https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=n0FzYdAyUlc
All right, we are live. So hello everybody. It’s nice to see right away in the chat, Dirk Paul Robbins, Neil deGrade is there and James Flames. For those who don’t know James Flames, James is an artist, he’s an illustrator. He has illustrated several very, very popular bands and he’s a really, really great illustrator and he kind of fell into this symbolic world and interested in Christianity, moving towards orthodoxy, just amazing art. You can check out his posters online. And so we’ve got, how many people we’ve got? We’ve got 10 people. It’s kind of nice to have less people and to be able to engage with the chat. I really enjoyed that last time. So hopefully this time we’ll be able to do that. So a few announcements to make. I’m happy to see that Neil is in the chat. There is a new episode of Dirk Paul Robbins, Queen of the Night. They put out the first episode, I guess, a few months ago or about a month ago and now the second episode is out. It’s truly astounding what Neil has been able to do. Obviously the music, but also the visuals, just the rich ornamentation and this kind of rich feeling of this kind of Art Nouveau, futuristic world, very powerful stuff. And the story of course is starting to appear. We’re starting to kind of see what everything is going to be about. The characters are really interesting. So check it out. Go on their YouTube channel. It is there for free. He’s doing it section by section. And once it’s all out, then he’ll probably be putting it out some way or another as a full movie. So check it out. Other announcements. I don’t know. I don’t have any announcements. Everybody knows what’s going on in Canada right now. I don’t need to announce it. Yeah. So yeah, we can. We do what we can. And for those that have fallen to God’s dog stuff, it has been pretty crazy in terms of realizing hitting the logistics wall of this thing. It took forever to get the money. We just got the money about, I think like a week and a half ago because Indiegogo kept telling us there was a wrong type of account and wrong type of account. And it just like three times we had to go through it. And so it’s putting massive delays on everything. So apologies for everybody. What we decided to do is that for those who bought the book, we will send everybody the PDF if you want to be able to read it in advance, because I really don’t see us being able to ship this within three months because they’re also telling us that there are massive delays in shipping, any kind of shipping that is prints coming from overseas. So yeah, a lot of stuff. So anyways, we’ll do what we can, but we’re definitely on it as much as we can be on it. So here we go, everybody. I will start with the website. Oh, so yeah, for those who are watching this afterwards, I’ve decided to make the Q&A patron only just because I want to be able to engage with the chat. I didn’t want to have the super chats anymore because it was kind of chaotic and too many questions and we reduced the questions. I have someone who goes through the questions and kind of tries to reduce them to a reasonable amount. And then I answer them live with people on Patreon. And then after that, people can watch it if they want on YouTube. So it’s last month, we did it that way and it was great. It was much more human, let’s say. So we’ll keep doing it this way for now. All right, so I will start with people supporting me on PayPal on the website. Here we go. So Into the Woods asks, Hi, Jonathan, several times you’ve mentioned the great pitfall of the scientific worldview that it fails to include its model of the universe in the universe. I always feel like I’m on the verge of understanding what you mean by this, but I’m desperate for a slightly fuller explanation. Thanks for any you can offer and for all you do. So maybe a good way to understand this is to maybe think of just any kind of scientific theory. So a scientist will look at phenomena or will have an insight and then we’ll try to model the phenomena into a pattern that can be quantified, that can be described, and then that can be predicted and ultimately maybe even reproduced. So that’s pretty much what science is. So they look at phenomena that you can quantify and they do that. Now, the problem with that model is that the model of how the phenomena interact with each other isn’t part of the scientific theory. So the problem is something like science is not scientific because in order for you to do scientific work, you have to have the model and then you apply it. But the model itself isn’t part of the thing you’re applying it to. It can’t be. It has to somehow be above it. It has to be a pattern. That’s why in his book, he talks about how even in science, there is this meeting of heaven and earth where there’s invisible patterns, invisible principles, and then there is potential and there’s manifestation or there’s quantifiable things, facts out there, multiplicity of facts, and the role of consciousness, the role of the person, the role of intelligence is to join them together. And so that is what, so in a way, that’s why even in Maturin’s book, he talks about how even science is ultimately symbolic because that’s what we’re trying to do. Now, the reason why we insist on this so much is that one of the things that science has done, not science per se, but certain brand of scientists, what it has done is that it has tended to denigrate the pattern part of the process and to see it, to see in our human interactions, to see the pattern part or the story part or all of these things as superstitious, as an overlay, as something that is on top of phenomena. What’s really important is the stuff we’re studying here. But this stuff, first of all, directly in the theory, it is due to an invisible pattern, but then even on a bigger scale, the fact that you’re even interested in the thing you’re studying in the first place is due to an even bigger pattern, which is the fact of humanity itself, the fact of the possibility of human consciousness, the possibility of attention, of interest, all of these things which make us focus on certain things rather than others precedes the scientific endeavor. So that’s why I say things like science is embedded in religion or science is embedded in, if the name religion gets you annoyed, ultimately I think it’s true, but you could say something like science is embedded in the social, science is embedded in the capacity for intelligence or science is embedded in human existence. You could say it that way. It would be easier for people to understand it that way. We study certain things for certain reasons, and those reasons are not scientific. Hopefully that makes sense. I hope that’s explainable. All right, so David Flores asks, what is the symbolism of repairing teeth? What is the symbolism of repairing teeth? So, okay, this is the way that I see it. So teeth have something to do with the capacity to properly engage with the world or something like to be able to integrate the world. So teeth are the primary tool by which we eat, you know, they’re the primary tool by which we take the world outside and we integrate it inside. So when you lose your teeth or when your teeth are broken, you’re not properly capable of engaging with the outside potential. So the teeth are there to break that stuff down and then make it into you basically. So that’s probably why too, like I think a lot of people have these dreams, like when you’re really stressed out and you’re losing control and you feel like things are out of your control, that you can dream that you’re losing your teeth. That’s one of the things people dream of quite a bit, I think. You know, you can dream like there’s something wrong with your teeth, like all of a sudden you put your hand in and like your tooth falls out, something like that. It has to do with a kind of lack of a breakdown of your capacity to control things. You know, you’re feeling helpless, feeling like things are out of control. So maybe that makes sense. At least that’s my, this is really my own intuition. I’ve never read anything on it. I’m sure the kind of union people would definitely have a theory on teeth. All right, so Cormac Jones asks, Hi Jonathan, I think I heard you say once that before you became interested in the symbolic mythologies of popular cinema, when you were younger, you favored more idiosyncratic art cinema. What kind of movies or filmmakers did you favor then? And what is your opinion of them now? Were there any that were particularly formative? And so it’s interesting because there was like a weird coincidence, I guess, when I was a teenager, which is that when I was kind of coming into the moment of that moment in your late teens and early twenties when you are, how can I say this, you’re discovering intelligence, you’re discovering culture, all of these things. That’s when the Berlin Wall fell. And so after the Berlin Wall fell, all these movie directors, all of a sudden, that weren’t so much, that weren’t as much on our radar, you could say, kind of flooded into our cultural space. And so that was really the time when I was discovering it. So I really remember, for example, what’s his name, Kieślowski, who did the Red, White, and Blue trilogy. He also did a whole series on the Ten Commandments. I remember really getting a lot from those. Also Nikita, what’s his name? What’s his name? Nikita Mikalkov. He is the Russian director. I remember seeing his stuff. But I also like Woody Allen. And obviously, it was also, when I was, I think, like 20 is when Pulp Fiction came out. And so that plunged us into a whole world of like Quentin Tarantino and then Japanese films and that kind of stuff. So those are the people, I guess, that influenced me the most. I would say there’s something about Kieślowski which I keep. There was something a little arbitrary in his use of symbolism, but there was desire to kind of create connections that say his series on the Ten Commandments, to create narratives that are embedded within a commandment that aren’t necessarily moralistic but are just an exploration of the consequence of breaking it or the desire to keep it. It was this loose association with the commandment. And there were some interesting things there, I think. And so the same with Mikalkov. His movie, what was it called? Forget, because I saw it in French. Something about the sun. I think it was the Burning Sun or something. Forget what the name of the movie was. It was an amazing movie about the rise of communism and how even the revolutionaries then got swept up and got taken up by the next generation who were resentful about their success. Yeah, so he made some pretty amazing movies. So yeah, so those were the ones, I would say. And I would say they did have some influence on me. I don’t know how enduring the relationship was, but it was there. All right, Brother James asks, do you know any artists or iconographers who create icons directly in the digital realm? For instance, using Wacom, Cintiq, and Photoshop, another drawing software, and then printing them and mounting them, then getting them blessed. Is that even a thing? Or do digitally printed icons always have to originate from a photo scan or a hand painted icon in real life? And side question, do you personally feel about digitally printed icons? Either one sourced from photo scans or real life originals or ones created directly in the digital realm? And so maybe I can answer you this way. I have never purchased a mechanically printed icon. And so I have some. That is, I have some that were either given to me or in books and stuff, but I have never purchased an icon that was printed off an online, where it was printed from a JPEG or something like that. So I think, and it’s funny, people are going to find it funny. Some people might not understand because like here’s Jonathan doing NFTs and doing T-shirts and doing all this stuff, but he doesn’t want to have printed icons. And it has to do with hierarchy, folks. There is really is, there’s a power in hierarchy, which is that I believe that there is a hierarchy of materiality. If you want to look at it, I wrote an article a long time ago. You can find it on the Orthodox Heart Journal. I think it was called the Symbolism. I forget what it was called. It was something about, it was about the hierarchy of materials and how in the description of the temple or the tabernacle, there’s actually a hierarchy of materials. That is, that certain metals like gold is mostly in the Holy of Holies and then with some silver, and then if you move out, then there’s bronze, and then there’s a stone altar. So there’s this hierarchy of materiality, which is there in the construction of the temple, but also manifests itself in the hierarchy of the statue and the vision of Daniel with the golden head, the silver torso, I think, is that what it is? The silver arms and the bronze torso, and then the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay, or the toes of iron and clay. So this hierarchy is why we say, why the ancient Jews say golden age, silver age, bronze age, that it was like this declining thing. And so that’s what I think about art in general. And so I believe that when we create things for the church, the materiality of the object, first of all, is important because there’s an incarnational aspect to the liturgical arts, that is, they’re supposed to participate in the space. And so they have to be born out of that material space. And so I do believe icons should be made ultimately by hand and should be made with noble materials. And so wood, natural materials, gold, natural pigments, that is the ideal. Now, I am not saying that icons painted with acrylic or that icons, even icons that are printed from a JPEG or that you buy a print of, I’m not saying they are not icons and they cannot function at all as icons. That is not the case. But I do see it more like as this organic hierarchy, that there is a need to stay attached to these higher materials in the sacred space because if we are not careful and we fill up all our churches with icons that are mechanically reproduced, it will have an effect on the way that we are in the world, the way that we engage with the world, the way that we perceive the artists, the artisan and their function in the sacred world. All of these things, I think, need to kind of be kept in place. And so if you look at the way that my art functions, I tend to really do believe in this hierarchy. So if I make something for churches, I try to have the noble materials, the highest