Five Critiques of Online “Gnosticism”

There has been much that has disturbed me about online “Gnosticism,” and much more that has disappointed me. I have considered ceasing to participate, as others have done, and have changed how and to what extent that I do. I've also had to wonder whether the well has been poisoned so that it may be extremely difficult to accomplish serious work as a Gnostic and have it be accepted as such. I also wonder how much of a barrier my wearing my collar is, metaphorically speaking. There is a long and ancient tradition of priests engaged in serious academic work. Lest we forget (or never know), that is where the enlightenment came from: even though its proponents ridiculed religion uniformly. The modern imagination is a very poor thing, it knows only the few framing or over-arching stories that have been pounded into it by advertising and polemics. Being able to judge as opposed to pre-judge is rare.

I also don't really recognize most of what goes on under the title of Gnosticism as being particularly Gnostic, if Gnostic at all. There are the idiosemantic users of the word, those who essentially invent their own meaning. But even if you take away those, there isn't much I identify with as a Gnostic. Fortunately, there are some gems. Some of that is the nature of online communication, but how much?

So, as I ponder these things, I'll lay out my own critiques in response to Jordan's.

1) Where's the Beef? The meaty chunks of simmering insight that come from Gnosis? In the absence of that, where is the careful work that continually checks to see if we have imprisoned ourselves in one false cosmos or another? Commenting on current events and responding to one another is a part of a vibrant community, but it can also lead to vacuity. And no vacuity seems worse than blog vacuity at times. I'll admit to it myself, in case you think I'm unaware of a celebrity interview snip not far below this article. Sure, it touches on Gnosticism, yet I can't help considering it a low point of this blog. The other low points come from responding to posts, which make me wonder about the whole vibrant community thing. That, and in a vibrant Gnostic community, one would expect more gems than there are.

It may be that if we actually supported good writing we would get it. It is also hard to disentangle issues of the mediums used: blogs, forums, and such.

2) Where's the conversation? Chatting doesn't in and of itself lead to much. It is the deep conversations that enrich us all. Conversation in the largest sense. Conversations that might begin as speaking together or as correspondence, or might be with the works of those long past, and might grow into books or works of art. The great Conversation of the Ages is so hard to hear now, that at times it seems silent. How can we raise our conversations to a point where we might converse on that scale, if we don't converse at all? (Some of this is a result of the forms of communication, but how much?)

3) What's with all the labels, groupings, and team-identifications? Gnosticism is what connects many otherwise divergent approaches to religion. That isn't easy to understand, and there will never be a mathematical formula, nor a quick and slick definition for it, because it concerns Gnosis. It would be like sculpting a sonnet: an indirect representation at best. The adding of an adjective seems to be the adding of a form that is more or less a religious form to this. The approach of focusing more on the adjective than on the noun seems part of an odd movement to turn Gnosticism into just another religion, with handed down or institutional: beliefs, authorities, and identities. It gives me a sensation like ice spiders crawling down my back. Going hand in hand with this is the tendency to see Gnosticism as being centered around personalities. There are strong personalities and very gifted individuals involved, but it isn't about them.

4) Where's the commitment and support? If this your spiritual journey, why treat it like a hobby? If you seek liberation for real, then it isn't just a weekend thing, or something you do so long as you don't have to put in an hour of work or a dollar of support. This comes down to the seriousness of being on your spiritual path. The real measure we are measured against is not our ideas, it is reality. It is troubling to see how many individuals seek to change or control everything so that they can avoid being transformed. We get them all the time in our churches.

Gnostic churches and projects don't take a lot of money to support, but they do take some. Many spend so many times more on their pets, on things they never use, on entertainment, or on the snack machine—than on what might support them and others on their spiritual path. If you've had money in your pocket and haven't donated at least five dollars in the past month, why not? Unless you are in the same category as me, that represents a lot less than the ten percent many manage to give in mainstream churches. No one is asking for ten percent or any bundle you can't afford, but sticking your change in a jar for a few months then donating that money is more than almost everyone does. You may be poor, but face it, if you live in the privileged parts of the world, you probably dispose of disposable income to some extent. Why almost none of this ever goes to support Gnostic services, projects, or churches is very perplexing. Who do you think pays for everything?

It isn't just about money either, even if you don't have money on the very small scale we are talking about, you often have time. Donate some time to perform whatever work or tasks need to be done. They aren't all wonderful or interesting tasks, and the reason I know is because I do them. Getting any help with anything can be impossible, and it isn't like we can hire help.

5) Where's the focus on Gnosis? If anything besides apathy seals the decline of modern Gnosticism, it will be the ideas people have lodged in their minds about it. Arguments over people's ideas of the forms that Gnosticism should take are only made the more ridiculous by the fact that these are theoretical arguments. The only “should” that really matters in Gnosticism, is Gnosis. Without keeping a focus on it, the rest is meaningless. Your theories can never interfere with my experience of the Eucharist. Nor can your theories alter the experiences I had in my ordination, and as a result of it. Just as no theories or ideas I or anyone else may have can remove your experiences. If we can see our Gnosis reflected in the tradition, and can use the tradition as a foundation, guide, and touchstone for our work, we have a deeper kinship than any theory or set of ideas can grant us. Without Gnosis and the mirror of tradition, there is no Gnosticism. There may be Gnostics, but there is no Gnosticism.

The vision I have tried to articulate and am working on bringing into actuality is the Gnosis Institute. Yet that will not address all of the above, particularly 3 and 4. The problem I see is people deciding that Gnosticism is too inconvenient if it requires work, commitment, and support, when they can decide another label will work better for them, or none at all. But it isn't about labels, or being a member of a group, or identifying with something—it is about reality. We can do much more than opine and argue, we can study, research, and seek to know what we can of the truth; for it is the truth that will set us free.

Encyclopedia Gnostica

The open wiki format for online resources has major issues, beginning with the reliability of the information. Even if it has taken form with the intended group considerations, anyone can veto those considerations and change the information for their own ends. That is to say that the Wikipedia format assumes that those involved intend for the end result to be an encyclopedia. When any individual or, as is happening more often, program can veto the purpose of the site itself, the situation is like that of a leaking ship. Either more and more bailing is required as more holes are put in the hull, or one can patch the hull.

After many disappointments with Wikipedia, and the endless spam attacks at the effort at the PTG, the need for something else has been apparent. The Gnosis Institute will be offering the Encyclopedia Gnostica, an encyclopedia in wiki format that isn't open to the world to modify, but is an open and growing resource. There aren't many entries at the moment, it will take work to write and reference the articles. It is a beginning.

Tori Amos Interview Snip

SIMON: Anyone looking through your previous albums, and looking though the track listing on this collection, you talked about the fact your father was sort of disappointed with the way you’d turned out from a spiritual point of view, but spiritual language comes through almost everything that you do.

TORI: mmm (agreeing)

SIMON: So what kind of spiritual person are you, if any kind of spiritual person?

TORI: Well, I mean…

SIMON: I can’t imagine that you would fit any kind of label particularly.

TORI: Well, I really tried to get my Dad to read the Gnostic Gospels. You know as a place as a bridge, a place for us to kind of meet at the round table, and he said “As far as I’m concerned, If it’s not in the Bible, then it doesn’t exist,” and I said “Yes, but Dad, let me take you back to a time when you put together my anthology, and you edited out some of the most important tracks, I think, of my career. So Crucify, God they weren’t on there, so why couldn’t then a man of the church edit out certain things Jesus said that he didn’t agree with? Stands to reason, doesn’t it?” Well the conversation ended there, and I guess having read the Gnostic Gospels now, and growing up in the church as I did, I could see that maybe Jesus’ Christianity was very, very different, how he saw women, to me he was the first Christian feminist, umm and that Christianity is not what I was brought up with.

SIMON: Yeah I was right, it doesn’t fit any label, but it’s, it’s the way you see it. What does your Dad think?

TORI: Well I think that now my Dad, he’s getting older now, and it does trouble him that women aren’t looked at as worthy of being disciples. Where are the women prophets? I mean if we have Emily Dickinson, if we have Jane Austen, if we have all these poets and now in my time Joni Mitchell, if we have all these people, Sylvia Plath, where are they? They were there, they existed. So, when I began to read the Gnostic Gospels in my twenties, and I was able to see that yes they were there, umm it made me see that this Christianity that my family had been so committed to edited out what I thought was a huge part of, well I’m a woman, my place in the religion, so as I woman I felt we were edited out.

Read it all at undented.com

Yes, I admit I annoyed co-workers and also customers in years past with Tori Amos albums on endless replay. Yet her quest reflected so many of ours in a very deep way. Who knew we were reading the same things as well?

The Sad State of News Reports

What disturbed me the most, and still does, about news reports of Pope Benedict's comments and the reaction among Muslims, is that in none of the reports was there any mention of context. The first few reports failed to even mention that he was quoting someone else, making it seem like he had just gone crazy. By the second day, the reports uniformly contained the information that it was a quote, and a very old one. Yet, there was no mention of the context, that is, the way in which the quote was used. This is the sort of thing that drives me towards the deep end, and makes me think that my considerations on the current Dim Age are actually understated instead of exaggerated.

