What is a Gnostic?

[causticus]

I have my own broad definition of "Gnosis" I will explain in the near future. However this brief list of criteria is something I believe to be a very accurate approximation of what I term "Mythical Gnosticism," or alternatively, "Judeo-Christian Gnosticism." This is what most people with a modicum of knowledge on comparitive religion think of when the term Gnosticism is brought up.

• The Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity that came to be split into a plurality.


• As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created. This was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah.


• A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit in a much more positive role than the leader).


• In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God.


• For man, the universe is a vast prison. He is enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic code.


• Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality.


• Within each natural man is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.


• What effects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge.


• Before the awakening, men undergo troubled dreams.


• Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not information but a modification of the sensate being.


• The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event.


• Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man.

As I alluded to above, Gnosis is a much broader concept than what we find in the fragmentary knowledge we have today of the various Gnostic sects, mystery schools, secret fraternities and religious movements that flourished all around the Mediterranean and Near Eastern regions during late antiquity. In my own belief, Gnosis is the true transcendental spiritual tradition of the West; it has appeared and reappeared under various philosophical guises and forms of religious expression. The Judeo-Christian version is merely one of the mythical expressions of Gnosis.