Author: Jay Forrest

I am afraid that any guidance I give you here will be misunderstood unless I first define what I mean by a philosopher.

There are at least two kinds of people that are called philosophers, the academic professor of philosophy and the lover of wisdom.

To be honest, it is only recently that lovers of wisdom are again being called philosophers. I am not sure all the academics are happy about this. But it is not like most academic philosophers were pursuing wisdom anyway. They weren’t.

The fact is that in the hands of academics philosophy has become irrelevant, boring, and neglected. There was a time when philosophy was a way of life, a heroic quest for wisdom, and the doorway to the good life.

Now that the pursuers of wisdom are reclaiming their title of philosopher, some are stepping forward to put barriers between the lover and the beloved.

In answering the question “How to Become a Philosopher”, one University answers, “Going to an accredited university to earn your BA in philosophy is the first step in becoming a Philosopher.” But that is not enough, “Go to graduate school to earn your master’s degree or PhD in philosophy. ”

If a Ph.D. is required then Socrates, Confucius, and the Buddha were not philosophers. This may be required to teach at a University, but it is not a requirement to be a philosopher.

The only requirement for one to be a philosopher is to pursue wisdom and the good life through reason, observation, and deep thinking.

Yes, you can call yourself a philosopher. No, you will not be accepted by academia. But the pursuit of wisdom is not about the acceptance of society it is about gaining insights into living skillfully.

Are the academic philosophers really philosophers? Most are historians of philosophy and professors of other people’s ideas. So technically no, they are not real philosophers. At least not like philosophers of old.

But I have no desire to police the word philosopher. They can call themselves whatever they want, but so can I.

It is interesting, in fact, fascinating, that those who are interested in Gnosticism tend to speculate all over the place. They bring in occult ideas such as alchemy, Kabbalah, and astrology.

But their interests and mine are different. I’m in a quest to discover the historic Christianity. I want to understand the early Christian background, so that I know what Christianity was like in the first and second centuries.

And from that Christianity, draw out the best version of Christianity to confront the modern world. I’m calling that version of Christianity, “Gnostic Christianity.” Because the only type of Christianity that can survive the modern era, is one that embraces myth and science, but doesn’t confuse them

The context of early Christianity is Judaism, the Essenes, Greco-Roman philosophy, and the Mystery Religions. Religions. These are the areas of study that I’m interested in and that have relevance to the formation of early Christianity.

You can certainly leave Christianity but it does not leave you. Your liberation from it is delusion. Christ is the way. You can certainly run away, but then you are no longer on the way. – Carl Jung (Red Book)

Christianity is the foundational myth of Western civilization. Myth is what provides context and perspective to our lives. They create the interpretation of consensus reality we live in. Christianity is the myth we are given.

The Bible is, with its many myths, the foundational document of western civilization. “For a while,” notes one psychologist, “literally, there was only one book and that book was the Bible.” But the Bible and its story formed the lexicon out of which all others books emerged.

The Bible was the fundamental text, for upon it most other texts were dependent. The psychologist cited the work of William Shakespeare as one of several “texts that influenced more other texts” before identifying the Bible as the ultimate source of all “linguistic production.”

Unfortunately, being the foundational text does not mean that it is true. The Bible is not literally true. Rather, the Bible and its myths form the vocabulary and frame of references out of which we, Western civilization, weave meaning and purpose.

This is why Carl Jung believed that liberation from Christianity is delusion. It is the best map of reality we have. We need to reengage it as myth, and not make the mistake of fundamentalists. Christianity is true as myth, it is just not literal history.