J2020

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When you make the two one,
and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside,
and the above like the below,
and when you make the male and the female one and the same,
so that the male not be male nor the female female;
and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye,
and a hand in place of a hand,
and a foot in place of a foot,
and a likeness in place of a likeness;
then will you enter the kingdom.

PHILO
CINE
SOPHIA

Peaces of Sophia

The First Repentance:

from the Pistis Sophia (faith wisdom)

"O Light of lights, in whom I have had faith from the beginning,
hearken now then, O Light, unto my repentance.
Save me, O Light, for evil thoughts have entered into me.

I gazed, O Light, into the lower parts and saw there a light. thinking:
I will go to that region, in order that I may take that light.
And I went and found myself in the darkness which is in the chaos below, and I could no more speed thence and go to my region, for I was sore pressed by all the emanations of Self-willed, and the lion-faced power took away my light in me."

"My power looked forth from the midst of the chaos and from the midst of the darkness, and I waited for my pair, that he should come and fight for me, and he came not, and I looked that he should come and lend me power, and I found him not.

And when I sought the light, they gave me darkness; and when I sought my power, they gave me matter."

Ah. Life.

It's so fucking hard.

I found ways to embrace a strand of light that twisted itself around to accommodate collapses in my spine. Accommodations made for the needs of others nearly destroyed me over and over again.

Still alive, I sought ways to cope. Peace rather than punishment was my quarry. I immersed myself in wisdom seeking the silence that only peace can bring.

A voice answered outside of my reverie,

as I reflected on my pangs of want and the road that did not open to meet them.

“We cannot always have what we want.”

“Do you think I wanted to be silent for 1600 years? Do you think I wanted my name to be used to justify cruelty? You have what you need, so heal and help me.”

I thought maybe he would have left me for good. Our father, who arts a heaven, the builder of the world, a kingdom. A lowly daughter returned to be with her family. Our father.

God Told Me To had started 13 hours away.

Skip to PhiloCineSophia - Sexual Metaphysics (January 2020) here:

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“The way of ascent is the way of descent.” The Three Steles of Seth

Glossary of terms, characters, and concepts

GNOSIS

belladonna-crossburned

Acquaintance with God
In contrast to Agnosis (ignorance of God)
Gnostics support their belief in divinity by claiming direct experience with it.

God, for the Gnostic, is a “replication of characters at different levels of reality" which "plays out the gnostic concept of emanation, the process by which the single ultimate principle of all being, the Invisible Spirit, unfolds into an Entirety that consists of multiple aeons and yet is simultaneously nothing more than the Invisible Spirit itself." (Brakke, 203) The Gnostic believes in the existence of God as a direct result of their own knowledge/understanding/experience.

"The gap between self and not-self may provide the space in which knowledge of self and other, gnosis, may take place.” (Brakke, 196)

“Moreover, some gnostic works invite their readers or hearers to add their voices or, better, to participate in the work’s pseudonymity by giving voice to speakers within the work.” (Brakke, 197)

KNOWLEDGE (Greek)

EPISTEME - derivative knowledge, knowledge by way of reason/measurement
GNOSIS - familiar knowledge, knowledge by way of personal experience

There are three Greek words for knowledge. In English, as in the academic study of philosophy, knowledge is generally attributed to epistemological pursuits (episteme).

This mirrors current conceptions of useful, functional, utility, technically-based knowledge (STEM) with almost any other possible form of knowledge. This would be characteristic of a rationalist position.

Practitioners of "hard" knowledge generally ally themselves with a static and unaffected observer, and simultanously depend on a sharp division, inherited in the Western philosophical tradition (wisdom) and by its creation (science), between subject/object, subjective/objective, and observer/observed.

Gnosis, on the other hand, requires not unaffected objectivity but rather deeply held personal experience that is accessible via a unifying principle between self and other.

GNOSTICISM

His Dark Materials - S01E01Scholastic Sanctuary is a tenuous ideological freedom offered by the authoritarian religious institution, the Magisterium, that rules the world of His Dark Materials. Illegitimate Lyra is raised, therefore, at Oxford.

Influences include Platonism/NeoPlatonism/Hellenistic thought, Jewish mystical tradition, Christian mysticism, and Hermetic philosophy.

Religious and philosophical movement, broad in scope, generally practiced between the beginnings of the Common Era and 400 CE. Born from a hybridization of many strains of thought present in the cosmopolitan "cradle of civilization" - Upper Egypt, Sumeria, Greece, Syria, throughout the Roman empire and beyond.

For centuries, heresiologists were the primary source material for what was known of the lost Gnostic religion. This changed beginning in the 1770's with the discovery of the Askew codex containing the Pistis Sophia, and later discoveries in Upper Egypt in the 1890's.

The trickled stream of primary Gnostic sources spilled like a broken dam with the discovery of 13 Gnostic codices (books) in Nag Hammadi, near Alexandria, Egypt, months after the bomb was first dropped in 1945.

SOPHIA
(our quarry)

The concept of Wisdom personified, frequently appearing in Gnostic literature.

