May 17th 1965
We bring you a symbol. It is a symbol of a silver snake. And it is standing on the very tip of it's tail. It's body is curved, and its head, is, as it were, staring straight up into the heavens. This seems to you a strange symbol. but we, who were brought up, as it were, in the Hindu faith, recognise the symbol of the snake as wisdom and understanding.
The snake in its lower form, the serpent in the garden of Eden, is that which cometh forth to take away the knowledge of love and to put into it's place the power of evil. You mentioned earlier the story of Adam and Eve and of your brother who thinks of these things as real, and who takes the words written in the holy records, literally. But in this instance we find that the apple was symbolic of knowledge of right and wrong. The apple was free will, and because man was not content with the things of the spirit, he took unto himself the knowledge of wrong and evil. And not only did he wilfully make it his business to understand this to indulge, and to leave the path that his Father had set for him, and to take, as it were, into the bye-ways.
And as these things symbolise sex, sex in the first place was pure and simple, holy and divine. And men and women know each other and loved each other physically, mentally, and spiritually. Without any fear of shame, because in their perfect state, they could love each other and only each other as far as the physical was concerned. But, the symbol of the snake as it was given in Genesis, stood for, symbolised, and meant, the lust that crept into pure sex, the desire, not only for each other, but for others. The longing to be in control of the emotions and the sexual desires of others, this was what the serpent symbolised in this case. The evil that would bring forth disease, destruction, Jealousy, murder, wars, poverty, and all the things alien to God.
But the snake we bring for you is silver and this symbolises all evil, all wrong, and all the natural experiences which have brought about the refining influences, in other words, all these things one has to experience, and in consequence one suffers for these things, and through these things, and then, even the evil is turned to good. And those things which prompted you into as it were, a little wrong thinking, a little wrong doing, become good. Because through these things one suffers and one begins to learn and to understand.
And then the serpent shows itself in another form, rising up, of good metal, strong and substantial and no longer with its eyes upon the ground, but lifted up to heaven, and to the hills, and to the hills from whence cometh all help.
It is inevitable that through your journey upon the Earth plane, there must be times when you, like the snake, with your thoughts, desires, longings, yearnings, will slither, as it were, along the floor, along the ground. But it matters not, as long as all things which you experience lead you on until eventually you realise that the lower plane, the floor level of the mind is not for you. And so the symbol of the risen snake, standing, as it were, on the very tip of it's tail, looking upwards, this is the symbol that has been through the refining pot.
These words which we have spoken unto you, are deep with an inner meaning. And we want you to recognise this deep, inner, truth. Because all these things one day will stand you in very good stead.
And now we will refer to the state of the rose. You thought it a little peculiar that we should give you a talk on the state of the stone because the state of the rose inevitably comes first. This is so. But, at the time, of the talk it was necessary, because of the conditions we could see around you, and the slight stress and strain of daily life which was to follow, we thought it was better and more comely at that time to remind you of the precious state of the stone which would not absorb. And it stood you in good stead, for we have watched you and read your mind during the last few weeks, and time and time again the thought has gone out from your mind, "Oh well, it doesn't really matter. No good letting it sink in."
Imagine a lovely rose, half open, with its lovely soft petals, bathed in dew, the soft sparkling drops nestle in the red velvet curls here and there. The beautiful green stem and the perfect green leaves. These things come about in the stillness, in the quiet......
The apple is free will: the choice to leave the path of spirit for the byways of self-will. The serpent, though, is specifically about sex — not sex itself, which is described as originally "pure and simple, holy and divine," but its corruption. That corruption isn't lust as a stray desire; it's the desire for others beyond the one loved, and the longing to control another's desire rather than meet it as an equal. Sex between two who love each other, freely and exclusively, remains, according to this, undamaged by the Fall.
The serpent's dual nature — base on the ground, exalted when risen — closely echoes Kundalini in the Hindu tradition the transcript itself claims as its source: coiled, unrefined energy at the base of the spine, associated with base desire, which rises through disciplined spiritual life to become a source of higher consciousness rather than being suppressed. The same movement — base matter refined into something precious through fire — is the central image of alchemy, and the transcript's own language ("through the refining pot," "even the evil is turned to good") draws on exactly that vocabulary.
And the comforting message is that nothing experienced along the way, however low, is wasted; it is the raw material the refined state is made from.