Summer Harvest

I’d like to continue building upon the excellent work Tim has done with the Archons of the Body from the Secret Book of John. I’m not going to attempt to redo or re-state any of the work he’s done, but if you haven’t read his post yet, this follow-up will make far more sense once you have. Here’s the pertinent section from the Secret Book of John (SJn), which details the creation of Adam by various Archons:

“And the powers began: the first one, goodness, created a bone-soul; and the second, foreknowledge, created a sinew-soul; the third, divinity, created a flesh-soul; and the fourth, the lordship, created a marrow-soul; the fifth, kingdom created a blood-soul; the sixth, envy, created a skin-soul; the seventh, understanding, created a hair-soul. And the multitude of the angels attended him and they received from the powers the seven substances of the natural (form) in order to create the proportions of the limbs and the proportion of the rump and the proper working together of each of the parts.

“The first one began to create the head. Eteraphaope-Abron created his head; Meniggesstroeth created the brain; Asterechme (created) the right eye; Thaspomocha, the left eye; Yeronumos, the right ear; Bissoum, the left ear; Akioreim, the nose; Banen-Ephroum, the lips; Amen, the teeth; Ibikan, the molars; Basiliademe, the tonsils; Achcha, the uvula; Adaban, the neck; Chaaman, the vertebrae; Dearcho, the throat; Tebar, the right shoulder; […], the left shoulder; Mniarcon, the right elbow; […], the left elbow; Abitrion, the right underarm; Evanthen, the left underarm; Krys, the right hand; Beluai, the left hand; Treneu, the fingers of the right hand; Balbel, the fingers of the left hand; Kriman, the nails of the hands; Astrops, the right breast; Barroph, the left breast; Baoum, the right shoulder joint; Ararim, the left shoulder joint; Areche, the belly; Phthave, the navel; Senaphim, the abdomen; Arachethopi, the right ribs; Zabedo, the left ribs; Barias, the right hip; Phnouth the left hip; Abenlenarchei, the marrow; Chnoumeninorin, the bones; Gesole, the stomach; Agromauna, the heart; Bano, the lungs; Sostrapal, the liver; Anesimalar, the spleen; Thopithro, the intestines; Biblo, the kidneys; Roeror, the sinews; Taphreo, the spine of the body; Ipouspoboba, the veins; Bineborin, the arteries; Atoimenpsephei, theirs are the breaths which are in all the limbs; Entholleia, all the flesh; Bedouk, the right buttock (?); Arabeei, the left penis; Eilo, the testicles; Sorma, the genitals; Gorma-Kaiochlabar, the right thigh; Nebrith, the left thigh; Pserem, the kidneys of the right leg; Asaklas, the left kidney; Ormaoth, the right leg; Emenun, the left leg; Knyx, the right shin-bone; Tupelon, the left shin-bone; Achiel, the right knee; Phnene, the left knee; Phiouthrom, the right foot; Boabel, its toes; Trachoun, the left foot; Phikna, its toes; Miamai, the nails of the feet; Labernioum - .

“And those who were appointed over all of these are: Zathoth, Armas, Kalila, Jabel, (Sabaoth, Cain, Abel). And those who are particularly active in the limbs (are) the head Diolimodraza, the neck Yammeax, the right shoulder Yakouib, the left shoulder Verton, the right hand Oudidi, the left one Arbao, the fingers of the right hand Lampno, the fingers of the left hand Leekaphar, the right breast Barbar, the left breast Imae, the chest Pisandriaptes, the right shoulder joint Koade, the left shoulder joint Odeor, the right ribs Asphixix, the left ribs Synogchouta, the belly Arouph, the womb Sabalo, the right thigh Charcharb, the left thigh Chthaon, all the genitals Bathinoth, the right leg Choux, the left leg Charcha, the right shin-bone Aroer, the left shin-bone Toechtha, the right knee Aol, the left knee Charaner, the right foot Bastan, its toes Archentechtha, the left foot Marephnounth, its toes Abrana.

The description, however, doesn’t end there. Not only are the various Archons of parts of the body listed, but we also find the Archons who have “power” over them, as well as those in charge of the humours and (and this is the rub) to various psychological states or conditions:

“Seven have power over all of these: Michael, Ouriel, Asmenedas, Saphasatoel, Aarmouriam, Richram, Amiorps. And the ones who are in charge over the senses (are) Archendekta; and he who is in charge over the receptions (is) Deitharbathas; and he who is in charge over the imagination (is) Oummaa; and he who is over the composition Aachiaram, and he who is over the whole impulse Riaramnacho.

“And the origin of the demons which are in the whole body is determined to be four: heat, cold, wetness, and dryness. And the mother of all of them is matter. And he who reigns over the heat (is) Phloxopha; and he who reigns over the cold is Oroorrothos; and he who reigns over what is dry (is) Erimacho; and he who reigns over the wetness (is) Athuro. And the mother of all of these, Onorthochrasaei, stands in their midst, since she is illimitable, and she mixes with all of them. And she is truly matter, for they are nourished by her.

