Jordan Stratford is an ordained minister in the Apostolic Johannite Church and a very prominent voice on contemporary gnosticism on the internet. Jordan maintains the weblog Ecclesia Gnostica in Nova Albion, and I had a chance to do an email interview with Jordan concerning his experiences with gnosticism in an ecclesiastic setting. Thanks Jordan!

PS. Jordan is also forming an online gnostic study group for anyone who is interested.

[Note about formatting: My questions appear in bold, while Jordan’s responses appear in plain text]

The bio on your website reads: “I am an ordained Priest of the Apostolic Johannite Church, an esoteric Gnostic Christian communion with valid Apostolic succession.” What the heck does all that mean in layman’s terms? How come I sometimes see a little plus sign (+) used after your name?

There’s a lot in there, but before I get to it I must stress that I’m speaking as an individual here and that I do not speak for my Church.

At the root of this is the Gnostic Religion, against the backdrop of a Christian aesthetic. My particular Church, the Apostolic Johannite Church, is part of the Apostolic Tradition – a kind of historic relay race of ordinations – so it’s akin to the Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox Church in that respect.

Esoteric of course implies subtlety, nuance, and a that a more intuitive approach is required when approaching some ideas that may seem obvious at first, but can yield deeper an alternate meanings upon reflection.

The plus sign at the end of my name denotes the Priesthood, whereas Bishops place the + at the front of their names. Again this is just part of the Apostolic Tradition, and we continue to use it out of respect.

For people unfamiliar with gnosticism, do you believe in Jesus, God, Heaven, Hell, the whole nine yards?

When you talk about belief I’m reminded of Jung’s famous quote, when asked if he believed in God; “I don’t believe, I know.”

Gnosticism is an older and distinct religion and can’t be understood in the context of Christianity. The two religions have coexisted and cooperated for millennia, with many Gnostics participating in and even helping to form what we now understand as Christian culture. I like to employ the metaphor of strands in a braid – oftentimes these strands can be seen as going in opposite directions, yet they ultimately serve to strengthen and reinforce one another. In many respects Gnosticism is much closer to Buddhism (and perhaps Judaism) than it is to Christianity. I’ve said before that the big problem with contemporary Gnosticism is that it’s not Jewish enough.

Now I personally am not a Christian in that I reject the both the historicity and the exclusivity of the Jesus story, and I do not recognize the crucifixion as salvific. But the myth of Christ, of the Logos, factors into the Gnostic story system very prominently - we just need to understand that we’re talking about a timeless and eternal Aeon, not “some guy” for whom there’s no historical evidence. This Aeon is the same as Wesir (Osiris) or Dionysus, belonging to all time periods and cultures. No Galilean prophet, no rabbi, no carpenter. He’s here-now, rather than there-then. Both Tom Harpur and the Freke and Gandy team have contributed some excellent material on this
subject.

How did you first become interested in gnosticism? What’s your religious/spiritual background in terms of how you were raised, and any other spiritual traditions you may be a part of? What does it mean to you to be a practicing gnostic? I imagine you weren’t raised gnostic – what does your family think about all this?

I was fortunate to have grown up in a household that welcomed inquiry, where the Brittanica was prized over the Bible. My mother’s family has a long-standing involvement of what you’d call Spiritualism, so pendula and ouija boards and talk of past lives were not uncommon around the kitchen table. Like a lot of teenagers I was very attracted to Witchcraft, particularly in its expression in sex and art and myth and poetry, and the value of creativity in Spiritual work.

I began to see in my early twenties that Witchcraft as I understood it was an expression of a further-reaching historic tradition: Gnosticism. Now this of course was before the explosion in the late 80s of Wiccan paperbacks, which both popularized and muddied the waters of Witchcraft. In a way it was easier then, because the experience was home-grown and authentic and not mediated by something you could buy at 7-11. So my introduction to the idea of the Divine Feminine was through Robert Graves and Dion Fortune and Sybil Leek, rather than the highly politicized matriarch-authors and pop-spellbooks of the early nineties. I’ve been using the term Gnostic for about 17 years, and I was ordained a Deacon in the Gnostic Catholic Church in 1989.

For me, being a practicing Gnostic is to wave a flag that I think the planet needs to see right now. We live in a world governed by data, occasionally blessed with information, and profoundly lacking in wisdom. Gnosticism offers models for how all this chaos got here, as well as clear but challenging alternatives. There is also a Gnostic undercurrent to all world religions, so there is an opportunity for deep ecumenism in seeing how Sufism and Kabala, for example, can unite Islam and Judaism to a degree.