Why is this important? Well, if the words are not your own, then the only thing connecting them to you is why you are quoting them. The fact is, given the news reports, there was no way of determining whether Pope Benedict was agreeing with the quote, the main view, or using it as an example of previous misunderstandings. In the later context he may even have been using the quote in order to vehemently disagree with it, there was no way of knowing. However, everyone seemed to know. They didn't seem to need that information, or think it relevant enough to include in their news reports.

The same attitude is prevalent across the board in our reporting and presenting. It drives me up the wall when I see someone interviewed who clearly just contradicted what they said not five minutes ago, and the interviewer doesn't seem to even notice let alone think it worth mentioning, or, *gasp* bringing it up and asking about it.

How much damage was done, and will be done in the end? It is hard to say. There were reports of indiscriminant fire-bombings of churches for one. There was a increase in the perception of an irreconcilable divide between religions and cultures for another. And in the end, we will never know.

The actual context of the quote, should you be one of the few who may consider that important, was in arguing against the spread of religion by violence. An argument against holy war, almost started or deepened another one. If that information had been included the reports would not have been so sensational, nor as dangerous. They may have just been considered unwise, or an incomplete picture. Who knows? We never will. Nor will we know the next time.

The Gnosis Foundation

In a comment JP suggested having a general Gnostic fund of some sort. This is already in the plans, though not in the works. The Gnosis Foundation is intended to be such a fund, one that can provide direct support in ways that are outside the purview of the Gnosis Institute. The notion is to be able to award grants to aid in starting up services and aiding with expenses for an initial period, providing some general grants by application, aiding with emergencies, and providing scholarships for travel expenses related to education and services.

The reason this is “in the plans not in the works” is that it takes money to give money. When the Institute is up and running, we can start the Gnosis Foundation as an Institute project or a set of related projects, though it may need to become a separate legal entity. The money and governance will be kept separate. There will be a great deal of consideration and work required to set up the governance and dispersal of such funds. And yes, the amounts will probably be small. But this is something that a great deal of thought has gone into, the need has been seen, and there is a solution on the horizon.

I will write more on this later, but I wanted to let people know that it was in the plans, and get some initial reactions.

How Long Will I be Able to do This?

This is an ever more recurring question for me these days. Approaching these seminars I found out how many jobs I do and how much time it all takes. None of them pay. Only one has ever broken even, and that was the Gnostic Calendar. Yet considering the months of work that went into it, breaking even is not a sustainable condition. Everything else that I do costs a lot. It costs in materials, and it costs in time—or what some call opportunity costs. You could be doing something else, maybe something that pays you money for hard and skilled work, but you can't because you are doing something you have to pay to do.

So far there have been four donations online, and I appreciate every one of them. They will actually allow me to continue one more month. Keeping the Internet connection and buying port for mass. I also deeply appreciate the few who have donated personally, those donations coved the majority of the cost of a few chairs for the chapel. It was a priority, I saw a great deal on an odd number, I borrowed more money for the rest. Now a few people can sit comfortably through services.

GnosCast takes time to produce. It requires recording equipment, a lot of space on my antiquated computer, and lot of time to edit. The longer ones require a great deal more time, and after recording the last one very late at night and sounding like it, I realized that I need to spend even more time to not have the sound of them be such a barrier to listening to them. So, I haven't completed the next one.

The seminars I am currently doing took thousands of hours to prepare. The publicity art and layout took a very long time. Sending out notices, hanging up fliers, sneaking bookmarks into books at stores that don't let you hang up fliers. Then there is scheduling the space, the papers and inks, producing brochures and handouts, producing overhead transparencies to use, and so on. Being prepared enough to let the audience guide the discussion is no small task either, and that is in addition to examining the material and conducting research to come to unique conclusions and put them into a new form that might be conveyed more readily. Donations so far? None. There wasn't a very large attendance either. Fortunately, those who did attend came with questions and comments and it turned out quite well. But, I think you get the point.

So, the next time you wonder “why isn't there a Gnostic church in my area?” Or, whatever happened to that cool effort? You will know. It honestly doesn't take much to help. If enough people do voluntary subscriptions to GnosCast, I can keep my Internet connection and keep the meditations and homilies going. If more do, I can keep the longer ones going and do so regularly. If you don't, I loose my connection and it stops. The same happens if there are no church services. Homilies are delivered at the end of them, and they are a part of producing those. Do you need to sit in the chapel to support services there? If enough people support seminars they will continue to happen. I will be able to continue to try to reach folks locally and in other areas. If enough people support them, I can even make the materials and recordings available to everyone and not have to sell them. Do you need to be there to support them?

The Gnosis Institute is a way to be able to support serious and scholarly work, and a way to work together on important projects. It is something new, something we need. And it isn't in competition with anything that is currently going on or planned. It is the sort of approach that we need to keep Gnosticism from devolving into just another religion in the modern world, or from being perceived as such. And it is so much more. We are entering a Dim Age if not a dark one. We must preserve and expand the light. The Renaissance really began centuries before, with a reawakening to the interiority of the human being. This occurred at the time Gnostic thought moved into Western Europe and gained adherents in the form of the Cathars. The religious reforms of the period can already be traced to a large degree to Cathar influence, as can the troubadour tradition and its vast cultural influence. And, perhaps, the roots of the Renaissance can be traced more directly to them as well. These things can have larger effects than we can imagine. But only if they occur.

That is the answer to the question that I was asked last Sunday, and was asked again today in a different form. What is my biggest concern? How long I will be able to do this. Where do I get the money to do this? I don't. I am being helped through by someone almost as poor as I am, someone who lives on social security, and that cannot continue for much longer. I may be able to extend this long loss, this slide towards homelessness, with school loans. But, that isn't a solution, just a stop-gap, and really another sacrifice to get the Gnosis Institute going as well as I can for what time remains to me. That is the bare truth.

Perhaps I will be able to get to that stop-gap measure, and then get from there to the next. That is the plan. And perhaps the person with the least will be able to continue funding Institutes, podcasts, seminars, and church services. It has happened so far, but for how long I can't say.

Gnosis: It's Not What You Think

Gnosis is not what you think. It is not an idea, not a doctrine. It is not objective. It is not definable. It is not found inside of rigid limits, nor outside of all considerations. It is not yours. It is not ours. It is something attained, and is a quickening of what we already have. It is a knowledge that you are, not a knowledge that you have.

If you are looking for a label, Gnosis is not it. If you are seeking a path with answers, Gnosis is not it. If you are looking for a path that fits you, Gnosis is not it. If you are seeking what is real beyond yourself and your ideas, then you may already be on the path of Gnosis.

We do not seek to propagate any set of beliefs or doctrines, nor to spread one set of teachings or one perspective. We seek to follow the injunction from the Gospel of Thomas: “If you see what is before your face, there is nothing that will not be revealed to you.” We seek to know what is real, and to follow that beyond our current notions, ideas, and understandings. We stand apart in that we do not prejudge the real to exclude what is called the spiritual. We do not exclude what has always been a part of human experience, what has always been a part of human culture. For to do that would be to veer from the path of Gnosis towards mere ideas.

Gnosis is not what you think. And it is not something you will understand quickly. It is something you will come to know, and grow in that knowing. You may know someone to a large extent after a few years, but you cannot know someone entirely in the span of a lifetime. If you think you have hold of it, you have not. It is in the living, in the growing—it is never complete.

Scriptures tell us that the truth shall make us free. In Greek, the word for “truth” is “un-hidden.” The un-hidden, the unveiled, the examined shall set us free. This requires discipline and commitment, training and work. It requires an allegiance to the real that is higher than the allegiance to the ideal.

How seriously do you take your spiritual path? How committed are you to your liberation? Will you join us?

Spread the word! Use the image on your blog or page.

Visit the Gnosis Institute CafePress Shop

Next Seminar: Exit the Matrix

I thought I had better get the graphic done so I can advertise the next seminar at the fast approaching one.

The Ultimate Da Vinci Code Absurdity?

According to Avdat blog this Curriculum describes the Da Vinci Code as a modern Gnostic Gospel.

Yes, I'm still holding onto the possibility that it may be a joke. Please let it be a joke.

Discernment

The intent for last Sunday and for this week is discernment. It is the most weighty task appointed to us, and yet it is so often bypassed. After all, why discern when you already think you know?

Many years ago I had a dream in which I was in a “School for the Blind” at first I understood this as being such in the conventional sense, a school for people whose physical apparatus of vision was not functioning. However, as the dream unfolded it was revealed that the people in the school were capable of visual perception, they simply did not use it—because they already 'knew' where everything was, and so they did not bother to look. This 'knowledge' was obviously faulty and incomplete, yet that did not cause them to open their eyes. And the school existed to teach them how to cope with this willing blindness.

Discernment is the ability to see what is really there. To discern the differences and similarities. To make subtle distinctions, and to see connections. Without it, you have merely your ideas imposed upon all that you see. You are blind, because you already 'know' what you would see—if you looked.

Yet we cannot accomplish much in the actual world around us without discernment. We may want to act in service of a greater good, but without discerning to a very high degree how this might be done, we may actually accomplish the opposite. The “best intentions” and all of that. Without it, things can seem simple indeed. Do good. Achieve Gnosis. Live a Good life. With it, things get much more complex. What is the good? What is good in a given situation? Is what you achieved Gnosis? How much can you determine from an experience of Gnosis? These are the sorts of questions that get the asker handed a cup of hemlock on occasion.

You know someone is merely trying to persuade you when they try to take the discernment process away from you. The point of democracy is to have as many people making discernments as possible, yet in practice the point is to take away the discernment and present a simple choice that isn't a choice at all. Instead of being able to seriously and publicly consider if these means are the best way of reaching an end, or if that end is the best way of achieving a goal—we are given dualistic good vs. evil choices. It comes down to a simple claim repeated endlessly, “you are either for us completely and unreservedly, or you are against us and are simply evil.”

As Gnostics we cannot put our “Faith in someone else's faith,” as famously phrased by William James. Nor can we allow others to do our discerning for us. This is a key difference between Gnostic and Creedal expressions of religion. In the Creedal strategy, the discerning has already been done, or will be done by someone else. Things have been discerned, and will be discerned in distant times and places for you. In the Gnostic perspective, this simply cannot be done.

This need to always be discerning is what ties Gnosticism so closely to Philosophy. A definition of Philosophy that would hold up to scrutiny would be one that focused on discernment. Otherwise, Philosophy is a vast expanse of fields whose connections are easier to perceive than to describe. But the process of discernment brings them together into a set of skills, methods, practices, and conventions.

But as mentioned before with the hemlock reference, discernment is often a very unpopular thing. It frightens many people, especially the powers that be. After all, if you are discerning then you will not be merely subservient to authority, nor will you always side with “your team” against all challenges or considerations. In short, it makes you an individual, and there is something deeply disturbing to many about that.

There is also false discernment, mere labeling for the purpose of saying that it is “for us or against us” or “good or evil.” Or the rhetorical device of trying to re-frame everything so that conclusions are predetermined in that same “good or evil” manner. This is the “black and white” thinking that is given as a hallmark of the abusive and manipulative groups that are often referred to as cults. It is a means of control not a way of discerning. The truly scary part is that this has become the norm in so many areas, including our politics.

This is not to say that we cannot be guided or aided in our discernment—but it must remain our own. Discerning is not a simple thing, and it can depend upon knowledge, skill, and wisdom. Deciding that you 'know' something you don't understand is the path of the willfully blind. Often, a great deal of work is involved to be able to comprehend and begin the process of discernment. And so the difference is whether one is guided through a discernment process or is given the result. This can be seen as the difference between educating and indoctrinating, for example.

We must always be engaged in the process of discernment. A process with many subtleties and refinements. A process with many misapplications and false starts. Yet a process that is intrinsic to following the path of Gnosis.

Gnosis Institute Public Center

Gnosis Institute Projects

Gnosis Institute Education

A more detailed look at one of the Threefold mission areas of the Gnosis Institute. The Graduate School will be a regionally accredited academic institution. That means that not only will the Institute be able to award degrees, but they will have meaning in the academic world. We are currently taking the necessary steps towards this, but are only in the initial stages. It will be a long process as this is something we will have to grow as well. But not only can we do it, we are doing it. Want to help?

It is Always the Time for Philosophy

“Socrates neither set out benches for his students, nor sat on a platform, nor set hours for his lectures. He was philosophizing all the time—while he was joking, while he was drinking, while he was soldiering, whenever he met you on the street, and at the end when he was in prison and drinking the poison. He was the first to show that all your life, all the time, in everything you do, whatever you are doing, is the time for philosophy.”

-Plutarch

Interview by Gnostic Journalist Derick Varn

The interview that I did with Derick Varn is now available at The Green Triangle. It was begun right after Holy Week (hence the feeling like I had aged a decade comment).

An Interview with Fr. Troy Pierce by C. Derick Varn.

This Night Your Soul is Required of You

I am just back from a week's vacation. Not the usual sort of vacation that I hear about other people sometimes taking, but as close as I seem to get to taking one: sleeping on a distant couch, preferably the kind that folds out into a bed. This time it was a relatively nearby distant couch, one in a time-share in Park City, almost 30 miles outside of Salt Lake. Thanks to the Internet trading of my aunt and uncle for the opportunity in general. And, in particular, my ability to detach myself from my weekday activities to drive my mother there and stay. As nice as it was to spend some time in a resort town, and to get away from the narrow horizons that normally present themselves to me in my day to day life, the greatest part of the trip was much more precious—time.

In the Lectionary readings of a few weeks ago, we read the version of the parable of the Rich Fool that is found in the Gospel of Thomas. It is a short, simple, and stark story. A man is prosperous, well off, in the black. He makes some plans on how to use his current wealth to make even more money. Right after planning this, he dies. I like the archaic phrasing from the King James Version. “But God said to him, Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”

There are different interpretations of the “moral” of this parable. However, being a parable, it is a symbol in story form. It cannot be encapsulated in any single “moral.” That is why I like the simplicity of the version found in Thomas, it lacks the interpretation that is found in Luke. This lets you approach it again and again for the first time. The only thing missing from English interpretations of this parable from the Coptic of Thomas is the compelling poetry of the phrase, “this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”

One of the “morals” given to this parable is that the rich man was foolish for keeping the wealth and not giving it to the poor. Presumably, that would have been a wiser investment in that interpretation, giving him eternal dividends in the afterlife. I addressed this type of thinking in my article on “Treasures in Heaven” so I won't go into it here, except to mention that it strikes me as the weakest of the possible spins to put on this parable. Turning it all into some postmortem investment scheme. Some way to get “more bang for your buck,” or some such nonsense.

No, there are many other reasons why the man in the parable is a fool. The one I'll touch on here is a simple one, so simple that it's profundity escapes us until it is too late. One of the ways in which the rich fool misplaces value is to value his wealth to the exclusion of what was so much more precious—time. No amount of wealth could purchase him one more sunrise. It was that night that his soul was required of him. That very literal deadline could not be moved back one day, or hour, or minute more.

No matter what his plans where, he could not have carried them out. Even if he had planned to go and give all that he had to the poor the next day, it wouldn't have happened. Nothing on the other side of that night would ever matter to him the way that night would. For nothing beyond that night would ever be, even though he could not know that. Yet he spent those few precious remaining minutes planning on how to use the abundance that he had acquired only for the purpose of acquiring more the next season, which, presumably, he would also only use to acquire still more after that.

In every consideration of the parable, the man is a fool because he values the wrong things, he doesn't recognize what is truly valuable. He lacks Gnosis, and so goes about doing what seems best for him in the world like life were merely a game. He doesn't experience it directly in the story, he makes plans, laying out a strategy for the game. There is no fault found with his strategy, it is never intimated that his plans wouldn't work. He will simply never get to implement them. The game ends and he is no longer the playing piece in his future plans, but a soul. No longer a prosperous man doing what seems wise, but a fool.

It is amazing how often we put off doing things. How much time we spend making plans that will not even be attempted. How much we refuse to simply allow ourselves to be ourselves until this or until that, or, because of this or because of that. And so our strategy becomes to not live our life as we would truly want to do so at the only time that we will have to do so—a strategy guaranteed to loose. For the only time that we can have is right now. The only place were we can live is here, now.

Trading away a day now for a future day may be a poor bargain in other ways. Scientists have found that subjective time really does pass by faster the older you get, making our real mid-life two decades earlier than the stereotypical one. Yet this is the time we trade most readily, perhaps because it does seem so abundant. But, one day does not equal one day, even if one lives through both of them. And, as the parable points out, one may not.

What does this have to do with a vacation? The precious time I referred to, was time spent with my dear aunt, my other mother. She is dying of cancer. Her objective time is limited by that fact, her subjective time is limited by the toll this takes on her, the need to rest and sleep more and more.

Yet I had an hour with her in an art gallery, really looking at paintings. I had a half hour with her walking along a small stream. I had hours with her talking about the things that matter most in life. The difficulties of this way of life prevented me from spending my recent birthday with her like I had wanted to do. It was the birthday present that I wanted most. And I not only didn't get to see her that day, but wasn't able to see her afterwards, until we were all together in Park City. And so, I like to think that I was not a fool after all. For the same circumstances that made for barriers, made for this opportunity. And while I don't have money, I do have some precious time.

Few know even vaguely how much time they have left, or how quickly it will seem to pass. My own time to accomplish things seems so very limited. Yet even then, the temptation is to wait, to make plans, to do other things first. And so, another gift my aunt has given me is the recognition of the preciousness of time. The time in which we can feel alive, experience, be souls rather than a role or a game piece, is more precious than rubies. The man in the parable is a fool because only at the very end of his life was his soul required of him. Our souls are required of us not as a discontinuity of our lives, but as the living out of them. Not in the future, but now. This night. This day.

