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As mentioned in the prior article at the core of Gnosticism is a specific spiritual experience, grounded in vision and union, that does not lend itself to the language of theology and philosophy, but instead has a close affinity to and expresses itself through myth. In this context, the term myth does not mean stories that are not true, but rather, stories that embody truths of a different order than the dogmas of theology or the theories of philosophy. Myths were held in high regard in the ancient world. Though they lost esteem in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they are increasingly being rehabilitated in our day. A minor mythic renaissance took place in the last decades of the twentieth century, facilitated largely by C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell. Their work fostered the widespread understanding that the meanings present in mythologies, ancient and otherwise. Thus today we are in a much better position than a century ago to appreciate the mythic message of the Gnostics. This article presents some of the principal motifs of the Gnostic myths. Since of necessity this presentation must be in prose and not in the poetic and imaginative language of the original sources, some of the appeal and beauty of the myths are lost.
Most religious and philosophical systems recognize, in one form or another, that the world is imperfect. Where they differ is in what they suggest should be done about it. There are 2 basic answers to this problem; some blame man while some blame a "lesser" God or "spirit". In many traditions, humanity is made out to be the villain. Mainstream Judeo-Christian thought, for instance, holds that the transgression of the first human pair precipitated a fall, not only of the human race but of all creation. The flaws and evils of earthly life are considered the consequences of this fall. Some extreme environmentalists espouse a position that seems like a latter-day secular translation of the doctrine of the Fall. Human beings are seen as the despoilers, the original sinners who perennially destroy the natural paradise. Gnostics have a perhaps unique and startling view of these matters: they hold that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner.
Gnosticism begins with the recognition that earthly life is filled with suffering and impermanence. "Life is hard and then you die" is an adage that Gnostics agree with, although they might modify and thus offset the first part. All forms of life consume other forms to nourish themselves, thereby visiting pain, fear, and death upon one another. This truth pertains even to herbivorous animals, who live by destroying the life of plants. In addition, so-called natural catastrophes-earthquakes, floods, fires, droughts, volcanic eruptions, plagues-bring suffering and death in their wake. The more complex an organism is, the keener is its sense of suffering and distress.
To face these alarming facts squarely is not easy. Most human beings have a strong psychological need to perceive life as in some sense benign and potentially happy. Gnostics (and Buddhists) have often been labeled pessimists and world haters because of their willingness to look the dark face of the world in the eye. Yet, both of these traditions affirm that there is a way out of suffering and ignorance, and that this way out involves an essential, salvific change in consciousness.
As long as a person will not raise his or her consciousness beyond the physical world to higher, spiritual realities, the soul's enslavement in darkness-whether darkness in the outer, physical world or in the world of the mind-continues. It is as though the body and the mind were bars of a cage in which the soul (or spirit) is trapped. When the captive entity exits the cage and flies aloft, it rises to spiritual realms where ultimate meaning and happiness abide. Soaring through these regions, it finally reaches its primordial home, the Divine (Stephen A. Hoeller, Gnosticism: New Light On Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing, Quest Books, 2002, p. 15).
Describing Gnostics as pessimists is valid only if one maintains that the physical and personal psychological realms are the only realities. Regrettably, this view underlies much contemporary secular thought in our culture. In contrast to this view, the Gnostics assign a high value to the self-liberating potential of transcendental consciousness.
The reader may be familiar with Plato's renowned analogy of the cave. Prisoners held in the cave, being unable to see outside, mistake shadows on the wall of the cave to be reality. The light that is the source of the shadows, however, is the true reality and what they were seeing and perceiving as the "truth" and the "ultimate reality" turned out not to be; only a reflection of the "real". Although this "idea" is credited to Plato we find it in the Hebrew Scriptures:
Exod 25:9 9 According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. (KJV)
So what we learn is that the manifestations of the Divine in this realm of what we live or but "blurred images" of the "Real". The Gnostics hold that humans have the potential to turn away from the shadows on the wall permanently and commune with reality directly. This is the basis for an important point: The created world, including a major portion of the human mind, is seen as evil by the Gnostic primarily because it distracts consciousness away from knowledge of the Divine (man is focused more on this blurred image than the reality of the image). Physicality inevitably attracts one to the external (psychology calls this "extroversion"), while the turbulence of the personal mind focuses attention on itself. Through this double distraction, the inner self is forgotten. Yet it is this inner self ("spirit," Greek pneuma) that is the point of transcendence within the human field of experience, for it alone has a direct link with ultimate Divinity. Through the experience of transcendence, what Gnostics regard as the true "original sin," namely, alienation and separation of the human from the Divine, can be undone.
