0236 Part 3 of Burfeind’s book, titled Utopian Pursuits, permits a formulation of the presence underlying the word “Gnosticism”.

Students are to read chapters 8, 9 and 10 of Burfeind’s text.

0237 How to Define the Word “Religion” proposes two types of religion.  These are suprasovereign and infrasovereign.  Here is the interscope of the society tier:

0238 Infrasovereign religions stand below sovereign power.  They express organizational objectives and are defined by a capacity to grasp for sovereign power.

0239 Christianity provides a good example

Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”  This implies the believer should distinguish between religious and sovereign institutions.  Plus, religious institutions should not seek sovereign power in the Name of Christ.

However, over and over again in Western history, Christian factions seized sovereign power in the Name of God. The temptation to seek sovereign power is great. Sovereign power allows an (infra)sovereign religion to impose its interpretation of scriptures.

0240 Many Christian institutions explicitly vow not to seek sovereign power.  This demonstrates that they are capable of doing so and are consciously aware of that capacity.

Many post-religious (so-called Enlightenment) institutions claim that they are not religious.  Yet, they seek sovereign power in order to achieve their organizational objectives.  Thus, they meet the criteria defining an infrasovereign religion.

0241 A suprasovereign religion stands above sovereign power. It expresses the object that brings all into relation. It does not grasp for sovereign power. Rather, it puts sovereign power into perspective.

0242 The Gnostic origin myth can be formatted as a relational object.  This object^relation appears as the actuality on the perspective level of the society tier.

0243 Since actuality is dyadic, the object^relation may be represented as two elements, a theological nested form and an anthropological nested form. (This is portrayed for Christianity’s formulation of the individual around 800AD in an interlude in How to Define the Word “Religion”.)

0244 Here is the Gnostic origin myth as relational object_2c in the interscope of the society tier_C.

0245 A comparison of the relational objects of Christianity and Gnosticism suggests that the individual (the whole person) in Christianity is divided into the ego (site of material concerns) and the Self (site of immaterial experiences) in Gnosticism.

0246 A comparison also suggests a parallel between Jesus, the Christ, and Yaltabaoth.  Actually, the Father and the Sonmight be a better correspondence.  Hmmm.  Maybe, Yahweh should match Yaltabaoth and Jesus should stand in for me.  That would make the Holy Spirit match Sophia.

0247 If that sounds like dream talk, then I am making myself clear.

Gnosticism works by creatively fusing Christian and Gnostic relational objects.  The sacraments are replaced by secret knowledge. My individual person becomes divided into ego and Self.  My Self is the same as Jesus. My Self-Jesus may now escape Yahweh’s material-oriented cage.

0248 Burfeind correlates this fusion to neo-Evangelicals in Part 4 of his book.

0249 Gnosticism has always been an opportunistic religion.

It co-opts elements within any object (whether infrasovereign or suprasovereign) and places them into its own mythic framework.

0250 Progressivism is Gnosticism penetrating the American political system under the guise of a Union god.

What is this Union god?

Abraham Lincoln, sadly enough, spoke the slogan: A government (Union god) of the people, by the people, and for the people.

All I have to do is replace the word “people” by the word “philosophers”.  Philosophy is Greek for the love of Sophia.

Or better, erase the word “people” and write in “Gnostic elites”.

0251 Yes, the Union God becomes Sophia. The original American arrangement of (divided) sovereign states under a (further divided) federal government is Yaltabaoth. Yes, the American constitution takes on the attributes of Yaltabaoth.

The experts proclaim, “Our interpretations of the American Constitution facilitate the construction of a massive, centralized, ‘federal’ government.”

Finally, the Progressive true believer replaces me.

0252 Here is what this fusion looks like, as a suprasovereign religion.

0253 If this looks completely nonsensical, then I am making myself clear.

These substitutions are creative efforts to fuse American and Gnostic relational objects. In this fusion, the American relational object is totally eclipsed, explaining why federally funded educational programs are complete gibberish.

What does the American Constitution have to do with increasing student Self-Esteem?

0254 The original American relational object – the Constitution – acts like Freudian psychology.

The original Constitution aims to strengthen the ego. It extols responsibility and freedom. It puts the Self in front of an altar of one’s own choosing. The Self is not supposed to worship Itself.  The Self is supposed to worship (not accuse) the Other.

If that altar is Christian, then the ego is not separated from the Self along the axis of material and immaterial. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates that.

0255 Well then, I am talking about the presence underlying the word “Gnosticism”

I just completed my treatment of Gnosticism as a suprasovereign religion.

0256 Burfeind lays out two Gnostic movements. One infuses Gnostic myth with Christian words. The other infuses Gnostic myth with American terms. In both cases, the relational object of the Gnostic suprasovereign religionconfounds the word-meanings of the infiltrated host.

This is why Burfeind wrote Gnostic America.  As a Lutheran minister, he sees both types of Gnosticism.  Each is crazy in its own way. Or, I should say?… Each is opportunistic in its own way.

0257 I now turn to the treatment of Gnosticism as a suite of infrasovereign religions.

Gnosticism infiltrates institutions, turning them into infrasovereign religions.

Unfortunately, the organizational objectives within any infiltrated institution cannot be taken at face value. 

How should I appreciate Gnostic organizational objectives when nothing is what it seems to be?

How do I unlock secrets held within the myth?

