Let's consider a passage from The First Apocalypse of James (NHC V, 3), a revelation dialogue in which an unnamed teacher (the "Lord" or "Master") confers secret knowledge upon a Gnostic named James:
The Master said: James, behold, I shall reveal to you the path of your redemption. Whenever you are siezed and you undergo death-pangs (mortal fear), a multitude of Archons may turn on you, thinking they can capture you. And in particular, three of them will sieze you, those who pose as toll collectors. Not only do they demand toll, but they take away souls by theft. Now, when you come under their power, one of them who is the overseer will say to you: "Who are you, and where are you from?" You are then to say to him, "I am a child of humanity and I am from the Source." He will then say to you, "What sort of child are you, and to what Source do you belong?" You are to say to him, "I am from the pre-existent Source, and I am the offspring of the Source." Then he will say to you, "Why were you sent out from the Source?" Then you are to say to him, "I came from the Pre-existent One so that I might behold those of my kind and those who are alien." And he will say to you, "What are these alien beings?"
You are to say to him: "They are not entirely alien, for they are from the Fallen Sophia (Achamoth), the female divinity who produced them when she brought the human race down from the Source, the realm of the Pre-Existent One. So they are not entirely alien, but they are our kin. They are indeed so because she who is their matrix, Sophia Achamoth, is from the Source. At the same time they are alien because Sophia did not combine with her like in the Source (her divine male counterpart), when she produced them."
When he also says to you, "Where will you go now?" You are to say to him, "To the place when I came, the Source, there shall I return." And if you respond in this manner, you will escape their attacks.
Gnosis is a remembering of our origins. The student is instructed to remember the cosmic birthright of humankind, and to affirm its direct link to the Pleroma, the Source. Specifically, the student is taught to recall and repeat the key episode in Gnostic mythology, the fall of the Aeon Sophia, and thus effectuate a defence against the Archons. By recounting the myth of their origins, the student demonstrates initiated knowledge of the origin and identity of the entities s/he is facing.
Intentional recall of cosmic matters disempowers the Archons. This, at least, is a clear inference from the above passage. The tactic of remembrance accords closely with indigenous wisdom — consider, for instance, the saying of the Na-Khi, a Tibetan people of southeastern China: "One must relate the origin of the medicine, otherwise it cannot work its magic." Shamans heal, not only by their knowledge of the properties of plants, but also by their recounting the story of the plant. Likewise, Gnostics defeated the Archons with the "medicine" (occult power) of mythological recall. ... read more ...
