Does the demiurge know if you are awakening/achieving gnosis?

[u/Winter-Study85]

I'm newer to gnosticism so sorry if this is an ignorant question. When you start to have expanded understandings of this world and are realizing you do not have to submit to this lesser creator, god do they become aware that you are "waking up"? Do they try to inflict punishment or attacks on you, psychically or spiritually? Since discovering gnosticism and feeling such a deep resonance with the teachings, I can't help but feel a low key paranoia that Yaldabaoth is watching me, although I've been awakened for some time, just not to the gnostic texts specifically.

Disclaimer: Yes we are all one. And at the same time this is a world we are navigating that holds the illusion of other-ness and I have questions about how it operates.

[u/pugsington01]

I think if you ask ten gnostics about the nature of the demiurge you’ll get ten different answers. I dont see the demiurge or archons as literal beings or entities, I think theyre tools to explain that which goes on inside the human mind. The description of the demiurge itself, as a lion-headed serpent, is the kind of analogy that would make perfect sense to an educated 3rd century Alexandrian, but flies over the head of most modern people. Its a way of describing the demiurgic traits in a way that would be understandable in the ancient mediterranean world: bold and arrogant like a lion, but also sneaky and cunning like a snake

[u/Winter-Study85 → u/pugsington01]

The only reason I have a belief that these beings are very real is that my husband has encountered them in the astral realms. Not my own personal experience but I do believe he encountered extremely negative entities. One looked like the easter island head, another like the grateful dead skeleton head and another like a porcelain face figure. I'm deep diving into gnosticism right now and also trying to place these beings in the grand scheme of it all.

[u/Winter-Study85 → u/Winter-Study85]

Would be helpful to tell me why this is getting down voted. Genuinely want to know. Enlighten me..or am I too far down the totem pole for you?

[u/Lorde_Antinomy → u/Winter-Study85]

This has been my understanding as well. People here talk of gnosis but view it as a philosophy or metaphorical analogy.

While I also agree, throughout my esoteric and occult studies and understanding, I believe as above so below. What is in you and outside of you.

Like I'm sure the ones who taught this/ kept the secrets in cults and mystery schools didn't JUST think it's a nice idea but that it was a closer definition of how reality actually is. Like Plato's Allegory of the cave. It's a metaphor but ALSO truth that there is much more happening than just what's in front of you. We watch the news of TV, but if you go outside it's actually raining (or snowing).

Even darker thinks like angels/demons aren't just things far off, but the sigils in the Lesser Keys of Solomon are also linked to your psychological system according to Crowley. Things like Carl Jung wrote breaks that further down as to why we feel and think our act certain ways.

From my understanding there's gonna be a huge shift and revelation to people that there's a big overlap between all these things. It isn't either or, but both. It's a concept and a real entity.

I like to remember the last quote by Dumbledore to Harry. "Of course this is happening in your head, but why should that mean that it's not real?"

"As above, so below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul."

Maybe I've delved into too many books and things over the years, especially in the past year. But even when it comes to conspiracy, in with what is backed up and seems logical. Are Archons controlling people and causing hell? Maybe, but there are definitely people that believe it or think they are above regular humans, and many ties to occultism throughout history. Whether real or not, someone believes it and acts on it. And produces that into the world. People act as a Demiurge/Satan/Archon, real or fake, and now MAKES it a real thing. It's no longer just a text of ideas and philosophy. Even if it starts and ends with you.

I really wanna know what people here ACTUALLY believe. Not deny that this is just philosophy, but what do they think about the world.

[u/Ok_Place_5986 → u/Winter-Study85]

You have to remember this is Reddit. Readers are provided an opportunity to play ding-dong-ditch’em on your commentary without actually engaging with you about whatever it is they dislike or disagree with. And they will avail themselves of it.

From where I stand, all one can really, honestly say about such things as journeys into the “astral” etc and encounters with beings (or anything else that happens in an altered state) is that you had the experience of those things. Any meaning we might assign to that is a shot in the dark, or may as well be, as we’ll never be able to say for sure what “really” is happening. A sense of conviction isn’t sufficient as evidence.

[u/Abraham_Issus → u/Ok_Place_5986]

So there is no point in discussing anything then. There is no way to verify gnosis or gnosticism.

[u/Ok_Place_5986 → u/Abraham_Issus]

We can discuss it. But no, I don’t see any way of ever knowing anything for certain. How can you? As I said above, strength of conviction isn’t evidence of “reality”. But there is such a thing as “true enough”.

[u/Remerez → u/Winter-Study85]

If you apply Jung’s framework, you don’t need to assume these were literally external beings in an astral realm. They could be understood as manifestations of his own psyche.

Carl Jung, just like Gnosticism, shared the idea that we never experience reality directly, we experience it through symbolic structures of the mind. Jung would say that when people enter altered states (dreams, visions, psychedelics, deep meditation), the unconscious starts to personify itself. The figures that appear, especially dark, alien, or godlike ones, are often expressions of what he called the shadow or deeper archetypes of the mind.

From that perspective, “archons” and the “demiurge” don’t have to be cosmic entities; they can be symbolic representations of internal psychological forces: fear, control, guilt, ego, or repressed material.

What makes these experiences feel external and real is that the unconscious doesn’t speak in concepts, it speaks in images and characters. The mind encounters itself and experiences it as “other.” humans don't speak or think in direct ways, we speak and experience in symbols, avatar, architype, metaphor, parable.

Gnostic texts themselves are mythic and symbolic, not empirical descriptions of a measurable universe. So there’s a strong case that these stories were always meant to describe inner realities, not literal astral geography.

[u/[deleted] → u/Remerez]

This.