Hanegraaff’s Inability to Place Fixed Stars in Sphere 8 Proves Rebirth above Saturn Is into Fate, before Freedom

Michael Hoffman, March 17, 2025

Contents:

Photo: Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com; Egodeath Mystery Show

Summary

Hanegraaff’s inability to place the fixed stars (fate) in sphere 8 proves that rebirth above Saturn (sphere 7) is into Fate (sphere 8), before reaching hypercosmic freedom (sphere 9).

Sphere 8 is not hypercosmic; sphere 8 defines the boundary of the cosmos.

Sphere 9 is hypercosmic.

Mental model transformation is primarily into eternalism, and only a little, after that, into transcendent possibilism.

When you look at the starry sky, you see almost all are fixed stars, with 5 moving, planetary stars (plus sun and moon).

It doesn’t make any sense to think of rising above the 7 planetary spheres and saying you’ve left the cosmos – you still have countless fixed stars defining the highest heaven of the cosmos.

Only above the stars – sphere 8 – have you left the cosmos.

Which ancient texts say that the cosmos consists only of the 7 planetary spheres, but doesn’t include the sphere of the fixed stars?

There’s the cosmos, and then above the cosmos is the fixed stars?

Why wouldn’t the sphere of the fixed stars be part of the cosmos?

When you look at the sky, you see nothing but fixed stars, except just 5 planetary moving stars plus the moon.

Look up, see the cosmos: OMG it’s filled with stars!

🌌

Email to Dr. Wouter Hanegraaff March 18, 2025

Hi Dr. Hanegraaff, 

A summary answering your footnote 114, “Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad remains an open question for me.”

Hanegraaff’s Inability to Place Fixed Stars in Sphere 8 Proves Rebirth above Saturn Is into Fate, before Freedom
https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/03/18/hanegraaffs-inability-to-place-fixed-stars-in-sphere-7-or-8-proves-rebirth-is-into-fate-not-freedom/

There’s tons of other content at this site about entheogenic esotericism, which I’ve been posting about since 2004 at the Egodeath Yahoo Group.

In the Egodeath Yahoo Group in 2001, I wrote about Dan Merkur’s book, “entheogenic esoteric” — 11 years before 2012.

Subject: Authentic esotericism is entheogenic esotericism
Date: June 12, 2004

https://egodeathyahoogroup.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/egodeath-yahoo-group-digest-66/#message3335 – 

“Authentic esotericism is entheogenic esotericism. Entheogens are the key to esotericism.

This is the simplest possible theory of esotericism, and the most natural, the least contrived and strained.

Theories of esotericism that are not based on entheogens suffer from the problem of grandiose verbiage, unmet promises and claims, chronic vagueness, excuses for lack of potent and prompt efficacy, and no ability to deliver the experiences which are talked about.

Drug-free esotericism doesn’t work; it is not effectively ergonomic.”

(I came close to finding that 2004 link at Archive.  I found many surrounding posts, as general proof that the dates are valid.)

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com, the theorist of Ego Death (psychedelic eternalism)

Non-Drug Entheogens

In Hanegraaff’s Keynote speech article/ YouTube video Entheogenic Esotericism in 2012, 8 years later than my 2004 post, Hanegraaff says he didn’t find anyone posting the phrase “entheogenic esotericism”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrIMjjPg7uU —

Entheogenic Esotericism
Wouter Hanegraaff, 2012
Chapter 19 in book Contemporary Esotericism https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/contemporary-esotericism/entheogenic-esotericism/BAF1108D25DE1826A63FF378770D5F71

Hanegraaff there proposes entheogenic practices in the wide 🐷 sense, thus my phrase non-drug entheogens — which Erik Davis eggs him on for, but I sense that Davis would sing a different tune for such a proposal of non-drug psychedelics.

That article is cited in Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022.

I posted about this a lot; search: “non-drug entheogens” Hanegraaff
https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=%22non-drug+entheogens%22+Hanegraaff

One of my early episodes of Egodeath Mystery Show read-aloud some of that keynote.

Citation for keynote and chapter 20: search:
https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=Hanegraaff+%22entheogenic+esotericism%22+Partridge
easiest to find at Academia.edu, “entheogenic esotericism”:
https://www.academia.edu/3461770/Entheogenic_Esotericism_2012_

Email from Wouter Hanegraaff March 24, 2025

Dr. Hanegraaafff wrote:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for this information.

With all best wishes,

— Wouter

The Failure of Hanegraaff’s Cosmos Model to Place the Fixed Stars Proves That the Egodeath Theory, not Hanegraaff, Has the Correct Analogy-Model of Astral Ascent Mysticism

The Egodeath theory is OBLIGED to engage with such scholarship.

It is concerning to me, if Wouter Hanegraaff studies hermetic writings and puts forth a narrative scholarly report that contradicts the Egodeath theory.

I NEEDED to prove that where his explanation contradicts mine, I proved he is intensely deluded and completely mistaken, thoroughly deeply confused.

It took me months and revisiting his book, to summarize more and more tightly, where and why Hanegraaff gets it drastically wrong.

Hanegraaff’s explanatory system is so completely fundamentally broken that he says he CANNOT place the fixed stars anywhere in his cosmos model, which is PROOF that I am right and he is deluded.

I am leveraging opportunistically, Hanegraaff’s system’s colossal failure – his footnote 114 – to use that as proof that my explanatory model is correct and successful, and his framework is broken and not viable.

Hanegraaff writes that Hermetists said only the spirit is above Fate – that’s good confirmation of my system.

The point of opposition between me vs. Wouter “Non-drug entheogens” Hanegraaff regarding astral ascent mysticism:

Where Hanegraaff & Egodeath Theory Agree

Points of agreement between Wouter Hanegraaff & the Egodeath theory:

  • You pass through the Saturn gate (at the upper part of the Saturn onion layer) to be reborn into sphere 8, the Ogdoad.
  • Rebirth (mental model transformation) is from Saturn (sphere 7) into sphere 8 (the Ogdoad).
  • The fixed stars = Fate.
Where Hanegraaff & Egodeath Theory Disagree

Points of disagreement between Wouter Hanegraaff & the Egodeath theory:

  • Hanegraaff asserts that rebirth is into above Fate; Ogdoad is free from Fate.
  • The Egodeath theory asserts that rebirth is into 100% heimarmene/Fate; the Ogdoad is the sphere of 100% Fate, 0% freewill pollution.
  • Hanegraaff says that the {pollution} and {impurity} that causes turmoil is Fate. To get peace, you must get rid of Fate.
  • The Egodeath theory says that the {pollution} and {impurity} that causes turmoil is freewill thinking.
    • To get peace, you must repudiate relying on freewill thinking as your foundation.

The Egodeath theory’s Mytheme theory: the theory of analogical psychedelic eternalism with 2-level, dependent control.

  • Hanegraaff says Ogdoad and Ennead are same and you are reborn into both sphere 8 & 9, and 8 is above fate.
    • That coheres when forced, with heremetic treatise on the 8th & 9th, but, CONFLICTS SEVERELY W/ STANDARD OF “fixed stars = Fate, defines sphere 8”.
  • The Egodeath theory says Ogdoad and Ennead are fundamentally different: 8 = Fate, 9 = above fate.
    • You are reborn into 8, and then slightly lifted into 9, your spirit portion, only, is lifted into sphere 9 the Ennead.
    • That coheres with BOTH the standard of “fixed stars = Fate, defines sphere 8”, and coheres with Hermetic text “Treatise on the 8th & 9th”/ “Treatise on the Ogdoad and Ennead”.

Hanegraaff cannot place the fixed stars anywhere, proving that his system is entirely, completely, fundamentally broken and false; a misconception about his beloved Ogdoad, or as he writes, Ogdoad-and-Ennead.

He cannot place fixed stars in Saturn wandering planet sphere 7 (= Fate), nor in Ogdoad BECAUSE HE THINKS OGDOAD IS NON-FATE.

p. 294, footnote 114.

My system is successful: I am able to place fixed stars where everyone places them; fixed stars are definitive of sphere 8.

Ogdoad is the headquarters of 100% Fate demiurge.

My system is nice also because this week, if not 2021, I have a neat analogy scheme:

sphere 1 Moon = 1/8 Fate; … Saturn 7/8 Fate; fixed stars = 8/8 = 100% Fate.

Perfect!

Everything fits neatly in place, conforming with astral ascent mysticism throughout history; conforming with hermetic writings, esotericism scholarship, & Psilocybin experience.

Effectindex.com / Josie Kins > “Perception of Eternalism” entry & commentary by Kins.

Hanegraaff note 114 says his explanatory model is a failure because it cannot fit fixed stars in Ogdoad – because he says fixed stars = Fate (true) and Ogdoad is free from Fate (that’s the opposite of true).

“Remains an open question” means, “My system is a failure; it doesn’t fly.”

Where to place fixed stars is the opposite of an open q for the Egodeath theory.

Zero thinking is required. It is a simple basic given.

By definition, fixed stars define sphere 8, the Ogdoad.

Fixed stars = Fate (Hanegraaff agrees), and sphere 8 Ogdoad = 100% Fate that you are reborn into.

Hanegraaff says wrongly, in full delusion, that sphere 8 Ogdoad = 0% Fate, which you’re reborn into & reshaped to become in conformance with, for stability.

Proof that Late Antiquity Believed that Fate Is the Case and Is the Main, Real, Problem to Be Addressed and Cured

Thank you Cyberdisciple for providing the era name-pair:
Classical Antiquity ending around 150 AD
Late Antiquity starting around 150 AD
Site Map of Cyberdisciple.wordpress.com

Classical Antiquity marketing materials were forthright that rebirth is into heimarmene-conformity.

That was the end-state, like my 1988-1997, 2-level explanatory model of mental model transformation in loose cognition: transformation from possibilism to eternalism.

Late Antiquity believed the same thing, but they focused on the dislike of being a slave of fate, so, they tried, within limits, to re-frame and re-market the nature of rebirth.

They wished, like Wouter Hanegraaff, to tell a narrative of rebirth into freedom that’s above Fate, into the precession sphere 9 the Ennead.

Hanegraaff’s student in the hermetic writings pleads with the teacher to bring him to the sphere 8 Ogdoad – which is fixed stars = 100% Fate, and, along with that, then bring him to sphere 9 Ennead above Fate, after the rebirth into sphere 8 Ogdoad where fixed stars = Fate.

  • Earth: 0/8 Fate (100% possibilism-thinking; 0% eternalism-thinking)
  • Saturn: 7/8 Fate
  • fixed stars: 8/8 Fate
  • precession: transcend Fate; qualified possibilism-thinking; virtual freewill that takes into account no-free-will underneat the hood; snake hidden in basket, lid lifted, child falls to death on rock mountain.

Late Antiquity tried to mislead Wouter Hanegraaff and they succeeded at bluffing him by their advanced tricky mythmaking & shifting of emphasis in their marketing materials.

Yet, Late Antiquity still knew, rebirth is into Fate, and mere dessert is a bit of rising above Fate.

Even Hanegraaff grants that; he is puzzled by Late Antiquity’s affirmation that the body (& probably soul) remains restricted to Ogdoad (sphere 8) and is not allowed to rise with the spirit to sphere 9 (precession of the equinoxes) above sphere 8 (the fixed stars, including the zodiac constellations belt).

As a result, Hanegraaff quotes many correct coherent principles that Hermetists held, but he cannot make them cohere, because his system is VEXED AND DISTURBED INTO INCOHERENT TURMOIL because he wrongly thinks rebirth into Ogdoad is rebirth into freedom.

Hanegraaff thinks rather, “rebirth into Ogdoad-and-Ennead” is rebirth into freedom, ie, HE HAS TO FUDGE AND FUSE AND CONFLATE SPHERE 8 & 9.

Everyone is ok with to some extent fusing Moon (sphere 1) through Saturn (sphere 7).

My elegant solution (a way to have a useful analogy-system & meaningful contrast among spheres 1-7) is, like David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism grades stages of initiation sessions:

sphere 1 = Psilocybin transformation session 1;

sphere 7 = Psilocybin transformation session 7;

Then, upon rebirth, finally manage to retain the glimpse of eternalism and ascend to a different-by-degree sphere 8 (the Ogdoad), 8/8 = 100% pure Fate level.

Then precession of the equinoxes (sphere 9), the dessert after that: your spirit portion continues to rise, to sphere 9 (the Ennead) above Fate (sphere 8).

