Chapter 51

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It has been repeatedly stated that the Serpent is the symbol of wisdom and of Occult knowledge. “The Serpent has been connected with the god of wisdom from the earliest times of which we have any historical notice,” writes C. Staniland Wake. “This animal was the especial symbol of Thoth or Taut ... and of all those gods, such as Hermes [?] and Seth who can be connected with him. This is true also of the third member of the primitive Chaldæan triad, Hea or Hoa.” According to Sir Henry Rawlinson, “the most important titles of this deity refer to ’his functions as the source of all knowledge and science.’ Not only is he ’the intelligent fish,’ but his name may be read as signifying both ’life’ and a ’serpent’ [an initiated Adept], and he may be considered as ’figured by the great serpent which occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording Babylonian benefactions.’ ” (The Great Pyramid, p. 75). Esculapius, Serapis, Pluto, Esmun and Kneph, are all deities with the attributes of the serpent, says Dupuis. They are all healers, givers of health, spiritual and physical, and of enlightenment. The crown formed of an asp, the Thermuthis belongs to Isis, Goddess of Life and Healing. The Upanishads have a treatise on the Science of Serpents—in other words, the Science of Occult Knowledge; and the Nâgas of the exoteric Buddhist are not “the fabulous creatures, of the nature of serpents ... being superior to man, and regarded as protectors of the law of Buddha,” as Schlagintweit believes, but real living men, some superior to men by virtue of their Occult Knowledge, and the protectors of Buddha’s law, inasmuch as they interpret his metaphysical tenets correctly, others inferior morally as being “black magicians.” Therefore it is truly declared that Gautama Buddha “is said to have taught them a more philosophical religious system than to men, who were not sufficiently advanced to understand it at the time of his appearance” (ibid., p. 72).