form of materials, gold, stone, semi-precious stones, wood, and then moving down into popular arts. And as I move towards popular arts, then I’m willing to have more mechanically reproduced arts. Even if there’s something, even on the t-shirts, for example, where I do use images of, holy images of protection that are guardians and angels that are killing monsters, St. George, all these images that are more of the edge, of the protective edge, you could say. And then ultimately for God’s dog, because of what God’s dog is and because it is about monstrosity and about hybridization and about the strange, then I felt like it was completely appropriate to go all the way into the digital and into NFTs. And so that’s the way I understand the material hierarchy, you could say. So yeah, I mean, people could argue with me, but for sure I’m not doing things arbitrarily. That’s for sure. I’ve decided to do things this way because I want to participate in the fullness of the hierarchy, let’s say, without saying that the technological world is evil, but understanding that the technological world has to be in its proper place. All right, so Jay Grubb asks, what is the symbolism of Bigfoot? I mean, okay, so it’s not proper to answer the symbolism of a Bigfoot. It’s maybe a good idea to understand the symbolism of cryptids in general. And so all these cryptids that people see, whether it’s Bigfoot, whether it’s these different wolf men that exist in different legends in America, whether it’s also other types of cryptids, other types of strange animals, you know, whatever the jackalope or whatever kind of cryptid that you can imagine, werewolves and all this stuff, they all have to do with the problem of the limit. They all have to do with the problem of how the margin presents itself. And so the margin always presents itself as hybrid, as mixture, but not just that. And it’s also aliens, by the way. If you want, the article that I wrote, the last article that I wrote in the God’s Dog Secrets book is going to be about this, for those who are interested. So it’s also the way they actually manifest themselves to us. So they’re always not completely within the coherence of the world. So Bigfoot is always hearsay. It’s always a legend. It’s always someone who saw Bigfoot furtively. Nobody has sat down with Bigfoot, talked to him, or shot him, or has some kind of completely, let’s say, tangible proof of Bigfoot’s existence because Bigfoot is this in-between space. He’s part of it. And like all these other types of creatures, just like aliens and all these kind of cryptid. And so there are all these images of how on the edge there’s a breakdown of identity. But that breakdown of identity happens in the very way we talk about it, not just in the monsters themselves, but in the fact that they’re unexplained phenomena, right? It’s all unexplained. So the idea that something is unexplained means it’s something that doesn’t have an identity, that it has a hybrid marginal identity. So the question is, does Bigfoot exist in the way that Santa exists? I would say that for sure Bigfoot exists less than Santa, if you want to say it that way. Or he exists like he’s a monster. Bigfoot’s a monster. Santa’s not a monster. And monsters, just like dragons, exist too. They are this hybrid possibility on the edge of being. And so, yeah. So Josh, the mover says, why do the Simpsons keep accurately predicting everything that happens? I don’t know. I have no idea. But this might frustrate some people because… So I do think that artists are somewhat prophetic just in the fact that they’re making up stories. I think that the place where they get the stories that they make up, that intuition, part of it is something like, you could say it’s something like early pattern detection, right? So if you think about it just in terms of kind of evolutionary terms, why would people make up stories? Why would they do that? And it has to do with the idea of… What is it that Jordan Peterson says? Something like die in your stories, right? So you don’t die in real life. So you create stories in which you experiment with reality so that you don’t have to go through all the possibilities of being. And you don’t have to go through all the possibilities of being. And you don’t have to experience the negative things that other people have experienced. But I think there’s also probably something like that, but also a kind of early detection pattern capacity that we have, which is that some people are capable of intuiting what is just over the hill and then, let’s say, making stories out of it. So that explains a lot of stuff. I mean, it’s not just in the Simpsons. If I could make a list for you of how many series and even movies just before the pandemic were pretty much laying out what the pandemic was going to be about. And so, I mean, it’s pretty amazing. So some people see direction in that. Some people see this kind of centralized programming, which, I mean, maybe it’s possible that that’s part of it. I don’t know. It’s possible there are people with a lot of money and a lot of power who are trying to direct how the future is going to happen. That wouldn’t be completely insane. But you also don’t necessarily need to have that for it to happen that way. Because I do think that storytelling is in part a kind of early predictive modeling, you could say, of in order to help us prepare for that, which is that we intuit to be over the hill. Because it, how can I say this? It’s like people always think it’s weird that you can predict the future. But it’s like you can always predict. Everybody predicts the future all the time. There’s nothing weird about predicting the future. It’s just that we predict the future at smaller scales. I know that this month is going to be cold and I know that this month it’s going to be warm. Pretty much. It’s not 100%. But I know these things. And I know that if I watch my kids poking at each other, if nothing happens, they’re going to start fighting. And kids know that about their parents too. They know that if mom is sitting with her arms crossed or whatever and dad is doing this, that it means there’ll probably be a fight tonight. And so I think that there are things like that for society. Where societies, let’s say very sensitive people in societies, can intuit by the patterns that are happening now, what’s going to happen. And sometimes it can be pretty precise actually. And sometimes it’s vague. And I don’t find any of that weird at all. I don’t think there’s no, you don’t need a hocus pocus and magic to believe that it’s possible to intuit and to predict some aspects of the future. Neil says, Cryptozoology was my dream job as a child. You can still do it, Neil. You can still do it. Go find Nessie or whatever the name of it is. All right. And so here we go. I need to continue to pay attention to the chat. That was the whole point of this, right? All right, Eric Sillander. I’m going to read this. I’m going to read this. I’m going to read this. I’m going to read this. I’m going to read this. I’m going to read this. I’m going to read this. Eric Sillander asks, Hi, Jonathan, and thanks for a great conversation. I would like to know more about the symbolism of iron. Thor is said to need a pair of iron gloves to use his hammer and also when handling a lightning bolt. There’s also a giantess said to dwell in an iron forest. As always, thank you so much. And remember, God is still good. So thanks, Eric. Yes, God is still good. So I really talked about it, strangely enough, and when I talked about the hierarchy of materiality. A good way to understand the hierarchy of materiality is to understand, especially in terms of the metals, is to understand that the higher on the hierarchy of the metal is, the more precious it is, that is the least of it there is, the more incorruptible it is, that is, it lasts longer. And you could also say that the more that it’s related to light, that it has something to do with a certain amount of light in it. And then the lower something is, but then it’s also softer. It also has less power in the physical sense. So it has a lot of meaning. It’s precious. It’s full of light. But it can’t, it’s not strong. It’s not powerful. So now the lower you go on the hierarchy of materiality of metals, you move towards silver, which is also very light, but tends to tarnish. And then you have bronze, which is darker and is stronger than silver, it’s stronger than gold, but tends to also corrode, but not that much. And then you move down to iron. And when you get to iron, then you have the metal that is the strongest. But it’s also the most fragile in the sense that it rusts and it can just vanish. If you leave it out in the rain and the sun. And so iron is plentiful. There’s plenty and plenty of iron and it’s much stronger, but it’s also more fragile. It’s less malleable than gold or silver. It’s hard to make a ring out of iron. It’s easy to make a ring out of gold. And so that’s the material hierarchy. And so, for example, in the vision of Daniel, on the bottom of that, then you have something like the hybridization, where you have iron mixed with clay. So think of it, I always think that iron mixed with clay for us is something like plastic. Something like plastic, which is uber plentiful and is extremely fragile, but is also, let’s say, fills up the ocean. So plastic is filling up the ocean. That’s the last thing. You can also understand it in terms of if you want to… So, for example, think of it like if you take a precious metal and then you make a coin out of it, then what the government will want to do is they might want to debase the coin. So they’ll add another metal, they’ll hybridize it. And when they hybridize it, then they make more, but they make it less precious. And so you can think about all that. So the reason why there’s a relationship between war and iron is super important. You see that in scripture because often you get these people that have iron chariots, and these people with iron chariots, they’re like the warriors, right? They’re dangerous because they have these powerful iron chariots. And so that would be why giants would live in an iron forest, for example, or that Thor would need iron gloves to use his hammer. All right. So… All right, let’s see what we got here. All right. Okay, so Bogdan asks, Hi Jonathan, how do you distinguish between an enchanted world in the medieval Christian sense and a sort of animus worldview which acknowledges the spiritual after all things, but is not Christian? Is it purely a matter of having the proper hierarchy with God at the top or is there something more to it? Thanks for all your work. And so I do believe that it is a… The difference is what you said. I think the difference is that in the truly kind of the real, the true cosmology is to have… You can have a hierarchy of intermediary beings, but they are ultimately all dependent on the one, on God. And then their powers or their authority flows from the one. And so in the different mythologies, you see that at some point, in many of the mythologies, there’s a revolution in the heavens. There are some gods that try to get power from the higher God. And that’s when different paganisms appear. And then that’s when animism, I think, starts to appear. And so, actually, contrary to the belief, I think, of a lot of the anthropologists and all that kind of stuff, because anthropologists look at animist societies now and they think that somehow those animist societies, their reflection of what was there at the origin… Okay, I don’t know how you say that, but I honestly think that it’s probably the opposite. I think that there’s probably a breakdown that happened at some point where the normal hierarchy broke down and then all these different gods. And you can see that in stories like the story of Babel and things like that, where the different gods kind of spread out and then people started worshipping. And so the problem with animism is that you become slaves. You either try to weaponize the principality, but you try to control it or it controls you. And it’s just this relationship of control, which is that you try to control the forces of this space or of this area by profitiating it, by, let’s say, trapping it in some magical way and then using it to your advantage. Or you are kind of a slave to this thing and you have to profitiate it in the sense of stopping it from hurting you. You have to keep it at bay so that it doesn’t hurt you. And so that is the difference, I think, between… And so this kind of traditional hierarchy is not… It’s there, obviously, in Christianity, but it’s there in other traditions. It’s not just there… You see it in Hinduism. You really do see something like that. And you see it in Zoroastrianism and you see it in… In… There are some moments where other cultures where you can see these types of this type of hierarchy. So the idea that Judaism and Christianity and Islam are the only place where this kind of structure exists, I don’t think that’s true. I do think that for sure Christianity, because it reveals love as the source of all things and it also reveals self-sacrifice as the mode of being that is the most proper to being in relationship with the divine. I think it’s the best, but it’s not the only one that has something like that. All right, so A-Pauper asks, what’s the difference between thoughts, ideas, categories, and spiritual beings? Angels, powers, principalities, both in how we engage with them, how we give them body, and their impact on who we are, our identity. And so… So there’s a… First of all, in yourself. So maybe a good way to see it would be to understand the fractal nature of reality, you could say. And so there are certain of those things which are inside you. And so thoughts, ideas, or inside humanity, you could say, but also inside you, thoughts, ideas, categories, all of this is within you. And these things, they have a more active role than sometimes you might think. They play out as programs. You’re not as much in control of those things as you wish you were, let’s say. Ultimately, the idea would be to have you as a centralized being. And no matter how you phrase it, in a way, it doesn’t even matter. A lot of these categories, people ask if people have souls and all this stuff. I mean, yes, but you understand it is what you need to do if you want to know what it’s about. And so there’s something which binds you all together, that holds all of this multiplicity of thoughts, categories, let’s say thoughts and ideas, first of all. That’s mostly, let’s say, within you. And then there are