Episode 217: Satanic Serpents II

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• From The Myth & Truth of Saint Patrick, Morgan Daimler, Irish Pagan School, 2024: Every March the pagan community, without fail, sees a surge in conversations and diatribes on Saint Patrick, usually rooted in the ideas that Patrick was a maniac who wiped out the druids (represented by snakes), destroyed Irish paganism, and converted the entire island. This is probably the thing that I hear the most often about Saint Patrick, leaning into Christian propaganda of the 7th and 12th centuries which positioned Patrick as the champion of Christianity in Ireland. In reality the druids survived well after Patrick’s lifetime. Druids, as a class, are included in the 7th and 8th century laws tracts and although their role had been diminished from their pre-Christian prominence they did still exist. There is even an 8th century hymn calling on god’s protection against “the magic of women, blacksmiths, and druids.” So we can say quite definitively that Patrick didn’t wipe out the druids. Many neopagans firmly believe that the snakes in Patrick’s story are actually a metaphor for druids. But this idea comes from one source, the 1911 book Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries where a man speculates that a certain lake is where Saint Patrick had a final confrontation with the Druids and drove them out, and he assumes the druids and snakes were the same because the lake is also where local folklore says the snakes were driven out. However, there are no earlier sources suggesting this, and it is quite clear that the snakes in the old stories were meant to be literal snakes.
  • Some claim Patrick committed genocide against the Druids, effectively destroying the pagan priesthood and Irish paganism and forcing conversion by the sword. Now, beyond the fact we’ve already addressed Patrick and the Druids above, it must be noted that converting to Christianity in Ireland wasn’t something that happened quickly, nor was any single person responsible for it. Christians have worked hard to make Patrick the face of conversion in Ireland in the 1500 years since his death, but Patrick himself in his book Confessions stated that he didn’t know if he’d had any significant impact in Ireland and faced a lot of pushback from the pagans for his work. Patrick was not the first Christian in Ireland, nor the most significant during his lifetime – that would probably be Palladius. Patrick seems to have little effect on Irish paganism during his life, and only took on the reputation as a converter hundreds of years after his death. Saint Patrick is a figure who has taken on a role as a kind of anti-pagan boogieman, a figure that can be pointed to as all that is terrible in Christian evangelism by those who prefer to consider themselves tragic victims of a cultural change that occurred more than a millennia ago. He is, in reality, someone who should be insignificant to history yet who, thanks to amazing church PR, looms large. Perhaps, as pagans, it’s time we let go of this mythological figure and see past it to the persistence and survival of Irish paganism and stop feeding into a Christian narrative about Patrick that is not only false but actively harmful. https://irishpagan.school/saint-patrick-myths-and-truths/ 
• From the Epic of Gilgamesh, 2000 BCE…ish: As the birds began to sing at the coming of the dawn, The Sun God, Utu, left his royal bedchamber. Inanna called to her brother Utu, saying: “O Utu, in the days when the fates were decreed, When abundance overflowed in the land, When the domains of the Great Gods were divided, And Enki did quest for the Underworld, Then did I pluck the Huluppu-tree from the Euphrates, Then did I plant it in my Holy Garden, and tend it, Waiting for my shining throne and luscious bed. But a serpent nested in the roots and could not be charmed, the Anzu-bird set his young in the branches, and the dark maid, Lilith, built her home in the trunk. How I wept! Yet they would not leave my tree.” Utu, the valiant warrior, would not help his sister, Inanna. As the birds began to sing at the coming of the second dawn, Inanna called to Gilgamesh, saying: “O Gilgamesh, in the days when the fates were decreed, When abundance overflowed in the land, When the domains of the Great Gods were divided, Then did I pluck the Huluppu-tree from the Euphrates, Then did I plant it in my Holy Garden, and tend it, Waiting for my shining throne and luscious bed. Then a serpent nested in the roots and could not be charmed, the Anzu-bird set his young in the branches, and the dark maid, Lilith, built her home in the trunk. How I wept! Yet they would not leave my tree.” Gilgamesh the valiant warrior, Gilgamesh, The hero of Uruk, stood by Inanna. Gilgamesh fastened his armor around his chest. He lifted his bronze ax to his shoulder. He entered Inanna’s holy garden. Gilgamesh struck the serpent who could not be charmed. The Anzu-bird flew with his young to the mountains; and Lilith smashed her home and fled to the wild, uninhabited places. Gilgamesh then loosened the roots of the huluppu-tree; And the sons of the city, who accompanied him, cut off the branches. From the trunk of the tree he carved a throne for Inanna. From the trunk of the tree Gilgamesh carved a bed for Inanna. From the roots of the tree she fashioned a pukku for him. From the crown of the tree Inanna fashioned a mikku for Gilgamesh, the hero of Uruk.
