Essay completed...dgb
1. Introduction: Life and Death Impulses, The Subconscious vs. Unconscious -- and 'Real vs. Proclaimed Truth'
To follow me here, you need to leave your 'normal, Apollonian, scientific-rational-empirical' part of your brain, and move across to the more creative, symbolic, artistic, metaphorical, and mythological part of your brain. Otherwise, you probably won't be able to follow where I am going.
In effect, what I am trying to do here, is to show you how 'internal parts of the personality, and personality dynamics, right down to the very bio-chemical roots of the psyche', are easily projected into things like art, mythology, religion, architecture...and the like.
Freud, Jung, and many others have been here before me. But DGB Psychology offers an 'multi-dialectical, integrative package' where Freud, Jung, and others such as Adler, Fairbairn, Berne, Kohut, and Perls have all been combined in different elements of their respective thinking.
Dialectically speaking, I prefer to work within the confines of Freud's later 'life' and 'death' instinct (although I prefer the words 'impulse' or 'wish' rather than 'instinct') concepts rather than the assumptions that played a greater part of his earlier 'pansexual fixation'.
Also, I prefer to use the term 'subconscious' as opposed to 'unconscious' believing that everything that is subconscious is capable of becoming conscious -- with or without the help of Psychoanalysis. I don't like those doctors, intellectual elitists, and elitist organizations who/that believe in things and ideas that are based on 'circuluar reasoning' -- for example, the Psychoanalytic assertion that 'if you are resisting a Psychoanalytic idea, then you are resisting the truth, and only those who are licensed Psychoanalysts can know this truth; if you are outside of Psychoanalysis, then you are outside of the possibility of knowing this truth.
'Client resistance' is quickly associcated in Psychoanalytic conceptuology with 'denial of the truth' -- of not accepting the 'words of impeccible interpretive truth coming out of the Psychoanalyst's mouth'. However, acts of resistance or rebellion can also be legitimate 'underdog' defenses against 'the pathology of so-called 'topdog' normalcy, credibility, expertise, and misused and/or abused power'.
The illusion of truth -- which in Marx's word is better described as 'ideology' or better still, 'pathological or false ideology' -- is often couched within the comfortable and overprotected confines or individual, organizational, social, economic, legal, political, and/or religious power.
Many of our best Western philosophers have seen how easily power and narcissism corrupts truth -- egs. Bacon, Jefferson, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...to name just a few.
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Nietsche Quotes
All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
Friedrich Nietzsche
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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DGB
Thus, we need to recognize that 'resistance' and 'rebellion' play a vital, functional role in man's individual and collective evolution.
An imperative distinction here is the difference between those who are resisting and/or rebelling against the truth because of 'narcissistic greed or selfishness' ('topdog anxiety' where the person in power doesn't want to lose that power, or that sense of 'socially bestowed power') vs. those who are resisting the truth because they don't want to 'be disliked', 'rejected', 'abandoned', 'cause conflict', and/or hear what will make them feel even more 'anxious' and 'insecure' than they already feel ('underdog anxiety').
2. Homer, Human Drama -- and 'Soap Operas' -- Projected Into The Sky, and Back To Earth'
So let us assume that the ancient Greeks -- and particularly Homer, the primary, literary poet and 'psychologist' of the time period that we are looking at here (some time after The Trojan War which is academically interpreted to be between about 1194 and 1184BC...The Iliad being interepreted as being written anywhere between this time and about 850BC, some saying that it was not 'firmed up' til the 6th century BC...see below...). Homer and the ancient Greeks creatively projected human drama and soap operas into the sky in the form of every type of dialectic interaction between 'Greek Gods' and 'Greek humans', a precursor of what was to come later with the influence of Gnosticism and Plato on the beginning of Christianity where the previous ideas of both 'dualism' and 'monism' gradually integrated together.
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From the internet...Homer...
Wikipedia...
Homer
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This article is about the Greek poet Homer and the works attributed to him. For other meanings, see Homer (disambiguation).
"Homeric" redirects here. For other uses, see Homeric (disambiguation).
Homer (Greek Ὅμηρος Homēros)
Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the Hellenistic period. British Museum.
Lived ca. 8th century BC
Influences rhapsodic oral poetry
Influenced Classics (Western canon)
Homer and His Guide, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). The scene portrays Homer on Mount Ida, beset by dogs and guided by the goatherder, Glaucus. (The tale is told in Pseudo-Herodotus).Homer (Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, Hómēros) is traditionally held to be the (purportedly blind) author of the ancient Greek epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns. Today the hymns are considered to be later works but many still regard Homer as the author or compiler of the epics. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was a historical individual, but some modern scholars are skeptical: G. S. Kirk's comment that "Antiquity knew nothing definite about the life and personality of Homer."[1] represents the general consensus. Some scholars believe that the poems themselves manifestly represent the culmination of many centuries of oral story-telling and a well-developed "formulaic" system of poetic composition, so according to Martin West, "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."[2]
The date of Homer's existence was controversial in antiquity and is no less so today. Herodotus said that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at around 850 BC;[3] but other ancient sources gave dates much closer to the supposed time of the Trojan War.[4] The date of the Trojan War was given as 1194–1184 BC by Eratosthenes, who strove to establish a scientific chronology of events and this date is gaining support because of recent archaeological research.[citation needed]
For modern scholarship, "the date of Homer" refers to the date of the poems' conception as much as to the lifetime of an individual. The scholarly consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from the extreme end of the 9th century BC or from the 8th, the Iliad being anterior to the Odyssey, perhaps by some decades",[5] i.e., somewhat earlier than Hesiod,[6] and that the Iliad is the oldest work of western literature. Over the past few decades, some scholars have argued for a 7th-century date. Those who believe that the Homeric poems developed gradually over a long period of time, however, generally give a later date for the poems: according to Nagy, they only became fixed texts in the 6th century.[7]
Alfred Heubeck states that the formative influence of the works of Homer in shaping and influencing the whole development of Greek culture was recognised by many Greeks themselves, who considered him to be their instructor.[8]
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From the internet...Homer...by Richard Hooker...
No other texts in the Western imagination occupy as central a position in the self-definition of Western culture as the two epic poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey . They both concern the great defining moment of Greek culture, the Trojan War. Whether or not this war really occurred, or occurred as the Greeks narrate it, is a relatively unanswerable question. We know that such a war did take place around a city that quite likely was Troy, that Troy was destroyed utterly, but beyond that it's all speculation. This war, however, fired the imaginations of the Greeks and became the defining cultural moment in their history. Technically, the war wasn't fought by "Greeks" in the classical sense, it was fought by the Myceneaens; the Greek culture that we call "classical" is actually derived from a different group of Greeks, the Dorians and Ionians. However, the Greeks saw the Trojan War as the first moment in history when the Greeks came together as one people with a common purpose. This unification, whether it was myth or not, gave the later Greeks a sense of national or cultural identity, despite the fact that their governments were small, disunified city-states. Since the Greeks regarded the Trojan War as the defining moment in the establishment of "Greek character," they were obsessed about the events of that great war and told them repeatedly with great variety; as the Greek idea of cultural identity changed, so did their stories about the Trojan War.
If the Greeks regarded the Trojan War as the defining moment of their culture, they did so because of the poetry of Homer. It would not be unfair to regard the Homeric poems as the single most important texts in Greek culture. While the Greeks all gained their collective identity from the Trojan War, that collective identity was concentrated in the values, ethics, and narrative of Homer's epic poems. Just as the Greeks were obsessed about the Trojan War, they were equally obsessed about the Homeric poems, returning to them over and over again, particularly in times of cultural crisis. The Greeks didn't believe that the Homeric poems were sacred in any way, or even flawless history. For most of Greek history, Homer comes under fire for his unflattering portrayal of Greek gods. The Greeks understood that the poems were poetry, and in the Hellenistic period came to the understanding that the poems had been deeply corrupted over the ages. So unlike most ancient cultures which rooted collective identity in religious texts of some sort, the Greeks turned to literature.
