Simon Magus and Jesus Christ

In this post, I will compare the similarities between Simon Magus and Jesus Christ, and why they were simultaneously both one and the same and not one and the same. If this sounds like a contradictory statement, you are both correct and incorrect. Bear with me as I attempt to explain this fascinating conundrum involving two of the most significant people to ever walk the face of the Earth, in my humble opinion.

Let’s begin first by taking a closer look at Simon Magus, who is also known as the Simon the Sorcerer and Simon the Magician. Most people have heard of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Well, Simon Magus, being a native of Samaria, would be considered the “Bad Samaritan” due to the demonic powers he wielded that made him appear to be a godlike figure. The act of simony, which is the buying or selling of religious offices, derived from Simon Magus. In Acts 8 of the Bible, the apostles Peter and John travel to Samaria when they hear that the people there, including Simon Magus himself, have converted to Christianity. They lay their hands on the heads of these people and deliver to them the powers of the Holy Spirit. When Simon Magus witnesses this, he offers the apostles money in exchange for learning this great power. He is rebuked by them for his ignorance in believing that this gift of God could be purchased. Simon Magus therefore becomes the first man to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the one sin which Jesus says is unpardonable.

Simon was purported to have performed many wonders and miracles during his lifetime. Some of which included having the ability to fly and levitate, animate the dead, turn stones into bread, shapeshift, and even create men out of thin air. God the Father (Yaldabaoth) was said to have created mankind from dust, while Jesus performed feats that defied logic similar to Simon Magus such as walking on water, bringing the dead back to life, turning water into wine, and yes, according to the Gnostic texts, he was even a shapeshifter. Jesus speaks in the first person narrative in The Second Treatise of the Great Seth when he says, “And I subjected all their powers. For as I came downward, no one saw me. For I was altering my shapes, changing from form to form. And therefore, when I was at their gates, I assumed their likeness. For I passed them by quietly, and I was viewing the places, and I was not afraid nor ashamed, for I was undefiled.”

According to the Gnostics, the true Christ and consort of Sophia exists in the Pleroma, so when Jesus said that he was shapeshifting on his way down, he’s talking about himself descending from the Pleroma to the Kenoma. He took the form of the likeness of his enemies when he reached the realm of the archons and therefore went undetected. He did not incarnate the same way that a normal human would and did not undergo the usual memory swipe, so this is why he says he was “undefiled”. In other words, he came to Earth on his own terms and took a body of his own choosing. In fact, many Gnostics believe in docetism, which is the belief that the real Jesus appeared in a illusory phantasmal body, rather than a physical one, since the Christ was not of the flesh. In The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, Jesus says, “I visited a bodily dwelling. I cast out the one who was in it first, and I went in.” This is further evidence that the Christ was not the born into this world the way religion would have us believe. Instead, he was a walk-in who entered the physical realm in order to redeem humanity of its greatest sin, ignorance.

The first “sin” that was ever committed in the Pleroma resulted in the Demiurge when Sophia thought she could create without her syzygy, the Christ. Sin does not exist in the way that we’ve been taught by our church leaders. There is no higher power that is keeping score of our deeds, good or bad, and judging us based on our actions. The only cosmic force who is judging us, if we give him that authority, is the Demiurge. This is why in ancient Egypt, Osiris (Enki), was known as the god of judgment over the dead. The only true sin that exists is the lack of knowledge, or gnosis, which is ignorance. This is why the Christ was sent to redeem Sophia, who is ultimately our Higher Self/Holy Spirit, so that we can all one day return in full to the Pleroma.

It is important to note that the Christ is a separate entity from Jesus. In fact, most people don’t even realize that the person who they worship as Jesus Christ was actually named Yeshua. The letter “J” wasn’t even invented during that time period, so we know that couldn’t have been his real name. But if Yeshua was not the Christ, then who was it who inhabited that body before the Christ took over? In order to understand that, we would have to go back to the story of Adam and Eve.

