"Mandaeans trace their ancestry back to the rivers of ancient Mesopotamia and revere John the Baptist as their greatest prophet."
https://indypendent.org/2019/11/by-the-rivers-of-babylon-these-iraqi-gnostics-hold-water-sacred-jordanian-authorities-wont-let-them-worship/
"Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him."
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%203%3A13-17&version=NRSV
"the Mandaeans. Also called Sabians, they are followers of the last Gnostic religion to survive continuously from ancient times down to the present day.
Gnostic religions view the material world as the product of a mistake in the heavenly realm, the creation of one or more inferior divine beings rather than the supreme God"
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/mind-and-soul/this-tiny-minority-of-iraqis-follows-an-ancient-gnostic-religion-and-there-s-a-chance-they-could-be-your-neighbors-too/ar-AALgS5c
"Now, Sophia, who is the wisdom of afterthought and who constitutes an eternal realm, conceived of a thought from herself, with the conception of the invisible spirit and foreknowledge. She wanted to bring forth something like herself, without the consent of the spirit, who had not given approval, without her partner and without his consideration. The male did not give approval. She did not find her partner, and she considered this without the spirit’s consent and without the knowledge of her partner. Nonetheless, she gave birth. And because of the invincible power within her, her thought was not an idle thought. Something came out of her that was imperfect and different in appearance from her, for she had produced it without her partner. It did not resemble its mother and was misshapen.
When Sophia saw what her desire had produced, it changed into the figure of a snake with the face of a lion. Its eyes were like flashing bolts of lightning. She cast it away from her, outside that realm so that none of the immortals would see it. She had produced it ignorantly.
She surrounded it with a bright cloud and put a throne in the middle of the cloud so that no one would see it except the holy spirit, who is called the mother of the living. She named her offspring Yaldabaoth."
"Yaldabaoth organized everything after the pattern of the first realms that had come into being, so that he might create everything in an incorruptible form. Not that he had seen the incorruptible ones. Rather, the power that is in him, that he had taken from his mother, produced in him the pattern for the world order.
When he saw creation surrounding him, and the throng of angels around him who had come forth from him, he said to them, I am a jealous god and there is no other god beside me.
But by announcing this, he suggested to the angels with him that there is another god. For if there were no other god, of whom would he be jealous?"
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-meyer.html