Let us be clear. The Primordial State is not a “state of nature” as in Rousseau, but rather of supernature. But if in the Primordial State man lives in harmony with nature and the divine, with a direct awareness of God in his psyche as his life force, and with bonds of loyalty to his family and nation, then what would account for a change in consciousness? The following chart shows the effects of the Fall in the Genesis account, and the corresponding condition that was affected.
| Effect of Fall | Consciousness before fall |
|---|---|
| Toil | Concentration without effort |
| Suffering | Natural joy |
| Death | Transformation |
Effects of the Fall
The point to keep in mind is that the Fall is an event in consciousness; it is necessary to meditate on the symbols of the fall, and the description of the states, to fully understand.
- Toil
- Everyone has had the experience of being totally absorbed in an activity, to the extent that time seems to stand still. One feels energized and does not tire. Similarly, composers and poets have often described moments of inspiration, and the poem or symphony seems to write itself. This state of “concentration without effort” is comparable to the Taoist ideal of wei-wu-wei, or doing-nondoing. After the fall, concentration becomes difficult and labored; one becomes restless and bored; activities begin to feel like toil.
- Suffering
- Man lived in a state of natural joy. The sensory experience of the natural world was vivid and pleasurable; it did not require a special trip to a resort. Man was in communication with the gods and angels, was aware of the presence of his ancestors. He lived in peace with his nation and leaders without private concerns. This was replaced with feelings of resentment and ambition. This led to frustration, anxiety, shame, guilt, and fear. Man became alienated from nature, from the divine, from his nation, and leaders.
- Death
- Death was understood as a natural process and it represented a transformation. A man was prepared for his death by understanding the post-mortem states of being. He was aware of his ancestors and felt his immortality in his descendants. After the fall, man lost direct awareness of the divine, of his ancestors, of post-mortem states, of his own true Self. Death became something to fear, something that signified destruction rather than transformation.
Perversion of Soul Life
The psyche, or soul, which had been a pure reflector of both nature and the divine, becomes obsessed with the effects of the fall. The consequence is that the formerly direct intuitive awareness of nature, the divine, and nation becomes occluded. The true Self is decentered and a false self is established. Julian Jaynes describes the characteristics of this state. [See Note.]
- Spatialization
- A mind-space model of consciousness is invented.
- Excerption
- Consciousness is focused on just a part of experience. The vividness of the Primordial State is lost.
- Analog I
- A model of one’s self is created in consciousness. This acts like a little god in one’s own consciousness, with its own plans.
- Objectification
- Beyond the “I” as subject, the self becomes an object in consciousness
- Narratization
- There is a running narrative consisting of a web of thoughts. This narration forms our very identity. Thus, it becomes very difficult to alter since that would be felt as a threat to oneself.
- Assimilation
- Experiences are forced to fit into pre-conceived or remembered patterns. This makes it very difficult to understand, or even hear, new ideas.
Initiation
Initiation means conscious experience of the beginning, that is, of the Primordial State. The various traditions have arisen in order to lead back to the Primordial State.
NOTE: Julian Jaynes, in his remarkable book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, brings historical evidence to a change in consciousness similar to what has been described. Unfortunately, it is sui generis, and due to some faulty assumption, the author was never able to develop his insights further. In particular, he regards the Primordial State as a state of unconsciousness and the fallen mind as the beginning of consciousness. Tradition sees it just the opposite.
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Any way of thinking about this will be partial and inadequate – probably obscuring as much as it reveals – but think of it this way, and see if it helps. (I hope you’re musically-minded.)
There is a silence pregnant with an infinity of sound. From this a tonic is produced. This tone immediately (though mysteriously) erupts into harmonics through multiplication and division; thus number, geometry, order, in a word, hierarchy. The pregnant silence continues to exist as the centre of the fundamental, and through extension, within every harmonic.
The manifestation of a physical sound is distinct from the harmonic. It’s the result of the self-mirroring you mention: if a chord were struck in space, the harmonic would exist, but it wouldn’t resound. Putrescence is the natural fading of a physical sound.
The human harmonic, because of its unique ability to listen, contains the possibility of resolving itself into the tonic.
I’ll stop before I get carried away. Basically, you’re forgetting the steps that Non-being has to go through before it reaches manifestation, one of which is Being.
Maybe it’s a question of emphasis. With the notion of interbeing we can study and view as very valuable the little things of any sort that are usually ignored by systems which focus on hierarchy: pus, shit, pond scum, decaying bodies, and urine. I’m not saying Buddhism is the only system that’s gotten this. The sadhus understand all this well. The question may simply be what is being emphasized. When hierarchy is emphasized too much, the little things can be ignored and in the ensouled world (though I might as well confess my skepticism that there is any other), the wings of a butterfly can tear down a mountain. Maybe hierarchy is true, but are the accompanying notions useful for realization/the mending of the world? Are they sometimes? Are they not?
The Orthodox Church escaped (or through the Romanticist lens thought they escaped—Thomas Aquinas was pretty popular even in the Orthodox Church right after his time and scholastic works were read in Latin in their places of learning) these issues through the essence-energies distinction. Or maybe they didn’t. If the essence is unknowable why believe that anything has been communicated? But maybe this unknowable essence thing can be viewed as the emptiness doctrines that arose in Buddhist scholasticism. The issue is that the essence is never really grasped or arrived at or realized so phenomena just move towards it for infinity but don’t actually go anywhere. So why move towards this essence? There’s no real progress, properly speaking. Also, is anything actually communicated from this essence?
I have questions and no definitive answers. Maybe I’m confusing a few things and I’d appreciate any relevant feedback if that’s the case.
Ah, my mistake.
The issue of a pure point of focus approach with emanation and the resulting conceptions of such is that, ultimately, there are inescapable arising confuscations of order in discourse wherein it is questionable that the essence of a thing can really be said to have communicated some quality of the Divine/Absolute and really must be just accepted on faith (the medieval scholastic approach). Start with emptiness, on the other hand, and the concept that self-mirroring causes phenomena to appear from it and, through the concept of interbeing, change form according to the illusory yet pragmatically true cycle of changes, it can be seen that nothing really has a stable essence and though we claim that a box is a box, a triangle is a triangle, these are only pragmatically true conceptions and the true source of these things is interbeing which is tied together by emptiness. A universe without a center, so to speak and populated by beings AND Being AND non-being but ultimately empty. This allows us a one-storey universe. This may not be very different from Guenon’s conception as I’ve not read much of Guenon. This may just be a proposed critique of Thomas Aquinas/Idealist philosophy. And I don’t know if this destroys hierarchy/has implications for it.
We seem to be confusing ourselves by using different conventional vocabularies. Non-being is Guenon’s term, and refers to the higher, passive state of Being, and this is what I assumed you meant by Emptiness or ‘being-beyond-Being’. You suggested that this being-beyond-Being might have implications for hierarchy, and I fail to see why it would, and so I also ended with a question, which maybe now you can answer.
@kadambari
I hope we all share the same disdain for the atrocities which have been going on since that most barbaric religion’s beginnings.
It didn’t post correctly through the comment system used here but the question mark above should read as the “not-equal-to” symbol.
GF:
Emptiness ? Non-being. I only said non-being once and I said “almost non-being.” And that was an aside referencing the same problems I was pointing out in Neoplatonism when Being was understood as the starting-point and the Absolute. And emptiness doctrines don’t necessarily “threaten” hierarchy. This is why I ended my explanation with questions.
Also Buddhism not only lead to the spread of literacy but also to the spread of flows of information throughout Asia. There is a striking map of the Buddhist world in San Francisco Asian Art Museum which shows Buddhism at one point covered the entire areas from Central Asia to Japan before the spread of Islam. This exchange of ideas stops after Islam, as the interconnected Buddhist centers of learning are destroyed beginning in Central Aisa and then Eastwards…
‘Non-being’ is not a refutation of Being, so why would it threaten hierarchy?
“Golden Age that argued against Being as the fundamental point of metaphysics. This potentially destroys hierarchy.”
