June 11, 2023 • 47 mins
What if the story of Atlantis was deeply connected to our own embryology, and the myths that surround it held the key to our prenatal development? Join me in an enlightening conversation with Dr. John Bonaducci, an expert in the captivating field of Mythobiogenesis, which he created during his doctoral studies. Discover how John transitioned from liturgy to mythology, connected with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and developed his work on prenatal psychology - all while uncovering the power of storytelling and the significance of mythological studies for understanding our place in the universe.
As we delve into the fascinating connections between Plato's mythology of Atlantis and embryology, Dr. Bonaducci explains how the story reflects the process of cellular mitosis and conforms to the trauma theories of Donald Kallshed. We also explore the implications of Freud's idea of being born as a "tabula rasa" and how John's personal experiences - from his parents' tumultuous relationship to his mother's nine miscarriages - shaped his worldview and experiences in the womb.
Finally, we examine the importance and implications of John's work on Mythobiogenesis, discussing the origin of Plato's "caste system" and its impact on society. This thought-provoking conversation serves as a testament to the power of storytelling and personal introspection. So come along and immerse yourself in this captivating exploration of myth, memory, and the human experience.
If you liked this podcast
- please tell your friends about it,
- subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and/or write a brief note on apple podcasts,
- check out my blogs on Psychology Today at
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/contributors/thomas-r-verny-md
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So good morning.
This is Pushing Boundaries, apodcast about pioneering
research, breakthroughdiscoveries and unconventional
ideas.
I'm your host, dr Thomas RVerney.
My guest today is Dr JohnBonaducci.
Welcome, dr John Bonaducci,it's a pleasure.
(00:24):
May I call you John, of course.
Thank you, and please call meThomas, i shall.
Great, john has his doctoratein mythological studies with an
emphasis in depth psychology.
His specific expertise lies inhis work on mythobiogenesis, a
(00:45):
term in theory he coined duringhis doctoral studies.
John is currently a regularcontributor to the Joseph
Campbell Foundation through hiswriting, as well as a lecturer
presenting at both academic andreligious conferences.
Have I got that right so far?
That's good.
(01:06):
Yes, okay, great.
So just a few little questions.
What is the Joseph CampbellFoundation?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Are you familiar with Joseph Campbell?
Yes, it is a foundation devotedto sustaining the memory of the
man and of his work, and hispioneering work in particular in
mythology.
It's a group of we callourselves a community of
(01:37):
individuals.
We look for those ideas ofCampbell's that make our lives
more interesting and fuller andmake our understanding of our
place in the universe morecomprehensible.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Well, yes, that's great.
So obviously you have also beeninfluenced by Jungian
psychology.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, and I read that in your dissertation.
And are you also associatedwith the Pacifica Institute?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, i graduated with my PhD from Pacifica.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Right, and that was in 19,.
that was in 2020, was it?
Yes, so that's only about threeyears ago.
Yes, i'm a baby.
Yes, but you don't look like ababy.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I'm not, i'm an old baby Thomas.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So what did you do?
if I may ask, before we getinto mythology, what did you do
before you went for your PhDstudies?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, of course, that's of some interest, I think
, to your listeners, because Iam the source of this subject
And what I did was I have beenin liturgy for most of my
professional life.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I have been doing large scale sacramental
enterprises for the CatholicChurch and composing music for
these liturgies and conductingchoirs.
In fact, you might say I'vebeen absolutely immersed in
liturgy for the last 35 years.
(03:26):
And in the meantime, andbecause of the nature of your
question, i feel invited to tella little of my story.
Yes, please do.
Please do Well.
My academic trajectory is notthe one that you want for your
(03:48):
own children.
My children wrapped up theirfour-year schooling Dominic was
out in four years from CatholicUniversity of America.
My daughter, cecilia CC, as wecall her, went right on schedule
and is now an OB-GYN, which isinteresting to me.
(04:11):
I was not so fortunate.
My life was often accompaniedby chaos of my own making, And I
managed to avoid getting aBachelor of Arts until I was 40
years old And I had two childrenalready.
I got it from UCLA in historyBy the time I was 58, I felt the
(04:35):
need to learn about music,since they were hiring me as a
musician And I didn't reallyconsider myself a musician.
So I applied myself And then inmy 60s, I turned to mythology
(04:55):
mythological studies, not byaccident.
Not by accident And not becauseI required a PhD.
I needed to consolidate theinformation that I was putting
together on my own.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So were you developing this idea that then
you described in detail in yourdissertation?
Were you developing that forsome years before you started
your studies?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but I've been
carrying this on my shoulders inisolation for at least 30 years
.
Shall I tell you the originstory?
Sure, yes, please.
Okay.
Well, in my family of origin,what we valued was the story.
(05:50):
My father was a wonderfulwriter for television, and so
was my mother, betty and Joe,and that's what I valued too.
You know, a good story and goodjokes.
By the way, paid our rent.
We worked very hard.
It's the only survival strategyI knew.
(06:13):
Come up with the one liner thatis as precise as Haiku but
makes the guy with the beer inhis hand laugh.
That's what I endeavored to be,and I endeavored to be a
storyteller, make a lot of money, but I wanted my degree after
(06:34):
all.
I dropped out once and then Iwent back in my late 30s, and
you know they require, ofundergrad grads, a diversified
education.
Scientists have to take Englishliterature.
English literature grads haveto take astronomy.
You know, thomas, that'sbrilliant.
(06:56):
That's the only reason I havethis theory.
I'm sitting at UCLA in a guy'sclass.
His name was Dr Durstenfeld.
I'll never forget him.
He had a real way of bringingthis to life, and I'm listening
to these cellular scenarios, butall I know about life is how it
falls into two and three actstructures.
