THINKING AND DESTINY

Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER III

OBJECTIONS TO THE LAW OF THOUGHT

Section 5

The story of original sin.

The story of original sin is not without basis; it is a fable which conceals some true traditions. One of these has to do with the procreation of the bodies of human beings. Many events are covered by this mythology. The doers who were affected by the events feel a truth under the story of original sin. The details of the story are in some ways related to the original events, but are twisted, inaccurate and childish. Nevertheless the story has power because doers are conscious of truths which are concealed in it.

The naïve story covers a history of disquieting results. The use of the procreative power was the “original sin.” The result following the procreative act was to give to the human race the tendency to unlawful procreation; and this tendency was one of the means of bringing on ignorance and death in the world.

The penalty of the original sin of the doers is that they are now dominated by that which they originally refused to govern. When they could govern they would not; now that they would govern, they cannot. One proof of that ancient sin is present with every human in the sorrow that follows an act of mad desire which, even against his reason, he is driven to commit. Another evidence is the existence on earth of what today is spoken of as the lower human races.

This and other events which underlie the legend of original sin have consequences which reach the present day. They all come from times when doers knew right from wrong and were therefore responsible. They could not stand still, but had to go on or back, one way or the other. They had to decide; and they gave in to the temptation of pleasure. They now give way to sensation and assent to their desires. They look into darkness rather than into the Light. Their destiny has followed them through the ages; it has led them deeper into wrong until now the degree of doers in human bodies is that of sense-bound doers; their feelings and desires are ruled and enfeebled by sensations, and the Light of the Intelligence is obscured in them. They are dimly conscious of events for which they were responsible. This is one of the reasons why the doctrine of original sin has found a response in the hearts of so many.

But the origin of the story of original sin was when the doer in its perfect body was in the Realm of Permanence. There, in the trial test for bringing its feeling-and-desire into balanced union, it failed. Therefore it came into this world of birth and death, and it periodically re-exists in a man body or in a woman body.