spiritual beings, which are something like that, but they’re more active and they’re more cosmic. That is, they are the cosmic aspect. As you as a microcosm, you could say you have these little desires and thoughts and gods, like little gods in you. You want to understand it that way. You have these little thoughts and ideas and desires, and they’re all inside you. And they’re all fighting and they’re all trying to have power and they’re trying to get power over the other. They’re trying to get your attention and they’re doing all these things. They’re trying to get all your resources. They’re doing all of this. And then hopefully you can align them together so that they flow naturally from your identity, you could say. And then in the world, then there’s a version of that, but now it’s a cosmic version. So there are principalities which act in the world, which bind groups together, which bind all these things, all these, the way in which the world manifests itself together. And ultimately, when they’re not, let’s say, brought together under God, then they tend to create conflict and to create conflict. So the mystery, which is maybe difficult, the mystery is that in a certain manner, all of this ultimately is resolved by, you could say, man, or by the incarnation. And so the perfect union of God and man is actually the place where all of this resolves. And so there’s a certain man in which, although these spiritual beings, which are more cosmic, have a difference, are on a different scale than your thoughts and your desires and your ideas, ultimately they are, let’s say, ultimately they should also be subject to man, man with a capital M, right? The incarnate man and the manner in which we participate in that as human beings. Hopefully that makes sense. Now, what’s interesting is you can see that there’s a relationship between the cosmic beings and you inside. And so that’s why, you could say something like, that’s why demons affect you, because the demon is a demon of pride or is a demon of this, which is also inside you as an invisible desire, an invisible thought pattern, or an invisible motivation that you have. And then those are connected to the cosmic version of that. And so all the imagery of like a demon oppressing you or a demon possessing you, all of these things, are because there’s a direct relationship between the way you are made and the way the cosmos is made. And so sometimes you can read text and it almost seems confusing. It’s like, is it this person’s sins, desires, or is it a demon that’s oppressing them? And ultimately there’s a way in which it’s always both at the same time, because there’s a cosmic reflection that when you become a slave of a passion or of a thought pattern or something in you, you are ultimately participating in the existence of that in the bigger world, right? So if you’re, it’s not magical, it’s really very basic. It’s like if you are tempted to be greedy and then you give into that thought pattern and that desire, and then you act in greed, right? Then that will connect. That is what will make greed grow in the world and there’ll be more greed in the world. So you’re feeding this demon so that the world itself will become greedier, because the world doesn’t become greedier unless people become greedier. But you could also say like if the world becomes greedier, then people will also become greedier. There’s a top-down and a bottom-up relationship. And so I think that that’s the best way to understand it. And so now in terms of categories, categories seem a little less active, but they’re nonetheless active to a certain extent. It’s not exactly the way that you would think, but you can understand that. So it’s like, let’s say I have a category. So I have a pen, okay? And so this pen is a category. It’s an invisible pattern, but this pen has subcategories, right? We’ve talked about this many times. Now, this is going to sound weird to you, but the category of the pen is actively holding together the subcategories which make it a pen. This is ultimately happening through us, that it’s happening through man. Like I told you, ultimately all these patterns are actually ultimately bound to man, but there’s something less neutral about, let’s say the man in which categories bind other categories to them, the man in which categories participate in higher categories as well. There’s a judgment, right? There’s a judgment which is happening. The pen is judging whether or not this or that can be part of it. And it’s judging it by its purpose, by its teleology. If I make a pen with a snowball, right, it’s going to not, the pen is going to reject it. The pen is going to judge it, and it won’t be a good pen. And like I said, we’re not excluded from that process. We’re part of that process, but we can nonetheless describe the world that way, and it’s completely coherent. It’s actually, I think, more coherent than if we describe it in another way. All right. I think that’s good enough. Okay. So, Gnumayesh says, Issa and David’s physical description are very similar in scripture. Both are described as ruddy, yet one is a hunter and the other is a shepherd. What is the symbolism of their physical descriptions with their contrasting treatments of animals? You did, definitely caught on to something there. That is, both David and Issa are red. That’s very important. That is, there’s a connection between David and Issa. You could say one of the reasons why David, one of the reasons why David is close to the Messiah, or that David is one of the only persons described as the Messiah in scripture, is because he is one of the characters that is, that is the closest to being able to reincorporate Issa. Isn’t that a good way to understand that? There are certain characters in scripture that try to reconcile Issa, but they don’t succeed. You know, like Samson, for example, but not totally succeed. But David comes closer, and ultimately Christ is the one who succeeds in joining David and Issa. And so, if you want the idea of a hunter and a shepherd, it’s a little harder to see because we have to expand the definition of hunter to a fisherman. So, fisherman and shepherd, the one who gets the fish, brings them in, integrates them, and then the one who actually also cares for the sheep, that’s Christ, is both fisherman and a shepherd. So, hopefully that helps. All right. All right, Kulak asks, hello, Jonathan. What are your thoughts on the apparent pattern of the outsider from the minor realm coming to rule great empires during time of crisis, often with violent consequences? Good examples are Napoleon the Corsican, Hitler the Austrian, and Stalin the Georgian. Is this pattern a fallen form of the stone builders, rejected, becoming the cornerstone? And in this way, is it a kind of antichrist, praying for you and your family up in Quebec? And so, so, okay. This is a little tricky. So, let’s think of it in practical terms, right? Let’s think of it in practical terms. So, you have groups that are fighting. Say you have a nation that isn’t holding well together, that is kind of falling apart and fighting and infighting. And so, it’s fighting so much that no one of the groups that are represented in the fight could unify them. And how could they, right? They’re too much, they’re too much part of the fight. And so, in this sense, this is why in these types of situations, that the stranger or the one who comes from the outside can come in and is able to go from the last to the first by recapturing the potential that is fragmenting, you know. And so, that’s what is happening there. And so, that is definitely a way that can happen. Now, it can happen for ill and it can happen for good. It can happen either way. And so, it can be an image of antichrist, but it can also be an image of Christ himself, you know. So, you can understand something like that’s what Christ was to the Roman Empire, right? And so, I think it just depends on how that pattern plays out. And so, that pattern could play out as a place where it actually brings this identity to cease existing, you know, because the outsider comes in, captures the potential, and then turns it into something else completely. But there’s also a way in which that can also be a kind of preservation. It’s also possible that that happens and that it kind of preserves. And so, I think that this is why, you know, understanding this can maybe help you understand some of some stranger symbolism. Like, you know, if you think of Alexander the Great, for example, like why are the legends of Alexander the Great that he was, you know, the son of an Egyptian priest pretending to be an Egyptian god or something like that? You know, why is it that King Arthur is the bastard son of Pendragon, you know, and there’s trickery involved and there’s all this stuff. There’s a sense in which the character that brings things together is, can have some of that in him. Yeah. But like I said, it’s not necessarily, it’s not always for the good, but it definitely can be for the good. I do definitely believe that in the case of Christ, it was for the good. All right, Scott, he says, what is a good story for understanding the pattern of prophecy or prediction, the good and the bad? I don’t know. I don’t know. I might have to think about it. That’s too much on the top of my head. A good story for understanding the pattern of prophecy or prediction, the good and the bad. Let me think about it. I might not be able to answer by the end of this, but I’ll think about it. So Joel G. Caesar asks, what is the symbolism of killing 1,000 men with a donkey’s jawbone? Yeah, so we’re talking about, we’re going to talk about Samson, are we? So yeah, so that’s what a donkey, so the donkey is an impure animal. And the donkey is also a beast of burden. And so killing your enemies with the donkey’s jawbone, it’s something like capturing the power of the, of impurity, or capturing the power of the margin and using it against, against the power of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, against your enemy, you know. And so because the, the, it’s funny because this is actually related. This is going to sound weird to a lot of people, but this is actually related to the speaking donkey in the story of Valhalla, and so in this, the story of the speaking donkey of Valhalla, there’s a way in which the, the, the power of this margin is made to speak, like the power of the impure and the bird of, it is made to speak in order to preserve the, preserve Balam, preserve Balam from being judged. And in this case it’s something like the opposite of that where it’s similar in the sense that it’s like wielding the power of the impure and the job and chaos in order to destroy your enemy. But all of Samson’s story is always about the same thing. It’s about this and the power of this. You’re trying to use the power of this, like Mathieu talks about in his book. So it’s finding honey in the carcass of a deadline. So killing a thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone is actually the same symbolically as finding honey in the body of a deadline. I always feel like I’m not making it clear when I stay in analogy world, but at least for now that’s as close as it’s going to get. All right. And so subscribe star, let’s watch subscribe star. All right. So why jacket asks, what is the symbolism of cancer? And do you think that cancer is random or the luck of the draw, so to speak, or is it manifestation of something bigger in a person’s life? Do you think the particular type of cancer is also meaningful? I E leukemia versus ovarian. Man. So I don’t think it’s impossible for diseases to have meaning. I think that certain diseases, I wouldn’t link it to always to like a person, but I think in just in terms of a general culture, I think that diseases can have a, can have a meaning in terms of what’s going on, let’s say, in the social sphere. So I kind of joke a little bit that, you know, COVID is the opposite of AIDS, you could say. It’s like, you know, it’s the end, COVID is the end of the carnival, right? Because COVID is, is, is, has something to do with an excessive immunity reaction. And so people die from the immune reaction to COVID, rather than the disease itself, it seems, which is why, at least in my understanding, which is why there’s so many, a lot of vaccine seems to be causing some of the same effects to some people than the disease is causing, because it’s actually your immune system, which is, which is called making you sick, ultimately. Whereas AIDS was the opposite of that. AIDS was a breakdown of the immune system, right? It’s like open to everything. I’m like, the body becomes open to anything. And in COVID, it’s like the body closes down and it starts to actually destroy itself by being closed down. So it seems like these things have meaning. And I think that for sure, I think that cancer in general is something like a breakdown through pride, or breakdown through not, through the body not being fully aligned with itself. And so certain parts of the body try to preserve, try to propagate and preserve themselves at the expense of others and end up killing the person by trying to just self-perpetuate and try to make itself like a weird parasitical thing within your own body where certain cells don’t want to die. They’re not willing to die. They just want to continue to live and to propagate themselves until you die. So I think that’s meaningful, but I don’t necessarily think that it’s not necessarily attributed to the individual, I think, who has the disease. I think ultimately Christ gives us the most powerful vision of that, which is that as Christians, at least, the purpose of disease in our life is to manifest the glory of God. Whether we are healed miraculously, like some it happens to some people, or whether we manifest God in our dying. And that really happens. You see people, the way that they deal with disease. My cousin, who’s my best friend, died last year, 2020 actually, sorry. And the way he died was amazing. He was transfigured because he died with so much dignity and so much peace. So I think that that’s really the ultimate meaning that disease can have as Christians, at least. That’s how we should deal with disease, is to understand that it should be transformed or flipped into glory by the way we deal with it. All right, so is there anything interesting going on in this chat here? Not sure. All right, sorry guys in the chat. It’s like I’m looking for questions in the chat. I don’t see any. Usually people will ask questions in the chat. I guess now they’ve all asked questions in the Q&A, so they