Her Name Is Silence

I began delving into the Nag Hammadi writings around 1980, a few years after the publication of The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson. The NHLE is still the standard edition of this material, by which many people are introduced to the arcane subject of Gnosticism. An unfortunate start, to say the least. Elsewhere on this site I have commented at length on the scandal of Gnostic scholarship and its failure to deliver anything close to a comprehensible translation of the Greek-Coptic writings found in upper Egypt in December 1945.

As I explain in the (unfinished) Commentaries, I found my way into the morass of the NHLE by taking note of "bursts". One such burst returned to me recently as I was meditating upon a certain enigma that is currently capturing the mind of the human species: "Her name is Silence." (The Greek word for silence, adopted into Coptic, is sige (seeg-yay.) Having not consulted my Coptic library for some years now, I had to venture a guess where that curt, striking assertion can be found. I reckoned it was in The Sophia of Jesus Christ, NHC III, 4. It turns out I was correct, but when I checked in the NHLE, I did not find that exact line but some variations on it, such as this one:

And the immortals, whom I have just described, all have authority from Immortal Man, who is called 'Silence', because by reflecting without speech all her own majesty was perfected. SJC III, 3.112 (p 238 NHLE)

I lift this passage verbatim from the NHLE, word for word in the translation of Douglas M. Parrott. (Robinson worked with a team of translators.) In this variant, "Immortal Man" is called Silence -- as well as Sophia in other passages (see below); but here the possessive pronoun refers to a woman: her. This citation demonstrates the notorious feature of the Greek-Coptic materials, namely, the obscure and inconsistent use of possessive pronouns. Her, hers, his, their, theirs often occur without clear indication to whom they refer. This line refers the Immortal Man to a feminine possessive pronoun. The consternation of scholars in dealing with these problems is flagrant.

"Immortal Man" in this passage is incorrect: the original Coptic is MNIATMOU NRHOME where RHOME means humanity considered as a species, not man, the male of the species. "Deathless humanity" would be an optional rendering. The life of the species is deathless compared to individual specimens of the species. The NHL uses the Coptic RHOME and the Greek anthropos interchangeably for humanity, the species, not "man," the male gender, andros in Greek.

For the Coptic original you have to go to The Coptic Gnostic Library (CGL) published in five volumes by Brill, Leiden, Netherlands. Volume 3 presents the tractate titled Eugnostos face to face with the Sophia of Jesus Christ, a unique instance of parallel texts in the Nag Hammadi corpus. Eugnostos appears in two versions, in Book V and Book III, and the Sophia of Jesus Christ (illustration below) appears in Book III but also in the Berlin Codex (BG), outside the NHC. There are four texts in all, parallel and overlapping in some passages and terms, but also exhibiting unique features. The CGL V.3 presents these four texts in parallel columns. Here are two columns of the four, showing the title page of the Sophia of Jesus Christ:

Note that Sophia in Coptic lettering is the first word, written in full: C - O - Greek letter phi - I - A. The Coptic S looks like a capital C. The letter T, attached to the name, is the indefinite article, the. But the presumed Jesus Christ is written in abbreviation with a superlinear stroke: XRC = CH - R - S, IHC = I - E - C, IC = I - S, XC = CH-S. Already in the title of the tractate you see numerous variations of spelling and notation which are rampant throughout the material that follows. The text from Book III is shown here side by side with the Berlin Codex (BG). The introduction in the CGL runs to 35 pages and the translation and layout of the materials differs from what you see in the NHLE, edited for non-scholars.

As the opening line indicates, SJC is a "resurrection discourse" said to be delivered by the risen savior to his intimate disciples. Fabulous, so that proves that Gnostic teachings were compatible with Christian dogma! So you might presume, but you would be wrong. SJC shows how some Gnostic teachings were adapted to Christian doctrines, including the resurrection. However, the parallel material in Eugnostos does not presume such a situation and does not require belief in a risen savior, a presumption which is flatly denied and ridiculed elsewhere in the Nag Hammadi writings. To their credit, the expert scholars put a lot of time into explaining how the Eugnostos stands independently as a non-Christian work.

