THOMAS HOLLWECK is Associate Professor of German at

I.
Sloterdijk’s Varieties of Gnostic Experience
and the Nature of Modernity
In 1991 two volumes appeared that bore the title
Weltrevolution der Seele. Ein Lese- und Arbeitsbuch der
Gnosis. 1 Edited by Peter Sloterdijk and Thomas Macho, this
fascinating anthology invites the reader to embark on a
journey through two thousand years of Gnostic thought, from
the Gospel of Thomas, the Song of the Pearl, and the texts of
Valentinus, Basilides, and Origen in the ancient world to the
Islamic and the Kabbalistic Lurianic Gnosis that stand at the
threshold to the modern world.
But what gives the reader pause is the list of modern authors
who either identify themselves as Gnostics or Gnostic
sympathizers or who are identified as Gnostics, authors like
Jung, Bataille, Hugo Ball and Borges, Pessoa and Cioran, to
name only a few. It seems as though Hans Jonas’ formula of
„the hidden Gnosticism of the modern mind“ of 1973 is taking
on a reality today that would have surprised its author. Indeed,
it appears as though at the end of the century the modern mind,
where it still reflects on itself, is more and more openly
showing an interest and often outright sympathy with Gnostic
thought.
In his introduction to the Revolution der Weltseele Peter
Sloterdijk could still remark a few years ago that among the
1 Peter Sloterdijk / Thomas H. Macho, Weltrevolution der Seele: Ein Lese-
und Arbeitsbuch der Gnosis von der Spätantike bis zur Gegenwart, 2 vols.
Zurich: Artemis & Winkler Verlag, 1991. A one-volume paperpack edition
appeared with the same publisher in 1993.