Gnostic Insights Cyd Ropp, Ph.D.

This episode is part one of a two-parter that answers a listener's question concerning consciousness. She asked why it was necessary to populate this Fallen material world. Why not just abandon the Demiurge down here? Why send the Second Order of Powers into this rocky place on a mission of redemption? Why couldn't we just stay up above in our ethereal Paradise?







Answering this question requires an in-depth explanation of the origin and nature of aeons. Cyd examines aeonic life as depicted by the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi scriptures. Then we look at one aeon in particular, Logos, as we consider why it reached for the Father and Fell.







Next week's episode will continue this train of thought with more of the Tripartite Tractate, as we wend our way to why we wound up here on Earth. That episode is called, "Why Are We Here?" Click here to visit that episode.







The ALL emerges from the Son like rays from a star.







The aeons of the All name themselves and sort themselves into a hierarchy.







The final aeon to be produced was named Logos, and it held fractals of the entirety.







The Pleroma of the Fullness dreams as One of Paradise.









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This episode is part two of a two-parter we began last week. It may be helpful to go back and listen to the previous episode before continuing on to this one. That episode is called "The Birth and Nature of Logos." Click here to visit that episode







In this episode Cyd answers a listener's question about why consciousness came into our cosmos. The listener wondered why the demiurge wasn't simply abandoned down here after the Fall. Why did the Fullness of God find it necessary to create the Second Order of Powers and send them (us) down here to wage war with the demiurge?







This diagram shows where we stand in the Final Economy















A Simple Explanation of Gnostic Cosmogony







The illustration above is from the episode called, "A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel." This is the same talk I gave at the Astro-Gnosis Conference in Mexico. Click here to visit that epidode...









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If you find these podcasts helpful, please consider donating to help Cyd cover the cost. And remember to subscribe to Gnostic Insights so you don’t miss a single episode!







"Free will is an inherent and integral part of consciousness."

“The Father loved and admired the Son, and the Son loved and admired the Father. These two were well pleased with themselves, and they gave praise and glory to one another.”







The idea of combining with another to produce offspring comes from this first exchange of praise and glory between the Father and Son, and carries on throughout all subsequent generations.  I hesitate to call it “sex,” but “conception” works because we understand the word “conceiving” to mean either having a thought or making a baby.







“And yet, although He began as the singular manifestation of the Father, the moment the Son was formed, He was no longer alone. For not only the Son, but the ALL arose at once.







"The ALL immediately appeared as the offspring of the Son, because the Son could not help himself from bringing others into existence, even as He himself was brought into existence by the Father. The Son and the Father are One, and the Father’s creative spirit flows through the Son.







"With the birth of the ALL, the Son became a Father.  The ALL is called the Second Glory, the Joy of the Lord, and the Pre-existent Church... " (from The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated)







The ALL emerges from kisses exchanged between the Father and Son







The ALL conceives of itself and names itself, giving rise to the emanations of the Aeons of the Fullness of God







The aeons sort themselves into a hierarchy of names, stations, ranks, and duties, known as the Fullness of God







This diagram shows where we stand in the Final Economy















If you are discovering your own gnosis with the aid of Gnostic Insights, please consider making a donation to help the cause. Thank you!









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This episode continues our deep dive into the Who, How, What, When, Where, and Why of the Third Order of Powers, as written in the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi, and explained in the simplest possible way by Dr. Cyd Ropp.







"The order which was his came into being from him who ran on high and that which brought itself forth from him and from the entire perfection. The one who ran on high became for the one who was defective an intercessor with the emanation of the aeons which had come into being in accord with the things which exist. When he prayed to them, they consented joyously and willingly, since they were in agreement, and with harmonious consent, to aid the defective one. They gathered together, asking the Father with beneficent intent that there be aid from above, from the Father, for his glory, since the defective one could not become perfect in any other way, unless it was the will of the Pleroma of the Father, which he had drawn to himself, revealed, and given to the defective one. Then from the harmony, in a joyous willingness which had come into being, they brought forth the fruit, which was a begetting from the harmony, a unity, a possession of the Totalities, revealing the countenance of the Father, of whom the aeons thought as they gave glory and prayed for help for their brother with a wish in which the Father counted himself with them. Thus, it was willingly and gladly that they bring forth the fruit" (The Tripartite Tractate).







The Totalities of the Pleroma of the Father, otherwise known as The ALL.







