Ash Wednesday

T. S. Eliot’s poem “Ash Wednesday” has been difficult for me to understand since I first read it many years ago, but it contains some lines which may be useful for our Lenten observances. First, some excellent practical advice, addressed as a request to God: “Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still.” Superficially we may dismiss the advice as nonsensical, but it is wise.  For all who help to care for other human beings, it is essential to learn to care well, and “not to care,” that is, to be emotionally detached and calm, rather than obsessively and emotionally involved. A care-giver who does not learn and practice “caring and not caring” becomes of little use to himself, and to those for whom he or she should genuinely be caring. This advice applies to parents, who all-too-often do not know when to “let go and let God,” who insist that they hover around and in effect control their children. (These are the infamous “helicopter parents,” who can be a real challenge for teachers.)  As for “Teach us to sit still,” it is difficult to imagine a better request for a Lenten exercise. Just to sit still, without noise, without chatter, without TV or iPads and so on, without chattering at God as if He does not know what is truly for our good… “Be still and know that I AM God.” Another understandable and profound line from Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday” pertains to the nature of our human existence: “This is the time of tension between dying and birth.” We exist in-between time and eternity, between attached love of self and selfless love of God and neighbor, between good and evil. Our lives unfold in the tension between, not simply on earth, and not in an imagined realm called “heaven.” And note that Eliot describes this “time of tension” as “between dying and birth,” which indicates the kind of dying and the kind of birth he has in mind. He is not thinking of mere biological birth and death, but of dying to ourselves and living to God and to others. We must first die to undergo a greater birth. The only way truly to be alive is to die to all in ourselves that is not from God, or in accord with God’s holiness, God’s will. We have a choice: die now, or die later. For those who practice living as a process of dying to their own wishes and wills in many ways, the last moments of life here are not a shock, but that for which one has been preparing. For those who live enmeshed in the passing moments, always thinking of “fun” and “what’s exciting,” when our time comes to pass out of this physical world, we are not ready. Unless we practice letting go of self in its various forms now, how do we expect to see and to love the “face of God” beyond death? Lent is what we make of it. At its best, I believe, Lent can be a journey from death-in-self into life-in-union-with-God. This process is not automatic, but costs us “nothing less than everything,” to borrow another line from Eliot. In the profoundly true words of the Apostle Paul, “Now I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.” Life and death are contending. What is deadly and kills the spirit often appears to be life; and what we think of as death may in truth be a sharing in real life. We are between death and life. Which do we choose?

A Note On Preaching - The Ministry Of The Word

The single most important spiritual work of the parish priest in caring for the spiritual well-being of parishioners is preaching God’s word faithfully and as well as he can. Preaching and teaching the word is far more important than administering property. You are worth infinitely more than buildings and money. The main way that I have to assist you personally and spiritually is through the week-end homily in the context of a worthy and uplifting celebration of the Eucharist. Our attendance, paying attention, and open attitude are crucial if we are to allow the Spirit to give us the nourishment we need. As we nourish our bodies, so we must nourish our souls—our interior life. Unfortunately, in our American culture, we have often neglected spiritual and mental development for gaining wealth, acquiring “stuff,” and for our obsession with “having fun.” (One would think that many Americans are perpetual eight year-olds on holiday.)     The ministry of the Word entails communicating the Word of Christ. This word ultimately comes forth from Christ Jesus and is one with Christ. In preaching, one must strive to reach many, being aware that each person is unique with his or her own needs. First and foremost, each human being needs God—whether they know it well, or not. The goal in preaching is not to entertain; nor to “tell stories” for their own sake; nor to instruct with historical, biblical, or churchy information. Rather, the preacher must keep his mind on the goal: to help bring each hearer increasing contact with the God already and forever dwelling in the depth of the soul. The word of Christ is not imposed on the hearers, but flows from Christ present in the preacher to Christ present in the hearer—ever filtered through our human understanding and feelings. It is humbling and beneficial for the preacher to keep in mind that he is not peddling Christ as a salesman; rather, he helps the hearer to open up more fully to the presence of Christ already abiding in the soul. To put the matter differently: the preacher appeals to the hearer’s true and best nature—his or her life in union with Christ. If Christ were not already present in the hearer of the word, preaching would not be sharing Christ, but seeking to impose the Lord on “unsaved” matter. Similarly, at Mass the Eucharist is not given to an empty vessel, but to a human being who is already a member of Christ: The Body of Christ is freely given to the Body of Christ—to you carrying within you the living God, so that you may become more truly one with Christ. It is Christ himself whom the soul needs, who nourishes the soul, who consoles the heart, and who wisely guides each back into union with the unseen God. The proclaimed word of God is one, but each hears and is nourished in a unique way. Each person truly receives “according to the manner of the one receiving,” and not according to the manner of the preacher. Through the proclaimed word, God-in-Christ tends each soul in ways He knows best, and as each hearer lovingly surrenders to Christ within. This spiritual work requires free cooperation and loving attention by preacher and hearers. It does not happen automatically. Each is free to resist God: the preacher to present his own thoughts or cute stories rather than the word of God; and hearers to attend to the living Word, or to close their minds and daydream.

The Dark Vision, Or The Vision Of Darkness

Gnosticism as a form of spiritual self-enclosure is not harmless or benign, but is much like a cancer that infects not only the one with the spiritual illness, but others around the person, or in contact with his or her “dreams,” thoughts, feelings, actions. In this brief essay we consider the Gnostic’s spiritual illness, and its effects on others.

