Contemporary ‘Gnosticism’ as a Discursive Field:

an analysis of individual and institutional authority in twentieth century ‘gnostic’ movements

by

David G. Robertson

S0569755

Submitted towards the degree

MSc (by research) in Religious Studies,

School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.

27/8/2010.

Table of Contents

Abstract iii

Acknowledgements iv

  1. Introduction: The Problem of Modern "Gnosticism" for the Study of Religion 1
  2. Etics: Scholarly Conceptualisations of Contemporary “Gnosticism” 14
  3. Emics: The Discursive Field of Contemporary “Gnosticism” 29
  4. Case Study: Ecclesia Gnostica – the Issue of Succession 40
  5. Case Study: Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica – Contemporary “Gnosticism”

and Christianity 51

  1. Case Study: Universal Christian Gnostic Movement – Institutional and

Individual Authority 62

7.  Conclusion: Contemporary “Gnosticism” as Institutionalised Individualism 71

Bibliography 82

Abstract

This thesis argues that the field of contemporary “gnosticism” has long been misconstrued. Rather than a revival of a world-denying “anticosmic” weltanschauung, this paper argues that the term “gnosticism” in the contemporary religious field is a signifier of religious formations that combine various fin de siècle “esoteric” teachings with external Catholic symbolism and structures. Despite making appeals to the putative movement of the 2nd - 4th centuries C.E., they rather offer a particularly contemporary religious formation, interpreting symbolism psychologically and stressing individual experience over “faith”. Using methodologies drawn from Foucault and Bourdieu, I use issues of authority to map out the field of contemporary “gnosticism”: in the first section, through the tension between etic and emic conceptions, and in the second, through issues of authority within and between contemporary “gnostic” groups, and tensions between Christian and “esoteric” discourses. In conclusion, I attempt to place contemporary “gnosticism” within the broader religious field by suggesting that it represents not a fully individualised religious formation based on self-validation of faith, but one based on mutual validation of faith, an “institutionalised individualism” which allows for individualised, experiential religiosity to operate within a traditional institutional context.

Acknowledgements

My sincere gratitude goes out to my supervisor, Dr. Steven Sutcliffe. He was tireless in his support for this project, and his suggestions and criticisms were consistently engaged and apt. He challenged me to write a better work than I thought myself capable of. I hope I have not disappointed him.

I would also like to thank those who provided support and advice along the way; Professor April DeConick and Dr Paul Foster for sources on “gnosticism”, Arild Stromsvag, Melissa Harrington and others at the Academic Study of Magic group for help with Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, Crystal Lubinsky and Professor James Cox for reading my drafts and Professor Carole Cusack for providing references.

Finally, my eternal gratitude to Aileen, without whom none of this would have been possible.

iv

Contemporary “Gnosticism”

1

Introduction: The Problem of Modern "Gnosticism" for the Study of Religion

“If cultures define themselves not at their calm centres, but at their peripheral conflicts of inclusion and exclusion, then Gnosticism, whatever we mean by it, is more than an antiquarian curiosity.”

(Smith 1988, 549)


This thesis is an attempt to establish what the category “gnosticism”, and its related taxons “gnostic” and “gnosis”, signify in the religious field of the 21st century. 2009 saw the presence of “gnostics” for the first time at the world’s largest interfaith gathering, the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne, Australia; yet the question of what “gnosticism” signifies in the contemporary religious field has yet to receive serious academic attention. Most existing studies consist of a short concluding section in a work otherwise concerned with “gnosticism” in the classical period, and fail to adequately consider the methodological or categorical issues particular to the contemporary field (Smith 1988; Holroyd 1994;Markschies 2003; Pearson 2007). Indeed, many scholars of “gnosticism” simply reject the validity of any usage of the term in a modern religious context, dismissing it as better contained under the already-problematical rubric of “New Age” (Markschies 2003, 13).

A handful of works do specifically address contemporary “gnosticism”; of these, probably those of Hanegraaff ([with van den Broek] 1998; 1995; 1994) and his circle (von Stuckrad 2005; Van den Broek 1998), Merkur (1993), and Segal (1995 [ed.]; 1987) have had the greatest influence. These works are generally theoretical, however, and the only academic comparison of contemporary “gnostic” groups I have been able to find is Smith’s essay “The Revival of Ancient Gnosis” (1995), which, while rich in detail, is thin on analysis. So far as I am aware, then, this thesis is the first attempt at a systematic study of “gnostic” groups in the contemporary religious field.

