Most of the world's religions are based on ancient snake worshipping

That seems to be the thesis of a book that I picked up in the clearance section of Barnes and Noble. The book is The Serpent Grail written by Philip Gardiner and Gary Osborn.
As I read this book, I kept thinking that this was a bunch of bs, but they do seem to have quite an arguement.
They say that most religion and religious rituals were based on the one where a shaman holds up a poisionous snake, milks its venom into a skull, cuts off its head, letting blood go into the bowl (skull with the venomom), wraps its body around a sacred staff, and stirs the mixture with a staff. Those who drink the mixture are given a hallucinogenic experience which they feel a spiritual experience and experience good health as well. The snake is a giver of life and death (and other polar opposites) but represents in itself peaceful neutrality. According to them, that is the basis of all the major religions, most ancient ones, and most tribal religions. Most Gods and Godlike figures of the past and present have been represented by snakes because they are snakes.
http://www.phil.fah-designs.com/sg/
I finished reading it last night and am still thinking about it. I feel opposite ways about it. I am not trying to discredit any or all religions. I just had never heard that theory and wondered if anyone else had any thoughts on it.

The King
in Conan the Barbarian

Although I haven't seen it in several years.

worship George W. Bush.

. . . either snake blood nor venom is hallucinogenic. If so, there would be very few snakes left.

I think it's interesting. I've seen various mentions here and there. Snakes being associated with Wisdom. I've heard about the hallucinogenic properties, also, as part of religions.

There are various remnants such as the symbol of snakes on a poll - associated with medicine, and various states have such symbols (like on flags).


I had posted this article awhile back:


"Carvings about 70,000 years old on a snake-like rock in a cave in Botswana indicate that Stone Age people developed religious rituals far earlier than previously believed, a researcher said on Thursday.

Ancestors of Botswana's San people apparently ground away at a natural outcrop about 2 metres high and 6 metres long (6 by 20 ft) to heighten its similarity to a python's head and body, said Sheila Coulson, an associate professor at Oslo University.

"We believe this is the earliest archaeological proof of religion," Coulson, a Canadian expert in Stone Age tools, told Reuters of findings made during a trip in mid-2006 to the Tsolido Hills in northwestern Botswana.

The previous oldest archaeological evidence of religious worship is about 40,000 years old from European caves. The Botswana find bolsters evidence that modern humans originated in Africa, along with religion and culture....

At the back of the Botswanan cave was a well-worn chamber, large enough for a shaman to hide and to speak, perhaps in imitation of a snake."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30693310.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=99269

"The Cosmic Serpent" by Jeremy Narby

Here is an interview:
http://deoxy.org/narbystew.htm

if that's the case.

Food for thought.

If you look at what we actually know about snakes and snake symbolism in early religion, it usually involves a snake as a personification of the Earth/Earth Mother and a teacher of wisdom. A snake's ability to shed its skin and emerge renewed symbolizes healing as well as death and resurrection.

The original snake, the world snake, the one in the tree in Eden, all that stuff, was a python, not a venomous snake. That's actually MUCH MUCH MUCH later.

I've heard there's a country in Africa that has python protection in its constitution.

The python has some unique features. It likes both to dangle from trees and slither in fresh water. If you spot a python dangling from a tree above a cave, that's a good guarantee that the water in the cave is both safe to drink and easily accessible, since the python can't slither up a steep side. Toss it a bunny and drink away. From the days when we were bipedal and only four feet tall and anything with four legs could outrun us.

Think about our earliest myths: the cave, the sacred pool, the sacred tree, the sacred creature which is either a fish, a snake, or a bird...the python in some cultures becomes a feathered serpent to account for its being in the tree in places that have never seen a python. And if you're wondering where the sacred cave and sacred pool are in the garden of Eden, that's Eve, whose name means source.

Something else to note: the python is a snake which opens its mouth to engulf its prey, having embraced it first in a strangling hold. Kinda female. The venomous snake strikes forward and puts its fangs into its prey. Kinda male. Reason enough to replace one with the other in worship.

The book thought that blood=female, venom=male and that both energies were in one snake. I can see though how python and other such snakes could be characterized as female and venomous snakes charactrized as male. The author of the book I read did say that the gods and goddesses were associated with snakes. I wonder though if goddesses were more likely to be associated with constrictor types and gods assoicated with venomous.

in places where no constrictor species are native, eg., Crete. The tutelary goddess of Lower Egypt, Wadjet, is depicted as a cobra, which is about as venemous as a snake gets. She appears on images of Egyptian kings and queens as the royal uraeus.

Snake on a Galactic Plane!

"The snake is an ideal place to hunt for massive forming stars as they have not had time to heat up and destroy the cloud they are born in," said Dr. Sean Carey, also known as "Dr. Scarey," of NASA's Spitzer Science Center. Dr. Scarey, who is leading the new research, was also principal investigator of a previous Halloween image from Spitzer, showing a "great galactic ghoul."
snip
Astronomers say these observations will ultimately help them better understand how massive stars form. By studying the clustering and range of masses of the stellar embryos, they hope to determine if the stars were born in the same way that our low-mass sun was formed -- out of a collapsing cloud of gas and dust -- or by another mechanism in which the environment plays a larger role.

