August Super-Post-Covid Q&A (hctOvHGJSfM)

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

All right. Here we are. August super post COVID Q&A. And so yeah, August was crazy. My goodness. August was insane, at least for me. I went to Europe, participated in a manifesto event, which was pretty intense, I have to say. Just very intense weekend. And then I spent a day spent a few more days there in Denmark. And it was great. It was wonderful. And then I got COVID. Yeah, so I got COVID. I got back here. And I was tested at the airport here. To just avoid kind of the social stigma and the social problems, we are really self isolated from my family. Then the result was positive. Two days later, I got the positive results. And so I moved out of the house and lived basically outside the house in a tent for a few days. And then my wonderful wife found a camper trailer that someone on my street had. And so we rented it for the week. So yeah, so I really did get COVID. It was like this really bad flu that lasted a whole week. And I lost my sense of smell and of taste. So I was very, just my brain was in complete fog, which is why I didn’t make any videos during that time. I actually carved a lot, which was great. It was actually wonderful. I could just carve all day and that was fine because it didn’t take up my brain. And so yes, I am recovered. I’m back. My sense of smell and taste have come back in the past three, four days, but I’m still super exhausted. It’s like, it really, you know, I feel like I have energy. And then at some point during the day, I just totally burn out. And so that’s been pretty intense. And so that has been this month. And today I was interviewed by the Babylon Bee, which was a lot of fun. And so look forward to that. I’m not sure when they’re going to put it out. It was a little intense, I guess, because I think, I don’t know how much they knew about what I was doing. I don’t know how much they knew about what I was doing. So I think they were surprised at some of my answers, but it ended up being fun. There was some funny moments in it, so you should definitely watch it. And what else is there going on? Yes, something some of you might will be very happy to hear is that next Thursday, so the second, September 2nd at 7 p.m. Eastern, I will be on Jay Dyer’s channel. We’ll be talking about iconography. And so a lot of people have been looking forward to that for a very long time. So I’m pretty happy that it’s finally happening. We had some kind of misunderstanding and some issues, and I feel like we really worked through them. And let’s say that the respect between us is mutual, and so I think it’s a good time. So we’re going to do that the next few days. So look forward to that. And what else is going on? There’s a lot of stuff going on. And then on Friday, is it on Friday, I think? No, it’s next week. Next week on the 10th, I’m having another discussion with Jordan Peterson with John Ravecki. And so if you guys watch that conversation between Jordan and John, that was crazy. That was a crazy conversation. It was extremely manic and intense. And so I’m both looking forward to that. And let’s be honest, I’m just a little nervous about that conversation. So there’s a lot of stuff. Look, something else that you might want to pay attention to. I’ll be posting about it on social media. I’m on my website as well. On the 25th of September, I’ll be speaking at the Jung Society of Montreal. And so they invited me to come speak. It’s going to be on Zoom. So if people want to get tickets, I don’t know how much it is, but you can get tickets and you can participate in that event. Yeah, just a bunch of stuff. Just a bunch of stuff going on. So I don’t know if there’s anything else. I’m supposed to be in Florida in October to speak at the OCA Diocese of the South as a keynote speaker. And I’m supposed to be in Chicago as well to participate in a Catholic art conference in October as well. But with all the weird travel stuff. And now our COVID passport is starting tomorrow. Yay! Hooray for COVID passports! Starting tomorrow, those that are not vaccinated cannot access any public spaces. You can go to a restaurant, you can go to a theater, you can go to a gym, participate in any sports activities. And so that’s starting tomorrow. So yes, that’s just great. That’s just great. We’re just super happy about this whole system of the beast thing kind of just manifesting itself slowly but surely. All right, sorry. Okay, let’s stay positive tonight because there are so many questions. So many questions. I don’t know how to deal with this anymore. There’s like someone in the chat said, we gave you 100 questions because we have no manners. That’s what it feels like. Why? It’s not anybody’s fault. Everybody just puts in one question. So yes, I think there’s something like 80 questions. And so I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll make it through. We’ll see. We’ll make it through. We’ll try. We’ll do what we can. So yes. So let’s see in the chat. Are there some of my folks in the chat? Are Lisa, Brad there, Jacob, maybe other people? We’ll see. Hopefully there are because we know it gets crazy in the chat sometimes. Okay, so here we go. Let us start. We will start with the website. So I hope nobody’s still having, yes, Vincent Harris says coughing equals coronavirus. You know what? I don’t think it’s the coronavirus. It might have made it worse but one of the things that happened during my COVID is that I spent the whole week in my workshop all day for like 10 days and I started coughing like crazy and I thought it was COVID but I think I have silica in my lungs. I think that because it’s been kind of happening before I noticed that I run out of breath. You might have seen me sometimes in interviews. Sometimes I kind of run out of breath and it’s possible that I have silica in my lungs which is really bad. And yeah, it’s very bad. So I need to find solutions to that or else I won’t be able or else I actually will have to stop carving because it can ruin your lungs completely. Okay, so anyways, it’s a lot of joy. Somebody asked the Green Knight movie. I haven’t watched it yet so I can’t interpret that. So I don’t know. I don’t know. I will watch it. For sure I’m gonna watch it. Everybody telling me I need to watch it. So I definitely will watch it but I haven’t watched it yet. I’m gonna make a video. I want to make a video on the Loki series just the last episode because there was so many weird interesting things about the Garden of Eden and the temptation and this kind of presentation of extremes and how it was presented like they had no solution. So anyways, I’m gonna probably do a video on that. I still have my video about the Mark of the Beast which as you can see I’m very much hesitating to make because a lot of stuff has happened and part of it has been that I’ve been somewhat warned by people I respect and people who knew elder Saint Paisios about some of the things that Saint Paisios said. He did say them but just been warned to be careful about that and so I want to make sure that I’m not just pouring oil on a fire but I also think it’s important to kind of talk about this stuff. So yeah, so let’s go. All right, here we go. So the more I talk the less I’m answering questions and since there are a lot of questions I need to do that. Okay, so Nikos asks, maybe that better formulated are we determined to be free or are we free to be slaves? And so the idea is that there really is only one freedom and that the freedom, the only freedom we have is to move let’s say in humility towards God and so as we submit to God we actually become free. It might seem like some kind of paradox but it actually isn’t a paradox. It’s actually very coherent because the slavery we have is usually, at least especially personally, it’s at least it’s lateral and it’s lower. It’s like we’re slaves of our desires. We’re slave of a tyranny of your passions. Something, things that are controlling you and the slavery happens here, right? The slavery happens in your mind and in the way that you interpret your situation but as you kind of move towards God then you become free in the sense that you might actually be led to your death. You might actually be tortured. You might actually be persecuted. All these things might happen to you but those things won’t determine you and that’s what let’s say the difference between slavery and true freedom is that even though things will happen to you and outwardly you might look like you’re constrained but inwardly you are free because you get your identity from above and so you don’t feel weighed down by the things that are constraining you outside you. So that’s actually the freedom and St. Maximus presents it that way. The only freedom is choosing God. When you choose other things aside from God that’s when you become a slave. So it’s not about being able to do whatever you want. That’s not the idea but anyways it’s discovering that what you really want deep down inside is to be united with your origin. To be united with that which is the source of you. Okay so all right sorry Nikos I’m taking only one question per person or else this is not it’s not going to work so I’m going to skip your question. Your second question. Timothy Aspaslaw asks, hey Jonathan glad to hear you’re feeling better. What are your latest recommendations? For example a new book you’ve been reading or a podcast you just found. Hope you feel better every day. Thank you. I’m reading right now I’m looking at an interesting book I’ll show it to you. I don’t know where it is. Where did I put it? Hmm sorry I can’t I don’t know where I put it. It’s something it’s something like uh it’s like the plan to kill God or the conspiracy to kill God and it looks at uh the the real strategies that the communists used in uh in uh Russia to destroy religion and how it was active hostile atheism. And I’m just reading that just because I just want more more arsenal of the people who kind of portray um secularism and atheism as this benign force as this kind of live and let live force but definitely in the communist era it was an active anti-theism you know and the strategies that you can find are interesting because you can kind of see uh kind of see on the horizon some of these strategies appearing. I’m also reading the book and I’m kind of seeing the horizon some of these strategies appearing. I’m also reading Father Stephen uh Father Andrew Dommick’s new book uh is it Oh God Arise and so I’m really excited about that. I haven’t started it yet but that’s really like the next thing I’m going to look into and I’ll also have Father Andrew on my channel very soon to talk about his new book so that’s cool. All right and so okay so Shay McKenna says uh if you want to just answer this Chris questions thoughts on Donna Donda and will you make a video on it have loved all your Kanye videos and so I’m still kind of digesting the Donda thing because it’s like two hours long that album it’s like who has time man you I don’t know so uh so I’m kind of listening to it in my spare time trying to kind of wrap my head around it. I think that my first impression of it is that it’s it’s somewhat uneven let’s say in terms of an album some of the songs seem unfinished and some of the songs are are really good and so there are some that I really like there’s a song called Heaven and Hell which I really like because it has uh it has a kind of that militant feeling about you know about heaven and hell and about the devil and everything I like that I like that song a lot uh there’s another song called 24 which uses the uh you know this kind of gospel choir feeling uh which I also quite kind of like I really like Jesus is King a lot of people said it wasn’t uh one of his best albums but I really I actually really like all the songs on that album so so those are the songs I like the most I don’t like I really struggle with this that like the recent rap you know noise making is the only thing I can say and also the desire to reduce the reduce the bars you know like to have to have each each each sentence be like two words I really struggle with that so it’s hard for me to enjoy that I just and I just get some of my nerves so I have to say for now at least it’s a it’s a it’s a kind of 50 50 um and it and also the the things that are said on the album seem a little kind of less coherent let’s say just just a little bit all over the place so um yeah so that’s my that’s my thing um so uh how does one properly name a multi-headed beast that would be a hydra that’s usually how we call the multi-headed beast I mean I don’t know if there’s another word for it I mean the chimera is the usual just word we use for a beast that has different types of heads you know so Eddie T why does a snake respond to the music of the snake charmer um I think it doesn’t is my understanding is that it actually responds to the movement of the flute and so it’s it’s it’s the movement of the flute which is making the serpent sway back and forth and so um and so I think it’s I mean it’s just basically fixing a moving point um like a like a predator and so I think that that’s what that’s what is happening but if you want to understand the symbolism let’s say of the idea of the music and the snake charming musician it has to do with the idea that patterns uh solve animality and that pattern you know this idea you know that was it music calms the beast or whatever you see different tropes of that it has to it has to do with the idea that that that patterns are what elevate the world into consciousness you could say and so through it I don’t think it actually these things actually work but the idea that I think animals actually don’t hear the the patterns but the idea let’s say that the trope or the kind of superstition around it is quite coherent it’s really the idea that through through patterns you can actually you can you can you can make something more human or make something calmer bring it into into the pattern and so uh you know an example that of course is David who um who uh plays music for King Saul and is able to calm his melancholy by playing music for him so these patterns are healing uh healing King Saul so Garner Brothers asks what is the symbolism of Hollywood a city industry that sells stories as products seems there’s something wrong with turning out stories to meet a bottom line for stories uh production companies investors rather than letting stories arise organically from the experience of storyteller culture yes I mean for sure there’s definitely a problem with Hollywood in terms of what it is and what it manifests it it seems also in general that it’s not just about storytelling it there’s also a whole idea of storytelling which are leading us towards decadence are normalizing things which which are not normal in a in a regular society uh you know a kind of voyeurism where you look at people’s private lives in a way that that we’re so used to we think it’s normal but but that is actually uh somewhat perverse ultimately um and so I’m not I’m not saying there isn’t anything good that can ever come out of of that you know and you know you’ve watched some of my video movie critiques where I’ve actually tried to point to some of the positive things but I think in general Hollywood and the movie industry and the music industry and all these things participate in the problem of entertainment culture and the transformation from participative culture into this kind of passive consumer culture which is which is really deadly for the soul ultimately especially if that’s all you have you know you can’t live in these movies you can’t live in in the you know concert is a passive you these are not your songs right they’re their songs they’re not your stories it’s their stories it’s not the things you can participate in so ultimately that’s what it’s leading to so Samuel asks hi Jonathan O’Peer well after watching your interesting conversation with uber boyo I was thinking about Christian and physical strength are there any good places to look for Christian inspiration or guidance on being physically strong or a protector it does seem most