I am currently writing the second book in my Gnostic Spirituality trilogy.  The book is called The Gnostic Awakening: How an Ancient Countercultural Spirituality Migrated into Modern America. 
Like the image used for The Gnostic New Age cover, This image is painted by Rachel Ray.  It is one I am considering for the book cover design. Link to Ray's website.

Like the image used for The Gnostic New Age cover, This image is painted by Rachel Ray.  It is one I am considering for the book cover design. Link to Ray's website.

In this second book of the trilogy, I am exploring how Gnostic spirituality emerges in dislocated spaces, in the margins of religions, among people who are dissatisfied with traditional faith.  What happens socially when gnostic spirituality penetrates conventional religious communities, Christian or otherwise?  How does this intersection originate new religious movements within the margins of conventional religions, create new identities, and innovate culture?

I am investigating what happens when experiences of the transcendent God engage religious seekers to question reality as it is normally perceived and to expand the self into suprahuman dimensions.  In this book, I lay out the sociology of Gnostic spirituality, arguing that it is essential for us to understand the impact of the Gnostic search for the transcendent God on the social processes of religious exclusion and inclusion, community-building, and the survival strategies of new religious movements. 

I am considering as well the mechanisms of the diffusion of Gnostic spirituality in modernity, which include artifact migration, the rise of new cultural channels, popularization, and continued revelation.  In the end, I am particularly moved to explain how this countercultural spirituality makes its way into American religion and culture, and transforms our us and our society.