Serpent Character Quotes

My life, and whatever is left of it, will not be what his soul gnaws on to regain its strength. My death is not in service of his character, and I will not be a sacrifice simply for him to find his peace of mind. He is not my responsibility to save.

In my youth, I was always one for the dramatic entrance. Now, in keeping with my character, I gravitate more toward the subtle and refined. Okay, with the occasional feathered serpent thrown in.

To be good is to recognize the darkness in one’s character and strive to remedy it. And if such a thing is not possible, to control it so that it does not harm others.

Have the mind of a fox, the heart of a lion, the tongue of a serpent, the flair of a swan, and the soul of a dove.

If the characters are not wicked, the book is." We must tell stories the way God does, stories in which a sister must float her little brother on a river with nothing but a basket between him and the crocodiles. Stories in which a king is a coward, and a shepherd boy steps forward to face the giant. Stories with fiery serpents and leviathans and sermons in whirlwinds. Stories in which murderers are blinded on donkeys and become heroes. Stories with dens of lions and fiery furnaces and lone prophets laughing at kings and priests and demons. Stories with heads on platters. Stories with courage and crosses and redemption. Stories with resurrections.

When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—'Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted.' This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God. When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God. While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.

¨You ask me, how was it to come to pass that I, despite the detachment I have achieved from the web of life, could be transformed overnight into a sexual murderer? I will tell you. Human beings are like glass tubes, through which many colored balls may roll. Most men are restricted to one color only. Should the ball be red, the man is branded as ¨bad¨; if yellow, then he is ¨good.¨ Should two balls pursue their passage through the same tube, one yellow and one red, then the man has an ¨unstable character.¨ But we, who have been ¨bitten by the Serpent of the Kingdom of the spirit,¨ compress into one life the experiences of a whole race within an age: colored balls rush wildly after one another on their way through the glass tube, and when it ends, then we are prophets, and the very mirror of God himself. -- Gustave Meyrink, Der Golem

Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, [...] came to teach [the ancient inhabitants of Mexico] the benefits of settled agriculture and the skills necessary to build temples. Although this deity is frequently depicted as a serpent, he is more often shown in human form--the serpent being his symbol and his alter ego--and is usually described as "a tall bearded white man" ... "a mysterious person ... a white man with a strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes and a flowing beard." Indeed, [...] the attributes and life history of Quetzalcoatl are so human that it is not improbable that he may have been an actual historical character ... the memory of whose benefactions lingered after his death, and whose personality was eventually deified. The same could very well be said of Oannes--and just like Oannes at the head of the Apkallu (likewise depicted as prominently bearded) it seems that Quetzalcoatl traveled with his own brotherhood of sages and magicians. We learn that they arrived in Mexico "from across the sea in a boat that moved by itself without paddles," and that Quetzalcoatl was regarded as having been "the founder of cities, the framer of laws and the teacher of the calendar.

in 1927 she became, and would forevermore remain, the “It Girl.” “It” was first a two-part article and then a novel by a flame-haired English novelist named Elinor Glyn, who was known for writing juicy romances in which the main characters did a lot of undulating (“she undulated round and all over him, twined about him like a serpent”) and for being the mistress for some years of Lord Curzon, former viceroy of India. “It,” as Glyn explained, “is that quality possessed by some few persons which draws all others with its magnetic life force. With it you win all men if you are a woman—and all women if you are a man.

What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August 1914! The greater part of the population, it is true, worked hard and lived at a low standard of comfort, yet were, to all appearances, reasonably contented with this lot. But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle and upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages; or he could decide to couple the security of his fortunes with the good faith of the townspeople of any substantial municipality in any continent that fancy or information might recommend. He could secure forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could despatch his servant to the neighbouring office of a bank for such supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much surprised at the least interference. But, most important of all, he regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant, scandalous, and avoidable. The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play the serpent to this paradise, were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper, and appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalisation of which was nearly complete in practice.

