Moses, the Bronze Serpent, and Bible Kundalini

by Joshua Tilghman on July 23, 2012


Have you ever wondered why Moses had to “lift up” the bronze snake in the wilderness in order for the Israelites to be healed? This is perhaps one of the most puzzling scriptures in the entire Bible. Pastors and Bible study teachers alike have been stumped as to why it is there, and it seems that traditional Christianity has no proper explanation. Is there one? Yes, but the answer lies beyond the literal interpretation, and it contains a wonderful spiritual truth!

The scene unfolds for us as the Israelites journeyed to Edom by way of the Red Sea. Without access to food or water, they complained against God and Moses. The Lord became angry with the people and sent fiery serpents to bite them. The Israelites began to pray for God to take the serpents away. God then gives Moses the remedy:

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole…” (Numbers 21:8-9).

This entire scene begs the questions:

1)      If the serpent is traditionally supposed to represent Satan in the Bible, then why would God tell Moses to lift it up and then heal all the people who looked on it?

2)      Why would God tell Moses to cast the bronze serpent in the first place since it is clearly and idol and God said:

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath…” (Exodus 20:4).

This is just another instance where the literal interpretation poses contradictory ideas, and it is scriptures like these that demand we look beneath the surface to find out what treasures the Biblical authors hid beneath the surface of the text.

Let’s review a small portion in the story of Adam and Eve to help us grasp the full implications of God’s command to Moses about the brazen serpent.

There have already been several discussions on this site dedicated to showing that the serpent represents man’s ego, not a literal being named Satan. Therefore Adam’s fall represents the activation of the ego. Now remember how God cursed the snake so that it would crawl on its belly and eat dust all the days of its life? That scene becomes important for Moses’ actions later. Briefly consider the two points below:

1)      The snake was originally upright.

2)      It was cursed to eat dust.

Symbolically this imagery teaches us that the ego is responsible for keeping us grounded in the realm of the fives senses, or the physical realm. The Bible states we are made from the dust of the ground, and that is the reason the snake is cursed to eat the dust of it. As long as our lives are ruled by the ego, we are symbolically eating this dust.

Now let’s return to Moses and the brass serpent. Why would God have him do such a thing? When the Israelites were complaining in the desert, they weren’t relying on faith. They were relying on their egos which only trust in the physical senses. It appeared that they would die of starvation and thirst. Numbers 21: 4 states that “…the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.” This entire scene illustrates the condition of the soul in the dessert (physical life). The soul in “the way” simply means the soul that travels from Egypt (bondage of the ego) to the Promised Land (a heavenly awakening from this bondage). In other words, the Israelites’ travels represent the individual who is on a spiritual journey to shed the ego and experience the Promised Land (spiritual resurrection). The Biblical author gives us the imagery of Israelites being cursed and bitten by snakes because they were operating in the ego to get them through the desert of life.

So God gives Moses a symbolic representation of what would heal them. That symbol is the brazen snake on the pole lifted up! In the story of Adam and Eve, the snake was cast down, but as we’ll see in a moment, it must be lifted up (symbolically transforming the ego) to restore the spiritual aspect of man’s soul.

Large portions of scripture are metaphors for the holy temple which is your human body and brain. This scripture is no exception. If you stood a snake in the upright position, it would resemble the spinal cord which extends up the back; the head of the snake would resemble the pineal gland (understood by the ancients as a spiritual organ) at the bottom center of the brain. (More information on the Bible and the pineal gland here).

In deep meditation practices, spiritual energy (kundalini, Holy Spirit) rises through the spinal column and proceeds to open the seven chakras (seven churches of revelations) along the spine until it reaches the pineal gland, symbolizing a spiritually-resurrected individual. This process can also be seen as the serpent that becomes transformed from the ego into the fully realized and awakened spiritual being (the shedding of the ego). Such an experience raises the conscious awareness of an individual beyond the senses. This is a real experience that ancient spiritual peoples—even the earliest Christians—were aware of.

This entire process is also why Jesus made the following statement:

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up…” ( John 3:14).

Remember, the kingdom of God is not outside of you, but it is “within.” (Luke 17:21).

“Lifting up the Son of Man” is another way of symbolizing the path to Christ consciousness, a state of BEING beyond the senses, emotions, and intellect.

How this knowledge can help you…

The Christ nature within us must be exalted in order to realize the spiritual resurrection! This is an actual experience that takes commitment and faith. Many Christians will argue that all these concepts are New Age teachings. But what many Christians don’t realize is that New Age concepts aren’t new at all. In fact, they have been around tens of thousands of years, and many of the same concepts are taught through both the Old and New Testaments. I advise you to study deeply the Biblical passages that seem to contradict the traditional Christian interpretation. They can’t be argued away and don’t be afraid to question their purpose. This is the beginning of your search to a higher understanding of the soul contained within the scriptures.

In the next blog post we will look at a scripture from Isaiah where the Lord clearly states that the Great Pyramid of Giza is His sign to stand for all time. We will also discuss how the pyramid was built to represent the soul’s journey through the earth and how it is all Biblical!

I hope this post has helped you to go beyond religion and to true spirituality. If you enjoyed it, please don’t forget to spread it through the social buttons that the top and bottom of this post!

{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Suzy July 25, 2012 at 11:47 am

Just spent a few minutes reading Adam and Eve and this new post. I could not agree more, and I love the way you so intelligently break things down. You really get to the heart of what’s here in a clear, understandable way. Keep teaching us all with this work!
P.S. I’m reminded of the symbol of kundalini of a snake on rod that’s used by American medical establishments.

