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Gnosticism is a countercultural spirituality that forever changed the practice of Christianity. Before it emerged in the second century, passage to the afterlife required obedience to God and king. Gnosticism proposed that human beings were manifestations of the divine, unsettling the hierarchical foundations of the ancient world. Subversive and revolutionary, Gnostics taught that prayer and mediation could bring human beings into an ecstatic spiritual union with a transcendent deity. This mystical strain affected not just Christianity but many other religions, and it characterizes our understanding of the purpose and meaning of religion today. In The Gnostic New Age, April D. DeConick recovers this vibrant underground history to prove that Gnosticism was not suppressed or defeated by the Catholic Church long ago, nor was the movement a fabrication to justify the violent repression of alternative forms of Christianity. Gnosticism alleviated human suffering, soothing feelings of existential brokenness and alienation through the promise of renewal as God. DeConick begins in ancient Egypt and follows with the rise of Gnosticism in the Middle Ages, the advent of theosophy and other occult movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contemporary New Age spiritual philosophies. As these theories find expression in science-fiction and fantasy films, DeConick sees evidence of Gnosticism's next incarnation. Her work emphasizes the universal, countercultural appeal of a movement that embodies much more than a simple challenge to religious authority.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Matrix of Ancient Spirituality
2. The Gnostic True Man
3. Superpowers and Monsters
4. Paul and Gnostic Dogma
5. John and the Dark Cosmos
6. Gnostic Altered States
7. Hell Walks and Star Treks
8. Spiritual Avatars
9. The Pi of Politics
10. Pleasantville Religions
11. Gnosticism Out on a Limb
Bibliography
English Translation of Gnostic SourcesFilmographyIndex
About the author
April D. DeConick is Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies and chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University. She is the author of
Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter (2013) and
The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says (2009). She contributed to the CNN special series
Finding Jesus (2015).
Summary
Revealing the origins of today’s spirituality in the Gnostic tradition.
Additional text
The author has performed a great service by showing the historical and continuing role of transgressive spirituality based on personal experience and representing a massive Gnostic awakening in our time.