The forest reveals what was in the seed. The hen reveals what was in the egg. The storm reveals what was in the clouds. The light reveals what was in the star. The perfume reveals what was in the flower. The honey reveals what was in the bee. The fruit reveals what was in the tree. The rose reveals what was in the thorn. The web reveals what was in the spider. The butterfly reveals what was in the caterpillar. The venom reveals what was in the serpent. The pearl reveals what was in the oyster. The diamond reveals what was in the rock. The flame reveals what was in the spark. The nest reveals what was in the bird. The roar reveals what was in the lion. The leaf reveals what was in the plant. The fire reveals what was in the wood. The droplet reveals what was in the ocean. The rainbow reveals what was in the storm. The ocean reveals what was in the shark. The desert reveals what was in the camel. The sky reveals what was in the eagle. The jungle reveals what was in the elephant. The team reveals what was in the coach. The flock reveals what was in the shepherd. The crew reveals what was in the captain. The army reveals what was in the general. The tower reveals what was in the architect. The sculpture reveals what was in the sculptor. The painting reveals what was in the painter. The symphony reveals what was in the composer. The sensation reveals what was in the body. The tongue reveals what was in the mind. The action reveals what was in the heart. The character reveals what was in the soul. Spring reveals what was in winter. Summer reveals what was in spring. Autumn reveals what was in summer. Summer reveals what was in spring. The past reveals what was in the beginning. The present reveals what was in the past. The future reveals what was in the present. The afterlife reveals what was in the future.

Hegel did not deceive himself about the revolutionary character of his dialectic, and was even afraid that his Philosophy of Right would be banned. Nor was the Prussian state entirely easy in its mind for all its idealization. Proudly leaning on its police truncheon, it did not want to have its reality justified merely by its reason. Even the dull-witted King saw the serpent lurking beneath the rose: when a distant rumor of his state philosopher's teachings reached him he asked suspiciously: but what if I don't dot the I's or cross the T's? The Prussian bureaucracy meanwhile was grateful for the laurel wreath that had been so generously plaited for it, especially since the strict Hegelians clarified their master's obscure words for the understanding of the common subjects, and one of them wrote a history of Prussian law and the Prussian state, where the Prussian state was proved to be a gigantic harp strung in God's garden to lead the universal anthem. Despite its sinister secrets Hegel's philosophy was declared to be the Prussian state philosophy, surely one of the wittiest ironies of world history. Hegel had brought together the rich culture of German Idealism in one mighty system, he had led all the springs and streams of our classical age into one bed, where they now froze in the icy air of reaction. but the rash fools who imagined they were safely hidden behind this mass of ice, who presumptuously rejoiced who bold attackers fell from its steep and slippery slopes, little suspected that with the storms of spring the frozen waters would melt and engulf them. Hegel himself experienced the first breath of these storms. He rejected the July revolution of 1830, he railed at the first draft of the English Reform Bill as a stab in the 'noble vitals' of the British Constitution. Thereupon his audience left him in hordes and turned to his pupil Eduard Gans, who lectured on his master's Philosophy of Right but emphasized its revolutionary side and polemicized sharply against the Historical School of Law. At the time it was said in Berlin that the great thinker died from this painful experience, and not of the cholera.

The dream says that underneath the cathedral there is a mysterious place, which in reality is not in tune with a Christian church. What is beneath a cathedral of that age? There is always the so-called under-church or crypt. You have probably seen the great crypt at Chartres; it gives a very good idea of the mysterious character of a crypt. The crypt at Chartres was previously an old sanctuary with a well, where the worship of a virgin was celebrated - not of the Virgin Mary, as is done now - but of a Celtic goddess. Under every Christian church of the Middle Ages there is a secret place where in old times the mysteries were celebrated... ...the serpent is not only the god of healing; it also has the quality of wisdom and prophecy.

