The problem is, hardly anyone else would describe a person who’s actually in a position of power to do the rearranging—like e.g. Lenin—as “Gnostic”; he has certainly been known as a dreamer blind to reality, but as I pointed out that’s a very general indictment. The way it’s actually used throughout history, “Gnosticism” has the connotations of a monastic life and mystical pursuits, detached from daily life or outright fleeing from society; after all, no leader who actually left a noticeable mark on society has ever been called that. Many parallels have been drawn between Marxism/Facscism/transhumanism/etc and religious fundamentalism, but those parallels did not include a persecuted, non-populist and underground branch of a religion.
The word has always been associated with “heresy”, and a tendency that’s imposing its own dogma & suppressing opposition is not called a “heresy”. Voegelin should’ve introduced a new term for the category of people he wanted to indict instead of appropriating an unsuitable word.
The problem is, hardly anyone else would describe a person who’s actually in a position of power to do the rearranging—like e.g. Lenin—as “Gnostic”; he has certainly been known as a dreamer blind to reality, but as I pointed out that’s a very general indictment. The way it’s actually used throughout history, “Gnosticism” has the connotations of a monastic life and mystical pursuits, detached from daily life or outright fleeing from society; after all, no leader who actually left a noticeable mark on society has ever been called that. Many parallels have been drawn between Marxism/Facscism/transhumanism/etc and religious fundamentalism, but those parallels did not include a persecuted, non-populist and underground branch of a religion.
The word has always been associated with “heresy”, and a tendency that’s imposing its own dogma & suppressing opposition is not called a “heresy”. Voegelin should’ve introduced a new term for the category of people he wanted to indict instead of appropriating an unsuitable word.