The Demons of King
Solomon is the innovative sequel to JournalStone Publishing’s
bestselling anthology The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft. This anthology
explores the legendary demonic bestiary of King Solomon by bringing
together popular authors in horror, occultism, and dark fantasy,
including many NY Times bestsellers, as well as featuring original
artwork by John Coulthart and descriptions of the demons by Richard
Smoley.
THE GRAND GRIMOIRE – known also as “The Red Dragon”. It is a collection of “black magic” grimoires believed to be as old as the 16th century AD, containing instructions purported to summon Lucifer or Lucifuge Rofocale, with the intent of forming an infernal pact (i.e. a “deal with the devil.”)
Quoting the Esoteric Archives:
“A. E. Waite pronounced this the most fantastic of the texts of the Black Magic cycle, and ’one of the most atrocious of its class; it has a process in Necromancy which is possible, say some occult writers – in the geniality of a lucid interval – only to a dangerous maniac or an irreclaimable criminal. It must be admitted that the Rite is highly unreasonable, but in dealing with such literature it seems unsafe to advance the objection, for it applies much too widely.’”
(Emphasis is mine.)
I strongly discourage anyone from attempting any ritual contained within The Grand Grimoire for reasons which should be plainly obvious.Do not try this at home.
Dictionnaire Infernal – A book on Demonology written by Jacques Collin de Plancy, French occultist and demonologist. First published in 1818, the Dictionnaire Infernal sought to catalog and explain all known superstition and demonology and spanned two volumes over the course of its several 19th century revisions and republications.
The images above are from the 1863 edition, illustrated by French painter Louis Le Breton.
Firstly, a word about what goetia is not. Many people with some acquaintance with occult literature will associate goetia with the first book of the Lemegeton, the so called Goetia of Solomon the King; which deservedly or not is nowadays perhaps the most famous of the grimoires. Indeed, in Crowley’s Book IV, all the references to goetia involve this grimoire and nothing else. However, this first book of the Lemegeton dates to the mid seventeenth century, whereas the term goetia is ancient Greek, so clearly there is some distance between the date of the grimoire and the origins of goetia.
This significant distance is often overlooked in popular usage, and even among many modern authors. It is not uncommon to hear such expressions as ‘goetic demons‘ or even ‘goetias‘ when referring to the spirits of this grimoire. This usage is inaccurate in several ways, one in particular is of interest here. In European languages the words magus or magician derive from magic, the person taking their name from their art. By contrast, the term goetia derives from a word indicating a person, a somewhat unique case of the art taking its name from the artist. This person was called a ‘goes’. In short, goetia is related first and foremost to the identity of the operator, and secondarily to the nature of their art.
The word ‘goes’ relates to terms describing the act of lamenting at funeral rites; the mournful howling considered as a magical voice. These magical tones can guide the deceased to the underworld, and also raise the dead. This is the root of the long connection of goetia with necromancy, which has come to be seen as ‘black magic’.
Authors from Cornelius Agrippa to Mathers and Waite use the term goetic of most of the grimoires, particularly the darker ones. It is only the relative fame of the Goetia of Solomon that has overshadowed the long association of the term with supposed ‘black magic’ generally.
From Agrippa the negative associations of the word goetia go back beyond the medieval period into classical antiquity. So it could be said that goetia is a very old word for black magic. But in Greek use magic was a term derived from a Persian root, whereas goetia was already present in the Greek language. In the history of Western Magic not only did goetia come first, but it possessed a character that distinguished it from many later forms. In its original form goetia did not involve the same worldview or assumptions as later magic. To be specific the differences concern the worldview of so called primitive religion, as opposed to the later more civilised forms.
Franz Cumont’s book on Chaldean Magic speaks of Persian magic entering Greek use around the time of the Persian Wars. He says that a Book of Ostanes ‘was the origin of the magic substituted from that time forth for the coarse and ancient rites of Goetia’. The rites of the Magi known to the Greeks seem in the main to have been pre-Zoroastrian, and no less ‘coarse and ancient’ than Greek goetia. The Book of Ostanes may then represent a partial transformation of goetia towards the form in which we now know it. In any case Goetia certainly did not die out with the advent and evolution of these ‘Magian’ rites, even though at that time much of the meaning and significance of the old Greek rituals had already been lost.
The goetic strand within western magic essentially represents survivals of more primal elements within host traditions of another character. Invariably such brief attempts as have been made to define goetia are from the viewpoint of such host traditions, or from viewpoints hostile to magic in general, rather than the viewpoint of goetia itself.
It is difficult to speak of goetia in its own terms when competing with the accumulated assumptions of so many intervening centuries. For the last two thousand years our civilisation has lived with the assumptions inherent in Revealed Religion. The civilisation of Classical Greece, and all other civilisations of the ancient world, were built on a tradition of thousands of years of what is known as Natural Religion. Whereas Revealed Religion is delivered from on high by a revelation represented by a Book – Natural Religion is built up from below, the result of observation of and interaction with the visible world, including perceived supernatural or numinous forces. At the heart of these two approaches to religion are two entirely different worlds.
These two worlds, the cores of two opposed worldviews, can usefully be defined as celestial and chthonic. These are not the limits of the worldviews concerned, but their centres. That is to say, while Revealed Religion has as its ‘base’ the Celestial or even Super-celestial realm, it does not exclude considerations of other regions, such as Earth, Hell and the physical universe in general. Similarly, while Natural Religion has the Earth and the Underworld at its heart, this does not prevent it dealing with gods of thunder or the Sun and Moon.
In the same way the source of the Revelation of Revealed Religion is Celestial, and this is the centre of its worldview. By contrast, the chthonic realm was considered the source of oracular power at all stages of Greek religion. In later magic the celestial or transcendental realms were all important, not least as the source of the magicians authority.
Previously the earth as source of life, and the underworld as the abode of the dead, were central to religion and magic. More to the point, much of the magic of later times, particularly that characterised as goetic, was an adaptation – one might even say a distortion – of the older type.
The chthonic connections of goetia are exemplified by the roots of the word itself. Whereas goetia is commonly translated ‘howling’, following the precedent of nineteenth century authorities which are too often unquestioned, a closer translation would be ‘wailing’ or ‘lamenting‘. There is a large group of related words in Greek, the majority of which refer specifically to ancient funeral rites. The tone of voice used in these rituals distinguished the practitioner of goetia, and the concern with the Underworld was equally explicit.
This earliest manifestation of goetia is principally concerned with the dead. At the same time it has no real connection with the aristocratic ‘Olympian’ religion of Homer, despite some parallels and later syncretism. Its primary role was benign in that it served a role in the community, that of ensuring the deceased received the proper rites to ensure they left the living alone. Alongside this were additional roles. These included laying ghosts, including those where proper burial had not been possible. Such ‘restless spirits’ were troublesome, even hostile and dangerous. Their existence was a major reason for the practice of funeral rites in the first place.
Another aspect of goetia’s involvement with the dead was necromancy. This, the art of divination by the dead, correlates naturally with the ability to guide the dead to the Underworld. Those who could guide souls to the Underworld could bring them back, at least temporarily. In its original religious context necromancy was not perceived as anti-social, and some major necromantic oracular centres existed throughout the Greek world.
The most sinister aspect of this involvement with the dead was the ability to summon such spirits for purposes other than divination. Like necromantic divination this is a natural consequence of the role of guide of souls. However it also relates very closely to the ability to deal with hostile ghosts of various kinds. The arts of exorcism and evocation are intimately related. It is from this aspect of its past that goetia is associated with demonic evocation. Distinctions between underworld demons and the angry dead have always been vague. Additionally, expertise in rites concerning the dead necessarily involves the gods and guardians of the Underworld. Consequently, in various guises, raising spirits has been associated with goetia for much of its history,
The impression caused by the confusion between the Goetia of Solomon and goetia itself is that goetia concerns evocation alone. There is a stereotyped image of the conjurer calling up spirits into a triangle from within a circle, and bidding them to perform this, that and the other thing. This seemingly reduces all goetic operations to the same format, which is not the case at all. Goetia involves methods of every variety. It is true that goetic magic involves the participation of spirits in virtually all its operations, but these operations are varied. The Grimorium Verum is clear that all operations are performed with the assistance of spirits, but its methods include what we would call spells, and also methods of divination. Most often in these operations the sigils of appropriate spirits are involved in the procedure. There is for instance a traditional method of causing harm to an enemy through their footprint. In its Verum form this involves tracing the sigils of spirits and stabbing a coffin nail into the print. Some of this methodology is reminiscent of modern applications of Austin Spare’s sigils, although rather more results oriented than the uses the artist himself employed.
In general Verum employs evocation for one main purpose, which is to form a pact with the spirit or spirits concerned, precisely so they will be willing to assist the magician in other types of operation. I say spirits in the plural for a reason. In contrast to the methodology of the Goetia of Solomon as popularly understood, Verum’s process envisages the possibility of summoning more than one spirit at a time for the purpose of forming pacts. While any evocatory process is demanding, in terms of time and effort expended, this multiple evocation process is considerably more economical, and far more productive. Modern understanding envisages the conjuring of a single spirit in order to achieve one specific result, and the spirit concerned may never be met with again. Verum on the other hand envisages calling upon one or more spirits in order to commence a working relationship, so that on future occasions the same spirits may assist the magician repeatedly. In these subsequent relations the full procedure of evocation is rarely necessary; and will usually only be employed to initiate relationships with additional spirits.
Such exhausting operations therefore are not the be all and end all of goetic sorcery. The magician and the spirits with whom they are involved will be active in a variety of other procedures. These will involve a range of different skills and activities, alongside a more minimalist conjuration.
So what have we learned from this survey? That the identity of the operator makes goetia what it is, not the nature of the spirits. That goetia concerns earth and the underworld, and involves no authority from the celestial regions, but the innate power of the magician. That it has its own worldview, and far from being a specialised sub-discipline, it is the primal origin of the entire Western Tradition of magic.
According to Michael Howard, Trad Craft refers to “any non-Gardnerian, non-Alexandrian, non-Wiccan or pre-modern form of the Craft, especially if it has been inspired by historical forms of witchcraft and folk magic”.
Traditional Witchcraft, therefore, is not a single monolith. We can, in fact, distinguish between:
Operative Witchcraft or Folk Magic
Ritual(istic) Witchcraft
This first difference is taken from Margaret Murray; she used the first term for indicating the practice of magic, as carried out by cunning folk and folk magicians, and included the non-religious practice of spells, charms, divinations, etc. “whether used by a professed witch or by a professed Christian, whether intended for good or for evil, for killing or for curing. Such charms and spells are common to every nation and country, and are practised by the priests and people of every religion. They are part of the common heritage of the human race and are therefore of no practical value in the study of any one particular cult.” (The Witch-Cult, p. 11.)
The second term (also called “Dianic cult” by Murray) indicates, instead, “the religious beliefs and ritual of the people, known in late mediaeval times as ‘Witches’. The evidence proves that underlying the Christian religion was a cult practised by many classes of the community, chiefly, however, by the more ignorant or those in the less thickly inhabited parts of the country. It can be traced back to pre-Christian times”. Therefore we can say that Ritual Witchcraft is the cult of pre-Christian Deities or Spirits connected to the witches.
While the ideas of Murray about this cult have now been discredited, other scholars have reopened this field as a viable area of study, discovering many ecstatic witch-cults. The most known academics in this field are: Carlo Ginzburg, Éva Pócs, Emma Wilby, Claude Lecouteux, Wolfgang Behringer, Sabina Magliocco, Gábor Klaniczay, Gustav Henningsen and Bengt Ankarloo.
Relying on the work of these scholars, we can say therefore that Ritual Witchcraft was/is the religious system surrounding the Sabbath, the Procession of the Dominae Nocturnae from house to house, the spiritual flight, Elphame, the Wild Hunt, the Night Battles, etc.
As we can understand, even if the majority of the Ritual Witches were/are also Operative Witches (practitioners of Folk Magic), not all the Operative Witches were/are also Ritual Witches. The majority of Folk Magicians/Operative Witches, in fact, didn’t go to the Sabbath, didn’t astrally fly, didn’t astrally go with the Wild Hunt, from house to house with the Domina Nocturna, to Elphame/the Otherworld or to the Night Battles. Ritual Witches did.
