your posts) are so exhilarating to read, digest, and integrate. I grew up Christian and my parents have always been deep into theology and decoding the Bible. I have not done much of my own biblical deep diving or research, but your recent essay on returning to your religion of origin has me growing more open to exploring the Bible. Curious how you discover things like the ‘rib’ being a a mistranslation of *side*. Fascinating! Did you read that somewhere? Is there a source I could go to for my own inquiry around that? The androgyne Adam is another element I find suuuper intriguing (and alarming in regard to what seems like the big push to erase the difference between men and women - the whole “trans agenda” blah blah). How did you come to that conclusion? Are there sources I could go to or is it from your own direct gnosis you often write about? I have been on a big journey around cultivating my own innerstanding and letting go of all the outsourcing I’ve done in my life to “experts” and “authorities”. But I’m still really in the thick of that when it comes to texts like the Bible. So many humans have touched it and translated it. Who to trust when decoding it? I’ve just stayed away because it’s all been far too confusing. Thank you Alicen. For this and all your writing and any response you may have to my wonderings here…
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Eleni! I'm glad to be an inspiration along your own journey through the Biblical mysteries. So actually, the thing about Adam's rib/side and the first human being an androgyne is something I learned from studying orthodox Christianity, though it's well-known in Judaism as well. I hyperlinked a good source within the essay (and for future reference, whenever you see an underline in my writing, that's a link you can click!) Here it is: https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/minding-our-words/
I, too, find the androgyne of Genesis fascinating amidst current social tensions around transgenderism., The way I see it, transgenderism is a counterfeit perversion of the true spiritual Alchemy of merging the feminine and masculine poles within oneself or within marriage. Manipulating the outer world to APPEAR to be beyond gender, is a failing to internally transfigure oneself. I've touched on that here: https://alicengrey.substack.com/p/the-heart-of-the-matter?utm_source=publication-search
Awesome, thank you so much for these essays. Just read both. Super helpful. Yeah I’ve been on my own spiritual path exploring divine union and sacred intimacy practice with my husband for the past few years. This new Genesis insight feels like a beautiful bridge for me between what’s blossomed for me energetically with this practice and what the Bible has to offer. Also I keep hearing more and more women I respect referencing Orthodox Christianity. Do you have any resources you recommend for learning more about Orthodox Christianity?
Oh man, I wish I could point you to a particular source, but most of what I learned has been through friends and acquaintances in conversation. I'm a big believer that if you ask you will receive, so you could ask God to bring you to good sources the way he brought the right people and teachers into my life 🙏🏽
Minor quibble with your take on Eve and her creator...or just an alternative perspective.
If I think of the Eden story in programming terms, then Eve was at best an experiment by the programmer, perhaps designed to test the level of persuasiveness necessary to get her curiosity to override the prohibition of against eating from that tree? To see if the serpent/dragon (program) was just enough to do the job after the previous tempter, maybe a dragonfly, had failed?
At worst, it was a programmer's error, either in the overall system design of the new human product or somewhere in the deep, lower-level coding.
Between worst case and best case, there's probably room for a constellation of other interpretations. It's not like I'm locked to a simple binary.
If we entertain the POV that we are the creation of a conscious entity with the power to fabricate things as complex as us, trying to really 'know' what it had in mind during the design and roll out phases lead us into pretty wiggy mental spaces. Sometimes it's easier on my brain cells to go with the slow evolution of random dust and drops of water mixed in with the output of exploding supernovas.
Duly considered! I appreciate your programmer perspective. But even if this was a simulation to test Eve's "temptability," I wonder why she and Adam never freely ate from the Tree of Life? Why was the promise of Eternal Life not tempting enough? Ultimately that's my point -- that we got ourselves into this place called the land of the dead. The "original sin" that we've all inherited, is a lust for death, deception and wickedness.
"Between worst case and best case, there's probably room for a constellation of other interpretations. It's not like I'm locked to a simple binary." For sure! The frustrating, but also exciting, thing is that we may never know for sure. And in a way, I wonder if it would be detrimental to us if we *did* know for sure.
I was raised Roman Catholic, with maximum emphasis on the rules and very limited narratives included in catechism and really very little study of the Bible. So, when you say they 'never ate freely from the Tree of Life', does that mean they didn't eat from it at all? Or did the temptation/fall come about very soon after they were created, maybe before they could take in a large enough quantity of the tree's fruit to immunize them against the curiosity and gullibility that led to the eviction into a world that included evil and death? From what little I ever read as a kid, I don't recall getting a sense of much time passing between A&E being created and the eviction from Eden, so maybe they didn't get what some people today would call a 'loading dose' of the fruit.
In the Eden story, is there anything suggesting that the serpent offered anything beyond just the Knowledge of Good & Evil? From what I recall, Eden was a nice place, wonderful food, and no death. Maybe there is something else in the meaning of the original word (Hebrew? Greek? Catholic, remember...and no serious study since the early days.) that is now called 'evil' that readers in the original, or at least pre-English, language(s) would have understood in a way that made Eve's curiosity about evil and eventual decision to eat the forbidden fruit seem like less of a bonehead move.
From the perspective of a couple thousand years (or a 30,000 foot up-in-the-sky view, for any flying enthusiasts), it looks like a perfect marketing setup for a combination of the priest-class and warrior-kings to maintain a synergy of control of their populations...obey the rules of both and God will love you and the King won't kill you, at least not today. Good friend back in college majored in the study of comparative religions, but he's gone now, so maybe you've done enough investigation on the subject to say whether this sort of binary, two-phased system of people-control is something found in many/most/all of the major religious texts?
I'm probably oversimplifying his views, but one of my fave writers is Philip K. Dick, and I've read a fair number of interviews and other people's analysis/literary criticism essays about his work. I get the impression that (in the context/process of thinking about Big Picture Questions such as 'Why does God tolerate evil in his/our environment?') Dick thinks our world is under the aegis/control/protection of a local God that/who is analogous to a mediocre second-string 3rd baseman who was promoted to player-coach of a so-so baseball team and who is having a sub-par season with no realistic hopes of making it into the playoffs...but...S/he's the Coach We've Got.
Yeah, at this point I'm not sure how much benefit we'd get from knowing whether our ancient flaws and current limitations are features or bugs. Seems to me more important to recognize and fix any coding errors and expand our range of action...maybe that's just me rebelling against the old catechismal instruction to accept the idea of original sin and to submit to the state & clergy?
Would you point me to some of your posts about flying? I do it in dreams from time to time and rarely during daytime daydreams. It's been fun and safe so far. Cheers.
Oops...forgot to attribute that exploding supernova biz to Nicholson's Jack Partanna character in Prizzi's Honor, who, like Elton John, said, "I read it in a magazine." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhyzy6yU6TU
If I tried to express how much I appreciate this, my comment might be longer than the post! Thus, for now, I'll highlight the mind-altering realities that, if accepted, could bring us back to Eden:
Thank you Alicen! This (and all
your posts) are so exhilarating to read, digest, and integrate. I grew up Christian and my parents have always been deep into theology and decoding the Bible. I have not done much of my own biblical deep diving or research, but your recent essay on returning to your religion of origin has me growing more open to exploring the Bible. Curious how you discover things like the ‘rib’ being a a mistranslation of *side*. Fascinating! Did you read that somewhere? Is there a source I could go to for my own inquiry around that? The androgyne Adam is another element I find suuuper intriguing (and alarming in regard to what seems like the big push to erase the difference between men and women - the whole “trans agenda” blah blah). How did you come to that conclusion? Are there sources I could go to or is it from your own direct gnosis you often write about? I have been on a big journey around cultivating my own innerstanding and letting go of all the outsourcing I’ve done in my life to “experts” and “authorities”. But I’m still really in the thick of that when it comes to texts like the Bible. So many humans have touched it and translated it. Who to trust when decoding it? I’ve just stayed away because it’s all been far too confusing. Thank you Alicen. For this and all your writing and any response you may have to my wonderings here…
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Eleni! I'm glad to be an inspiration along your own journey through the Biblical mysteries. So actually, the thing about Adam's rib/side and the first human being an androgyne is something I learned from studying orthodox Christianity, though it's well-known in Judaism as well. I hyperlinked a good source within the essay (and for future reference, whenever you see an underline in my writing, that's a link you can click!) Here it is: https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/minding-our-words/
I, too, find the androgyne of Genesis fascinating amidst current social tensions around transgenderism., The way I see it, transgenderism is a counterfeit perversion of the true spiritual Alchemy of merging the feminine and masculine poles within oneself or within marriage. Manipulating the outer world to APPEAR to be beyond gender, is a failing to internally transfigure oneself. I've touched on that here: https://alicengrey.substack.com/p/the-heart-of-the-matter?utm_source=publication-search
Awesome, thank you so much for these essays. Just read both. Super helpful. Yeah I’ve been on my own spiritual path exploring divine union and sacred intimacy practice with my husband for the past few years. This new Genesis insight feels like a beautiful bridge for me between what’s blossomed for me energetically with this practice and what the Bible has to offer. Also I keep hearing more and more women I respect referencing Orthodox Christianity. Do you have any resources you recommend for learning more about Orthodox Christianity?
Just read this additional take on the creation of man and woman in Genesis. Would love to hear what you think Alicen... https://www.lizziebernedegear.com/blog/2017/7/27/adam-had-a-womb-6k85h
She also made a little movie to illustrate… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j147Kd_JDhw&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lizziebernedegear.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTM5MTE3LDIzODUx
Oh man, I wish I could point you to a particular source, but most of what I learned has been through friends and acquaintances in conversation. I'm a big believer that if you ask you will receive, so you could ask God to bring you to good sources the way he brought the right people and teachers into my life 🙏🏽
Lovely lovely, thank you Alicen!
