The Genesis story, told over many generations in the three religious traditions of the Western world, says in essence: Our experience of separation from oneness or wholeness is a separation from Nature; this story speaks of 1. a disobedience (of God’s law) and 2. a fall from Grace (in Eden) resulting in 3. a shameful casting out of ‘paradise’. It is this literal interpretation that ushers into the collective psyche the burden of guilt and shame.<


This is certainly something that Nietzsche responded to with great zeal. His polemical retort against Christianity for laying this metaphysical burden upon the consciousness of the individual is classic.