Aeons, "Sethians", History

Well this will teach me to inquire. Maybe I don't want to know!

I was out Googling when I saw something called "Sethian" Gnosticism. I ignored it the first few times I saw it. When I refer to 'Seth' it's a modern channeled entity, not some Egyptian God or biblical figure, I know that name is those things too, so I wasn't interested. Later, something else I don't recall, caused me to visit the relevant page on wiki, where it says -- I am not kidding:

This original God went through a series of emanations, during which its essence is seen as spontaneously expanding into many successive 'generations' of paired male and female beings, called 'aeons'.

Well I guess we know where my brain came up with the Aeons term as used for some kind of 'entity'. Even though I have zero conscious recollection of seeing that -- I didn't even understand how the term, which I perceive as a measure of time or space, could be used that way. But since it already exists, I have to assume I saw it and simply don't remember.

As a point of humor, a friend of mine once made an archetype blog called "archon" -- I think some comic book had a character with that name. But on that same page, about this apparently offbeat philosophical line, it says:

Using this stolen power, Yaldabaoth creates a material world in imitation of the divine Pleroma. To complete this task, he spawns a group of entities known collectively as Archons, 'petty rulers' and craftsmen of the physical world. Like him, they are commonly depicted as theriomorphic, having the heads of animals.

I guess I should be grateful that I am not working with animal headed identities instead, right, which would sound even more ridiculous.

I had heard of some documents found in the desert once, the 'Nag Hammadi' texts that were some alternate writings related to Jesus's era. I even had a book, not sure if I read it or what its scope even was, about this once, that I think I gave to a friend not all that long ago. I honestly don't remember (not that this means anything) this "religious sub-cult" though, assuming it was even mentioned in it:

The Sethians were a gnostic group who originally worshipped the biblical Seth as a messianic figure, later treating Jesus as a re-incarnation of Seth. They produced numerous texts expounding their esoteric cosmology, usually in the form of visions:

• Apocryphon of John (also called the "Secret Gospel of John")
• Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians (distinct from the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians)
• Coptic Apocalypse of Paul (distinct from the Apocalypse of Paul)
• Trimorphic Protennoia

There are various notes about the "Sethian" philosophy (it is so weird to realize this is a whole terminology about ancient biblical stuff, since I use the term related to modern author Jane Roberts's work!). I don't really understand it all.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, if my subconscious assumedly knew that Aeons term and felt the Consortium qualified then what the hey, why not, it's not hurting anybody.

On the other hand, I just finished talking about how I don't have any specific theology and dislike labels. If it turns out there is a whole specific obscure religion using the same terms and maybe a couple similar concepts (by accident or design as far as my picking that up goes) I don't want to SEEM like that is my religion when at least consciously and as I recall (which means nothing, I forget all kinds of stuff!), I don't even know anything about it. And maybe if I did I wouldn't even like it, beyond that we happen to use one word the same way, beyond that it is part of the larger field of 'Gnosticism' of which (due mostly to my OTO association) I have considered myself a part.

Well, I feel "resistance" to the idea of studying the "Sethian Gnosticism" stuff. Not sure why. Maybe I am just mad that since they are already using that fairly unique term, making me feel like I subconsciously copied it, that something else which I consider genuinely unique to my "spontaneous experience" will turn out to be old hat from a couple thousand years ago. That does sort of take the spontaneous fun out of it, I admit. Not sure I want to know!

PJ