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Kabbalah and the Gnostic dialectic

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Kabbalah and the Gnostic dialectic

I thought this was a very good summary and reference therefore I copied it from this thread:  https://x.com/Ne_pas_couvrir/status/1930974271217525020

 

LEFT

The esoteric left aims to heal society by elevating the margins. Its telos is a future where those marked by trauma (BIPOC, queer, colonized, disabled, poor) are gathered into the center, repairing the whole. Scale is global & systemic, yet led by an elect of scholars & activists who awaken a collective consciousness through uncovering hidden structures of domination. History is read as staged rupture & redemption: critique exposes the wound, solidarity raises the oppressed, collective praxis completes the work of obligated, spiritual repair by reintegrating every excluded part back into the whole, sublating the false center, repairing the broken material world.

RIGHT

The esoteric right seeks to restore sacred order. Its telos is a return to primordial hierarchy, cosmic harmony & rooted identity. Scale is civilizational or ethnic, steered by a disciplined minority of custodians of culture, warrior aristocrats or an ethical state. Their critique targets decadence rather than equality, viewing modern liberalism as a fall from transcendence. Awakening is selective, shaped by myth, ritual & inner discipline that elevate the few who can impose form on the many. Revolutions are taken as divine punishments that purge decline so this elect can rebuild throne, altar & organic community. History moves in cycles of rise, decay & rebirth; repair arrives by re enthroning transcendent authority, not by universal emancipation.

The last major figure or node shared by both the esoteric left and right, before they diverge, is Jakob Böhme (1575–1624).

His mystical theosophy blends Christianity, alchemical symbolism, and Kabbalah, particularly influenced by Lurianic ideas of divine withdrawal, fragmentation, and restoration.

Esoteric Left absorbs Bohme’s dialectical logic, where light is born through inner contradiction. This flows into German Idealism (Kant, Fichte, Hegel), then through Moses Hess, who reconfigures exile and repair into a redemptive collective mission, fusing Lurianism with early socialism; he’s the pivot between Hegelian philosophy to Marxist materialist praxis

From Bohme, the line splits:
The Right: Pasqually → Saint-Martin → De Maistre, transmuting divine rupture into sacred hierarchy & counter-revolution.
The Left: Hegel → Hess → Marx, transforming mystical dialectic into collective emancipation & material repair.

Shared Esoteric Trunk until Jakob Böhme
Greek Magical Papyri (2nd c. BC–5th c. AD) → Hellenistic Hermetica (2nd–3rd c. AD) →
Alexandrian Gnostics (1st–3rd c. AD) →
Plotinus & early Neoplatonists (3rd c. AD) →
Late Neoplatonism [Iamblichus, Proclus] (3rd–5th c. AD) →
[Early Christian apophatic mystics (Pseudo-Dionysius, 5th–6th c. AD) alongside early Jewish mysticism (Merkabah, Hekhalot, 2nd–6th c. AD)] →
Medieval Jewish Kabbalah [Bahir, Zohar] (12th–13th c. AD) alongside medieval Christian Platonists [Eriugena (9th c. AD), Eckhart, Tauler (13th–14th c. AD)] →
[Renaissance Christian Hermetists & Kabbalists (Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin, Agrippa, Bruno, Fludd, 15th–17th c. AD) alongside Sephardic Jewish Kabbalists (Caro, Cordovero, 16th c. AD)] →
Isaac Luria (formalizes tzimtzum, shevirah, tikkun, 1534–1572 AD) →
Post-Lurianic Safed diaspora texts (16th–17th c. AD) →
Rosicrucian manifestos (1614–1615 AD) →
Jakob Böhme (divine contradiction & proto-dialectic 1575–1624 AD)
Esoteric Left after Böhme to Marx / Hess
Jakob Böhme: (1575–1624 AD):
God’s Ungrund contracts into darkness then re-expands; introduces the dialectical rhythm of self-withdrawal ⇒ rupture ⇒ return (Lurianic tzimtzum/shevirah/tikkun) →

Descartes: (1596–1650 AD):
Cogito establishes the individual subject through radical doubt; creates an “empty space” of separation (tzimtzum), setting the stage for dialectical subjectivity →

Spinoza: (1632–1677 AD):
Immanent “one substance” equates thought and extension; divine light diffused through all modes, prefiguring collective unity →

Kant: (1724–1804 AD):
“Hidden teleology: of Nature: veiled providence drives history toward moral freedom, (similar to sparks awaiting redemption) →

Fichte: (1762–1814 AD):
Self-positing I creates a not-I, recreating Böhme’s originary split, extended to a collective vocation of ethical striving→

Hegel: (1770–1831) :
Absorbs Böhme’s Ungrund‑myth and the Lurianic cycle straight into philosophy. Pure Being first contracts like Ein Sof in tzimtzum, yielding the moment of Difference and Nothing. That self‑limitation explodes outward as Nature, a world of finite forms that mirror the Kabbalistic shevirat ha‑kelim -Spirit’s light refracted into opaque shards.
History is then the long labour of Weltgeist, a collective agent that gathers the sparks through determinate negation (Aufhebung): each contradiction is not erased but preserved, lifted, and woven into a fuller unity, a rational tikkun or repair.
The triad Logic → Nature → Spirit is then a secularised theosophy whose end‑point is the concrete ethical State (family, civil society, constitutional law) where freedom becomes real.
By converting Kabbalistic rupture‑repair into an immanent, political engine, Hegel hands later left thinkers the template for emancipatory praxis. →

Young Hegelians: (Feuerbach, Bauer) (1830s–1840s AD) – [Transpose alienation from the divine into alienation within religion, society, and the state] →

Early Moses Hess: (1841‑44) 
Turns Descartes’s cogito ‘I think,’ via Hegel, into a collective ‘We act.’
His Philosophy of the Deed (1843) argues that thought without praxis is a new form of alienation. The task is to “bridge heaven and earth,” letting theory dissolve into the freely-chosen deed that reshapes society.
• Praxis logic: Socialist collectives, as an “elect,” repair alienation through deeds. Consciousness must lead history: the deed is “the self-awareness of theory,” negating philosophy to emerge as socialism.
• True socialism: Against bourgeois radicals’ “merely intellectual” critique, Hess’s wahrer Sozialismus prioritizes Volks- (social) over Geistes- (mental) freedom, embodying the people’s wishes.
• Alienation & property: Hess coins Entfremdung: money as a Deus ex machina and private property as institutionalized egoism split labor from enjoyment. Abolishing property is communism’s ethical core.
• Substrate: Blending Spinoza’s monism with messianic teleology, history is a Heilsgeschehen culminating in a classless community through cooperative labor -a material tikkun.
These themes (communal praxis, alienation, property abolition, and reconciliation) shape Marx and Engels’ 1844 manuscripts, providing vocabulary (Entfremdung, Gattungswesen) and structure (critique to transformative practice). →

