Eden

 

Eden is many things to many people.   What it means to you, if anything, should not be replaced by this essay.

 

Eden is more than a Utopia, it is a powerful psychological representation of what it would be like to be a perfect person in a perfect place.  Eden is the sum total of all perfection.  It is also the place where all come form, yet none return.

 

Why are there so many myths and legends of lost paradises?  Not just Eden, but Atlantis as well?

 

One possible answer is that Eden represents a racial memory of what the human race was like before the invention of Agriculture.  This theory is laid out quite well in John Zerzan’s essay, “Agriculture, Demon Engine of Civilization.”   To quote an interview from him:

 

Q: Your writings would seem to posit a Golden Age for humanity during much or all of the Paleolithic. And yet I don't feel your ideas are contingent upon the idea of a past Eden in the most extreme and literal sense. Life may once have been far more immediate and fulfilling, but there had to have been some flaws at some level to bring us to the present. I am curious to what extent you feel attached to the idea of a past utopia (which is clearly impossible to completely prove), as opposed to the application of useful concepts from the past on a present-value basis.


A: I think you are right to suggest that we should avoid idealizing pre-history, refrain from positing it as a state of perfection. On the other hand, hunter-gatherer life seems to have been marked, in general, by the longest and most successful adaptation to nature ever achieved by humans, a high degree of gender equality, an absence of organized violence, significant leisure time, an egalitarian ethos of sharing, and a disease-free robusticity. Thus it seems to me instructive and inspiring, even if imperfect and perhaps never fully known to us.

 

Eden is best defined against the contrast of what we have now: the Kali Yuga.  Marx stated how capitalist industrialism created a sense of alienation from nature.  However, the industrial revolution is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Alienation from nature happened when humanity gave itself “dominion” over all other life.  That is, it started when we became the slave-masters to the plants and animals around us.  Yet, even that is an illusion.  From the point of view of a plant, who is really the master?  In the book Botany of Desire, author Michael Pollan paints a fascinating look at how plants use humans as their tools.  We became aliens from the natural world when we were forced into agricultural roles.

 

What makes a Lylythian different than her peers is that this sense of alienation is greatly diminished.  We don’t feel that we are cut off from the natural world.  We don’t have a great spiritual awakening, or feel “in touch with nature” while in the woods, because “that which is natural” is something internal to our core essence.  Obviously, I’m not advocating a return to a pre-agricultural society.  Even if it were possible, I doubt it would be comfortable.  You’re reading a web page, after all.  There are levels of “monasticism” one participate in, which involve the removal of agricultural influence.  (For example, level one monasticism involves not eating any grains, potatoes, dairy, legumes or processed sugars).  While in many cases removal of agricultural influence may be beneficial, the Temple in no way endorses removal from reality.

 

Ultimately, Eden is a state of purity within a person.  Different influences, both physical and psychological, can interrupt this state of purity, but they can never take it away.  While the Lylythian may not be in a physical Garden of Eden, we have a connection to the Earth and its creatures that makes us feel like it is our home, not our penal colony.

 

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