Book Sale

If you happen to be studying Information Technology, Networking, Programming, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining, Advanced Mathematics, or Law, and are interested in getting a good deal on some good used books, let me know. I will be placing sections of my library on sale at Amazon in the next few weeks.

Sorry, but most of what will be of interest to those who read this, are the sort of thing that would go in a Gnosis Institute library and will not be going on sale.

The Duty to Excellence

I normally don't put much stock in beliefs, but I do believe something that I don't think I can back up with anything but conviction: that we have a duty to excellence. It isn't a dreary duty, but a joyful one. It is an honor to be able to pursue something beyond, something more. It is the fulfillment of our being.

Carl Jung observed in his essay “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man” that while we are the realization of more than all of the previous generations could have hoped for, we are also their greatest disappointment.

We have such riches available to us, riches of which countless ages before us could not even dream. Access to all forms of art, music, literature, and vast libraries of scholarship and primary works, are all so readily available to us. As Isaac Newton phrased it, we all stand on the shoulders of giants, or we can if we choose to do so. We can stand on their shoulders to try to reach that little bit more, or we can sit at their feet and listen, or take up a conversation with them. No human generation before us has been blessed with such abundance.

It is not enough to be exposed to it. The way some people behave you would think them like the film in a camera that needed only to be exposed to one thing and then another. Exposure may be a noble effort, but who is it that is being exposed? These treasures do not call out merely for our attention, they call out for us to rise to meet them. To become a person who listens to the music that reveals the arc of another's flight of soul. To become a person who can see through the surface of the painting that lets us see how the painter saw with much more than our eyes. To become a person who can collaborate in bringing something greater into ourselves, our lives, our world.

This is also true of more rational enterprises. We have access to so much more data than we can manage to make sense from. We have more powerful analytical tools than ever before. Yet reason and logic are often most foreign in the arenas that matter the most to us. Public debates are often simply attempts to repeat memorable phrases. To spread ideas like viruses, rather than like rational beings. To make converts, not conversations. As the challenges grow, we recoil from having to bear them. It is, after all, unfair that we should face such difficulties. But it is also unfair that we should have such abundance.

The retreat into a simpler world, an imaginary one, has been underway for a very long time. Some see it as something akin to a religious exodus into an imaginary promised land. While others see it as an exodus into progress: of society, of technology, or of humans, in some abstract way. And lastly, some yearn for the imaginary justification of destruction. There is a reason why these are the persistent dreams through the ages—we all yearn for this. And there is a reason we all yearn for this—we won't get it.

Real change is difficult. It doesn't come as expected. It doesn't demand that we give up the burden of ourselves as easy sacrifices, but that we live up to ourselves. It is the most difficult task we can engage in. The task of truly living our own lives. And when it comes to the end of our lives, that is what will matter, not the comforts or the things that were merely “good enough” but that excellence that we may achieve, that realization of our potential, that rising up to meet what is best and most important in life. Carl Jung called this process Individuation, the process of truly becoming an individual.

Perhaps it comes down to the question of how much of our lives will we really live? Or will we really live much of our own lives at all? How far will we rise to the challenge of our greatness? How many souls will we rise towards and allow to touch ours, and how deeply? How many minds? How many hearts? How much beauty will we be ready to perceive? How much truth? And when the time comes, did we try to bear the responsibility of being the wonder that each of us is? Did we rise up to truly meet life? I think that will be what matters when we may look back in final hours, before we turn to look ahead.

Comment Moderation

I have enabled comment moderation to avoid feeling forced to reply to ad hominem, or personal, attacks. These are not replies about content, but about me--they exist merely to disparage me as an individual.

My previous policy was to try to show these for what they are in an attempt to discourage their usage in general. Such attempts might seem unkind in a narrow context, one that doesn't consider the larger context, the intent, the predicament it places me in, and most importantly, the nature of that to which I was responding.

Such situations are never pleasant for me, it is not the level of conversation and interaction that I seek to have. I no longer want to feel forced into it, and frankly, of late I have felt like I have been a dupe of being baited into responding to a personal attack, only to have that response characterized as a personal attack.

Also, as I am in the process of making standards an expected part of our discussions and work, and taking this work to the next level, I find taking time to respond in any way to such attacks is counter-productive, even attempts to do so in an instructive manner. They end up being a denial-of-service attack on the discussion.

And so, personal attacks to which I would feel forced to respond are all I will be rejecting in the way of comments. Hopefully, stating this policy clearly will make future rejections unnecessary. So, if you must attack, at least put your attacks separately from your other comments, so I can still post those.

The Story of Sophia & Apologists

“In the beginning was the deed.” -Goethe, Faust: Part One

Something I had thought about including in my homily for the Assumption of the Holy Sophia, yet, as most often happens, forgot entirely while giving the homily, was a response to a odd characterization of Gnosticism in regards to Sophia.

On the radio program “Speaking of Faith,” New Testaments Scholar Luke Timothy Johnson (a person fated for such a profession from birth, it would seem) appeared to debunk the Da Vinci code. He did have some interesting perspectives, but was definitely an apologist.

In attempting to paint Gnostics as the opposite of viewing women as equals, he followed the usual tactic of picking out the apologist's favorite passage from the Gospel of Thomas. Looking on the bright side, it probably means that at least one apologist read the entire Gospel of Thomas, since the passage is the last one. (Was it my imagination, or did I really hear a collective squeal of glee from apologists when one of them found that passage?) Of course, we cannot assume that more than one has read it, for if those who hold it up as misogynistic had read the rest of Thomas, they would have either realized that their literalistic interpretation of the last passage was wrong, or they would be actively deceiving people.

However, the odd continuation of this otherwise unremarkable attempt at reversing the evidence, was Johnson's contrasting of attitudes towards women between those in Gnosticism and orthodox Christianity. He made the claim that the inferior role ascribed to women in orthodox Christianity was merely cultural, and therefore changeable. Whereas, he claims, the role of women in Gnosticism was both somehow not only inferior but also ontologically based and unchangeable due to the figure of Sophia. While I agree with the first point, the second, even if it made sense, has no basis and is pure polemics.

He uses a Selective Sample fallacy, limiting his argument to scriptural writings from New Testament times. He did this because he had to leave out the real basis for his argument, the ontological inferiority of women that is present in the story of Adam and Eve.

The only similarity in the stories is that in the story of Sophia, she is described as making an error. In attempting to move towards the light, she mistakes a reflection for the light. We can see a parallel in the notion of the Cloud of Unknowing, or the Dark Night of the Soul, in that the closer you are too the light, the darker it can seem; the closer you approach, the thicker the cloud. This does not make Sophia, or Wisdom, a fool as some have claimed. Nor is she somehow a dim point in the light for making an error in the story.

Gnostics have never held her in the poor regard that others hold Eve in for being deceived. In contrast, Sophia is praised. Perhaps not for the error, but praised in general. In what seems to be Johnson's ontological notion, she is the Most Holy Sophia. She is not regarded as somehow an example of the inferiority of women.

Perhaps the key to this understanding comes from Goethe's Faust, wherein Faust reconsiders the phrase “In the beginning was the word,” rewriting it as, “In the beginning was the deed.” In Gnostic mythology, the deed is the beginning, whether the story begins with Sophia or before, or is one in which Sophia does not play a role. The movement of the divine is towards expression, and also limitation; towards engagement which always means the giving up of the potential for the actual.

Perfection can only exist as an abstraction. Once form is given, perfection is not possible. Therefore everything done is imperfect. To act, to engage in a deed: includes a flaw, an error. That is the nature of action, of giving one form to the undifferentiated potential.

Living Philosophy Program at the Gnosis Institute

Philosophy (Philo-Sophia) is the love of Wisdom. In honor of the celebration of the Assumption of the Holy Sophia, here is some information on the Living Philosophy program. Philosophy is one of the pillars of the Institute, informing every area, and it is only fitting that the Institute take the lead in the development of a degree program in the practice of Philosophy.

Jung observed that "philosophy is no longer a way of life as it was in antiquity; it has turned into an exclusively intellectual and academic affair." The Gnosis Institute will strive to reverse this course with a focus on Living Philosophy.

The Living Philosophy Program will be a different Philosophy program, one that is focused on using philosophy as a vital tool for living. The Philosophy Programs in Academia might more accurately be referred to as “philosophology,” or the study of philosophy, rather than the practice of philosophy. The American Philosophical Practitioners Association compares the difference to that of studying paintings and actually painting. While the study of paintings is an important part of an artist's education, it would be very strange to think that it was the whole of it.

The Gnosis Institute will not attempt to out-do large universities in the standard model of academic philosophy education, instead the Living Philosophy Program is focused on the practice of philosophy in our lives. Training professional Philosophy practitioners for such roles as: Philosophical Counseling, Philosophical Consulting, and Philosophical Analysis on many levels. Seeking guidance from a Philosophy practitioner as an individual, and as an organization is often a better fit than seeking guidance from the current standard sources.

