ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Sethian (gnostic)

Okay, kiddo, let me tell you about Sethians, who were a group of people from the very long time ago who had their own special beliefs about the world and the way we should live in it. They were part of a bigger group called Gnostics, who believed that there was a hidden knowledge about life and the universe that could help us escape from the bad things in the world and get closer to a good, powerful force (or energy) that they called God.

The Sethians believed that this hidden knowledge was all about a guy named Seth, who was a very important figure in their stories. They thought that Seth was the son of Adam and Eve, who were the first people according to another old book called the Bible. But the Sethians didn't believe that the Bible was the only true source of wisdom about life and the universe. They also thought that Seth had his own special teachings and secrets that were just as important.

One of their main ideas was that there were good and bad forces that were always fighting against each other. They thought that the bad forces were trying to keep us from finding out the secrets that Seth had, because they didn't want us to be happy and powerful. But the good forces were on our side, and they wanted us to find the secrets so that we could escape from the bad things in the world and be closer to God.

The Sethians had some interesting beliefs about how the world was created, too. They thought that there was a special place called the Pleroma, which was where God and his good energy lived. But outside of the Pleroma was a place called Chaos, where the bad forces lived. They thought that our world was created as a kind of mistake, because there was a sort of explosion (or something like that) that made some of the good energy spill out of the Pleroma and mix with the bad forces. This made our world and all the bad things in it, like sickness, death, and evil people.

But the Sethians thought that if we could learn the secrets that Seth had, we could escape from the bad things in the world and end up back in the Pleroma with God and his good energy. That sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? They also had some interesting ideas about who could learn the secrets and who couldn't, but I think I've already talked your ear off enough for now!