Hey, I am LOVING your writing on the Gnosticism themes on Homestuck--I hadn't thought about the Aeons as Cherubs yet, and that's fascinating stuff. However, a couple comments and leads: I don't think Abraxas is ever referenced as Sophia's partner, or at least, I haven't found a source making that claim. far as I can tell, Abraxas was the name of a totally different god later attributed to the Ur-God that generates the Aeons, by Carl Jung in the 7 Sermons to the Dead (1)
That paper describes Abraxas as the ultimate, invisible Godthat unites all opposites into one being, as well as the Lord of frogs andamphibians (puts a whole new spin on consorts and BSlick, not even to mentionJake’s consort kingdom, huh?). I also think the most obvious analog for Aeonsare actually the Aspects themselves–it’s important that the world of thePleroma is also the world of Ideas, and that Yaldabaoth is a “blind”god because it cannot perceive the Ideas that created it.
The Ideas angle alsolinks into the Ur-Self stuff you talked about with Davepeta. I think Hussiecovered that pretty thoroughly, because the Ur-Self is just another branch of atopic Hussie already covers from Act 1: Platonic Realism, and the expression ofthe pure realm of Ideas in the world of Material reality. My next two videosare covering the links between Gnosticism and Greek theory of Platonic Realism,but in the meantime Tex Talks’ alchemy stuff breaks the latter down v well.
Oh, also notable isthat Yaldabaoth is described as having created “seven heavens” in thesky–lending additional weights to the Seven Gates leading to Skaia, as thecharacters must Ascend the gates much as humans must Ascend to the Heavens toreach Pleroma ;) And you are indeed correct that Skaia is the metaphysicalmanifestation of Pleroma–hence why it acts as the Sessions’ Sun. It also givesoff Light, but Skaia’s Light is more focused on Ideas.
At last I finally have a chance to post your very helpfulcorrection! Sorry it took so dang long! XD
Yeah, I was totally wrong on Abraxas when I said he was Sophia’scounterpart Aeon. I think I must have decided that because 1) it seems weird tome that we wouldn’t know the name of that Aeon, but mythological systems areweird and arbitrary like that I guess 2) I misread one of my sources, which referredto Abraxas as “in Pleroma with Sophia,” which is still technically true, but asit turns out, true in a more general way. I’ve corrected the original post. Won’t stopold reblogs of it from going out, but ah, that’s the nature of the tumblr beast.^^’
I’ll have to look into Jung’s take, but I’m intrigued. Ithink Abraxas predates Jung, existing in earlier Gnostic systems (but not allof them) and I think he does start as a separate god originally. But I LOVEthat he’s associated with amphibians! That’s fantastic. That really ties him closelyinto the system of Sburb, even more than I originally thought, and suggeststhat Hope is somehow tied to the unlimited creative potential of Skaia.
Also, I was looking into Abraxas, and as far as I can tellhe seems to have been a Hellenistic-Roman god of curses and power, of a typethat was pretty common in that period of history—gods whose long, bizarre nameswere written on papyri and stones to summon the god’s magic power, frequentlyas a curse to bring down your enemies. Variations on Abraxas’s name werecommon, and in fact (I made sure I double-checked this this time, ha!) thisdoes appear to be where we get the word ABRACADABRA, from tablets and similarriffing on ABRAXAS. Or Abraxas is a riff on ABRACADABRA and similar bizarrepower-god names. Which is fascinating in its own right, but on top of that, itoccurred to me…
Writing ABRAXAS like this might look something like:
And oh my god Jake is closely associated with Abraxas as hisdenizen and Roxy even wonders on that page if he was writing ABRACADABRA and this just tiesJake and the mysteries of the Hope aspect even more closely into Gnosticism,and fuck, Homestuck really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it? Fuckinglove it.
You’re right, Homestuck has always engaged pretty closelywith the platonic/archetypal nature of its entities, all the way from Act 1onward! Thanks for pointing that out. It’s interesting to see how it becomesmore explicit (and more focused on characters) later on, but it’s so satisfyingto notice how the seeds were already there. I like the Platonist Forms connectionlots of folks have made; I’ll admit Platonism isn’t my area of expertise,though. I tend to approach this much more from a Lit Crit/ Structuralist theoryof ideas. But it kind of comes to the same result, doesn’t it? Structuralist conceptsand Platonism get along pretty well, the only difference is that one’s encoded inlanguage and one in the universe. Given that Homestuck’s a linguistic-narrativestructure that represents a cosmic structure, it’s a pretty fantastic marriage!
Seven Gates / Seven Heavens is another SWEET CATCH, thanks! Sevensare a pretty classic magical number, but they don’t appear super oftenHomestuck outside the acts and the gates, do they? Curious. Very curious.Another echo of Narrative as Cosmos, Story as Gnosticism? From what I gatherthe archetypal power of sevens historically comes from the seven visibleheavenly bodies, (the sun and moon plus the five visible planets), and that’sprobably pretty closely tied to the Gnostic idea of Seven Heavens. Which allties in very nicely with the planetary and cosmic structure of Sburb. Excellentstuff.
Thanks so much for writing in! I always look forward tohearing your ideas. :D
