https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=3_dgSd4pJzA
All right, worked. I don’t know why it wasn’t working. All right. Hello, everybody. So this month has been totally crazy. I think most of you will know anybody who’s there right now. We only got three people here. So maybe I’ll wait until a few other people come if they do. I need to log into Patreon. You know, like the thing with Patreon is that if you change computers, then you can’t log on and you have to like check an email and you have to say that it’s you. But the problem is it always takes them like 15 minutes before they before they log in. So I’m going to go ahead and log in. I’m going to log in. I’m going to log in. I’m going to log in. I’m going to log in. I’m going to log in. I’m going to log in. I’m going to log in. I’m going to log in. Before they send you the link. And so I totally forgot that. And I had to I had to like restart my computer today. I had to reinstall Windows and everything one of those days. And and now I’m waiting for the Patreon email to come so that I can see the questions. All right. So I think that so what I’m going to do is since since I’m waiting for this email to come anyways I wanted to talk about publicly about this whole Patreon situation that everybody has seen that everybody has seen going on. So I’m going to tell the story. I think most people will know the story. I’m going to tell it just so that whoever it is that is going to see this on on Patreon or on the other on on Subscribestar will know exactly all that stuff that happened. OK. I’ve seen the story before because you’ve been following the whole thing. But I’m going to tell it anyways just so that everybody gets gets a sense of what’s going on. So Patreon last year I think I think it was last year they banned a few people they banned. What’s her name? I think they I forget her name Laura Southern. So they banned Laura Southern who is a right leaning journalist who worked for rebel media. And I think they also banned Faith Goldie and maybe a few other people. But it was mostly it was mostly Laura Southern that was banned. And it made some waves. Some people were a bit annoyed by what they did. But it was a bit it was a bit gray area because Laura Southern did post some videos where she’s definitely you know wearing you know helmet and she she she’s involved in the in the demonstrations. So it was a bit shaky. And then so people were frustrated but they didn’t do anything about it. And now this time they banned first of they banned Milo like one day after he signed up. And then they banned Sargon of Akkad. And then I think it was mostly the Sargon thing that just got people very really fuming because Sargon posted a video right after being banned. He posted a video about what happened. It was extremely frustrating for those who don’t know the story. So Patreon sent he woke up one morning and then he went to his computer and he saw they had like 10,000 emails and he was wondering and he saw all these emails were telling him that his Patreon had been suspended. So and he had no email from Patreon. So he goes on to his web to on Patreon and there it is. It just says this this website this page doesn’t exist anymore. So he had to write them and they had to wait several hours and they finally sent him an email to tell him why they banned him. And they told him that they had banned him because he had used racial slur to insult somebody and they told him that it was on YouTube and it was this day this date on this this feed. And so there are several problems with that. The first problem was that was that Jack. Jack Conte had been on a Rubin report and had said that people would not be banned, would not be banned for the way that they acted on other social media platform. They would be banned only on on Patreon, what it is that’s been put up on Patreon. And he then he also said that people would not be banned for the political opinion, but would be banned only for what he called what is it manifest observable behavior, which which ironically very strangely spells M.O.B. mob. So. So that’s what that was the reason why people would be banned. So now. We have this first problem is that this didn’t happen either on Sargon’s channel, nor did it happen on Patreon, but it happened on some other small channel, I think that had like 4000 subscribers. And that’s where he used that racial slur. Second of all, the context in which he used the racial slur was that he was speaking to to extreme right, you know, kind of alt right type people. And what he was doing is he used the he said, you guys are white, you know, n word, whatever. And he did it in a way to to to flip it on them. He said, you know, the way that you’re you’re saying that blacks are the way that you’re you’re saying the way blacks act, that’s the way you’re acting. And so he was trying to flip the whole script on them, use words that they hate to insult them and also to say to kind of flip the the racist racist card back on them. And so, I mean, you could disagree with what he did. You could find that it’s too extreme, that it’s let’s say that it might not be the best strategy to use and that it might be too offensive. Sure, you could agree. But it was still not it was still not done in a way that was. Let’s say it was a way to flip racism against itself. So the context was really important in what he said. So that’s the second part. And so the fact that they banned him, that they banned him from Patreon, which is means that they removed his livelihood. Patreon basically manages people’s livelihood. When you go on Patreon, you are giving you are giving them the mandate to manage your money. You’re giving them the mandate to manage to manage the relationships between the people who like what you’re doing and are giving money as well as and yourself. And so that’s the trust that we have in Patreon. And so and now Patreon is banning him for that that specific reason. So now people were extremely upset. And then since then, also, people have been showing that there are plenty of places on Patreon where that word where the N word is used as a racial slur, that there are podcasts on Patreon that use those types of words. There are other other people on Patreon that have as crazy a thing as raising money to commit suicide, people who raise money to to overthrow the government, you know, all kinds of crazy thing. Antifa is on Patreon. And so the fact that that Sargon was targeted was obviously because there was someone there who didn’t like him, you know, maybe someone who is who is already coming out of GamerGate, who is who is in that crew, that crowd. And so and so then what happened is that it was kind of like the straw, the final straw. And and people just started bailing from Patreon. And so I saw and so what happened is on my Patreon, I was really annoyed. I was very frustrated. I I saw that Sargon went to this new website called Subscribestar. So I said, all right, I’ll go to Subscribestar, set up Subscribestar and then I’ll slowly inform people on Patreon to move platform. And so I go to Subscribestar and then the people who are more active on social media may follow me on Twitter, follow me on on Facebook. I forget how many people moved. Let’s see. So what so not that many people moved like the 30 people moved. OK, so 30 people left Patreon, went on Subscribestar and I like, OK, we’re going to do this progressively, get everybody to go. But then within like two days, Subscribestar stopped giving out PayPal payments. And so that means that for me, for example, I’m in I’m in Canada. And so that means that I need to get an international bank, wire bank, transfer in American funds. And so I need to figure out how to get that into to I mean, they probably could help to do it. They get that into my account. So first of all, that’s really expensive to do that transfer. Second of all, it was very suspicious that just a few days after this happened, all of a sudden PayPal pulls out of Subscribestar. Then the day after Subscribestar stopped taking subscribers and stopped taking payments. And so that’s it. So it’s like it’s frozen. And so so many people jumped from Patreon to Subscribestar and now Subscribestar is frozen. And so we have this this this exile from Patreon. You know, I lost I would say I lost about maybe. 15, 20 percent of the of the donations on Patreon. And then I was able to obviously to catch some of those people. On Subscribestar, but I would I caught less than half, let’s say, of the people moving out of Patreon because, yes, Subscribestar basically stopped. And so the people didn’t some people weren’t able to make it or some people were just frustrated and never transitioned. And so that’s where we are now. It’s very, very frustrating that this situation is happening. And so and so now so what happened? So the next thing that happened is that Jordan Peterson, the founder of the platform, the next thing that happened is that Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin went online and said that they would develop a platform in order to be a competitor to Patreon. And so some people got excited about that. I have to be totally honest with you. I did not get that excited about that. And so I wrote Jordan right away and I said, I said, Jordan, I understand that you want to put up this platform. You know, I you know, I trust you for sure. I trust you. It’s you. I think it’s the financial institutions. And so even if you do set up a competitor, what do you do if PayPal and the others won’t help you make those financial transactions? And so Jordan answered me and said that that he might not be able to get PayPal, but he said for sure, Stripe would would support them. And so I don’t know. Like, I don’t know who he’s in contact with. Obviously, Jordan has some some very high contacts with with. I mean, strangely enough, they the the IDW has