The Garden of Eden (An Ex-mormon Perspective)

It's funny how stories we were told when Mormon hit a lot different now that we are out. Anyone else?

Transcript

 This is 

Jayenna Wild and Cat Hawk, and together we're seeking the middle path.

Welcome to the middle path. Hey everyone, welcome. 

So, so today we want to talk about the scripture, uh, from the Old Testament in which God told Adam and Eve. Eve, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. 

So, it's obviously Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and it's the tree with the apples. 

We all know this story, even non Christians know this story.

Yeah, it's definitely been around, and um, I remember believing it when I was a kid. Because, you know, it's kind of like a Disney story or a fairytale. 

Well, they portrayed the fairytale myth, whatever, uh, and this is the most famous creation myth, right? Although every culture, Indigenous people have a creation myth or story.

Um, but, you know. So this is the Christians one. Christians have spread the good word, so. Yeah, yeah. Most famous. 

Yes, most famous, and I believed it for a long time until I became of age when I got my first menstruation. And then I was being taught that I was cursed because Adam, or because Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit.

And so I was cursed with a period. And I just remember, I think I was 12 or 13. And I was like, what I, what I, this is the most bizarre thing I have ever heard of, what do you, I always was excited to get like my womanhood or whatever you want to call it to become that, that next stage in my life. And now you're telling me.

It's not a good thing. I mean, all women are going to go through this and we're going to suffer because of what Eve did. And, uh, yeah, in my own mind, that's when I started questioning things. 

Yeah, this story has definitely negatively impacted women for thousands of years across multiple cultures. I mean, this is, I believe, The Jewish creation myth to, um, the Abrahamic religions, I believe this is their creation myth.

And there is this idea that women have cursed us because of this, like how much damage has been done to the feminine line because of this belief of Eve's 

curse. Because of Eve's curse. Yeah. Which makes me. Curious of like when that shift happened in our culture when women used to be honored and sought out for our knowledge and our intuition.

Well, 

I don't know if this was the beginning of that. I wonder if there was maybe, if this maybe was a result of a long standing sort of conflict between the two sexes. 

Yeah, possibly, but I feel like they had to do something to make women more submissive, more of the um, the image. So you can't fight. Yeah, they had, they had to do something with women to really make it known that it's our fault.

That we are just cursed as human beings.

But the thing is, what is Eve even being cursed for? For, uh, what was the crime that she committed, 

you know? Yeah, well I guess she's in trouble because she didn't obey God. She was told to not eat of the fruit. But 

they're gonna live for eternity in this garden full of trees. And they can eat from any of them except one for eternity.

Eventually someone's going to eat from that tree, 

right? I know. Well, to me, it's like putting a kid in a candy store and it's like putting the best candy right in front of them and be like, you can have any candy, but this one, and you know, the kids are going to be wanting to eat that specific candy. The one you said, don't eat.

Yeah, it's, it's almost like they were set up and I've heard this said before. It's like. You have an all knowing, infinite god creator, and he creates this situation and, and doesn't think someone's going to eat? Yeah. From the tree. I mean, why even have it there? It's like bound 

to happen. Yeah. It's, it's almost like it was done on purpose.

It was done on purpose. Yeah. If God 

is who we say he is. 

Yeah. And that's where it's so confusing. Cause you hear so many stories or you're taught that God is like all loving, but then there's so many like twists and turns and these, 

um. Like this is what a loving God does. He plays these mind games with you.

Yeah, this doesn't sound like God to me. This just sounds like men creating story. 

And then Eve and women are supposed to suffer the fallout for the rest of our time here on Earth. Because God created this situation in which inevitably someone was going to do this in, within the eternity that they're in the garden.

Yeah, I honestly think that Oh, 

you made it five million years. You resisted for five million years, but then you did it. All right. You're cursed and all, all women are now cursed because of you. 

I, I always thought when I was younger, when I first started to like, really think about the story, as I became like a young woman, I was like, I bet she just got really sick of Adam.

