The Nargal was the Chaldæan and Assyrian chief of the Magi [Rab-Mag], and the Nagal was the chief sorcerer of the Mexican Indians. Both derive their names from Nergal-Serezer, the Assyrian god, and the Hindû Nâgas. Both have the same faculties and the power to have an attendant Dæmon, with whom they identify themselves completely. The Chaldæan and Assyrian Nargal kept his Dæmon, in the shape of some animal considered sacred, inside the temple; the Indian Nagal keeps his wherever he can—in the neighbouring lake, or wood, or in the house, in the shape of some household animal.[487]
Such similarity cannot be attributed to coincidence. A new world is discovered, and we find that, for our forefathers of the Fourth Race, it was already an old one; that Arjuna, Krishna's companion and Chelâ, is said to have descended into Pâtâla, the “antipodes” and therein married Ulûpî,[488] a Nâga, or Nâgî rather, the daughter of the king of the Nâgas, Kauravya.[489]
And now it may be hoped the full meaning of the serpent emblem is proven. It is neither that of evil, nor, least of all, that of the devil; but is, indeed, the ΣΕΜΕΣ ΕΙΛΑΜ ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ, the “Eternal Sun Abrasax,” the Central Spiritual Sun of all the Kabalists, represented in some diagrams by the circle of Tiphereth.
And here, again, we may quote from our earlier volumes and enter into further explanations.
From this region of unfathomable Depth (Bythos, Aditi, Shekinah, the Veil of the Unknown) issues forth a Circle formed of spirals. This is Tiphereth; which, in the language of symbolism, means a grand Cycle, composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as to follow the spirals, lies the Serpent—emblem of Wisdom and Eternity—the Dual Androgyne; the cycle representing Ennoia, or the Divine Mind (a Power which does not create but which must assimilate), and the Serpent, the Agathodæmon, the Ophis, the Shadow of the Light (non-eternal, yet the greatest Divine Light on our plane). Both were the Logoi of the Ophites; or the Unity as Logos manifesting itself as a double principle of Good and Evil.[490]
Were it Light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could not appreciate nor even realize it. Shadow is that which enables Light to manifest itself, and gives it objective reality. Therefore, Shadow is not evil, but is the necessary and indispensable corollary which completes Light or Good; it is its creator on Earth.
According to the views of the Gnostics, these two principles are immutable Light and Shadow; Good and Evil being virtually one and having existed through all eternity, as they will ever continue to exist so long as there are manifested worlds.
This symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent, as the Saviour, coiled either round the sacramental loaf, or a Tau (the phallic emblem). As a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos. When separated, one is the Tree of Spiritual Life, the other, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human couple—the material production of Ilda-baoth, but owing its spiritual principle to Sophia-Achamoth—to eat of the forbidden fruit, although Ophis represents divine Wisdom.
The Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India. The Arasa-maram [?], the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindûs—since Vishnu during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty shade and there taught human philosophy and sciences—is called the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protecting foliage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons on immortality and initiate them into the mysteries of life and death. The Java-Aleim of the Sacerdotal College are said, in the Chaldæan tradition, to have taught the sons of men to become like one of them. To the present day Foh-tchou[491]who lives in his Foh-Maëyu, or the temple of Buddha, on the top of the Kouin-Long-Sang,[492]the great mountain, produces his greatest religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese Sung-Ming-Shŭ, or the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, for ignorance is death, and knowledge alone gives immortality. This marvellous display takes place every three years, when an immense concourse of Chinese Buddhists assembles in pilgrimage at the holy place.[493]
Now it may become comprehensible why the earliest Initiates and Adepts, or the “Wise Men,” who are claimed to have been initiated into the Mysteries of Nature by the Universal Mind, represented by the highest Angels, were named the “Serpents of Wisdom” and “Dragons”; and also how the first physiologically complete couples—after being initiated into the Mystery of Human Creation through Ophis, the Manifested Logos and the Androgyne, by eating of the fruit [pg 226] of knowledge—gradually began to be accused by the material spirit of posterity of having committed sin, of having disobeyed the “Lord God,” and of having been tempted by the Serpent.