April 2021 Q&A (Qf9Z3KgjHTM)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=Qf9Z3KgjHTM

All right. Hello everybody. And so kind of not well set up here. Give me a second. Sorry. All right. So I see I’ve got Brad is there. Sweet. Let’s see who else shows up. We’ve got 43 people. All right. We’ve got people in the chat. So welcome to the April Q&A. It is Holy Week. And so here we are. This Holy Week is very strange with COVID and everything. My own parish is struggling just to celebrate. We’re struggling. So I’m actually going to be going to two different parishes during Holy Week to be able to do the different services. But you know, that’s how it is. This Lent has anybody who follows me on Twitter will know that this Lent has been not the best Lent. You know, you can tell how I’m doing just by social media. If I’m being if I’m like posting cocky stuff and being a jerk on social media, it usually means that I’m not doing very well. So you know. All right. So a few things before we start. Last month, first thing is last month, I raffled off some a few things and I didn’t send them yet. And so I said that if I haven’t sent them yet, I’m not going to raffle off two more t-shirts, two more shirts until I send them. And so I should be able to send them soon. I just haven’t. But the emails are out. And so the people so I will send them soon. So sorry to those people who won last month and have been waiting to be contacted by me. Yeah, like I said this whole month, but that’s OK. All right. And so what’s the other thing? Yes, the other thing is that last month, I totally forgot Subscribestar in terms of the questions. And so I will be starting with Subscribestar this this month to compensate for that. And so, yeah. All right, so we will get through this. Is there anything else I need to to announce? I don’t know. All right, so I will start with Subscribestar. OK, so from the last month, X. Oh, so the way it works, sorry for people who are the first time in the Q&A, the way it works is that if for people who are supporting me on Patreon for like ten dollars or more, you get to ask questions in advance. And so all these are the questions I’m going to go through. And then at the end, I will go through the super chats and answer those questions. So I usually do have time to get through everything. It’s hard for me to pay attention to the chat because usually even just answering the questions from from the different platforms, it ends up being like two hours long. So, yeah. So if you want. So, yeah. So I mean, I am trying to do some surprise streams once in a while. Now, if you notice some carving streams, I will do I will do more. And so then in those those kind of surprise streams, it’s easier to ask questions. And I can pay attention to chat more because it’s more kind of improvised. So pay attention to those if you want. But I can’t tell you when they’re going to be because I don’t know when they’re going to be. All right. So here we go with Subscribestar from last month. So XRD asks, would you say there’s a connection between vegans and Kane in their seeming unwillingness to make the right sacrifices? I don’t want to pick on vegans, but after seeing recent stories, the parents reports veganism on their children and how these kids end up severely, severely malnourished, some even dying. By the time authorities get to them, I’ve begun wondering where veganism fits in all of this. So. It’s one of those interesting things that so at least like vegetarianism, let’s say monks are vegetarian, so monks, Orthodox monks don’t eat meat in theory. You know, I’m sure in practice it happens once in a while, but in theory, they don’t eat meat. And also, there’s a there’s a notion in scripture that people didn’t eat meat before the fall, not just before the fall, but actually they weren’t supposed to eat meat before the flood. And that’s why after the flood, it says that God gave permission that people eat meat with without the blood. So you had to bleed the animal in order to eat it. And so there’s a sense in which eating animals is a kind of condescension of the fall on one hand. But on the other hand, there’s also something about it, which. How can I say this? It’s kind of like you have to not see it necessarily as good or bad, but you do have to see it as. As a kind of condescension of the fall, and so I think that eating meat is fine, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with it, but I think there’s all and just like I also think that it’s OK for soldiers to go to war and to and to fight off enemies in terms of when, you know, when a country is being attacked by foreign invaders. But I think that all of these things are kind of condescensions to the fall, let’s say. And so but it’s not the same as veganism, because I don’t think in scripture there’s any sense that people were vegan, rather just vegetarian. And so because even in the story of Cain and Abel, it would be very odd to think they weren’t supposed to eat meat. And so in theory, Abel didn’t eat meat, according to the story, but he still had animals. And so what were their animals for if he’s not going to eat their meat? And so milk, cheese, like, I don’t know, wool. So they did use animals, just just not in the story. They did use animals, just not eat the meat. So, yeah. All right, so that was the only question on Subscribestar in March. So let’s go to see if there are any questions. So there are no questions in April. OK, so you know what? There is one. I’m going to be very I’ll be I’ll be nice. So big lasagna on Subscribestar ask, I’ve noticed that the more I learned about symbolism, the more my humor got better. I’ve read some articles that people a hundred years ago laughed, laughed about 50 minutes a day. Nowadays, it’s about five minutes. Does this make sense to you? I don’t know. I mean, I think that. I do think that there was definitely in traditional societies, there was definitely just more joy in general. We have this weird image, like in movies and stuff about these dark traditional societies. But in reality, because they were together, because they would they would just spend all their time together. It would probably you’re right, they probably would laugh more because they were just together. You know, it’s if you’re alone, you don’t laugh unless you’re you’re watching some funny movie. But even then, like you wouldn’t laugh out loud as much as you would when you’re with people and you’re kind of with friends and stuff. So it’s possible. But it’s good to have a sense of humor if you understand symbolism, because if not, it can actually take you to a very dark place. So, you know, you guys know that I laugh all the time for bad reasons, but probably good. It’s probably good for me. All right, man, I’m in a weird mood. This is this this might not go well. I hope it’ll be OK. All right. So we’re let’s move on to to the symbolic world website. I just remind you guys, as you know, the symbolic world site is being redone right now. And so I’m working actually even redoing the logos and just the whole the whole aspect of it and how it’s going to integrate the different things that I’m working on, but not just me, also all the other people involved in the symbolic world. So that’s coming soon. We will also have a platform for discussion there because right now the Facebook group is still hanging on. But we all feel like it’s just a question of time before even the Facebook group gets shut down because some of the posts are getting shut down. And so just a question of time. Yeah. All right. All right. So CS. CS Street, so or C Street, so ask, can you explore the symbolism in the story of Samson? You mentioned him moving the doorway to a hill and there is the lion and hunty event as well. Is he a Nephilim? No, he’s not a Nephilim. He’s he’s definitely his symbolism is related to symbolism of Nephilim in the sense that because he is a he’s an Israelite who is attracted to foreign women who who wants who has relationships with foreign women, then there is a there is a relationship with the idea of Nephilim or this idea of like the people higher up on the mountain going down the mountain to get potential from that which is impure, that which is not in your level of identity. And and so that’s what that’s that’s what happens in the Genesis story, but from angels to to men. But you can understand it at different levels. Right. So the the the the different warnings that, for example, are given by Solomon about going to the strange woman. And he says the strange woman’s foot, the strange women, the feet of the strange women goes down into shale. So her feet go down into hell. And so this is this idea of like this idea of that which you don’t know being kind of on another plane is you and be you have to be careful because it can you can waste your seed, right? Your seed could be lost in in the darkness, let’s say. So that is one of the aspects of the symbolism of Samson. But there’s also a mystery, which is that it’s like, how do you flip that? How do you make it total? Because ultimately, we believe that God is the God of all things. And so how does that turn? Like there’s a reality to the to the to the symbol, to the structure. But then there’s also a way in which even that aspect or the strange has to be saved. And that’s what Christ that’s what happens with Christ, because Christ, the story of Christ with the Samaritan is all about that. The story of Christ with Samaritan is all about Christ going towards the strange woman and marrying the strange woman, you know. And and that’s why, like I said many times, that’s why Christ marries Rome. That’s why Christ saves Rome, because he is in a way he is. He’s let’s say he’s marrying the daughters of Cain, like he’s marrying Cain. He’s doing he’s Rome is Cain. Rome is are the descendants of Cain in terms of what they mean. And so there’s this there’s an aspect of the symbolism of Christ which resembles the symbolism of the Nephilim, just like this idea that one of the interpretations of the symbolism of the Nephilim is that the the the daughters of the sons of Seth married the daughters of Cain. Well, that’s what Christ is doing. Christ is marrying the marrying Cain, but he but he does it in a way that isn’t that doesn’t fall. He’s able to do it without falling. He’s able to kind of gather all of this strangeness into himself and transform it, you know. So it’s not the same. It’s it’s almost like one of the aspects of what Christ is doing is is is healing the rift of the of the first chapters of Genesis, like healing those different those different rifts and those different problems. So all right, I need to not spend too much time on each question or else I’m never going to get through. All right. All right, so Josh the mover asked, Hello Jonathan, a quick question of validity. After careful consideration prayer, I’ve elected to take St. John of Damascus as my patron saint when I’m baptized. Well, congratulations, Josh. That’s awesome. At some point, I would like to commission a diptych with Saint Damascene on the left and the three hands icon of the Teotokos on the right. Would this be considered a violation of any iconographical rules? Would it be more correct to have them commissioned at separate icons? I’ve not seen a diptych with those icons together before. I don’t want to be in any way innovative. So it’s fine to have icons with different saints and have them like in a line or have them related to each other. You see that in kind of what’s called family icons that people would commission. So that’s fine. The problem is mostly you have to be careful when you have make an icon of the mother of God. You don’t want because in a way she is kind of the summit of of sanctity in the human level. And so I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an image where she is just kind of facing another saint besides Saint John the foreigner or Saint John. The theologian. So I’m not sure. I’d have to think about it. I’d have to think about it. And also, I mean, you could just have them made as two different icons. I mean, it wouldn’t be that difficult to just have the two panels and then you can you can put them up the way you want. Maybe that could just be an easy solution to avoid any confusion. All right. So in the ones asked, Hi, Jonathan, any advice on navigating the symbolic worldview with kids, especially a very literal minded five year old. He loves folk tales, myths, Bible stories, and we talk about the deep patterns of them, but he often returns to. But this but did this really happen? Is the hero plays character real? I would say, like, especially for a five year old, like you should just tell them the stories and not interpret them like there’s no point in interpreting the stories for a five year old. You just tell them the stories and then don’t you don’t need to go any further than that. The interpretation will come later. So if you just tell the stories and you kind of rejoice in the stories at some point, maybe you can avoid the question of, you know, did this really happen? I would say for sure in terms of fairy tales, you can say that you can it’s easier than to say no, that it didn’t really happen in in this way that you think in terms of scripture. I would just answer yes to all the stories. And in terms of Saint story, that would just also answer yes to all the stories. So that’s how I would that’s how I would do it. So you could always answer it happen once upon a time. You could say you could just answer that. All right. So Adam says, hey, Jonathan, you seem to have a grasp on how 2020 would go and have predictions for 2021. So when will Jacob and Issa meet? Yeah, I can’t answer that one. When Jacob and Issa meet. As for 2021, I mean, it’s pretty much it’s pretty much on route for just being a continuation of the clampdown mode. And so that seems to be what’s what’s on the menu. Just a continuation of last year, I think. Also, just making it acceptable, like just just making everybody just accept that this is the new normal, as they say, or this is the inevitable. Yeah. All right. So Newmash asks, is Solomon a prefiguring of Christ? Joseph and King David have a lot of relevance to the story of Christ, but Solomon also seems to be relevant, too. I’ve noticed he appears to be an eschatological figure where all the rebellions are put down. There’s peace in the land. The temple is built. And he rules as the wise king and all the nations of the world come to honor him. Yes, of course. Exactly. And I think you I don’t even have to answer the song of songs is usually attributed to him as well. Sounds like the eschaton to me. And so I think you’re right. I almost don’t have to answer. I also don’t have to answer your question. So he’s a prefiguring of Christ in that you could say that that he is. Um. Yeah, definitely in terms of the idea of peace and the idea of the temple and also the idea of the Queen of Sheba, you know, of his relationship with the ends of the earth, you would say, you know, like the Queen of Sheba coming to kind of ask questions of him is something like the wise men coming to worship Christ. And so there’s