1. Introduction: The Birth of a Giant

Neon Genesis Evangelion. The apocalyptic giant robot (mecha) fiction that has nothing to do with giant robots; the social phenomenon¹The popularity of the show spawned numerous additional media, including video games, radio dramas, audio-books, novels and pachinko machines, among others., center of praise, awards and controversy; source of varied interpretations about its meaning or lack thereof and, without a doubt, one of science fiction´s franchises with the greatest symbolic, metaphysical and religious content in any medium; equally capable of combining the most thoughtful esoteric and psychoanalytic concepts with an abundant amount of fan service (a true union of opposites) that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

In this article, we will analyze the deeper aspects of the franchise, focusing on the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy of films, a remake/sequel of the original series by Hideaki Anno conceived as a (partially) more accessible version than previous works in the franchise.²“Evangelion: New Cinema Edition”. Newtype (October 2006): “It will be a work that can be enjoyed even if you have not seen the TV series. I want old hard-core fans and even fans who just know Eva from pachinko to view it as a single (i.e. stand-alone) movie. We welcome first-time viewers, so the contents will be simpler, but we don’t intend to make something on a level that can be understood just by spacing out and watching it.”

Among them, we will pay specific attention to its fourth and final film, Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, in which the plot of the whole Rebuild project is explained in a relatively clear way.

As it could not be otherwise, we will concentrate on the often misunderstood metaphysical aspects that define the whole franchise, characterized by the painful mutual necessity and the eternal dialectical conflict between the One (undifferentiated Unity) and the Many (“the Other“).

2. The Initial Setting

The story of Evangelion takes place after the Second Impact, an apocalyptic event in Antarctica that greatly depleted the world’s population and threw the Earth off its axis.

After fifteen years, mysterious and impossibly powerful creatures known as angels become an existential threat to the survivors, who confront them using giant biomechanical creatures known as Evangelions (Eva’s). 

These creatures, controlled by the paramilitary organization NERV, in turn subordinated to the United Nations, must be piloted by a select group of children with a special psychological affinity with them.

2.1. The Underlying Mythos

In Evangelion´s creation story, spread across a multitude of media³Especially in video games such as Neon Genesis Evangelion 2. and alluded to but rarely explicitly mentioned in the main series, no absolute theistic god is mentioned anywhere.

a. The First Ancestral Race and the Seeds of Life

Instead, the story revolves around the First Ancestral Race, the first intelligent beings to emerge from the depths of the Universe. Facing extinction, its members took measures to ensure the preservation of their legacy by sending seven Seeds of Life⁴Analogous to the seven classical planets of Astrology, the alchemical metals and the Gnostic Archons, these worldviews being a clear source of inspiration for this franchise, as we will later see., progenitor life forms sent to specific planets across the galaxy.

Each Seed, in turn, was the vessel of the essence (genetic material?) of the First Race, sent inside a carrier “Moon” or “Egg”.⁵Both humans and angels are conceived as being either derived from the genetic material of the First Ancestral Race themselves or instead being direct re-incarnations of their souls, if we understand the Moons in which they came as a type of Ark containing their spiritual essence. This Moon, in addition, also contained a Spear of Longinus (capable of incapacitating its parent Seed in case of need) and a fictional copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls (containing prophecies and explaining all the above).

The important function assigned to the spear of Longinus was to be activated in the event that the “anti-deification” rule (see below) that prevented more than one Seed of Life from landing on any given planet was violated.

b. Disincarnated Souls and the Terror of the Other

Each carrier Moon, in turn, contained within the Chambers of Guf (the Kabbalistic Treasury of Souls), where pre-existent souls resided, whose mission was to incarnate and spread life in their new host planet.

Those souls, as seen throughout the series, are also able to return to their pre-formal state of undifferentiation and absolute unity. This can be achieved either through death (implied) or through a forced process of de-creation (or re-unification) that eliminates the AT Field (Absolute Terror Field) that gives each one their particular form and individuality. The concept of the AT Field, in turn, implying that our common ego is a limit that creates the fear of “the Other” in us.⁶This limit being, as is later explained, a self-imposed one.

c. The Complementary Seeds and the Impacts

The seeds propagated by this primordial race were of two types:

• Those pertaining to the Fruit of Life (Adam, White Moon): with entities born from it possessing unlimited energy and immense physical strength, such as Adam and his progeny, the angels. 

• Those pertaining to the Fruit of Knowledge (Lilith, Black Moon): which granted all life forms derived from it the power of reason and knowledge necessary to lord over the physical world. 

Due to an unforeseen catastrophic event, the Black Moon of Lilith crash-landed on Earth, already containing Adam, the legitimate source of life for our planet. In the crash, Lilith´s spear was destroyed, while Adam´s one, in order to avoid both Seeds creating life at the same time, incapacitated him. The result was that mankind, the Lilin, was born from Lilith instead. This was the First Impact, which happened during prehistoric times kickstarting life and evolution in our planet.

