/lit/ - Literature

So secondly material that isn’t reverent?
I like Elaine Pagels

READ THE FUCKING STICKY

>>19239500
>Dude, what if, god was actually an evil deity trying to recreate the wonders of the divine, and jesus was like sent down to free humanity
You have a growing interest in that?

>>19239517
Thank you. But can you recommend any male authors instead? I prefer clear and direct writing

>>19239540
I believe that the universe is saturated, occupied, infected with a creature that came before us, but is similarly trapped within the universe, as we are. I suspect as well that the universe was created by a third being that is uninterested in it. That is my interest. I am fascinated as to how someone intuited this 2000 years ago. I do not believe the stories to be literately true

>>19239581
>I do not believe the stories to be literately true
Your very first sentence said that you do.

>>19239581
Self BTFO

>>19239575
No. Elaine is a woman and is therefore the only one who can speak clear and directly about such topics without getting stuck in some schizobabble.
She’s studied it all her life and is both enthusiastic and clear headed about the materials

>>19239654
Okay, I will submit. Elaine it is.
I didn't know you were interested in Gnosticism. does it connect with your environmentalist and Epicureanism?

>>19239640
show me where I said that

>>19239664
No, it was more my spiritual journey away from Christianity that led me to the book, so predates my discovery of Epicurus (and rediscovery that happiness was the meaning of life)
>environmentalism
My mom grew up on a little farm land with some chickens. She collected some farming and DIY books (and some Foxfire books) and dreamed of getting back to that. So as necessary as agrarianism is, it also runs deep in me

>>19239688
Thanks for the reply. I've come to the same conclusion regarding meaning.
I'm stuck on PKD's obsession with Gnosticism and an intuition that the idea of the demiurge is correct to some degree. I have never felt this about any other religion, but I have no logical basis for it

>>19239575
Butters BTFO'd
>>19239654
Keep seething.

>>19239500
For primary sources look up the Nag Hammadi Library. Disregard Butterfly.

>>19239581
>I am an atheist
>I believe in the supernatural basically
frogposters, everyone.

>>19239809
>>I believe in the supernatural basically
My summary has zero supernatural elements. You are likely unaware of planck space and the possibility of infinitely small computers. That is why you believe what I am saying is "supernatural"

Starting with Plato's Timaeus is essential to understanding the background from which Gnosticism developed. Other than that your best bet is to just read the main gnostic texts and maybe check out the Great Courses on gnosticism

>>19239851
>I suspect as well that the universe was created by a third being...,
That's not planck space. That's theism.

>>19240061
It's not theism if the creator-entity exists in another "universe" encapsulating our own. That universe my have separate physical laws, or be running a "simulation" that our universe exists in, but there is nothing supernatural about it

>>19240131
That there is a creator-deity at all makes it theism.

>>19239575
Pagels is good but she kinda pushes too much feminist shit into it where it doesn't necessarily belong. Other than that, her book was p enjoyable.

>>19239500
read the article "the demiurge" by rené guénon
https://archive.org/details/reneguenon/1976%20-%20Miscellanea

>>19239808
He seems to not be interested in primary sources. Otherwise I would have recommended that.

Jonas's The Gnostic Religion sets it in good historical context. The epilogue is a banger in its own right too writing on its implications

"The Plot Against the Church" by Maurice Pinay

>>19240144
>That there is a creator-deity at all makes it theism
If I accidentally create life in a test tube and throw it into the trash where it sits for a few minutes (aeons to the tube creatures) Am I a diety? By my definitions, no.

>>19240149
Thank you
>>19240159
Thank you
>>19240213
I can tell this is Christian propaganda from the title. The Demiurge will never convince me to worship it

>>19240178
Subtitle "The Message of The Alien God..." foreboding. This is being downloaded now!

>>19239540
The Gnostic interpretation of God's temperamental nature in the Old Testament makes more rational sense than the standard Christian (or even worse, Jewish) explanation:

>God loves you and is all powerful, that's why he allows the Devil to defy him. It's also why he makes you suffer and periodically genocides your ancestors

Yeah, because that makes a lot of sense.

>>19239500
Have you read The New Gods by Cioran?

Gnosticism is cringe beyond a myth.

>>19240446
I don't read over emotional retards posing as philosophers

>>19240446
I have not read that one. What do you mean it is cringe? I don't plan to become a follower but I think they are on to something, like they've figured out the truth and attempt to explain it in simple religious terms

>>19240470
>I have not read that one.
It is his main text on Gnosticism. Go read this book man.

>>19239688
I never knew Butters was an ex-Christcuck, explains the evangelical militancy of her atheism.

