Ah, our first foray into the weird, wonderful world of John Lamb Lash. For those of you unfamiliar with Lash, he is a modern Gnostic. No, I’m not going to pick on Gnosticism. I am going to pick on Lash’s Gnostic nonsense at a specific point.
In his quest to argue the superiority of Gnosticism as a worldview, Lash has written that the Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi (alone, since they are so wonderful) correctly tell us the story of an ancient alien intrusion into earth’s history. They do nothing of the sort. Now, don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t deny that there are striking similarities between Gnostic cosmology and teachings and the messages that you’d read about (ad nauseum) from people who believe they have been contacted by aliens. That’s true–but not for the reason Lash argues. Lash wants you to believe that the similarities are due to the faithful recording in the Gnostic texts of real aliens who came to earth and kickstarted human civilization (and helped create humanity to boot). I’d say the opposite: that the similarities are what they are because the ideas and worldview spoonfed to contactees and abductees is nothing more than Gnosticism rehashed for a 20th-21st century technological audience (with a dash of theosophy and a few other occult spices). That’s the kind of thing I’m discussing on another blog, so I won’t park on that here. On PaleoBabble, I have another issue in view.
Lash makes the following claim in his online article, “Alien Instrusion”:
Physical descriptions of Archons occur in several Gnostic codices. Two types are clearly identified: a neonate or embryonic type, and a draconic or reptilian type. Obviously, these descriptions fit the Greys and Reptilians of contemporary reports to a T. Or I should say, to an ET.
Delving into the Gnostic materials, it is quite a shock to discover that ancient seers detected and investigated the problem of alien intrusion during the first century CE, and certainly well before. (The Mysteries date from many centuries before the Christian Era.) What is amazing about the Gnostic theory of the Archons is not only the cosmological background (explaining the origin of these entities and the reason for their enmeshment with humanity), but the specificity of information on the alien m.o., describing how they operate and what they want from us. For one thing, Gnostics taught that these entities envy us and feed on our fear. Above all, they attempt to keep us from claiming and evolving our “inner light,” the gift of divine intelligence within. While I would not claim that Gnostic teachings on the Archons, or what remains of such teachings, have all the answers to the ET/UFO enigma, one thing is clear: they present a coherent and comprehensive analysis of alien intrusion, as well as specific practices for resisting it. They are far more complete and sophisticated than any theory in discussion today.
How can we test this claim? Easy–in future posts I’ll revisit my electronic corpus of the Nag Hammadi texts and search for such descriptions. You don’t have to take Lash’s word for it (or mine)–I’ll show you. Stay tuned.
Technorati Tags: aliens, archons, Gnosticism, gods, john lamb lash, Nag Hammadi
