01:15 Introduction
   
Gene: Hello Dave.
   
David: Hello Gene. How are you today?
   
Gene:  Doin’ alright. How about yourself?
   
David: I can’t complain. Except for maybe needin’ a little more coffee!
   
Gene: Here, here!
   
David: But I’ll make due until the caffeine kicks in. Alright. As always, I want to remind everyone that Show Notes, Chapter Markers, and Transcripts for all of our episode are available on our website - WayOfTheHermit.com. This is our third episode in our ongoing esoteric exegesis of the Secret Gospel of John.
   
Gene: So, you think this one and one more?
   
David: Yeah, I think so, but we’re gonna  to have to be lively to do it. There’s a lot to cover.
   
Gene: Let’s get into it then. Where do you want to start?
   
02:00 Review
   
David: Let’s start by reviewing, just quickly, what we’ve talked about so far. But, I do want to encourage anyone who’s really interested in following this discussion, to listen to the first two episodes on this text.
   
Gene: Or suffer the consequences!
   
David: What consequences?
   
Gene: Of… not understanding.
   
David: Right. So, having said that, the first thing that is important to understand, contrary to what you might be expecting, “The Secret Gospel of John” describes the evolution of consciousness, from undifferentiated awareness through increasing levels of cognitive organization.
   
Gene: It’s describing how your mind works.
   
David: Which may seem strange at first, because it sort of masquerades as a cosmic fairy tale about the creation of the world.
   
Gene: Which it is… but, it’s the creation of your inner world, your microcosm. Which is always the world you live in, whether you realize it or not.
   
David: That’s true. So, let's talk about the concepts we’ve covered so far. We’ve talked about the Monad, Barbelo, Christ - who is called Autogenes, Sophia, the Demiurge and the Archons. And let’s just quickly say something about each of those before we move on with the text for today. What would you like to say about the Monad?
   
Gene: The Monad, is the source of all possibilities, pure potential. It’s undifferentiated consciousness. We talked a lot about it’s symbol, which is the point in the circle. The point that expands to create everything. It’s pure will.
   
David: And then Will, through the first reflection, called Barbelo, becomes Thought, which is said to be the “Mother and Father” of all that exists.
   
Gene: Meaning that everything that we know that exists, exists to us, as a thought in our mind.
   
David: Right. And, then the reflected Will of the Monad, is reflected again, in the Thought of Barbelo, and something new emerges, self-reflection, or Christ, who it called in the text, Autogenes, the “self-generating one”, or Life. And that is the Gnostic Trinity of the Father, the Monad, Will; the Mother, Barbelo, Thought; and the Child, Autogenes, which is Life. And that self-generated, self-reflection, unfolds as the Mind, our stream of consciousness, that perpetuates itself.
   
Gene: And then, the whole divine plan is laid out, basically the architecture of consciousness - which is based on the numbers 3, 4, 7, and 12, which are related to the the cycles of time and nature, or the “Soul of the World.”
   
David: And the overall pattern, is symbolized by the the archetypal man, called in this text, Pigera Adamas.
   
Gene: Which is the pattern in the heavens, and of time - with the 7 days of the week, the 4 seasons, which are divided into three parts - Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable, which give the 12 zodiac signs, the 12 months of the year, and, it even names 365 angels, one for each day.
   
David: And we talked about how all of those relate to consciousness, with the 4 different worlds that we navigate simultaneously, and how this text is relating the powers within us to the same forces in the macrocosm. It’s the philosophical basis for the Hermetic axiom - “As above, so below.”
   
Gene: Yeah, because it’s the same pattern, “in heaven as it is on earth,” so to speak, but imperfectly rendered. Which leads to the next part from last time, the birth of the Demiurge.
   
David: Right. Self-awareness, led to a separation from the source, because there was then not just two, but the awareness of “two-ness,” of their being more then one.
   
Gene: The “I and Thou”, but also, the mind and the observer, the one that reflects on our reflections. It gets recursive quickly, doesn’t it?
   
David: It does. And that duality is symbolized by Sophia, an aspect of Barbelo, who acts without the consent of the Monad, and conceives a son, a lion-faced serpent, called the Demiurge.
   
