Gnosis (γνῶσις) — Greek for “knowledge,” specifically the spiritual or revealed knowledge that liberates the soul. In Gnostic currents of the first centuries CE (Valentinians, Basilideans), gnosis is salvific knowledge of the soul’s divine origin, imprisoned in the material world created by an inferior demiurge. It differs from faith (pistis) as direct, experiential knowledge of the divine. Jung revived the concept for his psychology of archetypes and the collective unconscious.
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