The most important task of this program, however, is to train philosophers to engage in public discourse. In a world where a fallacy is most often given as an argument, and an insult as a conclusion, we need engaged public philosophers more than ever.

Team Identity versus Community

“Save us from the slavery of small aims and of the narrow life.”
--The service to the MH Sophia of the Ecclesia Gnostica

It is an oft repeated pattern that perhaps is inevitable that those who identify themselves as Gnostics will seek to come together across the vastness that most often separates us and feel the joy of making such contacts. However, the other thing that seems to be taken as an inevitability is that the primary concern is always with marketing a particular Gnostic church or identity group. If this had happened in only a few circumstances it might not be worth mentioning. But it is much more than that, it seems inexorably tied into the common understanding of the world.

A seemingly simply Gnostic project to serve the community gets branded. And those who find that surprising are considered reactionary. What seems like working together simply as Gnostics ends up being more like socializing outside of a private club most are unwelcome in. Attempts to aid on a personal level are taken for granted as being motivated by organizational goals or politics. And the lack of an organization becomes the un-brand brand. This seems much more like a fundamental part of our consumer oriented culture brought into a Gnostic context, than mere incidents.

What this leads to is a general consumer mentality applied to even what should be most resistant to such things. Making things like market share and popularity poor substitutes for more stringent standards. So that, even facts and conclusions become matters resting upon persuasion and popularity, without a foundation upon which they might be examined, questioned, and refined.

For some of us this current incarnation of an Internet Gnostic community is not the first one we have witnessed. Without some structure with broader standards in which to discuss things, discussion may cease as soon as it is inconvenient. Pronouncements go unquestioned, along with the methods and assumptions implicit and explicit. And work that seeks to be beyond marketing fades and is replaced by marketing.

Even under circumstance where there are foundations or structures: persuasion is an element, camps or schools of thought form, and marketing occurs. Anyone the least familiar with academia will be familiar with this. In the absence of foundation and structure, there is only persuasion, camps, and marketing. This is a way to market share or even market dominance, but it is not a way to liberation.

I have taken flak, and no doubt will take more, for not being satisfied with this state of affairs. Yet I yearn for more very deeply. Standards and structures by which we can come together to see and question what we think we know, and where we think we are, comprises an essential work required for there to be a future of Gnosticism in our culture.

For, ultimately, the most stringent standards we must face are not those of scholarship, logical argumentation, or scientific research. The standards we must, each of us, face are those of the cosmos itself. If we even risk setting ourselves up within a comfortable realm where we will not be truly challenged by others, the real challenge will only grow more difficult.

The Gnosis Institute will strive to be a place with a foundation, structure, and standards that will take us forward. I have learned from experience that there doesn't seem to be any way of even being a Gnostic community without them.

While there is much that could be found disappointing in this, we must simply learn and continue. If we do not expect more of each other, and give each other opportunities to move beyond the otherwise seemingly inevitable patterns, then our own failure of imagination is as apparent as any.

The Gnostic Seminary at the Gnosis Institute

As first publicly announced to the Internet Gnostic community last year, having been in the planning stages for more than six years prior to that, the Stephanus Seminary, or Ministry Preparation program, will be the lead academic program of the Gnosis Institute. It being proposed as the first educational program of the Institute for many reasons, the most important being the need for such a program.

The program takes the view that students are serious about preparation for active engaged Gnostic ministry, and are not simply seeking the fastest track to ordination. Gnostic ministry is a difficult task in the best of circumstances, one that many set out to devote their lives to, and a very few succeed in actually living out. Rather than focus on ordination, we focus on serious preparation for ministry that is academic, both broad and deep, and practice oriented. With the limitations of distance, the lack of personal contact and experience central to Gnosis, being overcome to the extent possible via residential conferences. Temporary learning communities that will allow us to grow our vital Gnostic community beyond the limitations of where we reside.

This allows for the best of both worlds, professional level preparation through an academic institution, in conjunction with formation and specific training within an ecclesiastical context. Although some may try to make this into a false dilemma, turning it into an exclusive choice, no such dualism exists.

The model followed is that of an open academic not-denominational seminary, such as Harvard Divinity School or Union Theological Seminary, but Gnostic in focus and designed to prepare for active spiritual ministry. This may be considered in contrast to the model of a seminary as a church institution for formation to the priesthood within a single denomination, like a Roman Catholic or Lutheran seminary. The strictly denominational model of seminary has been on the decline for quite some time, with most seminaries representing more than a single denomination, or being open and used by more than one. The open academic not-denominational model only represents a small percentage of seminaries, these usually having grown from denominational ones.

While they vary to a great extent, every church has a formation program. A process of becoming and learning that leads to ordination. Due to the limitations of distance, and the immediacy and inexpressibility of Gnosis, Apostolic Gnostic churches in general do not have distance formation programs, with only recent years seeing some limited occurrences. Formation has been considered something that occurs in-person. It is in this and broader contexts that the Stephanus Seminary at the Gnosis Institute is designed to operate.

The vision of the program is that of an open professional seminary that will essentially serve in the areas of formation that are academic and general. This has the additional benefit of bringing together students from different churches and traditions to be able to have a sense of going through the process together. There are few enough of us, and in any given formation program there are fewer still. These ties will continue to connect the Gnostic community long after students graduate.

The benefit to church formation programs is that they no longer need to be in the business of being a school: either trying to do it all with few resources, or doing much less; but can instead focus on the more personal aspects of formation, and aspects of practice. Additionally, the program is modular, both to adapt to the individual ministry for which it is preparation, and to adapt to the different focuses of Gnostic churches and traditions—to be able to serve all those seeking serious preparation for Gnostic ministry.

The Stephanus Seminary at the Gnosis Institute is an open professional Gnostic seminary. This will allow those seeking preparation for ministry to do so, regardless of the form of that ministry. The Gnosis Institute will be open to all, with ordination between candidate and church, as always.

Students are advised that some churches require other academic programs, ones that are contained within their organization. Students who seek ordination are advised to consult with their ecclesiatical body if they seek to use this program as a part of their formation process. However, graduates of such denominational academic programs will still want to enter this program. Benefiting from its modular nature so as to focus more on the areas that were not previously covered.

Additionally, the Gnosis Institute will offer three other allied programs: Developing Psyche & Spirit, Gnostic Studies, and Living Philosophy. More information on the educational programs of the Institute will follow.

Approaching the Da Vinci Code

It is with more than a little trepidation that I approach my upcoming seminar Illuminating the Da Vinci Code. My motives for doing so are suspected by many. Although, I truly hope it is far too late for anyone to try to jump on the coat-tails of the usual reactions and responses, and we can only pray that they will fade away sooner rather than later, the ability to imagine another approach seems largely absent.

There does seem to be some grand failure in imagination, a cultural short-circuit. Rather than using it as a tool to give form or to explore possibilities—most seem held captive by their imagination. They imagine only one thing, one perspective, one possibility: and then mistake that for reality. This is the world on spin-cycle, with imagination used as a filter for the world putting a spin on everything, so that imagination is used to reduce the possibilities we see—to tell only one story repeatedly.

Perhaps that is the mechanism of the modern dualism we see everywhere in our culture. The world and the people in it are complex, yet that is oddly missing from our public considerations. The ability to imagine the other as self fades, while the captivity to the imagination in a dualism of self vs other grows.

Yet, we are fish in the sea of our culture. We cannot see the currents directly, and often we forget there is water at all. But, at times, something large moves along the current, revealing not only the current, but reminding us again that we are in a particular sea.

The Da Vinci Code is something we are all probably tired of hearing about—but in a particular way. In the way that has become the standard way of approaching everything. In the way that ends conversation, turning it into a false debate where only one side is heard. We should all be tired of that. We shouldn't stand for it anymore.

I will be standing up against easy answers and modern dualism. And yes, I will be doing it in considering the Da Vinci Code phenomenon. Because in illuminating it we illuminate ourselves—we see something of the deeper currents and the nature of our particular sea. I hope you will be able to join me, either in person or in spirit.

Wish me Happy Birthday

I could use it right now.

And if anyone is feeling the least bit generous, I am in fairly dire straights and really need help with the expenses for GnosCast.

Please consider a voluntary subscription amount of $13 or $25 per year. Yes, that's a whopping $1 to $2 a month.

Don't think someone else will do it for you, I have only received one donation over the five months I've been doing this. Or, just consider it either a birthday present or a present for the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, so I can continue to do GnosCast.

Thank you.

The button is now working.

Dark Times for Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber has been a seminal philosopher in areas that concern us all. Both directly and indirectly we have all benefited from his work.

On the 23rd of July, a household accident resulted in the loss of the use of both arms and reinjured his back, essentially leaving him a temporary quadriplegic.

It is at dark times like this when our support matters most.


Read more, including a personal account, here.

The Threefold Mission of the Gnosis Institute

This is a high-level view of the different missons, or "faces" of the Gnosis Institute. The first in an overview of the Institute.

