I present this with a certain amount of trepidation, although it’s a topic in which I’ve had an interest for a number of years. If you think, reading it, that it’s unduly contentious, or that I’m being inflammatory, then please bear with me and try to understand my point before taking me to task on it. In fact I aim to show that there is a lot more common ground than is usually accepted.
Gnosticism is the idea that there is a capability which can only be unlocked by the personal transmission of a secret, or rather a mystic energy. This gnosis is the ability to experience God, and it comes in increasingly concentrated forms, as the purity of the subject and the depth of the secret. The secret is that each being is really God, but is prevented from that understanding by the illusion which constitutes the physical world. Thus the experience of God is the experience of one’s own true timeless ineffable unconstrained nature: the mystic experience. It is the mundane reality, the creation of the enemy, which binds us to suffering and incompletion; life and death.
There are many gnostic religions, many religions have gnostic variants, and they differ greatly from one another. In something like the form above it formed an important thread in the Hebrew tradition and is one of the major influences on Christianity, although it has been explicitly rejected since at least the Council of Ephesus in 431AD. Islam inherited this tradition from its Abrahamic roots, or perhaps later, and in Sufism it found one of its most beautiful expressions.
There is no adequate description of the mystic experience, and yet it is unquestionably recognisable as more real and true than any physical sensation. This creates a sort of psychological shock, as the mind attempts to integrate the Noumenal, as Schopenhauer terms it, with the Phenomenal. I have formed spiritual beliefs which are a way of understanding this truth, but it seems to me that with a different conceptual framework it would be quite possible to recover from this psychological shock and be completely convinced of something entirely different. At least, if not different in essence, then different in consequence.
Because not all mystery based religions are gnostic, and certainly not all are gnostic in this form, but each will tend to prepare its converts to understand that central experience in phenomenal terms which match the tenets of that religion.
This style of gnosticism leads to a very deeply held belief in those of its practitioners who have had the mystic experience, a very certain faith, in some things which I believe are detrimental to the rest of us who live on this planet.
I don’t wish to argue that that central experience is mistaken. I don’t wish to argue against the basic tenets of the religious beliefs of others. I think, rather, that by making explicit some ideas which are normally cloaked in dubious logic, I can show an important area of common purpose between belief systems which have been set at odds with one another. Perhaps that’s arrogant, but it’s worth a try, don’t you think?
Let’s start from these two propositions:
- The mortal world is the province of sin, and taints each soul at birth.
- If a person accepts God wholeheartedly, and submits to His will, he can be cleansed of this taint in death.
Incidentally I don’t think there’s much difference at all between Christian and Muslim at this point. (And, by the way, please let me know if I’m already on the wrong track – I wasn’t raised to this stuff and maybe I just don’t get it). To me the real issue is the next step, the consequences people draw from this.
Do you take from these ideas the conclusion that the world is inherently flawed, just a waiting room and testing ground for eternity? Do you take from this the idea that some of this world’s inhabitants are worthwhile because they have accepted God, and that others are merely agents of evil because they will not?
These two extremely dangerous and I believe very wrong views are I think being snuck into the modern mystery religions. I don’t think they belong there, and in fact I think they are a remnant of the gnostic tradition still alive within the two great religions. Let me be clear:
In Christianity, there is an evangelical wing which is also based around the mystic experience. There is within that branch of Christianity a conclusion at least among a proportion of these mystic converts, that the world and some of the people in it are beyond salvation. It’s possible, but not my area of knowledge, that such influences exist similarly within branches of Islam.
It’s obvious why this can cause problems, especially as at present with a world wide conflict with religious overtones and the Christian tendency to eschatology.
But I don’t believe these conclusions are even justified within their own belief structures. Just as each person has the taint of sin, each soul has the touch of the divine. There is no logic in abandoning a fellow human, and nothing to fear by refusing to do so. It seems clear that the example to follow is that of boundless hope, forbearance, and forgiveness. Even more, the world might be the stage on which the enemy struts, but there is no reason to believe the sets belong to him. Everything about them speaks of the hand of God, and reason and faith would argue that they should be cherished and nurtured, not kicked down to make a bonfire.
I belong to neither of these religions, nor am I gnostic in any form. You could certainly argue that this disqualifies my opinion entirely, but the point is that this is an article about politics and humanity not religion. It’s a criticism of the uses to which sincere belief is put, not a criticism of beliefs. I am afraid that some people may be manipulating the beliefs of others by taking advantage of them at a vulnerable time, but I have no direct evidence to say that this is true – and I’d be interested to find out one way or another.