As Below, So Above: Inferring the Transcendent

by Cyd Ropp, Ph.D.  for Gnostic Insights Podcast

The manner by which we are mining gnosis here at Gnostic Insights often involves using analogies between what is known and what is less tangible—"as below, so above" provides a handy tool for inferring otherwise undetectable aspects of the spiritual dimension. If we start with the premise of a singular consciousness that pre-exists everything that came after it, then we can follow the genesis of our universe from that consciousness step-by-step. In today's episode, we are going to map aspects of our human personalities onto the Gnostic Gospel to see what we can infer about ourselves down here below and about the forms of consciousness above.

So, what do we "know" by now?  We generally begin at the beginning and build outward from there. So we start with consciousness. We know that all life forms are conscious, and we infer from that a ground state of consciousness, and that we call the Father. The Father, or consciousness itself, is not the same as having thoughts. It is simply self-awareness. This is the no-thought state that people seek through meditation.

Then we say that consciousness, or the Father, or what we call in the Simple Explanation—the Metaverse—had a thought. This thought is a ripple in consciousness that rises out of the undifferentiated state of no-thought. The Gnostic Gospel calls this thought the Son. The Son reflects the consciousness of the Father in a circumscribed form. Circumscribed means contained, like drawing a circle around something. Yet, the Son is not lesser than the Father, because there is no size or distance here; and there is no time or space in the eternal omnipresent.

The Tripartite Tractate says that no sooner did the Son arise, that it had its own thought which differentiated into every possible thought, like rays of light shooting out from a central star. The Son mirroring the creative act of the Father gave rise to himself in the form of countless thoughts. These thoughts became aware of themselves in the same manner that the Son became self-aware. The moment they became self-aware, they named themselves. And the moment they named themselves, they sorted themselves into a hierarchy of relationships with one another.

These thoughts of the Son are called Aeons, and the hierarchy into which they arranged themselves is called the Fullness of God, also known as the Pleroma. The Aeons consist of names, stations, ranks, duties, and locations. This is another way of saying that the Aeons form a kind of geometry of functions and forms that all know where and what and who they are in relationship with each other. Within the hierarchy of the Fullness, all Aeons have their own identities as well as their self-assigned locations and functions. Everyone knows who they are and where they stand in their intermingled ecology. Each Aeon occupies a unique place and perspective within the union of the Fullness. No one is left out and no one is more important than any other Aeon of the hierarchy.

The Fullness reflects the entirety of the Son. They co-exist and overlap. The Son wears the Fullness as a garment, and the Fullness wears the Son, in the same manner that our own bodies can be said to be a garment for our souls—our bodies contain and co-exist with our selves. The Fullness is a singular entity composed of countless Aeons, in the same way that our bodies are singular organism composed of countless cells.

The Aeons sat in a unified state. "All for one and one for all!" is their motto. Their main function is to love and to be loved. They love each other; they love the Son. The Aeons love the Father and gave constant glory to the Father, so happy were they to be alive.