Where there are serpents, there is wisdom - mythology of serpents and dragons

A large collection of mythological and psychological motifs found throughout history and the world relating to snakes, serpents and dragons.

I have included videos, audio books, and texts because I know everyone has their preference for these things. Some of these files date back over 20 years so please excuse the barebones html files.

If you want a quick understanding, focus on the Joseph Campbell videos, especially "the real dragon is in you". But for a fascinating journey, check out some of the other wild imagery, including the book on alchemy published by Taschen books -- one of my favorite books of all time!

And if you care to know my take on the matter, here it is:

The snake is representative of life. There isn't a simpler way to put it. Whether envisioned as a snake, a serpent or a dragon (not just the familiar dragon but also the "winged serpent" or "flying serpent" similar to what you find in Mesoamerica and China) these creatures are all representatives of the dynamic nature of life. This is raw energy we are talking about here, the life-force. Raw energy can be conceived as both good and bad and this is what has happened in our western myths. We have focused on the negative side of the serpent imagery, but the Oriental myths still treasure the positive side of it.

Take the story of the Buddha beneath the Tree of Enlightenment. The Buddha sat in what is called the "Immovable Spot" and a demon called "kama-mara" approached to threaten him. This demon is known as the Creator of World Illusion, but his name translates more directly as "fear of death, desire of life". As the demon approached, the Buddha touched the earth and the Earth Goddess reared forth from the ground and roared a thousand mad roars terrifying the demon and causing him to flee. That night the Buddha achieved enlightenment and sat in that spot for seven days and seven nights at which time a terrible tempest was brewing. To prevent the Buddha from being disturbed, the Serpent King "Muchalinda" came and enveloped him seven times in the coils of his folds and succeeded in protecting him.

If you compare this story with the one in the Garden of Eden you will see the familiar Tree of Knowledge and the serpent but there are dissimilar endings to this story. In the Buddha story, the Father (Serpent), Mother (Earth Goddess) and the Son (Buddha) are all in harmony with one another. There is accord at the Cosmic Tree. The divine parents recognize the sincere search on the part of their child to liberate himself from life, death, desire and the all the rest of the agonies of this world. How do they react? They embrace him. The Mother scares the demon away, and the Father folds him in his arms, so to speak, and gives him shelter from the storm. Joseph Campbell says this is a "release from death" motif that has become associated with an historical person yet unlike the Christian story, the sense of accord remains between the questing hero and the powers of the living world, "who are all transformations of the same, one mystery of being."

Campbell goes on to say that our Occidental, Iron Age literatures make a variation on this theme and turns it into a story about the conquest of the shining hero over the dark and disparaged monster of the earlier order of godhead from whose coils some treasure must be won, whether it is land, a maiden, gold, or freedom from the tyranny of the impugned monster itself.

The Biblical analogue of this is the story of Yahweh versus Leviathan. In this story there is a victory over the serpent of the Cosmic Sea; the Greek analogue is the story of Zeus over Typhon, the biggest monster ever made who was half man, half snake. After Zeus defeated him, he became the ruler of the Olympian gods; and finally, the Vedic analogue is the story of Indra over Vitra.

The important thing to note is that the serpent in each of these stories represents the same dynamic of life I started out talking about. The snake is the animal that can shed its skin and begin life again. Well, it is the same in these stories, only the snakes here previously represented the force of the cosmic order itself! So what we are seeing are the changing faces of the same self-renewing serpent power!

Campbell uses the serpent to get a glimpse into the western mindset. From the story of Eden he comes to the exclusively Occidental idea of freewill: he states that the message in the Biblical story is of a self-moving power greater than the force of any earth-bound serpent destiny. This is the inversion of the Buddha story: in the Biblical story there is clearly a shift in power, i.e. man over nature, and man now has the upper hand. So Yahweh steps in to even the score. The shift in power results in our being aware of opposites: good from evil, male from female, naked from clothed, right from wrong, life from death etc. Freewill finds its inception in the idea of individual responsibility, i.e. in our learning that we have to pay for our mistakes.

This business of the opposites is exactly what the serpent power is about. The serpent represents god in his higher and lower aspects. The dynamic of life as seen on earth and in heaven, whatever heaven you want to ascribe to "god". The snake dwells on the earth, among the roots of trees, frequenting springs, marshes and watercourses. Sometimes it ascends into the trees and hangs there like a "poison fruit". It can even penetrate into tombs!

Now when we talk about the life-force of the serpent is it any surprise that Asclepius, who represents the healing power of medicine/life, chose as his symbol the serpent? To this day the medical profession has a caduceus as its icon of choice: a staff with two serpents coiled around it. This is the "power of life".

There is no clearer way to say it: the serpent represents the dynamic power to change life, as well as being connected with the power of opposites in life.

PS - On Yahweh versus Leviathan: In this story there is a victory over the serpent of the Cosmic Sea. Campbell says, "Shall we be astonished, then to learn that the name of the priestly tribe of Levi, the chief protagonists of Yahweh, was derived from the same verbal root as the word Leviathan?" Campbell asserts here a connection between the serpent power and the god Yahweh. Campbell even goes so far as to suggest that Yahweh is a trickster-god to the extent that he lets people build a tower in Babylon but after it reaches a certain height he changes his mind and wrecks it. Certainly, Satan in the Bible is a kind of trickster who causes Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. But trickster-gods makes sense in terms of the "power of life"-- the life dynamic of serpents. A trickster causes you to "go beyond" or "break through" in much the same way as the serpent causes a renewal of life. What is a trickster god? The next time you say the words "Murphy's Law" you have hit the nail on the head. It is the upsetting factor of life, the very power of life to overthrow itself.