Sophia is the 13th and final "emanation" of the divine

The divine, full and complete and totally unified, exists and does not exist. It is a concept well beyond mortal fathoms.

This concept, as a monad, is essentially androgynous.

In an effort to Know the Highest reality, she makes the mistake that causes the creation of the world by way of Ialdabaoth., seeking to Know without the consent of her syzygy (consort, balance, equal; masculine principle).

"But all the material emanations of Self-willed surrounded her, and the great lion-faced light-power
devoured all the light-powers in Sophia and cleaned out her light and devoured it,
and her matter was thrust into the chaos; it became a lion-faced ruler in the chaos,
of which one half is fire and the other darkness,--that is Yaldabaōth,
of whom I have spoken unto you many times." (Chapter 31)

IALDABAOTH/YALDABAOTH

HDM_29_FuryTenacious

Characterized as the Demiurge; literally, builder. An ignorant, false, but nonetheless "real" GOD. In the literature, His form is lion-faced with the body of a serpent.

God of the Old Testament (Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, etc).

Creator of a flawed world, his narcissism derives from ignorance - of Sophia, the Aeons, the Pleroma/Heaven, etc.. His ego and its various manifestations are sourced by his insecurity. "Thou shalt have no other gods" assumes the possibility of the existence of something outside itself, possibly betraying a fear of his creation's potential to surpass him.

This concept made the Gnostics especially susceptible to ire from their critics.

SYZYGY

Balancing Aeons. Syzygys are generally archetypical powers that are formed by two halves of a complete concept uniting into an entire principle.

In some Gnostic circles, Y'Shua/Jesus of Nazareth/the God-son is the syzygy of Sophia. Gross, right? That's like...his grandmother.

But it doesn't quite work that way, since for the Gnostic and according to the words of the man here described, he ascended beyond the realm of the Archons and Aeons, beyond the creations of Ialdabaoth, and raised Sophia from her state of oppression.

This would be representative of the syzygy of Logos and Wisdom.

P - bed P - bed

AEONS/ARCHONS/EMANATIONS

12 powers (plus Sophia, the thirteenth) that characterize the divisions created after the monadic principle first divided itself.

Possibly related to other 12-point iterations, specifically those relevant to measurements of time and space. 12 months, 12 signs in the Western zodiac, 12 attributed disciples of the Logos/Jesus, 12 inches in a foot...

belladonna-crucifix

SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

The ability of consciousness not to consider all information presented as either fact or fiction. A removal of skeptical functions. Useful when watching movies, unfortunate when dealing with Archons, Aeons, and associated representatives.

Gnosticism & Nuclearity - the hole truth (gnosis series)

Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of heaven.
For nothing hidden will not become manifest,
and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.

Logion 6, Gospel of Thomas, Lambdin translation

I had not created myself, but I certainly had chosen my heresy over the comfort of tradition. Heresy that spoke to me of a radical freedom.

He couldn’t know just how dearly I’d desired to throw it all away to have a consort I wanted in this world.

To submit to the Father-power.

But that wasn't the hole story. Because while there was a whole world of intention that was very much material, it corresponded with deep desires for metaphysical connection.

(laughs)

Free, I finally had the tools to question the will and wisdom of the Father calmly, without pathos, with concerns about consciousness and care that pushed Our Father past his extant limits.

Gnosis-series-Christian-Weakness GNOSIS series - Christian WeaknessRips in clothing reflect rips in consciousness as the Feminine struggles for recognition in the Divine

It’s so easy to see ourselves as villains or as victims. We are both. With your feet on the ground, can you feel it rise up to meet you?

In the latter half of December 2019 and January of 2020 I experienced an onslaught of dynamic and tumultuous events.

A final division between myself and my father.

After many years of trying to repair our relationship, which fractured violently after my mom died, I calmly told my dad at the end of a 13 hour drive that I was unwilling to settle for the continued degree of contempt for my emotional wellbeing he had exhibited in the years following her demise.

“Fuck you. Fuck You. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT!”

belladonna-thedevil

I've been so deferential.

Second, "nature took its course" with regard to both my understanding of God and my understanding of myself in relation to Father, God, and - well, Him.

Disregard.

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In This Issue:

Television Renaissance

HIS DARK MATERIALS (HBO, 2019)

THE OUTSIDER (HBO, 2020)

Contemporary:

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (dir. Abrams, 2019)

Repertory:

Alamo Drafthouse Raleigh, Cinema Overdrive, MovieDiva, Carolina Theatre of Durham, Retro Film Series, AnimeMagic

POSSESSED (dir. Brown, 1931. MGM)

PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD (dir. Schatzberg, 1970)

BELLADONNA OF SADNESS (dir. Yamamoto, 1973)

HOUSE (dir. Obayashi, 1977

His Dark Materials (heretical texts and intuitive knowledge)

HDM_22_BLASPHEMY

My Spectacles: The Spectres of Heresy

P - train

House (1977) @ my house

The rationalistic West vs the emotive East and one's need for a husband

As some of you may already know, home is not a static concept for me. It has had to change and morph and become its own, abstract concept to which I usually ascribed close relationships. Daddy was in the Coast Guard, so we went where the work took him. This ultimately contributed to my mother's tenuous health situation (stress caused her Multiple Sclerosis to progress more rapidly) and kept me from ever feeling like I fully belonged - well, just about anywhere. What's more fundamental to that state of belonging than a feeling of being home somewhere? That's not a rhetorical question. If you have a better answer I'd be curious to know:

What makes you feel like you belong? What makes you feel as if you're exactly where you're meant to be? Do you feel a sense of home somewhere? What's it like?

