Gnostic Return in Modernity

Download or read book Gnostic Return in Modernity written by Cyril O'Regan and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2001-07-19 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gnostic Return in Modernity demonstrates the possibility that Gnosticism haunts certain modern discourses. Studying Gnosticism of the first centuries of the common era and utilizing narrative analysis, the author shows how Gnosticism returns in a select band of narrative discourses that extends from the seventeenth century German mystic Jacob Boehme through Hegel and Blake down into the contemporary period. The key concept is that of narrative grammar. Unlike the hypothesis of an invariant narrative, a Gnostic narrative grammar allows room for the differences between modern and ancient forms of Gnosticism, and respects the dignity of both periods.