Whispers of Mystery: Duality

Showing posts with label Duality. Show all posts

Sunday, October 4, 2020

0 Jasmine's Journal: Who is Eve? God? What is the Fall?

Now that I, Jasmine’s author, have shared some of the many mysteries of the Adam and Eve story outside of the scope of Jasmine’s quest (due to her Evangelical reading of the Bible as she was taught: literally) Jasmine, having reached the end of her quest, is ready to record into her journal some of her discoveries. Now, to Jasmine, and her journal in Jasmine’s words . . .

Who is Eve? God? What is The Fall?

Dear Spirit,

How little I understood! Had I not been ex-communicated from church for asking for accountability after my kiss with Davie, I might never have learned what’s beneath what the whispers have called “centuries of misunderstanding” about Eve. I’ve learned not only about Eve, but also about men and women and our relationship to God, actually named the masculine/feminine/plural Elohim, our duality, our illusion of separation with the divine, which has been called “The Fall,” and our potential to transcend this illusion.

My no contact order with Davie has tortured me, Spirit. So have my two decades of burying my questions after being reprimanded, at age 11, for being “just like Eve” – just for asking questions -- and then scared away from asking any more. Perhaps healing can come as I record what I’ve discovered:

1. The irony that I was reprimanded at 11 for doing just what Jesus calls for us to do: “to ask, seek, and knock.” But Sunday school teachers don’t like it when we ask inconvenient questions that make God look bad, like why Noah let God drown the world, or why God commanded Joshua to commit genocide, or why God would forbid Adam and Eve from something good: knowledge -- knowledge even of what is good and evil.

2. The quick assumptions of the church elders to immediately judge me as a temptress violated basic biblical steps of accountability even for those who have not confessed needs of accountability, let alone for those like me and Davie who did. (My author hasn’t written this yet; please be patient with her.)

3. The church elder missed and entirely violated the spirit of the very verse he quoted, 2 Timothy 2:22, by omitting the second part: to pursue righteousness with those in our church body, upon fleeing the very lusts for which we were seeking accountability. (My author wrote about this in “Always the Thorn?”)

4. Never in church do we hear that Eve had two additional curses to the only one we ever learn, pain in childbirth: “you will desire your man and he will rule over you” (Gen 3:16). As my author wrote in “Synchronicity,” I was flabbergasted the Bible actually says this. That last one, “he will rule over you,” chills me so much, Spirit, I don’t even know where to begin, as my author showed in “Space. Get it?” I’ve spent more time on that middle curse, “you will desire your man,” which my author showed me beginning to mull over in “You Complete Me.”

5. I’ve further explored the middle curse, “desire your man,” as an obsession for some women, as my author showed in “The Ancient Obsession,” and one that the fashion, cosmetics, beauty, and romance industries capitalize on to their great profit, as my author developed in “Girls’ Day Out.”

6. Sometimes, the woman’s obsession can get under the man’s skin; therefore, as my author pointed out, sometimes he just needs his “Space.”

Although these are some significant discoveries, Spirit, even more astonishing ones are to come, and my author has yet to write them! I hope her readers will be patient. But, I, her heroine, have the prophetic crystal ball of what I have yet to discover, and these are on their way:

7. The character translated as “God” into English in the Adam and Eve story was called Elohim in the original text, written in Hebrew. The -im suffix shows this figure to be a plural entity, and the name contains both masculine and feminine parts, suggesting this “God” power is masculine, feminine, and plural. Why, Spirit, are we not taught this?

8. The word translated into English as “helper” or “helpmeet” is ezer in the original Hebrew, for which a better translation is “life-saver.” How many English speaking women, Spirit, have any idea the woman was created to be a life-saver? (My author hasn’t yet let me discover this, but she has shared this mystery on her blog in “In the Beginning, Part 2.”)

9. This same Elohim figure forbid something good, something the New Testament later calls for: knowledge of good and evil. Why would a “good” God (or Elohim) forbid something good that would later be called for? Why, further, would a good God/Elohim punish his subjects so severely for taking something that ought to help them progress further in their human evolution?

10. As I further reflect on this mystery, I will perceive that the problem of the tree may be less about “knowledge” and more about “duality”: good and evil. I will reflect that a more fitting name for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil might be “Tree of Duality.” Duality leads not to death, but to suffering and to the illusion of separation. (Even though my author hasn’t yet let me discover this, she has written about it in “The Tree of Duality” on her blog.)

11. According to the Jewish mystic system of gematria, the serpent (nahash: Nun (50) + Het (8) + Shin (300) = 358) holds the same mystical energy of 358 as the Messiah (Meshiach: Mem (40) + Shin (300) + Yod (10) + Het (8) = 358), suggesting the carry twin energy.

