Part 2

Why are people so interested in Gnosticism these days?

I think people are interested in Gnosticism these days because there is clearly a spiritual vacuum at the heart of our culture. Science and mass production have done much for the outside of the cup, but the inside is empty and cannot be sated by drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll. The promised liberation is a brief delight followed by a swift fall. Grace looks away and the victim, must, if he or she be lucky, look within.

Even in countries which have not been so saturated by big business as we have – where washing machines, central heating and personal stereos and computers might be very welcome – there is a now well-articulated complaint that with all the money and the “promise of freedom and liberty for all” comes a great threat.

The threat is to the life of the heart and the delicate, invisible life – the thousand links with God – which have kept people alive for centuries in the face of countless dangers and privations. I don’t wish to romanticise here, but one must ask, ‘Who needs the most help?’ The East or the West? Clearly both suffer from poverty – material poverty and spiritual poverty – and, of course there is plenty of material poverty in the West and doubtless spiritual poverty in the East. But can’t we help each other? And thereby help ourselves? But how do we do this?

Well, Jesus offers a clue: “First clean the inside of the cup.” Clean it? we may cry – most of us don’t even know it’s there! Where is this ‘inside of the cup’? Where is this kingdom of heaven (a kingdom, note, not a democracy!) that is supposed to be “nigh and within” us? Well, the example and uncompromising commitment to spiritual reality is such a strong and powerful river surging through the Gnostic tradition, that it would be extraordinary if our bone-dry world did not desire to take a dip in its life-giving waters!

Until we sort ourselves out, we can only export our own confusion.

Could you say a little bit about the Western esoteric traditions as a whole? What is their situation today? What do they have to contribute to our civilisation?

You have asked me to say a little bit about the Western esoteric traditions as a whole and what they may contribute to our civilisation. The second part of that question is simple. What they have to contribute is civilisation. What is civilisation? It is clearly not power and might or the ability to force change. Otherwise we must rank Attila the Hun and Chingiz Khan as leaders of civilisation! Civilisation really boils down to the ability of a range of people to live in a city, organise themselves and get on with each other without falling into chaos. That which promotes the life of the busy hive may be described as a civilising influence. Civilisation is not then an arbiter of truth but of what works well. However, wise men and women have tended – against the odds – to the ancient conviction that nothing works quite as well as the truth, and that a rotten branch – rotten with corruption – will not even support itself for very long – never mind the burden of civilisation. Truth is good.

When I think of Western civilisation with all its inequalities of ability and social status, its wide variety of racial and religious types, its sheer density of pulsating human existence, its vulnerability to natural forces, disease, despair, hysteria, false expectation, boredom and so on, I can’t help thinking that organisations like Freemasonry and discreet societies of personal development are important. While corrupting forces always aim to work within the carcass, the healing agents must also work within the fabric of the human hive – not in fearful secrecy but with a modesty and love that is suspicious of fame, vainglory and social attention. The cool breeze works well unseen. This is perennial wisdom. I think the best of the masonic tradition has contributed hugely to understanding of tolerance and barrier-breaking social idealism. Occasionally, we even find a spiritual insight occurring in some of the most stubborn mental material!

Whatever good men and women try to achieve with this floppy idiot called man, the sincere busy bee is always up against our biological and moral heritage. This inheritance is surely dark enough to make strong men and women weep and give ample reason to despair or take refuge in a cynical stoicism of the type that Gore Vidal, for example, exemplifies with such taste and class.

There is much to be said for contemporary Rosicrucian societies for introducing people to the world of imaginative spiritual development. Many find insight in the worlds of Theosophy, Thelema and Anthroposophy, for example. This is all well and good, as far as it goes, but human society can be corrosive – even destructive.

Human beings really aren’t very nice – unless they’re in some kind of love with one another – and even then... well! The divorce rates with all their sad tales of acrimony and greed testify to the fragility of oaths built on enthusiasm and a lottery win. The Psalmist was being simply realistic when he uttered the words: “None is righteous. No, not one.” Involving oneself in groups may stifle the creative and divine spirit. But aloneness can be hard, and loneliness is, as Jimi Hendrix sang, “a drag.” Perhaps we need to revive in some adapted way the concept of the monastery – not, may I stress, that sad alternative, the ‘commune’. The hippies were hip to everything but their own depravity. Peter Coyote and the Diggers would doubtless tell me I just never saw the real hippies. He would be right. Maybe I was one of them – and how often do we see ourselves?