Gene: Sophia’s act was like the first self-directed act, or the first with a conception of a self, to act from. And, the Demiurge represents the ego, trying to create a world, but without the connection to create it in the divine pattern.
   
David: And, that’s about where we ended up last time. The Demiurge tries to create the lower world, the Mind, through the Archons, in the divine pattern, the text says - “And having created everything, he organized according to the model of the first aeons which had come into being, so that he might create them like the indestructible ones. Not because he had seen the indestructible ones, but the power in him, which he had taken from his mother, produced in him the likeness of the cosmos.”
   
Gene: And the quote we ended on last time was - “And when he saw the creation which surrounds him, and the multitude of the angels around him which had come forth from him, he said to them, 'I am a jealous God, and there is no other God beside me.' But by announcing this he indicated to the angels who attended him that there exists another God. For if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous?”
   
07:33 Sophia’s Call
   
David: And this represents a shift in the story, because it’s a realization, that there’s something more, that’s hidden, or occulted from view. And that’s where the narrative picks up, with the lower aspect of Barbelo, Sophia, realizing her mistake. The next part of the text says - "Then the mother (Sophia) began to move to and fro. She became aware of the deficiency when the brightness of her light diminished. And she became dark because her consort had not agreed with her."
   
Gene: She’s torn between two worlds now - the light and the dark. The “moving to and fro” is like somebody pacing back and forth, wrestling with what they've done.
   
David: That's good, it’s describing self-consciousness, separated from its source, the unconscious, but knowing that it’s there. So, "moving to and fro" is the oscillation that happens in our awareness - between our ego consciousness, and the thing that’s actually running the show.
   
Gene: The user interface, or what you can see, versus the operating system, the underlying whole system.
   
David: But, there is a sense of something “behind the curtain,” so to speak, the text says that Sophia became aware that the brightness of her light had diminished. It’s the first recognition of incompleteness, of separation from totality.
   
Gene: The text calls it the "garment of darkness,” which it says is “imperfect”.
   
David: And, in this context, it’s the limited vehicle of individual consciousness, or what we would call, the personal psyche.
   
Gene: Which is always going to be incomplete as compared to the divine consciousness it came from, and in some ways, senses.
   
David: Right.
   
Gene: The next part of the text says that when Sophia “had seen the wickedness which had happened, and the theft which her son (the Demiurge) had committed, she repented… and she began to be ashamed.” She realized that her “garment of darkness was imperfect… and she repented with much weeping.”
   
David: And then the Pleroma, responds to her prayer. So, that section describes three psychological phases that Sophia goes through. First, there's the shame phase - that's the moving to and fro. Then comes genuine repentance, when it says there was "much weeping." And then finally, there's a restoration when the pleroma, the divine fullness, responds to her prayer, and intercedes with the Invisible Spirit.
   
Gene: Yeah, that was something weird in the text, it says “For it was not her consort who came to her, but he came to her through the pleroma in order that he might correct her deficiency. And she was taken up not to her own aeon but above her son, that she might be in the ninth until she has corrected her deficiency." What do you think this means?
   
David: That - the only way out is through.
   
Gene: Ah!
   
David: The imperfection has to be corrected, or maybe “realigned,” is a better word.
   
Gene: That makes me think about how the Hebrew and Greek words that were translated in the Bible as “Sin,” are better translated as, “missing the mark,” like in archery. So again, repentance means adjusting your aim to align with the divine source, the divine pattern.
   
David: That's right. Being elevated to "the ninth” - that’s the triple-trinity, three times three, she’s elevated to just below the Monad.
   
Gene: Not quite… unity - still some separation. Otherwise, there would just be total dissolution of the self, and nothing to witness it.
   
David: Timeless, and without any qualities to describe it by. That’s what Darren Aronofsky’s movie “The Fountain” is about. But, we’re in a part of the text that is describing what the alchemists call the blackening phase - that required period of darkness and dissolution before transformation can occur. The fall into matter and the long journey back, to understanding our true origins and purpose.
   