Treasures in Heaven

I don't write or talk much about the service I do. I don't even think about it much. It is just something I do, like so many other people out there. But there is one thing that is fast becoming a pet peeve and that is being assured of “treasures in Heaven,” or some other kind of post-life reward for doing things here.

This is a common belief in Christianity, but I always saw it as either a persuasive rhetorical device, or in the worst case, selling someone less than a bill of goods. Pay now and find out what your going to get, and get it, so much later that you will be “the late” when it happens. In this case I don't object to buying on the disincarnation plan so much as the whole notion of buying anything. The idea of quid pro quo itself is deeply offensive.

This isn't the surface defensive ego offensiveness that we have come to almost exclusively associate with the term: what we might more clearly call being personally offended. No this is not just deeper but isn't personal, it isn't against the person but rather against the relationship.

Turning those wonderful opportunities to actually help someone into transactions of that far distant kind takes attention away from the value that lies in the relationship itself. Within the relationship is the transaction that matters, and it is a very human one. It isn't gratitude, it isn't recognition—it is what makes us truly human. It is an expression of love, but not personal love, not love of someone in particular. But rather the love that is the deep connection between all of us.

As human beings we are drawn out of the existential loneliness that is our condition, through this connection, to others. When we truly connect with one another, that bond is there. 'I' becomes 'we' for a time. A deep communion can happen.

The Epistle of John tells us that God is love, and that where love is, there is God. When we have the privilege to connect with those whose need makes them vulnerable, we can be vulnerable as well. And together, this temporary 'we' can accomplish a things for 'us.' In this, benefits for 'I' don't enter in.

This is why we serve. Not for an imaginary treasure in an imaginary heaven. But for the real treasure that lies in the heaven we touch together.

Illuminating the Da Vinci Code

September 12, 19, & 26 at 7 PM in the City Library in Salt Lake City

This will be a very different approach than everyone has used so far.
This seminar will look at the power and phenomena of the Da Vinci Code in our sub-cultures, in our culture, and in ourselves; to see where that leads us on many levels—including the deepest ones.

Please Help Publicize this Event!
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Interesting Call for a Neo-Pagan Seminary

There are interesting parallels in the considerations in this article calling for a Neo-Pagan Seminary to the one's that have been bouncing around the Gnostic community. Not surprising, since there is over-lap, and a large portion of those coming to Gnosticism have had previous associations with the Neo-Pagan community.

I offer this for consideration, I like to look at similarities whenever possible, and such do not remove the differences. In this case the differences are quite deep, and I would place the proposed Neo-Pagan Seminary much closer to the mainstream ones than to the Seminary in the works at the Gnosis Institute. (So please, at least wear a hard-hat when jumping to conclusions.)

Neo-Pagan Seminary Proposal

Gnostic Church Signs #3

Seminary Program Outline Version 0.2

Modules: (3/6 to Graduate)

• Gnostic Studies – Understanding & Applying the Gnostic Tradition
  
  History of Gnosticism – From Antecedents until Today
  
  Engaged Gnosticism – Applying the Gnostic Approach
  
  
  
• Liturgical Studies – Experience & Understanding of Sacraments
  
  History & Symbolism – Comparative & Descriptive
  
  Sacramental Theology – Historical & Creative
  
  
  
• Pastoral Counseling – Spiritually Mindful, Psychologically Grounded Counseling
  
  Transitional Counseling – Counseling those in Transitions & Crises
  
  Psycho-Spiritual Development – Depth & Transpersonal Psychological Models
  
  
  
• Pastoring & Leadership – Organizations & Relationships within Organizations
  
  Formation Direction - Individual & Group Formation
  
  Guidance, Leadership, & Administration
  
  
  
• Spiritual Care – Understanding & Aiding Spiritual Development
  
  Spiritual Direction – aka,. Spiritual Listening, and Soul Friendship
  
  Spiritual Growth – Understanding & Respecting the Process
  
  
  
• Stories & Symbolism – Understanding & Creatively Engaging in Mythology
  
  Encountering Archetypes – Understanding & Experiencing Living Symbols
  
  Transformation through Stories – Myths as Guides & Journeys
  

The Dimness of Crowds

Am I the only one who is hooked on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Podcasts? They have a regular radio show on philosophy, and the only more fun thing to listen to than a discussion of philosophy, is a discussion of philosophy in Australian accents. ;)

Of interest to many involved on-line, may be the latest episode of The Philosopher's Zone, as it examines, in particular, Wikipedia. It addresses the main issues, and in a fun way. Give it an ear, if you are so inclined.

On Being an Intellectual Heretic

I may never live down the fact that I don't equate traditional theology with either critical thought or Gnosticism, or the fact that I don't give undue respect to the powers and authorities. So, I guess I'll just have to be a Gnostic. ;)

I wrote the following in a comment, but thought folks might miss it.

“In a real marketplace of ideas, it is the the ideas, the intellectual work, that matters. Everything should be open to honest serious scrutiny. Even the notion that all we are doing sometimes is playing a formalized game of make believe. Which also, by the way, is not saying that playing make believe has no value either. We conduct thought-experiments all the time, they are very valuable. We just distinguish between them and descriptions of reality.”

You may claim that the objections to my objection to traditional theology is of this sort. However, I do not think that they were. To be able to even approach the subject of the assumptions involved in the theological method, I had to try (in vain I might add) to get past the assumption that the norm and status quo for the studying of religious ideas that developed from the tradition that rejected Gnosticism represents the one true way to approach things Gnostic. It was a dismissal based upon the status quo in people's minds. Which lead to more assumptions than I care to think about.

At this point, I'm just going to join in and declare myself an intellectual heretic and get on with serious intellectual work that includes continuing to question assumptions, methods, and the status quo.

You're all welcome to become intellectual heretics as well. C'mon it's fun!

Seminary Program Outline Rough-Draft

Continuing on towards building a non/trans-denominational Gnostic Seminary program, I thought I'd share my current outline of a program rough-draft. (I'm going to assume that you know that a seminary doesn't ordain anyone, and that it isn't the whole of the process of formation as Gnostic Clergy. And if you didn't, I just told you.)

I don't want to construct a one-size-fits-all program. The idea of modules is appealing for that reason. One would graduate after completing a program of three out of the following modules in this rough-draft. I think that gives proper latitude for the different focuses both of individuals, and of the different Gnostic churches and organizations.

Modules: (3/5 to Graduate)

• Counseling
  Pastoral Counseling
  Psycho-Spiritual Development
  
  
• Gnostic Studies
  Historical Gnosticism
  Engaged Gnosticism
  
  
• Liturgical Studies
  History & Symbolism
  Theology
  
  
• Pastoring
  Formation Direction
  Parish/Organization Administration
  
  
• Spiritual Care
  Spiritual Direction
  Spiritual Growth
  
  

[Edit: Added Module]

• Symbolism & Story
  Archetypal Aspects
  Transformational Aspects
  
  

Just don't ask me for definitions or specific descriptions yet. I'm also (almost) certain that the more clumsy terms will be replaced.

This is a very rough rough-draft. But, it does give us something to talk about. Help hammer this out.

Thinking Outside the Traditional Theology Box

One of the main reasons that I wrote the piece On the Limitations of Make Believe is to try to break open the traditional theological box. (Let's try “traditional theology” as the term for the discipline instead of simply thinking or reasoning about religious things, rather than my previous “non-trivial theology” and see if that helps with confusion.) Some may find this obstructionist. Yet, I've stated elsewhere that if someone wants to satisfy themselves that a traditional theological definition of Gnosticism is a logical impossibility, there is the wall and you know where your head is—start banging until you are satisfied.

There is an assumption that for someone to be able to use a definition in an academic setting, that it has to be a traditional theological definition. That is to say, a definition couched in the framework of the tradition of Christian theology. Yet, that would mean leaving Gnosis out of it, and frankly I've yet to see a theological term applied to Gnosticism that makes sense except as a poor analogy. Traditional theology did not grow out of a Gnostic milieu, to say the least. It's focus has always been upon doctrine, in a framework where the view is that doctrine determines beliefs.

One of the big fundamental issues is that almost (if not) all of traditional theology developed within a model of religion that grew out of the historical formation of Christian Orthodoxy. This focused on uniformity of doctrine, and beliefs. And really has a kind of “top-down” way of viewing things. You start with the assumption that the source of belief is doctrine, or with the assumption that these things you are considering exist and can be described in an authoritative way. This gives one the odd result of an “objective” religion, one without people.

Gnosticism by the very nature of Gnosis, has more of a “bottom-up” approach. Gnosis is individual, it cannot be removed from the subject having it. This leads to expressions of that Gnosis that include beliefs. It also leads to a very modified “top-down” model of someone learning about these beliefs and such, and then seeking Gnosis.

To seek a traditional theological definition, “Gnosticism,” one would need to enter into that framework, leaving the people (the subjective) behind, while forcing it into the mold of a doctrinal religion. Sure we can limit the doctrine to a small set, but that is what we will get—Gnosticism equals doctrine. Let's just say that a “Gnosticism” that doesn't involve Gnosis or Gnostics, is a bit of a problem.