We can say, therefore, that Operative Witchcraft is a practice, while Ritual Witchcraft is a religion.
Traditional Witches who are secular are, therefore, usually Operative and not Ritual Witches.
While the distinction between Ritual and Operative Witchcraft is an established one in the Witchcraft community, I introduce a new, according to me useful, second distinction, inside Ritual Witchcraft (i.e. Witchcraft as a religion), by borrowing the terms “Revivalism” and “Reconstructionism” from Polytheism, in which it’s an already established terminology:
Hereditary Witchcraft
Revivalist Witchcraft
Reconstructionist Witchcraft
Hereditary Traditional Witchcraft brings together all the traditions that claim a lineage from the Witchcraft of the past.
Revivalist Traditional Witchcraft is inspired by folklore, trials and the figure of the witch without any presumption of hereditarity. Unlike the Reconstructionist one, it leaves ample space for personal initiative and the influence of other traditions, without slavishly following the history in every single detail.
Reconstructionist Traditional Witchcraft, finally, tries to resume, starting from the in-depth study of folklore, historical trials and documents, the exact practices and beliefs of Historical Witchcraft. For example, the pantheon of Spirits, the festivities, the structure of the Sabbath, the structure of the offerings, and so on.
An important aspect for those who practice Reconstructionism is the resumption of the names of the Gods (or it would be more correct to say, of the “Deific Familiar Spirits” or “Major Spirits”) forgotten and remained only in the trials papers and in folklore. The idea is to reopen roads, ways to these Spirits. Reconstructing therefore means paying homage to these Spirits and allowing those interested to re-establish a connection with Them.
We said before that Traditional Witchcraft is not Wicca. What’s the difference?
According to the Traditional Witchcraft author Lee Morgan:
“It could easily be said that one of the major differences between the modern revival referred to as “Traditional Witchcraft” and the other modern revival known as “Wicca”, is that Traditional Witchcraft draws on “folkloric material” and is largely “shamanic” whereas Wicca is more of a fusion of Western Occult ceremonial and natural magic traditions.”
(From: Lee Morgan’s “A Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft”)
According
to Luisa Muraro [1], the oldest term to indicate the gathering of witches, i.e.
the Sabbath, is “Game” or “Game of the Good Society” (“Ludus”
or “Ludus Bonae Societatis” in Latin), to the point that there are also characters
at the head of the witches who keep this name, such as the “Lady of Good Game”
(“Donna del Buon Gioco” or “Signora del Buon Gioco” in Italian, and “Dòna del Zöch”
in norther Italian dialect) or “Domina Ludi”.
In her book
we read that the set of witches, the totality of all the witches, was referred
to as the “Society” or the “Good Society”, and that what in
Scotland are called Covens, in Italy (the Muraro witness it for the North while
Henningsen reports it for Sicily) were called “Companies”.
.:: The
dates of the Sabbath ::.
When did
the Ludus take place? It was not – unlike what we think nowdays – of unique dates throughout Europe or throughout single Countries, but they changed depending
on the area and the region. The days of the Sabbath are not the same of the
seasonal celebrations of the country or village festivals (although these may
have a pre-Christian origin), which instead took place in the general community in
broad daylight and had a more social function, while the Sabbaths were more
private meetings.
Normally, the dates are remembered in popular memory, are found in the declarations
of the accused in trials, and in legends about the “nights of
witches” (or “the nights of the Wild Hunt” or even “of the Procession
of the Dead”), sometimes accompanied by rites or spells carried out by the extended population to remove the “evil effects” (from a Christian perspective) of these days.
In Italy the most used dates are: the Thursday of the Four Ember Days, st. John’s
night, the night of the Dead, the 12 nights from Christmas to Epiphany, and
Full Moons. In some regions instead, like Sicily, the meetings (in this case of
the Women from Outside, the Sicilian witches/fairies) took place on a weekly
basis.
