We Are the Other People

We Are the Other People
Oberon (Otter) Zell

The following is an Article published three or
four years ago in Green Egg.

"Ding-dong!" goes the doorbell. Is it Avon
calling? Or perhaps Ed McMahon with
my three million dollars? No, it's Yahweh's
Witlesses again, just wanting to
have a nice little chat about the Bible... Boy,
did they ever come to the wrong
house! So we invite them in: "Enter freely and of

your own will..." (Hey, it's
Sunday morning, nothing much going on, why not
have a little entertainment?)
Diane and I amuse ourselves watching their
expressions as they check out the
living room: great horned owl on the back of my
chair; ceremonial masks and
medicine skulls of dragons and unicorns on the
wall; crystals, wands, staffs,
swords; lots of Goddess figures and several
altars; boa constrictors draped in
amorous embrace over the elkhorn; white doves
sitting in the hanging planters;
cats and weasels underfoot; iron dragon snorting
steam atop the wood stove;
posters and paintings of wizards and dinosaurs
and witchy women, some proudly
naked; sculptures of mythological beasties and
lots more dinosaurs; warp six on
the star-filled viewscreen of my computer; a
five-foot model of the USS
Enterprise and the skeleton of a plesiosaur
hanging from the ceiling; very, very
many books, most of them dealing with obviously
weird subjects... To say nothing
of the great horned owl perched on the back of my

chair and the Unicorn grazing
in the front yard. You know; early Addams Family
decor. And then, of course, it
being late in the morning, you can expect Morning

Glory to come wandering out
naked, looking for her wake-up cup of tea.
Morning Glory naked is a truly
impressive sight, and the Witlesses look as if
she'd set titties on stun as they
stand immobilized, hands clasped over their
genitals.
With the stage set and all the actors in place,
the show is ready to begin.
Their mission, of course, is to save our heathen
souls by turning us on to "The
Word of the Lord"- their Bible. I guess they
figger some of us just haven't
heard about it yet, and we're all eagerly
awaiting their joyous tidings of
personal salvation through giving our rational
faculties to Jesus. Every time
they come around, I look forward to trying out a
new riposte. Sure, it may be
cruel and sadistic of me, but hey, I didn't call
them up and ask them to come
over; they entered at their own risk! This time
should be pretty good. After
letting them run off their basic rap while lovely

Morning Glory serves us all
hot herb tea, I innocently remark: "But none of
that applies to us. We have no
need for salvation because we don't have original

sin. We are the Other People."
"Hunh? What?" they reply eloquently. It's clear
they've never heard this one
before. "
Right," I say. "It's all in your Bible." And I
proceed to tell them the story,
using their own book for reference: (Genesis
1:26) The said, "Let us
make humanity in our own image, in the likeness
of ourselves, and let them be
masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of
heaven, the cattle, all the wild
beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the
earth." Elohim is a plural word,
including male and female, and should properly be

translated "Gods" or
"Pantheon." (1: 27) The Gods created humanity in
the image of themselves, In the
image of the Gods they created them, Male and
female they created them. (1:28)
The Gods blessed them, saying to them, "Be
fruitful, multiply, fill the earth
and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the
sea, the birds of heaven and all
living animals on the earth."
Now clearly, here we are talking about the
original creation of the human
species: male and female. All the animals,
plants, etc. have all been created in
previous verses. This is before the Garden of
Eden, and Yahweh is not mentioned
as the creator of these people.
The next chapter talks about how Yahweh, an
individual member of the Pantheon,
goes about assembling his own special little
botanical and zoological Garden in
Eden, and making his own little man to inhabit
it: (Gen 2:7) Yahweh God
fashioned a man of dust from the soil. Then he
breathed into his nostrils a
breath of life, and thus the man became a living
being. (2:8) Yahweh God planted
a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there
he put the man he had
fashioned. (2:9) Yahweh God caused to spring up
from the soil every kind of
tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with
the tree of life and the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of
the garden. (2:15) Yahweh God
took the man and settled him in the garden of
Eden to cultivate and take care of
it. Now this next is crucial: note Yahweh's
precise words: (2:16) Then Yahweh
God gave the man this admonition, "You may eat
indeed of all the trees in the
garden. (2:17) Nevertheless of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you
are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you
shall most surely die." Fateful
words, those. We will refer back to this
admonition later.
Then Yahweh decides to make a woman to go with
the man. Now, don't forget that
the Pantheon had earlier created a whole
population of people, "male and
female," who are presumably doing just fine
somewhere "outside the gates of
Eden." But this set-up in Eden is Yahweh's own
little experiment, and will
unfold to its own separate destiny. (2:21) So
Yahweh God made the man fall into
a deep sleep. And while he slept, he took one of
his ribs and enclosed it in
flesh. (2:22) Yahweh God built the rib he had
taken from the man into a woman,
and brought her to the man. Right. Man gives
birth to woman. Sure he does. But
that's the way the story is told here. (2:25) Now

both of them were naked, the
man and his wife, but they felt no shame in front

of each other. Well, of course
not! Why should they? But take careful note of
those words, as they also will
prove to be significant...
Now this next part is where it starts to get
interesting. Enter the Serpent:
(Gen. 3:1) The serpent was the most subtle of all

the wild beasts that Yahweh
God had made. It asked the woman, "Did God really

say you were not to eat from
any of the trees in the garden?" (3:2) The woman
answered the serpent, "We may
eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. (3:3)
"But of the fruit of the tree in
the middle of the garden God said, 'You must not
eat it, nor touch it, under
pain of death." (3:4) Then the serpent said to
the woman, "No! You will not die!
(3:5) "God knows in fact that on the day you eat
it your eyes will be opened and
you will be like gods, knowing good and evil."
What a remarkable statement!
"Your eyes will be opened and you will be like
gods, knowing good and evil." The
Serpent directly contradicts Yahweh. Obviously,
one of them has to be lying.
Which one, do you suppose? And, if the serpent
speaks true, wouldn't you wish to
eat of the magic fruit? Wouldn't it be a good
thing, to become "like gods,
knowing good and evil"? Or is it preferable to
remain in ignorance?
(Gen. 3:6) The woman saw that the tree was good
to eat and pleasing to the eye,
and that it was desirable for the knowledge that
it could give. So she took some
of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to
her husband who was with her, and
he ate it. (3:7) Then the eyes of both of them
were opened and they realized
that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves
together to make themselves
loincloths. The author makes an interesting
assumption here: that if you realize
you are naked you will automatically want to
cover yourself. Further
implications will unfold shortly...
(Gen. 3:8) The man and his wife heard the sound
of Yahweh God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from
Yahweh God among the trees of
the garden. (3:9) But Yahweh God called to the
man. "Where are you?" he asked.
(3:10) "I heard the sound of you in the garden,"
he replied. "I was afraid
because I was naked, so I hid." (3:11) "Who told
you that you were naked?" he
asked. "Have you been eating of the tree I
forbade you to eat?"
And so the sign of the Fall becomes modesty. Take

note of this. The descendants
of Adam and Eve will be distinguished throughout
history from virtually all
other peoples by their obsessive modesty taboos,
wherein they will feel ashamed
of being naked. It follows that those who feel no

shame in being naked are, by
definition, not carriers of this spiritual
disease of original sin!
(Gen. 3:12) The man replied, "It was the woman
you put with me; she gave me the
fruit, and I ate it." Right. Blame the woman.
What a turkey! (3:13) Then Yahweh
God asked the woman, "What is this you have
done?" The woman replied, "The
serpent tempted me and I ate." So of course she
blames the serpent. But just
what did the serpent do that was so evil? Why, he

called Yahweh a liar! Was he
wrong? Let's see... (3:21) Yahweh God made
clothes out of skins for the man and
his wife, and they put them on. Out of skins?
This means that Yahweh had to kill
some innocent animals to pander to Adam and Eve's

new obsession with modesty!
And now we come to the crux of the Fall. Yahweh
had said back there in chapter
(2:17), regarding the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, that "on the day you eat
of it you shall most surely die." The Serpent, on

the other hand, had
contradicted Yahweh in chapter (3:4-5): "No! You
will not die! God knows in fact
that on the day you eat it your eyes will be
opened and you will be like gods,
knowing good and evil." So what actually
happened? Who lied and who told the
truth about this remarkable fruit? The answer is
given in the next verse: (3:22)
Then Yahweh God said, "See, the man has become
like one of us, with his
knowledge of good and evil. He must not be
allowed to stretch his hand out next
and pick from the tree of life also, and eat some

and live forever."
Get that? Yahweh himself admits that he had lied!