Is this quest for a traditional theological definition the only approach? No. And I don't understand why this is assumed to be the case. It is far from the only form of human endeavor that can live up to “academic acceptability.” In fact, it doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation among the academic disciplines.

While an academically acceptable definition truly comes down to the academicians who accept it, we can look at it in broader terms. The goal of such a definition is to limit the scope of the study, and to give meaning to that scope.

The first comes down to scope: what is inside the scope and what is outside; what it is that is studied. This is always fuzzy on the level of details, but a general consensus is required. We must remember that the definition actually comes after the consensus. It is always an inadequate attempt to formalize what those involved recognize. We can, hopefully, recognize in this the issue of trying to put gnosis into the realm of episteme. The lack of awareness of this issue is a larger issue in academia, leading to lots of cracked skulls and dented walls. Apparently, the study of religion was struggling with a rather clumsy definition that involved “superhuman beings,” for example. This lead to some mental acrobatics to get Buddhism to fit the mold (or gnosis to fit episteme.) (Buddhism and the definition of religion.)

The second issue is one of the scope being meaningful to study. By which I mean, that the conclusions about the scope or concerning relationships within the scope are academically interesting and approachable. This would mean that even the study of a clearly defined thing, may be either of no interesting, or unapproachable by the methods of academia. The latter is an area of agnosia for most of academia, it doesn't recognize it exists. So, I think we can safely ignore it in our current considerations. This leaves us with the issue of being of academic interest.

One can clearly define any number of things that do not meet this criteria, they may serve as data point in some other interesting enterprise, but are not themselves interesting. The collection of lint in my dryer, for example, just isn't academically interesting, unless it is part of a larger study of dryers or textiles.

Applied to Gnosticism, we can see the first issue as: is this or that a part of Gnosticism? And, the second issue as: is “Gnosticism” a meaningful category? These are not unrelated, yet they are distinct approaches to the question: what is “Gnosticism”? What is its scope? And, what does it mean?

When approaching the formulation of a definition for academic use, we need to bear in mind that we can come up with a definition that isn't meaningful. I would argue that the traditional theological approach can only lead to that end.


Buddhist studies makes for the closest analogy, although still very different in history, the amount of material, and the number of continuous traditions. I found this review of the book Buddhist Theology interesting. It advocates a new and specifically Buddhist theological approach. Another approach is Engaged Buddhist Studies, however that seems to be a splitting off of practical from abstract issues.

Gimme That Old Time Dualism

[Edit: Due to some confusion, I'll state explicitly that the "dualism" here is a tongue-in-cheek way of describing a real issue.]

It's one of those charges made against Gnostics that gets some folks riled up, Dualism. Is Dualism a bad thing? The people run in horror from the idea are largely heresiologists, but lest we dismiss it, there are some modern Gnostics among them. Personally, if all someone means by a “dualist” is someone who can't see a way to reconcile or erase the distinction between spirit and matter, that is as good a description of the way I understand things as any other.

However, there is a distinction between simply being a dualist in that sense and being a “Radical Dualist.” Radical Dualism includes assumptions about the ultimate nature of the two things, that they are two different metaphysical “substances” or have two distinct origins in some ultimate abstract philosophical sense. As someone much more in line with the Pragmatic school of Philosophy than the Scholastic one, I have a hard time even caring what this entails as an assumption in an abstract game. People at least assume that Radical Dualism implies an exclusive-or for all relevant choices between the two things. An exclusive-or is just short hand for “either this or that, but not both this and that.” In this rather narrow understanding, one could not value spirit, and also value matter, for example. If that isn't scary in and of itself, think of how embarrassing it would be to have radical dualistic ontological assumptions kicked in your face by a Thomist on the beach.

Any limited form of dualism is incomparably better than the Radical Universal Dualism most people practice. That kind is horrifying, if you you are someone who likes to think, read, write, and discuss. And it should be embarrassing, yet there doesn't seem to be any even when people are caught doing it time and time again.

What is Radical Universal Dualism? It is being a Radical Dualist about well, everything. The turning into a universal law the fallacy “you're either for it or against it.” This is black-and-white thinking, wherein the exclusive-or is the only relationship. Any criticism is taken as an outright rejection, taken to mean that you are against the larger whatever in it's entirety. This is the Modern Dualism that has me longing of the old fashioned kind. (Gimme that old time dualism. Gimme that old time dualism. Gimme that old time dualism ...that made hereseologists wee.)

Is it possible to be critical with these Modern Dualists about? This is a good question. Let's look at the nature of this for a moment. If someone makes a specific criticism, how far can someone else legitimately take it?

If someone is critical of a particular brick, can they be taken as being critical of the wall, bricks in general, or of masonry, or of building, or of civilization? I would say that it is unclear whether they are being critical of the wall but you couldn't assume that is the case, the rest is ludicrous. Yet if we look at modern discourse, the rest is the norm. If someone merely stops at the assumption that they want to tear down that one wall, they are being unusually generous.

To take a recent example: how far can one take a criticism of assumptions made by Theology? Can it legitimately be taken as being critical of critical thinking, the analytical method, or of religion? No, it cannot. Can a statement about the impossibility of a theological definition of Gnosticism be taken as a statement against any definition of Gnosticism? No. This part of Modern Dualism is “expanding the scope.” The statement or criticism is widened in scope by others.

When scope-expansion is combined with the exclusive-or we get what seems to be the model for all of this, modern political speech. Perfect for sound bites, and for convincing the already convinced. However, it does not exist to constructively engage in anything. It turns discourse into a rhetorical game. Conversation into a series of misunderstandings. It is a way to get ratings and win elections, nothing more.

How can we avoid this? Try to not expand the scope on someone else's behalf. You can say that a statement implies a larger scope, or take a look at the argument from a larger scope for some reason, that is being aware of, and being clear about, what you are doing. And, don't think every relationship between two things is an exclusive-or, very few truly are, although it is a favorite rhetorical device to pretend otherwise.

Gnostics can be Clergy and "Independents"

I strongly object to the simplistic anti-ecclesiasticism that has been on the rise, because it is based on false assumptions. One false dichotomy that has arisen is between being an "Independent" or participating in an ecclesiastical form. Assumptions and prejudices arising from one's interactions with religion in other venues brought to bear in a new arena, are simply an indication of assumptions, not reality. This comes from ignoring or dismissing the “Gnostic” part of “Gnostic Church.”

The other danger in considering “churches” is that a “church” in this sense is generally not understood to be a grouping of individuals. Yet aside from the abstract realm, there are only individuals. Where we like to see abstract groups and not individuals is when we are attacking them. That is the way shadow projections work, they can't lay still on a complex reality, so it is the abstract that is covered with the perceiver's darkness, and both layers then block their view.

There is also the inductive fallacy that comes into play. The "one X did this, all Xs do that" assumption that is simply a way of finding one or more data points to back up an assumption or prejudice. If this isn't obvious I can point you to some hate sites that use this as a justification. It simply isn't an argument, it is simply specific cases of a prejudice finding data that may support it. It is not the only explanation for the data, nor even the one that makes the most sense. That is simply how prejudices work, they are gross generalizations whose explanatory power has been disproved countless times.

Now, is someone who is a prisoner to their own prejudices, and can't see what is in front of their face because of shadow projections, truly independent? I would argue that they are certainly not thinking or seeing for themselves, these things limit both. I would further argue that these things have a collective nature, they have mass appeal, which would indicate that.

This lets us see the nature of the Shadow that is being projected. One's own desire to loose oneself in a collective, to simply surrender to a mass movement, becomes succumbed to in this Shadow way. One joins in the collective group-psychology of rejecting something as the totem of collective group-psychology. This then becomes a very powerful trap, because we would then need to recognize this aspect of ourselves, own it as being ourselves and not a “them,” to escape from the collective—to stop doing what we hate, to quote Thomas.

It isn't an issue with people doing what they want to do, it is an issue in them being trapped by themselves in such a way that they feel they need to reject or tear-down something very removed, to free themselves of their internal issues. Sadly, this is the norm. And it is also the norm to call this “freedom” or “independence.”

When someone says that I, personally, can't work or think outside of a church structure--it is an insult, pure and simple. The on-line community has been heading that way for a few months now. Some of it comes from the neophytes making general claims about "Gnostic Churches" or "Gnostic Clergy" based solely upon their assumptions. Yet they only seem to be the leaders of the charge. These claims almost always include ones that directly contradict the facts of my life and all I have worked to do. Claims of exclusivity, which can be traced to the rejection (exclusiveness) of the person making such claims, flies in the face of all that we do. Claims of collectivity, which can be traced to the collectivity (group-psychology) of the person making such claims, flies in the face of all that we seek.

I don't see an issue in referring people to other organizations or churches, Gnostic or otherwise. There also isn't an issue with working with individuals, who are individuals, in fact the reverse is the case. I also try not to give undue credit, or make assumptions than seem inappropriate, in regards to others, because I serve in an ecclesiastical form.

