Existential and psychoanalytic reflections on some themes and images from Genesis 3

Existential Reflections

I'll begin with a brief existential reflection on this section of the "Genesis creation myth." As with all myths that have stood the test of time, this remarkable story from Hebrew scripture attempts to explain some problematic, persistent, and essential themes of human existence. In this case:

1. The gut-wrenching pangs of childbirth, along with the incontrovertible fact that, nevertheless, multiple pregnancies continue unabated.
2. The seeming intractably of patriarchy and sexism.
3. The fact that, overall, life is exceedingly difficult–replete with blood, sweat, and tears.
4. The fact of what Charles Dickens has called that most devilish disagreeable reality: namely, that we are born to die and that all of our days are stalked by the Grim Reaper, who may strike at any moment and whose footsteps grow ever closer with each passing day.
5. The pathos of our simultaneous longing to eat of the Tree of Life, and thereby live forever–only to find that all of our utmost, often frantic, efforts to do so are forever blocked (by an angel with a sword flaming and turning, as it were).
6. The universality of guilt, shame, vulnerability, and self-consciousness. All of this together adds up to quite a traumatic litany of pain, suffering, grief, and fear inflicted upon us by Mother Nature and Father Time–the ultimate Abusive Parents. One can only wonder why some cosmic Protective Service Agency hasn't intervened to put a stop to such merciless abuse of all God's children–or at least to place us in some sort of Existential Foster Home! But the myth provides an answer for this too. Because we brought it on ourselves by our disobedience. We ate the forbidden fruit and have gotten only what we deserve.

   Which is all hauntingly in keeping with the universal tendency of abused and traumatized children to blame themselves for their abuse and trauma. As painful as it is to feel guilty and responsible for one's suffering, it is less painful than feeling powerless in the face of it. Convincing themselves that they somehow deserve it, at least gives them (and us) a pathetic sense of agency and control over it.

From a psychological perspective, our conflict over whether or not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil can serve as a useful metaphor for yet another persistently distressing dimension of human experience–namely our conscious awareness. This dimension stresses the "knowledge" aspect of the metaphor as it underscores that to be human is to be both mortal and aware.

Erich Fromm calls our anxious capacity for self-awareness, reason, and imagination our greatest, most distinctively human, gift, as well as our greatest "curse"–for it awakens us to the essential "contradiction inherent in human existence" (1964, p. 116). Because of it, we acutely feel our eviction from paradise, from that state of naïve harmony with nature. The book of Genesis again offers a compelling metaphor. Driven out of the Garden of Eden, whose entrance is ever after blocked by an angel with "a sword flaming and turning," Adam and Eve now must dwell "east of Eden" (Gen. 3:24)–somewhere in the land of "Nod," which is Hebrew for wandering (Gen. 4:16). Thus it is that to be human is to be in a restless state of disequilibrium in which, according to Fromm, our existence becomes an inescapable problem to be solved, so that "the questions, not the answers, are [our] essence" (1968, p. 9). Thus it is that "man must give account to himself of himself, and of the meaning of existence" (1947, p. 41). And in this never-ending process of questioning our existence, we become the "eternal wanderer (Odysseus, Oedipus, Abraham, Faust)" seeking "to make the unknown known by filling in the blank spaces of [our] knowledge" (1947, p. 41). Consequently, "the necessity to find ever-new solutions for the contradictions in [our] existence . . . is the source of all psychic forces which motivate [us], of all [our] passions, affects, and anxieties" (1955, p. 25). Yet, the blank spaces always outnumber the answers. Moreover, every enthusiastic "Yes" we manage to say to life and its contradictions brings us a step closer to that Ultimate Contradiction, the final "No" of death–and, frightfully, the steps multiply with increasing speed.

Expanding this line of interpretation, Ernest Becker observes that, in eating the "forbidden fruit," Adam and Eve not only fell from grace, but also fell into self-consciousness–of their uniqueness, their finitude, and their vulnerability:

Man emerged from the instinctive thoughtless action of the lower animals and came to reflect on his condition. He was given a consciousness of his individuality and his part-divinity in creation, the beauty and uniqueness of his face and name. At the same time he was given the consciousness of the terror of the world and of his own death and decay. This paradox is the really constant thing about man in all periods of history and society; it is thus the true "essence" of man . . . . The fall into self-consciousness, the emergence from comfortable ignorance in nature, had one great penalty for man: it gave him dread, or anxiety (p. 68-69).

