Gnosticism and esotericism: an example from Russian new religiosity

Authors

• Vadim Zhdanov Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67340

Keywords:

Gnosticism, Esotericism, Religious movements, Popular, Russia -- Religion, Occult sciences, Secret societies

Abstract

Time and again, the terms gnosticism and esotericism appear in connection with one another. Most esoteric teachings, for example, draw on the higher knowledge of the secrets of nature or deity. The terms esoteric and esotericism even surface in connection with antique gnosticism—and this is not a rare occurrence. Just think of the famous definition of gnosis suggested by leading scholars in the field in Messina in 1966. According to this definition, gnosis is the ‘knowledge of divine mysteries, which is reserved for the elite’. And just as Christian apologists saw gnosis as the source of all heresy, so today it is viewed as the source of all esotericism—at least from a theological point of view. In spite of the fact that this thesis is not historically tenable, given that western esotericism did not start until the time of the Renaissance, one cannot ignore the fact that gnosis and esotericism are multiply interwoven with each other. The author sketches the dogmatics and the history of a new religious movement which created quite a furore in the Ukraine and Russia during the first half of the 1990s. On the basis of this sketch of the ‘Great White Brotherhood Usmalos’, he then tries to apply the terms gnosticism and esotericism to this example. Proceeding this way, the author sheds light on both the level of its mode of thought as well as its form of life.