01:15 Introduction
   
Gene: Hello Dave.
   
David: Hello Gene.
   
Gene: You ready to finish this one up?
   
David: I am. But, as always before we get started, 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 second of the three descents of the “Trimorphic Protennoia,” the “Three Forms of First Thought.” In this episode, we will discuss the third and final descent, and finish the text. Gene, can you do a quick review of how we got here?
   
01:47 Review
   
Gene: Sure. The text of the “Trimorphic Protennoia” is divided into three parts which correspond to the “Three Forms of First Thought,” and are described as three “descents” of the Protennoia, who is identified as Barbelo. The descents represent “stages of manifestation,” associated with the aspects of Father, Mother and Son - the Gnostic “Holy Trinity.”
   
    The Father, is defined as the incomprehensible unity, the deepest layer of consciousness, and is associated with Thought. The Mother is the Voice, who reflects the Thought, and births the Son, the Word.
   
    Last time we talked about the second descent, the Voice phase, which was the in-between or pregnancy phase. In the first part, the Archons heard the Voice of the Protennoia and began to tremble, because they didn’t recognize it, and even the Demiurge, who had claimed to be the only God, didn’t recognize it. So, the Archons realized that the world as they know it, was coming to an end. And in the second part, the Voice of the Protennoia tells them about the world to come, that has no change… which is the birth of the Word, the third descent, that we are going to cover today.
   
David: That’s a really good summary of the “Trimorphic Protennoia” text up to this point. The context that this text is written in is like an “autobiography of consciousness.” The “Three Forms of First Thought” speak in the first person to explain what goes on in each phase. Like Gene said, it describes Thought, being internally Voiced, and becoming Words. That’s the context to understand what it’s talking about, by reflecting on how that happens in our own mind. But, the deeper implication of the text is that reality is organized like a Mind, too.
   
Gene: It also implies that because of that similarity, that by achieving Gnosis, or self-knowledge, which includes being able to reflect on your own thinking process, you can understand God, or the underlying reality, whatever you want to call it.
   
David: By trying to match the same pattern, or really uncover it, within your own Mind.
   
Gene: And another implication is that there is one consciousness that gets packaged up into the mind of a discreet creature, but it’s the same consciousness staring out of all sentient beings - it just gets refracted in different ways based on the packaging.
   
David: And it was that thought of Unity, of non-duality, that shook the foundations of the Archons in the second descent - their world, our inner world, was built upon the idea of being separate.
   
Gene: And there’s also a distinction being made between something that we build versus something that’s already inside us, that’s growing organically. It’s like the difference between construction and gardening. And, as we’ve said many times, the Trimorphic Protennoia is supposed to be the seed pattern.
   
04:48 The Third Descent
   
David: It is. And up to this point, what that means, that it’s the seed pattern of consciousness and reality - that’s been pretty fuzzy.
   
Gene: Yeah.
   
David: Well, the third descent clears that up some. It explains more about what the pattern behaves like. The Trimorphic Protennoia is called Barbelo in the “Secret Gospel of Thomas,” where she is the first reflection of the Monad, pure undifferentiated consciousness. So, she is called “forethought” or “first thought,” because she represents the ability to reflect on something - the first inklings of a Mind, a place apart from the outer world to represent things.
   
Gene: So, she’s like the first somewhat separate point of view, from which the Monad could reflect upon itself.
   
David: Yes. But at this point, she’s just a reflection, not a Mind. So, again in the “Secret Gospel of John,” Barbelo asks for the “Invisible Spirit” to grant her four additional attributes to add alongside “thought,” which are: foreknowledge, indestructibility, eternal life and truth. The text calls these five capabilities the “pentad of the aeons of the Father, the first man, the image of the Invisible Spirit.”
   
Gene: So the seed pattern, Barbelo contains these five attributes. Which allow you to create a microcosm, to not just see a reflection, but to hold onto it, or focus on different parts to extract knowledge from it.
   
David: And from that pattern, Barbelo conceives a Son, when the Light of the Father is reflected through the Mind.
   
Gene: So the Son, called Christ or Autogenes in the “Secret Gospel of John,” is a reflection, of a reflection.
   
David: An organized reflection, the Son, or the Word is the capacity for self-reflection, which is the basis for a self-regulating system - one that can equilibrate itself, and also one that can potentially improve and evolve. And the way it does this is by paring two Minds together. In the “Secret Gospel of John”, the Son asks for “a fellow worker, which is the Mind, and (the Invisible Spirit) consented gladly (and)… the mind came forth, and it attended Christ, glorifying him and Barbelo.”
   
Gene: It’s the wiring pattern of the complete self. It’s basically the “Garden of Eden” before the Fall - with Christ being Adam, and the Mind, his “help-mate” Eve. It’s the “First Adam,” before the Demiurge does his psychic surgery that cuts them apart.
   
David: Exactly. Christ is the pattern of self-reflection, and the Mind is the vehicle that it plays out on, or with. To self-reflect, you have to have a self to reflect on… an “other.”
   
Gene: And the Gnostic myth is about the loss of connection between those two parts and how the Mind is initially shaped by a distorted image, that got created based on the illusion of separation. The Mind has been tainted by its contact with the world, and all the crap that we all go through in life.
   
David: And that’s the other thing I wanted to mention before we get into the text. There are references to a five-step purification process, that relates to those five attributes of the Mind of Barbelo - they represent the cleansing of each of those faculties.
   
Gene: It’s like polishing a mirror in order to see a true reflection.
   
David: Which is a metaphor used in many traditions. But the basic idea is that the Mind, and the divine pattern that lies at its core, come back once more into alignment.
   
Gene: And the five-step initiation as a whole, which is referred to in other texts as the “Sethian Baptism,” symbolizes washing away the forgetfulness of your true nature, so that you can see a clear reflection, of who you really are.
   
David: Which is the experience of Gnosis… intuitive self-reflection, which I think is a term I picked up from "Meditations on the Tarot." But anyway, are you ready to dive into the text?
   
08:52 The Word
   
Gene: Let’s do it. The third descent begins with the Trimorphic Protennoia saying - “I am the Word who dwells in the ineffable Voice. I dwell in undefiled Light and a Thought revealed itself perceptibly through the great Speech of the Mother, although it is a male offspring that supports me as my foundation. And it (the Speech) exists from the beginning in the foundations of the All.”
   
David: That’s basically just setting the stage for the final descent, with the three stages of Thought, Voice and Word. The “male offspring” it mentions is Barbelo, who is the foundation, of the whole process… all of which, we’ve already talked about.
   
Gene: But it throws in the term “Speech,” which it hasn’t used before. What is Speech, in relation to Thought, Voice and Word?
   
David: I think of Speech as the act of Voicing a Word.
   
Gene: So, it’s the Mother, Voice, giving birth to the Son, the Word.
   
David: Right. At least that’s how I interpreted it.
   
Gene: OK. The next part says - “But there is a Light that dwells hidden in Silence, and it was first to come forth. Whereas she (the Mother) alone exists as Silence, I alone am the Word, ineffable, unpolluted, immeasurable, inconceivable.”
   
David: Here’s the transition where the Mother begins speaking as the Son. It’s retelling the story of Barbelo, the “first reflection,” who is “hidden in the silence,” giving birth to the Word.
   
Gene: But, then the Word says that it is “ineffable, unpolluted, immeasurable, (and) inconceivable”… those are all attributes of the Monad, which is beyond thought.
   
David: It’s just saying that the Son is a clear reflection of the Father, as refracted through the Mother.
   
Gene: What do you mean by “refracted?”
   
David: Like we said earlier, Barbelo isn’t just a mirror. It's saying that the Son is a perfect reflection of the five-fold pattern, the archetypal man, that’s both male and female. So it's the light of the Father, the Monad, refracted through the Mother, Barbelo.
   