So, how to
discover the dates in our region? Let’s take a book of folklore of our region. By reading it, let’s ask ourselves: when, in folklore and legends of the area in which we live, witches or fairies
gather together?When, if there are any, legends say the Procession of the Dead
or of the Fairies will pass? And so on.
If we find these legends, usually we’ll also find the days in which these
phenomenons happen, according to the legend. We can take these as days for celebrating the Sabbath.
.:: Who was worshipped in the Sabbath? ::.
Although
the witch had various spiritual allies (various “Familiar Spirits”,
such as the Spirit of the House, Fairies, Ancestors, Plant Allies, the Animal
Familiar, and so on), only the Major Spirit, i.e. the Domina Nocturna (the
female spirit that led the Witches’ Procession, the Wild Hunt or the Procession
of the Dead) and/or his male counterpart was worshiped in the Sabbath.
In short,
therefore, there was a sort of henotheism/exclusiveness towards the Major
Spirit to whom the witch was bound: the Ludus was not aimed at a pantheon but
to the Entity to which the Company was bound (which normally changed from
Country to Country and from region to region, for example the French witches
went with Abonde/Abundia/Satia, the German witches with Holda or Perchta, in
Northern Italy we find the Lady of the Good Game, in Scotland the Queenand the King of Elphame, in Sicily the Queen and the King of the Fairies, in Rieti –
reports Bellezza Orsini in her trial – Befania, on the Sibillini Mountains the
Apennine Sibyl, the Redodesa in the Veneto, Herodias in Rome, Sa Rejusta, Araja or Arada in
Sardinia, etc.).
Let us now
analyze the formation of the concept of physical Sabbath. One of the first
references to the procession of witches is certainly the Canon Episcopi (dated 906 CE). I quote from it:
“This
also is not to be omitted, that certain wicked women, turned back toward Satan,
seduced by demonic illusions and phantasms, believe of themselves and profess
to ride upon certain beasts in the nighttime hours, with Diana, the Goddess of
the Pagans, (or with Herodias) and an innumerable multitude of women, and to
traverse great spaces of earth in the silence of the dead of night, and to be
subject to her laws as of a Lady, and on fixed nights be called to her
service.”
But here we
are still talking about a non-corporeal encounter, it is a gathering in the spiritual
realm. So let’s go forward and see how this spiritual gathering is gradually
going to “stabilize” and “becoming physical”.
In Roman de la Rose (1237) we find the following verses to testify to the belief that
the procession of witches went from house to house:
“As a
result, many people, in their folly,
think themselves sorcerers by night,
wandering with Lady Abonde.
And they say that in the whole world
every third child born is
of such disposition that
three times a week he goes
just as destiny leads him;
that such people push into all houses;
that they fear neither keys nor bars,
but enter by cracks,
cat-hatches, and crevices;
that their souls leave their bodies
and go with good ladies
into strange places and through houses;
and they prove it with such reasoning:
the different things seen
have not come in their beds,
but through their souls, which labor
and go running about thus through the world;
and they make people believe that,
as long as they are on such a journey,
their souls could never enter their bodies
if anyone had overturned them.
But this idea is a horrible folly
and something not possible,
for the human body is a dead thing
as soon as it does not carry its soul;
thus it is certain
that those who follow this sort of journey
three times a week
die three times and revive three
times in the same week.
And if it is as we have said,
then the disciples of such a convent
come back to life very often.”
In the same
period William of Auvergne reports the belief that the Dominae Nocturnae, in
this case Abundia/Satia and her witches, would visit the houses to dance and
eat food and drink present on the spot. In the absence of these, they would
abandon the houses, disdained. According to this belief, people
hastened to
open the barrels and open the cellars, if not to provide ready food in their
home’s table [2].
The Malleus Maleficarum (an inquisitorial treaty following the Canon Episcopi, and dated 1487), will then demonize these characters (a tendency that will have
more and more until the eighteenth century, with the disappearance of pagan
remains and the complete equation between Satanism and witchcraft):
“There was
an erroneous belief that when devils came in the night (or the Good People as
old women call them, though they are witches, or devils in their forms) they
must eat up everything, that afterwards they may bring greater abundance of
stores. Some people give colour to the story, and call them Screech Owls; but
this is against the opinion of the Doctors, who say that there are no rational
creatures except men and Angels; therefore they can only be devils.”
