Saggezza Serpentina — Dvija Caduceo Kundalini/en

Template:Authoritative source

«Saggezza Serpentina» is the title of the article published by Iagla — pseudonym of Ercole Quadrelli, Sanskritist and learned orientalist of the Gruppo di UR — in the fifth issue of UR year I (1927). The article presents a doctrinal synthesis among three distinct but convergent traditions: the figure of the brāhmaṇic dvija (the «twice-born»), the Greco-Roman hermetic Caduceus as a symbol of the initiate, and the doctrine of the Tao of Laotze as the wisdom of the Compiuto. It constitutes one of the hinge-texts of the Gruppo di UR because it recognizes in geographically and chronologically distinct traditions the same initiatic science, expressed in different languages.

The title «Saggezza Serpentina» directly evokes the Caduceus as a distinctive symbol of the initiate — the two serpents coiled around the winged staff of Hermes — but also the kundalini serpent of Indian tantric traditions, the astuteness of the serpent of Genesis («estote prudentes sicut serpentes» — Matthew 10:16), the nāga of Buddhist sūtras, and the alchemical-Chinese dragon. All these symbols, according to Iagla's reading, indicate the same operative reality: the primordial energy awakened in the initiate that has made him «reborn» to a superior quality of being — the dvija, precisely, the twice-born.

In the thought of the Paret-ISI-CNV School, Iagla's article is one of the key-maps of the wiki cluster, because it establishes in a doctrinally solid manner the correspondences among the operative traditions that the School practices and transmits: hermetic Pythagoreanism, Taoist wisdom, Indian Tantrism, European initiatic magnetism, Italian Kremmerzianism. All are distinct formulations of the same Serpentine Wisdom.

I. The dvija: the «twice-born»

In the Indian brāhmaṇic tradition, dvija (Skt. द्विज, «twice-born») designates the member of the three upper castes — brāhmaṇa (priests), kṣatriya (warrior-nobles), vaiśya (merchants-farmers) — after having received the sacrament of initiation (upanayana) consisting of the imposition of the sacred thread (yajñopavīta, triple cord). The first birth is the biological one from the mother; the second birth is the initiatic one from the master (guru) and the tradition (paramparā), which makes the individual a new being — a participant in the sacred life of the Vedic mantras and qualified for ritual practices.

Iagla recognizes in this figure the general paradigm of the initiate in every tradition: one who has undergone the initiatic death to the ordinary mode of being, and has been reborn to a new mode. The equivalences are multiple and all attested by texts:

Primitive Christianity: the «born again» of John 3:3 («Nisi quis renatus fuerit denuo, non potest videre regnum Dei»); baptism as the «bath of regeneration» (lavacrum regenerationis, Titus 3:5)
Eleusinian, Mithraic, Isiac Mysteries of late antiquity: the candidate «is reborn» after the initiation ritual, sometimes after simulating death (cf. Apathanatismos for the ritual of immortalization in the Magical Papyrus of Paris)
Chinese tradition: the true man (zhēnrén 真人) of Taoism, opposed to the ordinary man; one who has realized the neidan (cf. Alchimia e Magnetismo sect. XVI on neidan and structural identity with metallic alchemy)
Masonic tradition: the Master who has passed through the Master degree («VITRIOL»: Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem) and has emerged alive from the ritual coffin
Alchemical tradition: the Philosopher who, after the putrefactio and the albedo, has reached the rubedo, and who therefore wears the crown of the King

Iagla insists that initiatic rebirth is not merely symbolic (in the modern weak sense) but is a substantial change of being, recognizable in all fields: in the quality of thought, feeling, will, and — according to the doctrine of Morfologia Occulta — also in the physical structure and vibration of the body.

II. The Caduceus as the staff of the dvija

The Caduceus (Greek κηρύκειον, Lat. caduceus) is the winged staff around which two serpents coil facing each other, surmounted by the wings of the divine messenger. It was the attribute of Hermes-Mercury, psychopomp, master of initiatic paths and patron of dialogues between heaven and earth. Iagla — drawing on the materials of the twin article by Abraxa, Il Caduceo Ermetico e lo Specchio (UR 1927 n. 5, pp. 71-78) — expounds the symbolism of the Caduceus as an anatomical-spiritual map of the initiate:

The central vertical staff represents the spinal column of the initiate — the axis between heaven and earth, the Indian suṣumṇā, the path of the Middle Pillar of the Kabbalah
The two coiled serpents represent the two polarized currents that flow around this axis — the lunar-feminine current (iḍā) and the solar-masculine current (piṅgalā) of the yogic tradition, or the descending current of the fluid and the ascending current of the fire in the Kremmerzian tradition
The wings at the top represent the splitting or flight of the spirit once the two currents have been harmonized and the central axis has been awakened
The number seven (seven intersections of the serpents along the staff) corresponds to the seven chakras of the tantric tradition, to the seven planets-metals of alchemy (cf. Alchimia e Magnetismo sect. IV), to the seven degrees of the Mysteries of Mithras, to the seven days of creation

The possession of the Caduceus — in Greco-Roman symbolism — distinguishes one who has the faculty of transiting between worlds: Hermes-Mercury is the only god who can descend to the underworld and return to the light. The dvija is one who, through their second birth, has acquired that same faculty — they can descend into the depths of the body and the unconscious without being dissolved by them, and can ascend to the higher worlds without being dazzled. In Kremmerzian language, they are the master of the two realms.

III. The kundalini serpent and the Vampa del Dragone

Iagla, in other places in UR 1927 (references to pp. 4461-4732), explicitly develops the identification between the Greco-Roman serpent-caduceus and the kundalini serpent of Indian tantric traditions. One reads in his articles:

«To the «Taurine» or «Serpentine Power», to the «Vampa di Kundalini» and the hermetic Basilisk [...] a serpent coils around its body (cf. the «kundalini serpent» that coils, in tantric symbolism, around the Śaiva liṅga). [...] In kundalini-yoga the «place» of kundalini (which in its dormant form is said to be precisely the generative power of ordinary man) [...] is the «Royal Road» in which the vampa of kundalini will be unleashed, where the «Dragon» will take flight.»

The Vampa del Dragone (Chinese zhēnyáng 真陽, true yang) is the sudden awakening of the kundalini energy which, dormant at the base of the spine in ordinary man in the form of generative power, ascends through the seven chakras to the sahasrāra (at the crown of the head). Its activation — key to the tantric work dakṣiṇācāra (right-hand path) and vāmācāra (left-hand path) — produces the full awakening of the dvija. Iagla recognizes in this the same science that the Mediterranean traditions call work to the red (rubedo), awakening of the inner Sun, vision of the Glory.

The danger of a premature or disordered awakening of the kundalini serpent — psychic disturbances, visionarism, sensual excesses, obsessions — is exactly the same danger of the acque corrosive described by Iagla in the twin article. For this reason, tradition requires expert initiatic direction and preliminary discipline built before the awakening of the Caduceus.

IV. Laotze and the doctrine of the Compiuto

The central part of the article «Saggezza Serpentina» is a hermetic commentary on the Tao Te Ching which Iagla reads as the highest doctrine of the Compiuto (Chinese zhēnrén) equivalent to the realized dvija. Four doctrinal nuclei:

True affirmation is not the affirmation known by men: «Only by losing itself does the I individualize itself; to cease «affirmation» to be truly individuals and Lords of the I. One cannot have by keeping, one cannot sharpen by grasping. The Compiuto disappears — thus reveals: it exhausts itself, and thus attains absolute being. To place itself at the summit, it veils its I. By squandering it gains, by giving, it is rich». The path of titanic self-affirmation — that of the Nietzsche that Evola loved but that Iagla here contests — is a subtle illusion: the more one affirms one's own I, the more one distances oneself from authentic being
Willing without willing to will: «The Way is another: to will without willing to will, to act without willing to act, to accomplish without doing, to actualize without remaining the agent, to elevate without dominating. Straight but flexible, clear but not dazzling — thus says Laotze. To truly be, is not to will to be». This is the doctrine of wú wéi (無爲, non-action that acts) as the operative truth of the compiuto. It explicitly opposes the mask of the «titan», the «conqueror», of one who «shatters but does not bend»
Water as paradigm: «There is nothing in the world that, like water, is ready to assume any form — but at the same time there is nothing that better than it knows how to conquer the strong and the rigid. It is indomitable because it adapts to everything; because devoid of resistance, it is ungraspable. It is the «virtue» of Heaven, it imitates it. The flexible triumphs over the rigid, the weak triumphs over the strong. Strong and hard are the ways of death, subtle and flexible are the ways of life». The realized initiate is like water — adapts, flows, carves, conquers what is hard, offers no hold to the enemy's blow
The invisible action of the Compiuto: «A good wrestler does not use violence, a good victor does not wrestle, a good director does not direct, a good walker leaves no trace, a good holder does not need to close, a good imprisoner does not ask for ropes. The truly victorious army must not «fight» — it has never admitted struggle, the possibility of struggle. Feel how terrible all this is: you would find no hold, you would find no resistance and would nevertheless feel a force against which you can do nothing, which first of all takes away from you the possibility of struggle, because a sword cannot strike air, because a net cannot imprison water. This force is possessed by those «who have been bitten by the Dragon»: with this they direct, with this they operate, invisible and silent»