“The four chief demons are: Ephememphi, who belongs to pleasure, Yoko, who belongs to desire, Nenentophni, who belongs to grief, Blaomen, who belongs to fear. And the mother of them all is Aesthesis-Ouch-Epi-Ptoe. And 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. All of these are like useful things as well as evil things. But the insight into their true (character) is Anaro, who is the head of the material soul, for it belongs with the seven senses, Ouch-Epi-Ptoe.

As we can see, not only do the Archons control our sense organs, they also control the ways by which we process sensory information (the “seven senses”). In other words, this section in the Secret Book of John is really a masterpiece of Gnostic phenomenology.

To make this a little clearer, I’d like to discuss the Buddhist idea of the five Skandhas, or aggregates. In doing so, we’ll also discover one of the major differences between Gnosticism and Buddhism (and put to bed the misconception that they’re the same thing in different clothing). According to Buddhist phenomenology, the “self” as a unique entity does not exist. Instead, what humans percieve as “selfness” are actually the five skandhas: form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. Coming to the realization that all of these skandhas are essentially ephemeral and changing is a key facet of Gautama’s original teaching. Confusing one’s “Self” with any one of the skandhas, or any combination thereof, is the root cause of desire and suffering in the world. At the same time, consciously and mindfully focusing upon and contemplating the impermanence of the skandhas can bring the practitioner to the experience of Nirvana through the elimination of self-ness:

Put another way, if we were to self-identify with an aggregate then we would cling (upadana)[23] to such; and, given that all aggregates are impermanent (anicca), it would then be likely that at some level we would experience agitation (paritassati) or loss or grief or stress or suffering (see dukkha). Therefore, if we want to be free of suffering, it is wise to experience the aggregates clearly, without clinging or craving (tanha), as apart from any notion of self (anatta).

Since SJn is so patently a work of phenomenology, it seems to me that, as the Buddhist skandhas are an aggregation of various experiences as perceived by humans through the senses but are not essentially *real*, so the Gnostic Archons also represent unreal experiences within the World of Forms which lead the human into pleasure, desire, grief and fear:

The four chief demons are: Ephememphi, who belongs to pleasure, Yoko, who belongs to desire, Nenentophni, who belongs to grief, Blaomen, who belongs to fear. And the mother of them all is Aesthesis-Ouch-Epi-Ptoe. And from the four demons passions came forth.

Both traditions deal in the conflict between our limited ability to experience reality As-It-Is, and the fact that reality can be awful.

Now, here’s the major (and it is major) difference between the two schools. There is no indication within Gnostic thought that the Self does not exist. Indeed, the Archons involved in the creation and perception of the ephemeral world serve to occlude the Self at their center. This doesn’t mean that there are invisible aliens crawling all over your soul; these are not “Body thetans.” They are, instead, the impermanent things that impede one’s ability to experience the psychospiritual state we call “dwelling in gnosis.” They are the roadblock on the path to self-knowledge, and through mindful contemplation on them, one doesn’t discover that there is no self, but instead discovers that essential spark of the Universal Self that exists under the surface of the World of Forms.

There is evidence that this was a part of some (*not all*) Gnostic contemplative practice. In Gnostic literature, various texts are found (The Books of Ieou, The Apocalypse of Paul, etc.) that describe a kind of “Ascent” meditation in which the individual contemplative “ascends” through the spheres of the Archons and proceeds to the Pleroma. Though some have speculated a very literal interpretation of these texts, describing them as “Books of the Dead” designed for post-mortem salvation, it is far more likely that these texts described processes of resurrection for the living based on the contemplation of the features of these Archons, and perhaps even the repetition of the names given them in the text.

Eventually, of course (to return to phenomenology), one would need to face the chief Archons and the Head Honcho himself, the Demiurge:

“This is the first archon who took a great power from his mother. And he removed himself from her and moved away from the places in which he was born. He became strong and created for himself other aeons with a flame of luminous fire which (still) exists now. And he joined with his arrogance which is in him and begot authorities for himself. The name of the first one is Athoth, whom the generations call the reaper. The second one is Harmas, who is the eye of envy. The third one is Kalila-Oumbri. The fourth one is Yabel. The fifth one is Adonaiou, who is called Sabaoth. The sixth one is Cain, whom the generations of men call the sun. The seventh is Abel. The eighth is Abrisene. The ninth is Yobel. The tenth is Armoupieel. The eleventh is Melceir-Adonein. The twelfth is Belias, it is he who is over the depth of Hades. And he placed seven kings - each corresponding to the firmaments of heaven - over the seven heavens, and five over the depth of the abyss, that they may reign. And he shared his fire with them, but he did not send forth from the power of the light which he had taken from his mother, for he is ignorant darkness.

“And when the light had mixed with the darkness, it caused the darkness to shine. And when the darkness had mixed with the light, it darkened the light and it became neither light nor dark, but it became dim.

“Now the archon who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, ‘I am God and there is no other God beside me,’ for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.

