Jewish Gnosticism

I’m not the first to point out this connection. Again from Israel Shahak’s “Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years”:

According to the cabbala, the universe is ruled not by one god but by several deities, of various characters and influences, emanated by a dim, distant First Cause, Omitting many details, one can summarise the system as follows. From the first Cause, first a male god called ‘Wisdom’ or ‘Father’ and then a female goddess called ‘Knowledge’ or ‘Mother’ were emanated or born.

Renowned author Dan Brown felt his renowned author senses tingling.

From the marriage of these two, a pair of younger gods were born: Son, also called by many other names such as ‘Small Face’ or The Holy Blessed One’; and Daughter, also called ‘Lady’ (or ‘Matronit’, a word derived from Latin), ‘Shekhinah’, ‘Queen’, and so on.

Evangelicals should get nervous when they learn the term “Shekhinah” comes from witchcraft. I believe the term in Mormonism is “Queen of Heaven” or something like that. This should sound familiar from Irenaeus:

They maintain, then, that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent Æon, whom they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and describe as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eternal and unbegotten, he remained throughout innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity and quiescence. There existed along with him Ennœa, whom they also call Charis and Sige. At last this Bythus determined to send forth from himself the beginning of all things, and deposited this production (which he had resolved to bring forth) in his contemporary Sige, even as seed is deposited in the womb. She then, having received this seed, and becoming pregnant, gave birth to Nous, who was both similar and equal to him who had produced him, and was alone capable of comprehending his father’s greatness. This Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, and the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also produced Aletheia; and these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which they also denominate the root of all things. For there are first Bythus and Sige, and then Nous and Aletheia.

Irenaeus on Valentinian Gnosticism in “Against Heresies”

Returning to Shahak, because this section on Kabbalah is really interesting.

These two younger gods should be united, but their union is prevented by the machinations of Satan, who in this system is a very important and independent personage, The Creation was undertaken by the First Cause in order to allow them to unite, but because of the Fall they became more disunited than ever, and indeed Satan has managed to come very close to the divine Daughter and even to rape her (either seemingly or in fact ~ opinions differ on this). The creation of the Jewish people was undertaken in order to mend the break caused by Adam and Eve, and under Mount Sinai this was for a moment achieved: the male god Son, incarnated in Moses, was united with the goddess Shekhinah.

You know, like they told you in Sunday school: Moses was up on Mount Sinai having sex with the Goddess.

Unfortunately, the sin of the Golden Calf again caused disunity in the godhead; but the repentance of the Jewish people has mended matters to some extent.

Just so we’re clear on the direction of causality, Jewish religiosity -> God’s integrity.

Similarly, each incident of biblical Jewish history is believed to be associated with the union or disunion of the divine pair. The Jewish conquest of Palestine from the Canaanites and the building of the first and second Temple are particularly propitious for their union, while the destruction of the Temples and exile of the Jews from the Holy Land are merely external signs not only of the divine disunion but also of a real ‘whoring after strange gods’: Daughter falls closely into the power of Satan, while Son takes various female satanic personages to his bed. instead of his proper wife.

The duty of pious Jews is to restore through their prayers and religious acts the perfect divine unity, in the form of sexual union. between the male and female deities. Thus before most ritual acts, which every devout Jew has to perform many times each day, the following cabbalistic formula is recited: ‘For the sake of the [sexual] congress of the Holy Blessed One and his Shekhinah … ‘ The Jewish morning prayers are also arranged so as to promote this sexual union. if only temporarily.

Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that when Jews quote the verse “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” they aren’t professing monotheism, they’re affirming this sexual union of the divine Son and Daughter.

For example. perhaps the most sacred Jewish formula, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’, recited several times each day by every pious Jew, can at the present time mean two contrary things. It can mean that the Lord is indeed ‘one’; but it can also mean that a certain stage in the union of the male and female deities has been reached or is being promoted by the proper recitation of this formula.

I’m gonna have to update the description of Zodiacism to include an obsession with turning sex into a divine ritual.