A pneumatic saw themselves as escaping the doom of the material world via the transcendent knowledge of Sophia's Divine Spark from inner revelation coming from the highest point of the subtle "nous" in the head or crown region.
The animal, if it make choice of the better part, finds repose in the intermediate place; but if the worse, it too shall pass into destruction.
The good are those who become capable of receiving the [spiritual] seed [and becoming pneumatic]; the evil by nature are those who are never able to receive that seed [and become hylic].In the New Testament a contrast is made[citation needed] between the psychikoi and the pneumatikoi, in the former of whom the mere animal soul predominates, the latter exhibiting the working of a higher spiritual nature (Jude 19; 1 Cor.
It may well be believed that in the language of the Gnostic sects, the "pneumatici" are "spiritual men who have attained to the perfect knowledge of God, and been initiated into these mysteries by Achamoth" herself (Adv.
In the academic study of religion and mysticism more generally, pneumatic has been used as a classification term to define similar trends in wider contexts.