[OT] Snakey Problem

[Richmond Mathewson]

Dunno about that . . .

Let us suppose, for the moment at least, that the story of the Garden of 
Eden,
in the Bible, while not being literally true, is
a powerful and cogent psychological lesson . . .

A rather beastly, paternalistic, sexist, bullying demi-urgos called 
Ialdabaoth gets
too big for his boots and sets up a sort of petting-zoo and populates it 
with lots of jazzy
animals and plants, among them 2 rather peculiar bald apes who have 
rather well-developed, if naive, minds.

Now, old Ialdabaoth, being a right "case", pops 2 trees bung in the 
middle of the zoo, and they have
just the tastiest and most interesting fruit you can imagine on them. In 
addition to this the fruit of
these 2 trees have remarkable powers: the fruit of the first one gives 
you an instant doctorate in
just about everything you can imagine, and the second one solves all 
your medical problems to
such an extent that you'll live forever.

The Ialdabaoth says to the 2 bald apes, "No, and not under any 
circumstances!"

---------------

Try this experiment: go out and buy a bag of jelly sweeties, put its 
contents in a bowl right in the
middle of the kitchen table and tell your 
children/grandchildren/nephews/nieces/ other stray kids,
"Those are mine and I will turn you into pumpkins if you touch them."

Last time I tried that those sweets lasted about 20 minutes.
--------------

Now the Lord and Master of the Universe looks down at what yon 
Ialdabaoth is up to and feels
an element of disquiet: not least because Ialdabaoth is misrepresenting 
things in a major way to the 2 bald apes.

So the Lord and Master of the Universe pops together a very odd creature 
indeed: no arms, no wings and no legs: a snake.

And sends that snake into the petting-zoo to point out what a "pill" 
Ialdabaoth is being.
---------------

The snake does its work, as instructed, at which point "Old Sweaty 
Socks", Ialdabaoth, who, among other
character defects, suffers from a serious temper problem, chucks the 
bald apes out of the zoo.

At which point the bald apes work a few basic things out, and one of 
them is that, despite the petting-zoo
being a sort of non-stop cafeteria and club-Med: they are actually 
better off outiside where they can use their
creativity, brains and so forth to create the sort of world they want 
rather than the one that Ialdabaoth
had imposed on them.

------------
The above, by the way, is my retelling of the standard Christian Gnostic 
Myth of Origins. I am retelling it not
in any attempt to insult or upset anyone, but as at least one way of 
understanding why snakes, culturally,
have been viewed with mixed feelings.

Historically and mythologically snakes have been viewed ambivalently; 
both as threats and as
the bearers of wisdom and healing (c.f. the wand of Aesclepius).
-----------

There is a large body of evidence to support the idea that the early 
Jewish Temple on mount Moriah, in Jerusalem contained
snake idols, as did the early Jewish (Samaritan) Temple on mount 
Gerizim. At the Jewish Temple at the first cataract on
the Nile in Egypt snakes were worshiped along with 'Ashera': poles 
representing the brides of Yahweh.

Snake worship has been found in South America and runs right through 
Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism (if you really
want to consider those 3 religious traditions as separate from each other).

Nag Pachami is a Hindu festival: possibly the only religious tradition 
that has retained that to the present day.

Richmond.

On 13/8/2018 6:23 pm, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:
> Why do snakes get their own day?? They are the source of all our problems!
>
> Bob S
>
>
>> On Aug 13, 2018, at 07:57 , Devin Asay via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>>
>> This question is very timely as Wednesday is Nag Panchami: the day of snakes!
>>
>> Richmond.
>
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