[Ouroboros image by Saki BlackWing]
On my morning walk I saw a real live ouroboros. Well, it was real dead actually, lying right on my path. Stretched out straight the 
snake was probably less than a foot long. But it wasn’t straight: it was configured in a circle, the head just nudging the tip of the tail.
Maybe two years ago I was writing a scene in which a character stood in front of the bathroom mirror removing her gold necklace. I was trying to picture her taking it off. Would she slip it over her head? No: the chain wasn’t that long. A clasp then. What sort of clasp? How about a snake head biting the tail? Now I could picture this chain with the reptilian scaly golden skin slithering off her neck and coiling itself inside a gold mesh bag…
Three posts ago I wrote something about the Order of Melchizedek, where the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews sees Jesus foreshadowed in the legendary priest-king of Salem, mediated by a messianic verse from the Psalms. Earlier in this same epistle the writer executes the same maneuver: Jesus as fulfillment of an ancient legend, mediated by the Psalmist. This time though the sequence doesn’t just go back in time, because this time it turns out that the past is the future — a temporal ouroboros. Here’s how it works.
The writer of Hebrews is trying to show that Jesus is more powerful than the angels. Curiously, his argument isn’t predicated on Jesus being God, but on his being man. Here is Hebrews 2:5-9…
For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking. But one has testified somewhere, saying,
WHAT IS MAN, THAT YOU REMEMBER HIM?
OR THE SON OF MAN, THAT YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT HIM?
YOU HAVE MADE HIM FOR A LITTLE WHILE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS;
YOU HAVE CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOR,
AND HAVE APPOINTED HIM OVER THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS;
YOU HAVE PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET.
For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:5-9)
This looks like an apocalyptic prophecy in which Jesus the Messiah will one day come back to rule the world. The capitalized portion of the text cites Psalm 8, so we flip back from New Testament to Old to find the source document:
O Yahweh, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength
Because of Your adversaries,
To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God [or than the angels; literally than the gods],
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen,
And also the beasts of the field,
The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
O Yahweh, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth!
The writer of Hebrews got the citation right, but in the original context the passage doesn’t seem to apply to some specific man but rather to man in general, to mankind. The Psalmist marvels at the magnificence of the moon and the stars, and then he turns his gaze on puny humanity. Why, he wonders, does God bother with the human race? Not only does He bother; He appoints man as ruler over the whole world, over sheep and oxen, beasts and birds and fish… And now it begins to dawn on the reader: haven’t I read this litany of creatures great and small before?
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)
This is day six from the Creation narrative. The writer of Hebrews points back to the Psalm, and the Psalmist points back to the writer of Genesis, who points all the way back to the beginning of time. But wait a minute. Go back to the Hebrews passage and its introduction to the Psalm quotation:
For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking. But one has testified somewhere, saying…
“The world to come”? I thought that the Psalmist was testifying to the world of the deep and legendary past, when humans ruled the world, before Eve listened to the serpent and she and Adam ate the forbidden fruit and God threw them both out of the Garden. Is this the Hebraist’s story, that Jesus will restore to mankind the power and glory lost in the Fall? That’s not what he says:
But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.
“Not yet”? “The world to come”? Isn’t this writer, the author of a canonical New Testament text, saying that the Genesis 1 narrative refers not to the past but to the future? The world wasn’t created seven thousand years ago, or seven billion years ago. It hasn’t even been created yet.
Today we read a text written two thousand years ago, which cites a poem written a thousand years before that, which cites an even more ancient legend that goes all the way back to the beginning, and the beginning is in the future. Ouroboros.
Ktismatics 
Ha! Another example of the ancestral memory of Saturn when it was much closer to Earth – the ourobourus is a ‘ring’ like Saturn’s. Also plasmas in laboratories sometimes make rings, so it’s something to do with the electric universe theories too. [in-joke]
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If only the snake had had a half-twist: then we could have had a Mobius. I haven’t watched your Youtubes from that earlier thread, lafayette, but the Biblical fantasy saga never seems to reference it. Maybe I’ve been missing the coded messages lurking beneath or swirling over the surface of these texts. I went back in the afternoon to see if the snake was still there. It was, but it had reconfigured itself into an S.
Snake = S = Saturn?
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Actually, now you come to mention it, that snake illustrated does seem to have a BEARD, which normally suggests more a dragon than a snake, and somewhere on these vids the case is made that dragon’s ‘beards’ are actually representations of real electrical phenomena observed in the ancient sky.
