Serpent and Babble: Inner Discernment

Neville's Inner Vision

Think of the serpent as your old, automatic thoughts—subtle fears and judgments—that bite not because someone cast a spell, but because you have rehearsed them in consciousness. The verse says it will bite without enchantment, meaning the danger comes from an unexamined mind that believes its own story. The babbler is the ceaseless inner commentary and outward chatter that keeps you from hearing your own I AM. In Neville's world, both are states of consciousness, not external forces. When you identify with the I AM—the permanent awareness behind thoughts—the serpent's bite loses its charge; you witness the thought, revise it, and let it dissolve. The babbler loses gravity when you refuse to grant its stories the authority of reality; you replace them with the feeling of the fulfilled desire and the quiet certainty of being. Practice: assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, then revise any creeping thought with a concise, truthful alternative that corresponds to your I AM. Let your speech spring from inner clarity rather than from the fretful mind, and notice how your world responds in kind.