And it was like, what do I got to do to get out of this? It's a garden with this man. For the rest of my life, I need to go out and experience some life. 

Well, it was always pitched to me, like you said, like a fairy tale, right? They had perfect... Existence in the garden, and there was no pain, and no suffering, and everything was idyllic, and the lions and the lambs were all friends, and lived together, and you know, like Disney fairytale, like the birds are like talking to you, and singing songs with you.

Yeah, really does sound like a Disney cartoon, doesn't it? 

And then she ate that fruit, you know, Satan came in as a snake and tempted them. 

Well, I think that I, to me, it feels like she did want to have knowledge. Like, yes, I do not want to just be, you can't live in a life where it's just perfect like that all the time.

There. Yeah. How, you can't be happy. You can't feel fulfilled. I mean, I think for a little while it would feel great, but I think you'd become bored. Well, it just 

doesn't make sense. It's not like a logical story. It's very like fantasy. It 

is. Yeah. So 

you basically see two things being demonized. Do you see women?

And the feminine, and then you see knowledge. And those are like the two evil things that come out of this story. 

Yeah. Yeah. We were kind of talking about that earlier of, of knowledge. Like I was like kind of dawning on me. I was like, well, yeah, of course, you know, I feel like the Christians, um, or the patriarchy want to kind of keep you at that level of.

You don't know things, and you have to turn don't look over there! Don't look! Yeah, because knowledge is power, and the knowledge that you trust within yourself is power. So, if you doubt those things, if you don't trust those things, you go to a church. You go to the priest, or the bishop, or whoever it is that's the teacher of the whole congregation.

And... I think that in this story, they're trying to manipulate shame and put fear in what women are, the feminine, that strength that women have, and then also in that knowledge. And we were talking about that earlier too, almost with the death and life kind of symbolism of it. You are really knowledgeable of that.

Makes me think of the quote, ignorance is bliss. Right? We've all heard that. Ignorance is bliss, and yeah, you might be happier in your marriage if you don't know that your spouse is sleeping around, but is that really happiness? No, I mean some people might choose that they might be like, I just don't want to know like I've known people like that where they're like, yeah, something's off here.

I just don't want to know my life is fine. I don't want to have to explode everything. 

Well, yeah, because then it brings that pain that suffering, but we cannot escape pain and suffering. 

But that's what the Garden of Eden is all about, right? There's no pain. There's no suffering. There's no death. You're just in bliss.

Bliss. Bliss. By being ignorant. So I guess for me, I'm, I'm like, is that true happiness or is it just living in a delusion? Like it isn't true happiness found, um, by being able to be in truth or maybe it's not, maybe having truth does directly affect how happy you are in life. And that's the choice that we have to make is do we choose truth or do we choose like this blissful ignorance?

Well, I can say from my own experiences, I did live in that place where things were very delusional. Like, I was choosing not to see things, or it was extremely naive. Um, because I did want to have that picture perfect life that I thought would bring in happiness. Um, so yes, I could, um, put on the, um, The act, I guess you could say.

The rose colored glasses. The rose colored glasses, and it did. It seemed so happy from a point. Like, from the exterior. But deep down, I was not. I was not happy. And so I had to go through that. Almost like eating the apple. I had to eat the apple. I had to face the truth. I had to go through a lot of pain. I had to leave the fucking garden.

That was not real. And I had to go through this awakening and I have, yes, I have developed a lot of knowledge. I have developed a lot of truth. I have actually finally realized that yes, my ex cheated on me and lied to me for lots of years. Yep. It was painful. It sucked. But now I know who I am. I know how to create boundaries.

I know how to have the right people in my life. I know how to say no to things. I would much rather have that than a place of fake. It's fake. And you have all these people around you that are not really your true friends. They're just playing the act with 

you. Um, it kind of makes me think of the TV shows or movies like Pleasantville.

