In some species of amphibians and reptiles, the pineal gland
is a light-sensing organ, known as the parietal eye, and is also called the
third eye. René Descartes believed the human pineal gland to be the
"principal seat of the soul".
This great spaceship, suspended above our heads like a Christmas ball… A
big transparent ball that we almost expect to see turn to rain the snow on the
roof of the world of the gods.
People who claim to have the capacity to “see” with their
third eyes are sometimes known as seers.
Spiritual traditions from India refer to the third eye as the ajna (or brow) chakra. The third eye refers to the gate that leads to inner realms
and spaces of higher consciousness. It is often associated with mystic
experiences such as religious visions, clairvoyance, observation of the chakras,
the ability to perceive auras, precognition, and out-of-body experiences, such
as astral travel and lucid dreaming. Buddhists regard the third eye as the
"eye of consciousness".
The human spine has evolved a number of adaptions that help it handle
upright walking, such as its typical S shaped curvature.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that one of the major
evolutionary steps in the journey to becoming modern humans was the development
of an upright posture, or bipedalism.
Perhaps the mythical snake or serpent in Christian mythology (referring to a
paradise that we know as Eden) was a reference to the newly-evolved s-shaped
spine? If you recall Genesis, you may remember the story that Eve was cursed
with delivering her offspring in pain and anguish thenceforth, after having
eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. ‘To the woman he said, "I will make your
pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to
children”. (Genesis 3:6).
[…] such a pelvic form had profound obstetrical consequences for
australopithecines, resulting either in a different mechanism of birth from
either later humans or nonhuman primates (Tague and Lovejoy) or in degree of difficulty during labour (Berge et al).
(-Yearbook of Physical Anthropology [Vol. 35,
1992)
Why did Mrs Rourke, circa 1960, draw the tree at the centre
of her simplistic earth illustration? The human nervous system- that is, the
structures in the brain combined with the spinal cord and motor and sensory
nerves- can be seen to look like Yggdrasil,
the giant ash tree of Scandinavian myth, the axis of the world, and recognised as the Tree of Life.
…floors or terraces [in the World Tree] are identified
with “heavens” or cosmic levels […] By climbing them, the pilgrim approaches
the Center [sic] of the World and,
on the upper terrace, he enters the “pure sphere”.
…it is on the loftiest mountain plateau of the Inner Continent, several
thousand feet higher than any portion of the surrounding country. It is the
most beautiful place I have ever beheld in all my travels. In this elevated garden
all manner of fruits, vines, shrubs, trees, and flowers grow in riotous
profusion…
(- Willis George Emerson, “The Smoky
God”)
The World Mountain is located in the centre of the universe, with stars,
planets and many suns revolving around it. There are thirty-three gods who
communicate with each other there.
The vertebral column usually consists of 33 vertebrae. A spinal nerve carries motor, sensory, and autonomic
signals between the spinal cord and the body. In the human body there are 31 pairs of spinal nerves, one on each
side of the vertebral column. Neurons (or nerve endings) communicate with one
another by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and
glutamate, into the small space between two neurons. Glutamate is the major
"excitatory" neurotransmitter in the brain, which means that it helps
to activate neurons and other brain cells.
At this stage of the mystical experience, it is the abundance of dopamine
in the brain that fills the person with unspoken satisfaction. […] There, humans exhibit differences in gene expression when compared to
the other primates.
Specifically, the researchers’ results showed that interneurons
expressing genes that code for dopamine synthesis are present in humans’
striata but not in non-humans. This, they say, is part of what makes human
brains uniquely human. - Stav Dimitropoulos, How Does Neuroscience Explain Spiritual and Religious Experiences? (blog)
In the Judeo-Christian scriptures, Adam and Eve are told by
Yahweh that they may eat anything in the Garden of Eden, except “the fruit of
the tree of knowledge”. There are various theories about what this “fruit”
might have been. Predictably, there are those who assume that, because it was
Eve who tempted Adam, the fruit was sexual. Others construe the imagery as
meaning that man and woman have created their own downfall through science and
technology. But what if the sanction against the fruit was not primarily about
the actual fruit, but the act of reaching
up for it? Does the narrative refer to the transition to becoming upright
human animals? Is the species memory of “being cast out of Paradise” a memory
of human life before mankind became erect?
"[…] the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they
were naked."
– Genesis 2
What could the myth mean by “naked”. Does it mean “hairless”,
as opposed to having an overall covering of hair, as in other primates?
Our sweaty hairlessness, the theory goes, allowed us to hunt for longer,
chasing nutritious large game that eventually helped give us the energy we
needed to fuel growing brains.
-Melissa Hogenboom, earth (BBC
webpage).