Yet, even
the Malleus does not provide a description of the Sabbath as we know it today.
For it we’ll have to wait the 1580 with Jean Bodin and his “De la
démonomanie des sorciers”.
According to Bodin’s description, when the witch was preparing to go to the
Sabbath, she would anoint herself with the ointment, ride a broom, recite a charm, fly and land
on the spot of the gathering. Upon arrival, the newcomers were introduced to
the Devil, who was greeted with a kiss on the buttocks, then Satan took note of the evil
done by witches since the previous meeting and witches were reprimanded or
praised according to their merit. At this point the practitioners gave
offerings to the Devil (sometimes a sheep, sometimes a bird, other times a lock of
the witch’s hair or some other object), then they trampled the cross and
blasphemed the saints. So the devil had sex with the new witch, placed his mark
on her skin and gave her a Familiar Spirit to her command. Then followed a large
banquet and a wild dance that then flowed into an orgy. The meeting ended in
time to allow the witches to reach home before the cock crowed [3].
According to Henningsen, the satanic aspects of the Sabbath shown by Bodin are
actually demonizations of a more ancient and authentic complex:
“In
Sicily […], the belief in the ‘evil and wicked witches’ has never existed;
and therefore there is no clear dividing line between fairies and witches: both
‘could exercise both good and evil’. However, on the fairies side, there are the donni di fora, and with fairies they participate in forms of sabbath marked
by elegance, by beautiful music, by joyful dance, by happy banquets: a ‘white
fairies’ sabbath’, in contrast to the ‘black witches’ sabbath’. The fairies’
sabbath […] in fact represents a ‘pure model’, compared to the witches’
sabbath: the latter having to be considered rather a secondary form of it as
the result of a subsequent process of demonization by the Church […] a
variant of an extensive and therefore presumably ancient and deeply rooted
complex of Mediterranean and European shamanistic beliefs.”
According
to his vision, therefore, the blasphemies would have been added posthumously,
while the osculum infame (the kiss on the devil’s buttocks) would actually be
the corruption of the initial bow (also witnessed by the Milan trial of 1390
against Sibilla Zanni and Pierina de’ Bugatis, worshipers of Madonna Horiente)
that was carried out in front of the Witches’ Queen.
This Witches’ Queen,
again according to the witnesses reported by Henningsen of the last Women from
Outside and of those who encountered them, was chosen at random from time to time
among the Women from Outside/witches. One can therefore think that the Witches’ Queen represented the
Domina Nocturna on Earth for the length of the Sabbath [4].
As we can
see, the procedure of the reconstructed Ludus Corporaliter(physical Sabbath)
was:
To bow in front of the Domina Nocturna or the Patron Major Spirit, temporarily
incarnated by the Witches’ Queen chosen randomly between the witches;
Discussions and advices about the spells performed;
The structure is the same of the corporaliter’s, but it happens in a
dimension that allows the absence of a Temporary King or a Queen of the Witches
(i.e., a human representative of the Domina or Major Spirit), in whom we can
feel the presence of the Entities directly and with no intermediaries.
Many witches of the past used this way of access to the Ludus, for example Isobel Gowdie, a Scottish woman who went on trial in 1662, who had a real Coven with
whom she met in an oneiric way [5].
Although it can be said to be a very complex procedure that I will not
elaborate here, it – as it’s logical to expect – consists of two steps:
1) to be
able to meet in a dream with the other members of the Company,
2) to be able
to modify the dream so that you can celebrate a Sabbath in this altered state of
consciousness (advanced state of lucid dreaming).
To reach
this point, various attempts and a long training period will be necessary, but
if the effort is successful, the experience will not be described in human
words because of its greatness.
.:: Sources ::.
[1] Luisa Muraro. La Signora del Gioco. La caccia alle
streghe interpretata dalle sue vittime. La Tartaruga Edizioni, 2006.
[2] Claudia Manciocco, Luigi Manciocco. L’incanto e
l’arcano: per una antropologia della Befana. Armando Editore, 2006.
