The Fall of Sophia: A Gnostic Text on the Redemption of Universal Consciousness

Egyptologist MacDermot has produced a curious hybrid of a book. It is at once a sober-sided translation of the valuable Gnostic text Pistis Sophia (lightly edited for its internal repetitions) as well as a curious potted history of the Gnostic temper through Western history, beginning with Mani and stopping along the way for the likes of Pico della Mirandola and Lewis Mumford. While it might have been better, even for the educated reader, for MacDermot to have annotated and explicated the mysterious text as fully as possible rather than prefacing it with metahistory, this volume still elicits considerable interest. For larger collections or where interest in neopaganism is strong. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.