Gene: It’s reminding me of line from Leonard Cohen - "There’s s a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." The flaw, if you want to call it that, that separation, becomes the path back to the divine.
   
David: That’s true. You have to work with what you’ve got. But, it’s interesting that in the text here, it takes personal effort and divine grace working together - because, Sophia recognizes her limitation, repents and prays, but it's the response from the Pleroma, that begins her restoration back to her rightful place in heaven.
   
Gene: That’s like a blues song, you’ve got the call and a response.
   
12:16 Pleroma’s Response
   
David: It is. And the Pleroma’s response to Sophia’s call, in addition to lifting her up, also speaks, with a thunderous voice from heaven that says - “The Man exists and the son of Man.”
   
Gene: And Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, thinks it’s the voice of his mother, but he doesn’t really know.
   
David: No, but the “Man” it’s talking about is the “first man,” the Mother-Father of all, which is Barbelo. And the “son of Man,” is Pigera Adamas, the Primordial Man, the projection of the androgynous “first man,” into a form.
   
Gene: It’s like Adam Kadmon in Kabbalah, it’s the divine pattern, the spiritual or esoteric anatomy of man. Pigera Adamas is the archetypal man, an embodiment of the divine pattern.
   
David: And it is this pattern, that the Pleroma reveals to the lower world of the Demiurge. The next part of the text says - "And the whole aeon of the chief archon trembled, and the foundations of the abyss shook. And of the waters which are above matter, the underside was illuminated by the appearance of his image which had been revealed. And when all the authorities and the chief archon looked, they saw the whole region of the underside which was illuminated. And through the light they saw the form of the image in the water.”
   
Gene: So, from below, from the material side, the Demiurge and the Archons see a reflection, in the waters above them. Which implies that they don’t see it clearly, but instead, see it like “through a glass darkly.”
   
David: That’s what it’s saying, because they then go on and try to fill in the gaps in what they’ve seen. Yaldabaoth says to the Archons, “Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness.” So, he’s saying according to the image of God… AND their likeness, too… so it’s a mixed design - darkness and light, spirit and matter.
   
Gene: Another thing is that it’s like Sophia’s prayers persuaded heaven, the Pleroma, to show pity on on her son, and they responded by revealing the spiritual blueprint in the waters, saying - “This is how you do it”… but, it’s like the “Telephone Game” of passing a message from one person to another down a line, the message gets garbled.
   
David: And, even the image they see in the waters is a reflection, of a copy of the “First Man”. Pigera Adamas is a projection of Barbelo. Thought laid out in human form.
   
Gene: So what the Demiurge builds is a copy, of a copy, of a copy. That reminds me of that old Xerox commercial where the copies gets worse and worse.
   
David: And, it also shows that there are three levels involved - the spiritual level of the Pleroma, the material world of the Demiurge and Archons, and the cosmic waters in-between.
   
Gene: The last part of this section says - "And each authority supplied a characteristic in the form of the image which he had seen in its natural (form)… according to the likeness of the first, perfect Man. And they said, 'Let us call him Adam, that his name may become a power of light for us.'" There’s that copy of a copy of a copy thing again.
   
David: And that last line is interesting, too. They know that their light is diminished by being cut off from the Pleroma.
   
Gene: It’s sort of tragic - they're trying to recreate something that they've only glimpsed, and only have a sense of, but imperfectly.
   
David: In the story, the Demiurge and the Archons are trying to create a new source of light instead of reflecting the divine light, which is a great metaphor for how the ego builds an identity, based on a limited understanding of Self, but is still unconsciously working from a reflection of the divine image, whatever that is.
   
Gene: Whatever that is, that is creating everything, you could call it the Great Architect, because it’s the archetype of archetypes, the pattern behind all patterns. It’s the self-reflecting, self-generating pattern, that is not just inside of everything… it is everything.
   
16:34 Creation of Man
   
David: And from the view of the Pleroma, the spiritual realm, it is one thing. But from the point of view of where we are in the narrative, we’re looking at the flip side, the side of individuality and diversity, the realm of matter. The next part of the text names 365 angels and demons that are appointed over the various body parts, beginning with the angels ruling the head and brain, and ending with the demons that rule over the passions of the body.
   
