My New Article Apostolic Gnosis in Pistis Sophia/ Bks of Jeu

[_ClarkGoble]

I contend that part, at least part of the early Christian mysteries are geometric.

Isn't this fairly well established by the strong parallels with theurgical platonism and hermeticism? It seems like Christian mysteries and Jewish/Christian gnosticism are in a continuum with those movements. And the place of geometry and math is fairly well set with ample ties to names tied to the 7 notes (music of the spheres) and the math based in the Timaeus.

[_Kishkumen]

I contend that part, at least part of the early Christian mysteries are geometric.

Isn't this fairly well established by the strong parallels with theurgical platonism and hermeticism? It seems like Christian mysteries and Jewish/Christian gnosticism are in a continuum with those movements. And the place of geometry and math is fairly well set with ample ties to names tied to the 7 notes (music of the spheres) and the math based in the Timaeus.

Very true. Unfortunately, one does not often see these things discussed on boards like this.

[_Philo Sofee]

I contend that part, at least part of the early Christian mysteries are geometric.

Isn't this fairly well established by the strong parallels with theurgical platonism and hermeticism? It seems like Christian mysteries and Jewish/Christian gnosticism are in a continuum with those movements. And the place of geometry and math is fairly well set with ample ties to names tied to the 7 notes (music of the spheres) and the math based in the Timaeus.

It is I think. Now when I move this into the New Testament once I establish the context and background, and show that the authors of the Gospels did the same is when I will be character assassinated as being a dope, a moron, something not valid etc. Everywhere except in our house seems to me to be the attitude of everyone, or at least most of everyone. Sure it's fine and well for them over there to invent things to match geometry.... but our guys? NO! They had actual and real revelation from a real God.
It's O.K. to show the heathens to be doing this, but our spiritual heritage is not from them. That is what I am showing is an invalid bias. No one wants to actually acknowledge this is the base of the Christian religion. So I am coming through the backdoor with the evidence. The Christian spiritual heritage and methodology was adapting and using their own God as the basis for the already in place work of the "pagans." Christianity brought one thing new to the table, a different name for the deity. All else they simply used for themselves. This, I contend, is nearly indisputable. But we shall see.

[_ClarkGoble]

Now when I move this into the New Testament once I establish the context and background, and show that the authors of the Gospels did the same is when I will be character assassinated as being a dope, a moron, something not valid etc.

I think most scholars accept that John and Hebrews were written by authors with a heavily platonized worldview. As such they seem tied to such movements. Mark is a bit more controversial with Morton Smith's reading and the purported secret Gospel of Mark still being extremely controversial. But clearly a broad platonism was present in the culture.

Likewise for all the controversy in Smith, he's completely right that many of Jesus' miracles parallel tradition hellenistic magician practices. And of course we know that the vowels used in the various magic papyri of the era almost certainly correspond to notes in the theurgical tradition ranging from gnostics through pagan platonists. The main differences between the magical tradition and theurgical tradition of the era are due to how much agency in what happens the human has. Most theurgists argue they aren't sorcerers or magicians but simply manifesting the gods. But from a more distance perspective this seems pretty minor with a lot of common practice and metaphysics.

A similar thing happens with the rebirth of theurgical platonism in the Renaissance with the key figures being at pains to distinguish their practices from magic or real demons. (Ficino in particular, but also many of the other main figures including even Dee and company)

Of course as the lone Mormon here I'd simply note that all that renaissance theurgy moves into masonry and hermetic culture during the early modern period. And from there forms and important source for Joseph Smith to restore 1st century tradition. (Add in not just theurgy but also the art of memory)

[_Philo Sofee]

Clark Goble

And from there forms and important source for Joseph Smith to restore 1st century tradition. (Add in not just theurgy but also the art of memory)

Since there were many dozens, if not hundreds of different kinds of groups of religious nutjobs, prophets, mystics, peddlers, fakers, pagans, etc ., back then, it appears to me somewhat simplistic to think Joseph Smith restored anything of a full system from early Christianity, since early Christianity was not a monolithic block. That is, in part, part of the Nibley problem, assuming it was all of a singular piece, and so any parallel in Joseph Smith's materials was an early Christian parallel. These days that is difficult to maintain I would propose. We don't know which parts of Christianity Smith restored, if anything at all, or if it was Gnostic, Jewish, Essene, Enochic, Greek, etc. Parallels anywhere from 300 B.C. to 400 A. D. don't establish anything toward a restoration because there are dozens of different groups with their own identity and self consciousness roaming around back then. There simply isn't a "1st century tradition," as a monolithic block of doctrine, history, and practice for Joseph Smith to restore.

[_Kishkumen]

I just find it refreshing that a Mormon is seeing Hermetcism and Freemasonry as sources of Smith's Restoration.

