discussed on this show with them, and Shaun Bradshaw will conclude the session with a talk on “The Hero’s Journey.”
   
David: And, the talks are followed by a question and answer session.
   
Gene: Which I expect to be pretty lively this time, given the talks, which all sound interesting.
   
David: Yeah, they do. So anyway, registration is still open at the time of this recording on the MiddleChamber.org website, which I have linked in the Show Notes.
   
02:39 The Apocryphon of John
   
David: So today, we’re going to begin discussing the “Secret Book of John,” or the “Secret Revelation of John.”
   
Gene: Also known as the, “Apocryphon of John.” And, this is from Wikipedia - “apocryphon” is the plural of “apocrypha,” which is a Greek term for a genre of Jewish and Early Christian writings that were meant to impart "secret teachings," that could not be publicly taught.”
   
David: Yes. In the last episode, we discussed some of the Christian Gnostic groups, and the Secret Book of John, is associated with the Sethians.
   
Gene: And, as we talked about last time, the myths of the Sethians featured Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, as a Christ-like figure.
   
David: Right. Seth appears in this story.
   
Gene: Yes. Do you want to say something about the texts we’re using.
   
David: Yeah, I did. We intended to use “The Nag Hammadi Scriptures,” the all in one volume edition, but, as it turns out, we can’t do that. At least, not for the “Secret Book of John,” because the translation included there, which is by Marvin Meyer, doesn’t preserve the names of the Aeons, or emanations.
   
Gene: I mean, on the surface, it seems to read better, more poetic maybe even. But, the meaning gets buried by the more refined translation.
   
David: An example of what we’re talking about is that a name like “Barbelo,” might sometimes be translated just as “reflection,” or “forethought,” instead of preserving the name Barbelo.
   
Gene: It’s like in the Bible, many of the unique names of god in the Old Testament, which Kabbalists attach different meanings to, are sometimes just generically translated as “Lord,” or “God,” or “Lord God.”
   
David: Right. So, the text we’re using is the Frederik Wisse translation, which I’ve linked in the Show Notes.
   
04:28 History of the Text
   
Gene: But, even though it’s not the primary text for this one, “The Nag Hammadi Scriptures” is still a great book. I mean, it’s got a lot of other information in it, about the history and various interpretations of the text, lots of other information besides having all of the texts themselves.
   
David: It is a good resource. As is the website gnosis.org, where you can access the Wisse translation and other translations. And again, I’ve linked to the translation we’re using and the gnosis.org website, in the Show Notes. Gene, do you want to say a little about the history of the “Secret Book of John,” before we get started?
   
Gene: Sure. “The Secret Book of John,” or the “Apochryphon of John,” was first discovered in the Berlin Codex in 1896. But it wasn’t published until 1955. It’s probably one of the most widely known Sethian treatises. But, I don’t know if we said this last time, but there was never actually any group that called themselves “Sethians.”
   
David: Right. That name was created by the early church fathers who, as we’ve discussed, mostly opposed Gnostic thought, like Irenaeus.
   
Gene: It was likely first composed in Greek in the early 2nd century. But all known versions are in Coptic.
   
David: And there are four known editions of the “Secret Book of John”?
   
Gene: Yes, the one from the Berlin Codex, and the other three, which were all discovered at Nag Hammadi.
   
David: Do you want to explain what Coptic is?
   
Gene: Yeah, that is interesting. Coptic is basically the Egyptian language written using the Greek alphabet, plus 7 letters from the Demotic Egyptian alphabet… which had about 200 symbols. Coptic borrowed a lot of words from Greek. It ceased being widely spoken around the 14th century, when it was replaced by Arabic. But, it’s still the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
   
David: Cool. So, you mentioned that there were three different versions of “The Secret Gospel of John” among the Nag Hammadi texts.
   
Gene: Right. Two of them were longer than the Berlin Codex version, and there were a few, mostly minor, differences between them, too. But, basically, “The Secret Revelation of John, is considered one of the primary Christian Gnostic texts, because it provides one of the most complete presentations of Gnostic cosmology and theology, as a synthesis of Jewish, Greek and Christian concepts.
   
07:02 Secret Book of John
   
David: Alright. Are you ready to start?
   
Gene: Sure. How do you want to tackle this beast?
   
David: I’d say let’s just start into it and discuss each part as we go along. And then, if we need to take some side turns and talk about something, we’ll do it.
   
Gene: OK. The text starts out by saying that this is “The teaching of the savior, and the revelation of the mysteries and the things hidden in silence, even these things which he taught John, his disciple.”
   
David: And this is assumed to be the same John as in the Gospel of John in the Bible, and possibly also, John of Patmos, from the book of Revelation.
   
