GIVING UP THE GHOST (A Gnostic Vision)

(Essay 9 in the Perennial Psychology Series)

‘I lived in this world of darkness for myriads of years and no one ever knew that I was there.’

Gnostic Hymn

‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’

Gospel of Thomas

The perennial tradition has also been referred to at various times as a gnostic path. Many commentators view Gnosticism as referring to a system of religious beliefs that emerged in the early centuries of the common era (around 1^st and 2^nd century C.E.). These ideas flourished widely around the Mediterranean regions in these times and synthesized in many and various groupings and sects. Whilst these semi-religious groupings shared some core ideas they diverged into competing systems of cosmic and religious-spiritual hierarchies. Gnostic elements also found their way into the western renaissance, and many researchers have noted their Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Persian influences. As stated previously, genuine wisdom streams inevitably crystalize into outward forms and structures. With time, these structures cease to be vitalized and updated with living content. Hence, the perennial psychology has ‘travelled’ within the Gnostic path. In this case, it is Gnosticism and yet it is not.

            Gnosis is a term that signifies the direct perception of knowledge. In this sense, gnosis is very much at the heart of the perennial path. Gnostic insight gave rise to some of the ideas, concepts, and philosophies that developed into the more structured thought of Gnosticism. It is valid for the discussion here of the perennial tradition to delve, albeit briefly, into some of these gnostic concepts. This is especially relevant for modern times as many of these ideas and concepts are percolating through contemporary cultures. As I shall show, some of the most popular recent films are treatments of gnostic themes. In a world of increasing materiality, the gnostic vision is as pertinent as ever.

            As stated, gnosis refers to a direct perception of the greater Truth. It offers an expression of a particular knowledge of reality. This knowledge ultimately transforms the human psyche and heightens the perceptual faculties. In its essence, it is developmental knowledge arrived at intuitively. It is perennial because intuitive truth is not changed by time, place, or the people who perceive it. It is, has been, and always will be. It is only the outer manifestations and expressions of this truth that vary. The perennial gnosis develops a distinct consciousness within a person that gives them a new permanence to their cognition and thus actions. The person is then able to see through the falsehoods associated with ordinary, consensus reality. This position allows them to seek liberation from the ‘shackles’ of this world. Put simply, perennial gnosis is a quest for a new type of consciousness within the human that modifies perception of knowledge in relation to a higher truth and reality. Such knowledge is contingent with the present moment and has no place in the past. It is a living knowledge that fills the shape of the container into which it is poured. Gnosis liberates the human being from its state of inner infancy.

            The perennial gnostic path is a chain of transmission rather than an enduring form. This transmission can provide knowledge about the structure of reality. Or rather, it provides the means whereby a person may approach Truth/Reality themselves. It is not a system, yet it exists as a systematic body of knowledge. And this chain of transmission has also existed at all times and continues to exist in contemporary cultures today. Gnosis is a specific perception vis-à-vis Reality. It provides direct experience that is beyond all forms of secondary perception or cultural systems of knowledge. The experience of the Real triggers an awakening of a specific impulse, or faculty, within the person. This inner impulse can be said to be the source of inner revelations and vision. There is a component within each person that can be activated. For the most part, this component remains within a state of semi-latency, awaiting certain impulses. Within this state of semi-latency, it still attempts to communicate through symbols, dreams, synchronicities, and non-verbal means. For further development it requires an active participation from the person. The symbols given out by this inner component can reveal a path of psychological development towards awakening. The gnostic side of the perennial psychology recognizes that some people are able to ‘auto-activate’ their developmental potential. Within each person resides a residual memory of wholeness. That is why the perennial gnostic path emphasizes the state of dormancy – the ‘fallen state’ of humanity.

            The gnostic path recognizes that psychological development is not an easy task for we are surrounded by forces that seek to dominate this ‘fallen’ state. Such forces seek to compel us with foolish thoughts and behaviour. People are imbued with unconscious compulsions that act against their developmental potential. These forces have been given many names over the years, which shall not be dwelt further upon here. It is each person’s responsibility to overcome these negative forces. Unless a person can release themselves from such negative influences, the perennial path will always be blocked to them. Ordinary life renders a person under the dominant sway of incompatible forces.

            Perennial gnosis perceives these degenerative impulses at work. The developmental path recognizes that there exist forces of ‘psychic impoverishment.’ This recognition is especially important for the contemporary world, for such forces are not only active now as ever, yet more visible in their machinations. When people lack sufficient psychological insight, they are open and vulnerable to such oppressive and degenerative impulses. Unawareness of these forces can bring about emotional, mental, and physical destabilization. The perennial psychology does not regard this as being pessimistic but rather as a necessary and functional insight toward inner liberation. Human life is a process of ‘soul-making’ (as discussed in the first essay in this series). Those persons who identify with the physical-material world to the exclusion of their psychic-inner natures have allowed the physical world to render them as ‘dead inside.’ That is why there is frequent mention in wisdom traditions about death, dying, and journeys into the underworld.