[_ClarkGoble]

The Christian spiritual heritage and methodology was adapting and using their own God as the basis for the already in place work of the "pagans." Christianity brought one thing new to the table, a different name for the deity. All else they simply used for themselves. This, I contend, is nearly indisputable. But we shall see.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Especially during the end of the late antiquity period just prior to the dominance of Christianity around the time of Augustine. Even before that the commitments of Christian doctrine required novel changes. Again Augustine is the obvious example of that with his pretty radical transfiguration of the platonism of the era to deal with the trinity, the unity of the trinity, and to break with the emanation model so as to retain what he thought required an absolute difference between creator and created.

But even before that there's a pretty wide range of views. As I said I'd say that it's almost a mistake to break Christianity or Judaism out from the wider movement. And of course the influence goes in both directions. Thus in the Greek magic texts you find names of prophets or other influence from Christianity and Judaism. For the gnostics in particular the secret names of daemons and gods are vowels tied to the seven musical notes. Most scholars I've read assume the names in theurgical platonism and likely hermeticism as done use the same thing. The differences usually are over how evil matter is seen. (Contrary the stereotype many major platonists didn't see matter as evil) There's then differences in how the demiurge is viewed, the nature of the soul - particularly whether it's descended or not - and so forth. So there's really a lot of variety during the period of late antiquity. There's also of course still Stoics and other schools of thought that are influencing the various movements as well.

[_ClarkGoble]

I just find it refreshing that a Mormon is seeing Hermetcism and Freemasonry as sources of Smith's Restoration.

I think that's a pretty mainstream view and has been for a very long time. There's nothing particularly different from Joseph seeing hermeticism and masonry as apostate intellectual traditions with elemens of truth as compared with seeing Protestantism in the same fashion. Even back in the early 90's that wasn't particularly controversial that I can see. Juvenile Instructor has done a ton of posts on the influence of platonism on Joseph Smith - particularly the idea that directly or indirectly the hermetic/theurgical tradition affected phraseology of some things.

While it's speculative and has a few problems as a source, I find the term "telestic" as a term in most of the theurgical platonic texts as translated at the time of Joseph a strong possible source for his use of the term "telestial."

[_Kishkumen]

I think that's a pretty mainstream view and has been for a very long time. There's nothing particularly different from Joseph seeing hermeticism and masonry as apostate intellectual traditions with elemens of truth as compared with seeing Protestantism in the same fashion. Even back in the early 90's that wasn't particularly controversial that I can see. Juvenile Instructor has done a ton of posts on the influence of platonism on Joseph Smith - particularly the idea that directly or indirectly the hermetic/theurgical tradition affected phraseology of some things.

While it's speculative and has a few problems as a source, I find the term "telestic" as a term in most of the theurgical platonic texts as translated at the time of Joseph a strong possible source for his use of the term "telestial."

If you want to see it as pretty mainstream, that's cool with me. In my view, it is more of an newly emerging micro-trend than a mainstream, well-accepted position. I am familiar with the posts on Juvenile Instructor to which you refer, and I enjoyed them very much. There is a lot of great stuff there to pursue further. But, the truth is that we have seen something of a change in the way D. Michael Quinn's work on magic, or John L. Brooke's work on Hermeticism and alchemy, etc., have been received by Mormon scholars. In the Classic-FARMS days, such works were the targets of lengthy, withering criticism. That has started to change. Perhaps it was Sam Brown's work that helped people see such things in a somewhat more positive light. Maybe it was the eclipse of Classic-FARMS that provided a little breathing room for these ideas to find a better reception.

I do notice, however, that when someone who is perceived as a critic notes a refreshing change on the believers' side of the discussion, the tendency is to react exactly as you did and say, "Oh, that's no big deal, it has always been that way," as though we had all been asleep for thirty-odd years and had no idea what was going on.

In any case, I don't want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, and I am happy to have you comment here on such topics as long as you are willing. I think there needs to be even more discussion of this material, and I am happy to have it in a place where the thread won't be shut down by imperious moderators.

[_ClarkGoble]

If you want to see it as pretty mainstream, that's cool with me. In my view, it is more of an newly emerging micro-trend than a mainstream, well-accepted position.

It was widely discussed in the Morm-Ant mailing list in the mid 90's when Brent Metcalf, Bill Hamblin and others were members. So while I guess we can debate how accepted it is (and with what group) it's most definitely not new. Among most apologists I've talked with it's been well known and largely accepted since I was in college volunteering at FARMS in the early 90's.

But I guess in the big picture that's largely beside the point. I truly try to deal with the evidence in as honest way as possible. The evidence for masonic/hermetic influence is overwhelming. I think anyone denying that is avoiding evidence.

