the timboucher experience

I recently happened across an article from a UK newspaper called The Secret World of the New Gnostics which starts out as an innocent-enough discussion of The Da Vinci Code, but somehow devolves into an unmitigated attack on all things gnostic. It features such inelegant quotes as:

“I’m glad to say I thought myself out of Gnosticism about 20 years ago. Back then I could see its attraction - feeling free of any institutional constraints on being spiritual, a way for ordinary people to seek divine enlightenment. But if the new adherents get beyond the desire to look groovy and radical and really start looking at what Gnosticism was all about, they are in for a nasty shock. The Gnostics split spirit and matter, and saw matter as evil. They believed that men were spirit and women were matter. So, yes, there may have been some Cathars who allowed women a role - usually only after they had had sex with an enlightened man - but at heart Gnosticism was profoundly anti-woman and one of its greatest influences on Christianity was to make it the same.”

Then it later says:

The bottom line is its demand that you reject everything to do this world as flawed and evil - homes, cars, money, all that is matter, not spirit.

Going on only then to suggest that since gnosticism viewed matter so negatively, sex was absolutely out, and adhererents were only allowed to “bugger each other.” It reads more like a polemic from a stodgy church father, rather than a fluff entertainment news piece. They even go so far as to bash moderners who are into gnosticism:

The handful of UK-based Gnostic movements is apparently so otherworldly that they don’t answer their phones, if indeed they have such evil contraptions.

No wonder they don’t answer, if it’s this asshole calling them. I wouldn’t either. Anyway, this article I think paints a very vivid picture of how certain segments of society persistently portray gnosticism. “World-hating dualists” is the most common charge you’ll hear parroted. Now, I certainly understand that gnosticism historically has been an extremely big umbrella under which many groups with many principles sheltered. And some of them very well may have been dualists, or anti-flesh, whatever. But I never liked them.

That’s right: they’re boring. And yet I fancy myself something of a modern-day gnostic. How is that? Well, according to the stuff that I go with, the point of gnosticism is that it’s not dogmatic. You don’t have to sit here and memorize a list of commandments (although if you want to you can). What you do have to do is search, question, create and listen. Through such methods will you engage a “deeper wisdom.” I’ve got a few older articles that might shed more light on that for those interested:

1. The Gnostic Seeking
2. Creativity as mark of spiritual maturity
3. Media Literacy & Gnosticism
4. Of Gnosticism & Walmart
5. Did Gnosticism Fail Because It Was Elitist?

While I don’t have all the answers, gnosticism has trained me to ask a lot of really good questions, which I think if hugely important. For me, the biggest influence on this style of thought has actually been the sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. In 1974, he had a mystical experience, and spent the rest of his life restlessly trying to figure out what had happened to him. He became deeply involved in gnostic studies, which augmented his already deep questioning of “what’s really real?” In addition to his novels, he created an enormous library of exegetical writings which explored and expanded his ideas about gnosticism. If this is all new to you, here are some good links to get started:

1. The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb
2. How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later
3. Tractates Cryptica Scriptura
4. The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation
5. Exegesis excerpts
6. Cosmogony & Cosmology

Gnostics, as I said, have always been a diverse group. Historically, they are often branded according to which teacher their own ideas were most closely aligned with. Here are two listings of different historical gnostic sects. For example, people who dug the teachings of the gnostic Valentinius are often referred to nowadays as “Valentinians”. So I was thinking that since the stuff that I’m into via Philip K. Dick is pretty different from some of not only the historical gnostic sects, but also from the popular public perception of gnosticism, perhaps we ought to give it a name. Not so much for the purpose of forming a sect, or of codifying a set of rules or anything like that. But just to act as sort of an aid for people who are interested in exploring this same direction. So, in honor of the teacher who introduced me to this field, I’d like to informally propose the term “Phildickian Gnosticism”. This mainly means that we talk about gnosticism using a lot of the same imagery Dick employed. Terms like anamnesis, plasmate, Secret Gray-Robed Christians, Black Iron Prison, etc. The term “phildickian” seems already to be in popular use nowadays, so it seems like a natural progression.

As Jeremy expertly pointed out recently:

Instead of “World-Hating Dualists,” a better phrase for describing Gnostics would be “Freedom-Loving Individualists;” we certainly don’t hate the world or Nature, we hate any Control System that tries to take away our ability to interact with the world independently.

Not dualists but individualists who, like Dick’s fictional protagonists, are stuck in a world we didn’t create, just trying to get by, figure things out and maybe have a good time in the process.

• Is Gnosticism Corruptible?
• Anarcho-Gnosticism
• Episco-Pagelian Gnosticism
• Thelemites Not Gnostics?
• The Tao of Gnosticism