Marx (1818–1883 AD) & Engels (1820–1895 AD): Build on early Hess’s ethical-dialectical sketch to forge historical materialism, translating Hegel’s cosmic rupture into class antagonism and the proletariat into the “elect” agent of tikkun.
• Alienation as shevirah: Adopt Hess’s Entfremdung (1844) to describe capitalism’s fragmentation of human essence (Gattungswesen), where private property severs workers from labor and species-being, mirroring shevirat ha-kelim.
• Proletariat as elect: The Communist Manifesto (1848) casts the proletariat as the universal class to abolish property and restore unity -a material tikkun.
• Praxis and materialism: Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach (1845), inspired by Hess, prioritizes transformative action. In the 1850s–1860s, Capital (1867) frames commodity fetishism as shevirah, predicting proletarian revolution.
• Global praxis: The First International (1864) mobilizes workers as the “elect” for a classless society. →

Later Moses Hess: (1862‑75) 
Returns to the mystical root: rereads Jewish exile as the scattering of sparks; declares the Jewish people -not the proletariat- the vessel of cosmic‑social tikkun through a Socialist Zion in Palestine, completing the circle between Kabbalistic repair and socialist praxis. →

Greek Magical Papyri (c. 2nd c. BC (ish)
The Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) are a collection of texts from Greco-Roman Egypt, containing spells, rituals, and invocations for purposes such as love, protection, cursing, and divination. These texts reflect a syncretic blend of Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, and other cultural traditions. In many spells, the material world is depicted as a realm of danger and illusion, from which the magus seeks to extract power or escape. For instance, spells often involve invoking deities or spirits to grant temporary power, after which the deity is dismissed to prevent entrapment in matter. This is a view of salvation as a “tactical exit” rather than renovation, with the magus (Magician) focusing on personal benefit or transcendence. The overall orientation is towards individual mastery, not collective repair.

For the PGM, salvation is a tactical exit, an escape of the material world; the dialectic is partial & incomplete, centered on withdrawal (escape) but lacking shatter or repair.

The elect are solitary practitioners, focused on personal power and transcendence, with no collective or societal responsibility. This marks the earliest stage, where the elect’s role is purely individualistic.

Salvation = individual tactical exit, not collective renovation.

Alexandrian Gnostics (1 – 3 AD)
Gnosticism, as represented by texts like those from Nag Hammadi, describes a dualistic cosmology where the material world is created by an ignorant or malevolent demiurge, and this world is inherently flawed. The true God is transcendent and unknowable, and salvation comes through gnosis, allowing the pneumatic (spiritual) few to recognize their divine origin and escape the material prison. In systems like Valentinus’, Sophia’s fall results in the creation of the “botched cosmos,” but redemption lies in evacuating their divine sparks.
World-repair is heresy. Withdrawal (escape) and shatter (the flawed cosmos) are central, but repair is explicitly rejected.
The elect are the pneumatic few, focused on personal salvation through gnosis, with no collective responsibility for the world.
This tradition solidifies the dialectic as withdrawal (escape) and shatter (the flawed cosmos), but repair is not part of their worldview, maintaining the focus on individual escape.

Early Hermetica (2 – 3 AD)
The Hermetica, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, presents a philosophical and religious system blending Platonism, Stoicism, and Egyptian religion. Central to Hermetic thought is the dualistic view of the material world as a prison for the soul, which must achieve gnosis to escape and return to its divine origin. In Poimandres (the first tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum), creation is described as a fall from the spiritual realm, with humanity trapped in bodies subject to fate. Through gnosis, initiates ascend through the seven planetary spheres, shedding earthly ties and becoming gods.

This salvation is individual and elitist, available only to a select few, while the cosmos remains unredeemed except through their departure. This is a “private club” of initiates, continuing the theme of escape rather than repair. There is no obligation to engage with or heal the world.

You can see the dialectic begin to take shape here, with withdrawal (ascent) and a nascent sense of shatter. Repair remains undeveloped, reinforcing the focus on personal transcendence. The Hermetica, views the body as a tomb, with gnosis enabling initiates to ascend through the seven spheres and become gods, leaving fate behind. The cosmos is “cured” only by their abandonment; withdrawal is an ascent, but not a repair. There is a hint of shatter (the material world as a prison), but repair is essentially absent.

Plotinus & Early Neoplatonists (3 AD)
Plotinus, in his Enneads, describes a philosophy where the soul must “fly alone to the Alone,” emphasizing contemplation as the path to union with the One. Matter is tolerated as a shadow or lower emanation of the divine but is never healed or transformed. The philosophic elite perfect an inward gaze, drifting upward towards the supra-celestial realm rather than downward into worldly affairs. This reinforces the theme of escape, with no real concept of collective or cosmic repair, as matter remains a necessary but imperfect aspect of existence.

The elect are the philosophic elite, perfecting contemplation but doesn’t engage with the material world for its repair, which maintains an individualistic focus. Withdrawal (ascent) is central, with shatter sort of covered (matter as shadow), but repair remains undeveloped, continuing the tradition of earthly transcendence.

Iamblichus & Late Neoplatonists (3rd–5th c. AD)
Iamblichus introduces theurgy, a ritualistic practice aimed at invoking the gods to descend into temples, creating moments of divine presence. This might hint at a potential for suturing the split between the divine and material realms through ritual. However, success is still measured by re-absorption into the supra-celestial light, not by transforming history or society. Theurgy represents a bridge towards more active engagement with the world but remains focused on individual transcendence rather than collective repair.

The elect are ritual practitioners, engaging with the divine through theurgy, but their ultimate goal is individual transcendence rather than collective repair, though they engage more with the material world. Also, repair begins to emerge as a very early concept through ritual, but it is not yet collective or world-focused, showing a transitional stage.

Merkabah / Hekhalot (2 – 6 AD)
Merkabah mysticism involves visions of the divine chariot (merkabah) and ascent through the seven heavens to behold God’s throne. Mystics engage in these ascents for momentary yichud (union with God), returning with magical formulas or secrets but not solutions for worldly problems. Earth remains an “exile zone” between ascents, with no concept of repairing the world. The focus is on individual mystical experience, continuing the theme of escape.

The elect are throne-chariot riders, focused on personal mystical experiences, with no collective responsibility for the world. Here, we have the themes of withdrawal (ascent) and shatter (exile), but repair is not part of their practice, maintaining the focus on individual transcendence.

Christian Platonists – Eriugena, Eckhart (9th–14th c. AD)
Christian Platonists, such as John Scottus Eriugena and Meister Eckhart blend Neoplatonic ideas with Christian theology. Eriugena’s Periphyseon describes creation as a procession from God & return to God, with humanity playing a role in this cosmic drama. Eckhart’s concept of the “breakthrough” (Durchbruch) emphasizes the soul’s union with God, but he stresses radiating this experience through sermons and reformist preaching. This marks a move towards an outward-oriented mysticism, where the mystic’s inner transformation has implications for society, though the tradition is still very much, largely interior.

The elect are monk-mystics who, through their inner transformation, contribute to the world’s spiritual renewal, expanding their role (somewhat) to include societal engagement.