The second Impact that serves as the initial background of the series happens in the year 2000, after mankind makes contact with the dormant Adam, awakening him and his angels, who instinctively try to reach Lilith, their opposite and complementary.

d. The Possibility of Self-Deification Through the Unification of the Seeds

In Evangelion´s universe, anyone capable of uniting both the Fruit of Life and the Fruit of Knowledge in oneself would be able to self-deify and attain a godlike status, implied to be equal to that of the First Race of “gods”.

Because of that, mankind´s progenitors, to prevent any creature from becoming like them, intended for no more than one Seed of Life to exist on any particular planet.

Thanks to Lilith (crucified in the underground base of the world´s elites) and the power of reason granted by her,⁷Analogous to the power of reason brought by the alien Black Monolith in 2001: a Space Odyssey. Kubrick´s movie and Evangelion focus on the same core esoteric concepts, such as: the transcendence of human nature (the Star Child in 2001), the emancipation from false “deities” (AI in 2001), and abundant alchemical imagery (e.g., planetary syzygy). as well as the inexplicable accident that brought two complementary Seeds to earth, humanity is capable of emancipating itself from its creators and achieve spiritual maturity.

Mankind´s story, then, is about how to steal the fire from the gods who created us but who at the same time limit our evolution towards godhood (see the myth of Prometheus).

e. Lilith´s Blood and the Dialectical Battle to Achieve Godhood

Lilith´s blood, named LCL, is the primordial “soup” from where life on Earth evolved (Darwinian evolution), with the Lilin being the first species to be able to completely actualize her gift, the power of reason.

Returning to her blood (the pre-formal waters of Chaos) is also mankind´s destiny once they die or are forcefully re-absorbed into the One, where particular egos cannot exist. The imagery used is predominantly sexual (e.g., Lilith´s egg, souls as individual spermatozoa).

The LCL, in addition, acts as a mediator allowing the Eva pilot´s nervous system to directly interface with the one of the Eva. These giant creatures, derived from the body of Adam but controlled by a reason-imbued son of Lilith (human being), are one of many symbols representing the Unity of Opposites throughout this franchise, as we will later see.

The greater the degree of synchronization between an Eva and its pilot’s mind, achieved through the death of the pilot’s ego (via emotional trauma [destrudo]), the greater the power an Eva can tap into, becoming able even to surpass the limits of human nature and to reach a state of deification.

In Evangelion’s Darwinian spiritual worldview, however, the birth of a transcendent being implies that all other life forms become superfluous and thus die, having become failed possibilities of the infinity that contains them all. Either you become god, or you become a failure.

3. Plot

In the fourth and final movie of the Rebuild films, the faction representing mankind´s interests (the position of the Many; Misato Katsuragi and Ritsuko Akagi) confronts Gendo Ikari, the father of the protagonist and the representative of the “Return to the One” position embraced by the elites, who want to re-unite all existence (both gods and humanity) through the Human Instrumentality Project.⁸Gendo, however, wants to implement the Instrumentality in his own way, disobeying his masters. Depending on the work we are talking about, the latter either want to achieve salvation/deification only for themselves, or aim at taking the place of the angels while exterminating all Lilith-originated life on Earth and replacing them with new life forms born from the “Fruit of Life” (Rebuild of Evangelion). This last option, Gendo explains, means remaining subservient to the gods, whom he instead plans to kill and bind with mankind inside the One.

Gendo and his son, Shinji, having transcended their human condition by different means, have a philosophical fight (symbolized by a physical one) within the “Anti-Universe“, which represents the space of All-Possibility (Evangelion´s atheistic or impersonal conception of Ultimate Reality) in order to decide how the real world should be: either one allowing multiplicity (our common world) or one of absolute oneness.

Both contenders go “behind the veil” with the intention of remaking the world in the likeness of their ideals. However, Shinji is finally able to show his father how the latter´s objective of returning everything to absolute unity stems from the trauma of loss and the fear of the Other, of establishing relationships with others.

Misato (representing mankind and human will⁹Mankind´s rebel faction is called WILLE, meaning will in German.) sacrifices herself and her ship Wunder (“the God-Slayer”) after creating the “Spear of Gaius” (Earth), mankind´s miracle, which allows Shinji to finally rewrite reality.

This spear is the union of the opposite spears of hope (Cassius) and despair (Longinus) created by the gods, symbolizing the human will finally overcoming duality, created by the gods in order to make impossible mankind´s further evolution into godhood.

Shinji, having become the god of the new world, decides that Evangelions do not have a place in it anymore. This resets reality, bringing a New Beginning, a New Genesis (Neon Genesis) for mankind, now free from higher powers.

The title of the franchise, Neon Genesis Evangelion, is then revealed to mean the good news (Evangelion meaning Gospel or “Good News”) of a New Beginning without any gods. Humanity is finally able to achieve emancipation.