There are various types of Gnosticism, many manifestations of it. Obviously, by all appearances, Hegel is utterly different from Joseph Smith, and Karl Marx from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their verbal expressions are different, but so are the parts of their beings that they close off by absolutizing, by self-divinizing. For the Gnostic, or any human being, can imaginatively divinize any part of his being, and the part that is divinized or absolutized gives distinctive characteristics to the spiritual illness. In very intelligent and learned men, such as Hegel and Nietzsche, it is clearly their intellects that get self-absolutized. These men are utterly proud of their “philosophizing,” and are clearly convinced of the truthfulness of their assertions, even as they “philosophize with a hammer,” borrowing Nietzsche’s phrase. In the case of Hegel, he explicitly tells his readers that his Logic was “in the beginning with God,” and hence claims eternal, divine authority for his utterances. Although the style and content differ radically from a far less educated Gnostic, such as Joseph Smith from the American frontier, both men claim an absolute divine authority for their assertions. The styles differ widely, the underlying experiences are similar: one’s mind knows absolute truth absolutely.

Other Gnostics absolutize their emotions, and think that they have emotional oneness with God, and that their feelings and imaginations and “dreams” are right and true, just because they are theirs. They put an absolute trust in their “feelings.” As one person expressed to me years ago when she was under the influence of emotional Gnosticism, “I just put my mind in neutral, and God works through me.” Well, something may have been working through her, but it is not likely to have been God, but some form of irrationality. For there is nothing intellectual or rational at work in such a case, but a willingness to suspend reasoning because one “feels good about it,” one “knows” that “one’s heart is in the right place,” or similar relatively mindless and misleading phrases. What about the person’s mind, reason in the human being? It is has “put in neutral,” or anesthetized. Emotional Gnostics praise and wallow in irrationality, are often anti-intellectual, against study and learning, and feel smugly superior to the “book-learning boys.” These folks can “smell a rat,” they believe, and insist with ironclad assurance that someone whom they dislike, for whatever reason, is bad, corrupt, evil. They seek out people who think and feel as they do, who will not question their beliefs, or challenge their closed system of pseudo-thinking. Such Gnostics could fill a large hall, and work themselves up into an emotional lather, feeling so good about being together with others like themselves, who are also caught up in the same “dream” or delusion. Emotional self-absorption on a mass level could take the form of smiling faces singing, shouting, “just praising the Lord,” and feeling very good about themselves, or it could take a far more pernicious form of a vast crowd stoked on hatred of others—often enough, of Jews, or blacks, or “extreme right wingers,” or “airy-headed liberals.”Whereas intellectual Gnostics, such as Hegel, would be solitary, emotional Gnostics feed off the emotional excesses in others, and congregate in protecting and affirming cults.

The most politically and socially dangerous form of Gnosticism emerges from those who absolutize their own wills, often including their most base desires, and who seek to dominate the world around them with the force or cult of personality, with the “will to power.” The self-willed Gnostic desires and works to impose his will on the external world—especially on other human beings—even to the point of causing upheaval, violent destruction, murder, annihilation of hated groups, and so on. Marxist-Communists in many countries, and National Socialists under Hitler in Germany, come readily to mind: the will is filled with hatred, and seeks to dominate anyone and everything, to “change the world,” using a favorite phrase of Gnostics of various stripes. Heaven forbid these self-inflated, self-absorbed egos simply seek to be at peace with themselves and the whole in which we participate by our whole being. In these Gnostics, one sees and experiences the full force of hatred and the will to power.
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Gnostics cannot live in peace with themselves or with the world, for they are convinced that the world as a whole, or some significant parts of it, are evil, and must be destroyed, transformed, overcome, changed. At they same time, they assume that their own thinking, feeling, imagination, willing is essentially good and beyond reproach or critical self-examination. There is a strange split in what the Gnostic sees in others, and what he finds in himself, as if he says: “I am good and right and know the truth; they are bad and wicked and live in darkness.” Or, “I am saved, one of the elect, but those people live in demonic darkness.” Or, “I have the true faith, but they are unbelievers, infidels.” Or in a more secular form of the same disease, “I am a Scientist, and know the truth about reality, but the masses of people are ignorant and stupid.” Or again, as in a politician: “I have the power to change the world (because I was elected by the masses). I will do as I please, and impose my will, my thoughts, my wishes on everyone else—and of course you will be delighted by my work, because I know what is best for everyone.” In each case, one splits the world into two groups, all centering around one’s divinized, self-enclosed Ego.

Gnostics of various kinds are motivated by what I would call a dark, disturbing vision, by a vision of darkness. The Gnostic is an unhappy soul, or in other terms, is spiritually, mentally, emotionally ill. Rather than seek to attune themselves to God and reality under God, the Gnostic insists on remaking part of reality according to his or her favorite “dreams,” beliefs, imaginations. These “dreams” (another favorite symbol loved by Gnostics of various kinds) may at times seem positive and life-affirming, as Nietzsche presents his own “philosophy.” Before achieving power, the Gnostic politician, for example, talks much about “dialogue” and “openness.” Once in power, the Gnostic politician avoids discussion and dialogue, because in reality, he is utterly convinced that he knows what is best for everyone. And as a self-enclosed ego, the Gnostic looks at all who disagree with him with sheer contempt—the kind of attitude making any genuine dialogue impossible. The Gnostic sees much evil in anyone who dares to disagree with him.

As one reflects on Gnostics and how they talk and act, what emerges is an awareness that, despite much verbiage, their speaking and actions are not positive and life-affirming, but negative, destructive, hateful. Gnostics poison debate and the democratic process so essential in a society such as ours. For the Gnostic is often filled with a dark vision out of which he hates reality. As Jesus wisely said, “If your eye is dark, how great is the darkness within.” The Gnostic has a very dark eye, in the sense that he or she is preoccupied with evil and corruption in others, in institutions, in government, in political leaders, in the church, in “the System.” Yes, Gnostics can spew off all sorts of venom about the evil “System,” without ever clarifying what they are really speaking about. The Gnostic clearly does not see the beam in his own eye, and seek to remove it first, before tampering with others.

