{"id":10693,"date":"2026-07-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10693"},"modified":"2025-12-15T10:40:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:40:33","slug":"this-strand-reviews-a-book-on-gnosticism-in-modern-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10693","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Peter Burfeind&#8217;s Book (2014) &#8220;Gnostic America&#8221; (Part 1 of 26)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>0001 Peter Burfeind wrote&nbsp;<em>Gnostic America: A Reading of Contemporary American Culture according to Christianity\u2019s Oldest Heresy&nbsp;<\/em>(Pax Domini Press, 2014).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This book is composed of four parts.&nbsp;&nbsp;The first part covers the fundamentals of Gnosticism as a Christian heresy.&nbsp;&nbsp;The second and third parts explore cultural manifestations.&nbsp;&nbsp;The fourth part applies these fundamentals and explorations to contemporary American Neo-Evangelical Christian churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0002 Burfeind argues that two Gnostic movements contend for sovereign power, progressives and Neo-Evangelical Christians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To me, big government (il)liberals (BG(il)Ls) beat these Christians to the punch.&nbsp;&nbsp;The federal government has established a religion.&nbsp;&nbsp;It is not Christian.&nbsp;&nbsp;BG(il)Ls run Gnostic bureaucracies where authorities deny that they are religious at all.&nbsp;&nbsp;BG(il)Ls are the self-anointed angels (or more accurately,&nbsp;<em>daemons<\/em>) of&nbsp;<em>a New Age dawning in America<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Christians who self-describe themselves as \u201cspiritual, but not religious\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;accommodate BGL\u2019s increasing sovereign power and aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0003 Burfeind is not alone in this awareness.&nbsp;&nbsp;Over 60 years ago, Eric Voegelin expressed similar ideas in his short but significant book,&nbsp;<em>The New Science of Politics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This raises a question. What is&nbsp;<em>the meaning, the presence and the message underlying the word \u201cGnosticism\u201d<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this question in mind, I turn my attention to Burfeind\u2019s text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-purple-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2fb4ce61201e214641dcde87ecb998ac\">Students should read chapter 1 of Burfeind\u2019s text before proceeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0004 From Burfeind\u2019s introduction, I know that Gnosticism is a very old heresy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How old?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From chapter 1, I suspect that Gnosticism predated Christianity.&nbsp;&nbsp;Indeed,&nbsp;<em>the death and the resurrection of Jesus<\/em>rebuked&nbsp;<em>Gnostic intuition<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;Why would Jesus retain&nbsp;<em>the evil material shell of His body?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus highlights&nbsp;<em>all the ways that the Mosaic tradition offended Gnostic sensibilities<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;Both Christians and Jews are enamored of the material world.&nbsp;&nbsp;Gnostics, not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0005 The Judeo-Christians believe in one God.&nbsp;&nbsp;So do the Gnostics.&nbsp;&nbsp;But, the one God of the Judeo-Christians is not the same as the Gnostic Source.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Source is a Monad, a complex singularity capable of putting everything into perspective.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Monad is the source of meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0006 The Monad plays a key role in the Gnostic origin myth.&nbsp;&nbsp;The myth begins with the Source, beyond spoken language and in eternal time.&nbsp;&nbsp;From the Monad, male and female pairs emanated, each according to its aeon.&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>The totality of the<\/em>&nbsp;<em>aeons<\/em>&nbsp;is called the \u201cpleroma\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the last era, our own, the female of the pair acted without her male consort.&nbsp;&nbsp;He was missing in action, so to speak.&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>Sophia&nbsp;<\/em>became pregnant with Yaltabaoth, half lion and half snake.&nbsp;&nbsp;She thought to herself, \u201cThis is not me.\u201d So she took action, ripping the monster from her womb and hiding him in a cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0007 Born yet aborted, living in a fog,&nbsp;<em>Yaltabaoth<\/em>&nbsp;decided to build his own world.&nbsp;&nbsp;He decided to create.&nbsp;&nbsp;What else was this demiurge supposed to do?&nbsp;&nbsp;He constructed his own world, which is our universe. He assigned&nbsp;<em>archons<\/em>&nbsp;(powers and governors) to rule his cosmos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was proud of his accomplishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here I make an admission, there is more than one way to spell Yaltabaoth.&nbsp;&nbsp;That exercise is left to the reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, back to the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0008 What else does this builder god do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He manufactures our physical bodies.&nbsp;&nbsp;He steals&nbsp;<em>a spark from the Monad<\/em>&nbsp;(a soul) and pulls it into his world.&nbsp;&nbsp;As the soul descends, Yaltabaoth adds matter.&nbsp;&nbsp;At birth, each person is a spark wrapped in a mortal cloak.&nbsp;&nbsp;The spark is not material.&nbsp;&nbsp;The body is material.&nbsp;&nbsp;The two will war with one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0009 Therefore, Sophia pities us and offers this myth. The Self has a mission: Return to the Source.