Let's Learn About Gnosticism and the Demiurge

Greetings and welcome back as we continue on with Chapter 26 of Morals and Dogma where we will read about the Gnostic teachings of the Demiurge, or the gnostic imperfect god and compare the Demiurge to the higher god, or perfect god.

 

  As always, we must remember that as Masons we are seekers of more light, and we should aspire to seek that light, as Manly P. Hall wrote in “The Lost Keys of Freemasonry”, “even if it means we enter into the camp of the enemy to find truth…"

 

  On a personal note, I have found my understanding of masonic philosophy much enhanced as I became more familiar with gnostic philosophy. As we read on, we might note that Albert Pike was a great study in gnosticism as well, as the parargraphs we are about to read are very well written and exceptionally informative.

 

  Now, LET’S READ PIKE!

 

   In one respect all the Gnostics agreed: they all held; that there was a world purely emanating out of the vital development of God, a creation evolved directly out of the Divine Essence, far exalted above any outward creation produced by God's plastic power, and conditioned by pre-existing matter. They agreed in holding that the framer of this lower world was not the Father of that higher world of emanation; but the Demiurge [Δεμιουργος], a being of a kindred nature with the Universe framed and governed by him, and far inferior to that higher system and the Father of it.

 

To begin, and for those of you not familiar with the concept of the Demiurge, the Demiurge was created by Sophia by means of her own thoughts and outside of the realm of perfection (known as the Pleroma) the Demiurge went forth as an imperfect being, but ignorant to his own imperfections, and also began to create aspects in this world we inhabit, including man and woman. Sophia arrives back on the scene later to breathe life into man and woman, and also breathed into man and woman the spark of knowledge, which gnosticism teaches we still have this spark within our own ignorance today, which causes that yearning within us to seek our spiritual paths if we are enlightened, or to try to fill the emptiness with material aspects, which leaves many unhappy and unfulfilled throughout their lifetimes. For a full introduction to gnostic teachings, visit gnosis.org for full lectures and writings on the subject.

 

Gnosticism teaches that there is also a perfect and ineffable god from which all light emanates, which Pike refers to in the above paragraph.

 

 Next

 

   But some, setting out from ideas which had long prevailed among certain Jews of Alexandria, supposed that the Supreme God created and governed the world by His ministering spirits, by the angels. At the head of these angels stood one who had the direction and control of all; therefore called the Artificer and Governor of the World. This Demiurge they compared with the plastic, animating mundane spirit of Plato and Platonists [the δεύτερος θεὸς . . Deuteros Theos; the θεὸς γενητὸς; Theos Genetos], who, moreover, according to the Timæus of Plato, strives to represent the IDEA of the Divine Reason, in that which is becoming (as contradistinguished from that which is) and temporal. This angel is a representative of the Supreme God, on the lower stage of existence: he does not act independently, but merely according to the ideas inspired in him by the Supreme God; just as the plastic, mundane soul of the Platonists creates all things after the pattern of the ideas communicated by the Supreme Reason [Νοῦς. . . . Nous--the ὅ ἔστι ζῶον . . . . ho esti zo_on--the; παράδειγμα . . . paradeigma, of the Divine Reason hypostatized].

 

 In the gnostic bible compiled by Marvin Meyer, in the Apocryphon of John, we learn of the creation of the world and mankind by the ministering angels described by Pike in the above paragraph. When it came to mankind, the Apocryphon of John actually names an angel for each appendage and organ of man that was created and the book claims it was the named angel that created that particular part. There are many different ideals in Gnostic philosophy, as Pike is pointing out in this paragraph and will continue to examine as we continue.

 

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p. 558

[paragraph continues]But these ideas transcend his limited essence; he cannot understand them; he is merely their unconscious organ; and therefore is unable himself to comprehend the whole scope and meaning of the work which he performs. As an organ under the guidance of a higher inspiration, he reveals higher truths than he himself can comprehend. The mass of the Jews, they held, recognized not the angel, by whom, in all the Theophanies of the Old Testament, God revealed Himself; they knew not the Demiurge in his true relation to the hidden Supreme God, who never reveals Himself in the sensible world. They confounded the type and the archetype, the symbol and the idea. They rose no higher than the Demiurge; they took him to be the Supreme God Himself. But the spiritual men among them, on the contrary, clearly perceived, or at least divined, the ideas veiled under Judaism; they rose beyond the Demiurge, to a knowledge of the Supreme God; and are therefore properly His worshippers [θεραπευταί . . Therapeutai].

