Consciousness and the Garden of Eden: The subconscious framework of Adam & Eve in the Fall

The story of the fall of Adam & Eve has often times been rehearsed to humanity as the narrative as to how humans became so “messed up.” Religion often times makes a premise for biblical anthropology in this idea of original sin. That since Adam & Eve sinned, all of humanity has inherited the guilt, shame, and corruption of sin, and that is why we sin because we are now “sinners by nature.”

With the development of this idea in western thought through theologians like Augustine and Calvin (and it’s subsequent spread through out the western worlds since the reformation to the present), we can see how this viewpoint is so prevalent and how it offers a canned response to the question of the origin and perpetuation of sin and evil.

I however, would like to approach this narrative from a cognitive angle and show how the fall from grace in the garden of Eden was more of a descent into a lower consciousness, rather than an inescapable fate from a corrupted and irredeemable ontology.

The dictionary defines fall as follows; “to move downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, from a higher to a lower level.”

Adam & Eve fell, but what did they fall from?

We first have to establish their original platform, or domain of consciousness that God placed them in.

The Original Consciousness of Mankind

Something interesting to notice is how God creates humanity different from every other thing he created. When God creates he speaks to the substance of the thing and brings it forth. Origin is so essential to making sense of life and determining trajectory, life purpose, and the development of a sense of self.

Light is created by God speaking it into existence from his own being. (Gen 1:3, 1 Jn 1:5)

He speaks to the waters and out comes a firmament (the heavens) and dry land. (Gen 1:6-10)

He speaks to the substance of earth and brings forth grass, trees, plants, and seeds. (Genesis 1:11–12)

God creates the sun, moon, and stars by speaking to the substance of the heavens. ( Gen 1:14–18)

God creates all sea, ocean, and bird life by speaking to the substance in the waters. (Gen 1:20–22)

God creates all the land creatures by speaking to the substance in the earth. (Gen 1:24–25)

Now when God comes to the crown of his creation, his magnum opus of all creation, do you know what substance he speaks to; to bring mankind to life?

Himself!

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them.”

Important note: the word “blessed” in the Hebrew used in Genesis when God blessed humanity is also used in the Psalms. It is the word ‘barak’ which means to bless, kneel, adore. The Father of humanity like any good and loving father does, became awestruck by the birth of his offspring. He adored his kids.

Their placement is in the garden of pleasure; “eden” means pleasure. Their existence came with a mandate that would reflect their identity as the image and likeness of God. The invisible God was now made flesh in his image and likeness. Humanity became God’s address. Humanity became the visible image of God on earth with the intent of them being fruitful, multiplying, subduing and replenishing the earth and having dominion of the earth and its animal inhabitants.

If someone would’ve asked Adam & Eve who they were, their response would’ve been “I am just like my Father, made in his image and likeness, I am blessed, I have dominion of the earth and animals, I am fruitful, multiplying and replenishing the earth and subduing it, I AM VERY GOOD!”

Now that I have set the groundwork for where they were already positioned in God in their identity and inheritance, I am going to show how the fall was a descent in their consciousness that led them to sin (miss the mark of their identity) physically.

The Subconscious Framework of the fall

I am going to go in different directions to bring this home in order to help us have a cognitive understanding of the fall narrative. There is a psychology behind the fall. There is a descent in consciousness. They were, in their mind, conscious of God’s thoughts toward them, his belief about them and then descended into deception.

What led Adam & Eve was a lie/illusion false ID-ea about God that led to their ID-olatry which led to their ID-entity crisis that led to their death. Let’s go back to what God told Adam & Eve about the tree of the knowledge of good & evil (duality).

“And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”(non-being).

God tells Adam the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will descend into non-being. Why? The tree of the knowledge of good & evil is the law of works. It is an attempt to get through the false self/ego, unaware of what God has already given us through grace. We call this the fall like St. Paul calls the Galatians attempting to be justified by the law they have fallen from grace.

The Consciousness chain of the fall

The serpent opens up a conversation with Eve and offers her knowledge. A perception about God that wasn’t true. He lies to her. He deceives her. Places a veil over her understanding of who God is. She now has a false view of her father; deception. From that false view of God she has a false view of herself, from that false view of herself she acts accordingly; she eats from the I am not/I don’t have tree (duality consciousness).

Here is what he says to her.

The 3 lies of the serpent

1. You won’t die (a lie about how living from duality/judgment has no consequences. If she didn’t think she would die from eating from the tree of knowledge she certainly thought she would live from it)
2. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened (A lie about God by presenting God as a liar and not good by “holding something back from her”)
3. and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. ( a lie about her identity…she already was like God, ya know the whole image and likeness thing.)