contacts with Peter Thiel, who’s the CEO of PayPal. I mean, Eric Weinstein worked for Peter Thiel for quite a long time. And so I don’t know. All of this is very just very weird. And I don’t know what’s going to happen. So so now what I’m doing is is I’m working with the people who set up my website, Anomalous Anomalous Design. They have been just amazing in general in terms of helping me out and kind of working with me, being very, being very flexible and also extremely attentive to what I need. And so they’re working really fast to set up a payment system directly on my website so that I can take payments on the website. It’ll probably be through PayPal as well. But I mean, PayPal is not going to come after me, obviously. You know, obviously, although in the long run, if this keeps going, at some point, I could be affected directly in terms of the content that I’m producing. I have said some things that are obviously not totally in line with the political correct line, but I’m also not provocateur. And so I don’t think that it’s going to happen anytime soon. And so so I’m waiting for them to set that up. They’ll probably be through PayPal and through hopefully through credit card payment, people can keep supporting me directly on the website. So that way things are going to be safe. Then I can put up the tiered content directly onto the website and people who want to go to that will have the Q&A is there. And if I do other type of like the the the early access to videos will be also on directly on my website. So so, yeah, so that’s the situation. You know, today I saw Jordan posted a tweet. He tweeted that he, you know, that this is complicated. It’s going to take a long time. And so he set up on his website an easy way to donate directly on his website. So I think we need to take that as a sign that that it creating the competitor to Patreon in a world where the tech companies are are trying to shut down free speech. I think that it’s not going to be easy in, you know, in several ways. Sargon of a card on his video. Where he talked about this, this platforming that he got, he played a speech by the CEO of Apple and the CEO of Apple had been invited to the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, to give a speech. And the speech that he gives is absolutely insane. You would you think you would think that you were in church and you were listening to a preacher and so the CEO of Apple started talking about how it’s our responsibility to remove this hate speech from online. It’s our responsibility to remove the the harmful conspiracy theories from from the online space. And he said, we can do it. And if we didn’t do it, it would be a sin. He literally uses the word sin to speak about their the tech company’s responsibility to manage the content online. And it all is, you know, it’s all it’s all framed in beautiful language and virtuous language and everything. But in the end, what ends up happening is is a centrist who is a classical liberal provocateur who doesn’t like, you know, he doesn’t like third wave feminism and and social justice warriors gets deplatformed from a patriarch. That’s that’s the final result of what he said. And also certain Christian groups, certain certain more traditional groups are who advocate for traditional values are already being purged from the Internet as we speak. We you know, I I’ve been told about certain groups, for example, certain groups that that encourage traditional family who also want to to talk about. Talk about people who had alternative lifestyles, who then find a more traditional lifestyle and and how they they were able to be transformed to follow those traditional lifestyles. Those channels are being purged, just basically erased from from the online space. And so there’s all kinds of things going on. So so that’s the situation with that. Let me just see. So I have not yet gotten that Patreon, that Patreon. All right, how about this? I’m going to I’m going to read I think there were a few subscribed star questions. All right, so. So Jacob asks. Is this is this is this Jacob Russell? I don’t know, because I don’t know the surprise star people, they don’t use real names, I don’t even know who it is. That’s a good idea. It’s a good idea. You guys, if you guys want. We might you might be able to. Let me answer these two Patreon. Let me ask you the let’s let me answer these two subscribe questions. And and once we’re done, if I didn’t get this this Patreon email yet, you can just ask questions here in the chat as well, because we don’t have that many people in the chat kind of figured we’d have less people in the chat. We’re getting close to we’re getting close to Christmas. So people are busy. All right. So so Jacob asks. All right, so it is Jacob Russell. All right, Jacob asks, can you describe the meaning of a blessing and a curse? I’m thinking specifically about Isaac blessing Jacob, Jacob instead of Isa. But I’m also trying to wrap my mind around something like a blessing from a priest. OK, so. The notion, I mean, the notion of the blessing. OK, it has to do with, first of all, it’s analogically, analogically related to the idea of the logos in the beginning of time that creates the world. So that’s what it’s analogically related to. The the blessing is like a lower version of that. And it has to do with the idea of how human beings participate in the way that the world lays them lays itself out. And they participate in a manner which is. Let’s say the holier you are, you could say, or it could also be the more powerful you are, let’s say, in a negative sense, the more that you are capable of affecting the world through your speech, through the way that you you speak, it’s not just affecting, but it’s like affecting and participating in the world. There’s a there is a scene in The Matrix, which I which I’ve always liked. And it’s the and it’s the scene where the Oracle is is saying things. I don’t forget what it is. And then she tells him, don’t worry about the vase. And he says, what vase he turns around, he hits the vase. The vase breaks and she says that vase. And then. And then she says something like, what’s really going to start messing with your mind is if you ask yourself, you know, if it would have happened, if I didn’t tell you that it that it was going to happen. So that starts to mess with your mind. So the idea is the the. The relation in a blessing, the relationship of causality of someone who’s blessing is difficult to totally understand in the sense that it’s in a way it’s both a causing and a participation in the way that things are, because the person who is capable of blessing is is acting as a principle, as a principality. Remember, I told you about the principality. And so the father, the priest, the king, the authority or the spiritual authority like a prophet, someone who has spiritual authority or it could be temporal authority as well, or it could be familial authority. That person is by being the principle of a group of people, then that that person can have an effect on the way that that group is going to lay itself out. But if it’s properly done, that that effect is also in line with the way things should be. So it’s not like there’s a contradiction between the way that things will unfold and the way and the fact that someone speaks it into being. That’s going to be really hard for people to understand. It’s also the problem of the way that people understand agency and understand freedom, you know, people who have this idea that God could have created the world in any way that he wanted to. It’s like, no, God couldn’t have created the way any other way, any way that he wanted to. God created the world out of his own being. And that world is the world. And so the world is the reflection of God and God’s will is in the world. And then things lay themselves out. So the laying the laying of itself out in the causality of the world, that is the mirror of God and it is the the the way that the world, the. You can find God in the way that the world lays itself out and there’s no it doesn’t mean that you abstract the causality that’s there. So the idea of a blessing of someone, let’s say, speaking a blessing on their on their child or on their on their wife or, you know, or a priest blessing a person. When it’s effective, you know, especially when the priest is a holy person, especially when the prophet is is connected, connected to reality, connected to God, then then those two things, the speaking into reality and the unfolding of reality are like the same thing. They’re they they go together. I don’t know if this is making sense, you guys, because I think that I think that this might be a little bit, a little bit. I may be pushing a little bit further than what I push you until now with this type of thinking. So this might be this might this might be something that is a little difficult to understand. Hopefully that hopefully that’s good enough for now, at least. All right. OK, so Jacob also asked, using the terms, phrases and ideas you express in the rebel wisdom interview as well as the symbolic language you’re known for, how would you articulate what the good news is to recovering atheists? Well, that’s interesting. I mean, I think that if I if I try to speak, let’s say in kind of say languages can be understood by atheists or by post-atheists or recovering atheists, you know, the good news is, I mean, it’s the same good news that Christ said, the good news is, is is the incarnation. It’s Christ in the world. It’s Christ in you. It’s Christ hidden in creation. It’s basically the idea that the world is full of meaning. The world is brim full of of sparks of light. And that if you are aligned properly, if you are looking in the right direction, if you are if you are worshipping the right God, if you know, if you if you are celebrating the right thing, then in that celebration, in