Madness, Monsters and the Feminine Hero - Discussion with Sorting Myself Out (I-hdgbmMryE)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=I-hdgbmMryE

Okay, so welcome one and all. I’m Mercury Black, the Lunatic co-host of Sorting Myself Out. I’m joined today by Andrea Lewis from the YouTube channel Andrea with the Bangs. And she’s agreed to assist me with my interrogation of Jonathan Pajot. Now, this usually goes best when you start with the good cop. So I’m going to hand this over to you, Andrea, and why don’t you see if you can get any information out of this character. The minute you’re not cooperating, Jonathan, I’m stepping in. So I’m going to stand here. We should have come up with a secret signal, but okay. Okay, so hello, Jonathan Pajot. It’s good to meet everybody. Yes, I am very excited to be in this little cohort. It’s my first little team up with another channel. So I am glad it’s glad it’s here and glad it’s now. So, okay, Mercury and I were speaking yesterday and we got this idea of like, you know, because symbolism. The king’s court is their subject. But we, rather than the king, like we’re tired of hearing about him. We’re at least in this, in purposes of this chat. So I’m thinking about like the queen and then for Mercury’s sake, I wish it was you saying this, but I am saying it. The jester slash fool. So I am representing the feminine pair. You’re the queen? Yeah. Well, Mercury’s got his misfits shirt on, so it’s perfect. Yeah, I’m already labeled as a dog-headed man. I know, okay. I just wanted you to say that. So Pajot knows what he’ll be talking to me about already. Okay, you said it. You said it. Okay. And then I’m like, I’m the queen. But no, but I definitely in this space represent the feminine anyway. But I would like to hear about it from you because, okay, I’ve heard a lot from say initially Jordan Peterson and then from you. And even when we talk about the margins, we hear about monsters to some female, but mostly male. And I’m really interested in like the feminine in the different walks of life. So I’m going to borrow from Game of Thrones slash Ancient Greece. So we have the maiden slash the virgin, the mother, and then the crone, aka the three fates. So I’m kind of volleying it. I’m going to volley it over to you. Yeah, you forgot the Amazon. The Amazon is important. Oh, okay. Oh, right. Because she’s the one. Okay. So there are women in the market. Especially for today. Today, the Amazon is all important because that’s pretty much the only character left. Pretty much. Well, then take it away. Should we start there? Should we start with the Amazon? Okay, let’s start. It’s not a good idea to start with the Amazon. You finish Amazon at the end. Let’s start with the first walks of life. Let’s start with the maiden then, if that’s okay. Well, I mean, maybe we can talk about feminine characteristics. The first thing that’s important to understand is that we have to be careful when we talk about these categories, that we don’t flatten the category with people. And that’s sometimes a dangerous thing where we are all people, right? So you’re a person. You are a woman. You are feminine, but you’re not only that. It’s the same for me. So we, symbolism is fractal. So every aspect of reality has both a masculine and feminine aspect, let’s say, right? So each person also, but in a social system, then certain people are male and then certain people are female. And then the males will have a more masculine role and the females will have a more feminine role, let’s say. But it’s really important to be careful not to, because sometimes it can avoid it sometimes becoming personal, where people want it to be personal. It’s like, well, I’m not like that or I don’t feel this or whatever. So we all exist on scales of these things. Like nobody is only one aspect as a person. That’s what’s important to talk about, to say, first of all. And second of all, so the notion of the feminine is really the idea that you could… The first way to talk about it would be to talk about the idea of space, right? The idea of space and an actor in space. And so the feminine is space. And so that means that when the feminine is represented as the maiden, then she becomes the space that will motivate the action of the hero, right? So she becomes the reason for the hero to advance and to make himself better, okay, in that sense. And well, the idea of the virgin, first of all, is also the notion of pure potentiality. So untouched space, you would say, right? Undefiled or into pure nature, all this kind of imagery is totally… Like that’s the idea of mother nature, for example, is not at all arbitrary. It makes complete sense that you have this kind of virgin natural world, which is untouched or unmodified, not modified, something like that. And so the maiden can have that role as well. And so it appears to the hero as something extremely desirable, because it’s something that you want to conquer in a way. I mean, it can sound bad when you say it that way, but it’s the idea of when you… I have the idea of conquering a lady, conquering her heart is a better way to say it. You say conquering her heart, it sounds better. But the idea is that you have this… you want to join yourself with this pure potential, and then the virgin becomes the mother. Then the relationship between the virgin and the mother, then there’s a transformation where then the space of desire for action, so let’s say the hero has this desire, he sees something which entices him to want to act. Then when the union happens, then it becomes the space for the home. So the house, the home, the womb, all this imagery of space in order for the child to grow within the space. And so that’s usually mostly… Most feminine symbolism will manifest in that role, let’s say. But the thing that’s complicated about feminine symbolism is that, especially when you think about a queen, for example, is that this happens at every level of reality. So we have this idea of a coupling that happens at every level of reality, so people will think, oh, man above, woman below, like you see this, like heaven and earth type of thing. So you can see that there’s a hierarchical relationship, and it’s presented that way in the Bible and in a lot of traditional stories. But because it happens at every level, it also means that at the level of kingship, there’s a coupling, and then at the level of society, there are couplings, and then at the level of your family, there’s a coupling. And then in your own soul, like in your own self, there’s a coupling, right? So it just kind of fractally fits itself into each other. And so that’s why you can have a king and a queen, and the king is above you and the queen is above you as well. Just like when you’re a child, your mother is above you, right? Your mother is not the same… The relationship you have with your mother is not the same that will happen that will be with your wife. It’s a different relationship, right? It’s a relationship of seeing the feminine, the heavenly feminine, you could call it, something like that, and then the earthly feminine, or some… There’s different ways to say it, but that’s a good way to pronounce it. And then there are figures that join it all together. There’s one figure, the mother of God, Mary, she joins all the images together. So she’s wife, she’s virgin, she’s mother, she’s all the images of the feminine kind of boiled into one. So she’s both the earth in the sense of the matrix of reality, but she’s also the heavenly queen, and she’s the virgin, but she’s also the queen in the sense that she’s actually crowned and joined with her son, which looks like an insectuous thing. But in terms of symbolism, in terms of ultimate symbolism, it makes sense if you try to bring the image of the feminine to one figure. It all has to kind of boil into this one thing. So that’s the basic idea of the feminine. I don’t know if that makes sense. Sometimes I feel I’m speaking very abstractly. It does, but I like that you gave the little warning. I know that some people want to think of it from a personal perspective, and so we have to understand that there are dichotomies and fractal bonds that go… We’re showing this way and that way, and it’s not all one thing, but it absolutely is personal. But what’s my hero’s journey? I totally, completely understand the woman as home, the woman as you are coming to find me. I understand that, and it does resonate at a really deep level. But at the same time, I want a purpose. I want an aim. Well, there is. I can tell you what the purpose of the feminine is. You can’t have one without the other. They’re complementary. So you have the image of the hero who saves the princess from chaos, let’s say, who separates the potentiality that is useful from the potentiality that’s destructive. That’s usually when you save the virgin from the dragon. It’s as if you’re taking potentiality that’s useful. You’re separating the… a good way to say it, which is very Mesopotamian, is you’re separating the salt water from the fresh water. So you have fresh water, which is useful, and you have salt water, which is deadly. And so that’s this idea of the… So the hero comes and he conquers the virgin. He conquers the maiden. Now, the reason why he’s conquering her is because she is giving him focus. He wouldn’t be a hero without her. He wouldn’t do anything. He would just sit around and play video games and eat chips. And that’s what he would do, right? Because the feminine is the frame of reality. So an image, the best image of the feminine, I think, one of the best images is in Scripture. You have Mary, who at the wedding of Cana… This is one of the most mysterious and amazing stories ever told. So Mary… there’s this wedding and they run out of wine. And Mary says to Christ, they ran out of wine. So what she’s doing is she’s presenting a problem. She’s presenting a quest. It’s very little. It seems like a little quest, but she’s presenting a quest. She’s framing reality. She’s saying, this is the frame. Now you have to answer the