DeConick A.D

168
GNOSTIC ALTERED STATES
Universe in a Body
Now, this situation is not hopeless. Far from it. As we will see later in this
chapter, the Gnostics were all about therapy, about making us psychologically
whole through spiritual maturation and integration. The existential
fear, terror, ignorance, regret, and desire that we all suffer needs to be
cured, they thought. If we healed our deep selves from this acute separation
anxiety by reintegrating our spirits into the divine whole, we would
be healthier individuals all around, even physically. So although we might
think Gnostics were only interested in spiritual and psychological healing,
it is clear from the literature that they believed that when we heal our deep
selves, this affects the health of our physical bodies too.
To this effect, there is a wonderful description of the Gnostics who
took part in Plotinus’s Greek philosophy seminar. The attending Gnostics
were some variety of Sethians, since they carried around the Sethian
books Zostrianos and Allogenes the Stranger (and perhaps Marsanes).
We now have copies of these books in the Nag Hammadi collection, so
we can read them for ourselves. What did these Gnostics in Plotinus’s
seminar claim? “They tell us,” Plotinus writes, “they can free themselves
from diseases.” The Gnostics believed this because they felt they had the
spiritual clout to overcome the demons whose power had manifested as
particular sicknesses.
In Gnostic therapy, the dark lords who created and therefore control
every part of the human body are being made to stop harassing our bodies
with disease and suffering. The Gnostics, Plotinus knew, used prayers,
invocations, and hymns to make the demons obey their instructions. Certain
melodies, special sounds, directed breathings, hissings, and popping
noises were employed to this end as well (Plotinus, Ennead 2.14). In other
literature we learn that the Ophian Gnostics thought that the summit of
their wisdom was their power to heal. It enabled them to destabilize demons
through the uttering of noisy sounds, secret names, spells of relief,
and preventive formulas, along with the use of prophylactics such as special
stones, plants, and roots. Calculations, likely astrological, also assisted
them (Origen, Contra Celsum 6.38–40).
How did this work? Like many ancient people of the Mediterranean,
the Gnostics believed that the alignment of the planets and stars at the