Eve was the archetypal Divine Feminine figure who brought gnosis to Adam, the first man who was created in ignorance by the ignorant, blind god who the Gnostics called Yaldabaoth. While the story of Adam and Eve may be allegorical, the idea of the serpent persuading Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, who in turn convinces Adam to do the same, is symbolic of the Christ redeeming Eve (Sophia) who then brings gnosis to Adam, the spiritually ignorant man who believes the “God” that created him is the one and only God. This is why the Christ said to be ‘wise as serpents’. Religion has taught us that the serpent is the evil one and the Creator is the ‘good guy’, but in reality it was Yahweh who lied when he said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” It was the serpent who gave mankind the knowledge that we are gods, and that the god of this world is a false one. This was the genesis of Lucifer, the light-bearer and bringer of knowledge, which was a title originally held by the Christ, but was then stolen by Enki. To this day, Enki considers himself mankind’s benefactor, when the truth is he is nothing but an imposter.

Adam and Eve were then expelled from the Garden of Eden for defying “God” and birthed Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel make sacrifices to Yahweh, and Cain murders Abel when Yahweh favors Abel’s offering over his own. In other words, jealousy is what causes the first death on Earth. In the Gnostic texts, death comes into existence when Yaldabaoth becomes jealous of Sabaoth after Sophia elevates his son, who later becomes Enki’s brother Enlil in the Sumerian myths, above himself. Cain and Abel therefore represent the archetype of Enki and Enlil. After Abel is killed, Adam and Eve give birth to a new son to replace him whom they name Seth.

Seth became the second of ten generations from Adam, which culminated with Noah in antediluvian times. The bloodline of Seth was preserved after the Great Flood and continued through Noah’s son Shem, ending with the birth of Jesus. Jesus was believed to have been the reincarnation of Seth, having originated from a bloodline that was pure and undefiled by the archons. Is it possible that Seth/Jesus could have been the physical Earthly incarnation of Sabaoth? Who would serve as a better candidate to both receive and deliver the message of the Christ than the one who was the first to repent against the false god of this world, Yaldabaoth? The name Seth bears significant meaning, particularly in ancient Egyptian mythology. As mentioned in my previous post, the Egyptian god Set, also known as Seth, was responsible for the murder of his brother Osiris. In the Seth Material, which is a collection of works written and channeled by Jane Roberts, the entity who identified himself as Seth claimed that the Christ was never crucified. Instead, someone else was crucified in his place. The Gnostic texts seem to coincide with this theory that goes against what Orthodox Christianity has taught us. But if Sabaoth was the real Jesus, then who was the imposter who was killed and what is his association with Yaldabaoth?

We can find the answer to that question in The Second Treatise of the Great Seth where Jesus says, “For my death, which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death… It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I[t] was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thorns… And I was laughing at their ignorance.” This is an incredibly revealing statement by the Christ, as it tells us several things. For one, it tells us that the real Jesus was never crucified. Instead, it was another man named Simon who was nailed in his place. He refers to this Simon as being “their man”, which means Simon was the man of Jesus’ enemies, the archons. Not only that, but he clearly says it was the father of the archons who suffered. Who do we know as being the father of the archons? Yaldabaoth! He says he was laughing at their ignorance because they thought they could have the real Christ crucified, but what they failed to understand is that the Christ could not be killed because he was not of the flesh. The Christ is an eternal Aeon of the Pleroma, the incorruptible realm which the archons are ignorant of. That is why one of the names of the Demiurge is Samael, the blind/ignorant god. So instead, it was Yaldabaoth in his physical incarnation as Simon who suffered in his place. Jesus tells us that this Simon “bore the cross on his shoulder.” Simon of Cyrene was the individual who helped Jesus carry his cross prior to the crucifixion according to Orthodox Christian beliefs. In this case, “bearing the cross” meant he literally went to the cross in place of the real Jesus and was crucified.

But wait, didn’t I say that it was Simon Magus who was the false Jesus? Is it possible that Simon Magus and Simon of Cyrene were the same person? According to the Greek bishop Irenaeus, it would certainly seem that way. In his work titled Against Heresies, he states the following about Simon of Cyrene, “He appeared on earth as a man and performed miracles. Thus he himself did not suffer. Rather, a certain Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry his cross for him. It was he who was ignorantly and erroneously crucified, being transfigured by him, so that he might be thought to be Jesus. Moreover, Jesus assumed the form of Simon, and stood by laughing at them.”

