The Gnostic Fool as Demiurge

[jmd]

I was looking at some of my older notes (for an unpublished manuscript I wrote about 15 years ago) and came across something that I do not recall being posted anywhere... so here goes.

Basically this was when I was attempting to reconcile possible Gnostic influences on Tarot and wondering how closely Tarot could mirror gnostic heresy (heresy from the perspective of 15th and 14th century thought).

I should note that here my own notes place the Fool as part of the final pair (hence why I thought I had mentioned this in the original sequence of threads on each card), and thus reflect a sense of a combined Demiurge/Logos/Sophia and.... Saklas!

Saklas is another name for the Demiurge as creator (from this Basilican Gnostic viewpoint) of this plane, and is said to mean 'the Fool'.

 

[kwaw]

Presuming Saklas as 'Fool' is derived from the Syriac word 'Sakhlutho' here is a fuller listing of the possible meanings of the word Sakhlutho [Syriac]:

foolishness
transgression
trespass
wrong-doing
sin
laziness
idleness
error

The ideas of transgression, trespass, sin, error and wrongdoing, together with the fact that Saklos is also identified with the 'blind angel/god' Samael [and is himself described as a 'blind' fool], I think perhaps provides a better correspondence with the Devil, rather than the fool:

http://journals.aol.co.uk/kwaw93/TarotSymbolism/entries/2006/05/31/the-devil/814

Also, given the triumphal nature of the sequence, why would the gnostics place an 'insane demiurge' at the end, triumphing as it were over Sophia [presuming here you are associating the figure of the world as Sophia]? It makes more sense to me to start of the sequence of the third septenary with Saklas, Samael, the devil, as the beginning or fall; and to end with the triumph of the world to come, redemption, salvation, Sophia.

Kwaw

 

[jmd]

It may be indeed that via various derivations and correlations, a concept, image or idea becomes connected to other than it, in itself, suggests. This is how the suggestion of between Saklas and the Devil appears, at least to my eyes.

Even the list as given for the Syriac version as Sakhlutho (foolishness; transgression; trespass; wrong-doing; sin; laziness; idleness; error) seems more clearly related to the Fool as we both know it now and how it was represented from earliest times in tarot imagery.

Furthermore, if we take the Gospel of Judas as basis, then Saklas's position is above that of Christ (as possibly XXI), who then instructs a creation of Adam and Eve (as XX).

I am not suggesting that this was in fact the intent of the sequence as seen, here, in reverse, but rather am simply playing with the idea 'as if' it may be the case, to allow it to perhaps unveil furher unexpected finds.

But certainly, at face value, Saklas as above the firmaments of Sun, Moon and Star, and above the created realms of Adam/Eve, and above some of the other Acheons as perhaps represented by XXI, can be seen as Gnostic Fool.