REBIS digital art by @janiceduke
(based on woodcut from Theoria Philosophiae Hermeticae by Heinrich Nollius)

As we have seen, we can interpret the hermaphrodite as another symbol of the hen to pan. We have explored the idea of serpents as hermaphrodite symbols, in addition to the scarab, and have mentioned the god Amun as a hermaphrodite creator.
I also mentioned the hermaphrodite as union of body and mind, and explored the connection between that idea and that of Kundalini as energy flowing from the lower body to the head and back again in a loop.

Certain hermaphrodites I find worthy of deeper exploration, and the one that appears most in Hermetic illustrations would be the androgyne.

The androgyne appears in many alchemical illustrations, shown as a two headed person whose body has male and female halves, divided left and right. Many examples exist and they often include images of the Sun and Moon. The androgyne of the 'Rosarium Philosophorum' stands upon a crescent moon, with their two heads illuminated by the sun like a halo. The symbol has been described by some alchemists as the union of Sulphur and Mercury, although we can interpret the description itself as another code.

Androgyne from Rosarium Philosophorum

Versions of the left-right form of hermaphrodite date to the bronze age Mesopotamia, where at least one depicts a two faced hermaphrodite with the bearded male face looking to the right at a Sun haloed serpent above a chalice, with the female face looking the other way towards a moon crescent, underneath which is another serpent above a bowl. The two serpents also commonly appear in many of the later alchemical images. They also bring to mind the two serpents of the caduceus, reinforcing the association of equivalence between the images.

A version also exists in Hindu and Tantric mysteries as the union of Shiva and Shakti-Parvati and known as Ardhanarishvara. Depictions and statues of Shiva often show him garlanded with a cobra or other serpent, and the male half of Ardhanarishvara wears a similar serpent as an armband.

One recurrent theme that seems to emerge from these symbols and myths so far is that of two becoming one. From the two serpents coming together to form Ningizzida, the karykeion and the caduceus, Yin and Yang together forming the Taijitu, the Goose and Gander of Egyptian creation later replaced with a hermaphrodite Amun goose, male and female uniting to form the hermaphrodite, all hint at a transcendence of duality.

They also put me in mind of the phrase 'The beast with two backs', a term whose first recorded use in English was by Shakespeare in Othello, although the equivalent phrase in French, 'la bête à deux dos' was earlier used by François Rabelais in 'Gargantua and Pantagruel'. These of course refer to a couple in sexual union becoming a single beast.

Of course, we can find many layers of meaning in the mysteries, and we can interpret sex itself as another symbol. Indeed the symbols can also be seen as self-referential, recursive and cyclical, such that we can view each interpretation as symbolic of all the others, with none as the ultimate truth. In this way we can see sex itself as a symbol of uniting the different aspects of ones own consciousness.

The left-right split of the androgyne symbol seems to reflect the modern neurological understanding of the hemispheres of the brain. Even here we can see another correlation or meaning in the serpent symbol, as our current understanding of the hemispheres suggests they both developed in the mammalian branch of our ancestry. With the part of our brain understood to have evolved in our reptile ancestors located at the back and at the top of the spine.

Many of the techniques of the world's mystery schools aim to shift consciousness from either the dominant hemisphere to the least dominant, or even to shift consciousness into the reptilian parts of our brains.

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Contents

Introduction

Serpents

• Caduceus
• Asklepian
• Ouroboros

Eggs and the Androgynous Child

• The Philosophers Egg and The Cosmic Egg
• The Monas Hieroglyph
• The Androgyne
• Baphomet
• N'Aton and Sophia

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Sections not yet published on steem

Trinity

The Elements

Macrocosm and Microcosm

The World Dragon Tree

Illumination

Appendix A: Asides

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Commentary on artwork

• Title illustration and cover art.
• Hen to Pan.

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Chemical Serpents: Symbols of Illumination

published by WhIP (When Illuminated Press)

Permission of publisher to share this book on the steem blockchain. Half of the rewards for this post will be transferred to the illustrator, @janiceduke, using the chainbb beneficiaries options. Follow the hashtag #chemicalserpents for more.

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