The Fall: Difference between revisions
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Note Eastern traditions generally don't use a concept like "the fall." They see things in a cyclical rather than linear fashion. However, the fall structure is discernible in the architecture of their cosmologies." | Note Eastern traditions generally don't use a concept like "the fall." They see things in a cyclical rather than linear fashion. However, the fall structure is discernible in the architecture of their cosmologies." | ||
The strongest structural parallel is Vedanta/Tathagatagarbha Buddhism: the "fall" is ignorance of a connection that never actually broke — which is, incidentally, almost exactly the LP position on Disconnection (the Fabric of Consciousness is never absent; the Bodily Ego is just shut down) | The strongest structural parallel is Vedanta/Tathagatagarbha Buddhism: the "fall" is ignorance of a connection that never actually broke — which is, incidentally, almost exactly the LP position on Disconnection (the Fabric of Consciousness is never absent; the Bodily Ego is just shut down). | ||
The clearest temporal fall is the Hindu yuga cycle and Kalki — it's the closest Eastern analog to the Abrahamic fall→messiah→restoration arc, including an end-times deliverer figure. Worth a line in the entry comparing Kalki to the Mahdi/Jesus return, since you've already built that material. | The clearest temporal fall is the Hindu yuga cycle and Kalki — it's the closest Eastern analog to the Abrahamic fall→messiah→restoration arc, including an end-times deliverer figure. Worth a line in the entry comparing Kalki to the Mahdi/Jesus return, since you've already built that material. | ||
Latest revision as of 15:04, 16 August 2026
The Fall
The Fall is a term syncretic with the LP ter, Disconnection. The term is used in the Abrahamic and related esoteric traditions to describe humanity's primordial descent from an original state of[1] Connection, Alignment, and Perfection to its current condition characterized by the 5Ds of Toxic Existence.
Concept Map
Key Terms
Syncretic Terms
Related LP Terms
The Fall >
Non-LP Related Terms
The Fall >
Notes
In Lightning Path terms, the Fall is the mythological encoding of Disconnection, the separation of the Bodily Ego from the Spiritual Ego and the Fabric of Consciousness, projected backwards into sacred history and attributed, in the various literatures, to human disobedience, cosmic invasion, demiurgic error, or metaphysical descent. On the LP we see this disconnection as undertaken deliberately by the Accumulating Class to ensure a docile and compliant workforce.
The Rocket Scientists' Guide to Money and the Economy devotes an entire chapter to a discussion of this concept entitled, appropriate, "The Fall."
This concept is one of the most widespread and consequential concepts in Western religious and secular Utopian thought, and in a certain way in Eastern systems. Narratives that are structured with it function as etiology, eschatology, and sometimes ontology.
Fall narratives:
- explain the human condition: They explain why the world is broken, why humans suffer, and why we experience ourselves as cut off from our true nature.
- provided an account, sometimes guidance, on a return path forward towards an imminent/future perfection.
- name name things: They name
- The original condition (Eden, Creation, etc.)
- The "fall" from that condition,
- The state of humanity during the fall and
- The path of return
- The final perfected/recovered state
A summary is provided in the following AI generated tables.
Western Traditions
| Tradition | Original Condition | The Fall | State During the Fall | Path of Return | Final Perfected State |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoroastrianism | Ahura Mazda's perfect creation | Cosmic invasion by Angra Mainyu (the destructive spirit) | A world corrupted by death, disease, decay, falsehood; battleground of good and evil | Ethical participation in the cosmic struggle (good thoughts, good words, good deeds) | Frashokereti — the final renovation; evil defeated, the dead raised, creation restored to perfection |
| Judaism | Eden; Adam and Eve in God's presence | Eating from the Tree of Knowledge; expulsion from the Garden | Mortality, toil, shame, exile; but no inherited guilt — yetzer hara (evil inclination) as created feature | Teshuvah (repentance/"return"), mitzvot (commandments), tikkun olam (repair of the world) | Yemot HaMashiach (Messianic Age) and Olam Ha-Ba (the World to Come); resurrection; return to Gan Eden |
| Christianity (Augustinian/Western) | Eden; humanity in original justice | Adam's disobedience; Original Sin transmitted to all descendants | Inherited guilt; total inability not to sin; concupiscence; separation from God | Divine grace through Christ (the "last Adam"); faith and sacraments | Salvation; Heaven; ultimately the New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21) |
| Christianity (Eastern Orthodox) | Eden; humanity in communion with God | Adam's disobedience; Ancestral Sin | Inherited consequences (mortality, corruption) but not guilt; the Fall as disease | Healing through the Church, sacraments, ascetic practice | Theosis — divinization, restoration of the human being to divine likeness |
| Gnosticism | The Pleroma; divine sparks in the realm of light | Demiurgic error/malice; sparks trapped in matter before creation | Material existence itself is the fallen state; the body a tomb; the human condition as amnesia — forgetfulness of divine origin | Gnosis — awakening knowledge of one's true identity and origin | Return of the sparks to the Pleroma; dissolution of the material prison |
