Not in His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of Belief

John Lamb Lash

ISBN 10: 193149892X / ISBN 13: 9781931498920

Published by Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006

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Synopsis:

Basing much of Not in His Image on the Nag Hammadi and other Gnostic writings, John Lamb Lash explains how a little-known messianic sect propelled itself into a dominant world power, systematically wiping out the great Gnostic spiritual teachers, the Druid priests, and the shamanistic healers of Europe and North Africa. They burned libraries and destroyed temples in an attempt to silence the ancient truth-tellers and keep their own secrets. But as Lash reveals, when the truth is the planet Earth it cannot be hidden or destroyed. Not in His Image delves deeply into the shadows of ancient Gnostic writings to reconstruct the story early Christians tried to scrub from the pages of history, exploring the richness of the ancient European Pagan spirituality--the Pagan Mysteries, the Great Goddess, Gnosis, the myths of Sophia and Gaia--and chronicles the annihilation of this Pagan European culture at the hands of Christianity. Long before the birth of Christianity, monotheism was an anomaly; Europe and the Near East flourished under the divine guidance of Sophia, the ancient goddess of wisdom. The Earth was the embodiment of Sophia and thus sacred to the people who sought fulfillment in her presence. This ancient philosophy was threatening to the emerging salvation-based creed of Christianity that was based on patriarchal dominion over the Earth and lauded personal suffering as a path to the afterlife. As Derrick Jensen points out in the afterword, in Lash's hands Jesus Christ emerges as the agent provocateur of the ruling classes.

About the Author: Comparative mythologist, author and teacher John Lash is one of the foremost exponents of the power of myth to direct and shape an individual's life, as well as history itself. Described as the true successor of Joseph Campbell, John is a teacher of world mythology, Gnosticism, the pre-Christian Mysteries, along with many of his other expert talents. He has traveled widely and lived in Japan, the UK, Greece, Norway, France, Spain and Belgium. His unpublished and in-progress works include original studies of alchemy, the Dendera Zodiac, eonic cycles in the World Ages ("parallel history"), psychonautics and entheogenic shamanism for the future. He is the leading exponent of the new discipline of metacritique (radical analysis of belief systems). In 1981, John founded the Institute for Creative Mythology in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ICM offered an open forum to explore universal "directive" - psychologically active - myths and their expressions in culture and daily living. At ICM John gave lectures and interactive seminars on a broad range of subjects, including Gnosticism, the erotic psychology of the Troubadours, Mesoamerican calendars, and Goddess rites of participation in the seasonal cycles of nature. Over several years, he developed a long course in alchemy that resulted in an extensive syllabus and study guide entitled "The Great Work: Alchemy and PsychoEcology." For over 35 years, John Lash has specialized in studies of sidereal mythology i.e. myths found in all cultures around the world relating to the visible patterns in the skies. He has a unique technique of observation, combined with an original method of reading those patterns and relating them to the way we live and view the world. He is recognized as a leading scholar on ancient astronomy, the Zodiac, and precession of the equinoxes (World Ages). John Lash is also co-founder and principal author of metahistory.org, a unique source of gnostic and pagan perspectives, including Planetary Tantra, a open source vision for interactive magic with Gaia. The purpose of this site is to challenge unexamined beliefs and foster a future myth centered on Gaia-Sophia, the living planet.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Not in His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred ...
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Publication Date: 2006
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: good