One has to be on guard against later perverions of the Buddhist doctrine. Early Buddhism harldy differs from Hinduism, even in its doctrine of being, this has been noted by Pali scholars of depth. Like I said, it provided an outlet for those who found caste too restrictive and spead literacy without dismantling the traditional structures, which is why Chinese visitors to places like Kashmir could hardly distinguish between the Hindus and Buddhists. The decline of Buddhism begins with the destruction of the aristocratic orders of Indian society with the arrival of Islam, as long as the aristocracy of the region is turning towards it is when it produces anything worth reading and is vibrant, later it degenerates to the practises found among the Mongolian peoples, and admits of all kinds of corruptions…
…as consubstantial.
(My cat posted the comment before I was done writing)
This destruction of hierarchy in the Buddhist tradition whether esoteric or exoteric in function isn’t limited to the Golden Age, either. I don’t know where this places the hierarchy of Being in Platonic/Vedic traditions. The Christian tradition was able to escape some of this by putting all members of the Trinity
@kadambari
Those are good readings of the Buddhist movement. I wasn’t really referring to the Buddha so much as the philosophers of its Golden Age that argued against Being as the fundamental point of metaphysics. This potentially destroys hierarchy. Representative of this tradition is Tsongkhapa. Or, more recently, Kitaro Nishida. Of course, maybe some of the Platonists/Vedics knew this already—Being must be beyond Being and as a result, emptiness is the best way to picture it (ha…) and tie everything together. This destroys hierarchy. Or does it? Does the hierarchy exist in an objective sense?
There’s more to this but yes, I imagine some of those in the Platonic/Vedic traditions realized that Being must be beyond being. The One must be beyond One-ness. But the West really DID struggle with incorporating this into their system—look how many developments had to be added after Plotinus. In the 7th century (I think…and I don’t remember the original philosopher to do so), there was even an element added that precedes the One…but with an essential description that amounts to almost non-being. They were trying to hold onto hierarchy. If we go back to Plato, he describes the Good as an idea as opposed to a form. So maybe he did understand some of the limitations of naming the Good as the Ground of Being, the Good as Absolute, etc.
Karl H,
Rather one can say Buddhism lead to increase in literacy amongst the masses in India, but did so without altering the traditional structure of society itself in any way, which is why in India there was more spead of literacy than in Persia where religion remained very much an affair of the aristocracy (Dastoors-Persian priests), and literacy as well…
“I don’t really think those in the movement have successfully realized how enormous the criticisms Buddhism gave to speculative metaphysics in their Golden Age, for instance.”
One of the biggest mistakes is to assume that Buddha was anti-caste and a reformer in this sense. The one who reads Buddhism carefully realizes it differs very little from Hinduism, even metaphysically, only in that gnosis is not restricted to people by birth, but this in no way makes Buddha a crusader against caste, when Buddhism was most powerful and creative when Brahmins became Buddhists and a steady stream of people from the aristocracy were constantly contributing to it.
“Not so much emphasis on actually helping people and the acknowledgment that the caste system and feudal system kind of sucked in some areas because they ignored the potential genius lying among the lower castes.”
Again Buddhism was not anti-caste, but gave an outlet for those that
found it restrictive, all this did was in fact to make tradition stronger, by helping to reaffirm the essentials in the old religion which was getting corrupted by too much emphasis on externalities…
Interesting. Can I ask, what do you think about the myth of the Fall of Lucifer and his angels? In think at least theosophists ala Blavatsky interpreted this in a context of cosmic evolution, so that the fall of Lucifer was in fact a symbolical yet very real description about the birth and emergence of higher soul consciousness in animal man by which evolving souls from previous manvantaras and from the “moon cycle” became attached to the evolution of animal man towards higher forms consciousness. In this context the Golden Age would mean the time and state of these souls before the fall. This of course takes the issue in its cosmological and planetary context and leaves the metaphysical one untouched, in which context “Lucifer never fell” but remains as the highest custodian of God the Logos in the timeless realm of metaphysics. The myth of Prometheus is also linked to this idea very closely, as in another context is also the myth of Shiva (Satan) and as the “poison-drinker” and thus creator of the material, time-bound universe. The mysterious nature of Yesidi Melek Taus links also to this imagery of the Highest Angel.
