John Lamb Lash

John Lamb Lash (born 1945) is an American author and scholar (comparative mythologist).

He is author of a number of books including The Seeker's Handbook: The Complete Guide to Spiritual Pathfinding (Crown, 1991), Twins and the Double (Thames & Hudson, 1993), The Hero - Manhood and Power (Thames & Hudson, 1995), Quest for the Zodiac (Starhenge Books, 1999) and Not in His Image (Chelsea Green Publishing Company , 2006)

Principal work

“It is not through blind faith in God but through entering into the imagination of the Earth itself that we find the deepest religious experience of our species. That is not only the religious - the true religious path of our species - but it is also the only path of survival.”

As principal author of the http://www.metahistory.org web site Lash has developed a mythopoetic argument over numerous articles and explorations outlining the mythology of Gaia/Sophia as an intelligent, living and divine presence that embodies the earth. Lash restores the Gaian/Sophian mythos from his reading of the Nag Hammadi Library. Contrary to the popular view of the Gnostics as a heretical offshoot of Christianity, Lash sees them as belonging to an original pre-Christian European Shamanic tradition. Recognising the large component of anti-Christian material in Gnostic texts and their historical portrayal as heretics by the founding fathers of the Christian church, Lash has set out to recover and restore the non-Christian and pagan elements of the Gnostic materials.

The Gnostic Myth of Sophia

The biography of Gaia according to the Gnostics places her origin in the core of our galaxy within a beginingless and infinite multiverse. From this central core (the Pleroma) a singularity arose, a wave of raw potentiality without form. This singularity was received by the gods (Aeons) who resided in the galactic core. The Aeons took the singularity into their own being and danced it into form. The singularity which then had form and configuration was projected out into the galactic limbs so that it could seed worlds characterised by the potentialities inherent to its own nature. The role of giving the specific direction and emanation of the singularity was taken up by two Aeons named Sophia and Christos. In a sense Lash says, in Gnostic terms, Sophia and Christos are the parent divinities of humanity. Sophia and Christos took the singularity (called the [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Anthropos Anthropos] , an animating force) and projected it out of the membrane that protects the galactic core and implanted it into the third galactic limb from the center. The Anthropos is explained as a "complex genomic spore" of which humanity is one strain of that genomic unit.

The Fall of Sophia

Normally the Aeons would keep their distance and observe the workings of the emanation without interference but the Aeon Sophia was so fascinated by the Anthropos and the potential of humanity that she continues to gaze outward towards it and begins to dream of its progress and development, dreaming her way into the experience of emanation even before it begins to unfold and evolve. The great pathos therefore of the Gnostic myth is that Sophia the goddess, even before she becomes the earth is empathically bonded and deeply connected to humanity. At a certain point then, in what is an exception to the cosmic order, Sophia plunges from the galactic core in a great plume of light into the limb in which the Anthropos has been implanted.

The Archons

Soulless beings created by the shockwave of Sophia's plunge from the Pleroma into the material plane, the Archons were considered real and existing non-earthly entities by the Gnostics. The Gnostics believed that viruses in the form of ideas were implanted into the human psyche in order to infect the mind and cause abherent behaviour. The distracting ideas were engineered by the Archons to prevent humanity from reaching its divine potential.(1)

Against salvationism

Lash's work involves defining the differences between Gnosticism and Christianity in their historical nexus. He is very critical of the salvationist aspect of Christianity, that is, the belief in an "off-world" father deity which draws humanity's attention away from the present earth and focuses it towards a later off planetary goal. Lash contrasts the Abrahamic rooted salvationist religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) with the "Illuminism" of the Gnostics.

Salvationism and Illuminism operate from quite differing ideas regarding the nature of humanity. Salvationism asserts that humans are in error, flawed and sinful "by nature" and require redemption and rescue from this condition by an intermediary, a messiah or via the observance of strict ritual law, while Illuminism states that the intimate characteristics of the divinity belong to humanity itself and can be revealed through the application of a functioning methodology.

The consequence of Salvationism is the reduction of the earth and earthly life to a subordinate and inferior state of existence. The Gnostic teaching as expressed in the Myth of Sophia sees the earth as the embodiment of Sophia, goddess of wisdom and the illumination. Lash claims that Nag Hammadi documents contain the evidence that a spiritual tradition based on the knowledge and recognition of a divine earth preceded Christianity in Europe.

The Anthropos

Lash continues Friedrich Nietzsche's anti-Christian polemic in terms of the Gnostic/Sophian revival. He states explicitly that Jesus Christ is not the ideal image for Humanity (the Anthropos).

Lash believes that the Sophianic myth as found in the Gnostic texts provides "the" narrative from which humanity can correct its evolutionary direction. Our role in Gaia's evolution is to feel, think and emphasise with Gaia but also to participate in her evolution.

See Also

*Gnosticism
*Sophia (wisdom)

External links

*Interviews with Joanna Harcourt-Smith [http://www.futureprimitive.org/NIHI.html]
*Blog at [http://www.realitysandwich.com/blog/john_lamb_lash]
*Lash's article on the relationship between the Archons and The Flyers called "The Topic of Topics" [http://www.metahistory.org/CCandGnosis.php]