This World Is Not Home

Few will want to hear that this world and the body are not home. That may because it has become too homey for some. Maybe some others really are at home here.

"At Home"

Is that really a matter of convenience or pleasure? Excuses for sadistic behavior may be convenient, and pain relievers may be pleasurable, but neither forms the basis for down-home charm.

When Gnostic teachings and texts say that this world is not home, it is meant that this world is not home to the spirit. The flesh is at home here more than anywhere else. The soul may become habituated to looking down into the mire of ignorance, cruelty, self-obsession, and desire, afflicted by compulsive hatred and toxic love, but it may also come to appreciate higher things.

World-Hating?

The charge that Gnostics are world-hating should really be examined a bit more carefully. Those who often make the charge, claim that their Biblical god approves of worldly and religious rulers, many of whom cause quite a bit of cruelty and needless harm. They often claim that the bad things that happen are actually good or somehow deserved, whether as a form of karma or judgment of a ruling creator god. The Bible admits that the world was cursed by their god.

By contrast, in Gnostic texts it is said that this world is stamped in the image of a beautiful higher spiritual realm. In gnostic-related material it is said that every time you split wood or lift a stone Christ is there.

A key point of Gnostic disdain for this world, is that this world is not all that our spirit is, and by comparison, this world is so much more limiting and dangerous and harmful, that it cannot be compared favorably with spirit.

When Gnostic texts say that this world is based in ignorance, how is that more radical than the view accepted by most people that the laws of physics just exist, they aren't personal?

When Gnostic texts say that this world is perverse, how is that surprising? Most people are able to express the view that the world can seem like a sick joke. Kafka is still read in high school classes for a reason. Existentialism isn't just for depressives. A form of positive psychotherapy, Logotherapy was developed by an existentialist psychologist who survived the holocaust, Victor Frankl.

Body-Hating?

The charge that Gnostics were body-hating also deserves more scrutiny. Many who make such criticisms of Gnostics, believe that female bodies were cursed by their own god in the garden of Eden, as it says in their Bibles. They may also over-emphasize crucifixion and legalistic codes of self-denial. When their religion teaches self-control it is called a virtue, but when Gnostics did the same they are called pretenders or body-haters. Such distortions need to be corrected.

The long version of the Apocryphon of John lists a number of names of malevolent or ignorant beings associated with the body. In the context of the times, such lists were considered useful for healing. Medicine of the time combined folk-medical approaches with magical techniques and exorcism. Apparently the authors of this text were interested in healing bodies and bringing comfort to the sick.

That the flesh leads us away from spiritual efforts, is not a controversial idea.

Many Gnostics advocated ascetic practices, but some seemed to approve of marriage, while others were charged with sexual libertinism. The texts that we have often do not mention sexual morality in clear terms, but some of them do advocate self-control. The counsel to retreat from this world can be taken in different ways, as the world tempts us to seek approval from religious leaders and peers in many contradictory ways.

Orienting Differently

The call that Gnostic texts make, is to our souls, to orient towards the spirit, so that we may be illuminated, guided, directed, towards something far beyond this world. Whatever keeps us fixated upon this world is a trap, whether it is addiction to desires or fears of this world's punishments, or whether it is mindless religiosity or the manipulation games of unscrupulous leaders, religious or secular, or the approval of other people who claim to be the spokespeople for morality.

This call goes out to whatever souls may seek something better than this world.

The spirit knows this world is not home.

The charicature of the world-hating, body-hating Gnostic, gets in the way of hearing the challenge of the call. (... and so what if Gnostics do hate this world and do deprecate the flesh, anyway? How would that have to interfere with spirituality?)