Gene: Right. The setting of the story is after the death of Jesus, and John is at the Temple, when a Pharisee comes up to him and says - "With deception did this Nazarene deceive all of you, he filled your ears with lies, and closed your hearts (and) turned you from the traditions of your fathers."
   
David: The Pharisees were the Jewish faction that wanted to preserve traditional Jewish beliefs and practices, so they didn’t like the Gnostic reinterpretation of Judaism, or their incorporation of Platonic philosophy.
   
Gene: Right.
   
David: So, it says - “When I, John, heard these things I turned away from the temple to a desert place. And I grieved greatly in my heart.” So he starts questioning everything. Like, maybe he made a mistake in following Jesus.
   
Gene: Yeah. I thought it was interesting that he went from the Temple to the desert. The desert is traditionally the place where people have trials and visions - like the Jews in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New.
   
David: It’s also symbolic of a “dry place,” a place where you just can’t find any relief.
   
Gene: Yeah, John is sort of tormented, thinking that maybe he has been deceived, because Jesus didn’t tell them the hidden meanings. And, as far as the Bible goes, those mysteries are never explained.
   
David: Right. But, this book is supposed to be that explanation. So, John is out in the desert, and begins to have a spiritual experience. He says - ”Straightway, while I was contemplating these things, behold, the heavens opened and the whole creation which is below heaven shone, and the world was shaken. I was afraid, and behold I saw in the light a youth who stood by me. While I looked at him, he became like an old man. And he changed his likeness (again), becoming like a servant. There was not a plurality before me, but there was a likeness with multiple forms in the light, and the likenesses appeared through each other, and the likeness had three forms.”
   
Gene: And I’ll read the reply. The figure says - "John, John, why do you doubt, or why are you afraid?… I am the one who is with (you all) always. I am the Father, I am the Mother, I am the Son. I am the undefiled and incorruptible one. Now I have come to teach you what is and what was and what will come to pass, that you may know the things which are not revealed and those which are revealed, and to teach you concerning the unwavering race of the perfect Man."
   
David: So, John sees one being with three different faces or aspects. It’s one, but its three - Father, Mother and Son, a Gnostic Trinity. And this triple-aspected entity is revealing secrets of the future and past, and acting as John’s teacher in the mysteries.
   
Gene: It made me think about the  three “Veils of Unknowing,” or the “Veils of Negative Existence,” in Kabbalah. In Hebrew, these three veiled aspects were called - Ain, Ain Soph, and Ain Soph Aur, which mean “Nothingness,” “Limitless,” and “Limitless Light.” They represent phases of non-existence, that condense, or coalesce into Kether, the first Sephirah.
   
11:06 The Monad
   
David: So, Kether is the Monad in Kabbalah, and John’s instruction into the mysteries begins with the Monad. The Monad is a Pythagorean concept. For the Pythagoreans, the Monad was Unity - the first principle, the source of all numbers and all things.
   
Gene: It’s the same in Kabbalah. In Hebrew, Sephirah means “number”. And Kether is the source, from which the other Sephirah emanate.
   
David: Right. So, John’s is instructed that the “Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it. It is he who exists as God and Father of everything, the invisible One who is above everything, who exists as incorruption, which is in the pure light into which no eye can look. He is the invisible Spirit, of whom it is not right to think of him as a god, or something similar. For he is more than a god, since there is nothing above him… For he does not exist in something inferior to him, since everything exists in him.”
   
Gene: That’s almost like saying - don’t think about a “pink elephant.”
   
David: What do you mean by that?
   
Gene: Well, it describes the Monad just like you would normally define God, as Unity, the All-Father, everything… and then, it says it’s not right to think of the Monad as a god.
   
David: Yeah. I think that’s because then you’ve named it, labeled it, and you can file it away. And it’s saying don’t do that. It goes on to say that the Monad  “is unnameable, since there is no one prior to him to give him a name.”  It’s spirit and matter. It’s big and small. It’s infinite, outside of space, and eternal, outside of time, but both exist within it. It is self-sufficient. And, it’s said to contains every object and conception, and also its opposite.
   
Gene: That’s why sacred scriptures use negative terminology to talk about the ultimate unity. You can say what it’s not, but you can’t say what it is… in it’s essence. The ultimate unity can’t be assigned any specific quality, because it also contains the opposite quality.
   
David: It’s the source of all qualities.
   
Gene: All you can say is that it’s not anything that you can imagine it to be.
   
David: The important point, I think, about this first teaching on the Monad, is that it’s not asking for you to believe in something. It’s defining a starting point for a cohesive philosophy.
   