0258 Is it fair to compare the Gnostic origin myth to models concerning the presence underlying the word “religion”?

I hope so, because that is what I intend to do.

Two relevant interscopes appear in How To Define the Word “Religion”.

One interscope models the society tier_C.  The society tier_C is composed of the three levels of institution_a, sovereign_band suprasovereign_c religion.

The other interscope models the three tiers of society_C, organization_B and individual in community (IiC)_A.  Each tier is an interscope containing three levels.  I call this model the three-tier system.

0259 The following sections detail this comparison.

I start by comparing the Gnostic myth to a model of the society tier.

0260 The society tier_C is modeled as an interscope. The three nested forms look like this:

0261 The word “power” is equivocal.  Sovereign offices carry sovereign power.  Institutions carry disciplinary power.  Power is witnessed in its exercise.

0262 The working model of the Gnostic origin myth looks like this:

0263 Let me juxtapose each virtual nested form according to category, starting with firstness.

The comparison is remarkable.

0264 Id^real and id^fantasy may be viewed as two different qualities of righteousness.

Id^real relies on the righteousness of Yaltabaoth and the Establishment. Yaltabaoth and the Establishment provide accounts for everything one might encounter. The ego is confident in its pursuits involving material concerns.

0265 Both id^real and id^fantasy are virtually situated by possibilities of determining my form.

This matches the possibility of order.

0266 Id^fantasy-fed experiences of the Self, then, may interfere with the possibility of Yaltabaoth and the Establishment maintaining order. Id^real-fed accountings by the ego reinforce the possibility of order. The association re-iterates the concept of the Self as subversive.

0267 Id^real feeds into determinations of my form that contribute to order.

Surely, that sounds like Freud’s depiction of the desires underlying the ego.  The reality principle_1a terminates in order. Id^real does not proceed to the perspective level because order manifests continuity with the perspective level.  Order takes the big picture for granted.

0268 Id^fantasy feeds into determinations of my form that will be put into perspective by potentials within the Monad. The Monad acts to reify possibilities within id^fantasy.

0269 In a previous example, I experienced a fantasy. I felt that there ought to be a world where friends never lie to one another.

The Monad responded by saying, “Yes, I am that world.”

To me, the Monad corresponds to Utopia.  “Utopia” is a word that literally translates into no where.

So, when I go off to find my Self.  I will be going no where.  Plus, in order to get there, I will have to get around Yaltabaoth and the Establishment.

0270 Here is a juxtaposition of the virtual nested forms in the category of secondness.

0271 Here, the organizational objective_2a directly matches the ego and the Self_2a.

If the organizational objective is development, then there are two types of development. Yaltabaoth and the Establishment develop my ego. Sophia develops my Self. One exercises the authority of the sovereign. The other exercises no authority whatsoever. Instead, it judges the sovereign as inadequate in regards to the potential of Utopia.

0272 For example, the establishment accepts the drama where one friend lies to another and says, “Deal with it.” 

Sophia finds all that terrible. From the point of view of Utopia, almost everything that Yaltabaoth and the Establishment do is unacceptable. The Self may encounter constant rage.  The Self may yearn to fly, like a bird, over the Establishment level to Sophia.

0273 The ego engages a world manufactured by the builder gods. The ego obeys the laws and decrees of the sovereign. The ego adapts to exercises of sovereign power. The ego deals with rules.

The Self says, “This is not right for me.” 

0274 The Self, therefore, makes no effort of obey or defy sovereign laws and decrees. It does not seek to organize resistance. It does not say, “I will do what I am told to do.” It does not seek to build a better world. Instead, it seeks to fly.

Fly away.

This is the organizational objective_2a of type 1 Gnosticism.

0275 The Self constructs wings of secret knowledge. These wings are magical. They can lift the Self towards the immaterial Sophia through manipulations of the material realm.

Like Utopia, Sophia is a destination. She is Personified Wisdom, despite her apparently foolish role in giving birth to the current Yaltabaoth and Establishment. She represents the object that will bring the Self into relation with It-Self.

Be your Self.  Find your Self.

0276 Once I make it to Sophia, ecstatic union ensues.

Now, I may discard my wings.

Why?

No one can assume that I am here. If you come to my door, Personified Wisdom will answer.

0277 Here is the comparison in the category of thirdness:

0278 When a Sufi mystic writes poetry, the superego is gone. There is no institution, no organizational objective and no righteousness. The Sufi poet revels in a mystical union with God.  God occupies the place of Sophia.  God is Personified Wisdom.

0279 Has the Sufi poet disappeared?

Don’t make assumptions, because the poet has been assumed.

0280 In Christian tradition, two figures were assumed. One was Enoch, whose assumption is mentioned in passing in the Genesis genealogies (Gen. 5:21-25). The other was Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

0281 Both mark the passing of one age into another.

Enoch marked the passing of the age of Adam. This age extends from (say) the first singularity to early religious and political consolidations within unconstrained complexity. It goes from the early Ubaid to the late Uruk. The story of the Flood is found in both Old Testament and Sumerian mythology. It corresponds a catastrophe in late Uruk period.

Mary also marks the passing of an age. This age extends from Adam to Jesus. It goes from 0 U0’ to around 6800 U0’. The Old Testament prepares the way for the coming of the Messiah.

Then, oops, Jesus appears and rises from the dead.

