The dragon, that fabulous beast common to all mythologies as well as to early Christian iconography, is not a pure fiction; it is the symbol of man’s instinctive, primitive forces. The great challenge of the spiritual life is to learn to conquer, tame and use those forces so that we may reach the highest peaks of the spirit. The fact that this fire-breathing monster with the tail of a serpent also has wings shows that the forces it embodies have a spiritual destination. Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov says, ‘Sexual energy is like petrol: if you are ignorant and use it carelessly you will burn yourself; your very quintessence will be destroyed by this all-consuming force. But Initiates, who know how to handle it, use it to move freely about the universe’. This is the true meaning of the winged dragon.