writings are from monks who although I appreciate that they are battling demons are not exactly considering the spiritual implication of getting shredded or being a protector in the way a warrior would need to be is there a devotional aspect to exercise physical activity in the Christian tradition do you know anywhere to explore this idea in any depth and so yes there is there is at least I under I know it more in terms of the West that is in the West they’ve developed a a chivalric code you know in which physical prowess prowess and you know capacity to accomplish certain skills which are related to combat to war we’re seen as a way to as a way to to let’s say accumulate honor and then of course this honor would be given to a woman would be given to to your lady you know and so that is an interesting idea in terms of the notion that that you receive honor then sacrifice towards towards those that can’t do what you’re doing and so there definitely is a a general aesthetic of the night and of the the the the the prowess of the physical prowess of the night which I think is there I think that we have to be careful it’s it is a dangerous world to get into because it is a world which is full of which can lead you to pride just like a lot of other things for sure I struggle a little more with the getting shredded part in the sense of you know the the sense of creating these these these bodies that are really just aesthetic let’s say I struggle a little more with that but you know who knows it’s not I don’t think it’s it’s not necessarily evil or anything I just think it’s maybe not as useful for the spiritual life and I think that physical discipline and and exercise and and physical discipline can be downstream from spiritual discipline it can help you understand the difficulty the sacrifice can help you understand the you know the the idea of being drawn by purpose and focusing on purpose um you know and creating good habits all of that I think can be useful to help you understand what spiritual discipline is so you know Saint Paul himself uses the image of an athlete you know of a race and and all these images to talk about the spiritual life you know which means that and analogically you know there’s something in those practices which are worthy of using as images for the spiritual spiritual life all right so Nelson Justin Eben I feel uneasy at the prospect of secular food banks which forbid mentioning religious affiliation the secular food bank does what Christ asks feeding the hungry but they do it in a way which does not recognize Christ’s lordship just as Judas tries to sell the anointing oil to feed the poor instead of using towards your Christ is giving aid to the homeless without saying the aid is given in Christ’s name an embodiment of anti-Christ typology um so the one thing that’s important to understand is that the kind of helping the poor that Christ talks about um is is has a lot to do with spiritual realization has a lot to do with with understanding your own passions and then giving yourself to those that are smaller than you you know uh in order to kind of participate in this great pattern of God giving to us you know and so I think that that it happens very much individually I don’t think that I think that it is completely fine to give to the poor as an individual without preaching to them I think that the purpose is really a lot of the purpose is for you when you give to the poor yes of course you’re going to help the poor but a lot of it is about you being willing to give up you know your riches willing to give up your surplus willing to give up um you know and uh and give to the poor and so so I don’t think you necessarily have to preach them all the time and in terms of secular food banks I mean I think I think those are how can I say this it’s like I think Christian food banks are better but if there aren’t Christian food banks and I think secular food banks are are are fine in the sense that when non-Christians do what Christians should do I think that that’s good but like you said of course this is not a Christian thing right and so I think that as Christians we should give to people in the name of Christ and we should you know and we should so Christians if there’s a competition for Christians to have food banks and uh with non-Christians you know and so Christians just need to rise up just need to rise up to the challenge I think and um and do it in a more loving way because one of the things that that qualifies secular charity and this is something that I’ve experienced living in Africa for a very long time is that it’s extremely um bureaucratic and there’s something about it which is actually quite cold there isn’t that sacrifice self-sacrifice which will which will be embodied by some nun you know who lives in Uganda and takes care of children and has given up her life in order to to help these children you know this is very different from the NGO worker who has UN money and then delivers food to a village there’s nothing wrong with that but there’s definitely something lacking in terms of you know in terms of seeing this help also as an act of communion and of encountering Christ so so yeah so pkb 5021 the symbolic view shows us that we live in a narrative and to a certain extent we reflect our experiences in the narrative through stories paintings poems how does free will live within the context of the symbolic view because sometimes it seems no matter what you do a particular narrative has to be fulfilled i.e. the death and rising of Christ and so like I said the the freedom that we have is not a freedom is not a sorry there’s mosquitoes in my my house is not a freedom to do whatever you want that that is not what freedom is right freedom is to participate in the pattern in a way in which you are going up the ladder you could say which you’re actually being freed from the lower aspects of the pattern as tyrants and and and and you’re moving up towards God and so you’re right that’s the pattern the death and rising of Christ the the the pattern of everything is the pattern and to a certain extent you can’t you can’t really change that and there’s no reason to want to there is a place in there is a place in this this whole pattern for idiosyncrasy you know and and idiosyncrasy is a is is part of it but that’s not what we should really be attached to so we shouldn’t necessarily be attached to the capacity we have for idiosyncrasy and wearing a blue tie instead of a red tie i mean that’s fine whatever it’s not a not a big deal but that’s obviously not what true uh freedom is um so in the story so david florist asked in the story of san george the dragon at least the versions i’ve heard and and the pictures i’ve seen there is an emphasis on piercing the dragon’s throat what is the symbolic significance of this being the mortal wound as opposed to the heat or something else i’m not sure i understand the idea of the heat well usually the way that you see san george killing the dragon and also san michael is that they is that they stick the the lance inside the mouth of the dragon and so you there’s a lot going on there it has to do with let’s say fixing the lie fixing the snake you know the head of the dragon is the place of course the head of anything is always the place where the identity is it’s always it’s it’s one of the places let’s say where the identity is and so the idea of of piercing through the mouth you know piercing the head you know through the face let’s say um has to do with that fixing the snake you know stopping it from moving left and right let’s say um so i think that that’s what that’s what’s what’s going on there all right so all right so sorry i’m really going to skip people’s second questions okay i’m just going to do one per person so phil hi jonathan happy to hear you’re on back under feet joseph campbell wrote that people have different capacities for belief for conceptions of god even when they use the same name campbell wrote that this is one of the ironies of monotheism isn’t it isn’t monotheism at all because everybody believes in god in a different way is this spinning hairs maybe it speaks to christianity and other monotheistic faiths ability to morph to incorporate myths of many cultures or even different beliefs and individuals so the way to understand that is not it’s not it doesn’t have to be that complicated it doesn’t have to be that controversial is that god is beyond all identity is beyond all name is beyond all definition is beyond all description and so then from there god fills up the entire world fills up all of reality and so what will happen is that then there will be dogmas let’s say the trinity there will be things which are real and are really a lower version of of a description of god but nonetheless one which is real and participates in how god fills up reality and then there will be more there will be let’s say more poetic versions where you hear people sing in the songs different descriptions of god all of these will participate in that and then there will also be the way that you and that you encounter god and that way will be at least at the outset extremely fragmentary extremely limited extremely related to your own story in a way which might which might make god look like not much but that that’s because god fills up the world and we encounter god in the capacity that we have to encounter god and so as we come closer to god then god then god let’s say self reveals himself reveals himself to the person and then more aspects more deep a deeper version of what god’s revelation is will start to connect to you and you’ll start to have a less a less idiosyncratic a less you know a bigger and fuller version of what god really is and that can lead of course to to the highest to the highest and can leave yeah leave there so um so yeah all right so bnumesh asked glad to have you back i hope by the time you see this you regain your taste and smell yes i have um so what is the symbolism of pertaining to the smearing and sprinkling of blood on the altar after the pouring of the blood on the earth i have been thinking of them as opposites but i’m not sure if that is if that’s a proper way of looking at them my guess is that to do with the polarity of heaven and earth i’m a little lost though it really has to do with covering you know and so the the blood is like the life of the being and so it’s and so it goes down right and so the flesh is the is kind of more like the potential let’s say of the being and then that goes up it’s like a crossing and so part of the going down is covering so you can imagine blood covering the altar covering the different holy things in order to purify them you know um and so that has to do with the higher element of of being coming down and covering in order to in order to make it participate in that higher part let’s say um so so at least that’s the way that i understand it um all right so king of the rat kings asked what is the symbolism of profanity particularly how modern languages tend to place words related to things like feces um and sexuality as profanity as opposed to archaic profanities like in kibiqua so what what king of the rat kings is is uh suggesting uh is is because in kibiqua like the french canadian their profanity or their swearing is is all religious words you know and you hear that in english too people will say the name of of of christ will say the name of the mother of god uh as a form of swearing as a form of of profanity um and so that is definitely that’s what it is that’s really a form of uh of debasing you know it has to do with the idea that you know so i’ve talked to you about the idea of the let’s say the the nakedness of of glory and the nakedness of shame and it has to do with what i talked about in my video on uh this on the the mark of cain and so it has to do with setting aside so what happens is that there are two aspects of setting aside there’s an aspect of setting aside which is setting aside above right so all the holy things and there’s an aspect of setting aside which is setting aside to exclude or to bury you know you know the taboo part let’s say um and so the setting aside above that has to do with the religious words the setting aside let’s say uh of shame has to do with the the all the idea of feces and of of of dirty versions of sexuality are using using shocking words to describe sex and to describe um describe the things that you hide in shame the things that you that you’re not supposed to expose so that’s also why the words we use as profanity for sexual words are not talking about procreation or about you know loving tender relationship with your spouse but is a kind of vulgar word which debases the debase of sexuality that’s why it’s profanity so it has to do with this setting aside now what’s fascinating about about uh swearing is that it’s it’s also it’s taking that which is set aside above and bringing it down below and so it’s turning that which is set aside for god and making it at the level of set aside in the shameful side in the shameful way and so that’s what’s going on there that’s why in swearing you’ll you’ll both have words that are about taboos and about uh you know about excrement and things that are that are supposed to be hidden and about things that are supposed to be hidden in the holy things um so that’s what’s going on there that’s why those both of those extremes are used to to to let’s say express something beyond meaning express something beyond rational meaning and that’s often what swearing is it’s something like expressing an emotion which is beyond meaning beyond rational meaning and so it comes out as these taboo words um expressing emotions which are too strong expressing surprise expressing frustration uh all of this is the place where swearing will will appear uh and it’s also filler like basic just filler non meaningless words that people insert into sentences because they can’t hold their meaning together let’s say and so they have a bad habit of putting in these filler words that aren’t actually meaningful but but are but are taboo words um so so hopefully i don’t think i’ve ever talked about this before so i think this hopefully this will help you kind of understand why swearing and profanity why they look the way why they look the way they do um all right so c.s street soul asked my wife recently became interested in pretty gemstone the new age spiritual movement and other cultures seem to have an affinity for crystals gems and other rare stones sometimes the stones are perpetuate perpetuate that magical healing properties the ability to channel negative energy you know away from positive energy towards person or place and many other special properties i scoffed at these claims when i was a materialist however i’m trying to break out of my materialist framework and i recall a video you did on dwarves where you briefly mentioned rare stones is this idea of using raw or polished stones to affect the world a remnant of primitive technology how to precious stones and gems fit into one’s home and into the christian hierarchy in general and so for sure stones precious stones are really important they’re important in scripture and they’re used meaningfully they’re used in the in the now my mind is blank the vestment that the priest has he had a square with stones in them and that seems to be related to the casting of lots and the to the divination practices which existed in the old testament and so it’s not it’s not that material objects or that especially precious ones especially those that are light bearing you could say that’s what that’s one of the reasons why these stones are so fascinating to people is that they’re stones but they they shine right they you see through them there they have a kind of subtlety which something like granite or you know the more opaque stones don’t have so for example like a really a really kind of fascinating midrash that can help you kind of understand the difference is that in there are some jewish midrash and traditions which talk about how when moses received the stones from god at the outset it was like a precious stone right it was like a translucent