Gnosticism expresses itself through myths. Most of the Gnostic writings are myths. The language is poetic and imaginative, so there are some interpretations. All agree that the Demiurge trapped the Spirit in Matter with important consequences for humans.
Gnosticism begins with the fundamental recognition that earthly life is full of suffering. To nourish themselves, all forms of life consume each other, bringing pain, fear and death upon each other. Humans suffer in this violent world that doesn’t make much sense. Gnostic myths blame the Demiurge for this situation.
The Gnostic concept of God is more subtle than that of most religions. The supreme and transcendent True God is beyond all created universes.
He or It “emitted” from within the substance of all that is in all the worlds, seen and unseen. It is true to say that everything is God because everything consists of the substance of God. Some of the divine essence had been projected so far from its original source that it changed in the process. All the myths refer to the Aeons as intermediate beings that exist between the ultimate True God and us.
One of the beings of the Aeon, Sophia (Wisdom) is of great importance to the Gnostics. Sophia emanated from her a fluid consciousness. The fruit of her desire was something imperfect and different from her. She was ashamed of him and cast him out of the heavenly realm. This “child” was unaware of his origins and became the Demiurge or “half-doer”.
Demiurge was the creator of the material and psychic cosmos. He created everything in the image of his own flow. By doing this, the Gnostics believed that the Demiurge trapped Spirit in Matter. This is the root cause of the corrupt state of the earthly world.
Although humanity contains a perishable physical and psychic component; the spiritual component is a fragment of the divine essence, this is the “divine spark” within.
Humans are generally unaware of the divine spark that resides within them. Death releases the divine spark from its lowly prison, but if there has been no substantial work of Gnosis done by the soul before death, the divine spark is likely to return to the bondage of the physical world.
Not all humans are spiritually prepared for Gnosis. Some are earthbound materialistic beings who recognize only physical reality. Others live largely in their minds (psychics). Such people confuse the Demiurge with the True God and have no awareness of the spiritual world beyond matter and mind.
Gnostic did not agree with the theory that man was sinful by nature, but believed that man had erred through ignorance; by knowledge man could correct his ways and earn salvation. The special knowledge “Gnosis” was a type of intuitive or reflective knowledge that one could obtain in the study of the inner being or soul of man.
They called this Gnosis or Illuminated Logos because it led to the salvation of man. Gnosis is the knowledge of transcendence that is reached through inner intuitive experience.
The main teacher of the Gnosis was Jesus; that did not come from the Demiurge but directly from God and the Holy Spirit. The Gnostic claimed that Jesus taught them secret knowledge that he did not share with the general congregation of the Church.
To learn more about these topics, do your own research on the Internet. However, if you want to know how I got to this article, read “How Pompeo Batoni’s Painting Allegories Worked for Me,” posted on the website winner4us.com.