[3] Thomas
Wright. The Worship of the Generative Powers during the Middle Ages of Western
Europe. London, J. C. Hotten, 1865, pp. 159-162.
[4] Gustav
Henningsen. “The Ladies from Outside”: An Archaic Pattern of the Witches’
Sabbath. In: B. Ankarloo and G. Henningsen (eds.). Early Modern European
Witchcraft. Oxford University Press, 1993.
[5] Emma
Wilby. The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in
Seventeenth-Century Scotland. Sussex Academic Press, 2010.
Taking a day for some much needed self care and pampering, so enjoy this #throwback #painting I finished a year ago:
“The Witches’ Sabbat” mixed media – graphite, wax, pastel, charcoal, and marker. Theban script reads in reverse, “All who come here seek to be lost; all who are lost return to life.”
“Man has been called the child of circumstance, the plaything of fate; but the truth is that man owns himself, and the circumstances which surround and enfold him shift and change as the wind blows. The man who governs himself shapes and fashions the conditions which are about him, through which his journey leads. Every motion he makes is a new event evolved from himself.”
El hombre ha sido llamado el hijo de las circunstancias, el juguete del destino; pero la verdad es que el hombre es dueño de sí mismo, y las circunstancias que lo rodean y lo envuelven cambian y cambian a la medida que sopla el viento. El hombre que se gobierna a sí mismo forma las condiciones que lo rodean, a través de las cuales conducen su viaje. Cada movimiento que hace es un nuevo evento desarrollado por él mismo.
The Ouroboros is a Greek word meaning “tail devourer,” and is one of the oldest mystical symbols in the world. It can be perceived as enveloping itself, where the past (the tail) appears to disappear but really moves into an inner domain or reality, vanishing from view but still existing.
The ouroboros has several meanings interwoven into it. Foremost is the symbolism of the serpent biting, devouring, or eating its own tail. This symbolizes the cyclic Nature of the Universe: creation out of destruction, Life out of Death. The ouroboros eats its own tail to sustain its life, in an eternal cycle of renewal. It is sometimes depicted in a lemniscate shape (figure eight) as well.
The Serpent biting its own tail is first seen as early as 1600 years BC in Egypt as a symbol of the sun, and represented the travels of the sun disk. From there it moved to the Phonecians and then to the Greeks, who gave it its name, Ouroboros, which means devouring its tail.
In mythology, the Oroborus is a symbol representing the Milky Way galaxy. Myth refers to a serpent of light residing in the heavens. The Milky Way is this serpent, and viewed at galactic central point near Sagittarius, this serpent eats its own tail. Many ancients used the galaxy to calculate cosmic and earth cycles.
It is found in Gnosticism and alchemy representing cyclical natural life and the fusion of opposites. It also symbolizes the transcendence of duality and was related to the solar God Abraxas, and signified eternity and the soul of the world.
In alchemy, it represents the spirit of Mercury (the substance that permeates all matter), and symbolizes continuous renewal (a snake is often a symbol of resurrection, as it appears to be continually reborn as it sheds its skin.), the cycle of life and death, and harmony of opposites. As a symbol of the eternal unity of all things, the cycle of birth and death from which the alchemist sought release and liberation. It unites opposites: the conscious and unconscious mind. Alchemically, the ouroboros is also used as a purifying glyph.
The alchemical textbook, Chrysopoeia (gold making) of Kleopatra contains a drawing of the ouroboros representing the serpent as half light and half dark, echoing symbols such as the Yin Yang, which illustrates the dual nature of all things, but more importantly, that these opposites are not in conflict. The book is mainly centered around the idea of “one is all,” a concept that is related to hermetic wisdom.
History
The Ouroboros appears in many other cultures and settings as well…the Serpent Jormungand of Norse legend, one of the three children of Loki and Angrboda, grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth. It guarded the Tree of Life, and is often depicted as an ouroboros.
The Aztec serpent God Queztacoatl was depicted similarly, and Chinese alchemical dragons have both similar shapes and meaning.
In Hindu, you have the dragon circling the tortoise which supports the four elephants that carry the world.
Occult Aspects 