Gnostic parlour game

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
The gnostics divide humanity in three groups:

Hylics - carnal humans, slaved to the dense, dull heaviness of the body and its sensual pleasures. They like eating, sleeping and reproduction.

Spirituals - those who have detached themselves from the carnal to some degree, but who have not yet shaken all attachment to the worldy.

Pneumatics - those who have become-light, who have achieved escape velocity from the dull gravity of the wordly...

Where do you, your family and friends fit into this taxonomy dja think?
 

&catherine

Well-known member
Nummer Zwei

I think I'm in the second category, Mark, while looking quizically and somewhat indecisively at the possibility of an ascendance to the third.

Which particular group of Gnostics uses these categories, historically speaking? And who/what are their philosophical ancestors? I was under the impression that Gnosticism is, though with certain recurrent features, a fairly heterogeneous system/collection of thought, so I'd be interested to know the Gnostics that you have in mind when you bring up this view of the world.

[Incidentally Mark, I've bought a copy of Deleuze's Spinoza: Expressionism in Philosophy thanks to the stimulation of your pieces here and on the k-punk blog. Only time will tell if I end up going back to uni as a machine... ;)]
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
in his book on gnosticism, angels etc Omens of Millenium, Harold Bloom writes "to be drugged by the embrace of nature into what we call most natural in us, our sleepiness and our sexual desires, is at once a pleasant and an unhappy fate, since what remains immortal in us is both androgynous and sleepless"

one way of "un-drugging" yourself are amphetamines (including E), which suppresses sleep, sexdrive and appetite

you can also use theory as stimulant to get to the same place

both have their negative side effects though

interestingly, marijuana --which mark is so down on -- encourages drowsiness, the munchies, and (so i'm told) randiness

personally I'm about 98 percent Hylic both as mundane lived reality and probably, if i thought about it, as philosophy too. way too attached to the delights of the incarnate existence. love falling asleep, especially in the middle of the afternoon. even taking a shit can be a giggle.

course there's death and illness too but you can't have everything
 

paul

Member
those categories look very similar to the caste system in India: you know, working class, middle class, ruling class.
 
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mind_philip

saw the light
Can these ever be anything other than self-annointed titles though? (I realise that is the point of the game) but for the gnostics themselves, the Godhead is unknowable, so unknowable in fact that to say it is unknowable is to tarnish it by associating it with a demiurgic notion such as knowledge.
 
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