A Abraxas represents "a mystery, an enigma."74 It is the "maker of effect" 75 that governs "deceitful reality,"76 as celebrated through the conjurer's art of illusion. Abraxas is the great power of sleight-of-hand, great "because man does not perceive it at all."77 Abraxas is "fullness uniting itself with emptiness," 78 and therefore is muse to magic involving vanishing. Abraxas is "love and the murder of love,"79 a cosmic drama played out every time a magician plunges a sword through the lady in the basket. Meanings: • Absolute nothingness -- Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Volume 3 (1996) • Blessed name "Abraxas. The adorable, blessed name -- the unutterable word." -- Moses W. Redding, The Illustrated History of Freemasonry (2004) • Gemstone engraved with "a mystical word used as a symbol of divinity" -- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766), translated by Edward Allen McCormick (1962) "I should like someday to find and secure an abraxas." -- Judith Tarr, Pride of Kings (2001) • God of the Egyptians, Romans, and Gnostics, knowledge of whom resurfaced through the writings of Carl Jung and Hermann Hesse -- Ellen Hart, Immaculate Midnight (200 ) • Holy word -- Ludwig Blau, "Abraxas," JewishEncyclopedia.com (2002) • Ineffable name -- Ludwig Blau, "Abraxas," JewishEncyclopedia.com (2002) • Infinity -- Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Volume 3 (1996) • Master key "From the papyri and the magic gems it is certain that the word refers to the use of the Ineffable Name as a master-key with which the powers of all the upper and the nether world are locked or unlocked, bound or loosened." -- Ludwig Blau, "Abraxas," JewishEncyclopedia.com (2002) 74 Ellen Hart, Immaculate Midnight (200 ) 75 Marvin Spiegelman, Reich, Jung, Regardie & Me (1992) 76 Carl Jung, the third sermon of the Seven Sermons to the Dead (1917) 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid.