>>2150009
It is interesting an worth the read, if you understand where is originated. It made lots of money for popular authors & Hollywood bu mocking conventioal religion) National Treasure, Matrix, et al, so I am "certain" it is legit (/sarcasm off)
Development
Three periods can be discerned in the development of Gnosticism:[60]
Late first century and early second century: development of Gnostic ideas, contemporaneous with the writing of the New Testament;
mid-second century to early third century: high point of the classical Gnostic teachers and their systems, "who claimed that their systems represented the inner truth revealed by Jesus";[60]
end of second century to fourth century: reaction by the proto-orthodox church and condemnation as heresy, and subsequent decline.
During the first period, four types of tradition developed:[60]
Genesis was reinterpreted in Jewish milieus, viewing Jahweh as a jealous God who enslaved people; freedom was to be obtained from this jealous God;
A wisdom tradition developed, in which Jesus' sayings were interpreted as pointers to an esoteric wisdom, in which the soul could be divinized through identification with wisdom.[60][note 21] Some of Jesus' sayings may have been incorporated into the gospels to put a limit on this development. The conflicts described in 1 Corinthians may have been inspired by a clash between this wisdom tradition and Paul's gospel of crucifixion and arising;[60]
A soteriology developed from popular forms of Platonism in which the soul ascended to union with the Divine;
A mythical story developed about the descent of a heavenly creature to reveal the Divine world as the true home of human beings.[60] Jewish Christianity saw the Messiah, or Christ, as "an eternal aspect of God's hidden nature, his "spirit" and "truth", who revealed himself throughout sacred history".[23]
The movement spread in areas controlled by the Roman Empire and Arian Goths,[62] and the Persian Empire. It continued to develop in the Mediterranean and Middle East before and during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but decline also set in during the third century, due to a growing aversion from the Catholic Church, and the economic and cultural deterioration of the Roman Empire.[63] Conversion to Islam, and the Albigensian Crusade (1209โ1229), greatly reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the Middle Ages, though a few Mandaean communities still exist. Gnostic and pseudo-gnostic ideas became influential in some of the philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe and North America, including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups.
It mght be considered as "alt-Jewish" or "alt-Christianity". It is not considered as "canonical" except by various "esoteric (i.e. mystery) religion (Jewish and Christian offshoots)
Some include it as "historically interesting" but not part of mainsteam Judiasm or Christianity.
Is is the underlying "religious/philosophic roots" of Theosophy (Blavatsky), Thelma (Aleister Crowley). Freemasonry (Albert Pike" Ariosophy (Hitler "Ayran" basis) and other occult-based movements
See Wiki series sections on Hermeticism and Sprituality for a broader historical view showing their common roots and teachings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism
"Be cafeful who you follow"