I have a book coming out soon—no release date yet, but hopefully in the first half of 2025. It’s tentatively titled The Discovered Self. One of the main themes is that the “identity” you keep hearing about, as in “I identify as x,” is a form of Gnosticism. The subtitle is Identity in the Therapeutic Age. What I’m saying is that we become convinced we discover “identity” in our subconscious inner being, but we don’t, really. It’s just a self-deluded absorption of ideology from the cultural zeitgeist. We take it to be esoterically derived, something that is mystically just there, a kernel of uniqueness to be discovered. Because it’s all about me.
After developing this thesis I came across the work of Eric Voegelin, who said something similar, not about the therapeutic mindset in particular, but ideologies in general, though one he mentioned in passing was “psychotherapy.” By “ideology” I mean (and Voegelin meant) a system of belief based on a false understanding of human nature and our relationship to God.
I recently read an analysis of Voegelin’s work that says Voegelin meant a sort of de-spiritualized Gnosticism. I don’t think that’s right. Even avoiding talk about angels and demons, one can see “spiritual” knowledge is found in discovering the true self within. If you say you acquire knowledge esoterically, that’s necessarily spiritual, though you claim to be an atheist, because you assume no material explanation for your identity. I think it’s an invocation of evil spirit, in fact. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against . . . spiritual wickedness in high places.”
I’ve written a lot this year about what I’ve called “the tragic sense.” It’s awareness of our own death and of our own capacity for evil. It’s the anxiety or alienation we feel as a result of the Fall we read about in Genesis. We desired God’s knowledge of good and evil, and we got it. We’ve lived among thorns ever since.
Old-school early Christian Gnosticism was a misguided attempt to deal with the tragic sense. Orthodox Christianity says you can’t avoid evil, including your own, you can only be redeemed out of it, and so you must live with the tragic sense and allow it to serve humility. That’s why Gnosticism was deemed heretical.
In the same way, the postmodern idea of “identity” is a way to avoid the tragic sense, and in the same way as ancient Gnosticism. Voegelin was right in thinking collectivist ideologies not rooted in sacred order are Gnostic. They are all sourced in mankind’s continued desire to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In all belief systems we either acknowledge God as creator, or ourselves as creator at the instigation of the serpent. When we unhitch from God, we’re left with the negative elements of the tragic sense, and so we medicate, so to speak, with ideology.
Ideologies are man-made belief systems like Marxism and hydra-headed variants like critical race theory, alphabet sexuality, and socialist automation. Ideologies need not explicitly acknowledge serpent-induced self-creation. But they do so practically because once the sacred is rejected, our belief systems are necessarily based on our own understanding. You know, that “own understanding” Proverbs 3 says not to lean unto? In our arrogant insistence on knowing, rather than trusting, we think we can shuck off the tragic sense Genesis tells us we have and will always have in this life.
Once again, it’s ontological duality all the way down. God’s way or our way. His redemption of us out of slavery to sin, or our own self-help through ideology. Humility, or the effrontery to believe we save ourselves through ideology. We believe God or we believe the serpent, there are no other options.
Thank you. I think it's particularly apt for the subject of gnosticism
"arrogant insistence on knowing, rather than trusting" Concisely stated.