Gnosticism

[related: Gnosticism, Demiurge, Yaldabaoth, the Monad]

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A spirituality and systemotology based largely on a reinterpretation of the Exile from Paradise myth. Gnostics see the evil serpent of Eden, traditionally portrayed as Lucifer, as instead a revered entity attempting to share knowledge forbidden by a shallow and fearful Demiurge Yaldabaoth (also known as Baal). Originating in the time immediately following Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, core Gnostic doctrine shares startling parallels with Buddhism and Hindu as portrayed in the Upanishads. Gnostics center salvation not on a spectrum of sin and faith but of illusion and enlightenment. Gnostic beliefs persisted throughout the Mediterranean world until around 200AD, at which point a conservative group of state-controlled theologians called the Church Fathers deemed them to be heresy and sought the eradication of all related literature. A quite a successful purge followed - very little Gnostic writing survived, and the remaining texts were ruled apocrphyal. With its focus on direct (subjective) experience, relativism, and duality, Gnosticism was seen by the Church Fathers as difficult to codify and thus a threat to structured, suppressive religion. Gnosticism experienced a revival beginning in the late 19th-century with the discovery of two fundamental documents: the Berlin Codex, and the Nag Hammadi Codex, containing between them unadulterated versions of the Apocryphon of John the Apostle.