Abraxas as the secret god of Thelema. Abraxas

The bird breaks through the shell. This is the world egg. He who wants to be born must tear the world apart.
The bird flies to God. God Abraxas." So said
(Herman Hesse)
Look at the full set of Masonic symbols. What does the rooster have to do with it?
I already wrote about him http://www.site/users/4033731/post335028633

Indecent Slavic letter "Fita" with a Rooster in the middle.
The rooster is a symbol of the hermaphrodite Medusa-Gorgon:

This is a new fashion dictated by MK Ultra. rooster feathers


France, one of the most Masonic countries, has a rooster as its symbol

The rooster is the snake-footed Abraxas https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraxas is a Gnostic cosmological deity, the supreme head of Heaven and Aeons, personifying the unity of World Time and Space Abraxas was depicted in ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian art, on ancient gems in the form of a creature with the body of a man, the head of a rooster and snakes instead of legs. In one hand he holds a knife or whip, in the other - a shield on which the name Yah is inscribed (Egyptian Jah - a prayer cry, in the Eleusinian Mysteries it turned into the name of the deity of the Sun. The Rooster symbolizes the beginning of a new day, the knife - the death of the material body, the whip - power In Egyptian art, Abraxas is usually represented with the sign of the Ankh, a scepter and a headdress with horns, above which is the sign “Millions of Years” (a small figurine of a man with his hands raised to the sky).
I also wrote about the rooster of Ra http://www.site/users/4033731/post298158033
For Thomas More, Abraxas is the old name for the island of Utopia.

The name "Abraxas" was used by a group of "emotionalists" led by Mikhail Kuzmin for their almanac of the 1920s (during this period Kuzmin was actively interested in Gnosticism and wrote a poem about Basilides).
In Harry Potter, this is the name of Lucius Malfoy's father.
This is the Starbuck Café nanite coffee logo.

. Why with nanites? I already talked about this http://www.site/users/4033731/post272013390
In the American TV series Charmed, Abraxas is a time demon with the ability to reverse time.

Marvel, yes, the same Marvel that everyone knows from stores and comics, is oversaturated with the image of Abraxas. Abraxas knocked Uatu the Observer unconscious, now no one could warn the superheroes about the impending danger. Abraxas then began searching for the Ultimate Nullifier, a device capable of destroying any target. The Human Torch knew about the location of the Nullifier, who received this information from Uatu http://ru.zlodei.wikia.com/wiki/Abraxas_(Marvel)
Here is a film about him http://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/24196/
The symbol of Abrax is a figure with the body of a man, the legs of a snake and the head of a rooster. The head of a bird is the beginning of the sky, the legs of a snake are the beginning of the earth, the body of a person is the essence of their connection, the meeting of two abysses at the point of creation.
Abraxas is the Black Sun, or the Gnostic pleroma (completeness), the point of all-being, containing all opposites in indissoluble unity. He's Mercury and he's Mickey Mouse
In "City of the Sun" by Tomaso Campanela, the second name of Utopia is Abraxas! But “abrahadabra”, which is known to come from the name Abraxas. Crowley attached great importance to this formula,
The Rooster belongs to the number 11 and the sign of Gemini. The Third Chapter of the Holy Book of the Law begins with the words "Abrahadabra - Reward of Ra Hor Khuit." The Abrahadabra formula consists of 11 letters, and in the first chapter of the Book of the Law it is said that “our number is 11.” By saying Abrahadabra, we invoke this god, and this should be taken into account in spiritual practice, which is the subject of the second chapter of this book. For example, “Abrahadabra” is used in the Regule ritual.
Therefore, it’s a pity for those who call the snake RA the Russian god