You talk a lot about Sophianic Gnosticism. Is that anything like all that “divine feminine” stuff circulating thanks to the Da Vinci Code, Wicca, and other contemporary sources? What’s your take on Mary Magdalene – wife of Jesus, mother of his children, sacred whore, super lady, what?

It is interesting how popular culture has caught up with this archetype of the Divine Feminine, which we’ve been talking about for about a hundred years now. There was a very strong intuition among the fin de siecle literati that a lot of the assumptions about religious mechanisms and social order had played themselves out, and they were waiting in a way for the other shoe to drop. We start to see a sharp rise in Mariolatry, in the understanding of women as having an equal role in society generally. Jung certainly saw this as an emerging and increasingly dominant gravity well.

Gnostic myth sees the Godhead as infinite and superrational, meaning we can’t ever really hope to wrap our little human heads around it. And yet the first emanation of God which we can perceive is Wisdom. That’s something with which we can identify, champion, even own. The expression of Wisdom is Sophia, who is also the Holy Spirit, and comes from the same archetypal font as Isis, Mary, and of course the Magdalene.

This can tell us a lot about who Mary Magdalene IS, but of course not who she WAS, if she was anybody. Like any of the players in this myth, we’re never going to unearth a driver’s license or library card as we would with somebody like Caesar or Pilate. Certainly there is truth in resonant myth, not a narrow, literalist “Jesus had kids and of course Rabbis were married” truth but rather a greater personal understanding upon the individual’s incorporation of such a myth.

Did an historic Mary Magdalene marry an historic Jesus, move to France and crank out little Merovingians? Of course not. I don’t think any credible historian is claiming this, only that some people in history assumed this to be the case and acted accordingly. I’ve described this myth as a “marriage” of two complementary traditions, Christian and that of the Divine Feminine. It’s not meant to be taken literally.

How did you know that you wanted to be a priest? I’ve heard people say they felt a “calling” to religious vocation. Was there a specific moment for you or was it more of a longer build-up? What steps did you take in becoming ordained and why did you choose the AJC over a “normal” Christian denomination? Do you have any advice for people who feel that they too might have a calling to religious vocation?

Being a Priest is an integral part of my being an artist and a writer and a husband and father. The whole thing is a kind of radical performance art of identity. Specifically the appeal of the Priesthood is that it’s a modern Knighthood: living by a clear personal code of *caritas*, honour, protection – all in service to something greater than I could possibly be on my own.

As for the Apostolic Johannite Church, I was looking around for a community to which I could contribute, and I wasn’t interested in an “internet church”. Also as a non-Christian, finding an environment where I was welcome was extremely challenging. There is a tremendous range of faith and experience within the AJC, and I was made to feel very welcome despite the fact that my background was a different one. I obviously had significant gaps in my religious education regarding Christian theology, and so I spent a long time reading and studying and asking and arguing, to get to the point where I can be of assistance to those who are speaking an exclusively Christian language.

The only alternatives to the AJC for me were Bishop +Hoeller’s Ecclesia Gnostica and Bishop +Rosa Miller’s Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum. Both were unresponsive during this period. Additionally, the EG has some literalist Christian elements that declare themselves incompatible with the more esoteric tradition in which much of my own theology is framed. A strong candidate for me was the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica Hermetica, and I was delighted to discover that it’s the AJC’s sister-church, sharing clergy and Parishes despite the fact that the EGCH is a little more gonzo than the conservative-seeming AJC.

People come to the Priesthood by their own road, so I really don’t have much advice for someone new to the vocation. The role is such an icon, culturally, that it easily becomes a cartoon, and people will see in that collar what they have chosen to see – a sexual fetish, an oppressive patriarch, someone deserving of respect, someone deserving of abuse. People often define themselves how they choose to perceive such a role. You need to be prepared for altar boy jokes.

What are your duties as a priest? Do you say mass, perform marriages, all the usual stuff that we’d expect? Does the AJC have sacraments other churches don’t? Are you paid a salary, honorarium or similar? What’s your favorite thing about being a priest?

In the Johannite Church we honour the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, eucharist, matrimony, holy orders, penance, and extreme unction. We don’t have any sacraments you haven’t heard of. My time is strictly as a volunteer.