Souls of the beings already re-absorbed into the impersonal One re-incarnate again. The alternative of the One, viewed as a choice based on fear and trauma, is discarded in favor of the Many, shown as the mature position that accepts the existence of the Other, including the suffering that being rejected by others may imply.

All the children are seen one last time as grown adults living their own happy lives, while the protagonist and Maria Iscariot (linking her with the Christian Judas Iscariot, betrayer of God) are seen running hand in hand towards the real world of the spectator, leaving behind the animation symbolizing the old “fantasy world” of the gods. This is childhood´s end.

4. Influences

As Evangelion´s story progresses, we discover the true nature of the Eva´s, as well as that of all living beings, the angels, the “gods” and of reality itself. Along the way, we learn of key metaphysical doctrines of certain esoteric worldviews such as the complementarity between opposites, the cyclical aspect of existence, Fate and the possibility of humanity accessing self-deification and rewriting reality through its own efforts.

The most important and notable influence on Evangelion is that of the Jewish Kabbalah, present both visually (e.g., Tree of Life, Lilith, the Chambers of Guf, Adam Kadmon) and in its narrative, its story being ultimately a representation of man’s path of ascent through the Sefirotic tree.

Concepts and names from Judaism and Christianity, mainly from apocalyptic writings, are used left and right (e.g., the number of the Beast [666], the Crucifixion [of Lilith and of the ego, not of an absent Christ that does not seem to exist in this Universe], Longinus, the Magi, the stigmata, the universal flood, Noah’s ark, the Genesis creation narrative, the Book of Revelation), sometimes with a clear narrative or symbolic sense and other times with the self-admitted “pedantic” ¹⁰Gainax, ed. (1997). “解説”. The End of Evangelion Program Book (Japanese). intention of creating the appearance of there being a greater depth than there really is.

The next major influence is that of psychoanalysis, mainly the Jungian school, and its concepts of the unresolved complementarity present in each human psyche (Anima/Animus), the integration of the unconscious and repressed aspects of the ego (the Shadow), and the paradoxical individuation achieved through the re-integration of this totality (the Self).

According to Jung, the process of individuation and the attaining of the Self is analogous to the Magnum Opus (Great Work) of the Alchemists (Hermeticism), also metaphorically defined as obtaining the Philosopher’s Stone or the squaring of the circle (the immanentization of the transcendent, here reduced to a psychological process of self-development). Jung also regarded Gnosticism as sharing the same basic principles.

In its depiction of complementarity, the series also employs concepts from Freudian psychology, such as the dichotomy between the instincts of life and death (Eros and Thanatos, respectively), so present in the internal conflict of the main protagonists, such as Shinji and his father, who end up choosing the opposite poles of this dialectic.

5. Thematic Analysis

a. The Ambivalent Character of the Gods

Once the curtains are finally lifted and the plot and the underlying motivations of the main characters of Evangelion are revealed, it is clear that its main message is one of emancipation from the gods, which are depicted as morally ambiguous.

In the original series, they are barely mentioned and are portrayed with characteristic angelic imagery (e.g., halos). In the rebuild series, however, they are additionally shown using imagery derived from real ancient Mesopotamian (e.g., Summerio-Babylonian, Assyrian) deities.

These gods are depicted as the lords of the angels, transforming what appeared to be a Judaic or Christian background into a Gnostic one, where the gods are imperfect creatures to be rebelled against.¹¹This, in turn, is typical of Japanese media (e.g., Final Fantasy XVI, Xenogears, Shin Megami Tensei series). Gnosticism is the common mythical background found in many of these Japanese productions. Kabbalah and Jungian Psychology, as in the case of Evangelion, are also related to it. See, for example, Gershom Scholem´s “Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition“.

Why Japanese culture, traditionally devoted to its many spirits/deities (Kamis in Shintoism), has become a major exporter of the “let´s kill God” trope is a perplexing question that we cannot answer.

The main deity that Rebuild of Evangelion clearly shows in its fictional version of the Dead Sea scrolls is the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar/Inanna, goddess of love, war and fertility (Ugaritic Astart; Phoenician Astarte, who in turn may have influenced the development of the Greek goddess Aphrodite). She is also a goddess of death and rebirth, having descended and returned from the underworld, and was described as constantly striving for more power than she had been allotted.¹²Vanstiphout, H.L. (1984). “Inanna / Ishtar as a figure of controversy”. Struggles of Gods: Papers of the Groningen Work Group for the Study of the History of Religions. Berlin, DE: Mouton Publishers. 31. 

This goddess, especially beloved by the Assyrians, who elevated her to the highest divinity in their pantheon, is negatively alluded to in the Bible. The rise of Christianity put an end to her cult.