Gene: OK. Do you want to do the next one?
   
11:02 Hidden Light
   
David: Sure. “(The Word) is a hidden Light, bearing a fruit of life, pouring forth a living water from the invisible, unpolluted, immeasurable spring, that is, the unreproducible Voice of the glory of the Mother, the glory of the offspring of God; a male virgin by virtue of a hidden Intellect, that is, the Silence hidden from the All, being unreproducible, an immeasurable Light, the source of the All, the root of the entire Aeon.”
   
Gene: It’s again tracking back through the stages and I guess, reiterating that the Word is a clear reflection, or a conduit for the “living water” of pure consciousness.
   
David: The “male virgin” it’s referring to is Barbelo, and it says that she is called that “by virtue of a hidden intellect,” which is the five-fold pattern. But in the “Secret Gospel of John,” and even in some of the sayings in the “Gospel of Thomas,” there’s this theme of hiding, or playing a trick. Like how Sophia tricks the Demiurge into infusing her pattern into his creation.
   
Gene: There’s a real trickster element in the way that Barbelo presents herself, or is presented, across all the texts.
   
David: That’s true. The next part says that Barbelo “is the foundation that supports every movement of the Aeons that belong to the mighty glory. It is the foundation of every foundation. It is the breath of the powers. It is the eye of the three permanences, which exist as Voice by virtue of Thought. And it is a Word by virtue of Speech; it was sent to illumine those who dwell in the darkness.”
   
Gene: I think the self-introduction is over. She has assumed her third aspect, and is now the Word speaking its message… out loud.
   
David: Yeah, I think so, too. The message being that she is the light of consciousness without which there would be no reflection or comprehension, only darkness. And that she is also the process of thinking and comprehension itself - how thoughts make their way into words.
   
Gene: Which on the small scale, means to articulate a thought, by writing or speaking, or to act, that’s literally bringing the spiritual into the material world. I mean, we’re doing that all the time, but we don’t think of it that way.
   
David: No - or that this internal process is founded upon an outer reality, what it calls the “foundation of every foundation.”
   
Gene: She’s the archetypal turtle that holds up the world - the “foundation stone.”
   
David: Which is why she is called the “eye within the three permanences,” the three permanences being the top three Sephirah on the Tree of Life. So she is the "eye in the triangle," the consciousness that can reflect on itself.
   
Gene: The “One Consciousness” peering out of all conscious beings. It just gets expressed differently based on the being that it’s inside of - the vehicle she’s riding.
   
David: Right. Next one?
   
14:02 Three Descents
   
Gene: OK. The next one is kind of funny. It starts off by setting some high expectations. It says - “Now behold! I will reveal to you my mysteries, since you are my fellow brethren, and you shall know them all.” And then… there’s five lines missing.
   
David: Of course there are!
   
Gene: Anyway - it picks up with “I told all of them about my mysteries that exist in the incomprehensible, inexpressible Aeons. I taught them the mysteries through the Voice that exists within a perfect Intellect, and I became a foundation for the All, and I empowered them.”
   
David: OK. The mysteries she’s talking about are those that she revealed to the Archons in the second descent, which was through her “mighty Voice,” that they didn’t recognize.
   
Gene: So, it’s saying that the mystery is beyond words because it’s about non-duality - which words can’t really express, except through paradoxes and enigmas, because it’s talking about things that are both AND neither.
   
David: Words divide the continuous into discrete chunks, but words are an approximation of the underlying thought. The mysteries that she’s talking about, can only be pointed at or alluded to with, like you said, paradoxes and enigmas. So, it’s probably not a big deal that those five lines were missing.
   
Gene: True. You ready for the next one?
   
David: Yes.
   