• From the Hymn To Apollo, Homer, 8th Century BCE…ish: But nearby was a sweet flowing spring, and there with his strong bow Apollo, the son of Zeus, killed the great Python, a fierce monster wont to do great mischief to men upon earth, for she was a very bloody plague. She it was who once received from gold-throned Hera and brought up fell, cruel Typhon to be a plague to men. Once on a time Hera, because she was angry with father Zeus, spoke thus among the assembled gods: “Hear from me, all gods and goddesses, how cloud-gathering Zeus begins to dishonour me wantonly, when he has made me his true-hearted wife. See now, apart from me he has given birth to bright-eyed Athena who is foremost among all the blessed gods. O wicked one and crafty! What else will you now devise? How dared you by yourself give birth to bright-eyed Athena? Would not I have borne you a child — I, who was at least called your wife among the undying gods who hold wide heaven.” Then straightway queenly Hera prayed, striking the ground with her hand, and speaking thus: “Hear now, I pray, Earth and wide Heaven above, and you Titan gods who dwell beneath the earth, harken you now to me, one and all, and grant that I may bear a child apart from Zeus, no wit lesser than him in strength — nay, let him be as much stronger than Zeus, as all-seeing Zeus was stronger than Cronos.” And thus she birthed a creature neither like the gods nor mortal men, but fell, cruel Typhon, to be a plague to men. Straightway Hera took him and bringing one evil thing to another such, gave him to Python to raise, and she received him. And this Typhon used to work great mischief among the famous tribes of men. Whosoever met Python, the day of doom would sweep him away, until the lord Apollo, who deals death from afar, shot a strong arrow at her. Then she, rent with bitter pangs, lay drawing great gasps for breath and rolling about that place, breathing forth blood. Then Apollo boasted over her: “Now rot here upon the soil that feeds man! You shall live no more to be a fell bane to men who eat the fruit of the all-nourishing earth, and neither Typhon shall avail you, nor ill-famed Chimera,” and wherefore that place is now called Pytho, and men call the lord Apollo the Pythian, because on that spot the power of the piercing sun destroyed that monster.
• From Satanism Today, James R Lewis, 2001: The word Leviathan is originally Hebrew, and means “the coiled one” or “that which gathers itself together in folds.” It has come to mean any formidable, monstrous being or thing. The term is originally referring to a multiheaded sea monster defeated by Yahweh. Leviathan is associated with—and is sometimes used interchangeably with—Behemoth, another biblical monster. Because of the association between the Devil and serpents, Leviathan is often identified with Satan. Alternately, it is also sometimes used to designate one of Satan’s demons. Leviathan was sometimes portrayed as a kind of aquatic dragon; sometimes as a whale. Most biblical references are, however, tantalizingly brief. It is unclear how much of the content of Yahweh’s challenge to Job refers to an earlier tale and how much is being composed on the spot. In any event, the Hebrew tale appears to derive from a story in which Baal defeats a sea monster with the aid of Mot. This seems to be a variation of the well-known Babylonian myth of Marduk’s defeat of the sea monster Tiamat. In Hebrew scriptures, Yahweh is sometimes depicted as a storm god. The battle between Yahweh and the dragon is very popular in the visions of the later Hebrew prophets, although the dragon usually embodies a purely symbolic meaning as the enemy of Israel, that is to say the Assyrians, the Babylonians, or the Egyptians. The endtime significance of this creature is that Yahweh will release Leviathan to wreak havoc upon the earth shortly before the end of the world. Then god will finally destroy the beast.
