This is a thread for gnosticism. Probably a well-known subject in here, but just incase there are people who have no idea what it is about; These are the basic notions that [most] gnostic groups agree upon:
>Human is a spiritual creature living in a material body
>The spirit is easily buried under the materialistic stimulus. If a person doesn't seek for spirituality in this day and age, he will be living blinded by the material world
>Everything that exists is made by a universal cosmic consciousness. Human soul is in singularity with this universal consciousness, but burdened by the material world
>The meaning of life is to get to know yourself within. That way he get's to know the universal consciousness - Gnosis
There are countless different gnostic schools of thought and they all argue about the details, but this is the basics that most gnostics admit to.
Gnosticism ascends above all other cultural and religous sects of people:
>There is philosophical gnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism
>There is the abrahamic gnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism
http://www.thechristianidentityforum.net/downloads/complete-scrolls.pdf
>There is buddhist gnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Gnosticism
And the list goes on. Gnosis means simply "the truth", and that is what gnostics are attempting to find. Almost all religions have a small grain of truth, and those grains are what gnostics are here to collect.
Even though hermeticism and gnosticism have evolved seperately, there are overwhelming similarities in both teachings. That these both movements for truth have come to almost the same extraordinary conclusions about the essence of reality, independently, is a subject of curiosity in itself.
Picture related, it's some of the "ascended masters", or people who found gnosis and gained eternal life outside the material prison. You can still contact them in the gnosis, even if you weren't ready to fully ascend yet, however it takes a lot of practice and knowledge of self.