Glossary of Spiritual and Religious Words

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Abraxas

or Abrasax (Gnostic, from the Greek Αβραξας) From The Theosophical Glossary: "Mystical term used by the Gnostics to indicate the supreme entity of our cosmic hierarchy or its manifestation in the human being which they called the Christos. Abraxas has the value of 365, based on numerical equivalents of the Greek alphabet. Because 365 represents the cycle of one revolution of our planet around the sun, they held that in Abraxas were mystically contained the full number of families of entities composing a hierarchy. These entities received from their supreme illuminator, Abraxas, the streams of life and inspiration governing their existence. Thus in a sense Abraxas is the cosmic Oversoul, the creative or Third Logos, Brahma. The Basilidean Gnostics [see: Basilides] taught that from this supreme God was created nous (mind). Abraxas also was identified with the Hebrew 'Adonai, the Egyptian Horus, and the Hindu Prajapati. Gnostic amulets known as Abraxas gems depicted the god as a pantheos (all-god), with the head of a cock, herald of the sun, representing foresight and vigilance; a human body clothed in armor, suggestive of guardian power; legs in the form of sacred asps. In his right hand is a scourge, emblem of authority; on his left arm a shield emblazoned with a word of power. This pantheos is invariably inscribed with his proper name IAO and his epithets Abraxas and Sabaoth, and often accompanied with invocations such as SEMES EILAM, the eternal sun (Gnostics and Their Remains 246), which Blavatsky equates with "the central spiritual sun" of the Qabbalists (SD 2:214). Though written in Greek characters, the words SEMES EILAM ABRASAX are probably Semitic in origin: shemesh sun; `olam secret, occult, hid, eternity, world; Abrasax Abraxas. Hence in combination the phrase may be rendered "the eternal sun Abraxax."

"Remember, beloved devotee, the double tail of the serpent that forms the legs of the solar rooster of Abraxas. The entire process of the Great Work consists of releasing oneself from the enchanted rings of the tempting serpent..." - Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message