Thus the focal points of the Hebrew Paradise story, the woman, the man, the serpent, and the tree, were mostly likely re-interpretations of earlier Near Eastern iconography and mythology. An original myth and icon, which consisted of goddess, sacred snake, sacred tree, and male consort, perhaps the one who aroused the wrath of the goddess by eating her sacred fruit, become re-interpreted, among the Hebrews, into a story involving a foolish woman; a tree bearing fruit which must not be plucked but was plucked nonetheless by the foolish woman; a seductive snake; and a man who gave birth to a female. The Hebrew story not only changes the roles of the main characters in the story; it even shifts the birth process. The Hebrew myth, then, was not the earliest word on the status of women. The antecedents of the Hebrew myth show quite clearly that at least the idealized woman, the goddess, held high status in early Near Eastern societies. This early status was considerably altered later in time by the Hebrews. The Near Eastern goddess, among the Hebrews, degenerated into a mortal scapegoat, one responsible for the ‘greatly multiplied sorrow,’ and the subservience of women in the ensuing centuries.

Bow was originally billed as the “Brooklyn Bonfire,” then as the “Hottest Jazz Baby in Films,” but in 1927 she became, and would forevermore remain, the “It Girl.” “It” was first a two-part article and then a novel by a flame-haired English novelist named Elinor Glyn, who was known for writing juicy romances in which the main characters did a lot of undulating (“she undulated round and all over him, twined about him like a serpent”) and for being the mistress for some years of Lord Curzon, former viceroy of India. “It,” as Glyn explained, “is that quality possessed by some few persons which draws all others with its magnetic life force. With it you win all men if you are a woman—and all women if you are a man.” Asked by a reporter to name some notable possessors of “It,” Glyn cited Rudolph Valentino, John Gilbert, and Rex the Wonder Horse. Later she extended the list to include the doorman at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It the novel was a story in which the two principal characters—Ava and Larry, both dripping with “It”—look at each other with “burning eyes” and “a fierce gleam” before getting together to “vibrate with passion.” As Dorothy Parker summed up the book in The New Yorker, “It goes on for nearly three hundred pages, with both of them vibrating away like steam-launches.

Just because Eve does not speak does not mean she does not think. Or want. Or wonder. Just because Eve says very little in this story does not mean she is passive and dumb. Isn't it just as likely that she was a curious, growing being full of ideas and questions with no one to talk to? I imagine her left alone, bursting with curiosity and imagination, exploring the peripheries of the garden, delving into the mystery of the forbidden and the secret, far from center stage. How else could she have run into a character like the serpent? [......] It seems obvious that the serpent would choose Eve to talk to and not Adam, because the serpent could sense that Eve was craving dialogue. The serpent, with its sharp intellect, its curiosity and knowledge, becomes a psuedo-G-d, opening Eve's eyes to possibilities that exist only in her dormant imagination. The serpent is referred to as male, but perhaps it is more interesting to imagine it as Lilith in disguise. Though it was probably meant to show Lilith's satanic nature, an illustration in a sixteenth-century text does show Lilith with the body of a snake tempting Eve. The serpent seems to have some Lilith-like qualities: a powerful gift of speech, an intimate knowledge of G-d, a quality of defiance and a strength of will- surprising in an ideal garden. I like the picture this makes- While G-d teaches Adam about planting and sowing, Lilith teaches Eve about power and freedom.

what are the seraphim and how are they different from cherubim?” “Seraphim are specially appointed Watchers, the reptilian ones, with six wings, that guard the throne of Elohim.” Salah kept right on moving without a pause. “So the seraphim are like the Serpent of Eden?” “Yes. But the Serpent of Eden is an unfortunate misnomer. The Nachash is unquestionably serpentine in his character, justifying the legends surrounding him as one of the seraphim who guarded Elohim’s throne.

