I have been looking things up on what it is, but everything I read is very unclear, or at least it is to me. Judging on what I have read and the slight understanding I have on what exactly it is, I think I would be very interested, but like I said nothing really tells me what it is exactly.
An umbrella term for philosophies of the divine and cosmos that rely on special esoteric "knowledge" or nosies
There is an incompatibility between the material and the spiritual and the goal of life was release from the bondage of physicality
This bondage could be broken ( often with the final end as the being absorbed into the Ultimate) by following detachment by the individual soul from the ignorance's and base attitudes and behaviors that chained one to carnal and earthly existence
Many groups believed in reincarnation as a punishment for being too involved with material existence
It is a prominent heretical movement of the 2ND-century Christian Church, partly of Prue-Christian origin. Gnostic doctrine taught that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demure, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being, esoteric knowledge (nosies) of whom enabled the redemption of the human spirit.
There is much to absorb, true. However it is always best to get your information directly from the source to gain full appreciation of what they are consisted of: http://gnosticteachings.org/
"Some believe that Gnosis is exclusively the belief system of long-lost groups of spiritual seekers like the Essenes or Nazarenes. Yet the truth is that those writings and groups were but one fraction of a much older, more widespread movement, but one that cannot be tracked by physical evidence alone: it can only be truly known through awakened, conscious experience - not only here in the physical world, but also in the Internal Worlds, by means of techniques such as meditation, dream yoga, and more."
You are confused because it was a "catch-all" religion that "borrowed" teachings from several other religions.
I am a Christian and I have examined Gnostic writings.
Most Gnostic works are in Coptic and many are in Greek. I translate Greek and Coptic. So I have examined many of them in detail, in the original languages.
The Gnostics in the early Christian era were a minor religious group based mainly in Egypt.
They were active primarily in the second and third centuries AD, and were competitors with Christianity (and other religions of the day including the Eleusinian Orgies, Mithras, Mater Magna, Sarapis, Manichaeism, etc.).
They got members by adopting and adapting stories from other religions, so they both borrowed and modified (or created) "Christian" Gospels.
Here are some "gospels" they added:
Gospel of Marcion
Gospel of Mani
Gospel of Appelles
Gospel of Bardesanes
Gospel of Basilides
Gospel of Cerinthus
Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Peter
Gospel of Nicodemus
Gospel of Bartholomew
Gospel of Judas
Gospel of Mary Mary Magdalene
Gospel of Philip
Gospel of Truth
Gospel of the Hebrews
Gospel of the Nazarenes
Gospel of the Ebionites
Infancy Gospel of James
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Infancy Gospel of Matthew
Greek Gospel of the Egyptians
Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians
They were actually a minor cult, when compared with the other, competing religions in Egypt at that time. For example, Clement of Alexandria, in his dissertation on non-Christian religions in Egypt, does not directly mention the Gnostics at all.
I have read Gnostic manuscripts. Their content is fuzzy at best, often incoherent, and at times absurd to the extreme.
Basically, it is the belief in the so-called Gnostic scriptures. The name was used because it means "knowledge" or "to know." The Gnostics believed that they knew something others didn't. It is interesting, however, there are many reasons that these scriptures were never canonized. The bottom line is that they have been judged by scholars, historians, and scientists to be flawed and in some cases, complete forgeries.
Gnosticism traces its roots back just after the beginning of the Christian Church. Some researchers state that evidence of its existence even predates Christianity. Whichever the case, the error of gnosticism had affected the culture and church of the time and possibly even a earned a mention in 1 John 4.
The word "gnosticism" comes from the Greek word "nosies" which means "knowledge." There were many groups that were Gnostic and it isn't possible to easily describe the nuances of each variant of Gnostic doctrines. However, generally speaking, Gnosticism taught that salvation is achieved through special knowledge (nosies). This knowledge usually dealt with the individuals relationship to the transcendent Being.
A more detailed Gnostic theology is as follows. The unknowable God was far too pure and perfect to have anything to do with the material universe which was considered evil. Therefore, God generated lesser divinities, or emanations. One of these emanations, Wisdom desired to know the unknowable God. Out of this erring desire the demureGEn evil god was formed and it was this evil god that created the universe. He along with archons kept the mortals in bondage in material matter and tried to prevent the pure spirit souls from ascending back to god after the death of the physical bodies. Since, according to the Gnostics, matter is evil, deliverance from material form was attainable only through special knowledge revealed by special Gnostic teachers. Christ was the divine redeemer who descended from the spiritual realm to reveal the knowledge necessary for this redemption. In conclusion, Gnosticism is dualistic. That is, it teaches there is a good and evil, spirit and matter, light and dark, etc. dualism in the universe.
What we know about Gnosticism is gained from the writings of Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, and some later manuscripts discovered in the eighteenth century such as the "Codex Askew, Codex Bruce, the Berlin Gnostic Codes and, most recently, the Nag Hammadi collection."1 Nag Hammadi is a town in Upper Egypt near ancient Chenoboskion and 13 codices discovered were discovered about 1945.
The danger of gnosticism is easily apparent. It denies the incarnation of God as the Son. In so doing, it denies the true efficacy of the atonement since, if Jesus is not God, He could not atone for all of mankind and we would still be lost in our sins.
There is debate whether or not this is a Christian heresy or simply an independent development. The evidence seems to point to the later. Nevertheless, the Gnostics laid claim to Jesus as a great teacher of theirs and as such requires some attention. It is possible that 1 John was written against some of the errors that Gnosticism promoted.
Roughly, it's a religion in the Judaeo-Christian tradition which is polytheistic. Gnostics believed that the original God is aloof and distant, but good. One of God's creations, the Demiurge, believes itself to be God because it's "blind", i.e. its faculties are limited. It created matter and trapped our souls in it, and wants us to worship it. Therefore, matter is entirely evil and the way out is to acquire secret knowledge passed down from Jesus to the apostles, not known to the general populace. Views of God and of the number of deities involved vary. Some of them see the New Testament and Old Testament Gods as separate, for example.
Can anyone explain what Gnosticism is?