As human beings, we not only have responsibility to the external world but also to the interior world – the individual’s inner life. The perennial tradition shows that a person cannot truly live by the conventions of society alone or from the impacts of everyday life. People also need sustenance from the source that is beyond all social institutions, and from beyond physical life itself. No healthy tree can disown its own roots that grow deep into the dark soil below. To do so would bring death. The human being is rooted in its own soils too.

In order to achieve permanent change, a person must develop themselves from within, not just changing their ideas. In the Gospel of Thomas, it is said: ‘There is light within a man of light, and it lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, there is darkness.’ The perennial gnostic path opposes the sense of meaningless in life and reaches for correspondence with the essential. Such meaning cannot be given but must be lived and experienced. The living of such meaning is a mysterious process that is revealed also through the power of myth, dreams, and the imagination.

An individual may not be free to choose their destiny, yet they are free to choose whether they wish for gnosis and genuine knowledge of Reality or not. A person who chooses to become an aspirant upon the perennial path needs to make enough personal effort to gain sufficient self-awareness to break away from a state of conditioned ignorance. Gnostic perception is a true awareness of oneself and of one’s destiny and place in the universe. First, however, one must recognize that ordinary life is as if living within a veil of illusion.

The Veil of Illusion

The inner reality is real. People are conditioned into thinking that ‘psychic’ elements are inferior to the physical things of life because they are ‘non-material.’ Modern societies, especially, neglect or ignore completely the power of psychic phenomenon. The unfortunate result of this is that humanity, by and large, is oppressed by forces that dominate and suppress inner impulses and developmental faculties. What many people are experiencing today is the moral uncertainty that precedes a new understanding, as the old patterns of thought cease to be adequate for a new phase of human development.

            Human enterprises and institutions – those systems of power, social management, political bodies, etc. – are naturally flawed by human design. They operate and function through processes that sustain a view of reality that is limited. In some cases, this is a deliberate act. The world in which humans live is a machination of unrealized desires, emotions, and unenlightened agendas. However, within this opaqueness lies immense potential for the light to enter. The human psyche must recognize the need to filter the negative influences of this world and refine them. As long as the majority of people expect all problems to be solved outside of themselves, human societies will continue to be dominated by unruly forces. Liberation from these forces depends upon people willing to assume the responsibility of consciousness, and to project this inner reality outwards upon an external environment. In the words of one commentator: ‘man is called upon, in this struggle against the generalized oppressiveness of the real, to create a soul for himself, or if you prefer, to nourish, fortify, and enrich the luminous spark he carries in his innermost being.’ ¹

                    Activating and enriching the luminous spark is part of the process of the perennial tradition. That is the great perennial task: to become what we have always been, and to show others the way through our own individual presence and behaviour. Through our deliberate and conscious presence, we can assist others to become what they have always been also.

 The situation as presented from a gnostic viewpoint – as living within a reality that is an illusory one – is becoming more prevalent within modern cinema. The ‘gnostic memes’ – or rather, perennial codes – have been transmitted in an array of films; especially so in the past few decades. The following are examples, although there have been many more: Total Recall (1990 – remade 2012); Pleasantville (1998); Dark City (1998); The Truman Show (1998); eXistenZ (1999); The Thirteenth Floor (1999); The Matrix (1999), Donnie Darko (2001); Vanilla Sky (2001), Cloud Atlas (2012); Doctor Strange (2016); and Ghost in the Shell (2017).

Films with a gnostic element often show ambiguous relationships between humans and other intelligences; reality and dream fantasy; the interior psyche and material reality; evil and the angelic impulse. And through these dualistic struggles there is the underlying sense that despite the commercial core of Hollywood there is also something else - something almost otherworldly and unknowable - lurking within. These celluloid projections transmit a vague feeling that something isn’t quite right, and this makes the viewer question their own sense of reality. Such gnostic visions not only unravel the falsity of the external world but also point towards the potential for finding transcendence; or of breaking through the veil of illusion.

One of the most entertaining and accurate portrayals of the gnostic vision in cinema in recent years is The Truman Show (1998). Directed by Peter Weir and written by Andrew Niccol, this popular film will be known to many readers. It tells the story of the character Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey) whose life is a live reality show, unbeknown to him. The television producer named Christof (played by Ed Harris) is the Gnostic demiurge – or false god - who has created an artificial world: a huge domed town with computer-controlled weather patterns, fake sky and sea, and populated by actors playing their scripted parts. He has created a simulated world where everything seems to be true but is not. We know this because we are the ‘viewers’ outside, looking in (we are in fact the viewers of the viewers of the drama). The principle character of Truman Burbank is ignorant of his condition and of the nature of his world - to him everything is real. His life has been created (manipulated) to exist as a character in his own television show. He is watched 24/7, fed false information, and his dreams are constantly dashed or talked down by those around him. He lives in an unseen prison from which he is unable to escape for he does not consider escape a necessity. The character of Truman is both a willing prisoner of his false reality as well as a manipulated prisoner by those external to his reality. And yet, as is central to the gnostic vision, something eventually triggers Truman - he falls in love.

