Fantastic Planet posted yesterday about the Cathars, who were a gnostic Christian sect which was obliterated by the Catholic Church through a bloody campaign in 1244. This made me remember something which is a good follow-up to our discussion of Philip K. Dick’s secret gray-robed Christians from the other day.

One of the things Dick talks about in his Tractates Cryptica Scriptura is the plasmate, the Holy Spirit, Sophia, the living information entity.

22. I term the Immortal One a plasmate, because it is a form of energy; it is living information. It replicates itself—not through information or in information—but as information.

23. The plasmate can crossbond with a human, creating what I call a homoplasmate. This annexes the mortal human permanently to the plasmate. We know this as the “birth from above” or “birth from the Spirit.” It was initiated by Christ, but the Empire destroyed all the homoplasmates before they could replicate.

PKD has this whole theory about how the Roman empire murdered all the homoplasmates in the first century after Christ. The history of the Cathars (and others) would seem to suggest otherwise though. Among the unorthodox sacraments celebrated by the Cathars was the consolamentum:

It was the most significant ceremony in Cathar theology, marking the transition from ordinary believer (auditore or credente) to to Parfait, one of the elect. During the ceremony the Holy Spirit was believed to descend from heaven, and part of the Holy Spirit would then inhabit the Parfait’s corporal body. It was largely because of this indwelling portion of the Holy Spirit that Parfaits were expected and willing to lead such austere ascetic lives, and why ordinary believers were prepared to “adore” them.
The ceremony was striking in its simplicity. It required no material elements such as water or anointling oil, and seems to have preserved a ceremony of the very earliest Christian Church. For Cathars this was hardly surprising, since they claimed that the the rite had been appointed by Christ, and had been handed down from generation to generation by the boni homines. For Catholics it was rather a mystery and their best explanation was that the Cathar rite was a distorted imitation of various Catholic rites.

This sounds so much like what Philip K. Dick describes above that it borders on creepy. Especially since the Cathars were ruthlessly slaughtered by the Church. Not only did they have a Crusade declared against them, but the Inquisition was also created to root them and their ideas out.

Here’s an alternative look at the Cathars as the heirs to the gnostics.

One more interesting connection: the word Cathar comes from the same Greek root as “catharsis” which meant “to purify.” Catharsis was a central component of ancient Greek drama, and it meant that the audience was purged of negative feelings by experiencing the ritual drama. Much early Greek drama was also connected to the worship of Dionysus, and a major aspect of Dionysus-worship was “enthousiasmos” which is another term that Philip K. Dick used to describe his personal in-breaking of the Holy Spirit. From

En theos, the root of the Greek enthousiasmos is “to be inspired by a god” or “having a god within.”

Pagans have long believed that one can take in or ingest something of the substance of a god, and that that god thereby possesses or deeply affects her or him. If it’s the wine god Bacchus, or the sex god Eros you’ve taken in, you become controlled by that god, indwelt by that god for a period of time. These gods will have certain effects upon your person, and this is the origin of the term “enthusiasm.”

If this is starting to sound freakishly related, that’s because it almost certainly is. Dionysus was also part of the “Mystery Religions,” which have been suggested as early pre-cursors to Christianity. Check out this thing comparing Dionysus to early depictions of Jesus. Even just this single line ought to be enough:

Dionysus was identified with the lamb, and called “King of Kings,” “Only Begotten Son,” “Savior,” “Redeemer,” “Sin bearer,” “Anointed One,” the “Alpha and Omega.”

HMM… I WONDER IF IT’S RELATED?

UPDATE!

Also check out Fantastic Planet’s follow-up to this which features great info on other gnostic sects throughout history and the transmission of the plasmate, plus this excellent quote:

Now that the plasmates are once again being spread throughout society, the Rulers of the World know it and are redoubling their efforts to squelch the ideas contained in Gnosticism. This time their efforts are more subtle, and more pernicious. Instead of just killing off the Gnostics, the Archons are assuming the forms taken by the plasmates, becoming counterfeit deliverers of “salvation,” confusing and muddling the minds of the already-occluded by distracting them from the Way.