this idea that that he connected to the ends of the earth. All the all the characters in scripture are prefigurations of Christ. That one’s actually an easier one. Some of them are harder. Some of them are like Samson is a harder one in terms of understanding how, but they all are. All right. So Luca Askovic asks. Um. In chapter 35, symbols of space and time foundations, stone and scandal stone in my brother’s book, the language of creation. Your brother quotes the Bible with wisdom. The Lord founded the earth with understanding. He established the heavens later in the chapter. He quotes with wisdom. A house is built with understanding. It is established with knowledge. Its rooms are filled. I’m struggling to understand what these sentences mean. What do wisdom, understanding and knowledge mean in this context? Um. I I’m not going to answer that man because it’s like pretty much that you could say that it that kind of stuff is exactly what the. The the that’s exactly what the book is about. But a little thing you could understand, for example, in terms of. Um. In terms of understanding the idea of wisdom founding the earth and and. Understanding establishing the heavens you need to understand that this is one of the things that you talk about all the time is this. This this cross this cross thing happened where with wisdom from above he found the earth below and then with understanding from below he establishes he creates a foundation. He he establishes a solid ground for the heavens and so just for example, then understanding that can help you understand this this relationship between. The invisible and the visible how one of them provides form. You know. For for that, which is below and that which is below provides support support and let’s say making explicit of that, which is above and so maybe that’s the best way to understand. That. So you can understand like wisdom and understand wisdom and understanding and then knowledge as the union of the two. That’s probably the best way to understand it so wisdom is like under is like the seed understanding is. Is like the the the the explicit aspect of it, you know, and so the difference between. The wisdom of a car like knowing what it’s for and the understanding of a car how it works like in terms of the the mechanisms of the car. And then with knowledge, yet how you you that’s you that’s how you fill the car with knowledge. You use the car so when you’re using the car, you need to have this basic notion of how the car works in terms of what it’s what it can do and what it can do the purpose of the car the pattern of the car in terms of its spiritual purpose and reason and then you can then you can use the car. So I hope that makes I hope that helpful it’s this stuff is it’s hard to talk about I also don’t want to put words in my brother’s mouth but that’s how I would understand it. All right. Okay, so David florist asked with the human animal hybrid news coming out I can’t help but see the human animal gods of Egypt and other cultures, you have already mentioned that ai has patterns of an idol. If ai is an auto made of of gold and silver, what does the human animal hybrid idol of flesh and bone mean is it the same as centaurs or something entirely different is very close the idea of the animal human hybrid. Is very close to the the center and the satyrs in in ancient mythological thinking a really good way to understand what human animal hybrids are so they’re like in a basing of humanity right and you can see that even in terms of the ethical problems that people are seeing with. With this hybridization of this making of chimeras they understand that there’s a danger of creating a lower cast of humans and so the of a human that is more basic that is more flesh you would say in terms of spiritual understanding and so that’s what these hybrids are and even in mythological thinking. So the center for example like in in greek myth and in roman stories the center is constantly trying to like rape women he’s constantly trying to like steal like the all the stories of the center is like stealing. Hercules is wife there’s this map there’s this big story about how center says he’s going to cross. Think so if you know the story of Saint Christopher you can see it’s related actually so so Hercules is on one side of a river and he has the center comes and says I will carry your wife across the river for you. And so this beast like a boat like a like a support is is capable of carrying like an arc you could say he is able to carry the. Hercules is wife across the river but now different from let’s say Saint Christopher different from the arc with the animals in it. When the center comes to the other side he’s like going to run away with her is going to going to take her take her with him and so she’s going to be lost you could say. And so the story usually has it that Hercules shoots an arrow so you can see like the the kind of masculine or the order reaffirming itself he shoots an arrow across and then he kills the center in order to be able to get his wife back. So you can see how these stories like these patterns they they they they play out in different ways it’s the same pattern. But it just plays out in different ways so so so that’s mostly the way to understand the problem of the animal human hybrid is that it’s kind of a lowering of of humanity. In terms of the in terms of the human like the the human animal gods of Egypt it’s more about totemizing so it’s more more about. Seeing seeing the things in the world and how their patterns manifest certain realities and then kind of elevating that in its pattern form and so you know it’s kind of like. I mean you could say something like that you know the God of rain so rain is a natural phenomena but the the God of rain is not just a natural phenomenon but it’s a natural phenomenon. And so you know so it’s kind of like. I mean you could say something like that you know the God of rain so rain is a natural phenomena but the but it has a pattern it has patterns it comes and goes in certain patterns, and so you can totemize that and then have a God of rain and. But you can do the same with animals and so certain characteristics of animals will manifest certain realities and then and then that’s how you get these animal human hybrids. So so it’s probably the best way to understand that and a good like it and that’s a negative version, but there’s a positive version, which is the Tetra more right in the Tetra more if you have. Also these animals that are brought up into their pattern and they kind of manifest different aspects of divinity in in the in the Tetra more so you don’t worship the Tetra more if you don’t you don’t sacrifice to the to the to the cherubs but the. The type of symbolism that they’re engaging with is similar to the symbolism that will give you these these kind of. gods with animal heads okay but like I said it’s not the same you don’t worship them. But it’s similar in terms of in terms of what it’s what it’s doing with the with the with the images of the animals. Alright, and so. A rosa 77 says, this is a question about contextualizing the Christian message and missions to non Christian people. Coming from a low church products and tradition i’m increasingly appreciative of big T tradition seems to me that tradition is the product of contextualize the gospel originality. A message revealed within the interaction of Semitic and Hellenistic worlds in Palestine to other ancient cultures. Contemporary, especially present missions values contextualization efforts that include attempts to shed as much cultural baggage of the missionary before engaging. In the target mission culture, and this will almost be necessary by necessity lead to a shedding of tradition. What are the losses when Christians missionaries plant new churches without a reference to ancient tradition, be it in liturgy history devotional practice for the lady etc. And so I mean. there’s a there’s a difficulty, of course, in losing it’s a it’s a game like it definitely is a difficult game to play. And it’s also one that honestly usually will just play out in a long term. And that’s that’s one of the things we struggle because we don’t have the patience anymore to deal with a kind of a long term story. So for sure, in terms of the idea of stripping down the traditions you, you have to be careful, because. You know, Christ embodies himself in things like he embodies himself in in particulars, and so, if you try to just remove them, you can end up with something which is not really clear. Christianity. But it’s a but like I said it’s a tricky game like it’s a you can look at the way it happened in like Russia and Bulgaria and how the Orthodox. evangelize different peoples is that at first, probably the Orthodox in Russia. It they translated into their language. And it does seem like like, for example, they let happen certain things like certain. Analogies people saw between their ancient gods and and the new characters like the Saints and with Christ, and so they weren’t afraid of saying of helping people see through their own tradition, you know what it is that they’re trying to do. Helping people see through their own tradition, you know what it is that that Christianity was talking about you know. joy that seems to have happened also like in terms of evangelizing the northern people. There is a danger there too, which is you can also kind of miss step and then end up with weird kind of syncretism but. yeah i’m happy that I don’t have to make a lot of those decisions because it must be very difficult to kind of find that balance. All right, so so Alphonse asks, dear Mr pageo my question maybe would be, are we in the start or middle of a new wave of narcissism. Nostasis is like Christianity on mushrooms dog meds. Yeah, so what’s going on in this coming age of acquirers I don’t know yeah Joe DMT Rogan on meditating Sam Harris, who also documented his mushroom trip. It’s work ism another form of trying to get redemption and salvation through certain kinds of rules and behaviors and rituals. Would you like, would you like to elaborate your thoughts on narcissism. Would you like to elaborate your thoughts on narcissism. The critic of the church fathers and how to avoid a mix up of symbolism with certain nostalgic ideas. Like I do the truth of the existence of angels demons heavens and so on, so the biggest problem with narcissism is it is really one big problem. And most of the most of the lower problems emanate from emanate I use that word so there’s talking about narcissism like the lower problems will be. Connected to the higher problem and the higher problem of narcissism is mostly the idea that. That the lowest God created the world and that the world itself is. Is a kind of is fallen in its in its very origin and that the the the supreme let’s say the infinite or the you know the. The highest infinite principle does not have any contact at all with anything below him it’s like this completely self self. You know self looking self monad it’s a monad right and so Christianity doesn’t present a monad as the infinite but a trinity. And so already in the infinite there’s a sense in which multiplicity and and a certain dynamism is part of infinity itself. And that avoids a lot of problems and so so so then so narcissism always ends up being some kind of idea that that the world itself is fallen and so you need to be able through different. To different acts of meaning to to rituals but rituals as like keys as these like secret keys that you can that you can unlock doors and then ascend this hierarchy of heaven in order to to free yourself from this corrupt world and corrupt body. And that is not at all with Christianity is Christianity is about embodiment and about incarnation and although it does it does is suspect to. People who are a slave to their passions or a slave to their bodies it it’s clear from the very beginning that Christianity is not against. The body and is and its rituals are not there to to make you escape from reality but is there to integrate reality and to participate in the fullest sense in reality so if you look at the the orthodox. Communion in the orthodox liturgy you’ll see there are references to angels all through the liturgy and it talks for example it talks about. Christ being carried by the by the orders of angels down into the communion and so there is this sense that there is this descent but there’s also other places where it talks about we who represent the cherubim like we who are. Part are becoming analogous to the angels in our at our level and participating in this giant pattern and so then so there is in a sense that we that we have initiation rituals in order to ascend. To escape the world but rather to to kind of have a full experience of what creation is. So that’s probably the best way that I could talk about that. Alright from me Cal so what is your opinion on abstract icons malibu treated his black square as a sort of icon. Get hanging it high in a room’s corner as if it were an orthodox artifact nowadays the image is practically treated as an icon of art as if art was a spiritual being to be worship. Recently I saw an exhibition of modern semi abstract orthodox art some of them were really moving in a good way could would you could say that traditional icons are an abstract art anyway. So it depends so this is this is a great discussion is happening right now in let’s say in orthodoxy so you could actually see that malibu is black square his supremacist icon. Is is something of an astus is like there’s something about the desire to reduce the world to just patterns and so it’s like hey i’m for patterns right I love patterns that’s what I talk about all the time. But the patterns have to be embodied they’re not you don’t have access. I mean you can you can have access to the pure pattern but it always manifests itself in an embodied form and so abstract art. Is is there’s something about it which is dehumanizing and something about it which is alienating to the to the human person. And so. Let’s say one of the tendencies in modern in the modern times has been to because some of the abstract artists, this is a complicated question, but some of the abstract artists, especially. Some of the abstract artists, especially his Denis, who was was a modern kind of modern Catholic artist and there was part of this kind of weird modern Catholic revival of art he saw him and not just him, but other theorists saw. Icons as being the root in terms of abstraction towards. Modern abstract art, but I think that that’s a problematic understanding because. You could say in a way that traditional icons are less fleshy than renaissance art less less kind of passionate than baroque art let’s say. But to say that the the the orthodox icon is more abstract is to to act as if the fleshiness of baroque art and of kind of. Romanticism or academic art is more real is more embodied and that’s not right, you know that embodiment doesn’t mean the fleshy passions right there is a there’s a kind of a. There’s a balance in the in the Christian body, you would say, and