Reluctant Gnosis: When Philip K. Dick & Carl Jung Collaborated on a Gnostic Gospel

https://thegodabovegod.com/reluctant-gnosis-when-philip-k-dick-carl-jung-collaborated-on-a-gnostic-gospel/ 

 

In a parallel dimension, Philip K. Dick and CG Jung would have worked together for a Gnostic Gospel, perhaps something like Dick’s Tractates Cryptica Scriptura. Because of their vastly different lives and character, the two Gnostic sages might have disliked each other and been public about it – much like those competing ancient Gnostic sects that obnoxiously snarked at each other (the message in the Apocalypse of Peter comes to mind). However, it’s possible these two figures would have joined forces to rectify the archonic invasion and reality rape that is the 21^st century. Who knows?

I do know that in this reality, Jung and Dick are the Boaz and Jachin pillars of Aeon Byte. They are my two muses. Both admitted their muse was Simon Magus. In all dimensions, the truth is that these two Gnostic thinkers were more alike than not when it came to delivering infinity to a finite world. They held those keys of Gnosis, psychically handed down from those ancient Gnostic sects, being obnoxious or not.

I’ve always felt Dick and Jung were syzygies of sorts, their ideas incomplete without each other’s (and Jung’s influence on Dick has been reported).

Stuart Douglas confirms my suspicion in his book, The Apocalypse of the Reluctant Gnostics. Like April DeConick’s The Gnostic New Age, Dick’s Exegesis, and Jung’s Red Book, this work is always close to my desk and often on trips with me. The book is priceless and worth the price.

Back to the title of the article: how would a Gnostic Gospel have looked like if written together by Dick and Jung (or perhaps more like channeled)? Douglas takes care of this in chapter 14 of his book. And Douglas has permitted me to publish it for your Gnosis, reluctant or not.

Get ready for that perfect merger of Phildickian and Jungian mysticism – but also a modern grand-drama Gnostic myth and an understanding of Abraxas! And you know our favorite antiheroine Sophia will make several appearances.

Like any Gnostic or Hermetic “listicle” work, whether it’s the Gospel of Thomas or Dick’s The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation, make sure you don’t just read but meditate upon each section. As William T. Vollmann wrote:

How is Your Life in a Philip K. Dick World?

https://thegodabovegod.com/how-is-your-life-in-a-philip-k-dick-world/
I really enjoyed our recent interview with Erik Davis, my favorite Philip K. Dick scholar and all around great guy (I’ve had the honor of hanging out with him in person twice, and can confirm he’s a blast to share drinks and Gnosis with).
The interview included one of the main themes of Aeon Byte: how we live in a Philip K. Dick world, which also means the realization of the Gnostic nightmare. I’ve made my mad case, and Erik does it even better in both our chant and in his new book High Weirdness. I quote part of the book in the drivel introduction to our interview. Now, I’d like to post this content here.
Why I’m a doing this repetition?
Simple: If we don’t wake up, if we don’t at least see what’s hidden in plain sight and website, we will continue drowning in the Gnostic nightmare.
Thusly, here are the excerpts from High Weirdness that argue for our reality in a Philip K. Dick world:

Thunder: Perfect Mind (Introduction & Translation by Robert M. Price)

https://thegodabovegod.com/thunder-perfect-mind-translation-by-robert-m-price/?fbclid=IwAR1oxv95iOHDYW1ScgVlkHpMh-D-yg-1VAB5TjcfcQgGx2L62jWPkdlQ9jI
The fourth-century cataloguer of heresies, Epiphanius of Salamis, is not always either clear or reliable, but he supplies many hints for us to take up and use as best we can in reconstructing early Christian history and belief. He tells us at least a bit more about the intriguing sect of the Nicolaitans which so upset the writer of the Revelation of John, who called their doctrines hateful. They encouraged a faithful defiance of cultic superstition, claiming the right to eat meat previously dedicated to idols. Since pagan gods are zeroes, they reasoned, why consider their left-over sacrifices any more than a treat? The same reasoning is examined in 1 Corinthians 8:1-6ff. It smacks of Gnosticism, and Epiphanius treats Nicolaitanism as such. There was also some type of unchasity involved (Revelation 3:20), which Epiphanius chalked up to Gnostic libertinism. But since the writer of Revelation guarantees salvation only to the celibate, and males at that (14:4), it need not have taken much in the way of sexual activity for him to have started fulminating about fornication. It never took much to get the Dead Sea Scroll ascetics going! It is interesting that the Revelator says he had for some time tolerated Jezebel (3:21), apparently as a colleague, though he finally decided she had no intention of coming around to his point of view. This fact mitigates the impression of some absolute gulf between the two positions. This may prove to be a fact of some importance.

The Great Declaration of Simon Magus

https://thegodabovegod.com/great-declaration-simon-magus/

Introduction and translation by Robert Price 

Simon Magus (the Mage, the Magician) is a fascinating character whom we meet in Acts 8, where he is depicted as a charlatan, though perhaps with real supernatural powers. He is a temporary and easily vanquished competitor of Christianity in Samaria. There he is said to have aggrandized himself as the Great Power, i.e., God himself come to earth. A number of Church Fathers mention him, too. They speak of him as the father of all heresies, and of Gnosticism in particular. Some speak of him as accompanied by one Helen, a woman he rescued from a brothel in Tyre once he recognized in her the incarnation of heavenly Wisdom (the Epinoia, or Ennoia, the First Thought). She had been abducted and ravished by the evil angels who made the world, and then she had passed into forgetfulness, to be reincarnated ever and again into one earthly, fleshly life after another till Simon, having himself entered the time-stream, came to earth to deliver her. In her, the Mother of all souls, he had redeemed all the souls of the elect, contained in her. And one might attain salvation, return to the Godhead, by accepting the saving grace of Simon Magus. Simon taught that his previous appearances on earth included one in Judea, where he had been crucified but only appeared to suffer. This implicit identification with Jesus probably has something to do with the Synoptic story about the cross of Jesus being born instead by Simon of Cyrene, a Phoenician, especially since Simon Magus, hailing from Gitta, might be either a Samaritan or a Phoenician (Gitta = Gath, Goliath’s hometown), and Phoenicians were called the Kittim, easily confused with Gitta. So Simon of Cyrene and Simon of Gitta might easily be intended as the same character.

The 21 Faces of God (long-form version)