In Flight, between London and Cairo
‘So,’ Chris said, turning towards Michael after their in-flight meal had been served, consumed and cleared, ‘it’s time for Harvard to enlighten Navy on a few of the more esoteric details.’
Michael had one arm wrapped gently, protectively, around Emily’s shoulder, while the fingers of his other hand rattled along the opposite armrest. Now that they had finally got a meal into them, he felt his exhaustion. He was desperate to fall into even the flitting sleep that Emily had finally managed in the seat to his right, but his mind was too consumed with the questions of the day and unknowns of the way ahead. Emily’s emotions had finally drained her into sleep; perhaps Chris’s interest would at least provide Michael’s mind with something to occupy itself.
‘You do realize, I didn’t go to Harvard?’ he responded, for at least the thirtieth time in their friendship.
‘I won’t hold it against you,’ Chris answered, smiling. ‘Point is, you need to be filling me in on a bit more of the background to this little trip. Give me the details, as scholarly as you want to make them.’
‘Where would you like me to begin?’
‘Start from the beginni—’ Chris cut himself off. ‘No, on second thought, you’re an academic and this flight’s only five-and-a-half hours long. Why don’t you just give me the highlights. I know nothing about Gnosticism.’ He lifted the edges of his mouth and openly spread his hands. ‘Consider me an empty canvas. Paint a clear picture.’
Michael adjusted his position in the small seat, gently taking his arm from Emily’s shoulder.
‘We’re talking about a movement that spanned centuries, covered multiple continents, incorporated dozens of philosophical and religious paradigms and cultures. To set the stage we’d need to go back to the ancient Greek philosophers, to Plato and Aristotle—’
Chris stopped him abruptly with an open palm, raised like a traffic officer halting a rush-hour onslaught.
‘You’ve had thirty seconds, and you’ve already lost me.’
‘Chris, this isn’t a simple question. History is complex.’
‘Imagine for a moment that you had to describe everything in a single phrase.’ Chris was used to receiving bullet-point intelligence briefings. What couldn’t be said in a sentence usually couldn’t be said at all.
‘Boil it down to its real core. Just what are we talking about here?’
Michael hesitated. He’d always hated reductionist simplifications, but he also recognized that Chris wasn’t the type to warm to a scholarly lecture.
‘The ultimate aim of Gnosticism,’ he finally said, ‘was the liberation of the soul from matter.’ He opened his mouth, took in half a breath as if preparing to continue, but caught himself before another word came. With a look of surprise on his own face, he gave an unexpected gesture to Chris. That’s it. There you go. Your one sentence.
‘Liberation from matter?’
‘The groups we call Gnostics were diverse and eclectic, but to one degree or another they were all after the same thing: a true knowledge, or gnosis, of the universe. They believed that knowledge allowed a person to become aware that the material world is a deception and only the spirit is true. It was a knowledge that was believed to lead to an eventual liberation from the material world and entrance into the pure realm of Spirit.’
What he was describing felt familiar to Chris. ‘You’ve just described half the population of the state of California, and every New Ager I’ve ever met.’
‘Right,’ Michael answered, understanding the joke but too distracted to laugh. ‘This philosophy has been rather influential in the New Age spirituality of the past decades. It’s been so popular, in the ancient world and now in the modern, because a belief that true life lies outside the material realm allows you to have a pretty free and easy approach to the world. If all this physical stuff is just a shell, a cage, a prison, then your behaviour towards it will reflect that. The material world doesn’t matter. It’s a lower entity, to be discarded.’
His eyes were becoming heavy as he spoke, the pace of the day finally starting to catch up with him.
‘Doesn’t sound so bad,’ Chris replied. ‘Plenty to dislike about the physical world, isn’t there?’ His tone stayed light, but Michael sensed his question was sincere. ‘Disease, suffering, death. Why not look down on it all?’
‘Gnosticism was shunned by the early Christians, as well as by the Roman Empire, because of just that,’ Michael answered. ‘What you’re saying sounds logical enough, even reasonable. But it’s an understanding of the world that Christians could never accept. They were teaching that the world was broken but could be healed and redeemed, but the Gnostics were teaching that it was flawed to its core and needed to be escaped. There’s a big difference between liberation from sin and liberation from matter.’
Chris pushed his large frame into his seat, trying unsuccessfully to stretch a few extra millimetres into its recline. Michael’s words lingered.
‘And the group we’re after,’ he at last asked, ‘that’s their aim, then? This “liberation from matter”?’
‘They certainly seem to strive for some connection with Gnosticism,’ Michael answered. ‘Though what that is, we don’t really know.’ He yawned. It was a good sign: perhaps he would be able to sleep for a few hours before they landed.
‘You don’t know?’ Chris asked.
‘Not yet. I guess I’m rather hoping this “keystone”, whatever it turns out to be, might provide some kind of explanation.’
Now it was Chris’s fingers that tapped on the plastic armrest between them.
‘Whatever the connection is, it can’t be good.’
Michael was startled back to attention. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because what you call “liberation from matter” sounds to me an awful lot like death.’ He leaned in to Michael, softening his speech. Emily was still asleep, and he didn’t want to wake her with these thoughts. ‘And they’ve already “liberated” your relative, haven’t they? If their aim is more liberation, then this, this . . .’
As his voice trailed off, Michael completed the thought.
‘This can’t be good.’