I think that the icons try to manifest that balance that sober balance, you could say of the body. So that’s what I think. What time is it 930 all right so Nelson Justin Evan asked how should an orthodox Christian rightly order their finances. How are you asking me questions like that, do you have any big picture suggestion about how to handle money in a spiritually responsible way. Example how to plan retirement without credit interest can luxury purchases be justified man you guys this is not you should ask your priest the question like that. I mean, I think that. I think that you have to like I could just tell you the way that i’ve i’ve i’ve done it and my wife and I have always done it is we we’ve always just been very grateful for whatever it is that we have and we’ve been very poor and we’ve also. Been more fortunate in certain times and so. So we just we just go at it one step at a time and to be honest I don’t have investments and and I don’t i’m not saying that that’s the way to go and not saying that that’s the way to do things but. It’s both of us both my wife and I have a sense that that’s not the best thing you can do with your money is like invest of course if you’re just going to squander it and that’s not better, but I think there. Yeah, I think that it’s I don’t think there’s one way to go about it, I think that you just have to be attentive to the way that. This this possibility to you in your life and be attentive to what’s going on around you. To the questions around you to the needs around you and and just act. And just act based on that, but I don’t i’m not against investment and i’m not like I don’t think it’s wrong. So blank asks okay blank so how do you could you discuss the symbolism of the two witnesses in revelation. How do we understand them in terms of the end of the story and the end of the story? feel like I’m leaving this here. I’m sorry I’m gonna stop blank asks. Okay blank. So how do you do could you discuss the symbolism of the two witnesses in Revelation? How do we understand them in terms of the end of the world specifically the end of the world we’re in? I’ve heard in Protestant circles that they are related to John the Baptist Elijah and Enoch. Do you think this is accurate or no? I think that that attribution to John the Baptist Elijah Enoch is a pretty universal one. I don’t think that it’s come I think that it comes from the Church Father. I don’t remember exactly who but I think it’s a very ancient understanding of of the witnesses and I mean it has to do with the idea of those which were taken up those that were taken up without dying and so that’s mostly the idea of the you know there’s a there’s a pattern that kind of at the end of a world there are these characters that are taken up and then before a change it’s like it’s kind of like the at the end things kind of separate and there’s a moment of transition and there are certain elements which go up let’s say and that’s what Enoch is that’s also what Elijah is that’s why they’re in the Elijah story there’s the Enoch story there’s the flood and then in the Elijah story there’s also the the crossing of the the the river with the garments of skin and so that’s trying to show you that this is a transition that then Elisha is going to start a new world and Elisha starting a new world there’s a lot of his miracles that are there to show you that he’s starting a new world like raising the axe head and you know there are these different miracles there that are show that and Moses is the same too right so Moses dies but his body is taken up so so yeah that’s usually the way that it’s understood and so the idea is that you could say that these witnesses will appear at the end before the end of the world and so so there’s a sense like you could understand it like you could understand it the way that Christ said of John the Baptist that he is the Elijah that will come so you could understand that before the end there will be Elijah that will come there will be an Enoch there will be you know another John the Baptist that will that will manifest before before the end so all right so Christian asks what is your experience with tarot cards and do you think it is okay for Christians to symbolic purposes I don’t really have any experience with tarot cards I I would say it’s probably probably best to avoid them like to especially avoid people who are are using them because they really people do use them as a kind of weird like a kind of weird divination and there is warnings in scripture against divination and the tradition against that type of action you know you can understand why it’s dangerous to want to devise your future or to want to use pattern understanding as a way to give yourself power towards your future and so that’s a dangerous game to play and the thing about it is that it it’s probably not completely hogwash which is why it’s dangerous to to play with those games so if you want to if you want to kind of just look at tarot cards and try to understand because they’re certainly using they’re certainly using some some patterns that are that are connected to something like they’re not they’re not arbitrary but I would say just to be careful because it’s not it’s a it’s a dangerous road to get on all right so VSAC 2008 says hi Jonathan I’ve been reflected on the critical circumvolution circumvolutions they seem to define sacred space great in sensation at the beginning of liturgies established center sensing singing transformed the world so these different cycles of sensing and symbolized sacred transformations the direction does not seem arbitrary sometimes clockwise sometimes counterclockwise could it have something to do with symbolism of the right and left or could it refer to cosmic symbolism Sun wise connection or even interplay of both I you know I’ll be totally honest with you I’ve been thinking about that a long time in terms of how it works in the liturgy and how the processions work in the liturgy and also they’re like I think your intuition is very good in the sense that there seems to be in the way that the Christian Church is set up an interplay between two symbolisms one is left and right hand and then the other is north south east west and so the left side so if you’re in a church and you’re facing east right the left side is north so the left side is dark and the right side is south and so this the right side is light and so there seems to be something of that in the way that even you can see if you look at medieval churches the way that they would decorate the churches they they definitely were taking that into account and so the northern transept would often be like the dark transept and so they would have weird symbolisms in the northern transept for example it I think it’s in I think it’s in the Adam or in Shaq not sure which one they they have all the weird stories in the northern transept they have all the foreigners all the all the strangers in the Old Testament they have the story of the ox cart with the golden hemorrhoids all the weirdness like all that kind of that kind of loose symbolism of something which is kind of loose and not attached to to the to the center that the righteous the righteous strangers you would say you know all these other kind of strange stories and then and in the south side then will be more like New Testament stuff and everything so they’re definitely something about that in terms of and so the idea of like coming out in the north like that the origin of the Sun even the origin of the Sun is in the north like that’s something that’s hard for people to understand the Sun comes up in the East but it’s like the seed of the Sun is down in darkness right it’s hidden in the darkness and so the idea that the origin is in the north but it reveals itself in the east right and so you can see that how that would be like this this this kind of procession from north but it doesn’t totally like it doesn’t completely jive to me so I probably shouldn’t be talking about that but it’s something I’m still thinking about I’ve been thinking about for 20 years or whatever all right so Timothy Aspaslaw says hey Jonathan what is a good way to help someone understand or experience what René Guénon calls super rational I mean that’s what we when we talk about the news that’s what we’re talking about it’s the idea of direct intuition and so it’s you experience that all the time like you experience super rational all the time it’s just that we’re not used to having we’re not used to understanding those experiences every time you every time you experience unity in anything you’re experiencing something which is super rational in the sense that the rational can analyze the parts but it can never jump to the unity and so unity is always super rational but then once you have the unities then you can do it again right so it’s like you can analyze the parts of the chair and then you jump up to the chair and then once you have chairs and other things you can analyze those and then jump up to higher categories and so that’s what it is and so imagine that like in yourself or you have all your thoughts and you have all your passions and all your desires and all your you know your multiple personalities and all of that and then once in a while you can have this glimpse of something which unites it all together and it’s beyond thought and it’s beyond it’s like a direct experience you know it’s it’s beyond analyzing it it’s so that’s probably the best way to understand it is to see how we actually experience that we actually experience that quite a bit like we just don’t recognize it so all right all right so I’m moving now on to to patreon and getting a little glance of the chat I’m happy to see that Neil from Durpa Robbins is there sweet and symbolic memes is there always funny stuff Lisa’s there cool all right so yeah look happy to see everybody in there Thiago is there nice I did was on your channel look at me going through the chat I’m becoming a real youtuber after four years of doing this all right and so Durpa Robbins says symbolic means is the best yeah the the memes are hilarious oh they always they also work on unlike often work on like several levels and I’m like man he’s he’s really thinking this stuff out okay so let’s go let’s go into patreon all right so Jason and we’re all curious about who symbolic means is one day we will discover who you are it’s gonna happen all right so Jason he says symbolic means I don’t make them they just manifest themselves that’s a layer all right so Jason Gadowalt says how would you describe Virgil in the comedy Human Reason a poet I think that I think that at least it’s especially in the in the comedy Virgil is playing several roles for Dante on the one hand he’s playing he’s playing the role of that which inspired Dante and so it’s it’s it starts out of as a personal at a personal sense it’s that he is the one that is like Dante’s mentor you could say and so and so in that in that sense but his mentor you would say to us up to a certain level and so yes he does also represent something like reason and also something like for at least for Dante definitely represents the poet and so because so you have to understand that so Virgil is the is is Dante’s inspiration but he’s he’s is really is his inspiration so not just personally but in the sense that the descent into the underworld mean like the descent into the underworld structure is in the Aeneid right it’s part of the Aeneid and it’s part of the writings of of Virgil so you can imagine that Virgil would have Homer you know kind of guiding him along and so Dante sees himself as as as just like Dante is taking Virgil’s notion of the descendant to the underworld and then joining that with Christianity okay so that’s what that’s what he’s doing and so that’s that’s what’s happening in the in the story it’s like that’s the that’s how that’s also what’s happening as Virgil guides Dante up the speed of the of the levels and then at some point has to stop and then Dante moves up higher and you know has ends up with a saint ends up with I can’t remember his name that’s horrible who guides Dante up the guy who wrote who who’s like wrote the Templar chart for the Templars like I know we know who he is I just can’t remember that’s horrible it’s horrible that he’s not that his name isn’t coming to me alright well we continue so that’s what so that I think that’s what that’s what it is it’s gonna come to me and then I’m gonna I’m gonna feel really stupid alright so Norm Grande says I’m not sure how prevalent the seven last words of Christ are for Orthodox but these words as Christ last sermon placed under the themes of forgiveness father forgive them salvation today you will be with me relationship okay so he goes through all the seven way heavenly in the Catholic faith I wonder what sort of symbolic story arc you might see there perhaps a summation of his ministry covenant fulfillment or even as a resume of the Christian story as a whole I’d have to think about it to be honest I’ve never thought about the the last words of Christ as a as an arc or as a story so I’d have to think about it it’s definitely something which sounds plausible at the at the outset so I would definitely have to think about it more alright so Connor Mitchell says why does Russia hold almost a mythical boogeyman role in Western society or at least in the American mindset I mean because you need one I guess they realized that they need one they tried to get rid of their boogeyman and then they realized that they that they that they kind of need it and so we went back to it the funniest thing about the Russia US stories there really is like a wisdom and understanding what happened in terms of how how how things happened and so so you can think about it like in terms of Christianity let’s say so you can think about how let’s say after the revolution you know especially let’s say after World War two during the Cold War the US were sending missionaries they would send people with like that would smuggle Bibles and would try to like inject Christianity into into Russia and then so there was like the secret action the secret seeds that were being planted in Russia people bringing Bibles and trying to pray praying for Russia praying for the salvation of Russia this massive kind of attention and movement from Christianity in into this dark place that Russia was and Russia was doing the same right Russia was sending their spies over to the US infiltrating culture you know trying to affect popular characters and and let’s say you have these these theorists that communist theorists that end up becoming very popular in in the US institutions and kind of infiltrating US institutions this whole idea of the long walk to the institutions so you have this secret action on the from the Russians on the Americans then you have the secret action from the Americans on the Russians and then this like this secret seed grows up and it makes it that they flip they like switch over and so all of a sudden America becomes this like secular you know wasteland and Russia becomes this like new bastion of Christianity