Abraxas Current
Speaking about the pantheon of Thelema, one cannot fail to note another deity, which, although not directly present in the pantheon, has a significant influence on the symbolism, key formula and general vector. Abraxas! The name still excites the imagination of poets and mystics, representing the great secret of Gnostic teachings. The name with which the secret of opening the gates of knowledge is associated. A name that is one of the most important secrets of occultism in general, and the occultism of Thelema in particular.
Many of us have read Hermann Hesse’s stunning novel-confession “Damian”. A novel in which the protagonist searches for his God, the other side of world contradictions, and ultimately finds him in a mysterious society of initiates, marked with the special seal of Abrax. “The bird gets out of the nest. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must destroy the world. The bird flies to God. God's name is Abraxas." God who connects earth and heaven, God who stands on the other side of good and evil, God the key and God the door, God the word and God the silence.
How great was my amazement when I saw the image of this God. The symbol of Abrax is a figure with the body of a man, the legs of a snake and the head of a rooster. The head of a bird is the beginning of the sky, the legs of a snake are the beginning of the earth, the body of a person is the essence of their connection, the meeting of two abysses at the point of creation. I was amazed looking at this image, because long before that, when I was undergoing sessions of active imagination according to Jung, at the center of my fantasies there were two figures - the Snake and the Chicken. And these figures, after much work, united into a single feathered serpent. This was my personal Abrax. And now I knew for sure this is my God. A god I discovered much later in Thelema.
To talk about Abraxas, one should trace his history from the very beginning. Abraxas first appeared at the dawn of the Christian era in the writings of Basilides. Gnosticism was considered by the orthodox to be the most dangerous heresy, and all the works of Basilides were carefully destroyed - all that remained was a few paragraphs in the works of heresiologists. We can only guess and try to fill in the blank spots with the help of intellectual intuition. Since for the Gnostics there were three levels of existence - Body, Soul and Spirit, I assume that Abraxas was interpreted on all three levels. The level of interpretation is determined by the ability of a particular adept.
On the physical plane, Abraxas is the essence of the Sun, and the year is the period of a complete solar cycle. Abrax's number is 365, and at this level it indicates the number of days in a year. On the psychic level, Abraxas is the principle of consciousness, or rather the special ability of the chosen ones, People of a Special Type, for a gnostic comprehension of reality or intellectual intuition. The Abrax of the soul is the cosmic Eros connecting the individual soul with its divine source. Abraxas also corresponds to Mercury and the generative principle itself, the physical analogy of which is the seed.
Finally, at the highest level of comprehension, Abraxas is the Black Sun, or the Gnostic pleroma (completeness), the point of all-being, containing all opposites in an indissoluble unity.
As already mentioned, unfortunately, the manuscripts have not survived, and we can only guess about the scale of Basilides’ insight. Gnosticism was suppressed by orthodoxy, and Abrasax was slandered. So in the Middle Ages they spoke of “the demon Abraxas, who came up with abracadabra to confuse minds with false knowledge.” It should be noted that even in this version, the original message is visible - the plus is replaced with a minus, but Abrax is still associated with knowledge inaccessible to laymen (and therefore hastily declared false). This also indicates that the formula of Abrax, which reached the peak of its power in the third chapter of the Book of the Law - Abrahadabra, has always been associated with an alternative occult tradition alien to official dogma. In modern semantics, “abrahadabra” is associated with something absurd and incoherent, but this is the result of centuries-old propaganda of official religious discourse seeking to devalue everything that is in any way actually connected with the secrets of the occult.
Already in the late Renaissance, supporters of Abraxas appeared. So in “The City of the Sun” by Tomaso Campanela, the second name of Utopia is Abraxas! Although it is little known, Tomaso Campanella is one of the last of the Renaissance hermetists, and a follower of Giordano Bruno. And the original meaning of utopia was not political at all, but gnostic-hermetic, and only with the reign of maddened enlightenment, the context was completely lost.