Sefer Bahir & Zohar (12th–13th c. AD)
Early Kabbalistic texts like the Bahir and Zohar mark a shift from escape to repair (tikkun). The sefirot, divine emanations, are shown not as shattered but misaligned, especially along axes of Mercy & Judgment, and masculine and feminine. The Zohar frames tikkun as the reunion of the Groom (Tif’eret) and the exiled Bride (Malkhut, or Shekhinah), whose separation mirrors Israel’s own exile. Small groups of ḥaverim (companions) perform midnight rituals such as Tikkun Ḥaṣot, and study Torah not for personal ascent but to reunite the divine pair and draw blessing into the world on behalf of all Israel.

This moment marks a key development: the idea of collective responsibility for repair. The material world is not itself the repair but the realm that receives its effects. Harmony among the sefirot allows divine overflow to reach the lower worlds. Here, the full mythic triad emerges: a hidden source (Ein Sof), a disrupted harmony, and a communal, ritually mediated effort to restore it. However, this is not yet cast in Lurianic terms of contraction and shattering, but the core elements of the soon to be dialectic (withdrawal, rupture, and collective restoration) are now all in place.

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499 AD)
Ficino’s translations of Platonic and Hermetic texts reintroduced the idea that harmony between soul, cosmos, and city could be restored through esoteric means. He taught that music, prayer, and astrological medicine could recalibrate the soul’s relation to the stars, aligning microcosm and macrocosm. The Florentine Platonic Academy, with Ficino at its center, saw this harmonization as the foundation for civic renewal. Though more contemplative than political, Ficino’s project fused inner ascent with cultural reform.

So, what’s important here is that repair takes on a cultural form. An intellectual elect works to restore divine order through philosophy, art, and ritual. Rather than escaping the world, they labor to elevate it by harmonizing the visible & invisible realms.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1486 AD)
Pico’s Oration on the Dignity of Man proposes that “Magic and Kabbalah” together unlock a universal theology. He cast the scholar as a spiritual synthesizer, called to reconcile fragmented traditions across cultures and creeds. Humanity’s dignity lies in its capacity to ascend freely through all levels of being, from brute matter to angelic mind. Repair, in Pico’s vision, is the reintegration of wisdom scattered by exile & error. This work of unification prepares the soul for its return to the divine.

The elect are a trans-confessional class of scholars. Their task is to reweave severed traditions into a coherent whole. Repair is intellectual and preparatory, aiming not at transforming the world but at restoring the soul’s path to its source.

Isaac Luria (1534–1572 AD):
Lurianic Kabbalah and the Dialectic of Withdrawal, Shatter, and Repair
Isaac Luria’s system marks a turning point in Jewish mysticism. It introduces a fully developed mythic dialectic of tzimtzum (divine contraction), shevirat ha-kelim (shattering of the vessels), and tikkun (repair). In this cosmology, the infinite divine light withdraws to create a vacated space (tehiru) in which creation can occur. The vessels meant to contain this light rupture, scattering sparks into the material world. These sparks become trapped in husks (kelipot), representing both cosmic fracture and exile.

Redemption does not come through escape but through the historical process of retrieving and uplifting those sparks. The work of repair (tikkun olam) is performed through human action (ethical deeds, prayer, and ritual observance), which helps mend the cosmic body. The dialectic stages of withdrawal, rupture, and repair are now fully systematized and assigned to history.

Role of the Elect
The elect are no longer passive contemplatives. In Luria’s vision, small diaspora fellowships (ḥavurot) serve as workshops of repair. They act not for individual salvation but on behalf of all Israel. Through daily mitzvot, ethical conduct, and liturgical precision, they work to restore the fractured world. Inaction delays redemption. Here the elect are defined by obligation, not privilege.

Significance and Evolution
Where Gnosticism and Neoplatonism emphasized escape from a flawed cosmos, Luria’s model insists on engagement. The earlier symbolic gestures of the Zohar are now rendered into a cosmic system with historical stakes. The world is not a prison to transcend, but a broken field to mend. This decisive inversion (turning inward fracture into outward, elect-led collective duty) redefines the arc of esoteric repair.

Bridge to Descartes: Tzimtzum as Cogito
Gershom Scholem argues that Luria’s tzimtzum, predating Descartes, shifts Neoplatonic emanation to rupture, blending divine withdrawal and concentration to create a void (tehiru) for finite creation. This mirrors Descartes’s cogito, where doubt clears a space for res cogitans to rebuild knowledge. Jonathan Garb notes Luria’s rupture heralds modernity, akin to Cartesian dualism’s spirit-matter split. Anne Conway’s metaphorical tzimtzum, diminishing divine radiance, counters Cartesian isolation. Both share a dialectic of withdrawal, rupture, and partial repair (kav/res cogitans), prefiguring the elect’s collective mending in later thought.

Bridge to Hegel: Dialectical Structure
According to Glenn Alexander Magee, Hegel explicitly adopted and transformed Hermetic and Kabbalistic motifs into his dialectical philosophy. Drawing from Jakob Böhme, who was himself influenced by Lurianic Kabbalah, Hegel’s dialectic of Logic → Nature → Spirit recapitulates Luria’s threefold structure of withdrawal, rupture, and repair. In the Science of Logic, Pure Being corresponds structurally to Luria’s divine infinity (Ein Sof), limiting itself in an act analogous to tzimtzum, creating difference and otherness that results in a fractured natural world -a direct parallel to Luria’s shevirat ha-kelim (shattering of the vessels). History then becomes the realm in which Absolute Spirit (Hegel’s version of divine presence) undertakes the labor of gathering scattered elements -what Luria called “divine sparks”- through a process Hegel termed “determinate negation” (Aufhebung). This dialectical synthesis culminates in a rational, ethical order analogous to the cosmic repair (tikkun) envisioned by Luria. Thus, Magee emphasizes that Luria provided the mythic template that Hegel translated into speculative philosophy, secularizing cosmic rupture and repair into a historical dialectic aimed at spiritual and social reconciliation.

Bridge to Hess and Marx: Praxis
Moses Hess and Karl Marx, building on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s philosophical system, transform René Descartes’s individual cogito (“I think, therefore I am”) into a collective call for transformative action, resonating with Isaac Luria’s mystical dialectic of tzimtzum (withdrawal), shevirat ha-kelim (shattering), and tikkun (repair). Hegel’s dialectic, as outlined in his Science of Logic and Philosophy of History, adapts Luria’s Kabbalistic framework into a secularized theosophy. In Hegel’s view, Pure Being contracts, akin to Luria’s Ein Sof undergoing tzimtzum, creating a void that yields Difference and Nothing. This self-limitation shatters into Nature, a fragmented world of finite forms mirroring shevirat ha-kelim, where Spirit’s light is dispersed into opaque shards. History becomes the labor of Weltgeist (World Spirit), a collective agent that gathers these fragments through determinate negation (Aufhebung), preserving and elevating contradictions into a rational tikkun, culminating in the ethical State where freedom is realized through family, civil society, and constitutional law.

