15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deepening our understanding of Gnosticism, November 14, 2009
This review is from: The Gnostics (Paperback)
JACQUES LACARRIERE. The Gnostics. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1989. Paperback, 136 pages. ISBN 0872862437
There are many studies of Gnosticism available today - well-researched, well-written, scholarly, objective, fact-filled, and occasionally even interesting. Bizarre personalities, myths, theories and practices are described, often in great detail, on every page of such studies. And we may be forgiven if we end up concluding that the Gnostics were a bunch of wackos and misfits and that the world is well rid of them.
We may end up thinking this because, unlike the present book, the orthodox studies tend to describe this fascinating phenomenon from the outside, and from the outside it certainly does look exceedingly strange if not perverse to modern sensibilities. Lacarrière's approach, however, is different.
In the first place, although his work is certainly as scholarly and well-researched as that of the orthodox, he sees the major Gnostics - Basilides, Carpocrates, Valentinus - not as wackos but as highly civilized, sophisticated, rational, and intelligent men. He also sees that, no matter how bizarre they may seem to us, they were engaged in a profoundly serious effort to tackle the central problem of their world, a problem that remains the central problem of our world, THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.
Not only that, but after a careful analysis of their key beliefs, an analysis that strips away all sensationalism and looks at these beliefs for what they were, Lacarrière confesses that he is inclined to agree with them. In other words, after carefully feeling his way into the world-view of the Gnostics he found there something that he resonates with, the presence of some profound truth, and he is not ashamed to admit this.
So if we want to learn something about Gnosticism we have a choice. We can head for the orthodox studies crammed with hundreds of dates and names and masses of footnotes and exhaustive bibliographies and written by scholars of impeccable credentials but limited imagination who would be terrified to be caught out actually BELIEVING in any of the stuff they write about let alone suspecting that there just might be something in it.
Or we can get hold of a copy of this slim volume by Lacarrière, a genuinely sympathetic study crammed with valuable insights, a book written by an honest and intelligent man who views the Gnostics as fellow human beings and their discoveries as important and as holding something true and powerful that is still relevant to us today.
I think you already know my own choice. As for other books that can help deepen our understanding of Gnosis, Lacarrière recommends Emile M. Cioran
A Short History of Decay, Marguerite Yourcenar
The Abyss: A Novel, and Rene Guenon
The Crisis of the Modern World (Guenon, Rene. Works.)
Perhaps it's time for us to find out what the world is really all about.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you have an open mind..., May 2, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gnostics (Paperback)
...you will benefit from this "forbidden fruit." If you are aware that so much of what passes for truth is in fact so much wishful thinking, conditioning, and convenience, then you will enjoy this history. Read beyond the initial discussion of Gnostic metaphysics, and by book's end you may well have an enhanced perspective of some of the greatest questions of all.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elegant, passionate outrage!, October 4, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: The Gnostics (Paperback)
An extended meditation on the lives, beliefs and practices of the ancient christian heretics, written with elegance and outrage. Highly recommended!
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