It seems that the Gnostic has dabbled in evil for a long time, yielded to its intoxication and charms. Perhaps one has heard Gnostic preachers of hate: “Not God bless America, but God damn America!” one may spew out. The hearer of such hatred gradually grows use to evil, and reinterprets all of reality in light of this vision of hatred, this vision of darkness. The Gnostic is not in love with the Good, or goodness, or God. In some perverted way, he or she is in love with themselves as they wish to be; at the same time, they convince themselves that anyone who disagrees with them, or gets in their way, is corrupt and evil. To say the obvious: It is not pleasant being around Gnostics, because they infect themselves and others with their hatred and their dark vision, their distorted thinking. Hearing how bad the politicians are, how corrupt, how wicked the government, how greedy the fat cats, how looney the liberals are, how deranged and “extreme” conservatives are, and so on, not only gets tiring, but it profits nothing. Worst of all, a person living with a constant bombardment of a hateful, dark vision is likely to come under its ruinous spell. Young people, in particular, get corrupted by the Gnostic vision of darkness. They do not know that they are being “brain-washed,” having their own understanding and response to reality poisoned by spiritual sick teachers.

This “knowledge” (gnosis) of evil in the world, or of the world system as evil, becomes a kind of sick and sickening song of hatred and disgust. It is neither pleasant nor edifying to listen to the rantings of the self-enclosed hating soul. To read the hatred poured out against the “capitalist system” by a second-rate Marxist is not enlightening by its teachings, but painful; if any enlightenment is gained by reading these Marxist rants, it is an understanding of the spiritual sickness at work in these self-deluded thinkers. One’s common sense warns, “Do not take this path, it does not lead to happiness.” Unfortunately, many are duped by puffed up professors and “educated” people who are themselves spiritually ill.
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Ultimately, it is God whom the Gnostic hates. One pays an enormous price for the imaginative murder of God, or for the attempt to remake God in one’s own perverted image. The whole world becomes darkness and full of sickness according to the Gnostic dreamer. As Nietzsche saw so clearly, once the speculative murder of God has been achieved, and “God is dead, and God remains dead,” then the whole world has lost its moorings, spins out of control, and falls into an endless abyss, an endless night of nothingness. Nietzsche knew this result of rebellious atheism, because he experienced it in his own soul. Hatred of God kills the spirit, one’s own spirit.

What is actually taking place in such speculation is this: Out of the abyss of darkness, of evil, of hatred in the Gnostic’s own heart come attempts to destroy and to rebuild the world according to the Knower’s “dreams.” Those who disagree with the Gnostic or challenge his thinking will fall under the spell of the Gnostic dreamer’s ill will. The Gnostic neither sees, nor looks for, the good in others, good in social systems, good in the whole world. It is evil that fascinates and attracts the Gnostic. Clearly, evil has its seductive charms. The Gnostic thinks that by imaginatively or actually destroying the world, or part of the world, it will be magically transformed into the utopia of his mindless dreaming. What must be destroyed is whatever the Gnostic has chosen to hate.

Of course the Gnostics’ destruction does not lead to a “new world,” but instead leaves many murdered all around them, whole societies ruined, human beings suffering from the ravages of Gnostic wars upon wars. For the Gnostic dreamer, his war in principle is “a war to end all wars,” and instead of Utopia and a “realm of freedom” rising up after the resulting bloodbath, many lie dead, cities in rubble, lives torn apart. The dark vision of the Gnostic begins with the speculative death of God, and leads to the murder of human beings.
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There are Gnostics who think that they “believe in God,” are good Christians, or good Muslims, and so on. The simple, clear test was given by Jesus: “By their fruits you will know them.” When one leaves behind a string of death, of wounded human beings, of uprooted lives, of families at odds with one another, of a country filled with passionate hatred of “the other party,” and so on, this is not the work of God, but of spiritual sickness, of the hatred of God, and of his creatures. Love unifies; hatred divides. Murdering innocent life in the name of God is murder, not a genuinely spiritual act at all—not even when the killer shouts out, “God is great!” Let common sense reign: Better by far is the healing work of an agnostic physician than the destructive work of a Gnostic “true believer.”

There is much appeal, at least for many in our society, in the hate-filled rhetoric of Gnostic dreamers. One need only watch a few minutes of Leni Riefenstahl’s masterful work of propaganda, “The Triumph of the Will,” or watch other film footage of Hitler speaking and the crowds adoring, to see with one’s own eyes the unbelievable appeal of hatred and evil. Hitler was clearly filled with hatred, and yet millions cheered him on, adoringly. Or listen to some rantings by a highly-inflated preacher, such as Jeremiah Wright in Chicago, with his bitter hatred of the United States of America, and “white dominance.” Why does evil have such a power over human beings? How can reasonably intelligent and good people be lead so far astray by the rhetoric of Hegel, of Marx, of Joseph Smith, of Emerson, of Adolf Hitler, of Osama bin Ladin? What is there about their “visions” that appealed and still appeals to so many? Hegel and Emerson were more benign, and not spewers of hatred; but they surely were self-divinized minds, intellect very proud of their “wisdom.” Did not their hearers and readers see through their double-talking nonsense? hy do we get duped by such dark, ego-filled visions?

