Half the reward from this post goes to the author, and half to the illustrator, @janiceduke.

When I commissioned the cover art from Janice Duke, I had a vision in my head of how I wanted it, but that vision morphed and transformed as my focus shifted from one element to the next. It was beyond my own artistic skill and so I reached out to a professional. An online friend, not knowing I was looking for an artist, suggested I check out Janice's deviantart gallery. I knew she was the one I wanted to work with upon seeing her now famous image of the goddess Kali. I was delighted when she agreed to my terms for a 50-50 royalty split for an illustrated book on alchemical serpent symbolism.

I explained the concept of this image to her and she was able to bring it to delightful manifestation.

Exploration of the symbols

I shared the image a couple of weeks back when I posted the Introduction to the book followed by the first chapter. Before I share chapter 2, I'd like to take an interlude to discuss the rich symbolism found in the art itself. There are actually seven layers to this image, each hued to the seven colours of the rainbow...

• Red: The world tree, including roots, in the background.
• Orange: The Monas Hieroglyph
• Yellow: A meditating androgynous figure
• Green: Two entwined serpents
• Blue: The Kabalistic 'Tree of Life' diagram.
• Indigo: Baphomet/Ganesha
• Violet: The Ouroborus

Let us explore each of these layers in brief and their symbolic relationships to one another.

The World Tree

The tree with its roots reaching the underworld and branches reaching the heavens. The Axis Mundi. Sometimes appearing as a mountain instead, this symbol appears in pretty much every belief system ever known, and is likely hundreds of thousands of years old. Various branches of mysticism (pun intended) see the spine of the mystic as a microcosm of the tree.

The Monas Hieroglyph

Devised by alchemist and secret agent, Dr John Dee. This symbol is based upon the symbol for Mercury, itself a simplified form of the Caduceus. Dee depicted it as located inside the cosmic egg. In this image the ouroborous acts as stand in for the egg. Since the alchemists used the philosophical egg to represent the alchemist as a microcosm of the cosmic egg, and the inner symbol put me in mind of a figure sitted in meditation. The alchemists often depicted mercury as hermaphroditic and since the figure is horned, it also linked to Baphomet.

Meditating Androgynous Figure

The alchemist themselves as microcosm. Androgynous to symbolise the reconciliation of solar and lunar currents, and all other dualities.

Two entwined serpents

These represent two forms coming together to form one. The solar and lunar currents in union. Energy rising up the axis mundi or spine of the meditating figure.

The Kabalistic 'Tree of Life'

One of many mappings showing a progression from the energies of the underworld to the energies of the heavens, the path up the axis mundi. Has been explicitly linked to the symbol of Venus (contained within the symbol of Mercury and thus also in the Monas Hieroglyph). Has a path up the tree through all ten sephiroth known as the serpent path.

Baphomet/Ganesha

Behind the meditating figure we see a tracing of the goat headed Baphomet image created by Eliphas Levi. This echoes the 'horns' created by the lunar crescent in the monas hieroglyph, and the repeated hermaphrodite symbolism. Levi considers Baphomet a representation of a pantheistic cosmos. A more recent magical current sees Baphomet as the spirit of the Earth's biosphere. Eitherway it represents a macrocosm compared to the microcosm of the meditating figure. Instead of pointing to light and dark moons, the hands hold a leash and an axe, like the Hindu god Ganesha. The arm labelled solve, which means 'divide', holds the axe. The arm labelled solve, which means 'unite', holds the leash. Ganesh tells us to cut off from ourselves that which harms us and draw to ourselves that which is good. The alchemical transformation is to divide up that which harms and reunite it into something that does good.

The Ouroboros

The egg of the monas hieroglyph merged with the ouroboros from the Crysopiea of Cleopatra. The ancients saw the milky way as the boundary of the solar system, and saw in its pattern a cosmic serpent biting its own tail. The solar system they depicted as an egg. This symbolism is known to exist in many ancient cultures and some surviving mythologies from very diverse places around the world. Both the milky way and the rainbow represent the serpent and the bridge linking our world to both the heavens and the underworld. As Cleopatra's ouroboros was half black, half white, this one is half celestial, half rainbow.

Conclusion

The alchemist, magician or mystic must have the ability to unite all opposites and bring them into harmony. Up and Down. Left and Right. Solar and Lunar. Heavenly and the Underworld. Masculine and Feminine. Compassion and Assertiveness. Work and Play. Rest and Activity. Give and Take. Dividing and Unity. Repelling and Attracting. Inner and Outer. Subjective and Objective. Light and Dark. Hot and Cold. Seriousness and Humour. Hodge and Podge. And the trunk of the tree, the rainbow bridge, and the heavenly milky way, all represent the stairway to heaven.

Some of you may have seen a lower quality version of this image in my previous post: Chemical Serpents: Introduction. It turns out I used the wrong program to scale it down for the web and saved it as a low quality jpg. This one is png. Much better and no silly pixelation...