Appropriating the Historical Other: Utilizing Ancient Heresy in the Struggle over Gender Dominance at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract This article studies references to Gnosticism in debates regarding gender at the turn of the twentieth century. Analyzing an array of sources, from activists for female empowerment in British Theosophy to continental traditionalist conservatives, the article shows that Gnosticism and ancient Gnostics were referenced to support both female liberation as well as male dominance. It is argued that this was made possible by (1) the polemical and contradictory state of the ancient second-hand sources regarding “Gnostic” views of the nature of male- and femaleness combined (2) with a key component constituting the reception of Gnosticism in modernity: counterculture and the reevaluation of the religious “other.” It is concluded that a core feature of the modern revival and reception of Gnosticism is a particular form of alterity: the reevaluation of historical othering processes.