(07:19):
And as I'm listening to thisstory, particularly of
reproduction, i'm seeing stories, i'm seeing story templates,
i'm seeing the monomyth, whichunderlies Joseph Campbell's very
famous monomyth monomyth,rather And I'm sitting there in
(07:46):
class And it occurs to me thatthe stories that I love from
mythology but it was a hobby atthe time seemed to comport with
these stories of biology.
I felt basically very isolated.
(08:06):
There's no one I could tell,but I did not drop this thread
for the next 30 years.
And now I'm talking to ThomasVerney.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yes, did you make a full stop at that sentence?
I guess you did.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Because it deserves a full stop.
You are the known as the fatherof prenatal psychology.
Yes, for that, my inclusion onyour guest list is some
significance to me Well, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Well, speaking of that, you know reading your
dissertation, which, by the way,i think is fantastic I mean, it
just blows the ball out of theballpark But I was looking for
some references that I'mfamiliar with that you don't
(09:05):
seem to reference Now, likeLloyd DeMuz.
Have you read Lloyd DeMuz?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So Lloyd DeMuz has written incredible books on
psycho history.
His book in 1982 was called TheFoundation of Psycho History,
And then in 2002, The EmotionalLife of Nations.
(09:32):
And all of that he takes backto prenatal events, just like
you do in terms of biology.
And then another person who haswritten a lot along the same
lines is a German scientist,psychiatrist and psychoanalyst
(09:52):
by the name of Ludwig JanusJ-A-N-U-S.
Are you familiar with him?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I am familiar And I have recently said I did him in
a paper.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Good, ok, because he has done a lot of work along
those lines.
And then the third person thatI would recommend, in case you
have not come across him, isDavid Wasdell.
Do you know him?
I do not.
Oh, ok, w-a-s-d-e-l-l.
(10:26):
David Wasdell, i have a Germanbook by him.
Do you speak German?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I do not.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
No, well, anyway, this will be recorded so you
will be able to look it up.
It's called The Prenatalin undPerenatalin.
I will translate Wurzeln vonReligion und Krieg, and the
translation would be thePrenatal and Perenatal Roots of
(10:56):
Religion and War.
So I can't wait.
All of that would go extremelywell with all the things that
you have described, and so let'stalk about that a little bit.
So, in plain English for ourviewers and listeners, how would
(11:17):
you describe mythobiogenesis?
What is it?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, let me give you the short answer.
Ok, and that's the long one,and then the long one.
The short answer is we rememberlife at the cellular level and
tell of the experience instories, period.
That is the essence of it.
(11:42):
Now the longer compoundsentence, if I can keep it in my
noggin, as you pointed out, i'man old baby.
I'm a new PhD, at age 70.
Much of what we call mythology,fairy tales and even sacred
(12:08):
scripture derives from afundamental impulse to tell in
culturally specific ways, theuniversal intrauterine
experience of life before birth.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So you would have no trouble with my concept as
explained in my recent book TheEmbodied Mind about cellular
consciousness.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Absolutely not.
I have no problem with it.
I read the embodied mind And Ihave, And in fact it makes me a
little bolder after reading it.
It makes me bolder if someonesays to me how can you, how can
you posit the idea that a cellhas memory, that a memory can
(13:10):
persist from fertilization tobirth and beyond?
Well, I can now look them inthe eye and say well, cellular
memory is a given fact of life.
The B cells and the two typesof T cells that you referenced
in your book Yes, That's thewhole premise.
(13:32):
That's how cells work.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yes, Yes, i love the sentence that you have in your
dissertation.
I'm just going to quote you.
inside, the cell, which hasbeen called the essential unit
of life since the 17th century,is a place where proteins and
stories come from.
(13:54):
That's the form, and thatessentially encapsulates your
theory, doesn't it?
I think so, more or less right,more or less More or less right.
The rest of the dissertationactually is only enlarging on
(14:15):
that sentence It is.
There's lots of examples.
So, in terms of, again, peoplewho are not familiar with your
work, what would be a goodexample, one that would be
easily understood and explained,of myth or biogenesis?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Well, i'm so glad you asked.
The best ones are always themost visual ones.
I think Noah, the story of Noah, is really a prime example.
When I go to Noah, most of usdivest ourselves of the Noah
(14:56):
story by middle school, juniorhigh.
We say this is a silly oldstory, it has no basis in fact
And if we're kind, we tell ourparents that we think it's just
symbolic and it's lovely, alovely story, improbable and
impossible.
The bad news is, it's all trueAnd it's you understand, that
(15:21):
this big arc is not a big arc,it's a cell.
The cell gives itself away inwonderful details that Well,
every psychiatrist andpsychologist knows that the
littlest details in dreammaterial and much of the Bible
is from dream material.
(15:42):
I don't think that needs to beargued.
Many visitations of thesupernatural come through dreams
.
But the first openingsuggestion that he has to cover
the arc in pitch, i love thatdetail.
It reminds me of thehydrophobic lipid that will
(16:08):
cover the cell.
And as for a boat carryingevery conceivable form of life,
that's not a fiction If youconsider that DNA as a molecule
aboard this single cell willcarry those two giraffes and
(16:28):
those two monkeys and those twoelephants.
And, by the way that pairing isprobably no accident either.
They are arranged as homologsfrom the male and the female in
preparation for mitosis, andit's a delightful and wonderful
(16:55):
application of my theory.
Now, as for the next stage, itgets a little grim, of course.
Millions, millions of humansdie.
It's a very rageful God thatcan do every living thing to,
(17:23):
and that's on us, that's ourculture, that's how angry we are
.
We have to assign anger tothese cellular events.
It's not inherent, these arenot angry events, but our
culture finds the anger andplaces it there.
An angry God that is sopathological that he must kill
(17:44):
everything but one lineage, noah.
That's how reproduction works.
One survives, the rest diehorribly in an acidic
environment and wrong turns anddarkness and the weak don't make
(18:06):
it Only the fittest.
So this one example of humanitycontinues floating, They say
for 40 days, i'm suggesting it'sseven days Until it finds its
landing spot, not on MountArarat, and frankly, according
to my research, there is noMount Ararat.
(18:27):
You cannot locate it withconfidence.
That's all right.
It lands on Mount Ararat, butfirst they send out the doves to
see if it's a safe place, ifthe conditions are right, well,
(18:47):
and it brings.
I believe it's the raven or thedove that brings back the olive
branch, it says oh yeah, it'san acceptable environment.
How wonderful when I read in myscience text of the crosstalk
(19:09):
between the endometrium and theapproaching blastocyst.
Imagine my delight in my theorywhen I saw that that's exactly
what these two are doing.
Yes, come land, it's all right.
So the blastocyst lands, noahlands, and there is a hatching
(19:38):
in both stories.
And what does God tell thesesurvivors?
Well, he has a one word commandmultiply.
What could be more congenial toa fertilized cell than the hand
to multiply?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Actually, there's a little more to the story.
in my opinion, it's even morewonderful because, as you know,
at that point we're talking, ifI have my facts straight, about
gastrulation and a trilaminardisk from which all the various
(20:26):
functions of the growing embryowill emerge ectoderm, endoderm,
mesoderm.
Respectively ectoderm, i think,is the neurological system.
I won't go on because I'll makea mistake.
I don't remember exactly how itdid.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You're doing fine so far.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Thank you, thomas.
Well, in the Moe's Anoa story,he sends out three sons to
subdue and civilize the earthHam, ham, ham Shem and Jabhat
and they take over their threerespective kingdoms.
At this point I would rest mycase for Noah.
(21:15):
I think it's very arresting andone of the best and most
comprehensible of my stories.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Having put that out into the world, what have you
done since?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Since I wrote it.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Since you wrote it?
yes, Have you done any moreresearch?
Have you written any morepapers or are you working on a
new book?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
What's the future?
The future for me is I wouldvery much like my dissertation
to be rewritten as a book.
As you know, it is accessible.
I would welcome that.
(22:06):
I did have a wonderfulopportunity for publishing at
the International Journal ofPrenatal Science.
I wanted very much to bepublished there.
It emanates from Athens, ithink you're familiar with it
(22:30):
very much, i think you'reintimate.
But I'll tell you I wanted toreach the heart of this
conference at which I presented.
I did present at the conferencebefore I published in the
(22:52):
journal.
It became the focus of thepaper, my presentation.
I will tell you that I was verydeliberate in taking one aspect
of my theory to engage thatcommunity from Athens.
I chose to apply my theory toAthens' favorite son, arguably,
(23:19):
plato How Plato is responsiblefor forging an original myth
which absolutely conforms to myoverall theory.
So at the moment yes, that's mylatest.
(23:42):
I've just received the wordthat it was published and I'm
delighted I'm looking for mynext step.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So which mythological tale by Plato did you attack or
address?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
All right.
In a previous, which issupposed to be a late in life
work of the great master is thestory of Atlantis.
Plato has a very ambiguousattitude toward mythology On one
hand he despises it, on theother hand he's constantly
(24:25):
generating new mythologies.
So he created the story ofAtlantis and I maintain first of
all that it's not a late inlife production By every Jungian
(24:46):
criterion.
It is the product actually of aanxious young mind somewhat
traumatized by life because itconforms to the trauma theories
of Donald Kallshed.
(25:06):
Are you familiar with DonaldKallshed?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
No, no, i'm not.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
We study him at Pacifica.
He's got great insights intotrauma And he describes, as does
Jung, that there are formations, geometric formations, the
mandala which are generatedspontaneously by the psyche to
(25:35):
hold us together emotionally andpsychically, and this story of
Atlantis seems to conform tothat.
This is a young man's story, soI dispute the timeline.
I have no right to, but I do.
(25:56):
It's based on nothing more thanthat intuition.
Actually, what I end up sayingis that the story of Atlantis is
pure embryology, start tofinish.
In other words, i admire thespirit of adventure that sends
men and women looking from Creteto Santorini for the island of
(26:20):
Atlantis.
I think they can stop looking.
I think it's nowhere, becauseit's everywhere.
It's a cell, and what happensto it after fertilization?
Should I elaborate on that?
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yes, yes, please do Yes.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Thank you.
The um Atlantis begins,according to Plato, as a
marriage, actually seems morelike a forcible sexual assault
of a god, poseidon, and the soleinhabitant of this island,
(26:59):
cleyto.
Well, that's, that's a littlesuspect right there.
I I don't know many islandsthat have sole inhabitants.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
So there's your red flag for the psychoanalyst.
Something's up.
Her parents are dead, which isthat's accurate for a cell.
When they make a daughter cell,as we do call them, the parents
contribution is over And wehave a a.
What we have is a god and adamsel And, in the words of my
(27:35):
translation, a little prim andproper.
he has to do with her, and whatdoes he do?
What happens next is lovely.
He seals the island againstfurther entry from would be
suitors.
Well, there is your zone ofPellucida, and for the same
(27:59):
reason, poseidon is going tokeep everybody out.
You're not getting this girl, igot the girl.
Just as in reproduction, thezone of Pellucida changes its
constituents to make itimpassable to prevent polysperm.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yes.
And then what happens next israther astonishing From my point
of view.
Visa V, my theory, andwonderful to relate They have
twins, sets of twins.
Well, it's a nice littlesuggestion of mitosis, which
(28:47):
mitosis is all about twinning,for the most of your listeners
will probably know that, but forthose who don't, it's it's cell
cleavage Right And the cellsbreak into two and they're
identical, and then those breakinto two.
It's purely exponential.
And then these kings.
(29:07):
These are newfound kings.
They're subordinate to PoseidonAnd, like the Noah story, ham
Shem and Chafath, they migrateto their respective kingdoms
where they take over theirindividual functions, remaining
(29:32):
subordinate to the higherauthority.