In fact, and in Yahweh's own
words, the Serpent spoke the absolute truth! And
moreover, Yahweh tells the rest
of the Pantheon that he intends to evict Adam
(and presumably Eve as well) to
keep them from gaining immortality to go with
their newly-acquired divine
knowledge. To prevent them, in other words, from
truly becoming gods! So who, in
this story, comes off as a benefactor of
humanity, and who comes off as a
tyrant? THE SERPENT NEVER LIED!
This story, to digress slightly, bears a
remarkable resemblance to a
contemporary tale from ancient Greece. In that
version, the Serpent (later
identified as Lucifer, the Light-Bearer) may be
equated with the heroic titan
Prometheus, who championed humanity against the
tyranny of Zeus, who wished for
people to be mere slaves of the gods. Prometheus,

whose name means
"forethought," gave people wisdom, intelligence,
and fire stolen from Olympus.
Moreover, he ordained the portions of animal
sacrifice so that humans got the
best parts (the meat and hides) while the portion

that was burned to the gods
was the bones and fat. In punishment for this
defiance of his divine authority,
Zeus condemned Prometheus to a terrible
punishment for an immortal: to be
chained to a mountain in the Caucasus, where
Zeus' gryphon/eagle (actually a
Lammergeir) would devour his liver each day. It
would grow back each night. Zeus
promised to relent if Prometheus would reveal his

great secret knowledge: Who
would succeed Zeus as supreme god? Prometheus
refused to tell, but history has
revealed the answer... The interesting thing
about all this is that the Greeks
properly regarded Prometheus as a noble hero in
his defiance of unjust tyranny.
One may wonder why the Serpent is not so well
regarded. On the contrary, snakes
are loathed throughout Christiandom. (3:23) So
Yahweh God expelled him from the
garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he
had been taken. (3:24) He
banished the man, and in front of the garden of
Eden he posted the cherubs, and
the flame of a flashing sword, to guard the way
to the tree of life.
So that's it for the Fall. But the story of Adam
and Eve doesn't end there. (Gen
4:1) The man had intercourse with his wife Eve,
and she conceived and gave birth
to Cain... (4:2) She gave birth to a second
child, Abel, the brother of Cain.
Now Abel became a shepherd and kept flocks, while

Cain tilled the soil. (4:3)
Time passed and Cain brought some of the produce
of the soil as an offering for
Yahweh, (4:4) while Abel, for his part, brought
the first-born of his flock and
some of their fat as well. Yahweh looked with
favor on Abel and his offering.
But he did not look with favor on Cain and his
offering, and Cain was very angry
and downcast. Well, why shouldn't he be? Both
brothers had brought forth their
first fruits as offerings, but Yahweh rejected
the vegetables and only accepted
the blood sacrifice. This was to set a gruesome
precedent: (4:8) Cain said to
his brother Abel, "Let us go out;" and while they

were in the open country, Cain
set on his brother Abel and killed him.
Accursed and marked for fratricide, (4:16) Cain
left the presence of Yahweh and
settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. We can
assume that the phrase "left
the presence of Yahweh" implies that Yahweh is a
local deity, and not
omnipresent. Now Eden, according to (Gen.
2:14-15), was situated at the source
of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, apparently
right where Lake Van is now, in
Turkey. "East of Eden," therefore, would probably

be along the shores of the
Caspian Sea, right in the Indo-European
heartland. Cain settled in there, among
the people of Nod, and married one of the women
of that country. Here, for the
first time, is specifically mentioned the "other
people" who are not of the
lineage of Adam and Eve. i.e: the Pagans.
So let's look at this story from another
viewpoint: There we were, around six
thousand years ago, living in our little farming
communities around the Caspian
Sea, in the land of Nod, when this dude with a
terrible scar comes stumbling in
out of the sunset. He tells us this bizarre
story, about how his mother and
father had been created by some god named Jahweh,

