A diverse set of ancient religious movements (primarily 1st-3rd century CE) sharing the belief that the material world is corrupt, that spiritual liberation requires secret knowledge (gnosis), and that the God of the Old Testament is a lesser, malevolent creator-deity (demiurge).
Gnostic cosmology and its recurrences: the Gnostic framework (material world as prison, hidden spiritual truth as liberating, the cosmic evil of the demiurge) has recurred across Western history in Manichaeism, Catharism, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, and elements of Romanticism and New Age thought. Eric Voegelin's influential critique argues that modern political ideologies (Marxism, National Socialism, progressivism) are 'gnostic' in structure — claiming secret knowledge of history's direction and the means of collective salvation. Used in the discourses1 context as a thread connecting ancient esotericism to modern ideological movements.
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