Queer Gnosis

podcast entire interview
By Troy Williams

Is humanity itself endangered by our religious beliefs?  When we look to religion to seek answers to global problems is it possible that the religions themselves might actually be the source of our crisis? John Lamb Lash is a practicing mythologist and the author of, Not In His Image: Gnostic Vision, Deep Ecology and the Future of Belief. Lash explores the violent rise of Christianity and their campaign of genocide against the ancient Pagans. He further suggests that the Gnostic myth of the divine Mother, woven together with contemporary deep ecology, might offer a course correction for the evolution of our species.

Troy Williams: You begin your work in 415 A.D, with the murder of a Pagan noblewoman outside of the Great Library at Alexandria. Who was Hypathia? 

John Lamb Lash: Hypathia was the daughter of the head of the school of mathematics at the famous Alexandrian Library.  She was a teacher, a scientist, a mystic and a writer. Hypathia was driving home in her chariot when she was confronted by a Christian mob and murdered in the street. Many historians believe that the murder of Hypathia represents the death and the end of the classical world and the entrance of Europe into the dark ages.  Hypathia embodied the Pagan intellectual class of Europe in pre-Christian times. They were teachers, mystics, writers, artists, and poets. Everything that they represented was symbolically destroyed by her death. 

TW: What were the Christians so threatened by? 

JLL: It took three or four centuries for the ideology, belief and practices of the new religion to be defined. The belief system in a savior, the belief that an off-planet father will stand over the judgment of the world.  All of that was formulated over 400 years.  The people who were formulating Christianity did not enter into a friendly dialogue with the religions that existed in the ancient world.  Rather than come to them in a spirit of generosity, they came to the Pagans with a spirit of hostility. Christianity rose to power primarily through events of violence, imposition, coercion and the destruction of any competition.

TW:  Break down what you call the Redeemer Complex.  Take us through that. 

JLL: The first element is the belief in a father god, (not a mother), who alone creates the world.  That father god is an off-planet deity.  He is not in the creation — the creation is his handiwork.  The second element is a chosen people who reflect the awareness of the father god.  Third, the messiah is sent by the father god to guide, drive or compel the chosen people to fulfill their destiny.  The fourth point is the day of retribution. There is a day of judgment and universal damnation for those who have not followed the divine plan.  This whole package I call the “Palestinian Redeemer-Complex”.  It was formulated over many centuries in the Jewish religion and then it was passed over into Christian ideology and survives today.

TW:  We see the genocide of the pagans, the destruction of the Mysteries, the crusades, the inquisition, the conquering of the New World – all justified by the cross. 

LJJ: That may sound like a sweeping generalization.  I’m not arguing that we can place all of human violence on Christian ideology.  I’m arguing for something more subtle. Humans are capable of violence and oppression. When that tendency becomes legitimated by a grand religious belief system, then the violence takes on a super-human dimension – it becomes totally out of scale.  And that is the kind of violence we have seen associated with the Christian religion for 2000 years now. 

TW:  And it provides a cover and justification for dominators and abusers to maim and kill. Take us through what you call the Victim-Perpetrator Syndrome. 

JLL: For some 50 years in American psychology we have developed the idea of the abuse bonding, or what I call the “victim-perpetrator syndrome”.  If there is an abuser and there are people who are abused, there will be a bond formed between them.  And some of the abused will then become abusers in turn. And even the abused people in the system who do not become abusers will remain faithful and loyal to those who abused them. We see it in dysfunctional families where children who are beaten to an atrocious degree will stand up and defend their parents. So I looked at the victim-perpetrator syndrome to analyze history and found that the ideology of Christian salvation is a concept that is really pathological and serves as a cover for the victim-perpetrator game to continue. 

TW: If perpetrators of abuse are more often than not abused themselves –what abuse was inflicted upon the Europeans prior to the 1st Century that produced for them this drive for domination through violence?

JLL: Go back and read the Old Testament.  Read how Jehovah treats his chosen children.

TW:  He’s always threatening to wipe them out!

