Miguel Conner | Gnosticism, Archons, & Simon Magus

00:05 That's true, Dr. Seuss! Alright, Hireside Chatters. Today we're going deep into the broad and sweeping subject matter that falls under the umbrella term of Gnosticism because Gnosticism weaves itself throughout many areas of interest for conspiracy enthusiasts from the use of ritual magic and its influence on secret societies to the idea of nefarious reptilian overlord entities in the very process of awakening itself

01:04 It also goes without saying that the various orders and groups we consider under the term often share the commonality of being a thorn in the side of authority, orthodoxy and the controllers of their day. Folks it seems that even though Gnostic ideas ooze out nearly every conspiratorial orifice sometimes we have a tendency to play fast-and-loose with buzzwords we really haven't taken time to dig deeper into So that's what today is about, and if these are in fact ideas that ruffled the feathers of the power pyramid of the past it would be quite a disservice to only know the Cliff Notes. So pack your glass and park your ass because today we got the true pope of Gnostic podcasting Miguel Conner here to show us the light

01:42 Miguel has been the host and producer of Aeonbyte Gnostic Radio for several years, interviewing the leading scholars, writers and researchers in this very niche. And he's extracted much of his guests' incredible insights and compiled two hefty texts entitled Voices of Gnosticism and the recently released Other Voices of Gnosticism. A man my favorite wizard is called a walking talking library of Alexandria, Miguel MaMan welcome to The Higher Side! Oh, thanks for having me and a wonderful introduction the Pope of Gnosticism. Blessed are thee then or cursed are thee after this interview Amen and it is a real pleasure to have you here You're clearly knowledgeable about this stuff And while I typically try to avoid religion and theology as much as I can I sort of make an exception For the gnosticism topic a lot of the time

02:32 It can feel a little Christian-y, but sometimes it can feel pretty punk rock and rebellious and damn near sci fi. But it is a big umbrella and it can be a loaded term. Give us a better idea of what Gnosticism means beyond the 101 understanding because there really was no group of people that called themselves gnostics right? No not really... Not in their text The church fathers do talk about these groups that call themselves Gnostics, but again as far as their texts they never called themselves Gnostic and they never used the term Gnosticism. That was invented I think in the 17th century by a conservative Christians more is it derogatory term

03:14 But having said that, we have to understand the terms like Hinduism and Buddhism were created by Western scholars to create again as you said sort of an umbrella over these foreign religions. So far as we know that happened so You want me to tell you what noticism is as far as i can tell absolutely okay let's do it oh and i should mention that there was a bit of a synchronicity today is the anniversary of the release of the matrix so i think its perfect It's up the stars are aligned and listeners I know it makes other people have heard me in the podcast and they're probably getting tired But always tell people look if you want to know about Gnosticism a good primers go watch The Matrix go watch The Truman Show Dark City Snowpiercer, and even the Lego movie. You'll get a good vibe of what Gnosticism is

04:06 But as far as people know, or the you might say the talking points narcissism was this ancient heresy that broke out from Christianity in the second century. And I would say that the latest scholarship would say no, that's not a simplified way and pigeonholing some people you didn't like and people you had to destroy So as far as the, I'll start with the origins of Gnosticism and that again there's great debate with scholars. I think the mainstream scholars still think that the Gnostics came from Christianity in the second century. As i mentioned they're kind of keeping the same talking points as the church fathers

04:47 Other scholars have posited that they are much older, that they might've been breakaway Jews who just got tired of the temple culture or the Roman Empire and so forth and just sort of went on their own into far off places to study mysticism and get in contact with higher powers. Some say that they're even older, that they come from a stream of Zoroastrianism, Egyptian lore and so forth that might have melted together in places like Alexandria I would say that and I would agree, and I'll probably mention her more than once but the new book by April De Connick The Gnostic New Age really makes a good case that gnosticism is much older because it was never really a religion. You might say its metaphysical orientation It's something that has always been in the air And we can talk about some of the strains of how it all joined up although it did culminate probably in the first second century AD

05:43 But I like to talk about the four, you might say hallmarks of Gnosticism and this really defines Gnosticism well. And then there's a few other things we can talk about but The first hallmark is that basically we live in a simulated reality bad software as author sam chris called it. And i think you often call it your show the prison planet of those were little bit more positive than that but at the end of the day, All Gnostics agree this is not our home. We do live in an illusion, maybe the bars are gold Maybe it's some sort of a surreal nightmare It comes to it that we don't belong here and we're trapped here by these stellar wardens or cosmic ranchers Or whatever you want to call them And these entities as many people know were called the Archons which is Greek for rulers

06:39 and they were headed by the main archon who was called a Demiurge. And, a lot of people make the mistake because they think Demiurge is Greek for half-maker but it's actually Greek for public worker and again we can touch upon the Demiurge if you want But, we were trapped in here I'm basically kept asleep and why were we kept asleep because we have something called a divine spark is the last excalibur it was sort of. It was a shot of the infinite that we shared with an alien god that was beyond all the stars all it was beyond reality in this alien god had somehow

07:15 through some cosmic tragedy or some sort of self awareness and breakdown had fallen apart a part of the shards that come down here and become trapped in the chaos and the demure than the arkansan basically feed off of this, keep basically the universe fueled. So that's the second hallmark is that we actually again are really part of this alien God or this supreme intelligence far away from the material domains The third one is that, we can awaken to our supernal origin who we really are because we don't belong in this world That divine spark can ignite

07:56 and this is usually through the teachings of what they called an apostle of light or a Gnostic illuminator. In The Matrix, again we can talk about Neo as the sleeping person and he's again trapped in this world in some sort of existentialist angst, he's alienated And you have Morpheus who serves apart of the Gnostic Illuminator And the Gnostic illuminer basically sort of comes with either teachings or some sort of other stimulation. Sometimes it could be a spirit, or God that comes down and awakens us but the Gnostics held many different illuminators in their different sects for example Jesus was one Zoroaster Mary Magdalene