As the Trojan War was the product of Mycenean culture, the Homeric poems were the product of the Greek Dark Ages. Whatever happened at Troy, the events were probably so captivating, that the Greeks continued to narrate the stories long after they had abandoned their cities and abandoned writing. The history of the war was preserved from mouth to mouth, from person to person; it may be that the stories of the Trojan War were the dominant cultural artifact of the Greek Dark Ages. These stories probably began as short tales of isolated events and heroes; eventually a profession of story-telling was established—classical scholars call this new professional a "bard." This new professional began combining the stories into larger narratives; as the narratives grew, the technique of story-telling changed as well. Whereas early bards probably memorized their stories with great exactitude, the later bards, telling much longer stories, probably improvised much of their lines following sophisticated rules. Maybe. We have evidence from the classical age in Greece of people memorizing the complete poetry of Homer word for word (over 25,000 lines of poetry); it may be possible that the Homeric poems were memorized with more exactitude than scholars believe. No matter what the case, by the end of the Greek Dark Ages, these bards or story-tellers were probably the cultural center of Greek society; their status improved greatly as Greeks began to slowly urbanize.
On an average night in the late Greek Dark Ages, a community, probably the wealthiest people, would settle in for an evening's entertainment. The professional story-teller would sing the stories of the Trojan War and its Greek heroes; these songs would be the Greek equivalent of a mini-series, for the stories were so long that they would take days to complete. The Greeks believed that the greatest of these story-tellers was a blind man named Homer, and that he sung ten epic poems about the Trojan War, of which only two survived (although the Greeks seem to have known them). As a group these poems told the entire history of the Trojan War; each poem, however, only covered a small part of that history. Many classicists believe that the two surviving Homeric epics (probably the only Homeric epics) were in fact composed by several individuals; in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, most classicists accept the overall Greek idea of a single author. Whatever the compositional history of the poems, they were set down into writing within a few decades of their composition; the growing urbanization of Greek society led to the rediscovery of writing (learned from the Phoenicians this time), and the Homeric poems were committed to writing very quickly. Time and transmission added much extraneous material to the poems, but in their basic character and outline they seem to be the original compositions.
The Iliad is the story of a brief event in the ninth year of the war (which the Greeks claim lasted ten years); the great hero Achilles is offended when the leader of the Greeks, Agamemnon, takes a slave girl Achilles has been awarded. Achilles withdraws from the battle and prays to his mother, Thetis, a goddess, to turn the tide of battle against the Greeks. The gods grant Achilles his prayer, and he does not return to battle until his best friend is killed by the great Trojan hero, Hector. Achilles throws himself into the battle, fights Hector, and kills him; in a final gesture of contempt, he drags Hector's lifeless body around the walls of Troy. If there is a "theme" to the epic (and one should resist simplifying large and complex literature), it is "Achilles choice." Achilles has been offered a choice: either he can be a great and famous hero in war and die young (Achilles does die in Troy when a poison arrow strikes him in the ankle), or the can live a long, happy life without any lasting fame whatsoever. Although Achilles initially chooses not to die young, the death of his friend forces him to make the choice that will make him famous for all time, but tragically dead at a young age.
The Odyssey is the story of the homecoming of another of the great Greek heroes at Troy, Odysseus. Unlike Achilles, Odysseus is not famous for his great strength or bravery, but for his ability to deceive and trick (it is Odysseus's idea to take Troy by offering the citizens a large wooden horse filled, unbeknownst to the Trojans, with Greek soldiers). He is the anthropos polytropos , the "man of many ways," or the "man of many tricks." His homecoming has been delayed for ten years because of the anger of the gods; finally, in the tenth year, he is allowed to go home. He hasn't been misspending his time, though; for most of the ten years he has been living on an island with the goddess Kalypso, who is madly in love with him. Odysseus, like Achilles, is offered a choice: he may either live on the island with Kalypso and be immortal like the gods, or he may return to his wife and his country and be mortal like the rest of us. He chooses to return, and much of the rest of the work is a long exposition on what it means to be "mortal." If the Odyssey has a discernible theme, it is the nature of mortal life, why any human being would, if offered the chance to be a god, still choose to be mortal. This choice becomes particularly problematic when Odysseus, in Book XI, meets the ghost of Achilles in the Underworld; Odysseus remarks to Achilles how all the shades of the dead must worship and serve Achilles, but Achilles replies that he would rather be the meanest and most obscure slave of the poorest landholder than be the most famous of the dead. If being dead is so awful, what is it about being human that makes up for the infinite suffering that attends our deaths? As part of this question concerning the nature of human life, much of the book deals with the nature of human civilization and human savagery. The question also deepens in the latter half of the poem; while the first half of the epic deals with the question of the value of a mortal life, the last half of the epic introduces the question of the value of an anonymous human life. What value can be attached to a life that will be forgotten at its conclusion?
The Greeks in general regard Homer's two epics as the highest cultural achievement of their people, the defining moment in Greek culture which set the basic Greek character in stone. Throughout antiquity, both in Greece and Rome, everything tended to be compared to these two works; events in history made sense when put in the light of the events narrated in these two works. As a result, then, these two epics are the focal point of Greek values and the Greek world view despite all its evolution and permutations through the centuries following their composition.
Barbarians & Bureaucrats
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Polyphemos
Greek Glossary
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Areté
There are two very important words repeatedly used throughout the Homeric epics: honor (timé ) and virtue or greatness (areté ). The latter term is perhaps the most reiterated cultural and moral value in Ancient Greece and means something like achieving, morally and otherwise, your greatest potential as a human being. The reward for great honor and virtue is fame (kleos ), which is what guarantees meaning and value to one's life. Dying without fame (akleos ) is generally considered a disaster, and the warriors of the Homeric epics commit the most outrageous deeds to avoid dying in obscurity or infamy (witness Odysseus's absurd insistence on telling Polyphemos his name even though this will bring disaster on him and his men in the Polyphemos episode). The passage from Odyssey XI discussed above presents Achilles's final judgement on kleos and its value when he tells Odysseus that he would rather be alive and the most obscure human on earth than dead and famous.
Richard Hooker
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3. Gnosticism and The Roots of Christianity
I didn't know anything about 'Gnosticism' until I read the article below and how Gnosticism influenced the beginning of Chrisitianity. So if you are in the same boat, then you are learning about Gnosticism in the course of this essay just as I am. Also in this regard, when we start talking about 'the roots of Christianity', from first appearances of some of the different things that I am looking at, we are stepping into a hugely complex, provocative and controversial subject matter. There seem to be huge amounts of people who have a 'huge narcissistic stake' connected with 'their brand of history' which links the beginning of Christianity with whatever they want to link it to.
Perhaps I am no different in this regard as I 'chose' the 'Greek Mythology and Philosophy link' while others on other websites have chosen different directions. All of the diverse and/or interconnected subject matter could probably exhaust my time and energy for a year or more if I wanted it to. But I have other philosophical and psychological bridges to build, and mountains to conquer, so unless something changes in my thinking, I expect to be through this subject matter, for the most part at least -- today and/or by the end of this essay.
I will only include enough of this article for you to see how quickly the subject matter becomes immensely complicated... You can read this as far as you want to get the main gist of what the subject matter is. Any further research can be found on the internet and/or beyond.
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Gnosticism
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Part of a series on
Gnosticism
History of Gnosticism
Early Gnosticism
Syrian-Egyptic Gnosticism
Gnosticism in modern times
Proto-Gnostics
Philo
Valentinus
Cerinthus
Basilides
Gnostic texts
Gnostic Gospels
Nag Hammadi library
Codex Tchacos
Bruce Codex
Gnosticism and the New Testament
Related articles
Gnosis
Pythagoreanism
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
Mandaeism
Manichaeism
Neopaganism
Bosnian Church
Esoteric Christianity
Theosophy
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Gnosticism (Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge; this being is frequently identified with the Abrahamic God, and is contrasted with a superior entity, referred to by several terms including 'Pleroma' and 'Godhead'[1]. Depictions of the demiurge - the term originates with Plato's Timaeus[2] - vary from being as an embodiment of evil, to being merely imperfect and as benevolent as its inadequacy permits. Thus, broadly speaking, Gnosticism was a dualistic heresy, influenced by and influencing Judaism (see Notzrim), Orthodox Christianity and Hellenic philosophy; however, by contrast, later strands of the movement, such as the Valentinians, held a monistic world-view[3]. This, along with the varying treatments of the demiurge, may be seen as indicative of the variety of positions held within the category.
The gnōsis referred to in the term is a form of revealed, esoteric knowledge through which the spiritual elements of humanity are reminded of their true origins within the superior Godhead, being thus permitted to escape materiality[4]. Consequently, within the sects of gnosticism only the pneumatics or psychics obtain gnōsis; the hylic or Somatics, though human, being incapable of perceiving the higher reality, are unlikely to attain the gnōsis deemed by gnostic movements as necessary for salvation[5][6]. Jesus of Nazareth is identified by some Gnostic sects as an embodiment of the supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnōsis to the earth[7]. In others (e.g. the Notzrim and Mandaeans) he is considered a mšiha kdaba or "false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John the Baptist[8]. Still other traditions identify Mani and Seth, third son of Adam and Eve, as salvific figures[9].
