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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 and 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:. In Gnosticism , a serpent biting its tail symbolized eternity and the soul of the world. The figure serves as a symbol for mercury. An engraving of a woman holding an ouroboros in Michael Ranft 's treatise on vampirrs. Seal of the Theosophical Society , founded This snake encircled the iris and bit itself in the tail, and the son was named Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.
It is a common belief among indigenous people of the tropical lowlands of South America that waters at the edge of the world-disc are encircled by a snake, often an anaconda, biting its own tail.
Ouroboros symbolism has been used to describe the Kundalini. According to the medieval Yoga-kundalini Upanishad , "The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake, coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the body" 1. Storl also refers to the ouroboros image in reference to the "cycle of samsara ".
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: 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. 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 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.
I was sitting, writing at my text-book; but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes.
As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Ouroboros disambiguation. Retrieved 25 August The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife.
Cornell University Press , Conceptions of God in Egypt: The One and the Many. Cornell University Press, We have been blessed, or cursed depending upon your perspective with the gift to project and remember, to create and destroy, to desire and need. Here, the ouroboros effect is internal, a function of the individual.
It is the effect of an individual creating and then destroying what was created only to create the same again. Let me give an example. A boy creates a tower made of blocks. He places the last block, full of trepidation that the tower will topple.
When the last block is placed and the tower stands stable, the boy stands back to admire his work. The act of creation is complete. What had not existed is real, but it is now static.
When a group, usually political groups, start to fall apart from the inside due to their inconsistencies causing internal conflict. Much like the. The ouroboros, or snake eating it's tail, is an ancient symbol which has many meanings. It, first and foremost, depicts the cyclic nature of the universe: death and.
There is something unsatisfactory about the created in its static form. Perhaps it is that there is nothing more to do with the creation. There is no movement toward further creation. The tower, inevitably, becomes boring. The only thing to do with the tower at this point is to destroy it, gain the exhilaration of destruction.
The tower, inevitably, becomes boring. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. A boy creates a tower made of blocks. However, more potent threats to financial incumbents have been developing in the background. Cornell University Press,
The boy tears into the tower, leveling the work which he had so feared would fall just moments before. With the blocks at his feet, he stands back, feeling a void What should be done with the blocks? Why have them if not to build something with them? So he begins, again, to build anew. I feel the ouroboros effect in my own life. I become desirous of something, need it deeply in myself.
I chase after it with all my energy, but, in gaining it, I feel the decline and death of the need, the drive, the passion that took me to that step. As the last ember-glow of the passion dies, a void is created into which I hasten to create a new need, a new passion, only to begin the cycle again.
Some desires are impossible to attain. For example, I believe that I want to be a published author. I believe that what will make me the happiest man in the world would be a book offer; however, I don't know what would happen once that book offer would come about. Would I need a second book to feel that need met?
I also want to publish as I see that writing is the only talent that I have that will ensure that I am remembered for as long as men exist. Writers like Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, etc. It is my greatest desire to be remembered past my death into eternity.