From the Introduction

If one single theme has dominated the history of the past century, it is loss of faith. The implacable course of events has cast doubt upon progress, civilization, political and economic systems, even the essential decency of human nature. Christianity has not been spared. Starting in the nineteenth century, science began to show that the earth had been born not six thousand years in the past, as the Bible seemed to suggest, but billions of years ago. Even the Gospels themselves no longer seemed like Gospel truth, as historical and critical methods revealed that much in the life of Christ was not historical fact but myths and legends that attached themselves to him after his time.

These developments have drawn forth a complex array of reactions from clergy and laity alike. Some have actively rejected this knowledge, taking refuge in traditionalism and fundamentalism. Others have tried to integrate the new perspectives into their religious life, only to be left with a vague and unsatisfying liberal faith. Still others are disaffected from religion in general or simply bewildered.

Whatever course we choose, one thing becomes obvious: it is now next to impossible to take faith unreflectively. We no longer live in a conceptual world framed by the comforting certainties of church doctrine and the literal truth of the Bible. And yet, as disorienting and disillusioning as the process of modern inquiry has been, it has not destroyed the religious search but has invigorated it. Rather than contenting themselves with secondhand truths, people have begun to ask how they themselves can know the presence of the divine.

This impulse has fed the explosion of New Age religions, alternative spiritualities, and traditions brought over from the East that we have seen in recent decades. Many of these religions, both new and newly imported, stress enlightenment as a goal. They say that our ordinary state of consciousness is not the highest one of which we are capable, but a low-grade, delusory state. Spiritual disciplines such as meditation can free us from this oblivion and restore us to our full birthright as human beings.

On a parallel course, the perennial interest in Christian origins has led scholars to reexamine many ancient texts and to unearth new ones: the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library are the most famous examples. Some of these works suggest that early Christians not only reached insights similar to those of the Eastern religions but also had a sophisticated understanding of human consciousness in their own right. Many were concerned with what they called gnosis, a word that means "knowledge" in Greek. This is knowledge of a very specific kind—direct, intuitive knowing that surpasses ordinary reason and confers spiritual liberation. Gnosis strongly resembles enlightenment as portrayed in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Although interest in these ancient teachings is considerable, many people assume the teachings were lost long ago, the victims of official suppression and popular neglect. But in fact careful investigation shows that these truths have always been kept alive in the Christian tradition and indeed have fed the life of Western civilization like a great underground stream that only rarely rises to the surface. There have always been teachers and groups that have managed to reach these states of higher consciousness and have passed their knowledge on to the present.

Knowledge that liberates consciousness is often described as esoteric. The word "esoteric" is somewhat forbidding, usually connoting something obscure, exotic, and irrelevant to daily life—in short, something "far out." But etymologically the word means exactly the opposite: it comes from the Greek esotero, which means "further in." You have to go "further in" yourself to understand what this knowledge is about. In this book I will use the terms "inner Christianity" and "esoteric Christianity" interchangeably.

Esotericism teaches that this world within us is as rich and diverse as the outer world and consists of many different levels of being. Furthermore, these levels exist in a more or less objective way: those familiar with them can discuss them intelligibly with each other and will find that their experiences are essentially similar, much as everyone will say a ball is round. Although these levels stand between us and God, they do so not as obstacles but as way stations. Christ said, "In my Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:2). The Greek word here translated as "mansions" literally means "way stations."

Some thinkers differentiate the esoteric from the mystical, a distinction that can be useful as long as one is not too rigid about it. Esotericism is characterized by an interest in these different levels of consciousness and being. Mysticism is not quite so concerned with these intermediate states; it focuses on reaching God in the most direct and immediate way. The mystic wants to reach his destination as quickly as possible; the esotericist wants to learn something about the landscape on the way. Moreover, mysticism tends more toward passivity: a quiet "waiting upon God" rather than active investigation.

Both the mystical and the esoteric paths are generously represented in the Christian tradition. Examples of the former include the fourteenth-century English text known as The Cloud of Unknowing, which emphasizes coming to God in the stillness of the heart; the Quietism of seventeenth-century Spain; and Quaker spirituality, with its focus on the still experience of the Inner Light. This book, on the other hand, is chiefly about the esoteric strain: it attempts to discuss some of these different levels between God and the physical realm and to show how you might experience them for yourself.

These brief points suggest what esoteric Christianity offers to the individual: a way of self-knowledge—a way, perhaps, to the ultimate knowledge of Self. It also offers a resolution of the age-old dilemma of faith. As even the most casual reader of the New Testament can see, faith originally meant conviction or certainty: "Thy faith has made thee whole" (Luke 17:19). But over the centuries the term has been watered down into connoting a blind trust in secondhand dogma despite one's own better judgment. For the esoteric Christian, faith is indeed vital, but it is not blind trust; rather, it is "the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. II:I). Faith in this sense is the conviction, deeply felt and unshaken by whatever the world may say, that something real and vital lies beyond the surface of appearances. In this sense, faith too is a way station. It is the gateway to knowledge.

To Christianity collectively, esotericism offers an outlook that can revitalize the tradition and cut through difficulties that now seem almost insurmountable. One example is biblical interpretation, which now focuses almost exclusively on the literal truth of Scripture. Fundamentalists hold to scriptural inerrancy: the Old and New Testaments are literally true. Moderns, on the other hand, claim that while the Bible is meant to be literally true, it is a collection of legends and myths that often have little to do with what really happened.

In their pure form, both views are dead ends. Fundamentalism requires us to take Genesis literally, believe that people used to live hundreds of years, and accept various odd but miraculous interventions of God in history. The liberal perspective makes no such requirements, but in writing off so much of the central sacred texts of the tradition, it tends to weaken and even invalidate the Christian message. The endless debate about the "historical Jesus" versus the "Christ of faith," which has been going on for over two centuries without a satisfactory resolution, is the most obvious example of this impasse.