Who is Abraxas?

Good morning ATS. I heard about a god named Abraxas or Abrasax quite sometime ago. I could find no myths or information at all really at first. Then I read of some gems and amulets bearing the name as some sort of tetragrammaton like YHVH but they are in Greek letters and more than four so I don't know what to call it. It appears with angelic names and with names of the Hebrew God.

The only other use is as an Aeon in the Nag Hammadi scriptures.


Can anybody help me find reliable information on the God Abraxas?

Thank you!

Did some reading on Abraxxas recently, though i did not retain much...

iirc, Abraxxas is some sort of "upper god" or force of intention...The intention/action/energy that gives life to lower gods...the greater whole of the good/evil thing..

I believe it learned of Abraxcxas through Jungs 7 Sermons of the Dead...I would start there if i were you...also Google...Gnostics...n such.

a reply to: CapstonePendulum

a reply to: SteamyJeans

Thanks I've got the Gnostic scriptures and read them and books from before they were discovered and I think Abraxas is the tetragrammaton of the Ineffable Aeon as opposed to YHVH or in Egypt it was IAO.

I don't know for sure but I think IAO was the demiurge.

Later Nag Hammadi writings have him as an Aeon but not the Ineffable. I think this is all Sethian "Gnosticism". Gnosticism is a poorly defined term IMO. The focus was on Seth and later Jesus and a more benevolent " Father" God than the Old Testament Yahweh who was correctly assessed as bloodthirsty and adversarial to humanity.

So I think finding info on Abraxas is next to impossible.

While I think any usage of the concept is likely to be corrupted when its coming from a studio as perverse and manipulative as WB, their recent film Jupiter Ascending featuring probably the most "realistic" (at least by UFOology standards) portrayal of aliens in Hollywood history, featured a villainous alien family named Abrasax who fit the "Nordic" archetype, whose ages ranged in the tens of thousands of years, owned a title to the planet Earth and used it as a farm in which humans were harvested for their life-force, which was made into a drink that provided youth and immortality to them and their customers across the galaxy. I found the whole thing to be a probably-somewhat-deliberate corruption of the "Law of One" and other similar spiritually positive material, to subconsciously re-associate those concepts with negative and fearful ideas. It was, while depressingly cynical, also a fantastic movie IMO, but most didn't think so, probably because someone unfamiliar with these concepts in the real world would find it to be very random and pointless.

a reply to: elliotmtl

I haven't heard of it but Hollywood is always using little known gods names. They love that stuff.

Years ago I heard that there was a motorcycle club named Abraxas.
That has been the only time that I remember hearing that name.

Abraxas is the second studio album by latin rock band Santana ....

The title of the album, which features Mati Klarwein's 1961 painting, Annunciation, on the cover, comes from a line in Hermann Hesse's book, Demian, quoted on the album's back cover:

"We stood before it and began to freeze inside from the exertion. We questioned the painting, berated it, made love to it, prayed to it: We called it mother, called it whore and slut, called it our beloved, called it Abraxas"

a reply to: artistpoet

Maybe that motorcycle club that I heard about could have taken
that name from the album?It was a local club in our area during
the late 60's to mid 70's.

a reply to: mamabeth

Yes quite possibly ... It was a land mark album and very popular with the more alternative crowd back then

The Wiki article on Abraxas is very good.


Though I notice it doesn't include that Abraxas was (is?) a dodgy website on the deep dark web.

And also a cosmic being from the Marvel universe.

Oh, and a short lived occult magazine was called Abraxas.

a reply to: Painterz

Well, from what I can gather he was the Archon supreme of 365 worlds. Then he was the Ineffable Aeon. Some saw him as the principles of good and evil in one. Later he was an Aeon in the part of the Pleroma ruled by Eleleth.

