DeConick A.D

225
HELL WALKS AND STAR TREKS
intentional stillness in a standing prayer posture was cultivated, too. At
the beginning of the composition, Zostrianos, an ideal initiate, discovers
his inner spirit, realizing that it is separate from his material body and
psyche. He works on cultivating his spirit and tries to find a place for his
spirit to rest.
Even though he learns a Gnostic catechism, he is unsuccessful in his endeavors
to free his spirit from its earthly trappings. In a moment of suicidal
despair, a great angel comes to his rescue (Zostrianos NHC VIII.1 1.10–
4.20). This moment represents the beginning of his initiation, his ecstatic
journey to God. The text describes his journey in progressive stages. The
journey must have been performed in gradual ceremonies in which the
Sethian community initiated its members after the example of Zostrianos.
First, the initiate’s spirit separates from the body and is rescued from
the cosmos—all thirteen realms and their rulers. These realms include the
five realms of the underworld and the seven celestial spheres. In the realm
of darkness, likely Hades, the initiate is baptized and transformed into
a being of light. This enables him to ascend through the seven celestial
spheres, where he is baptized again, once in each realm. The initiate journeys
to the realm of sojourning souls, the place where souls live between
reincarnations. The initiate is baptized there. He goes on to the realm of
repenting souls and is baptized four more times (4.24–5.29).
At this point, the initiate enters the lowest level of the transcendent
world, where he is baptized and sealed by the great baptizing angels. He
is transformed into an angel of this first level and stands there as a member
of the Immovable Race, glorifying the divinities who live there. This same
procedure takes place in subsequent levels of the transcendent world until
the initiate has advanced through all the levels that make up the realms
of the Sethian trinity: the realms of the self-generated Son, of Barbelo the
Mother, and of the preexistent Father.
The higher he advances, the more the initiate withdraws into silence.
In total, he braves twenty-two baptisms. At the pinnacle of the ascent, the
initiate undergoes anointing and coronation as he is transformed into a
god worthy of praise and meets the primordial God he has been seeking
throughout (Zostrianos NHC VIII.1 63.20–22, 129.2–6; cf. 57.4–59.7; Allogenes
the Stranger NHC XI.3 52.13–33).
The Three Steles of Seth, also a later Sethian composition, evinces flights
into transcendence as well, but not as narrative reports. The Three Steles