The Young Hegelians, including Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, further transpose Hegel’s divine alienation into social and political realms, setting the stage for Hess and Marx. In his Philosophy of the Deed (1843), Hess reinterprets Descartes’s cogito as a collective “We act,” arguing that thought without action perpetuates alienation. Hess coins the term Entfremdung (alienation) to describe how private property and money, as institutionalized egoism, fracture human essence (Gattungswesen), severing labor from enjoyment in a social shevirah. Socialist collectives, acting as an elect akin to Luria’s diaspora ḥavurot, repair this fracture through cooperative labor, embodying a material tikkun that bridges heaven and earth in a classless community. Hess’s wahrer Sozialismus prioritizes social over intellectual freedom, reflecting the people’s will.

Marx, influenced by Hess’s early work, develops historical materialism in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and Capital (1867), casting the proletariat as the universal elect. Adopting Entfremdung, Marx sees capitalism’s private property as a shevirah, fragmenting humanity’s species-being. The Communist Manifesto (1848) envisions the proletariat abolishing property to restore unity, a revolutionary tikkun. Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach (1845), inspired by Hess, emphasizes praxis as transformative action, while the First International (1864) mobilizes workers as the elect for global repair. Later, Hess’s Rome and Jerusalem (1862) reembraces Jewish mysticism, viewing Jewish exile as scattered sparks and proposing a socialist Zion in Palestine as the vessel for cosmic-social tikkun, completing Luria’s dialectic in modern history.

Thus, Luria’s elect -once liturgical mystics- reappear in modernity as revolutionaries. The dialectic of tzimtzum, shevirah, and tikkun moves from divine ontology to political economy, from cosmic body to class struggle. Hess and Marx do not merely secularize mysticism; they inherit its structure and recode it as revolutionary history.

Other Influence and Legacy
Luria’s teachings, transmitted through figures like Hayyim Vital, infused everyday action with cosmic consequences. They influenced Christian mystics such as Jakob Böhme, who likewise framed spiritual rebirth as a communal task. The Lurianic dialectic underlies many modern ideological formations, on the esoteric universalist left, the esoteric traditionalist right, and the techno-utopians, all of whom inherit and apply this Lurian structure an elect-led collective consciousness-raising to gather scattered fragments to restore a higher order.

Luria’s system fully expresses the mythic dialectic at the heart of what follows Böhme. The elect shift from seekers of transcendence to obligated agents of collective repair of the material world. The world becomes a site of cosmic labor, not abandonment. The legacy of this turn continues into modernity.

Post-Lurianic Diaspora & Rosicrucians (1614–15 AD)
After Isaac Luria’s death in 1572, his teachings, primarily transmitted through Hayyim Vital’s authoritative writings like Etz Hayim, spread across Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and beyond, with secondary contributions from Israel Sarug’s students, such as Abraham Cohen de Herrera. This dissemination popularized Luria’s dialectic of tzimtzum (divine contraction), shevirat ha-kelim (vessel shattering), and tikkun (cosmic repair), influencing mystical thought. As these ideas permeated early modern Europe, parallel symbolic structures emerged in Christian esoteric movements, notably Rosicrucianism.

The Fama Fraternitatis (1614) and Confessio Fraternitatis (1615), foundational Rosicrucian manifestos, diagnose Europe as a fractured body amid post-Reformation turmoil and the Thirty Years’ War. The Church’s corruption, science’s disunity, and political instability reflect a cultural shevirah, similar to Luria’s shattered vessels. The Fama laments the loss of unified divine truth, a withdrawal paralleling tzimtzum, while the Confessio calls for reform to restore harmony. The Rosicrucian “invisible college,” a symbolic elect of alchemists and mystics, seeks a societal repair by reuniting scattered fragments of wisdom through esoteric enlightenment.

The Rosicrucian elect are active reformers, blending alchemical symbolism, mystical Christianity, and humanist ideals to propose scientific advancements, religious unity, and governance reform. Rosicrucianism’s dialectic -fragmentation (withdrawal), crises (shatter), and reform (repair)- mirrors Luria’s, shifting from metaphysical to societal repair.

Jakob Böhme (1575–1624 AD): The Nexus.
Jakob Böhme, a German mystic writing during the Thirty Years’ War, emerges as the nexus of the esoteric trunk, synthesizing Isaac Luria’s Kabbalistic dialectic of tzimtzum, shevirat ha-kelim, and tikkun into a Christian theosophy that reshapes modern ideologies. His cosmology, articulated in Aurora (1612) and Mysterium Magnum (1623), absorbs Kabbalistic ideas through Paracelsian and Christian Kabbalistic circles, transforming Luria’s framework into a universal narrative of cosmic and historical repair. Böhme’s Ungrund, a pre-existent chaotic potential, contracts into a primal will, mirroring Luria’s tzimtzum, which creates a void for finite existence. This will erupts into fiery anguish, a shevirah fragmenting divine qualities into Nature’s chaos, akin to Luria’s broken vessels. Through spiritual labor, anguish blossoms into love-light, achieving tikkun as the world’s second birth, restoring creation’s harmony.

Böhme’s elect, the Liebe-Gemeine (community of love), evolves from Luria’s ritualistic ḥavurot into a chiliastic fellowship obligated to mend cosmic and social fragments. This spiritual ideal unites individuals in ethical and theosophical action, transforming society’s fractured structures into sites of historical renewal. Unlike contemplative mystics, the Liebe-Gemeine actively repairs the world, fulfilling Luria’s vision of collective obligation. Böhme’s dialectic, set against Europe’s religious and social upheaval, radiates through German Idealism, particularly Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who adapts Ungrund, anguish, and light into Logic, Nature, and Spirit, calling Böhme “the first German philosopher.” Hegel’s Weltgeist, a collective agent gathering historical fragments through determinate negation, transforms Böhme’s tikkun into a rational ethical State, bridging mysticism to modern thought.

As the nexus, Böhme’s influence splinters into three ideological forks, each reinterpreting the Liebe-Gemeine and tikkun through Luria’s dialectic. The universalizing left raises revolutionary consciousness to resist Enlightenment individualism, seeking egalitarian wholeness. Hegel’s dialectic, emphasizing historical progress, informs the Young Hegelians, who shift divine alienation to social critique. Moses Hess’s Philosophy of the Deed (1843) reimagines Descartes’s cogito as collective praxis, positioning socialist collectives as an elect repairing Entfremdung (alienation), a social shevirah caused by private property. Hess’s later Rome and Jerusalem (1866) views Jewish exile as scattered sparks, with a socialist Zion as tikkun, echoing Böhme’s second birth. Karl Marx, in Capital (1867) and The Communist Manifesto (1848), casts the proletariat as the elect abolishing capitalism’s Entfremdung, achieving a classless society as a revolutionary tikkun. The First International (1864) mobilizes workers as a historical Liebe-Gemeine, gathering human essence into unity.