The sentence that I recently recalled, cited above from SJC line 112, appears in a variation in Eugnostos line 88:

All the immortals whom I have just described, have authority (exousia) -- all of them -- from the power of Immortal Man (athanatos rhome) and Sophia, his consort (syzygos), who was called "Silence" (sige), and who was named "Silence" because by reflecting without speech (shaike) she perfected her own majesty.

In this passage, "her own majesty" refers to a feminine agency, force, entity, or entelechy, presented as the consort of "Immortal Man." Read and compare to the first passage cited. Clearly the second passage is more elaborate, and more consistent, with the possessive pronoun matching Sophia, a feminine agency. It is striking to see a Sophia-Humanity dyad: "from the power of the Immortal Man and Sophia." Eugnostos is explicit calling Sophia, an Aeon, the consort or syzygos of the human species. Athanatos rhome: deathless human species. Rhome (pronounced ROE-may) is the Coptic word for humanity distinguished from the Greek loan word, andros, for the masculine of the species, man.

The term "majesty" is obviously important here but the word is not even listed in A Coptic Dictionary by Walter Ewing Crum (Oxford, 1939). Majestic is, majesty, no. Go look for yourself: http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/crum

Sample column from Crum: ME = love in Coptic. Crum references the Old Testament and other ancient texts where each entry and its cognates occurs. A scan of the column shows that ME reads equivalently to erastes and to agapan, Greek words for lover and love, respectively.

Sophia's Mastery

So what is majesty? The state of being majestic? What does it mean in this context? And to whom is this majesty ascribed in these parallel texts: to Sophia, to humanity, to both?

The passage in Eugnostos says that Sophia, the Aeon who in consort with Thelete designed the human genome, was called "Silence." Let's consider that statement for a moment. Does it indicate that you might call out to Sophia by the word "Silence", pronounced aloud, as you would call someone's name? If so, then you might call to Sophia out loud in this way: "Hey Silence! Gimme a clue to what you're doing right now!" Here you use "Silence" like any other name to be applied to a human person or an animal, like calling a dog "Spot." "Hey Spot, come get your bone." That is the obvious way to proceed in calling an animal, voicing its name out loud.

Okay, simple enough. But suppose the assertion that Sophia's name is Silence is not intended to be taken in that way, literally, as a name to be pronounced. Suppose there is a non-obvious instruction within it, a hidden meaning that could only be known to someone initiated into the presence of the divine agency to be called, invoked, addressed. To catch the true instruction, you would have to understand the statement in the same way it was understood by the initiates who made it, speaking from direct mystical experience of the divine presence of Sophia. Only a genuine Gnostic teacher living today can detect such a cue, while teams of scholars who lack mystical experience have to remain clueless.

The assertion "Her name is Silence," applied to Sophia, operates as a kind of riddle that runs extremely deep into the workings of the human mind and into the very nature of mind itself, mind as such. Holding to that riddle, genuine Gnostic instruction can be realized. A more accurate formulation of that instruction can be stated in the line from Eugnostos cited above, but rendered differently:

Sophia is called Silence because by pure reflection of mind without speech, without external utterance, she attained mastery [of her own powers].

In the various NHL translations, scholars use brackets [ ] when they insert what they deem to be the implied or inferred meaning. Mastery has to be mastery of something. Majesty, by contrast, is mere inflation, glorification. The majesty inferred here is the status of self-mastery which the Aeonic Mother attains in a particular way, "by pure reflection of mind without speech." Majesty is not just a show of power that makes an impressive appearance, like costumed dignitaries parading in a red carpet, but the elegant command of one's own power. A prancing stallion is majestic because it commands its own power. So it a hummingbird. Or a waterfall. Thus, I propose that self-mastery is the majesty attained here.