Yeah, I 

know. And when I was younger and the Truman show, I never really understood those as well. Until I got my divorce. And it's 

like, are those, those people happy? I mean, yes, maybe there is a sort of happiness there, but it almost feels to me like a, a hazy kind of flat line of like, just good enough. Um, whereas, you know, you leave the garden and suddenly you experience pain and suffering at a very deep level.

Cause you're confronted with all this truth. Um, but. It's sort of that idea of yin yang, and the darker the dark, the shadows, the brighter the light. And so while you might experience more intense pain and suffering, you experience more intense joy and bliss. 

Uh, the, what I've experienced by going through those really dark, painful things is one, That I'm, I have a lot of strength and courage that I think I, underlining knew I had, but now I really know I have.

Yeah. And it also has taught me a lot about patience, and it's brought a lot of peace into my life. And those are things that I would, I would never go back to the garden for, to lose those 

things. Well, it's just so interesting, because as you brought up, there is this connection with the life death life cycle of the ancient feminine cults.

And just, Indigenous culture, it talks about death a lot in their rituals. Yes. And because they're trying to teach that thing we were just talking about, about, you know, that you are strong enough to endure suffering. You are strong enough to endure pain. And it's not the end just because you go through these different losses in life.

It doesn't mean that everything is lost. 

Yeah, I think if we're not learning how to handle these things, um, people, when they finally do go through a life death cycle, and if we, if we've grown up being taught that there's just this Adam and Eve garden life, like everything should just be perfect to be happy, which is not true.

When we finally actually go through like a. soul or spiritual or energetic, whatever it is, internal death, a lot of people cannot handle it. So they turn to addictions, they turn to pills, they turn to sexual addictions. There's also people who just get massively depressed and there's also a rise in suicide because people just cannot perfectionistic tendencies.

We're not caught.

Because they're trying to create this, this perfect, you know, the Truman show, they're trying to create this like perfection to avoid pain. 

To avoid pain. But you can't avoid pain. Pain's a teacher. We need 

it. Yeah. And so in a lot of indigenous cultures, I, they have these different rites of passages and there's always pain and fear involved in a confronting of.

Darkness and then a resolution of that like, uh, Is it at the Sundance festival where they, they pierce their skin and then they have to pull against it until it tears on different parts of their body? Things like 

that. Yeah. The men do that with, through their chest. It's actually, I think right where their nipples are and they have to pull back until it tears.

I think men do that. And then women is it's equivalent to 

childbearing. Yeah, usually something around childbirth, but in an Aborigine. Aboriginal cultures, they, um, they have a rite where they circumcise boys at like 10. Yes, I've heard of that one too. And, you know, there's no numbing and it can sometimes kill them.

It is, it is a possibility. And, and so it's this idea of using physical pain to confront fear. And suffering and the fact that that is a reality in our world and something that every adult needs to know how to handle if they're going to be a healthy, uh, like part of the tribe or family unit or part of our world, 

a part of being just a part of the community, 

but it's so it's really interesting to me that this Christian myth, it's all about, uh, We need to be able to avoid suffering if we want to be God like or follow God's word.

Like, we need to avoid the knowledge of evil and darkness and death. 

Yeah, I've, I've, uh, as we're talking and through my mind, I've been thinking, I'm like, I wonder why. I wonder why the Christians, the patriarchy brought in this story so strongly. I, I wonder why they have attacked the feminine. 

Yeah, because the fruit.

It's such a feminine symbol. It is. The blossom and the fruit and then, you know, eating the juicy fruit. And there are so many myths that use that fruit as a symbol of feminine wisdom or the divine, the feminine 

divine. Well, and then they use a tree. The tree has been around, the tree of life has been around as a symbol for several different cultures.

There's four. a millennia, I mean, over that. And then they also use the snake, they say, then they turn the snake into something evil, where the snake has been around for so long in cultures and a symbolism of transformation. 

And it's the symbol of the life death life process too, because the snake can shed its skin and regrow a new skin.

