What is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism may be one of the oldest conspiracy theories in human civilization - but what is it, exactly? Join Ben, Matt, Noel and special guest Joe McCormick as they take a closer look at Gnostic mysteries, myth and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,

(00:21):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. I am Ben. You are you? And
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. However,
ladies and gentlemen, this is a very special episode of
the show because we are honored to have a returning
special guests. Uh close friend of ours on close friend

(00:41):
of the show, writer and host for How Stuff Works,
stuff to blow your mind, forward thinking brain stuff. I
could go on, but I won't in the interests of time,
ladies and gentlemen. Joe McCormick, Hey, everybody, it is fun
to be back. I think the last time I was
on this show we were talking about shills on the internet. Oh, yes,
we got we got deep on that subject. We shot

(01:03):
some fun things for video. If you have not seen
that video, check it out please. And that's one of
that that's one of the podcasts that we really enjoyed
making two and it got a lot of feedback. Uh, guys,
you were likely largely from sock puppets we hope so
that one person making a lot of email accounts. Yeah,

(01:24):
that's one where we were all four of us were
accused routinely for several months and sometimes still in the
common thread of being uh, anti Russian spies or something.
I can't remember. The conspiracy and the threat that was
very strange. I didn't mean to promote any anti Russian message,
but I think some people were sensitive about that. Yeah.

(01:46):
And you know, the thing that we have to deal
with when we delve into those kinds of topics is
that it may appear that we are looking at one
case obsessively, or that we are somehow seeing ling out
one country organization. But it goes back to the sources
we can find, right just talking about the thing we

(02:08):
know the most about. Yeah, and it it sure did appear. Look,
I'm not saying that Russia was doing a terrible job,
but it was way easier to find examples of their
sock puppetry than many other places. Uh. And speaking of
fantastic segues, let's get to uh, let's get to something
that that is fascinating and a little bit of background

(02:29):
for everybody. Okay, So, in the past, listeners, you have
asked Matt and Nolan. I a question that haunts me still.
What is the world's oldest conspiracy theory? You may you
may notice on our videos in the intros, at least
the older intros, you see something that says it starts here.
And we've we've wanted to know where does it start? Right? Where? When? What? Why? How?

(02:54):
All of the all of the big journalistic questions. And
it's a game that we have played for years now.
It's a rough game because, as you're going to see
quite quickly past a certain point, ancient history is Um,
I'm not gonna curse on the show, so I'll say
it's a freaking roar shack. People see what they want
to see in it. They draw what is convenient to them.

(03:16):
There are people phantom history enthusiasts, for instance, who believe
that we are still in the Medieval or Middle Ages.
Uh wait, what what's the argument there? Oh? Is that
the is that the missing era theory where they believe
there are a couple of hundred years that didn't actually happen.
Charlemagne's made up. Uh interesting, Yeah, We we did have
a video on it, and I think we did an

(03:38):
audio episode on it. If we haven't, we should, we will,
or maybe that was just in the missing years so
we got to something different. It's not it's probably not
the oldest or the first conspiracy theory. Well, according to
its adherents, it may well be. We're talking about one

(03:58):
of the oldest stay conspiracy theories in Western history, and
it's one that cast out not just like on one
aspect of the world right, but on the entirety of
reality itself. We're talking about a war for the soul
of Christianity, a war for the fate of human beings,
a war for reality. Uh. The line we use in

(04:20):
the video is a cosmic cover up leading to things
that literally literally cannot be imagined. So we're talking about gnosticism. Uh.
This is a topic I've wanted to talk about on
a podcast for a long time, and I hope I
get to revisit it eventually, because unfortunately it is one
of those subjects that is so fascinating and so rich.

(04:42):
I'm sorry to say this, but we will not be
able to talk about everything that's interesting to talk about.
We're we're barely going to be able to scratch the
surface today. But we want to give you a little
bit of a flavor of what gnosticism is, how it
was lost to history and then partially regained, what we
can know about it, why it's so mysterious, and why

(05:02):
it proposes such a mysterious view of our place in
the cosmos. And one of the most interesting facts about
this mystery, as you alluded to, is the fact that
it sort of is a conspiracy theory. It is a
cosmic conspiracy theory about the role of creation of human
beings of the gods, and how it's all a vast

(05:24):
cover up. Yeah, and the encounter with the divine. Now,
as we do in any episode that touches on religion,
we want to have a little bit of a of
a disclaimer, right, Uh, yeah, I would say that for
my part here, we're not here to evaluate the I
don't know theological merits of one religion versus another we

(05:47):
or anything like that. We just want to talk about
the history, what people believed in the past, where these
ideas came from, and how they played into ancient societies
and still do today. And they're a very strange stories
of early Christianity. Personally, I am personally, I'm a little

(06:09):
bit I'm a little bit bummed that We're not going
to be able to cover some of the other offshoots
or sects, but this is a big one. This is
one of the um more mysterious and influential, and we
can always come back to. Uh, we can always come
back to other some of my other favorite offshoots. Okay,
So can I put you guys in a scenario? Yeah,

(06:30):
perfect for y'all game. Okay, So I want to I
want to take you back into the past and have
you imagined that you are a Christian living somewhere in
the Roman Empire about the year one eight? You know
you specifically imagining. Okay, So maybe you're in Gaul, you're
up in France, and and you're part of a small

(06:50):
Christian community in a town that meets regularly, and you
do the Christian rituals. You celebrate the Lord's Supper, you
practice baptisms, you worship Jesus Christ, and you believe Jesus
Christ to be the one true savior of humankind. So
what's your life like? One thing I would say is
that the pagan locals probably don't like you a whole lot.

(07:10):
They spread lies about your beliefs and religious practices. For example,
they might say that you guys practice incestual orgies and
feast on the flesh of sacrificed infants. That's not true,
but that's what they say about you. When disasters happen.
Sometimes people blame you and call you atheists because you
won't sacrifice to the pagan gods of Rome or to
the Roman emperor to keep everything in order. You're not

(07:33):
carrying your weight, right, Yeah, you're not doing your job
as a citizen of this empire, or I guess you
probably wouldn't whether or not your citizens. You're not doing
your job as somebody living in in uh, in this
community to keep the gods happy and keep us out
of harm's way. But otherwise things probably aren't too bad
unless you're living during one of the few periods of
sporadic persecution. So one day, after a good sermon in

(07:57):
your church, there's there's one member of your kind, bgregation
who comes up to you and says, uh, hey, buddy,
did you like that sermon today about the resurrection and
you know, immortality and all that. Yeah, that was pretty good. Well,
maybe you should join my private study group. We can
we can learn more about the true knowledge of God.

(08:19):
So no, you're gonna You're gonna follow this guy to
his Bible study group, and it meets at his house.
And at first everything sounds pretty normal. You know, they're
talking about the same kind of stuff you're hearing about
in church. They're talking about salvation and knowledge of God
and eternal life. But over time you start hearing maybe
some weirder concepts that maybe aren't quite so familiar from

(08:40):
what you're used to at church, Like how the creation
story you've always been told in the Book of Genesis
is really just a cover story, and that Noah's flood
was a false flag operation, and that, of course Judas
is really a misunderstood hero, not the betrayer of Christ. Wait, wait, wait, wait,
I want to interject real quick. Who are these guys? Well,

(09:02):
it sounds to me like nol you have encountered some
adherents of the Gnostic school of thought. I'm intrigued. Tell
me more. Well, the Gnostics were a group of early Christians,
and and the Gnostic way of thinking, we do believe
extends beyond Christianity, so they were there were probably Gnostics
who weren't exactly Christians, like there might have been hermetic

(09:24):
Gnostic traditions that had to do with some version of
the God Hermes. But there was nastic Christianity, and so
when people talk about gnosticism, most of the time what
they're talking about is Nastic Christianity. And it was a
system of beliefs within early Christianity that uh, that was
eventually not the dominant one, uh, the strain of thinking

(09:47):
that eventually became the dominant one in early Christianity and
then turned into the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church and
subsequently also the Protestant Church since that broke away from
the Catholic Church, is often referred to by scholars as
proto Orthodox. So in a very loose way, this just
means something like Catholics before there was a Catholic Church. Um. Though,

(10:10):
if if you get all the way into the muddy
waters of early Christian history, that's not exactly That is
not an unproblematic concept. People have challenged the validity of
the idea of a proto Orthodox Church, but I think
it's it's okay enough for our purposes today. And we
read we read a fantastic book and a great course.