Truman (true man) notices the beautiful Sylvia (played by Natascha McElhone) who from afar attracts him with her presence. Because she is just a vision to him, someone he has yet to meet, she exists outside of his everyday mundane, tangible material existence. He sees, recognizes, something in her that provides him with a vision, and this ultimately becomes his liberating catalyst. After she is taken away from him (to leave the show forever) for breaking the ‘game rules,’ Truman is motivated to leave his old world - to seek his beloved (the archetypal Gnostic quest). Yet this longing within him creates a feeling of melancholy (detachment from the Real). It is through this melancholy that Truman begins to notice things he hadn’t recognized before - the same people saying the same things at precisely the same time, and odd anomalies appearing in his ‘reality.’ In other words, he has been triggered into awareness, and now he is able to see his world from a different perspective. His eventual planned escape culminates in an almost mythical voyage across the sea. Despite his conditioned fear of water, he plunges himself into the abyss. He shows that he is ready to die, to sacrifice himself, in order to secure his liberation. In perennial terms, he is ready to ‘die before you die’ in order to shed his old life. Finally, he reaches the ‘end’ of his world and arrives at the door (portal) to what is for him another reality. Yet before he leaves his old world the voice of Christof - his ‘creator god’- addresses him in a soft voice. He tells Truman that he is safer within this world; that he is protected and loved. ‘Was nothing real?’ asks Truman. Christof replies that he, Truman, was real. And that since there are lies and deceit on both sides, there is no difference, and thus he would be better to choose the sanctuary of security over the unknown. Truman, now knowing the false reality in which he lives, decides that the truth is a price worth paying for. He takes a bow and leaves the stage.

The camera then shifts to scenes of millions of people all over the world watching blank, static screens as the real-time live feed is cut. Their ongoing addictive dose of reality TV has been cut off. The last viewers shown are two parking garage attendants who seem stunned at first. Then they reach for another piece of pizza and turn over the channel to see what else might be on television to watch. As the film finishes, what do we do? We leave the cinema or turn off the television and go and do something else. Everything is just television, an enjoyable piece of entertainment. It’s not real. And then we go about our business as usual, as if our own scripts have been written. Yet those of us who watched the film have been the real viewers all along, and this is the gnostic twist.

As the viewer turns away from the film, they may ask themselves – was anything recognized within The Truman Show that reflects our own existence? Once triggered into awareness, the person is then confronted with a similar dilemma that faced Truman. Should you continue with your old life knowing that it is all a grand illusion, a false reality? Or are you willing to take the plunge into the abyss and be willing to ‘die before you die’ in order to find the truth? Does the individual have the urge, the drive, which motivated Truman to finally reject the comfort and security offered to him by his ‘creator’? Could any of us make that decision to walk through the door and to throw away all that we have known in our lives? Truman – the ‘true man’ – did, and he reached his goal.

The Truman Show could be said to have parallels with the ancient Gnostic tale of ‘The Precious Jewel,’ as was told in the first essay in this series. The heart of gnostic understanding shows that the first move must come from within each person. The individual may not always find the goal by seeking, and yet seeking is the first condition required. Few are those that realize that there exists the possibility for a developmental path toward a level of perception beyond the current state. It is through the here and now of the material world that a genuine seeker is forced to operate.

            As already noted, the perennial tradition does not attempt to missionize or to convince people of its presence or its truth. It does not need to. It is down to each person to convince themselves whether they are sincere and genuine in their seeking. Everything comes back to the individual. This knowledge cannot be gained or understood unless a person first makes some corresponding room for it within them. To repeat - the seeker is both the walker and the path. And one of the first steps to be taken is to recognize that the dominant view of the world is only a description of a limited reality. As the mystic Iskandar of Balkh once proclaimed – ‘You shall become aware, through daily practice, that what you imagine to be your self is concocted from beliefs put into you by others, and is not your self at all.’

Only by realizing that the mind’s eye is blind can one begin to gain the first slither of sight. Until the seeker can feel this longing for the genuine inner life within, then they remain attracted, like the moth, to the larger flame offered by the distractions of the external world. These distractions are sometimes useful – they can also be necessary – yet it is important to recognize them for what they are. They are part of the ‘game of life’ that is played in this reality. It is vital to know how to play the game.

Taken from ‘THE MODERN SEEKER: A Perennial Psychology for Contemporary Times’ (Beautiful Traitor Books, 2020). Available online as print & ebook.

References

¹ Lacarriere, Jacques. 1977. The Gnostics. London: Peter Owen, p50.