MESOPOTAMIAN GODS [Click Here]

The highest gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon were understood to be antagonistic to mankind, some of them wanting to destroy human beings for being a source of noise which prevented them from falling asleep¹³Wisnom, Laura Selena (2020). Weapons of words: intertextual competition in Babylonian poetry: a study of Anzū, Enūma eliš, and Erra and Išum. Leiden: Brill, p. 110.(implying the disturbance of the pre-formal homogeneous peace of “Chaos” or Tiamat).

The Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, in turn describes how a “younger” deity called Marduk ascends to kingship by defeating Tiamat, from where he sprang forth. Marduk is one of the many representations of the Sun God defeating Chaos (usually in the form of a dragon) that we find in ancient mythologies.

Creation myths following this template, obviously, are opposite to the Christian Genesis story. In Christianity, God is All-Good, with some angels deciding to rebel against Him because of pride. In Mesopotamian myths, on the other hand, the highest gods cannot be defined as All-Good, and are conquered and deposed by the archetypical Sun or Sky god, who brings liberation (and civilization) to mankind.  From a Christian point of view, this sounds like the inverted history of the Fall of Lucifer, with him winning instead of losing against God.

b. The Struggle of Mankind´s (Secret) Leaders to Emancipate It from the Gods

Evangelion’s main antagonist, Gendo, explains how the secret international organization that steers the destiny of humanity, SEELE¹⁴Some Masonic imagery is used in association with SEELE, such as the black and white checkered tile that represents our world of duality and pyramidal (Eye of Providence) symbolism.

Their main symbol, in addition, shows an Ouroboros (circular) serpent encircling the apple of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

This creates an association with Gnosticism (Ophite sect), which reversed the Christian meaning of the serpent of Genesis as a bringer of wisdom.

The apocalyptic and symbolic seven-eyed lamb of St. John´s Book of Revelation is also alluded to.
Its traditional associations with the Second Coming of Christ, however, are obviously missing., is in favor of stealing the angels’ place while remaining subservient to the gods. He, in turn, intends to kill the gods and turn the whole world back into the One, with no one ruling over anyone.

Overall, SEELE is represented as an ancient society of followers of the serpent, believing themselves to be the ones chosen to bear the burden of deciding the destiny of all those who ate of the forbidden Fruit of Knowledge (mankind, the children of Lilith). 

c. Dialectics and the Cyclical Conflict of the One and the Many

Rebuild of Evangelion shows us three parties in conflict fighting to decide the future of all life on Earth. They are mere conduits for different philosophical positions:

1. The WILLE organization. First, we have mankind, represented by scientists (knowledge) and military types (will). This faction aims at preserving the human world as it is (the Many, an imperfect world of plurality and multiplicity) while eliminating those who, because of fear of the pain inherent to life, want to reduce everything back to the One, forcing a “hard-reset” which implies a continuous cycle of life and death (see below).

Mankind´s survivors ride the Wunder (meaning “miracle” in German), a battleship with god-killing powers that, paradoxically, uses a potential god as the energy source in order to fight the gods (the concept of fighting fire with fire).

2. SEELE. The elite aiming at eliminating all the angels in order to take their place and serve the gods as part of a hive mind¹⁵Because the ones partaking from the Fruit of Life, the angels, do not have the gift of reason, provided by Lilith, instead representing the “body of God”., as mentioned above.

3. Gendo Ikari. The leader of NERV and “King of the Lilin”, the protagonist´s father. He aims at betraying SEELE at the last second to force humanity and the gods both to go back to a pre-formal state of absolute unity (the One), where lost loved ones are met again and the pain of rejection by “the Other” does not exist, deeming the existence of individuals too painful to be worth it.

In addition to the above solutions, already present in previous works of the franchise, the Rebuild films propose a novel additional solution (presumably the “good” and final one) to this spiritual hedgehog´s dilemma, represented by the protagonist:

4. Shinji Ikari. Albeit representing the despair caused by loss and rejection during most of the story, Shinji finally learns to accept loss and decides in favor of life (the Many), with the spin that he also struggles to reach deification in order to rewrite reality and eliminate all gods from existence, thus breaking the fated cycle of birth and death and ensuring that no future submissiveness to any god will happen again. Life is finally freed from its creators.

c1. The One and the Many: Evangelion´s Proposed Solutions

Everything expressed above in this section, in turn, is just the visual representation, with giant robots and large doses of psychological trauma, of the oldest philosophical conflict: the clash between the One and the Many, itself the basis of all religion and spiritual worldviews (click HERE for a deeper discussion on the presuppositions and consequences of each position regarding this problem).

Evangelion´s twist, however, is that the One to which most mystics of the world aspire to return to (Panentheism) is rejected, sometimes mischaracterized as a hive mind and sometimes portrayed as just an undesirable and unsatisfactory melting pot.¹⁶The “Killing God” trope of which we previously spoke is possible because, in Pantheism/Panentheism, the gods are seen as derivative existences emanating from an impersonal Principle or Force, usually lording illegitimately over their creations.