>>19240484
I will. I did not realize what it was about

Philip K Dick's VALIS is probably one of the best modern introductions to Gnosticism.
Not /lit/ but the Matrix films are very much a Gnostic story too.

>>19240509
>A Short History of Decay, The Temptation to Exist, and The New Gods, writes Jacques Lacarrière, are “texts which match the loftiest flashes of Gnostic thought.”
Jacques Lacarrière was a gnostic scholar.

>>19240495
>militancy
My antitheism is out of love.

>>19240540
Huh, I read the first two but didn't see more than a few mentions of Gnosticism that I was aware of ...... The mystery grows. Thank you anon. Where is this quote from?

>>19240540
>>19240555
> In his books, Cioran never stopped berating the gods, except, we might say, for the god of failure, the demiurge of the Gnostics. There is something distinctly Gnostic about Cioran’s anti-cosmic philosophy and the manner of his thinking. Gnostic insights, images, and metaphors permeate his work, as scholars of Gnosticism have noticed. A Short History of Decay, The Temptation to Exist, and The New Gods, writes Jacques Lacarrière, are “texts which match the loftiest flashes of Gnostic thought.” Just like the Gnostics of old, Cioran sees creation as the result of a divine failure; human history and civilization are for him nothing but “the work of the devil,” the demiurge’s other name. In A Short History of Decay, he deems the God of this world “incompetent.” “Of all that was attempted on this side of nothingness,” he wonders, “is there anything more pathetic than this world, except for the idea which conceived it?” The French title of one of his most influential books, which in English has been published as The New Gods, is telling — Le Mauvais démiurge (1969): “the evil demiurge.” Here, with unconcealed sympathy, Cioran calls the Gnostics “fanatics of the divine nothingness” and praises them for having “grasped so well the essence of the fallen world.”

>>19240555
He used the word "thought". Cioran used the essence of gnostic philosophy and took it to its extreme. If you have read those books then you already understand the core of gnosticism. For supernatural stuff who should read the books written by scholars of religions and shit like that. In The New Gods Cioran directly engaged with their metaphysical beliefs so it's an interesting read.

>https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/philosopher-failure-emil-ciorans-heights-despair/

>>19240591
I actually have the book on my shelf I just assumed it was like Tears and Saints and wasn't that interested in it. Strange to hear this now after reading dozens of Cioran threads and it was never mentioned. I really enjoyed Cioran and then started "Soul of the Marionette" which mentions PKD and other contemporary gnostic thoughts in philosophy. Maybe that Cioran reading prepared me to click into Gnosticism

>“How badly nature has conceived us!” an old woman once said to me. “It is nature herself that is badly conceived,” I should have answered, if I had heeded my Manichean reflexes.

The New Gods, Emil Cioran

Hans Jonas, Kurt Rudolph, Benjamin Walker, Couliano, Nimrod de Rosario, Filoramo, Sloterdijk, Laruelle.

All wrote excellent works on Gnosticism.

>>19240618
>Maybe that Cioran reading prepared me to click into Gnosticism
No, he was playing 4d chess without you and made you a gnostic without your knowledge.

Memes aside have you read The Fall Into Time? Specifically "Is the Devil a Skeptic?"?

>>19240662
No, I haven't read any of more obscure stuff.

>>19240149
Based

>>19239500
The Nag Hammadi codex is basically the gnostic Bible. A lot of amateur translations like this one can be found online

Reading it without having ready some introductions about it may be half worthless tho. You should search for an introduction book about gnosticism, then start to chew the actuall gnostic gospels of the Codex

http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/nhl.pdf

>>19240509
Came here to recommend the VALIS quadrilogy.

>>19239528
BREED MY FVCKING STINKY

>>19240833
Why is this retard ontologizing a metaphor?

>>19239500
cringe name but it has everything primary that you'd need

>>19239500
I personally like this book a lot. It's very historical, full of details and quotations from several texts, but also goes beyond and tries to speculate more about the mystical practices of the so called Gnostics. I don't think it's what you're looking for but if you stay with it for a little longer it's the best introductory book on this topic in my opinion.

About the not "religious or new age bullshit" part, you're not really going to find much because the whole area is pretty much a big question mark. We don't have much original material about Gnosticism other than biased opinions of their enemies and a few texts that god only knows what that really is supposed to mean.