Here is what she processes mentally

Eve’s 3 false perceptions

1. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (I’m not going to die from depending on myself and making the source of life my judgment about what I need to live. It is the lie that self-reliance apart from God is good enough. The “I don’t have” part of the tree of knowledge) Lust of the flesh
2. that it was pleasant to the eyes (I know what’s best for me, I see that it’s desirable to my eyes so I’m going to eat it.) Lust of the eyes
3. and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. (Eve had to believe she was lacking in order for her to be convinced to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. She was trying to get from her own effort and strength; law, what God would have given her as a grace gift.)Pride of life.

How the descent happened in her conversation with the serpent

He presents an IDea to her. The idea is a lie/illusion. A lie is false information. An illusion is to make reality other than what it really is. This idea of her not dying (descending into non being by separating from the source of life), being like God(through the knowledge of good & evil; sounds like gnosticism), and having her eyes opened(secret knowledge/gnosticism. The entire platform of religion and new age spirituality) is the IDea that led to her IDolatry.

What is an IDea? “It is a mental picture or image.” Eve took her IDea about her Father and projected it onto her Father. The word IDea comes from the proto-indo-european word *weid which means “to see”(in other words perception). Through the lie she saw God in a false view, thus now having a false image of God in her mind. A false image of God is what we call IDolatry. When we project a lie about God onto God and believe that is what God is.

She now saw God through a false image, and through that false image she in turn viewed herself in the same light; through a false image. Adam & Eve were made to reflect the image and likeness of God. With a false view of God, IDolatry, she couldn’t properly reflect the true image and likeness of God and therefore entered into IDentity crisis.

What did that ID-entity crisis bring?

The birth of the false self (I am not who God made & intended me to be)

Religion/IDolatry as a way to earn or get God’s blessing through ritual (I don’t believe God is good and gracious therefore I must earn or labor for it)

Fear, death, and the fear of death. (the descent into non-being; a scarcity consciousness which leads to the actions of the consciousness of sin)

If we live out of a false IDentity because of a false IDea of God which is IDolatary, there is nothing left for us but to behave as if God and I are separate, and as if other humans and I are separate. Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil is really saying “I am not/I don’t have”.

Important Note: Adam is the first human to fear God through his false perception of God. Before eating from the “I am not/I don’t have tree” Adam & Eve didn’t fear God. The fear of God is mentioned for the first time in the fall story. Adam was afraid and he hid from God because he had shame for his nakedness. He descended in consciousness from being a happy naked vegetarian to a shameful, afraid victim that blamed his wife for his sin.

If I am not one with God, blessed by God, made in his image and likeness, etc…. what must I create in order to appease God? Religion

If I nor my fellow humans aren’t made in the image and likeness of God, it is a lot easier to kill them with no remorse “Ahem Cain & Abel.”

The Fall in summary

Adam & Eve were fine before they believed lies. To have a false perception of God is to be in deception. Deception means to be without grasp or to come down from view. I.e their consciousness descended. They now had an illusory per-ception. Perception means to see through a point. They now saw through the lie and began to live from that lie. How does the lie affect humanity? Doesn’t this lie of duality permeate all spheres of human invention? When we believe in the ultimate lie (the lie of separation), we sin against God first 4 commandment and then we sin against our neighbor last 6 commandments.

Humans sin when we believe in lies: not because we are inherently sinful. We inherently have a propensity to survive and believe ourselves to be in a hostile world with hostile people. We must either defend ourselves from people or take advantage of them. We subconsciously believe God is absent, distant, aloof, and an indifferent deity scowling down at us like a divine bookkeeper.

The mirror translation puts it this way: Romans 1:25

Truth suppressed (v18) became twisted truth. Instead of embracing their Maker as their authentic identity, they preferred the deception of a distorted image of their own making, religiously giving it their affection and worship. The true God is the blessed God of the ages. Hey! he is not defined by our devotion or indifference!(And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshipped the god THEY MADE instead of the God who made them. Message)

Everything stems from our false IDEAS of God which is IDOLATRY and, since we are created to reflect the image, likeness, and glory of God, if our IDEAS are IDOLATROUS we find ourselves in a crisis of IDENTITY. If we live out of a false identity, all that is left for us to do is sin. The actions of sin are a symptom to a consciousness of sin, and that consciousness of sin is the illusion. The illusion of our ideas about God and the illusion about our ideas of our self.

This leads to questions about the atonement, repentance(really metanoia), salvation, etc….

In this context I want to frame up that Jesus’ work is more of a deliverance from sin (mistaken identity), death (non-being), and the devil ( the unintegrated/accusatory/dualistic/judgmental consciousness that gives birth to evil acts). I’m not saying demons aren’t real, they are, and a lot of what we blame on the devil is more our stuff than an actual devil.

And his work is a recapitulation of the original intent for humanity in his person. Recapitulation and Christus Victor are very early church views of the atonement Propagated by Iranaeus, Athanasius, Gregory. They knew nothing of the IDea of paying off an angry God to satisfy his bloodlust for revenge, but rather a God who in compassion comes to heal us form our malady and restore us and return our consciousness to union with God as displayed in the person of Christ.