![]() ![]() One of the oldest alchemical texts created in Hellenistic Egypt and included in the 11th-century Codex Marcianus, contains an image of the ouroboros. In alchemy the fundamental message of the ouroboros is the changing of one thing into another, ultimately yielding “All is One.” It is a symbol for Mercurius and the union of opposites. This association continued into more modern times, and the ouroboros came to decorate numerous Art Nouveau calendars. In Renaissance Europe, Saturn continued to be associated with the ouroboros, and his scythe became the symbol of death. Saturn swallowed his children, and, with his scythe, symbolized the devouring of life or mortality. In Roman mythology, the ouroboros was associated with Saturn, the god of time, who joined together the first and last months of the year like the serpent swallowing its tail. Later, the serpent came to represent the guardian of the Tree of Life and therefore the gatekeeper to immortality. A hero rather than villain, the serpent helped Adam and Eve defy the demiurge Jehovah and obtain the first gnosis (knowledge) by eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. ![]() Gnostics equated the demiurge with the God of the Old Testament, the Alpha and Omega (the letter omega is similar in form to the Egyptian hieroglyph shen).įor the Naassenes and Ophite Gnostic sects, the ouroboros was equated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Some Gnostics equated the world serpent with the evil demiurge (or Satan) who created the world and guards the gateway of escape. The Gnostics, who believed the world to be at the center of the universe, believed that the ouroboros, or world serpent, marked the boundary between the world and the pleroma of heaven. In the Hermetic philosophy that arose in Hellenistic Egypt, the ouroboros became a symbol of the underlying unity of spirit. In classical times, the Greeks identified Chronos (Time) with the Earth-encircling river, Oceanos, that also encircled the universe in the form of a serpent with the zodiac on its back. The Orphic cult, which strove to free the divine aspect of the soul that was imprisoned in the body, paved the way for Western mystery cults. The Orphics (sixth and seventh centuries B.C.E.), who believed in Reincarnation, had variations of the Orphic egg myth. Mating with Ophion, Eurynome then took the form of a dove and created the world EGG, which Ophion encircled seven times. ![]() The oldest Greek creation myth, the Pelasgian, says that Eurynome, the goddess of all things, emerged from Chaos the north wind created Ophion, the great serpent. The third shrine of the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen shows the deceased in a stylized profile with one ouroboros encircling his head and another encircling his feet. Such art was intended to ensure the immortality of the deceased. Perhaps the first true Egyptian depiction of the ouroboros comes from the tomb of Seti I, in which a carving shows the sun god lying on his back in a house surrounded by an ouroboros. She was also depicted with the hieroglyph shen, a circle resting on a line that represents the Sun’s orbit and thus eternal life. She was most commonly depicted by the Egyptians as a serpent surrounding a solar disk. In her form of the pharaoh’s crown, Buto was called the uraeus and was the symbol of the pharaoh’s power. Similarly, every individual in Egypt was protected by a personal snake spirit that symbolized their lifetime and their survival into the afterlife. Buto protected ISIS and her son Horus, the sun god. The ancient Egyptians depicted the goddess Buto as a cobra in fact, the hieroglyph for goddess is a cobra. Lunar deities were often associated with a devouring snake or dragon, which, after swallowing the Moon, became the mother of the Moon’s rebirth. Because the Moon waxed and waned, it became a symbol of birth, death, and regeneration. The Moon served as timekeeper-especially of the eternal, cyclical nature of time-and fertilizer of life on Earth below. The origins of the ouroboros can be traced to ancient Moon cults. The ouroboros is an important symbol in Alchemy and Magic. The name ouroboros comes from the Greek terms oura, meaning “tail,” and boros, meaning “devourer.” The “tail-devourer” represents the eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Ouroboros (uroboros) Ancient symbol of a Serpent biting its tail, forming a circle. ![]()
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