To state that Gnosticism is anticosmic, that Gnostics are world haters, is a gross oversimplification. What the Gnostic struggles against is not so much the cosmos as the alienation of consciousness from the ultimate reality underlying the cosmos, which in monotheistic language is called "God." Since to the soul without gnosis the cosmos appears to be the only reality, it is an obstacle to the Gnostic's true objective, which is the raising of consciousness above all physical and mental substitute realities to the true reality, beyond matter and mind.
The ancient Gnostics lived in a largely monotheistic milieu. The Jews and Christians, and even the pagan Hermeticists, believed in a singular God. Monotheists envision God as the creator and usually also as the sustainer, lawgiver, and law enforcer of the universe. Since the Gnostics-rather reasonably, it seems-could not believe that an erring pair of human ancestors could have brought about the innumerable evils and unpleasantries of the world, they were left with only one culprit.
Answer for yourself: Does Judaism believe in "original sin"? No.
Thus the Gnostics reasoned that the Creator, God himself, is the culprit and the originator of this "imperfection" seen within the world and mankind. The world did not fall, the Gnostics said; rather, it was imperfect from the start.
The proposition that the world was created by an imperfect deity in its own flawed image makes more sense when one understands the Gnostic concept of God, which is more subtle than most. The God of the Gnostics is the ultimate reality, beyond and in a sense quite alien to the created universe. Like Kabbalists and most esotericists the world over, Gnostics substitute the idea of the emanation of the Divine in place of the idea of creation. The transcendent God does not create; the divine essence emanates, comes forth, from the unmanifest state into the manifest, making possible further, more specific creation. The original God remains always the first cause, while other entities become the subordinate, or secondary, causes of creation.
To use a homely analogy: A financier or landowner may decide to develop a large piece of land. Most likely this person will not be directly involved in clearing and preparing the land or in planning and constructing the buildings. Architects, engineers, construction workers, and others will do this work. Is it unreasonable to think that the world might have been created in a similar manner? The Gnostics have always held this view. To elaborate on the analogy: If the landowner becomes less and less involved in the development and the chief architect is inept and his workers slovenly, then in spite of the good intentions of the owner, the final results will be anything but perfect.
The architect was known in ancient Gnosticism as the Demiurge- from the Greek demiurgos, "half-maker," since he made only the form but not the inner life of the world. The workmen and future managers were called archons, using the Greek word for "petty rulers."
Answer for yourself: What implication does this idea have that is of such importance to Judaism, Christianity, and the Old Testament? It goes without saying that the majority of the deeds and words of the Old Testament God accord with the character of the Demiurge. Gnosticism's disdain for Yahweh must be ascribed precisely to this circumstance.
Gnosticism holds that human beings are essentially not the product of the material world. The important term in this statement is essentially, for Gnosticism focuses on the essence rather than the physical and mental containers that envelop this essence. Though the theory of biological evolution did not exist at the time of the ancient Gnostics, one might guess that unlike their mainstream Christian brethren, they would not have objected to it. For they believed that the human body originates on earth but the human spirit has come from afar, from the realm of the Fullness, where the true Godhead dwells. A human being consists of physical and psychic components, which are perishable, as well as a spiritual component, which is a fragment of the divine essence, sometimes called the divine spark. Because the Gnostic tradition recognizes this dual nature-of the world as well as the human being-it has earned the epithet dualistic.
People are generally ignorant of the divine spark residing within them. This ignorance serves the interests of the archons, who act as cosmic slave masters, keeping the light sparks in bondage. In Gnostic belief, Archons were planetary rulers and guardians of the spiritual planes. Gnostic thinking is based upon the notion that the spiritual world is populated by numerous beings (aeons) that have emanated from the original divine being, who is pure and incorruptible. On the other hand, the physical, material world is understood to be ruled by evil forces, and much of this text deals with the origin of the material world and the creation of human beings in particular.