Gene: It says - “The Second time I came in the Speech of my Voice. I gave shape to those who took shape, until their consummation. The Third time I revealed myself to them in their tents as Word, and I revealed myself in the likeness of their shape. And I wore everyone's garment, and I hid myself within them, and they did not know the one who empowers me.”
   
David: There’s a transition here to Speech, which, as we’ve said is about the gestation process, how the idea of non-duality, which was conceived in the first descent, had to work it’s way through the Archons, the static structures of the Mind, to dissolve the old conceptions.
   
Gene: And she’s giving those structures a new shape, which I guess is what it’s calling “tents” in that passage.
   
David: Yeah, tents are “mobile dwelling places,” its your shifting stream of consciousness that both moves and comes to rest. And she says she reveals herself from inside each tent.
   
Gene: “The call is coming from inside the house!”
   
David: It’s supposed to be that sort of revelation. She goes full trickster here. She says “Surprise! I’m you!”… from inside your head.
   
Gene: Which really only makes sense. I mean, that is a thought that this philosophy leads you to have - and she is the process of thought itself. So, is it saying the same thing as the famous quote from Rene Descarte - “I think therefore I am?”
   
David: No, I don’t think so. In these texts, it’s more like “I am, therefore I think.” In this model, our thinking, or Mind is a consequence of existence. It’s more along the lines of the what’s called “philosophical idealism” - consciousness comes before everything, and everything is composed of it. Anything else on this one?
   
Gene: Just the shapeshifter motif in that last line that says she hides inside everyone and wears their garment, their skin, and they don’t realize that she’s the one giving them life.
   
David: And she always appears in a form that they can understand, what she called the “likeness of their shape.” Ready for the next one?
   
Gene: Yes.
   
17:43 Hidden Root
   
David: That shapeshifter motif continues in the next part that says - “For I dwell within all the Sovereignties and Powers, and within the angels, and in every movement that exists in all matter. And I hid myself within them until I revealed myself to my brethren. And none of them (the Powers) knew me, although it is I who work in them. Rather, they thought that the All was created by them, since they are ignorant, not knowing their root, the place in which they grew.”
   
Gene: She’s saying that she’s within every thought, emotion or experience, and also within all the natural processes of matter, like the laws of physics. She’s describing what is called “maya” in other traditions - a shapeshifter that temporarily takes on different forms.
   
David: It’s talking about another aspect of Idealism. She’s making it clear that she wasn’t created by material forms. In other words, consciousness doesn’t arise out of matter or neurons. She says that we only believe that because we’ve forgotten where our own consciousness comes from, and the creative process that it’s rooted in.
   
Gene: That reminds me of one of the sayings of Jesus from the “Gospel of Thomas”  when the disciples are asking about the end times. And Jesus says - "Have you already discovered the beginning that you are now asking about the end? For where the beginning is, there the end will be too. Blessed is he who will stand at the beginning. And he will know the end, and he will not taste death."
   
David: And again, that’s about which aspect of yourself you identify with. There is one aspect that does go on, because it was never born and doesn’t die. It’s what you were before you took on form, and what you will be again when you die.
   
Gene: But let’s get real here, that’s not usually what people want to hear on the question of “is there life after death.” Saying that it’s basically just a matter of perspective, what aspect you identify with… I mean that answer doesn’t provide much solace. You still have to wonder, how much of you, or what you think of as you, goes on? I mean, that’s one of the great questions of spirituality and religion.
   
David: That’s symbolized by the story of the second descent - the “Dark Night of the Soul,” that the Archons think of as death. I think that the answer that’s given here is - “Do you want solace or truth?” It’s saying that, where we came from is where we’re going. The ones who believe that, are the ones that she says won’t “taste death.”
   
Gene: That’s good. Ready for the next one?
   
David: Yes.
   
20:24 Shining Light
   
Gene: The next part says - “I am the Light that illumines the All. I am the Light that rejoices in my brethren, for I came down to the world of mortals on account of the Spirit that remains in that which descended (and) came forth from the innocent Sophia. I came, and I delivered…” - and then there are some lines missing again.
   