You might argue: in 150 AD Late Antiquity, some brand of religion didn’t believe Fate is the case; they said rebirth is into above Fate, with no need to pass through Fate and reconcile with Fate; with no need to be first, mainly, reborn and re-shaped into a Fate-compatible form.

I prove that all brands of religion held that you must be reborn into Fate (like Classical Antiquity asserted), and additionally then after that major rebirth, you can be said to slightly rise above Fate: now consciously aware of virtual freewill; having developed qualified possibilism-thinking.

Proof that Late Antiquity Believed that Heimarmene/ Fate/ Eternalism Prison Enslavement to Fate Is The Case

Every brand of religion in Late Antiquity claimed that all other brands make you a slave to Fate, and only our brand rescues us from that.

If not for Our Brand, we and everyone would be a slave of Fate.

Analogy:

Selling shampoo: Our competitive Marketing department pushes on you the problem: YOU HAVE SPLIT ENDS.

YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. ONLY WE HAVE THE SOLUTION. BUY OUR SUPERIOR PRODUCT.

We are not saying “You don’t have a problem with split ends.”

We are saying you DO have a problem with split ends, and that is why you must buy our product.

Only our product solves your problem that we all have, that everyone has.

Hermetic Spirituality and Altered States, footnote 114: I Can’t Put Fixed Stars (Fate) in Sphere 8 Ogdoad, Because You’re Reborn into Above[sic] Fate in the Ogdoad

My Broken Cosmos Model Cannot Allow Placing the Fate-Soaked Fixed stars in Sphere 7 (Saturn; Fate) or Sphere 8 (the Ogdoad, with the Ennead Sphere 9).

p. 294, footnote 114: “Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad remains an open question for me.”

🤷‍♂️ 🌌–>🗑

much crisper than my recent uploaded initial photo. the book Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022 – p. 294, footnote 114.

Hanegraaff writes infamously and incredibly:

Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad remains an open question for me.

p. 294, footnote 114, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

“Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad remains an open question for me.”

Hanegraaff writes that astounding statement of not knowing what everyone else in the world knows, that the fixed stars are DEFINITIVE of cosmos sphere 8, the Ogdoad, the outer boundary of the Fate-wrapped cosmos, encircled by the cosmic heimarmene-serpent, per David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism.

David Ulansey’s Mithras and the Hypercosmic Sun, http://www.mysterium.com/hypercosmic.html

find snake 2x:
“the fact that the rock out of which Mithras is born is often shown entwined by a snake, a detail which unmistakably evokes the famous Orphic motif of the snake-entwined cosmic egg out of which the cosmos was formed when the god Phanes emerged from it at the beginning of time.”

todo: make page(s) for these two articles, to copy & mark up.

David Ulansey’s The Eighth Gate: The Mithraic Lion-Headed Figure and the Platonic World-Soul, http://www.mysterium.com/eighthgate.html

find snake 7x – serpent 19x
“Mithraic leontocephaline or lion-headed figure, who is always depicted with a snake winding around him. His position here precisely at the level of the zodiac and just beyond“

“the leontocephaline is a symbol of the cosmic boundary, and that he is linked, like the Chaldaean Hekate, to the Platonic World-Soul, lies in the most consistent of all of the attributes of the leontocephaline: namely, the snake that is almost always shown wrapped around him.

“Many explanations for the presence of the snake wrapped around the leontocephaline have been offered”

“the connection between the leontocephaline and the cosmic boundary and World-Soul that we have been tracing here suggests an additional factor: for there exists solid evidence that the World-Soul in its role as boundary of the universe was sometimes symbolized as a serpent.”

/ Ulansey

Hanegraaff is stuck, blocked by his confusion, trapped in his broken cosmos model.

Hanegraaff cannot place the fixed stars (which he knows = Fate) where they obviously go, in sphere 8 the Ogdoad, because he extremely wrongly thinks that the Ogdoad is pure from the {pollution} and {impurity} that is fate[sic].

In fact, freewill is the {pollution} and turmoil-producing {impurity} that is offensive, hubristic, and dishonoring to the gods.

Your thinking is purified to get rid of freewill delusion, to come into harmony with the phase of experiencing pure 100% Fate, heimarmene, eternalism; non-branching possibilities.

Hanegraaff is under the delusion that there is no Fate in the Ogdoad, when in fact, the Ogdoad is the cosmos sphere that has 100% Fate/ heimarmene, according to everyone, universally, including his ancient hermetists.

You are reborn into Ogdoad, which is Fate, no-free-will, heimarmene — you are NOT rebord into freewill; possibilism, above Fate.

After being reborn into 100% Fate-compatibility, after that, you slightly rise above Fate to Ennead (precession of equinoxes per David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism).

But only your spirit portion rises above Fate, not your soul or body.

Your soul forever remains stuck trapped, imprisoned embedded in rock, a helpless puppet enslved to Fate/ heimarmene, helplessly embedded.

Being reborn and re-shaped into Fate-compatibility was the main emphasis of Classical Antiquity’s conception of religious revelation and transformation mental model transformation, Psilocybin transformation.

Late Antiquity rebelled against that reality of Fate-embeddedness, which they still believed, and held to be the main problem of the era, by spinning a disproportionate emphasis – albeit constrained by reality – on the final slight partial movement from Fate to being above Fate, outside the rock cosmos.

Sphere 9, the Ennead, is NOT not the sphere that you are mainly reborn into and profoundly reshaped into.

Hanegraaff is correct that rebirth is into the Ogdoad.

Hanegraaff is deeply confused, thinking that the Ogdoad is free of Fate.

The Ogdoad is the main headquarters of Fate.

You are not reborn into “above Fate”.

Hanegraaff was misled by the Late Antiquity advanced myth project of twisting the emphasis to disparage what they believed and what Classical Antiquity believed, revealed by Psilocybin: eternalism, Fate, heimarmene.

Hanegraaff Phrases about the Ogdoad Above(!) Fate/ Heimarmene

Reviewing the index entries for ‘ogdoad’ is extremely profitable now in my color highlighted copy of the book Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022.

I’m seeing HUGE folly misstatements for every entry, whoppers.

p. 10: “reborn … supreme hypercosmic experience of the Ogdoad”

reborn … supreme hypercosmic experience of the Ogdoad

p. 10, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

“hypercosmic Ogdoad”?! That’s like “non-drug entheogen!”

A whopper! what folly! Don’t Hermetic texts prevent this massive misstatement? Where did he get this misconception of the word ‘cosmos’??

Ogdoad is *in* the cosmos; fixed stars define the Ogdoad (sphere 8); define the boundary of the cosmos.

The Ennead (sphere 9) is hypercosmic. The Ogdoad (sphere 8) is not hypercosmic.

Reference David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism.

I see no texts that say the Ogdoad is outside the cosmos.

No hermetic texts say — as Hanegraaff indirectly implies — that the fixed stars are outside the cosmos.

If we said that, we’d have: fate cosmos 7 levels, + fixed stars sphere = fate outside the cosmos — a poor scheme/ description.

Maybe a Jewish(?) Classical Antiquity text that’s silent about fixed stars – I didn’t like that famous text. Shepherd of Hermas?

At least, by keeping its foolish mouth shut consistently, that text doesn’t make roaring self-contradictions like Hanegraaff when he writes – disjointedly and occasionally – about fixed stars.

Does a hermetic text define “cosmos” as 7 planets but not fixed stars? Did Hanegraaff latch onto that?

Wildly non-standard.

Only a single doc in the corpus says: “cosmos = 7 planet spheres = fate; the goal is to ascend above that”.

There might be a Classical Antiquity Jewish text, I did read such document, I disliked its silence about fixed stars, which sphere/ level is centrally, all-important to my model of astral ascent mysticism.

Everyone other than Hanegraaff says cosmos is 7 planets plus the sphere of the fixed stars; the latter DEFINES the “cosmos”!

Which is the domain of Fate, ESPECIALLY the sphere of fixed stars which is the HOME of the fate-ultra-ruler, Demiurge.

Hanegraaff hallucinates, high on his non-drug entheogens, that the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is a sphere other than the sphere of fixed stars.

“The Ogdoad is the 8th sphere (which we’re reborn into), which is free of Fate[sic]”

Whispering in Footnote 114: (I don’t know where to place the fixed stars, which = Fate — maybe in Saturn (sphere 7), which = Fate? maybe in the Ogdoad (sphere 8), which is above Fate[sic]? For me this remains an open question”)

That heading is a great summary.

Hanegraaff fails to understand that rebirth = Fate, that purification & enlightenment = Fate awareness & Fate-state compatible thinking, stand on right foot.

STAND ON YOUR FATE FOOT.

Don’t stand on your freedom foot, which causes loss of control, {strife}, {panic}, {turmoil}.

Rebirth is primarlily INTO fate-awareness, and only a little afterwards also – starting in Late Antiquity — is rebirth also sort of into above fate; transcendent freewill, virtual freewill; qualified possibilism-thinking.

Psilocybin transformation is mainly to accomplish 100% fate-awareness (which gives stable control = {peace} & {purity}); and only after that, it’s a little bit to sort of “transcend fate” – a minor denoument.

… con’t from above:

Except for Hanegraaff.

‘hypercosmic’ means above fixed stars, per David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism: precession is hypercosmic.

The Ogdoad (defined as “the sphere, #8, where the fixed stars are”) is NOT hypercosmic.

p. 57: “reborn initiate who has attained conscious experience of the Ogdoad and the Ennead.”

reborn initiate who has attained conscious experience of the Ogdoad and the Ennead.

p. 57, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

Mostly, during Psilocybin transformation, rebirth is mainly into heimarmene / eternalism, thus into sphere 8; reconcile with 8 by {stand on right foot}: 2-level, dependent control, achieving at last, the full retained grasp of the vision of eternalism.

After that, less so, also, the mind kind of transcends heimarmene, so, reach level 9, Ennead: transcendent freewill; qualified possibilism-thinking.

p. 182: “They will ascend through the seven cosmic levels to the eighth and the ninth, the Ogdoad and the Ennead.”

They will ascend through the seven cosmic levels to the eighth and the ninth, the Ogdoad and the Ennead.

p. 182, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

“the seven cosmic levels”

A whopper! what folly!

Don’t Hermetic texts prevent this massive misstatement? Where did he get this misconception of the word ‘cosmic’??

7 cosmic levels? The cosmos has 7 levels, only? So you’re saying, the fixed stars, which are definitive of sphere 8, are outside the cosmos?

What hermetic text says that the fixed stars are outside of the cosmos?! None in Late Antiquity, b/c it’s insanity!

Who would say “you rise above Saturn, thus leaving behind the cosmos, to ascend higher and reach the fixed stars”?

Hanegraaff’s confused heading p. 297 says “Beyond the Stars” – confusing himself and the readers, mis-defining ‘stars’.

He means instead, beyond the 7 planetary stars = beyond Fate.

Hanegraaff says that bizarre model, but no one else ever – at least not since Late Antiquity 150 AD or Hellenistic 323 BC.

p. 182b: “a different kind of body that has transcended suffering and the constraints of cosmic fate.”

a different kind of body that has transcended suffering and the constraints of cosmic fate.

p. 182, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

p. 182b (bottom): “a different kind of body that has transcended suffering and the constraints of cosmic fate.”

He defined ‘cosmic’ (bizarrely) as 7 planets. So, here he means: reaching sphere 8 Ogdoad = reaching above Fate.

in fact when reach 9, you transcended cosmic fate.

when reach 8, you have NOT transcended cosmic fate. You have transcended freewill delusion.

But where in the hell did you put fixed stars (which you correctly said = Fate) then?

Hanegraaff goes silent!

Which is a HUGE problem, if your astral ascent mysticism cannot handle fixed stars.

Did you hide the fixed stars in “the cosmos, 7 planets”? The fixed stars swept under the rug, into sphere 7 (Saturn, moving planet).

p. 184: “peace, stability, and freedom … enables it to enter the Ogdoad”

peace, stability, and freedom … enables it to enter the Ogdoad

p. 184, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

page 184: “freedom = Ogdoad”

The actual reason you have peace and stability in sphere 8 Ogdoad, is because you repudiated naive freewill thinking.