Gene: It’s like a big organizational chart. It defines a chain of command back to the seven Archons and other angels that we talked about in the last episode.
   
David: It does. It’s describing a detailed mapping of spirits to body parts, between consciousness and physical form. It’s tracing out how thoughts become actions, and how the body serves as a vehicle of consciousness - the interface between mind and matter.
   
Gene: It’s the architecture of the embodied mind, and a blueprint for the construction of the human body.
   
David: That’s the three levels that are being discussed here - spirit, matter and the embodied mind in between.
   
Gene: The troubled waters… and the bridge, too. It’s where the two currents mix together. Each of the spirits is like a crossroad. They respond to consciousness, the spirit, but in a physical way, like releasing chemicals, or twitching nerves, or whatever.
   
David: The word “angel” comes from the Greek word “angelos,” which means “messenger.” Here, they’re understood to be intermediaries, messengers, between consciousness and the physical form. And, as we talked about last time, we basically live in four worlds, so it’s no surprise that the spirits are organized in groups of four. There are four structural levels - head, limbs, organs and passions. Four governing principles - impulses, reception, imagination, and senses. And four chief demons - desire, pleasure, grief and fear.
   
Gene: I liked how the text fleshed those out into an unholy family tree, of sorts. It says that “from the four demons passions came forth. And from grief (came) envy, jealousy, distress, trouble, pain, callousness, anxiety, mourning, etc. And from pleasure much wickedness arises, and empty pride, and similar things. And from desire (comes) anger, wrath, and bitterness, and bitter passion, and unsatedness, and similar things. And from fear (comes) dread, fawning, agony, and shame.”
   
David: All of those being a result of the mixed nature and inclinations.
   
Gene: Like… you have to eat, for example.
   
David: Right. And all the other things that come with having a body. It maps out the mental and emotional architecture, of how the world gets reflected in the mind.
   
Gene: Your own wiring diagram. It’s like trying to discover how this creative force plays out, from the inside out, instead of from the outside in.
   
David: This section ends by saying that - "This is the number of the angels: together they are 365. They all worked on it until, limb for limb, the natural and the material body was completed by them. Now there are other ones in charge over the remaining passions whom I did not mention to you. But if you wish to know them, it is written in the book of Zoroaster.”
   
Gene: Those refer to what are called in the Kabbalah, the Qliphoth, and to the use of the passions they represent, for personal power, as opposed to spiritual growth. What we would call sorcery, as opposed to theurgy.
   
David: Right. And the last line says that - “all the angels and demons worked until they had constructed the natural body. And their product was completely inactive and motionless for a long time."
   
Gene: Those lines made me think of the phrase, the “temple, not made by hands,” waiting to be inhabited by the spirit. It ties in with the whole Solomonic legend right there.
   
20:42 Body of Light
   
David: It does, it’s like a Temple waiting to be raised to life. Which is what happens next. The text says that Sophia prayed to get back the power that she had given to the Demiurge. So, the Pleroma speaks to the Demiurge, through the five powers buried inside him that still connect him to heaven.
   
Gene: What we called in an earlier episode, the “wormhole” back to Barbelo.
   
David: Right. The text says that “they said to Yaltabaoth, 'Blow into his face something of your spirit and his body will arise.' And he blew into his face the spirit which is the power of his mother; he did not know (this), for he exists in ignorance. And the power of his mother went out of Yaltabaoth into the natural body, which they had fashioned after the image of the one who exists from the beginning. The body moved and gained strength, and it was luminous.”
   
Gene: They tricked him into transferring the power he took from Sophia, into the form they created, the luminous body. That’s a really different interpretation than the one in Genesis.
   
David: And, that’s not the only one.
   
Gene: Yeah.
   
David: But, there’s an inevitability to it, too. I mean, it’s like the spirit, the creative force finds a way, even though it gets garbled, to embed itself into the densest layers of materiality. It’s like a sculptor, working from the inside.
   
Gene: And it finds a way to make the “Telephone Game” work, through all of the static and replication. It really is like a hologram that you can recreate from any small piece - like cosmic DNA.
   
