Who were the Gnostics? Christian commentators described them as dualists who pitted ‘divine spark or ‘light’ against the of the material world. Christianity painted many Gnostics as heretics for claiming to be Christ’s true followers while denying his singular divinity.
Its claim of a world as a mistake and shadow of the Christian creation myth (if not Christianity as a whole), favors a gloomy view of the world. Carl Gustav Jung warned that if societies do not attend to their collective shadow, a world crisis can result. Our era is one of failing civilizations and broken social covenants, is fraught with the dangers of unleashed economical, military and social chaos. We each can do our part to safeguard each other by understanding black swans.
Are we witnessing a rediscovery of Gnosticism? I’d say yes. Increased academic attention (beginning with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scriptures in 1945) and the ensuing popular interest have produced utter confusion. It is often difficult even to tell what is meant by the word. Not only Gnosis is gnostic, classical Gnosticism of Valentinus, Basilides, but the heretics are gnostic, the Neoplatonic too, Nazism was gnostic, Islam (at least Sufism) if not also seen of heretic origins, existentialism and psychoanalysis is gnostic too. Certainly the early C. G. Jung can be seen as one.
Evil world
Confused Religions
This metaphysical dream is utterly incompatible with Christianity. The world was made fundamentally good, as the first pages of Genesis remind us. Though Creation has been corrupted by sin, its essential goodness could not be totally destroyed; being corrupted is not the same as being completely corrupt. Both Gnostics and those Christians seeking a rapturous rescue from the world have misread the architecture: our bodies are not “prisons” to be escaped, renovated, destroyed ad lib., but temples of the Holy Spirit.
So the Corinthians heard from St. Paul, whose much-abused spirit-flesh distinction Irenaeus clarifies: “the weakness of the flesh” can be “absorbed by the strength of the Spirit”; the two may then inherit the kingdom together.[1] Our resurrected “spiritual bodies” are not spiritual in substance, but in the sense that they are moved first by spirit and not by flesh. In the Christian metaphysical dream, matter is subordinated in order to be glorified – neither abolished nor discarded, but perfected.
But affirmations of the world’s created goodness require a leap of faith, and thus a rejection of knowing spiritualism and dogmatic materialism; the normativity of this stance tolerates neither.
Certainly it is true that gnostics who ridiculed the idea of bodily resurrection frequently devalued the body, and considered its actions (sexual acts,for example) unimportant to the “spiritual” person. According to the Gospel of Thomas, for example, Jesus says, “If spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth [the spirit] has made its home in this poverty [the body].” I have written here an here of the Chartensians in Southern France, which I consider a as typical medieval Neo-gnostic movement.
Now, any leap of faith has a mystery at its core. But the ‘mystery’ of Gnosticism is less a reasonable affirmation that can be accepted in love than a hopeless and anti-individual agnosticism, ever subject to opportunistic revision. Neo-Gnostics and cultural revolutionaries give us an imagined freedom from norms while imposing – consciously or not – worse commitments. It is the same liberty that defines the right to construct one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life – a sunny ambiguity the employed to extend the right to end and create life.
The Hypostasis of the Archons, recounting Sophia’s tale, says the universe started out “like a miscarriage.”[2] In a world built on stillbirth from the womb of an aeon, or on the freak chance of meaningless matter from nowhere, destruction in our own mothers’ wombs just blends into the landscape. A flight to the pleroma or an escape into “pure pleasure” will not rouse us from this metaphysical nightmare. The threefold promise of Creation, Incarnation, and Resurrection may.
Many argue with same truth in it, however, the established Christianity, that affirmed the threefold promise is merely a cultural construction: it is in fact ‘the greatest marketing sucess a a religion viewed as a product’ or in a Jungian sense a clever use of collective archetypes some of them of Egyptian origin.
The Pauline faction, being both moralistic and power-hungry, desorted the “Christian legend” to launch history’s most successful project of mass mind-control and cultural hegemony.[3] Meanwhile, Christ’s potentially human life with the Magdalene, had to be suppressed; his identification with Yahweh gave the project its trump card. Small bands of dissenters, however, preserved the truth – until Rom – East and West stamped them out.
Divine spark
Divine Spark
Pagels, a professor at Princeton, has devoted her career to the writings of these noble Gnostic underdogs, most of which have only been re-discovered beginning in the 1940s. 2006, Pagels proclaimed that the newly found Gospel of Judas would continue “exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity and showing how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was.”[4]
Among their most ‘diverse’ elements, Pagels observes, is a vaguely Eastern strain: “the ‘living Jesus’…speaks in sayings as cryptic and compelling as Zen koans.” Whereas “Orthodox Jews and Christians insist that a chasm separates humanity from Its creator,” such that “God is wholly other,” Pagel proffers “the secret of gnosis” with more than a hint of Jung’s individation: “self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the self and the divine are
The Ego, the Self and Jesus – Individuation and Transcendence
identical.” Jesus, no savior, is a mere “guide” showing us the way to a “spiritual understanding” rendering leader and follower “equal—even identical.”[5]. I have written about individuation and the Self here. Gnosis is non-creedal; indeed, the events recounted in the Christian canon are anything but literally true. Belief in the Virgin Birth is an “error,” says the Gospel of Philip, and Christ’s resurrection is metaphorical: “he rose up first and [then] died.”[6]
Self-actualization is just the beginning. Some Gnostics could even be read as bring back the supressed female spirituality – wise women. Valentinians, for example, drank not Christ’s blood in their sacraments, but a mother-spirit’s.[7] Salvation was through “Immortal Androgynous Man”; in the Wisdom of Jesus Christ, his “female name is…‘All-Begettress Sophia’ [Wisdom].” The divine narrator of The Thunder, Perfect Mind frequently adopts a feminine voice; Sophia resurfaces as the self-awareness of a depersonalized One in the Secret Book of John, where Jesus also calls himself “Mother”.[8] There’s a Gospel of Mary with the Magdalene as the favorite disciple, and in Philip Jesus kisses her, leaving the other disciples scandalized, or perhaps jealous.[9] Indeed Sects devoted to these traditions were more inclusive to women and even had priestesses. So Gnostics look almost like looking for their anima (and animus).
Gnostic heretics
The most exhaustive (and hostile) commentary on the early Gnostics comes from St. Irenaeus, the second-century bishop of Lyon. On some points he confirms the popular account of their liberal practices in his condemnation of them. Gnostics would “yield themselves up to the lusts of the flesh with the utmost greediness, maintaining that carnal things should be allowed to the carnal nature, while spiritual things are provided for the spiritual.”[10] Carpocratics even claimed that salvation demanded the experience of everything, and rather than storing up treasure in, say, virtue, it was sexual experiences they were keenest on collecting. But so what? “God,” at any rate, “does not greatly regard such matters.”[11]
Today such a statement is hardly controversial. But the bishop levels other charges – manipulation, brainwashing, adultery, polygamy, intimidation – some of which sound like the very cultish practices we do still condemn. They also sound like charges that some pro-Gnostic writers bring against orthodox churches.
To be fair, Irenaeus is polemical in its purpose to stamp Gnosticism out. But the texts of the Gnostics themselves confirm his account more than not. Their value of women, for example, turns out to be very inconsistent. In the Gospel of Thomas, Simon demands of his guru, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.” Instead of reprimanding him, Jesus reassures him: “I shall lead her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”[12] In a number of texts, “the bondage of femaleness” must be shed for “the salvation of maleness”; even metaphorical interpretations do not celebrate differences, but only obliterate them.[13]
In fact, no one should be comfortable in any human body. Elsewhere in Thomas, Christ says that soul, flesh, and body are each “wretched.”[14] Matter, Christ tells Mary, will all be destroyed.[15] The Secret Book of John consistently refers to the body as a “prison” that degrades the soul, trapping it in cycles of transmigration and reincarnation so long as it lacks salvific gnosis. For Carpocratics, this belief justified the pursuit of carnal knowledge; for others, the harshest asceticism.[16] If they were sometimes ascetics and sometimes aesthetes, it was because the body didn’t matter: anything could be justified or condemned, and almost everything was, depending on what magnified ‘light’. A sort of Gnostic dualism about the texts exists today: the bad is from the Orthodox patriarchy, whereas the good is Gnostic cafeteria ethics, wich maps well onto today’s conventional narrative.
The world a mistake
But whether Irenaeus is right damming the Gnostic myths and truth-claims the bottom line today is, their cosmology deserves a hearing. What did Gnostics teach about the world’s origins?
The Gnostic story of Creation is begins before Adam and Eve. According to this doctrine, there is an unknowable being called the “True Father.” He created a being called Sophia. It is an impersonal father-principle whose emanations filled the divine pleroma, or spiritual realm, with dyads of sexual, sentient aeons. The most important aeon – of course, it’s the wise Sophia – but because Sophia was forbidden to know the True Father, she became angry and created a monstrous god named Yaldaboath or Yahweh (the most sacred Hebrew name for God) – further in her anguish, matter fell stillborn and formless from her womb.[17] Her torment, “by means of a defect,” produced a scheming demiurge, viler but duller than Plato’s.[18] It then formed the universe, and with it corporeal mankind, from the undesired matter: “material substance had its beginning from ignorance and grief, and fear and bewilderment.”[19] Philip puts it bluntly: “the world came about through a mistake.”[20] Recalling the pre-incarnate, star-riding souls of Plato’s Timaeus, the Wisdom of Jesus Christ says we existed as “drop[s] from Light and Spirit” before being trapped in bodies; it is gnosis that breaks our chains and lets us be subsumed into the same impersonal substance of the father-principle whence our drams of divinity were drawn.[21]
Zeitgeist and Gnostic worldviews
SatanCenter
Yet the Zeitgeist and Gnostic worldviews share more than an ill-fitting ethical overlap and a common enemy. For, despite certain peculiarities, their metaphysical dreams of the (new) world unite them. The current world is essentially not good.Who can blame them for this view? Goodness in the material world implies a normativity and an absolute grounding in nature, to which both Gnostics and Zeitgeist are allergic. Out acts in the flesh are irrelevant at the deepest level, since matter is devoid of intrinsic value. The strictest principles we can apply are those of pleasure/pain and that of superiority/harmdoers – individuals perceived attributes. Our refuge is in surregate religion, understood as knowledge, and the sacrosanct orientation of the global will.
Perhaps the newspeak say it best. Alive, the body seems to be what matters. But while the material is denied its intrinsic worth, the mind cannot avoid immaterial experiences like choice and thought: something persists which can say, “What my body is doing is irrelevant.” Our reduction of any life to coperate and economic ressource has really chased us outside of our body, an intellectual and voluntary abstraction of the Ego from itself, the Self. And so, even alive, the body and the soul turns out not to matter.
And it matters even less when wie are in transition from life to death or vice versa. At death, or during pregnancy artifacts might as easily be used as spare parts as be patented. We are quite finished with our bodies when we die, we’re probably finished, period. Almost like the Demiurge (demigurge) starts all over again. In a time, when I have to watch a catholic priest during Chrismas Mass , pacing around the altar, and shouting five times – wir schaffen das (Yes we can), there is almost a perverse comfort in it.
[1] Irenaeus, Bk V, Ch. IX, 1-2.
[2] Hypostasis of the Archons, 94:8-19.
[3] Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Vintage Books, 1979, p. xii. xv-xxiii. avaiable as pdf
[4] Pagels. “The Gospel Truth.” New York Times. April 8, 2006.
[5] Pagels. The Gnostic Gospels, pp. xv-xxiii.
[6] Gospel of Philip 22
[7] Pagels, Elaine. “The Suppressed Gnostic Feminism.” New York Review of Books. November 22, 1979.
[8] The Secret Book of John 10 and 3, respectively.
[9] Gospel of Mary 5:5, Philip 59.
[10] Irenaeus of Lyon. Against Heresies, Bk. I, Ch. VI, 3.
[11] Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. XXV, 4; Ch. XXVIII, 2.
[12] Gospel of Thomas 114.
[13] First Apocalypse of James 41:15-19; cf. Clement of Alexandria, Excerpts from Theodotus, 79, and commentary in Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 5.8.44.
[14] Thomas 84, 87, 112
[15] Mary 4:22-23.
[16] Secret Book of John 23, 26; Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Bk. I, Ch. XXV, 4.
[17] Irenaeus, Book I, Ch. IV, 3.
[18] Ibid., Bk I, Ch. XVI, 3.
[19] Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. II, 3.
[20] Philip 105.
[21] Wisdom of Jesus Christ (verses unnumbered; p. 118 of the Berlin Gnostic Codex).
Memorial of the site where over 200 Cathars were burned alive, having refused to renounce their faith.
I just came back again from the haunted and magic Languedoc-Roussillon, where I followed the footsteps of the Esclarmonde de Foix and the heretic Cathars. This essay will focus on Esclarmonde de Foix. Cathars, Catharism and its connection to the holy grail seen through the eyes of Otto Rahn, a shady self proclaimed archaeologist, who had been driven into suicide by the Nazis:
Where did the Cathars come from and what were their beliefs?
Was Otto Rahn (“Crusade Against the Grail”), a kind of Indiana Jones, killed for failing to find the Holy Grail in the Cathar land?
In her mystic and symbolic importance, was Esclarmonde de Foix (1151 to 1215), not only a “Cathar Bona Femna” (Good Woman), but also a “Ketzerpäpstin” (heretic counter pope)?
In Languedoc-Roussillon Cathar castles, Templar Abbeys and Châteaus inspire powerful myths, major mysteries, complex religious history, symbols of psychological relevance and – also significant pseudo-history. There are lots of stories about the Crusades and the mysteries of Sacred France connected to it. Or, as in the case the holy Grail, downright fabrications and conspiracy theories. So my journey became a transformational journey visiting places with magic and mysticism in addition to hiking, camping and photographing. I choose as base camp a wonderful Bed&Breakfast in sight of the last Cathar stronghold Montségur and close to Foix. As always, please be aware that this is an essay on my impressions and their reflections on history, culture and psychology, not a scholarly work. Readers of my articles know, that I have an soft spot for intuitive, but holistic interpretation of historical schisms, heretics and cross cultural transmission of myths and knowledge. Catharism holds all those secrets, and more, the egnima of Catharism can be felt still in southern France.
My encounter with a French writer
Chalet in France
We stayed in sight of Montségur’s castle, in the hamlet of Mijanes, which is situated 650 m above sea level in a clearing at the end of a small road. The house is an old stone farmhouse, beautifully restored in order to preserve the built’s authenticity. At street-level, the old hay barn completely open to the south, gave the opportunity to develop a large community room with separate entrance and fireplace. Very bright, it opens onto a gallery with large sliding doors. Two hectares of meadows surround the house with lots of room for sheep, chicken and a dog called Hector. After a few tries, he got along with our dog. Around, the forest offers beautiful walks and the lack of light pollution nice astronomical pictures and nice sights of the sunset over Montsegur.
The house has “only” room for two guests, its wall of the rooms’ corridor is fully dressed with a bark and natural pigment wallpaper from New Caledonia. The other room was occupied by a French couple, a writer and a retired teacher, who we met during breakfast. The writer happened to be Jose Dupre, who wrote about the German anthropologist Rudolf Steiner, Catharism and Déodat Roché, with whom he maintained a close relation and friendly collaboration during nearly 10 years. Not only a writer, but an expert in his field. Jose Dupre saw interestingly Déodat Roché as a bon homme, a modern Cathari Parfaite or perfect.
Roché’s career was an interesting one, from Martinism – esoteric Christianity, concerned with the fall of the first man – and the Gnostic Church he promoted his own understanding of perennial religion while remaining an active and influential Mason leader for a small formal group of disciples. Via the work of Rudolf Steiner, “Christianity as Mystical Fact” in 1921, the then 43 years old Déodat Roché discovered a modern “Manichean spiritual stream, and received the advice to meditate on the main stages of the life of Jesus Christ from the representation of John’s Gospel. This looked for Roché like a living link with the meditative tradition, which had been maintained by the Cathars.
He became well known through his writings, which were – especially in the 1960s and 1970s – a major source for the renewal of interest in Catharism, marketed into
French view of Otto Rahn
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) and thence into The Da Vinci Code (2003). He was a Gnostic, who lived like a contemporary Carthar lifestyle according his friend Jose Dupre – “Un cathare au 20e siècle”.
During a conversation, I naively showed to Jose Dupre a vintage copy of Otto Rahns book which started an interesting if not agitated discussion. Otto Rahn is not forgotten in France, but highly disputed if not despised, and his views are of Chatharism and Esclarmonde considered as pure speculations. Jose Dupre told me some details of Déodat Roché, who died in 1978 at the age of 101 years He was a philosopher and seeker who sought contact with people of very different spiritual orientation like Otto Rahn, Simone Weil, but never to lost sight of Christian-Gnostic Manichaeism. Even his appearance – slim, ascetic and benevolent facial features – reminiscent of a figure of early Christianity, such as Origenes, whose writings are more interesting than many “esoteric” contemporaries.
The heretic papessa Esclarmonde de Foix
Esclarmonde was identified from the German mystics Otto Rahnas a historical precedent of the protector of the Grail “Repanse de Schoye” of Eschenbach’s “Parzival”, which included the Grail in the mountain of Munsalvaesche (Montségur), to protect him from the armies of Lucifer.
The historical Esclarmonde (” Light of the World ” in Occitan) was born around 1150 as daughter of Roger Bernard I, Count of Foix and who fathered also another Esclarmonde (The Bastard). Esclarmonde and her brother, Raymond-Roger grew up in the Cheateau de Foix at the foothills of the Pyrenees mountain range at the center of the triangle of Carcassonne-Toulouse-Andorra. She married Seigneur de l’Isle-Jourdain. Their six children’s children included Bertrand, Baron de Launac who later inherited the County of Foix. She was widowed in October 1200, and from this time turned openly to the Cathar Church.
In 1204 she became a Parfaite, a member of the Cathar Elect by the Consolamentum from the hands of the Cathar Bishop Guilhabert de Castres. She would become almost a female pope of the Cathar faith, combining temporal power and transcendental authority. She moved to Pamiers and later decided to fortify the Castle at Montségur against likely assaults by the French Catholic Crusaders. Otto Rahn claims that Montségur was the famous the castle of the Gral’s legend. In 1207 she organized the Colloquy of Pamiers, the last public debate between the Cathars and the Roman Catholic Church, whose representatives were led by Dominic Guzman (later Saint Dominic). It was at this debate that Esclarmonde, an educated Occitan, famously spoke up. The of the Roman Church lost in these intellectual and theological debates as often. At one point, being reminded of the cruelty of the Church by Esclarmonde Dominic admonished her: “go to your spinning madam”. It is not proper for a woman to speak in a debate of this sort”. The following year, 1208, despairing of success through intellectual and spiritual means, Pope Innocent III would launch the Albigensian Crusade.