An idol is a special kind of human creation, one that is not just mistaken in a superficial way. Rather, it advances a claim about the ultimate nature of reality that is ultimately mistaken. And since the Creator God is the ultimate meaning of the world, an idol is a representation of a false god. Implicitly or explicitly, all idols represent a challenge and counterclaim to the identity and character of the true Creator God. Like the serpent in the Garden, they all raise the question of the Creator God’s truthfulness and goodness, subtly or directly suggesting that the Creator God is neither true nor good.

Have the mind of a swam, the heart of a lion, the tongue of a serpent, the flair of a swam, and the soul of a dove.

You've always been broken, love, it's the crux of your character.

Tales of other sorts ‒ mentioning rats not at all ‒ too find their tellers; as did Nate’s, which of course, sometimes does. You must know that any authentic storytelling would inform its readers that nearly all affairs involve rats at some level and in fact, billions upon billions of these glabrous tailed rodents are right now slinking to and skulking fro ‒ mostly sight unseen, yet visibly influencing more matters in more places on this earth than you've likely imagined to exist. This however, can be likewise observed about countless other matters; as far more intangible forces impact the fates than do those which are easily evident ‒ such as a lone star glinting in the night sky. Each with a past while evolving into its present as it is propelled toward a future that will itself have been inspired by more unstated factors than the totality of stars and rats that its cast of characters will glimpse ‒ whether deigning to count any at all ‒ during their combined life spans. So then, as it’s not so terribly peculiar recurrences reveal, Nate's story is not a linear one. To borrow from folklore once more, this can be seen in the Hero's Journey monomyth as well ‒ whereby its protagonist first resists, then ultimately heeds his call to purpose before returning home transformed. Yet neither can it nor any journey be strictly circular, as also shown by the ouroboros serpent eating its own tail to sustain life ‒ in symbolic demonstration of the universe's cyclic nature and reliance on destruction as an equal partner to creation.

Through contact with the virtuous even the wicked get reformed, just as a base metal is transmuted by the touch of the philosopher’s stone. On the other hand, if by mischance good men fall into evil company, they maintain their noble character like the gem on the hood of a serpent.

She is always ready to bring to life feminine characters who are active, enterprising, and courageous, in contrast to the traditional concept of the Sicilian woman as a passive and withdrawn creature. (This strikes me as a personal, conscious choice.) She passes completely over what I should say was the dominant element in the majority of Sicilian tales: amorous longing, a predilection for the theme of love as exemplified in the lost husband or wife motif, so widespread in Mediterranean folklore and dating back to the oldest written example, the Hellenistic tale of Amor and Psyche told in Apuleius’ Metamorphosis (second century A.D.) and repeated through the ages in hundreds and hundreds of stories about encounters and separations, mysterious bridegrooms from the nether regions, invisible brides, and horse- or serpent-kings who turn into handsome young men at night.

Joseph arrived with his brother, Ollokot, and forty of their people. If Howard’s representatives had expected belligerence, they were pleasantly surprised. Joseph proved from the outset to be both conciliatory and thoughtful. Wind Blowing was a quiet, peaceable man, he said, and the white men who had killed him were known to be quarrelsome troublemakers. There was no need for war, but there was a need for justice to be done. The government officials nodded in quiet agreement at the reasonable nature of this powerful chief. But then Joseph took his argument in an unexpected direction. The death of his friend, he explained, though unfortunate, was now a fact. But it was also a fact that his body had been buried in the Wallowa and his spilled blood had made the earth in that valley ever more sacred to the Nez Perce. Let the death of Wind Blowing hallow that land ever further in the minds of white men and cause them to commit themselves even more to preserving it for the Nez Perce for all time to come. Howard’s men were stunned. This was a serpent’s logic—clear, efficient, and deviously lethal. It took the high-minded position of calling for peace rather than punishment—exactly what the white officials wanted—but it made the price of that peace exactly what the white officials could not give up. No member of the ancient Roman senate could have been more eloquent, no highly skilled barrister more guileful and succinct. It was clear that Joseph was a formidable presence, both in the power of his character and the quality of his mind. As one of the government representatives in attendance put it, he displayed “an alertness and dexterity in intellectual fencing… that was quite remarkable.

to be good does not mean to be without flaw, for even the best of us are riddled with them. To be good is to recognize the darkness in one’s character and strive to remedy it. And if such a thing is not possible, to control it so that it does not harm others.