The verticalizing right, anchored in Böhme’s vision of cosmic order, raises ethno-consciousness to counter Enlightenment atomization, restoring divine hierarchy. Joseph de Maistre, shaped by Martinist mysticism, synthesizes Böhme’s dialectic into a counter-revolutionary metaphysics. In Considerations on France (1797), de Maistre sees the French Revolution as divine chastisement, a providential shevirah driven by forces beyond human control. His elect, rooted in monarchy and Church, restore sacred order, a tikkun paralleling Böhme’s harmonized creation. Romantic conservatives like Edmund Burke and Johann Gottfried Herder extend this, prioritizing tradition and Volk to re-fuse noble fragments, resisting liberal chaos.

The techno-utopian branch, inspired by Böhme’s second birth, raises techno-consciousness to transcend human limitations. Rooted in Enlightenment esotericism and Romantic Naturphilosophie, this vision evolves through Friedrich Schelling’s dynamic view of Nature as spirit. From Henri de Saint-Simon’s technocratic harmony to Ray Kurzweil’s transhumanist singularity, artificial intelligence and bioengineering act as modern kavim (rays of light), promising a synthetic tikkun unifying knowledge and existence. Silicon Valley’s metaphysical eschatology reimagines the Liebe-Gemeine as a techno-elite, mending humanity’s limits through digital immortality and cosmic expansion, a futuristic repair of Böhme’s fragmented cosmos.

Böhme’s synthesis amplifies Luria’s modern resonance, transforming the dialectic into a generative matrix for ideological evolution. From Descartes’s subjective void through Spinoza’s immanent unity, Kant’s hidden teleology, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s ethical striving, the left builds toward Hess and Marx. De Maistre’s providential hierarchy grounds the right, while techno-utopians like Norbert Wiener and Nick Bostrom extend Böhme’s universal repair. As the nexus, Böhme positions the Liebe-Gemeine as the archetype of obligated elects, revolutionary, restorative, and techno-transcendent, shaping the modern world’s battles over fracture and repair.

Esoteric Left: From Böhme to Hess & Marx.
Jakob Böhme: (1575–1624): God’s Ungrund, a chaotic potential, contracts into a primal will, erupts into fiery anguish, and resolves into love-light, introducing a dialectical rhythm of self-withdrawal, rupture, and return that echoes Luria’s tzimtzum, shevirat ha-kelim, and tikkun. Böhme’s cosmology, articulated in Aurora (1612) and Mysterium Magnum (1623), absorbs Kabbalistic ideas through Paracelsian and Christian Kabbalistic circles. His chiliastic Liebe-Gemeine (community of love), an elect obligated to mend cosmic and social fragments through spiritual and ethical labor, shifts Luria’s ritualistic repair to historical action, laying the foundation for an esoteric left trajectory. →

Descartes: (1596–1650): Cogito establishes the individual subject through radical doubt; creates an “empty space” of separation (essentially like tzimtzum), setting the stage for dialectical subjectivity →

Spinoza: (1632–1677): Spinoza’s immanent “one substance” in Ethics equates thought and extension, with divine light diffused through all modes, prefiguring collective unity. While not directly linked to Böhme, his monism structurally parallels Luria’s divine emanation, offering a metaphysical unity that later influences Hess’s vision of a classless community. Spinoza’s rejection of dualism sets a philosophical stage for dialectical thought, contributing to the esoteric left’s emphasis on reconciling fragmented existence, similar to tikkun. →

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): Kant’s “hidden teleology” in Critique of Judgment and Idea for a Universal History posits a veiled providence driving history toward moral freedom, resembling Luria’s sparks awaiting redemption. Though unconnected to Böhme, Kant’s teleological progress anticipates Hegel’s historical dialectic, framing history as a rational process of unification. His emphasis on moral autonomy influences Fichte’s ethical striving, indirectly shaping the esoteric left’s vision of collective repair through purposeful action. →

Fichte: (1762–1814 AD): His Wissenschaftslehre posits a self-positing I creating a not-I, a dialectical split that parallels Böhme’s originary rupture, though without direct influence. This split extends to a collective vocation of ethical striving, prefiguring Hess’s praxis. Fichte’s idealism, emphasizing active subjectivity, contributes to the esoteric left by framing history as a moral struggle toward unity, structurally akin to Luria’s tikkun, influencing Hegel’s dialectical synthesis. →

Hegel: (1770–1831): Absorbs Böhme’s Ungrund‑myth and the Lurianic cycle straight into philosophy. Pure Being first contracts like Ein Sof in tzimtzum, yielding the moment of Difference and Nothing. That self‑limitation explodes outward as Nature, a world of finite forms that mirror the Kabbalistic shevirat ha‑kelim -Spirit’s light refracted into opaque shards.
History is then the long labour of Weltgeist, a collective agent that gathers the sparks through determinate negation (Aufhebung): each contradiction is not erased but preserved, lifted, and woven into a fuller unity, a rational tikkun or repair. →
The triad Logic → Nature → Spirit is then a secularised theosophy whose end‑point is the concrete ethical State (family, civil society, constitutional law) where freedom becomes real. By converting Kabbalistic rupture‑repair into an immanent, political engine, Hegel hands later left thinkers the template for emancipatory praxis. →

Early Moses Hess (1837–1840s): Moses Hess’s early writings forge a pivotal link in the esoteric left, blending mystical Hegelianism with materialist socialism to transform Böhme’s dialectical rhythm and Luria’s tikkun into revolutionary praxis.
In The Holy History of Mankind (1837), Hess envisions history as a divine-human drama unfolding in three epochs (Father, Son, Spirit) echoing Böhme’s mystical triad and culminating in a classless fraternity where humanity, as a collective elect, mends social fragmentation through ethical action. This chiliastic vision frames history as a Heilsgeschehen (sacred unfolding) toward moral unity, structurally akin to Luria’s tikkun.
In The European Triarchy (1841), Hess recasts history as a synthesis of France’s political freedom, England’s industrial progress, and Germany’s philosophical depth, culminating in a socialist future of “free association” and “united humanity.” This teleological arc, resonant with Spinoza’s monist unity and Kant’s hidden providence, positions socialism as a material reconciliation of humanity’s fractured essence.
By Philosophy of the Deed (1843), Hess pivots to materialism, replacing Descartes’s “I think” with “Ich bin tätig, also bin ich” (“I am active, therefore I am”). Thought without praxis breeds new alienation, a secular shevirah. Retaining a messianic substrate, Hess blends Spinoza’s monism and Böhme’s rupture-return into a vision of history as sacred unfolding. Key themes emerge:
• Praxis as repair: Socialist collectives, a secular elect, heal alienation through conscious deeds, making the deed “the self-awareness of theory” and prefiguring Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach.
• True socialism: Hess’s program, later termed wahrer Sozialismus by Marx and Engels, champions Volksfreiheit, freedom rooted in the people’s lived needs, over abstract intellectualism.
• Alienation and property: Hess adapts Entfremdung, framing private property as institutionalized egoism and money as a fetishized force severing labor from human essence. Abolishing property is communism’s ethical core, initiating a material tikkun.
• Monist-messianic substrate: History becomes a Heilsgeschehen toward a classless society, paralleling Luria’s redemption of divine sparks through collective action.
Hess’s early work provides Marx and Engels with critical concepts, Entfremdung, Gattungswesen, and a redemptive arc, shaping their 1844 Manuscripts and The Communist Manifesto. His synthesis of mystical dialectic, material alienation, and transformative praxis makes him a prefigurer of historical materialism.

