Practicing Gnosis : Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature. Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson

• Superior document: Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies
• Author: DeConick, April.
• TeilnehmendeR: Shaw, Gregory.; Turner, John D.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (581 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

The essays in Practicing Gnosis demonstrate that the Gnostics were not necessarily trendy intellectuals seeking epistomological certainities. Instead, this book explores how Gnostics were seeking religious experiences that relied on practices including ritual, magic, liturgy, and theurgy. This book celebrates the career of Birger A. Pearson.

Table of Contents

Contents; Introduction; A TRIBUTE TO BIRGER A. PEARSON; George W.E. Nickelsburg. For Birger Pearson: A Scholar Who Both Studies and Embodies Syncretism; Gerald James Larson. Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, Religionswissenschaft, Piano, Oboe and Bourbon; Gregory Shaw. Birger Pearson: Scholar, Professor and Mentor; Birger Albert Pearson A Bibliography; SECTION ONE. INITIATORY PRACTICES; April D. DeConick. The Road for the Soul Is through the Planets: The Mysteries of the Ophians Mapped; Roger Beck. Ecstatic Religion in the Roman Cult of Mithras

Bas van Os. The Gospel of Philip as Gnostic Initiatory DiscourseElliot R. Wolfson. Becoming Invisible: Rending the Veil and the Hermeneutic of Secrecy in the Gospel of Philip; Erin Evans. Ritual in the Second Book of Jeu; Nicola Denzey Lewis. Death on the Nile: Egyptian Codices, Gnosticism, and Early Christian Books of the Dead; SECTION TWO. RECURRENT PRACTICES; Einar Thomassen. Going to Church with the Valentinians; Madeleine Scopello. Practicing ""Repentance"" on the Path to Gnosis in Exegesis on the Soul

Edward P. Butler. Opening the Way of Writing: Semiotic Metaphysics in the Book of ThothFernando Bermejo-Rubio. ""I Worship and Glorify"": Manichaean Liturgy and Piety in Kellis' Prayer of the Emanations; Jason David BeDuhn. The Manichaean Weekly Confession Ritual; Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley. Ritual Ingenuity in the Mandaean Scroll of Exalted Kingship; SECTION THREE. THERAPEUTIC PRACTICES; Naomi Janowitz. Natural, Magical, Scientific or Religious? A Guide to Theories of Healing; Grant Adamson. Astrological Medicine in Gnostic Traditions

Marvin Meyer. The Persistence of Ritual in the Magical Book of Mary and the Angels P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 685Rebecca Lesses. Image and Word: Performative Ritual and Material Culture in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls; SECTION FOUR. ECSTATIC PRACTICES; John D. Turner. From Baptismal Vision to Mystical Union with the One: The Case of the Sethian Gnostics; Niclas Förster. Marcosian Rituals for Prophecy and Apolytrosis; James R. Davila. Ritual in the Hekhalot Literature; SECTION FIVE. PHILOSOPHIC PRACTICES; Zeke Mazur. The Platonizing Sethian Gnostic Interpretation of Plato's Sophist

Michael A. Williams. Did Plotinus ""Friends"" Still Go to Church? Communal Rituals and Ascent ApocalypsesKevin Corrigan. The Meaning of ""One"" Plurality and Unity in Plotinus and Later Neoplatonism; Gregory Shaw. Theurgy and the Platonist's Luminous Body; Index