• From The Old Enemy, Neil Forsyth, 1987: The serpent of Genesis was quite plainly just a serpent. True, he could speak, and he seemed to know god’s mind. But Genesis nowhere says he was anything other than a talking snake. But in the curious work we know as the Book of Revelation the church found “the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan.” We have already noticed that these passages bring together most aspects of the apocalyptic combat myth, from the star-like angel to the accuser at the heavenly court and the agent provocateur who leads astray the whole world. Perhaps the author intended the phrase “that old serpent” to refer to the Genesis serpent? Certainly, in view of the Gnostic identity of the serpent, the church found it convenient to think he did. Justin, for example, is clearly alluding to this text in his First Apology: “Among us the chief of the evil demons is called the serpent and Satan and the devil. Christ has foretold that he will be cast into the fire with his host and those who follow him, to be punished for endless ages. ” Justin’s appeal is one of the earliest signs that the idea of a Christian canon was developing and shows that the need to identify the devil was a prime motive. But Revelation does not actually say that by Satan means also the Genesis serpent, and indeed the church would later go to considerable trouble to insist on the equation. Without the Book of Revelation as a sanctified text, the identification of Genesis serpent with the adversary would have stood on much shakier ground. The placing of the Apocalypse at the end of the Bible brought some advantages also for the shape of the canon: Revelation points forward to the end of time, just as Genesis talks of its beginning. The tree of life at the end of the book balances the tree of knowledge at the beginning. And the enemy, he who had started all the trouble in the beginning, could be seen to be finally defeated here at the end. This means of closure gives to the Bible the shape of a combat myth, and thus the identification of Satan/serpent as “he who leads astray the whole world” made the struggle with heresy seem to be an extension of the mythological combat.
• From Satanic Feminism, Per Faxneld, 2017: Feminist historian and mythographer Marina Warner has claimed that in spite of its primary function as the main Christian symbol of evil, the serpent also denotes something positive, ‘‘a kind of heterodox knowledge and sexuality that Christianity has spurned.’ This is true, but primarily in terms of counter-discourses protesting against the hegemonic significance of the serpent and its wider social implications. Serpents can have quite different meanings, as seen, for example, in the one entwining the Rod of Asclepius, which is used as a symbol of the medical profession. Nevertheless, in the Old Testament, snakes are fairly consistently negative symbols, with the exception of Moses’s serpent. Like the notion of the serpent as Satan, the later idea of Eve as a temptress luring Adam to his doom does not really appear in Genesis (she simply gives some of the fruit to Adam, who is with her, and he eats), but was a development that should, as the Bible scholar Jean M. Higgins underscores, be seen as an expression of imagination, drawn mainly from each commentator’s own presuppositions and cultural expectations. Pseudo-Tertullian wrote with horror about the Ophite Gnostics that prefer the Edenic tempter ‘even to Christ himself; for it was he, they say, who gave us the origin of knowledge.’ Subversive nineteenth-century readings of the serpent as a bringer of enlightenment, and Eve as a heroine by implication, occasionally drew on these condemnations for inspiration. 
  • A more straightforwardly female Satan can be seen in the actually very common depictions of the snake in the Garden of Eden with a woman’s head on its serpentine body and sometimes also breasts. This motif was widespread in both visual art and theatre for hundreds of years. JB Trapp even states that it was the most frequent way of representing the Edenic serpent from the late twelfth century until the late sixteenth century, when the human features of the creature disappear and it becomes, once more, only reptilian. Exactly when the notion of a female snake was established is difficult to say, but the earliest translation of the Bible into Latin rendered the word as “serpens”—with a feminine gender.  The first explicit statement of this is probably in the twelfth-century French History of Genesis which suggests that Satan chose this guise ‘since like approves of like.’ A female serpent later appears in well-known literary works like the allegorical poem Piers the Plowman. where it is described as ‘like a lizard with a lady’s visage.’ ’Worth mentioning here is also ‘The Book for the Education of Daughters’ by Geoffrey. Geoffrey attempts to instil in his daughters the lesson that women should defer to fathers and husbands in anything but domestic matters and makes his point by retelling how Eve broke this rule when she conversed with the serpent, ‘whiche as the Hystorye sayth hadde a face ryght fayre lyke the face of a woman.’ There are countless images of a female serpent-Satan in the Garden, and some occupy what must be counted among the most central positions in European culture imaginable. For example, Michelangelo’s Temptation and Expulsion in the Sistine Chapel.