precious stone on which god wrote the commandments and then moses brought them down but the world was not ready for them the world could not accept it there was no way to connect the that these stones with the world and so moses broke them and then when he wrote them himself on stones then they were rougher stones like a like a you know like a marble or granite or sandstone or something and so it can kind of help you see that he could also help you understand why the new Jerusalem is made out of these stones now having said that the problem with a lot of this new age stuff is that it’s just made up it’s just made up people just make it up like they who knows where all this stuff comes from it’s just kind of this thing there’s like they give these properties to these stones and i mean whatever i i don’t know where it comes from i don’t know what it is like i i don’t and it’s also a kind of weird materialism it’s not about meaning you know it’s not about let’s say um you know the idea that let’s say the king would have certain stones which would be attributed to him and that would kind of participate in his glory that kind of thing where there would be the the effect the stone would have would be related to meaning it’s it really is about like these these weird energies that people talk about a lot of and these you know a lot of these new ages when they talk about energies they really mean it in a like in a scientific way like a wave particle that is that that is kind of floating in the air and that you have to redirect or you have to focus or you have to do all this stuff and so a lot of the new age stuff is just materialist nonsense and so when you join with that some weird idea about stones it just ends up being i think it just ends up being a lot of a lot of made-up stuff it doesn’t mean that it can’t sometimes work because you know belief is of reality and you know placebos work so so if you have something which is which is kind of precious and which is beautiful and and so maybe it can have an effect on you but i definitely wouldn’t count on that stuff like it’s just most of it is just modern made-up stuff in my opinion so so sorry i don’t know if this is helpful but right so stephen wong says what is the difference between protestants and orthodox christians views on salvation i mean that would be a very long post and a very long answer i’m not sure i could get through there but an easy way for people to understand let’s say a little bit of the difference is that let’s say many protestants not all protestants but many protestants really focus on the idea of of a of substitution you know and an atonement by substitution which is the idea that that when adam sinned he kind of infected humanity with sin and that we deserve to die uh and so the the sacrificial system in the old testament was a way to compensate for that was the way to offer things instead of yourself because you’re supposed to die because you know that that god’s anger was kind of directed towards you to kill you and so the idea is that god put all his anger on christ and he is the substitution the substitutional whatever uh sacrifice and uh and that’s how we are saved so if we believe in that then we are saved because we can enter into that sacrifice and uh so that’s like i’m like i said not all products believe that but it’s definitely a a basic idea and that you’re saved by faith so you if you believe that if you believe god believe that this sacrifice is is true then then you are saved by it and so orthodox really don’t see salvation like that at all they see salvation as a form of healing a form of that that through the sin of adam death entered into the world until we live in these bodies of death which which are pulling us in different directions you know because you your your body is in danger then you have a propensity to sin because you can be convinced that your desire to eat or your desire for sex or your desire to protect yourself is all-encompassing and so you feel comfortable taking things from others because you’re doing it to to protect yourself or to to bolster your your your dead life let’s say and that christ came to assume human nature fill it up with his presence um and that participating in that through the sacraments through communion through love of each other is a healing process for our life of death let’s say so that’s what salvation is salvation is actually healing from these passions from these desires from these the slavery that we have uh you know with things of the world and that the ultimate version of that is not just to be declared holy or declared saved or you know going to heaven when you die but is really to become god through participation to be united fully to god to participate in his life to the extent that that’s possible and so that’s the ultimate goal salvation is theosis it’s to become to be united with god um all right so jay grubb says what are the symbolism of the nose or smell in general what else in the context of icons saints often have thin noses a quote of relevance maybe from the religion of the apostles where father stephen de young says that an oft repeated theme in hewlett’s scripture that god is slow to anger in hebru idiom literally long of nose this idiomatic phrase for patience or long suffering is really reflected in depiction of the saints with long noses in traditional iconography i don’t understand the symbolic association between patience uh and having a long nose i guess this question may be of more immediate relevance given your loss of smell which i hope to get back soon that makes me think uh is the loss of smell from covid symbolic anything all right so um so the importance of smell for example is very important because smell is you could say something like smell is the closest thing to a spiritual sense that we have in the idea that smells are you can’t touch them you can’t see them you can’t hear them they are pure experiences uh and so there’s a sense in which like you know we burn the incense and this smoke this air the smells are contained in the air so the air goes up and the air is smelled by god or the the the sacrifice even of the meat you know the the meat sacrifices were smelled by god because it’s the spiritual part of it which goes up and it’s it’s air basically and so the idea of this this capacity to perceive air is what smell is and so that’s why it is related to to kind of the spiritual sense um so the idea of uh of uh of there’s also another aspect which is which is a little more immediate which is that the nose is the highest point on your face and so it’s the furthest it’s the furthest from your whole face it’s like the summit of your face you could say and so there’s something about that as well which is related to its spiritual quality of smelling of being able to to um let’s say to perceive the spirit right to perceive air perceive the invisible um but it’s a very intuitive it’s not irrational it’s it’s pre-rational or super rational let’s say um and so that’s as much as I understand now why is it related to patience um something that I would think about because I’m not sure I totally understand that and yes there’s some people that that understand that saints and icons have longer noses I feel like some some iconographers overdo it a little bit because I I think sometimes it has it shouldn’t be a caricature but um but yes some people do definitely in their icons make the saints noses a little longer in order to uh to show that that they’re that they are becoming similar to god so mfprysl says as an icon cover when participate when participation of icon in everyday life secular life would you what participation of icons in everyday secular life would you recommend some people create a corner in their home for an altar like structure others like in my tradition are more in the one icon per room to spread the forcefield camp I feel a bit uneasy about mixing sacred and profane should you watch netflix nights to an icon so I think I’d say just follow your tradition you know it’s there the russians really have this tradition of the home altar or the the bright corner let’s say um but like you said it’s not necessarily a universal practice and there are people for example like there are people who say things like you shouldn’t have if you’re a married couple you shouldn’t have icons in your room because you know that’s where things happen and then there are other traditions that say the very opposite to say you should have an icon of the mother of god and christ in your bedroom if you’re a married couple to kind of remember the chastity of your of your wedding um and so I don’t think there’s a problem with mixing the sacred and the profane that’s for sure like in in constantinople there sorry there would have been icons everywhere on the walls you know on the coins you know the idea that you would you would have icons on coins you have the image of christ on actual coins and you would have them on buildings uh as much the the church buildings as the um as the uh the profane buildings but obviously you need to have them placed in the in uh in a position of honor in a position of respect you don’t want to uh to have them on the floor or have them you know in in a in a kind of lowly discarded place you want them to be in a place of honor so it just really depends on your um I would say it depends on your tradition and uh but I wouldn’t be afraid of mixing sacred and profane if you if you have a proper hierarchy um um all right so we’re done with the website let’s go there’s only one question on subscribe star so let’s do that um so xrd says hi Jonathan glad you’re over the hump since you’re still recovering I’ll give you an easy one what’s a topic you never get asked about but wish you would it’s interesting I don’t I don’t think I have a good good answer for that I really like the question and answers because because I often am surprised about the questions and it forces me to say things that I’ve never said before that I didn’t think were important and so you know uh like for example like just that question about profanity it’s not something that I would necessarily have made a video about but then once I’m talking about it I’m talking about but then once I’m talking about it I’m thinking yeah you know what actually this is important and I understand why people would be curious about this and so uh so uh so I don’t necessarily have uh have an answer for you all right so let’s start on patreon now dan diego de la vega nice hope you recovered well made and your family’s okay too thanks everybody by the way thanks for all the wishes everybody I really appreciate it and I know a lot of people were praying for me that’s you know I’m very I feel very touched by that so so my question is regarding the lord is my shepherd prayer what is the symbolic meaning behind the part of the prayer that says your rod and your staff they comfort me specifically the rod and the staff hmm it it probably has to do this is this is me improvising now because I never thought about this I think it might have something to do with the right hand and the left hand in the sense that the staff is has to do with identity you know um right there’s a story where you know tamar takes juda’s staff as a token of his identity the idea of the staff is that the staff is as a token of his identity the idea of the staff of the king or you know the the scepter of the king I think staff has to do with like this kind of verticality and and um and identity and I think that the rod at least my understanding is that at least a rod is often if that’s what it says in scripture right spare the rod spoil the child the idea that the rod is probably more for punishment um and so you would have the right hand in the left hand in the sense of you would have this kind of authority which which comforts you which you know that the shepherd is there for you you can see him from far away with the staff you can you can understand that he’s there to lead you uh but you also have uh the rod which may be not necessarily maybe not necessarily used against the sheep but maybe used against the wolves too right this idea of a capacity to to have some kind of uh hostile or more aggressive um behavior let’s say so that’s the way that I see that but I might be completely wrong but at least that’s my understanding so chasen lindsey says hey jonathan hope recovery is going well in the lord of spirits podcast they talk about the notion that the reason fallen angels cannot repent as well as the reason man was made for mortal was made mortal for sinning is because having an immortal body somehow prevents one from repenting I’ll be interested in hearing your thoughts on this and perhaps an answer as to why an immortal can change in one direction from unfallen to fallen but not the other um it’s definitely something that I don’t think I’ve completely wrapped my head around um um it has to do with change right it has to do with that’s what death is so death is the capacity to change whereas the idea of the angels falling you know I’ve read some place where they say things like as soon as the angels were created they fell right in the sense that they’re not participating in time in the same way that we are and so they they kind of take their position on the hierarchy in the direction that they’re taking and so that’s probably the best way to to understand that but like I said I don’t think I totally understand for sure I understand more the idea of that’s that’s the that’s what god made us die that’s what god that’s why we have death in our lives is because death is an agent of transformation and that the the capacity to die uh can become a kind of prugation you know by which things are refined you know in your life and you you’re able to change uh so g garcia do you think every technology is waiting to participate in the divine or will there have to be some degree of renunciation as someone going to school for accounting do you have any tips on how to submit these technologies to higher principles um and so I think there’ll definitely there’ll be some kind of renunciation because the whole image of christ talking about the end of times has to do with the wheat and the chaff and that there is an aspect of reality which is chaff and which will be burned off and there’s an aspect of it which is useful and something like seed or something like you know the the useful part of the world which will be gathered together into the silo gathered together into the into the new Jerusalem and so I think that that’s the best way to uh to understand that and so you know how any tips on how to submit these technologies to higher principles I think that there’s no secret to it it’s there’s no the the tip is to always under always remember that these tools are your are tools that these technologies are tools they are not the purpose which is something which shouldn’t seem obvious to us but they’re not because we we actually act very often as if the technologies were the purpose themselves were the goal themselves and so you know as long as technology remains a tool which is used for good obviously you can use tools for bad then you’re in less danger but it’s hard to do because these tools have their own attention attention grabbing mechanisms you could say especially the internet and especially you know the kind of screen technology so so charlie longoria says hello jonathan i’ve been wondering about the symbolism of the skull i don’t know how it is in canada but the police and military in the u.s. have adopted the puncture skull as their unofficial logo should this be something should this be something to be worried about i never really i don’t think i’ve ever seen that with police and military you know so i mean the skull is just an idiot and the skull is an image of death it’s a it’s an image of uh of death and so the skull that is used by on a heavy metal t-shirt and let’s say the skull that is is represented on the monk’s schema you know on the on the it has to do with with death and so for sure the the punisher skull is is a frightening one because it’s it’s not it’s punisher is acting like the angel of