The Tao of Gnosticism: Part four
It's been a while since the last Tao of Gnosticism post, but finally here is part 4. In this part, we're going to take a look at the concept of evil, nature and the archons.
On first impressions, it seems easier to draw a concept of evil from Gnosticism than it does from Taoism. I believe this is mainly due to the more personified nature of Gnosticism. Gnostic ideas follow more like stories and thus contain the symbols and signs that our minds need to understand and extract meaning. This is not to say that Taoism is lacking in symbols (far from it in fact) but Gnostic ideas are narrated in a more storylike manner.
For someone new to Gnosticism, they would probably point to the Demiurge and archons as a source of evil. And so would most Gnostics. After all, these are the bastards that created the Materia, the manufactured world in which we dwell right? Let's take a closer look at archons. One of the hurdles which most people fuck up on in regards to Gnosticism is excess literalism. Maybe some people do think archons are some inorganic hooved maniacs running around our skies oppessing and dominating us. But it is important to look at the concept of the archons, and what the underlying symbolism is. I mean, for example, when I'm writing an essay and a power cut hits, I don't sit there cursing the reptilian bastard archon who's hidden near my power box with a pair of cutters. By trying to add a label of "real", "fake", "live" or "dead" to archons, you are poisoning symbology with literalism. When we allow for a less literal, more open view of archons, we can start to relate to some Taoist ideas.
One idea about the archons is that they are actually completely powerless. They are there, but they can't do a lot. We are the ones who feed them with power when we express strong negative emotions such as fear, or when we surrender authority. Taoists teach that man should refrain from violence (unless completely necessary) and anything that generates strong outbursts of emotion. They believe that these outbursts release a great deal of chee (energy). This energy is what keeps us going; it's what feeds the soul. When you lose control in an outburst, chee flees your body. Say this chee were to travel to some other entity, oh, lets say an archon, it would fit in very nicely with that Gnostic archon explanation and present a shared explanation of some kind of evil/bad.
Another neat idea about archons is that they are purely psychological; a part of every human psyche. When we let this part of us take over, we empower it and it creates all kinds of havoc. This idea is similar to what Jung said about the collective unconscious, although I believe his ideas on the Shadow are more appropriate:
"Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a Shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness. At all events, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions."
This fits in nicely with letting emotions flow naturally through you, instead of letting them burst out in a huge outbreak. If archons were to be purely psychological, a dark aspect of the psyche, then Jung tells us how to overcome them:
"Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
We must accept and understand the archons and in doing so, we will destroy all reason for their being. This fits in with Taoist thought because in making the darkness conscious, one is maintaining balance. Neglecting the darkness can only lead to imbalance. This idea is revisited later on. Regardless of how you perceive archons, it is their symbolism that is important. Jung's Shadow and Gnostic archons may be literally different, but they can be symbolically interpretted to reveal similar lessons as is the case with Taoist ideas. They are but a small part of a bigger story.
One big area that people like to pull Gnostics up on is Nature and on first comparisons it would seem that Taoists also wouldn't be to happy with Gnostic ideas on the Materia. As Jeremy pointed out, Gnostics also get the "World Hating Dualists" treatment, but most Gnostics are not world/nature hating. Jeremy summed this up really well in his post Gnosticism and Nature:
"We don't want to destroy the natural world or think it deserves disdain; rather, we're interested in pointing out that the aspects which are untouched by the control system are in fact divine and when humans recognize that they share the spark of divinity with the natural world, and recognize their roles as sensory aspects of a greater system, well, that's the Kingdom of Heaven right there. Jesus even says in the Gospel of Thomas that, "Paradise is already starting to spread out all around us, but nobody even notices it." Paradise, for the Gnostics, is the Materia redeemed and cleansed of the evil control systems of the Archons (which manifest, by necessity, as the evil control systems of civilization)."
Gnostic thought does indeed maintain that this material world was created by an evil Demiurge but this does not necessarily mean that all within it is evil. After all, the Demiurge "came from" Sophia who in turn was emanated as an Aeon from the Transcendent God. So there must be some good carried through there right? Even if there wasn't, shortly after the creation of the Material world, Sophia and the Logos penetrated the archonic control of this world and planted the divine inner seed within all of us. Jeremy points out that gnosis doesn't just happen to us, it happens to the whole of creation. I like this idea, and enjoy the thought that all living things contain a divine inner spark. Plants and animals would be doing a great job at cultivating this spark if it weren't for the archonic controls that they are submitted to. All that can become One again is all that can live outside the control systems that the archons impose. Once the Black Iron Prison is ripped down, we'll be closer to nature than we ever were. We don't hate nature, we merely hate anything that prevents us from interacting naturally with other free beings. When you see rabbits chasing eachother in green fields, they are free. Until a hunter shoots them for meat or fur. Just as we are free until we bow down under authority and control systems.
