For the Naassenes Paradise was a quaternity parallel with the Moses quaternio and of similar meaning.
Its fourfold nature consisted in the four rivers, Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Phrat.
The serpent in Genesis is an illustration of the personified tree numen; hence it is traditionally represented in or coiled round the tree.
It is the tree’s voice, which persuades Eve—in Luther’s version—that “it would be good to eat of the tree, and pleasant to behold that it is a lusty tree.”
In the fairytale of “The Spirit in the Bottle,” Mercurius can likewise be interpreted as a tree numen.
In the Ripley “Scrowle” Mercurius appears as a snake in the shape of a Melusina descending from the top of the Philosophical Tree (“tree of knowledge”).
The tree stands for the development and phases of the transformation process, and its fruits or flowers signify the consummation of the work.
In the fairytale Mercurius is hidden in the roots of a great oak-tree, i.e., in the earth. For it is in the interior of the earth that the Mercurial serpent dwells. ~Carl Jung, Aion, Para 372
Therefore the serpent was also the symbol for resurrection, death, and renewal.
This idea of Christ as the serpent is additional evidence of the many Gnostic and pagan influences in the early church.
The Marcionites who believed in this teaching were a very important sect at that time; because they were anti-Semitic, they produced a revised text of the New Testament in which they blotted out all quotations from the Old Testament. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1224
One might almost say that the dream goes on with the “explanation” of what is happening in the square space.
Animals are to be changed into men; a “shapeless life-mass” is to be turned into a transfigured (illuminated) human head by magic contact with a reptile.
The animal lump or life-mass stands for the mass of the inherited unconscious which is to be united with consciousness.
This is brought about by the ceremonial use of a reptile, presumably a snake.
The idea of transformation and renewal by means of a serpent is a well-substantiated archetype (fig. 70).
It is the healing serpent, representing the god (cf. figs. 203, 204).
It is reported of the mysteries of Sabazius: “Aureus coluber in sinum demittitur consecratis et eximitur rursus ab inferioribus partibus atque imis” (A golden snake is let down into the lap of the initiated and taken away again from the lower parts).
Among the Ophites, Christ was the serpent.
Probably the most significant development of serpent symbolism as regards renewal of personality is to be found in Kundalini yoga.
The shepherd’s experience with the snake in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra would accordingly be a fatal omen (and not the only one of its kind—cf. the prophecy at the death of the rope-dancer). ~Carl Jung, CW12, Para 184
The purified and nourished serpent in al alchemy is the mercurial serpent, the Ouroboros, which is connected with the round thing.
It is one of the basic symbols in alchemy and refers to Mercury, not as ordinary mercury or quicksilver, but to the god or spirit Mercury.
The serpent is a Gnostic symbol for the spinal cord and the basal ganglia, because a snake is mainly backbone.
Snakes are weird and strange, and on account of this they have been used as a symbol for the unconscious since olden times.
If the unconscious can be localized anywhere it is in the basal ganglia, and it has the same uncanny character.
The snake really represents the vegetative psyche, the basis of the instincts, if one may express it in that way.
It is here (and in this place in the human being) that the greatest secret is to be found, the panacea, the universal medicine; and, according to the text, fortunate indeed is the man who finds it. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XI, Page 97.
The animus, who is always the psychopompos, the leader of souls, here appears as the one treading upon the zodiacal serpent, which means that he is the lord of the serpent, the lord of time.
Inasmuch as the serpent is the zodiacal way, the animus appears to be the sun; he takes on an almost astronomical aspect as if he were transplanted into the heavens. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 1228
The serpent was the sacred animal of Aesculapius, the god of the doctors, who had a famous clinic for all diseases at Epidaurus.
There a huge serpent was kept, and in the time of the great pestilence, when Diocletian was the Roman emperor, they brought that serpent-it was not a mythical serpent,
it was a real snake-from Epidaurus to Rome as a sort of apotropaic charm. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 539
