Harpur's The Pagan Christ and the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

It is hard to take Harpur's The Pagan Christ seriously when his own faith seems to be a mix of New Age and scientism, in which evolution is God.

Vasnetsov: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

p. 40: “Significantly, here the King James translation of the ‘end of the world’ has done a lot of harm.” i.e., in making people think it was all about an end of the material world instead of a stage of natural “evolution.” The term translated “end of the world” in KJV can also be translated “end of the age.” There is no important distinction here for Christian theology; either way, you're  getting "a new heaven and a new earth." “Age” just sounds better to a New Ager. But the King James translation could not possibly have done this, since the great majority of Christians cannot read English, and would never have seen this particular translation.

p. 41: “The glow of Christliness—a thing Kuhn describes as at once both chemically radioactive and intellectual—in us.” Our souls are chemical, and radioactive? Makes you wonder just how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

There is no God but man, and Darwin is his prophet.

Harpur’s divine evolution is, apparently, evolving us all into gods, or God. P. 40: “To them [the ancients] salvation meant to consummate the present evolutionary cycle and keep marching on with nature until full divinization was realized.” One problem with this interpretation: the ancients would have had no concept of evolution as a natural process. That was Darwin, and a few before him, nineteenth century AD. The ancients would have no idea what Harpur is on about here.

More of this on p. 87: “In the ancient gnosis , as the soul advances through the scale of evolution, he or she passes through twelve grades of being, … until his or her absorption of the essence of all nature is complete. … the sun’s journey … symbolized the soul’s round of the elements and the acquisition of the twelve intelligences…” This is basically Gnosticism, but “absorption of the essence of all nature” seems to be Harpur’s own idea.

Harpur's vision of the periodic table.

What does it mean to absorb “the essence of nature”? Ah, the elements. Apparently one is supposed to “absorb” the elements. Perhaps by eating them? Or is this like osmosis? But not the elements in the periodic table. Harpur understands the elements as fire, air, earth, and water. Putting science back roughly 2,500 years. This kind of stuff only works on acid.

On p. 103: Harpur writes of the story of Isis fishing Horus out of the water with a net: “This was a cosmic symbol of life first coming out of the water as part of the evolutionary process. … The meaning is profound.” However profound Darwin’s theory of evolution might be, once again, it was unlikely to have been known to the ancient Egyptians. Why would they have thought life evolved out of the water? If they did, why should they place some religious significance on this?

p. 104: “From an evolutionary point of view, we humans move from the mineral stage to the vegetative stage to the animal stage; accordingly, it is in the middle of the fourth phase … that incarnation … takes place.” Even given the impossible premise that the ancients already knew about Darwinian evolution, this is a nonsensical way to divide speciation. Harpur leaves out several billion years, the vast majority of evolutionary history, during which life was limited to various unicellular forms, neither plant nor animal. Nor did animals evolve from plants.

A schema of speciation.

p. 124: Harpur is speaking of the various miraculous births of the Hebrew patriarchs: “Each is a type, or symbol, of the evolutionary process. The mineral stage is followed by the vegetative, and that in turn is followed by the animal. Halfway through the age of the animal kingdom… the stage of incarnation… raises the animal to the human.” … “The late birth of singular heroes such as Isaac, Samuel, and John the Baptist symbolizes the fact that our evolution as rational … animals has come well on in God’s overall ‘plan’ for this cycle of eon.” Hmmm—then Jesus’s early birth, to a young virgin, must mean he came very early in God’s overall plan. Yet he came after these patriarchs… how does this work again?

And how exactly does Harpur know that the appearance of man came “halfway” through the animal stage? He must have a solid date for the end of the world that he’s not telling us. And why is it that the appearance of plants was a new age, and the appearance of animals was a new age, but the appearance of man is not a new age, but a halfway point in the age of animals? Isn’t this division rather arbitrary?

Harpur laments that apparently purely imaginary sackings by Christian mobs of an ancient Druid college at Arles might have burned imaginary books that “might well have completely illumined our understanding of the mysterious rock monuments at Stonehenge” (p. 61). Rather unlikely. Stonehenge predates the Druids and the Celts; it was built by the Beaker People. The Druids would have been no more clued in to its true meaning than we are. If it is really that important; Stonehenge probably owes most of its fame to being within a day trip from London.

Stonehenge.

p. 121: “Kuhn even unlocks the meaning of the patriarch’s name, A-Brahm, arguing it is a combination of the alpha privative … and Brahm.” His problem here, as in almost all of his etymology, is that Harpur is claiming to see Indo-Aryan roots in Semitic languages. This is an impossible etymology for a Semitic name like Abraham. It has, on the other hand, a perfectly proper Semitic etymology as “Father of Nations.”

p. 127: “Stars don’t ‘stand’ over houses or stables, and they don’t lead people west.” They sure do, if you know anything about astrology. Harpur should at least know this, since otherwise he is so New Agey. Stars move through houses, and they can stop there or even move backwards (in retrograde). The three wise men were “magi”—astrologers.