Up until now, our examination of Gnosticism has been theological and philosophical. There is another side of Gnosticism which needs to be addressed, that is, the connection between Gnosticism and the occult. Before we discuss contemporary Gnosticism, we need to acknowledge Gnosticism’s association with the occult. Simon was, after all, a magus, and many (but not all) Gnostic leaders would take on the role of wonderworker as a way to validate their spiritual authority. Gnostic philosophy encouraged occult speculation; if one were to become properly attuned to the spirit, the insignificance and weakness of the material world could be understood and overcome. The spirit, because it transcends the world, has the power to engage the world and transform it, but only when it knows its true power and is freed from earthly bondage. The occult sciences such as astrology were studied so that one could understand what powers and entities influence the shape of earthly history. Only then could one confront them and overcome them. Liberation from the flesh allowed one to find a way to overcome all earthly fate.
One significant example of a Gnostic magus is Marcus, assumed by many patristic sources to be a disciple of Valentinus. “But there is another among these heretics, Marcus by name, who boast himself as having improved upon his master. He is a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of men, and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection, and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above,” Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses. trans Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. ANF2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing), I.XIII.1. As with many occultists, it seems as if Marcus was a trickster. Irenaeus tells us that he attracted the attention of many by imitating Christ’s ability to multiply the elements; for example he was known to make it appear as if he filled a large cup with wine from a smaller cup by pouring wine into that larger cup from the smaller, and having the wine overflow out of the larger cup. He also claimed to have prophetic ability, and Irenaeus suggested that if he did, it was from a demonic source. Finally, Irenaeus tells us that Marcus, and later his disciples, used the power of his authority, and whatever magical means he might have, to seduce women and make them do whatever he desired. Like a date rapist, Marcus would create “potions” which limited a woman’s inhibitions. “Moreover, that this Marcus compounds philters and love-potions, in order to insult the persons of some of these women, if not of all, those of them who have returned to the Church of God – a thing which frequently occurs – have acknowledged, confessing, too, that they have been defiled by him, and that they were filled with a burning passion towards him,” ibid., I.XIII.5. If anyone would doubt the effectiveness of Marcus’ love potions, all they need to do is reflect upon the fact that such love potions are still with us today. Instead of calling them potions we would call them drugs. But that distinction was not made in the ancient world, and indeed, anyone who has studied the theory and practice of potion making should wonder how appropriate that distinction actually is.
There is a wealth of occult literature found in Gnostic texts. Not all of them are the same kind. Some are Hermetic in interest and tradition (The Discourse of the Eighth and Ninth, The Prayer of Thanksgiving, and the Asclepius text of Nag Hammadi, for example), others entertain astrological speculation (such as Pistis Sophia), and some engage the powers which rule the world and finding a way to overcome and control them, creating, as it were, daemonic magic (such as associated with Basilides). This helps explain why Gnosticism would have an influence in the development of various occult traditions. Gnostics engaged and developed occult theory, and later occultists, wanting to follow the common tradition, would therefore incorporate elements of Gnostic theology with their own ideas. This is true for most Western occultists, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. The basics of Gnosticism became the perennial occult philosophy. While not all occultists or mystics followed Gnostic speculation, nonetheless, dualism became the hidden, esoteric truth which many occultists proclaimed. Gnostic cosmologies, with the belief in various daemonic powers controlling the world, took on a life of their own, providing all kinds of justification for deamonic magic, no matter what religious tradition an occultist accepted as their own. We find this, for example, in the magical writings of John Dee or what became known as the Kabbalah. “The term sefirotfirst appears in the early cosmogonic text Sefir Yezirah(‘The Book of Creation’), written between the third and sixth centuries. There the word means ‘numbers, ciphers,’ and refers to metaphysical potencies that are stages of creation. Gradually Gnostic elements were assimiliated, and in the Bahir, the first kabbalistic text (edited in the twelth century), the sefirot constitutes a mystical scheme. The Spanish kaballists adopted this scheme and expanded it,” Daniel Chanan Matt, “Introduction” pages 1 – 39 in Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. Trans. Daniel Chanan Matt (Ramsey, N.J: Paulist Press, 1983), 20-21. Certainly there are Gnostic currents found in Islamic mysticism, although, to be sure, not all of Sufism should be seen as Gnostic. As with Christian mysticism, there was a division (in theory, if not always in practice) between love-oriented mysticism and knowledge-oriented mysticism, the second, of course, having some Gnostic influence. “A differentiation between the ‘voluntaristic’ and the ‘gnostic’ approaches to mystical experience is somewhat easier. […] The mystic of the gnostic type strives for a deeper knowledge of God: he attempts to know the structure of His universe or to interpret the degree of His revelations – although no mystic could ever dare to ‘know’ His Essence. […] Despite this bewilderment, the gnostic approach often led to the building of theosophical systems with its adherents tending to interpret every aspect of mysticism in the light of their own particular theories, sometimes even denying the simple experience of loving submission,” Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 6.
