The Apocalypse of the Reluctant Gnostics

Carl G. Jung and Philip K. Dick

Stuart Douglas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781782206071
• eBook ISBN: 9780429841033
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book presents a comparison of the Gnostic worldviews of Carl G. Jung and science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick, two figures who have done far more than most to revive an interest in the Gnostic tradition in the modern world. Despite profoundly different approaches - one was a depth psychologist whose unique insights and approach to psychology forced him to explore the depths of the unconscious in a way that inevitably led him to touch frequently on metaphysical or spiritual matters; the other was an author of science-fiction - there are some striking parallels between their unique Gnostic visions.

With the relatively recent publication of both Jung's and Dick's personal journals - The Red Book (2009), and, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011), respectively - in which they articulate their Gnostic visions, it seems timely to make this comparison.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

People in the West are suffering from a chronic spiritual malaise. For a great many, their traditional religious institutions are failing to provide the authentic connection to the divine that their adherents yearn for. For the majority, this means Christianity which, numerically, is the dominant religious tradition in the West. For some, its doctrines have ossified into mere dogma and its rituals have, for the most part, become perfunctory, performed by rote and devoid of meaning. This disaffection that so many modern people in the West have for Christianity has been succinctly expressed by the Swiss psychologist, C. G. Jung in that the spiritually “dead” have returned from Jerusalem unsatisfied at having failed to find what they went there to look for. Whether these institutions are in terminal decline or can resurrect themselves remains to be seen.

The Church’s failures are legion and this has elicited a number of responses from those who might otherwise be considered, nominally at least, as Christian. First, there are those who have disavowed Western religion, and any form of spirituality for that matter, altogether. Nature abhors a vacuum, however, and something, anything, usually rampant materialism in one form another, will rush to fill the void. Conseque-ntly, for these apostates, the new gods have become success and excess, fame—occasionally one’s own, but more often sought vicariously through the lives of the latest “celebrities”—and fortune, sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, and the futile quest for the fountain of eternal youth. In the cult motion picture, Trainspotting (the original, Macdonald, 1996), the leading protagonist, Renton, narrates a withering attack on this modern, secular life that the spiritually disenfranchised all too often succumb to; a life dedicated to the pursuit of career and fixed-interest mortgage repayments, the latest must-have “mod cons”, such as over-sized televisions and electrical kitchen appliances, and trendy designer wear with matching accessories. In other words, an empty, meaningless life that leaves people wondering who they really are, distracted by the latest mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows on the television while gorging themselves on junk food, all of which leads, inexorably, to its fateful conclusion, a soul-destroying demise, in which life seeps steadily out of them as they see out their days in a miserable nursing home.

Second, there are others who have similarly turned their back on the Church of their birth but have, instead, looked elsewhere for spiritual nourishment; a response pithily summed up in the bumper-sticker witticism that people are leaving the Church and turning back to God. Indeed, I suspect that God has probably left the Church as well. Could the last person to leave put the lights out. Of these, a great many since the counterculture movement of the 1960s have looked to the East to fill the gaping void, seeking refuge in the Three Jewels of Buddhism, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, pursuing darshan from an enlightened master, or practising one of the Yogic paths with its promise of union with the divine.

Yet another group have sought to fill the gnawing emptiness by turning to one (or more) of the distinct, but related, range of movements which, together, comprise what is generally referred to as the Western Esoteric Tradition or, its variant and companion, the Western Mystical Tradition. These traditions include Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Theosophy, Mystical Christianity, Esoteric Christianity, Neopaganism, and Wicca, to name only a few. Many, if not all, of these traditions have been deemed heretical at one time or another in their history, by the Christian Church and suppressed—often brutally so. However, the essence of their teachings has never really gone away, but simply been forced into what has been described as an underground river, only to resurface at a later time, in a different form. Whether this river represents an uninterrupted chain from the present era all the way back to antiquity, or whether these heterogeneous movements are discrete, but related, instances of the same spiritual essence emerging anew from the depths of the collective unconscious, is perhaps moot. Former rock musician and now full-time writer on the Western Mystery Tradition, Gary Lachman (2015) suggests that, for the most part, this underground river remains “like a hidden spring at which a few daring souls [take] refreshment” (loc. 3158). One significant tributary of this mighty underground river, which has recently resurfaced with some vigour, is what is generally, if rather loosely, referred to as Gnosticism. The work of two daring souls who have drunk at the Gnostic well are the principal focus of this book.

