The End of Gnosticism?

[Paul Mackin]

On May 5, 2006, at 12:25 AM, Glenn Scheper wrote:

> Since my youthful psychosis and other meditative events
> could be interpreted as "direct gnosis", I tried to use that
> label, "gnostic", for myself. But the term is so trashed by
> association with specific dogmas, I have stopped using it.
>


The hidden or secret knowledge idea (gnosis), together with a  
pronounced repugnance for materiality, both characteristic of the  
more with far-out  religious tendencies  of the Second Century  Greco- 
Roman World, constitute  a pretty good metaphor for  Psychosis.  And  
just as you, Glenn,  eventually pulled back from your temporary  
condition, and returned to Earth  as it were, the more cautious heads  
of late antiquity saw that  the religious need of mass society was  
something more compatible with a predominantly Earthly Existence.   
That is to say, a balance was needed between the  requirements of the  
material world we know first hand and other more spiritual realms.  
That balance was so called orthodox Christianity.  The spiritual was  
not to be ruled out but merely held in better  balance.




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