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Gnostic Return in Modernity
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.
322 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 28, 2024
This book is dense in every sense of the word, and the density of some sentences is remarkably difficult to penetrate (if you merely try to "follow along and eventually get the context); likewise, this book presupposes a high degree of competency in: historical Gnosticism, German Idealism, French literary theory (this book draws very heavily on Derrida, Lyotard, & Bataille,) Neoplatonism / Platonism more broadly, Christian theology, the Kabbalah, and the German / French strands of the Nouvelle theologie tradition. If you are not knowledgeable in most of these fields, you will struggle to get much of anything from this work at all, other than a cool "new metanarrative for assessing how something compares to the six-fold theogony of Valentinianism" or maybe some new conceptual tools to analyze Biblical narrative grammars with.
However these difficulties aside, this book makes as compelling an argument as one can for the "resuscitation" of a Gnostic underbelly within the Lutheran & Protestant traditions around the time of the Enlightenment - and slightly before taking into consideration Jakob Boehme. The author is very clearly *not* a fan of Gnosticism as a distinct religious narrative (unsurprising since he seems to be as faithful of a Catholic as you can be today,) since he points out with post-modernist fashion the inconsistencies between different Valentinian works, but with due diligence he doesn't fall into blindly supporting Irenaeus when the latter is demonstrably wrong. Yet, trying to get a religious "grip" on all the people he bandies forth in competing metaleptic readings is even more unsatisfying. Apocalypticism is so vaguely broad and yet too narrow when you stick to an epistemically grounded view, Neoplatonism is at greater odds with Hegel & Boehme than the narrative grammar of "Valentinianism," and the Kabbalah is almost always a copout answer due to its latent integration into certain strands of Protestant thinking after the 17th century. There were Anglican vicars arguing that the Sefer Zohar was the authentic Jewish view on the OT, and thus one had to be acquainted with large portions of the Kabbalah to "understand" the Old Testament. This book has lots of conceptual staying power in the amount of work which O'Regan puts into the adherence of each author, and is nonetheless a fascinating hypothesis. It's just a shame that his promised work on Milton, Blake, & Schelling + the German Romantics will never materialize due to his age.
However these difficulties aside, this book makes as compelling an argument as one can for the "resuscitation" of a Gnostic underbelly within the Lutheran & Protestant traditions around the time of the Enlightenment - and slightly before taking into consideration Jakob Boehme. The author is very clearly *not* a fan of Gnosticism as a distinct religious narrative (unsurprising since he seems to be as faithful of a Catholic as you can be today,) since he points out with post-modernist fashion the inconsistencies between different Valentinian works, but with due diligence he doesn't fall into blindly supporting Irenaeus when the latter is demonstrably wrong. Yet, trying to get a religious "grip" on all the people he bandies forth in competing metaleptic readings is even more unsatisfying. Apocalypticism is so vaguely broad and yet too narrow when you stick to an epistemically grounded view, Neoplatonism is at greater odds with Hegel & Boehme than the narrative grammar of "Valentinianism," and the Kabbalah is almost always a copout answer due to its latent integration into certain strands of Protestant thinking after the 17th century. There were Anglican vicars arguing that the Sefer Zohar was the authentic Jewish view on the OT, and thus one had to be acquainted with large portions of the Kabbalah to "understand" the Old Testament. This book has lots of conceptual staying power in the amount of work which O'Regan puts into the adherence of each author, and is nonetheless a fascinating hypothesis. It's just a shame that his promised work on Milton, Blake, & Schelling + the German Romantics will never materialize due to his age.
November 9, 2025
Tough read. I think this review summarises well the basic approach: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/gnostic-r...
"In Gnostic Return in Modernity O’Regan sets out to develop a conceptual theoretical model of gnostic discourse that can be used as a kind of template against which to measure various suspect discourses found in modernity. In this sense, he thinks he is making a contribution not just to theology and philosophy, but to literary theory, by having a general model of how narratives work and how they transform into other narratives (actually if he could abstract some of the things he has to say about narratives, he might be onto something here). His thesis is simple and bold: that there is such a thing as a ‘Valentinian gnostic’ grammar for reading narratives, and that, despite lack of actual contact, such narrative structures reappear (deformed and reformed) in certain modern discourses. The approach then is broadly structuralist and hermeneutical. O’Regan thinks there is a grand narrative – Western Christian tradition—whose complex moments can helpfully be diagnosed by identifying various forms of gnostic emplotment, as it were. To this end, O’Regan draws up a set of characteristics for a ‘Valentinian grammar’. He then proceeds to apply this grid to various texts in modernity."