0282 Metaphorically, the Self who achieves ecstatic union with Sophia has been assumed. The Self does not walk in the halls of power. The Self does not dwell in the world of mindless reason. The Self de-institutionalizes the superego. The pleroma is the passing age.

0283 This is characteristic of type 1 Gnosticism.

Its object^organization_2a concerns Self-actualization regardless of the present regime.

0284 I now compare the Gnostic myth to the sociological model of a three-tier system.

The three-tiered system of society_C, organization_B and individual in community (IiC)_A consists of three tiers of interscopes.  The model contains nine nested forms.  In the following diagram, I merely label each level within each tier. Each level represents a nested form. 

0285 Typically, the three-tier system is depicted as three columns of interscopes.

Here, the three-tier system is depicted as three rows.

0286 The working model of the Gnostic origin myth looks like this:

Each element in the working model of the Gnostic origin myth will associate to a nested form (or level) within a tier.  This explains why the tiers are set as rows, instead of columns.

0287 Let me look at each virtual nested form according to category, starting with first row. 

0288 The correspondence is rich and nuanced. 

The content or impression level of the IiC associates to the id, implying that the id colors my impressions right from the start. I am always on the lookout for impressions that actualize id^real and id^fantasy. I am always on the lookout for desire.

0289 If I have good Freudian ego-function, I spend my time reckoning. The relation between reckoning (taking care of business) and phantasm (fantasizing me in the situation) parallels the relation between the ego and the Self. Reckoning and phantasm divide along the material-immaterial axis that defines the Gnostic worldview.

0290 The superego is the normal context in which the ego takes responsibility for the Self. The ego also acts in the Name of the Self. The superego associates with judgment. Judgment is an operation of the formal intellect.  Judgment puts reckonings and phantasms into a normal context.

0291 The correspondence becomes more nuanced when the entire nested form is substituted in for each level.

Here, I use Suarez’s model of ens rationis for the IiC tier.

0292 To me, these associations show how Freud was on target. However, Freud’s model of the human psyche did not include the Self. Instead, Freudian therapy tried to identify causes giving rise to id^fantasy.

0293 Theoretically, if id^fantasy could be attributed to some past trauma or poorly regulated drive, then the ego could adapt to the cause through the reality principle. That, at least, is what Freud reckoned.

0294 Jung knocked the wind out of Freud by proposing the other element in the dyad of actuality, the Self. Freud, following the scientific tradition, never even imagined a feature of actuality that experienced, but was not concerned about, what was actually going on.

0295 Id^real was focused on what actually was going on.

Id^fantasy was a separate river within the human psyche, generating wishes that could not be fulfilled by the ego. Why could the ego not fulfill them? They belonged to an immaterial world. They were fantasies.

0296 Ironically, Freud tried to correct for a Gnostic infiltration. Jung revealed the Gnostic infiltration and declared it to be a goal in itself. The goal is to listen to the phantasms.

This is all part of Burfeind’s story.

0297 What followed Jung?

Intellectuals generated a cottage industry devoted to Self-actualization.

Now, the Gnostic division of the material and immaterial worlds comes into play.  The material world is evil.  It may be re-formed.  Not by anyone.  Only the actualized Self need apply.

0298 In the following figure, evil is in brown and good is in red.

0299 What is good?

The association between experience (encountered being) and id^fantasy is situated by the association between phantasm and Self.  The pop-psychology term is “Self-awareness”.

0300 What is evil?

Everything else.

The superego is revealed to be a list of conclusions made by the formal intellect.

The ego is simply a mechanical reckoning based on the superego’s list of conclusions. The ego naively explains experiences according to the reality principle (id^real).

0301 The only feature that is not mechanically driven is the Self.

Consequently, there is no need to reflect on my reckoning.  I need to channel id^fantasy.  I need to make my phantasm a direct pipeline to my Self.

Or…

I can make my Self into the normal context of me (as an IiC).

0302 Suddenly, all the evil of materiality slips away from me onto everyone else.  Self and phantasm fuse. 

0303 My Self directly contextualizes my fantasy-inspired encounters with others.  All the actuality of Freud’s schema of the human psyche condenses into the evil thing that my Self gets around or manipulates.

Also, Freud’s schema is projected onto others, since my Self abandons my ego. My ego is merely a (disposable) shell of my Self.  My body is an instrument to be used at the pleasure of my Self.

0304 Secret knowledge replaces reflective reason. My formal intellect operates within the normal context of Gnostic thought. It all comes together in my Self.

0305 The difficult business of the Real becomes projected onto others as conditioning [causes] material concerns and material concerns [are driven by] reality-principle goals.

0306 Here is a slogan of type 2 Gnosticism: Change the conditioning and then the subject will gain in Self-awareness and lose material concerns.

0307 This is foundational to type 2 Gnostic interventions. 

Subjects (or ego-driven others) are not really human, they are machines driven by material concerns. Destroy the factory in which they operate, then the machines will lose their (matter-based) reality principle. Then, they will realize the divine spark, the Self, within them.

If they persist with their bodily concerns, then they are evil.

0308 How are they evil?

0309 This diagram illuminates the rhetoric of type 2 Gnosticism.

0310 The person who is not Self-actualized is a lower class (if at all) human.

The Self-actualized are anointed to intervene in order to lessen the damage that these ego-driven machine-humans do.  The Self-actualized are anointed to create religious systems that take care of the ego-driven folk’s material concerns, thereby opening a path to Self-actualization for the few intelligent enough to take it.

