01:15 Introduction
   
Gene: Hello Dave.
   
David: Hello Gene. How are you today?
   
Gene: Good. I’m ready to rock.
   
David: Cool. Me, too. But before we get started, as always, I want to remind everyone that Show Notes, Chapter Markers, and Transcripts for all of our episodes are available on our website - WayOfTheHermit.com. In our last episode, we discussed the first half of Part 1 of “The Trimorphic Protennoia,” the “Three Forms of the First Thought.” In this episode, we will discuss the second half and complete the first of the three descents of the Protennoia.
   
01:46 Review
   
Gene: And as we talked about last time, these three descents are associated with Father, Mother and Son, or Thought, Voice and Word. The overall text is about how consciousness unfolds.
   
David: Right. So the first part which we are going to finish today, is associated with the incomprehensible, immeasurable Father. Which corresponds to the deepest layers of consciousness, below or beneath language.
   
Gene: It’s the part of consciousness behind the door that separates the conscious mind,  or the egoic self, from the unconscious or subconscious parts of our whole self.
   
David: Which is why the Father is said to be incomprehensible, immeasurable and unknowable. It refers to the structures of consciousness that allow us to comprehend, measure and know.
   
Gene: With the Mother being the doorway, threshold or portal between the Father, the unmanifest inarticulate Thought, and the Son, the manifest or the known - the Word.
   
David: So it describes how things become known, revealed or come into being. Basically, how consciousness functions. But, even in this simple analogy of a door, there’s an inherent enigma.
   
Gene: The mystery of the “Holy Trinity.”
   
David: Right. If you think of consciousness as being composed of the three parts in that doorway analogy - behind the door, the Father, the door, the Mother, and in front of the door, the Son. What’s sort of hidden in that simple analogy is the logic of door - how and when it allows something through.
   
Gene: Yeah.
   
David: That logic is a form of consciousness, so it also has to have three parts. Consciousness, as defined in this text is recursive. It’s defined in terms of itself.
   
Gene: It’s turtles all the way!
   
David: Yeah. What Gene is referring to is a story about a student in an astronomy class. The student interrupts the professor and tells him that he’s way off with all his talk about gravity and space-time, because the Earth is actually moving through space on the back of a giant turtle. The professor asks the student - “So, what holds up the turtle, then?” The student says that the turtle is riding on the back of an even bigger turtle. The professor smiles and says - “So what holds up the bigger turtle?” To which the student replies - “You can’t fool me. It’s turtles all the way down!”
   
Gene: That story is about the problem of “infinite regress.” With concepts like infinity and the beginning of time, there’s an ultimate mystery that our minds aren’t actually capable of getting to the bottom of… because there isn’t a bottom.
   
04:20 Three In One
   
David: Right. Ok. We’re going to pick up where we left off - midway through the first descent, which says - “Now the Voice that originated from my Thought exists as three permanences: the Father, the Mother, the Son. Existing perceptibly as Speech, (the Voice) has within it a Word endowed with every (glory), and it has three masculinities, three powers, and three names.
   
Gene: The first part of that we’ve already talked about - the three aspects of the “Trimorphic Protennoia”: Father, Mother and Son, or Thought, Voice, and Word.
   
David: Which it calls the “Three Permanences,” and it adds three more threes, three masculinities, three powers and three names. So four threes in all, which are referring to how the “Three Forms” plays out in the four worlds, which we discussed in “The Secret Gospel of John.”
   
Gene: So it’s laying out sort of a top-down structure of consciousness, with each level dependent upon the one before it.
   
David: Exactly. How Thought becomes manifest through Words. The text traces the descent from the “Three Permanences,” which are eternal, beyond time - the Spiritual World, through the Soul or Mind, and into active expression. The first of these three descents is called the “Three Masculinities.”
   
Gene: The male designation there just means that the “Permanances” must become active rather than remain passive - the female becoming male… as we’ve talked about before.
   
David: Yeah, it’s the deeper parts of the mind, which have to become active, as we talked about in the “Gospel of Thomas,” in order to consciously interact with the Spiritual World - the “Three Permanances.”
   
