Hierophant - Snake and Dove?

Zephyros

I'm curious about that. Is that link something you think yourself? Does it come from a hybrid system of Ancient Egyptian ideas and 'modern' astology (like Rosemary Clark or someone)? Is it positons on the 'Dendra Zodiac' ?

Oh, no, didn't make it up myself, although it could be said my sources were dubious. It interests me, too, and I plan to follow up on it later in the day. In the meantime:

essenechristianity.com/taurus_the_bull.htm

the-red-thread.net/God-of-Taurus.html

nexxushost.com/szurane/taurus/horus.html

ETA: Don't know why the links weren't parsed, sorry about that. They still work, though if you copy/paste them into the browser.
 

Aeon418

Apologies for the blatant thread necromancy...

I've recently been rereading J. Daniel Gunther's, Initiation in the Aeon of the Child, and this got me thinking about the Serpent and the Dove and also Crowley's comment about choosing the Serpent.

Although he doesn't come straight out and say it, Gunther seems to attribute Atu XVI The Tower to the Volatizing of the Fixed (Solve). Atu V The Hierophant then represents the Fixing of the Volatile (Coagula). In alchemical literature this 'fixing' is usually accomplished by some creature being impailed by nails or a sword. On the Thoth card we have the Serpent impailed with 9 nails. The number of nails may indicate that there is a connection to Yesod and the ever changeable sphere of Luna. The spelling of YSVD (=80) also provides a link back to the letter Peh and Atu XVI.

Although it's scattered all over the place and stated nowhere, Gunther suggests that Atu XVI may represent a 'kiss' from the Mouth/Peh of the Holy Guardian Angel. This 'kiss' represents the initial contact between the aspirant and his/her HGA at the subconscious level of the Nephesh. The contact with the Foundation/Yesod of the aspirant results in 'apparent' catastrophe and destruction of apocalyptic proportions. The open Eye of Shiva on Atu XVI points to this, and Gunther links this to the star of Wormwood and it's effects in Revelation 8:10-11. (See also Liber LXV V:5 where Hoor is described as a fiery star that falleth upon the earth and into the Animal Soul of Things, i.e. the Nephesh of humanity.)

Edit: The spirit point of the Averse pentagram on Atu V projects down towards the woman holding the Lunar crescent. Wormwood entering the Nephesh?

In the Holy books of Thelema this destruction is described as corrupting kisses or poison/snake venom. Gunther indirectly ties this back to the Brazen Serpent, a prototypical messiah, that was raised by Moses in the wilderness to cure the Israelites of snake bites that were sent by Yahweh himself. (Numbers 21:5-9) Those who looked upon the Brazen Serpent were healed. (Gunther identifies this serpent with the Serpent of Wisdom that climbs the Tree of Life.) Is there not a sadistic aspect to this story? The savior is also the inflictor of 'apparent' misfortune and destruction.

Crowley on the Hierophant:
Aleister Crowley said:
Though the face of the Hierophant appears benignant and smiling, and the child himself seems glad with wanton innocence, it is hard to deny that in the expression of the initiator is something mysterious, even sinister. He seems to be enjoying a very secret joke at somebody's expense. There is a distinctly sadistic aspect to this card
An example of Messiah = Serpent? MIShCh = 358 = NChSH.

Aleister Crowley said:
It was midnight, and the Devil came down and sat in the midst; but my Fairy Prince whispered: "Hush! It is a great secret, but his name is Yeheswah, and he is the Saviour of the World." And that was very funny, because the girl next me thought it was Jesus Christ, till another Fairy Prince (my Prince's brother) whispered as he kissed her: "Hush, tell nobody ever, that is Satan, and he is the Saviour of the World."
 

Zephyros

That's brilliant, thank you! I've always though that, visually on the Tree, the path of Peh suggests some crisis. It looks like the Tree if being blown apart at this point, and the connections Gunther makes are interesting. I don't understand the connection to the Hierophant though.
 

Aeon418

I don't understand the connection to the Hierophant though.
I think the most simple and direct answer is:

Union = Ecstasy = Destruction.

By aspiring to union with the HGA (Atu V) you are effectively invoking your own destruction (Atu XVI). Maybe that is the meaning behind the Hierophant's sinister hand jesture and Crowley's comments about sadism.
 

Aeon418

The following quote is from Liber 418 - 29th Aethyr. It concerns the Bull as the Hierophant.
Aleister Crowley said:
I turned me to the West and there was a great Bull; White with horns of White and Black and Gold. His mouth was scarlet and his eyes as Sapphire stones. With a great sword he shore the skies asunder, and amid the silver flashes of the steel grew lightnings and deep clouds of Indigo.

He spake: It is finished! My mother hath unveiled herself!

My sister hath violated herself! The life of things hath disclosed its Mystery.

