Inner alchemy archives - Serpents

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From: Mats Winther
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 09:53:30 +0100

Among the myths of India there is one that parallels the vomiting snake
mythologem. It is called "The churning of the sea". I give it here in
abbreviated form.

Indra had lost his vigour. To restore his strenght the gods followed
Vishnu's advice. Vishnu promised that that the snake Vasuki would produce a
liquid of immortality. They took the Snake and twined him around mount
Mandara and began to churn. The gods were at the tail, and the demons at
the head. But as they were churning the mountain began to shake and did
great damage to the inhabitants of the ocean. And the heat destroyed the
animals and birds in the surroundings. The mountain threatened to break
through the earth and destroy it. But the giant turtle got beneath the
mountain and became its pivot. The churning went on faster and faster. The
snake suffered from his painful labour. Torrents of venom escaped from his
jaws and poured down on earth in a vast river and threatened to destroy
everything, even the gods. To save the world from destruction, Siva drank
the poison. But the poison burnt his throat. In the end the gods had their
reward. The sea of venom created, became the sea of milk which engendered
many wonderful gods, among them the Moon and Lakshmi, the god of fortune.
But first of all came Surabhi, the marvellous cow, mother and nurse of all
living things.

Comments: the mythologem of the spewing snake seem to be (1) extremely
dangerous, (2) procreative on the grand scale.
I would appreciate if someone could relay the myth of "Dragon spewing out
Jason". I only have references to this myth in my library.

Mats Winther

Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 00:19:26 -0800
From: Richard Roberts

I believe I can slay two alchemical antagonists with one
email: Mats Winther's question re the myth of the dragon spewing out Jason
and George Matchette's inquiry about "wolves as part of the alchemical
process." There is a synchronicity between this day, Good Friday, and the
answer to these questions, for both deal with that station in the hero's
journey described in Joseph Campbell's THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES as
"the belly of the whale," which incorporates symbolism of the Night-Sea
Journey: Joseph in the Well, Jonah in the Whale, Entombment of Christ,
illus. in the book by a page from the 15th century "Biblia Pauperum."
Campbell writes, this station is "a sphere of rebirth symbolized in the
worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of
conquering... the threshold is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear
to have died."

To my critics who believe that spiritual evolution can occur only on the
earth plane (incarnation), I may have more to say when I have more time, but
alchemy is devoted to the process whereby spirit is liberated from matter,
Indeed, Coomaraswamy writes that "no creature can attain a higher grade
of nature without ceasing to exist." Christ in the tomb is a matephor of Light
(Gnostic Nous) trapped in its antithesis the darkness of matter (nigredo).
In Eastern philosophy, the paralell is to yin swallowing yang. The "belly
of the whale" is a precursor, however, to rebirth, and wolf and dragon
represent nigredo.

In the 1970s Campbell began to augment his lectures with color slide
projections, which appealed to the Sensation and Feeling functions as well
as the Thinking function. He stayed in my home on most of his West coast
trips in the 1970s, and I drove him to many of his lectures; hence, I saw
these slides many, many times. I recall the dragon "spewing Jason" from a
4th or 5th century Greek vase on which it had been painted. It was a magic
potion from Athene which enabled Jason to emerge from the dragon's maw.
Michael Maier's "Scrutinium Chymicum" (1687) has an engraving of a wolf
eating a dead king. Then in the background, the wolf is consumed in fire,
from which the resurrected king emerges. Thus, the king represents
spirit-Sun-gold descended to and devoured by Physis-Saturn-lead.
I am having dinner Sat. night with Jean Erdman, Joseph Campbell's widow,
and Mark Watts, the son of Zen scholar Alan Watts. It was Watts who brought
Campbell and me together exactly thirty years ago. I found, to present her,
two old poems I dedicated to my mentor, and since one has a
sacrificial/alchemical quality, I shall send them as attachments. In this
holiest week of the year, it is appropriate that the questions on the wolf
and dragon should direct us towards thinking about the rebirth of the Christ
within each of us.

Blessings to all,
Richard Roberts

Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 13:51:03 -0800
From: George Matchette

To: Richard Roberts and other interested members
>Richard wrote (in part):
>To my critics who believe that spiritual evolution can occur only on the
>earth plane (incarnation), I may have more to say when I have more time, but
>alchemy is devoted to the process whereby spirit is liberated from matter,
>Indeed, Coomaraswamy writes that "no creature can attain a higher grade
>of nature without ceasing to exist." Christ in the tomb is a matephor of Light
>(Gnostic Nous) trapped in its antithesis the darkness of matter (nigredo).
>In Eastern philosophy, the paralell is to yin swallowing yang. The "belly
>of the whale" is a precursor, however, to rebirth, and wolf and dragon
>represent nigredo.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Since I last wrote, I had the
insight that man tends to be vertical in his stations, roughly
corresponding to the triume brain representing survival (reptilian),
social/emotional (mamallian) and intellectual/spiritual (neo-cortex). My
experience and thought is that the path of spirit includes a shift of
identification and experience from lower to higher that generally requires
one or more catalytic agents (teacher, friend, mystic experiences, divine
presence, etc). This path is anything but linear in that our capacities
from low to higher (or, if that is too perjorative, early to later
evolutionary stages of development) remain with us as potentialities. (For
example, most of us experience strong emotional feelings of loss and
sadness when someone close to us dies, however we might think, and even
experience, the unity of consciousness that is the eternity and beyond of
the reach of fleshy cessation of function. ) So, the wolf is devouring and
protective at the same time: a part that attaches all of his emotions to
belonging, with the possibility of knowing a love that is less conditional.

