Noah Alexander Isaac Stein

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17 – 19

One of the most interesting recurring motifs in near-eastern religion is the idea of mankind’s fall. Preceded by a state of harmony with the natural world, and precipitated by forbidden knowledge, it is the fall that leads to mankind’s current state of toil and mortality. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the myth catalyzes in the tale of the wild-man, Enkidu’s, sexual seduction and resulting understanding of language and civilization. In Abrahamic mythology it takes the form of the first man and first woman’s temptation with, and eventual consumption of, the symbolic fruit of knowledge. Persisting though minor variations, all stories end with the same result: a resounding human disharmony with the natural world, and the pain of death.

The common narrative elements of harmonious innocence, sexual temptation, knowledge, and an ultimate separation from natural grace reflect both a common heritage and also a persisting resonance. As a result of the long history of the story, myriad interpretations have attempted to account for its origin and enduring power. True to that nature of myths there can be no single, all-encompassing, explanation or account. Nevertheless, from the deluge of meanings can be extracted a critical account of one of the most basic principles of humanity’s interaction with the natural world.

Population of a species at any given time are generally the result of an equilibrium between resources, depredation, and natality. Fluxes in any of these variables triggers a reactive response that adapts to the imbalances. The responsiveness of the system results in both sustainable populations as well as dynamic ecosystems that are able to recover from periods of instability. Population explosions that occur during periods of surplus are thus followed by periods of constriction when the resource is eventually exhausted. The size of this contraction naturally varies depending on the imbalance, ranging from minor seasonal variance, to outright collapse when a severe disparity between resources and a dependent population arises.

The same forces can also be seen acting on and guiding the growth of human societies. While the resource in question may vary between time and place, from grain stocks and clean water, to fossil fuels and timber, the principles remain remarkably consistent. Unlike other species however, human populations are subject to a further factor that permits ever-increasing growth and mitigates contraction. For humans, the vagaries of the cycle are mitigated by technological innovation which permits either the better use of a given resource or, far more often, the exploitation of a new resource to fill the gap left by the consumed one.

One of the earliest and most dramatic examples of this is the Neolithic revolution. Rapidly advancing cultural sophistication and a changing climate caused a human population explosion that culminated in the extinction of the large migratory herd mammals that had previously sustained the growth. The imminent collapses facing societies dependent on these species however was averted by a rapidly shifting reliance on agriculture, hitherto used only as a supplemental food source. During this period of transition, societies by necessity left behind the more prosperous nomadic hunter-gather lifestyle for the more arduous life of sedentary agriculture.

While the innovations granted by the fruit of knowledge provided a reprieve from human collapse, it has not permitted such grace for the ecosystems we inhabit, and ultimately depend upon. Lacking periods of reduced pressure, damaged ecosystems and exhausted resources are rarely allowed to recover, and are instead faced with continued human expansion. As the emergence of agriculture once triggered vast tracks of forest being burned for farmland, so now does rapid climate change and urban expansion ravage remaining ecosystems. This pattern has replayed itself without pause as civilization has spread and decimated every natural ecosystem which it has encountered.

As various inevitable end points now, at last, begin to converge in our distant view, we are faced with ever-contracting options. Unlimited growth, no matter how mitigated by technological advance, will inevitably consume all non-human systems. As we now eye the stars with greedy vision, we must face the realization that the same tree of knowledge that has saved us will destroy us, or else, inevitably lead us on into the final exile.

The ancient Egyptians visualized creation as an event in which the sun was birthed by a pyramidal mound, itself rising out of the ancient, primordial, waters of chaos. While there are many layers to this mythology, it is a potent image that can serve as an apt metaphor for the emergence of the mental frameworks which give meaning to our worlds. From this perspective the pyramid can be seen as the individual psyche; at its apex, the light of consciousness, expanding downward into the shared symbols and motifs of the unconscious and collective, all while its base rests in the chaos of unstructured, meaningless, external stimuli.

Thanks to modern psychology, the concepts of the conscious and the unconscious have become familiar terms to describe layers of the mind. While these terms are useful approximations, like most classifications, the zones thus described are ultimately not discrete. Rather, much like the ocean, the layers expand massively downward, from the light of consciousness into gradient zones of unconscious darkness. The true depth of such darkness however expands radically below the surface, both downward and outward, eventually eclipsing what we normally term the individual. For below both the conscious and the unconscious of the individual mind is the collection of shared cultural motifs termed the collective unconscious, and ultimately below this are the direct stimuli that we term the physical world. Each layer may be seen as a perceptual filter that variously molds or shapes our perception of each preceding zone.

The individuality of a single being is therefore also gradient; a gradual blending of the discrete into the universal. To return to the initial metaphor, the individual mind rises out of the chaos of the universal, bringing with it conceptual frameworks and the clarity of understanding. Interestingly, both the darkest depths of the unknown, aphotic, chaos and the momentary light of conscious understanding are, in their own ways, universally shared among all beings. The first as the unfiltered, shared, world of physicality. The second through the universality of perceiving itself, where the momentary, experiential act links all through the transcendence of the witness, I.

