The Garden of Eden and its Symbolism

I look at the story of Genesis- namely the description of the garden of Eden as holding profound insights into the most foundational geometries in nature. This story, no doubt, is a syncretism of other such stories and doctrines.

We have the tree- a fractal; a form observed in all areas and scales of nature. For instance, the forks of lightning that light the sky, Mycelium networks (a network being a group of interconnected trees), and in more modern discoveries- the synaptic networks of the brain, dark matter distributions in the universe, and even road structures (as seen at night from a plane window). More metaphysically, it might represent the associative memory that gives rise to knowledge, our capacity for decision making, or the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

I find it no coincidence that many gods in various pantheons were the wielders of lightning- being not only a powerful and mysterious force of nature, but speaking to that fractal and tree-like geometry that permeates reality. In Norse mythology, Odin himself is said to have hanged himself from the great world-tree Yggdrasil for nine days in a sacrifice to himself, with the payoff of divine knowledge. Being an object of divine reverence and worship for centuries before Christianity, I have no doubt that the presence of the tree is of great significance.

Secondly, we have the snake- which in ancient times in some cultures was synonymous with the Ouroborus; the snake eating its own tail, told of in Hindu stories hundreds of years prior to the writing of the Bible. Now, this symbol represents not only a circular geometry found in nature (the planets, solar systems, whirlpools, etc), but metaphysically represents cycles, and self reference. It is said that the snake came to Eve first- and because of that, she must suffer the pain of childbirth. Being a woman, perhaps it is speaking of the menstrual cycle, and instead of a ‘blame’, it is a comment of the pain of the cycle, and highlighting its association with childbirth.

As well as circular geometries, these cycles are also to be seen in the coming and going of the sun, the phases of the moon, and the changing of the seasons.

On the point of self reference, I believe it is in self reference that we are made aware of ‘the self’, and through that, our actions- to be judged this way or that; the advent of the conscience. To elaborate, it was said that in the garden before the consumption of the fruit we were able to commune with the animals in nature- being the same. I think this speaks to an awareness that we, before self-knowledge, spoke in an instinctual and ‘externally facing’ awareness. We responded automatically to the environment around us, in a very ‘hylic’ sense; and as ‘the lion does not feel guilt when it kills a gazelle’, we too were unconcerned with the consequences of our actions, being unaware of the self and its relation to the world- we were morally indifferent.

However, with a self-referential redirection of our senses into the realm of the psyche, we had opened the doors to both the confusion and understanding of our own motives, the consequences of our actions, and a base theory of mind that we might infer the conscious nature of other creatures- and thus, the moral treatment of them. Personally, in the knowledge of such practices as in the Elusinian mysteries, and other such practices found in cultures all around the world, shamanic, druidic, or otherwise, I believe the ‘fruit’ that is spoken of in Genesis to be in reference to a psychedelic substance- with which a heightened sense of self-awareness is often reported (or the ‘doors of perception’ as Alduous Huxley might call it).

Finally, we have this concept of good and evil, or even the man and woman, in juxtaposition. This represents symmetry, and just as the yin-yang relationship might be conflated as the balance of good and evil, I believe this to have been lost in translation in Genesis also; it doesn’t speak of a single opposition of moral qualities, but of symmetry in general. Symmetry, being two things of the same essence with opposing qualities – the concept of man and woman potentially as being viewed the same.

In nature, we have the reflection in the water, (primitively) the sun and the moon, night and day, up-down, left-right, forward-back in our spatial relation to reality; and in more modern senses, molecular chirality, spin states of electrons, or electric charge.

These three forms seem to me to be fundamental or ‘primordial’ geometric patterns that can be observed to emerge time and time again in the macro scale of our own natural and immediate observations, the grand cosmic, the sub-atomic scale of the microcosm, and speak of the innate conceptual geometries through which god emerges in nature.

Of course, there is also the spiral (perhaps not noted in Genesis) – which I will elaborate on at another time.