Invoking ‘dragon magic’ in a changing world

‘The serpent is lifeforce and creative urge’. Stefan Broennie.

A story of gratifying synchronicity emerges from my reading of an engaging new book, Dragons and Serpents: Earth Mysteries and the Time of Change by Stefan Broennie, a consultant in geomancy and a landscape ecologist from Germany (Earthdancer Books, February, 2024).

This is because it’s long been my idea that the provenance of serpent and dragon symbolism, and its key relationship to earth energies, lies in the spiral form in nature, the significance of which has been intuited by adepts, magicians and shamans down the ages. If the spiral is the most widespread prehistoric symbol, then the most universal legend must be that of the power of the serpent dragon, and the two themes seem to me to be inextricably bound up with one another.

In ancient times, could not the coils of the snake have been associated with the spiral pattern and homologised, then assuming its qualities and potentials? I believe this is how the serpent came to be a symbol of inexpressible cosmic forces and a metaphor for rebirth and spiritual renewal.

‘O to be a dragon, / a symbol of the power of Heaven,’ wrote the American poet Marianne Moore.

It’s important to note that the most spiritual animal, in the classical view, was the snake, a…