But the real revival of Abrax began in the twentieth century, with the beginning of a new Aeon. In 1916, under unusual circumstances, Carl Gustav Jung, a world-famous psychologist, received a revelation called “Seven Precepts for the Dead.” The unusual circumstances in question are:
It all started with a confusion that I didn’t even understand: I had no idea what it all meant or what I should do. There was a feeling that the atmosphere around me was thickening, it was filled with some strange ghostly creatures. And so it was: ghosts began to appear in my house. One night, my eldest daughter saw a pale figure crossing the room, my second daughter complained that her blanket was missing twice during the night, and my nine-year-old son had a terrible dream. In the morning he took a pencil from his mother and, despite the fact that he had never drawn before, this time he wanted to depict what he saw. This is how a drawing called “Portrait of a Fisherman” appeared. In the center of the sheet were depicted a river and a fisherman with a fishing rod on the shore. He is fishing. For some reason, there is a pipe on his head, from which flames and smoke burst out. The devil flies towards him from the opposite bank, cursing the fisherman for stealing his fish. But an angel hovers over the fisherman with the words: “You will not harm him, he only catches bad fish!” My son drew all this on Saturday morning.
On Sunday, at approximately 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the doorbell began to trill frantically. It was a sunny summer day, both maids were in the kitchen, from where the open area in front of the entrance was clearly visible. Hearing the bell, everyone immediately rushed to the door, but there was no one behind it. I even saw the bell swaying! We looked at each other in silence. Believe me, it all looked very strange and scary back then! I knew something was going to happen. The house was filled with ghosts, they wandered in crowds. There were so many of them that I could hardly breathe and kept asking myself: “My God, what is this?” The ghosts answered me: “We returned from Jerusalem, there we did not find what we were looking for.”
I made these words the beginning of "Septem Sermones...".
Then the words poured out in a continuous stream, and in three evenings the thing was written. And as soon as I took up the pen, the entire host of ghosts instantly disappeared. The obsession dissipated, the room became quiet, and the air cleared.
Fearing for his reputation, Jung refuses to make this text public almost until the end of his life, showing it only to his closest circle. Only in recent years, he decided to publish it, as an appendix to his autobiography. The fact is that the text in question is not just a work of art, but in fact a ready-made Gnostic gospel. Moreover, it is enough to carefully analyze the ideas expressed in “Septem Sermones...” and then become familiar with Jung’s basic scientific ideas in order to understand that having accepted this revelation, Jung remains until the end of his life as a translator of Gnostic ideas into the modern and only language of scientific discourse understandable to people. Jung copes with his mission brilliantly!
A whole chapter is dedicated to Abraxas, most of which we present here. Here Abrax appears primarily as a deity standing above all antinomies, the source of pure being:
Abraxas is a God who is difficult to recognize. He has the largest part, because it is invisible to man. From the Sun man sees the summum bopit, that is, the highest good,
from the Devil infinum malum, that is, boundless evil, from Abraxas life, which is insurmountable in no way, which is the mother of good and bad.
Life seems weaker and smaller than the summum bonum, therefore, even in thoughts it is difficult to imagine that Abraxas is superior in power to the Sun, which itself is the radiant source of all life force.
Abraxas is the Sun and equally swallows the eternal mouth of the Void, which belittles and dismembers everything, the mouth of the Devil.
The power of Abraxas is twofold. But you do not see it, because in your eyes the opposite direction of that power is equalized.
What the Sun God says is life,
what the Devil says is Death.
Abraxas speaks the word venerable and cursed, which is equal to life and death.
Abraxas creates truth and falsehood, good and evil, light and darkness in the same word and in the same deed. That is why Abraxas is formidable.
He is magnificent like a lion in the moment when he prostrates his victim. It is as beautiful as a spring day.
Yes, he himself is the great Pan, which means Everything, and he is also a little. He and Priapus.
He is a monster of the underworld, a polyp (Polypus (Greek) - many-legged - approx. transl.) with a thousand arms, winged, a sinuous serpent, fury itself.
He is also a Hermaphrodite of the lowest origin.
