Pneumatikos πνευματικός

Pneumatikos (πνευματικός), formed from pneuma, spirit. Ten occurrences in the Naassene report, and the top term of its graded classes.

Three pairings, not one triad

A reader arriving with the standard pneumatikos / psychikos / hylikos scheme in hand will find that this report does not consistently use it. Across Refutatio 5.6–5.7 the contrast shifts three times:

• intellective / ensouled / of dust (noeron / psychikon / choikon) at 5.6.6
• angelic / ensouled / of dust (angelikon / psychikon / choikon) at 5.6.7, for both the kinds and the churches
• spiritual against fleshly (pneumatikos / sarkikos) at 5.7.40, a two-term pairing quoting John 3:6

Only the middle term of the triads holds still. Hekhal renders each contrast distinctly rather than standardising to the familiar scheme, because the variation is evidence about how the report was assembled and from what — and standardising would manufacture a consistency the source does not have.

The doctrine at 5.7.40

“For he is begotten of water alone and spirit, spiritual, not fleshly; but the one below is fleshly.”

Note the word alone. The Johannine text at John 3:5 reads “of water and spirit”; the addition is the group’s, and it does real work — it excludes whatever else a birth might require. That divergence survives only because this edition reproduces citations as the report gives them rather than conforming them.

Rendering

“Spiritual”, never “pneumatic”, which is a false friend with an unrelated modern sense. Held apart from psychikos (“ensouled”) and from sarkikos (“fleshly”) in every occurrence; collapsing any pair destroys the grading the terms exist to express.

Hekhal Editorial. "Pneumatikos." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. Last modified May 2, 2026. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/pneumatikos.

Hekhal Editorial. 2026. "Pneumatikos." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/pneumatikos.

Hekhal Editorial. "Pneumatikos." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition, May 2, 2026, hekhal.org/lexicon/pneumatikos.

Hekhal Editorial. (2026). Pneumatikos. Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/pneumatikos

@misc{hekhal-lexicon-pneumatikos-2026,
  author       = {{Hekhal Editorial}},
  title        = {{Pneumatikos}},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {{Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition}},
  url          = {https://hekhal.org/lexicon/pneumatikos},
  urldate      = {[date accessed]}
}