Eph 6:12 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (KJV)
Anything that causes us to remain attached to earthly things, including the mental concepts we hold, keeps us in enslavement to these lesser cosmic rulers. The majority of men and women are like Adam, who was asleep in Paradise. Modern esoteric teachers (notably G. Gurdjieff) have capitalized on this Gnostic theme, representing humanity as a throng of sleepwalkers. Awakening from this sleep is the combined result of our desire for liberation and the supernal help extended to us.
Eph 5:14 14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. (KJV)
Gnosticism professes a very distinct and elaborate soteriology- that is, a teaching regarding salvation and saviors. The sleeping human spirit is stirred by the call of the ultimate Divine by way of divine men, or messengers of Light. Such beings have come forth from the True God throughout history. They descend from the highest spiritual realms to call souls back; they come to restore the human spirit to its original consciousness and lead it back to the Divine. Only a few of these salvific figures are mentioned in Gnostic scripture; some of the more important are Seth (the third son of Adam), Jesus, and the prophet Mani. At times a salvific role is attributed to some of the Old Testament prophets, and in the later (Manichaean) Gnostic tradition some founders of other great religions, such as Buddha and Zarathustra, are recognized as true messengers of Light. The majority of Gnostics have always looked to the manifestation of the "Gnostic Christ" among mankind in the presence of "Jesus the Christ" as the principal savior figure. Even Mani, who carried on his work in Iran and in Asia, regarded himself as a prophet of Jesus Christ and revered Jesus as the savior.
Answer for yourself: What does salvation mean to Gnostics? In many ways, the Gnostic concept of salvation is close to the concept of liberation found in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions; Gnostics look to salvation not from sin (original or other), but from the ignorance of which sin is the consequence. Those who know the Divine through gnosis shed all sin, while those without gnosis cannot help but persist in transgressions. Ignorance-which means ignorance of spiritual realities-is dispelled by gnosis. The decisive revelation of gnosis was brought by the messengers of Light, especially by awaking to "the Christ" within in the form of Joshua-Jesus, who is recognized as the messenger of this age.
The Gnostic concept of salvation is subtle. Students of spirituality whose grasp of Gnostic ideas is superficial often misunderstand salvation by gnosis as a totally unmediated individual experience, a sort of spiritual do-it-yourself project. This projection onto the Gnostic tradition is largely a product of our secular, religiously alienated age and society. Were salvation possible without any outside aid, the vast majority of the human race would have been liberated long ago. Neither is salvific gnosis the result of mere reading, intellectual speculation, and discourse. To be liberated from the predicament of spiritual ignorance we require help, alongside our own efforts.
Gnosticism has always acknowledged that the potential for gnosis, and thus salvation, is inherent in every man and woman, and that salvation is not vicarious and collective but individual. Thus the entire message of mainstream Christian atonement theology is meaningless to the Gnostic. The world was not created perfect, its present state is not the result of a fall, and the human race did not incur an original sin that is passed on to all men and women. Consequently there is no need for God's son to be sacrificed in order to pacify his wrathful Father and thereby save humanity. Notably, the original Greek word for sin, hamartia, means "missing the mark." When used in this sense, the word sinner describes most people. We all miss the mark, and we do so because we are ignorant of things true and divine. The great messengers of Light come to stimulate our ability to shake off this ignorance. We need the enlightening teachings and liberating mysteries (sacraments) they bring to help us manifest our indwelling potential for liberation.
Those whom the messengers of Light awaken from their spiritual slumber-and who then put forth the required amount of spiritual effort and diligence-become true Gnostics (knowers, or pneumatics, truly spiritual persons), whereas others remain unconscious of this spiritual truth of mankind and therefore their focus is earthbound (fleshly and not spiritually minded).
The enemies of the Gnostics (beginning with the heresiologist church fathers) never tired of claiming that the Gnostics were proud elitists who held the rest of humanity in contempt. Yet there are no records of Gnostic crimes against humanity-of the followers of Gnosticism tyrannizing over or persecuting those who were not of their spiritual conviction or who disagreed with them. The inquisitions, crusades, and jihads were not devised by Gnostics but were frequently devised against them.
