At the end (when it finally got there) of Indiana Jones there was some discussion about how the real treasure is knowledge.
I couldn’t help but think of snakes tiptoeing* around curious naked girls and promising them…knowledge. That was the fruit which tempted Eve, of course, and so the Church has for so long had deeply entrenched pockets of anti-intellectualism. I understand why that is, but I’ve got more in common with Eve in that I want to know things. I like knowing, just for knowing’s sake.
That’s the best thing about mysticism, really. People–when they really want to be bored–ask me why I refer to myself as a mystic and the short answer would be that I do so because Mystery is the seat of wisdom. Knowledge is a grand thing, and seeking knowledge is a worthwhile pursuit. But you have to be satisfied with the basic truth of knowledge, which is that you will never have all of it.
I chuckle when I hear people reduce the force that is God to something small. There is always our desire in humanity to reduce God to a thing we can know, hoping that in doing so we can then understand God. Justice. Love. Grace. All of these are tiny shards of the full scope of God, yet so often I see people discard mystery, reduce God to one of the components of God and then venerate the piece instead of the whole. It’s sort of like loving your parents only because they drive you to the mall, while forgetting the many other things that they do for you and also forgetting they are people who exist outside of your experience of them and should be loved on those terms.
Our God is the phenomenon of the Knowable Mystery. We can commune with God because of the blood price paid by Jesus. While we exist in this human form, however, we cannot know all of God and must be content with Mystery. That is the birth of the wise.
It is also the vexation of the skeptic. But that’s a story for another time.
*Yes, snakes once had feet.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Amen Amen Amen!
I have a chapter in my book devoted to this subject. (Wisdom vs Knowledge)
I’ve studied Jewish mysticism for two decades, but I honestly don’t know a lot about Christian mysticism, though I would love to learn.
Do you study from the ancient Celtic perspective? I know you’ve studied Judaism, did you ever study Zohar and Kabbalah?
I’m sure you know this, but before the Council of Nicea there was a lot of mysticism in your books. I’ve read “The Lost Books of the Bible,” and the focus was almost all mysticism.
You know that some mystics never had an animal soul, and had to be reincarnated as animals so they would know what it was like to have an animal soul. I know Jake was one of them, and it sounds like Casey was one as well.
(This is straight out of Kabbalah)
Anyhow, I don’t think I could relate to Judaism if I didn’t study it with a strong emphasis on the mysticism parts.
Et tu, regarding Christianity?
I love the name of the animal — Pachyrachis Problematicus. I think I’ll call myself Homo Problematicus and be done with it…I don’t laugh enough to be Homo Ludens and I’ve always thought it was a little arrogant to claim sapience as a purely human attribute.
That snake wasn’t offering just any old knowledge. That was the knowledge of good and evil it was pimping, which gets the knower/possessor a little closer to wisdom. One sees echoes of this later, when Abraham is able to reprove divine hotheadedness and get told that he’s right.
I think.
Adults shouldn’t believe in fairy tales. Religion is a fairy tale.
There is no supernatural, There are no unseen agents.
You are right the story of Eve is an anti-intellectual appeal. because a thinking person unweaves religion.
[…] other day Sharon asked a very good question that I was going to leave in a comment, but then I realised–hey! It’s a whole blog […]
Well… how do i start on the subject of snakes, the Bible, Eve and Knowledge of Good and Bad?
First of all I agree with the post, Serpents (not snakes) had legs one time otherwise why would God impose a punishment to a being that did not have legs to start with? Legs by the way are not the issue here but rather the significance of an upward walking being, usually a SENTIENT BEING, humans are the only ones today in this world but back in the days… there was a Serpent around that walked just like humans and was a Sapiens being also.
Eve, by the way, just happened to ‘sleep’ with Satan as God punishes her by telling her that she should ONLY have eyes for her MAN (implying not messing around with other beings!)
Finally to the commenter that said: some mystics never had animal souls… A soul is NOT an animal or human it is what it is but it CAN INCARNATE to experience the world of matter and temptation, as an animal or as a human or as plant. Now why would you want to incarnate as a plant when you have developed enough conciousness to do so as a higher being such as a human?
Finally to the commenter that wrote:
There is no supernatural, There are no unseen agents.
If you tell your brain there is no…. guess what? there will None of what you are telling your brain.
Think of it this way, you are back in the year 500 and you say the is no such a thing as oxygen. I can’t see it.
You would be right because you CANT SEE IT but… the ultimate reality is that oxygen exists.
The same applies to the supernatural world. you may say today that it doesn’t exist but when you develop WISDOM, the ability to perceive the invisible… then your brain will be able to see such things.
Be Blessed!