[This piece has been featured in IAO: Ophite Iconography, p.146.]

The Aeons are a distinctive aspect of the Gnostic systems of ascension, although their names and numbers vary heavily from one source to the other.

We have chosen the list of twelve Aeons, and they are depicted as different suns, each being the light of a potential universe, a whole cosmogenesis can occur at every stage, let us not forget how Abrasax was said to rule over up to 365 heavens. The sun of this world, obscure and diminished, looks scornfully at the initiate. Aeons were considered as measures of time, but also as the doxa, the ruling morality of a whole age (Luke 20:34-36), and as such, they constitute complete microcosms, ways of perceiving and engaging with the world. Only in Gnostic writings they can they be found personified as higher beings, and just as with the “twin” principle expressed by Thomas, we depict them sprouting forth from the enlightened mind as refractions and degrees of a higher self.

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[This piece has been featured in IAO: Ophite Iconography, p.93.]

Basilides has been the Gnostic teacher largely attributed as the founder of Alexandrian or pagan streams of Gnosticism, while Simon Magus was considered to be the founder of the Judaic forms of Gnosis, by the polemical sources of their time: Irenaeus of Lyon, Hippolytus of Rome and Origen of Alexandria.

Basilides may have been Egyptian, and he was said to be the disciple of Glaucias, who, in turn, had been a disciple of Peter. As such, although considered a heresy, it was certainly one of the early expressions of Christianity. He has also been historically credited as the creator of the so-called Abraxas figure, later identified as the type of a rooster headed giant

with snake legs (for this attribution see: Chiflet, Jean. Joannis Macarii, Abraxas, seu Apistopistus. Antwerp: Balthasar Moretus, 1657.)

Hippolytus describes how Abraxas is the supreme archon ruling over 365 heavens, and he may have been responsible for the curious misspelling that took hold in later literature: the actual name found on gems and profusely in magical papyri is Abrasax.

But in my idealized portrait I consciously chose to follow the stream of this historiography and tradition.

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Vultures and the praxis of sky burial or the towers of silence have been a long-lasting fascination for me. Black vultures are a common sight in the peruvian desert of which I am very fond of, but rarely do they taste human flesh anymore. I follow Michael Maier in the opinion that vultures are among the noblest of animals, for they neither they need nor steal anything from humans, and they were the object of ancient divination practices “as the foundation of the city of Rome may declare” (Michael Maier. Atalanta Fugiens. Oppenheim, Hyeronimus Galler, 1618, Discursus XLIII, p.183.) A couple of spectators behold the end of flesh, following the tradition of Dante and Virgil’s travel, one remains silent in understanding, the other turns away in horror, and bites his own hand following the saying in Ecclesiastes 4:5, “The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh.”

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The motif of the bonfire-deity as grave opener, the faceless is contrasted with the two-faced alchemical symbol, to better grasp the paradox expressed by Hermes Trismegistus, that God has either no name or has them all. The antinomian deity is depicted as a grave robber, in a purposeful misreading of the statement in Ezekiel 37:13: “Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.”
~José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal

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Impressions of human skulls as they are lying in the Peruvian north deserted coast, just as they are scattered by time and the sea. The series emphasizes the apertures on the skulls as places where the sun enters, corresponding to the fact that some ancient civilizations practiced ritual trepanation, as therefore some of these holes on the cranium may be man-made.

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This image corresponds to a vision of the divine source as a torch that emanates continually all possible aspects of being, inspired both by Sankaracharya’s allegorical description of the eternal Brahman as a bonfire, but employing the Enochian name for God.
~José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal

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[This piece has been featured in IAO: Ophite Iconography, p.154.]

This title is of course based on the most famous poem found at the Nag Hammadi library and depicts the thunder-bearing self as literally sprouting from the mind. The poem is composed of a striking listing of opposites, and this visual interpretation wants to contrast contemplative life with the violence of sudden illumination. On this regard, I have always been fascinated by its parallel with the saying in the Kena Upanishad:

This is the teaching of Brahman, with regard to the gods: It is that which now flashes forth in the lightning, and now vanishes again.

(Kena Upanishad IV.4, in Müller, Max, The Sacred Books of the East, Volume I (Varanasi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988) p.151.)

This Upanishad speaks of a form of knowledge that goes beyond the gods, manifested as a great sign in the sky, described as the goddess Uma. In the same way, Thunder, Perfect Mind expresses the delicate Gnostic pattern that oscillates between devotion and transgression.

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[This piece has been featured in IAO: Ophite Iconography, p.72.]

Marcus the Magus is openly described as a seducer of women and a charlatan by Irenaeus of Lyon.1 This heresiarch and his disciples claimed to be superior to both the apostles Peter and Paul, and to be “ungraspable and invisible to the judge” thanks to the power of their mystical redemption, which consisted in a particular invocation preserved between them.2

He taught that a sublime Tetrad had descended towards him from the invisible and unnameable places in the form of a woman, because the world could not withstand its masculinity.3 Irenaeus then records a fascinating description of Marcus’ Revelation of Truth, that identifies each letter of the Greek alphabet with a part of the female body of the truth, in the way in which we have tried to depict as accurately as possible.

“After having declared these things, the Tetrad added: I will shew unto thee Truth, whom I have brought down from the celestial mansions that thou shouldest behold her naked, acknowledge her beauty, hear her speaking, and be astonished at her wisdom. Look up therefore at her head Alpha and Ω, at her neck B and Ψ, at her shoulders with her hands Γ and X, at her breasts Δ and P, at her chest E and Y, at her back Z and T, at her belly H and Σ, at her thighs Θ and P, at her knees I and Π, at her legs K and O, at her ankles Λ and Ξ at her feet M and N. This is the body of Truth, this the form of the letters, this the character of the writing. Whereupon Truth looked upon me (Marcus) and opened her mouth, and littered a word, and that word became a Name, a name which we know and speak — Christ Jesus: and having named him she held her peace.”4

But “the restoration of all things will take place when the All had come to one letter only, and it will sound with one and identical pronunciation5.”

1. Los Gnósticos, Volumen I, introducción, traducción y notas de José Montserrat Torrens, (Madrid: Gredos, 1983), p.161

2. Ibid. Pp.164-165. 

3. Ibid. P.166. 

4. The English translation of this passage by Irenaeus is taken from: King, C.W. The Gnostics and their Remains: Ancient and Mediaeval (London: David Nutt, 1887) pp.287-288. 

5. Los Gnósticos, Volumen I, introducción, traducción y notas de José Montserrat Torrens, (Madrid: Gredos, 1983), p.167. 

*Sales protocol for these original pieces will be unique in that, after a purchase is made on our website, we will personally reach out to each customer to arrange a customized shipping plan, ensuring both parties are aligned on what can and cannot be done to guarantee safe and smooth delivery of the items.