Montsegur
Certainly the Cathar and Esclarmonde challenged the central power structure of the Roman Popes. The popes of that period were very powerful and interfered quite broadly in the affairs of secular monarchies. But it was also a church that was troubled by corruption and lack of clerical celibacy and moral decency.
Because she refused to submit to the Roman Church, the pope put a price on her head; even so, she managed to evade not only the crusaders and the papal legates but also a series of bounty hunters. There was evidence that she was in the area around Dun until 1212, but the Chateau de Foix, Esclarmonde’s brother’s estate, from was 1214 to 1218 in the hands of the papal legate, who turned it over to the feared and hated Simon de Montfort.
When Raymond-Roger went to Rome to try to retrieve his lands in 1215 at the Lateran Council, the pope reproached him about his sister’s activities. By then she had become the symbol of the resistance against the crusaders’ occupation and the papal inquisitors, as she encouraging the resistance fighters, providing them useful information, and refortifying castles. She became so cunningly, that in time the Crusaders were to call her La Renarde de Foix (the Fox of Foix); the Occitans called her La Grande Esclarmonde (Esclarmonde the Great), and her frequent appearances all over the land gave the people hope and inspiration. In 1218, Raymond-Roger did eventually win back his castle, not through any justice or intervention of the pope, but rather by force of arms. Rumors tell, that for more than 30 years, Esclarmonde lived as a fugitive on the run, sleeping sometimes in caves and keeping a hair’s breadth ahead of the inquisitors and bounty hunters. There is one mention of her in 1232. But it was only a brief appearance, and then she vanished once more.
Her death is said to be 1215, but no-one knows the exact time or place of Esclarmonde’s death— she was rumored to have died in one of the caves where she took shelter—but her memory lives on. Jules Massenet wrote his opera Esclarmonde about her life 1889. In 1911 in Foix, a committee tried to erect a statue to her memory, but the bishop of Pamiers, Jean-Marie Vidal, did all in his power to have the project stopped. Esclarmonde, for she remains “one of the strongest symbols of the Occitan woman’s attachment to religious freedom” and an inspiring role model for courage and strength against tyranny and despotism everywhere. Esclarmonde of Foix has become something of a role model, after her name – almost forgotten for seven hundred years – but made known again by Otto Rahn in the twentieth century.
Otto Rahn the Indiana Jones, who worked for the Nazis
Very little is certain in the short life of Otto Rahn. But one of the few things one can with any confidence say about him is that Rahn, small and weasel-faced, with a hesitant, sly smile and oily hair, was the inspiration for Harrison Ford’s most famous role, Indiana Jones. Like Jones, Rahn was an archaeologist, like him, he fell foul of the Nazis and like him he was obsessed with finding the Holy Grail – the cup reputedly used to catch Christ’s blood when he was crucified. Rahn was a dreamer, who entered into a terrible Faustian pact: impressed with his first book “Kreuzug gegen den Gral” (Crusade Against the Grail), Heinrich Himmler committed every resource imaginable to realize his dream and a formidable salary. There has been just one catch: in return, he had to find something that – if it ever existed – had not been seen for almost 2,000 years, which he write must be buried in southern France. He didn’t, so Rahn’s obsession ended up costing him his life.
Rahn was born in 1904 in Michelstadt (Germany) and made Abitur (German university entrance qualification) in Giessen 1922. Through one of his religion teacher, he became fascinated by the history of the Cathars. At an early age became fascinated with the Holy Grail and the famous German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann had found what he believed to be the ruins of Troy on the western coast of Turkey. Rahn used later the 13th-century epic Parsifal as his guide to finding the Holy Grail. He started studying 1922 law, but switched and completed his university studies in literature and philology 1928.
Research trips
During his stays in Geneva and Paris 1928 he researched medieval scripts. In Paris he met an esoteric circle of literati and scholar like the Toulouse poet Magre, who both believed that the manuscript of the mysterious Bogomil Bishop Nicetas the Château de Monségur was preserved. It was thought to be hidden during the Albigensian Crusade as part of the legendary Cathar treasure in the underground cave of Ornolaca in the south of France, Languedoc. Through Magre, Rahn met the spiritualist Countess Miryanne Pujol-Murat and became her protege. She claimed to be a descendant of Countess Esclarmonde de Foix and a member of a Gnostic Church.
Grail quest with Antonin Gadal
From 1929 Rahn undertook as part of his study, travels in southern French Languedoc, where he researched among other things caves, and the ruins of Montsegur. In 1930 he undertook a journey to the valley of the Ariege. In France, he investigated the medieval heretic movement, especially the Cathars and Albigensians. On his first explorations he befriended Déodat Roché, a follower of Rudolf Steiner, and the local historian Antonin Gadal. Gadal developed an intense friendship Rahn, and become his mentor and patron, and both worked extensively in the following three years together. From late autumn 1931, Rahn settled in the small spa town of Ornolac-Ussat-les-Bains, in which Antonin Gadal lived, with whom he remained friends over the coming turmoil and difficult years until his untimely death. From 1930-1932 Rahn explored from his home the southern French Pyrenees together with Antonin Gadal.
The more Rahn, a serious scholar read Eschenbachs Parsifal, the more he became convinced that the Cathars, the medieval Christian sect, held the secret to the Grail’s whereabouts. In 1244, shortly before the Cathars were massacred by a Catholic crusade, three Cathar knights had apparently slipped over the wall of Montsegur Castle in the Languedoc area of France. With them, together with the Bogomil manuscripts, was a cup reputed to be the Holy Grail.
Rahn arrived at Montsegur in the summer of 1931. He didn’t find the Grail, but he did find a complex of caves nearby that the Cathars had used as a kind of subterranean cathedral. If he’d been of a less optimistic bent, he might have shrugged his narrow shoulders and gone home. Rahn, however, wasn’t the going-home type. Certainly he was on the right track, he wrote a book called Crusade Against the Grail in which he described his quest.
Otto Rahn and the Nazis
It was because of this book, that Rahn met his Mephistopheles Heinrich Himmler, the head of Hitler’s SS. Not only had Himmler read Crusade Against the Grail; he loved it. All Rahn had to do was find the Holy Grail. Everything but a Nazi he seems to have been blithely unaware with what what he was letting himself in for. A few weeks later a close friend (Rahn was gay) ran into him wearing the black uniform of an SS Sturmbannführer and asked him what on earth he was doing. ‘A man has to eat,’ Rahn replied sheepishly. ‘What was I supposed to do? Turn Himmler down?’
He wrote another book, with the none too catchy title of Lucifer’s Court: A Heretic’s Journey in Search of the Light Bringers, which detailed his further efforts to find the Grail. The book had one open anti-Semitic passage, which was not from him. By now it must have dawned on Rahn that he was dealt with extremely nasty folks.
Otto Rahn’s mysterious death
wilder-kaiser
What gives Rahn’s dilemma peculiar piquancy, is that there’s evidence to suggest that he was Jewish himself – although it’s not clear if he was aware of it and gay. Bravely, if naively, Rahn began to move in anti-Nazi circles. As naive as it was brave, he applied to Himmler to resign from the SS – an organization you could only resigned from feet-first. And so he did. There are stories that Rahn had links with British Intelligence. He ended up dead like Faust. One evening in March 1939, he climbed up a snow-covered slope in the Tyrol mountains and lay down to die. He is believed to have swallowed poison, although no cause of death was ever given. The following day Rahn’s body was found, frozen solid. He was 34.
Nigel Graddon, author of a new biography of Rahn, “Otto Rahn and the Quest for the Holy Grail: the Amazing Life of the Real Indiana Jones”, believes that Himmler’s disenchantment with Rahn was a result of his failure to find the Grail.
The Cathar heresy
The Cathar heresy was a major challenge to the Roman Catholic Church. The Cathars rejected the Roman Catholic church structure and considered themselves the only true Christians. The Thirteenth century was at a high point of their power and influence. Unless in other countries, the itinerant preachers in southern France received extensive support of the local nobles.
The Cathars rejected the old testament of the Bible. They called themselves “veri christiani” (true Christians) and defended of a dualistic world view, which contained Marcionites elements. Catharism promoted values of equality, neighbourliness and charity, and turned its back on the pomp, hierarchy and worldly wealth of the Catholic church. It did not have a founder or leader, nor did it take root in one place. It may have originated in the Middle East i.e. Persia, and spread to Europe via Constantinople, the Balkans and Italy. It inherited elements of Sufism, Gnosticism and Zoroastrianism, fused with the mentioned dualist perspective: a universe of Good versus Evil; Light versus Darkness; a Good God of the spiritual world and an Evil God of the material world. By the eleventh century, there were Cathar believers all over Europe, including England. But one of the places, in which the Cathar church really flourished, and the place with which the word Cathar is now strongly associated, is southern France.
Among several books on Albigensians another name for Catharism, that of Jacques Madaule is free of sectarianism, although noticeably not without sympathy for the phenomenon. It claims to adhere to the results of scientific research and the French writer I met, was worried that the speculation by the Otto Rahn damages their credibility.
The riddle that gives us this first great medieval movement against the Roman Church, has so many aspects. The central questions are:
How was it possible for an early Christian movement from far remote to propagate beliefs and partly hostile moods and practices in the superior Languedoc, home of the Troubadours and an advanced cultural refinement?
Why was their doctrine preferably found among the nobility of the country and their followers?
Why did Rome react so harshly under Innocent III against this doctrine and practice of nonviolence?
Why did the Inquisition decades after the defeat of the Albigensian army still searched for the “good people”?
How do we understand the proven fact, that quite many representatives of the Southern French aristocracy and Bishops were Roman Catholics, but were also persecuted and repressed?
When one considers that there have been in northern Italy and on the Rhine Cathars and that Northern Italy temporarily offered even refuge to the persecuted, the matter is even more mysterious. To equate the Cathars with early Protestants is wrong. Those Heretics were Gnostics. Their dualist teachings, their tolerance, their mild life practice their gentility were the flower of a different culture or time. The denial of the incarnation of Christ meant in the Middle Ages the negation of all spiritual and worldly social fabric created by the councils of the forth century.
The Chathars and the Templars
The Templars have never taken part in the fight against the Cathars which raged around during half a century in Europe. They even accepted them into their order. There are hints that the Templars possessed original manuscripts of the apostle Johannes, from Marcion origins (old christian heresy). In the original country of the Cathars, the Southern French province of Languedoc, two-thirds of the population were exterminated in this western “crusade”. Repeated requests, to act, had been strictly rejected by the Templars. They had very good reasons. The Cathars based some of their writings of Marcion, which Templars had found in Jerusalem. In the most popular publications about the Templars, one can read nothing about it. So the Templar’s order in ecclesiastical regard was not homogeneous Christian anymore. Some of the Templar’s secrets living up to the present day. The Cathars most probably handed over sanctums and valuable texts to the Templars.
What the knights thought at that time and felt, we are not able to imagine. The knighthood kept wisely that knowledge under strict secrecy. Later, Hugo of the Champagne procured some first Cathars writings, contents to which the accounts of the Eschaimin texts fitted. The sign of the Marcionites Gnostics was the red Thorn cross – exactly as later that of the Cathars. After the legend the mother Christ had tinkered from four thorns of the crown of thorns a small cross. This thorn cross became later the origin of all knight’s crosses. Till then the Templars had a simple Roman Cross in use. From now on it became the Red thorn cross on White.
The Myth of the Holy grail
Myths may be divided into three classes: those that are connected with the quest for certain power symbols, of which the Grail is only one, those that deal with the quest of the hero in a Jungian sense; and third, those that deal with the nature and history of the symbols.
These wordily stories were interpreted in the light and spirit of medieval Christianity and mysticism, but in essence were contradictive to the Cathar dualistic rejection of the real world.
The Holy Grail is generally considered to be the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper and the one used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch his blood as he hung on the cross.
Guyot, a Provençal poet who flourished in the middle of the twelfth century, is said to be the originator of the story. Much ink had been spilled around the possible Eastern origin of the Grail legend based on an Arabic book by an astrologer, Flegitanis found in Toledo, Spain, which contained the Grail story. “Flegitanis” sounds certainly not like an Arabian proper name, but more like the Persian felekedânêh (“astrology”). Some believed the legend originated in the mind of Guyot himself, but there is, however, there is some reason to believe that the story might have been brought from the East by the Knights Templar.
In earlier sources and in some later ones, the grail is something very different. Chrétien, for example, speaks of “un graal,” a grail or platter and thus not a unique item. Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival presents the Grail as a stone which provides sustenance and prevents anyone who beholds it from dying within the week.
Parzival is a medieval German romance written by the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Parzival (Percival in English) and his long quest for the Holy Grail.
As for the Grail, that too lives on, with claimants and contenders continuing to turn up in the most unlikely places. As one said at the time, ‘The Grail is like Everest: you climb it because it’s there.’ Or not there, of course.
The Chathars and the Holy Grail through Otto Rahns Eyes
Rahn’s studies and his extensive research in the French archives of Montsegur (Eastern Pyrenees), it eventually led him to believe that he had found the mysterious Grail, that for the first time, was mentioned by the Provencal poets of the 12th century Guyot, the inventor of the Holy Grail. So proclaimed Rahn that in the history of the Cathars so meaningful Montsegur Castle with the Castle of the Grail Montsalvatge (Mont Salva sealed) from Wolfram von Eschenbach epic Parzival is identical. Otto Rahn had put forward the theory, that the Cathars were the guardians of the Grail, which he described as a stone of light. He claimed also that Pope Innocent III. had initiated Albigensian war, actually as a crusade against the Grail. Those theses originate mainly from Antonin Gadal, a teacher, who researched after his retirement after the historical heritage of the Cathars and gained a reputation as a Neukatharer-expert. He was interested in the French history and the Cathar heresy and explored it also climbing into many caves. Gadals paleontological studies of the caves in the valley of the Ariege and his extensive research in the southern French Languedoc finally made both believe, that he had come to the mysterious Cathar treasure. They likened it to the Grail, which the inventor of the Grail legend, a Provencal poet of the 12th century Guyot , mentioned. Gadal infected Otto Rahn in his assumption that the Cathar treasure is hidden in the caves of Sabarthes and encouraged the research of the Middle Ages Montsegur Castle, which he likened to the Grail Montsalvatge (Mont Salva sealed) from Wolfram von Eschenbach epic Parzival held.
The Albigensian Crusade and Inquisition
The 11th century was the century of monks and knights, but also of a second wave of religious disputes like in the first two centuries, the century of heretics. While waves of Crusaders were fighting in Palestine, the common people of Europe were experiencing a crisis of faith. They could not find God in the churches, with their corrupt clergy.
In a bizarre parallel to the fourth century, Rome tried to quell the heresy by a string of councils and sent out priests, but that did not help. Since Catharism represented a clear and present danger to Catholicism, Innocent III sent a call for another holy war March 1208, summoning all Christian nations to launch a Crusade against a country of fellow-Christians. The Pope’s appeal came four years after the sacking of Constantinople by a Crusaders’ army, already the fourth against the Saracens a much harder enemy, than initially thought. The Albigensian Crusade can clearly be described as the first act of genocide in Europe. Starting with the sack of Béziers, historians estimate that the persecution of the Cathars in Languedoc caused half a million deaths. In cultural terms, the suppression of the Cathar heresy and the consolidation of French power in Occitania led to a complete strangling of Catharism in mediaeval Europe.
The temporal enemy was Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, a cousin of the King of France, a feudal sovereign whose authority extended over the regions of Agenais, Quercy, Rouergue, Albigeois, Comminges and Carcassès, not to mention the County of Foix. In the owner of all the territories where the langue d’oc was spoken.
The nobility was weakened on the battlefields of Palestine, during the various local campaigns they had to conduct proving futile. The Crusades itself were gradually appeared to be a dead end.
What was new type of Crusade? The aristocracy of this period was as cosmopolitan as before the first World War. Italian and Spanish poets composed in the langue d’oc, and German Minnesinger took lessons from the Troubadours. Against a methodical system of oppression was established from West Rome. The circumstances which led Innocent III were of some justification for the Pope’s appeal. Every single district throughout the Count’s countries was a hotbed of heresy; and on 14th January 1208 Brother Peter of Castelnau, the Papal Legate, had been assassinated at Saint-Gilles — which was a capital crime. It did, however, justified a declaration of war, since the Church was not, in theory, a temporal power, but intervening in the life of an Emperor still a valid option.
But when the Pope pronounced his excommunication against the County of Toulouse, he knew that was not the case. Raymond VI’s mistake was that of ruling a country where the spiritual authority of the Church was in decline. The murder of Peter of Castelnau, has been said ‘was worse than a crime: it was a mistake’, most likely not of the Count himself, who just declined to take part in the league of Southern barons, to hunt down heretics. The Papacy had no armies in its pay and could not force the French King to launch a Crusade, and in the event failed to persuade him, but could attract a ragged and greedy team of Rome’s mercenaries. The propaganda drive was so successful that the King of France found himself forced to change his stand. It was a large army, which made a considerable impression and devastated the country in what would be called today an act of ethnic cleansing or genocide. Except, that not only heretics were killed, but also Catholics and Jews, as evident in the Massacre at Béziers. “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. (“Kill them all, God will know His own)” was a phrase allegedly spoken by Papal legate and Cistercian abbot Arnaud Amalric prior to the first major military action of the Albigensian Crusade.
The Fall of Montségur and termination of Catharsis
The last stand of the Cathars took place at Montsegur 1241, literally the safe or ‘secure’ mountain. The siege lasted more than two years and there were battles and skirmishes fought every day.
According to Magre, many of the great heroes of chivalry fought and died there. “Men such as Lantar, Belissen and Caraman”, and the beautiful Esclarmonde d’Alion, also known as “Esclarmonde the Bastard”, sword mistress of the south. Through two winters the defenders of Montsegur held out against the Pope, against the Spanish inquisition, the Teutonic knights, the kings of France and last but not least Simon de Montfort – effectively against the world.
The castle fell to treachery just before the spring equinox in the second year of the siege, when shepherds from the neighboring village of Camon showed the Teutonic knights, who were accustomed to the icy Alpine conditions, the secret path up the sheer side of the mountain by which the defenders smuggled in their supplies and on March 16th, the last of the Albigensians, some 225 surviving men, women and children were dragged down the mountain in chains to be burned on the Camp de Cremat.
The castle’s history as, above all, a symbol of resistance made it impossible for the conquering orthodoxy to Christianize or take in the Holy Roman faith as they did at Montserrat and countless other pagan sites such as Montserrat, Lourdes or Fatima.
