Modern politics has become paralyzed in a world of harsh polarities and mirror-maze media. Western Culture is in crisis as well, seemingly out of fresh ideas; and there seems to be no solutions except more intolerance and more violence. This didn't happen overnight. Humanity has been gradually fragmenting and losing touch with its innovative spirit for centuries, the main causes the oppression and suppression of extreme ideologies. A book proposes that perhaps it is time to seek answers in some of the vilified philosophies and movements of antiquity that, when allowed to flourish, have indeed created benign egalitarian cultures in the past. These are the heretical Gnostic and Neoplatonic traditions. If tapped into correctly, both mystic schools of thought can perhaps finally heal the political and cultural arenas of our postmodern era before humanity is plunged into yet another Dark Ages.
Astral Guest—Arthur Versluis, author of The Mystical State: Politics, Gnosis, and Emergent Cultures, as well as Chair of the Department of Religious Studies and Professor in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University.
More information on Arthur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Versluis
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Gnosticism is a countercultural spirituality that forever changed Christianity. Before it arose, humanity was subservient to the gods of this world and their representatives in temples and palaces. Gnosticism proposed that human beings were manifestations of the divine, disrupting the hierarchical foundations of the ancient world. Subversive and revolutionary, the Gnostics taught that prayer and meditation could bring human beings into an ecstatic spiritual union with a transcendent deity. This mystical strain affected not just Christianity but many other religions; and it represents our understanding of the purpose and meaning of religion today. Beyond this new paradigm change on Gnosticism—which eerily parallels the countercultural movements of the late 20th century—we delve into the latest in Gnostic scholarship: the mysterious woman known as Miriam who founded Mandaeism; the hitherto unknown Jeuians behind the Pistis Sophia; how Paul was more Gnostic than ever believed; and much more.
Astral Guest—April DeConick, author of The Gnostic New Age, as well as Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University and chair of the Department of Religion.
Listen/Download at: http://thegodabovegod.com/
More information on April: http://aprildeconick.com/
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