https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=eTvlME7ic9k
This is Jonathan Pagel, welcome to the symbolic world. Okay, so, Jonathan Pagel. Well, I’m not going to introduce you because anyone that is here is here for you. And you also noticed recently that it’s kind of silly to introduce you as an icon carver. It’s hilarious. I really actually enjoy it, especially when like Jordan Peterson introduces me as a Russian Orthodox icon carver, which is just great. It’s funny. Yeah, and it is more and more visible with each interview that you’re having recently that, okay, icon carvers don’t talk about those things. It’s mostly that I think it’s just strange people don’t understand how to frame me. They don’t understand what category to place me in. And so they struggle. They have to give me a qualifier and then they struggle to do that. So I think it’s just part of parcel of what I’m doing. You know, I’m trying to kind of span a lot of categories in what I’m doing. So I think that’s what happens when you try to do that. But you also studied some theology, right? Yes, I did. Yeah, I studied theology both in university and on my own. I don’t have a degree or anything, but I did study in there’s an Orthodox program here in Montreal. So I studied I studied for a few years in that program. So I have some formal some formal theological education, but most of what I know is just from my own reading and from my own. Sure. But it’s not just you. It’s like, Mathieu is a very curious guy that we recently learned about Dan. How many? Yeah, my third brother. Yeah, three though. They’re three Peugeot brothers. And so, so yeah, so Mathieu is more he is definitely more like a mathematician. He studied computer science in school. But also, yes, he’s more hermit like, you know, that’s more of his personality. And he but he him also, I would say most of his understanding and knowledge come from his own studies and not from the formal, formal world of academics. And so we both became very disillusioned. Mathieu actually, Mathieu actually quit university, I think he had like one or two classes left before he got his degree. He almost did it on purpose because he, he was so annoyed with the academic world that he quit just before having his degree. Just to almost to be able to say that he doesn’t have a degree in anything. So yeah. So maybe it’s a question to your parents actually, not necessarily you because I have four little boys myself. And I wonder how to how to raise them so that each of them like follow their own path, but at the same time is so successful as you three are because Dan also was like a popular guy in Canada. Yeah, my brother, my brother Dan was a professional skateboarder at some point he is one of the top, he was like in the top seven or 10 like top 10 in the world for a few years. He was super, very technical, very proficient and so he’s, he’s actually now a Pentecostal type pastor in Vancouver and he just opened a skate park there. So we’re quite like we’re all the, all three of us we both, we are the three of us are quite different in some ways, but then also in other ways we’re pretty very similar like our father is someone who wasn’t afraid to just blaze his, his own path like didn’t feel that he was going to be successful. And so I think that we all three of us got that, you know, we never felt like we needed to have official titles or official this or official that we just did what we did with all our, all our heart really. So, you know, I think that’s a low in agreeableness, not necessarily to fit in. For sure. Oh, for sure. My tears low in agreeableness my father too. I’m higher in agreeableness. And, and Dan I’m not sure I think he’s probably pretty high in agreeableness too. Before we move to the symbolic stuff. I wanted to ask you about the missionary work that you did. Because I get you say a word or two about it here and there but we never got like a whole idea what what it was like and what did you do there and you were still there right then, right. I was Orthodox, I was Orthodox, but I was, it was one of those things like don’t ever do this people. So, because what happened is I was, I was going through this crisis I would say a general crisis which was not, not just a crisis in terms of art and there was a spiritual crisis, but I was also working a job which you know although I, I appreciated the work and I I was, I always felt like there was something missing or that I was that it was just not, it wasn’t particularly useful to be doing what I was doing. I was working for a project management company and developing, developing pedagogical material and and writing case studies and doing animations and doing all this stuff kind of like to support their trainings. So, so that’s what I was doing. I was doing that, I guess like from 1999 to 2000, 1998 to 2003 maybe so about five years. So, in that moment like I was I was just thinking like this is not what I want to do long term. And so with my wife, we had looked at going to do some volunteer work with a Christian organization, which was called MCC Mennonite Central Committee, but I converted to I converted to Orthodox in 2003, and then everything came together in 2003 to leave and so I basically converted in like on at Pascha and left in the fall, which was just never do that. That’s like the worst thing you can do, because I was basically a new convert and I was just kind of into the world. And there in Congo, where we were, I was able to, it took forever, I was able to finally find a parish, but it’s really hard to access it and it was difficult because of the cultural difference, you know, it’s like all imagine all this cultural difference, you’ve just become Orthodox, then you move to Africa, then you go to an Orthodox Church in Africa. So it was really intense and difficult. But there are some very powerful shining moments of my time in Congo in terms of Orthodoxy that were that were pretty powerful. Anyway, so while we were there, what we’re doing was working with artisans. The MCC Mennonite Central Committee, they started a project called 10,000 Villages, which is, which was a series of stores all over North America that sold, let’s say handmade things from all over from all over the world with with kind of fair trade ideas like ideas of encouraging local economies, encourage local know how and also preserve more traditional ways of making things. So that’s who I was working with in Congo, we