Clearly, gnosis has a charm and power over people. Many of us want security, certainty, leadership, wisdom. We want what these men and women pretend to have: certain knowledge of history, “revelations” of their God, the will to lead people to “the promised land” in one form or another. Gnostic dreamers promise to give what they do not in reality have, and many listen and follow. Gnostics often are highly charismatic individuals, whose reality centers on their own egos. Often they are men and women with considerable natural gifts which could indeed be used for good, if they were not so self-inflated, self-deceived, and filled with hatred of God and his world as it really is, here and now.

The Gnostic’s dark vision must be seen for what it is. Nothing is gained by pretending that this vision is not damaging to the man with it, and to others who come under the Gnostic’s influence. To understand the dark vision and its appeal, one must examine himself, and see in what ways one may be dabbling in evil, and accustoming oneself to its dark and false light. To the one who truly loves God, goodness, and reality, Gnosticism has no appeal. To those of us who hesitate between love of God and love of self, who may indulge our lower selves too freely, who are not content with this imperfect world as it is, Gnostic nonsense has its appeal, especially when it is dressed up in promises of a golden future, of the realization of utopian dreams. In the all-too-familiar and banal words, “We will transform the world.” Next time a politician or preacher makes such a promise, we would do well to return to common sense instead: The world is what it is, good and evil commingled, now and into the unknown future.

"Speak, LORD, For Your Servant Is Listening" (I Samuel 3)

The story of the boy, Samuel, who will in time grow up to be a prophet of Israel, is justly loved and familiar to Christian faithful. As you hear at Mass, YHWH (Yahweh), the living God, breaks into the soul of Samuel when he is asleep. He works on the boy when he is open to hear—in his sleep. God needs a receptive mind. Understandably, the boy thinks that a human being is speaking to him—in this case, the old priest, Eli (whose name means, “My God”). But the priest is not calling the boy; YHWH, the God of Moses, is speaking to him. The priest tells the youth to be open: Say, “Speak, Yahweh, for your servant is listening.”

The story is paradigmatic, a model of prophetic existence, of what it means to be a prophet: one who hears God’s word, and at the right time, speaks it. It is also a model of right human response, in this case as instructed by Eli, and through the story, to us. Listening to the voice of God is the essence of prophetic life. And the prophets of Israel realized that this ability to “hear” (or at times, to “see”) God’s word was not intended just for them, but for every man, woman, and child living in covenant with Yahweh-God. The teaching that the essence of being in God’s covenant is to “hear His word” and to put it into practice was developed in depth by the prophet Jeremiah, and by the unknown priests or prophetic circle known as “the Deuteronomist.” The Deuteronomist wrote not only the Book of Deuteronomy, the 5th and final book as listed in the Torah (the Law), but also the books of Joshua, Judges, and, as I recall, Samuel, from which this priceless story of hearing God’s voice was taken. It is meant to teach us to listen to God.

Many of us do not sufficiently appreciate what is happening here, or what is being said. We fail to grasp the significance. What these Hebrew Scriptures are telling us is this: YOU have the ability to hear the living God, the true God, and freely to respond. Man is the hearer of the Word. Every one has a duty to hear, to listen, to obey, to put God’s word into practice, and, to share the Word with his neighbor. Some of the biblical authors thought that this power to hear the word of God was limited to the Chosen People. Others realize that it is for every human being. And that is the basis of the comical story of Jonah, the fabled Hebrew prophet who preaches to Nineveh, to men known for their savagery. To Jonah’s dismay, the Ninevites hear God’s word, and repent. The fanciful comedy of Jonah is intended to confront Jewish nationalism—the belief that Jews alone are properly children of God. It may take a holy man or women not from the Christian tradition—perhaps a Buddhist, or a Jew—to break through our Christian biases. And we often do have deaf ears to the living Word.

"Blessed are they who hear the Word of God and put it into practice.” Jesus spoke, and some men and women heard God speaking through him. Jesus spoke, and some people heard a false prophet, a fake Messiah. What do you hear? Are you listening?

A Brief Note On The "Pre-Existence Of The Soul"

The issue of “pre-existence” of souls or “spirit-beings" was not concocted in the 19th century. Some of the “spiritualist” traditions arising in the wake of the Reformation flirted with it. In some form, the teaching pre-dates Christianity. Zoroastrianism taught metempsychosis — transmigration of the soul, “reincarnation”''possibly deriving it from ancient Hindu belief. It also shows up, of course, in Plato’s dialogues, but always in a myth, not meant to be taken literally. One well-known Church Father, Origen of Alexandria, writing before 300 AD, taught “pre-existence” of soul [his exact Greek phrase, I do not know], but the mainstream Church never accepted it. Origen probably derived his teaching from Gnostics, who were active and dominant in his culture in Egypt. Origen explicitly mentions the Gnostics, and highly criticized their thinking and practices, but may have been influenced by them in turn. That happens. In short, the most common source of “pre-existence” in the history of western culture is Gnosticism, and then hermeticism and neo-Platonic speculations during the Renaissance. From these sources it was taken up in some of the cults or small sectarian movements arising after Luther and Calvin. If anyone is interested, I can find some of the early modern documents teaching some kind of “pre-existence,” or the notion that human beings are “sparks of the divine,” as some Gnostics wrote. I have read a number of ancient Gnostic texts asserting “pre-existence” (souls are in God before being enfleshed). I know well the experiences from which the Gnostics drew their belief: that they were essentially one with God, and had “fallen” or were “thrown” into the physical world (often by “Yahweh,” the creator god, who is considered evil). Gnostics claimed to be essentially God, or a god; and as God is eternal, so they claimed to be eternal. They applied to themselves what orthodox Christianity applied to the Logos (divine Word, Mind) that became enfleshed in Christ.