Gene: A cornerstone to build on.
   
David: Yes, and that starting point is the nameless unity, that in the Secret Book of John, is called the Monad.
   
Gene: AKA the Great Architect, in Masonry.
   
David: Yes. It’s the mystery at the beginning of all things, from which everything else unfolds. It doesn’t have a name, because that would imply that it’s a known quantity, and it can never be that.
   
Gene: In cosmology, that would mean that just because we can toss around names like “Big Bang,” or “Big Crunch,” meaning an ever expanding and contracting universe, and assign them to the beginning of time and space, that doesn’t solve the mystery.
   
David: No. Because, in our experience, nothing happens without something causing it. So, there is still the question of what caused the “Big Bang” or where did this eternally expanding and contracting universe come from? Any way you look at it, the ultimate beginning of things appears to be an effect without a cause, an impossibility…  but yet, here were are.
   
Gene: And, whatever that mysterious unity behind diversity is… the Secret Gospel of John, refers to it, as the Monad.
   
14:42 Point in the Circle
   
David: Exactly, as a philosophical starting point. And the ancient Pythagorean symbol for the Monad was the circumpunct - the point within the circle.
   
Gene: With the point in the circle being the Monad as seed, and the circle as it’s manifestation.
   
David: Right. And the seed is another way to think about the Monad. A seed is a little world, a microcosm. It’s a tiny point, but inside are the instructions for the creation of a living organism, a biological system. The seed defines that organism’s evolutionary phases, how it reproduces, and even the code for its eventual death.
   
Gene: In Kabbalah, they use the analogy of the oak hidden in the acorn. But the same is true for us - we were all at one time, a zygote, a unicellular fusion of egg and sperm.
   
David: That’s true. The egg of our Mother, the sperm of our Father, and we, the Child of their fusion. This is our beginning. The Holy Trinity of our creation. I mean, we’ve all actually undergone that process.
   
Gene: Yeah, that’s weird when you really think about it. We all really began as a point within a circle.
   
David: Yeah, we did. And out of that, came a microcosm - us, our little world. And, it’s really this little world that these Gnostic texts are talking about. It’s not that they don’t relate to the outside world, but, that’s not something we can know directly, it’s all mediated through our mind.
   
Gene: Right. Gnosis is about direct experiential knowledge. Something you can know and experience yourself.
   
David: Or really, something you’ve already experienced, but forgotten. As we’ve discussed before, the only thing you can experience directly is your own mind… and that is what these texts are discussions of - the evolution of, and workings of, the mind.
   
Gene: Here’s another quote from the section that says the Monad "is pure, immeasurable mind. He is an aeon-giving aeon. He is life-giving life. He is a blessedness-giving blessed one. He is knowledge-giving knowledge. He is goodness-giving goodness. He is mercy and redemption-giving mercy. He is grace-giving grace, not because he possesses it, but because he gives the immeasurable, incomprehensible light.”
   
David: As we said before, the Monad is the source of all qualities. In terms of psychology, it relates to the undifferentiated consciousness, from which the mind emerges. The psychologist Carl Jung, in his “Red Book,” said - "The self, I thought, was like the monad which I am, and which is my world.” Jung saw the Monad in the Gnostic writings as a symbol for the unified Self, the goal of the process of individuation.
   
Gene: It’s interesting that Jung used mandalas as his symbol for the Monad, because it’s sort of like the point within a circle again. It’s just that the circle is filled in with the complexity of the world, instead of that just being assumed in the circle. I mean, our experience of the world isn’t really smooth and mathematical, like a circle.
   
David: No, it isn’t. And that’s how Jung used them therapeutically, by having patients construct and contemplate mandalas as a means of understanding their own life and mind. Jung said that "In therapy, mandalas represent 'a kind of new centering.' The mandala expresses the client's desire for ‘order, balance, and wholeness’. He said “The goal of contemplating the mandala is to return from the illusion of individual existence into the universal totality of the divine state… The center is the goal and everything is directed towards that center.” And that this was where they would find healing. The central point of the mandala represented the goal of individuation, the recognition of a unified self.
   
Gene: It’s what we’re calling Gnosis - self-knowledge. Direct experience of your true self, all of it.
   
David: Right. But the catch is that all we have to work with is our mind, which is limited. The Secret Gospel of John’s teaching on the Monad ends by saying that “For we know not the ineffable things, and we do not understand what is immeasurable, except for him who came forth from him, namely (from) the Father. For it is he who told it to us alone. For it is he who looks at himself in his light which surrounds him, namely the spring of the water of life. And it is he who gives to all the aeons and in every way, (and) who gazes upon his image which he sees in the spring of the Spirit. It is he who puts his desire in his water-light which is in the spring of the pure light-water which surrounds him.”
   