The Gnostic feels that earthly life is in many ways a state of enslavement to the dark powers, yet no Gnostic is known to have believed that death brings about automatic liberation from these onerous conditions. Liberating knowledge must come while a person is still in the embodied state, and those who attain such spiritual liberation enjoy their freedom whether they are in or out of embodiment. On the other hand, those who are not liberated in consciousness are by definition still entrapped in the shackles of manifestation, whether they are in or out of the body. Several Gnostic documents indicate that human beings repeatedly return to this earthly realm (that is, they reincarnate) until their transformed consciousness makes rebirth no longer necessary.
The implications are clear: the Gnostic needs to know the eternal realm from where souls originate. This knowledge makes all issues of life and death self-evident and takes away all fear of what the world calls death. These early Christian Gnostics were in contact with the ineffable, divine reality that is their and our source, they also knew what state they shall return to upon death. Without this knowledge they taught that mankind is indeed dead, even though he may show signs of physical life.
In addition to being accused of spiritual elitism, Gnostics have also time and again been charged with advocating moral nihilism, known technically as antinomianism, or "opposition to the law." Here also the subtlety of the Gnostic position is easily missed. Most religions teach that people attain salvation by obeying the rules (for instance, the laws of Manu, of Hammurabi, or of Moses) revealed by a divine or quasi-divine source. This position clearly lacks psychological refinement. People do not act in a vacuum; a person's conduct rises out of his state of consciousness. Murder is the result of a murderous state of mind, lying is the manifestation of a lack of integrity and authenticity in the mind and soul. Buddha, the great Gnostic of Asia, stated that right thinking must be present for right action to occur. Gnosticism is a system of thought based on interior, psychospiritual experience. This being the case, it is not surprising that Gnosticism emphasizes states of mind and regards actions as secondary in nature and importance. Gnostics have always held that consciousness, rather than external action, is the true indicator of moral worth.
If ethics and morals are taken to refer to a system of rules, the Gnostic is not likely to regard them very highly. Rules without the consciousness that reveals the reason behind the rules are little better than useless. Thus many Gnostics say that rules and laws in themselves are not salvific, for salvation comes only by gnosis. On the other hand, if morality is defined as an inner integrity rising from the illumination stemming from the knowledge of this indwelling supernal Divine spark, it is likely to be enthusiastically embraced by followers of the Gnostic tradition. Thus we see how Paul for instance you teach Gnosticism in the New Testament and still stress morality and ethical conduct which finds its impetus for the awareness of the Christ "within".
Rom 6:13 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (KJV)
Here we find both the ethical and moral admonitions for mankind coupled with this "awakening from ignorance of one's true identity and spiritual position which the Gnostics associated with death" where we see the Spiritual Awakening to the "Christ within" which is the Gnostic's motivation to not only become like "Christ" but to "act like Christ" (remember Christ is the manifestation of the masculine aspect of God and Sophia the feminine aspect of God that dwells within us) as well.
This is but a brief sketch of core ideas of Gnosticism and as our studies increase this will become more apparent to the reader and student as we examine not only the literature of the earliest Christians but the earliest New Testament of Marcion as well.
In closing another important question is whether the elements of the Gnostic worldview are to be understood literally or symbolically. Literalism and dogmatism, which manifest all too often in the mainstream churches that have declared Gnosticism heretical, are distinctly unGnostic views. Gnosticism has a woridview, but it has no theology and no doctrines to believe in. The Gnostic scriptures are primarily mythical in content, and all myths can be interpreted in diverse ways. Modern depth psychology, especially as taught by Jung, has explored the Gnostic myths primarily because of their relevance to archetypes, individuation, the shadow, and similar concepts. The Gnostic myths, like other myths, can hold a number of meanings that do not cancel each other out but exist simultaneously. Psychological truths, in addition to other kinds of truth, can be found in these myths, and none of these truths needs to be denied.
The Gnostic worldview holds a perennial appeal because it has always been in accord with the "knowledge of the heart" that is gnosis. Some feel that Gnosticism is especially timely at the beginning of the third millennium. The end of the second millennium saw the radical deterioration of many ideologies that could not stand up to the questions of the times; these questions, however, are addressed by the sages of Gnosticism. The clarity, frankness, authenticity, and frequently the contemporary relevance of Gnostic answers to questions of the human predicament cannot fail to impress and, in time, to convince.