The passage through of the deceased Egyptian pharoah through the underworld may be paralleled in "the making of the medicine man among the tribes of the Western Desert of South Australia. Mourned as dead, because everyone know that he will be 'cut into pieces', the postulant goes to a water hole. There two medicine men cover his eyes and throw him into the jaws of the Serpent, which swallows him. The postulant remains in the Serpent's belly for an indefinite time. Finally the medicine men bring two kangaroo rats as an offering to the Serpent, whereupon the Serpent ejects the postulant, throwing him high into the air. He falls 'alongside a certain rock-hole', and the medicine men set out in search of him, but he has been reduced to the size of an infant. (The initiatory theme of regression to the embryonic in the monster's belly, analogous with the maternal womb, is apparent here.)"
To the Australian secret cult, the Kunapipi, "ritual swallowing by the Snake is also to be interpreted as a return to the womb - on the one hand, because the Snake is often described as female, on the other, because entering the belly of a monster also carries a symbolism of return to the embryonic state."
"...It represents not so much a ritual death followed by resurrection as a complete regeneration of the initiate through his gestation and birth by the Great Mother."
"What characterizes all forms of this dangerous return to the womb is that the Hero undertakes it as a living man and an adult - that is, he does not die and he does not return to the embryonic state. The stake involved in the enterprise is sometimes extraordinary - nothing less than winning immortality."
- Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation
"The call of the Great Father Snake was alarming to the child; the mother was protection. But the father came. He was the guide and initiator into the mysteries of the unknown. As the original intruder into the paradise of the infant with its mother, the father is the archetypal enemy; hence, throughout life all enemies are symbolical (to the unconscious) of the father. Whatever is killed becomes the father. The sacrament, in addition to abduction, circumcision, cannibalism, is the drinking of the blood of the primal father. This practice was reflected in the dark, blood reeking rites of Dionysus, or the berserkers of the Quatiutil Indians.
"We are taken from the mother, chewed into fragments and assimilated to the world-annihilating body of the ogre for whom all the precious forms and beings are only the courses of a feast; but then, miraculously reborn, we are more than we were. If the God is a tribal, racial, national, or sectarian archetype, we are the warriors of his cause; but if he is a lord of the universe itself, we then go forth as knowers to whom all men are brothers."
- James Campbell, Hero With a Thousand Faces
"In old Europe, the snake represented the power in the earth that supports life and the transformation of life on its surface. The snake was recognized as the actual force behind the creation..."
- An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism
"The mysterious dynamism of the snake, its extraordinary vitality and periodic rejuvenation, must have provoked a powerful emotional response in the Neolithic agriculturists, and the snake was consequently mythologized, attributed with a power that can move the entire cosmos. Compositions on the shoulders of cult vases reveal pairs of snakes with opposed heads, 'making the world roll' with the energy of their spiraling bodies."
- Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe
"Everywhere the snake or the spiral appears in the presence of new life: vases flaunt a gigantic snake winding over the whole universe, or over the sun, moon, and stars; elsewhere the snake appears below a growing plant or coils above the belly of a pregnant woman....The snake was a symbol of energy - spontaneous, creative energy - and of immortality."
"According to one theory, all primordial serpents of myth are derived from a Sumerian Arch-Serpent in Subterranean waters, whose name was Zu. Apollo took possession of Delphi itself by killing a serpent already there, at the earth's navel."
- Geoffrey Ashe, The Ancient Wisdom
"In later ages "especially among Semitic and Indo-European peoples, the dragon [Gk. drakon - 'serpent'] or cosmic serpent is seen as a symbol of the chaos that must be overcome in order for life to be maintained in a meaningful way. In Hebrew texts (e.g., Isaiah 27:1 and Job 7:12) as well as in the apocalyptic literature of Christianity (e.g., Revelation 12-13, 20), the primeval dragon is said to have been defeated but not totally eliminated, and it will return during the last days to wreak havoc before finally being destroyed."
- An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism
With the approach of night the strength of the Ra, the sun god of Heliopolis, diminished. The solar barque "entered the realm of night and met the powers of darkness. The chief of these was the serpent Apep who tried to swallow the barque; a nightly struggle ensued, and when the sun reappeared on the eastern horizon the next day prayers of thankfulness were offered that Ra was triumphant and the sun would continue to shine."
- Richard Patrick, Egyptian Mythology
"...The mystic drama of the celestial virgin pursued by the dragon seeking to devour her child, was not only depicted in the constellations of heaven...but was represented in the secret worship of the temples. It was the mystery of the god Sol, and inscribed on a black image of Isis. The Divine Boy was chased by the cruel Typhon. In an Egyptian legend the dragon is said to pursue Thuesis (Isis) while she is endeavoring to protect her son."
- M. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled
In the Eleventh section of the Tuat, the boat of Afu Ra [the sun god] passes the territory of the town of Sais. "The region to the left of the god is one of fire, and in, but quite close to the boat, stands Horus, who is working magic with the snake-headed boomerang which he holds in his hand. Before him is the serpent called 'Seth-heh', i.e., the 'eternal Seth'. Horus is superintending the destruction of the bodies, souls, shadows, and heads of the enemies of Ra, which is being affected in the pits of fire before him. The fire in the pits is supplied from the bodies of the goddesses who are in charge of them. In the first pit, the victims are immersed in the fiery depths head downwards. When Afu Ra arrives at the last of the pits, his journey though the Tuat proper is ended, and it only remains for him to pass through the ante-chamber to the east of it, in order to arrive at the sky of this world....He has followed a course which first went from south to north, the to the east, and finally towards the Mountain of the Sunrise. Afu Ra has now reached the "uttermost limit of thick darkness" and arrives at the Twelfth Section of the Other World...This section contains the great mass of Celestial Waters called Nu, and the goddess Nut, who is here the personification of the god of the morning. We see Afu Ra in his boat as before, and in front of it is the Beetle of Kehpera, under whose form the new sun is to be born. Before the boat is the great serpent Ankh-neteru, and twelve amkhiu-gods, taking hold of the tow-line, enter this serpent at the tail, and, drawing the god in his boat through the body of the serpent, bring him out at his mouth. During his passage through the serpent Afu Ra is transformed into Khepera, and the amkhiu-gods are also transformed, and emerge with him from the serpent, and minister to him all the day. Afu Ra, in the form of Khepera [the ancient god associated with the creation of the world], is now towed into the sky by twelve goddesses, who lead him to Shu, the god of the atmosphere and sky of this world....As the disk appears in the sky; the newly-born god of day is acclaimed by gods and goddesses, who destroy any and every enemy who appears in the presence of the god, and sing hymns to him."
- E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead
After the Egyptians abandoned the mine in the Timma Valley (some thirty kilometers north of the Gulf of Aqaba) during their decline in the twelfth century BC, the Midianties converted the temple into a shrine of their own for a while...In the makeshift Holy of Holies of the shrine, the excavators found only one object, perhaps the most intriguing object of all Timma - tiny, beautifully molded copper serpent with a gilded head, the ancient fertility symbol of the Middle East. It immediately called to mind the 'serpent of brass' of Moses (Numbers 21:9), which later became such an object of veneration."
- Magnus Magnusson, BC - The Archaeology of the Bible Lands
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