The Winged Lion-Serpent: Saturn and Babylon’s Grip on Sacred Time
- Michelle Hayman
- 6 days ago
- 17 min read
In esoteric symbolism, a lion-headed serpent appears as a composite archetype linking royal authority and cyclical time. Gnostic traditions, for example, venerate Chnoubis – a solar
“good demon” often depicted as a lion-headed serpent crowned with rays. In the Apocryphon of John and related Sethian lore, the Demiurge Yaldabaoth is likewise portrayed as a lion-faced serpent, embodying arrogant power (lion) and deceitful cyclicality (serpent). This figure is essentially a personification of Saturn/Kronos, the ancient god who rules time. In Greek myth Kronos (Saturn) devoured his own children, a grim allegory that Time consumes all its creations. Saturn thus became synonymous with Father Time, often depicted as an aged figure with a scythe, presiding over the slowest, outermost sphere of the classical cosmos.
This lion-serpent archetype recurs across cultures as a symbol of cosmic rulership. In Mithraic mysteries, the supreme god Aion was portrayed as a lion-headed man entwined by a serpent, representing infinite time and the zodiac. Wings are sometimes added to this composite, indicating dominion over the celestial realm (the sky or heavens). The winged lion itself has Biblical resonance: the prophet Daniel’s vision describes the empire of Babylon as a lion with eagle’s wings. In fact, winged lion statues guarded Babylon’s gates – a suitable image for a power that rules the world and its cycles. When we combine these motifs, the winged lion-serpent emerges as an esoteric emblem of the Demiurge or Devil, the “Prince of this World” who governs the flow of time and fate. In Christian terms, this corresponds to Satan as “the great dragon... that old serpent” who “deceiveth the whole world”. Saturn, the planetary power associated with limitation and death, is thus linked to the Devil – both gatekeepers of time that hold souls in the prison of material cycles.
Saturn, Kronos, and the Precessional Ages
As Lord of Time, Saturn/Kronos was also mythically tied to the great year of the cosmos. Ancient astronomer-priests observed the precession of the equinoxes – a ~25,770-year cycle in which the zodiacal backdrop of the spring equinox shifts through all twelve signs. This vast cycle, dividing history into astrological ages, was seen as the clock of the ages set by divine law. Saturn, the slowest visible planet, symbolically sat at the outermost ring of the heavens, marking boundaries of time. He was revered as the chronokrator (time-ruler) of world eras. In esoteric thought, whoever controls the calendar of ages controls the narrative of history – literally “he who controls the ages, controls the world.” The lion-serpent (with Leo the lion as a zodiac age and the serpent as the looping cycle) embodies this concept of dominion over successive epochs. Occult teachings often assert that an Archonic or Saturnian figure governs the current world age and must be transcended for spiritual liberation. For example, Gnostic cosmology describes souls needing to pass beyond the sphere of the Seven Archons (with Saturn as the seventh, ruling planet) to escape the aeonic wheel of fate. In other words, Saturn’s chains are the cycles of time. The winged lion-serpent – the Demiurge, Mithras, Saturn, Father Time – is the jailer holding humanity in repetitive patterns, until a higher power intervenes.
Into a world bound under the cycles of deception, Christ declared: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). He is “the light of the world” (John 8:12), shining in the darkness that “comprehended it not” (John 1:5). In Him, the path is revealed — a “new and living way” (Hebrews 10:19–20) that leads beyond the prison of time and the lies of Mystery Babylon. Through the cross and resurrection, He breaks the power of the one who holds humanity captive (cf. Hebrews 2:14–15), offering life eternal outside the reach of the lion-serpent’s clockwork.
Perhaps this is why countless souls pray to everyone but Christ Himself — for in bypassing the One who is the Way, they remain ensnared in the system that continues to enslave them.
Mystery Babylon and the “Great Sorcery” of World Deception
Biblical prophecy personifies the corrupted world order as “Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations” (Revelation 17:5). This allegorical figure represents a religio-political system that spiritually enslaves nations, symbolized as a lavish harlot who intoxicates the world with her fornications. Crucially, Revelation emphasizes that all nations are deceived by her sorceries. The Greek word used for “sorceries” is pharmakeia, implying enchantment, drugging, or occult spell-casting. In Revelation 18, the fall of Babylon is mourned by kings and merchants, for under her reign they trafficked in “merchandise... and slaves; and souls of men”. This striking phrase suggests human souls as commodities under an exploitative system.
If we read these prophecies in esoteric terms, Mystery Babylon can be seen as the earthly manifestation of the lion-serpent archetype’s rule. It is the hierarchy of spiritual and political powers that keeps humanity bound – the socio-religious complex that corresponds to Saturn’s dominion. The “sorcery” by which Babylon deceives all nations can be understood as mass ritual magic or psychological enchantment on a civilizational scale. This is not necessarily a literal spell cast by a witch, but rather the systematic manipulation of symbols, beliefs, and timing to captivate the world’s mind. The winged lion-serpent behind Mystery Babylon deceives through the very institutions people trust – including religion and the calendar itself. As we will see, controlling the sacred calendar and ritual observances has been a potent form of this “Great Sorcery” across history.
The Control of Sacred Time – Calendar Reforms and Ritual Power
One tangible way the presumptive “Babylonian” elite could exercise occult dominion is by controlling the calendar that governs religious life. By fixing certain dates as sacred and synchronizing masses of people to observe them, a ruling priesthood effectively orchestrates collective ritual on a timetable. An historical example of this is the Gregorian Calendar Reform of 1582, decreed by pope Gregory XIII in the papal bull Inter gravissimas. On the surface, this reform was a long-needed adjustment to realign the calendar with astronomy, but it also had the effect of reasserting control over ritual time, especially the date of Easter.
In October 1582, Inter gravissimas dropped ten days from the calendar; Thursday October 4 was immediately followed by Friday October 15; in order to restore the vernal equinox to around March 21, the same date used at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD for calculating Easter. It also revised the leap-year system so that every fourth year would be a leap year except for century years not divisible by 400, meaning 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but 1600 and 2000 were. This tweak corrected the Julian calendar’s slow drift, bringing the average year length closer to the actual solar year. In addition, the reform updated lunar cycle tables, drawing on the work of astronomer Aloysius Lilius, so that the “14th day of the moon” (the ecclesiastical full moon) would match the true full moon near the equinox, ensuring the Paschal Full Moon aligned with the Church’s Easter rules.
Finally, the bull mandated universal adoption across Catholic territories, ordering both clergy and secular rulers to enforce the changes. Non-compliance was met not with debate or persuasion, but with threats of fines, excommunication, and even the cosmic wrath of “Almighty God and of St. Peter and St. Paul” hurled at anyone who dared keep their own days. And all this, we are told, from the “holy men” charged with shepherding souls to freedom in Christ; the same Christ whose own Passover was never fixed to a papal timetable. The irony is biblical: demand obedience to a man-made calendar under threat of damnation, all in the name of the God who commanded His people to remember His appointed times. You really couldn’t invent hypocrisy like this if you tried. “Don’t resist your enslavement,” the shepherds bleat, “for it is for your own salvation.”
On its face, Inter gravissimas was about keeping Easter’s date correct. However, from an esoteric perspective, this act also synchronized the spiritual life of millions to a desired cosmic rhythm. Easter’s timing is determined by the first Sunday after the first Full Moon following the spring equinox. By anchoring the equinox back to March 21 and tightly regulating the lunar calculations, the Church ensured that Easter (and the entire liturgical calendar) would perpetually align with specific solar and lunar events. This means that every year, the death and resurrection of Christ (the central mystery of the Church) is commemorated according to astronomical cues – effectively a Christianized spring fertility festival in tune with nature’s renewal. Notably, the English word “Easter” traces to Ēostre, a Germanic dawn-goddess of spring, and has resonances with Ishtar, the ancient Near Eastern goddess of fertility and rebirth. Thus, under the ostensibly Christian calendar, older pagan rites of spring continue in transmuted form. By reforming the calendar, the Church may have been (whether consciously or by inherited tradition) harnessing the equinox energy – a time long regarded in magic and myth as a “power node” when day and night stand in balance.
In occult theory, controlling the timing of rituals is key to controlling their power. By dictating sacred time, the religious-political hierarchy effectively dictated when the masses pray, fast, feast, and celebrate. This is ritual sorcery on a mass scale: millions unknowingly participate in coordinated ceremonies (Christmas, Easter, etc.) that correspond to solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days deeply rooted in ancient nature worship. The Book of Revelation’s indictment that Babylon traded in “the souls of men” gains a new shade of meaning here: human souls are being bought into a system of observances that might serve hidden agendas. Those in power, aligned with the Saturnian archetype, harvest spiritual energy by timing collective devotion to resonate with cosmic cycles. In effect, control of time = control of souls. By ensuring the entire Western world marched to the Gregorian calendar, the Catholic order (and later, the secular world order) locked humanity into a unified temporal matrix – arguably the framework for a global ritual.
Ever since Babylon 1.0, the true God’s message to Pharaohs and Caesars alike has not changed: Let My people go!
Crowley’s A∴A∴ and the “Great Sorcery” from Within
Insight into this hidden system of control comes from an unlikely insider: Aleister Crowley, the infamous occultist. In the very first issue of his journal The Equinox (1909), Crowley published “An Account of A∴A∴” – a description of a secret fraternity of illuminated adepts guiding humanity. Here, adopting the words of mystic Karl von Eckartshausen, Crowley frankly acknowledges an invisible “interior order” behind world religion and politics. He explains that throughout history, the inner adepts have veiled spiritual truths in external symbols and ceremonies for the profane masses. In other words, exoteric religions are deliberately crafted masks for an esoteric reality known only to the few. While the public worships the literal symbols, the initiated understand the deeper energetic workings taking place.
Crowley speaks of a pervasive, ancient corruption he calls “the Great Sorcery.” In his telling, whenever truth and liberation are offered to humanity, this force rises to twist, dilute, or co-opt it. Even advances in human understanding — whether spiritual, moral, or scientific — are intercepted and bent to serve the same hidden power. The picture he paints is of a continual, unseen interference in the unfolding of history, ensuring that no awakening can fully break humanity’s chains. Crowley’s language suggests that this “Great Sorcery” is nothing less than the influence of Mystery Babylon itself — the same spell of Revelation’s prophecy, the pharmakeia by which “all nations are deceived.” His phrasing is deliberate, hinting that biblical warning and occult testimony point to the same enduring phenomenon.
From Crowley’s perspective, this “Great Sorcery” keeps people spiritually asleep by means of external religion and dogma. Crowley believed the answer was what he called Scientific Illuminism — stripping away the veils and equipping individuals to discover truth for themselves. Yet his own practices reveal a deep entanglement with the very system he claimed to expose. He meticulously timed his rituals to astronomical events, performing ceremonies at equinoxes and solstices, and structuring daily devotions like Liber Resh around the solar cycle. Even his official journal was titled The Equinox, a declaration of the power he placed on those balanced points between light and dark. In Thelema, his so-called “New Æon” was nothing more than a rebranding of the precessional ages — Horus succeeding Osiris — an occult narrative tightly bound to the same cosmic clock. In truth, Crowley and his order were not breaking free of the matrix of sacred time manipulation; they were navigating it, surfing its currents while still playing by its rules.
But my own awakening came when Christ Himself called to me. His words in John 8:32 burned through the fog: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I began to see that this — not the rites, not the cycles, not the secret calendars — is the true escape from the spiritual matrix the lion-serpent Babylon 2.0 has constructed to, in Paul’s words, “make merchandise” of our very souls. Christ is not another turn of the wheel; He is the way off it entirely.
A Unified Mechanism of Spiritual-Political Control
Bringing all the threads together, we can discern a single grand mechanism: the manipulation of sacred time and cosmic cycles to wield control over human spirituality and society. The archetype of the winged lion-serpent – Satan/Kronos, master of time – stands behind worldly empires and religious institutions (“the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth”, as Revelation 17:18 describes Mystery Babylon). This archetype works through willing elites and occult orders to synchronize human consciousness to specific temporal patterns. By doing so, it effectively casts a “spell” on humanity – the Great Sorcery that keeps souls bound to the wheel.
Consider how the pieces interlock.
The cosmic archetype of Saturn—or Satan—manifests in the idea of the Demiurge, a Devil-figure who rules the material universe through cyclical law. This Lord of Time endlessly devours and regenerates ages, trapping souls in reincarnating patterns or repetitive loops. In occult symbolism, the lion-serpent guards the threshold of these cosmic cycles; able to imprison or, for the enlightened, be one’s passage to freedom.