He is the master of toads and frogs, who live in the water and come out onto land, and sing in chorus at noon and midnight.
He is the Filled One that reunites with the Empty One.
He is holy copulation.
He is love and its mortification.
He is the saint and the betrayer of the saint.
He is the brightest light of day and the deepest night of madness.
To see it is blindness.
To know him is a disease.
To pray to him is death.
To fear him is wisdom.
Not resisting him is salvation.
God dwells in the sun. The devil is at night. What God gives birth from light. The devil drags you into the night. Abraxas is the world, the formation and transience of the world. The Devil imposes his curse on every gift from the Sun God.
Whatever you ask from the Sun God, the Devil also gives birth to.
Whatever you create together with the Sun God gives the Devil real power.
This is him, the formidable Abraxas.
The text provides very important keys to understanding Abrax, which we will look at more closely towards the end of the work. For now, let us note that Jung identifies him with Pan and Priapus, as well as with the combination of all conceivable opposites.
At the beginning of this chapter, we talked about the novel by Hermann Hesse. Now is the time to look at this topic in more detail. The appearance of Abrax in Hesse’s work is not accidental and comes from Jung. The fact is that Jung had a student Lang who played a huge role in the life of Hermann Hesse as his teacher and analyst. It was his meeting with Lang that helped Hesse fully embrace the full force of his genius. And it was from this meeting that the story “Damian” was born, already mentioned in passing at the beginning of the article.
At the center of the story is the hero, Sinclair, who since childhood has felt painfully torn between two worlds. He rushes between evil and good, chaos and logos, flesh and spirit. He probably would have remained in a vicious circle of false dualism if not for the mysterious figure of Damian, who has been helping him since childhood. Damian is essentially the Self or SAH of the hero himself, his visible personification. And it is his intervention that helps the hero break out of the tangle of false contradictions. And realize. And accept the paradoxical integrity of existence. Being, the highest personification of which is Abraxas - the god on the other side of opposites, whose service is equally holiness and vice.
The ending of “Damian” is very important, in which the hero undergoes initiation into a special secret society, and in fact a union of People of a Special Type, united by the religion of Abrax. The religion of freedom and knowledge. In the house of Lady Eve, there are people of various teachings, the symbol of Sinclair himself is the Hawk (a bird in many ways related to the falcon), and in dreams it was “the sea into which I flowed. She was a star, and I myself, in the form of a star, moved towards her, and we felt how we were drawn to each other, met, stayed together and circled each other in close, ringing circles in eternal bliss.”
All these images are associated with the highest occultism of Thelema, which we will discuss in more detail below. In the meantime, let's talk about the Russian herald of Abraxas - the Silver Age poet Mikhail Kuzmin. Mikhail Kuzmin published his poetic almanac, which was called Abraxas, and one of Kuzmin’s key poems is essentially a Gnostic confession, and is called Basilides, an excerpt from which we give:
I didn't fight
I was weak
My hands are whips
Like an illiterate slave
I listened to a set of pompous interjections.
And suddenly
Past the will, past the desires,
Unseen buildings opened up
Luminous Row,
From the pallor the flame came forth.
The bearded tramp became the herald,
And knowledge is higher than knowledge,
Love is purer than love,
The power of strength is the strongest,
Delight, -
Like a ball
Round, cool.
Screaming, boiling,
They filled me up wonderfully.
Aeon, Aeon, Pleroma,
Pleroma - Completeness,
To the blast furnace to the house,
To the throne, to the throne,
Until the ringing, thunderous ringing
Broaden, souls, souls!
Force! Force! Force!
Tense whip muscles!
Shout louder, children,
Red throwing the ball!
I recognized both laughter and crying!
What's Homer?
Stronger than horses, soldiers, the sun, death and the Nile, -
Seven celestial spheres
The crystalline harmony stunned me.
Tympanum, coo!
Trumpet, play!
Howl, strike!
A whirlwind of pigeons!
Eagles scream!
Moan of the swans!
Spirit, ray,
wey, wey,
Doors
Heavenly paradise!
Heaven, heaven!
I had a polished stone in my hand,
Bloody flame streamed from it,
And the word was roughly scrawled: abracsas.