I entered in into the thirteenth æon and found Pistis Sophia below the thirteenth æon all alone and no one of them with her.

And she sat in that region grieving and mourning, because she had not been admitted into the thirteenth æon, her higher region.

And she was moreover grieving because of the torments which Self-willed, who is one of the three triple-powers, had inflicted on her.

But this,--when I shall come to speak with you respecting their expansion, I will tell you the mystery, how this befell her. (Chapter 29)

Rise of Skywalker not playing by the rules of the Star Wars game. This is what I learned from my Star Wars nerd friends who deigned to give me their perspective, thorough as it was. For obsessives of the franchise, I don't recommend it based on their account.

For my part, I loved it.

My ardor comes specifically from the continuation of the Rey/Ren dynamic established in the earlier Last Jedi. It's fair for the pharisees and scribes tasked with preserving the nostalgia of earlier Star Wars generations to object. For my part, the dynamic illustrated in extremes of the force, dark and light, can't help but tease my historical preference for impossible romances.

She must prove her worth. He has given up on meaning and goodness. Despite the connections between their minds, each seeks submission of the Other by way of a light vs dark compromise. She wants Ren/Ben to realize his latent Jedi potentials; He wants to destroy everything, except the tangible power that he could gain from her acquiescence.

It takes His end before He can see the Truth.

The core of the conflict light vs dark is redemptive and a hopeful fantasy for every woman who thought she was dealing with someone who hadn't fully resigned himself to the dark and to lies about his own origins and natures. And lucky for me, a happy? ending!

Am I My Own Shadow Or Did Something Else Create Me?Where does the light come from? How can it be real when it decides to express itself based on our own devices for measure?

"When then this befell, Sophia became very greatly exhausted, and that lion-faced light-power set to work to take away from Sophia all her light-powers, and all the material powers of Self-willed surrounded Sophia at the same time and pressed her sore." (Chapter 31)

p - held

We should find it curious that, with the passage of time, the depiction becomes less and less sympathetic to a happy ending for our Sophia.
('31, '70, '73)

In Possessed, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, and Belladonna of Sadness, the feminine heroine, Sophia's representative, struggles through the trauma of divestment from what is good, heavenly, God, confronts the mistakes of her creation, and appeals to the audience's capacity for wisdom, compassion, and gnosis. Her investment in each case is how the realities or truths of the world have weighed on her, and charts her response to the unforgiving, static nature of sovereignty in the world in which she finds herself.

Whether the Authority is class and status, purity and the church, or power and sensuality, she pursues gnosis as a way of escaping the laws established to keep her "in her place" with mixed results. belladonna-yoursoulwasscreaming

PUZZLE-Mirror

Puzzling individuals lie within Puzzle of a Downfall Child

Kept Woman: Possessed
P - publicity		p - vignette

Masculine vs Feminine, Reason vs Emotion: Belladonna of Sadness

belladonna_lightreach

Parasites live inside us; sometimes we share their values. We become a thing that only knows how to take, refusing to confer benefits to those which are host to us. The complexities of mind make it so that, unlike other animals, we have the preoccupation of being a thing that knows that it knows. This is our blessing and our curse. We can choose to see ourselves in this complexity, to see when we reflect values that we haven’t chosen. Self-consciousness is the unique contribution of the human species to this planet. Even love we can see in other species. Everything else is a shared commodity.

In the zeitgeist, there are many transcendent values that come through despite our attempts to silence their challenge with derision. Though millennia have come and gone under the thumb of dualisms that split mind from matter, body from soul, subjective from objective. These comforts to the dignity of the ego cannot withstand the whispers growing louder that perhaps all of life is conscious and gives form to our own. Truth itself has been suppressed. The world sold to us by villains and victims alike may not be all that it seems. The ego, the self, sets us apart. And from nature, so, too, we have divorced ourselves, and so splintered we float along in digital wastelands hoping that someone or something can host our wounded spirits and repair our splintered souls.

Expertise is not the only legitimate form that truth will take. Expression is paramount. It can be helpful to seek the perspective of specialists in this or that occupation, but it can’t be the whole story. To account for the whole of life and its meaning, we must look within. Individualized in the digital sphere, it overwhelms with the volume of needs and thoughts and feelings. Archetypes dwell where truth is held compassionately, with bravery. Difference, the distance, the separation, is all illusory. So I will remember beautiful moments, where the spirit shone through the eyes and the weight lifted in the form of genuine smiles and embraces, and leave it at that. Because I do not have time for lies.