Gnosticism

The predominant view is that of a radically dualistic religious movement positing the existence of two equal and contrary forces in the universe: a good God (transmundane, unknowable) and the evil Demiurge (responsible for the creation of the world and all the calamities therein). Gnosticism sees man as a misplaced spark of the divine light, engulfed in darkness through no fault of his own. Man must struggle to free himself from the mortal encasement in order to return to the empyrean realm from which he came.

Gnosticism flourished before, during and after the rise of Christianity. It is not the same as Christian gnosticism which reached its height in the second century AD. Gnosticism can be considered a purely historical phenomenon as distinct from gnosis which is phenomenological.