Power Pact

The parallel texts suggest divine-human complicity by coupling Deathless Humanity with the Wisdom Goddess, as if they were consorts: SOPHIA-RHOME. There is a power-sharing arrangement of self-mastery involving Sophia and the main subject of her experiment, humanity. Hence it can be said that the power-sharing arrangement of Planetary Tantra -- "interactive magic with Gaia-Sophia" -- is prefigured in this passage in the Gnostic writings.

I ask long-time students and newcomers alike to take careful note of the way I develop the Gnostic material. Whenever I propose something not literally stated in the surviving writing, I state openly that I am doing so, and I base what I infer or develop or extrapolate on existing texts. For example, I base "interactive magic with Gaia-Sophia", the definition of Planetary Tantra, on passages in the Eugnostos/SJC texts, and other materials indicating that Her Correction (diorthosis) will be completed by the actions of "that luminous child," her offspring, the human species.

The word "majesty" comes from the PIE root magh-, "great, in power." Online Etymological dictionary:

magic. late 14c., "art of influencing events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces," from Old French magique "magic, magical," from Late Latin magice "sorcery, magic," from Greek magike (presumably with tekhne "art"), fem. of magikos "magical," from magos "one of the members of the learned and priestly class," from Old Persian magush, possibly from PIE *magh- (1) "to be able, to have power"

The founders of the Gnostic movement were the shamans of Magian Order of ancient Persia. The definition of the root magh-, "to be able, to have power," is identical to the standard definition of the Sanskrit root shak-, basis of shakti, root of the word sacred. What is sacred has great power and the ability to use it. Planetary Tantra is reinvented and upscaled Shaktism, the worship of power in recognition of the immediate living presence of Mother Earth.

In Not in His Image, I wrote: "The compounds Gaia-Shakti and Shakti-Sophia can be useful in asserting the clear and consistent parallels between Goddess mysticism in the West and in Asia." Cross-referencing of this kind allowed me to make the Tantric Conversion in fall 2008, eight years ago from the time of this writing. To my knowledge, no scholar of Western religion or Buddhism has attempted such an elaborate and detailed parallelism between Gnosis and Tantra.

Types of Intervention

Now, to explore the novelty of Sophianic intervention, let's consider these six terms applicable to people holding different views on god, and consequently, different concepts of divine intervention:

deist: believes in a creator-god who does not intervene in the world

theist*: believes in a creator-god who intervenes in the world

pantheist*: believes in the constant and active presence of divinity all through nature. Synonymous with immanentist: believes that superhuman divinity pervades the natural world and even the human psyche. Synonymous with panentheism.

animist*: believes -- or more correctly, perceive -- the natural world to be pervaded and animated by divine agencies or spirits who can work either harm or good on human creatures. Special case: Sophianic animism.

atheist: believes that no creator-god exists in the first place

agnostic: believes it is impossible to know if god/divinity exists or not

gnostic*: knows directly the reality of divine agencies

oneiric*: resembling a dream, dream-like; considers life as a dream-state Pronounced: oh-NAIR-ik

The terms marked with an asterisk* denote belief-systems or paradigms that would allow some kind of intervention scenario. Deism and atheism strictly exclude it, and agnosticism excludes any knowledge of intervention, were it to be possible. Religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all theists. The Abraham ic religions are fundamentally theistic, holding to the belief that a supreme creator-god intervenes in the human world. All three religions also have their own versions of messiahs, the agents or instruments of intervention.

In Christianity, the messiah is the incarnate divinity, Jesus Christ, who is believed to have lived in historical time, and who may return for a second coming -- the Maranatha Jesus. In Islam, Mohammed is the supreme messianic figure and the messiah to come is the called the Madhi. These variations of the messiah/interventionist scenario describe active agents who can impact world events. They can change the course of history and determine the fate of the human species. Billions of human animals believe this to be so. Billions.

