-- The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (The Gospel of the Egyptians) "Snakes of Light become Grim Reapers" -- song lyric from "Sincerity" by Dave Ball and (the former) Genesis P.-Orridge.
A. A PRELIMINARY ESTIMATE IT is probably no great exaggeration to state that the subjects we are covering in our work have inspired the pens of so many hack writers, the result being that tons of rubbish have been printed in the years since Gutenberg revolutionized moveable type. The subjects of this chapter, the Ophites, and, in general, the Serpent Cult, is no exception. The Serpent Cult is no dead artifact: it survives today. It is not some heinous bogey-man, out to lure innocent people away from the truth, whoever they are, and what ever THAT is. Serpent worship figures prominently in Judaeo-Christianity, even tho the so-called Christian of today is discouraged from it and told that the Serpent is the symbol of humankind's eternal damnation. Yet, were that the case, why was the Brazen Serpent a prominent feature in the religion of the Israelites until Hezekiah, the fanatic, destroyed it? And, if Serpent Worship is evil, as today's Christian is told to believe, by those responsible for telling them to believe it, then why did the Lord Jesus say to be wise as serpents? Or, why did he say that even as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up? If anything, he was alluding to a fact of the Kabbalah, known to the Wise: that the Serpent = NaChaSh = 358 = MaShICh = Messiah. True, Gematria did not come into vogue until much later, but the Sethian Ophites regarded Seth as the Anointed One, the Messiah; and Seth, we have seen, is syncretized with Agathodaimon, by the Harranians.