THE ATLAS OF THE ALIEN SPARK

The Secret Book of John (Apocryphon of John)

Secret Book of John

nature

The central Sethian text and the most-copied work in the library. John, grieving after the crucifixion, is met by a figure that shifts between child, old man and youth, and is told the whole story: the Invisible Spirit; Barbelo, the first Thought; the descending aeons; Sophia's solitary act and the ruler she bears alone; his boast; the making of the human body joint by joint; and the spark smuggled into the clay from above.

If you read one text in this pack, read this one — it is the complete system, told as a story, and it is a sustained rereading of Genesis 1–7 by people who knew that text intimately.

And he said to them, "I am God and there is no other God beside me" — for he was ignorant of the place from which he had come.

rhymes with

sephirahbinah

whyBinah is the womb where the formless takes form — including, here, the wrong form. The whole text is an account of what a birth without a partner produces.