Marx & Engels (1840s-60s): Build on early Hess’s ethical-dialectical sketch to forge historical materialism, translating Hegel’s cosmic rupture into class antagonism and the proletariat into the “elect” agent of tikkun.
• Alienation as shevirah: Adopt Hess’s Entfremdung (1844) to describe capitalism’s fragmentation of human essence (Gattungswesen), where private property severs workers from labor and species-being, mirroring shevirat ha-kelim.
• Proletariat as elect: The Communist Manifesto (1848) casts the proletariat as the universal class to abolish property and restore unity -a material tikkun.
• Praxis and materialism: Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach (1845), inspired by Hess, prioritizes transformative action. In the 1850s–1860s, Capital (1867) frames commodity fetishism as shevirah, predicting proletarian revolution.
• Global praxis: The First International (1864) mobilizes workers as the “elect” for a classless society. →

Later Moses Hess: (1860‑75): Disillusioned by socialism’s fragmentation and personal marginalization, yet resolute, Hess re-embraces Jewish mysticism in Rome and Jerusalem (1862). Rereading Jewish exile as scattered sparks, he declares the Jewish people the elect for cosmic-social tikkun, proposing a socialist Zion in Palestine. This synthesis of Kabbalistic repair and socialist praxis completes Luria’s dialectic, reimagining Böhme’s Liebe-Gemeine as a national vessel for gathering fragments into redemption. →

Esoteric Right placeholder
Pasqually: (Founder of the theurgic order Élus Coëns. Angel Magic)
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Saint‑Martin: (Pasqually’s private secretary & fully–initiated Coën) Theurgy, rediscovers and translates Böhme.
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De Maistre: Reads Saint‑Martin; calls him “my revered master.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decoding Weaponized Philosophy

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Decoding Weaponized Philosophy

Many people have asked me why I place such a huge emphasis on the divergent worldviews of Plato and Aristotle, or what importance philosophy has on understanding geopolitics.

In this long-form conversation with Courtenay Turner, we not only answer these questions, but plunge deeply into an analysis of Lyndon LaRouche’s 1978 groundbreaking essay ‘Secrets Known Only to the Inner Elites’, and the perversion of Plato’s philosophy by 2000 years of neo-Platonic Hermeticists.

Additionally, we explore the false dualisms deployed to keep the masses of humanity locked in different compartments of a metaphysical cave, with a look towards a healthy philosophical method tied to Natural Law, and creative reason.

The Courtenay Turner Podcast w/ Matt Ehret | Decoding Weaponized Philosophy (2:49 min)

 

LOGOS

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LOGOS

In this video Dr Kevin McCairn PhD neuroscientist has a discussion with E. Michael Jones Catholic writer, former professor at Saint Mary’s College in Indiana and the current editor of Culture Wars magazine concerning consciousness and metaphysics. At the conclusion of the discussion after E. Michael Jones leaves, I join Dr McCairn for a chat. Though I differ on the theology it was refreshing to listen to E. Michael Jones and his rational presentation of metaphysics.

Logos, language, mathematics, and nature

My position is that there is a connection between these abstract concepts which are to a lesser or greater degree focused on nature and on the activity of divine agency in the material world. The following short video has an interesting understanding of the role that language plays:

 

Language is unique in communicating and structuring abstract ideas, crucial to our thought processes and therefore of critical importance to consciousness and metaphysics. It also determines relationships and hierarchical structures. I give my children and my dog a name, they do not name me. When language is combined with mathematics and that is used to describe creation, we are dealing with something uniquely powerful and as far as I can determine this first occurred with the proto-Hebrew language and passed via Phoenician to the Greek language. Below are some initial findings which I hope to express in a separate article, but they demonstrate that Genesis encodes the cyclical nature of the destructive and creative process that was also known to other ancient civilizations. What makes the Semitic approach unique is that it combines language and mathematics (sacred geometry) with revelation resulting in an ontological unfolding of a continuously evolving manifestation of consciousness. The divine name is not just linked with what God is, but with what God will be. Everything lives and moves and has its being in him, ipso fact he is then the source of consciousness and we are nodes in the matrix. The Genesis narrative highlights alienation and existential angst.

"And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons" (Gen 3:7).

The word naked has the following values: ‘ê-rum-mim (naked) עֵֽירֻמִּ֖ם – 360 Standard / 72 Ordinal and 360 x 72 =25,920 years which is the number of years in the Platonic Great Year considered by the ancients (and Newton) to reflect the Precession Cycle. The full Hebrew verse has the standard value 4066 whereas the other verse with the plural form (‘ă·rūm·mîm עֲרוּמִּים   std 366 / 78 ord) in Genesis 2:25 has the value 2,626 (std) and 4,066-2,626 = 1,440 (the minutes in a 24-hour day) which is 2 cycles of 720.  The figures 72 and 144 (or multiples thereof) are found in all the ancient precession cycle calendars from the Babylonian, Mayan, Indian etc. 18 x 1,440 =25,920

(note that both numbers reduce to 9), moreover the sum of the squares of these two numbers (144^2 +72^2) is also 25,920.  The value of the word naked pre-fall (Gen 2:25- 366/78) is different to the value after the fall (Gen 3:7 naked= 360/72). The serpent in Gen 3:1 is described as cunning (crafty, shrewd) with the word cunning having the same values   (366/78  both reduce to 6) as naked in Gen 2:25 (before the fall) with the full verse (as we have seen) reflecting double the yhvh name value (2626) reflecting their primeval innocence with emphasis on both male and female imaging yhvh (And they were both naked the man and his wife and were not ashamed) hence the double 26.

That the word naked can when re-pointed and differentially contextualized (cf. Job 5:12 and Job 15:5 עֲרוּמִ֑ים) take on the negative connotation of crafty (=the serpent) demonstrates that the omniscient narrator already anticipates that the idyllic harmony will be ruined by rebellion. The phrase “were not ashamed” (ולא יתבששו) just happens to have the ordinal value of 101 and 26 x 101 =2626 (the std value reduces to 11=2). We saw previously the mathematics and sacred Geometry connected with Genesis 1:1 –

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen 1:1)

Std value =2,701 Ordinal =298      בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

 

There is much more, we are just scraping the surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The verse triangle can be inscribed in a circle with a radius of 42 units. Adding the seven Hebrew words of Genesis 1:1 in different combinations, one will find 23 multiples of the number 37, including a compound figurate square of 23 hexagrams (37 7²) and cubes of hexagrams (37 2³) and (37 3³). Random chance would indicate only about three multiples. Note that each of the seven words is used exactly twelve times in making up the 23 multiples of 37 (i.e., 913 appears twelve times; 203 appears twelve times, and so on). Here are the gematria and order of each of the seven Genesis 1:1 words: 913, 203, 86, 401, 395, 407. And there is much more (reserved for future articles).