Just as in our bodies, thekingdoms of the body must remain
subordinate to a higherprinciple, for example the
hindbrain at the top of thespine, and the autonomic
(29:55):
functions, respiration andheartbeat.
You want them to be subordinate, you want them to take an oath
of field, which is preciselywhat these kings do In life.
It's a matter ofneurotransmitters and the spinal
(30:17):
column sending messages to andfro.
In the story, it is bull's bloodbeing splashed against this
column of a mysterious substanceas a token of their fealty.
And I could go on, but it getsa little dense with programs
(30:44):
cell death.
And I equate that with thekings' absolute power over the
life and death of their ownkingdoms.
And yes, so I feel strongly notonly that this is a story about
mythobiogenesis Thomas, butthat it speaks volumes about the
(31:10):
influence of the preenate onthe world into which it emerges.
Where did Plato get hisilliberal idea of absolute
(31:31):
hierarchy in the Republic, as hecalls his book, the Republic?
Why are we in a caste system?
He valorized the caste system.
He, in another book, called itthe myth of the metals, or it
might even be in the Critias,the myth of the metals, where
(31:54):
some of us are suited to beartisans, some as day laborers,
some as soldiers and somesupporting the higher principle
of celebration and ruling.
And so the whole idea thatwe've been mesmerized by since
(32:19):
he first said it, john Locke,that we are a tabula rasa at
birth, and according to Freud,for years after, i must
respectively submit,respectively submit that this is
an error, that we are not atabula rasa at all at birth.
(32:41):
In fact, plato derived theseideas from his experience of
what it means It means to be asuccessful preenate, and carried
it out into the world and hascontributed a dominant idea ever
(33:06):
since.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Okay, okay, a lot to a lot to absorb here.
So, in terms of your own life,was there anything in your own
background that you thinkcontributed to your interest in
this subject?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
You know, i've been wondering all week if you would
ask me that because it's, by byits very nature, anecdotal, but
my story is rather powerful.
Yes, i alluded to my parents.
Yes, you did.
(33:49):
Both have gone on, both havepassed on, and when I do talk
about them I have the greatestreverence for having said that
there was, there's was, atumultuous relationship.
My mother, according to everyoneI've asked, had nine
(34:19):
miscarriages before I was born,and the whole aspect of the
haunted womb, i think, has someresonance with me.
So we talk about the womb as atime of oceanic bliss.
(34:40):
Thomas, it was not a time ofoceanic bliss.
Not at all.
Not only was my father a heavysmoker, so I was ingesting these
toxins third hand, but theirarguments were lethal, literally
lethal.
I asked my mom before shepassed if she thought the
(35:06):
arguments with the deadcontributed to the miscarriages,
and she sadly agreed that theydid.
I think so.
I think that I was jolted intoa kind of pre sentience and pre
(35:27):
awareness and a consciousnesslevel not suitable for a
developing embryo at all, awareof my confines, aware of dualism
and more trinities and malearguing, a female defending
(35:55):
herself and me.
That's not a time you want todivide the world into a
tripartite system, although itcan lead to some powerful ideas
later.
Now, here's how I rediscoveredmy life in the womb.
(36:15):
I was, i lived in Pennsylvaniaand I was terrified of the dark.
I would wake up and I would seemonsters on the wall, and I was
so terrified that I and theywere made of parts, different
(36:38):
parts of things I'd seen, not inthe womb but later, like teeth
from a dog live next door or thejaws of a shark that mommy had
shown me at the art museum inPhiladelphia, and I put them
(36:58):
together to create thesemonsters.
And I asked my mother oh, mommy, please, please, i have a
wonderful idea, mommy, i wantyou to have this rope.
I break gave her a rope And I'mgoing to give it to you, mommy,
and I want you to hold it inyour bedroom And I will hold the
other end in my bed And whenI'm very afraid, i will pull on
(37:21):
the rope, and you will pull onthe rope on your end to assure
me that you're there.
Well, it doesn't take a PhD inmythological studies to discern
the relationship to theumbilical cord.
I wanted it.
(37:43):
I wanted that security again,and and what did I done?
I created a little liturgybased on my experience in the
womb.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I took whatever was his hand, which was a course
rope, to reconstitute this life,this experience.
Now there's another inventionof mine that came some years
later, and this involved mysiblings.
I invented maybe the world'sdumbest game, but my siblings
(38:19):
loved it.
My siblings are Anthony, dannyand Cecilia, and we would lie on
the bed crossways because itcouldn't all fit in a little bed
crossways and I'd shut out thelights and I would take two
flashlights and I would shinethem on the ceiling.
(38:41):
The first one I'd shine wascalled Good Buzz Buzz.
Good Buzz Buzz was oftenaccompanied by song.
My mother was an excellentsinger.
Good Buzz Buzz with dance.
It's across the ceiling And itwas very placid, even pastoral,
(39:05):
and the kids would sing as we,as we watched the play of light.
And then came bad Buzz Buzz,which was the other flashlight,
and bad Buzz Buzz would sneak upon Good Buzz Buzz And she would
be thrown out of the universeentirely and bad Buzz Buzz, with
(39:25):
his erratic motions, wouldreign supreme until Good Buzz
Buzz snuck up behind him andkicked him out of the arena and
alone stood victorious.
Silly game.
Here's how I interpret that,although I suspect you're ahead
(39:46):
of me.
The Buzz Buzz to me is thevibrational aspect of their
voices My mother's good BuzzBuzz, the singing Buzz Buzz, my
father's somewhat tempestuousBuzz Buzz And my unstated hope
(40:07):
that I made a value judgment.
I essentially said mom is theholds a high moral card in all
this, not my dad.
And with this in mind, i thinkI was already on the road to my
theoretical work at the age ofseven when we moved out of that
(40:31):
little brick house where Iexperienced those terrors and
those insights.
So I believe that answers yourquestion as to Yes.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Yes, it does, it does , it does.
So you mentioned the fact thatyou have one daughter who is an
obstetrician And I forgot.
And what does your son do?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
My son is a liaison between Verizon that behemoth of
the phone company andconnectivity.
Now I speak as an older man,remembering when it was derived
from the Bell telephone company.
Now it is far beyond that Andhe is a liaison between that
(41:24):
company and the Department ofDefense, among other things.
He's a highly placed young manand has worked as an assistant
at the cabinet level inWashington for the Department of
Transportation.
He's a man at 33, 35 now whoknows more about the world than
(41:48):
I ever have.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So my question is do any of your children, or both of
them, follow sort of in yourwell, not exactly footsteps, but
do they understand your workand do they agree with it?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I think they understand it.
Remember, they've had to endureit.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
So it almost makes them laugh when I bring it up
And I don't know what to sayabout my daughter.
My whole life, my adult life,most of it has been spent in
studying things as small as thelittle gap between the
(42:38):
blastocyst and the endometriallining, and that's an area of
focus for my daughter.
Now This is her life.
She practices woman-centeredmedicine and deals with these
very subjects at the level ofgenuine practicality.
(42:59):
In a sense, i can't help butthink I may have influenced her.
Do they agree with it?
They've never been so rude asto disagree.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Okay, very good, very good, very good answer.
So what would you say?
you have learned from all thework that you have done so far,
and hopefully there's much moreahead.
But what have you learned sofar about life that you can
(43:37):
apply to the way you live, fromall the work that you have done?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
I have learned this, and for your listeners who may
be young especially, or choosingvocations, and for those who
are older and sit in judgment ofthose who are young, be
(44:07):
especially sensitive to the manor woman who has not apparently
found their direction.
You know, years ago a belovedman said to me, my father, i
loved him.
He said, john John, stopdabbling, you should be becoming
(44:33):
good at one thing.
And I wish I could have said tohim Dad, i am becoming good at
one thing, i just don't knowwhat it is.
Yet, and that has been my story, i finally found the tip of
that intellectual period pyramidlate in life.
(44:58):
You know, the great pyramid atGiza is missing its top 15 feet.
Well, my personal intellectualpyramid was missing its top 15
feet, but no longer, thomas.
I found that tip.
I found that summation of allmy efforts in art and in biology
(45:25):
and in music.
There is a culminating point,and I believe I found it.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Well, i think you have, and congratulations and
thank you for sharing it with usand the world.
I think that I would like verymuch to ask you perhaps to write
a paper for the Preimperial andAtal Psychology Association
(45:53):
Journal.
I am the associate editor.
If you could write a paperabout mythology, particularly,
you know, on the subjects thatwe have been speaking about, the
journey of the blastocyst andall that stuff, that would be of
(46:14):
great interest to our readers,i think, and you can just send
the paper to me directly AndI'll make sure Very good, i'll
maybe I'll be honored.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I'll be absolutely honored, and may I presume then
that there might be an avenuefor some cross talk between us?
Yes, if I need to.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely Yes,
because we are very much on thesame page, if one can put it
that way.
Like you know, your interestsand my interests are meeting.
So, yes, definitely, let's stayin touch, and thank you, thomas
.
And this podcast will be, asthey say, live, in other words
(46:59):
on the Internet, next Sunday, soin a few days.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Next Sunday.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
What time.
Whenever I get to put it onWonderful, probably by afternoon
I will send you an email letyou know exactly when it's on
and where you can get it, thankyou.
Thank you for being with me andthank you for just opening up
this whole new area ofinvestigation.
(47:31):
It's absolutely fascinating.
I congratulate you on some verycreative and far reaching,
really, really important work.
So thank you for doing this Andlet's stay in touch.
Until then, take care Bye-bye.
(47:51):
Thanks for to挺s it.
Goodbye, commenters.
So good morning.
This is Pushing Boundaries, apodcast about pioneering
research, breakthroughdiscoveries and unconventional
ideas.
I'm your host, dr Thomas RVerney.
My guest today is Dr JohnBonaducci.
Welcome, dr John Bonaducci,it's a pleasure.
(00:24):
May I call you John, of course.
Thank you, and please call meThomas, i shall.
Great, john has his doctoratein mythological studies with an
emphasis in depth psychology.
His specific expertise lies inhis work on mythobiogenesis, a
(00:45):
term in theory he coined duringhis doctoral studies.
John is currently a regularcontributor to the Joseph
Campbell Foundation through hiswriting, as well as a lecturer
presenting at both academic andreligious conferences.
Have I got that right so far?
That's good.
(01:06):
Yes, okay, great.
So just a few little questions.
What is the Joseph CampbellFoundation?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Are you familiar with Joseph Campbell?
Yes, it is a foundation devotedto sustaining the memory of the
man and of his work, and hispioneering work in particular in
mythology.
It's a group of we callourselves a community of
(01:37):
individuals.
We look for those ideas ofCampbell's that make our lives
more interesting and fuller andmake our understanding of our
place in the universe morecomprehensible.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Well, yes, that's great.
So obviously you have also beeninfluenced by Jungian
psychology.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, and I read that in your dissertation.
And are you also associatedwith the Pacifica Institute?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, i graduated with my PhD from Pacifica.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Right, and that was in 19,.
that was in 2020, was it?
Yes, so that's only about threeyears ago.
Yes, i'm a baby.
Yes, but you don't look like ababy.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I'm not, i'm an old baby Thomas.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So what did you do?
if I may ask, before we getinto mythology, what did you do
before you went for your PhDstudies?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, of course, that's of some interest, I think
, to your listeners, because Iam the source of this subject
And what I did was I have beenin liturgy for most of my
professional life.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I have been doing large scale sacramental
enterprises for the CatholicChurch and composing music for
these liturgies and conductingchoirs.
In fact, you might say I'vebeen absolutely immersed in
liturgy for the last 35 years.
(03:26):
And in the meantime, andbecause of the nature of your
question, i feel invited to tella little of my story.
Yes, please do.
Please do Well.
My academic trajectory is notthe one that you want for your
(03:48):
own children.
My children wrapped up theirfour-year schooling Dominic was
out in four years from CatholicUniversity of America.
My daughter, cecilia CC, as wecall her, went right on schedule
and is now an OB-GYN, which isinteresting to me.
(04:11):
I was not so fortunate.
My life was often accompaniedby chaos of my own making, And I
managed to avoid getting aBachelor of Arts until I was 40
years old And I had two childrenalready.
I got it from UCLA in historyBy the time I was 58, I felt the
(04:35):
need to learn about music,since they were hiring me as a
musician And I didn't reallyconsider myself a musician.
So I applied myself And then inmy 60s, I turned to mythology
(04:55):
mythological studies, not byaccident.
Not by accident And not becauseI required a PhD.
I needed to consolidate theinformation that I was putting
together on my own.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So were you developing this idea that then
you described in detail in yourdissertation?
Were you developing that forsome years before you started
your studies?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but I've been
carrying this on my shoulders inisolation for at least 30 years
.
Shall I tell you the originstory?
Sure, yes, please.
Okay.
Well, in my family of origin,what we valued was the story.
(05:50):
My father was a wonderfulwriter for television, and so
was my mother, betty and Joe,and that's what I valued too.
You know, a good story and goodjokes.
By the way, paid our rent.
We worked very hard.
It's the only survival strategyI knew.
(06:13):
Come up with the one liner thatis as precise as Haiku but
makes the guy with the beer inhis hand laugh.
That's what I endeavored to be,and I endeavored to be a
storyteller, make a lot of money, but I wanted my degree after
(06:34):
all.
I dropped out once and then Iwent back in my late 30s, and
you know they require, ofundergrad grads, a diversified
education.
Scientists have to take Englishliterature.
English literature grads haveto take astronomy.
You know, thomas, that'sbrilliant.
(06:56):
That's the only reason I havethis theory.
I'm sitting at UCLA in a guy'sclass.
His name was Dr Durstenfeld.
I'll never forget him.
He had a real way of bringingthis to life, and I'm listening
to these cellular scenarios, butall I know about life is how it
falls into two and three actstructures.
(07:19):
And as I'm listening to thisstory, particularly of
reproduction, i'm seeing stories, i'm seeing story templates,
i'm seeing the monomyth, whichunderlies Joseph Campbell's very
famous monomyth monomyth,rather And I'm sitting there in
(07:46):
class And it occurs to me thatthe stories that I love from
mythology but it was a hobby atthe time seemed to comport with
these stories of biology.
I felt basically very isolated.
(08:06):
There's no one I could tell,but I did not drop this thread
for the next 30 years.
And now I'm talking to ThomasVerney.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yes, did you make a full stop at that sentence?
I guess you did.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Because it deserves a full stop.
You are the known as the fatherof prenatal psychology.
Yes, for that, my inclusion onyour guest list is some
significance to me Well, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Well, speaking of that, you know reading your
dissertation, which, by the way,i think is fantastic I mean, it
just blows the ball out of theballpark But I was looking for
some references that I'mfamiliar with that you don't
(09:05):
seem to reference Now, likeLloyd DeMuz.
Have you read Lloyd DeMuz?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So Lloyd DeMuz has written incredible books on
psycho history.
His book in 1982 was called TheFoundation of Psycho History,
And then in 2002, The EmotionalLife of Nations.
(09:32):
And all of that he takes backto prenatal events, just like
you do in terms of biology.
And then another person who haswritten a lot along the same
lines is a German scientist,psychiatrist and psychoanalyst
(09:52):
by the name of Ludwig JanusJ-A-N-U-S.
Are you familiar with him?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I am familiar And I have recently said I did him in
a paper.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Good, ok, because he has done a lot of work along
those lines.
And then the third person thatI would recommend, in case you
have not come across him, isDavid Wasdell.
Do you know him?
I do not.
Oh, ok, w-a-s-d-e-l-l.
(10:26):
David Wasdell, i have a Germanbook by him.
Do you speak German?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I do not.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
No, well, anyway, this will be recorded so you
will be able to look it up.
It's called The Prenatalin undPerenatalin.
I will translate Wurzeln vonReligion und Krieg, and the
translation would be thePrenatal and Perenatal Roots of
(10:56):
Religion and War.
So I can't wait.
All of that would go extremelywell with all the things that
you have described, and so let'stalk about that a little bit.
So, in plain English for ourviewers and listeners, how would
(11:17):
you describe mythobiogenesis?
What is it?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, let me give you the short answer.
Ok, and that's the long one,and then the long one.
The short answer is we rememberlife at the cellular level and
tell of the experience instories, period.
That is the essence of it.
(11:42):
Now the longer compoundsentence, if I can keep it in my
noggin, as you pointed out, i'man old baby.
I'm a new PhD, at age 70.
Much of what we call mythology,fairy tales and even sacred
(12:08):
scripture derives from afundamental impulse to tell in
culturally specific ways, theuniversal intrauterine
experience of life before birth.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So you would have no trouble with my concept as
explained in my recent book TheEmbodied Mind about cellular
consciousness.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Absolutely not.
I have no problem with it.
I read the embodied mind And Ihave, And in fact it makes me a
little bolder after reading it.
It makes me bolder if someonesays to me how can you, how can
you posit the idea that a cellhas memory, that a memory can
(13:10):
persist from fertilization tobirth and beyond?
Well, I can now look them inthe eye and say well, cellular
memory is a given fact of life.
The B cells and the two typesof T cells that you referenced
in your book Yes, That's thewhole premise.
(13:32):
That's how cells work.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yes, Yes, i love the sentence that you have in your
dissertation.
