A source-by-source catalogue of every passage where Joseph Campbell attributes mythic parallels to real-world cultural diffusion rather than Jungian psychic unity.
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
The ‘Venom’ Motif in Serpent-Christ Traditions
Do Gnostic writers ever speak of Christ’s serpent as literally poisonous—or as an antidote? A source-by-source audit.
Awakening Eve: How Self-Knowledge Rewired the Human Mind
How a late Upper-Pleistocene spark of self awareness spread memetically, rewired our genome, and solved the Sapient Paradox.
X Chromosome and Higher-Order Cognition
How X-linked gene dosage, inactivation escape, and imprinting sculpt human brain development, intelligence, and social behavior.
Big Bangs of the Mind: 7 Theories About the Upper-Paleo Brain Upgrade
Guide to seven leading theories of the Upper Paleolithic cognitive revolution—what changed, when it happened, and why it sparked modern human behavior.
Phoenicians in the Americas: A Chronological Analysis of a Controversial Theory
A comprehensive historical analysis of claims that Phoenician sailors reached the Americas before Columbus, examining evidence and scholarly debate from classical antiquity to modern times.
The “Fall” in Meru Mythology and Its Afro-Eurasian Parallels
Analysis of the Meru (Kenya) creation myth resembling the biblical Fall, comparing motifs (forbidden tree, serpent, lost immortality) with Afro-Eurasian parallels.
The Snake Cult of Consciousness vs. McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory
An exploration of two theories on the origins of human consciousness: the Snake Cult/Eve Theory (snake venom) versus the Stoned Ape Theory (psilocybin mushrooms).
The Australian Dreamtime and the Symbolic Revolution: Indigenous Evidence for Late Consciousness?
Comparison of the early Holocene emergence of the Aboriginal Dreamtime symbolic system with the Near East’s Neolithic ‘revolution of symbols,’ examining Australian rock art, technology, exchange networks, language diffusion, and cognitive impacts.
Cosmic Herakles & Dionysus Zagreus: Orphic Cosmology and Mysteries
A detailed exploration of the complementary roles of Cosmic Herakles (Chronos) and Dionysus Zagreus in Orphic theogony, myth, ritual praxis, and Neoplatonic interpretation.