Gnosticism in Film + Literature
All of the gnostic films, underground authors and occult books whose heretical theories and fantastic visions inspired and influenced the genesis and formation of this website, from Dark City and the Dark Crystal to William S. Burroughs and Wilhelm Reich.
History, Christian Heresy and the Secret Gospels
Everyone has their own favorites of course, but here are a few books about gnostic christian history and heresy - and collection of gnostic scriptures and secret gospels - we’ve found most helpful in our research. From Lacarriere’s seminal meditation “The Gnostics” to Jonas’ existential musings in the “Gnostic Religion,” all of the most thought-provoking, [...]
Philip K. Dick
This most influential of gnostic authors was a paranoid time-traveller who fell through a hole in creation and entered a parallel dimension, encountering strange beings and receiving bizarre visions the content of which were to inform every novel he wrote from that point onwards. From Blade Runner to Total Recall, many of today’s most mind-bending [...]
Playing God in Eden
These Gnostic movies play with the theme of “mad scientist” - a demiurgic figure if ever there was one! Like the insane creator god of gnostic myth, the researchers and scientists in these films succumb to that most ancient of temptations, hubris - and they (and their creations) pay a heavy price for their folly.
The Prison Planet
These gnostic movies depict life on a strange planet very much like the Earth - perhaps the Earth itself in the very near future. The twist is, this Earth is controlled by apes, or cyborgs, or even (gasp) idiots - in short, all of the archontic beings true gnostics dread the very most!
Multiple Selves
Gnosticism tells the story of an immortal being who becomes fragmented and falls into the world, lost in a daze of forgetfulness, ignorant and trapped. Through the quest for knowledge, the characters in these gnostic films seeks to reunite their constituent parts, forging again the divinities they were at the very beginning, whole and aware, [...]
Light + Darkness
The interplay of light and darkness and the origins and destinies of these two forces appear time and again in gnostic scriptural accounts of epic battles for control of the cosmos - but are light and darkness ultimately one and the same thing? Explore varied tones of illumination and shadow in classic gnostic films like [...]
False Utopias
Gnostic movies about innocent adolescents held captive in seductive, womb-like false paradises, gilded cages which narcotize their inhabitants and so prevent them from achieving the growth, knowledge and freedom they so desperately need.
Virtual Reality
Some scientists believe that we may be living in a simulation, our universe nothing more than a program in some alien database, or even a glitch!
Inasmuch as this tends to support the idea of Divine Design, it is also impossible to disprove - but what kind of “God” (or gods) are we talking about?
For a [...]
After-Life Memories
The plight of the amnesiac soul trapped in a world (or afterworld) filled with menacing illusions and struggling to find its way back home is a frequent theme of gnostic texts like the Gospel of Mary; it is also vividly captured and depicted in gnostic movies like as Vanilla Sky, Jacob’s Ladder, Waking Life and [...]
The Heroes Journey
An ordinary person experiences the call to gnosis and enters a strange new world where it will take all of his (or her) courage to rescue a damsel in distress (the soul), defeat the monster (the Demiurge) and find the treasure (knowledge). Gnostic movies like Gattaca, Donnie Darko and Hedwig and the Angry Inch explore [...]
