George R S Mead S Essay On Simon Magus

According to Apocrypha, Simon Magus was a contemporary of the Biblical apostles and an important religious figure. Biblical legend tells that Simon was trying to buy his way into the number of Apostles but got rejected by Peter. Later he started preaching as well and collected a group of adherents. In his book, G.R.S. Mead compares the deeds of Simon with those of Peter and Paul and casts a look on the Simonian ideas, which he believes are similar to the system of Theosophy popular in Mead's times.

The first reason why I have ventured on this present inquiry is that Simon Magus is invariably mentioned by the heresiologists as the founder of the first heresy of the commonly-accepted Christian era, and is believed by them to have been the originator of those systems of religio-philosophy and theosophy which are now somewhat inaccurately classed together under the heading of Gnosticism. And though this assumption of the patristic heresiologists is entirely incorrect, as may be proved from their own works, it is nevertheless true that Simonianism is the first system that, as far as our present records go, came into conflict with what has been regarded as the orthodox stream of Christianity. A second reason is that I believe that Simon has been grossly misrepresented, and entirely misunderstood, by his orthodox opponents, whoever they were, in the first place, and also, in the second place, by those who have ignorantly and without enquiry copied from them. But my chief reason is that the present revival of theosophical enquiry throws a flood of light on Simon's teachings, whenever we can get anything approaching a first-hand statement of them, and shows that it was identical in its fundamentals with the Esoteric Philosophy of all the great religions of the world.

An Essay on the Founder of Simonianism Based on the Ancient Sources with a Re-evaluation of his Philosophy and Teachings. First published in 1892. Mead (1863-1933) was an English historian, writer, editor, translator, and an influential member of the Theosophical Society as well as the founder of the Quest Society. His scholarly works dealt mainly with the Hermetic and Gnostic religions of Late Antiquity and were exhaustive for the time period. He became interested in Theosophy while at Cambridge University and later abandoned the teaching profession to take the role of Helena Blavatsky's private secretary, having joined her Theosophical Society in 1884. He also became a joint-secretary of the society's Esoteric Section reserved for those deemed more advanced. He made many contributions to The Theosophical Review (formerly Lucifer) and became sole editor in 1907. In 1909 he and some 700 members resigned from the Theosophical Society in protest against Charles Webster Leadbetter's reinstatement, and he went on to found the Quest Society which took an undogmatic approach to the comparative study of religion, philosophy and science, holding lectures in central London and publishing The Quest: A Quarterly Review which ran from 1909-31 with many respected contributors.