One of the earliest form of Christianity or heresy (depending on who you ask) is Marcionism. According to its founder Marcion, a second-century Christian, the god Jesus referred to as The Father and who sent Jesus to earth to save us is not the god of the Old Testament nor did this god create mankind. In Marcionism, there are two gods. The God of the spiritual world and the God of the material world. The god of the physical realm was called by the gnostics the Demiurge. Yahweh/the Demiurge was seen by the gnostics as a petty, jealous god prone to acts of cruelty-floods, plagues, fire from heaven. He demands the shedding of blood-either those of sacrifice or those of unbelievers. He is a creator of an inferior, corrupted world. The god who sent his son to die for humanity is an alien god that comes from beyond our world from a perfect spiritual realm to deliver the world from its creator out of compassion for mankind. There are remnants of this teaching in the New Testaments (2 Cor. 4:4, John 12:31). Many people think this is referring the fallen angel Lucifer/Satan but why refer to a traitorous messenger (what the word 'angel' really means) as a god?!? Some biblical scholars believe this refers to the Demiurge and not a fallen angel.

I might be reading too much into it but there seem to be parallels between The Conversion Bureau universe and Marcionism. Princess Celestia takes on the role of Marcion's alien god who comes to our corrupted world from a perfect spiritual realm (Equestria). The barrier is the gulf that keeps mankind from entering the spiritual realm. Potion is gnosis or knowledge of the reality of those two worlds. When someone is ponified, they are changed from a child of this world to a child of the alien god. When a human is ponified/received gnosis, they can cross the barrier into Equestria/the spiritual world. The Human Liberation Front represent the the religious leaders and principalities that follow Yahweh/the Demiurge. They try to keep people from being ponified/receiving gnosis and leaving the old faith for the faith in the alien god. I know from the anti-TCB fic “Thus Saith The Lord”, the Demiurge makes an appearance, but the indifferent atheistic universe of Chatoyance's TCB universe is a suitable stand-in.

I was wondering if any of the TCB writers were influenced by gnosticism or even heard of it?

You're actually not the first person to bring up Gnosticism and its ideas in the context of TCB! There has been multiple discussions over the years on the religious implications of the basic TCB scenario, including the context TCB might provide for resolving the problem of Theodicy in the philosophy of religion, (the problem of how to reconcile the existence of evil with an omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God.) The Gnostics sought to solve this problem that the co-existence of evil and such a God is unlikely or impossible by having two gods, as you describe in your post. Even the parallels between ponification and gnosis have been brought up before.

So the answer to your question is that many of the authors who have written TCB stories were certainly aware of Gnosticism, although it's a stretch to say that it has had any major influence on TCB stories. At least in my case I took a purely technological/scientific approach to "convergence" and the cosmology of TCB's universe.

Glad I wasn’t the only one noticing those parallels, though I also see a lot of elements of more general and/or mainstream Protestant Christian elements in TCB as well, though whether they're intentional or not is a whole different ball of wax. In fact, given Chatoyance's prominence and well-known opinions, I'd say that they're more likely to be unintentional uses of common cultural background material.

The most notable bit - and the one that first got me thinking about it - was the idea (canon in Chat's 'verse) that Potion was derived from the literal blood of Princess Celestia (and maybe Princess Luna too), and was the only way to gain a soul, paralleling some traditional ideas about Communion/The Lord's Supper (I have plans to do something with this at some point, but it's not an immediate thing).

Also, there's an ever-present theme of "the inherent depravity of Man", and that Humans are wicked, or at least deeply flawed, and cannot truly overcome that wickedness by their own efforts, but instead need outside intervention, drawing from some of Calvin's ideas.

Sorry, this is one giant half-awake brain-fart that may or may not be coherent. Oh, and forgive any capitalization wierdness, I'm wrestling with old habits on that front.

5543143 My TCB writings were influenced by Buddhism. I haven't heard of these other things you named.

I just remembered: in Chatoyance TCB stories, Discord created Equestria. So I guess he could be considered a demiurge character.

I've studied a lot of mythology in my life, and yes, Gnosticism was part of it. Religious mythology has had a powerful influence on civilization, and it is useful to have a basic understanding of it as part of being culturally literate.

I can say I did not consciously employ Gnostic elements, but it does seem that they might be there, so it is likely that unconsciously they were worked in to my stories. Along with a lot of many other myths as well.

Consciously, I can say that my Celestia is half generalized Greek Goddess and half Elizabeth the 1st of England. My Equestria is partially based on L. Frank Baum's conception of Oz. Beyond that... I have little idea how anything I wrote was made, or why, or how it came to be. I sit down, I tune in, turn off, and writing comes out. Somehow.