Symbols - Snake | Spirit Connection

The most significant and complex of all animal symbols, and perhaps the oldest. Snakes carved on Paleolithic antlers in Africa or drawn on rock faces were primarily fertility or rain symbols and sexual or agricultural fertility symbolism remained a basic element in most later snake cults. But obvious analogies between the snake and the penis, the umbilical cord or the humid processes of birth (for the snake combines male and female symbolism) do not explain the almost universal importance of the serpent in mythology. The snake was above all a magico-religious symbol of primeval life force, sometimes an image of the creator divinity itself. The ouroboros motif of a snake swallowing its own tail symbolizes not only eternity but a divine self-sufficiency.

Emblematically, the snake was a touch with the mysteries of the earth, the waters, darkness and the underworld – self-contained, cold-blooded, secretive, sometimes venomous, able to glide swiftly without feet, magically swallow large creatures and rejuvenate itself by shedding its own skin. Its serpentine form was as allusive as its other characteristics, suggesting undulating waves and landscapes, winding rivers, vines and tree roots and in the sky the rainbow, the lightning strike, the spiraling motion of the cosmos. As a result, the snake became one of the most widespread of all animist symbols – depicted on a gigantic scale in the 400-metre-long Great Serpent Mount in Ohio.

The snake coiled around its eggs suggested the analogy of a great serpent coiled around the world, supporting it or holding together the waters surrounding it. Thus the Hindu creator-god Vishnu rests on the coils of a great snake, Anata (Shesha); Indra slays a chaos snake, Vritra, to release the fertilizing waters it enclosed; and the great earthquake snake, Vasuki, is used to churn the sea of creation.

In African and other myths, a rainbow snake reaches from the water underworld into the heavens. In Nordic myth, the great tempest serpent of Midgard holds the world in his unpredictable coils. (the snake-shaped prow of Viking ships had protective as well as aggressive symbolism.)

In South America, eclipses were explained as the swallowing of the sun or moon by a giant serpent. In Egypt, the barque of the sun that travels through the underworld waters at night is threatened by the serpent Apep, and has to enter another great serpent to be reborn each morning. In Mexico, Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec version of the bird-snake divinities known throughout Central America, unites the powers of earth and heaven.

The protective-destructive symbolism that runs through these and other serpent myths illustrates the degree to which the snake is a dualistic force, a source of strength when mastered by potentially dangerous and often emblematic of death or chaos as well as of life. A positive symbol of serpentine inner strength, psychic energy and latent spiritual power is the yogic kundalini coiled at the base of the spine. Mastery of the snake in its more dangerous aspect is symbolized in both India and Egypt by the erect, hooded cobra. In Egypt, this forms the uraeus or diadem of the Pharaohs, a protective serpent emblem of royal power to strike down enemies.

Images of the uraeus enclosing a sun disc or of a lion-headed snake were similarly emblems of solar guardianship. In India, cobra divinities (Nagas) were guardian symbols, generally benevolent, as in the image of the seven-hooded cobra that shields the Buddha. Snakes often appear there and elsewhere as guardians of shrines, of sources of water or of treasure. These traditions are linked both with serpent fecundity symbolism and with the superstition that precious stones were formed underground from snake saliva. The Hindu cobra is often shown with a jewel in its hood, symbolizing spiritual treasure. In Chinese folklore, snakes rewarded human benefactors with pearls.

Paradoxially, the snake was often used as a curative symbol. Entwined snakes on the caduceus – the staff of Hermes (Mercury) symbolizing mediation between opposing forces – was interpreted by psychologist Carl Jung as an emblem of homeopathic medicine. The brass serpent set up by Moses at God’s suggestion to heal snakebites (Numbers 21:9) was a similar homeopathic emblem and was later taken to prefigure Christ on the cross, healing the sins of the world. A snake nailed to the cross in medieval Christian art is thus a symbol of resurrection and of spiritual sublimation of the physical life force. In the ancient world, the snake’s rejuvenation symbolism linked it specifically with the classical god of healing, Aesculapius. On the other hand, the snake was blamed for humanity’s losing the gift of immortal life – not only in the story of Adam and Eve but also in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, who went to superhuman lengths to find the magic plant of rejuvenation only to have it stolen by a snake.

