https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=3ht_2ryHdVY
can and others can’t then those that can’t they’re the problem. So it’s the first time that I set up doing the Q&A with the the computer that I had in my other house and the and the microphone so starting to get everything in place things are coming in place. So a little bit of news May has been a crazy month I had set up May as a as a crazy month because because I didn’t want to travel during Lent and so because I didn’t want to travel during Lent I had because traveling during Lent is this year I wanted to be a bit stricter in terms of the fast from the fasting and I knew that if I travel during Lent it’s just impossible it’s totally impossible to fast it and so I really try not to travel during Lent which means that I had put all my traveling right after Pascha like right after Easter I had three things three official trips that I had to do in May and then I also had a family thing that I needed to do in May and so yeah so it’s been it’s been pretty crazy I was in Seattle with Father Stephen Freeman doing a doing some talks there it was that was amazing it was so much fun the Shane and Sean who organized it they’ve been supporting me for a long time and they’re just they’re just awesome so I had so much fun with them we had cigars and and I stayed at Shane’s house it was a lot it was just great and being with Father Stephen there’s something about Father Stephen Freedman’s the way he speaks about things and the way he really emphasizes the ontological transformation in in in his Christian understanding I just think jive so well with what I’m doing so he was talking about St. Mac at St. Gregory of Nyssa and then in my talk I ended up talking about St. Gregory so those talks were professionally recorded professionally filmed and they should be out next week I really I’ve been really pushing myself a little more especially you know because when I do the videos when I make the videos for YouTube I tried to go easy on a lot of the I try to make things flow and so I try to go easy on the references to church history and the references to the church fathers and I do it on purpose because you know I want what I’m doing to be accessible to everybody which sometimes has led to the accusation that I’m just pulling this stuff out of my hat or that I am a union which is something that has been coming back over and over and so I thought when I go on these more these trips where I’m invited by churches or invited by more let’s say church related groups then I I maybe I’m gonna lay it on a little more in terms of the references that I use and so I’ve been I did a an event in Seattle and then I did an event in Louisiana which I got back from yesterday at midnight and both those both those events I end up going into the church fathers the first one into the a lot and then the one in Louisiana I really then I’m not breaking down St. Ephraim more and more because I know some people have told me that they’ve read the they’ve read the hymns of paradise which I suggested that you all read but there they don’t they’re not getting what how can I say this they’re struggling to see what I’m seeing in St. Ephraim and so I understand that because you know it’s not easy we’re not used to thinking in symbolic terms and so it’s sometimes it’s difficult to even perceive where it is that St. Ephraim is making connections that are helpful for us and so I’m gonna put those up in the next few weeks all of those talks are going to go up so four talks four different talks and I’m probably also going to do a some interpretations of St. Ephraim for the channel as well just because yeah just just to help people to know how to read the Church Fathers and see the patterns that I’m talking about so so that would be happening soon so so yeah so I’m actually I’m happy to do this Q&A with you guys because it makes me feel like something like things are are coming back into into order like you know I I did the Q&A with it like one day or two days after the whole flood thing happened as my parents I was so sick that night guys you know when I finished the last Q&A I got up I got into the beat and the adrenaline was really keeping me going but then when I was finished I got up and I started shaking like a leaf you know when you’re when you’re sick and you just have you know you just have all this pain all over and I’m just shaking and shaking shaking all I can do is to make it to the bed where I was sleeping and just plop down and pass out so now it’s better the things are better we’re in this house that we’re renting and and so so talking to you guys feels great I’m happy that that this is happening all right so let’s go with the questions all right so in the let’s start with the the symbolic world website so Jacob says something I’ve struggled with this is Jacob Jacob the fool as he is that he is known in the comments Jacob Russell something something I’ve struggled with understanding is what belief actually entails it seems very limited to equated to I know something exists scripture indicates without looking closer at the Greek it means something closer to leaning on or perhaps holding near does this relate to the heart or center like you are bringing or remembering who Christ is in your inner secret place you use it in an interesting way when talking about evolution did it happen sure do I believe in it no I don’t believe in it what’s the page oh and oh my goodness as Joe Ian you heard it here first he says with the page oh Ian way of relating to this word yeah we need to find a better page oh Ian that’s not good we need to find a better way all right so I think that the best way to understand belief is trust you know in the idea of faith I think I think faith is probably the best way when you talk about belief in that Christian manner and faith and faith is trust you know and so what it is it’s an it’s an attachment to something but it’s an attachment to something that you do with your whole being you know it’s like if you ask me do I think you know do I think that this bridge is going to hold me when I walk out on it you know yes but do will I do it if I do it it’s because I trust I trust that the bridge is going to hold on that’s very different so trust is more is more is closer to your being and it also becomes a motivation for action and so you know when they when when when James talks about the idea that you know that there is no faith without works that you know show me show me your faith without words and I’ll show you my faith with works the idea is that faith inevitably brings about works because faith is trust and it exists in the world of action it doesn’t it exists obviously in the mental world as well but it also exists in the world of action it’s not just belief in in an abstract manner and so and so I think that I think that that’s the best way to to understand it and and like Jacob suggested trust is related to the things that I’ve been talking about oh yeah I guess you guys haven’t heard me talking about that yet because I mean if I haven’t put those talks up yet but uh this notion of memory and attention the idea of the manners in which we are connected to the heart to the center to the manner in which we’re connected to Christ and so the you know trust is if you you know if you trust something that you’ll act in you’ll act in that in that direction you will use it as a basis for what you you’re totally right when I said that when I talked about this notion of evolution did it happen sure do I believe it no that’s exactly what I was referring to it was saying that I doesn’t bother me I’m not bothered by the ideas that evolution that evolution talk about you know but but I don’t I don’t it’s not a it’s not that by which I base my life on it’s not that on which I thought that by which I believe or or I don’t act I never act in terms of evolution you know the categories by which that informed my actions are our categories of love of communion of their human you know their human can I say this yeah they’re they’re phenomenological more than just thought so all right hope that answers your question Jacob all right next question is is from David Flores and I was really happy because David came to this event in treeport Louisiana and we had talked on the phone a few times before but I was really happy to get to meet him finally after like two years of him kind of being around supporting me and I’ve seen his questions in the question period so that was a lot of fun I was really happy to meet you David I don’t know if he’s here in the in the anyways he probably watches later if he’s not here so David says you mentioned in your lecture that st. Gregor of Nyssa said that Christ was the serpent can you talk more about this so he’s talking about the lecture that I did in Shreveport I have noticed that in some crucifixion images he does look a bit serpentine so so first of all I first of all the idea would be that I wrote an article about that the article is called the serpents of orthodoxy I mean let me actually put it down in the in the chat so you guys can check it out later I wrote this quite a while ago in 2013 so that’s a while ago now all right so this is the link and it goes so the idea st. Gregor of Nyssa doesn’t say that doesn’t say that Christ is the serpent he says Christ became the serpent so Christ became the serpent for us okay it has to you know it’s similar to the notion that Christ became sin that Christ trampled down death by death all this idea that Christ you know I always tell you guys that on the one hand it’s it’s fine to see Christ as the center of the or the top of the hierarchy as the at the center of the wheel all those images are fine but we also need to understand that Christ is also the totality of the hierarchy he also covers the entire thing from the highest to the lowest so that’s very different it’s not different because you you finally realize that in fact that’s what the center ends up being ultimately everything is contained in the center ultimately but sometimes it’s hard to see it whereas Christ we really see in his story that he travels from the highest to the lowest and he actually joins them together especially in the notion of the cross the cross is so hard to think about because it’s both at the top of a hill you know it’s this is vertical that meets the the horizontal so it’s this joining of heaven and earth but then it’s also humiliation it’s also a form of death it’s also a form of torture it’s also how we treat criminals how we treat outsiders and Christ and Christ you know is said that he is outside the city of Jerusalem and on the Mount of skulls but then you’ll see traditions that say that this Mount of skulls is the Garden of Eden that this mountain that this this hill of the skull is also the place where Adam was buried or sometimes literally talking how it’s the it’s the place of Eden you know and so joining all those extremes together now in terms of the serpent I think David you’re totally right your intuition that Christ looks like a serpent on crosses I think is completely right you know and I think that that is done it’s done very intuitively I’m not sure it’s done on purpose I were was done on purpose but it I think it’s just a natural intuitive way that it manifested itself one has to do with the very very you know if you look at a vertical a vertical line with a with a swerve around it you know like a dollar sign or a image of the the medical image you know their pharmaceutical image those images of a of a of a vertical with a snake that goes up like you see the garden the serpent in the Garden of Eden I think that honestly I think that that that geometric pattern is is really really written on our consciousness I think that it is it is probably one of the most basic patterns that we have in us that we notice you know like we notice faces like we notice crosses like we notice there are certain structures that we see you know and they they’re very satisfying to us because they they they’re very primordial and I think that that that image of a of a vertical with a serpent is extremely primordial because I think it is it is a way to represent everything is that image no because it’s basically a vertical with a swerving so it’s a straight and a crooked and it shows you what the crooked does that it goes out but it comes back so it’s it so if you see the serpent going like that you know it’s also a cycle you just don’t really don’t you have to realize that the fact that it goes out and it comes back you can understand it as a cycle so if you imagine the the serpent going around the tree then you understand that it’s a cycle that it’s like a it’s a ladder but it’s also a cycle so it’s like this ascending cycle or descending cycle okay so I think that that’s really probably one of the most primordial images now in terms of Christ becoming the serpent if you read the article you’ll see all of many examples where I pointed that but it’s also it mostly you know has to do with these images in the Old Testament like the image of the the rod which becomes the serpent in the fact that when when Moses lets go of his rod it becomes a serpent and then when he holds on to it it becomes a rod again then it’s also the image of the bronze serpent where you have poisonous snakes which are biting below and then taking the image of those snakes and putting it above deliberately becomes a healing mechanism and so Christ even says that he is like a bronze serpent he he actually uses that analogy to talk to to talk about himself and so hopefully that answers but if you’re interested seriously guys check out that article I don’t write articles anymore I don’t have time but I used to write a lot if you guys are you guys want to get more symbols especially more Christian symbolism I have a whole I have dozens and dozens of articles that I wrote you know between 2012 and and 2016 I would say 2015 then you can find all right so DS Brew asks I’d love to hear you talk about the symbol of Melchizedek who was is who was is he and how can we understand his likeness to Christ Melchizedek is a very very strange figure and there are many many traditions which try to explain his role in the story let’s say there are some traditions which say that Melchizedek is Shem that he is the the son of Noah who the son of Noah who who who never died who didn’t die and so he was there all the way up to Abraham and so because of that he is without generation because he he’s the first generation out of the out of the ark there’s some people who talk about that there are other weird traditions that I’ve seen that I don’t even remember where they’re from but that mentioned how Melchizedek is you know is there from before the flood that he hid he was in the Garden of Eden you know how I tell you told you about how Sanep from in Sanep from the Syrians idea that the garden is over it was never touched by the flood that the that the flood came up to the gates of the garden but that they never never entered the garden so there’s this idea that Melchizedek was there in the garden during the flood that he’s that he’s a figure from before the flood and that’s why he’s also without generation now that’s kind of just technical stuff I mean if you think about those different images you can you can understand maybe what what they could mean but but the the idea that Christ is especially Christians in the epistle the Hebrews is really where you get the understanding of the importance of Melchizedek is that Melchizedek seems to represent a kind of pure spiritual figure where he there’s no reference to him he’s just this figure which who comes and who blesses and his blessing is bread and wine and and it’s interesting you know because there’s something about that which is it’s kind of like bread and wine are this you know there are the sacrifices of the of the the agriculturalist and so the Hebrews were pastoralist and most of their sacrifices not all but most of the sacrifices are animal sacrifices whereas Melchizedek brings the sacrifice of of bread and wine in some of you maybe don’t even know Melchizedek is and I’m talking to you guys as if you do Melchizedek appears in the Old Testament at a moment where Abraham is shown as a warlord and and Abraham helps he defeats the the enemies I forget the name of the tribe he defeats these enemies and because of that he receives the blessing of Melchizedek Melchizedek is a priest king he’s a king who offers sacrifice and and he’s very mysterious it doesn’t say much about him but then in the official the Hebrews you know it suggested that Melchizedek has a higher authority than Abraham because he blesses Abraham and so it’s like they decided that he is this higher figure and you can see that he’s an image of Christ because he offers he’s a king and a priest which which only Christ is in that sense if you look in the Old Testament you never you don’t get kings and priests they don’t go together you know there there’s a separate a separate two separate casts you know there’s a the priestly cast and a and a royal cast and they don’t mix and so and in the times where for example there’s a story of King Uzziah who goes into the temple and offers sacrifice and because of that he he has leprosy because he he he acted in sacrilege he he tried to take for himself what was above him kind of like Adam and even the garden whereas Melchizedek seems to actually be above that distinction above the distinction of earthly you know political power and spiritual power and so he joins them together just like Christ joins them together and he also offers bread and wine which is the which is this this this non-bloody sacrifice but it also bread and wine are also like the the I don’t know if you guys have seen my talks about that this idea that regular food you would call it and then ecstatic food or or or fermented food something like dead dead death turned against itself and intoxication all that stuff if you read Matthew’s book you’ve seen about that so Melchizedek offers bread and wine he offers the the food and the intoxicating part he offers the whole thing you know the center and the margin he offers everything and so Christ becomes and so he becomes an image of Christ in that sense that Christ is priest priestliness comes from above the order of the Levites because Christ was not a Levi and so Christ priestliness comes from the order of Melchizedek that is an order which is above the priest and the king who that which joins them together and that is one of the reasons why Christ offers bread and wine but Christ doesn’t just offer bread and wine Christ Christ also offers blood and and and flesh and so Christ is actually above Melchizedek is what he offers more than Melchizedek offers because he offers he offers both that which the priest and the king would offer but he then he also offers with the nomads offer he also offers the other side so he you could call Melchizedek an image of a possible restoration of Cain of a restoration of the sacrifice of Cain where Cain offers the fruit of the land and is refused Abel offers the the flock and is accepted Melchizedek appears a strange figure and he’s above Abraham and he also offers the fruit of the land and so it’s a strange story it’s it’s really tough to think about that and then Christ comes and does the same he offers the you could call the sacrifice of Cain but he also offers the sacrifice of Abel at the same time that’s the craziness of communion it’s both at the same time so so hopefully that answers that all right so am I am I right to say that Jacob doesn’t understand is not hearing the discussion I may keep going and see if he answers all right so next question so Connor Magger asks Owen Benjen often speaks of wizardry for example for example using words like racism anti-semitism and Nazi have the effect of casting a spell on the other hand there are ways that the spells are broken my favorite is his saying of people’s motivations for lollipops and fancy pants which effectively unveils idols for what they are I’d love to hear your thoughts on wizardry and laughter breaking the spells I’m still holding on hope of you two getting in touch and him coming to the church I’d suggest leaving out some honey to draw him in plus milk and wine there’s like honey all right so Connor Magger I haven’t talked about Owen Benjamin I guess since all of this had kind of gone down you know I got I don’t really follow Owen Benjamin I’ve watched I’ve watched a few of his videos I kind of watched him go go after Jordan Peterson I’ve seen him then turn on Joe Rogan and then turn on Alex Jones and and then turn on I don’t know did he turn on Steven Crowder maybe not maybe he did maybe not I don’t know I don’t totally follow him I’ve kind of seen him in the on the fringes and stuff so I don’t quite know what to think of him I’m not sure I’m not sure what he’s trying to do and I’m not totally sure where he’s going is a good way to to say that I think he I think he’s I think best-case scenario is that he wants to be a real holy fool like that’s the best-case scenario best-case scenario is that he is poking at everything he’s blowing everything up to show like you said like like Connor like you noted mentioned in your comments the fact that we are we are let’s say under psychological spells you could say that we that we that we have taboos that we have things that that box us in that we have things that that tell us what we’re allowed to say what we’re allowed to think and we don’t realize that or we’re not totally conscious of that and so he’s trying to to break that that’s maybe the best that’s the best case I don’t want to go too far into what the worst-case scenario could be but let’s say just say this I I think that I think that it’s very easy to point out other people’s wizardry and I understand why why he see he does that and he sees it I think he goes way too far I think that he goes into the kind of conspiracy theory that I really dislike which is this you know this oh there’s a there’s a there’s a star in this movie with so many so many points oh you know that’s Masonic this is Masonic it shows that it’s evil there you know and he has this weird superficial vision of what symbolism is where he he’s pointing out you know details and in stories and movies and he’s showing how you know how this is satanic that kind of stuff I really really dislike that a lot but let’s just so let’s just let’s just let’s just let’s just look at for example the wizardry that that he engages in because he also has his own wizardry and we all have our own wizardry you know one of the things he was doing for example when he was talking when he was going out to Jordan Peterson I noticed is that he would say things like he would suggest that he knows things that you don’t know he would suggest that he because he was on the inside that somehow he knows he has the key he can he knows things about Hollywood about all these occult figures that you don’t know but he’s not going to tell you I could tell you stuff but I’m not going to tell you you know trust me that kind of that kind of of speaking and I think that that that definitely is also a form of wizardry now does Jordan Peterson engage in wizardry yeah for sure everybody everybody everybody who who if you surprise anybody using using language to influence they will probably using some form something that you could call a wizardry now I agree I agree that social prestige and money and all those things not it’s not I mean it’s not a it’s not mystery the idea that that money and social prestige and are are things that can affect your judgment and can prevent you from saying things that you might want to say that there’s a that you can be boxed in by that kind of of lollipop and fancy pants as he says and and I think that’s something that should be looked at to be thought about you know I don’t know if you guys watch the interview between Milo and Jordan I think that Milo did amazing you know I think that I also think Jordan did really well too but I think in this case I think my mom did amazing and I think that he did point out to the fact that you know that certain things certain decisions that Jordan have made show that he wants to stay in the limelight that he wants to have he wants to keep that attention and he doesn’t want to sacrifice it and so and and Milo suggests that them like him like Owen Benjamin like Alex Jones the people that have been banned like Gavin McGuinness that they they don’t care about that they don’t care about the titles they don’t care about the prestige economy rather they rather they they’re there to tell the truth or to be subversive or whatever and you know fair enough fair enough I think there’s also there’s also something for being for being to be being let’s say crafty as a serpent and as innocent as a dove I think there’s something for that and that you also have to be careful when you’re trying to get a message across that you say it in a manner which will not shut the ears of the people who you want to speak to that they won’t that they won’t stop listening to you as you stop started speaking you can feel you can give you a false sense of self satisfaction and make you think that oh I am pure I am pure I just say things the way they are you know I don’t I don’t compromise I’m pure but sometimes that can also be a form of pride as well you know just as the just as the other side could be a form of greed you know and a form of desire to please so you know everybody has their wizardry all right so all right so Jacob says what do you think this multi-dimensional worlds is saying about the nature of reality I like the kind of I guess you what you mean is the this the kind of like the spider-man multiverse type of multi-dimensional world I don’t think it says I think it doesn’t say much about the nature of reality as much as it says a lot about the nature of where we are today as a culture and how we are so focused on multiplicity we’re so focused on the particular that we even you know we were going further than then this notion it’s like not only that we’re focused on the world of multiplicity in terms of how it manifests itself in our world but we want to go further into possibilities so imagine imagine that you know the ontological hierarchy and you have identity in the center and you have possibility on the edge you know and so those two have to interact right and so you have an identity but if if the possibilities are limited it’s going to it’s going to it’s going to manifest itself in those particularities think of a tree right so you have a tree the tree is planted in very few possibilities let’s say planted in a rocky area then that tree will grow as a tree but it will it will maybe be smaller maybe be more crooked maybe you know the roots are going to be on the outside whereas if the tree is planted in in that firm the normal ground then it will not it will have more possibility in terms of manifesting and so what we what’s happening in our world is that we’ve moved very much away from possibility from identity into possibility we we are fascinated by possibility we’re fascinated by the what if the fascinated by the well what about that and and you know why not this as well you hear that when people when people we try to let’s say explain the mystery of Christianity or try to explain the path of Christianity and someone all they can think of is asking yeah but what about goodness and what about these obscure native rituals that I don’t know anything about what about those like are they okay like do they lead can they save someone what about them are they safe what about them and it’s like they’re not they’re not trying they care more about what’s possible than what can be real in your life that and so this idea that going all the way out into now not only being obsessed with possibility is to be obsessed with extending that possibility into other possibilities that haven’t even happened or that won’t happen or that haven’t happened you know and so imagining that there are infinite amounts of worlds that you know manifest every single amount of every different let’s say path that something could take at any moment of time is is is is that obsession the obsession with this this notion of possibility and in the end what it ends up being is a is a ends up being just a cheap version of God you know because it says if you realize that at some point we need the infinite there is that at some point if you if you do enough cosmology and you do enough observing of how the world lays itself out you know you you need the infinite and so in the end the materialist will posit an infinite universe and absolute infinite universe with all infinite possibilities you know infinitely there as manifest possibilities in a in an infinite universe and you know that’s the that’s the materialist answer to God in the end you know the answer that we give is that if you now realize if you now come back and you bring consciousness back into that portrayal if you now do it understanding that you are a person who is in the world looking at the world then you have to bring the personal back into your infinite and you also have to see the the personal as the the point in which the infinite you know comes together there’s no other way because you don’t have another light besides your own and that that also that changes that that that puts the infinite in a different light let’s say it makes the infinite more akin to a person than just this this massive you know just this just a quantifiable but infinitely quantifiable you know layout of the universe all right hopefully that answers that let’s see let’s go to the patreon questions okay so Ryan Pinkham asks all right he comes out a few questions Ryan Piskup Pinkham asks he says hey Jonathan I have so many questions for you but let’s start with two can you explain what your ideal system of society would be I’ve heard you say you’re more of a medievalist or traditionalist can you explain what that means to you specifically like are you a monarchist would you be in favor of a king I feel like the more I look into it and pass the common misconception about how every king was a tyrant I start to feel like maybe it’s actually the proper structure for life also if you’re in favor of a king one absolute ruler then why do you reject the Pope there’s a lot of question in that one question well I’ll be totally honest with you I really don’t think the solution is political and I think I’ve said this many times I I don’t think that the solution to the problem is political and so I try not to go too much into the political because to be honest I don’t know I don’t know with what what the best society would be like in the context of our world right now and so I think that the solution is spiritual and I think that out of the spiritual will come down or will you know that that the political system will lay itself out from the basis of a a spiritual coming together so I think that that’s that’s the way I see it now I do I do think that the king you know I I would say that it I would say that that just intuitively I would say that I I may I believe in a form of aristocracy a aristocracy of not just it not just an aristocracy of title but I do believe in a form of aristocracy of of skill you could say an aristocracy of idea that that there could be that people who deserve or are the smartest or are they most have the most desire to to care for those who are you know who don’t have the capacity to care for themselves I think that you know the kind of philosopher king idea that that that Plato has I I don’t I think that that maybe would be the old the best the best virgin I do not I’m not an absolute monarchist especially not today I really would not like there to be an absolute monarchy in our times and the reason why is really is really the problem of of technology and that’s just reality is that in the Middle Ages a king had let’s say near absolute power you know but very limited range the king had to depend on a heiress an aristocratic system which would balance out the power of the king and so the the the the the king had to somewhat please his aristocrats or else at some point his aristocrats would just kill him and the aristocrats had to also somehow act justly towards their the people who were under them his their soldiers their hired knights because those would also at some point you know get rid of them as well and the same goes down the idea that that that the lower orders you know don’t revolt at some point if you’re not if you don’t treat them well means that you don’t know anything about history and the revolution is not this idea that the that the grumbling grumbling of the people doesn’t come up bubble up and start to to to throw off the the the people that are above who are not doing what they should be or who are who are problematic and I’m not saying it justifies that I’m not saying it’s justified for the people to come up and and start chopping heads but the idea that that doesn’t happen is means you don’t know about the Nica revolt and you don’t know about the 13th century 13th you know the the 13th century France was a was a crazy crazy time you know and and they were peasant revolt and there was all this stuff going on and so the problem today is that you could have a king who would have absolute power and through technology could control our lives completely and so I think it’d be very difficult for a king an absolute monarch today to not be a tyrant I think it would just be almost impossible unless it was Christ himself you know I don’t think it would be possible so so I don’t really know what the solution is I’m sorry sorry I’m disappointing you but I think if you watch my videos enough today for sure I would say that for sure I’m not a democrat in terms of how I believe that decisions should or are made I’m not I don’t think that democracy is is good in itself I think there’s a form of democracy that is useful in the sense that I think there should there needs to be a balance between the the let’s say the the the leader who proposes and the the the people who say amen the people who say yes we’re going to follow you I think there needs to be a balance in those two things and so I think in that sense there needs to be some democratic element where you know the people have to say yes the people have to to to manifest the will of the king and they can’t always they can’t just do it out of force because that doesn’t work it doesn’t work there has to be love between the king and the people and that means that the king also has to be attentive to the needs of the people and the people have to say yes you know but um but yeah so enough about that because seriously I’m gonna I’m probably getting into trouble already by talking about politics because I really don’t see that as the as the solution to the problem so why do you reject the pope I think that I think that’s you know that’s a really that’s a really good way to understand the problem of of let’s say um of a place where the the the hierarchy kind of comes together the the way that the ancient church saw the the the power of the pope the okay so the Romans this is something that people the Romans had two visions of let’s say power they had what’s called a tortas and potestas so so potestas was power power in the military sense power in the I make things happen I sell tell people what to do um wait and a tortas was a kind of spiritual or um authority of of your position authority of your in in Roman times or the authority of your lineage the authority of your position in society the fact that you were wealthy the fact that you had um you had like this this glow you had influence it was like influence but it was not legally binding right and so the influence was like a was really like a kind of a spiritual influence that you that you had people would reverence you people would listen to you people would um you know people would kind of would take what you say seriously consider it you know and and would think twice before going against it and the way that the the the orthodox churches the way that what became the orthodox church at that point it wasn’t viewed the pope was as the first among equal as the one who had the most authority to us but they did not view the pope as having absolute potestas they didn’t view the pope as as being the one who can decide who’s the priest in in in your local parish or the pope can decide who’s the bishop in some little town in nicaea the pope had authority but then the protestas was the protestas was uh what would would come down into the into the local area to the point where it’s the bishop of a city who had the protestas so each bishop of each city had the right the power to um to name their own their own priest you know and so and if there was a hierarchy above the bishop that bishop it became a kind of hierarchy of of a of a torii task a hierarchy of uh reverence a hierarchy so the problem happens uh when the pope starts to act like a like a legal uh someone who has legal and legal power over the churches you know and in the catholic church the pope can call back any priest the pope can call back any bishop the pope can replace any priest can replace any bishop the pope has absolute power in terms of the catholic church and that is just was never the way that the orthodox perceived it um and and i think that’s also not the right way for a hierarchy to exist you know i think that a normal hierarchy acts that the a normal hierarchy lets the the lower rungs of the hierarchy have their own exist at their own level and have their own power at their own level um and that they they they they you know i mean i say that because in the military obviously it’s not like that in the military you know but that’s that’s really how the christian hierarchy was seen by the other and so i don’t the the the orthodox even the orthodox uh today they always know that there was that that saint peter had primacy but it was seen as a primacy of a torre task and uh and so and so when peter started saying um you know when peter started saying that uh that he would not never never deny christ that he would never it’s impossible for peter to deny christ that that he is without any fault then i think just like saint peter i think i think the pope has the strength and the weaknesses of saint peter say it that way all right okay so ryan pinkham also asks you seem not to like the worship of the individual we have today but doesn’t that come from christianity the notion that everyone is special because they are made in the image of god so what is the proper balance on the individual and the collective now i think this is a good question ryan um i think it’s a good question because i think it can help us to understand the difference between what the modern person calls the individual and what the ancients would have called the hypostasis or the person those two are not the same the individual as we understand it today is the accumulation of your thoughts and your will and uh your emotions and your desires now that is not how that is not how the person was seen in the christian tradition you know if you read the ascetic fathers if you read the uh the uh the read the ascetic fathers if you read the uh the uh the church fathers they will literally say things like you are not your thoughts you’re not your will you are not your desires you are not those things right you are that is the the you the highest version of you is beyond that you know and it actually comes right up to the idea that the higher version of you is actually god in you which is the image of god in you is the place where you know it’s the heart it’s the it’s the place where everything comes together but also transcends all those other things it’s not that your thoughts don’t participate in you it’s not that that your desires aren’t a part of you but they they have to lead up to something which transcends those those uh particulars you would say um um and so the problem is that if we look at the worship of the individual that we have today what we are usually looking at is their personality you know is their their their personality their their capacity to succeed in the world to make money to be famous to uh to be funny to be uh um you know to have accomplished this wrote some great novel or doing that and that really is not at all christian right if you look at for example you have a you have the right version of that in the veneration of the saints now if you look at the veneration of the saints what we have is the veneration of the persons because we venerate the saints to the extent that they resemble christ and that they manifest christ in a specific instance you know in a particular context that’s their personhood like that’s the that’s the highest form um and so and so although some people might think that it looks like the way that we talk about individuality today it actually is not because the re the veneration of the saints has to do with the manner in which those those people are connected to christ rather than the manner in which those people stand out and are individuals which stand out next to the others the reason why they stand out next to the others is to the extent in which they manifest the divine logos and so um yeah that’s that that’s very different and so what is the proper balance of the individual in the collective in the notion of the christian notion of the person you actually see that because the the the human person is seen as a hypostasis of human nature is seen as a particular instance instance of human nature and so the idea is that as you will manifest christ you actually also end up manifesting the highest form of what the human nature is and and so you could say that your goal is to be the most human you can be in the sense that as you manifest christ in the world you are also manifesting the fullness of humanity in your particular instance right so it’s very different and and because we are instant instantiations of human nature as we manifest that human nature and as we manifest christ you realize that you are nothing without communion a person is a communal being we that is what we are so one of the aspects of being a person is being in communion with the collective you call but the collective is not the right word you know the the communion of the saints you know the the gathering in of the saints is a better way to see it and so as we gather as we approach the the fullness of human nature as we also approach christ then we also come closer to each other and the more you become a person the more you are one with your neighbor the more you love your neighbor the more you are connected to the people around you and so those two things are actually not opposites at all they’re there they actually come together as you as you are becoming fully a person you also become fully in communion with others um you know yeah exactly to a point where all you see in others is i mean this is a saint version not i not there obviously but to a point where when you see others when you look at others all you see in them is christ in them you see them as these lights which manifest christ even beyond their own formulas even around their own sins you end up in a place where everything you see everything as this communion which is which is you know extended from christ and coming back to christ all right hope that’s hope that’s answering i don’t know why i’m tonight is like mystical night for some reason i just keep using very mystical language so hopefully i’m not freaking everybody out all right okay so now we’ve got we got a series of questions from norm grandin so i think i understand how god is good or benevolent benevolent but what i am still struggling with is why does he need us why have us around to argue that he is good and that he wants to share existence for its own sake seems to be a bit cheap or circular or at least in how i’m conceptual conceptualizing it or understanding it wow so you guys are really pushing me in the mystical stuff here guys this is probably should we talk about this as usual so okay so a way to see it a way to see it it would be this way to see it would be this is that god is infinite okay god is is is the infinite and so in order for the infinite to the infinite there’s also this this kind of you could say a ecstatic element to the divine which is that the divine also also the divine goes outside of itself without going outside of itself because there is no outside but it’s like a strange contradiction where the divine goes outside of itself without going outside of itself and in that going outside of itself without going outside of without going outside of itself, that is what you would say creation is. And so creation is God radiating out of the Trinity, radiating out but then also being but still being within God. This is hard stuff to talk about. Sorry. And so the way that the Orthodox will talk about that is this notion that of the divine energies that God’s will is God himself and that hiding underneath all of creation is also God. And so you could see the whole thing, the whole pattern, the massive, massive cosmic infinite whatever pattern as a kind of breathing out and breathing in. That the divine in its infinite radiating capacity, it’s like it is breathing out and God outpours out of himself without never actually leaving himself. And that his will, and that would be a way to describe it as a creation. But then it all comes back into God ultimately. And I know that that’s problematic because obviously the church fathers both talk about apocatastasis, this idea of the final restoration, and also talk against it in some of the church councils and some of the fathers. I think the way is to try to properly understand it. There are ways to try to figure out how that this is real, that everything is brought into God, that everything must return to God. But that there always is that possibility of that outsideness manifesting itself. The Gehenna, the fire, all that stuff. The idea that there is always the possibility of refusing to participate in that. And that also ends up being part of the infinite. That the particulars, God’s creation of particulars and man especially has the possibility, even though everything will return to God, has the possibility of nonetheless not participating in that return, even though they ultimately will. And sometimes that’s shown as the idea that the return of all things into God will manifest itself for some as a deifying fire and for others as a burning judgment. And so it’s like these questions are too big. They’re really huge. And so it’s very difficult to answer them without using this strange language that I’ve just used. And so a simple way of answering that, a way that I think is maybe more grounded in terms of how people have talked about it before is that God is love. And that God is love. I’ve said this again, is that the infinite is both one and many. And that God is one and many. And that that mode of being, the mode of being of love as being one and many simultaneously and ultimately, it also, the fact that love is the mode of being of everything, and that love is the mode of being of God, the mode of being that we can share with God, that it also necessarily, you could say necessarily moves out of God, like I said, without moving into God because love can’t be completely full if it’s just self-contained, you could say. Yeah. And so then we are called, creation is called to participate in God through love by participating in the mode of being that God has. And by doing that, we are actually being deified. We are actually becoming God to the extent that that’s possible. So Normand gives a precision to his question. He says he needs us to be one and many at the same time. Yes. Yeah, of course. That’s what communion is. That’s what the church is. That’s what you are. That’s what everything is. Everything is all one and many. That’s the way for things to exist. There’s no other way for things to exist besides being one and many, adjoining of one and many. Yeah, anyways, that’s the way I see it. Alright, Norm Grande says, is the end game of evangelization, the eradication of all other religions and even denomination and Christianity say so that only Roman Catholics exist for existence? I don’t know. Maybe that’s the end game of some people who do evangelization. I think the end game of evangelization in terms of… I think that, okay, how about this is going to… Okay, I’m going to stay right up there in the mystical stuff today. I’m going to just freak everybody out. I would say the end game of evangelization is that Christ cosmically accomplishes what he accomplished in the tomb. Say it that way. That as Christ went into death and reached the bottom of the ontological bottom of reality and then brought it all to the Father. So too, Christianity must reach the ends of the world, must reach the end of history in order to connect everything to Christ. I don’t necessarily think that that means that all other religions will be eliminated or denominations. I think that we do have this image of eschatological return to unity that is in the eschaton in this moment, which is the moment of moments, you know, when Christ returns like a lightning from east to west, you know, it fills the universe with his glory. I think that then, yes, there will be unity and multiplicity in balance. And so, yeah. All right. All right, Norm, you’re asking hard questions, your buddy. Okay, here we go. So Norm Gorday asks again in your Talk New Media pundits, you spoke about the Superman story and the idea of an orb being dropped in the water with the waves rippling out. You spoke about returning to the center as the only option after everything has been turned upside down, a reboot, so to speak. You describe this orb as JVP does of rescuing your father from the belly of the whale. In your own words, a return of the Logos. I wonder though, would it be fair to describe this orb instead as God, as return to the origin, but maybe this is what you meant by Logos anyways. So I think that, I mean, I think that you could say that. I think you could say, I think that is the Logos and I think the Logos is divine. I think that ultimately, it’s hard because the orb, the orb is a ball, it’s a center it’s a pearl, it’s a precious thing, it’s also the locus of action, it’s all that. And then you could say that the ball inside the ball inside the ball inside the ball, this invisible spark inside it is God himself, like this divine spark. But we have to be careful because we usually don’t have access to that direct. We have access to veiled versions of it. We have access to secondary versions, you could say, of the effect of that divine spark, which is hiding in the world. And so, so yes, it is a return to the origin, but that doesn’t, that won’t necessarily always manifest itself as, you know, as God directly. So for example, you know, finding the golden ball that’s been dropped in the water could be you learning to, it could be you learning to respect your father, your own actual earthly father, learn to reverence your own father, despite his foible, despite his problems, and learn to see yourself as being ontologically dependent on him and having reverence for your father in the world. You know, discovering the orb, you know, can also be, you know, focusing on truth and going down into the chaos and finding those things that are true and pulling them out of the water so that you can then act in a straight manner. Finding the golden ball can also be, you know, discovering the thing that holds any group together. You know, you have a team and the team is falling apart and everybody’s doing their own thing and everybody is acting without considering the others and then finding the golden ball could be going in and rediscovering the purpose of why that team existed in the first place, being able to embody that and communicate that to the others of the team. So this structure is a structure and it manifests itself at all different levels and then ultimately like in the middle of the middle of the middle of the middle, yes, you’re right, that is ultimately the divine spark. But like I said, be careful. You don’t have access to that most of the time. Most of the time we are dealing with secondary layers, all right? I hope that makes sense. All right. So Norm asks one last question. Ask me if I’ve read Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited and no, I have not read that. So Mark Peters asked me, hello, Jonathan, you and your family are in my prayers. What did you mean when you said the Eastern Orthodoxy Thomas Aquinas as a pivotal figure leading to the synthesis? Maybe I have the term wrong, but I got the sense that he represents something that further divides the Eastern and the Western Church. Maybe I misinterpreted something. I don’t think that I’ve ever used the word synthesis to talk about Thomas Aquinas. I don’t know enough about Aquinas. I’ve heard people tell me that he’s really to blame and other people tell me that he’s not totally to blame, that later on in the development of his thought and of Thomism that later people are to blame. But for sure, the 12th century is a key moment in the history of the Church. As Eastern Orthodox, it’s kind of easy, maybe too easy to see that the schism happens and then not very long afterwards you see people like Ockham and Aquinas and Don Skodis and people who start to pull apart incarnational thinking would be the best way to see it. So I think that’s a key moment in the history of the Church. To pull apart incarnational thinking would be the best way to understand it. To either make God too high up in the separate God from the world so much that he becomes like an alien figure. You see that in Ockham. And then someone told me that it’s not actually there in Don Skodis, but that in his followers later, I don’t know, this idea that God is actually somehow inside the system. That this is the scientific way of seeing God. It’s like God is some being inside the system who somehow, when you hear weird people say things like, well, God created the world, he was limited, he was limited by this and this and limited by this and this. And it’s like God is not in the system, folks. If you try to find him in the system, you’re getting it all wrong. God is beyond the system, the whole system, the entire system, everything you say and all of it, all the structures, all the manifestations, everything, God is beyond that. But he’s also the source of everything. And I think to me that is when the synthesis starts to break apart. When we stop to have an idea that God is both completely transcendent and beyond all category, but then he’s also at the same time the source of everything and is also hidden behind everything. And without the infinite, the world doesn’t exist. Maybe hopefully that answers. All right, so Jonathan, do you have any bibliographical resources you can share on ancient symbolic language? I love your brother’s books, but I don’t know where hardly any of this material is coming from. I read St. Ephraim Sirian’s Reflections of the Book of Genesis and St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. Well, I’d say you’re doing pretty well. There’s a great book, like in terms of visual imagery, I think there’s a great book that’s out there by Vladimir Lasky and called The Meaning of Icons. I think it’s a very good book and it can help you to understand this stuff. I think that, I mean, I would say look at my website. I have a reading list on my website of books that deal with symbolism. There are some modern authors I think are helpful, but you have to be careful with them. That’s why I tend not to quote them too much and I also tend not to refer to them because I do think that we have, there’s enough, if you do the work of seeing the patterns, there’s quite a bit in St. Ephraim and St. Gregory, St. Maximus as well, to help you. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I think that it’s there. I have at some times told people that it might, you know, you can read Mercier-Iliade’s work in terms of a modern person. It can maybe help you understand some symbolism. Some people say that you should, I don’t read Jung, but if reading Jung is going to at least help you get a sense of symbolic analogies and symbolic structures, you know, I’m fine, you can read some, but there’s also even I think some of the postmodernists. Like I told, I said this before, reading Jacques Derrida and with the other book Roland Barthes as a young and in my 20s, you know, it helped me to understand symbolism because they come from it upside down. But, you know, if you’re aware that they’re upside down, then you can still see that they’re noticing the patterns. They’re noticing the patterns, but they’re just doing it from an upside down place. I’ve seen that too. Like I’ve read some things by Freud, for example, where I thought, man, he gets it. He totally gets it. It’s just that instead of seeing how sexuality is a pattern, which is analogical to the pattern of being itself, he rather sees all the patterns of human existence pointing downwards towards, you know, sexual desire. But then the problem happens again. It’s like, then where does that sexual desire come from? Like, why is it that we have these sexual desires? Why is it that the world is made that way? You know, then it flips back on itself because it has to necessarily has to manifest a larger pattern of reality or else it wouldn’t exist. And so I’ve read people like that. You know, I’ve mentioned in my reading list that it can be helpful to read to read René Guignol, who is a French traditionalist. But you have to be careful with him. He says a lot of weird stuff. He also became a Muslim. He became a Sufi. And he also I think he misunderstood some aspects of Christianity. But in terms of symbolic intuition, he definitely is one of the best in the 20th century. And he could he he also he also communicates it in a language which I think people can be can understand. And so his book, Reign of Quantity, is a is a really good book. And there’s also the the sacred symbols of what is it called? Symbols of sacred science or something. But I haven’t read those books in a very long time since my 20s because I feel like I have enough. I find enough in in the Bible and in the fathers and in reading also extra biblical traditions to kind of help you see things that you didn’t see when you read the Bible itself. So hopefully that helps. But I have a reading list, guys. You can check it out on my website. Right. Two Corinthians. So Drew McMahon asked in two Corinthians 13, five, the Apostle Paul asked the Corinthian believers, do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? This question of whether we are searching for something beyond ourselves or within ourselves continuously pops into my mind. And I’m wondering your thoughts. Thanks. So I think I kind of answered that question in the sense that. The Christ is in you. Of course, Christ is in you. If Christ wasn’t in you, you wouldn’t exist. The divine logos is hidden in all things. The divine logos is hidden is hidden is behind is is the divine is is a divine essence. The divine essence is in the world. The divine essence is in the world. Participate. The lobe. Participate in are gathered into Christ. And so you could see it as fact that all the essences, all the reasons for things in the world are gathered into the divine reason, the divine logos, the divine purpose. Right. But that you could also see it as Christ is also hidden in every single thing, in every single, you know, manifestation in the world. Christ is hidden inside that, and especially in the human person, because the human person is the place in the in the world where all things gather together through our our mind, to our soul, to our consciousness. Right. And I’ve said this before several times that we play a particular role in being capable of of perceiving meaning and of participating in how the world has meaning. And so, so yes, so you could say that it is. It is beyond yourself. If you think of yourself as just an individual, like we said before, so Christ in you is definitely beyond you. You know, St. Isaac Assyrian talks about how he says, you know, enter the chamber of your heart and there you will find the celestial chamber. Right. And there you will find the ladder by which you need to ascend in order to encounter God. And so it’s like the movement that you need that you’re doing is an inward movement into yourself as you as St. Gregory Mesa talks about removing the garments of skin, removing the garments, removing this extra extra extra thing. You’re, you know, moving away from your thoughts, moving away from your desires, not identifying with them is the way to see it, not identifying with your thoughts, your desires, your will, all of that moving inwards and entering into the heart as the Hesychast say. And then you find, you know, ultimately you find Christ in you. But that doesn’t mean that you are Christ. It’s very important. Does it mean that you, you know, drew or Jonathan that I am Christ? That is not what it means. Means that Christ is that which makes me exist and is that which which to which ultimately I am attached. Right. All right. Man, this talk guys, seriously, what is going on with all the mystical stuff? All right, here we go. So last question. So from Tyson and Jessica Gabe in two icons at our church, one of the mystical supper, the other of the hospitality of Abraham. There is a small dark rectangular hole depicted on the side of the table in each image. What is the significance of this? Let me see. I’d probably have to think about it because to be honest, I’ve never actually thought about it. Although now that you say so, I have noticed that that is something which does appear sometimes. But not always. So to be honest, I would have to think about it and I would also have to research it a little bit because I’m not sure that that’s what’s necessarily going on. You know, it’s tough because it’s not because something exists that necessarily is what we want it to be. But let me think about it. Is it there in Rubelib’s icon? Yes, it is there in Rubelib’s icon. So if it’s there in Rubelib’s icon, I would think that it probably does have something. So let me think about it because you now you’ve now you’ve definitely piqued my. When someone points out something in icons that I’ve never noticed before, you definitely got my curiosity going. So thank you for that. And I will think about it. And hopefully we’ll get the next Q&A. I can tell you if I think that I’ve come to some conclusion, you could say. All right, guys. So it’s nearly 1030. Once again, I want to first of all, again, I want to thank everybody. So many people have come to our help. So many people have been sending money to PayPal or through the GoFundMe campaign. It has been it has been overwhelmingly touching. I mean, I get emotional just thinking about, you know, all these people kind of coming coming to help us. So so all I can say is thank you so much. My family is so grateful to all of you who have been helping us. We, you know, we don’t have to worry so much in terms of the in terms of the material stuff right now. Like we don’t have to worry about that. The chaos is still there, like to get our lives back together and to to know what’s going to happen with our house because we still don’t know whether or not we’ll be able to rebuild or not or whatever. We don’t know yet. But but for sure, like I not worried right now because I mean, I shouldn’t be worried because God is in charge. But I think God is showing me that he’s in charge, you know, by all of you stepping up and and helping us through this tough time. And it was been amazing to like seriously, one of the most one of the things that, you know, when I think about it, I’m going to have to stop myself from from tearing up. But, you know, people knew that I lost my library. And so and so people started giving me books. And I asked people to sign the books because, you know, it’s so crazy to think that now someone I forget his name. It’s horrible. I should remember his name. But but someone at at at the conference just now in Louisiana gave me a copy of San Efraim’s book. My my confidence was based on San Efraim’s book and I lost it. And so I online I posted because I was desperate online. I I had to prepare my confidence and I just hadn’t even realized that I didn’t have the book anymore. It was way too I had a reading like in two days. I didn’t have time to get it from Amazon or whatever. So I asked people like, can you find a PDF for me? And then some people found a PDF and then someone someone that brought the book to to Louisiana and that and wrote his name in it. And so now I have some books where when I read them in the future, I always have this memory of yeah, all these people around me that kind of stepped up and and and surrounded us with love and care and support. So thanks a lot, guys. And yeah, I will see you all in a month again. All right. Bye bye.