don’t have to ask questions in the chat. All right. All right, Lisa Parrott says nothing interesting is going on. So XRD says, Hi Jonathan, I saw an article which revealed that since 2005, January 6th is the day with the most most deaths on average. Any thought on that? No, I’ve got to think about it. I mean, January 6th is interesting because it’s isn’t January 6th the last day of Christmas, right? January 6th is the is a Brittany. So you could understand if you understand it’s the last day of Christmas or the last day of a foolery, of fooling, let’s say. Maybe. I don’t have to think about it. I have to think about it. All right, Sebastiano. So Sebastiano Girardo says, I asked one. I don’t see it. Where’s your question? I need to ask it again. All right, Keenan. So let’s go to Patreon now. Here we go. So Keenan Wang asks, What relationship do you see between Frodo showing Gola mercy to be betrayed and Jesus choosing Judas as a disciple? Huh, interesting. I never thought about that. I mean, it’s interesting. It’s interesting because you could say, I mean, at least in the, I don’t know if there’s a relationship between Judas and Christ, but for sure it’s interesting in the sense that Golem is the one who ultimately ends up destroying the ring despite himself. And so Frodo showing mercy to Golem ends up being, although seemingly unwise at the time, ends up being the mechanism by which the ring ends up being destroyed to the judgment of Golem, but nonetheless. So I think that’s definitely interesting to think about. That would definitely be interesting to think about. So you could kind of see it that way. You could see that, you know, to the judgment of Judas, you know, Christ knew that he had to die. And so he chose Judas and gathered him in. And then Judas betrayed Christ to his own judgment, but ultimately to the salvation of all. Like, so it’s like Golem wasn’t acting virtuously when he tried to snatch the ring from Frodo at the last minute. He was being extremely selfish and self-interested, but he nonetheless brought about salvation despite him. And I think that’s something that is true about Judas as well. So yeah, actually you’re right. It’s good observation there. All right, so there you go. So here is Sebastian Girardo in the chat asks, concerning our sanctification, how true is it that we are supposed to choose Christ instead of good or evil? I read that from a Protestant book, which makes it suspicious, but it sounds kind of orthodox. I mean, I’m not sure what that totally means. Like, I can understand what it means in the sense that Christ is beyond petty morality. That’s for sure. And that the things that Christ asks us to do are beyond the kind of moralism or the kind of legalism that you could engage with. So in that sense, I think that it’s true. But ultimately, that ends up being a higher good is the best way to understand that as well. All right, one more question from Bob Briggs, John Fischow, Year of the Ronin, what do you mean? If you can say on state controlled media, lol. All right, so everybody saw that I changed my profile picture for a Ronin, a version of a print that I actually acquired last year. And I’ve been writing Year of the Ronin. It’s just because this year, I’m going to start very soon, by the way, I’ll show you next, probably one of my next videos is going to be about the role of the misfit in a tyrannical system. And we’re going to talk about King David, and how he deals with King Saul who tries to jab him and pin him to the wall, let’s say. And so we’ll look at that. And we’ll look at other stuff like that. And so I think that that’s what’s going to happen. And also because in my case, you know, we’re moving into illegitimacy at some point, you know, the way that things are going here. Yeah, there’s gonna be some tough choices to make very soon. All right. So go back into the back into the Patreon question, Chasen Lindsay asks, Hey, Jonathan, for the modern age, why were cats associated with demons? I’ve heard this belief led to a mass killing of cats during the Black Death outbreaks. What kind of symbolism is behind Europeans killing cats during these outbreaks when letting them live might have helped prevent the loss of life? Or are these two facts about cats just a fabrication of modern times? Thank you for any insight as usual. I would say for sure I’d be very suspicious of all the things people say about the Middle Ages. I don’t know if that’s true. There’s so much nonsense people have said about the Middle Ages, not just the Middle Ages, just so much that no one… It’s like, for example, if people tell you that the medieval didn’t bathe, all this kind of nonsense, it’s all made up. None of it is true. It’s just complete nonsense. People see anecdotal things in some text, and then they make it into a rule about everybody. What people say about the Middle Ages is used mostly agro. I’m not really sure that that’s true, that they would be killing cats. Maybe they did. I don’t know. There is such a thing also as panic. The kind of things that people did in the plague, let’s say, during panic, the kind of desire to scapegoat and desire to find someone responsible and the desire to find something to do in order to avoid getting disease, something which we will look back on this situation, and we will do the same. Look at those silly people thinking they’re going to stop a disease with this and that. I would say, yeah, I don’t know. All right. If you want to know why the early moderns might have said that about the medieval, it probably had to do with the fact that there’s the legends of the witches familiar. It probably has something to do with that, which is the notion that witches would have an animal that was something like a projection of them, that they would project their spirit into this animal, that they could control it, that it was a kind of externalization of the witch’s being. I could imagine that that’s why stories like that would have appeared, which is that the cat, because a cat is an animal, which is a domestic animal, and it’s a domestic animal, which is sneaky and hides and does all these things that people would think of stories like this. That’s the best I’m going to do with that. Douglas Horst says, keep the Ethiopian vids coming. I’m supposed to have an interview with Deacon Enoch that I talked about. I talked with him on my channel. I’m supposed to be on his channel at some point, but I don’t know when that is. It should be soon. I hope it’s soon. All right. M. Schaefer asks, I recently watched you say that fractalization is tied to death. Also, it seems to me attention itself is a kind of death, giving out of yourself or giving over yourself. But in order for creation to be good, wouldn’t there have to be a disintegrative attending or sin and non-disintegrating attending or love, or is creation the death of God? Whoa, dude, that went fast. Are sin and creation equivocal? Sincere question from a Roman Catholic. All right. So breakdown is related to death. Let’s look at it this way. All right. So exteriorization and breakdown and multiplication and fragmentation is related to death, but it’s also related to other things. It’s not just related to that. It’s also related to filling and empowering and adding power to your identity. So a good way to understand it, like in terms of the fall, would be a kind of mysterious idea, which is that you have to be aware of the fact that when Adam and Eve fell, they fractured human nature into multiplicity of individuals. And that fracturing brought about a world of death because the fracturing happened fractally. It happened in the human nature going towards multiplicity of beings, but then in the human person is a breakdown of human desires and human passions and human needs that now began to compete with each other and fragment and break apart. But ultimately the secret is that this will ultimately be the filling up of the world as well. So that this fragmentation, once it is gathered back, maybe is the best way to understand it, once it’s gathered back, then it’s actually going to become a fullness, a fullness which was not there even at the outset. And so all right. So think about it. You can think about it this way. Let me give you a simple example, as simple as examples I can find. So you put yourself in a new position. You start a new job and you’ve never done it before. And so you have a knowledge, you have a moment of knowledge where you’re cast out of the garden, you’re put into a position where things don’t make sense. You don’t know what it is. And so it breaks down the stuff in front of you. Everything looks chaotic. Nothing knows what it is. And so that’s painful and it’s a kind of dying. But ultimately once you’re able to master that new reality, this new job that you have to do, and you integrate it, then it’s actually a fullness. And it’s more than you were before. You become more than you were before. And so yeah, but you could, so a job is maybe not the right way to see it because it’s maybe more like something like bad luck. You end up in a situation you hadn’t planned. You’ve never done it before. You break down on the side of the road and you’ve never changed your tire before. And so it’s like, yeah, pain, suffering. You look around, you don’t know what to do. You look at all these things. You look at a jack, you look at a wheel, like what is this? I don’t know what to do with this. And then you work it out and you suffer and it’s painful. And once you’re done, then that problem, that problem that happened to you at the outset has become an opportunity to become more. Hopefully that makes sense. Right? And now everybody’s talking about cats in the chat. Yeah, yeah, YouTube and cats, huh? We thought that was over, but I guess we’re still dealing with that stuff. All right, one from the chat, Frederick Goferschmidt asked, what’s the symbolism of the laying on of hands and its connection to the apostleship? I mean, it’s just action, right? When you act in the world, you act with your hands. So if you’re hammering a nail, you’re using your hands, pretty much everything you do, you do with your hands. And so it’s not completely strange or odd that if you were going to transmit some authority on someone, then you would do it by your hands. Right? So like you can bless, you know, a priest will bless with his hands, but like the idea of like putting your hands on someone and then speaking so that that’s how you transfer some kind of some authority or some kind of role, you know, it’s just an extension of everything you do with your hand, basically, I think is a way to understand it. All right, so Ruben Korf in back into the questions. I’m just about to begin working as an English teacher and my school has allowed me complete creativity as regards to novels, films to teach my class. Example, the text could have really been in another language, just as long as it has been translated into English. Are there any high school age appropriate novels and films that you would recommend that I teach for their symbolic richness and resonance and or any particular books you would recommend for me as a teacher to help me approach teaching my classes with a symbolic hermeneutic? I mean, if I was you, I would I would teach the classics, like I would I would teach the old stories that that’s what I would do. And so, you know, I would have them read a prose, maybe a prose version of the of Odysseus. That would be great, you know. That’s what I would tend to be to do if it was you. And so in terms of the films, then I would choose films that have kind of powerful symbolic stories in them, you know, like I always talk about the Ghibli studio films, I think are really great, you know, but even but I think you can get stuff from popular fiction. The thing about the thing is the thing that can be interesting is rather having a popular fiction movie like a Marvel movie or something, but then surprising people, which is how coherent it is. And so, for example, studying a more traditional text like Odysseus and then showing how some of the some of the tropes are there as well in in these modern movies, you know, and so that’s what I would tend to be doing myself. All right, I need to open the door here, guys, because I’m running out of air. Sorry, I’ll be right back. Sorry. All right. All right. So Marcus Shera says, I became a catechumen on Sunday. Largely thank your videos. Wow, that’s wonderful. Glory to God. Have you ever read anything by the pragmatists, American pragmatists, William James, Charles Sanders, Pierce? They both defended lives of faith as opposed to strictly modernist rationalist worldview. Pierce also developed the theory of icons and symbols. I know the Peterson has been influenced by them and I’m afraid to say that no, I have not been influenced by them. And so I don’t know much about about them. Sorry. So Jeremy Firth asks, can you talk about the symbolism of stoning a person? Is it related to the heap of stones that Jacob and Laban used to make a covenant with each other? It’s definitely related to a heap of stones. I don’t know if it’s related to that particular heap of stones. I would have to think about it. It’s definitely related to the difference between ordered stones and a heap. The difference, this is actually the difference between an ordered building and a pile. Sometimes people, because they can’t see the difference between a pile and an ordered group of things, they can sometimes get confused. But I think that’s what it has to do. It’s like burying someone under a pile. And a pile is like a disordered thing. A pile is like a disordered thing. So I think that’s probably what it has to do with. I’m sure Metzger would have way better insight on this. So Corey Ford says, does God ultimately reconcile all beings to himself or will some forever remain estranged? What’s the big picture pattern? At this point, I’m generally persuaded by David Bentley Hart and Thomas Talbot following Origen, Gregor Mnisa, et cetera, the ultimate reconciliation is true. I mean, if you watch my videos a while, you’ll see that to me, I think that I definitely see that it all points to a fullness. It all points to an ultimate reconciliation. You see it in the words of Christ. You see it in the words of Saint Paul. You see it in the pattern that’s right there in St. Gregor Mnisa and Maximus. And not just the things they say. Like people say St. Gregor Mnisa has a few sayings that he has, which suggests that. But it’s not sayings. The very structure of the life of Moses tends to point to that. And the very structure in St. Maximus. But the reality is that the tradition that there is a kind of absolute casting off, a kind of eternal casting off, is something which is there as well. It’s there in the tradition. And I think that it’s difficult when people try to, I think there’s probably a reason why those two coexist. You know, someone told me about, because we have this wonderful homily by St. John Chrysostom on the Pascha, in which there is this very powerful, beautiful image of this idea that all are called to the feast. Like all will participate. No matter if you fasted or if you didn’t fast, no matter what you did, today is the celebration of the resurrection. All are called to the feast. And there’s this powerful image. And then I remember a priest reminded me that if you read St. John’s homily on Easter Saturday, or like the day before, let’s say, before the resurrection, then it’s the other tradition. It’s really about suffering and the suffering brought about by your own passions. And how that is a reality. Like it’s a real thing. And so I tend to just leave that as an aporia myself and try not to resolve it in the manifest. Like try not to resolve it in a statement because I think those two traditions are there for a reason. And they’re there to kind of, because there is a reality. And this is something that I’ve noticed. And, you know, is that I’ve noticed that when people openly advocate for a kind of universal salvation, they tend to start to dismiss the things. They tend to want to swallow the hierarchy. They tend to want to dismiss the hierarchy. And there’s a weirdness that comes with it. Like there’s a kind of, there’s a kind of strange, yeah, there’s a kind of idea, there’s a kind of strangeness about that, which is trying to destroy the world. Almost like there’s a tendency to want to destroy traditions, destroy forms as if it all ultimately doesn’t matter. You know, people will never say that, but there’s a weird attitude that comes with that. And so I think we rather should be humble about it and see in the stories, see in St. Gregory of Nyssa, see in the words of Christ and in the words of Paul, like this amazing sparkle of this possibility and the amazing sparkle that, you know, ultimately all will be resolved, but also fear for our own passions and see that we are very far from that and that we need to take this stuff seriously, you know. And so that’s my take on that. And so I would never advocate for the universalist position ever. I think it’s dangerous in many ways. So sorry to you universalists who watch this and not sorry at the same time, because I think it’s the most traditional position. So, all right, so Dean Parker says, hi, Jonathan, I hope all is well. Is there much difference between the Platonic forms and the patterns you talk about in your videos? And so there’s definitely a relationship between the two. I think that the more ancient cosmologies are probably closer to what I’m talking about than the Platonic forms, although I do think that Plato is super helpful and I think that Neoplatonism especially is super helpful to help us integrate all this together. But I’m really more like, I’m really a lot older world than that. It’s like hierarchies of active principalities is what I think the world is mostly made of. That is that these forms are not just abstract concepts or abstract ideas. That the ideas are active, that they’re purposes. And so that’s why I think St. Maxx with the Confessor gets it so much better, because he joins the notion of forms with the notion of purpose. And he kind of, he joins the notion of forms with the notion of, let’s say, Aristotle’s final causes. That there’s an active aspect. There’s something which is pushing and pulling, which is bringing things into being through teleology. And so I think that that might be the I think that that might be the difference. All right, so walrus14 says, Hi, Jonathan, I recently stumbled upon a strange music genre. I never heard of before conservative punk. Yeah. So Andy Croft says, teaching great divorce tomorrow. Yeah, great divorce is wonderful. I think the great divorce is a beautiful book to help us understand the reality of all the imagery we have of damnation, you could say. And how, I think it’s a powerful book for that. Even in Dante’s Inferno, there are some interesting things in Dante’s Inferno. There are some interesting hints about, even in hell, once Dante asks Virgil, he asks, he says, is it possible that things will get better for these people after the return of Christ? And Virgil says, you know, something like, maybe so, or something like that. He hints at the possibility, you know, and so it’s like, I think that those hints are beautiful and they can make us hope and have joy and a secret kind of hope. But I think that we have to be careful with that and not make it into dogma and not make it into a stumbling stone for people around us. That’s maybe the best way to say it. All right. All right. This made me think about your discussions on the center, still believing that it’s on the margin and using that false belief to crush the actual present margin. Conservative traditional values are definitely on the margin now in American society, so seeing conservatism become the new punk makes some sense. However, do you think this is appropriate? Should those who want a traditional hierarchy in society act rebellious in the manner punk music calls for, or is being a conservative punk an oxymoron, and so there’s ways to be a conservative punk guys. There’s that’s for sure. So we’ll do it. Okay. So next video, the next video that’s coming out is going to be Richard Roland’s amazing discussion that I do with him. Amazing discussion on symbolism of Groundhog Day. Seriously, guys, it’s astounding. It’s really wonderful. But then after that, I’ll do a video on King David, on King David, how King David flees King Saul, and we’ll look at the conservative punk in that video. All right. So Alan DiRienzo says, in your spare time, can we get a video aimed towards teenage kids discussing COVID media propaganda, social media, phone addiction, excessive gaming? Oh my goodness. And any other relevant current issues our teens face in this crazy world? I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s gonna happen. It’s just like, I don’t know. Can you really see me doing like the more you know video, like a kind of video to like help teen kids? I don’t know. That sounds kind of corny. I don’t see how I could do it without being corny. Let me think about it. Okay. I need to think about it because the way you describe it, I didn’t have a nice image in my head. And I had a like, I had a hello fellow young people image in my head when I read your question. So sorry, Alan, you know, I understand that you’re struggling because everyone we’re all struggling with that question in terms of our teens, you know, so it’s, I understand. All right. Here we go. So Nathan Hart, Jonathan, I’m not sure if you ever spent time in the American Southwest, particularly the former Spanish colonies like New Mexico. Are you familiar with the traditional art styles of retablos and re-rettos? How do you think they relate to traditional Eastern iconography? Could they represent possible counterfactual to the direction Western art ended up taking i.e. the decadent art of the Renaissance? There is an amazing article on this by Andrew Gould on the Orthodox Art Journal, who, where he posits a, how does he call it? He posits a kind of taking Baroque and repurposing it towards something which is closer to traditional iconography. And he tries to show how indeed there is a close relationship both in practice and in the visual style that they end up taking on, which resembles Eastern iconography. And that it’s really, it is, it’s a really, really, really good article. So look it up. It’s definitely worth your time. So Wyatt Lawrence says, what do you think are C.S. Lewis’s flaws as a thinker, if any, I don’t know. I like C.S. Lewis. I don’t think I, as a thinker, I think he has flaws as a fiction writer. There are some things in those Narnia books, which I don’t think are great, but as a thinker, he’s pretty amazing. He’s amazing in the sense that if you think of, if you think of, if you think of, it’s almost like he’s a, he’s a bomb that got dropped onto the kind of Western Protestant world. It’s pretty astounding. And he’s a bomb that was able to say things in a way that most Protestants and evangelicals loved, but that were deeply medieval, deeply, deeply medieval. And his vision of the world is deeply medieval. And so I think for sure C.S. Lewis is a, is a, is a definite possible turning point or platform or space of engagement that could, that could help the modern world. And so I really appreciate, for example, Paul VanderKlay really kind of diving into C.S. Lewis and, and trying to really show people the power of his writing. Cause it’s like, I don’t, I don’t have time. And I’m also not an expert on C.S. Lewis. I’ve read some C.S. Lewis. I haven’t read all of it. So that’s probably also why I’m sure if I read a lot of it, I might find some things to criticize, but I’m sure what I’ve read about, I’ve read from C.S. Lewis has been quite amazing. All right. All right. So here we go. Next sense. Okay. J Garcia says, hope, I hope this makes sense. Is irony an angel or a demon? It seems you can’t escape irony when you deconstruct a system. You’re criticizing social media from Twitter or selling your Marxist book on Amazon, but there’s also irony that comes from accepting the system. E.G. He who loses his life gains it freedom in submission to God. You mentioned Satanism. It’s your irony in the Montero video, but what is its role from a cosmic point of view? So for sure, you can see that I think that it’s, I think that it can be both. I think it has, this has to do with like the flip and the double flip or something that has to do with like the upside down and the upside down, which turns back. And so the difference between, it has to do with the fool. Like it has to do with this turning and the fool and the idea that there’s a need on the edge to show the opposite or to show the place where, where the opposite manifests, you know, the contradiction you could say. So it’s like, even let’s say in terms of, let’s say it takes something like sarcasm, you know, sarcasm is important because it shows you that you could say the same phrase. You could say a phrase and mean the opposite of what the phrase says. That’s pretty amazing. Think about it. Think about saying something sarcastically. It means that you say something, but in the, if you, in the very phrase, you have a statement, but what you’re actually using it for is to say the opposite of that statement. Now that’s, it’s pretty powerful. Powerful because it represents the end of meaning. Right. And so it has that function. And so I think that that’s why you could say that Satanism is the ultimate irony. Right. It’s the, it’s, it’s always, it’s done ironically and it’s not surprising that it’s done ironically because it is in a way, just another version of Christianity and it’s an inversion of Christianity that people don’t even believe. They don’t even believe in it. It’s like, it’s all a joke, you know, but it’s a joke that’s ultimately played on them because they’re embodying it more by not even believing it, not even believing in it, you could say. But there’s a way in which in the story of Christ, there’s also that, right. I’ve talked about, you know, the insane, the insane situation of Christ being on the cross and having a sarcastic statement above his head where it says Jesus Christ, Lord, King of the Jews, which is, which says something straightforward, says what he is, is there to say the opposite, but then ultimately is saying the thing. It’s ultimately true. Right. That’s what Christ does with, with these patterns, like truth, truth, right. The same with when he is, is being tortured. You know, they, they dress him up as a king, they mock him, they do it to mock him as lowest. And then ultimately without knowing it, they’re actually revealing his true identity. And so it’s like, yeah. All right. Curiouser and curiouser. Lisa Barrett says, I hate sarcasm. It’s funny because I, I very rarely use sarcasm though. It’s true. I don’t know why. Maybe I do and I don’t realize, but I don’t think I do. Actually, actually I think Lisa, yeah, I think, I think there is a moment where I use sarcasm. I’m thinking about it now anyways, I would have, right. It will curiouser and curiouser. What’s the symbolism of feeding the 5,000 with five barley loaves and two fish. I’m especially interested in the pattern of eminence and emergence taking place within the narrative sequence. And so, yeah, this is a great, this is a great miracle to understand that I like to think about this miracle in a way like that is that I could explain the miracle in mechanically. Let’s say if I want, if you wanted to, you could explain it, but it would be nonetheless be a, a manifestation of how the world unfolds. And so, so let’s say I was a pure materialist. I do believe miracles by the way, like, you know, I do believe miracles by the way, but this is a miracle, but I could, you could maybe explain it even mechanically and it would still be a miracle in the sense that you can imagine that Christ is, Christ is there and he asks, he asks people to share their food with everybody and to share it so that we can, we can, we can feed everybody. And when they do that, they ask, you know, what they get from that is a few loaves of fish, a few loaves and a few fish. And so then Christ blesses the food and then as he starts to share the sacrifice that someone, someone sacrificed his meal. So some young man had food for himself and then went up and said, here, I have this food and he gives it to Jesus. And then Jesus, he gives it to him and he gives it to him and he gives it to him and he gives it to Jesus. And then Jesus takes that and then starts to share it. So this, the self-sacrifice of this person reveals, gathers the real potential that was there. And so all of a sudden there’s more, there’s more bread. Where does it come from? Where, where was that bread? There was only five loaves and two fish before. There was implicit bread. There was bread hidden among the people. And then now this bread is being revealed as the self-sacrifice of this young man and the blessing of Christ is bringing the world together and then making them trust Christ, making them trust each other and therefore revealing their potential to all around. And so I’m not saying that that’s how it happened, but