I am a Voice speaking softly. I exist from the first. I dwell within the Silence that surrounds every one of them. And it is the hidden Voice that dwells within my, within the incomprehensible, immeasurable Thought, within the immeasurable Silence.
– Trimorphic Protennoia, Nag Hammadi Library, Codex XIII
I have managed to create another monstrous experimental musical piece drawing inspiration from the Trimorphic Protennoia.
http://soundcloud.com/terjedb/trimorphic-protennoia-3-i-am-aChristianity (as a culture, or civilization – as whole)
redeems itself of its manifold doctrinal errors in the practise of its religious duty (Praxis).
My reasoning lay in another understanding :
It is neither doctrine, kerygma, ekklesia or tradition/religion that bring salvation – but the Holy Spirit, which is received into man – and from man extends outwards to others, and to the entire cosmos, established upon Wisdom (Sophia).
The Wise, then – according to doctrine,kerygma,the life and ministry of the Katoikon of God (Ekklesia) and its tradition – endeavour to “Seek the Kingdom first“, whereupon all that is necessary and we are in need of – follows with its finding. This Kingdom is established on the Redemption of Wisdom itself, through the reception of the Holy Spirit.
What follows is that the entire cosmos, established upon Wisdom unredeemed, is in need of redemption, and so are we.
What then of the role of Christianity?
It is a continual point of dissension between us humans, when we have received word of the kingdom, a breath of the Gospel, a whisper of the wisdom;
and with gratitude absorbed it and applied it in life – we make sacred within a confined space of ourselves what has already been made sacred in a universal sense.
If we inspect our use of language about such matters as a personal or inherited, “formal” adherence to a religion, we find we expect identification with it will change the way we receive the world and are ourselves received by it – we invest the power and authority over salvation into it, wherever we see it expressed, wherever we expect it, we think of our religion as the domain and agent of God Himself.
You and I might disagree about this quite strongly, yet it is still my understanding that identification with a religion does not necessarely mean that either how we are perceived or how we perceive the world changes. Another argument would be that it _should_ or _ought_ to do so, in order to have been
received itself correctly. We might feel this so strongly that we insist upon it, rejecting all inquiry or
criticism.
The potentional of Christianity is tremendous, it is vast –
The praxis of Christianity has continued through two thousand years, apart from the strain which it has put on any individual, living in any century of – on a secular; societal and familiar level – it has availed millions towards a more conscious and humane lifestyle. Whatever the controversies have been, whatever indeed has been the inconsistencies in Kerygma,self-identification,even identification of the Praxis/duty of individuals
and whole denominations of Christians have been throughout two thousand years, the wholeness of this religion has exhibited unprecedented fruits and abilities – which many other religions and traditions have absorbed or emulated. Christianity, throughout the trajectories of late antiquity, served as a mediator of this light and its spirit
penetrated through the inert and subconscious layers caused by the degeneration of ancient cosmologies and their analogous intiatory and cultic institutions.
Therefore this writer can attest that the role of Christianity presently has been underestimated and misinterpreted for the good part of three centuries, and that consequently the rapport of certain innovations within occultism and
freethinking, still in the same perspective – falls short of their most coveted mark.
But we shall not be allowed, as Gnostics, to forget what has occasioned it, through Christ, to rise up and out of people like you and I – and why it is _still neeeded_: it has to do with what has happened to our Wisdom,
who were, are and will be – although changed dramatically – the foundation of the cosmoses.
Trimorphic Protennoia:
I am Protennoia, the Thought that dwells in the Light. I am the movement that dwells in the All, She in whom the All takes its stand, the first-born among those who came to be, She who exists before the All.
Trimorphic Protennoia. Nag Hammadi Library Codex XIII. Transl. John D. Turner. 1990
No one knows for certain were the Coptic Gnostic scripture originates; who wrote it, who edited it, who gave it the form and expression it has today.
What we do know of its transmission through almost two millenia and to a format we can read and share is:
– when it was rediscovered, August 1945 (month of the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
in the desert outside of the ancient Chenoboskion monastic commune , close to a contemporary Egyptian village which bears the name Nag Hammadi hence the name of the collection of codexes buried in jars, the Nag Hammadi Library.
– who, in a succession of contributions and completions, studied the text and translated
it from its Sahidic dialect of Coptic to contemporary languages.
– what, in a sense of common features and characteristics, it is – an apocalyptic writing
classed with the Sethian or non-Christian Gnostics of the first 4 centuries of the common era Middle East.
1st revelation: I am movement.
The first thought in three forms says of herself :
I am the movement that dwells in the All
… . I move in every creature.
If it is alive, we expect it to move. Even if a mountain is a million times greater than a child, one is experienced by us as more real and substantial than the other. It is arguably a question of quality over quantity. However inert, however diminutive – the most shallow breath, the sway of its body, the beating of its heart, the smallest subconscious gesture. The Revealed is great, the Revealed is perfect – because it is invisibly near , that is to say,
She is perceived that way. Compare that to a woman, there is no quantification of her beauty, virtue, wit or dignity – only qualification.
My musical piece – I am movement, first part of the Piece Trimorphic Protennoia, is
all over the place, it is rhythmically flowing, and staccato – dissonant, and harmonic;
it does not shift according to convention, some places it translates poorly. This is part
conscious, and part the result of some very visible, or rather, audible, shortcomings of the
“composer.” What makes me curious as well as courageous enough to unleash this on the Internet, which is the true public domain, is the plot to find out where
music comes from. I perfectly understand that few have patience with that, let’s say they know, if they know, and this knowing does not entertain or stimulate them, it is natural that
they shall have no time with it.
And yes, the style here is something between ambient electronica, contemporary music
and noise.
—
Those who sleep I awaken.
I am the life of my Epinoia that dwells within every Power and every eternal movement, and (in) invisible Lights and within the Archons and Angels and Demons, and every soul dwelling in Tartaros, and (in) every material soul. I dwell in those who came to be. I move in everyone and I delve into them all. I walk uprightly, and those who sleep, I awaken. And I am the sight of those who dwell in sleep.
Here we reach deeper, from the demonstration of an invisible mover and movement, towards great mysterious landscapes populated by the supernatural, that is to say –
populated as well. Tartaros is the helleno-roman realm of the dead, the greek Hades,
the shades, Hel, the Gehenna, the West – not quite hell, not quite purgatory.
Those who sleep I awaken, she said – and I’m vision to those who dwell in sleep.
Sleep is the inanimate Animate state, we have not figured out sleep, we are trying –
the more science find the more frustrated, or amazed, scientists, and we their charges,
become. The dead shall not escape her presence, nor her movement. What place could
such take place in, she says herself – and we are stupified by the answer.
“Those who sleep, I awaken.” I like to think – does that. It is more true to how I navigate, I
am more confident with and more at ease with “I am movement.” In terms of “language”,
frame of references, you have “heard” most of it before, even though the creator thought
he shut up and off everything while creating it. On the first listen as a complete, it struck me that it was both close to some Classical work I have heard and alas, forgot the name of , and something in the genre of Progressive Rock, but it doesn’t pack the same punch, and I thought that was just fine.
– to be continued.
A note: Some of my colleagues, fellow craftsmen, dreamers, obsessive-compulsives wondered how I work and what I use; I use virtual (software) instruments, a MIDI keyboard, a Macbook Pro and a microphone. It is put together, adjusted, edited, automated and mixed in Logic Express 9.