The Secret Dowry of Eve: Woman's Role in the Development of Consciousness by Glynda-Lee Hoffmann

Author:Glynda-Lee Hoffmann [Hoffmann, Glynda-Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Women's Studies, BODY; MIND & SPIRIT, Goddess Worship, Mysticism
ISBN: 9781594775611
Google: K1soDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2003-04-28T23:43:16.896794+00:00

4

Adam’s Directives and Helpmate: The Neocortex and the Frontal Lobes

A hero’s journey always consists of difficult tasks to be performed or enormous obstacles to be overcome. In Genesis the hero’s task is to discover, recognize, and then construct a whole system of awareness from the fragmented, compartmentalized, and alienated elements of the patriarchal brain and psyche, in which the intellect has unwittingly become a major contributor to incompleteness and rigidity of thought. It is, indeed, a hero’s task.

When most of us think of the brain, what we are usually thinking of is its formidable intellect, the cognitive power of the neocortex. However, as we have seen, we possess other vital forms of intelligence that are often discounted by the intellect. The aspect of intelligence that plays the most important role in terms of integration—the prefrontal cortex—is represented in Genesis by the image of Eve. Offering a perfect example of how the intellect often devalues other forms of intelligence, Eve is traditionally perceived as the original “fallen woman,” alone responsible for the sinful state of the human race.

A major goal of the hero’s journey in Genesis is to reeducate the intellect so it can perceive the brain’s other forms of intelligence with more respect and appreciation, especially that represented by Eve. The prefrontal cortex is a major influence in reorienting the intellect so it can be a better conduit for information, especially the information of new possibilities. In its present state, the intellect generally operates under the influence of cultural biases that in a patriarchal society work to support the status quo, thus limiting the brain’s innate fertility and flexibility.

Status quo thinking, based on Newtonian certainties, has been culturally indoctrinated into the rational intellect through our academic institutions. With the advent of quantum and chaos theories, and new models of whole systems, such paradigms of certainty are no longer the only choices for interpreting information or events, especially the mythological and psychological events we are investigating here.

In order for us to accomplish the task of fertilizing the intellect with new life, we must put it through a rigorous reeducation process, a psychological boot camp. That process prepares its symbolic thinking apparatus to expand beyond the rigidities imposed by cultural paradigms of certainty so it can recognize the importance of new possibilities and opportunities. A major outgrowth of this process is that the intellect finally learns to recognize its authentic position within the brain’s hierarchy of cortexes, which may come as either a shock or a surprise, depending on your point of view.

The first step of our journey, therefore, is recognition. We need to recognize that the parts of our neural instrument are just that, parts. There is no whole unless and until we build the neural and psychological connections that integrate those parts, which is a major portion of the hero’s assignment being described in the Genesis myth. The role of the frontal lobes, when recognized properly by the neocortex—the cortex that names and defines—is to instigate that psychological linkage, because it is the frontal lobes that are invested with intention.

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