Monster Making

As I promised at the end of part 1 - in this series today I want to share a few ideas about the snake in Genesis and why I do not believe in an alien race of reptilians.
To begin I need you to understand that the serpent or snake as a symbol of ‘the fall’ of mankind is present in nearly every culture.

Symbols of an Alien Sky

See the Chaos Serpent or Dragon 3.08 minutes in

If you watch the whole documentary this short clip above is taken from, you will see that the serpent was the symbol of a very real cosmological event that occurred close to the time the polar configuration (of our earlier solar system) became unstable and our earth ‘fell’ into it’s new orbit around our existing sun. In this clip you will also see one of the earliest statues representing a serpent god - who like other serpent and reptile gods from around the world was blamed for the destruction and devastation which occurred at ‘the fall’ (or in the case of the Australian Aboriginals the Rainbow Serpent was instead considered responsible for the creation of the new world that followed).

Likewise the Uraeus (upright cobra on this headdress) is a symbol for the goddess Wadjet, one of the earliest of Egyptian deities, who was often depicted as a cobra.

The History of Monster Making

You may recall part 1 of this story where we discussed the only scientifically feasible explanation for the Grand Canyon being that it was created by a massive electrical arc event, otherwise known as a cosmic thunderbolt (imagine a massive lightening strike gouging the earth). Rolf Witsche proposes that a similar cosmic thunderbolt destroyed Sodom and Gomorra at the site where the Dead Sea now stands. The fear and terror resulting from these events caused the ruling priests of the time to begin sacrificing children (and cutting off men’s foreskins) to appease the terrible ‘god’s’ who they believed had caused these events, and by doing so hopefully satiate these god’s lust for destroying us with lightening.
These sacrifices were at first instituted to deal with the unimaginable fear and Post Traumatic Stress these cosmic thunderbolt events must have inspired, but once ritualized may have become very difficult for the priests to back away from.

I have no doubt that in the beginning the violence of these sacrificial rituals was truly the result of sheer desperation and terror, but as time went on and the appearance of these cosmic storms waned, and then eventually ceased altogether, I am certain some doubt must have crept into people’s minds about whether the violence and human abasement these rituals involved truly remained necessary - giving rise to a sickening guilt and fear that if they were indeed not necessary, the priest themselves would be deemed guilty by their societies of the horrendous and unnecessary murder of so many poor innocents.

To sure up their position in this regard, great statues and even more elaborate rituals were established and maintained to attest to the necessity of these acts - that otherwise would (quite rightly) come to be seen as crimes against humanity. Fear was also instilled in the people that this same destruction would surely come again unless they humbled themselves and made regular sacrifice.

And in this act of hiding their own doubt and shame and continuing the bloody sacrifice, I believe that Narcissistic Personality Disorder bloomed and festered (like a sore that would never heal) in the high priest’s inner community.

I was taught growing up that sending away your conscience is the ‘unpardonable sin’ and in this denial of their own doubt, for the sake of pride and saving face, I see much that is unpardonable - but I can also appreciate that psychologically they had gotten themselves into a real corner.

New initiates into these violent rituals would need to be pressed to overcome their natural conscience against such atrocities and this may even have been mistakenly come to be considered a part of growing up or maturing to manhood.

Maturity or the Monster Line?

When we are young, by necessity of our vulnerability, we are more sensitive to life’s more unpleasant aspects. A necessary part of maturing is indeed the need to emotionally ‘harden up’.

However people are competitive by nature and so if insensitivity, violence or cruelty is praised as being brave or a necessary part of being masculine - unfortunately there are always people who will take it too far and believe that the more callus and insensitive they are the better. Teenagers show off to each other by liking gruesome horror movies filled with terrorizing violence and especially for those feeling powerless and vulnerable because of trauma or abuse (as I am sure many people born into the ruling class are), the appearance of cold heartedness can appear something worth striving for.

There does reach a point however when a society has to ask how ‘hard’ do we really need to become to be considered an adult, and is denying one’s own conscience really a sign of maturity?

How tough we need to be will be very dependent on the nature of the times and what current threats face us as a community, and this may be easier to ratchet up than to ratchet back down again.

It takes emotional intelligence and courage to admit that what once may have been thought necessary, might now in fact be violent, heavy handed or harsh.

For example being brave enough to fight lions and tigers may have once been a very useful and noble talent, but is today thought by most as unnecessary and even cowardly ... but still game big hunting continues.

Being hard hearted about sacrificing children - once the terror of the initial disaster had abated - had certainly pushed men across the line into the realm of the monstrous, but who was going to pull them back again?

To these men the serpent god’s (reptilians) had to be kept real in their rituals, as well as in their own minds, to justify the acts of violence that had been committed.

This was probably also the start of state sanctioned intimidation and terror when the serpent gods not only needed appeasing with blood, but then became a symbol of fear inspired political control. The snake for instance was worn on the heads of Egyptian rulers and cobras adorned nearly everything to do with the ruling class.

I think it is interesting that the bible says Jesus’ followers will never be scared to pick up poisonous snakes and that the “don’t tread on me” image of a snake was chosen as a sign of resistance(?) by the early US republic.

Maybe not being scared of handling snakes would translate today as the bravery to stand up against state sanctioned intimidation?

How many of Jesus’ followers are doing that today?

Part 3