I'm just going to quote you.
inside, the cell, which hasbeen called the essential unit
of life since the 17th century,is a place where proteins and
stories come from.
(13:54):
That's the form, and thatessentially encapsulates your
theory, doesn't it?
I think so, more or less right,more or less More or less right.
The rest of the dissertationactually is only enlarging on
(14:15):
that sentence It is.
There's lots of examples.
So, in terms of, again, peoplewho are not familiar with your
work, what would be a goodexample, one that would be
easily understood and explained,of myth or biogenesis?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Well, i'm so glad you asked.
The best ones are always themost visual ones.
I think Noah, the story of Noah, is really a prime example.
When I go to Noah, most of usdivest ourselves of the Noah
(14:56):
story by middle school, juniorhigh.
We say this is a silly oldstory, it has no basis in fact
And if we're kind, we tell ourparents that we think it's just
symbolic and it's lovely, alovely story, improbable and
impossible.
The bad news is, it's all trueAnd it's you understand, that
(15:21):
this big arc is not a big arc,it's a cell.
The cell gives itself away inwonderful details that Well,
every psychiatrist andpsychologist knows that the
littlest details in dreammaterial and much of the Bible
is from dream material.
(15:42):
I don't think that needs to beargued.
Many visitations of thesupernatural come through dreams
.
But the first openingsuggestion that he has to cover
the arc in pitch, i love thatdetail.
It reminds me of thehydrophobic lipid that will
(16:08):
cover the cell.
And as for a boat carryingevery conceivable form of life,
that's not a fiction If youconsider that DNA as a molecule
aboard this single cell willcarry those two giraffes and
(16:28):
those two monkeys and those twoelephants.
And, by the way that pairing isprobably no accident either.
They are arranged as homologsfrom the male and the female in
preparation for mitosis, andit's a delightful and wonderful
(16:55):
application of my theory.
Now, as for the next stage, itgets a little grim, of course.
Millions, millions of humansdie.
It's a very rageful God thatcan do every living thing to,
(17:23):
and that's on us, that's ourculture, that's how angry we are
.
We have to assign anger tothese cellular events.
It's not inherent, these arenot angry events, but our
culture finds the anger andplaces it there.
An angry God that is sopathological that he must kill
(17:44):
everything but one lineage, noah.
That's how reproduction works.
One survives, the rest diehorribly in an acidic
environment and wrong turns anddarkness and the weak don't make
(18:06):
it Only the fittest.
So this one example of humanitycontinues floating, They say
for 40 days, i'm suggesting it'sseven days Until it finds its
landing spot, not on MountArarat, and frankly, according
to my research, there is noMount Ararat.
(18:27):
You cannot locate it withconfidence.
That's all right.
It lands on Mount Ararat, butfirst they send out the doves to
see if it's a safe place, ifthe conditions are right, well,
(18:47):
and it brings.
I believe it's the raven or thedove that brings back the olive
branch, it says oh yeah, it'san acceptable environment.
How wonderful when I read in myscience text of the crosstalk
(19:09):
between the endometrium and theapproaching blastocyst.
Imagine my delight in my theorywhen I saw that that's exactly
what these two are doing.
Yes, come land, it's all right.
So the blastocyst lands, noahlands, and there is a hatching
(19:38):
in both stories.
And what does God tell thesesurvivors?
Well, he has a one word commandmultiply.
What could be more congenial toa fertilized cell than the hand
to multiply?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Actually, there's a little more to the story.
in my opinion, it's even morewonderful because, as you know,
at that point we're talking, ifI have my facts straight, about
gastrulation and a trilaminardisk from which all the various
(20:26):
functions of the growing embryowill emerge ectoderm, endoderm,
mesoderm.
Respectively ectoderm, i think,is the neurological system.
I won't go on because I'll makea mistake.
I don't remember exactly how itdid.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You're doing fine so far.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Thank you, thomas.
Well, in the Moe's Anoa story,he sends out three sons to
subdue and civilize the earthHam, ham, ham Shem and Jabhat
and they take over their threerespective kingdoms.
At this point I would rest mycase for Noah.
(21:15):
I think it's very arresting andone of the best and most
comprehensible of my stories.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Having put that out into the world, what have you
done since?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Since I wrote it.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Since you wrote it?
yes, Have you done any moreresearch?
Have you written any morepapers or are you working on a
new book?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
What's the future?
The future for me is I wouldvery much like my dissertation
to be rewritten as a book.
As you know, it is accessible.
I would welcome that.
(22:06):
I did have a wonderfulopportunity for publishing at
the International Journal ofPrenatal Science.
I wanted very much to bepublished there.
It emanates from Athens, ithink you're familiar with it
(22:30):
very much, i think you'reintimate.
But I'll tell you I wanted toreach the heart of this
conference at which I presented.
I did present at the conferencebefore I published in the
(22:52):
journal.
It became the focus of thepaper, my presentation.
I will tell you that I was verydeliberate in taking one aspect
of my theory to engage thatcommunity from Athens.
I chose to apply my theory toAthens' favorite son, arguably,
(23:19):
plato How Plato is responsiblefor forging an original myth
which absolutely conforms to myoverall theory.
So at the moment yes, that's mylatest.
(23:42):
I've just received the wordthat it was published and I'm
delighted I'm looking for mynext step.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So which mythological tale by Plato did you attack or
address?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
All right.
In a previous, which issupposed to be a late in life
work of the great master is thestory of Atlantis.
Plato has a very ambiguousattitude toward mythology On one
hand he despises it, on theother hand he's constantly
(24:25):
generating new mythologies.
So he created the story ofAtlantis and I maintain first of
all that it's not a late inlife production By every Jungian
(24:46):
criterion.
It is the product actually of aanxious young mind somewhat
traumatized by life because itconforms to the trauma theories
of Donald Kallshed.