* * *

What is Gnosticism? It is a modern term used to denote a collection of ancient spiritual traditions, generally syncretic in nature, with historical roots extending at least as far back as Plato and Second Temple Judaism. If a religion is defined to be a system of doctrines and practices—typically grounded in, and inextricably linked to, a particular culture—which is concerned with humanity’s relationship with the divine, then, to the extent that Gnosticism might be considered to be a religion, it is somewhat akin to Hinduism insofar as it is a rather diverse family of related traditions. Given the diversity within the movement, it is of no surprise that Gnosticism means different things to different people, and the gamut of definitions that have been used for the term “Gnosticism” is broad; perhaps too broad. On the one hand, at the more precisely defined end of the spectrum, the term is typically used—inaccurately it might be added—to refer to a group of Christian heresies which arose in the second century of the Common Era and flourished for a few centuries, before being extinguished. There are some scholars (e.g., Brakke, 2010) who suggest an even more specific definition in which the term is reserved to refer exclusively to a particular sect within Gnosticism known as the Sethians. At the other, “looser” end of the spectrum, we have the New Agers who, as is their wont, have appropriated the term to mean … well, just about anything they want it to mean. Other scholars (e.g., Williams, 1996) have questioned the term’s value altogether and have gone as far as to suggest abandoning it as a dubious categorisation. Whereas this might have merit within an academic setting where a certain rigour of categorisation is appropriate, in non-scholarly discourse it is a bit like suggesting abandoning the term “Christianity” itself. The very idea seems preposterous. Indeed, the diversity in Gnosticism is perhaps no greater than the diversity in Christianity. They may have a, more or less, similar theology, but what the Evangelicals are doing is radically different in some ways to what the Catholics are doing, yet no one is suggesting the abandonment of the term “Christianity”.

Brakke (2010) provides what is, perhaps, the best model for understanding what is known as Gnosticism. Arguing that the notion of there being a single form of Christianity in antiquity was flawed, Brakke offers a new, “horse race” model of early Christian development. He suggests that, like horses in a race, there were a number of Christian groups in competition with one another, one of which came to dominate and consequently became the precursor to what we know today as Christianity. He claims that the various sects that are now considered to be Gnostic were simply horses in the race, along with a diverse range of other early forms of Christianity. The race just happened to be won by proto-Christianity. However, despite the utility Brakke’s model may have, it rests on the assumption that the proto-Christianity horse was granted no special privilege, and that all horses in the race had a fair chance. It is very unlikely that was the case. In the horse race metaphor things are fairly black-and-white, the first horse past the post is the first horse past the post, and thus, the most fit-for-purpose, and rightfully declared the winner. In trying to understand Gnosticism’s relationship with Christianity, an improvement on the horse race metaphor might involve an alternative model in which the winner, that is, proto-Christianity, was like a candidate chosen in an election, where the winning candidate is the one who may not necessarily be the most fit-for-purpose, but, at the time of the election at least, the voters believed would best serve their interests—or, more accurately, perhaps, were led to believe would best serve their interests.

For the purposes of this work, rather than the term “Gnosticism”, which would include the history, the cultural milieu, the sects, the teachers, the credo, the rituals, and all the rest of it, the term “Gnostic” (adjective) is preferred. In this work, “Gnostic” is used to describe any one of a group of related spiritual worldviews, which are typically grounded in visionary experience, and which exhibit the following fundamental characteristics: (a) it is monistic: there exists a single, ineffable, transcendent ultimate divinity, out of which everything else comes into being; (b) its cosmogony involves a process of emanation of male-female syzygies out of the one transcendent source; (c) it is dualistic and draws a sharp distinction between a transcendent realm of light and the created world of matter; (d) the created world was not created by the ultimate divinity but was, instead, fashioned by a lesser, ignorant, occasionally evil, god and his subordinates; (e) creation resulted from some error or a disruption to the celestial order; (f) the creator god and his subordinates also created human beings, exiled them from their true home in the transcendent realm of light, and have imprisoned them in the world of matter; (g) each human being contains an innate spiritual essence which is one and the same as the essence of the ultimate divinity; (h) spiritual insight through direct inner experience is essential for salvation, and is therefore highly favoured over blind faith; (i) this salvific knowledge is imparted by an emissary from the transcendent realm, and (j) the goal of every Gnostic is to extract their divine essence from its imprisonment in the fallen world and return to its origin in the transcendent realm of light.

