(Ouroboros swallowing his tail, from a Greek alchemical manuscript)

The Ouroboros or uroboros is a very common symbol in alchemy and magic. It occurs around the world in various forms, and is generally said to be a symbol of eternity. There are two basic types: a serpent or serpentine creature with the curved or looped tip of its own tail held between its jaws; or a serpent or serpentine creature swallowing the end of its own tail. These types are not usually distinguished, but they have completely different meanings.

The Ouroboros that holds its tail between its jaws is static. It describes a circle, and partakes of the symbolic meaning of the circle, which is perfect, eternal, and divides the universe into inside and outside. It is a magic barrier or circle of protection, and represents eternal life and perfection. A magic circle defines any concept or object or place, and gives it a unique identity, by separating it from everything else. A word is a type of magic circle. The word "chair" draws a circle around the concept we recognize as the identity of a chair, and excludes all other aspects of our reality. When we consider any thing in the world, it is either "chair" -- what we recognize as the type of structure we sit down on -- or "not chair" -- everything else. The dividing line between these two understandings is the Ouroboros with its tail held between its jaws.

By contrast, the Ouroboros that swallows its tail is dynamic. It describes a spiral force, and partakes of the symbolic meaning of the spiral, which is cyclical, moving, changing, evolving. If we follow mentally the consequences of a serpent swallowing its tail, we see that in a magical sense it will reduce itself to a single point and vanish from the universe utterly. Hence the Ouroboros swallowing its tail represents the gateway between our universe and the absolute, or to put it more poetically, the Eye of God. The fully expressed form of this symbol would be a spiral line that expands from a point and traces the skin of a three-dimensional torus or doughnut shape as it reaches its maximum expansion and contracts back in upon the same point that is both its origin and destination. This dynamic form of the Ouroboros is a magical model for the present cycle of our universe, which expanded from a point with spiral energy, and will ultimately collapse back into that point at the end of the present cycle.

The Ouroboros is represented either as a serpent or as a serpentine dragon. It sometimes appears with two feet, sometimes with four, and occasionally has bat-like wings.

The psychoanalyst Carl Jung recognized the supreme importance of this symbol. He asserted "the Uroboros -- the dragon devouring itself tail first -- is the most basic mandala of alchemy" (Psychology and Alchemy, Princeton U. Press, 1980, p. 126). Elsewhere in the same work, Jung wrote:

"The dragon is probably the oldest pictorial symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the [OUROBOROS], the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend [EN TO PAN] (the One, the All). Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like the dragon biting its own tail" (Ibid., p. 293).

Jung described the Ouroboros as the "dragon that devours, fertilizes, begets, slays, and brings itself to life again. Being hermaphroditic, it is compounded of opposites and is at the same time their uniting symbol" (Ibid., p. 372).

(Ouroboros from the 11th century Codex Marcianus, referred to by Jung)

This version of the Ouroboros is interesting, because its body takes the shape of the Moebius Strip so greatly celebrated in mathematics because it appears to have two sides, but actually has only one. Notice that the flat tail of the serpent is twisted one-half turn over on itself before it enters the serpent's mouth. In the center of the serpent's ring is written in Greek "the One, the All."

(Ouroboros from Abraham Lambsprinck's Musaeum Hermeticum, 1749)

This more recent image of the Ouroboros, from the 18th century, shows the common figure of a winged dragon with a beak and bird-like feet. The dragon bites the end of its own tail, rather than swallowing it. Notice that the tail is barbed. The barb suggests both penetration and poison. This is in keeping with the dragon of alchemy that "devours, fertilizes, begets, slays, and brings itself to life again."