8 is sphere of NO freewill; no freedom – stability because free from impurity pollusion which is freedom-thinking.

p. 257a: “his consciousness would have to leave his body and gain access to the Ogdoad, the eighth sphere beyond the planetary cosmos.”

his consciousness would have to leave his body and gain access to the Ogdoad, the eighth sphere beyond the planetary cosmos.

p. 257a, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

“the planetary cosmos” – where does he get this construction?

page 257a: “his consciousness would have to leave his body and gain access to the Ogdoad, the eighth sphere beyond the planetary cosmos.”

A whopper! what folly!

Don’t Hermetic texts prevent this massive misstatement?

Where did he get this misconception of the word ‘cosmos’??

What’s the highest sphere of the cosmos: Saturn 7, or fixed stars 8?

Everyone says fixed stars 8 is the boundary of the cosmos.

p. 257b: “still his consciousness is in the cosmos and not in the Ogdoad.”

still his consciousness is in the cosmos and not in the Ogdoad.

p. 257b, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

A whopper! what folly!

Don’t Hermetic texts prevent this massive misstatement?

Where did Hanegraaff get this misconception of the word ‘cosmos’??

What’s the highest sphere of the cosmos: Saturn 7, or fixed stars 8?

Everyone says fixed stars 8 is the boundary of the cosmos.

p. 258a: “the Ogdoad above the heimarmene“

Explicit; my favorite whopper: So then in which sphere number are the fixed stars, which are heimarmene? Not in sphere 8, the Ogdoad? Then WHERE??!

“Remains an open question for me”

🪐🌌💥🔥😵⚰️

the Ogdoad above the heimarmene

p. 258, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

In fact, the Ogdoad is the main headquarters of heimarmene, where the cosmos ruler the demiurge is.

The Ogdoad is cosmic sphere 8, which is defined by the fixed stars, including the zodiac constellations; the fixed stars, which are Fate/ heimarmene.

“the Ogdoad above the heimarmene”?! A whopper! what folly!

Do we have here, a mix-up of:

  • An earlier cosmos model in which the highest Fate level is 7, Saturn, so that the sphere of the fixed stars is NOT equated with Fate/ heimarmene?
  • A later cosmos model in which the highest Fate level is 8, the Ogdoad, containing the fixed stars IS equated with Fate/ heimarmene?

Don’t Hermetic texts prevent this massive misstatement?

Where did Hanegraaff get this misconception?

Where are the fixed stars, which Hanegraaff correctly said = Fate, if not in sphere 8, of which the fixed stars are definitive???

Which ancient texts say that the highest Fate level is 7, Saturn?

EarlyChristianWritings.com (Kirby)

https://www.earlychristianwritings.com – Peter Kirby

Email to Peter Kirby

Hi Peter,

I’m from Jesus Mysteries Yahoo Group etc 2000.  Glad to see the site, I visit once per decade.

Why I am looking at your site now:

Hanegraaff crazily says “the Ogdoad (cosmic sphere 8) above heimarmene” – contradicting every writer ever. 

Do some texts say being above sphere 7 Saturn = being above heimarmene/ Fate?

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022 

https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/03/18/hanegraaffs-inability-to-place-fixed-stars-in-sphere-7-or-8-proves-rebirth-is-into-fate-not-freedom/

— Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com
EgodeathTheory.WordPress.com (= egodeaththeory.org)

p. 258b: “physical body still remains subject to astral fate”

physical body still remains subject to astral fate

p. 258, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

The word ‘astral’ means ‘stars’ — which Hanegraaff sometimes misleads by meaning 7 planets.

Hanegraaff cannot be trusted with the word ‘stars’.

Hanegraaff means 7 planets when he writes “astral fate”, ‘stellar’, ‘star’, unlike everyone else on earth, because his system is broken because he thinks rebirth is from Saturn fate into Ogdoad fate-free, which somehow skips also the sphere of fixed stars, about which he goes silent because it breaks his system to smithereens.

Hanegraaff leaves himself nowhere to place the fixed stars – he can’t put the fixed stars & zodiac in the Ogdoad (sphere 8), because he’s under the delusion that sphere 8 is above Fate, when in fact, sphere 8 is the empire of Fate – the exact opposite, in contrast, insofar as eternalism-thinking is opposite of qualified possibilism-thinking.

Hanegraaff knows he can’t put the fixed stars in sphere 7 (Saturn), which is Fate [or, 7/8 of the way to Fate], but is taken.

Hanegraaff is under the delusion that he can’t put fixed stars in the Ogdoad (sphere 8) because he (very wrongly) thinks that the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is above Fate and is free from Fate.

His attitude is backwards, thanks to Hermetic myth-confounders who only pay attention to how bad they hate grandpa’s worship of the heimarmene-snake.

He’s under delusion that fate = {pollution}. In fact egoic freedom (naive freewill thinking) is the {pollution} and {impurity} that is the {vexing problem} that causes turmoil (control instability)!

Hanegraaff’s azz-backwards model of what Psilocybin transformation is all about (or 8/9 about).

Psilocybin transformation is 8/9 about repudiating freewill or possibilism-thinking; 1/9 about then going on to slightly transcend Fate/ eternalism.

Saturn is 7/8 of fate per my superior, more helpful, more useful analogy-model that helps clarify and explain Psilocybin transformation).

the sphere-and-gateway of the fixed stars (Heimarmene)

The contradiction is semi-glaring in the Paul Davidson-written video What Is Hermeticism?, and massively glaring in Wouter Hanegraaff book.

What is Hermeticism? (Paul Davidson) Can’t Place Fixed Stars

Remaining Index Entries for ‘Ogdoad’: 259, 263, 277, 278, 280, 281, 284, 289, 294 (“open question”), 296, 300, 301, 304, 306, 309, 323

These all probably have crazy constructions like “the Ogdoad above cosmic Fate”.

That way, you can be reborn from sphere 7 Saturn into sphere 8 above Fate/ heimarmene — per Hanegraaff, against everyone else and against every ancient text.

Actually, if rebirth is from Saturn into sphere 8 (where the fixed stars, which are Fate, are), that is rebirth into Fate, not into above-Fate.

What I Want & Wish For

Photo: Michael Hoffman

I wish Hanegraaff would say “fixed stars are ultimate heimarmene, and you are REBORN INTO FATE AWARENESS; SPHERE 8; FIXED STARS”.

That you are peaceful within Fate 8 sphere, because you are not contaminated with unstable, freewill thinking.

You have been purified to get rid of possibilism-thinking — NOT to get rid of eternalism-thinking!

Update: I can’t believe just a few days ago I wrote “get rid of”, in contrast to my very latest description: I emphasize:

After enlightenment, you continue to use egoic freewill thinking, even during the peak window of the intense mystic altered state; but, now with an understanding of the source of control-thoughts coming in from outside the the egoic personal control system.

You don’t get rid of Isaac, child-thinking; you qualify and mark it as virtual-only. Virtual freewill; qualified possibilism-thinking.

THE FILTHY OFFENSIVE POLLUTION CAUSING PANIC STRIFE IS NOT FATE / HEIMARMENE , BUT RATHER, FREEWILL!!!!

ie, the turmoil-causing, control instability-causing problem is relying on freewill power as if it is the basis/ foundation of the personal control system.

Hanegraaff gets this totally backwards, out of freewill-favoring prejudice that he learned from Late Antiquity’s Marketing department that hates Fate but believes that Fate is the case.

Late Antiquity did not use analogy in a clarifying way, but in a “clever’, confusing way.

Mithraism’s cosmos is clarifying, per my reading of David Ulansey’s solution.

todo: Do I even have a David Ulansey page?! omg I can’t believe, no pages, in Site Map page.
Search my site:
https://egodeaththeory.org/?s=ulansey

The ancient hermeticists misled Hanegraaff to demonize Saturn and (in confusion) glorify Ogdoad (as if it’s opposite of Satrun; as if Saturn = fate/ eternalism but the Ogdoad = possibilism which he glorifies).

The only way that he, as a worshipper of freewill, can glority rebirth into Ogdoad, is be collosally misunderstanding, thinking that Ogdoad is the realm above Fate, when in fact, Ogdoad is the realm OF fate, 100% Fate.

Hanegraaff only worships the Ogdoad (sphere 8) – conflated with Ennead (sphere 9) – AFTER he deletes the fate-soaked fixed stars from their only possible, proper, well-ordered sphere — #8 — which actually DEFINES the Ogdoad.

The Ogdoad is defined BY the fixed stars; the Ogdoad is that sphere which contains the fixed stars, which are Fate; heimarmene; eternalism.

Hanegraaff tells a garbled story of rebirth from evil Fate Saturn cosmos into glorious hypercosmic Ogdoad land of freewill[sic] – at which point he GOES SILENT about which sphere contains the fixed stars.

p. 294 footnote 114, “I can’t figure that out.”

Hanegraaff makes that massive error because he thinks rebirth is into freedom; actually, rebirth is into Fate – all the difference in the world.

Only after full reconcilation of your mental model of the personal control system with Fate/ eternalism in sphere 8, the Ogdoad, THEN your spirit, only, rises a little higher, to sphere 9, the Ennead; where resides the precession of the equinoxes per David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism: qualified possibilism-thinking.

Hanegraaff’s model of Psilocybin mental model transformation is the exact opposite of the truth, and he gives birth to Yaldabaoth:

A monstrously malformed, self-contradictory, incoherent cosmos model worshipping naive freewill thinking instead of proper honor of Fate alignment of our mental model.

My previous pages cover this – but I’m condensing as a summary now to get clear on why Hanegraaff’s confusion is an extremely big deal, OUTRAGEOUS confusion that’s a big problem.

I can now post a book review to summarize his cosmic-scale massive error & self-contradiction.
https://egodeaththeory.org/2022/07/14/hermetic-spirituality-and-the-historical-imagination-altered-states-of-knowledge-in-late-antiquity-hanegraaff/#August-21-2022-draft-of-book-review

Everything depends on this; this correction is ESSENTIAL for modelling Psilocybin transformation.

We cannot use astral ascent mysticism analogy in any coherent way until Hanegraaff issues a correction of his book.

Hanegraaff please explain how the Hermetic texts support your false bizarre mis-definition of ‘cosmos’ to be sphere 7 Saturn, but somehow excluding sphere 8, which is defined by the fixed stars.

What ancient text has a cosmos model where the highest fate sphere is 7?

The standard is 8, above Saturn, is the highest sphere that contains Fate. per David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism.

What is “the planetary cosmos”, what ancient text has that construction?

HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU SAY THE FIXED STARS ARE NOT THE COSMOS?

HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU SAY THE OGDOAD IS OUTSIDE THE COSMOS, WHICH IS FATE?

HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU SAY THE OGDOAD IS ABOVE FATE?

YET YOU SAY ZODIAC FIXED STARS ARE FATE.

YET FOOTNOTE 114 SAYS “REMAINS AN OPEN Q”.

Whether to place the fixed stars in Saturn (sphere 7) or in the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is an open question.

“Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn (sphere 7)] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad [(sphere 8)] remains an open question for me.”

Whether to place the fixed stars in the sphere of Saturn or in the Ogdoad is an open question.

“Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn (sphere 7)] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad [(sphere 8)] remains an open question for me.”

condensed + exact footnote 114 p 294, the book Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

Darth Wouter’s Alderaanization of the Fixed Stars

  • 🌌💥 🪨 🪨 🪨

When I got Hanegraaff’s new book, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, I instantly knew something was very amiss: WHERE ARE THE STARS??!

The most important level of astral ascent mysticism!

Hanegraaff mentions the fixed stars and the zodiac constellations, as Fate (bad), but never places them in any sphere of his cosmos model – not in Saturn (sphere 7), nor in the Ogdoad (sphere 8):

Like planet Alderaan in Star Wars, I arrive at Darth Wouter’s Sphere 8…

Where are all the stars??! Gone!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FM5bksrImg —

(Millennium Falcon ship sound effect)

Cybermonk: Stand by, Cyberdisciple. Here we go. Cut in the sub-light engines.

(Millennium Falcon ship engines cut)

Cybermonk: What the…? Aw, we’ve come out of hyperspace into a meteor shower, some sort of asteroid collision. It’s not on any of the charts.

Max Freakout: What’s going on?

Cybermonk: Our position’s correct in the Ogdoad, except– no fixed stars.

Max Freakout: What do you mean? Where are they?

Cybermonk: That’s what I’m trying to tell you, kid. They ain’t there. They’ve been totally blown away.

Max Freakout: What?! How?

Strangeloop: Destroyed, by Darth Wouter.