I mean think about it how crazy that is like how just nuts that that is that that happened in our lives that we saw that flip happen completely it’s nuts and so but it can help you understand how reality works how it’s like these secret seeds that we’re planting you know it’s like even now like let’s say that this work that we’re doing I talked about this recently with Paul VanderKlay this idea that the work that we’re doing now let’s say what you guys are doing with me and and and the symbolic world people and it’s like we’re not getting massive attention and it’s probably better we’re not there’s a sense in which the work we’re doing of like re-enchanting the world or helping people see the re-enchantment of the world is like this secret work that’s happening and it’s gonna grow like it’s gonna grow because it is right it is the end of the of the cycle of of of the D of like disenchantment and so it’s gonna it’s gonna happen and and I think like I really do believe that that in ten years or whatever it’s a lot of people are gonna start to think symbolically and not even know where it comes from they don’t even know they they don’t have to it doesn’t matter but it’ll have grown up and it’ll have had its its fruit so it’s an interesting it’s an interesting interesting way to understand how the world works sorry I didn’t totally answer your question but I think I I did in a way all right so Paul Jamal says hi Jonathan you have mentioned that we should not read too much into dreams is it because they are by nature unreliable or only because the vast majority of us lack the discernment to analyze them by extension do you think that all modern psychological theorizing about the meaning of dreams Freud Jungian is worthless thank you for your work so so the reason why you don’t want to pay too much attention to dreams is that it’s it’s kind of like so dreams in the in this in terms of consciousness there’s something like the the waters of chaos and so consciousness arises out of this this water of consciousness and then goes back into it so it’s like this cycle of awakened sleep it’s the cycle of of life and death it’s the cycle of work and Sabbath right it’s this cycle of light and dark so the the the sleep is like a little flood and I think if you read Matthew’s book you’ll see that he talks about that and so most of dreams are just like chaos they’re just like they’re just chaotic and they and you shouldn’t you shouldn’t give too much attention to that and I don’t know like maybe it’s just me but I know some people that that pay a lot of attention to their dreams and there’s something unhealthy about that they end up being it’s almost like they’re living in their dreams it’s like they’re they’re they’re they’re living in their dreams rather than living in the real world when you’re not careful but the thing about that is so you can understand the best way to understand is like it’s like the water the lower waters okay and so these lower waters are like these waves in this chaos and this kind of bubbly stuff but the lower waters are also the place of like a mirror you could say and so if the waters are still let’s say then once in a while they can become a mirror for higher things and so that’s why people do have real visions in dreams and so they do have true revelations and dreams you see it in scripture you see it in the tradition you see it all over the place that this happens but most of the time because we’re not saints because we’re not most of us don’t live in prayer with still minds most of our dreams are just a mess of chaos and of desires that are crossing each other and contradictory things that don’t make any sense and so it’s dangerous to to to to pay too much attention to that so so yeah so that’s what I think and the Church Fathers they they really warn people against paying too much attention to dreams for those I think for simple like for similar reasons because most of the time it’s just chaos all right so Dom Palermo says it is not what goes into a man that if out the body would that which comes out porn images are not inherently bad say in the hands of a blind man this simple frame can be used to ask us the question of psychologically coerced DNA treatments I personally do not condone abortion rolling on my sleeve is not a symbolic moment for me the Pope is irrelevant I’m not I’m not sure where you’re going with this dude um Pope is irrelevant is on my Pope individuals make choices and identifying with the religious aspects of the minstrel or not it is a choice I find this to be a potentially mod dangerous modern line of position how can we better show that the participatory actions of the individuals is not separate from the movement of the whole in material action and invisible meaning sure I’m sorry Dom I don’t totally understand your question and I’m so sorry about that all right so Michael Mueller asks as certain points from premonitions or heartfelt prayer I will be struck in the back of the head a shiver will down my spine like there was a thought or idea that I was too large to bring to that realization what is the meaning of this from a phenomenological symbolic perspective is it related to the snake sliding down the tree or bird too large to nest I mean I understand I don’t know like in terms of the physiological description but you know I mean I think that we can sometimes we do have these kind of terrifying experiences of connecting to to a reality that is bigger than us so I think that’s what you’re describing so I’m not sure though if it has to do with like a snake signing on the tree but for sure there is it there we do like we I understand what you mean in the sense of suddenly being kind of overwhelmed by a sense of of almost like sacred terror and I think it’s it’s good like it’s good that that happens to us and we it’s good if it can help us to understand how bigger the world is in what we’re able to perceive so that’s probably good so Ryan Pinkham says have you read st. John of Damascus on dragons and ghosts no I have not seems to be talking about physical animals beasts in terms of ghosts really physical animals I understand dragon symbolism but you think they physically existed it doesn’t seem that crazy to me and so of course dragons existed I mean dragons probably exist now it just it’s just I’m just when I talk about dragons have to have to have an effect on the world or else people wouldn’t talk about them the way they do what I’m trying to help people understand is that the dragon is is that is a different type of category than just the the like regular type of categories that we that we use and so and so you could encounter a dragon but then someone else might encounter a dragon it won’t be the same dragon it’ll be like another phenomena that will be a dragon so the dragon is like is like is kind of like this unknown months this unknown being this unknown animal unknown terrifying unknown phenomena you know and so so I think that people did encounter dragons and I think people especially encountered dragons when they’re in places they’ve never been before and they especially encountered dragons when they’re in like new lands or in the you know in like in the in out on the ocean you know seam sea monsters and all that stuff that’s where you encounter dragons when you’re in places where there are things that you don’t know you know there are things crawling underneath that you don’t understand so I hope that makes sense so it’s like I I don’t think you could ever dissect a dragon and and and have like a zoological category that you could have dragon DNA how about that to say that I don’t think dragons are like that but I do think you can encounter them that’s for sure oh that makes sense to you in reading the Gospels on the passion I was struck with the many seemingly arbitrary events that occur in these stories huh could you imagine could you maybe go into the meaning of Christ not bearing the cross and Simon of Cyrene why isn’t this part of all the Gospels I mean the reason why it’s not part of all the Gospels not him is not as important in understanding let’s say the mystery of that of that moment when when a character from far away carries the for him you know it has to do again with with with with like it has to do with something something like Christ is going to save the foreigners Christ is going to save Rome Christ Christ is going to save the Ethiopian eunuch you know all these these faraway characters that that this is actually this is actually how it’s gonna play out at least that’s how I understand it so Kevin Patterson asks hi Jonathan I was touched by your story where priests crossed himself upon seeing your icon carving for the first time I want to make such art which participates in divine liturgy as your visual arts do though I struggle to accept the lower place given to my proclivity towards let’s say movement arts music cinema stage performance while in pagan traditions the shaman would be highly revered for the same role what is the highest form of these arts how can these skills participate in the divine liturgy I mean we have we have this like we it’s called I mean the priest is moving the priest is is is acting and I like acting in the sense of moving in the space and moving in the church we have processions which move around the buildings and the the the organization of those movements is can be very touching you know a good procession a beautiful procession can be really transforming we don’t we don’t understand that because we’re so far from that but a good a good procession can really affect the world like there’s a parish is a Catholic parish in Chicago that I went to and and they totally understand that like they they in Chicago they they they organized these these processions like the massive processions huge with like everybody invested and and incense and you know these banners and and and they’re like maybe I don’t know if they carry statues and stuff but you know you got in the Orthodox tradition they’ll carry icons on banners and they’ll carry holy objects and stuff and they have these processions through space and they kind of let’s say they they transform space you know by by by moving into it you know and with this kind of holy movement and so I think that that’s the highest aspect of that so yeah so Connor asks hello Jonathan I’ve been watching your videos for several months now and greatly enjoy your content I’m reading through Genesis and the way that lots daughters take advantage of him really struck me as odd is this just an example of how depraved the city of Sodom had gotten or is there a deeper symbolic interpretation that I’m missing yeah there is a deeper symbolic interpretation that you’re missing so this is the tough stuff guys this is the tough symbolism yes so Susan Martin says st. John of Cancius in Chicago they’re the ones who are doing these these these great processions okay so the the story of lots daughter in in that moment has to do with the end of a world and it has to do with it has to do with the the the lever it it’s it’s it’s using the same symbolism as the lever it so the with the lever it is the idea that if a man dies then the then then his brother can give a son to his wife to his widow so the the idea of taking your brother’s wife is completely immoral like it’s completely wrong and so in in but in the end like in this weird moment of end of the world there’s a there’s a weird thing that happens like there’s this strange type of symbolism you see that in the story of in the story of what’s her name why is it that my brain isn’t working tonight when when Joseph goes to Egypt and then I can’t remember the names of the character in the scripture what is wrong with me there’s a there’s this one of the sons of one of the sons of Jacob his his own son dies and then the name is gonna come back to me I hope and and then he gives until his wife doesn’t have a child and so he says to his other son you need to give a child to his to this woman and but he refuses to do so and so he dies the son and then he it’s like the other son and then the other son dies too and so this woman is like doesn’t have a son and so she actually ends up she actually ends up like sleeping with the the father in order to get a son for herself from her husband so this like that’s the that’s the weird moment man that’s the strange that’s the strange thing that happens at the end of the world and so it’s not to say it’s not about it’s not to say that what Lot’s Daughters did was moral it wasn’t but it’s just in the story you see you see this type of flip happen like this this this breakdown of meaning like this breakdown of a coherence and that’s what Leverett symbolism is about it’s about this this weird break in terms of normal coherent causality and that’s what it brings about you know the resurrection so yeah yeah so it’s Judah it was Onan exactly there you go you guys you guys have got it and so Onan was the the but Onan was the son that didn’t want to give a daughter didn’t want to give a child to Judah’s stepdaughter Judah’s not stepdaughter but the daughter of his son his first son yeah so Onanism so Onanism is it is a is actually a word for masturbation or like because it’s wasting seed and so Onan didn’t want to give a son to his brother’s wife and so he wasted his seed and so it’s not to give her a son so yeah so that’s that’s it sorry this is getting weird okay so let’s keep going here all right so wait where am I here all right so Airy Fisher says I asked for Vickie on his Q&A yesterday what he thought of your assertion that reality is more like a hierarchy of beings than abstract platonic forms he ended up spending half the Q&A answering this question hmm I should listen to that so I’ll do my best to synthesize his answer says because there is a pluralism of seeing the forms as either personal or impersonal across history and cultures reality is deeply ambiguous suggesting that the two conceptions are probably highlighting different aspects of the same reality because the similarity between our personhood and the forms is not technical because of the combinatorial explosive amounts of similarities between any two identities but rather has to do with its relevance to us on what grounds can you legislate what people should and shouldn’t find always relevant doing so would suggest that you have found the answer to end what has so far only been a proliferation of pluralism thus we should make such we should thus we should take an evolving relationship to the sacred not a resolving one I’m not sure I understand the second part of that but I agree that in a way I agree that there is a that there’s a sense that that that there’s both and that there’s relationship between both and you find some like resolution of that in the idea of let’s say something like the virtues right which are both the virtues are both like they’re like embodied patterns that you that you manifest but they’re also understood as angels and so you have this you have places where these kind of come together but you have the idea of patrons like the idea patrons means that because we are persons