Mind of the Archons

As we have discussed more than once, among the factors that keep embodied streams of consciousness in an imperfect, “darkened” state, one of the leading roles belongs to the so-called Archons — primary manifestations of the potential “womb” of worlds.

At the same time, the Gnostic tradition calls “Archons” the entire complex of forces that creates the ‘inescapability’ of manifested existence — heimarmene.  However, both in scale and in significance for manifested beings, and in their role in the world process, substantial differences exist between archontic groups of forces.

At the apex of this hierarchy stands the Proarchon, often identified with the demiurge, the author of the very principle of limited and conditioned reality — Yaldabaoth. He creates, or, according to some versions, emanates the pentad of the Higher Archons, which, in turn, give rise to the hebdomad of Primary Archons. Thus a dodecad of forces arises that create and sustain the “mechanical Universe.” At the same time, all the Primary Archons are transcendent relative to both the manifested worlds themselves and to the Interworld’s spaces and levels, since they are functions or manifestations of the very principle of potentiality; they exist and rule in all timelines simultaneously, transcending branchings and differences. Their own individuality is also quite indefinite, and, strictly speaking, they are not beings, but express the “maternal nature” of the fabric of the Interval. The “mind” of the Archons is, strictly speaking, not conscious thought, but an automatic matrix for unfolding rigid, unambiguous scenarios, devoid of any reflection whatsoever. Therefore, the Archon is not a subject, but a special structural field that creates states of predetermination, dead ends, cycles, fate.

We have already said that in the terminology of Norse myth, the Primary Archons can reasonably be identified with the ancient Hrímþursar, the Frost Giants; in particular — Bergelmir, Borr, Angrboda, Hrímnir, and others. They themselves are regarded as manifestations of more primary forces — Jotuns, such as Ymir, Búri, Ægir, and others, which can be identified with the Aeons of Gnostic terminology.

At the same time, as discretization progresses and scale diminishes, archontic forces also become more specific, acquiring increasingly specific features that bring them closer to the giant forces of the Interworld. And if the Primary Archons are, largely, transcendent forces, then the Secondary Archons are specific agents that sustain heimarmene. Phenomenologically, they are very close to another group of “Giants of Chaos” — the Fomorians, and contact with these two groups of “Giants” can be hard to distinguish, which is why the Northern myth often calls them together “Thurses” (from turá — strong, mighty, rich). Nevertheless, there is also a substantial difference between these groups of “Giants” — the “Secondary Archons,” which, in the logic of Nordic myth, are more correctly identified with the Thurses, are not inherently predatory; they manifest the same basis of the Interworld as their “Primary” relatives. At the same time, the Fomorians (lit. “Great underground ones”), which in this terminology would more correctly be called by the Old Norse term risi (or the Old High German — riso), are different in nature from the Interval; they appear in worlds, and only then are “driven out” into the Interworld and therefore experience the common problem of all “transiters” — hunger, and, consequently, are predators.

As in the case of the Primary Archons, the thurses’ mind lacks emotional coloring and does not seek destruction; on the contrary, it is absolutely neutral, structural, mathematical. This is the mind of a pattern, of structure itself — a “bare” model without inner life. They do not “sympathize” and do not “hate,” since any empathy is simply impossible in the logic of the mind-structure of the Interval. They act as “mechanical” operators of systems, similar to how neural networks or ranking algorithms restructure reality. The Fomorians, on the contrary, are capable of experiencing certain feelings, but their feelings are distorted, exaggerated, and rooted in brokenness. They are the descendants of the exiled, those locked away, cut off from the stream of “fallen angels.” And therefore, their minds are energetic, fragmented, hungry, and aggressive.

Accordingly, contact with both thurses and Fomorians is unfavorable for the human mind: both groups stun and plunge it into chaos, and the Fomorians also directly drain its energy.

Thurses, the “secondary Archons,” structure the environment so that any efforts toward free expressions of mind seem meaningless. We have already said that the flaws of modern civilization — standardized education, digitalization, social network algorithms, neural networks — are manifestations of the archontic environment that sets the principles and algorithms of thinking. At the same time, the Fomorians, unlike the thurses, erode the mind’s environment from within, depriving it of free flow, creating a state of absorption, loss of energy and meaning, powerlessness, and existential anxiety. If the Archons are the “authors” of civilization as such, then the Fomorians are the “provocateurs” of its technogenization: they not only “tear” mind out of the flow, but set it against its environment, turning it into a predator and consumer. The Fomorians not only generate chaos, but also feed on the energy of activated pneuma, precisely on what was awakened in a person but unrealized. They distort the “cosmicizing” impulses of mind, intensify the split between subject and environment, tearing the mind out of the streams of its natural belonging and plunging it into a mode of hostility. In this mode, for a being, the world ceases to be a womb that nurtures and sustains, and becomes either “raw material” or a threat. Thus, the Fomorians complement and amplify the influence of the thurses: the latter limit the field of the possible, while the former drain the remaining life-force, leaving in the mind only sluggishness, doubt, and incapacity for action.

Nevertheless, it is precisely the human being, as a unique union of mind and environment, who is capable of going beyond the limits of archontic influence, because their mind, unlike the Archons’ mind, is intentional and directed toward transcendence. Speaking in Gnostic images, “Man is the error of the Archons, in which the very path of return to the Pleroma is contained.”

We have already noted that the path of liberation from the influence of both Archons and Fomorians is the restoration of the flow of the mind — its ability to create on its own, to flow, to change form, without submitting either to algorithms of external order or to seductive vortices of passion and fear. A flowing mind does not ‘fight’ the Archons — it is free and easily flows through their lattices, not providing them with a stable form for “catching.” In exactly the same way, it does not “banish” the Fomorians; it simply does not feed them its energy, going beyond the field of struggle. Oriented toward creation, inspired, capable of holding inner awareness and a stable impulse of free creativity, such a mind becomes invisible and inedible to any predatory structures. And therefore, the return to the flow is the path, the living realization of aeonic forms and matrices, is the path of overcoming both the icy algorithms of the Archons and the bottomless hunger of demons and Fomorians.