MDMD: What is this junk?

[Tiarnan O'Corrain]

> Are there any "Gnosticism" enthusiasts in the room?  And didn't
> Zoroaster spake sommat on t'Topick? 

Herewith a short account of Gnosticism, which Harold Bloom believed formed
the core of the uncodified modern American religion (not that I agree with
him...): 

The creator was always present and always perfect. He was lonely, however,
and created thirty divine beings to keep him company. The last to be created
was Sophia, or wisdom. She succumbed to lust (with whom we are not told),
and bore a child, the Demiurge. Expelled from heaven, the Demiurge became
lonely, and created the world as his plaything. Because he was tainted by
lust, his world was imperfect, full of evil. However, since his mother was
divine, all of his creations carried a divine spark. The spark is wisdom, or
gnosis (knowledge). To escape the evil of the world, Gnostics believed in
cultivating a divine wisdom, a series of keys that would allow the believer
to pass through the solar system (giving a password to an angel at each
sphere), and unite with the perfect Creator and his social club. 

Not far from many modern beliefs about cultivation and civilisation, and
near enough to Jewish beliefs about the Law as a shield against the
darkness. 

Joyce explored a similar theme in Finnegans Wake where he has an imperfect
world created by a stuttering creator. The hundred-letter word at the
beginning of the book (which combines the words for thunder in many
languages) was the botched attempt of a demiurge to make the world. It was
also the moment of the fall. This shares the view of gnosticism that
original sin was God's fault, not humanity's. 

Tiarnan