There is a use of the “pre-existence" teaching that I have come across in Mormon thought: procreate prolifically, because these “souls” are without bodies, floating around somewhere. That conception was communicated in a video I saw at the LDS visitor’s center on Temple Square years ago. Human beings on earth have a duty to procreate to bring these “souls” [or whatever the term was] into physical existence. I think that the film was meant to be serious, not humorous, although it struck me as “bizarre,” and fanciful.

The Hindu teaching is part of a vast, profound, and mythical conception of reality, and serves to emphasize the essential unity of all beings in God (by various names). The Platonic teaching on “transmigration” is used explicitly to emphasize freedom, responsibility, and the burden to choose well in whatever one does—“God is blameless.” Platonic myths were not meant as speculation on what human beings cannot know—life before or after death, but that is how the ancient Gnostics took the Platonic myths. The mainstream Christian churches follow Jewish belief that every human being is a unique creation of God, “made in God’s image and likeness,” meaning intelligent and with a power to choose good and avoid evil (of course, the divine has no body, so “image” is not physical). Other than Origen, I know of no significant Jewish or Christian theologian or philosopher who taught “pre-existence,” or reincarnation. There is no notion of “pre-existence” in the Hebrew or Christian bibles (Old and New Testaments). Generally, Hebrew and Jewish thought eschewed religious speculation, although exceptions can be found in their scriptures.

I would dispute any set of religious beliefs if they are: (1) not grounded in concrete spiritual experience, accessible to others to study or to understand through imagination; (2) not open to reason, questioning, examination; and (3) not time-tested and in tune with both common sense and the vast teaching of a major spiritual tradition, such as Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity.

As you probably can guess, I am highly skeptical of any teaching drawn from a self-declared “prophet,” such as Mani, or …. Such claims are what is known as Gnosticism: a system of thought and practice founded on someone’s private “revelations” and direct knowledge of God, or, in the case of more modern thinkers, knowing “dialectics” or “the meaning of history,” and so on. Such speculations are not open to reason and to critical examination. If you wish to read one such “prophet,” try Mani as an example of ancient Gnostics, or Marx as an example of modern Gnostics. They claim special knowledge of which they “know” to be true. Gnostic thought is a closed system, not open to reasoning or investigation. A Gnostic refuses to question his or her basic assumptions about reality. Unfortunately, Gnostic influences have infected western culture since about the beginning of Christianity.

A Brief Report On The Straight-Jacket Of American Academia

If one is a member of an ideologically-closed community, such one formed by Gnosticism, what should one do? More broadly, how does one live in a community not living by truth, but by tightly-held, iron-clad beliefs? We have briefly considered Gnosticism. Now we broaden out the matter to consider functioning within a Gnostic or ideologically closed community. The major examples I will give come from my experiences in American academia—that is, university life in this country.

There is always a tension between truth and human communities. Every community lives by its beliefs, its myths, and no community is fully open to truth. It is not in the nature of societies—of human beings—to be genuinely open to truth. Even if one individual should arise who is genuinely open to all truth, and lives according to it, the chances are good that he or she will be banished by the community, silenced, or even put to death. Some truths are tolerated, but those which challenge the society in its fundamental beliefs, are usually squashed.

Socrates ever remains a warning to anyone who takes philosophy seriously. Democratic Athens, which was highly tolerant on virtually every issue, found Socrates too much to bear, and put him to death. Granted, the vote at the trial before some 501 Athenians was close, but Socrates was found guilty of “corrupting the youth, denying the gods of the city, and introducing a foreign divinity.” Jesus was not put to death for deeds of compassion, but because his teaching was seen as a direct assault on the prized institutions of Jewish society: the Temple and its priestly cult; the Law as the priests and scribes interpreted it; even their conception of God which so emphasized divine transcendence that it could not tolerate Christ’s openness to divine presence here and now. Jesus’ ministry lasted 1-3 years before he was rejected by the priestly class and political leaders of his land, and turned over to the Romans to kill him. Some of Jesus’ disciples were even more “obnoxious” to Jewish institutions. The foremost example is Stephen, whose name indicates that he was a Greek Jew, living in Jerusalem. He was stoned to death not long after the execution of Jesus. According to Luke in the book of Acts, Stephen was highly provocative: “You stiff-necked Jews, always resisting the word of God. God does not dwell in temples made of stone, but in hearts of human flesh.” His teaching is well-grounded on truth, but it was too much to bear for those caught up in their religious / social institutions. Speaking the truth can be deadly—or at least, costly.

As I quoted from T. S. Eliot before, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” No human society tolerates its deepest truths being challenged and overturned. From my experience, the Catholic church now is quite tolerant and generous, but everyone knows that for centuries, bishops and clerical orders allowed men and women to be torched or tortured for “heresy.” Such actions are utterly abhorrent. The Protestant Reformer, Jean Calvin, did the same in Geneva: he allowed a man to be burned at the stake for “denying the Trinity.” Truth and different understandings of it have lead to many deaths, even wars. As disgusting as it sounds, “Christians” took to the battlefield on questions of the nature of Christ, or the proper time to celebrate Easter, and so on. So much for Christian love. As a small child I saw the blood stain of the Mormon “prophet” and political leader, Joseph Smith, preserved on the floor of a building in Nauvoo, where Smith was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob. Such episodes are very common in history. Recall that early Islam spread by the sword: convert or die. Certainty of one’s truth or righteousness often leads to hatred and intolerance of others who disagree.

