390 - Genesis: Symbolism in the Creation Story - The Symbolic World

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A few years ago, I was invited by the Jung
Society of Montreal to give a talk, and I was
a little overwhelmed, of course, because you know, people know
that I'm not that big of a fan of Jung.
But also I know that many of the people that
read Jung are quite intelligent and do have a good
sense of symbolism. You know, the reasons why I struggle

(00:21):
with Yung. Sometimes he does have good insight. That's not
the reason why I struggle with him anyways, And so
I accepted to do it, and I thought, I'm going
to really try to up my game, and I'm going
to try to pull the story of Genesis together into
a symbolic description. Made a lot of effort to bring
it together, and it turned out to be one of

(00:41):
my more successful lectures, I believe. And in fact, it's
already been posted online on Jordan Peterson's channel, and it's
the only video I've done that it's just me talking
that has more than a million views. And so I
think that I did hit the nail somewhere. Interestingly enough,
in this video, I didn't know that Jordan Peterson was
actually going to be in the audience, and you know,

(01:04):
I had the zoom in front of me with all
the different people and I'm giving my election. At some
point I see that Tammy Peterson is there, and I'm like, oh,
Tammy's there, And then all of a sudden, I see
Jordan appear in the Tammy Peterson window, and I was like, Oh,
that's hilarious. And it was at a time when he
was still kind of coming back from his disease and
I hadn't had that many chances to see him or

(01:24):
to talk to him, so it was really a nice
moment for me to kind of see him appear and
to see that he was doing well. And so we
thought that, you know, now that I'm getting ready to
bring together symbolic thinking into a symbolism masterclass, which is
starting this week, that'd be a good idea to revisit
this and to post it on my channel, because it's
never been posted on my channel, And so if you

(01:46):
haven't seen this video, I would say please enjoy, and
if you've already seen it, it might be a good
idea to rewatch it because there's a lot in there
and I feel like it's a place where I was
able to pull symbolic thinking together in a pretty coherent way,
So please enjoy. This is Jonathan Pejel. Welcome to the

(02:15):
symbolic world. Well, hello everybody, thank you for inviting me.
This is really a wonderful opportunity. I'm surprised to see
some people that I know in the I'm kind of

(02:36):
looking at the mosaic here of everybody. Not everybody, but
some people. So I'm surprised to see some people that
I know and then some people that I don't know.
And so what I want to do with you today
is I want to kind of take you on a
symbolic trip. I want to present you, first of all,
the let's say, the source of the symbolism that I

(02:57):
try to present, the frame you could say of this.
I'm going to present it maybe in a little more
of a little more of a technical way that I
usually do in the in the more kind of colloquial
way that I do on YouTube, So hopefully that'll be okay.
And then what I'll do is I'll take you on
an example of this symbolic pattern, very basic example, which

(03:17):
is we're going to read the first chapter of Genesis
together and we're going to try to look at how
it kind of manifests the symbolic pattern and how this
becomes a kind of map that you can use to
interpret the world, but also a map, especially a map
that you can use to inhabit your life. And so
we'll see that symbolism is not also not only about interpretation.

(03:40):
I mean, as unions, you know that it's a way
to be in a way to kind of inhabit the world.
And so there's an interesting moment right now. I think
in the zeitgeist in the culture, something like the end
of materialism or the end of physicalism. We saw. Of course,
I think that that Jordan Peterson has played a big
role in poking at this, you know, kind of poking

(04:03):
at the new atheist, this last weird new atheist moment
that we had in the early two thousands. So what
we're seeing is kind of materialism running to its end.
And it's happening in physics with the problem with the observer.
It's happening in things like like just this notion of
complexity or complexity theory, the problem of emergence. All of

(04:25):
these things are bringing materialism to its end. And the
way that I like to understand it is that for
a while we had this kind of weird duality of
mind and body or mind and matter, where we kind
of abstracted the mind into this place that we didn't
talk about, and then we look at the world and
we interpret reality. And as materialism kind of ran its course,

(04:48):
as this kind of scientism ran its course, at some
point you could say there is something of a little moment,
a surprising moment of pride. Where as we're kind of
exhausting the things that we study, people realize that, well,
there's this one thing that we haven't studied. It's the
thing that's looking at everything else. Like we're studying the world,

(05:10):
the world, the world. But all of a sudden we
realize that there's a viewer that's doing that studying. And
as soon as the materialist eye you could say, turned
towards the viewer, turned towards the interpreter, turned towards trying
to understand consciousness, trying to understand meaning itself, then things
become very loopy and certain. The simplicity of the dualistic

(05:35):
model stops to make sense. And this happens very much
in terms of evolutionary thinking. What evolutionary thinking is did
in some parts is try to explain the motivations of humans.
But when you start to do that, you have a
problem because this human who's talking about evolution is what

(05:56):
you're trying to interpret, and so you're actually interpreting the interpreter.
And so what has happened is that it's opened the
door to all kinds of questions, the problem of emergence,
the problem of quality, and one of the big things
that's happened is the problem of attention. And this has
been manifesting itself in different fields, and it's realizing that

(06:19):
the world is too complex, that the world actually is
kind of indefinite in its complexity. You know, everything you
look at, everything you encounter, has an indefinite amount of complexity,
and it's made of parts, and those parts also have
an indefinite amount of complexity, and you can just scale
that down, you know, to the quantum field or whatever.

(06:39):
And many thinkers realize, how is it that how does
this work? How do things scale up between different levels
of phenomena? Is how is it that I can look
at a chair and see that the chair is both
one thing. It's a chair, but it also is many things,
and those many things are also many things. But I
can perceive at every level of reality that there's unity.

(07:03):
So I can notice a leg of a chair, and
I can notice the color of the chair, but I
can also see that all of this participates in what
in the being of the chair. And this is like
a hard problem. It's a it's a it's a it's
a difficult problem because it ends up being it ends
up infecting all of meaning making, and it infects science

(07:23):
and infects It's not an infection, it's a it's actually
a kind of healing, I think. But it kind of
seeps back into science and sees back into back into, uh,
the very way in which we understand the world. And
we realize that we have difficulty accounting for the qualities
of things using descriptive means, that we have difficulty even

(07:47):
accounting for the identity of things using descriptive means. So
once we have the identity, we can describe things. But
the identity seems to to kind of emerge from somewhere
else or come from somewhere else and kind of brings
multiplicity into unity. And so what's fascinating is that it has,
like I said, it has opened up all of a

(08:08):
sudden the possibility for people to kind of to understand
ancient thinking in a way that until recently was very
difficult to understand. And so if we understand so we
realize that the world has to be patterned, that there
has to be patterns in the world. And this is
more than just a psychological reality. It's not just about

(08:30):
describing the psyche of the human person. It's actually a
descript a cosmological argument. It's an argument about how reality works,
which is that for things to exist, they have to
be patterned. And those patterns seems to seem to stack
up at different levels of reality and also seem to

(08:52):
exist in smaller patterns, seems to exist in bigger patterns, right.
I mean, you can think about it physically or think
about it in any way you want. And this actually
seems to be something which is inevitable for us to
be able to even encounter the world. Now, what the
means is that it brings back the idea of intelligence,

(09:13):
the idea of consciousness, and it can reconnect us to
how the ancients talked about it. Some people are talking
about something like the revenge of Aristotle, right, or the
revenge of Plato. Because suddenly when we talk, when we
we have to re enter our experience and try to
analyze our experience. We realize that, oh, actually, when Aristotle

(09:35):
talked about potentiality and actuality, I experience that every single
day of my life, right, I actually encounter the field
that presents itself to me as potential, which is brought
into patterns, brought into actualities that I need in order
to be able to exist. Right, And those actualities, those patterns,

(09:59):
they're not just they're not just mathematical patterns or ideas
in the in the vague platonic sense that people have,
but they're actually teleological. They're purposes, right, and these purposes
says they can be regained from evolutionary thinking, which is
just the strangest thing in the world. Like who would

(10:20):
have thought that Darwin would bring Plato back? But when
we re enter evolutionary thinking, we realize that we need
purposes in order to encounter the world. So it's like,
if I this cup, the fact that I recognize it
as a cup is because I recognize its purpose. It's
purpose to me as a human being, and that actually

(10:42):
scales the hierarchy of purposes. Even in terms of science, right,
people think that science is is just a study of phenomena.
But we always forget that science is embedded into us,
into social systems, and that, for example, the science that
will get the most totten will always be the science
that is the most fascinating or useful for humans, and

(11:04):
the science that will get the least attention, which means
the least money, the least effort to study, will be
the things that are the least useful for humans. So
as soon as you re embed science into its actual
social frame, then all of a sudden, this hierarchy just
reappears again, this ancient hierarchy, which is basically you could
call it something like the religious the religious hierarchy. So

(11:27):
what it does is that these patterns, these teleological pattern
these patterns with purpose, come back into the way in
which we actually exist in the world. So you can
understand that ritual suddenly makes sense again. Not only does
it make sense, but it's actually inevitable. And you can

(11:50):
see everything you do through ritual because everything you do
in the world is pattern teleologically. It's patterned towards purpose
and when it and sometimes let's say, there are moments
in which that purpose will kind of break down, but
that is also part of the that's a great ritual,

(12:12):
which usually involves something like carnival, which involves aspects of
chaos on the edges of these patterns. And so if
you if so, you realize that, like drinking a cup
of water, is necessarily ritualized. It has to be teleological,
and it has to have a certain form. I have
to do certain things in a certain order in order

(12:34):
for me to be able to achieve the purpose that
I'm reaching with my with my with my cup. Now
bring this into the human sphere, it's the same. And
when I encounter someone, my encounter necessarily has to be ritualized.

