BodyCosmosGnosis
Gnosis
Also called: Gnosticism · Gnostic Knowledge
A Greek word meaning 'knowledge,' and the concept ancient Gnostic sects treated as the path to salvation.In this narrative it is the Matrix's red pill, the only key out of the Archons' prison.
Established facts
Gnosis is a Greek word meaning 'knowledge.' Gnosticism is an umbrella name for various Christian-adjacent sects that spread across the eastern Mediterranean from the 1st to the 4th century.They held that only true knowledge, gnosis, could free a person from bondage to the material world.Early church fathers such as Irenaeus and Hippolytus branded these sects heretical and wrote refutations of them.In 1945, a large cache of these sects' original texts was found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt.The Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphon of John, and the Gospel of Truth are among them.Modern thinkers such as Carl Jung and Helena Blavatsky were also influenced by the concept.
In this narrativeSalvation through knowledge
Gnosticism reaches salvation through knowledge, not faith1.Each person carries within them a divine spark from the true God1.Being born into the material world makes them forget that fact1.Gnosis is remembering that forgotten origin1.Jesus is portrayed not as someone who came to enforce commandments, but as someone who came to deliver this gnosis1.That is why Jesus is called the incarnation of the Perfect Being1.
In this narrativeThe Matrix and Gnosticism
One critique reads the film The Matrix through Gnosticism1.It sees Neo taking the red pill and waking from the fake world as paralleling gnostic awakening1.But the critique also notes that the film borrows Gnosticism's imagery, not its actual claims1.The Wachowski siblings are assessed as having freely mixed imagery from several religions into one film1.The philosophy book Simulacra and Simulation, which appears on screen, is one more piece of that patchwork1.
In this narrativeToday's expanded versions
Many online writings today expand on the concept of gnosis1.The 'loosh' story, in which Archons harvest emotional energy, also cites gnostic texts as its basis1.The 'soul trap' theory, in which the soul is deceived after death, also starts from the same texts2.But a specialist researcher marks this expansion as a modern assembly, not the teaching of any single ancient source2.That research spells out, passage by passage, which parts are original and which were added later2.
Connected concepts
- Archons and the Demiurge →The Archons are the jailers who guard the material world, and gnosis is the key out of that prison.
- Soul Trap →The theory of how not to be deceived after death takes gnostic texts as its starting point.
- The Matrix and the Red Pill →One scene of taking the red pill and waking up is placed side by side with gnostic awakening.
- Loosh →The account of harvesting emotional energy also draws its basis from gnostic texts.
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