and put in charge of a
beautiful garden somewhere out west, and how they

had gotten thrown out for
disobedience after eating some of the landlord's
forbidden magic fruit of
enlightenment. He tells us of murdering his
brother, as the god of his parents
would only accept blood sacrifice, and of
receiving that scar as a mark so that
all would know him as a fratricide.
The poor guy is really a mess psychologically,
obsessed with guilt. He is also
obsessively modest, insisting on wearing clothes
even in the hottest summer, and
he has a hard time with our penchant for
skinny-dipping in the warm inland sea.
He seems to believe that he is tainted by the
"sin" of his parent's
disobedience; that it is in his blood, somehow,
and will continue to contaminate
his children and his children's children.
One of our healing women takes pity on the poor
sucker, and marries him...
(4:17) Cain had intercourse with his wife, and
she conceived and gave birth to
Enoch. He became the builder of a town, and he
gave the town the name of his son
Enoch.
With both of their first sons not turning out
very well, Adam and Eve decided to
try again: (4:25) Adam had intercourse with his
wife, and she gave birth to a
son whom she named Seth... (4:26) A son was also
born to Seth, and he named him
Enosh. This man was the first to invoke the name
of Yahweh. Now it doesn't
mention here where Seth's wife came from. Another

woman from Nod, possibly, or
maybe someone from another neolithic community
downstream in the
Tigris-Euphrates valley. But her folks also,
cannot be of the lineage of Adam
and Eve, and must also be counted among "the
other people."
But whatever happened to Adam? After all, way
back there in chapter Gen. 2:17,
warning Adam about the magic fruit of knowledge,
Jahweh had told him that "on
the day you eat of it you shall most surely die."

So, when did Adam die? (Gen.
5:4) Adam lived for eight hundred years after the

birth of Seth and he became
the father of sons and daughters. (5:5) In all,
Adam lived for nine hundred and
thirty years; then he died. Hey, that's pretty
good! Nine hundred and some odd
years isn't bad for a man who's been told he's
gonna die the next day!
Well, the story goes on, and maybe next time the
Witlesses come to visit I'll
tell more of it. But suffice it to say that those

of us who are not of Semitic
descent (i.e., not of the lineage of Adam and
Eve) cannot share in the Original
Sin that comes with that lineage. Being that the
Bible is the story of that
lineage, of Adam and Eve's descendants and their
special relationship with their
particular god, Yahweh, it follows that this is
not the story of the rest of us.
We may have been Cain's wife's people, or Seth's
wife's people, or some other
people over the hill and far away, but whichever
people the rest of us are, as
far as the Bible is concerned, we are the Other
People, and so we are
continually referred to throughout.
Later books of the Bible are filled with
admonitions to the followers of Jahweh
to "learn not the ways of the Pagans..." (Jer
10:2) with detailed descriptions
of exactly what it is we do, such as erect
standing stones and sacred poles,
worship in sacred groves and practice divination
and magic. And worship the sun,
moon, stars and the "Queen of Heaven." "You must
not behave as they do in Egypt
where once you lived; you must not behave as they

do in Canaan where I am taking
you. You must not follow their laws." (Lev 18:3)
For Yahweh, as he so clearly
emphasizes, is not the god of the Pagans. We have

our own lineage and our own
heritage, and our tale is not told in the Bible.
We were not "made" like clay
figurines by a male deity out of "dust from the
soil." We were born of our
Mother the Earth, and have evolved over aeons in
Her nurturing embrace. All of
us, in our many and diverse tribes, have creation

myths and legends of our
origins and history; some of these tales may even

be actually true.
Like the descendants of Adam and Eve, many of us
also have stories of great
floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other

cataclysms that wiped out
whole communities of our people, wherein "I alone

survived to tell the tale."
Nearly all of our ancestral tribes (and
especially those of us who today are
reclaiming our own Pagan heritage) lack that
peculiar obsessive body modesty
that seems to be a hallmark of the original sin
alluded to in the story of the
Fall. We can be naked and unashamed! Why, our
Goddess even tells us, "as a sign
that you are truly free, you shall be naked in
your rites." Not being born into
sin, we have no need of salvation, and no need of

a Messiah to redeem our sinful
souls.
Neither heaven nor hell is our destination in the

afterlife; we have our own
various arrangements with our own various
deities. The Bible is not our story;
we have our own stories to tell, and they are
many and diverse. In a long life,
you may get to hear many of them... May you live
long and prosper!

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"Woohoohoohoo. The wonderful thing about witches, is
witches is wonderful things. They dance, they prance,
they clap and sing. They live a life of joy, peace and fun.
But, the most wonderful thing about witches is...I AIN'T the only one."

- fromTigger's Full Moon Ritual, Grove of the Hundred Acre Wood

5:37 AM - 9/19/2005 - post comment