And um, So it's been a part of mythology and, you know, the snake eating its tail or the two snakes, um, on the staff from Egypt and it's a healing. Oh, that's right. Still used on ambulances. We still see that staff with the two snakes. Yeah. And it feels like they're attacking those, those pagan religions, right?

Yeah. 

Well, and the snake used to be very symbolic for feminism as well. Uh, but yes, I do feel like they're taking all of these pagan beliefs and, um, symbolisms and turning it into something completely, um, evil and dark, not, 

um. And if you look at like competition, right, who was competing with Christianity at the time?

I mean, there's plenty of don't worship other gods, but me and the Old Testament, right? That's true. They're competing with these pagan cultures, but another, um, right. That was. respected throughout the Mediterranean was the Lusinian Mysteries. Oh, that's right. At the same time, and there's even some speculation that maybe Jesus participated in those rites.

That's right. So you could see why like this immensely popular, um, ritual that was available to everyone from peasants and slaves through philosophers and kings. And people would travel from all over to participate in this rite. That would be competition for the Jews, right? Absolutely. Those that practice the Old Testament, only one God path.

Yes. And that ritual was all about Persephone and going to the underworld and death, and then coming back up and resurrection. And it was said that people that participated in it would no longer fear death. No longer fear 

death. 

And it's, doesn't that feel like the weight of that tree, that tree will lead you to pain and suffering.

But out of that pain and suffering is an awakening. It's birth. It's knowledge. It's strength. It's truth. It's bliss. It's all these things, but they don't want you to know that. 

Yep. This it's knowledge of death and the feminine. Secrets of life, death, life, and, and women in ancient times, we were responsible for childbirth and responsible for preparing the dead.

And so it's been an aspect of like the feminine role and feminine ritual. Yes. I mean, we bleed and we don't die every 

month. Well, look how they've like slowly, slowly have taken that away from women. Like you said, they used to take care of the death rituals. They used to take care of birth. And I think over the last couple hundred years, they have really, and they, they've been doing a really, they've done a great job at it.

They've slowly taken away this, um, power that we have to birth. Children. And yes, it is scary. You may die. The child may die. Absolutely. It's terrifying. But there is also this stepping into womanhood, to motherhood, into this next phase of your life, going through childbearing and doing that with other women.

And now what do you do? You go in hospitals and it's usually a man, male doctor, who's Having you lay on a table, 

there's been lots of research done on the attack of midwives and that's because they did a great job taking away all income opportunities, which means power from women, except for getting married.

You know, that's your only option of having financial security is through a man. Um, but the midwife thing was a little trickier. Yes. So they had to really demonize midwifery. Um, because it was a way that women still had. Power. 

They had to, I've watched some of this, uh, research about it. They had to turn her into a hag, a witch.

They turned the midwives into this, like, scary, um, symbol. And so women did. They started going into hospitals and being drugged. And they don't even remember giving birth. 

Well, and men who were experimenting who hadn't been taught by midwives who delivered and had all this knowledge passed down to them because they had demonized it all.

And so it's like we're having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to childbirth, when all of this wisdom and knowledge had been passed down for thousands of years. 

So for so long. Yeah, 

maybe some of it was not scientifically accurate, not that it couldn't have been refined. Yeah, but the. The root of it was I mean, humans are here, right?

Something was working. They were delivering these babies, like they understood the process. They 

did understand it. And I think they understood some things that we don't understand now in childbearing. And there's so much trauma around it now. And 

well, there's like an intuitive piece there of trusting the body and trusting the mother.

And modern medicine does not like the masculine, the patriarchy. You don't trust. Women and you don't trust the body. 

Yeah. So that, I think that overall, like this whole, like talking about the women and how that this power has been taken away and hit what they, they've been working towards is taking away that trust that we have that deep trust that we have, they have stripped us of that.