Cybermonk: The entire star fleet couldn’t destroy the whole sphere of the fixed stars, it’d take a thousand ships with more firepower than I’ve–

beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

There’s another ship coming in.

Max Freakout: Maybe they know what happened.

Strangeloop: It’s an imperial fighter, from University of Amsterdam.

Max Freakout: They followed us!

Strangeloop: No, it’s a short-range fighter.

Cybermonk: There aren’t any bases around here, where did it come from?

Max Freakout: He sure is leaving in a big hurry, if they identify us we’re in big trouble!

Cybermonk: Not if I if can help it. Cyberdisciple, jam his transmissions.

Strangeloop: It’d be as well to let him go. He’s too far out of range.

Cybermonk: Not for long.

Strangeloop: A fighter that size couldn’t get this deep into space on its own.

Max Freakout: Hanegraaff must have gotten lost, been part of a convoy or something.

Cybermonk: Well he ain’t gonna be around long enough to tell anybody about us.

Max Freakout: Look at him, he’s heading for that small moon.

Cybermonk: I think I can get him before he gets there. He’s almost in range.

Strangeloop: That’s no moon. . . . It’s a space station.

Cybermonk: It’s too big to be a space station.

Max Freakout: I have a very bad feeling about this.

Strangeloop: Turn the ship around.

Cybermonk: Yeah. I think you were right. Full reverse, Cyberdisciple lock in the auxiliary power.

Cyberdisciple lock in the auxiliary power!

Max Freakout: Why are we still moving towards it?!

Cybermonk: We’re caught in a tractor beam, Hanegraaff’s pulling us in.

Max Freakout: There’s got to be something you can do!

Cybermonk: There’s nothing I can do about it kid, I’m full power, I’m going to have to shut down. Darth Wouter’s not going to get me without a fight!

Strangeloop: You can’t win. But there are alternatives to fighting.

Wouter “Star Destroyer” Hanegraaff

🚫🌌–>🗑

Wouter “Star Destroyer” Hanegraaff, who single-handedly purged the Ogdoad of Fate by getting rid of the heimarmene-soaked stars polluting it with their impurity.

into the Hanegraaff Rejected wastebasket with them

Death Star imperial headquarters: https://www.amsterdamhermetica.nl

Are Davidson and Hanegraaff Intentionally Presenting an Early (Egyptian) System Where the Highest Fate Sphere is Saturn, vs. a Later System (Hermetism) Where the Highest Fate Sphere is Fixed Stars?

What is Hermeticism? (Paul Davidson) Can’t Place Fixed Stars

The most important and basic principle in the universe is, sphere 8 fixed stars = 100% eternalism (heimarmene, Fatedness).

Everything in the series of Psilocybin transformation sessions, below and above that level, revolves around in relation to that:

Rule #1: fixed stars (sphere 8) = heimarmene.

This is THE principle and key central concept of astral ascent mysticism.

— per David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism.

Wouter Hanegraaff gave not one shred of evidence that Hermetic writings differ from that ultra simple principle.

Here’s what’s so telling and screams HUGE PROBLEM throughout Wouter Hanegraaff’s book:

  • He demonizes Fate. He demonizes Saturn because planets = fate = bad.
  • He glorifies “theeighthandtheninth”, always lumping them as if one single layer/sphere – as if sphere 8 and 9 are both above fate, as if sphere 8 is his beloved freewill (which is only true of sphere 9, actually).

If you demonize Saturn, YOU MUST ALSO DEMONIZE YOUR PRECIOUS OGDOAD TOO, LIKEWISE!

You can’t demonize Saturn b/c it is Fate, and then glorify Ogoad – as if Ogdoad is not Fate!

Wouter Hanegraaff writes as if Ogdoad is in contrast with Saturn!

He plainly values sphere 8 out of confusion, mistakenly thinking sphere 8 = above fate just like sphere 9 which he fuses sphere 8 with.

  1. Moon – bad (b/c = fate)
  2. Mercury – bad (b/c = fate)
  3. Venus – bad (b/c = fate)
  4. Sun – bad (b/c = fate)
  5. Mars – bad (b/c = fate)
  6. Jupiter – bad (b/c = fate)
  7. Saturn – bad (b/c = fate)
  8. fixed stars – good[!!] (b/c = above fate[sic]) <– ERROR! CONFUSED!
  9. precession – good (b/c = above fate)

About the Ogdoad (8th sphere), Hanegraaff writes as confused as his footnote 114 says he is.

That’s the proof and red flag: he’s not only unsure where to put fixed stars (footnote 114); his writing is evidence that he thinks Ogdoad (sphere 8) is possibilism (which he likes), the opposite of Saturn (which is eternalism or 7/8 eternalism).

He’s unfavorable to Saturn, and yet, favorable to Ogdoad – that’s a contradiction and shows confusion, which he confirms in footnote 114.

Hanegraaff is inconsistently positive about Ogdoad, always in the same breath as being positive about Ennead.

He’s right & consistent being positive about Ennead, b/c THAT is the sphere level that is freewill (qualified possibilism-thinking), transcending Fate.

But he treats Ogdoad as favorably (incongruously) – showing that he thinks Ogdoad is freedom from Fate, when in fact it’s the opposite: reaching sphere 8 gives harmony by conforming fully to Fate, ie, acknowledging 2-level, dependent control; eternalism.

[con’t from above]
Yet he acts like it’s a huge, unsolvable problem, of where to place the fixed stars, and he keeps fusing and lumping together “ogdoadandennead” with no functional contrast at all, placing them both “above Saturn, ie, above Fate” – so that he keeps implying that Ogdoad = above fate – and again the fixed stars go missing from his narrative all of a sudden.

Note footnote 114 saying whether to put the fixed stars in Saturn (sphere 7) or in the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is for me an open question.

“Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn (sphere 7)] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad [(sphere 8)] remains an open question for me.” – footnote 114, p. 294, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

WHAT?! Why?!

How, and why the heck is that “an open question”; it is utterly trivially a plain simple given: the fixed stars are sphere 8, that’s elementary!

My solution to explain Hanegraaff’s confusion is:

Hanegraaff mis-imagines the main goal & direction of Psilocybin transformation to be transformation from eternalism to possibilism, which is backwards from how the mental model transforms.

Hanegraaff’s assumption that Ogdoad and Ennead are functionally the same, and are both above heimarmene, is wreaking havoc with his attempt to tell a coherent cosmos/ astral ascent mysticism model/story.

Hanegraaff then has nowhere to place the heimarmene fixed stars, because he’s under the delusion that the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is purified of evil heimarmene – when actually, sphere 8 is 100% (8/8) heimarmene, and that’s where the demiurge dwells, along with the fixed stars.

You actually purify the mind of naive possibilism-thinking, not of eternalism-thinking, to reach the fixed stars.

Only after that, the minor shift to sort of transcending fate/ eternalism, upon reaching Ennead sphere 9 (precession) – not Ogdoad (sphere 8, which contains the fixed stars & zodiac).

Hanegraaff mistakenly worships and places far too much emphasis on reaching freewill, when in fact, 8/9 of Psilocybin transformation effort and achievement is the great achievement & struggle to get rid of possibilism-thinking (freewill thinking, which is {pollution}, {offense to the gods}; {impurity}) and reach the hardest destination, no-free-will/ heimarmene/ fatedeness-realization/ eternalism-thinking.

copy of: Update: I can’t believe just a few days ago I wrote “get rid of”, in contrast to my very latest description: I emphasize:

After enlightenment, you continue to use egoic freewill thinking, even during the peak window of the intense mystic altered state; but, now with an understanding of the source of control-thoughts coming in from outside the the egoic personal control system.

You don’t get rid of Isaac, child-thinking; you qualify and mark it as virtual-only. Virtual freewill; qualified possibilism-thinking.

/ end update

You can say Wouter Hanegraaff is merely off-by-one, it’s merely an analogy system, so what does it matter?

Answer: Wouter Hanegraaff cannot place the fixed stars in his cosmos levels, and to navigate astral ascent mysticism the first principle is, fixed stars = heimarmene.

Saturn (sphere 7) is in relation to that ALL-IMPORTANT SPHERE 8 (heimarmene), and Ennead sphere 9 (transcend eternalism) is in relation to that sphere 8, the fixed stars.

Wouter Hanegraaff is incapable of placing the fixed stars in any level – “can’t be in sphere 7, because Saturn, and can’t be placed in sphere 8 because I worship glorious freewill Ogdoad” — as if the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is the transcend-eternalism level 9, Ennead.

Hanegraaff’s system is thus INDETERMINATE and freewill-infested & polluted, right where it is most crucial: sphere 8 (containing & defined by the fixed stars), which is in fact (per EVERYONE else, consistently) reaching perfection and purification from possibilism-thinking; reaching sphere 8 (heimarmene), the fixed stars, at last: the soul fastened in the starry sky forever (with spirit, only, above that, above eternalism; in qualified possibilism-thinking).

After the Grand Achievement of heimarmene-grokking; eternalism-thinking, THEN, by the way, as merely a bit of dessert, the mind transcends eternalism, sort of, by reaching, a little, sphere 9 (precession of equinoxes).

In fact, the mind starts w/ possibilism-thinking, and ends (after 8/9 of the journey) at pure eternalism-thinking, as the greatest accomplishment – and then as a minor dessert, sort of move from eternalism to qualified possibilism-thinking, to sort of transcend eternalism/ heimarmene/ fate, but only in a way.

Do the video author (Paul Davidson) & Hanegraaff claim to be discussing two different cosmos models, where in the simpler earlier model, the upper Fate sphere is Saturn, so that (in that model) the sphere of the fixed stars = above Fate??

and the later model is mine, where Saturn & fixed stars are Fate, then above fixed stars – in Ennead – is above Fate??

They need to be WAY clearer about this flip-flop, if that’s what they intend.

  • One moment, “rise above the sphere of Saturn (7), to be above Fate”.
  • Next moment, “rise above the sphere of fixed stars (8??), to be above Fate.”
  • silent flip
  • silent flop
  • silent flip
  • silent flop

This is CRIMINALLY CONFUSING and they have some explaining to do, but they can’t even manage to count to 8, or differentiate 8 vs. 9.

Paul Davidson does write some isolated sentences that are correct, even writing (finally!) “fixed stars = Fate”.

But his SET of assertions is incoherent and self-contradictory: he must acknowledge that, and explictly resolve his self-contradictory set of assertions.

At best, to be (overly) charitable, they are inconsistent.

Really, they are garbled as hell, self-contradictory, and confusing as hell.

What is Hermeticism? (Paul Davidson) Can’t Place Fixed Stars

Infamous Hanegraaff Quote: Whether 8 Goes After 7 Is an Open Question for Me

Whether the fixed stars should be included [with Saturn (sphere 7)] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad [(sphere 8)] remains an open question for me.

Wouter Hanegraaff, footnote 114, p. 294, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, 2022

Simple cosmic diagram from the video: simple diagram of cosmos w/ zodiac around it plainly in sphere 8 above Saturn (sphere 7).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COYJi9CKrGI&t=762s = 12:42

The video’s diagram shows a butt-simple, plain diagram, child-readable, to count to SPHERE 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COYJi9CKrGI&t=762s = 12:42
What is Hermeticism? (Paul Davidson) Can’t Place Fixed Stars

I have to draw numbers on this diagram to help Wouter Hanegraaff & Paul Davidson count to 8 and 9:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COYJi9CKrGI&t=762s = 12:42
Numbering by Michael Hoffman, B.S.E.E.

Numbering by Michael Hoffman, B.S.E.E.; because I got the highest score ever seen on the Relativity exam by the university professor of Modern Physics, that enabled me to figure out the ultra-difficult placement of numerals 8 and 9.

🌌🔍🤔🤔😓🤷‍♂️

Are you incapable of looking at your own simple diagram and counting to 8 where the zodiac constellations are?

The video creator who placed the diagram & read the script is not the guy who wrote the script.

Given that zodiac = Fate, and zodiac = sphere 8:
When you rise higher than Saturn (sphere 7), have you transcended Fate, as you keep saying? No, you have reached zodiac, which IS fate.

You purify the mental model of possibilism-thinking, to achieve 100% eternalism-thinking; Fate, at sphere 8, zodiac.

Against Wouter Hanegraaff’s conflation that writes as if sphere 8 = sphere 9; that Ogdoad is same as Ennead.