0311 The ego-driven folk reply, “Your views will have horrible consequences.”

This is interpreted, by the Self-anointed, to mean, “You admit that I am Self-actualized. You reveal that you are trapped in Yaltabaoth’s illusion of natural laws and social norms.  Therefore, you are responsible for what you call horrible consequences.”

0312 Here are some classic projections.

I (the Self-actualized) am “scientific”, you (the ego-driven) are “superstitious”.

I (the Self-anointed) say, “Well, that is you’re opinion.”

I (the Self-realized) say, “You are a X-ist (insert race, sex, and so on for X), full of bad intentions.”

I (the Self-enlightened) wonder, “Don’t you want my (impossible to achieve) ideal?  If not, you are a monster.”

0313 Once the Self becomes the normal context_3a for a superego(ego(id^real)) machine_2a, mechanical implications are projected onto others.

The actuality of the Self-realized person_2a hides behind a veil of projected mechanical implications.  This allows id^fantasy to actualize selfish (as well as unacknowledged ego-driven) behaviors beneath the mask of rightfulness.

0314 Indeed, these selfish behaviors are often perverse.

Here, “perversion” means using an instrument for other than its obvious (typically, biological) purpose. An example?  Pope Francis condemned treating pets as if they were children while ignoring the travails of other humans.

0315 One of the finest pleasures obtained by the Self-actualized is to confound simpletons who try to reason with them.

Does Pope Francis really hate pets?

0316 The Self-actualized interlocutor gives the impression that Pope Francis would snatch dear Fifi away and cook her up for a few homeless kids. Meanwhile, the pampered bejeweled dog, cradled in her owner’s arms, innocently tries to lick her master’s lips.

Don’t you see how Fifi loves me?

0317 This conversation would be a joke if the Self-actualized were not lobbying to spend taxpayer’s money for a grandiose animal hospital.  A taxpayer-financed hospital is needed because common folk don’t treat their pets like children.  They won’t spend what is needed to save their pet in sickness or injury.

Pets are part of our family, too.

0318 In other words, all those ego-driven families, who are slaves to the reality principle, need to have their decisions made for them by the Self-anointed.

0319 Fifi manages to lick the lips of the Self-anointed.

The Self-actualized treats it as a kiss.

The weird attribution of personhood to a dog gives the impression that the Gnostic’s entire world is viewed through the lens of id^fantasy.

In addition, the Self-anointed does not give any indication that the reality principle applies.

The reality principle is the problem of the person who is trying to reason with him or her or… whatever.

The Self-actualized has secret knowledge that is beyond sensible reckoning and contextualizes a phantasm that goes with the preening of the Self and the demonization of the ego-driven.

0320 In the following figure, brown is evil and red is good.

0321 Already, this looks a little scary, since the de-humanization of others is built into the realm of actuality.

Other people are machines or animals or little folk.  They are people possessed by material concerns, the daemons of Yaltabaoth and the Establishment.  As such, they are evil.

0322 In the Gnostic origin myth, the Establishment level is ruled by mindless reason.  The Establishment level is dominated by the builder god and his establishment.  It situates the ego through material concerns.

0323 The establishment level matches the organization tier in the 3-tier system. The comparison follows:

0324 Let me go over the storyline for the organization tier, before delving into the comparison.

Here is how the organization tier goes from content to perspective levels.

The individual in community (IiC) makes a judgment. The judgment inspires the individual to associate with others of similar judgment. If the judgment is about material concerns, then the individual may join or invent an organization. This organization will manage, produce or service these material concerns.

0325 If the organization is a factory, then management, production and service come into play in its operations.  The money brought in from product sales must be greater than all costs of manufacture, delivery and sales.   So, there may be conflict among the various parties within the content-level of the organization tier.  Management always wants to pay less salary than factory workers think they deserve.

0326 The price of the product in the market minus the cost to the worker in the production of the product resembles Marx’s concept of surplus value.  The price is always set to bring in more money than total costs.  The cost to the worker cannot be measured since it involves lost opportunity.  Consequently, Marx’s concept of surplus valueconstitutes secret knowledge.

0327 Goods and services must be marketed. In an open market, the exchange occurs when both parties are willing to exchange something of value. You give me this. I give you that. The exchange would not occur without benefit to both parties.

In market exchange, others participate in the corporation without directly belonging. Whenever I buy a loaf of bread or an automobile, I participate in an organization, even though I think that I am buying a simple commodity.  This is the idea behind Marx’s concept of the commodity fetish.

0328 At crucial junctures, the entire organization must be assessed.  The question is: Do we continue to do what we are doing?

The answer must take into account the institutional mission, as well as the people in management, production, and services.  The answer must take into account market exchange, the sales division, the price of the good, subsidies and taxes, advertising and the participation of others in the organization through purchases.

0329 Marxist theory condenses all these difficult assessments into one factor: capital. This is remarkable, because the status of the balance sheet is a necessary, but not sufficient, feature of an organization’s assessment.  Marxist theory reduces assessment to capitalism.

0330 That reduction constitutes secret knowledge.  Anyone who decries “capitalism” talks Marxist Gnostic lingo.  The lingo’s “secret” is that assessment in the organization_cB tier is equivalent to mindless rationality_3b.  If that were the case, then stressed-out assessors would be liberated from both responsibility and freedom.  All the assessors would need to do is follow a recipe.

0331 There is no “ism” for “capital”.  The word “capitalism” is not a religious belief.  Communism, the belief that capital is an undead thing that possesses the souls of assessors, is.  Capitalism is the name applied to assessment by communists.

0332 Capitalism is a projection. Balance sheets are not.

(These topics are discussed in the two Primers on the Organization Tier.)

0333 Now, I will detail the association, starting with the second column, the virtual nested form in secondness.

Remember: In the Gnostic formulation, the Establishment level is evil.

0334 By sublimating all the difficult parts of the assessment, Marxist theory reduces economic and political planning to both capitalism and mindless rationality.

Capitalism and mindless rationality put market exchange into a normal context.  Consequently, the actuality of market exchange is both evil and stupid. Market exchange is evil because it tends to focus on material concerns. Market exchange is stupid because it is contextualized by an undead ruthless thing (capital) and mindless rationality.

0335 Yaltabaoth is the builder god. The builder god establishes physical and cultural cause and effects.  The Establishment denotes the corresponding social norms.

0336 Initially, I would think that both would correspond to the content level of the organization tier. They do not. Instead, they correspond to the Real of the organization tier.  They correspond to the situation level of market exchange.

0337 Market exchange is so difficult to consider.

0338 One analogy is the jungle.

Every animal is looking for food. There is no awareness of how the food got there. Where do the plants come from? They are like factories that turn light energy from the sun into chemical potential energy. Animals look for plants that they can eat. They have no idea of what the plants are doing. Can I call this lack of awareness, the “grazing fetish”?

Then, there are the animals that eat other animals. The eater is not aware of how the eaten got there. Ah, this must be the carnivore’s fetish.

0339 The evil builder god that is ‘the jungle’, then, manifests itself as a complex web of exchange that determines whether every living form lives or dies.

0340 Maybe, there are lesser gods, like the archons, determining processes in each living form that helps it to survive. Maybe, there are “social” norms, allowing animals and plants to mix their genes and reproduce. Every species has its own Establishment.  Each species follows its own fetishes.

The foundation of each species rests in the requirements of sexual reproduction.  The rule is simple. The rule is mindless. Genetic material is the equivalent of capital in the jungle. Assessment is the continuation of the species.

0341 So, market exchange is like the jungle. It is unpredictable, wondrous, horrifying, teeming with life, and exploding with fetishes.

Yaltabaoth and the Establishment construct and maintain something immaterial: relationships. These relationships are among beings with material concerns.

0342 For a moment, let me flash back to how the Gnostic origin myth images the first singularity.

Once the small river valleys of Iran came in contact with Ubaid explorers and missionaries, they adopted speech-alone talk. Each locale began to explore the cognitive spaces opened by speech-alone talk.

Each locale finally produced enough know-how (labor specialization) and know-who (social specialization) to determine the forms of those within the civilization. The princes and priests enforced the basic rules allowing market exchange. Or, so they claimed. The basic rules actually reinforced themselves through successful market activity.

0343 Various technical clans produced. Various bureaucrats (if one can call them that) managed. Various anointed ones arranged services.  The market worked as long as everyone followed the simple rules.  The local skeptic called the rules: fetishes.

0344 The entire society flourished with the generation of surplus value. More children lived than died. The population increased. The various roles within the civilization became more fixed. More land was put into cultivation. More traders were sent out. More warriors were recruited.

0345 Yaltabaoth and the Establishment were builder gods.  They were honored because of the material advantages of unconstrained complexity.  They constructed society from nothing.  

The only thing that can be created out of nothing is not a thing. It is a relationship.

0346 Do I have that correct?

Obviously not, because the builder gods were already working with things: people.

0347 What did the builder gods produce from these things that the things did not already have in themselves?

Relationships.

0348 Here is my association with Marx’s surplus value.

Surplus value is not the difference between the price of a commodity and the worker’s effort expended to produce that item. It is the value of the relationships that hold people in an organization. Without surplus value, the organization cannot hold itself together.

0349 Why are Yaltabaoth and the Establishment evil?

They build immaterial relationships based on material concerns. These relationships are inherently simple. They may be regarded as fetishes.  Relationships ground transactions.  Would I exchange goods with someone that I do not know?  Of course, I would not.

0350 Immaterial relationships build a web that sustains the egos of the participants.

The ego accounts for the Self. The ego is responsible for the Self. The ego acts in the name of the Self.

0351 The ego cages the Self.  The ego will not release the Self until the builder gods fail.  The builder gods fail when the cognitive spaces, opened by their efforts, no longer yield surplus value.  Without surplus value, relationships fail.

0352 Type 2 Gnosticism views the organization tier as an evil matrix that must be regulated and ultimately, destroyed.

Marxist theory concerning capitalism, commodity fetish and surplus value coheres to type 2 Gnosticism.

0353 Now, I attend to thirdness.

Here is the match between elements of the Gnostic origin myth and levels of the society tier.

0354 The association strikes fear into my heart.  Look who is queen.

0355 The pleroma associates to the suprasovereign religion. The suprasovereign places the sovereign office into perspective. The pleroma puts Personified Wisdom into perspective.

0356 This is the foundation of relativism of the deepest sort.

Each age actualizes a different personification of Sophia. The Sophia of any past age is not the Sophia of the present age. The Sophia of the present age is not the Sophia of the New Age.  Yet, ironically, the role of Sophia never changes.

