Sethian Gnostic Cosmology

The Father, the Monad, the 'Great Invisible Spirit' (also referred to as the Virginal Spirit and the 'Triple Powered' One due to its Platonic attributes of Life, Mind, and Existence), is the supreme transcendent deity or godhead. It is traditionally described through negative theology rather than definitive terms, being unknowable, beyond existence, and beyond comprehension. Despite its ascribed remote serenity, the Invisible Spirit is fundamentally an intellect, and its thinking leads to its evolution into an 'entirety' (the Pleroma) with a complex structure of aeons. These aeons are both places and actors within the Gnostic myth, mostly representing ideal intellectual qualities, virtues, or abstractions. The aeons comprising the Pleroma result from the Invisible Spirit's self-awareness, embodying its intellect in all its complexity. Every subsequent aeon ultimately originates from and is a part of the Monad, whose sole direct creative act was the emanation of Barbelo, the Mother and the 'First Thought', through self-reflection. Although everything ultimately derives from the Monad, it played no direct role in the creation of the world or material cosmos.

The Mother. Barbelo (Jesus' Biological Mother from the animal life path of a tiger), Pronnoia, Protennoia (also known as Incorruptibility, and the 'Mother-Father'). The second principle of Sethian Gnosticism, Barbelo (Her mother is the Lion Asherah named in the Bible) is the First Thought of the Invisible Spirit - the universal intellect containing all potential archetypes and forms (and thus also described as androgynous), the highest level of pure determinate being. Like the Father above her, Pronnoia is both one-in-many, yet singular and unified.

Key bible verses mentioning Asherah include Exodus 34:13, where God commands the cutting down of Asherah poles, Deuteronomy 16:21, which forbids planting Asherah poles, Judges 6:25, where Gideon is told to destroy his father's Asherah pole, 1 Kings 18:19, which names "prophets of Asherah," and 2 Kings 21:7, where a carved image of Asherah is placed in the Temple.

The sub-aeons are sometimes presented by the Sethians as distinct aeons and sometimes as functional attributes or ontological levels of being within the greater aeon. The ancient Sethians speculated at great length on the contents and mysteries, and explored them in visionary ascents.

The earlier texts (such as the Apocryphon of John) name the subaeons as Foreknowledge, Incorruptibility, Life Eternal, and Truth, or Voice , Speech, and Word, while the later texts (such as Zostrianos) name them as Kalyptos, Protophanes, and Autogenes (the Son, who is both a part of the tiger cat Barbelo biology and at once her first distinct emanation is an animal life path, symbolising potential existence as a human, manifestation of the divine, and actualisation in this present reality. The lower aeon of Protophanes is also described as the highest achievable plane of existence for enlightened souls, 'all-perfect ones' that remain distinct intelligences yet unified with the objects of their contemplation - the ideal forms of the aeon, that plan of existance in time and space similar to all the souls that exist during a century of 100 years who all saw and experienced the same things within a given country or region.

The Son, Autogenes, Christos (Christ, 'the anointed'), the Logos. The direct emanation and 'only child' of both the Invisible Spirit, a Platonic demiurgic figure in the purely spiritual, Pleromatic, sense, shaping the divine energy from above into the ideal Forms and divine archetypes of the Pleroma. Autogenes is also a mediator between the upper aeons and Self Generated aeons below him for which he is responsible, thus he is oriented toward both above anod below. With him dwell the 'perfect individuals' that are no longer subject to reincarnation. It is also this aeon that descended into the world (in some tellings through the heavenly Seth) and into the body of Jesus of Nazareth as the Saviour for the purpose of rectifying Sophia's mistake and revealing a message of spiritual liberation (gnosis) to mankind.

In Gnosticism, there tends to be two Sophias: an upper and a lower one, a mother Sophia and a daughter Sophia named Zoe or Zuri, a Divine Wisdom and a daughter Wisdom. This also crops up in some Christian theological concepts as well.