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The Archetypal Psychology of the Adam and Eve Narrative

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posted on May, 20 2018 @ 08:40 PM
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I appreciate anthropological insights into the nature of the bible, as in Carel Van Schaik and Kai Michel "The Good Book of Human Nature: An Evolutionary Reading of the Bible", but hearing their anthropological account of the larger trends that constituted what they called "original sin" (they believe, quite plausibly, that it was private property), I activated into my own understanding of the Book of Genesis, an understanding that I have never seen represented, and which derives from contemporary research into the brain, and theory of neurological and psychodynamic function as a "single continuum of transformation".

I've posted this here before, and some people seem to have the idea that this is the "secret" kabbalistic reading. It may be, but it is something that I have mostly "discovered" by reading over the Hebrew and considering the correlations of the tale with developmental facts.

In my opinion, the ancient Hebrews had a pretty sophisticated metaphysics, which was more or less an archetypal psychology of psychodynamic transformation.

The ending of Genesis 2 is interesting to me: There was no Shame.

In my own study of the emergence of the human being, and more basically, the emergence of the brain, the brain functions as a 'correlator' between internal homeostatic events and external situations that either satisfy internal motivations (SEEKING, PLAY, CARE, for example) or aggravate certain needs - the most powerful of which, the social attachment systems, expects at a very deep genetic level for the other party to recognize the legitimacy of your feeling needs; thus, if recognition is not present, a large (or in some people) a slight indication of "self-decohesion" will happen, which is what psychologists would call 'shame'.

This makes total evolutionary sense, and is also consistent with my special emphasis on 'symmetry' in determining 'what works'.

Shame is entropy. It is not just a feeling, but a profoundly powerful attractor. If one is doing wrong - such as 'owning land', and feeling that one deserves to own land because of the benefit one may have brought to others, it is still nevertheless true that private property, the claim that something in the outside, external earth 'belongs to you', is an evolutionary mismatch with how our species has always behaved - never mind the fact that, in being based in symmetry dynamics, the mind is most robust when it is not feeling threatened, something that happens much more easily with the moral complexities brought into being by private property.

In any case, as an archetypal psychology, Adam and Eve appear to be about the relationship between a primary 'male' principle, and a primary 'female' principle. One may or may not accept such divisions, but when it comes to the narrative between Eve, the snake, the Tree's, Adam, and God's 'searching' for Adam, there is a clear cut psychodynamic metaphor at play here, with Adam playing the role of the intellect, Eve, which literally means "living one", refers to the feeling body, the snake, coincidentally, is a fitting metaphor for the 'reptilian brain', or that part of our neurological structuring which puts on the brakes when an external cue indicates a past threat, and so triggers a change in feeling (which you usually take to be 'random').

So the Snake could be called the "traumatized self", or archetype; Eve is the feeling body, and so it is by analyzing this interaction between the feeling body (Eve) and the snake (the traumatized self; or the part of ourselves based in primitive threat responses) and the snake utters a series of statements which, if read in the Hebrew, is misrepresentation of what God says to Adam in the garden. Such misrepresentation is likely not a scribal error, but a deliberate expression of the phenomenology of this sort of experience: the threatened part causes us to misrepresent a situation, which the body (Eve) is likely to compel us to perceive.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the source of error. It is the source of duality. The source of "good" and "evil" - not right and wrong, but a state we have mythologized called "evil"; and another state which counters the other state, called "goodness". Goodness is real, but the goodness that derives a satisfaction from labeling others "evil", is a goodness that is better described as sanctimony.

The threatened self goads us towards making assertions - false assertions, that derive from an agitated need to 'defend the self'. The "fruit" is always the end product - a behavior. The snake - the traumatized part of the self - tells Eve - the body - that this situation is one of "evil" and "goodness". Think of any state of persecutory speech, where we speak with a lot of venom, and you are more or less enacting this archetypal dynamic, which each of these elements present; the whole 'shape' of the dynamic is the tree, and your eating of its fruit happens through a snake persuading your 'feeling body' (Eve), that it is all ok. The fruit is eaten; the basis of the action (the tree) and its fruit, now needs to persuade itself further. Another part nags.

Of course, Eve then tells Adam - the intellect, to eat the fruit. The body's completion of an action which derives from a general confusion about how things work (tree of Knowledge) feels compelled now to persuade its intellect - Adam - that this is so. My "eyes' are open. This is the conviction of a fanatic: the body is fanatical, maniacal. It is tendentiously pursuing an agenda to quell the guilt. Adam eats to, and lo and behold, something far more sinister has happened: the acceptance of a false doctrine - the delusion of the reason; the self-deception of thinking "you are a god" no doubt relates this situation back to occultism and the powers that human beings seem to possess in non-traumatized, non-entropic conditions.

Adam - the intellect - now no longer wants to hear the voice of God. The voice of God, YHWH, is the voice of the 'common being' that is shared between living and non-living things - the "spirit" of nature that runs through each. In the human being, this teleodynamism is expressed as our conscience - as our recognition of right and wrong action - and so, here, at this juncture, the intellect - Adam - denies the substantiative basis of its being, in the unity of being that unites all things.

It hides - and by hiding, by pretending, or imagining, that humans are not in a situation to "will" some new state of affairs that doesn't derive from symmetry, is not heard. They leave paradise - Eden, which means pleasure, but also means "to be continuous witness". Mindfulness of self in action in an ever new and changing present is what is required to live in paradise. There is a flaming sword which guards its entry - the sword of the churning intellect - a mind which moves so fast, and so calmly, that it keeps track of when its going off, or when something needs to be said for the self.

With Cain and Abel, we may be describing a state of affairs that comes after this period. Historically, we know our species is at least 200,000 years old. But are we so sure that "hunter-gatherers" constitute the 'truest' natural state of humans? Why do we assume that contact between civilization and tribes, over the last 10,000 years, hasn't also led to a transformation of hunter-gatherer groups? We know there are at least two modes of 'being human'; the majority of us are civilized; whereas an ever shrinking number...

edit on 20-5-2018 by Astrocyte because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 08:41 PM
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are hunter-gatherers.

I wonder whether we can posit a third category, a category of "plenitude", which has as a consequence a sort of 'transcendence' of physical needs as normally understood.

Could it be that such a situation obtained in the fertile crescent 15,000 years ago?

Following the end of the last ice age, the region known as the fertile crescent bloomed and flourished from all the run off water coming down from the ice sheets in the north. If 15,000 years ago this lush state of affairs begins, and 12,000 years ago, evidence accumulates that a climate change appears to have caused that region to lose plant and wildlife, then we have what looks like 3 different periods.

A period of "Eden", from 15,000 to 12,000 years ago. And then a period of 'dissemination', where the human race went in the direction of either Cain (which literally means "to acquire") and Abel (which literally means "vapor", i.e. to be on the move).

It's an interesting thing to contemplate.

edit on 20-5-2018 by Astrocyte because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:00 PM
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Is this though, related to self? I'm not Gnostic, and Gnosticism of this type (the knowledge the fruit etc) which is kinda what this post sounds like can't bring me back to xtianity through a mystery of the seeker of the knowledge. I'm pretty much standard of the road atheist without all the bells and whistles about science..

I think your theories are a bit wide my friend..I've never made it into the theoretical circle...seems like a road back to a road.


No one's lookin for yo' janky snake oil.



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:03 PM
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I love posts like these. They get further down the rabbit hole of reality. In this card. The female represents the subconscious, the male, the conscious. As you can see, the subconscious female is looking up and has contact with the higher soul/self. But the conscious cannot see the higher self. It is depicted to listen to the subconscious.

The 12 flames on the right tree represent the 12 houses (signs) of the zodiac, and the flames or fire represent the Will. The 4 apples represent a triangle on the right. With the center, I forgot, depicting the eye or something to that nature. And the snake representing what we do not want entering into our subconscious. At least that is how it was explained on a video I found dealing with the mystery teachings. And where and how these cards fit on the kaballistic tree of life.



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:03 PM
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You say "adam no longer hears the voice of god" like you have some kind of preordained ability to narrate for someone else. Its too heavy handed like a fake psychopomp on an internet site. Say "I" and try not to do that...



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:04 PM
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a reply to: Astrocyte

One thing I like what you’ve done is to unify the story and make the outer symbols, Adam, Eve, snake, even the Lord, I hope too, all representing interior elements of one being.


The shame aspect, I look at as the fundamental weakness of Adam that he as yet hadn’t perceived before the great fall.


The secret in unity is that the devil was in-fact serving a function as a protector of the new Adam, in the sense that he was shielding him from the suns glaring heat by way of his powerful civilization. Keeping our Adam in the shade more or less.

That was his shame



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:10 PM
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a reply to: CosmicAwakening

So this is a big gnostic conversation. Ok im fine with that its just that I kind of like to know what somebody's up to up front..



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:15 PM
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One must postulate form the angle of perfection. What could Adam be ashamed of, from the perspective of perfection?

Or did the devil concoct an imaginary postulate?


I think not, since this devil, tradition says, was the Lords most powerful Angel before the fall.

That powerful angel then likely knew Adams shame because his very function was to shield Adam from something that might instill shame in him.


Like we shield our children from their weaknesses, not by exposing them to it but by just telling them to stay away until they reach maturity.


God’s command then was merely a practical admonition as one would admonish a child to leave the car from the curbside, not the street side.



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:21 PM
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It's interesting concept to say the least, but when it comes to the story of Adam and Eve, I find it that it can have a few other interpretations, from a story of exemplary lack of obedience, to a theory of everything explaining why, to the omniscient being lazy, to a whole bunch of opposite sex jokes.