(12:55):
And you can realize that it has to be ritualized
because if you try to do the opposite of the ritual,
you're gonna get some funny reactions. Right, Try to talk
to the back of someone's head, for example, for a while,
or just lay down on the middle of the ground
while you're speaking to someone, and you'll realize that human
relationships are extremely ritualized. Right. We speak and we feel

(13:19):
the tension. Right, So if you're like a rubber band,
you speak and then you have to stop speaking and
you have to listen, and so there's this kind of
wave this back and forth wave this call and response
you could call it. That happens in a conversation that
if you don't follow that pattern, you're going to break
the relationship and no one's gonna want to talk to
you anymore. And everybody knows someone like that, and everybody

(13:42):
sometimes has fallen into that excess where they've talked too
much and they realize it, or they haven't talked enough.
They just listen and didn't give their opinion, and the
other person feels like you weren't there. So we can
see that this is how it works. Now you can
scale this pattern and up from simple human interactions, from

(14:04):
simple human engagement with objects into social interactions as well.
That is, we realize that in order to have teleology,
in order to have purpose, and in order for a
group to have purpose, it has to encounter itself ritually.
It has to have things which bind it together, which

(14:26):
make it make the group recognize that it is act
it is together. Because this is the problem of multiplicity
and the problem of complexity happens especially in terms of
human interactions. What's the difference between a group and a crowd,
what's the difference between the team and a crowd? Right,

(14:46):
there are a bunch of people that are together, but
one of them is not bound teleologically, and the other
is right, a team is bound teleologically. It's a soccer team.
They are bound towards a purpose. They're bound towards a
common a common identity, and that common identity will manifest
itself in ritual. And the ritual include those rituals include

(15:10):
the rules of the game, the rules of engagement. Those
rituals also includes other things which are more related to identity.
And this is something which will bring us straight into
religious ritual. That is, those rituals include the capacity to
attend to the thing that binds us together. And this

(15:31):
is when we're going to start to realize that this
pattern is almost first and foremost a pattern of attention.
Are the manner in which we're capable of paying attention.
And so a team will have to attend to those
things that bind them together. And what that will look
like will be something like celebration. You know, at the

(15:53):
fear of sounding somewhat scandalous to people, it's going to
look something like worship, like a little worship to be
a celebration of the thing which binds us together, reverence,
towards the thing that Brian binds us together. I don't
want to I use the word worship to scandalize a
little bit, but like reverence is fine, right, And so
they will have to reverence their team colors, they have

(16:14):
to reverence their team name. They have to have a totem,
a mascot which will represent them in a mythological with
the mythological frame as a kind of an animal or
some some figure that has more social connotation that will
bind their identity together. And then they will also be
bound you'd say, on the human level, through a person

(16:36):
who will represent their ideal, a team captain, the coach,
at different levels in the in this kind of hierarchy
of being. And so you will see that a sports team,
but not a sports seem a knitting group or anything
that is bound together will necessarily have to have these
elements at different levels of of of of reality. Now

(17:00):
out One of the aspects is that it will also
have to judge what is inside and what is outside,
and what will be the judge of that inside and
outside will be their reason for existing. Right, And so
you could say the logo some to use a Christian term,
the logos of the group will be that which binds together,

(17:24):
which joins the body into one, but will also be
that with judges those that are inside, to bind them,
but also to exclude them. And so think of a
knitting group, for example, Right, you have a knitting group.
A bunch of people come together, they knit together. That's
what they do. And so there's a ritualized reality to that,
which is that when they meet, they're going to knit.

(17:46):
Now as they're knitting, they'll probably do other things as well. Well.
They'll talk, they'll chat, they'll they'll talk about their lives,
they might you know, someone might bring something to eat.
And this is all going to kind of organically participate
in the knitting group. But let's say that at some
point someone comes and says, well, you know, I like
this knitting group. I like to use this knitting group,
but I don't want to knit. I want to play music.

(18:09):
And so they're like, okay, well, maybe one person playing
music while we're knitting is not a big deal. And so,
you know, they play music. And then that person invites
someone else and says, I like this knitting group, but
this music playing is pretty cool. So what if I
brought my instrument and then we start playing music. So
imagine now that process going on to a point where, well, okay,
are we a knitting group? Are we a band? Like?
What's going on? We have to decide, we have to judge.

(18:32):
Either we exclude these musicians or exclude their practice, or
we cease being what we are. We die. Basically, this
knitting group's going to cease to exist. It's going to
be transformed into something else. Okay. And so this is
how kind of this pattern acts as the attention that
we give towards the teleology of the group will also

(18:53):
act the logos of that the reason, the purpose that
I'm looking at will look like a binding a but
will also look like a judge. And so, like I said,
this is how all kind of reality works, or all
of how reality lays itself out. This is it, folks.
This might just be the culmination of my life's work.

(19:15):
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(19:37):
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(20:01):
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(20:24):
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(21:30):
And so I will see all of you in class.
And so what I want to do is I want
to kind of show you that this pattern that I'm
talking about is really just it is a cosmological argument.
It's an argument about how reality works. And what it
does is that it argues about how reality works based

(21:53):
on the notion that intelligence is necessary for reality to unfold.
And so this is something which is kind of bubbling up, right,
It's not something which is that everybody agrees with in
the world, but it's something which is bubbling up and
we're seeing a peer in different fields, as even in science,
we're finding some physicists who are arguing what they call

(22:14):
the strong anthropic principle, which is that consciousness or intelligence
is necessary for the for the world to unfold, because
intelligence is the only thing which is able to discern
pattern and not just discern but it's like a it's
not just a discern and it's a participation in pattern, right,

(22:38):
because the agent the pattern ends up coagulating in the agent,
you could say. And so the conscious being sees these
pattern but also engages with these patterns and transforms these patterns.
It's not just a it's not just a passive can
I say, it's not just a passive relationship to the world.
It's an active, embodied relationship to the world. Okay, now

(23:04):
before I give you before we go on the example,
I want to say that this once you kind of
enter into this way of thinking, it has certain consequences, right,
And one of the consequences is that the intelligent perception,
the perception of the embodied intelligence, becomes the primary mode

(23:27):
of engagement and interpretation in the world. And when I'm
saying this, this is extremely important because we tend to
abstract and become scientists, and we think that that is
the primary way to interpret reality, and we do it.
We all do it. We analyze, we're analysts. We look

(23:49):
at the patterns from outside, right, we try to stand
above and say, well, look at that interesting pattern in
that culture, and look at that interesting pattern in that culture,
and look at how nice it is that they're the same.
And we're kind of like these these embodied beings that
are just looking at the world supposedly. But once you
realize that, once you realize this notion that intelligence is

(24:10):
necessary and this ritualized embodied reality is necessary for the
world to appear, then it changes everything because you have
to embody, you have. The real way to engage the
world is the embodied way. So it's not that we're
standing above the stories and we're interpreting the stories. It's

(24:31):
not that we're standing above the images and we're interpreting
the images. We are in a story. We participate in
a story, We participate in communities, we participate in images.
Right they are our communities. There are our images. There
are are they are the things that make us exist,

(24:51):
right as we kind of actively engage with them. And
so that's why if you if you look at the
way that you know, when when David at the beginning
said that Jonathan is an artist. This is extremely important
in my theory about reality is that it's not it's
like I'm presenting it to you in a way in
the theory, but this presentation that I'm giving you this

(25:14):
is secondary to what is really going on. What is
really going on is that to the most, to the
extent that I'm capable of, I get up, I get
up in the morning and I physically carve sacred images. Right.
I go to church on Sunday and I physically participate
in the rituals and the liturgy. You know. I sit

(25:34):
there with my family around the table, and I eat
a meal, and I realize that this meal is a
smaller version of the ritual that I'm engaging in on
Sunday morning with with my parish. And so it's an
embodied it's an embodied reality, it's an embodied engagement with
the world. And so so, like I said, it's it's

(25:56):
a pretty radical. It's very radicals. Sometimes people don't realize
how radical the proposition I'm making is. The proposition I'm
making is is that if what the things I said
are true. That means that the only way for them
to be fully true is for us to dive in
and embody while realizing, of course, and while being aware

(26:17):
of all the problems that come with this pattern as well.
There are many problems that come with this pattern because
I said, right, one of the issues of the reality
of being engaged in a group that has a teleology
that has the purpose is that it excludes. That's the
very nature of a group. A group excludes. Groups always exclude.
That's why they're a group. Because they're not the totality

(26:40):
of all manifestation in the universe. They necessarily need to exclude,
you know. I mean, even if you want to be
inclusive and the kind of the kind of let's say,
politically correct way, you're still going to exclude animals from
your group, where you're still going to exclude rocks from
your group. You necessarily have to exclude because you're not

(27:00):
God right, You're not the totality of everything. In order
to kind of move teleologically in the world, you have
to exclude. And so that has a problem that has
difficulty to it. And so but there are ways to
path to, kind of let's say, to deal with those
in a manner which won't make the group completely self
devouring and also won't make you kind of fall into

(27:21):
the chaos of thinking that just that nothing has identity
and everything is just a mush of potential, let's say. Okay,
So hopefully if that's clear, what I want to do
is I'm going to go into the first chapter of
Genesis and show you how the creation narrative. It's a very,
very wide story. It's a very very it's a huge narrative.

(27:43):
Obviously I can't exhaust it, but I want to show
you is that the manner in which it shows that
the world manifests itself through intelligence, through consciousness, and that
this is actually the agent of how reality comes together
and how we participate in that as intelligent beings. Okay,

(28:06):
and so hopefully you are little aware I will go
through the verses, but I mean I'm not going I
hope everybody's a little bit aware of the creation narrative
in Genesis enough that you'll be able to at least follow.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
All.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Right, So here we go. Okay, So scripture starts it says,
in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now,
the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the
surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was
hovering over the waters. So what we have are first

(28:45):
the setup of one thing which seems to be outside
of the system, but is related actually to the top
of the system. So you have God who is in
the beginning. The beginning can be interpreted as the head.
That actual word means a head of something. It also
means something like the principle, right, the or the origin.

(29:07):
All of these words work into in the beginning. And
so God is in the beginning, and he separates heaven
and earth, and the characteristics he gives of heaven and
earth is that because he says that the spirit was
hovering above the water. Now we have to see the
spirit hovering above the waters as the repetition. You'll see,

(29:27):
it's all going to be repetition and showing you what
the pattern is. And so the spirit hovering above the
water is the same as heaven. Heaven is just wind. Right,
We have to be immediate about this. Heaven is that
are the things that you can't see like wind, you
can't see, like your breath, you can't see, like speech,
you can't see. All of these things are things that

(29:50):
you that you can't see. And then so it separates
heaven and earth two basic principles of reality. The Earth
is void, it's empty, it's violence, it's water, and heaven
is spirit, wind, breath, and speech. So at first we
basically just have two categories.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Right.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
The implications of these two categories are not going to
be clear right away. They're going to start to manifest themselves,
but you can already understand it as something like spirit
and potential or actuality and potential is actually totally fine
to see. If that way, Dante completely joins together the
Aristotelian categories of actuality and potential and in the Creation narrative,

(30:33):
the idea of heaven and earth as these two basic principles.
And so this is just this, right, it's no different.
It's a universal category. It's there in every culture that exists,
this idea of this basic separation of heaven and earth,
and it is completely based on our actual experience in

(30:55):
the world. And if you can't kind of re embody
yourself and realize that this distinction is a very simple
and clear one, you're going to struggle to understand what
the meaning of it can be. Because as you're standing
there like imagine yourself standing there on the ground. Right,
All light comes from above. Right, wind comes from above.

