https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=Nl17kgjgcqg
All right. So hello everybody. All right, let me set everything up here. So I see two more Vs is in the chat. Getting them there makes me want to announce that on Halloween night at the 31st at 10 p.m. Eastern, if I am right, two more Vs. You can correct me if I’m wrong. At 10 o’clock Eastern on Halloween night, two more Vs is going to premiere the album, which is based on my talk, the Pentecost for the Zombie Apocalypse. So I will be joining the stream as well. And so I’ve heard a few of the songs and I’m looking forward to seeing everything that he comes up with. I think that I’ve shared a few of the songs as well, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be happening if I understand it on the… I forget which channel. Anyways, I will, I’ll be posting the link on social media very soon. So pay attention to my Twitter and my Facebook and I’ll post it on YouTube as well in the comments section. So, all right. So we’re looking forward to that. There’s a few things coming along in the next few weeks. So you guys know I’m on ThinkSpot, but I’m not super involved on ThinkSpot. But nonetheless, I’m going to be doing an event with, of all people, with Sargon of Avocado, with Carl Benjamin. You know, I’ve, since 2016 and when Jordan Peterson kind of exploded, we drew attention to a bunch of YouTubers and a bunch of people who were talking about free speech. And Sargon is one of them. I, you know, he was a very kind of hardcore atheist and I’ve seen him kind of move his needle, be less aggressive towards religion, less aggressive towards Christianity. And so I’m really looking forward to having a discussion with him and seeing, you know, getting a sense of his perception of the symbolic worldview and how it affects his, his, also his ideas about religion. So I don’t have a date yet and when that’s going to be put up, but we’re doing the discussion next week. I’m also going to have a discussion with Tom Holland, which I’m looking, really looking forward to that. I read Dominion, which is excellent. You know, some just wonderfully written chapters in there, his chapter on the Enlightenment, the relationship to the French Revolution. There’s also the chapter on kind of scientific discovery and ultimately, you know, the chapters about communism and just about the modern world in general are really, really wonderful. So I’m looking forward to that as well. There are some things that I’m not so sure about. If you’ve read it, you probably could guess what are the things that I don’t fully agree with them on, but it’ll be interesting to have a discussion about that stuff as well. All right, so I don’t know if there’s something, no, it’s not Tom Holland, Spider-Man. It’s Tom Holland, the writer of Dominion, which is a new history on Christianity. Tom, he’s one of the guys, he’s one of those people now that is in a post-secular state where he realizes the importance of Christianity, the inevitability of Christianity in our cultural discourse and his cultural history. And is trying to find his way and decide where he places himself on that question. So, yeah, interesting, interesting, interesting character to say the least. All right, so the way this works, as people know, people who are on Patreon, who are subscribed at 10 or more, get to ask questions in advance for the Q&A. And so I will go through those questions. If people put in some super-curious questions, I will be happy to answer them. If people put in some super chats, if I still have energy at the end of the Q&A, I will check the super chats to see if there's something interesting in that. I know it's not ideal and some people will complain that they wish I could answer all the questions. It just seems like, at least for now, it's the most logical, it's the way that I can make sense of the questions or else questions are just too many. Even now, there's already too many questions. All right, so here we go. So I'm going to start on the Symbolic World website. So Pnumaesh asks, Is there a connection between Jacob's blessing over Ephraim, where he says that he will be a multitude of nations and the fullness of the Gentiles that Paul talks about in Romans? Since the word used for multitude in Hebrew has a connotation of filling, and Ephraim is representative of the Northern Kingdom, which was absorbed into the nations, making those tribes that were part of the North indistinguishable, although in the common translation, it at least seems to be connected to Abraham being a father of multitude of nations. I don't know about the translation. One of the things I know that's interesting, and this is something, you know, once in a while, like I pay attention, YouTube has afforded us some interesting things. Sometimes it's interesting to listen to kind of Orthodox rabbis or Hasidic rabbis and listen to the way they talk about things. And if you pay attention to the way they speak about things, you'll see that they often talk about the different nations of the world as basically being descending from Abraham in a kind of weird, strange, convoluted way. And so they identify all the different nations as different aspects of the different lost tribes of Israel and things. So it's an interesting cosmology, which also leads towards a kind of universal image of salvation, something which we often don't, people don't associate with Judaism, but I've seen, really seen rabbis talk about it that way. And so that's as much as I can say about that. So Adam asks, so Adam asks, hi Jonathan, in Mark 8, 22 to 26, Jesus leads a blind man out of the village, heals him and tells him not to return. I can't figure out why all this about leaving the village and not returning. Could you connect some dots? They come to Bethesda and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. Took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, do you see anything? He looked up and said, I see people. They look like trees walking around. Once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened. His sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home saying, don't even go into the village. Well, I think that this is one of the ways to understand it is that at least at the beginning, you get the feeling that Christ is wants to remain somewhat secretive about what he's doing. He doesn't want his miracles to be known at first. You can almost see it as a seed that's growing. He starts small with the disciples, does a miracle with his disciples, and then he starts to do miracles more and more. He warns people not to talk about his miracles at the beginning. As if you can see a progressive revelation that happens through his story. I think that it has something to do with that. There are other places where he tells people not to talk about his miracles. That's a really interesting story. That story, I was talking about that today with Neil deGrade of Dirt 4 Robins. We were talking about this story and how it's interesting about that story is this idea that Christ spits on his eyes. You can kind of see it as this water coming from above. That's how I understand it. The fact that he takes the person outside the village, you can imagine it as the way that you can kind of see it is almost as if he's taking the blind beggar outside the village. He's manifesting, he's bringing them out into chaos. You could say they're outside of the city. Which is manifesting what he is, which is a blind beggar. He's an outside figure. He's taking them to where he is and then he spits from above. He sends the water coming down from above like rain or like meaning coming from above. That's what heals him. The weird thing about the story is the first part where at first he says, I see people, they look like trees walking around. Then Christ puts his hands on the man's eyes. He covers his eyes and then his eyes open up and then he sees things normally. It's weird. It almost feels like at first his vision was too high. At first he just sees patterns, sees these trees, these patterns walking around. It's as if Christ has to kind of lower his vision a little bit by covering his eyes. Then he's able to kind of see the flesh. It feels like that's what's going on in that story. It's very mysterious. There's so many things about Christ which are very mysterious. David Flores asks, what is your favorite monster? I would have to say that would be the dog-headed man. I don't think that's much of a surprise for those who know my relationship with Saint Christopher. I would say that's what it is. Shay McKay asks, hey Jonathan. This is Jordan Peterson. He's back home. In his return home video he mentioned he's working on a lecture series about Exodus and Proverbs. Is he in contact with you or your brother about those? You don't have to answer this because it's a second question. Wait, is this a second question? Don't ask two questions. You're confusing me. He thanked God for his mercy and grace. I wonder if he had a spiritual experience and were you in contact with him during these difficult times? This could be an opportunity for me to talk about that. No, I haven't been in contact with Jordan for quite a while. I would say for several months now. I had a small exchange with him while he was I think in Serbia or he was just finishing up in Russia. We talked about maybe a future carving that he wanted and that was it. He said that he was still feeling very bad, very ill and so he was struggling to concentrate. I felt when I watched the video, first of all I was very grateful to see him and I was really overjoyed and very emotional to see him appear on YouTube all of a sudden. But I also saw that I could see that he was still struggling and I think he still had some healing to do. Like all of you guys, I would be looking forward to seeing what he comes up with with Proverbs and I was really surprised that he didn't just thank God for his mercy and grace but he said by the grace and mercy of God. As if this is going to happen by the grace and mercy of God which really surprised me because I never heard him speak that way. I never heard him talk about God directly as something which is related to his personal life. So that to me was extremely touching and gave me hope because I know I've been praying for him and a lot of people have been praying for him. In the wings, clergy have been praying for him and he's been going through some crazy stuff and he's also, what's the easiest way to say this, he's also been attacked. This is not just happening. He's also being attacked. So if you are someone who believes in these things, then pray for him and pray for his salvation and pray that his eyes are open. That's all I can say and that he can see for himself. All right. So CS Trezl asks, hello Jonathan, I apologize in advance for the semi-long preamble but I think it's necessary. I hope so. These long questions, they're not good. You need to be able to synthesize your questions. All right. Here we go. When thinking about the heaven and earth dichotomy established in Genesis, I started to consider the distinction between negative abstract higher principles and negative lower material principles. For example, a fallen angel is higher, more abstract negative principle. I was thinking of it perhaps as an evil spirit or personality which can manifest itself in a person's being via a godless ideology. Maybe one that puts power at the pinnacle of its hierarchy instead of God. There would also be lower material negative principles such as wild animals that prey on humans, i.e. alligators, crocodiles, snakes, parasites, yes, or natural disasters, et cetera, et cetera. In relation to each other, this creates a masculine and feminine dichotomy with the category of the evil. Is this an accurate way of understanding the pattern of evil? And if so, doesn't this support Jordan Peterson's view of order known and chaos unknown as having both positive and negative polarities? I've heard you cast criticism on chaos being associated with the feminine. However, this seems to be caused by immediate mental associations, chaos as being wholly negative. We forget that chaos can be good such as the chaotic exodus of the Jewish mass living in Egypt. All right. To be honest, I don't totally understand your question. Maybe I can say it this way. The idea that chaos, so the idea that chaos is negative, negative in the sense, not in the sense of immoral, negative in the sense as, let's say, non-being or not, or not, or not declaration. Chaos is a question. Chaos is potential. Chaos is what is it, right? It's asking what is this? And so it's asking for an answer. So chaos asks the light to reveal it or to contain it or to reveal it. Okay. So in that sense, that's also the relationship between the masculine and feminine aspects of, let's say, chaos and order or chaos and name or something like that. And so in that sense, that's the best way to understand that. Now, there is definitely this relationship of, so you can understand it, like you can kind of understand it as these principalities that have fallen. So they're below. So you can have a, like you have a macrocosm and then you also have our world, which is smaller, let's say. And then you also have, you also have these parasites and things at the bottom. But some of the predators are not negative. They're not below. They're above. The predators are often above. You need to understand that in order to understand symbolism. Like, let's say, predatorial birds or predatorial lion. The lion is seen as like above and so is the bird. And this is more like the predatorial aspect of heaven. And there is a predatorial aspect of heaven in the sense that heaven picks things up and lifts them up. I've talked about this before. And so I think that, yeah. So I think that I'm struggling with like the categories that you're trying to fit into this. And so I hope that my rambling was helpful for you to understand that. All right. And so Luca Askovic asks, hello, Jonathan, how does one stop fearing demons? This is related to our talk. It's okay if you don't remember. The question still stands. Usually, whenever I have an anxiety, I face it head on. But in this case, I don't want to call for something that I cannot fight or assimilate. Yeah, don't call up demons. And the Church Fathers say we shouldn't face demons directly. At least unless we know exactly what we're doing and we know exactly how to deal with them. The idea is not so much to, it's not just to face the demon. That's a dangerous thing. One of the ways to deal with demons is to attach yourself to something higher rather than just facing the demon. Or at least if you're going to face the demon, you need to make sure you're attached to something higher or else that demon is going to kill you. Or it's going to go away and then it's going to come back with its friends and it's going to come devour you. Right? And so it's not, you know, that's one of the reasons why. And I suffer from this as well. Like everybody suffers from this. But that's why, for example, the Church Fathers always say that during Lent, it's not enough to just fast. If you fast and you don't pray, then you're going to be in trouble. Like you're going to be in serious trouble because if you just try to hold off the passions but you don't attach yourself to something above, then those passions are going to come back and loop and you're going to swipe your feet from under you. So I think that that's the best way is to attach yourself to something above. Prayer, you know, counsel from a priest, a pastor, depending on what your tradition is. You know, those are the things or even if you're a child, like, you know, your parents asking from asking help from someone who has some authority over you is also a way to help you to fight your demons. Bearing in mind, so Isidore asks, bearing in mind the symbolism of six and 666, can you speak on this six feet apart COVID policy and bearing someone six feet under? It was really hilarious that someone posted at the early part of COVID, there was like a Red Cross poster and it showed how you're supposed to be apart from everybody. And so it showed like someone and then it had people in different directions from them. And it was like 666. And so it was pretty funny. It has to do with the distance of man. Six feet is like, let's say the ideal distance of a man, I think. And so I think that that's one of the reasons why we bury people six feet under. You can imagine like a man, especially northerners, especially kind of European types, like a man standing and then you bury the person at the feet of what that would be. Like if you dug a hole and you have a person standing from head to toe, then you put the person at the feet of that standing man. And I think that the kind of intuition of wanting people to stand six feet apart has to do with this idea that it's the distance of a person. It's like you need to have between you and another person the distance of someone. It seems like that's kind of an easy intuitive way to go about talking about distance. Because obviously, this actual six feet is clearly arbitrary. It's not, I don't see how that could be like a scientific thing. All right. Okay, so look, so there's a question by someone named Heather. Heather, I'm not going to read your question. It's too long. You guys can't write like three paragraphs. And so maybe next time, try to just kind of condense your question because it's just too much. All right. Samuel asks, Hi, Jonathan, please don't think I'm trying to get you in trouble for this. Oh, man. But this is something I'm struggling with and hope you can help. Do you think you can catch coronavirus from taking communion? Thanks and sorry. So I would say just like my other questions, I need to I need you to submit to your authorities in terms of what they're how they're dealing with COVID. And that's what you need to do. You need to submit your authorities. But I would say that my first reaction gut reaction to that question is that to that question is no, you can't get coronavirus from taking communion. Because you the question, your question, I'm laughing because it's like you'd never get coronavirus. You don't get coronavirus from taking communion. You get coronavirus from get it from being in contact with coronavirus. So so interpret that as you will. All right. So white ear to says my family goes to a non denominational church. And like most reformed churches, there's a heavy emphasis on mission and evangelism, both local and international. How does Orthodox Church read the Great Commission in Matthew 28? Thank you. Go there for make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have command in you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. So I mean, the Orthodox have always been had always been very active in terms of the mission field. That is, you know, if you look at the movement from Constantinople, you know, out into Russia, Bulgaria, all the you know, all of the Balkans were basically evangelized by the Orthodox over the centuries. And and so, yeah, it's definitely part of part of the Orthodox ethos. I think that I would say that the Orthodox probably put a large emphasis on, you know, make them disciples, not just save them, but not just, you know, because there's something about the kind of mass, the mass mission work that goes out and tells people just to believe in Jesus, then they'll be saved. You know, that that obviously Orthodoxy is a slower process because it there is a whole ethos which comes with it. There's a whole training, you know, the fact that, for example, catechumen, usually you are a catechumen for at least a year before you're baptized, before you enter into the communion. And so it's like it's not it's not an easy thing. Becoming Orthodox is not easy. And so because of that, it's also a slower process. And Orthodoxy also tends to not be subversive in the way that it converts people, which is something that some people will struggle to understand. But Orthodoxy tends to move through through, let's say, the conversion of princes, you know. And so this is something that Protestants will really struggle to understand. But there's an idea that that there's something about a respect of the hierarchy. And so so Orthodoxy is not meant to come and subvert the political order within a state. It rather comes and tries to bring Christ into a fulfillment of the state itself. And so Orthodoxy doesn't bring revolutions in countries or in peoples. It brings about usually the conversion of the king or the prince. And you see it in so many examples in how Orthodoxy spreads from Constantine to different parts of the world. And so then it ends up being like a fulfillment of the very nature of those people. And it doesn't become like a weird parasite in the culture. So that's how I see it. At least when I look at the way Orthodoxy spread, that's what I see. And it's very weird. But it's different today, for sure, because look at me. I converted to Orthodoxy in the kind of weird post-Catholic world. So it's not a universal thing. All right. Okay. So Eddie T asks, hello, Jonathan. I've got a question about the nature of the devil's motive for rebelling against God. Is the devil a usurper who aspires to take God's place on the heavenly throne? Or is he more like a modern day anarchist who seeks to abolish hierarchies altogether? No, for sure. Well, first of all, anarchists are not anarchists. They're never really anarchists, especially violent anarchists. They're little tyrants. They say anarchy, but what they really mean is if, you know, kind of like how Doreen Peterson phrased it, if I was in charge, you know, if I will destroy this, but if my ideas, if my vision was in charge, then everything would go smoothly. And so Satan is prideful. He wants, he believes that it stops at him. Like he believes that he's equal to God. And that's the origin of all sins. And it's the origin of all, of all evil, which is to think that reality stops at you, to think you contain everything. And that's when you, you, you discount your relationship to the infinite and you want to contain everything. Then that's when things start to break apart. And that's the nature of rebellion. All right. And so Bleeding Mermaid, whoa, asks with Halloween approaching at all, I thought I'd ask you about the symbolism of ghosts and our modern idea of paranormal activity. We know demons exist, but I'm curious as to why people claim to see ghosts of dead human beings who are haunting them. If this is a modern idea or if it has roots in pre-modernity, why do we see dead people? Well, we see dead people because we remember them. That is dead people don't stop to exist when we, when they die. I think the best way to understand ghosts or hauntings is, has to do with a kind of residue. It has to do with a residue of a person. And so it's not, I don't think that when people see ghosts or if they encounter these types of events, that what they're encountering is the actual dead person. It's, it's the actual dead person in the way that I encounter residues of people. I've talked about this before, like if I move into somebody's house and they haven't removed the paintings and they've left everything the way it is, then I'm encountering residues of these people. And so this you can imagine as physical residues of the person, right? So traces of the person that lived there. But you can also imagine something like psychic residue of the person that is, you know, you know, and because also places are, are living. They're not, there isn't a total disconnect with the idea that people live somewhere and how they're, they're, their psyche influenced that space. It's probably the best way I can explain it. But, you know, I'm not surprised that this happens. Like, you know, it's not, someone says that a place is haunted. It's not, I don't think they're making it up. There's that, there's phenomena that is going on there, which is, you know, which is probably manifesting a, a conjunction between the people who are encountering those phenomena. Like it's, it's probably not just the ghosts. The ghosts are whatever is influencing the space is probably sensitive to the person, that person too. Like there needs to be a hook in that person for the ghosts to really manifest themselves. At least that's what I, what I think. And so it's like, why are we talking about this stuff? Man, I guess it's Halloween. And so, yeah, that's as good as that's going to get. All right. So C. Serreta asks, hey, Jonathan, to carry the theme of this Halloween spooktacular. What? All right. So monsters historically, they were threatening and external to human civilization. Over time, they became more human, more internal, more harmless. Today, monsters are portrayed as parents and lovers and friends, entirely benevolent and entirely internal. Yeah. Violence society places monsters outside, but that is not enough. If the monsters are not also dangerous, your kid will go make friends with one and ride it into your home. Is there a way to refang monsters without catastrophe? I mean, I think, I think that it's inevitable. You know, I think that for sure right now there's a, it's an extreme because we are so obsessed with marginal and so was because we're so obsessed with equality, we end up actually, you know, destroy or we end up actually affecting the very struggle of the very structure of how monsters appear to us. You know, Sesame Street, I've talked about this in several talks. You can check out my, my talks on the Pentecost of the Zombie Apocalypse, which will be featured with by two more bees on, on Halloween. You know, but the monster will always return. The monster will always return even if you try to suppress it. And then you just have to pay attention. You just have to pay attention to the way that, to the way that people who love monsters speak and you will catch them. You'll catch them talking about monsters. You'll catch them talking about the dangerous stranger, one way or the other, you know, those that are not like us, whether, and if it's a super like, if it's like a super lefty, extremely open person, they, they're scared of, you know, right wing people. You know, the image of the, of the, okay, here's a, here's a left wing monster if you want one. And it's a very common one. The inbred Hick from the Bayou, right? Now that's a left wing monster. That's like a, that's like a, that's like a, that's like a, that's like a, that's like a, that's the monster of people who are open to everything. And the inbred Hick is exactly a monster in the sense that the, the idea of the inbred person who becomes a kind of monster because the levels of causality, which are normal between couples and a man and a woman and, and the society are broken. Then that is, but it's a, it's like a left wing monster because instead of, it's like, it's a too close. How can I say this? It's a right wing disease. To be inbred would be like a right wing disease. It's like you're keeping things too close. You're holding things too tight. You're not, you're not willing to go out of, outside of the, of the tribe enough. And so that's what creates the inbred Hick monster, but it's still a monster because it's still a breakdown in causality. You know, there are breakdowns in causality that are, that are, let's say relationships with things that are too far. You know, the idea of the foreign woman that you find in scripture, the idea of the, the woman whose feet go down to death that, that Solomon talks about in the Proverbs, you know, this idea of, of, of demon, of angels having relationships with, with fallen men, like this too far, but there's also a too close, you know, and that's why there are all these, these, I talked about the, the sins of purity that you find in scripture. There's a few places where you find these sins of purity and incest seems to be, to be one, but it also breaks down the, the, the normal causality between the opposites. Right. And so always remember that, that, that, uh, there are different kinds of monsters will always return. You cannot avoid them. All right. Okay. So here we go. So Timothy asks, once you told us a riddle about a dialogue in your brother's book, you guys will not leave me alone with that. All right. So in the dialogue, Esau asked Jacob to put the two brothers together, but Jacob replied that he will travel at the place of the flock until both of them meet in Seir. Why did your brother put this passage in his book? We found some comments from Metru that relates Jacob with the slow pace of God, making the foundation stone and Esau with the accelerated pace of man, trying to emulate God's work with bricks. Do they meet at Seir when Jesus unites Jacob and Esau they meet at the end of times? Uh, well, there you go. You've given me a way to answer it that I, that I, that I can, uh, which is so yes, they both meet when Jesus unites Jacob and Esau and himself in the seed form. Uh, but then they also meet in the end when they, they, and this is the mystery. If you want to understand it, it's the, it's the mystery that St. Paul refers to when he talks about the branches that is cut from the tree, you know, and then it's cast into the fire and then the other branch, which is, which is put back into onto the, onto the tree. And so, and so, yeah, that's, that's as much as I'm going to give you guys. You can figure it out, you know, it's not, it's not that hard. You can figure it out. All right. So Esau is Edom. Always remember that. Esau is, is, is, is Edom and he's related to Cain as well, right? So Esau is related to Cain in the sense that he's the brother that tries to kill his brother. And, uh, yeah. All right. Okay. Here we go. Roxanne asks, thank you for your generous work. Here's a fairy tale question. The Grimm Brothers story, The Golden Bird parallels the story of Prince Ivan and the gray wolf. However, the prince's animal ally is a fox. Once the prince has achieved his quest, the fox implores the prince to kill him and cut off his head and paws. As first the prince refuses but finally complies, the fox is transformed and revealed to be the brother of the princess from the golden castle. Happiness ensues. Personal taste aside, do you see this as a distortion or a valid symbolic variation on the story? Uh, I'd never heard of this story and so I'd have to think about it really. Um, I'd have to think about it because does, I don't, I wouldn't think it's a distortion. You know, fairy tales have all kinds of different versions. They're never, they're never uniform in there. They appear to us uniform because we read them in books, but in kind of traditional world, uh, they always have tropes and variations on how they manifest themselves. And so I'd have to think about it about, and I'd have to read it too to understand, to see if the brother of the princess, there's a relationship in other places in that story. You know, what's his relationship to the princess? What's his relationship to the, to the main character? So sorry, I can't answer anymore, but I don't know the story well enough. Um, so hi Jonathan, your video on the parable of the sower has been really helpful in understanding the depth of this symbolic pattern and how it manifests in my life. All of Matthew 12 needs to be preparing for the parable of the sower. What is the symbolic significance of King David eating the bread of the presence from the temple? How might this relate to the role of blasphemy and even the return of an unclean spirit? How does, how do we till the right ground for the right seed? So the significance of King David eating the bread of the presence from the table is, is super important. It's super important because in a way it's an imperfect, it's an imperfect version of what Christ is going to do. That is, I talked about this before. You're right that it does have to do with the role, I wouldn't use the word blasphemy, but it does have to do with the role of bringing the improper and healing the improper. And so the Messiah is able, Messiah connects all the levels of the hierarchy together. This is something that I've tried to kind of explain that the Messiah, Christ doesn't, isn't only at the top of the mountain, but he links all the hierarchy together. And that explains a lot of the strangeness of his story. If you see it that way, then all of a sudden a lot of things seem to make sense. And there are a lot of things that Christ does, which can seem like, like transgressions almost. But if you understand it, that he's doing this, then you can see, then you can see that he, he's manifesting this union. And so, you know, the idea that King David, you know, is given the bread of heaven and the fact that he kind of does, he does something which is considered sacrilegious. It has to do with some of the, some of the things that Christ does, like the idea of offering his body and blood to be eaten, you know, and the idea of joining the extremes together in this kind of holiness and then this kind of sacrilege, which appears in the form of the cross, right? The form of the cross is the idea of the union of the highest and the lowest together in one image. And so, and I think that that's what happens. There's many versions of that in scripture. One of the stranger ones is of course, you know, Samson, who takes the door of the city and brings it to the top of the hill. It's like, you know, you take the door of the outside and then you carry it up the hill. When you read it in the story, it just sounds so odd. Like, why would he do that? But do you understand that that's one of the things Samson is trying to do? He's trying to kind of join all the levels together, the lowest and the highest together, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, right? That's one of the things he's trying to do. But he's doing it kind of in an imperfect and mismatched way, whereas Christ has really revealed the perfection of the symbolism. All right, let me just check something. All right, so is Kanye West the catacon of, so Tan Musman asks, is Kanye West the catacon of second Thessalonians? Will he, the catacon and the great schism? Do you see our political climate pointing to the return of the king? So I'm not sure I understand your reference, because maybe I don't know what that is. What is this? So let me just check this. All right, I don't know enough about the concepts that you're trying to get me to talk about, so I'm not sure what it is you mean. But I can answer your second question. Do you see our political climate pointing to the return of the king? I think that yes, I think it does, but I think it's going to happen. It can get a lot worse. It can get a lot worse before it gets better. So yeah, so don't keep your hopes up. I mean, I think that inevitably it has to at some point point to that. But you know, and it can also be a negative thing. It doesn't mean it's going to be a negative thing. It doesn't mean it's going to be a negative thing. It doesn't mean it's going to inevitably it has to at some point point to that. But you know, and it can also be a negative thing. It doesn't mean it's going to be positive, because I think the image of Antichrist is all obviously an image of a kind of kingly figure, which who is trying to be everything. And so Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So it's not necessarily going to be good, but it can be it can be there could be a kind of wake up and a return to order and a return to proper, what kind of proper hierarchy you could say that's that that could that could happen. Right. Or maybe only in the eschaton. Maybe. Okay, so here we go. So I'm now done with the symbolic world, I think, and I'm going to move into subscribe star. Okay, so Nicola asks, I honestly don't know if this is a good idea, but could you call in some favors to get yourself an interview with Joe Rogan? I don't think I have access to Joe Rogan. I don't think that I don't think that I have enough clout in the in the in the world is to be invited on Joe Rogan, you know, whatever, who knows, it might happen one day, I'd be happy to talk to Joe Rogan. I think that he is a good listener, and he's a, and he's a smart guy. And if he gives people room to speak, and so it could really be, it could really be a vessel to kind of talk about symbolism to a very, very large audience. But you know, he he's he's the biggest podcaster in the world. And I mean, because my work is not very political, there would have to be like a major controversy around me for him to invite me on his podcast. All right. So David asks, when explaining the parable of the soul, where Christ talks about Isaiah, through Isaiah about forgiving them their sins, if only they would just turn and understand with their hearts, as a denizen of the edge of the world for over 10 years, my physical, spiritual and life in general has fallen apart completely. I'm sorry to hear this, David, I wanted to ask you what is meant by understand with their hearts? Does this refer to the flash of insight and meaning to doing various good deeds to does it refer to repentance and get your life together? Does it refer to becoming a monk and spiritual purification? I'm seeped in sin. Please help me to understand good, sir. And so the notion of the heart is really just the notion of the center of your being. And so the idea of turning and understanding with your heart has to do with first of all, turning in the sense of being receptive to turn, you have to stop going in the direction you're going. And so you have to, that's one of the aspects of repentance. Repentance means that you're going in a direction and then you turn right. You turn around and then you turn, then you also have to be, your heart has to be available. The center of your being has to be available to receive the, the new seed you would say. And so if you understand things with your heart and with the center of your being, then they will transform you and they will become, they will kind of have repercussions on the, the, the rest of your life. But the thing is, is that you can't, it's hard to provoke that it's hard for you to provoke understanding things with your heart. And the best way to do it is to repent, like to break down your, and it's not, it's not just, it's not just like a moral thing that you hear all the time. It really is a structural thing, which is that if you want to have light, you have to break down the, the existing patterns. And so if you repent from your sins and you do it sincerely and you do it, you know, every time that you sin and you, you make a habit of repentance, then you, you're breaking down the kind of disorder, the, the parasitical patterns that are in your life. And you open yourself up to then understanding Christ with your heart or receiving Christ in your heart to use a kind of evangelical way of talking about it. And to, and then, and then that will take hold in your center and it will start to ripple out. But like I said, because it's hard to do that, it's hard for you to will that into being. It's, it's, it's more, the only way to really do it is through repentance is by starting by breaking down the current patterns, you know. And that's what baptism does as well. Baptism is a breakdown of the kind of dysfunctional patterns that are there at the time. All right. So XRD asks, Hi Jonathan, I'm really liking your videos on postmodernism's viral nature. I shared the latest from my friend and you wondered if you commented on the whole cuties, the Netflix movie debacle. Now it's obvious why ideal ideologies target children for indoctrination, but something about postmodernism, hostility towards childhood stands out to me in particular. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I haven't talked about that. Mostly because I tried to avoid, try to avoid big controversy in general. Like I talk about things that are there in politics, but I tried to avoid that kind of heated stuff that really pops up, you know, but if you want to understand, let's say, the world always manifests itself in extremes. And so, you know, I was thinking about making a video on this, but I maybe do it on bit shoot or something, because on, on YouTube, like just answering your question will probably bring me, give me trouble with YouTube. But the two extremes of culture manifest themselves in the way that they act and then also in the way that they interpret what the other person is acting. And so let's say the desire to sexualize children is first of all, a desire to bring passion down at the, at, as low as, as close as as close as possible to the origin. Okay. Because one of the aspects of the, of the modern, of the modern world, let's say the more, the kind of the more chaotic part of the modern world, the more kind of open and degenerate part of the modern world is to want to reduce everything to desire, right? To want to reduce everything to our passions. Our passions are the only things that are true. And so it's inevitable that they want not only desire themselves, those that are, end up desiring those that are younger. They also want to, they want to project desire into as close to the origin as possible, because that's what they are. Like that's what they, that's their being. And so, yeah. And, and so it's just, it's just going to happen. And it happens almost in a, in an unconscious way, because if you look at the way that it's the movie was, was at least framed as being anti against the, the, the, the sexualization of children, but then it ends up doing it anyways. And so it just, it's like a weird unconscious thing that, that people engage in and end up kind of manifesting nonetheless. So at least that's how I understand that. But one day I'll make a video about, let's say, the other aspect of that is, is kind of racism and the way people view each other, like it's pedophiles versus racist, something like that. And so anyways, we can talk about that. But this is, this is probably, this is going to get me in trouble. All right. Okay. Here we go. So Dorothy KK says, Hi, Jonathan. I recently read the chapter about dreams in your brother's book. I think that chapter was the soundest thing I read on the topic, but I'm struggling to relate those dream interpretations with the outside world. I get the idea that not having enough heaven would mean a lack of heavenly guidance that our passions are taking over or something like that. But what does it mean to not have enough body? Can you give some examples? Or am I looking at this the wrong way? Well, I've given a few examples of not having enough body. Utopia, utopia is the best example of not having enough body or not being capable of manifesting in body. And so, and so you have something which is too high and doesn't, can't land in the world, can't really find a body, you know. And so you imagine people who have, let's say extreme conspiracy theorists, also, let's say they don't have enough body. And so they have these ideas about the world and they have an idea about the way that the world works. And they end up kind of floating in these ideas. And then they try to connect things below, but they don't totally connect. And so they're actually not really connected, but they really want to see them as being connected. And so, you know, anything, any idea that doesn't have enough instantiation in the world is something that doesn't have enough body, right? Let's say a false scientific, a false scientific theory will end up not having enough body in order to be real. It'll just kind of float up into the air and won't land. So those are a few examples. And I mean, like an example in your life, because I see you're trying to relate it to your life, is of course the idea of having ideals that are too high, right? It's like, okay, so I'm going to stop smoking tomorrow, right? You've heard that kind of stuff. I'm going to start exercising next week and I'm going to do it every day and I'm going to do it for an hour a day. And then nothing happens, right? Those are not having enough body. Those are having ideas that don't land and don't manifest themselves. And you meet people like that who have projects, who always have wild, huge projects, you know, someone who wants to be a writer, you know, this is a great example. Someone who's like, oh, I want to write novels. Like I want to write novels. And then you ask them, like, so have you, you know, have you written some short stories? Have you written a few smaller texts? And maybe you tried to publish? Have you worked on the, let's say, just the outline of your novel? And it's like, no, but I want to write great novels. Like I want, I want to be a great author. I want to be the best author, but they're not willing to put in the like little work that you need to do to kind of get there. And so they just end up being these lofty dreams that never land and never, never make, never become anything. Everybody has both met people like that and also have had those in their life themselves. So, okay, so here we go on to Patreon. So I was really tired when I started this, but I'm feeling pretty energized also because a lot of these questions are, you're leading, you guys are leading me into like difficult corners that I need to get out of. All right. Okay. So G Garcia asks, do you think it's possible to fully escape the materialist worldview if you were born in it? Was it more responsibility to raise and inculcate the next generation with symbolic lens so they don't have the same problems as us? Sometimes it feels like instead of viewing the world under microscope, I'm now looking at symbols under microscope. Hope that makes sense. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I understand what you're saying. You know, this is of course, one of the dangers of what I'm doing. And I mentioned this in a few videos, a few talks before is that there's a danger in explaining symbolism. It's almost like a last ditch medicine, right? It's like, okay, the world is going to hell. Everything's falling apart. We have to explain the symbolism because it's explaining symbolism and living symbolism is not the same, right? Let's say manifesting symbolic patterns and living in them is not the same as understanding them. It is not the same as explaining them. But you hope that it's going to be at least a ladder because it's better than being in the crazy upside down symbolism. So at least it gives you tool to first off break out of the upside down symbolism and then hopefully start to climb the ladder so that you can integrate some of these symbolic things. But I agree that it's difficult and I don't know if it's fully possible. Yeah, all I can say is by the grace of God and just one little thing at a time, you know, one little integration at a time. So Benjamin Kincaid asks, hi Jonathan, there are a lot of troubling things going on in the upside down world. Can you talk about what gives you the most hope? How are you seeing this acted out in the world and what stories portray this in scripture? I mean, it's you know what gives me the most hope right now? I'll tell you guys. It's you guys. It's you guys that give me the most hope. And you know, the you guys know that there's a Facebook with a symbolic world Facebook group where there's really active and lively discussion. And out of that has been coming articles on the symbolic world blog, just wonderful articles, great high quality articles. And you know, it's not like the blog right now has a huge has a huge readership, but what it does and what it is, it's like a training ground. It feels like I can I'm looking out now in the world and I'm seeing these little seedlings, like I'm seeing these little trees that, you know, 10 years ago, even six years ago, I there was nothing I've met here. And I felt like we're the only people in the world that really thought this way, it really was able were able to perceive the symbolic patterns. And so all of a sudden, I look out and I see it and I see it like, and it comes back to me in weird ways, like it comes back to me in like secondary ways where, you know, I'll read an article and it's obviously not somebody who follows me. But in that article, I'll see that there are things that five years ago, I never could have seen a way of seeing the world way of explaining, which seems to be kind of permeating. And I think that I'm participating in Matthews participating in other people are but it's like I can see it growing. And so I feel like this is it this is the hope for the future, right that we're the hope for the future that we I mean, we in the sense that people who are able to discern these patterns, and we'll hopefully try to integrate them in new stories and, and also kind of re enliven the old stories in a way that can help us reconnect with our roots. And so ultimately, of course, reconnect us to God to the extent that that's that that that that that that part of it, of course, it's not just a question of mental, mental games and mental understanding, but the understanding is also part of it too. So that's what gives me hope right now, be honest with you. Because it's not a lot much else giving me hope. Okay, so Elise Vinola. So hi, Jonathan. In Genesis 27, Isaac already blind blesses Jacob instead of Esau, who was the firstborn and in Genesis 48, the same situation occurs in which Jacob also blind blesses Ephraim instead of Manasseh, who was the firstborn. What does that mean? Now, this is a really interesting, interesting story, because I think that there and I've talked about this with material, it's like, there are like two interpretations of that story. And in a way, they're, they're opposite stories, the opposite interpretations, which is really fascinating, because so you can you imagine that, so Jacob. Okay, so Isaac is tricked, right? And he blesses Esau, right? He blesses Jacob instead of Esau. So he's tricked into doing that. So it's a trick. So Jacob flips the world kind of flips the world upside down. And like a trickster takes the kind of takes the gold, you know, like Jack, Jack in the beanstalk takes the gold from the giant, right? So he's like, Jack, Jacob is Jack, and he takes the gold that he's not that is not supposed to go to him. So that's what it that's what happens now, then when Jacob blesses his sons, his his grandsons, I mean, you can understand it, you can understand it one as he's perpetuating the trick. And so the idea is that he actually crosses his hands over. And he's going to bless his good he ends up blessing the younger one instead of the older. But if you read it carefully, it's not clear there are other inter another way of interpreting it, which is that he's rectifying the trick that in fact, that Joseph is presenting them upside down as if he Joseph wants to continue the the because Joseph is also kind of weirdly part of that, right? Joseph is not the oldest. It's not the oldest. And so Joseph wants to perpetuate the blessing of the youngest, but then Jacob ends up actually by crossing his hands, he ends up it's like a double flip where Joseph presents him the sun's upside down to bless in the youngest first, and then Jacob double flips crosses hands and ends up blessing the oldest one. And it's not clear in the text, which one it is. But so it's an interesting, it's an interesting, it's an interesting thing. So it's either that Jacob wants to perpetuate the upside down, or is that Jacob as the kind of trickster character has slipped the world upside down. And now he's double flipping and he's bringing it back right side up. That's the way those are the two ways that I interpret that. So Paul says, Hi, Jonathan, I assume you've read Dune. What did you think of its symbolism? Are there particular themes that you like? And any that you dislike? Man, I read, I read Dune when I was like 14 years old, and I really don't remember enough of it. And recently, I tried to reread it again. I did. I tried to reread it as an audiobook. And I tapped out, I just couldn't, I don't know why there's something about it. I just couldn't. So I'm sorry. I just didn't sorry. I just don't have a good answer for you. I mean, I do want to read it at some point, I would I would like to a lot of people are telling me that I should, and that there's some interesting things going on in there. But I like I said, I don't remember I read it way too long ago, and my perceptions weren't weren't sharp enough at the time for me to now remember what was good about it. So standard cuter as how's your family doing? Yeah, man. Yeah, it's tough. It's a tough time. It's a tough time for everybody. But I mean, we still we still hope to get into our house. That's really just been the like, the weight on our shoulders is to still be in this rented house after you know, more than a year. And yeah, it just we just it just has it just has to end. So that's pretty much what's going on. But in general, I would say we're doing we're doing okay, I think that like we haven't I think I mentioned that in the last q&a. It's like, I haven't been back to church since COVID started because it was shut down, then it was open, then it was shut down again. Now I think it's open. I don't I'm not even it's as if I'm not even. And so that has been bad for me, at least for my soul, I need to I need to kind of find a way to go to confession and go to church. So that needs to happen. So pray for me for that, guys. But everybody is kind of in a similar situation. Unless you're in like the south somewhere where it's totally open and it's as if nothing happened. But at least in Canada, we're all kind of going through this. So Christopher asks, What is your favorite book or story in the Bible and why? I mean, there's no competition for that. It's definitely I mean, it's the story of Christ. This that's for sure. If you're going to break it down in terms of Christ, it's definitely the story of the resurrection or the crucifixion and the resurrection. So I'm not I'm afraid I'm not going to surprise you by that. If we talk about the Old Testament, though, let's talk about the Old Testament, because that's, you know, it's it's kind of cheating to say Christ, maybe. I would say the story of the creation story, that story, you can't get enough of that story. Creation story, I would say a hierarchy would be like the creation story, the the Exodus story, story of Noah of Jonah. So we have no I just love all the stories. But for sure, creation is got to be creation fall is just the best. And they asked if I offer clergy discounts on my carvings, I don't actually offer clergy discounts on my carvings. I really tried to price my carvings in a accessible way. And so it is possible to get a carving for me for like 300. And it’s also possible to get a carving for me for like 3.99 says, what would be the symbolism of the gargoyle? Well, I think I talked about this quite a bit. If you haven’t seen my videos on it, I would say watch, come on on the 31st of October with two more Vs and watch the Pentecost and the zombie apocalypse talk, because you’ll see it there. But it has to do with the monsters on the edge. It has to do with this image of monsters on the outside, on the edge of the world, and then the church as a microcosm on the edge of the church. And so they have their apotropaic, that is that it’s using death to fight off death, using monsters to fight off monsters. All right, and so layman theologians for 5 says, what do you think about the symbolism present within the movie, The Passion of Christ? Does Mel Gibson get the symbolism right? I think Mel Gibson gets a lot of the symbolism right. Man, I really struggled to watch that movie. I really didn’t really particularly like it, just because of Mel Gibson’s obsession with hyper violence. But I would say that in terms of the symbolism, the symbolic pattern that he manifests in his movies, he seems to get really, really well. For example, Apocalypto is as Christian in the movie as a temptation of Christ, as the Passion of Christ. Mel Gibson is a great storyteller, a wonderful storyteller, and a very powerful, he has a powerful symbolic intuition. So I still think that it’s going to be interesting to see because he’s doing the Harrowing of Hell, which is like, supposedly he’s doing the sequel to The Passion, which is going to be, I can’t imagine, I mean, it might be amazing. I mean, he’s really intuitive. So what is the monster most relevant this Halloween? Oh man, I have no idea. It feels like, I don’t know. Is there even going to be, I’m not sure. My daughter wants to go out on Halloween and I’m like, is there even going to be Halloween? Are people actually going to be engaging and giving candy and stuff? I’m not sure because we’re people in like Corona panic. So yeah. Well, my daughter, like my 13 year old daughter, she’s going to dress as a plague doctor. So there you go. Maybe that’s what we need this Halloween, our people dressing up as plague doctors. So Theodore Malone asked, do two witnesses in the book of Revelation describe a pattern similar to Peter and Paul? What about Moses and Enoch? Yes, I think so. I think that the idea of the two witnesses, if you understand the two witnesses as something similar to the idea of the transfiguration of Christ, where he has these two witnesses, the idea of Moses and Elijah or Moses and Enoch, you know, Enoch and Elijah are very much the same in terms of the pattern of what they manifest. And so yes, they’re definitely the let’s say the right hand and the left hand, Moses and Peter, Paul and Enoch and Paul, who was taken up to the third heaven, right? And so I would say yes, very much so. So 15 Lee for 1999 USD, any thoughts on the Zodiac Killer? I’m afraid I have no thoughts on the Zodiac Killer. I just don’t. I don’t think I even know the story well enough to have thought about it. I’m not a, yeah. So sorry, I can’t answer that. I would have to look into the story. So Shakey Raindrop, 5 asks, any thoughts on movies normally running about two hours? That an artifact of the medium or perhaps deeper? Gospels are about two hours to read as well. I don’t know. I’ve never thought about the two hour thing. Yeah, I’d have to think about it. I mean, liturgy is usually about two hours. So I wonder if there’s something, I wonder if there’s something about like a normal cycle in the human person. Like, I don’t know the kind of cycle of attention or cycle of participation. I’d have to think about it. I’d have to look into that. So last one, last Super Chat. Here we go. Luke Lemon for USD $10. When people say the eyes, the window to the soul is disconnected to the wheel symbol we see across different religions, including your symbolic world logo. Eyes and wheels have a similar pattern. I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t think it has necessarily to do with the wheel. I mean, it could have something to do with the wheel in the sense of understanding the wheel as a center with spokes. And so the, let’s say you could understand the center of the wheel, the axis of the wheel or the hub of the wheel as being the pupil, right? As being the hole that the light goes through. And so in that sense, I think you can understand it that way. So if you understand the wheel as this solid thing of manifestation and in the middle, especially when you see like in, you see versions of the wheel, like in some Eastern traditions where there’s a, it’s like, it’s empty in the middle. So it’s like a circle, empty circle in the middle. And then there’s the spokes. So it’s the idea of the place where the light goes through and then the manifestation which comes out. And so I think that, I think that in that sense, the eye is definitely related to the wheel, but I don’t know if it’s the idea of the window to the soul. I think when people say that the eye is the window to the soul, it has to do with the fact that on the one hand, the eye is that one of the, that which we give meaning to the world is through the eye. And so the eye, let’s say the invisible aspect of yourself comes out of the eye. You know, when they have these ancient, I love, I love when people make fun of old ideas. You know, you see it all the time, this idea that there’s an ancient way of understanding vision. Like the idea that there’s a ray that comes out of the eye and, and like touches and hits things. And then people, materialists are always making fun of that and think how stupid it is, right? The idea that there’s a ray coming out of the eye, which understands it. And it’s like, dude, there is a ray coming out of your eye, which, which, which hits objects. It’s called attention. It’s, it’s, it’s really is a ray. It’s a focused thing, which focuses. And then that’s how the world reveals itself. Like it’s not as, it’s not a, it’s not a material ray. It’s a, it’s a ray of meaning, which comes out of your eye. Anyway, so I think that in that sense, the, the eye is the window to the soul in the sense that that the soul or the invisible aspects will shine out of your eye and then will coalesce things into meaning. But then also, I mean, when you look at someone, you look into their eyes, you, that’s how you, you, you are also able to look through people’s eyes in order to perceive their intention, to perceive their, you know, whether they’re telling the truth, whether they are happy, even their emotions and everything will come, will come out mostly through the eyes. So, and you can see that like when you draw, for example, you know, you can change someone’s emotions just by changing like the eyebrows, right? So you can, if you make a little caricature, you can help, yeah, people can perceive different emotions just by changing the shape of the eyebrows around the eyes. So that can help you understand how we perceive the fact that we can do that. Then you can draw on a piece of paper, a face with different eyebrows, and you have a different perception of, of emotion means that that’s also what we perceive in other people. We have that shortcut where we kind of see meaning or see intention and all that in the eyes. So, all right, guys, I think that we’re done. It’s like every, every month I keep going longer and longer. So I don’t know how this is going to end. If I, if I’m working up to these like huge, long three hour things, I don’t think I could do it. But so yeah, so I would say thanks to everybody. Thanks for your attention. Thanks for your support. And, you know, we’ve got a lot of good stuff coming up in the future. None of this is, is ending. And hopefully when I am back in my house, things are going to get more streamlined. This is, this is going to be nicer and it’ll be better camera and better lighting and all that stuff. So, all right, guys, thank you for everything. Thanks to our moderators, to Jacob and Brad. Thanks to two more Vs. Don’t forget to, to, to be there on October 31st. And I will post the link to that on Twitter and on Facebook and on YouTube. So pay attention to that and I’ll talk to everybody next month. Bye bye.