New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 61
Why are Gnostic cults so tempting? Why do people get sucked into them? It’s not because Gnostics go around telling people they’re wrong. It’s because they go around telling people they’re limited. Your beliefs, maybe in science, spirituality, Christianity, politics, or whatever, aren’t wrong; they’re low-level. The Gnostics hold themselves out as people who know more about whatever you’re into than you do, and they explain their superiority as being “liberated” from the limitations “THEY” (your teachers, pastors, etc.) are placing upon your knowledge. They don’t want you to know these secrets, but we do. That’s the Gnostic temptation. Host James Lindsay breaks it down in this important episode of New Discourses Bullets, adding an example of how the current Gnostic cults are trying to frame American values as level five out of eight in human dignity.
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5 comments
The temptation of modern leftist thinking and what you are calling gnosticism and the “gnostic temptation” also applies to many religions, cults, etc. I think you’re going a bit off base by calling it all “Gnosticism”. Much of the same techniques could be said for many christian sects in modern America and many religions in general. Dialectical Materialism and Gnosticism are in many respects complete opposites. the desire to manipulate and control runs through many veins in humanity.
In C. S. Lewis’ “Perelandra”, the temptation of Venus’ Eve, “The Lady”, by the possessed Dr. Weston is a great example of the enemy’s approach across time. It shows the demonic roots of Socialism. There really isn’t anything new under the Sun.
I found this about as clear and helpful a presentation as one could hope for. Thank you, and I would like to add something!
I’m not sure that calling it “gnostic” really goes far enough. In his book Marx:Prophet of Darkness, Richard Wurmbrand lays out reasons for believing that Marx was a Satanist. As a young man Marx seems to have been at least a theist but experienced some kind of a counter-conversion; we then find him writing these lines: “Words I teach all mixed up into a devilish muddle./Thus, anyone may think just what he chooses to think.” There is no pretence here of serious searching for truth – nothing but the malicious intent to destroy which characterizes Marx’s life. Why would anyone do this? What is the source of absolute malice and evil? In the Bible the source is said to be personal, Satan; behind Marx, I suggest, is a supra-human force. We are not dealing, if this is true, with “mere” temptation, but in the end with absolute evil. I believe this undercuts the nasty stuff we are dealing with in a very radical way.
Thank you JL. No bad language on this podcast, which makes it more palatable to at least this listener.
Gnostic thought is tempting because there is an element of truth in it.
Marxism and other criminal interpretations of the truth are damaging uses of this truth.
We ARE immortal spiritual beings, just like God is. This is demonstrated in academic studies of reincarnation cases as well as NDEs, etc. Anyone who considers themselves educated needs to confront and deal with this fact. Though there IS a sense of elitism in delving into this material, a proper application of this truth includes everybody and does not involve some underhanded or envious attempt to better others who consider themselves your betters. This can, however, be the result. A person who has done a good amount of spiritual work can escape criminal attacks or handle verbal abuse that would crumple most people. Isn’t the criminal, the psychopath, the ultimate example of someone who considers themselves the better one? And wouldn’t you be able to be free of such noxious influences?
The only impulse towards occultism which I can see is the fear that the “cult” would fear that some criminal would come in and wipe them out. Thus, the true and proper application of gnostic thought is to liberate the honest from the ciminals. The improper application of gnostic thought is to liberate the criminals from the honest. It is a shrewd strategy of the psychopath. It is also a “shrewd” strategy of those who wish the honest to prevail. And so many of us become confused. These two “cults” can be seen as potentially at each other’s throats. Hopefully, if it comes to this, those who value honesty will prevail over those who value criminality. It should be noted that while those who value honesty (or “the truth”) would not willfully attempt to harm or kill psychopaths, whereas pychopaths would LOVE to harm or kill honest people. By this measure, if by no other, you can tell them apart.
Those who are Woke UNDERSTAND and BELIEVE the TRUTH of Woke. Those who are not Woke are ignorant UNBELIEVERS.
Karl Jaspers on Karl Marx (emphasis mine): “The style of Marx’s writings… is a vindication of something proclaimed as the perfect TRUTH with the conviction not of the scientist but of the BELIEVER.”
Paul Johnson, ‘Intellectuals’ 1988, on Marx’s Gnostic-style Us-Them/high-low hypocrisy and megalomaniacal self-divinity. As Above: Marx, the God-like Us; So Below: working-class proles, the lowborn Them who must obey the God:
“What is even more striking is Marx’s hostility to fellow revolutionaries… [who were] working men who had become politically conscious. They did not share Marx’s apocalyptic visions and, above all, they did not talk his academic jargon. He viewed them with contempt: revolutionary cannon-fodder, no more…
Marx always preferred to associate with middle-class intellectuals like himself. When he and Engels created the Communist League… [and] the International, Marx made sure that working-class socialists were eliminated from any positions [and were] merely… statutory proles…
Men with actual experience of factory conditions tended to be anti-violence and in favour of modest, progressive improvements: they were knowledgeably sceptical about the apocalyptic revolution [Marx] claimed was not only necessary but inevitable. Some of Marx’s most venomous assaults were directed against men of this type… [I]n March 1846 he subjected [working class leader] William Weitling to a kind of trial before a meeting of the Communist League in Brussels.
The object of the trial was to insist on ‘correctness’ of doctrine and to put down any uppity working-class type who lacked the philosophical training Marx thought essential. Marx’s attack on Weitling was extraordinarily aggressive. He was guilty, said Marx, of conducting an agitation without doctrine.
Weitling replied he had not become a socialist to learn about doctrines manufactured in a study; he spoke for actual working men and would not submit to the views of mere theoreticians who were remote from the suffering world of real labour. This… enraged Marx… [and the] meeting ended with Marx striding up and down the room in violent rage. This was the pattern for further assaults… on socialists of working-class origin… [who preached] practical solutions to actual problems of work and wages, rather than [Marx’s] doctrinaire revolution.”