Hanegraaff, the Ennead is NOT the same as Ogdoad as you keep writing like, lumping oil and water together.

OGDOAD = PURE 100% FATE; only Ennead sphere 9 is above Fate.

Stop lumping them together, “theOgdoadAndTheEnnead”, as Wouter Hanegraaff always writes.

Write: “the Ogdoad (Fate) and the Ennead (transcending Fate)”.

Hanegraaff’s delusory framing, confused by simply glorification of freewill:

  • 7 planets are bad, fate. Go above them, b/c no-free-will sucks and you should avoid it.
  • Now we reach the wonderful freewill-soaked polyanna levels 8 & 9, above Fate.

Wait – what happened to the fixed stars??

What have you done with them, the evil, fate stars – how are they not in your precious [misunderstood as if] freewill sphere 8, glorious Ogdoad which is fused w/ sphere 9 Ennead?

The Ogdoad (complete Fate, achieved at last! victory; purified!) and the Ennead (transcend Fate).

That’s how opposite Ogdoad and Ennead are; stop conflating and equating them!

Then you’d have room to place the fixed stars, and not say “remains an open question for me.” 🤦‍♂️

“Open question”?! This is the most CLOSED “question” in the world! Ask any schoolboy before 1600!

The world’s easiest question.

…

Then, as an afterthought, after the hard work of grokking eternalism, and thus having purified thinking, THEN you go to the VERY DIFFERENT Ennead, level 9, which is the first sphere that’s above Fate.

Wouter Hanegraaff keeps writing that the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is the first level that’s above Saturn (sphere 7) and that the Ogdoad is above heimarmene/ Fate, and that the fixed stars are heimarmene/ Fate.

But then where does he put the sphere of fixed stars?

Ans: he goes silent at that point, after he wrote correctly that the fixed stars = heimarmene/Fate = zodiac constellations.

Harvard Video Mentions “Planetary Constellations”

https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2021/04/19/video-reasonably-irrational-theurgy-and-pathologization-entheogenic-experience –
Find: planetary constellations

Technical term:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Planetary+Constellations%22

Wouter Hanegraaff says “planetary constellations”:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2022/08/08/a-trip-through-the-planetary-constellations-on-non-drug-entheogens/ – copypaste of a few blocks from there:

Reasonably Irrational: Theurgy and the Pathologization of Entheogenic Experience
Wouter Hanegraaff
Video of conference presentation, with transcription
https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2021/04/19/video-reasonably-irrational-theurgy-and-pathologization-entheogenic-experience

“Charles Stang. … the director of the Center for the Study of World Religions here at Harvard Divinity School. … our year-long and wildly successful series on Psychedelics and the Future of Religion, co-sponsored by … the Esalen Institute, the Chakruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, and the RiverStyx Foundation.”

initiator Hermes exorcising egoic daimon powers from initiate Tat
Photo: Michael Hoffman, the Egodeath Mystery Show

surrounded by utter silence while watching the planetary constellations. She won’t see them just as physical planets. She will see them as deities

Wouter Hanegraaff, conference presentation “Reasonably Irrational: Theurgy and the Pathologization of Entheogenic Experience“

Hanegraaff is intent on covertly silently moving the fixed stars (carrying heimemene) down from standard sphere 8 down into planetary wandering stars levels 1-7. What Hermetic texts justify this imaginal construction?

/ end of copypaste from other page

Only when you ascend above sphere 8, zodiac, ONLY THEN have you ascended “above fate”. Per David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism.

This is ultra elementary!

There is nothing even slightly controversial or uncertain here; this is the most elementary, basic, plain, unproblematic of simple, TRIVIAL givens in the whole world!

It’s a simple, trivial GIVEN: the fixed stars go in sphere 8, the Ogdoad.

That’s like Day 1 of 1st grade. Just look at the diagram and practice counting to 8!

Every child knows: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, fixed stars.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Then, 9, above fixed stars, above Fate.

…

Reaching sphere 8 fixed stars is the biggest accomplishment and journey,

= 100% eternalism attained; purified thinking, washed clean of possibilism confusion.

There’s no thinking involved!

What number comes after 7? uh uh …. trembling hand over the two button options…. sweating– I CANT FIGURE IT OUT, HELP!!

todo: meme picture for the above

Can someone quote me a Hermetic text that doesn’t fit with my explanation of the screamingly obvious?

How is this a problem or difficulty, at all?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 – help, i’m stuck, what comes next??

Better stop talking suddenly about the fixed stars, now they go missing from the discussion suddenly, hope no one notices.

WHATS THE HANG, HANE? GOT A FATE PROBLEM?

Notice sphere 9 is present in this diagram too, = transcend heimarmene / fate.

The lowest sphere above Fate is NOT 9, it’s 8! Elementary, explicitly shown.

There is NOTHING even SLIGHTLY complicated about this!

Unless you are the kind of person who reasons in your keynote address for Western Esotericism:

“Although this redefines the word ‘entheogen’ to mean its exact opposite, the word ‘entheogen’ really means, based on rock-solid argument from etymology, anything you can think of, given that anything – such as active imagination, heavy breathing, or meditation – can produce the same effect as 10g of dried Cubensis.”

OK, please demonstrate. Let’s see heavy breathing produce the Psilocybin effect of transformation of the mental model from possibilism to eternalism.

I’ll give you ONE, MILLION, YEARS! AHAHAHAHAH!!!

Sphere 8 zodiac is NOT transcending fate!

Wouter Hanegraaff can’t deal w/ that, in his cosmic total confusion!

Timothy Freke Asserted Key Components of the Egodeath Theory, But Fragmentary

Sam Harris even more fragmentary: One Book Asserts one book asserts no-free-will; other book affirms psychedelic spirituality – as if an entirely unrelated topic, that’s the problem.

I used to fear that an athor (Manly Hall) had one sentence asserting psychedelics, one sentence asserting no-free-will, so they already formed the Egodeath theory, right?

No, see Paul Thagard: systemic revision of network connections. You might have connections among mythemes, but crucial connections might be missing.

Like they say of psychedelics, “it’s all about the Integration.” Does their airplane get off the ground, is it steerable?

Wright brothers were not the first to get off ground; they were the first to have usable control of the in-flight machine.

That’s Engineering: For all the million videos about esotericism, eternalism, psychedelics — do they deliver a useful technology.

Tim Freke (the Jesus Mysteries is extremely close to the Egodeath theory, he’s written asserting ahistoricity, entheogens, eternalism or no-free-will.

A takeover takes advantage of rummaging entirely selectively through the bad old paradigm or pre-Science phase.

Videos about Eternalism Are Fair, but There Are No Videos about Possibilism

Videos about eternalism are fair, but there are no videos about possibilism. I expected reverse. They do not contrast possibilism vs. eternalism.

Psychedelic experience of that contrast. How depicted in art.

Ruck Committee Gets Everything Reversed Like a Rank Non-Initiate

Formerly blue mushroom in Mithras’ non-bent Right leg.

Now look at the speck of red and white 🍄 paint, just as surely as the Dancing Man salamander bestiary’s mushroom-tree has a red cap [it’s blue, per Hatsis].

Got Confirmation of Change from 2-Phase to 3-Phase Transcendence in Late Antiquity

I’m getting tons of confirmation of my 2001 (or 2004) theory of 2-phase, Classical Antiquity Psilocybin transformation model vs 3-phase, Late Antiquity Psilocybin transformation model.

Lewis: Cosmology & Fate, read 2014

Luther Martin: Studies in Hellenistic Religion, read in 2022 – confirmed my 2004 proposal

Watched in 2025: Dr. Justin Sledge, & aside: what is book by Chris Brennan?

Brennan sounds weak in his understanding of Late Antiquity, since he had to be corrected by me & Justin Sledge when Brennan said that only Christianity invented freewill.

Such scholars unfairly compare Classical Antiquity non-Christian, vs. Late Antiquity Christian.

Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune
Chris Brennan, 2017
https://www.amazon.com/Hellenistic-Astrology-Study-Fate-Fortune/dp/0998588903/

Blurb:

“Hellenistic astrology is a tradition of horoscopic astrology that was practiced in the Mediterranean region from approximately the first century BCE until the seventh century CE.

“Hellenistic astrology is the source of many of the modern traditions of astrology that still flourish around the world today, although it is only recently that many of the surviving texts of this tradition have become available again for astrologers to study.

“Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune is the first comprehensive survey of this tradition in modern times.

The book covers the history, philosophy, and techniques of ancient astrology, with a special focus on demonstrating how
many of the fundamental concepts underlying the practice of western astrology originated during the Hellenistic period.”

Years of Idea Development

  • 2001, started adding 3-phase model to cover Late Antiquity, prompted by Coraxo in Gnosticism Yahoo Group. [3-phase]
  • Ulansey book. Got in Feb 2001 – before the Egodeath Yahoo Group! (June) This means seq: 1) Coraxo; 2) Ulansey; 3)
  • x https://www.amazon.com/Hellenistic-Religions-Introduction-Luther-Martin/dp/019504391X/
  • 2004 – Fowden, G. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Princeton: Princeton University, 1986.
  • Luther Martin: Hellenistic Religions. towering for me but then theres David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism.

Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction (Martin, 1987)

Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction
Luther H. Martin
4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars    9 ratings 
3.8 on Goodreads
56 ratings

Blurb:

“Based on primary sources, this volume provides a comprehensive overview of religious institutions, beliefs, and practices in the Graeco-Roman world from the fourth century B.C.E. to the fourth century C.E.

Rather than focusing on Hellenistic religions as a backdrop for Christianity, the author composes a well-balanced portrait of the social and conceptual nature of these religions, presenting Christianity as one of the many religious alternatives that existed in that period.

Covering hellenistic piety, the mystery cults, and the gnostic traditions, Martin provides an integrated view of Hellenistic religion as a coherent system of religious thought defined by shifting views of fate.

He demonstrates the role of religion in two fundamental transformations of the Hellenistic world view–the change from the archaic to the Ptolemaic understanding of the universe and the shift in relative importance of masculine and feminine god-images–and concludes with a discussion of the impact of late Hellenistic religion on Christianity.

“The only single volume to offer a comprehensive and interpretive framework for Hellenistic religions, this masterful survey is an indispensable resource for history, religion, and classics courses.”

My Review of Hellenistic Religion (April 2002)

My Amazon review of H R: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2S9DKK24WSPV6/ —
Michael Hoffman
5.0 out of 5 stars

Reviewed April 21, 2002 <– YAY A DATE! quite an early date!

What about Elaine Pagels’ first two books, and did Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries mention Fate?

Notice quotes around ‘transcending’ – PERFECT, WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR – of course the Egodeath Yahoo Group gives tons of dates too, a copies of my reviews. Doesn’t say:

  • ‘heimarmene’
  • ‘eternalism’ (re: silo: Phil o time),
  • ‘superdeterminism’ (re: silo: Physics)

Even though I didn’t find “sacrament” in this book, much, you can see I was looking for it, in April 2002, as the trigger to experience heimarmene/”determinism”, ie eternalism.

By “determinism”, I NEVER meant domino-chain causality, and I ALWAYS meant Minkowski 4D spacetime block-universe eternalism (I associated that with “the ground of being” per Ken Wilber).

I meant the 4D spacetime block as – Petkov argues – Minkowski always understood & fully grokked, unlike Einstein).

In my body of writings, always read my word ‘determinism’ as ‘eternalism’, never as domino-chain causality with a non-existing, “open” future that will eventually be inevitable, that is inevitable “because of domino-chain causality”.

My book review title:
Central emphasis on fate & determinism

Martin shows that despite the diversity of story elements and rituals, the common, universal theme in mystery religions is encountering and, in some sense, “transcending” determinism, Fate, or Necessity.

He doesn’t emphasize consuming a sacrament as a common, universal theme.