The hero of the poem gradually goes through various historical cycles in his soul - from the world of Assyria, through Hellas to Egypt and mystical death, followed by rebirth with the experience of unity. Abrax here is at the same time a specific symbol associated with “a stone from which a bloody flame flows,” and at the same time, a global experience of unity, “crystal harmony,” the experience of unus mundus, a single world, a single mind, comprehended in the glory of Abraxas. Ruby is a special stone, often associated with Lucifer as the bearer of the Light of Gnosis. In the chapter on the symbol of faith, we examined in detail the symbolism of Lucifer, but here it is enough to mention that the Blood Stone is a ruby ​​associated with Lucifer as the bearer of gnosis, which is reflected in the poetry of Nikolai Gumilyov - “my friend Lucifer gave me seven horses, and one golden ring with ruby." Intuition tells me that we are dealing with related symbolism, especially since, as Meister Schwarzsichtig says in his article from the site “www.nork.ru,” “Lucifer is the Angel Bringing Light, or Gnosis.” Which again makes symbolism similar to Abrax.
Now let's turn to the key figure of twentieth-century occultism - Aleister Crowley. At the beginning of the article we said that Abraxas is of great importance in Thelema although it is not directly represented.
First of all, it should be said about the formula “abrahadabra”, which, as is known, came from the name Abraxas. Crowley attached great importance to this formula, and analysis of its meaning is one of the favorite topics of modern occultists.
The enormous significance of this formula is not surprising - after all, the Third Chapter of the Holy Book of the Law begins with the words “Abrahadabra - the Reward of Ra Hor Khuit.” The Abrahadabra formula consists of 11 letters, and in the first chapter of the Book of the Law it is said that “our number is 11.”
The most common interpretation of this formula says that it refers to the combination of five and six, that is, the microcosm, as a separate individuality, whose symbol is the pentagram, and the Macrocosm, as a universal cosmic unity, whose symbol is the hexogram. Thus, the formula derived from the name Abraxas is a universal form of the great work, in fact the central formula of Thelema, used in most rituals! By saying Abrahadabra, we invoke this god, and this should be taken into account in spiritual practice, which is the subject of the second chapter of this book. For example, “Abrahadabra” is used in the Regule ritual.
Another interpretation of this formula sounds like this: Abra is the solar eidos, symbolizing individual consciousness, compresses into the point Had, that is, rushes to its source, the Self or God, and, looking into the depths, recognizes its own face in the mirror - therefore Abra is repeated the second time, as recognition of oneself in God.
There are a number of other interesting, although more distant and not so obvious parallels. Since the Third Chapter begins with the Formula of Abrahadabra, it can be assumed that Ra Horus Khuit, to whom the third chapter is dedicated, under the exclamation “Abrahadabr,” is somehow connected with Abraxas. Until recently, I could not think about this, since I associated Horus primarily with Martian forces, due to the militant tone of the third chapter. However, as it turns out, Crowley himself associated him primarily with Hermes, which is specifically stated in the “Book of Lies” Keflan 2. Namely Hermes, for Jung Hermes is the main figure of alchemy, combining Light and Darkness, good and evil, which to some extent identical to Abraxas.
But if there is a formula for Abrax, then he himself must be somewhere. One of the biggest surprises for me, after several years of consciously joining the OTO, was to learn that Crowley's personal seal was the Gnostic gem Abrax. It is this seal that is the symbol of supreme power in the OTO and is passed on as a symbol of supreme power in the Order.
Thus, two occult streams, the Thelemic Egyptian vector and the Gnostic vector of Abraxas, united into One. From the mere fact of Abrax's seal it is clear that although Abrax is not officially included in the Thelemic pantheon, its symbolism and functions are directly related to the Thelemic pantheon.
If the seal of Abraxas is the gem of the OTO, doesn’t this mean that the ideal community of People of a Special Type, bearers of the initiatory seal, about which Hesse wrote, is the OTO, regardless of whether Hesse knew it or not.
This is confirmed by another interesting fact. In the main ritual of Thelema, the Gnostic Mass, at one of the most peak moments, the priest reads an invocation to Abraxas, who, exactly in accordance with the quoted text of Jung, corresponds to Pan:
IO IO IO IAO SABAO
KIRIE ABRASAX KIRIE MEITHRAS KIRIE PHALLE.
IO PAN, IO PAN, PAN
IO ISXUROS, IO ATHANATOS IO ABROTOS
IO IAO
XAIRE PHALLE XAIRE PAMPHAGE XAIRE PANGENETOR.
HAGIOS, HAGIOS, HAGIOS IAO.\
and this is the architecture of Abraxas http://www.ricardobofill.ru//index_mobile.php?id=683