And it's been working in it. They have, the patriarchy has been able to take over. But I'm seeing an uprising. I mean, you and I are even just talking about it right now. Hey, here we 

are. No one's burned us yet. Here we are. Nope. 

That's another thing. They stopped burning women,  so. We're women and we're talking.

That alone would get you burned for several centuries. It would've. Yeah, it would've. But yeah, it's interesting because, you know, here God, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

I really like the serpent. I 

think there's some truth to that. I know, I was like... The serpent, it makes me think of these old cults. I mean, the snake symbolism is everywhere in ancient Greece. The Oracle of Delphi. Absolutely. I 

mean, Egypt. Uh, even, I think even up into Northern 

Europe. And it's like the snake, right?

These pagan cultures are saying. You shall not die. It's just knowledge. It's wisdom. And then you have the Christian God saying, I'm trying to protect you from yourself because you can't trust yourself. 

Well, and I think these stories, Adam and Eve, is a combination of all old pagan. Greek mythology, maybe some Egyptian, they've all like intertwined.

And then I think, yeah, those 

Mediterranean cultures. 

And then they just took the pieces that they wanted to create control and power and created the story of Adam and Eve. But I am 

actually surprised the man is in charge and the man and the woman is cursed. 

Yeah. Yeah. But. Yeah, I'm actually surprised they put that piece in there with the serpent.

I was like, were they not thinking? You guys are, 

you're giving away yourself. Well, they've demonized knowledge though. Yeah. Oh, that's true. The whole story is demonizing knowledge and showing you can be in this blissful garden of ignorance and free of suffering, which is somehow Promoted as what we want.

Well, of course they want 

that. Out in the world, struggling. And how, you can have knowledge, but then you're just, you're going to have so much suffering. 

Well, you know, that's so funny because I'm actually having flashbacks to my childhood and growing up in the Mormon church. Um, being Christian. And I honestly do remember thinking when I was a woman, as a girl, I was not as smart as my brothers or boys.

And I also remember thinking, I don't really need to try at school because I'm just going to go to heaven one day. I remember thinking that I don't need to try. I don't need to learn. It worked. And now as an adult who's like 40 and I never went and got a college education because I never had any help support encouragement.

I didn't think I was smart enough. I regret it so much because I'm like, everything is like self taught, self reading, self knowledge, life experiences. And I'm like, if I went to school, I would be so Far ahead of where I am. 

It sounds like you're just a bitter, angry woman. It makes me think of this like analogy of.

A grasshopper who's had its hopping legs pulled off, and then it's supposed to somehow get a, get around in the world, when at a young age it had its hopping legs pulled off, you know, it just, it doesn't have to be like this, but we've all had our, Christianity is pulling off our hopping legs. It is pulling off our hopping legs.

We have our little front legs to drag ourselves around in this world. 

Well, I mean, if. Let's say we were having this conversation right now with someone in our family or someone who is still very active Christian. You could not have a conversation. One, they would get very defensive and they would have nothing to back up.

what we're trying to say. And we're not trying to argue or fight. We're, I like the philosophy behind this. I like being able to understand where all of this comes from and how it makes me feel, how like I connect to it and, and then I decide what's right or wrong. But you know, it is true. They really are trying to keep you from not.

Knowing. Well, there's this idea of the prophet, God, the scriptures, mostly the scriptures, have everything you need to know in there. Don't look anywhere else. And that'll only bring you suffering and pain if you look anywhere else. And so there is this conditioning that you won't even listen or consider outside perspectives because they aren't safe.

Like within Mormonism, they just call everything anti Mormon. Like, Oh, that's just that anti Mormon literature. And then immediately everything there is not reliable. Like I remember when I was Mormon, any kind of information that was unsettling, if it was coming from a non member or a non church approved source.

I didn't trust it. I was like, oh, it's probably been skewed. It's probably been exaggerated. They're probably not giving the whole story. Well, 

I always thought it was just Satan. 'cause I was always talked to 

the church. 