death that’s how he perceives himself and so the idea that skull is something like a sign of the angel of death or that this person is a purveyor of death and so i’ve seen people use that like kind of these kind of edgy you know whatever edgy guys with their jeeps and their motorcycles or whatever but i don’t think i’ve ever seen uh police and military use that which is odd because obviously punisher is uh is a uh is not a in the authority structure you know he he’s a vigilante he’s a yeah so matt turgeon hi jonathan when jesus said john the baptist was elijah when the pharisees asked john the baptist if he was elijah he said no was john hiding his identity from the pharisees or did he really not know that is definitely a really interesting kind of a poria which is presented in scripture um and so maybe the best way to kind of understand that is that it was it was christ’s prerogative to name him and that john would not have named himself uh and so that’s why he would say no when he was asked but that christ had the capacity to to name him so that’s the best way i understand that so nicola aleksic christ conquered death by death what do we make of conquest as a concept understanding must conquer all until for hearts through prayer fasting and confession but does it really stop there at the internal level um i mean i think that there are ways to conquer which are acceptable like to conquer a sphere to conquer a sphere of activity in the sense of the sense of mastering it there’s definitely this uh this idea um but um but i i think that at least in the christian vision that christians should not conquer other nations to conquer them and that this is when it’s happened in history it’s always seen or often presented as a as in another manner to try to hide or mask the fact that they’re conquering for example if you look at you know the whole history of colonization it was never presented as a form of conquering it was always presented as a form of help as a form of supporting the person people there um and so you can kind of see the problem of these christian uh and so so i think that that’s the best way to understand that you know christian christian war was often done you know in defense rather than in conquering doesn’t mean that it always happened that way doesn’t mean that it will always happen that way but there is an there is a way in which conquering for conquering you know is a missing of the of the mark so you know but you also have to understand something like taking back a land that had been taken from you is something that christians i think have accepted very much so and so for example the crusades were not viewed as conquering crusades were viewed as a retaking of that which had been taken from us or re-establishing of the original of the original limits let’s say all right so mark kalashnikov says hello jonathan can you please explain the correlation in the iconographic depictions of an of an angel the right and the left hand on either side of christ more so how it relates to other similar depictions usually in red and blue garments elijah and moses martha and mary adam and eve peter and paul theotokos and the forerunner and you’ve covered aspects of this previously but looking at many icons it seems to be a very strong recurrence in a lot of images i was wondering if you had any other insights yes i mean i you just have to understand all of these as different aspects of the right hand and the left hand of christ or different aspects of the two extremes you know the two extremes that manifest themselves as being united by christ and so when you see characters that are facing each other facing each other in this kind of duality you have to see them as complementary right so you can understand you know elijah and moses for example so elijah is a prophet at the end of the world moses is the prophet at the beginning of the world you know moses brings the law you know elijah is facing a corrupt israel you know moses there are many there moses let’s say it’s more related to the system or the like the law and the system of sacrifice and all of that whereas elijah is more about the fire the fire coming down and a more kind of wild mystical aspect of his of his of his life you know he stays in a cave and eats meat brought to him by a crow which is very very shocking right because crows are scavengers crows eat dead flesh and so like the symbolism of elijah in that time of famine in that time when the world is falling apart being kept secret in the cave while everything is while the world is ending basically is a very very kind of profound and uh and disturbing symbolism you know and you can compare it to let’s say moses who was kept in the basket on the water uh and was brought to to the the to the princess to the egyptian princess whereas elijah was kept in a dark cave and and like i said ate ate uh scavenged meat so so that’s what you have to understand it so you look at peter and paul you look at their at their how they are facing each other how they are complementary how they’re opposites uh adam and eve the same and uh yeah etc etc like the mother of god and saint john is very you can just see it right there right so the mother of god is pure she’s covered she she and according to her tradition she was hidden in the temple as a young woman she’s a and uh and she’s quiet you know her her tradition is private and her influence is private whereas zinj on the foreigner he’s out in the desert he’s screaming he’s telling everybody to repent he’s wearing garments of skin he’s got you know crazy hair crazy beard and uh he gets his head cut off you know so you can really see like you can just really see these two these two extremes uh manifest themselves so all right so hi jonathan hope you are well my question uh doesan babik asks but my question is about deuteronomy 1223 uh but be sure you do not eat the blood because the blood is the life and you must not eat the life with the meat what is the meaning of blood here how’s blood life or soul in some translation and why is why is eating it prohibited i mean it’s the life in the sense that it’s it’s that which moves from the center into the periphery right it’s that which goes into the heart and then moves out of the heart and goes out into all the flesh and so it’s like uh it’s like a water the water above it’s the flowing water you could say you know the idea of flowing water in scriptures is like an influence of heaven whereas static water or bitter waters is the lower part of that equation and so blood because it’s flowing because it moves from the the heart from the center to the periphery and then goes back and carries let’s say life um that’s why it’s the soul of the body it’s it’s the soul of the flesh let’s say um um so as for the rest you know you can refer to the other question i answered which is which was already kind of dealing with that a little bit so matthew moldbranden asks i watch your old videos on space and time counteracting each other when you were flooded much of your geographic symbolism has revolved around borders centers walls edges order chaos what are one or two ways network spaces and times alter or fit into space and time patterns of obliteration and control in the symbolic world and stories what all right so let’s let’s let’s he says just to clarify my question i what i meant by network i put a definition below a network is defined as nodes and edges and often as a hierarchy of importance in academia so an airport that acts as a hub to exchange spatures that are going to their places is a large node the flight paths are edges the church was networked as it only controlled small spaces in a wider pagan world this q a network it exists in virtual space and time and is a hub so what are one or two ways network spaces and times alter or fit into space and time patterns of obliteration and control in the symbolic world stories i’m not sure i totally understand what you mean patterns of obliteration and control sorry man i don’t totally understand what you what you mean and so maybe i can give you some hint of what i understand of what you’re saying i’m not sure i totally get it and so imagine you have a network like you’re saying uh you have a network structure which has these hubs and these edges which are the connection between let’s say the center or the top of the the reason for the hub or the the place where it all culminates and then the branches where it goes and so you can understand that there are aspects of the world which are not connected to that hub and those aspects of the world which are not connected to that hub or are something like potential to the network and so the network by connecting itself to further out in quantity can increase its control integrate the potential of the world into its network structure right and so that’s how the church works too right the church let’s say you know has these bishops then these bishops have other bishops and then these other bishops have priests and then you you kind of have this network and then at some point someone goes out and found another church and then connects that to the bishop and then on and on and so the the tree or the network can spread out and uh and fill up more and more space and have more control over more more space um so that’s that’s as much as i can give you like i said i’m not sure i totally understand your question all right so manual montiel says my question uh says hi jonathan praying for your continued recovery my question surrounds the highly polarizing covid vaccine mandates making waves in the west in your april 2020 q a you answered a question centering on this in a in a great way control 666 the accounting for everything but ended your response with an essence uh to be determined remark that when things begin to play out you’d have to be more explicit about your response well it seems like those things are beginning to play out that being what are your thoughts on the fact that is becoming clear the vaccine will determine who’s included and excluded from society yes yes i mean you’re right and that’s why i’m supposed to make this mark of the beast vaccine uh mark of the beast video and that i haven’t totally done it because the kind of thing that will get me banned from youtube in part and it’s also the kind of thing which will cause controversy in my own church and hierarchy but i i think you’re right i think that the fear that i had which is that the vaccine would be used as a as a way to account for those that are inside and then exclude people uh from the participation society it seems like that is definitely on the horizon and it’s happening here um and the obsession with vaccinating everybody like the the obsession with having with vaccinating now children vaccinating you know zero to 12 and 12 to 16 and and uh is just to show that that there’s something that’s not rational which is going on there’s something which has to do with the desire to have something in which everybody participates to have a kind of sacrament in which everybody participates which also has the advantage of creating a scapegoat for those who don’t a scapegoat for the disease itself which is already happening a scapegoat uh for whatever it is you’re going to want to make go wrong or you’re going to want to notice that goes wrong uh we’ll be able to be blamed on those that don’t want to participate in this uh sacrament so for example if they don’t reopen if they keep saying that you have to wear masks if they if they do another lockdown if they all of this will now be easily blamed on the scapegoats and no matter what the facts are it doesn’t matter anymore none of these things matter anymore it’s just going to be a narrative scapegoating which will reinforce the feeling that people who are vaccinated and and have this interior passport that’s coming are good citizens that they’re part of society that they and they also have a group that they can they can despise so it definitely looks like we’re moving towards towards 666 and mark the b symbolism i don’t think we’re there yet i i don’t think that because in scripture it says that that it will be a kind of apostasy and i i’m not sure i see that yet like i don’t see that it’s an apostasy to be uh vaccinated unless people take the idea that some of these vaccines contain uh aborted cell lines cell lines from aborted children um i don’t think it’s it’s an explicit uh form of apostasy so for me it’s not there yet but it’s like you can see the system taking shape and you can kind of see it coming together so for example like if they make the covid passport necessary to go to church we will have reached another threshold like it’s going to be a serious threshold and i can kind of see it on the horizon at least here in quebec i can see it coming so um yeah okay so adam vania asks hi jonathan my dad is a lapsed catholic who has recently been trying to rediscover his faith i would like to get him a bible for his birthday this year but i’m not sure what to purchase he has mentioned wanting a book that features commentary and other translations of words included can you recommend any good study bibles um yeah there’s i mean obviously there’s the orthodox study bible which is good you know it’s good it’s pretty good there is also um so susan martin wrote a comment uh suggesting the new uh word on fire bible which i haven’t seen so i don’t know i don’t know what it looks like it’s actually beautiful like it’s well it’s well made and so those are two two examples that um that you can look at so diana isis says hello jonathan do you have any thoughts or reading recommendations preferably from the christian tradition regarding the distinction between information belief knowledge and wisdom um i’m afraid i’m afraid nothing comes to mind at the moment so if i think of something before the end of the q a i’ll tell you all right so anonymous says hi jonathan hope you’re recovering well could sheet music be understood as a way to symbolically box in the flowing or cosmic time nature of music is an arranged music score with all its formalities or even choreography more representative of cosmic space in this regard as opposed to free form folk music for example folk music for example i think there’s definitely something going on there i think there’s something in the general desire to document uh and to uh you know the ancient uh let’s say forms of notations in in uh for music were very vague they were really about going up going down like i’m not a music musical expert but they’re very vague and so the movement towards a fixing of of musical notation the moving towards uh recording um definitely affects one of one of the realities of music which is this kind of this kind of free-flowing structure and this and this thing which and it changes but also carries pattern in a more immediate and and uh internal way because the ancient musician would have had to kind of internalized these patterns um just like an ancient poem poet would internalize these patterns and then would be able to do something like improvise or to adjust and to move things around so all right so suden martin says i’m curious what do you think of the dormition of the mother of god in the orthodox tradition and how it compares to the assumption of mary in the catholic tradition are they basically the same thing or are they symbolic differences according to the catholic catechism and the doctrine of the immaculate conception mary was conceived without original sin and so did not experience corruption of the body at death catholics belief was taken body and soul into heaven at the end of her life since since i firstly come from a catholic background i’m interested in cultivating a deeper understanding of the dermis of the mother of god thank you so so there’s a few things here the first thing is that the orthodox don’t don’t need the doctrine of the immaculate conception because we don’t believe anybody is born with original sin so so we don’t need that doctrine we have the idea that we do believe that the mother of god did not sin but she doesn’t have to have this special tag about her in order to describe her uh now in the in the story on