Adam and Eve

74:7.1The chil­dren of Adam, ex­cept for four years’ at­ten­dance at the west­ern schools, lived and worked in the “east of Eden.” They were trained in­tel­lec­tu­ally un­til they were six­teen in ac­cor­dance with the meth­ods of the Je­ru­sem schools. From six­teen to twenty they were taught in the Uran­tia schools at the other end of the Gar­den, serv­ing there also as teach­ers in the lower grades.

74:7.2The en­tire pur­pose of the west­ern school sys­tem of the Gar­den was so­cial­iza­tion. The forenoon pe­ri­ods of re­cess were de­voted to prac­ti­cal hor­ti­cul­ture and agri­cul­ture, the af­ter­noon pe­ri­ods to com­pet­i­tive play. The evenings were em­ployed in so­cial in­ter­course and the cul­ti­va­tion of per­sonal friend­ships. Re­li­gious and sex­ual train­ing were re­garded as the prov­ince of the home, the duty of par­ents.

74:7.3The teach­ing in these schools in­cluded in­struc­tion re­gard­ing:

74:7.41. Health and the care of the body.

74:7.52. The golden rule, the stan­dard of so­cial in­ter­course.

74:7.63. The re­la­tion of in­di­vid­ual rights to group rights and com­mu­nity obli­ga­tions.

74:7.74. His­tory and cul­ture of the var­i­ous earth races.

74:7.85. Meth­ods of ad­vanc­ing and im­prov­ing world trade.

74:7.96. Co-or­di­na­tion of con­flict­ing du­ties and emo­tions.

74:7.107. The cul­ti­va­tion of play, hu­mor, and com­pet­i­tive sub­sti­tutes for phys­i­cal fight­ing.

74:7.11The schools, in fact ev­ery ac­tiv­ity of the Gar­den, were al­ways open to vis­i­tors. Un­armed ob­servers were freely ad­mit­ted to Eden for short vis­its. To so­journ in the Gar­den a Uran­tian had to be “adopted.” He re­ceived in­struc­tions in the plan and pur­pose of the Adamic be­stowal, sig­ni­fied his in­ten­tion to ad­here to this mis­sion, and then made dec­la­ra­tion of loy­alty to the so­cial rule of Adam and the spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

74:7.12The laws of the Gar­den were based on the older codes of Dala­ma­tia and were pro­mul­gated un­der seven heads:

74:7.131. The laws of health and san­i­ta­tion.

74:7.142. The so­cial reg­u­la­tions of the Gar­den.

74:7.153. The code of trade and com­merce.

74:7.164. The laws of fair play and com­pe­ti­tion.

74:7.175. The laws of home life.

74:7.186. The civil codes of the golden rule.

74:7.197. The seven com­mands of su­preme moral rule.

74:7.20The moral law of Eden was lit­tle dif­fer­ent from the seven com­mand­ments of Dala­ma­tia. But the Adamites taught many ad­di­tional rea­sons for these com­mands; for in­stance, re­gard­ing the in­junc­tion against mur­der, the in­dwelling of the Thought Ad­juster was pre­sented as an ad­di­tional rea­son for not de­stroy­ing hu­man life. They taught that “whoso sheds man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the im­age of God made he man.”

74:7.21The pub­lic wor­ship hour of Eden was noon; sun­set was the hour of fam­ily wor­ship. Adam did his best to dis­cour­age the use of set prayers, teach­ing that ef­fec­tive prayer must be wholly in­di­vid­ual, that it must be the “de­sire of the soul”; but the Eden­ites con­tin­ued to use the prayers and forms handed down from the times of Dala­ma­tia. Adam also en­deav­ored to sub­sti­tute the of­fer­ings of the fruit of the land for the blood sac­ri­fices in the re­li­gious cer­e­monies but had made lit­tle prog­ress be­fore the dis­rup­tion of the Gar­den.

74:7.22Adam en­deav­ored to teach the races sex equal­ity. The way Eve worked by the side of her hus­band made a pro­found im­pres­sion upon all dwellers in the Gar­den. Adam def­i­nitely taught them that the woman, equally with the man, con­tributes those life fac­tors which unite to form a new be­ing. Thereto­fore, man­kind had pre­sumed that all pro­cre­ation resided in the “loins of the fa­ther.” They had looked upon the mother as be­ing merely a pro­vi­sion for nur­tur­ing the un­born and nurs­ing the new­born.

74:7.23Adam taught his con­tem­po­raries all they could com­pre­hend, but that was not very much, com­par­a­tively speak­ing. Nev­er­the­less, the more in­tel­li­gent of the races of earth looked for­ward ea­gerly to the time when they would be per­mit­ted to in­ter­marry with the su­pe­rior chil­dren of the vi­o­let race. And what a dif­fer­ent world Uran­tia would have be­come if this great plan of up­lift­ing the races had been car­ried out! Even as it was, tremen­dous gains re­sulted from the small amount of the blood of this im­ported race which the evo­lu­tion­ary peo­ples in­ci­den­tally se­cured.

74:7.24And thus did Adam work for the wel­fare and up­lift of the world of his so­journ. But it was a dif­fi­cult task to lead these mixed and mon­grel peo­ples in the bet­ter way.