The marshes kept them isolated; the conquests of Alexander the Great, Cyrus and Mohammad did not reach them. Nevertheless, the Mandaeans slowly gave up their cultural identity under the crushing pressure of Islam in the early twenty-second century. Quite a few households, including Truth's family, secretly continued to practice Mandaean rituals. Until the Great Destruction.
Truth remembered the ceremonial baptisms in the marshes of the Euphrates delta, the prayers that were accompanied by Jewish psalms of praise to the holy Jordan River and the supplications offered to the Master of Light for redeeming their souls. Like the new Gnostics, Truth's people also viewed the world as a battle between the aeons of time and space on the one side, versus Demiurge-Yaldabaoth, the impure creator, on the other side. In contrast with the New Gnosis, the Mandaeans did not view the Demiurge creator as a devil that must be obliterated, but rather as an entity that needed to correct the mistake she had committed and return to his position with the aeons under the leadership of the Master of Light.
Like all ancient religions, the Mandaeans engaged less in metaphysics and more in the human soul. They focused less on psalms in praise of the Demiurge's return to the pleroma and instead channeled their energy toward the redemption of their own souls in anticipation of spiritual redemption. A Mandaean saw himself as Adam in the Garden of Eden, awaiting the voice of God that would instruct him toward his calling.
The most significant discrepancy between the Mandaeans and the other Gnostics, and the reason why the Mandaeans were the only sect of Gnostics to survive, was their reverence for fertility. Truth remembered participating in the ritual of Ishtar, Goddess of fertility before the destruction. The source of the ritual was in the ancient Sumerian civilization. He remembered the recitations of clay inscriptions and weaving of flax fibers in a ceremony during which his younger siblings were inducted into the community.
Following Islam, military technology conquered the marshes and continued to destroy the culture. The Mandaeans gave up their culture, but not permanently. During the twenty second century, technology was obliterated in the Human-Gods' wars. Like their ancestors, the Mandaeans returned to the marshes, the mud, the reeds, the clay tablets, the weaving of flax, the fishing in thatched boats and the hunting of waterfowl.
The fuel tanks were full, the launchers were loaded and the warriors were strapped in to their aircraft. As far as they knew, this was just another invasion exercise. Each pilot knew, down to the centimeter, the distance he must maintain between himself and the other aircraft. The badgers that were at the forefront of the ground invasion were equipped with their personal weaponry. Their commanding officers waiting in the aircraft behind them were ready to enter immediately after them. The primary forces of the technicians, who were supposed to take over Samos' computer systems, were also ready, as were the engineers with the module. They were all expecting more practice drills in order to improve nuances of their performance. The forces also prepared for less expected instances, like violent resistance, combat with Atheist aid and equipment failures. They prepared a response to each situation and practiced it rigorously. All of them, without exemption, were brimming with enthusiasm, dedication and battle spirit. But there was one surprise for which they were unprepared.
“My Gnostic comrades throughout the audio-visual: stop your exercises, in whatever stage you are, and in the name of the Master of Light, hear my words.”
Truth appeared on the personal displays of each of the warriors as well as the cadets who remained on the father ship.
“I have reexamined your performances and I am sure each and every one of you will carry out his task perfectly. We have sanctified ourselves with holy prayers, harsh training and iron discipline. I am happy to announce that all of this was not in vain.”
He was silent and the suspense intensified.
“We have waited years for this glorious moment.” He was silent for a moment. “We are on our way to the heavenly pleroma,” he announced loudly. “We will not be returning to Uruk on Earth, Yaldabaoth's middle world. The time has come in which we shall all be redeemed from the darkness of materialism to the clarity of light, along with the entire galaxy.”
The whispers amplified. Some of them had begun to guess the event to which Truth was alluding.
“My Gnostic bothers!” he raised his voice. “Today we depart for Samos!”
After a brief moment of silence, the whispers returned, shortly followed by cries of surprise.
“Samos!” somebody called out.
“Samos!” roared one thousand mouths simultaneously. There were those who jumped up and down in joy. Others froze instead. The enthusiasm of the crowd sparked a wave of elation that climbed all the way from the pit of Truth's stomach up to his chest, proceeding to choke his throat and then ring in his ears.
“In the name of the Sanctity of the Master of Light,” he called out again. “This is not a test. We are on our way to an invasion. There are spies surrounding us on all sides in Uruk. There is no nation in the galaxy that does not fear us and that does not keep watch on our movements. My loyal Gnostics, I trust you, but there are eavesdroppers everywhere. Up until today, you were all aware that it would take another three years until the module was complete. It was clear to me that this information could not be kept secret that it would leak into eager hands. And indeed, this is what happened. There is nothing stopping us on the way to Samos. Not a single living thing can be found in the entire distance before us. The Atheists on Dust still believe the information that you yourselves believed up until this point. They will be prepared for our invasion in three years’ time. That is, three years after the galaxy has ceased to exist.”
