The Crown

Completion, and in the Kabbalistic reading the first sephirah, the point at which the work is no longer yours.

The ouroboros is older than alchemy and was borrowed into it. Its earliest surviving appearance is on a shrine in the tomb of Tutankhamun, around 1323 BCE, where two of them enclose the head and feet of the king. It reaches the alchemists through Greco-Egyptian Alexandria, and the earliest alchemical drawing of it we have is in the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, a papyrus of perhaps the third century, where the circle it makes is inscribed hen to pan, one is the all.

What it means inside alchemy is more specific than the pop reading of eternity. It marks a closed system. The work happens in a sealed vessel, nothing enters and nothing leaves, and the matter inside is repeatedly dissolved and recongealed by its own action. The serpent feeding on itself is a picture of that operation, not a picture of infinity. When it is drawn half light and half dark it is making a further claim, that the destroying half and the generating half are one substance.

It is worth being careful about the reading you have probably met. Kekule's dream of the benzene ring, told at a Berlin ceremony in 1890, is often given as evidence that the symbol carries some deep chemical truth. He told it twenty-five years after the fact, at a celebration in his own honour, and historians of chemistry have treated it sceptically ever since.

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  The Hand of the Mysteries

  J. Augustus Knapp · 1928

Plates that carry the symbol, tagged by eye and not yet decoded: first where it is the central motif, then where it plays a secondary part. Each opens in the viewer; the key and the notes come with the entry.

Central motif · 1

• A Crowned Woman with a Rose-Topped Caduceus, in a Circle of WaterAfter Nicolas Flamel, attributed, date not recordeda crowned woman in red holds a caduceus topped with a rose, standing on a flower within a ring of water, a winged head in a cloud above her; the Crown as the central motif, the Serpent by eye

Secondary motif · 7

• The Peacock in the FlaskEdith A. Ibbs, after Splendor Solis, 1900 to 1909a peacock with its tail spread stands inside a flask whose neck is sealed by a crown; the Vessel as the central motif, the Crown by eyeCentral motif: the Vessel
• The King with Three Crowns and the Seven-Headed HydraAfter the figures of Abraham the Jew, from Nicolas Flamel, date not recordeda king wearing three crowns is enthroned on a cloud at the right while a green many-headed hydra rises before him; below, a red horned figure kneels and a winged figure in blue holds a key; riders on clouds at the upper left; the King and the Queen as the central motif, the Serpent and the Dragon and the Crown by eyeCentral motif: the King and the Queen
• The Tree of the SephirothJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928an inverted tree, its trunk rising into a white triangle where a crown sits upon the roots; the foliage spreads downward with nine sun-like globes among the leaves and a white radiant one at the heart; four overlapping circles of white, blue, red and green at the foot; the Heavens as the central motif, the Crown and the Triangle by eyeHall, 1928 “The medieval Qabbalists represented creation as a tree with its roots in the reality of spirit and its branches in the illusion of tangible existence. The Sephirothic tree of the Qabbalah was therefore inverted, with its roots in heaven and its branches upon the earth.”Central motif: the Heavens
• Death (XIII)Pamela Colman Smith, 1909an armoured skeleton on a white horse carries a black banner with a white rose; a king lies fallen with his crown beside him, a child and a maiden kneel, a bishop stands with clasped hands; the sun rises between two towers, a river with a boat behind; Death as the central motif, the Horse, the Sun and the Crown by eyeWaite, 1911 “The natural transit of man to the next stage of his being either is or may be one form of his progress, but the exotic and almost unknown entrance, while still in this life, into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of consciousness and the passage into a state to which ordinary death is neither the path nor gate.”Central motif: Death and the Skull
• Temperance (XIV)Pamela Colman Smith, 1909a winged angel in white, a sun sign on the brow and a triangle within a square on the breast, pours water between two cups, one foot on the land and one in the pool; irises at the water's edge; a path leads to mountains and a crown of light; the Angel as the central motif, the Vessel, the Triangle, the Sun and the Crown by eyeWaite, 1911 “All the conventional emblems are renounced herein. So also are the conventional meanings, which refer to changes in the seasons, perpetual movement of life and even the combination of ideas.”Central motif: the Angel and the Wing
• The Tower (XVI)Pamela Colman Smith, 1909a tower on a crag struck by lightning, its crown knocked from the top, flames at the windows, two figures falling head first, drops of fire in a black sky; Fire as the central motif, the Crown by eyeWaite, 1911 “I agree rather with Grand Orient that it is the ruin of the House of Life, when evil has prevailed therein, and above all that it is the rending of a House of Doctrine. I understand that the reference is, however, to a House of Falsehood.”Central motif: Fire
• Knight, Death, and the DevilAlbrecht Dürer, 1513an armoured knight rides through a ravine with his dog; Death rides beside him on a lean horse, crowned and wreathed with serpents, holding up an hourglass; a horned devil follows behind; a skull lies on the ground at the left beside the tablet with the date and the monogram; Death as the central motif, the Horse, the Serpent and the Crown by eyeCentral motif: Death and the Skull

• The Hand
• The Key
• The Lantern
• The Sun
• The Star
• The Fish
• The Eye