Gene: The “light-water” being the “mind stuff” of consciousness, what’s called in esoteric literature, the “astral light.”
   
David: Yes. And so, that passage is saying that there is a deeper part of consciousness that, like the seed, is the Father of the mind, which emerges from it, and of which we see a reflection.
   
Gene: Or a reflection of a reflection.
   
David: Right. So, one last thing before we end our discussion of the Monad. The seed is a good analogy for a physical process, but the Secret Book of John is a spiritual text, so it’s talking about a spiritual process, the unfolding of the world of spirit - the mind.
   
Gene: That’s right.
   
20:22 Barbelo
   
David: And so, what follows looks like a genealogy, but it’s actually talking about stages of psychic evolution. Here’s how the next teaching starts. It says the Monad’s "thought performed a deed and she came forth, namely she who had appeared before him in the shine of his light. This is the first power which was before all of them (and) which came forth from his mind, She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power which is the image of the invisible, virginal Spirit who is perfect. The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation.”
   
Gene: OK, just to be clear, the “virginal spirit,” in that passage, is the triple-aspected being, the Monad… right? Because nothing exists outside of it, so there isn’t any quote-unquote other, to interact with.
   
David: That’s right. And the Monad is, as we’ve said, pure consciousness… whatever that is. So, this first power, “forethought”, is called Barbelo, and is said to be, a reflection of the Monad. The text describes Barbelo as “the first thought, his image; she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father, the first man, the holy Spirit, the thrice-male, the thrice-powerful, the thrice-named androgynous one, and the eternal aeon among the invisible ones, and the first to come forth.”
   
Gene: So Barbelo is identified as “forethought,” just like Prometheus in Greek mythology. Because, in Greek, “pro” means “before” and “met” means “to think.” So, he’s the god of “forethought” or “foresight.” 
   
David: In the Greek myth, Prometheus steals the fire of the gods and gives it to humanity. Forethought is that fire that makes us different from animals. It allows us to imagine and plan for the future. It’s how we became tool makers, and is the basic function of consciousness behind all of our technologies.
   
Gene: Which, in the Biblical myth, are all taught by fallen angels.
   
David: That’s because “fallen angels” represent an application of the spiritual, the mind, to the practical… hence, a technology. The text goes on to say that Barbelo asks the invisible, virginal Spirit "to give her foreknowledge. And the Spirit consented. And when he had consented, the foreknowledge came forth, and it stood by the forethought; it originates from the thought of the invisible, virginal Spirit. It glorified him and his perfect power, Barbelo, for it was for her sake that it had come into being.”
   
Gene: So, “foreknowledge” as opposed to “forethought”… with “knowledge” implying the practical use of forethought? Applied toward some purpose?
   
David: I think so, and then Barbelo asks for indestructibility, eternal life, and truth, and they all emerge and stand before the Invisible Spirit. The text says - "This is the pentad of the aeons of the Father, which is the first man, the image of the invisible Spirit; it is the forethought, which Barbelo, and the thought, and the foreknowledge, and the indestructibility, and the eternal life, and the truth. This is the androgynous pentad of the aeons, which is the decad of the aeons, which is the Father.
   
Gene: In Kabbalah, the first man is called Adam Kadmon and represents the primordial or “first man,” the spiritual man. It says that those five qualities are androgynous and form the decad, which I’m taking to be the ten Sephiroth, or the ten points of the tetractys.
   
David: Yes, the pentad or pentagram, is the symbol of man, with his four powers and spirit ruling over them, and each of these five powers, by being singled out and named, has an an opposite. Creation and destruction. Life and Death. Truth and Falsehood. They form the active and passive forms of the decad, which, as you said, correspond to the ten Sephirah of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and the ten points of the tetractys. But, the main idea being conveyed is that forethought, is a function made up of these ten process, or components of consciousness. Forethought implies the ability to form mental images, meaning an imagination, a microcosmic world to create and imagine within. You also have to be able to create and destroy thoughts. To remember, recall and sequence memories. To discern qualities in things, make decisions and carry those decisions out. These are the powers that Barbelo invokes, the processes implied by forethought.
   
Gene: OK. The organizational structure, which is often symbolized by hierarchies of angels.
   
25:13 The Birth of Christ
   
David: Right. So then, the text says that the Invisible Spirit, “looked at Barbelo with the pure light which surrounds the invisible Spirit, and (with) his spark, and she conceived from him. He begot a spark of light with a light resembling blessedness. But it does not equal his greatness. This was an only-begotten child of the Mother-Father which had come forth; it is the only offspring, the only-begotten one of the Father, the pure Light.”
   
