Scholars interested in ancient gnostic groups and Manichaeans appealed to the methodological toolbox of the emic/etic dynamics to integrate the outside observations of ancient heresiologists with the inside reflections provided by texts written and read by ancient seekers of gnosis. Scholars explored the relevance of “secrecy” in Gnostic and Manichaean kinds of literature and its claims about a special, salvific knowledge. This also leads to investigations into the social and rhetorical functions of secrecy, and to reevaluations of the emic/etic division in the production and reproduction of secrets.The conveners of this panel invite the participants to further pursue these avenues of interpretation of Nag Hammadi and Manichaean literature. The topics to be investigated cover the subjects of book production and circulation, descriptions of otherworldly journeys, and articulations of ritual sequences involving angels and/or demons. The questions to address include, but are not limited to, a) the tension between esoteric knowledge and self-promotion of authors and readers as “holders of religious truth” and b) the convergence or divergence between marks of esoteric self-identifications and exoteric descriptions of different religious practices, books, and imagination of invisible realms. What are the ideological, social, and religious functions that both “secrets,” and their preservation and circulation were expected to perform in the late antique world of religious gnosis?Chair: Andrea Annese (Alma Mater-Università di Bologna)Speakers:Francesco Berno (Sapienza Università di Roma), Between Canon and Revelation: Notes on Gnostic ApocryphisationAndrea Annese (Alma Mater-Università di Bologna), Rethinking the Secrecy of the Gnostic “Secret Books”Przemysław Piwowarczyk (University of Silesia in Katowice), Public Discussion as the Valentinian modus praedicandiEduard Iricinschi (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Religious Poetry, Its Ritual Performance, and Its Emic/Etic Readings: The Manichaean Coptic PsalmsGaetano Spampinato (Université de Fribourg), Books, Enchantments, and Falls. The Representation of Manichaean Masters in the Panarion, between Polemical Features and Literary References