08:39 They had a luciferian goddess called Sophia and even the manichaeans which was a missionary Gnostic sect placed Buddha as that level, as an awakener. And this awakener could wake us up Now what happens when we wake up or take the red pill, as is the trope? Well, the Gnostics contended that then would come this was part of the gnosis or divine knowledge. That as we waken up, we can start taking astral flights beyond the world and bypassing the heavenly realms ruled by the Archons and start communing and communicating with this alien god

09:17 And the forces behind it and through our awakening we would start to become divine and awakening, and eventually we would leave to the stars and join of course the gnostics weren't just sort of these. You might say aloof mystics, as some scholars have called them. They were sort of Christian bodhisattvas. They felt that if they awakened they needed to awaken others through these rituals, through these writings and so forth I think the Gospel of Philip one of the Gnostic writing says you saw Christ, you became Christ We were meant to resurrect or awaken or become Buddhas while we're in the flesh through this process of gnosis

09:55 So in a nutshell, those are the four hallmarks of Gnosticism and that is basically what Gnosticism is. Mm-hmm right on I think that's a great summary and I was curious because it is such a wide umbrella what the Commonalities would be with the connective tissue would be and I think that's Four great bullet points that probably unite all these different sects and different groups that we consider under the umbrella of Gnosticism Yeah, I think you hit it on the head. That's why it is so hard because the Gnostics were very anarchist. They believed they splintered off into different groups who did their own thing and they were spread out towards the Roman Empire then evolved into an influence for example the Sufis forms of Kabbalah, the Cathars and a whole bunch of other groups but

10:46 you can always find those four hallmarks within them if you really look. And even in the rituals, for example I talked about these rituals these ecstatic rituals the scholars have been scratching their head well he had these Gnostics in Egypt who were practicing sex magic and these Gnostic's in Rome who are doing you know who are doing the Eucharist at churches? You had some people dancing some who were doing mystery religion acts and so forth... So what happens The Gnostics always adopted, you might say the cultural context of what was around them. What they saw if they saw something they were going to use it kind of like chaos magicians and I'd say there were the first chaos magicians but the point is what they were looking for was that experience that experience of that astral flight To leave this world of the Archons and make contact with the alien God And whatever they could use around them and the kitchen sink They were gonna use it

11:42 If it didn't work, well then try something else or find another group or move around. So that's why sometimes it is confusing to peg them down like I said its more of a metaphysical orientation and they were never really an actual religion they broke off in lodges and so forth They kind of were chameleons who adopted again the cultures around them And there always pretty much under the radar Right on. Yeah, that is a great term metaphysical orientation I like that and now you mentioned the demiurge as you know Gnosticism comes up in conspiracy circles largely because the term Archon seems to be the nuanced hipster term for reptilian thanks to guys like David Icke. How fair of a representation is that?

12:27 I would say it's probably not fair at all. Although, I mean...I have nothing against the otherness finding out that we have shadow enemies but of course i'm never going to peg them down as this or that That's not where I am right now or I think we should be But uh.. I think the issue is what made the Gnostic so radical Is that you have to remember in ancient times everything was connected to the gods. I mean, you had the great chain of being or the astral bureaucracy of Confucius and so forth and you had the God sort of streaming down and the Kings and the prophets were all earthly representatives And this was with the Greeks, the Romans as a raster's and in fact he could make a case that it still goes on today because everybody, politicians think God put them there and mulas and so forth

13:19 And the Gnostics, when they came out and said, whoa! First time in history. They said look the gods are crazy barring from the movie The gods are insane they're deficient so therefore everything that flows for them including into our earthly representatives is a sham it's deficient it's basically twisted And that was extremely radical, that some mortals 2,000 years ago would take a stand against the supreme gods of this universe. The Demiurge is interesting because he was a very holy figure if you read Plato's Timaeus. He is sort of the guy who has the One

14:02 the ultimate source, which is the Gnostic spirit. The Demiurge sort of ordered the universe and made sure that it ran well like a clock or something like that And that was even believed by ancient Jews, Romans, Neoplatonists... In fact, the church father Justin Martyr called Jesus the Demiurge of Jehovah because he was the order, the logos, reason for the divine The Gnostics came and said, no this guy is Demiurge who's sort of the big architect. You might say of the Freemasons he's insane, he's demented, he's demonic and then they said well what about those who work under him? And they called him Archons

14:45 Remember you have to know that the archons was greek again greeks for ruler and this is sort of a title it's like calling somebody today judge or president it was an honorific title in those times. And then also sort of twisted that around and made the archon part of his demonic contingency, if you want to call it that. They're usually they're not I think in one instance and one of the texts an archon is depicted as reptilian but for the most part there were these hermaphrodite beings pretty much a new patent who were who did have you know best your faces like lions and so forth but it was buried in of course is more symbolical than anything. Her man for by platonic times just very being that was really very powerful and the beast faces represented their different what they're in charge of with the personalities work but as far as another basically spiritual

15:45 spiritual beings and they had two aspects one is the ran things like things as a bureaucracy but there weren't very efficient about it they were sort of think of the movie brazil or time bandits terry gilliams time bandit. Where are you in the universe in sort of this painful badly run dr see as above so below i think we can all relate but the whole mission was to keep us trapped in asleep And the other thing is they had an appetite for rape. They liked raping anything that was holy, anything that was beautiful, anything that could stir and you could say well rape is really a metaphor for just screwing our minds and keeping us beaten down and so forth So this was the aspects of The Demiurge Another thing too is The Demiurge I'm sure many of your listeners know Was associated with God in the Old Testament

16:40 They thought the God of the Old Testament was pretty much represented the insanity of this world and everything wrong with it. That this god Jehovah was pretty much, well I keep saying it he was out of his mind, He was an ignorant being. He was a being that when he came about he said there is no god but me which as many have called the great sin of the demiurge when he thinks he rules the universe and there's nothing else this god, this demiurge. Of course he's associated with other beings too and it changes throughout the histories How did the demiurge come about? Well in some of the classic Gnostic texts what happens is that you have the mind of the alien god is usually depicted as having