which the the dormition and the assumption is based you really do see the assumption of the mother of god you see it in the text of the story so i think that it is um that it is there the reason why i think it’s not shown in the iconography often sometimes it is actually it happens it’s not it’s but it’s not the usual way uh i think it has to do with something like like the mystery of of the mystery of the final moment like the mystery of of the resurrection or the mystery of the body because the the we we as orthodox we understand that what the mother of god went through is something like what ultimately we will all participate in um so there is a mystery there i think that the reason why the the falling asleep or the demission of the mother of god is more prominent also in orthodoxy is that it also represents a kind of full cycle with the end it represents kind of like the end of the of the world right the kind of the end of this whole cycle the end of the body you could say um and it also coincides with the end of the liturgical year and it’s often represented on the back of the church in the western where the sun goes down so you can understand the dormition of the mother of god as the setting of the sun and the end of uh of a cycle and so i think that that’s probably one of the reasons why one of the many reasons why the orthodox emphasized the dormition uh explicitly far more than they do the uh the assumption part let’s say so anton olanderson says hello jonathan glad you’re back you’re one of the few saint voices in our confusing time well thank you anton that’s very touching every kind of you um i have a question regarding the eucharist it is traditionally received at church but christ doesn’t mention priests as the only one who can consecrate and officiate the eucharist in john six christ seems to suggest that anyone can eat his flesh and drink his blood has the church falsely claimed authority over the eucharist do we all have the authority and could be united in christ separately or would it in fact be a sin and missing the point to partake at home on our own the question has puzzled me for some time and i wonder how christ actually intended for us to drink his blood and eat his flesh and practice well i think it’s really important to understand that christ reveals the eucharist although he does say that to the crowd in john six but he reveals the mystery of what that means in presence of the apostles only in a private space in a closed off space not in the open so there is a sense in which the eucharist is a is a mystery of of the of the inner circle let’s say and that is the way that it was always understood by christians and it’s and it’s the way that it’s still practiced today which is that the eucharist is the mystery of the church it is the hidden aspect of christianity and so in the early centuries it seems like catechumen those who were wanting to become christian because they heard the gospel and heard and and knew something enough about christ to be attracted to him that they would actually not be told about the eucharist until after they were baptized that it was something of a secret and because because it’s it’s very scandalous it’s extremely scandalous and so we’re used to it because we’ve had it for 2000 years but it’s like it’s a very scandalous symbolism and so it it is it is kind of kept in the mystery and so in terms of the idea that priests are the one who can consecrate and officiate the eucharist i think that that also is something which stems really from the very beginning which is something like christ did this ritual with the disciples and then the disciples are the ones who perpetuated that and then the disciples gave the authority to to who they wanted to continue to perpetuate this mystery in the church and then that is the apostolic succession that is the that is the descendants of the disciples training their replacement to to officiate the mysteries of the of the church um and so so yeah you know and and uh you know you always have to remember that it’s like although it is christ says that like that there’s also uh saint paul also as it’s in policy christ himself who talks about you know that if you do not recognize the body of christ then you are then you’re eating and drinking to your to your condemnation that is that it is a dangerous thing taking the eucharist is dangerous and should not be given to anybody because if you don’t recognize the body of christ in which you’re participating then it’s like a curse on you um as as dangerous as that i remember i remember uh an orthodox priest when i was a catechumen you know people would come up to the chalice once in a while and they were orthodox and then he would ask them are you orthodox and they would say no um and then he would always say i’m not going to give you communion right and and the reason why i’m not going to give you communion because i want to protect you i want to protect you from this because if i give you communion it’s dangerous to you and so yeah um all right so tyrone tyrone camilleri says ask the same question asked about uh the difference between the symbolism of their mission and the assumption um so yes i think i answered that so sorry i’m not gonna i’m not gonna answer it uh again um i think that that that the idea of the assumption of the virgin in in orthodoxy is a kind of tacit or or hidden or or or less vocal tradition it’s just not it’s definitely not a dogma that’s for sure it’s just a it’s a it’s a highest tradition of the church so enrico says hi jonathan how did ancient world scripture think of consciousness and subconscious minds before freud how did we make a distinction between them is it something like heart news versus flesh and mind or did they have a different perspective of person’s minds architecture altogether uh so and so yes yes they had the idea that the that the soul or the or the person had different hierarchy of mind and that that we had a rational mind but we also had a kind of irascible part of us and we had a more passionate aspect of us uh and in those in those parts of the person is what we would call something like unconscious you know in the sense that they are these desires that pull us these thoughts that appear to us uh you know these emotions that come to us and we don’t control them completely and they they seem to kind of arise out of these dark places um all right so marcus david asked to get asked about the mark of the beast and everything i think i answered where i think about that enders ralstad asked hey jonathan is there an overall pattern symbolism of saint peter there’s much going on with him and i cannot see how it holds together he is for instance known for being a fisherman being a rock denying jesus crucified upside down striking priests with swords and holding the keys to heaven the symbolism of saint peter is very coherent it’s uh it’s it’s quite coherent actually um you know he’s he is maybe i should make a video about it because i i realized it that i could explain it but it’s gonna take a it is definitely gonna take a while um but but he there is a duality to saint peter there’s also a duality to saint paul you know a lot of symbol a lot of symbolism or a lot of characters in scripture always have a two sides to them and so saint peter is one of those which is why there’s a relationship between him being the first being the rock being the rock being the first being the rock being the one who walks on water and the one who denies christ you know as well so so uh yeah so let me let me let me consider making a video about the symbol of saint peter sorry joe kelly o’neill says god you’re feeling better jonathan okay so i’m getting used to thinking symbolically and i can’t tell if this is an easy question or a doozy of a question what is the symbolism behind the inversion the invention of birth control at the societal level i mean it it has it has to do with a fragmentation of things and so you know sexuality has many logy has many purposes and the the the invention and kind of spread of birth control is a way in which the world is breaking apart which is that we’re taking aspects of sexuality and we’re breaking them apart from each other and so we have an idea that there is baby making and then there’s sex and that those two are actually kind of separate from each other and that that that sexuality is more to do with personal expression and and pleasure and all of that so so that’s what it is and what it’s going to do is very simple which is what is happening is that it just makes society sterile and it makes society obsessed with pleasure and move towards idiosyncrasy and pleasure as well so so janet horseman says greeting from neapolis epicenter of woke george floyd first patron saint of the new religion is venerated in many a church here whoa it’s disturbing one of their newest doctrine is getting the code vaccine is the best way to show cruciform love love willing to lay down your life to your neighbors right now what is the right way to respond to this the best way to respond to this is very simple is that if that is true then i don’t think it’s true but if that is true then love and willing and laying down your life is something which can only happen voluntarily fully voluntarily and if you do it because you have pressure from the government and because you have pressure from your employee and because you have pressure to get a covered passport and you have pressure to to participate in society and you do it because everybody’s doing it and because you’ll be excluded if you don’t do it then all of that nonsense goes away and that it has nothing to do with self-sacrificial love because self-sacrificial love is not imposed from from authority so yeah all right so bread says howdy from the lone star state what does the seven miracles performed by jesus in the book of john symbolize dude you can’t ask questions like that okay here we go also you could touch on the symbols of each miracle water to wine healing the roman soldier these how can you ask these questions you can’t ask me to interpret every single every single miracle that christ does in the gospel of john in a question in a q a so i’m sorry i don’t think this is gonna happen uh uh all of christ all of christ uh all of christ’s miracles are the same they are showing how christ heals the world feels the world uh it has power over the world you know is the one who created the world and so that’s what you see with the water to wine healing the roman soldier’s son is definitely important because it also shows christ as the top of the hierarchy and as capable of acting from afar in the hierarchy you know like what is it that the the the roman soldier tells christ about how that he has a roman soldier tells his tells his soldiers to do things and his will goes down the hierarchy and is able to act you know outside of immediate action and so it kind of shows how and then christ says you know something like you know the the faith of this man or whatever something about the faith of men um and so so all of that paralyzed man at the pool is the same the transformation of um in the pool itself this idea of the transformation of static water into moving water right the the raising of the water from above in order for it to kind of flow down is what that what happens uh happens there but then christ shows that he is you know directly doing that so i think that’s enough like i’m not going to go into every single one of them um so uh but you know who knows maybe you’d be interested in uh it’d be interesting to do to do more about miracles if that interests you so gr says hi jonathan do you have any thoughts on the symbolism symbolism of liminal spaces i see them as haunted places of transition time of christ crisis following some kind of loss but ahead of an incoming judgment i can’t help but to picture them in my mind as the anteroom to the place where the holy grail is located seem to be quite prevalent in the modern world especially during these weird times um and so i’m not sure what you mean you mean you see liminal spaces you see liminal spaces like haunted places or places that are not places um like places of transition like uh like alleyways like uh so i’m not sure i totally understand what you mean by liminal spaces um yeah so i don’t know you know i mean if you mean like haunted places for sure usually haunted places have to do with things which aren’t resolved which are left lingering and so because they’re left lingering they had they leave residues and so so in that sense a liminal space like that let’s say somewhere where a violent crime happened and then will leave and then because it’s something which happened and isn’t resolved let’s say then it will leave residues and those residues can be experienced as a kind of haunting because yeah because things haven’t been closed up so maybe that’s a interesting way to understand that Wyatt Lawrence what is the symbolism of spongebob squarepants within five years of his premiere it exploded into pop culture icon perhaps the most famous children show of all time man i wonder if there is symbolic significance in the show’s premise or is it a mistake to assume that because something is a staple pop culture even for a long time it has symbolic richness i’ve never really watched square bob squarepants whatever spongebob squarepants i was too old anyways but it seems to me that it has to do with absurdity and you know the laughter which comes from absurdity and so a lot of the tropes a lot of the characters are absurd you know uh what is it bikini bottom or whatever the name of the city is you know you can totally understand what’s going on it’s all about the bottom of the ocean and the bottom of the waters and how it’s all crazy and nonsensical and upside down and and uh and absurd and so i think that’s what it’s that’s what it’s about it’s about the absurd and of course the absurd is funny and so and so that’s why it’s so uh that’s why it’s so popular with kids that’s my at least that’s my interpretation now whether or not they’re in the story some kind of symbolic structure i don’t know because i haven’t really i haven’t really watched it so sorry hi jonathan can you please explain the symbolism of behind the warning moms tell their children about never being able to whistle as adults if they don’t eat their bread crust as kids i’ve never heard that i’ve totally never heard that at all um it’s interesting right because the crust of on bread of course is the is the limit right it’s like a hard shell which protects the rest of the bread that is exposed to elements that’s all that um and whistling is obviously just kind of pure kind of musical sound that you make through by breathing out of your just by breathing just by blowing out of your mouth um so there’s definitely something there there’s definitely some kind of connection in terms of opposites but uh i don’t totally i never heard that so i don’t totally totally get it um so david looters asks anyways my question is what is your family familiarity opinion on the resurgence of intellectual life in conservative circles figures in mind are william craig john piper tim kellers discovery institute in particularly craig is a prominent reintroduction reintroducing the intellectual viability of christianity in the cultural milieu what do you think of his aim in particular and how does christian intellectual generally relate to the symbolism of totalizing orders um so i’m not a big fan of these guys to be honest like i’m sorry to say william lane craig his type of argumentation is just so far from mine it’s just so completely far from mine that i don’t feel in william lane craig i feel like he argues for the existence of god as a kind of you know ultimate cause and a kind of necessary culmination of creation into a point you know a point you know of origin but i don’t see him i don’t see and any of these people i don’t see the idea of the story of christ or the story of scripture or the revelation of christ as being something which fills up the world and and and shows us makes us participate in in the pattern of reality and so because of that i i find them