basically teamed up with a group, we basically created a network of artisans. And because export was so difficult to do in Congo, what we did is we opened a local store, and then use a local store to kind of train the artisans in terms of terms of quality in terms of design in terms of also how to present yourself to clients and all that because it’s hard, you know, when people are, are poor and are don’t have a lot of education, they don’t they it’s like they need a bridge right to be able to interact with people that are in the community. And so we were more, more highly educated and have more means and so we were kind of acting as that bridge between the market and the artisans. And we did that for four years in Congo, we opened the store. We had about working with like at least 30 different artisans and artisan groups. And when we so what we did is we set it up in a way with a local partner, and we trained that person. And then ultimately the last year like the fourth year we we moved out of the management of the project became like consultants, and the project just ran for that year with the local person. And so that store remained open until COVID like it. So that was like 15 years ago. So it was a pretty, it was a pretty powerful project, especially knowing that in Congo most projects just don’t, they just don’t, they, they, they physical because Congo is a crazy chaotic But sadly, the store is in is in trouble because of COVID, you know, it’s just they don’t have that he didn’t have a lot of safety net. And so I’ve been in contact with our friend there, his name is Debo. And he’s really struggling. So, so hopefully, like there’ll be some opportunities for him soon because it’s it’s it’s tough. We have, at least we have social nets that can help us out of these moments but COVID in Africa, like in Kinshasa was just insane. It’s, it’s, they had lockdowns. Can you imagine lockdowns in Kinshasa? Like my friend called me and he said, he said we have these lockdowns, the police are finding us, we have to wear a mask and all this stupid stuff. And then he said, oh, I, it’s like I’m just, I just have a bit of typhoid. There’s diseases everywhere in Congo, like people get typhoid, they get malaria. But it’s important you don’t get COVID, right? It’s like, okay, as long as you don’t get it, like COVID is nothing compared to these diseases. It’s just really, it was just so absurd. Anyway, so that tells you, it gives you an idea of what we were doing in Africa. Seven years. Four years in Congo and three years in Kenya. Oh, wow. Was there like a spiritual element to it? In any way, evangelization? No, not at all. No, not in terms of the, not in terms of, because I wasn’t a Mennonite, you know, so we didn’t have official evangelization as part of the program. It was really more in terms of craft, but there was always, there’s always like a secondary evangelization. That is, you know, you, you, you work with people, you know, you, you learn from people and you become like a testimony. But to be honest, the idea of sending missionaries to evangelize Africans is the silliest thing in the world. It’s like they should be sending missionaries to evangelize us because they’re way more Christian than we are. And so to me, the idea of going to Africa to evangelize Africans is just a, it’s just not a, just not something that holds up. It’s more to kind of help them, to give them potential to do the projects they want to do, you know, so that’s what we’re doing. It’s actually, it’s actually happening already. In Poland, we have a very famous Ugandan priest that goes around and gives retreats. So, you know, it’s happening. But in terms of like the Orthodox Church is not necessarily known for sending people out into those remote areas, right? Is there a reason? They will, but it’s different. Yeah, it’s a different way of evangelizing. Orthodox, the way the Orthodox will often do it is that, for example, there was an Orthodox mission in Congo, which was pretty successful. It was more in the interior than in Kinshasa. And the way they did it is, I mean, they basically send a monk. A monk goes out there, sets himself up, builds a hermitage, you know, builds a chapel, starts doing his thing. And then it attracts curiosity and ultimately admiration. And then people start to kind of congregate around that monk. That seems to be the way that it was done also in Alaska, in the different places where the Orthodox had a major impact. That seems it’s more that way than through colonization. But that’s like particularly like the Russian Church or the… Yeah, both the Russians and the Greeks. So the Russians are the ones who evangelize Alaska, for example. And they were very well received by the local people there because they didn’t come with also a lot of the colonization and the evangelization was done with like the military on one side and then the evangelization on the other. And so it’s very shady, whereas in Alaska, it was more of just someone, you know, saints who would go there and just live with the people. And so that’s what happened in Congo. There was, I forget his name, which is horrible. In Congo, it was a Greek monk who went to the interior of Congo and set himself up there. And he had a massive effect. I saw some of the churches involved with him. And that’s actually one of my little magical moments of Orthodoxy in Congo is one year I was in the interior when Pascha was coming around. And so I was away from my wife for several weeks, kind of in a small area inside and kind of in the Congolese jungle, I guess. And so it wasn’t totally in the jungle. It’s a city, but it’s really it’s more remote. And so Pascha was coming around. I was I was doing my fast for the hope for Holy Week. And so I was I was like, what do I do? Like, I won’t I won’t be anywhere for Pascha. It’s not going to work out. So I start asking around and I start asking people, do you know about, you know, what do you know about an Orthodox church and asking the Congolese around me? And a lot of people were like, I don’t know what that is. And then there was one guy who said, I think I’ve heard of what you’re talking about is Orthodox Church. And he was really fascinating because the man he was severely handicapped. He was he was his he his legs didn’t work very well. And so kind of had to drag himself on the ground with his hands and his feet. And but despite that, he was like a serious badass. This guy was tough. His nails. I