At least this would explain the myth of the Fall of Lucifer better than the exoteric, antropomorhic and moralistic notion of Lucifer falling because of “rebellion and pride”. Why would an omnipotent God would have created such a being in the first place if it “wasn’t part of the plan”?
I backslid a little because I wasn’t originally sure of the author’s intention for the article in one main regard—it seemed a bit reductionist upon first reading as I wasn’t sure why there was no mention of the necessity of the Fall and the goodness of such. This is what’s most important about it! And since Gornahoor seeks to represent the Roman Tradition, and the Roman Tradition as exoterically (and even esoterically) practiced has nearly universally condemned the Fall as an objective evil (of course, doing so isn’t the real Tradition…it’s part of a cosmic process though the whole point is to return to the original state), I was attacking a notion that I first thought I perceived. The rest was fuel for that original (probably mis-) conception and I may have overstepped some lines because of it.
Since Steiner has been quoted quite a bit these past few months, I’m not sure how much worth Cologero places on his shift-in-consciousness views (as presented in “Cosmic Memories,” I think—I haven’t read any Steiner for quite some time and I still don’t know what to make of some of his more outlandish views like the passing of the Christ’s etheric body to St. Augustine, the existence of two Jesus children and all that). For example—and this is from memory—Steiner didn’t believe that there was individuality/independent thinking until after this shift in consciousness. So if the purpose is merely to return to the Primordial State without bringing back these qualities…well, this is what I THOUGHT I was arguing against. So in Steiner’s (and apparently Jaynes’?) conception, the return to the Primordial State is a return but the Primordial State is also changed (well, not objectively according to truth-understood-as-Being-doctrines) by having moved away from it previously. Maybe Steiner read too much of the German Idealists and his evolutionary views are a result of that. Maybe I’ve been too influenced by Idealism through Emerson, Hegel and Heidegger. I don’t know.
I’m not pulling these early Jewish conceptions of the Fall out of my ass. If you read the text it clearly doesn’t condemn eating of the tree of the knowledge-of-good-and-evil. Cool, you all understand that. That’s what I hoped! I was apparently fighting a windmil. And I wasn’t reducing it to a coming-of-age story but there are undoubtedly parallels between the story and our own passage from childhood to adulthood. I didn’t mean to reduce it to such. “As above, so below” and all that.
Though on the other hand, I’ve just remembered that Cologero before critiqued Steiner for his evolutionary views. I guess Steiner stands outside traditionalist circles a bit because more than the cosmic cycle being, well, circular—there is the notion that the process changes consciousness for the better and even the Primordial State is transformed (though I see this only as potential for “progress”). I don’t know if this critique extends to his conception of bringing individuality/independent thinking to the Primordial State. It might not. I still don’t know what to make of Steiner in some regards and I wonder if Cologero shares my same skepticism beyond what he’s said before about heretical evolutionary views and all that.
I admit to not being as well-read in traditionalist literature of the 20th century as others on this blog, but I do have an understanding of a number of the concepts often presented here through the study of Taoist literature, the Neoplatonists, Nag Hammadi works (I’ve worked with someone involved in studying them though she doesn’t understand the metaphysics—hell, very few of the translators/scholars do—I’ve attempted to introduce her to such to the extent that the understanding can be taught), Ficino, Pico de Mirandola, Charles Williams, Hegel, Yeats, Bulgakov, Crowley, etc. I also see a general oneness and a perennial philosophy that can be discovered and is being discovered continually, lying outside of time. There is only so much time in a day for reading and some of Evola’s blatant racism and lack of charity (I know, I know—this is a modern, democratic sentiment with no substance) stands in the way of me appreciating much he’s written. And…well, the 20th century traditionalist literature just seems filled with too much of this. Too much emphasis on power and the inner experience of Initiates. Not so much emphasis on actually helping people and the acknowledgment that the caste system and feudal system kind of sucked in some areas because they ignored the potential genius lying among the lower castes. There’s also not a little bit of whitewashing by traditionalists when it comes to the differences between traditions. I don’t really think those in the movement have successfully realized how enormous the criticisms Buddhism gave to speculative metaphysics in their Golden Age, for instance.