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Out of curiosity, when you click on this post/comments do you see an ad? I’ve not authorized ad placement here, but somebody else reports ad infestation. If WordPress is going to turn my blog commercial they ought to at least give me a percentage.
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No, no ad.
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I just quickly looked at the wiki of Ouroboros, it doesn’t mention the Book of Kells, even though that’s full of them. By now, and with Northanger’s new Gematria and delving recently into the Irish manuscripts, I’ve gotten interested in such figures as that incredible leprechaun-looking Baby Jesus, but in memory, it was always the ‘biting animals’, especially the snakes, that dominated. But Ouroboros is much more ancient than the Irish ones, I’m going to read more later.
So are you watching the snake decompose gradually, bringing a new possibility with each new stage of putrefaction? or has it been removed. Did you not feel strange re-visiting a dead snake?
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I didn’t realize that the Book of Kells featured ouroboros illuminations; I should investigate further. The snake is on one of my most frequented paths so I don’t have to go out of my way to see it. I may go back this afternoon for another visitation. This is the sort of thing I tend to return to again and again, seeing if it possesses iconic properties for me. And of course my recurrent return is itself ouroboros. The skin should hold up well, and it’s a very thin snake so its innards have probably returned to dust already. I’d have been tempted to bring it home and mount it on the wall except that its head is somewhat crushed, the likely cause of death fulfilling Yahweh’s ancient curse on the serpent:
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
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Inexplicably, Ouroboros has been a big hit. Two days ago this blog experienced its busiest traffic ever, and unusually high numbers of people continue clicking onto this particular post. It’s not like there’s been heavy discussion/debate either. Who knows what it is.
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LOL, all of it. Anne’s struggling with ‘triumph of at will’, trying to defeat it, and you’re dabbling in interior decoration:
“I’d have been tempted to bring it home and mount it on the wall except that its head is somewhat crushed, the likely cause of death fulfilling Yahweh’s ancient curse on the serpent:”
Well, I think John Wayne would just put it up without worrying too much about the head, in a ranchhouse DEN with lots 12-gauges on the wall and naugahyde recliners. None o’ this symmetry bizznizz that Chandler’s ‘pansey decorators’ just insissssst upon.
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I didn’t get back there today so I can’t give a status report on the snake’s condition or pose. Maybe tomorrow.
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The ouroboros is a very ancient symbol that means that man must know himself as he is: a “duplex” being, comprising an area of a great nobility that is the «consciousness»; and another area, the «unconscious», which has an infinite knowledge and power, in which there is no space or time. Man contains within him the good and the evil.
The man «assuming» his wholeness, by making his dark side conscious and accepting it, then the man «eats up himself» like the ouroborus, who is a symbol of God, because so he integrates in his consciousness his weakness and bestiality, unspeakable.
To accept the own arrogance and lust and make it as part of oneself, this means to «devour himself» like the ouroborus, and so to be at peace with the enemy that is the own dark side… if this is stored unconscious and thus left free in the wild.
The ‘green lion’ of the Alchemists represented the ‘lust’ and the ‘Peacock’ represented the ‘pride’ and they, the Alchemists, said that “to eat the meat of the green lion, and to eat the meat of the peacock, this cured! The ouroborus is, so to speak, a symbol of wholeness, because, by devouring its own tail, it forms a circle, and for that reason, it sends a message to the path for all men of all ages, for a true life and salvation.
Who will study Carl Gustav Jung, will know and understand these things.
Jung said that, true peace only is reached when sitting at the same table the warlords and the lords of peace to speak!
Man only may to reach his true peace when he knows unite the two opposites that live and battle inside himself, that are, his daily and conscious side, and his unconscious and dark side!
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Trying to explain myself better:
The ouroboros is a very ancient symbol that means that man must know himself as he is: a “duplex” being, comprising an area of great nobility that is the «consciousness»; and another area, the «unconscious», which has an infinite knowledge and power, in which there is no space or time. («Phenomena of Synchronicity» by C. G. Jung)
Man contains within him the good and the evil and «assuming» this wholeness, by making his dark side conscious and accepting it as a part of his personality, then the man «eats up himself», like the ouroborus, who is a symbol of God, because so, he integrates in his consciousness his unspeakable bestiality and weakness.
