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On Lachesis, J.T. Kent says in his Materia Medica: « Lachesis seems suitable to the whole of humanity, as our species is easily identified with the snake, both in inclination and character, and this venom only reveals what man really is. » (4)

The first theme associated with Lachesis is jealousy; in Kent’s Repertoire there is a short commentary on ‘jealousy’, in which Lachesis is most strongly emphasised on the mental plane. Jealousy is a symptom noted as pathological, in contrast to love which isn’t mentioned, except in commentary on the results of failure in love - ailments from disappointed love. There is no sickness in being in love; happily, no remedy is suggested to correct this feeling. Whereas, for jealousy, there are remedial recommendations, indicating that this state is abnormal. And by chance it’s snake venom which is found to be the principal remedy for the problem.

The Snake

If we cast back to ‘the beginning of history’ - that of Adam and Eve - we see this animal’s appearance as the instigator of ‘mortal sin’. In this scenario we’re in the spring of life; the happy childhood of Eden is ending, Lachesis makes his appearance in spring (1403), in summer (1404). At this time, close on the heels of Creation, man and woman have the choice: love as a fusion with God, and voluntary de-Creation (5). Jealousy is the alternative offered by the snake: equal yourselves to God by unbinding yourselves from Him [wordplay in French would have: Lachesis - lâchez ‘I’ (leave God) [3]; perhaps in English, ‘lack is His’] These turned out to be deadly words. Adam and Eve should have made the snake spit out its venom; and its homeopathic dilution would have cured their original jealousy. A pity they weren’t homeopaths!

Here, then, we embark on a human ordeal where faded love is replaced by a very different force - jealousy, which implies selfishness. Man finds himself alone, a shark amongst sharks; he only aims for personal gratification, everything must be taken, so he gives nothing. Remorse claws at him and won’t leave him in peace, causing sleeplessness, and is aggravated during periods of sleep. But waking is even harder, for the eyes open onto prospects of the competition which must be managed to serve his victory in the face of and against life. (agg. Waking)

After a summer of toil and trouble, after a good deal of haemorrhage (Kent), humanity pursues its course, having paralysed the economy, the power (left side - sinister), while the mind (right side - correct, dextrous), severely atrophied, is placed below. Then, as in Hymenopteran insect communities, the world divides itself into highly specialised extremes, each sub-unit having to armour itself to escape the jealousy of the other and to defend its own petty personal interests. Where is love? Megatons are stockpiled and bunkers are built to abet the interests of a self-appointed few.

And now we’re in autumn, when Lachesis grows even stronger. It’s the current epoch, humanity’s menopause. Ever closer to death, man blindly ‘revels’, overloaded with everything stored to the detriment of others. Only a few voices cry out in alarm, « We’re a bloody mess. We eat too much ! », « Less meat, and more grain for the Third World » (Frères des Hommes). These messages don’t get through, drowned in the background noise of our own verbal diarrhoea. That’s the second emphasis of Lachesis, God’s Word is stifled by mankind’s verbosity. At a time when no-one communicates with his neighbour any more about the most basic things in life, man is reeling from a surfeit of universal detail. Man feels ‘caught by the throat’, he is suffocated in his home town. His tongue, the organ of words, is split at the tip (399), like that of a snake. Even so, if he could give, if he could let it out, how much relief would he experience (improvement by leakage); even - excuse the term - if he could spread shit, which is ultimately natural and fertile: « but nothing is released, despite the sensation of constant need » (2)

This allusion to excrement makes me think of an essential element to this analysis that I was going to forget: « money. The international monetary serpent slithers ahead of us, head crammed with dollars, illustrating the cabalistic law that what goes around comes around. Is it necessary to kill the snake?

Let’s not forget that he’s in us, and look to the East. It’s time to charm the snake with music, dance and love. His poison can be turned into a wonderful cure.

Winter awaits us, with cold and death, or with Christmas and rebirth; Lachesis, the second devil, doesn’t appear again in winter.
Let’s wager on Love being our next encounter.

1] Acknowledgement to Constantin Hering, who risked his life in the Amazonian forest to find this venom for us, 28 July 1828.
2] G. Charrette: La Matière Médicale Pratique. Lib. Le François, published Paris 1949
3] ‘I’ symbolises God in the Judaic initiative tradition of the Quaballah
4] op. cit.
5] Gaston Kempfner: Simone Weil, Mystic Philosopher. La Colombe, published Paris 1960.
6] D. Aubier: Catalina ou la Bonaventure Dite au Français. Le Courrier du Livre, published Paris 1981.

Didier Grandgeorge - 25 October 1982

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