It is structured in two parts. The first argues that contemporary “gnosticism” has been largely misconstrued by scholars. Chapter 2 examines the various approaches that scholars have used to conceptualise contemporary “gnosticism”; chapter 3, in comparing them to emic accounts, establishes that these etic accounts have become detached from the accounts of practitioners. Rather than a world-denying weltanschauung, the term “gnosticism” in the contemporary religious field is a signifier of religious formations that combine “esoteric” traditions with symbolism and structures drawn from Roman Catholicism, and which tend to interpret symbolism psychologically and to give individual experience superiority over “faith”. By returning to the accounts of practitioners, we are able to re-conceptualise contemporary “gnosticism” as a field of discourse, rather than a unit idea or perennial tradition, as discussed below.

The second part, chapters 4 through 7, uses issues of power and authority to map out this contemporary “gnostic” field in greater detail. This section is centred on three case studies, which aim to describe as broad a spectrum of contemporary “gnostic” groups as possible, and examine several lines of tension of authority within the field. Chapter 4 examines the Ecclesia Gnostica, an ostensibly strongly Christian “gnostic” movement based in the southern US, placing particular import in the issue of “apostolic succession”. The Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica is the focus of chapter 5, a group with overt links to European Freemasonry and “esotericism”, and the ideas of 19th century British magician, Aleister Crowley. Finally, we shall consider the Universal Christian Gnostic Movement, a loose assemblage of groups dedicated to the dissemination of the teachings of Samael Aun Weor, with a broad appeal in Latin America. Given the brevity of this thesis, these chapters are largely concerned with picking out conflicts and commonalties between these groups and the broader “gnostic” field. They are structured so that each examines a problematic discourse of the field: between and within contemporary “gnostic” groups (chapter 4), between Christian and “esoteric” traditions (chapter 5) and between institutional and individual authorities (chapter 6).

My conclusion suggests that contemporary “gnosticism” represents a religious formation based on mutual validation of faith, an institutionalised individualism which allows for individualised, experiential religiosity to operate within an institutional context. The authority of the individual takes precedence, but the individual experience is validated mutually through collective ritual practise. Thus the critique of Christianity is specifically that it fails to adequately incorporate the individualism demanded by a rationalised, detraditionalised modernity.

Finally, I outline a few avenues of future research that this thesis has uncovered. Firstly, the need for more focused study of this field, including a greater degree of fieldwork than I have been able to pursue, and the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data. Secondly, the methodological approach I outline below may prove useful when applied to other problematic categories. Finally, the model of institutionalised individualism outlined in the conclusion demands further unpacking, and consideration to its broader applicability in the contemporary Western religious field, and beyond.

The remainder of this introductory chapter consists of a discussion of the terminology I shall be employing, and an outline of the historical background of “gnostic” studies. Our contemporary focus notwithstanding, I feel this is necessary in order to put what follows into context. I shall be necessarily brief, and there will be much that scholars of classical “gnosticism” might challenge. This thesis is not aimed at those scholars, however, but at scholars of twentieth century religion, and so I shall proceed with impunity.[1]

Methodology

Typically, studies of contemporary “gnosticism” have been situated within the “history of ideas” paradigm (Ahern 2009; Van den Broek& Hanegraaff 1998; Merkur 1993). Lovejoy suggested that philosophical systems tend to be “original or distinctive rather in their patterns than their components” (1936: 3). These patterns are made up of “unit ideas” which may be shared by many systems from different fields, and can manifest in different ways in different times and fields (1948; 1936). The history of ideas methodology seeks to locate (or impose) a single narrative onto a category; thus a tendency towards reification is an intrinsic weakness. Lovejoy seems to have become aware of these weaknesses, and later modified his theory to take account of the fact that the meaning of “idea units” can change depending on temporal and cultural context (1948, xiv-xvii).

