E G Y P T For our present purposes, however, it is necessary to again consider origins and the links between Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia and Egypt. The source in this case is "Alchemy in Islamic Times" by Prof. Hamed Abdel-reheem Ead (University of Cairo Giza-Egypt and director of Science Heritage Center). A partial listing from this source is given below with emphasis on those of the Greek school already discussed; additional emphasis on the Egyptian contribution appears necessary to put the matter in its proper historical perspective before proceeding further. "Pythagoras (Fithaghurus) Pythagoras is often mentioned in Arabic philosophy and in gnomic literature. Jaldaki calls him al-muallim al-awwal because he acquired the science from hermetic texts. Jabir refers to him as an alchemic author and speaks of Ta'ifat Fthaghurus, the school of Pythagoras, and of his book Kitab almusahhahat (Book of Adjustments). Other quotations refer to Pythagoras's theory of numbers. Tughra'i mentions him several times and refers to his treatise about 'natural numbers'. The fragments of texts which are attributed to him could have come either from Turba philosophorum, where he is among the participants, or from other texts.Socrates Socrates is considered not only as a wise man but also as an alchemist. Jabir calls him 'the father and mother of all philosophers' and considers him as the prototype of the real chemist. From Socrates to Jabir, there is a continuous tradition which attributes entire treatises to him. Jabir affirms that Socrates was opposed to the writing down of alchemic knowledge to avoid its exposition to the ignorance of the masses. Most references to Socrates refer to his arithmetical speculations (theory of the balance) and also to artificial generation.Plato (Aflatun) Olympiodorus already (at the end of the sixth century) considered Plato as an alchemist and Ibn al-Nadlm mentions him in the list of alchemists. Butrus al-Ilmlml mentions an alchemic device called, hammam Aflatun (Plato's bath). Among the books attributed to him by the Arabs we can mention the Summa Platonis of which we only have the Latin version. There is a commentary to this book - the Kitab al-Rawabi' - whose Arabic text was edited by Badawi and whose Latin translation is known by the name Liber quartorum. The contents of this work are mainly alchemic but it contains also information on geometry, physiology and astrology. The ancient authors cited are Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Proclus, the Sophists, Ostanes, Hermes, Asclepius and Hippocrates....Aristotle (Aristu) Aristotle is considered as an alchemist author not so much because of his fourth book Meteorologica but because of his reputation as an all-round scholar. He wrote a book on alchemy for his disciple Alexander. In 618, by order of Heraclius, the book was translated into Syriac by the monk Jean, and the Bishop of Nisibis, Eliyya bar Shinaya, made sure of its orthodoxy. Finally Abdishu' bar Brika, Bishop of Sinjar, and later of Nisibis, made a commentary on it in Syriac of which there still exists an Arabic translation. The text contains an introduction in which Abdlshu reports the legendary history of the text followed by a Ietter from Alexander to Aristotle where the former poses questions to which the latter responds. This dialogue is called sahifat kanz Allah al-akbar (Epistle of the Great Treasure of God). it includes three chapters: (1) About the great principles of alchemy; (2) Alchemic operations; (3) The elixir. Pythagoras, Democritus, Asclepiades, Hermes, Plato, Ostanes and Balmas are mentioned in the text....Bolos the Democritean of Mendes Bolos the Democritean lived in the second century before Christ. The work of this scholar is varied: alchemy, astrology, medicine.... the school of Bolos brings to the Egyptian technique a philosophical reasoning which will open the way to the science of the Great Work. 'Once again', says Festugiere, 'we see the union of the Greek spirit and the Oriental art.' The art exists, from ancient times; the goldsmiths of Egypt work metals, stones and purple... About the same time alchemy was practiced in most Egyptian towns. This first alchemy is a mixture of hermetic or Gnostic elements and old Greek philosophy: Heraclitus, Empedocles and their speculations about the four elements, Parmenides with his theory on the unity of the whole, the Platonic cosmogony of Timaeus. [emphasis supplied]Zosimus The most famous character of this time is Zosimus of Panopolis (Akhmim, in Upper Egypt). He probably lived at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century...Zosimus can be placed at the end of an evolution in alchemy. With Bolos, it became philosophical; with Zosimus it becomes a mystical religion where the idea of salvation is predominant. In fact, the period which separates Bolos the Democritean from Zosimus saw intense alchemic activity. Vastly different elements - Egyptian magic, Greek philosophy, neo-Platonism, Babylonian astrology, Christian theology, pagan mythology - can be found in Zosimus' texts. He is full of gnostic and hermetic books, he knows the Jewish speculations about the Old Testament. He gives to alchemy a religious character which will remain forever, at least in its traditional course, since with the Arab alchemists it will retain its concrete technical character before meeting the Ismaeli gnostic speculations. Zosimus and his contemporaries who collected their predecessors' traditions insist on their connection with the Egypt of the Pharaohs or with the Persia of Zoroastra and Ostanes. We can find texts under the name of Agathodaimon compared with Hermes.... This Greek-Egyptian alchemy survived in Alexandria for several centuries. From here it will go to Constantinople, where several recensions of the 'collection of Greek alchemists' were compiled, and to the Arabs when they conquered Egypt in the seventh century.Hermes and Hermetic literature According to Ibn al-Nadlm (351, 19) Arab alchemists considered the Babylonian Hermes as the first one to have mentioned the art of alchemy. Exiled by his countrymen, he came to Egypt where he became king. He wrote a certain number of books on alchemy and was equally interested in the study of the hidden forces of nature." [emphases and italics supplied]Further information concerning the roles played by Bolos, Zosimos and especially Hermes may be found in Jack Lindsay's The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt [1970], who informs the reader, among other things, that:12 Zosimos looked to Hermes as the originator of the notion of the alchemic process as triadic. 