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Book/Confirmation Sequence

  • 2014, Lewis [3-phase] – 1
  • 2022, Luther Martin confirmed my contrast of Classical Antiquity vs. Late Antiquity re flipped attitude re heimarmene. [3-phase] – 2
  • 2025, Justin Sledge vid w/ Chris Brennan confirmed that freewill was simul invented 150 by all brands of Late Antiquity religion. Comparable, overlaping, but distinct angle: “What is Hermeticism? vid written by Paul Davidson confirmed astral ascent mysticism pivots around heimarmene/fate at level sphere 8 Ogdoad.
    What is Hermeticism? (Paul Davidson) Can’t Place Fixed Stars

The Sledge/Brennan Videos Corroborate that Classical Antiquity Aimed for Heimarmene (2-Phase Model) but Late Antiquity Aimed Above Fate (3-Phase Model)

Justin Sledge of Esoterica Confirms All Brands of Religion in Late Antiquity Transcended No-Free-Will (Fatedness, Heimarmene, Eternalism)
https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/03/03/dr-justin-sledge-of-esoterica-confirmed-late-antiquity-brands-all-rejected-no-free-will-fatedness/

The video with Sledge & Brennan proves my 2004 hypothesis that all brands in Late Antiquity aimed above Fate, vs. all brands in Classical Antiquity aimed for heimarmene.

Justin Sledge corroborated my hypothesis of a switch to 3-phase model in Late Antiquity.

What’s the title of the version of the vide that’s on Brennan’s channel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1YnPGVLlAM – HAS DETAILED TIMESTAMPS!

Astrology and Ancient Philosophy (Brennan’s Version of the Video; The Astrology Podcast)

Astrology and Ancient Philosophy
ch: The Astrology Podcast; Chris Brennan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1YnPGVLlAM
2:19:29

The Astrology Podcast
234K subscribers
27,268 views
Aug 24, 2021
The History of Astrology

“A discussion about the relationship between astrology, philosophy, and religion in ancient times, focusing primarily on Greco-Roman world in classical antiquity, with Dr. Justin Sledge and Chris Brennan.

Our main focus is on discussing the ways in which astrology influenced some of the different philosophical and religious schools in the Greco-Roman world, from the Hellenistic era through the time of the Roman Empire and into the early Medieval period.

“We also discuss questions like what was the philosophy underlying the practice of astrology in antiquity?

“To what extent did ancient astrologers articulate a personal philosophy?

“What was the purpose of practicing astrology in the ancient world?

“During the course of the discussion we ended up touching on topics such as what is the mechanism underlying astrology (whether it works through signs or causes), issues surrounding fate, free-will, determinism, as well as the role of various schools such as Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and more.

“This was originally an interview for Justin’s Esoterica YouTube channel, where he interviewed Chris based on his book Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, but afterward we agreed to release the discussion as an episode of The Astrology Podcast simultaneously because it ended up being such a fantastic discussion that is very relevant to both of our audiences.”

Justin’s YouTube channel:    / @theesotericachannel  

This is episode 316 of The Astrology Podcast: https://theastrologypodcast.com/2021/…

Chris’ book Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune: https://www.amazon.com/Hellenistic-As…

TOC & Timestamps for Astrology Podcast Version of Sledge/Brennan Video

Timestamps

00:00:00 Intro

00:05:50 The Hellenistic World

00:07:50 Astrology and coping philosophies

00:08:50 Mundane astrology

00:09:18 First birth charts dating to 410 BCE

00:13:57 How a Hellenistic astrologer would define astrology

00:19:00 Fate in the Hellenistic world

00:21:33 Stoic philosophy and Hellenistic astrology

00:29:02 Internal and External Fate in Astrology 00:32:20 Impact of Plato’s Timaeus and Myth of Er on astrology

00:39:20 Names of gods applied to planets 00:47:21 Astrology of causes: Aristotle and Ptolemy 00:56:00 Stoic eternal recurrence model of the universe 00:58:16 Ptolemy and determinism

01:02:55 Backlash against determinism from Christianity 01:16:10 How Justin would teach Greek philosophy 01:18:10 How astrology was used to justify the birth of Jesus

01:20:00 The birth chart of Jesus controversy 01:21:30 Length of life technique

01:24:10 Astrological magic tradition

01:28:05 Increase in popularity of astrology

01:33:24 St. Augustine’s criticism of astrology

01:38:12 Different levels of astrology in society

01:39:38 Ronald Reagan’s astrologer

01:40:40 Levels of magic in society

01:43:30 Technical Hellenistic manuals translated into verse

01:44:55 Lost 1st century BCE source texts

01:47:33 Astrological texts in verse

01:53:34 Dorotheus verse example

01:55:10 Origins of horary astrology

02:02:15 Astrology straddling line between science and religion

02:05:03 Astrology a practical technology

02:06:40 Future discussion: philosophical challenges to astrology

02:07:29 21st century practice of astrology

02:08:11 Addressing ancient skeptical critiques of astrology

02:14:20 Closing Remarks

Hellenistic Philosophy of Astrology – Conversation w/ Chris Brennan on Fate in the Ancient World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR-paFQ76HY&t=3720s
Ch: ESOTERICA
829K subscribers
47,472 views Aug 23, 2021
“I was happy to be joined by TheAstrologyPodcast‬ ‘s Chris Brennan to discuss philosophical issues in Hellenistic philosophy especially the role of fate, free-will and the various theories of astrological causation in the ancient Hellenistic world. his podcast – https://theastrologypodcast.com
his book – https://www.amazon.com/Hellenistic-As…

Paul Davidson “What is Hermeticism?” Video Proves Creator Hanegraaff’s Cosmos Rebirth into Ogdoad Is a Misconception

🦁🐍🙈

What is Hermeticism? (Paul Davidson) Can’t Place Fixed Stars

The video written by Paul Davidson corroborates my explanation of why Wouter Hanegraaff can’t place the fixed stars in the Ogdoad: because Hanegraaff wrongly thinks fate is to be avoided, and that Ogdoad is freewill and doesn’t contain Fate.

Wouter Hanegraaff wrongly thinks that according to Hermetic texts, rebirth is from Fate into freewill; actually rebirth is from freewill into heimarmene/ eternalism/ no-free-will.

The “What is Hermeticism?” video written by Paul Davidson corroborated my diagnosis of Hanegraaff’s error misconceived cosmos sphere, the Ogdoad.

The video corroborated that against Wouter Hanegraaff, rebirth is into heimarmene, not into freewill. pollution = freewill, not “pollution = Fate”.

Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Under Pitiless Skies (Lewis 2013) – Gave Me Confirmation 2014

In 2014, I read the 2013 book by Nicola Denzy Lewis:

Cosmology & Fate: Under Pitiless Skies, Nicola Fenzy Lewis, 2013 —

https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/03/03/dr-justin-sledge-of-esoterica-confirmed-late-antiquity-brands-all-rejected-no-free-will-fatedness/#Cosmology-and-Fate

My useful great book review has a summary of my 3-phase model that’s corroborated by this book, showing how I got ideal confirmation of my model of astral ascent mysticism, pivoting around fixed stars heimarmene & then leading to precession sphere 9: transcending heimarmene/ Fate/ eternalism.

Lewis’ book corroborates the switch from Classical Antiquity’s heimarmene worship to now changed to disparaging heimarmene like one would disparage ignorance & non-enlightenment.

Like Gnostics inverted Old Testament God per April D. DeConick book The Gnostic New Age.

2014: Got confirmation from 2013 book Cosmology & Fate.

Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Under Pitiless Skies
Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 81
by Nicola Denzey Lewis (Author)
5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars    1 rating [sic, my Review, not a Rating; maybe back in 2014, doesn’t use latest UI]

Blurb:

“In Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Nicola Denzey Lewis dismisses Hans Jonas’ mischaracterization of second-century Gnosticism as a philosophically-oriented religious movement built on the perception of the cosmos as negative or enslaving.

“A focused study on the concept of astrological fate in “Gnostic” writings including

  • the Apocryphon of John,
  • the recently-discovered Gospel of Judas,
  • Trimorphic Protennoia, and
  • the Pistis Sophia,

“this book reexamines their language of “enslavement to fate (Gk: heimarmene)” from its origins in Greek Stoicism, its deployment by the apostle Paul, to its later use by a variety of second-century intellectuals (both Christian and non-Christian).

Denzey Lewis thus offers an informed and revisionist conceptual map of the ancient cosmos, its influence, and all those who claimed to be free of its potentially pernicious effects.”

My Amazon review of Cosmology & Fate – https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RO5N2HMBGSY1O/ [below]
Michael Hoffman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reviewed on November 12, 2014

Title of book review:
You are ignorant slaves of fate; we have been released from fate

I had my university library order this book in hardcover and electronic form.

—

People in Mediterranean antiquity including Jews, Pagans, Gnostics, and Christians, around the 1st Century, believed in fatedness.

Then around the 2nd Century, people adopted a rhetoric of transcending fatedness, while disparaging other people or the other groups as being ignorant and being slaves to fate.

This book supports the 3-tiered systematic analysis in my Egodeath theory, in which we move through three stages during initiation experiences:

1. Ignorant freewill thinking.

2. Enlightened realization of fatedness and personal noncontrol. This stage disparages stage 1 (ignorant freewill thinking).

3. Transcending fatedness to gain a transcendent freedom. This stage conflates and disparages stage 1 (ignorant freewill thinking) and stage 2 (realization of fatedness and personal noncontrol).

Lewis’ analysis is not as systematic, but supports this explanation of how stage 2 was first positively valued and then later was negatively valued.

—

Lewis shows that competition and rhetoric inflation led all the groups (Jews, pagans, Christians, gnostics) to praise themselves as having true freedom and disparage the other people as being both ignorant (per stage 1) and slaves of fate (as realized in stage 2).

People didn’t complain of themselves being enslaved by fate; they disparaged other people as being ignorant and enslaved by fate.

However, during initiation, as I have analyzed, the experience of fatedness and personal noncontrol give rise to panic and egodeath, which amounts to suffering enslavement by fate.

—

Lewis misses this point and understates the intensity of ancient experience of enslavement to fate; she argues that enslavement to fate was mere rhetoric, but in fact enslavement to fate was intense peak experiencing.

Lewis’ theory is literary scholarship unplugged from intense, lightning-bolt, ancient experiential transformation of consciousness.

Once this connection is made, from initiation experience to the encounter with fatedness, Lewis’ book can be corrected and recognized as relevant to explaining the heart of religious origins in antiquity.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Were the Gnostics Cosmic Pessimists?
Chapter 2: Nag Hammadi and the Providential Cosmos
Chapter 3: ‘This Body of Death’: Cosmic Malevolence and Enslavement to Sin in Pauline Exegesis
Chapter 4: ‘Heimarmene‘ at Nag Hammadi: ‘The Apocryphon of John’ and ‘On the Origin of the World’
Chapter 5: Middle Platonism, Heimarmene, and the Corpus Hermeticum
Chapter 6: Ways Out I: Interventions of the Savior God
Chapter 7: Ways Out II: Baptism and Cosmic Freedom: A New Genesis
Chapter 8: Astral Determinism in the Gospel of Judas
Chapter 9: Conclusions, and a New Way Forward – todo: read sample
Selected Bibliography
Subject Index

— Michael Hoffman, the Egodeath theorist
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Permalink

/ end of my book review

2022: Got https://www.amazon.com/dp/1498283101

Studies in Hellenistic Religions (Martin, 2018) – Gave Confirmation 2022

Studies in Hellenistic Religions
by Luther H Martin (Author), Panayotis Pachis (Editor)
2018
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1498283101

Blurb:

“This selection of essays by Luther Martin brings together studies from throughout his career–both early as well as more recent–in the various areas of Graeco-Roman religions, including mystery cults, Judaism, Christianity, and Gnosticism.

“It is hoped that these studies, which represent spatial, communal, and cognitive approaches to the study of ancient religions might be of interest to those concerned with the structures and dynamics of religions past in general, as well as to scholars who might, with more recent historical research, confirm, evaluate, extend, or refute the hypotheses offered here, for that is the way scholars work and by which scholarship proceeds.”

2001 Date for Start Forming 3-Phase Model

Is it possible to say that the 2000 lack of a 3-phase model was a flaw in the 1997 Core theory? Or just indication of being in a weak, beginning phase of developing the Mytheme theory?

I don’t know if it’s a good idea to break out the Core theory into 4 onion layers. One POV is:

Layer 1 & 2: The Core theory has inner core & outer core,
Layerr 3 & 4: The Mytheme theory has inner periphery (astral ascent mysticism) & outer periphery (ahistoricity).

