[carlo]

As I understand Gnosticism, these were individuals who through training entered into a spiritual understanding of the living. Gnostic="to know".

A Gnostic understanding of the approach of the Christ Divinity(The "Three Kings" also knew but don't know if they were "Gnostics") was present at the beginning of our era but the problem was that there was difficulty in seeing the Christ Being after the event on Golgotha. They knew he existed but had lost track of this being(so to speak).

This Gnostic ability was trained clairvoyance. Most ,if not all, of the works on Gnosticism in existance today were written by opponents in Christianity.

Yes, Gnostics taught a knowledge of divine beings, and was no more a cult than the Essenes and Pharisees at that time. Nowdays it appears that divine beings have been transformed into "materialistic aliens" in the sense that you present Applewhite whom I know nothing about.

carlo