The Logos

There is therefore a nexus between language, mathematics and nature resulting in the revelation of what John refers to as the Logos in his prologue. The first verse of the Fourth Gospel builds on the geometry of Genesis 1:1 by adding a plinth to the triangle:

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God - Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος,  καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος. 

Standard =3627, Ordinal= 605

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Triangular  plinth of 3627 has 12 divisors with a totient of φ = 2160 which happens to be a Platonic month. The value of the first triangle (2701) and plinth (3627) is equivalent to the 112 th triangular number (6328) which also happens to be the length of the base making the perimeter 333 dots and the product of the digit pairs (63 x 28) is the square of 42 as does the ordinal value of both verses, which sums up to the Triangular number of 42 (903).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Therefore, we have a direct connection between the Genesis 1:1 and that of the Fourth Gospel with the appearance of Jesus on the scene described in terms of creation. Moreover, the name used for Jesus in the Talmud (וּשֵׁי Yēšū) which is often hostile towards him has the ordinal value 37 which is the same as the Hebrew word for wisdom which is in turn the 37th triangular number (666+37 =703) and Yēšū also has the standard value of 316 which is the mirror of 613 the number of commandments (mitzvot) in the Torah (Tractate Makkot 23b). With the word becoming flesh (καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο : kai o logos sarx egeneto) the word flesh (sarx) in the Greek giving us the value 361 we have the unusual triumvirate of : 316 (Yēšū) 613 (word) 361 (flesh) the sum giving the 1290 days of Daniel 12:11 (from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away…).

LIVE – E. Michael Jones: Consciousness and Metaphysics (3:14)

 

Is the Prologue of John influenced by Platonic, Philonic or Gnostic concepts?

A case can be made that all three strands of thought cross-fertilized each other especially as the Fourth Gospel was written to the church at Ephesus and the Gospel emphasized the superiority of Christ over John the Baptist and the influence of Jewish gnostic sorcery (cf. Acts 19) a church that was made known the manifold wisdom (Sophia) of God (Eph 3:10)….  And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge (gnosis), that ye might be filled with all the fulness (pelorma) of God (Eph 3:19). Ephesians is employing gnostic terminology, the problem was that Gnosticism became “secret knowledge” only available to initiates and it tended to regard the material creation as evil and slip into Docetism, namely that Christ’s body was not human but either a phantasm or of real but celestial substance, and that therefore his sufferings were only apparent. For this reason, early Christianity rejected extreme forms of Gnosticism and the Fourth Gospel emphasizes that the Logos became flesh thus emphasizing his physical body and his human nature.

Many Christians use the Latin word incarnation for the Logos which is derivative from the ecclesiastical Latin verb incarno, itself derived from the prefix in- and caro, “flesh”, meaning “to make into flesh” or, in the passive, “to be made flesh” as in the Word became flesh in the Latin Vulgate “et Verbum caro factum” understood as  a hypostatic union of the divine nature and the human nature and pointing to pre-existence, co-substantiality etc. More apropos to Johannine usage would be the term phanerōthē (Greek: φανερωθῇ) carrying the idea of manifestation, a word that occurs frequently in the Greek NT, particularly in the Gospel of John with reference to Jesus’ manifesting to Israel (John 1:31), manifesting glory (John 2:1), manifesting truth and light (John 3:21), manifesting the name (John 17:6), manifesting his risen self (John 21:2,14).  Jesus is seen by John as the ultimate manifestation of the name (I AM) although a lesser manifestation is encountered in the healing of the blind man whose visage was altered that much as to make him unrecognizable to the crowd who questioned his identity to which he replied with the “I AM” formula; “Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I AM “ (John 9:9  Note that he in italics in the KJV is added by the translator). Jesus explicitly says- “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest (phanerōthē) in him” (John 9:3).  In the act of healing the blind man becomes an example of the manifestation of divine power. Moreover, the phrase this is he is the 45 th time that Οὗτος (Houtos) is used in the Fourth Gospel with the other forty-four times referencing Jesus, where it is either translated as this one, or in combination “this man” or as “the same” as in the first occurrence of the gospel; “The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2) with all 45 occurrences reflecting the value of Adam in the Hebrew (45), Jesus is depicted as the last Adam ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ (1 Cor 15:45) the express image (Heb 1:3).

It is thought that the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo merged the Ancient Greek Logos philosophy (the principle of cosmic reason) with the Hebrew concept of Wisdom, God’s companion and intimate helper in creation (See Prov 8 article on wisdom to follow soon). Logos became a technical term in Western philosophy beginning with Heraclitus (c. 535 – c.  475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge, but the concept was already in use in the Hebrew scriptures before it was popularized in Greek philosophy.  Moreover, sacred geometry, higher mathematics and the length of the Great Precession Year was encoded into the language before it appeared in Greece (watch from 16 mins):

 

The fact remains that the concept of LOGOS in the Hebrew Bible was earlier than the Greek philosophers and the remarkable “coincidence” that the translation of John 1:1 having the same value as Psalm 107:20 is remarkable.

 

A rough Timeline demonstrates that the sacred geometry and mathematics in Scripture  is earlier than the Greeks and earlier than  Hermes Trismegistus / Gnosticism.

  • Isaiah-Hezekiah 700 BC -Logos
  • Babylonian Exile 586 BC
  • Pythagoras (570-495 BC)
  • Heraclitus c. (535 – 475 BC)-Logos
  • Plato c. (428-348 BC)
  • Euclid 330 BC
  • Archimedes c. (287 – 212 BC)
  • Hipparchus c. 120 BC Precession year
  • Ptolemy c.170 BC Precession year
  • Legendary Hermes Trismegistus c.170 BC

 

Exposition Johannine prologue

The translation used is the KJV of John 1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 

Note: The absence of an article in the phrase In the beginning rendering In beginning note also the accusative preposition pros indicates movement towards a destination called THE God differentiated from god by the absence of an article. G. R. S. Mead places the prologue of the Fourth Gospel in a gnostic context and is partly correct as it was at Ephesus that followers of the John the Baptist were found (Acts 19:1-3) and the Mandæans (lit. Gnostics—mandā = gnōsis) of the lower Euphrates who are the only known surviving community of the ancient Gnosis.The Sidrā d’Yahyā (Book of John) deal with the life and teachings of John the Baptizer.  Mead  renders the first verse as; “In Beginning was Mind; and Mind was with GOD” which offers the temptation to substitute mind with “tensor field” or “consciousness” or perhaps translate Logos as “purpose” or “idea” or “reason” until we realize that Logos is translated as Word 208x  and  as saying 50x in Young’s concordance and sending forth the word is idiom for sending an agent (like a prophet) to speak on God’s behalf.  The terms of the Fourth Gospel must be defined by the Johannine corpus because he has his own distinct idiom. Thus, John refers to The Word in three other places, and in each case his allusion is to Jesus the Man. “His name is called the Word of God” (Rev. 19:13). “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 Jn. 1:1); that is, they heard his preaching, they saw his miracles, they looked upon him crucified, and they handled him when risen from the dead (Lk. 24:39). “Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw” (Rev. 1:2). Even this passage, which at first sight seems to require a different meaning for “the word of God” lines up with the others when it is realised that this is the first of a series of triads which meet the reader in Revelation 1 (compare verses 4b, 5a, 7). In fact, “the testimony of Jesus and all things that he saw” is the exact equivalent of 1 John 1:2. The tentative conclusion concerning “the Word” in John 1:1 would therefore appear to be that it means Jesus the Man, and not Jesus the Idea or Purpose.

