Gnosis
Knowledge
Gnosis is the common greek noun for knowledge (in the nominative case γνωσις f.). spiritual knowledge' in the sense of mystical enlightenment . Wikipedia
Sooun- ‘To be acquainted with’, Gnosis - γνωσις 'to know' (gnosis) this important term means direct personal acquaintance rather than mere intellectual knowledge; distinction is drawn between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description.
Mystical Enlightenment - Seeking to have a direct inner experience of God instead of believing what one is told to think about God by others.
In 1865, philosopher John Grote distinguished between what he described as "knowledge of acquaintance" and "knowledge-about". Grote noted that these distinctions were made in many languages. He cited Greek (γνωναι and ειδεναι), Latin (noscere and scire), German (kennen and wissen), and French (connaître and savoir) as examples. Wikipedia
This important distinction was hard for me to figure out after my 'near-death experience' in 1978. I spent the next five years trying to talk about my 'mystical trip' as if others would instintly comprehend the 'truth' I had embraced in the light realm of spirit. I felt my 'words' should have triggered some type of recall of 'home' hidden within another individual since 'all souls' and 'spirits' have that in common. I slowly learned that the human mind operates in a different sphere and realm attached to 'mental thoughts' as concert objects that were often like 'stumbling blocks.'
I continued to run into people whom I came to call 'bookworms.' They kept trying to convince me 'mentally' of the imagary they had in their mind because the 'knew of' God through literature - rather than have a direct experience with the Spirit of our Creator.
I went through a three year period (from 1980 to 1983) where I would encounter people and have a joint and combined 'out of body' experience similar to my own 'near-death experience.' The difference was, there was no traumatic physical injury that led to a loss of vital signs. Our 'spirits' would vacate the physical body and return a blink of an eye. There was the before, during and after phase. The 'during' stage where the spirit was outside the body and traveling within the light was eternal and outside the boundry of time. It was a 1000 year second. I wanted to find a word in English that was equivlant to the 'sensation' or the identity of the realm of spirit and creation. I did this with over 300 people and no one could find any word in any language that would fit the direct experience itself. The 300 people had a moment of 'gnosis' where they had a direct experience with the divine. In the aftermath of that moment together, they would know as I knew and yet, no one could come up with descriptions, parables, metaphors or words that would do justice to the direct and actual experience of touching the divine from within.
The fathers of early Christianity used the word gnosis to mean spiritual knowledge, in specific knowledge of the divine. Gnosis here meant intuitive knowledge, spiritual knowledge, heart knowledge (kardiognosis), memory of an experience of God and/or the divine. Wikipedia
Liddell and Scott list the following classical meanings for the word (page 355): (1) Seeking to know by inquiry, investigation, especially judicial (2) Result of investigation, decision (3) Knowing, knowledge (4) Higher, esoteric knowledge (5) Acquaintance with a person (6) Recognizing (7) Means of knowing (8) Being known (9) Fame credit (10) Means of knowing, hence, statement in writing.
The noun gnosis appears 59 times in the Septuagint, of which 15 are noncanonical and is much rarer than the verb ginosko in the Septuagint. It is used comparatively much more often in a spiritual and ethical sense to denote a revealed knowledge whose author is God or sophia, “wisdom.” Source: Gnosis