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2006-20/index.shtml

:hi:

was that it stands for transformation in the shedding of its skin. There is a Dance of Universal Peace honoring this tradition-to quote from Dances of Universal Peace Vol. 4, p. 31:

This Dance uses a Sumerian phrase honoring Inanna. Sumer was between the Tigris and Eurphrates Rivers, from about 3500-1500 BC, and is considered by many scholars to be the cradle of civilization, giving rise to Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician and Hebraic biblical cultures, and, consequently, ultimately Christianity and Isalm as well. Inanna, often written Innin, was the most widely revered Goddess in the late Sumerian period. Her name is often accompanied by a serpent coiled about a staff. She was called Queen of Heaven, Lady of Land, Lioness in Battle and the Eye of Heaven (sacred planet Venus) and her symbols were the serpent, eyes, and an eight-petalled rosette. The snake's ability to change skins embodied the mystery of death and regeneration, which always went together in these cultures. (bold mine)

FYI, the translation of the chant done with this Dance are : Mother, Great Serpent of Heaven, Mother Serpant, Holy Serpant, Mother, Great Goddess or Great Shining One.

It is interesting that's for sure

Kundalini (कुंडलिनी, IAST: kuṃḍalinī) is a Sanskrit word meaning either "coiled up" or "coiling like a snake." There are a number of other translations of the term usually emphasizing a more serpentine nature to the word— e.g. 'serpent power'. It has been suggested that the caduceus symbol of coiling snakes is an ancient symbolic representation of Kundalini physiology, despite widespread agreement that the symbol originated with Hermes and Greek mythology.

The concept of Kundalini comes from yogic philosophy of ancient India and refers to the mothering intelligence behind yogic awakening and spiritual maturation,<1> where it is also known as Kundalini Shakti. It might be regarded by yogis as a sort of deity, hence the occasional capitalization of the term. Within a western frame of understanding it is often associated with the practice of contemplative or religious practices that might induce an altered state of consciousness, either brought about spontaneously or through yoga, psychedelic drugs, or a near-death experience.

According to the yogic tradition, Kundalini is curled up in the back part of the root chakra in three and one-half turns around the sacrum. Yogic phenomenology states that kundalini awakening is associated with the appearance of bio-energetic phenomena that are said to be experienced somatically by the yogi. This appearance is also referred to as "pranic awakening". Prana is interpreted as the vital, life-sustaining force in the body. Uplifted, or intensified life-energy is called pranotthana and is supposed to originate from an apparent reservoir of subtle bio-energy at the base of the spine. This energy is also interpreted as a vibrational phenomena that initiates a period, or a process of vibrational spiritual development.<1>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini

whoops, spelling

response to snakes. My grandson, who had never seen a snake, NOR had any concept of death or dying, at age 2 saw a snake outside and screamed 'KILL IT! KILL IT!'

We had never used the word "kill" around him, or watched any tv shows that used it.

someplace. We aren't hardwired for specific words. Kids hear *everything* (we're also not hardwired for privacy, it seems).

But IIRC there's been a bit of speculation that snake avoidance has figured in our evolution. I forget what it's (tenatively) thought to have affected--color perception, perception of movement ...

but it isn't one of those words we modeled a lot for him. But he sure used it!

for why we seem to have certain "universal" fears such as snakes with other examples including enclosed spaces and great heights. During ancestral times, such fears were greatly adaptive. Those who were afraid of heights or poisonous snakes were much more likely to survive and consequently pass on their genetic traits to the next generation whereas those who had no such fear were more likely to be bitten and die or to fall off of a cliff (as such things tended to be much, much deadlier during ancient times).

Of course, such fears are not nearly as adaptive now as they were then. In fact they can become maladaptive in the sense that we can develop phobias - irrational fears - of such objects that hinder our daily lives.

Here is a discussion of the symbolism of the "serpent" in the Bible. It's starts with the first mention of a serpent in the first book of Genesis, and then ties it with the serpent of Moses and the serpent of Kundalini Yoga.

"...contrary to popular belief, indulging in the biblical 'forbidden fruit' is not about 'eating an apple.' Also, contrary to another popular belief, being 'tempted by the serpent' has nothing to do with sex. In this case, the 'serpent who tempted Eve' symbolizes subtle guile and deceit, not sex. In fact, in those instances in the Bible where the serpent is associated with anything negative, it is not in terms of sex. When the serpent is later associated with sex, it is positive. In fact, then it is associated with the positive sexual healing energy and enlightening 'serpent power' (which is also called the spiritual kundalini energy in yogic terms) that Moses was given. That is why Moses was instructed by God to make a 'serpent of brass' on a rod, which eventually became the symbol for medicine."

From Real Prophecy Unveiled: Why the Christ Will Not Come Again, and Why the Religious Right is Wrong, by Joseph J. Adamson.