The Allure of Gnosticism

Publisher Marketing: "This book is a concatenation of sparks of religious light.... Gnosticism is to be understood as the ongoing formulation of freshly imagined spirits, a logos of what we can know about those moments when the religious experience itself breaks through the veils of dogma to assert the psychological reality of a living redemptive godhead". -- John Beebe Editor, Journal of Analytical PsychologyPublisher Marketing: Gnosticism or Gnosis is far more than an ancient religious movement with Christian, Jewish, and pagan followers. It is a living presence today, in many religions and also completely outside formal religion. The Allure of Gnosticism is a collection of 16 outstanding essays, illuminating Gnosticism in its relation to such issues as Jungian thought, the nature of evil, the place of the feminine, communism and fascism, existentialism, Christian scriptures, Kafka, and Buddhism. Contributor Bio:  Segal, Robert A Robert A. Segal is professor of Theories of Religion at the University of Lancaster, U. K. He is the author of "The Poimandres as Myth, Religion and the Social Sciences, Explaining and Interpreting Religion", and "Theorizing about Myth", and editor of "The Gnostic Jung, The Allure of Gnosticism", and "The Myth and Ritual Theory". He is at work on an intellectual biography of William Robertson Smith. Contributor Bio:  Singer, June Singer, a Zurich-trained Jungian psychoanalyst, member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and founding member of the Chicago Institute. She maintains a private practice in Jungian analysis and transpersonal psychotherapy. Contributor Bio:  Stein, Murray Stein, a graduate of Yale Divinity School and the University of Chicago, and a diplomate of the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich, is a Jungian analyst in practice in Wilmette, Illinois.