Story published in L.A. Times about my church…
> October 6, 2002 E-mail story Print
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> METROPOLIS / CHAT ROOM
> Antiquity’s Gnostic Church Is Enjoying a Renaissance
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> Times Headlines
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> By AL RIDENOUR
> Near the nexus of Hillhurst Avenue and Sunset and Hollywood
> boulevards, Bishop Stephan Hoeller has presided since 1977 at Ecclesia
> Gnostica, the tiny, incense-infused chapel of the Gnostic Society.
> Gnosticism, an ancient form of Christianity that flourished in the 1st to
> 3rd centuries, rejects doctrines such as original sin and emphasizes
> transcendence through inward, intuitive knowledge (”gnosis”) of the
> divine spark in each individual. Condemned as heresy by early Roman
> Catholic authorities, gnosticism has drawn renewed interest in recent
> decades thanks in part to the writings of Carl Jung and religious scholar
> Elaine Pagels. Hoeller, 70, a Hungarian emigre whose parish extends to
> Portland and Salt Lake City, recently published “Gnosticism: New Light on
> the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing” (Quest Books).
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> Where exactly do mainstream Christians and Gnostics part ways?
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> Where it comes to what is considered salvific, or what saves. We
> don’t proselytize. There’s no belief that coming to us you’ll be
> immediately saved and by not coming to us that you’ll be lost. Gnosticism
> has often been described as “salvation through knowledge,” but Gnosis
> doesn’t mean knowledge of particular data. Rather, it’s an inner
> “knowingness,” a change of consciousness. Salvation through the death and
> suffering of Jesus is not part of our thought.
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> What is the place of Jesus in Gnostic tradition?
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> The Gnostics have held that there are always messengers of light
> who come from the inner worlds as archetypes of transformation, though
> many feel that Jesus was perhaps the latest and the greatest of these.
> However, you’ll have no difficulty finding experiences resembling gnosis
> within other religious contexts–the samadhi of the yogis, the nirvana of
> the Buddhists, satori within Zen Buddhism.
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> How would you explain the revived interest in gnostic thought?
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> I believe there are two reasons for this. The first is the
> so-called Nag Hammadi Library [1,500-year-old papyrus codices found in
> Egypt in 1945], the largest body of original Gnostic literature ever
> discovered. It was translated into English in the mid ’70s, giving us a
> more accurate look than we’d had through hostile secondhand sources. This
> allowed people to see that gnosticism is really far less bizarre and
> marginal than has been assumed. The second issue is a certain harmony
> between this material and modern and postmodern thinking. Some of these
> convergences occur within the depth psychology of Carl Jung. I also
> believe we are beginning to find echoes of Gnostic philosophy within the
> study of chaos theory or the approach of deconstructive thinkers.
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> Is Los Angeles “Gnostic-friendly”?
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> When I came from Hungary, I had a kind of poetic intuition that the
> city was re-embodiment of the cultural and spiritual diversity of ancient
> Alexandria where the Gnostics, the Neo-Platonists and all these old boys
> were. America enjoys exceptional religious freedom, particularly among
> those who have migrated to the West Coast and no longer feel compelled to
> simply follow the faith of their parents.
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> Gnosticism was mentioned in some discussions of the 1997 Heaven’s
> Gate cultist suicides in Rancho Santa Fe. Can you comment on that?
>
> People in the press and even some scholars jumped to the
> unjustified conclusion that because Gnostics feel earthly life is a
> relatively lowly condition, they are therefore disposed toward
> religiously motivated suicide. But nowhere in our tradition do we find
> any indication of this. We believe in overcoming the darkness, not
> plunging into it.
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> How does a Gnostic transcend worldly entanglements?
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> It’s sort of what our Buddhist friend Alan Watts called “the
> shifting of the psychological point of gravity.” Gnostics aren’t exhorted
> to embrace poverty or chastity or vegetarianism. We look inward, but
> don’t deny the outer world. We can smell the flowers–maybe even pick a
> few along the way. But we must keep walking.
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> Where does Gnosticism fall in with the New Age movement?
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> New Agers are very much “in denial” of the dark side, and the
> Gnostics not at all. We feel that we must recognize both dark and light.
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> Have you personally ever been called a heretic?
>
> Not since my youth. When I’d have the occasional dispute with
> Catholic clergy and fellow students, I’d hear, “Ah, there goes Hoeller
> the heretic.” Even then it was rather jocular.
