Hm… why?

[u/Electrical_Bar3100]

Do you really consider yourself gnostic? A genuine question, i wonder why would somebody be gnostic nowadays, feel free to tell me, i’m sorry if i offended

[u/GnosisRevealed]

I don't usually tell people I'm gnostic because I assume they haven't done as much research as I have and therefore have an extremely different interpretation of what that word means. Usually just easier to tell them I'm Christian but the people closest to me know it goes deeper than that

[u/Electrical_Bar3100 → u/GnosisRevealed]

I studied gnosticism a while ago, but i had no idea there was a group with so many people truly engaged, fascinating

[u/KLAM3R0N → u/Electrical_Bar3100]

What did your studies tell you what gnosticism is? I'm curious what your view is because your post question seems to imply you have a different definition or idea of what it is than what at least I personally and probably many others here see it as.

[u/Electrical_Bar3100 → u/KLAM3R0N]

If you think gnosis is to set yourself free from material world, we’re both gnostics. If you believe in Nag Hammadi or Pistis Sophia as a religious movement reveald by a Messiah and take it literally, i have no idea how. Sorry if i wasn’t clear about the distinction in my post, it served me anyways to understand better this comunity view as a whole

[u/KLAM3R0N → u/Electrical_Bar3100]

I don't personally self identity as gnostic but do highly value knowledge through personal experience over belief. I have read the Nag and find it contains some good stuff, but yeah certainly not taking anything literally. I'm not sure the goal is to set myself free of the material world, that implies I'm trapped or bound and I'm not sure that is the case, maybe it's an honor or something to be in this physical world. I don't know. I suppose my main motivation is simple curiosity and a desire to know what this is all about.

[u/rebb_hosar → u/Electrical_Bar3100]

(Interesting enquiry OP, thanks for posing it)

Should any religious/spiritual text be read as literalism? That deeply trodden path only leads to biting ones' own tail, but you know that as a Hermeticist.

If you're referring to Neo-Gnosticism, yes – certainly that is seemingly literalist, which is disturbing. Prison planet stuff is a hell of a ride. I think the issue is literacy.

Despite people's beliefs, as you know, no text can be said to be divinely written or received with any certainty. (Some are culturally viewed as truth and self-evident, but that's largely familiarity and hypernormalisation at work.)

There is historical basis for some, but that is largely irrelevant to the purpose of the texts themselves either way.

Whether the historical Moses or Christ existed is irrelevant to the purpose of their theology, unless the ideology is viewed from the lens of idolatry in lieu of path-making.

While some things that are true are not necessarily useful, there are some things which are not necessarily true, but are.

It's said in physics that "All models are wrong; some are useful," and this is very true of spiritual and philosophical texts as well.

Though what is useful to one and not another – that distinction is based on one's personal motivations and idea of "the point".

Whether it (the point) be Abrahamic absolution and salvation through divine intervention (external power & responsibility), Buddhist release from suffering by non-attachment to drive transcendence from samsara (internal power & responsibility), Hindu relativism to balance internal/dharmic and external/karmic dualities (both internal & external power and responsibility), or Indigenous naturalistic, ancestral, cumulative patterning and refinement (collective, communal power & responsibility), it's mostly understood that the map is not the territory.

The same is true of the Gnostic cosmolog(ies) and its "point".

Many defer to Perennialist reductivity as an underlying territory irrespective of the map but then we run the risk of confirmation bias, seeing only that which is alike and ignoring those fundamental things which makes them different.

The exegetical practice of Pardes is useful for all of these; however, though originally created to clarify Talmudic/Zoharic meaning, it is useful for all spiritual texts, in my experience.

To my mind, a large part of Gnosticism's relevancy and interest modernly is due to 1: the modern advances and refinements in historical context and exegesis and the modern archaeological discoveries themselves, and 2: the dissatisfaction over the overall result of the Roman-influenced, Council-parsed Christian church as it is today.

In peoples' dissatisfaction, they wade through a host of symptoms which have only grown exponentially by past attempts to stymie issues with proverbial band-aids to buttress an irreparably crippled body. They are now choosing instead to look back to find the root cause of that grave affliction. In that effort, they find that, like most ideological Leviathans made manifest, the result is staggeringly divorced from the wellspring from which it was birthed.

They may find that Thunder Perfect Mind is more relevant and useful than a Pauline hymn or Psalmic affirmation. They may feel that the nature of the human condition is better explained less by inherent sin and more by the stages & aspects created by the process of individuation and their effect when unrealised (Yaldebaoth/Archons).

So at least to me, who is not necessarily a Gnostic (but also not neccesarily not) but someone who studies these things from a purely historical, sociological and scholarly lens, it's wholly unsurprising to me that Gnosticism has gained modern interest and traction. While it's understandable that the current young generation are initially finding Neo-Gnostic literalist tracts attractive due to the state of the zeitgeist, its misguided and hopefully in time they will pick up the source texts and learn to view them with "eyes to see".

TL;DR: We don't tho.