The most closed-minded society in which I have lived and functioned was academia—the Universities of Washington, Indiana, California. Through my conversion to Christ as an undergraduate, I found out just how “liberally-minded” and “tolerant” professors really were. By far the most tolerant and accepting person I encountered was a Sioux woman who taught at the University of Washington. She was patient and kind with me, even in the days of my excessive evangelical fervor. She was, however, all too rare among political scientists. If one was not a “behavorialist” in those days (a variety of neo-positivism), one had difficulty getting scholarships, teaching assistantships, or being fast-tracked for employment. American political science was the most dogmatically close-minded group I have experienced in my life—and these same persons would pride themselves on their intellectual gifts and supposed tolerance. Not so. Again, there were a few exceptions. They dominated minds both by what they said, and by what they did not say. It was not so much a matter of being “politically correct” in the 1970’s, but of being ideologically correct. In my first paper in graduate school I strongly criticized American behavioralism for its exclusion of the divine from consideration of the human tradition. The professor flunked me on a paper that was well written and thoughtful. I was thinking “outside of the box,” or should I say, outside of the straight-jacket of American social science. My experience as a student of political science was of living in an insane asylum, dominated not by military or police power, but by a far more powerful weapon: ideological conformity. The most free-thinking people I found in universities were in the hard sciences, such as chemistry and physics. Humanities and social scientists were under the dominant ideological of Positivism, neo-positivism, behavioralism. Foolishly, these ideologies limit the pursuit of knowledge to the methods of the mathematizing sciences. Other ways to truth were not tolerated. So much for philosophy as the love of wisdom, and of “God who alone is wise” (Plato).

Needless to say, I could not change academia. No one could. For my part, I lacked a full understanding of the ideological straight-jacket being forced onto students. So I was effectively marginalized. At the Catholic University of America, where I met some truly philosophical minds, I was also treated to harassment. A woman professor in my department, an avowed Marxist, Ph.d from Harvard, assigned one of her students to break into university offices to steal evaluations which students had written on me. The student later came to me and confessed her role in this. The Marxist was looking for ammunition to get me fired. Why? I challenged her Marxism as a mindless ideology, a corruption of truth. After two years of enduring life as a professor, I chose to leave, and entered the monastery. Academia was a kind of mental hell for me. Our chairman, a real gentleman, scholar, and philosopher from Sweden, was so vilified by this Marxist and by other professors behind closed doors that I developed one of the two worst migraines of my life. I could not believe how professors sought to assassinate a man’s reputation and career. This Swedish scholar has since published widely, and lectured around the world. He has an amazing philosophical mind. I never forgot the way some of his own colleagues verbally sought to destroy him behind his back. Frankly, that kind of treatment was too much for me to bear.

Well, withdrawing into a monastery was not the best solution, either. But I longed for peace, and a break from the ideological straight-jacket that is American social science. Ironically, the monastery, an enclosed life, was much less ideologically closed than the University of California, or Indiana University, or Catholic University. And this I observed in the monastery: the monks least tainted by academia, not teaching at a university or a prep school for gifted boys, were more open-souled and better human beings. Is it any wonder that two of the best professors I ever encountered said to me nearly identical words: “If you want to be a scholar, stay out of academia.” So much for “academic freedom” of thought. It is not to be found in American universities—except, perhaps, in departments of natural sciences.