Minor quibble with your take on Eve and her creator...or just an alternative perspective.
If I think of the Eden story in programming terms, then Eve was at best an experiment by the programmer, perhaps designed to test the level of persuasiveness necessary to get her curiosity to override the prohibition of against eating from that tree? To see if the serpent/dragon (program) was just enough to do the job after the previous tempter, maybe a dragonfly, had failed?
At worst, it was a programmer's error, either in the overall system design of the new human product or somewhere in the deep, lower-level coding.
Between worst case and best case, there's probably room for a constellation of other interpretations. It's not like I'm locked to a simple binary.
If we entertain the POV that we are the creation of a conscious entity with the power to fabricate things as complex as us, trying to really 'know' what it had in mind during the design and roll out phases lead us into pretty wiggy mental spaces. Sometimes it's easier on my brain cells to go with the slow evolution of random dust and drops of water mixed in with the output of exploding supernovas.
Duly considered! I appreciate your programmer perspective. But even if this was a simulation to test Eve's "temptability," I wonder why she and Adam never freely ate from the Tree of Life? Why was the promise of Eternal Life not tempting enough? Ultimately that's my point -- that we got ourselves into this place called the land of the dead. The "original sin" that we've all inherited, is a lust for death, deception and wickedness.
"Between worst case and best case, there's probably room for a constellation of other interpretations. It's not like I'm locked to a simple binary." For sure! The frustrating, but also exciting, thing is that we may never know for sure. And in a way, I wonder if it would be detrimental to us if we *did* know for sure.
I was raised Roman Catholic, with maximum emphasis on the rules and very limited narratives included in catechism and really very little study of the Bible. So, when you say they 'never ate freely from the Tree of Life', does that mean they didn't eat from it at all? Or did the temptation/fall come about very soon after they were created, maybe before they could take in a large enough quantity of the tree's fruit to immunize them against the curiosity and gullibility that led to the eviction into a world that included evil and death? From what little I ever read as a kid, I don't recall getting a sense of much time passing between A&E being created and the eviction from Eden, so maybe they didn't get what some people today would call a 'loading dose' of the fruit.
In the Eden story, is there anything suggesting that the serpent offered anything beyond just the Knowledge of Good & Evil? From what I recall, Eden was a nice place, wonderful food, and no death. Maybe there is something else in the meaning of the original word (Hebrew? Greek? Catholic, remember...and no serious study since the early days.) that is now called 'evil' that readers in the original, or at least pre-English, language(s) would have understood in a way that made Eve's curiosity about evil and eventual decision to eat the forbidden fruit seem like less of a bonehead move.
From the perspective of a couple thousand years (or a 30,000 foot up-in-the-sky view, for any flying enthusiasts), it looks like a perfect marketing setup for a combination of the priest-class and warrior-kings to maintain a synergy of control of their populations...obey the rules of both and God will love you and the King won't kill you, at least not today. Good friend back in college majored in the study of comparative religions, but he's gone now, so maybe you've done enough investigation on the subject to say whether this sort of binary, two-phased system of people-control is something found in many/most/all of the major religious texts?
I'm probably oversimplifying his views, but one of my fave writers is Philip K. Dick, and I've read a fair number of interviews and other people's analysis/literary criticism essays about his work. I get the impression that (in the context/process of thinking about Big Picture Questions such as 'Why does God tolerate evil in his/our environment?') Dick thinks our world is under the aegis/control/protection of a local God that/who is analogous to a mediocre second-string 3rd baseman who was promoted to player-coach of a so-so baseball team and who is having a sub-par season with no realistic hopes of making it into the playoffs...but...S/he's the Coach We've Got.
Yeah, at this point I'm not sure how much benefit we'd get from knowing whether our ancient flaws and current limitations are features or bugs. Seems to me more important to recognize and fix any coding errors and expand our range of action...maybe that's just me rebelling against the old catechismal instruction to accept the idea of original sin and to submit to the state & clergy?
Would you point me to some of your posts about flying? I do it in dreams from time to time and rarely during daytime daydreams. It's been fun and safe so far. Cheers.
Oops...forgot to attribute that exploding supernova biz to Nicholson's Jack Partanna character in Prizzi's Honor, who, like Elton John, said, "I read it in a magazine." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhyzy6yU6TU
If I tried to express how much I appreciate this, my comment might be longer than the post! Thus, for now, I'll highlight the mind-altering realities that, if accepted, could bring us back to Eden:
In reality, it was us all along.
We are the source of the suffering.
We do this to ourselves, with our own minds.