I’m still doubtful about how emblematic of Tradition the Jewish Scriptures really are outside of the way it has been practiced and understood—perhaps the fact that I place a lot of weight to the original Kabbalistic writings seems less ironic because of this.
Sure, we’ll depart in some circumstances. If I have to hold to all the foundations of the traditionalist movement to be here, then I won’t comment further. I try to be catholic. I sometimes succeed. I sometimes do not.
KarlH, I find that you are becoming disingenuous simply for that your views are seeping all over the place. If you have a point to argue that is valid besides some imagined early Jewish history then by all means present it; but if your aim is to simply try by subterfuge to poke holes in tradional concepts which are well-founded and precisely discussed in traditionalist literature then please refrain from doing so before you become more acquainted with the traditionalist perspective itself.
Well, I take back a little of what I said: Gornahoor actually does a pretty good job of deconstruction. Personally, I think it could be valuable to deconstruct everything to an even greater extent than has been done, but we can’t really always be deconstructing things lest nothing is actually said. And I do think the general Traditionalist movement in general could work on improving dialogue without getting their feathers in a bunch (this isn’t really a specific judgment of any of you, just observations of the Traditionalist movement in general). Oh, and then there’s the annoying thing where I have to give definitions upon definitions and arguments just feel like arguments over semantics—my use of the term “Traditionalist movement” has sometimes caused a stir until I give a bunch of little definitions. Hume be damned.
You’re coming across as cautious, that’s all. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. But bear in mind that Gornahoor is not about realizing a better-conceptualized construct.
Well, I certainly hope I’m not modernist or New Age. But we really must dialogue with these notions that arise—if I have a doubt/critique of something, why should I not bring it up? Of course, I recognize that every one of us could be in heresy without knowing it. “A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.” – George Macdonald
If anyone reads what I said carefully, I really have no notions (well, I potentially do but not as fixed concepts—I’m suggesting them and putting them up for discussion) but I do have questions—this is the beginning of philosophy and I really don’t think Gornahoor and the Traditionalist movement in general does a good job deconstructing their own approaches in order to improve and realize a better-conceptualized construct. Deconstructionism, oh no! A modern heresy! But we really must be Socratic in our approach, ESPECIALLY when the truth of a matter lies outside concepts (though the true concepts are arising from, point towards, and can potentially touch truth). My questions are as follows:
To what extent can we claim to possess truth and represent Tradition if we’re ignoring small-t tradition?
If a divine myth is believed to say one thing for, say, hundreds of years…on what basis do we present a “new” interpretation (I don’t really doubt any true initiatory experience that is genuine but our approaches to the Divine are multivarious yet the same)? Is this honest? If it is dishonest, is it okay if we’re honesty about this dishonesty? What is the relation between popular interpretations that develop organically in traditional communities and the experience of those whose position is to pray/practice metaphysics/be Initiates?
Obviously I don’t want to remove the spirit from spirituality, yet I’m not afraid of questioning things and re-evaluating our approaches of spirit with reason. If an approach is true, it should be /reasonable/. But I’m not an empiricist or a lover of dialogue with no Truth ever arrived at so no worries there. 🙂
While birth into the world is one interpretation of a fall, symbols have multiple meanings due to the complexity of the subject. As to proof of divine truths, what is spirituality if we remove the spirit from it? Answer: We would be left with a rationalist psychologism which focuses on fantasy and creative expression and thereby negates all metaphysical doctrine entirely. You might not wish to admit it, KarlH, but this very notion is very modernist and New Age.
Cologero: How about a metaphysical “growth from childhood to adulthood”? http://www.dragonrouge.net/english/philosophy.htm
And yes, I realize the intention of the article and I’ve encountered the same idea of cosmic decline in my studies of Buddhist cosmology. I am not really casting doubt on the existence of such. Just wondering the extent to which we can claim any type of Scripture backs or is even relevant to the various divined truths of initiates.
Thanks for the clarifications/etc.
