Adam, Eve and the Rise of Self Consciousness (Whole - Part 1)
The significance of the Adam and Eve story
When observed from a psychological angle the Adam and Eve myth encompasses perhaps the most significant event in human history, the rise of self-consciousness. In the story both Adam and Eve are told to not eat from the tree of knowledge for they "shall surely die". However, when they do eventually eat from it they don't die, nonetheless something extremely substantial still ends up happening. Instead of expiring all of a sudden after consuming the fruit they instead become aware of their vulnerability and ultimately of their mortality. The consequence of their actions is the fall, the fall bequeaths them with the burden of knowledge of their finite existence and a moral scale of good and evil. These are the two main characteristics that form our consciousness; a consciousness that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
“Nature has protected the lower animal by endowing them with instincts. An instinct is a programmed perception that calls into play a programmed reaction. It is very simple; animals are not moved by what they cannot react to. They live in a tiny world a sliver of reality. One neurochemical program that keeps them walking behind their nose and shuts out everything else. But look at man the impossible creature. Here nature seems to have thrown caution to the winds along with the programmed instincts. She created an animal who has no defense against the full perception of the world.” 1)
Like Adam when you’re originally thrust into creation you exist in the Eden like state. You have no awareness of death & no concept of time. You live as the rest of the animals in the natural world, simply reacting to what's in front of you and taking in sensory information. This is the state as adults we yearn to re-capture, the blissful frame of mind often referred to “as living in the moment.”
The poet Thomas Treharne so beautifully captures this Eden like state of childhood in his poem 'Centuries of Meditations':
"The corn was orient an immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things....Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the light of the day, and something infinite behind everything appeared which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The city seemed to stand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven."2)
Without self-consciousness, without the knowledge of death the child exists in a blissful ignorant state gazing in awe at the eternal beauty that is creation. It's not that the child is destined to live forever and be immortal but he may as well be while encapsulated in his shell of joyous ignorance. This jovial state of mind that is childhood is the same state of mind or type of consciousness Adam and Eve lived in before their ejection from paradise.
They like the human child were not destined to live forever and would have eventually succumb to their mortality. This is evidenced by the presence of the tree of life within the garden. A tree they never ate from but would have granted them life eternal. This requirement (consuming fruit from the tree of life) to gain immortality implies that God intended for his creation to have a finite amount of time to its existence.
The return to this blissful state of mind, the return to Eden is the ultimate purpose and journey of faith. The promise of eternal life; the transcendence of death is the gold rewarded to the victor of this holy quest. The weight of the knowledge of death as well as the transfer of existence from this physical world to another has been a problem that has perplexed humanity since the dawn of our species.
Archeological sites in Sungir, Russia dating all the way back to the Upper Paleolithic (approx. 32,000 years ago) provide empirical evidence for this, through the practice of elaborate burial rituals. Below is a description of one such prehistoric burial:
"Two of the burials are of adolescents laid in shallow graves dug into the permafrost; the corpses were placed on their backs with their hands folded across their pelvis. One of these bodies, said to be that of a boy, was covered with strands of beads. 4,903 in all; he also had a beaded cap with some fox teeth attached. Around his waist was the remains of a decorated belt with more than 250 canine teeth of the polar fox; a simple calculation shows the minimum number of foxes (63) - animals that must be individually trapped or hunted - required to supply so many teeth. In addition, the boy was buried with a carved ivory pendant in the form of an animal, an ivory statuette of a mammoth, an ivory Lance made from straightened mammoth tusk, a carved ivory disc with central perforation and other items. The lance was probably too heavy to serve a practical purpose. The adjacent burial, said to be that of a girl, was accompanied by no fewer than 5,274 beads. If White is correct in estimating in that it took more than 45 minutes to fashion a single bead the beads in this female burial took more than 3,500 hours to make." 3)
These types of burials show the emphasis we placed on death as early as the stone age. Barely out of the grips of our animalistic nature and freshly cast out of Eden we had no choice but to gaze into the abyss that is our mortality. David Lewis the author of "The Mind in The Cave" in which the Sungir burials are described goes on to say:
"I suggest that, in Upper Paleolithic communities, representational art and elaborate burial practices were both associated with different degrees and kinds of access for different categories of people to 'spiritual' realms (that is, realms of mental imagery) and, as such, had a common foundation in a type of consciousness that the Neanderthals lacked."