Gene: And then these “Three Masculinities,” are expressed in the lower part of the Soul or Mind, what we think of as our conscious mind, as “Three Powers” - the Sulphur, Mercury and Salt of Alchemy.
   
David: Or in Philosophy as Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. And because this is a basic truth about reality, this tripartite structure plays out in everything from storytelling where you have a setup, a confrontation and a resolution, to religions, like Christianity, with the Holy Trinity, or Hinduism with Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
   
Gene: Or in the visual arts with the “Rule of Thirds,” or even the three primary colors.
   
David: It’s why the number three and the triangle are so prominent in philosophical systems like Freemasonry. The number three can be practically applied to understand concepts across many fields. And then finally, the “Three Powers,” are expressed through “Three Names,” or Words.
   
Gene: Which in the Scottish Rite are referred to as the three names of God, revealed in the 14th, 18th and 32nd degrees - the Father, the Tetragrammaton, the Son, INRI and the Mother… the name that’s only hinted at.
   
David: Right. That three-part name actually refers to the “Trimorphic Protennoia,” that’s talked about openly in this text. The last part of the first statement ends by saying - “They exist in the manner of Three ... which are quadrangels - secretly within a silence of the Ineffable One.”
   
Gene: That’s the enigma you referred to earlier, the Three are actually One. Another unity emerges from them. Like in the Tetragrammaton, the “Four-Lettered Name,” where the Three - yod heh vau, becomes the final heh - a new unity.
   
David: There’s also a weirdness in the translations. The Turner translation uses the word “quadangels,” like four angels, instead of the word “quadrangle,” which is used in the Barnstone translation.
   
Gene: Yeah, that is odd. Especially since later it names four angels that govern the four Aeons.
   
David: Exactly. Will you read the next part?
   
07:57 Christ
   
Gene: Sure. It starts off by saying - “It is he alone who came to be, that is, the Christ. And, as for me, I anointed him as the glory of the Invisible Spirit, with goodness.”
   
David: Christ means “anointed one,” and is the Unity that emerges from the Three, the Logos which becomes the organizing principle that structures the lower worlds.
   
Gene: Those lower worlds are called Aeons in the next part that says - “Now the Three, I established alone in eternal glory over the Aeons in the Living Water, that is, the glory that surrounds him who first came forth to the Light of those exalted Aeons, and it is in glorious Light that he firmly perseveres.“
   
David: That’s saying that the Logos emerged from the “exalted Aeons,” the Spiritual World, and is established as a Unity that oversees the “living waters,” which, as we’ve talked about before, refers to our stream of consciousness. It’s the unchanging part that “firmly perseveres,” the constant in the midst of change.
   
Gene: So, on a small scale, it’s a symbol or Word denoting a thought, but in a broader sense, it would also represent what’s called “Witness Consciousness,” the observer that stands apart from, and observes our emotions, thoughts and actions.
   
David: Right. It would be the part that gives us our sense of self and our identity. The part that has been with us all throughout our life, since our first thoughts, through all the changes that our bodies and minds have undergone since we were kids, the part that we refer to as “I” or “me.”
   
Gene: That ties into the next part that says - “And he stood in his own Light that surrounds him, that is, the Eye of the Light that gloriously shines on me.”
   
David: Again, it’s the “quadrangle,” the Unity that emerges from the Trinity - the “Eye in the Triangle,” so to speak.
   
Gene: Which reminds me of Matthew 6:22 which says - “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
   
David: That’s a call to identify with that “Witness Consciousness,” or “Christ Consciousness,” the “Eye in the Triangle” that observes instead of identifying with the parts of ourselves that are in constant motion - our emotions, intellect and body.
   
Gene: The “True Self,” within each of us, as opposed to our individual, limited conceptions of Self.
   
10:23 Barbelo
   
David: Right. And the next part describes how this “Christ Consciousness,” exists in all things. It says - “He (Christ) perpetuated the Father of all Aeons, who am I, the Thought of the Father, Protennoia, that is, Barbelo, the perfect Glory, and the immeasurable Invisible One who is hidden. I am the Image of the Invisible Spirit, and it is through me that the All took shape.”
   