The ouroborus, by devouring its own tail, it forms a circle, which is a symbol of God and wholeness, thereby sending a message to the path for all men of all ages, for a true life of peace and salvation.
To accept the own arrogance and lust and accept it as part of oneself, this is like to devour, to digest himself like the ouroborus do, and so, to be at peace with the enemy that is the own dark side.
Man must be conscious of his wholeness and do NOT store the evil within him unconscious, leaving it free in the wild because, in turning the backs on evil, this is to give him free rein and that, yes, it is truly dangerous situation!
For exemple, the ‘Green lion’ of the Alchemists represented the ‘lust’ and the ‘Peacock’ represented the ‘arrogance’ and they, the Alchemists, said that «to eat» the meat of the Green lion, and «to eat» the meat of the Peacock, this cured!
Who will study the works of Carl Gustav Jung, will understand these things.
Jung said too that, a true peace only is reached when sitting at the same table the warlords and the lords of peace, to speak! Similarly, man only may to reach his true peace and happiness when he knows unite the two opposites that live and battle inside him, which are, his daily and conscious side, and his unconscious and dark side to make his wholeness!
(Grateful for the patience!)
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Thanks, qahira, for explaining some very difficult concepts. This is particularly enlightening:
“by making his dark side conscious and accepting it as a part of his personality, then the man «eats up himself», like the ouroborus, who is a symbol of God, because so, he integrates in his consciousness his unspeakable bestiality and weakness. ”
and this:
“Man must be conscious of his wholeness and do NOT store the evil within him unconscious, leaving it free in the wild because, in turning the backs on evil, this is to give him free rein and that, yes, it is truly dangerous situation!”
Recently on the blog we’ve been exploring alternative views of the unconscious. I acknowledge that I don’t know Jung well. This sense of accepting one’s own unconscious desires as part of oneself, and of controlling these unconscious forces by making them conscious — it unites Jung with Freud I think. And Jung is insistent on achieving balance or synthesis of opposites: animus and anima, good and evil, war and peace, conscious and unconscious. Is this balance of opposites characteristic of Eastern thought as well? However, this…
“the «unconscious», which has an infinite knowledge and power, in which there is no space or time”
… is very different from Freud, and is perhaps more like Lacan, who said that “God is unconscious.” It is also different from the Universal Consciousness idea of panpsychism, isn’t it?
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A man is an island because it only knows what’s inside. What he ignores, in his universe or ‘microcosm’, but it’s there, it is projected and this projection materializes in phenomena. Hence the old man saw “God” i.e.in a lightning storm.
God is a void point in the center of our wholeness, which is our Self that involves our conscious and unconscious. God is more unconscious than man and created it to raise awareness through him. Nature is trying to achieve through man the highest degree of consciousness and we are created with this “seal” that we bring on birth. Nature helps us, as she can, even without us realizing it, with a great eagerness to reach her goal.
The projection of our unconscious in other human beings and in the world, it is similar to the process that uses a bat to move in a world he does not see: it becomes aware of what surrounds him through the echo of the sound it emits.
Man cannot become conscious of himself, if he is isolated, because he needs to project on others the contents of his unconscious, to know them and collect it back. By this process, extremely painful and uncomfortable, the man will devour himself, freeing other human beings of these projections.
The extension of our field of consciousness is always done through suffering.
God is in the emptiness that lies at the center of the circle of our whole being, called Self, which encompasses all that we are within us, of good and bad.
All that Jung says can only begin to be understood through experience, and this deep knowledge commits man in its totality and not only in the rationality that is characteristic of men of the West. Men of the East see the world and all phenomena as a whole and the two views should join to complete, making this world more peaceful and a more pleasant place to live in.
Grateful for your attention
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Thank you for your elaborations, qahira.
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History, about the rainmaker. Jung did not begin any lecture without first telling this event to his interlocutors.
There was a great drought where the missionary Richard Wilhelm lived in China. There had not been a drop of rain and the situation became catastrophic. The Catholics made processions, the Protestants made prayers, and the Chinese burned joss sticks and shot off guns to frighten away the demons of the drought, but with no result. Finally the Chinese said: We will fetch the rain maker. And from another province, a dried up old man appeared. The only thing he asked for was a quiet little house somewhere, and there he locked himself in for three days. On the fourth day clouds gathered and there was a great snowstorm at the time of the year when no snow was expected, an unusual amount, and the town was so full of rumors about the wonderful rain maker that Wilhelm went to ask the man how he did it.