It's aans work. I like if it's anything outside the church, it's Satan's work. And then if you're taught at from a young age, 'cause you know Satan's come from like the depths of fire in hell were as dark and miserable.

And so I would just automatically get tense and nervous and scared because I'm taught at a young age that this is like a very terrifying, dark thing, but it's been funny as I've gone through pain and suffering, the really hard, dark things is I'm not afraid of the dark one. I don't believe in Satan.

Definitely not what the Christians thought. But I'm not afraid of the dark anymore. I need, we need that, like you said, the yin and the yang. You need the dark in order to know the light. It's just how we 

grow. It feels like this whole story with the knowledge and the tree and good and evil. It's just about creating complacent, ignorant people.

So it makes me think of how Richard Dawkins actually says that he, if someone is a creationist, like they literally believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. He won't even debate them because there's no point. He's like, what am I going to get out of this conversation? There's no conversation to be had if they won't even, like, acknowledge that certain basic scientific facts exist.

No, well, there's such a stubbornness. It's almost like they've put up such a strong wall, brick, concrete wall, that they have to believe exactly what they've been told by whatever religion they're in, by the scriptures. Because I feel like if they even step out of that a little bit, it will just all come crumbling 

down.

So what are you supposed to Talk about with someone like that. There's no give and take. They are so closed minded. Yeah. What am I supposed to have a debate about you with? I don't even know. You don't believe any of the things that are, you know, respected by the world at large. Yeah. So. Well, what's fun is about like, where's the jumping off point?

Yeah. What's fun about like having conversations like this, like, like you and I, when we have conversations like this, it's like, we just, you can just like explore so much and like, where's your mind taking you? And where's my mind taking it? And it's like, and then we come up with these ideas and it is, it's fun.

It's like, you're, you're opening up doors, but you cannot do that with someone who will not, um, even fathom the idea that. Maybe what you're being taught is just been written by a man or men who are trying to bring in a whole nother culture because they're trying to get rid of the wild pagans and their belief systems.

Well, and then another way of 

control. It makes me think of when a person is in an abusive relationship and you want so much to help them and you're just like, look, it's not okay that he talks to you that way or that he's hitting you or. Or she. You know, we can make this gender neutral. Or they're calling you stupid.

It happens both ways. Yeah. It's not okay that she's talking to you that way. Or that she treats you that way. But... They will just like jump through all of these mental hoops because they don't want the relationship to end or because they have some kind of unhealthy attachment and so there's just no conversation to be had.

Well, and they start to get angry too. Usually that's a pretty clear sign that you're. You're hitting the buttons 

really defensive. And then they decide that person's not safe to talk to anymore. 

Yeah. Yeah. Then you just hear from them 

for a while. And that's exactly what Christians do when they have someone trying to share information with them about how.

Their logic is not logical, you know, they just, Oh, that person's not safe. I just, or that person is just hateful or, you know, how dare you? My God is a perfect God. And I'm sharing the good word. 

Yeah. Or they're just like, well, they're, uh, listening to Satan. So can't hang out with them anymore. 

Yeah, that's just Satan.

And, and so it's very frustrating to see someone who's so stuck, but. People have to free themselves, you know? They do. 

Yeah, you can't do the work for them. They have to choose it. They have to choose to eat the apple and leave the garden. 

Which is, I was going to say, which is what this whole story is about.

It's about empowering individuals. And, but they're demonizing empowerment. They're demonizing knowledge. They're demonizing stepping out of a childlike infancy. Ignorance. Oh yeah. You know? They're demonizing truth. 

Yeah, and there's just, there, there's nothing you can do to get, um, someone to listen or understand that until they actually go.

through that experience themselves. Sometimes they eat the apple without even realizing. 

Yeah. Sometimes life just shoves the apple right down your throat. 

And you really just have no choice. You're just going to go through it. 

But it's like you said, when there's no preparation within the culture, within the spirituality, there's no ritual to prepare people for the suffering of the world.

