so what's the contemporary folk version of gnosis? many of these definitions seem to talk about gnosis as an almost theurgical concept: reaching for these exalted states, awash in white light, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth... what about the gnosis of Lovecraft, Crowley, Forte, Keel, Dick, Thompson, Romero, Barker, Giger, Ligotti? the grubby, visceral kind... should that have its own term, or do we just need to widen the aperture on the High Church version?
It's a great question. I guess I would make a distinction between at least two forms of gnosis:
"To return to definitions, the gnosis of antiquity has two forms. One of them portrays the world and its institutions as prisons from which gnosis liberates us. This is a dualist form of gnosis, contrasting and opposing a transcendent world to this lower material realm. In her study of Hermetic literature, Frances Yates calls this kind of gnosis pessimistic, where the soul ascends through the planetary spheres to be liberated from the prison of the body and material order. Yet for Yates, there is also an optimistic gnosis and this, too, is evident in the Hermetic texts. It purifies the soul of its confusion and allows it to become a channel through which the divine mind and planetary gods are communicated to this lower world. The gnostic becomes a magus, an embodied god, and the material world is no longer seen as a prison but as a theophany shared and even shaped by the magus. This is the gnosis of the Neoplatonic theurgists from the third to the sixth centuries CE and it is the gnosis of Marsilio Ficino in fifteenth-century Florence."
Dick's gnosis, for example, I think definitely falls into this pessimistic dualistic strain (he basically says as much in the exegesis), and it would seem to me that most of the people you list would as well.
I personally have no problem widening the aperture. The core of gnosis in my eyes is a "truth beyond reason" that the understanding and expression of which is psychologically and culturally-mediated. I don't think it has to be accompanied by some radical experience or state of consciousness (there are greater and lesser gnoses) and I don't think it necessarily has to be seen as divine by the gnostic - that will very much depend on the person's mind/culture (so Nietzsche's gnosis was a mystical atheism/(super)humanism, RAW's gnosis was an agnostic mysticism). It does I think have to be personally transformative and "spiritual" in some way, whatever "spiritual" means to that person (so for Ligotti it was a dark, nihilistic "enlightenment").
hard to say. i get tripped up by the vocabulary all the time, when i'm trying to work this stuff out for myself.
i like the idea of optimistic (non-dual) gnosticism; i think even the dark side of gnosis is still pointing toward something transcendent, even if it's not necessarily the sublime radiance we expect. maybe pessimistic gnosis is just a misapprehension of what our role is? lately i've been thinking that Christianity's particular brand of ontological dualism poisoned the well in ways that we don't fully appreciate. we get stuck on the idea that prophecy is some form of Messianic Power, or Divine Exaltation (instead of just the way the mail gets delivered to the material realm) which can drive people insane. similarly, those transcendent visions can look a lot like Hell if we believe that Salvation is somewhere else, some arcane purity test we have to puzzle out, and ignore that we have the power to be our own salvation.
"phasmatopian" ends up being my own personal bucket for the human experience of an optimistic gnosticism that encompasses the beauty and the horror, and recognizes the interpenetration of all the material and transcendent realms. but i'm sure this pet neologism annoys people who are more philosophically literate than myself. there's probably already a word for that i haven't learned yet.
Yea sounds about right to me. Sounds like you are more or less describing "mysterium tremendum et fascinans", and yeah there should be a word for that - "Phasmatopian" works for me.
Well, now I see you are using an expanded conception of gnosis. The earlier post though seemed limited to the schools of gnosis claiming the world is corrupted and there is an evil demigod trapping us in this one, which just propagates dualism and the pernicious two-world mythology. This non-dualistic understanding of gnosis, gnosis as process, as actual gnosis, I can jibe with (not that you give two shits (nor should) about my random-person-on-the-internet-opinion). Please continue the prophecies, fine sir.
This is tricky territory and I'm still sorting out my own thoughts here so I actually do give two, maybe even three, shits what random internet people think on this topic (especially a thoughtful reader as yourself).
While I do accept this expanded conception of gnosis, I do see the dualistic pessimistic strain of gnosticism as being particularly important and under-appreciated today. Fire and brimstone God vs. Satan dualism has scarred the Western psyche (and with good reason) and I think made us hesitant to accept any form of dualist thinking. In my Gnosticism, the dualism between the divine spark within and the "forces" (metaphysical, psychosocial) that wish to corrupt and ensnare that divinity.
