UPG: an ugly, misguided notion [View all]

“Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis” as a term is dismissive and insulting, but worse it turns us away from the only spiritual reality…experience.

The only point in saying that a person has had a UPG, an Unsubstantiated (sometimes Unverified) Personal Gnosis, is to be dismissive and demeaning to them, and on examination the claim or criticism of UPG has no worthy intellectual basis. The Wikipedia entry is illuminating. I will start by taking the phrase apart, backwards:

‘Gnosis’ is being used here as a euphemism for knowledge acquired through intuition, insight, or a spiritual event, such as conversation with a Spirit or Deity. In another day this might have been called a revelation. There may be words or symbols involved, but it is not limited to discursive intelligence. Non-discursive communication or knowing (properly called noisis and contrasted with gnosis which means knowledge in the ordinary sense), is also included when people use UPG as a label.

The internal and private nature of this phenomenon leads to the ‘Personal’ clause in UPG. By not being ‘public’ or external and visible to all (or some) the ‘Gnosis’ is reduced to mere interiority without any claim on the public outside of the recipient. “It’s just personal” becomes a way of dismissing the insight into irrelevance.

http://witchesandpagans.com/EasyBlog/upg-an-ugly-misguided-notion.html