Gnostic Bros and the Trap of Pseudo-Gnosis

Like any middle-aged man worth the salt in his beard, every so often I find myself asking, “I wonder what the kids are into these days?” Over the past few years, this question has led me down some very strange and sometimes disturbing internet rabbit holes.

My most recent excursion into subcultural anthropology revealed to me that a heck of a lot of kids these days are really into esotericism and ancient religion, and that there are some very popular YouTube channels devoted to these topics. Initially I was really excited to see that young people who are facing an uncertain future were looking to unorthodox spiritual traditions for possible answers to the meaning and existential crises.

However, after an in-depth exploration of Esoteric YouTube, I began to wonder if all this interest in weird old spiritual and philosophical ideas is just another way to avoid dealing with the very real material concerns facing us today. Is all this esoteric information leading to real transformation or is it just a more exotic form of infotainment?

I really don’t want to single anyone out, but I think one of the more popular Esoteric YouTube personalities provides a good example of why I think the latter conclusion might (sadly) be the case. Besides, with a handle like “The Gnostic Informant” and the claim he makes at the beginning of every video — “You are about to attain true gnosis” — he’s kinda asking for it.

While I genuinely enjoy a lot of the conversations and presentations he has on his channel and truly admire the depth of his reading and savant-like ability to retain and recall information, his engagement in the type of inflammatory backbiting and click-bait polemics that is so endemic to the personality and algorithm-driven YouTube platform makes the case that information doesn’t necessarily lead to knowledge, but more often leads to what I’ve come to call pseudo-gnosis.

You see pseudo-gnosis all over the influencer world. Any dummy with enough nootropics pumping through their neurons can memorize a bunch of quotes from Carl Jung, Lao-Tzu or Marcus Aurelius, but it doesn’t make them a true gnostic. In many cases their untested spiritual authority comes off as an “aw ain’t that cute” character trait of the naive and newly “awakened” truth-seeker.

In the worst cases, pseudo-gnosis leads to ego inflation, insufferable arrogance and outright bullying. Unfortunately, the nature of the social media algorithms means that it’s usually these latter types of gnostic-bro that gain the most traction on platforms like YouTube.

And (surprise!) it’s predominantly young men who fall prey to this kind of Magician inflation. As I’ve written about in the past, we live in a time where unlimited access to unlimited information combined with unfettered access to public platforms can feed the hunger for power and status in young uninitiated men.

I could write a whole article on this dynamic, but the short version is this: one of the ways the Magician in an uninitiated man seeks power is by accumulating information (another is online porn). The young man, inflated with pseudo-gnosis, then needs to find an outlet to confirm his power. This activates his inner Warrior, who has been lying dormant ever since he passed the threshold of puberty, waiting for an occasion to rise to.

Now that his Warrior is all fired up with a feeling of power that needs expression, he begins picking fights and waging war with other shadow Warriors on the battlefields of YouTube and X. Every man needs a mission. It doesn’t matter it’s a real mission that’s actually consequential. For a young man living in an online virtual reality, it feels very real and of great consequence.

The problem is that all this pseudo-purpose and meaning they’re getting from their virtual life is keeping them from taking responsibility for their actual life and participating in the repair of the world. As long as their real life remains unfulfilling they’re going to keep getting their fix for purpose and meaning from the virtual one.

It’s like the shadow version of an ouroboros, that old symbol of re-generation, but instead of the snake eating its tail, it’s got its head up its ass.

Sigh.

One thing that this month-long deep dive into the world of Esoteric YouTube has confirmed for me (yet again) is that there can be no true gnosis without dedicated, long-term participation in a coherent psycho-energetic-somatic system of practice. Otherwise we’re just watching another puppet show in Plato’s cave.

As someone who has practiced and taught yoga for many years and places a lot of value on embodied ritual practice, I know I’m biased. I really don’t want to be another old man shouting at the clouds, so I thought I should check my theory with someone younger than me who is working on the frontlines of what I truly hope is an authentic neo-renaissance of Western Esotericism and not just a more exotic (ie., non-Christian) opium of the masses. To that end I invited author, esoteric scholar and initiated practitioner Ike Turner from the Arcanvm YouTube channel on my podcast for a chat.

In part one of our conversation (below), we discuss the growing popularity of Western Esotericism from his perspective as someone who attends esoteric conferences, teaches courses on this stuff and has a couple decades of practice under his belt.

In part two (which is available for free on the HITW Patreon), I ask him about his experience with Freemasonry (in which he’s an initiated member) and whether he thinks psychedelics are a useful tool on the path of awakening or whether they’re just another detour into pseudo-gnosis.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
— Socrates

Watch the full episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-renaissance-158116383