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“Gnosticism is a real word which first described real people (Greeks) who lived thousands of years ago.”

Spirited: Gnosticism did not begin with the Greeks, but with certain Jewish exiles in Babylonian. They sowed the seeds of Gnosticism with their occult Kabbalah. It is btw, the Kabbalahs’ Doctrine of Emanation that is the seedbed of modern evolutionary theories.

“...rejected the material world, in favor of the spiritual realm.”

Spirited: They did. However, they did at least retain a sense of “something” higher that allowed them to believe in a spiritual realm, even though there was really nothing there.

But in “killing” God, and closing off the supernatural realm, modern Western Gnostics (naturalists; empiricists, secular humanists, dialectical materialists, immanentists)have cast themselves into the abyss. For them there is nothing-—no source for life, consciousness, mind, meaning, or purpose.

Since just before the turn of the century Western Gnostics began fleeing to Buddhism and Hinduism in the belief that these Eastern systems would provide for them what naturalism took away. But what they do not know is that centuries before Jesus Christ walked this earth, Buddha took God away and deconstructed the Hindu idea of soul. But for a certain small segment of Hinduism that retains belief in God, all of the rest are types of naturalism.

spirited irish: "Gnosticism did not begin with the Greeks, but with certain Jewish exiles in Babylonian. They sowed the seeds of Gnosticism with their occult Kabbalah."

To Ms irish: what I've read about ancient Gnosticism over many years would fill a couple of books, but what I can recall, now 20 or 30 years later, is only a couple of sentences worth.
So, am forced to look stuff up, including this:

"Many of the first Gnostics may have been pagan and Hebrew (Egyptian, Babylonian and Hebrew), predating Christianity."

This would seem to confirm your statement above, however, the context there is clearly in reference to the Greek origins of "Gnosticism" beginning with Plato's Statesman, circa 258 BC.
So, to simplify it: some of what we call "Gnosticism" came from Greeks, through Jews (i.e., in Alexandria) who converted to Christianity.
These Gnostic-Christians were first identified, and attacked, by Iraneus in "Against Heresies" circa 180 AD.

Curiously, Iraneus identified the source of Gnosticism as Samaria!
Interesting also: the date set for Iraneus book, 180 AD, is also the date for the Apostle's Creed, which we say at the little church I attend:

"I believe in God,the Father almighty,Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell;on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven,and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen."

Notice, dear Ms irish, there are no Trinitarian words in this indisputably Christian creed.
That's why I like it.

spirited irish referring to Gnostic rejection of materialism: "However, they did at least retain a sense of “something” higher that allowed them to believe in a spiritual realm, even though there was really nothing there."

Dear Ms. irish: I'm certain you know there were no truly "atheistic" ancients.
All of them believed in some form of deity, they simply could not imagine the Universe without One.
So the ancient Gnostics' dualistic view of the world, far from denying Christ's deity, insisted that Jesus was only God, not a natural human being.
That makes Gnostics somewhat-equivalent to modern "spiritualists".
Gnostics were opposed at the time by Arians, also Alexandria based, whose Jewish-descendant faith insisted there could be no -- zero, zip, nada -- compromise on the Unity of God.
Arians would accept no Trinitarian talk, period.

spirited irish: "Since just before the turn of the century Western Gnostics began fleeing to Buddhism and Hinduism in the belief that these Eastern systems would provide for them what naturalism took away."

To Ms irish, I confess that my interest in "Gnostics" ends with the ancient time period because, factually, there is no historical connection between ancient Gnostics and modern "spiritualists", nor is there more than the faintest of philosophical/theological correspondence between beliefs then & now -- at least that I've seen.

What I'd say about modern "spiritualists" is that they are obviously dissatisfied with socialism's "immanent eschaton" dialectical-materialism, but, perhaps, just consider this... they also don't wish to be subject to the sort of verbal assaults that your FRiend Kevmo has launched on me...

I'm just saying...