'The present [chemical] composition, once set in movement, leaves the state of monad in order to constitute itself as a triad by driving out the mercury. Constituted as a monad that overflows as a triad, it is a continuum; but in return, constituted as a triad with three separated elements, it constitutes the world by the providence of the First Author, Cause and Demiurge of Creation, who henceforth is called Trismegistos in the sense that he has envisaged what he produced, and what produces it, under a triadic mode.' This important statement deepens the triadic concept by applying it directly to the moment of change, in which simultaneously there occur an act of union and an act of expulsion, of negation. This pattern is not a chance product, it is something that has only a limited application; it is the creative or formative pattern of all process. The alchemist is re-enacting the role of the demiurge.At which point we arrive back at the Triad and to some extent the Oracles to take up the occurrence of the universal constant phi, this time its underlying importance in the construction of major monuments in Ancient Egypt - a topic treated at length by R.A.Schwaller de Lubicz [1891-1962] with respect to the construction the Temple of Luxor (Le Temple de l'Homme).13 The latter's "symbolist" interpretations were subsequently championed by John Anthony West and made generally available by West's 1978 publication Serpent in the Sky. Because of the significance of Phi in both these works West gave considerable space to the topic, and in addition suggested that:14 Perhaps the greatest single achievement within Schwaller de Lubricz's reinterpretation is the solution of the ultimate meaning of the Golden Section - a problem that has occupied many of the greatest thinkers and artists of history. When this significance is divulged, the reader may well be puzzled as to why so apparently elementary an explanation should have remained a mystery so long. Yet the fact is that the solution eluded the genius of Leonardo and of Kepler, of a number of brilliant modern biologists, and a host of astute artists and researchers in aesthetics. The answer to the mystery's amazing persistence can only lie in the fact that the cause of number, the Primordal Scission, was never grasped. Yet it is known that phi controls the proportions of innumerable living organisms, that the spiral of the 'spiral galaxy" is a phi spiral, that the orbits of the planets of our solar system are in complex phi relationships to each other, and that the proportions of Gothic cathedrals and Greek temples are commanded by phi. Though long before Swaller de Lubicz's work a number of scholars had noted phi proportions in the pyramids and other Egyptian remains, only in the past few years has this been acknowledged by Egyptologists. Even now, attempts are made to show how the Egyptians might have used the Golden Section without actually realizing they were doing so. But the fact is that the Egyptians knew and used phi from the earliest dynasties - as well as the so-called Fibonacci numbers that devolve from phi. Evidently the Egyptians - and builders of the Greek temples and Gothic cathedrals and to a certain extent the painters and Neoplatonists of the Renaissance - also knew the significance of phi and the manner in which to employ it effectively; knowledge which they either deliberately kept secrect or which was later inadvertently lost. Even those modern artists who have been intrigued by phi and attempted to use it (Mondrian and le Corbusier, for example) did not understand its meaning and met with but partial success. [emphasis added]Le Corbusier in fact made use of the phi-series itself in his blue and red series as Kappraff [1991] has explained in some detail.15 Moreover, from what has been discussed so far, it would appear that a case can indeed be made for the statement that: "the orbits of the planets of our solar system are in complex phi relationships to each other," although this does not seem to be a current or universal understanding, to say the least. In the final analysis, the present work - unavoidably condensed - cannot in fact claim to be a distinct discovery per se, nor can it constitute restoration of lost wisdom if the latter was never truly lost. What is supplied here is a beginning and a partial integration of a complex corpus of information that may have ramifications yet to be recognized. The same may also be said regarding the background part played throughout the ages by those who elected to preserve and pass the information on. Only they know their true roles in all of this; perhaps the rest of us never will. As for the role of Ancient Egypt, consider again (or refer to Part B of the previous Section) Kepler's "frank confession" in the Harmonies of the World published in the year 1618:16 The very nature of things, in order to reveal herself to mankind, was at work in the different interpreters of different ages, and the finger of God-to use the Hebrew expression; and here, in the minds of two men, who had wholly given themselves up to the contemplation of nature, there was the same conception as to the configuration of the world, although neither had been the others guide in taking this route. But now since the first light eight months ago, since broad day three months ago, and since the sun of my wonderful speculation has shone fully a very few days ago: nothing holds me back. I am free to give myself up to the sacred madness, I am free to taunt mortals with the frank confession that I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians, in order to build a temple for my God, far from the territory of Egypt. If you pardon me, I shall rejoice; if you are enraged, I shall bear up. The die is cast, and I am writing the book-whether to be read by my contemporaries or by posterity matters not. Let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God Himself has been ready for His contemplator for six thousand years.Lux e TenebrisAlmost four centuries have elapsed since Kepler wrote his frank confession and moving epilogue. Although much work remains, perhaps the time has now come for the "Golden Vessels of the Egyptians" to be repatriated and their place in the scheme of things acknowledged, along with the sacrifices of all those who laboured to preserve them through the intervening centuries of darkness.

