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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 299.932 EAN: 9781931498920 ISBN: 193149892X Label: Chelsea Green Manufacturer: Chelsea Green Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 464 Publication Date: November 01, 2006 Publisher: Chelsea Green Studio: Chelsea Green
Product Description: Basing much of Not in His Image on the Nag Hammadi and other Gnostic writings, 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. They burned libraries and destroyed temples in an attempt to silence the ancient truth-tellers and keep their own secrets. But as Lash reveals, when the truth is the planet Earth it cannot be hidden or destroyed.
Not in His Image delves deeply into the shadows of ancient Gnostic writings to reconstruct the story early Christians tried to scrub from the pages of history, exploring the richness of the ancient European Pagan spirituality--the Pagan Mysteries, the Great Goddess, Gnosis, the myths of Sophia and Gaia--and chronicles the annihilation of this Pagan European culture at the hands of Christianity.
Long before the birth of Christianity, monotheism was an anomaly; Europe and the Near East flourished under the divine guidance of Sophia, the ancient goddess of wisdom. The Earth was the embodiment of Sophia and thus sacred to the people who sought fulfillment in her presence. This ancient philosophy was threatening to the emerging salvation-based creed of Christianity that was based on patriarchal dominion over the Earth and lauded personal suffering as a path to the afterlife. As Derrick Jensen points out in the foreword, in Lash's hands Jesus Christ emerges as the agent provocateur of the ruling classes.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Could have been great
A very intelligent man I know raved about this book saying if I didn't like it he would personally refund the purchase price. He has sent copies to a dozen of his friends. Most reviews on Amazon are very positive. So why do I think this is a bad, mishmash, disaster of a book? Just like Lash I have no belief in the vindictive Big-Daddy-In-The-Sky idea of God. I also respect deep ecology and the Gaia hypothesis. I think we believe many things that aint so, and am open to new ideas. But not to this ... Read More
Rating: - Open Mind Required
This book will change your life.
It will change your world vision.
This book is the culmination of 40 years of research into mythology, theology, anthropology, and many other "ologies". Blended into a unique vision of the pre-christian world and served up with numerous notes and references for further studies.
This book is as much an end of a journey into the Gnostic world vision, as it is an opening to a plethora of even more extensive investigation into the ... Read More
Rating: - The truth about religion
This is one of the most insightful and easy to read books about religion/history/spirituality you may ever read...tell everyone about it...
Rating: - ABRAHAMIC CRITIQUE
This book is a difficult read for those not familiar with ancient writings. I suggest a good dictionary at hand. There is a glossary which is a big help; too bad there isn't pronouncing aid. I don't have a PHD so the read was a walk over rocky soil. I plowed along to the very end, be sure you do also, as I gathered some diamonds. Whether or not one cuts, polishes, and sets these new found gems in your life as a guide is the question for you to answer.
Rating: - Important, scholarly, abit too long, and very caustic
If you are interested in experiencing reality and understanding how our society came to be distanced from such experience through the major religion in the West you need to read this book. I did find the authors approach too caustic regarding the Abrahamic religions (esp. Christianity) but he does make strong and convincing points. In general the book uses above average vocabulary and at times too much of it. Meaning that a prose of half the size could have communicated the core of the message in a ... Read More
- Could have been great
- Open Mind Required
- ABRAHAMIC CRITIQUE