File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1996/96-08-12.171, message 108


Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 12:33:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mont Allen <lcallen-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: Deleuze and Gnosticism




On Sun, 28 Jul 1996 N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk wrote:

>      "For the question is to know how affirmation itself can be multiple, 
>      or how difference as such can be the object of pure affirmation.  This 
>      is possible only to the extent that affirmation as a mode of the 
>      proposition is produced from extra-propositional genetic elements (the 
>      imperative questions or original ontological affirmations), then 
>      'carried through' or determined by way of problems (multiplicities or 
>      problematic Ideas, ideal positivities).  Under these conditions, it 
>      must be said in effect that the negative in the proposition sits 
>      alongside affirmation, but only as the shadow of the problem to which 
>      the proposition is thought to respond -- in other words, like the 
>      shadow of the genetic instance which produces the affirmation itself."
>      >      
>      What Ed is asking, I think, is whether there is any point to labelling 
>      this extra-propositional genetic element as god, or the gods, or some 
>      similar theological name.  I suspect that there's very little point to 
>      doing this, although I think some of the gnostics (Valentinians and 
>      Sethians) were onto something:  the gnostic god is nothing more than a 
>      principle of dispersion, against which the demiurge and the created 
>      world are nothing more than a negative shadow.  This is, at least, 
>      what I think, as I have yet to ask any "gnostic expert" to take a look 
>      at what I've written on the gnostics.  BTW, does anyone know if there 
>      is such a thing as a Deleuzean-Gnostic expert, or a Gnostic-Deleuzean 
>      expert, or in any event someone who is fairly knowledgeable on both?
>      
>      Nathan
>      

Nathan, I can't say for sure, but my hunch is that you're unlikely to find
a scholar truly fluent in Gnosticism who would know Deleuze.  

One of my frustrations with the study of Gnosticism is that is has
remained solidly within the conservative methodological confines of New
Testament scholarship.  Gnostic scholars just don't do post-modern theory,
and the 'Gnostic mafia' (as the academic cartel are called) have done a
pretty good job of keeping critical theory out. 

I know of only two published scholars who have brought post-modernism to
'Gnostic' texts, and both relied on its linguistic strand, not the
philosophical:  Joel Fineman, who did a provocative piece on the
Valentinian *Gospel of Truth* using Lacan; and Patricia Cox Miller, who
has written several absolutely wonderful articles on different 'Gnostic'
texts (mostly Sethian and Valentinian) from a Derridian perspective.  I'll
ask Patricia Miller if she knows of anyone conversant in Gnosticism and 
Deleuze....

I've only the briefest familiarity with Gnosticism, and know nothing of
Deleuze (I'm lurking on this list in the hopes of picking something up),
but your comments about the Father of Sethianism and Valentinianism as a
principle of dispersion sound juicy.  Their indebtedness to Neo-Platonic
(especially Plotinian) notions of God as the fount of emanation
(dispersion?) is apparent, and both Valentinian and Sethian texts seem to
emphasize fluidity, both cosmological and psychological, reflected in
their pantheism/monism.  In Sethian texts, Ialtabaoth (the demiurge) and
the material world separated from the Father would seem to be the result
of (psychologically) limiting the immanence of the Godhead by claiming
one's autonomy, objectifying oneself and one's world (perfectly expressed
in Ialtabaoth's first words), and concomitantly objectifying the Father
(Sophia's initial audacity in trying to produce an image of the Father,
which resulted in her aborted birth of the demiurge). 

I've tended to view these myths in post-modern linguistic terms:  the
Father/the Pleroma/emanation/"spirit" as the fluidity (dispersion?) of
endless signification (God signifies and thereby creates the Aeons, which
in turn signify other words/Aeons, etc., in an emanationistic Great Chain
of Signification); Ialtabaoth/the archons/the corrupt material
world/"body"  as the unfortunate result of limiting this fluidity of
language and metaphor, leading to their objectification, reification,
entrappment, imprisonment, hypostasis (of the archons), etc.  Sethian
texts and *The Gospel of Truth* almost seem to call for such a reading,
with their exceptional emphasis on image, metaphor, words, thought, and
psychological attitude.  I'd love to see them translated into another
register (e.g., Deleuze). 

Best of luck,

	Mont Allen (lcallen-AT-mailbox.syr.edu)
	Department of Religion
	Syracuse University


   

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