While Taoist thought doesn't ever really associate nature with evil/bad/material, it is interesting to look at the similarities in the origins of nature in Taoism and Gnosticism. As with Gnostic myth, nature in Taoist thought is a mere manifestation of that which is True, the Tao. Taoists however consider nature a lot more representative of the Tao itself, and thus base most of their way of life on living in harmony with nature. When you strip away all the bullshitian stuff, you can see that Gnostic and Taoist thought is not all that different regarding nature. Both are concerned with living in harmony with other living beings and respecting that which gives us life and both are against anything which interferes with our natural interactions.Now the area of nature is cleared up a little, I'd like to delve back into the nature of evil. Is there such a true concept of evil? Killing another man is not so evil when you provide the context that it was in self defence. Death is an interesting area in which to consider evil. Taoists teach that death is merely a transition, and that once we realise this, there is no need for grief. There's no denying that death is just as important as life as they are obviously intrinsically linked. With no death there is no life. Dead plants and animals make way for new ones and their nutrients increase the fertility of the soil which allow trees to grow which allows for us to breathe oxygen. Water is commonly referred to in Taoist texts, mainly for it's strong resemblance to the Tao itself. We cannot live without water but we can die with too much. Another example of the complimentary nature of opposites and their links.
The concept of evil in itself seems to be a contradiction of the relation between opposites. Pure evil can only exist if there is pure good. Since there has to be one for the other to have definition, both pure evil and pure good cannot exist because by their nature they are implying the sole existence of themselves. Taoists shy away from any form of strict evil or good as they see opposites as different sides of same coin and teach that understanding one is the key to understanding the other. This is fundamentally visible in the idea that Yin often represents darkness and evil. Yin is only one half of things.
Earlier on I discussed the Jung inspired idea that we must accept and understand the archons and in doing so, we will destroy all reason for their being. This fits in with Taoist thought because in making the darkness conscious, one is maintaining balance. Neglecting the darkness can only lead to imbalance. Surely the initial observation regarding archons as evil cannot stand. Another Jung quote, from Psychology and Religion sheds further light on this idea:
"If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick Shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He lives in the "House of the Gathering." Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day."
Taking into account these thoughts, we are presented with the evidence that archons are not pure evil (if such a thing can exist). We must, to a certain degree, accept and understand the archons in order to fight them; know your enemy. When we internalise this idea, we understand the importance of balance and thus we are in harmony with Tao and what it teaches. Philip K. Dick also thought along these lines and this essay on PKD's Divine Interference adds to the discussion:
"Like the Gnostics of old, Dick flip-flopped between viewing the demiurge and his archons as evil, or as aberrant and selfish products of their own ignorance and power. The difference is crucial: the Manichaean notion that good and evil are absolute principles sucks you into a harsh and rather paranoid dualism, while the other, more "Valentinian" mode of gnosis opens into a continual transformation, an awakening that's always on the fly."
Another relevant segment from MetaHistory:
"They (archons) are agents of error rather than evil; but human error, when it goes uncorrected and runs beyond the scale of correction, turns into evil and works against the universal plan of life. Gnostics taught that the Archons exploit our tendency to let our mistakes go uncorrected."
In this light, we can see archons as creations of their own ignorance, and thus, relating the idea of archons representing the dark side of our own psyche, creations of our own ignorance and human error. Regardless of your view on archons, the symbolic message is the same. Sophia's yearning to know and understand the Transcedent God, her ignorance, led to the Demiurge and the archons. Our ignorance through life follows the same story, but with different characters. The story of creation can be applied to any creation, including our own. The symbolism in creation myths reflects us, the fact that we are microcosms of life itself and that, in understanding that which prevents us from achieveing complete freedom/enlightenment/Oneness, we are understanding ourselves and what it means to live.
The paths of Taoists and Gnostics may initially seem to vary, but when we look closely, as we have done, at their concepts of evil, imbalance, Self and nature, we find they are walking similar paths.
