It is a phenomenon of spiritual, experiential and experimental knowledge that is understood by the Gnostics (primitive Christian sects of Gnosticism). For the Gnostics, gnosis is a teaching that allows the human being to obtain real information about himself and about the world around him.
It is essentially a practice that itself has no complicated theories or approaches, and is based on direct experience. Its principles drive us to verify scientifically and by themselves, the lessons we receive, leaving aside dogmas and beliefs, which is not scientific or rational knowledge.
But it is not a basic or regular knowledge of anything, that is, scientific or rational, but traditionally gnosis implies a kind of spiritual and intuitive knowledge of topics such as Deity, God, among others, and that he knew at the right moment to be what the most sought after Gnostics to reach, as the followers of Gnosticism were called.
Gnosis as a lifestyle, as a mystical philosophy is based on a rational and scientific conception of the universe. Gnosticism appears in times of crisis, of social and spiritual disturbance, as an important ideological current for the human being to achieve a physical, psychic, social and spiritual transformation, allowing him to know himself, to know his own defects and errors that lead prematurely to old age, to the grave, to disintegration.
This wisdom is found in the Mysteries of Mithras, Eleusis, Hermeticism, the Mysteries of Dionysus, Hecate, the Great Mother, Serapis, Cybele, Isis, also in Orphism and Pythagoreanism, Egyptian and Tibetan books… When man begins to observe himself closely, from the angle that he is not ONE but many, he has obviously begun serious work on his inner nature.
For Gnosticism, the fact that Christ sacrificed himself for men does not jeopardize their salvation, but men are per se, reaching divine gnosis by their own means that finally achieve their salvation and be next to God. Only through gnosis will the illumination of the spirit be achieved that leads to salvation.
Undoubtedly, this is a current that in addition to Christian influence received contributions from Platonic philosophy and also from Eastern philosophies.
