Wait – here’s an article. You know you’re a Gnostic when … 1) You approach religious, political and cultural institutions with scepticism. Obviously.
2) You read everything symbolically – in terms of myths, scriptures, dreams. Do we do that? Come on, listening to us talking about Organisational Management.
3) Everything, for you, about the soul’s journey towards awakening. We’re awaken – we have to say that. We’re well awake.
4) You keep a spiritual journal. Shiva’s writing his idiot book, that’s true. Does that count as a spiritual journal?
I thought Gnostics were into asceticism and fasting and celibacy and that sort of thing.
Gnostics don’t do that anymore.
Here’s another one. Is your friend Gnostic? Alarming cult spreading through philosophy and theology … blah blah … There are warning signs, apparently. 1) Claiming to be strangers in the world. fuck yeah – deffo. 2) Espousing homesickness for an unknown reality. Sure, a bit of that. 3) Stating that no institution has the monopoly on truth. Well, that’s true, isn’t it …
4) Saying the creator of this world isn’t the highest reality. Do we believe in any kind of creator?
Io does.
But the rest of us?
5) Speaking of awakening rather than conversion. Dunno, really. You’re a convert, aren’t you, Io?
I am a convert.
6) Saying that they’re inwardly connected to something beyond ordinary life. Probably … Ordinary life really does suck, you have to admit that.
Gnosticism is about inner transformation. The deepest human task is to awaken to a higher spiritual reality through direct experience.
That’s old Gnosticism. Now it’s about living against stuff. And thinking the world really sucks.
Okay – things Gnostics Like. Films: Bladerunner, and the sequel. Obvs. The Matrix – yeah, yeah. Books: Philip K. Dick in general. Sure – the Black Iron prison and all that. Dead can Dance. Current 93. Okay.
Stuff Gnostics do. 1) Study Gnostic texts: the gospel of Thomas and the Nag Hammadi Library. Yeah, sure. 2) Study myths and archetypes and sacred geometry. 3) Study comparative mysticism – mapping out Gnosticism in its relation to Hermeticism, the Kabbalah. Nah. Can’t be bothered. 3) Learn ancient Coptic or koiné Greek. Fuck that – too hard. 4) Meditate and cultivate spiritual insight. This is old school Gnosticism. We can’t be bothered with that stuff.
So what are we – neo-Gnostics? Gnostiks with a k? We’re not into all the true God stuff, are we? And that stuff about the Demiurge? And what about the archons – do we believe in those?
No – fuck off. We just think the world’s evil.
Work in Progress 