and we are the ones doing the relevance realization right so intelligence ends up infusing into into that and so in intelligence scales up I’d love to I probably should talk about it with John that’d be probably been looking for for like a subject to talk about with him so maybe that could be a good subject to talk about with him um all right so roemer asked hi Jonathan and congratulations on reaching 666 patrons that’s odd an odd thing to say so what symbolism stories from the Bible do you find most puzzling or impenetrable are there any chapters that you would be especially interested in discovering the meaning of I think still a revelation is still man that book and so it’s like I I did this one video on revelation and I’m trying to write the second the second one and I’m like struggling because there’s so much it’s like it’s soon as you start talking about it just splinters into a million directions and so it’s really tough and so I feel like there are many chapters in Revelation that I don’t totally understand that I just don’t get it it’s just too dense it’s so dense it’s like every word every sentence is is like a little world that you have to unpack and so it’s very difficult I mean to be totally honest with you I I feel like I feel like the story of Jesus is a story that I don’t understand still there’s there there are things in there that are just I mean I have these glimpses and sometimes it’s like I have glimpses and then they vanish really fast they kind of go away I can never really I mean it’s probably best that I can’t it’s probably that’s that that’s part of but definitely like that story there are also a lot of stories in Judges which I have like I have like inklings about but some of them are just so strange that it’s hard to really capture what’s going on and so like Mathieu said he was gonna write a book about the Book of Judges and I was like yes write a book about the Book of Judges but I don’t know if it’s gonna happen I hope that would be awesome if he could do that because the Book of Judges is really hard to understand some of them you can get and then others you’re like this is obviously has meaning like this obviously has meaning but what’s going on all right so dear Jonathan Tom Holland points out in Dominion that God boasts to Job about wrestling with Leviathan Holland portrays this as a remnant of early religions where such stories were central what is your reply why was it necessary for God to wrestle with Leviathan as Leviathan’s creator it’s definitely not a it’s definitely not a remnant I mean you could say it’s a remnant but it’s it follows all the way into the New Testament you know when it says that that God defeats the Leviathan the great Satan and so there’s a sense it has to do I mean in this sense it has to do with the idea of God as bringing order to chaos like that’s one of the aspects of light of the divine logos of you know and so you can say that the idea like I’ve mentioned this recently in a few talks where this like strange image at the end of of Revelation where it says that there’s no more ocean right and so with this image of the New Jerusalem and it says there’s no more ocean so that’s like also saying there’s no more Leviathan like that those two things are very close and so it’s like Leviathan has been defeated chaos has been is gone it’s all the whole world is full of the glory of God let’s say and so that’s what it’s referring to that’s what it’s culminating to at least and so if if if the source like the physical source or like the let’s say the textual reference that is used in Scripture comes from you know other traditions that doesn’t bother me one bit I mean whatever that’s fine with me but it’s still part of a puzzle that’s moving towards this final image you know of the serpent being cast down of the ocean being dried up and this this chaos being finally completely being completely defeated so hello Jonathan I don’t know if you’ve answered this before but why is it important for the hair of Medusa to be made of snakes I mean it’s such a it’s such a it’s such a it seems to me like it’s such an intuitive thing like it’s such an intuitive thing in the sense that right so hair is it hair is like is the covering here is like is also death you know here is the dead things it’s like a dead covering that you have on yourself and so it’s like doesn’t it make sense to you that that that the snake would be like the hair in the sense that even even if you just would like to mix Christianity and Hellenic myth like that’s that snake brings about death brings about the cycle of death right he changes his skins he lose he loses his skin and he and he and he changes all the time and so like this is change also the change like Medusa changes people to stone and so she’s an agent of transformation in the in the dark sense and so that’s what snakes are there you know they change how that makes sense you know and and it’s like how do you so how do you how do you stop the Medusa you have you give her an identity like if she sees herself then she’s she and then she’s done it’s like she so you know makes a lot of sense you freezer the way you stop the snakes and the dead snake hair as you freezer all right I think that I don’t know that that’s as close as I’m gonna get to that one so Enrico says any thoughts on symbolic meaning of us trying to become a star-faring civilization trying to reach the heavens or names of the space X rockets etc it’s something positive like an Abrahamic call to look at the stars and leave the father’s house or more like a Tower of Babel story so the first thing to understand is that the space is not the same as heavens it’s just not like space has become the ocean so the symbolism of the ocean is the symbolism of space the way we understand it now going out into space and going where no man has gone before is a seafarers story it’s a it’s a it’s an explorer story it’s a you know it’s like it’s like saying it’s like Alexander the Great going out into the strange lands and so that’s what that’s what space exploration is about so it doesn’t really it doesn’t have to do with with going into heaven in the traditional sense but is it also a form of Tower of Babel in the sense that it isn’t there is a certain arrogance because you’re really going into death like you’re I really don’t think that we’re ever gonna become a star-faring civilization because you I mean ever is a big word but let’s say at least not in the on the foreseeable horizon it’s as if you could it’s it’s like it’s like asking a whole civilization it’s like asking people to live under the water under the ocean for a very long time it’s like technology can hold out chaos to a certain extent but if you go if you try to like live right in the chaos like all the time at some point the cracks you can’t avoid the little cracks they’re gonna start to the waters gonna seep in you can’t so you can’t live in space space is death space is absolute death it’s it’s the most hostile place that exists that you can think of it’d be like living in like a you know like a molten lava I mean you could do it but it’s not you can’t live like that forever so I don’t think that we could really become a star-faring civilization all right so I Jonathan was the meaning behind not blessing the firstborn in scripture when Jacob crosses his hands I came to remember you say that flips occur at edge of categories is this a transition point in the story yeah that’s it I’ve talked about this before that’s a difficult it’s a difficult text to interpret because you’re not sure which way it’s going and so you can understand that Jacob so Jacob steals the blessing from his father and so there’s a there’s like this this flip where Esau is supposed to get the blessing Jacob takes it from him and so when he crosses a win so when so when Joseph who is Jacob’s favorite son comes to have his sons blessed the idea that Jacob crosses his hands and so it’s not clear whether he crosses his hands because he’s trying to reproduce the same pattern and he’s being tricky Jacob tricky tricky Jacob again or there’s another tradition which is that that Joseph out of respect presented the children the other way around you know out of respect for his father knowing that his father was the secondborn and got the blessing and that then Jacob crosses his hands to restate to like restate the right way and I’m not sure which one it is so so yeah it does have to do with this flip between the left and the right for sure that’s that’s definitely what it has to do with and it has to do ultimately with the problem of again the problem of how Christ ends up blessing Cain you know the firstborn gets blessed again get Rome gets blessed because Israel is the secondborn it’s always the secondborn Israel is the secondborn from the beginning you know from from the time of Abel it’s the whole mythological structure around Israel is about the second the secondborn and so there’s a sense in which there’s a flip that happens in Christianity yeah um so jail says sorry Joe says I remember an episode of the television show 30 rock where weird Ali Incavik parodies a parody song and it resulted in earnest patriotic country in Western anthem weird owl becomes normal owl is humor only ever subversive solely act solely recreative also since being baptized have managed to retain some extent a few cool cat obscure secular type friends that I’ve noticed an increase in the mockery of things that were originally mockery themselves yeah something irks me about the advent of Shrek memes and their ilk but I can’t put my finger on it every blessing I’m not sure about what you mean in terms of that but for sure there is for sure there is exactly that like there is the idea of irony kind of turning back on itself and and you know it’s inevitable that’ll happen that’s kind of this double flip that I talk about or I talk about watch the fools in terms of watching the fool kind of restate the normal in the end that’s definitely what it’s all about and so yeah that’s maybe that is what Shrek is about like I’ve never really thought I’ve never really thought about it maybe the strip because Shrek is the ogre right Shrek is the is the weirdo is the is the excluded one and so the idea of like mocking Shrek for being you know the whole tip the fedora thing and the that whole kind of aesthetic of the of those Shrek memes those were those were maybe having to do with that like a double weird kind of weird double mocking I haven’t thought about it so much though so Drew McMahon asked hi Jonathan do you have any thoughts on the veganism movement that seems to be taken over every restaurant and fast-food place has some Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger option yeah yeah the aesthetics of the veganism important to understand because there’s a transhuman aspect to it like a weird technological aspect to the veganism it’s strange you wouldn’t think it like you’d think that veganism would kind of have a kind of earthy vegetable look like a you know like a back-to-the-earth type aesthetic but it has a weird kind of techno you know technological food aspect of it and so even the even the term like impossible burger is an interesting in terms of understanding the strange extreme that it represents but yeah it’s it’s it’s definitely an odd thing my feeling about it has something to do with this weird like it’s not because I mentioned early about how the monks are vegetarian and that they also live but I think that there’s it’s weird reincarnation this veganism like this especially the aggressive kind of veganism but I’m not sure I need to think about it more so Marsh McLuhan G Garcia asked sorry I’m not saying I’m not I forget to tell you to mention the names Nathan Hart says reading Dominion I can’t help but start to feel that the temporal evolution of Christianity is deterministic and that even if traditional Christianity were to be restored to its former status the process would merely repeat itself and we’d be back where we are today you think this is true or the reformations that took place unique not inevitable and so I think they’re inevitable that not in a deterministic way but in the story will play itself out way in the sense that you know Christ said Christ said he said there has to be scandal but it doesn’t mean that they’re good like it doesn’t mean that their scandals are good he also says but beware you know don’t be the one by which the scandal comes that’s always like the the story of Christian it’s like it’s like saying that Christ was gonna die and so it’s like it was it was part of the story but those that killed them still killed him it’s not it’s not like they’re absolved of their thing you know although Christ does say you know forgive them but still like they’re the responsibility for their actions and so so Christianity has to go through this and and I don’t think that traditional Christianity will be restored to its former status I don’t think that’s gonna happen and I don’t think that’s what we’re doing it’s like I don’t feel like that’s what I’m doing I’m mostly trying to plant seeds I would say but I although I say that okay I say that but here’s Russia right so here’s here’s Russia where you know it’s although they’re not the main although they’re not the majority they’re still like the Orthodox Christians are still it’s like driving force and culture so who knows really like seriously I shouldn’t say I shouldn’t I shouldn’t speak too too fast so G Garcia says Marshall McLuhan talks about a conceptual bias of the Western world can you elaborate on this this seems to this I’m not sure I like I don’t know like I have to read what Marshall McLuhan says this seems related to you and Jordan’s conversation firstly speaking I think I understand conceptually this hierarchy of being you talk about but what does it mean to get past mere concepts it’s maybe maybe that’s what you mean in the sense that like I keep talking about how ultimately these patterns are embodied like they’re not although we talk about them we think about them there’s a there’s a way in which they have to be embodied they have to be lived they have to be engaged in and so it’s not just about not just about sitting around and thinking about them right ultimately that’s why I say like ultimately you have to go to church you have to get involved you can’t just think about it mm-hmm all right so the and Peter Yager says could you explain the symbolism of the marble king legend of the repose king in orthodoxy I do you mean like that last Emperor legend I’m not sure I know what which I didn’t talk about and you might be talking about the idea that the last Emperor will kind of awaken at the end or this there are different ideas about how for example like the people who celebrated the liturgy like kind of walked into the walls and kind of became part of the walls there’s this whole idea that something at the when Constantinople fell you know that there was this freezing of something and that it will awaken in the end no maybe that’s what you mean I’m not sure but this idea of the hidden king or the king that is waiting to come