On the Primacy of Experiences and the Egophanic Revolt














"Since my first applications of Gnosticism to modern phenomena in The New Science of Politics and in 1959 in my study on Science, Politics, and Gnosticism , I have had to revise my position. The application of the category of Gnosticisim to modern ideologies, of course, stands. In a more complete analysis, however, there are other factors to be considered in addition.
One of these factors is the metastatic apocalypse. . . forming a permanent strand in Christian sectarian movements right up to the Renaissance. . . . I found, furthermore, that neither the apocalyptic nor the gnostic strand completely accounts for the process of immanentization. This factor has independent origins in the revival of neo-Platonism in Florence in the late fifteenth century[A further factor, magic , is also touched on. fjw]. . . .
Hence, the experiences that result in immanentist constructions had to be explored. . . . Only in recent years have I developed the concept of the “egophanic revolt,” in order to designate the concentration on the epiphany of the ego as the fundamental experience that eclipses the epiphany of God in the structure of Classic and Christian consciousness. . . .the term egophanic revolt , distinguishing this experience of the exuberant ego from the experience of the theophanic constitution of humanity, is the best I can do terminologically at present."

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTIONS Chapter 17, From Political Ideas to Symbols of Experience, pp 66-68.