DeConick A.D

217
HELL WALKS AND STAR TREKS
In the Naassene story, Primal Man has a son known as Perfect Man
and the Son of Man. He is a microcosmic version of Primal Man, containing
within himself the noetic, psychic, and earthly currents of the primal
river. Eventually he incarnates as Jesus, born of Mary, but first he serves
as the template for the creation of Adam, the first human being, molded
out of earthly clay by the fiery solar god Esaldaeus and the other lords
of Chaos.
Their golem, Adam, lay inanimate on the ground as a trap for Perfect
Man, which the lords of Chaos wished to possess. The generative nature
of the soul that the dark lords created for Adam was so erotic, so attractive
to Perfect Man, that he dropped his seed or semen into Adam (Hippolytus,
Refutation 5.6.35–36). The seed of Perfect Man is the vivifying
human spirit, which now must suffer because it dwells in an environment
unnatural to it.
And so we have a story of a primal God whose nature is erotic and procreative.
This nature is both heaven and hell, good and bad, for the God.
On the one hand, it is generative, the causative force of existence itself.
On the other hand, it is corruptive and narcissistic. Perfect Man experiences
eroticism’s corruptive power and consequently becomes entrapped
in a human psyche and body when he inseminates the golem.
Because Perfect Man strayed sexually, the Naassenes recognized his
reflection in the Greek god Attis, famous because he was the husband of
the great mother goddess Cybele. There are many versions of his story,
but they all indicate that Attis, handsome to a fault, had an affair that
broke Cybele’s heart. Her wrath brought down his lover and Attis went
mad, driven to castrate himself out of grief and guilt (Ovid, Fasti 4.222).
The Naassenes, like the priests of Cybele, value castration, although
Hippolytus tells us that they do not make themselves eunuchs by cutting
off their scrota. Rather, they refuse to procreate, abstaining from heterosexual
intercourse. In this way, they make up for the mistake of Perfect
Man, ensuring that his spirit will not continue to be passed on in the
semen that would seed a new child (Hippolytus, Refutation 5.7.38–41).
Awakening the Child
The spirit can only be rescued from its entrapment gradually, as a person
is initiated into the Naassene mysteries. The Naassenes thought that