logicp_writings/collectivist_theology/Gnosticism_in_Modern_West.md

Finally can explain it in dialogue better than explaining it in a PODCAST. People have questions in a dialogue - we get prompted for additional insight and information. It's been a bit disorganized while these ideas are still in the water, but these ideas have been developing as are our explanations.

Paul Rossi was an educator in NYC who had the courage to speak out against woke abuses at a private school, and this caused him to lose his job. James and Paul were talking abotu private schooling and next thing you know they're talking about Gnosticism. Paul didn't understand much about gnosticism, so that set James off deep into the topic.

An Authoritative/scholarly source on this is Science, Politics and Gnosticism by Eric Voegelin who has a nice piece where he summarizes things for us (coming later). Voegelin characterizes gnosticism in terms of 3 distinct characteristics and tries to create a taxonomy out of this. Another attempt had been made in the 19th century by Christian Bauer who had been tracking Christian movements, and there's another difficult book about this as well called "The Gnostic Return in Modernity" Cyril O'Regan - narrow in the Christian sense - makes a bold attempt to talk about Christian Spin-off movements which incorporate Gnosticism.

James won't stick with that specifically, though, because he believes this:

"Gnostic, as a word, whether we capitalize it as a proper noun or not matters somewhat. Gnostic refers to at least 4 distinct things simultaneously (not in a woke bullshit way, where you intentionally put multiple meanings in a word so people don't know what they're talking about) - a weird historical accident that various things have been labelled as the "one true Gnosticism" throughout history. An explanation of this is that the word has been used historically to refer to 4 different concepts that are interrelated but not the same.

In "lowercase" gnostic uses, there are two:

• gnostic refers to explicitly relying on gnosis in order to understand the world
• gnostic: confusing to go too much int hio thi ** secret higher special knowldge is often construed as being spiritual in nature, and needsaye

Gnosis

A special kind of knowledge

Gnosiological/Gnosiological

Marxists, and Paulo Freire, use this explanation a lot (a gnosciological attitude - woke consciousness - being conscientized)

1:05:10

"As the knowledge of falling captive to the world, gnosis is at the same time the means of escaping it. Thus, Irenaeus recounts the meaning that Gnosis had for the Valentinians: "Perfect salvation consists in the cognition as such of the ineffable greatness. For, since sin and affliction resulted from ignorance agnoia, the whole system originating in ignorance is dissolved through knowledge - Gnosis. Hence, Gnosis is the salvation of the inner-man. Gnosis redeems the inner pneumatic man. He finds satisfaction in the knowledge of the Whole, and this is the true salvation." "

Irenaeus destroyed it, when it came to it. French gnostics dug up Irenaeus's bones and they danced as they through them around in the street (because they are Gnostic).

Voegelin: "This will have to suffice by way of clarification save for one word of caution. Self-salvation through knowledge has its own magic, and this magic is not harmless. The structure of the order of being will not change because one finds it defective and turns away from it."

Reality will veto your gnostic property (will veto Gender ideology, for example). But how far down the path did we go before reality vetos it.

"The structure of the order of being will not change because one finds it defective and runs away from it. The attempt at world destruction will not destroy the world, but it will only increase the disorder in society. The gnostic flight from a truly dreadful, confusing and oppressive state of the world is understandable. But the order of the ancient world was renewed by that movement which strove through loving action to revive the practice of the "Serious Play", that is, by Christianity."

James Lindsay, in his Arizona Lectures, said that you have to have "reasonable faith". That reason and faith have to work together to box out gnosticism. Reason has to ground faith so that it can't get spun off into these special revelations. It has to guide acts of jesus, understand of scripture and development of theology. At the same time, reason itself has to be propped up by faith that reason can work, that the world is, in fact, ordered, that that order is comprehensible, that we have the capacity to comprehend it and reason has to be reeled in by faith on the other side because otherwise we all turn into Yuval Noah Harari and believing we can turn ourselves into our own Gods "Humans are hackable animals. That we can do whatever we want with the world".

No, faith has to reel it in and tell those people to humble themselves. So, reason and faith working in dynamic interplay box out the gnostic parasite.

Back into the conversation with Paul (Rossi) from earlier. I had left off not knowing exactly how to go with next. Voegelin becomes a very perfect transition. The gnostic disposition where we take on the various characteristics/pieces of it - is wholly pessimistic and, crucially, it's angry at the world for existing. That's a disposition - a frustrating, narcissistic, external locus of control - mental poison. You are in a prison when you've adopted the gnostic mindset, but the prison is called the gnostic mindset. You have imprisoned yourself in misery and entitlement.

1:11:00 In pessimism, in anger, in frustration, in envy - that's the poison.

Hermeticism is Gnostic by Definition

• Hermeticism has its own development/ideas/disposition
• 7 Principles
• Most famous: principle of correspondence: "As above so below, as below so above"
  • Snake eating its own tail
  • Circular economy
  • Inversion of Praxis

Marx called it the inversion of praxis:

• Above, the society itself conditions people according to its demiurgic power that's invested in the people who have access to the means of production
• Praxis
  • Transform
  • Theory-driven activisim with the intent of changing the world

These things come together and make sense - seeing these same systems both as gnostic and hermetic systems.

Marx understood to understand the system from the bottom Hegel understood to understand the system from the top

Marx: "I took Hegel and stood him on his head".

Hegel thought the idea had the demiurgic power, and that it would condition the world and the world, through its action, would create the spirit (trinity). Spirit informs the idea and a revolution of ideas come from the contradictions playing out in the realm of the broad spirit (the conditions of society/culture. Society in the abstract sense).

According to Hegel, idea was center of demiurgic power, but Marx said It's Not. The idea is a reflection in the mind of man of that which is. The idea is not upstream, it is downstream from material reality. Based on this, he called

Demiurgic power: The idea is a reflection