Does the wolf, then, have to die for this to happen, as is suggested? I
think so, and just barely do-able (like Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammad, etc.)
because you have to actually breathe (or perhaps get used to non-breathing)
the eternity and that's not so easy for a wolf to do, dependent as he is on
physical and social survival for self-definition.

George Matchette
San Francisco, California

From: Mats Winther
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 14:45:16 +0200

Richard,
The meaning of the symbol "snake spewing out man" has never been
questioned. Of course it means the emergence from the unconscious of the
renewed man. However, the symbol "man spewing out snake" is quite
different.

It is very good that we define our standpoints. Yours is a gnostic,
dualistic, which you readily admit. I completely reject this view of
alchemy. To me, this is gnosticism. How can you say that "alchemy is
devoted to the process whereby spirit is liberated from matter"? You know
very well that this statement belongs to the gnostic tradition. The freeing
of the spirit only means expanding consciousness; a freeing from the
vulgar, childish dependence on the unconscious. This only means growing up.
Of course, one could sail upon the clouds forever and collect spiritual
knowledge, but it leads nowhere. Alchemy concerns much more sophisticated
and hard-attained things. After the almost trivial concern of freeing the
spirit, the spirit will descend. This only means that the adept once again
takes up the interest in "real action" in the world (this, however, could
be a big step for some).
Numerous are the references to the mythologem "soul returning to the body"
during the Nigredo. And numerous are the references to "the descent of the
spirit upon the adept" to invoke the process. Obviously the alchemists
speak a language quite contradictory to yours "liberating spirit from
matter".
I state: The Nigredo occurs AFTER the ascent/descent of the spirit, not
before. Nigredo is NOT the state of dependance on the unconscious that the
spirit has to be freed from. It is NOT the childs dependance on the mother.
Emerging from the Nigredo does NOT signify a liberation of the spirit from
the naive mother bondage - the dependance and bondage to the world. The
alchemist at the beginning of the Opus (the Nigredo) has already done away
with this trivial matter. He is a grown up adult. The state of being
trapped in the darkness of matter, the alchemists refer to as Prima
Materia. Certainly, a Dissolutio is needed to achieve enlightenment. But
then a Coagulatio must occur, the volatile (now conscious) spirit is again
fixated. And now appears the Nigredo with an analogous process.
To say that "Christ in the tomb is a metaphor of Light (Gnostic Nous)
trapped in its antithesis the darkness of matter (nigredo)" is a very
objectionable depreciation of one of the grand symbols of our time. You
identify Christ as the unconscious spirit trapped in the Prima Materia. By
the time Christ went into the tomb he was the most enlightened person on
Earth. Why would he be trapped in the unconsciousness of matter? No, his
spirit was completely strong and free. Nothing could lock him up. The
Gospels tell that he already as a child freed himself from his parents. He
soon were superior even to the priests and the scholars. So the freeing
from Prima Materia, freeing from the Mother (unconscious) and attaining
"gnosis" (enlightenment) , was only a childish business to him. This
problem was long since tackled. But the spirit descended like a dove. It
wanted some "real action". To attain spiritual enlightenment was certainly
not enough, because this only concerned his consciousness. So he went out
in the world as the Christ and got some real action. Here is where Nigredo
occurs. The descent goes even farther - back into Mother Earth, into death.
This is the containment within the vessel. The time now comes for the soul
to make the same journey as the spirit before him. The soul leaves the body
as the Spirit left the Prima Materia in the Dissolutio process. Then the
soul will enter again into the body and a new personality will rise. The
alchemical symbology is, to a certain extent, analogous in the spirit/soul
cases - this is why the concept of the Prima Materia sometimes coincide
with the concept of Nigredo. But in Nigredo the body itself is within the
vessel. So the Nigredo and resurection from death is not about liberating
the spirit (Light) from matter. Quite the opposite. It is attaining a new
conjuction of spirit and matter, a new conjunction of soul and body. When
Christ arose from the dead, He was The Lord, and the Father entrusted the
Kingdom to Him. And He arose not as a "spirit freed from matter". He arose
to his reign WITH his body (I wish there were a believing Christian in this
forum to support me).