that participation, then you can participate in the meaning of the world and you can be you can be lit lit up by those sparks that you encounter in all of all of creation. And so in more traditional Christian language, you know, you would say that we that we, you know, we we enter into the life of Christ and then the mystery that has been hidden from us from the beginning of time, which is Christ in us, Christ in the world. It begins to appear and we begin to participate into it. And so that to me is the that’s the good news. That’s the good news of Christ. That’s what it’s always been. And maybe that’s a way for people to understand it in a language that is a little more akin to what what I’ve been using before. All right, guys. This isn’t happening. So. Either either we either we we get some questions in here or I’m going to I’m going to have to start riffing and improvising something, so if you guys have questions, there’s only five people here and I already answered two of Jacob’s questions. So if you guys have questions. Go ahead right now and then and then I’ll answer those first. Could be the question from Patreon or it could be another question as it stands now because we’re kind of in a strange situation. Literally, literally, lol, only 200 characters. You can put the questions in two posts if you want. That’s totally fine. Also, it could help you not to and not to ask complicated questions, Jacob. Go for it. All right, Adam Shillard. Oh, you guys can access you guys can access my Patreon and I can’t. That is hilarious. That is hilarious. I didn’t even think of that. All right. All right. Let’s do this. OK, so Adam Shillard asked, you said Christianity has in itself the instructions for its own revival. Can you go more into that? Yes. Yes. I think that he had talked about the fact that. That Christianity has in itself the story of its own demise. And so that’s that’s the first important thing, the idea that. The Christianity. That you have to understand the story of Christianity kind of playing out the story of Christ. You have like the you know how symbolism is embedded in microcosms. So you can imagine the story of Christ start being hidden, hidden in the world manifesting itself until the incarnation where then it became it became incarnate in one person, and I think that then the next step is for it to to kind of be incarnate in bigger, like bigger and bigger on a more and more cosmic scale. And so in terms of in terms of Christianity, it means that in the story of Christianity and if you read revelations and if you read even the prophecies of Christ, there is this sense that faith will will leave, that the world will get darker and things are going to become more difficult and there’ll be tribulations and there’ll be all these things. And Christ says, you know, when I return, will I will I find faith in the world? And so when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith in the world? And so it’s like when he comes back, will he find faith in the world? So, so for sure, when we see Christianity dying and we see Christianity kind of going away, then we. We shouldn’t be surprised in the sense that out of Christ, out of the disciples, out of the apostles, came the Judas and came the. The the the turning away from from Christ, but also Saint Peter, also the denial of Christ came out of out of out of Christianity. So you have you have Saint Peter who denies Christ, you have Judas who betrays Christ. And so those two those two things were part of the story. And so the question is. It wasn’t surprising that atheism would come out of Christianity, that of all the religions in the world, that atheism and anti clerical, anti clericalism and just anti religious thinking in itself would emerge out of Christianity. It was just it was part of the was part of the story. Anti Christ is part of the story of Christ. But I think that. I think that that. Anti Christ can be kind of flipped back. I think that you can turn things back. And so it seems to me that. Christianity also has in itself the story of a of a return. And so, you know, this whole image of the return of Christ. Is there from the from Christ talking about it himself to the to the Book of Revelation, we have this notion that Christ will return in glory and judge the living and the dead. And so I think that that’s that’s also part of the story now. In terms of how it’s going to happen, I think that I tried to lay it out, I tried to lay it out a few times in some discussions recently. I don’t know totally how it’s going to to to happen. I do think that. I can start to see glimpses of how it’s happening right now. And I think that that Jordan Peterson and all this this kind of all this stuff that’s been happening has been part of this reawakening of Christianity. And I think it kind of goes something like this, where you know, that discussion that Jordan had with Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro. And I talked about it on the Rebel Wisdom video. I think that you can see it happening there. It’s like. Once you reach a fully, you know. Biological reduction, once you reach a fully biological reduction, what happens is you can no longer. Ignore certain parts of the world. Until now, what people have been doing is saying, you know, OK, we’re going to reduce everything to to to this by the scientific level and this biological level. And we’re going to do this in opposition to religion. We’re going to say religion is stupid, which really smart is science. Science is really smart and scientific reasoning and biology and physics and all this is very, really smart and religion was just a really stupid thing that happened, you know, and that we’re getting away from. It’s like, OK, but once you’ve totally, in theory, gotten away out away from religion and you’ve reduced everything to these material causes, you have to then explain religion. You can’t just toss it because you want everything to fit in the material sphere. It has to or else you’re missing something. And then when you try to take religion and then you try to fully explain it in terms of just material causes, then it flips, it flips back because we’re seeing it happen now because all of a sudden, Jordan Peterson will say something like, well, it’s the spirit of masculinity that that that animates the production of hierarchies and the fact that we choose certain males to be at the head of social hierarchies and then they end up having more power and also can mate with more females. And so this thing happens and it grows and it grows. And then out of that biological thing comes out a. A figure of the ideal male, and then that figure gets projected up into heaven and then that figure up in heaven becomes something like the father, heavenly father, OK, and it’s like, OK, you’ve done that. But then all of that you have to then it flips because it’s like, why is all of that is happening? Because that’s a description of how reality works. That is, that’s how reality lays itself out. And so the pattern that the pattern of masculinity, which brought about this image of God, the father, that pattern of masculinity is real. And it’s an it’s an it’s an underlying structure which which which manifests And then it becomes and then you can see analogically, then that’s one of the underlying structures of all of reality. And so the fact that this image of God, the father emerge is because this image of God, the father. Is the best way to understand how reality works is the best way to to to describe to to human beings just how the whole thing works. So so now you’ve taken it all back. But then what happens is it flips and then all of a sudden things start to come out, you know, the the religious perception all of a sudden starts to manifest itself again. Because you see that you see you see it happening. I don’t know if that makes sense. I hope it makes sense. Let me see what you guys are saying about this. All right, you guys, I got the email, so I just got it now. So you don’t have to be pasting these these here anymore. All right, OK, so. So we’re here, I’ve got it. I let’s do it, they say. All right, so those were OK, so you know, you’re just posting questions. All right, you guys don’t have to post questions anymore. Let me just get back to this to here. Sorry about the confusion, guys. All right, here we go. All right, December Q&A. Question for December Q&A. All right, OK. All right, I think I got them all right. OK, here we go. Sorry. So. Sorry for the chaos, guys. So Jeremy Firth says I grew up Mormon, went through the Mormon temple. This is a really long question. OK, so how do I explain to my friends and family in a succinct way that I believe in religion, but I don’t think heaven is a literal place? Seems very nuanced and that I’m playing word tricks to an onlooker, I’m having a hard time articulating that obviously Santa Claus is real, obviously Santa Claus exists in a way that makes sense and doesn’t make me sound crazy. Any advice? Man. I’m going to I’m going to say that. It’s tough, I think it’s tough that if you’re trying to explain it to Mormons, I think it’s really tough because. Because Mormons do believe in that God, I mean, I don’t know, this is this. I’m not a Mormon, but what I understand of Mormon teaching is that Mormons do actually think that God is on is like on another planet or that something like that, or that when you die, you go to this planet in the cosmos and that. You’re kind of on this planet and then you can also create, you can become a god and then you can create a world. And then those people are going to go on planets. And so so it’s very, very it seems very materialistic, at least in my perception, I don’t know if that’s if that’s totally our good understanding of it. But I think that. The only way I think to to how people understand that heaven. Isn’t a literal place in the sense that it’s a it’s a place