Honoring the Abyss: Inside the Ritual of Dies Serpentis

In a world addicted to noise, the idea of honoring silence may seem not only strange but subversive. Yet every Saturday morning, before the clock strikes 11:11, a small yet growing number of practitioners across the globe gather in hushed stillness to participate in Dies Serpentis — the Day of the Serpent. Rooted in the religious practices of the Ordo Adamantis Atri, this rite is less a performance of faith than a surrender to mystery. It is not meant to reveal the divine, but to make space for it.

The Serpent That Dwells in the Abyss

Unlike most spiritual traditions that celebrate revelation, Dies Serpentis begins in negation — a deliberate unknowing. At its core lies the Serpent, not as a symbol of evil or temptation, but as the great reconciler of opposites: creation and destruction, ascent and descent, light and dark. It is the archetype of continual transformation, and more importantly, of receptivity — the willingness to be hollowed out so that something vaster might move through us.

This is not the serpent of Eden, but of ancient Gnostic and Hermetic wisdom: the ouroboros that consumes and regenerates itself, the spiral that uncoils in the soul.

A Rite of Sacred Suspension

The observance begins on Friday evening, when the practitioner prepares both environment and self. The meal is humble — bread, legumes, olive oil — consumed in silence. The home is dimly lit by white candles. Sacred Icons are veiled in black, a gesture symbolizing the withdrawal from the visible, the knowable.

A prayer is whispered — not a plea for guidance, but an invocation of absence:

“I ask not to be filled, but to be emptied.
I ask not to know, but to become the hollow in which
the Wordless may dwell…”

There is no ecstatic climax, no divine revelation promised. Instead, there is waiting — a sacred suspension of desire.

The Eleven Movements

Saturday morning unfolds with meticulous simplicity. The face is washed ritually in eleven deliberate gestures, invoking purification not only of the body, but of perception. The altar is set with three candles — green for Philia (love and kinship), black for Neikos (discord and separation), and white for the Void. Their arrangement is symbolic: together they represent the dynamic tensions of existence, held in balance by conscious awareness.

Offerings are made — incense, lentils, sometimes pomegranate seeds if in season. Each item is chosen for its elemental nature, its humility. Lentils, in particular, are the highest expression of the Farmacon, seeds that are also fruits, potency that is also act. The offering is not a transaction, but a gesture: “I withhold nothing from the Unknown.”

At exactly 11:11 AM, the silence is broken. A bell is struck — ideally 121 times — not to summon, but to awaken. Veiled icons are unveiled, more incense is burned, and a slow, mournful chant is intoned. There is no immediate meaning. Meaning arises later, if it arises at all.

The Theological Heresy of Emptiness

To an outsider, Dies Serpentis might resemble a modern mystery cult — minimalist, theatrical, esoteric. But beneath its veils lies something more radical: a theology of absence.

In a time when spirituality is often marketed as empowerment, this ritual proposes something almost unthinkable — that to encounter the divine, one must first become no one. The practitioner steps outside the machinery of ego and identity, not to lose themselves, but to become a vessel.

The Farmacon, a concept central to the Samaelite tradition, is invoked not as a deity, but as a cosmic womb, a source both generative and destructive. It is not worshipped. It is hosted — when possible.

After the Abyss: Celebration as Consecration

Paradoxically, the conclusion of Dies Serpentis is not mournful but celebratory. After the rite, the community gathers — in person or in spirit — to share food, music, and laughter. The very lentils once offered in solemnity are now returned to the earth, so that they can begin a new cycle of existence in the womb of the Farmacon..

The message is clear: emptiness is not negation. It is potential. Joy is not the opposite of the void, but its flowering.

A Practice for the Spiritually Curious

You do not need to be a member of the Ordo Adamantis Atri to observe Dies Serpentis. In fact, the rite is explicitly designed to welcome the “non-aligned” — seekers, skeptics, mystics without names. All it requires is sincerity, attention, and a willingness to dwell — even briefly — in unknowing.

In a world that constantly demands answers, Dies Serpentis dares to ask: What if the deepest truth cannot be spoken? What if the most sacred thing you can do… is listen?