not super interesting um sorry to say so the wakeful azer jonathan are the chaotic waters below that you recently mentioned the same underworld that dante describes is so why does the latter have space and structure uh and so no they’re not the same the the the underworld the upside down hierarchy of underworld um is more like the corruption of identity it’s more like the corruption of the hierarchy and so it’s not just chaos but it’s rather identities which are not in their proper place is the best way to understand it and so let’s say desires that are all consuming and are not in their proper order so because of that they end up creating an upside down hierarchy because of because of their nature as being fragmentary and then taking up all your attention you know kind of like woke upside down hierarchies you know this is the same as the kind of hierarchy the upside down hierarchy of hell where these passions take up attention or take up cosmic space take up cosmic attention and so they they end up laying themselves out in a in a system where you’re moving down towards you know the the worst sin let’s say which which in dante at least is a betrayal so so it’s different so ulysses basilio says why eve came from a rib what does this symbolism mean is it that women cause always a little discomfort i mean i think it i’ve talked about this often it has to do with the fact that the way the best way that i understand it it has to do with the idea that eve came from his side i like that name word better than rib like so it’s like the the very let’s say that eve was you can imagine like a bean cut in half like a part a part it’s like it’s cut and now it becomes male and female that’s that’s really the best way that i understand it and also the idea that that she came from his side means you know saint saint john christ system has this idea that that the reason why eve came from adam’s side was because if she had come out of his head he would have she would have dominated over him she had come out of his feet then he would have dominated over her but that god made her to be an equal and a helper and therefore he took her from adam’s side and so that’s another way to kind of understand that in terms of why she came from his side rather than something else so jason gadowaltz says what is the dark knight of the soul um and so the dark knight of the soul obviously refers to saint john of the cross and a catholic mystic who spoke about the descent into death you could say and there are orthodox versions of this which is that there’s a mystery in which there are moments in your spiritual life where you actually feel empty where you feel disconnected from god where things actually are not connected disconnected from god where things actually break apart and that you don’t understand what’s going on um and that you it’s really is kind of this it’s related to baptism symbolism you could say it’s related to the fact you have to kind of go down before you go up and you have to break down your presuppositions and break down your false understanding in order to not just intellectually like even physically and the way that we what we trust and the things we we that give us joy and the thing so it’s a kind almost like a kind of spiritual depression you could call it and uh and saint john the cross talked about this as a necessary part of the spiritual life where we go down and then then god brings us back up um and you see that in in several of or the even recent orthodox saints who talk about descending into hades and let’s say staying in death staying in hades and that this staying in hades is kind of a breakdown of your pride and of your of your of your presuppositions um so that god can pull you out let’s say at least that’s my understanding so armory says you have some favorite stories from irish or celtic folklore could you briefly share one of the main symbolic themes that arise in the story i’d be honestly i don’t really know a lot of celtic and irish type uh so i don’t really have an example which comes to mind yeah so lynn holland is if the best parts of christianity to put love at the top of the hierarchy then would a society which was feared the top of would be anti-christian totally not talking about the western reaction to a respiratory virus here yes i agree i think that you know there’s a recently my in my uh recent video that i did on saint effron the syrian and uh christ walking on water you really see that relationship where christ goes down to the disciples and he says rejoice be not afraid for it is i and i think that the relationship that relationship you draw between fear and joy or fear and love fear and love is definitely the difference between a kind of tyrannical system and uh and a true yeah true communion so so leo says reggaeton is a dance beat that appears to have spread around the world faster than covid i don’t i don’t i don’t know what that is unlike other musical styles it only has it has only one specific rhythm currently in spain for example it’s practically the only type of music in here now is any context do you have any thoughts on the phenomenon of reggaeton no i don’t i don’t have a comment on reggaeton i don’t know what that is but if you want to understand it you can understand it rather in terms of fashion in terms of when you’re not attached to when you’re not attached to a higher principle when you’re not attached to something which is binding you together and kind of bringing it all together what happens is that you have you have little tyrants of attention that’s what fashion is and so instead of having something which kind of mediates the extremes and binds us together what you have is these little things that pop up and become the attention and then go away and then they pop up they become the attention they go away and that’s distraction it’s a kind of distraction and so these fads that show up you know whatever fidget spinners or whatever stupid fad appears and vanishes after six months is really an image of of the problem it’s an image of this breakdown in meaning that we’re dealing with you know the idea of going viral like the idea of going viral on youtube for some stupid stupid meaningless nonsense has to do with this it’s like like you have all this bubbling chaos and then all of a sudden something for reasons that are completely almost arbitrary just kind of pop up and and and and and get our attention for 15 minutes and then they vanish and you never hear about them again and this yeah so that’s what i think about that so john vales-wenza says jonathan your answer to this question will resolve a dispute between me and my wife nancy that’s not good that’s not that’s not a good thing i don’t want to i don’t want to get involved in the dispute with your wife all right a friend of mine recommended exercising along with the youtube channel called yoga with cassandra as a way to improve my flexibility i find the stretch is very effective and they don’t take too much time my wife says that yoga is a part of the buddhist liturgy and that is bringing paganism into our home so my question is am i bringing paganism into my home i have promised my wife i’ll abide by your judgment man what is this i’m counting on you don’t let me down keep up the good work well i have said that i would not do yoga myself uh and the reason why i would not do yoga is because i do think that yoga at the outset in in india is usually a kind of spiritual practice it’s embodied but it’s a it’s a movement towards embodying certain spiritual principles or transforming yourself in the light of certain spiritual principles and so i feel like because of that a lot of the pop yoga that we see is it’s like this liminal space that that that we were talking about before it’s like these haunted spaces where you have these residue of this yoga that people just don’t understand and they don’t know what they’re dealing with and see it as just stretching and so they do these stretches and the thing is that i understand that probably they’re good stretches because there’s no contradiction between you know a spiritual practice making you healthier and and then also being a kind of you know vehicle for something else and so i think that’s a problem like i don’t think that if you i don’t think you’re bringing paganism into your your house but i think it’s it’s kind of like it’s kind of like this weird liminal space that we talked about it’s kind of like you’ve got all this stuff that is half meaningful and you don’t it’s not connected to your culture and you don’t totally understand you don’t know what you’re doing the person who’s teaching it on the youtube channel doesn’t know what they’re doing and so they’re getting involved in all these weird patterns that they don’t understand and that they don’t master and so i think that it i would say that beyond the specifics of people you know getting healthier doing yoga i think in general this kind of weird yoga uh obsession is part of the it’s part of the the breakdown like it just it’s participating in the breakdown so i don’t have an answer for you like i like i said i’m not i’m not saying you shouldn’t do stretching or whatever and some of these stretches are good i’m just saying my general perception of what i think yoga is doing to our world let’s say um so patrick morris sends me a video a youtube video sorry patrick i can’t watch it he says video of australian orthodox priest um government mandated vaccinations are we there i have to watch it later i’m not gonna i’m not gonna do that now so sorry about that um so marcus anderson so question about the symbolism of finding treasure at the margin if you use the causing mountain as an image why would treasure be found where lawlessness and unmorality increases at the edge is something related to the position of showbred north in the temple thanks i don’t know if it’s related to that but for sure what it’s related to is that the world is full of god’s glory it always is and so the margin in the potential is hiding sparks it’s hiding potentials that can rise up and become very important and so the idea of finding a finding a treasure on the edge has to do with that has to do with out there in the darkness there are things which are valuable but that you don’t necessarily recognize yet and so you can have the surprise of discovering discovering something valuable hiding there that’s the symbolism of the fisherman that christ talks about and so you can imagine throwing your net out into the nations and then surprisingly finding these these sparks of god that are hiding there in the in the darkness and so and so that’s what it has to do but you can understand it in terms of a in terms of a of a practice let’s say you you you know you you have a certain way of doing things and it kind of works you know and then there are all these possible ways of doing things which most of them would just be a waste of your time right and so you have all these possible ways of doing things and possible other tools you could use or other things you could use but there’s so many that it’s like it’s just it’s it’s you could lose yourself in there but sometimes you have an intuition and then you find something in the darkness something in potential that you haven’t tapped in yet which ends up being a shining light something which will then be integrated and will bring about certain solutions that you had never thought about that you had never that you never could have imagined and so that is also part of that that kind of symbolism so so Kenan Wang asks you mentioned sloth has to do with attention and that business can actually be slothful yes what’s the symbol is symbolic nature of lust is there a way that the concept is broader than normally expected and so yeah for sure in the sense that lust or arrows you know if we if we kind of broaden it the idea of erotic desire is definitely something which is more than just negative like there’s some fathers that actually I was I’m reading Timothy Petitza’s book right now the the the ethics of beauty and he clearly explains how arrows or lust or desire is actually supposed to be the driving force or the motor towards in by which we are actually seduced by god that we fall in love with god and we fall in love with the things of god and so and so and so lust or arrows is not something which is bad in itself uh it’s just that you know if it’s directed in the wrong direction then it can become a kind of tyranny so erry fisher says hey maximos as i understand it vervecky makes a solid case that the best way to understand the process of relevance realization is not deliberative and teleological but something more like an evolutionary process therefore a phenomenological description that says that this points towards good because the good has something akin to will or intellect is less accurate because it implies teleology than a non-theistic conception of the sacred how would you respond sometimes i sense there’s a real ground for new naturalistic evolutionistic religion in this work in his work would that be the antichrist his sister don’t ask you john vervecky is the antichrist what kind of question is that his sister reminds me of time while yours is more space perhaps we should have faith then that one day it will crown christianity um so i think i i’ve explained it several times before which is that this is a process which happens both ways it is bottom up and is top down and so for example um things point towards the good to the extent that you are a being that recognizes the good and so you can’t find that pointing towards the good in the messiness of the process it’s above the messiness of the process and as conscious beings we perceive the good and we see that things are moving towards the good and that good sometimes is after the fact appears to us after the fact is revealed to us after the fact but it’s nonetheless true it’s nonetheless real and that good nonetheless preceded preceded the process even if we don’t even if we can’t see the the causality so a very simple example like in terms of so and a kind of evolutionary biologist would say that eyes are not for seeing that that’s a that’s that’s not right they’re not they’re not for seeing eyes are a messy bottom up process of selection and and and and mutation and reproduction which brought about the capacity to perceive images and to interpret them or whatever but eyes are not for seeing but that’s just not true eyes are for seeing they just are we know they are we look at eyes and we realize that those eyes are for seeing and they and and whatever process brought them about they brought them about in order for them to be able to see and pay attention to an evolutionary type biologist for 10 minutes and you’ll see that although he will explicitly say that eyes are not for seeing you will find that same person slipping five minutes later and speaking in teleological language because we are teleological beings because we perceive teleology and to just say that that is not real that that is an illusion that that is whatever is to deny your experience it’s just to deny the experience of being the conscious being which is perceiving these processes which is capable of naming them which is capable of mapping them out we are the ones doing that and we see telos in all of these things and that telos is real because without consciousness doing participating or common the culmination of relevance realization something like consciousness nothing nothing really exists so so i hope that answers that it’d be good for me to talk to john about it more and maybe kind of try to work out a better explanation for it but that’s at least how i see it all right so norm gondi says the mystery of christ pierced right side is inexhaustible referencing not only the baptism and the eucharist eve and the church but also to show that jesus is the new temple that ezekiel envisions as the river flows out of the right side to the east of it also matthew writes that those on jesus’s right are the ones to be saved in my church though in the crucifix above the altar christ is pierced on his left side wow interesting hmm interesting i guess i’ve