| Neoplatonism | The soul in contemplation of the One | Tolma (audacity) — the soul's descent into embodiment and multiplicity | Immersion in matter; forgetfulness of the source; fragmentation | Philosophical and contemplative ascent (anodos) | Reunion with the One; "flight of the alone to the Alone" |
| Islam | The Garden; Adam in God's presence | Adam and Iblis disobey; Adam errs — but repents immediately and is forgiven | Not a fallen nature: humans born in fitra (natural purity), but weak and forgetful | Guidance (Qur'an, prophets), repentance, submission; no redeemer needed | Paradise (Jannah); the eschaton — the Mahdi and return of Jesus fill the earth "with justice as it was filled with oppression" |
| Marxism (sociological) | Undivided, unalienated labour; primitive communism | Private property and class division | Alienation — the worker separated from product, process, fellows, and species-being | Class struggle; revolution; abolition of private property | Communism — "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"; realization of species-being |
| Rousseau (philosophical) | The state of nature; natural freedom and self-sufficiency | Society, property, and comparison corrupt natural man | "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"; amour-propre, inequality, dependence | Education (Émile), the social contract, the general will | A legitimate political order restoring freedom within society |
| Fromm (psychological) | The productive, loving human being oriented toward Being | Emergence of the Having mode; escape from freedom | The insane society — alienation, narcissism, destructiveness; needs unmet | Humanistic psychoanalysis; restructuring society to meet objective human needs | The Sane Society — a society "which corresponds to the needs of man" |
| Maslow (psychological) | The healthy, self-actualizing human | Bad social conditions that block needs satisfaction | Deficiency-needs unmet; pathology, "metapathology" | Good conditions; gratification of basic needs | Eupsychia — the Good Society that creates good people |
| Comte (inverted) | Theological unity — "a happy, prosperous condition" with common faith | The metaphysical stage — criticism, dissolution, decay (the serpent in the garden) | Intellectual anarchy; individuals abandoning social responsibility | Positive science; the Religion of Humanity | The Positive Polity — "love as a principle, order as a basis, progress as a goal" |
| Tradition | Original Condition | The Fall | State During the Fall | Path of Return | Final Perfected State |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manichaeism | The Kingdom of Light | Primordial invasion of the Light-world by the forces of Darkness; particles of light swallowed and imprisoned in matter | Light trapped in the material world; human souls as captive light | Ascetic purification by the Elect; ritual "extraction" of light | Final separation of Light from Darkness; the saved light ascends the "Pillar of Glory" |
| Lurianic Kabbalah | Adam Kadmon — the primordial divine configuration | The Shattering of the Vessels (shevirat ha-kelim): divine sparks fall and are trapped in husks (kelippot) | A fractured cosmos; divine sparks scattered through material existence | Tikkun — every mitzvah performed "raises the sparks"; contemplative prayer, ethical life | The restored cosmos; the world of Tikkun; messianic redemption |
| Orphism | The soul as a divine, immortal being | The Titanic crime: the soul (Dionysiac/divine) bound in the body (soma sema — the body a tomb) | Reincarnation — the "wheel of births"; repeated embodiment as punishment | Ritual purification, asceticism, the Orphic life, correct passwords at death | Release from the wheel; the soul returns to the gods |
| Hermeticism | The human mind as an offshoot of Nous (divine Mind) | Descent of the soul through the planetary spheres, acquiring passions and vice at each level (Poimandres) | Ignorance, sleep, drunkenness — the soul forgetful in the body | Gnosis ("know yourself"); initiation; the Hermetic disciplines | Re-ascent through the spheres, shedding the accretions; deification |
| Sufism | Primordial covenant (alast) — the soul's pre-existent testimony to God | Ghafla — heedlessness, forgetfulness of the covenant through immersion in the world and the nafs (lower self) | The veiled heart; the soul dominated by the nafs; separation (firaq) | Dhikr (remembrance), the Sufi path, fana (annihilation of the ego-self) | Fana wa baqa — annihilation in God and subsistence in God; reunion with the Beloved |
| Skinner (Walden Two) | The human organism, capable of creativity and leisure | A misdesigned environment that channels behaviour into toil, competition, and envy | Envy, coercion, uninteresting work; behaviour wasted on survival | Behavioural engineering — redesign the environment, don't preach at the person | Walden Two — four-hour workdays, leisure without slavery, energy turned to art, science, and play |
| Bellamy (Looking Backward) | Humanity's natural solidarity | Anarchic private competition — the "prodigious waste" of nineteenth-century industrialism | Poverty amid abundance; the labour question; class war | Peaceful nationalization of industry; the industrial army; equal annual credit | The Boston of 2000 — guaranteed cradle-to-grave maintenance for all |