JLL:  He punishes them, and then he promises to reward them more highly than any other nations.  But at the same time that’s only a lure to pull them deeper into the bonding. The next thing you know they’re being punished again and told they’re not good enough.  If you read the Old Testament with this victim-perpetrator syndrome as a key it’s a pretty eye-opening experience.  The second historical example is when the Europeans discovered America. They systematically perpetrated genocide on the Native Americans.  Why did they do that when they could have acted otherwise and made alliances with those people?  My answer is that the Europeans who came to the Americas in the 15th century had already had genocide and violence enacted on them through the imposition of Christianity.  They were the abused who turned into the abusers.

TW: Let’s talk about Jesus. He is considered the very best human to ever walk the earth.  You are arguing that’s not the case.

JLL:  I do not easily take a swipe at Jesus.  I understand that a great many people locate their human dignity in the figure of Jesus.  But on the other hand as an historian and as a person in search for the truth of the human condition, I have had to dig deeply into this Jesus persona.  And I cannot agree with the claim that sometime in the first century there was a wonderful man who had beautiful things to say and somehow that all got corrupted.  If you look at the historical records of the time, the evidence strongly suggests that there never was an original pure and beautiful message of Jesus.  It’s something that we would have liked to be so.  We have such an expectation projected on Jesus. He is the figure in which we invest our human dignity. The question I raise in my book is are we investing that in the wrong place?

TW: You write that Jesus’ teachings: “Resist not evil”, “turn the other cheek”, “love your enemies”, “do good to those that hate you”, actually allows this victim-perpetrator bond to continue.

JLL:  To me it’s self-evident. “Love your enemy” and “turn the other cheek”.  Take a few steps and look at that ethic.  There are two things wrong with this.  This ethic favors the perpetrator.  It’s a way of giving liaises fair to the perpetrators by accepting abuse.  The second point, it’s very imbalanced because it’s a message given to the people who have been subjected to violence.  If the message of Jesus is so universal and profound, why isn’t he saying something to the perpetrators as well? The only thing his ethic does for the victims is giving them the sense of a high moral ground.

TW:  Which keeps the bond intact. I attended an Earthdance downtown as a group of people gathered to pray for world-peace.  Two prayers struck me in particular.  A member of the North West band of Shoshone stood up sang and spoke of a prophecy of our pending destruction – and then invoked, “Jesus our Savior” and the need for deliverance.  After he spoke an African Christian minister gave a prayer and invoked Jesus again, praying for world peace. I was awe-struck.  Here were two men, representing two cultures that have been utterly devastated by Christianity, and they are both invoking the deity of their oppressors to rescue them from the very oppression that the deity created in the first place!

JLL:  It’s a staggering insight.  You couldn’t ask for a more clear illustration of the victim-perpetrator bond than that.  I’m sure they were totally sincere in their beliefs, but I would call them seriously deluded.  Here they are pleading to this symbolic head of a belief system that has actually caused great destruction to the very cultures that they come from – Africa and the Native American culture.  What they are doing essentially is pleading with their perpetrators in a sense saying, we want to reconcile with you.  But reconciliation only favors the perpetrator – and the game goes on. 

TW:  Let’s segue into deep ecology and the myths of Sophia. 

JLL: I believe the path of deep ecology is a way back to what we had before the rise of Salvationist ideology.  It’s a way back to the understanding of the earth as a divine presence and of our connection with ecstasy and the knowing of the earth in a non-dual sense.  That is, the knowing that we are part of the cellular life and consciousness of the earth and that we are one with the wisdom of the planet and there is no separation. I think deep ecology is taking us back to Sophia, the goddess of wisdom and to the Pagan Mysteries that were massacred by the rise of Christianity.

TW: You are talking about a total identification and immersion with nature and a life force that can heal our psychic wounds.

