The Alien Archive

• Aeons Aeons (Greek: αἰών, aiōn, "age, eternity") are, in Gnostic cosmology, the eternal beings or realms that emanate from the unknowable God (the Monad). Together wi…
• Apocryphon of John The Apocryphon of John (also the Secret Book or Secret Revelation of John) is a second-century Sethian Gnostic revelation in which the risen Christ appears to J…
• Archons The Archons (Greek archontes, "rulers", singular archōn) are, in Gnosticism, the powers who build and govern the material cosmos under their chief, the Demiurge…
• Barbelo Barbelo (Greek: Βαρβηλώ) is the first emanation of the supreme God in Sethian Gnostic myth. She is the invisible Spirit's first Thought, the divine Mother, and …
• Bridal Chamber The Bridal Chamber (Greek numphōn) is the highest of the sacraments, or "mysteries," of Valentinian Gnosticism. It is a rite, or a spiritual reality, of union i…
• Christ in Gnosticism Christ in Gnosticism covers the many ways Gnostic Christians understood Jesus and "the Christ". For most of them Christ was a heavenly being from the Pleroma wh…
• Counterfeit Spirit The Counterfeit Spirit (Greek antimimon pneuma, "imitating" or "counter-imitating spirit"; also translated "despicable spirit") is, in the Apocryphon of John, a…
• Demiurge The Demiurge (from the Greek dēmiourgos, "craftsman" or "artisan") is the maker of the physical world. In Plato the word names a good divine craftsman who shape…
• Four Luminaries The Four Luminaries (also "Four Lights" or "four great lights") are, in Sethian Gnostic myth, four radiant heavenly beings who surround the self-generated Chris…
• Gnosis Gnosis (Greek: γνῶσις, "knowledge") is the saving knowledge at the heart of Gnosticism. It is not information or doctrine. It is a direct, inward recognition of…
• Gnosticism Gnosticism (from Greek gnōsis, "knowledge") is a modern umbrella term for a family of religious movements and writings from the early centuries CE, most of them…
• Gospel of Mary The Gospel of Mary is an early Christian writing, probably composed in Greek in the second century, in which Mary Magdalene comforts the frightened disciples af…
• Gospel of Philip The Gospel of Philip is a Valentinian Christian anthology of sayings, meditations and short arguments, preserved in a single Coptic copy in Codex II of the Nag …
• Hypostasis of the Archons The Hypostasis of the Archons (The Reality of the Rulers) is a Sethian Gnostic treatise from Codex II of the Nag Hammadi Library. It retells the first six chapt…
• Kenoma Kenoma (Greek: κένωμα, "emptiness, void") is the Gnostic, especially Valentinian, name for the realm outside the divine Fullness, the Pleroma. If the Pleroma is…
• Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (Mary of Magdala) was a Jewish woman who, according to all four canonical gospels, followed Jesus, helped support his ministry, witnessed his cru…
• Monad The Monad (Greek: μονάς, monas, "unit, oneness") is the name several Gnostic systems give to the supreme, unknowable God. This is the "Father of the All" who st…
• Nag Hammadi Library The Nag Hammadi Library is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic books, written in Coptic, that was found buried in a sealed jar near the town of Nag Hamm…
• Norea Norea is a heroine of Sethian Gnosticism: the daughter of Adam and Eve, sister of Seth, and "the virgin whom the forces did not defile." In the Hypostasis of th…
• Ogdoad and Hebdomad The Hebdomad (Greek: ἑβδομάς, "group of seven") and the Ogdoad (ὀγδοάς, "group of eight") are two paired terms in Gnostic cosmology. The Hebdomad is the realm o…
• On the Origin of the World On the Origin of the World (sometimes called "The Untitled Text," since the manuscript has no title) is a Gnostic treatise from the Nag Hammadi Library, found i…
• Pistis Sophia Pistis Sophia (Greek: "Faith-Wisdom") is both the name of a Gnostic heroine and the conventional title of the long Coptic book that tells her story. The book is…
• Pleroma The Pleroma (Greek: πλήρωμα, "fullness") is, in Gnostic thought, the realm of divine light that surrounds and expresses the unknowable God. It is the "Fullness"…
• Pneumatics, Psychics and Hylics Pneumatics, psychics and hylics are the three kinds of human being distinguished in Valentinian and related Gnostic thought. Pneumatics (Greek pneumatikoi, "spi…
• Sethianism Sethianism is the name modern scholars give to one of the main currents of 2nd- and 3rd-century Gnosticism. Its adherents traced their spiritual ancestry to Set…
• Sophia Sophia (Greek: σοφία, "wisdom"; Coptic tsophia) is the personified Wisdom of God. She first appears as a radiant female figure in the wisdom books of the Hebrew…
• Thunder, Perfect Mind The Thunder, Perfect Mind (Coptic tebrontē: nous n̄teleios) is a poem from Codex VI of the Nag Hammadi Library, spoken throughout by an unnamed feminine divine …
• Valentinianism Valentinianism was the largest, most intellectually ambitious school of Christian Gnosticism. It was founded by Valentinus (c. 100 – c. 165), an Egyptian-born t…
• Yaldabaoth Yaldabaoth (also spelled Yaltabaoth or Ialdabaoth, and called Saklas and Samael) is the Demiurge of Sethian Gnosticism: the lion-faced, serpent-bodied "chief ru…

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