has been passing from mothers to children ever since the
fall of the first man and woman.
       Whenever you indulge in any sin, the spirit of that sin
gets inside you. When Adam partook of the fruit of pride,
the sin that was on the outside made a home in him. It has
operated from its new home in all of us ever since. Even in
your own not-so-original traumas, you will find the same
phenomenon going on. Whatever is present in the trauma
scene effects a change in your nature, and your changed
nature henceforth answers slavishly to those people, places
and things that excited the change, until you find the truth
that sets you free.
       The trauma of original sin is the trauma of language.
Language, women, food, and later on other fascinations
began to affect man more than the God of his conscience.
Remember how Adam received his instruction concerning
the danger of reaching away from understanding, toward
knowledge, toward pride? What caused him to doubt and
fall? Wasn’t it, in part, the spirit of language, spoken through
a guileful woman? Adam listened to the words of his wife
instead of the wordless language of his own heart. To this
day, deceitful people have sway over our souls.
       Look within and behold this tug-of-war between listening
to what we know deep down and the seduction of
language. Somehow, instead of believing in ourselves, we
allow ourselves to be affected by the words of others.We
simply can’t stop compulsively believing the lies and confusion
emanating from others until we are redeemed from
the tyranny of language. That is the redemption that faith
alone can vouchsafe us.

xiv