David: And here, the Demiurge and the Archons immediately realize that their creation, has more intelligence, and is more aware than they are. The text says that "in that moment the rest of the powers became jealous, because he had come into being through all of them and they had given their power to the man, and his intelligence was greater than that of those who had made him, and greater (even) than that of the chief archon.”
   
Gene: The whole is greater than the individual parts?
   
David: Yeah, there’s an emergent quality that’s not present in the individual parts. But the last part of this section says that “when (the Archons) recognized that he (Adam) was luminous, and that he could think better than they, and that he was free from wickedness, they took him and threw him into the lowest region of all matter.”
   
Gene: Meaning the full incarnation of the spirit in physical form.
   
David: And also, the actual replication of the divine pattern in material forms, despite all the copying. Its the cosmic combination of spirit, the breath, with matter, the body.
   
Gene: The self-generating spirit of Autogenes, working from within the matrix of mother earth, bringing it to life.
   
23:32 Luminous Epinoia
   
David: Which is engineered by Barbelo, who if you remember, was the only one in heaven that Sophia couldn’t hide her child from. The text says that “the blessed One, the Mother-Father, the beneficent and merciful One, had mercy on the power of the mother which had been brought forth out of the chief archon… and sent… a helper to Adam, luminous Epinoia which comes out of him, who is called Life.”
   
Gene: Which is what Autogenes was called in the Gnostic Trinity. So, the “luminous Epinoia” is the materialization of Autogenes or Christ, who the text said had a “mighty voice.” She is the Word, made flesh.
   
David: And in that way, she’s like the Holy Spirit, or the Shekinah. The indwelling divine spirit that the Temple is meant to attract.
   
Gene: And then, she acts as the internal compass, or intuition of the divine plan, that leads us back home. The next section says that this indwelling spirit “assists the whole creature, by toiling with him and by restoring him to his fullness and by teaching him about the descent of his seed (and) by teaching him about the way of ascent, (which is) the way he came down.”
   
David: Sophia means wisdom, and the luminous Epinoia is an aspect of that wisdom, which is the knowledge of the True Self. And she teaches about the seed, the pattern that created the world, and which also leads back to the fullness of being, to reconnect to the lost parts of ourselves.
   
Gene: It’s like a lighted breadcrumb trail, so that you can find your way back, even in the dark… if you just have the courage to keep going.
   
David: It’s also the dual current - downward into manifestation and diversity, and upward back toward unity and wholeness.
   
Gene: I thought the last lines in this section were interesting. It says that “the luminous Epinoia was hidden in Adam, in order that the archons might not know her, but that the Epinoia might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother.”
   
David: Yes, that is interesting. The pattern is in there, and it replicates itself, even when errors are introduced into it.
   
Gene: You said last time that Epinoia might mean “turning a mental image into a mental abstraction,” so what do think it means by “luminous Epinoia”?
   
David: Well, it also said that Adam’s body was glowing.
   
Gene: A Body of Light.
   
David: Yeah, so this is the aspect of Sophia suited for that body. It’s meant to infuse his thinking with light, which is why he was more intelligent than the Archons. She gives him a discriminating mind as opposed to just a mind, like the Demiurge.
   
Gene: I know some texts translate “luminous Epinoia” as “afterthought,” is that why?
   
David: Yes, and what it means, is that she grants the ability to discriminate the thoughts pertaining to the upper and lower worlds. It’s what the “Emerald Tablet of Hermes,” means by being able to “separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross.”
   
Gene: Embodied wisdom… which isn’t always what our mind tells us.
   
David: Right. We’re talking about something deeper. Something that just knows, instead of having to think it out. It’s a quality of mind that’s outside of what we normally perceive as ourselves, so that’s often why we discount it.
   
Gene: Like the Archons do - because they’re collectively, us. They symbolize how we reason things out. So, the luminous Epinoia, divine revelation, if you want to call it that, is always going to be suspect, from that point of view.
   
David: Right. But, to bring it back to something understandable, if you’ve lived a life, and paid any attention, you do come know a few things, about how actions are likely to play out. And there is a part of you that knows, but sometimes we don’t listen to it, because often we don’t want to hear what it’s saying.
   