It is surprising that the outside world has thus far avoided the subject matter of a clear Catholic genocide. When the ‘Cathars’ do surface in films, they are usually portrayed in the inquisitions terms as fanatics or devil worshippers. Otto Rahn’s positive account, Crusade Against the Grail, was the first to be published outside France, and translated in the English. Despite the title, surprisingly little reference to the Grail itself is made in Otto’s opus. Besides, as before mentioned, nobody seems to know what a Grail is, theories range from the sacred bloodline or ‘Sangraal’ described in Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh’s fanciful bestseller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Bran’s cauldron, the lost Gospel of Saint John, the Book of Nicetas, a graven tablet or a ‘hard, dark stone’, symbolic of Christ’s suffering according to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parsifal or the Indian Lapis as Otto Rahn suggested.
Conclusion
In what was then the largest French provincial newspaper, the Dépêche de Toulouse printed 1933 a lead editorial that tore a veil in front of the secret history of Occitan South.
A foreigner, even German, who had until then encountered arrogant silent rejection, suddenly showed that the bloody tragedy of the crusade against the Albigensian Church had not disappeared from the awareness of citizens of Southern France nor from the world.
What was the reason that the repressed and buried layers suddenly came to light? It was a speculative, scientifically immature book of a completely unknown young German named Otto Rahn, who wrote boldly, almost provocative “The Crusade against the Grail, the tragedy of the Cathars”. He took his life under strange circumstances in 1939, alone in the snowy mountains of the Wilder Kaiser, after he had maneuvered through an unexplained cooperation in entanglement and danger with Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. How is it possible, that an unknown German usurped the historical past of Muret and Montségur?
Otto Rahn was from the Marburg area, in which long ago, a judge, Konrad from Marburg had been assigned as an inquisitor to stamp out an heretic offshoot of Catharism, until his assassination.
Rahn had presented prehistoric evidence of the caves of the Pyrenees area, that ancient Persian religions, Gnosticism and Manichaeism of post-Constantinian period had been entrained earlier than historical sources claimed, the heretic church known as Albigensians spread over later over the entire Languedoc, the county of Toulouse across to Beziers, Montpellier, Narbonne and to Catalonia and Ax. The boldest of Rahn’s thesis was, that the Grail legend was nothing more than mythologizing the Cathar belief of their heretical Sacrament and the famous and infamous Mountain Montségur in the lonely Pyrenees, the historical archetype of Montsalwatsch in the great poems of Chrétien de Troyes and the 13th-century work Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach and The Ring opera’s of Richard Wagner.
It was understandable raising eyebrows in those years, that a German took the French a centerpiece of history and turned it into something like an anti-Roman gnostic anti-Pope myth.
Now the French historical research Catharism has of course been more repressed than neglected. Jacobinism and Enlightenment as the official doctrine had no room for medieval religious wars and so-called Crusades. Meanwhile the situation has changed thoroughly. In the Tarn valley underground places of worship were discovered which suggested strange astral symbolism. Montségur, especially the burial ground (champs cremats), where the last fighting faithfuls have been burnt in 1244, was investigated and buried ceremonial objects found.
Of course, we it is known, that there is something like a heretic movement against Rome in French South has formed; science also knows, that originally domestic Bogumiles in Bulgaria represent the link from the Christian centuries to Catharism; we know of the crusade against Albigensian by Pope Innocent III and that the “secular sword” of Anglo-Norman baron Simon yon Montfort and the subsequent Inquisition by the Dominican Order and its founder Dominic de Guzman have eradicated literally Albigensian sect. Nevertheless, there is a certain fuzziness.
The reasons are diverse. In fact, the prosecution has produced a lot of documents, but in particular those relating to doctrine and worship, destroyed. The heretics had been driven back together with their cult in the Pyrenees caves. However, a number of important documents have found in the recent past. Ironically, scholarly Dominicans are significantly involved in these discoveries and important chronicles were found in the Vatican.
What we do not know, comes from the fact that the Catharism continues, and in a sense the old heretic church remains to this day. Only in 1950 the Cahiers d’Etudes cathares were founded. The writer I met, called his late professor a typical “perfait”. Actually, there may be men out there, who up to the present day, form an Episcopate of the “Pure”.
Indeed the original meaning of the word Cathari, came from the Greek katharos, “pure”). The Cathari professed a neo-Manichaean dualism—that there are two principles, one good and the other evil, and that the material world is evil. Embarrassingly often the medieval Catharism is seen as the frontrunner of Anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism, occult directions or New Age movement. Certain analogies must be stated, like the historical the historical and current anti-Roman movement particularly in Germany.
Otto Rahn Kreuzzug gegen den Gral. Die Tragödie des Katharismus Gebundene Ausgabe – November 1955
The Cathars, France MSM 2006
Christiana Reemts, Origenes: Eine Einführung in Leben und Denken Broschiert – Dezember 2003
Hans-Jürgen Lange, Otto Rahn und die Suche nach dem Gral Taschenbuch – 1999
The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy (Yale Nota Bene), Stoyanov, Yuri
The Cathars: The Rise and Fall of the Great Heresy by Sean Martin
The Knights Templar: The History and Myths of the Legendary Military Order by Sean Martin
Gnosticism and Early Christianity by R. M. Grant
Jesus Wars Harper, 2010 by Phillip Jenkins
C.G. Jung, Aion Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte
The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries by Rodney Stark
The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died by Philip Jenkins
Historia Mundi Volume IV, Lehnen Verlag, Die Kirche zur Zeit der Apostel und Märtyrer
The Cults of the Roman Empire, Robert Turcan
Les sites templiers, Jea Luc Barbiere
Montsegur Le trace du Chateau
Bernard Hamilton: The Albigensian Crusade. Historical Association, London, 1974.
Milan Loos: Dualist Heresy in the Middle Ages. Academia M.Nijhoff, Prague, 1974.
Lastours – our campground facing Château de Cabaret, Tour Régine, Château de Surdespine und Château de Querthineux
I just came back from Languedoc-Roussillon, where I followed the footsteps of May Magdalene the Templars and the heretic Cathars. This essay will focus on their similarity with early Christian and Jewish Gnostic thoughts, in which C.G. Jung was very interested. Where did the Cathars came from and what were there beliefs? What was the mystic and symbolic importance of Mary Magdalene, who is still worshiped prominently there in Catholic Churches?
In Languedoc-Roussillon Cathar castles and Templar remains, Abbeys and Châteaus are inspired by powerful myths , major mysteries, complex religious history, symbols of psychological relevance and – also significant pseudo-history. There a lots of stories about the Crusades and the mysteries of Sacred France in regards to Jesus, Mary Magdalene connected to it. Or, as in the cases of Rennes-le-Château, downright fabrications and conspiracy theories. So my journey became a transformational journey visiting places with magic and mysticism in addition to hiking, camping and photographing.
The Déjà-vu
My American wife, recently very pro-French again (wine and food) proposed the very south-west of France to improve my son’s French, she said. It is a long but doable drive, meaning that our Labrador – a good hiker – could accompany us. I tought there could be something in for me too: visiting the remains of Gnosticism and Templars. At some point the journey almost brought back 1971, when I travelled with two friends extensively in the Middle East, in particular Lebanon and Syria.
The Château de Queribus is probably the best known of all Cathar Castles. Some say it is the last Cathar stronghold, after Montesegur fell after a 10 month siege in 1244. A field below the hilltop castle Montesgur is reputed to be the site where over 200 Cathars were burned alive, having refused to renounce their fait
One drives through a harsh, sometimes nearly unpopulated rural area , ruled by medieval castles which you can visit in smoldering heat, often by yourself. Languedoc-Roussillon and especially the department Aude has been like Syria always cultural fertile and diverse with all its violent consequences. Like Levante and Egypt, Languedoc-Roussillonon harbors historical significance for Christianity and Gnosticism and their fight with each other, in what Phillip Jenkins called “Jesus Wars“. I have written about that here. Through Templars and the crusades this geographic and cultural regions are even themselves interconnected. The 11th century was the century of monks and knights, but also of a second wave of religious disputes like in the first two centuries, the century of heretics. While waves of Crusaders were fighting in Palestine, the common people of Europe were experiencing a crisis of faith. The Cathars, who lead an austere lifestyle, flourished in Aude and Herault at the foothills of the Pyrenees. My thoughts about them in the context of the Templars here.
This second wave of Gnosticism in Europe started a decade years after Jerusalem fell. Graham Simms and others have written about Jesus after the Cruzification. The book Holy Blood, Holy Grail put forward a hypothesis, that the historical Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and their children emigrated to what is now southern France and that would eventually initiated the Merovingian dynasty. This was later trivialized in the Da Vinci Code and correctly rebuked by serious historians. The Templar-Grail myth and the Rennes-le-Château version have been scolded as two of most notorious pseudo-histories and classic examples of conspiracy theories in history.
It seems sometimes, we experience today a third wave of Gnosticism, although only a trickle in the void of nihilism. Basic Gnostic theology was already known from the Nag Hammadi texts and earlier finds. Christianity has always had many variants, just as it does today, and Gnosticism is still alive and well. At some point, serious believers must decide where to place their faith not to be detracted from the basic Christian message, unless they want it. In any case from, this essay takes an interest in the transmission of thoughts from Jerusalem and Alexandria to southern France.
History of the Region
The region is named Languedoc, after the language formerly spoken there – the Language of Oc or Occitan and famous by its historic walled city of Carcassone in the north, once overrun by the Moores, today by visitors. The Pyrenees-Oriantales form in the West the border between France and Spain with both sides actual Catalan (still a spoken language). The area was trading extensively with Greece and was later called Septimania, because Augustus settled his veterans of the 7th legion there. After the break-up of the Roman Empire, this part of Gaul was dominated by the Visigoths, who migrated into France from central Europe. They sacked Rome in 491 and are known to have carried off the sacred treasure that the Romans had taken from the Temple of Jerusalem. The Visigoths dominated the Languedoc from the 5th until the 8th centuries with strongholds in Carcassone and Narbonne. There are also many remains of fortifications found around Rennes-le-Château, as mentioned a village with a recent “mystery story” and myriads of explanations on its own with a little help of the BBC.
Land of Heretics AudeCarcassonePeyrepertusePuvertQueribusQueribusQueribusAbbey of Saint-Martin-du-Canigou (Catalan: Sant Martí del Canigó) on the Spanish border.
After the Visigoths, the Arabs dominated the area for much of the 8th century. The sacred treasure is last recorded in the Visigoth treasury at Carcassone, but disappears from history after the Moorish invasions in the 8th century from Spain. Languedoc had also a substantial Jewish population in the region from Roman times – and 768 due to their help pushing back of the Arabs, a semi-autonomous Jewish principality was established there. Until the 13th century Languedoc was defacto independent of the rest of France ruled by the Counts of Toulouse. The Languedoc had its own distinct culture, which at that time – probably because of influence of Greek and Jewish – was the most cultured and advanced in Europe. It was here that the troubadour movement flourished and Gnostic thought resurfaced 1000 years after it was stamped out in the cradle of Christianity in the Middle East. In the 12th and 13th centuries the region was the heartland of the Cathar heresy, supported by the Counts of Toulouse. This gnostic form of Christianity is a strong dualism, essentially very similar to the Manichean thoughts and totally opposed to materialism and authority of the Church of Rome.The bloody and traumatic genocide of the Albigensian Crusade, so named after the major Cathar town of Albi, marked a watershed in the history of the Languedoc, ending the south of France’s independence, becoming subordinate to the north. The crusade against the Cathars infamously ended after the siege of Montségur.
The other major power in the medieval France were the Knights Templar, that mysterious order of warrior-monks formed during the Crusades. They were conspicuously neutral – some suspected even secretly helping the Cathars. After having outlived their usefulness after the fall of Outremer in the Holy land, the Templars were accused for secret heresy and for similar reasons (greed and power struggle although her of temporal forces) stamped out a century after the Cathars genocide. Although the Templars were found throughout Europe, the greatest concentration of their property was in the Languedoc and the neighbouring Roussillon region. After the crusade against the Cathars, the Languedoc retained its heretical character. The first witch trials in Europe were held at Toulouse in the 14th century. In later centuries, Languedoc was famed as a centre for alchemists – the town of Alet-les-Bains, 5 miles north of Rennes-le-Château, being a particular centre for the so-called ‘black art’.
Dualism
Ugo Bianchi, an Italian historian of religions identified three distinct features of Dualism:
Absolute Dualism regards the two principles of good and evil as coeternal and equal, whilst moderate Dualism regards the evil principle as a secondary, lesser power to the good principle.
Absolute Dualism sees the two principles as locked in combat for all eternity. Many absolute dualists’, regards time as cyclical and therefore lean to in reincarnation, whereasmoderate Dualism sees historical time as being finite and linear; at the end of time, the evil principle will be defeated by the good.
Absolute Dualism sees the material world completely evil, but moderate Dualism regards creation as essentially good.
Clearly the Cathars were absolute dualists, however this definition may be used to classify Christianity as moderatedualists, without the great (religious) philosopher Augustine of Hippo, who added our free will and Omne bonum a Deo, omne malum ab homine – “All good from God, all evil from man.”The psychoanalytic C.G .Jung said under the impression of the second world war: We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. ” Simpler said, We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. The Shadow, as C.G. Jung defined it, is in us.
Christian dualist heresy has always derived from a tradition that was ‘hidden’ or ‘concealed’ or suppressed from late antiquity onwards. Frome the Catholic/Orthodox point this tradition was mostly recognized as Manichaeism, occasionally in combination with other ancient dualist heretics. From the other side, of course it have been the early Christian apostles who became corrupted by the Church. Hence, this revealing of a kind of ‘secret history’ and attempt to reconstruct suppressed or concealed religious development follows the pattern of pseudo-history.
Manicheanism
Gnostic-Manichaean doctrines offered an investigation of the important dualist religious currents. Dualism defines distinctive source of evil in the divine and supernatural sphere the interrelationships between the divine, human and natural world.
The syncretism and distorted borrowings between the orthodox and heretical religions in antiquity and the Middle Ages present a complex picture. Arguably the development of such religious ideas are best evaluated over a great period of time.
With the establishment, expansion and consolidation of the Christianity, Judaism and Islam, other religious traditions dualism routinely attacked by its monistic critics, began to decline and even disappear from their traditional spheres of influence in Mediterranean Europe and the Near East. However, during the High Middle Ages dualist religiosity in Europe was resurrected, mainly through the missionary efforts of the Bogomil and Cathar heresies. The ecclesiastical and secular elites of medieval Christendom had to pursue what they saw as a re-fight of the battle against its revived ancient Manichaeism, the only universal religion to emerge from the great spiritual turmoil in third-century Mesopotamia. In Manichaeism, the traditional dualist religious vision which divided divine reality and the world into two opposed realms of good and evil was further magnified. Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, proclaimed that his intricate dualist system formed a meta-religion and underlay the teachings of Zoroaster, Buddha and Christ after it reached this universalist phase, having passed through a centuries-old evolution in Iran and the eastern Mediterranean world.
‘Dualism’ has a different usage in philosophical-historical and religio-historical contexts. In religious systems such as Manichaeism it means God and the devil as two coeternal principles. In more general terms, the term dualism is applied also to philosophical systems fort pairs of oppositions like that of Plato, with its dualities between the mortal body and the immortal soul, or the world perceived by the senses and the world of eternal ideas, comprehended by the mind; or the Kantian distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal world.
Kabbalistic Gnosticism
Jung has been often (rightfully) seen of being a contemporary Gnostic. [1] However, the interpretations which Jung places on Gnosticism and the texts which Jung refers to on alchemy, were often Kabbalistic, so much so that one would be more justified in calling the Jung of the Mysterium Coniunctionis or Kabbalistic in contemporary disguise. One of the most serious and arguably criticisms against Kabbalah and the early Gnosticism was of course, that they may lead away from monotheism, and instead promote dualism, the belief that there is a counterpart to God: The good power versus an evil power. Gnostic-dualistic cosmology having roots in Zoroastrianism, believes since creation good and evil forces are divided; Neo-Platonism (which found its way in Christianity), argues that the universe knew a primordial harmony, disrupted by an evil force. Some argue that both models influenced Catharism.
Catharism
Queribus
Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages, essentially a Neo-Dualism which followed the classical religious doctrine of the two principles. Most scholar agree Catharism had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and the Bogomils of Bulgaria, as they inherited much (beliefs and organisation) from the Bogomils. However, explanations that it derived from local Jewish Gnostics, like the Essenes or even early Christians migrated to there are quite plausible. Often labeled as Neo-Manichaeism, one has to be aware, that Manichaeism was used then as a blanket term for Gnostics.
Flourishing principally in the Languedoc (Southern France and Northern Spain) and Italy, the Cathars taught that the world is evil and must be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting and non-violence. As all heretics, the Cathars believed themselves to be the heirs of the true heritage of Christianity going back to apostolic times, and completely rejected the Catholic Church. Most of the bible was rejected (except St. John) and Cathar services and ceremonies, were held in fields and in people’s premises. The main focus, however, has always been on the Cathars (from the Greek word meaning ‘pure’), a name that is normally reserved for the dissident Christians who lived in .
Cathars found widespread popularity among peasants, aristocrats and merchants, which alarmed the Church which founded the Inquisition and launched the Albigensian Crusade to exterminate the heresy. While previous Crusades had been directed against Muslims in the Middle East, the Albigensian Crusade was the first Crusade to be directed against fellow Christians, and was also the first European genocide. With the fall of the Cathar fortress of Montségur in 1244, Catharism was largely obliterated. Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever, as plenty can be written and projected about. Most of what we think we know comes from the Italian branch and inquisition protocols, because Catharism was mostly oral. What really happened, and what did the Cathars actually believe?
The Cathar Perfect was believed to have reached state of spiritual purity had been achieved through which the Holy Spirit, thus releasing them from the burden of reincarnation and the suffering “equal unto the angels” and thus already semi-Divine. After a rigorous training a ceremony took place in which various Scriptural extracts were like the opening verses of the Gospel of John. The Perfect were believed to have become “trans-material” or semi-angelic as expressed in the Gospel of Luke.
The first Cathar Synod was held between 1167 and 1176 at St. Felix-de-Caraman, near Toulouse marked the start of the real struggle between the Catholic Church and Catharism, as the Church now had an organised body to fight. In 1208, Pope Innocent III repeatedly tried to use diplomacy to stop the spread of Catharism, but in that year his papal legate and hated inquisitor Pierre de Castelnau was murdered (allegedly by an agent serving the Count of Toulouse). The event pushed him from diplomacy into military action. Some even consider the death of de Castelnau a false flag operation, engineered so that the crusade would be declared. An estimated 200,000 to one million people died during the twenty year campaign, which began in earnest in Béziers in July 1209. Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury, saw no need to distinguish between the heretics and the thousands of faithful Catholics that lived in the city. “Kill them all,” was the abbot’s alleged reply. “God will recognise his own!” The number of dead that day was between 7,000 and 20,000, the latter figure reported back from Arnaud-Amaury to the Pope.