12. The illusion of separation can be transcended by finding “completion” not in a human man, but in the heavenly man, Christ, the Christ within (Luke 17:21, KJV); “the mystery is this: Christ in you” (Col 1:27). This mystery is too complex for the scope of my quest in this book, but my author plans to have me at least ponder it.

Stunning revelations You’ve given to me, Spirit. Most of these came by way of reading the Bible the way I was taught, beginning back in Sunday school, as my author began to show in the “BE Filled Forever” context selection. Having completed this quest, I have one more significant discovery: perhaps the reason I was so unreasonably reprimanded for asking the questions I did was because my questions implicated God. They made God look bad. Therefore, the church leaders preferred that I be not “just like Eve” and seek not knowledge. However, by seeking knowledge the way they taught me, through a literal reading of the Bible, I have discovered that possibly – just possibly – the divine forces, “God” if you like, may have permitted an unfriendly version of himself to be presented in the Bible to test us to see if we are willing to wrestle with him. (My author has Davie hint at this idea in “Love 30, Part 3” and my author explores it more clearly in “Obey or Wrestle?” on her blog.)

Therefore, Spirit, perhaps we should not read the Bible literally, but wrestle with it instead. Do I thank You for letting me learn all of this through the hardships You’ve permitted? I’m not yet sure, but I’m getting there. Stay tuned, Spirit, for my future thank You journal entry to You, and until then, please be patient with me!

Begin "Just like Eve" at 1: Why did Noah let God drown the world?

Saturday, September 26, 2020

The Quest not Taken

Dear Readers,

While I am actively updating Jasmine’s Discoveries, complete with links to the selections already written pertaining to the discoveries Jasmine has already made, I, her author, wish to share some of the factors relevant to her quest into Eve, and the overall story of Adam and Eve, which she will not be discovering, even though I, her author, believe them. For example, I, Jasmine’s author, believe the “Adam” figure and the “Eve” figure represent Jung’s “animus,” the unconscious masculine, and the “anima,” the unconscious feminine, within every human being.

Jasmine, however, is not going there, due to her method of investigation. Jasmine is choosing to investigate the person of Eve and of the overall story at the beginning of Genesis in the manner she was taught as an Evangelical Christian. By reading the story in the way she was taught to read the Bible, Jasmine makes some very astonishing discoveries. For example, the most sinister character in the story of what Evangelicals term “The Fall” is God Himself. This character, called by the masculine/feminine/plural name Elohim in the original Hebrew, forbids Adam and Eve from learning (knowledge) what Elohim sees as wrong (evil), severely punishes them when they learn what Elohim sees as evil, and then in a later tradition, many millennia later, calls upon them to learn the very same thing that Elohim had previously forbidden! (Heb 5:14)

As absurd as this sinister Elohim interpretation may sound, it follows the literal method of interpretation Evangelicals are taught to read the Bible, and part of my purpose as Jasmine’s author, is to expose some of the troublesome tenants of Evangelical Christianity by using its own tool: a literal interpretation of the Bible.

For now, permit me, Jasmine’s author, to separate myself from her by sharing what is not part of her quest, but is critical to my own understanding of the Adam and Eve story. Here begins a future selection in Just like Eve that will introduce Jasmine’s discoveries . . .

Jasmine’s Journal: “What is ‘The Fall’?”

Raised in Evangelical Christianity, Jasmine was unaware of the many traditions all over the globe that tell a similar story of a time when humans were at one with a divine force and then separated from this divine force. Nor did she realize that while these traditions grieve this separation, only her own tradition so severely places the blame for this separation upon humans.

Nor was Jasmine familiar with the extensive myths, also in almost every spiritual tradition, of serpent or dragon imagery, a force that many traditions demonstrate as powerful, dangerous, awe-some, and -- if faced properly, with bravery and purity – a route toward a spiritual state akin to the Christian concept of “salvation.”

Nor even was Jasmine aware of the origin of her tradition’s interpretation of the story it calls “The Fall,” from Augustine, based on skimpy scriptural evidence, limited logic, and his own sexual hang-ups. According to Augustine’s obscure logic, Adam and Eve were responsible for ushering into Humanity the concept come to be known as “Original Sin.” (For just how sexually messed up and, more importantly, illogical Augustine was in his development of his concept of “Original Sin,” see chapters 5 and 6 of Stephen Greenblatt’s The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve.)