| Primitivism / "Original Affluent Society" (Sahlins) | Hunter-gatherer life — abundant leisure, needs easily met | The Neolithic transition: agriculture, sedentism, accumulation | Civilization as declining leisure, rising toil, hierarchy, disease | (Varies: some posit no return; others propose rewilding, degrowth, hunter-gatherer inspiration) | Restored affluence-through-limited-wants; ecological balance |
| Deep Ecology / Ecotopian thought | Humans embedded in the living earth community | Industrial civilization — the "fall" from ecological harmony | Nature commodified; mass extinction; climate disruption; alienation from the more-than-human world | Bioregionalism, rewilding, ecological consciousness, reduced consumption | Ecotopia — a steady-state society reintegrated with natural systems |
| Transhumanism / Techno-utopianism | (Inverted: the unimproved human is the "fallen" state) | Biological limitation itself — mortality, disease, cognitive limits | The human condition as unnecessary scarcity, suffering, and death | Technological acceleration: AI, life extension, augmentation, the Singularity | The Singularity / posthumanity — engineered transcendence of biological limits |
| Theosophy / New Age | Spirit incarnating freely in evolved bodies (earlier "root races") | Descent into dense matter; the Atlantean fall; loss of inner senses | Materialism, spiritual amnesia, the "veil of Maya" | Initiation, meditation, evolution of consciousness through successive ages | The coming age (Age of Aquarius) — restored clairvoyance, unity consciousness, the New Earth |
| Baha'i | Humanity's primordial oneness under God | Religious exclusivism and the "maturity crisis" of humankind | War, nationalism, racism; humanity in its turbulent adolescence | Recognition of Baha'u'llah; the oneness of humanity; world federation | The Most Great Peace — a united, federated world civilization |
Eastern Traditions
Note Eastern traditions generally don't use a concept like "the fall." They see things in a cyclical rather than linear fashion. However, the fall structure is discernible in the architecture of their cosmologies."
The strongest structural parallel is Vedanta/Tathagatagarbha Buddhism: the "fall" is ignorance of a connection that never actually broke — which is, incidentally, almost exactly the LP position on Disconnection (the Fabric of Consciousness is never absent; the Bodily Ego is just shut down).
The clearest temporal fall is the Hindu yuga cycle and Kalki — it's the closest Eastern analog to the Abrahamic fall→messiah→restoration arc, including an end-times deliverer figure. Worth a line in the entry comparing Kalki to the Mahdi/Jesus return, since you've already built that material.
| Tradition | Original Condition | The Fall | State During the Fall | Path of Return | Final Perfected State |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hinduism (Puranic cosmology) | Satya Yuga — the Golden Age of truth and righteousness | Cosmic degeneration through the four yugas; dharma loses one "leg" per age | Kali Yuga — the present dark age of strife, greed, and shortened virtue | Dharma, devotion, yoga; cyclical renewal rather than individual escape | Restoration of Satya Yuga when Kalki (the tenth avatar) ends Kali Yuga; cosmic cycle restarts |
| Hinduism (Vedanta) | Atman is Brahman — the Self identical with ultimate reality | Avidya (ignorance) and maya superimpose separation on what was never divided | Samsara — the soul wandering through rebirth, mistaking itself for the body-mind | Jnana (knowledge), meditation, devotion — realizing "tat tvam asi" | Moksha — liberation; recognition that the separation never truly occurred |
| Buddhism | Inherently luminous mind; original enlightenment (especially Mahayana/Tathagatagarbha traditions) | Avidya (ignorance) — the first link of dependent origination | Samsara — dukkha (suffering), craving, endless rebirth | The Noble Eightfold Path; extinguishing craving and ignorance | Nirvana — cessation; awakening to what was always the case |
| Taoism | Alignment with the Tao; pu (the "uncarved block") — natural simplicity | Civilization, ritual elaboration, and artificial desire pull humanity out of the Tao | Contrivance, anxiety, striving, violence — "when the great Tao is forgotten, benevolence and righteousness arise" (Tao Te Ching 18) | Wu wei (effortless action), simplicity, emptying desire, return to the uncarved block | Restoration of harmony with the Tao — "return is the movement of the Tao" (TTC 40) |
| Confucianism | The golden age of the sage-kings (Yao, Shun, Yu); the Great Harmony (datong) | Decline into the present disordered age — the Way of the ancient kings lost | Ritual decay, war, family disorder, corrupt rulers | Restoration through li (ritual propriety), moral self-cultivation, emulation of the ancients | Datong — the Great Harmony/Great Unity, the restored ideal commonwealth |
| Jainism | The soul (jiva) in its natural state of infinite knowledge, perception, bliss | Karmic matter binds the soul through action and passion | Samsara — the soul weighed down by karma, cycling through rebirths; also descending half-cycles of cosmic time (avasarpini) | Asceticism, non-violence (ahimsa), burning off accumulated karma | Moksha — the liberated soul rises to the top of the universe, restored to infinite knowledge and bliss |
| Sikhism | The soul in union with the Divine Light | Haumai (ego) and maya veil divine reality | Separation (vichhora); the soul wandering in attachment | Naam simran (remembrance of the Name), seva (service), grace | Union with Waheguru; absorption into the Divine Light |
Quotes
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Footnotes
- ↑ In LP terms...