Not in His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of Belief

Product Information

Hard going, stimulating, never, never dull. The only book I've ever read a second time as soon as I'd finished the first read. Fully revised and with a new preface by the author, this timely update is perfect for readers of The Immortality Key.

In Not in His Image John Lamb Lash explains how a little-known messianic sect propelled itself into a dominant world power, systematically wiping out the great Gnostic spiritual teachers, the Druid priests, and the shamanistic healers of Europe and North Africa. Early Christians burned libraries and destroyed temples in an attempt to silence the ancient truth-tellers and keep their own secrets. But as Lash reveals the truth cannot be hidden or destroyed. With the Sophia myth, humanity already inherits the earth. The potential of the human is to evolve eternally. Evolve psychologically. Conscious evolution with the planet and with the cosmos. This is the basic essential teaching of the Gnostic/Mystery/Indigenous teachings and world views. Go read some Huna books by Serge Kahili King or Wasserman (Bowl of Light). Read 'Grandfather' by Tom Brown Jr. Read 'Opening of the Way' by Isha Schwaller de Lubicz. Even 'Pagan Christ' by Tom Harpur. Go learn the contrasting models. And if you are really brave read 'Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson' by Gurdjieff. There is more truth in Beelzebub's Tales than in the old or new testament. A rare surviving veteran of the 1960s youth revolution (in which he did not participate actively on social terms), John set out at fifteen to investigate the sources of religious belief and diverse forms of spirituality such as Buddhism and Theosophy as well as so-called occult and alternative systems such as alchemy, astrology, Hermetics, the I Ching and shamanism. He summarized his findings in The Seeker's Handbook - the Complete Guide to Spiritual Pathfinding (Crown/Harmony, 1991), his first published book, However, Lash's appropriation of the historical record is, most charitably stated, extremely tendentious. For one thing, he claims an essential unity to 'pagan' traditions in general and to pagan mystery cults in particular, setting them in opposition to the monotheistic religions without much recognizing that these very pagan traditions were the matrix out of which the Abrahamic religions arose. Indeed, Judaism, itself of henotheistic Hebrew roots, is hardly of a class with its semi-derivatives, Christianity and Islam. As regards the assertion of pagan unanimity, the record certainly does not support his bold claim. Indeed, he seems unaware of much of the counterevidence. For instance, he asserts that pre-Christian Europeans did not practice human sacrifice (p. 49). Is he unaware of the archaeological evidence of the Bog-sacrifices in Denmark? of the ancient Roman practice of live burial? of Moloch offerings in Punic Europe? of the Roman accounts of Druidic practices? What is one to make of his repeated assertion of the 'life affirming' culture of what he calls 'Europa' in the face of the misogyny, the slavery, the wars, the infanticide, and the slaughters recounted in the pagan histories and evinced by the discoveries of the archaeologists? (and where, for that matter, does he get the idea that the mass suicide at Masada occurred in 86 C.E.?) Lash's rosy representation of an idyllic pre-Christian Europe is as absurd as much of the Christian apologetic! John Lamb Lash (b. 1945 New York City) has been called the true successor of Mircea Eliade and the rightful heir of Joseph Campbell. Unlike those two world-class academics, John is a self-educated free-lance scholar who specializes in directive mythology: that is, the application of myth to life, rather than its mere interpretation. He is a leading exponent of the power of myth to direct individual experience and drive historical events over the long term.

I highly recommend this to anyone who has even the tiniest inkling that something is seriously amiss in the way humans have behaved over the last 2000 years.

Similarly if you are sitting on the fence regarding this idea or have some knowledge of the Gnostics, Dead sea scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts, the 44 omitted Biblical gospels, this book brings them all together in a way that is a real wake up call. With clarity, author John Lamb Lash explains how a little-known messianic sect propelled itself into a dominant world power, systematically wiping out the great Gnostic spiritual teachers, the Druid priests, and the shamanistic healers of Europe and North Africa. Early Christians burned libraries and destroyed temples in an attempt to silence the ancient truth-tellers and keep their own secrets.

Anyone who has ridiculed the idea of alien visitations in our past will find themselves re-evaluating their concepts. Since its initial release to wide acclaim in 2006, Not in His Image has transformed the lives of readers around the world by presenting the living presence of the Wisdom Goddess as never before revealed, illustrating that the truth of an impactful Gnostic message cannot be hidden or destroyed.

The book is not entirely without merit. The critique of Abrahamic 'dominator' religions as being anti-nature is certainly worthy of consideration, Christianity in particular having a poor historical record, its orientation being otherworldly. Its advocacy of deep ecology is something I appreciate. This is definitely not a book for those unfamiliar with European antiquity and the history of religions, nor is it worthy of the attention of those who do have such familiarity. Ecology, consciousness, 'quantum' energy fields, and hundreds of years of genocide are just a few of the subjects affected by the way religion has caused us to see our place on this planet. This book contains a heady mix of history, science, theology, anthropology, myth, and the author's personal testimony of Mystical experience. Above and beyond the several points it develops, this books presents a case for awe. This poses a dilemma, however, because the case for awe cannot be proven by scholarly method, yet that is the approach the author has taken in his argument. Readers of this book will fare more easily with this work if they bear in mind that the author frames his argument in scholarly terms, but the basic convictions from which Lash writes neither derive from, nor rely on, scholarly proof and academic method.Over the years, John tended to concentrate closely on three areas: the wisdom and culture of indigenous peoples, shamanism, and mysticism. His approach throughout was experimental rather than merely intellectual. Having undergone inexplicable (some would say "paranormal") experiences from the age of four, he sought the origin of such events. To do so, he delved into both "the structure and dynamics of the psyche" (C. G. Jung's phrase) and the racial and cultural contexts in which such events occured. Over time, his investigation in the fields of anthropology, ethnology, ethology, history of religions, and cognitive psychology broadened to include the arts, literature, and the Humanities. His biographical studies -- the Irish painter George Russell (AE) and the Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov, to cite but two of many examples -- convinced him that the highest achievements in the Humanities were often based in "occult" or mystical experiences. Eventually, John was able to interface evidence of human creativity with mystical and religious needs and drives, and place them together in a synthetic framework,

I came to this book with high hopes, as there are all too few works which take full blooded `anti-Abrahamic' approach to the subject, preferring to try and amalgamate Gnosticism and mystery religions to some grand new age vision shared by Greeks and Jews, Hindus and Christians. And Lash starts off doing a pretty good job, showing just how crazy and evil the Jewish `god' is, along with his later Christian and Islamic transformations. There's a lot on the Web about John Lamb Lash. Some of the data is contradictory. On the one hand, he's represented as an autodidact, as a college dropout. On the other, a PhD is attributed to him. There's even disagreement about his birthdate. Given the sketchy, eccentric character of this book I strongly suspect he had little academic training. The key contrast is that between what the Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths promise for following Their God versus what the Gnostics believed and knew about humanity and the cosmos. With the Abrahamic Yahweh believers you get a reward in a heaven after death. You get to inherit the earth or parts of the earth. We should focus on Christianity given the way history was essentially driven by the Roman Catholic then the Protestant branches and dogma. We are facing a potential end to humanity and society because of the book of Revelations and the salvationist promise. The idea that the Archons can only promise a false heaven. Alas, Mr. Lash, as Housman said of incompetent textual critics, "the world is no feather bed for the repose of sluggards." If you want convince anyone but the most credulous, or the already convinced, you will have to do more work than this.Lash is capable of explaining the mind-bending concepts of Gnosticism and pagan mystery cults with bracing clarity and startling insight. . . . [His] arguments are often lively and entertaining."― Los Angeles Times