The first time a Western minded person reads the book of The Revelation they are confused by the truly weird imagery it presents. The seven headed serpent beast being one of the very strangest of them all. Western paganism has long since been removed from the minds of Western peoples. Only those ideas and images that could be Christianized remain. Yet, the average teacher of prophecy makes no mention that this is pagan imagery.
Paganism is and was full of seven headed serpents. They all have slightly different meaning in different parts of the world. They usually are connected with creation, knowledge, and life and death.
They are so frequent as to make one wonder what is going on? One can be sure however that the people of the seven churches in Asia Minor were not so unaware. As they were surrounded by pagan imagery on a day to day basis. They lived among pagans. Many of them came out of paganism, and, Pergamum was the center of the Mystery Religions.