Occultism would become more open in the West during the renaissance, when Platonic thought, including magical Platonic traditions such as those associated with Hermes and Iamblichus, re-emerged, thanks especially to the efforts of Marsilio Ficino. Ficino wanted to find a universal philosophical tradition, one which Christians borrowed and improved upon, yet one which predated Christianity with wisdom which it could still offer Christians. Later philosophers would look for the relationship between Ficino’s Platonism and the occult arts, encouraging the assimilation of Gnostic magic in the process. Thus we will find Christian mystics such as Jacob Böhme or Franz von Baader, influenced by Ficino’s revolution, delving deeper into the occult and bringing back from their studies more Gnostic ideas; they tried, for the most part, to remain Christian and so they were in their Gnosticism even as in their Christianity unorthodox. And this explains why a Christian such as Vladimir Solovyov could learn from them, even be influenced by them, without losing their Christian faith. For they were pseudo-Gnostic in their occultism, and they kept more than a little authentic Christian faith in their speculations. But, it must be sure, their pseudo-Gnosticism encouraged not just a Christian adaption of their thought, but outright Gnosticism from latter-day occultists.
In the spiritual void of the secular state, Gnosticism can attract followers because it suggests that the solution for the current spiritual crisis cannot come from those traditions which they, the spiritual seekers, have tried, but from long-lost Gnostic traditions which they have not tried. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a new Gnosticism emerged. The New Age movement can only be understood as the heir of the work of Madame Blavatsky – and she knowingly revived the occult branch of Gnosticism. “It was Madame Blavatsky who first proclaimed the Gnostics as precursors for the occult movement. In her program to divide speculative learning into esoteric and exoteric, truth and religion, the Gnostics were an obvious opposition to what she called ‘Churchianity.’ She absorbed the Gnostics, in her universal free-associative style, into a great occult synthesis…,” The Nag Hammadi Library. ed. James M. Robinson (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990), 537. Blavatsky gave Gnosticism a new sense of credibility and authority, especially when many of her disciples such as Annie Besant were to attain levels of prominence in politics. G.R.S. Mead, another disciple, would take Gnosticism seriously and produce an important edition of all available Gnostic texts pre-Nag Hammadi. Finally, as her ideas would quickly spread, they produced many imitators, such as Rudolph Steiner, each looking for some long-lost hidden truth which they found, at least in part, in Gnostic sources.
In such an atmosphere, it is no wonder that we see arising around us prominent occultists with great charismatic authority whose biographies read as if they were a famous Gnostic written about by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, or Epiphanius. Here we could mention was a way of example Grigor Rasputin, Aliester Crowley, or Anton Lavey. Each one glorified themselves, and provided justification for the acquisition of personal power. We can read of Rasputin’s desire to create holiness through sin, Crowley’s desire to initiate himself in all types of magical ritual and ceremony, especially those of a sexual or drug-induced nature, to acquire personal power, and Lavey’s belief that Satan represented all the desires of humanity, and that it was good to engage those desires, to become a Satanist, as long as what one did harmed no one else.
Gnosticism, because of its interest in the spirit and the dominance of the spirit over the physical world, has long held an interest in mysticism. Occult philosophy often comes from an imperfect, incomplete, even erroneous incorporation of authentic mysticism with Gnosticism’s dualistic presuppositions. Not all mysticism is erroneous, indeed, much of it is part of the orthodox spiritual heritage, but all mysticism, even orthodox spirituality, is of interest to the Gnostic. This is not because the Gnostic is necessarily trying to deceive their followers by placing orthodox spirituality side by side with their own spiritual ideas, but because the Gnostic truly believes that spiritual experiences are worthy of note and engagement. And this explains why, in the history of Christian mysticism, near any true Christian mystic one will also find the occult. After all, even St Paul was harassed by a demon-possessed woman. “As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by soothsaying. She followed Paul and us, crying, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.’ And this she did for many days. But Paul was annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, ‘I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.” (Acts 16:16-18).
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