What are the core beliefs of Gnosticism?

The second-century form of Gnosticism was distinguished by its belief in:

1. A transcendent, ineffable deity from whom the known world emanated in increasingly dense and less spiritual layers;

2. Human beings as sparks of divinity fallen into matter; and

3. The necessity for humans to return to their origin through the acquisition of knowledge, or gnosis. Some scholars have seen it as a perennial tendency in religion as a whole. (See An Initial Encounter with Ramtha in Gnosis Magazine/ Fall 1996 by J. Gordon Melton and the his book, Finding Enlightenment: Ramtha's Modern School of Ancient Wisdom by the same author.)