Whereas formerly Gnosticism was considered mostly a heretical branch of Christianity[citation needed], it now seems clear that traces of Gnostic systems can be discerned some centuries before the Christian Era. [10] Gnostic sects may have existed earlier than the First Century BCE, thus predating the birth of Jesus.[11] The movement spread in areas controlled by the Roman Empire and Arian Goths (see Huneric), and the Persian Empire; it continued to develop in the Mediterranean and Middle East before and during the Second Century and Third Centuries. Conversion to Islam and the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) greatly reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the Middle Ages, though a few isolated communities continue to exist to the present. Gnostic ideas became influential in the philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the late 19th and 20th Centuries in Europe and North America, including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups.
Contents [hide]
1 Nature and structure of Gnosticism
1.1 The main features of gnosticism
1.2 Dualism and monism
1.3 Moral and ritual practice
2 Major Gnostic movements and their texts
2.1 Persian Gnosticism
2.2 Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism
2.2.1 Syrian-Egyptic scripture
2.3 Later Gnosticism and Gnostic-influenced groups
2.4 Kabbalah
3 Important terms and concepts
3.1 Æon
3.2 Archon
3.3 Abraxas/Abrasax
3.4 Demiurge
3.5 Gnosis
3.6 Monad (apophatic theology)
3.7 Pleroma
3.8 Sophia
4 History
4.1 The development of the Syrian-Egyptian school
4.2 The development of the Persian school
5 Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
5.1 Historical relations between antique Greek Philosophy and Gnosticism
5.2 Rejection by antique Greek Philosophy
5.3 Philosophical relations between Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
5.4 Criticism of gnosticism by antique Greek Philosophy
6 Buddhism and Gnosticism
7 'Gnosticism' as a potentially flawed category
8 Gnosticism in modern times
9 See also
10 Footnotes
11 References
11.1 Books
11.1.1 Primary sources
11.1.2 Secondary sources
11.2 Videos
12 External links
[edit] Nature and structure of Gnosticism
[edit] The main features of gnosticism
Gnostic systems are typically marked by:
"And the Sophia of the Epinoia [...] brought forth. And [...] something came out of her which was imperfect and different from her appearance, because she had created it without her consort. And it was dissimilar to the likeness of its mother, for it has another form.
"And when she saw (the consequences of) her desire, it changed into a form of a lion-faced serpent. And its eyes were like lightning fires which flash. She cast it away from her, outside that place, that no one of the immortal ones might see it, for she had created it in ignorance."
From The Secret Book of John (long version), Nag Hammadi Library, Codex II, trans. Frederik Wisse.[12].
The notion of a remote, supreme monadic divinity - this figure is known under a variety of names, including 'Pleroma' and 'Bythos' (Greek: Βυθός, "deep");
The introduction by emanation of further divine beings, which are nevertheless identifiable as aspects of the God from which they proceeded; the progressive emanations are often conceived metaphorically as a gradual and progressive distancing from the ultimate source, which brings about an instability in the fabric of the divine nature;
The subsequent identification of the Fall of Man as an occurrence with its ultimate foundations within divinity itself, rather than as occurring either entirely or indeed partially through human agency; this stage in the divine emanation is usually enacted through the recurrent Gnostic figure of Sophia (Greek, "wisdom"), whose presence in a wide variety of Gnostic texts is indicative of her central importance;
The introduction of a distinct creator god. This creator god is commonly referred to as the demiourgós, a technical term literally denoting a public worker, used in the Platonist tradition[13].
The gnostic demiurge bears resemblance to figures in Plato's Timaeus and Republic. In the former the demiourgós is a central figure, as benevolent creator of the universe who works to make the universe as benevolent as the limitations of matter will allow; in the latter, the description of the leontomorphic 'desire' in Socrates' model of the psyche bears a resemblance to descriptions of the demiurge as being in the shape of the lion; the relevant passage of The Republic was found within a major gnostic library discovered at Nag Hammadi[14], wherein a text existed describing the demiurge as a 'lion-faced serpent'.[12]
Elsewhere this figure is called 'Ialdabaoth'[12], 'Samael' (Aramaic: sæmʕa-ʔel, 'blind god') or 'Saklas' (Syriac: sækla, 'the foolish one'), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior God, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly malevolent.
The demiurge typically creates a group of coactors named 'Archons', who preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it[12]; [The demiurge] is blind; because of his power and his ignorance and his arrogance he said, with his power, "It is I who am God; there is none apart from me." When he said this, he sinned against the entirety. And this speech got up to incorruptibility; then there was a voice that came forth from incorruptibility, saying, "You are mistaken, Samael" - which is, "god of the blind."
From The Hypostasis of the Archons or The Reality of the Rulers, Nag Hammadi Library, Codex II, trans. Bentley Layton.[15].
The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as flawed or a production of 'error' but nevertheless as good as its constituent material might allow[3]. This world is typically an inferior simulacrum of a higher-level reality or consciousness. The inferiority may be compared to the technical inferiority of a painting, sculpture, or other handicraft to the thing(s) of which those crafts are supposed to be a representation. In certain other cases this tendency to view matter negatively becomes more extreme; materiality, and the human body, is perceived as evil and constrictive, a deliberate prison for its inhabitants;
The explanation of this state through the use of a complex mythological-cosmological drama in which a divine element 'falls' into the material realm and lodges itself within certain human beings; from here, it may be returned to the divine realm through a process of awakening (leading towards salvation). The salvation of the individual thus mirrors a concurrent restoration of the divine nature; a central Gnostic innovation was to elevate individual redemption to the level of a cosmically significant event;
Knowledge of a specific kind as a central factor in this process of restoration, achieved through the mediation of a redeemer figure (Christ, or, in other cases, Seth or Sophia).
The model limits itself to describing characteristics of the Syrian-Egyptian school of Gnosticism. This is for the reason that the greatest expressions of the Persian gnostic school - Manicheanism and Mandaeanism - are typically conceived of as religious traditions in their own right; indeed, the typical usage of 'Gnosticism' is to refer to the Syrian-Egyptian schools alone, while 'Manichean' describes the movements of the Persia school.
This conception of Gnosticism has in recent times come to be challenged. Despite this, the understanding presented above remains the most common and is useful in aiding meaningful discussion of the phenomena that compose Gnosticism. Above all, the central idea of gnōsis, a knowledge superior to and independent of faith made it welcome to many who were half-converted from paganism to Christianity. The Valentinians, for example, considered pistis (Greek: "faith") as consisting of accepting a body of teaching as true, being principally intellectual or emotional in character[16]. The age of the Gnostics was highly diverse[citation needed], and due to there being no fixed church authority, syncretism with pre-existing belief systems as well as new religions was often embraced.
The relationship between Gnosticism and orthodox Christianity during the early first and the whole of the second century is vital in helping us to further understand the main doctrines of Gnosticism; due in part to the fact that, prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library (discussed below) much of what we know today about gnosticism has only been preserved in the summaries and assessments of early church fathers. Irenaeus declares in his treatise "Against Heresies" [17] that Gnostic movements subjected all morality to the caprice of the individual, and made any fixed rule of faith impossible. According to Irenaeus, a certain sect known as the "Cainites" professed to impart a knowledge "greater and more sublime" than the ordinary doctrine of Christians, and believed that Cain derived his power from the superior Godhead[18]. Although a Gnostic Christian himself, Clement of Alexandria, a 2nd century church father and the first notable member of the Church of Alexandria, raised a criticism against the followers of Basilides and Valentinus in his Stromata: in his view it annuled the efficacy of baptism, in that it held no value faith, the gift conferred in that sacrament[19].
[edit] Dualism and monism
Typically, Gnostic systems are loosely described as being 'dualistic' in nature, meaning they had the view the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities. Hans Jonas writes: "The cardinal feature of gnostic thought is the radical dualism that governs the relation of God and world, and correspondingly that of man and world."[20] Within this definition, they run the gamut from the 'radical dualist' systems of Manicheanism to the 'mitigated dualism' of classic gnostic movements; Valentinian developments arguably approach a form of monism, expressed in terms previously used in a dualistic manner.