The Compiuto of Laotze — the realized Taoist — is the same as the brāhmaṇic dvija, the same as the hermetic initiate master of the Caduceus, the same as the Master magnetizer of the Kremmerzian tradition: different figures of the same realized quality.

V. The syntheses of the Compiuto according to Laotze

Iagla cites a sequence of paradoxes from the Tao Te Ching that summarize the quality of being of the Compiuto, and which for the reader of the School have the value of a calling card of the authentic Master:

«The infinitely large square has no more angles, the infinitely large vessel has no more capacity, the infinitely sharp sound is no longer audible, the infinitely large image has no more form»
«He knows himself powerful and appears weak, he knows himself illuminated and appears obscure»
«He knows no passion and knows no duty, no attachment, no veil of sentiment over his inhumanly opened eye»
«In the vastness of the force of his spirit, compared to that limitation which is the consciousness of you men, he seems barely to know that he exists»

The Compiuto is the same as the «Master Hermes» of the Greco-Egyptian hermetic tradition, the sthitaprajña of the Bhagavadgītā (one who has steady knowledge), the Taoist zhēnrén, the Perfect Master of the European Masonic and magnetic tradition. For Iagla, recognizing its traits is a central task of the initiate — also to distinguish the authentic master from the imitator, the dreamer, the passionate charismatic, the theorist, the religious narcissist.

VI. The «initiatic death» as passage to the dvija

Iagla — consistently with the entire doctrinal body of the Gruppo — insists that the transformation of the initiate is not gratuitous nor spontaneous: it passes through initiatic death — the moment in which the ordinary structure of the I is recognized as fictitious and abandoned. The «death» is symbolic in the sense of occult morphology: it really happens (the ordinary individual «dies» to itself), and at the same time it is not a physical death (the body continues, but with a new internal organization).

The signs of this initiatic death, according to Iagla:

The fundamental desire for affirmation of the I ceases
Attachment to one's own thoughts, feelings, identifications ceases
An eye that sees without identifying opens
A non-personal force that operates through the individual without being the individual activates
The quality of the blood modifies (cf. Morfologia Occulta on the blood-entity) — the blood of the dvija is qualitatively different from the blood of the common man
The «vampa del Dragone» — the ascending energy along the axis of the Caduceus — ignites internally

From this moment, the initiate is operatively a dvija — lives according to the law of the Tao, operates with serpentine wisdom, possesses the Caduceus. The specific techniques of the Paret-ISI-CNV School to assist the disciple in this passage — magnetic chains, work on attention and breath, splitting exercises — do not mechanically produce this result (no technique can), but dispose towards the event when the disciple is mature.

VII. Bibliography

Iagla [Ercole Quadrelli], Saggezza Serpentina, in UR — Rivista di indirizzi per una Scienza dell'Io, year I (1927), pp. 315-320 — main primary source
Abraxa, Il Caduceo Ermetico e lo Specchio, in UR year I (1927) n. 5, pp. 71-78 — twin article on the symbolism of the Caduceus
Iagla, various articles with passages on kundalini and Dragon in UR 1927 (pp. 4461-4732)
Laotze, Il Libro della Via e della Virtù (Tao Te Ching), edition edited by Julius Evola, Carabba, Lanciano, 1921 — the Chinese source used by Iagla
Bhagavadgītā, particularly ch. II on the sthitaprajña (one who has steady knowledge)
Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortalità e Libertà, Boringhieri, Turin, 1952 — on kundalini and the centers
John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), The Serpent Power, Ganesh & Co., Madras, 1918 — classic source on kundalinī-yoga
René Guénon, Études sur l'Hindouisme, Éditions Traditionnelles, 1948 — on the doctrine of the dvija