Gene: The Logos, the organizing principle of consciousness, is what gives form to things - or maybe that’s better said by, it’s what allows us to comprehend form, and everything else.
   
David: It says that it is how the Father, Unity, is “perpetuated,” to every person, and every conscious being. It’s the core idea of Galatians 3:28 that says - “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” It’s the idea that there is one consciousness staring out of every person and every conscious being and if you identify with that, you’re One with everyone and everything.
   
Gene: In alchemical terms, it’s referring to the “Universal Mercury,” what you get if you separate the subtle from the gross - the distilled Spirit of mankind.
   
David: And again, it correlates with the idea that incarnation is how God comes to know him/herself from every perspective - the God’s Eye inside every triangle of conscious awareness.
   
Gene: Gnosis… on a cosmic scale.
   
David: Yes. The next part says “(I am) the Mother (as well as) the Light which she appointed as Virgin, she who is called 'Meirothea', the incomprehensible Womb, the unrestrainable and immeasurable Voice.”
   
Gene: That name “Meirothea,” connects to the Greek concept of “moira,” which means “fate,” “portion,” or “lot.” It means that she grants to each thing that comes into being, what they are due - their own fate or portion.
   
David: And Moira was the name of one the three fates in Greek mythology. Moira was the “divine allotter,” who made sure that every created being lived out their destiny.
   
Gene: Esoterically, it refers to how consciousness organizes itself into coherent patterns, while maintaining the proportional harmony of the whole.
   
David: There’s also the connotation of a “virgin birth” - how Christ, the Logos, is born from the “immeasurable Voice.” Voice being the intermediate stage between Thought and Word.
   
12:48 Son of God
   
Gene: The next part says - “Then the Perfect Son revealed himself to his Aeons, who originated through him, and he revealed them and glorified them, and gave them thrones, and stood in the glory with which he glorified himself.”
   
David: Putting them on thrones, means that the organizing principle establishes specific functions of consciousness over which each of the Aeons has dominion.
   
Gene: And He reveals himself to them, meaning that they become aware that there is an overall scheme that they’re a part of - a bigger picture that they fit into. The next part says that then - “They blessed the Perfect Son, the Christ, the only-begotten God. And they gave glory, saying, "He is! He is! The Son of God! The Son of God! It is he who is! The Aeon of Aeons, beholding the Aeons which he begot. For thou hast begotten by thine own desire!”
   
David: There’s a self-reflective element being described. The organizing principle recognizes that it functions through separate elements, and they recognize that they are part of something bigger… something that created them. So at this point, the elements of consciousness are still connected, or at least recognize, the Spiritual domain, the whole Self that they’re a part of.
   
Gene: So it’s now a functioning system.
   
David: Right.
   
Gene: The next part is really interesting. And forgive me if I use a bit of my ritual voice in this one.
   
David: OK, go ahead.
   
Gene: The emanations say - “Therefore we glorify thee: ma mo o o o eia ei on ei! The Aeon of Aeons! The Aeon which he gave!"
   
David: Yeah, that really is interesting. That’s glossolalia - it’s Voice, but it’s not Words - because the structure that’s been described up this point is below or beneath words and language.
   
Gene: It’s the basis of the use of the so-called “barbarous words” in magical grimoires. Because our minds want to make sense of it, it can, under the right conditions, short-circuit our normal language processing, and create an altered state of consciousness.
   
David: It’s sort of like the elements are establishing their circuits, or connections to the organizing principle, the Logos, which it calls the “Aeon of Aeons,” the source that they came out of.
   
Gene: That makes sense.
   
15:11 True Aeons
   
David: And then once those circuits are established, the next part says that - “Then, moreover, the God who was begotten gave them (the Aeons) a power of life on which they might rely, and he established them.”
   
Gene: So, still using the circuit analogy, power is sent through the connections, so that each of the Aeons can operate semi-independently.
   
David: Right. And the next part basically lays out the complete circuit diagram. There are four Aeons, and four rulers, or quad-angels - which are the same spirits that we discussed in Part 2 of “The Secret Gospel of John.”
   