actually thinking about it in a way that’s actually perfectly explainable in terms of mechanical causes can help you understand what Christ does and the miracle that he brings about. But I’m not saying that that’s how Christ did it, but I’m saying that you could understand it that way and it would actually help you understand the manner in which Christ revealed the pattern of reality and how it’s related to trust and how it’s related to binding things together and it’s related to self-sacrifice and all that stuff. All right, so Brandon Byrne says, would Christ command the tempest after sleeping in the boat and then cast out the demons upon waking up? Is this a prefiguration of his descent and resurrection? When the garrisons beg him to leave their coast after this happens, do they see him as a monster from the periphery? And so it’s definitely a prefiguration of the resurrection because I mean there’s so many things about it that’s a prefiguration of the resurrection because who’s the other person who slept in the boat? It’s Jonah. Jonah is the other person that slept at the bottom of the boat. And so it’s interesting, it’s kind of playing on the story of Jonah where Jonah was sleeping at the bottom of the boat as everything was raging and then as he comes out of the boat Jonah says, sacrifice me in order to stop the boat from sinking basically. And then Christ plays on that. Is it at the bottom of the boat like at the bottom of death and as he comes out then he masters the waves himself and so definitely. And so when the garrisons beg him to leave their coast after this happens, do they see him as a monster? I mean I think they see him as a terrifying being. They see him more like a hero in the old sense of this like terrifying figure that is awesome in the original sense of awesome that is frightening because he’s awesome. All right so Manuel Montiel says, what are your thoughts of the Protestant doctrine of sanctification and its extinction from theosis? It seems the Protestant doctrine of sanctification takes theosis and divides it into two separate things, sanctification and salvation, and then distinguishes salvation as a sort of one-time event when saved, always saved, and sanctification as a growth towards God. And so I would say it actually really is a great example of the process of sanctification. And so I would say it actually really depends on Protestants for sure. You know there are there are actually some Protestants that seem to have more of a sense of theosis and there are also some Protestants that have a more mystical tradition but let’s say something like Calvinism for example, at least certain strands of Calvinism that I’ve encountered. They definitely, I had an argument with a Calvinist pastor once which I regret just because I should never have gotten into it but nonetheless it happened. So I got this argument with a Calvinist minister and I was really impressed because he understood theosis and he said that salvation is a moral change and is not as ontological transformation. And I was surprised because he was really insisting on this fact. He was insisting on how salvation is and even salvation and sanctification, both of them participate in a moral change in the person. It makes you a better person but there is no going up the ontological ladder. There is no transformation of the being itself. And I was really amazed that he was so clear that he really believed that. But I also believe that why would anybody want that once you have the doctrine of theosis? Because the doctrine of theosis, the notion of theosis makes sense of the entire cosmos. It makes sense of everything because without it you have this arbitrary God that creates beings for his glory and then we are supposed to be good but we can’t so God makes us good so we can kind of become good beings so that we can praise God and it’s all very arbitrary. And so in the doctrine of theosis you have this very powerful image of a God that creates his creatures out of love because he wants to ultimately be united with them and that the incarnation is the very impetus of creation. That he wants to be united with them. He wants to transform them and make them participate in his very being. And it’s like that is so beautiful and powerful and so much fuller. And so to me it was astounding and it’s like there’s no way anybody could ever convince me to go back to that. Like why would I ever go back to that world? There’s nothing you could say. There’s no verse you could quote. There’s nothing you could say which would make me leave the powerful image of a loving God that exists in love and that wants to make us one with him. Truly, truly one with him. As much as possible, as St. Maximus says, as much as that is possible for a created being to be God, that is what God wants from us, for us. That’s what that’s his desire. That’s why he created us. And so he wanted us to share in all his glory. He wanted us to bring us in and make us participate in the divine council. It’s like that’s awesome. But so you know I don’t know. There’s nothing anybody could say to bring me back to that other place. Sorry. All right so Dorothea says, what do you think about the great resignation? The phenomena that around 40% of young people are either quitting their jobs or thinking about it. I’ve seen right-wing media connecting this to the anti-work movement but my experience in southeastern Europe is that really a lot of young people are quitting and it’s because of being overworked, underpaid, and just mistreated by an over-controlling management is it maybe that in the chaos of the world people just don’t believe that enduring that will pay off. A lot of my friends say they don’t believe there will be something like pension in 50 years. Yeah I don’t believe that. It is weird that it’s happening in very different places at the same time. So I mean it’s a disengagement and I think that you’re right. I think that the disengagement has two forms. The one of the disengagement has, one of the disengagement is part of the notion that you mentioned which is the idea that in the workplace or in the industry we see humans as machines. We treat humans as machines. We see them as machines. We see them as things that produce things and so you measure. You have to produce so much. You have to be so efficient. You have to make so many things in such time and we compare and we calculate and we and you’re you know and that’s what a job is. It’s basically you’re a human machine and so it’s like I understand why people want to quit that. I understand people want to leave that world. You’re not building. You’re not let’s say a village that’s like everybody’s working together to build the church or that everybody’s you know working together to make sure that the village survives together. That there’s a sense of togetherness and so if the mayor of the village is a little harsh or a little annoying you can see that nonetheless they’re there to make your village thrive but when you’re working from some giant corporation that doesn’t care a lick about you and that is only there to create like billionaires and now trillionaires I guess. I can understand why you just wanted to just like skip out on that. I get it but I think there’s also the other part and I think there’s also a kind of draw of the world of leisure and a world of kind of decadence and in a world of pleasure where we think that the purpose of existence is to have fun and the purpose of existence is to dilapidate ourselves and to party and to do all that. So it’s like imagine those two worlds facing each other. One where you’re either a cog in a machine and you’re like you’re just a you’re just a human robot or you are something like a indulgent video game playing porn addicted guy in person. It’s like that’s the reality that a lot of people have and so no wonder that people go for the woke. People go for some cause like something which makes them feel like they’re participating. Something which makes them feel like they’re building something. So it’s like it has a lot of sympathy for young people today and you know and so it’s our job to reconnect. Like it’s our job to try to create participate in things that are real. That’s why I say go to church and I told you like when I say go to church obviously I do mean go to church but by saying go to church I also mean like try to be engaged in things and projects and in teams and in groups and you know like whatever it is co-ops like whatever it is that you can muster to create common real common goals and you know real common projects and goals I think that’s that’s gonna help you know and so yeah. All right so here we go sorry why am I getting all worked up? All right so David Franco said, Jonathan I’ve been pondering your discussions of stories for some time. You talk about different versions of medieval stories for example dragon is slayed or is tamed then slayed etc. What do you make of the different accounts of the gospels in protestant discussion disclaim that is what makes the story authentic but after listening to you I think there’s more to it than that and in these examples different accounts would be context of Peter’s recognition of Christ thank you. So I think I think the best way to understand the four gospels is rather to understand it as the multiplicity which comes which necessarily comes out of unity and so there’s a there’s a manner in which we don’t find the finality in the multiplicity and this is right the mistake of of science it’s in general you know and so we actually find the unity in the unity in the place where these things are bring come together and that there’s a there’s actually a power there’s a mysterious power in the ambiguous which is right which is what the mysterious power in the places where the texts actually don’t connect that they if you look at the two traditions they can probably reveal something to you that is probably higher than reason you could say that is like a kind of a antinomia antinomial thing like a an aporia which reveals a higher mystery but I think that that’s rather the way to understand it and so you can understand like the four aspects of Christ you know and that’s what people traditionally I think people have understood that you know you know the gospel of Saint John is the higher shows the kind of more let’s say spiritual aspect and and the gospel of of now get them I’m getting them confused and so one is the more royal aspect and then the more human aspect say oh yeah so the the gospel of Saint Matthew the more human aspect the gospel of Saint Mark the more royal etc etc and so I think that that’s probably the the best way to see it you know so hopefully that makes sense sorry hope I didn’t confuse those which is possible so Christian Kleiss asks hello Jonathan can you talk about the relationship between Christopher and the Virgin Mary thank you oh man so all right so you could say that I’ve talked about the two Marys maybe that’s the best way to understand it I’ve talked about the two Marys maybe a few times in these talks where there’s a tradition in the West of you could say something like the two Marys so there’s the there’s Mary the mother of God and then there’s Mary Magdalene so there’s the whore and the Virgin and in the Orthodox Church we don’t have Mary Magdalene because Mary Magdalene is really it’s really a composite figure in the in the way the West has developed it and I think it’s totally fine I think it’s useful but in the in the East we have Saint Mary of Egypt and so you have Saint Mary of Egypt and you have Saint Mary the mother of God you have the whore and the Virgin the saturated one the confused the hybrid the the the external one and then the hidden one the secret one the pure one and there are two aspects of the lower world you could say two aspects of earth the best way to see that you can see the earth as pure untouched and pure potential and you can see the earth as chaotic waves mixture lack of lack of identity chaos and all that stuff so so those are two aspects of the lower world you could say and and so Saint Christopher is definitely the on the side of of Saint Mary of Egypt you could say you know and there’s a sense and this is the mystery there’s a sense in which the so you could say that the mother of God carries Christ in in the the the carries Christ in the the manger in the secret place and Saint Christopher crosses Christ over into the strange land but there’s a way there’s a way in which the Virgin Mary kind of contains both in her and I’m not saying the Virgin Mary is a monster and all this stuff there’s a way in which the the Virgin Mary contains both aspects of Mary because she also carries Christ to Egypt uh and also yeah so because she is the right hand I’ve talked about this before like the the right side contains the it’s like a stand-in for the center you could say and so the Virgin Mary contains both aspects but mostly in the in the pure form but she also is capable of going to Egypt you could say right uh without losing without I can’t believe I’m gonna say this so she’s able to go to Egypt without the suspicion that the Pharaoh took her like he strangely might have taken Abraham’s wife okay does that make sense hope that hope that makes sense so she’s able so she does have she has Saint Christopher in her but she’s not just Saint Christopher she has something which makes her all right let’s go on the ledge with these these answers all right all right so Kevin Patterson says so how can a material body be feminine to its masculine unseen spiritual identity while at the same time its external physicality is masculine to its feminine hidden interior identity of the being how can the material body be feminine to its masculine unseen spiritual identity while at the same time its external physicality is masculine to its feminine hidden or interior identity of the being not sure I understand that Kevin I’m sorry I’m not sure I’m not sure the way you ask your question is the proper way to understand it maybe that’s why I don’t understand it because I’m not sure the way you structure it is the right like you’re asking me to how is it that this is the way it is and maybe the way you’re describing it is not the best way to describe it I would say um so yeah sorry man I’m not sure all right Joe Kelly says a major flaw in agape from my perspective is that it leads to reciprocal narrowing of self-sacrificing love until you get a combinatorial explosion when deciding what to sacrifice for I got a lot of John Ravagy in that friend that sentence here symbolism and emergence is what I see