In true European fashion he said: “They call you the rain maker, will you tell me how you made the snow?” And the little Chinaman said: “I did not make the snow, I am not responsible.” “But what have you done these three days?” “Oh, I can explain that. I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order, they are not as they should be by the ordnance of heaven. Therefore the whole country is not in Tao, and I am also not in the natural order of things because I am in a disordered country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao, and then naturally the rain came.”
— From The Nature Writings of C. G. Jung
©2002, North Atlantic Books
in: http://www.ralphmag.org/BN/why.html
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In the US a “rainmaker” is someone who is very successful in business, especially in bringing in new business. There are stockbrokers who call up prospective investors whom they have prequalified as being wealthy; e.g. they live in expensive houses. The broker then offers the prospect a free investment tip: buy Stock A because our analysts have determined that it is underpriced. If the price of Stock A goes down, the broker scratches that potential client from the list. If the price of Stock A goes up, the broker calls the prospect again. You see that I was right about Stock A: now our analysts recommend Stock B. How much would you like to invest in Stock B? This scheme is based on probabilities and the law of large numbers: the broker had a 50% chance of being right about Stock A, and a 50% chance of being right about Stock B, which means he had a 25% chance of being right about both A and B. If the broker calls enough prospective clients with enough tips on different stocks, then a fairly large number of potential investors will regard the stockbroker as a “rainmaker,” in synchrony with the Tao of the Dow.
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I thank you very much, once more, for your attention and wish you good luck in your life.
Another day, during your normal morning walk, may be you can ask yourself, why a small animal that formed a circle eating its own tail, impressed you so much? And may be that, one day too, in the future, you shall have the ‘wealth’ to find out why!
I end here, my intervention in this blog.
Please be sure that I was very happy to exchange a few words with you, in a totally unexpected way, about the theme of ouroborus.
Thankfully
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You’re welcome, qahira. And thank you for your thoughts and encouragements.
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I thank you for your sympathy, and be assured that you will be forever in my heart, like the memory of a sweet fragrance that destiny has allowed me to enjoy a bit.
krgds
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To the author of Ktismatics. I am writing you concerning the image of the Ouroboros that you have within your post. I am wanting to request permission from you to use this image, or to obtain information from you regarding whom I can contact with regard to use of this image.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
KVM
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Thanks for asking, KVM, but I nabbed the image from some other website without getting permission. I’ve tracked down the original source: a French artist named Saki-Blackwing. Here’s the link to her Deviant Art page: http://saki-blackwing.deviantart.com/
If I can figure out how to communicate with her I’ll see if can I put her contact information on my post, which gets many hits daily from people who find the image from Google.
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Here’s Saki’s page with the Ouroboros: http://saki-blackwing.deviantart.com/art/ouroboros-17479771
Reading the comments, it’s clearly that she freely gives permission for using her image as a tattoo. It turns out that you have to set up a Deviant Art account in order to comment, which probably isn’t very difficult.
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Someone old man said he had seen a snake in the forest which was running down the hill. It had been a head in the mouth just like Ouroboros.
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I honestly look at the Ouroboros, as a symbol of the “Reptillian Nature” Consuming itself from human & other sentient beings, not being able to control the Rh – Factor in thier Humanoid Brains. Basically accepting all of the false promises that this seemingly long however realisticly short life has to offer.
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I don’t understand about the Rh factor, or why a reptilian brain would accept false promises, or even true ones, but your comment has a nicely poetical ambiguity to it, Fall Sire. Maybe this is what you’re saying: life seems long, in the sense that the snake keeps going round and round forever, whereas in actuality his life is still only as long as the fixed distance from head to tail. All the attempts to extend, to transcend, to achieve immortality, amount to a denial and self-destruction of human nature. Okay, I’m with you.
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The Rh Is a Chromosone. That steers the “Reptillian” part of the Human mind. Like being skeptical of symbols, or behavior that is irregular to the individual. You are right on, to the point of Immortality. Immortality is Infinite & in all of us, that is until we consume ourselves with our own behavior. I always wondered if all of this was a great big computer simulation, & it very well could be, carbonated materialized objects, & Pixellated matter. That’s neither here nor there we’re in the” illusion of right now” . Even if you look at a clock & watch the second hand, half way through its go around the hand switches sides of the number either N, S, E, or W, depending on where you stand . Humans have always been self destructive, from the first civilization, right up to us . That doesn’t mean that the individual self has to be . See there is a duality in nature & the negative side wants us to believe, or even think, that we are all of 1 conciessness. But we aren’t . Well or we are,… we all create our own realities in format with the program. But there is proof that there is more conciousness in the universe than there is matter. that alone has to say something.