David: The part that’s there, is mostly just retelling things we’ve already discussed. She is the Light, the consciousness inside every conscious being. The only new thing there was her saying that she, the Word, was born from the “innocent Sophia.”
   
Gene: That’s referring to a story in the “Secret Gospel of John,” that said that the Word was hidden inside of the Demiurge’s creation, because he created it using the power he took from his mother, Sophia.
   
David: But it was foretold that it would ultimately lead to his dissolution, which is what we’ve seen happen in this text.
   
Gene: Right. Anyway, the next part starts with some broken text about returning to him something that was lost. I think that the “him” it’s referring to is a person being initiated into the mysteries, because it follows that by saying - “I gave to him from the Water of Life, which strips him of the chaos that is in the uttermost darkness that exists inside the entire abyss, that is, the thought of the corporeal and the psychic. All these I put on. And I stripped him of it, and I put upon him a shining Light, that is, the knowledge of the Thought of the Fatherhood.”
   
David: And the process that she’s describing is about stripping away and cleansing the mind, so that it can be illuminated by the “knowledge of the Thought of the Fatherhood.”
   
Gene: That is a weird phrasing - the “knowledge of the Thought of Fatherhood.” The “Thought of Fatherhood” is the idea of non-duality. So, I guess the “knowledge of” that, means direct experience of non-duality.
   
David: There’s also the idea again of putting on and taking off aspects or skins, but she says that she reveals herself, to the ones she initiates into the Light.
   
Gene: And that Light has two forms. It’s the Light that destroys the darkness of the Aeon of separation, and also the illumination, or the Gnosis of a New Aeon.
   
22:47 Initiation of Light
   
David: So it’s both death and rebirth - which leads to the next part, the initiation ceremony, which we talked about earlier. It starts off with - “And I delivered him to those who give robes - Yammon, Elasso, Amenai - and they covered him with a robe from the robes of the Light; and I delivered him to the baptizers, and they baptized him…” in “the spring of the Water of Life.” I’m not going to read all the names of the initiators, but there are three names for each of the five ceremonies, so 15 names. But anyway, there’s “robing” and “baptism” ceremonies, then the initiate is “enthroned” on the “Throne of Glory”, then “glorified,” and finally, they take him to those who “snatch him away,” meaning taken up into heaven.
   
Gene: So the five parts of the ceremony are - robing, baptism, enthroning, being glorified, and then being snatched away.
   
David: Right. And they signify the five stages of cleansing the Mind so that it can become intuitively self-aware.
   
Gene: And those are related to the five faculties or attributes of Barbelo.
   
David: Right, which is alluded to in the next part of the ceremony that says that the initiate then receives  “the Five seals from the Light of the Mother, Protennoia, and it was granted him to partake of the mystery of knowledge, and he became a Light in Light.”
   
Gene: So how do those five ceremonies relate to the five attributes of the Protennoia?
   
David: I think you’re supposed to view it as being raised from normal human to deity. The first ceremony is Robing, with Robes of Light, like a Hero might be given, a magic cloak that grants indestructibility. Then baptism, which is a spiritual purification, like for prophets or for those with foreknowledge. And then enthroning, replacing the previous ruler and realizing your godhood, which as we talked about, means eternal life.
   
Gene: And I’m catching what you’re doing there - indestructibility, foreknowlege and eternal life are three of the five attributes of the Mind, that Barbelo asked for in the “Secret Gospel of John.”
   
David: That’s right. The ceremony relates to the five parts of the divine pattern. The next one is being glorified, that’s when the Archons accept the new god to replace the Demiurge. And then the last part is called being “snatched away.”
   
Gene: That made me think of Christ’s ascension into heaven, or Enoch being snatched away - of a hero or heroine made immortal by being carried into heaven and made into a star or a constellation.
   
