The Brass Snake in the Desert.

 

      Nahashton: The Bronze Snake in the Desert 

The Israelites grew weary from their lengthy journey around the land of Edom. They spoke with dissatisfaction about what God had done for them and doubted what He would do in the future. They cursed the mana that was provided for them. As a punishment, He sent fiery serpents among them, which bit many, causing a painful death. They likely would not have acknowledged their sin without experiencing its painful consequences, but they repented under punishment. God then provided a miraculous remedy for their relief. They were to forge a brass serpent and put it on a poll. Once all looked upon it, they would be healed.  This brass serpent is called the Nahashton, a secondary snake in rabbinical lore. 

The Nahashton is the Judaism equivalent of the Demiurge, the son of Sophia, in Greek Hermeticism. The Demiurge is the source of the veil that blinds us, the source of the sin of the world. It is the source of the material world that is disconnected from perennial truth. Instead of focusing on the transcendent and objective truth of the universe, we focus on the impetus of our base desires, the snakes, as we fulfill our inherent drive to anthropogeny and generativity, as Sophia, the soul, desires to create without her consort and precociously. Sophia is the original Web, and the Demiurge is Web 2.0. The internet was created so that universities could share scientific papers faster. Then, it became a way of sharing media faster. But our human nature could not be satiated. We had to create a feeling of being fully actualized out of our basic instincts. So, Web 2.0 was born. At first, it was a cute baby with huge eyes that allowed you to see puppy videos and send pictures to Grandma. But the baby grew into a devouring snake that has taken many with its fiery fiberoptic jaws. 

As fools in the desert, we look to social media to immediately fulfill our desires with empty and insipid content creation. One may only look at the number of followers meaningless dances get on TikTok vs. the audience for the presentations of Loriattes. The Bread and Circus strategy is not new, but it has become a plague of fiery snakes in our society as we look to the immediate and pleasurable over the dense truth and painful discipline. 

The genius of the Romans still rings true as their Colleseus migrated from a stone building in a faraway land to a square of plastic on your hands. Intellectual and moral degeneration usually precedes the fall of societies. I hope somebody takes a selfie with it.