Mats Winther

From: DONALD MINSON
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 00:24:54 +0000

From "Psychology and Religion" (somewhere in pars 138-149):

"Ultimately, every individual life is at the same time the eternal life of
the species. The individual is continuously 'historical' because strictly
time-bound; the relation of the type to time, on the other hand , is irrelevant.
Since the life of Christ is archetypal to a high degree, it represents to just that
degree the life of the archetype. But since the archtetype is the unconscoious
precondition of every human life, its life , when revealed, also reveals the
hidden, unconscious ground-life of every individual. That is to say, what
happens in the life of Christ happens always and everywhere. In the
Christian archetype all lives of this kind are prefigured and are expressed
over and over again or once and for all."

From "Aion" (56/57):

"The author of the [Clemintine] Homilies espouses a Petrine Christianity
distinctly "High Church" or ritualistic in flavour. This, taken together with
his doctrine of the dual aspect of god, brings him into close relationship with
the early Jewish-Christian Church, where, according to the testimony of
Epiphanius, we find the Ebionite notion that God had two sons, an elder one,
Satan, and a younger one, Christ-- (Panarium, ed. by Oehler, I, p.267).
Michaias, one of the speakers in the dialogue, suggests as much when
he remarks that if good and evil were begotten in the same way they must be
brothers--
(Cleminitine Homilies XX, ch. VII)."

Donald Minson

From: Mats Winther
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 09:56:50 +0200

The Satan-Christ brothership:

J B Russel "Satan", Cornell University Press, 1981, p.56, 153-154
referencing:
Lactantius (c.245-325) "Divine Institutes" 2.8 etcetera
Epiphanius "Panarion" 24.6
C G Jung "Aion" par.77
CG Jung "The Spirit Mercurius" par.271 f
referencing:
Michael Psellus "De daemonibus" (trans.Marcilio Ficino),fol.N.Vv.
Epiphanius "Panarion" XXX,16,2 (edit.Karl Holl, Leipzig 1915-33)

The source of satanic myth is "The Book of Enoch" (probably mid second
century B.C). But the book mentions the Son of Man and Samyaza. This was
before the term "Christ", but the meaning is the same, for those who aren't
completely blind.

Mats Winther

Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997
From: Bernard Bovasso

Mats Winther writes:
>The disciple "pierces the snake", and "nails it to the tree". This,
>symbolically, is the breaking free from the Mother. The hero killing
>thedragon is similar, except that the disciple seems to have a real
>problem, the snake being so big. The freeing of the spirit from the
>Prima Materia then, is nothing other than taking up an interest in
>that which is not material, like dream interpretation, hard work,
>intellectual understanding, contributions to society by work.

Mats:
Do you not overlook something of the process by the conclusion
you draw? The nailing of the snake to the tree mimics the
crucifixion of Jesus. But is the latter, quite to the contrary, a
freeing of the spirit from the mother? St. Augustine notes:

"Like a bridegroom Christ went forth from his chamber,
he went out with a presage of his nuptials into the field
of the world. He came to the marriage bed of the cross,
and there, in mounting it, he consumated his marriage.
And when he perceived the sighs of the creature, he lovingly
gave himself in place of his bride, and he joined himself
to the woman forever." (from his *Sermo Suppositus*)

In this case the Mother is at once the tree, the wood of the cross
and the Church. Where Christ become the groom of his Mother,
the alchemical Mercurious must be freed from the protohylic
matricircle (as *materia prima*). Accordingly, the oroboric serpent
is not broken, or broken out of, but bent straight to virtually "rise
up." It then has become brazen, like the serpent in the Garden.
The repose of Christ, on the Cross that is his Mother, is quite in
antithesis to the rising up of the brazen Mercurious. Because of
this seeming anomaly Hermes takes up identity during the Christian
epoch as satan and by which alchemy, as the precursor to modern
science, is addressed as demonic. It may then be clear that the freeing
of the Mercurious from the mother stone is simply a
beginning to the (alchemical) process that must eventually
resolve in death by crucifixtion, and then resurrection unto
eternal life. But how much of such life is embraced according to the
"sighs of the creature" and which becomes the destiny of the Christ who
ventures out into the field of the world?

In that case where is the line drawn between good and evil in the
Christ-Lapis parallel? In a previous post (alchemy-email, 97-04-01) Donald
Minson writes:

"The author of the [Clemintine] Homilies espouses a
Petrine Christianity distinctly "High Church" or ritualistic
in flavour. This, taken together with his doctrine of the
dual aspect of god, brings him into close relationship with
the early Jewish-Christian Church, where, according to
the testimony of Epiphanius, we find the Ebionite notion
that God had two sons, an elder one, Satan, and a
younger one, Christ-- (Panarium, ed. by Oehler, I, p.267).
Michaias, one of the speakers in the dialogue, suggests
as much when he remarks that if good and evil were
begotten in the same way they must be brothers--
(Cleminitine Homilies XX, ch. VII)."

In view of this it would appear that the *tertium quid* mediating
between, good and evil, or Christ and Satan is the Mercurious
which is at once both Christ and Satan and also a figure in its own
right. Indeed, the Mercurious immediately points to what I call
the "Hermetic function," the endopsychic intuition, the psychlogical
function that is an embarrassment to reasonable men, if not their
nemesis.