Gene: Which, as we discussed in that episode correspond to the Spiritual, Mental, Astral and Etheric bodies. They are the spiritual vehicles of the four worlds that we live in - our Will, Emotions, Intellect and Body.
   
David: And this text, like the “Secret Gospel of John,” further expands each of these four into a trinity. So, it designates three names for each, for a total of twelve names - which I’m not going to read all of those, but the rulers of each Aeon match the names given in “The Secret Gospel of John.”
   
Gene: And it’s no coincidence that that yields twelve names, which correspond to the twelve zodiacal powers, a complete cycle of light.
   
David: Yes. The next part says - “Now those Aeons were begotten by the God who was begotten - the Christ - and these Aeons received as well as gave glory. They were the first to appear, exalted in their thought, and each Aeon gave myriads of glories within great untraceable lights, and they all together blessed the perfect Son, the God who was begotten.”
   
Gene: That sounds like a real flowery way of saying that two-way communication is being established. It says the Aeons give and receive. Which calls to mind the descent of the light through the Sephiroth in the Kabbalistic “Tree of Life” -  the “lightning flash.”
   
David: Which is talking about the same thing. How consciousness establishes itself and becomes a functioning system. How our mind emerges and orders the chaos. I found the place in “The Secret Gospel of John” where it talks about all of this. Do you want me to read it?
   
Gene: Sure.
   
David: It says - “These are the four luminaries that stand before the self-conceived god; these are the twelve eternal realms that stand before the child of the great self-conceived, the anointed, by the will and grace of the invisible spirit. The twelve realms belong to the child of the self-conceived one, and everything was established by the will of the holy spirit through the self-conceived one.”
   
Gene: It’s saying exactly the same thing in different words - which makes sense because they’re both talking about the same thing, just from a different perspective.
   
17:56 The Demiurge
   
David: They are. I didn’t read the twelve names before, but the ruler of the lowest Aeon, the physical world, is Eleleth. And the next part says - “Then there came forth a word from the great Light Eleleth, and said, "I am king! Who belongs to Chaos and who belongs to the underworld?" And at that instant, his Light appeared, radiant, endowed with the Epinoia. The Powers of the Powers did not entreat him, and likewise immediately there appeared a great Demon who rules over the lowest part of the underworld and Chaos. He has neither form nor perfection, but, on the contrary, possesses the form of the glory of those begotten in the darkness.”
   
Gene: So, Eleleth rules over the material plane, the Aeon farthest from the pure light of the Pleroma. And that passage details the first duality, the split between light and darkness. With one ruler of the light and another of the dark, born at the exact same moment.
   
David: You can’t have light without shadow. It makes me think of King Solomon and the demon Asmodeus, who in Jewish legend, stole the ring that Solomon used to control the demons and impersonated him for years, until Solomon recovered his ring and regained his throne.
   
Gene: And also the grimoire tradition, as in the Goetia, the “Lesser Key of Solomon,” where Solomon invokes the 72 demons of the Shem HaMephorash, and impels them to serve the light. Just like here where they’re told to pick a side - to serve the light, or remain in darkness.
   
David: And in this context, it’s the alchemical separation of the subtle from the gross, or the discriminating consciousness that determines what belongs to clarity, and what contributes to confusion.
   
Gene: But in a more general sense, it’s the engine that drives consciousness, which we’ve been calling the dual current, spiritualizing and materializing… analysis and design - sussing out the general principles and patterns behind forms, and also turning those patterns into physical actions and things.
   
David:  That’s true. The next part describes the ruler of darkness, the Demiurge. It says - “He is called 'Saklas', that is, 'Samael', 'Yaltabaoth', he who had taken power; who had snatched it away from the innocent one (Sophia); who had earlier overpowered her who is the Light`s Epinoia who had descended, her from whom he had come forth from originally.”
   
Gene: Which is again a retelling of the story from the “Secret Gospel of John,” in which Sophia, an aspect of Barbelo, gives birth to the Demiurge. “Saklas” means “fool” in Aramaic. “Samael” is a Hebrew name that means “blind god” or “venom of god.” And “Yaltabaoth,” is another Aramaic term that means “child of chaos,” or “child of darkness.”
   