17:24 Characteristics and their personalize into these entities call the aeons these are part of the mind of god to the gnostics, the ultimate source was just this well running imaginative empathic mindful of information. And at one point as God is learning to become self-aware, and these characteristics come about which he called aeons. They had different things like love and honor and so forth... As He's spreading out there is one Aeon that's called Sophia. They took this from the Old Testament because it always talks about this wisdom figure that is there with God who was there in the beginning of time who is called Wisdom in a lot of texts

18:06 the wisdom literature and so forth and this being sophia became so curious about the whole how the whole mechanism work to help me ancient mine was that she basically rebelled in cheese often called it very much elusive fairy and figure probably even before the myth of lucifer because she rebels and she ends up falling out from this again supreme mind from the matrix of the supreme mind and is thrown down into the chaos that she falls down she goes to this passion. Where should we get experience all the emotions that can be experienced fear despair sadness and she becomes basically pregnant by her own emotions. And in a pregnancy she gives birth to the supreme god to the demiurge to jahovah who has no idea that he's been given birth but has this power in this decides he is gonna create the universe so indiana me and the demiurge is a classic

19:03 Tell about the ego and what does it what are the rulers of this world do in how they just basically make a mess of things. Right on. Now, you also wrote an article titled The Five Most Dangerous Archons in the Gnostic Gospels where you break down some of the other archonic characters I think people have probably heard a decent amount about the Demiurge but I don't think many listeners have gone much deeper than that What can you tell us about other archons and their potential influence? Well, the Archons again had the function of running the universe. The Gnostics like many of the ancients thought that the greatest thing that kept us down was the powers of fate, the power of the stars so the Archons were in charge of all the different stars and in different systems the archons change and you can associate them with other gods and so forth And the Archons of course had other

20:02 They had other functions in one book we have basically one bloody arcon for every part of our body because they thought the human body had to be created in some factory and the arcons were just building us or at least they were in charge of them. So there could be thousands of arcons for different functions and, of course, the roles would change and so forth So, yeah sometimes I like to play around because there is one Archon which made me laugh in the Secret Book of John and this is the archon of desire and her name is Yoko. That made me laugh how they came up with that 2000 years ago! And then there's other stories... The Gnostics when they were writing

20:43 That's why Carl Jung called him the first depth psychologist. It's almost like they were taking a journey inside their own minds, the mind of the alien God was their own human mind and they felt that they could travel back and find out this trauma through their scriptures it's almost like a form of self-therapy I mean Jesus doesn't even seem like a character it is like writing fan fiction but again as many people know sometimes writing is a great form therapy you do unlock doors Your mind does expand you seem to take some amazing journeys and they were just pumping out gospel. And doing the rituals and discovering different things in tweaking the stories and changing the archons in changing the role of jesus and changing the rules of fear,

21:28 So it was very varied, but it all seemed to have again this sort of self therapy which they thought was not just a personal therapy but a cosmic therapy. The Gnostics thought if we can get our mind to work like the mind of the alien god, to get at 100%, then we can actually start not only helping the world but help this alien god heal and help make contact with alien God So they get pretty psychedelic and as you mentioned, they do have this sort of sci-fi sensibility to them. I mean that is one thing that can't be denied and i always like to tell people when they read the Gnostic gospels just keep in mind The Four Hallmarks but also keep in mind this it was a writer William T Volman who wrote in the New York Times

22:16 Quote as a corpus the Gnostic scriptures are nearly incoherent like a crowd of sages mystics and madmen all speaking at once But always they call upon us to know ourselves And that's one other central dictum says that they felt and again They're taking the vibe off of the Greeks and the Greek mystics and the Romans and so forth that to know ourselves to go inward we could really find a divinity in it through all the layers of falseness that we are all the layers at the arkans have created which appears our personality defects or engineering

22:53 our education and even faded so we could find this divinity with ourselves it sounds like the journey inside was the journey outside so you had to take these two journeys in order of to tie everything in. But of course again need to do this you have to get through a lot of our guns and ultimately you had to get past the demiurge, and they would have these rituals where there are these you see them in their text these grand rituals with passwords as they're taking astral flights through the heavens and that would meet an arc and have to give him a password or trick this arcon in the go to the next level, end of next level it really didn't end until you hit the ultimate source which they often call depth in silence. It was this moment of pure contemplation where your might say in the moment and pure zen so needless to say I don't see any reptilians yet

23:45 Fair enough. And so I have really gotten interested in magic in recent years, which has made religious topics unavoidable because they're so intertwined especially when you go back and get to the roots and I hear Gnosticism come up alongside Paganism and Kabbalah when you get into this lane. I hear them referenced a lot together but how related are these schools of thought really as far as you can tell? They're definitely very related. I mean, remember they were the big melting pot in those days was Alexandria so the Gnostics we do have documented a We haven't documented that the Gnostics were rubbing shoulders and going to the same school as the Neoplatonists that they were inside the Jewish communities the Hellenized Jewish communities that they were inside the churches and the church fathers are trying to do it So

24:36 There's a lot of overlap in what they thought, but even the neoplatonists hated the Gnostics because again the Gnostics were so radical. Not only did they think that the gods were really demonic but the Gnostic had these ideas back in 2000 years that if you had enough power you could travel planes and you could actually control the archons in control more of the super angels now they weren't controlling to overthrow the world or gain material power that was never there their goal again was pure consciousness expansion pure fullness and wholeness

25:12 But this used to just make the Neoplatonists angry because a lot of the Neoplatonist thought, no you don't mess with the divine. The divine is fine and you can get solace and advice but you don't start materializing the fabric of the cosmos You might say they were doing theurgy back then and they were doing a lot of magical rites. I mean, we do have instances where they're putting on animal masks and dancing around there's instances where they are taking sort of this entheogenic wine going into these altered states and they were all over the place. One thing that was...I know I say astral fights and I think I mentioned that they were sort of shamanistic

