They Shall Take Up Serpents: Psychology of the Southern Snake-Handling Cult

by Weston La Barre

The rural Southern snake-handling cult, still flourishing, is graphically described in its complex historical, ethnographic, and psychosexual background. The specific poor-white, extreme fundamentalist setting of the cult is placed in its New Testament context and in relation to the folklore of similar practices in Africa, Mexico, and the ancient world. Accepting the Freudian theme that "the snake is man's own sexuality," the author points to the prevalent repressiveness of the cultists' lives, which finds outlet in the handling of the age-old symbol of sin and eternal life. Founded in 1909, the cult has spread from Grasshopper Valley, Tennessee, all over the South, and has survived fines, jail sentences, and numerous deaths from snake bite, including that of the founder.

Genres: Religion, Cults, Spirituality, History, Anthropology

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Weston La Barre is best known for his work in anthropology and ethnography, in which he drew on the theories of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. Born in Uniontown, PA, La Barre studied at Princeton and Yale, and later taught at Rutgers, Wisconsin and Duke universities. La Barre conducted field work across North and South America, and later through India, China, Africa and Europe. He studied the Plains Indians and their peyote cult with Richard Evans Schultes (which resulted in the 1938 book The Peyote Cult).

La Barre's masterwork is The Ghost Dance: The Origin of Religion (1970), which draws together his explorations of shamanism, world religion, Native American culture, altered states of consciousness and the use of drugs in belief systems.

Works:
The Peyote Cult
The Aymara Indians of the Lake Titicaca Plateau
The Human Animal
Materia Medica of the Aymara
They Shall Take up Serpents: Psychology of the Southern Snakehandling Cult
Shadow of Childhood: Neoteny and the Biology of Religion
The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion
Culture in Context, Selected Writings of Weston La Barre
Muelos: A Stone Age Superstition About Sexuality

Reviews

[Cat Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

too outdated to be of much use outside of historiographical purposes

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting look at snake-handling cults in the rural South. A little dated by now, but still very informative. I don't know how I feel about the psychology used in the book- it's primarily psychoanalytically based, and that doesn't jive too well with me, but in the repressive culture of the Piedmont region, I can understand how a lot of the basic and unconscious desires of snake-cultists can be projected onto the snakes and the church services themselves.

[Jason Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Church of God With Signs Following have long fascinated me. This book delves into the American origins of the Appalachian serpent handling faith...very interesting material.