like a like your house. I mean, like I said, it’s going to be tough if you’re talking to Mormons. I mean, I always ask people because people will say things, crazy things like people will say, you know, Christ, Christ. OK, so here’s a good way. Here’s a good way. Here’s a good way. Now, everybody uses the word spiritual. OK, and so. Maybe try to get people to explain to you what they mean by by spiritual, because usually people will say something like spiritual is non non material things or something that’s not material. OK. And so maybe try to get them to talk a little bit about what that means, like what it is, what it’s what is spiritual. And so once you start to kind of talk about what something spiritual is, meaning that it’s not physical, then you can try to say something like, well, you know, the word spiritual, it just means wind, just means breath. And so what you’re talking about, these spiritual things, do you do you think that that they’re in your physical breath, you think that like when I when I blow on someone that I am that that that’s what it means by spiritual something. And most people will say, obviously, no. And then you can try to help them understand. Well, it’s because when you blow, when you that’s also speaking, speaking is air. That’s what it is. Speaking is an exchange of spirit because I’m I’m I’m talking to you and I’m not causing any physical change, I’m not beating you. I’m not giving you something. I’m speaking, but I’m affecting the world. I’m affecting you, your mind and affecting our relationship by speech. That’s spiritual. That that is why we talk about spirituality being the way it is. And so heaven is the same for the same in the same way that that you don’t think that spiritual just means my breath or it just means wind blowing in the same way. Heaven is is a word that’s used to to because air is in heaven spirits. Wind is in heaven. Just like wind comes out of your mouth, wind is also in heaven. And so it’s all these images to help you talk about things that are not material. And you can’t talk about things that are not material because they’re not material. You have to use analogies to talk about them. So I think that that’s probably the. Maybe the best way to to to help people understand at least this idea of heaven as not being a literal place and also the idea of the necessity of analogy to speak about spiritual things, and. It doesn’t mean that it’s arbitrary. Most people will say, oh, well, then it’s arbitrary. Then it just be anything. But it’s not. No, it’s a very specific, very structured way of speaking that is perfectly coherent, which tries to talk about things that are that are invisible, things that are related to meaning, to identity, to, you know, to to to. The hidden things in the world, which makes them, you know, come together and makes them exist. And so that’s what that’s what that’s what spirituality is. And that’s also what heaven refers to. So I don’t know if that if that helps, Jeremy, not sure, but hopefully it does. All right. Is it quarter to 10 already? How’s that even possible? Yeah, all right, we’re going to go longer tonight just because just because it’s just because it’s been my own fault that everything has been nutty. OK. All right, so Frank Rowley asks without elaboration, 10 examples of garments of skins. Luckily, gives me two already says clothes, technology, et cetera. All right, without elaboration, I guess, do 10. OK, so so garment skin, so clothes. Technology problem with technology is that it’s very, very wide. But let’s add one, let’s say medicine. OK. You could also say our desires have also become part of our our garments of skin, weapons. What we called apotropaic images, apotropaic images are the idea of using something fearful to scare something else away. So everything from Batman to gargoyles to, you know, the Romans also had like monsters on the outside of their houses, kind of monster type creatures to scare things away. I mean, obviously, this might be cheating, but civilization itself, you know, cities, houses, all the things that we build to protect ourselves from the from the the from the outside world. And so a soldier himself, you know, can also be part of the of the garments of skin in the sense of the soldier standing on on a wall like a shield. You can imagine the shield as being an image of of of garments of skin. And then. Then there are stranger aspects of the garments of skin, and I’ll save those two for the last. Their parts of the garments of skin are also inversion. OK. And also, I would say mockery, put those two there. You said without you said, what? Put those two there. You said without you said without elaboration, so I’m not going to explain them. All right. OK. I told these are questions. OK, so let’s go. OK, so Jeffrey Muter asks, oftentimes I catch myself speaking in a way my friends don’t always understand. I’ve noticed this is when I mention a word, when I mean it symbolic meaning, not it’s literal, they seem to understand it in an abstract way. But it’s almost as if symbolism adds a deeper layer of complexity to our language. If we were to call this symbolic language, what is everyone else speaking? I think you’re right. I think I think that the difference between symbolic language and the language that is used by modernity and also the the the and this is the guys, you’re going to struggle with this as you start to discover symbolic language. I would say that I’ve spent you know, a large part of my life trying to find a way to talk about this so that people wouldn’t mistake what I’m saying. Sorry. Most people do think that. Let’s say symbolically, we talked about this, this problem of the metaphor, the idea that people think that metaphors only only refer to abstract, more abstract things, let’s say, are that we moving from. Moving into from reality or concrete reality, from reality or concrete reality to abstraction. That’s the way to move, let’s say. That’s the way to to go. And so whereas in in symbolism, what happens is rather a kind of diving in. And a a noticing of of the analogy. And so when we use a word in symbolism to refer to something which is invisible, we’re using it analogically. That is, it’s not. It’s not just a code, it’s not just arbitrary, and it’s not it’s not just referring to something which is. Which is more abstract, but it’s it’s it’s almost as if it’s an instantiation of the thing we’re we’re pointing to, it’s an actual instantiation. And that’s how symbolism works. And so, for example, if I talk about, let’s say. A tree as a symbol of order, OK, a symbol of of ordering principle or a symbol of the the manner in which the world is ordered in microcosm, right, in a in a in a pattern of fractals, and so you say. I use the tree, but the tree is an instantiation of that. That is, it’s not it’s not arbitrary, it’s not just a fun metaphor, it’s not just something something witty or some are some interesting image that I use to represent something. No, the tree is an instantiation of that structure. So it is an actual fractal and it and it’s and so to use that as a as an image to help you understand the deeper reality, it’s because it’s an instantiation of it. And so and so that’s just kind of how that’s how that’s how symbolism works, you kind of dive in. And so you you you start to see how the world is connected. The modern language we have today, the analytic language is always to show difference between things. It’s always to distinguish things from each other, catalog them, classify them. No, we love dictionaries and and we love. You know, like classification systems, whereas the symbolic language is rather trying to show how things are coming together and showing us deeper and deeper and deeper patterns as we see how they’re connected, and so it’s it’s it’s difficult. You’re going to struggle as you understand symbolism. But like I said, you have to be able, at least for a while, you have to be able to exist in the two worlds. You can’t you can’t lose connection to the to the kind of materialistic basic world. You have to be careful because if you do that, you’re going to you’re going to look absolutely insane. If you’re going to think you’re crazy and they might be right to think that you’re crazy, so you have to be able to to continue. And like I’ve told you guys several times, I usually don’t talk about this stuff, you know, in everyday life because because I know people don’t understand and I’m and if I say certain things, I’m going to sound crazy. Like with some of you guys, I’m sure that some of you follow me carefully. There are some things that I that you may have heard me say, let’s say the first time you heard some of my videos, which just totally went right over your head, it’s like you didn’t hear it, didn’t even register. Or you were just like, what? What is he saying? Like, why are you saying that? And then going back and and listening to them maybe now, you know, like after a year, after several months of listening to some of my stuff, you’re like, OK, yeah, that’s why he said that. That’s why that’s why he and so it’s like it’s so you have to understand that it’s it’s it’s very it’s really difficult to talk about this stuff. So so yeah, so, Jeff, I’m sorry that you’re suffering from this. All right, so so Gavin Doddy asks in last month’s Q&A, you said, if I can paraphrase that in everyday life, our esoteric language often has to break down to make way for simple language. They’re just talking about that for simple language that accommodates our experience of the mundane and those with less education. But you obviously still believe in transmitting the faith to, as it were, simple people in a profound and complex way. You wouldn’t love the liturgy. So if in general you believe in this sort of accommodation within the church, why not? Why not for the liturgy? OK, so this is the thing. This is the difference