A lot of the books I read on the metaphysical talk about the worship of snakes in cultures from all over the world and at all periods of time. Some of these books ask "why snakes?" In our society snakes are loathsome creatures that are surely not worthy of veneration so why do so many other cultures worship them as gods? Of course, I have my ideas.
1. As an artist I would suggest that snakes are just easy to draw and sculpt so when coming up for a logo for a new cult a snake would make a cool design element. Snakes are the most rudimentary of creatures; a head and a tail. No arms or hands or fingers or legs or feet or toes or claws or hooves. Simple, elegant, easy to bend into shapes and very often with beautiful design patterns on their skin.
2. Snakes are one of the most deadly animals to humans. The can gain access to human living quarters other animals can't and all it takes is one bite from even a tiny snake to kill a person. You have to go all the way up to the size of a mountain lion or leopard to find the next largest animal capable of killing a man.
3. In the ancient cultures mentioned in these books snakes might represent dragons which in turn represent the memory in the collective unconscious of the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs ruled the Earth at one time and are certainly worthy of puny human worship.
4. In all the books I've read about native shamanism and psychedelic drug trips snakes appear as spirits to the shaman or in hallucinations of the tripper. Perhaps if there is such a thing as Alternative Realities where spirits exist they actually do look like snakes so a culture's worship of a snake deity is in reaction to actually experiencing spirits, either in drug induced shamanic rituals or in dreams, in snake-like forms.
A God of Rock and his snake "familiar".
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