Hinduism is animistic and pantheistic, admitting the intervention of gods via the role of the avatar. It is also oneiric, presenting the god Vishnu as the world-dreamer who may on occasion descend as an avatar into the dream he is having, and change the course of events of the dream in a salvific manner. Hindu tradition asserts that nine interventions of the the Vishnu avatar have occurred, and a tenth is due in Kali Yuga, the so-called Kalki Avatar. The long essay, Goddess the the Rescue, presents an interpretation of the Kalki avatar in the framework of the Fallen Goddess Scenario. The essay of over-worked and cluttered with extraneous material, but important still -- perhaps due for a revisit as mythophrenia unfolds.

Buddhism and Taoism are atheistic, excluding the concept of a creator-god, and verging on agnostic: they do not admit creation scenarios. Taoism is loosely animist in its view of nature and lacking in any interventionist concepts. Buddhism allows a marginal concept of intervention, of sorts, in the figure of the future Buddha, Maitreya. The Maitreya can be equated with the World Teacher, to borrow a term from Theosophy. As such, he or she stands distinct from the Abrahamic messiah who is an authority figure, not to mention an instrument of divine wrath. In Tibetan Buddhism as it survives today, the role of the tulku or reincarnated lama is an approximation of an avataric or messianic figure, conceived however as a teacher of the Dharma, rather than an active agent in world events.

The Jewish-Islamic Fix

The concept of a messiah sent from god into the human world on a salvationist mission assumed a weird and anomalous form in Judaism (as explained in Not in His Image, Chapter 4, on Jewish theocracy). The precedent for the Jewish messiah complex can be found in Zoroastrianism with the concept of the Shaoshant, a divine agent who brings about the Frashokereti or final renovation of the world. In Judaism the theme of renovation derived from Persian myth morphed into tikkun olam, "fixing the world." Therein resides an extremely problematic concept of divine intervention -- indeed, an insane prospect -- that requires careful scrutiny and deconstruction if the mind field is to be cleared for considering other, possibly sane alternatives.

The anomaly of divine intervention operating to this day in the Jewish mindset has two driving factors: single-source duality combined with master race theory. As explained in Not in His Image:

Gnostic cosmology is dualistic, but not in the same way as the cosmology of Zoroaster—Persian duality, discussed above in connection with the rise of Jewish theocracy. Let’s recall that the religious doctrine of Persian duality, absorbed by the Hebrews during the Babylonian Captivity, posits the opposition of Good (Ahura Mazda) versus Evil (Ahriman) at the cosmic level. This is absolute duality. It assumes a split in the Godhead, in the divine realm, at the one source of all that exists. Hence it may be called split-source duality. It may also be called single-source duality because it assumes that good and evil have the same origin, due to a split at the source, in the Godhead—an idea flatly refuted by Gnostics. In their protest against Christianity, Gnostics opposed Christian theology and dualist ethics based on the Jewish notion of a wrathful, punishing father god who was also, believe it or not, the source of divine love.

By contrast, Gnostic teachers adhered to the paradigm of two-source duality:

two-source duality: Gnostic cosmological concept asserting that good and evil do not arise from the same source, but evil comes into play in human experience owing to the superposition of two different perceptual systems. Illustrated by the analogy of the two-source hologram in the writings of Philip K. Dick.

Persian dualism states that there is a battle between cosmic good and cosmic evil, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, but the two opposing powers are ultimately, enigmatically rooted in the same source. The ancient Hebrews adopted this notion of good versus evil as a system of cosmic determination and combined it with the other driving element in their peculiar mindset: master race ideology, exemplified in the Chosen People. They conceived their tribal deity Jahweh/Jehovah to be the source of both good and evil; hence the OT deity both loves and punishes. For the Jews (and Muslims, it might be added), even satan is merely an adversary sent by the supreme deity to test human obedience. The Jewish devil in Jahweh's advocate.