Abracas - one of the classical Gnostic images

The mystical word Abraxas is incorrectly believed to be Egyptian, because it is most likely of Persian origin and contains all the letters used in Pelvi for numerical designation and at the same time the very first letters of the alphabet of this language. The followers of the Gnostic Basilides attached magical significance to the stones on which this word was carved and, in addition, a figure with a human torso, human arms, a rooster's head and snakes instead of legs; in her right hand is a whip, in her left is a circle or wreath with a double cross inside. Stones of this kind were found in Asia, Egypt, and partly in Spain, where they, together with the Basilidian teaching, were brought by the Priscillians, and then were accepted by all magical and alchemical sects and became widespread as amulets in the Middle Ages. The mystical figure was modified in a wide variety of ways and was replaced by various images, pagan, etc., which no longer had anything in common with Gnosticism.

According to the teachings of the followers of Basilides, God, the uncreated, eternal Father, first gave birth to his Nous, or Mind, Logos - Word and Phronesis - Reason; from Phronesis came Sophia - Wisdom and Dynamis - Strength. It is this totality of Primary generation that is summarized in the image of Abraxas. They form the highest Kingdom of light, exuding the Creative activity from which all things arise, and from which emanate the 365 orders of spirits that support the universe. At the head of these spirits is Abraxas- the highest of the seven gods, as if summing up these gods. Basilides argued that Abraxas acts as an intermediary between humanity and the Divine Essence.

Various versions of the image of Abrakas on amulets and other objects.

Amulets and seals depicting Abraxas were widespread from the end of the first century AD. In the thirteenth century the symbol of Abraxas was used in the seals of the Templar Order. In the Middle Ages, the spell was recognized as demonic and classified as black magic. Abraxas is one of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, associated with dragon slayers. Like the Sanskrit Abhimani, it is the first principle, the primary element. Also associated with the creator Brahma.

The word Abraxas correlates with the mystical word Abracadabra - one of the names of the god Mithras.

Some researchers argue that the name of this god comes from the Hebrew "abberak", which means "blessed", others - that it is a corruption of the name of one of the Egyptian gods. There is also an opinion that this name goes back to an ancient Coptic or Egyptian magical formula, symbolically meaning “Do not harm me” (“Touch me not”) and addressed to the deity as “Father”. This formula was usually attached to an amulet or talisman and worn on the chest under clothing.

According to legends, Abraxas is a warrior who defeats evil in all its forms, a fierce fighter for justice, understood as a creative pattern, compliance with the plan of Creation. He, like the rooster, which is a symbol of the sunrise, is the first to greet the happy or unlucky morning of each new day. Abraxas - a symbol of prosperity and wisdom, which can only be achieved in a fearless struggle with opposing forces, certainly defeating them, because in the hands of Abraxas is a whip (broom). The broom is a symbol of power and superiority over opponents; it is his weapon in the fight against evil.

Carl Gustav Jung was one of the first researchers to draw parallels between mythology, religion and real mental phenomena.

As Jung wrote about Abraxas, this “new god”, “shining like a lion, instantly tearing apart his victim, beautiful as a spring day,” Abraxas is Pan, Priapus, a monster of the underworld, a tangle of winged snakes, a true Hermaphrodite, “the holy creator ", love and the murderer of love, the saint and his traitor, "the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness." “To see him is to go blind, to know him is to go mad, to honor him is to find death, to fear him is wisdom, and salvation is possible if you do not resist him.” At the end of “Seven Sermons to the Dead,” after an ode to Abraxas, the author concludes: “ In that world, man belongs to Abraxas, who gives birth to him, man, and the world either».

Both the name of Abraxas and his iconographic image were widespread beyond Christian Gnosticism, in the cult-magical use of late antique syncretic paganism.

The image of the Gnostic god, symbolizing the Primary energies of creation, has come a long way of development. It should be noted that, unlike the “real” pagans, the Gnostics considered their “gods,” “archonotes,” and “eons” primarily to be symbols of an ineffable spiritual reality, a poetic approximation of the description of their nature. However, such symbols were very vital, carrying strength and wisdom.