With such carnage, the other towns (e.g. Narbonne and Carcassonne) offered no resistance and soon the Southern counts had lost their territories and powers to the King of France and his allies. For these Northern lords, attaining the lands of the Languedoc had always been paramount; their mission had been accomplished.
An Inquisition was established in Toulouse in 1229 and from 1233 onwards, hunting down Catharism was no longer done on an individual basis. Many Cathar elders realised the lethal dangers they faced and began to take refuge in the fortresses at Fenouillèdes and Montségur, while others were able to incite uprisings, which forced the Inquisition out of Albi, Narbonne and Toulouse. Count Raymond-Roger de Trencavel was defeated at Carcassonne and only those Cathars hiding in the castles remained to be eradicated. A ten month siege began of the castle of Montségur but in March 1244, the last castle surrendered. Though their life would be spared if they recanted, the Cathars preferred to be burnt, rather than reject their faith. The last Cathar Parfait to be burnt at the stake was Guillaume Bélibaste, in 1321 in the between Rennes-le-Château – known for the mysterious 19th century priest Bérenger Saunière, mentioned later in this essay who with somehow could afford a lavish lifestyle an triggered a massive treasure hunt in the sixties.
Cathar Writings
Very few Cathar tracts have come down to us. Most of the surviving works come from Italy, due to literacy levels were generally higher than in the Languedoc. The Secret Supper elucidates the Cathar creation myth, in which Satan is cast out of heaven for wishing to be greater than God. Satan pretended to repent, at which God forgave him and let him do what he wanted. With his new-found freedom, Satan created the world of matter, and formed human beings from the primordial clay. Each soul was a trapped angel from heaven. Satan then convinced humanity that he was the one true god. The most important surviving Cathar tract is The Book of the Two Principles, which was written in the 1240s, probably by John of Lugio, a Cathar from the Albanensian. The Book of the Two Principles makes a case for there being two coeternal principles of good and evil, each of which created their own spheres – heaven and the material world. by Sean Martin states in his book The Cathars: The Rise and Fall of the Great Heresy: “The true god cannot be the author of evil. The verse in the Gospel of John which states ‘All things were made by it [the Word of God], and without it, was made nothing’ was interpreted as meaning that ‘nothing’ – i.e., the material world – was made by Satan.”
The Cathars studied and taught solely from the New Testament, notably the Gospel of St. John and the Book of Revelations, both of which were written by Mary Magdalene’s brother, Lazarus, who was devoted to Jesus. Cathar beliefs might thus come from Christianity in the time of Jesu. Some conclude from the Gnostic Gospels, that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were Gnostic. Gnostics believed the follower of Christ experienced Gnosis, knowledge, and thus became close to God. Some say, the Cathar were originally taught this by Mary Magdalene. As the Gnostic leaning psychoanalyst C.G. Jung described it: by knowing your Self, you can connect to God. The Cathars only appeared out of nowhere around the 11th century, but that they might have lived here in Languedoc hundreds of years before that, from the time of early Christianity is more plausible than the Bulgaria connection.
Catharism and women
Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. Derived from open source.
Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. In this group, women appear not as numerous as men. As the early Christianity, also the Cathar movement proved to be extremely successful in gaining female follower. Unlike often stated. the record of Cathar and women is mixed, but the Cathars did respect women, and women played a role in the movement. Women could become Perfects known as Parfaites or Perfectaes. The Cathars were wary of the temptations of the flesh, but allowed females to receive the consolamentum and to preach. While women Perfects rarely traveled to preach the faith, they still played a vital role in the spreading of the Catharism by establishing group homes for women. Cathar beliefs include that one’s last incarnation had to be experienced as a man to break the cycle. Toward the end of the Cathar movement, French Catharism started the practice of excluding women Perfects.
Perfecti (they called themselves “bonhommes”) were expected to follow a lifestyle of extreme austerity and renunciation of the world which included abstaining from eating meat and avoiding any sexuality. They also seem to have had their own ideas concerning Mary Magdalene. [2]
Saint Mary Magdalene is still popular in southern France. She had been one of Christ’s followers. According to the Canonical Gospels, she was present at the Crucifixion, and the tomb of Christ, and took the news the missing body to the disciples. John’s Gospel additionally has her as the first to encounter the risen Christ, after she lingered in the garden weeping. Because of her role as messenger Mary Magdalene was afforded the title of apostola apostolorum. The early Gnostics has also revered the saint, and their writings portrayed her as a member of Christ’s inner circle. They believed Christ’s spirit appeared to her, after the Crucifixion, to reveal to her deeper spiritual truths. Gnostics also believed that Mary comprehended Christ’s teaching better than any other, being one of the closest people to him. According to one of the Gnostic apocrypha, the Gospel of Philip, she was called the companion of the Saviour.
…But Christ loved her more than all the other disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’ The saviour answered and told them ‘Why do I not love you like her?‘
The Catholic Church, however, downplayed her as a penitent whore. After the crucifixion, according to the medieval myth, she came and to southern France, living out her days as a hermit. Mary’s redemption by divine grace made her a symbol of God’s forgiveness of sinners. In so far as this she may have appealed to the Templars, many of whom, in their own way, had turned their backs on sinful lives to follow Christ. Many, including gypsies and poor people around the Languedoc, revered this saint, and believed the legend (fostered by Vezelay from the 1030s onwards) that she came there. She fled Palestine, and landed at Marseilles with Martha and Lazarus, and preached to the pagan inhabitants. Like the Gnostics before them, the Cathars elevated her above the other apostles. They may even have regarded her as the widow of Jesus. The anti-Cathar Ermegaud de Beziers and Durand de la Huesca wrote that the Cathars secretly taught that Mary Magdalene was the wife or concubine of Christ; and also that she was the woman ‘taken in adultery’ who Christ had saved from the Jews who wanted to stone her.
Mary Magdalene
mary magdalen st-maxim-cross – petit provence
From this allegation has arisen something of a conspiracy theory: It has it that knowledge of Christ’s alleged relationship with Mary (and perhaps proof thereof) passed from the Cathars to the Knights Templar. It was to remove the threat of this great secret, potentially damaging as it supposedly was to the Church, that the Catholic establishment suppressed the Templars, a century after the Albigensian Crusade. Although the theory probably has a particular appeal to those with a latent penchant for goddess worship in both cases, eliminating of the Cathars and the Templars was pure politics and greed. Many esoterics have additionally speculated that Mary Magdalene was herself of royal blood, or a priestess of some Isis/Ishtar cult, and that the Cathars and Templars regarded her almost as the embodiment of the feminine aspect of the divine and the personification of holy wisdom (Sophia to the Gnostics). Another theory has Mary and Jesus founding a dynasty, which fused with the Merovingian line.
I saw Mary Magdalene statues or paintings in almost ever church. extensively in Rennes-le-Chateau. It must be remembered that she was a legitimate Catholic Saint. Her supposed relics had been claimed by the Benedictine Monks of Vezelay in Burgundy, Central France. The cult was in evidence there from the mid eleventh century. The abbey claimed that the relics had been brought there centuries before by a monk who had retrieved them from their original shrine near Aix in Provence, where Mary had supposedly been lain to rest after spending 30 years living as a hermit in a remote cave called la Sainte Baume.Mary Magdalene is usually thought of as the second-most important woman in the New Testament after Mary. Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus as one of his followers. She was present at Jesus’ two most important moments: the crucifixion and the resurrection. Within the four Gospels, the oldest historical record mentioning her name, she is named at least 12 times more than most of the apostles. In the New Testament, Jesus cleansed her of “seven demons”,[Lk. 8:2] [Mk. 16:9].
Petit Provence is the region in southern France adjacent to Aude and Herault where Mary Magdalene and the others came ashore at St. Maries de la Mer. A painting of Mary Magdalene is at the Church in Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, which is west of Marseille showing the boat carrying Lazarus, Martha, Mary Magdalene and a young girl named Sarah. Also the sister of the Virgin Mary and several others are shown on the boat. Often the jar in Mary Magdalene’s hand signifies the blood of Jesus. Left is the painting of the Crucifixion from the Basilica Sainte-Marie-Madeleine et le Couvent Royal, in St. Maximin. This is where Mary Magdalene was buried. She is shown at the foot of the cross in a very beautiful almost intimate pose.
Rennes-le-Chateau
Rennes-le-Chateau, is located near Couiza between Carcassonne and Quillan, has become world-famous ever allegedly since its infamous priest Bérenger Saunière discovered – or was given – a small fortune. About 300 books were written where the money came from, arguable and convincingly rebuked by Bill Puttnam as distorted pseudo-history:
Lack of solid evidence
Citing evidence without giving a sources
Presentation of evidence in a misleading way
Coincidence taken as evidence
Failure to explore consequences of derived conclusions
Disregard of conflicting evidence
Conflict with accepted chronology
Theories put forward, what kind of Treasure the priest Saunière might have found:
the treasure of the Visigoths, including the treasure of the temple of Jerusalem,that roman emperor Titus took ad 70. and Alaric I, took from Rome during the sack of 394
the treasure of the Cathars. When the last Cathar bastion of Montségur fell, the besieging royal troops found nothing of the famous Cathar treasure taken before its surrender
the treasure of the Knights Templar. The Templars had a presence in the region. There was a commandery at Campagne-sur-Aude and an observation post on Mount Bézu.
the treasure of Blanch of Castille. The mother of Saint Louis, regent of France, came to Rédé (Rennes-le-Château) in 1249
evidence that the Merovingian bloodline is unbroken.
evidence that Jesus didn’t die on the cross
evidence that Jesus was in fact married to Mary Magdalene.
evidence that after the crucifixion Marie Magdalene came to France carrying her offspring that later became the Merovingians or intermarried with them.
he tombs of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea in the vicinity of Opoul Perillos
the tomb of Mary Magdalene and perhaps even one or more of her children in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château, perhaps in the Grotto locally known as
the mummified body of Christ, Mary Magdalene or both is buried in the region somewhere
the Crypt of the Lords of Rennes beneath his church
the Arma Christi (the instruments used during the Passion of Christ) were kept in Notre Dame de Marceille and Rennes-le-Château by a group of Fransciscan Ebionites.
Mary Magdalene and Isis
But that is not the point, the area of Rennes-le-Château is full of interesting real history especially of Mary Magdalene. Although it did not exist in Roman times, founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century, there was most likely an Isis Temple there. Reports of ancient authorsrelate tothe areaof Rennes-le-Chateau ( Celtic Rhedae,Rezae,Reddis or Reda). TheGreek geographerStrabodescribesthe tribe ofCelticTectosagesas “Simple and modest intheir way of life” butthey fear thegods.Another reportcomes from theRoman authorsPomponiusfrom southern Spainwhohaswrittenabout 43AD,his famousbookDeSituOrbisGeography. In it, hedescribes ahidden treasurein the minesof the Pyreneessouth of Carcassonne. Furthermore,there is a reportthaton an oldparchment(which was discovered in Jerusalemin aBible), a temple dedicatedto Isis inRhedaeunder EmperorNero. thenunder Titusin 70 ADbaptized with thenameMagdalene.
Many think today Mary Magdalene was a Priestesses of Isis. Ironically Pope Gregory, in 591 AD cast doubt on the “purity” of Mary Magdalene’s love for Christ when he suggested that one of the seven demons that Christ cast out from Mary Magdalene must have been the sin of adultery. He also conflated Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, the “sinner” who washed Christ’s feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, causing Peter, not exactly concerned of Anima, to wonder how Christ could allow such an appalling display of erotic attention. The idea that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute caught the collective imagination and spread like wildfire in legend and art. From Jungian view on has to take this contagious fantasy into account as meaningful projection of her sin which gets a life of its own for psychological reasons. The Catholic Church has admitted its error in the smearing of Mary Magdalen as a prostitute, however, although Mary Magdalene is almost always mentioned first ahead of the Virgin Mary, only a handful of scholars have attempted to reconstruct why she could have been so important. She carried a royal title that translates as “The Wise Women.” According to the Gnostics, Jesus referred to her as “The One who knew all. The Wise Women was in Mesopotamia called Cybele, Astarte, and Ishtar, the Egyptians called her Isis, the Greeks called her Athena, and the ancient Hebrews called her Asherah, The Woman of the Tree and the very consort to the Lord God YHWH. Gnostics called her Sophia, but in the hands of the Catholic Church, she became The Black Madonna. Legend connects this Black Madonna with both Isis and Mary Magdalene.
Bérenger Saunière built a house and called it Villa Bethania. That he named the house like this is the nearest thing to any mysterious religious knowledge he might have had, for then the Church believed that Mary at Bethany and Mary Magdalene were different people. But Bérenger Saunière didn’t. He built a “folly” and called it the Tour Magdala. There he would study and read.
RENNES-LE-CHATEAU Tour MagdalenRENNES-LE-CHATEAU Church PortalRENNES-LE-CHATEAU Church DevilRENNES-LE-CHATEAU Church Johann the BaptistRENNES-LE-CHATEAU Church FrontRENNES-LE-CHATEAU Church Back
The church is dedicated to Mary Magdalene, and some people think that the priest’s great treasure was spiritual – the knowledge that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and had founded a bloodline, great knowledge which would destroy the Church’s concepts of virginity being related to godliness. There is no doubt that the priest loved Mary Magdalene. He restored his church lovingly and spent a large sum on it between 1886 and 1897 of unknown origin.
RENNES-LE-CHATEAU Mary Magdalen
Inside the church is a statue of Mary Magdalene and she appears much more often than usual in a catholic church. It is standard iconography that Mary holds a crucifix (the crucifix was not used as an emblem until the 9th century) and her jar of ointment. At her feet is a skull resting on a book; this signifies her meditations on mortality. Although it is nowhere mentioned in the Bible, there are well known hints that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. If we take this story seriously what does this mean? First we know that Jesus did mix with prostitutes, tax-collector and the general outcasts of society. Second, in ancient Sumer and in Egypt, priestesses participated annually in the Sacred Marriage, representing their goddess and thus ensuring fertility and the continuance of life. It is most likely that the latter idea of “temple prostitution” arose from the participation of high priestesses in the sacred rituals.
It is clear in the Old Testament that the priests of the god Jehovah hated the Priestesses of Goddess temples and referred to them as Temple prostitutes because it was known that in many Temples of the day used sexual rituals. One of the Gnostic Gospels was called “The Gospel of Mary” and this gospel it seems contains the teachings of Mary Magdalene. Another Gnostic Gospel (see Early christian writings here) called Pistis Sophia (Sophia was the Goddess of wisdom) is about a dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene whom he calls, “dearly beloved. In one dialogue Peter complained to Jesus that Mary Magdalene dominated the conversation with Jesus but Jesus rebukes him. In another Gnostics text called “Dialogue of the Saviour” she is portrayed as a very wise Woman who understood Jesus completely unlike the rest of Jesus’s disciples. So it seems that Mary Magdalene was a very important member of early Christianity. Pistis Sophia was dated about 250 AD. Sophia means wisdom. In Pistis Sophia Jesus returns to the disciples eleven years after his ascension into Heaven to exchange views on his teachings. Pistis Sophia, written in 250 AD, apparently show the Gnostic teachings of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Arguably the Pistis Sophia is blend of primitive Christianity and Hellenic Paganism, with other elements such as reincarnation, Astrology, Mystery religion and Hermetic magic. The Goddess makes an appearance in the guise of Sophia, a Fallen Angel. In Old French legend, the exiled “Magdal-eder,” the refugee Mary who seeks asylum on the southern coast of France, is Mary of Bethany, the Magdalen. The early French legend records that Mary “Magdalene,” traveling with Martha and Lazarus of Bethany, landed in a boat on the coast of Provence in France.
Mary Magdalen as Eros and feminine archetype
RENNES-LE-CHATEAU Porta 1
Back to the Church of Mary Magdalene in Rennes-le-Chateau. The inscription at the portal is most startling (at the left with permission from www.marymagdalenebooks.com). The decor may seem somewhat superficial in any Catholic church at any time and place, but a closer look reveals strangely disturbing – and perhaps even pagan – dark imager and symbols that should unsettle Christians , including a hideous grimacing plaster demon crouched just inside the door, and had the words ‘This Is A Terrible Place’ inscribed over the porch, clearly a gnostic view.
In the church Mary is shown in conventual manner, weeping as Jesus is laid in his tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. The person in red comforting the Virgin Mary in the background is Mary Magdalene’s brother, Lazarus. Like Isis and Ishtar, Mary Magdalene mourns the death of the god and her partner she loves, and when he resurrects, she celebrates his renewal. Through her intense spiritual love, she represents the feminine side of the death and resurrection phenomenon that plays a facilitating role in the humanization of the god-image the reverse process of C.G Jung’s individuation. I can’t help to think which kind of love she represents. There are four shades of love – derived from the different Greek words for love. (I have written here about it). The Greek language distinguishes four distinct words for love: agápe, éros, philía, and storgē.
Storge (στοργή) means “affection” in ancient and modern Greek. It is natural love, like that is felt by parents for offspring, or between brother and sister or by children for their parents. It is a descriptor of relationships within the family. It is also known to express mere acceptance or putting up with situations, as in “loving” the tyrant. The key attribute is natural.
Philia (φιλία) is “conscious” love, we know from words like philosophy – love for wisdom (Sophie). It mean a feeling of friendship and enjoyment of an activity, again used in both ancient and modern Greek. It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity. The key attribute is rational.
Agape (ἀγάπη) means love in a “spiritual” sense. In Ancient Greek, it often refers to a general affection or deeper sense of ” unconditional love” or altruistic love , coming from the heart. In latin the equivalent word is “caritas”, it gives and expects nothing in return. Agape is used by Christians to express the unconditional love of God for us and loving each other like we love ourselves. The key attribute is spiritual.
Eros (érōs) is “physical” passionate love, with sensual desire and longing without the balance of consciousness. The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “intimate love”. Plato expanded this definition: as appreciation of the beauty within an object, or even of beauty itself. Indeed the word platonic love today describes, “without physical attraction.” Plato argues that eros helps the soul find knowledge in beauty which contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth, leading to transcendence. The Greek believed that beauty can never be evil. The key attribute here is sensual.
Although the Judeo-Christian fathers excluded any sign in their orthodoxy that Yahweh and Christ may have had love partners, archeological evidence and Gnostic texts point to the possibility that they did. In our era, with the psychological perspective that C. G. Jung heralded, we can understand the role of the Eros principle [3] that was split off from our god-image, along with the “evil” of the flesh. The emergence of Mary Magdalene in popular culture as the “Holy Grail” or vessel of Christ’s child reflects the intense yearning in the psyche for the feminine principle to participate in the continuing incarnation of the god-image, and for the divine feminine–masculine partnership to realize itself in personal, human experience. Mary is also the first to experience, personally and empirically, the spiritual image of God, a paradoxical union of opposites: life and death, man and god, spirit and matter.
