Tales of the Mythic World | Frankenstein, The Tempest, and the Garden of Eden

In Genesis, as God goes about the creation of Heaven and Earth, after each step he pauses and assesses his work. When he creates light he says, “Let there be light.”Then comes his assessment: “And God saw the light, that it was good…” This assessment phase is an indication that God didn’t see himself as infallible, that he could create something with which he might not be too please. But in Genesis, though reflection was a definite part of the process, he was on a roll, so it seems. The creating and evaluating scenario continues day-by-day through the creation of man, following which God then reflects on all he has created and that “it was very good.” One might say that God was not arrogant concerning his own creative talents and recognized limitations in his omnipotence.

God then demonstrates his goodwill toward mankind, sort of a sense of divine responsibility, by putting Adam and Eve in what he called the Garden of Eden. Adam was evidently caretaker of the Garden because God had given him the task of “tilling and watching it.” God’s one admonition was not to eat from or touch the tree in the center of the Garden, the tree God called “the Tree of Knowledge, good and evil.” Here at the beginning of all things, we learn that not all knowledge is beneficial to mankind, or possibly that all knowledge is both good and evil.

But into mankind and the animals God had breathed freewill, something not mentioned in the text but demonstrated dramatically by an encounter between Eve and a serpent. Encouraged by the serpent, Eve tasted the forbidden fruit, and Adam followed suit with remarkably little reluctance, almost as if it was done on a whim.

God had told them that if they tasted the fruit they “would surely die,” which they surely did not. Had God lied? And what of this word “surely”? One might even say that God was a little uncertain just what would happen himself. And why did he put them in the Garden in the first place if it was so dangerous? And why did he create them capable of opposing his will? Had God’s “very good” creation gone awry, after all?

The act of disobedience wasn’t without consequences. Adam and Eve’s perception of themselves had changed. Their eyes opened, and they covered their nakedness and hid from God. They felt shame, one of the most basic human emotions. They had gained the forbidden knowledge and had “become like one of us,” God said, like one of the gods, or at least one of those inhabiting the spiritual world. Thus our inner moral weathervane has a divine origin and is attributable to this one act. We gained not only knowledge but also the capacity for moral evaluation. But God said “like one of us” and not “one of us.” Adam and Eve had become a copy of an immortal and not an immortal.

This was not the start of death for mankind because God had always envisioned an end to an individual life, as indicated by what followed next. Another tree also grew in the Garden, one God hadn’t even mentioned. God didn’t kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden because they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, but because they posed a second threat, one to the Tree of Life. To prevent them from eating the fruit of this tree, and thus gaining life everlasting, God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden and into a much harsher world. A great distance would grow between God and them and all their descendents down through the ages. God had all but abandoned the race of men, and they would strive with mixed results to regain his divine trust and live in his protective presence. Cast out and all but forsaken by God, they had no real hope, but they would learn to survive without it.

Thus was created civilization as we know it. Mankind had to use that new-found knowledge to survive in the world. They would struggle to gain even more knowledge so that they might overcome the hardships of existence and redefine their civilization, but always the knowledge seemed a double-edged sword. Each bit of knowledge not only solved a problem but also brought new troubles. They became the great “creators” and their inventions were both boon and bane. Forever mankind would seek the security they had at one time known in the Garden of Eden, one in which God walked and talked with them, and they would seek that security in more knowledge.

Through their act of defiance, Adam and Eve had not only found shame but also what follows in its wake: jealousy and hatred. It started with their first two children, Cain and Abel. For Cain became jealous of Abel and slew him. Thus mankind had developed a taste for the greatest curse of all: murder, the great subverter of societies and destroyer of civilizations.

It seemed that, once the fruit had been tasted, knowledge was no longer forbidden, or even could be forbidden. Knowledge poured forth unsolicited through contemplation. The dam had collapsed, the flood was inevitable. With knowledge, both good and evil, Adam and Eve had experienced a loss of innocence, and discovered that they now had new responsibilities that came with their newfound knowledge.

They had come into the world fully formed and experienced their loss as adults, but their children, indeed all children henceforth, would undergo this same loss of innocence gradually and in stages as they aged, became fully adult, and knowledgeable. This would also be true of civilizations. Gaining knowledge would always result in a new loss of innocence and require attention to new responsibilities as a society. If one central characteristic defines human existence, it is that all societies, regardless of size, experience a loss of innocence. How well they respond to their responsibilities determines if they will survive or dwindle into non-existence. All these social forces started there in the Garden of Eden.

