In looking for a general introduction to Gnosticism I chose this. It certainly provided an overview of the beliefs, gives you short biographies of significant Gnostics their life and ideas, and outlines Gnostic movements. But there is something in its chosen style of exposition that gets in the way of a clearly well thought out exposition, namely the author.
Stephan A Hoeller is a professor and practitioner of Gnosticism and goodness does he want you to know. The book is littered with his personal theories, opinions, defences and proselytising of Gnosticism. The last few chapters are really a succession of statements about the contemporary ills and flaws in modern society and how much better we'd all be if Gnosticism was more widely practiced. He declares Hinduism and Buddhism are essentially gnostic in principle, and a lot of things are apparently. And its not as if he is not right in many of the things he asserts, but a bit less subjectivity and expression of partisan viewpoints and more distance would not have gone amiss. To show not tell. There are a lot of words here, specialist gnostic words, Jungian words, umbrella words that require careful decoding and explanations. Words that tend in Hoeller's hands, unfortunately, to get in the way, he got in the way. Making it more difficult to connect with the theoretical structures, or what gnostic texts had to say for themselves
Gnosticism does have a lot within to excite and recommend it. Its central idea being that the world and us within it, are made flawed from the moment of inception. It's not therefore the fault of our sinning. We do not need to be punished, nor be redeemed. We are born into a fractured relationship with ourselves, the world and the gods. We begin by using our deepening self knowledge to investigate and restore our relationship with the unknowable god. To mend and rejoin our being with that fundamental essence of all things. Becoming one through gnosis with gnosis. Myth and allogory replacing dogma, are strong qualities in Gnostic teachings too. I've certainly gained a few pointers of where to read next. So this has not been a complete waste of time to read.
As a religious philosophies go Gnosticism is probably the most esoteric and hence harder to pin down. Its been challenged before for its heretical concepts by numerous Christians, challenged about whether it really existed as a coherent religious movement ( it can appear tenuous ), challenged over the authenticity of its ' secret' texts. ( they're old but what they represented was piecemeal until the Nag Hammadhi Texts were found )
There is also something about texts being dubbed 'secret'. They were actively censored, forbidden and suppressed, this appeals to the modern predilection for conspiracy theories, challenging perceived conventions, and alternative facts. Wholeheartedly exploited by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. If the Gnostic Gospels are actually 'gospels', then what they say they are represents an entirely different spiritual discourse that Jesus employed privately to his disciples. More metaphysical than his simpler public talks, where he used parables as teaching devices.
I don't know what scientific and textual analysis has been done on these 'secret' texts to establish their age or original provenance. This book is by a 'devotee', so is probably not the place to find that out. Hoeller is too concerned all the time to justify or castigate the Catholic orthodoxy and to sell you Gnosticisms self evident theological richness and diversity. I just don't think he does a particularly good job of that.
CARROT REVIEW 4/8
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