Stephan A. Hoeller (2002a), a scholar of both Gnosticism and Jungian studies, as well as a bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica (a modern, revivalist Gnostic church), asserts that no spiritual tradition ceases to exist. Hoeller likens spiritual insight to the ripple in a pool caused by a fallen stone, emanating out for all eternity long after it has dropped out of human awareness. Gnosticism is no exception and, despite its apparent demise around the fourth century CE, it never really went away. However, it may have remained unknown in the public domain, and it would have been largely consigned to the dustbin of history, if it had not been for a few events which resulted in a resurgent interest in Gnosticism in our contemporary world.

First, there was the momentous discovery, in 1945, of the collection of Gnostic texts known as the Nag Hammadi Library, named after the small town in Upper Egypt close to where it was found. Its discovery was timely, if not synchronistic, just as one of the worst chapters in human history was coming to an end. The collection consists of fifty-three Gnostic texts in thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices which are considered to be the oldest known bound books in existence. Second, no matter how significant the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library may have been, its contents, along with the spiritual philosophy of the Gnostics, would no doubt have remained of interest to only the most dedicated of scholars had it not been for the pioneering work of certain scholars who brought the Gnostics to a far wider audience, perhaps none more so than Professor Elaine Pagels, whose book, The Gnostic Gospels, published in 1979, was groundbreaking in this regard. According to pre-eminent author and scholar of Gnosticism, Richard Smoley (2006), Pagel’s book, more than any other, including the Nag Hammadi Library itself, has introduced the general public to the ancient Gnostics. Third, in recent years there have been a number of Gnostic “revivalist” Churches—of which the aforementioned Ecclesia Gnostica is one-and movements, some of which reasonably assert their right to the epithet “Gnostic”, and others for whom the claim is rather more tenuous. Fourth, as noted above, many people in the West are thirsty for an authentic spiritual life having become disaffected by Christianity’s growing inability to be a worthy custodian of the West’s spiritual heritage. In the absence, perhaps, of genuine religious containers, the void is partially filled by the prevalence of Gnostic themes in popular culture, exemplified by modern day movies such as The Matrix, The Truman Show, Dark City, Pan’s Labyrinth, 12 Monkeys, Vanilla Sky, and Pleasant-ville, all of which, it has been claimed, contain Gnostic themes. Clearly, the motifs of the Gnostic tradition are re-emerging from the depths of the archetypal realms and are finding considerable resonance within contemporary Western society.

* * *

Personally, I first encountered the term “Gnosticism” when reading Jung’s autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962), for the first time many years ago. I was immediately drawn to it in a way that went far beyond the mere piquing of curiosity. In fact, I experienced a much more profound, if subtle, resonance with the subject (i.e., Gnosticism), despite knowing absolutely nothing about it at that time. However, I would follow a rather circuitous route before taking a closer look at Gnosticism.

I once belonged to the group of Christian apostates who have sought spiritual nourishment beyond the institutions of Christianity. Conse-quently, I have done my share of browsing in what is often colloquially referred to as the spiritual supermarket. My first encounter with an alternative tradition was with Tibetan Buddhism. However, despite being fascinated by its spiritual philosophy, not to mention being seduced somewhat by its rich symbolism, I kept trying to reconcile the Buddhist teachings with Christian theology as I understood it. The two traditions seemed so very different—on the surface at least—such that either one (or both) had to be “wrong”. Alternatively, they were both profoundly different expressions of a much deeper underlying truth. I reasoned that if I could reconcile these differences then I would be getting close to that truth, free of the idiosyncrasies of any one tradition. Perhaps in an attempt to resolve this conundrum, I was drawn to Paramahansa Yogananda’s Self Realisation Fellowship, particularly due to his attempts to reconcile the teachings from The Bible with those from The Bhagavad-Gita. Around this time, I also encountered the works of the English Benedictine monk Fr Bede Griffiths who went to India to discover the other half of his soul. His writings had a major influence on me, in particular the Marriage of East and West (1982), and its efforts to point out the underlying unity of all traditions. A recognition for the need to reconcile opposites and seek deeper, underlying truths was instilled in me.

