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What Is Gnosticism?59Worldwide GnosticsEach culture and empire had its wise men or Gnostics.A Gnostic was one who had special knowledgewhich comes from a higher level of thinking than mosthave ever experienced. They are viewed as the élitesof the nation or culture. There are, also, contemporaryélites. Elites or Gnostics possess a higher levelof knowledge than the majority of society. That is whythey consider themselves the leaders of nations, citiesand places of learning.The term “Gnostic” does not apply to religion assome believe. Rather, it applies to the intellectualsand the so-called scholars of a particular time period.For example, you have The Egyptian Gnosticswho assembled The Nag Hammadi Books which werefound by farmers. What many may not understandis that there are Gnostics in all cultures of the world.In Christ’s day on earth and for the next 200 years,The Gnostics (knowledgeable ones) wrote a plethora ofdocuments which were distributed throughout all theknown world. There are Ethiopian Gnostics, IndianGnostics and Aztec Gnostics, depending on who representedthe wise or élites of any nation. “Gnosticism”is a term which means “philosophy” rather than religion.One example is Simon Magus in The Apostles’time. Another example is Diotrophes (III John 9-11).He was a Gnostic. Some of these individuals were soconsumed by their mental brilliance that they insisted,only, “they” had the truth. Therefore, they were to beobeyed. If the people didn’t obey these self-proclaimedwise ones, they were ostracized from the group. They