This is the serpent crown of the ancient Gods. It shows that the two paths or parts of the spirit fire have been united. This crown is the symbol of mastery and the union takes place within the student when the life forces are lifted to the brain. – Manly P. Hall

Since the most ancient times in history, the symbolical worship of the serpent has been seen world wide and is found everywhere, from here in America, to ancient Babylonia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Cachmere, China, Japan, Arabia, Syria, Colchis, and Asia Minor. Since the dawn of recorded human time, many of our ancestors had recorded their adoration of the serpent in stone, onto walls and on paper. Without a doubt it is one of the most ancient and widely accepted symbols of spiritual wisdom that has ever been in existence.

The serpent in most all cultures has a similar meaning and is generally accepted as a symbol of divine wisdom and spiritual purity. In Gnosticism, the serpent represents eternity of the soul of the world and in the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia it describes the disc of the sun as a 12-part dragon with his tail in his mouth. Helena Blavatsy says that serpent worship was spread across the globe by “the Masters of Wisdom, and that all Initiates into the Sacred Mysteries, are called Nagas, or Serpents of Wisdom.

Alexander the Great, before he had become the son of Jupiter Ammon in the Siwa Oasis, was said to be the son of a serpent. Augustus Caesar’s mother Atia in legend had Augustus from a serpent and Scipio Africanus was said that he believed he was the son of a snake.

Moses is another example with his brazen serpent intertwined around the tau cross as seen in Numbers 21:9  – “So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” The serpent is a symbol of the wisdom of Moses, who through his wise actions had led his peoples on an exodus from Egypt and away from the tyrannical religion and government that were enslaving their souls and minds. The “brazen serpent” that Moses had left for his peoples had also symbolized freedom to Israel and they had worshiped it until Hezekiah destroyed it (II Kings xviii. 4).

The Phoenician Prince and Master Teacher Cadmus, who was also known as Hermes is commonly depicted in images with the double serpent of the caduceus. Like Moses, Cadmus also had led his peoples, the Cadmians (Phoenicians) on an exodus into Greece. The name Cadmus, is derived from the Hebrew, Kedem, the East. It is said that he was a Hivite and the Hivites were also called the ‘ Snake’ clan, who were a people descended from Canaan. Gen. x, 17.

The name of Cadmus’s wife, Hermione comes from Mount Hermon, where it is said the Hivites had lived. In the Book of Enoch, Mount Hermon is the place where the Grigori; “Watchers, Sons of God or the Nephilim,” the fallen angels had descended to Earth.

The name of the serpent in the ancient language of Canaan was pronounced as Aub, Ab; Oub, Ob; Oph, Op; Eph, and Eo. The Greek word Ophis is derived from Oph, a serpent. The Egyptian name of the reptile is Eph. This would be where we get the name of the legendary name of the Ophites who had also worshiped the serpent and were the followers of the Cult of Isis.

You will also find that the serpent was depicted in Egypt with the circle, egg, or globe, and wings, and was venerated as an emblem of Divinity, an oracle, and as a god. The Egyptian asp is a species of Cobra de capellot, which we often find coiled on the Pharaohs headdress. In the legend of Osiris and Isis we find that they had lived happily together; then arose the serpent Typhon, and persecuted them, and through envy destroyed Osiris, and committed his broken remains to an ark or chest.

In the bible, the serpent, AKA wisdom is depicted as the Great Dragon in Revelations, the Old Serpent of Genesis and Leviathan. In Genesis 3:15 we find that God bruises the head of the serpent, but in end times, when there are born men of reason and wisdom, it is the serpent who shall bruise the heel of God, so that he shall fall backward.

With the help of Leviathan, we connect the serepent to the Tribe of Levi and their descendants the Levites, who according to the Book of Genesis; he was the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the levites). The Book of Jubilees describes Jacob as entrusting Levi with the secrets of the ancients, so that they would be known only to the Levites. The Father of English History and Doctor of the Catholic Church, and 9th century Irish Historian Saint Bede states, “the Levites are allegorically attached to the Catholic Church.”

In Isis Unveiled (Vol. II. 481), Helena Blavatsky says this about the Hivites and Levites that would also connect them all together;

The “race of the Dragons” or Serpents means the Wise Adepts. The names Hivi or Hivite, and Levi—signify a “Serpent”; and the Hivites or Serpent-tribe of Palestine, were, like all Levites and Ophites of Israel, initiated Ministers to the temples, i.e., Occultists, as are the priests of Quetzo Cohuatl. The Gibeonites whom Joshua assigned to the service of the sanctuary were Hivites.

In China, the Serpent is the Great Dragon of ancient mythology, their national emblem and a symbol of royalty. The Kings of Ethiopia, and Pharaohs of Egypt, had the asp (serpent) coiled up in the caps they wore on religious ceremonies representing royalty, given only to the sovereign or to the Gods. The Arabians worship serpents as sacred beings, and they allow no harm to come to them. It is said that in the ritual of Zoroaster, that serpents were esteemed as the first of gods; superintendents of the world and nature itself is depicted under the symbol of a serpent.

Masonic authors and Freemasons,   Albert G. MacKey and Harry LeRoy Haywood describe the serpents relationship to Masonry in the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1909 –

In Freemasonry, the Templar and in the Philosophic Degrees — such as the Knight of the Brazen Serpent, where the serpent is combined with the cross — it is evidently a symbol of Christ ; and thus the symbolism of these Degrees is closely connected with that of the Rose Croix.

33rd Degree Freemason and Master Rosicrucian, Manly P. Hall says this about the symbol of the serpent in his book, Initiates of the Flame;

Many ages have elapsed since the Egyptian Priest King passed through the pillars of Thebes. Ages before the sinking of Atlantis, thousands of years before the Christian Era, Egypt was a land of great truths. The hand of the Great White Brotherhood was held out to the Empire of the Nile, and the ancient pyramid passages resounded with the chants of the Initiates. It was then that the Pharaoh, now called half-human, half-divine, reigned in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh is the Egyptian word for king. Many of the later Pharaohs were degenerate and of little account. It is only the early Pharaohs we now list among the Priest Kings.

Try to picture for a moment the great Hall of Luxor —its inscriptive columns holding up domes of solid granite, each column carved with the histories of the gods. There at the upper end of the chamber sat the Pharaoh of the Nile in his robes of state; around him his counsellors, chief among them the priest of the temple. An imposing spectacle it was: the gigantic frame of the later Atlantean, robed in gold and priceless jewels; on his head the crown of the North and South, the double empire of the ancient; on his forehead the coiled serpent of the Initiate, the serpent which was raised in the wilderness that all who looked upon it might live; that sleeping serpent power in man, which coiled head downward around the tree of life, drove him from the garden of the Lord, but which raised upon the Cross, became the symbol of the Christ.

The Pharaoh was an Initiate of Scorpio, and the serpent is the transmuted Scorpio energy, which working upward in the regenerated individual is called the Kundalini. This serpent was the sign of Initiation. It meant that within him the serpent had been raised, for the true Pharaoh was a priest of God, as well as a master of men. There he sat upon the cube altar throne, indicating his mastery over the four elements of his physical body-a judge of the living and of the dead, who in spite of all his power and glory, having about him the grandeur of the world’s greatest empire, still bowed in humble supplication to the will of the gods. In his hands he carries the triple sceptre of the Nile, the Shepherd’s Crook, the Anubis-headed Staff and the Flail or Whip.

Moe

Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.