Gnosticism, a review

Disclaimer #1: I am not a Religious Studies scholar, (sadly). I am just a spiritual explorer, a layperson, with ideas above her station.  I am friends with several real, bona fide Religious Studies scholars though, as well as some friends who are actual trained theologians as well. I hope the best of their ideas have rubbed off on me. And if any of them are reading this, I hope that they will not be too embarrassed at my naive approach.

Disclaimer #2: I have an extremely rational streak; some might call me cynical.  (OK, I confess. A few people have called me cynical.) I could have made a decent scholar with all this cynicism rationality, except that I also tend to find it difficult not to be opinionated and blunt in my expression, instead of objective.  All that to say, I'm direct, but I mean no disrespect to anyone. I'm just trying to understand and make sense of the world.

 

I have no spiritual home, and I no longer wish for one, but for the past several years, I have occasionally been tempted by Gnosticism. 

"Gnos-what?", you ask?

Many educated Christians, at least those in the circles I grew up in, would probably respond with something like, "Gnosticism?  Hm?  Isn't that a heresy that St. Augustine defeated in the 4th century? Didn't they have an extremely dualistic view of the mind-body split, which allowed them to justify weird behaviors like orgies and such?  Surely that doesn't exist anymore!"

To be sure, the 4th century version of Gnosticism no longer exists. But neither does the 4th century version of Christianity.  And most modern Christians would probably not be too thrilled with at least half of St. Augustine's beliefs.  Turns out, a lot can change with the passage of time,... go figure.

The classic text to start with understanding Gnosticism is Dr. Elaine Pagels' book, The Gnostic Gospels.  Pagels is a scholar (unlike me), and the book is excellent. 

 

She answers the dualism question (the specific form of dualism called anticosmicism), with evidence that the extreme dualist position Augustine debated against was probably not widely held by most Gnostics of the time, and should not be considered a core feature of their theology. History is written by the winners, and winners often caricature those they defeat.

 

And in any case, modern Gnosticism doesn't seem to deal much with the philosophical questions that Augustine wrestled with.  Modern Gnosticim, as far as I can tell (by lurking in various social circles and reading articles and books), has pretty different emphases. And, like any religious movement, it is complex.  So rejecting modern Gnosticism based on certain extremely-old perceptions seems irresponsible.  Let's make an opinion based on where it is today.

Here's my understanding of the current lay of the Gnostic land:

Streams of Modern Gnosticism

1. There is a global, organized Gnostic religion called Ecclesia Gnostica. It is highly liturgical in approach and considers itself Christian. There are only a small handful of churches; more can be found in Europe than the US. The Gnostic church I checked out seemed to be completely devoted to Carl Jung, with the window dressing of liturgical ritual.
2. There is an organized ecclesiastical group under the OTO called Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica that claims the Gnostic umbrella. I cannot tell how large they are, but probably relatively small. They split from the original modern Gnostic church (#1 above) in the early 1900s. They seem to be a fusion of Free-Masonry, Catholicism, and Thelemic witchcraft. They reject the Christian label, which is confusing, given the "Catholic" part of their name.
   
3. There are many Pagan groups or individuals with various sets of praxis and doctrines, who use Gnostic mythology loosely, to underpin or inform their cosmologies and some of their practices. For example, a lot of Chaos Magick adherents purport to follow a Gnostic cosmology. Much of Hermetic Paganism seems to dip into Gnosticism as well.
4. There also seems to be a kind of cyberpunk-influenced anarchic-leaning subculture, who uses Gnostic mythology loosely as a foundation to tie together their various UFO speculations, conspiracy theories, and political convictions.

 There may be overlap in the above four streams. There may be more streams I'm unaware of.  Each stream has somewhat differing beliefs. (This article doesn't focus on praxis at all, but there's much variety!)  I can't speak for any of them to say for certain, but from what I can tell, there are a few main beliefs that they have in common:

Fundamental Gnostic Beliefs

1. 
   The creator of the universe we currently live in is not a good, loving god, but a being that is evil, corrupt, ignorant, (or some other not-good thing).  The exact variation of this depends on who you ask. In some stories, the Creator is good, but via the process of creating, his nature was accidentally split from itself, and he became blind and self-deceived. In some stories he is arrogant and self-important from the start, because his mother tried to impregnate herself and birthed a monster.  Whichever story you choose, a core feature of Gnosticism is that the evils and troubles we endure in this world are, fundamentally, due to the flaws of our Creator. This Creator has many names, depending on which tradition you follow, but a handy one we can agree on would probably be the "Demiurge."  Gnostics equated the Demiurge with the Christian God, the Jewish YHWH, and the Muslim Allah.
   There are various ways to tell this origin story, but it usually involves an "emanation" named Sophia, who is good. Sophia is compared with the "emanation" who created our universe, the Demiurge.  Sophia is sometimes the Demiurge's mother, sometimes a sort of sibling.  But anyway, before the dawns of time, Sophia watched in horror as the Demiurge messed up the creation of this universe, and trapped other emanations in it, that would eventually become human souls.  He then set himself up as evil dictator of his new creation. His minions, who enforce his will, are called Archons.
   

