The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Grudge Against Creation

We tend to blame the rise of conspiracy theories on the internet and access to social technologies. Of course this is merely down to unawareness of history. Conspiracy has never needed a high-tech enabler to rush around a population. The primitive technology of the human voice can overcome any cultural or political barrier. And when conditions are right the conspiracy is suddenly visible and sucks its adherents from one world into another.

Historically the most ambitious conspiracy theory ever advanced doesn’t involve child-trafficking, stolen elections or the evils of chemical-additive to the water supply. These are trivial claims compared with the rather cosmic conspiracies of the ancient Manicheans and Gnostics. In these theories the scam being run is not by people on each other but by God on all of humanity.

According to the gnostics, the world that we inhabit is the result of an evil plot carried out, with either divine approval or acquiescence, to torture humanity. This can be demonstrated empirically by simply looking around. The substance of this world is human suffering, not accidental or intermittent suffering, but intentional and unrelenting. As Olga Tokarczuk puts it through one of her characters: “pain is the emperor of this world.”

The Books of Jacob is about this all-encompassing, ancient tale of Gnostic conspiracy updated for use in the modern world. The factual proof, the theoretical explanation, and the available remedies are all here. So are the psychological and sociological reasons for the acceptance of such otherwise outrageous tales. Target audiences are identified and their motivations matched with appropriate media messages. In fact the book is a sort of how-to guide, a play-book, for starting and promoting conspiracy theories effectively.

Gnostics hate the world they inhabit. As Nahman, a follower of Jacob Frank, the subject rather than the character of Ms Tokarczuk’s story, nicely summarises the sentiment, “… from childhood on, I, too, absorbed this eternal grudge against creation.” Some gnostics want to be elsewhere, usually in a realm of light whose existence is confirmed by the pinpricks of light we can see in the firmament of the night sky. This sort of hopeful emigrant to the stars is sullen but benign. He minds his own business, reads a great deal, and keeps on the lookout for escape. The rest of us hardly notice.

But the other sort of gnostic, the permanent residents as it were, would prefer a replacement for this world. They are activists. Despite their pessimism, they are also idealists who have a vision, not a vision of some desired end-state but of change, revolution, disruption of the status quo. they want to belong to a movement, religious hippies, perhaps. As Nahman says of himself, he “has the sense that he’s a part of something bigger, something unprecedented and unique.” These gnostics also want revenge.

Gnostics differ from nihilists in that in that they believe that under new management (theirs) the world could be habitable. But they share with mere destroyers of society ignorance of any positive virtues which new social structures should have. They are aware of their ignorance. They know they’ve been lied to: “Certain facts have been concealed from us, no doubt, and this is why we cannot assemble the world as we know it into a single whole. There has to be a secret somewhere to explain it all.” The Messiah knows the inside story:

“The world doesn’t come from a kind or caring God,… God created all of this by accident, and then he was gone. That is the great mystery. The Messiah will come quietly when the world is submerged in the greatest darkness and the greatest misery, in evil and in suffering. He will be treated like a criminal. So the prophets have foretold.”

Resident gnostics, consequently, tend toward a Messiah figure in whom they have confidence for working out all the details of social change. Jacob Frank was such a Chosen One for that strange region at the nexus of the Polish, Hapsburg, Ottoman, and Russian empires in the 18th century. As Joseph Roth described the populace so succinctly 200 years later: "...fatherland for them is whatever country decides to conscript them." The Messianic call represents a chance to belong, to be settled, to be recognised.

The concept of the Messiah is of course Jewish in origin. He is the spiritual and political leader of a new world order. Messiahs act; they preach; they attract crowds; they take control; they confront authority. This is the Judaic ideal. But the apotheosis of the messianic ideal in practice is certainly Christian, having been worked out both spiritually and politically over many generations. The Christian Messiah knows how to rule. Consequently, Jewish Messiahs have proven rather less adept in their Gnostic ambitions than the more established Christian competition.

Messianism always starts as a populist movement. It then moves to infiltrate the establishment. Its ultimate success however depends on its ability to overthrown the establishment in which it has become a junior partner. This is a tricky business. Christians got lucky with Constantine; the Mormons with Eisenhower. But Jacob Frank was rather less so with the Polish bishops of the 18th century. Tokarczuk does a pretty good job of explaining why. Gnostic movements tend to fragment and their Messiahs become increasingly radical as they believe their own press. Like Jesus they are then liquidated. Unlike Jesus, they leave no Gnostic St. Paul to organise the survivors.

One can only hope that QAnon, the various neo-Nazi factions, Steve Bannon and the other Trumpist Republicans don’t read Books of Jacob for tips on subversion. Thinking about it, I consider this a fairly certain bet.

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