Signs, Spirits, and Serpents: A Polemic Against Charismatic Counterfeits That Overlooks The Serpent in Rome and Vatican Snake Symbolism.

 

Step into any modern charismatic rally and you will witness a grotesque spectacle: men and women writhing on the floor, shrieking, cackling, babbling nonsense, and claiming it is the Spirit of God. Supporters celebrate it as “revival.” But the truth is far more sinister. What passes as the Holy Spirit in these freak shows is indistinguishable from pagan rites, occult trances, and outright demonic possession.

This is not a new controversy. The same manifestations erupted in earlier Protestant revivals under John Wesley and at Cane Ridge in Kentucky. But their recurrence across centuries does not vindicate them—it proves that Satan has recycled the same old deception again and again, wrapping it in religious packaging. And to make matters worse, those who condemn pagan serpent imagery in Hindu temples are silent when the Vatican itself enthrones its Pope in a hall shaped like the head of a snake. Hypocrisy has no bounds.

Charismatic Manifestations: A Circus of Delusion

Rodney Howard-Browne boasts of being the “Holy Ghost bartender,” urging his crowds to get drunk on “the new wine.”^1 Todd Bentley kicks and punches people, shouting “Bam!” as if the Spirit works by street brawling.^2 At these gatherings people collapse, twitch violently, or scream as if electrocuted. The leaders call it “slain in the Spirit.” Scripture calls it something else: deception. For the Spirit of God brings self-control, not chaos (2 Tim. 1:7).^3

When the centerpiece of a meeting is holy laughter, spasms, and falling bodies, the gospel of Christ crucified has been shoved aside for spectacle. The Holy Spirit does not humiliate people like drunken clowns. That is the work of another spirit entirely.

Pagan Parallels: Serpent Power in Disguise

Anyone with eyes can see that charismatic manifestations mimic pagan religion. In Kundalini yoga, devotees shake, jerk, scream, and collapse as the so-called “serpent power” rises within them.^4 Voodoo rituals produce convulsions, shrieking, and gibberish speech as worshippers “receive spirits.”^5 Mesmer’s occult “animal magnetism” in the 18th century created spasms, laughter, and trance-states identical to modern charismatic services.^6

Are we really to believe that the Spirit of Christ now behaves exactly like Hindu serpents, voodoo demons, and occult magnetizers? Paul warned us long ago: “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14 WEB).^7 What is happening in these churches is not Pentecost—it is pagan snake-worship repackaged with a Christian label.

Historical Revivals: Lessons from Wesley and Cane Ridge

Yes, similar things happened in earlier revivals. Wesley recorded people crying out, convulsing, and collapsing under his preaching.^8 Sometimes, after the turmoil, they found peace and assurance of salvation.^9 The Cane Ridge Revival of 1801 was worse—thousands jerking violently, barking, and shrieking in grotesque displays.^10 Mockers laughed, but many still claimed conversion afterward.^11

But here is the hard truth: convulsions and screams do not prove the Spirit’s presence. More likely, they reveal evil spirits being driven out, clawing for attention as they lose their grip. When Jesus cast out demons, the possessed shrieked, convulsed, and fell violently to the ground (Mark 9:17–18; Luke 4:33–35).^12,13 Revival preaching often forces hidden devils into the open. The spiritual battle is real—but it is not proof that the bizarre behavior is from God.

Tongues: Not All Babble is Babel

Charismatic leaders teach their followers to spout gibberish syllables as “tongues,” sometimes even telling them to fake it until it flows. But Scripture teaches otherwise. On the day of Pentecost, the disciples spoke in foreign languages intelligible to the hearers—Parthians, Medes, and Arabs all heard the gospel in their native speech (Acts 2:4–11).^14

Yet Paul also admits another kind of tongues: speech “to God and not to men,” unintelligible without interpretation (1 Cor. 14:2). He even speaks of “tongues of men and of angels” (1 Cor. 13:1).^15 The difference is crucial: genuine tongues edify, either as miraculous languages or as spiritual prayer. Charismatic babble that produces no edification, no interpretation, and no glory to Christ is nothing but noise.

Rome’s Serpent Hall: Hypocrisy Unmasked

The Catholic apologists who denounce charismatic chaos as demonic are not wrong. But their silence about their own house is deafening. The Pope’s Audience Hall in Vatican City is designed to look like a serpent’s head. The faithful enter through the “mouth,” the windows form the “eyes,” and the central aisle functions as the “tongue” leading to the Pope’s throne.^16

If serpentine architecture is evidence of Satan’s power in Hindu temples, then it is evidence of Satan’s presence in Rome as well. One cannot condemn the serpent in India while preaching from the serpent’s jaws in the Vatican. That is not discernment—it is hypocrisy of the highest order. “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand” (Mark 3:25).^17

Discernment: The Narrow Road

The Bible gives us the standard. True manifestations of the Spirit exalt Jesus as Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). They produce the fruit of holiness and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23). They build up the church decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40).

By that measure, the drunken laughter, animal noises, and violent convulsions seen in charismatic rallies are not revival—they are rebellion. By that same measure, serpent-themed halls in Rome testify not to holiness but to compromise with the very imagery of the devil.

Conclusion

What we see in today’s charismatic movement is not Pentecost power but pagan snake-worship clothed in Christian language. The jerks, the screams, the laughter—all of it has been seen before in voodoo huts, Hindu temples, and occult séances. That alone should terrify anyone who fears God.

And yet, we must remember: when Christ confronts demons, they convulse, shriek, and collapse before Him. Some of the bizarre scenes at revival meetings may not be evidence of God’s absence, but of His power casting out unclean spirits. The problem is that the leaders do not discern the difference. They package chaos as revival, turning deliverance into entertainment.

Worse still, those who rail against serpents in other religions preach from a serpent’s head in Rome. A house divided cannot stand.

The time has come for God’s people to wake up. Revival without discernment is deception. Discernment without courage is hypocrisy. Let us cling to Christ, expose the counterfeit, and remember that the only true power of God is found at the cross, where the Seed of the woman crushed the head of the serpent once and for all (Gen. 3:15).

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Notes

1. Rodney Howard-Browne, The Touch of God: A Practical Handbook on the Anointing (Louisville: RHB Ministries, 1992), 45–46.

2. John Crowder, Miracle Workers, Reformers, and the New Mystics (Shippensburg: Destiny Image, 2006), 187–189.

3. Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the World English Bible (WEB).

4. Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Kundalini Tantra (Bihar: Bihar School of Yoga, 1984), 13–17.

5. Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (Kingston: McPherson, 2004), 56–60.

6. Alan Gauld, A History of Hypnotism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 74–75.

7. 2 Corinthians 11:14 (WEB).

8. John Wesley, The Journal of John Wesley, ed. Percy Livingstone Parker (London: Epworth Press, 1938), 121–122.

9. Wesley, Journal, 140–141.

10. Paul K. Conkin, Cane Ridge: America’s Pentecost (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 82–85.

11. Richard Bushman, The Great Awakening: Documents on the Revival of Religion, 1740–1745 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 217–220.

12. Mark 9:17–18 (WEB).

13. Luke 4:33–35 (WEB).

14. Acts 2:4–11 (WEB).

15. 1 Corinthians 13:1; 14:2, 4–5 (WEB).

16. “The Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall,” Architectural Digest, July 2017, 42–44.

17. Mark 3:25 (WEB).