Why Ophidian?

Modern people often marvel or are repulsed in fear at the thought of snakes or serpents. They have been vilified by Christianity as a sign of the devil, himself. Or they are seen as the evil seed of sexual desire within humanity. They are seen as poisonous, dangerous, or a sign of a bad omen. And, like many unfortunate animals in nature which are considered to be 'dangerous', they are often killed on sight out of fear and ignorance.

Woe to be born an ophidian creature and encounter mankind!

Yet it was not always so. If we can remove the veils of fear, ignorance, ugly history and lies, one will find that there was a time when a completely different image of the serpent was understood by humanity. And, in fact, one form of this older image of the serpent still survives today, brought down to us from the ancient Classical world of medicine in the form of the Rod of Asclepius, a symbol of healing and health still in use by doctors and hospitals everywhere. This symbol is sometimes combined with that of the Caduceus Wand of the God Hermes, who could bring one good knowledge of medicine and healing. But why on earth would the ancient people have used the serpent, a sometimes poisonous and not very friendly predator, as a symbol of healing for their craft of medicine?

The answer is simply because they inherited the symbol of the serpent from a tradition much older than themselves, from a time modern historians call the Neolithic, when the serpent was an image of the Spirit of Life, itself.

Continuance. Wisdom. Healing. Regeneration. These are all aspects of the serpent found in ancient and indigenous cultures world-wide. In the Neolithic Goddess Cults, from which we Ophidians draw our lineage, the serpent is a symbol of the Divine Spirit, itself. Each person possesses their own unique and divine Spirit. It is this Spirit which animates your body, gives you life and consciousness, and provides one with continuity after death. It is this serpent as Spirit which animates all life, seen and unseen, in the Heavens, upon the Earth, and in the Underworld.

The serpent is life, undulating in and out of time, incarnating into bodies, forever moving forward in time. Just as the snake will slough off its skin and seemingly emerge slick and new, so too does one's Spirit slough off its body at death, only to be reborn into a new life. And because of this ability to shed its skin, snakes were seen as symbols of rejuvenation and regeneration. The Spirit provides the energy of life, and can also heal the body through regeneration, growth and reproduction. And even by modern standards. these aspects of biology are the very basic building blocks of life, itself.

But not only did the serpent bring life, it also brings wisdom. For one can not have life without some form of consciousness and awareness. And this awareness is inherited in ourselves from our Spirit. Our mundane thoughts and consciousness have biological limitations based upon the structure of our brain and its neural pathways. These pathways determine our capacity for memory, logic, observation, physical self-awareness, and so on. But the actual powering of the mind comes from the inherited consciousness of one's Spirit. There is biological thought, and then there is spiritual consciousness. One overlays and supports the other, but they are not the same. Spiritual consciousness is potentially much more vast and non-temporal in its wisdom. This is the wisdom of the serpent spoken of by the ancients, and one can learn to access this greater consciousness through the various rites and practices of these ancient peoples.

So, the serpent is the spirit and wisdom of life, itself, as it manifests here upon Gaia, our Great Mother. Unfortunately, though, at this time in history, such realizations are ridiculed and condemned by a degenerate and unnatural people who have no respect for life and nature, other than what wealth they can reap from its destruction. These people live under the enslaving yoke of science and its handmaiden industry, which seeks to subdue and consume the substance, and indeed the very life, of Gaia, herself. There is no system of 'life' which survives for long when it is based completely upon consumption and destruction, and the enslavement and coercion of all other life, without any creation of its own. Science and industry have no interest in participating in the spirit of life. They want to own it, enslave it, copy it, and ultimately replace it with their own systems of control, under their own direction. They will fail - they always fail. They cannot create; they can only imitate and destroy. And so, they will fall. And it will be horrible to witness, and even more difficult to survive.

But survive we will. And out of their destruction the serpent will rise again, regenerating this world through the old, bountiful ways of life, love and liberty. We will begin to truly live again, hand in hand with our Mother Gaia, regenerating life and goodness and understanding wherever we tread. This is the Reclamation. For we are the Ophidians, the People of the Serpent, and we shall reclaim the world for life.