Tuesday, June 7, 2011

ABRAXAS 365th


- picture of Abraxas taken from http://scrawleddesign.blogspot.com -

I just wanted to celebrate the arrival of the 365th occult follower on this blog and to take this opportunity to mention (almost) all the blogs around the world who supported this action by linking it. Thank you all, my brothers and sisters. If I missed someones blog please contact me by e-mail. Cheers and HAIL ABRAXAS !






























Abraxas is a primordial Gnostic creator god, later demonized by the Roman Catholics. He is depicted with the Head of a rooster, a man's body, and serpentine legs, holding an oval shield and a flail or club.

He who in the monotheistic world is worshipped as God is really a false God, more akin to the Devil. According to the Gnostics, at some ancient date Abraxas pushed the Good God out and now rules the roost, thus explaining wars, famines, evil, cruelty and sickness. But really we worship more the side of us that is Abraxas as this is considered strong, realistic and human. We don’t worship goodness.


"Abraxas, the Anguipede" or serpent-footed deity, dates back to at least the earliest days of Christianity, and was particularly popular among the Gnostics. This ancient configuration of the daimonic bears some similarities in function to the Christian figure Lucifer. But above all, Abraxas is a myth, which like "the daimonic," surpasses the polarities of most of our accepted, dualistic ideas of the divine, and defies formulas. As Pistorius professes in Demian: Abraxas ... is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.


Like the Greek hero Perseus--whom the goddess Athena helped to behead the Gorgon, Medusa, by handing him a shiny shield to safely mirror her horrific image--we will always require some means of consciously reflecting on the reality of evil and making sense of it; this is the main function of enduring myths and symbols like Abraxas, or the devil, or the daimonic. Without such pragmatic intellectual props--which really are divine gifts--we could not live very long in a world so thoroughly riddled with evil. For we cannot too long "gaze into the face of absolute evil" unaided by some mythological, theological, or philosophical filter, or reflective, cognitive mechanism. Myths and symbols serve such protective purposes for the vulnerable human psyche; they buffer and deflect the devastating impact of radical evil, and imbue it with meaning.

But this important theme of "mirroring" and "reflection" in the myth of Perseus and Medusa contains an additional clue for more clearly apprehending evil. Much of the evil we see "out there" in the world, and in others, is in some measure a reflection of ourselves: our own human potential for, and unavoidable participation in evil. The myth counsels that the only meaningful--and ultimately, viable--way of comprehending and combating evil is to understand it as a mirroring of the daimonic elements eternally present in nature and in all humanity. We are the primary progenitors of evil: we not only define it, but, as we shall see, we wittingly or unwittingly create and perpetuate it. Therefore, it is we who are responsible for much of the evil in the world; and we are each morally required to accept rather than project that ponderous responsibility--lest we prefer instead to wallow in a perennial state of powerless, frustrated, furious victimhood. For what one possesses the power to bring about, one has also the power to limit, mitigate, counteract, or transmute. Recall that as a result of Perseus' courageous encounter with Medusa, Pegasus, that magnificent, winged, white steed, arose from her vital lifeblood; and the now reenergized Perseus rode on triumphantly to conquer more monstrous demons, and marry the beautiful maiden, Andromeda. Good can come from defiantly facing evil. But evil, alas, will always find another face.


"The bird is struggling out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must first destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The name of the God is called Abraxas."

3 comments:

Phelippe Melo said...

"The bird is struggling out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must first destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The name of the God is called Abraxas." Book "Demian" - Hermann Hesse

AleiP said...

how do i share the pink as well?

son of man said...

What is pink?

Related Posts with Thumbnails