I’m somewhat skeptical of the methods used in Traditionalist circles when it comes to the interpretation of texts but this same skepticism means I also don’t dismiss their interpretations since I do, after all, believe that ultimate reality is experiential and readily available to us. But I also believe in the spirit of the faithful and this means I’m sometimes hesitant to endorse interpretations that go against established ones grounded upon a living tradition. I also sometimes fail to see how interpretation of Scripture can really be authoritative if it ignores its historical context—we need to see beyond contigent historical realities, of course. But Truth is founded—rather, founds itself upon—both universal ideas (unchanging truths) and particular manifestations of Truth in temporal circumstances. I would be interested to see an exposition of your views on the importance of Scripture and how it should be interpreted—have you posted on this before?
Yes, by the experience of initiates truth can be accessed, but the transmitted truths are not immune to criticism and debate in the transmission of such ideas to those without the proper conditions necessary for contemplation (you know, tangible things like money and free time and a mind untouched by illness).
Currently, I place about as much weight to any Scripture or Holy Writings as Ch’an. But I am always willing to hear the view of another.
Yes. Not a moral significance, nor is it intended to refer to just the Hebrew scripture. To the contrary, we are discussing the cosmic cycles which is generally interpreted as a decline in all traditions. We can add the following points:
1) The Talmud is not necessarily the authoritative interpretation of Genesis. The religion of the Talmud differs in substantive ways from the Hebrew Scriptures.
2) If the Edenic myth is simply about some pedestrian notion as the growth from childhood to adulthood, then why is it necessary to portray it in mythological symbolism?
3) And this is the most important, and it was mentioned in the post. The matter is ultimately not settled by debate, but by the meditative experience of initiates (i.e., those properly qualified) which reveal the inner structure of consciousness as described in the post.
Your comments about early Jewish religion are appreciated. I do not know much about it, nor am I particularly interested, so I guess that falls under ‘honest dishonesty’. Still, you might be surprised by d’Olivet; the Egyptian or Hermetic connection between Mosaic and Platonic metaphysics is strongly attested. Even secular commentators have noticed this, some going as far as claiming that ‘Moses’ plagiarized from Plato or vice versa.
I don’t believe he ascribes a primarily moral significance to the Fall; here, in fact, he’s asserting the Hermetic significance of a division of consciousness. So the issue is wholly subjective. That was clear to me; all the same your clarifications are welcome.
You might be interested in d’Olivet’s The Hebraic Tongue Restored, which includes a radical retranslation of the first ten chapters of Genesis based on the Sefer Torah. It can be downloaded from the Internet Archive.
I might also add that I doubt Cologero disagree on anything of importance unless he’s fallen into the heresy that the Fall and diminishment of man’s powers and ability to influence things is an evil. He didn’t say whether the Fall of man is or is not an evil, so I was making the point that it’s not (or maybe it is—I appreciate that he focuses on the effects primarily).
The issue is that in using the word “Fall,” we are conceiving man as actually moving away from the Absolute. Yet the diminishment of mankind’s powers really says nothing about his objective relation to the Absolute as we never really escape it. We must strive for perfect clarity when it comes to talking about a “Fall” because of the number of heresies that have stemmed from focusing on it and have led to atrocious conceptions such as Total Depravity, notions upon which the Americas and Western Europe are founded.
GF,
I recognize this—returning to the Adamic state is central to Islam and Christianity. But it is less so to Judaism for certain reasons, though the ideal of a self-realized/Enlightened person in any of the three traditions would look the same throughout. My last comment makes my points a bit clearer.
KarlH,
You are looking at this from a limited perspective, which leads you to think you see something Cologero doesn’t. The fall and the intervening stages are necessary and good, but return to the Adamic (primordial) state is undeniably the goal and essence of Christianity. This has nothing to do with esoterism or Roman misappropriation – just basic Christianity.
Best summary I can give of my primary objections to certain heresies I’ve found in Christianity/the Roman Tradition:
1. A number of early Jews saw the garden narrative as a narrative of mankind’s infancy. By leaving the garden, he left childhood ignorance behind but has the ability to retain ideality and unite it with a world that legitimately suffers and is filled with toil and difficult things.