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2 Joshua Tilghman July 25, 2012 at 3:24 pm

Thanks, Suzy. I will definitely keep working and writing. Thanks for commenting!
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3 Paul Young July 27, 2012 at 6:18 am

Joshua, another great blog!! Truly, the serpent and Satan are one and the same, and I believe them BOTH to be representative of the same thing, as you, yourself, conclude in both this blog AND the blog regarding the number 40. Tremendous job!!!

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4 Joshua Tilghman July 27, 2012 at 7:13 pm

Thanks, Paul. Numbers mean so much in the Bible!

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5 Kathy August 1, 2012 at 6:05 am

Hi Joshua…

Wonderful post…full of enlightenment! Truly there is a new HU-man being birthed from the marriage of our Intellect and our Intuition…creating the Super Hu-man, the next step in our evolutionary journey through Eternity…our long awaited Christ Concsiousness.
The Divine Marriage spoken of in the bible and the Christ Birth is waiting all those whose consciously seek beyond their present understanding.
It is absolutely the rising of the Kundalini as you so eloquently expressed…and the most amazing thing is…if your mind can wrap itself around it…is that the Galaxy itself is raising it’s own Kundalini as we raise ours…for it too expands and evolves as all things do.
What is so amazing about these times we are presently in…is there is a completion of many cycles happening at once…mankind, our planet, our planetary system, our galaxy, our Universe and who knows what is beyond in the Super Universes are all completing their grand cycles and evolving to a higher consciousness level of being.
It is also the reason that so many enlightened beings as yourself are coming forth teaching these grand truths in these times.

The Key to reaching this state of being is to LOVE ALL that you are…every ounce of every cell and atom in your body as well as loving every act that you have committed…for there is nothing but God/Source moving forward and to condemn anything about ourselves is to condemn God himself…your spark of Divine Light.

By embracing the ALL..by seeing only Source, your mind is cleansed of all the negative destructive thoughts and when that happens you become the Divine vessel for the Truth of God to manifest through.

And truly as you stated…the signs and symbols are all around us if we but had “eyes to see and ears to hear”….

Keep up this fabulous work!
Kathy
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6 Joshua Tilghman August 1, 2012 at 5:37 pm

Kathy,Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. I really appreciate it.

You stated:

“…if your mind can wrap itself around it…is that the Galaxy itself is raising it’s own Kundalini as we raise ours…for it too expands and evolves as all things do.”

I completely agree! It’s an awesome concept, isn’t it? When I first starting seeing things this way it opened up so many spiritual doors for me. We truly live in a grand universe. Thanks again!

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7 Tom January 5, 2013 at 6:57 am

I like this interpretation a lot. A spare piece in the jigsaw still has me scratching my head though, 2 Kings 18:4. Here it is:

He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

If you have a take on this it would be fascinating to know it. Keep up the good work!

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8 Joshua Tilghman January 5, 2013 at 11:53 am

Tom,

This is a great point to bring up. The answer to your question lies in how our lower minds seeks truth without ourselves instead of going within. The scriptures state the the children of Israel began to burn incense to it. In other words, they began to worship from without. When Moses lifted up the serpent, it represented the spirit of truth rising within us. When Israel burned incense to it, it represents the distortion of this truth. The brazen serpent went from being a symbol of inner truth to a symbol of religion. This is why religion is a stumbling block to our true natures. Religion teaches out to look “without” for that which can only be found “within.”
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9 anny April 19, 2013 at 7:42 am

Hi Joshua, I’d like to make a comment about the brass serpent. Brass says something about the character and task of the serpent. As I have mentioned before serpent is ‘nahash’ in Hebrew. Brass is a related word, ‘nehoshet’. Metals also have symbolical meanings in Hebrew and brass is connected to the number six. Man was created towards the end of the sixth day, spirit descended into human form at the end of the sixth day. The serpent which by this relation to brass also is defined by the number six is the force that entices man to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and as a result to ‘fall’ into the world of matter (which in the kabbalah is called the seventh day and ‘olam ha assiah’, the world of doing things. God, the higher consciousness rests, the lower consciousness now enters the realm of doing and experiencing things).

At this stage the serpent is not so much thrown down as well that his four feet are taken from him. This world of matter, of doing and experiencing, is also called the fourth world. Man has arrived in this world now and does not need this force that entices him downward any longer, so its downward energy, the four, is curtailed.

Once the people have passed the deepest point of their descent, slavery in Egypt, and have arrived on the ascending side, Moses lifts up this snake to make clear to the people what is the idea.
You might say he turns it into a messiah. Messiah, ‘mashiah’, means the anointed one. Later on the kings of Israel were anointed with oil, ‘shemen’ (which you find in the name Gethsemane, oilpress), which is related to the number 8, ‘shmona’. The eighth day, which begins once we have emerged from the fourth world of the seventh day, you might see as the Promised Land, the rise into higher awareness.

So in a nutshell: the serpent (6) leads you into the world of matter and experience (7) and then the raised serpent or messiah (8) leads you back up again.

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10 Joshua Tilghman April 20, 2013 at 11:26 am

Anny,

Awesome info! Your explanation was a great alternative way to explain the process of involution and evolution of the soul. And you’re right about metals in scripture. Brass and Bronze are also symbols of the mental plan and mentality.
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