Therefore, given that all life comes from the same source, mankind is able to tap into forces higher than those of these derivative gods and liberate itself from them. Killing god, in these types of systems, does not mean killing Ultimate Reality.

The Many, furthermore, is defined as incompatible with Unity, which is not always seen as true in real monotheistic worldviews (click HERE for a discussion on Orthodox Christian theology, defined by its rejection of this dialectic).

THE ONE IN “THE END OF EVANGELION” [Click Here]

In this franchise, the best definition of the position regarding going back to absolute oneness is probably the one seen in The End of Evangelion movie. This is a secular, unfavorable view of the One. Rebuild of Evangelion, however, suggests another solution including transcendence for its main protagonist.

In Summary, Rebuild of Evangelion, using fiction, defines the possible either/or solutions to the very real problem of the One and the Many as:

• Choosing to become part of God´s hive mind (Panentheism), subordinated to the One, and continue playing in the eternal cycle of creation and destruction to which the universe is subjected from a privileged position. This is the position of the generational elites who run the world.

• Return everything to the One, eliminating any differentiation and hierarchy, in a unity that precisely because it lacks “the Other” cannot be completely satisfactory, although it avoids suffering. This is the position of the dissidence within said elites.

• Choosing the Many, accepting the suffering inherent to the existence of particular individuals. This is the position of the protagonist in The End of Evangelion film.

• The final solution (Rebuild of Evangelion): to achieve deification, surpass all derivative gods, and free mankind from their influence. This is portrayed as the mature solution that allows us to “stop being children” by surpassing our creators (“killing the father” trope), and can be arguably similar to Buddhist Non-Dualism (“Samsara equals Nirvana“; Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism), where liberated beings can manifest inside the worlds when they want to experience multiplicity, with a touch of Gnosticism.

c2. An Additional Possibility

The solutions offered by the different real spiritual worldviews, however, also include another non-dialectical (both/and) possibility:

• The Christian Tri-Une (One/Many) God: with Christianity speaking of the coexistence of the unity of God within each one of us in a reality that preserves the “Other” in a transcendent deified state that excludes death and suffering, thus making love possible.

Envangelion´s dilemma, from the point of view of Christianity, becomes a false one, because its transcendent God is believed to include both unity and plurality, becoming “All in all”. In other words, it rejects the notion that choosing between being able to love but suffer (the Many), or to avoid suffering but not being able to love (the One), is all we can do (see also Vishishtadvaita Vedanta for a “similar” Hindu position, which nevertheless tends towards Panentheism [full discussion HERE]).

Nowadays, the ideology of pure plurality is represented mainly by Neo-Paganism, pure Materialism, Secular Humanism, Objectivism and Anarchism. Pure Unity, in turn, is easily found in all kinds of Mysticism and Esotericism/Occultism (such as in Sufism, Kabbalah [paradoxically], Advaita Vedanta and the New Age).

d. Spiritual Darwinism

Never is the dialectical thinking so characteristic of Evangelion so obvious as in its spiritual Darwinism, the notion that the “birth” of any superior spiritual entity¹⁷This is a contradiction in terms for any traditional spiritual worldview, as a superior reality, by definition, cannot be emanated from an inferior one. As René Guénon repeatedly explained in his works, the greater cannot be derived from the lesser. implies the death of all the rest, now categorized as inferior ones or as “failures of Infinity”, as they are labelled (just like all spermatozoa not reaching the ovum are seen as failed ones).

This notion is one of the main tenets of the “doctrines of the One” (e.g., Plotinus´ assertion that difference means opposition¹⁸Plotinus. Enneads, 3:2:13. Trans. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Vol. III., pp. 81, 83, 85.). In Evangelion, it transforms spirituality into a battleground for the “survival of the holiest”, where only one can remain in the race to achieve godhood.

e. Complementary Dualism: The Path Towards Self-Deification

In Evangelion, dichotomies are found everywhere, with the conflict between opposites being the main factor that marks the progression of the story. The following are just a few notorious examples:

• The main characters feeling trapped in an emotional storm between the life instinct/will to live (sexually characterized as the Freudian Libido) and the death instinct/will to die (the Freudian Thanatos).¹⁹Those who manipulate the course of events from the shadows, on the other hand, opt to force the prevalence of the death instinct in the protagonist by destroying his ego through trauma. They do this in order to deify him and force the Instrumentality (return to the One), since the ego in worldviews of the One and in Non-Dualism is opposed to the deity conceived as the Absolute, all personality understood as a particular limitation of the All.

• The completely opposite personalities of the child pilots, and how they nevertheless try to understand and avoid hating each other, feeling attracted to their opposite personality type.
  
• The Fruits of Life and Knowledge derived from the same Primordial Race, incompatible and antagonistic between them but, once joined, granting a god-like status.

• Adam and Lilith, the white/male and black/female Moons respectively (equivalent to the Taoist Yin-Yang).