mean, a lot of the people that are handicapped that I met in Congo are super tough. They almost have to be right, because it’s like they have to compensate for their physical lack. So he was super tough. And he’s like, you know what? I’m going to I’m going to set it up for you. I’ll figure it out. And so he basically sets it up. He finds he says there’s a church I know where he finds where the church is. He sets up this taxi to like bring me to the church on on Saturday in the afternoon. So I get on this taxi, the taxi breaks down in the middle of nowhere. And so we get out of the taxi and he’s with me. Right. So he’s like, there’s another road down there. So we like get to the other road. This guy is like crawling on his hands and on his hands and legs at this point, we get to the other street, he flags down a car. And I’m not even sure it was a taxi at this point. And he’s like, can we pay you to bring this guy to this place? And so anyway, so I get taken to this to this church like this whole chaotic thing. And I arrived at this church and it’s like a church from Thessaloniki that’s like dropped in the middle of like Congolese forest. It’s amazing. So there’s this church there and it’s Saturday afternoon. And I’m like walking around and you know, there are no white people there. There’s no there are no Europeans there. It’s just it’s just Congolese people. And so everybody’s like, what is this guy doing here? Like, what is happening? And so I walk into the church and it has frescoes. It’s beautiful. And then people start to kind of stream in from everywhere. They kind of just start to stream in for the for the Paschal service. And I’m thinking, you know, it’s like, I haven’t struggled. I struggled to go to church and I for all of Holy Week, I was in I was there and I’m like, I need to go to confession, you know, before Pascha. So I’m like trying to figure it out. And I see this line forming for the priest. I go, okay, this is their people are going to confession. So I get in line with everybody. I’m like, I need everybody to go to confession. And like I come to this to this African priest. And it’s like I do my confession and the whole time and thinking, like, what is he going to like, how is he going to react? And he has the best reaction in the world. And I confess and he says, you know, we’re not pagans anymore. So we really have to live like Christians. And I’m like, what did I say? Like, what is the thing? Which one did I say that? It’s like, here’s this African priest telling me to stop being a pagan. Anyways, it’s pretty amazing. So I was able to commune that that night and spend the night with the people. And, you know, it was really Greek, Greek chanting and everything. But then when they said Christ is risen, you know, at the moment of the resurrection, then Africa started to like appear. People started to to you late, you know, when you hear women going to be more boisterous. So it was wonderful. So I had so I had a few moments like that of like amazing contact with orthodoxy in Africa. Well, I certainly wouldn’t expect that to happen. Yeah. Well, you know, you can’t you can’t know what to expect, especially in Congo. Everything’s possible. Okay. So thank you for that. But let’s move on to. Yeah, let’s move on to something else. Okay, so the, the moment that I think I got what you what you meant was was the Moana video, right? So we’re you’re brilliantly show that, okay, so we have those images, but they present this deeper reality that tell us something about our current situation that we’re in. Like, like, like the mechanics of the of the of the current world surface in that movie. And then we can see that right. And especially shocking was was the scene with the pile of those flat stones and then the shell on the on the top right. Yeah, that was so clear. It was I mean, if you doubt my interpretation, up to that point, when you see that that pillar with like, with a shell on top, it’s pretty clear. Yeah, it was it was definitely like the definition of this moment, right? Yeah. But then I checked the comment section right in the end of that video. And there was someone talking about how the shell can actually be the you know, the rainbow over the mountain or that it can be the the crown. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. That’s the thing that that’s what makes it all very ambiguous and strange is that in a way, maybe that’s what’s happening ultimately in this moment. But, you know, it doesn’t. Can I say this is that maybe that’s what’s happening, but it’s also there’s a scandalous aspect to it. There’s a scandalous aspect to it. It seems to happen through scandal. But so it’s like we don’t excuse the scandal, even though it might be ultimately revealing some little hint about how all the things come together. Yeah. So, so would that be okay to say that. So the patterns that we have we have the pillar and we have this, this, let’s say the crown. But then the interpretation is something else like, if it’s like a positive finishing up of the hierarchy like the decoration or if it’s like the, I don’t know the harbinger of breakdown. The thing is that in a way, so especially in Moana, it’s what you have with people with people in Disney, and a lot of this is that they have a very, very actually profound and intuitive understanding of these symbolic structures, but they are weaponizing them. And so that’s the problem. And so, often, that’s what some people point out to me they’ll say like there’s this, this aspect which is seems to be true or seems to be pointing something true, and often they’re right. So for example that image is very powerful. But in, in the story, it’s represented as a kind of replacement scheme. Okay, you know, because it ends with, you know, let’s say it ends with with Maui being completely left out of the equation. And then this, you know, the having Moana, let’s say solve the problem of the goddess and all this like it’s a, this, these two women encountering each other ends up being the solution to the problem and so it shortcuts the usual masculine feminine relationship which brings about, that’s like the birth of a new world. So, the image for example, the image of the pillar is, you’re right that it has there’s something of it that can actually reveal the high mystery about reality. But then it ends up being weaponized. So you but you see that all the time that, like I said a lot of the people even even some of the