The name has been poping up in my life for a long time now. iv looked him up to know more but sadly thers not much to find other then he’s a god an a demon .if any one has eny more info it would be greatly appreciated
1 Like
He’s mentioned in Stephen Flowers’ book Hernetic Magic a lot.
2 Likes
The short version is that, historically, Abraxas was an Gnostic attempt at actual monotheism. I do not consider Jewry, modern Christianity, Mahometism, and that ilk ‘actual monotheism’, because:
-the old testament “slips up” and mentions other gods as quite real in a few places, so Jewry tends to be the fearful grip on a particularly jealous god;
-Jesus’ ministry seems to essentially partake of the cultural background of Jewry mixed with the (at the time recent) phenomenon of messianism, but later mutations of the Christian churches took a cue from Zoroastrianism, became called monotheism through supporting just one god, but their one god is only credited with the things his followers are willing to call “good”; anything “evil” is the work of the Devil, of course!
-Taking a cue from mutated Christianity, Mahometism attributes only (its notion of) “good” to Allah, and everything “evil” is of Iblis.
Gnosticism drew from the intellectual integrity of Classical philosophy, however, so it found itself attempting a hard or ideal ‘actual monotheism’. Abraxas, then, truly was conceived as a singular godlike entity, encompassing absolutely everything. Good, evil, other human names stemming from limited human understanding, and indeed everything beyond the boundary of understanding - all of these made up the essence of the all-encompassing, contradictory, entirely ‘whole’ Abraxas. His imagery often includes both the lion and the serpent.
Well, that’s a start. Maybe a neat thought experiment on such a contradictory-seeming entity might be to read the old work The Thunder, Perfect Mind?
1 Like
Eliphas Levi’s " The Mysteries of the Qabalah " translated from French to English by Macgregor Mathers. In relation to the Tree of Life and the Demons of the Qliphoths equivalent.
“Instead of the victory of Netzach , here belong foolish pride and the demigod Nergal , a serpent with the head of a cock. He is associated with Mars (interesting because Netzach corresponds to Venus) and Abraxas.”