St George and the Dragon

In the last chapter, we saw that Hercules fought and conquered the dragon at the entrance to the garden of Hesperides. He was then able to enter and find the Apple tree that produced golden apples of felicity. 

Another famous literary representation of St George killing the dragon is Edmund Spencer s Faerie Queen Here the lovely woman Una brings her Knight of the Red Cross to the House of Holiness in which he finds Faith, Hope and Charity. Charity is the principal nature of the House. It is brotherly love, the Charity of God or manna The name Una means oneness and, co-incidentally, the three principles or neters are important clues in the rituals in the House of the Pharaoh Unas, described in Chapter 16. 

On a more mystical level, the legend of St George represents the personal victory of an individual s purity and virtue over the hundred evil heads of his own base nature, ignorance and moral vice. In alchemical 

Gnostic Christianity modified the alchemy of the Greater Mysteries in a very imaginative way. The Gnostics believed that the achievement of virtue over the ignorance and moral vice of one s own 

In a bold defense of the Families of Love in 1580, called an Apology for the Service of Love, the Family describes how death is life. They assert that sin is repairable in life. The Apology is set as a three-way conversation in which the Exile, a Familist, seeks to convince two curious individuals that the Family of Love was neither heretical nor  

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The Gnostics saw Simon of Cyrene as the Messenger of the God of Justice who sought to inflict a harsh and impossible law on man. In a curious anti-cosmic interpretation, they believed that Lucifer had Simon of C Tene slain to protect men from oppression. This extraordinary interpretation will become clear in Chapter 15 when we look closely at the Gnostic Knight Rose Croix in his role with St George and the Dragon. 

Baphomet is therefore equivalent to the Shema or understanding that unites the one with God. This is the Shekhinah or the Virgin with Child. The contemplator who has found this understanding, himself becomes the Messiah or the self who has found purity. Chapter 15 demonstrated this with St George and the Dragon. 

We see him as St George killing the green dragon and as Perceval in the Arthurian romances. His color is royal lilac or purple. He is the manifestation of the Philosophers Stone whose mark is interchangeably the Phoenix, eagle or Tau-cross hammer. 

The word Shakespeare is interchangeable with the identity of all dragon-slayers. It often describes St George. Somewhat in confirmation of this, Shakespeare is reputed to have been bom and to have died on twenty-third day of April, St George s Day. 

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