back it’s obviously a Christian trope like it’s the trope of the return of Christ but it’s also the trope in Arthurian legend and these other types of legends and it really is this kind of return to the king motif that you see in Lord of the Rings so and that’s what I think it means if that’s what you’re talking about all right so all right so guys I think I’m gonna skip a few of your questions sometimes your questions are really long it’s just difficult because I want to get to the to the questions so Dorotea says could you comment on the Queen of Heaven in the book of Jeremiah and her relation to the mother of God especially since some of the things the prophet is condemning sounds like medieval miracles thanks and so the way to understand that is is is to say something because one of the things I keep telling you guys about is that Christianity is ultimately a non-dual thing it’s not Christ offers the matter in which things get saved and so like if you listen to the if you listen to the Lord of Spirits podcast you know they really go into this very well so there’s a sense in which let’s say these hierarchies of gods that existed that this is actually what God wanted in the outset that God set upon the world these guardians these principalities that were there to to in in like a hierarchy of being supposed to manage at their level the will of God in the world and so then those principalities rebelled against God and tried to take worship and power for themselves so it’s not it’s not it’s yes it sounds abstract and it sounds like just something that’s hard to understand but you can understand it at a lower level if you want to right you can understand that that there that that there’s a country with a certain organization and then the country the army they have generals and those generals are there to manifest the will of the Emperor let’s say and to have wars in different different you know to be able to manifest the will of the Emperor in the different aspects of the kingdom and then some of those generals or some of those aristocrats decide that they’re just gonna stop at themselves they’re just gonna take it for themselves and and therefore they start to gather of money they take the worship they take the money they take the things of the people but they don’t they don’t offer up to that which is above them and they try to be little gods in themselves and that’s what this is talking about in terms of these lower principles that are that are getting power for themselves but that aren’t participating in the giant pattern a proper way they’re revolutionary and so and so the idea would be that the Queen of Heaven is still a real function in the in the world and that Mary plays that role in a proper way in a way in which she says yes to God in a way in which she offers worship to God so the icons of the mother of God show her worshiping Christ the icons of the mother of God show her praying to God right she so when you look at an icon of the mother of God and she’s praying she’s praying up and so the image of the Queen of Heaven is one which is giving giving the honor the whatever it is that comes to her offering it up higher so that’s the difference between the the divine counsel which is being re say reinstated through the Saints and through our reigning with Christ through our capacity to rule with him and the ancient hierarchy of gods but what’s gonna happen is it’s not surprising that you’re gonna see that the the patterns are actually gonna resemble but but obviously Mary if you look at her story if you look at images of her if you look at everything about her there’s nowhere where she keeps that honor for herself nowhere she’s always offering it up so you could you could pretend that that’s not what’s going on and you could say oh no yes it looks like she’s offering it up it looks like like like she is but no it’s all it’s all ideology but it’s not idolatry because there is this whole movement up towards the the the God of creation and so the the honor that we that we give to the people that manifest God to us there are they are carried up into into the highest they don’t stop at them it’s best way to understand it so you will see the tropes of ancient the titles of ancient pagan gods those titles are not necessarily wrong all right so it’s like you don’t like the idea of that say the the God of the God of war but you don’t have a problem with st. Michael the commander of God’s army the those are similar just that one is subject is subject and is it and offers his service and his worship up to the infinite and the other has a lower sense in which he can do his own thing and can kind of tyrannize the world and right and and and make people slaves to his own to his own passionate structure so I don’t know I hope that’s how that helps I feel like I’m going further and explaining this stuff to you guys that I ever have hmm all right so Kent and Harry says hi Jonathan bless it fast here’s something that might interest you provided you’re not already aware the long standard translation of the first Hermos of the past Pasco canon in the Antiochian archdiocese calls Pharaoh the persecuting giant of old this is a mistranslation from Arabic where the word that should have been more properly rendered tyrant could also mean giant yeah this isn’t the case in the Greek or Slavonic text but has always felt a bit to me like Moses’s horns yeah which you elsewhere talked about as kind of symbolic product productive mistranslation any thoughts on the relationship between Pharaoh’s tyrants and Giants any more examples of symbolically productive mistranslation you can think of that’s a great example of what I’m talking about because we’re sure the Pharaoh especially the Pharaoh there’s something about Egypt which is connected to this whole idea of Giants in the sense of the absolute stranger right and so you can understand that in the relationships of people in that that time the Egypt so let’s say Egypt really represented this like ancient like this ancient non non this ancient power that wasn’t submitted to the God of Israel and so it has it really is this kind of ultimate stranger which is related to the idea of the of the giant so that’s a great that’s a great example of what I talk about all right so what time is it 1037 we’re doing okay all right so Charlie Longoria says what do you think it means that more and more people are adopting pets rather than having kids yeah I saw bumper sticker saying dog mom and another saying I love my grand dog oh man and it creeps me out especially because I think having kids was the last thing attaching people to some sort of transcending good parents want the best future for their kids but I can see a world coming where people just want the best for themselves yeah it’s definitely a sign like this this sign of the the sign of the people having pets is definitely I mean it’s fine to have a pet I have a cat it’s okay but it’s mostly the problem of of this kind of you know there’s a there’s a there’s like a prophecy it’s not a prophecy but there’s a description in Plato’s Republic where they talk about democracy and it’s hilarious because it’s they’re basically describing the world we live in but one of the descriptions in democracy is that people end up treating their animals as their equals it’s like yeah you totally understand the problem of gaining legitimacy from that which is below like what that does like it ends up it devolves right it starts to devolve and then we start to think that that you know that the animals should have rights and then the robots should have rights and then it’s like you’re gonna keep going you know the trees will have rights and then the grass will have rights and it’s like this weird thing where it just kind of starts to to devolve because there’s no sense of there’s no sense of normal this normal hierarchy then you don’t know how authority ends up working so yeah it’s definitely a sign of the times that’s for sure all right so Josh Anderson says hi Jonathan what do you think is the power behind a movie or modern story with the meta reality for instance Wizard of Oz where Dorothy wakes up to reality with her relatives playing major parts in the meta reality the matrix when you wakes up from the meta reality or finally Truman show where everyone else is in on a reality you’re not allowed to be part of because you’re the subject of a meta reality I feel as if our culture has a fascination with these types of plot devices and I’m wondering on a symbolic level what do you think drives the popularity and admiration these movies often stir thanks so if I don’t think all of these are the same so I’m not sure the Truman show is the same thing as the matrix let’s say in terms of of that notion but yeah yeah yeah so I mean I think that the you could say that what these types of stories do is that they are talking about the intuition we have that there’s something missing like there’s something missing and so it was like what is that there’s that that that the sense that the sense that this world is not enough and so that’s I mean you could say that that’s really where the religious all the religious impulse comes from and kind of condenses into and so that’s but it’s not just about this representing these layers of reality let’s say like in the matrix but it’s it’s every quests story every story where you’re you every MacGuffin story right every every story where people are fighting over something that they need something that they’re missing if they could just have that thing then everything would be okay so it’s like that’s just this weird human condition we have which is ultimately this desire for the infinite like it’s ultimately the strength position we’re in as intelligent beings you know to have this upward movement to have this movement towards towards more and so I think that’s what it’s about but the funniest the funniest part of this the the funniest are the simulation people like the people who who say that the world is a simulation and like I just find that so hilarious because what is the simulation of and so it’s like I completely agree that the world in a way is a layers of simulation but it’s not in that not in a bad sense but you could say it’s a layered world of realities that are stacked on each other and so that’s a traditional way of understanding it and so you and so let’s say the lower rungs of the world are heavier and have more layers on them and as you kind of remove the layers you have access to more reality and more light you could say and it also helps you understand or helps you see the reason for the lower ones not in it’s like so it’s not like a Gnostic sense where you’re just where you’re where you’re where the body is bad or anything but it’s mostly that it’s like as you move up you kind of see the reason for the lower things but it’s but the way that people phrase it it’s so superficial it’s like it’s so it’s so superficial so I kind of joke and say like the world is a simulation it’s called language it’s just language is the simulation in the sense that it’s the condensation or or even concepts or even any form any any particular making particular ends up being what you would call the simulation right because it’s pointing to something which transcends it but it’s also it’s manifesting it in a in a proximate way you could say and so that’s that feeling like that feeling we have that there’s something more anyways all right so Eliana asked hi Jonathan most of the fictional movies and TV I like come from all over East Asia things like anime but also movies and dramas can you offer any guidance on symbolic interpretation understanding of story that emerged from non-western cultures in general or Asian cultures particularly and if you happen to have seen Heaven’s Officials blessing on Netflix any thoughts on that specific show no it’s like I mean I think I’ve told you guys that I actually don’t watch a lot of stuff and so I you know once in a while I like watch like I watched one division then I made a critique about it and so so the sense that I have let’s say and so the one series that I have been kind of watching very slowly is uh is attack on Titan just because the pattern of it the visuals of it were so when I when I saw what it was I like this story is obviously talking about something very very much about what I’m talking about in terms of these this this wall this city with walls and these giants that are coming in from the outside that are trying to attack the city but then turns out that it’s actually related to some kind of sin you don’t know about like I’m not finished yet but there’s you seem like there’s some kind of sin that’s hidden which is causing the giants on the outside and so it’s actually pretty it’s actually seemed pretty good and so like my intuition is that maybe the East East Asian stories haven’t completely tumbled into like ideological ideological blah like just ideological nonsense that we’re falling into so I don’t know but like my daughter’s really into anime and so she she she’s really she really gets a lot from that stuff so I hope that’s what it is but there’s a lot of dark stuff in East Asian stuff too like there’s man there’s some dark stuff there too I’m not saying they’re completely they’ve avoided the depravity of our culture that’s for sure. All right so Julius Barsditis sorry Julius. Hey Jonathan last month a part of my question was about what an angel of London would be if the city were to burn. From your answer it was clear the principalities and spirit in general can exist without embodiment. No no no that’s not what I said. So the follow-up are there some ways for us bodily beings of conceiving this unembodied existence and more importantly the manner that unembodied interactions occurs. So an example could be maybe the war in heaven in what way would an angel fight a demon if there were no matter for that interaction to express itself in. Is this interaction ungraspable for human beings all the best. So first of all I didn’t say that they were completely on without body and so so you could a good way to understand it what I was trying to explain is that if the if the angel of London is still the angel of London if the city burns because there is a manner in which London exists outside of time you could say in exist in the totality of all things that exist and so angels don’t have the same they don’t exist in time the same way we do and so that’s really what I was trying to get to it’s it’s not that they exist they just exist disembodied when while the while the city of London has burned down but that they are always the angel of London to the extent that London has an X has a stretch in space and in time that is that actually as a hierarchy of manifestation in the world that has a limit but then all things have that and so anything that angels the only thing that is infinite is God and so anything that angels are heads of have an extension in space or time and and that’s that’s what their heads of but they all exist we all all of this exists in the eternal reality you know that is that that is all contained in this eternal