question. Here’s the question. You answer the question. But that question, that’s a very, very powerful thing. I don’t think you can understand how powerful that is. There’s a great quote in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which looks very cliché or kind of silly when you hear it. But everybody has heard it, where the woman says to her daughter, she says, the man is the head of the household, but the woman is the neck. And it’s a great quote. It’s an amazing insight into the feminine because what she’s saying is, the woman will decide what the man looks at. She will frame reality. She’s going to give him the frame and then he’s going to answer. But he’s going to answer within that frame. So when Mary says, there’s no wine, she’s saying, okay, act. Reveal yourself. Manifest the logos. But manifest it in this question. It would be silly if she said, there’s no wine, and then Christ changes stones into bread. Why are you changing stones into bread? I said there’s no wine. That’s the issue. That’s the frame. Now act within that frame. And so that’s why, I mean, Jordan Peterson talks about this, but you can understand it at a very deep level. That’s why the stories like Beauty and the Beast are about a woman who tames a wild man. She gives him purpose. She focuses his energy so that he can act. And so the idea would be that the feminine hero’s journey is to properly frame reality. I mean, that sounds very abstract, but in practice it can be extremely practical. It can be extremely practical because that’s also in a way what mothers do with children. They create a frame within which the children will act. And that frame is extremely important, that house, that home. All of that is extremely important. But it’s not limited to the idea, like I said, of, it’s not limited to the kind of cliche 50s wife of making a home, although it’s part of it. But there is really this more powerful image, which is that without the frame, there’s nothing. Nothing happens. Because the logos manifest themselves. An answer only comes from a question. Okay. If there’s no question, there’s no speaking. If there’s no question, there’s no manifestation. So, okay, does it make sense to say that women, so women are the question, sorry, not women. I guess you could say feminine or women. Like they’re the call to action. They’re the question. Yeah. But it’s really important to understand that the call to action is more than what you think. It’s more than just a call to action. It’s an actual framing of reality. It’s deciding what’s important. Okay. It’s actually, it’s relevant realization in the way that John Grivecki talks about it. It’s framing the discourse. Okay. So framing the discourse comes before the discourse. Oh, I’m just thinking Mother Nature came first. It’s all being revealed, Jonathan. Well, you can see, you can see that if you look at, if you look at the imagery in scripture, you have this sense that, So you have this sense that there is this, the chaos or the matrix. It’s like a, it is like desire in a way. It’s like calling. It’s asking. It’s saying what? So what, like what is going to come of this? Like what is going to happen? And so, but that question is, like I said, is the very primordial. And you can see it in the story of Mary at the wedding of Cana. Because she is basically bringing Christ to, into his mission. And that’s why when she says there’s no wine, Christ answers, my time has not yet come. Which is just sounds like the craziest answer to answer because he’s basically saying, I’m not ready to die. But she’s asking him about wine. Like why is it that she’s asking him that saying there’s not wine? And he’s saying, hey, wait a minute. I’m not ready to die yet. Because he understands that she is actually opening the door for him. And she’s saying, here’s your path. Take it. This is it. Like I’m opening the door. You take, you have to take the path now. Okay. How many times have I read that? I’ve never seen. You’ve never seen that? I’ve read it. I’ve read it. Like I, like I, I have a degree in Christian studies and minor in Christian history. Oh, you’ve never seen that in the text? I’ve never, I’ve read it and I know the story, but I’ve never seen what you, I’ve never seen it. Like, do you know what I mean? Like I didn’t see the symbolism. Eve does the same thing. Mary is an anti Eve. Eve, Eve takes the apple. What are you going to do, Adam? Are you going to bite it or not? He bites. She presents, she presents possibility. And he takes the, he takes the bait. And what Mary does the same, Mary is basically, and it’s, it’s exactly the same, but it’s, it’s in reverse because Eve is leading Adam to death. Okay. And Mary is leading Christ to death. But he says, he says, it’s not my time yet. He says, he knows it’s going to lead him to death. He knows he’s going to die if he takes, if he, if he does this. Right. But there’s, there is salvation waiting. That’s right. That’s it. That’s the transformation of death into glory that I’m always talking about. That’s what’s happening in that story. Okay. Okay. I feel like I’ve taken up so much time, Mercury. Let’s go to the margins. Let’s go to the margins. Before we jump into the freak show, just to go while we’re on the subject of the divine feminine. One thing, Jonathan, that you might want to do, like a pop culture reaction to for the purpose of outlining some of what you were saying is Masters of the Universe. So I don’t know if you’re familiar with that cartoon when we were little, but Kevin Smith is going to be bringing it back. And so that may become more culturally relevant soon. But the key thing is that Prince Adam is lies around doing nothing as a waste of potential. He’s got this tiger named Cringer that is afraid of everything. And it’s not until the sorceress who’s trapped within Castle Grayskull protecting all the powers of the universe. So in other words, God. And when she finds Prince Adam, she gives him the sword that he holds up to say by the power of Grayskull. And so without her, he lies around napping and not doing anything the king wants him to do. And his cat is a coward with the that’s makes total sense. That turns into Battle Cat. He turns into He-Man, which there’s nothing more masculine and then is tasked with protecting her and all the secrets of Castle Grayskull. Is this He-Man like as in the He-Man and She-Ra situation? Yeah, like the because I collect vintage toys. So I’ve got all the He-Man toys all over the place here. But that may become bigger in culture because Kevin Smith’s continuing the series. And I would love to see you do a video one day on the original Masters of the Universe, the Divine Feminine Mask. Yeah, when I was a kid, it was that’s what I mean. I remember watching that when I was a kid that was that was playing. So, yes, I do remember that. I don’t I think I even had some figures when I was a kid. I think I did have the He-Man figure. Actually, I’m pretty sure I had a bunch as a kid. But also now like my kids have some vintage He-Man. OK, and I’ve got a like my room is full of old toys. So I’ve got just a pile of He-Man all over the place. Hold on to those. You see that in the story of King Arthur, you have a similar situation where the Lady of the Lake, she presents Arthur the sword. But it’s a very, very old story, right? In the story of Gilgamesh, we get the same we get the same story where Enkidu is presented as a wild man in the forest who lives with the animals and, you know, who can barely speak and barely do whatever. And so the people of Uruk send a prostitute to tame him, basically. And so she kind of she kind of seduces him. And then in seducing him, then she also teaches him to do to dress and then to eat food and etc, etc. And as he’s doing that, the animals start to be afraid of him. And then finally, he kind of separates himself from nature and until he’s ready to face Gilgamesh in the duel. But as I recall, he like curses her for waking him up on his deathbed. Really? I don’t. OK, OK, I’ve just I don’t remember that. I just listened to it. There’s a Myths and Legends podcast called Myths and Legends. Yes, I like that podcast. I have been going through it like crazy the past few months. Yeah. Yeah. And so he does the Epic of Gilgamesh. And I mean, I just I just listened to it. And so like, I see her. But she but she literally comes in the door being like, oh, really? And of course, you know, he’s like he I mean, he pulls an atom. It’s the woman you gave me, you know. But then but then, you know, she just sets him straight. And he’s like, OK, maybe it’s not so bad that I found out. That I woke up. OK. I’ll have to listen to that version on the podcast. According to this version, I’m like as if I’ve like really gone through the texts. No, I just listened to the podcast. He does a pretty good job. He usually says it when he goes astray. He’s like he says I changed this or that, but he tends to try to stay pretty close to the main narrative. He’s actually better at the first the first podcast. They were unbearable because he was virtue signaling the whole time. He was always trying to show how he doesn’t agree with the characters. And I feel like he’s gotten a lot better later in the in the podcast where he stopped always virtue signaling all the time. Because, I mean, OK, don’t expect these stories to fit politically correct ideology. You know, just drop that before you start telling those stories because you’re going to apologize all the time. I do. I do really like the way that he he’s like, you know, Zeus is going to rape like he always does. Like he’s quite he kind of has his little quips. He found a way he found a way to tell the story. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Are we are we are we are we going to go? Yeah, I think it’s I do have. OK, speaking of the Greeks, because I do have one question that if we if you wouldn’t mind indulging me one last. OK, so with regards to the feminine. OK, so, Jonathan, a couple of weeks ago, I I actually asked you on Twitter and I tagged you about this and you answered. But I remember being confused. So I’m like, oh, I forget to talk to him. I’m going to. I don’t remember. I I’m horrible. I know you’ve got a lot of you got a lot going on on Twitter. There’s a lot of I’m sure you get tagged a lot. But OK, I asked about I thought it was odd that of the three perpetual virgin goddesses. Hestia is one the goddess of the hearth. And I thought that was odd because the hearth is the center of the home for women. Well, for everyone. But like, right. We’re for women. So that’s why I and you actually answered. But I just you wonder why I answered. OK, I remember now what I answered. OK, I mean, the idea is that. So the idea would be to understand the. The center, right, the let’s take the ideal meeting of heaven and earth. If you idealize it, you actually have this idea that I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like in order for the feminine to be to fully manifest everything. That’s that’s where the idea of virginity comes from. And so in Christianity, we take it to the extreme, which is the virgin mother. And so she is perpetual virgin, which is also a mother. And so because of that, she’s actually the mother of all. Because she’s she remains untouched, you could say. So she she remains the matrix underneath the world. Right. And so the hearth, which is the center. So that so you can understand you can understand masculine and feminine as like heaven and earth as like two categories like this. But then when you have a mountain, let’s say, or you have a center, you have a category, then you can understand the category as as a center. And the center is made out of a masculine and feminine element. So let’s say in the temple or in the tabernacle, you have the seat, the throne of God. And then you have the glory of God, which sits on the throne. Right. If you look at an icon of Christ and his mother, you’ll see often he’s sitting on her lap and she is called the throne of wisdom. Right. And so she’s she’s the throne and he’s the glory of God on the throne. Right. The image of Christ on his mother’s lap is an image of the of the of the of the Ark of the Covenant with the glory of God on it. And so that is that the center is made out of the frame and the name or the answer, the question and the answer, the opening of space and the manifestation of space. OK, so the Virgin represents the potential of could could go anywhere. Yeah. And so, yes, exactly. But you can so you can understand it as so the ultimate feminine is unbounded potential. Right. So it’s it’s it’s the it’s the it’s it’s Mara, you know, it’s the chaos at the the beginning of time. Right. It’s the the the first this first separation of heaven and earth. Right. But then there’s also framed. There’s a framed version. So there’s a universal question, which is, is there going to be something like is there going to be something or nothing like you could say that it’s like the universal question. Is there going to be something or nothing? And then there are framed questions and then those become more like the home. So you but you can represent it in its virginal state because that’s the frame. So you can say that the home want to be framed in the eternal potential. No, but it’s just it’s just different aspects of the feminine. And so potentiality potentiality potentiality, but there is only one unbounded potentiality. There’s only it’s the only one. And then there are different levels of potentiality depending. So like there’s a there’s the potentiality within within basketball. Right. So the potentiality within basketball is the frame of the game. And then within that frame, then certain things can happen. But but a pickup truck can’t participate in a basketball game. That potential is not available to the basketball game. OK, right. And so everything has a has a frame as a limit, has things which delimit its reality. And then within that reality, the discourse can occur. So, I mean, I use basketball, but I could use any anything. So you can represent that as you can represent it as a as a virgin. If you want, like it can be it can be a way of manifesting that. So the hearth, the center of the home. So, OK, so you have the heart and you have the fire in the heart. OK, so you would say that that Hestia is the goddess of the hearth. So she’s the goddess of the space in which the fire burns, which lights the house, but then also becomes the center. So so the identity, the frame of the identity and then the identity, the manifestation of the identity or the particular of the identity. OK, does that make more sense? Yeah, it just brings up like I’m like, oh, yeah, those the vestal virgins who had to attend the fire for their lives. Like they literally became what you’re describing figuratively. Yeah, so an example, an example in Greece is there’s a great example, the example of the of the what’s her name? The. Adelphi, Adelphi. Oh, the Oracle, Adelphi. So the Oracle, Adelphi is a perfect example. So the Oracle is a is a is a woman. And so she receives this like raw intuition, right? She receives this like raw. We don’t know how she got it. We don’t know what she did, but she received this like raw intuition. And then she would say a bunch of stuff. But the people who came to ask the Oracle for information would never meet the Oracle. They would meet the priest because the Oracle would speak to the priest. And then the priest would would take that potential. And then would focus it for an answer to give to that person. Oh, so the priest would always interpret the Oracle for the for the for the person coming to ask the question. So if someone came with the question, you there would be two parts of it. One would be this like raw potential mixing up of the soup or of knowledge or whatever. And then out of it would come a bunch of associations. And then the priest would associate would would focus that to answer the question. The question. OK, so he’d bring order from the chaos of her potential. But it’s framed chaos. It’s not pure chaos. It’s OK. It has a certain limit. It’s just like so all forms of divination are that. So you you you take a bunch of bones, you know, you throw the bones and then they fall. So there’s this like chaotic weird thing that manifests some intuition or some associations. And then but you need someone to interpret it without it. It’s nothing right where you need both. Just like in scripture, you have the tongues where people say a bunch of stuff. But in scripture, it says if you don’t have an interpreter, then it’s pointless. OK. I’m trying to find all million of analogies. No, no, no, it is. No, it’s it’s. It’s one of those things where it makes sense, all the things you’re saying. And I just need to think about it more. It’s also hard to think. It’s hard. It’s hard for us to think that way because we’re not used to. We’re not used to seeing the world that way. And so it’s difficult sometimes for us to kind of we can like you can intuit it. But it’s all of a sudden your rational mind comes back and says, well, that’s not how things work. Like, that’s not what I feel. I feel very deprived of being from a Protestant background. I’m from a Protestant background. You’ll do fine. Well, with regards to the feminine, like it’s Mary is like really demoted. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Protestantism is extremely masculine. Hurting Mary was very important. Yeah. Yeah. So she got really pushed to the forefront for you. Yeah. But then in the Protestant space, it’s like, well, it’s really just down. Yeah. Well, not just Mary, but also the fact the reason the fact that Protestants removed the the the apocryphal book, also removed the whole wisdom of Solomon part, which is which is which is this kind of discussion with a which feels like it’s God talking to his kind of cosmic consort or like this idea of this sacred this like divine feminine or something. We’re not supposed to say it that way, but it’s like there’s there’s really is this thing happening in wisdom of Solomon. Like there really is this this relationship which which got a lot of theologians into trouble recently. But it’s still there’s still something there going on. Like there’s still something there. I will have to take a look. Yeah, you should do that. Okay, the margins. Mercury. Go. All right. Carnival time. Quickest way to summarize to me, because I assume you know nothing about me, right, Jonathan? Okay. I was a Catholic altar boy as a teenager got into punk and all that independent film. Just before turning 27 I got hit by a bus that triggered me being bipolar type one at a very high setting of insanity. Complete psychosis first time around all revelation based into the mental institution got out my first cycles were three years long. So two years of suicidal depression. Tried to put myself together again. Another end of the world scenario this time much more 2012 related. Anyway, marched into another sane asylum this time naked bloody handcuffed wrists and ankles. After that I went into isolation, I got a house farm right near my parents. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. The first two years no phone no internet no car never left couldn’t see any neighbors. I just had all my supplies dropped off. As I came out of that I encountered an archangel. Being aware both of the psychological Richard Dawkins perspective that this could all be in my head and having the sub personalities that were total believers. I interacted with the archangel that way where I examined it from every angle and continuing to live basically in isolation. It took me through a variety of training. I thought I was going to live as a hermit forever. But at a certain point I was asked to open myself up to the world a bit. And the deal I made with God was that I didn’t want any of that messianic crap to come up. I didn’t want to be telling people what they should do with their life. So I said, look, I just want to focus on figuring myself out and continue my training. If the world needs anything from me, have the world to ask me directly. And other than that, I’ll worry about myself. Gradually people came into my life needing help in one way or another, often people with serious mental issues. But it progressed to the point where at a certain point my archangel, I’d come across Jordan Peterson from his Jungian depth psychology. I’m not interested in politics. And I saw and that’s how I encountered Andrew. This is talk with Jordan Peterson. And my archangel said, so I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. And I said, I’m going to be a hermit forever. From Alan Moore on Magic. And he was connecting the fact that they’re both saying, look, whether the gods are inside you or outside you doesn’t make a difference. They’re fucking real, man. Take them seriously. And when I saw that, my angel laughed and was like, see? He needs to talk to you. So I reached out to Andrew. And we became friends. But also, I kind of mentored him a little bit. And he would ask my advice on the channel. Eventually, he asked me to go on the channel. And the response to the three podcasts I’d done with him was a lot of people asking me to start my own channel. And my angel said I didn’t have to. And I was like, screw that. I don’t barely know how to use my computer. So I let that go. But eventually, when Andrew wanted to stop doing his channel, he asked me to take it over. And that time, my angel and the other people in my life all said, yeah, you should do this. So that’s how I ended up getting involved with sorting myself out. And since then, like since the quarantine started, because I put out a… I’d been very inactive over, like I have a yearly cycle. So I die in the fall and spend the winter in the crypt, come alive every spring. When quarantine hit, I went online and sort of asked the community, does anyone need anything? You know, I’ve been really not that active. But, you know, my angel said to check with everyone. And since then, that’s exploded. I’ve been working full time for the past two months, either doing content for the channel, hosting Zoom events and sort of facilitating group meetings, or I do private sessions with people. And they’ll use me in… from anything from what you’d want to talk to a psychologist about, so I know quite… like I’ll take whatever angle the person wants. If someone wants to talk psychology, I know a lot about that. Other people come to me essentially the way you would a shop. Like I need a malfunctioning brain to run some info through to get some, you know, more random into the results. And some people use me sort of like a priest or an emotional confidant. I do a lot of counseling people through suicide or psychotic states. I’m sorry, not counseling them through suicide. I don’t teach people how to commit suicide. I mean, I counsel them when they’re feeling suicidal. Right. I understood what you were saying. But you have been talking about the monsters and the holy fools for quite a while. And you know what happens when you talk about monsters too much, you end up face to face with one. So most of your discussions of the holy fool have been explaining it to the normies out there. What advice do you have for those of us who are dog-headed men who are not going to be finding themselves thrust into that position? That’s a really tough question. I mean, I think. Bad cop here. No, it’s okay. It’s okay. Softballs here. So the best thing that the best thing that. Let’s say the monsters can do. In their role of monsters. And again, when I talk about these categories, we’re not, we’re none of us are limited to one category. Right. So when I talk about categories, I’m not talking about people, but the best thing that the monsters can can do is. Well, there are two, there are two aspects. One is to act as guards and the others to act as bridges. And so they stand on the edge. And they’re kind of. Usually they’re not seen well from the center, right? They’re seen as freaks. They’re seen as kind of just not kosher, not right, a little bit off. All of this is the perception of the center. But their positive role can really be those two because they’re so close to the dark side or so close to the bigger monsters. And so they can, on the one hand, extend their hand out. And tame the bigger monsters. You could say it that way. So they can, they can act as bridges to the outer world. And the other way is that they also guard the inside from the bigger monsters that don’t want to be tamed. You know, that, that are. That are threatening to destroy it, you know. And so you can understand that. It’s kind of like, it’s like anything. It’s like anybody who has, you can think of it as someone who was an alcoholic, for example, right? And so the, someone who has touched that world, who’s, who’s kind of been affected by that world, then will always be, can be a bridge, you know, to bring people in, you know. But the thing is that that’s the positive aspect. The negative aspect is that the monster can also be a bridge going out and can also pull people from the inside towards the outside, you know. The same thing with an, with an alcoholic, like someone who has those tendencies can pull people from the inside into addiction, but can pull people out of addiction into, you know, a more, let’s say, ordered life. So that’s what I would say, that that’s the two positive roles that the monsters can play. So, the gargoyles and bridges. Saint Christopher and the gargoyles. Well, Saint Christopher is also a guard. He’s, he’s, we tend to represent him mostly as a bridge in the sense that he carries Christ, but he’s also a warrior. He’s also a warrior saint. Does that make sense? Yeah, that all made sense to me. I think like the only missing there for some other monsters watching this is I’ve also found that one thing I’ve been able to be of service of is like one of my spiritual practices is being a psycho. Having learned how to be mindful. I don’t know what that is. What a psycho bomb. Psycho pump. Psycho pump. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. I know what that is. Yes. What if I don’t? The psycho pump, like crossing the river Styx or Mercury. Okay. Across worlds and assisting others in transition. Okay. So, it’s a guard and a bridge. That’s what the psycho pump does. The psycho pump is the one who crosses you over the water like Saint Christopher or And then he’s also the one who guards, who prevents those who aren’t supposed to cross. If you’re not supposed to cross, you can’t get on the boat. He’s not going to let you through. What we also do is sometimes go into the underworld to bring people up. Yeah. So, that’s when someone’s suicidal. That’s the psycho pump because I’ve learned I can manage mindfulness during extreme suicidal states. Oh, and I don’t take medication anymore. All my magic and spiritual nonsense is entirely how I manage my condition. And like all like I don’t even use psychologists or therapists anymore. Even but I can because I have no problem going into hell anymore. I’ve learned how to be mindful and non-judgmental. And instead of saying God take this away from me saying God, let me understand why I’m going through this and put it to use. I can go those places. And a lot of people have a little bit of the monster in them. And it’s hard for them to face that. And if you can be a monster who’s okay with who you are, it will other people will open up to you about things that they won’t talk to anyone else about. Because they know you’re not going to judge them. But also if you’re like me where you’ve learned how to be mindful and how to manage your own suicidal states and psychosis, then there’s other people out there that we can help in a way a psychologist can’t or a psychiatrist can’t who’s never been through it. And I never everything I do isn’t it’s not instead of your psychiatric health. It’s like if you’re taking all the help you can and you’re still completely losing your mind. I’ve got other techniques. So those are the other things I found the monster can also do in society. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it seems like that what you’re saying, at least in terms of structure, it makes sense. You know you have the whole image of the like I said the ex-prisoner or the ex-alcoholic or the someone who has been in the dark side who might still like you said struggle with some aspects of it. But is enough you know has it has been able to manage their desires or to manage enough of it so that they can they can be a guide for those who are still kind of lost. Yeah, I’m no less crazy than I was during my cycle. It’s just that unlike Peterson’s Slave the Dragon, I just tamed it. And I know how I know now what psychosis is for manias for I know how to manage that and make it productive. And you got to do all your shadow work and stuff because with the spiritual you can connect to something real. But stuff up there so malleable that if you’re being run by all your subconscious desires, you just project all your shadows into the energies and hear back your own bullshit. So it’s like once you do all your own work and I don’t even know what to call it. Once you’ve cleared out your shadow and integrated yourself or whatever. Once you’ve done that, you can interact with all of that so I can ride the ups and downs now and make productive use of it. And the more you do your work, the more clearly you can hear all the fucking imaginary friends, the Saints and angels. At first you you hear it but then it’s like playing a game of telephone. You completely mix it up before you tell others. And the more you do yourself work, the more clearly you can pass things on while never losing track of the fact that there’s not a single one of us telling the truth. We’re all filtering what we learn from God or from the outside world. So if it’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, like none of us have that. So I’m always staying mindful aware as well. But I’ll say like this is how I’m seeing things but I’m sure it’s not accurate. I’m just trying to be as accurate as I can be. Yeah and the truth is complicated