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Book description
Ioan P. Couliano’s, The Tree of Gnosis, pursues the complex and fascinating landscape of pre-Christian and early Christian Gnosticism, such as Manicheanism, Marcionism, and later neo-gnostic Bogomilism, making its way to medieval Catharism, and reaching up into the modern era with an analysis of modern nihilism. Couliano’s target is western dualism as such, which he sees as permeating western culture, manifesting in some of its most extreme forms in the groups and bodies of work that we have come to know as gnostic. According to Couliano, Gnosticism is the outcome, not of an original source, group, or cultural tradition, but of the inherent tendency of the human mind to search out logical conclusions to the problems it encounters. Gnosticsm, argues Coulinao, was a logical consequence of the simple premises of a dualistic system (i.e., binary program) operating through and in human cognition. He wrties, …It is the system that creates the worldview out of an initial experience of duality in a world based on dualities (day-night, heat-cold, right-left, women-man, etc.), the human mind can set up a limited number of rules to define a system. Run for significant time through other minds, these rules tend to produce more and more solutions included in the system; their potential quantity is virtually infinit (74). Western dualism is seen by Coulinao as a computational program operating on and through the minds of diverse and varied groups everywhere, resulting in a wide permutation of solutions and outcomes based upon the rather simple premises from which it starts. It thus follows, that the manifestations of dualism will appear in a number of seemingly disconnected places and times (and thus negating the need for origin stories). Couliano ends his treatment of Gnosticism by asking the question whether modern nihilism (e.g., the death of God) is not simply one further move that can be made amongst the formulation rules of dualism. This offers up an intriguing speculation: is modern civilization gnostic? If so, to what extent? And to what degree might gnostic solutions offer potential moves for the problems we face in the modern world?The theoretical underpinning of Couliano’s work is based upon what he refers to as a morphodynamic theory of history. Morphodynamics is “…the theory of form, formation, and transformation of organic natures,” (4) and Couliano goes to great lengths to establish that a study of history should be grounded in such morphodynamics. Coulinao draws an example of morphodynamics from Goethe’s Italian Journey, in which Goethe reports his search for the ideal plant (Ur-Planze) from which all other plants are derived. Couliano writes, “Goethe did not know that what he was looking for was not a natural object but its ideal program” (4). Thus, for Coulinao, a morphodyamics of history leads to posting what he refers to as “ideal objects,” logical constructs that operate upon human minds everywhere, and traces of which we can see in the historical currents and events that shape our world. It is unclear whether Coulinao is asserting the existence of such ideal objects, existing in their own platonic dimension, or is employing it as an analytic tool for analyzing historical trends. Regardless, Coulinao employs the notion of ideal objects to derive several fascinating conclusions about the doctrines and practices we have come to know as gnostic.If it is indeed the case that the Gnostics were following out the lines of thought available to them based upon a dualistic view of the world, then the Gnostics can be seen as revolutionary philosophers articulating their doctrines in the form of myth, symbolism, and allegory. Couliano sees in the Gnostics a diverse range of intellectually astute and revolutionary hermenutes employing a principle of “inverse exegesis” (121) to come to terms with, and ultimately resolve, the logical and philosophical contradictions that would have been apparent to anyone approaching the book of Genesis from a platonic background. Coulinao writes,…what would occur if an interpreter instead identified the creator God of Genesis with the Platonic demiurge? A transformation of philo would ensue, in which the Platonic Logos would become the God of the Tanakh. The immediate consequence of such a simple operation would be a God superior to the Old Testament God…An interpreter of the Bible who was basically more platonic than Jewish would immediately stumble upon this contradiction, which would set into motion the principle of inverse exegesis… (124).The creator of the world, then would have been seen as an ingnorant demiurge by these radical hermenutes, a demiurge, who having turned away and forgotten his own creator mistook himself as the one true God. The material world, being the product of this demiurge, is then seen as a degradation of the true reality and light of the ultimate God, a world of illusion and bondage that must be overcome to reach back to that divine source. The Gnostics, then, in following out this logical consequence, would engage in a series of “misreadings” or “creative exegesis” in which, “…this exegesis reverses, constantly and systematically, the received and accepted interpretations of the Bible” (121).This could very well be one of the reasons why the Gnostics still hold a powerful place in the mythical imagination, for they, as Couliano suggests, were conveying “…hard philosophy and entirely determined by philosophical premises and by the necessity of the making sense of the many contradictions of a precedent mythical narrative, the Book of Genesis” (135). The Gnostics, perennially and systematically persecuted for their beliefs and doctrines, can be seen as “…champions of free thought in Western history…” (135) embodying the freedom and courage to “…think through not one but all possible choices of a logical problem” (242).Oddly enough, Coulinao sees the doctrines of Western dualism and Gnosticism as nothing more than innocuous “mind games,” games which would only take on a revolutionary and deadly aspect when combined with games of power. However, this distinction overlooks that the production of knowledge claims (religious, scientific, philosophical, etc.) are inherently bound together with power—that the production of knowledge is itself a move in a game of power. To insist otherwise undermines the Gnostic aura that Coulinao attempts to wrap around them—it is the the courage to produce interpretations and new doctrines that rebel against and contradict received tradition that qualifies them for the status Coulinao gives them. By hastily separating games of mind from games of power, Coulinao fails to appreciate the genuinely revolutionary capacity of “…think[ing] through not one but all possible choices of a logical problem”.Finally, Coulinao appears to neglect one of the main aspects of Gnosticism especially relevant to those for who Gnosticism informs their contemporary esoteric theory and practice. Gnosis, defined as a direct experiential apprehension of the divine, captures what is uniquely relevant to contemporary esoteric practitioners. In effect, the ideal object of Coulinaos morphodynamics of history is precisely what is to be overcome, or de-programmed, dissolving the dualisms that this ideal object in its logical dimension produces. It may be useful to look at how the Gnostics may have in fact been trying to de-program this logical operation performed by human cognition everywhere, possibly through their spiritual praxis and disciplines. In short, may it have been the aim of Gnostics to deprogram the ideal object which gave rise to their dualistic worldview, to reach back towards the primordial unity in a direct experiential apprehension of the divine? Coulinaos account of Gnosticism, although admirable on many points, appears incomplete without this account of the experiential component and goal of gnostic traditions.As difficult as this book is, working through it was well worth the time and effort. It is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the traditions commonly labeled as “gnostic” or for those whose own tradition claims some kind of lineage or influence from ancient Gnosticism. Finally, the book hints at the possibility of understanding Gnosticsm as a phenomenon still very much relevant to contemporary culture and civilization; thus, for those seeking to understand just where their own esoteric, occult, or spiritual traditions stand in relation to contemporary culture, this book can begin to carve pathways in that direction.
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