A little about VASILID:

Basilides- Gnostic, originally a Syrian, moved from Antioch to Alexandria (in 125-130), and at the end of his life he visited Persia.

He recognized the sources of his system, on the one hand, as the secret teaching of the Apostle Peter, which supposedly reached him through a certain Glaucius, and on the other hand, “the wisdom of the barbarians”; During his stay in Alexandria, he became acquainted with Greek philosophy and was especially influenced by Aristotle. Found in 1842 (and first published in 1851) the work: κατά πασων αίρέσεων έλεγχος (previously known passages from it, under the name Origen, but now this work is attributed by most scientists to St. Hippolytus, although this account and there may still be doubts) presents V.’s system in a completely different form than it was known before, mainly from the presentation of Irenaeus (from which subsequent hereseologists drew). Whether this difference comes from the fact that Irenaeus expounds the earlier (Antiochene) and Hippolytus the later (Alexandrian) system of V., or from the fact that these writers paid special attention to different aspects of the same system, is to be decided with reliability is impossible, since V.’s own writings (of which the main thing is 24 books of explanations on the Gospel) have not reached us. In any case, in Hippolytus’s presentation, V.’s teaching seems both more original and more meaningful.

The absolute beginning is defined in V. only negatively. It is not something, it is inexpressible. However, everything that really exists cannot be expressed in words, cannot be named; for every word (not excluding proper names) indicates only general genera and species, and not real, individual beings - every naming is only a conditional hint of being, and not its actual expression. If, therefore, everything that truly exists is ineffable, then the absolute principle is ineffable par excellence. In itself, in its own actuality, it has nothing in common with anything else, it is detached from everything. But without being actually anything, it is everything potentially, that is, it has within itself the possibility of all being. V. calls this universal potency, belonging to the absolute principle, panspermia, because it contains in an invisible way all the infinite forms and ways of being, just as the seed of a tree contains the trunk, roots, and branches with leaves, flowers and fruits. The actual manifestation of all this potential diversity is due to triple, or tripartite, filiation (υίότης τριμερής) or differentiation of three main types of being: “subtle” (το λεπτομερές), i.e. ideal; “rough” (τόπαχυμερές), i.e. material, and “requiring purification” (τόο άποκαθάρσεως δεόμενον), i.e. spiritual. The “subtle” ideal being “rises upward” and connects directly with the absolute super-existent deity, while the “coarse” material “settles downward” and forms the visible world. But under the shell of material forms the seed of spiritual life remains, “in need of purification.”

The first ruler and head of the world - “Archon”, and the second - “Dimiurge”, who are obeyed by 365 astral angels who control the same number of stellar spheres - knew nothing about this highest spiritual potency until it manifested itself in the incarnation of Christ, who attracted to himself the power of the Holy Spirit, connecting the lower world with the higher. Just as a vessel, previously filled with aromas, retains the fragrance in itself when empty, so the material world, at the beginning (in “panspermia”) united with the ideal, retains the fragrance of the idea even after separation from it. This fragrance of the Holy Spirit, unconsciously inherent in the material world, becomes conscious in Christ, who proclaims the “Gospel” to the world, that is, reveals to the lower world the truth of absolute and ideal existence. Hearing this good news, the ruler of the visible world (Archon), who had hitherto considered himself a supreme being, experiences surprise and fear, and then comes to his senses and understands his subordinate meaning, as it is said: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” Enlightened by the Gospel, spiritual beings are purified by the knowledge of truth and ascend after Christ into the sphere of ideal and absolute existence, and the material world, having isolated from itself the spiritual element hidden in it, which was the cause of its languor and restless movement (“all creation groans and suffers to this day, waiting revelation of the glory of the Sons of God"), comes into a state of complete equilibrium, plunges into blissful ignorance, or innocence (αγνοια), where every being, not knowing anything higher, is content with its limits and its purpose - whereas during the world process, when the spiritual element mixed with the material, beings of both kinds are in torment, like birds immersed in water, or fish raised into the air. The Basilidian teaching was very widespread in its time, as evidenced by the abundance of various amulets with the inscription αβραξας - a symbol for the totality of the astral world according to Basilides (this world consists of 365 spheres, and the sum of the letters of the word αβραξας, in their digital meaning, is 365).