The principal duty is Eucharistic. The alchemical transmutation of bread and wine into the living and present God goes back many thousands of years, and for me this is an actual and not a symbolic act. The cornerstone of all Western religion, even into the Kemetic traditions of ancient Egypt, holds that the Divine is real, and becomes present in the experiential world. This is Incarnation, Emmanuel. This is likewise the foundation for any kind of applied or ritual Magic - the intersection of the spiritual and psychological with the physical.

Of course when you’re in a minority religion, particularly one so maligned and misunderstood as Gnosticism, education is ambient. I field a lot of questions, and many people are very invested with either their distrust of religion generally or emphatic about minor theological distinctions. But I do welcome and enjoy that ongoing dialogue, particularly with those who disagree with me.

You’ve written that you think Protestantism is a failure, and that it seems largely spiritually bankrupt, going so far even as to say that you’re “personally convinced the only choice for a thinking, compassionate Christian is between Rome, Orthodoxy, and Gnosticism.” Why those three choices? What’s so great about Rome or about Orthodoxy that it’s preferable to Protestantism in all it’s many and varied forms? Also, how do you counter the views of those who claim that the gnostic revival is in many ways largely Protestant in spirit?

It seems to me that the reality of what I do as a Gnostic Priest is present, albeit encoded, in the Tridentine Rite and that of the Orthodox Churches. It’s all there, but it’s concealed. Now it must be understood that both these traditions have a clerical “backstage” experience that in a very real sense is a distinct religion from that of the laity.

When I say that Protestantism is Spiritually bankrupt I mean that it’s evident that the Spirit has abandoned it. It’s anemic, suburban, vapid. The spiritual Geiger counter doesn’t tick there. There is no deeply resonant myth in guitar masses, big screen tv’s, mega-church mega-missions, or applied pop-psychology. All those smarmy websites with picnicking shampoo-and-conditioner couples holding up babies or golden retrievers in the sunshine. Only those traditions which are sombre, iconic, and dimly lit create space for Hermetic reflection and illumination. Glossalalia, interpretive dance masses and Kumbaya are just embarrassing for everybody. And if your congregation is larger than your high-school grad class, flee.

Now there are some arguments about the similarities between the inherent anti-authoritarian nature of Gnosticism and the Lutherans, for example. But it’s a stretch. Sola Scriptura is a fool’s errand. While I do sympathize with those who’s searching leads them to House Churches, I do have concerns about possible cultic tendancies. I think people need to ask themselves, “Where is the Mystery?”. There has to be more of a choice than between Jack Chick and Buddy Christ, and I just don’t see that choice in Protestantism –with the exception of ECUSA, which appears to have converted to a kind of Gnostic Christianity anyway. [laughs]

Bear in mind that I’m exhibiting a cultural bias here as a liberal Canadian. Here if you’re Christian and not Catholic or Anglican you’re considered likely to be something undignified and snake-handly, like a Baptist or a Methodist. Anything with the word “ministries” in it is highly suspect. Decorum is rather important to Canadian religion – we’re politely progressive that way.

Paradoxically, I also find myself attracted to those sects with intense, crazy, subversive experiences. Rastafarians. Pinoy Passionistas. SSPX. At least they’re scary. Religion is a disease when it’s too safe. That’s why Satanists are always such a disappointment. “We don’t sacrifice babies.” Why the hell not? You’re supposed to be evil! It’s such a letdown. All you get are sullen teenagers and flaccid polemics.

From that photo of you wearing a black shirt and white collar, I’d imagine you get mistaken as a Catholic priest a lot. As a serious practitioner of a somewhat “alternative” religion, how do you deal with mainstream Christians and other people who denounce what you’re doing as heresy? Does that happen a lot, or do people generally treat it with appropriate respect? Would the Pope make the Sign of the Cross and gasp if you guys crossed paths?

Again, we need to remember that much of what we see as Roman Catholic liturgical culture was shared and contributed to by Gnostics. Also we see many churches, Episcopal, Lutheran – even the Scientologists now! – employing traditional clerical garb. It’s a visual shorthand for the job. Now, as I’m very “out” about my heresy, I don’t run into a lot of surprises. The orthodox tend to know who I am up front, and are increasingly familiar with contemporary Gnosticism. I also live in a town populated almost entirely by Wiccans, Freemasons, UUs, Ayuhuasca shamans and octogenarian small-l liberal Catholics. It’s Berkeley with tweed.

