I’ve been playing a video game recently. I struggle recommending it due to the large amount of violence and occasional amount of sexuality. However, while playing the game something deep, profound and spiritual was mentioned, so I thought it was appropriate to comment on. The game is Cyberpunk and it came out a few years ago. While the game is mature for violence, language and sexuality, I was surprised to hear the voice actor Keanu Reaves make this offhand comment to your playable character, “Pistis Sophia, a nice place to go when you die.”
The reference in the game was to a hotel named Pistis Sophia. The Pistis Sophia (sometimes spelled Sofia), is a reference to a very special Gnostic spiritual work.
Gnostics
Gnosticism predated Christianity, yet they connected with the teachings of Jesus on a very deep level. This influenced Gnostic literature which created a tapestry of faith based on Christian stories and belief. It wasn’t adopted by the church during the time of Constantine and would later on be almost completely annihilated by the weaponized Christian church.
Pistis Sophia
The Pistis Sophia is a Gnostic work that was discovered in the 1700’s. It was hidden away to protect the spiritual doctrine from total destruction. Today, we can read it online, from sites like gnosis.org or you can get a synopsis of the work at wikipedia.
The book starts with Jesus addressing His disciples after the resurrection. He gives instruction on the order of creation. How the spiritual Universe is comprised of Aeons or layers and the beings that inhabit each part of it. Where the role of Sophia comes in to play.
Throughout the Gnostic literature Sophia is mentioned as bringing of the demiurge (the false god) to our physical universe. It wasn’t on purpose, or to harm, but to create. Sophia learns from her error and is redeemed to a place in the Aeons.
In Pistis Sophia the demiurge is named as Authades, the story is slightly different in the Gnostic work, “The Apocryphon of John”. Gnostics, like myself actually, couldn’t reconcile the old God of the Old Testament (prone to jealousy, fits of rage, total annihilation of others, demands for blood, and demands of killing others) with that of the New Testament idea of God (loving us so much He let his Son die for our sins, cares for the lowest among us, teaches us to love and not harm others).
The Gnostics ascribed the angry, hateful God to a concept of a demiurge: a false god who embodies human personification. Humans hate, so therefore their god hates. Humans kill, so therefore their god kills. In other words, the gods of old, that relish in murder, war, ethnic cleansing, are simply false (or today we might say, the products of the minds of men).
Define Gnosis
Gnosis is a Greek word and it means knowledge. But this knowledge, from the spiritual conception of Gnosis, is not book knowledge or hand-me-down teachings from someone else.
Gnosis refers to the direct experience of Truth.
Imagine you are meditating. You have emptied your mind of thought and you are sitting in quietude. Then a thought intrudes, and it’s something of the past. For argument sake, we could say it was a situation from the past where you used to believe that all religions connected to an external God. Normally you would dismiss it or push it it out… But this time you observe it… and an illumination occurs. This illumination isn’t your reasoning, it’s is an experience – a direct experience with something greater and it gives you a better understanding, maybe even changes your view completely.
Socrates alludes to this Gnosis via his personal Daemon (not to be confused with the English “demon”). The Daemon was a Greek concept of that guiding light, that force of direction. Those who believe in a Higher Self or Holy Guardian Angel are reaching for a similar construct.
Define Sophia
In Greek, Sophia translates to Wisdom. From the Gnostic point of view, Sophia is a reference to a specific spiritual entity. This entity is feminine and considered the embodiment of wisdom.
Back to the Quote
The quote here is a reference to the Pistis Sophia. It says it’s a good place to go when you die. Wisdom, or the direct experience of wisdom, is an act of Divinity. This being one’s resting place when they die would be most auspicious.
Sometimes we can gleam beauty in something very carnal. Jesus said in Luke 19:40, that if truth is kept silent, even the rocks would shout the evidence of truth. In other words, truth can come from some very unlikely sources. All truth must be measured in the quietude of our minds, letting our inner guidance direct our understanding.