&nbsp;&nbsp;Sophia offers secret knowledge,&nbsp;<em>gnosis<\/em>, opening a path out of Yaltabaoth\u2019s apparently all-encompassing cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, this myth, which joins cosmic and personal origins, contains a secret.&nbsp;&nbsp;It describes a location where you can find your Self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0010 Clearly, this origin myth provides meaning.&nbsp;&nbsp;This meaning coincides with the model of social construction in Razie Mah&#8217;s&nbsp;<em>How to Define the Word \u201cReligion\u201d<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;This model is further detailed in&nbsp;<em>A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0011 The model is an interscope, a nested form of category-based nested forms.&nbsp;&nbsp;The interscope offers nine slots.&nbsp;&nbsp;Features in the above myth associate with different slots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is the open interscope, before any associations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide01-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide01-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10694\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide01-1.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide01-1-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0012 My intent is to associate&nbsp;<em>elements of the Gnostic origin myth<\/em>&nbsp;with&nbsp;<em>slots in the interscope of social construction<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0013 My first association concerns the Monad.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Source has&nbsp;<em>the potential to put the situation into perspective<\/em>, so it goes into slot 1c.&nbsp;&nbsp;The pleroma automatically becomes&nbsp;<em>the normal context of the perspective level<\/em>&nbsp;(slot 3c).&nbsp;&nbsp;The pleroma<sub>3c<\/sub>&nbsp;brings the possibilities inherent in the Monad<sub>1c<\/sub>&nbsp;into relation with the actuality of Sophia<sub>2c<\/sub>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0014 So what is the secret about Sophia?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia is Personified Wisdom.&nbsp;&nbsp;It is not much of a secret.&nbsp;&nbsp;After all, philosophy is rooted in love (<em>philos<\/em>) and Wisdom (<em>sophia<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0015 If Sophia<sub>2c<\/sub>&nbsp;is the mother of the builder god, Yaltabaoth, then I should put the builder god into slot 2b.&nbsp;&nbsp;Yaltabaoth<sub>2b<\/sub>&nbsp;situates our universe within the normal context of blind rationality (slot 3b).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or should I say, \u201cmindless rationality\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The builder god lives in a cloud, isolated, without awareness of even his own mother.&nbsp;&nbsp;Sure, he snatches sparks from the Monad.&nbsp;&nbsp;He does this blindly.&nbsp;&nbsp;Who knows what spark goes into what body?&nbsp;&nbsp;Yaltabaoth operates in a fog.&nbsp;&nbsp;His archons are like bureaucrats, always following their rulebooks.&nbsp;&nbsp;His social norms?&nbsp;&nbsp;They constitute the Establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Establishment is&nbsp;<em>the social arm of Yaltabaoth\u2019s evil material world of blind chance and mindless necessity<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;For teenage Gnostics, that includes all parents.&nbsp;&nbsp;For big-government Gnostics, this includes&nbsp;<em>everything associated with the American Founding<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0016 So, why does the builder god need a spark from the Source in order to animate the human body?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yaltabaoth is so clueless.&nbsp;&nbsp;He does not realize that the spark comes from the Monad.&nbsp;&nbsp;It is just another thing at his disposal.&nbsp;&nbsp;Obviously, there is no better way to animate humans.&nbsp;&nbsp;He snatches an unwitting soul from its contemplation of Sophia and uses it to bring breath to a breathless body. Inspire. Hold it. Expire. I can feel it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0017 Here, let me put my associations into the open interscope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide02-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide02-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10695\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide02-1.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slide02-1-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>0001 Peter Burfeind wrote&nbsp;Gnostic America: A Reading of Contemporary American Culture according to Christianity\u2019s Oldest Heresy&nbsp;(Pax Domini Press, 2014). This book is composed of four parts.&nbsp;&nbsp;The first part covers the fundamentals of Gnosticism as a Christian heresy.&nbsp;&nbsp;The second and third parts explore cultural manifestations.&nbsp;&nbsp;The fourth part applies these fundamentals and explorations to contemporary American Neo-Evangelical [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[619,14,592],"tags":[62,39,525,589,590,623,29,635,148,119,245,55,620,468,637,624,124,550,31,44,622,35,639,625,585,636,638],"class_list":["post-10693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-confounding","category-message-underlying-religion","category-semiotics-and-history","tag-aristotle","tag-category-based-nested-form","tag-charles-peirce","tag-confounding","tag-entanglement","tag-ferdinand-saussure","tag-first-singularity","tag-gnosticism","tag-history","tag-human-evolution","tag-hylomorphe","tag-interscope","tag-kalevi-kull","tag-lebenswelt","tag-modern","tag-peircean-categories","tag-philosophy","tag-razie-mah","tag-scholasticism","tag-science","tag-semiology","tag-semiotics","tag-sophia","tag-sphere-of-understanding","tag-tartu-moscow-school-of-semiotics","tag-totalitarian","tag-yaldabaoth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Looking at Peter Burfeind&#039;s Book (2014) &quot;Gnostic America&quot; 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