The weird anomaly of Jewish theocracy continued to morph and mutate through centuries, sustained by the "covert operations" of Talmudic and rabbinical fanatics who twisted it into more contortions than a rubber chicken in a centrifuge. Ultimately, they parleyed the Chosen People into a master race whose members would come to regard themselves as gods on earth, ruling over all non-Jewish peoples (Goyim, Gentiles, "the nations"). Due to this bizarre twist, the majority of synagogue rabbis today declare they are atheists. Some orthodox Jews may sentimentally cite the quaint notion of god's will prevailing in the world, but the brutal truth is, Jews in the know deny a higher power any way to intervene in world events, so it is to them a matter of indifference if god exists or not. Thus, atheistic Judaism aligns with orthodox Jewish religion on the goal of Jewish domination of the world, including the righteous task of fixing the world.

The "fix" offered by this anomalous belief-system has come into definition as a programmatic imperative operating in world events since the emancipation of the Jews in Europe in 1849. In this program, the Jewish pretence of fixing the world -- in plain English, righteously dictating to everyone else how they must live -- conceals the intention to dominate all non-Jewish people and centralize all wealth and power in Jewish control, while laying waste to the culture, history, and identity of the Goyim. This program of intervention by the self-assumed god-like master race goes under the name of communism -- though is almost never defined in just that way. The sad and shocking fact is, most people in the world today, including quite intelligent people, have absolutely no idea what communism actually is.

Through a parallel and complementary development in the Muslim mindset, Islam also offers a fix for what's wrong with the world: shariah law. Islam and communism are compatible systems aiming for total centrist domination of the masses. Both Islam and Jewish/Marxist communism seek to centralize all power and wealth in a theocratic elite, but with different spins.

DEFEAT THE JEWISH-ISLAMIC FIX

ONE LIE AT A TIME

BEGINNING WITH THE RULING LIE

Muslims must continue to believe in an intervening deity who is represented by the theocrats of Islam, imams, clerics, etc. Jews in the know scorn this naivety and regard themselves as acting in the place of the deity. They deify the Jewish race as an ethnic strain superior to the rest of the human species, even as an angelic or Elohistic race, not human at all.

This anomaly being understood, it is clear that the Jewish intervention scenario is an existential event that must culminate in an historical moment in linear time. That moment comes when communism triumphs globally, and sharia law can be imposed on all infidels. The domination of world events would be the achievement of a "satanic cabal," to borrow a term from Adolph Hitler -- that is to say, a minute fraction of the world population in whom all power is centralized would stand opposed to the rest of humanity, acting in the satanic posture of the adversary, enemy.

Seeing the Enemy

Now, supposing there are other scenarios of divine intervention that might actually occur, reflected in various theist, pantheist, animist, and gnostic perspectives, it has to be noted with urgency that such scenarios would stand in direct competition with the Jewish-Islamic fix.

In other words, anyone who seeks to recognize and be engaged with any other scenario of divine intervention would be required to oppose and overthrow of the Jewish-Islamic paradigm which operates openly and actively in a geopolitical scheme of deceit and domination. The responsibility to call out, challenge, and defeat that uniquely evil anomalous program comes with the prospect of living out a sane, viable alternative.

To engage in Sophia's Correction as a singularity requires a clear and sober grasp of its three outstanding elements: its novelty, its interactive features (developed in Planetary Tantra), and last but not least, its adversarial bent -- a call to war.

The "awakening" of humanity so often invoked today cannot be a collective event, but only a selective one. The sleeping collective may then be led by the vanguard who have awakened. Awakening depends upon being informed about the satanic fix, of course. You have to see how Jewish theocracy, Marxism, and Islam work in satanic collusion against the divine experiment on earth. But even more so, it depends on activating conscience to match the truth that dawns in those who awake to the globalist agenda of division, deceit, and domination ("3-D evil"). It depends on seeing who is the enemy of humanity and of life itself. Seeing what the enemy intends to do and how it intends to do it.

These reflections are deep and daunting but absolutely imperative for a better future on this planet, and they are fundamental to detecting the novelty of divine intervention as it might unfold in the perspective of Sophia's Correction. The above considerations underpin the historical challenge of Sophianic intervention: the role of humanity in overturning the deceit of the Jewish-Islamic fix, and correcting its own history. Correction is, and must be, an historical event. If it is a true planetary event and not merely a fantasy or game of new age make-believe ("Ascension"), Sophia's intervention must demonstrate the interactive role of some portion of humanity doing what only human creatures can do, correcting the historical record.

