Gnosticism seek the Truth through direct personal experience as the only way to have knowledge is to experience them yourself. Through OBE(Astral Projection) people can meet an Angel or God and receive teachings or knowledge of themselves or the universe or anything they want to know.
First of all Gnosis means knowledge. Gnostic is someone who studies himself..the ins and outs of oneself..psychology, personality, behaviors, etc. By studying, one has to change the 7 sins(egos) by rid of them so one can go join Heaven.
Of what I know from reading Gnostic books, we all originally came from the Absolute..where only happiness reign. However we did not know or understand what happiness was. So we came out of the Absolute. Once we came out, we face darkness going through emotions of greed, anger, etc. By...
A very basic practice is to be aware of the present moment. Such as aware of the environment you're in, experience the senses of see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. When the mind wander, bring the mind back to focusing on awareness. It's very important as this is practiced as much as one can...
Jesus came to Earth to show us the Path to Heaven. His whole life is symbolic of the Path... such as riding the donkey into Jerusalem signify one has to be able to control the mind(donkey). His death on the cross (sacrifice for humanity as in rid of the 7 sins(egos) and resurrection(alive...
In Gnosticism, second death represents people going to Hell to get cleansed of the seven sins...in Hell, you get punished based on the way you act of each sins in this world (Earth)...say if you spend $ carelessly, you're faced before many shops and have your hands and knees on hot metal...