REFERENCES Lindsay, Jack. The origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt,Ebenezer Baylis & Son, Trinity Press London 1970. Taylor, Thomas, Commentaries of Proclus on the Timus of Plato, Book I. Kessinger Books, Kila. p.36.Taylor, Thomas, T. PLATO: The Timus and The Critias, Bollingen Series, Pantheon Books, Washington 1944:118. Wagner, Jeffrey K. Introduction to the Solar System, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Orlando 1991. Taylor, Thomas, Commentaries of Proclus on the Timus of Plato, Vol II, Book III. pp. 89-90.

The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timeus of Plato, transl. Thomas Taylor, Kessinger Books, Kila, pp.115-118. Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter.The foundations of Newton's Alchemy,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975:165. Lindsay, Jack, The Origins of Alchemy in Grco-Roman Egypt, Ebenezer Baylis & Son, Trinity Press, London, 1970:259.

ibid., pp.144-145.

ibid., p.265.The Hermetic Arcanum Lindsay, Jack, The Origins of Alchemy in Grco-Roman Egypt, Ebenezer Baylis & Son, Trinity Press London 1970:177. de Lubicz, Schwaller, Le Temple de l'Homme, Translated by Robert and Deborah Lawlor, Autumn Books 2000. West, J. A., Serpent in the Sky, Quest Books, Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton. 1993:61-62. Kappraff, J. CONNECTIONS: The Geometric Bridge between Art and Science, McGraw-Hill, New York 1991:21-25. Kepler, Johannes. Harmonies of the World, Great Books of the Modern World 16, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor in Chief. William Benton, Chicago 1952.

Copyright 1997. John N. Harris, M.A.(CMNS). Last Updated on February 22, 2004.