Much more could be said here (and will be said in future posts), but I think the gnostics (paradoxically) had their cake and ate it too - they found a non-dualism in their dualism and vice/versa without either being primary or greater than the other.
so what's the contemporary folk version of gnosis? many of these definitions seem to talk about gnosis as an almost theurgical concept: reaching for these exalted states, awash in white light, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth... what about the gnosis of Lovecraft, Crowley, Forte, Keel, Dick, Thompson, Romero, Barker, Giger, Ligotti? the grubby, visceral kind... should that have its own term, or do we just need to widen the aperture on the High Church version?
It's a great question. I guess I would make a distinction between at least two forms of gnosis:
"To return to definitions, the gnosis of antiquity has two forms. One of them portrays the world and its institutions as prisons from which gnosis liberates us. This is a dualist form of gnosis, contrasting and opposing a transcendent world to this lower material realm. In her study of Hermetic literature, Frances Yates calls this kind of gnosis pessimistic, where the soul ascends through the planetary spheres to be liberated from the prison of the body and material order. Yet for Yates, there is also an optimistic gnosis and this, too, is evident in the Hermetic texts. It purifies the soul of its confusion and allows it to become a channel through which the divine mind and planetary gods are communicated to this lower world. The gnostic becomes a magus, an embodied god, and the material world is no longer seen as a prison but as a theophany shared and even shaped by the magus. This is the gnosis of the Neoplatonic theurgists from the third to the sixth centuries CE and it is the gnosis of Marsilio Ficino in fifteenth-century Florence."
Dick's gnosis, for example, I think definitely falls into this pessimistic dualistic strain (he basically says as much in the exegesis), and it would seem to me that most of the people you list would as well.
I personally have no problem widening the aperture. The core of gnosis in my eyes is a "truth beyond reason" that the understanding and expression of which is psychologically and culturally-mediated. I don't think it has to be accompanied by some radical experience or state of consciousness (there are greater and lesser gnoses) and I don't think it necessarily has to be seen as divine by the gnostic - that will very much depend on the person's mind/culture (so Nietzsche's gnosis was a mystical atheism/(super)humanism, RAW's gnosis was an agnostic mysticism). It does I think have to be personally transformative and "spiritual" in some way, whatever "spiritual" means to that person (so for Ligotti it was a dark, nihilistic "enlightenment").
What do you think?
hard to say. i get tripped up by the vocabulary all the time, when i'm trying to work this stuff out for myself.
i like the idea of optimistic (non-dual) gnosticism; i think even the dark side of gnosis is still pointing toward something transcendent, even if it's not necessarily the sublime radiance we expect. maybe pessimistic gnosis is just a misapprehension of what our role is? lately i've been thinking that Christianity's particular brand of ontological dualism poisoned the well in ways that we don't fully appreciate. we get stuck on the idea that prophecy is some form of Messianic Power, or Divine Exaltation (instead of just the way the mail gets delivered to the material realm) which can drive people insane. similarly, those transcendent visions can look a lot like Hell if we believe that Salvation is somewhere else, some arcane purity test we have to puzzle out, and ignore that we have the power to be our own salvation.
"phasmatopian" ends up being my own personal bucket for the human experience of an optimistic gnosticism that encompasses the beauty and the horror, and recognizes the interpenetration of all the material and transcendent realms. but i'm sure this pet neologism annoys people who are more philosophically literate than myself. there's probably already a word for that i haven't learned yet.
Yea sounds about right to me. Sounds like you are more or less describing "mysterium tremendum et fascinans", and yeah there should be a word for that - "Phasmatopian" works for me.
Well, now I see you are using an expanded conception of gnosis. The earlier post though seemed limited to the schools of gnosis claiming the world is corrupted and there is an evil demigod trapping us in this one, which just propagates dualism and the pernicious two-world mythology. This non-dualistic understanding of gnosis, gnosis as process, as actual gnosis, I can jibe with (not that you give two shits (nor should) about my random-person-on-the-internet-opinion). Please continue the prophecies, fine sir.
This is tricky territory and I'm still sorting out my own thoughts here so I actually do give two, maybe even three, shits what random internet people think on this topic (especially a thoughtful reader as yourself).
While I do accept this expanded conception of gnosis, I do see the dualistic pessimistic strain of gnosticism as being particularly important and under-appreciated today. Fire and brimstone God vs. Satan dualism has scarred the Western psyche (and with good reason) and I think made us hesitant to accept any form of dualist thinking. In my Gnosticism, the dualism between the divine spark within and the "forces" (metaphysical, psychosocial) that wish to corrupt and ensnare that divinity.
Much more could be said here (and will be said in future posts), but I think the gnostics (paradoxically) had their cake and ate it too - they found a non-dualism in their dualism and vice/versa without either being primary or greater than the other.