2. Human souls are stuck in this universe, in an endless cycle of reincarnation and suffering.  Sophia is the one who offers our souls a way out of this nightmarish universe. But she has to fight the Creator and his "Archons," who want to keep us trapped here. This Creator and his Archons use constant deception as they guide and control the systems of the world.  They pretend to be good, but it's all an elaborate trap to keep our souls stuck here.

3. Gnosis is the way out, the escape from this prison.  Gnosis means "knowledge," but to the Gnostics, this isn't just any old knowledge, it is a particular type of knowledge. It's not the accumulation of facts; the word might be better translated as "spiritual revelation" or "transformative spiritual experience."  Through continual bits of gnosis, each soul can get itself a little more un-stuck from this world, moving closer and closer to freedom. When it finally attains it, the soul can escape this universe and join with the Ultimate Source, in unity with love and perfection at last.

There are a lot of other Gnostic beliefs and ideas, and there are many differing opinions; it is a complex religion, like any other religion!  The above beliefs are the basics, though, as far as I can tell, which seem to be common to all of them (or at least most of them.)

The pros and cons of Gnosticism, according to me

The main thing that attracts me to Gnosticism is the recognition of the fundamentally shitty nature of reality.  Whether you understand Gnostic myths in a literal-ish or extremely abstract way, the point remains— 

like... this world sucks. 

Sure, there are beautiful and amazing things in nature, there is joy in the world, yes yes... but at the end of the day, if we are honest, existence is absurd, and evil usually wins. Most other religions blame humans for this, but Gnosticism has the audacity to blame God.  Some of you reading may be shocked at this audacity, while others will feel a sense of recognition and resonance.  Finally, someone is just saying it. Something is fundamentally wrong, to the very core of reality itself.

I am somewhat skeptical, however, of anyone who offers a promise of hope for the afterlife or some kind of "salvation."  We DON'T KNOW the ontological nature of our souls. We can't be remotely sure what happens after we die.  We can't come close to any kind of proof that escaping this universe is possible (or, for that matter, desirable). It's foolish to try to peer into the future on issues like that. 

And anyway, I don't like the concept of "salvation" itself, in general.  I have the same problem with Gnostic salvation as I do with (most) Christian salvation: it is nihilistic.  (Yes, there are branches of Christianity for whom "salvation" is not defined as "going to heaven after you die," but most of the ones I have encountered hold this definition. They might add other things to it, but ultimately?  Be honest. It's about going to heaven.)  Both Christian and Gnostic salvations imply that there is some kind of separation from reality that is required, as if reality is something to ignore (or suppress) instead of, you know, living in it.

The point of life is to escape it?  

Humanity's true nature is fundamentally incompatible with, separate from, and antithetical to existence in time-space?

This universe is meaningless except as a way to get to the next form of existence?  

Hard pass on all of that.

So while I find the Gnostic explanation of reality appealing, its salvific pursuits require far too many leaps of faith for my comfort. And I reject their spiritual teleology.

Christian? Or Not?

While I'm at it, I have another small beef with Gnosticism

 Maybe I'm just weird, but to me, functionally, Gnosticism looks like Christianity, but with extra steps.

_	Christianity	Gnosticism
Creation story	Male god creates the known universe.	Ultimate Source outside of existing time/space has seven emanations, one of which is Sophia (female), another is the Creator (male) who creates the known universe.
Origin of Evil	Eve's fault	Sophia's fault... but she will also help fix it
Perpetuation of Evil	The Devil deceives humans, to prevent them from turning to God.	The Creator deceives humans, to prevent them from finding the gnosis of Sophia.
Salvation	God uses Jesus to save humans (exactly how, is still argued among the various sects of Christianity.) Usually faith is required.	Sophia sends messengers (of which Jesus was one) and signs to promote individual experiences of gnosis. (The natures and efficacy of kinds of gnosis are argued among the various sects of Gnosticism.) Usually enlightenment processes are required.

If you made the above table to compare Christianity and many other religions, the differences would often be profound instead of merely extra-step-y. Many religions don't have the concept of salvation at all, for example.

I dunno. Gnosticism seems too goddamn close to Christianity for my comfort.  Probably because they both emerged originally from the same cultural and historical soils.

There's more I could say, including the fact that I probably got a lot of things wrong here. But that's my perception of Gnosticism right now, and why I'm not involved.