Nor did Jasmine consider that this concept of “Original Sin” conveniently led the Catholic Church to scare its congregants with a terrifying image of an afterlife, from which they could save themselves should they generously donate their earnings to the Church.

Nor was she aware of the psychological interpretation of Adam and Eve as the unconscious masculine and the unconscious feminine, Jung’s animus and anima, that reside within each human. (While either the animus or the anima are likely to predominate, I, the author, see both residing in each one of us.)

Nor was Jasmine aware that centuries prior to Augustine, the Jewish scholar and philosopher Philo had already presented an interpretation remarkably similar to Jung’s, and that Philo’s interpretation remains to this day in many contemporary Jewish traditions.

No, Jasmine was uninformed about all of these interpretations and contexts. However, her tradition had taught her to carefully read the Bible, and to read it closely, regularly, and literally.

Finally, Jasmine was disturbed. No, she was was mad, inflamed. A quick, uninvestigated assumption that she had tempted the church youth pastor had cast her from church. This assumption had, in fact, unbiblically cast her out, based on the omitted second half of 2 Tim 2:22, calling not for separation, but connection, as long as one is working to keep lust away, which both she and Davie had promised to do.

Jasmine had been violated. Jasmine was mad. Jasmine had also heard a mysterious inner voice prompting her to find out who Eve is and to overturn “centuries of misunderstanding.” Jasmine’s quest had led to some astonishing discoveries, for which she was now ready to record into her journal . . .

See Jasmine’s Discoveries, now updated

Sunday, September 13, 2020

Reposting Introducing "Just like Eve"

Originally posted in April, 2020. Reposting.

Breaking from its traditional non-fiction format, whispers of mystery is currently following Karina’s fictional novel, Just like Eve. Karina began the themes explored here in 2008, in a non-fiction book she titled The Feminine Mystery, alluding to Betty Frieden’s 1963 classic, The Feminine Mystique, which explores what Frieden calls “the problem that has no name” -- a problem Karina believes is Eve’s second curse to desire her (earthly) man, not sexually, but as a completion to her. As she kept discovering more and more, she realized her discoveries were too controversial for non-fiction, and decided to clothe her message in fiction. For years, she tried many storylines and faced much writer’s block. In late 2017, she birthed Just like Eve, mixing the main storyline with a backdrop she could write about with her own sport of tennis.

Storyline: Heroine Jasmine, 31, is judged several times in life for being "just like Eve," first in 5th grade for asking off-limits questions, like why Noah let God drown the world. Now she's judged again with the same "just like Eve" line. She and 30 year old Davie are both married to others, are USTA mixed doubles partners, attend the same church for which Davie is the youth pastor, fall for one another, briefly act upon it, and seek accountability from the church leadership. It backfires. The church can't handle it. Jasmine is kicked out of church, thought to be a temptress. But was she? And what about Eve? And what might Eve really stand for? Jasmine is on a quest . . .

Among her discoveries for humans in general are these: (a) Eve risked her life for something that could potentially build her character and was later encouraged (Heb. 5:14); (b) this choice opened her eyes, but brought her suffering; hence the Tree from which she ate could be called "The Tree of Duality" -- it brought suffering, but a move forward; and (c) this duality brought the Illusion of Separation. To transcend this Illusion of Separation is the true Human Quest.

Among her discoveries for women are these: (a) the word translated into English as "helper" in Gen 2:18 is the Hebrew word ezer, and a more accurate translation of ezer is Lifesaver; the patriarchal translators did not wish to call woman a "lifesaver" for the man; (b) Eve was cursed not only for childbearing, but also to "desire her man" (Gen 3:16); that's a desire literally for her earthly man, not for sex, but for the man himself to complete her; and (c) most chilling of all, Eve was also cursed to "be ruled by him" (Gen 3:16); yes, how many pastors admit a curse to Eve is that her man would "rule over" her? And Jasmine kept making discoveries

Click to start Just like Eve at the beginning

Monday, April 13, 2020

Introducing "Just like Eve," Karina's Spiritual Quest Novel

Storyline: Heroine Jasmine, 32, is judged several times in life for being "just like Eve," first in 5th grade for asking off-limits questions, like why Noah let God drown the world. Now she's judged again with the same "just like Eve" line. She and 30 year old Davie are both married to others, are USTA mixed doubles partners, attend the same church for which Davie is the youth pastor, fall for one another, briefly act upon it, and seek accountability from the church leadership. It backfires. The church can't handle it. Jasmine is kicked out of church, thought to be a temptress. But was she? And what about Eve? And what might Eve really stand for? Jasmine is on a quest . . .

Click to start Just like Eve at the beginning