between there’s a difference between. Enacting symbolism and explaining symbolism, those two things are very different. So you can watch you can watch a movie, you can watch a Marvel movie or you can read a Batman comic book and you can be completely absorbed by the structure in it because it is the structure of it is coming close to the structure of reality, so you feel completely like enlivened by the structure, you feel completely pulled into this structure and but you don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to to be able to analyze why it’s doing what it’s doing. And so that’s why liturgy and that’s why in a traditional world, most people would never explain symbolism the way I’m doing. The reason why I need to explain symbolism is because we’ve gone so far away from a normal way of engaging with the world. It’s almost like what I’m doing is, you know, might be something of a scandal. The fact that I that I’m explaining this stuff. Normally, we in a normal world, we would just be participating in it. And then you would receive your intuition at the level that you can that you can kind of receive them. So so the so the liturgy is very different because it isn’t an explaining of the symbolism, it’s a participation in them. You know, it’s a it’s one step higher from watching a movie or from listening to music because you’re in the pattern. You’re actually participating. You’re part of the cosmic dance, you could say. And so it’s very different than explaining. You don’t have to explain that to people. You the people that I’m talking to, most of the people I’m talking to are people who are. Are smart, are educated, and because of that smartness and education, they felt like they’ve been left behind by by Christianity and also because there has been a horrible slew of silly materialists who have been trying to to defend Christianity in those terms for a while now. And so it’s very alienating to people. So I’m trying to give those people, the people who have been alienated by Christianity with good reason to to say, no, like, let’s look back at it now and I’ll try to give you a frame at which at your level you can see it. You know, and just those other people, the people who are are stuck in their. In their frame, it’s like, don’t just just don’t listen to them or don’t engage them even because. There’s no point in convincing someone who there are some people who will never understand symbolism ever. They will never the light will not go on. They just won’t click. It’s that that’s totally fine. You know, yeah, I mean, it becomes a problem when they try to destroy traditional Christianity, which we’ve seen the modern age, this kind of hatred of liturgy and the hatred of anything that is that is symbolic, you know, you know, has been quite a shame. You wish that you wish that at least some people in the church would have had the intuition to to understand these things at that time. So, yeah, it’s a sad thing. All right. OK, so David Flores asked what icon painters in your opinion managed to merge modern elements with the traditional in a way that is successful? I recently stumbled across the work of Greta Lesko and Sviatoslav Vladik. I don’t know how much about either of them or just a handful of icons. OK, and was surprised at how they have integrated modern elements into the icons. I was not aware. Work was being done like that. OK, so there are several there are several artists right now, several iconographers who are trying to integrate traditional, traditional work with contemporary art. And so. The way you have to see it to me, the way you have to see it is you kind of have to see it in a. In a way, it’s a danger. It’s a danger because there’s a lot of individualism in that. There’s a lot of like my own style and my own my own work, which I think is problematic in the long run, it becomes problematic if most people are doing it. OK, if there’s an exception of people who are innovating, let’s say, or trying new things and kind of pushing things a little further, trying to integrate things from the contemporary art, then that let’s say that you can imagine that part of being on the periphery, you know, like imagine the church and that parts of the periphery, they’re kind of playing, they’re kind of taking in things from the outside, you know, mushing them around. It’s like a laboratory. And then, you know, people who are. Kind of standing more on the inside towards, let’s say, towards the towards the more traditional work can look at that and go, yeah, no, yeah, no, this stuff, it’s too much. Oh, this is interesting. And then things will start to filter in, which will be, let’s say, maybe less extreme, more more toned down, you know, and we’ll be able to integrate the the vision, the visual language of the church. And so I think that that’s possible. Now, it’s difficult because we live in a world that is so obsessed with innovation and is so obsessed with personal style and kind of personal careerism that I tend to be more suspicious to people who radically try to integrate postmodern ideas or imagery from modern art into their work. But I think that today for today, there are people who do it quite successfully. I think that Father Gregory Krug, who’s quite famous, is someone who did it in a very in a way that created work that that remained extremely, felt very traditional and also felt very liturgical as well. I think that there’s an there’s an iconographer in the United States that I that I really appreciate Father Silouan Justiniano. I think that he is doing exactly that. He’s he’s bringing in some color, ways of looking at color, ways of looking at space, you know, that are very that I think are very successful in his work. And then there are others who I think are just going way too far and are just trying to attract attention to themselves. And I think those I have I have a problem with them. Jesse Blaney asked, what is the difference in the theology of dreams and prophecies in the Orthodox tradition compared to Protestant also have certain icons or stories be prophetically received? The thing with Protestant vision of theology or of dreams and prophecies is that I don’t when someone asks me, like, what is the Protestant vision of dreams? And which which of the thousands of denominations are you talking about? I don’t know. I don’t know. I think that I think that some some Protestant strains like more reformed or more Puritan tend to be quite opposed to, you know, prophecies and dreams and miracles and all that stuff, whereas some more some other groups, you know, like Pentecostal type groups today, they they have no problem with that. In the Orthodox in the Orthodox tradition, I think that there’s no problem with with the idea of dreams that could have of dreams that could have meaning or people uttering prophecies or, you know, you know, operating certain miracles. That’s not at all a problem. You know, I think it always has to be framed within the sanctity of the life of someone. And I think that that might be the difference between some even Pentecostal type Pentecostal type vision of it is that it’s holy people who who do that, I guess, holy people who utter prophecies and will also have miracles or will have important dreams. Let’s say the holier you are, the more those are clear and are worth trusting. And so that so you and so there’s a relationship between the transformation of the person and the capacity to do that. And for sure, the the the mystics, the Orthodox mystics tell people to beware of those, though, to not rely on them because they can be a seductive thing if you start to have spiritual experiences, start to to to see things, start to have kind of prophetic visions or you you start to to be able to to even heal people or do that kind of stuff, then it’s very you can you can think that you’ve made it, that that’s that’s the point, right? That’s the purpose and be and be kind of pulled away from that. And so the mystics actually tell people to just ignore that stuff, to not to not bother with it. It’s like, oh, you can you have mystical visions. You can see prophetic things. Yeah, just ignore that stuff. You can you can you can you can do miracles. And that’s not the point. You know, you keep moving, keep moving. Don’t don’t stop at that. And so that might be maybe the difference between between orthodox, but there are plenty of stories, there are plenty of stories of prophetically received things in the in the Orthodox Church. There is, for example, a. There is a prayer, the Trisagion prayer in the Orthodox faith that says, holy God, holy, mighty, holy and immortal at mercy on us. OK, so that prayer is something we say all the time. We say that for all the time. And the tradition is that it was a young boy in Constantinople. Was it in the fourth century, the fifth century, who during the liturgy was taken up into heaven, you know, had a mystical experience with it during the liturgy and then kind of announced this prayer to the to the church, you know, and he told the the church what he saw in his in his experience. And and right then and there, the church received that prayer and it became part of the of the liturgy. And so, I mean, I don’t know what it was. I don’t know exactly what happened. I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine that situation, you know, happening today, but it is part of our tradition. Those types of events are part of our tradition. And there are there are other there are other moments in the in the Orthodox tradition where people or groups of people, for example, in a church where the whole church has a vision of the Mother of God holding, you know, this holding a veil and protecting Constantinople. Or, for example, there’s a tradition of St. Nicholas of Mosaisk, where the entire town had a vision of St. Nicholas, who was holding a sword and the church. And and it was a it was a