Mary Daly. who died earlier this week, was a gnostic prophet. If you have any doubt on this score, read Gloria Steinem’s words upon news of Miss Daly’s death:

“She was a great trained philosopher, theologian, and poet, and she used all of those tools to demolish patriarchy — or any idea that domination is natural — in its most defended place, which is religion.”[emphasis mine]

Gnosticism is ….. well, it is the air we breathe, the sun on our faces, the water we drink. It is the ersatz religions that have changed our lives: feminism,  Marxism, homosexualism, environmentalism, Darwinism, etc. In short, liberalism is gnostic.

For excellent discussion of gnosticism, see Lawrence Auster here and here. In his Science, Politics and Gnosticism, Eric Voegelin gives six characteristics of the gnostic. In summary, these are:

1. The gnostic is dissatisfied.
2. The cause of his dissatisfaction is “the wickedness of the world.’
3. He believes salvation from this wickedness is possible.
4. In order to achieve salvation, “the order of being will have to be changed in an historical process.”
5. This change is possible through human effort.
6. The gnostic possesses a formula or knowledge as to how to bring about this salvation.

Gnosticism has so thoroughly penetrated our institutions, it is hard to see it clearly. Daly, who despised Christianity, was employed by Boston College, a Jesuit school, from 1966 to 2001. For years, she refused to allow men to attend her classes, saying, “If a man were in the class he would be very likely to say, ‘Oh, no. I am oppressed too.’ … He would say, ‘I can’t cry. I’m not allowed to express myself, wah, wah. ”

Daly also said, “Courage to be is the key to the revelatory power of the feminist revolution.”  Here is gnostic vanity in but a few words.

                                     —- Comments —-

Charles writes:

I had never heard of M. Daly until I read your posts over the weekend. I find it incredibly interesting that she rejected male patriarchy in the church, yet she established her very own brand of female domination in her classroom. She practiced what she supposedly claimed to hate in others. This behavior is typical of leftists in every generation.

Laura writes:

That’s consistent with Voegelin’s description of gnostics, whom he says consciously embrace contradiction and leave out some important aspect of reality from their outlook.

Of course, Daly wouldn’t consider her refusal to teach men as hypocritical as she believed males are innately evil.

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