Early Christianity had a powerful esoteric current. This is reflected in the New Testament writings of Mark, Paul, and, above all, John. Gnostic Christians tried to preserve this tradition, using the archaic mysteries as a way to knowing (gnosis) of higher cosmic truths. But the Gnostic sects were finally suppressed by an orthodoxy that, Andrew Welburn concludes, had lost sight of the "dynamic of the self."

The full scope of the traditions on which the Gnostics drew is clearer following the modern archaeological finds at Qumran and Nag Hammadi. As a result of these discoveries, the...