Magdalen in this church painting on the front of the altar, is shown with a book and a skull and usual but with a crucifix of living wood, implying to some that Jesus did not die on the cross, as early heretics, Gnostics and Cathars believed.
RENNES-LE-CHATEAU Churc Mary Magdalen with empty Cross of living wood
Many argue, that Jesus was a Gnostic teacher but did not die on the cross. We know from the Bible that Jesus spent most likely his childhood in Egypt. A very important Egyptian religion of the time was the religion Isis and Osiris. Like Jesus Osiris was a god who was murdered and then returned from the dead. Many scholars have commented on the similarities between Jesus and Osiris and Isis and the Black Madonna. I have described here, obvious similarities of the teaching of the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with triads in ancient religions. So it all does indicate to some that perhaps Jesus and Mary Magdalene was a trained priest and priestess in Egypt with relations to Isis and Gnosticism. In the porch of the church is yet another secret message that implies that Bérenger Saunière believed that Mary Magdalene loved Jesus, indeed, adored him. Just recently, after some 60 years of treasure-hunters, the village is becoming greatly loved by spiritual people interested in Mary Magdalene.
The Black Madonna
I lived for 5 years nearby the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, close to Zurich in Switzerland.
The breathtaking Baroque basilica in the Einsiedeln’s monastery alone is stunning, in which the black statue resides. The Madonna holds the Christ child, who is, himself, holding a black bird. The Way of St. James which extends from all corners of Europe, touches Einsiedeln and the 11th-century abbey of Saint-Martin-du-Canigou situated in a spectacular location in the Pyrenees mountains on the way to Santiago de Compostela and Finisterre. Black Madonnas have been a source of mysticism within the Catholic Church.
Black_Madonna_of_Einsiedeln
Whatever the true significance may be, approximately four hundred Black Virgins are now located throughout Europe, the majority in France. The Black Madonna can be frequently traced back to pre-Christian mother goddess figures. Black Madonnas may in fact have been originally pagan goddesses who were renamed to transfer worship of the Earth Mother to the Virgin Mary or as some believe Mary Magdalene as incarnation of Isis. The cult of Isis was one of the dominant religions of the Mediterranean during late Roman times had spread all over Roman-occupied lands. Please refer here, to read mor how at that time the Mithras Cult, Christianity and Roman State Religion competed: Isis, Mithras and Jesus: Clash of male and female Archetypes in classical Rome. Churches were routinely built over Isis temples after Christianity became in the fourth century state religion, like it is said happened in Rennes-le-Château. Cybele and Artemis/Diana of Ephesus, both dark-skinned fertility goddesses were still worshipped in France and the Mediterranean coast from Antibes to Barcelona during the later centuries of the Roman Empire. Cybele was during the 3rd century the supreme deity of the town of Lyon. Marseilles was devoted to Greek Artemis. When the Crusaders returned from the Middle East Knights Templar, and refuges of overun Outremer surely brought heretic and christian art and gnostic thoughts. Many of whom who were wiped out as heretics, were involved in promoting the cult of the Black Madonna and her association with Mary Magdalene. The Black Madonna Limoux, south of Carcassone very close to Rennes-le-Château. The church at Limoux is called the Notre Dame de Marceille.
Conclusion
What precisely the Cathars believed, remains somewhat of an enigma. Many have used it as a blank canvas, to paint their own thoughts or convictions on. Hence, a lot of myths and falsehoods now exist about Catharism. Suggestions that Jesus survived the crucifixion, went to Egypt, then settled in France are highly speculative, lacking historical evidence (heretic gospels grew like fungus in the formative period of Christianity) and of course are alien to my belief. However, some relations between Christianity and Egypt are clearly not. So is the thought, that gnosticism was already there long before it resurfaced. There is historical and archaeological research that proves a connection between Jerusalem, Egypt, the Land of heretics and Mary Magdalene. Nor would I argue against the view, that there is much more in the story of Mary Magdalene than the gospel tells. Except maybe rhe gospel of luke Luke – my favorite – who resonates so subtile the Anima [4] of the Church in his description of Holy Mary, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany. Is seems almost they represent the classic female archetypes of love and their shadows – from a Jungian view. Notable, the Cathars recited from the gospel of Luke during the ceremony of receiving the consolamentum and become “bonhomme”.
I might return to the subject and the location.
Bishop Fulk, asking a knight why he did not expel heretics, received the classic answer: ‘We cannot. We have been reared in their midst. We have relatives among them and we see them living lives of perfection.’
Malcolm Lambert,
The Cathars
Notes:
Some of biggest creative thinker of the humanity, like C.G. Jung were de facto semi-gnostic and spiritualist. Might has always utilized symbols and collective archetypes. This is valid from Greek philosopher Plato, Dante Alighieri’s “La Divina Commedia”, up to Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, to name just a few.
In the 20th century Freud made the mistake, equating drive energy strictly with sexual energy. Jung’s break from Freud came in part because Jung saw drive energy as transpersonal and deriving from the unconscious, the feminine counterpart to consciousness.
Pope Gregory the Great’s homily on Luke’s Gospel, dated 14 September 591, first suggested that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute: “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? … It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts” (1844–1864, Homily XXXIII, col. 1238–1246).
Though critical, the role of the animus must be left for another time. I recommend Animus and Anima, Emma Jung.Gnosticism Term used to designate many different sects who flourished in the first few centuries AD. many elements of Christian Gnosticism are pre-Christian Gnostics, such as the belief in Dualism. The name derives from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis.
Gnosticism: Term used to designate many different sects . Many elements of Christian Gnosticism are pre-Christian Gnostics, such as the belief in Dualism. The name derives from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis. Gnosticism can be found around all revealing religions as it is essentially syncretistic .
Dualism: The belief that good and evil are two independent, opposing principles.
Bogomilism: Dualist heresy founded by the priest Bogomil in the early tenth century in Bulgaria. The earliest tangible evidence is datable to 1167. The movement survived up to the nineteenth century. It appears to have influenced Catharism strongly, although some see other, local roots.
Paulicianism: Dualist heresy that emerged in seventh-century Armenia. In 717, a council of the Armenian Church denounced them as ‘sons of Satan’ and ‘fuel for the fire eternal’. They are thought to have survived until the seventeenth century.
Docetism: The belief that Christ did not have a physical body, common amongst Gnostics. Docetics believed that Jesus’s body was an illusion, as was his crucifixion. Docetism was declared heretical by the Church. Both the Bogomils and the Cathars were Docetist.
Essenes: Radical Jewish sect that existed from the second century BC to the first century AD. Some argue that that both Jesus and John the Baptist had links with the sect. The community at Qumran, which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, is thought to have been Essene.
Elchasaites: Jewish Christian sect who were, interestingly, also known as katharoi. Their most famous member was the Persian prophet Mani.
Manichaeism: Dualist religion founded by the Persian prophet Mani in the third century. As it had an Universalist claim it was majorcompetition, Wiped out in Europe during the sixth century, and emigrated as the Nestorians to Asia. ‘Manichaean’ became a blanket term for heretic during the Middle Ages
Adoptionism: Belief that Christ was not born divine, but only became so after his baptism.
Nestorianism The belief, first proposed by Nestorius, then patriarch of Constantinople in the fourth century, that Christ’s person contained two separate beings, one human, the other divine. Nestorianism was declared heretical at the Council of Ephesus in 431, but it survived in Asia and came back ironically with the Mongols in the thirteenth century. See Phillip Jenkins “Jesus Wars”.
Arianism Named after Arius (256–336), from Alexandria, denied that Christ and God were one person, seeing them instead as two different Divine entities. Declared heretical at the Council the Council of Nicaea.
Marcionism Gnostic dualist sect that taught the principle of the two gods, with Christ being the son of the true god, and the Jehovah of the Old Testament being seen as the evil god.
Some Cathar terms:
Listeners In the Cathar context, a Listener was a person interested in Catharism, but was not ready or willing to become an actual member of the church, which required the taking of the convenanza.
Believers The majority of Cathars were Believers. That is to say, they had taken the convenanza, but were not yet consoled. They were not subject to any dietary restrictions.
Perfects In the Cathar context their priests. Perfect The were ascetics who were the heart and soul of the Cathar movement. Bogomilism also had similar classes
Consolamentum Cathar rite of baptism that elevated the Believer to the state of a Perfect.
Convenanza Formal rite that made a Cathar Listener a Believer.
Bibliography
The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy (Yale Nota Bene), Stoyanov, Yuri
The Cathars: The Rise and Fall of the Great Heresy by Sean Martin
The Knights Templar: The History and Myths of the Legendary Military Order by Sean Martin
Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars (Cambridge University Press, 1978); The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge University Press, 1994)
Gnosticism and Early Christianity by R. M. Grant
Jesus Wars Harper, 2010 by Phillip Jenkins
The Treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau: A Mystery Solved, by Bill Putnam
C.G. Jung, Aion Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte
A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, James Henry Breasted Kindle-Edition
The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia A. H. (Archibald Henry) Sayce Kindle-Edition
Malcolm Barber & Keith Bate (translators & editors), The Templars: Selected Sources (Manchester Medieval Sources Series, Manchester University Press, 2002)
The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries by Rodney Stark
The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died by Philip Jenkins
Historia Mundi Volume IV, Lehnen Verlag, Die Kirche zur Zeit der Apostel und Märtyrer
The Cults of the Roman Empire, Robert Turcan
Les sites templiers, Jea Luc Barbiere
Haskins, S. Mary Magdalene: Myth and meaning, (1993) New York, NY: Riverhead Books
The Cathar religion represents a major medieval resurgence of Gnosticism, and we offer an important collection of Cathar Texts, including the complete manuscript of the Lyon Ritual, Interrogatio Iohannis, and The Book of the Two Principles.
While the Nag Hammadi Library represents the richest source of classical Gnostic texts, many other primary Gnostic documents were discovered in the century prior to the Nag Hammadi find. These are cataloged in the Classical Gnostic Scriptures and Fragments section.
Of associated interest is the Christian Apocrypha and Early Christian Literature, a section containing other important Christian texts surviving outside canonical tradition, some of which manifest Gnostic influence.
The G.R.S Mead Collection contains over a dozen volumes written by G. R. S. Mead (1863-1933), one the greatest early scholars of Gnosticism. These works provide an invaluable evaluation of texts relating to Gnostic tradition available before discovery of the Nag Hammadi collection.
The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty texts, was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945. This immensely important discovery includes a large number of primary Gnostic scriptures — texts once thought to have been entirely destroyed during the early Christian struggle to define “orthodoxy” — scriptures such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth. The discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi library has provided impetus to a major re-evaluation of early Christian history and the nature of Gnosticism.
We have add extensive resources on two centrally important texts from Nag Hammadi: The Gospel of Thomas and The Secret Book of John. Multiple authoritative translations of several Nag Hammadi scriptures are included in the collection.
Valentinus and Valentinian Gnosis. Valentinus was one of the most influential Gnostic Christian teachers of the second century A.D., and was the only Gnostic considered for election as Bishop of Rome (Pope). He founded a movement which spread throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Despite persecution by developing orthodoxies, the Valentinian school endured for over 600 years. A large number of texts in the Nag Hammadi collection are influence by Valentinian tradition. Due to its importance, we have a large section of the library dedicated specifically to Valentinus and the Valentinian Tradition.
Hermetism and the Hermetic Gnosis — including the Corpus Hermeticum
Beyond the bounds of classical Christian Gnosticism — represented by the above materials — the Hermetic tradition is another very important and influential Western tradition of Gnostic character. The Hermetic writings represents a non-Christian lineage of Gnosticism. Our Corpus Hermeticum and Hermetic Writings section offers the most extensive collection of Hermetic texts available on the internet. Included here you will find introductory material, the complete texts of the Corpus Hermeticum, and essentially all other extant Hermetic writings. Included is an introductory lecture.
The Dead Sea Scrolls Collection
The Dead Sea Scrolls Collection in the Gnostic Society Library is one of the largest and most referenced Dead Sea Scroll resources on the internet. During the middle years of the twentieth century two important but very different collections of ancient religious texts were unearthed in Palestine and Egypt: the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library.
Illustrations are my own (except stated otherwise) and may be used with quoting the proper sources.
When they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil.
This article explores the psychological underpinnings of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” from a Jungian view. Carl Jung left a great deal of ambiguity surrounding his work. He understood, as long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity and everybody must accept his or her “Shadow” during the individuation process. Ambiguity between good an evil, and a failed individuation is the core theme in the tragedy Macbeth: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” say the three witches in the beginning of the play and this paradox is touched again by Macbeth: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”. The enemy and death is “foul” – bad – but the outcome of the battle is “fair” – good, only because he has won.So the play Macbeth is about the evil, but as we see mostly the evil in us, and this evil is first impersonated by the witches. That is why Macbeth is also called the “Scottish play” by the superstitious theater folk. The play has gotten a reputation for being bad luck in terms of productions and those who act in it, and so it is referred from them to as “the Scottish play” to avoid naming it. The play is about the good consumed by the evil. However, Tao says Tao is eternal and so are the two principles Yang and Yin, so that good and evil must be eternal, as necessary elements of our world.
Secularism, particularly relativism has tried to blur the line between good and evil where belief systems and philosophies used different approaches to mask the ambiguity between “evil and good”. Dualistic has the view that the world consists of or is explicable as those two fundamental entities. It is God, love, death, suffering and infinity that open us to the non-dualistic mind, or contemplation. Dualism means eliminating everything that is not like you (or projecting all your rejected attributes to others). Lao-Tse and Jesus were masters of non-dualistic thinking. The Jungian System is a fine example of an non-dualistic psychology : the more inflated your self-image (Ego), the bigger your shadow will be. Macbeth looses his soul (his Self) failing to differentiate between Persona and his inflated Ego and overwhelmed by his shadow and his anima utilized by the ambitious Lady Macbeth.
Jung’s vastly varying influences have helped shape a psychology that has influenced a great many scholars, theorists, psychologists, and artists of various specialties. While still maintaining an empirical stance Carl Gustav Jung has taken the influential elements of literature, symbolism, religion, and the alchemy and has formed these raw, primordial factors into a unparalleled psychoanalytic system. Jung’s view of literature was ambivalent. He was fascinated by Nietzsche, and lectured on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Besides of German literature C. G. Jung appears to have been influenced by Shakespeare. In particular Jung was interested in the mythic and archaic elements in literature. Hermann Hesse’s novel Demian was inspired by Jung’s theory of individuation whereas Macbeth seems to be the prototype of a failure to achieve successful ego-individuation.
The play Macbeth
title_macbeth
Jung found literature to be a psychological process which includes the process of materials being “drawn from man’s conscious life; and the visionary dealing with primordial images that transcend human understanding.” Jung found that the archetypal symbols he worked with could, quite naturally, be found in the works of various ages. “It is to be expected… that the poet will turn to these mythological images to give suitable expression to his own experiences.”
Macbeth, when you analyze it, is a psychological battle between good and evil, and between evil ambition and order. Darkness is a symbol of the characters forgetting all about honor or goodness. The play demands that the audience think about how we make excuses in our life to pursue false ambitions that are wrong. Macbeth makes this mistake and ultimately it leads to his death. Darkness in Macbeth is a key theme. The play begins with the brief appearance of a trio of witches and then moves to a military camp, where the Scottish King Duncan hears the news that his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, have defeated two separate invading armies—one from Ireland, led by the rebel Macdonwald, and one from Norway. Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches who prophesy that Macbeth will be made thane (a rank of Scottish nobility) of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland. Macbeth and Banquo treat their prophecies skeptically until some of King Duncan’s men come to thank the two generals for their victories in battle and to tell Macbeth that he has indeed been named thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is intrigued by the possibility that the remainder of the witches’ prophecy—that he will be crowned king—might be true, but he is uncertain what to expect. It remins me a little bit of Wagners Rhinemaidens, who have a magical gold treasures with magical powers. Alberich an ugly dwarf, trys to score on them but they laugh at him. So he robs their treasure with the ring (the key to power and wealth). To do this, he must renounce love. I think Macbeth never could love, neither himself nor others.
Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband’s uncertainty. She desires the kingship for him and wants him to murder Duncan in order to obtain it. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband’s objections and persuades him to kill the king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan’s two chamberlains drunk so they will blame the murder on the chamberlains. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a vision of a bloody dagger. When Duncan’s death is discovered the next morning, Macbeth kills the chamberlains—ostensibly out of rage at their crime—and easily assumes the kingship. Duncan’s sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed
C_G_JUNG_MALE_FEMALE_ARCHETYPES
Duncan desires their demise as well. Fearful of the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s heirs will seize the throne, Macbeth hires a group of murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. They ambush Banquo on his way to a royal feast, but they fail to kill Fleance, who escapes into the night. Macbeth becomes furious: as long as Fleance is alive, he fears that his power remains insecure. At the feast that night, Banquo’s ghost visits Macbeth. When he sees the ghost, Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, who include most of the great Scottish nobility causing Macbeth’s kingship to incite increasing resistance from his nobles and subjects. Frightened, Macbeth goes to visit the witches in their cavern. There, they show him a sequence of demons and spirits who present him with further prophecies: he must beware of Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth’s accession to the throne. Macbeth orders that Macduff’s castle be seized and, most cruelly, that Lady Macduff and her children be murdered. It should be clear by now, that Macbeth represents the archetypes of weak king and becomes a cruel sadistic warrior, whereas Lady Macbeth seems to own foremost frigid witch qualities.
When news of his family’s execution reaches Macduff in England, he is stricken with grief and takes revenge and with Prince Malcolm, Duncan’s son, and the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth’s tyrannical and murderous behavior. Lady Macbeth, meanwhile, becomes plagued with fits of sleepwalker in which she bemoans what she believes to be bloodstains on her hands. Before Macbeth’s opponents arrive, Macbeth receives news that she has killed herself, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair.
He is struck numb with fear, however, when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches’ prophecy. In the battle, Macbeth hews violently, but the English forces gradually overwhelm his army and castle and he realizes that he is doomed, Macbeth continues to fight until Macduff kills and beheads him.