(10:30):
Coincidentally that that's the name of the series, but it
is also a great course I'm gonna be honest, I
haven't finished the book yet, but I like what I've read,
and I did check out the Great course. So we
have we have some quotations from an author that I
don't know. I think we're both fans of. Yeah. Yeah,
this guy was my main source on gnosticism. Uh, and

(10:51):
he's He is an Ohio State University history professor History
of Christianity professor named David Brackie, and Bracki said as
this in his book on the Gnostics, he says, most
scholars agreed that there was no single church in the
first and second centuries, but a multitude of competing groups,
one of which began to emerge in the third centuries.

(11:14):
So that be the two hundreds as the dominant one,
and so can be called proto orthodoxy. So these are
the guys who eventually become the major dominant players, and
they are contrasted with what we would think of as
as the heresies, basically the early systems of thought in
Christianity that did not become the winners in the battle

(11:38):
of ideas. Yes, I have I have a great idea
for this one comparison. Okay, everybody, So the more we
learn about the evolution of man. The more we're learning
that it was not a single linear thing, right, that
there were other close like versions of people of humanity.
So that's how we find that there is d N

(11:58):
a uh Neanderthal Denisovan DNA in modern humanity today. So
les competing um, these competing types I don't want to
say brands, but competing types of early man still ended
up with us today in a kind of uh. I

(12:20):
mean d N a reproduction is already kind of a
religious syncretism or similar to it. Right, So this this
analogy for um for people who maybe are not too
familiar with the early days of religion, that's a good
way to look at it. Is that fair? Do you think? Yeah?
I think that's a really good one in that I think,
based on what I've read, the most uh, the most

(12:42):
accurate way to look at the development of of Theology
and Christianity are really probably any religion, but especially in
Christianity based on what we know is that it's not
a unity into diversity system, and it's not a diversity
into unity system, but it's a diverse into diversity system.
There are lots of competing ideas and they get uh,

(13:06):
sort of go through recombination over the years into various
different strains. But you start with diversity and then you
end with diversity. So where did gnosticism come from? Well,
that's a difficult question to answer because we don't know
exactly where or when it came from. Was it a
variation that emerged from early Christianity? So did you have

(13:28):
Christians who started taking on ideas other ideas from the culture,
maybe from neo Platonism, which is the thing we can
talk about in a little bit, Uh, and and turn
into gnostics. Or did it originally come from Judaism. Was
there a kind of Jewish gnosticism that became Christian gnosticism,
or did it come from paganism and secular philosophy and

(13:51):
then incorporate Christian ideas. Uh. We don't really know the
answer to that question because we don't know when or
where it first showed up. There's some guesses, like some
people think maybe nasticism started in the city of Alexandria
in Egypt, but they're all just kind of circumstantial guesses.
We don't really know. One thing we can do, however,

(14:11):
is disprove some earlier theories, because before a very very
important point in comparatively recent history. Uh, Gnasticism was the
subject of a lot of wild speculation, So we can't
it sort of invites that, doesn't it. Once we actually

(14:32):
talk about the Gnostic myth, I think you're gonna understand
a little more like why this is, why, why this
invites some really weird literature and and speculation. I just
have to jump in here and say the the kind
of creation myth and the Adam and Eve myths Nasticism
fascinate me, and I really like them. I think I
might be converting, like while we're sitting here, Okay, Okay, Well,

(14:55):
we'll check in with you in a little bit, okay,
because I want to hear I want to hear what
you think once we get to Yaldabo. Oh yeah, you're
gonna love them. You're gonna love with the kids kind
of kind of like a buddy God in some version. No,
not at all, I know, I know. Let me just

(15:15):
have this one, Joe. Okay. Well, anyway, point being, point being,
uh that we know, for instance, the earlier belief that
Gnosticism originated in Eastern traditions such as Buddhism is fairly
easy to dismiss yeah, it's probably not correct. That's probably
not correct, which I know sounds like waffling a little bit,
but again, it's ancient history. It's all you can do

(15:37):
is waffle there. There's almost nothing certain in ancient history.
And then to add to the problem before again a
very important moment in this story. Uh, the little documentation
that we did have about Gnostic belief systems came often
from its critics. They yeah, almost entirely from its critics, right, Yeah,

(16:01):
So for the longest time, almost everything we knew about
the Gnostics came from heresiologists, from members of this group
you might call proto Orthodox people who who were trying
to identify bad, aberrant strains of thinking in in their opinion,
and and teach people how to recognize them and how
to get rid of them, get them out of your church.

(16:22):
You know, you don't want these bad ideas running around
almost like skeptics for the religion or for the belief,
the system of belief. Well, to bring it, yeah, to
bring it into another thing, you always have to consider
a source, ladies and gentlemen. So if we were just
to look at some modern analogies, what we're saying is
you wouldn't trust Coca Cola's review of a new pepsi product.

(16:46):
You wouldn't if someone works at Chevy, you wouldn't expect
them to say, you know what, you know, those toyotas
are badass, you know you. Instead, you would expect the opposite.
You would expect for them to have problems. You're never
going to see even an olive garden ads singing the
praises of a night out at Applebee's. That's just not

(17:06):
how people or ideas work. Well. Our olive Garden in
this case, is going to be a second century church
father named Ireneus of Leone. Do you know what do
y'all know about Ireneus? Well? I know that he is
great at parties. Uh, from what I remember, Well, he
was pretty much an an enemy of the Gnostic belief,

(17:29):
to the point of maybe being an alarmist. Well, yeah,
he he wrote a whole book about this pretty much.
It's a for sure. It's called Against the Heresies. But
the real title of this treatise Ireneus wrote is on
the Detection and Overthrow of the so called Nosis, or
on the Detection and Overthrow of knowledge falsely so called Yeah,
and he uses the phrase so called. Yeah, so frequently, Well,

(17:53):
what does what does this term gnosis mean? Well, gnosis
refers to sort of the key concept of not sticism,
and it's it's the idea of knowledge. Now, all Christians
would probably incorporate the idea of knowledge of God, right
if you want, if you want to be a member
of the true religion, you're gonna have to know what

(18:13):
God is like. But the Gnostics emphasized their special type
of knowledge, that that it was a knowledge that was
better than the kind of knowledge other people had, because
it was a more direct, more true, more intimate knowledge
of the real reality of what God. Yeah, it also
focused on knowledge from within as well. Correct, That's that

(18:35):
was one of the big ideas is that many much
of the true knowledge that you are getting actually comes
from within. Yeah. That, well, that there is a that
there's this there's a true nature inside of you that
wants to uh, to realize the true almost as more
of like an enlightened state, like I like something that
you would read about in philosophy as opposed to a

(18:57):
religious text. That's very much. That's very true in some ways,
except that there also is a ton of complicated mythology. Yeah,
that you'd have to incorporate. But yeah, So this guy
iron Ace of Leone who wants to talk about the
overthrow of knowledge falsely so called he he was warning
his congregation about the dangers of all these interpretations of

(19:19):
Christianity other than his own, and um and and so
he talked about what the Gnostics believed. He talked about
how they were wolves in sheep's clothing. They'd come preaching
a message that that sounds kind of like what you
would hear in your church. You would be like, Okay, yeah,
they're talking about eternal life and salvation and knowledge of God.

