You know somethings you say there reminds me of reaction I have had reading this book I began reading ages ago.
I had been put off it several years back after reading a review (cant remember why now), but when I started reading articles by him, I tended to dig what he said in the articles................
And then I got to buy his book and really looked foreward to it. It was a challenge to me pre-existing knowledge from my research but I was willing to take that challenge
The book I'm on about is titled Not In HIS Image, by John Lamb Lash.
See I was under the impression that Gnosticism was a belief system that was feeing the world and body as a trap, and the dream was to get back to some kind of eroticised spirit world. I couldn't dig that at all, and had read a very good long essay that greatly argued against it.
To summarize, it said that it was the Orphics who kind of took over the more primal Dionysian religion and created oppressive dogma which is what influenced the Gnostics, and Christianity
Lash was saying that this was not so, and he is really a loner with this theory--as far as I'm aware. BUT his interest in all things psychedelic swayed me to hear him out, and I looked foreward for this book!
Its got as great cover. So I began reading it, and I like the beginning, because he says how the Christian religion creates a victim/perpetrator syndrome where both 'need' each other. And that this self-destructive belief system is the reason for the Holocaust against the indigenous peoples it encountered. I could very much understand that.
Then I stopped reading it, because of other interests, and recently went back to reading it again. Lash then starts talking about the elite of the Gnostics who can see microsopically and commune with an amorphous light which is a manifestation of 'Sophia' the 'fallen Goddess' which is this world. And he rates the 'romantic' love of nature, trees, clouds, etc as less than this 'superior' contact with this white light.
Well, as soon as I read this my tail went right down
...I couldn't relate with that at ALL! I felt very let down, because up to this I had been quite seduced by Mr Lash, but this idea to me was a huge let down. Everything I hate. The idea of a select few who are in contact with 'an event'--thus implying that deep reverence for the actual events of nature---the moving clouds, trees swaying in the wind, birds singing and flying...flowing water, and so on---that that is somehow inferior to the contact with some talking whie light.
Then he begins giving the Gnostics cosmological mythos, and claims the planet is 'trapped'...And I said --in my head--"HAH"---its just the same old shit! All his talk about Gnosticism being misunderstood, when he is basically just saying same thing and trying to pretentiously match up modern science to back up his nonesense
So, I have quit reading the book, because I really have better things to do with my time such as learning the guitar etc. But I thought I would mention this, because your thoughts remind me of mine. It is like the idea of limiting things---an amazing diverse experience to singular-sounding events
I think we agree however that Metzner is meaning nonordinary communication in much broader ways
Also I would really like to add an important point. It is known that fairies, spirits, whatever you want to call them are known to also be mischievous-----now whether this reflects the observer/listener of them *I dunno-----but we always have to keep our critical faculties with us also
I see it as where indigenous wisdom meets modern reason. I think this synthesis will be inevitable.......................and thats a good thing