David: So, you could summarize that “Unholy Trinity” of names as - the “blind idiot god of chaos.” Which, if you think about it, it’s an apt name for what it symbolizes, the egoic self, that doesn’t realize it’s connection to the higher worlds.
   
Gene: It’s also interesting that the “Lord of Light,” in that passage, which represents the “Higher Self,” or what’s called in the Western Magical Tradition, one’s “Holy Guardian Angel,” is left unnamed.
   
David: That’s a name that you’ll have to do some work to discover!
   
Gene: Indeed it is! Ready for the next part?
   
David: Yes.
   
21:22 False Aeons
   
Gene: The next part says - “Now when the Epinoia of the Light realized that he (Yaltabaoth) had begged him (the Light) for another order, even though he was lower than she, she said, ‘Give me another order, so that you may become for me a dwelling place, lest I dwell in disorder forever.’ And the order of the entire house of glory was agreed upon her word. A blessing was brought for her and the higher order released it to her.”
   
David: There’s a weirdness in the gender pronouns at the beginning of that passage. It says “Yaltaboath begged him… even though he was lower than she.”
   
Gene: We know Barbelo is both male and female, active and passive, so I guess it’s pointing out that she’s taking on an active role?
   
David: Yeah, I think that’s what’s being implied. It’s saying that even the egoic self, our personality, realizes there is something greater than ourselves, and longs to be more than we are. And that our “begging,” our entreaties to a higher power, actually do have an effect.
   
Gene: That effect being that Yaltabaoth, our lower self, creates a “dwelling place,” a “temple” if you will, using what he thinks is his own design and effort. The next part says - “And the great Demon began to produce aeons in the likeness of the real Aeons, except that he produced them out of his own power.”
   
David: In the “Secret Gospel of John,” the Demiurge sees a reflection of the divine pattern, the “real aeons,” in the upper waters, and creates his world from that flawed pattern. That story, and this one, represent our attempt to bring order to our inner chaos, our attempt to create a stable personality.
   
Gene: But it’s created in ignorance of our true nature. Our personality is actually constructed according to the divine pattern, the “Trimorphic Protennoia,” which is hidden inside it like a seed, or like yeast in dough… to use the symbolism from the “Gospel of Thomas.”
   
23:19 Creation of Man
   
David: And that hidden catalyst begins to work her magic in the next part that says - “Then I too revealed my Voice secretly, saying, "Cease! Desist, (you) who tread on matter; for behold, I am coming down to the world of mortals for the sake of my portion that was in that place from the time when the innocent Sophia was conquered, she who descended, so that I might thwart their aim which the one revealed by her appoints."
   
Gene: So, the underlying Thought is now Voiced. She’s responding to the call of the “barbarous words.” It’s another example of “call and response,” or a deeper sort of two-way communication. It’s moving towards words and language.
   
David: It is, but the message she delivers to “those that tread upon matter,” the most material parts of consciousness, it says is communicated “secretly,” meaning that it’s beneath the threshold of conscious understanding.
   
Gene: We feel it though - that there’s something wrong, or something missing. In terms of the story that’s being told, the Protennoia has tricked the Demiurge, and he doesn’t realize it yet.
   
David: That’s right. And then next part explains this. It says - “And all were disturbed, each one who dwells in the house of the ignorant light, and the abyss trembled. And the Archigenetor of ignorance reigned over Chaos and the underworld, and produced a man in my likeness. But he neither knew that that one would become for him a sentence of dissolution, nor does he recognize the power in him.”
   
Gene: So Pinocchio has finally become a “real boy.”
   
David: Well, that sort of sums it up. It’s saying that the complete structure of human consciousness is in place - all the circuits are connected up now.
   
Gene: And it parallels the story in Genesis 1, and in the “Secret Gospel of John,” of the creation of the “First Adam,” “Adam Kadmon,” the “primordial man”, who is created in the image of Barbelo, both male and female.
   
David: And the trick that’s been played, is that the female half of this “divine hermaphrodite,” contains the Protennoia, the “divine pattern.”
   