0357 The division of ages by Joachim of Flora, in the 1100s, marks the birth of a new type of Gnosticism. The three ages inherent in Christendom, the disruption of the continuum of time by the entrance of God as a Person, were brought to Earth

Ever since, a New Age dangles in front of the type 2 Gnostic. The New Age lies just beyond the horizon. The New Age will be immortal. The present age is mortal.

0358 How to fly over the horizon?

No, that is type 1 Gnosticism.

0359 How to birth the New Age?

Yes, that is more type 2. 

The answer is: Seize sovereign power.

0360 The Marxist begins by destroying capitalism, the commodity fetish and the chains of surplus value.  The French revolutionaries of the late 1700s started by murdering the king while proclaiming a slogan, “fraternity, equality, and liberty”.

0361 Each contender for Sophia proclaims its own New Age.  Each pursues sovereign power in order to achieve the objectives of destroying the current regime in the process of giving birth to a New Age.

0362 Now, let me recall the Gnostic origin myth again.

The pleroma proceeds through emanations of male and female pairs, each grounding its own aeon. Then, female Sophia does not mate with her corresponding male emanation. She becomes pregnant and, before the child is even born, tears him from her womb and places him in a cloud.

No one can see Yaltabaoth. Yaltabaoth cannot see anyone else. So, in the cloud, Yaltabaoth creates his own universe.

What does he create his universe from?

From the personal part of the origin myth, I know this: He works with matter and he steals sparks from the Monad. He fashions beings with material concerns.

0363 To me, this sounds like institutions with organizational objectives. The organization of any institution deals with matters at hand.  The organizational objective, the spark within any organization, is stolen from the surrounding pleroma, the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.

0364 The Monad includes the realm of possibility within the normal context of the current age (the pleroma). The Monad cannot be divided into outside of the cloud and inside the cloud. The Monad is right there for Yaltabaoth to work with. From the spark of institutions, Yaltabaoth fashions organizations.

The Monad teems with possibility. But, Yaltabaoth is only aware of the sparks that he needs to fashion his own universe.

0365 What exactly is Yaltabaoth stealing from the Monad?

In order to see, allow me to expand the levels of the society tier into nested forms.

0366 Yaltabaoth thinks that he is stealing sparks. He grabs hold of an organizational objective. But, the spark is not the organizational objective. The spark is the righteousness underlying the organizational objective.

The Monad teems with righteousness. Yet, Yaltabaoth is only aware of the organizational objectives needed to fashion his own institutional universe. These organizational objects inform infrasovereign religions, seeking to impose their laws and decrees throughout the universe, in attempts to actualize the possibility of order.

0367 After all, Wisdom searches for order.

Who is the best ruler?

Obviously, the philosopher king is the best ruler.

0368 The best ruler knows how to avoid the evils within the organization tier through laws and decrees.

But remember: The entire organization tier is evil according to type 2 Gnosticism.

What is the next-to-best?

0369 The next-to-best ruler knows how to regulate the pathetic ego-driven morons who are consumed with material concerns. The next-to-best ruler would open the door to those who are Self-actualized, drawing their immaterial concerns from the cloud of unknowing, and forging organizations without capital, without market exchange and without surplus value.

0370 So, what is the problem?

As soon as institutions are fashioned into organizations, material concerns diminish the spark. Material concerns occlude the righteousness of the organizational objective.

So the next-to-best ruler becomes Yaltabaoth and the Establishment.

0371 Type 2 Gnostics do not know that there is a problem.

They imagine that Sophia matches sovereign power.  They are intent on seeking sovereign power in order to implement their diverse organizational objectives.  Each organizational objective carries its own righteousness.  Each righteousness is pure and unquestionable.

0372 This sounds like big government liberalism (BGL) to me.

0373 In type 2 Gnosticism, the term that best describes the Monad is “the Hive”.  BGL swarms with the drones of secular righteousness.

0374 Sovereign power is Personified Wisdom.  BGL organizational objectives that demand sovereign power are righteous.  Burdens are placed on the organization tier, yoking Yaltabaoth and the Establishment to “higher” ends.

Yaltabaoth and the Establishment no longer consist of simple rules or “fetishes”. They become a complex web of government-regulated organizations, where surplus value is harvested by bureaucrats as the Personifications of Sophiaand directed to establishing the New Age.

0375 Slogans about the organization tier multiply.

Assessment is discrimination. Capital is a religion, called “capitalism”. Capital is the undead remainder of profit and loss. Capitalists mindlessly, ruthlessly, and tirelessly strive to increase their capital. Capitalists are greedy.

Open markets need to be regulated. Both parties do not benefit from an open exchange. Salespeople are liars. Loans (based on assessments) discriminate. The commodity fetish is the failure of consumers to see that their purchases support the exploitation of workers.

People go into management, production or service because they have no other choices. They cannot make ends meet because Yaltabaoth does not value their efforts.  The Establishment harvests surplus value from those within the organization.  Corporations are evil.  They must be regulated.

0376 This list goes on.  Each slogan is righteous. Each slogan supports an institution seeking sovereign power. Each slogan becomes an organizational objective for an infrasovereign religion.

Each slogan puts anyone who is not a type 2 Gnostic is an easily labeled box. The box stereotypes the conditioning, the training, the ambitions and the fears of the other.

Other people are things to be regulated.

