It was described by scholar David G. Robertson as "a leading publication in what they termed 'the esoteric spiritual traditions of the West'".

[1] Gnosis was published by the Lumen Foundation, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization incorporated in California by Jay Kinney and Dixie Tracy-Kinney to produce educational material, including a print magazine, on the Western esoteric tradition.

The first issues were produced on a volunteer basis from a home office, but within three years the Lumen Foundation and Gnosis established permanent headquarters near Mission Dolores in San Francisco.

[2] During its run, Gnosis published interviews with Gilles Quispel, Jocelyn Godwin, and Stephan Hoeller.

[3] Although it was written for a general readership, Wouter Hanegraaff, professor of history of hermetic philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, has observed that it "contributed considerably to the setting of academic standards in a field where university chairs or curricula devoted to Western esotericism were still absent, and which at the time [in the 1980s and 1990s] was still dominated by sensationalism and plain ignorance.