I think I am going to just view Abraxas as the God of earth being equal to 365 when you add the individual values of each letter and equivalent to El Elyon. The Ineffable Aeon is unknowable.

a reply to: artistpoet

Gnosis. com has some books by G.R.S. Mead that have good info. He is good for scholarly analysis but you won't get any esoteric information out of him beyond common knowledge. He digs in to the available information well for his day.

yCiZosSwve8

a reply to: CapstonePenduluam

When researching Temlpar symbols, I was reading through the Knights Templar Encyclopedia by Karen Ralls, I came upon the entry of "Abraxas" that just had a quick note for the reader to go to the section on Symbols. As I perused that section it talked about that the symbol of Abraxas is displayed on "Templar Grand Master's seal in the Archives Nationales in Paris, which was used in a French charter in 1214." The seal displays a figure that is Chimera-like and portrays a male warrior with a roosters head, human arms, and snakes as legs, who carries a shield and a whip; and bears the words "Secretum Templi". This particularly description of Abraxas was known as Anguipede which means "snake-foot". It is interesting to note that this seal was not used for particularly significant Templar documents, but can be found on ordinary, seemingly unimpressive, historical records like those dating from 1214.

Abraxas (Greek: ΑΒΡΑΞΑΣ) is a god written about in Gnostic texts and may also be known as Abrasax (as there is thought to have been a mistranslation from Greek to Latin). Carl Jung in his writings on the Seven Sermons to the Dead stated that Abraxas was a god higher than Jehovah. He is said to be the father of all things, "the power above all and the First Principle," and the ruler of 365 heavens. It is said that Abraxas created Nuos and Logos which led to Providence, Virtue, and Wisdom which gave rise to Principalities and Powers, and from "from these infinite productions and emissions of Angels." It is these angels who govern the 365 heavens which was said to include the Judeo-Christian God, Jehovah, which followers of Basilides denied of being a god, but rather an angel. This obviously was not a very popular belief in the 2nd century and Basilides is considered a heretic and damned by many historical Roman Catholic figures.

Some have speculated that the imagery of the Anguipede represents emanations of this being which are as follows:

The human body is displayed as it is written that God created man in his own image. The snakes represent the two great supports of man given by God, Nous (mind, intellect) and Logos (reason and judgment). The cock (rooster), being the creature who traditionally greets the golden dawn, is an emblem of foresight and vigilance. He carries the shield of wisdom and the whip or flail is said to be the "whip of Helios" (Abraxas is associated with the Sun) which represents dynamism or strength/power.

No one knows the origins of Abraxas and the relics associated with him. Some believe that it originated with a man named Basilides (an Alexandrian mystic) in the 2nd Century AD, but even then it cannot be proven and is also hypothesized that it was transmitted to him from another source, yet unknown to us in modern times. Abraxas was also referred to as the Great Archon, the Lord Creator, Almighty God, and Greatest God.

Many have attempted to guess as to the reason the Templars would use such an image, but without proper records and evidence it all falls into the realm of speculation. Historical writings and modern scholars have drawn parallels between Abraxas and Mithras of Persia as well as beliefs found in Hinduism. It is possible that the Templars were introduced to Abraxas through their time in the Middle East, but again, without hard evidence we can only imagine. Although it is an interesting symbol, the use of this seal does not mean that the Templar Order was a Gnostic one.

a reply to: KSigMason

Gnostic is a poorly defined academic term anyhow, so I don't consider it a religion.

But your info matches mine.

Mithras is 365 gematrically and identified with Metatron who is Enoch (365) as Chief angel and the lesser Shaddai in rabbinical mysticism, although there may be 2 Metatron's.

I am going to meditate on it.

Some reference material on Abraxas :

Magic Spells and Formulae - Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked
Sword of Moses
Abraxas seu Apistopistus
Jewish Encyclopaedia 1 - Ludwig Blau
Arabic Documents from the Monneret Collection, Islamica 4

I have much more to add but I'm bone dead tired and going to bed.... Come back to this later.

Abraxas = Horus

Abraxas isn't a who, it's a spell.