(19:39):
So I think that's all right. But then he says,
once you dig down deeper into what they're teaching, it's
this crazy, aberrant, horrible thing that's going to lead people
astray and straight into damnation. In night Shamalan twist, it
sort of is, Yes, it's the it's the end of
the village. But for your religion, no spoilers. No, I

(20:01):
would never I would think that's a spoiler. Kidding. I
would never tell your listeners that at the end of Lost,
everybody is in a dream of a lawnmower, in the
dream of the sentient lawnmower. Come on, when was that
show over? What's the statute of limitations on spoilers? Anyway? Uh,
this goes guys, this goes into another conversation that the

(20:24):
fact that everybody is a dream of a sentient lawnmower
is more like the Gnostic myth than it is what's
in lost. Um. So, the other other things that Irony
has said is that Irony has had this idea we
talked about in a minute ago. A minute ago is
saying something that we were saying is probably not true.
He had this idea that Christianity began as a single,
unified tradition, everybody is on the same page, and then

(20:48):
later it split off into all these bad interpretations on
this rock. I found my church, and then eventually people
lost their way. Yeah, but most scholars today of of
ancient history and of early Christian history just wouldn't agree
with that picture. They'd see it's probably started very diverse. Um.
The He also basically said the Gnostics they're immoral, and

(21:09):
this is these are David Brackie's words, immoral and theologically stupid,
so both both bad people and dents. And also you
can tell that he would completely believe and support rumors
of like strange orgies baby eating you know what I mean. Though,

(21:32):
it's funny because people said that about his type of Christians,
even though it probably wasn't true. I mean, baby eater
was a fairly common Uh it was. It was a
fairly common insult in the public discourse. Pretty good, Yeah,
I mean it's it was. Our version of it now
is un American. I've called two of the three of
you baby eaters before. Yeah, but I respect you because

(21:53):
you said it to me and not about me, and
I appreciate you excluding me from that, and to be fair,
then you were sort of going on a baby Look, guys, guys,
this isn't about me or or any any allegations. Let's
move on because we're getting to um Matt's new favorite character. Right.
So one of the other things Irone has talked about
is he explained the mythology and theology of the Gnostic

(22:17):
school of thought as he understood it, which one of
the main takeaways is, uh, this might come as a
surprise to some people, but these Christians believe that the
God of the Book of Genesis is actually a horrible,
false sort of devil figure called Yaldabo, and until much

(22:38):
more recently, pretty much all we had was these these heresiologists,
these people writing about gnosticism from an unsympathetic viewpoint pieces,
so we didn't get their own story, like what they
would have said about themselves. That is until one day
in Egypt in nineteen when a couple of guys were
digging for fertilizer at the base of the Gibal Altarif

(23:01):
cliff near a city on the Nile called dog Hammadi.
They took up thirteen ancient code disease. They were crazy,
they were awesome, they were sealed in earthenware. But these
dudes were afraid, right, yeah, well, uh so Codices are
basically it means books. It means not scrolls. There are
the things you pick up when you're wandering around and
role playing games, and they tell you about the world. Yes,

(23:23):
a codex, so so like the codex. You might often
hear about ancient books called codex something, Codex mallificus, codex
I don't know it's Codex mallifica as the one. It's
got to be. It sure sounds like it's up there
in a necronomicon air. It just means a bound book. Right,
and you see these in Mesoamerica as well. Right, And now, okay,

(23:47):
here's the thing. So at first, these guys don't want
to open the container because and I love them for this,
I respect them for this. I hate it when I
see people acting uh and acting cartoonish and horror movies.
So if this were a horror movie, they would dig
up the jar, they would open it. It would be

(24:08):
Pandora's jar or something or in some terrible terrible would
melt off, right, or their faces would melt off. That's
an excellent example. So right, So the thing is, Um,
what I like about this is if you dig up
a clearly ancient sealed container from who knows how many

(24:29):
years past. We do, but they didn't at the time,
you're not just gonna jump in and pop the top
and see if it happens to be drinkable wine or
something like that. The guys who discovered this legitimately feared
it might contain a gin. I hadn't heard that detail. Yeah,
that was so they initially hesitated, and then they when

(24:52):
they brought them, when they transported them back to uh, well,
longtime listeners, you know, a gin is something made from
juniper berries. Right, it's and it works. Uh A revolutionized
the cotton industry. Uh No A A jin d j
i n In or just j i in In is

(25:13):
a third creation of God in Islam, a third species,
if you will, not necessarily demons or angels. We've talked
about and in the past discussion. I think I had
had the misconception previously that it was always exclusively an evil,
malevolent spirit, and you corrected me. But I believe in
this situation that was likely the one they were expecting

(25:33):
to pop out, That was the fear. Yes, yeah, I've
always heard about it as a wilderness dwelling spirit of
some kind. Right, there are different classes of Oh man, Okay, guys,
We're just gonna have to do with gin episode one
day because I'm too fascinated with it anyway, So that
detail is allegedly what happens. And now as we know, guys,

(25:54):
the non Commodity Library became very very close to uh
extinct ship within just a few like days or weeks
discovery because originally I think that one of the people
came home to the house after they brought it home
and found that somebody in the house had tried to

(26:14):
start an oven with some of the papers on the Codesseas,
and so we we lost part of what the library
originally was. But I think that just out of necessity
or were they did they the documents? I think they
didn't realize what they were. Yeah, but anyway, so they
eventually it passed hands a few times. I think first

(26:35):
they showed it to a local priest and then eventually
it came to the attention of scholars. But once scholars
became aware of these ancient documents, these Codesseas, uh, they
realized they had something very valuable and very interesting on
their hands. So it was a big collection of texts
that were written in Coptic, which is an ancient Egyptian language.

(26:57):
Is sort of the the last stage in the evolution
of the Egyptian language over the over the centuries. Uh,
you know, came from down the line from hieroglyphics, but
written in Greek Greek script. It was a translation, right, Yeah,
it was a translation from so the originals. These were copies,
so they weren't original documents, but they were copies of

(27:17):
documents that scholars could tell were originally written in Greek
because sometimes there'd be just the Greek word taken straight
over when there wasn't a good coptic word to fill
in for it. And nobody knows for sure exactly when
the originals of all the texts in this library were composed.
But they think that the copies that they had in

(27:38):
these jars or in the jar came from somewhere between
maybe three fifty to four. But they could have been
copies of much earlier works, we don't know. And they
had all kinds of things in them. They had the
Christian literature, They had some writings of Plato. They had
like Plato's Republic, uh, sort of I think, annotated to
be a little bit more gnostic friendly. Yeah. What else

(28:01):
did they have? They will they have? They had some
Hermitic literature, Yeah, which we'll see Alistair Crowley claimed to
have an intimate knowledge of. However, this this is important
because because let's look back again at the the unbelievable
circumstance and and the one of the questions that we
will never be able to answer, which is, why did

(28:24):
someone put these jar and bury them at this cliff
or did they bury them on purpose? It sounds like
they did because it was sealed. And then another question,
who was that person. Yeah, we don't know for sure.
We probably the documents don't identify who their author was.
I think one thing that's often speculated is it was
likely either like a monastery or somebody wealthy, because these

(28:47):
are bound books and those were not available to people
who didn't have a decent amount of money. So it
was either like an institution that had some money to
spend on these documents, or it was a wealthy person. Probably.
Why were they buried there? I don't know. Were they
buried for protection one to the persecution? Yeah, it could
be that somebody valued these books and the theology they

(29:10):
contained and said, well, you know, the Church is not
so into people having copies of these documents anymore, so
they were hidden there. That's a possibility, But we really
just don't know and what But what we do know
is that this fundamentally shook the foundations of religious study
in the West. Yeah, because now we had primary access