"In Gnostic Return in Modernity O’Regan sets out to develop a conceptual theoretical model of gnostic discourse that can be used as a kind of template against which to measure various suspect discourses found in modernity. In this sense, he thinks he is making a contribution not just to theology and philosophy, but to literary theory, by having a general model of how narratives work and how they transform into other narratives (actually if he could abstract some of the things he has to say about narratives, he might be onto something here). His thesis is simple and bold: that there is such a thing as a ‘Valentinian gnostic’ grammar for reading narratives, and that, despite lack of actual contact, such narrative structures reappear (deformed and reformed) in certain modern discourses. The approach then is broadly structuralist and hermeneutical. O’Regan thinks there is a grand narrative – Western Christian tradition—whose complex moments can helpfully be diagnosed by identifying various forms of gnostic emplotment, as it were. To this end, O’Regan draws up a set of characteristics for a ‘Valentinian grammar’. He then proceeds to apply this grid to various texts in modernity."
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November 25, 2022Comment:
The question of gnostic tendencies in modernity is something I've been thinking about for a while now. - Not only the sometimes nearly maniacal hatred of things-as-they-are that one encounters in nearly all (non-ruling) ideological positions, but also the genuinely crazy notion that the 'Truth is within' has intrigued me too.
I never tire of telling people that there isn't anything inside of anyone that wasn't put there. It is the myriad processes of 'putting' that repay careful study. That said, the 'truth is within' notion is a very important clue regarding human nature, I mean the severe limitations that bedevil human nature, and must not be ignored.
And of course I should note that there are many varieties (and even conceptual elements) within gnosticism, and that authors are not always admiring or denouncing or explicating elements or tendencies that are very similar. Gnosticism, even in the ancient world, is (and was) a 'big tent' term that admits many possibilities. And modern commentators on the phenomena reflect this by continually redefining what 'the gnostic' fundamentally is.
Now, in this book, O'Regan intends to show that there is "a band of ostensibly Christian discourses in the post-reformation period, which are neither orthodox nor liberal, but of a genuinely third kind." This third kind, of course, is gnostic. Our author is a theologian, and he draws a great deal of methodological insight from FC Baur, a nineteenth century Hegelian Theologian. O'Regan wants to distinguish gnostic discourse from other heterodox discourses (such as apocalypticism, Kabbalah, and neoplatonism) and in doing this he focuses on the finer points of biblical and gnostic narrative in order to rigorously distinguish between them... A fascinatingly detailed book!
Typical examples of modern authors that O'Regan considers modern gnostics range from Jacob Boehme, Hegel and William Blake to contemporary "death of god" theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer. This book is primarily a book on the method of this multi-volume study. The volumes that follow it will be genealogical-historical tracings of modern gnostic tendencies. I believe (?) that so far only one of these volumes has appeared: "Gnostic Apocalypse: Jacob Boehme's Haunted Narrative". I am told that there are supposed to be 4 (or 5) volumes! Detailed indeed!
But, unless you are interested in the minutia of modern gnostic tendencies as interpreted from a strongly Christian perspective, I definitely recommend not reading this book (or the volumes that follow) if you are only (our author might say 'merely') a fan of ancient or modern gnosticism.
The question of gnostic tendencies in modernity is something I've been thinking about for a while now. - Not only the sometimes nearly maniacal hatred of things-as-they-are that one encounters in nearly all (non-ruling) ideological positions, but also the genuinely crazy notion that the 'Truth is within' has intrigued me too.
I never tire of telling people that there isn't anything inside of anyone that wasn't put there. It is the myriad processes of 'putting' that repay careful study. That said, the 'truth is within' notion is a very important clue regarding human nature, I mean the severe limitations that bedevil human nature, and must not be ignored.
And of course I should note that there are many varieties (and even conceptual elements) within gnosticism, and that authors are not always admiring or denouncing or explicating elements or tendencies that are very similar. Gnosticism, even in the ancient world, is (and was) a 'big tent' term that admits many possibilities. And modern commentators on the phenomena reflect this by continually redefining what 'the gnostic' fundamentally is.
Now, in this book, O'Regan intends to show that there is "a band of ostensibly Christian discourses in the post-reformation period, which are neither orthodox nor liberal, but of a genuinely third kind." This third kind, of course, is gnostic. Our author is a theologian, and he draws a great deal of methodological insight from FC Baur, a nineteenth century Hegelian Theologian. O'Regan wants to distinguish gnostic discourse from other heterodox discourses (such as apocalypticism, Kabbalah, and neoplatonism) and in doing this he focuses on the finer points of biblical and gnostic narrative in order to rigorously distinguish between them... A fascinatingly detailed book!
Typical examples of modern authors that O'Regan considers modern gnostics range from Jacob Boehme, Hegel and William Blake to contemporary "death of god" theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer. This book is primarily a book on the method of this multi-volume study. The volumes that follow it will be genealogical-historical tracings of modern gnostic tendencies. I believe (?) that so far only one of these volumes has appeared: "Gnostic Apocalypse: Jacob Boehme's Haunted Narrative". I am told that there are supposed to be 4 (or 5) volumes! Detailed indeed!
But, unless you are interested in the minutia of modern gnostic tendencies as interpreted from a strongly Christian perspective, I definitely recommend not reading this book (or the volumes that follow) if you are only (our author might say 'merely') a fan of ancient or modern gnosticism.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews