Evas Erwachen

When God created the Garden of Eden, he devised a cruel scenario: He gave Adam and Eve the Tree of Knowledge but forbade them from tasting its fruits. The Over-Father punished the disobedience of his children with great suffering. This paradise, where obedience is seen as a virtue, curiosity as a sin, and ignorance of good and evil as the ideal state, bears fatal similarities to what lies at the beginning of nearly every life and is commonly referred to as the "paradise of childhood": As soon as a child does not follow the godlike commandments of the parents, it is punished, if not chastised, and is furthermore led to believe that all of this is only for its own good. But what happens to the anger and pain that it must suppress when it is supposed to accept psychological and physical abuse as a blessing? Early emotional experiences leave traces in the body, are encoded as information, and influence our way of thinking, feeling, and acting in adulthood, yet they escape consciousness. This often results in a vicious cycle of violence. How this can be broken, and how a deeper awareness can emerge from the emotional understanding of one’s own history, is shown by Alice Miller in her new book. In "Eve's Awakening," she enlightens us about the causes of our often misunderstood feelings and shows us the way out of our unwarranted immaturity – for the benefit of both present and future generations.