Of Gnosis in tribal and “primal” cultures

Abstract

The proposition that tribal or smaller-scale traditional societies yield Gnostic ideas may seem absurd, especially considering the kind of elaborate speculations post-War scholars have discussed since the Nag Hammadi finds. The connection with gnosticism has been made because of initiated specialists&s; negotiations through "other worlds," and because initiations can be paralleled to access to ancient mysteries and questions of handling both lower and upper worlds are part of the ongoing history of the gnostic trajectory. There is a new stress that ancient "classic gnosticism" involved quests for "altered states of consciousness", with shamanic experiences falling into the general category of "mystical visions and unions." The false step that can be made about "primitive disclosure rituals," though, is to extract from them utterly different species of cognition among traditional peoples, like the greater disposition of "tribals" to have access to the spirit realm by trance or into the unconscious.