“Following the impulse of the divine light, man soared higher and higher in his aspirations; very soon he began presenting not the image of his Creator Ilda-Baoth but rather that of the Supreme Being, the “primitive man”, Ennoia.
Then the Demiurgus was filled with rage and envy; and fixing his jealous eye on the abyss of matter, his looks envenomed with passion were suddenly reflected in it as in a mirror; the reflection became animate, and there arose out of the abyss Satan, serpent, Ophiomorphos – “the embodiment of envy and of cunning. He is the union of all that is most base in matter, with the hate, envy, and craft of a spiritual intelligence.”
After that, always in spite of the perfection of man, Ilda-Baoth created the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable, and animal, with all evil instincts and properties. Impotent to annihilate the Tree of Knowledge which grows in his sphere as in every one of the planetary regions but bent upon detaching “man” from his spiritual protectress, Ilda-Baoth forbade him to eat of its fruit, for fear it should reveal to mankind the mysteries of the superior world. But Sophia-Achamoth, who loved and protected the man whom she had animated, sent her own genius Ophis, in the form of a serpent to induce man to transgress the selfish and unjust command. And “man” suddenly became capable of comprehending the mysteries of creation.
“Ilda-Baoth revenged himself by punishing the first pair, for man, through his knowledge, had already provided for himself a companion out of his spiritual and material half. He imprisoned man and woman in a dungeon of matter, in the body so unworthy of his nature, wherein man is still enthralled. But Achamoth protected him still. She established between her celestial region and “man”, a current of divine light, and kept constantly supplying him with this spiritual illumination.
Then follow allegories embodying the idea of dualism, or the struggle between good and evil, spirit and matter, which is found in every cosmogony, and the source of which is again to be sought in India. The types and antitypes represent the heroes of this Gnostic Pantheon, borrowed from the most ancient mythopaeic ages. But in these personages, Ophis and Ophiomorphos, Sophia and Sophia-Achamoth, Adam-Kadmon, and Adam, the planetary genii and the Divine Aeons, we can also recognize very easily the models of our biblical copies the euhemerized patriarchs.
The archangels, angels, virtues, and powers are all found under other names in the Vedas and the Buddhistic system. The Avestic Supreme Being, Zero-ana, or “Boundless Time”, is the type of all these Gnostic and kabalistic “Depths”, “Crowns”, and even of the Chaldean En-Soph. The six Amshaspands, created through the “Word” of Ormazd, the “First-Born”, have their reflections in Bythos and his emanations, and the antitype of Ormazd – Ahriman and his devs also enter into the composition of Ilda-Baoth and his six material, though not wholly evil, planetary genii.
Achamoth, afflicted with the evils which befall humanity, notwithstanding her protection, beseeches the celestial mother Sophia – her antitype – to prevail on the unknown DEPTH to send down Christos, (the son and emanation of the “Celestial Virgin”), to the help of perishing humanity. Ilda-Baoth and his six sons of matter are shutting out the divine light from mankind. Man must be saved.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 