David: I think that is what it means, and I would associate that “lifting up” to the attribute of Truth. To see the Truth of anything you have to be sort of lifted up above it to look back down on it. It’s incorporating the reflection of the process, back into the process in order to improve it.
   
Gene: So, like you said, the five initiation stages relate to a purification of those five attributes of the Mind, in order to wash away the intiate’s forgetfulness of their true nature.
   
David: And when those five parts are purified, then they become like the original pattern. That similarity and alignment is symbolized by five seals that bind the initiate to the Protennoia, allowing them to “partake of the mystery” and become a “Light in Light.”
   
Gene: Ready for the next part?
   
David: Yes.
   
26:18 Shapeshifter
   
Gene: OK, there’s five more lines missing and it picks up with - “I was dwelling in them in the form of each one. The Archons thought that I was their Christ. Indeed, I dwell in everyone. Indeed, within those in whom I revealed myself as Light, I eluded the Archons. I am their beloved, for in that place I clothed myself as the son of the Archgenitor, and I was like him until the end of his decree, which is the ignorance of Chaos. And among the angels I revealed myself in their likeness, and among the Powers, as if I were one of them; but among the Sons of Man, as if I were a Son of Man, even though I am Father of everyone.”
   
David: It’s again talking about how she puts on and takes off masks and operates on four levels of reality, the four worlds that we live in, governed by the Archons, Angels, Powers, and Sons of Man. So she permeates all levels of reality and consciousness.
   
Gene: And again sort of being a trickster, impersonating Christ, which I think she was referring to as the son of the Demiurge - but basically, laying breadcrumb trails, or again, like stages of gardening where she’s cultivating the changes that need to take place, leading the process along.
   
David: One of her attributes is Foreknowledge, which she demonstrates in the second descent,  so she knows what’s coming and guides the transition.
   
Gene: And because she’s in everything, and creates everything, she’s like the Prima Materia of alchemy - which we’ve probably talked about before.
   
David: I think we have. The only other thing I’d like to add is that in this passage, as she’s stated before, she always appears in the form that they can comprehend - because they’re each limited.
   
Gene: And those levels are going up, in ascending order - Archons, Angels, Powers and Sons of Man, so it’s mapping out an ascension - sort of leading up to the “snatching away.”
   
28:22 Five Seals
   
David: That “snatching away” being into the realm of the ineffable, beyond what can be comprehended, which is the subject of the next part that says - “I hid myself within them all until I revealed myself among my members, which are mine, and I taught them about the ineffable ordinances, and (about) the brethren. But they are inexpressible to every Sovereignty and every ruling Power, except the Sons of the Light alone, that is, the ordinances of the Father.”
   
Gene: It’s saying that there are some truths, what we’ve been calling “truth with a capital T,” that are beyond words, and seemingly not logical, because they are beyond duality. So, they’re only “understandable,” by a deep intuitive part of yourself.
   
David: She refers to that part as the “Sons of Light.”  In the final passage of the second descent the Protennoia says - “I ascended and entered my Light. I went up upon my branch and sat there among the Sons of the holy Light. And I withdrew to their dwelling place which … become glorious.”
   
Gene: It’s referring to the highest three Sephirah on the “Tree of Life,” or the capstone of the pyramid - the supernals. It’s the Gnostic Pleroma, and the Christian Heaven, beyond life and death, and beyond duality - the realm of the undying gods.
   
David: And the next part says that it takes that elevated point of view to achieve the highest glory. It says - “These are the glories that are higher than every glory, that is, the Five Seals, complete by virtue of intellect. He who possesses the Five Seals of these particular names has stripped off (the) garments of ignorance and put on a shining Light.”
   
Gene: It’s talking about the initiate with a purified intellect who now matches the original pattern and has become one with it - those who have “seen the light,” so to speak. The experience called “Satori” in Buddhism is like a brief glimpse of this Light, with “Samadhi” being the complete absorption into the unitive experience.
   
David: That’s the level of attainment symbolized by the Five Seals. They are supposed to represent the proof, or the credentials, that someone has direct experience and knowledge of non-duality.
   
Gene: So the five seals symbolize the bonding of your pattern to the divine one - meaning you have re-formed your internal union, making you whole again, like in the beginning -  except now with knowledge and experience of the world.
   
David: And the last part of that section says that for those that have completed that union “nothing will appear to (them) that belongs to the Powers of the Archons. Within those of this sort, darkness will dissolve and ignorance will die. And the thought of the creature, which is scattered, will present a single appearance and dark Chaos will dissolve.”
   
Gene: That is a cool passage there. It’s saying that the Archons, your old way of thinking, is gone - and that all darkness and ignorance is gone - that you’ve illuminated all your darkness.
   
David: And that seems impossible, to think that you could illuminate all the dark corners of your mind, but that last part that says “the thought of the creature, which is scattered, will present a single appearance and dark Chaos will dissolve” - that part gives you pause.
   
Gene: It does. It makes me think of the quote from the Bible about the inner eye - "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” It’s saying the same thing - no more dark places.
   
David: Yeah. The “creature mind” that we have is scattered and limited, but this whole process is about turning that mechanism of reflection back on the process itself, so that it can illuminated.
   
Gene: Which constitutes what we call “enlightenment,” bringing light to all the dark places.
   
32:12 Wearing Jesus
   
David: Alright. We’ve come to the last two passages in the text. The first says “... until I reveal myself to all my fellow brethren, and until I gather together all my fellow brethren within my eternal kingdom. And I proclaimed to them the ineffable Five Seals in order that I might abide in them and they also might abide in me.”
   
Gene: The Trimorphic Protennoia abides.
   
David: I knew you couldn’t resist that. But… since, it’s saying that they abide within each other - its saying that the two become one again - it’s describing mystical union.
   
Gene: The Hieros Gamos - the “Sacred Marriage.”
   
David: Right. But it’s also saying that the whole is contained within the part. The Sons of Light are the Protennoia. From our example before, we may just be a drop in the ocean, but each drop contains the whole ocean.
   
Gene: The pattern represented by the Five Seals, is the fractal pattern that we’ve been talking about. We have compared it to a hologram before too. With a hologram, you can recreate the whole from a single part, just with lower resolution.
   
David: Those are both good analogies. But the other thing about that quote was how it started off talking about a future time when every conscious being is “brought into her eternal kingdom,” meaning enlightened.
   
Gene: It’s like the Saint, or the Boddhisatva that vows to put off their own ascension until all sentient beings are enlightened. We talked some about this in the Christian conception of the “Harrowing of Hell,” which wasn’t just for the Saints - it included everyone who ever existed, going all the way back to Adam.
   
David: But here, it’s described more like reality itself, evolving toward self-knowledge, with each individual Gnosis moving things closer toward the culminating event… when it becomes self-aware.
   
Gene: The Cosmic Gnosis. Are you ready for the last part?
   
David: I am.
   
Gene: The Trimorphic Protennoia ends her teaching by saying - “As for me, I put on Jesus. I bore him from the cursed wood, and established him in the dwelling places of his Father. And those who watch over their dwelling places did not recognize me. For I, I am unrestrainable, together with my seed; and my seed, which is mine, I shall place into the holy Light within an incomprehensible Silence. Amen.”
   
David: Wow. That is really weird.
   
Gene: What do you mean?
   
David: We’ve already talked about how the text is doing what it’s describing?
   
Gene: Right.
   
David: It ends with a good example of that. It casually throws out a highly evocative image, wearing Jesus like a robe during the crucifixion… and then follows that with an image of a fertilized egg, that contains her seed. The text is actually planting a seed, in a Neuro-Linguistic Programming sort of way.
   
