What is the definition of 'Gnosticism'? Who is Gnostic?

Lets start talking about some truth here. Where are my peers?
mishmash, bring your friends! Lets load up this site with gnostic info. Ask those Gnostic questions. Lets reveal the truth! Born Gnostic!
Elaine Pagel rules!

A one-sentence description of Gnosticism: a religion that differentiates the evil god of this world (who is identified with the god of the Old Testament) from a higher more abstract God revealed by Jesus Christ, a religion that regards this world as the creation of a series of evil arc hons/powers who wish to keep the human soul trapped in an evil physical body, a religion that preaches a hidden wisdom or knowledge only to a select group as necessary for salvation or escape from this world.

The term "gnostic" derives from "nosies," which means "knowledge" in Greek. The Gnostics believed that they were privy to a secret knowledge about the divine, hence the name. (Huxley coined "agnosticism" on the basis that all knowledge must be based on reason. We cannot rationally claim to have access to knowledge that is beyond the powers of the intellect.)


watch the matrix movies they are based on gnosticism.

well....I'm not gnostic but I know what it is...I mean, i don't think anyone is gnostic anymore. Its an extinct form of mystical Judea-christian religion, prevalent in Constatine's Byzantium, and caused a lot of trouble there. how exactly it differed from the mainstream is difficult to say, it departed in many various ways, and seemed to be influenced a great deal by some Prue-socratic Greek mystic-philosophers, such as Pythagoras. Most fundamentally, it somewhat denied the omnipotence of God. They appeared here and there throughout the middle ages as well, such as the infamous Carthar heretics.

There are still Gnostics who practice today. I am just beginning my research on this religion. Elaine Pagels is an excellent authority on the subject. She helped to translate the Nag Hammadi. Try the below site for more information.

A Gnostic is someone who has had knowledge necessary for them, revealed by a divine being. Gnosis is revealed knowledge by the divine. Every person has all the knowledge of the universe inside them but in order to access most of it requires intervention from the divine. A gnostic would become someone with the knowledge revealed to them as if the divine came to them in person and said this is what you must know. Gnosticism is mainly talked of in Christianity where everything material is evil and was called a heresy because it denied Jesus' humanity saying something truly good as God could not be part of the evil and sin full human body.