Alves and Resistance to the Archons

We have already noted repeatedly, if in the context of mythological images we speak as literally as possible about the “Forces of Light,” then such forces turn out to be alves.

Ljósálfar, the “Light Whites,” or, if translated as close as possible to their own meaning — “Forces of White Light” — are the very essence of “illumination,” that is, observation, understanding, and free creativity. They perform the function, on the one hand, of gods of space, creating an “illuminated field,” that is, a place in which an ordered cosmos can then be formed; and on the other, of gods of information, conductors of logoi, creating the semantic component of reality — those meaning-streams in which this cosmos becomes accessible to awareness.

Svartálfar — “White in the darkness” — are “inner” creative forces acting in the very fabric of chaos; this is the ability of disorder to give birth to order, “embryos” of crystallization in the boiling of virtual totipotency. That is, if the ljósálfar generate “external” conditions for manifestation, for order, then the svartálfar are its prerequisites, its “internal” sources and formative drivers.

Before the Aesir — the gods of focused mind — can build “known,” structured, and knowable worlds; before the Vanir — the gods of life and flow — can direct the rivers of life along their channels, the alves must “work,” creating the very field for creation, the “formless and empty” earth that is drawn out of the abyss, illuminated by their light, and only then becomes an arena for world dramas, battles, and acts of making.

And if the eternal field of confrontation for the Aesir is their battle with the forces of ice, the giants of Niflheim trying to “freeze” creation, to stop its development; and for the Vanir their age-old opponents are the eldjotnar — the Fire giants of Muspellsheim trying to “burn” life from within — then the alves oppose the Archons themselves, the first of the Hrimthursar, the forces of inertia that resist the manifestation of the world of forms as such.

We have already noted that the very nature of the alves — the nature of free light — is opposite to the nature of the Archons — the forces of limitation, the gods of rigid algorithms and predetermined decisions.

Of course, it would be a great simplification to speak of the Archons as “evil,” since they are born of the Abyss itself, of the World Dream itself, without which the alves would have nothing to “illuminate,” and beings would have nowhere from which to “awaken.” And therefore, speaking of “confrontation” with the Archons, it is necessary to understand that we are talking about a constructive balance in which their primary limiting activity is overcome but not denied; they are Lords of darkness, but not in the sense of evil or destruction — rather, in the sense of potentiality that resists its own actualization. Allowing and even predetermining the emergence of the cosmos, worlds, manifested life, the Archons resist their freedom, their exit from clear equilibrium where all forces are balanced and potential differences are minimal.

The alves, by contrast, are beings of maximum freedom, whose very nature resists any limitations and algorithms. They are the principle of flow in its fullest expression — free movement, limited by no goals or directions. They are also the principle of cognition directed in all directions and at all objects, a striving for pure and all-filling presence. In this sense the alves act as the outpourings of the Pleroma closest to creation, as luminar forces that have gained independence, individuality, and their own will. If the Aesir in their highest sense are the embodiment of the principle of individuality, the light of yechidah, and the Vanir carry within themselves the light of unity — chayah, then the alves are light as such, the Shekhinah itself, Da’at, the form of the presence of Divinity — in the immanent.

Accordingly, all processes, dramas, rises and falls in any of the worlds are born in the unity and struggle of these forces: the Archons create the “darkness” in which the alves kindle their Light; the Archons create algorithms that are overcome by the alves; the Archons see dreams from which the alves awaken aware beings.

And if the alves grant life the full freedom of flowing and expression, then the Archons, on the contrary, try to control it, to define its functions and boundaries. The Archons uphold form, the alves introduce freedom; the Archons give stability, the alves — renewal. Without the Archons the world will dissolve into chaos; without the alves — it will grow dead. For the alves life is valuable in itself, awareness is important in itself; for the Archons they have meaning only as links in a chain of energy transformations, only as “gears” of the world mechanism. And therefore, as soon as the spread of life becomes far too vast and multicolored, the Archons arrange “mass extinction,” a crisis, a singularity, once again returning Elivagar to stationary flow.

Thus, any world, any manifested environment, is the result of a “consensus” between the alves and the Archons, which is then safeguarded by the Aesir and filled by the Vanir. At the same time, it is clear that it is “cramped” for the alves in any limited world, in any “conditioned” space; and therefore, having completed their “preparatory” influences, they return to the Álfheims, yet leave in the worlds their “younger” representatives, their descendants — the Magical people of faerie.

Like the alves, the faerie are beings of freedom and nonlocality, and therefore their energy is a form of the presence of uncertainty in rigid Archontic spaces.

Note that, although faerie, in this sense, are a “universal” life wave present in different worlds and on different planets, in most spaces they have only one branch of origin — from the alves — and only in some variations, as in our world, does their genealogy also go back to other beings — grigori. At the same time, it is clear that the nature of the grigori — seraphic angels — is that same essence of free fire, though expressed differently than in the alves; and therefore, in fact, the two branches of the faerie are of one nature: they equally value freedom and unconditioned creativity as the highest values, and therefore are opposed to gemarmene. 

It is quite obvious that at present the world is approaching another singularity, another “turning point,” when the ever-growing influence of the Archons seeks to “drive” the human mind into the narrow framework of an energy transformer. And this, among other things, means that the influence of the elves is waning, while the Fomorian limitations — more and more distinctly.

Therefore the most important task for a human being becomes resistance to algorithmic control of one’s mind, preventing its freezing, “icing over,” and imparting to it a living flow.

At the same time, the “habitual” strategies of survival, of confronting evil, become limited: for almost all known human history humanity lived under the yoke of predators — demonic gatekeepers — and developed a number of successful strategies of resistance to them. However, for all their power and cunning, demons are still an “external,” non-essential force in relation to mind, and therefore the main method of confronting them is disidentification, stepping beyond the limits of their “jurisdiction.” It cannot be said that people do this well, but such technologies have been developed, honed, and repeatedly tested.

However, the Archons are entities of a completely different nature. Their influence is “stitched” into the very fabric of the universe; they are the authors of that reality in which people appeared, developed, and live now. And therefore, to “exit” beyond the boundaries of Archontic “farms” is a completely revolutionary action which, however, in current conditions becomes vitally necessary.

And for this, two strategies can be applied.

The first is a “connection” with the Pleroma, a “plugging in” to those trans-world streams of unity which are the “homeland” of mind. Such methods include gnostic technologies — those methods which can conditionally be called “aeonic” and “luminar” “yogas.” For those who have an inclination and capacity for such methods, they can become the Path of ascent and liberation from the fetters of gemarmene.

The second strategy is the induction of flow — the alvish (and faerie) energies, which are also opposite to Archontic matrices. Tuning into these energies, and perceiving the freedom and pure creativity inherent to the “Children of Light,” can become a path of liberation for those who gravitate more toward the immanent component of the universe.

Art, poetry, living knowledge, Hermetic science, and Magic — all these are forms of elvish resistance to the Archons. It is precisely in these spheres that the principle of uncertainty, metaphor, multilevelness, and transformation is preserved. They do not yield to formalization and digitization without losing their essence, and therefore remain still active channels of the presence of the alves in human culture.

In any case, preserving the human mind in its free form is possible only on the condition of activating its flowing component — whether the pleromic currents of epinoia or the natural streams of zhiva. Under conditions of intensifying Archontic pressure, when everything in human experience tends toward formalization, predictability, and algorithmic controllability, it is flow that becomes the last refuge of inner freedom.