Bernard

From: Mats Winther
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 23:36:16 +0200

Bernard,
I'm glad you made the observation that the drama of Christ does not mean
freeing the spirit from matter. I myself protested against this gnostic
notion in an earlier mail (in the answer to "Nigredo Friday").

This is how I understand the "brazen serpent" symbol. You are right in
saying that it is analogous to the crucifixion, but the meaning is
different. The "serpens mercurialis" is actually sometimes shown nailed to
a cross instead of a tree. I understand it as an "expanding consciousness"
symbol. The breaking up of the Urobourous into a straight serpent, would be
to take the spirit from its' unconscious state of infantile wholeness in
Prima Materia. The breaking up of the Urobouros circle has been discussed
at length earlier, but as "womiting tail" (which seems to be a more
compulsive variation of the theme). To a Christian the black serpent would
undoubtedly be interpreted as Satan. To the alchemist, however, it is
Mercurius. But as Satan is the devil of God, so is Mercurius the devil of
the alchemist. This nailing to the tree of the serpent is the same thing as
enclosement of serpent, or entombment of serpent. This is what the
alchemist does first - he takes the serpens mercurialis and locks it up in
the alchemical vessel. This has a similar meaning as the nailing to the
tree; the nailing fast to the ground; the enclosement in the tomb. The
primitive spirit has his freedom restricted. This is exactly what God did
with his devil; Satan. He threw him in jail down in hell where he sits
enclosed (but sometimes manages to escape). Odin nailed Loki to the rock.
And Prometheus was also treated in a similar way by Zeus.

Now, the alchemist does the same thing as God. He threws his devil into his
little hell, which is the Vas Hermeticum under which the fire burns. When
the primitive spirit is locked up, the conscious spirit can break
completely free from him. So the tertiary spirit leaves the primitive
wholeness and flies away, higher and higher, and develops his understanding
to become a beautiful blue dragon. So the breaking free of the spirit from
Prima Materia means that a part of it, "the hopeless one", - the black,
wingless dragon - must stay behind and be enclosed so he cannot run around
freely, creating projections, lures and temptations for the mind. So this
is why "freedom of the spirit" is achieved by enclosing (or brazing) the
primitive Spiritus Mercurius.
But if a wholeness is to be achieved, the tertiary spirit, fully developed,
must return and again unite with the dark spirit in the vessel to achieve
the quaternity wholeness. This time it will not be a primitive black
Urobourous as in the beginning.

The differentiated tertiary spirit of the Godhead is the Holy Trinity. It
broke free from its' primitive conjunction with Satan when he was cast into
the abyss. But a wholeness must again be achieved, so God must descend from
his lofty height of supreme wisdom and again unite with the left behind
dark force. He descends with his body Jesus Christ and undergoes the
conjunction in the vessel of the grave. However, He was not quite
successful since He couldn't carry his cross and had to be nailed to it.
But at the second coming of Christ, He will be strong enough to go through
with it, and the Godhead becomes a four-unity. So God does with himself
what he earlier did with Satan. Satan was "crucified" and cast down into
the tomb of earth. Now, He lets himself be crucified and entombed. But this
actually means a unification of spirit and matter, of Heaven and Earth.
There will be no split no more. Heaven is here on Earth. And this is what
Jesus says in the Gospels.

Its' the same with the alchemist. He does the same to himself as he earlier
did with serpens mercurialis. He descends into the grave of the Vas
Hermeticum to achieve a new wholeness and nigredo ensues. Here he will be
transformed. (But a crucifixion of the alchemist would probably mean a
physical death i.e. a conjunction, but at the same time a failure. This can
happen when the alchemist cannot "carry his cross" and go through with the
descent and conjunction. It would be a kind of failure similar to Christs'
- although the latter could hardly be called a failure).

So the ascent of the spirit then - the expanding consciousness - is
achieved by the traditional Christian virtues; locking the little
distracting devil up and concentrating on spiritual things. And it also
means becoming conscious of the shadow, deviced by Jung.

So, for me, Mercurius is the alchemist's Spirit of Matter, while Satan is
the God's Spirit of Matter. But you may be right in saying that the
Mercurius could be interpreted as the grand conjunctive symbol of Satan and
Christ, of spirit and matter. Since Christ is the matter of the spirit (or
body of the spirit) while Satan is the spirit of matter, the Mercurius cold
very well mean the unified spirit and matter. But this needs a little
digging to be established. Then he would be the real symbol of the Self
(Jung's concept). Concerning your concept of the "Hermetic function" - this
sounds interesting. This would be a gateway between the unconscious and
conscious. Something very wonderful, and controversial.

Maybe I haven't answered all your questions, but at least I've given you
food for thought.

Mats Winther

From: Joe
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 1997

Brother A - don't go away mad at us. It is language which confuses us and
drives us to our dogmatic ends. Christ and Satan as brothers probably drives
an orthodox man like yourself to fits; but it's the word brothers which is
the problem. For the relationship "described" by the symbol of the uroborus -
that is, the relationship between head/tail & eating/vomiting, coming &
going, malkuth to kether - a word like "brother" only obfuscates if its taken
literally. And the taking of the symbol literally is the real "sin" of modern
man. I think Mats Winthers might not agree with me here about "sin" but it
strikes me that a lot of recent threads in the forum come together over the
recent "Christ & Satan as Brothers" riff. About the uroborus I remember this:
It is the head of the serpent [Pendragon] which is emblematic of Christ; it
is the tail [Satanael {sp?}] which is emblematic of his "twin". Now let the
puking/eating debate rage on.