2. Our conceptions of Fall/any sort of doctrine grounded upon the philosophia perennis must realize that our monotholic interpretations of things are reductionist and based upon what we want to find in the texts, not being entirely honest to intentions of original authorship/older interpretations of religious communities. And maybe if we’re honest about being dishonest to original intentions and realizing that we’re projecting essential elements of the philosophia perennis to texts that may or may not support it, it’s okay because those in the Roman Tradition are tied to Catholicism and a relatively closed canon wherein essential doctrines and dogmas must be based upon Scripture.
I realize the first point you’ve made. Non-differentiation wasn’t perhaps the best term and I noticed that after the comments I posted but didn’t want to clutter this commentbox more than I did already. For reasons beyond my control, it’s been difficult for me to order my thoughts coherently for the past few weeks. I don’t say this to elicit sympathy but to acknowledge that I currently struggle to make myself understood with a hampered intellect but I’ll do the best I can and if I seem a bit unclear/something stands out as a glaring error, it may (or may not) be due to this.
In short, I think you’ve misunderstood the main point I made: I was pointing out that the interpretation of the Fall doesn’t exist outside of later rewrites by those who wanted to write-in Greek-influenced ideas into the Old Testament stories and allegories so perhaps it’s a bit dishonest to claim that we’re uncovering some old doctrine/piece of Tradition when we talk about things like the “Fall” and attach it to Genesis. On the other hand, as the Christian tradition really has no other alternative to express the belief in this Primordial State, perhaps it’s okay to use Genesis for this purpose so long as we’re honest about our dishonesty.
On the other hand…I did choose the word non-differentiation for certain purposes but perhaps it doesn’t make sense in the context I used it. I meant non-differentiation such as the non-differentiation of the sexes mentioned in Plato’s account of creation/St. Gregory’s. There is, apparently, a lot more differentiation between the Primordial State and now. A unity of opposites must therefore be our goal. But it is not so much a goal as an acknowledgment that can be lived and expressed and upon which we can ground ourselves.
I think you understood my second comment by misunderstanding it. I’ll expound: I think it is worth considering that it’s okay we fell away from the state we were in before (whether or not this state is identical to what we consider to be the “Primordial State” and this falling-away gives the opportunity for synthesis between the “fallen” qualities that emerged (a conception of individuality outside of community, sickness, etc.) and the original state. And now I feel like I’m just quoting Steiner…
I think I am really critiquing the lack of tradition in “traditionalism.” The ancient Jews had little conception of a “Primordial State” with the extent of powers attributed to it in this article. And even if they did, they didn’t see being thrown out of the garden as an evil. How can we reconcile this knowledge with this article? If we’re actually striving for honesty and truth, we’ll acknowledge that our conceptions of the Genesis account are based upon non-Judaic sources and perhaps aren’t true to original intentions. This doesn’t mean interpretations can be developed, but sooner or later we have to acknowledge that our use of texts is similar to inkblot projections.
I don’t think there is anything New-Ageish about my beliefs and I’ve fought against the non-historical tendencies of such, whether they are modern feel-good liberals of Suburbia or a few revered philosophers who practiced Platonism at the expense of the kindness they could have shown to the souls in slavery and bondage around them. I believe strongly in the existence of qualities (beyond a vague pragmatism for achieving Enlightenment) and the importance of living a life that engages with existence in its totality and doesn’t seek to escape it with vague syllogisms or ideological idols. This has made life very difficult yet very meaningful for me. I’ve already been interrupted 17 times writing this comment, and this is due to the fact that I’m not really ready to give up on the world and seek some sort of non-existent gnosis—rather, my search for “Enlightenment” at the moment consists of staying home and helping my mom out/being a good role model for my younger siblings.
Part of my commitment to not-committing myself to idols is that I think we should exercise a certain skepticism when it comes to unraveling the philosophia perennis. Or, better put, we should be skeptical about the bases upon which our evidence lies.
Addendum: The last paragraph of my comment should read “a process somewhat analogous to the Perversion of Soul Life which the post describes.” As I originally wrote it, I’m guilty of the very reductionism I was criticizing. Hate it when that happens.