taking over society when that desolation occurs and we lose our ability to reflect or aspire the question is in a symbolic world how do people ascend symbolically and avoid alienating or leaving behind persons at lower levels of understanding so major flaw in agape from my perspective is that it leads to reciprocal narrowing of self-sacrificing love to get a combinatorial explosion when deciding what to sacrifice for yeah I’m not sure I’m not sure again I’m not sure I follow what you mean um um so why does it why does it do that so so okay so the way that you should let’s say the way that the things you should sacrifice to there they they are objective right the the highest things you should sacrifice to they are truth beauty uh love um that’s what the things you should sacrifice to they’re god god is what you should sacrifice to and then you know you could say that in terms of virtues and you you you sacrifice things to acquire the virtues now now of course there are more arbitrary things that you sacrifice to let’s say you’re let’s say you sacrifice in order to get a job you sacrifice things uh in order to to do certain projects you know you you end up having to to eliminate things you want to go a good basketball player you have to focus on that and so so so those are more arbitrary but those will ultimately only be fruitful if you have those higher goals if you don’t then those lower goals that you sacrifice to will become something like idols and uh uh and then they they so so what what happens and this is this is something that I can’t explain to you but what happens is that when you focus on the higher things the lower things they actually just they just appear on your horizon they they shine and then there isn’t a combinatorial explosion it actually it’s like uh it’s like you see the lover right you see the person you care for in the crowd shining brightly and then you you move towards that um and so that’s what actually what happens um and so if you if you’re in a position where you’re in a position of combinatorial explosion where it’s like you don’t know what to do right what job should i have what what person should i date what what should i know what should i do what should i how should what should i look like what should my style be or whatever kind of question you can ask yourself in in a life if i would say the solution to that is to aim higher that’s a solution and that you you act with the desire for truth for example if you act with the desire for higher things for beauty for for love then then those lower things will be given to you how about that how about if i use the actual words of christ you know it’s like search the kingdom of god and all those things will be given to you you know they’re not they’re not uh there won’t be an ex it won’t be a combinatorial explosion so i hope i understand the sense of your question maybe i don’t even understand the sense of your question but uh hopefully that was useful for some people nonetheless all right midohamed ali hi jonathan do we exist before we were born does our existence start at the womb or after we are born what does the orthodox take on this so my understanding of the orthodox take on this is that uh that we are that we that life starts at conception that is the orthodox take on that and that there is no it is futile to think that there is a previous existence in the sense of we think of time uh that that our our existence as human is born in time and space and so are we know we are ensouled when we are conceived um and so you know we could say something like you exist as an as an idea in the mind of god you know you could say something like that that’s i think that’s appropriate but um but the way we understand is that as humans we we are meant to to be to exist uh conception yep so that makes sense how would that make sense i mean all right no one says when the kingdom of israel splits in two from a symbolic perspective why is the division so lopsided is it trying to show the imbalance of our spending way more time in exile in isle worship and attention than we do in proper worship and relation to god um i think i think it has to do with the notion of the remnant i think that’s probably the best way to do and understand it which is that let’s say if something breaks down one of the aspects will become the seed for the next world uh that’s probably the best way to understand it something like an ark and so i think that’s why that’s why it’s like all of israel falls except for juda and a little bit of a little bit of others but it’s mostly juda you know i think that’s what it has to do with the all right anders ralstad hello what symbolic insight is told in the story of lazard’s death and is his sister marta important for this symbolism um um definitely i mean definitely both mary and marta are important in the story of lazareth like all the times that christ encounters them it’s kind of revealing it’s kind of revealing this the same thing um and marta is something like something like the the desire for control the desire to to or the desire to to think that we’ve got this the desire to get lost in the causalities to get lost in the all this mechanical stuff all these these lower causalities um and i think that that’s usually what what what she represents you know and then mary is more attention and how attention precedes those other things and so mary attends and marta is so that’s why marta when christ arrives three days you know after lazareth is dead she’s like this doesn’t make sense like this causality is doesn’t make sense like if you had done this it would have been done this and if you know if you hadn’t done this then this would have happened um and uh and there’s and christ is trying to help her see beyond that and to see that all these little things they’re dependent on these bigger things they’re dependent on him ultimately but they’re dependent on these higher things you know and so yeah that’s the way i see it all right elisa says hi jonathan what is the symbolism of inverted perspective and iconography i think someone’s asked this before a few times uh all right so i can tell you what the theory is though this is this comes from um pavel uh florensky wrote a book called iconostasis which has some powerful things in it but one of his theories was this inverted perspective thing and the idea was that the icon was like inverted perspective where instead of the the vanishing point being out in the icon out in the image like you know how the image goes out into a vanishing point that in an icon the vanishing point was you basically so the the icon was open and that it was pointing towards you and you were like the the point um and he used i think if i remember correctly he used um rubel’s trinity icon as as one of the types of this and you know i mean it’s an interesting idea the this the problem with that is that it doesn’t work out it’s like icons don’t have inverted perspective or they sometimes have inverted perspective but most of the time they they don’t like if you try to work out the perspective of icons it’s it’s actually multiple perspectives and um i think if you’re interested in that uh i think that aiden hart writes a wonderful little article about that on multiple perspectives which is in his um in his book on uh icon and fresco painting and so he talks about multiple perspectives and tries to to see how these different perspectives have might have different meanings and including inverted perspective saying that inverted perspective is kind of part of that just one aspect of these different perspectives um so there’s a lot of discussion about this perspective question in icons and people tend to disagree a lot about that all right so chandler turner says kindly recently released a video for his song heaven and hell which features imagery heavily influenced by classical art the most prominent of these is the illustration by gustav doré of console 34 of the paradiso video ends with the recreation of john martin’s the fall of babalon if you’ve seen the video i’d like to hear your thoughts on it if not i would be interested to hear your elaboration on the symbolism of those famous pieces and so um yeah i saw the video it’s for my favorite song by the way on the album uh and so i saw the video there are a few things which disappointed me i think the first thing that disappointed me was that it was an ad for his his his hoodies it was in it was an ad for yeezy uh the yeezy brand at the gap which i was a little bit like what you made a song about heaven and hell and it’s an ad for your for the for the hoodies that are that are um displayed in the in the video i thought that was a bit pushing it’s like i’m nothing against selling things like i sell things there’s fine with that but i thought that was a little pushing it um but i did i mean the basic imagery that i found interesting was of course this duality you could say which is that he was giving two possibilities which is one the possibility of ascending and the second was the was the possibility of conflict and the breakdown of society and see that’s why i think he chose those two images and was contrasting them to each other which is basically saying you’ve got these two choices either you go up and you ascend towards god or you will end up in a situation where civilization is going to uh to collapse and babylon is going to fall apart so i think that that was the basic um the basic idea in that and it’s it’s still impressive i like it’s an impressive video um it’s complicated that he showed that he’s hiding people’s faces all the time it’s a very complicated thing you know i’ll tell you something about khanye which i was wondering if i was going to make a video about it but i might as well just talk about it now um so khanye did uh he did a concert recently with uh what’s his name the other rapper look at me i’m just such a boomer um anyways he did this concert he did a he did a live concert uh with drake that’s his name drake so he did a live concert with drake and it was weird because i was i’d come back from some some meeting or something and it started super late it started like 11 30 midnight and i didn’t know and i caught it on youtube before going to bed and i ended up staying up at two in the morning which was horrible but i ended up watching the whole concert and uh uh it was really interesting it was interesting like when you watch khanye’s performance because it really like you want to see like the the difficulty of if you watch my video on the sower on the powerball of the sower you can see the difficulty that someone like him is in so he was doing a concert and he was singing his songs and most of his songs are insanely vulgar sacrilegious they’re they’re horrible the words are horrible and so here he was doing a concert singing his own songs and then he was he would sing and then he would stop and he wouldn’t sing certain phrases sometimes certain words but sometimes not saying the bad words doesn’t matter because you cannot say the f word but the entire structure of your sense is so wretched that even if you don’t say the bad word it doesn’t matter because the whole sentence is horrible and so he doesn’t say he doesn’t say the words then he’s like and then sometimes it’s him but in a recording saying the word but then he doesn’t say it and then sometimes he would give in and he would actually say the words and say the kind of darker things and i swear if you look at his face during the whole time it’s like you see someone who is morally struggling like you can see it in his expression that he is struggling to hold on he’s holding on by his fingernails and he not he doesn’t know what to do you know and it’s like and i get it’s like his wife divorced him and everything is falling apart around him and it’s like you can see that that’s what’s going on and so it’s it’s actually kind of sad it’s like a sad if you watch it and you see what’s happening it’s very sad to watch it happen and it’s understandable because he had so much like imagine you have so much power and so much fame and so much influence and then it’s like no matter what you say no matter what you do people are gonna love you like no matter you could say the worst there’s almost nothing you can do anymore like you’ve already loved the worst supposed you know orange man in culture and then you put out an album and it’s like number one platinum album in america and so it’s like you’ve done it all and you can say anything and so man can you imagine being in that position it’d be horrible like it’d be so dangerous so i don’t know that was sad watching that i mean i was impressed because it was i mean i like Kanye West i like his music but i was like i was sad to watch him struggle morally because of his baggage like because of his earth that he’s carrying with him and that he has to he has to he has to kind of deal with it and so it’s there are a few people like for example like i don’t know if you guys know that about russ v who converted to orthodoxy like he actually unpublished his books which is really impressive he unpublished his books he he closed down the forums he basically he basically stripped his old world in order to have nothing left and so it’s like that’s impressive because that can lead to you know then you’ve plowed the earth more and there’s more room for the seed to grow but man Kanye i was feeling feeling bad for him i ain’t that why should i feel bad for him he’s yeah all right so here we go so Matthew O’Brandon asks okay this confused me to no end Matthew 12 43 when an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking rest and findeth none when he saith i will return into my house from whence i came out and when he is come he findeth it empty swept and garnished then goes he and take it with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first why would an unclean spirit seek dry places if that is order in biblical cosmology why worse than before i mean it feels like we should just be happy with the one imp and not risk seven um yeah it’s a good question all right so think about it this way think about it that okay so think about it like the world is made of attention or the world is made of worship is what i mentioned before and so so it’s not it’s never enough to get rid of bad habits if you try to just get rid of bad habits it’s it’s going to do this and so what you need to do is you need to replace bad habits with good habits but but so asceticism on his own on its own is not sufficient so think about so like for example you read in the church in the fathers and if you’re