OROBOROS - The Logo

The original"Ouroboros"is from: Abraham Eleazar, 1760: Uraltes chymisches Werk. 2nd ed., Leipzig The dragon forming a cycle, feeding on its own tail - in alchemy, the Oroboros is an emblem of the eternal, cyclic nature of the universe, combining idea and action, efficiency and power. The Oroboros is grasping the whole by the conception of the opposite, the divine process of creation and the evil backlash of destruction. In thermodynamics, the alchemist's search for the eternal Unity has been continued in the many efforts to construct a machine operating at 100% efficiency, the Perpetuum Mobile. 100% efficiency is the prerequisite for a truly cyclic nature of energy flux through the biosphere. The notion of the arrow of time, introduced by the Second Law of thermodynamics, replaces the quest for 100% efficiency by the pursuit of a balanced management of the resources of energy and time. Such optimization of efficient material recycling and balanced resource utilization is a vital responsibility of modern society for the protection of local and global ecological systems. The Oroboros is one of the rare universal examples where feeding on external negative entropy, deS/dt, is not true, as shown by the feedback loop and the system boundaries. In terms of ergodynamics, at any rate, Oroboros is the fine state of non-thermodynamic equilibrium. Reference:Gnaiger E, Gellerich FN, Wyss M, eds (1994) What is Controlling Life? 50 Years after Erwin Schrdinger's What is Life? Modern Trends in BioThermoKinetics 3. Innsbruck Univ. Press, Innsbruck:p. 316. [pdf286 kB] See also: Gnaiger E (1994) Negative entropy for living systems: Controversy between Nobel laureates Schrdinger, Pauling and Perutz. In What is Controlling Life? (Gnaiger E, Gellerich FN, Wyss M, eds) Modern Trends in BioThermoKinetics 3. Innsbruck Univ. Press: 62-70.[pdf 288 kB]. MiPArt 3 - Oroboros(German) Oroboros - Symbol Oroboros Links

The Ouroboros (Greek or , from "tail-devouring snake", also spelled Uroboros in English pronounced /bs/ or /jobs/), is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle.The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end (See Phoenix). It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. The ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus. It is also often associated with Gnosticism, and Hermeticism.Carl Jung interpreted the Ouroboros as having an archetypical significance to the human psyche. The Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego "dawn state", depicting the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual child.[1]AntiquityPlato described a self-eating, circular being as the first living thing in the universean immortal, perfectly constructed animal.The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet.[2] "Coiled dragon" forms have been attributed to the Hongshan culture (4700 BC to 2900 BC). One in particular, in the shape of a complete circle, was found on the chest of the deceased.[3]The notion of a serpent or dragon eating its own tail can be traced back to Ancient Egypt, circa 1600 BC. From ancient Egypt it passed to Phoenicia and then to the Greek philosophers, who gave it the name Ouroboros ("tail-devourer").[citation needed] Yet, In the Pyramid of Unas dated between 2375 BC and 2345 BC, in the Sarcophagus chamber, on the west wall gable hieroglyphs it states "A serpent is entwined by a serpent" and "the male serpent is bitten by the female serpent, the female serpent is bitten by the male serpent, Heaven is enchanted, earth is enchanted, the male behind mankind is enchanted" [4]In Gnosticism, this serpent symbolized eternity and the soul of the world.Christianity adopted the Ouroboros as symbols of the limited confines of the material world (that there is an "outside" being implied by the demarcation of an inside), and the self-consuming transitory nature of a mere "worldly existence" of this world, following in the footsteps of the preacher in Ecclesiastes 3:9-14. G. K. Chesterton, in The Everlasting Man, uses it as a symbol of the circular and self-defeating nature of pantheistic mysticism and of most modern philosophy.Middle AgesIn Norse mythology, it appears as the serpent Jrmungandr, one of the three children of Loki and Angrboda, who grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth. In the legends of Ragnar Lodbrok, such as Ragnarssona ttr, the Geatish king Herraud gives a small lindworm as a gift to his daughter ra Town-Hart after which it grows into a large serpent which encircles the girl's bower and bites itself in the tail. The serpent is slain by Ragnar Lodbrok who marries ra. Ragnar later has a son with another woman named Krka and this son is born with the image of a white snake in one eye. This snake encircled the iris and bit itself in the tail, and the son was named Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.AlchemyIn alchemy, the Ouroboros is a purifying sigil. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung saw the Ouroboros as an archetype and the basic mandala of alchemy. Jung also defined the relationship of the Ouroboros to alchemy:[5]The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which [...] unquestionably stems from man's unconscious.The famous Ouroboros drawing from the early alchemical text The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra dating to 2nd century Alexandria encloses the words hen to pan, "one is the all". Its black and white halves represent the Gnostic duality of existence.As a symbol of the eternal unity of all things, the cycle of birth and death from which the alchemist sought release and liberation, it was familiar to the alchemist/physician Sir Thomas Browne. In his A letter to a friend, a medical treatise full of case-histories and witty speculations upon the human condition, he wrote of it:[...] that the first day should make the last, that the Tail of the Snake should return into its Mouth precisely at that time, and they should wind up upon the day of their Nativity, is indeed a remarkable Coincidence,It is also alluded to at the conclusion of Browne's The Garden of Cyrus (1658) as a symbol of the circular nature and Unity of the two Discourses:All things began in order so shall they end, so shall they begin again according to the Ordainer of Order and the mystical mathematicks of the City of Heaven.FreemasonryThe ouroboros is displayed on numerous Masonic seals, frontispieces and other imagery, especially during the 18th century.TheosophyThe ouroboros is featured in the seal of Theosophy, along with other traditional symbols.Non-western traditionsIt is also present in some Hindu folk-myths,[citation needed] as a snake (Adisesha) circling the tortoise Maha kurma that supports the eight elephants which support the world on their backs.[citation needed] However, the snake does not bite its own tail, but instead is calling itself into being through what some literary theorists have called a performative speech act.[citation needed]Snakes are sacred animals in many West African religions. The demi-god Aidophedo uses the image of a serpent biting its own tail. The Ouroboros is also seen in fon or dahomean iconography as well as in yoruba imagery as Oshunmare.The god Quetzalcoatl is sometimes portrayed as an Ouroboros on Aztec and Toltec ruins.[citation needed]Modern