Irenaeus’ account of the crucifixion appears to match what the Gnostic texts tell us from Jesus’ perspective. Not only that, but he also tells us that Jesus performed miracles just like Simon Magus also performed miracles. In other words, while the real Jesus incarnated on Earth to spread gnosis, Yaldabaoth himself incarnated as an imposter Christ to detract attention from the real Jesus’ message. The real Jesus taught that the kingdom of God (the Pleroma) is within and that we are gods in the flesh. The false Jesus, on the other hand, allowed himself to be crucified so that a religion would be established and built around his death and the belief that he died for the sins of man. He also knew that billions of people would eventually come to worship him, and that worship is what continues to fuel him and his minions to this day. The real Christ never desired worship, as it serves of no benefit to him. Instead, he condemned the worship of the man who was crucified. Jesus is quoted In The Apocalypse of Peter as saying, “And they will cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that they will become pure. But they will become greatly defiled and they will fall into a name of error, and into the hand of an evil, cunning man and a manifold dogma, and they will be ruled without law.” This is another very telling statement. Here, Jesus is telling us that he knows Simon Magus (Yaldabaoth) will use Christianity as a religion to his advantage by having his followers worship a dead man thinking that this will make them pure in spirit. Instead, these people will fall into ignorance and allow themselves to become ruled over by the man of lawlessness, who can be identified in the Bible as the Antichrist.

Interestingly enough, in the same Gnostic text, Jesus tell us the name of this dead man and it is not the name of Simon. Rather, it is “Hermas, of the first-born of unrighteousness” who is the imitation remnant that was created in the name of a dead man. In Gnosticism, the first-born of unrighteousness (Yaldabaoth) was Athoth. Athoth became known as Thoth to the ancient Egyptians and Hermes (Hermas) to the ancient Greeks. In other words, the dead man who was crucified was Thoth/Hermes incarnated in the physical body of Simon Magus! Thoth and Simon Magus certainly have a lot in common. Thoth is known as the god of magic and Simon Magus was one of the greatest sorcerers who ever lived. In fact, many other mythical magical beings from antiquity were also likely other living incarnations of Thoth such as Merlin, Hermes Trismegistus, Djedi, Zoroaster, King Solomon, Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Nostradamus, and many more. Hermes, like Enki, is also known as a trickster god and Simon Magus can definitely be seen as a trickster given his ability to fool billions of people around the world into thinking that he was the Christ. To the Simonians, one of the Gnostic sects, Simon Magus was deified as the Roman god Jupiter, who we also know as Zeus/Marduk. Yaldabaoth, as we know, is both Enki and Marduk, meaning Simon Magus represented both aspects of the false god!

It doesn’t end there, however. When reading further into The Apocalypse of Peter, we see Jesus say the following, “He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me.” Yet again, this is another great revelation. The real Jesus tells us he was sitting in a tree laughing as his “substitute” was being crucified. This may make some people think of the image of the laughing Buddha, another Christ-like figure. But isn’t it interesting how Jesus seems to allude to the fact that his replacement was crucified on a tree rather than a cross? Is it possible that the cross was meant to be symbolic and not a literal representation of how the false Jesus died? Could this be the reason why we see depictions of Thoth in ancient Egyptian art holding the ankh, the cross which was considered a symbol of life? The tree could also be seen equally as symbolic, representing the Tree of Life. In Norse mythology, Odin was said to have sacrificed himself by hanging from the infamous world tree called Yggdrasil, the Norse version of the Tree of Life.

Going back to The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, halfway through the text, Jesus makes perhaps the most controversial and heretical proclamation you will ever find anywhere. He calls Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Moses, John the Baptist, and the twelve prophets all “laughingstocks”! Now, why would Jesus be referring to some of the most renowned men of the Bible, some of which were of his own bloodline, as being jokes? Evidently, he did this to emphasize that all of these men were without gnosis. They did not know of the true God (the Monad) because they were all a product of the false god, Yahweh/Yaldabaoth. It may still come as a surprise to some that Jesus would call these men laughingstocks, particularly John the Baptist and his own disciples. To be fair, he does call these disciples “imitations of the true prophets”, so it is quite possible that he was referring to the disciples of Simon Magus rather than his own followers. In my next post, I will go further in depth about one of his disciples in particular, Simon Peter, and how Simon Magus is associated with him as well as the Apostle Paul, Nero, and John the Baptist.

Stay tuned.

Justin