Through the millennia, the warning from Genesis about the acquisition of knowledge seemed to remain unrecognized by the general public or at least to be left simmering on a back burner. Perhaps it was just that the issue hadn’t reached a critical point in human intellectual development. Then during the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, began to accumulate at a more rapid rate. And a new warning of the use of such knowledge would burst upon the scene like a lightening bolt. The bearer of this warning was a young girl of nineteen, who seemingly was guided to her destiny by a conspiracy of the elements, a syzygy.

…the primitive foundations of the human soul are … profound time-sources where the myth has its home and shapes the primeval norms and forms of life. For the myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless schema, the pious formula to which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious. [Thomas Mann, “Freud and the Future.”]

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. [Ecclesiastes 1:17-18]

Author’s Note:

Sometimes, those of us who spend our lives searching for some bit of knowledge that will help make sense of life here on Earth come to the end of the road. We then have a choice: to turn back and end our intellectual journey or proceed beyond the dead end. When we wade a ways out into the weeds and scrub brush, we stand a chance of becoming lost in a chaotic philosophical wilderness and even risk losing, if not our minds, at least our sense of purpose, which can result in a sickness of the soul. But it’s worth the chance because, if our intuition has served us well, we will stumble out of the bushes to find ourselves at an intellectual height where we can overlook the vase reaches of the human endeavor and gain a fresh perspective. This present work, whereupon you are about to embark, is the result of such a journey. It’s not an imaginative work, nor is it even one of great creativity, but is only an observation of where mankind has come so far.

The idea for this work originated in a SciFi film series, which I hosted at New Mexico State University – Carlsbad in 1998. One of the films was the 1931 version of Frankenstein, which was loosely base on the Mary Shelly novel. While researching the origins of Mary’s story, I became interested, not only in her life, but also the message apparent in the subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. Then in the fall of 2001, the American Library Association advertised a traveling exhibit titled, “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature.” The stated objective of the display was to encourage “audiences to examine the intent of Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, and to discuss Shelley’s and their own views about personal and societal responsibility as it relates to science and other areas of life.” Since in addition to being an author, I am an engineer/scientist, I’m interested in the social implications of all technological and scientific discoveries. We were unable to get the exhibit for our university branch, but it started me thinking about writing an essay on the subject. Gradually, the concept evolved into the current work.

A ways into the writing of it, I had a dream. I stood on a mountain at night overlooking a brilliant sea of city lights, a future world. A man in a dark cloak stood in front of me, a little to the right. He turned and looked back at me, as if to say, “See, all this is possible.” Then the scene was interrupted by a line of mushroom clouds, similar to the line of bombs dropped on Baghdad during “Shock and Awe” at the start of the war with Saddam Hussein, but these were atomic bombs and not those of conventional warfare. This seemed to be an opposing alternative. I realized then that my dream was directed, not at me, but at our times.

I woke then, slowly, and as the mists of sleep faded, the name of one man came to mind, Teiresias. Teiresias was a seer in ancient Greece, a priest of Apollo, and though blind, could see the future and knew the will of the gods. He’d advised the kings of Thebes: Kadmos, Oedipus and many others. Years after he died, famous Odysseus came to see him in the Underworld to learn his way home from Troy. Teiresias was the only man to retain an unclouded mind in the Afterlife.

Fifteen years ago, I traveled Greece for ten weeks visiting many archeological sites: Delphi, Ithaca, Troy. I’d also visited Thebes, and while there had some unsettling experiences, epiphanies really, concerning my own life. Upon my return home, while analyzing my voyage and writing about it, I realized that, while traveling that ancient land, I had been in the hands of the gods in the literal sense. Because of this and other strange occurrences, I’ve learned to take heed of dreams and experiences that seem meaningful, even though to do so might appear delusional. This dream I’d just had concerning Teiresias seemed to cast a new light on the writing of this book.

I write in voices. I can research until hell won’t have it, but I can’t really start writing a book until I find the right voice to tell the story. Some call it channeling, but I’m a little suspicious of that. I will say this: Teiresias, with his unclouded mind and residence in the world of the divine, could possibly have visibility of all things past and future. This book could be a warning from Teiresias, and these tales I’ve written here could all be, not only mine, but also his tales of the mythic world.

Chapter 01: The Garden of Eden

Author’s Note

Pages

Chapters

Links

Meta