Interestingly, the eating of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, the need to cover themselves, and the loss of the close relationship
with other animals in the Garden of Eden were all connected events in the Old
Testament. Until they were cast out of Paradise, Adam and Eve were companions
of all the animals, and they could even speak to each other. What happened to
turn man against his companions, and instil the fear of man in those relatives
of his? Was man cast out of paradise at the point at which he evolved beyond
the vegetarian diet of earlier primates?
The human gut consists mainly of the small intestines, which are
responsible for the rapid breakdown of proteins and absorption of nutrients.
The ape's gut is primarily colon, which indicates a vegetarian diet. This
structural difference supports the hunting hypothesis in being an evolutionary
branching point between modern humans and modern primates. Buss also cites
human teeth in that fossilized human teeth have a thin enamel coating with very
little heavy wear and tear that would result from a plant diet. The absence of
thick enamel also indicates that historically humans have maintained a
meat-heavy diet. Buss notes that the bones of animals [that] human ancestors killed found at Olduvai Gorge have cut marks at
strategic points on the bones that indicate tool usage and provide evidence for
ancestral butchers. – wikipedia, citing Buss, David (1999).
There is that other troubling and incongruous assertion in
Genesis: was Eve created from Adam’s rib? Why would ribs be important in this
memory of the evolutionary watershed that is the development of an upright
posture? Like every other part of this creation myth, the story of Adam’s rib
is possibly a species memory of the evolution of the bipedal human’s ribcage,
as opposed to the hominids who preceded.
[…] humans and other great apes differ in the relative mediolateral
dimensions of the upper and lower ribs, which leads to a difference in the
overall contour of the rib cage (barrel-shaped in humans, conical or
funnel-shaped in the great apes, as seen in anterior view). […] The overall
shape of the hominoid thorax may be an adaptation that serves to better
dissipate tensile forces in the body during under-branch suspensory behaviours.
(- Centre for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny, MOCA)
Yet another change brought about by the evolution to
bipedalism would have been related to the fact that early humans experienced
changes in their vestibular systems. The vestibular system in a modern human is
the sense that maintains the upright positioning of the head and neck, and it
originates in the labyrinths in the inner ear. Thus, once again, reaching up
for the fruit may have been more significant than the fruit, itself.
[…] the evolution of large vertical canals accompanied the evolution of
bipedalism, suggesting that the anterior and posterior canals are important for
bipedal balance.
- Brian L. Day and Richard C.
Fitzpatrick, Cell Press
Now, there is that other issue that I have not yet mentioned,
but that cannot be ignored, and that is the fact that, in Genesis, it was Eve
who “tempted” Adam to eat of the fruit that would lead them to be cast out from
the garden. Resulting from this action, all daughters of Eve would be subjected
to pain in childbirth, women would be dominated by men (because societies would
be hunter-based), son would murder son (competition and territoriality), and
mankind would be born with the stain of the “original sin” (evolutionary step)
henceforth.
Why Eve?
[Sexual] Selection, one may say with some confidence, has shaped the evolution
of the human mitochondrial genome. This miniscule piece of genetic information
has already been a key part of the study of human evolution and population
dispersal, and it seems likely to continue playing an important role as we
tease out the role of selection.
(- Elson, Turnbull and Howell,
American Journal of Human Genetics)
Darwin correctly realized that sexual selection could be
mediated by male–male combat or by a
female's choice of attractive males [my Italics]. His original definition of sexual selection, which appeared in The
Origin of Species, appears to
emphasize male–male combat [i.e., “a struggle between the males for possession
of the females” but even then he was clearly aware of female choice. (-Jones and
Ratterman, Mate choice and sexual selection:
What have we learned since Darwin?)
In humans, as in most multicellular organisms, mitochondrial DNA is
inherited only from the mother's ovum. (- Wikipedia)
In other words, it was Eve’s mitochondrial DNA that not only
was one of the main sources of genetic divergence through her sexual selection
of a mate, but it was through Eve that the changes caused by that divergence
continued on down through the generations.
It is fair to propose that, according to our species memory
of being “cast out of Paradise”, we have inherited a nostalgia for the way we
were before we evolved into an upright species, and that the blame is put on
the female/mother for her supreme role in selection of a male partner, and her
crucial place in the increments of evolution, through her mitochondria.
We have established, hypothetically, that the fall from
Paradise was a species memory of the evolutionary step that encompassed
achieving upright posture, losing body hair and becoming better hunters, but
what does that have to do with the seat of Paradise being the human brain and
spinal cord. As I mentioned, briefly, at the beginning, this narrative is about
the evolution of mankind (the macro narrative) and the evolution of the foetus
(micro). At the intersection of the two, I believe, is the germ of the
archetype of Paradise.