Glad to see you weathered the lent. I'm up in Michigan waiting for my lake
to thaw. He may be risen, but his grace is late where I live.

Joe

Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997
From: Richard Roberts

To all of you who are orthodox Christians and Jews, this is a plea for
tolerance from those of us who are not. We are adults, and most of us have
spent a lifetime in spiritual studies, fighting the good fight against
reductionists, materialists, and in some cases Stalinists. We are not to be
treated as wayward children who are to be "corrected" and put back on the
path of orthodoxy and dogma. Your efforts along these lines remind me of
Freud's words to Jung, "promise me that you will make a bulwark of the
sexual theory against the black tide of mud of occultism." Fortunately for
psychology (and alchemy!) Jung declined. We are all in quest of the Grail,
metaphorically speaking, although the path for attaining it may differ for
each of us. My mentor Joseph Campbell took as his model*Parzifal* wherein it
is written, "Each knight entered the wood where it was darkest and no path
lay, for to follow another's path would have been a disgrace."

Mats tells us that "the ascent of the spirit... is achieved by the
traditional Christain virtues." We have not chastized you for following
Church dogma, versus our path of gnossis(knowledge), and request the same
tolerance from you, which brings me to the highly charged subject of the
serpent, which in orthodoxy is responsible for no less than the Fall of Man,
but we must remember that the serpent was the revered consort of the
Great Mother 2,000 years before Genesis. And in other religions the serpent
has spiritual meaning, particularly as the Kundalini(See Avalon:
The Serpent Power). If Christ is "the matter of spirit"(Mats), then He must
also be the spirit in matter, or in Gnostic terms, the nous imprisoned in
*prima materia.* These are intellectual parallels that we are making
here, and the discussion should not degenerate into accusations of
heresy. My point in last week's "Nigredo Friday" was simply that there
is a spiritual equivalent between Christ, nous, logos, lapis, and serpent
mercurialis .

All are benificent and none worthy of denigration. Indeed, Jung tells us,
"among the Ophites, Christ was the serpent." And also, "Mercurius is likened
to the serpent hung on the cross(John3:14) to mention only one of the
numerous parallels." And in his essay on "The Philosophical Tree," he tells
us, "The somewhat unusual allegory of the sword hanging on a tree is almost
certainly an analogy of the serpent hanging on the cross. In St. Ambrose
the 'serpent hung on the wood' is a 'typus Chrsti,' as is the 'brazen
serpent on the cross' in Albertus Magnus. Christ as Logos is synonymous with
the Naas, the serpent of the Nous among the Ophites....The Logos nature of
Christ represented by the chthonic serpent is the maternal wisdom of the
divine mother, which is prefigured by the Sapienta in the Old Testament."
In conclusion, the most eloquent intuition on the way in which an entire
culture is reflected in its attitude towards the serpent comes from Joseph
Campbell's *The Masks of God:Creative Mythology,* page 155: "Wherever nature
is revered as self-moving, and so inherently divine, the serpent is revered
as symbolic of its divine life. And accordingly, in the Book of Genesis,
where the serpent is cursed, all nature is devaluated and its power of life
regarded as nothing in itself...."

P.S. to Patrick Dunn

Anaxagoras was a neoPythagorean. The alchemical *lapis* arises from the
*massa confusa*, a whirlwind in chaos created by Nous, the world creator.
There are many correlations between Christ and the lapis, and between the
*prima materia* and the lapis. Jung observes, "That is why the *prima
materia* sometimes coincides with the initial stage of the process, the
*nigredo.* And that is why I, Richard Roberts, said in "Nigredo Friday" that
"Christ in the tomb is a metaphor of Light(Gnostic Nous) trapped in its
antithesis the darkness of matter (nigredo)," not wishing to offend our
brothers and sisters who attribute spirit in matter to a unique historical
event, and not to the divine spirit that I believe is immanent in all of us.

From: Noel Kettering
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997

As side-bar to this discussion, I will point to:
"The Gods of the Egyptians" by E.A.Wallis Budge,
in which he makes an arguement for the meanings
of the names HERU ([Khoor]-Horus) and SET.

Budge finds evidence that Khoor means "That which
is Above" and argues that Set must (and does) mean
"That which is Below."

Budge may have been familiar with Alchemy, but
makes no overt connection between these names
and the ancient maxim of Hermes "That which is
above, is the same as that which is below,"
except in his choice of words.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Egyptian
mythology, Horus and Set are, symbolically,
similar to Christ and Satan.

While not directly related to the Hebrew gematrical
NChSh = MShIH connection, pointed out by Mike Dickman,
it shows an archetypal relationship between these two
symbols.

