UTC  While many scholars have attempted to offer a generic description of Gnostic belief systems literally every author who has been published has failed because no one is really going to understand very much unless the basics are first explained in terms of the original intent of the word that originally the word Gnostic was limited in terms of one who follows in Philos BC AD footsteps to wed the teachings of Plato  BC to the Old and New Testaments by primarily justifying the same through the teachings that Plato learned from Moses to produce a supposedly new and different philosophical position on the nature of the soul relative to Platonism and thereby profess a supposedly new and different secret knowledge of the truth and salvation    That is although the term Gnosis itself can be briefly described in terms of the fact that Gnostics held that Redemption was associated with mankinds ability to overcome the grossness of matter and the ultimate end of all physical existence in terms of the return to the ParentSpirit even that conveys very little unless it is somehow presented in contrast to the JudeoChristian belief that an immortal soul can only be experienced in terms of restoration of the biolongevity once experienced but lost by Adam and Eve or equally in contrast to those forms of Buddhism where there is the recognizition that the karmic self is mistaken for the real self which is reflected doctrine of  nosoul and referred to as anatman which is  closely related to the subject of moksa also referred to as mukti which is the term given to the state of completeness or fullness of being free from samsara the bondage of karma and therefore the highest aim of human existence which in its highest form is referred to by Eastern contemplative traditions as the th level of enlightenment such that if anyone is to really understand anything in this respect the term Gnosis itself must be presented to contrast the Gnostic belief systems as opposed to both the JudeoChristian andor Buddhist belief systems which are not to be associated with a Redemption or Nirvana State associated with mankinds ability to overcome the grossness of matter as the Gnostics held but rather the Restoration of the Stability or Integrity of Matter    Blessings Bill    March