Watching human baby brains grow is a little like watching evolution in
action. A new study shows the human brain regions that expand the most during
infancy and childhood are the same parts that expanded the most during
evolution as humans diverged from other primates. – Livescience (blog)
Like a fractal, the evolution of the foetal brain contains
within it the story of human evolution. It is possible that, within our
nostalgia for a time before we were upright, there is the sense of loss that
originates in expulsion from the maternal womb.
According to legends about the country of Meru, the land
possessed a perfect climate and atmosphere that allowed humans to be fourteen
feet tall and to live for a thousand years. In Genesis, when expelled to the
outer world, Adam and Eve and their descendants were exposed to a vastly
inferior environment wherein they began to age and to become aware of their
mortality. Post-Eden, man is now considered one tenth of what man was in the
Golden Age of humanity “when Gods and men walked and talked together”. If we
accept that the symbolism of Eden/Paradise/Meru may belong to an ancient memory
of the brain and its evolution, we might also consider why it is that the story
of a “fall” or expulsion occurred in this widespread narrative.
As the brain cannot retrieve the data of our foetal state directly, it
will employ a great tool to remind us about our stay inside the womb in order
to relate to a state of total well-beingness [sic], and that
tool is called nostalgia.
-Tom Thomas, Nostalgic (Quora online
forum)
[…] to remember and cherish our
earlier developmental periods as better and blissful. Hence the participant
deity stems from the perfect beginnings before time. The participant religions
anchor their rituals on techniques of “going back”. - Shlomo Giora Shoham, The Genesis of
Genesis: The Mytho-Empiricism of Creation
Just as modern man experiences a nostalgia for earlier
evolutionary phases, before bipedalism, he experiences the germ of that
nostalgia in his sense of loss at being expelled from the womb, the original
“Eden”.
This place is called by inhabitants the "navel of the earth,"
or "the cradle of the human race."
In Vedic India, intuitive knowledge of human consciousness and the
universe was rendered into myths and symbols of profound insight, remarkable
beauty and power, unintelligible to the modern intellect trained in analytic
discourse. It seems likely that they were the result of intuitive faculties of
mind that are no longer well developed or may one day yet become far more
prevalent, as the capacity to read, write and calculate was at one time a rare
endowment and considered a sign of genius.
-
Garry
Jacobs, A Brief History of Mind and Civilization, Cadmus, 2016
The image of “Paradise/Eden/Meru” that has remained vital
throughout modern human history and mythology may be a pre-verbal schema of the
brain and spinal cord, representing a nostalgia for the innocence of
pre-bipedal hominids and, simultaneously, of the developing foetus, which is,
in itself, the evolution of modern man on an individual scale.
[…]there are deep embodied metaphorical structures within language
itself, and meaning is rooted in the body (not the head).
Rather than being based in words, meaning stems from the actions
associated with a perception or image. Even when seemingly neutral lexical
terms are processed by our brains, we find a deeper simulation system of
images. […]It is possible that Homo sapiens of 40,000 years ago were
graphically literate before they were verbally literate.
(- Stephen T Asma, ‘The Evolution of
Imagination’ (2017).
Why attempt to decode a rich mythology, such as the
all-pervasive symbolism of “Paradise”, and turn it into some kind of mundane
analysis of the human brain and the story of foetal expulsion from the womb? It
is only as a 21st Century human that we can look on the mysteries of
the human brain, of foetal development and evolution as mundane. Modern science
is a bit like butterfly collecting. By the time you have euthanized your
specimen and pinned it to a corkboard, the butterfly is no longer the
enchanting beast that it once was. Science can make us uninspired, as can that
other party-pooper, organised religion.
How wonderful, indeed, would such a country be: a place of
mystery and wisdom at the heart of everything? And the most wonderful thing of
all…it is a country hidden deep inside our DNA.
Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in
something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken,
tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In
silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and
undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn
of a marvellous green, set round with Nature's own orchard-trees—crab-apple,
wild cherry, and sloe.
"This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music
played to me," whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. "Here, in this holy place,
here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!"
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in
the Willows
A favourite passage in a favourite book… but a product of its
time, nonetheless, for, is it not Her
that we remember? Is it not the innocent
earth, the untouched “Paradise”, the womb of the archetypal Mother that we long
for? The Greek words nostos (‘return home’) plus algos (‘pain’) are
the root of that bittersweet ache that we mean by “nostalgia”.
In the telling and infinite re-telling of myths about
“paradises”, humankind has created an unattainable place out of its interior
life: the geography of the brain, spinal cord and nervous system, that, to the
contemporary rationalist, may seem mundane and knowable, but to humans of times
past, represented the most awe-inspiring of mysteries.
"Plan
of the Brain-Mental Action" Sivartha 1912 Human Mind Antique Book