– need to revisit now that I have astral ascent mysticism settled – astral ascent mysticism seems like halfway between direct Core theory vs. the Mytheme theory / analogy. astral ascent mysticism is a useful analogy system that maps closely to Psilocybin transformation stages, as if core model is:

  1. naive possibilism-thinking in osc.
  2. loose cognition session 1 – 1/8 retainment of vision of eternalism.
  3. loose cognition session 2 – 2/8 retainment of vision of eternalism.
  4. loose cognition session 3 – 3/8 retainment of vision of eternalism.
  5. loose cognition session 4 – 4/8 retainment of vision of eternalism.
  6. loose cognition session 5 – 5/8 retainment of vision of eternalism.
  7. loose cognition session 6 – 6/8 retainment of vision of eternalism.
  8. loose cognition session 7 – 7/8 retainment of vision of eternalism.
  9. loose cognition session 8 – 8/8 retainment of vision of eternalism. Mental model transformed to conformity with eternalism.
  10. loose cognition session 9: slightly transcend eternalism; qualified possibilism-thinking.
  11. loose cognition session 10: transcend eternalism; bored with vivid demonstration of vulnerability; it is understood.
Crop by Michael Hoffman
foolish youth: naive possibilism-thinking.
red youth: eternalism-thinking
sage: qualified possibilism-thinking.

The need – pointed out by Coraxo – for the Egodeath theory to add a 3-phase model, not only a 2-phase model, counts as “Mytheme Theory Forcing Changes of Core Theory”.

Similarly, make the case that my post 2007, my 2020-2023-2025 work on branching motif (and possibly handedness) forces a change maybe not to the “basic” the Egodeath theory , but, …. solution to move forward w/ analysis:
4-layer onion:

The inner core of “the Core Egodeath theory” – does ‘branching’ force changes here?

In 2001, I already posted about the Physics-silo’d concept of:
4D spacetime = non-branching;
quant manyworlds = branching.

I had no idea to look for branching & non-branching in myth or motifs in 2001.

The first year I thought of branching in the Myth silo/ field/ domain was 2010, during a 3-3/4 year hiatus, walking the mushroom nature preserve paths looking trees & fungi.

I remember the day I first had the bright idea, in that period.

Specifically using aspects of the forest preserve walks. asked, can’t we think of …

2010 in forest preserve walking the branching paths:

“I think the ancients knew Cog Sci & the two Physics models (4D vs. manyworlds branching).

“We are biased against this but they are smarter than us: this makes sense that they knew.”

Secondly: When Coraxo 2000 pointed out my failed 2-phase system can’t talk about Gnosticism aiming to transcend determinism, ….

Now look at 1997 summary: is there in the core, the concept of “transcend determinism”? I said maybe God is above determinism. quote:

“One hypothetical example of a control hierarchy is God, fate, the lower gods, the block universe, creatures, and finally puppets, fictional characters, virtual agents, and cybernetic devices.

“The same logic that implies that creatures are predetermined seems to implies that the hypothetical God would be predetermined as well, unless God were unfathomably different.”

That’s too feeble to count as a hook for the idea of “transcend eternalism”.

It would be the tiniest, barest hook in the world.

I could hardly have thought less about “transcend determinism”.

I drew an ink picture of “snake with head extending outside block” around 1991. So like Mithras born from rock cosmos, or pilgrim extending head past the sphere of the fixed stars (1800s woodcut).

Similarly I wrote in 1997:

“One can postulate a god — a creator and controller — at an even higher level in the control hierarchy, one would then hope that it’s a compassionate god pulling the puppet-strings of the world and its creatures.”

Verdict: My 1997 Core theory lacks concept of “transcend determinism” in any substantial way.

There is no deliberate hook for that idea.

outer core of “the Core Egodeath theory”
inner periphery of “the Core Egodeath theory”
outer periphery of “the Core Egodeath theory”

Proof: In 1997 core theory outline summary, there is probably no serious trace or even serious hooks to talk in terms of “transcend determinism”.

Self-Control Cybernetics, Dissociative Cognition, & Mystic Ego Death (1997 core theory spec)
https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/11/30/self-control-cybernetics-dissociative-cognition-mystic-ego-death/

In 2000 in the Gnosticism Yahoo Group, Coraxo pointed out the giant problem with my perfect, 2-phase, 1997 model of Psilocybin transformation:

I claimed that my basic, 2-phase model explains Gnosticism.

Coraxo pointed out to me that Gnosticism values transcending Fate/heimarmene, NOT reaching Fate/heimarmene.

I read the scholarly books about astral ascent mysticism in 2001-2004, to confirm that they ingest holy food & drink and then they experience heimarmene (& beyond); reaching the sphere of the fixed stars, and beyond the stars —

— the REAL, actual stars, not Wouter Hanegraaff ‘s BUNK heading in his book, “Beyond the Stars”.

“Beyond the Stars!” 🤥👖🔥🤞

How Many Stars Are There? 7 Planetary “Stars”; I Fooled You, Sucker 🤡

photo Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

Hanegraaff knows that the initiate desires to reach the Ogoad, as the teacher promises.

Late Antiquity emphasizes a negative valuation of heimarmene.

Hanegraaff wrongly assumes that the Ogdoad can’t possibly be Fate/ heimarmene, because there’s no way the initiate/ student would WANT to be brought from Saturn (sphere 7) through REBIRTH INTO FATE/ heimarmene.

That is why Hanegraaff balks and is stuck, and blocks placing the fixed stars within their obvious correct sphere 8, the Ogdoad.

Why Hanegraaff Can’t Place the Fixed Stars in Cosmos Sphere 8, Where they Plainly and Obviously Belong per Everyone ✋🌌–>8️⃣🚫

Why Hanegraaff Can’t Place the Fixed Stars in Sphere 8, Where they Plainly and Obviously Belong by Definition According to Everyone ✋🌌–>8️⃣🚫

Hanegraaff is under the key, root delusion that the Ogdoad (sphere 8) is above Fate, and is free from Fate.

the sphere-and-gateway of the fixed stars (cosmic heimarmene)

In fact, hermeticists when reborn go mainly to Fate (sphere 8), the sphere of the fixed stars, and they only partly – after that – go beyond that — only their spirit portion goes — afterwards into sphere 9 (precession of the equinoxes); qualified possibilism-thinking.

The completed, perfected initiate, fully transformed, is aware that [freewill control steering power steering in branching possibilities to create the future} is just virtual, appearance; our daily experiential mode.

Fake out the reader with Hanegraaff ‘s own total confusion.

He deceives you, saying:

“Where to Place the Fixed Stars Remains an Open Question for Me” (So I Silently Omitted Them from My Cosmos Model) 🤷‍♂️

Footnote 114, p. 294 Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

My post ~42 in June 2001 in Egodeath Yahoo Group proves that I immediately perceived the need to add a 3-phase model, in order to map the basic Egodeath theory to Late Antiquity brands of religion.

By 2001, I successfully mapped the basic 1988-1997 Egodeath theory to Classical Antiquity’s basic, simple, 2-level model that venerates heimarmene as the terminus of Psilocybin transformation.

Today I asked:

When did I first recognize that I must deliver a 3-phase model (Psilocybin transformation from naive possibilism-thinking to eternalism-thinking to qualified possibilism-thinking )…

as well as my 1988-1997 2-phase model: psychedelic loose cognition transformation from possibilism-thinking to eternalism-thinking.

Led Zeppelin IV (Davis, 2005)

Erik Davis’ 2005 book Led Zeppelin IV summarized my 1997 outline as if only a 2-phase model: transformation from possibilism to eternalism (4D spacetime “absolute determinism”, w/o domino-chain causality though).

Erik Davis’ p. 118 (about astral ascent mysticism) & p. 122 (about the Egodeath theory) might have crude, inchoate, minimal hooks for the Late Antiquity, 3rd-phase idea of “transcending eternalism”.

You must start by understanding the 1st-order, simple, basic model: transformation from possibilism to eternalism, before you can understand the 2nd-order, extended, 3-phase model: naive possibilism, to eternalism, to qualified possibilism.

Until today, I thought that in *2004* I began to realize the contrast:

  • Classical Antiquity = 2-phase model terminating in eternalism-thinking.
  • Late Antiquity 150 AD = 3-phase model terminating in qualified possibilism-thinking.

Today [~Sat Mar 15, 2025] I remembered that Coraxo in 2000 in the Gnostm Yahoo Group pointed out that my 2-phase 1997 model cannot account for Gnosticism’s veneration of transcending eternalism.

My 2001 posts prove that I immedediately then took action to construct the concept of transcend heimarmene.

My 1991 ink drawing of a worldline snake busting out of the 4D spacetime block shows that in 1991, I had the roots of the concept of transcending block-universe “determinism” (eternalism, because no use of domino-chain causality).

Sphere 9, the Ennead, David Ulansey’s solution explaining Mithraism: precession of the equinoxes is placed above the zodiac, which is the sphere-and-gateway of the fixed stars (Heimarmene).

Vid “What is Hermeticism?”, writer Paul Davidson:

What is Hermeticism? (Paul Davidson) Can’t Place Fixed Stars

Taurus bull facing Right is the perspective from vantage point outside above cosmic shell level sphere 8 heimarmene.

(Never mind the botched, reversed tauroctony cover of Entheos issue 3, by the evil M. Hoffman.

And Hoffman jamming the color palette forcing it from blue Psilocybin to red Amanita, thus hiding the Psilocybin mushroom in Mithras’ good (eternalism-relying), non-bent, R leg.)

The Amanita Primacy Fallacy falsely makes Psilocybin a mere footnote that’s subservient to glorifying Secret Amanita.

In fact, Amanita is a mere footnote in support of our true god & savior, Explicit Psilocybin.

book:

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022

A botched cosmos model that is incapable of placing the sphere-and-gateway of the fixed stars (Heimarmene), from the keynote speaker who brought you non-drug entheogens.

Next, I will read aloud every index entry for ‘Ogdoad’ in Hanegraaff’s book, proving that Hanegraaff wrongly thinks Ogdoad is desired because it is the sphere level of freewill.

In fact, the ancient hermetic student desires to reach the Ogdoad because sphere 8 — the sphere-and-gateway of the fixed stars (Heimarmene) — is: complete, retained grasp of no-free-will, no longer forgetting eternalism upon comedown return to baseline, tight cognitive state as happened frustratingly after Psilocybin session 1 (Moon) through 7 (Saturn).

1991 Michael Hoffman: precursor to my 2001 3-phase model of Psilocybin transformation

Periodization of Antiquity a Self-Contradictory Mess — Use: Classical Antiquity vs. Late Antiquity with the Break at 150 AD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_antiquity — 800 BC – 500 AD.

Wiki contradicts re: end of Hellenistic, it can end 30 BC Cleopatra death or in Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC.

Confirming a mess where to place the break betrween 2-level vs. 3-level models that have “transcend heimarmene” – or in Romanese, … we can leverage Greek / Roman lang contrast termy contrast:

  1. Classical Antiquity = Psilocybin transformation gives you heimarmene.
  2. Late Antiquity = Psilocybin transformation gives you transcend fate.
  1. Classical Antiquity = from possibilism to heimarmene.
  2. Late Antiquity = from possibilism to fate to transcend fate.

I have looped back around to: the term Late Antiquity is working pretty well. Now, need a period era term name for 500 BC to 150 AD. Central to that is “hellenistic”.

This is an example of how lexicons external to the Egodeath theory are useless, and the Egodeath theory has to define its own internal lexicon for everything. Nadir:

Trainwreck USELESS wiki!