In the case of “gnosticism”, the application of this methodology has been particularly problematic, as in the desire to create a narrative including classical or contemporary “gnosticism”, they have failed to engage adequately with either. As we shall see, this has led to scholarly conceptualisations that are truly representative of neither classical nor contemporary “gnosticism”. A more productive approach might therefore be to adopt Foucault’s idea of an “archaeology of knowledge”, which rather than seeking a continuous narrative which smoothes out roughness and inconsistencies, actively seeks out discontinuities and disagreements. As in an archaeological dig, where each strata uncovered reveals new structures built upon the old, so we see each strata of the idea as a new development, adaptation, appropriation or embellishment:

The history of an idea is not wholly and entirely that of its progressive refining, its continuosly increasing rationality, its abstraction gradient, but that of its various fields of constitution and validity, that of its successive rules of use, that of the many theoretical contexts in which it developed and matured. (1972 [1969], 4)

This thesis is not yet another attempt to locate some posited “gnosticism” as an implicit epistemological structure in modern society. Such an approach has led to a plethora of conceptualisations based on partial, diachronic parallels, and is to a considerable degree responsible for the semantic confusion surrounding the category (Galbreath 1981, 21-2). Rather than assume that there is a core “gnosticism” to be uncovered and defined, we are more concerned with how the term has been taken up and adapted in different groups and periods. The archaeological method accepts multiple narratives, multiple “gnosticisms”; not what “gnosticism” is, but how the term is appropriated. Henry Green suggests this approach to “gnosticism”:

it appears, in our opinion, that we have only a variety of statements made with words by a variety of different writers with a variety of different intentions and as such, there is no history of an idea to be written, but only a history of various people who used the idea and of their varying social situations. (1977, 133)

These various people in various situations, moreover, are competing within the field for their interpretation to be seen as authoritative. These skirmishes are taking place on several fronts: between scholars and practitioners, between and within contemporary “gnostic” groups, and between Christian and “esoteric” discourses. The task of the scholar, therefore, is not to assess the relative validity of these interpretations, but to map out the field, disputes and all:

Rather than seeking the permanece of themes, images and opinions through time, rather than retracing the dialectic of their conflicts in order to individualise groups of statements, could one not rather mark out the dispersion of the points of choice, and define prior to any opinion, to any thematic preference, a field of strategic possibilities? (Foucault 1972 [1969], 37)

The conception of intellectual “fields” comes from sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who presented them as an alternative to the Marxist analytical tools of class and ideology, which he considered did not adequately take account of cultural factors such as education (1985). A field is a relatively autonomous area of culture in which agents operate (e.g. legal, academic, religious), and in which cultural capital acquires its specific value. Cultural capital can be understood as cultural knowledge and/or skills that confer power: for example, being able to eloquently discuss art would be a form of cultural capital that could confer status in middle-class groups (Barker 2004, 37). Agents within a specific field compete for power through possession of its cultural capital, consciously or unconsciously internalising its rules and “playing the game” of the field. Fields may overlap (Bourdieu 1985): for example, in the present case, the field of contemporary “gnosticism” overlaps with both the Christian and “esoteric” fields. They are also hierarchical: for example, the contemporary “gnostic” field is within the contemporary religious field, which is itself within the contemporary cultural field, etc.

Recently, von Stuckrad has suggested combining a Foucaultian focus on power relations with Bourdieu’s ideas into an approach focused upon the analysis of fields of discourse (2005, 85). In analysing any field, we cannot ignore the ‘other’ that is constantly produced by the ‘own’; “in constructing the ‘other’, both parties form a discursive unit” (Ibid, 87). These discourses are the social organisation of the meaning of the cultural capital of the field (Foucault 1971), in our case the religious traditions, symbols, and the interpretation thereof. According to von Stukrad, these discursive units allow the transfer of meaning between “own” and “other”: common areas of concern are revealed as meaning is negotiated and transformed (Ibid, 84-5). Discourses can also be understood as instruments of power: agents do not only compete for cultural capital within a discursive field, but compete for the authority to decide where the boundaries of the field lie.

I suggest that this model provides the most accurate way to conceptualise the field of contemporary “gnosticism”. In conceptualising it as a discursive field rather than an identifiable historical, policital or philosophical current, we do not ask what contemporary “gnosticism” “is”: rather, by exploring the dynamics of its production, we seek to better understand the dynamics of the broader contemporary religious field.