sign that the church would be would be protected from invaders. And so, yeah, all those things, all those things are can happen. But the thing is, they’re not that that’s not the point. Like, that’s not that’s not what this is about, you know. And we have to be careful not to be too attached to those types of events. All right. Hope that helps. All right, Jacob asked a question, he said he has to go soon. All right, Jacob gets priority because he’s he’s he’s he runs the Facebook group. All right, I have to go soon. So my wife and I are very interested in iconography now. She’s began painting a few. You mentioned somewhere about iconology. Are there some good books about this or talks? I would say in terms of iconology, there are several resources. I also people to read the meaning of icons I was having here. This book right here, I think, is called this book right here, The Meaning of Icons by Vladimir Lasky and Lenny Luspensky, this is a great book. This is definitely everybody should everybody is interested in. I can’t read that book. I love Vladimir Lasky, as some people know. You can also go on the Orthodox Art Journal, which is free, and you can read the I’ve written several articles on iconology on. On that website, there’s also another website, which is amazing, and it’s called Icon Reader. And it’s just it’s an anonymous person who is basically just goes through all the icons and and just kind of explains what’s in the icon. He just said these are the elements in each icon here. He just explains them where they come from in terms of if they refer to scripture or if they refer to tradition and and how it comes together. So so that website is is that is really a very valuable resource. And I would suggest people see it go through it if you’re interested in that. All right, so. OK, so Vladimir Baciu, Baciu asked, you happen to know why J.B.P. is so rarely seen in conversation with scholars or educated and articulate people of the Christian conviction, with you being with you being the delightful exception, I don’t totally understand that. It does, in fact, strangely seem to be that I am. One of Jordan’s only Christian friend, it seems. Somehow, and he doesn’t seem also to be actively looking to speak to, let’s say, Christians. He has kind of been invited to some events and stuff, but he doesn’t seem to be actively looking for that. And so. Why is he doing it that way? I’d be told to be honest with you, I don’t completely understand. I think it might have to do with the fact that he wants to figure this stuff out for himself. He also. He doesn’t want to be. Doesn’t want to be tainted, doesn’t want to be lumped in a category of people that. He finds doesn’t have credibility in terms of the way that he his experience of of church and how he felt that people were that people didn’t really believe what they said. And so I think that there’s a lot there. There’s some personal stuff in there and that there’s also. Yeah, I desire to kind of figure it out, but I but I do think it’s a little bit of a shame, especially at this point. I think it’s a little bit of a shame. I wish that he would kind of talk to more to more Christians. But, yeah, I don’t know. I have no idea. No. All right. So Jamie Young asked, Hi, Jonathan, in your November Q&A, you said God is mine, God is person, God is infinite consciousness. And you come from the divine mind that caught my attention because it appears to be a statement of a metaphysical idealism, which is something I’m very interested in. Could you expand on this, please? And in particular on the personhood of God, is God a person? What is a person in your conception? OK, so God is not a person. I think that’s important to understand. I think that people who say that God is a person are are theologically. Extremely problematic. God is a God is a trinity of persons. God is not a person. And so. There is a personal aspect to God, but. God is not a person. And so what is a person doing? A person in in a Christian understanding, a person is a hypostasis. That is, it is an instantiation of a of an essence. That’s what a person is now. What it has to do with in terms of saying that. What do we mean like this? Why do we talk about the instantiation of an essence? That is, what Christianity insists on is the reality of the instantiation of of an of an essence that that is. It’s not like Platonism, that is, it’s not like you have, let’s say, a nature. And that somehow that nature is real in itself. So there’s a human nature and that human nature is somehow an ideal form, a Platonic form somewhere. But rather that. The the the essence or the nature is has to be instantiated. It has to be incarnate. It has to be instantiated in in persons. And so that is that is the idea. And the Trinity becomes the ultimate version of that. It’s like a perfect version of both of three persons sharing perfectly the the same essence, having all three the totality of the essence, but then also being completely distinct from each other. And so the notion of Trinity is really this idea of of of of the highest version of the reality of both the oneness and the manyness of the world, that those two are completely united, completely inseparable, completely without confusion. OK, and so the the. So in terms of the notion of a person, that’s what it relates to the idea of the the person is the is the hypostasis. That is, it is the the particular the particular version of something. OK, it is it is an it’s an embodiment of the of the essence. And it has to be it’s not. There’s no other way, really, those two things, the essence and the embodiment, one reveals the other, you could say it that way. And so you could say that that St. Maximus talks about how, you know, in the spiritual life, as we start to see the essences, like as we start to see the divine sparks or the the the logee in creation, then as we see the logee kind of separate themselves from, let’s say, their instantiation. We notice that, no, there’s no contradiction that, in fact, they are they participate in each they it’s not like they’re opposed, but rather the one is the seed of the other, like one is is is what is making the other exist, but that that fact means that there’s no there’s no there’s no contradiction, let’s say, between all that. So that in terms of in terms of that, that’s. That is. But so when I talk about the idea that God is mine, God is infinite consciousness, I think is what I’m trying to do is to create to try to show the analogy between ourselves, because the reason why I talk about I talked about that in the Q&A was because people have this notion of knowing people tell you something like, oh, I believe in God, but I believe that God is a force, like I believe that God is like a law of nature. You know, he’s an impersonal God. It’s like. Somehow they think that that’s more sophisticated, like somehow they think that that’s more that that’s more acceptable. I don’t understand why that would be more acceptable. You know, it’s like, why, why isn’t mine an aspect? Like, why isn’t it that that we can see analogically God through mine? Since our mind is how we view the world, how we how we categorize things, how we engage with, with, with, you know, how we interpret things. All of that is is mind. And so like, why wouldn’t I don’t understand why you wouldn’t see that the that there’s that there’s there could be an infinite analogy to to to to mine. And so I think that that’s that that’s the that’s the that was the point. And so we have we have to come from the. The divine mind, just like just like meaning in the world. Comes, you know, is is an interaction between the human mind and the let’s say this potentiality outside of us, just like that. So, too, there is a there is a metaphysical version of that. There’s a there’s a there’s a a version as to how that becomes an analogy for the totality of things, and so that’s that’s the divine. That’s the divine mind. And that’s where named, you know, like. On Earth, names come from our naming things, pointing things and pulling them out of the pulling them out of the potentiality, saying this is, you know, this is I would use the same example because it’s right there. This is a microphone. This is a it’s the screen. This is this is a person. This is a color. So that’s that’s that thing. You know, there’s a there’s a higher level at which that also happens. And that’s what makes the that’s what makes the world exist. So funny, because last last month I felt like I was being really ranty and now I feel like I’m being extremely esoteric in all my answers. All right. So sorry if that sorry if that’s what’s happening. Maybe it’s because it’s Christmas very soon and we’re going to plunge into that, into the mystery to the to the dark, the darkness of the solstice. All right. So Drew McMahon asks, I’ve been fascinated with fractals for a number of years and always felt that besides just being very cool, that a profound meeting, trees, mountains, stock market, classical music, everything, organic natural seems to flow, follow a self repeating pattern and now listening to your interpretation of stories and breakdown of symbolism is revealing the exact same thing, which gives me even more reason to wonder. Besides their ubiquity, can you speak to the phenomena of fractals and if why they’re important? So I think we need like if we take fractals at at a at a at a larger sense, like not just necessarily the mathematical formulas, which have discovered fractals in the mathematical world, let’s say. The notion of fractals is important because. It can it shows us. It you know what I talked about symbolism, I talked about how things are instantiations of themselves, like at a deeper and deeper level. And so that’s when you see the. So a very simple way to a very simple way to understand it, and that doesn’t even have to go into too much complexity is to understand