Isn't gnosticism a condition of the sinus cavity - IE an infection where you blow Gnostic mass out of your nose? If so, I am definitely a Gnostic this week.
I thought it was the belief that the world is evil and to destroy the world we need to fill it with sin and therefore the believers sin as much as possible so they get laid a lot.
Despite it being condemned in parts of the New Testament, it is part of the New Testament. "In the beginning was the Word..." (John 1:1). Logos, "the Word", is the medium of the demure, the craftsman.
he he the Gnostic's/pagans/essene types were the ones that wrote those stories in the bible. They were written to hide their knowledge of the sun, astronomy, astrology, and shamanic use of a psychoactive mushroom that they named Jesus from the authorities.
They didn't worship the "God" character of the Old Testament, the EL, or ELder sun God..that's the planet Saturn/Satan, now known as the Black sun, and the dark star... if you look up the popular Grateful Dead cover band "Dark Star Orchestra" you'll see that they have a logo that is the planet Saturn. Or the Sound Garden song Black Hole Sun... Saturn is represented by the black square and the black cube, and the black sun... the swastika is a symbol of Saturn... The Nazis were very much into the occult (which only means hidden by the way).
Anyways this "Father" "God" of the Old Testament is the devil in the new testament and Jesus even says this in John 8...
These people believed that the only way you could escape this cruel tyrannical god was through nosies or knowledge which they attained through eating the flesh of Christ, the forbidden fruit, the manna from heaven, the bread of life, mushroom Jesus.
So actually if you look at the beliefs of the people that wrote these ancient stories of astronomy, astrology, and shamanism... their belief system is almost exactly the opposite of that of the Church which co opted and interpreted their stories for their own benefit and then claimed primacy.
When I used to learn Gnosticism I mostly learned it from Dr. Stephen Hoeller at The Gnostic Society Library - The Nag Hammadi Library. The actual Nag Hammadi documents are translated there.
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html
I can see why Christians would be up in arms against it Lil. I thought it was great. Especially the Gospel of Philip which says:
"As for the Wisdom who is called "the barren," she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."
And ALSO in the Gospel of Philip where it says:
"God is a man-eater. For this reason, men are sacrificed to him. Before men were sacrificed, animals were being sacrificed, since those to whom they were sacrificed were not gods."
Gnosticism is bad*ass, but I think what I know as Gnosticism might not be the same as