Noel

Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997
From: Richard Patz

Those interested in the topic of 'duality suggesting unity' may be
interested to read two ancient Egyptian stories I have on my website. One
story is about Ra and Isis - the other story is about Set and Horus. The
parallels are striking.

www.worldchat.com/public/sothis/names.htm

There were a couple of postings about Set on the alchemical forum last year.
They're not in the archive and I didn't save them, but I believe someone
wrote a letter that referred to the ass of Apuleius (as in "The Golden Ass")
as being the Set animal.

"The Golden Ass" is a wonderful story of human transmutation (and very, very
funny) where the central character moves from being a dabbler in petty magic
to being an initiate of Isis through experiences garnered while living in
the form of a mule.

This story never occurred to me when we looked at Nazari's fourth image back
in January. I am not suggesting Apuleius wrote an alchemical document.
Nazari may have been familiar with story though, when he published his
woodcarvings.

Richard Patz

From: Bernard Bovasso
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997

>For those who may be unfamiliar with Egyptian
>mythology, Horus and Set are, symbolically,
>similar to Christ and Satan.

Noel:
That does indeed complicate matters, since Set is the uncle of Horus
and thus brother of his mother, Isis. But if his mother's brother is his
brother, then Isis, who is his mother is his sister. This incestuous
round robin apparently is of little consequence in uroboric (closed
matricircle) consciousness, although quite outrageous to ourselves who are
party to the straigtended out, rising up and erect (brazen)
serpent kind of consciousness.

Bernard
(BXBovasso)

Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997
From: Richard Roberts

To All,
First, thank you for the dreams. I've printed them and will begin replying
after the weekend. Those who have longer dreams of archetypal or
numinous quality should perhaps delay sending them until the end of next week.

Eric Friedman's reference to "The Tree of Life" and to the "One River in the
Garden of Eden which branched off into four Heads of other rivers,i.e. the
four Elements," provides a nice lead-in to an amazing science story this
week in the NYTimes wherein we read,"UNIVERSE MAY HAVE A TOP
AND BOTTOM: Data could cast doubt on theory of relativity." This article
encapsulates a report to be published in "Physical Review Letters".
Would anyone know the address of this review, and whether it can be
accessed on-line?

The article states that radio waves from galaxies rotate as they move
through space "in relation to a kind of axis of orientation running thru
space....
Our observational data suggest that there is a mysterious axis, a kind of
cosmological north star that orients the universe." This has a mythological
parallel in the World/Axis/Tree, of which Roger Cook writes in "The Tree of
Life," "the trunk of the World Tree is the central pivot on which the world
turns," and also, "Standing at the 'centre of all that surrounds it' the
Tree of Life... is an image of the endless renewal of the cosmos from a
single centre or source."

In my book "From Eden to Eros," I wrote, "The tree in Eden is at the middle
of the Garden, a dead giveaway that it is the World/Axis/Tree common to
earlier mythologies. The 'endless renewal of the cosmos from a single
source' indicates that the World/Axis/Tree also has a cosmic
dimension....The four quarters are indicated in Genesis 2:10-15 with
reference to four rivers. The Eden Tree, standing at the center, therefore
has an implied vertical axis whic extends to a cosmic source whereby the
world is renewed. This heavenly point is the pole star around which earth
and sky rotate daily and annually(the seasonal round), the Unmoved Mover of
all creation."

Boy, how I wish Joseph Campbell were alive to have seen this validation of
mythology by astronomy! He could do a whole seminar on this topic!

Best regards,
Richard Roberts

Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997
From: Richard Roberts

Bernard wrote: "The pole star 6 to 8,000 years ago was located in the
circumpolar constellation Draco," and in so doing came very close to a
revelation I had about the Eden tree some twenty years ago, which became so
compelling in my mind that it was the basis of an entire book. Without
giving anymore away, can the rest of you see what it might have been in
light of Bernard's remarks? Incidentally, one of our members has this book,
so she should keep mum while the others have a go at it if so inclined.

From: Eric C. Friedman
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997

Oh, gee, Richard,

The serpent living in The Tree identifying Draco as the Pole Star
(or vice versa). I don't have your book (not that one, anyway). But yeah,
most commentaries on the Sefer Yetzirah delve into the association of the
constellation Draco - which is still the Pole of the Ecliptic - with the
"Nachash" (Serpent), and also with Leviathan. Both of these creatures are
directly related, "mythologically", with the First Wisdom and the First
Matter, respectively. Far from being equated with "Satan", the Edenic
Serpent (in relation to Draco) has actual Messianic elements to it.

By the way, Bernard,

I've been planning to respond to your points, which are good, but
I've been a bit whacky due to the holiday.
Eric

From: Bernard Bovasso
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997

>Bernard wrote: "The pole star 6 to 8,000 years ago was located in the
>circumpolar constellation Draco," and in so doing came very close to a
>revelation I had about the Eden tree some twenty years ago, which
>became so compelling in my mind that it was the basis of an entire
>book. Without giving anymore away, can the rest of you see what it
>might have been in light of Bernard's remarks? Incidentally, one of
>our members has this book, so she should keep mum while the others
>have a go at it if so inclined.