Lewis is referring to a time which is backed by archeological evidence when humans (homo sapiens) and Neanderthals existed side by side. Most of the sites to support this theory are in what is now France. Lewis tacitly suggests that even other species so closely related to us such as the Neanderthals didn't possess the type of 'consciousness' that we humans do. The consciousness bestowed on Adam and Eve by the tree of knowledge. One of the elements of that consciousness is the acute awareness of death.
This type of consciousness is hypothesized to have given 'cave people' of the Upper Paleolithic the ability to form religion. Anthropological evidence of existing hunter gatherer societies show that they possess their own rituals and spirituality. Coupled with the anthropological evidence is archeological and historical evidence which provides further proof that early humans practiced some form of religion, likely a shamanistic based one. These types of belief systems would have been the pre-cursors to the literary based organized religions that we know now. Therefore, it would be safe to assume that the idea of God was implanted on the primitive mind onward.
Shamanistic traditions often involve altered states of consciousness, achieved through sleep deprivation, fasting, physical exhaustion, etc. Sometimes however these states were achieved through the use of hallucinogenic plants. North American indigenous tribes like the theorized religious leaders of the Upper Paleolithic practiced a shamanistic based spirituality, including rituals involving altered states of consciousness. Again sometimes plants with vision inducing effects were utilized. One of these substances used by some tribes to achieve an altered state was peyote.
Aldous Huxley, one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century had his own personal experience with peyote. More precisely with mescaline which is the psychoactive ingredient within peyote. Huxley recorded his experience in his book "The Doors of Perception".
"I took my pill at eleven. An hour and a half later, I was sitting in my study, looking intently at a small glass vase. The vase contained only three flowers—a full blown Belle of Portugal rose, shell pink with a hint at every petal’s base of a hotter, flamier hue; a large magenta and cream-colored carnation; and, pale purple at the end of its broken stalk, the bold heraldic blossom of an iris. Fortuitous and provisional, the little nosegay broke all the rules of traditional good taste. At breakfast that morning I had been struck by the lively dissonance of its colors. But that was no longer the point. I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation—the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence." 4)
After the mescaline takes affect Huxley is stunned by the beauty of the three simple flowers sitting on his desk. He is transported back to Eden, back to seeing "What Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle."
Huxley's description of his blissful frame of mind runs parallel to the description of childhood conveyed in Treharne’s poem. A state of shock and awe at the miracle that is creation. This is the frame of existence experienced by Adam and Eve in Eden which replicates the state of mind occupied during childhood. As evidenced by the shamans practice of altered states of consciousness it is also a state sought after by the pagan faiths. These shaman based pagan faiths pre-dated literary based religion however their practices, myths and traditions provided the foundation for the literature in which modern religions are based. Secondly as examples like the Sungir burials show humans placed a large emphasis on death as early as the stone age. Thus the two pillars in which the Adam and Eve myth rest have been established since the beginning of human history. Those two pillars being existing at some point in a pseudo paradise and being ejected from that paradise by something substantial which is the rise of self-consciousness and the realization of one’s mortality. After the fall the ultimate goal of faith is to transcend death and return to paradise. In the words of Robert Greene author of "The Laws of Human Nature":
"In the end, what we want is to fuse the curiosity and excitement we had toward the world as children, when almost everything seemed enchanting, with our adult intelligence." 5)
As well as being a simple creature entrenched in this jovial state of mind the infant also has instilled in them a sense of omnipotence. Every need and want is taken care of with a cry or simple look of discomfort. A grimace summons a colorful rattle that amuses him, a cry makes food appear, a grunt frees him of the grips of his wet diaper. He is all powerful, however as time goes on the awareness that his mother must divide her attention between him and other duties becomes apparent. As the years further progress he begins to become aware of his frailty and the illusion of his omnipotence begins to fade since his needs now: one become more complex and two anything he desires can no longer be summoned with a simple grunt or cry. This phenomenon is why some psychologists believe children will imagine themselves as having super or magical powers. Their attempting to supplement for the loss of their omnipotence and cover up the unconscious realization of their frailty.
As time goes on it eventually hits the child that this ominous thing called death exists. It may be through the death of a family member, a pet, a conversation, media, etc. Whatever the exposure inevitably the child becomes aware of this thing that takes people and animals away forever never to be seen again. Than eventually the truly horrid epiphany comes that death takes everyone away, including him. This is when the fruit has been consumed and the knowledge fully implanted in the brain. This is when the child falls from the paradise of Eden into the harsh reality of the world. After one
realizes the inevitably of death they can no longer inhabit paradise.