Radical Dualism - or absolute Dualism which posits two co-equal divine forces. Manichaeism conceives of two previously coexistent realms of light and darkness which become embroiled in conflict, owing to the chaotic actions of the latter. Subsequently, certain elements of the light became entrapped within darkness; the purpose of material creation is to enact the slow process of extraction of these individual elements, at the end of which the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness. Manicheanism likely inherits this dualistic mythology from Zoroastrianism, in which the eternal spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu; the two are engaged in a cosmic struggle, the conclusion of which will likewise see Ahura Mazda triumphant.
The Mandaean creation myth witnesses the progressive emanations of Supreme Being of Light, with each emanation bringing about a progressive corruption resulting in the eventual emergence of Ptahil, the god of darkness who had a hand in creating and henceforward rules the material realm.
Additionally, general Gnostic thought (specifically to be found in Iranian sects; for instance, see 'The Hymn of the Pearl') commonly included the belief that the material world corresponds to some sort of malevolent intoxication brought about by the powers of darkness to keep elements of the light trapped inside it, or literally to keep them 'in the dark', or ignorant; in a state of drunken distraction.
Mitigated Dualism - where one of the two principles is in some way inferior to the other. Such classical Gnostic movements as the Sethians conceived of the material world as being created by a lesser divinity than the true God that was the object of their devotion. The spiritual world is conceived of as being radically different from the material world, co-extensive with the true God, and the true home of certain enlightened members of humanity; thus, these systems were expressive of a feeling of acute alienation within the world, and their resultant aim was to allow the soul to escape the constraints presented by the physical realm.
Qualified Monism - where it is arguable whether or not the second entity is divine or semi-divine. Elements of Valentinian versions of Gnostic myth suggest to some that its understanding of the universe may have been monistic rather than a dualistic one. Elaine Pagels states that 'Valentinian gnosticism [...] differs essentially from dualism'[21]; while, according to Schoedel'a standard element in the interpretation of Valentinianism and similar forms of Gnosticism is the recognition that they are fundamentally monistic'[22]. In these myths, the malevolence of the demiurge is mitigated; his creation of a flawed materiality is not due to any moral failing on his part, but due to his imperfection by contrast to the superior entities of which he is unaware[3]. As such, Valentinians already have more cause to treat physical reality with less contempt than might a Sethian Gnostic.
The Valentinian tradition conceives of materiality, rather than as being a separate substance from the divine, as attributable to an error of perception, which become symbolized mythopoetically as the act of material creation[3].
[edit] Moral and ritual practice
The question of Gnostic morality can only be resolved by reading the claims of their contemporaries. Numerous Christian writers accused some Gnostic teachers of claiming to eschew the physical realm, while simultaneously freely indulging their physical appetites; however there is reason to question the accuracy of these claims.
Evidence in the source texts indicates Gnostic moral behaviour as being generally ascetic in basis, expressed most fluently in their sexual and dietary practice.[23] Many monks would deprive themselves of food, water, or necessary needs for living. This presented a problem for the heresiologists writing on gnostic movements: this mode of behavior was one which they themselves favoured and supported, so the Church Fathers, some modern-day Gnostic apologist presume, would be required perforce to offer support to the practices of their theological opponents. In order to avoid this, a common heresiological approach was to avoid the issue completely by resorting to slanderous (and, in some cases, excessive) allegations of libertinism (see the Cainites), or to explain Gnostic asceticism as being based on incorrect interpretations of scripture, or simply duplicitous in nature. Epiphanius provides an example when he writes of the 'Archontics' 'Some of them ruin their bodies by dissipation, but others feign ostensible fasts and deceive simple people while they pride themselves with a sort of abstinence, under the disguise of monks' (Panarion, 40.1.4).
In other areas of morality, Gnostics were less rigorously ascetic, and took a more moderate approach to correct behaviour. Ptolemy's Epistle to Flora lays out a project of general asceticism in which the basis of action is the moral inclination of the individual:
External physical fasting is observed even among our followers, for it can be of some benefit to the soul if it is engaged on with reason (logos), whenever it is done neither by way of limiting others, nor out of habit, nor because of the day, as if it had been specially appointed for that purpose.
– Ptolemy, Letter to Flora
This extract marks a definite shift away from the position of orthodoxy, that the correct behaviour for Christians is best administered and prescribed by the central authority of the Church, as transmitted through the Apostles to the Church's bishops. Instead, the internalised inclination of the individual assumes paramount importance; there is the recognition that ritualistic behaviour, though well-intentioned, possesses no significance or effectiveness unless its external prescription is matched by a personal, internal motivation. This line of Gnostic thought is echoed in Protestantism's emphasis on private interpretation of Scripture, and on its individualist emphasis.
Charges of Gnostic libertinism find their source in the works of Irenaeus. According to this writer, Simon Magus (whom he has identified as the prototypical source of Gnosticism, and who had previously tried to buy sacramental authority of ordination from St. Peter the Apostle) founded the school of moral freedom ('amoralism'). Irenaeus reports that Simon's argument was that those who put their trust in him and his consort Helen need trouble themselves no further with the biblical prophets or their moral exhortations and are free 'to do what they wish', as men are saved by his (Simon's) grace and not by their 'righteous works' (Adversus Haereses[24]).
Simon is not known for any libertinistic practice, save for his curious attachment to Helen, typically reputed to be a prostitute. There is, however, clear evidence in the Testimony of Truth that followers of Simon did, in fact, get married and beget children, so a general tendency to asceticism can likewise be ruled out.
Irenaeus reports of the Valentinians, whom he characterizes as eventual inheritors of Simon, that they are lax in their dietary habits (eating food that has been 'offered to idols'), sexually promiscuous ('immoderately given over to the desires of the flesh') and guilty of taking wives under the pretence of living with them as adopted 'sisters'. In the latter case, Michael Allen Williams has argued plausibly that Irenaeus was here broadly correct in the behaviour described, but not in his apprehension of its causes. Williams argues that members of a cult might live together as 'brother' and 'sister': intimate, yet not sexually active. Over time, however, the self-denial required of such an endeavour becomes harder and harder to maintain, leading to the state of affairs Irenaeus criticizes.
Irenaeus also makes reference to the Valentinian practise of the Bridal Chamber, a ritualistic sacrament in which sexual union is seen as analogous to the activities of the paired syzygies that constitute the Valentinian Pleroma. Though it is known that Valentinus had a more relaxed approach to sexuality than much of the Catholic Church (he allowed women to hold positions of ordination in his community), it is not known whether the Bridal Chamber was a ritual involving actual intercourse, or whether human sexuality is here simply being used in a metaphorical sense.
Of the Carpocratians Irenaeus makes much the same report: they 'are so abandoned in their recklessness that they claim to have in their power and be able to practise anything whatsoever that is ungodly (irreligious) and impious ... they say that conduct is only good or evil in the eyes of man' [25]. Once again a differentiation might be detected between a man's actions and the grace he has received through his adherence to a system of gnosis; whether this is due to a common sharing of such an attitude amongst Gnostic circles, or whether this is simply a blanket-charge used by Irenaeus is open to conjecture.
On the whole, it would seem that Gnostic behavior tended towards the ascetic. This said, the heresiological accusation of duplicity in such practises should not be taken at face value; nor should similar accusations of amoral libertinism. The Nag Hammadi library itself is full of passages which appear to encourage abstinence over indulgence. Fundamentally, however, gnostic movements appear to take the 'ancient schema of the two ways, which leaves the decision to do what is right to human endeavour and promises a reward for those who make the effort, and punishment for those who are negligent' (Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis:The Nature and History of Gnosticism, 262).
Major Gnostic movements and their texts
As noted above, schools of Gnosticism can be defined according to one classification system as being a member of two broad categories. These are the 'Eastern'/'Persian' school, and a 'Syrian-Egyptic' school. The former possesses more demonstrably dualist tendencies, reflecting a strong influence from the beliefs of the Persian Zoroastrians. Among the Syrian-Egyptian schools and the movements they spawned are a typically more Monist view. Notable exceptions include relatively modern movements which seem to include elements of both categories, namely: the Cathars, Bogomils, and Carpocratians which are included in their own section.
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
See also: Neoplatonism and Gnosticism and Neoplatonism and Christianity
Historical relations between antique Greek Philosophy and Gnosticism
See also: Platonic Academy
The earliest origins of Gnosticism are still obscure and disputed, but they probably include influence from Plato, Middle Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism academies or schools of thought, and this seems to be true both of the more Sethian Gnostics, and of the Valentinian Gnostics. [40] Further, if we compare different Sethian texts to each other in an attempted chronology of the development of Sethianism during the first few centuries, it seems that later texts are continuing to interact with Platonism. Earlier texts such as Apocalypse of Adam show signs of being pre-Christian and focus on the Seth, third son of Adam and Eve. These early Sethians may be identical to or related to the Notzrim, Ophites or to the sectarian group called the Minuth by Philo[citation needed]. Later Sethian texts such as Zostrianos and Allogenes draw on the imagery of older Sethian texts, but utilize "a large fund of philosophical conceptuality derived from contemporary Platonism, (that is late middle Platonism) with no traces of Christian content."[41] Indeed the doctrine of the "triple-powered one" found in the text Allogenes, as discovered in the Nag Hammadi Library, is "the same doctrine as found in the anonymous Parmenides commentary (Fragment XIV) ascribed by Hadot to Porphyry [...] and is also found in Plotinus' Ennead6.7, 17, 13-26."[40]
[edit] Rejection by antique Greek Philosophy
However, by the 3rd century Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus, Porphyry and Amelius are all attacking the Sethians. It looks as if Sethianism began as a pre-Christian tradition, possibly a syncretic [42] That incorporated elements of Christianity and Platonism as it grew, only to have both Christianity and Platonism reject and turn against it. Professor John D Turner believes that this double attack led to Sethianism fragmentation into numerous smaller groups (Audians, Borborites, Archontics and perhaps Phibionites, Stratiotici, and Secundians).[43] Scholarship on Gnosticism has been greatly advanced by the discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi texts, which shed light on some of the more puzzling comments by Plotinus and Porphyry regarding the Gnostics. More importantly, the texts help to distinguish different kinds of early Gnostics. It now seems clear that "Sethian" and "Valentinian"[44] gnostics attempted "an effort towards conciliation, even affiliation" with late antique philosophy [45], and were rebuffed by some Neoplatonists, including Plotinus.
[edit] Philosophical relations between Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
Gnostics borrow a lot of ideas and terms from Platonism. They exhibit a keen understanding of Greek philosophical terms and the Greek Koine language in general, and use Greek philosophical concepts throughout their text, including such concepts as hypostasis (reality, existence), ousia (essence, substance, being), and demiurge (creator God). Good examples include texts such as the Hypostasis of the Archons (Reality of the Rulers) or Trimorphic Protennoia (The first thought in three forms).
[edit] Criticism of gnosticism by antique Greek Philosophy
Plotinus considered his opponents heretics[46] and blasphemers, [47] arriving at misotheism as the solution to the problem of evil, taking all their truths over from Plato,[48] coupled with the idea expressed by Plotinus that the approach to the infinite force which is the One or Monad cannot be through knowing or not knowing (i.e., dualist, which is of the dyad or demiurge) [49][50]. Although there has been dispute as to which Gnostics Plotinus was referring to it appears they were indeed Sethian.[51] Plotinus' main objection to the Gnostics he was familiar with, however, was their rejection of the goodness of the demiurge and the material world. He attacks the Gnostics as vilifying Plato's ontology of the universe as contained in the Timaeus. He accused Gnosticism of vilifying the Demiurge, or craftsman that crafted the material world, and even of thinking that the material world is evil, or a prison. As Plotinus explains, the demiurge is the nous (as an emanation of the One), the ordering principle or mind, and also reason. Plotinus was also critical of the Gnostic origin of the demiurge as the offspring of wisdom, represented as a deity called Sophia. She was anthropomorphically expressed as a feminine spirit deity not unlike the goddess Athena or the Christian Holy Spirit. Plotinus even went so far as to state at one point that if the Gnostics did believe this world was a prison then they could at any moment free themselves by committing suicide. To some degree the texts discovered in Nag Hammadi support his allegations, but others such as the Valentinians and the Tripartite Tractate insist on the goodness of the world and the Demiurge.
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DGB
From what has been written above, one can begin to see the immensely complicated evolution of mythology, philosophy, and religion -- all coming together in numerous different 'integrative fusions'. Multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, multi-integrative fusions that from the beginning of Western History -- and we can surmise, the beginning of all of man's history -- have typlified the course of man's evolution.
The only integration left -- for our purposes here anyway -- lie in the integration between man's mythological, philosophical, and religious evolution with man's psychological makeup and evolution.
One of my readers -- Neal -- made a comment to me in his feedback that I think is extremely profound:
'The Big Bang (Theory) stretched the fabric of space and (suggested) that layers of reality may be piled up in super symmetry.'
I think that that theory -- the theory of 'super symmetry' -- is one that wove together Hegel's theory of 'the dialectic', 'dialectic evolution', and 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'.
It is also a theory that weaves together every aspect of 'Hegel's Hotel' -- every aspect of human multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, evolution -- mythology, philosphy, religion, psychology, politics, law, economics, science, medicine, art, architecture, fashion...and more...
Layers of reality -- and ideology -- piled up in super symmetry.
You cannot properly follow the multi-dialectic evolution of mythology, philosophy, and religion -- without following the dynamics of man's underlying psychological structures, mechanisms, dynamics, functions...and these include: association, distinction, projection, introjection, identification, projective-identification, transference, sublimation (projecting one's inner psychological dynamics into one's work), compensation, modification...and more...
What goes up must come down. (the law of gravity)
Opposites attract as well as repel. (An essential component of human evolution -- as well as the evolution of life in general. Call this the essence of 'bio-diveristy'.)
What goes out must come in. (breath, energy, projections...)
What goes in must come out (breath, energy -- unless it's turned to 'fat' which is why 'exercise' is essential to human survival, introjection, identification, transference, sublimation...)
What goes in must come out -- unless we are talking about 'The Hotel California', or stated differently, 'The Hotel Dionysus' (with Apollo nowhere to be found to put ethical and/or life-serving restraints on potentially self-destructive behavior patterns) and/or 'The Hotel Satan' -- where 'pleasure-seeking out of control' (Dionysus) turns to flat-out 'evil, destruction, and death-seeking (Satan).
What goes out must come in. On this point it is time to 'take back our mythological and religious projections and re-own them as different elements of our own psychological make-up and functional or dysfunctional dynamics.
It is down this path that we next go....
It's a steep, and potentially treacherous trip I take you on into the deeper -- and more dangerous -- parts of the human psyche. Freud called it 'the Id'. Jung called it 'the Shadow'. Jung made a distinction between the 'personal unconscious' and the 'collective unconscious'. I make a similar distinction between 'The Learned Transfernce Subconscious' and 'The Genetic Archetype Subconscious' the latter of which from a 'biblical point of view' I associate with 'The Soul'. Pathologically speaking, a person can have either a 'genetically poisoned soul' from their own personal 'Genetic-Archetype Subconscious' or alternatively, they can have a 'poisoned soul' by the contents of their own personally 'Learned Transference Subconscious'. From a 'health' point of view, a person can have a 'healthy soul' based on a combination of the genetic contents of a person's 'Archetype Subconscious', the person's unique 'Transference Subconscious', the integration between them, and their combined integration with 'other ego states and energy centres in the personality', most notably and importantly -- The Central Mediating Ego' (which mythologically speaking from an ancient Greek conceptuology can be viewed as the archetype-figure of Zeus).
Our path to the 'underground' or 'underworld' of our personality goes through Hermes.
4. Hermes
Firstly, from a DGB and Greek Mythological perspective, philosophers and psychologists who venture into the deeper, darker areas of the human psyche, have to have a very 'active and energetic Hermes' (The God-Messenger to and from The Underground.) I include in my list of philosopher-psychologists with a very active 'Hermes' -- Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud and Jung. To be sure, there have been many others -- 'The Marquis de Sade' comes to mind as does Goethe and his literary masterpiece -- 'Faust'.
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Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Marquis de Sade (2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) (French pronunciation: [maʁki də sad]) was a French aristocrat, revolutionary and novelist. His novels were philosophical and sadomasochistic, exploring such controversial subjects as rape, bestiality and necrophilia. He was a proponent of extreme freedom (or at least licentiousness), unrestrained by morality, religion or law, with the pursuit of personal pleasure being the highest principle.
Sade was incarcerated in various prisons and in an insane asylum for about 32 years of his life; eleven years in Paris (10 of which were spent in the Bastille) a month in Conciergerie, 2 years in a fortress, a year in Madelonnettes, 3 years in Bicêtre, a year in Sainte-Pélagie, and 13 years in the Charenton insane asylum. Much of his writing was done during his imprisonment. The term "sadism" (IPA: /ˈseɪdɪzm/) is derived from his name.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play. It was published in two parts: Faust: der Tragödie erster Teil (translated as: Faust: The Tragedy Part One) and Faust: der Tragödie zweiter Teil (Faust: The Tragedy Part Two). The play is a closet drama, meaning that it is meant to be read rather than performed. It is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature.[1]
Goethe completed a preliminary version of Part One in 1806. The 1808 publication was followed by the revised 1828–1829 edition, which was the last to be edited by Goethe himself. Prior to these appeared a partial printing in 1790 of Faust, a Fragment. The earliest forms of the work, known as the Urfaust, were developed between 1772 and 1775; however, the details of that development are no longer entirely clear.
Goethe finished writing Faust Part Two in 1832, the year of his death. In contrast to Faust Part One, the focus here is no longer on the soul of Faust, which has been sold to the devil, but rather on social phenomena such as psychology, history and politics. The second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe's last years and appeared only posthumously in 1832. [1]
Contents [hide]
1 Part One
2 Part Two
3 Relationship between the parts
4 Influence
5 Historic productions
5.1 Part One
5.2 Part Two
5.3 Entire piece
6 References
7 External links
[edit] Part One
Main article: Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy
The principal characters of Faust Part One include:
Heinrich Faust, a scholar, sometimes said to be based on the real life of Johann Georg Faust, or on Jacob Bidermann's dramatized account of the Legend of the Doctor of Paris, Cenodoxus
Mephistopheles, a Devil
Gretchen, Faust's love (short for Margaret; Goethe uses both forms)
Marthe, Gretchen's neighbor
Valentin, Gretchen's brother
Wagner, Faust's famulus
Faust Part One is a complex story. It takes place in multiple settings, the first of which is heaven. Mephistopheles makes a bet with God: he says that he can deflect God's favorite human being (Faust), who is striving to learn everything that can be known, away from righteous pursuits. The next scene takes place in Faust's study where Faust, despairing at the vanity of scientific, humanitarian and religious learning, turns to magic for the showering of infinite knowledge. He suspects, however, that his attempts are failing. Frustrated, he ponders suicide, but rejects it as he hears the echo of nearby Easter celebrations begin. He goes for a walk with his assistant Wagner and is followed home by a stray poodle.
In Faust's study, the poodle transforms into the devil (Mephistopheles). Faust makes an arrangement with the devil: the devil will do everything that Faust wants while he is here on earth, and in exchange Faust will serve the devil in Hell. Faust's arrangement is that if during the time while Mephistopheles is serving Faust, Faust is so pleased with anything the devil gives him that he wants to stay in that moment forever, he will die in that instant.
After the devil wants Faust to sign the pact with blood, Faust complains that the devil does not trust Faust's word of honor. In the end, Mephistopheles wins the argument and Faust signs the contract with a drop of his own blood. Faust has a few excursions and then meets Margaret (also known as Gretchen). He is attracted to her and with jewelry and help from a neighbor, Marthe, the devil draws Gretchen into Faust's arms. Faust seduces Gretchen and they sleep together. Gretchen's mother dies from a sleeping potion, administered by Gretchen to obtain privacy so that Faust could visit her. Gretchen discovers she is pregnant. Gretchen's brother condemns Faust, challenges him and falls dead at the hands of Faust and the devil. Gretchen drowns her illegitimate child and is convicted of the murder. Faust tries to save Gretchen from death by attempting to free her from prison. Finding that they cannot free her, Faust and the devil flee the dungeon, while voices from Heaven announce that Gretchen shall be saved.
[edit] Part Two
Main article: Faust Part Two
Rich in classical allusion, in Faust Part Two, the romantic story of the first Faust is forgotten, and Faust wakes in a field of fairies to initiate a new cycle of adventures and purpose. The piece consists of five acts (relatively isolated episodes) each representing a different theme. Ultimately, Faust goes to heaven, for he loses only half of the bet. Angels, who arrive as messengers of divine mercy, declare at the end of Act V: "He who strives on and lives to strive/ Can earn redemption still" (V, 11936-7).
[edit] Relationship between the parts
Throughout Part One, Faust remains unsatisfied; the ultimate conclusion of the tragedy and the outcome of the wagers are only revealed in Faust Part Two. The first part represents the "small world" and takes place in Faust's own local, temporal milieu. In contrast, Part Two takes place in the "wide world" or macrocosmos.
[edit] Influence
The story of Faust inspired a great deal of literature, music and illustration. Myriad diverse and often conflicting interpretations have been made of Faust Part Two (Jungian, Freudian, sociological, alchemical, Masonic, literary and classical to name but a few).[2]
Although today many of the classical and Central European themes may be hard for the modern reader to grasp, the work remains a resonant parable on scientific learning and religion, passion and seduction, independence and love, as well as other subjects. In poetic terms, Goethe places science and power in the context of a morally-interested metaphysics. Faust is a scientific empiricist who is forced to confront questions of good and evil, God and the devil, sexuality and mortality.
In the fourth book of his main work, Schopenhauer praised Goethe's portrayal of Gretchen and her suffering. In Schopenhauer's consideration of salvation from suffering, he cited this section of Faust as exemplifying one of the ways to sanctity.
The great Goethe has given us a distinct and visible description of this denial of the will, brought about by great misfortune and by the despair of all deliverance, in his immortal masterpiece Faust, in the story of the sufferings of Gretchen. I know of no other description in poetry. It is a perfect specimen of the second path, which leads to the denial of the will not, like the first, through the mere knowledge of the suffering of the whole world which one acquires voluntarily, but through the excessive pain felt in one's own person. It is true that many tragedies bring their violently willing heroes ultimately to this point of complete resignation, and then the will-to-live and its phenomenon usually end at the same time. But no description known to me brings to us the essential point of that conversion so distinctly and so free from everything extraneous as the one mentioned in Faust.
—The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, §68
The German language has itself been influenced by Goethe's Faust, particularly by the first part. One example of this is the phrase "des Pudels Kern", which means the real nature or deeper meaning of something (that was not evident before). The literal translation of "des Pudels Kern" is "the core of the poodle", and it originates from Faust's exclamation upon seeing the poodle (which followed him home) turn into Mephistopheles. Another instance originates in the scene wherein Gretchen asks Faust if he is religious. In German, the word "Gretchenfrage" (literally "Gretchen question") refers to a question of utmost importance.
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2. Heaven and Hell
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Heaven
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Heaven (disambiguation).
Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven; from Gustave Doré's illustrations to the Divine Comedy.Heaven may refer to the physical heavens, the sky or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English, however since at least AD 1000, it is typically also used to refer to an afterlife plane of existence (often held to exist in another realm) in various religions and spiritual philosophies, often described as the holiest possible place, accessible by people according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith etc.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Basic concepts
3 Entrance into Heaven
4 In the Bahá'í Faith
5 In Buddhism
6 In Christianity
6.1 Early Christian writing
6.2 In Orthodox Christianity
6.2.1 Eastern Orthodox cosmology
6.3 In Roman Catholicism
6.4 In Protestant Christianity
6.5 Seventh-day Adventist
6.6 Jehovah's Witnesses
6.7 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
7 In Hinduism
8 In Islam
9 In Judaism
9.1 In Kabbalah Jewish mysticism
10 In Polynesia
10.1 Māori
10.2 Tuamotus
11 Heaven in fiction
12 Criticism of the belief in Heaven
13 Notes
14 References
14.1 Print
14.2 Documentaries
15 External links
[edit] Etymology
The modern English word Heaven derives from the word heven around 1150, which developed from the Old English heofon around 1000 referring to the Christianized "place where God dwells" but earlier meaning "sky, firmament"[1] (attested from around 725 in Beowulf); this is cognate with other Germanic languages - Old Saxon heƀan ("sky, heaven"), Middle Low German heven ("sky"), Old Icelandic himinn ("sky, heaven"), Gothic himins, and possibly with the addition of an -l suffix; Old Frisian himel, himul ("sky, heaven"), Old Saxon himil, Middle Dutch and modern Dutch hemel, Old High German himil and modern German Himmel, all of which derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *Hemina-.[2]
[edit] Basic concepts
While there are abundant and varied sources for conceptions of Heaven, the typical believer's view appears to depend largely on his religious tradition and particular sect. Some religions conceptualize Heaven as pertaining to some type of peaceful life after death related to the immortality of the soul. Heaven is generally construed as a place of happiness, sometimes eternal happiness. A psychological reading of sacred religious texts across cultures and throughout history would describe it as a term signifying a state of "full aliveness" or wholeness.