• The planetary syzygy (union or alignment of the planets: Sun, Moon and Earth, themselves with esoteric significance) that symbolizes the rite of return to the One.
  
• Humanity´s “miracle”, the spear of Gaius, made up of the spears of Hope and Despair.

Everything in Evangelion is nothing more than the painful dance between opposites trying to understand each other.

e1. Looking After Transcendence in Order to Force Immanence

As we have seen, Rebuild of Evangelion proposes self-deification as the solution to the problem of Unity and Plurality. What is the path followed by its protagonist in order to achieve it?

The answer, unsurprisingly, is the same as the one given by all the “religions of the One”/Non-Dualism that have shaped its worldview.

Following the hermetic saying of “as above, so below“, the psychological state of the protagonists (microcosm) is linked with the state of the external Universe (macrocosm), the latter shown through the Eva´s transcendence of the physical limits of reality once the psyche of the pilot “awakens” (e.g., the third eye shown in Unit-01 in Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance).

That is, the solution proposed by Evangelion is not fictional, but rather one that is truly believed by the mystical traditions on which the work is based. The novelty of Evangelion, however, is that it proposes mankind to self-deify through integrating all opposites only in order to kill the gods and force a perpetual state of manyness, of Plurality.

f. The Sacrifice of the First Angel and Mankind´s Friend

Kaworu Nagisa´s character is a pivotal one in Evangelion. He is the incarnation of Adam´s soul, while at the same time being the first and last angel, the beginning and the end.

The figure of Adam, however, has two meanings in the Kabbalah:

• The first man (Adam Ha-Rishon), whose partner is Eve, here replaced by Lilith, the supposed first wife of Adam according to medieval Jewish literature and the Kabbalah, banished for being conflictive and usually conceived as a primordial demon and source of misfortune.

• Adam Kadmon, the first creation of the Absolute (Ein Sof) that was born after the contraction of the infinite Light of God. He represents the synthesis of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life that emanates from the Ain Sof and is the source of all later emanations. In Lurianic Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon would be equivalent to the Purusha of the Upanishads and comparable to the Anthropos of Gnosticism.

Evangelion plays with both concepts, depicting Kaworu as being the father of humanity (first meaning) but also the first angel or first creature (second meaning), the “space between land and sea” (between creatureliness and the homogeneity of pure potential “Chaos”). Additionally, it considers him as the angel of free will.

He is also the only angel to be incarnated in human form, maintaining close relationships with the main characters. Eventually, he sacrifices himself for humanity, given his special sympathy and even love for the protagonist.

Given all the above, his figure is the closest thing to the Christian concept of the incarnation of the Logos (Jesus Christ).

From a Christian point of view, however, the view that the Logos is the first creature and not God Himself corresponds to a restatement of the heresy of Arianism. Affirming that the highest of the angels is actually the one who incarnated and died to save humanity, in turn, echoes an inverted Biblical fall of Satan narrative.

g. Fate and Cyclical Existence

Kaworu becomes a catalyst of Shinji´s eventual deification, and reveals the existence of a continuous cycle of births and deaths where destiny has inexorably trapped the cast.

The fight against destiny is a typical motif of classical Greek mythology as well as Gnosticism, where the kingdom of the Demiurge is under its dominion (Heimarmene), and only by reaching the Pleroma or Divine Totality can one escape from it (further discussion HERE). In general, destiny plays a big role (many times an antagonistic one) in any system that conceives Ultimate Reality as an impersonal absolute.

6. Conclusion

Neon Genesis Evangelion has sometimes been criticized for being a mystifying franchise, difficult to understand, designed to look deeper than it is. However, the symbolism and main themes of its narrative are clear. These stem from very concrete worldviews, with the conflict between the One and the Many that drives its narrative being the cradle of philosophy and the basis of all religion and mysticism.

The solutions suggested, however, are not always traditional, tending towards Secular Humanism in the main series and suggesting Buddhist Non-Dualism in the Rebuild films, rejecting a mischaracterized “the One”. Additionally, despite all its Christian symbolism, a vision of God and the afterlife that includes both the One and the Many is not contemplated.

As a corollary, Evangelion is a clear example of how understanding aspects of traditional metaphysics is key in order to comprehend much of modern popular culture.