I began to emphasize the historical aspect of Correction during the GNE, 2011 - 2014. At that time I was floored by the realization that no society at any period in pervious times had ever faced the task of correcting its history. Just consider that opportunity for a moment. Such an opportunity in itself is a huge novelty.

Correction is an historical singularity that involves overturning lies of the historical record, especially, first and foremost, the lie about Germany, the German people, and the treatment of Jews by the Third Reich. The correction of our own history is humanity's contribution to the divine intervention of the Aeonic Mother. I don't think this point can be made strongly enough, or often enough.

The above section on the Jewish-Islamic fix might seem like something of a digression, but it is far from it. No one living today can comprehend how divine intervention might happen without learning about how those particular Jews who push the fix intend it to happen, in their insane way. Responsibility comes with the challenge to find a humane way to solve what's wrong in the world, in the social order.

Anyone who wishes to entertain the idea of divine intervention might go on a tour of the variations cited above, entailing a long course of study and speculation, not to mention traversing a mine field of theological quandaries and absurdities of theodicy, apologetics in the name of God. All that folderol is extraneous to the two unique cases I am profiling here. The first has just been described: the unique case of the Jewish-Islamic communist menace, crudely called the "New World Order" or "Jew World Order." (Recall that Jews and Arabs are descended from the same patriarch, Abraham, the first through his wife, Sarah, and the second through his concubine, Hagar. So the Bible says.) Against that program, which is the epitome of human evil, and well underway, there stands another unique case of intervention: the intervention of the Aeon Sophia.

Gnostic Warning

How does the Sophianic intervention happen? And how it is different from all other scenarios of intervention? That is the big question of this moment, this year in historical time, 2016. Understanding the HOW depends on two requirements: first, to define the conditions required for intervention, and second, to determine the instrumental basis for it, the way it plays out according to the method or modus operandi of the planetary animal mother.

The Gnostic version of the interventionist scenario is the Correction of the Aeon Sophia. This scenario is an historical singularity, as just explained, but also a narrative singularity. The description of how it works developed by the Gnostic teacher in our time demonstrates unique properties incomparable to other scenarios that have been widely propagated for millennia. The Gnostic view of intervention is theistic, pantheistic, immanentist, animistic, and oneiric. The Gnostic teacher today would insist that intervention is an event to be discovered as it is happening, rather than predicted as an act of divine will, or merely observed as a spectacle that requires no human involvement. The conditions that precede intervention, as well as the conditions in which it comes to be implemented or manifested, are to be determined by human imagination and critical intelligence, not by blind faith.

The assertion that "her name is Silence" presents a clue pointing to the way that Sophia intervenes in the world event. It is instructive to combine that clue with another key passage from the cosmological text, On the Origin of the World (II, 5.25)

When Pistis saw the impiety of the Lord Archon she was filled with anger. Acting in her invisible form, she spoke in this way: "You are mistaken, blind one -- false deity who cannot see. There is an immortal luminous child, the Anthropos, who came into existence before you and who will appear among your spectral forms (plasmata). This luminous child will trample you in scorn just as a potter's clay is pounded (into a lump). And you will sink away to your proper zone, the abyss (of gravity), along with those who belong to your legion.

For at the consummation of your work, the entire defect [of Archontic illusion] exposed in the light of truth will be abolished, and [that illusion] will be as if it never had been."