never never seen that but it’s one of those things that you have to not get too caught up in especially left and right symbolism left and right symbolism so we can recognize right hand symbolism let’s say even when it’s on the left and i’ve tried i’ve explained this several times one of the reasons why it tends to flip back and forth is that when we say left and right it depends from what perspective we’re talking about and so because of that this symbolism can tend to flip from one to the other but even if it flips it doesn’t it still is manifesting similar things and also it also possible that your crucifix is just a it’s just an idiosyncratic crucifix because idiosyncrasies happen all the time people get tradition wrong people make things up people modify tradition and then there’s a process by which those like your idiosyncratic crucifix will probably be the only one or there will be a few of those and and the one with christ being pierced on his right will win right will will will end up surviving and the other one will just vanish so kevin patterson says peterson talks about knowing your your own capacity for danger or don’t be harmless so that people will respect you what’s the symbolic meaning of this growing a spine while aiming to live peacefully it feels like a descent into division um um i mean i don’t think it’s the it’s the only way there i think there are other ways but i understand it i understand because there’s a there’s a difficulty in that people can mistake uh cowardness for humility and uh that’s definitely not what christ is talking about you know and so the idea of being meek and of being you know of being nice can can be done not through love or through a detachment from your passions but can be done a detachment from your passions but can be done through cowardice so i think that in that case this type of discipline is better for sure uh you know than just thinking you’re thinking you’re virtuous but actually just being a coward so door says is there a feminine symbolism to archery and thinking here of the goddess diana and the japanese priestesses their sacred weapons was a bow and an arrow um i didn’t think about that never thought about that at all um eldorado what is the symbolism of a shooting star um that’s why i never thought about that huh okay what what does it mean when you have these these these celestial things that kind of uh are moving in the heaven i wonder if that’s also not part of the symbolism of the falling angels if shooting stars don’t participate in that type of symbolism and you guys are asking really tough questions hmm it’s also i’m running out of steam is what’s going on all right amy hi jonathan have you read gravity and grace by simon wheel it really impacted me especially specifically our idea that we must create a void within ourselves and in that emptiness is where god can exist emptiness is where god can exist we must lose ourselves if the void is unexpected hatred arises and in that same void is hell what’s your take on this that contradicting attributes arise from each other so when one does good there’s also rises in evil which one must put into themselves instead of the world i mean i never read this so i don’t really totally understand i think the idea of creating a void is definitely something true like this that a kind of self-emptying is the way in which god fills you that’s why aesthetic practices and humility are part of the christian image um and so but i’m not sure about the whole unexpected hatred thing i’m not sure because if it’s unexpected hatred then it’s not a void is it or it’s a fake void or something so so i’m not sure all right chanlotte turner says recently i’ve been more frequently encountering this idea of antenatalism which i cannot wrap my mind around so i’m not sure what it is but i’m not sure says recently i’ve been more frequently encountering this idea of antenatalism which i cannot wrap my mind around really last week i went down the rabbit hole of reading some of the stuff including a particularly disturbing passage by the supposedly feminist simone de bovois and it seems as if these individuals are uncomfortable with the idea of having bodies or even existing at all is this simply nihilism taken to its logical conclusion how does one argue against such a perverse ideology for sure that’s what it is uh and also it’s a misunderstanding of morality and it’s a misunderstanding of the purpose of reality it’s a it’s a misunderstanding of the way in which suffering can be transformed rather than the idea that suffering should be eliminated from the world so antenatalists usually usually think that suffering itself is immoral and therefore we should eliminate human eliminate life so that not eliminate but at least don’t not procreate so that there’s less suffering in the world um and uh yeah i think it’s a very very dark and disturbing and um wrong way of thinking because at least it’s not christian that’s for sure because christ shows us rather how how christ feels suffering with meaning you know how christ transforms death into glory and that’s the ultimate that’s the ultimate uh solution to that so and people like simon de Beauvoir and you know they let’s just say their lives weren’t great and uh these antenatalists i imagine their life must be pretty gray that’s all i can say so jim mcmahon says jonathan what are your thoughts on cremation is okay for a practicing christian what is its symbolism thank you and the answer is at least in orthodox circles you’re not supposed to be cremated you know that your body is supposed to return to the earth so so no i don’t think it’s okay for christians but it doesn’t mean that if you get cremated you go to hell or something like that but i think that it’s a it’s a perception about the body and a way in which we treat the body of the dead and the way that we understand the body as decomposing in the ground i think is a very important part of the story and the the reality of decomposition um and let’s say the story part of that trumps i think the cremation as a very practical way of dying and a cheap way to have a funeral and a way in which you can take up less space in which you’re more environmentally sound or whatever i think these are all false reasons i think these are all secondary reasons to the vision of from dust you came you know to dust will return the idea of a decomposition and the surprise of resurrection so yeah so pudimai says what do you think of the therapeutic use of hypnosis it’s being increasingly used to help with weight loss addiction phobias etc is it something christians should avoid and i wouldn’t get hypnotized that’s never happening i would never give my will over to someone else and so i’m not a big fan of hypnotism sorry man uh i don’t know like i don’t i think one of the problems with hypnotism is that i don’t think people even understand what it is and so because they don’t seem to even understand what it is because yeah i think it’s scary and also i think i don’t know it’s just something about it it’s so unchristian about putting yourself in a situation where you are sit are you where you are open to suggestions where you are you know in a suggestible whatever uh state of mind it doesn’t sound right to me how jonathan how do we say dispassionate in extreme situation especially while facing fear i experienced the abyss before discovering orthodoxy and the memory of that sensory experience can cause me to feel like a soldier trembling in battle as sam maximus would describe it any advice thanks i would say pray man i don’t know i don’t know what else there is to pray the jesus prayer pray the jesus prayer and uh as the saints say you know to um hide yourself in christ right to to to use christ as a cover all right so condo mitchell adds it is quite clear that the pattern of coercion surrounding the shot is almost a perfect match with the coercive method described in revelation regards to the mark however there is also a place for an authority to withhold privileges and direct behavior in a just order as well is there anything explicitly demonic about the shot itself aside sorry i’m not using the words because i don’t want to get banned aside from an inappropriate place in the hierarchy more important than attending church desiring to determine what levels i comply in a profession that i’m sworn to follow orders um yes there is another aspect of it which is disturbing which is obviously the difficulty of the difficulty of injecting a foreign substance into your body now there’s nothing wrong with that in itself it can be a garment of skin it can be a a medicine uh but the idea that you would inject a foreign substance into your body in order to be able to participate in society itself your own society your own identity your own church your own businesses you know not not the idea of going to a foreign country it’s already very different right because a lot of people are using that that excuse saying they’re already vaccine passports right when i went to africa i had to get vaccinated for the yellow fever and for for all these things but this is not the same this is an interior identification which is which is branded by the receiving of a of a foreign substance into you and so i’m not saying i don’t think it’s demonic but i think that it is pointing in a direction which has to do with the idea of the strange as a marker of identity and the idea of the strange of documenting the stranger using the strange as a method of calculation to to um to account for everything as i’ve said you know and so it has strangely something to do with the the the explosion of gender identities right the idea that that these strange markers become um it’s almost like a weird inversion it’s like something strange something foreign is is that which shows that you belong to the society and so it’s like a weird upside down thing um anyways so more coming in uh in my video if i ever have the the wisdom to do it um so meadow hamad ali meadow hamad ali hi jonathan what are your thoughts on idealism basically argued that consciousness is fundamental and the nature of it is mental not your mind alone or mine but mind at large merci and so why is it that i don’t like idealism or why do i don’t like the mind only solution and the reason why i don’t like it is i i dislike any theory that posits that a major aspect of reality is an illusion it just annoyed it annoys me from a phenomenological point of view it just annoys me and so we are the minds we we we we are the minds in which our experience is happening now we can posit higher minds when christians do um and we can posit the the kind of existence this fractal existence within these higher minds that culminate into the one or into into god or into infinite mind let’s say okay but i think that positing the that are negating the existence of the of the lower beings and negating the existence of body or negating the existence of the material world and saying it’s an illusion and saying that your own experience that your own experience of being a independent being is an illusion all of that stuff just it actually ends up just being meaningless to me it just it it’s real to the extent that it’s real it’s real to the extent that it has reality you know and maybe it points to something more maybe points to something higher but it’s but it’s real so i hope that makes sense when i explain it that i don’t know how else to do it um all right so ramal says there was another i i guess i had forgotten this part here uh could you please elaborate more in the symbolism of dogs i’ve seen an old lecture that you talked briefly about dogs marking ends crypto and cerberus and saw that kind of applies also in the context of senocephaly and the canaanite woman yes but i’m still struggling to understand how all that is associated with dogs so why is it dogs because dogs are extensions of humans dogs are tamed animals they are animals that are the extension of the will of humans that’s why but they’re also an immediate danger because of that because they’re so close to us there may be the animal that is the closest to us in all of creation is the dog because it follows your orders you can train it you know it has a even can kind of be humanized in the way in which you interact with your dog um but because of that it also so it marks the limit between humans and animals because it’s like a it’s like the place where animals and other animals right so human dog and then other animals and so that’s why it also marks the limit but it’s also dangerous because that energy can turn against other humans can turn against you all of that can happen because they’re so close to you then they can maul you or they can bite you or they can yeah so kelly madden asks in his book matthew says humanity’s impetus in the universe can adequately be summed up as informing matter with meaning and expressing meaning with matter page 50 is that how we should understand in part the lord’s foundational command fill the earth and subdue it it’s exactly how you should understand that it’s exactly how you should understand that and so it’s like imagine humans moving out and filling up the earth and therefore giving meaning and name to all the potentiality which is there and so that’s what the subduing is so you fill and then you subdue in the sense that you make it participate in meaning um so yes so adam schlart hi jonathan my recent seizures have had be thinking about the symbolism of seizures my most recent one came before the healing of the epileptic sun i know symbolism isn’t good or bad so don’t hold back thank you so yeah i’m sorry i saw that adam that you were that you were having seizures again so i was i was uh i was quite sad to see that but um i mean seizures are uh seizures are breakdown between heaven and earth you know they’re they’re a moment where your body uh goes into frenetic uh uncontrollable movements that you don’t control um and so so that’s what seizures are they’re they’re um they’re a manifestation of the of a a break in communion between that which is above and that which is below yeah so that’s what it is all right guys it’s 10 13 um and so let’s see we’ve got a lot of super chats let’s see let me just kind of move slowly through these i feel i should be super tired but i actually have some energy i took a nap before the the bavalon v interview because uh so anna schlart for five dollars says uh last month’s question didn’t come through what is the symbolism of seizures uh is saint christopher a saint of epileptics what that is what i’ve seen online so there’s adam again sorry adam you just answered your question i i haven’t seen this idea that saint christopher is the saint of epileptics but i also haven’t looked into it it wouldn’t totally surprise me because because of what he represents in terms of an excess of body you could say um and so you can understand you know the idea of a seizure as that the body taking over let’s say so um so it’s possible it would be interesting if that were the case i still have that little icon of saint christopher adam carved this little icon of saint christopher out of soap one time a long time ago in one of my classes and i still have it so further wrote what’s your diet like during quarantine jonathan for five dollars vs d and so i couldn’t taste anything so i didn’t really care i wasn’t really hungry too because it’s just weird when you don’t taste anything and so i just ate two meals a day and they were very simple you know mostly protein and uh and vegetables so it was just boring i don’t remember really what i was eating because i didn’t really care it was just all cardboard to me um so saint george for ten dollars you said did you see the kanya events in the final when he sets himself on fire the baptism symbol and ends with a wedding i didn’t watch the events uh because i don’t have apple music but i i did see some highlights of it some highlights of it and uh i don’t know man you know kanya is 50 50 you know kanya is 50 50 so so i don’t know you know i can understand the setting on fire and i did see those images of the wedding which was odd because it’s with his divorced wife