(29:30):
to not what the gnostics enemies said about them, but
what the Gnostics said about themselves. But we got we
got their own literature. But here's the thing. What their
enemies said about them wasn't always wrong. Oh no, I
mean they in some cases were basically the picture painted
by Irony s Uh writing in the year one eighty

(29:53):
about the Gnostics he was aware of is not super
off base, it's just very unsympathetic. So he offers kind
of a kind of a dense, unfriendly reading, offering, you know,
not a generous portrayal of their understanding of things, do
you know what I mean? Not generous, but not entirely inaccurate. Yeah.
He didn't lie, or at least as far as I know,

(30:16):
he didn't lie very much about what they taught. Yeah,
he would just say, here's what they believe, here's why
they're immoral and intellectually inferior and wrong. Yeah, because it
was contextualized within his beliefs, right right, Yeah, So what
are the core Gnostic beliefs? Like what makes somebody a Gnostic?
And and how is it different than other Christians of

(30:37):
the time or or just other people in general. And
while we talk about this, listeners, just just a note here,
think about where you might have seen a similar philosophy
turn up in other places. I think it'll be interesting
for people to find that. Yeah, sort of a Debbie
Downer worldview here, he asked me. Not necessarily this is

(30:59):
an interestinging that that that scholar I mentioned earlier, David Brackie.
A lot of, as I said, a lot of my
information here is going to come from him, and I
kind of like his take on it because he says,
you know, it sounds like a downer world view to us,
but it also has very positive points, in some ways,
more positive than than some ways of looking at religions
that do exist. So so hang with me here for

(31:23):
a second and we'll see how much of a downer
it really is. But it it's certainly if you're not
familiar with it, gonna sound weird as heck. First of all,
coronostic belief number one, the whole material world, including our bodies,
is just awful. The entire material universe. Yeah, yeah, the
material universe. That yeah, I mean that by world, everything

(31:46):
made of stuff just sucks. It's just awful. It's flawed,
gross and wicked, and this world is not our true home.
They would not have looked fondly upon the Madonna So
Long material girl, No, no, they would. That is the
antithesis of narcissism in many ways. Yeah, except that it
might articulate it pretty well. Gnostic theology from the other

(32:08):
end saying like, well, you know, I'm fine being a being,
a confused, befuddled creature of material existence who doesn't know
my true inner light. But why is this so flawed? Well,
the world is incredibly flawed because, and I mentioned this earlier,
the God who created this world is not the true God,

(32:29):
but a dumb, cruel, feeble wanna be god called yalled
about oath or also also parallel with this idea, or
sometimes known as the demi urge right, and in some
schools of nastissism, also called the craftsman. Yeah, which I
think is what demi urge means. Yeah, exactly. In the etymology,

(32:50):
it's the it's the great artifice or one who who
builds or creates this world. So in a way, this,
this creator is the source of the imperfection defining the
material world. And in some cases, yelled the boss, this
demi orts, this scratsman is not aware that a higher

(33:15):
plane exists. Yeah, he's kind of fumbling, or he might
be sort of aware. It's just this is just not
a good God. And you can see pretty immediately why
this made Christians mad and they didn't like this, this
alternate theology. So as humanity just sort of a tragic,
silly accident. No, I'll get to that in the creation

(33:35):
myth and a bit. But they well, it's it's a
sort of humanity is a way of rectifying a tragic,
silly accident. But our material bodies are no good. Material
is garbage, right, This this is a a reality, and
transition is maybe a way to put it. Oh, I

(33:57):
like that. I like that very much. Yeah. So another
core tenant, it's that our our material bodies, as we've said,
materials are bad, and so our material bodies are not
who we really are. We come from a spiritual plane
of existence, which is the plane of the true God, uh,
not the inferior creator of this disgusting, horrible material world.

(34:18):
And this true God is largely indefinable, unknowable, incomprehensible. Yeah.
And then and then finally, one of the other maintenance
is that you can find salvation in achieving correct knowledge,
and achieving knowledge of your true origins and the true

(34:39):
origins of the universe, the true origins and nature of
human beings, and discovering them through participation in these very
complicated myths. Okay, so now I think it's time to
actually do a case study in Gnostic mythology and look
at the gnostic myth as presented by one of their
scriptures that was discovered in the Nakamati Library. But before

(35:01):
we do that, we need to take a listen from
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Plus dot Com slash Conspiracy here's where it gets crazy. Okay,

(37:21):
now we're gonna look at what's in the Secret Book.
According to John, it was one of these texts contained
in the Nagamadi Library. It's one of the cortex of
of this uh, of this Gnostic school of thought. And
I want to present it. I want to give credit
where credit is you. I'm presenting it as summarized by
the scholar I mentioned earlier, David Bracky, because he has

(37:42):
a really great summary and explanation of it actually in
his Great Courses series on Gnosticism, which I highly recommend
checking out. So he's my main source on on what
I'm about to tell you. But this is what you
get if you read the Secret Book according to John,
which you can read online as well. Ah. Yeah, So,
first of all, authors unknown, We don't know who actually

(38:03):
wrote it. Claims to be written by the apostle John,
but you know, it probably wasn't uh. It was written
probably sometime between like a hundred and a hundred and
fifty c e. We don't know for sure. But it
is an apocalypse and this is a very popular form
of religious writing for the time. In fact, there are
there are apocalypse is in the Christian Bible. There is

(38:24):
the Book of Revelation. That's the that's the Apocalypse of John.
What what revelation there is just the it's the translation
of the word apocalypse. It means an unveiling or a
revelation of things. Right. We've explored that point on this
show before, because nowadays, in modern US usage or English usage,
it's often conflated to mean just a disastrous into the

(38:47):
world or something, and really it's just it's a it's
a an enlightenment of sorts. Yeah. I think it comes
from the fact that that often these revelations did reveal
things about the end of the world, but the it
originally apocalypse just meant revelation. And though it is certainly
true that a very popular thing for the gods to

(39:07):
reveal was something about the end of the world, right,
it's not gonna who's gonna win the next game? Right? Yeah?
You have to be able to scare people in order
to believing in what you're telling them, right, Okay, Okay,
So the Secret Book, according to John, this apocalypse revealed
to the disciple John. The Savior appears to John after
he's already resurrected, and he comes back He's like, listen,

(39:29):
I'm gonna tell you the true story about everything. Now
this is gonna yeah, time for the real story. So
are you guys already buckle up? I've been trolling you
for thirty three years. Um, So here it is. The
true God is not the God of the Bible. The
God of the Bible is a fake god. The true

(39:52):
God is in fact, this abstract, huge mind. It's like
a Brackie's words are a vast intellect, and this huge
mind fundamentally cannot be known or understood by human beings.
It's this vast, complicated but at the same time completely simple,

(40:14):
at rest, at peace, incorruptible, perfect spirit of thought. Well, originally,
originally you are you? Are you with me? So far?
Also to me like a giant quantum computer the size
of several universes and maybe a giant single thought. Well,
actually it's everything there is. So originally it's everything there is.