Rather than giving us the identity of the serpent, Moses tells us two things about his character, that is different from the other creatures that God has made: 1) it is crafty 2) it can speak.

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:14-15)

found that by copying the distinctive prints and scratches made by other animals we could gain a new power; here was a method of identifying with the other animal, taking on its expressive magic in order to learn of its whereabouts, to draw it near, to make it appear. Tracing the impression left by a deer’s body in the snow, or transferring that outline onto the wall of the cave: these are ways of placing oneself in distant contact with the Other, whether to invoke its influence or to exert one’s own. Perhaps by multiplying its images on the cavern wall we sought to ensure that the deer itself would multiply, be bountiful in the coming season…. All of the early writing systems of our species remain tied to the mysteries of a more-than-human world. The petroglyphs of pre-Columbian North America abound with images of prey animals, of rain clouds and lightning, of eagle and snake, of the paw prints of bear. On rocks, canyon walls, and caves these figures mingle with human shapes, or shapes part human and part Other (part insect, or owl, or elk.) Some researchers assert that the picture writing of native North America is not yet “true” writing, even where the pictures are strung together sequentially—as they are, obviously, in many of the rock inscriptions (as well as in the calendrical “winter counts” of the Plains tribes). For there seems, as yet, no strict relation between image and utterance. In a much more conventionalized pictographic system, like the Egyptian hieroglyphics (which first appeared during the First Dynasty, around 3000 B.C.E. and remained in use until the second century C.E.),4 stylized images of humans and human implements are still interspersed with those of plants, of various kinds of birds, as well as of serpents, felines, and other animals. Such pictographic systems, which were to be found as well in China as early as the fifteenth century B.C.E., and in Mesoamerica by the middle of the sixth century B.C.E., typically include characters that scholars have

The Roman Church maintains that it was not so much the seed of the woman, as the woman herself, that was to bruise the head of the serpent. In defiance of all grammar, she renders the Divine denunciation against the serpent thus: "She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel." The same was held by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in their temples. In the uppermost storey of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus tells us there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon; and one of these was of a woman grasping a serpent's head. Among the Greeks the same thing was symbolised; for Diana, whose real character was originally the same as that of the great Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in one of her hands a serpent deprived of its head. As time wore away, and the facts of Simiramis's history became obscured, her son's birth was boldly declared to be miraculous: and therefore she was called "Alma Mater," "the Virgin Mother." That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous, was widely known long before the Christian era.