One of the Gnostics began to call out in rhythm:
“Truth! Truth! Truth!”
After a few seconds, their acclaim burst out like thunder rolling across the audio-visual system.
“Truth! Truth! Truth!”
Truth silenced them. “The module is ready. The accelerator, the component that was slated to be completed in three years' time, is also ready and waiting here inside the father ship. We must all thank the Gnostic scientific staff that spent the past three years working to develop the accelerator in an underground laboratory in Aleppo. They shall also find their place alongside us in the pleroma.”
“Onward to Samos!” he roared again.
“Onward to Samos!” they all repeated after him.
“To the pleroma of the aeons,” he cried.
“To the pleroma of aeons,” they repeated.
“The Master of Light is expecting us!”
“The Master of Light is expecting us!”
Truth began to recite:
“In the Uruk Tablet
Our destiny is to liberate
The kingdom of Earth
To the empire of heaven.”
Hundreds of voiced repeated after him.
“In the Uruk Tablet
Our destiny is to liberate
The kingdom of Earth
To the empire of heaven.”
They repeated the verses over and over again, arousing themselves into a sweeping ecstasy. Truth felt elated: the forces that he had spent years training were now ready for his command. The holy mission was about to be fulfilled, and he, the last scion of the Mandaeans of Uruk, was going to be the Redeemer that would restore the Godly spark from its material prison to the exalted pleroma.
“Forward, let's move!” he cried. The chief pilot of the father ship switched the engines to full speed followed by every Gnostic aircraft, rejoicing into battle.
CHAPTER 13
The two of them sat in the sample room on blue silk cocoons, surrounded by the simulator's treasures. A more relaxed atmosphere hung between them. Sophia had digested the reality of the impending threat.
“I appreciate your willingness to help us, despite the dangers it entails for you.”
“I am part of the endangered galaxy as well.”
“How did you know about my love for Thales
?” she asked.
“I was watching you from the bridge. It was at that moment that I regained my identity.”
“I thought that you were in love with me. I didn't mean to hurt you.”
“I also thought that I was in love with you, and you with me,” he said. “When I saw you with Thales from the bridge, my heart stung with envy. That was what jolted me to remember who I was.”
“Why specifically at that moment?” she asked.
“The plan was to arrive here as a man with no memories and no past, a man who grasped on to his emotions because he had nothing else. Through that emotional state I was able to move you Pythagoreans into feeling something, but all under the condition that I don't know what I am doing. The amnesia served that as well. That was why I tried to clarify your feelings although painful. Without accepting your feelings there will not be a way to fight or make peace with the Gnostics."|
The moment of awakening was when my love turned to jealousy. At the moment that I saw you had fallen in love, expressing emotions without the barrier of your Pythagorean armor, my mission had been accomplished. The amnesia became unnecessary and I could then recall who I was.”
“And are you still in love with me?” she asked sympathetically.
“No. When I remembered who I was, I understood that that love was part of my identity as a stranger.”
“Ah... very well then,” she said with relief and a trace of disappointment. “But how did you manage to forget your own identity?”
“That is a Socratic skill that I cultivated over years of training. It is difficult to acquire this skill, and what's more, it is fraught with fear: What if I am unable to recall my identity? This fear is ever-present.”
She nodded understandingly. Enosh felt relieved: the first part of the plan had succeeded. Nonetheless, he was still uncertain about the outcome of the rest of the plan.
“Your father failed because he could not relinquish his identity. He lacked the necessary skills. Today, only you can rise to this challenge.”
“Wait, do you mean that I must learn how to forget my own identity as you have? I thought that such a skill requires years of training.”
“No. You need to undergo other changes to you consciousness. You have already accomplished some of them.”
“Why me?”
“Because you have the coveted processor that the Gnostics seek, and therefore they will be willing to communicate with you,” he explained. “You will be at the forefront of the encounter with them.” He studied her and watched her reaction.
“I understand. What must I do?” she said in surprising calmness.
“I must instruct you in how to prepare for an encounter with them and how to convince Octavia to fight.”
“Can I manage to learn the ability to influence others from consciousness to consciousness within a year? Haven't you been doing this for your entire adult life?”
“Yes,” he spread his hands out helplessly. “We have no choice. We may even have three years to accomplish this.”
“We must begin,” she said matter-of-factly. Where do we begin?"
“I will start from the beginning, so you can follow the road I took up to this point. Let me tell you about my life and I will acquaint you with the Atheist way of thinking in general and the Socratic approach specifically.”
She was silent and he continued. “My parents were disappointed, even dejected, about the type of education that, in their opinion, had led to the destruction of Earth. They believed that spontaneous development was more beneficial to the child. Up until the age of ten, I did not attend school because my parents were wary of the teachers’ influence, since some of them still believed in God.
