A confusing article I wanted to get out on Mayday. I will probably elaborate further in the near future
"The bird rights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas." [1]
On Mayday two years ago during a holiday in the French Provence with extended family I had a strange dream in which a scar faced demon gave me three words:
GOD ANKHOR SOLEX
I did not know what to make of it and these words puzzled me for a long time.
The meaning of God was self-evident. I suddenly understood Ankhor ("Horus Lives") during a walk with my daughter two months after. But Solex remained an unsolvable riddle...until exactly two months ago.
I was hanging out in the Charm the Water Discord chat and someone there was trying to figure out the meaning of a word he got in a dream. I was reminded of my aforementioned dream. Aaron suggested to use gematria and I checked the isopsephic (Greek gematria) value of the Greek spelling of SOLEX: ΣΟΛΕΞ.
It is 365!
My mind was blown and a lot of associations rushed through my head. Obviously, 365 days of a solar year, but specifically 365 is also the isopsephic value of one of the most powerful magical names: the seven lettered ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ or ΑΒΡΑΞΑΣ! The megas archon and ruler of the 365 spheres of the Gnostic Basilides, the "the power above all, and First Principle" according to Epiphanius.
Many things have been written about Abrasax (I recommend this and that), but the most significant piece I found was by Carl Gustav Jung in his neo-gnostic work "Septem Sermones ad Mortuos":
"Hear Ye: I begin with nothing. Nothing is the same as fullness. In the endless state fullness is the same as emptiness. The Nothing is both empty and full. One may just as well state some other thing about the Nothing, namely that it is white or that it is black or that it exists or that it exists not. That which is endless and eternal has no qualities, because it has all qualities.
The Nothing, or fullness, is called by us the PLEROMA. In it thinking and being cease, because the eternal is without qualities. In it there is no one, for if anyone were, he would be differentiated from the Pleroma and would possess qualities which would distinguish him from the Pleroma." [...]
"There is a God about whom you know nothing, because men have forgotten him. We call him by his name: ABRAXAS. He is less definite than God or Devil. In order to distinguish God from him we call God HELIOS, or the Sun.
Abraxas is activity; nothing can resist him but the unreal, and thus his active being freely unfolds. The unreal is not, and therefore cannot truly resist. Abraxas stands above the sun and above the devil. He is the unlikely likely one, who is powerful in the realm of unreality. If the Pleroma were capable of having a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation." [2]
Abrasax is the all-uniting god, he is above the benevolent god and the malevolent devil, beyond concepts like morality, sin, good, and evil. In a most Jungian psychoanalytical sense he represents the Principium Individuationis, the individuation of a subject in reconciliation with its own shadow.
Hermann Hesse used this neo-Gnostic Jungian image of Abrasax in his coming-of-age (auto-)biography "Demian" where the protagonist Sinclair chases after the meaning of a god named "Abraxas". (This was one of my favourite books as a teenager, but I completely forgot that Abrasax was part of it)
A powerful paragraph in the book that makes this Jungian understanding of the god very clear is the following:
"You consider yourself odd at times, you accuse yourself of taking a road different from most people. You have to unlearn that. Gaze into the fire, into the clouds, and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak, surrender to them, don't ask first whether it's permitted or would please your teachers or father, or some god. You will ruin yourself if you do that. That way you will become earthbound, a vegetable. Sinclair, our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world. Abraxas does not take exception to any of your thoughts, any of your dreams. Never forget that. But he will leave you once you've become blameless and normal. Then he will leave you and look for a different vessel in which to brew his thoughts." [1]
I admit, it might seem quite a stretch to claim that SOLEX equals ABRASAX just based on the isopsephic value they share, but let me add a few more pieces of the puzzle. Take the recent synchronicities and adventures following my initiation into the sphere of Jupiter and the fact that the word ANKHOR as "Horus lives" was also significant during another synchro-mystical visit to my hometown.
My ongoing individuation, current readjustment of my relationship to my parents and also my progressing magical journey are all tightly tied together.
In some of the old Gnostic texts Abrasax was seen less as "god above god" but more as a powerful "archon", ranking even below the demiurge Yaldabaoth. Initially the two different concepts seem to contradict each other and are very confusing, but when you try to leave dualistic thinking and rational logic behind and view everything from further above, when you "squint down" onto it - to borrow a Gordonism - from a more irrational, magical "daimonic perspective", these contradictions slowly dissolve and metaphysical borders can get blurry.
Two years ago, when I received the three words, I was confused and I agonized over their meaning. I wanted to know the one real message that was encrypted. After waking from the dream I did not even remember if the second word was ANKHOR or rather ANCHOR, it could even have been ARCHON. Today I do not even want to sharpen the blurriness anymore. Why not take all of them?
It is the same with SOLEX. Yes, it has a strong connection to ABRASAX. But it also contains SOL, the sun; and EX, Latin for "out". But that seems to be precisely why I received SOLEX and not ABRASAX. Because it is "all of the above":
GOD, ANCHOR, ARCHON, HORUS LIVES, SUN OUT, ABRASAX, 365
It was a daimonic message, not a rational one. It makes sense to me now. It is full of Christian, Gnostic, and Egyptian meaning. I can't really explain why in a way it makes sense. It just does. It's beautiful. And it took two years to reach this point. Individuation. Embracing the blurriness.
Happy Beltane!