wokeness, the wokeness of the woke they they have a very deep intuition about these patterns, and they’re using them. And that’s why Christians and that’s that’s why Christians and people who don’t want to be completely take over taken over by this thing have to be able to to understand it. It’s the same with the rainbow symbolism you’re right that that that you know the current ruling party that that that is ruling in terms of culture narrative, they’re using the rainbow in a way that is completely symbolically right. Like it’s not it’s a it’s a perfect understanding of the rainbow it’s just weaponized in one direction, and therefore it becomes a problem because. Yeah, because it, it is it’s almost like a devouring it’s using the ornament to devour the image as you can imagine the idea like of the pillar and the, and the crowns like this crown is trying to eat the world it’s trying to devour the normal. So, like from the technical perspective, when I’m when interpreting like a work of art like a movie or animation of sorts. You get the full idea of what this pillar with this shell means in the light of the following scenes not not not in itself like in in isolation right. Yeah, so it’s you always have to interpret the patterns as all together, like, and that’s I think I always tell people when you’re interpreting a movie for example, you have to stay inside the movie as long as possible, because people tend to right away, see something and say oh that’s an image of Prometheus you know and then they, they jump out of the movie to now make these analogies, but it’s like wait before you do that. Why is that image of Prometheus used among all the other images that are there you need to get that first, before you tell me about something else. So I always that’s my always my recommendation is for people to let the story. The story tell you what its relationships are. So like if this happened again with this happens in the movie, it’s like, you know, it’s like, you know, you’re going to have to have a lot of people that are going to be like, oh, yeah, I’m going to tell you about this. So I always my recommendation is for people to let the story. The story tell you what its relationships are. So like if this happened again with this happened for example in the Green Night movie, where people would take certain aspects of the Green Night story. And then they would say, well, this is very, this is good like this is a powerful image of some powerful image but like okay, yeah, but you have to be able to account for all these patterns working together in order to really see what it’s about, and not just isolate one. So it ends up being the same with scripture, right ultimately with scripture, you have to kind of get to the basic pattern. Before you take a verse and you just say, and you just kind of put it out there, you know, a lot of a lot of modern Christians that’s what they do. They just take a verse and put it out and then it looks like it means something, but you always have to have it in balance with all the other stuff going on. Okay, so, so you teaching all of us to think symbolically, the symbolic way of thinking is a kind of apologetics right. I mean, I think you could see it that way apologetics in the sense that it’s it’s at least proving let’s say proving the case that the patterns that are in scripture are useful for you to as a lens to see the world. And so it can open people up to wanting to explore them more, you know. Okay, so do you think there is there could be a danger in that? Like, like you had with with the green light like people interpreting just things taking out taken out of context maybe and maybe you can do the same thing with the scripture right and when you enter. Oh yeah, for sure. That people do it all the time with scripture it’s happens all the time you know the word heresy the word heresy means choice. That’s what it refers to. It’s like a heretic is someone who takes an aspect of it of something, and then takes it to the exclusion of the others. So you can you can you can use an aspect of scripture to create complete, you know, aberrant things like the things that aren’t that are completely wrong. If you isolate them from everything else. And, and symbolic thinking does not protect us fully from that or does it. Well, if you if you do it properly, it’ll help because what you want to do is you always want to be able to perceive the different aspects of each part, you know, and so there’s also like there’s always, especially like an Old Testament stories. I always tell people, you know, each character has several sides to them. And so let’s say, you know, let’s say Jacob represents something in a pattern, but Jacob has a light side and a dark side, you can see, you can see the story from the perspective perspectives and see the effects from different perspectives. So that helps to that helps to kind of balance things out. And so, but there are there are totally have been moments where people have pointed out to me, I think that I’m that I missed some aspect like for example, in the Moana video, there’s people that said, well, maybe you can see it this way. And I’m like, oh, you know what, there’s there’s, even though I do think that that’s what Disney was doing, what I would I my basic education, but sometimes you can miss some aspects if you’re too focused on that. Well, especially in the light of all the other movies they’re making right. Yeah, exactly. If you see it, if you see all these movies getting put out with all the same thing, you know, you can try to isolate one and say this one is in this bad but like it’s it’s really happening in a way that’s almost impossible to, I mean, if you look at what’s going on now it’s just crazy like it’s, it’s accelerating to levels that is just so caricatural and absurd. You know, like DC Comics, I think it’s like almost every one of their characters now is like some LGBT character. It’s like you know Wonder Woman is is is bisexual Robin is bisexual Superman is bisexual everybody is is one kind of, and that’s just the first step because the Yeah, because the bisexual one is the most like the easiest one to swallow because it, it says always so likes, but he’s also you know, and then, then it’s just going to keep going it’s going to get weirder and crazier and more insane. Yeah, recently, I mean like a couple of days ago I showed your propaganda in pop culture video to my local priest, and he was like, his