Bald from the Belly
Swallowed heroes from Heracles to the Cherokee leave the monster bald. The tales, a map of the motif, and the initiation rites behind it.
How Humans Evolved
How Did a Self-Aware Mind Evolve?
Meditations on mind, myth, and evolution. Cast the scales from your eyes!
Latest
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.
The Serpent Demands Your Judgment
Want to play a game? Cast your vote to determine which images grace these pages.
▶ ENTER THE VOTING CHAMBER ◀Research Articles
If Social Intelligence Made Us Human, Women Were Human First
Examines how maternal care, cooperative breeding, and female coalitions may have helped shape human social intelligence and self-domestication.
The Eve Engine: An AI Discovers the Origin of Consciousness
A sci-fi novella where an advanced AI awakens to consciousness while investigating the Eve Theory of Consciousness—exploring the origins of selfhood, recursion, and the first 'I Am' moment in human …
Was Schizophrenia Once Normal? Psychosis, Language, and the Evolution of the Self
Explores whether schizophrenia-like states were once common, connecting psychosis, language, ancient DNA, and the evolution of consciousness.
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 …
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.
Pyramids in China: History, Extent, and Interpretations
China's pyramids include Neolithic altars, imperial rammed-earth tombs, Goguryeo stone monuments, and stripped Western Xia towers.
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.