A Gnostic re-interpretation of Catholicism

"The cloud upon the sanctuary" by Karl von Eckartshausen was originally published in German in 1802. An English translation was published in 1896. Eckartshausen was nominally a Catholic, but on second looks, his ideas sound more Gnostic or "Theosophic". He apparently had contacts with Saint-Martin, Franz von Baader and other Catholics interested in occultism. Much later, Eckartshausen's ideas were apparently discovered by the Golden Dawn, and perhaps also the Theosophists and Anthroposophists. Politically, Eckertshausen was probably quite right-wing and conservative. He was briefly a member of Adam Weishaupt's notorious Illuminati, but left it when he realized that Weishaupt was actually an atheist (and revolutionary).

The ideas found in "The cloud upon the sanctuary" sound Christian, and I don't doubt that the author considered himself a Christian of good standing. However, a heresy-hunter would easily discover strong elements of Gnosticism in the text. For instance, the Fall is interpreted as a fall of purely spiritual man into matter. The Tree of Good and Evil signifies a mixture of the material and the spiritual, and when Adam partook of it, his spirit-being was trapped in the material world. To Eckartshausen, matter is evil, since it's ever-changing, constantly dissolves itself, and hence brings constant pain and suffering. His view of original sin is the following: ever since the Fall, humans have been selfish and brutish due to matter, and since we transmit this matter to our children, the fallen human state is hereditary. At one point in the booklet, Eckartshausen even makes the rather strange claim that evil is based in a crude form of slimy matter literally flowing in our vains!

"The cloud upon the sanctuary" was written during the halcyon days of the Enlightenment, shortly after the French revolution. Eckartshausen rejects the Enlightenment. To him, all scientific knowledge of the material world can only be relative. Absolute knowledge is knowledge of the spiritual and divine. However, such knowledge cannot be apprehended by science or Enlightenment philosophy. It can only be reached through faith and revelation. Ironically, Eckartshausen uses Kant to prove this point. Kant pointed out that human reason cannot grasp the supernatural. To Kant, this was an argument for a deist religion based on "postulates of practical reason": we cannot metaphysically prove that God exists, but we need to postulate his existence anyway for moral and existential reasons. To Eckartshausen, it's an argument for revelation: since humans can't by themselves know God, God must make himself known by his own initiative. What Eckartshausen calls "revelation", a Platonist would presumably call "illumination", and a Gnostic "Gnosis". It seems to be a mystical insight of some sort, rather than the plain meaning of the Bible. Indeed, the Bible is mentioned mostly in passing in this work.

Eckartshausen further believes that the atoning work of Jesus Christ was ontological. Jesus "died for our sins", but not in the traditional sense. In order to defeat evil matter and redeem man, Jesus had to become a human being and enter the centre of matter. When Jesus was killed, the spiritual essence of his blood entered the earth and filled the whole world. In this way, the degeneration of the material universe was arrested. (I always assumed Rudolf Steiner was behind this idea, but it existed at least a century earlier!) Eckartshausen interprets holy communion mystically. Somehow, the spiritual essence of Jesus is present in the bread and wine of holy communion. Thus, he combines Catholic sacramentalism and Gnosticism (compare the Liberal Catholic Church). Since our sins are due to the matter than entraps our spirits, Jesus' dying for our sins must mean that matter is defeated and spirit somehow set free.

Naturally, this raises the question what will happen to non-Christians (or non-Catholics). To use modern theological parlance, Eckhartshausen was an "inclusivist". Salvation is ultimately in Jesus Christ, but God works in and through all religions. There is an external Church, with its rituals and symbols, and an internal Church, to which the rituals and symbols point. It's not clear to me whether Eckhartshausen regarded the internal Church as a real but secret organization, some kind of purely spiritual brotherhood, or a symbolic community of scattered saints and sages who never really meet. However, he does believe that these secret saints can be found in all religions, and that the external rituals and "hieroglyphs" of all religions point towards it. At some points in "The cloud upon the sanctuary", the author implies that he is himself a member of this secret society, and he talks about different degrees of initiation and study. Eckhartshausen also says that the secret society forms a theocratic republic, and will one day disclose themselves and rule the world. Naturally, the time is near (it always is!). At other times, the booklet gives the impression that nobody can become a member except when called by the Spirit, and that there really is no organization. Providence will make the secret saints meet and recognize each other when necessary.

What struck me when reading "The cloud upon the sanctuary" was that it's surprisingly easy to comprehend. There is no arcane Egypto-Qabbalistic mumbo-jumbo of the sort often found in works like this. I also noted that Eckhartshausen's Gnosticizing re-interpretations of Christian dogma make it sound more rational and logical. Ironically, the Enlightenment he so despised might actually have made it easier to be a freethinker even in Bavaria. The attempt to make incomprehensible Christian ideas such as the atonement or original sin more rational might willy-nilly also be a Enlightenment spin-off (just a thought). Finally, I found it interesting that ideas I recognize from Theosophy and Anthroposophy actually have roots further back in time.