Gnosticism - derived from the Greek word gnosis, 'to know' - is the name given to various religious schools that proliferated in the first centuries after Christ. Although largely stamped out by the Church by the sixth century, Gnostocism survived underground through groups such as the Bogomils and the Cathars and influenced the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the psychologist Carl Jung, the Existentialists, the New Age movement and writers as diverse as William Blake and Albert Camus. Sean Martin recounts its long and diverse history, relevant to this very day.