25:53 How is today there was an argument on facebook and somebody said i'm a shaman in somebody's you know it somebody posted no you're not because that's appropriation because the shamans were from siberia of course got into this big argument about appropriate when to call somebody ashamed and all that and both sides read it. I can only say this does work for narcissism because, The Gnostics were a call by a church father and by others. They were called sons of Pythagoras And it's documented that Pythagoras was deputized by a Mongolian shaman. He was taught this ancient art of going into the spirit world and taking astral flights, and this art was handed down through the Greek philosophers and to the Gnostics So when I say well the Gnostic were shamans, I think I can actually make a good argument that they are, and if they're not appropriating something so

26:50 But yeah, they were definitely rubbing shoulders. They were borrowing and they were heavily steeped in magic We find some of their coins that they use with the Braxas and other magical coins that they had we have these very long rituals and incantations or texts? We really haven't found out what they meant but they definitely were Doing ritual I mean we don't know exactly the rituals are but they were doing rituals and a lot of them are sort of using vowels and chance and calling on the name of On these magical names even on the name of Jesus to get things done There's even some parts where they even have a snoring sound. They're doing this magical incantation that then they're making these snoring sounds like

27:35 And it sounds weird, but as some scholars have said they were going into a trance and falling asleep or halfway falling asleep was part of how to you know kick in that altered state of mind. So yeah they were definitely into magic. Yeah people you interview they seem to agree a lot of the time that the practitioners themselves because we mentioned they didn't really call themselves Gnostics It seems like the scholars are saying that most of these people would consider themselves Christian and that seems just weird to me because the subject matter almost seems anti-christian or like, the 180 flip of Christianity. it seems weird that they do use some of the same characters even if they look at them differently but they would consider themselves part of that faith

28:21 Yeah, I mean again there were they were sort of absorbing what was around them and what worked yeah and Christianity back then in the first century was a very radical religion. I mean they were kind of shocking to pagans with their stories of drinking blood Doing all this sort of weirdness and the Gnostics definitely took that I mean they saw They really saw like the Apostle Paul as an amazing guy because they had there was a story of him going in being blinded by The light and having to go to Arabia for all these years And Paul is talking about traveling to the third heaven and making contact with angelic beings So that's really inspired. A lot of the Gnostics they thought wow, this is cool and Jesus became again sort of

29:05 When are there exemplars not so much to worship but to kinda write fanfiction to base their stories to model their stories and again to sort of drop on his powers. We have papyruses with somehow the name Jesus, which meant Yahweh or Yahweh saves. They thought that it had really had some magical powers that they could draw upon but they weren't all just Christian and in fact you have the hermetics from also at the time in Alexandria who were their cousins who were pagan Gnostics and they drew from sort of the ancient Egyptian lore

29:41 You had a lot of the Gnostic texts are sort of non-Christian. They seem to draw upon Zoroastrianism, in fact one text talks about this mysterious book, The Book of Zoroaster that nobody knows that nobody's heard but they do mention it. They do go non-christian in a lot of their texts but They really found, again they just found a lot of inspiration in that sort of early Christian vibe when it was so vibrant and it was so elastic. It was just interesting to them. Man the more I hear about that time window... The more I hear people talk about

30:17 It just seems so wild that there's so many different groups in this pretty wide spans of time that are getting into magic, that have their own rituals, their own practices. They seem to be like everywhere and I think of Alexandria is just like this Big breeding ground this like farmers market exchange of all these different Magical ideas. Yeah, it's like such a hard task for a group Like the Roman Catholic Church I guess to put that toothpaste back in the tube the way it has been done Yeah, or just appropriate it. I'm using that word because it drives me crazy but yeah no, I think the church definitely appropriated a lot of the magic, the whole idea of the saints and all the rituals

31:02 It seems the mass itself is a form of spiritual alchemy that goes back to the mystery religions, the idea of eating your God and so forth. I mean, the church wasn't stupid they know good marketing when they saw it, they just simply had to appropriate it and get the marketing in there make sure that the experience that everybody could have individually now just came through the church That's how you got it And of course, you know get rid of all the competition. But yeah Alexandria was an amazing place I mean You had Buddhist monks that we have documented Buddhist months were visiting there You had a whole bunch of ideas in the library yet the hermetics you had the Jews you had the Christian Gnostics? You had again it was this huge hodgepods of you might say magic but even magic is kind of a strange term because what's the old saying

31:54 We practice religion they practice magic and somebody else said you know. Religion is just magic for the masses magic is just religion for the individual i mean, add it's cool or is this trying to get an experience with something beyond yourself in grow as an individual and of course it was hard enrollment times because a lot of times Magic was completely unlawful except state-sponsored magic and some exceptions. But having said that, it was going under the table and it was happening in what's probably very intense in Alexandria. Yeah man I like that little phrase about magic being for the individual and religion for the masses

32:38 But I always kind of think about magic as anti-authoritarian because religion has been used as a control mechanism and very useful psychological tool for the elite. And that magic seems to be like, uh, kind of that hidden truth behind their hollow husk of tradition that they give for everyone else? Yeah you could say that again it really depends on what was going on cause I mean the Gnostics as i said they were intrinsically anarchist Chris knows calls and histories first geeks there are the guys always in the corner that didn't trust.

33:14 the authorities that entrust the temple, that interest institutions and they wanted to do their own thing and find their own thing. And there were going to create a little groups in play their d&d and mystical states and so forth. So I would definitely say that with the Gnostics but as far as the Roman Empire it was really hard to practice magic unless of course you are in the good side of the emperor or somebody authority somebody can get away with it because let's face Even before the rise of the Catholic Church, these temples needed to stay open. Somebody had to pay for their electricity right? So they needed the money They needed those shekels and denarii to fall into it so they needed to control the magic The last thing you need is people going off and having experiences with divine And calling upon rain without permission and all that good stuff So it was even very controlled even in times before the Catholic Church came about

34:11 Man, so to give people a little more insight what can you tell us about this Simon Magus character? They call him the father of Gnosticism in some circles I'm told. Yes yes yes he's definitely uh i would say one of my patron saints. Simon Magus appears well in the orthodox version he appears an Acts of The Apostle and it's a very interesting story because This is where the church fathers sort of give it away because one of the things that church fathers always said and scholars say is that Gnosticism didn't start till later, second century maybe even later Christianity first came out. But what you have in Acts of the Apostles Is you've got the apostle Philip he's walking around I think in Samaria And he runs into Simon Magus and he's doing all these magical things He's just doing miracles and really cool stuff

35:04 And he just comes up to him and he says, wow. I like you know, I like the cut of your jig You know, you're awesome! And he says why don't you come meet my band? My band of brothers over here and Philip takes Simon Magus there and ends up pissing off Peter and ends up ostracized according to Acts of the Apostles Now that's interesting, Greg. Because wait a second... If the apostles are there and Simon Magus was already like the main magician That makes Simon Magus a contemporary of Jesus So they sort of give it away there And who is Simon Magus? Well, the church fathers called him yes Not only the father of Gnosticism but they called him the father of all heresies

35:46 They thought that all evil he was the pandora box of all evil they came out in their times and modern times. Any was it very much despised by them and we don't really know much about the story there's a lot of tales that we see According to the simonians or his community and some other stories. He was again sort of the incarnation of the alien god that came down to earth why did he come down to earth well remember i talked about the myth of sofia the fallen wisdom of the alien god In the Simonian myth, you have these rebellious angels, the Archons. And they sort of steal her once they see her and bring her down to Earth and cast her in a material form. She reincarnates through time as the way for the Archons to hide her from the alien god. She was once Helen of Troy and all those beautiful women. Then she becomes in this last incarnation what this woman called Helen of Tyre

36:45 and simon magus comes in me sir and together they sort of join in the become again truly powerful and then there human forms are sort of wandering around. Again becoming nasty reviewers trying to wake in the rest of humanity try to get their divine spark away, so that's one of the tales of simon magis there other tells you have it in a month of these tails You have in the Pseudo-Clementines, you have these really amazing magical battles between Simon Peter and Simon Magus. Usually in these battles—well of course because it's written by the Orthodox—Simon Magus loses! So there are a lot of stories going on and Simon Magus we don't have anything... There is something called The Great Declaration that he wrote

37:31 That's been reconstructed because some of the church fathers like Epiphanios kept track. But we really don't know much about him when it comes down to it, again. Again, we know he's sort of the font of all heresy and everything. And he is sort of an overlooked I think an overlooked character because when you get into occult circles they're always talking about oh well there's Solomon and there is this then they jump over to the Neoplatonists and the magicians are there and then we move through history and we've got the Hermetics, the Hermetic revival in the Renaissance and Giordano Bruno, John Dee. And most forget I think really how powerful and intriguing Simon Magus is because not only was he this great magician

38:14 Very powerful magician and who scared the hell out of the church but he was also a summer said the first person to really stand up and say in a literary literature to say no that gods are false all their institutions are falls come my way i got something better now some upset that simon may guess is really just a cipher for paul. Because, well there's a lot of clues that show this. You see a lot of parallels between the Apostle Paul and Simon Magus but not all scholars. I say a minority of scholars really accept this or believe it but he could easily be a cipher for the Apostle Paul.

38:56 I love it man. Now because there are so many, i'm curious do you have a favorite sect or group that you find most interesting or unique? The Cathars the Sethians... It would have to be the Sethians. To me always call the Sethians which I borrowed from a friend, I call them the punk rockers of the ancient time because they were really the you might say at least when you read this there are really surly and existentialist and pretty hardcore. Some other scriptures not just sci-fi but it did they border on pornographic and they were the ones who basically made no excuses and made no compromises some of the other Gnostic sects including the Hermetics in the Valentinian sort of gave the Demiurge

39:38 a pass, he's misunderstood. He'll get there and so forth but the Sethians...there was nothing about it. He was evil this world was evil and everything had to go in we have to get the hell out of this earth then they're the ones who really promoted the myth of Sophia the myth of the archons and other things I really like the Sethians people always go well God man these guys are so negative and all that but for me i always thought that The sepia and some of the other hardcore not sticks with really the most positive message because. As you know somebody who's in recovery i myself from recovery i believe that it only when you realize how bad things are, that's when your action gonna start doing something about it

40:21 That's when you really get the joy in life. When I said, I am really at the bottom of a hole and I need to stop digging and start looking up to any light that is where I can really start doing things and thats when the true journey of joy starts And i think thats what the Sethians were doing They said look this whole place is complete darkness, complete hell It was manufactured nightmare they were living This bad software So we need to start looking for those little sparks of light. We need to look into the abyss until we find that little spark of light, those little cracks and we need to start climbing out of here and start waking up other people because unfortunately thats the life is I mean sometimes

41:04 people get excited because they want to change the world or help others but then oh my god i gotta get the new iphone oh my god there's something on tv it's only when we know how bad things are that will actually roll up our sleeves and for once all do that and I felt at the set the answer where that group in this order of inspire me whenever I feel again like well maybe I'll check my iPhone everything starts so bad, maybe just make the best of it in this universe and nature is fine like no you can't You can't let the foot off the pedal because if you do those dark guns will make you fall asleep. They will bury you in bureaucracy, they will find ways for you to become ignorant or part of this system because they don't sleep and their gonna get you at the end I mean that's how the game was and that's why i really like the sethians

41:52 Fair enough. Cheers to that and not to put any specific people on blast but what do you think about guys like David Icke or John Lash or Jay Widener these guys who talk about archons in the prison planet concept in conspiracy shows and almost, in some cases make it seem like there's some type of conscious connection between the top of the human power pyramid and potentially some ethereal capstone. I mean, how do you feel about the way Gnosticism is typically represented in conspiracy circles? Is there anything that you think needs correcting or smoothing out?"

42:29 I like i mean honestly i like their work i do like there again i like the thrust of how they're taking you said it starts with the humans and goes into metaphysical realms probably beyond i think they get that right, i liked to have the same sense of paranoia that the last text were accused because the last text they saw a conspiracy in every rock this are conspiracy in every institution they were just always sort of jumpy. So I do like that vibe. I do think they get a little literous at times, like David Icke? I don't think they're reptilians... Like I tell people it's like you can't really settle upon an image because you're sort of limiting yourself. I know that's hard to explain but there is a quote in the Gospel of Philip which is a Valentinian 2nd century Gnostic quote

43:21 And it goes, truth did not come into the world naked but it came in types and images. The world will not receive the truth in any other way." And to me, that's a very powerful passage because it also reminds me of Whitley Striever and his work like this last book with Jeffrey Kripal Supernatural and as other works where he goes around. He saying hey I never said these were aliens. I'm saying this is anotherness This is another form of intelligence that out there That is so beyond us that we basically It's going appear to us again how our culture

43:57 how our programming is, how these beings or this otherness is going to appear to us. And the Gnostics would certainly agree that you gotta go beyond the image into these unknown truths So and to me it always seems limited that you're gonna stop at aliens are you gonna stop at lizards and all that like I always tell people if you want simple answers then you're gonna live a simple life If you want certain answers you're gonna live a certain life but if you wanna go places where angel fears to tread, where your sanity is going to be challenged. Where these images are gonna shift but you can get past them and expand your conscience like ever before then that's what you gotta do but again a lot of these guys I think they're limiting but i do like their work the issue I have with John Lash I did like his book not in his image enjoyed this book alot

44:46 But as others have told me, I'm not a scholar but i have talked to Coptic scholars. I like to hang out with scholars so that I can learn. I've got alot to learn. They tell me that Lash does take a lot of liberties with his translations and he does his own translations And a lot of things end up just not jiving that well his benign view of the world as something that the Gnostics would have not accepted. They thought the world was suffering and there was divinity in this world, but as a whole the system was evil and meant to destroy you or at least it had its own agendas

45:22 So I think last sort of he, I think he drops the ball in that way. But other than that, I like again, I liked their vibe. I liked her thrusts. I liked their paranoia and I liked the fact that they keep the ball moving forward. Fair enough. And it is interesting some people are saying that they think the whole alien motif is a kind of cover for spiritual entities. That seems to be the more nuanced view in these circles then, then it was like say in the nineties Yeah i would say so too and I have had an extra terrestrial experience but again i draw from a with the street right don't try to settle in say this is from planet and these are the grades and these whites or anything like that. I tried to see what is going on inside me what's happening in my inner world and give this help me expand my consciousness and i'll just wait around for the next time

46:15 this other intelligence decides to download some information into my brain that will show up as images around me. But yeah, the alien is great but again it's not something we're gonna figure out and so you might as well continue on this wonderful journey of adventure I mean isn't that what they always say? That people who have alien abduction experiences become really good people they start helping others they start Their lives are completely transformed and they're not so much worried about being obsessed with finding the next alien encounter and so forth. So I think that's, that's the thrusts I would have. Yeah you know that is really interesting in it kind of touches on another question that i had for you which is um kind of a weird one I guess but what do you think about the idea? I've heard some people pushing that

47:08 Jesus wasn't ever a physical guy, but just a channeled entity. Because like you said those messages do kind of parallel what weird paranormal experiencers of today seem to say the message is I would definitely agree with that one. As people who listen to Aeon Bygnostic Radio know, and from my writings, I fall more into the mythicist camp with Echeria S., Robert Price, Joe Atwell and some of the others which I think Jesus is more of a myth—and I don't mean like a myth with a small M but a myth with a big M—a myth as in this you might say cosmic power, this great archetype

47:47 This sort of a yeah this great spiritual energy that we can use in different ways and the Gnostics since they were writing so many different versions of Jesus again it was like their fan fiction. It was he was like there Batman is liking this story's doing this that story he's doing that in this story he's teaching this became sorta there, their inner projection what they wanted to do so in that way I I don't see Jesus as a historical figure. It's not something, it's not my dogma and I don't really think much about it. I just try to look at the stories and find inspiration from these stories that I do so many other characters. You might say Atticus Finch or Tequila Macintyre never existed but thats much more inspirational character than most religious figures you'll find real or not So thats where the inspiration happens and I think thats were true power is

48:42 Hmm. Yeah, man I do find it really interesting the way they seem to play with the characters of the biblical story and there are some insightful lessons in texts like these but Like you mentioned, it's kind of similar to comic books or that kind of approach. That fan fiction approach and it... You know from your perspective as someone who has spent so much time in this It takes hours and hours and years and years To really digest these texts And become knowledgeable about these ancient sects Its a helluva rabbit hole I mean what value does it have to you? What do you think are the most important things you've gotten out of This epic study Really just these I guess forbidden Gospels in a way

49:25 Yeah, I mean uh...I think as April De Connick wrote the Gnostic gospels didn't become forbidden. They were forbidden from the very start they were something so radical and they're even radical today! For somebody to question the gods and representatives of the whole state of nature that's still pretty radical even in occult circles it makes people really uncomfortable like oh my god you're messing with Gaia and nature is so wonderful yeah okay yeah whatever But it was very radical and to me, again that sort of amazing rebellion is like when I was younger. I went through my hippie stage and sometimes I think well maybe Jan Irving in a J Dyer right this is completely manufactured because the hippies they just sold out and became lawyers and politicians and the people that are causing the trouble today

