Reviving Ophiuchus

The Stars

“SERPENT HOLDER (OPHIUCHUS): Vast group, somewhat complex [technically, it's two constellations: one the man and the other the SERPENT (SERPENS) in two parts: HEAD (CAPUT) and TAIL (CAUDA)] resembling a voodoo doctor holding the pieces of a snake torn in two. To trace this figure, start with bright star at top of triangular head, left of Hercules’ forward foot. The two pairs of stars in the doctor’s shoulders are easily recognized. Next, trace the huge rectangular body, then the right arm with SERPENT’S front part. The snake’s head is a pretty little group, south of the Crown. The left arm with the Serpent’s tail comes next, and then last the rather dim feet. If you succeed in seeing the whole after a few trials, you have accomplished something. An odd thing about the Serpent Holder is that it reaches into the zodiac, yet is not by tradition counted among the zodiacal figures, possibly because there would then be 13 constellations instead of 12.” THE STARS, H. A. Rey, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston (1952) Enlarged World-Wide Edition (1980).

The Myth

Alarmed that Asclepius’s ability to keep people alive might put him out of work, Hades god of the dead petitioned his brother Zeus, god of earth & sky, to kill Asclepius, the physician who never lost a patient to death. Zeus then struck the mortal Asclepius down with a Thunderbolt for daring to wield power as mighty as that of the gods, but placed him among the constellations to honor him, calling him “Ophiuchus,” which is Greek for “serpent holder.”

The Startistics Mission Y2K

The year is 2000 A.D. When last we left Asclepius, he was a man alone in his principles among gods, stripped of his name and stranded in the sky with only his snake spirits and the root of his tragedy to keep him company. Thousands of years have gone by. Every day he rises and sets in the sky, pre-eminent among the constellations of the zodiac. For the most part, he goes unnoticed by the casual observer looking for a brighter collection of stars. And he certainly goes unread by herd-instinct astrologers who don’t mind foretelling doom by other means but who stay away from including a 13th constellation on the Zodiac belt, perhaps because it disturbs our well-ordered world. Perhaps they quite simply aren’t aware of it. I Am, therefore I think. I shall quest after this hero, just because I can …

Ophiuchus and Astrology

Ophiuchus The Serpent Holder is a three-part constellation patiently waiting for somebody to notice him space-walking on the plane of the ecliptic, known to astrologers as “the belt of the zodiac.” It consists of the body of a man (or woman) and a snake in two parts, Serpens Cauda (the tail) and Serpens Caput (the head) that could just as easily represent two small snakes as one giant one.

Unfortunately, this constellation’s relevance to astrology has not yet been officially proclaimed and astronomers are complaining bitterly about it. Not having studied the roots of astrology, they do not realize that the zodiac signs are not intended to represent the constellations of the zodiac but are merely divisions of the heavens that take their names from the brighter constellations that appear to be in the general vicinity. Pure-astronomy loyalists, meanwhile, are using the differences between zodiac signs and constellations as a major indication that astrology is bogus.

The best texts on spiritual astrology perpetuate the prophecy that a blending or reunion, if you will, of science and astrology is destined to occur in the future. In this connection, the recent focus by astronomers on the existence of Ophiuchus on the ecliptic and the fact that some astrologers are reportedly acknowledging and reading it is a herald of that change. As time goes on the demonstrations of the constellation’s sentient nature and role in current and future events is being made crystal clear.

Year 2000 AD finds Asclepius universally recognized as the tutelary patron of physicians. He is referred to throughout the world in alchemical, hermetical, and mundane medical texts and treatises as the master physician who knew how to revive the dying and recently dead using the blood or venom of a serpent or snake with dragonish features.

Asclepius: Portal to the Mysteries of the Serpent Holder

Historic accounts of the mortal human life and career of the Greek master physician Asclepius are inextricably interwoven with the many myths and legends of the Greek pantheon and believe it or not Ancient Old Kingdom Egypt as far back as the Third Dynasty. While the modern, scientifically-minded man or woman passes myth off as overactive imagination the spiritually-minded will tell you that ancient peoples merely lived closer to deity than we as a culture do today.

Judging by the books I have read, many learned people have recently devoted substantial portions of their lifetimes comparing all of the discoverable versions of myth, legend and historic documents concerning the conception and mortal birth of Asclepius to unearth some illusive truth. Presented here is a regurgitated digest of the salient points and arguments for the revaluation of constellation Ophiuchus as just another constellation in the night sky (and not a very bright one at that). See table of authorities for a partial list of references used in creating this brief but important e-paper.

Greek Legend

As with all hero myths, the legend of Asclepius’s birth is unusual. The most popular versions agree that Asclepius was the son of Apollo the Greek God of Light and Coronis, a mortal maiden, but other versions do exist. Most of the legends paint Asclepius’s mother as having incurred wrath and punishment for being unfaithful to Apollo after which she is killed and Asclepius is taken from her womb while she lies burning on a funeral pyre.  For those who are tired of hearing stories where the woman stands accused and we never hear her side of it, there are other versions of the story including one where Coronis is seduced by one of the priests in the temple of Apollo and several stating she was set upon by Apollo against her will in the first place.

However he was born, the myths go on to say Asclepius was taken to be raised and educated by Chiron the Centaur who taught him the secrets of healing, life and death. By all accounts Asclepius became a miraculous healer in or around 1400 BC, capable of retrieving a soul from the realm of the dead.  In using these powers the gods complained he was decreasing the powers of the gods by helping humans achieve immortality.  Hades, god of the dead, took his complaint directly to Zeus, his brother. According to the most popular version of the Asclepius myth it was on account of this transgression that Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt. However, Asclepius was placed among the stars to appease Apollo, his father who was a son of Zeus.

Asclepius’s Descendents

According to the testimonies Asclepius lived a mortal life and was survived by a wife and, by most accounts, six children.  But these accounts cannot be verified.  The two sons of Asclepius, Podalirius and Machaon are referred to as the first Asclepiads, being skilled physician sons of Asclepius who carried on their father’s tradition of administering history-making cures and remedies.  One son was said to be more adept at surgery while the other was among the first physicians to advocate dietetics. It is not unusual to hear the term Asclepiads used today to refer generically to physicians or the treasured remnants of the old hermetic documents which remain to evidence the spiritual life of the mortal Greek Asclepius, tap root of the Ophiuchus myth.

Our medical terms hygiene and panacea are attributed to the names of two of Asclepius’s several daughters, Hygieia and Panakeia.

The Serpent and the Staff

As the shaman and medicine-man is associated with snake spirits, so Asclepius is sometimes mentioned in connection with the Cabir Telesphoros, his private daemon who is said to have dictated or inspired his medical prescriptions, and the “Serpent of Epidaurus,” both a legendary serpent and – entwined about a staff – his personal/professional emblem. This symbolic connection between physicians, divine inspiration, and snakes is ancient and continues to survive the test of time to this day, finding itself consistently in each successive age as a universal symbol of knowledge applied with wisdom in the practice of medicine. However as the Ancient Wisdom resurfaces, more and more people are finding there is a whole lot more to the Serpent, the Staff and the Caduceus than appears on the surface.

From what we’re told are “pre-historic times,” the Elixir of Life, Soma, Amrita, The Deathless Drink, was said to reside in the blood of a monster with dragonish and snakelike features. The ancient practitioners of occult medicine, who were anything but unsuccessful with it, have left behind many manuscripts and documented success stories which may be hard to believe, but that’s because most of it is either hidden away in some impenetrable vault somewhere or available but cloaked and veiled in the esoteric languages of analogy and symbols.

