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(The following post is dedicated to explain a plot device in the stories of Noah, Claire and Xaphriel. It will center around the primary antagonist associated to their lives.)
The town of Pleroma is under the government of the political group EDEN. Though this is known, more than a few faces are confused about the figure that calls the shots. An educated guess would be the one fellow aeon hosts call Prometheus—the mentor of the aeon hosts—but this is only true in part. Pleroma also holds a council of leaders, but even they don’t have the last word over city affairs. The one that dictates the orders and laws as decrees by which everyone must abide is called Adam, of the Kadmon lineage. He, too, is an aeon host.
Proceeding from a long history of spiritually aware individuals, Adam is a pious man—despite the great irony of living in a godless world. The Kadmon are of the mind that their religious inclination is not of present, but future worship. They believe that the world is nothing but dread and suffering, and that life must be a project of escaping this. Their duty is one: to create a God. Knowing the story of how the world came to be, they surmise all will be well if we embark on a collective regression to the One state, where a God still existed in form and not stratified. In a way, they operate under the notion that God made the mistake of dividing himself amongst creation (which they refer to as “The Great Error”), and that the suffering imposed on all is a form of punishment from the world; much like how we may trip and harm ourselves with the pavement, our pain not having a personhood that enacted it yet still being very much present. Adam, however, distances himself from the kadmonian doctrine in some respects.
The first of which being that Adam believes there’s no need to embark on a collective regression towards the One. This is because if the theory of aeons holds true, God’s ‘person’ would arise from their union; whereas the thought of some fusion involving everything is beyond farfetched. Adam’s personal take is this: to create a God, we must merge all of the aeons. In order to do this, Adam thinks that killing the hosts would release the aeons from their ‘prison’—with alchemy, they could be channeled into an eidetic positing that obliges their union. As some could probably tell, there is more to this than a mere religious belief of what seems better for the world.
What characterizes all aeon hosts is a palpable struggle with their humanity: they are perhaps too human, which is considered the greatest fail-safe to the power they hold. Claire fears being alone, so she acts somewhat outgoing; Noah fears critique or rejection, so he keeps to himself and in turn experiences the same fear as Claire and vice versa. We see these fears transform over time as these hosts mature: from fear to apathy or depression. Adam’s case is ironic when taken in contrast to his religion: Adam fears death. Raised under circumstances that had his education interrupted by learning of earthly pleasures, Adam realizes that the finality of his religion requires an end to any idea of individuality. In that sense, he’s always been just shy of reaching phases that would recognize him as a leader of his doctrine—much to the critique of other sectarian elders.
In order to understand Adam’s take on kadmonian regression, we must first discuss his aeon: Bythos. In the diagram of aeonic pairings, Bythos and Sige/Ennoia are the pairings that exist before the Nous and Alethea. Bythos (meaning Depth, Profundity or One) consists of that space or topography upon which things are placed; an idea in some mind or world, an insect in some jungle, an atom in some molecule, so on. In that respect, we’re speaking about the condition or location that allows x or y thing to act, move and change (though it’s debatable to argue about the particle or the spatial condition as a foundation for the other). Such a space considers not only the thing that presents itself, but also all possible ways in which a thing can be. The term insisted upon here is potential: the Bythos considers every potential change within a space, embodies it and is thus heralded as the aeon upon which all others are traced.
Suppose how a rock was once part of a mountain, or how small amounts of water were once part of a bigger body. In this sense, they are now the possible result of many from those larger forms; through the Bythos, Adam can bring forth those forms as possible forms—as potential forms. It’s been said that the Bythos works as a library of potentialities for any object, be them immaterial, otherworldly, abstract or plain. This makes the Bythos a twofold capability: an evoker of potential states and an explorer of a thing’s depths. The Kadmon line has been a particular holder of this Aeon, with its capabilities being fundamental in their religion; the exception began with Adam as the sole heir that did not distance himself from earthly desires, and as such, is persecuted by his fear.
Adam is on the later stages of his life. He rarely leaves Pleroma’s capitol—and even within the premises, Adam keeps himself away from other offices. He spends his time painting, going to theatres and listening to music, occasionally inviting Claire to play piano for the council. Not only is he the current host of the Bythos, but he’s also part of a more spiritual school of alchemy that communicates with the Eidos—the consciousness interconnected between various lives, primarily those of the aeon hosts. From olden times till today, this has been used to communicate with the souls of hosts before them as well as those of parallel lives, which Adam practices profusely. This generates an image of Adam as an old, harmless politician with a ‘thing’ for spirituality; but beware that it’s because his life is about to end that he’s at his most dangerous. Were he a traditional kadmonian, he’d simply accept that his life is part of a bigger cause and live the remainder of his days in peace. Adam, however, desires to bypass death. In order to do this, the plan to bring all aeons together to create a God also involves having Adam’s personhood take over this process.
Using the Bythos as the root of all aeons and subtle manipulation of the Eidos, Adam has succeeded in taking over the lives or bodies of others in the past—including Noah’s (Note the second line in the second paragraph of my first post: "Noah, for example, is simply a namesake, a persona: his true name is Adam.” In this same thread, you can note Adam’s plot in the last post). In other instances, he’s controlled people that influence aeon hosts—such as Noah's tutor. The bright yellow eyes have become trademark as a sign of Adam’s manipulation. Perhaps the only one that Adam hasn’t been capable of controlling is Xaphriel, the mentor of aeon hosts.
Xaphriel and Adam’s relationship is bizarre. Initially, once his clan confirms Adam as the successor and host of the Bythos, he passes on to Xaphriel’s care in order to learn how to properly control his aeon. This process, however, involved having Adam learn about lives outside of kadmonian culture—yearning for them; the type of yearning that breeds suffering and lack of satisfaction when achieving what one wants. Likewise, this comes with negative emotions that took a toll on decisions Adam made: discontinuing some rituals in kadmonian tradition, leaving his clan, indulging himself in pleasantries such as liquor. All of these little factors contributed in the formation of a more individual personality that took distance from the teachings of his lineage. Though none of this was Xaphriel’s intention, it wasn’t something he readily opposed.
The mentorship of Prometheus resulted in terrific mastery over alchemy for Adam, which was also applied to the teaching system of Pleroma. In tandem with his aeon, this also meant Adam grew in his studies further than what Xaphriel anticipated—to a point that he was unsure whether he could keep check on him anymore. It was then that Adam’s agenda was revealed to him, and though it was an evident danger, Xaphriel chose to stay close to Adam’s side in order to stop it when the time came. Since every confrontation ended in a stalemate between them, both men coexist with the other: Adam leads Pleroma, Xaphriel instructs young aeon hosts. Adam continues plotting, while Xaphriel trains the aeon hosts to stop him without revealing Adam’s plan. Mainly, he doesn’t want them to devote their lives to a cause that drove other aeon hosts (such as Eve or Lilith) into problematic responses that bring in innocent lives; the primary example being BABEL.
Xaphriel’s secrecy of Adam’s plan has gathered distrust between him and other hosts like Noah, though this is mostly due to being sent away from their world. Xaphriel has tasked Noah with the mission to grow his power for a fight that has no name; he believes that Noah’s ability to alter the direction of various phenomenon around them to be key against Adam, yet Noah doesn’t know this. It remains to be seen if Noah will follow through in Prometheus’ cause or simply push himself away from the battle that will decide the fate of his world.
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