In Mary’s vision, the soul ascends through seven powers (sometimes called authorities or passions). Each tries to bind consciousness to material identity.
They are usually rendered (depending on translation) as:
- Darkness
- Desire
- Ignorance
- Excitement of Death
- Kingdom of the Flesh
- Foolish Wisdom of Flesh
- Wrathful Wisdom
These are not external demons.
They are states of attachment.
Think of them as layers of ego-conditioning.
Each represents something that keeps the soul identified with fear, body, status, emotion, or false knowing.
The soul answers each one and passes through.
This is an initiation map, not an exorcism story.
🧠 What this actually means (psychologically + mystically)
In Gnostic language:
- Darkness = unconsciousness
- Desire = craving / addiction to form
- Ignorance = forgetting your origin
- Death-excitement = attachment to suffering identity
- Kingdom of Flesh = bodily domination
- Foolish Wisdom = intellectual ego
- Wrathful Wisdom = spiritual pride
Together they describe the full arc of ego construction.
Mary is portrayed as having already passed through these states.
That’s why she can teach the disciples.
She isn’t “formerly demonized.”
She’s initiated.