Gene: Because everything does. Like we said earlier, it’s recursive. The whole is contained within all the parts.
   
David: True. But it’s the female half, the subconscious part, that may eventually be activated, and dissolve the Demiurge’s power.
   
Gene: So by creating according to the pattern she revealed to him, he’s basically sowed the seeds of his own demise.
   
David: Exactly. In terms of consciousness, it means that through Gnosis, we can dissolve the ego, and realize our connection to God, through our indwelling divinity, our “Higher” or “True Self.”
   
Gene: Very cool. Are you ready for the next part?
   
David: Yes.
   
26:00 Sons of Light
   
Gene: The next part says - “Now I have come down and reached down to Chaos. And I was with my own who were in that place. I am hidden within them, empowering them, giving them shape. And from the first day until the day when I will grant my mighty glory to those who are mine, I will reveal myself to those who have heard my mysteries, that is, the Sons of the Light.”
   
David: It reminds me again of the metaphor of yeast transforming dough into bread. She’s working with the tools that are available to her, the personality that we’ve built in ignorance of our connections to the higher parts of ourselves.
   
Gene: As we’ve discussed, she’s the part of us that has been with us since the “beginning,” since our first moments of self-consciousness, until we become consciously aware of who we really are - when she reveals herself to the “Sons of Light.”
   
David: It’s interesting that the Barnstone translation renders that phrase as “Children of Light,” I guess to sound more politically correct. But by doing that, his translation obscures part of the intended meaning. The use in that passage of the male noun is referring to the active principle - not to actual men and women.
   
Gene: Right. As in the last statement of the “Gospel of Thomas” that said - ”Every female who makes themselves male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
   
David: Exactly. It’s saying that the “Sons of Light,” are those who have done this - men or women… what the “Gospel of Thomas” called “children of the living Father.”
   
Gene: Because, as Carl Jung pointed out, we are all both sexes - Anima and Animus, or Soul and Psyche. It’s just that one is expressed consciously, or in the light, and the other operates behind the scenes, in the shadows.
   
David: And the “Great Work,” is to reunite those two into one and become whole.
   
Gene: The “Sacred Marriage.”
   
27:52 Mysteries of the Father
   
David: Which we’ve discussed in previous episodes. The next part refers back to the “Sons of Light,” saying - “I am their Father, and I shall tell you a mystery, ineffable and indivulgeable by any mouth: Every bond I loosed from you, and the chains of the demons of the underworld I broke, these things which are bound on my members, restraining them. And the high walls of darkness I overthrew, and the secure gates of those pitiless ones I broke, and I smashed their bars.”
   
Gene: The Trimorphic Protennoia, is the Father, Mother and Son, but in that passages she’s identifying herself with the Father of the “Sons of Light,” the ones that she reveals her mysteries to.
   
David: And, as we’ve discussed, the Father represents the absolute Unity, the Monad, which is “ineffable” and “indivulgable,” meaning that it can’t be expressed in Words. Which is basically the perspective of the entire first part of the text. It’s the part of consciousness that underlies language.
   
Gene: And the mystery she is revealing from that perspective, corresponds to the story of Christ’s “Harrowing of Hell,” which we talked about in the last episode. It’s about bringing into the light all of the parts of ourselves that we’ve forgotten or repressed, or that otherwise hold us in bondage.
   
David: That’s actually a scary idea to me.
   
Gene: Why’s that?
   
David: It sounds like Revelation chapter 20 where an angel comes down from heaven and chains up the Devil for a thousand years, but “after that he must be loosed for a season.”
   
Gene: What does that mean to you?
   
David: That in the process of Gnosis, coming to know yourself, that there are parts of yourself, including lost, broken or fragmented parts, like the “pitiless ones,” that are referred to in that passage, that I take to be parts that maybe splintered off due to trauma, that are unchained, released into the light of conscious awareness. That could be a really perilous time, as you attempt to integrate those parts.
   
Gene: Yeah, it doesn’t seem like that would just happen all at once.
   
