Original Sin

Ever since I first took theology in school I wondered what this original sin stuff is all about. I even dared ask our teacher, an old and grey lady who seemed to never have achieved an orgasm in her life.

Of course the answers I got were a s vague as possible, something like 'everything that is bad', 'bad thoughts', 'bad actions' etc etc

And then of course when sex got in the picture original sin identified itself with it.

I think many people still think that sex was the original sin , partly because of the way the Church addresses it, how women are considered 'dirty', how everything regarding physical pleasure is considered sinful.

A few days ago I watched the movie 'Golden Compass', based on Philip Pullman's 'Northern Lights' book, the first of the 3 from his trilogy 'Dark Materials'.

So far I have only read the first of the 3 books and am going on the the next as fast as possible.

There are few times in one's life that something or someone opens up a completely different kind of thinking , of viewing the world, physical and spiritual, of perceiving one's existence.

I do not consider myself capable to even try to explain the many philosophical and spiritual aspects of 'His Dark Materials'.

I can only say that the concept that each human has a daemon that is the physical form of his soul, that this daemon changes shapes until it settles to a final one in adolescence, that the loss or parting from that daemon means an unconceivable pain for the human and in essence death, that Dust is particles of psychic awareness...

That many worlds exist simultaneously in our universe, that what we consider our soul has nothing to do with the Church God but is in essence our spiritual awareness.......that we are definitely not alone even when alone because of that soul

That the original sin was not in fact any stupidity said in a classroom where knowledge should but is not tought, but is in fact the act of awareness, of acknowledging your existence for what it is, deciding what this existence can and will be (in the trilogy when the daemons take on their final form) and living your life surrounded by particles of psychic awareness.

I have said so many times that I discovered in the recent years that I am in fact not an atheist but a spiritual agnostic. I want desperately this world to have some kind of meaning, but that does not mean following any kind of dogma because of fear.

Something P.Pullman said :"I've been surprised by how little criticism I've got. Harry Potter's been taking all the flak… Meanwhile, I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God."

Well that has changed with the release of the Golden Compass which has raised A LOT of argument from the Catholic Church, even though the movie has watered down the prime ideas of the book and of course has cut off the end, the sacrifice.

We owe it to our souls, to our own existence, to our own psychic awareness to guard and protect our daemon......as our daemon will always stay beside us....

When Lyra is trapped and is almost cut off from her daemon Pan (a process called intercision) her pain (played beautifully by Dakota Blue Richards and described superbly by P.Pullman) was almost touching my own soul, like if I was being cut off from my own soul, my own spirit which like a little animal lives inside my psyche and am still looking for its form, guarding and protecting me and always staying beside me, in the darkest hours but also the happiest.

Philip Pullman was influenced by Milton's Paradise Lost, by Dante's Divine Comedy and by Leonardo's painting Lady with an Ermine. Ermine being a symbol for royalty or aristocracy.
Pan's favorite form is that of an ermine signifying Lyra's nature. In contradiction to the Cronicles of Narnia His Dark Materials is a book that defies the usual good-bad ideas of the church but goes straight into the bigger issues like psyche and divinity and parallel universes and science. Pullman also refers to gnostic ideas, that the divine or in any case whatever is out there can only be touched or perceived through our own searching, our divine souls trapped in a material world.

So, to sum up, if original sin is the act of psychic awarenesses and if even sexual awakening is part of this process and of course of coming closer to the human essence that makes this trilogy one of the greatest for me.

It is in fact true that the church only tries to conceal original truths, drag us away from our oun awareness and try to put itself in the middle between us and whatever is out there.

But whatever is out there can never be perceived or understood by any church but rather by science and our own never ending search for psychic awareness.....

P.S. What is the form of my daemon?

P.S.2. Not to get things mixed up a person's daemon is not a 'devil' or a bad natured being. From Wikipedia :

A dæmon is a manifestation of the soul of a conscious person in the Philip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials. In those universes with physical dæmons, they exist external to the human in the form of animals representative of the person's personality, although children's dæmons may change form at whim. The bond between dæmon and human is intimate, and dæmons must remain within a small distance of their human (with the exeption of witches); contact between a person and another person's dæmon is taboo, although dæmons may touch each other.

