The Snake

In ancient Egyptian art, the rearing cobra or uraeus was a protective symbol. The Met’s shrine fitting shows how the raised head and expanded hood could become an image of power directed against danger. A creature capable of harm could also stand for defence. [1]

This protective meaning belongs to a particular religious setting. It complicates the idea that the snake has always represented evil: the same form that unsettles a viewer can be entrusted with guarding something precious.

For Eight Shadows, that contrast opens a reflection on boundaries. A snake familiar can symbolise the right to protect an inner space without apologising for its existence. Crowley’s imagined bond with a human begins there: in the difference between indiscriminate hostility and the quiet knowledge of what must be kept safe.

A marble statue in the British Museum depicts Asclepius leaning on a staff around which a snake is wound. The serpent is part of the visual language surrounding the Greek god of healing. It belongs beside restoration as well as beside danger. [2]

Its value in this grimoire is symbolic: a creature can hold meanings that seem opposed, inviting a more patient reading than fear alone allows.

Crowley’s human companion may find resonance in that complexity. Recovery, in the broad emotional sense, can include becoming clearer about limits, changing an old pattern or allowing a new rhythm to emerge. The familiar gives those inward movements an image to return to.

A Cambodian sculpture at the Met depicts the serpent king Muchilinda protecting the meditating Buddha from heavy rain. The serpent’s coils and raised hood become a shelter: strength offered in the service of stillness. [3]

This is a Buddhist sacred narrative about a naga, not a European account of a witch’s familiar. Its distinct identity deserves to remain intact. The scene nevertheless offers a moving example of how a serpent can be imagined as a protective presence beside another being.

In our own creative reading, that image suggests companionship that does not interrupt. A familiar can symbolise the space in which its human is allowed to rest, reflect or begin again. Sometimes the most meaningful protection is simply making that space possible.

An animal-shaped spirit associated with a particular person belongs to the historical idea of the familiar. That is different from a sacred animal emblem. [4]

Crowley’s role in Eight Shadows draws on the personal relationship rather than claiming all serpent traditions are versions of one practice. We imagine a familiar spiritually attached to its human through recognition: a creature whose qualities give shape to something inward.

The snake is especially suited to the question of change. It can become the presence beside you when you realise that a role, a habit or an expectation no longer fits. Its companionship does not demand a dramatic new identity. It asks whether you can recognise the next honest shape of your life.

Shedding gives the serpent one of its most compelling images. In our grimoire, the old skin becomes a metaphor for a form that once served a purpose and has reached its limit. Releasing it does not require pretending it never mattered.

For the human who chooses Crowley as a familiar, that can make change feel less like betrayal. You may honour the person you were while allowing yourself to become someone else. The bond offers a way to remember that continuity and transformation can coexist.

Consider what you keep wearing inwardly after it has grown too small: a duty that is no longer yours, an old explanation, a version of yourself built around somebody else’s comfort. Crowley represents the patience to loosen it, and the courage to move when the moment arrives.

Eight Shadows places Crowley in Water, our element of emotional depth, adaptation and becoming. This correspondence belongs to our creative circle; serpent symbolism across cultures is much broader than any single element.

Water gives the familiar a rhythm of response. It may pause, gather, change direction and continue. In that image, flexibility is not the absence of purpose. It is the ability to seek a path without remaining trapped in the first one you imagined.

Crowley’s medallion can hold this intention in a tangible form. When life asks for another approach, the familiar recalls your capacity to respond. Its spiritual meaning grows through the choices you attach to it: a boundary honoured, a pattern released, a new current followed with care.

Shakespeare places a snake among the creatures invoked in the witches’ cauldron scene in Macbeth. Such imagery gives the serpent a place in the theatre of enchantment, but a dramatic ingredient should not be mistaken for evidence of a universal magical practice. [5]

A shape for becoming. Water finds its way around a stone, carrying its movement onward. Crowley belongs to that patient current in our circle. The serpent offers an image for change made with intention: loosening a habit, naming a desire or allowing an old role to fall away. Each small choice can create room for a life that fits the person you are becoming.

Our Crowley is an emblem of change undertaken on your own terms. Imagine a companion at a crossing, present without deciding what waits on the other side. You can keep what has taught you something while making room for a different way to live.