(31:17):
The things that are above are unreachable. You can't touch
the stars, you can't touch the sky. You can't touch
the sun and the moon, all of these things which
give you light and which are the source of wind
invisible movement. Think about it that way. Think of wind
as invisible movement, as invisible patterns of transformation. Okay, see

(31:38):
think of it that way. So you have all of
this above you, and then below you have a world
that you knock your foot against. You have a world
that you can touch, that you can count, that you
that you can get dirty with, that can kill you,
and that is also dark. Right. It hides the sun.
If you take something that's on the ground, you take

(31:58):
a rock and you put it above your head, it's
going to hide the light from you.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
This is very embodied. Right, This is very very What
it does is it separates two basic categories of reality.
And so when God said let there be light, and
there was light, God saw that the light was good,
and he separated the light from the darkness. God called

(32:23):
the light day, and the darkness he called night. There
was an evening, and there was a morning the first day.
So now it starts to become clear. You can easily understand,
of course, if you can embody yourself that light has
to do with heaven, has to do with spirit, it's above,
and then darkness has something to do with this void.

(32:46):
So you don't necessarily have to represent it below, but
it becomes analogous to below because it's the moment when
the light stops being stopped. It's the moment where the
light stops showing you what the world is like. I'm
placing it like this for you to understand. You wouldn't
necessarily have to put night at the bottom, but this
is a good way to kind of see light dark,

(33:07):
Earth as void and empty, then Heaven as wind, spirit,
breath and speech. So God, sorry, let me say it.
So God is above and he speaks and light comes
down on on the world. So then God says, let

(33:35):
there be a vault between the water to separate water
from water. So God made the vault and separated the
water under the vault from the water above it. And
so it was so God called the vault sky, and
there was an evening and there was a morning the
second day. All right, So already you're starting to see
something like a narrowing. You have heaven above, but now

(33:59):
you have like a second heaven, which is like, okay,
what's going on. You have the water that is below,
it's kind of split into the potentiality, the earth that
is below, it's kind of opened up. And now we
have a pattern which is similar, which is setting itself
up inside the world. So there's you're going to start

(34:20):
to see that this pattern of attention is fractal, just
like the way in which multiplicity moves into unity, and
any object in the world or in any community in
the world, happens at every level of reality. And this
is what is going to start to appear to you,
is that the pattern just repeating itself at different levels

(34:41):
until it comes together in the middle. Okay. And so
we have these waters being separated, and then we have
now a secondary heaven, another heaven which is also above,
but it is something like inside the earth. The earth
now is ZAMBI see not the earth exactly the way

(35:01):
that we understand it, but as they inside, the things
that are visible and have are quantifiable. Now Augustine said
this clearly. He said, he said, everything you see and
when you look up in the sky, all the things
you see, the sun, the cloud, the stars, all of
this is the earth, all of this because it can

(35:21):
be quantified. But the second heaven, those things above that
actually can be seen and identified, they are like a
secondary heaven. There are pointers towards something which is truly invisible,
you could say, or patterns that are truly invisible. So
the I mean, it's it's not, it's not. I don't
want you to think that I'm being all esoteric here, right,

(35:43):
It's like the world has a pattern that's say, day
and night. That's a pattern. And the thing that manifests
that to you that you can recognize that it is
a pattern is those shining lights up in the sky
that move. Are the shining lights up in the sky.
They move, and they reveal to you a regular pattern.

(36:05):
The regular patterns of reality are in the sky. The irregular,
the more embodied irregular patterns are in the world. They're
still there, but they're more irregular. But the ones in
this heavens are regular. Right, every day the sun comes up,
every day, the sun goes down, the moon has its phases,
the stars move in the sky, and so it's it's
it's completely natural that these heavenly bodies are pointers the

(36:30):
pattern They point us to patterns. They point us to
the invisible patterns, you could say, even though they are
obviously visible. Okay, So God said, let the water under
the sky be gathered to one place, and let the
dry ground appear. And it was so. So God called

(36:51):
the dry ground land and gather the water, and the
gathered water waters he called seas. And God saw that
it was good. Now I wanted I want to point
to you here something that I haven't pointed to yet before.
So now think of the think of the problem of
intelligence that I'm trying to present to you. And it's

(37:12):
kind of embodied or active participation in the way that
reality manifests itself to you teleologically, so God says. And
you can imagine it, like God says, is God shining light? Okay,
So imagine an eye in the sky and that a sun,

(37:33):
and I the sun is the same thing as an eye,
let's say. And this is shining light down on the
world and is showing you things. And that has to
do it identifying. So when you encounter something that you've
never seen before and you see it, what is it
that you want to do. You want to identify it.

(37:57):
That's your job. Your job is to identify it. If
you don't ident you don't know if it can kill you,
you don't know if it's dangerous. You have no idea.
And so there's a direct relationship between seeing speaking in
the sense of identifying naming. You could say okay, and
so God. So God speaks, identifies as light comes down

(38:21):
from heaven, manifests itself on the thing, and then God
speaks it into being. But then he sees its relevance.
He recognizes that which is manifesting itself to him, and
he says that it's good. He judges it right away.
God judges. Now think of your Think again of your experience.

(38:45):
Think of your just basic experience. Right you walk into
the room, you see the glass, you identify it, and
immediately you ask yourself, consciously or unconsciously. You're always asking
yourself if it good. This is necessary because the reason
why you even perceive the glass in the first place

(39:07):
is because you use it to drink water. And so
you always have to ask yourself if it's good or
not is it a good glass? And this is true
about everything that you encounter. You don't even do it consciously.
This is true of everything you encounter. As you're walking
on the grass. You have a system which is constantly judging,

(39:31):
because it has to be able to recognize if there
as a whole, it has to be able to recognize
if there's an object in your way, and so it's
looking at the ground, at the grass that you're walking on,
or the path, and it's always identifying, naming and recognizing
whether it's good. As Hopeingly this makes sense, all right,

(39:58):
So now we're really going to start to see this
fractal pattern start to appear more clearly. So you have
the basic structure, you have the very invisible patterns of head, principal, origin, wind, spirit, breath, speech,
which is completely above. And now you have the void, empty, silent, question, puzzle, darkness, potential,

(40:24):
All of this is below. And now at every level
of reality this is going to start to appear as
being the same pattern. And so, like I said, the
potential and the actuality of the glass is relative, obviously,
but it points to some to the pattern itself, to
the pattern of identity and potentiality itself. And so this

(40:48):
is why you're going to see at every level it's
going to repeat. So you have the secondary heavens, which
are the sky, and then you have the secondary earth.
And now in the second earth, the same pattern happens again.
So God creates dry ground and separates it from the waters.
So dry ground is above it's higher than water. Right,

(41:13):
this is just basic experience. Dry ground is higher than water.
Dry ground is the place where you live. Dry ground
is the place where you find meaning, because that's where
you build cities, that's where you do things. That's where
you eat all of this like this from the dry ground,
that's where you can breathe air. You can encounter spirit

(41:34):
from the dry ground and light, but you can't in
the sea, right, and the sea if you stay there
too long, you die because you run out of spirit,
you run out of meaning, you run out of air.
All of these analogies play themselves out. So imagine dry
ground as a mountain is the best way to understand it.
You have this mountain, and then at the bottom of

(41:55):
the mountain or around the mountain, you have the sea,
which is an image of the original chaos, the original potentiality,
now at a different level. Then God said, let the
land produce vegetation, seed, bearing plants and trees on the
land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to
the various kinds. And it was so the land produced vegetation,

(42:18):
plants bearing seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing
fruit with seed in accordance to their kinds. And God
saw that it was good, and there was an evening,
and there was a morning of the third day. Now here,
notice again, what is going on?

Speaker 3 (42:31):
Right?

Speaker 1 (42:33):
So God says, let the land produce vegetation. But not
just produce vegetation. What does he say. He's saying, produce
seed bearing plants. Why seed bearing plants? What a strange
thing to say. He's saying seed bearing plants because once
again in this pattern, now the seed is the identity

(42:57):
and the vegetation is the variation, or is the bottom
part of this pattern. So he's repeating the pattern. He's saying,
you need a way for this identity to recognize the
identity of the plant that's the seed. The seed is
the manner in which you recognize the identity of what

(43:19):
you're encountering. So you want reality to have stability. This
is how we work in the world. We have to
be able to recognize the different plants and in that pattern,
what there is is there's both identity and variability. So
we're moving towards that kind of multiplication. But this multiplication

(43:40):
always has to be a recognition also of the identity
of each plant and how these plants are different from
each other, and how they participate in a major pattern
of the plants. So you can see this fractal this
fractal process just kind of continuing. And then once again
the same thing God, God says, the identity is in

(44:02):
the God said, it's in the seed of the plants,
and then the plants kind of manifest this variability. God
sees and judges and says that it is good. So
now you can see same thing the dry ground. On
the dry ground, you have the same pattern of above
and below right identity spirits obviously it's not spirit in

(44:26):
this case, but identity and variability. All right, So we continue.
So God said, let there be lights in the vault
of the sky to separate the day from the night,
and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times
and days and years. And let them be lights in
the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.
And it was so God made two great lights, the

(44:47):
greater light to govern the day and the lesser light
to govern the night. He also made the stars. God
set them in the vault of the sky to give
light on the earth, to govern the day and the night,
and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that
it was good. There was an evening and there was
a morning the fourth day. So now in the heaven
even in the world of meaning, the same pattern appears.

(45:10):
So the pattern appears below in kind of the world
of manifestation, you could say as a fractal pattern, but
it also appears above in the pattern itself. And so
we have these signs in the sky. They are signs
to mark the days. There are signs for you to
identify the pattern of reality. And there's one of the

(45:31):
major ones, one of the major lights, which is there
to govern the day and went to govern the night.
So you have light and dark. Even in the heavens.
The pattern is fractal all the way through. Every day
is going to be like that. Just spoiler here. And

(45:51):
God said, let the water team with living creatures, and
let birds fly above the earth across the boult of
the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea,
sea monsters. It doesn't say they don't like to say
sea monsters, but great creatures of the sea mean sea
serpents and sea monsters. That all these de mythological, mythologizing
Biblicists are the worst. It just means it means sea monsters.

(46:13):
God created the great creatures of the sea, and every
living thing with which the water teams that moves about
it according to their kinds, and every winged bird according
to its kind. And God said saw that it was good.
God blessed them and said, be fruitful, and increase in number,
and fill the water in the seas, and that the
birds increase. On the earth, there's an evening and there's
morning of the fifth day. Now, this is where you're

(46:34):
going to start to see what's really going on, because
until now you might have thought that what I'm saying
is just a bunch of like just random interpretation. But
here it becomes impossible not to see why on earth
would God create birds and fish on the same day.
What is happening. It's the strangest thing in the world.

(46:55):
It seems to us doesn't make any sense. Right, Well,
it only makes sense if we understand that he's constantly
establishing the repetition of the heaven and earth pattern, of
the above and below pattern, which is started from the beginning,
And so he puts he creates the birds above and
this and the sea monsters below, and the fish. So

(47:18):
even in the sea he separates fish and sea monsters.
The fish are those that you can eat and you
can encounter, and the sea monsters are those that are
going to eat you. Right, there's a difference between the two.
So you have the fish and the sea monsters. But
even in this whole pattern, you have the birds and
the fish as framing again the same duality which is

(47:39):
being framed from the very beginning of the text. And
you have to understand it. That's what's been going on
from the beginning, because why would God create vegetation before
he created the sun and the moon. It doesn't make
any sense in terms of science. How can you create
vegetation first and then create the sun. It's completely logical

(48:03):
in terms of a scientist, but in terms of a
pattern of reality, it's completely understandable. And what you'll notice
is that from the beginning of this whole thing, the
bottom stuff appears first. The potentiality kind of manifests itself

(48:24):
first as a question, as this kind of darkness which
is calling to be solved, this potential which is asking
to be resolved. And then comes the answer from above,
the name the idea of the light. So think again
about your experience. Right, you encounter something in the world
you can imagine in a microsecond, in a micro microsecond,

(48:46):
the first thing it does is present itself to you
as potential or as puzzle. And then obviously it HAPs
almost simultaneously you immediately identify, judge and make it participate
in reality. But you can, obviously so have the experience
of seeing something you've never seen before. I mean, everybody's

(49:06):
had that experience. You see something or you experience something
that you've never seen before. So at first it presents
itself to you as as the puzzle, right, It's like,
what is this? And then the process has to happen
is back and forth process of question and identification, of
question and judging in order for you to finally be

(49:27):
able to kind of identify and participate in its existence.
All right, And so now we have God said, let
the land produce living creatures according to their kinds. The livestock,
the creatures that move along the ground and the wild animals,
each according to its kind. And it was so God

(49:48):
made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock
according to the kinds, and all the creatures that move
along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw
that it was good. And so once again, what is happening,
What is happening in this in this this text, Why
is it that God separates living creatures between livestock, wild animals,

(50:15):
and creatures that move on the ground. And the answer
is very simple. It's just to continue the very same pattern.
This hierarchy that we're seeing is a hierarchy of meaning, right,
It's a hierarchy of identification, participation in reality. And so

(50:38):
when God creates the animals, he does it in the
same in the same pattern. That is, you have livestock.
Livestock is more intelligent animals. Can call them animals that
are closer to us, animals that participate in our intelligence.

(51:00):
There they are the sheep, the cows, all the animals
that kind of let's say, are almost not almost, but
are more like extensions of human society. And then you
have the wild animals, which are out there in the chaos,
in the in the in the wild in the world
that doesn't completely make sense to us. And now then

(51:22):
the creepy crawlers are the ones that live underground, like
the sea monsters live on the ground, that dig holes
in the ground, that come up, you know, and h
and that don't actually are not completely in the light.
You could say that they are actually hiding in darkness,
hiding under rocks, and so you have to kind of
dig in order to encounter them, you know, just like

(51:43):
the sea monsters are and the fish are underground, just
like the very pattern from the beginning of darkness chaos
you know at the bottom, and light meaning participation at
the top. And then of course now we come to
then God said, let us make mankind in our image
and her likeness, so that they may rule over the

(52:04):
fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky,
over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over
all the creatures that move along the ground. So why
is it that man has to rule? This is like
the most politically incorrect thing that you could say, right,
what are we talking about? But once you realize this pattern,

(52:30):
the pattern of intelligence, it has to change the way
you see reality, which is that intelligence is the place
in which reality is encountered, identified, and also judged. And
this is going to be a tough pill for a

(52:51):
lot of people to swallow, but at least try to
understand it. Try to understand it in this pattern. So
man has to rule because man is an image of God.
Man is an image of God in the sense that
man is a locust of intelligence. And all the things
that God said, all the things that you saw from

(53:13):
the beginning, in terms of how God creates the world,
is something that we participate in to a lower at
a lower level. We could say, we recognize that we
participate in that at a lower level, because we do that.
We cast light, we identify, we we judge, and then
and then we are. We are the place in which

(53:33):
meaning is gathered into into us. And so now God
puts man above all the creatures which are below. Now
remember those creatures were already organized in this hierarchy of meaning, right, Livestock,
wild animals, crawlers, fish, stea, monsters, all of this is

(53:54):
organized in this kind of hierarchy of meaning, this hierarchy
of danger, this hierarchy between that which is in the light,
which is identifiable, which participates intelligence, and that which is
below and is in the chaos, and is and is
also dangerous to you, okay, And so we have the
human person meeting in the middle, becoming the place where

(54:17):
all of these patterns kind of join together in the center.
And so then to understand the role of man a
little better, we actually have to go into Genesis too,
just for a little bit to kind of understand, because
in Genesis Too there's another creation narrative which focuses more
on the human person. And then it says God, uh, sorry,

(54:41):
let me skip this actually. Oh yeah. So it says
that I don't want I don't want to run out
of time here, but he says God bless them, and said,
be fruitful, increase in number, Fill the earth and subdue it. Again,
this is going to be difficult. But intelligence fills the
earth and subdues it, not in an in the negative sense,
but in the sense of identifying. Right the scientist that

(55:03):
is constantly discovering new species, and all of this is
something like intelligence or man filling the earth and subduing
it in the sense of identifying it and making it
participate in a pattern of meaning. Rule over the fish
in the sea and the burden of the sky and
over every living creature that moves in the ground. Then
God said, I give you every seed bearing plant, et cetera,

(55:26):
et cetera. And then he saw that it was good.
And it's important that when God created the humans, he
creates the male and female. And in the scripture there's
a sense in which at first this is almost like
man is actually androgynous, that he creates man male and female.
That is in man is the duality of heaven and

(55:50):
Earth itself. Right, So there's a microcosm of this basic
duality of heaven and Earth which is being reproduced in
side the human person as within them they also contain
this actuality and potentiality, and how they also participate in
the manner in which actuality and potentiality come together in

(56:13):
the world. So it's not just in them, but it's
actually in as being intelligent, intelligent subjects, they are able
to now encounter the world as this union of these two.
All right, So this is where I wanted to go
into the second chapter of Genesis just for a little
bit to help you understand how this kind of comes together.

(56:34):
So it says, this is the account of the heavens
of the Earth when they were created. When the Lord
God made the earth and the heavens now, no shrub
had yet appear on the earth. You see, it's different here.
Here there is a sense in which actually man kind
of comes before everything. He's actually there at the outset
before God did all those other things. Before you can
imagine that God was man, or the microcosm or the

(56:55):
intelligent agent was there. Even in the orgin of creation itself,
no shrub had yet appear on the earth, and no
plant had sprung up. For the Lord God had not
set rain on the earth, and there was no one
to work the ground. But streams came up from the
earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then
the Lord God formed a man from the dust of
the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,

(57:18):
and the man became a living being. So it's a
similar image as to what we have before. But here
man is there right at the outset. So it says
that there is no plant, there is nothing on the ground,
and that water covered the earth. Water came out from
the earth and covered the earth. So it's the same
age as before. You have heaven above and the earth below.

(57:41):
The earth is chaos and water. And then what God
does is he gathers all the potentiality, the dust, all
this formless chaos. He gathers it into one place, and
then he puts heaven into it. He blows a into
this gathered dust. And that's how man becomes a living being. Now,

(58:08):
what I want to propose to you is that process
of gathering dust and putting air into it. That's what
was being described in the first chapter of Genesis, and
that is how you encounter everything in reality all the time,
non stop. That is, the world presents itself to you

(58:28):
as indefinite potential. And the manner in which you are
able to exist in a living world is that intelligence
gathers potential into bodies and then puts purpose or recognizes purpose,

(58:51):
engages with purpose, meaning spirit breast, and that is how
that is how the world actually exists, right, And so
the description in Genesis is a description of how the
world exists, not in a scientific way, but in a
way which takes into account that intelligence is necessary, that

(59:15):
we are intelligent beings in the world, and that we
can't avoid that problem. We can't pretend that we're not
in the world and that we're just analyzing phenomena, and
that we're not part of that process. So it's a
it's a cosmic vision of reality which includes the viewer,
which measures the viewer, whor includes the viewer in the

(59:36):
way in which we understand the world. All right, And
so we have this image again now we can we
can represent it this way, but we can also represent
it this way. This is a way that will help
you understand. You can realize that you can represent it

(59:58):
this way. Understand so much. And this is where I
want to make a shameless plug, which is that my
brother Metope, Joe and I we developed a lot of
this way of speaking about reality together, which I which
is not something that we invented. It really is just
a reinterpretation of traditional pattern making. It's an interpretation of
the church fathers, of the rabbis, of the of the

(01:00:20):
brahmin of It's just a way in which we are
trying to represent these traditional stories for the modern world.
He wrote a book called The Language of Creation, which
goes through a lot of the things that I'm talking
about in almost in the more even in a more
kind of mathematical technical way. So now think of this.
The first image that I showed you as Heaven and Earth.

(01:00:43):
You could say, so this is the same at the
top you have I'm just laid them out there, like
there's more complexity to this, but it's like Father, Heaven, spirit, light, essence, pattern, mind, purpose,
all of these things which are above, and then at
the bottom mother, Earth, chaos, potential, question, body, puzzle, multiplication,

(01:01:08):
all of these images of that which is below. And
then what you have is you have the pattern which
descends right, the ray of light, the speech, the speaking
which comes down right, the logos which comes down from
the Father and connects with Heaven right, sorry, connect with Earth,

(01:01:34):
and that usually in all traditions pretty much appears at
the top of a mountain, which is just completely completely intuitive. Right,
the mountain is the place where Heaven and earths me
it's like the Earth kind of coming together into a
point where the Heaven now touches the Earth at it
at its highest point. Okay, But it's also an image

(01:01:57):
of this difference between quality and quantity, identity, variability, you know,
all of this kind of image of the relationship between
the identity of your team and the variability of its players,
of its idiosyncrasies. All of that will kind of come
down below as this image of the mountain or the pyramid.

(01:02:26):
And so I won't go into to this right now,
but there are there's a center. There's let's a centrifugal
force and a centripedal force that is there is there
is a capacity to move into attention, to move into identity,
to move into purpose. And then there's a way in

(01:02:48):
which we are able to kind of have this that say,
but you could call a breakdown of attention or focused attention,
but is also this kind of general attention you could
call it where we're we have this general attention on
the on the borders of our even of our visual field,
where it's like almost like an alarm system right where
things if things we don't have a lot of a

(01:03:10):
lot of energy there, but if things pop in, this
variability kind of pops in on the edge. And it's
the question, right the puzzle. Something's happening here and I
can't see it. It's a puzzle, So what do I do?
I then put my attention on it, identify it, judge it,
and do all the things that we talked about before.
And so there's there's a there's a centrifugal force and
a centrifugal force. And that's true as much as you're

(01:03:32):
in your attention, as it is in a team or
a country, or any group. Anything that has body, there's
something which is making it more towards its identity and
some aspect which is pushing it towards multiplicity, variability, UH,
and potentiality. Okay, I don't want to go into that
too much because that would take us into a whole
other other world. But just you understand that you probably

(01:03:54):
are if your unions, you're aware of the kind of
coagular solve structure that Young used in terms of alchemy.
This is exactly what I'm talking about, right, This is
exactly the Quagula solved pattern, which is a movement towards
solidity and identity and then a dispersion into uh, into potentiality.
But when I want to help you to understand, especially,
is that this structure, like this basic pattern can help

(01:04:17):
you understand so many things. Right. It's it's the pattern
of a temple, right, it's a it's a pattern of
a temple. Where in a temple, that's in the in
the Jewish temple, you have the Holy of Holies where
the where the glory of God would descend in the
Holy of Holies, and then there you would have a
priest who is just one person, and then outside of

(01:04:41):
that you would have all these levels of quantification, where
outside you would have the priestly cast, then you would
have the faithful, and then you would have the strangers. Right,
it's a pattern of a church which has the same pattern.
You have the altar in the highest point of the church,
where God descends on the altar, and then there's also
so a reduced amount of people that are there that

(01:05:03):
represent this moving into quality, this moving away from quantity.
And then the sacraments get dispersed out into the nave
where the faithful gather, and then there's a narthex or
a vestibule where strangers come. And then on the outside
of the church there are gargoyles and strangers and other
aspects of reality. Okay, so this is the structure of

(01:05:27):
the structure of the way that Greeks understood themselves in
ancient times. Right, they had the envelopes, they had they
had the navel of the world, and in that place
they received oracles from heaven which would which would bind
them together, which would manifest their destiny. All of that
was manifested at a place where they had the belly

(01:05:49):
button of the world, the center of the world. And
then as you moved away, you would have Greeks, and
then strangers that you knew, and then finally barbarians and
ultimately monsters. Things that have confused identities, things that you
don't recognize, would be outside on the outer edges of this. Okay. So,

(01:06:11):
like I said, this is basically just the pattern of
the way in which we encounter the world. But it's
also the pattern of the pattern of how society is
actually buying together. It's not just it's not just a subjective,
subjective experience, but it scales up in terms of your
experience into the social experience and ultimately, I think into

(01:06:32):
a cosmic Vergin it's an image of the cosmic of
the cosmic pattern. So I just want to show you
quickly without even going into detail, want to show you
how this pattern just appears everywhere. So here's an icon
of the ascension of Christ. Look, you have above, you
have the top of the pyramid or the top of
the mountain. You have the principle of the logos which

(01:06:53):
is above. You can imagine that the Father is actually
above this hidden above, and then below you have the
Mother as the place of potentiality, and then next to
her you have all this multiplicity. So you have the One,
you have the Mother, you have the twelve. Okay, this
is one example. Here's an example of the image of baptism.

(01:07:13):
So you have Christ as the one who now joins
heaven and Earth as this point at the top of
the mountain joinsthing on earth. But now he's descending all
the way down from the top, let's say, down into
the waters, down into the waters of chaos, and you
see the spirits above which is coming down on the
on the top of the mountain, and below you have

(01:07:35):
the sea monsters which are below in the chaos of
the waters. Right symbol just many many. So this is
a version that I made which I call the image
of Everything basically, and it's just trying to kind of
capture the Bible story as an image of this pattern,
as an image of what how the top of the

(01:07:57):
pattern relates to the bottom of the pattern, the waters
at the bottom, the sin, the fall, you know, the
thorns as this multiplicity, et cetera. O the sea monster
and I don't want to interpret it. But there are
different ways in which you can you can kind of
see this. And the last one I wanted to show
you is an image of the last judgment, which is
really the ultimate image of this if you want to

(01:08:21):
see an ultimate image of this whole pattern, because obviously
the last judgment being the last moment or the esketon,
or the moment in which all the totality is manifested
in one final thing. Then you have this image of
the world. In this version especially, you actually have the
Father above above right at the top. Can you I

(01:08:44):
don't think you can see my cursor? Can you see
my cursor? Oh? Here, you can see this way, okay.
So you have the Father above here, Then you have
the logos descending onto the world. Can you see that
he's got the world underneath him? And then you have

(01:09:06):
that which is below, which is both the hell, this
kind of monstrous hell, okay, but it's also the place
of paradise here because it's the place in which we
gather things together. So remember in scripture the gathering of

(01:09:26):
the dust and the blowing of the spirit. Well, that
also happens from the bottom right, So you have the
two sides. Remember I talked about the centrifugal and the
centripedal force. On the left of Christ is the sword,
and there's a descent down into death. On the right
of Christ there is his hand lifting up right lifting,

(01:09:51):
sorry wrong hand lifting up. And here you find the
gathering of the saints and they eyes up. See these
little saints with angel with wings. They go up on
the right of Christ into glory. The other very very

(01:10:12):
mysterious things about this image that I don't want to
go into too much detail, but you can understand that
this is happening through these angels that are making music,
that are making sounds pattern sounds, and this is what
is calling to the end, bringing about the judgment of
all of reality, in which all of this is kind

(01:10:32):
of happening, the judging of the good, bringing into the
center and the ultimate exclusion in a cosmic way towards
towards death. And then here this is the process. So
this is a it's a complicated thing in orthodox theology,

(01:10:53):
but on this this is the soul, which is you
can see the soul here. The soul is moving up
this serpent slash ladder. So it's both a way to
go down and a way to go up just like
Shoots and Ladders. Guys, this is Shoots and Ladders is
one of the oldest games in reality. It's it's a
truly cosmic game. By the way, it's almost religious as

(01:11:13):
a game. So you have this coming down and moving up,
which is which is captured in one image, and on
this are all the sins that you can have. Those
sins are coupled with virtues, and so as the soul
ascends this thing, they encounter at every level of reality
a demon which is pulling it down, but also they

(01:11:35):
also encounter angels which are pulling them up. Here in
this one, you don't see the angel so much. In
other versions you see another version, you'll see the angel.
Like in this one, you see the angel as the
one trying to push down the demon. And as you
move up, you kind of move towards this this judgment,
and that's actually that higher chy that I showed you

(01:11:55):
at the beginning in the creation that also obviously has
an analogous version of that in you, in your virtue,
in your capacity to scatter yourself into chaos right by
falling into all these thoughts that rip you apart, and
the capacity to join together into one, and to move

(01:12:16):
up the ladder of attention as you worship God of attention,
as you move towards virtue, rather than this dilapidation and
distraction by which you lose the worship, you lose the
capacity to attend to that which is above you, and
you fall into chaos and the multiplicity of the passions, right,

(01:12:37):
passions that rip you apart. Or and I think we're
starting with your questions, let's go for it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
Well, how about sub Do think of the word sub
to or to arrange hierarchically, do to give everything it's due.
That is, so when man subdues the world, he does
exactly what you're doing, right, everything place, And that's a
reflection of the simultaneous act of perception and judgment and

(01:13:10):
the fact that those things, as you pointed out, are inextricable.
And that's technically true, right people. Psychologists studying perception from
the biological ground have drawn that inescapable conclusion. So that
was really cool. Ritual encounters with other people. In Dostoevsky's

(01:13:32):
The Devils the Possessed, there's a great scene where Stavagant
goes into an officers club and he's coming on glued
at this point in his political chaos, utopian political chaos.
He's possessed by these ideas. He puts his fingers in
the nostrils of an age at general and drags him
onto the street, and it just causes absolute chaos in

(01:13:52):
the entire society, so that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
You realize how fragile, like, how easy it is to
actually just shatter you know, this ritual, ritual reality.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
Yes, Dostievsky understood that so deeply it is, so that's stunning.
The female potential equation. I've been criticized a thought for
associating femininity with chaos, although it's not an insult and
it's not something that I did casually, and it's not
something I did. And the idea of the seminal word

(01:14:23):
is precisely a reflection of that, and the implication of
that is feminine potentiality and the analogue between the word
and the drawing out of potential new forms. So there's
a sexual element to that, obviously, that's reflected in the
idea of the seminal word. The pyramid notion. On top

(01:14:44):
of that, George Washington Power the obelisk is pier capped
in aluminum, of all things, because aluminium is the most
valuable metal at that point, and so that idea that
there's an a pure and valuable pop to the pyramidal structure,

(01:15:04):
Like that's an icon of the entire structure of the
United States and by extension, the entire let's say Western world,
but world as such.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Yeah, the Egyptian pyramids were most probably capped with gold,
Like the very top of the pyramid would be like
a mini pyramid, and then that would have been gilded.

Speaker 3 (01:15:22):
Right. So one of the advantages to the interpretive framework,
this interpretive framework is that it explains the intrinsic, sacred
nature of the pyramidal structure. It's a great mystery, like
what's up with these pyramids exactly? Like people put a
lot of work into those things, so it wasn't trivial.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Yeah, and the zigoads are pyramids too. People always want
to separate them. But you know, all these structures, these
kind of these structure that are representing mountains or like
geometric versions of mountains, that's what they are. And if
you want to want you understand that, then you realize
that every time someone goes up a mountain in scripture,
it's it's the same as a pyramid. It's going up
to the top of reality.

Speaker 3 (01:15:59):
I think you did a brilliant job of explaining that
with your analysis of those images. At the at the end,
are you going to make that image you made into
a carving?

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
Yes, I am, but just in line somewhere in one
of my carving someone as you need a client to
purchase that, I have one, but I.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
Can also make one for you if you want. It's
quite something, Jonathan. And then this last thing I'll say,
I think is in the second creation version where you
have man primary that's an analog a repetition of the
notion of the word.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
Yeah, so it's the same.

Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
So that's so interesting seeing that embedded in a really
archaic narrative. There. Oh, so I do have one other thing.
Why did you use intelligence as the as the primary
descriptor of the interactive consciousness instead of logos?

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Well, the reason why, I mean I tried to kind
of move between the two. It's also because it's hard
to know which word to you is because the way
that the ancients understood intelligence was very was a little
different from the way we understand it. It was more
it is uh, it's called the noose and orthodox thinking,
which is it's actually it's beyond rationality. It's the capacity

(01:17:14):
to directly grasp the pattern to attention. And that's why
it's related to attention.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that and that supersedes rationality is
embedded inside that capacity to pay attention because attention selects
the objects that rationality deals with, and rationality tends not
to notice that. It's like, well, that's the easy part.
It's like no, no, no, that's that's the hard part.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
Actually. Yeah, And as we see, like YouTube virality is
a great way to understand what happens when we were
not careful about that, because what we have with YouTube
virality or just internet virality are just these random, you know,
stupid things that pop up, gather all the attention vanish,
pop up, gather all the attention vanish. And so it's

(01:17:57):
actually it actually ends up being a form of break
down of attention. It's a distraction. It prevents us from
seeing it's the capacity to pay attention to the right things,
and it leads us into into a kind of breakdown.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
It was great, I really I always learned a lot
listening to you. It's really good, really good.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
Thanks, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Okay, one question someone is asking, could you elaborate on
what you mean about above and below?

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Well, the idea of above and below. It's like I said,
it manifests itself fractally, but it you it's about something
like I mean, it's actual and potential. And so it's
identity and potentiality, and so think about it. Let's let's
think about it just like it. Let's bring it down
to like a real, real, like a basic basic level.

(01:18:55):
So let's think of a of a sports team again, right,
So you have the identity of the sports team, the
reason why it exists, which is to win basketball games
or to do that. Then there's the identity of the
team itself, you know, which is kind of embedded in that.
And then there's the potential the potential of that team
are the players. Those players have also their own potential.

(01:19:20):
Like it's like I said, it's fractal. So the players
can change, but the identity of the team won't. So
that's what we mean by potential, right, And so you
can it's variability which comes together and then is able
to manifest the purpose in the world. So that's what

(01:19:41):
we mean by above and below. And so God says
to let the earth bring forth vegetation that has seed.
We always forget that God doesn't just speak it into existence.
He says, to the earth bring forth right, And so
it's like out of the potential comes this variability which

(01:20:03):
then receives name from above and joins it together into
specific identities and so so, like I said, this idea
of above and below can be seen in any anything
that you encounter.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Another question, is you mentioned the pattern of livestock and
wild animals that manifest heaven endures are people that try
to tame animals.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Such as tigers.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Bears examples of breakdown of the pattern, and that is
why usually eat tends in disaster.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
Yeah, definitely. I mean you can see that. You have
to kind of have a respect subdue as Jordan said,
I love that. I actually love that. That is, you
have to be able to see things where they really
are and engage with them where they are in this
kind of pattern of reality. And so if you engage
with if you engage with the pattern of reality in
the wrong way, that's you die. And it and it

(01:20:56):
can be it can be something like taming a tiger,
but it can also be something like eating rocks, Like
rocks are not potential that you have access to to eat,
and and and that's true for like an indefinite amount
of things. That there are certain identities which have certain
potentials that are that can participate in them. And if

(01:21:18):
you don't encounter that properly, then you're going on gonna work.
If you have a basketball team and you decide to
fill the basketball team with Gerbils, well your basketball team
is gonna is gonna lose, it's not gonna exist. And
so there this is how this this, this is how
it works. Like in terms of this idea of subduing
right or judging is a very good thing. It's a

(01:21:39):
necessary thing because it's how you judge what potential is
able to join with what identity.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
Okay, we have a heretical question. How sure are you
about the universality of heaven under distinction as well as
I now it is symbolic pattern appearing with the exeal
age cultures Buddhis Christianity, Soocrati, Greece, islam Animistic culture for example,
do not have clear distinction between those two categories. So,

(01:22:09):
by extension, what makes you sure that all of this
isn't just a perfect exposition of an exial age?

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
Mind? How can I say this? Now, I'm going to
go back into what I'm saying. I'm going to go
back into what I'm saying, which is about embodied reality.
People who talk about the actual age and animistic as
if they don't exist in the world. They just I
have no I have very little patience for that, Like

(01:22:37):
where are you? Where are you to tell me about
the actual age? And if it's something that you're not
in and talk about the animistic age, and if it's
something that somehow you can see from outside like this,
how can I say this? It's like, we don't know
much about animistic religions because we're not animistic religions. We're

(01:23:02):
always interpreting animistic religions from the place where we are,
and so it's a very to me. It's always trans
like do you know the secret traditions of the Shamans?
Where you read the text that some European went out
into Tibet and wrote some texts based on what they
encountered there were you initiated, right? Did they bring you

(01:23:24):
into the secret of secrets? Did they tell you what
their secret traditions? Are. No, they didn't. You don't know them.
And so I'm not saying that that that the comment
is true or false. I'm saying that you really know
less about these traditions than you think you do, because
the way you know about something is not about it's
not by studying it from the outside, but it's about
it's about encountering it and living it from the inside.

(01:23:47):
And those that are initiated into the higher mysteries, they're
not supposed to talk about it anyways, so they're not
going to tell you. So even if a scholar was
at some point maybe initiated into the higher mysteries, they
shouldn't tell you. And if they tell you, it means
they probably weren't initiated, then they're bullshitting it, right. This
is true, Like even of the Elusinian mysteries. Everybody talks

(01:24:07):
about the Elucenian mysty because if they know what they are,
it's like that was a pretty awesome thing, because no
one ever told anybody what happened there, right, And so
it's really important to understand that to understand this. Anyways,
I'm sorry, I don't want to I don't want to
go off on this person, but it's really just important
to understand the implications of these embodied patterns and how

(01:24:30):
it is that every time we pretend that we can
stand above them and just analyze them, that we're we're
we're I think we're deluding ourselves. And so coming back
to Heaven and Earth, how can I say this, Like
I think that heaven and Earth is a universal pattern,
doesn't mean that there maybe aren't other ways of explaining

(01:24:51):
that same duality or that same relationship. And also it's
the same, it's the same, it's the same thing. Like,
it's the same problem. Like these animistic cultures that were
there before the actual age, you don't know anything about them,
You have no way of encountering them. And the ones
you encounter now, the idea that they're the same as

(01:25:13):
the ones that were there before the actual age is
also it's all kind of weird scientific delusions people give themselves. Sorry,
sorry to ever ask a question. I didn't mean to
kind of go off, but these are sometimes these things
I get itchy about them.

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
Okay, someone is asking what is the meaning of the
God calling the human very good versus calling the other
things only good?

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
And that's very It's super interesting because there's there's even
a day where God doesn't say that it was good.
By the way, people will always forget that when God
separates the waters, he doesn't say that it was good.
And so, I mean, I think that's what it is.
It's that in a way, the human being participates in
the pattern of the good in us way similar to
the way God participates in the pattern of the good.

(01:26:00):
That is, the human being can do good and can
recognize good right and can participate in the good, whereas
the other beings less so, not completely, not completely absent
of it, but less so. And so I think that
all living creatures participate in the good and participating God ultimately.

(01:26:21):
But it's just a question of hierarchy and embedded embedded patterns.

Speaker 4 (01:26:24):
You could say, there's a psychological observation in terms of
psychological work, how out of the infinite complexity of interpretations,
certain interpretations of experience have been offered to us to
stay inside the group we accept defensively ursus.

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
How can how we can seek out our intuited other
patterns in our experience create a new reality for ourselves?

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
Okay, I would say, okay, let's let's say, let's see
this way that the patterns of specific groups, they are
always limited. They're limited by their limitation. They're limited by
the fact that they embody the patterns in a specific context.

(01:27:19):
So because they do so, they will always be somewhat faulty.
They won't be perfect because they're not right. They they're
they're they're somewhat lower on the mountain of meaning, you
could say, and so. But ultimately, if you're attentive, the
idea is that within those smaller patterns, you're able to
intuit higher patterns and all and hopefully participate in things

(01:27:43):
which lead you into higher patterns. So if you're let's
give you an example, like if if you're part of
a group of of of of addicts. Let's say, right,
you hang out with a bunch of coke heads or
people who take care win. So obviously you're in a
there's something in that pattern which is true, right, There's
something in that pattern which binds you together in a

(01:28:05):
way towards the tellos, towards the reason. There's also something
in that pattern which is leading you into a breakdown
of yourself. But it still has something and so hopefully
that's something, right, that capacity to bind together with others
in a kind of communion that is ultimately what should
lead you up towards a better version of that pattern,

(01:28:28):
right towards instead of hanging out with a bunch of
coke heads. Right, you hang out with some people who
play sports, or hang out with people are interested in cars,
or people are interested in this. But there is a
way in which even in the lowest versions of these,
there's always something for it to even exist that has
to kind of participate. Now, I would be wary about

(01:28:48):
the danger of thinking, the danger of seeing novelty as
a value in itself, because this is something which we've
seen very very much in the modern world, which is
we value novelty as a novelty is novelty is neutral. Right,
some novelties are good and some novelties are bad. And

(01:29:09):
so we shouldn't seek out new patterns just because they're new.
If we seek new patterns or better patterns, it's because
they're better, better in the sense that they they bring
us closer to something which is a healthy mixture of
this healthy balance of the patterning and the multiplicity. Right,

(01:29:29):
it's this incarnational principle. If you kind of if you're
not careful, it's true you can move too high and
go into tyrannical systems. If you move too low, then
you fall into kind of anarchic, chaotic, chaotic realities.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
Someone is commenting that your proposition at the beginning of
the talk that intelligence is necessary for the world to
unfold reminds them of you recounting in memory, dreams, reflection,
standing over in African Vista and having the feeling is
the fir but the first consciousness. So I ever have

(01:30:04):
witness such a thing?

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
Hmm, yeah, I mean, there's definitely there's there's an aspect
of potential or encountering the strange, which is which is
very important, because there's an aspect of surprise and wonder
which comes with encountering that which we don't know, which
is also part of the pattern of reality. And so

(01:30:29):
there's an idea, right in ancient stories that there are
treasures hidden in the deep, right, that there are treasures
hidden in the outside, there are treasures being guarded by monsters.
And so there's a sense in which moving out into
potentiality is also a way in which to kind of
discover these these pearls, right, these secrets, these precious stones,

(01:30:52):
these gems that are kind of hidden in in the unknown.
So that's definitely part of the pattern as well.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
I think we have another question by Jordan.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
Actually it's a question from Tammy, so I'll let her
ask it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
How did Darwin bring Plato back? Because by coming back
into the world of biology, he inevitably brought back purpose
driven action or selection is the best way to understand it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
He brought back the idea of selection, and selection is
not chaos, right, Selection is not random. Selection is purpose oriented,
and it's purpose oriented towards the perpetuation of the seed,
the perpetuation of the identity.

Speaker 3 (01:31:44):
And so this is the argument that I've been trying
to put forth with Sam Harrison, Richard Dawkins. It's like, you, guys,
there's a big contradiction here between Darwin and Newton or
the way we look at Newton. It's like, this is
a big problem. So it's a surprise. It's like it's
a it's a surprise.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
I think that nobody kind of expected and nobody necessarily
framed it completely that way. But it did end up
bringing back the idea of quality back into the back
into the picture. Because you you choose for a reason,
and the reason is something which is closer to your
own the perpetuation of your own identity.

Speaker 3 (01:32:25):
Uh, and it's like crafted by evolutionary forces, and so
meaning itself is the consequence of the evolutionary process. And
how that tangles up with the like the theological perspective
that you've brought to bear today, that's an incredibly complicated
and difficult problem. But as you said, God calls the

(01:32:45):
earth to manifest its potential.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
So yeah, and so you could you could How can
I say this? It's like, so you can see it
bottom up, which is I mean, I've been experience, I've
been expressing it more bottom up recently, just because people
are are kind of scientists scientifically minded. Did but you
can also you can see it completely top down, like
you can see it as like, like I was trying

(01:33:09):
to explain to you, as these the evolutionary process of
maintaining your identity is a reflection of a deeper pattern,
which is a cosmic pattern of how the world actually unfolds.
So it's not that it's not necessarily that evolutionary process
brought about this. It's that the reason why evolutionary processes

(01:33:33):
work the way they do and do what they do
is because they're they're functioning within a larger system. Yes,
they're imaging, they're manifesting the way the world works.

Speaker 3 (01:33:44):
So that's how the world what discussion of subdue starts
to become so relevant because as creatures make their choices
and live or die by them, what they are in
fact doing is the spiritual process of subduing. And if
they do it improperly, then they perish.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Yeah, exactly. And so so there's an image, like we
were talking about the idea of a man at the outset,
you know, and so this is this is represented in iconography,
for example, as the image of Christ, Jesus Christ, human,
Jesus Christ creating the world, which is just like for people,
it just freaks them out because like, how does this work?
How is this possible? But that's that's the that's the

(01:34:22):
that's the understanding. There is a manner in which how
can I say this? And there's a manner in which,
just like we have this Christian idea that Christ acts
as an axis which transforms the past and the present,
let's say, which kind of acts as this, this this
central axis, you could say that intelligence, as it manifests

(01:34:43):
itself in the world, does the same that is the
human person. Human intelligence goes back into the past and
makes sense of it, and goes into the future and
makes sense of it. And so you could say that
intelligence is at the outset the thing don't exist outside
of this capacity to contain them in consciousness and so consciousness,

(01:35:05):
so the world is born in consciousness, and the past
as well. The past is born in consciousness too. So
all those those those processes that people try to understand,
all these all the Big Bang and all this stuff,
it's still born in man like, it's still born in consciousness.
So the real origin is not the Big Bang. This

(01:35:27):
is gonna be the weirdest thing you're gonna understand. The
real origin is the intelligence which is able to even
perceive the Big Bang or see it as a patterns
as not just a quantum field which never changes. It's
like perceiving change, transformation, identity, participating it. Like, that's the
origin of reality. So the description in Genesis, it's like,

(01:35:48):
I'm trying to help you see that it is an
actual description of the origin of the world. It's not
a metaphor like in the way that we want to
think about it. It's not just a fairy tale which
is helping us under I thinks we don't understand. It
is describing the manner in which reality originates, and it
originates in meaning then phenomena, not phenomena, phenomena first as

(01:36:11):
a puzzle, right right. I talked about that like it's
potential that bubbles up and calls to be answered, and
then meaning which comes down. So you can see the
same from every single all scientific theory is like that.
It's like something presents itself as a puzzle and you're like,
what is that? And then here comes the logos, the seed,
which comes in and patterns it or identifies it, judges it,

(01:36:34):
separates it from other things in the way that happens
in the first chapter of Genesis.

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):
Okay, there's two more psychological questions. I'm going to tell
them both together because I think they are linked, and Jordan,
you may also have something to contribute to that one.
How would you work with a problem of inclusive exclusive
categories in these times? Projections scapegoat? And the other question

(01:37:02):
that I think is related, where do the movements of
cancer culture or black lives matter or fit for? How
to make sense of these movements into this intelligence model?

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
Yeah, so one of the things. One of the things
we're seeing is we're seeing we're seeing out of control
versions of this identification system or the system of communion.
The way in which reality works is fractal, and so
communities or identities embed themselves in each other. That's how

(01:37:34):
it that's how it works. And so in a normal
kind of traditional world, you can be a family in
a neighborhood, in a community, right in a nation, in
a church, and it's like it's all embedded. And you
can also participate in all these different identities. You can
be in a club, or you can be in this
and that, and so it all kind of works together.

(01:37:56):
So one of the problems we're having right now is that,
let's sake, kind of woke culture has understood the problem
of identity, right, they understand it, They understand the problem
of exclusion. But the answer they give is that they
want to account for everything. They want everything to fit. Now,

(01:38:21):
the problem is that that doesn't it's impossible. It's an
impossible and it's even a dangerous thing. And there are
a lot of ancient traditions which help you understand that. So,
for example, like you have the idea in Jewish law
that you have to leave a fringe on your in vestment,
or you have to leave the corners of the field
untilled for the strangers. All of these patterns are there

(01:38:43):
to manifest the fact that you can't have a system
which is both coherent and complete at the same time.
You can't those two things.

Speaker 3 (01:38:55):
Let me interrupt just for a second, or well, the
ziggarette answers that question too, because people can be included
at a higher level of unity and excluded at a lower,
and so part of this is conceptual confusion. It's like
the problem of category is the problem of inclusion and exclusion,
and exclusion can lead to demonization very easily, and that's

(01:39:17):
a big problem, a fundamental problem. But the problem that
you're talking about that's manifesting socially as a consequence of
this lack of understanding of the hierarchy of value, so
that the people who are pushing diversity, inclusivity and equity
are saying something like, look, we're all divinely human, and

(01:39:37):
you object to that by saying, well, yes, but we
still need to differentiate ourselves into specialized categories. And we
have to think through that very carefully so that we
subdue things properly.

Speaker 1 (01:39:48):
Oh exactly, and so what's happened. And so what's happening
is that people want to make inclusivity the only value,
really value because of the problem of exclusion. And so
what happens and this is this is what I'm going
to say is going to be seem radical to some,

(01:40:10):
but what we're seeing in this process is the actual
destruction of the world. And it's actually going to this
type of thinking, well, can actually destroy the world or
lead to absolute tyranny one or the other, or maybe
one because causing the other. Because so imagine you have
a basketball team, right, you have a basketball team. The

(01:40:31):
purpose of the team is to play basketball, to win
the championship, to do this. But then you say, no, no, no,
the purpose of the team is inclusion. Now, I imagine you
do that for every single level of reality and every
single communion. You say that the purpose of your group
is inclusion. So then you sacrifice the actual purpose of

(01:40:55):
the group, which is to play basketball, to win games
and everything for inclusion. And you end up doing that
in all aspects of reality, which you're devouring the purpose,
you're eating it. It's like it's becoming eaten by this thing.
It's a monster. It's like it's the potential. It's like
potentiality is infinite. It's like you need to let all
this potential in. And so we were like, this is wrong, right,

(01:41:17):
you're excluding this potential, So we need to kind of
bring all this potential in. So what it does is
it's like a sea monster that comes up and devour
the and devours the identities, and so either it brings
about a kind of fragmentation and chaos and breakdown, but
often the world can't sustain itself that way, So what
it tends to do is it tends to lead to

(01:41:38):
lead into a kind of absolute identity. And it's weird
because the way it seems to be happening, it's just
the strangest thing is that it's like people are trying
to make inclusivity as the tyrannical system itself, which is
just seems like it's not possible, but that seems to
be what's happening is that inclusivity is going to turn
into tyranny. But what's important is that that gesture is

(01:42:03):
going to create something like absolute scapegoats. Absolute scapegoats, which
is that those that will refuse to participate in this
highest this weird principle of inclusivity will be absolutely excluded.
It's the only sin and it's an unforgivable sin, and

(01:42:24):
so we're moving kind of moving toward that, and it's
a yeah, it's kind of scary to see it, to
see it happen.

Speaker 3 (01:42:31):
Well, it's part of terminologically part of an assault on
the idea of the patriarchy. And that means that it's
the salt on the idea of pyramidal categorization itself, because
that's assimilated in the indiscriminate imagination with tyranny and the
identification of tyranny with the active categorization itself. And so

(01:42:55):
this is a deep struggle, right, So if the active
categorization is part of subduing and that's part of the
manifestation of the word, then the assault on that under
the guise of destructuring the patriarchy as an assault on
that principle itself and an identification of the principle of
discrimination with the principle of tyranny.

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
Yeah, I mean the idea that, for example, like the
idea that the word discrimination has become an absolute evil,
is insane. It's an insane moment because you discriminate all
the time, you're constantly discriminating. Discriminating is like a normal
aspect of reality, which is that you're constantly judging, Like
you're constantly kind of discriminating whether or not this piece

(01:43:39):
of paper is the right one to to scribble on
or to print on. And you're discriminating whether or not
this is the right keyboard for my computer. It's like
you're constantly discriminating. Uh. And so, but the fact that
we've even made that word into.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
Jonathan, that God himself said that that capacity for discrimination
transformed good into very good. So never think of what
an assault on that means. It means an assault on
her ability to distinguish between that which is higher and
that which is lower. God.

Speaker 1 (01:44:12):
And so, but there's a way in which, like, it's
important to understand that there's a way in which this
this system like that's say that, especially especially when you
see it in many versions. But in the Christian system,
the one I know the best, the way in which
she kind of heals itself or the way in which
it it it deals with this problem is that at
the very very top of the hierarchy, it's something like identity,

(01:44:37):
and then right above that identity is something like sacrifice.
That is, there's the pyramid is canotic, it's self emptying.
And so the highest thing, the highest thing is the king,
and then the very highest thing is the martyr. And

(01:44:58):
that's super important. It's super port to understand that, and
it's it's actually, it's actually, uh, it's technically accurate, right
in the sense that in order for the leg of
a chair to be part of the chair, it has
to sacrifice itself to the higher purpose. It has to
because it can't just be a leg of a chair.

(01:45:19):
It has to participate in the higher pattern. And so
the highest point of the pattern is the negation of identity.
And this is this is going to be this might
be a little hard for people to kind of get,
but it will help you understand a lot of Christian symbolism.
The highest point of identity is negation of identity. But
it doesn't The problem is that now what we have
is something like we don't realize that negation of identity

(01:45:42):
leads to identity. Then there's a there's an identity going
like this, and then there's a negation of identity below
or a breakdown, and they're confusing the negation of identity
below with the negation of identity above, which is the
the capacity to sacrifice yourself for a higher good and

(01:46:05):
the capacity to sacrifice yourself for your own parts. And
so the chair also has to sacrifice its purity in
order to be able to exist, because all chairs have idiosyncrasies,
all chairs have aspects of it that aren't the pure chair,
or else the chairs couldn't exist. And so the identity

(01:46:27):
of things sacrifice themselves above, they give themselves up. Right,
So I imagine you burn, you take your best cheap
and you give it up to God. Right, you give
it up to you give it up to God, or
you die as a martyr. But then there's also a
way in which that which is above then sacrifices itself
for that which is below. So that's one of the

(01:46:49):
ways in which we kind of deal with the problem
because it's so it's not like a kind of Nietzche
and will to power thing. It's not at all that. Right,
the real hierarchy ends in in self sacrifice. Right, That's
why the cross is at the top of the hill, Right,
That's why the mystery at the top of the hill is.
In mystical terms, we talk about the divine unknowing. Like

(01:47:14):
that you reach knowledge, you read nosis, and then when
you reach the top of nosis, the next step is unknowing.
It's actually a form of divine darkness. That's the highest
form of mystical mystical union. And this is how one
of the ways in which the system can can balance
itself out, because it is true that sometimes we struggle

(01:47:35):
to think that the highest thing is Okay, let's take
think of it this way. The highest thing of the
team is the quarterback that everybody loves and everybody worships.
And it's like, yeah, that is the top of the team.
But it's only the top of the team when the
quarterback sacrifices in self above to the purpose of the
team and sacrifices themselves below to make the other team

(01:47:58):
members participate in the team. If he doesn't do that,
then he's not going to be at the top. He's
going to be a tyrant. He's going to be he's
not going to be able to get the team to cohere.
All of these things are going to happen. And so
this is something which, like I said, it's maybe a
bit harder to understand. I really didn't expect to go
into this conversation. But it might be important to understand

(01:48:20):
the problem of identity and how it can be solved
and say through this, through this pattern.

Speaker 2 (01:48:28):
Okay, another question, maybe a big one. I don't know
if it can be summarized. What is the intelligence of dreams?
You suggested the dream is the purest expression of indeviduating intelligence.
This seems at odds with the orthodox view. Can't the
two views be reconciled.

Speaker 1 (01:48:48):
It's very difficult. So the Orthodox view, or say, the
way that their fathers talk about dreams is that they
are mostly chaos, that they're mostly this low waters, this
kind of these these these uh, these moving waters, and
then you have to be careful not to pay too
much attention to them. But like I said, so there's

(01:49:10):
an interesting image for example, like let me give you
an image that you find in the Revelation. It says
in Revelation at the end of time, the sea will
become like glass, the sea will become like crystal. And
so that's the way you can kind of understand the
purpose of dreams is that it's this lower potential, that
it's kind of bubbling up right and and and so

(01:49:31):
manifest all your passions all your desires in a kind
of in a kind of wild way that sometimes it's illogical,
that it's kind of break down of logic. But then
once in a while, you could say, through divine providence
or through a schesis like that is through like let's say,
the mystic who will transform himself and will kind of
reduce their slavery to the passions. At some point this

(01:49:54):
potential can still itself, can become still, and then it
becomes a mirror, because it is a mirror in the
first place. Right, it's already a mirror, because that's how
that's where reality comes out of. Reality kind of comes
out of this potential. That's you know, the earth is
pulled out of the waters. All of this is true,
and so you can understand it that way. It's like
the chaos and this kind of kind of madness and

(01:50:15):
chaos on the edge out of which reality comes and
you have to be careful not to pay too much
attention to it because it can it can break you down.
But once in a while it becomes this pure mirror,
and then that's the vision, right, that's the that's the
mystics vision, that's the capacity to see reality more clearly.
Than you ever could, because suddenly it becomes a mirror

(01:50:38):
for the highest, highest things. So it's like, you know,
one of the things you might have seen when you
see the pattern of creation is that God is going
like this, right, so the waters, the earth, and then
the grass the stars, and then it's like it's kind
of moving in this way. So you can understand it
as these extremes, but you can also understand that the
lowest part can become a mirror for the highest part.

(01:51:01):
In the proper circumstance, it can become like this. That's
one of the things Christ does. By the way, Christ,
that's the if you want to understand the story of Jesus,
he goes to the bottom of reality and then kind
of transforms it into glory. A little tidbit on that.

Speaker 2 (01:51:22):
Okay, I'm aware of the time. I'm also aware we
could go on for hours and hours, So Jonathan, I
don't know how you're doing about time. You want to
take one last question, Yeah, if.

Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
You want, I'm totally fine. I went too long in
my presentation anyway, so I'm willing to accept more questions.

Speaker 2 (01:51:40):
Okay, if the theological teleological patterns of being, of being
constituted the realm of heaven. What then is the abode
of the individual human soul? In other words, what is
the relationship between the semi platonic conception you've presented here
understandard picient model of heaven as the domain of souls?

Speaker 1 (01:52:03):
And so there's they're the same. H That is that
your soul is your invisible part of you. It's the
it's the pattern, the patterning of your of your being. Right,
that's what your soul is. And there's a way and
this is this, there's a way in which that soul

(01:52:25):
in its very center. Right, you could say that there's there,
there's there's a more. There's a hierarchy of patterns in you,
and that the core of that hierarchy of pattern is God.
I don't have to tell you like that, that that
it's the spark of the divine. Is that the center
of every individual soul. That's the manner in which we

(01:52:46):
actually exist, is that we contain a spark of of
the divine, and that as we commune with each other,
as we love each other, then we become this embodied
pattern and the your your individual logos joins with the
divine logos and becomes the body of Christ. And so

(01:53:11):
that's the way that it works. And so you can
understand it in different ways. You can understand it as physically.
How can I say this that Christ as things like
you know you are, you are? You are called to
be like angels, and he says you are gods. And
what he means is that human beings can become patterns

(01:53:34):
for other human beings. We become models. That's why we
have models. We have models because humans can move up
into heaven. We can ascend into heaven, and then we
become patterns for others and we become patrons for others.
So we name a church after someone, we name a

(01:53:55):
city after someone, we name we name things after people,
because those beings are like gods. They become patterns for
the rest of us. And that's that's actually how reality works.
Like we reality doesn't hold together by ideas, even your nations,
they don't hold together by ideal. They hold together by

(01:54:17):
a succession of people who modeled behavior on which you
base yourself. And some of those rise up very high
and become the patron saints of entire aspects of reality.
And that's how they become like angels. They become gods
in the Divine Council, right, they become co rulers with Christ.

(01:54:39):
All these things that Christ talks about, and these are
things that it can happen at a very small level. Right,
your own father, your own mother can image for you
how to be like, how to live and how to
be and then that can scale up, you know, all
the way to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, or the
Mother of Out or the saints which are venerated, as

(01:55:03):
as as being like in the Divine Council.

Speaker 2 (01:55:12):
Thank you so much for a great talk, and Jordan
and Tommy, thank you so much for your participation.

Speaker 1 (01:55:21):
Yeah, this has been great. I'm really happy because, let
me say this is that I was hoping that this
discussion would push me further in saying things in a
certain way and kind of bringing things together. And I'm
very grateful because I feel like it has, and so
I appreciate. I appreciate Joran, you pushed me, and I
think the questions were wonderful, and so it's it's actually

(01:55:41):
been a great opportunity for myself to just say, Okay,
I'm gonna try as hard as I can to really
bring this together. So thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:55:51):
Thank you everybody. Sorry for those who we didn't have
time to ask their questions, only so many questions.

Speaker 1 (01:56:00):
Sorry for time. I'll just jump in.

Speaker 5 (01:56:04):
If like me, you didn't have a chance to answer
to ask you a question, maybe you can attend another
Young Society of Montreal event and will form our group
with our purpose and continue in these rituals.

Speaker 1 (01:56:20):
Very good, I thank everybody. If you enjoy these videos
and podcasts, please go to the Symbolic world dot com
website and see how you can support what we're doing.
There are multiple subscriber tiers with perks. There are apparel
and books to purchase, So go to the Symbolic world
dot com and thank you for your support.

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390 - Genesis: Symbolism in the Creation Story

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}390 - Genesis: Symbolism in the Creation Story