8. BODY, SOUL AND SPIRIT

Gnosis maintains that man is formed from three substances, three elements: the body, the soul and the Spirit. We have seen that the body and soul were created by the creator god. He created the body from the dust of the earth and gave it a soul by breathing his breath into man's nose. The body, as much as the soul, was created by the demiurge or creator god.

But there is another element in man which is uncreated, which the creator god did not create. An element which comes from another world, another kingdom, from the unknowable kingdom of antimatter which in our normal state we cannot even imagine. This spark of antimatter without which no human being would have evolved to become what he is today, is the Spirit. Without It, no human being would ever have differentiated himself from a common animal. This special spark, uncreated, divine, coming from the unknowable kingdom, is called Spirit by Gnostics.

According to Gnosis, this Spirit, which doesn't belong to this world, has been lured into and tied to the hellish matter, in order to make use of It, to use It as a driving force of the material evolution. An uncreated spark has been trapped in each man to start off this evolutionary process which figures in the plans of the creator god. Divine Spirits are used to advance evolution on this plane of impure matter.

The Spirit, formed completely from antimatter is trapped, chained up, imprisoned in this hell, and suffering torment that is impossible for us to imagine. It is one of the cruellest forms of torture there is, being bound to this abominable world of matter, to this created monstrosity which we call the body-soul of man. The Spirit is shackled against Its will and is used in each human being to advance his evolution, so that the creator god's plans can be carried out. It is unbearable agony for the Spirit: imprisoned against Its will in a world which for It is strange and impure, being used as a disposable object so that an insane plan can be accomplished. Later we will be looking into this in more detail.

In other words, the Spirit, the uncreated antimatter spark, originating from the unknowable kingdom, is enclosed, we can say, within a bubble of created matter and is chained up there, crucified in the matter.

Gnostics maintain that if it had not been for the use of the Spirit, man would never have stopped being a hominid. He would never have evolved like he has. We can see how quickly he has evolved over just a few thousand years, as opposed to the millions of years he lived being little more than a monkey.

Such is the power that the Spirit provides to this created monstrosity called body-soul. This Spirit is tied to the soul; if man died, the soul would leave the body and take with it the Spirit which is tied to it. The Spirit is not tied to the body, It communicates with the body through the soul, and Its bond is with the soul. The soul is the breath of the creator god on man, which turned him into “a living soul”. The soul is the animic aspect in a human being, it is not something immensely superior like the uncreated Spirit.

There is much confusion regarding these issues; that is why throughout this description of Gnostic ideas we are expressing a somewhat different viewpoint to the usual one, so that everyone can at least have the option of being able to choose something which is really quite different to the rest.

The Spirit is in this world but It doesn't belong to it. It does not belong to this illusory world of matter and time.

We can infer that if this spark of antimatter fire, the Spirit, could free Itself from the prison, Its behaviour in this world would be extremely aggressive. Firstly, since It is antimatter It abhors matter. Secondly, because It has been skilfully trapped and shackled against Its will for thousands of years. Naturally then, on an abstract level of reasoning, if this Spirit could free Itself, the first thing It would do would be to destroy. Destroy everything that surrounded It in this impure world, the created world, the material universe of the creator god. This Spirit is not an evil being, but it would be the normal behaviour of someone who had been confined in a prison unfairly and against their will. Tricked and against their will as Gnostics say. Imprisoned in a world to which It does not belong, in a satanic world of matter and time.

An interesting fact is that, at the beginning of christianity, the existence of these three entities in man - body, soul and Spirit - was upheld. Saint Paul, for example, accepted this, Saint Augustine as well. Later it was lost through the councils and decisions of the pope and the roman church. It remained as it is known to us now: body and soul. Now it would appear that the soul is the only divine thing within man and that there is nothing else. What happened to the Spirit? It has disappeared. It is striking that it has happened this way. Later we will be coming back to this issue.