Stephan A. Hoeller - Career

Career

An author and scholar of Gnosticism and Jungian psychology, Hoeller is Regionary Bishop of Ecclesia Gnostica, and the senior holder of the English Gnostic transmission in America.

Hoeller was ordained to the priesthood of the American Catholic Church by Bishop Lowell P. Wadle in 1958. He was consecrated to the Gnostic episcopate by Richard Duc d Palatine on April 9, 1967. Ronald Powell (who took the ecclesiastical name Richard Jean Chretien Duc de Palatine) had established a modern-day Gnostic church, the Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church, in England during the 1950s - de Palatine received his successions from British independent prelate Hugh de Wilmott-Newman in 1953. After the death of Duc de Palatine in the 1970s, Hoeller abbreviated the church's name, in Latin form, to Ecclesia Gnostica. He has continued to serve as bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica for over four decades.

Hoeller has lectured in Australia, New Zealand, England, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Hungary, Germany, and the United States. He is a former member of the lecturing faculty of the late Manly P. Hall's Philosophical Research Society, and a national speaker for the Theosophical Society of America. Since 1963 he has been Director of Studies for the Gnostic Society centered in Los Angeles, where he has lectured every Friday evening for many decades. He was a frequent contributor to Gnosis magazine; and has also written for Quest Magazine and for many professional journals. He is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at the College of Oriental Studies in Los Angeles, California.

During a 2003 interview, he talked about Gnosticism:

"I think we could describe it as a very early form of Christianity, very different in many respects from what Christianity became later on. It is much more individualistic. It is much more orientated toward the personal, spiritual advancement and transformation of the individual, regarding figures such as Jesus as being helpers rather than sacrificial saviors. It is a form of religion that has a much more ecumenical and universal scope in terms of its relationship to spiritual, religious traditions other than the Christian.

I would say that this appears to be, as far as Gnosticism is concerned, the time that the Greeks called the kairos, the time when the Gods are reborn. We live in an age, I think, when certain timeless ideas, which have been submerged and subdued for a long time, are making their appearance once again. In that respect we're living in very interesting times as the Chinese would say. Interesting times, spiritually powerful times, always cast a great shadow. There will also be great difficulties, but I think that Gnostic traditions, along with a number of kindred ideas, are being reborn at this time, and will have a significant influence in the future. Those of us who find ourselves working within that field are singularly blessed that we can do this work at this particular time. So I feel I'm at the right place and at the right time and I am profoundly grateful for all of that."