Answer the question at the end by quoting:

Steranko was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. According to Steranko's authorized biography, his grandparents emigrated from Ukraine to settle in the anthracite coal-mining region of eastern Pennsylvania. Steranko's father, one of nine siblings, began working in the mines at age 10, and as an adult became a tinsmith. Steranko later said his father and uncles "would bootleg coal - they would go up into a mountain and open up a shaft.
By his account, Steranko learned stage magic using paraphernalia from his father's stage magician act, and in his teens spent several summers working with circuses and carnivals, working his way up to sideshow performer as a fire-eater and in acts involving a bed of nails and sleight-of-hand. At school, he competed on the gymnastics team, on the rings and parallel bars, and later took up boxing and, under swordmaster Dan Phillips in New York City, fencing. At 17, Steranko and another teenage boy were arrested for a string of burglaries and car thefts in Pennsylvania. Up through his early 20s, Steranko performed as an illusionist, escape artist, close-up magician in nightclubs, and musician, having played in drum and bugle corps in his teens before forming his own bands during the early days of rock and roll. Steranko, whose first band, in 1956, was called The Lancers, did not perform under his own name, claiming he used pseudonyms to help protect himself from enemies. He also claims to have put the first go-go girls onstage. The seminal rock and roll group Bill Haley and his Comets was based in nearby Philadelphia and Steranko, who played a Jazzmaster guitar, often performed in the same local venues, sometimes on the same bill, and became friendly with Haley guitarist Frank Beecher, who became a musical influence. By the late 1960s, Steranko was a member of a New York City magicians' group, the Witchdoctor's Club. Comics historian Mark Evanier notes that the influential comic-book creator Jack Kirby, who "based some of his characters ... on people in his life or in the news", was "inspired" to create the escape artist character Mister Miracle "by an earlier career of writer-artist Jim Steranko".

What did he do before forming his own band?

At school, he competed on the gymnastics team, on the rings and parallel bars, and later took up boxing

Answer the question at the end by quoting:

Peter Green (born Peter Allen Greenbaum, 29 October 1946) is a British blues rock guitarist. As the founder of Fleetwood Mac, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Green's songs, such as "Albatross", "Black Magic Woman", "Oh Well", "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and "Man of the World", appeared on the record charts, and several have been adapted by a variety of musicians. Green was a major figure in the "second great epoch" of the British blues movement.
On 27 June 1970, Green appeared at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music with John Mayall, Rod Mayall (organ), Ric Grech (bass) and Aynsley Dunbar (drums). Also soon after leaving Fleetwood Mac, he accompanied former bandmate keyboardist Peter Bardens (Peter B's Looners) on Bardens' solo LP The Answer, playing lead guitar on several tracks. In that same year, he recorded a jam session with drummer Godfrey Maclean, keyboardists Zoot Money and Nick Buck, and bassist Alex Dmochowski of Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation; Reprise Records released the session as The End of the Game, Peter's first post-Fleetwood Mac solo album. In 1971 he had a brief reunion with Fleetwood Mac, helping them to complete a US tour after guitarist Jeremy Spencer had left the group, performing under the pseudonym Peter Blue. He recorded two tracks for the album Juju with Bobby Tench's band Gass; a solo single and another with Nigel Watson, sessions with B. B. King in London in 1972 and an uncredited appearance on Fleetwood Mac's Penguin LP in 1973, on the song "Night Watch". Green's mental illness and drug use had become entrenched at this time and he faded into professional obscurity. In the early 2000s there were rumours of a reunion of the early line-up of Fleetwood Mac, involving Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. The two guitarists and vocalists were apparently unconvinced of the merits of such a project, but in April 2006, during a question-and-answer session on the Penguin Fleetwood Mac fan website, bassist John McVie said of the reunion idea: If we could get Peter and Jeremy to do it, I'd probably, maybe, do it. I know Mick would do it in a flash. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much chance of Danny doing it. Bless his heart.

What about the article intrigued you?

Green's mental illness and drug use had become entrenched at this time and he faded into professional obscurity.

Answer the question at the end by quoting:

Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Arabic: mndy'y@ Manda'iyah) is a gnostic religion with a strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Noah, Shem, Aram, and especially John the Baptist. The Aramaic manda means "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis. According to most scholars, Mandaeaism originated sometime in the first three centuries AD, in Mesopotamia.
As noted above Mandaean theology is not systematic. There is no one single authoritative account of the creation of the cosmos, but rather a series of several accounts. Some scholars, such as Edmondo Lupieri, maintain that comparison of these different accounts may reveal the diverse religious influences upon which the Mandaeans have drawn and the ways in which the Mandaean religion has evolved over time. In contrast with the religious texts of the western Gnostic sects formerly found in Syria and Egypt, the earliest Mandaean religious texts suggest a more strictly dualistic theology, typical of other Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism, Manichaeism, and the teachings of Mazdak. In these texts, instead of a large pleroma, there is a discrete division between light and darkness. The ruler of darkness is called Ptahil (similar to the Gnostic Demiurge), and the originator of the light (i.e. God) is only known as "the great first Life from the worlds of light, the sublime one that stands above all works." When this being emanated, other spiritual beings became increasingly corrupted, and they and their ruler Ptahil created our world. The name Ptahil is suggestive of the Egyptian Ptah--the Mandaeans believe that they were resident in Egypt for a while--joined to the semitic El, meaning "god". The issue is further complicated by the fact that Ptahil alone does not constitute the demiurge but only fills that role insofar as he is the creator of our world. Rather, Ptahil is the lowest of a group of three "demiurgic" beings, the other two being Yushamin (a.k.a. Joshamin) and Abathur. Abathur's demiurgic role consists of his sitting in judgment upon the souls of mortals. The role of Yushamin, the senior being, is more obscure; wanting to create a world of his own, he was severely punished for opposing the King of Light. The name may derive from Iao has-sammayim (in Hebrew: Yahweh "of the heavens").

Can you elaborate on this?
When this being emanated, other spiritual beings became increasingly corrupted, and they and their ruler Ptahil created our world.