To be fair, I'm not sure anyone was saying that... Uma agreed with me that it wasn't so.

I think the next question would be, how do you tell a depiction (of a snake, or indeed anything else) that represents kundalini from one that doesn't? And if the answer doesn't include a very careful reading of what the people who made the image actually said about it, then you are asking to be spanked on the behind by the truth when someone happens to point it out! There are indications sometimes of extreme interest that there was genuine kundalini knowledge in this or that culture... I'm researching this at the moment too, because it links with a lot of other interests of mine. At other times it's not mere speculation, we actually know for sure that kundalini is not meant. And then there are times when it's anyone's guess.

What can we know for sure, cross-culturally speaking, vs. what do we merely believe? A book like the one SerpentQueen linked to is full of things that one would have to take on faith, which obviously for the last 2,000 years has been an important way of thinking about spirituality in the West. The same kind of thinking is seen in the deleted images thread of Uma -- there is no evidence adduced that 'it is all kundalini', we are simply asked to take a 'leap of faith' that it is, almost to treat the onslaught of images as some kind of 'revelation' in itself, and suspend the thinking process.

The truth is we need that thinking process. It's worth pointing out (and I address this somewhat in my most recent blog post too) that we humans seem to do our best work when questioning rather than simply accepting everything on faith. All the great spiritual philosophies have had huge amounts of discussion going on. Following actual evidence has proven a way to cut out a lot of speculation. Evidence has played a far great role in spirituality than is usually seen. (See for example this great essay by David Hufford.)

This isn't to say that personal revelation of 'truth' is not valid! It is extremely important. But an incredible amount of revelation has taken place in human history, and continues to do so, which still can't always be completely trusted -- it becomes contradictory or gradually proves false, etc. So any revelation does become theory, and it requires some degree of evidence and thinking to support it. If unchecked by that kind of care, we certainly know that 'theories' become flimsy fantasies, but we know more too -- we know that there is a desperation almost, underlying them, a desperation to know prematurely, to say all is known already, to stop the questioning process.