Publisher's Synopsis
Gnosticism weathered more than two millennia of outright hostility from those who sought notoriety and feared for the security of their Church-Cleric fiefdoms, misunderstood the orally transmitted wisdom of the Gnostic adepts, sought land and power from land holdings confiscated from Gnostics and (likely) genuinely believed in the terms of disaffection engendered against personalities who opted to practice as Gnostics. The ascetism associated with arduous religious practice across history has universally been predicated on a rejection of materialism and comfort, withdrawal from pleasure 'of the flesh' and abstinence. By its nature this rejection assumes a bad or evil nature to material creation and a favouring of the spiritual. This is in fact a description of the material-divine dualism of Gnosticism. Abrahamic Gnosticism is not a grafting onto or a repudiation of Christianity; in point of fact it's origin is an early (primitive) Judeo-Christian approach to Religion that prospered and then declined under the pressure of Institutional Western (Latin) Church cleric-opponents, only to surface again throughout the history of the Abrahamic manifestations through Paulicians, Bogomils, Cathars and Western Esotericism. The de-emphasizing of ritual, repudiation of clericalism and of sacramental practice among all Gnostics of the early age disturbed the growing consolidation of clerical lordship over Christians, particularly in North Africa and Italy. Gnostic "Religion" in its various clothing has been considered an initiate growth and restorative process targetted towards wisdom. It is parallel to concepts occurring in Neo-Platonist, Buddhist, Proto-Christian, Kabbahlist, Judaic, Manichean, Mandaean, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Mystic, Coptic, Theosophist, Islamicist (Sufic and Ismaili), Bahai, New Age and Modern Protestantism.