The Aeons of the Hierarchy of the Fullness of God are the emanations of the ALL and rooted in a different place than the ALL. Logos, the last Aeon produced by the ALL, sits atop the Fullness--a perfect replica of the Fullnesses in fractal form.







This diagram shows where we Second Order Powers stand in the Final Economy. The Third Order Powers are rooted above the Fullness, forming the Pleroma of the Christ.







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It all finally becomes clear. This episode finishes up our deep dive into the Tripartite Tractate's explanation of the Third Order of Powers. We learn about their relationship to the Christ, the ALL, the Fullness and the Father, and how they go about their job of redeeming us Second Order Powers and the Demiurge.







The Third Order is called the aeon, the place, “the thought of the Logos who had returned to his stability.” Known also as the Synagogue of Salvation, the storehouse, the Bride, the Kingdom, the Church, the image of the light.  It is set above the Second Order and the Deficiency. It has the form of matter but the constitution of the Christ. Each one containing the Pleroma of the ALL. These are the manifest images of the living visages. Not arising from division but from the unity of the Aeons of the Father and the good original thought that existed prior to the rise of Ego.







While the Second Order Powers each arose as the countenance of a single Aeon, the Third Order Powers are “in harmony” and resemble the entire assembly of indivisible light. The Third Order Powers “have not yet come to be.” They are kept pure and joyful, the guarded seed of the promise awaiting their mission of coming with the Savior. They are “first in knowledge and glory of the Father. And that knowledge is freedom and release from captivity. They will proclaim the coming of the Savior to both angels and men. The Third Order will be brought forth from the unified ALL with full remembrance of the Father to prepare the way for salvation and redemption."







This diagram shows where we stand in the Final Economy







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This episode transcript is also posted to A New Gnostic Gospel 7/3/2022







copyright held by Cyd Ropp; all rights reserved







The Father







As you know, we've been looking at the gnostic Gospel according to the Tripartite Tractate, which is one of the books in the Nag Hammadi scrolls. The Tripartite Tractate is a book that focuses on the origins of our universe and everything in it, including us. So I thought we would look around again today and revisit the Tripartite Tractate and what it has to say about the Father as the first principle of gnosticism.







Philosophers often speak of the hard problem of consciousness. Materialist scientists don't believe in consciousness. They believe in a thing called monism, which is that we are only our physical bodies and that any appearance of consciousness or of a soul is merely a by-product of physical mechanisms, hormones, atoms moving around--this sort of thing. The counterpoint to that view, often called dualism, is that, yes, we have a physical body and then we also have a soul and it's your soul that survives after death. This gnosticism that comes from the Nag Hammadi is a religious system that presupposes that there is a soul and there is a body.







It seems to me that the soul that people speak of surviving is the consciousness that began with the Father and derives from the Father. And that is why, whenever I discuss the system of consciousness, whether it's in the Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything or The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, it always begins with the Father, because the Father is where consciousness resides. The Father is consciousness itself. The Father is another word for consciousness. Then this entire creation cosmology that's presented through the Tripartite Tractate and then re-presented again in my book, The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, is the path by which consciousness proceeds out from the Father through the Son, through the Totalities and the Pleroma of the Hierarchy, and on into the Second Order of Powers that populates the earth.







This is why we begin with the Father. The Father is the ground state of consciousness, and so this is why we begin to build out from the Father the flow of consciousness. My Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything book and blog are devoted to the notion of panpsychism, which suggests that consciousness resides in everything. In gnostic terms we say that the Father extends his consciousness throughout all living things that populate the cosmos.







I like to begin with the cosmos as it unfolded and rolled out. The word for that sort of study is “cosmogony,” which is defined as the study of the origins of the universe. This makes the most sense to me--to start at the very beginning and then to go through the entire process of how everything came to be and who the principal players are and then, after that is established, to see how that applies to our lives. Then we can ask, “Why are we here? Is there a purpose to our lives? How should we live?” After that, we can finally consider the termination of the universe and what happens after we die. All of these questions are answered very precisely in the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi. This knowledge is known as “gnosis.”







Today we begin at the very beginning, and that has to do with what is called the Father. This story, this cosmogony, begins before the beginning of time, because there was no time before our material cosmos existed.







I'm going to compare a couple of different versions of the Tripartite so that we have a fuller picture of the Father. One of the books I'm going to use is The Nag Hammadi Scriptures edited by Marvin Meyer; the translator in this case was a person named Einar Thomassen.