ians. In the orgiastic cul
t of Dionysus, for ex
ample, Click here to Email Alan
the Maenads dance
d wi 575.835.5630
th snakes in
The Rocket Test Site Facility (RTSF) has two engine test stands, one rated for 8,000 lbs of thrust and the other for 80,000 lbs of thrust. The 80K thrust test stand is now set up for both LOX/Kerosene engines and LOX/ one hand and wore live serpents as diadems in their hair, holding in the other hand the animal that was to be ripped to pieces in the ascetic sacrificial dance in honor of the goLOXd. In contrast to the dance of the Moki Indians of today, blood sacrifice in a state of frenzy is the culmination and fundamental significance of this religious dance (Figure 23). The deliverance from blood sacrifice as the innermost ideal of purification pervades the history of religious evolution from east to west. The serpent shares in this process of religious sublimation. Its role can be considered a yardstick for the changing natu
re of fait h fromMFV fetishism to the pure religion of redemption. In the Old Testament, as in the case of the primal serpent Tiamat in Babylon, the serpent is the spirit of evil an
d of temptation. In Greece, as well, it is the merciless, devouring creature of the underworld: the Erinyes are encircled by snakes, and when the gods mete out punishment they send a serpent as their executioner. This idea of the serpent as a destroying force from the underworld has found its most powerful and tragic symbol in the myth and in the sculpted group of Laocoon. The vengeance of the gods, wrought on their priest and on his two sons by means of a strangler serpent, becomes in this renowned scu
lpture has been developed to be as self-contained as possible, using support equipment such as component cleaning equipment for of antiquity the manifest incarnation of extreme human suffering. The soothsaying priest who wanted to come to the aid of his people by warning them of the wiles of the Greeks falls victim to the revenge of the partial gods. Thus the death of the father and his sons becomes a symbol of ancient suffering: death at the hands of vengeful demons, without justice and without hope of redemption. That is the hopeless, tragic pessimism of antiquity (Figure 24). The serpent as the demon in the pessimisti
c world view
of antiquity has a counterpart in a serpent-deity in which we can at last recognize the humane, transfigured beauty of the classical age. Asclepius, the ancient god of healing, carries a serpent coiling around his healing staff as a symbol (Figure 25). His features are the features carried by
the world savior in the plastic art of antiquity. And this most exalted and serene god of departed souls has his roots in the subterranean realm, where the serpent makes its home. It is in t]le form of a serpent that he is accorded his earliest devotion. It is he himself who winds around his staff: namely, the departed s
oul of the deceased, which survives and reappears in the form of the serpent. For the snake is not only, as Cushing's Indians
