Examines the evolutionary hypothesis that female-led selection pressures for social intelligence and self-domestication placed women at the vanguard of human evolution.
How Did a Self-Aware Mind Evolve?
Meditations on mind, myth, and evolution. Cast the scales from your eyes!
TL;DR
- Symbolic thought emerged ~50,000 years ago, yet the universal human symbol, “I,” or the ego appears globally entrenched only in the Holocene ~10 kya.
- According to Eve Theory of Consciousness, women invented serpent-venom initiation rituals that reliably taught subject-object separation, producing powerful gene-culture evolution towards understanding “I am’” at a young age.
- The memory of this awakening is preserved worldwide in creation myths (cf. Lucifer, Nüwa, Quetzalcoatl) and was transmitted globally via bullroarer mystery cults (cf. the rites of Dionysus or Australian Dreamtime).
Topics
About
I’m Andrew Cutler, a Machine Learning engineer researching human origins. My work connects psychology, comparative mythology, and AI to trace how recursive self-awareness evolved. Snakecult.net is a place for me to put lightly-edited AI-generated essays that explore niche questions (usually produced with OpenAI’s Deep Research or o3-Pro).
Research Articles
Lifebreath of the Dragon: A Proto-Sapiens Hypothesis
Exploring the hypothesis of two intertwined Proto-Sapiens roots, *hankwa (breath, life, soul) and *henkwi (snake, dragon), by examining proposed cognates across global language families and their implications for the Snake Cult of Consciousness.
Nüwa Theory of Consciousness: Mending the Heavens in the Ice Age
Exploring the hypothesis that the Chinese mother goddess Nüwa preserves a cultural memory of end-Ice Age floods and the dawn of self-aware human consciousness.
Proto-Sapiens ŋAN: Charting the Anima Mundi from the First Breath
A speculative reconstruction of a Proto-Sapiens root *ŋAN, proposing an ancient global word for ‘breath’ and ‘soul’ and tracing its reflexes across major language families.
Pre-Columbian Contacts and Peopling of the Americas: An Exhaustive Survey
Comprehensive review of evidence for pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories.
Snakes That Bestow Beast‑Speech in World Mythology
From Greek shepherd‑seers to Kurdish snake‑queens, cultures worldwide claim a serpent’s bite, lick, or brew lets humans talk to animals.
Christ as the Serpent: Gnostic & Dualist Traditions
An expanded survey of every known Christian-Gnostic current that equated Jesus with the Edenic serpent, complete with extended primary-source excerpts.
Role of the Y Chromosome in Human Cognition: A Literature Review
A review synthesizing evidence on how the Y chromosome influences human cognition, focusing on neurodevelopmental disorders, specific genes, brain structure, and evolutionary context.
The Logos and the Serpent: Mythic Evolution of Self-Awareness
Exploring the evolution of self awareness through Genesis, John’s Logos, Gnosticism, and sacrificial myths, linking the Edenic serpent to Christ and the birth of the conscious self.
The Bullroarer: A Worldwide Ritual Instrument and the Case for Ancient Cultural Diffusion
An anthropological examination of the bullroarer, arguing its global distribution and consistent ritual functions point to cultural diffusion from a common prehistoric origin.