The Alien God

Beyond the edge of the known universe, the alien god sleeps, submerged in an endless, shimmering pool. A ripple echoes across the timeless waters, the goddess Barbelo emerges, and together they conceive two divine children : Sophia (Wisdom) and Immortal Man (Christ).

"Come from invisible things to the end of those that are visible, and... [this] thought will reveal to you how... those things that are not visible [are] found..." "The Sophia of Jesus Christ." The Nag Hammadi Library. Ed. James Robinson. HarperCollins, 1978. 227.

God’s Family Tree

“Seeing that everybody, gods of the world and mankind, says that nothing existed prior to chaos, I, in distinction, shall demonstrate that they are all mistaken…” (1) Gnostic creation myths are unbelievably complex, bizarre and convoluted; compared to such texts as the “Secret Gospel of John” and “On the Origin of the World,” the Genesis…

"One should not think of it as a god, or like a god. For it is greater than a god, because it has nothing over it and no lord above it. It does not exist within anything that is inferior to it, since everything exists only within it... It is impossible to say, 'How much is it?' or 'What kind is it?' for no one can understand it. It is not one among many things that are in existence: it is much greater. Not that it is actually greater. Rather, as it is in itself, it is not a part of the worlds or of time, for whatever is part of a world was once produced by something else." “The Secret Book of John.” The Secret Teachings of Jesus. Trans. Marvin W. Meyer. Vintage, 1984. 57-58.

God Above God : Before the Beginning

Before there was a God, a heaven or an earth, there was only the Alien God, the infinite and eternal mind who dreams all realities: “There is a perfect preexistent Aeon, dwelling in the invisible and unnameable elevations… in quiet and in deep solitude for infinite aeons.” ((”The Valentinian System Of Ptolemaeus.” The Other Bible.…

"Now, it is not difficult to know the Creator of all creatures, but it is impossible to comprehend the likeness of this One. For it is difficult not only for men to comprehend the All, but it is also difficult for every divine being, both the angels and the archangels." "The Teachings of Silvanus." The Nag Hammadi Library. Ed. James Robinson. HarperCollins, 1978. 387.

The Alien God and Panentheism

The gnostic Christians acknowledged a supreme being, but their god was not the bumbling, all-too-human creator god of the Bible. The Yahweh of Genesis was wrathful, jealous, particular and vindictive; how could he be the highest form of mind, when he couldn’t even rise to the ethical level of an unusually well-balanced human? Instead, the…

"Since, then, there was nothing - no matter... nothing simple, nothing complex.. no man, no angel, no god, not anything that is named or perceived...the nonexistent God wished, without intelligence, without sense, without will... to make... the seed of the universe. The seed of the universe contained everything within it... Everything... of which one can speak, and even of which one cannot speak because it does not exist; everything which was necessarily going to adapt itself to the universe which was to come... all these beings existed, deposited in the seed." ”Basilide's System.” The Other Bible. Ed. Willis Barnstone. Harper San Francisco, 1984. 620-630.

The Non-Existent God and the Multiverse

THE NON-EXISTENT GOD The main difference between the “Alien god” of gnosticism and the Biblical god of Genesis is the idea that the Alien god never created anything, much less the world; the Alien God simply is. Or is not – for in the same way that certain schools of Judaism refuse to assert that…

"I am androgynous. I am both Mother and Father since I copulate with myself. I copulate with myself and with those who love me, and it is through me alone that the All stands firm. I am the Womb that gives shape to the All by giving birth to the Light that shines in splendor." "The Trimorphic Protennoia." The Nag Hammadi Library. Ed. James Robinson. HarperCollins, 1978. 519.

The Barbelo : Womb of the Universe

BIRTH OF THE BARBELO A convention common to many ancient philosophical speculations was the designation of deities as male and their thoughts as female. Neither, in this sense, is truly separable from the other; they exist in eternal androgynous union, each defined by the other’s presence. According to the Secret Gospel of John, the Alien…

"Now Immortal Man revealed Aeons and powers and kingdoms and gave authority to everyone who appeared from him to make whatever they desire until the days that are above chaos. For these consented with each other and revealed every magnificence, even from spirit, multitudinous lights that are glorious and without number." "The Sophia of Jesus Christ." The Nag Hammadi Library. Ed. James Robinson. HarperCollins, 1978. 237.

The Infinite Aeons

Before the material world existed, the divine world was created, erupting from the ecstatic union of Sophia (the world soul) and Christ (Divine Mind). The universe they made together exists outside of time as a realm of infinite possibility and endless exploration, fluid and ever-changing, a hyperspace of pure thought: “Now Immortal Man revealed Aeons…

"This Man is a single unity, incomposite and indivisible, composite and divisible; wholly friendly, wholly peaceable, wholly hostile, wholly at enmity with itself, dissimilar and similar, like some musical harmony, which contains within itself everything which one might name or leave unnoticed, producing all things, generating all things..." Bloom, Harold. Omens of Millennium. New York: Riverhead Books,1996. 241.

Immortal Man

The Gnostic trinity of Father, Mother and Child was made complete with the birth of Immortal Androgynous Man, first and only offspring of Barbelo and the Alien God: “The Invisible Spirit gazed at the Barbelo… and the Barbelo conceived by it, and it begot a luminous spark consisting of light…” ((“The Secret Book of John.”…

"The power which overflowed from the Woman...fell from above [and] came down directly upon the waters, when they were motionless, and set them in motion, moving boldly as far as the abysses; and it took a body for itself from them." "The Sethian Ophites." The Other Bible. Ed. Willis Barnstone. Harper San Francisco, 1984. 661.

The Fall of Sophia

“The power which overflowed from the Woman…fell from above [and] came down directly upon the waters, when they were motionless, and set them in motion, moving boldly as far as the abysses; and it took a body for itself from them. When it was bound and weighed down by the body of matter, it lay…