Dear Richard:

In the light of my remarks I by no means intended to further the cause
of keeping a secret and render some not so secret information occluded. But
you have teased me for what you are fain to give away. Perhaps the more you
give away the more you will gain. And even if mum is the word certainly it is
not in my book. Mummery, after all, amounts to flummery.
Sincerely,

Bernard Bovasso

Date: Sat, 03 May 1997
From: Richard Roberts

To All, and particularly Bernard, Eric, and Anthony House.

First, special thanks to Anthony for his detective work re the discovery of
Dr. Borge Nodland that "there is a mysterious axis, a kind of cosmological
north star that orients the universe." I was able to download the article
and wrote Dr. Nodland about my email to our Inner-Alchemy forum about
mythology's World/
Axis/Tree. I offered to send him my book on the subject, and was surprised
today
to get an email from him taking me up on my offer. In a way, this openness
of a scientist to mythology takes us back to our discussion of a few months
ago on the ourobouros and the chemist Kekule's dream of a snake w/tail in
mouth, whereby he determined that the molecular structure of benzene was a
closed carbon ring.
On Mon. I had asked if anyone had insights on Draco being "on the Pole" of
the World/Axis/Tree(WAT). Bernard and Eric had come up w/some interesting
thoughts.
On the cover of my book*From Eden to Eros* Joseph Campbell writes:"Pole Star
as summit of the *axis mundi*, around which the heavens and all things
revolve, is a notion common to many ancient as well as primitive
mythologies. Richard Roberts, having persuaded the Director of a planetarium
to regress the northern celestial hemisphere to 4,000 B.C. was enabled to
study in detail the constellation of the period of earliest Sumer, when the
Pole Star was not Polaris in Ursa Minor, but Thuban in the constellation
Draco, the Dragon. Our Dragon was early astronomy's Serpent, wound about the
Pole of the World Tree. The idea was a genial one, and Roberts' revelation
throws valuable light on the mythic origins and astronomical connotations of
the biblical tree, its guardian Serpent, and their relation to the moment of
Man's 'fall,' when time began and the heavens commenced to revolve around
the still point of this axial star."

My research revealed that one of Draco's stars, Eltanin, was associated with
and revered as the Great Mother; thus, the tableau of Eve, Tree, and Serpent
of Genesis has mythological progenitors. Further, Eltanin, Gamma Draconis,
was the orientation point of the Karnak temples of Ramses and Khons at
Thebes. It was known as "Isis, or Taurt Isis....Also, Apet, Bast, Mut,
Sekhet, and Taurt were all titles of one goddess in the Nile worship."

And a few paragraphs later I noted, "Not only does Eve correspond to the
Great Mother Goddess, and the Tree of Life to the Heavnely Tree, but also in
the earlier and contemporary mythologies the fruits which bestow immortality
are guarded not by a flaming sword, but by dragons and serpents.
Furthermore, these trees, dragons, and serpents had corresponding
astronomical configurations. The Genesis account, therefore, appears to be a
deliberate denigration of serpent and Eve, the celestial objects of worship
in the other religions."

In *Occidental Mythology,* "The Serpent's Bride," Joseph Campbell tells the
history of that damning event in the garden:"No one familiar with the
mythologies of the goddess of the primitive, ancient, and Oriental worlds
can turn to the Bible without recognizing counterparts on every page,
transformed, however, to render an argument contrary to the older faiths. In
Eve's scene at the tree, for example, nothing is said to indicate that the
serpent who appeared and spoke was a deity in his own right, who had been
revered in the Levant for at least seven thousand years before the
composition of the Book of Genesis...."

"In the older mother myths and rites the light and darker aspects of the
mixed thing that is life had been honored equally and together, whereas in
the later, male-oriented, patriarchal myths, all that is good anfd noble was
attributed to the new, heroic gods, leaving to the native nature powers the
character only of darkness-- to which also a negative moral judgment was now
added."

As Eric pointed out, in the Sefer, Nachash(serpent) "far from being equated
with satan, the Edenic Serpent(in relation to Draco) has actual Messianic
elements to it."

And so, Joseph Campbell tells us, "Wherever nature is revered as
self-moving, and so inherently divine, the serpent is revered as symbolic of
its divine life. And accordingly, in the Book of Genesis, where the serpent
is cursed, all nature is devaluated and its power of life regarded as
nothing in itself: nature is here self-moving indeed, self-willed, but only
by virtue of the life given it by a superior being, its creator."

From: Bernard Bovasso
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997

> And so, Joseph Campbell tells us, "Wherever nature is revered as
> self-moving, and so inherently divine, the serpent is revered as symbolic
> of its divine life. And accordingly, in the Book of Genesis, where the
> serpent is cursed, all nature is devaluated and its power of life regarded
> as nothing in itself: nature is here self-moving indeed, self-willed, but
> only by virtue of the life given it by a superior being, its creator."

Dear Richard:
It seems that you, and perhaps Campbell, have not the best to say about what
came to be represented in the Book of Genesis. If the serpent and Nature were
identified and supremely worshipped it was because it appeared that Eternity
was an earthly and mortal condition. Hence, the uroboric serpent as forever
self-perpetuating. But as I mentioned in my previous post about Draco,
something happened to alter this view. It was noticed, after much keen
observation and recording, that the pole star was not fixed forever and that
the axis mundi aligned with it. This compromised the fixed state of
matricentricity and began the long separation from the cosmic Great Mother.
So long as mortals (Adam and Eve) did not taste of the Tree of Knowledge, and
which is to say, figure out that the disposition of the axis mundi was
mutable, the state of the Garden of Eden as forever the human abode was
finished. Suddenly, as it were, Time began, mortality realized, and the
circular condition of living happily ever after in the maternal womb was
forever dissipated. This was the great shock when the nature of precession of
the equinoxes was discovered and which amounted to noticing a wobble and
hence a flaw in the immutable perfection of the Great Mother. In effect the
matricentrific tail eating Draco was straighted out, indeed forced erect.
This was in fact the birth of consciousness as we know it and it is
symbolically marked in the Book of Genesis. The entrance into this
event of a "Supreme Being" equally marks the concentration of consciousness
as something more than the forever unborn state. Once born, of course,
we must die and this was also registered when the great 25,000 year wobble
was realized. Hence, along with the new presence of a supreme being and
Heavenly Father came the awareness of beginning and end (*arch�* and
*eschaton*), sexual causality (*Eros*) and death (*Thanatos*).
And ever since then, babes that we are, collectively yearn to return to
Big Mamma and her matricentrific womb/tomb, the Garden of
Eden as *utopos* on earth (Note; *utopos* means "no place" in Greek).

Bernard

From: Schalk
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997

Bernard Bovasso writes:
......
It was noticed, after much keen
observation and recording, that the pole star was not fixed forever and that
the axis mundi aligned with it. This compromised the fixed state of
matricentricity and began the long separation from the cosmic Great Mother.
So long as mortals (Adam and Eve) did not taste of the Tree of Knowledge, and
which is to say, figure out that the disposition of the axis mundi was
mutable, the state of the Garden of Eden as forever the human abode was
finished. Suddenly, as it were, Time began, mortality realized, and the
circular condition of living happily ever after in the maternal womb was
forever dissipated.

Date: Wed, 7 May 1997
From: George Leake
Subject: Re: INNER -tasting the tree

>From: Schalk
>why do you say that time only began on the "tasting" of the tree of knowledge?
>after the creation epic has been completed ie.
>will it not rather be correct tosay that it began on the end of the first
>day, when cosmic light was introduced?

I think you can chalk this one up to problems in reading myth. Even
absolutists like most Christians can read the same passage or take the same
doctrine differently. Look at the nature of salvation--is it works, grace
or a combination? And all that wrangling over the presence of the deity in
communion

Somehow there's also a problem, and it is relevant to Alchemy, in taking a
myth too literally. IMHO, turning base matter into gold is no more a
literal truth than Jesus walking on the water
George Leake

From: Bernard Bovasso
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997

> Bernard,
>
> why do you say that time only began on the "tasting" of the tree of
> knowledge? after the creation epic has been completed ie.
> will it not rather be correct tosay that it began on the end of the first
> day, when cosmic light was introduced? not as light shining on the earth,
> but rather as aurora borealis? the eating of the tree of knowledge, as i
> see it was not the beginning of time,
> but rather the beginning of mans active participation in time, were from
> before he was exempt from that, given the chance to be, instead of to
> become etc. the first 3 days, the era of matter, the next 3 days, the era
> of life. in those six days can be seen the full alchemical process.
>

Dear Schalk:
Time (duration) and space (extention) are contingent to the mortal
experience. The Divine Nature perdures beyond dimension and measure,
just as the Logos and the Divine Light are in themselves unextended and
prevail as a pure immanence. But at the moment of creation of World and
Mortality their contigencies as duration and extension also came into being.
It is just that Adam and Eve required a litle time to realize this and whose
moment is marked in ingesting the fruit (and taking its seed) of the
Tree of Knowledge. At that moment it no longer exclusively prevails as an
immanence of the Divine Axis Mundi (as Tree or Divine phallus represented by
the serpent), but virtually begins the consciousness of the the first mortal
parents. Since the Divine consciousness is always in its immanence
presupposed it is not until the mortal presence is literally inseminated
by the Light, Word, pneuma and *Ruach* that consciousness comes into being.
We have no other standpoint for this moment of awakening but the mortal
standpoint (told in the Book of Genesis) since the Divine consciousness IS
because it IS, uncreated, impermeable and in Being as such. And why should
the Divine Nature be content to be so unconditionally IN BEING? Well, it
wasn't!
It required a beholder. But the beholder could not see the extended world of
which it was a part if not in some way impregnated with the Divine Immanence.
How else could God behold himself except through the creature (which He
created as his own extended EYE ["I"]).

Bernard
(BXBovasso)