The work of the Moon is done! Motion is ended for ever!

Clipped are the eagle's wings: but my Shoulders have not lost their strength.

I heard a Great Voice from above crying: Thou liest! For the Volatile hath indeed fixed itself; but it hath arisen above thy sight. The World is desert: but the Abodes of the House of my Father are peopled; and His Throne is crusted over with white Brilliant Stars, a lustre of bright gems.

Turning to Crowley's description of the Hierophant in The Book of Thoth we see some interesting parallels.

The nine nails "serve to fix the oriel behind" the Hierophant where he can't see it.

The "oriel is diaphanous" and is also "in blossom". It is set against "the dark blue of the starry night of Nuit, from whose womb all phenomena are born."
The Mother (Heh) unveiled?

"Before him is the woman girt with a sword". The Sister (Heh final) who has violated herself by grasping the phallic sword?
 

Nemia

I hope this is not totally off-topic but reading the title I had to add my un-esoteric take on serpent and dove. What came to my mind was their use in emblem-influenced art of the Renaissance and later, especially in the Netherlands.

Flemish artist Anthony van Dyke worked and achieved fame in England. His portrait of Lady Venetia Digby, a woman with a scandalous past who married very well, shows her as allegory/personification of Prudence, holding in one hand the dove, in the other the serpent.

http://images.npg.org.uk/264_325/9/3/mw07293.jpg

Of course, the concept as Prudence as integration of shrewdness and innocence, the ideal balance point of self-interest and selflessness, is rooted in the New Testament (Matthew 10>16)

http://biblehub.com/matthew/10-16.htm

"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. So be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves."

Knowledge both of Biblical texts and Classical emblem traditions was very wide spread and people knew to read emblems like we know to read logos. Serpent and dove immediately called to mind the virtue of prudence, just like a person pouring liquid from one vessel into another was immediately recognized as Temperance (and until today, everybody recognize the personification of Justice).

The other cardinal virtues are present in the Atu - does the Hierophant represent Prudence?
 

kwaw

Oh, no, didn't make it up myself, although it could be said my sources were dubious. It interests me, too, and I plan to follow up on it later in the day. In the meantime:

essenechristianity.com/taurus_the_bull.htm

the-red-thread.net/God-of-Taurus.html

nexxushost.com/szurane/taurus/horus.html

ETA: Don't know why the links weren't parsed, sorry about that. They still work, though if you copy/paste them into the browser.


According to Budge, the Name 'Horus, the Bull of Heaven' [Hor-Ka-Pet] referred to the planet Saturn, not the sign Taurus, and was represented by a Bull-headed Hawk. (Mars was Hor-Tesher, Red Horus, and Har-Akhti, Horus of the two horizons, Venus as Morning Star was Horus of the Tuat, Horus of the underworld, and was the ferryman of Osiris).

(Although much of which Budge wrote is wrong in terms of modern scholarship, he was perhaps of some influence of the Egyptian concepts of Aleister Crowley (several of his books were published pre-cairo working) and perhaps other Golden Dawn members though the publication of the Book of the Dead, 1895 is a little late for that; the Golden Dawn God name conventions suggests a French or German source, rather than English.)

According to Jane Sellers The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt, 2007: "...there is seemingly no correlation... between Horus the Bull of Heaven, and our constellation, Taurus." She also says that 'Horus, the Bull of Heaven' was a title of the Planet Saturn in the 18th dynasty. This is also confirmed by several modern texts on Egyptology (the constellation of the 'big dipper' was also called the bull or 'the bull's penis'.

Horus, the Bull of Heaven as the name of the planet Saturn can also be found in several 19th century German and French texts, for example, Ueber die [epaphrodisia] und den Symbolismus der Zahl 30 in den Hieroglyphen by Heinrich Karl Brugsch, 1855, whose brother, fellow Egyptologist Emile, assisted Crowley by having his assistant translate the Stele of Revealing in 1904.

Samuel Mathers was also familiar with the works of Heinrich Karl Brugsch (he quotes from him). Works of Brugsch are also quoted in the minutes of the Ars quatorum Coronati, of which Mathers and Westcott were members, by co-founder of the G.D. William Robert Woodman (in a review of Westcott's Isiac Tablet of Bembo).

The hierophant/horus conflated with taurus (the bull) = Horus, the bull of heaven = saturn/satan? (the something sinister about this card!?)

"Ο -- The exalted “Devil” (also the other secret Eye) by the formula of the Initiation of Horus elsewhere described in detail. This “Devil” is called Satan or Shaitan, and regarded with horror by people who are ignorant of his formula, and, imagining themselves to be evil, accuse Nature herself of their own phantasmal crime. Satan is Saturn, Set, Abrasax, Adad, Adonis, Attis, Adam, Adonai, etc...."