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Robinson also affirms that the Nag Hammadi Coptic texts “have much in common with eastern religions and with holy men of all times.”  In this Robinson is correct.  Gnosticism is one particular form of Eastern, pagan, polytheistic religion, and in particular a “nominally Christian” expression of the so-called mystery religions of the Roman Empire. Clearly, this ancient spirituality would fuel the growing interest in the contemporary interfaith syncretism that now seeks to unite all the religions, so Robinson affirms that “these texts have much in common with …. the counter-culture movements coming from the 1960’s.”

Indeed, the introduction of these texts happened as the hippies were going east and the gurus were coming west to “liberate” sex and spirituality.  It is truly fascinating that the discovery and dissemination of the Gnostic texts coincide with the dominance in the West of both occult Jungian psychology (Jung was a Gnostic) and the 1960s cultural revolution whose radical agenda has become public policy in the US America of the 21st century.

In the important area of psychology, the ground for Gnostic spirituality had been prepared by Freud, who radically undermined the entire Enlightenment project by his revelation that below or beyond the rational mind existed an overwhelmingly potent repository of nonrational forces that did not readily submit to either rational analysis or to conscious manipulation.  His pupil Carl Jung took things much further, claiming to discover in the human psyche a collective unconscious common to all human beings and structured according to powerful archetypal paranormal principles of worldwide paganism.

In other words, the modern Gnostics immediately saw the value of these texts as fitting perfectly with the “progressive” culture of pagan Eastern spirituality that has developed since the 1960s.

A contemporary Wiccan priestess of Isis, Caitlin Matthews, agrees: “Gnosticism serves most admirably as a bridge for paganism to infiltrate Christianity [in our time].  She announces, “the Second Coming of the Goddess,” that is, the “Sophianic Millenium,” the era of goddess-blessing and worship when all peoples and faiths will be united.  For this to happen, the monotheistic Yahweh must be silenced as an era of polytheism approaches.

Before we move on:

  1. What factors coincided with the discovery of the Gnostic texts known as the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Coptic texts?
  2. What are the philosophical connections between these cultural developments? How did Gnosticism serve as a bridge for paganism into Christianity?