Generally, a person and his or her dæmon must stay within a short distance of each other. Forcibly separating a person from his or her dæmon causes unimaginable physical and emotional pain for both entities, often causing death; however, some cultures have mastered techniques that allow the dæmon to gain wider mobility. For example, witches, as well as humans who commit to becoming shamans, must endure grueling, ritualistic ordeals that involve leaving their dæmon for a time as they embark on a spiritual quest. After rejoining their dæmon they have gained the ability to separate from them. Both witches and shamans retain their intimate bond with their dæmon; the only change is in the distance they can travel apart from each other.

In the trilogy, a special guillotine is used by the General Oblation Board to separate people from their dæmon without killing them (intercision). However, unlike the ordeals undergone by witches and human shamans, the guillotine violently and permanently severs the bond between person and dæmon, and effectively renders the person a zombie; a being incapable of independent thought and without any identity. The General Oblation Board continually perfects the process through experimentation, but Lyra encounters at least one boy who could not bear living without his dæmon and dies. The separation process also generates a huge burst of energy, which was used by Lord Asriel to create a bridge into the world containing Cittàgazze.

Especially for Lyra:

Symbolism of named dæmons

The specific symbolic meanings of each character's dæmon-form are also noted.

Character	Dæmon	Meaning
Lyra Belacqua:	Pantalaimon	Moth: the longing of man for God (Carl Jung), first form mentioned Ermine: purity (Renaissance Symbology), "favourite" form Pine Marten: grace and empathy (Celtic Myth.)[citation needed], settled form

Will Parry:	Kirjava	Cat: guardian and protector, especially in confrontational circumstances (Celtic Myth.), settled form. Kirjava means "mottled" in Finnish.
Lord Asriel:	Stelmaria	Snow Leopard: understanding one’s shadow side (Pagan Myth.), associated with the devil (Christian Symbolism), settled form
Marisa Coulter:	Ozymandias (from BBC Radio)[5]	Golden monkey (species never named): cleverness and curiosity (Chinese Astrology), settled form
Roger Parslow:	Salcilia	Terrier: fidelity (Celtic Myth.), common form, also explained to be a form suited for servants in the series
Mary Malone:	never named	Alpine Chough: settled form. A bird of the mountains.'
John Faa:	never named	Crow: the soul of magic and link to the spirit world (alchemical symbol), settled form
Farder Coram:	Sophonax	Cat: (see above) settled form
Serafina Pekkala:	Kaisa	Snow Goose: vigilance and protection (Celtic Myth.), settled form. The name Kaisa is a female name in Finland, although Kaisa the snow goose is male in the books.
Lee Scoresby:	Hester	Hare: The Moon and Resurrection (Pagan), settled form
The Master: (of Jordan College)	Leonor (from BBC Radio)[5]	Raven: Bird used by Odin to collect knowledge, settled form
John "Jopari-Stanislaus Grumman" Parry: (aliases in likely order of origin)	Sayan Kötör	Osprey: often linked to those of otherworldly vision; its also common a symbol of abundance, settled form
Carlo Boreal / Charles Latrom, CBE :	never named	Serpent: often linked with the ability to manipulate and influence people, and with cunning, settled form.

P.S.3. I adore Pan and absolutely respect Stelmaria and Kaisa

P.S.4. Dust is also the thing that connects humans to their dæmons. This being is actually somewhat of a soul that can talk and is in the form of an animal. It sends the Dust to the human to allow the human consciousness. Even in worlds that don't have apparent dæmons, they still exist. Though they are not animals by any means. In some other worlds your dæmon is your silent consciousness in the back of your head, that other voice that you have that gives you intuition. If the bond between a human and their dæmon is severed both the human and the dæmon die. If it happens after your Dust has settled on you and you become an adult you simply become a lifeless shell. (and that final paragraph is what I feared all my life and never could quite put it as eloquently as this, and what almost happened to me last August.....maybe this is why Lyra's and Pan's pain brought me to tears)