From: doug@testsys.isis.org (Doug Thompson)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage
Subject: Re: An interpretation of the "Fall" of man.
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 09:42:37 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: SKAN Communications Inc.

In article <zlsiida.42@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> 
(dave budd) writes: 

> The idea that the Eden serpent maps onto sexual or kundalini energy and that 
> this caused the Fall is interesting, and certain Taoist alchemical ideas are 
> relevant - eg it is possible to become immortal IF you have never 
> ejaculated {what is the female equivalent?}.

Personally I get *really* skeptical when I hear 'doctrines' concerning
a fundamental *inherent* evil associated with sexuality. Such ideas
can be in various religious schools. They are generally associated
with hyper-control-freaks, various anti-life ideas, body loathing and
social control associated with the control of human reproduction.

> However I've always found it more interesting, as a discussuioon point at 
> least, to equate the Fall with the arrival of self-awareness as opposed to a 
> purely animal consciousness - part of the Genesis story deals with their 
> **discovery** that they were naked.

Yes - even a superficial reading of the Eden story reveals that it was
the *knowledge of good and evil* - i.e. moral awareness - that was the
fruit of the tree. Sex for animals is neither good nor evil - it just
is. For humans, all kinds of cultural taboos and rules get attached to
sexuality. Concepts of Good and Evil form when there are rules and
shoulds and taboos. 

Eden, as described in Genesis, lies in what is today Iraq. It is an
area of great fertility and the life of a hunting-gathering society
in that place some 6000 years ago must have been relatively idyllic in
contrast to that of the desert nomads.

Taking the view that myths are historic memory preserved in an oral
culture, the story of Eden refers to a time before the culture was
'driven out' of Eden into the desert. 

The knowledge of good and evil could well pertain to the cultural
ideas and taboos around sexual mores that developed after the
agricultural revolution. 

It wasn't 'having sex' that led to this knowledge, it was rather
institutionalizing rules about sexuality which appear to be necessary
in the more complex post-agriculturala-revolution societies. 

In other words, "The Knowledge of Good and Evil" derives from these
more complex social forms in which control of various aspects of human
behaviour, and especially reproductive behaviour, becomes socially
important.

Good and Evil therefore are invented by human society as it becomes
more complex, more highly organized, and more subject to various
insturments of coercive control. Such instruments are a necessity in
an agricultural society and in a nomadic society but are radically
less developed in hunter-gatherer societies.

So we have two themes here - the idyllic bliss of Eden where people
didn't have to 'work'. This sounds to me like a memory of a
hunting-gathering society preserved in an agricultural or
nomadic-herding society. The second theme is the knowledge of good and
evil, the need for tough enforcement of moral codes controlling
reproductive behaviour - and therefore nakedness. The latter is
associated with the agricultural revolution.

In this story of human origins deriving from the Bronze Age culture of
the Middle East I think we see little more than an astute cultural
memory of the way things were before agriculture, before the desert,
before the more complex social organizations associated with
agricultural, urbanized, 'civilized', organized empires.

If it has anything to do with sex, it has to do with the evil of
submitting sexuality to arbitrary and coercive instruments of social
control. 

Note, social control in the Bronze Age was primarily exercized by
priests and priestesses in the name of religion.

As for the serpent - the mythical importance of this creature extends
far beyond the kundilini ideas.  Just look at at the serpent wrapped
around the sword used to symbolize medicine today.  (The Cancer
Society's symbol, for example) That harkens back to several thousand
years B.C.  The serpent was a healer in some mythologies, notably
those that found themselves in competition with the Hebrew religion
out of which the Eden story derives.  The Hebrews commonly villianized
the symbols of competing religions ideas.  (The Hebrews were not the
only ones to do this!!). So, the villain is described as a serpent!
Obviously. 

So we have these very obvious and very western explanations of a story
that is very western in origin. When a simple and obvious explanation
does the job, why look to complicated and abstruse explanations?

So that's what it looks like to me after considerable investigation of
the matter. Of course, I'll be pleased to see a good challenge to
these suppositions. 

=Doug

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uuisis!skanadm!doug