The organic chemist August Kekul claimed that a ring in the shape of Ouroboros that he saw in a dream inspired him in his discovery of the structure of benzene. As noted by Carl Jung, this might be an instance of cryptomnesia.[clarification needed]The flag of the short-lived Italian Regency of Carnaro featured the Ouroboros on it. The Ouroboros has been incorporated into the crests of the Hungarian and Romanian Unitarian churches.LiteratureThe satirical play Androboros is named after it. In the novel The Neverending Story (and film adaptations), a variation with two snakes is featured as the talisman "AURYN". In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, in an episode entitled "The Secret", it is revealed that Marguerite Krux came to the plateau in search of the other half of a medallion, the Ouroboros, which she needed to trade with a criminal called Shanghai Xan, who in return was to give her her birth certificate so she could learn her true identity. In Ian Fleming's novel Live And Let Die, the Ourobouros is the name of Mr. BIG's worm-and-bait factory in St. Petersburg which James Bond deduces as the entry point for smuggled gold in "chapter XIII - Death of a pelican" In William Gaddis's first novel, The Recognitions (1955), there is an Ouroboros depicted on the title page of the hardcover and paperback editions. Appears as the 'World-Worm', a dormant world-circling snake god, whose body has turned to stone from lack of magic to sustain it, in Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away". Used in Kurt Vonnegut's book, Breakfast of Champions. The reference is located on page 205, and it goes: "What is time? It is a serpent which eats its tail...".

OtherBy scientists the Ouroboros may be viewed as a symbol for the flow of energy and entropy in living beings.[8] In this context it is used as logo and namesake by Oroboros Instruments. In computers the Ouroboros may represent a circular dependency. In particular a routing misconfiguration, where a tunnel traffic is trying to route over the tunnel itself.

References^ Neumann, Erich. (1995). The Origins and History of Consciousness. Bollington series XLII: Princeton University Press. Originally published in German in 1949. ^ Plato, Timaeus, 33; translated by Benjamin Jowett [1]; (original text at Perseus) ^ The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology - NGA ^ The Pyramid Text Online http://www.pyramidtextsonline.com/sarcwestgable.html ^ Carl Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 14 para. 513 ^ , September 12, 2007, "'the [title of show] show' - Episode 3" ^ , February 14, 2008, "'the [title of show] show' - Extra" ^ Gnaiger E, Gellerich FN, Wyss M, eds (1994) What is Controlling Life? 50 Years after Erwin Schrdinger's What is Life? Modern Trends in BioThermoKinetics 3. Innsbruck Univ. Press, Innsbruck, ISBN 3-901249-17-6: p. 316.

Solar EquinoxSee alsoApep Armadillo Lizard Auryn Borromean rings Caduceus Eternal return Hoop snake

Jrmungandr Leviathan List of cycles Mbius strip Rainbow Serpent Self-reference

Serpent (symbolism) Sisyphus Shesha Tsuchinoko Vrtra Zahhak or Azhi Dahaka

Drawing by Theodoros Pelecanos, in alchemical tract titled Synosius (1478).

Engraving by Lucas Jennis, in alchemical tract titled De Lapide Philisophico.

Dragon & Phoenix Spiral Ouroboros

Escher Moebius strip

Escher