Interestingly, even the Cumaean Sibyl, the prophetic priestess of ancient Cumae whose oracles were absorbed into Roman tradition, hints at a type of purgatory; where souls undergo lengthy purification, forgetting their past before being granted a “second body.” While these notions appear in Sibylline oracles, they are extra-biblical. The doctrine of purgatory, as formulated later in Christian theology, lacks a clear foundation in Scripture. In fact, Christ Himself promises freedom from this cycle in Revelation 3:12, saying, “He shall go out no more.” This points not to a purgatorial waiting room of cosmic re-scripting, but to final liberation; an escape from time’s grip.
Yet church tradition often conflated extra-biblical customs with doctrine. Over time, Sibylline imagery and ideas like purgatory, derived from Greco-Roman oracles, were woven into medieval Christian teaching; even though they never appear in the Bible. Scripture offers no retreat into astral delays, but a straight path through Christ into eternal rest.
Ordinary people have long personified this force as Chronos, or Father Time, rarely perceiving its darker occult role.
On the human plane, this manifests as Mystery Babylon ; powerful empires, state churches, and secret societies that impose a calendar and belief system aligned with the Archon’s agenda. From Babylon to Persia to Rome and then the Church, each has, in its turn, leveraged control of the calendar and religious rites. The Roman Church’s dominance over calendar reform, such as the Gregorian change, continues imperial Rome’s authority over the civic calendar. By controlling the liturgical year, the Church — identified by many as Mystery Babylon — ensured that nations marched to her beat, literally marking time by her decrees. Through holidays, fasts, and feasts fixed to astrologically potent dates, the masses unknowingly reaffirm the spell.
The calendar itself becomes a tool of sorcery. We usually imagine sorcery as something performed in a hidden ritual chamber, but what if the ritual chamber is the entire world? By imposing the Gregorian Calendar on a global scale, the sorcerer-elite expanded their magic circle to planetary dimensions. Every New Year’s Day — coinciding with the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ on January 1 — every Easter timed to the spring equinox full moon, and every Christmas in the winter solstice period became compulsory participation in their ritual cycle. Over centuries, such repeated rites reinforce a singular reality: the authority of the Church or Empire as the outer face, and behind it, the authority of the Time-Lord as the hidden face. In this way, the souls of men are bound in an astral harness, deceived en masse while believing they act in piety and tradition.
Not all in power are consciously malevolent; many may genuinely believe in the faith or system they serve. But occult initiates embedded in these structures, as hinted at by Crowley and others, understand the deeper game. They see all exoteric religion as a chessboard for the Great Work — whether to preserve the status quo of control or to awaken and liberate. Crowley’s A∴A∴ claimed to combat the Great Sorcery by spreading truth, yet his methods reveal a fascination with out-sorcering the sorcerers, using the same tools of timing and symbolism that the hierarchy wields. The delicate thesis is this: both rulers and rebels know the power of time. The difference lies in motive — one manipulates it to dominate, the other, at least in principle, to set free.
In sum, the winged lion-serpent archetype, the Mystery Babylon prophecy, the Gregorian time-craft, and Crowley’s esoteric teachings on a Great Sorcery all point to the same underlying reality. They describe a long-running system of spiritual-political control that operates through the manipulation of sacred time. Humanity’s collective spiritual life is modulated by those who set the clocks and calendars. By enchanting the world to celebrate or mourn in unison on chosen dates, the “powers and principalities” (to use a biblical term) exert a psychic influence over the mass mind. We find ourselves participating in grand rituals we scarcely recognize as such, from the daily toll of the bell to the once-in-a-millennium Jubilee.
Quote from Crowley (The Equinox):
But the Great Sorcery was not destroyed, for the Kings and Priests of that time, being cunning and wise in their generation, did bind again the people with bonds of falsehood, so that their bodies and goods were the possession of these Kings and Priests, and their souls also were brought into bondage, so that they durst not think the Truth nor act the Truth, but must needs obey the falsehoods which these Kings and Priests had made for the ensnaring of them.”
No wonder the pyramid on the dollar bill is divided, a silent emblem of truth kept just out of reach. No wonder the Church replaced the true Sabbath with Sunday and directs prayers toward anyone but God Himself. These are not harmless alterations — they are calculated moves by a system determined to keep the truth hidden from the masses, all while profiting from our spiritual enslavement. Worse still, it is a machinery that funnels countless souls toward eternal damnation, and they flaunt it openly, confident that the deception will endure.