0377 Finally, the Self judges through an intuition based on fantasy.

The Real is not a concern for the type 2 Gnostic.  Sovereign power will be used to purify the organization tier and the ego-driven person.

0378 BGL applies to the society tier. Marxist theory applies to the organization tier. The psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung applies to the IiC tier.

0379 I summarize.

0380 There are two manifestations of religion, suprasovereign and infrasovereign. Gnosticism fits both. Gnosticism completely fits the presence underlying the word “religion”.

0381 There are two types of infrasovereign Gnosticism, type 1 and type 2.

In type 1 Gnosticism, the model of the Gnostic origin myth associates to the interscope of the society tier. The evil Yaltabaoth associates to sovereign laws and decrees. The good Sophia matches the object that brings all into relation.

In type 2 Gnosticism, the model of the Gnostic origin myth associates to the 3-tier system. The evil Yaltabaoth associates to market exchange. The good Sophia associates to sovereign power.

0381 BGL, Marxist economic theory, and Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis describe contemporary American type 2 Gnosticism.

0382 The adherents of each type of infrasovereign expression of Gnosticism may be identified through a series of straightforward questions.  These questions include:

Do you believe that the Federal government (sovereign power) is good or evil?

If evil, then the person is a type 1 Gnostic. If good, then the person is a type 2 Gnostic.

What should we do about the Establishment?

0383 If the person expresses the desire to escape, then the person is type 1.

If the person desires to reform the system, especially if the reform involves regulating markets or the behaviors of others, then the person is type 2.

0384 Be aware, in type 2 Gnosticism, both ego-driven others and anything associated with market exchange are evil.  Type 2 Gnostics seek positions of institutional power, in order to regulate and manipulate this evil thing.  They promote like-minded believers.

0385 The presence of type 2 Gnosticism signals social movements towards totalitarianism.  The birth and collapse of type 2 Gnosticisms dominate the history of Western civilization since the French Revolution in 1790 and influence its history since the dawn of the Age of Ideas in the 1600s.

0386 So far, I considered the meaning and presence underlying the word “Gnosticism”. I now turn to the message.

The student should read chapters 5,6 and 7 of Burfeind’s book.

0387 Part 2 of Burfeind’s book is titled: Love Sick.

What is this sickness in love?

Is it finding your Self?

0388 Allow me to return to my model of the origin myth, developed in the discussion of the meaning underlying the word “Gnosticism”.

0389 Burfeind perceptively notes that the Gnostic origin story addresses human psychology.

Human psychology mirrors a cosmic drama. The cosmic drama begins as a conflict between Sophia, finding her Self in an emanation, and the other party, a missing male element.  He is not even mentioned.  Where is he?  Where is the love?

0390 I can imagine Sophia at the emanation of the current aeon of the pleroma. She knows that she is. She senses that some thing is missing. That thing is someone who matters. She consoles herself, saying, “I matter, even if I do not matter to someone else”.

Yaltabaoth, the builder god, is in her womb. What is the matter? She got what she wanted.

No, she does not want this.

She tears the monstrosity from her womb. She aborts It. But, It remains alive. She hides It in a cloud. Unknowing, It begins to build. In a travesty of a travesty, here is someone who matters.

But, that is all Yaltabaoth does. He mindlessly reasons about matter.

Where is the love?

0391 What is it to find your Self?

Is it to find a Self without someone who matters?

Is it to be immaterial in a material world?

Is it to find your Self surrounded by those who matter?

But, matter is all they do.

Where is the love?

0392 Indeed, to find your Self is to be love sick.

0393 Let me tell a story about how the ego [responsible for, acting in the Name of…] Self came to be.

Before the first singularity, hand talk combined the material and the immaterial into word-gestures. The presence of the body of the speaker mattered. The talker’s body integrated into the message.

0394 Before the first singularity, ego and Self were indistinguishable.  How could word-gestures image and point to either one?

A living person and a dead corpse are distinguishable.  Yet, they look exactly alike. What is the difference?  One breathes. The other does not.

I can word-gesture “breath”.  This word-gesture produces an implicit abstraction. It produces a judgment.  A judgment is a relation between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’.

0395 ‘What is’ is body-corpse. ‘What ought to be’ is living-ness. The relation is ‘breathe’.

0396 After the first singularity, speech-alone word-sounds explicitly abstracted elements of this judgment.

The active soul (like breath) animates the body.

0397 This can be formulated as a dyad in content-level actuality, using Suarez’s model of mind-dependent being.

0398 The active soul accounts for the living body.

When I encounter a living body, my efficient intellect projects a being that accounts for ‘what I encounter’. The active soul is that accounting being. The contiguity between accounting and encountered beings is ‘one animates the other’.

0399 An active soul emerges from and situates a passive soul. The passive soul contains what is required to encounter a living body.

0400 Now the question becomes: Whose living body?

In hand (and hand-speech) talk, the answer was obvious. The talking person had to be living, otherwise he (or she) would not word-gesture. Hand talk indexes the living body of the talker.

In speech-alone talk, words are purely symbolic. They exist as systems of differences. They do not contain iconic and indexal qualities. There is a difference between my living body and the living bodies of those I talk about. So, it seems there should be two pairs of terms, one for me and one for others.

0401 Since I have a body, I must have an active soul.

I experience my active soul in the living-ness of my body.  I also experience my active soul as it emerges from and situates my ability to encounter other things, including other people.