The serpent-staff has a long history of being connected with religious and occult miracles, making perhaps its most notable early appearance during Ancient Egyptian times in the rivalry between the biblical Staff of Aaron the Hebrew Priest of God and the Uraeus Staff of the Priest of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Later, this same serpent-staff concept was adopted by the American Medical Association in its development of the symbol “Caduceus,” which looks like a winged flagpole about which a pair of serpents is entwined. Although there seems to be a raging conflict between those who claim the Caduceus is more properly a symbol of the Roman Mercury or Greek Hermes while the staff with a single snake wrapped about it was the physician Asclepius’s symbol, if we strip away the argument and find out where we can all agree I think it is obvious that the concepts of stick and snake remain behind as the two constant factors. What there is to argue about in a pair of wings and a second snake can only be adduced by delving into the occult arts with an open mind.

One thing seems relatively certain: the roots of myth, legend and history attribute the wooden staff with the single serpent to Asclepius and the winged pole with twin serpents to Hermes. The challenge beyond that point is to find where all of the later legends trace themselves back to the Tehuti or Thoth, the Egyptian god of many titles who is often also referred to in historic and hermetic texts as the Egyptian Hermes.

Egyptian History

Imhotep

To find the historical origin of the mythological figure, we must go even farther back through time to find its earliest roots in an Ancient Egyptian god of medicine, I-Em-Hetep (whose name translated means “He Who Cometh In Peace”). He was the third member of a great triad of gods (Ptah, Bast or Sekhmet, and I-Em-Hetep) in Memphis, Egypt in or about 2900 BC where he probably lived as Imhotep, the Egyptian, at a later date.

The Egyptian mortal-made-god Imhotep had mortal parents and lived in or about the 27th Century BC. His amazing accomplishments have lived on in the minds, hearts, myths and legends of both the Egyptians and Greeks some 2500 years after his death. He was honored as not only a great man, but as a god who owed his great powers to the knowledge of medicine which he possessed, and who brought the art of healing to mankind.

According to Egyptian history Imhotep was a master of many disciplines. He was a skilled physician (which in ancient times was actually known as magick) and a priest of RA, the Sun God. He was also the trusted chief minister and vizier of Egyptian Third Dynasty King Zoser, for whom he bent his considerable skills as the innovative Master Architect who set the first profound standard of excellence in step pyramid building. The living evidence of his work is in King Zoser’s burial complex which Imhotep designed and built at Saqqara, Egypt between 2667 – 2648 BC. The Zoser Complex stands today as a world monument to innovative architecture. In addition, Imhotep received notoriety for his literary abilities. He is credited with documenting much of his medical (or magickal) work which has earned him recognition in modern times as “the first man of science in recorded history.”

As tales and evidence of Imhotep’s accomplishments spread to Greece, his legend began to loom so large there that he was brought to the City of Memphis where he was called Imouthes by the Greeks. This is where the ancient records of Imhotep-Imouthes’ mortal life become fused with the Greek god of medicine Asclepius. Most people – especially new age astrologers coming to grips with constellation Ophiuchus – miss this subtlety. It is easy to do. Yet this linkage is vital to the Odin/Osiris/Christ-Dying God myths and the history of Yeshua the Christed One. One of these days it will all come together and the girders of the World Soul will be profoundly shaken – to the good of course.

We are told that after Imhotep’s death he was deified as a son of Ptah and Sekhmet and replaced Nefertem as the third member of the great triad of Egyptian gods at Memphis, thus tying this legend of a demi-god back to that of the original Egyptian god of medicine, I-Em-Hetep.

____________________________________________________

Some Variations of the Name

Here are some of the various spellings I have found for the Greek God of Healing & Wisdom:

• Asclepius, Asklepios, Asclepios, Asklepius (Greek)
• Aesclepius, Aesclepios, Aesculapius, (Roman)
• Imouthes (Greco-Egyptian)

The Divine Feminine Ophiuchus

Recent spiritual anthropology digs have unearthed evidence of this constellation’s pre-Greek Matriarchal Age underpinnings that subtly command that we pay attention. Examination of these rediscovered details proved to yield the pivotal piece of information we formerly lacked to enable us to interpret the meaning and role of this important 13th Zodiac Constellation in modern times.

For more see

• The Goddess and the Serpent
• The Quintessential Ophiuchus
• Chapter 13. Jesus, Mary Magdalene & the Thirteenth Aeon

Rev. 02/04/2012