  1. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_antiquity — [terrible, run-on sentence construction, making it even more chaos]
    “Late antiquity is sometimes defined as spanning from the end of classical antiquity to the local start of the Middle Ages, from around the late 3rd century up to the 7th or 8th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin depending on location.
    The popularisation of this periodization in English has generally been credited to historian Peter Brown, who proposed a period between 150 and 750 AD.
    The Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity defines it as “the period between approximately 250 and 750 AD.”
    VERDICT: 250 is later than i’m looking for, but this is good enough, not a big problem.
    Next, confirm what year is “the end of classical antiquity” – per start of above paragraph, certainly expect 150 AD or 250 AD, but instead, next we see “500 AD”, “476 AD”:
  2. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_antiquity – Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity,[1] is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD[note 1] comprising the interwoven civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome known together as the Greco-Roman world, centered on the Mediterranean Basin. It is the period during which ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished and had major influence throughout much of Europe, North Africa, and West Asia.[2][3]
  3. Conventionally, it is often considered to begin with the earliest recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th-century BC) and ends with the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Such a wide span of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods.  …
  4. & tip: The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with some influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art,[5] philosophy, society, and education in the Mediterranean and Near East until the Roman imperial period.
  • Go to wiki page “late antiquity”. says indirectly [AL alwasys incl ALWAYS includ NUMBERS, Never J just rely on MEANINGLESS ERA NAMES!! THEN YOUR PAGES WOULDN’T GIVE WILDLY CONTRADICTORY RANGES!]
  • But then go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Persian_Wars – 499 BC – 449 BC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece – … … aside: the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars [499 BC] to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC

It seems this research pass confirms one idea from couple days ago:

  • Classical Greece: 500 BC – 323 BC
  • Hellenistic era: 323 BC – 30 BC
  • ~~ GAP DAMN! 30 BC – 150 AD – probably “Roman Empire” era? per Reed: 27 BCE – 203 AD — Roman Empire – it’s a match, as good as it gets.
  • Late Antiquity: 150 AD-700 AD, or 250 AD – 700 AD

this sucks: why need 3 periods for prior to 150 AD?
Classical Greece, Hellenistic, Roman Empire
vs
Late Antiquity

alt: try:

  • Early Classical Antiquity
  • Late Classical Antiquity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Greece – Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) [500 BC – 300 BC] in ancient Greece,[1] marked by…

AI search:
What’s a good name for the period of antiquity before 150 CE, and a good name for the period of antiquity after 150 CE?
https://www.google.com/search?q=What%27s+a+good+name+for+the+period+of+antiquity+before+150+CE%2C+and+a+good+name+for+the+period+of+antiquity+after+150+CE%3F

Basic Chronology of the Ancient World
https://www.reed.edu/humanities/hum110/chronology-spring.html – the major sections seem useful:

  • 399 BC – 323 BC — Alexandrian Empire
  • 323 BCE -30 BCE — Hellenistic Era
  • 27 BCE – 203 AD — Roman Empire – then “ancient history” stops, implying maybe next would be:
  • 203 AD – 500 AD — Late Antiquity [implied]

The two eras that I want to name:

  • 500 BC – 150 AD
  • 150 AD – 500 AD

todo: check meaning of “archaic” — isn’t there 3?

  • archaic: heavens, world, underworld
  • greek classical 500 BC &
  • Hellenistic 323-146 BC to either Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC., or to 30 BC death of Cleopatra. [no mans land: 50 BC – 150 AD = ?? ~= “early Roman empire“. It’s not defined as part of “Hellenistic”, but not defined as part of “Late Antiquity” which starts 150 AD. —
  • 150 AD: 3-level: bellow fixed stars; fixed stars = heimarmene; precession = transcendent possibilism.

Periodization of Aiming for Heimarmene vs. Aiming Above Fate

email to Cyberdisciple Mar 16 2025
Site Map of Cyberdisciple.wordpress.com

su:
Periodization names? “Classical Antiquity” (“Early Antiquity”) vs. “Late Antiquity”, split at 150 CE (+/- a few centuries)

The Egodeath theory’s internal lexicon requires a (custom?) pair of terms for periodization eras.  Needs to be simple short concise pair of terms, not verbose.

Is “Classical Antiquity” (or “Early Antiquity“) & “Late Antiquity” the best pair of terms?  

The initial backlash / switchover year seems to slide between 30 CE & 250 CE (eg).

500 BCE – 150 CE = Classical Antiquity: They used a 2-phase model of mental model transformation: transformation from possibilism to eternalism.  The goal is to reach heimarmene.

From 

1) possibilism 

to 

2) heimarmene (Greek word).

150 AD – 700 CE = Late Antiquity: They used a 3-phase model of mental model transformation: transformation from possibilism to eternalism to qualified possibilism.  The goal is to transcend Fate.

From 

1) possibilism 

to 

2) Fate (capital-F Roman word) 

to 

3) transcending Fate (the spirit portion transcends Fate).

__________________________

Details:

Transcript of Justin Sledge & Chris Brennan:

https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/03/03/dr-justin-sledge-of-esoterica-confirmed-late-antiquity-brands-all-rejected-no-free-will-fatedness/#Transcript

Dr. Justin Sledge (ESOTERICA YouTube channel) studied at Amsterdam presumably w/ Hanegraaff.  

Sledge just like me in 2004, slips & slides crazily listing 4-5 centuries: 

“they switched in the first or 2nd or 3rd or 4th C CE”, [quotes from transcript below]

like wikipedia when he is trying to do exactly same as me: give the year when all brands of religion claimed to transcend Fate.  

My transcript page where he lists desperately shifting across centuries:

d/k if Chris Brennan astrology history book author is talking, or Dr. Sledge:

“Acceptance of heimarmene was very popular for a few centuries for a period of time, 

from the third and fourth or from the third century bce onwards in the hellenistic period during the heyday of stoicism all the way into the first and second centuries [CE?] 

and there was a broader societal acceptance of stoicism [fatenness] …

astrology which is based on such a deterministic premise one way or another to flourish as it did in the first century bce in [and] first century ce and second and third centuries [CE] before it started to decline”

Summary of “accept heimarmene” century numbers: (statistical number of times he names each C):

-4 and -3

-3 to +1 and +2

-1 +1 +2 +3

“Classical Antiquity”

Summary of centuries named [below], where “fate is the case, therefore we need to transcend fate“:

+1 +2 +3

+2 +3

(+1) +2 +3 +4

“Late Antiquity”

Tricky dynamics, beware: as emphasis on fate increases for a few centuries, backlash & counter-emphasis on “transcend Fate” might increase in retaliation.  

eg The increasing(? or increasingly felt pain-problem) power of Fate caused an opposing force: caused increasing call for transcending Fate.

ie we don’t just have one line ramping up & the other line ramping down; 

As assertion that fate is the case “flourishes”, ramping up, so does the felt need to transcend Fate ramp up, alongside!

Brennan continues:

the popularity of that [fatedness, heimarmene] led to a backlash  [WHAT YEAR?  what era name?]

re: the 1st period they say: “how dominant astrology [he means: now the backlash: they affirm the heimarmene is the case but they backlash] was and stoicism [fatedness, heimarmene, eternalism] was from a philosophical standpoint in the first and second century ce” … 

Brennan con’t: 

one of the main appeals of christianity in the first few centuries was that it gave you a way out and suddenly there was this new group that was saying that you could become free of fate

Sledge says:

by the second and third centuries [CE] with the rise of hermeticism christianity gnosticism there’s a cultural backlash against [acceptance of heimarmene – though they still believe it’s the case, and a problem to work around] this idea and everyone’s trying to escape fate [which they still believe is the case, as a severe problem and harsh reality to solve/ work around via power of myth narrative re-framing].  

Probably Brennan:

when you start to get after the first century [CE] and like the second and third and fourth century christian tracts that are attacks on astrology are attacks on the concept of fate [but they say rival religions fail to make you transcend fate; ie, they believe fate is the case] and their attacks on the concept of* fate are attacks on astrology because they were seen as so intertwined

I disagree w/ his framing, “attacks on the CONCEPT OF fate”.  He should have written just “attacks on fate”.  

Everyone continued to believe Fate is the case, that Fate is reality, and not merely a mistaken concept.  

Fate is so real, we need saviors to lift us from that problem, that real problem, not just to deny the concept of fate.

Christianity & competing brands did NOT simply say “Fate is a false concept and Fate is not the case.”

Instead of Finding the word “century” in the transcript, you could find names of brands of religion, like what year did Neoplatonism start, that’s the cutover year; or “hermeticism” / “hermetism” – that’s the backlash start-year. 

Or a Jewish brand which Justin Sledge talks about, is the 2nd era’s start-year. 

Era names might be in a book I have here: 2022 book by Luther Martin. 

I think I see Martin literally focusing on contrasting Classical Antiquity and Late Antiquity (not sure of his era periodization labels, and the cutover year).

The book Cosmology and Fate by Nicola Denzy Lewis 2013 might give era names + switchover year when ppl turned against grandpa’s heimarmene-worship yet continued to believe that Fate / heimarmene is the case, and is an unsolvable boundary/problem.

I only got about 30% success trying to use the standard but messy and contradictory periodization era names at wikipedia, to define a contrasting pair of era labels.

/ end of email body

Cyberdisciple Recommends Era Labels “Classical Antiquity” & “Late Antiquity”

Site Map of Cyberdisciple.wordpress.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_antiquity — “between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD” – Cyberdisciple sounds right to me; wiki doesn’t.

Cyberdisciple wrote March 17, 2025:

The terms “Early” and “Late” provide a clear contrast.

—

However, no one is going to see “Early Antiquity” and get that you mean 500 BC – 150 AD.

They are going to think something like 3000 BC in Mesopotamia or Greece before 800 BC or something like that.

For packaging the theory, “Early Antiquity” is going to be confusing.

—

You will lose the great clarity provided by the pair “Early” and “Late,” but the most common term for the period that you specify, 500 BC – 150 AD, is going to be “Classical Antiquity”.

Really, “Classical Antiquity” most generally refers to 800 BC – 150 AD.

If you say “Classical Antiquity,” everyone is going to know what you mean.

—

“Late Antiquity” for 150 AD – 700 AD is fine for packaging.

Everyone knows “Late Antiquity” refers to something like 150 AD – 700 AD.

—

Blame the historians for their poor naming of periods.

What does “Classical” mean anyway?

It’s a social term, but at least everyone knows what you mean when you say “Classical Antiquity.”

—

Some historians tried to use “Post-Classical Antiquity” instead of “Late Antiquity,” but “Post-Classical” is clunkier than the simple “Late,” so “Late” won out.

—

“Classical” and “Late” are not really contrasts, but in effect, given the conventions of period naming, they are contrasts.

—

If you use “Early Antiquity” to refer to 500 BC – 150 AD, people are going to be confused.

They will be distracted.

—

Defining history periods is messy work.

—

I wrote above that people are going to understand “Classical Antiquity” as meaning 800 BC – 150 AD.

But historians commonly go into further detail, based on the area under discussion.

—

Ancient Greece:

Archaic Era – 7th and 6th centuries BC

Classical Era – 5th cent BC, but also somewhat 4th cent BC

Hellenistic Era – later 4th cent BC to later 1st cent BC

After Hellenistic Era, Ancient Greek periods are merged with Roman periods due to Roman conquest.

—

In Ancient Rome, you commonly find Early, Middle, and Late Republic periods, ending with circa 31 BC, when Augustus becomes sole ruler of Rome (ending of Roman civil wars) and the Roman Empire decisively controls all of the Mediterranean (meaning the end of the Greek kings who ruled Alexander the Great’s empire).

Then there are various periods of the Roman empire….

—

All this periodization is generally based on whatever the dominant political situation is at the time.

—

The switch over to transcending fate generally fits with the Roman Empire’s political dominance over the Mediterranean.

After a few generations of Roman Empire rule (general peace and stability), transcending fatedness becomes popular.

/ end of Cyberdisciple’s email

Greek vs. Roman; Reach Heimarmene vs. Transcend Fate

I’m roughly thinking the connotation groupings & contrast:

Greek = Classical Antiquity = heimarmene = target being brought into conformity with 4D block eternalism.

Roman = Late Antiquity = Fatum = target transcending fate.

re: Roman: But tricky, I think rebirth was still mostly thought of as rebirth into fate, being reshaped into conformity with Fate to have stable peace of control (control stability in the Psilocybin loose cognition state) — not, like Hanegraaff thinks, rebirth directly into above-fate.

Hanegraaff shows that despite any hermetic Marketing selling rebirth into above-fate, still, there remained strong emphasis on reaching Ogdoad, where body (& mere soul?) can’t go any higher; only spirit goes above fate.  

Hanegraaff doesn’t get the satisfying story that he’s looking for:

“Our brand gives you rebirth into above-fate.”

My split ends marketing argument, pretty good analogy to emphasize and prove that despite marketing “above fate”, at the same time they still had to emphasize that fate is the case, in Late Antiquity, in context of competitive mythmaking/marketing.

If they said fate isn’t the case, they’d have no “superior product” to sell – in that portion of the trajectory of culture. 

After that era, there’s different dynamics, a different landscape.

Motivation of this Page

Breaking it out from recent page that covers 4 topics. To have four topical, shorter articles.

The “Wasson’s Conclusion” article is where four subsequent pages were spawned from: in that TOC, I identified topical categories/headings as:
[2G]
[secret]
[hug]
[fixed stars]

See Also

Site Map section:
https://egodeaththeory.org/nav/#Hanegraaff

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Author: egodeaththeory

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