David: No, I don’t think it does. I think it’s more like “poking the bear.” The way I’m reading that passage, it’s talking about releasing things that have innate power, powerful memories that maybe you’ve repressed. Which, I think is the reason why the people who wrote these texts retreated into the desert to do the work.
   
Gene: Well, Carl Jung did that too when he deep dived into his own psyche and wrote his “Black Books.”
   
David: Right. He isolated himself because it’s a disruptive process, especially for some people. I really, don’t see how it could be otherwise… but maybe that’s just because I have a lot of issues!
   
Gene: No, I see what you’re saying there, and I agree.
   
David: But, I think that the next part is supposed to help by naming the seven main demons, or Archons as they’re called in the “Secret Gospel of John.” They represent the aspects of consciousness that have to be overcome to free yourself - which it says are “The evil force, and the one who beats you, and the one who hinders you, and the tyrant, and the adversary, and the one who is King, and the present enemy.” And it continues by saying that “indeed all these I explained to those who are mine, who are the Sons of the Light, in order that they might nullify them all, and be saved from all those bonds, and enter into the place where they were at first.”
   
Gene: The “place where we were at first,” is called the “Kingdom of Heaven,” in the “Gospel of Thomas.”
   
David: Yes.
   
Gene: And, you really have to meditate on what those names it’s using mean.
   
David: You do, but it helps if you’re conversant in Kabbalah, because they relate to the lower seven Sephirah, which gives you a sense of how they hold you back and keep you from knowing yourself.
   
Gene: In Kabbalistic terms, since they’re the negative side of the Sephirah, they’re referred to as Qliphoth, or “shells,” that were shattered and fragmented because they couldn’t give as well as receive.
   
David: Going back to the circuit analogy, it’s the parts that didn’t get completely hooked up to allow for two-way communication.
   
Gene: Yes. That’s a good way to look at it.
   
David: So, to summarize this part, the mystery that’s revealed to the “Sons of Light,” is a systematic plan for “nullifying” the effects that come from bringing those disenfranchised elements of our personality into the light of conscious awareness, so that we can become whole again.
   
Gene: Individuation - in Jungian terms.
   
32:17 Protennoia Mysteries
   
David: Yes. Alright, we’ve made it to the last section, which starts off with what is basically a summary of the entire first part of the text, the first descent. It says - “I am the first one who descended on account of my portion which remains, that is, the Spirit that dwells in the soul, which originated from the Water of Life, and out of the immersion of the mysteries. And I spoke, I, together with the Archons and Authorities. For I had gone down below their language, and I spoke my mysteries to my own - a hidden mystery - and the bonds and eternal oblivion were nullified.”
   
Gene: We’ve already touched on most of that. She’s the seed, the Spirit that dwells in the Soul or Mind, that originated from the “Water of Life,” the life stream that’s moving through all created beings.
   
David: And it says that she spoke, but not in Words, with the “Archons and Authorities,” the parts that hold us in bondage. It says, here in very clear terms, that she communicates with them “below their language,” at a more raw level of consciousness, outside of their understanding.
   
Gene: And the last part of the text describes what happens as a result of her efforts. It says - “And I bore fruit in them, that is, the Thought of the unchanging Aeon, and my house, and their Father. And I went down to those who were mine from the first, and I reached them and broke the first strands that enslaved them. Then everyone of those within me shone, and I prepared a pattern for those ineffable Lights that are within me. Amen.”
   
David: That’s describing how working from the inside out, she reorganizes the distorted structure of the personality to reflect her pattern. She’s the seed, that when tended to, bears fruit.
   
Gene: And it says that the fruit is “the thought of the Unchanging Aeon.”
   
David: The “Unchanging Aeon,” is the Pleroma, which she calls “her house,” and the home of the Father, the Monad. So, the thought of this “Unchanging Aeon,” that has worm its way through all the parts of our sense of self - is that we are not, and never have been separate from the “stream of life” - even though our entire personality is predicated on the idea of being separate, of being an individual.
   
Gene: That’s good. I like that.
   
David: Do you have anything else before we wrap up?
   
Gene: No.
   