In this scene, set many eons before the emergence of the planet earth, the Aeon Sophia (called Pistis) confronts the alien adversaries of humanity, the archons. The chief of the archon horde is Yahweh, the male creator-god of the Abrahamic religions. Long before humanity emerged on earth, the archons had taken an adversarial stance toward the Anthropos. Due to an intervention that occured in historical time, the archons finally achieved a neural hack into the human mind. Doing so, they were able to use the ancient Hebrews as a vector for their intrusion into the divine experiment unfolding on earth, with humanity as its central subject. The Gnostic warning states clearly:

Ialdabaoth himself chose a certain man named Abraham from among the nations, and made a covenant with him, to the effect that, if his seed continued to serve him, the Archons would give to them the earth for an inheritance. Afterwards, by means of Moses, Ialdabaoth brought forth Abraham's descendants from Egypt, and gave them the law, and made them the Jews. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book One, Ch 30, section 10)

What makes the Jews the singular and exceptional breed they are is the alien mindset they exhibit due to the neural hack or archontic infection. They do not place themselves in any nation or country, but stand apart from and above the rest of the human race. Not all Jews deliberately and knowingly hold this stance, of course, but all those who assume Jewish identity are implicated in it.

Those particular Jews who maintain and enforce the communist program of world domination do not interact with god, or act in behalf of gods. Instead, they indulge in the bizarre psychosis of setting themselves up as god. Here again is a feature that sets the Jewish intervention narrative apart from all others. It stands out as the most evil and dangerous one of all -- and note, again, it can be shown to be historically operative. Standing against it is the Gnostic scenario of divine intervention, Sophia's Correction. It is no small matter that the one short paragraph in Irenaeus preserves the Gnostic warning about Jews being instrumental to the archons, the extraterrestrial mind parasites. That one paragraph has the intel to save the day for humanity at large, all the non-Jewish peoples, the Goyim or Gentiles.

Meeting Sophie

So far I have specified three elements in the novelty of Sophianic intervention: novelty, interactivity (power-sharing with the Goddess, Planetary Tantra), and the adversarial challenge to oppose the ruling lie, correct of the historical record. To conclude this exposition, let's concentrate on the novelty of her intervention, and see if we can see how she actually accomplishes it in an intimate and first-hand way that you can verify. Doing so, recall the passage cited at the start of this essay:

Sophia is called Silence because by pure reflection of mind without speech, without external utterance, she attained mastery [of her own powers].

In my interpretation, this passage asserts that Sophia accomplishes the mastery of her own powers through "pure reflection of mind without speech," and that is why her name is Silence. For the exegesis of this astonishing proposition, let's turn to a little exercise in story-telling -- guided imagination, to borrow a Jungian term. I want to put you into a story and have you make observations and draw conclusions on your own, rather than expostulate and put ideas in your head. In that way, you can reach a sense of the novelty of Correction and perhaps fathom the exact nature of Sophia's self-mastery, achieved by "reflecting without speech." The story I propose is based on a real-life incident.

Once when I flew the Malaga-Brussels route I was seated beside a four-year-old girl. I had the window seat, and she sat on my right, with her brother, about ten, to her right, and her parents across the aisle. They were Flemish-speaking Belgians. I heard her mother call her Sophie, so I knew that was her name even though she did not say it to me. Sophie spent a good part of the flight drawing enigmatic letters and icons on small squares of paper. She presented me with one, as well as a necklace of multi-colored paper flowers which now decorates the Anthropos Altar at my part-time residence in Spain.

I

I will develop the participatory exercise using this incident as a model, but I will change the setting, and place you in it:

Picture yourself sitting in a pretty, quiet cafe, sipping a glass of wine. You have a table by yourself but quite nearby, on your right, is another table where a four- or five-year-old girl is sitting, on her own. She is drinking hot chocolate and entertaining herself with a large notebook, spiral bound, with blank pages for sketches. She has several pencils which she chooses with care as she writes and draws in the notebook. From time to time she consults a book that she has placed within reach, as if for consultation. You notice it is Charlotte's Web by E. B. White.

Now, suppose that people in the cafe are polite and not loud, there is no music playing and you can hear conversations. You know nothing about the other people there, but you infer, first of all, that the girl at her own table beside you is there with her parents, who occupy the next table, to her right. Your inference is confirmed when you see the mother address the girl: "Drink your choco while it's hot, schat (darling)." That's all you know, so far.