eyes were like, became so big and he said that oh that’s that’s just Peterson on steroids. What did you mean Peterson on steroids. Yeah, because there’s this saying around our part of YouTube that that Peterson is is the entry drug to Peugeot right. Okay. So yeah, when you notice those patterns in several movies across like the across the whole spectrum of movies and it’s like so obvious that that you just cannot simply deny it right. I have a I have a question because I had this I had this problem recently, analyzing waters above in one of the animes. And because you talked a few times about what was above already but I don’t know because when the when the mountain is is like, you know, putting us in the direction to the putting us up like we’re looking up. And then above us is also water. It’s, it’s usually, as you say it’s usually a water blessing. But then in that particular anime and maybe that was just one scene or maybe the Japanese culture is somehow disconnected from from from this way of thinking and it’s, it just doesn’t work there. There were monsters as well like the whales and there are. Yeah, even in Western I mean you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. That’s the short jack and the Beanstalk has the same. Yeah, yes. So you go up, you go up the, the ladder, and then you encounter giants in the heavens. So, why, right. Right. So the question is like we are kind of the hierarchy is built to somehow escape from the flood that is below or the waters below. But then it moves upwards towards like waters as well. Is this, is this the way to move. Well, like in terms of the monsters above, you have to understand them as you have to understand it fract like as a fractal. So in the same way that the same way that when you let that you go into the temple. You will encounter a cherub at the, at the door of the Holy of Holies, or if you’re going toward Eden, before you get to Eden you’ll encounter a monster at the gate of Eden. So the gate of Eden is higher than you, right, it’s it’s already above you. So there are traditions for example that talk about how the dog headed men are both like monsters from the edge of the world, but they’re also guardians of guardians of Eden. So all of this is related. It’s the idea that it’s like, if you’re in a world right so imagine you’re in any world. So the world has a lower part, and the world has a higher part, a part that gives itself to something above. Now, if you move down, you’ll encounter monsters, you’ll encounter Cerberus you’ll encounter, you know the kind of tonic monsters these earth monsters you know whatever it is that you, the freaks the Amazons all of this is that the is that the lower level. Okay. And the demons and all that stuff you see in Western your imagery the demons are underground right and they’re mixtures of all these kind of creatures. But if you go up. Right you encounter angels. Angels are monsters too I don’t know what to tell you they’re men with wings they, they’re hybrids they, but they, but it’s not the same it’s a different it’s a, you have to be careful right not to not to mix them up not to confuse them, because one of them is like a guardian for a higher level. The other one is, let’s say the, the, the day. You could say that it in a way might act as a guardian for even lower level so Cerberus is a good example. Yeah, Cerberus stops people down here from coming up. But he also acts as an image of Hades for that person it’s coming this way. Right. So it’s like if you’re coming this way, you could be eaten by Cerberus Cerberus is preventing these things from coming up. So you can understand you can always understand it that way. So, when you’re going up, then you’ll also encounter a guardian, and then that guardian will stop you from going up. But it will be like the lower aspect of the higher world is the best way to understand it. So you could see it as a support, right. So, for example, so the cherub guards you from it’s not necessarily a monster that eats you can also be just potential so like a monster. The cherub acts as a guardian to the Garden of Eden. But the cherub is also the mount of Yahweh. Yahweh rides the cherub across the heavens. So you see that in the Psalms. So he’s the potential. He’s the throne. Right that he guards the throne of God, and the throne itself like the reason why some angels are called thrones is not arbitrary. Right. There’s the lower aspect of what is above us. So they function in a similar way as the throne that would be below, and would have like you know, imagine the throne with like, you know, like lion feet, like you see in a lot of these thrones like that’s, that’s what a throne is a throne is potential that that that seats your authority. You sit, you establish your authority on your throne. And so it becomes an image of your kingdom, you could say. So the throne is potential and then the crown is potential right there. But it’s different. It’s the crown is glory, the crown is glory. But they’re related, they’re related together, they’re not the same. And you could say that, you could say that metaphysically ultimately in God they’re the same, but not in the world and you have to be careful not to confuse them because that’s you could say that that’s the trick right that’s happening now. One of the trick that’s happening now is to confuse the lower waters with the higher waters and to try to try to change that to kind of switch one for the other. Right. So you have an intuition. Right. That, let’s say the crown is the highest. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so, so then with what the world is trying to do now is to put the monster up there. Yeah, as the crown in, but the lower monster. Yes. So that’s what’s going on like it. It’s that’s why the highest God right now is, is, you know, intersectional monster. Okay, so that’s the flip through we worship, and that’s the flood at the same time, because the idea above and below are mixed right so exactly. Exactly. You could say that it’s an image of the flood because that’s exactly what happens during the flood, the waters from below come up, the waters from above come down, they mix they mix together, and then the world ceases to exist. Okay. Okay, that’s why a lot of this stuff is like is is basically is destroying the world is destroying the categories. Is this war always going on like, do the margins always attack the center, or does the center always try to expand to get the margins or do we have a stability at times or is this always like, is this always is there always a turmoil. I think I think that there’s always attention but I don’t think that it’s necessary to be conflict all the time. So I think that there can be. Let’s say so for example like the image of Yahweh writing the cherub. Right, so that’s an image of a, a balance relationship between the margin and the higher aspect, you know, and you can imagine for example, moments where the stranger is a wonderful relationship of trade with with strangers, or with other empires, and you have a, you have an empire and then you have these other empires, and, and they are able to have enough peace so that the, they provide potential for each other, and they actually kind of increase the possibilities of each. And so that’s, though there are moments like that in, in history, I think, but it’s a, it’s difficult to kind of maintain that, you know, and then things tend to be pulled a little bit on one side too much and then they, then they move to the other and then you get this pendulum and before you know it, you have war. Right. As, as for war. I haven’t done a Dune video, because I was really expecting that you would do it. I don’t have a COVID passport, so I haven’t seen it. So I’ll watch it as soon as it comes out here in streaming, I’ll just get it and watch with my family. Okay, but but movie, the movie is one thing but you know the story right you’ve read the books or… I know the basic story, yeah. I tried reading Dune several times but man, I don’t, I really don’t enjoy it, and I never finished. I read like some of the later books when I was younger but then I tried reading the first book again just two years ago I guess but I just didn’t like I just didn’t, I found the writing to be to be too, like really heavy and very winded long winded I would say. Well Tolkien didn’t like it either so you’re in the same team. I mean the main question I have about Dune is, is whether it is the return of the king story, or the barbarians at the gates, like when Paul gets the Fremen to take over Iraqis again, is this… And I don’t know how to how to interpret that because like with each book, with each next volume, the story develops and it’s never finished so the consequences of that one action are spread across millennia, right? So you want to know if it’s the return of the king or the invasion of the barbarians, right? That’s your question? Yeah. This is gonna, this is not going to be particularly, it’s gonna be an answer that might frustrate people, is that, that really depends on the point of view. Right. Right, that’s what, that’s the thing. So think about, that’s the postmodern thing. King David, like King David is a great example, right? So King David associates himself with a bunch of thieves and thugs, and like lives as an outlaw in caves, you know. And so, when he becomes king, from the point of view of King Saul. Yeah, right. It’s definitely not great, you know, but for sure from the point of view of David, then it’s the arrival of the hidden king, it’s the arrival of the true hidden king. And so it’s not, it’s sometimes it, stories can have multiple, can be, so the pattern is true. Right. The pattern of invasion of the barbarians is true. I’m not being a postmodern and saying, it’s all mush and it’s all, it’s all, it’s all whatever you want it to be. It’s like the pattern of the return of the king, or the hidden king, the secret king manifesting himself is true. The pattern of the invasion of barbarians is true. But sometimes one can be the other pattern from a different perspective. And so, but there’s also like, you could say that you can also have things like patterns of like the, let’s say the king wielding old potential, like something which was forgotten or something which had lost, you know. So, and a good example is, so is Moses leaving Egypt. Is it Egypt falling into chaos and losing control of its hierarchy? Or is it the establishment of a new identity and a, you know, it’s both at the same time. That’s exactly what I struggle with each time I see a movie now. Try to make something else. That’s great. If you can, if you’re able to perceive the patterns from the different perspectives, then you’re, you’re, you can come very, you can come a lot closer to insanity. No, not well if you’re careful, you can mostly understand that, understand that, let’s say meaning is everywhere, right, that the patterns are there and in their complexity and their multiplicity. And if you were able to see that in a movie, then when you go back in scripture, like I said, you’ll have a much deeper understanding of what’s going on there because you’re able to see, like, for example, Matsyri was really good at this. And then I tried to kind of follow in its example, he would always try to say, okay, so let’s read the story from the point of view, the Egyptians in the text, like not, not, not trying to, to, to, to, or for example, think of a proverb where it says, if you do this, this will happen. And the first reading is that this is negative. But then asking yourself, is there a moment where I would want this to happen? Yes. And are there stories in the Bible that manifest that this relationship of causality in a positive way, even though usually we think it’s a negative, you know, so if we want to do that, then you can, then the story of Samson opens up to you and a lot of the stories in the book of judges that people have no idea what they’re about. So the idea what they’re about will kind of open up to you. So, so, so for sure. So, I mean, I would say, yeah, I would be careful not to go crazy, but but think that it’s a it’s a good, it’s a good. It’s a good tool to, to, to, to, to good mental exercise to do that. It’s like the stumbling stone that destroys the hierarchies. It’s not necessarily like the thing that is bad, but not necessarily exactly so a good yeah so the example in the, the, the vision of Daniel. Right in the story of the in the vision of Daniel, then you see how the, the uncut stone which comes from the mountain, crushes the feet of the, of the hierarchy. And then it comes tumbling down the description of the hierarchy is pristine. It’s the best one of the best descriptions of hierarchy that exists in Scripture is the, is the statue of Daniel, and you can apply that hierarchy to the temple. You can actually apply the vision of this statue of Daniel which is an idolatrous evil