50:18 And I was the same way. I was younger and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna listen to Megadeth and rage against the machine and fight the power man is it's almost like as soon as I got out of college and got married, I just went into nine-to-five job pay my bills vote all its like what happened to me? How does that happen? It seems to happen every why is it so easy for people to sell out in this world? Why did I sell out? Why did my uncle and my aunt the hippie sellout so quickly and everybody's miserable When i discovered the gnostics i said this takes it even further this is even more radical and all the radical teachings i heard from the east

50:57 from philosophers from writers this is the most radical thing in the world we live in a false world we don't belong in this world we are being completely controlled by these higher entities that, no chance of defeating but in a way we are far superior to them there's part of us they can wake up and become even more supreme than them and really help out those that are needed So the Gnostics being so radical, extremely radical really helped me sort of get that thrust. And again people say well it's so negative but when you read their texts beyond what I said about self-knowledge there is an amazing joy that i'd never seen before because again they had woken up and seeing the truth of the world and now they really wanted to do something about it and they have taken the red pill then there was no blue pill and they were going to move forward in taking

51:50 all the way. There was no getting there, like I mentioned that would take these flights inside and outside to all these cosmic region to these levels in like a video game fight a bigger boss each time a stronger boss and they were just going to keep going until well until the game ended and usually the game ended with them being destroyed their physical part being destroyed but as a narrative i really find it amazingly heroic i find it amazingly compassionate I find it amazingly stimulating because they were such people of reason and kindness. They really did walk the walk when you read stories of the Cathars or Manichaeans,

52:31 The classic Gnostics, they were always despite their really heavy handed message. Their existentialist message They were really beloved by their communities They were embraced by people People really liked them! But people that didn't like them where the religious and secular powers around Eventually they had to go And I think the other thing that the Gnostics at least touched with me Was I think their central tenant was beyond anything? Beyond anything that wanted in this world is that they wanted freedom. They wanted complete and adulterated freedom

53:09 They thought, like for example when you read the existentialists like Sartre and those guys. They always thought the whole purpose of being a human was to be free but after that there was no meaning to the universe this was a dark universe had no meaning being free with as good as you got in that was a worthy fight The Gnostics took it one step, they were sort of the positive existentialist that you find in Colin Wilson and some other thinkers. They believe no! The ultimate state for human is to be free and then to find meaning in this world because its a busy universe with a lot of spiritual entities and amazing places to go I'd like to quote Eric Davis

53:54 He's a Philip K. Dick scholar and in his book Nomad Codes, he has this great quote which I always think exemplifies what the Gnostics have taught me and it goes, quote, ìIíd like to suggest instead that the impulse to transcend the Neoplatonists ascent through the spheres, the Gnostic sudden awakening, the desert monks rejection of the ëlan vitalí is not simply a philosophical error of the mark of patriarchy, but is fired by an intensely lucid yearning for the highest goals—liberation." And I think that's what the Gnostics wanted. And what I want. What we always want! We just wanna be free!

54:39 I'm sure a lot of credit needs to go to The Matrix, but Gnosticism seems to be just a really popular perspective today overall. And we did talk about that a little bit but as we're kind of wrapping this thing up why do you think that is? That it's so appealing today as it was the beginning of recorded history Well i mean yeah did mention the allegory of the cave but i think it's because again we do live in austin times and is such an engaging narrative i mean humanity has tried everything in this idea of going through different bosses. and fighting your way up to an ultimate source, which again what's the Gnostic promise like I told you complete in a unadulterated freedom at any cost because we've realized there probably is no freedom in normative mainstream ways. So I think these ideas really

55:32 J well and of course the gnostics had this sort of alien or sci-fi sensibility because they almost like their arkans are almost like lovecraftian foes in there talking about these. Giant or these eight days vast cosmic landscape universes of light and so forth, Jesus and other of their exemplars are sort of shapeshifting and have superpowers. You have some stories where Jesus is moving the zodiac and he's shifting into different creatures He's almost like a superhero same with Sophia and Mary Magdalene So this kind of narrative which was ahead of its time and it seems to caught up really jives well with science fiction fantasy which are the great myths over our time

56:17 So it really works well and again like i said these are not the times of the matrix is a great example but some have said that what else can you siblings. basically borrowed this from either from grant morrison's the invisibles which i highly recommend it's one of my favorite comic books or graphic novels and he really goes full nosis but you see a lot of the matrix in there and even before that you've got philip k dick philip k dick was very influenced by the gnostics infact in his exegesis which was published a few years ago He did what does he say says i am so into narcissism i can't back out basically philip k digga taking that red pill and he was going to some he was into some high weirdness.

57:02 He ends up saying that in this sort of despair that i'm too far into narcissism to back out he says at the end of the paragraph he says guess what simon may just lives and thats a very powerful statement and of course philip k diggs or paranoia existentialist speculative fiction has become very popular today and many ways As Michael Moorcock said, we do live in a Philip K. Dick world because it seems as we were talking Trump and Deep State and Pizzagate all that could come out of a Philip K. Dick novel he was writing that stuff almost as a prophecy you know 50-60 years ago and it seems to be more relevant than ever And again going back to Simon Magus I should mention this

57:47 When you publish is red book a few years ago which kind of coincided with philip k dicks exegesis these two post humans works that were sort of the private notes of these two giants. In the red book, do you have a traveler companion to take some through all the different worlds again that's not a shamanistic voyage and his name is Philemon, but there is a note at the end of the book where Jung admits that Philemon is really Simon Magus. So in a way, I think Simon Megas has returned. And we do live in very Gnostic times and it does translate very well into stories. I was thinking of the flat Earth when I'm seeing all this flat theory and I'm thinking of that movie Dark City Have you ever seen it? It seems like right out of it The moon is fake the stars are fake and were sort of this dark Flat planet with these creatures playing with us all the time.

58:43 Boom, Gnostic times indeed. Miguel O'Connor going deep for sure! Let's give the listeners some resources of course we have your work and your synthesis maybe give the people a few of your favorite gnostic scholars or teachers and of course remind people where they can find your show and get more what you got going on certainly certainly Go to my website that's where it starts TheGodAboveGod.com And there you'll find all my resources, you'll find various books including my fiction books. Social media and articles and of course you can subscribe to my podcast Aeon Bygnostic Radio

59:22 And I have listing and resources all there to start your own heretical journey if you so choose to take the red pill. As far as what's out there, I'd say if you want to really understand Gnosticism, I do like April De Connick's new book The Gnostic New Age although there are a lot of good works. Again, I would say read Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, read Philip K Dick's Valis, watch The Matrix, watch The Truman Show Snowpiercer, the Lego movie. Yeah watch Westworld there is a lot out there I mean I think at the end of the day The best thing you do is you need to start writing your story You need to start what did Stefan Heller he's a Gnostic theologian but he's also scholar says any serious artist has already half a gnostic Huh? I think as an artist once you start digging into reality once you start going in that journey inward

1:00:17 and you start playing with reality through your art, in your expression and your invention. You're going to start hitting some Gnostic notes sooner or later the question is how far do you want to take it? At the end of the day its simple Do you want to be free or do you want to be where you are now A slave what does Neo say? You are a slave trapped into prison that you cannot touch or taste or smell a prison of your own mind Touche. Not much of a choice when you put it that way, but awesome man I am really happy we got to do this you're doing some great work! I do get those very icky feelings about orthodoxy and conventional religion but Gnosticism seems to be that spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down and I appreciate it more and more thanks again man take care yourself out there

1:01:05 Thank you greg your doing great work to and i really appreciate it rock on. Fucking a rock on indeed thanks all right people were you not entertained miguel connor the true pope of gnostic podcasting so glad we were able to do this i feel like we really did get a crash course in gnostic scholarship and that's pretty cool right Obviously no one can say they're an expert just listening to this but maybe we do have a little higher level understanding than we did previously. Miguel is just a fun guy anyway so I am glad that i'm getting another good podcaster in the alternative space and his other voices of Gnosticism book is definitely pretty good too

1:01:52 I know when i had talked to Isaac Weishaupt in the Star Wars show, he had said that he was a Christian and I made some comments about Gnostics and certain elements of magic. And how it did seem to apply to a lot of people who considered themselves Christian so rather than the perspective that magic is not something Christians should play with It's actually a restoration of the very roots of your faith perhaps, what do I know? But people wrote me and they were like, What the fuck were you getting so high and mighty about Christians for. And honestly we had just recorded this show and it was fresh in my mind and i was just saying

1:02:33 But I think some of the Gnostic ideas and attitudes that we talked about could probably apply to a lot of us. And it's cool just to know more about groups that were a problem for the authorities of the past, and we shouldn't let them fade into obscurity We should know about those people right? The kind of people you have to want to learn about because they're not making a Netflix series or Broadway musical about him anytime soon Although that would be pretty sick But my point is it's cool to have episodes that I feel make us all a bit more educated on an alternative topic, a little more deeply even if it doesn't relate directly to how we're being fucked. Is that fair? A good non-partisan anti-partisan even episode for very polarizing times look to the Gnostics people! So if you liked the first hour today

1:03:28 You know you'll learn a lot more in the second. Sign up for The Higher Side Chats Plus at thehighersidechatsplus.com and get the second hour of all these here Higher Side Chats episodes. In this particular one, we talked about Gnostic influence on Crowley and Thelema, the occult belief systems of The Elite and how better to describe them, The Elite's use of magic, The witches, Coven that put the binding spell on Trump. We almost made it through a whole episode without talking about Trump but what fun is that really? We also talked about the history of manipulation and suppression of various Gnostic groups, and looking at the most remote cultures for a glimpse into uncorrupted traditions. Talked about Buddhism and the Dalai Lama dilemma, portals overlooked characters in stories in Gnostic narratives, and of course HBO's Gnostic tale that is Westworld

1:04:26 Positive news i can say im getting caught back up now several good shows in the can two more great episodes coming out for the end of the month. I'll see you then. Do check out the t-shirts at thehiresideclothing.com or you can get there by clicking shop on the typical Hireside Chats website, but there is a great lion headed snake Archon control design that i think people would be really into if you like this show and all of the designs at The Hireside Clothing of course are as deep and rich as Miguel's voice, if that were even possible. The guy is officially an adult man I am working on it And that's why i gotta get out of here! I will see you soon Check out Aeonbyte Gnostic Radio If you want to dig deeper into my Man Miguel Show Keep your pimp hands strong people Your move archonic overlords mind parasites of the elite and suppressors of the path of true gnostic spiritual alchemy

1:05:25 Your. Fucking. Move. Oh no, you see The world isn't random it's attached to puppet strings Control over everything A nine-to-five is trying to steal ya Now don't that job seem silly? Hello Can you hear me Or should I play back

1:06:01 From some spying agency Wish we were younger and free I'll be thankful when it's all exposed The vast conspiracy There is such a difference Between Nina And the Denver girl Hello from the higher side They're calling out a thousand times. They'll tell you the story of everything that's been done, and they'll call out deception from the web that's been spawned

1:06:53 Hollow from the highest high The earth is hollow inside They'll tell you about something that no one else will Have you heard about Saturn? Have you heard about the Ville since the war broke? Oh, No They're cartoons That's so typical of me To talk about the stuff I'm sorry that's good and well Did you ever hear the argument? That nothing really happens It's no secret And that the best is plugged It's doubling your time

1:07:59 Hello from the higher side They're calling out a thousand cries Now tell me something the elite have done And they'll call out deception on the web that's been spawned Hello from the higher side Challenging your paradise I'm gonna tell you something that the battle's begun But we can't fight it with violence The mind where is one has the world Who has the world? Has the world? Who?

1:09:12 Hello from the higher side They're calling out a thousand times They'll tell you something the elite have done And they'll call out deception of the web that's been spawned Hello from the higher side I'm challenging your paradigm And i'll tell you someday that the battle's begun But we can't fight it with violence The mind's where it's won, that's the problem