• From The Secret Doctrine, Volume 2, Helena Blavatsky, 1893: The Beings, or the Being, collectively called Elohim, who first (if ever) pronounced the cruel words, “ Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” must have been indeed the Ilda-baoth, the Demiurge of the Nazarenes, filled with rage and envy against his own creature. In this case it is but natural—even from the dead letter standpoint—to view Satan, the Serpent of Genesis, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual mankind. For it is he who was the “ Harbinger of Light,” bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton created by Jehova. He still remains in esoteric truth the ever-loving messenger angel, the Seraphim and Cherubim who both knew well, and loved still more, and who conferred on us spiritual, instead of physical immortality—the latter a kind of static immortality that would have transformed man into an undying “ Wandering Jew.” As narrated in King’s “ Gnostics,” “ Ilda-Baoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses, was not a pure spirit, he was ambitious and proud, and he set himself to create a world of his own and fabricated man, but this proved a failure. Man was a monster, soulless, ignorant, and crawling on all fours on the ground like a material beast. And thus arose out of the abyss Satan, serpent, Ophiomorphos. This is the esoteric rendering of the Gnostics, and the allegory seems true to life. It is the natural deduction from Genesis. Hence the allegory of Prometheus, who steals the divine fire so as to allow men to proceed on the path of spiritual evolution. Hence also, the curse pronounced by Zeus against Prometheus, and by Jehovah-Il-da-Baoth against his rebellious son, Satan.
• From Herbert Sloane, Catherine Yronwode, Satan’s Service, 2013: In 1948, Herbert Sloane was living in Cleveland. As a Spiritualist Reverend it seems likely that Sloane was engaged in seances. According to the 1972 interviews, this was the year that he founded Our Lady of Endor Coven of the Ophite Cultus Sathanas, which he also created. The name of Sloane’s group has puzzled many: “Our Lady of Endor” is a word-play on the use of the common Roman Catholic terms Our Lady of Grace, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and so forth — however, in this case, “Our Lady” refers to the Witch of Endor, mentioned in the Bible in the First Book of Samuel. The word translated as “Witch” in the King James Bible is more properly rendered as “medium,” described as a manifesting spirit medium known for her ability to raise the ghosts of the dead and converse with them. Interestingly, in French books, “witch” is sometimes encountered as “Pythonisse” — a priestess of Apollo, known as a Pythia or Pythoness, named in honour of Pythian Apollo who killed the serpent Python. In French, the word “Pythonisse” refers generally to any female psychic who claims to be endowed with the gift of prophecy, and is also the specific name given to the medium of Endor. The group that Sloane called a “coven” was his circle of seance sitters, but he had left mainstream Spiritualism by this point and was experimenting with dark seance performances: Sloane’s local coven, Our Lady of Endor, was presented as being a branch of the larger Ophite Cultus Sathanas, a Gnostic religious organization. “Ophite Cultus Sathanas” translates roughly from Latin as the Snake-Worshiping Cult of Satan. He apparently chose the word “Ophite” for his cult in reference to a defunct historical group of Christian Gnostics, the Ophites or Ophians, described by Hippolytus. Thus Sloane connected the Witch of Endor to the Pythoness in his over-arching Satanic Snake cult. https://www.satanservice.org/wiki/Herbert_Arthur_Sloane 
• From Holiday displays – including the Satanic Temple’s – return to Illinois, Jerry Nowicki, Capitol News, 2022: The Satanic Temple of Illinois debuted a new display in the Illinois Capitol rotunda Tuesday, taking its place next to the annual Christmas and Hanukkah displays. “Minister Adam” of the Satanic Temple of Illinois was joined by about 15 Temple members to dedicate this year’s display. It consists of a crocheted snake sitting on a book and a pile of apples crocheted by Temple members. “Every year, we do a holiday display and a show of unity and religious pluralism within the state Capitol rotunda,” Adam said. “And this year, we wanted to focus on the book bans that people have been trying to do all over the country.” The book on which the serpent is perched is Polish mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus’ “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,” a 1543 work which posited the then-revolutionary idea that the Earth revolves around the sun. The Nativity scene, meanwhile, has been on display for at least 14 years during Christmastime. Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the St. Thomas More Society, said the precedent for religious displays in public spaces in Illinois stems from a 1989 court decision regarding a Nativity scene at Daley Plaza in Chicago. That precedent was honored when it came to the state Capitol, he said, when advocates framed it under a free speech lens. While the Capitol Satanic display has received pushback from some religious groups in the past, Brejka said “free speech applies to everybody.” Henry Haupt, a spokesperson for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, said “Temporary displays of this nature, erected in a public space in the Capitol rotunda, are protected by the First Amendment.” https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/holiday-displays-including-the-satanic-temples-return-to-illinois-capitol/ 
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