From: leavitt@cheshire.oxy.edu (Thomas VanNess Leavitt)
Subject: Anyone here read Gnosis magazine/know anything about Gnosticism?
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 10:33:36 GMT

The bishop of my church, Stephen Hoeller, noted author and lecturer, and
regular columnist in Gnosis magazine, recently wrote an article on the
definition of "gnosis, gnostics, and Gnosticism"... while I may disagree
with some of the means by which he limited the definition, I did however
find one part very interesting... the list of 10 points establishing a
criteria for who is a Gnostic (myself, I don't think of them as criteria,
but am more interested in how they articulate several points of my 
understanding of the way the world works) extracted from Prof. Clark Emery's
book on William Blake, to wit:

1.  The Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity that came to be
    split into a plurality.

2.  As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created.  This
    was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who
    often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah.

3.  A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit
    in a much more positive role than the leader).

4.  In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be
    personified as demonic beings seperating man [sic.] from God.

5.  For man, the universe is a vast prison.  He [sic.] is enslaved both
    by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic
    code.

6.  Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of 
    ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by
    materiality.

7.  Within each natural man is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine
    substance.  Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of
    awakening from our stupefaction.

8.  What effects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but
    knowledge.

9.  Before the awakening, mena undergo troubled dreams.

10.  Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by
     cognition but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not
     information but a modification of the sesate being.

11.  The awakening (i.e. the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event.

12.  Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead,
     active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined
     upon every man [sic.].

O.K., 12 points... sexist language aside, I agree with Stephen that it is
the most "concise and accurate in describing the normative characteristics
of the Gnostic mythos."

Sorta handy to have around, I xeroxed it and stuck it in my wallet...

anyway, I posted this to sorta lay the subject out on the table, and get
a discussion going about the resugence of gnostic thought and gnosticism in
the modern age...

many people are positing the gnostic means of spirtual enlightenment as
a solution to the sort of chaotic dissoultion of standard spirtuality, in
much the same role as it played during the breakup of the Roman Empire and
the resulting socio-cultural dislocations... as well as the previous
dislocations caused by the massive increase in inter-cultural contact and
economic interdependence brought about the by Roman union of most of the
known world...

I myself am a Gnostic... was born and raised one... father is a Gnostic
priest, with a legitimate apostolic succession dating back to St. Peter
himself... quite satisfied with it... view of the world only seems to make
sense... world is fucked up, because its fucked up.

Thom