This post presents and in some cases amplifies several modern authors’ characterizations of gnosis, and I make some additional comments.
Gnosis as an awakening is essentially a visionary event, though it does not always include visual elements – whether vision of the eyes or of the mind.
It is the emergence of a “divine” portion of the person, at least comparatively speaking, with its own vast range of knowledge and perception.
Gnosis is the arrival of a more direct acquaintance with the reality of things, as if one were to meet reality in person, whereas one had previously only heard about reality at second hand, or glimpsed it as from a distance.
To know God, oneself, and the universe in this way is to be changed into a person whose state is an awakening to at least some aspects of her true nature, just as her former state was largely asleep to her true nature.
Th. G. Sinnige observes that gnosis tends to mobilize “the complete involvement of the whole of the human person” (Six Lectures on Plotinus and Gnosticism, Kluwer, 1999, p. 3). There is something invisible that one beholds streaming towards and through one’s being, in a fashion different from normal sight, emotion, and touch. As mentioned in the previous post, it is a welling up, an overflowing, like an inner sense of touch. This making contact with an invisible yet luminous something seems to pervade one’s entire being – certainly body and mind, but also, perhaps, parts as yet unknown.
“Simon Magus, Hippolytus reports, claimed that each human being is a dwelling place, ‘and that in him dwells an infinite power … the root of the universe’ ” (Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, Vintage Books, 1981, p. 162).
Birger A. Pearson writes: “The Gnostic, though he or she is essentially divine, must also become divine by the event of saving gnosis” (Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity, Fortress Press, 1990, p. 133), and Ugo Bianchi writes: “gnosis as an implicit divine faculty is to be awakened and actualized” (The Origins of Gnosticism: Colloquium of Messina, 13-18 April 1966, edited by Ugo Bianchi, Brill, 1970, p. xxvii). In other words, that which is the divine element within every person must be called into action, or else it will remain only as a potential.
This is not accomplished entirely through the person’s own initiative and power, as Werner Foerster writes: “the divine element in man cannot of itself escape from its captivity in this world. It is a call from the invisible world, which reveals the heavenly homeland, that brings redemption” (Gnosis. A Selection of Gnostic Texts, translated by R. McL. Wilson, Clarendon Press, 1972, Volume 1, p. 13). If gnosis is a knowledge of belonging to invisible worlds, this can only come in a revelation from those worlds, which are beyond our current understanding of the ways and means of communication. This transmission is mysterious, occurring through faculties of consciousness that remain otherwise unknown and perhaps undreamt-of.
In some cases, the gnostic does not seem to meet with the supreme godhead itself, but with a manifestation of that godhead, typically a form of light or an angelic messenger who informs the gnostic of her true nature, the true nature of the world, and something of the nature of the divine. It is one of the signature cognitions of the gnostic to perceive with certainty that this is but the beginning, the opening of a huge vista of miraculous possibility. Although there is often a sense of totality and completion, it is not the ultimate achievement of all possible knowledge, divine or otherwise.
Geo Widengren outlines one version of gnostic mythology and anthropology: “Man as a pure incorporeal spirit dwelt in the heavenly regions with God, but was plunged down into the world of matter, darkness, and suffering … Birth means to be born here to this world which is in the power of matter. Rebirth is to be born anew as a free spirit to the divine world of light and imperishability” (The Gnostic Attitude, translated and edited by Birger A. Pearson, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1973, pp. 15–16).
But although it is an event within the individual, “the aim of gnosis is cosmic salvation, the restoration of things to the state which preceded the cosmic drama. … The gnostic is a stranger, a prisoner in this world, to be sure, but as such his mission is to aid in the liberation of other prisoners” (Henry Corbin, “Eyes of the Flesh and Eyes of Fire: Science and Gnosis”, Material for Thought 8, 1980, page number unknown).
Though it is a kind of liberation of the human person, this person continues to exist within the cosmic system. So it is not a separation from this world. On the contrary, it is a consummation of this world, as Julia Konstantinovsky shows in her book on Evagrius. “The mind is transformed into the ‘true church’ of God.” Involuntarily focused upon the broad expanse of this world, “the mind’s eye perceives the materiality of the universe become transfigured by grace. The universe is then revealed as the locus, at once physical and spiritual, of God’s graceful self-revelation. … Matter is hallowed; it is spiritual; it is transformational.” In addition to all of nature, the perceiving mind recognizes itself and its sister faculties as self-luminous: “The intellect comes to see itself as irradiating light, after it is illumined by the light of God”; “all human faculties are sanctified by the light. One sees the light with one’s body, soul, and intellect” (Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic, Ashgate, 2009, pp. 47, 47, 81, and 85).
One’s “self” and “the divine” coincide in this type of knowledge; they cohere together, so that where one is, the other is found as well.
Hans Jonas writes that “the relation of knowing is mutual” (The Gnostic Religion, Beacon Press, 1991, p. 285). Knowing is meant here in a rare sense: a melding of knower and known, not into an undifferentiated unity, but into a seamlessly unified duality, as it were. This means that there is at least one sense in which the knower and the known are not separate; they are connected, sometimes united, and they communicate with each other, at least at special moments.
Sometimes, the knower (the human being) is present to herself as the known (ultimate reality), and, at the same time, the known is present to itself in the form of the knower. This means, in part, that each one “sees” itself through the “eyes” of the other, as well as by its own inward sight and understanding. In fact, one comprehends – though sometimes in a distant way, as it were – that one’s “inward” perception and the other’s “outward” perception are two aspects of one whole, one dynamic energy or process. It is as if one’s environment were to “speak” to one, and that speech was at the same time one’s own speech; as if the inner and the outer environment were interrelated in some unfathomable way, such that the mental faculties of one flowed into the mental faculties of the other. This is difficult to explain.
There are many expressions of mutual love between the human and the divine in mystical literature, and there are also many expressions of being seen and understood by “the other” in an affectionate way.
Ultimately, there is at least one sense in which the human and the divine are not really two at all, and not even one, but something that transcends “one” and “two”.
This intimate knowledge cannot be betrayed, as it were, to others. It is absolutely unique, and can never be fully or effectively revealed, because it is impossible to adequately convey its qualities and its meaning to another person.
Giovanni Filoramo points to an important but often-neglected feature of gnosis: its “jealousy” – its dominant hold on the gnostic’s life. “Isis, appearing in a dream to Lucius while he is still in the form of an ass, promises to release him forthwith, with the warning: ‘Remember, and bear in mind for ever, that the rest of your life must be dedicated to me up to your last breath.’ In exchange, he will have access to the ineffable mysteries that will provide a new basis for his existence” (A History of Gnosticism, translated by Anthony Alcock, B. Blackwell, 1990, p. 33).
Such a life-long commitment is inevitable and it is entered into willingly, because “she” is unutterably beautiful, wonderful, and so much more than could ever have been desired. But it has consequences for the person’s other (apparent) commitments: they will forevermore be secondary at best, always deferring to the primacy of that new dedication “to me”. Still, it is not as if one were subjugated to the other in a servile manner; it is like a marriage to which one should not – and cannot – be unfaithful. In this way, it is both voluntary and involuntary: one gives oneself freely, and one is “taken” with supreme possessiveness, without any possibility of return to one’s former state.