“Adam and Eve expelled from Eden by an angel” Etching by H.W Wellcome
Upon the ejection from Eden a new equation for life is introduced. Becker gives a description of this equation in "The Denial of Death" using a quote from the prominent theologian Kierkegaard.
"For the self is a synthesis, in which the finite is the limiting factor and the infinite is the expanding factor."-Kierkegaard
Essentially Kierkegaard recognizes the duality innate in humanity, that man is both God and animal, Becker describes it as the symbolic and physical self. In more laymen terms the "infinite" is the spirit or soul and the “finite” is the flesh and blood body you inhabit. Therefore, a balance between the two becomes the product of the synthesis equation. In summary the human equals the infinite minus the finite or the spirit minus physical reality. To better illustrate this sliding scale Becker continues with his explanation by describing the extremes of the human equation.
The infinite extreme manifests itself in the form of schizophrenia. A complete detachment of the infinite or symbolic self from the physical realities of the body and objective world. On the other extreme a depressive psychosis exists, it's prognosis is too much dwelling in the finite, too much of a realization of one's vulnerability, too much fear and trembling, too acutely aware of the horrors, destruction and capacity for evil interweaved into existence. The fear of being destroyed by the ruthless reality of the world causes the person to shutter within themselves, sometimes even physically sheltering themselves within their home as is the case of agoraphobia, another manifestation of this extreme. Therefore, the ideal synthesis of the human animal is the appropriate amount of the infinite mitigated by the proper amount of the finite. Plato had a similar idea in his description of “the ideal citizen”:
"He who is only an athlete is too crude, too vulgar, too much of a savage.
He who is a scholar only is too soft, too effeminate.
The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, the man of thought and the man of action." - Plato
Although Plato uses gender characteristics as his sliding scale the underlying motif is the same. The mental or expanding self is represented by the scholarly but must be grounded in the physical realities of the body represented by the athlete. Plato like Becker and Kierkegaard are arguing the ideal human exists as a balance between the mental and physical, the scholarly and the athletic, the God and the ape. The fruit of the tree of knowledge introduces the finite variable into the human equation. As mentioned we weren't purely God's or immortal before consuming it but without the conscious awareness of our mortality we existed as such. We can thank the serpent for our introduction to death and the addition of finitude to the human equation.
"And the serpent said onto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened and you be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3: 4&5
The serpents words to Eve are very cunning. He doesn't overtly lie since Adam nor Eve drop dead after consuming the fruit. He also intertwines an enticing promise to Eve telling her that "your eyes will be opened and you will be like God." In Jordan Peterson’s lecture on Adam and Eve he eludes to the fact of the snake opening our eyes as very fitting. Citing from the book "Why we see so well?" By Lynne A. Isbell he uses a passage that mentions this central theme in multiple forms of mythology.
"From the temptation of Eve to the venomous murder of the mighty Thor, the serpent appears throughout time and cultures as a figure of mischief and misery. The worldwide prominence of snakes in religion, myth and folklore underscores our deep connection to the serpent - but why, when so few of us have firsthand experience? The surprising answer, this book suggests, lies in the singular impact of snakes on primate evolution. Predation pressure from snakes, Lynne Isbell tells us, is ultimately responsible for superior vision and the large brains of primates - and for a critical aspect of human evolution."6)
Snake predation was such a crucial component of primate evolution that it is in-ground in our neurological structure. A specific set of neurons known as pulvinar neurons which are correlated with our visual capabilities responds most significantly and rapidly to snakes or images of snakes than any other images or stimuli. Furthermore, in communities that still live "primitive" lifestyles where snakes are present nearly 5% of their populations have experienced an attack. What all this means is that the snake was a significant catalyst towards the development of our neurological structure. The neurological structure required to experience the self-consciousness we now have; the view of the world we now see "as God's with our eyes open."
Adam et Eve – Fresque de Raphael – Stanza della Signatura
Prior to eating the fruit, we existed in that blissful childhood ignorance previously mentioned; in a sense we were blind. Now with our eyes open the realization of our vulnerability comes into play. The blissful ignorance to this vulnerability is what had us frolicking in the garden of paradise before. Again citing from Jordan Peterson’s lecture he encapsulates this oblivious frame of mind by using the analogy of zebras in a herd.