orthodox you’ll hear every single priest say the same thing they’ll say something like during lent there’s no point in fasting if you don’t pray if you don’t pray and you fast you’re in danger you’re in spiritual danger actually because you’re removing the things that usually kind of fill up your life but you’re not replacing them with something ordering the things properly you’re just trying to empty the space but that’s not how it works like it’s going to fill back up and so that’s the idea in this parable it’s like so you lead you you chase the spirit out of you but if you don’t fill the house with with a family if you don’t fill the house with with love if you don’t fill the house with things that are worthy then not only is the spirit going to come back it’s going to come back seven times more so this is not this is really like very simple like everybody has experienced something some of this to some extent like think about a diet think about think about a diet somebody goes on a super strict diet and then it’s super strict and super strict and super strict they’ll have a son finds themselves eating a tub of ice cream you know at midnight or whatever it’s like that’s what it’s talking about it’s talking about how you have to be careful when you try to get rid of the demons if you don’t if you don’t redirect your attention to something productive then you’re gonna fall worse than before and everybody knows someone like that right it’s like a drug addict who goes who’s or someone who’s an alcoholic who who who becomes clean and then if they man if they fall off that wagon they’re gonna fall like they’re gonna fall deep it’s gonna be worse than before because yeah so how does it make sense but in terms of if you the dry places it’s just wilderness it goes out into the wilderness into the desert right just like the egyptian just like the israelite we’re out in the desert and so the desert is something like uh you know it’s it has to do with with the wild wild areas the ire that are not they don’t have name the areas that aren’t that aren’t a home that aren’t uh part of civilization so you know that’s where the demons go and then they circle you know and then all right all right this is lasting longer than usual i’m interacting too much with the chat no i’m joking just joking guys all right so here we go janet horseman says how would you understand a social contagion from a spiritual perspective i have teenagers and a good half of their friends have come out as trans non-binary bisexual i’ve talked with them about this and how this is a social contagion but to better explain the phenomenon to them i would like to know this as the social contagion spreads does it gain body and strength in a spiritual way do the people under its spell give it more power and is it time to move to the jungle um um so yeah i mean definitely and so you can understand it as a as a as principalities right it so you have these principalities that are trying to to manifest they want body you know so so these these these weird wild demons they want body and so they they want to they that’s how they exist so you can understand it as fashion uh something like fashion you can understand it as all kinds there’s all kinds of ways you can understand it where there’s a way in which this is not negative that could also be positive which is that you can also do something like this in the army for example where you you set people under a certain principle and then they people fall in line and they start to manifest the will of that of that thing and so but this is now just for wilder principalities where people kind of fall under and in and there’s also a normal desire to give like if you if you are under the spell of some principality then you also want to gain more body for it you know because you know or at least intuitively you know that that’s how it will survive um and so so this is something which has been definitely happening you know and so it’s there’s a there’s a relationship between uh fashion narrative all of these things are making this uh exacerbated at this moment so i hope that helps a little bit so so he’s asked does it gain body and strengthen in spiritual way it gains body in a in a in a more embodied way but then it gains authority in a spiritual way that is it has more reach and it has more hold on the way the world is is is kind of uh manifesting itself but these patterns are not arbitrary so it’s like there are some patterns which will will be limited in the whole they can have because they are self-devouring patterns they don’t they’re not fruitful ultimately they’re kind of parasitical and so so let’s say this pattern could never be as strong as the pattern of a man and a woman having children and raising them it just it just can’t or it can but it as it does that as it as it gains more power it’s going to be actually it’s going to be releasing that things that hold the side together it’s going to be moving towards a kind of fragmentation because because of its very nature you know right so drew mcmahon asked are the only two choices god or nihilism i mean ultimately maybe but not not in uh like not in uh and in a more everyday way no because you know there’s i there’s a forms of idolatry you could say which are not exactly nihilism which are kind of illusions of of absolute of absolute meaning um and then there’s also a form which is maybe the opposite of idolatry which is of god bringing us closer to him through secondary goods and so the secondary goods can also be a a a man of God and so the second is the second is the second is the third can also be a manner we move towards God and so you can you can for example uh let’s say not fully know that you’re moving towards God or not fully realize it or not fully realize the the the implications of that uh but are rather moving towards these secondary goods but God is using those secondary goods to kind of pull you along the way um but then also the like i said you can also see those secondary goods as as that’s a god in themselves and then so it’s like someone who’s chasing after money is not a nihilist he’s wrong right he’s wrong he he worships mammon or whatever but he’s not a nihilist um so but ultimately it ends it ends in nihilism that is if we go down the path of just these secondary goods then the goods tend to devolve where at first people want you know higher goods and then they just want to get off and then they just want to die right it’s like there’s a there’s a devolving of the of the good let’s say all right all right erry fisher says hi jonathan why does christ say that we shouldn’t swear by anything but let our yes be yes and our no be no yes please have a follow-up on your last convo with jon verbeke yeah i know i should i keep it’s like every other day i’m like i need to write a message to jon and then my days are so full of emails and meetings and and like dealing with the logistics of god’s dog and like doing all this stuff like oh man yeah so but yes yes i will definitely do that i need to i need to free myself up more just to have more mental space um so why does christ say we should swear about anything let our yes be yes and our no be no and so i think this is that i think this has something to do with the a kind of problem of idolatry like i think that’s what it has to do with i think that what was going on in the time of christ is that people would swear on different things and that they would use that as if the truth was dependent on the truth wasn’t higher than these secondary goods and so it’s like the truth is higher think about it this way so the truth is higher than the temple the truth is higher than the the steps of the temple the truth is higher by these different things in the temple but people would make their truth dependent on things that are lower than it and so i think what christ is saying is like truth is above all of these like truth is above all the these other things which are good but that that there isn’t a hierarchy of truth it’s not like if you swear by something smaller then you then there’s less truth in there but if you swear it’s like it’s like someone you know we see that in movies too sometimes it’s like people say like i swear on my mother right and it’s like okay so if you would have sworn on that turtle then then maybe i don’t believe you but it but if you swear on your mother then i believe you because truth is dependent on the thing you on the thing you uh you swear by so i think that that’s that’s that’s what’s going on there but i but ultimately i don’t think that there’s a i don’t think that there’s also anything wrong with the idea for example of uh if you see you know the idea of like if they’re putting your hand on the bible in order to to swear um you know um so i think it’s mostly in that case it’s mostly like to help you remember the importance of what you’re doing and that you know you take it seriously like this isn’t uh um so i think that’s what he’s saying ultimately all right dan christopher which christian apologists and atheists would you like to best see in a debate loved you on the rationality rules even if you may have found the painful um i don’t know i don’t like debates i don’t i don’t like watching debates i do sometimes like i’ve watched a few debates but it’s like i really don’t like watching debates because i i feel like it’s just two people locked in their position and usually there’s no budging nobody moves um but i would definitely like let’s i would definitely love to see a discussion between uh david bentley hart and john reveke and i know some people are trying to make that happen and i don’t know why it hasn’t happened yet because i would love to see that i think that would be really interesting because i do think that david bentley hart’s uh uh capacity to understand the role of consciousness is super strong you know and i think that john’s working out of questions of of uh of uh emergence and emanation and these these relationships i think it could be a super interesting discussion i hope that happens lynn holland says are there any symbolic links between the canadian trucker protest and historic or biblical events i mean you guys you haven’t seen the meme it was pretty amazing the wall of jericho meme which you there’s someone sent me this like it was actually the clown world pepe you know whatever that that figure is who is honking his nose and you could see the uh the tribe going around the walls of jericho you know honking their blowing their trumpets and the walls falling down i thought that was pretty cool because that definitely what it looked like you know there’s also you know the truckers there and it’s it’s it’s all very symbolic like the whole trucker thing because from the very beginning of this i remember when they started putting in all these mandates and stuff they shut down the economy the whole economy for a while but the first thing they reopened guess what it was it was construction and of course they never stopped the transport and so i was like all right they at least they got that right it’s like don’t scratch the bottom of the world folks don’t scratch the regular people if you do that you don’t understand what’s down there you don’t understand that the truckers the construction workers all the the people right in the marxist sense like in the real marxist sense the workers the people they’re what the world is holding on so you got to be really careful when you poke at those people because if you poke at that it’s gonna it’s gonna jump up and it’s gonna come get you so it’s like it’s interesting that it’s truckers because truckers are saint christopher basically they’re the transporters they’re the ones that move between borders they’re the psycho pumps you know they’re the in-between characters and so it’s like by attacking the truckers they were the truckers were able to kind of awaken uh something which didn’t have body yet you know a grumbling that didn’t have body and so it was like there’s the body that image of the truck it’s like you know there’s something in the culture about a truck that is very powerful and represents the common man and so if you scratch it that you might be surprised at what comes up and uh so it’s interesting and it’s and it’s and it’s inevitable and it’s pathetic to watch our government you know just right away take scream out all the epithets and and it’s interesting it’s super interesting because if you didn’t think covid was political before i hope you know now because i hope that somehow magically being able to relate anything which contradicts the the state mandates with uh with like racism and misogyny the way trudeau did it i mean it’s just revealing how political this is not political it was at the outset and how it is a a political agenda towards certain goals um so if you didn’t think that before trudeau saying that his that the people who are resisting medical mandates are his ideological and political enemies and moral enemies bringing in racism and misogyny and all the woke uh all the woke uh speaking points yeah well it’s political and it was it’s been from the beginning so yeah all right jeff dunlop says the sabbath the center or the margin it definitely has more to do with the margin um but it also has something to do with the the place in which the the the seed secretly appears in the in the margin or secretly appears in the potential like where the naming stops the work stops and then the the seed is secretly coming down into that to restart the world and so that’s why it has to do with also christ in the tomb you could say um so i think that’s the best way to understand it but there’s the definitely an aspect of the sabbath which has to do with the margin for sure materiel i think showed that without any shadow of a doubt in his book i mean man um and so jason says what is the symbolism of the ronin i think i answered that from the chat i mean the ronin is a is is a warrior that is no longer attached to the the is no longer attached to the traditional authority someone who has all the all the training of uh of uh of the hierarchy but for some reason is no longer attached to it anymore so that’s the ronin it’s a good way to to end there isn’t it so everybody thanks for your attention and uh thanks to uh to lisa and i don’t know if brad was there i didn’t see is brad there well whoever was there as a moderator thank you and uh yeah i’ll talk to you very soon and uh thanks everybody for your support and lisa i’m sorry you’re tired i know for you it’s super super late and so sorry about that so everybody bye-bye good night