which is just kind of weird uh you know maybe still loves her or whatever i don’t know i don’t know so i don’t i to be honest i didn’t think much of a lot of these these events um yeah i don’t totally get what’s going on with him right now i don’t it’s like i’m watching and i’m not sure what’s happening um and it has to do with the the feeling that i that his album is a little uneven and i don’t know exactly what’s what’s happening um so parker for 499 usd hi jonathan what is the symbolism of forging a weapon like a sword out of a meteorite seems to be common in fantasy stories thanks i mean it’s a heavenly sword you know it’s a sword that comes from heaven it’s not it’s not that complicated it’s like a sword is already a kind of image of of light or or of this thing that comes down you know this judging you know all of that and so the idea of making a sword out of a heavenly stone um it’s not so strange you know um so lion says may i have your top three books that bring you the fondest memories not including the bible please i’m a bibliophile and love to collect um i would say like if it’s if we’re talking about like adult adult life uh some of them some of the stories are like the novels that have really kind of stayed with me um i would say of course uh of course uh the brothers crimes off by dostoevsky um also the glass bead game uh by herman hesse i don’t know that story just really stayed with me just this this kind of image of a this beautiful game um um and then in terms of uh another book which really uh stays with me quite a bit just because of what it is that i ended up being involved with is a book that i just bought back because i’d lost it in the flood i have it right here um it’s called that it’s called the myths of the dog man uh by david gordon white and reading this book is the first place in which i encountered the legend of saint christopher um and uh he’s a really fascinating guide because he really has an intuition about symbolism and he gets some of it wrong because because he he’s also has a kind of desire to virtue signal and tends to see symbolism of dog head and man and of monsters only in the negative light that is it’s only an image of marginalization of of dehumanizing the foreigner all of that which is true that’s part of the symbolism so it’s a very interesting but even though he says that he still ends up pointing despite himself or through that he ends up pointing to the traditions that say for example that the dog headed men were guardians were guardians of eden or that you know that there is this positive um this positive aspect to uh to the dog headed man symbolism and so he kind of ends up pointing to it i was actually thinking of inviting him on the podcast uh but so we’ll see maybe i’ll do that but he’s he’s kind of like you know he’s he’s this guy he’s like a he’s like a yoga tantra guy you know he’s all into that kind of stuff so so i’m a little i’m a little hesitant to invite him but it could be an interesting conversation uh so maybe those three books are some of the books that that uh have kind of stayed with me quite a bit and obviously crisis of the modern world by rene guinon was a huge had a huge huge impact on me because it it really marked a transition uh you know for my life life of moses obviously these are books you already know about so i tried to find something else that you didn’t know about um so ray fleming for uh five uh british pounds i noticed that hair is a double symbolism of being dead material on the one hand but also symbolized glory this apply to all marginalia i mean not necessarily to all marginalia but it applies to marginalia which is that for example in marginalia let’s say in a in a manuscript you find both ornament and monsters an ornament is is a form of glory right uh and so you’re right and so this is this is the thing that i’m telling you guys about about the connection between death and glory and how one can become the other and that that seems to account for a lot of the symbolism from genesis to christ is how death and glory seems to be something like the same thing but one you know a different a different uh different direction let’s say so louis durand says why was the idol made after the flight of egypt a golden calf well because it animals are at the bottom of the mountain right it has to do with the garments of skin um and and also the bull or the the calf has this support you know like this kind of lower part of reality so i think that’s what it has to do with in terms of symbolism it has to do with this idea of animality at the bottom of the mountain um so v2zui says how do we know where is the true church among all the options is an educated guess the best thing you can do or is there a symbolic way to find it um and so i mean i did i i did my own like i i went on my own path and i and i think that i i do believe that the orthodox tradition because it has preserved the most mystical vision of christianity because it has preserved uh the image of theosis and the image of you know the stage of crisis filling up the world all of these things which are a little bit there in other other uh denomination you could say but for sure i’ve been preserved more fully in the orthodox church and so i can only say it from my experience so purple dinosaur for five dollars would you make of near-death experience phenomena hearing various accounts has helped me shake me out of materialist mindset i was inculcated with i mean i know a lot of people that say that for some reason i’m suspicious of them uh i’m suspicious of them because i think some people are lying i think some people are not telling the truth uh i think some are you know some basic things that people seem to experience um seem seem interesting you know like i said the light at the end of the tunnel like that’s obviously a very simple but very powerful image of of of a of a transition right between two worlds uh and so there are different things like that but but some people they go really far in their descriptions and some of those descriptions are shady in my opinion so i’m a little suspicious of them but i’m happy if that doesn’t help you that’s helped you to kind of break your materialist mindset so carlos varga 499 usd says hey jonathan my question is will the church have a specific role to play in terms of evangelization in the revival after the death of christianity um and so i think it’s important to say like i i kind of say christianity is dying christianity is going to die but i think it’s really important to say that at least at least christ says that the church will not completely die you know because he says you know the doors of hades will not prevail upon upon the church so i think that we have to see it as this kind of descent but not a complete disappearance and not a complete death and so i do believe that the church will play a role in reseeding the world you could say i don’t know how i don’t know exactly what that means but for sure the body of christ will participate in that um so the new guy for 49 do angels of humanity are they capable of love or are they simple simply obeying the commandments of god without emotion um yeah that’s tough that’s those are tough to answer i think it’s um i think i think angels uh care can care for humanity i don’t know about love i think we’re i mean we’re definitely called to be united in love with all the angels and so maybe uh it’s just hard because the angels are just not the same kind of beings we are and so they’re they’re kind of intelligences and so it’s hard to really it’s hard to square some of trying to imagine what it’s like trying to imagine what it’s like to be uh to be just an intelligence uh yeah uh so the new guy says uh for 9.99 usd are there examples of god being amused by something or displaying a sense of humor and where are the boundaries of humor crassest vulgarity and such nor mcdonald funny but wrong or mcdonald uh there are examples of god uh being amused by something or displaying a sense of humor um the the of course the the image of the the idol which is brought into next to the uh the ark of the covenant is brought next to one idol i forget it’s an idol of who bal i think and then in the morning the statue of bal is kind of fallen down on his face and is broken you know and you have this image of god basically uh act you know foiling uh foiling these uh these false gods and so those are like moments of humor um and so uh so yeah so that’s a that’s an example i think there are probably other examples but i just can’t necessarily think of them right now so samuel ramalera for five brl says good night jonathan can you please elaborate more on the symbolism of dogs but i think i did didn’t i didn’t i just do that i think i did that i don’t think i’m gonna do it again so if you’re expecting more samuel sorry uh so red redmond for 99 euros uh hi jonathan are you familiar with the sorry the philosophy of bronze age pervert no i don’t know who that is if you think it is compatible with christianity though he’s a pagan he’s quite popular among young christian men online so no i don’t know who the bronze age pervert is and he has a very strange name so he doesn’t necessarily uh he doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence with a name like that at least not for me um so the new guide 999 usd says can following angels be redeemed does the bible ever indicate that angels think feel or behave in ways like we do consequently being able to fall and possibly desiring redemption impossible uh and so first i would say the official line is that no is that angels cannot be redeemed because they they don’t die they don’t change and so that’s the official position um but it’s difficult it’s such a difficult it’s such a difficult discussion because say it this way like there is a manner in which the angels exist in the mind of god as in their eternal so i don’t totally see how all this jives together but let’s say the official the official stance is is just that no so yeah so natal condon five dollars no question thanks ted and for 10 usd can you speak a bit about how the bible orthodoxy etc is not about morality i grew up in more convert type communities in the states and found a lot of moralism bled into church at times and so um i mean it’s about morality downstream but it’s not firstly about morality it’s really about it’s about worship and it’s about liturgy it’s about transformation of the person into the image of god into god himself you could say that’s what it’s about and so morality or practices or spiritual disciplines end up being about healing and not so much about just doing what’s right or wrong you know there are reasons why certain things are considered wrong is because they make you a slave to sin make you a slave to passions make you a slave uh you know to these these fragmentary desires um and and we have to be able to break free from those by developing true spiritual practices by reattaching ourselves to higher principles ultimately you know finding examples in the saint and and attaching ourselves ultimately to christ himself um and so so that’s what i mean when it’s not about morality it’s not about you know if you do this or you don’t do this god is happy with you or god is mad with you because it goes against the moral order it’s like yeah i mean you can express it that way to a certain extent it’s not completely legitimate but it’s it’s lacking let’s say it’s lacking in the in the image of the reason why god created the world in the first place which is to be united to his creature and to to kind of this overflow of love into creation is called back into god to participate in his life and that has little to do with morality the way we understand it um so jack of all trades comics uh five dollars usd what are the limits to icon carving what should and shouldn’t be carved i mean the the limits of icon carving are the tradition of the church we we basically follow the tradition that the church has given us you know unless it’s an image that has never been carved then we then we tend to be a little more we have some flexibility um and so that’s what kind of that’s what kind of uh designated it’s not a set process people talk about iconographic canons as if they’re written down they’re not written down they are just basically the received tradition of the church and so there’s obviously some discussion there’s some disagreements it’s not a completely clean process but uh it nonetheless is something which works itself out um all right so the new guy again wow for 1999 usd you’ve done a video on batman why not on his primary inspiration the shadow i think you’d find the character fascinating he’s better than batman best source online is the shadow cast on youtube just a thought i mean i i don’t really know the story of the shadow very well i know about him but i i don’t know um i know that i know that uh they made a horrible movie i didn’t even watch it it was it’s like this horrible movie that looked like uh sin city or something that they did wasn’t it yeah uh so daniel lopez for 35 gtqq i don’t know what that is uh is it wrong to attend the catholic and evangelical church at the same time there’s no orthodox church where i live um is it wrong i mean can be confusing it can be confusing to kind of just go to different churches especially if you’re doing it regularly um so so i would say yes for sure you definitely would want to take communion in both places and i don’t think if your priest if the catholic priest knew he definitely wouldn’t wouldn’t agree he shouldn’t agree that you can take communion in both places um and so i would tend to i would definitely tend to kind of to choose also just not to be kind of um and so you know it’s like i this is not ideal but you know i because my you know my my family is protestant and so i i have been called several times to go to protestant churches you know for different reasons for different events or whatever and so it’s like i’ll go um obviously it happens rarely and and i’ll go and i’ll just i’ll just be polite and i’ll be there and i’ll and i’ll you know i’ll smile and be nice to people um you know but i would never take communion there that’s for sure so i would say be cautious not that not to be kind of ripped into pieces so so anderson smith 499 no questions thanks man um so i think i think we’re done with uh with with pretty much everything and so is it is it me or did we basically spend like the entire the entire uh q a without without uh moderators who’s the moderator who’s there in the chat i didn’t even see you guys anyways so um so yeah so uh so thanks everybody thanks for thanks for your time uh you know thanks for your attention thanks for everything sorry that the month of august has been a little weird less videos than i guess i usually i usually put up but um but hopefully i’ll be able to catch up this month and in the next few months and so stay tuned for the things i talked about my discussion with jordan pierce and john rebecky my discussion with jay dyer uh but uh i’m not sure what the bavillon be all that stuff and uh and so yeah and so i’ll be posting on social media for people who want to participate in that event in month the society of young event if you want to participate in that i’m gonna make that discussion a little more technical maybe than i usually do or maybe i’ll be willing to push it a little more in terms of uh you know in terms of of um talking more about structure and stuff so yeah so we’ll do it all right guys so um so it’s good talk to everybody and oh frank growly’s there so keeping an eye on yeah so we did have a moderator there it’s good to see frank uh and then someone says uh we must be so well behaved this time i actually feel like that it’s true i didn’t see because often i kind of see scrolling of a sudden i see like all these messages being like you know removed or being blocked or whatever because of these spam bots and all these this stuff so yeah who knows so um so thanks everybody and uh yeah stay tuned i will see you next month thanks again for everybody who’s supporting me i really appreciate it and um and talk to you very soon bye bye