Now picture how the girl notices you by quick, shy glances, at first. Then at a moment she looks up at you in a dreamy way and her eyes narrow a little, as if to scrutinize or assess you. Are you worthy of her interest? Something tells you yes, as her manner seems to invite your attention to what she is doing with the pencils and notebook. You lean slightly toward her to watch.

You see that she has covered one page of the large format drawing book with odd symbols and versions of alphabetic letters, also with small icons of circular and triangular forms, reminiscent of corporate logos. You get the strong impression that she might be writing in her own kind of script, inventing it as she goes along. Children do invent in that way. But some of the marks are recognizable letters, even words here and there. You infer that this girl can write, or perhaps is just learning to write.

Suddenly, she reaches for the book and opens it, riffling through the pages with a bemused expression. Then she concentrates in a more specific way, and you see that she is reading the text, although she seems quite young to be able to read. Well, she may be just scanning the lines but not reading it, word for word... At a moment, her face lights up when she comes to the illustration on page 74, showing the cobweb Charlotte wove with the words "SOME PIG" in it. She rubs her hand fondly over the image and bites her lip gingerly, as if deep in thought, or contemplating a trick. Then she returns to her entertainment with drawing and writing.

After a while, her mother, speaking from the next table, says something to her in Dutch, ending with the word "Sophie," but the S is pronounced close to a Z. The girl looks up and nods, she answers to that name.

Sophie returns to her notebook, assuming an air of concentration. She prints out some random letters, then what appears to be a complete phrase in Dutch. But the book on the table is in English, remember. So you infer that Sophia knows those two languages, English and Dutch, and she can write in both. Sophia is bilingual. Sophie can write. And Sophie can also read.

Once again, her mother speaks, this time in English: "You can finish reading your new book when we are on vacation." Sophie agrees and nods with a contented smile. She reaches for the book and looks closely at the illustration of the message in Charlotte's web. You see her take a pencil and add a word in the margin of the book, to the left of the spider web that reads out "SOME PIG". The word she adds is DUG. So it says DUG SOME PIG. She prints the three letters, in perfect proportions to each other, with obvious care and pleasure, Once done, she glances at you and flashes a mischievous smile. Then she returns once again to her notebook which is rapidly filling up with letters and symbols.

So far you have not exchanged a word with Sophie but she has initiated you into her secret world, whose deepest secret you have yet to learn. You know that she reads and writes, comands two or perhaps more languages, invents alphabetic figures, plays with icons and funny little symbols of all kinds, and she can even edit text.

The parents are now paying the bill, ready to leave. The mother brings a sweater to Sophie, saying in English "Put this on now, it's a little chilly outside." You wonder if Sophie will respond in English, or Dutch, and you are curious to hear the sound of her voice. Such a calm, self-possessed little girl. But Sophia wriggles into her sweater without a word, and gathers her things from the table in a calm, self--composed way. Her father comes around to escort her from the cafe, and speaks low to her in Dutch. Suddenly there is the sound of a siren outside in the street. Hearing it, Sophie stops and listens, and looking up at her father, makes a short flurry of odd gestures with her hands. Her father nods and takes her hand and the three of them leave the cafe.

You are still sitting there as it sinks in. You encountered a little girl who answers to the name Sophie, who reads and writes, speaks more than one language, makes editing changes in books, listens closely to what her parents say, like a well-mannered child, but does not speak to them in return. It sinks in that Sophie cannot speak. She can do many things, foremost among them, reading and writing, and she can hear perfectly, but she cannot talk. The gifted child Sophie is mute.

In her Correction, Sophia does not speak out loud, although she could. By "pure reflection of mind without speech," she shows her witnesses the mastery of her powers. She communicates telepathically and through signs, sigils, spelling. In recognition of her choice not to speak out loud to the Anthropos, she is called Silence, Sige. That is the initiated instruction from the Eugnostos.

jll Oct 4-11, 2016 Andalucia - revised January 28, 2017 Flanders