JLL: Indigenous wisdom offers two key factors that we need for both our moral and physical survival.    One of those is the ability to learn from the direct contact with the natural world. Learning from the earth, from the animals from the trees and the sky. The second key factor is rapture, ecstasy and the connection to the life force of the earth.  We have lost that ecstasy and we have lost our ability to learn from the earth.  But we didn’t loose it from a natural process.  It took 2000 years to beat it out of us.  This rapturous bond was violently ruptured.  It’s no surprise that we find in the world today full of people who are depressed, lost and taking anti-depression pills.  The one thing that can save us from the abyss of loneliness and depression is our connection with the divinity of the earth itself.  I believe we are now at a threshold where these things can be understood and we can recapture and recover what was so brutally destroyed.

TW:  A key aspect of spiritual development and healing the idea of ego-death and an expanded identification.

JLL: Ego death was the primary experience that people went through in the ancient Pagan religions called The Mysteries.  The Mysteries were prevalent all over the ancient world, from the British Isles, all through Europe, Spain, France, Italy and around the Mediterranean Basin. There was a vast network of these so-called Mystery Schools.  The founders and teachers of these Mysteries were called the Gnostics — “those who know as god knows”.  The primary act of the Mystery initiations was to let go of your sense of self, momentarily. Your sense of ego, your sense of separation, and your identity dissolved so that you could participate in a greater sense of being. The concept of ego-death is something you may come by nowadays in Tibetan Buddhism and in other forms of Asian mysticism, where you learn that you must momentarily forget about yourself. You don’t annihilate who you are – but you momentarily transcend the limits of your personal self to go into a sacred knowing.  This is the path of initiation.

TW: We don’t have the Mysteries anymore. Today we have The Secret and a lot of pop New Age ideas. How does one go about experiencing that reconnection with Sophia?

JLL: The first step toward recapturing the Mysteries of Sophia, whom the Pagans understood as the divinity and intelligence of the Earth, is to learn about that ancient Pagan religion and to appreciate, understand and absorb it.  I think this is a deeply personal and intimate process.  Everyone makes the re-connection to Sophia in their own way.  And as they do, groups of people will form.  There will be a cellular organization. Not a recreation of the Mystery Schools in a New Age sense – but I think there will be a cellular rebirth through certain groups of people who share this passion for the Goddess Sophia and a passion for the earth. 

TW:  And we are seeing an increased awareness of global warming and a renewed passion for healing the planet.

JLL:  Of course there is, but beware in mind the difference between “deep-ecology” and “ecology” in general.  Deep-ecology asserts that the earth, the sky, the trees, animals, microbes and plants have an intrinsic sacred value apart from us, and apart from their use for us.  In ecology we think, let’s take care of nature because we need nature in order to survive.  That’s a very healthy attitude, but it’s not yet the spiritual attitude represented in deep-ecology. I feel that deep-ecology is more compatible with the view of ancient Mysteries.    It’s a spirit of humility.  I would never say that we “save the planet”.  To me that’s very arrogant.  We’re not going to save the planet. We’re going to correct ourselves so that we can live with the planet – and the planet will heal us. The divinity of the earth feels for us.  We have to correct ourselves so that we can become aligned with that greater life-force – Sophia.   

John Lamb Lash can be found at www.metahistory.org

By Troy Williams

  “Post-gay” is the new queer. And like it or not, a new generation is giving the terms “gay” and “lesbian” an ontological reboot.  Post-gay is the forward concept that sexual orientation no longer comprises the totality of identity. Sexuality is now rapidly evolving as an integrated aspect of our larger selves. This category offers interesting potential for our social liberation and may help us finally confront the dark possibility that a gay identity might actually be detrimental to our mental and emotional wellbeing. Yes, you read me right. I’m suggesting that a singular gay identity may actually be contributing to a deep psychological alienation. Please hear me out. 

As a Mormon growing up in Oregon I always felt like a freakish outsider. Mormons are universally weird.  As an adult I traded my temple recommend for my gay ID and once again found myself numbered with another strange (though extraordinary) group of queer outsiders.  All my life I’ve defiantly identified with the margins.  My personal ontology has been built on exclusion.  And not surprisingly, in my life I’ve experienced a profound sense of separation, depression, and estrangement. Coincidence?

