Supreme deity in Western occult philosophy from the first to the 13th century AD, largely due to the dissemination of Gnostic beliefs. His Egyptian origin is arbitrary: the name is first recorded by the Egyptian writer Basilides. Abraxas is sometimes a figure of solar worship, sometimes the emanator of 365 spirits, each of which presides over its own heaven. He arrived in Greek mythology as a chicken-headed monster bearing a whip. Numerologically the Greek letters of Abraxas are said to total 365. As a symbol of the supreme force that transcends good and evil, he appears in Herman Hesse’s ‘Demian’ (1960) and as the evil Lord of the World he is featured in Patrick Tilley’s ‘Mission’ (1981) under the name ‘Brax.
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