What is the original sin though, the sex, or the fact they bit a fruit and gained knowledge from a tree of it, and ended up gaining a sense of awareness...or shame as the story put it?

I wonder if the Nords followed a similar suit, after all there was a celestial tree with a snake in there narratives. Odin litterally hanged himself upside down for a period of time when he came up with the runes, and sacrificed his eye to a well to gain knowledge. Also there was the creation story as well, the age of frost an giants...hehe


What about that giant, fire breathing, four dimensional fire wall of an angel that guards the garden that God ordered to be there? Where would that fit in?



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:22 PM
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All the elements of this allegory can, therefore, be positioned as inner faculties within the human…nature

I would call them natures:

Adamic nature=Adam

Divine Nature= the Lord

Angelic Nature=the Light

Animal nature=snake


Snake, Devil or Jinn, I wouldn’t call it devil nature maybe something else.

Anyway, the allegory is an inner conversation between these faculties



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:25 PM
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a reply to: Willtell

Who is adam? And what shame? These conversations get ridiculous like a bunch of people winding people up. None of you for instance, know me. If you are going based off of some concept we're all a guy you mean by adam, then you're also indirectly referring to me as a sheltered child. You're applying a narrative. Same thing with the devil. If you're just "talking biblically" fine. If you're claiming things about others, hahaha I have a bridge. You're claiming knowledge from behind a screen based off your tr0! skills. The stronger the avoidance the stronger the shame n all. Oh Adams personal battle n all like that meaning you're ability to troll a guy. Powerful societies n all. Haha. That run like script gypsies.."You battle with me and oooh, I put curse on ywooo, I bovvr u online." Pow-"r"..
edit on 20-5-2018 by Ohthewey778 because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:28 PM
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The Devil is Cherubim. Fallen Angelic, alien to Earth.

Very powerful, very old, very wise compared to us.

Adam and Eve were the first created in Gods own image. They were to be only temporarily below the angels, but above them after their life on Earth. The Devil was filled with pride, and envy, and he fell, taking others with him.



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:35 PM
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a reply to: Ohthewey778

Nobody's anybody's "adam". I can't help a whole lot of script monkeys I'm sorry...



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 09:47 PM
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Do ppl just do the "opposite" of what anybody's says on this website and then espouse all kinds of janky theories as like a proof of their kind of super "power" n whatnot? Ooh, elevated troll status, niice..what do we have next oh yeah, everybody and everything must be in the mos0d."russians"...
edit on 20-5-2018 by Ohthewey778 because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 10:06 PM
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edit on 20-5-2018 by Ohthewey778 because: lol never mind I'm gonna keep it to meself..



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 10:25 PM
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a reply to: Ohthewey778

It’s an allegory. A symbolic story of something other than the literal.

A tree, for example, is a state of paradisiacal consciousness with branches and fruit. Fruit equals something you might ingest psychically to feel a certain way.

A branch is another state of consciousness as an extension of the last branch



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 10:26 PM
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a reply to: visitedbythem

Who created the devil and why. What was his function? What was his name?


edit on 20-5-2018 by Willtell because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 10:30 PM
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Adam is the intermediary faculty inside your being who determines balance.


When you’re comfortable in any given phenomenal experience, the inner Adam determines that comfort level



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 10:33 PM
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Try to understand the story, it’s an allegory. The OP is at least thinking; not just reacting to emotional stimuli.

One shouldn’t interact to thought with emotion or even disguised emotion--dogma.



posted on May, 20 2018 @ 10:34 PM
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well.... I most likely am alone in this...
that Adam (before Eve was created from his Rib) was the model for all future human's...And Adam was to be both sexes combined in a single body...
but God found out that the two sexes could not inhabit a singular person and needed each sex to be put into two separate beings, one with the male traits the other with the female traits.. and by this means that Humans could thrive & produce offspring and have a continual companion to boot...

Man was once both sexes, unlike Angels who had no sex or any need to procreate

Adam got stripped of child bearing body parts and the heart/mind/spirit of females was put into the body of Eve

recall that the original Adam (both M & F) was designed to live perhaps 1,000 years (a day to God)… but after the Fall' the revamped 'Adam & Eve' were expelled and reduced to life-span of only ~120 years...

the Holistic Adam was reconfigured into a puny mortal that could be alive only 12 decades instead of a 1000 years as originally planned

read the list of the line of Patriarchs to see the long lifespans of the ancient ancestors… up to the big flood with humanity DNA being corrupted by the fallen Angels cast into the Earth, everywhere but in the Garden of Eden, that itself became an inhospitable/unlivable place on Earth after the Devil seduced Eve& she in turn corrupted Adam into sin...


the Genesis accounts are not Archtypes of some mythical/mystical beings...but straight forward shorthand accounts, of the tests & burdens the first family encountered in their protected biosphere compound




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