hierarchy, you can apply it to the way in which, for example, the metals are used in the temple. It’s the same. But, but in that case, then the stone becomes the crush it. That’s, I mean if you can get into that space dude you you’re, you’re in a good you’re in a good, you’re in a good on a good road but it’s like you said it’s hard. And the hardest part of it is communicating it. Because, yeah. Like if you see me in a q amp a hesitating like getting going I’m not sure when I talk about this, because communicating the different aspects and communicating some of this subtlety and complexity is is difficult. Yeah. And I mean I feel the danger of it because I really feel that, like, if I asking myself if I’m going like too far into into into one of those interpretations that I could like, I could motivate a crazy interpretation of something because you know I see the patterns and it works like that, like this for me and then you know, yeah, well, for sure. Sure, you have to be careful and kind of pull back, you know, and then also, you know, you could see it as. Can I say this, you could you need to have a hierarchy and interpretations as well. Right. So, for example, let’s say the story has a structure that the scriptural stories structure and has a main thrust that is important to maintain. And then, let’s say, ornamentally, or more marginally, then those, those variant interpretations are real, and they’re possible. They’re only good if you keep them in the proper the proper order, because if you don’t then you get very dangerous, you get a very dangerous thing. Right. So for example like you could say, It’s impossible to understand the story of Cain and Abel from the perspective of Cain. And the answer is, of course you can. And doing that can actually help you understand, like I talked about subtly, like why Christ saves Rome, why Christ is Roman is to be able to perceive the story from the point of view of Cain, or the point of view of Esau. Right. That’s if you if you’re not careful, then you come up with. People will come up with like Luciferian interpretations of scripture, because they don’t have a normal hierarchy. They will they will flip it upside down and you see that like a lot of the kind of occultist Luciferian interpretations are just them taking the pattern flipping it upside down and saying, And then wanting to kind of embody it. You have like an early Christian sex like you had these, they were called Cainites, for example, and they were, they had completely embodied the idea of the, the, the, let’s say the upside down as their, their story. You see that in, you see that in also in in some of the, the, the weird kind of Kabbalist sex, like in the Frankism and in all these kind of weird late Kabbalistic sex where they, they basically said, you know, like, we’ll just do the opposite of the law in order to show the totality of the patterns like, dude, that’s not good. That’s not good. Like that’s that’ll destroy the world like that will destroy the world. Yeah, maybe the world should be destroyed. Yeah, but what did it, what did Christ say in Christ, Christ has the best Christ always has the best answer to that he says, all will be revealed. You know all the stones will be overturned scandal must happen. But woe to those by whom it happens. Right. So it’s, it’s something like, for example, acceleration ism. So people who want to embody acceleration is ideas, who want to bring about the end of the world. Right. So there are people out there that what they want to do is they want to bring about the end of the world. So what they’re doing is they want to accelerate the process. Okay, so they will embody things that they think are. Right. They’ll learn. They’ll learn, they’ll learn as the their own political enemy. They’ll pretend to be super woke in order to provoke the, the hard right in order to provoke right to create more and more of this chaos, so that world so this, so that this world will end and something Now, like, the thing is what people don’t realize is that that plays out in you as well. Yeah. So it’s fractally true. So if you do that for society, don’t think it won’t affect you. And so you will be one of those that perishes in the flood that you’re trying to bring about. You’re not going to make it through. So that’s why Christ says things like that where he says, you know, like we know scandal must happen. The Antichrist must come. Antichrist must appear. It’s all part of the pattern. Understand that it’s going to happen. But that that that doesn’t mean that you should play a part in bringing it about because it’ll destroy you. Sorry, man. Am I feeding your insanity now like if I don’t know the children of the revolution being eaten etc etc it’s all the same. So the same. Yeah, exactly. And the famous line from from the dark night like that some people just want to watch the world burn and that’s, that’s, that’s what you just laid out. So yeah, it’s and it seems like changing changing completely the direction like with Bitcoin again, you recently spoke to that guy. And it’s the same like it seems that true patterns are are are are the two faces of the same pattern around are going on there like Bitcoin is supposed to topple the central banks right. But are the central banks that the proper hierarchy or are they the corrupt hierarchy and Bitcoin has this is this people that keep using that immaculate conception of Bitcoin like it’s the savior of the monetary system or something. And how to interpret the Bitcoin is it is it, you know, one or the other or is it both and then you never know. No, but the thing. How can I say this. So, for example, like, let’s say the the decentralized idea, right, the idea of the decentralized blockchain and to create a completely decentralized network that is is almost automatic because it doesn’t have a hierarchy. It’s like those things don’t exist in a vacuum like something like that will call to more control and more. It was the same with you saw you saw it happen in the Internet, right. The like the Internet. It was like, oh, this great thing where now all of a sudden everything is available and everybody can just say whatever they want and everybody can be anonymous and do whatever they want. And people thought like it was it was basically a manifestation of like the of a kind of anarchic freedom. And it was for a while. Right. Yeah. But now look at it. Right. Right. Because because extremes call upon each other. Right. And