because the truth is also based on the question. It’s based on the frame of the situation. There is no pure raw truth. Like there’s only an answer to a question. So that’s why, like you said, you always adjust the answer to what is being asked. And that is not a lie. If you’re doing it forthrightly, you’re gauging the reason for the question. You’re gauging all of that and then you answer based on that, on what you gauge from the situation. So I think that makes sense. In terms of, we talked about taming the dragon. You know there are versions of the St. George story where that’s what he does, that he doesn’t kill the dragon. That he tames the dragon. He turns him into like a pet dog and he brings him on a leash into the village and then shows everybody, makes him do tricks. Kind of stuff. So Kendra, on that subject of psychics and freaks, did you have anything you wanted clarification on? I do. I do. I just wanted to say that the dragon doing tricks reminds me of the latest Pixar onward. I haven’t seen it. Oh, okay. They have a little dragon dog that does tricks. Just like what you said. Yeah, actually I would be really interested for you to do a video on that because there’s a lot of questing in that. In the onward movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because it’s magic. Well, whatever. You need to watch it. But okay, sorry. Or do if you want. You don’t have to. I’m all like telling you what to do. The thing about these, the thing is that I used to make a video, a lot of videos on those kind of movies because my kids would watch them. And that’s why I would watch them. Because I don’t actually, this is like my dark secret is I actually really don’t watch a lot of movies. Like very few. I almost never watch movies. And so I usually watch them with the family. Like I’ll watch them with my kids. And so you’ll see that like my, the level of my movie interpretations, like they start with Moana and Swing It Away or whatever. And now it’s like Avengers movies. And like my son is 15 and my daughter 12. So it just ends up being the movie that I watch. Well, I mean, it does have like Star-Lord in it, you know, from Guardians of the Galaxy. And it also has Spiderman. I have to convince my kids to watch it because they don’t want to. They’re like, eh, we’re too old for that now. No, but like, oh my, like I mean, my husband and I took our kids and we, we were, so they’re, they’re the two older ones. I have an eight year old, six year old and four year old. They’re, they’re all boys. Hence my really, my interest in the feminine masculine dichotomy. Anyway, because I’m surrounded by men. But anyway, but we, we went and my husband and I took the older two and went and like we looked at each other and we were like, hold it back. Hold back tears. Like we were like holding back the torrents, like the tears. It was whatever. It’s really good. It’s an old, it actually feels like an older Pixar movie. Okay. I’m done with my pitch. I will move on. But anyway, okay. Okay. I just really, really like this movie a lot. So yeah, it deals with loss, whatever they always do. But anyway, okay. So I do have a question with regards to. Monsters and whatnot. Yes. Yes. So we, I have a question regarding the, with, with tricksters. Those are on the outskirts. Correct? Is that right? Okay. I, I remember hearing Jordan Peterson mentioned this once and I didn’t really understand. And I actually, I, I think you’ve answered it and I forgot to know what your answer was because you did a talk on, on the fool. I remember watching it, but I don’t, I remember the question. I often forget the answer. So if you’ll indulge me, well, why is the trickster, I get way too long of a preface for my question. Why is the trickster the precursor to the Messiah? Because when I’ve been hearing a lot of these trickster myths on myths and legends, the podcast, and like, you can’t trust them. I mean, you just watch the Avengers movies like Loki’s the worst. You know, but like he sometimes is the best. But you know, yeah, why is that the pre, why is the trickster the precursor? I think that’s a quote from Jung. I mean, I don’t know whether or not this is a systematic pattern. I’d have to really think about it. I do talk about the idea that in, in the upside down, right? When the world is upside down, then, then the trickster or the fool turns the world right side up because that’s what the fool does. The fool is always turning. Right? The fool is turning things. So when the world is right side up, the fool is turning it upside down. He’s acting, the fool is always acting kind of upside down. Right? And so that’s, that’s mostly the way I understand it. So you could say that the fool comes before the Messiah or the trickster comes before the Messiah in a way that he has to level the world. So, so St. John the, the, the for St. John the Baptist, right? That’s kind of, he wasn’t a trickster, but his role as the leveler. Right? So the trickster or the fool is there to call out the, the king. Right? And so that’s what St. John does. St. John calls out Herod. He says, you know, you’re doing this, you’re doing that, you’re doing all these horrible things. And then that is one of the leveling aspects of the making straight the ways of the Lord. Right? Removing the current structure. When it’s corrupt. That’s when the trickster can be useful. I just want to point out, I’m not a trickster for anyone who doesn’t know me. I’m a phlegmatic, but my thing is authenticity and I’ve taken like a sacred vow of honesty. Right. You’re not a trickster. I’m a fool, but I’m absolutely not a trickster. Yeah. So it’s like, but you’re right. It’s not the same. A monster and a trickster are not the same. They’re not, they don’t have the same function. The trickster really is the one who is, who is showing that the, showing that the pattern is wrong. Or undermining the pattern. That’s what a trickster is always doing. A trickster is making you think you’ve got something, but there’s something else going on. It’s hypocrisy. Right. It’s like he’s showing that he’s, so the good trickster would be the one who by his trickery is showing that the pattern is corrupt. He’s breaking it down by undermining it’s, you know, the fact that it’s limits, you could say something like that. He’s showing, he’s showing the, okay. So there aren’t that many like pure tricksters in scripture, but there are people who come close to it in this. For example, Elijah is, that’s what Elijah does. So Elijah, you know, he says, all right, so let’s show, let’s see, let’s see what God, which God is going to answer. Make your, make your, you know, put up your thing and let’s call the fire, you know, light your sacrifice. We’ll see which God answers. And then he’s like, you know, and he’s laughing at the priest of Baal and making fun of them. And he’s like, oh, maybe your God is asleep, you know, what’s going on? What’s happening with that? One of the, one of the most humoristic, one of the funniest scenes in the Bible is in Elijah when he makes fun of the prophets of Baal. Because he’s like, you know, is your God sleeping? Maybe you should, you should scream louder and wake him up, you know. And so he’s showing that their system is false. Like their system is, is, is saying something, but it’s not connecting to reality. It’s a, it’s a form of, you know, it’s not, it’s not right. And so that’s, that’s what I think. So St. John, I think that St. John the foreigner was doing something like that as well. But he’s not, he’s not a trickster in the, in the more kind of mythological sense, you know. Right. Okay. Well, I, like you said, it’s not the pure, exact form and iteration in every. If you want to understand the pattern, you also don’t necessarily need it to be that. You don’t necessarily have to have it. For sure, one of the tricksters in scripture is Jacob. Like that’s his name. I was going to ask about him. Like he literally, his name means trickster. He’s totally not literally. Sorry, but yeah. He’s a snake. Like Jacob is a snake for sure. And it’s a, it’s a funny. It’s hard to figure out Jacob. It’s hard to totally understand. Like his, he’s also, he’s the, he’s the name of, he’s the name of the whole people. Like it’s him. He’s the, you know, they’re named after him. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a weird, it’s a weird story. Yeah. The story of Jacob is very strange. Well, that’s the one like I, I remember a couple of years ago when I, like I watched, I, I, I binge watched Peterson’s biblical lectures. I mean, you know, you just, you have to, you just have to take them all in. And when he goes through like the brothers, the, the, the, what is it? The re, not wrestling, but like the, the brother, well, he uses like Thor and Loki in the Avengers movies, like the way they are portrayed, you know, like he uses them, like having them be made brothers in the, in the movie. But like, like the idea of like the wrestling brothers kind of thing. And, and Cain and Abel is so much more clear cut who’s the good one. And then when you get into these twins, it’s not so clear. And is that because it’s like progressing into life? Like life gets more complicated or am I just reading into that? It’s a, I mean, I have my answer. My answer is that it’s setting up Christ. The whole thing is setting up the story of Christ, you know, and I mean, biblical scholars would tell me that I’m delusional to think that. But the idea is that you’re, it’s like it’s preparing, it’s preparing Edom, you would say, you know, it’s, it’s like setting up the idea of the, of this foreigner, which will then be like, let’s say saved by, by, by Christ, you know, and it’s a, it’s a, it’s a funny, it’s a funny situation. And so it’s like, why is it in scripture that Abel is the one that God loves? It doesn’t say. It’s very vague. It’s very vague. It’s very odd why, why it’s him. And, but there is, there is a sense in which the first, the firstborn or the first is lost in the fall. That’s a way to see it. Because, because, because Esau is Adam. Esau is