(40:36):
It's ultimate, eternal and at peace. Uh. And this thing
is called in in Brackie's words because it the invisible spirit.
That's actually what the Genesis song Invisible touches about. Is
that true? I'm not I'm not a genet wanted I
wanted to be true. Well, let's see, maybe they are
listening to the show, So right in, guys, right in,

(40:59):
and let right Well, there is something about this invisible
spirit that figures into that because he wants to touch
the light, the heat in our eyes. And he begins
to think, So I said he, but actually it's more
likely to say it. So the invisible spirit, it begins
to think. And when it begins to think, the thinking

(41:21):
produces an entity of thoughts. So it has a thought,
and that thought is the first created thing known as
forethought Greek pro noia. That is a reflection of the
invisible spirit itself, because if it's all that exists, what
does the invisible spirit have to think about except itself?
So it thinks about itself, and then that thought becomes

(41:44):
sort of a copy of itself. So the forethought is
a divine thought that is also known as an eon
like self awareness. Yeah uh, And these thoughts are all
known as eons or emanations from the great invisible Spirit.
Are you with me so far? Oh yeah, We're about
to go into the deep water. Okay. Fourth forethought is

(42:05):
also known as barblo, a word that we can't translate.
We don't know where it comes from. The first time
I heard it actually I as a child that was
watching uh animated film called Vampire Hunter D. And there's
a character named Barbara barblo or are they pronounced a
barbelow as well, and I think it's a character or
a place, and so I checked it out. I did

(42:29):
some research at the library and that that's actually how
I learned about narcissism at a young age. Yes, from
Vampire Hunters. To thank you, Vampire Hunter D. That's an
important thing you point out, you say character or a place,
because I think with these divine with these divine beings,
in the Gnostic mythology, the line between place and person

(42:50):
is kind of blurred. Something like the invisible spirit could
be referred to as a as an entity that acts
like a person, but it can also be thought as
like a place you can go. So the invisible spirit
thinks the eon forethought or barbailo and uh. And then
when God has thought of as a collection of AONs

(43:13):
or eons, he starts thinking all these thoughts um and
this whole collection of thought eons is known as the
entirety or the fullness. And they and they use a
buddy system too, that's exactly right. So each eon has
a counterpart of the opposite sex, making it this kind
of male female partnership. So it's not just an eon,

(43:35):
but there's like the eon of wisdom, which has the
female main part of wisdom, but then also the male
counterpart two wisdom. Okay with me so far. Maybe then
the invisible spirit looks upon the barbelo and this act
creates a spark called the auto jenn a s or

(43:58):
the divine self origin. It is the English term brack
he uses. It's also known as the anointed One or
the Christ. So it's something kind of like sexual procreation
between the abstract and invisible spirit and the Barbelo that
produces the Christ. And you can see how fundamentally offensive
this would be to the proto orthodoxy of the time.

(44:22):
And perhaps listeners to to some of you now, and
you keep in mind, we are not preaching this. We're
attempting to shine light upon this fast cover up theory. Yeah, okay,
so so I just have to start really fast. So okay,
So the Barbelo, which is a thought from the the

(44:43):
insible invisible spirit it thinks, I thought, it creates kind
of a mirror image type thing of itself. Then when
the invisible spirit looks at the mirror image of itself again,
it sort of has sex with it spirit whatever it
does to it to create a second thing from it.
So it's a spiritual union. It imanates has a co emanation. Yeah, okay,
And how are these these uh, these various elements personified?

(45:07):
Like if you had to animate them, if you were
going to make like an instructional cartoon about these various parts,
what would they look like? Pure white light extending forever
into the universe. No, I'm just kidding. I just made
that up. But it's something like, I mean, I think
that they don't have you can you can They're not
like angels. They don't have like a corporeal No, we're
not to that yet. These these things are more like

(45:27):
sinchion concepts. But we're getting there. We're getting to the creatures. Okay.
So uh this leads so after the there's this barbelo
uh invisible spirit union here, this leads to the emanation
of twelve more eons. So they're just creating thoughts all
over the place. Eons that are separated into four groups

(45:48):
led by beings called the Luminaries. That serve the divine
self original and I don't get into all their names
and everything, but ultimately here's where we get to how
all the trouble started. So you remember I mentioned to
go a minute ago how they all have male female
counter counterparts. Well, there's one eon called Wisdom or Sophia, uh.

(46:08):
And Wisdom is the lowest eon yet created, and she
is female, and she decides that she wants to think
her own thought without the help of a male counterpart
of the mail was So she she essentially wants to
reproduce a sexually, so to speak. And this is a mistake,
a huge mistake. It is it is the ultimate huge

(46:30):
mistake uh. And the eon so she does it. She
manages to reproduce a sexually, but the eon she produces
by this comes out seriously flawed, messed up, deformed, and
it's this misshapen progeny that's called all the bows. So
even in this mythology, the female is the one that

(46:50):
screws everything up, uh sort of, But she's also she
also ends up trying to set things right right. This
is kind of a hero's journey for Sophia. In fact,
this is an interesting question people have looked into, like,
is gnosticism more more feminist friendly than than other ancient religions,
And some people have said, well, yeah, it is for X, Y,

(47:11):
and Z reasons, And then other people have said, well, no,
it's not really for these other reasons. I think it's
kind of a wash. It has it has some more
female friendly ideas and it has some less female friendly ideas.
But but to Knowl's point, it is, it is true
that it has that that Pandora moment, that moment which
is very common in Western religions. Yeah, yeah, I mean

(47:35):
a lot. Let's face it. I mean a lot of
the people controlling these ancient religions were men, and a
lot of them didn't think very highly of women. Right,
it's true the gender politics which can continue the gender
politics you hear about today. We're much much different earlier
on the point of spiritual beliefs. So so we got
youlda both on our hands. Well, obviously, you aldo oath

(47:57):
has no place in the entirety. So where's he gonna go. Well,
they gotta cast him out, So they cast out y'all
the both. He's out of the heavenly realms satan. Right, No,
he's not quite well. I mean to them, he might,
but they don't use these terms what I'm saying. In
in the mythology, he is a stand infestation saying that commonality. Yeah,
a bad figure who's cast out the differences. He's a

(48:19):
bad seed instead of a rebellious force. He's just not
perfect this world of perfect thought and wasn't wasn't one
of the concepts that Sofia was actually trying to kind
of cover up, like her mistake, Like she was like, uh, yes,
see you, yes, exactly, She's trying to hide it. So
she throws them out into exile. And one more parallel,
remember in the Greek and Roman tradition, Vulcan and he

(48:42):
Festus throw him from Mount Olympus, uh, and becoming lame,
so becoming the artificer of that pantheon. Ah, that's a
very interesting parallel. Okay, So we got y'all the both
cast out, Bye bye to the entirety. But when he goes, unfortunately,
he takes some of the power of the entirety with him. Promethean. Yes,

(49:04):
and then what once he's out there, what's he gonna do.
He's just out there in the void. He's out he's
outside of the entirety. So he's like, well, I'm gonna
make a copy of the entirety. Duh, that's what I
gotta do. I gotta make another one of those that
I came from. But because he's dumb and uh mean
and not very good, he just flawed in pretty much

(49:24):
every way, he doesn't do a good job, and instead
he makes this horrible world. He's trying to copy the
invisible spirits emanation of the eons, So you know, the
invisible spirit thinks thoughts and they become companions these other beings, y'all.
The bath instead makes a bunch of godlike beings to

(49:45):
be in his court that are known as the Rulers.
And these are these evil figures that are sort of
God's helpers and the bad God's helpers. And I just
want to say, far be it to like humanize this
abstract concept. But it's understandable thing on an individual level
to want to recreate a whole. But he's uh kind

(50:07):
of a dick about it. I just have to say,
Yeldebo doesn't think he's a bad guy in the scenario
at all. Yeldebo just is doing what he or she
or it thinks it wants think they're a bad guy. Yeah,
Hans Gruber just wanted to sit on a beach with
you know Earn right right, Well, that's you know, that's
a that's a a point that we explore here. But

(50:30):
here's why I say that, you know, and being crassed
when I say he's being a dick or whatever. But
he lies to his creations. He does. So He's created
these rulers and he tells them that there are no
other gods except for him, and he demands loyalty from
his eons. And this is this is bad news. The
entirety gets wind of this and they don't like it. Uh.

(50:53):
So there is some some fixing that needs to be
done there, There is a there is an act of
repair that must be carried out. And who does that
fault to? Well, really it falls to Wisdom because it's
her fault for creating yelled to bo Oath in the
first place. Alright, So so Wisdom's gotta fix things. Uh.
And so what she does is she temporarily comes. She
temporarily comes together with the eon known as Afterthought, and

(51:17):
this pairing along with the Barbelo. So there's some some
teamwork here. Uh. They try to reclaim the power that
ydo Oath stole from the spiritual realm of the entirety
when he left. And they kick things off by saying,
let's have y'all to Boath make some humans. So by
influencing Yelda both secretly yeah yeah, they send an image

(51:41):
of light in the form of a human and in
actually the form of the entirety down to yealda Boath
and this tricks yelled to bo Oath into creating the
form of a spiritual human. So they make a human,
but it won't become animated. But this is a bear
in mind, this is not a human with a body.
It's for the spirit of a human. Uh So, then

(52:02):
wisdom and the Barbelo trick yelled the Boath into breathing
his spirit into the newly created human forms. Yelled the
Boath does it. But this was a bad idea for
him because in doing so, he passes the power of
the entirety that he took when he was exiled into
these created beings um and and this means humans are
going to be more powerful than ye all, the Bath

(52:24):
and the rulers, and that's no good. So they gotta
scramble to cover up the mess. And what they do
is they quickly cram the newly created human spirits into
bodies made from the matter of the universe. That the
yell the Boath created bodies made of earth. And this
helps keep humans bogged down, just kind of feeling baffled

(52:44):
and unable to think clearly. It also limits their power
by by chaining them to this rock and a way
by gravity. Yeah, yeah, that would be an interesting way
of thinking about it. Like that, We're just we're just stuck.
We're just stuck in this nasty mire of material stuff off.
Uh So, now what are Wisdom and the Barbelo are
gonna do? While they get another plan? They send Wisdom

(53:06):
down in the form of afterthought to hide inside humans
and try to steer them back to knowledge of the
spiritual realm, knowledge of the entirety and so the great
the huge Salvation conflict and gnosticism uh allah. The revelation
of John is that Wisdom and the Barbelo are trying
to bring the power of the entirety uh present in

(53:29):
human beings back to the spiritual plane. Meanwhile, y'all, the
Oath and the evil rulers want to prevent humans from
figuring out their true nature, figuring out their power, and
prevent them from getting knowledge of the invisible spirit and
of where they came from. So it's a battle over
revelation of secret knowledge. The good guys want us to
figure out the truth about where we came from, and

(53:52):
the bad guys want to perpetuate the conspiracy. Right, Yeah,
that and the cover up. Yeah, and the cover up.
I'm glad. I'm glad you mentioned that. So that the
cover up it comes in the form of we get
these false stories. So what the Gnostics said about the
Bible that the other Christians believed in that, you know,
the Jewish text that that they adopted from the Torah,
the Book of Genesis. The Gnostics would say, yeah that,

(54:15):
I mean, that's all pretty much true as it goes,
but it gets some things wrong because they believed Moses
wrote it, and they believed Moses was working from the
incorrect assumption that Yalda Boath was the true God. But
in fact Yealda Both was Yalda Both not the true God.
So it's full of just mistakes and stuff that the

(54:35):
Gnostics tried to correct. So a part of this secret revelation, uh,
According to John is that he he retells the Genesis story,
but he fixes the parts that Moses got wrong and said, actually,
what happened here, for example, uh, in Noah's flood is
that you know, Yalda both wanted to kill all the

(54:56):
humans to snuff out the invisible spirit, but in stead,
the spirit of wisdom came down and gave us some
you know, and and preach to Noah and revealed things.
And then Noah I was able to save some people
and preserve the spirit of truth like he fixes. I hope,
I hope listeners that you all hear the air quotes
around fixes right, that that that idea is so fascinating

(55:18):
to me, that you know, instead of in the biblical
recollections of what occurred when the a story that there
are actually two gods or two forms of gods who
are very dying, yeah, for to save them but then
also destroy them. And it gives like a reasoning behind
wanting to flood the world. That's really interesting. Yeah, so

(55:39):
you can imagine. I mean, this probably sounded as ridiculous
to ancient Christians who are not part of the Gnostics
school thought as it does to people who aren't familiar
with it. Today is just like, what is all this
complicated stuff? Where do they get this from? So in
a way though, right before you get to the end,
this is sort of a prequel to Christianity, yes, But

(56:03):
then also there are Gnostic texts that, in the same
way that this sort of rewrites the story of what
happened in the Book of Genesis, there are also Gnostic
texts that rewrite or at least offer a different version
of the story we get in the canonical Gospels. So
if you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there's some
differences between them, but they present a you know, sort
of basically similar theology about who Jesus was um and

(56:26):
what's going on there. The Gnostic scriptures are very different. Uh.
For example, there's the Gnostic Gospel of Judas. It's a
retelling of the Gospel stories. This one was not found
in na Commodity. Is a different Gnostic scripture Discovery, but
just some brief features of this Judas. Judas is scary
at the one who in the old story is the

(56:47):
betrayer of Jesus now is not the bad guy but
the hero. And so this story is not so much
concerned with the works or deeds of Jesus, but with
his revelations, So Jesus reveals all the secret history of
the universe and his plan of salvation to Judas himself
and the other disciples don't get it. And then Judas
helps Jesus slough off this you know, worthless material body

(57:10):
and ascend to the higher plane and and further his
message of of you know, revelation of the true knowledge.
And so with this inversion of that of that story,
for the ultimate human villain of the Bible, even even
worse than Herod, right, for the ultimate human villain of
the Bible to actually be the more like uh that

(57:32):
the Hans Solo. You're all clear, kid, Now, let's blow
this thing and go, oh yeah, It's absolutely necessary for
Judas to exist and betray and do what he did
in order for salvation to occur. So it's always been
a fascinating thing for me just going back and looking
at that story and how Judas then becomes vilified and

(57:53):
is evil for allowing for salvation. As as we'll see,
the nasty to the earlier point about diverse, the uh
Gnostics did not well, it's Agnostic traditions did not always
agree on these points, just as Christian denominations today don't
agree on points. Yeah, and so that that brings us
to I mean, there are various schools of so called gnosticism,

(58:16):
and this is gonna be, uh another point where we
should introduce some subtlety, because some things that people have
called gnosticism are things that modern scholars might say, Well,
I don't know if that should be called gnosticism. Uh,
you know, is it sufficiently similar to say that it's
the same thing ironeus is talking about in one eighty
or is this a different kind of thing? For example,

(58:37):
there are schools of thought. One of them would be Valentinianism,
after the religious thinker Valentinus in the second century. Right, right,
So in this school of thought, Uh, this demiurge yelled
to off the craftsman, not an inherently bad guy actually
or bad being actually is working in concert with this

(58:58):
higher god that in the spirit to bring about salvation.
So in other words, this is like the employee who
is at the clean up site yeah of an environmental
or metaphysical disaster. Huh, Yeah, and so and so valentiniani
um is one of these. It's like some early heresiologists
might have lumped it in with Gnosticism, and even some

(59:21):
recent historians might, but then other historians would say, no,
Valentinianism we should think about as its own thing, but
yelled Abatan. This is still flawed and is not always
helping with consent or knowledge, but instead being secretly influenced
another another flavor of early Christianity that was, you know,

(59:42):
condemned probably by the proto Orthodox, but might also have
been different than Gnosticism with which it was lumped in
as Thomas Christianity. You may have heard about the Gospel
of Thomas, right, this is this is one of these
early discoveries of of another gospel that may have even
come from the first century. It was an early writing.
We don't know exactly when it came from. Oh, actually,

(01:00:03):
we don't know exactly when any of these gospels came from,
but we have pretty good ideas about the canonical gospels.
Gospel Thomas was probably pretty early, and people used to say, well,
this is a gnostic gospel, and now we don't know
for sure. Jesus says things in it that sound pretty nastic.
But then there are other you know that their their

(01:00:23):
secret knowledge, their secret knowledge revealed only to certain people.
But then again, there are other elements that I think
scholars would say, no, it needs to have its own category.
So here's here's another question. Oh, what happens snosticism. Yeah,
this is a good question because I mean, I think
the traditional story is well, Nasticism lost control for the

(01:00:47):
battle of Christianity and the Proto Orthodox Church. Eventually the
Catholic Church one out and got to dictate what theology
was across the Roman Empire, and thus the Gnostics were
just sort of eliminated from history. But I think there
is now an emerging strand of historical thought that that
says that's that's maybe not the case. It's more like

(01:01:08):
gnosticism as a named thing lost power, but it also
in a way got to define the path of Christianity
in doing so, in the number one Christianity, Proto Orthodox
Christianity and early Catholic Christianity would partially define itself in

(01:01:28):
opposition and reaction to Anasticism, So it drive drove some
theological statements in those ways, and in other ways you
can still see gnostic ideas that seem to be incorporated
into the lay theology of existing Christianity today. For example,
think about how some Christians today might say that the
material world is evil and the only true reality is

(01:01:49):
a spiritual one. I mean that sounds compatible with what
people would think of as normal Christianity today, but that
also sounds a lot like a Gnostic idea. Now, ladies
and gentile, and thank you for joining me. I know
a lot of these pews empty because it's Sunday football season.
But I'm not going to put on a fancy suit.

(01:02:11):
I don't think the price of the ticket to the
football game matters. There's another ticket that's trying to get right. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.
I mean, so condemnation of the material world, or how
about this is a common thing you'll see in Christianity day,
the idea that the world is not the way it
was supposed to be. You know, that there's something flawed

(01:02:32):
about the way the world is now. Well, I mean
you could say that that seems compatible with what most
Christians understand from their modern theology, but at the same
time that that sounds pretty similar to some Corognostic teachings.
And this is uh, this is a fairly common belief
in many other religions. Yeah, and then of course there
are other traditions that have continued throughout the years that

(01:02:54):
that do seem to incorporate elements of Gnosticism. So like
the Mandans, that's you know, that's a religion that that
seems to be in some ways nastic. Yeah, and then okay,
here's here's something. We're going a little bit long on
this podcast, but we hope you're enjoying it here and
we have some good news. This ancient conspiracy goes into

(01:03:17):
the modern day. So although Nasticism and I love the
way to say this show is defeated in name by
what would become the orthodox of mainstream church, those beliefs
and organizations have been revived at several points in history
leading to the present day. That's right. No, if you
want to be a Gnostic, you could sign up today. Yeah,

(01:03:40):
I've really been. I mean, if you want to show
me how Okay. In the eight nine, a French librarian
named Jules Donnelle founded UH the In Grace No Stick
or the Gnostic Church. Funny story. Eventually he gave up
and resigned converted to Catholicism because he fell for an
anti Masonic hoax called the Taxil Hoax. Later later he

(01:04:02):
joined UH. He rejoined his own church as a bishop
and then this thing for this became a part of
a larger entity. That church folded. But don't abandon hope yet, folks.
If you want to join up, you can consider the
spiritual descendant of this uh, the church the Gnostic Church
of Apostles of the English Nasti Post League, founded by

(01:04:24):
Robert Amberlain in Night. That church exists today in France,
French territories, in the Ivory Coast in Midwestern America. Uh.
And you know, Gnostics also have a tremendous impact on
other figures that aren't necessarily like religious figures US. For instance,
the Theosophical Society uh, spearheaded by uh Madame Blevotsky, who

(01:04:50):
is not my favorite person, but you know, deserves a mention.
What's wrong with Madame Blevatsky? Is just not my favorite person.
That's the nicest thing I can say. Oh wait, no,
because al To Crowley is right, Yeah, yeah, he's a
he's a swell guy. But he's also inspired by Gnostic
thought in a secular way. He had like the sexual
magic belief in Gnosticism. Uh. And then Carl Young was

(01:05:13):
fascinated by it. There was even a magazine that ran
for short time called gnosis in a burst of creativity,
That's what they named it, and it was devoted to
that esoteric tradition. But it goes further than that. Listeners,
if you look at some of your favorite works of fiction,
you will see the gnostic belief carrying on today, like
Neanderthal DNA and a Homo sapien. Yeah, sometimes I wonder

(01:05:37):
how conscious this even is, Like there are lots of
science fiction novels and movies and stuff that have extremely
familiar themes if you've read about gnosticism, but you wonder
like did the creators do this on purpose? Or is
or is this sort of cosmic conspiracy theory just a
just does it run deep in our DNA? Yeah? Do do?

(01:05:58):
We do? We naturally go to these places when we're
trying to dream up what the truth about a crazy
world might be like, but examples would be things like
a blade runner or the matrix. Well, just sort of
like that meta idea of like, this is not the
big picture. What we are experiencing here is almost a
test or a cruel joke, and um, once we are

(01:06:19):
revealed the bigger picture, our minds were either blown or
we are able to you know, transcend to that reality.
This is a painful audition in the great cosmic drama.
Or I mean they trying to reach it back out
to the to us and and give us these truths
through our media. They found out that mass media is
the way to actually get this knowledge back to everyone. Well, yeah,

(01:06:42):
so there there's definitely this theme about like things being
not how they seem. But also how about the theme
of creations rebelling against their creator when they find out
how flawed and wicked he is. Yes, either if any
of you seen um X, yeah, yeah, and that that's
a that's a great that's a great film with an
ambiguous ending that one I won't yet. Okay, guys, At

(01:07:07):
the end it was all the right and uh ice
Cube ends up going like going back, and Samuel L.
Jackson is eaten by the shark. Right, and then there's
this weird cameo by Tom Waits. I don't know what
he was going for, but I liked it anyway. He
was the voice of the lawnmower. He was the voice
of the lawn more So there there's other stuff, right.

(01:07:29):
Sci fi is often steeped agnostic thought. One of the
one of the films I saw him as a kid
that blew my mind was Dark City. Remember that it
holds up, It holds up, but yeah, it's supernostic. Right, Yeah,
there's everybody lives in this Everybody lives in this sort
of bewildered dreams stay where they're sort of kept stupid

(01:07:50):
by powers above them, and that there's a revealer figure
who wants to bring the light and make people awaken
from their stupor and realize where they are and how
they came to be there. Yeah, exactly. And then there
are there are other films like that, but they're also
uh comics. Uh we're huge comic fans here at how
stuff works and and uh we're if we're not on

(01:08:12):
the air, sometimes we meet up just to trade comics.
But one that really I don't know about you guys,
but one that really impressed Matt and I was The
Invisible I've only read the first volume of it because
Christian Seger, my co host on Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
loved it. But he loaned that to me and I
loved it. I've got to read more. I've got the
full set if you want to read them. Yeah, yeah, dude.

(01:08:34):
Well okay, so before we go and change this to
the comics show. Well, we have to do the following things.
We have to. First off, thank you so much Joe
for coming onto the show. It's always a pleasure, fascinating. Well,
thank you so much for having me. It's been a
lot of fun. And as I said at the beginning, unfortunately,
I mean a gnosticism is such a huge and fascinating subject.
We have only scratched the surface. So if you want

(01:08:55):
to learn more about it, one of the main things
I'd recommend is the works of the guy I've mentioned
a few times here, David Brackie is a scholar of gnosticism.
Very interesting, very careful scholar. Uh and I like his work,
So look him up and look at his books or
his Great Courses series on it. And that's a good
place to start. No, what what was that look you
just gave me? Why are you? Why are you making

(01:09:15):
shrimp eyes at me? Man? That's just the way my
eyes looked. Okay, I'm sorry, Yeah, man, they're weird. Me.
You gotta make them bigger, just like little slits. No, No, okay,
look what's going on here, guys? Yeah it doesn't he
have kind of I don't want to make this awkward
for you, Joe. Okay, but listen, No, you've been You've
been alluding to a thing. It's a weird vibe. Are

(01:09:39):
you accusing me of him? And I'm accusing you certainly
of being circuitous? But uh, far be it for us
to sit around accusing each other. That's not gonna work.
But this is a show about uncovering the truth. So
lay it on, ut man, what's going on? Yeah, you've
alluded to this. What's this Stuff of Life all about?

