The Gnostic World

1. Gnosticism, gnostics, and gnosis
2. The Gnostic World: a history of scholarship (until 2000)
3. Gnostics and temporality: from myth to macrohistory
4. Ancient pre-Christian “Gnosticisms”: the state of the questions
5. The Jewish background to “Gnosticism”: a guide for the perplexed
6. Gnostic motifs in the New Testament
7. On ancient “Gnosticism” as a problematic category
8. Gender issues in the study of ancient Gnosticism
9. The Gnostics in early Christian heresiology
10. Genres of Gnostic literature and the “classical Gnostic” school of thought
11. Sethian Gnostic speculation
12. Basilides and the Basilidians
13. Valentinus and the Valentinians
14. Is the Gospel of Thomas Gnostic?
15. The Gospel of Judas and the Tchacos Codex
16. The Mandaeans: writings, ritual, and art
17. Hermetism and Gnosticism
18. Plotinus and the Gnostics
19. Gnostic elements in ancient magical papyri
20. Mani’s life
21. The Manichaean path to salvation
22. Insight and means in Chinese Manichaean texts
23. From “Zurvanism” to Mazdak
24. Christian gnosis: from Clement the Alexandrian to John Damascene
25. Gnostic vicissitudes in Late Antiquity
26. Jñāna: gnostic tendencies in early Hinduism and Buddhism
27. The discourse of truth in Chinese Tiantai Buddhism: “gnosis beyond gnosis”
28. Questions of Gnostic influence on early Islam
29. An agenda for the study of early Shiʿi cosmologies
30. Classic Sufsm and gnosis
31. Ismailism and gnosis
32. Druze gnosis and the mystery of time
33. Gnostic elements in Yezidism
34. Gnosticism and Kabbalah
35. Bogomils and Cathars
36. Alchemy and gnosis from antiquity to early modern times: “as above so below”
37. “Gnosis” as term and concept in the esoteric movements of the modern West: an attempt at periodization
38. Byzantine and modern Orthodox gnosis: from the eleventh to the twenty-frst century
39. Pansophia, Christian Kabbalism, and the quest for universal knowledge in the early modern West
40. Freemasonry: gnostic images
41. British Romanticism: gnostic longings
42. William Blake, the ancient Gnostics, and the birth of modern Gnosticism
43. Gnosis and the “French Occult Revival” and its offshoots
44. The “Lost Word” key and esoteric eschatology: Blavatsky’s Gnosis the core of Krishnamurti’s teaching
45. The philosophy of Guido von List (1848–1919): connecting Gnosticism to Nazism
46. Rudolf Steiner: multiple bodies
47. Gnostic sensibility in Gurdjieff’s “Work”
48. Western Sufsm and gnosis
49. Gnosis: a Perennialist perspective
50. Carl Jung on Gnosticism
51. Elevating the family in the Nation of Islam: discerning the
52. Inner tradition: recovering the Christianity of the East
53. Gnosis in Bābism and gnostic signs in Bābī talismans
54. Ayatollah Khomeini’s gnoseology and its impact on his political worldview
55. Syncretistic Suf Gnosticism in South and South East Asia
56. Aurobindo and supermind
57. Of Gnosis in tribal and “primal” cultures
58. The neo-Gnostic synthesis of Samael Aun Weor
59. Scientology and Gnosticism: L. Ron Hubbard’s “The Factors” (1953)
60. Gnostic and esoteric flaments in popular culture
61. Feminist gnosis and modern gender issues
62. Modern psychedelic gnosis
63. Exposing Gnosticism
64. G

The Gnostic World is an outstanding guide to Gnosticism, written by a distinguished international team of experts to explore Gnostic movements from the distant past until today. These themes are examined across sixty-seven chapters in a variety of contexts, from the ancient pre-Christian to the contemporary. The volume considers the intersection of Gnosticism with Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Indic practices and beliefs, and also with new religious movements, such as Theosophy, Scientology, Western Sufism, and the Nation of Islam. This comprehensive handbook will be an invaluable resource for religious studies students, scholars, and researchers of Gnostic doctrine and history.