The Appeal Of Contemporary Gnosticism

When I refer to Gnosticism, and its grip on contemporary minds, often it happens that hearers or readers react as though they have little understanding of what Gnosticism is. The problem is analogous to someone living in a city, who hears references to “domiciles,” and then asks, “What is a domicile?” Well, houses, apartments, residences abound in and around cities. One may not know the word “domicile,” but anyone living knows the phenomenon.  In the case of Gnosticism, the word is indeed unfamiliar to many, but Gnosticism and its effects abound. For those who think about what people say, believe, think, or do, an understanding of Gnosticism is highly significant, because these experiences and their related beliefs are prevalent in our contemporary culture. To gain an immediate sense of what is intended by the word “Gnosticism,” let this suffice for the time being: Gnosticism is a set of experiences, and a belief system, that purports to provide certainty in a world of insecurity and uncertainty. The Gnostic cannot tolerate not knowing, or deal well with his or her own ignorance.  (And note: an essential ignorance is in truth at the core of every human being, for human existence is essentially mysterious.) Rather than pursue knowledge or insight through study and research, the Gnostic takes a short-cut to “knowledge” (gnosis) through non-rational means. The Gnostic is not open to reasoning, questioning, self-examination, challenging study—the entire life of the human mind so well explored and lived by Socrates, and through him, by Plato, Aristotle, and other genuine philosophers. Not all religious beliefs are Gnostic by any means, but at least since the Middle Ages in western civilization, Gnosticism has suffused various religious beliefs in the West. All major religious and intellectual movements, with which I am familiar, have some degree of Gnostic influence. But by no means are all “religions” or intellectual movements Gnostic. From what I have read in 19th and 20th century thought from India and China, the influence of Gnosticism shows up, possibly imported from the West. Examples as diverse as Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy, and Mao Tse Tung and Chinese Communism, come immediately to mind.  For the present, I wish to draw attention to a few forms of modern Gnosticism prevalent in our contemporary American culture. For purposes of displaying the rich variety of symbolic expressions to which the Gnostic experience is liable, I select for brief consideration intellectual and religious systems perhaps rarely considered together. To display what contemporary Gnosticism is, we briefly consider the following thinkers or movements: the German philosopher G W F Hegel, and his student, Karl Marx; the American intellectual Ralph Waldo Emerson; the American religious movement founded by Joseph Smith; Mary Baker Eddy and her “Christian Science”; Hegelian offshoots, such as “Progressivism;” Comte’s Positivism and forms of Neo-Positivism; forms of religious “traditionalism” in which the “believer” “knows the truth.”  Decisively what these intellectualistic or religious systems have in common is that they provide “certain knowledge” for the thinker, spiritualist, or “prophet” who developed them; and through their writings and influences, they provide “certainty,” as well as intellectual and emotional security, to their adherents. A human being living in our world today, and surely in the United States of America, is confronted on a daily basis with the certainties and rational absurdities of one or more of these, or similar, intellectual-religious movements. There seems to be no end to the diverse forms Gnosticism takes. Indeed, one of the symbols of the ancient Gnostics was the many-headed hydra, with the claim that this “truth,” this “certain knowledge” (gnosis) lives and thrives in many forms. And it does. How many persons would recognize, or think about, similarities between Hegel, Emerson, and Mormonism; or between Christian Science and contemporary Enlightened intellectuals who believe devoutly in “human progress” assured through “science”? Living so close to these phenomena, many of us overlook them, and fail to consider how much there is in common between them. Note well: the commonality lies not on the level of linguistic terms or “ideas,” but in the engendering spiritual experiences. What the core experience is must be considered.                                                              *** First, however, a distinction needs to be made between the “knowers” who develop these systems of philosophy or religion, and many of their unquestioning adherents. It is empirically obvious that at least some Marxists, or some Hegelians or Progressives, or some Mormons or Christian Scientists are not essentially Gnostic, because they do not share the fundamental Gnostic experience evident in the original “thinker” or spiritualist. One can be immersed in Gnostic beliefs without being fully Gnostic. It is not the beliefs or words that make a Gnostic, but the state of the person’s soul or mind. For the essence of this phenomenon is not found on the level of beliefs or practices, but in the fundamental experience of reality. The Gnostic is one who has closed himself or herself off to reasoning, to the rational exploration of reality through study and research, because he or she “knows” the truth, making any genuine dialogue or discussion impossible. How would one possibly convince the philosopher Hegel that his “self-consciousness” was a form of self-divinization, in effect making himself identical with God? If one were to suggest to the learned Hegel that he was in effect divinizing himself, making oneself one with God, he would no doubt spew out many words telling me how stupid I am, and it is not his fault that I lack the philosophical acumen to follow his utterly profound mind.  Or how would one convince Joseph Smith that his claim to be a “prophet,” and to know about such things as human “pre-existence,” and that “Adam-god” is the “father” of all spirit beings, pretends to know what human beings cannot know? Would Smith listen and consider the truth of the salutary warning, or would he immediately tell me that I “lack faith,” or am “blinded by the devil,” or such? When one is certain, one is certain that he is certain, and rejects any questions that would challenge these experiences and fundamental beliefs. A Gnostic creates an intellectual straight-jacket, a verbal maze, from which one cannot get free unless one chooses to reject the system, stand outside of it, and examine its claims by reason. Then one may find that although the overall scheme is deeply flawed (as in Hegelian philosophy, Marxism, Christian Science), there are some genuine insights to be learned from them. Plato’s advice is sound: “Every myth has its truth.” But one must avoid at all costs being drowned in the system with its certainties and pretentious claims to knowledge. Why?  Because certain knowledge is the death of the spirit, which lives only by openness to what is ever beyond one’s grasp. In truth it is usually unpleasant to examine Gnostic beliefs and experiences, because they are extremist, self-assured, and in themselves not worthy of close intellectual examination. On the other hand, I will admit that I have often found studying Hegel, young Marx, or especially the brilliant Nietzsche to have some wonderful insights into human existence in history. It is just that the whole system is rotten, and can easily poison one’s mind unless one is very careful. A good reason, however, to study some of these Gnostic systems is to help free oneself from Gnostic webs and deluded thinking, and perhaps in some modest measure, to help free others from the same entrapments. Sadly, many human beings prefer to be deceived, and to think they know what they do not know. Living is ever easier when one refuses to question his or her most basic beliefs and thoughts. It is not only Gnostic intellectuals, but Sophists of old or of contemporary times who puff themselves up on knowledge, and who would rather play intellectual word games than admit that in truth, they really do not know what they are talking about. Clever intellectuals and spiritualists of various flavors not only deceive themselves, but deceive others. They refuse to admit a simple truth: any human being truly seeking knowledge and understanding discovers that the more one learns, the more one must be aware of his ignorance; and that the enquiring mind can never rest in any certainties, or it is certainly dead. How many young people, for