The identity of the expression: “In the beginning” with Genesis 1:1 has led many to assume that John 1:1 refers to the beginning of the visible creation. But a careful use of the concordance reveals that out of 16 other instances where John speaks of “the beginning”, in no single case does he allude to Genesis 1:1. Admittedly, in two of them he refers to Genesis, but in both instances (John 8:44; 1 John 3:8) the allusion is to the serpent. This, however, is Genesis 3 and not the beginning of creation, when all material things were made by the word of God: “And God said…”

It is impressive to observe that all other occurrences of “the beginning” in John’s writings have to do with the beginning of the ministry of Jesus or the beginning of discipleship or some related idea. A few examples:

“And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning” (John15:27).

“And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you” (John 16:4).

‘Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning” (John 8:25).

“For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him” (John. 6:64).

“Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning” (1 John 2:7).

“For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11).

This list should be conclusive. John 1:1 is speaking about the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Hence, appropriately, the immediate reference to the Baptist: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John” (v.6), a reference which in the traditional exposition is badly out of place.  Mark’s gospel is now seen to have exactly the same approach: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face” (Mk. 1:1,2). And in Luke’s introduction also: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses-and-ministers of the Word” (Lk. 1:1,2). Note here also, that, as in John, “the Word” must be Jesus; the phrase “eyewitnesses and ministers” requires this.

So we see that it is a matter of allowing the Bible to interpret itself.

There is much more that I could say  but the article would become too long.   It is however interesting to note that John the Baptist is and we are explicitly told that he was not that Light (John 1:6-9).  The reason for the emphasis on Lights is because the annunciation of the birth of John occurred (see my commentaries) at the Feast of Lights a Feast that celebrated the cleansing and re-dedication of the temple (cf. John 2:21) after the defilement wrought by Antiochus Epiphenes.  The birth of Jesus who was six months younger than the Baptist would have seen him presented at the temple at Pentecost as the fruit of the Spirit.  The point is that John the Baptist was the forerunner to herald the new temple (Jesus Christ) and the church at Ephesus need to be reminded that despite the unusual circumstances of John’s birth he was not “that light”.

John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.  And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace (John 1:15-16).

The emphasis is on the superiority of Christ note the use of the word fullness or the Greek pléróma. The Greek pléróma (plērōmatos, πληρώματος) in Gnosticism understands the spiritual universe as the abode of God and of the totality of the divine powers and emanations but a similar phraseology occurs in the Greek version of Isaiah 6:3 (LXX): “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full (πλήρης/plérés) of his glory”. The root (plē-) expresses totality, and implies full quantity (“up to the max”). DNTT (1,733) notes its cognates (plērēs, plēroō, plērōma) all come from the root (plē-/plēthō) meaning “full in quantity.” Thus plḗthō (“to fill or complete”) refers to “that which is complete in itself because of plenitude, entire number or quantity. . . . the whole aggregate,” WS, 395,96). In Christian theology the totality or fullness dwells in Christ denoting that he received the spirit without measure (John 3:34). So, although there is cross fertilization one need not speak of dependence but rather shared motifs, however, once again we see that the Johannine corpus draws on the Old Testament for conceptual language.

Not only is Jesus depicted as superior to John, he is greater than Jacob (John 4:12), has a greater witness than John (John 5:36), is greater than Abraham (John 8:53), he is before John (John 1:15), and before Abraham (John 8:58) he has the fullness and is the I AM and yet the the Father is greater than him (John 14:28) for  he is greater than all (John 10:29). Rater than construct theories to explain these apparent anomalies and contradictions  Christians should examine scriptures where it is explained how Abraham “saw my day”  because in the mount of the LORD it shall be seen (Gen 22:14) and  Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off (Gen 22:4 ) and he called the place Yahweh Yireh  or Yah will be seen.  The love of God would be manifest in the place where Jesus was sacrificed.  This is about manifestation and bearing the name.

In John 1:30 the Greek for ‘preferred’ is literally ‘became’ (γέγονεν, gegonen) and the Greek for man (ἀνὴρ,anēr) is very often used to refer to a husband. A literal reading could therefore just as well be, “after me cometh a husband,who has come before me, for he was first of me”. In the case of Redemption by the kinsman redeemer the one that comes AFTER and takes the place of the dead husband comes BEFORE. Jesus born after John took precedence before him because he had come to raise seed to the dead.

 

  • Note that the women praising Ruth say, “… do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem” (Ruth 4:11) and that Jesus was born in Bethlehem from the line Of David and a direct descendant of Ruth.

I could continue writing about the Fourth Gospel but this must suffice with some earlier material on John 1:3-4 and staircase parallelism.

Your web browser doesn’t have a PDF Plug-in. Click to download Covid articles

 

Conclusion

Scripture is multivalent and encoded sacred geometry and mathematics in the language before the Greeks systematized their mathematics and their philosophy. The fact that the encoding operates across the  Hebrew/Greek language barrier with reference to cosmology and astrophysics is remarkable. Scripture can only be understood intertexually and any deviance from proper hermeneutics leads to error. That said, scripture can be read by a child and  the truth can be grasped in a child like manner.

Complexity emerges from simple rules employed iteratively and the outcome of the “causal chain” is the same regardless of the input variables. But who sets those initial rules? As E. Michael Jones inferred, philosophy and rationality will only get you so far as beyond a certain point is unknowable.  At this point the believer falls back on faith which in its outworking becomes as real as “data” and is classed as “evidence” of unseen realities (Heb 11:1) as the consciousness of the believer with the help of God the source of all, calls into being the things that are not as if they were (Rom 4:17).

Jesus was superior to all who came before but by his own admission he was not greater than the Father. No man has seen the Father yet whoever saw Jesus in action had seen the Father (John 14:8-10). Unlike Adam he was the perfect image and the face of Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory (2 Cor 4:6). World without end. Amen.

 

The shaky foundations of cosmology

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The shaky foundations of cosmology

Another great find from the Discord. Our science is based on human observation and human reasoning. That is in my opinion our limiting factor. Even our instruments are extensions of our senses. We are observing from within the system, and we have limited faculties. It is like asking a blind man to describe mountains in the distance. He is not even aware that there are mountains.

The shaky foundations of cosmology | Bjørn Ekeberg (20 min)