"So you’re a zebra in a herd of zebras, and there’s a bunch of lions around there laying on the grass. You don't care. Those are laying-down lions. Laying-down lions are no problem. It’s standing-up, hunting lions that are the problem. You're not smart enough to figure out that laying-down lions turn into standing-up, hunting lions, so you’re not, like, building a fort to keep the lions out. You’re just mindlessly eating grass. You’re not very awake, but that's not what happens to human beings. Human beings wake up, and they think, we’re vulnerable—permanently. It’s never going away. It’s the recognition of that eternal vulnerability."6)
Prior to the eating of the fruit our frame of consciousness was no different than the zebras mindlessly eating grass among the laying down lions. After eating it we've become aware of our eternal vulnerability and the first thing we do is attempt to cover ourselves up as a form of defense against the prying eyes and dangers of the world. This recognition; that of our eternal vulnerability is re-enforced by the fact that Adam and Eve hide themselves from God in the garden after eating of the tree of knowledge.
"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden." Genesis 3:8
Earlier I referred to Ernest Becker’s analysis of lower animal behavior and how they are essentially “pre-programmed” by instincts. Becker makes a second interesting point in his book stating that not only do instincts determine the animal’s behavior but also set its limits. In comparison the human is not awarded such a luxury and because we have the ability to contemplate infinity while also being aware of our mortality this forces us to install our own limits.
“We fear our highest possibility as well as our lowest ones. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments. We enjoy and even thrill to the God like possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments and yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe and fear before these very same possibilities. Maslow used an apt term for this evasion of growth, this fear of realizing one’s own fullest powers, he called it the Jonah syndrome. He understood the syndrome as the evasion of the full intensity of life, we are just not strong enough to endure more it’s just too shaking and wearing. So often people in ecstatic moments say “It’s too much” or “I can’t stand it” or “I could die” delirious happiness cannot be borne for long our organisms are just too weak for any large doses of greatness. The Jonah syndrome then seen from this basic point of view is partly a justified fear of being torn apart, of losing control, of being shattered and disintegrated even of being killed by the experience. The result of this syndrome is what we would expect a weak organism to do, to cut back the full intensity of life.”1)
God represents this “full intensity of life” this “delirious happiness” this “large dose of greatness” that us the weak organism cannot stand for long periods of time, that us the weak organism “shiver with weakness” before. Aware of their vulnerability Adam and Eve can no longer stand before the awesomeness of God without fear and trembling this is evidenced by the cited verses where they hide among the trees from him. This theme is played out several more times in the bible. Moses is first approached by God in the form of a burning bush because God knows he will likely perish at that point in his presence. Gideon one of the judges raised by up by God has a similar experience when the Lord approaches him as a traveler. In the book of Leviticus two of Aarons sons are consumed by holy fire when they approach the alter of God without first properly preparing themselves.
“Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Moses then said to Aaron, "This is what the LORD spoke of when he said: "`Among those who approach me I will show myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.'" Aaron remained silent.” – Leviticus 10:1-3
This concept of being too weak to endure the “full intensity of life” represented by God can be extrapolated further however that maybe a subject for another writing. All that is needed to know now is that after we became self-conscious this dynamic of us not being able to walk directly with God is introduced because of our new awareness of our own frailty. This is why the bible places so much emphasis on humbling oneself before God, it’s an acknowledgement of this vulnerability and an acceptance of it. If we approach with humility, we are able to endure the full intensity of life because we are no longer actively trying to shut it out to defend ourselves against it.
Obviously our bodies place a hard limit on us but we often build up mental or psychological barriers well within these physical ones to keep us safe and comfortable and shield ourselves from “the full intensity of life”. This is why people find so much satisfaction in "pushing their limits", there's a transcendent quality to it. These limits are usually installed to keep us comfortable not because they are actually as far as we can go physically or mentally, it’s a pseudo-psychological prison, the tragedy of wasted potential. Becker points out these psychological limits are imposed on us by us and have origins in our parents, society, figures of authority, culture as a whole or a mixture of the entities listed. When we push past them, a little more of our God like potential is realized which brings us personal satisfaction. We make order out of the bit of unexplored chaos that existed beyond our previous limit. This outward expansion of ourselves is the true meaning of life. When we were unconscious we were unaware of our potential; after eating of the fruit “we see as God’s with our eyes open” but paradoxically we fear what we see.
As mentioned this frailty or the finite variable of the human equation isn't introduced until the consumption of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. The serpent tempts us into our new vision, this new vision now makes us aware of our “eternal vulnerability”. As mentioned the metaphor of the snake giving us vision is fitting due to the evolutionary stress of snake predation. The stress caused by snake predation led to our acquirement of astounding vision. Our remarkable vision requires a large amount of brain capacity. This neurological requirement was then a catalyst to the development of our large brain structure. The structure required to experience the self-consciousness we have now.