And how relentless is this existential anxiety or angst? According to Kierkegaard,

In this light, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is an especially apt metaphor for our daily struggle to maintain the tenuous balance between our need, on the one hand, to possess sufficient knowledge of "good and of evil" to survive and make our way in the world and our simultaneous need, on the other hand, not to possess so much knowledge of the evil that actually exists in the world (and, therefore, in us) as to be psychotically stunned by the awareness. The metaphor challenges us with the question of just how much self-and-world awareness we can stand without, like Adam and Eve, becoming so overcome by our nakedness and vulnerability that we dive into the nearest bushes, scrambling frantically for some protective fig leaves.

With our remaining time this morning, and with the help of psychodynamic psychology, we will ponder this question. Moreover, we will proceed with caution, nibbling the enticingly forbidden fruit a bit at time. Hopefully we, in this manner, can have our cake and eat it too–both by biting into the juicy Apple of Knowledge and by maintaining an optimal amount of "life-enhancing illusion" (Becker, p. 158) and denial.

Psychodynamic Psychology

If I only had the courage to think all that I know. (Nietzsche, quoted in Kaufman, 1956, p. 172)

Psychodynamic psychology has demonstrated the astonishing capacity of the human mind "not to know" much that it actually "knows" but, as Nietzsche puts it, lacks "the courage to think." Through a variety of so-called defense mechanisms (e.g., suppression, repression, denial, dissociation, projection, and projective identification, etc.) we routinely keep from conscious awareness all kinds of thoughts that are too painful, unsettling, or overwhelming "to think." As early as 1895, in his first psychodynamic publication, Freud perceptively and sensitively described the essence of such thoughts as being "of a distressing nature, calculated to arouse the affects of shame and self-reproach and of psychical pain, and the feeling of being harmed; they [are] all of a kind one would prefer to have not experienced, that one would rather forget" (p. 269).

The Unthought-Known

Needless to say, Life presents each of us with endless experiences and realities that clamor to be repressed and banished beyond the fringes of consciousness. The forms and contents of this unconscious knowledge are legion and are unique to each person. They include thoughts, feelings, memories, perceptions, intuitions, ideas, beliefs, fantasies, wishes, hopes, dreams, doubts, fears, impulses, needs, and longings. Consigned to the dark, damp, cobwebby cellars of the mind, this unconscious "material" comprises what psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas calls the unthought-known–that exiled and shadowy "stranger," who is yet so hauntingly familiar, within each of us.

The unthought-known lives and works underground. It tinkers ceaselessly down in its primary process workshop where it performs its dread, but compelling, alchemy of the soul. This dynamic is elaborated by Michael Eigen in his book, The Electrified Tightrope:

One senses work going on in the basement, a placeless place where elements of personality mix and re-form, and one enters into a new sort of partnership with unconscious process. Meaning grows from bottom up, not only top down. Where top or bottom begins or ends nobody knows (p. 266).

Yet real work is being done . . . as raw globs of catastrophic affect are being broken up, cooled, turned this way and that, given moments of form, shaped into streams of dream images as part of elemental narratives, distilled through dreams and myths into springboards for further experiencing and thinking and the making of histories (p. 271).

Therefore, the unthought-known is called "psychodynamic." Its perpetual presence, combined with our defenses against it, "dynamically" shapes the characteristic ways in which we perceive, interpret, and respond/react to our experience. Our particular patterns of psychodynamically tinged experience comprise our unique self-structure, in all of its varied dimensions (self-esteem, self-image, self-differentiation, self-cohesion/resilience/vitality/continuity, etc.)

D.H. Lawrence .

As a restless cellar-dweller, the unthought-known dispatches a steady stream of "notes" from underground. If it cannot gain a full return to consciousness, it at least would like some recognition–even if disguised. Hence, its couriers stand at the door of consciousness and knock. Sometimes they knock softly; sometimes they knock loudly; sometimes they knock as if to break down the door and force an entry. At first, we attempt to ignore the unwelcome "reality." It persists. Warily, we bar the door and ask it go away. It refuses. Alarmed, we insist that it go away. It refuses more adamantly. Finally, we try bargaining with it at least to keep the noise down. It knocks and rattles the door more loudly. Increasingly we find our time, attention, and energy going into keeping unthought our particular messages from the unthought-known. Yet they seem to show up everywhere–in our dreams, in the faces of the people we encounter (or avoid or fight with or try to change), in our tears that well up at unexpected times, in our flashes of anger, in our fleeting thoughts and fantasies, and always somewhere in back of our minds–knocking . . . knocking . . . knocking. Try as we might to reassure ourselves, during the lulls, that the unthought-known has gone or that it has never existed, "deep inside" we know that the reassurance is an illusion.

To relate to this experience, all you need to do is pause for a moment and listen to those nagging and unwanted thoughts that are currently on the back of your own mind. Listen especially to those thoughts that convey painful insights about yourself, about the important people in your life, about your job or career, about your community, about your faith tradition or place of worship, about your God, about your life (with its many losses and regrets), and about your death. Feel a bit more deeply their distressing and unsettling effect. Feel their unwelcomed-ness as your mind becomes distracted and fails to hold the most difficult thoughts for very long. And these are the unthought-knowns that at least are thinkable enough to be vaguely on your mind and not completely repressed! (Come to think of it, how much longer does this class last? I'm feeling a need to get some exercise and to try to get my mind on something else–or maybe I just need a drink!)

You do not have to stay with this psychodynamic mini-exercise for long to feel the dynamic power of your particular unthought-knowns. On the one hand, none of them can be thought fully; on the other hand, none of them will go away. They might quiet down and behave for awhile, but sooner or later you again will hear them knocking . . . knocking . . . knocking–especially at night. I imagine you often have experienced this haunting nocturnal visitation. Sometimes, it comes early and prevents your ever falling asleep as you lie in bed wide-eyed, perhaps with the covers pulled over your head. Other times, it comes in uncanny dreams and dream images, and a restless sleep. Still other times, it comes when you awaken in the middle of the night in that heightened state of consciousness that makes everything larger than life. At their worst, these "awakenings" leave you shadowboxing imaginary fears the rest of the night and quite exhausted in the morning. At their best, they find you, like Jacob and his angel, wrestling with something of real but elusive substance. Gradually, amidst much tossing and turning, formerly unseen facets of that known which is struggling to be thought become clearer. In the morning, you drag from your bed not only your tired body but also your hard-won insights–like Jacob limping off with his "blessing" at daybreak (Gen. 32:24-32).

Ultimately, our options are few when dealing with the persistently knocking and invariably disillusioning unthought-known: (1) we can weary and distract ourselves and complicate and impoverish our relationships in the lost cause of trying to shut it out; or (2) we can let it in (if even by cracking the door only slightly at first) and see what sort of guest the unwonted visitor actually becomes. In so doing, we will increase self-awareness, gain fuller access to our own minds, and perhaps test our strength of character–at least if Nietzsche (1992) is on to something when he comments:

To which he added this word of advice, which also will serve as our benediction: "If you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire . . . " (1976, p. 30). Bon Appetit!

REFERENCES

Becker, E. (1973). The Denial of Death. New York: Simon & Schuster.

• Bollas, C. (1987). The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known. London: Free Association Books.

• Eigen, M. (1993). The Electrified Tightrope. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, Inc.

• Fromm, E. (1947). Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. New York: Rinehart & Company.

• ______. (1955). The Sane Society. New York: Rinehart and Winston.

• ______. (1964). The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil. New York: Harper & row, Publishers.

• ______. (1968). Introduction. In The Nature of Man, eds. E. Fromm and R. Xirau. New York: Macmillian publishing Co.

• Kaufmann, W. (1956). Existentialism: from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: The World Publishing Company.

• Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The Concept of Anxiety., trans. R. Thomte. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Originally published 1844)

• Lawrence, D.H. (1993). "The Song of Man Who Has Come Through," in The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence. New York: Penguin Books.

• Nietzsche, F. (1976). "Letter to His Sister." In The Portable Nietzsche, trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: Penguin Books. (Originally written 1865).

  
  

• ______. (1992). Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: The Modern Library. (Originally published 1886)