Serpent seed

===Unification Church===
[[File:Rev. Sun Myung Moon speaks, Las Vegas, NV, USA on April 4, 2010.png|thumb|Sun Myung Moon]]
The [[Unification Church]] has taught a version of the serpent seed doctrine since at least 1961. [[Sun Myung Moon]] taught that the [[Fall of Man]] occurred when [[Eve]] was sexually seduced by [[Satan]], and since then, the human [[bloodline]] has been contaminated. Moon believed that both Cain and Abel were physically descended from Adam and Eve, but taught that "Cain is in the position of Satan's son".<ref>Hwan Kwak, p.256</ref> Moon referred to secular society and religious people outside of the Unification Church as "Cain people".<ref>Hwan Kwak, p. 254–256</ref> Members of the Unification Church believe that through their [[Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church|Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony]], married couples are removed from the lineage of Adam and Eve and grafted into God's sinless lineage as the adopted children of their new Adam: Sun Myung Moon. The first of these ceremonies occurred in 1961.<ref name="Unification Church"/><ref name = "moon">Hwan Kwak, p.252</ref>

{{blockquote
|text=Adam and Eve fell by the sin of illicit love, a transgression that violated God's ideal of true love. Prior to the fall, when they were constrained by the commandment [not to eat the fruit], Adam and Eve were in an imperfect state, that is, in their growing period. The archangel Lucifer, symbolized by the serpent, tempted Eve, and she spiritually fell with him. She then tempted Adam to eat the fruit before the time was ripe, and they fell physically. ... By this principle, God divided fallen Adam and Eve into two through their two children. Cain represented Satan, and Abel represented sinless Adam. Hence God placed Abel, the second son, in the internal position. Abel represented the second love between Adam and Eve, which contained fewer evil elements, while Cain was the fruit of the first love. God took Abel because Adam and Eve's relationship was more principled than the first relationship between Eve and the archangel. ... The religious people whom God has blessed take the role of Abel, while the secular people who do not know God and may have grudges against religion are in the role of Cain. 
|source=World Scripture II, pp. 248, 256, 1139
|author=Sun Myung Moon
}}

In ''World Scripture'' the Unification Church uses excerpts from  the ''[[Koran]]'', the ''[[Midrash Rabbah]]'', the ''[[Bahir]]'', the ''[[Stromata]]'' and [[Sigmund Freud]] to support their interpretation.<ref>Hwan Kwak, p. 247–248</ref> Moon attended many different Christian churches during the 1930s and 1940s in both Korea and Japan, and was exposed to British missionaries and Pentecostals.<ref>{{cite book|author=Breen, Michael|title=Sun Myung Moon: The Early Years 1920-53|location=Hurstpierpoint West Sussex, U.K.|publisher=Refuge Books|year=1997|isbn=978-0953163700}}</ref> He may have been exposed to seedline teachings during this period.

[[P'ikareum]] is a related ritual which is performed by members of several Korean [[new religious movements]], in which a female devotee has sex with the male leader ([[Messiah claimant|who claims to be the messiah]]) in order to purify her descendants from inherited sin.<ref name="Chryssides"/><ref name="Barlow"/> The purpose of this ritual is to undo the original sin, which (as in the classic serpent seed doctrine) was believed to have been committed when Eve had sex with the serpent.<ref name="Chryssides"/> British religious scholar [[George Chryssides]] also noted that there were cases in which the messianic leader was a female and the neophyte was a male.<ref name="Chryssides"/> The person who is so initiated will then have intercourse with his or her spouse, and the purity which is acquired from the messianic leader will be transmitted to both the spouse and the spouse's progeny.<ref name="Chryssides"/> The most notable Korean new religious movement to have faced allegations of performing p'ikareum is the early Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon;<ref name="Barlow">{{cite book |author-last=Barlow |author-first=Richard |chapter=The Unification movement: Key Issues in Historical Perspective |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rS2TDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA127 |editor-last=Gallagher |editor-first=Eugene V. |editor-link=Eugene V. Gallagher |year=2017 |title='Cult Wars' in Historical Perspective: New and Minority Religions |location=London |publisher=[[Routledge]] |pages=127–129 |isbn=978-1-4724-5812-4}}</ref> however, Chryssides notes that, aside from the use of language which involves the purifying of sinful bloodlines, there is no actual evidence that this ritual occurs within the Unification movement.<ref name="Chryssides">{{cite book |last=Chryssides |first=George |author-link=George Chryssides |title=The Advent of Sun Myung Moon: The Origins, Beliefs and Practices of the Unification Church |year=1991 |publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] |location=New York City |isbn=978-0312053475 |pages=102–105 |url=https://archive.org/details/adventofsunmyung0000chry/page/91}}</ref>