And such is a majority of us who have been mostly exposed to Judaeo-Christian spirituality. We tend to have studied in depth the Bible, and most of us may not have ventured much beyond that text. As we discover who and what the Demiurge is, this can actually work to enhance our spirtuality as we learn new aspects of the foundations of modern christian thought, if that is our background. 

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Other Gnostics, who had not been followers of the Mosaic religion, but who had, at an earlier period, framed to themselves an oriental Gnosis, regarded the Demiurge as a being absolutely hostile to the Supreme God. He and his angels, notwithstanding their finite nature, wish to establish their independence: they will tolerate no foreign rule within their realm. Whatever of a higher nature descends into their kingdom, they seek to hold imprisoned there, lest it should raise itself above their narrow precincts. Probably, in this system, the kingdom of the Demiurgic Angels corresponded, for the most part, with that of the deceitful Star-Spirits, who seek to rob man of his freedom, to beguile him by various arts of deception, and who exercise a tyrannical sway over the things of this world. Accordingly, in the system of these Sabæans, the seven Planet-Spirits, and the twelve Star-Spirits of the zodiac, who sprang from an irregular connection between the cheated Fetahil and the Spirit of Darkness, play an important part in everything that is bad. The Demiurge is a limited and limiting being, proud, jealous, and revengeful; and this his character betrays itself in the Old Testament, which, the Gnostics held, came from him. They transferred to the Demiurge himself, whatever in the idea of God, as presented by the Old Testament, appeared to them defective. Against his will and rule the ὕλη was continually rebelling, revolting without control against the dominion which he, the fashioner, would exercise over it,

p. 559

casting off the yoke imposed on it, and destroying the work he had begun. The same jealous being, limited in his power, ruling with despotic sway, they imagined they saw in nature. He strives to check the germination of the divine seeds of life which the Supreme God of Holiness and Love, who has no connection whatever with the sensible world, has scattered among men. That perfect God was at most known and worshipped in Mysteries by a few spiritual men.

And this version of the Demiurge could be considered the basis for what we may commonly know as “the devil” and his angels could be the basis for “demons”. Seemingly this entity espouses to inflict ignorance upon mankind, and through enlightenment regarding the more perfect spiritual self and more perfect god, mankind can be freed from this darkness.

Next

The Gospel of St. John is in great measure a polemic against the Gnostics, whose different sects, to solve the great problems, the creation of a material world by an immaterial Being, the fall of man, the incarnation, the redemption and restoration of the spirits called men, admitted a long series of intelligences, intervening in a series of spiritual operations; and which they designated by the names, The Beginning, the Word, the Only-Begotten, Life, Light, and Spirit[Ghost]: in Greek, Ἀρκή, Λόγος, Μονογενής, Ζωή, Φῶςand Πνευμα [Arche_, Logos, Monogene_s, Zo_e, Pho_s, and Pneuma]. St. John, at the beginning of his Gospel, avers that it was Jesus Christ who existed in the Beginning; that He was the WORD of God by which everything was made; that He was the Only-Begotten, the Life and the Light, and that He diffuses among men the Holy Spirit [or Ghost], the Divine Life and Light.

So the Ple_roma [Πλήρωμα], Plenitude or Fullness, was a favorite term with the Gnostics, and Truth and Grace were the Gnostic Eons; and the Simonians, Doke_te_s, and other Gnostics held that the Eon Christ Jesus was never really, but only apparently clothed with a human body: but St. John replies that the Word did really become Flesh, and dwelt among us; and that in Him were the Ple_roma and Truth and Grace.

The Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Bible is an ancient gnostic text that had to be hard fought with those compiling the bible to be included, this book was almost left out due to its gnostic origins. Thankfully, this book was included and gave christianity a story of grace and love (this book is known as the “love gospel”) that many christians may have been left without had this book not appeared. 

In gnostic thought, it is ultimately love and grace from Jesus and Sophia that frees mankind from the bondage of darkness (ignorance) and guides mankind towards gnosis, and gnosis, or spiritual enlightenment, is the foundation of happiness and contentment in the soul of mankind as gnosis draws mankind closer to his inner spark of spirituality and closer towards the perfection and grace of the Pleroma, from where mankind originated.

In the next paragraphs, Pike will write of Valentinus and his version of gnosticism, and since we have already covered a few versions of which I am certain many of you reading may not have ever heard of, we will close the study for now and venture onto more gnostic ideals next time.

Thank you with all of my heart for reading with me. I am hopeful this enhances your masonic journey.