And the serpent’s promise was audible on the plane of the vertical, while Adam and Eve were still in full relationship with God. Yet the Genesis story implies the serpent’s stature used to be vertical, upright.
Although he acknowledges the serpent’s honesty in regards to the horizontal, biological evolutionary plane, he speaks as if the serpent has always been only in league with the horizontal. for the quantitative aspect of the world? It is at the price of the obscuration of its qualitative aspect…Science reduces quality to quantity…It formula expressing quantitative factors…of something deprived of all quality.īut here’s a wrench in Tomberg’s spokes. What is the price of scientific enlightenment, this “opening of the eyes” in the horizontal, i.e. On the plane of horizontal expansion (“the fields” of Genesis) the serpent certainly keeps its promise…but at what price with regard to other planes, and with regard to the vertical? The serpent has not lied – on the plane where its voice and promise were audible.
It opens our eyes in fact, and thanks to it we see more in the horizontal it gives us power over Nature in fact, and makes us sovereign over Nature it is useful to us in fact, no matter whether for good or for evil. This is why it is dedicated to the cause of enlightenment (“open your eyes,” for the horizontal) this is why it aspires to absolute power for man (“be like gods”) and this is why, lastly, it is intrinsically amoral or morally neutral (“knowing good and evil”).ĭoes it deceive us? No.
To open your eyes, to be like gods, knowing good and evil – this is the great Arcanum of empirical science. The ultimate aim of the logic of cunning, that of the serpent, is not to become God but to become “ like God.” “To become like” – this is the essence of cunning and is also the meaning of scientific faith, the scientific creed, which is at the same time only a paraphrase and development of the promise of the serpent: “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil”(Genesis iii, 5). …the serpent of Genesis “who was the most cunning of all living creatures” (Genesis iii, 1),…aspiration is the expansion of consciousness in the horizontal (“the fields”). This is from his meditation on the ninth major Arcanum, “The Hermit:” To do so I will quote at length from Valentin Tomberg’s magnum opus, Meditations on the Tarot. It’s time for us to step aside and take a deeper look at the serpent and it’s role in the human story.
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