This self-consciousness separates us from all other animals who are “driven by neuro-logical programs that keep them walking behind their nose”. This frame of mind however comes at the price which is the awareness of our own mortality or “eternal vulnerability” this recognition requires us to place our own psychological barriers on ourselves in order to soothe the anxiety induced by that realization or in other words “to cut back the full intensity of life.” How much is cut back is determined by the significance placed by the individual on “the finite variable” of the human equation.
On top of the anatomical structure of our brains which provides the necessary hardware to feel self-consciousness our brains also allow us to experience altered states of consciousness and retain the images and information encountered there. This action of entering these altered states, receiving visions, information, images and experiences and bringing that knowledge back is theorized to be the main ritual of our first religions. David Lewis's book "The Mind in the Cave" is essentially an argument using archeological, anthropological and ethnographic evidence to claim that the images found in the caves of the first modern humans were part of their religious practices. Creating the images was a way of bringing back the experience and information received in the alternate realms to ours.
The actual mechanics of creating the images sometimes had ritualistic qualities to it as well. As in the case of negative handprints which sometimes accompanied the images of the animals, therianthropes and other content of Paleolithic art. A negative handprint was made by placing the hand against a rock face and blowing paint over it so when the hand was removed the image of it was left on the wall. A researcher of upper Paleolithic art attempted to recreate one of the more famous pieces that included negative handprints. During his recreation he felt first-hand the intimacy with the work as a product of "spit painting".
"The method of spit painting seems to have had in itself exceptional symbolic significance to early people. Human breath, the most profound expression of a human being, literally breathes life onto the cave wall. The painter projected his being onto the rock, transforming himself into the horses. There could be no closer or more direct communication between a work and its creator."7)
This reads like a microcosm of:
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." - Genesis 2:7
The Horses of Peche Merche (The original of the work the upper Paleolithic Researcher Lorblanchet attempted to recreate, the negative handprints can be seen above the horses)
Early humans were tapping into their God like abilities creating works and breathing the breath of life into them. Outside of this and among the various religious rituals believed to be practiced by the Upper Paleolithic human was the touching of the parietal art in order to absorb its healing power. Some cave art has evidence of smoothing of the rock face as the result of multiple people touching it. As mentioned painted handprints are sometimes found accompanying the art as well. This type of behavior, the touching of the art in order to transfer its power from it to the viewer is observed in the spiritual behavior of the San bushmen in Africa who practiced a shamanistic based religion believed to be similar in kind to the ones of the Upper Paleolithic.
These images and subsequently the creation of this art which is believed to be associated with the first religions start occurring around the same time as ritualistic burials of our dead. It seems as though the conscious realization of death played a significant role in the formation of human’s early religions.
After the breath of life takes place, man; God’s creation is thrust into the garden with two trees that would essentially "complete" his transition from human to God and rid him of the finite limits bestowed on him. One tree being the tree of knowledge which upon consumption gives the rise of self-consciousness and the moral scale of good and evil or in the words of the bible the ability to “see as God’s”. The other tree being the tree of life which the consumption of its fruit would grant life eternally.
Therefore when the human was ejected from Eden they were essentially an incomplete God created in is his image but now only possessing some of his attributes. We know enough to be aware of what Becker notes as our “God like possibilities” the major missing piece now is life eternal. This is the promise made to believers and in fact is the cornerstone of most faith. The gaining of immortal life is a goal not unique to Christianity. On the contrary the transcendence of death was baked into several previous religions.
Centuries before the Roman empire and the rise of Christianity the Greeks had their own form of institutionalized religion, the epitome of which was performed at the temple of Eleusis. The mysteries of the Eleusinian rituals could fill several books and in fact have.8),9) Regardless the principal ritual practiced at Eleusis was associated with overcoming the fear of one's own death. Initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries which included influential philosophers like Plato would emerge from the sacrament no longer fearing death thus de facto gaining eternal life.
Centuries later in the Christian monasteries of Mount Athos the inscription "If you die before you die then you won't die when you die" can be found. An inscription implying a similar salvation as the Eleusinian initiates achieved. This desire to return to Eden, to eat from the tree of life has been a quest everlasting by humanity as a whole. However, after the fall the journey back is excruciatingly arduous. This too is played out in the Adam and Eve story.
"So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every which way, to guard the way to the tree of life."
Genesis 3:24
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Artist Unknown
*END OF PART 1 CONTINUED IN PART 2*