It can be. It can totally break someone when they first encounter that. It can just decimate a person. 

I mean, sometimes your brain can only handle so much. The neural pathways, and you can, you can go through a nervous breakdown, panic attacks, or just mentally breakdown. Um, or some just cannot take the ca The capacity, because it is, it's so internal, and it can feel like so much to you, but then from someone else coming in, from the point of view of seeing what you're going through, it may not feel as big or as hard.

But for you, this really hard thing, terrifying, painful thing that you're going through, some people, and I've been seeing a lot of this lately, have just been taking their lives. It's like they, people cannot handle it. 

There's, there's no perspective to that. This accepting that pain and suffering are a part of life.

And that's just kind of an adult mature thing that, you know, sometimes things just hurt. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes injustice, there are just these injustices in the world and we have to be able to. see that truth and still somehow stand in, in this world, right? As our, as, as defenders of truth.

Yeah. And without being crushed, without being crushed. Well, I think going through these really hard things and learning from them and it does, it, it creates so much. knowledge and you develop this like courageousness inside that when other, when new hard things come into your life, yes, it is really hard.

It's challenging, but you know how to handle it and what to do. And to me, I feel like it's been creating like an activist inside of me. 

It's like, you, you know, that, you know, your own strength, like you said, so you know that you can withstand it. If you must, you can withstand these really hard things, but then you also have that increased level of empathy of, wow, there's just people go through really painful things in this world.

And I want to be able to help if I can. 

Yeah, because most, it feels like so many people are just turning the blind eye. People don't want to see, they don't want to, they just want to stay in that happy little garden. 

Let's not eat from that tree. Let's not eat from that tree. That, that looks like a lot.

That feels very uncomfortable. Did you see what happened 

to her? She ate from that tree. That's just a lot. 

Yeah, so again, I feel like that gives the people in the church, in these churches that have like the higher power, the ones that are teaching the people beneath them and keep telling them these stories.

It's this, there's this control. Let's keep them stupid. Let's keep them not knowledgeable because if, when the people start to understand and learn and really open their eyes and see what's happening, you're not going to want to, you're not going to want to put all your money into this church. You're not going to want to be a part of this.

You're going to want to start seeing justice for the people. But I feel like people right now just, or, I mean, I was there, I didn't, I didn't want to get involved. I didn't want to see, I didn't want to understand. But once you see, once you start going through it, once you become one of those people suffering and there's nobody there to help you and you just have to go through it yourself, it's like, wow, like you said, it creates this empathy in the world, world around you, what's going on.

It's like, listen, let's make some changes. Let's do something. 

Well, it actually. Makes me think of the flip side to keeping people ignorant, docile, and childlike is that predatory, manipulative people can do whatever they want in this world because the majority of people are too uneducated to, and too afraid of pain to stand up to it.

Thank 

Well, and if you're always in that childlike phase, you're always seeking a parent to tell you what to do, and you're always afraid of the parent who reprimands you for Indiscernible. Maybe trying to speak your mind or speak up and so a lot of times you just go back into Oh, I'm so sorry that I that I did that or I said something or that I even thought I'll just go back to being a good little person.

Well, 

it's why religious institutions are becoming quite infamous for abuse and for Predatory behavior on children and women and the people's money and finances and and it's because they have these This following, uh, this group of people that's just very trust, trusting and very gullible and naive. And it's intentionally done that way.

It's like they want people that way because then they can just, they can herd them like sheep. 

Absolutely. Let's just keep them stupid. Cause anything we tell them, they'll just believe. Don't 

teach them how to think 

critically. Yeah. And then when it's like you and I listening to like the Mormon state.

State conference or whatever they call it. I don't even care anymore, but, and some of the stuff they say, and it doesn't even make sense. It's just like a circle. I'm like, you just countered everything you just said in that first sentence. I'm like, do you even know what you're saying? Or, and then I'm like, people, are you listening to what they're saying?

