Not in His Image

Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of Belief

by John Lamb Lash

Afterword by Derrick Jensen

For the Media

Download a PDF of this press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2006

Contact: Barbara Monteiro and Ali Beatty 212-832-8183, bam@monteiroandco.com, alib@monteiroandco.com

New Book Explores Christianity’s Bloody Past

Basing much of Not in His Image on the Nag Hammadi and other Gnostic writings, John Lamb Lash explains how a little-known messianic sect propelled itself into a dominant world power, systematically wiping out the great Gnostic spiritual teachers, the Druid priests, and the shamanistic healers of Europe and North Africa. They burned libraries and destroyed temples in an attempt to silence the ancient truth-tellers and keep their own secrets. But as Lash reveals, when the truth is the planet Earth it cannot be hidden or destroyed.

Not in His Image delves deeply into the shadows of ancient Gnostic writings to reconstruct the story early Christians tried to scrub from the pages of history, exploring the richness of the ancient European Pagan spirituality—the Pagan Mysteries, the Great Goddess, Gnosis, the myths of Sophia and Gaia—and chronicles the annihilation of this Pagan European culture at the hands of Christianity.

Long before the birth of Christianity, monotheism was an anomaly; Europe and the Near East flourished under the divine guidance of Sophia, the ancient goddess of wisdom. The Earth was the embodiment of Sophia and thus sacred to the people who sought fulfillment in her presence. This ancient philosophy was threatening to the emerging salvation-based creed of Christianity that was based on patriarchal dominion over the Earth and lauded personal suffering as a path to the afterlife. As Derrick Jensen points out in the foreword, in Lash’s hands Jesus Christ emerges as the agent provocateur of the ruling classes.

John Lamb Lash is the foremost exponent of the practice of mythology, a true heir to Joseph Campbell. He is a co-founder and principal author of the Marion Institute’s website www.metahistory.org, an inquiry about the contemporary meaning of humanity’s myths and beliefs. He has written a number of books, including The Seeker’s Handbook, Twins and the Double, The Hero—Manhood and Power, and Quest for the Zodiac. The author lives in Europe.

Derrick Jensen is the author of A Language Older Than Words,Walking on Water, and The Culture of Make Believe.

Available November 2006 | Hardcover | 1-933392-40-1 | $35.00 | Paperback | 1-931498-92-X | $20.00 | 6 x 9 | 350 pages | Glossary, Notes, Index