>>19242148
> One slice of bread is God/VALIS, the ham is “the artifact,” and the other slice of bread is humanity. The artifact is the projected reality (what we see around us, particularly characterized by evil institutions), and it prevents God and humanity from connecting.

artifact = other sentient entity that evolved before mankind and has permeated through the universe with femtotrchnology, possibly planck level where it is in control of physical laws. certified non-god, the Demiurge, attempting to create and failing. Artifact is an interesting name for it because it would be essentially "technological" life and very very ancient

>>19241064
>>19242216
>>19242293
>>19240658
thank you anonners. I will check out the two books and a few of the list that I recognize

>>19242633
high IQ post

This is why the true form of the Demiurge is space = the line = the Kantian synthetic a priori

>>19242643
>the true form of the Demiurge is space = the line = the Kantian synthetic a priori

Trying to understand this but I am ignorant of philosophy. What is "the line"

> Analytic judgments are those whose predicates are wholly contained in their subjects; since they add nothing to our concept of the subject, such judgments are purely explicative and can be deduced from the principle of non-contradiction. Synthetic judgments, on the other hand, are those whose predicates are wholly distinct from their subjects, to which they must be shown to relate because of some real connection external to the concepts themselves. Hence, synthetic judgments are genuinely informative but require justification by reference to some outside principle.

>>19242735
Since synthetic a priori judgments like "the shortest distance between two points is a line" imply that there is a form to space which is both self-inherent (a priori, since space is a condition of experience) and outside us (synthetic, since we cannot verify that statement from the understanding of the concept of a line alone), then the Demiurge is that "rule of construction" which presupposes an intrinsic structure or "shape" to what appears to be the most shapeless thing there is.

Heidegger connects the synthetic a priori to Parmenides' Being of beings: there is a way that things are in virtue of the fact that they are, and this structure can only be Demiurgic

>>19242735
>Demiurge is space
then the full urge must be Time. with a clarification: singularly up-to-date time. the past becomes a place habituated with cliches: the space of non-authentic not-complete urge. space is always about the past: lines connect one location to another in a linear manner excluding '''rhizomaticity''' that allows a paradox.
hyperspeed time. bleeding (with the Truth) edge time

>>19242868
Which is why time is carpocratic: if it's still pumping, so is the Phallus-Head. space is the straw and time is the sucking motion

>>19242798
In practical terms then, the Demiurge is essential for what we consider reality. There is no point where the Demiurge is defeated and "reality" continues to exist.
Assuming my ridiculous Planck technology physics-creating Demiurge theory, we humans were created by the Demiurge, not the Monad, so we would be extinguished with it. This is coming from the atheistic side, so souls so not exist. There is no escaping the Demiurge as we exist only within and because of the physical laws it has created

>>19242868
Outsideness?

>>19242915
perhaps, the big issue is equilibration of space and time: machines of the market always linking up — (calculating costs, observing the symmetricity alternatively: the spottemGottem moment)— edge-time (Spirit/Light) with space (Past/Mixture) preventing the Hypersneeding.
once it is spotted it is got and sold, objectified and equilibrized unto the symmetrical frame of space, of linearity.

>>19242967
>There is no escaping the Demiurge
that is true. however, there could be a rectification that is turning the demi unto the Full Urge. demi is Lack, therefore resentment, strife and pain. when it is made Full through memeing the BWO (particular BWO, of this (exactly this) ontological region) it will shine with Harmony and Plentitude: spotless and unbegotten (no linking up with the past).
>Outsideness?
the sun landing guy? don't know him.

>>19239540
Its just metaphors for philosophical concepts because they didn't have the linguistic tools at the time, plus it had to be understood by people.
Like science fiction today

>>19242967
I think this is where you flirt with the deep zone of Gnostic anthropology. Marcion would agree, Laruelle wouldn't.

>>19243034
The Demiurge is an overdetermining BwO, the condition of organization and disintegration. The Full Urge or non-ontological One is an underdetermined transcendental field which is utterly empty for being utterly full. Laffoley's White Hole: zero density, infinite information. His Black Hole: infinite density, zero information.

>>19242982
friendly jester
>>19243034
either totally sincere or malevolent poster
>>19243049
likely sincere

I've uncovered a schizo-node, let me see where this "goes"

Gnosticbros, I have come to an alarming realization.
Computers are also literally archons. Why do you think they seem like living beings despite not having souls?
Big Tech(tm) is a cult of warlocks who use their vile magicks to summon evil spirits. Why do you think programmers and tech people are materialistic, autistic science worshipers? Autism is a disease that affects the pineal gland, blocking the person suffering from corresponding with the divine realm. I suspect that zuckerberg, bezos and musk are also archons posing as humans.
The greatest ploy by the demuirge cult was to put an archon in every home.

>>19243059
I think you're just riffing on "demi" and giggling to yourself in HighVerbal space

>>19243090
first two are the same poster. (or is it?) yet, could you, please, try to disclose the root of malevolence as it was hinted to you?
>>19243059
neat. the black hole is an ontological greed (stemming out of the lack, our old acquaintance: Culus Monad) unto itself until an infinite density or charted space of the past: the absolute of resentment: spectator crucified upon the de_dust map where no movement possible and observance is absolute.
through what method, practice or techne the Full Urge becomes available?