Notes

1. The popularity of the show spawned numerous additional media, including video games, radio dramas, audio-books, novels and pachinko machines, among others.
2. “Evangelion: New Cinema Edition”. Newtype (October 2006): “It will be a work that can be enjoyed even if you have not seen the TV series. I want old hard-core fans and even fans who just know Eva from pachinko to view it as a single (i.e. stand-alone) movie. We welcome first-time viewers, so the contents will be simpler, but we don’t intend to make something on a level that can be understood just by spacing out and watching it.[…]”
3. Especially in video games such as Neon Genesis Evangelion 2.
4. Analogous to the seven classical planets of Astrology, the alchemical metals and the Gnostic Archons, these worldviews being a clear source of inspiration for this franchise, as we will later see.
5. Both humans and angels are conceived as being either derived from the genetic material of the First Ancestral Race themselves or instead being direct re-incarnations of their souls, if we understand the Moons in which they came as a type of Ark containing their spiritual essence.
6. This limit being, as is later explained, a self-impossed one.
7. Analogous to the power of reason brought by the alien Black Monolith in 2001: a Space Odyssey. Kubrick´s movie and Evangelion focus on the same core esoteric concepts, such as: the transcendence of human nature (the Star Child in 2001), the emancipation from false “deities” (AI in 2001), and abundant alchemical imagery (e.g., planetary syzygy).
8. Gendo, however, wants to implement the Instrumentality in his own way, disobeying his masters. Depending on the work we are talking about, the latter either want to achieve salvation/deification only for themselves, or aim at taking the place of the angels while exterminating all Lilith-originated life on Earth and replacing them with new life forms born from the “Fruit of Life” (Rebuild of Evangelion). This last option, Gendo explains, means remaining subservient to the gods, whom he instead plans to kill and bind with mankind inside the One.
9. Mankind´s rebel faction is called WILLE, meaning will in German.
10. Gainax, ed. (1997). “解説”. The End of Evangelion Program Book (Japanese).
11. This, in turn, is typical of Japanese media (e.g. Final Fantasy XVI, Xenogears, Shin Megami Tensei series). Gnosticism is the common mythical background found in many of these Japanese productions. Kabbalah and Jungian Psychology, as in the case of Evangelion, are also related to it. See, for example, Gershom Scholem´s “Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition”.
    
    Why Japanese culture, traditionally devoted to its many spirits/deities (Kamis in Shintoism), has become a major exporter of the “let´s kill God” trope is a perplexing question that we cannot answer.
    
12. Vanstiphout, H.L. (1984). “Inanna / Ishtar as a figure of controversy”. Struggles of Gods: Papers of the Groningen Work Group for the Study of the History of Religions. Berlin, DE: Mouton Publishers. 31.
13. Wisnom, Laura Selena (2020). Weapons of words: intertextual competition in Babylonian poetry: a study of Anzū, Enūma eliš, and Erra and Išum. Leiden: Brill, p. 110.
14. Some Masonic imagery is used in association with SEELE, such as the black and white checkered tile that represents our world of duality and pyramidal (Eye of Providence) symbolism.
    
    Their main symbol, in addition, shows an Ouroboros (circular) serpent encircling the apple of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This creates an association with Gnosticism (Ophite sect), which reversed the Christian meaning of the serpent of Genesis as a bringer of wisdom. The apocalyptic and symbolic seven-eyed lamb of St. John´s Book of Revelation is also alluded to. Its traditional associations with the Second Coming of Christ, however, are obviously missing.
    
15. Because the ones partaking from the Fruit of Life, the angels, do not have the gift of reason, provided by Lilith, instead representing the “body of God”.
16. The “Killing God” trope of which we previously spoke is possible because, in Pantheism/Panentheism, the gods are seen as derivative existences emanating from an impersonal Principle or Force, usually lording illegitimately over their creations.
    
    Therefore, given that all life comes from the same source, mankind is able to tap into forces higher than those of these derivative gods and liberate itself from them. Killing god, in these types of systems, does not mean killing Ultimate Reality.
17. This is a contradiction in terms for any traditional spiritual worldview, as a superior reality, by definition, cannot be emanated from an inferior one. As René Guénon repeatedly explained in his works, the greater cannot be derived from the lesser.
18. Plotinus. Enneads, 3:2:13. Trans. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Vol. III., pp. 81, 83, 85.
19. Those who manipulate the course of events from the shadows, on the other hand, opt to force the prevalence of the death instinct in the protagonist by destroying his ego through trauma. They do this in order to deify him and force the Instrumentality (return to the One), since the ego in worldviews of the One and in Non-Dualism is opposed to the deity conceived as the Absolute, all personality understood as a particular limitation of the All.

Discussed in this Article

Disclaimer: the following recommendations may contain affiliate links, which means that we may receive a small commission, at NO additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through them. By doing so, you will be supporting us and allowing this website to remain ad-free.

1. Evangelion: 1.11 You Are {Not} Alone. Studio Khara.
2. Evangelion: 2.22 You Can {Not} Advance. Studio Khara.
3. Evangelion: 3.33 You Can {Not} Redo. Studio Khara.
4. Evangelion: 3.0+1.11 Thrice Upon a Time. Studio Khara.
5. Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion. Gainax / Production I.G.
6. Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Complete Series. Gainax.
7. Neon Genesis Evangelion (Manga Set). Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

Recommended Reading

1. The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy. R.J. Rushdoony.
2. Kabbalah. Scholem, Gershom. 
3. The Universal Meaning of The Kabbalah. Schaya, Leo.  
4. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Dalley, Stephanie. 
   
