Adam, Eve and the Rise of Self Consciousness (Whole - Part 2)
The significance of the Adam and Eve story
As stated earlier, man was never intended to be immortal, evidenced by the requirement to eat from the tree of life to obtain it. However, without possessing the acute awareness of death as was the case for Adam and Eve before eating from the tree of knowledge they may as well have been. This is because psychologically there's no difference between having no articulate knowledge of death and actually being immortal. Also as stated the Eden like state of mind, of blissful ignorance is the same state of mind as early childhood or very similar.
Once Adam and Eve were ejected from paradise there would be no return, at least not without extreme effort. The way now guarded by cherubim and flaming swords. The same is true for the child. That sense of immortality once experienced feels as though it is no longer obtainable. The addition of finitude to the human equation now puts the person in an entirely different world. The way back to paradise and that sense of immortality, that ignorant bliss, that tree of life seems forever lost now blocked by the conscious awareness of death.
After this psychological fall just like in the Adam and Eve story the behavior of the human animal changes radically.
"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken for dust you are and dust you will return." - Genesis 3: 17 – 19
After the rise of self-consciousness and the addition of the variable of finitude into our existence we are no longer the blind zebras grazing in the pasture. Instead we now realize that the “laying down lions become standing up hunting lions”. With that knowledge we begin to assemble our fort, that fort is society and culture. Mankind has been ejected from Eden as an incomplete God. The quest of mortal existence now becomes to bypass the cherubim and flaming sword in order to gain access to the tree of life.
Archangel Michael by Darko Topalski
This quest or "immortality project" as Becker affectionately refers to it is undertaken via the medium of society and culture. As evidenced in the art and burial rituals of Upper Paleolithic humans once we obtained the frame of consciousness that separated us from even our closest biological relatives we began construction on these projects. The cultural project erected by early humans contained metaphysical realms as well as an emphasis on death.
Pre-historic peoples are believed to have practiced a shamanistic style cultural project which emphasized altered states of consciousness. These alternate states were interpreted as alternate realms. These realms were inhabited by spirits. These spirit realms provided a plausible destination after death. Other than providing a post mortem destination the inhabitants of these worlds communicated with the shamans instilling them with wisdom and guidance. The altered states of consciousness sought after by shamans were the main rituals that allowed them communication with the spiritual realms.
Communication and travel to spiritual realms remained a constant throughout human civilization via the obtaining of altered states of consciousness, emphasis of death also remained a constant. Starting with a psychotropic beverage known as "graveyard beer". Found in places like "the world's oldest temple" Gobekli Tepe. The existence graveyard beer shows the emphasis we placed on death as well as a desire to reconnect with our deceased relatives, a futile desire if not for the belief in spiritual realms. Graveyard beer is found throughout the Middle & East Europe from Gobekli Tepe onwards. As time progressed the sacramental drink evolved, eventually taking the form of the Roman refrigerium. The refrigerium was a funerary wine also believed to have psychotropic effects aiding in obtaining the altered states of consciousness that the upper Paleolithic humans associated with spiritual realms. The refrigerium was:
"The commemorative rite that was intended to refresh the soul of the deceased and ensure its peaceful existence in the world of the dead."7
Rome, like Greece, like Egypt, like Mesopotamia represented the epitome of civilization for their time, the epitome of the cultural project initiated by the early humans of the Upper Paleolithic. These systems aided humans in understanding their new found consciousness and helped them make sense of the impossible predicament they now found themselves in after the fall. A frail mortal creature with the ability "to see as God's". Each one of these civilizations up to and including Rome were enveloped in a communal belief system. After 313 A.D when Rome sanctioned Christianity it became the central belief system or “cultural project” from then onwards at least for the West and Eastern Europe.
Having a communal immortality or cultural project like the shamanistic religions of the stone age up to the Christian revolution during the Roman empire saved each individual from having to create their own. The key pillar of these systems is the existence of alternate realms inhabited by spirits which allows for the transcendence of death.
The structure is built on a representative such as shaman or priest and or representative’s like an ecclesiastical clergy acting as an intermediary between the individual and God. They dedicate themselves to and pursue knowledge of God then interpret it and bring back that knowledge to the community as a whole. In a socially constructed system an individual is able to access the knowledge of those realms vicariously through the shaman, priest or any other appointed pious representative. The social aspect of the cultural project allows for everyone’s participation without every individual needing to have the discipline or dedication of the shaman or priest. Instead an individual or small group of people within the larger group are appointed as representatives of the spirit realms and act as a conduit between it and the community.