34:46 Conclusions
    
David: Alright. Before we end, I want to again remind everyone that I’ve included links to the books we’ve discussed, the translations we’re using, and many other resources in the “Show Notes.” So Gene, what are your final thoughts?
    
Gene: I said something about this last time about the difficulty with texts like this one. You really have to struggle through the words that are used. Part of the meaning gets lost in translation, but by telling it as a story, like this one does, you have to keep digging at it, to decode what it’s really saying.
    
David: We talked about this problem early on as being one of the criticisms of the Neoplatonists, like Plotinus, of the Gnostics. They said that by creating stories like these, and giving motives and intentionality to processes that are actually impersonal and transpersonal, that people would misinterpret the texts… which they have.
    
Gene: They have… or I should say, we all probably have at one time or another - it’s hard not to. But as we’ve said many times, they’re not about actual people or spirits, at least not in the way people normally think of spirits.
    
David: No, but that’s a limitation of our minds. Giving parts of consciousness names and intentionality may be misleading, but at least it gives you something to latch onto, so that you can even think about it or discuss it.
    
Gene: It’s like the magical principle that knowing the name of a spirit gives you power over it.
    
David: Which it does. It gives you a way to symbolize it so that you can think about it… which is the subject of Ramsey Dukes’ “Little Book of Demons,” which is subtitled - “The Positive Advantages of the Personification of Life's Problems.” It suggests naming problems and obstacles so that you can better deal with them.
    
Gene: That’s an excellent book. 
    
David: It is. It’s like all of his books. It’s tongue in cheek and very funny, but really practical too.
    
Gene: So, what about you? What are your final thoughts on this one?
    
David: Just that the understanding of this text, and the other texts we’ve discussed, comes more from looking inside than looking outside. There is quite of bit of research involved in studying texts like these, but it’s just words, unless you can relate it to something inside yourself. Because like we’ve said many times before, truly spiritual texts are not about events that happened once and long ago, they’re about a living reality, that you have to make contact with. No one can do it for you.
    
Gene: Gnosis isn’t something that happens just by showing up or even listening to people talk about it.
    
David: No. It can help but it can also lead you to believe that some people are quote-unquote “spiritual experts” who have all the answers, and that without their help, those answers are out of reach for regular people - which is just a lie. We all have all the tools we need to find our own answers.
    
Gene:  Because you have a mind.
    
David: Yes. That quote about making the female male, is about cultivating a spiritual practice and making your own spiritual contacts, because like I said earlier - no one can do that for you. Gene and I have been around so-called “spiritual groups” for a long time. But, in reality very few of the people in those groups, actually had a real spiritual practice.
    
Gene: But they really enjoy talking about it!
    
David: That’s the point I’m trying to make. Don’t just listen. Don’t just talk about it. Do something. Meditate, contemplate, pray, or even just write down your dreams. And I have two quotes about dreams that I’d like to share before we end.
    
Gene: Go for it.
    
David: The first is from Plato’s “Apology,” where Socrates says - "My life of philosophy had been enjoined upon [me] by the god, by means of oracles and dreams.” And the second quote is from Carl Jung in “Man and His Symbols,” where he says - "We have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions."
    
Gene: Freud said that when we sleep, the censor between the conscious and unconscious contents relaxes, allowing things to slip through in symbolic form.
    
David: That’s right, beneath the layers of logic and language, which is how the “Trimorphic Protennoia,” said she brings about change. So, I would say that it’s not necessarily that important to figure out what a dream means. What’s important is to bring it more into the light of awareness. In fact, what I’ve found is that dreams often don’t make much sense at the time, but if you keep track of them, looking back on them months or years later, many of them make perfect sense.
    
Gene: And then, you have to ponder the question - “Was I seeing the future, or was something leading me toward a destiny?”
    
David: This text takes the position that we’re being led. It’s just that we have to learn how to listen to that voice that doesn’t speak in words. So, I would just say to everyone - start listening. 
    
Gene: Yeah.
    
David: That’s all I’ve got.
    
Gene: Alright. In our next episode, we’ll continue our discussion of the “Trimorphic Protennoia,” the “Three Forms of the First Thought.”