Failed Individuation in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
macbeth
Macbeth has not begun to deal with the adult developmental task of individuation. According to Jung, in the process of individuation “unconscious potentials are explored and reintegrated with the “Self”. The exploration of certain parts of the unconscious brings to consciousness unacknowledged ” missing pieces. Macbeth’s failure to individuate successfully is reflected by the distance between his rigid Persona and his real personality, and his inability to confront the shadow aspects of his psyche, and the complete rejection of his anima. Tellingly those developmental issues only seem able to get Macbeth’s attention through his hallucinations and visions. Jung said that “only through the adult development of individuation can the person become truly an ‘individual’ and not simply a carrier of unconscious images and other people’s projections”. This “carrier of unconscious images” and receptacle of “other people’s projections” is exactly how Shakespeare paints Macbeth: Macbeth is Duncan’s “O worthiest cousin” (I, iv, 17), the murderers’ “Highness,” “liege,” “lord” (III, I, 81, 102, and 131), and Malcolm’s “tyrant” (Iv, iii, 14). Throughout the play Macbeth’s identity is formed by Shakespeare’s other characters. The tragedy of Macbeth is that he has failed to explore his unconscious and discover and accept his true identity. Because he has not individuated, he can be molded and pushed into identities and actions that others project onto him. Macbeth is very conscious of his persona and of the positive reputation he has cultivated, and he enjoys thinking of himself in this way. According to Jung, the Persona (literally the mask) is the aspect of personality that adapts to the world to be accepted in society. Throughout the play Macbeth attempts to put on a “false face” (I, vii, 9 5) so that he can hide what his “false heart doth/know” (I, vii, 95-96). When he has plotted Banquo’s death and is preparing to make merry with his guests, Macbeth believes that he can cover not only his conscious knowledge of his role in Banquo’s death from others but keep his unconscious feelings of fear, shock, and guilt at arranging a murder from himself. During dinner Macbeth has a hallucination. He sees the ghost of Banquo come to haunt him and denies his guilt: “Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake/ Thy gory locks at me” (III, iv, 61-62). Throughout the play Macbeth refuses to own his unconscious; he places supreme importance on appearances (Persona), his consciousness and refuses to deal with any desires and actions which challenge his idealized Ego.
Shadow- instinctive powerful, beast
His rejection and disregard of this “shadow” keep him ignorant of its motivational power and the gulf that develops between his persona and real personality. Jung described the shadow as “those aspects of the psyche that are rejected from consciousness by the ego (during sozialization in the first half of life), because they are inconsistent with one’s self-concept. Macbeth’s history of denying his shadow is detailed throughout the play. In Act I, after learning of Duncan’s intention of having Malcolm succeed to the throne, Macbeth rejects his ambitiously motivated ability to become a traitor. Jung says that as we show our persona to others and conceal our shadow from ourselves, “the shadow gets more and more ugly, and the split between persona and shadow … widens”. For Macbeth, this is true. After he kills Duncan, Macbeth refuses to believe that he could be a murderer – one although this ability to murder is present in Macbeth’s character. After his second meeting with the Weird Sisters, Macbeth resolves to kill Macduff’s family in the Thane of Fife’s absence Macbeth has progressed from ambitious regicide to familial mass murderer. Because Macbeth has not confronted his shadow and haven’t taken the effort caused by introduction of the shadow to consciousness, Macbeth cannot follow an intrinsic moral compass. This allows him to commit his atrocities without having to justify them. Ironically, part of Macbeth’s anima is positive, but it is repressed because he believes it to contain negative qualities.
anima
According to Jung, men have “repressed feminine-typed qualities” (their anima) and women have “repressed masculine-typed qualities” (their animus). While this area of Macbeth seems cloudy, I believe that Macbeth cannot explore what Jung would call the inner feminine qualities of empathy and emotion because Lady Macbeth is constantly questioning his identity as a man, struggling herself to be a women and with her animus. Two passages support this theory. When Macbeth begins to vacillate between killing Duncan and maintaining his honorable reputation, Lady Macbeth chastises him for not being man enough to take what he wants (I, vii, 3 9-49). She also calls him to task for not being a man of his word (I, vii, 53-67). Lady Macbeth claims that she, a woman, is more manly than Macbeth. Macbeth is expressing fear and guilt, emotional inner controls, and Lady Macbeth makes fun at him. Later, when Macbeth is confronted with his hallucination of Banquo’s ghost, he expresses fear and revulsion at what he has done to Banquo through the ghost’s horrible appearance. Lady Macbeth tells him to stop acting like a hysterical woman and to live in reality. She even asks Macbeth, “Are you a man” (III, iv, 70). While Macbeth clearly rejects his “inner woman,” as shown by the ease with which he is manipulated by gender role identification (making him vulnerable to Lady Macbeth evilness), he is severely hampered in uncovering his anima by her disparaging of his male identity.
Personal Layers
Macbeth’s strict adherence to his inflated Ego a false Persona, his unwillingness to deal with his shadow. According to Jung rejecting anima have psychological consequences – sometimes the shadow and anima merge and overpower the consciousness (Ego); he has hallucinations. Jung interpreted psychotic hallucinations and delusions as expressions of the collective unconscious archetypes, which can be interpreted as visions or a type of dream, manifesting their meaning from his personal unconscious. Act II’s floating dagger can be read as a symbol forcing its way into consciousness. Through his visions, Macbeth’s unconscious is trying to show him the issues he must deal with. One of the sadder aspects of the tragedy is that he is constantly dissuaded from looking at them. The moral conflict needed to mitigate his personal not to speak collective un consciousness is not present. This is why poor Macbeth (like many powerful men and women) is so far from the mark with his comments on life. They does not know enough about themself to allow anything but a shallow, two-dimensional interpretation of life, letting them be directed by passions unseen, greed and manipulative persons around them.
Anima and Animus in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
There appears to be some critical discord in connection to the classification of Lady Macbeth, whether she qualifies as an innocent, supportive wife, or, in Malcolm’s words, as a “fiend-like queen.” (Shakespeare V. ix. 35) However, Shakespeare’s text simply does not support the idea that the Lady Macbeth did not play a serious role in the murder of King Duncan and. The concept which seems to lie at the core of critical discussion in relation to Lady Macbeth, is gender. Lady Macbeth herself, makes the argument about gender in her famous speech, wherein she appeals to the powers of dark spirits to “unsex” her, and replace any feminine tendency in her with “direst cruelty” (Shakespeare I. v. 42-43). She wishes to take all that she perceives as weak and feminine in herself, and seeks to substitute it with an evil. Jung believed that all men and women were made up of masculine and feminine energies, the former being called the animus and the latter being called the anima and this unconscious selves of individuals can be used to understand Lady Macbeth’s actions. It can be argued, that Lady Macbeth’s vehement denial of her feminine self (or her anima) that causes her to manipulate her husband into committing the murder of Duncan, affected her relationship with her husband (unable to maintain it) and ultimately led to her insanity and death.
Conclusion
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” : What the line points to is the play’s concern with the discrepancy between appearance and reality: that is, the difference between how someone seems and how someone really is. It is a central concern of Shakespeare’s, and obviously one that fits well with the medium of theatre, which relies on actors seeming to be something that they most definitely aren’t. This is one of the last lines in Act 1 Scene 1 when the witches are foreshadowing events to come in the play. With these words, they are predicting the evil that will cloud Macbeth’s judgments and that those judgments will appear to Macbeth as fair and just. This line also could refer to the witches believing that things some consider to be foul and ugly are just and beautiful to them because they embody evil.
Timbuktu-Sunni activist – resurgence of animosity between Salafists and Sufis
Sufism the Gnostic chameleon came recently into the CNN spotlight when Al Qaeda-linked Mali Islamists armed with Kalashnikov’s and pick-axes destroyed centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the UNESCO-listed city of Timbuktu. Sufism is historically known from the 5th century A.D on (first Sufi order was founded 657), and has survived as the only mystic (gnostic) religion the purges of the three fighting monotheist religions. This article wants to explore its religious and historical roots, and its compatibility to the psychoanalytic concepts of C. G. Jung. Like in the “Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh”, Sufism appears as a Gnostic chameleon always nodding its head. Gnostic thoughts had been rejected by Christianity, found a new host and became its spiritual brain, the muscle and sinew. First by oral tradition, later in writings, still later as Janissaries. Sufism is very appealing to intellectuals. Sufism and Gnosticism take over silently, hence were often purged violently by Islam and Christianity. Sufism has inspired pacifist teachings, but also Assassination and Jihad for militant and tyrannical regimes. Sufis picture themselves today as struggling against violent fundamentalists who are at once their deadly foes, and ours. Phillip Jenkins sees Sufi Muslims, as potential allies in the fight against extremism. Is todays enemy of our enemy our friend? Are Sufis – Jungian gnostics, syncretic mystics or muslim Templars? Let be history our guide.
Compatibility issues
Although the term “Sufism” is very vague construct, it is still used across the world in both academic and public field of interest. As western –ism concept it originates from Kufa, where Jabir Ibn Hayyan described sufi as a man, who seeks deeper and more intimate relation to God. It was used by Muhasibi and Jahiz to describe a mystic school in Kufa, which was close to Shi‘a teachings. The meaning of the word has been of ten connected with the word “wool”(suf ), from which are made the clothing for ascetics. Sufism embodies so the essence of the Cabbala as well as those of the Christian Gnostics. And not only this: In every religion, so say the Sufis, there is an “internal” “confidential” teaching which is hidden from the believer. This essence of every religion is a component of the Sufism, because the internal knowledge of all religious directions are same. The Sufism recognises this, bundles them up them and draws a line which is congruentially with the human existence. Thus it becomes even more interesting if one sees Sufism from a Jungian view.
Yes, Sufism is syncretistic and individual, but in essence it teaches a personal approach to God and the Self long before C.G. Jung very compatible to his concept of synchronicity and individuation. It would be compatible to all world religions too, but especially if those are connected to worldly ideology, they seek to displace each other. They don’t co-exist. They wish to impose their worldview, and they wish the imposition to be publicly seen. As Philip Jenkins the author of “The Lost History of Christianity” noted, they live, fight, win, go underground or die, but their cultural remains stay for a long time like stellar explosion. Religious history does not know for sure, why has Sufism so much common with Gnosticism. The reason is maybe, that both of these systems are essentially the mystical ways, how to experience the original religion (Judaism, Christianity or Islam,) in a deeper sense and how to unite with God. One must can also admit that the Gnostic Christianity influenced the early stage of Islam and that many Gnostics (e.g. Manicheans, Mandaeans or Christians) converted to Islam and brought the ideas of their old religion into orthodox Islamic theology. Sufi mysticism has long exercised its lure to orientalist scholars. Figures like Rumi have become well published. Based rather on poetry than history Sufism is perceived in the US as a peaceful and apolitical form of Islam and even as means of communication towards the integration of Europe and Muslims.
Cultural Remains
Timbuktu-Damage-Books
A mere slaughter in Africa wouldn’t have raised a cloud of dust in the West or destruction of a Christian church – the world and the CNN would have hardly taken notice. But have you heard about Timbuktu recently? Or of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan? No. Why is that? If we have lost a source of common information about ourselves, and it can never be replaced. Empires may come and go, but the records of man’s achievements are irreplaceable once lost. This is what offends me. If we lose cultural heritage we have lost something of themselves; we have lost something of that which allows us to understand our past – which is of course needed to understand the present. Like the story of the Sufis. I touched it a few times. Sufism has come to mean a wide range of beliefs that center on the quest for personal enlightenment in the union with God. Sufis are sometimes described as the mystics of Islam, but Sufism fits awkwardly in the categories of religions. A cornerstone of mysticism is that true knowledge of God is achieved directly and not through an intermediary like a prophet, saint or priest. Over the centuries this has led to a great deal of political conflict between mystics and non-mystics. If a cleric or Priest behaves or commands something that seems in conflict with dogma, the individual is not in a position to disagree as long as there is no direct relationship between God and the individual.
Many Sufis are not Muslims and there are many Muslims that are reluctant to consider Sufism part of Islam. One of the few concepts that Sufis seem to agree on is that all religions offer a path to salvation or enlightenment and that true God realization, no matter how it is achieved, transcends the limitations and classification of any religion. There is no firm historical source for Sufism. Many of the early orders were considered an integrated part of Islam, but as teachings were codified and the elements of Shi’i and Sunni Islam became more distinct, Sufism emerged with an identity. One of the basic ideas of Sufism is to minimize the self or individual identity (Translate the in the Ego of C.G. Jung). Belonging to a particular group with a unique name is contradictory to this effort. It is said, “a Sufi is one who is not,” and with a philosophy that seeks the destruction of self-identity it is thought that Sufi’s received their name from outsiders. Initially the term Sufi referred only to those who had achieved God realization, but it has since come to be applied to anyone who follows that particular spiritual path.
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.You must ask for what you really want.Don’t go back to sleep.People are going back and forth across the door-sill where the two worlds touch.The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep”.
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being”.
Both from The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
Were the Sufis mystics or warriors, dervishes or monks, Christians or Muslims?
Sufi Warrior
Sufi Dervish were Warrior Orders called by the Calif, often from far distances, when long sieges were expected. They were not only mystics but warriors when necessity demanded. There is good evidence, that their secret close-knit brotherhoods was the role model of the European Knight Templars. Sufis have proved to be the most fanatical fighters in Muslim history and in Ottoman culture they had military branches. One particular brand of Sufis influential in Pakistan and Afghanistan in a tradition of secret societies. Information was passed down from person to person for generations. The were active in the jihad to regain India from the Raj for over 100 years. Sufism is influential in Chechnya: The terrorist attacks of Beslan and the Moscow theatre siege had Sufi background. Sufism enjoys a wonderful press in the West by their good old practice writing about non understood issues and deliberately not mentioning the other half. The expansion of Islam outside the core areas of the Middle East is above all a Sufi story. Sufi orders led the armies that conquered lands in Central and South Asia, and in Southeastern Europe; through their piety and their mysticism, the brotherhoods then won the local elite over to Islam. They disguised Islam with local traditions and worship styles, including Christian saints and Hindu gods. Today, Sufi styles and practices dominate in the non-Arab Muslim world: in India and Pakistan, in Indonesia and Malaysia, Nigeria and Senegal, and in the Muslim countries of Central Asia, such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
sufi-war-orders
The Sufi Order was widespread in the Ottoman Empire (because the majority of Ottoman Janissaries were Shia-Sufis). The Janissaries were elite soldiers, a heavy armored infantry or Foot Knights of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Heavy Cavalry were Sipahis (Turkish Nobles) and Ghulams (mostly Persian). Janissaries had “cousins” in Iran (Persia) under the Safavid Dynasty (Persian-Turkic Cousins of the Ottomans) . The Safavid counterpart of the Ottoman Janissaries were called the “Qizilbash. Christian children were brought into the corps through the devshirme system, in which young boys were taken from their Christian families in Greece, Serbia, Armenia, or Bulgaria , which were part of the Ottoman Empire. The word “Janissary” comes from the Turkish yeni çeri or “new soldier.” The child soldiers were converted to Islam, and trained in infantry techniques and tactics.
By the end of the seventh century, Turkish migrants converted to Sunni Islam and became champions of Islamic orthodoxy. Beginning in the twelfth century, new waves of Turkic migrants became attracted to militant Sufi orders, which gradually incorporated heterodox Shia beliefs. One Sufi order that appealed to Turks after they won against Christianity was the Safavi, based in northwest Iran. Safavid adherence to a Sufi version of Shi’a Islam had the support of the Turkic tribes called the mentioned Qizilbash [literary the “Redheads” for the twelve red strips on their turbans symbolizing their adherence to twelve Shi’i Imams]. Qizilbash tribes resided mostly in Asia Minor; northern Syria, and northern Iraq. Concern about the growing influence of the Safavi probably was one of the factors that prompted the Ottomans to permit unorthodox Bektasi Sufism to become the official order of the janissary soldiers.
The Sufi orders enhanced their political role again with Western imperialism. When Islam was under threat, their close-knit brotherhoods were devastatingly effective. Sufi orders led anti-colonial movements from Morocco to Indonesia and are the core of the stubborn Chechen guerrillas. Even Stalin’s terror campaigns could not root out the Sufi brotherhoods. A similar story can be told in Kurdistan, Kashmir, Albania, Somalia, Kosovo, and elsewhere, where believers owed their survival and cohesion to the Sufi brotherhoods.
Sufi Mystics
While Sufism did not exist prior to Islam, Sufi doctrine contains many elements that go beyond the teaching of Mohammad. Islam seems to be the external shell in which the Sufism lives while the internal quest for enlightenment belongs to a realm of Sufi knowledge. It seems reasonable that the Sufi doctrine that differs the most from the rest of Islam had its beginnings much earlier (my very non-Muslim view of Sufism). For many centuries these extra qualities created a great deal of friction between mainstream Islam and the Muslim mystics. After centuries of falling in and out of favor, Sufis represent a door to other religions and that is the very reason that they became a target again. Many Sufi orders encourage honoring Saints and Prophets by visiting them if the are alive or their tombs if they have passed on. Pilgrims often will go to ask for favors in the form of miracles or prosperity. In many communities the pilgrims are people from other religions who come to the tombs in hopes of finding favor or receiving miracles, very similar to Christians. The Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi (in 1207-1273), said: „Go the way Mohammed, but if you are not able to do this, go the Christian way.“ What he meant with “like a Christian”, is very clear (and said by C.G. Jung later): „Jesus is in you, search for his assistance.“ Sufis idols and customs resemble catholic ones, in Islam the associate either with Shiite or Sunnis.
sufism
To the orthodox Islam, the mystic Sufism is deemed idolatrous. But this is nothing new. That the Sufi shrines recently became some sort of official religio-political status of global importance, which irked Sunnis and particularly Western supported Salafis, to whom all shrines and statues are blasphemous, similarly to protestants in Christianity. Some scholars theorize that many of the esoteric impulses of Europe, from the Middles Ages on, point to Sufi influence. The Knights Templar are said to have brought back Sufi elements from their contacts in the holy lands (I have written about that). The mythical Christian Rosenkreutz of Rosicrucian fame is described as journeying to the East. Some have hypothesized links between Sufi love poetry and the rise of the Troubadours. All of which suggests that, for the West, Sufism is not so much new as it is previously unrecognized. How then do we approach the task of learning what Sufism has to offer?
Sufi Poetry
The best method is to become acquainted with the writings of classical Sufism: the poetry, tales, and teaching texts of the greatest Sufis in centuries past. I have access only to German texts of Ibn El-Arabi (1165-1240) which convey the beauty better than English:
„Mein Herz umfasst sämtliche Formen: Das Mönchskloster, den Tempel der Idole, Die Weide der Gazellen und die Kaaba des Gläubigen, Die Tafeln der Thora und den Koran. Die Liebe ist, wozu ich mich bekenne. Wohin meine Kamele sich auch wenden mögen, Die Liebe ist und bleibt mir Glaube und Gesetz“.
Some of many facets of the Sufismus appeared with some important Sufis writers
Rabia ( a Sufi saint died in 801 A.D.) spoke out against false devoutness,
Al-Harith al-Muhasibi (died 857) taught the constant conscience check,
Dhu’n-Nun (died 859) sang of the divine in the nature and mental development,
al-Hallaj (executed 922 because of his spiritual conviction) based religiousness completely on personal God’s experience,
Hujwiri (died about 1071) stressed the meaning of own decision instead of result of ones past.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali (died in 1111) encouraged the person to one by God’s love and charity sanctified life, Ahmad Ghazzali (died in 1126) spoke of God and person who are like mirror for each other
Sanai (died approx. in 1131) admonished the humanity,
Fariduddin Attar (died. about 1220) we carry what our soul longs for basically in ourselves,
Ibn’ Arabi (died in 1240) the possibility of the knowledge of God from his signs in the transient, “what shines through “,
Mu’inuddin Chishti (died in 1236) required tolerance of Hindus and Muslims equally
Persian Sufi writer Jelaluddin Rumi (died in 1273) , was particularly valued by the dervish’s brotherhood who recognised a cosmic quality of the universe – the evolution.