reality that is God and so anyways I it’s hard to talk about this stuff in a way that is easily understandable so believe that that’s that’s the that’s the best I can do I guess all right so I think that’s it but for some reason it says me telling me there’s two more comments patreon but I can’t see them so sorry guys if I missed one of your questions um alright so I’ve got a few more questions in that patreon that appeared sorry so Kenan Wang asked what do you see as the meaning of the different points of perspective in our orthodox art what do you make of the overlap between this aspect of orthodox art and cubism or is there a connection so there are different interpretations of that I I tend to see it as the way that I tend to see it is that it’s closer to how you actually experience reality and this is people are gonna find that hard to believe but the thing is that the idea of representing something in a static position like the idea of representing reality like if you stop and you take a picture and you think that that’s the closest representation of reality that’s not true it’s that that’s not how we experience reality and so like when I experience a building let’s say or I tend I tend in my experience to want to have the best vision of something in order to remember it and so there’s there’s an angle like a best angle by which I can by which I can experience a building and remember it knowing that I’m moving right so it’s like I’m walking in front of a building and I’m seeing it from different sides as I’m moving and so then I have a memory of that building and that memory will just be in the best position of to represent you not just the building but even the different aspects of the building and so I think that that’s what’s going on in in Orthodox art it’s like a compression a compression of an experience that actually happens in in in time and in space into one like into one thing but it’s not like the Cubist because the Cubist did it in an abstract way did it in a kind of pushing it to a level which had nothing to do with human experience but whereas I think the way it happens in icons has more to do with a with a more embodied representation of how you you kind of experience these buildings as you walk around them and these different objects and these different things and not as this kind of stop in time and and try to fix the world in one one thing but there are different theories about that there’s also this whole theory about inverse perspective which I’m not so sure about but that’s that’s like I said that’s the way that I best understand it is as this the problem of representing reality in so for example like a good idea like for example you’ll see in icons and you’ll see in ancient art this idea that things are represented bigger depending on their meaning rather than their actual distance in space but but that’s also closer to the way we actually experience reality in the sense that if I’m looking in the landscape and I’m focusing on something like I’m focusing on one tree in the landscape if I represent that in a painting how can I focusing on because if I just represented flatly as this this like picture that I just take a picture and there’s this tree but if like if I was focusing on this one tree I need a way to show you that that’s the important thing in the image and so making it bigger is a totally intuitively normal way of doing that it’s like I’m saying this is the important thing in the image right because I’m making it bigger I’m bringing it closer to you just like you actually experience that so when you when you focus on something you experience it as being closer to you even if it’s further from you in space you will experience it as being closer to you to your experience then other things that are closer on your in your perceptual field but that you’re not paying attention to so anyway so that those are the kind of things that I think are part of why they’re represented that way but it’s not it’s not like a set thing so what are your so Susan Martin asked what are your favorite movies that have positive or uplifting symbolism that are not part of the postmodern propaganda have you seen films like the true of life or the kingdom of heaven or films by Tarkovsky and so I mean I love like we talked about East Asian stuff I love the Ghibli movies I keep pointing people to that especially if you have kids all those movies are wonderful in terms of a powerful storytelling you know I think for example like the Lion King by Disney was just right on I there’s not a lot wrong with the Lion King in terms of kids movies especially I did it wasn’t a big fan of the of the tree of life to be honest I just I just struggled to get through that it’s so it seemed like disjointed to me so Tarkovsky movies I think the Lion King was the best I think definitely are dealing with some very powerful things I just watched nostalgia recently and it was tough it was hard to get through because it was it would really required a lot of attention but it had some very powerful imagery in it as well so and I think like I can I say this I think like despite the propaganda listen to give you an example like so so Marvel Marvel movies are being completely invaded by propaganda but like the story of of Tony Stark sacrificing himself using the gauntlet at the end of the the series that was a great that was a great move like that was a great image of a Christian virtue embodied in the story and so and so I can still see a lot of the other crap that’s going on but I can also recognize that there is there is nonetheless these little glimmers you know appear through that so Matthew Moll Brandon says can we use symbolism for democracy freedom as in the past in similar way as religious symbolism that connects to our meaning the US the dollar bills are full of meaning but now just ornaments I’m not sure I totally understand your your your your your question so let me say this like one of the things that the US has done that has helped it is trying to frame their democracy under God so the idea of putting on the the dollar bill and God we trust a lot of people criticize that because they think oh it’s money and it’s stupid to put that there but I think it’s it are there these are kind of last-ditch efforts to to unite the people under the transcendent a transcendent reality because I think some people realized early on or maybe in the past century or so that that democracy isn’t enough like democracy can’t hold the country together and and so you need to call upon something higher so you need something to unite you all right and so I think that’s done for patreon I’m sorry I might I might miss some of because I know people keep posting them and so I don’t I can’t always get the ones you’ve just posted all right so let me go into super chats it’s already 11 it’s taken up a lot of time but let’s see what’s what’s in there where I always forget where those are okay there they are I was because there’s two places where they hide them and so it’s like I got them all right so let’s see hey man there’s a lot of questions guys not sure I’m gonna get through these let’s try all right so Louis Durand for five dollars says why was Adam made from dust why was Eve made from his rib deistic thinking would suggest God would have made them both interesting well no they wouldn’t and so the idea that God made Adam out of dust is you want to understand you know emergence and you want to understand consciousness that’s what’s going on it’s so God gathers in all the dust gathers in multiplicity that’s what you are and that’s what you do you multiplicity gets gathered into a place and then the spirit of God is blown into man so the meaning the spirit the invisible pattern gets injected into the gathered dust and that’s what creates man right and so at a lower level that’s how everything works like that’s how reality works because we can’t we don’t create out of nothing we only God creates out of nothing we create out we at a lower level we gather dust and we we make we condense it into unity and so we we can notice the multiplicity and unity in things and we participate in that coming together so that’s why Adam is made out of dust because he is an image of all of creation in a way he’s it he is a condensation of the bringing together multiplicity into unity and and then God asked him to do the same let’s say by naming the animals after work and then why was he made from his rib so this has to do there are different ways of understanding that one is my favorite way of understanding is mostly the idea that Adam was cut in half and that’s probably it’s like it was made from his side it’s probably the way that I best like understanding that so Adam so it says in the scripture that God created them a male and female like God created them God God made the dust blew into the nostrils and and God and it but then in the first version it said that he created the male male and female and so this like ambiguity of how in a way Adam contained both to get at the beginning and then was separated into into two and that’s kind of why it seems like the Church Fathers like St. Gregor Misa for example says things weird things like how Eve was created as a provision for the fall how God having known that man would fall is why Eve was created so so yeah but like there are different St. John Chrysostom for example talks about how Eve was created out of the rib of man to be to not be subject to him at the outset but that they would be equals in like maybe that Adam would have a role of primacy of origin but that Eve would be as equal in in the in the in the way that they would interact so all right so Alan Tam five dollars thank you Phil Cohen ten dollars every city became a catechumen mostly due to your work many years to you and your family thank you Phil thank you so Devin Shane for 499 if you watched The Chosen and if so what are your thoughts advice for a Protestant inquiring into orthodoxy so I wasn’t a big fan of that I have to say I watch it with my family and my my wife really loved it and my son loved it my daughter didn’t like it I not I didn’t like it very much I’m sorry it’s just hard it’s just hard to make a story with Jesus as a character you’re just very difficult I’m not saying it’s impossible I’m not saying that but it’s just really hard because and so I felt like that I felt like The Chosen was trying to make Christ into a it’s just this like happy-go-lucky hipster pastor and it’s just not it’s not working for me sorry all right so so Ulysses K Hughes for five euro says after your last video and your talks on the Divine Comedy can you tell us some thoughts on Milton’s Paradise Lost I would I would have to I don’t think I could wing that I would definitely have I mean I think maybe one day I will make a video on that I think it’s important in the sense of I think it plays a role I talked about it a little bit in the Montero video I definitely think the image of Satan the way that it’s developed in Paradise Lost plays a role in modernity and and kind of this understanding of this heroic Promethean devil and so there’s definitely that but I would I I would have to I would have to prepare myself because it’s a big subject so sorry um so the ABC 1 2 3 4 5 6 3 9 9 for $20USsaysthesymbolismoftheultimateangelTretumorspecificallythecirclewiththethreewingsonthemonbothsidesbelowthemainangelwhatsupposeoftheultimateangeltodrawspecificallythecirclewiththethreewingsonthembothsoIdo{n}^{\prime }tunderstandthequestionsorryABCareyoutalkingaboutthedrawingthatIdidliketheultimateangeltetramorphthatthedesignand{I}^{\prime }mnotsureIunderstandthequestionsorrymanallrightStephenAndersonfor$8 is there a connection to masculinity and hunting feminine being farming how one seeks out opportunity the other creates I’m iron I don’t think so I don’t think that there’s I don’t think that there that there’s a relationship between that I think that both in let’s say hunting and in terms of farming I think that there’s a there’s both masculine and feminine in both of those so um so Noel and you can think about it like you could think about the masculine and feminine aspects of hunting be interesting for example you could think of of baiting as a kind of more feminine action in the sense of seducing or drawing in or creating a place to attract to kind of attract things you know to create an actual place and then you know shooting an arrow or spear or something would be a more masculine action so maybe that can make sense all right so Noel Tham for $4.99wouldyoueverconsiderdoingavidonthebookofEnochyeahdefinitelydefinitelyIthinkespeciallynowwithlikeallthealltheLordofSpiritsstuffgoingon{I}^{\prime }mkindof{I}^{\prime }mthinkingthattha{t}^{\prime }sgonnahappenatsomepointi{t}^{\prime }ssofunnybecause{I}^{\prime }vebeenkindofavoidingtalkingaboutthisstufftooexplicitlybecauseIfeltlikepeoplewere{n}^{\prime }treadyforitandtheywouldjustnotunderstandwhati{t}^{\prime }stalkingaboutandyouknowi{t}^{\prime }slikeGodhasfunnywayssometimesandjustlikeallofasuddenliketheLordofSpiritsappearsandi{t}^{\prime }slikeeverybod{y}^{\prime }sjustrushinginand{I}^{\prime }mthinkingtha{t}^{\prime }sawesomelikei{t}^{\prime }swonderful{I}^{\prime }mreallyhappyforthatsoyeahdefinitelyshouldprobablydothatumsoCourtneyWileyfor$4.99 I love your work I never see many women in your chats is it against Eastern Orthodox teaching for women to participate in this kind of discourse I don’t think so I don’t think that’s what it’s I don’t think that’s what’s going on I think that I mean like I’ve I think that I would need to I don’t know why it’s a hard turn I totally explain I guess I could say it’s like this is good there is okay so I think that it’s it’s normal this is gonna sound weird to a lot of people like I’m not a preach like I’m not an official person I think it’s inevitable that men should want to talk to men more than talk to women and women should in general want to talk to women more just sort of like a weird healthy thing about relationships and so I am always very like for example I’ll give you an example like I’m always very cautious I almost never will have like dinner or coffee with a woman alone unless it’s like a very old lady like something that’s very clear but but I’m very like I’m super careful about that stuff and so it might be boiling out in my behavior online it’s possible and I’m sorry if that’s what’s happening but I did I have had some conversations with with some people and I’m and there’s a video with with with dr. Paula Bottington which is coming out which is coming out soon on AI again and on the ethics of she’s also she’s an she’s an expert on the ethics of AI but also on the ethics of kind of biological medical by bio stuff and so there’s a video coming out in the next few weeks on that so that’ll be that’ll be fun so so that might be what it is I’m not sure I don’t totally it’s like I actually just gonna move organically and just invite people and people that come on on my horizon I invite I don’t have a system really hmm you guys are having me like trying to understand my own behavior here all right so process Raul from $5saysheyJonathanbigfanofyourvideosIwantedtogetyouropinionofOrthodoxtheologianDavidBentleyHartIdo{n}^{\prime }tthinktha{t}^{\prime }sIIdo{n}^{\prime }tIdo{n}^{\prime }t{I}^{\prime }mnotgonnaanswerthatquestion{I}^{\prime }msorryprocessIdo{n}^{\prime }twanttoanswerifyouhaveaquestionaboutspecificthingsthathesaidIwillanswerthatquestionbut{I}^{\prime }mnotgonnaansweranopiniononhimtha{t}^{\prime }sthattha{t}^{\prime }snotagoodideaIthinkallrightsoDonyougoteatfor$7.99 I think it’s Australian Matt Mason Bradford for $10AustralianIthinkintermsofsymbolismistherearelationshipbetweenatrainandaserpenthmminterestingumIdo{n}^{\prime }tthinkso{I}^{\prime }veneverthoughtaboutit{I}^{\prime }veneverthoughtaboutthat{I}^{\prime }dhavetothinkaboutitbecausei{t}^{\prime }sslitheredIguessbecausei{t}^{\prime }sflexiblemaybeIhavetothinkaboutthatallrightsoJamesSchwartzfor$5 how might someone send you a piece of digital art and would it be possible to hear your initial reaction live like this it’s always possible to send me stuff on email you can find my email on my carving website I don’t kind of advertise it just outright but you can find it if you’re looking for it whether or not I’m gonna answer just really depends on what I’m going through sometimes I get 20 messages a day of people kind of trying to get my attention for something and so because of that I’ve actually tended not to answer people not out of that because I don’t want to just because if I do end up spending my whole day in front of the computer which I already end up doing despite that and so and I need to like I need to carve and so I would say like in the past month I haven’t carved a lot because I there’s especially since the Jordan Peterson interview there’s been so many things that require my like attention and answer to and and and so it’s difficult but if you send me something that’s awesome like that’s totally awesome I’ll answer you know it doesn’t mean that if it’s good I doesn’t mean that if I don’t answer it’s bad but if but if it’s if it’s like astoundingly awesome then I’ll probably answer so you can you can give it a try um rich gray can you help me with Christophany’s in the Old Testament I don’t know how to answer that it’s a very vague question I mean the sense that that there are images in the Old Testament which seem to point to the incarnation and so I would say that that’s it so like different images that you know like let’s say the I’m trying to like right now I might have drawing a blank it’s like the Old Testament is full of them so for example like the image of like okay the image of the ancient of days with the Son of Man and so it’s like that’s a that’s an image of Christ that is kind of starting to appear and so there are different versions of that alright so David Furtado says for 5brl I know what that is when reading the Bible should we use the meaning of the words had back then or use today’s meanings of the words I mean I think you need to to use as much as possible the try to get the meaning of the word in the the old meanings of the words but ultimately you hope that the fathers and the saints and the translators and all these people have been able to transmit these in a way that is relevant today and so it’s not just a weird desire to be accurate because that doesn’t usually give much so Chandler Turner $5USDmostofthosemyagemid-20swhodo{n}^{\prime }toutrightrejectreligionther{e}^{\prime }sastrongdrawtowardsperennialismwhatistheargumentagainstitIwouldsaytheeasiestargumentagainstperennialismisthatititendsupactingasaweirdpseudoreligionlikeitendsupactingassomethingwhichstandsabovereligionandthenpeoplecancancanthinkthatthe{y}^{\prime }resuperiortoreligionintheirintheirperennialpositionandsoitendsupactinglikealikeaweirdpridefulkindofideathatIthatIcanIcanjudgetheotherreligionsandtha{t}^{\prime }swhatyouendupseeingwithprintlististhattheythe{y}^{\prime }reoftenlikesayingwellthisisthisisgoodherethisisbadherethisisandtheykindofhavethisstrangethinktheyhavethestrangecapacitytostandaboveeverythingandtoendtojudgeitandIthinkthattha{t}^{\prime }sdeadlyforthesoulyouknowIdo{n}^{\prime }ti{t}^{\prime }snotai{t}^{\prime }snotarealpathi{t}^{\prime }sjustlikeaweirdabstractionsosotha{t}^{\prime }swhatIwouldsaytheBainargumentatleastthatIhaveagainstitDavidCozierfor1144CIDdoyouhaveanythoughtsonNASAsystemandwhyGodwouldbecallingoutaskingwhereAdamisinthegardencouldthisbeademigodthefalseGodspeakingsincei{t}^{\prime }snotomniscientthankssothisisreallythisisactuallyareallyimportantquestioninthesensethateverythingthatGoddoesinscriptureeverythingthatGodsayseverywaythatyouseeGodinscriptureisacondescensionandsotheideathatGodactsoutintheworldinawaythathumanscanunderstanditdoes{n}^{\prime }tmeanthati{t}^{\prime }sademiurgeorafalseGoditjustmeansthatGodsinceGodisthesourceofallrealitythenGodmanifesthimselfatthelevelofrealitythatisappropriatetowhateverGodisiswhereverGodisappearingintheworldandsowedo{n}^{\prime }tweca{n}^{\prime }tseethesegesturesorthefactthatGodappearsasasanangelorthatGodappearsintheburningbushorthatGodappearsinthesedifferentthingsorasthegloryofGodthatdescendsinthetempleweca{n}^{\prime }tseethatasalimitingofGodbutratherjustle{t}^{\prime }ssaythatjustGodrevealinghimselfatthelevelwhereh{e}^{\prime }srevealinghimselfthenpointingultimatelytosomethingwhichtranscendsthatthatmanifestationsoanywaystha{t}^{\prime }sthebestwayIunderstandi{t}^{\prime }sthebestwayIunderstanditsothevillainreportfor$49.99 hello Jonathan so you speak on the issue of the resurrection being literal but you laughed at the question and seemed to be unconcerned with it do you believe it’s literal sorry I’m laughing again villain report how is that knowledge found thank you for your unique perspective I don’t know what that word means the word literal like do you mean that you okay so if you mean that you’ll be resurrected with the same body is the same in the same at the same with all the same limitations and characteristics that you have now then no that’s not what the resurrection is obviously not the resurrection is obviously more than just this body that I can it’s more and so that but the resurrection is real it’s not just a metaphor it’s not just it’s not just a and so and so if you when you read what’s the way that st. Paul talks about spiritual bodies I don’t totally know what that completely means I can have inklings of it I can have intuitions of it I can trust st. Paul enough I can trust Christ enough to understand what that’s kind of pointing to but I don’t completely see it I can I can understand the story enough to trust that nothing is lost how say it that way that if the world is non-dual if if reality if reality exists then there’s a manner in which it exists in a totality of existence and that totality has its own reality and that includes bodies and it includes body but I don’t totally I can’t completely see it I have intuitions of it and so I think that anybody who thinks that the resurrection just means that just means that whatever I look at in the mirror like the saggy thing that I look this hairy saggy thing that I look at when I looking at myself naked in the mirror it’s like if that’s not what the resurrection is I’m sorry to tell you it’s like it that that’s not at all with there’s nothing let’s say that the the transfigured Christ that appears to to in the gospel seems to be an image of the resurrected body the ascending Christ who ascends into heaven seems to be an image of the resurrected body and there there are moments in the tradition for example since there from Sarov manifests shows to his inquirer what the resurrected body is is or what it would it and and and when he manifests is like pure flame and that’s what the person sees and so it’s like there’s the resurrected body is not a it’s not an obvious thing it’s not a it’s not a it’s something you understand in the story but you’ll understand you can’t understand in its reality until you experience it and so I haven’t experienced the resurrection all right I recall you saying so John Lafave says I recall you saying you listen to Kanye’s use walks and you listen to Kendrick Lamar’s good kid mad city he’s steeping Christian symbolism and would love to hear it take so it’s funny because I saw who was it I saw talk about that recently someone was talked about that on Twitter and I was sitting and I start it was weird because I I was I was an idiot I wasn’t thinking I was sitting at the table and I was with my daughter and and someone said oh this this video this album has like Christian symbolism and I’d love to hear your take so I’m like okay so I was drawing with her and so I like I put it on which was like the stupidest thing that I could have done so I put it on and like after one minute I’m like okay let’s turn this off because I’m sitting here with my 13 year old daughter and so no I didn’t finish listening to it so I mean I guess I’ll listen to it at some point I don’t know I just thought it was extremely it started off let’s say rather rather crass and crude which I’m not like I understand I’m not a not a prude or anything but but I’ll listen to it on my own time at some other point so Carlos Vargas for 49 hey Jonathan more news on God’s dog it’s coming it’s coming it’s coming but I don’t have a total I don’t have a definite date um all right Patrick Morrison for $10 USD Thank you that Laura person 999 did you happen to see the Kanye and the Sunday service choir perform at DMX’s memorial service interestingly Kanye has been wearing a black veil at recent public events I have not followed that no okay I really I haven’t followed I haven’t followed Kanye’s recent things I know that he’s getting a divorce and everything you have to be careful a little bit because I sometimes I feel like maybe how can I say this like I said watch the fools and just be careful like I didn’t say follow the fools or you know so you know yeah I think there’s still me there’s still some things that are gonna come out of Kanye but yeah all right so Guillaume Parrain for 699 canadien asked me a question in French le Québec me semble être dans un état de vide spirituelle grave voir existentiel y a-t-il de l’espoir je suis souvent dans la difficulté à en trouver so sorry Guillaume I’m gonna have to translate that in English because everybody I would say 98% of the people watching this so he says Quebec seems to be in a grave spiritual state even existential state is there hope I often have difficulty finding some and how about that Guillaume let me say this to you is that I have I have a similar thought and I think you if you followed me you know that I have this kind of despair regarding Quebec and the French-speaking Canada but Quebec has a way of moving in block like it has a weird tendency to kind of shift in a everybody kind of shift at the same time and so there might be a shift on the horizon who knows you know all we can do is plant seeds and I’ve started like this is something that you know as COVID kind of winds down I’m gonna be emphasizing some more local stuff French stuff I started the French podcast with JP Marceau if you go on my French channel Jonathan you will find we’ve already done I think like five episodes of our podcast in French and I’m gonna start to be more present in French-speaking world so hopefully I don’t help me be more connected to French Canadians at least and hopefully we can plant some seeds for something um so Christian’s standard as hi Jonathan please can you explain how God is at the same time the essence similar to the chair of the cup and also personified entity we talked to you um so God is that is is not it’s three persons that’s important to understand and so God is infinite God I mean God is not is is is the infinite it’s not the same as a chair so it’s not completely it’s not something that I can answer I’m not good at this also at that kind of question and then running out of steam as well all right so the new guy it’s like 1130 you guys are keeping me up it’s crazy all right so the new guy for 499 are there examples of warrior saints in the Christian tradition and if so does one stand out to you any who were literal historic figures for sure yeah I mean I mean for sure like there’s definitely St. George who is kind of like the ultimate warrior saint but there are other were saying St. Demetrius St. Mercurius there are plenty of them and and some of them were historical figures for sure um so the villain report goes back and says did Christ actually resurrect in reality in the same way that I breakfast this morning in reality did it really happen I want to believe but I don’t want to lie to get there and so read the scripture okay what’s what’s written in scripture is what happened so if that helps you it’s like yes Christ did resurrect in reality and and it’s not exactly in the same way that you ate breakfast or the banality of your eating breakfast in this morning it’s not the same way because it doesn’t have the same effect on reality that eating your breakfast in this morning had it just doesn’t I can’t I started it read the story and look at what happens look at how the disciples don’t recognize them and then all of a sudden they recognize him look at how Christ appears in the room you know with all the doors closed look at how look at how he ascends into heaven he’s standing there with the disciples and he vanishes up and then these two angels are there it’s like that’s not how you ate your breakfast this morning I don’t know what happened when you eat your breakfast but that stuff doesn’t happen when I eat my breakfast and so and so yes it definitely happened but it’s not at the same level as your breakfast so I don’t know how else to answer you my friend um so yeah all right I think we’re done I think we’re done some of these keep coming in I see symbolic memes is symbolic memes deserve that I that I look at his question so symbolic means for five dollars says how can perennialism become a religion if we’re a vacation religion that’s not a religion clearly states it’s not a religion with the cringe face you’re gonna get me into trouble with that with that with my friend there so yeah exactly all right guys so thanks for thanks for your thanks for your time guys I’m going to um I’m gonna go I’m gonna go and so thanks for your attention everybody this has been the longest Q&A I think that I’ve that I’ve ever done and so thanks for thanks for attention thanks to Brad and to Jacob and to Lisa who were there doing all the dirty work of of working on all your comments and so I really appreciate it I will see you guys next month there’s a there’s a this month’s patreon only video is gonna come out I hope before the end of the month I’m really working with Thomas from the storyteller channels to get it edited actually it’s gonna be a video on the why the inverted pentagram is considered satanic and so I’m gonna since I did that in Montero video I decided I’m gonna add one more little thing to that which is helping people understand why this particular image has kind of crystallized as a satanic image and why that’s a coherent coherent thing that happened and so everybody thanks for your attention and I will see you next month bye bye