"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

Those who take Mark 16:17-18 literally call themselves Signs Followers. Their churches are located mainly in Southern Appalachia, including Kentucky, West Virginia, and Southern Ohio, but people live this faith in nearly every state. Although few Appalachian Churches practice snake handling, it is something that fascinates the public, so we have added three more "snake handling" books to our inventory.

Here’s an episode that occurred at the Carson Springs Church of Jesus Christ in Cedartown, Georgia.

Charles Prince brought with him a large Eastern diamondback rattlesnake. It was more than six feet long and weighed nearly a hundred pounds. Its flat, triangular head was bigger than a grown man’s fist. It was clearly a mean snake. Charles, sounding pleased, said, "It comes out of the box biting at the wind."

To hoist the deadly rattler into the air, he had to lean at an angle in order to keep the snake from dragging on the floor. Not satisfied with just handling the diamondback, he draped the huge snake around his neck and hopped on one foot across the church floor, holding up the first finger of his right hand. Then he reached into a snake box and took out a canebrake rattler. Prince danced and swung the canebrake through the air like a skip rope.

At that service, he also drank a jar filled with strychnine, handled fire, and "laid his hands" on some of the ailing members in the congregation.

Several years later, Charles Prince was bitten at the Apostolic Church of God, near Greeneville. Tennessee. He had reached into his snake box and grabbed up armloads of deadly snakes and held them in loving embrace close to his chest. That night several bit him on his arms and shoulders. Undaunted, Prince grabbed a mason jar of strychnine poison from his pulpit and drank it down, shouting to his congregation "He’s a good God. He don’t put out the flames. He just takes away the pain."

Two days later, as he died, blood spouted from his pores as the venom destroyed him. A coroner later said that it looked like a bomb had been detonated inside his body.

Mainstream America has often characterized the Signs Followers as uneducated charlatans, but current scholarship shows them to be a group of people with deep faith and unshakable convictions.

"We are not trying to prove our faith when we take up serpents," said a man in East Tennessee. "It is not for a blessing, but it is to confirm the word of God."

"This religion is not David Copperfield," said a woman from Jolo, West Virginia. "It’s not smoke and mirrors and magic. Who would be stupid enough to lay their lives on the line for a show?"

Books about snake-handling religions, along with thousands of other regional books, are available at the Jesse Stuart Foundation Bookstore, 1645 Winchester Avenue in downtown Ashland. For more information, call (606)326-1667 or visit our website: JSFBOOKS.COM.