So, everything new is well forgotten old...

Abraxas is a Gnostic cosmological deity. He and similar deities are depicted as a zoomorphic creature - with a human torso and animal body parts.

The Gnostic world-making system is very complex. It contains countless heavens and aeons (in Gnostic terminology, these are spiritual beings - emanations of the Divine). Therefore, there must be some kind of force that will move the world, personify all time and space. Abraxas is considered to be precisely this driving force.

Abraxas

Who is the god Abraxas? Since the 2nd century AD, in Syria and Alexandria it was believed that he is the heavenly head, demonstrating in all his ways the Absolute, the completeness of the Universe, He is the universe.

Abraxas was depicted in different ways. On finds from the 2nd century we see a creature with a human body, the head of a rooster, human hands and snakes instead of legs.

Often, a round shield was depicted in the right hand (identified with the Sun), while in the other the god was clutching a weapon (a whip, a club). It is believed that the image of a deity can be carried with you - it is a powerful talisman.

According to the followers of Basilides, the uncreated father (the supermundane good) created the mind, the word, the mind, which gave rise to wisdom and strength. Such creations are collectively equal to the image of Abraxas.

Abraxas leads all spirits, is the strongest of the gods, but is equal in strength to all gods. According to Basilides, the Gnostic guardian of the Universe can be a mediator between all people and the divine absolute.

The Guardian of the Universe is a warrior who fights darkness in all its forms. He is fair, he understands what patterns there should be in the world and what needs to be done so that everything corresponds to the creator’s plan. He was represented with a rooster's head; he personifies the rising of the Sun - this bird is the first to greet each new morning.

It was often associated with knowledge and prosperity, which is achieved only through victory over circumstances, enemies, and everyone who wishes evil. There is no doubt that Abraxas will be able to defeat all enemies, since the whip (club) in his hands symbolizes strength and victory over his rivals.

Name decoding

Symbol Abraxas Sign of the Gnostic god from an antique gem

His name may be a transformation of the Hebrew word "abberaka", which translates as "blessed". Adherents of another theory agreed that the name is an image of a magic formula, which stands for “Do not harm me” (“Do not touch”).

The name of the deity consists of 7 Greek letters, which can already be regarded as a sign, since some sources indicate that “the magic number 7 symbolizes the general idea of ​​the Universe.”

In the system of Basilides, the name “Abraxas” is endowed with a special magical meaning. To understand this, you need to add up all the numbers that are identified with the letters of the Greek alphabet (which are in the word):

Α = 1, Β = 2, Ρ = 100, Α = 1, Σ = 200, Α = 1, Ξ = 60.

As a result, we get 365 - the number of days in a year. Also 365 is the number of Gnostic heavens.

Jung on the Guardian of the Universe

Carl Jung argued that the Guardian of the Universe is truly a universal deity, since he is both a monster and the personification of love, a hermaphrodite, something that combines both principles. Jung was so struck by this image that, mentioning it in “Seven Sermons to the Dead,” he said:

In that world, man belongs to Abraxas, who creates or absorbs him, man, and the world.

Where was the image of Abraxas, guardian of the universe, used?

The image of God has been used for many centuries. For example, in the 13th century he was depicted on the seals of the Templar Order. The peculiarity was that he was associated with the powerful Baphomet.

Seal of the Templars

At the same time, the image of the creature was applied to talismans; the symbol was very common among alchemists. Over time, the name of the guardian of the Universe began to be associated not with a Gnostic deity, but with demonic and black magic.

Today, Abraxas is a frequent hero of comics, TV series, and books. We meet him in Marvel comics, in the series “Charmed”, in the film “Jupiter Ascending”, in “Harry Potter” this was the name of Lucius Malfoy’s father.

As you can see, the image of Abraxas has been transformed over time. Initially, it was an image of the all-encompassing absolute, which later became associated with black magic and humanism. However, to this day, Abraxas is not just one of the forgotten deities of old, but an important Gnostic symbol.