Hazrat Inayat Khan and Pir Vilayat are examples of the fact that modern psychoanalytic thought of C. G. Jung can already be found in the Sufism and modern Sufism could become a unique religious-communication message of love, harmony and beauty as a “relieved spirituality” which is directed at all people.
Sufi and Templars
The connection of the Templars with the Isma’ilis and Assassins has been well researched. The Assassins were first known as the Nizari Isma’ilis. From the Isma’ilis the Crusaders borrowed the conception which led to the formation of all the secret societies, religious and secular, of Europe. The institutions of Templars and Hospitallers; the Society of Jesus, founded in the Holy Land, composed by a body of men whose devotion to their cause can hardly be surpassed in our time; the ferocious Dominicans. the milder Franciscans – may all be traced either to Cairo or to Alamut. The Knights Templar especially, with their system of grand masters, grand priors and religious devotees, and their degrees of initiation, bear the strongest analogy to the Eastern Isma’ilis. Much of the well-known mystical symbolism of Sufism, often best known through the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was taken over by the Isma’ilis. They joined Sufism and Shiism in a peculiar and unique blend, often appearing as a particular group of Sufis with their own Shaykh. Mount Damavand, constitutes Central Iran although close ro Tehran, this mountainous area has always been and still is remote. Within a high mountain valley stands “the castle of Alamut, the fortress retreat of Hasan-i Sabbah, which became almost legendary after the supposed 1273 visit of Marco Polo and his description of the ‘Old Man of the mountains’ and the Assassins.
“And when the Old Man wished to kill someone, he would take him and say: ‘Go and do this thing. I do this because I want to make you return to paradise’. And the assassins go and perform the deed willingly.”
– Marco Polo – on his visit to Alamut in 1273
Templars – Militant Sufi influenced Order?
Political assassination was not unknown in Islam before Hasan-i Sabbah. Earlier sects had used murder as a political technique, and there is evidence that Mohammed himself disposed of his enemies by suggesting that they did not deserve to live – and hoping that faithful followers would take the hint. Here the strongest possible noun is required since the criminal being confessed is being buried alive head down, thus denoting a sin of particular horror. The connection of assassin with wickedness reinforces the clarity and precision with which Dante used the word, and it was in this sense that ‘assassin’ then passed into other European languages. After the destruction of Alamut by Hulegu in 1256, many members of the Nizari Isma’ili sect are thought to have fled to Afghanistan, the Himalayas and India . The other major branch of the Isma’ilis in the East today are known as the Khojas, who are particularly strong in what was once the Punjab but is now part of Pakistan. The Isma’ilis in general, and the Nizari Isma’ilis or Assassins in particular, were always considered heretical and persecuted by official Islam. The consequence of this is that their doctrines were maintained in secrecy by the Assassins themselves, while their enemies were content to dismiss them as heretical without having deep knowledge of it. Sufi developed–probably under Christian influence–the notion of an eschatological restorer of the faith, identified as a descendant of the Prophet or as the returning ‘Isa (i.e., Jesus). He is usually referred to as the mahdi; i.e., the ‘[divinely] guided one’. After the appearance of ‘Isa, the last judgment will begin: the good will enter paradise; the evil will fall into hell. Heaven and hell possess various goals and steps of recompense for good and evil. The time before the end is viewed pessimistically: God himself will abandon the godless world. Ka’bah (the great pilgrimage sanctuary of the Muslim world) will vanish, the copies of the Qur’an will become empty paper, and its words will disappear from memory. Then the end will draw near.”
“In the Koran Jesus is mentioned no less than thirty-five times, under a number of impressive appellations – including ‘Messenger of God’ and ‘Messiah’. At no point, however, is he regarded as anything other than a mortal prophet, a forerunner of Mohammed and a spokesman for the single supreme God. And like Basilides and Mani, the Koran maintains that Jesus did not die on the cross, ‘they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought that did.’ The Koran itself does not elaborate on this ambiguous statement, but Islamic commentators do. According to most of them, there was a substitute – generally, though not always, supposed to have been Simon of Cyrene. Certain Muslim writers speak of Jesus hiding in a niche of a wall and watching the Crucifixion of a surrogate as is described in the Nag Hammadi Scrolls.”
– Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The doctrine of rebirth, consisted of two schools of thought: first, a belief in Ismail himself as immortal, and consequently that he is the Mahdi; second, some believed that Mohammed, son of Ismail, was the Mahdi who would not die until he had conquered the world. “Isma’ili theology was thus “revelationary” in character. The haqa’iq transcended human reason and ultimately derived from gnostic doctrines, considering the principles of spiritual and physical worlds in Neoplatonic terms. The Gnostics held that the physical world had been created by an inferior deity, the Yahweh of the Old Testament, who was allowed a certain lassitude until God decided to send His son to inhabit the body of Jesus and free the world from false teachings. As I have written once, Gnostic notions passed into Islam when Mohammed adopted the gnostic idea that the body which was crucified was only a phantom. which the Jews and Romans could not harm. Arguably Sufis can be seen as one strain of the Gnostic syncretic virus which, after it was stamped out within Christianity, took over successfully the rising Islam as external host for mutual benefit. The Islam, which was in the beginning an oral warrior ideology benefitted by the rich mysticism. whereas Sufi used the spread of Islam taking over the East and almost half of Europe as vehicle and protective shell. When the Templars fell after the failed crusade, the Sufis started to thrive open and militant as Janissaries.
Sufism and Islam
Only in that respect Sufism could have been, especially in the West, portrayed and regarded as a valuable and legitimate part of the Islamic faith. There are three main branches of Islam – Sunni, Shiite and Sufi. Sunnis make up about 85 percent of the Muslim population globally, while Shiites account for about 15 percent. The two split over differences of who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad but are further subdivided.
Sunni follows a strict, literal interpretation of the Quran and the life of Muhammad with the Sunna as core teaching. Wahhabism is an austere form of Sunni dominant in Saudi Arabia for which Muslims more often use the term Salafism.
Shiism is the smaller of the two major branches of Islam. It developed after the death of Muhammad, when his followers split over who would lead Islam.
Sufism is an Islamic mystic tradition with followers around the world. Sufis tend to identify with either Sunni or Shiite Islam. Many Muslims are critical of Sufism as an unjustified deviation if not foreign introduction.
Shia Faction of Islam
Sunni Faction of Islam
Sufis/Sufism
10-15% of all Muslims
Majority of Muslims
Shia means “faction,” refers to “faction of Ali.”
Sunni means “tradition,” adheres to orthodox tradition
Suf means “wool,” considered the Mystics of Islam.
Iran center and home of most Shia, 88% of Iranians are Shia (Shi’i), In Iraqi 96% are Muslim and over 50% of them are Shia (Shi’i), though Iraq was ruled by minority Sunnis. Reverse Syria if you consider Alawis (12er ) to be Shiites.
Grew out of Umayyad dynasty. World-wide 85% of Muslims are Sunni.
Developed in reaction against the excesses of the Sultans and Caliphs (who wore silks, satins), specifically the Caliphate of Damascus in the Umayyad dynasty, Sufis wore course wool garments in protest.
Succession and Leadership
Believe in Ali and the Imams as rightful successors of Muhammad, but not in first 3 Caliphs. Ali was first of 12 successive legitimate Imams. Succession was to be hereditary.
Acknowledge each of the first four Caliphs as rightful successors to Muhammad.
Value deliberate simplicity, meditation rather than just a formalistic following of the rules.
Look forward to Messianic return of the last recognized Imam. Muhammad al-Mahdi, last Imam, disappeared 900 CE, went into “hidden realm”, was sinless. Ayatollah Khomeini (1900-1989) believed by many to be the return of the last Imam.
Through the ages, Caliphs rule “in God’s name.”
Sufis gathered around shaikhs (masters) and formed faqirs (orders or communities). Rabi’a (1717-1801 CE) was a Sufi poet whose poetry spoke of God’s Love similar to Christianty Al-Ghazzali (1058-1111) first Sufi to bring the faction into mainstream Islam.
Imam holds an exalted position, Ayatollah refers to most important Imams.
Imam is a prayer leader. Sunnis approach God directly, there is no clerical hierarchy.
Sufi Shaikhs are the masters. Wandering monastic culture
Teachings and Scripture
Characteristic is the continual exposition and reinterpretation of doctrine by the clerics.
Believe in entire body (canon) of life and teachings of Muhammad as found in Qur’an and hadiths (sayings and traditions of Muhammad). Sayings and traditions are interpreted by scholars in Islamic schools.
Qur’an is full of symbolism, each verse has from 7 to 70 meanings. Believe in three approaches to the divine: mysticism of Love (heart knowledge), Ecstatic (visionary knowledge) and intuitive discernment (mental knowledge)
Both Sunni and Shia factions believe in the Sharia, the comprehensive law derived from the Qur’an (revelations of Muhammad) and the Sunnah (sayings or interpretations of Muhammad).
Believe in fana (extinction) of separateness from God and “remembering” that “there is nothing but God.”
Scholars carry on debate in Islamic Schools. Science of Tradition refers to Islamic scholarship and rating of specific writings (rated sound, good, weak, or infirm)
Influenced by Christianity and Gnosticism (life is a spiritual journey—want to know God/Allah now not just after death), Persian Zoroastrianism and Hindu Mysticism
Shia Faction of Islam
Sunni Faction of Islam
Fufis/Sufism
Fundamentalist approach to Islam, interpretation by clerics
Qur’an applies to everyday life, public life is shaped by the Qur’an. Saudi Arabia considered model of proper Islamic state
Called “the Heart of Islam,” highest experience in life is experience with Allah, can get face to face with Allah/God
Sufism goes beyond the Five Pillars of Islam are which are obligations which are required of every Muslim: shahadah (statement of faith), salat (prayers), zakat (alms), sawm (fasting), and hajj (pilgrimage). A thorough and critical examination of historical and present day Sufism, quickly reveals the influence of numerous religious ideas foreign to Islam. Zoroastrianism had also an intimate contact with Islam like Gnostic Manichaeism. Zoroastrianism provided first of all a vocabulary for Sufi poets and symbols of angelology and cosmology transparent in the light of gnosis. Most orthodox scholars would be perplexed by this conclusion, especially when it is considered that Zoroastrianism (and pre-Christian Gnostic) predated Islam by over 1000 years.
Islam4Dummies (Alevites not shown)
The further one delves into Sufism from a content perspective, the more clear it becomes that both the origins and content of Sufism show the inclusion of religious ideas and influences alian and contradictory to orthodox Islam. The scholar Elliot Miller states that “[being] based on experience rather than doctrine, Sufism has always been more open to outside influence than other forms of Islam… in addition to early influences from Christianity, one can find elements of Zoroastrianism, Neoplatonism, Hinduism, and other diverse traditions.”
Sufism and Gnostics
Sufism might be the last living gnostic tradition today. Why did it survive? Sufism is clearly a reaction or response to what was lacking in early Islam. The very strength of Islam, in its reliance on a simple creed combining religion, law (and power of a non-secular state) and the five pillars of practice, proved to be the very weakness of Islam. The design of the Islamic ideological system had allowed, however, for rapid expansion and political aggression supporting Sufism. Another area of weakness in Islam, which helped lead to the problem of Sufism, is found in the inherent synthesism (and gnosticism) of Islam both share. Here the vagueness caused by the doctrine of the indescribably Allah (a main concept common of Gnosticism) allowed in essence creating a contradictory belief system. The orthodox ulama developed their theology borrowing and changing what they viewed as their ‘Judeo-Christian’ roots (including Christian heresies), while the Sufis were largely influenced by Eastern mystics.
History of religions
A lot of ink was spilled over the question of Sufism’s relationship to Islam. The Sufism does not belong to Islam. Rather vice versa: Islam belongs to the Sufism. So does Christianity. There was Sufism for a long time before Mohammed and it may exist after Mohammed is forgotten. Sufism and Islam have similar gnostic and heretic roots – seen from Christianity. But the roots of Sufism are even older. Like the mystics of the other religions, were the Sufis “dissidents”, even “heretic” for the purposes of ruling religious interpretation, In the Christianity these were particularly the Gnostics, in the Judaism the Cabalists. The Jewish, Christian and Muslim mysticism was the answer to the power and structure hungry monotheist religions, to what they saw as manipulation and assault at the freedom of the believers. The priest’s class was installed between the believer and God and only over them one could approach God or understand him. To them three religious systems were looking at people as conformist, conditioned beings which needed a herd and a shepherd.
There are many different religions, but the Sufism is from all religions the heart, the most internal core, the real soul. Religions form and resolve. The Sufism, however, remains, he will always live – because it incorporates no dogma. It is the heart of all spirituality.I think Sufis is open to include those deeply involved with religious/spiritual traditions other than Islam. The Sufi work is foremost the quest for gnosis (ma’rifah) – the state of opening or illumination in union with God. Echoes of Eastern ( and Western) mystic religions are of course distinctly contrary to Muslim orthodoxy but its mystic quest for spirituality has embraced all sorts of religion.
The stages the dervish proceeds through along this path constitute a system of spiritual psychology and there are parallels between their individual spirituality and Jung’s theory of individuation. As such Sufism is a tradition of human transformation and as such is a valuable resource for the Western seeker. For various reasons, including the long dominance of an orthodoxy which frowned upon (and often explicitly punished) most mysticism or gnosticism not mediated by clerical authorities or theology, these currents in the West have been primarily underground. For Sufis God alone is responsible for the creation of the world through a word. The mystic Isma‘ili sect of Islam personalize the imperative “Be” into the God’s feminine aspect Kuni the spouse of Qadar . Through the feminine Kuni the world becomes to exist just like with Sophia in Gnosticism:“Sophia, who is called Pistis, wanted to create something, alone without her consort; and her product was a celestial thing.” The Sufi like the Gnostic view on the created world is sometimes very negative.“The world is a dunghill and a gathering place of dogs; and meaner than a dog is that person who does not stay away from it.” Sufi could not participate on a secular affairs and he must to know, that world is a merely an illusion. Even Jesus (highly considered by Sufis) said in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (56):“Whoever has come to understand the world has found (only) a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world.” We can clearly say that Gnostics and Sufis are not interested in the world and even despise it. Not only the world is seen in the negative light, but also the work of heavens and the time.
Psychological Relevance
Every religion in the world has among its practitioners those who engage the faith beyond the common boundaries of doctrine and dogma, seeking an unmediated relationship with the divine. Sufism, as can be discerned from the writings of Ibn’ Arabi and Jelaluddin Rumi, can be discussed in the terms offered by C.G. Jung in his theories of the structures and functions of the human psyche. In Jung’s terms, Sufism can be seen as an example of how a healthy, integrated psyche might function, and what a living mythology might look like. Sufism as a psychological system has postulated the discoveries of Freud or C.G.Jung centuries before: the Sufi sheikh Ghasali wrote down the sexual knowledge of Freud around 1200 AD and C. G. Jung’s findings on psychological archetypes and the collective unconscious were formulated by the Sufi Master Ibn Arabi. C.G. Jung might have known that therefore and wrote: „What we hold for a specifically western invention, namely the psychoanalysis and those of her outgoing suggestions, it is a beginner’s attempt in comparison to that what is old-skilled art in the east.“ He meant the Far East, but also the Middle East as he was well aware of the findings of the Nag Hammadi library (famous for the “fifth” Gospel of Thomas favoured by the Sufis).
NagHammadi Hidden in 345 AD. By whom? Why? For what future purpose? No one knows,
Ibn al-‘Arabi (Ibn’ Arabi) is the most rigorous Sufi panentheism. Everything that exists is a part of and a manifestation of the Oneness of God. Humans are part of God. To him the idea of a separate self is the result of ignorance. Ibn al-‘Arabi was born in Spain, in AD 1165. At the age of twenty he was initiated into Sufism. From the 1190s he engaged in three decades of travels as a wandering scholar, poet and mystic, visiting the Maghreb, Egypt, Arabia, Syria and Asia Minor and finally settled in Damascus. Ibn’ Arabi ascribes the source of his inspirations to an angel, which, in Jungian terms, is an archetypal inhabitant of the unconscious. Angels are particularly regarded as the messengers or intermediaries between God and the human world. With respect to the psyche, as intermediaries and messengers, angels are the very permeability of the division between the two zones of the psyche. Unconscious content, which cannot be directly apprehended by the conscious, is translated into terms the conscious can comprehend: language. Intermediaries between conscious and unconscious are necessary because, as Jung points out, [. . .] “psychic contents cannot be observed in their unconscious state, and moreover the psyche cannot know itself. The conscious can know the unconscious only so far as it has become conscious “( C. G. Jung). Insofar as God is beyond the categories of human thought and beyond language and concept, He is unknowable, unutterable. Commensurately, the Sufi experience of God is referred to as knowledge of the heart. The Sufi calls “knowledge” his own experience – in all areas of the senses and in the experience of own transcendence. Between me and the motive of my causing stands nothing and nobody!
„Das Kreuz und die Christen nahm ich von allen Seiten in Augenschein. Er war nicht am Kreuz. Ich ging zum Hindu-Tempel, zu der alten Pagode. An beiden Orden fand ich keine Spur von ihm. Ich ging zu den Höhen von Herat und nach Kandahar, schaute mich um. Er war nicht auf den Höhen und nicht auf der Niederung. Entschlossen stieg ich zur Spitze des Kaf-Berges. Dort wohnte nur der Anqa-Vogel. Ich ging zur Kaaba und traf ihn dort nicht. Ich fragte Ibn Sina nach seinem Wesen: Er war jenseits der Definitionen des Philosophen Avicenna. Ich schaute in mein eigenes Herz. An diesem Ort sah ich ihn. Er ist an keinem anderen Ort.“
As well as Gnosticism, Sufi traditions emphasize the meaning of the intuitive knowledge (ma‘rifa) in contrast to the scientific knowledge (‘ilm). A Sufi has to recover the state he had immediately after the creation of Man. The Sufism teaches a direct connection of the searching with the last truth, to the divine dimension as internal personal experience. Important is the strength and the ability to leave the social frames of that limitation religion to which we belong; then, suddenly, the consciousness understands the true core of any religion. Any religion.