But breaking free from Mystery Babylon is not a matter of adopting secret knowledge or learning to play the game better — it is about leaving the game entirely. Scripture is clear: “Come out of her, my people” (Revelation 18:4). True freedom begins with repentance; turning away from sin, idolatry and false mediators; and believing the gospel of salvation, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:1–4). It means praying only to Christ, the sole Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), and walking in the “new and living way” He opened for us. And it means being filled with His Holy Spirit, who alone can break the spiritual chains and guide us into all truth.
The only way out of the lion-serpent’s time-loop is not through the wisdom of the archons, but through the One who stands above time itself. As long as the cosmic jailer rules the clock and Babylon sets the calendar, humanity will remain in a state of controlled illusion. But in Christ — and Christ alone — the cycle ends, and the soul steps into eternal freedom.
2 Corinthians 4:4:
“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
Unmasking the Lion-Serpent’s Clockwork
The question we began with was how a peculiar occult symbol – a winged lion-serpent – connects to everything from biblical prophecy to calendar reform to Crowley’s secret doctrines. We can now see that all these elements form parts of a single tapestry. The winged lion-serpent, as a symbol of Devil/Saturn, represents the hidden architect of chronopolitical power. Biblical Mystery Babylon represents that architect’s agenda in human history, deceiving nations through spiritual sleight-of-hand (sorcery). Calendar reforms like Inter gravissimas show the implementation of that agenda – the concrete tuning of humanity’s ritual clock to certain cosmic frequencies. And occult insiders like Crowley provide a whistle-blower’s commentary, openly admitting the existence of a grand deception (the “Great Sorcery”) while also revealing, through their actions, the importance of timing and cycles in occult work.
To unmask this system is to recognize that time itself has been weaponized as a means of spiritual control. The calendar is no neutral tool — it is freighted with ideology and charged with sorcery, designed to keep the masses in ignorance. Scripture tells us plainly that “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not” (2 Corinthians 4:4). And this blinding is not carried out by open enemies alone; it is also maintained by wolves in sheep’s clothing and by Satan’s own ministers, who “transform themselves into ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14–15). These are those who know the truth yet keep the lie alive, hijacking the gospel for their own corrupt agendas, turning the good news of Christ into a spiritual melting pot where He is reduced to one option among many.
But the gospel is not one way among many — it is the only way. The way out is not through mystical rites, esoteric initiations, or a syncretistic blending of truths. The way out is Christ Himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6). It is repentance and belief in the gospel of salvation.
Romans 8:9:
“Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”
When the scaffolding of control is seen for what it is — the lion-serpent coiled around the clock of the world, choking the breath from the souls of men — the spell begins to break. The freedom Christ offers is not another turn of the wheel, but the complete destruction of it. In Him, there is no returning to bondage, no cycles of purgation or reincarnation, but the eternal promise: “He shall go out no more” (Revelation 3:12).
“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” — 2 Corinthians 11:13–15
“The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” — 2 Corinthians 4:4
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” — Matthew 7:15
“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” — Revelation 18:4
“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” — Acts 4:12
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” — John 14:6
“He that overcometh… I will write upon him the name of my God… and he shall go out no more.” — Revelation 3:12
If the Nephilim (demonic hybrids) are neither truly immortal nor able to ascend to the heavens, then it follows that the god of the Nephilim; the hybrid lion-serpent, the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2); would work tirelessly to keep humanity trapped in his domain. His aim would be to maintain a closed system, preventing souls from escaping to God’s presence, so that human vessels can be reused. Through possession, these bodies become his instruments; and when death comes, the souls are diverted not to eternal rest, but into a counterfeit holding place; a kind of purgatory, not found in Scripture; where they are “recycled” into new bodies for the Nephilim’s purposes.
And his servants; wolves in sheep’s clothing, ministers of Satan who disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness; keep this system going. Only they know the full truth, and such knowledge is their grim reward for helping to enslave the rest of humanity. They guard the lie, maintain the ritual cycles, and ensure the machinery of deception never stops turning.
This is not mere theory; the Lord exposes them through Ezekiel’s words: “Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you? … and will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?” (Ezekiel 13:18–19). These ancient hunters of souls extend their life at the expense of others — their survival depends on keeping humanity in bondage.
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