DeConick A.D

212
HELL WALKS AND STAR TREKS
conquers bear-headed Astaphaeus, king of Venus. At the gate of Gemini
the initiate takes on dog-faced Eloaeus, ruler of the planet Mercury. Finally,
Horaeus, the ass-faced ruler of the moon, is vanquished at the star
gate Cancer. At each gate, the avenger stuns the rulers with names and
prayers of power that defeat them.
We are fortunate to have recorded in Origen’s writings all the prayers of
demon defeat, along with references to various objects or signs that were
displayed along the zodiac route. What is even more phenomenal is that
one of the Ophians’ ritual objects has survived the centuries.
In 1949, Professor Campbell Bonner published an article in which
he identified an ancient green jasper gem as an Ophian amulet (Bonner
1949). On the front of the gem is carved a lion-headed god identified
by the titles Ialdabaoth and Ariel, Lion of God. This gem shows us what
Ialdabaoth looked like, as imagined by the Ophians. He is a manlike god
with the fierce head of a lion. He is dressed in Roman garb, wielding a
scepter. On the reverse side of the gem is a list of the seven Ophian planetary
rulers: Ia[ldabaoth], Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloaeus, Horaeus, and
Astaphaeus. This remarkable gem was once worn by an Ophian initiate,
either as a pendant or a ring of power, whose display at the zodiac gates
defeated the planetary rulers and opened up passage for the ascent of the
avenger’s spirit (figure 7.3).
Elohim’s Star Trekkers
Another Gnostic, by the name of Justin, swore to anyone who would follow
him that he would give them “what no eye has seen and no ear has
heard and what has not been conceived by the heart” (see Broek 2003).
As their mystic leader, he would conduct them directly to the Good,
the Father God. Justin claimed for himself and his followers the name
Gnostics because, he said, they had exclusive knowledge about the whereabouts
of the Father and had met him personally at the end of their ecstatic
sky treks.
Justin penned a book about these things, which Hippolytus of Rome
preserves ( Refutation 5.26.1–27.5). Justin is operating in a religious buffer
that is pregnant with Greek and Christian piety and literacy. Although the
Greek world of gods and heroes is Justin’s backbone, he operates from a
distinctly Christian viewpoint in which history anticipates and culminates