According to an esoteric explanation, the Sanskrit term mantra signifies “that which protects (trāna) the mind (manas). Specifically, mantra is a sound (letter, syllable, word, or phrase) that is charged with transformative power, such as the letter a, the sacred syllable om, the word hamsa, or the phrase om mani padme hūm. Thus a mantra could be explained as a potentized sound by which specific effects in consciousness can be produced. Most high-minded practitioners are reluctant to use mantras for anything other than the greatest human goal (purusha-artha, written purushārtha), which is liberation. In Tantric rituals, mantras are used to purify the altar, one’s seat, implements such as vessels and offering spoons, or the offerings themselves (e.g., flowers, water, food), or to invoke deities, protectors, and so on. Yet, the science of sacred sound (mantra-shāstra) has since ancient times been widely put to secular use as well. In this case, mantras assume the character of magical spells rather than sacred vibrations in the service of self-transformation and self-transcendence. The serpent energy hidden in the body is associated with the Sanskrit alphabet constituted of fifty basic letters, or sound vibrations, which go into the making of mantras. In contrast to ordinary words, however, mantras most often do not have a particular meaning, and their potency is tapped into through frequent repetition, whether mentally, whispered, or aloud. It is not commonly understood that for a sound to be a mantra, it must have been given in the context of initiation (dīkshā), whether formally or informally. Only then does the mantra have truly transformative power. For a mantra to become “active” or “awakened,” it must be recited at least 100,000 times. A mantra lacking in “consciousness” is just like any other sound. As the Kula-Arnava-Tantra (15.61–64) states: Mantras without consciousness are said to be mere letters. They yield no result even after a trillion recitations. The state that manifests promptly when the mantra is recited [with “consciousness”], that result is not [to be gained] from a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, or ten million recitations. O Kuleshvarī, the knots at the heart and throat are pierced, all the limbs are invigorated, tears of joy, gooseflesh, bodily ecstasy, and tremulous speech suddenly occur for sure . . . . . . when a mantra endowed with consciousness is uttered even once. Where such signs are seen, that [mantra] is said to be according to tradition. Mantras of concentrated potency are known as “seed syllables” (bīja). Om is the original seed syllable, the source of all others. The Mantra-Yoga-Samhitā (71) calls it the “best of all mantras,” adding that all other mantras receive their power from it. Thus om is prefixed or sometimes also suffixed to numerous mantras, such as om namah shivāya

The primitive character of the new atheism shows itself in the notion that religions are erroneous hypotheses. The Genesis story is not an early theory of the origin of species. In the fourth century AD, the founding theologian of western Christianity, St. Augustine, devoted fifteen years to composing a treatise on The Literal Meaning of Genesis, never completed, in which he argued that the biblical text need not be understood literally if it goes against what we know to be true from other sources. Before Augustine, and more radically, the first-century Greek-speaking Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria presented Genesis as an allegory or myth–an interweaving of symbolic imagery with imagined events that contained a body of meaning that could not easily be expressed in other ways. The story of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge is a mythical imagining of the ambiguous impact of knowledge on human freedom. Rather than being inherently liberating, knowledge can be used for purposes of enslavement. That is what is meant when, having eaten the forbidden apple after the serpent promises them they will become like gods, Adam and Eve find themselves expelled from the Garden of Eden and condemned to a life of unceasing labour. Unlike scientific theories, myths cannot be true or false. But myths can be more or less truthful to human experience. The Genesis myth is a more truthful rendition of enduring human conflicts than anything in Greek philosophy, which is founded on the myth that knowledge and goodness are inseparably connected. From the eighteenth-century English theologian William Paley…to twenty-first century exponents of creationism, apologists for theism have tried to develop theories that explain the origins of the universe and humankind better than prevailing scientific accounts. In doing so they are conceding to science an unwarranted authority over other ways of thinking. Religion is no more a primitive type of of science than is art or poetry. Scientific inquiry answers a demand for explanation. The practice of religion expresses a need for meaning, which would remain unsatisfied even if everything could be explained.

