Throughout myths and ancient iconography, we find the ubiquitous serpent. The old stories tell us that they are creatures from the Underworld and that they represent earth, fertility, and renewal.
For instance, the Olmec-Toltec-Aztec Quetzacoatl, the feathered serpent, is still remembered today in the headgear of those who lead the First Nation tribes of the America.
In the Aztec language, ‘coatl’ means both ‘serpent’ and ‘twin’. Perhaps it is no coincidence that in many myths worldwide, creator gods are portrayed as twins.
Allow me to explain.
Some Amazonian shamans use plants like ayahuasca or peyote, to meet Quetzacoatl, or his like, in their visions. They do that because psychoactive herbs help to increase the flow of DMT (DiMethylTryptamine ) to the brain. A flood of increased DMT causes the pineal gland or ‘third eye’, in the base of the hypothalamus, to open, thus enabling communion with the reptilian gods in their true and beautiful forms.
In the early 1960s, a Western anthropologist named Michael Harner wanted to increase his understanding of the shamanic practices he was encountering among the Conibo Indians. So he copied them in taking ayahuasca. Harner then received a number of extraordinary revelations over the course of many hours. The most interesting, for our purposes, was a vision he was granted by “giant reptilian creatures” in the lowest depths of his brain.
“First, they showed me the planet Earth as it was aeons ago, before there was any life on it. I saw an ocean, barren land and a bright blue sky. Then black specks dropped from the skies by the hundreds, and landed in front of me on the barren landscape. I could see the ‘specks’ were actually large, shiny black creatures with stubby pterodactyl-like wings and huge whale-like bodies…
“They explained to me in a kind of thought language that they were fleeing from something out in space. They had come to Earth to escape their enemy. The creatures then showed me that they have created life on the planet in order to hide within the multitudinous forms and thus disguise their presence.
“Before me, the magnificence of plant and animal and speciation — hundreds of millions of years of activity — took place on a scale and with a vividness impossible to describe. I learned that the dragon-like creatures were thus inside all forms of life, including man.”
Michael Harner’s vision is one of an increasing number in which the stories of shamans and the stories of scientists meet and agree. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the twin-stranded, double-helixed DNA, has posited a hypothesis of panspermia: that life in the form of DNA came here from outer space.
It is certainly true that the early “prebiotic soup” of RNA strands on Earth was transformed, at 3 billion years ago, by an influx of DNA. But from where? Scientists have yet to find DNA on any other planet…and it’s not for want of looking.
So if Harner’s vision was an account of the true origin of life on Earth, it could be why the serpents have ensured that the knowledge about their true identity is preserved in myths… and why so many creator gods, like Quetzacoatl, are described as twins.
[This was an extract from my latest book, The Way of the Serpent, coming soon. Art is by me and A.I.]
Annie Dieu-Le-Veut 
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