The Devil’s Trickery
“When Adam and Eve (after the biting of the ‘apple’) beheld themselves, then they perceived the monstrous image and bestial form, and they felt in themselves the wrath of God, and the fierceness of the stars and elements, for they took notice of the stomach and guts, into which they had stuffed their earthly fruit which begun to take effect, and the saw their bestial shame; and then they lifted their minds towards Paradise, but they found it not, they ran trembling with fear. … Then came the voice of God, and called Adam, and said; ‘Adam, where art thou?’ And Adam said, ‘Here I am: and I am afraid, for I am naked.’ And the Lord said, ‘Who hath told thee that thou art naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I said unto thee, that thou shouldst not eat thereof?’ And he said, ‘The woman gave to me, and I did eat.’ And God said to unto the Woman, ‘Why hast thou done so?’ and she said, ‘The Serpent beguiled me, so that I did eat.‘
“Here it may be seen very plainly, that the devil has lost his angelic image; and comes now in the form of a serpent, with his murderous lying, and beguiles the Woman. Because he had not been able to overthrow Adam wholly, therefore, he set upon the Woman, and promises her wisdom and riches. The Devil mingled lies and truth together, and said, ‘She shall be as God;‘ but he meant, according to the kingdom of the world, … but Eve understood it to mean that she should continue in Paradise, in the Divine and pleasant Joy.” ~Jacob Boehme
The Fall of Adam and Eve
It is unfortunate that so many people interpret allegorical tales in the Bible and elsewhere in a literal way. In actual fact, it never says in the Bible that the forbidden fruit is an apple. If that were the case, why do apples not have such powers now? But it wasn’t an apple, pear, or even a pomegranate. It wasn’t any specific fruit that they ate. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is anything physical, anything part of the material world. So it simply means that they ate matter and thus began turning into matter and descended automatically into the world of matter (angels chasing them out of Paradise is another allegory meaning that the power of God’s Law pushed them down from Paradise into the fallen realm of matter created by the Devil’s Trickery. Exactly what type of matter they ate is irrelevant. They ate matter and so they became matter. You are what you eat.
Monstrous Image
Most of us know that after eating from the tree, Adam and Eve became aware that they were naked and his themselves with fig leaves. This is almost always interpreted as meaning they covered their genitals, just as most of us are required to do today. Yet Boehme and others of a more spiritual bend interpret it differently. Adam and eve were appalled at their “monstrous image and bestial form.” All of it, not just one small part. Boehm specifically mentions the stomach and gut. Those internal organs were new to them. When they were spirits, they had no use for a digestive system. When you live on God’s Light, you just absorb it and use it, you don’t have to digest it first. They found their new need to digest matter appalling.
Wrath of God
This is another expression taken way too literally. God didn’t get angry with Adam and Eve. God doesn’t get angry. He may have been disappointed, but not angry. Again, it was simply the automatic reaction of God’s Law that pushed them out of Paradise, and it is actually a good thing that it did, not a punishment. When they ate matter, they could no longer survive in a purely spiritual realm. Their fall into the world of matter saved their lives and gave them the possibility of redeeming themselves.
They Found it Not
Adam and Eve turned their minds to Paradise, but could no longer communicate with it. That is because they now had to rely on their physical brain-mind instead of their immortal Soul to guide them. It isn’t that they lost their Souls, but when they descended into matter, their spiritual faculties became dormant. These dormant faculties can be awakened, but one must make an effort to do so, and, of course, know how.
Lost His Angelic Image
Boehme says that the Devil lost his “Angelic Image” and now appeared as a serpent. While this is true in this case, it is also true that at times, the Devil can make himself look angelic and has appeared to many as an angel, as Jesus, or as Mary, and used his trickery to get them to do evil things because they thought they were listening to an angel or a saint. It is easy for the devil to trick those caught up in matter, but those who awaken spiritually can see through the Devil’s trickery.
Beguiles the Woman
Boehme says the Devil found he could not Control Adam with his Devil’s trickery as much as he wanted to, so he decided to try it on the woman. He found that his Devil’s trickery worked better on her than on Adam. Many interpret this to mean that women are weak-willed and need men to guide them, if not outright control them. But simply because the Devil’s trickery worked better on one particular woman than on one particular man does not mean that is true of all women, or even the majority. Neither does it mean that all men can successfully resist the Devil’s trickery. We see in the world today many men who have fallen deeply into the Devil’s trickery in the form of greed. We once knew that greed was one of the “deadly sins.” Know most think it is a mark of success. If we fill our houses with old newspapers, magazines, or china dolls, we are labeled hoarders and need psychiatric help, but if we hoard money, we are heroes. It seems the Devil’s trickery is alive and doing quite well in the modern world. Hopefully, that will change soon.
