A Seek Reality Online member asked, “Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome explores the ancient Gnostic idea that reincarnation is soul trap designed by an insane and inferior god. I find it disturbing such a possibility is being proposed.”
The Stockholm Syndrome is characteristic of today’s Christianity. It suggests that kidnapped people threatened with awful immediate futures, including being killed, come to feel protective and loving toward the captors, who may be their killers. Is the threat of having to reincarnate again and again a reality, in a soul trap? In this video, Dr. R. Craig Hogan explains why there is no soul trap people must be afraid of. And that the church is using that fear to convert and hold adherents.
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The Stockholm Syndrome
What is the Stockholm Syndrome this member is asking about? The term originated when two criminals in Stockholm, Sweden, took hostages for a week during an attempted bank robbery. After the hostages were released, they had oddly positive, even loving sentiments toward their captors. The hostages even became involved in raising money for the criminals’ defense. In religion, the syndrome is present in the teaching that God is a wrathful being who will throw people into a hell where disobedient people are tortured. The followers are fed a steady diet from the literature, weekly messages, and priests so they lose their ability to think rationally. They are told that only the priests have knowledge that can save people from God’s wrath and hell. They even refer to accepting the belief as being “saved.” The people are taught firmly that they must not listen to other voices, including their own inner leadings. The only path to save them from this awful fate is to believe and obey the priests and their interpretation of sacred texts. They are trapped. Many millions of people believe these falsehoods out of fear of retribution in this life and the next, just as kidnapped people threatened with death come to feel sympathy and love for their captors.
There Is No Soul Trap
There is no “soul trap,” as you suggested Gnostics believed. I’ll explain why we know that’s true. There are actually many groups that were called “Gnostics,” from the Greek “knowing.” Some are not related to Christian beliefs at all. Most Gnostics believed that this Earth was created by a demiurge created when the supernatural being called an archon, named Sophia, perpetrated a disastrous attempt to bring knowledge to humanity. The Gnostics believed this demi urge resulted in creating such phenomena as greed, anger, and violence in humanity. It’s the same belief as others have had, including Christianity and Buddhism, but described differently. The trap is ignorance, but “trap” is an unfortunate word that implies someone can’t escape. That isn’t what the Gnostics teach. Sophia gave people the knowledge that enables them to become loving and caring so they change their lives. That is the “gnosis” or “knowledge.”
All of that is the same thing other religions such as Buddhism teach. The trap is not like a hell. It just means “ignorance.” We are reared in the world to believe falsehoods. Children are taught to be selfish and self-absorbed, to see themselves as alienated from others. That is what the Gnostics regard as ignorance. The ignorance is keeping people bound to lives that are self-defeating. People want happiness, but being self-absorbed, their attempts to be accepted and loved just cause others to reject them. That could be likened to a trap. But everyone can grow out of that by becoming loving and compassionate, by changing their hearts and minds–that is “gnosis,” Greek for “knowledge.” That truth, Yeshua (or Jesus) said would set us free is reported to have said “Change your hearts and minds, for the kingdom of God is here . . . now. It is within you.” He taught that people can escape the traps of self-absorption and separation from others, through “gnosis,” or “knowing.”
Who Were the Gnostics?
The Gnostics were not a religion like Christianity. They didn’t have one set of beliefs. There were many different forms of Gnosticism. Some believed people come back to this life to learn to grow out of ignorance to become loving and compassionate. They reincarnate. Most adherents of Gnosticism did not believe that. Today, we have learned from people living in the life after this life that there is no reincarnation in which people return to Earth as different personalities. People stay the individuals they are, through eternity. Instead, others from the Higher Self come to Earth to learn lessons, grow in love and compassion, and enjoy this life. The new person’s life may borrow pieces or whole frameworks from us or others who came before. The new individual and old person are then intertwined. That is where past-life regressions and children’s past-life memories come from. They are not a past life. They are the life of a soul the new person on Earth is intertwined with. Read more about the real message of reincarnation in the link in the description below.
Today, We Know the Truth About Humanity's Destiny
Today, we know much more about this life and the next than was ever known before. We know everyone is on some stage of growth in being loving and compassionate. There is no “trap,” except that of our own making when we remain selfish, self-absorbed, spiteful, and abusive toward others. We are not trapped. We can grow in love and compassion so we don’t have negative relationships with others. The growth comes from what the Gnostics termed “gnosis,” or knowledge. When we grow in wisdom, love, and compassion, we grow out of all the self-defeating, harmful beliefs that held us captive. We are all on some stage of the progress away from ignorance toward becoming loving, compassionate, other-centered people. We are not trapped without recourse. We are here to grow into loving, compassionate people who regard others’ welfare as equally important to our own. That is the message Yeshua (Jesus) taught. The Gnostics knew that. The monstrous church that grew up with his name in it lost that wisdom. For more about Gnosticism, go to this link.