Yet, in my study of Eastern traditions something just did not fit, and I felt I could not fully belong in any of them. A religious tradition does not come into existence in a vacuum, but does so in a cultural context within which it is inextricably intertwined. Therefore, in order to get to the heart of a tradition, one must be able to differentiate between what belongs to the essence of the tradition, and what belongs to the cultural. Then there is the additional challenge of language. When a sacred text (or any other text) is translated from one language to another, something is always lost in translation, and the greater the difference between the source and target languages, the more that gets lost. Many words in English have their origin in either Latin or Greek and so it stands to reason that a text written in Greek, for example, will lose far less in translation when translated into English than a text translated from, for example, Sanskrit to English. Indeed, some concepts in Eastern traditions—and it must be remembered, we are dealing with concepts which are often ineffable—simply have no useful translation in English and are, therefore, often left untranslated in English versions. Thus, an English-speaking reader of an Eastern text translated into English generally needs some knowledge of Sanskrit (or Tibetan, etc.) before even beginning to grapple with the meaning of the text. Furthermore, there is always the sensitive, often thorny issue of the potential for cultural appropriation when one adopts a tradition from another culture. For these reasons, no matter how much I appreciated and benefited from my encounters with Eastern traditions, I always felt that there was something missing for me. They seemed to lack, both literally and metaphorically, what I can only describe as soul. As a proponent of the Western Mystery Tradition has said, the rose of the West should not seek to bloom like the lotus of the East. This resonates strongly with me. Like a magnet, the teachings of the West kept pulling me back.

My attempts to reconcile my Christian background with a study of Eastern traditions reminds me of the parable of the blind men and the elephant, thought to originate in Theravadan Buddhism, and which later made its way into the Sufi tradition. One variant of the story teaches that three blind men approached an elephant, an animal with which they were unfamiliar. Without sight, they sought to know the animal through touch. One approached from the side and touched its leg, another from the front and felt its tusk, and the third, from the other side, touched its ear. When they compared their experiences, they soon discovered the discrepancies in their accounts. The man who had felt the leg described it as some kind of pillar, both rough on the surface yet yielded slightly under pressure. The man who had touched the tusk disagreed and described the elephant as a post, hard and smooth rather than soft and rough. The third man disputed the claims of the other two, describing the elephant as broad and rough like a piece of leather. Each was partially right based on their limited subjective experience yet none of them could fully comprehend the elephant. In other words, the subjective experience of each was true to some extent but, individually, they failed to grasp the objective truth (if there is such a thing). However, if they had realised the situation and pooled their knowledge they could have approached a more complete understanding of the elephant. Like myths and dreams, there is more than one way to interpret this teaching story. On the one hand, it speaks of the limitations of individual perception. Seen differently, each blind man represents the approach taken by different spiritual traditions in their attempts to comprehend the ineffable mysteries of the divine.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, a similar message can be found in the teachings of Zen master Basho who likened the various religions to different fingers pointing at the moon. As with the blind men, each finger provides only a partial truth. The inherent warning is that if we focus on the finger, we fail to grasp the moon. The role of the finger is simply to point beyond itself to the moon. In the same way that a GPS needs a clear line of sight to at least four satellites in order to determine an accurate geospatial location, perhaps we need a few fingers (i.e., differing spiritual perspectives) to accurately locate the “moon”. If there is only one finger, and it is even slightly off in its alignment to the moon, then it will miss the moon. Similarly, if there are only two fingers pointing, and they are not pointing directly at the moon, then their point of intersection will not be at the moon. However, if there are three (or more) fingers, then their intersection will form a triangle (or polygon) and, even if the three fingers are all slightly off, there remains a good chance that the triangle of intersection will be the locus in which the moon is located. In other words, a variety of different perspectives can gives us a better, more rounded understanding of the obje...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Chapter One Introduction
• Chapter Two The living and the dead
• Chapter Three Ex nihilo, ex plenitudo
• Chapter Four The darkness and the light
• Chapter Five Archons and archetypes
• Chapter Six The cave and the prison
• Chapter Seven The dream and the hologram
• Chapter Eight The seed and the sheaf
• Chapter Nine The self and the homoplasmate
• Chapter Ten The virgin and the whore
• Chapter Eleven Slavery and freedom
• Chapter Twelve Christ and Sophia
• Chapter Thirteen The imagination and the third eye
• Chapter Fourteen Reluctant gnosis
• References
• Index