1709. From being a sexually double-poled being, from being a superterrestrial or heavenly being beyond the "male state" and the "female state", from being a being who was organically created so as to "love its neighbour", Adam, with the above-mentioned transformation, now began very slowly to become a being that could no longer love everything and everyone, but only something special, specific and vitally necessary that gained its full attention, while everything in its surroundings that was outside this was regarded as a nuisance, a hindrance to its own existence, and had therefore to be combatted. The lovable Adam or the heavenly being – who had previously loved the living beings, had given them names, and had lived in paradisiacal beauty and harmony with them – had become a hateful persecutor. Its life had become an "eating of the tree of knowledge" or the way of living that was bound to give rise to all existing forms of unhappy fates, but which, on the other hand, would gradually give it the ability to know the difference between "good" and "evil". This new being, this transformed Adam, was in the absolute sense the being that is expressed by the concept of "Eve". Over the centuries, the view that "Eve" is merely an expression for "woman" or a being of the "female sex" has become a very fossilised one, but this view does not cover the problem at all. After the "creation of Eve", "Adam" no longer existed in his usual form. He had, as will be remembered, lost his "rib", which is to say, the capacity of one of his sexual poles. He had become a "one-poled" being like "Eve". In order to understand this completely, one must realise that "Adam" was not the only being of its kind in paradise. Just as all other beings each belong to a flock, race or species, so did "Adam" also belong to a race or species consisting of myriads of individuals. These individuals were thus mature enough for the process of evolution that the Bible calls the "creation of Eve". They had come to a stage in their cosmic spiral cycle where their continued eternal existence could be furthered only by the creation of an entirely new form of life or way of being, a way of being that thus had to be the complete opposite or contrast to that which was their life or form of experience in paradise. But a way of being or experience of life can be based only on organs, since any experience of life can exist only as an organic function. The "creation of Eve" thus meant the transformation of the being from one form of life to another. This transformation consisted of a change in the organs for the individual's sympathetic faculty. In the species or race that the term "Adam" actually covers, the masculine pole stagnated in some beings and its development was held back in favour of the development of the feminine pole, which became the dominating or all-determining factor in the being's life or way of being. Such a being turned into a "female being", which, at the height of its appearance, culminates as the being we call "woman", and which, based on a lack of knowledge, has been perceived as "Eve". But the principle of "woman" or the "female sex" cannot possibly cover what lies hidden behind, or what happened during, the "creation of Eve". If "Adam" had gone on being the same being, the "woman" or the "female being" would have been, from a sexual point of view, just as foreign and insignificant a being in "Adam's" life as any of the many other beings in the garden. There would have been a greater difference between "Adam" and "Eve" than there is between a human being and an animal. "Eve" would have been a being that belonged to a species of beings with whom it would have been a complete physical impossibility for "Adam" to have an inner, intimate, mental release. These two beings could not possibly have fulfilled the divine command to become "one flesh". How could "Adam", who in his paradisiacal state was not "male", derive any pleasure from a "female being"? And of what use would the creation of a "female being" be if no "male beings" existed? Would not these beings, in such a case, be born to perpetual torment, to an eternal, unceasing desire for which there would be absolutely no satisfaction, a hunger that could not possibly be satiated? And if "Adam" were a completely "male being", if he were a "man", his state while in paradise must also have been an experience of a perpetual hunger for which no satiation existed, since, as will be remembered, there were no "women" or "female beings" in this sphere. So, in such cases, paradise must be the "hell" of the universe, and physical existence here on Earth its "kingdom of heaven". But this is precisely the opposite of the facts, and the opposite of God's own purpose. Did he not tell "Adam" and "Eve" that the ground would be cursed and filled with much grief and pain for both of them? She would bring forth her children in sorrow, and he would eat or gather his food or bread only in the sweat of his face. Believing that "Adam" in paradise was a "man" or a "male being" is a superstition that has been able to find favour and gain support only through masculine prophets who, to far too dominating an extent, have praised the beings of their own sex as the masters of creation, for whom the "woman" was actually created solely in order to be their slave. What does one make of the concubine in a harem? Is she not an out-and-out slave with regard to her sexual pole state or womanly nature? What freedom does she have here? Has the "woman" not been held down for thousands of years in ignorance, sexual slavery and contempt by the so-called "stronger sex", who found it an easy matter – because of this sex's masculine, bodily superiority or strength compared to the physical, bodily state of "woman" – to be the dominant sex? And does one not believe that this domain is to blame for the fact that the "creation of Eve" is described only as an event that is advantageous to the "man" alone, an absurdity that is just as glaringly untrue and removed from reality as it can possibly be. Believing that "Adam" in paradise was a "man" or a "male being" is thus superstition and self-worship, which a much later being suffered from, namely the "Adam" that was transformed into a "male being" or the being that today, as "man", dominates the physical plane. "Adam" and "man" are just as different as "Adam" and "woman". In actual fact, from and after the "creation of Eve", "Adam" no longer existed. The being that we call "man" is just as much a product of the "creation of Eve" as "woman" is a product of this process. Just as "Eve" became a continuation of "Adam's" existence in the form of a one-poled being, so too did "man" become, in exactly the same way, merely a continuation of "Adam's" existence in the form of a one-poled being. But while it was the masculine pole that was tied and bound, and the feminine pole that was free in "woman", the opposite was the case in "man". Here it was the feminine pole that was tied and bound, and the masculine pole that was free. And the species of being that was expressed by the term "Adam" in paradise no longer existed. This species, from having been a superterrestrial or spiritual being that was beyond the "male sex" and the "female sex", had become a terrestrial physical being bound to these two forms of life.