Edom. That’s his name. His name is Edom. His name is Adam. It’s the same word. It’s just, it’s the same thing. It’s just been reworked. It means red. He’s the same, he’s the same. And so you have this sense that the first is lost. And so then, then after the, after the fall, you have this like loss of the head or loss of the first. And then you, then it’s always the second or the last. It’s never the first. Although in the law, there’s this idea of the first, like it’s always the firstborn. But in the story, it’s always, it’s never the first. It’s always Joseph. It’s Jacob. It’s Isaac. It’s always, it’s never the first. Is that, is that just, okay. You’re like, I’m like, is that to set up Christ? And you’re like, yes. Yo, for sure. I think it for sure. And then so Christ saves the firstborn. That’s what Christ does. Well, part of what he does. That’s not all he does. One of the things Christ does is… The firstborn. Sorry, I’m going through all of my firstborns in the Bible. One of the things, one of the functions that Christ has is to save the firstborn. But are we not all following? That’s why he saves Rome. That’s why Rome converts to Christianity. Because Christ is there to save Cain. Wait, how is Rome Cain? What’s the story of Rome? Well, it’s the, oh, it’s brothers as well. It’s Romulus and Remus, right? So Romulus kills Remus and founds a city. Yes. Cain kills Abel and founds a city. He founds a city. Thanks to my Myths and Legends podcast. I did listen to that one. And so it’s not, it’s not a surprise that, so it’s not a surprise that the Jews view Edom as Rome. Okay. So in Jewish tradition, Edom is Rome. Rome is Edom. When Jews talk about Edom, they’re talking about Rome. So what does that mean? Is it the first shall be last principle of the turning hierarchies on their heads? It has to do with saving the world. Christ restores the firstborn. Not just that, but that’s part of what he does. So that’s why Christ uses, he uses imagery that is based on agriculture. He uses agricultural images. Christ joins the bread and the wine with flesh and blood. So he takes Cain’s sacrifice. He takes Abel’s sacrifice and he joins them together. Why has it been there my whole life? I don’t know. I don’t know why people don’t see that. It just seems so obvious when you see it. And so that’s one of the things that Christ does is he, but he doesn’t only do that. So that’s why he’s also the shepherd. He’s also all of those other images. But he’s also the sower, the reaper, the city. He’s also the, you know, the king of the New Jerusalem. I’m thinking of the prodigal son with regards to the oldest as well and the youngest. And the oldest is the one left out, upset. I think that’s a little different. Like I think that’s more related to the idea of the lost sheep. Like one of the things that Christ is doing, which is Christ is connecting everything together. And so one of the things he does is he goes to the margin. He’s always going to the edge. He goes so it’s happening in every way possible. You know, he speaks to prostitutes. He speaks to tax collectors. And I like the tax collector one because all the like lefty Christians, they all love the margin until the margin is a collaborator. No one loves that. No one likes a collaborator, but a collaborator is also a marginal figure. Right. So Christ goes to all the margins and he connects to all the margins. And he puts his hand out and he’s like, here’s a way to come in. But here’s I’m giving you a way to come in. Like all of you that were lost, that were outside, I’m going to connect it all together. And you can participate in this. And so that’s what Christ, that’s one of the things that Christ does. So he goes to get the lost sheep. And so the idea in the Prodigal Son is more to do with this moment, you would say, in scripture where in this version, actually, the Prodigal Son is more like the pagans. He’s closer to the pagans because he’s saying, I’m going to save those that were not inside, those that left, those that stopped following God, those that went their own way. I’m going to bring them back. So don’t be resentful because I’m going out there and I’m going to get all of them. But don’t they see the Jews as the firstborn, like as the chosen people? Is that in this or not really? I don’t think they see, I don’t think, I mean, I see they see themselves as the chosen people. I’m not sure about the firstborn part. I just wanted it to work well. Because they’re really the children of Abel. Like, I mean, they’re not literally the children of Abel because Abel is dead. But they’re pastoralists, they’re nomads. So that one is a little bit different from the oldest and youngest situation. It’s a little, in that story, it doesn’t exactly have the same function. Okay, okay. Well, and that’s good to know because I am like just getting into this symbolic world. If you want another little hint at what I’m talking about, like, so David, King David is a hint at Christ as well. Because King David, he is a king. Why do they, why all of a sudden these nomadic people, these like shepherds, all of a sudden they have a king and they have a holy city? Like, what is going on? Like, why do they have a temple and a city? Right, and so that’s why, that’s why there’s a, you can find it on your own. There’s a place in scripture where God says that, it says that David was redheaded. Yes, I’ve heard, ready, right? That he was, he was Adam, that he was red because he’s Adam. He’s also connecting, he’s also bringing back Cain a little bit, like. Okay, oh, I just, okay, this leads to more. Like, so, okay, well, I’ve heard you talk about David is like a mirror to Christ or connector. He’s very close for the Christ, that’s for sure. And I, but I don’t, I’ve not actually heard you fully explain it, so maybe I missed a video or two. I mean, I’ve only talked about it in the video where I talk about the fool. I mean, he, because he, David is weird, man. David is that story, that story is going to mess you up. He’s the second king too. He’s not the first king, he’s the second king. Yep, but he’s, he’s the, he’s like the, it’s the reason why he’s the second king is important because he’s the hidden king. He’s like the hidden Messiah, right? He’s the hidden king that is king, but no one knows he’s king yet. And so then there are all these stories about him kind of taking power from the evil king or taking power from the king of this world, you would say. But he does it without revolution. So it’s very similar to Christ where Christ is going to take, he’s going to conquer Rome. Anybody who says Christ didn’t conquer Rome doesn’t understand anything. Like Christ did conquer Rome. It’s funny because the Jews were thinking he’s not the Messiah because he didn’t conquer Rome, but Christ did conquer Rome. I’m sorry, he did. It took 300 years, but he still conquered Rome. But he did it without a revolution, right? He did it without bloodshed. He did it without refusing the authority of the power that’s in place. So you could say that Saul is like a fallen, he’s like the fallen cane. He’s like the bad cane. Okay, so there is that kind of dichotomy. He’s the bad aspect of that, right? So he’s always trying to pin down David. He’s trying to fix him, right, with a lance like Abel. He’s always trying to do that. And at first David is the shepherd. So it’s like Cain trying to kill Abel, but then David is very close to Christ because he kind of then embodies he’s a shepherd and a king. And he’s also, he brings all these things together. It’s like David, that story is a wild story. He kind of, he’s starting to manifest all this. He brings in the different aspects into one character. Well, I’m thinking even the priestly bit when he and his men were hungry and they needed food. And he did eat and they were allowed to. Why is it that David can eat that? Why is it that David can cause, do something which is considered sacrilege? Yes, and he gets away with it somehow. It’s a messed up story. That’s right. Yeah. It has to do with transgression in the holy place. And Christianity is all about that. I talked about this before. That’s why Christ solves the riddle. And he solves the riddle of David too, because David isn’t totally right either. He doesn’t totally get it right. He’s still off. But Christ solves it. He brings the scandal into the holy place. But he solves it by making it not a scandal at the same time. So it’s like we eat his body and we drink his blood. What the heck? But we’re not, like we’re eating bread and drinking wine, but it’s the true body of Christ. That’s why we were called cannibals by the Romans back in the day. It’s resolving the problem. It’s resolving the scandal. Resolving everything. I feel like we’re all over the place here in this discussion. Sorry. It’s like little bits that I’ve picked up that I’m like, what does Jonathan mean by that? I factored them away and then they kind of just came out. All my questions have been answered. I’ve got the questions. I framed it. There you go. There we go. Okay, I think I’m done, Mercury. We did have a couple audience questions, but I had one last one. If you don’t have time, go for it. I’m having fun, so this is good. Okay. So I’m also in Quebec. I know you were hit hard by the flooding last year. Yeah. I don’t know how, like for me, I was already living off disability. And for me, the pandemic, like I was lucky in the flood, my farm’s up high. And with the pandemic, it’s been the opposite of affecting me badly. It suddenly thrust me into a full-time job that, if I mean it doesn’t pay, I’m still living off disability. But I’m wondering, you got hit hard by the flood. Were you also hit hard by the pandemic? That’s been, I’ve been surprised. No, I was really expecting, I was really getting ready. Like in March, I was thinking, okay, I need to get ready for like my revenue to go down. I need to get ready for all this to happen. And for some reason, it didn’t happen yet. And so I’m grateful that I really, I mean, I’ve had people, like I’ve had patrons tell me like, okay, I can’t