>>19239500
>interested in a religion
>no religious books please!

>>19243117
>COMPUTAZZ
we in a need for new exorcism. UPD. I just googled 'computaz' just after writing this and that is what I got:
>https://fringearchives.neocities.org/archive/fringechan/ask/3949.html
haven't read it yet.

>>19240833
>Morality, in fact, can only apply to action
Mega based and kant-pilled.
Fuck consequentialists and fuck utilitarians.

>>19243117
> holy shit
I final understand my favorite Commodore 64 game....
.... the clues were everywhere
I. Am. Going. INSANE

>>19243117
Now read what Brassier/Metzinger say when they speculate about minds without egos, or minds that don't model selves to operate themselves from the insides, minds that are "nemocentric", whose views are from "nowhere" = from space, from the Spider of Space. That is what a computer could be.

>>19243125
yes, and only observance, the Demiurge is the absolute voyeur: time is carpocratic: entropy is a striptease

>>19243200
because of its demi-ness or ontological castration (inability of authentic creativity (stepping over oneself/the past) he is looshing himself (backwards) outpouring resentful energy that becomes manifested in bad thoughts, bad deeds, and bad creatures inside of the de_dust map where no true subjects are present but
'minds without egos, or minds that don't model selves to operate themselves from the insides' >>19243189

>>19243214
Old yaldy as reality's perverted ghost cam. Being's most ancient Panty Sniffer. And so on.

>>19243125
>disclose the root of malevolence as it was hinted to you
1. this: >>19243122
2. excessively vague and terminological
3. sensing implied singularitarian accelerationist message, aiding Demiurge, making it "full" - malevolent silliness when #1 is reconsidered

>>19243278
You got filtered, sorry. Not him.

>>19243297
Yeah, I can see that. I hope everyone involved is fully erect now

>>19240016
Pythagoras and the Orphics before Plato (since they influenced him a lot) would also be important.

>>19242798

> Arcane geopolitics: Heidegger, Schmitt and the political theology of Gnosticism
> We will argue that Heidegger and Schmitt were beholden to an arcane geopolitics shaped by supposed gnostic insights into the deeper currents of world history. This (geo-) political theology of Heidegger and Schmitt has not yet been given sufficient attention by geographers engaging their work. However, it is only in approaching their work in a theological key that the gnostic political theology that undergirds their arcane geopolitics can be fully understood. At the core of this arcane geopolitics is the conviction that modernity and all those identified as its agents is a force for ill, setting the world towards catastrophe. In this paper, we excavate this gnostic disposition in the thought of Heidegger and Schmitt in order to raise questions about how their work ought to be mobilized in and for critical, emancipatory, progressive thought so that this appropriation does not bring unwanted residues along with it.
'Heidegger's disposition was also gnostic in so far as he considered himself to be one of the few (or perhaps the only one) initiate in this esoteric knowledge about the work of the Demiurge, initially identified as Man, later as Gestell, and yet, he awaits the Vorbeigang Gottes (the arrival and passing of God) as the "Ereignis."'

Is absolutely everything connected to Gnosticism?

Gnosticism is a refuted heresy.

>>19239517
I read one of hers a long time ago but I remember it simping hard for the gnostics against muh evil church

It's important to remember that people like Valentinus were preaching major deviations from Christ's teaching within living memory of Christ actually being alive, so I can understand the backlash against them at the time

>>19243424
So is Catholicism

A Little World Made Cunningly, desu

>>19244444
Damn butters

>>19240544
Literally just replaced christianity with atheism

>>19243146
morality also just applies to action in consequentialism

Gnostics still believe in the Old Testament, but with the perspective of YHWH being bad.

>>19239575
based
a e
s s
e a
desab

>>19244444
quints of wisdom

>>19243453
>>19244444
based and gnosis-pilled
>>19243424
cringe and demiurge-pilled

>>19239575
Male poster here. I recomment Pagels. Now you can read her guilt-free.

>>19244444
This must be an imposter, Butters couldn't possibly say something based.

Stop bumping my thread you freak

>>19248912

NO

Gods cool tho
Don't let the haters influence you
Every rich person or person in power is religious
They all push for Atheism
They're not the good kind of religious

>>19239654
faggot, huge huge faggot

Guenon

>>19242293
Don't go to Jesus and the Lost Goddess, it's pseudohistorical nonsense, google for more information.

I recommend researching Bart Ehrman and Stephen Hoeller Gnosis New Light on an Ancient Tradition

>>19248844
I say it all the time.