Gene: And it’s another trinity. The first was the three forms in the light of the Father - the Monad. The second was the three aspects of the Mother - Barbelo. And now, here is the Father, Mother, and Son.
   
David: Who we find out, is called Christ, and, is the result of an “immaculate conception,” of the Invisible Spirit, an aspect of the Monad, and the ever-virgin mother, Barbelo. The text says that the Father and Mother rejoiced over the light which came forth from their union, which was the perfect image of the Father, and so, he “anointed it with his goodness.”
   
Gene: Christ means, “anointed” or “chosen” one. What do you think is the significance of the union of the Invisible Spirit and Barbelo, or forethought? What do you think that means?
   
David: Barbelo is that whole mechanism of forethought, that we talked about. And the Invisible Spirit, is something more basic, like reflective consciousness. If you put those two together, you have a process that is able to reflect on itself, “reflective forethought,” if you will… Self-reflection - the mind. The text says that the Son “requested to give it a fellow worker, which is the mind, and he consented gladly. And when the invisible Spirit had consented, the mind came forth, and it attended Christ, glorifying him and Barbelo. And all these came into being in silence.”
   
Gene: So Christ and the Mind are partners.
   
David: They are. The text says that Christ is the perfect image of the Father. The Mind starts out that way, but, as I said earlier, it’s the only way we have for interacting with the world, and so, it gets dinged up by life. It becomes the Rough Stone of Masonry, with Christ being the Perfect Stone. The image of it is still in there, but we’ve forgotten it. To reunite those two, is the sacred marriage of the integrated self.
   
Gene: To achieve Gnosis.
   
David: Yes. Do you have anything else, before we bring this session to a close?
   
Gene: No. That’s all I’ve got today.
   
27:57 Conclusions
    
David: Alright. For those that want to dig deeper into the the philosophy of the Secret Gospel of John, like its relationship to Platonism and Neoplatonism, I’ve included a link to a “Deep Dive” page in the podcast Show Notes. Well, Gene… what are your final thoughts?
    
Gene: I think that the Secret Book of John is going to take a few sessions.
    
David: Yeah. I’m not sure how many yet. But at least a couple more. 
    
Gene: Some of this stuff has to percolate for a while anyway.
    
David: It does. The thingyou have to keep reminding yourself is that this isn’t just literature. It’s not just a story that somebody made up for their entertainment. It’s a textbook.
    
Gene: But, by personifying functions of consciousness like it does, it’s hard not to think of it like a story. You get drawn into it.
    
David: You do. Which was the criticism that the Neoplatonists had against the Gnostics. They said that by attributing emotions and intentions to the figures, that people would get confused, because ultimately, there aren’t human emotions and intentions involved in these processes.
    
Gene: And the rest, as they say, is history. People did get confused… and still do get confused. 
    
David: That’s true. 
    
Gene: But, I think that the reason it’s framed that way, I mean using characters with intentions and feelings, is because it comes out of an oral tradition. These were stories that were passed on from “mouth to ear. “And having hooks, or memes, if you will, was how they remembered them, and why maybe they survived. It’s how they got repeated.
    
David: That’s a good point.  But, another reason for the confusion is due to language translations. As we talked earlier, if you translate the text in order to preserve what you think is a storyline, you may actually be obscuring the esoteric meaning.
    
Gene: Right. That’s why we changed to the Frederik Wisse translation for the Secret Book of John.
    
David: You know, we talked in a previous episode about the translation of the Torah and other Jewish texts into Greek.
    
Gene: Yes, the Septaugint.
    
David: Right. Well, as we said, this was a pivotal event, which made Christian Gnosticism even possible, but Rabbi’s at the time compared the day of the Greek translation of the Torah, to the day the Golden Calf was made. They considered it a terrible event, because they felt that underlying meaning would become obscured.
    
Gene: Which, of course, it did.
    
David: It did. But here’s the thing - if it’s actually a spiritual text, then it tells a universal story, of an inner truth. And, it’s not asking you to believe in anything, it’s inviting you to discover the truth of its words, within yourself.
    
Gene: And you really do have to dig, to have any hope of finding the treasure that’s buried underneath all of that.
    
David: You do. Anything else?
    
Gene: Nope. I’m done.
    
David: Alright. Gene, what are we doing next time?
    
Gene: In the next episode, we’ll continue our discussion of the Secret Revelation of John, with the story of Autogenes, the son of Barbelo and the Invisible Spirit. Join us next time, as we walk the Way of the Hermit.