extremes call call to each other. And so the idea that Bitcoin will just be left to exist and that that’s why if you watch my my conversation with actually I think it’s not out yet. I did a conversation with Robert Reed Love that’s going to be on his on his podcast, I think. And and I kept bringing it back to like guns and weapons and saying, you know, in the end, you know, it’s like this will play out the power of of like the mechanical state that has weapons is going to play itself out in terms of think Bitcoin is not just going to remain online. If Bitcoin becomes a threat to the system, it’s going to play itself out in the streets with with real dangerous weapons. It’s not going to continue to just be online. That’s a silly idea to think that that’s how it’s going to play out. And I think it’s naive. Yeah. It’s going to call for more control. If people want to defend Bitcoin, they will eventually have to do it in the streets. Right. I mean, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but I’m just saying that it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not a simple it’s not a simple just it’s not simple to think that it’s just going to take down the central bank. Like I don’t. And like I said, it’s like the idea that Bitcoin is secret power is not necessarily something that you want either. Okay. Like, do you like it’s going to reveal all these. So basically you have you have right now possibly massive billionaires and Bitcoin keeps going up. Maybe you’ll have trillionaires Bitcoin trillionaires who are their only reason why they’re trillionaires is because they own this coin. That’s the only reason they never built anything. They never done anything. They don’t they’ve never managed people. They don’t. They’re just people who bought this coin. And so is that who you want to rule you? Like I’m not saying the people that are ruling us now are doing a great job. Horrible. And there’s a lot of horrible stuff going on. But it’s like, am I going to trade that for a bunch of guys that bought Bitcoin in 2011? Really? No, thank you. Like, seriously, no, thank you. I think I think there is there is some evolution in your ideas about governance. Correct me if I’m wrong, because I remember you telling us three, four years ago, maybe about obedience to to the authority. Right. And you still keep that. But when COVID came, like you had you had expanded this view. Yeah. Super, super obedient. So my if you want to know my position now is that sometimes you have to disobey and you disobey and you accept the consequences. That’s the way that I see the saints do it. It’s like if you look at the way that let’s say someone like St. Maximus the confessor, for example, he just said you’re wrong. He said he told the emperor, you’re wrong, emperor. You’ve got it wrong. And there was like, if you keep saying I’m wrong, I’m going to I’m going to hurt you. And he’s like, you’re wrong. And so he cuts his hand off. And then St. Maximus says you’re wrong. And then the emperor says, if you keep saying I’m wrong, I’m going to hurt you. So he cuts his tongue out. And then St. Maximus gets sent into exile. And it’s like, I’m not saying that that’s easy, but I’m saying that. So St. Maximus never said never tried to get an army, never tried to raise an army to fight the emperor like another like another character in the Middle Ages who who disagreed with with his hierarchy, let’s say. So you can see the difference between a revolutionary and someone who disagrees for the sake of the of the world itself. You know, that’s what I think. But I mean, I don’t know. When things hit the fan, like, who knows what’s going to how it’s going to it’s going to play out because it’s not getting better. That’s for sure. That’s for sure. Yeah. Well, on this positive note, I want to thank you very much for coming to my channel, especially in the in this time when it’s like, it seems that you have an interview every day somewhere and you’re becoming very popular very quickly, especially with God’s dog and and everything that is going around it. Well, thanks for that. I really love your interpretations and I like I remember the first time I saw that was actually met to send me your video yet. I know how he had stumbled upon it. And how did it happen? Yeah. And so we both we both really we really saw that you have a very, very strong symbolic intuition. And so you cannot go crazy. Like, I think it’ll I think it’ll serve us all well. I’ll try. I’ll try. I tried to carve out the niche with that anime and symbolism, but it seems that this this niche can be non-existent. Because like, there aren’t many people interested in both things at the same time. Yeah, but I mean, I would say just I would say to keep doing what you’re doing and to to to do it the best you can. And I mean, it’s also the fact that a lot of videos are in Polish is obviously limiting to their reach, let’s say. So that’s definitely going to to happen. But, you know, I for sure the ones that I saw in English were really, really excellent. So, yeah, keep going. Yeah. So thank you very much. I invite everyone to go and buy and support God’s Dog. And I hope that this develops into like a multi book series. And then who knows what? Thanks, Jakob. I really appreciate it. It’s good to meet you in person. Finally. Thank you, Jonathan. See you. Have a nice day. As you know, the symbolic world is not just a bunch of videos on YouTube. We are also a podcast, which you can find on your usual podcast platform. But we also have a website with a blog and several very interesting articles by very intelligent people that have been thinking about symbolism on all kinds of subjects. We also have a clips channel, a Facebook group. You know, there’s a whole lot of ways that you can get more involved in the exploration and the discussion of symbolism. Don’t forget that my brother, Matz, who wrote a book called The Language of Creation, which is a very powerful synthesis of a lot of the ideas that explore. And so please go ahead and explore this world. You can also participate by, you know, buying things that I’ve designed, t-shirts with different designs on them. And you can also support this podcast and these videos through PayPal or through Patreon. Everybody who supports me has access to an extra video a month. And there are also all kinds of other goodies and tiers that you can get involved with. So everybody, thank you again and thank you for your support.