From Greek archai, "origins, beginning things, prior in time." In the classical Mediterranean world, archon was commonly used for the governor of a province, or, more loosely, any religious or governmental authority. Hence the plural, Archons, is often translated in Gnostic texts as "the Authorities." (There is no Coptic word for Archon, so Gnostic texts use the Greek term in Coptic transliteration.)
Pronounced Ar-kon. Adjective, Archontic (Ar-KON-tik).
According to Gnostic cosmology, Archons are a species of inorganic beings that emerged in the solar system prior to the formation of the earth. They inhabit the planetary system (exclusive of the earth, sun and moon), which is described as a virtual world (stereoma). The Archons are a genuine species with their own proper habitat, and may even be considered to be god-like, but they lack intentionality (ennoia: self-directive capacity), and they have a nasty tendency to stray from their boundaries and intrude on the human realm. Archons are said to feel intense envy toward humanity because we possess the intentionality they lack.
Archons are an alien force that intrudes subliminally upon the human mind and deviates our intelligence away from its proper and sane applications. They are not what makes us act inhumanely, for we all have the potential to go against our innate humanity, violating the truth in our hearts, but they make us play out inhumane behavior to weird and violent extremes. Left to our own devices, we would sometimes act inhumanely and then correct it, contain the aberration. Obviously, we do not always do so. In the exaggeration of our insane and inhumane tendencies, and in extreme, uncorrected deviance from our innate intelligence, Gnostics saw the signature of an alien species that piggy-backs on the worst human failings.
They can enter our biosphere but cannot remain for long and alsothey have no master plan to accomplish here.
The ontological status of the Archons is dual: they exist both as an alien species independent of humankind, and as a presence in our minds, rather like a set of programs operating in our mental environment. The risk they pose by invading our mental software is far greater than any physical risk they might pose by erratically breaching the biosphere.
Working through telepathy and suggestion, the Archons attempt to deviate us from our proper course of evolution. Their most successful technique is to use religious ideology to insinuate their way of thinking and, in effect, substitute their mind-set for ours. According to the Gnostics, Judeo-Christian salvationism is the primary ploy of the Archons, an alien implant.
In the Gnostic view of human society, the Archons are alien forces that act through authoritarian systems, including belief-systems, in ways that cause human beings to turn against their innate potential and violate the symbiosis of nature.
They are agents of error rather than evil — but human error, when it goes uncorrected and runs beyond the scale of correction, turns into evil and works against the universal plan of life. Gnostics taught that the Archons exploit our tendency to let our mistakes go uncorrected.
Due to the two distinct stages of their generation, the Archons are invested with an aggressive and divisive nature, fighting among their own ranks. The problem is provisionally resolved, however, when the reptilian type assumes dominance over the massive horde of neonates, and, indeed, over the entire realm of the dema affected by Sophia's plunge: Opening his eyes, he [the drakonic Archon] saw a vast quantity of matter without limit [spread through the galactic limbs], and he became arrogant, saying "It is I who am God [the sole deity of these regions], and there is no other apart from me." (Hyp Arch, 94:20) While the neonate Archons are inert, their forms arrested at a premature stage of development, the reptilian leader is aggressive, territorial, and charged with demonic powers. For one thing, he is a formidable shapeshifter: Ialdabaoth had a multitude of faces more than all of them, so that he could put a face before all of them, according to his desire... He shared his fire with them, therefore he became lord over them. Because of power of the glory he possessed of his mother's light, he called himself God. And he did not obey the place from which he came. (The Apocryphon of John, 11:35 - 12:10) The declaration of the chief Archon that he is the only god in the cosmos is, needless to say, a defining moment in Gnostic cosmology — if not in human evolution as well. All the cosmological texts describe this event, with slight variations. Gnostics were insistent on the identification of Yaldabaoth with Yahweh or Jehovah, the tribal god of the Hebrews. This deity is not only blind, but witless and insane (Hypostasis of the Archons 89: 24-25). To Gnostics insanity is not so much unsoundness of mind as the consequence of failure to correct mental errors. The mentality of the Archons "cannot be rectified," and, what's worse, "the archontic nature is not capable of development." (Gilhus, The Nature of the Archons, p. 40) Due to the manner of their generation, Archons have no ennoia, no innate intentionality.
Because the Archons need human complicity to gain power over humankind, any one who assists them can be considered a kind of Archon, an accessory.
...Gnostics recognized "the fundamentally corrupt character of all human enterprises and institutions: time, history, powers,states, religions, races, nations..." (The Gnostics, p. 24)
Corruption occurs, not because we make errors, but because the errors we make go uncorrected and extrapolate beyond the scale of correction.
All institutions, laws, religions, churches and powers are nothing but a sham and a trap, the perpetuation of an age-old deception.” (p. 28-29) This may seem like a dark view of human affairs, but given the evidence of history (not to mention current events), it cannot be said to be unfair or exaggerated.
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06-06-2009, 01:18 PM
Archons 
Archon