Gene: And listening to that voice, leads to the higher aspect of the luminous Epinoia, Sophia, who’s name means “wisdom.” So, she is like the knowledge, the Gnosis, that leads to wisdom.
   
27:54 Light Trapped in Shadow
   
David: That’s good. The next part of the text says that after the Archons realized that Adam’s thinking was superior to theirs - “They took fire and earth and water and mixed them together with the four fiery winds. And they wrought them together and caused a great disturbance. And they brought him (Adam) into the shadow of death, in order that they might form (him) again from earth and water and fire and the spirit which originates in matter, which is the ignorance of darkness and desire, and their counterfeit spirit.”
   
Gene: You know, right there you have an example straight out of the Bible, that seems just like a logical error.
   
David: The two different creation stories.
   
Gene: Right. One version in Genesis 1, and then a completely different version in Genesis 2, which seems like a mistake. But, I’ve heard that they are stories from two different Jewish traditions, the Yahwist and Elohist traditions, and that both of their creation stories just got included.
   
David: But, in the context of the Secret Gospel of John, the reason for the two stories becomes clear. It’s two different levels of manifestation. In the first creation story in Genesis 1, God says - “Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness…”.
   
Gene:  That’s the previous story about the creation by committee, of the Demiurge and the Archons, of Adam, the luminous body.
   
David: And, it concludes by saying - “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
   
Gene: That’s talking about the reflected copy of a copy from the original Mother-Father, Barbelo.
   
David: Yeah. And then again, in creation story in the second chapter of Genesis, it says that “God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
   
Gene: That’s a little different, than this version. Here, the Demiurge breathes into the Body of Light, but in Genesis 2, God breathes into the physical body.
   
David: But, it means the same thing, the passing on of power, or of a spiritual lineage. Breath, or wind, being like a bridge between spirit and matter. So, it’s a symbolic transmission of the power of Sophia, that comes from her connection to the Pleroma, being passed into the physical body.
   
Gene: And there’s the three levels of the lineage - spirit, matter and the mind in between, that falls and has to be redeemed, through knowledge.
   
David: Meaning experience with the physical world - from innocence to experience.
   
Gene: Right. The next part of the text says that “This is the tomb of the newly-formed body with which the robbers had clothed the man, the bond of forgetfulness; and he became a mortal man.”
   
David: This section of text ends by saying - “This is the first one who came down, and the first separation. But the Epinoia of the light which was in him, she is the one who was to awaken his thinking.”
   
Gene: So, this section is about how the physical body is both the vehicle of the spirit, and in a sense, its prison, because of all the limitations it imposes on it. The spirit wants to be free.
   
31:17 Tree of Death
   
David: It does. The last section that we’re going to discuss today is a different perspective on the story of the “Garden of Eden,” than the one that’s in the Bible. It starts off by saying that “the archons took him and placed him in paradise. And they said to him,” eat from the tree , which it describes as bitter, depraved, deceptive, godless, and with fruit that “is deadly poison” with the “promise of death” - which they called the “Tree of Life.”
   
Gene: Calling it the “Tree of Life” sounds like a modern marketing scheme. It’s describing an inverted tree that fruits in Hell, with the Archons as inverted spiritual principles, which sounds to me more like the “Tree of Death”.
   
David: Well you don’t just get one side. If you have life, then you have death. There’s neither in the Pleroma, you have to fall, into materiality to experience either, and that means both.
   
Gene: So eating from this tree means, consuming and making part of yourself the attributes of the tree and its fruit, becoming more material, more like the lower aspects of the Archons. Sort of like a reverse Eucharist.
   
David: Right, making it part of yourself. You are what you eat, right?
   
Gene: Yeah. But, it’s strange that here, they’re being encouraged to eat from the “Tree of Life,” but in the Bible they’re kicked out of Eden, so they don’t eat from it.
   
David: But, in the Bible, that’s only after they ate from the one and only forbidden tree in the garden, the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” They were encouraged to eat, before their eyes were opened, but not after.
   
Gene: So, do you think that’s significant?
   