Gene: Yeah, she’s talked throughout about wearing masks and all, so you would assume that this includes Jesus and all the prophets and figures in the Bible, too… but, it does sort of dawn on you that this teaching casts all the scriptures, along with the stories and sayings of Jesus, in a totally different light.
   
David: It does, which sort of forces you into another level of reflection related to spiritual texts… basically performing on you, the action it describes - activating the intuition, so that it becomes reflective, and becomes a part of the conscious process again.
   
Gene: And the last line about planting her light in the Silence, loops back to the beginning of the text, where the Thought emerges from this Light.
   
David: Which implies a circulation. Once that new ability to reflect, or to illuminate the dark corners of your Mind lights up, to apply that ability to refine the Mind until it matches the divine pattern.
   
Gene: That’s Gnosis.
   
David: It is. Anything else
   
Gene: No, that’s all for me.
   
36:16 Conclusions
    
David: Alright. Before we end, I’d like to remind everyone again, that I’ve included links to books, and other resources related to our discussion today in the episode Show Notes. So this completes our discussion of the Trimorphic Protennoia. So Gene, what have you been thinking about as we’ve been finishing up this text? ***
    
Gene: It made me think about empathy, the capacity to understand what it’s like to be another person or another sentient being. I mean, if you accept the idea of an underlying unity, and all that follows from that, you realize that in a sense, everyone else is you, if “you” are that unity. It’s still the one consciousness trying to observe itself from every point of view. 
    
David: I’ve been calling it intuitive self-reflection, but that’s like empathy. Imagining your consciousness inside of someone else’s body and mind and trying to feel what it’s like to be them. Basically, trying to simulate their mind with your mind.
    
Gene: Exactly. That other level of reflection that you were talking about, that takes into account the machine that the Mind is running on. So, what did this part make you think about?
    
David: Well, I know this shows my age, but it made me think of Circuit City.
    
Gene: OK. Why did it make you think of Circuit City?
    
David: That’s going to require a little story… is that OK?
Gene: OK.
    
David: Alright… back in the old days, for those that weren’t around back then, Circuit City was an electronics store that sold cameras, voice and video recorders, radios, beepers - the pre-cursors to texting, but basically lots of very different devices… or at least they seemed like they were. But then cell phones came out, which run on computer chips. And most of those seemingly very different hardware devices can be simulated in software on a cell phone or other computing device, because there is a core pattern that they all share - computation. And if you have a device that can do computation, then that device can become almost any device.
    
Gene: So what you’re comparing that to is that individual creatures and objects are like the different devices, but really, they are like programs.
    
David: Right. Like software running on the cosmic mind. And the Trimorphic Protennoia is the pattern of computation that our mind and the cosmic mind are composed of, like the switches that computer logic gates are made of. 
    
Gene: That’s really good. I like that.
    
David: And the five attributes of Barbelo are analogous to what is called a “Turing Machine” in computer science, which defines what is meant by the word “computation.” But anyway, I just really dug into the idea that this text, and the others we’ve studied, are clearly defining how we think and trying to get to the core of that, to the fundamental unit of thought. Alan Turing was thinking about this too, but from a different perspective. 
    
Gene: And for those of you that don’t know, Alan Turing is considered basically the Father of Computer Science, right?
    
David: Yes. He defined the whole range of the field from what constitutes a basic unit of thought, a computation, to the "Turing Test of Machine Intelligence," which defines the other end of the spectrum. It's interesting that the "Turing Test," is a test of how intelligently the machine can using language... or, how it uses words to express its representation of thoughts.
    
Gene: And that brings us full circle. On one level, this text has been about how Thoughts become Words. 
    
David: And on another level, it’s about the Mind behind reality waking up, becoming intelligent, becoming self-aware. 
    
Gene: It is indeed.
    
David: Alright. Gene, what are we doing next time?
    
Gene: In our next episode, we will begin our discussion of the last text in our series on Gnosticism, called “The Thunder, Perfect Mind.”