In ancient Judaism, the belief in Heaven and afterlife was connected with that of Sheol (mentioned in Isaiah 38:18, Psalms 6:5 and Job 7:7-10). Some scholars asserted that Sheol was an earlier concept, but this theory is not universally held. One later Jewish sect that maintained belief in a Resurrection of the dead was known as the Pharisees. Opposed to them were the Sadducees who denied the doctrine of Resurrection (Matt. 22:23). In most forms of Christianity, belief in the afterlife is professed in the major Creeds, such as the Nicene Creed, which states: "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."
Examples of the different terminology referencing the concept of "heaven", in the Christian Bible are:
the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3), the kingdom of the Father (Matthew 13:43), life (Matthew 7:14), life everlasting (Matthew 19:16), the joy of the Lord (Matthew 25:21), great reward (Matthew 5:12), the kingdom of God (Mark 9:45), the kingdom of Christ (Luke 22:30), the house of the Father (John 14:2), city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebr., xii), the holy place (Hebrews 9:12; D. V. holies), paradise (2 Corinthians 12:4), incorruptible crown (1 Corinthians 9:25), crown of life (James 1:12), crown of justice (II Timothy iv, 8), crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4)
In Buddhism there are several heavens, all of which are still part of Samsara (illusionary reality). Those who accumulate good karma may be reborn[3] in one of them. However, their stay in the heaven is not eternal—eventually they will use up their good karma and will undergo a different rebirth into another realm, as humans, animals, or other beings. Because Heaven is temporary and part of Samsara, Buddhists focus more on escaping the cycle of rebirth and reaching enlightenment (Nirvana). In the native Chinese Confucian traditions Heaven (Tian) is an important concept, where the ancestors reside and from which emperors drew their mandate to rule in their dynastic propaganda, for example.
Some faiths teach that one enters heaven at the moment of death, while others teach that this occurs at a later time. Some of Christianity along with other major religions maintain that entry into Heaven awaits such time as, "When the form of this world has passed away." (*JPII)
Two related and often confused concepts of heaven in Christianity are better described as the "resurrection of the body", which is exclusively of Biblical origin, as contrasted with "the immortality of the soul", which is also evident in the Greek tradition. In the first concept, the soul does not enter heaven until the last judgement or the "end of time" when it (along with the body) is resurrected and judged. In the second concept, the soul goes to a heaven on another plane immediately after death. These two concepts are generally combined in the doctrine of the double judgement where the soul is judged once at death and goes to a temporary heaven, while awaiting a second and final physical judgement at the end of the world.(*" JPII, also see eschatology, afterlife)
In some early religions (such as the Ancient Egyptian faith), Heaven was a physical place far above the Earth in a "dark area" of space where there were no stars, basically beyond the Universe. Departed souls would undergo a literal journey to reach Heaven, along the way to which there could exist hazards and other entities attempting to deny the reaching of Heaven.
One popular medieval view of Heaven was that it existed as a physical place above the clouds and that God and the Angels were physically above, watching over man. Heaven as a physical place survived in the concept that it was located far out into space, and that the stars were "lights shining through from heaven".
Several works of written and filmed science fiction have plots in which Heaven can be reached by the living through technological means. An example is Disney film The Black Hole, in which a manned spacecraft found both Heaven (or another dimension) and Hell located at the bottom of a black hole.[4]
In Christianity it is believed that Heaven is a spiritual place, unreachable by humans and only to be entered after death, although it can hold physical things, such as the Ascension or Assumption.
Many of today's Biblical scholars, such as N. T. Wright, in tracing the concept of Heaven back to its Jewish roots, see Earth and Heaven as overlapping or interlocking. Heaven is known as God's space, his dimension, and is not a place that can be reached by human technology. This belief states that Heaven is where God lives and reigns whilst being active and working alongside people on Earth. One day when God restores all things, Heaven and Earth will be forever combined into the 'New Heavens' and 'New Earth'.
[edit] Entrance into Heaven
See also: Salvation and Soteriology
Religions that teach about heaven differ on how (and if) one gets into it, typically in the afterlife. In most, entrance to Heaven is conditional on having lived a "good life" (within the terms of the spiritual system). A notable exception to this is the 'sola fide' belief of many mainstream Protestant sects, which teaches that one does not have to live a perfectly "good life," but that one must accept Jesus Christ as his/her savior, and then Jesus Christ will assume the guilt of his/her sins; believers are believed to be forgiven regardless of any good or bad 'works' one has participated in.[5]
Many religions state that those who do not go to heaven will go to a place "without the presence of God", Hell, which is eternal (see annihilationism). Some religions believe that other afterlives exist in addition to Heaven and Hell, such as Purgatory. One religion, universalism, believes that everyone will go to Heaven eventually, no matter what they have done or believed on earth. Some forms of Christianity, including Jehovah's Witnesses, believe Hell to be the termination of the soul.
People who come close to death and have near death experiences report meeting relatives or entering "the Light" in an otherworldly dimension, which share similarities with the religious concept of Heaven. Even though there are also reports of distressing experiences and negative life-reviews, which share some similarities with the concept of Hell, the positive experiences of meeting or entering 'the Light' is reported as an immensely intense feeling state of love, peace and joy beyond human comprehension. Together with this intensely positive feeling state, people who have near death experiences also report that consciousness or a heightened state of awareness is at the heart of the experience of 'Heaven'.[6]
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Hell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about the theological or philosophical afterlife. For other uses, see Hell (disambiguation).
Medieval illustration of Hell in the Hortus deliciarum manuscript of Herrad of Landsberg (about 1180)In many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife, often in the underworld. Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as endless (for example, see Hell in Christian beliefs). Religions with a cyclic history often depict Hell as an intermediary period between incarnations (for example, see Chinese Diyu).
Punishment in Hell typically corresponds to sins committed in life. Sometimes these distinctions are specific, with damned souls suffering for each wrong committed (see for example Plato's myth of Er or Dante's The Divine Comedy), and sometimes they are general, with sinners being relegated to one or more chamber of Hell or level of suffering. In Islam and Christianity, however, faith and repentance play a larger role than actions in determining a soul's afterlife destiny.
In Christianity and Islam, Hell is traditionally depicted as fiery and painful, inflicting guilt and suffering.[1] Some other traditions, however, portray Hell as cold and gloomy. Despite the common depictions of Hell as a fire, Dante's Inferno portrays the innermost (9th) circle of Hell as a frozen lake of blood and guilt.[2] Hell is often portrayed as populated with demons, who torment the damned. Many are ruled by a death god, such as Nergal, the Hindu Yama, or the Christian Satan.
In contrast to Hell, other types of afterlives are abodes of the dead and paradises. Abodes of the dead are neutral places for all the dead (for example, see sheol) rather than prisons of punishment for sinners. A paradise is a happy afterlife for some or all the dead (for example, see heaven). Modern understandings of Hell often depict it abstractly, as a state of loss rather than as fiery torture literally under the ground.
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DGB
'Heaven' and 'Hell' can be viewed as symbolic projections of places we can go to in our mind and body. We can view them as 'ego states', 'energy centres' and/or as extreme bi-polar 'rooms' in our individual and/or collective human psyche.
Likewise, 'Satan' can be viewed as the 'alter-ego' or 'extreme extension' of 'Dionyysus'.
Dionysus, for the most part, pursues and 'seduces others to follow' a path of pleasure, hedonism, celebration, sensory exhilaration, sexuality, wine and dancing, group celebration, mass group 'intoxication'....but for the most part it can be construed as a very pleasurable, sensual and seductive form of group intoxication. Maybe not to the extent that it involves serious 'drugs and/or alcohol' that may have serious side effects 'during the party or after the party is over'. If someone collapses and dies while taking 'Ecstasy at a Rave Party' -- then this can be viewed as Dionysus being taken too far. This can be viewed as Dionysus meeting Satan.
Satan takes over where Dionysus leaves off. Satan takes over in the transition from pleasure to pain, and in the transition from health to sickness, living to dying, life to death. I have written before about my sister-in-law's tragic 'crack' addiction -- and her dying in the most miserable and horrific fashion before she turned 40. Her organs 'rotting inside her'...and going into a coma before it was finally 'lights out'....That -- in DGB mythological terminology -- is Dionsysus meeting Satan -- and Satan taking away a young woman's life in the worst of fashions. Any 'pleasure' that has a 'horrific side effect of pain...a pain that is leading the person towards 'death' -- is a person being seduced by first Dionysus, then Satan, of making a conscious or subconscious choice -- to 'visit Satan in Satan's Room'.