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I googled “Rh factor reptile” and came up with a whole slew of hits. Here’s what I get from cursory inspection of some of these links: The vast majority of people are Rh+. The fatal incompatibility of Rh+ and Rh- in human fetuses suggests that the Rh- chromosome marks something inhuman about its carrier. Rh+ appears also in Rhesus monkeys, hence the “Rh” signifier. If someone doesn’t inherit the Rh+ monkey gene, then that person may have descended/evolved from ancestors who were not polluted by subhuman primate lineage. The Rh- carrier is thus deemed more “reptilian” than primate-descended Rh+ carriers. But… where did the reptile-descended humans come from? Those who subscribe to this Rh theory suggest that Rh- is a marker of off-earth descent. I.e., the Rh- human points back upstream toward a more direct line of descent from the extraterrestrials, or perhaps the gods, who originally spawned life and intelligence on earth.
Now this sort of wild idea has fictional appeal for me. I’ve written about a group of Pilgrims who are trying to find their way back, or forward, to the elohim — the gods in the Hebrew scriptures. Through their search and ascent the Pilgrims aspire to becoming hybrid god-men — the Nephilim referenced in Genesis 6, when the sons of the elohim mated with the daughters of men. The inspirational leader of the Pilgrimage movement is a character with a genetic blood anomaly: hemophilia, which is an inherited lack of clotting factor. I.e., this link between blood and the gods, so prevalent in the Bible, is something that I’ve played with quite a bit. But I’d never given any thought to Rh factor in this context. I’ll take it under consideration.
Incidentally, I’m Rh+ but my wife and our daughter are Rh-. I’ll be sure to inform them that they’re both more reptilian and more godlike than I am.
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These Descendants come from The Galaxy of “Thuban” ( The Snake star system) Now in a linear axis with The Milky way Galaxy (also an Ouroboros). & have been breeding with human civilizations since the begginning of time. The Universe is Vast & Everything within its (Electromagnet spectrum / Space Time Continnum) according to our senses is proof that things aren’t always what they seem. Thuban is aligned with the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt & it is said to be possible, that underneath the Pyramids there is a database of “Quartz crystals” that contain the data on Every Civilization that is & was before us . I do know there is quite a bit of deception on behalf of any and everything We may think we know. I do like your posts . they are a contribution to the creative commons. I don’t want you in any way to feel that I am criticising you, I was just chiming in because I found it an interesting topic. Besure not to misinform the family, until your absolutely positive about the accurate details. Unfortunately I don’t think anyone in the now has those answers until they reach a more ultimate understanding, which can only be reached through a cycle of Life & Death. (Ouroboros)
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Thanks for your kind words, Fall Sire. The blog has been on hiatus for a few months, I’m not sure if or when I’ll reactivate it, but exchanges like this one hearten me to resume. I will certainly have to look further into this Rh- marker theory you’ve pointed me toward. I agree with you also that achieving absolutely positive (or negative) knowledge of anything in this lifetime has a probability approaching zero.
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Dear Sir
May be you are interested in the subject of this new book about the Analytical Psychology of C G JUNG. The Ouroboros is there, once again!
Thanks qahirah
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 18:04:29 +0000 To: fat_ma8@hotmail.com
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To ktismatics
Dear Sir
I wanted to tell you that this book is temporarily in all Amazon’s Kindle stores, for free = zero USD. «THEMES OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY. Essay on «THE GOLDEN ASS», a tale of Apuleius.» [Kindle Edition]
in: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LOWZ6U2
If you can read this book … Please do not lose the opportunity!
Krgds qahirah
From: fat_ma8@hotmail.com To: comment+pi51_f9e5b1aq1y_vl34_15uzjzgupw7dg3pt7vrzyc@comment.wordpress.com Subject: RE: [New comment] Ouroboros Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:49:57 +0100
Dear Sir
May be you are interested in the subject of this new book about the Analytical Psychology of C G JUNG. The Ouroboros is there, once again!
Thanks qahirah
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 18:04:29 +0000 To: fat_ma8@hotmail.com
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