The Gnosis Institute serves the world through the application of wisdom from the Gnostic tradition and allied spiritual and wisdom traditions, and through the support and growth of the Gnostic tradition. Supports the Gnosis Institute community, which are its members, fellows, instructors, facilitators, and students. The Gnosis Institute also serves by developing and applying knowledge that frees and transforms the mind and spirit. Transforming our world through individual growth and service. Living the motto “the truth shall set you free,” the Gnosis Institute fosters and values academic freedom, and individual freedom of conscience. Seeking the truth together while respecting but not being restrained by scholarly and spiritual traditions.

Mission

Serve as an academic home for those who value the Gnostic tradition beginning in antiquity, and related spiritual and wisdom traditions. Provide a community to students, scholars and practitioners who share a hopeful vision for the liberating transformation of the individual in which the highest and best expression of the spirit is possible for all. Deliver unique, transformative and effective learning opportunities that create a community committed to research, understanding and communication focused upon enhancing and enriching spiritual understanding and growth. Apply the highest standards of scholarship and professionalism in creating and delivering transformational, learning experiences for students, scholars, and facilitators. Support the preservation and advancement of the Gnostic and allied Western spiritual and wisdom traditions in scholarship, research, and lived application. Foster an environment where new modes of learning are encouraged and refined. Welcome diverse learners with support, trust, respect and challenge to realize their own potentials and goals. Recognize the strengths and limitations of the use of technology in education and serve to balance it with person-to-person contact. Employ modes of inquiry that explore the complexities of reality, embracing and celebrating human experience.

Goals

• Develop a leading role in supporting the interdisciplinary field of Gnostic Studies.

• Provide support and leadership for advancements in the project areas of the Gnosis Institute.

• Design and offer innovative, learner-centered accredited educational programs leading to advanced degrees, certificates of competence, continuing education, professional training and personal enrichment which result in personal, organization and community transformation.

• Provide unique educational programs which support and compliment each other and the mission of the Gnosis Institute.

• Provide intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually rich education experiences that balance excellence in scholarship, skill development, and commitment to ethical behavior.

• Constantly improve our distance education, balancing mentor-learner and peer-learner relationships and the use of facilitative technology.

• Demonstrate and encourage human development and emancipation through our educational content, institutional processes, internal and external relationships and our self-governance.

• Employ our intellectual and material resources for the service of the community with respect and celebration of the depth and diversity of spiritual experience and growth.

• Support members of the community in their development as scholars, teachers, writers, and practitioners.

Strategic Objectives/Themes:
 

• Use our commitment and unique focus to provide direction and encouragement for activities that shape or identify Gnostic studies, the Gnostic tradition, and the study of inner experience and spiritual growth in the future.
• Attract, support, retain and/or develop outstanding fellows, faculty, and facilitators to enable and ensure the Institute’s academic excellence, continuity, and consistency of operations.
• Create, expand, and improve our adult, learner-centered products and services, while sustaining and preserving the Institute’s capacity to provide graduate education and remaining aligned with the values of the Gnostic tradition.
• Provide significant scholarships for tuition based on student need and merit.
• Develop funded fellowships, research grants, and scholarships to encourage and support serious scholarly work in Gnosis Institute project areas.
• Develop significant awards to encourage and recognize quality work in Gnosis Institute project areas.
• Provide for the growth and dissemination of knowledge by publication of scholarly and informative works through the instruments of a formal academic journal, and through a less formal newsletter and/or magazine.
• Organize and sponsor conferences for those engaged in Institute project areas so that they may connect, engage, challenge, and share with each other.
• Develop relationships with other scholarly or service organizations working in project areas of the Institute. Arrange internships with organizations with whom mutual benefit in understanding and Gnosis may occur.
• Engage and lead our community to act or perform with the underlying conviction, that continual learning and development is important and that being a learning organization requires that we actively assess our activities, practices and approach and use the results of our assessment to improve or refine ourselves and the Institute.