The knowledge that below our momentary awareness exists a collection of desires, fears, and beliefs that exert almost complete gravity over our supposedly independent thoughts and actions is hardly a new discovery, yet nevertheless the belief that we are creatures only of the conscious mind, rational actors in a rational and known world, stubbornly persists. Indeed, our unconscious existences are often feared, perhaps because they so easily pierce the carefully crafted worlds we rely on for stability in the face of the unknown.

Like all of our deepest fears, this terror of the abyss finds purchase in our symbols and stories. Among them: the sexually resplendent serpent who tempts the first woman in the garden of Eden; Níðhöggr, the dragon who gnaws at the roots of the world-tree; and the snake that steals eternal youth from Gilgamesh. The shared phallic and venomous characteristics of this manifestation are no coincidence. Sexuality is often at the root of destructive and creative acts alike. The serpent can thus be seen as a channel through which the abyssal chaos penetrates our formed mental worlds and permits new creative acts.

Whether the well of our primordial desires is demonized due to the threat it presents to constraining paradigms, or whether it emerges out of our own, personal, fears is largely irrelevant. Our leviathans are ultimately part of the totality of ourselves, neither to be feared nor repressed if we are to achieve a state of harmony. Indeed, they are only monstrous when we do not accept them as a necessary and critical part of ourselves.

One of the distinguishing features of Christianity relative to other contemporary religious schemas is the externalization of the destructive force. In almost all widespread modern interpretations of Christianity the cyclical progression of life, death, and rebirth is seen as leading towards an ultimate end. An end where the cycle will at last stop with the death of destruction and the establishment of an eternal stasis of unending, unrejuvenated, life. While precedents can certainly be found, for example in the Jewish concept of New Jerusalem, the promise of life without death as a central tenant, stands as a central tenant in Christianity alone.

An interesting counterexample can be found in Hinduism. Similar to Christianity, the concept of the three-in-one god is also precedent. The central forces of the universe are thought of in terms of the creative (Brahma), the protective (Vishnu), and the destructive (Shiva). While a similar concept can be found in the Christian trinity, in the case of the trinity the holy spirit is is substituted for the destructive, which instead is personified as an external force, namely the devil.

Even in Judaism, Yahweh is shown as both a protective and destructive force, as easily capable of blessing as wanton devastation. Indeed, it is something of a cognitive-dissonance in modern Christianity that a supposedly moral god was once capable of such wrath. The solution to this dilemma is the realization that

we turn to nature however death is seen in all aspects of life. From the ashes of the forest fire grows new life. The fox kills the hare to feed its young. Dead matter feeds the growth of the new. Like any truth that is repressed the eventual emergence is warped and distorted.

That Christ is presented as a conquer of death, rather than role of death in. This fact especially curious as it, if the death of the savior was the catalyst that brought about new life perhaps it is best to regard destruction as a necessary, inalienable, aspect of the world, rather than a force that must be conquered. Instead, death may be regarded as a necessary part of a unified whole.

The essential composite and dynamics of the universe are undeniable; entropy consumes with the same inevitability as the generative element creates and recreates. That the cycle of these phenomenon exist as axiomatic truths however has not inhibited their obfuscation. Indeed, how various schemas have chosen to interpret the presences of death specifically has varied greatly. One of the distinguishing features that has emerged in contemporary Christianity for instance is its near universal externalization of the destructive.

For those familiar only with the estrangement of destruction, its malignancy can seem self-evident. Contrasting counterexamples however abound. Ranging from the embraced violence of mesoamerican mythology, to its acceptance of it in the near-eastern pantheon, destruction is rarely found only in the other. Far from being considered opposed to the divine, in dharmic theology, destruction is often seen as a central, and sometimes even ultimate, aspect of the divine. In such cases undoing, no less than doing, is rightly perceived as a necessary aspect of the whole.

In Christianity, that the creative is considered not just a dominate trait of a complex entity, but indeed as the primary, if not sole, aspect of the Godhead, is telling. While earlier incarnations of the Abrahamic El do place an emphasis on the creative aspects of the deity, so too do they also acknowledge the ruinous. Not surprisingly, as the concept of the destructive divine became increasingly unpalatable, the personification of destruction emerged as an inherently independent, invasive, figure. That this figure ultimately took on the form of earlier horned and hoofed nature deities is far from coincidental.

In the natural, world death is a constant presence which grants life to many even as it robs it from some: from the ashes of the forest fire grows new life; the lion that kills the lamb feeds its young with the refuse. Destruction of the old is always necessary and central to the growth of the new. This incontrovertible character is in direct contrast to the divine peace emphasized as the modern Christian ideal. In this context it is not surprising that the personification of the wild would take on a threatening aspect. Indeed, in the horned being of life and death is found all that is missing in sterilized ideals of static perfection.

Perhaps the ultimate example of this perceptual shift is contained in the Christ story itself. In a mythology centered on rebirth there can, with equal emphasis, be perceived the importance of death as of life. Rather than a conquest over death, the role of destruction in the resurrection should be seen as the divine catalyst for new life. When instead an excision is attempted on a necessary process, an impassable divide is created between existence and its imagined ideal. This sundering not only results in the separation of the divine from the natural, but also the division of man from the divine. It is impossible to love something without accepting the totality of it.