From Crashing Eden by Michael Sussman:
"You've just seen me fall," she said, her eyelids lowered in embarassment. "Well, it so happens that one of the most universal accounts in the mythologies of the world is that of the Fall of Man. Ancient peoples and modern day aborigines all refer to a lost paradise from which humanity had been expelled....
... "What happened was the Fall," Alessa said. "Human consciousness was cut off from the divine source, and a former sense of oneness with the cosmos was lost. This estrangement was attributed to a crime of disobedience, often involving a forbidden fruit. In Greek mythology, the Golden Age ended when Pandora- the first woman- defied Zeus by opening the box he'd given her, unleashing evil into the world.
"With this fall from grace, humanity was expelled from Paradise and forced to deal with disease, misfortune, hardship, and sorrow. Everything was altered, as mortality, sexual regeneration, and the need for work became part of the human condition. Human nature gradually degenerated, resulting in fear, greed, cruelty, mistrust, violence, and insensitivity to nature."