I suppose in the life of a person, one will, as one puts one’s hand into the hand of God – as much as we may know of Him – for guidance, one will find oneself encountering all kinds of groups and people. No one way works for all people or all occasions. That is how it must be. Those who require absolute certainties will be prepared to believe anything. The One is always present, if unseen.

Experience shows that there are many hidden veins to the cosmic life of humanity and I – for one – am glad – and have reason to be glad – that they exist. Gnosis is, as I said earlier, a gift. One has to be in the right place to receive it. No organisation can do that for anyone. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth. Heed the Spirit above all – and keep the powder dry!

Could you talk a little bit about your own background, how you came to be interested in this area, and what meaning it has for you personally?

You ask about my background. I am an Englishman born in Birmingham – the English Midlands – in 1960, who grew up to believe that something was seriously ‘out of kilter’ in my own dear country and in the world at large. This was something I found in myself as I grew older and travelled about the busy world. I had no special financial or educational advantages, but my father – a railwayman by choice in his later years – said “Seek and ye shall find.” I loved the past and had great respect for the ancients. I was always suspicious of words like ‘modern’ and ‘new’. No one knows the future and if, as someone once said, “the future is a poor place to store our dreams,” then I should say that a dream stored is a dream over. King Arthur will sleep so long as we do.

I cannot remember when I first became interested in the authentic tradition of spiritual life. It seems to have always been with me. I suppose studying the Gnostics at Oxford in the late 70s made me realise that I was not alone, but there were always shadows and intimations of gnosis in books, films – especially old films (the new stuff is generally too cocksure, superficial and loud to have anything to say worth hearing) – and in music.

I have often tried to ‘get away’ from Gnosis, rather like Jonah sailing to sea to avoid Nineveh, but I keep coming back to port, whether I like it or not. Often, I don’t like it at all. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the cold belly of the whale. The world, however, needs this insight, even if for me it now seems an old story. Somehow, it comes alive afresh again with each telling. And I discover so many new aspects to it, each time I willingly return to its study. It makes us wise and makes fools of us. Gnosis means creation because we do what we know. Creation is the fiery dragon whose scolding breath burns away the void and leaves the golden tree. We pick its fruit and create nothing.

I was lucky (by modern standards) to have both parents and that both parents believed in the individual and believed in the mystery and magick of life, and that they were plain speaking, virtuous and down to earth as well as being receptive to higher influence. That was a gift too. Come to think of it – it’s all been a gift. I’ve done little to deserve such a theatre of sorrow and joy! There’s so much more to do and life is really both too long and too short. We’re here and we’d better make the best of it. Long may She reign over us.

Could you tell us about your recent books, The Golden Builders and Gnostic Philosophy? What are they about?

My books The Golden Builders and Gnostic Philosophy took me ten years to write and were continuations of a work begun in 1986 when I wrote my first book, The Gnostics, at the age of 25. You could say that the new books are the considered works of research and experience – an attempt to bring readers of the first book into deeper acquaintance with the extraordinary Gnostic tradition. I was very aware that some terrible books have appeared in the last 20 years which have exploited the whole subject area and confused people with a lot of journalistic twaddle and conspiracy tales. Some have inspired a recent best-selling novel that suggested Leonardo Da Vinci worked with a code that could be understood by an idiot demented by marijuana.

I wanted to put the record straight. The truth is stranger than fiction and a good deal more interesting. The trouble with fiction is that you can’t live on it; you always want more. Perhaps if you wanted to define the Truth, you might – with tongue in cheek – call it NON FICTION. There is NON FICTION in magick, Gnosis, mysticism and spiritual understanding – but then, I suppose, your readers know this already, or they would not be suffering this interview with a distant star.

Tobias Churton, author of Gnostic Philosophy and The Golden Builders.
(Photograph by Philip Wilkinson, taken by kind permission of the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford.)

© Copyright 2005 by New Dawn Magazine. This article first appeared in New Dawn No. 91 (July-August 2005). For further information visit www.newdawnmagazine.com