Some object to having their work on the Internet dismissed or categorized. Imagine what it is like to have your decade-long ministry, with all the work and sacrifice that entails, dismissed and categorized, because part of it has an outward form some associate with bad things in unrelated contexts. Just think about it.

Is being "Independent" about avoiding organizations, starting one's own organization, or is it about working toward independence? There are real issues with organizations, but that is because there are real issues with individuals. Ultimately, our organizations fall into the category of Make Believe, they exist because we act as though they do. These assumptions aren't about organizations, organizations are individuals working with a form in a structure. And when the scope of the structure is as limited as it is in the Gnostic Ecclesia, it largely comes down to form.

Being one thing means that you are not everything, obviously. Having a form means that you don't have every form. Some find this to be a difficulty because they want the “form” to be themselves. They either think desires or dislikes guiding form is more useful than being guided by form, or, more commonly, they don't understand form. This leads to not simply a rejection of form, but a militant radical rejection of form. Rather than “that form isn't for me,” or even, “form isn't for me,” to “that form isn't for anyone,” or even, “form isn't for anyone.”

We can think of ourselves as being in a labyrinthine prison that we must each find our own way out of. A form isn't a map showing your particular way out. No such map is possible. The best we can hope for are useful practices and tools, as well as, information about the dangers. A form might be something akin to a standard set of practices employed to help overcome the maze. You can just wander. You can wander and mark some intersections and not others, or change your system of marking every now and then. Or you can heed some advice left by those who have gone through this before, and adopt a standard set of practices that makes sense and works for you. Simply accepting someone else's standard set of practices may only get you lost further still, they may not work for you, you may not be doing what is required to make them work, or you may not understand them well enough to really try. There is also the possibility that they weren't intended to help someone out of the maze. For all of these reasons, discernment is a personal responsibility no one can avoid.

The reality is simply this: we all have a form, and we are all independents. The form may be silly putty or stone, it may be large or small, but it is there—whether you want to see it as such or not. We also are all on our own paths, responsibility lies upon each of us to find our liberation. This is not something to take lightly, nor something one can give to someone else. We can help each other, we cannot be each other.

The Last Week: A Good Addition to Holy Week

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan have jointly authored a book going through the account of the last week of Jesus in Mark. The idea was to go through the story and see what the story tells us. This framework, following the Gospel of Mark's timeline, is very useful. Even information that I have encountered in other contexts yielded more insight in this framework. They purposefully cut through centuries of looking at these events through a later Christian framework, and in doing so present a more vibrant story. I didn't get it in time for this past Holy Week. In fact I didn't even hear about it until a couple of weeks ago. Yet even afterwards it is deepening my appreciation by deepening my understanding. I'd suggest getting a copy.

The Limitations of Playing Make Believe

Theology: Playing Make Believe with Religious Things

I guess it's time to throw down the gauntlet on the whole Theology issue. After biting the tongue for some time to listen to folks who seem to value such things, and after having what seems fairly common sense questioned about the potential utility of theology, I've been asked to demonstrate why theology isn't a good tool for Gnostics to engage in (except perhaps in private between consenting adults). Although the following was very rushed, I think it covers the basics.

The reverse of this question has a lot more merit: why should Gnostics even try to use theology? Is there any actual reason? We can assume that it is the thing to do because this is religion, and theology and religion are found together. (I'm hoping that fallacy is obvious.) We can assert that we need to talk the language of people who use theology. Yet this comes up against the issue of talking about computers in Nahuatl—why do it when you can't say what is important to the conversation in that language? When is just perpetuates their misunderstanding and creates more of your own?

Let's cover old territory for a moment. Theology (from theos 'god' + logos 'word, speech, reason') once upon a time simply meant reasoning or discoursing about the gods or religious matters. It is still sometimes used in that sense, and that is what I have previously called the trivial definition and said that it should be a non-issue because reasoning about religious matters should be ubiquitous. In the intervening centuries, however, Theology has come to mean something in particular. Let's just call it: playing make believe with religious things.

Playing make believe? Yes, that's what I said. Theology (which I will use in the non-trivial sense) starts out with many assumptions and is essentially literalism-lite.

Literalism takes what the sacred stories describe as being actual literal documentary film-like history of events. To take one example: Noah physically built a big boat. The world was actually under water. There really were 2 of every kind of animal on that boat for forty days, since the evolution of new species couldn't have happened. All of these things are taken as established historical fact that a film crew could have documented if they had cameras, and weren't under water. Why? Because it is in the story. Given these basic assumptions one can reason about these things without any serious difficulties.

Literalism has all kinds of problems which I'm not going to go into for a Gnostic audience. Let's just say accepting these assumptions for someone who doesn't accept the assumption that everything in some stories is historically factual, isn't going to happen. While the defense of that kind of silliness may not fit one's notion of Theology, they can be quite well reasoned. We would just look at them as being well reasoned make believe. Given this make believe situation from a story and so on, and so forth as characteristics of this make believe game, one can arrive at a reasonable means of explanation.

While more mainstream theology isn't involved in such things, agreeing with the assessment of Camelot in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: let's not go there it's too silly; the game is played in the same way with different assumptions. Instead of the literal assumptions, there are others, yet it is still playing make believe.

Another characteristic of playing make believe is that although it is primarily a reflection of the person doing it, to them it can seem objective. It has been projected into an abstract idea realm. Like Plato's only yours, and not so idealized. Like the example above, someone can spend a great deal of time rationally examining and overcoming objections to the Noah story being literal, and think that they are describing something objective because they are talking about things.

The issue with any sort of make believe is that whether there are rules of reason involved or not, it is still make believe. Someone can think that they are talking about something real when they speak of Incarnational Trinitarianism, or an Emanational Cosmogeny—and that is precisely the problem. These things are abstract constellations of the glass beads on the game board of make believe. Things so far removed from anything any of us actually have experienced as to make the idea of experiencing them absurd.

When we play make believe in a rational way using the elements and characters from Gnostic stories. We are being literalists, just at a slightly less embarrassing level. There are many ways to look at these things, and putting on a literalist-lite cap to look at them is certainly a standard one. If you don't take what you do too seriously, mistake your ideas for what is really “out there somewhere,” then it is another useful tool. We can speak of Sophia as a character in Gnostic mythology, as an abstract notion of “Wisdom,” or as a part of our experience. If any but the last gets stuck in our understanding as being “it” we have missed the path to Gnosis, and followed the path to cloud coo-coo land. It is so easy to fool ourselves, to not notice the “hairs breadth of difference” that splits considerations involving the real from simply playing make believe.

People have been playing the Theology game for centuries, there has never been the level of understanding involved that it isn't about real things. The distinction is simply whether you believe or not. And so it may be described as playing make believe with the objects of belief. If you don't see a problem here for Gnostics, I'll spell it out. Gnosticism isn't about beliefs. Even if we all believe something, why assume that it is the case at all, let alone the case in the way in which we believe it? That assumption jump is just too much—if you take it for yourself and are aware of the assumptions you may gain some understanding, if you try to take it in some objective way, say as a group, you say bye bye to Gnosis.

Playing the same old religion games with different pieces isn't Gnosticism. Substituting belief in the salvific power of Gnosis for belief in the salvific power of belief in Christ, isn't liberation, it's redecorating. Throwing Sophia into the mix as a character to go with the Logos character, makes nothing Gnostic. And no matter how refined we are about it, playing theological make believe with things associated with Gnosticism isn't Gnosticism, it is still make believe.

If you say, “but there really is this or that, it's not make believe,” you are not seeing what is in front of your face, but rather are seeing from the perspective of the land of make believe. Experiences are not abstract, they cannot be removed from the subject experiencing them. Sophia is a character, an idea, and an experience. Guess which two of the three you cannot play abstract games with the experience, and so you must be playing make believe.

If you say, “but the ancient Gnostics saw it in a literal fashion,” you are again making enormous assumptions, placing limitations on the perspectives of others for our own convenience. Buying into the literalism of heresiologists isn't exactly a large stride forward for our understanding of Gnosticism.

If theology is playing make believe is it worthless? Of course not. In a tradition where creativity and looking at things from multiple perspectives are the order of the day, it can be very useful—for an individual to use to look at things from different perspectives. Where we go into literalism and make assumptions that take us into cloud coo-coo land is when we mistake any of this for anything but playing make believe.

Premature Enlightenment

Halfway Up the Mountain: The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment by Mariana Caplan This is not a hard science or scholarly book. But it is the only one that covers some main and important areas. It is also a fast enjoyable read with lots of quotes and white-space. Food for thought.

Plant Metaphors for Gnosis & Episteme

Here is a graphic to go along with the third GnosCast podcast. It shows some of the different combinations possible of Gnosis and Episteme, using plant metaphors.

• The one on the left shows what we aim for, rooted in Gnosis, growing into Episteme and flowering into our lives.
• The next is where we so often are, having episteme and seeking Gnosis.
• The third is the situation where you have Gnosis, but it hasn't developed into an understanding and expression yet.
• The last is rigid belief planted where Gnosis should grow.