I'm thinking now of our Canadian and American troops. In Afghanastan -- in Satan's Room. Same with Iraq. I blame Bush for Iraq. The war should have stayed in Afghanastan -- and Bin Laden should have been 'contained' so that he could not escape into Pakistan. As Obama has stated, Bush basically 'took his eye off the ball' -- he switched value priorities from 'the perpetrator of 9/11' to someone -- Sadaam Hussein -- and a country -- Iraq -- that has never been proven to have been involved in 9/11. That kind of 'deviation' from a United Nations sanctioned missed --to one that was not internationally sanctioned -- is the ultimate danger, and was the ultimate downfall of the Bush regime and The Republican Party: international arrogance, a Washington superiority complex, lack of international diplomacy, negotiation, integration, 'trashing The United Nations', essentially 'trashing all international law' except Bush's rendition of 'international law' -- which would never have passed any court of law: 'Wild Capitalism', 'Wild National Unilateralism' leading to what Naomi Klein calls 'Disaster Capitalism' -- and ultimately leading to 'Satan's Room' in Iraq (and a crash of The American economy that was trying to fund two wars at the same time -- while putting them both on 'credit').
Now we see another door to Satan's Room opening back up again in Ireland.
And another door to Satan's Room opening up in North and South Korea.
Before that it was Vietnam.
I think back to when I was living in Toronto in the 1980s. I believe it was the 1980s. A new phenomenon was starting to happen that Toronto had never seen before. Vietnamese gangs forming and gaining strength down in Toronto's Chinatown around Spadina and Dundas. Their appearance in the front pages of the Toronto media were marked by 'business invasions' and 'house invasions'. Gangs breaking into houses in the middle of the night while families were sleeping or otherwise occupied. Being robbed, violently abused, taken to interact machines, kidnapped and/or the like...
This was about the time that I was involved with both The Gestalt Institute of Toronto, The Adlerian Institute of Ontario (through OISE), and starting to more seriously study Freud, Psychoanlysis, 'transference' and 'identification with the aggressor'...
And I thought to myself...'What if ...these Vietnamese 20 and 30 year old had come from Vietnam during the Vietnam War. What if they had been young kids during the Vietnam War. American soldier 'invading their homes...and violating their families...' I seek not to judge here -- not the American soldiers who were just following orders and doing what they were trained and told to do; nor these Vietnamese men who we don't know what kind of 'potentially horrific background they may have come from' -- nor do I wish to show any undue compassion and 'bleeding heart liberalism'...to crimes that were horrifically unacceptable....
I am just trying to 'explain a phenomenon'...and this is the direction my mind went. What if these young Vietnamese men were following Freud's concept of 'the repetition compulsion' and 'the death instinct' and what I called back then using Psychoanalytic (Ferenczi, Anna Freud) terminology -- 'identification with the aggressor' -- or in my own terminology at the time -- 'transference reversal' or a compulsive-transference 'return to the scene of the crime', a compulsive transference return to 'Satan's Room'.....only as the 'victimizer' rather than as the 'victim'...'the controller' rather than as the young boy whose family was being 'helplessly controlled...and abused...'...
And now as I am sitting here some 20 or 25 years later, hashing back over these horrific visualizations and more concretely coming to terms with this new concept I am developing....'A Transference-Compulsion to Return to Satan's Room'...
I go back over the Obama political campaing...and to his controversial relationship with the 'raging pastor Jeremy Wright'...
And even though I blame the most controversial pastor for not properly distinguishing between 'the will of the American goverment' (and read here also: Bush and the ex-Republican Party) as opposed to 'the will of The American People' who pushed the Republican Party out of power and chose a much more 'humanistically-oriented' President Obama...
I don't blame Pastor Jeremy Wright for 'mixing religion with politics' -- The Republican Party does it all the time 'in the service of their political interests'...
And I don't blame the controversial and provocative pastor Jeremy Wright for basically 'deconstructing' American -- or shall we say 'Republican' -- foreign policy.
After all, it is not the ex-President Bush who had to/has to meet and greet the families of sons' who have been to Iraq -- and who have come back in a body bag or in a wheelchair...
And it is not the ex-President Bush who had to/has to meet and greet these families with no medical insurance and family members with health problems that they cannot afford to pay for...
It is no the ex-President Bush who had to/has to meet and greet these families who can't afford their rent or their utility bills or food to put on their family's table....
And meanwhile....billions and billions of dollars are flowing to Iraq when these dollars could have already solved the problem of 'universal health care' or 'health care for the children' -- before Obama even set foot into office.
So I am thinking of all of this...and I am going back to this 'phenomenon' of 'Vietnamese gangs' and 'house invasions' in the 1980s...
And as much you may 'hate the embellished words and/or the theatrical overgeneralizations, the movement towards 'divisionism' and 'reverse-racisism' and 'hatred' and 'black disempowerment and victimization' and 'intolerance' of the provocative and controversial Pastor Jeremy Wright'... I continue to hear some -- let me totally emphasize this last choice of 'some' -- 'words of truth' -- that continue to ring in my ears off a speech that I heard on 'Youtube'...and am about to dig up again in his final and probably most 'infamous' words from his most infamous sermon -- emphatically punctuated by the waving of the pastor's one arm like an umpire signalling a home run...
'The stuff we have done overseas is now brought back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost. Violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism.' (DGB -- I will add a few more: intolerance begets intolerance and racism begets reverse racism.)
And the quote from the philosopher Gautama Buddha that most resembles the last sentence above runs something like this:
'Victory breeds hatred, for the qonquered is unhappy.'
And that idea can be found even further back in Western history, back in ancient Greece, in the words of the second oldest Western philosopher, Anaxamander:
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Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
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Call that 'cosmic dialectic justice' in the words of the very profound and first dialectic-evolutionary philosopher, Anaxamander.
(Back to The Reverend's own words again...) 'A white ambassador said that, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up. And move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised.
Well, frankly speaking, I think the American people did wake up -- did and do believe that we are tredding close to a dangerous precipice, did and do believe that we are tredding dangerously close to 'Satan's Door' -- indeed, America is already partly inside it -- and the American people decided collectively that they didn't/don't want 'the foreign policy' of The American Republican Party to take them any deeper inside Satan's Room... They chose Obama to get America out of Satan's Room. And to get America's economy back on track again... Whether that happens or not the future...and history needs still to tell..
As intelligent adults, we all have the ability to independently decide how much of what Wright said in those sermons had a 'truth element' attached to it vs. how much was 'distorted epistemological garbage'.
The truth often lies somewhere between 'dialectical, epistemological extremes...
It us up to us all -- in the spirit of democracy -- to both independently and collectively decide where this 'truth lies'.
Jeremy Wright is not Martin Luther King.
Jeremy Wright is not Obama.
Obama is not Jeremy Wright.
But we can all learn from people who we may not agree with.
We can all learn -- both 'good' and 'bad' things -- even from philosophical, political, and/or religious extremists.
Usually extreme philosophical perspectives are compensatory evolutionary statements based on extreme personal and/or social experiences.
And even though we may not like the Reverend Jeremy's extreme perspective, extreme sermons, extreme personality, and he was definitely not 'taken out of context'...
Still there is 'some truth value' in what he had to say...
American soldiers entering 'Satan's Room' in other parts of the world -- regardless of the 'good' or 'bad' ideology that takes them there -- breeds 'poisoned souls'.
And American soldiers cannot come back to America without being at least 'partly poisoned souls' themselves.
Plus you open up one door to Satan's Room. And that opens another. And another. And another...And the next thing you know, the world is running on hate and the 'Us vs. Them' syndrome. The Salem Witchhunts. The Spanish Inquisition. The French Reign of Terror. The Nazi Holocaust. Vietnam. The Genocide in Darfur. Satan's Door opening up again in Ireland. Always partly open in Palestine and Israel. Now North and South Korea again...Tell me that doesn't go back at least partly to the Korean War...
Satan's Door and Satan's Room is very much like 'The Hotel California'.
Indeed it is partly 'The Hotel California'.
You can get in easily but you may never get out.
That's Satan's Room.
And personally, I think the infamous Reverend Jeremy Wright...
Was preaching partly from within Satan's Room,
Or at least at the entrance to the door of Satan's Room...
Partly warning us of its dangers...
While partly entering it himself...
When it comes to 'righeous preaching'...
Whether it be from a religious pulpit...
Or a Washington political podium...
Nothing is usually ever...
'Black' and 'white'...
Just two extremes negotiating or not negotiating towards the middle...
Or the middle 'flying off the handle' towards each polar extreme...
That was the ex-Bush-led Republican Party...
And that was the 'compensatory measures' of the infamous Reverend Jeremy Wright.
Both can take us, and/or did take us, to Satan's Door.
-- dgb, March 11th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