“When I was four years old, I encountered death for the first time. We had chickens. One morning, I rose as usual to feed them and I saw one of the chicks struggling to move. I picked him up in my hand and he began to flutter. I laid him on the ground. I could tell that he was in distress. I stroked him, talked to him and waited for him to rise to his feet. Finally, he stopped moving. I thought that he was sleeping and called for my mother. She told me that the chick had died. From that point on, I was afraid to sleep lest I die. I remembered the last few moments of the small chick's life with great clarity, watching him pass from life into death, from being to nonbeing. The notion that I could cease to exist terrified me. Up until then, I felt like a little prince in my world. My parents instilled me with confidence to discover the world, but then I discovered the terror that was death. I learned that there was something final and absolute that no man could overcome. When I was older, my mother shared with me her own experiences at my age. She had not been born an Atheist. When she was a young girl, she was told not to fear death because the dead joined God's family up in heaven. That is to say, we don't really die. You also believe this notion.”
“Yes.”
“My mother was tempted to fabricate a story that would calm my fears just as her parents had done for her, but my parents, like all of the other parents on Dust, believed that these kinds of comforts led to the belief systems that had destroyed Earth during the Human-Gods' Wars. God can be a decent solution for life's temporary problems, but as soon as he exists, he begins to fight with the other Gods and his devotees become cannon fodder. She told me about how difficult it was for her to tell me that after death, there is simply nothing. She described it like a party that ends at a certain time and then that's it. There are no more parties. You can imagine how hard it was for her to tell me the painful truth and how difficult it was for me to sleep at night. After some time, it worked itself out. I saw that I kept waking up each morning. The fears subsided on their own. I think I understood the essence of the Atheist faith. The belief in temporal and transitory life.”
“That seems like a very miserable existence, having a temporary and trivial life.”
“You must understand that, for my parents, God was the nightmare that destroyed their world. In my eyes, the eternal outlook, which is a byproduct of Godliness, diminishes the ephemeral beauty of life.”
“Fine, go on with the story of your temporal life,” she teased with a smile.
“At the age of ten, I attended school. I was interested in my studies and excelled in all subjects: science, mathematics, history, art, languages, consciousness, technology and most of all, topology and anthropology. I wanted to understand people like you.”
“Like who?” she shifted and sat up straighter.
“Believers in God. Their consciousness operates differently. I wondered if they fell asleep differently, since God was protecting them. My parents explained that God watched over them with devastating zealotry.”
“Didn't you know anyone who believed in God?”
“I was the first one of my family to be born on Dust. I have never been to Earth. Religious people were taboo. The Atheists were afraid of them.”
“So what do you believe in then?”
“I found ideals that I believed in. I formulated a world-view for myself in which man was responsible. Firstly, he is responsible for determining the bounds of the responsibility that he takes for his own life. Man may decide how to expand or decrease his scope of responsibility. I see God as something that is defined outside the bounds of responsibility, as a replacement for recognizing one's own helplessness. I would not want to impose limits over myself or my scope of responsibility. I think that if man possesses a conscious mind, and apparently more so than animals do, why must he blur the revelation in which he approaches his own death?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“When I remember that I am mortal, I feel better. God, as I understand Him, is a guarantee of immortality that absolves me of momentary responsibility. Do you relinquish the here and now as your price for eternity?”
Sophia hesitated. “For me, God is harmony. Don't you see the beauty, the wonder of creation, the magnificence of life? Aren't you awestruck by a blade of grass, by the sun?”
“I am in
awe of the phenomena, but what does that have to do with God? That is my own experience.”
“The phenomenon itself. The galaxy, the mathematical regularity, the repeating order of the universe—that is perfection. Man can attain the experience of perfection, recognizing the oneness and eternal harmony.” The Pythagorean passion had returned to her voice. “Did you know that the degree of curvature in each snail, the arrangement of the scales on a pinecone and the plates of an armadillo's armor—all of them are arranged according to the same formula?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that the geological layers on all the planets that have been studied so far are also arranged according to this ratio?”
“No.”
“And all of the moons that orbit each planet, as well as all of the planets that orbit the suns and all of the suns orbiting the galactic black holes?”
“I admit, I did not know this.”
“How can you explain that?” Sophia asked reproachfully.
“I do not explain it,” replied Enosh coolly.
“And you are satisfied with that, having no explanation?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot live like that. In my eyes, the world is arranged in a magnificent mathematical order, which we are able to see and admire. That is God's way of revealing Himself to us. Whoever does not see this or is satisfied with having no explanation is evading the truth!” Sophia's face flushed.
“Actually, the incredible order frightens me most of all. I used to be afraid of death. Now I am afraid of perfection. The appreciation of beauty requires distance, a gap between the person having the experience and the experience itself. This distance cannot exist in a state of perfection. I do not believe in perfection. I see death as a sort of hole, a void, a lack. A perforation in each and every moment. I see each moment as a pearl, death as a hole in the pearl and time as the cord that strings all the pearls together. For me, the beauty of the necklace is worth more than eternity. To me, death, or void, prevents matter from collapsing, keeping me passionate by maintaining a distance from beauty.”
Mesopotamia - The Redeemer Page 18