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Show COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ABSTRACTS Victor Nardo Erin O'Connell 48 GNOSTIC THEMES IN TWELVE-STEP LITERATURE Victor Nardo (Erin O'Connell) Department of Languages and Literature University of Utah Twelve-step programs provide a spiritual basis for the treatment of the disease of addiction. A comparison of Gnostic literature with Twelve-step literature reveals the presence of Gnostic themes within the primary text of Alcoholic's Anonymous, The Big Book. Gnostic themes present in Twelve-step literature help to establish an effective, non-dogmatic spiritual praxis to counter the disease of addiction using the open-ended language and the framework of Twelve-step programs. Twelve-step terms like "disease" and "self-knowledge" emphasize the value of experiential self-agency over orthodox religious ideas such as "sin" and "temptation" as a spiritual basis for recovery. Gnostic themes allow for a form of cognitive dissonance, which, in turn, facilitates the pragmatic reformulation of individual worldviews. The alcoholic is invited to experience and to perceive his or her symptoms and behavior as both addictive and non-addictive. The experience of Gnosis by way of interactive exposure to the narrative praxis of Alcoholics Anonymous thus favors the personal creation of meaning as a way to counter dogmatic frameworks of thought that hamper recovery from addiction. However, definitional challenges exist both within Twelve-step literature and within the ongoing academic debate about what constitutes Gnosticism and Gnosis. Twelve-step use of terms like "disease" and "self-knowledge" should be understood as used within their original Twelve-step context. Such context can be established by a review of the primary literature of Alcoholics Anonymous. Definitional problems within academic debate regarding Gnosticism and Gnosis are evidenced as early as 1966 in the II Origini Dello Gnosticimo conference proceedings at Messina. Karen King's 2005 What is Gnosticism? shows the ongoing, evolving nature of the academic debate. However, Hans Jonas in his 1958 milestone work, The Gnostic Religion (1958), provided a method to identify Gnostic themes, referred to as "The Call from Beyond". "The Call from Beyond"criterion established a definition by which the presence of Gnostic themes within literature m a y be posited. While typically applied to shorter tracts of religious scripture/The Call from Beyond" criterion can also be applied to Twelve-step literature. A potential challenge in broadly applying "The Call from Beyond" criterion involves tracing the presence of the criterion throughout the literature. However/The Call from Beyond" criterion establishes the crucial, but non-exclusive presence of Gnostic themes in The Big Book. |
