But what will Christians make of the Brazen Serpent, the “Divine Healer,” if the serpent is to be regarded as the emblem of cunning and evil; the “Evil One” itself? How can the line of demarcation ever be settled, when it is traced arbitrarily in a sectarian theological spirit? For, if the followers of the Roman Church are taught that Mercury and Æsculapius, or Asclepios, who are, in truth, one, are “devils and sons of devils,” and the wand and serpent of the latter, the “Devil’s wand”; how about the Brazen Serpent of Moses? Every scholar knows that both the Heathen “wand” and the Jewish “serpent” are one and the same, namely, the Caduceus of Mercury, son of Apollo‐Python. It is easy to comprehend why the Jews adopted the ophidian shape for their “seducer.” With them it was purely _physiological_ and _phallic_; and no amount of casuistical reasoning on the part of the Roman Catholic Church can give it another meaning, once that the mystery language is well studied, and that the Hebrew scrolls are read numerically. The Occultists know that the Serpent, the Nâga, and the Dragon have each a septenary meaning; that the Sun, for instance, was the astronomical and cosmic emblem of the two contrasted Lights and the two Serpents of the Gnostics, the good and the evil. They also know that, when _generalized_, the conclusions of both Science and Theology present two most ridiculous extremes. For, when the former tells us that it is sufficient to trace the legends of the serpents to their primal source, the astronomical legend, and to meditate seriously on the Sun, the conqueror of Python, and the celestial Virgin in the Zodiac forcing back the devouring Dragon, if we would have the key of all the subsequent religious dogmas—it is easy to perceive that, instead of generalizing, the author simply has his eye on Christian religion and _Revelation_. We call this the one extreme. We see the other when Theology, repeating the famous decision of the Council of Trent, seeks to convince the masses that: From the fall of man until the hour of his baptism the Devil has full power over him, and possesses him _by right_—_diabolum dominium et potestatem super homines habere et jure eos possidere_.(471) To this Occult Philosophy answers: Prove first the existence of the Devil _as an entity_, and then we may believe in such congenital possession. A very small amount of observation and knowledge of human nature may be sufficient to prove the fallacy of this theological dogma. Had Satan any reality, in the objective or even subjective world (in the ecclesiastical sense), it is the poor Devil who would find himself chronically obsessed and even possessed by the wicked—hence by the bulk of mankind. It is humanity itself, and especially the clergy, headed by the haughty, unscrupulous and intolerant Roman Church, which has begotten, given birth to, and reared in love the Evil One. But this is a digression.