The Gospel of Mary was interesting to me in its discussion of the soul. While its origin as a hidden manuscript for hundreds of years is fascinating, and its possible exclusion to it being centered around an authoritative female voice is highly notable, what personally interested me most was how it discussed the soul in reference to the three barriers/powers to the souls ascension. Desire says to the soul in section 9 “I did not see you go down yet now I see you go up”, the soul replies “you mistook the garment I wore for my true self and you did not recognize me”. Desire did not see the soul descend because it was disguised, it almost feels as if this is discussing the human propensity to ignore the soul and mispercieve our real intentions or what would fulfill us based upon our material wants. Now as the soul ascends desire had not even noticed that it had sunken to a place in need of ascension. You could also interpet this as desire being unconcerned with the ascension of the soul from Earth assuming that is what ascension implies. The second power ignorance judges the soul and assumes it is bound by ignorance. It could be saying that we ourselves are ignorant to our souls divine nature and through ignorance hold ourselves to the material world by ignoring divine purpose. The soul replies something massively interesting “I have been bound but I have bot bound anything, they did not recognize me but I have recognize that the universe is to be dissolved, both the things of earth and those of heaven”. The statement felt almost nihilistic? It feels like it is saying that true divine knowledge held by the soul is that the material and divine world amount to nothing ineveitably and that clinging to ideas or being “bound” to things is futile. The fourth power in seven forms is also very strange. the soul replies to its taunting name calling of human-killer and space conqueror it is essentially awash in a chain of forgetfulness and is now being released to silence. I feel this could be interpreted that without desire, ignorance, and other assorted fundamental components of human life such as the “realm of flesh” we experience true divinity in nothingness and should pursue that for ourselves spiritually. The concept almost feels deeply Buddhist but I would hesitate given my understanding of Buddhism to make that claim directly.