SOURCE: "The Gnostic Vision of William S. Burroughs," in The Daybreak Boys: Essays on the Literature of the Beat Generation, Southern Illinois University Press, 1990, pp. 59-73.

[In the following essay, Stephenson discusses Burroughs's middle and late works in the context of Gnostic thought, focusing principally on the themes of The Soft Machine.]

In the following I want to consider what I call the Gnostic vision of William S. Burroughs and to trace its development in his work with particular attention to his key novel The Soft Machine. I do not mean to suggest that William Burroughs is an adherent of Gnosticism or even that he would endorse or concur with its tenets and practices. I do, however, find that there are significant parallels and points of contact between Burroughs' writing and Gnostic thought, and that these provide a framework in which aspects of his work may be clarified...