Humans are hardwired to make meaningful connections. When this basic need is disrupted we often self-destruct. Many queers confront suicide, depression, alcoholism, drug or sex addiction. Many of us struggle to maintain healthy romantic partnerships. We are working through a lot of pain.  And so, with the best of intentions, we organize gay “pride” to cover our public shame and to tell ourselves that we really are, in fact, okay. But sometimes pride and gay positive messaging doesn’t address the source of our anxiety. 

Our emotional wellbeing depends on a healthy connection to family, friends, lovers and nature.  And yet we live in a culture that distorts and circumvents genuine bonding. I blame an overexposure to advertising, TV, social intolerance and patriarchal religion. But whatever. We try and make do. We construct narratives and build alliances. We identify with any group that will take us in and love us for who we think we are.  But sometimes we still feel crazy.
Buddhist philosophy suggests that suffering comes from living in the illusion of separation.  Ok.  So what then is the illusion?   

We have become fixated on a “single-self identity”, or what mythologist John Lash refers to as the “exclusional identity that disallows a more fluid, playful sense of self”.  We become so committed to our egoic identities that it becomes difficult to identify with something greater. Buddhism teaches the importance of “egolessness”, which Pema Chodron describes as “a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world.” Our preoccupation with ego hinders our awareness and connectivity to other aspects of our lives. And our obsession with a “gay” identity may keep us from recognizing that we actually hold multiple selves.  We have gender, class, political, religious, national and ethnic identities, as well as career titles — all of which shape who we are.

But they are at best, social constructs.  They’re not real. We fortify our ego with conceptual holograms. French theorist, Jean Baudrillard details how everything has become a lifeless simulacra of a non-existent reality. What he calls our “messianic incantation of the virtual”.  We desperately shop and consume in a narcissistic attempt to prop up and maintain the illusion of our precariously insecure holographic identity. But something inside keeps screaming – this isn’t how it should be.  Our soul craves authentic meaningful connection.

Now this may sound like so much post-modern masturbabble, but any of you who have tripped on magic mushrooms or experienced a blissful state of no-mind while meditating know there are other realities and possibilities.  Remember that intense rush of ecstatic joy the first time you peaked on ecstasy?  Your ego took a backseat and for the first time your essence felt plugged into Everything. All artifice was exposed and every inhibition vanished into a total immersion of wholeness.  That is, until you came down. 

Is it possible to soften the ego and loosen up our identity in a manner that doesn’t require being cracked-out?   Can we truly let go and tap into a deeper cosmic-centered reality?  After all, the iron that flows through our blood was formed from the scattered stardust that escaped that great galactic explosion.  We are the result of an indomitable life force that continues to evolve.  Throughout billions of years we emerged from sub-atomic particles to multi-cellular organisms to self-aware humans.  What a fantastic leap.  We did that! Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard believes that our evolution is incomplete.  She predicts the emergence of a Universal Human that will have the capacity to co-evolve with nature and cosmos.  “Put yourself into that 14 billion year story,” Hubbard told me, “so that if you get depressed or discouraged, you can go within to that source of creation and realize that it’s evolving as You now.”  Hubbard believes we must shift from the egoic self to our deeper essence in order to jumpstart the next level of social evolution. 

And herein lies the potential in healing our individual isolation. We hide in identity but our star-born bodies are connected to the life force of the Universe.  That’s our immutable essence.  It’s impossible to feel lonely when you are plugged into something that gigantic.

Being gay is fantastic. It is one of my favorite personal characteristics.  But I also realize that an excessive focus on any one aspect of our multiple selves fragments the psyche and reinforces the illusion of separation. “Post-gay” encourages the balanced integration of all our multiple identities. “Metaqueer” moves us beyond our current fixation with identity politics and toward a profound engagement with our allies in common justice.  Ultimately our psychological and emotional wellbeing depends on nurturing an authentic connection to each other, the environment and the Universe.  This should be our goal.  I was born a white male Mormon American who later developed homosexual desires and a post-gay worldview. My emerging identity is now a cosmo-global citizen participating within a living planetary ecology. From here I am fluid.  I feel connected and sane. And though ancient, we experience all things new.  It’s very cool.