GNOSTICS:
1. In Ancient times they called themselves \""Believers\"" not \""Gnostics\"". Today they do the very same thing.
2. There were three main schools of Gnosticism originally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism#Major_Gnostic_movements
A. Mandaeanism - strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist, but reject Abraham, Moses and the Man of Nazareth. Mandaeism, as the religion of the Mandaean people, is based more on a common heritage than on any set of religious creeds and doctrines. A basic guide to Mandaean does not exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeanism
B. Manichaeism - Manichaeism taught an elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light from which it came.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#Later_movements_accused_of_.22Neo-Manichaeism.22
1. The Cathars and Paulician Movements were condemned as being Manichean.
C. Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism - Derives much of its outlook from Platonist influences. Evil in terms of matter. Goodness is spiritual and higher/greater. They often identified themselves as \""Christian\"", though they were not Orthodox Christians.
1. The Valentinians derived from the Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticm. Valentinius came very close to becoming the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) or what is now the Roman Church.
2. The Basilidian Sect also came from Syrian/Egyptian form of Gnosicism. Irenaeus fought them vehemently.
2. OR, partaking in the physical, as the physical is bad and to defile the physical, one must partake in the darkness of its nature, to release the soul:
