The meditation of Christian Hermeticism — whose aim is to understand and advance the work of the alchemical transformation of the spirit, the soul, and matter, from the state of primordial purity before the Fall, to the state after the Fall, and from the latter to that of the Reintegration — proceeds from the seven “days” of the creation according to Genesis to the seven stages of the Fall, then to the seven miracles of St. John’s Gospel, and then to the seven sayings of Jesus concerning himself in order to conclude with the seven “words” of Jesus Christ crucified and the seven stages of the Passion. ~ Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot (Letter XXI The Fool)
Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some day in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men, so that you’d never know which were which? ~ C S Lewis, Prince Caspian
In order to achieve the alchemical transformation described above, the stages of the Fall of man documented in Genesis need to be understood. Although there are four levels of interpretation of sacred texts, the historical or literal, the allegorical, and the moral levels are not our concern here.
Anagogical Interpretation
There have been many attempts, some quite clever, to interpret the story of Eden in a historical, or rather material space-time, event, in continuity with our own world. However, the Fall is by its nature discontinuous. This is not to deny that there is an historical, or pre-historical, understanding possible, but that is best left to the meditation of the seven stages of creation. The point is that there is not physical understanding, at least in the way we understand the physical.
However, besides a physical history, there is also a psychical history of the world, i.e., there is an “inside” as well as an “outside” to history. The psychical history always leaves traces in consciousness that can be recovered. This is the anagogical interpretation which transcends the material world process, and it is recovered through Hermetic meditation, almost like a deep phenomenology. This gives us access to the real inner history of mankind. Tomberg describes is this way:
One can no longer deny the fact that in the psychic domain, nothing dies and that the whole past lives present in the diverse layers of the depths of consciousness — the “unconscious” or subconsciousness—of the soul. Palaeontological and geological layers contain only the imprints and fossils of the now dead past; psychic layers, in contrast, constitute a living witness to the actual past. They are the past which continues to live. They are memory — not intellectual, but psychically substantial— of the actual past. For this reason, nothing perishes and nothing is lost in the domain of the psyche; essential history, i.e. real joy and suffering, real religions and revelations of the past, continue to live in us, and it is in us that the key to the essential history of mankind is to be found. ~ Letter VI The Lover
Seven Stages
As was pointed out previously, the world as an ordered whole, as Being, is a static world. A dynamic world, one in which there is the possibility of morality, love, and creativity, requires free beings, beings who can say “I”. Then, there must be a not-I, or hindrances, in order to make freedom actual and not merely virtual.
In the Edenic stage, Adam was conscious of his real I and was in direct contact with God. The hindrance was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which he was commanded not to eat; this was the object of temptation. There was also the tempter, the same being who tempted Jesus in the desert. The phenomenology of the temptation and subsequent fall are told in the early chapters of Genesis.
The seven stages of the Fall are summarised here, followed by an interpretation of each of them.
| Stage of the Fall | Consequence |
|---|---|
| The Voice of the Serpent | Spiritual Disobedience, Doubt |
| The Delight to the Eyes | Greed |
| The Temptation of Experience | Spiritual immodesty |
| Cain’s Fratricide | Fall from higher self to lower self |
| The Generation of Giants | Marriage of the lower self with lower beings |
| The Tower of Babel | Substitution of the real by factitious existence |
| Sodom and Gomorrah | Material instead of Spiritual Evolution |
Stage I: The Voice of the Serpent
The formula of horizontal consciousness of the serpent would be that of realism, pure and simple: “That which is in me is as that which is outside of me, and that which is outside of me is as that which is in me.” This is horizontal consciousness (simultaneous knowledge of the subjective and the objective), which sees things not in God, but separated from him or “naked” within itself, through itself and for itself. And as the self here replaces God (horizontal consciousness being that of the opposition of subject and object), the serpent says that on the day when Adam-Eve (Adam and Eve) eat fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden, their eyes will open and they will be as gods, i.e. the self will replace the function previously filled by God and that they will know good and evil. ~ Letter VI The Lover
Prior to the Fall, Adam’s intelligence was vertical, oriented toward God, and were not conscious of naked things, or those separated from God.
their eyes had not yet been opened and they “they were both naked and were not ashamed.” ~ Genesis 2:25
“They saw divine ideality expressing itself through phenomenal reality”, i.e., the world was a theophany. They had knowledge of the ideal and the real, or direct perception of hylomorphism.
The temptation is for the self to replace God, so that it will know good and evil:
If before they saw things in divine light, they will see them now in their own light, i.e. the function of illumination will belong to them, just as once it belonged to God. The source of the light will be transferred from God to man.
Eve listened to the voice of the serpent to eat from the tree as clearly as the original command to avoid it. The two contrary voices are the origin of doubt, or double-mindedness. (This is clearly expressed in the German word Zweifel, or two-ness.)
Faith, on the contrary, is a single inspiration. The principle of obedience is to listen to the sole voice from above. The desire for power does not result in certainty, but instead leads to inner confusion and insecurity.
Stage II: The Delight to the Eyes
The woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold” ~Genesis 3:6
Apart from God’s illumination, the tree looked delightful. Tomberg expands on this idea:
She looked at it in a new way — no longer as formerly, when the sole voice from above vibrated in her being, when she experienced not the least attraction for the tree, but rather now with the word of the serpent vibrating in her being — with a questioning, comparing, doubting look, i.e. ready to have experience. Because when one is in doubt, one is induced to have the experience in order to dispel it —if one does not surmount it by raising oneself to a higher plane.
The desire for experience is the beginning of greed.
Stage III: The Temptation of Experience
She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat.” ~ Genesis 3:6
The act follows the idea. So the idea of personal power and the delightfulness of the tree induce in Eve the desire to have the actual experience. In today’s world, the desire for experiences is quite strong. Drugs, sex, loud music, and so on, are all temptations that induce the desire to experience them. The negative results are numerous, etc., addiction, death, disease, heartbreak, etc. These occlude the presence of God.
This quest for experiences is the opposite of emptiness, or spiritual mind fasting. To put it another way, emptiness is spiritual chastity, which forgoes harmful or sinful experiences. The attempt, then, to assuage doubt through experiences is spiritual immodesty.
It would be contrary to the holy vow of chastity to put forward a hand and to take from the tree of knowledge. The spiritual world does not in any way tolerate those who seek experiences. One seeks, one asks, one knocks at its door. But one does not open it by force. One waits for it to be opened.
That is, one relies on Grace, not on force.
Stage IV: Cain’s Fratricide
And Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. ~ Genesis 4:8
The next three stages are the logical development of the original sin, which are realised. We let Tomberg’s description speak for itself.
For Cain’s fratricide is the primordial phenomenon containing the seed of all subsequent wars, revolutions and revolts in the history of the human race.
The root of the fratricide is the revolt of the “lower self against the “true self of the fallen “likeness” against the intact “image”.
to wander is the inevitable lot of the revolt of the “lower self against the “higher Self
Cain was exiled because the rebel against his “higher Self will no longer live under the law of the vertical but. rather under that of the horizontal, i.e. he will be “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth”. (Genesis 4:12) That is, he will no longer be rooted.
Stage V: The Generation of Giants
Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown. ~ Genesis 6:4
The generation of giants is the primordial phenomenon which is the proto-historical seed of all subsequent pretensions in the history of the human race for individuals, groups and peoples to play a domineering role as divine sovereigns, and thus all pretensions of being “supermen”.
At the root of the generation of giants is the marriage of the “lower self with entities of the fallen hierarchies—instead of with the “true Self”.
To be drowned is the lot entailed by the pretension to be a “superman”. He who unites himself with an entity of the fallen hierarchies, instead of with his “higher Self, to the point of being possessed, will be drowned, i.e. he will fall prey to madness.
Marriage with lower hierarchies or pre-Adamic beings (see, e.g., Mouravieff, Gnosis) indicates that these lower hierarchies become intertwined with the lower parts of the human psyche.
The followers of Lucifer are beautiful, so they affect the emotional level of the soul, or astral body, bypassing the intellect. That attraction is the beginning of self-deception and hence lying.
Then the etheric body is likewise infected, which is the centre of the will. The will becomes weak, seeking the satisfaction of bodily urges instead of the Will of God. Satan is the ape of God, so this distorted will mocks and ridicules anything higher. These beings are called Ahrimanic, the name of the devil opposed to the God in Zoroastrianism.
Stage VI: The Tower of Babel
And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries. ~ Genesis 11:9
This temptation involves lower selves acting collectively in order to replace the Higher Self. Tomberg explains the meaning of the building of the Tower of Babel.
the building of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is the primordial phenomenon containing in seed form all subsequent tendencies in the history of the human race towards the conquest of heaven by means of forces acquired and developed on the earth.
At the root of the building of the tower of Babel is the collective will of “lower selves” to achieve the replacing of the “true Self of the celestial hierarchies and God with a superstructure of universal significance fabricated through this will.”
For the tower blasted by lightning suffices to reveal to serious meditation the comprehensive arcanum of the relationship between the will and destiny — between what one wants and what happens.
To be blasted by a thunderbolt is the fate of building, collectively or individually, it does not matter, a tower of Babel.
Stage VII: Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah could have been saved by ten righteous men among them, that is, by spiritual selection. Opposed to that, is the idea of natural selection, that the world evolves by totally natural processes. Tomberg says we are given two choices:
Those for whom evolution is an organically determined process in which descent and ascent are only two successive phases of a single cosmic vibration? Or those who see in evolution a cosmic tragedy and drama whose essence and leitmotiv correspond to the parable of the prodigal son?
The natural approach denies the ideas of the Fall, perdition, redemption, and salvation. Its symbol is the Ouroboros, a closed circle. It is the denial of freedom in the world.
The serpent took his tail in his mouth and thus formed a closed circle. He turned himself with great force and thus created in the world the great swirl which caught hold of Adam and Eve. And the other beings followed them.
This is the situation of all naturalistic, mechanistic, and historistic theories of the world: things will happen automatically apart from the human will. Opposed to the idea of a closed circle is the idea of a spiral, the state before the Fall, which allows for true growth, development, and creativity.