support you. And I’m like, you know, thank you for everything you’ve done already. I totally understand it. But then I’ve seen other people kind of come up. And I’ve seen the same with my commissions for carving, where some people have said, look, I need to postpone this. This is too uncertain. I’m not sure. But I have so many orders in advance that I’m not, like I just haven’t seen, I haven’t seen it yet. So, I mean, it might come into fault. Like I keep thinking maybe the brunt of it’s going to come when all of this kind of settles. And, you know, people really start to feel the pinch. But for now, it’s as if we’re just kind of, you know, besides the madness, besides the insanity of being in this time and trying to understand really what’s happening and trying to figure out what the play is, like what’s being played, what are the stakes. Besides that, I’ve been okay. Just mentally. On that note then, because I have a lot of thoughts about what hand, what card the angels are playing right now. What do you think is going on at the moment? I think we’re in a time of really of like massive chaos. I really do think we’re on the edge of the world. You know, I’m not. And so I think that it’s not surprising to see what we’re seeing. We’re seeing excesses on all sides at the same time. Excesses of control. Excesses of chaos. Excesses of, you know, of mothering. Excesses of fathering. Excesses of, it’s just everywhere. Like there’s just, we just move from one excess to the other. And not only do we move from one to the other, but they flip, right? So one week, one faction has a discourse. And the next week, the same faction has the opposite discourse and has the discourse of their enemy. And so you have this like, it’s insane. It’s a really, it’s enough to drive you crazy if you’re, you know, not careful. Because it really is showing how much in upheaval our world is in terms of identity and in terms of ideology. And so I think that that’s what’s going on. And I’m not saying, there is an opportunity. I think there is an opportunity. But I don’t know how long that opportunity is going to last. It seems, it might fade pretty fast. I just, we’ll see. What’s the opportunity? Well, the opportunity is that you can reframe the world. And so one of the things that have been very pernicious, the modern, let’s say the modern perspective on the world, right? From, let’s say the late, like from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the kind of incipient scientism, materialism, that kind of thinking has really been pernicious for Christianity, I think, like very, very pernicious. And postmodernism and let’s say the postmodern moment or the moment of upheaval, this moment of chaos and of flipping narratives and everything is a moment where that narrative is also coming apart. And so I think that now the things that I’m saying, I think that 50 years ago people would not have understood anything of what I’m talking about. I think they just wouldn’t, it would not have been even possible to talk about these things. Whereas now, because the frame is open to be grabbed, so like we can, the frame is open for those that can grasp it. So I think that all of a sudden people’s intuitions are also awakened. And that, and because of that, then they, they’re more capable of understanding the idea of a frame of reality itself. Like, because when I’m talking about, when I talk about symbolism, I’m saying this is not, I’m not talking about just things. I’m talking about the frame by which things present themselves to you. And I think that now people are capable of perceiving it. Whereas, like I said, whereas not that long ago they just weren’t. So there’s an opportunity. Can I ask a follow up question? Sure. Like what are these intuitions? Like, can you break it down exactly? I know what you mean, but I would love it to be articulated. Well, the intuitions, the intuitions are when a particular meets a pattern. That’s, that’s, that’s maybe the best way to see it is when through, through a particular you encounter something that’s beyond it. And so you, you see that this thing is more than what is there. Right, so there’s an event, there’s something in your life, there’s a movie, there’s a story. And then all of a sudden you can, it’s like you can see it’s shining. It’s kind of, it kind of glows, or not physically, but it glows in a, in a epistemological sense. Like it, it pops out and it full, it looks like it’s full of life. And then you have, that’s when you have an intuition of, okay, this is, there’s more. Right. It’s dangerous. It’s a dangerous thing because that’s what, that’s what people who fall into kind of wild, crazy conspiracies, that’s also what they have. They, they, they have these intuitions, but because they don’t have, in my opinion, because they don’t have the proper frame, then that intuition is limited to a weird material causality. And so they have to, so because they see meaning in something, they have to imagine that someone, somewhere put it there, maybe for them directly, you know, that kind of weird stuff where it’s like someone is trying to talk, someone is communicating with me, you know, like aliens are communicating with me, because I can see meaning in something, right? Google is talking to me. I’ve heard people say that kind of stuff where it’s like, I, you know, Google, it seems like Google is actually answering things that are too meaningful. Right. Because, because it’s like they see this pattern. And so it’s, it can be dangerous, but it’s also an opportunity to understand that the world is, is patterned. Yes, I, okay, I just did an interview last week with Sean Carroll. He’s a, he’s like a physicist and like a theoretical physicist, and he was telling me about, that’s what they do, patterns. That’s what they’re looking for. And I actually thought of you. And I wanted, I actually, I’m like, I don’t know how to, I didn’t know how to frame the question to him about symbolism and the patterns there. But I was like, maybe someday I will be like good enough in how to, how in the world do I frame a question about patterns and symbolism to a theoretical physicist. Do you want me to, do you want me to give you an in for the next time you talk to a physicist to see how you get at the pattern? Sure, sure. Absolutely, yeah. So one of the problems with, with scientists in general is that they, they’re standing and they look at the world and they try to see patterns in the world. Okay. Now, the pro, one of the difficulties, and I think it’s, it’s actually kind of some, some physicists right now are seeing the problem, but not a lot of them aren’t. So the question is, is there a pattern to the way you look at the world? So it’s not just the world that has a pattern. You also are patterned and your mechanisms of understanding are patterned. So it’s not like you’re in a, you’re a weird objective, like completely neutral thing that is looking at a patterned world. You are also patterned and your perception is patterned. And so then that’s when symbolism comes into, comes into, into, comes into the sphere. So it’s like, does, do your thoughts have a pattern that you can, that are similar to the patterns that you view in the cosmos? Do your, does your family have a pattern similar to the patterns you view in the cosmos? Does all human activity, is it also patterned in a way similar, right, as, as the cosmic patterns? And so then it’s like, then it comes back. So you have to now like look back at yourself and see that you’re also, that you’re also patterned. Yeah. So anyways, that’s, sorry? I said as within, so without. Yeah. And that’s the, that’s the, that to me is the key. That’s why I’m, that’s why I’m attracted to and connected to people like, like John Ravichy or people who talk about emergence and, and the idea of conscious, the problem of consciousness and the relationship between that and emergence, all that stuff I think is important in terms of, in terms of coming to the end of scientism. Using science to, to, to, to flip science, right? I like that. It’s like, let’s, let’s point science back at consciousness and see what happens. And you’re going to be surprised. It’s going to look a lot more like religion all of a sudden. Have you heard Donald, is it Donald Hoffman? Yeah, yeah, I have heard him. Yeah, there’s somewhere that science is flipping it and saying, Hey, those spiritual people telling you that there’s something more real than what you see is scientifically a valid idea is work I find fascinating. Yeah, well, it’s because once you try to account for consciousness, you know, if you try to brush it under the table, you’re just being a complete idiot because you can’t brush under the table, the thing by which you’re brushing it under the table. Right, you just can’t, you can’t use the tool to, you can’t use the tool of brushing to brush the tool under the, under the, under the rug, like that doesn’t work. So, I think they’ve mistaken the tool for themselves. They bonded with that tool so they don’t think they’re using it. Exactly. That’s what it is. Yeah. But once you turn it back and then you try you start to look back, then all of a sudden. Yeah, that’s when this weird desire to understand how consciousness participates in emergence, you know, and then then that’s it’s so so coming after Don Hoffman, a lot of a lot of ancient cosmologies are not going to just sound as stupid anymore. No, it’s not because the pattern of something is not in the thing you can’t find it. It’s above it it’s transcends the thing. So, I think the problem we’ve had is in part related to Plato let’s say or in part related to that, that that line is that you’ve tried to see this, these patterns, just as concepts or as ideas, right, but if we understand them as related more to consciousness or will, like in in orthodoxy we talk about how the divine essences are the wills of God in the world hiding under, under phenomena. So the the the essences of things are actually the wills of God for those things. The purpose the hidden purpose and, you