millennial millennialism in the western hemisphere The Plate in My Head is a Government Plot Visions o.doc

millennial millennialism in the western hemisphere The Plate in My Head is a Government Plot Visions o 导读：就爱阅读网友为您分享以下“millennialism in the western hemisphere The Plate in My Head is a Government Plot Visions o”资讯，希望对您有所帮助，感谢您对92的支持! new world orders millennialism in the western hemisphere The Plate in My Head is a Government Plot: Visions of the Eschaton in UFO Conspiracy Theory Carol Matthews University of Kansas texts and modalities of the turn of mind we call “gnosticism,” tells the humorous story of an encounter he had with fellow Yale colleague and “gnostic” ruminator, Bentley Layton, author of long day and was beginning the last trek across campus before going home. He ran into Layton who was on his own last migration of the afternoon. Bloom reflects that he must have had a very sour look on his face, for Layton, upon greeting him, inquired as to why he seemed to be in such a terrible, somber mood. Bloom replied that his feet were killing him. Layton paused, became thoughtful, raised one finger, and in a deep, prophetically amused voice reportedly answered with a joke that probably only another academician could understand: “Ah, that is because of the archon of shoes.”1 So, we begin with the archon of shoes. When I was exposed to “gnosticism” many years ago in my “Texts of Early Christianity” courses, and incidentally, to the writings of Layton, I was struck with how similar the “grand Gnostic” myth which Layton described resembled in many ways a modern secular conspiracy theory. According to Layton?s schemata, the “gnostic” mind-set of those ancients who subscribed, whether Pagan, Persian, Jewish or Christian, shared some basic assumptions, central among these being that humans are in a kind of exile from true knowledge about their origins and final destinies. “Gnosticism” is generally understood to be a mind-set, or a method of mystical awareness. Most definitions of “gnosticism” focus on the personal, experiential aspects of that proce