Sin Bin

 

“According to a Gnostic legend, a war broke out in heaven among the angels, in which Michael’s legions defeated those of the Dragon. The nonpartisan angels who had been content to look on were consigned to earth, in order to make there a choice they had not been able to determine on high, one all the more arduous in that they brought with them no memory of the combat or, indeed, of their equivocal attitude.

“Thus history’s commencement can be traced to a qualm, and man resulted from an original...vacillation, from that incapacity, before his banishment, to take sides. Cast to earth in order to learn how to choose, he was condemned to action, to risk, and was apt for it only insofar as he stifled the spectator in himself. Heaven alone permits neutrality to a certain point, while history, quite the contrary, appears to be the punishment of those who, before their incarnation, had found no reason to join one camp rather than another.” 

 

>>> E. M. Cioran, Drawn and Quartered

 

That reality exists as a kind of sin bin for fence-sitters is a deliciously silly idea, yet also somehow makes so much sense.

 

It's actually an improvement on the 'solution' proposed by Mani, whose Christianity, like that of St Augustine, emanated out of Zoroastrianism. 

 

I will simplify rather ruthlessly. In the beginning there was Light and Darkness. They had both always been there. Then Darkness acquired an urge to spread, seeping into and polluting the perfect.

So a buffer zone was set up, two walls on either side, rather like we now see either side of Gaza. The beings born into this no man's land (actually 'man's land') have a spark of the Light in them which has to be distilled and restored to the good side of the wall so that it may be absolute once more. 

 

Upon completion of this historical process, the formal separation between the Light and the Dark will have been restored, and 'evil' put back in its box forever. 

 

The reason for the original leak is never fully explained. 

 

What is rather striking about this cosmogeny is that human existence is not conceived of as a primary end in itself, but rather a means to an end. 

 

A kind of cleaning package.