gnosticism | The Blog of Baphomet

Most spiritual paths seem to have as part of their focus a desire to help us create a sense of certainty and security as we try to try to engage with the challenging messiness of human experience. Whether via the provision of a coherent world view or at least a set of practices that help provide meaning and alleviate boredom, religions of various stripes work hard at trying to create a buffer between ourselves and the existential anxiety that appears to be innate to our shared humanity.

One of the core questions that Gnosticism seeks to grapple with is whether the religious answers that we seek are real solutions, or whether they are more likely to perpetuate a sleepy engagement with a world that actually needs answers with a sharper edge. Do our attempts at meaning help us grow to our full potential as human beings; or do they sustain a child-like dependence and immaturity?

Existential shock

Scott Peck in A Different Drum sought to identify the various developmental stages that a person might go through as they try to grow within their chosen world view. Peck saw an adherence to formal/institutional forms of faith as being quite childlike in its desire for certainty. To remain in this state requires a degree of blinkeredness in shutting off new information that might be viewed as introducing unnecessary confusion. These believers may well deal with high levels of stress and complexity in other areas of their lives, but in the realm of metaphysics and faith, dependence and clarity are vital.

In contrast with the position of the child, the rebellious adolescent is perpetually sceptical and questioning. This highly individualistic perspective when imbued with rebellion and punk rock energy seeks to actively deconstruct those literal, less critical versions of belief that they formerly embraced. While this approach might be ideal for generating heresy and polemic, it may not be so great at sustaining an enterprise.

For Peck the more mature, integrated adult position is that of the Mystic who is able to approach the mythic richness of a given faith with a more nuanced and communal perspective. The questioning of the rebel is retained, but their sceptical energy is directed at trying to access a richer, more archetypal appreciation of stories that were once scorned. The exploration of spiritual meaning will (by necessity) have a more collaborative dimension, in which we allow our relationships to support us in tolerating uncertainty and allowing us to explore greater psychological openness.

The Gnostics were often keen to push us toward this more adult position, challenging us to adopt radical reinterpretations of biblical myth that were often triggered by a daring trust in personal religious insight (Gnosis). In their perception of humanity’s core dilemma, the Gnostics also mapped out a three-fold schema of the differing responses that people gave. In contrast to the hylic’s coarse materialism and the psychic’s inability to rise above their immediate context, the pneumatic aims of the Gnostics asked them to seek a spiritual dimension (the divine spark) that transcended the sensory bombardment and impermanence of the material world.

While the Gnostics were often startling in the originality of their vision, it would seem fair to ask whether their approach was simply too stark and demanding a path to follow. If this is growing up, do I even want to?

Gnostic vision

To be fair to the Gnostics they never claimed that life was easy or that their path was universal. To reflect on impermanence and the path of liberation necessitates a greater awareness of the tricky nature of reality, and the lack of fulfillment that our current paths are providing. To seek Gnosis as a means of greater freedom will always involve risk and the possibility of rejection by those seeking more orthodox answers.

Recent commentators on the Gnostic revival (e.g. Stephan Hoeller and Hans Jonas) have been keen to point out the similarities between the aims of the Gnosticism and the philosophical pursuits of existentialism. In struggling to find coherent meaning in our experience of life, the existentialists often proposed a heroic engagement with uncertainty, and an exploration of how personal action into the world might affect it. Both of these paths seem to be pointing to a place where our struggle with meaning asks us to take responsibility for the path we take. As the existential psychologist Rollo May observed, “courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.” (The Courage to Create)

The call “to put away childish things” will have different implications for all of us. For me this call to adulthood is not one in which playfulness or simplicity are abandoned, rather it presents a challenge to stop expecting either spoon-fed answers or to pay too much attention to my own inner-parent’s demands that my current path is not quite good enough (“meditate more, acquire more information!”).

Unlike the moody rebel this path is not one of arid isolation and false independence. As much as this path is uniquely my own, I gain much from the company and encouragement of others. The connections that I make and sustain are hopefully more shaped by shared adulthood and the desire to co-create; and while I continue to respect and seek counsel from those further along the path, I no longer expect them to have the answers that only my own internal alchemy can produce.