that all things. That’s that you have one thing. So let’s say you have what am I going to pick up here? So you have one piece of paper. OK, so it’s like that’s one. That’s a one thing. Now, that one thing is made out of parts, right? It has parts. It has it has a shape, it has a color. It also has a it’s made out of paper and it’s made out of different things. Obviously, this one is only made out of a few things, but like it could be something more complicated. And so but then all those those parts, let’s say. Can also then be made out of often be made out of. Other parts. You know, and so it’s like things kind of kind of keep keep becoming smaller and smaller, and so it’s like there are parts with the same shape and shape. There are parts within parts within parts within parts within parts. Then you can see you. But you can still see the one. So I could and then I could put this this piece of paper in a in a stack of paper. Then I could say it’s a pad. Right. And then I could, you know, and you could you could you could take this pad, bind it, put it in in on a shelf and you could say that’s a library, you know, and then you could you could keep going. And so it’s like each level follows the same rule. So so as you the doesn’t matter how high you go, you go to being itself and then you start coming down and then at all the different levels of being, you’re going to have something that’s one and then something that’s multiple. And it’s just going to keep going. And you’ll have these little hierarchies that set themselves up like right, right down to the smallest possible denominator. So it’s like that’s just how that’s just how reality works. So that’s a that’s an example of a of a of a fractal structure. But it’s the same with. It’s the same with other other patterns, so other patterns will appear the best patterns. They appear at. At macro levels and then they appear at micro levels and everywhere in between. And so they just kind of just kind of keep being boxed into each other. I hope that helps. All right. All right, let’s see. I think actually. OK, so here’s another question. Laura Gilles asked me, I was interested in the idea of vocation. Does everyone have a particular vocation ordained by God? Wow, I’ve always assumed that by uncovering your gifts as given by God and using them to further his kingdom, that we all rightly have an option to discover and follow our calling. This does not mean that everyone does that, just that it is offered for all to pursue. Also, that it might appear risky to pursue a calling, but perhaps it is riskier not to pursue a calling very talents. You have obviously pursued a vocation, so I really value your thoughts on this. Were you ever scared? Did you ever did? Did your experience in Africa change your ability to take risks? OK, so there’s a lot of questions in there. Does everybody have a particular vocation ordained by God? I would say, look, I would say I think that the best way to say it is. This way, I would say that everybody has the vocation to manifest Christ, to manifest the logos, to participate in the logos and to manifest the logos in the world. Now, what does that mean? So it’s going to mean different things for different people. That’s for sure. And it is possible to manifest Christ in all aspects of life. Now, I think that the difficulty with that type of question is it’s dangerous if it’s seen as the way that it’s presented in contemporary culture, which is the. Which is kind of like the dreamer version of that, you know, like I have a calling, you know, like anything. And it’s like this intense thing. And I think that the intensity of that, let’s say, I think, first of all, it can be delusional sometimes. It’d be very difficult to to separate your own passions from that feeling of a calling. So I would be very careful in terms of that. But I do think that that, yes, it is it is possible that everybody has a path that they need to to walk in the world and that we have to be careful not to think that all those paths have to be the same for everyone. I think that I think that the let’s say a holy warrior like St. George or St. Demetrius and a pacifist hermit in in the. You know, in the desert. Those two things do not have to be seen as contradiction, and then they also don’t have to be seen as. As being problematic in their difference. So so so I think that I may be off the off the subject here. But I would say that, you know. In turn, in my own personal story. I think that every step in in my life, I’ve. Done what seemed to be the right thing at that particular moment, you know, and and in the right moments, the moments that have been where I’ve been the clearest in this is that in those moments I have trusted God, that I’ve trusted that if I do the thing that’s in front of me, the right thing that’s right there that I have to do, then that will lead me on the right path. And so. None of what has happened to me in the past several years has has been planned by me. And. When I I’ll give an example, so when I was when I started carving in 2003, OK, I. I had a very strong desire that I that I wanted to make liturgical art like a very, very strong desire and and. That maybe I could make icon carving and that I could do that for a living like I I had this this secret prayer, you could say. And but at that time, everything in my life was set up. I had just sold my house. I was moving to Africa for seven years. Wasn’t seven years at the beginning. It was supposed to be for for three years. And. And so here I was. It’s like I. I had this secret desire inside me, which I barely dared mention to anybody. Actually, I think I never did. And then, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. And I what I just did, to be honest, is I saw that that’s not what was in front of me. That just wasn’t what was in front of me was I had set my whole life, you know, everything was had been kind of brought together for me to go to Africa and work with artists there. And so I just said it. I just set that aside in my mind. And I I went to Africa and we did three years and we added one year, four years in Congo and then added another three years in Kenya. So seven years in Africa and. At the very last year while I was there in Africa is when all of a sudden something appeared on my horizon, some opportunity to. To permit me to go back into the icon carving. And so when I saw that appearing on the road. I just I just I just noticed it and I said, OK, I just took that and then I just did the little bit that it was possible for me to do at the time. I just that little bit and then just kind of moving forward and and then once I got back from Africa, I wasn’t trying to be an icon carver. I was trying to get a job. I was trying to get regular normal job, but I still had that secret little prayer inside me saying, you know, this is something that I love, like this is something that I think would integrate my life, would integrate my faith with with my job and it would make me be able to work close to my family and all of that was there. And then it just it just happened. Like it just every little step, like there was just this little opportunity and it happened and it was the same with symbolism. I’ve been studying symbolism. And studying symbolism since the year 2000, because it’s been 18 years that I’ve been studying symbolism with with my brother, Matt, probably even even a bit before that. But. It was always. I was just there was never an opportunity to to talk about it just because it just wasn’t there. So all I did was just keep going and study and and keep that in my heart. And I never would have known that one day I would meet, you know, I would meet this Jordan Pearson fellow and then he would kind of put me out there on the scene and and then before I knew it, I was making YouTube videos talking about symbolism, like who would have known it. And all I can do is I can I thank God, like I thank God that he’s taken me on that path and that he’s kind of filled my the longings of my heart, you could say to to be able to do that. But the way that I dealt with it the whole time is was really just these little step by step paths, you know, these little these just taking one step at a time and and and just taking what was given to you. And so that that’s just been that’s been the way that I’ve been dealing with. And in terms of being scared. Oh, yeah. My goodness. I’m scared all the time. And I always know that I’m I always feel like I’m the Israelites in the desert. You know, that’s how I feel all the time. It’s like it’s like ever since I got back from Africa, there’s been constant miracles in my life, just crazy miracles all the time. I think I’ve told you guys this before. We you know, we were dirt poor when we got back. We had been volunteers for seven years and we had three. We had two kids. My wife was pregnant, was going to give birth like three months. Was it two and a half months after we three months after we got back from from Africa? It was like we traveled right on the like the date, the limit that you’re even allowed to fly if you’re pregnant. And so we got back in June and she gave birth at the end of August. And it was like crazy coming back to this house after being gone for seven years and having two kids and all that was just was just insane. And. Where was I going with this? And so and so then we had people sending us we had I we had people sending us money, like people sending us money, I received checks in the mail for people I never met that I didn’t even know twice, three times someone gave us a car and one one of the times the person who gave us a car with someone my wife had met just a week before. And she just said, oh, I want to give you my car. One time my my. My I had done my tack, I was trying to do the icon carving, so I didn’t know how to do like small business taxes. So I had an accountant do my taxes