(01:10:00):
Oh my gosh, you guys, Stuff of Life? Thank you.
That's that's my new show that I've been working on.
And you're right, I have alluded to it a few times,
just talking about things that I've learned, UM in the
research that my colleague and our colleague Julie Douglas has
done wonderfully. UM as the host of the show. UM.
But my part is I am the producer, UM. And

(01:10:22):
you know, I produced a lot of the How Stuff
Work shows, But as many of you guys know, that
largely consists of folks in the room having conversations. So
the extent of my production on many of those is
you know, editing and doing you know, sound design here
and their music cues, and I've done some original music
for some shows, but this is a show that's given
me the real opportunity to just kind of, you know,

(01:10:42):
stretch my legs a little bit, and I do original
music compositions and sound design so to kind of give
sort of like an immersive quality to these these of
these episodes. Right, yeah, but what is the show about?
I'm glad you asked. The show the Stuff of Life
is largely it's just about, you know, it can be anything.
Like the first episode, the pilot, which is actually going
to drop in iTunes on the of this month, which

(01:11:05):
is uh, will be next Wednesday, UM is called the
Power of Fear, and UM we talked to experts in
addition to folks right here at How Stuff Works. We
have sort of a little round table section in every
episode where people get to kind of weigh in on
the topic and we make some really nice little sound
bites and everyone kind of has a chance to sort
of give their two cents on what we're talking about.

(01:11:27):
But in the Fear episode, we talked to UM two
folks who have a company where they actually train UM
office workers for example, or people in retirement communities how
to deal with an active shooter scenario. That's actually one
of the little details I mentioned when we were talking
about crisis actors. Um. This company goes in and does
these drills. They do let people know they're happening. And

(01:11:49):
the point that I made in the episode was that,
you know, when people do these things without letting people know,
that's a you know, good recipe for some lawsuits there. Um,
but it's a it's it's a thing that happens. And
they had a really interesting perspective on just how to
deal with fear, things like tactical breathing, and they talk
a little bit about the Centennial Park bombing. That kind
of was sort of the impetus for you know, how

(01:12:11):
do we deal with these scenarios and what you know
kind of gave them the influence they needed to start
this company. Um. But we just sort of kind of
crack open stories and sort of look at what's inside
and figure out, you know, what makes us tick and
why we're such storytelling machines, not in terms of fiction,
but just in terms of how we share our experience
on this planet. Okay, so this is a story about

(01:12:31):
the human experience. I would say so that's like, it's
a good way to put it. Ben, you know, I
have to say, I listened to a bit of a
I guess a rough cut that you had sent me,
and the sound design and the way everything flows together.
I hate to make you know, a comparison, but it
sounds to me like a radio lab type show that
has all of the music flowing into a next segment

(01:12:52):
and then you're somewhere else and then everything changes. It's
just beautiful. Mane's also yeah, I've also heard it. I
totally a production envy. Uh. And like all the shows
we do how stuff works, this is free longtime listeners.
Some of you may remember Julie Douglas from her tenure
on Joe's show Stuff to Blow Your Mind, And uh,

(01:13:12):
Julie has this fantastic um and this fantastic talent for
finding the the spark or the hinge of a story.
So when you when you listen to episodes of Stuff
of Life, if you like this show, you'll love that show.

(01:13:34):
The same applies to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Absolutely,
and just say you guys know, um it is live
in the iTunes store already and you can go and
pre subscribe if you want to. There is sort of
like a little tip trailer, kind of a teaser in there.
Right now, I'm pretty short. But then on Monday coming up,
we're gonna launch what we're gonna call Episode zero, which
will be sort of a more like a four or

(01:13:54):
five minute just kind of run down about how the
show works. But I'll go ahead and give you the
heads up here. What we're doing is we're to have
a show come out every week. Um, you're gonna have
it start. The first episode is going to be about
thirty forty minute episode um. And then after that there
will be like maybe a half a long episode that's
a little lighter but sort of a companion piece to
the topic that came the week before, and we're going
to continue that. Um. And definitely and uh, full disclosure,

(01:14:19):
I was I was hoping it get caught. I'm not
sure how the final edit goes, but at some point
in the show I did freestyle. It's true and it's glorious.
So go ahead and look forward in the iTunes store
and I'll subscribe now, and so you can get that
episode zero in your feed as soon as it drops.
And then the first episode, which comes out on Wednesday,
and we've also got some social media stuff going on Facebook.

(01:14:41):
I believe it's just Facebook dot com slash the Stuff
of Life, but you can just search for it and
definitely find it um and looking forward to hearing some feedback. Yes,
Stuff of Life. Stay tuned. You'll never you never know
who might pop up on that show. Uh. So there's
there's one other, one other thing, Joe, that we have
to establish, which is that Stuff to Blow your Mind.
One of our pure podcasts, which you host, has a

(01:15:04):
lot of episodes that would be right up the alley
of our audience right yes, over on Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My co hosts Robert Lamb, Christian Saga and
I we explore all kinds of topics. Were primarily a
science podcast, but we try to bring a lot of
diversity of subject matter and so we end up talking
a lot about mythology and religion, uh, philosophy, history, and

(01:15:28):
we just try to keep it weird, to always surprise
you with something strange about reality, because reality is pretty strange,
isn't it. Yeah, I mean this one who knows about
the other one? Right? Yeah, the the the the invisible
spirit who knows what lies beyond. But if you want
to check out some some stuff they don't want you
to know, friendly topics on stuff to blow your mind.
You might start with the episodes Christian and I did

(01:15:50):
recently on the Science of the X Files from January
of sixteen. Or maybe you could look at the episodes
Robert and I did last summer called Techno Religion for
the Masses if you're interested in these religious themes, where
we talked about intersections of technology and religion, including some
fascinating religions that border on some semignostic themes. But that's

(01:16:13):
not your only show. Yes, you can also listen to me.
I'm one of the co hosts on the show Forward
Thinking with Jonathan Strickland and Lauren Vogelbaum. Or we talk
about future technology. So if that's your thing, you can
find me there too, And you can find Joe on
the Stuff of Life. Yes, that's right, our man Joe
is popping up left and right in the podcast world,
and it's always a pleasure when our paths intersect. They

(01:16:35):
have a demonic copy of me that they use for
half of this stuff. You know, I get some of
the same accusations. We're having a moment, right, Yeah, accusations. Yeah, yeah,
you were biting on that baby. I saw it happen. Look,

(01:16:55):
you can't go around be it. What are you the
king of babies? You're in charge of all the babies.
To be fair and all, we did let that baby
get way too close. Guys, guys, let's remember that the
audience is listening right now. Thank you guys so much
for tuning in. If you would like to learn more
about nasticism, you can check out our video series. You
can uh send us an email because we have a

(01:17:18):
lot of stuff in the course of this that, as
Joe said, we couldn't get to at this time, but
who knows, we might return to explore more early Christianity.
If you want to talk to us directly, you can
tweet to us. You can join our Facebook group. Every
like gets us a little bit further away from being fired,
So check out conspiracy stuff on both of those both

(01:17:39):
of those formats. If you want to hear every podcast
we've ever ever done, h including our earlier work with
Joe over here, then you can visit our website Stuff
they Don't want you to Know dot com the best
and longest u r L in the history of mankind.
And this, well, I was gonna say realm, but that's fine.

(01:18:01):
You should go there check out all that stuff. And
if you don't want to do any of that, or
you want to do some of it but not all
of it, whatever, we're good with any of it. You
can send an email to conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com