Eric Voegelin

Eric Voegelin (January 3, 1901- January 19, 1985) was a philosopher, born in Cologne, Germany, and educated in the fine arts at the University of Vienna, where he became a professor of political science at the Faculty of Law.

In 1938 he fled with his wife from Nazi Germany, immigrating to the United States, where they became citizens in 1944.

He then spent considerable parts of his academic cereer at Louisiana State University, University of Munich and the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

Voegelin on Gnosticism

Voegelin wrote extensively on what he percieved as a flawed concept of Christianity. With books like The New Science of Politics, Order and History and Science, Politics and Gnosticism he became the leader of an intellectual movement opposing what they believed to be unsound Gnostic influences in science.

Eric Voegelin viewed Gnosticism as the root of all evil aspects of modernity. He believed that the Gnostic impulse had been preserved throughout history and that the whole scientific enterprise, especially technology, was aimed towards creating "heaven on earth" and said he wanted to defend the "classic Christian tradition" against the attacks of "the Gnostics". He said all totalitarian ideologies were caused by Gnostic impulses, including Communism and Nazism.

These ideas has clear similarities with a conspiracy theory and is generally not taken seriously, though many catholic scholars like it and often extend it using vivid imagery created by Abbe Augustin Barruel in much the same spirit and character.