KarlH, I think it’s inaccurate to describe the Primordial State as one of “non-differentiation.” Rather, it is non-dualistic. The difference is that non-differentiated would be a kind of monism in which all is one and everything is equal to everything else. Non-dualism, in contrast, says that God, or the Absolute, and the creation / emanation are not one and the same, but are not wholly separate either. In this view, differentiation is a natural complement to emanation. As in the Tao Te Ching, from one to two to three to the ten thousand things.
The non-dualist view retains the importance of qualitative distinctions on the relative plane, whereas the monist, non-differentiated view seems to be prominent among new agers, and forms the metaphysical backdrop to their all-embracing naivete. “All is one, all is God, hooray!” while the world crumbles around them. There’s a sense in which that’s true, of course, since as you say “nothing escapes Him and nothing is apart from Him.” But it seems to me this view informs a delusional escapism more often than a genuine realization.
Also, it seems to me that your second comment reduces the Genesis myth to a mere psychoanalytic metaphor. Yes, childhood does have a certain wholeness and ease compared to adulthood, and maybe that is somehow related to a greater connection to the Primordial State, but I think here again this kind of view often gives rise to an error. If the Primordial State is childhood, then the best example of returning to it would probably be something like Kevin Spacey’s character in American Beauty, who forsakes his job and family life to live like a teenager again.
There’s a sense in which that kind of life is indeed better than the typical, slavish bourgeois life of middle America. For one, it has a sense of awe and wonder about the world which most people lose as they grow older, through the Perversion of Soul Life which the post describes. But it seems to me that a true return to, or realization of, the Primordial State transcends this childhood-adulthood dichotomy.
On the other hand, if you’re looking at capital “T” traditon then you’ll have to ignore a large number of data and instead misappropriate texts to suit your own purposes as there are no other canonical texts in the Jewish tradition to make the point you want to make which was introduced to the Western Tradition by Plato (or whoever he got his ideas from—I imagine that the Timaeus was strongly influenced by popular religion). You don’t really have any other alternatives if you’re sticking with the Roman Tradition. It is founded upon ignoring the context of a number of Jewish traditions and interpreting texts to suit whatever Greek-influenced idea needed to be introduced.
Note: obviously, in the texts, there is the idea that man has “lost” something. But what has he lost? His childhood, of course. He can now pursue knowledge and exercise free will in pursuit of the Good in a multivarious fashion. He is separated from his Father, but he can still follow him. He is now hampered by a very finite life and a number of bodily ills, but he can turn even this suffering to the glory of God. In this, all his corporeality, all his sickness and all his hardship can be transformed without really being “altered” in the objective sense. Bodily nature and all its woes is transformed because it focuses on what is honest, pure and true and even the /apparent/ negation of such (corporeality, sickness, and hardship) becomes a positive affirmation of the Good. We must all remember that it is really impossible to escape from God: nothing escapes Him and nothing is apart from Him, even nothingness.
I haven’t read Jaynes’ book, but there are a few things worth noting:
The Judaic tradition didn’t originally consider the “Fall” to be a Fall. In fact, those who study early Judaism are often startled to find that the story was rather an expression of the idea that man had, in a sense by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, grown up. With this comes certain responsibilities and all the things that make life tough, but it is all according to God’s plan and even these frustrations make life worth living. In fact, suffering makes it all the more meaningful.
The interpretation of Genesis as a “Fall” comes from Zoroastrian influences. Rather than the serpent being an angel of temptation who really stands alongside God, the serpent is instead a force of Evil and the act of eating from the tree is seen as a transgression against the cosmic order.
There is another idea worth mentioning and perhaps you’ve considered the same. Even in Origen who adopted the vogue interpretation of Genesis as a Fall, Origen proposes (and this idea was echoed in a few of the early Fathers) that although the Fall has given us a number of woes and misfortunes, it may, in the end, be a Good. He considers that it is all God’s plan and that the Fall was actually a good thing, perhaps BECAUSE of the terrible things it unleashed. Even if “Tradition” describes a Primordial State of non-differentiation that we’re trying to return to, it doesn’t necessarily follow that things are getting worse. Sure, things are getting worse in a sense, but in this confusion, division of languages and lack of unity (see: Tower of Babel), man has actually learned the process of learning. Man has actually known pain and suffering and there are now heroes and saints and philosophers. The saint needs the sinner and so on.