Ascending Starseed | July 20 2012
“They sought to overpower humanity in its psychological and perceptual functions… although they saw that human thinking was superior to theirs… For indeed their delight is bitter and their beauty is depraved. And their triumph is in deception (apaton), leading astray, for their own structure is without divinity.”
Breathtaking, but what is that? Who said that? Of whom does it speak? Is it ancient? Is it contemporary? Is it correct? Is it relevant? What is it doing here in the pages of Open SETI?
Let’s begin with the last part of the question.
Open SETI is in some ways the opposite of SETI. SETI is an extraordinarily “narrow-band” search arising from a most denatured strain of modern-day scientific/intellectual thought. Open SETI begins with being… open. And what does one see, when open?
Would you agree that one sees a magnificent planet inhabited by a humanity that is becoming demented, even by its own definition?
This humanity is fragmenting, at war with itself, and each faction looking desperately for salvation from its particular idea of deity.
No small number of humans hope for help from another quarter: contact with extraterrestrial beings. Surely the SETI community derives at least some of its support from this dream.68 It manifests strongly among many “UFO believers” as well.
It will turn out that this dream of salvation has everything to do with our opening passage.
The passage is tight with ideas:
- Some group attempted to overpower humanity.
- The field of attack was psychological and perceptual.
- Human thinking was superior to theirs.
- Something about their pleasure and beauty is off.
- They succeed, but only through deception because…
- …There is such a thing as “divinity.”
- …It is implied that we have it.
- …They lack it.
These ideas form at least part of the “paradigm” for this page… which, as usual for this website, has little to do with that of conventional SETI with its focus on detection, astrobiology, habitable planets, etc.
Our opening quote is from The Apocryphon of John II, a Nag Hammadi text extensively discussed by author John Lash.