>>471008
>I mean: Why the True God doesn't save the imprisoned souls?

fixed
Sorry for my English!

>>471025
Why doesn't the true God save the imprisoned souls
Would be right

>>471008

Another question: Do we have to leave the Demiurge's reality or there are ways to live as created beings, but in peace and without being prisoners?

I mean there must be some kind of a "red pill", right?

If some spirits could enter reality, then our immortal spirit could also help us to... I don't know... to aid us, maybe?
But not in a purely spiritual way.

Maybe this is how occult systems work.

>>471037

Thank you!
Sometimes - especially when I'm tired - my English becomes really bad.

>>471008
The first question is exactly where I think gnosticism's theodicy crumbles like a house of cards. If the Demiurge is supposed to explain the presence of evil in a perfect, Absolute reality, it explains why the material universe is evil but it doesn't explain why the Pleroma would sit idly by while sparks of itself remain imprisoned in this hell

Neo-platonism ftw imo

I really liked Elaine Pagel's book on it, it's a great intro to the Gnostics, particularly the context in which the traditions grew up.

Iirc there's a lot of material on Gnosticism in the /omg/ library (aka K's Mega):

https://mega.nz/#F!AE5yjIqB!y7Vdxdb5pbNsi2O3zyq9KQ

>>471008
The short answer appears to be that Sophia literally cut Demiurge off from Pleorma so it couldn't turn the rest of creation into a clusterfuck of matter. The rough idea is that Sophia has essentially locked everything that's not divine into the lower realm until she stops crying and figures out how to unfuck reality.

>why not save imprisoned souls
That's what Christ was for.

>So why do we need Gnosis
Because that's how Christ is going to get folks out of materiality.

You should read Kurt Rudolph's "Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism", which is in my library over in the occult thread. The stuff I mentioned is covered on pages...79 and 70, and comes out of ...Papyrus Berolinensis.

Read Plotinus' essay on the Gnostics

>>471049
>Another question: Do we have to leave the Demiurge's reality or there are ways to live as created beings, but in peace and without being prisoners?
It depends on the sect you ask but yes. I THINK the Ophites and Sethites bought into this synthesis with matter. Rudolph's book from pgs 245-50 gives info on groups where were attempting to achieve synthesis with matter via ritual, though a lot of that is filtered through the lens of critical reaction against the Gnostics from their contemporaries.

>If some spirits could enter reality, then our immortal spirit could also help us to... I don't know... to aid us, maybe?

Again, that's what Christ is for.

>>471065
>>471079

Very interesting, thank you.
I still have much to learn.

I think imagining the True God as a neutral, suprnatural force would solve the puzzle, by the way.

Maybe Peter J. Carroll's Chaos is what God is.
It's possible that the Demiurge is also just a neutral force, a symbol of Order.

Chaos is unlimited potential, Order is a limited system.
Yet there's a spark of Chaos in every sentient being (thus we're creative) and Order itself is "made of" (or: has its roots in) Chaos.

>>471067

Also thanks for the info.
I'll check the library!

because it doesn't give a shit. demiurg atleast believes that we're on his responsibility, no matter how crappy "god" he otherwise is.

>>471107
Yup, that's mine, you want the Gnostic Studies folder and I *highly* recommend Rudolph's book, it covers just about every single tradition of Gnosticism we're aware of.

>Chockmah is Ialdaboath
Probably not.

>>471008
>Why can't the True God do something about the Demiurge's reality?
The same relationship between the Monad and the Demiurge is a creative replacement of the God and Devil biblical figures.

In other words, a being of pure love and is supposedly infinite, somehow wasn't unable to see, or prevent from happening the creation of a figure who is claimed to be the anti-thesis of that entity.

The explanations are not adequate enough to explain its existence, not even the Pistis Sophia with its supposed 'accident.'

>>471049
>Do we have to leave the Demiurge's reality or there are ways to live as created beings, but in peace and without being prisoners?
If your soul is infinite, you knew exactly what you were getting into before becoming finite and incarnating in this world.

It isn't impossible to leave, but whether or not we can change much here depends on whether or not this experience is what the Demiurge or other higher beings wanted. If it is, then no is probably the answer.

>>471065
>>471090
These.

Gnosticism borrowed the concepts of Monad and Demiurge from the Academy of Plato, while twisting the creator figure into a predominantly malevolent figure, while ignoring positive aspects to this reality.

>>471114
Finite existence is entirely built on divisions, contradictions, imperfections, and risks.

If you have a soul, you chose to be here, which means you accepted the above as part-and-parcel of living in this reality before arriving, and should stop complaining about it.

>>471008
>taking Gnosticism literally.
I see what you did there.

>>471163
>Gnosticism borrowed the concepts of Monad and Demiurge from the Academy of Plato, while twisting the creator figure into a predominantly malevolent figure, while ignoring positive aspects to this reality.
I'll keep saying this until it sinks in: Gnostic thought is NOT monolithic. Not EVERY group held that Demiurge was evil. Rudolph demonstrates this over and over. Particularly in the ritual material I mentioned here - >>471101

>>471174
>Gnostic thought is NOT monolithic. Not EVERY group held that Demiurge was evil.
Most did, though there are indeed obscure groups like the followers of Valentinus who took a different outlook.

The Ophites, Sethians, and the authors of the Pistis Sophia and Nag Hammadi library are more notable examples that did.

Is the author you're referring to Kurt Rudolph? There are a number of interpretations from various people around, I have not been able to read all of them.

>>471193
>Rudolph
Yup, he's one of my favorite authors on the subject.

IJS, the criticisms that Plotinus levies are perfectly legit, to the sects they actually apply to. I like both neoplatonism and gnosticism, it just rubs me the wrong way when soooo damn many people present the entire corpus of gnostic discourse as a single monolithic doctrine.

I'd quibble a bit on the Ophites and Sethians, given there's some indication their rituals were seeking a synthesis with matter rather than transcendence thereof, or maybe transcendence into new avenues of matter. In any case, if they thought Demiurge was just plain nasty, the sentiment didn't seem to apply to all of its creations.

>>471199
Nice digits, Ape of Thoth.

Well... I understand the frustration, and yes, not all of the sects were like this. Part of me responds this way by generalizing, because the literature from these obscure groups has become trendy among conspiracy theorists or just people in general wanting to blame something for their personal misfortune.

To me, the architect is a facilitator for contrasted, finite experience. The being makes more sense when I look at it as a cosmic engineer or programmer who engages in an endless number of simulations, which we can all freely choose to incarnate in, but one must attain a quasi-Buddha state of mind if they truly wish to exit it, that is... they no longer have any attachment to it.

>>471262
I dig that sentiment and is probably why I'm attracted to the Demiurge-neutral aspects of Gnostic thought.

The reason I get so vocal about the varieties of Gnostic thought is I've had more than one strident conversation with folks like /fringe/fags who flip the fuck out at the idea that even a single Gnostic group wasn't super ascetic and celibate. The folks totalizing and essentializing all of Gnostic thought are not doing anything propagate actual scholarship on these guys and are probably impeding it by reducing it to a handful of memes that don't actually apply to each group in question.

>>471193
Nigga Valentianian Gnosticism was probably the most well known/popular one of them all when Gnosticism was still a thing