Simon Magus (first century) was a magician.
Oh Simon Magus, who hides in Philemon, are you in my garden or am I in yours? ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Vol. VI, Page 244
Simon Magus (first century) was a magician.
In the Acts of the Apostles (8:9 – 24), after becoming a Christian, he wishes to purchase the power of transmitting the Holy Spirit from Peter and Paul (Jung saw this account as a caricature).
Further accounts of him are found in the apocryphal Acts of Peter, and in writings of the Church fathers. He has been seen as one of the founders of Gnosticism, and in the second century a Simonian sect arose.
He is said to have always traveled with a woman who was the reincarnation of Helen of Troy, whom he found in a brothel in Tyre.
Jung cited this as an example of the anima figure (“Soul and earth,” 1927 [CW IO,§ 75]) .
On Simon Magus, see Gilles Quispel, Gnosis als Weltreligion, Zurich (Zurich: Origo Verlag, 1951), pp. 51 – 70, and G. R. S. Mead, Simon Magus: An Essay on· the Founder of Simonianism Based on the Ancient Sources with a Reevaluation of His Philosophy and Teachings (London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1892). ~The Black Books, Vol. VI, Page 245, fn 214