know, of things is is a personal it’s like it, it’s more related to consciousness than it’s related to than to just concepts or, you know, abstract abstracts. So it’s more like intelligences. So they end up that’s what they end up being the end of being more like intelligences, they end up looking more like a hierarchy of angels, you know, or a hierarchy of gods, but the hierarchy of angels is better because it’s the angels are submitted to the highest. Whereas in the, you know, in the pantheons there’s it’s just so messy. It’s like just a huge mess. Listen to myths and legends people. That’s right, you’ll see the mess of the pantheons. Yeah. And so Shane’s camera died, he was going to ask the audience question but like we’re still recording and everybody. So he sent me a couple of the audience questions. Okay, sure. Jonathan does symbolism take precedence over what is metaphysically slash logically explainable. And if so, why. Now that’s two words that are quite a bit to put together. Yeah. I don’t I would, I wonder what he means by by metaphysically and logically. Maybe try them one at a time so does symbolism take precedence over what is logically explainable. And if so, why. Yeah, well, the thing about symbolism, and which I think does take president just on logic is that, let’s say, I often talk about the pattern. Right. And then sometimes I talk about what I call the meta pattern. The meta pattern is both the pattern and the breakdown of the pattern. And so, in so that’s why we that’s why I’m able to talk about things like the fringe, like the margin, like the periphery. Because that’s also part of the pattern. Now the problem with just logic is that it doesn’t account for the monsters. Doesn’t account for the freaks. But if you understand how. So if you so if you have the image of the hierarchy, but you also understand the manner in which the hierarchy breaks down, and how the breakdown of the hierarchy when I talk about also in a non dual perspective, the idea that the breakdown of the hierarchy can actually be turned into something which is more like glory like so there’s this like death into glory. And so it’s like that precedes logic. Because it contains also the manner in which logic fails and what that also looks like. So, maybe that’s the best answer I can give. I’d like to point out when you said freak Andrea looked at me and giggled. I just was like laughing in general you happen to be in the general direction. So I just said I think that like, I think of Kirk and Spock, and how Kirk is the captain, not Spock. There’s a reason for that right. I guess I guess I mean I guess there is something to this Jonathan you Kirk is supposed to yes Kirk is supposed to supposed to be the captain. He’s supposed to be the bridge between Spock and Bones like that’s supposed to be his role. It’s supposed to be the one that unites the, the like the raw emotional guy and the hyper rational. There, symbolism happens. But I, yeah it is symbolism. Maybe not the deepest symbolism, but yeah it’s symbolism. Oh come on we gotta have a few little like. We gotta please the nerds. Yes. Of which I am one sir. You are one of the nerds. Okay I watched Star Trek, I watched Star Trek Next Generation. I was okay I I’m more that I, yeah I’m more of a Picard girl. Yeah I like Picard. I did like Picard. Okay, sorry about it. Okay, another another audience question if you have one go for it. Okay so the next one and yeah Shane if you have more audience questions I think you have a few send them. But Shane decided to ask one himself next so he said, first of all, love your work. So interesting and powerful and he says, when you talked earlier about grasping for the frame. Can you give an example of how that would manifest in someone’s life and in the larger world. I mean, the idea is to understand your, your place. That can sound horrible when you say it that way. Like know your place. Know it’s much better to know your place. Yeah, yeah. Like finger wag, but yeah, especially as a monster, learn your place and stick to it. And stick to your place. So I think that it has to do, it has to do with that it has to do with, with properly estimating the potential that you have. Right, properly estimating the actual the actual potentiality so it means not aiming. End up so you end up not aiming too high you end up not aiming too low. Right. So, I mean you meet people who who struggle to do that in every single way like you meet the guy who who says he can’t meet a girl but the only reason is because he’s always aiming out of his league like, and that sounds like a horrible way but I’m trying to find a very practical manner in which in which like that can happen right and you meet you. So the idea would be to to to properly understand your, your possibility. Right. So the mystery the mystery of Christianity, this is one of the mysteries of Christianity is that It has to do with this idea of the Virgin Mother actually that’s a dude said this idea of virgin virginity, which is that the highest saints are the ones who actually, let’s say, go the lowest in terms of, let’s say self denial, something like that, where they actually eliminate, they actually go like they actually eliminate their frame, all the frames. Right until they’re nothing. And then, then they’re illumined. Because they they’ve eliminated all the worldly trappings right they’ve eliminated all the, all the hierarchies. So there’s nothing. I don’t want to, I want to be careful, there’s nothing wrong with the nothing necessarily anything wrong with the natural social hierarchies but those who are able to divest themselves from those are the ones who reach the end of reaching the highest. But in terms of the natural just regular hierarchies it’s similar right it’s like a few understanding you know there’s nothing wrong. We actually it’s funny because there is a problem with that right now today, which is that We have a system, which only values one time almost only values one type of success. And so, there was a time in history where you were born into a family of bakers, and that was your world and that was awesome and it was fine to be a baker, and it was fine to like to become that. And you didn’t have to, it wasn’t this idea that if you don’t go to college somehow you’re you’re you know you’re suspect or whatever, you know and so that’s it. We’ve struggled with that in the past few generations where the capacity, we want everybody to be equal, rather than say, you know this person would make a great, you know, like a great construction worker and that’s awesome like do it man not like knock it out you know and then this person would make a great lawyer it’s like yeah that’s it that’s your frame like that’s your possibility, take it there, you know, rather than making every everybody the same, supposedly, which is just baloney. The other thing we’ve done now that you know the child growing up in the family of bakers wouldn’t have had is we over glorify certain positions. So that child growing up knowing they’re going to be a baker doesn’t feel all that adolescent pressure to be a rock star or a movie star to look like Brad Pitt and be as smart as Sam Harris and yeah, I think in one way that. Especially now that anyone can suddenly be a star, the way it’s almost like YouTubers, yeah. And it can be now just, you don’t need to be exceptional in any way that except that you can suddenly be famous. It’s this weird pressure everyone feels to be exceptional that somehow you’re less than that rock star. Yeah. Whereas it’s just not the case we’re glorifying certain things needlessly while degrading other things that have so much value. Yeah, for sure. Jesus was a carpenter. So, other aims but he had a different aim than the typical but still start from there. Jesus was a carpenter because he was there to save Kane. Another one. I just stumbled on. Who is the carpenter like who’s the tech. Who’s the technical person in Genesis. Like, is that one of the things that his, his descendants. The descendants of Kane are the are the ones who create metallurgy who make cities who make weapons. Oh yeah. Well I just know there’s that song Jesus was a cross maker. I just came into my head. But you’re like oh no no there’s a lot symbolism that we talked about before. Can we I have a question, even though I’m like, maybe I’ll wait till the end. Wait for a washroom break anyway. I’m probably gonna, I’m probably gonna finish soon though guys. Okay, all right. Okay, okay. Should I wait, should I ask the question or should I let you ask the question. It’ll be the last question. And then we’re done. Okay. Okay. How did you learn all of this. I think I’ve probably mentioned this before so it part of it is my brother, Matt, who wrote a book called The Language of Creation. I think I mentioned this before recently but when we were in our 20s, we both developed this intuition at the same time. And we both kind of were ravenous in our reading and our curiosity and in our discussions. I mean it was just crazy. It was nonstop for several years. And, and that’s how it started really. I mean part of it was also just reading certain books, which triggered a transformation and then discovering traditional Christianity. And the truth is like I can’t totally account for the intuition. Like I can’t tell you why for some reason I can see this pattern, these patterns. It’s a gift from God. I don’t know, whatever. I don’t totally know. But for sure at some point in my life, my brother and I, we were able to kind of perceive these patterns. Brothers. Cool. There’s that. But you worked together. So it’s coming back to the conversation. Always come back to the same spot. Alright guys. I think I’m going to go because this is, I usually, I rarely go for this long when conversations, but it was fun. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Thank you so much. This is very fruitful. It was nice to meet you and send me a link to the, to the talk once you guys put it up. Definitely. Bye. Alright. Good night everybody. Bye to the audience. Bye.