DeConick A.D

180
GNOSTIC ALTERED STATES
realm is layered from lowest region to highest. Each layer is populated
by divinities who are progressively more and more like the living Father.
In their maturation ceremonies, the initiates see the divine beings who
reside in the transcendent realms, and they are progressively transfigured
into each type of being, from the lowest to the highest rank. Water ceremonies
are performed at each level, as are contemplative feats of intense
withdrawal and silence.
Integration
Once the true self has individuated, it is ready for the final step in the
Gnostic process of self-actualization. The self is ready to be integrated
into its transcendent root, to unify with the Ultimate, to achieve gnosis.
Again, this is achieved ritually when the initiates ascend to the highest of
the transcendent realms and merge with the God Before All Gods.
In Gnostic literature, we find exclamations of integration like the one
called out by the initiate in Zostrianos: “The Virgin Light came before
me and brought me into the First One Who Appeared, the great male
perfect Mind. I saw all of the divinities as they exist in one. I joined with
them all. I blessed the Hidden god, the virgin Barbelo and the Invisible
Spirit. I became all-perfect and received power. I was written in glory and
sealed. I received there a perfect crown” (Zostrianos NHC VIII.1 129.3–
15, my translation). In the Naassene ceremony, this final integration into
the whole occurs when the spirit attains to the Unoriginate by entering
the house of God as God’s bridegroom. The spirit, as God’s betrothed,
leaves behind its body and soul, venturing into the transcendent realm
beyond the cosmos, where only the spirit can go (Hippolytus, Refutation
5.6.3–11.1, 10.9.1–3).
For some groups, the initiate actually united with the unknown deity
during the initiation ceremonies, whereas for others this final moment was
an eschatological feature that occurred either at the person’s death or at
the end of cosmic time. Whatever the case, the goal was reunification of
the matured authentic self with its parent in a unitary religious experience.
This is sometimes envisioned as an erotic embrace of a married couple,
as was Valentinus’s expectation, or as a joining in intellectual ecstasy, a
Sethian fantasy, much like a Vulcan mind meld.
Gnostic initiation was a form of ancient psychotherapy that worked to
bring about positive cognitive changes in the self through religious ritual.