0402 This is how my active soul and my body situate (and emerge from) the possibilities inherent in my passive soul.

0403 After the first singularity, the builder gods constructed civilizations in small valleys of the Iranian region.  They worked with good, but limited resources.

The lion phase of Yaltabaoth joined the immaterial with the material. It put spark into matter. The princes and the priests were like the active soul. The building projects, the maintenance of fields, the raids against competitors, and so on were like the body. The fires of Yaltabaoth inflamed the passive souls of all.

Then, the princes and the priests turned on one another. Competitors successfully raided the palaces and temples. The snake phase of Yaltabaoth focused on the material. It presumed the immaterial would go on as before.

How could it?

The fires of the temple no longer warmed passive souls.

Everyone started worrying, praying for Yaltabaoth to rekindle his fire.

0404 So, the field separating the immaterial and the material developed.

This separation is a hallmark of Gnosticism.

0405 In this force field, the active soul divides into the ego and the Self. The ego is responsible for the body. The ego is free to act in the Name of the Body.

0406 But, what is the Name of the Body?

Of course, it must be the Self. The Self experiences the body. The Self senses the livingness of the body.

0407 Here is how the active soul (animates) body distorts in the material-immaterial force field.

0408 The ego attends to material concerns. The Self is the immaterial Livingness of the Body.

0409 But what is the Livingness of the Body?

The Livingness of the Body is the source of a word-gesture. The Self is the talking person before the first singularity.

0410 However, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in is completely gone. We are trapped in our current Lebenswelt.

Therefore, the Self cannot, in principle, simply be Itself.

0411 In the Lebenswelt that I evolved in, I did not need to know my Self.

My Self was the one talking. My arms and hands gestured holistic words. There were no active or passive souls. There were no explicit abstractions. There was only the breath, the living-ness of my body.

I word-gesture, “Breathe.”

Everyone knows my meaning, presence and message.

I feel my body alive.

0412 A couple of more steps are needed before I arrive at the message underlying the word “Gnosticism”.

0413 First, I need to place the distortion back into the personal-level dyad of the Gnostic origin myth.

0414 My own experiences of the living-ness of my body inform my Self.  My Self is not material.  My Self is relational.  My Self answers the question: Who am I?

0415 It does so by saying, “I like this. I do not like that. I feel this. I feel that.”

0416 My ego is responsible for my Self. My ego acts in the Name of my Self. My ego may reduce my Self to a purely material concern: my body. My ego claims to have an answer to the question: Who am I?

0417 My superego is the repository of social norms that guide my ego in its concern for my material well-being.

In fact, my superego expresses more.  I know this because my superego will often contain divine commands, such as the Mosaic 10 commandments.

0418 The superego holds aphorisms that guide the ego.

The superego cannot be reduced to social norms, traditions, and doctrines, even though it contains them. Similarly, a church contains more than its written texts. If a church only contained books, then it would be less than a church.

0419 The superego is the temple of the ego. The ego serves both material and spiritual concerns. The superego holds the traditions that animate those spiritual concerns.

Spiritual concerns may integrate with material concerns. That is the nature of Yaltabaoth. When material concerns substitute for spiritual concerns, idolatry follows.

0420 For type 1 Gnosticism, Yaltabaoth matches sovereign power.

In ancient societies, the sovereign was the intermediary between the divine builder gods and the folk. The priests attended to the material concerns of the builder gods (that is, the upkeep of the temples) and the spiritual concerns of both sovereign and folk.

0421When the sovereign and folk worked courageously and ferociously, like a lion, the temples rose.

When the sovereign and folk saw one another as serpents, the temples crumbled.

0422 The excess and lack must be attributed to the realm of possibility. “It” (er… I meant to say “id”) must be the potential of ‘something’ in the normal context of the superego.

0423 In the force field of the material and the immaterial, the id divides into two rivers.  One is the reality principle.  The other is the so-called “the death wish”.

Oh, it is not really a death wish. It is a Self-wish.

0424 Theoretically, the personal level does not fall apart. The reality principle may compensate and accommodate the Self-wish.  After all, both id^real and id^fantasy belong to the realm of possibility.  In the category of firstness, contradictions are allowed.

0425 The key is the superego.  The superego’s traditions must be rich enough to encourage the ego to develop, train and channel the Self.

0426 This cannot be the case after Yaltabaoth has entered the serpent phase.

In the snake phase, the ego is only worried about surviving increasingly harsh laws and norms. 

0427 What happens?

Sophia steps in and offers another normal context.  She offers secret knowledge.

0428 A normal context follows the logic of thirdness.

What is the nature of the category of thirdness?

Thirdness is exclusive.

0429 The addition of gnosis adds a second normal context. It creates a separate exclusive domain that applies to immaterial concerns.

0430 This would be fine if the material and the immaterial aspects of a person could be separated, but they cannot.

0431 So, the personal level becomes a structure where two nested forms intersect in the realm of actuality. 

0432 The ego and the Self cannot be separated.

The superego and gnosis are exclusive.  So, the ego and the Self becomes a single site of conflict. The Self-wish and the reality principle support two conflicting actualities.

0433 The question becomes: What is the one actuality holding these two conflicting actualities.

One person contains the ego and the Self. The person is a single actuality filled with conflict.

0434 This is the message underlying the word “Gnosticism”.

The person strives to resolve this tension, induced by the distorting field of the material and immaterial, then locked with the promise of secret knowledge.