and it was the first time that I was doing that. So I didn’t I couldn’t even understand what he was doing. He made a massive mistake, like a massive mistake. And the next year the government came after me for like thousands of dollars in taxes. And so and so I was like, I didn’t I I didn’t have the money. I just didn’t have the money. And so and I knew that I was I was living month to month. I didn’t know how it was going to resolve itself. And a a woman that we know, a very prayerful woman that we know in Congo. One day she just called my wife and she said, you know, I’ve been praying, I’ve been praying and I just I just feel a conviction that I need to give you some money and I have an amount I need to give you this amount of money. And it was just exactly the amount of money that that I owed. It was like, that’s that’s how much I had to give back to the government. And so and so all those things have happened constantly. Like we would come back to our house sometimes and there’d just be like bags of clothing just on our porch. And so God is, you know, but then despite that, despite that all the time, I’m scared this Patreon thing, you know, this Patreon thing happened. And I all of a sudden I saw people like jumping off Patreon, you know, and like within three days, it’s like I’m losing hundreds of dollars. Like all of a sudden, like it’s just it’s just kind of vanishing. And I was like, oh, my goodness. I’m sorry. I’m like, what’s going on? You know, what do I do? I’m just panicking. And so luckily, my wife is very my wife is amazing. So I just I go to my wife and I’m like, you know, this is happening. And this is this and then and she just looked at me, you know, like with this calm smile and like, Jonathan, don’t don’t worry, man, don’t worry. This is we think we’ve never been here before. Like we’ve been here so many times. Why are you worried? Like what? And I was like, yeah, it’s like, why am I worried? This is silly. It’s just money. I mean, we’re totally fine and we will be totally fine because this is what I need to do. And and, you know, that’s it. So let’s just keep doing it. So so so, yeah, so definitely I’m scared. And did my experience in Africa change my ability to take risk? That is for sure. That’s for sure. That’s for sure. One day, maybe, guys, I’ll tell you some stories from Africa. Like there are some crazy stories, guys, with bullets and yeah, and all kinds of stuff. So so so maybe one day I’ll tell you some of the crazy stories from Africa. All right. So Laura Gilles asked another question. She said, did you like the Scrutton J.B.P. dialogue? I did, but was wondering if you had a favorite part. I did. I did really enjoy it. I really did. I really did like it. I had to listen to it again. I was listening to all I was carving. I don’t think I could identify a favorite part of mine. I was contacted by the guy who did the who is moderating the discussion. He wrote me an email a few weeks ago and said he’d like to for us to talk, to have a conversation. So so it’s interesting. We’ll see what happens with that. Hopefully that will maybe that will that will bring something interesting on the horizon. All right, guys, let’s see if we’ve got some questions in the chat because we’re done with all the patron questions. OK, by the way, David Flores, thanks for making the effort to bringing all those questions in in the. Into the chat. All right, let’s see. Gregory Sandstrom asked how much of what Peterson says really counts as scientific, he is vociferous in promoting evolution as a killer theory, there’s also a claim of scientific theology on the other side. I don’t know what you mean by a claim of scientific theology on the other side, but I think that Jordan. I think that Jordan. Has two aspects to him, I think that he has an extremely analytical aspect, extremely kind of scientific, analytical aspect, but I think that he’s also able to tap into the more. Symbolic kind of mythical structures of things, so that’s one of the reasons that’s one of the reasons why he’s so interesting is that he’s able to navigate both at the same time, like, for example, myself, I’m way more on the symbolic side and way less on the scientific side, and so although I do understand science in its basic forms, it’s not that complicated. You know, I’m not versed. I don’t I don’t read scientific papers. I don’t I don’t you know, I’ve read very little actual source material on scientific things to be honest, it doesn’t interest me. Like I’m just I just I just find it boring to read scientific papers. So I think that Jordan, just like his own theory about having one foot in like one foot in order and one foot in chaos or one foot in order and one foot in potential, I think that just like just like that, he’s his own way of living and his own way of speaking is always kind of like one foot in a kind of analytical scientific world and then one foot in a more that’s because, say, symbolic or kind of mythological world. All right. All right, let’s see. All right, I think we’re done with I think we’re done with the with the question. So so, yeah, so I just wanted to do things like before we finish, I just want to say that this has been a great, just crazy, amazing year. And I am so grateful for I’m so grateful for everything. I’m grateful for I’m just grateful for everything that’s happened. I’m so grateful to to to everybody that’s been supporting me and also just supporting me in terms of financially, but just all the amazing comments that people are writing in the comment sections on YouTube. I mean, you know, like the comment sections on on the symbolic world videos I find are they’re just so amazing. Like so many great ideas in there. And I always feel bad that I’m not able to get more engaged in the the comment section on YouTube. Also, you know, I peek into the the the the symbolic world Facebook group. And I just love to see kind of people engaging there and talking to each other and discovering symbolism and talking about Matthew’s book and then trying to to push these things further. I have to say, it just it just really I’m really grateful to to everybody who’s involved in this, and I’m also grateful, definitely grateful to God for. Just for, yeah, just for for for, you know, who would have thought like, come on, guys, like, seriously, like, who would have thought three years ago that some of these things could be possible, like some of these discussions that are going around, whether it’s our discussion, whether it’s, you know, these these discussion between Jordan Peterson and all these other people, just just the level of discussion, the level of discussion that’s happening is amazing. And also Paul VanderKlay, what he’s doing, you know, his last one of his last videos that he did kind of interpreting the. The discussion I had with rebel wisdom and then other discussions about Jordan Peterson, it was like, oh, man, I was like, Paul, you’ve got it, you’re like you’re just hitting that nail just nonstop with what you’re saying, and so it’s just exciting to see people kind of get it. And you can just see that spark, you know, when people understand what it is we’re talking about, like, what is this? What are these patterns? Like, what is it that’s going on? And so, so, yes, I’m just I’m just extremely grateful. And and I would just say, you know, for all of you that are still that that want to ditch Patreon and you haven’t yet, I would just say to just let just pause, pause for a minute and let’s see. Like, I’m trying to get this website up as fast as possible. And so hopefully, I mean, the the Matthew on on the anomalous said that he’s going to try to get it up like before the end of the month. But obviously now it’s Christmas and there’s a lot of stuff going on. So although I know he really wants to do it, I don’t count on him getting there. But, but hopefully by January we’ll have a way for people to support me directly without without having to go through Patreon. And once that starts to happen, then I’m actually going to tell people to to to encourage people to move off the Patreon platform for the video stuff and and and come to the website. And so so just just pay attention to that. Also, very soon, coming soon, like in the next in the next few weeks, like I was hoping that this would be done already. But this Patreon thing is really thrown a big loop at me is I’m going to this room that you see here very soon, it’s that’s not what you’re going to see. I’m going to I’m going to make this room into a an actual studio. And so I’m going to I’m actually going to fix up the walls. I’m going to put some decorations up. I’m going to put up all some foam paneling, get a condenser mic. I’m also getting already got a new computer. And also there’s going to be I might actually even make a carving for the the background. So all of that is coming. So I’m pretty excited to get that to happen. I just wish it was already kind of already done. But just everything just kind of got crazy. So so, yeah. And also the same thing, this Grandland’s video, it’s it’s might land like on the 24th of December, which is which is which is kind of sad, but. We I took so it just took me longer to write the script. So it’s not my fault. Totally. It’s not Thomas’s fault. So I I’m going to to as soon as I’m going to put it up. So maybe it’ll be on Christmas Eve. Hopefully it’ll be on the 23rd. But if not, it’ll be on Christmas Eve. So just to compensate for that, I might make another video. I might tomorrow morning I might make a video that won’t be super edited, but it might be an interpretation of I want to do an interpretation of little Jack Horner and one more Christmas video about about that Mother Goose rhyme. So once again, guys, just just thanks for everything. And. And yeah, so I will I will see you guys very soon. So so have a Merry Christmas and crisis born and we’ll talk soon, guys. Bye bye.