While Sufi teachings have been influenced by various religions, their practices also bear close similarities to those of Hinduism and other mystical religions of the East. The Sufi orders are led by shaikhs, who play the same role as Hindu gurus. Most Sufi orders still consider the five pillars of Islam to be essential, and practice them piously, however they go far beyond this, aiming to spiritual awakening. Central to all of these practices are ritual “invocations of the Divine Name,” also known as dhikr, which can be done either silently or in a chant. Here similarities with Hindu mantras are unmistakable. The evidence of Sufi borrowings from other Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Zoroastrianism is certain. The similarities in teachings and ritual are overwhelming. It is no surprise then that the goals of Sufism reflect their pantheism and monism. Of course it is one of the characteristics of living traditions that they are ultimately oral. The spark that kindles the enlightenment is rarely captured on paper: it shifts its emphasis and context with the times and the individual. In matters of the heart and soul, it is the experience of love or of the Self that resonates – not dogmas or theories. This aspect of Sufism is the hardest to convey: In Sufism, great importance is given to the complete human being, the one who is considered activated. It is through the guidance of such a human being that the inner process unfolds. Any particular beliefs in dogmas dissolve as the complete one assists the seeker to fall fully into his or her relationship with God and to recognize the importance of that essential experience.
The socially approved knowledge by argumentation is not valid for me – unless I have found out it myself. The Sufi calls all things meaningless, if they are old or new, big or small, important or insignificant, because all things are separated in reality forms one and not. All things („the evident“) are merely bridges to the true reality. Rituals, symbols are representatives, are to reflexion of an internal truth they can be exterior dead and stereotyped; but they show that who can see a way to the internal truth. There is no external sign (like the Christians Cross or the Crescent of Islam) from which one could say this symbolises the Sufi being. Sufis use the most different symbols, quite knowingly that these are just represented phenomena.
Conclusion
Sufism is intuitive and what is the core of all religions, Christians, Zoroaster, Hebrews, Hindus or Buddhists. Every external religion – except atheism as faith system ( non-intellectual) – is ritualized and symbolized. To me Sufism is Taoist poetry, it is a wide, open sky. It is also individuation of C.G. Jung. The creation is the only church Sufism knows. Liberty is mandatory. One cannot lock up its heart in churches but in armies. Sufi is a tough cookie and born surviver, the (computer) virus of religions. However, like the Tao, if Sufism is squeezed into a system, religion becomes an organised power structure, a ritual, it simply dies… the “Sufi mind” escapes… If the host dies Sufism moves on.
No surprisingly every rigid theology has been afraid of Sufism. If one opens doors and gate to the unconscious, nobody knows to where this will lead. And do not forget: God himself is irrational unconditional love, and this is also wonderful in such a way, what would be God otherwise than a philosophy professor at any university, a pope or a guru– but not a personal God the universe itself. A true Sufi, that is, one who has reached realization, may well step beyond religion or secularism. At such a point, the questions of whether Sufism is Islamic or Christian or not, or whether this path is superior or inferior to others, are largely irrelevant. To Sufism anyway. The answer to the articles question is all of above: Sufis were gnostics and syncretic mystics after which the Templars were modelled. As Islam prevailed, the secret Christian heresy of gnosticism survived within Islam.
Idries Shah The Sufis 1964, Translated 1980 „Die Sufis“, Diederich’s Gelbe Reihe
Philip Jenkins Baylor University, History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — and How It Died
“The Other God”. Yuri Soyanov, Yale University Press, 2000
One difficulty facing those who approach Sufism for the first time is the prevalence of foreign terms, most of them originally Arabic. A further complication is that the same term may be spelled slightly differently according to its Arabic, Turkish, or Persian usage. To simplify matters we have favored the most common Arabic transliterations of the terms below and elsewhere in this issue.
Adab (literally “courtesy”). Appropriate behavior. This may range from showing respect for one’s elders to “doing the right thing at the right time.” It implies keeping attentive to one’s actions and their effects on others.
Barakah Grace or blessing. A spiritual influence or energy infusing the universe. Saints, spiritual teachers, and Sufi orders are considered to be conduits for barakah to others.
Dervish (“poor one”). A student of Sufism, usually initiated within a specific Sufi order.
Dhikr or zikr (literally “remembrance”). The chanting (either aloud or silently) of names of God or Qu’ranic phrases as a means of prayer and meditation. A common Sufi practice, often done weekly at group meetings.
Fana (literally “extinction”). The experience of the effacement of the ego or sense of self that occurs when the mystic attains union with God or realization of the Absolute. Often referred to as “annihilation.”
Hadith (literally “report”). Advice or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad that supplement or clarify the wisdom of the Qu’ran. Certain hadiths form the key concepts behind much Sufi teaching.
Haqiqah (“the domain of truth [haq]”). Refers to both the ultimate “Reality” and the mystic’s station of attainment to that level of truth.
al-Insan al-kamil (literally the “perfected man”). The title for the human who has been fully realized and has become one with all of God’s attributes. According to some Sufi teachings, this is the ultimate destiny of all conscious humans.
Ma’rifah (literally “knowledge”). Also translated as “gnosis.” The inner knowing of divine reality.
Murid A disciple or student of Sufism who is under the leadership of a developed teacher.
Murshid (literally “director”). An accomplished Sufi master who instructs his murids.
Nafs The soul or psyche. The term is typically applied to the conditioned or habitual self which the dervish on the path must overcome in successive stages of unfoldment.
Qutb (literally “axis” or “pole”). According to tradition, there is one person in each age who serves as the spiritual anchor for humanity. The Qutb resides at the top of the hierarchy of the saints and is said to exert significant unseen influence on human affairs.
Sama (literally “hearing”). In Turkey (where it is spelled sema) it is synonymous with the spinning dance ceremony of the Mevlevi Order, the “whirling dervishes.” In general usage it refers to a concert of mystical music and dance.
Shaikh (literally “elder”). There are several varieties of shaikhs. In some Middle Eastern towns or tribes, the title simply refers to a local leader. Within Sufism, “shaikh” refers to someone appointed to represent the order, or to someone who has successfully completed the order’s path of study and can now teach it reliably. The highest shaikhs have reached illumination, but this is not true of all who bear the title. Similar titles in some orders include Baba (father) and Dede (grandfather).
Shariah Islamic law. The exoteric rules of the religion, intended to guide society in a moral direction. Sufis sometimes interpret components of the shariah in an esoteric fashion that may seem to conflict with orthodox interpretations.
Silsilah (literally “chain”). The “chain of transmission” of an order, stretching from the dervish back to the order’s founder and Muhammad. Each order’s silsilahis often considered to carry its own unique barakah.
Salafists are political correct defined and may be distinguished as:
“Jihadist Salafis” – such as the followers of al-Qaeda and like-minded local groups;
“Salafis” – those who believe that the imitation of the behavior of the Prophet’s closest companions should be the basis of the social order;
“Islamists” – a still broader category,which includes anyone who thinks that the precepts of Islam – however interpreted – should be fundamental to the political and social order; and,
“Discontented Muslims” – people who identify themselves as Muslims,and who are unhappy with their life prospects, with the justice of their societies,and/or with the state of the wider world
Sufi A name technically reserved for those who have completed the path of Sufism and mystical union. However in common parlance, the term gets applied to many dervishes or murids who are still far from completion. (The name is sometimes said to be derived from the Arabic word for “wool” suf, or the Persian word for “pure,” saf.)
Tariqah (literally “path”). A Sufi order or brotherhood. The Naqshbandis, Chishtis, Mevlevis, etc. are each a different brotherhood reflecting the path first delineated by their respective founders.
Tasawwuf (literally “self-purification”). Islamic mysticism or Sufism. The term Sufism is a relatively recent name coined by Western scholars.
Tekke (literally “corner”). A lodge or center of Sufism, also known as a khaneqah. In the Middle Ages, tekkeswere often significant social centers where many dervishes lived and worked. In Turkey, Kemal Ataturk closed the tekkesin the mid-1920s as part of his modernizing revolution following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Appendix
Mystical power Why Sufi Muslims, for centuries the most ferocious soldiers of Islam, could be our most valuable allies in the fight against extremism
By Philip Jenkins | January 25, 2009
THIRTY YEARS AGO this month, the collapse of the Shah’s government marked the launch of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and since that point the topic of Islam has rarely been out of the headlines. All too often, we hear about Islam in the context of intolerance and, often, violence — of Al Qaeda savagery, of Taliban misogyny, of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and perhaps in Iran itself. Even in Europe, many fear the growth of a radical Islamic presence. For three decades, Western observers have worked fervently to comprehend Islam’s global power and appeal, its ability to inspire the poor and to topple governments. But in all that intense attention, most observers have missed a crucial part of the story: a global web of devout religious brotherhoods that by all logic should be a critical ally against extremism.
Sufis are the power that has made Islam the world’s second-largest religion, with perhaps 1.2 billion adherents. Not a sect of Islam, but rather heirs of an ancient mystical tradition within both the Sunni and Shia branches of the faith, Sufis have through the centuries combined their inward quest with the defense and expansion of Islam worldwide. At once mystics and elite soldiers, dervishes and preachers, charismatic wonder-workers and power-brokers, ascetic Sufis have always been in the vanguard of Islam. While pushing forward the physical borders of Islam, they have been essential to the spiritual and cultural fullness of the faith. Today, the Sufi tradition is deeply threaded through the power structures of many Muslim countries, and the orders are enjoying a worldwide renaissance.
To look at Islam without seeing the Sufis is to miss the heart of the matter. Without taking account of the Sufis, we cannot understand the origins of most contemporary political currents in the Middle East and Muslim South Asia, and of many influential political parties. We can’t comprehend the huge popular appeal of Islam for women, who so often seem excluded from Muslim life. Sufis are central to the ability of Muslim communities to survive savage persecutions — in Chechnya, in Kosovo — and then launch devastating insurgencies. They are the muscle and sinew of the faith.
And, however startling this may seem, these very Sufis — these dedicated defenders and evangelists of mystical Islam — are potentially vital allies for the nations of the West. Many observers see a stark confrontation between the West and Islam, a global conflict that entered a traumatic new phase with the Iranian revolution. But that perspective ignores basic conflicts within the Muslim world itself, a global clash of values over the nature of religious practice, no less than overtly political issues. For the Islamists — for hard-line fundamentalists like the Saudi Wahhabis and the Taliban — the Sufis are deadly enemies, who draw on practices alien to the Quran. Where Islamists rise to power, Sufis are persecuted or driven underground; but where Sufis remain in the ascendant, it is the radical Islamist groups who must fight to survive.
Around the world, the Sufis are struggling against violent fundamentalists who are at once their deadly foes, and ours. To look at Islam without seeing the Sufis is to be ignorant of a crucial clash of civilizations in today’s world: not the conflict between Islam and the West, but an epochal struggle within Islam itself.
If the word “Sufi” conjures up any images for Americans, they normally involve mystical poetry or dance. Thirteenth century poet Rumi was a legendary Sufi, as are Turkey’s whirling dervishes. But these are just the most visible expressions of a movement that runs deeply through the last thousand years of Islam.
Emerging around the year 800, they were originally pious devotees, whose poor woolen clothes showed their humility: “Sufi” comes from the Arabic word for wool. Above all, the Sufis sought the divine reality or ultimate truth that stands above all the illusions and deceptions of the material world. In order to achieve ecstatic union with God, they incorporated techniques of sound and movement — chanting and music, swaying and dance. Believers joined in tight-knit brotherhoods or tariqahs, each following a charismatic leader (shaykh). Among the dozens of these orders, a few grew to achieve special influence, and some operate in dozens of nations, including the United States.
But the orders are more than confraternities of pious devotees. Early in their history, Sufis developed a powerful military streak, making them the knights of Islam, as well as the monks and mystics. Like the Japanese samurai, the brotherhoods trained their followers to amazing feats of devotion and overcoming pain. Fanatical dervish warriors were the special forces of every Islamic army from the 13th century through the end of the 19th.
The expansion of Islam outside the core areas of the Middle East is above all a Sufi story. Sufi orders led the armies that conquered lands in Central and South Asia, and in Southeastern Europe; through their piety and their mysticism, the brotherhoods then won the local populations over to Islam. They presented an Islam that incorporated local traditions and worship styles, including Christian saints and Hindu gods. Today, Sufi styles and practices dominate in the non-Arab Muslim world: in India and Pakistan, in Indonesia and Malaysia, Nigeria and Senegal, and in the Muslim countries of Central Asia, such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Over the centuries, the territories where Sufi orders seeded Islam have evolved from the faith’s frontiers to its demographic heartlands. These regions now encompass Islam’s largest and fastest-growing populations. Of the eight nations with the world’s largest Muslim communities, only one (Egypt) is Arab. A fifth of the world’s Muslims today identify with Sufism, and for many millions more, Sufism is simply part of the air they breathe.
The Sufi orders enhanced their political role as Western empires encroached. When Islam was under threat, the Sufis were the trained soldiers, and their close-knit brotherhoods allowed them to form devastatingly effective resistance movements. Sufi orders led anti-colonial movements from Morocco to Indonesia. Most Americans, for instance, have heard of the stubborn Chechen guerrillas, but few realize how absolutely this movement is rooted in Sufism. When the Russians pushed south into Muslim lands in the 19th century, the heroic Sufi sheikh Imam Shamil launched a decades-long guerrilla war. Even Stalin’s terror campaigns could not root out the Sufi brotherhoods. The fearsome leader of modern-day Chechen resistance, Shamil Basayev, was named for the original imam.
A similar story can be told of other oppressed peoples, in Kurdistan, Kashmir, Albania, Kosovo, and elsewhere, who owed their solidarity and cohesion to the immense power of the Sufi brotherhoods.
The Sufis might sound like America’s worst nightmare. Not only do they ground political activism in religion, but their faith spreads through intense and secretive brotherhoods, led by charismatic masters: this recalls every sinister stereotype of Muslim fanaticism that potboiler thrillers have offered us over the decades. But it would be a terrible mistake to see the Sufis as enemies. Sufis certainly have fought Western forces through the years, and Sufi-founded movements have on occasion engaged in terrorist actions — witness the Chechens. But in the vast majority of cases, such militancy has been essentially defensive, resisting brutal colonial occupations. This is very different from the aggressive global confrontation pursued by groups such as Al Qaeda.
Today, moreover, Sufi brotherhoods face a deadly danger from the strict puritanical or fundamentalist Islam represented by Qaeda and similar movements, which are as threatening to the Sufi brotherhoods as they are to the West. To the extent that we, like the Sufis, face a real danger from violent jihadi fundamentalism, our interests are closely aligned with those of the Sufis.
But the Sufis are much more than tactical allies for the West: they are, potentially, the greatest hope for pluralism and democracy within Muslim nations. The Sufi religious outlook has little of the uncompromising intolerance that characterizes the fundamentalists. They have no fear of music, poetry, and other artistic forms — these are central to their sense of the faith’s beauty — and the brotherhoods cherish intellectual exploration. Progressive Sufi thinkers are quite open to modern knowledge and science.
From their beginnings, too, Sufi traditions have been religiously inclusive. Wherever the orders flourish, popular Islamic religion focuses on the tombs of saints and sheikhs, who believers venerate with song and ritual dance. In fact, they behave much like traditional-minded Catholics do when they visit their own shrines in Mexico or southern Italy. People organize processions, they seek healing miracles, and women are welcome among the crowds. While proudly Islamic, Sufi believers have always been in dialogue with other great religions.
This open-mindedness contrasts with the much harsher views of the fundamentalists, who we know by various names. Salafism claims to teach a return to the pure religion taught by the prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, and in that early Islamic community Salafis think they can find all they need to know about life and law. The most powerful and best-known version of this back-to-basics ideology is the Wahhabi movement that emerged in the 18th century, and which in modern times has built a worldwide presence on the strength of Saudi oil money. At its most extreme, this exclusive tradition rejects knowledge that is not clearly rooted in the Quran and Islamic legal thought, and regards other religions and cultures as dangerous rivals lacking any redeeming virtues. Al Qaeda and its affiliates represent an extreme and savage manifestation of this fundamentalist current.
As fundamentalist Islam spreads around the world, Sufism is one of its targets, even in such strongholds as Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Often this comes in the form of ideological struggle, but open violence has broken out as well. Sudan’s Islamist government attacks the black Sufi population of Darfur; in Iraq, suicide bombers target Sufi centers. Sufis have literally everything to lose from the continued advance of the Islamist extremists.
But Sufis are anything but passive victims, and in their resilience lies their true importance to the West. In many nations, Sufi brotherhoods exercise influence within local regimes, and those alliances allow them to drive back radicalism. Sufi brotherhoods have emerged as critical supporters of government in several post-Communist regimes, including in former Yugoslav regions like Kosovo and Bosnia, and in Albania. When a Qaeda-affiliated Islamist movement arose in Uzbekistan, the government’s intimate alliance with the Sufi orders allowed it to destroy the insurgents quite thoroughly. Syria cultivates tolerant-minded Sufi orders as the best means of fending off Islamist subversion. For similar reasons, even the Chinese government openly favors Sufism. Hard as they try, fundamentalist radicals find it impossible to gain much of a foothold in societies where Islam is synonymous with Sufism, and where Sufi loyalty is deeply tied to cultural and national identity.
In 2007, the influential RAND Corporation issued a major report titled “Building Moderate Muslim Networks,” which urged the US government to form links with Muslim groups that opposed Islamist extremism. The report stressed the Sufi role as moderate traditionalists open to change, and thus as potential allies against violence.
Some Western nations are just now grasping the rich rewards that would come from an alliance with the Sufi, with Muslim forces who can claim such impeccable historical and religious credentials. The British government especially has befriended the Sufi orders, and has made groups like the British Muslim Forum and the Sufi Muslim Council its main conversation partners in the Muslim community.
Sufis, better than anyone, can tell disaffected young Muslims that the quest for peace is not a surrender to Western oppression, still less a betrayal of Islam, but rather a return to the faith’s deepest roots. And while Sufis have religious reasons for favoring peaceful and orderly societies, they also stand to benefit mightily from government support in their struggle against the fanatics. As the fundamentalists have expanded, they press hard on Muslim populations who are overwhelmingly drawn from countries where the Sufi current has always dominated Islamic life, from Pakistan, Turkey, and North Africa.
If this British model works, it would encourage the growth of a Euro-Islam that could reconcile easily with modernity and democracy, while yielding nothing of its religious content.
Nobody is pretending that building bridges with Sufis will resolve the many problems that divide the West from the Islamic world. In countries like Afghanistan or Somalia, warfare and violence might be so deeply engraved into the culture that they can never be expunged. Yet in so many lands, reviving Sufi traditions provide an effective bastion against terrorism, much stronger than anything the West could supply by military means alone. The West’s best hope for global peace is not a decline or secularization of Islam, but rather a renewal and strengthening of that faith, and above all of its spiritual and mystical dimensions.
Philip Jenkins is Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He is author of “The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — and How It Died” (HarperOne, 2008).
