SILVER – Metal of the Moon
So we see the lower physical function of reproduction as a reflection of the creative process which gives birth to a higher spiritual consciousness. The virgin goddess is the silver mirror reflecting the spiritual light into the physical. The goddess is both the giver of sexual love and reproduction, as well as inspiration and divine inebriation. Her rites were ecstatic and then-inner function served to arouse the enormously powerful Kundalini energy which lies coiled like a snake in the sexual centre of Yesod.
Instead of being earthed in physical reproduction, the power of the ‘ ‘Fire Snake” is controlled and consciously directed to rise’ ‘like lightning” through the sushumna, the hollow tube of the spinal column, to reach its height in the lunar sphere of the head — the Qoph centre.
It is interesting to note here that the descriptions of Kundalini rising show a remarkable affinity with the properties of silver. It is the best conductor of heat — physical heat being one of the most obvious expressions of the Fire Snake’s arousal. Scientist Wilhelm Pelikan writes: “Silver yields most freely to the passage of heat, retaining little for itself. Heat expands into space fastest by way of silver… heat imparted to any portion of a silver mass is immediately spread through the rest of it.”4
Also the lightning passage of the serpent power is described as ‘electrical,’ and silver is the best conductor of electric current. “The condition of electric tension, which is the prime phenomenon in electricity, is readily equalized through a silver wire… Silver does not need to be cooled in order to conduct well.”4
There is another quality of silver perhaps worth mentioning here, and that is the pure sound of its ring, which is why flutes and bells crafted from silver have an especially pure and clear sound. The passage of Kundalini also manifests in the sound of extraordinary clear bell-like ringing in the head, although subjectively heard.
As the serpent power rises it induces a form of inebriation as the amrit, or ambrosia of the gods is distilled in the lunar region. This ambrosia/soma, or lunar juice, is charged with the secretions from the endocrine system stimulated by the ascent of Kundalini, and bestows wonderful healing and consciousness altering properties. As occultist Kenneth Grant notes, the priestesses of the moon goddess had “a special affinity with the moon and with the essences contained in the lunar radiations of the female.” The monthly flow of blood corresponds to the full moon of the goddess, the time when her power is at its height, when a door opens between the physical and spiritual realms allowing the human to be touched by the divine.
The lunar-silver quality inherent in all liquids as described before transmits the creative life-giving forces. Thus water was kept on the sacred altars of the moon. ‘ ‘Water, the mystical fluid of life, symbolised blood, not arterial blood…but menstrual blood: the primal menstruum of manifestation whereby spirit is made flesh.”
So we come full circle from the cosmic view of the ancients, through the physical experiments of modem scientists, to return again in ever expanding spheres to spirit — reflected into eternity.
“Thus silver takes its place in the cosmic context so that we can call it, with full justification, the metal of the moon. But now we call it this out of our modem consciousness, without leaning on any old atavistic stages of consciousness which, in their dreamlike clairvoyance, saw these connections directly.”4
SILVER REFERENCES
1. Alchemy, Titus Burckhardt, Element Books Ltd., Longmead, Shaftesbury, Dorset, 1986
2. Silver and the Human Organism, Eugen and Lilly Kolisko, Kolisko Archive Publications, Bournemouth, England
3. The Nature of Substance, Rudolf Hauschka, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1983
4. The Secrets of Metals, Wilhelm Pelikan, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, N.Y., 1973
Workings of the Stars in Earthly Substance – The Solar Eclipse, June 29th 1927, Lilly Kolisko, Orient-Occident Verlag, Stuttgart, 1928
The Mystical Qabalah, Dion Fortune, Williams and Norgate Ltd., London, 1951
Amulets and Talismans, E.A. Wallis Budge, Collier Books, N.Y., 1970
Cults of the Shadow, Kenneth Grant, Samuel Weiser, New York, 1976
Outside the Circles of Time, Kenneth Grant, Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1980