example, innocently take courses in “higher education” taught by some conceited, self-inflated intellectual “knower,” who seeks to convince the young that their basic beliefs are false, and proceeds to pour into their minds “real knowledge”? A similar phenomenon takes places in churches, when a member of the clergy or an “expert” arrives with “real knowledge” about the religion and its practices, and proceeds to overturn all that one may have previously been taught or understood. It is a kind of game, a sport for the self-inflated and cruel: “I know, but you do not know. Let me enlighten you.” The famous words of the Apostle Paul seem apt: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools…”                                                          *** Consider briefly the fundamental Gnostic experience: the “knower” in effect divinizes himself, makes himself God, by claiming to have certain experiences, revelations, insights. One speaks for God, or History, or Science, with so much certainty, so much self-assuredness, that many are duped. A “knower” such as Karl Marx “knows” that there is no God at all, except human being, “who creates himself by his own labor.” When one would question Marx, he insists: “Do not ask. Do not think. Do not question me.” He then asserts that “Socialist Man” does not ask questions about the ultimate origin of things, because he “knows” that he has created himself by his labor. That comes from young Marx, from the same early writings in which Marx asserts: “Philosophers of old tried to understand the world. The point, however, is to change it.” And how does one “change the world”?  By revolution, of course—led by Marxist intellectuals,who “know” the “dialectics of history,” and so on. All of us are stupid fools and ignoramuses,except the enlightened intellectuals. Marx is a Gnostic intellectual who poisoned the minds of millions—including thousands of western intellectuals. When a President of the United States asserted in a speech, “We will transform the world,”he was taking up the Marxist goal of transforming reality through Gnostic action, led by the President himself. That the world is what it is, and has its ultimate cause and structure beyond human wishes and actions, seems to be utterly lost on Gnostic intellectuals, whose desire is to impose their will on others, and force the “change” they want. Such Gnostic dreamers may eventually find out that their thinking is illusory; and rather than open up to it, and reject their foolish ideologies, they may sullenly withdraw, or become belligerent and aggressive. Seeking the truth in truth ever requires humility. And humility is one thing Gnostics lack. Gnostics hate reality as it is, and so they will to change it, through various ways. Hegel and his descendants dabbled in what Hegel called “magic words” that could speculatively change reality. His entire “philosophical system” replaced the world as we experience it with his air-tight speculative System. Once one buys into its premises, one is trapped in the System. That creating a system of thought is in effect an anti-philosophical enterprise is admitted, even by the master-magician, Hegel. This learned man sought through magic words to transform philosophy as “love of wisdom”into a System of Science, real knowledge.” According to his own claims, Nietzsche had as his intellectual power “the magic of the extreme,” through which he could blind others to the truth of reality, and exercise the “will to power” over them. Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France, and Ralph Waldo Emerson in America, claimed that their superior “knowledge” allowed them to dismiss empirical knowledge from consideration—when they so choose—because, in Emerson’s words, “the mind of the Creator shoots through my eyes.” Oh, how wonderful, how divine it must have been to be Emerson, so adored by adoring masses, for the mind of the Creator was shooting through him. In his lecturing around the country, Emerson reached thousands of minds with his Gnostic ramblings. Rousseau and Emerson claimed that they would write the same books they did even on a desert island, because they dredged out of their own “depths” the truths they propagated. So much for historical research. “Don’t bother me with the facts,” they in effect maintain. Mary Baker Eddy propagated her “Christian Science,”which in fact was neither Christian nor Science, but Gnostic certainty, eschewing genuine science, asserting that evil and sickness are merely “illusions,” and would have no power if one did not allow them to. In everyday words we could say, “Believe it is not true, and it is not.” So much for rational science, or common sense. As for Joseph Smith, how could one rationally argue with his so-called “revelations?” That god exists in three separate beings, including father and son with physical bodies, living in the universe, sounds as though it was a small child’s conception of God, but it was passed off as “revelation,” as unquestionable truth because, in effect, “I know, because God told me.” Is not such a claim arrogant, lacking in humility before the Almighty?                                                           *** One may ask: Does questioning of assertive truth claims undermine all religions and ideological belief systems? Is my argument in effect undermining faith? If “faith” is interpreted as a dogmatically held set of beliefs, then, I suggest, it needs to be challenged. In fact, such dogmatic “faith” is not genuine faith at all, but a substitute for it, much as saccharine may substitute for sugar. Genuine faith is not certain knowing at all, although “believers” would often have others think that is is. Faith in the spiritual sense is a loving response and openness to that which by tradition is called “God.” Genuine faith examines, questions, and above all, loves reality as a work of the unknown Creator. Faith is unknowing, trusting love, and ever demands an open spirit, an open mind, to respond to the truth beyond all understanding. Dogmatic beliefs, however “traditional” or “revealed,” are no substitute for faith as loving trust. A danger in religious traditionalisms—Christian or otherwise—is that they accustom the “believer” to refrain from asking relevant questions. Traditionalists of all stripes would do well to keep in mind the Socratic watch-word: “The unexamined life is not worthy of a human being.” Many can hide their heads in the sand, or bury their minds in “traditional beliefs.”  My father recounted how his religion professor at Villanova told him not to come to class because he “asked too many questions.” Obviously the priest-professor confused his beliefs about Catholicism with genuine faith. It seems that this priest was far more trusting in his own beliefs than in the God beyond all beliefs and formulations. Creeds and doctrinal beliefs have their place as a kind of training wheels for the mind, but when they become escapes from genuine seeking, they defeat their ultimate purpose: to bring one into contact, not with a creed, but with the God beyond all creeds and formulations. As “faith without works is dead,” so faith without reasoning is dead, or at least, decaying. What believer—Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic—cannot benefit from asking, with his heart and mind, “Who are You, Lord?” And a good way to question is to wonder, to examine, to listen, to be open to having one’s deepest convictions changed. In asking the question, “Who are you, Lord?” it should be evident that the question always transcends any answer. If one seeks God, no answer should ever end the search, but encourage one to “forgot what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead,” borrowing a formulation from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Whatever insight, truth, or “revelation” is received, it pales before the blinding light of the unseen God. “Now we know through a glass darkly, but then [after death], face to face; now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” For the Apostle Paul’s great chapter on love, I Corinthians 13. Or as he writes elsewhere in that letter, “Knowledge [gnosis] puffs up; love builds up.” The desiring heart, the loving question, transcends any answer. When one stops wondering, one stops exercising faith. Without exercising living faith, one becomes spiritually stale. It is similar with love:  When one thinks that he has his beloved all figured out, does he not cease to love? Does not love ever say, “Behold, my beloved, how fair you are, and how mysterious to my gazing eyes.” Love knows in a way transcending all knowing.