Yeah. And then we see that the same kind of horror is happening in our political system where people just aren't. educated and they aren't taught to think critically and they just kind of like jump on board with whatever their party says they should think or do or believe. Oh 

yeah, oh yeah, there's like no, there's just such a fear of going, um, in within yourself and feeling something, believing in it, trusting it and then speaking up for it.

Uh, people just don't do that 

anymore. Yeah, and you just see the evangelical right and how they're able to influence our politics because they have a mass following of ignorant, naïve, and gullible people who will believe whatever God, you know, whatever is said in God's name. 

Yeah. There's such a, still such a strong hold on that, but I am optimistic.

I feel like there is a whole another, um, almost division of people who are. Tired of that and are becoming free thinkers and want a change. Yeah. And um, they're starting to speak up about their abuse from their religious upbringings 

or their, that's the thing is like how many children have been abused and have had it covered up by religion.

Right here, right here. Because people just don't want to look at that. It messes up their Truman Show reality that they're trying to live in, their Garden of Eden. Yeah, we don't talk about those things. And so, horrific things are, and horrific abusers are allowed just free reign in this culture. 

They are, and the only way it's ever going to stop.

Is if we start talking and telling our stories and we bring justice into those people with power and take them off. Out of that power, bring them down from the pedestal because they are just abusers. 

Yeah. The story, it feels telling stories. It feels almost like that knowledge, giving people that knowledge and awareness, that apple of truth.

Yeah. So this is happening. This is real. This happened to me. 

And what has happened, the trauma and the abuse, to you individually matters. What you feel, how you feel, matters. 

I do think that the knowledge and the idea of knowledge is connected with the feminine and with women speaking. I think that the gossipy or catty, um, a stereotype of the feminine.

That witch or that hag, that gross sort of story that they've, picture they've painted a feminine wisdom and feminine truth speakers. It's really cut off women at the, at the knees, you know, because we do have sort of an insightfulness into humans and into motivations and what people are. not saying that it's true and us speaking about that, us speaking to each other about that, us calling it out.

Yeah. Is exactly what the church doesn't want. 

Exactly. Well, what they have created is kind of like what you were saying is that gossip woman. The ones that instead of us calling out in front of people and speaking truth, it's because we can't do that anymore. We've created this inner circle of like doing it behind people's backs and like destroying each 

other.

Yeah, because we feel so disempowered. Because 

we feel so disempowered. Become malicious. So it's the only way we have power. Um, as yeah, being malicious like that. And it's the unhealthy feminine. 

Versus standing up to the abusers and being a truth speaker. Yeah, we 

used to, I mean, we're like mothers, like to their children, we reprimand.

No, that is not okay. No, you respect each other. Um, it is not okay for you to speak to me that way. Um, but how, we don't see that now. I mean, women try to. But then, we're, um, you know. I think 

for a long time, Women who were, I mean, I know for a long time women who were truth speakers were persecuted and tortured and, and burned made, made to be outcasts.

Yeah. Um, it became, there was such a fear culture around that. And like, I mean, you could be accused of witchcraft just for like, putting on the wrong outfit or, or just smiling at the wrong person. Geez. For 

just looking beautiful that day. Yeah. 

so and so. Um. Women, I think there was just this culture of fear and all you needed was just a few of those burnings and like everybody just suddenly was well 

behaved.

Oh, absolutely. They had to make a, take a few women and make them the example. 

Yeah. And I feel like that's in the story too, of Eve. It's like the woman who sought out truth, the woman who sought out knowledge, the woman who spoke to the snake. She, she's the curse. She's the curse. So try not to be that woman.

Well, I like, uh, um, Eve, and I'm glad she ate the fruit, and, um, I'm gonna follow in her footsteps. May we 

all be more like 

Eve. Maybe I'll be like Eve and eat the apple.

A thank you for joining us today at The Middle Path. You can find out more about Cat and jayenna at thewildbliss.com and facebook.com/the wild Lists.