But, the truth is that we have seen something of a change in the way D. Michael Quinn's work on magic, or John L. Brooke's work on Hermeticism and alchemy, etc., have been received by Mormon scholars.

Well I thought and continue to think that Quinn's book was poorly done for a variety of reasons. It was very much a scatter gun approach. I remember a lot of people comparing it to Nibley's work with a lot of the same types of flaws. That's not to deny that many of the things he found were important. They were. It's just the discussion of them was in my opinion lacking. Brooke's was vastly better although it did honestly have some embarrassingly bad parts. (The idea that the Kirtland bank failure was tied up with hermeticism is something even few of the strong Brooke fans think is good - at least I've never found a defender for that section) However around the time those came out there were people looking at the issues in a more rigorous fashion. It's been going on for quite some time.

That said I don't deny that Brooke in particular is well regarded by historians. Juvenile Instructor had a retrospective panel (or was that MHA?) a year or so ago. It ushered in a broader reconsideration of American history that I think was quite fruitful. So people went looking at the influence of broad hermetic, masonic, and spiritualist influences on many 19th century figures like Poe and others. I don't know if it's still in print but there was even a journal focused on the topic for quite some time. Several very interesting books came out of the movement.

I think Quinn's magic book has looked worse over time primarily due to just not having a broader theoretical scaffolding to make sense of the parallels he was finding. It was made worse by the intervening decades being a flourishing of a lot of good work on magic and alternative religions in the medieval through late modern eras.

Of course those are my own views. Other disagree with me. In particular I know many people think Brooke is better than I think it was. And of course we have to distinguish between the broad Mormon history crowd and the broad apologetic crowd. While there is a lot of overlap they really are different groups. Also I'll fully admit that for a decade or so I really wasn't involved in apologetics - primarily due to time issues. So I can't really speak to much in say the era from say 98 through maybe 2008. Even now I don't read apologetics as much as I'd like. So I fully acknowledge a lot of blind areas. The period in the mid to late 90's though I was much more involved with first FARMS and later FAIR.

In the Classic-FARMS days, such works were the targets of lengthy, withering criticism.

I think the history is a bit more complex, although FARMS always had a problem with their reviews in that they often focused on what they disagreed with rather than giving a broader treatment of the book and issues. In particular I'm pretty sympathetic to the Quinn criticisms. But again we have to distinguish the issues, when good arguments are made, from the issues when bad arguments are made. Again, just going by the discussions at the old Morm-Ant, there were plenty of believers and apologists engaging with the issues and offering much stronger arguments than were appearing in the pages of Sunstone or Quinn's books. Even the main FARMS criticism of Brooke, while unbalanced, I think makes some compelling points. The point of dispute ends up being how one reads Brooke particularly to the degree one takes him as offering the explanation of Mormon conclusions. If one reads him as making that claim then I think many of the criticisms of Hamblin, Peterson and company get at a problem. If one reads him more as offering one of many influences that underdetermine Joseph's views, then much of the criticism in the FARMS review falls flat. In particular, while I accept many of the influences Brookes pushes some claims fall flat in my opinion. I don't think he really makes a terribly compelling case for mother in heaven theology coming out of hermeticism for instance. And again the counterfeiting issue with the Kirtland Bank falls flat. I also think that while Brooke does much, much better in the theoretical scaffolding than Quinn, he still has the problem of pretty vague terms like magic. I think the more recent move by people like Steve Flemming to narrow things to say theurgical platonism is much more helpful. (Of course theurgy influenced hermeticism and masonry, but narrowing ones topic and being more clear in categories leads to much tighter arguments)

None of this is to disparage Brooke. I think his book was a key shift in American history and particularly Mormon history. Ditto Quinn for all his books faults. But I'm not sure that means the flaws aren't there. But to be completely fair, it's typical of books ushering in a new way to think about things to overreach, use overly ambiguous categories, and end up having problems.

Where I disagree is just that I think apologists were more attentive to the real issues of the broad esoteric Renaissance tradition that includes masonry, hermeticism, platonism, and so forth. I just think a problem in the early era of this in Mormonism was an attempt to explain too much. To give an example, the shift to a material composition of spirits could be seen in the renaissance tradition - particularly with thinkers like Telesio - it's probably more easier explained by Joseph and others reading discussions of Tertullian's stoicism. Indeed a lot of the phraseology such as "more fine" comes right out of discussions of neo-stoic interpretations of the Trinity. And much of Orson Pratt's later theology in the 1950's has eery similarities to such conceptions right down to how the aether is treated.

Back when I was associated with FAIR in the 90's I certainly engaged with such issues including non-hermetic renaissance figures like Telesio and others. (In those days the web site was just getting going and most of ones work as a FAIR volunteer consisted of answering emailed questions)