https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=XEhaT-YtfPA
So Matthew F. asks, what’s the symbolism of divination in the Bible? There’s a double symbolism of divination. It has to do with actually this month’s patron only video, if you guys want to watch it. Which is in some ways the kind of double symbolism of water or the double symbolism of the left hand. Maybe as an also way to understand it, the double symbolism of the place where things, the meaning of the logical coherent meaning of something falls apart. It has to do with the symbolism of chance as well, like the symbolism of lots. So divination is both in some ways the highest and the lowest is the best way to understand it. And so the Bible warns against divination, tells people that it’s dangerous and it’s prohibited in scripture, but then also divination is the means by which, you know, when it says in the Bible, God said this, you know, it’s some form of divination. Either the Urum and Thumim, I forget how they’re pronounced, these stones, we don’t even know exactly what they were. They were like throwing stones. They had to do maybe with the breastplate, you know, these 12 stones that they manipulated somehow to be able to discern the will of God. And so that’s what it is. It’s like an irrational, it’s the place where logic and coherence breaks down and in that place is both the lowest madness, you know, loss of meaning, but then, you know, in the higher way, like the higher waters, you know, the waters are separated in scripture at the outset. In the higher waters, you have a reflection of that, which is rather the manner in which God’s revelation transcends coherent logical means. And so you have interesting moments in scripture. So for example, the vestment that the priests wear, which has something to do with divination. Like I said, we’re not exactly sure how it was used, but so this ephod, it seems like the stones were on the ephod, which is like this vestment which is placed on the priest. And there’s also like this crazy scene when David is dancing before the ark of the covenant, he wears the ephod. But then, so it’s like a liturgical vestment that’s related to divination. But in the Bible, in the book of Joshua, it says that Israel and Joshua played the whore with the ephod, like basically misused the ephod in order for dark purposes. And so, that’s kind of how you have to understand divination. And it gets brought into, for example, it gets brought into the story of Joseph, who puts his cup in Benjamin’s bag. And the cup is a cup of divination. And it’s like, yeah, well, that’s what Joseph is. Joseph is meaning that is preserved or found in the foreign land. He’s the hidden meaning. He’s dressed as an Egyptian, he’s hiding, he’s hiding in prison, he interprets dreams, he has all that kind of symbolism of divination. And you can see like the duality of Joseph all through the story where it’s like positive and negative, you could say, where he interprets the dreams and then one, the cup holder gets taken into the castle, but the baker gets his head cut off. Two dreams, one which is the destruction of Egypt by these kind of plagues, and then the other one is the saving of Egypt. So it’s like, that’s what divination in some ways is. And you can see that that duality of divination is there also in Greek myths. So, the Pythia had that exact same type of relationship with her oracles, which is that when people would go to Delphi and ask the oracle a question, the Pythia would answer, but that answer would often be dual. And people would think it’s positive, but then it could be either positive or negative, and sometimes it would end up being very negative. And then when they look back now at the Pythia’s prediction, they’re like, oh, that’s why it actually wasn’t positive. It actually makes sense that this horrible thing happened to us even though we didn’t really see it at the outset. So, anyway, that’s the symbolism of divination. And so someone asked in the chat, are the waters above connected with the divine darkness? Yes, exactly. And it has to do with what we talked about before. It has to do with what we talked about before in terms of the mother of God and in terms of the virgin and in terms of the feminine in general. It’s like the feminine is that darkness, like that secret darkness, and it’s both the low waters and the high waters, right? It’s both the kind of the chaos, tohu-bohu, but also what St. Ephraim refers to as the womb of God, like this mysterious idea of God, of the nature, of divine nature, as transcending anything understandable. And so it’s like that’s the duality. And it’s really important not to confuse the two. Like it’s very, very important not to confuse the two. And it’s very important for us now. Like obviously, hopefully none of you are actually doing divination, but what I say about divination is also applicable to dreams. And so, you know, that’s why the church fathers and the monastic fathers, they warn people against dreams. Because dreams in some ways have that dual nature, which is that they’re both the place where all your passions are going to play out. And it’s like chaos, and it can misinform you. And, you know, it’s that dark divination. But then also once in a while, it can be the means by which God will reveal truth and insight to you. And you see that in scripture all the time. And so it has that, so it can be the highest revelation of God’s will, but it also can be completely misleading and chaotic. And so it’s very important not to confuse the two. And because most of us don’t have the capacity to discern, it’s probably best to ignore that aspect of reality. It’s 99% of the time. And so that’s how it is. Gohar M says, what about practicing lucid dreaming? The thing about lucid dreaming that I’ve always felt, because people would tell you, like, you know, I lose a dream or whatever, is that it feels like it’s a waste of time. Like, I’m not sure what it really brings people. It’s like you’re living, you should live in your life. If you start living in your dreams with these lucid dreaming, I’m not 100% sure what good it will ultimately do you. But I might be wrong. I don’t know a lot about it.