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An Outline for a Neo-Cainite Gnosticism
Apr. 27th, 2004 03:38 pmFrom the Wikipedia entry about Judas Iscariot:
That is, the Cainites believed that Jesus was an instrument of the Demiurge, sent to expand his law beyond the Jews to the whole of humanity. IOW, in the view of the Cainites, Jesus was evil, and Judas was attempting to defeat him with the blessing of Sophia and the transcendant divine presence.
This is another example of the "shock theology" of Sethian Gnosticism which described Yahweh as a blind, imperfect demiurge. Gnosticism was originally a protest movement, rooted in economic and social disenfranchisement. To attack God was to attack the social heirarchy and religious edifice built up in God's name.
The Cainite version tells me that there was an attempt to revive this shock theology in the development of a "shock Christology" -- a radical response to the belief that the archons had come to dominate the Church.
It is akin to the Zen instruction, "If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him!"
The archons are, well, let's call them widely-pervasive ecologies of memetic parasites. The archons, being parasites, must learn how to imitate and then replace that which would enable a human to free herself from their grasp. If mysticism is that which frees us, the archons must learn how to co-opt its message by replacing it with one which looks much the same, but which encourages not freedom but slavery.
If an eidolon-Christ has become the agent of memetic parasites rather than the cure, the road to freedom involves destroying that image and its hold in our minds.
Irenaeus records the beliefs of one Gnostic sect, the Cainites, who believed that Judas was an instrument of the Sophia, thus earning the hatred of the Demiurge. His betrayal of Jesus thus was a victory over the carnal world. The Cainites later split into two groups, both praising Judas over Jesus Christ, but disagreeing over the significance of Jesus in their cosmology.
That is, the Cainites believed that Jesus was an instrument of the Demiurge, sent to expand his law beyond the Jews to the whole of humanity. IOW, in the view of the Cainites, Jesus was evil, and Judas was attempting to defeat him with the blessing of Sophia and the transcendant divine presence.
This is another example of the "shock theology" of Sethian Gnosticism which described Yahweh as a blind, imperfect demiurge. Gnosticism was originally a protest movement, rooted in economic and social disenfranchisement. To attack God was to attack the social heirarchy and religious edifice built up in God's name.
The Cainite version tells me that there was an attempt to revive this shock theology in the development of a "shock Christology" -- a radical response to the belief that the archons had come to dominate the Church.
It is akin to the Zen instruction, "If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him!"
The archons are, well, let's call them widely-pervasive ecologies of memetic parasites. The archons, being parasites, must learn how to imitate and then replace that which would enable a human to free herself from their grasp. If mysticism is that which frees us, the archons must learn how to co-opt its message by replacing it with one which looks much the same, but which encourages not freedom but slavery.
If an eidolon-Christ has become the agent of memetic parasites rather than the cure, the road to freedom involves destroying that image and its hold in our minds.