Now I’m no art critic, but in a time seen as a bridge between the late middle ages and the early renaissance, where the church played such a substantial part in the day to day running of people's lives, Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, which is painted on oak with a square middle panel flanked by two doors that close over the centre like shutters, is rather racy. When the outer shutters are folded over they show a grisaille painting of the earth during creation. But it’s the three scenes of the inner triptych that fascinate me. If you’re unfamiliar with the painting, I’ll do my best to describe it for you. Apologies in advance if I miss anything out. It’s regular sort of stuff, you know, naked women being fondled by demons, a bloke being kissed by a pig dressed as a nun, another bloke being eaten by some kind of story book character while loads of blackbirds fly out of his arse, a couple locked in a glass sphere and – let’s not beat about the Bosch here – locked in each other’s embrace as well. There are loads of people feeding each other fruit, doing handstands, hatching out of eggs, climbing up ladders to get inside the bodies of other people and looking at demon’s arses. There’s a couple getting caught shagging by giant birds, and a white bloke and a black Rastafarian with ‘locks (400 years before the Rastafari movement was founded) about to have a snog. You’ve got God giving Eve to a very puny-looking, limp-dicked Adam, and there’s a bunch of people sitting around a table inside the body of another bloke while an old woman fills up on wine from a decent-sized barrel while a kind of giant metal face pukes out loads of naked blokes who go running into a trumpet and another bloke being fed a cherry by a giant bird while a white bloke shows a black lady something in the sky. It’s all going on! There's loads of those ‘living dead’ mateys walking about, and a bloke carrying giant grapes past a topless girl with, it has to be said, pretty decent tits. She’s balancing a giant dice on her head while doing something strange to another bloke’s arse while a rabbit in clothes walks past. You can’t see what she’s doing because there’s a table in the way but beside them is a serpent-type creature with just one massive boob and a pretty pert nipple. One huge tit the size of his chest! Of all things, he’s holding a backgammon board up in the air. I’d say Bosch was a tit man, wouldn’t you? But there’s more. There’s a crowd of naked girls – black & white - in a water pool, all balancing cherries on their heads; read into that what you will. There are just LOADS of naked women in this water pool, including one of the black girls who’s balancing a peacock on her head. There are dozens of nudists riding horses around them in a circle. Some are sharing the same horse, so I must admit that in places it appears to be a little intimate. And now what have we got! There’s a couple cavorting inside a giant shell which is being carried on the back of another bloke. Why doesn’t he just put it down and climb in and have a threes-up? There are people with wings, creatures reading books and just more and more nudists. There’s a naked woman lying back, and this other bloke with his face extremely close to her nether regions! What on earth does the blighter think he’s playing at? There’s loads of grey half men-half fish, some balancing red balls on their heads like seals, and another fellow doing a handstand underwater while holding onto his nuts. You’ve got a ball in a river with people climbing all over it, while a bloke inside the ball is touching a lady in what appears to be a very inappropriate manner! There’s a kind of platypus-type fish reading a book underground and Theresa May triggering Article 50 of Brexit (just kidding about the Theresa May bit).

Once there was a single consciousness that unified everything. Within this consciousness were two beings: Shiva, the infinite supreme consciousness, and Shakti, the eternal supreme consciousness. Shiva represents time, and Shakti, space. Here is the yang of Oriental medicine, cloaked in the Shiva figure, and the yin shown within the Shakti. These two beings separated, creating a distinction between matter and consciousness within the universe—and within the children of the universe, including people. Shakti lies within us all, coiled within our root chakra in the guise of a serpent. In this form, she is the Kundalini Shakti, the “power at rest.”15 She only becomes manifest, however, when she moves—and that is her ultimate goal, to rise through the denseness of the body until she can rejoin her great love, Shiva, who resides in the seventh chakra. When unified, the two create through supreme consciousness. Shakti is not just an ethereal being. She is seen as the cause of prana, or life force. She has sound and form; she is composed of alphabet characters, or mantras. When Shiva and Shakti join, they create nada (pure cosmic sound) and maha bindu (the supreme truth that underlies all manifestation). What does this mean for the initiate who fuses these two beings—these two parts of him- or herself? The graduate is freed from the confines of the physical body. Innate powers—mystical, magical abilities—awaken. Moreover, the soul is freed from the wheel of life that forces reincarnation. Science tells a similar story, using different words. According to recent studies, the entire world can be reduced to frequency and vibration. As we saw in Part III, we are all composed of the L-fields and T-fields that form unified frequencies. We are all made of the “male” and the “female,” the electrical and the magnetic. If we can achieve the balance and blending of each, then there is harmony, and within that harmony, healing. To follow the path of kundalini is not “only” to achieve an enlightened state of mind. It is to heal the mind, soul, spirit—and body.