Reading Plan 1

A Reading Plan for the Nag Hammadi Codices
Stage One

"The Mysteries and the Master"

NOTE: Pages in the Codex are indicated by numbers in bold in the NHLE. I will refer to these numbers as "Passages," abbreviated P. For instance: P 52 in Allogenes describes the mystical state of apotheosis, or deification. Notations such as 55.30 indicate page and line.

1, Allogenes: page 490. 9 pages, revelation discourse, CORE: endowment of divine intelligence, instruction by the Organic Light. Badly damaged in opening passages.

This is a great place to start reading the NHC because it plunges the reader right into the heart of the material. This is a core text, deeply esoteric. The language it uses may seem obscure at first glance, but it is not necessary to understand every phrase in an exact, literal sense. Allogenes presents a glimpse of the intimate atmosphere of a Mystery School session. Its tone and style can be absorbed— sipped, if you will—without the compulsion for complete rational understanding.

Allogenes presents five revelations of a female Revealer, Yeoul, who might be compared to a Tibetan dakini, a tutelary spirit. The revelations are given to someone called Allogenes, “the Stranger.” Immediately we encounter Mystery names—the Triple-Powered One, Kalyptos ("Hidden One"), Photophanes-Harmedon, source of light-generating harmonies—indicating that the discourse arises from a direct encounter with the Mystery Light. The Aeon of Barbelo (46.34) is a fivefold mandala of lights in the Pleroma. The realm of the Gods is perfect, telieos, and blessed, makarios. The Originator, source and ground of the Aeons in the Pleroma is "a God over whom there is no divinity. (47.34)"

After some fragmentary lines comes a rich flood of mystical language describing the reality “prior to perfection and to every divinity,” and explaining the Ultimate One by what it is not. P 47-49 recall Buddhist teachings on Shunyata, the Void. Both life and mind, Vitality and Mentality, flow from the Originator (damaged passages 48 - 50). Also, the term "That-Which-Is" (49.27) recalls the Tathagata of Buddhism. In P 50 Allogenes speaks to Messos, his son (lineage student), confessing his reticence to reveal such matters: "I fear that my teaching may have become something beyond what is fitting. (50.15-17)" In P 50, Youel states the core teaching on endowment, the implantation of nous, divine intelligence, in the human species:

A great power was endowed in you by the Eternal before you came to this world, in order that you might distinguish those things difficult to distinguish and unknown to the multitude, and that you might be freed to the One who is yours, in you, the first to save and who does not need to be saved.

P 52 opens with an expression of deification (following King, with the "poetic" layout of the line as occurs in the Coptic-English edition):

And I turned inward toward myself
alone. I perceived the Light
that surrounds me and
the Good that is in me. I became
divine.

Good: agathon (Greek). Become divine: aeironoute. The Coptic word for "god, divinity," noute, recalls the Egyptian sky goddess, Nut, and it plays on the Greek nous, "sacred mind." The initiate does not become divine in being but in knowing, and in perception. At that moment Youel anoints the telestes: there is an ecstatic rush of illumination. And Youel says, "Since your instruction has became perfect, and you have come to know the good that is in you (52.16)," further instruction follows. "Becoming perfect" is the standard translation of teleios, derived from telos, "aim, goal, the ultimate." I prefer "become initiated" or "brought to ultimate insight."

There is more Mystery jargon in Passages 53 - 58 (heavily damaged) where the "ascent" of Allogenes begins. Seeking truth leads to recognition of the innate goodness of humanity (56), as Maurice Bucke asserts in Cosmic Consciousness. This accords with the assumption of Arne Naess, that if we enter the genuine depth of being human, we will naturally do good. When you comprehend the Mystery Light, it also comprehends you. Revelation, the stream of higher knowing, comes in silence and serenity (57 -58). There is much ado about seeking and withdrawal, and "standing" or holding steady in the Light. Here the initiate speaks directly of the discipline required to stand in the torrential currents of Pleromic Light without quavering, or becoming distracted, or hallucinating wildly. "And when you become still in that perfect place, you are ultimately still, and according to the patterns you behold, indwelling you, you see the way all things are patterned. (59.35 - 60.2)" There is a "primary revelation" under direct impact of the Organic Light, and then a reflected revelation from that impact (60.37), as the "downloading" proceeds.

P 61 contains the rare term Mesotes (here spelled Mesites—there are many such discrepancies in the Coptic material), "the Mediator." This is a mystical figure or phantom of the Triple Light encountered "in silence and stillness." (For a more complete description of this term see #5, The Second Treatise of the Great Seth.) There follows another long passage of "negative theology," describing ultimate reality by what it is not. To read these passages substitute IT for "he." The language here is clear and direct, and it helps to read aloud. "It is not corporeal, it is not incorporeal. (63.5-6)" Other startling things are said. "It neither participates in Eternity, nor in time. (63.21)" "It is united with the ignorance that sees it. (64.13)" When we behold the One, right here and now, yet ignorant that we do so, It inheres in our beholding. This is pure Zen, "direct pointing to the One Mind."

Allogenes is a sudden, deep, bracing plunge into the Mystery experience. The author seems to be aware of the challenge his or her discourse poses. Allogenes is reticent about imparting his revelation, as already noted. Toward the close, the discourse reaches the summit of what is communicable:

And do not seek (to know) anything more (right now). We (initiates) do not even know whether the Unknowable One has angels or gods, or whether that One who is at rest, and is nothing but rest, contains anything except stillness, otherwise it would be diminished (by what it contains). It is not fitting (right now) to spend more time seeking.(67.22-35)