Claim. The Genesis serpent is not a literal animal but a metaphor for the sexual organ — the archangel’s “tempting” of Eve, and humanity’s continued vulnerability, are figured as a snake biting a victim with poison-loaded fangs.
Elaboration. §1.5 decodes the serpent symbol. “The serpent is analogous to the male sexual organ. Doesn’t the male organ look like a serpent’s head? It goes around constantly seeking a hole. The female sexual organ is also similar to the cave of a poisonous snake with its mouth open” (1.5. The meaning of the serpent’s temptation, 304-162, 1999.10.10). The “bite” is fornication: “Once you bite it or are bitten, that poison will spread throughout the veins of your whole body, and you will die forever. Immorality is the way that individuals, families, tribes, and nations are ruined. This is because the snakes ate the fruit of good and evil” (ibid). The implication ties Genesis to AIDS-era moral teaching: “Thus, AIDS has appeared like a judgment from this truth in the Last Days” (ibid, 229-25, 1992.4.9). What looks like ancient mythology is, on SMM’s reading, a precise diagnosis of how the universe still works.