David: Yes. The next part of the text describes how the Archons attempt to hide the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” from Adam, but how Christ, the Autogenes, the one who is instructing John, says - “But it was I who brought about that they ate."
   
Gene: That’s an interesting part in the conversation, because John says - "Lord, was it not the serpent that taught Adam to eat?" The savior smiled and said, "The serpent taught them to eat from wickedness of begetting, lust, (and) destruction, that he (Adam) might be useful to him.”
   
David: The serpent here represents spiritual rebellion, that eventually will come back to bite the Demiurge, who in the story thinks that it makes Adam more useful to him. But knowledge, as we’ve talked about before, always cuts two ways. It can be used for good or for evil, always really, both.
   
Gene: Hence, the “Knowledge of Good AND Evil.”
   
David: Experience - that’s how you gain knowledge. Like I said before, the only way out, is through. You have to experience incarnation, and the struggles that the spirit goes through, as you age, as problems arise, and find that light within that gives meaning to all of it… or not. But that embodied and lived experience, is the knowledge of the good and evil that life necessarily involves, that leads to Gnosis.
   
Gene: Well said. This section ends with the Demiurge casting a spell on Adam, it says that “he brought a forgetfulness over Adam,” that made him lethargic, so that he wouldn’t pay attention to, or see beyond the material.
   
David: Which is basically our normal state of consciousness.
   
Gene: A heavy mixture of darkness and light, that makes it difficult to see past day to day concerns.
   
David: Exactly. Anything else?
   
Gene: No, that’s it for me.
   
35:00 Conclusions
    
David: Alright. Before we end this session, I want to remind everyone that I created a “Deep Dive” that explores the Secret Gospel of John’s relationship to Neoplatonism. And I’ve provided links to that, and other resources in the podcast “Show Notes.” So, Gene, what are your final thoughts?
    
Gene: Well, I guess the biggest thing to me was just how poetically it was describing the angst of being an individual. I mean, the main story arc was about the birth of individuality, and how that plays out, through the worlds. By that I mean, how it affects what you think you want, how you feel, how you think and how you act - the four worlds we live and move in.
    
David: And, in the process of individualizing, it described three levels of divisions from unity. The first division was Sophia’s choice to conceive on her own, and then the Demiurge created a whole world on his own, and now Adam’s been created, compartmentalized in flesh.
    
Gene: It’s the grounding of individuality, bringing it all the way down to earth - we’re packaged u,p and separated physically from everything, and everyone else. And, that’s where the idea of the body being a cage or a prison comes from. The free-flowing mind is constrained by physical laws down here. 
    
David: And the whole concept of “down here”. The text laid out three levels - “down here,” the material world, the mind, and then the Pleroma, or heaven. 
    
Gene: Which is separated from the mind by the waters of the abyss.
    
David: And we, who identify with the mind, basically feel suspended between heaven and earth.
    
Gene: The Son of Man and the Son of God.
    
David: Right. We’re both, and that’s the problem.
    
Gene: Yeah. What about you? What have you been thinking about?
    
David: I just kind of continue to be amazed at what’s in here, and what it’s saying… really. It’s deep. 
    
Gene: It’s not a casual read.
    
David: No, it’s not. But, you know, if you’re following the story, it starts to make sense. There’s a kernel of consciousness, a monad, that unfolds into us. And there is a blueprint that it lays down, in that upper room. And out of it comes this organizational structure inside our mind, below our awareness most of the time. 
    
Gene: A whole army of angels and demons, slaving away, without the sound of tools, building a Temple… right?
    
David: A “temple not made by hands.” Just like what is said about Solomon’s Temple in Freemasonry. And then the lowest level of matter, serves as the mother, hiding the spark of the divine, that’s supposed to lead us back to the truth.
    
Gene: In a sense, resurrected or “raised” to a new life.
    
David: Exactly. Do you have anything else today?
    
Gene: No, that’s it for me.
    
David: Alright, what are we doing next time?
    
Gene: In our next episode, we’ll conclude our discussion of “The Secret Gospel of John.” So, join us, next time, as we walk the “Way of Hermit.”