Jesus is, consciously and with the most subversive imaginable scorn, mocking all versions of the spiritual journey that place the ultimate experience beyond this world, in some transcendent "otherwhere." All the patriarchal religions and mystical transmission systems — including those conceived in Jesus' honor — subtly devalue the immanent in favor of the transcendent. This addiction to transcendence with its rhetoric of "the world as an illusion" keeps intact the status quo in all its misery, horror and injustice.
— Andrew Harvey, The Gospel of Thomas by Stevan Davies