“And the archons created seven powers for themselves, and the powers created for themselves six angels for each one until they became 365 angels. And these are the bodies belonging with the names: the first is Athoth, a he has a sheep’s face; the second is Eloaiou, he has a donkey’s face; the third is Astaphaios, he has a hyena’s face; the fourth is Yao, he has a serpent’s face with seven heads; the fifth is Sabaoth, he has a dragon’s face; the sixth is Adonin, he had a monkey’s face; the seventh is Sabbede, he has a shining fire-face. This is the sevenness of the week.

“But Yaltabaoth had a multitude of faces, more than all of them, so that he could put a face before all of them, according to his desire, when he is in the midst of seraphs. He shared his fire with them; therefore he became lord over them. Because of the power of the glory he possessed of his mother’s light, he called himself God. And he did not obey the place from which he came. And he united the seven powers in his thought with the authorities which were with him. And when he spoke it happened. And he named each power beginning with the highest: the first is goodness with the first (authority), Athoth; the second is foreknowledge with the second one, Eloaio; and the third is divinity with the third one, Astraphaio); the fourth is lordship with the fourth one, Yao; the fifth is kingdom with the fifth one, Sabaoth; the sixth is envy with the sixth one, Adonein; the seventh is understanding with the seventh one, Sabbateon. And these have a firmament corresponding to each aeon-heaven. They were given names according to the glory which belongs to heaven for the destruction of the powers. And in the names which were given to them by their Originator there was power. But the names which were given them according to the glory which belongs to heaven mean for them destruction and powerlessness. Thus they have two names.

Note the assignation of the Archons to the days of the week and to various “ideals,” both positive and negative, but of a lesser sort than those experienced in the Pleroma. Again, we find the Archons described as aspects of reality that “bind” us to the illusion: space and time. Without an understanding of the limitations of space and time, one cannot comprehend the mysteries of the Pleroma.

Now, on to the Demiurge. I love this description of old Yaldy-Baldy: “But Yaltabaoth had a multitude of faces, more than all of them, so that he could put a face before all of them, according to his desire, when he is in the midst of seraphs.” It’s a perfect indication that Yaldabaoth is just what a number of people have always maintained: Yaldabaoth is the Ego on crack! In Buddhist terms, the Demiurge manifests when one of the skandhas is believed to be one’s essential Being. It is the little self that is mistaken for the Greater Self uncovered by gnosis. It is an aggregate which has thrown hundreds of Archons between itself and the individual. Remember, however, that the Gnostic understaning of self is different from the Buddhist understanding. In Gnosticism, the complete elimination of the ego would be counterproductive, not to mention impossible, as this would only be possible outside of the physical World of Forms (i.e. when you’re dead). For this reason, the ego/Demiurge cannot be destroyed, only redeemed. It needs to understand itself as an aggregate of Archons and come to its own gnosis!

Lest we think, however, that the Gnostics understood all of this as mere metaphor, we should acknowledge that there is absolutely an element of literal, physical meaning in this practice. Indeed, the Archons are located on the body in a way that suggests a kind of “channel” for what I hesitate to call energy because of its newage connotations, but what SJn describes as the ‘activating power,’ owned by its own set of Archons. The question becomes whether this ‘power’ was understood the way that some understand chi or kundalini similar such stuff, which is extremely doubtful. It’s more likely that the reference is to a Greco-Roman understanding of causation, the same “power” that set the spheres in action. The “Unmoved Mover” (in this case, the Demiurge) started everything going, and the Archons who “activate” the body are simply continuing the chain of causation in the various limbs.

As this is the case, our understanding needs to hover between that literalism and metaphor.

To bring this around full-circle, the entire Secret Book of John describes a procedure of what Tim describes as “proprioception”: an intimate and intensive course of action and contemplation that the Gnostic might use to come to a deeper understanding of one’s Self:

So if you applied this understanding to Gnosticism, it begins right at the source. That is, you. Your body. You may or may not be the source of the universe, but the thing to understand is that your body is the source of all of your perceptions of the universe. I like to think of perceptions as the reflection not the illusion of the universe reflected into your nervous system. Which is exactly where proprioception lies: at the root where perception has its conception: the point of deception. The point where your brain stops saying to itself, “I am collecting sensory data reflected onto my nervous system from the exterior world” and starts saying the shortcut, “I perceive existance directly.” It’s almost like the difference in role playing games between saying, “My character does such and such,” and “I do such and such.”

It has to do with the being at the level of identifying with your shortcut habitual perceptions and reactions to the world. And this is what the ego is constructed out of: once useful logical habits upon which hinge emotional and physical reactions like colors on a painting. And this is the domain of the Demiurge. In more straightforward Christian myth, it is the Devil as the ruler of this world. In the Tarot we see the Lovers chained at the feet of the Devil, like Princess Leia on Jabba’s Pleasure Barge.

This understanding is one facet of gnosis. In his original teachings, Gautama never intended Nirvana to mean a post-mortem state of bliss. It is, in fact, a way of living, a way of experiencing the world of imperfections without needlessly suffering. Gnosis is also a way of living in the imperfect world of forms, and SJn presents one possible way to acheive that state.