   
   
   

• 1
  The popularity of the show spawned numerous additional media, including video games, radio dramas, audio-books, novels and pachinko machines, among others.
• 2
  “Evangelion: New Cinema Edition”. Newtype (October 2006): “It will be a work that can be enjoyed even if you have not seen the TV series. I want old hard-core fans and even fans who just know Eva from pachinko to view it as a single (i.e. stand-alone) movie. We welcome first-time viewers, so the contents will be simpler, but we don’t intend to make something on a level that can be understood just by spacing out and watching it.”
• 3
  Especially in video games such as Neon Genesis Evangelion 2.
• 4
  Analogous to the seven classical planets of Astrology, the alchemical metals and the Gnostic Archons, these worldviews being a clear source of inspiration for this franchise, as we will later see.
• 5
  Both humans and angels are conceived as being either derived from the genetic material of the First Ancestral Race themselves or instead being direct re-incarnations of their souls, if we understand the Moons in which they came as a type of Ark containing their spiritual essence.
• 6
  This limit being, as is later explained, a self-imposed one.
• 7
  Analogous to the power of reason brought by the alien Black Monolith in 2001: a Space Odyssey. Kubrick´s movie and Evangelion focus on the same core esoteric concepts, such as: the transcendence of human nature (the Star Child in 2001), the emancipation from false “deities” (AI in 2001), and abundant alchemical imagery (e.g., planetary syzygy).
• 8
  Gendo, however, wants to implement the Instrumentality in his own way, disobeying his masters. Depending on the work we are talking about, the latter either want to achieve salvation/deification only for themselves, or aim at taking the place of the angels while exterminating all Lilith-originated life on Earth and replacing them with new life forms born from the “Fruit of Life” (Rebuild of Evangelion). This last option, Gendo explains, means remaining subservient to the gods, whom he instead plans to kill and bind with mankind inside the One.
• 9
  Mankind´s rebel faction is called WILLE, meaning will in German.
• 10
  Gainax, ed. (1997). “解説”. The End of Evangelion Program Book (Japanese).
• 11
  This, in turn, is typical of Japanese media (e.g., Final Fantasy XVI, Xenogears, Shin Megami Tensei series). Gnosticism is the common mythical background found in many of these Japanese productions. Kabbalah and Jungian Psychology, as in the case of Evangelion, are also related to it. See, for example, Gershom Scholem´s “Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition“.
  
  Why Japanese culture, traditionally devoted to its many spirits/deities (Kamis in Shintoism), has become a major exporter of the “let´s kill God” trope is a perplexing question that we cannot answer.
• 12
  Vanstiphout, H.L. (1984). “Inanna / Ishtar as a figure of controversy”. Struggles of Gods: Papers of the Groningen Work Group for the Study of the History of Religions. Berlin, DE: Mouton Publishers. 31.
• 13
  Wisnom, Laura Selena (2020). Weapons of words: intertextual competition in Babylonian poetry: a study of Anzū, Enūma eliš, and Erra and Išum. Leiden: Brill, p. 110.
• 14
  Some Masonic imagery is used in association with SEELE, such as the black and white checkered tile that represents our world of duality and pyramidal (Eye of Providence) symbolism.
  
  Their main symbol, in addition, shows an Ouroboros (circular) serpent encircling the apple of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
  
  This creates an association with Gnosticism (Ophite sect), which reversed the Christian meaning of the serpent of Genesis as a bringer of wisdom.
  
  The apocalyptic and symbolic seven-eyed lamb of St. John´s Book of Revelation is also alluded to.
  Its traditional associations with the Second Coming of Christ, however, are obviously missing.
• 15
  Because the ones partaking from the Fruit of Life, the angels, do not have the gift of reason, provided by Lilith, instead representing the “body of God”.
• 16
  The “Killing God” trope of which we previously spoke is possible because, in Pantheism/Panentheism, the gods are seen as derivative existences emanating from an impersonal Principle or Force, usually lording illegitimately over their creations.
  
  Therefore, given that all life comes from the same source, mankind is able to tap into forces higher than those of these derivative gods and liberate itself from them. Killing god, in these types of systems, does not mean killing Ultimate Reality.
• 17
  This is a contradiction in terms for any traditional spiritual worldview, as a superior reality, by definition, cannot be emanated from an inferior one. As René Guénon repeatedly explained in his works, the greater cannot be derived from the lesser.
• 18
  Plotinus. Enneads, 3:2:13. Trans. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Vol. III., pp. 81, 83, 85.
• 19
  Those who manipulate the course of events from the shadows, on the other hand, opt to force the prevalence of the death instinct in the protagonist by destroying his ego through trauma. They do this in order to deify him and force the Instrumentality (return to the One), since the ego in worldviews of the One and in Non-Dualism is opposed to the deity conceived as the Absolute, all personality understood as a particular limitation of the All.