In my last post about fan fiction I got to wondering about how great works of art can trigger our own process of inspiration. Any material that stirs something deep within us can catalyse our own creative juices in a manner that leads us to express our own creativity into the world of manifestation. The nature of what moves us can be as diverse as the new series of the X-files or the Tao Te Ching.

Gnostic inspiration

We also considered the way in which the Gnostics of the early church could be seen as generating their own fan fiction is response to the life of Jesus and his followers. In contrast to orthodox attempts to delineate “truth” within a recognised canon of scripture, the Gnostics often viewed the boundaries as far more permeable. If the incoming of gnosis was available to Jesus and his apostles why limit such inspiration? He keeps speaking to us and through producing new Gospels us as we encounter new challenges and evolve deepened understanding.

In this exercise I’d like you to consider an existing source of personal inspiration that can help you generate your own fan fictional gospel or “Good News”. For this fan fiction to be truly good news it must open up for you a greater possibility of freedom and liberation from something that you feel is limiting to you; in gnostic terms we might define these as being archonic. For our art to have gospel force, it must offer us a potential key to a greater sense of “peace, freedom and happiness” (as we say in the Nath tradition).

In my view the best fan fiction tends to be generated by those who are deeply moved by the original source material and have spent time soaking in the canon of that work. From an overtly spiritual perspective, the practice of Lectio Divina (divine reading) offers a number of interesting methods for deepening our engagement with material that we experience as being sacred. Lectio Divina identifies a number of stages that the aspirant or fan might go through in order to further internalise something so as to transform themselves.

In this exercise I’m proposing that we utilise each of these steps in engaging with material of your choice e.g. Principia Discordia, Bhagavad Gita, the script from True Detective (series one!) and then to take this one step further so as to create your own liberating art work.

Stage 1: Lectio (Reading): Here we read or engage with our primary material in a deliberate, conscious manner. You may want to break it down into small chunks like a couple of verses or a specific scene within a film. I often find reading a text aloud can give it a different voice and provide new insight. If nothing else the reading of something aloud vibrates it through our bodies.

Stage2: Meditatio (Meditation): During this stage we are reflecting upon or pondering what we have engaged with. In some senses we are seeking a Zen-like “beginner’s mind” where we try to let go of our assumptions and perhaps the previous meanings we have attached to it. There is perhaps also a sense of slow simmering or percolation as we let the text speak to the varying aspects of our being.

Stage 3: Oratio (Prayer): This might be a spontaneous prayer response directed towards a deity or we might view it as the bubbling up of our inspired response to our meditations. As we simmer in contemplation so the deeper aspects of ourselves vibrate in response. Such responses should be neither censored nor scripted; rather they reveal something real and unguarded about how something impacts upon us.

Stage 4: Contemplatio (Contemplation): Here we rest and reflect on the impact of our inspired response. Rather than a fevered response at the height of ecstasy, now we sit with our own process of transformation so as to allow a further maturation of any gnosis gained.

Okay, so far so good! Hopefully you can appreciate how this approach might profoundly enrich and personalise your experience of your chosen form of inspiration. What I’d like to propose for the purposes of this exercise is that we move this method on one stage further in engaging in a further act of creation…

Stage 5: Creatio (Creation): Having read, meditated and been inspired we are now able to channel this response into our own creative activity. In seeking to work with those archonic forces within our lives we can allow our triggered inspiration to explore those potential routes to greater freedom. For some people this may inspire a freedom-text in the style of the original, but we shouldn’t be too tied to producing a replica:

“And lo, on the third day Steve decided that he must flee his pressured job and head to the beach more…”

When inspiration takes hold it may be that your approach will be less linear! Your acts of creation may be in making collage, cooking a great meal for friends or having a proper dance around your kitchen. So much of the stuckness that we experience comes from our need to get it right, but like many things in life most of us do better when we are allowed to relax a bit, to be curious and the explore things playfully.

I hope you have fun playing with this approach and allow yourself the space to explore how the things you love can inspire the creation of your own art. Peace, love and freedom to those willing to respond to their inner Muse!