The experience of religious serpent handling : a phenomenological study

An interesting practice among certain Holiness-Pentecostal sects of Appalachia is the religious taking up of venomous serpents in obedience to a perceived mandate of scripture-Mark 16:17-18. The purpose of the present study was to describe the first person experience of this practice through use of a phenomenological method involving dialogic interviews and hermeneutic interpretation. In the course of this investigation, 17 participants, 5 of them women, were engaged in open-ended dialogue in which they described various personal experiences of handling poisonous serpents. From a hermeneutic analysis of the transcribed texts, a consistent pattern of four major themes emerged to characterize the awareness of meaning attached to the experience by all participants. These interdependent themes and subthemes are as follows:I. "Wanting to Do" (the Word of God)II. "Death"III. Connection with God (on the basis of):A. "Faith"B. "Anointing" ("God Moving on Me")IV. "Fear'/'Victory"These findings were discussed with respect to the previous literature on religious serpent handling in terms of providing a more complete understanding of the practice.