As for the Bishop of Rome, I know he’s written extensively about Gnosticism, or at least the Gnostic elements of American Protestantism, and he sees it as the single biggest danger facing the Roman Church. I don’t think he includes what we’re doing in his definition of Gnosticism at all. I like to think that he’d consider me well-meaning and misguided at worst, but of course I can’t see into his heart. I do think that much of the “Nazinger” criticism of the man is tacky, although I too regrettably got swept up in it after his election. I feel it’s only fair to recognize he’s thawing out, and reaching out sincerely. While I was horrified by his actions as Inquisitor, I must admit I reluctantly admire the man in his more pastoral role.

He’s not going to dilute his message by taking a charitable stance on gays or contraception or stem-cells, because basically charity for the individual is bad for the herd, and the Roman Church is in the herd business. Fortunately we don’t have to fight that battle - our theology is based on individual experience and expression. Nobody in their right mind would ask a Gnostic to set global policy. It’d be like appointing Hunter Thompson Secretary General of the U.N.

Does somebody need to really be a practicing “gnostic” to experience gnosis? If not, what purpose does actually practicing play? What are the benefits of living with the myth in an ecclesiastical setting? What alternatives exist for people who may want to share in such a community, without necessarily getting involved with a church, per se?

I think the most important distinction to make at this point is between “little-g gnostic” and “big G Gnostic”. The experience of *gnosis* is available to anyone, in practically any religious tradition, and indeed outside of religion. Big-G Gnosticism is the effort to honour and amplify *gnosis* in a liturgical and ecclesiastical context.

Thing is, okay, whammo, you get this epiphany that the world of perception and the natural world are at odds. That the *kosmos* – the system – is insane and corrupt and not in your best interest, and yet at the same time a liberating Divinity is EVERYWHERE, operating in secret, cracking jokes that only you and others like you actually get. If you are a Christian, there’s very little you can do with this information. You see St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross trying desperately to reconcile their own gnosis within a Christian context, and it never really fits, because the Christian system was developed by those who did not have that experience.

Gnosticism – its world view, its myth and language – was developed by those who knew, those who had seen and understood. So it is unique in that its religious culture was created from the get-go to amplify that understanding. It is antithetical to faith, which often is just faith in somebody else’s faith. “I have faith in Paul who had faith in Jesus who knew what was going on”. Gnosticism says, here is this profoundly human experience, knowing who you are and where you came from. Here is a symbolic language designed to help you deal with this and dig deeper, crafted by someone who’s been there.

Where do you see gnosticism going in the next, say, 5-10 years? Are we about to see a huge avalanche of Hollywood stars suddenly turning gnostic or do you think this will play out in a different way in culture? Do you see any possible overlap between the cultural influence of gnosticism and inquisitive movements like Emergent Christianity? Do you want more people to become gnostics?

I’m not worried that Gnosticism will turn into something else with its increasing popularity, but I do have concerns that Gnosticism will be *perceived* as being something else, something new-agey or a “self-help” pseudo-Christianity. As more people self-identify as Gnostics the term will Humpty Dumpty into whatever they want it to mean. But the core of *gnosis* itself will not change, because it’s universal, timeless. And honestly going to Mass is more authentic to the Western mind than reading Carlos Castaneda and finding your animal
spirit.

And no, I don’t see an overlap between what we’re doing, a formal Apostolic Eucharist with Jungian and alchemical allegories, and the Emergers. They tend to be very literal in their interpretation of Scripture, and much of their Scripture is honestly rubbish to begin with. Leviticus? Timothy? There’s this tragic confusion within Christianity between revealed wisdom and Demiurgic material, not to mention blatant revisionist forgery.

We have joked about Gnostic celebrities. Keanu Reeves is a Buddhist despite his penchant for Gnostic films, but Rutger Hauer’s name has come up more than once. I started taking a collection to convert Scarlett Johansen. [laughs] But we don’t do that, we don’t convert or proselytize. We need to keep in mind that we’re statistically insignificant. We’re vastly outnumbered by Zoroastrians, by Seventh Day Adventists, by Raelians. So we don’t have that much to worry about.

It does get a little lonely out here in the Palm Tree Garden at times, but we don’t need an explosion of Ecclesiastical Gnostics. It’s coming though - *somebody* has to be buying all these Gospel of Thomas and Mary Magdalene books. We need thinking laity; authors and artists and publishers and artisans and programmers and pensive goatherds. Like the Liberal Catholics, we’re top-heavy with clergy. One June Singer is worth a dozen Bishops, in my opinion.