The snake’s duality, the balance between fear and veneration in its symbolism, accounts for its appearance as either progenitor or aggressor, culture hero or monster. In its fearful aspect, it gave birth to the dragons and sea serpents of Western tradition and to snake hybrids that symbolized the multiple perils of human existence, typified by the children of Echidna in Greek legend – the Hydra, the Chimera and the snake-backed hell-hound Cerberus. A snakebite carried Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, off to the underworld where the snake-tailed Minos judged the dead. At the level of Western folklore, the snake’s symbolism is usually negative, its forked tongue suggesting hypocrisy or deceit, its venom bringing sudden and treacherous death. In Tibetan Buddhism the green snake of hatred is one of the three base instincts. The snake is one of the five noxious animals of China, although it appears in more positive roles too. the snake as Satan was foreshadowed in the dualistic Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism, for which the serpent symbolized the darkness of veil.

Birds associated with light, such as the eagle, falcon and the legendary Garuda in India, are often shown killing snakes, as do many gods and heroes. In Germanic lore both Thor and Beowulf slay and are slain by dragon-serpents. It is tempting to see snake-slaying as a symbol of the destruction of a paternal or older power – as in the legend in which the Greek hero Herakles (Hercules) strangled two snakes in his cradle. To establish his cult at Delphi, Apollo had to kill Python, dragon nurse of the terrible monster Typhon – a myth that suggests the replacement of an older, maternal serpent cult. This may be meaning of Baal’s destruction of the seven-headed serpent Lotan in Phoenician myth. N its positive mythological aspect, the snake fathers gods or heroes (including Alexander the Great, reputedly sired by Zeus – Jupiter – in snake guide). Amun and Atum, progenitor divinities of Egypt, were both snake gods. In green legend, Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, sows the teeth of a serpent-dragon from which then spring the Theban nobility.

Snakes appear widely as ancestor figures in African and Native American legends and in China, where Na Gua and Fu Xi were snake-bodied progenitor gods and house snakes were thought to bring luck as forefather spirits. Ancestral symbolism, together with the belief that snakes understood earth mysteries and could see in the dark, help to account for the strong link between the serpent and wisdom or prophecy. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, Christ told his disciples (Matthew 10:16). The Greek word Drakon (dragon or beady-eyed snake) was linked etymologically with vision and in art, the serpent is an attribute of the Greek goddess Athene (Minerva) as wisdom and of Prudence in the sense of foresight. The Trojan Cassandra was said to owe her prophetic gifts to the scared snakes of Apollo who licked her ears as she lay in his temple.

In a context where too much knowledge was impious, the snake’s wisdom was turned against it – as in the biblical story of how Eve was beguiled by a serpent ‘more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made’ (Genesis 3:1). The snake wound around the forbidden tree in Eden has many parallels in the Middle East. In Greek myth a snake guards the golden apples of the Hesperides and also the tree on which the Golden Fleece hangs. A snake-entwined tree was a specific emblem of the Near-Eastern fertility goddess Ishtar. As shown by the many other earth goddesses who are depicted holding phallic snakes, serpents played important roles in vegetation fertility cults of the Mediterranean and Near East. Initiation rites of the Asia Minor fertility god Sabazius mimed the passage of a snake through the body of the acolyte. The snakes wound around the limbs of satyrs in paintings of Bacchanalian revels refer to classical fertility rites based on such earlier models and especially associated with the sinuous vine. Snakes also featured in Semitic fertility cults which used sexual rites to approach the godhead. Eve’s offer to Adam of the forbidden fruit (a symbol of a sacrilegious attempt to acquire divine powers) has been read as a Hebrew warning against the seductions of such rival cults. Hence – according to this exegesis – the Judeo-Christian symbolism of the serpent as the enemy of humankind and its later identification with Satan himself : ‘that old serpent called the Devil’ (Revelation 12:9). In Western art, the snake thus became a dominant symbol of evil, sin, temptation or deceit. It appears at the foot of the cross as an emblem of the Fall, redeemed by Christ and is shown being trampled by the Virgin Mary.