On first impressions, it seems easier to draw a concept of evil from Gnosticism than it does from Taoism. I believe this is mainly due to the more personified nature of Gnosticism. Gnostic ideas follow more like stories and thus contain the symbols and signs that our minds need to understand and extract meaning. This is not to say that Taoism is lacking in symbols (far from it in fact) but Gnostic ideas are narrated in a more storylike manner.
For someone new to Gnosticism, they would probably point to the Demiurge and archons as a source of evil. And so would most Gnostics. After all, these are the bastards that created the Materia, the manufactured world in which we dwell right? Let's take a closer look at archons. One of the hurdles which most people fuck up on in regards to Gnosticism is excess literalism. Maybe some people do think archons are some inorganic hooved maniacs running around our skies oppessing and dominating us. But it is important to look at the concept of the archons, and what the underlying symbolism is. I mean, for example, when I'm writing an essay and a power cut hits, I don't sit there cursing the reptilian bastard archon who's hidden near my power box with a pair of cutters. By trying to add a label of "real", "fake", "live" or "dead" to archons, you are poisoning symbology with literalism. When we allow for a less literal, more open view of archons, we can start to relate to some Taoist ideas.
One idea about the archons is that they are actually completely powerless. They are there, but they can't do a lot. We are the ones who feed them with power when we express strong negative emotions such as fear, or when we surrender authority. Taoists teach that man should refrain from violence (unless completely necessary) and anything that generates strong outbursts of emotion. They believe that these outbursts release a great deal of chee (energy). This energy is what keeps us going; it's what feeds the soul. When you lose control in an outburst, chee flees your body. Say this chee were to travel to some other entity, oh, lets say an archon, it would fit in very nicely with that Gnostic archon explanation and present a shared explanation of some kind of evil/bad.
Another neat idea about archons is that they are purely psychological; a part of every human psyche. When we let this part of us take over, we empower it and it creates all kinds of havoc. This idea is similar to what Jung said about the collective unconscious, although I believe his ideas on the Shadow are more appropriate:
"Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a Shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness. At all events, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions."
This fits in nicely with letting emotions flow naturally through you, instead of letting them burst out in a huge outbreak. If archons were to be purely psychological, a dark aspect of the psyche, then Jung tells us how to overcome them:
"Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
We must accept and understand the archons and in doing so, we will destroy all reason for their being. This fits in with Taoist thought because in making the darkness conscious, one is maintaining balance. Neglecting the darkness can only lead to imbalance. This idea is revisited later on. Regardless of how you perceive archons, it is their symbolism that is important. Jung's Shadow and Gnostic archons may be literally different, but they can be symbolically interpretted to reveal similar lessons as is the case with Taoist ideas. They are but a small part of a bigger story.
One big area that people like to pull Gnostics up on is Nature and on first comparisons it would seem that Taoists also wouldn't be to happy with Gnostic ideas on the Materia. As Jeremy pointed out, Gnostics also get the "World Hating Dualists" treatment, but most Gnostics are not world/nature hating. Jeremy summed this up really well in his post Gnosticism and Nature:
"We don't want to destroy the natural world or think it deserves disdain; rather, we're interested in pointing out that the aspects which are untouched by the control system are in fact divine and when humans recognize that they share the spark of divinity with the natural world, and recognize their roles as sensory aspects of a greater system, well, that's the Kingdom of Heaven right there. Jesus even says in the Gospel of Thomas that, "Paradise is already starting to spread out all around us, but nobody even notices it." Paradise, for the Gnostics, is the Materia redeemed and cleansed of the evil control systems of the Archons (which manifest, by necessity, as the evil control systems of civilization)."
Gnostic thought does indeed maintain that this material world was created by an evil Demiurge but this does not necessarily mean that all within it is evil. After all, the Demiurge "came from" Sophia who in turn was emanated as an Aeon from the Transcendent God. So there must be some good carried through there right? Even if there wasn't, shortly after the creation of the Material world, Sophia and the Logos penetrated the archonic control of this world and planted the divine inner seed within all of us. Jeremy points out that gnosis doesn't just happen to us, it happens to the whole of creation. I like this idea, and enjoy the thought that all living things contain a divine inner spark. Plants and animals would be doing a great job at cultivating this spark if it weren't for the archonic controls that they are submitted to. All that can become One again is all that can live outside the control systems that the archons impose. Once the Black Iron Prison is ripped down, we'll be closer to nature than we ever were. We don't hate nature, we merely hate anything that prevents us from interacting naturally with other free beings. When you see rabbits chasing eachother in green fields, they are free. Until a hunter shoots them for meat or fur. Just as we are free until we bow down under authority and control systems.
While Taoist thought doesn't ever really associate nature with evil/bad/material, it is interesting to look at the similarities in the origins of nature in Taoism and Gnosticism. As with Gnostic myth, nature in Taoist thought is a mere manifestation of that which is True, the Tao. Taoists however consider nature a lot more representative of the Tao itself, and thus base most of their way of life on living in harmony with nature. When you strip away all the bullshitian stuff, you can see that Gnostic and Taoist thought is not all that different regarding nature. Both are concerned with living in harmony with other living beings and respecting that which gives us life and both are against anything which interferes with our natural interactions.Now the area of nature is cleared up a little, I'd like to delve back into the nature of evil. Is there such a true concept of evil? Killing another man is not so evil when you provide the context that it was in self defence. Death is an interesting area in which to consider evil. Taoists teach that death is merely a transition, and that once we realise this, there is no need for grief. There's no denying that death is just as important as life as they are obviously intrinsically linked. With no death there is no life. Dead plants and animals make way for new ones and their nutrients increase the fertility of the soil which allow trees to grow which allows for us to breathe oxygen. Water is commonly referred to in Taoist texts, mainly for it's strong resemblance to the Tao itself. We cannot live without water but we can die with too much. Another example of the complimentary nature of opposites and their links.
The concept of evil in itself seems to be a contradiction of the relation between opposites. Pure evil can only exist if there is pure good. Since there has to be one for the other to have definition, both pure evil and pure good cannot exist because by their nature they are implying the sole existence of themselves. Taoists shy away from any form of strict evil or good as they see opposites as different sides of same coin and teach that understanding one is the key to understanding the other. This is fundamentally visible in the idea that Yin often represents darkness and evil. Yin is only one half of things.
Earlier on I discussed the Jung inspired idea that we must accept and understand the archons and in doing so, we will destroy all reason for their being. This fits in with Taoist thought because in making the darkness conscious, one is maintaining balance. Neglecting the darkness can only lead to imbalance. Surely the initial observation regarding archons as evil cannot stand. Another Jung quote, from Psychology and Religion sheds further light on this idea:
"If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick Shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He lives in the "House of the Gathering." Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day."
Taking into account these thoughts, we are presented with the evidence that archons are not pure evil (if such a thing can exist). We must, to a certain degree, accept and understand the archons in order to fight them; know your enemy. When we internalise this idea, we understand the importance of balance and thus we are in harmony with Tao and what it teaches. Philip K. Dick also thought along these lines and this essay on PKD's Divine Interference adds to the discussion:
"Like the Gnostics of old, Dick flip-flopped between viewing the demiurge and his archons as evil, or as aberrant and selfish products of their own ignorance and power. The difference is crucial: the Manichaean notion that good and evil are absolute principles sucks you into a harsh and rather paranoid dualism, while the other, more "Valentinian" mode of gnosis opens into a continual transformation, an awakening that's always on the fly."
Another relevant segment from MetaHistory:
"They (archons) are agents of error rather than evil; but human error, when it goes uncorrected and runs beyond the scale of correction, turns into evil and works against the universal plan of life. Gnostics taught that the Archons exploit our tendency to let our mistakes go uncorrected."
In this light, we can see archons as creations of their own ignorance, and thus, relating the idea of archons representing the dark side of our own psyche, creations of our own ignorance and human error. Regardless of your view on archons, the symbolic message is the same. Sophia's yearning to know and understand the Transcedent God, her ignorance, led to the Demiurge and the archons. Our ignorance through life follows the same story, but with different characters. The story of creation can be applied to any creation, including our own. The symbolism in creation myths reflects us, the fact that we are microcosms of life itself and that, in understanding that which prevents us from achieveing complete freedom/enlightenment/Oneness, we are understanding ourselves and what it means to live.
The paths of Taoists and Gnostics may initially seem to vary, but when we look closely, as we have done, at their concepts of evil, imbalance, Self and nature, we find they are walking similar paths.
posted by Dan at 12:20 AM
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