The cultural project of religion satisfies what Becker has dubbed "man's twin ontological needs". These needs being to fuse oneself with something bigger attaching them self to something powerful and awesome that transcends their individual frailty. The second need is that of individuation the opposite desire to retain uniqueness and to be viewed as special or separate in some way. In a social religious system one doesn't have to be the priest or rabbi or pious representative to satisfy their "twin ontological needs". Even a simple laborer can find purpose in the social cultural project by contributing their unique skills to it. Everyone has a part to play in "God's plan".
Now, these projects can also be secular in nature and don't necessarily have to be tied to religious systems. Things like the communist utopia or its capitalistic equivalent "The American Dream" can also be counted as "cultural projects". The problem however with these types of systems is that even though they satisfy the twin ontological needs of needing to be part of something bigger and being able to contribute one's own unique abilities to it they don't acknowledge or allow for the transcendence of death and also are ground in materialistic foundations and limits. Something like communism is based off of social class and status within the party structure whereas the capitalistic system is based from the accruement of wealth and material resources. The holy instead allows for the infinitude variable of the human equation.
In summary the human equation as mentioned earlier is the infinite minus the finite with the resultant human as the synthesis of those two variables. An equation that represents the duality of humanity; the God-Apes that we are after being ejected from Eden. The infinite variable is experienced in childhood un-impeded but after childhood it is attempted to be re-captured via the social cultural project. The finite variable is introduced after the fall and is maximized in the conscious realization of death. After the fall the rest of mortal life is spent questing back to Eden in pursuit of the tree of life to re-capture the sense of immortality felt during childhood. The social cultural project provides a roadmap and is used in an attempt to bypass the cherubim and flaming sword in an effort to transcend death.
In the beginning of this article, I quoted Traherne’s poem “Centuries of Meditations” because it so beautifully captured the essence of jovial childhood. Traherne does an equally good job depicting the mindset thrust upon a person after the fall. He begins by describing his awe of creation being slowly chipped away by the thoughts of the people around him, likening their influence to that of apples rotting each other. At the end of the verse he comes to the realization that after the fall he began to prize material objects and the creations of man and that “the heavens, the sun and stars disappeared”. This summarizes the idea of the “social cultural project” in a few lines. After the fall we blind ourselves to the infinite possibilities represented by the sun and the heavens it becomes “too much” we can no longer handle “the full intensity of life”. Consequently, we install our psychological barriers to protect us from it since as mentioned we cannot rely on instinct alone for this. No longer able to “walk with God” in the garden of Eden we must now find a new way to re-gain access to the garden and eat from the tree of life.
“Thoughts are the most present things to thoughts and of the most powerful influence. My soul was only apt and disposed to great things, but souls to souls are like apples to apples. One being rotten rots another, when I began to speak and go, nothing began to be present to me but what was present to me in their thoughts. Nor was anything present to me any other way than it was so to them. All things were absent which they talked not of. So I began among my playfellows to prize a drum, a fine coat, a penny, a gilded book, etc. As for the heavens the sun and stars they disappeared and were no more onto me than the bare walls. So that the strange riches of man quite overcame the riches of nature, being earned more laboriously and in the second place.”2)
Footnotes:
1) Ernest Becker, “The Denial of Death”, FreePress, 1973
2) Thomas Treharne, “Centuries of Meditations”
3) David Lewis Williams, “The Mind in the Cave”, Thomas & Hudson LTD, 2002
4) Aldous Huxley, “Doors of Perception”, Harper Collins, 1954
5) Robert Greene, “The Laws of Human Nature”, Penguin Books, 2018
6) Jordan Peterson, “Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self Consciousness, Evil and Death Transcript”, Jordan Peterson, June 19, 2017, https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/transcripts/biblical-series-iv/
7) Lorblanchet (1991,30); see also Smith (1992) on the importance of breath
8) Brian Muraresku, “The Immortality Key”, St. Martin’s Press, 2020
9) R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hoffman, Carl A.P Rucke, “The Road to Eleusis”, North Atlantic Books, 1978
Sorry for the extremely delayed response but to answer your question the King James version
What is your religion?