The Brazen Serpent:                 Chaos and Order 

The Brazen Serpent: Chaos and Order

The theme of the book is an exploration of the myth of the Nehushtan, titled The Brazen Serpent – Chaos and Order. The serpent is a cipher for the "Divine Code" concealed within everything about us. The book explores its theme through the paths of numerology, geometry and allegory, among others.

Using the image of the Brazen Serpent which Moses created and placed among the Hebrews wandering in the desert to protect them from the attacks of the serpents, I consider the symbol of the serpent in its widest sense, not only from the notion of the Brazen Serpent as a symbol for Christ, but also from the point of the view of the Kabbalah, tracing the use of this potent symbol into more recent esoteric Orders.

The book takes the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery, provocatively explaining that “the myth of the Raised Serpent in the Bible is an allegory for God's concealment within the very fabric of time and space itself. I approach this question from a number of angles, including exegesis, Numerology, Alchemy and the Kabbalah. The journey takes you along many paths."

The start of this journey is a spiritual and self-initiatory one. The Foreword is by Alastair McGawn Lees, Librarian General of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, and is followed by an introduction which sets the allegorical scene in the wilderness where Moses is taught by God how to prevent the serpents  from tormenting and killing the faithless and faltering Israelites, before explaining the importance of the Tau cross and the symbolism of fiery serpents or seraphim, which again takes us back to man's banishment from Eden which was then guarded by the cherubim with flaming sword.

To give you an idea of the sheer scope of the book, it manages to encompass Egyptian roots, the Marquis de Sade, Numerology and the extraordinary enigma of the number 23, Synchronicity, the importance of Sacred Geometry, Chaos and Order, Saul's epiphany on the road to Damascus, the American dollar sign and the flag of Israel. I touch on Pasqually and Saint-Martin, and not forgetting the Golden Dawn I consider the symbolism of the serpent in Geburah, and the trading down of the seven-headed serpent on the vault floor. Finally, I considers the evidence of God in modern science, from man's DNA to Teilhard's notion of the noosphere.

The book is full of illustrations, and much use is made of the wonderful woodcuttings of Hans Holbein the Younger, who was known for illustrating biblical stories. There are also extensive indexes at the back of the book including a select Bibliography, a list of the Biblical Texts cited, and a comprehensive index of persons, places and subjects covered.