gnosistic memes
Posted by mgnann on October 7, 2008
Gnosis is a Greek word that translates as “knowledge”, but means something more like, “enlightenment”. Historically, Gnosticism as a belief system is debatable to date, depending on interpretations of when an abstract idea becomes tradition or school of thought.
“It is nearer the truth to say that Gnosticism expresses a specific religious experience, an experience that does not lend itself to the language of theology or philosophy, but which is instead closely affinitized to, and expresses itself through, the medium of myth. Indeed, one finds that most Gnostic scriptures take the forms of myths. The term “myth” should not here be taken to mean “stories that are not true”, but rather, that the truths embodied in these myths are of a different order from the dogmas of theology or the statements of philosophy.” [1]
…the truths embodied in these myths. While I do not subscribe to any religion, I think this phrase explains the worth I see in them. I wanted to carry over the same type of view into my own story. It is a myth and there are memes of thought within it that explain my views in much the same way a religious text could.
Gnosticism as a religion probably sprung up in conquered cities and lands as an attempt to reconcile contradictory ideas where the ruling religion was made dominant over the lesser, more local beliefs. Being an amalgamation of various schools of thought it allows for many interpretations, and as explained above, the scriptures written were intended to be vessels for eternal memes. It sheds the weight of theology and instead concentrates on the truths of higher realms and presences.
To look at this in a more secular light; even science is guided by intuition. Current quantum physics is now so far advanced that some of our theories cannot be tested with the available technology. But that doesn’t stop scientists who are confident that they are getting closer than ever to outlining a universal theory of everything. Science is on the brink of better understanding things such as the Big Bang, dark fields of matter, and hidden dimensions within string theory, mostly by using our skills of reason and logic and building upon rules that we can know and test.
I wanted to incorporate some of these patterns of reality into my own story. The magic system in my book is based along the lines of gnosis. Like any good religion, the story behind Gnosticism is chocked full of good themes, characters, plot lines and areas of contemplation. So I stole some of them and used them in the flexible way they are presented to tell a story.
Here is a very rough synopsis of Gnostic myth. If this doesn’t sound like the plot to a science fiction story then I don’t know what does:
The Highest God emanated into numerous lesser gods called Aeons, who were created in male/female pairs. Together, the Aeons made up the entire pleroma of the Divine First. But when one Aeon named Sophia emanated without her male counterpart, the Demiurge was born. The Demiurge then went on to create a world in his image, either ignorant of or in spite of the Monad. That world that was created is the physical world that we live in and know. Some of us humans have the ability to connect with the larger spiritual world through the internal knowledge we have left over from the original first move. These gifted ones are able to transcend the physical and have direct contact with the spiritual, resulting in a reconnection with the Monad and a state of enlightenment.
The Gnostics were fond of saying, “faith is for the many, knowledge is for the few”. What they didn’t mean was that knowledge was to be withheld from the populous (remember the uppermost definition of what gnosis meant to the Greeks), but that that most of the populous would never be capable of true transcendence.
Again, I carry this idea over into my own story and make this divine intuition my “magic”. It is not available to all, and purports to give an air of mystery and power granted by gods. Perfect fantasy stuff.
Later on I want to look at some of the similarities between Gnosticism and other religions. Also look at it within the realms of science and general quantum theories so as to give a little more insight on how these same memes of eternal truth cross over into other parts of our knowledge and understanding of the world. Perhaps be more specific as to how some of these themes cross over and take root in my own tale.
If you want a more thorough description on the Gnostic world view, I suggest you go here or just go here and keep reading.