(25:06):
Are you familiar with DonaldKallshed?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
No, no, i'm not.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
We study him at Pacifica.
He's got great insights intotrauma And he describes, as does
Jung, that there are formations, geometric formations, the
mandala which are generatedspontaneously by the psyche to
(25:35):
hold us together emotionally andpsychically, and this story of
Atlantis seems to conform tothat.
This is a young man's story, soI dispute the timeline.
I have no right to, but I do.
(25:56):
It's based on nothing more thanthat intuition.
Actually, what I end up sayingis that the story of Atlantis is
pure embryology, start tofinish.
In other words, i admire thespirit of adventure that sends
men and women looking from Creteto Santorini for the island of
(26:20):
Atlantis.
I think they can stop looking.
I think it's nowhere, becauseit's everywhere.
It's a cell, and what happensto it after fertilization?
Should I elaborate on that?
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yes, yes, please do Yes.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Thank you.
The um Atlantis begins,according to Plato, as a
marriage, actually seems morelike a forcible sexual assault
of a god, poseidon, and the soleinhabitant of this island,
(26:59):
cleyto.
Well, that's, that's a littlesuspect right there.
I I don't know many islandsthat have sole inhabitants.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
So there's your red flag for the psychoanalyst.
Something's up.
Her parents are dead, which isthat's accurate for a cell.
When they make a daughter cell,as we do call them, the parents
contribution is over And wehave a a.
What we have is a god and adamsel And, in the words of my
(27:35):
translation, a little prim andproper.
he has to do with her, and whatdoes he do?
What happens next is lovely.
He seals the island againstfurther entry from would be
suitors.
Well, there is your zone ofPellucida, and for the same
(27:59):
reason, poseidon is going tokeep everybody out.
You're not getting this girl, igot the girl.
Just as in reproduction, thezone of Pellucida changes its
constituents to make itimpassable to prevent polysperm.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yes.
And then what happens next israther astonishing From my point
of view.
Visa V, my theory, andwonderful to relate They have
twins, sets of twins.
Well, it's a nice littlesuggestion of mitosis, which
(28:47):
mitosis is all about twinning,for the most of your listeners
will probably know that, but forthose who don't, it's it's cell
cleavage Right And the cellsbreak into two and they're
identical, and then those breakinto two.
It's purely exponential.
And then these kings.
(29:07):
These are newfound kings.
They're subordinate to PoseidonAnd, like the Noah story, ham
Shem and Chafath, they migrateto their respective kingdoms
where they take over theirindividual functions, remaining
(29:32):
subordinate to the higherauthority.
Just as in our bodies, thekingdoms of the body must remain
subordinate to a higherprinciple, for example the
hindbrain at the top of thespine, and the autonomic
(29:55):
functions, respiration andheartbeat.
You want them to be subordinate, you want them to take an oath
of field, which is preciselywhat these kings do In life.
It's a matter ofneurotransmitters and the spinal
(30:17):
column sending messages to andfro.
In the story, it is bull's bloodbeing splashed against this
column of a mysterious substanceas a token of their fealty.
And I could go on, but it getsa little dense with programs
(30:44):
cell death.
And I equate that with thekings' absolute power over the
life and death of their ownkingdoms.
And yes, so I feel strongly notonly that this is a story about
mythobiogenesis Thomas, butthat it speaks volumes about the
(31:10):
influence of the preenate onthe world into which it emerges.
Where did Plato get hisilliberal idea of absolute
(31:31):
hierarchy in the Republic, as hecalls his book, the Republic?
Why are we in a caste system?
He valorized the caste system.
He, in another book, called itthe myth of the metals, or it
might even be in the Critias,the myth of the metals, where
(31:54):
some of us are suited to beartisans, some as day laborers,
some as soldiers and somesupporting the higher principle
of celebration and ruling.
And so the whole idea thatwe've been mesmerized by since
(32:19):
he first said it, john Locke,that we are a tabula rasa at
birth, and according to Freud,for years after, i must
respectively submit,respectively submit that this is
an error, that we are not atabula rasa at all at birth.
(32:41):
In fact, plato derived theseideas from his experience of
what it means It means to be asuccessful preenate, and carried
it out into the world and hascontributed a dominant idea ever
(33:06):
since.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Okay, okay, a lot to a lot to absorb here.
So, in terms of your own life,was there anything in your own
background that you thinkcontributed to your interest in
this subject?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
You know, i've been wondering all week if you would
ask me that because it's, by byits very nature, anecdotal, but
my story is rather powerful.
Yes, i alluded to my parents.
Yes, you did.
(33:49):
Both have gone on, both havepassed on, and when I do talk
about them I have the greatestreverence for having said that
there was, there's was, atumultuous relationship.
My mother, according to everyoneI've asked, had nine
(34:19):
miscarriages before I was born,and the whole aspect of the
haunted womb, i think, has someresonance with me.
So we talk about the womb as atime of oceanic bliss.
(34:40):
Thomas, it was not a time ofoceanic bliss.
Not at all.
Not only was my father a heavysmoker, so I was ingesting these
toxins third hand, but theirarguments were lethal, literally
lethal.
I asked my mom before shepassed if she thought the
(35:06):
arguments with the deadcontributed to the miscarriages,
and she sadly agreed that theydid.
I think so.
I think that I was jolted intoa kind of pre sentience and pre
(35:27):
awareness and a consciousnesslevel not suitable for a
developing embryo at all, awareof my confines, aware of dualism
and more trinities and malearguing, a female defending
(35:55):
herself and me.
That's not a time you want todivide the world into a
tripartite system, although itcan lead to some powerful ideas
later.
Now, here's how I rediscoveredmy life in the womb.
(36:15):
I was, i lived in Pennsylvaniaand I was terrified of the dark.
I would wake up and I would seemonsters on the wall, and I was
so terrified that I and theywere made of parts, different
(36:38):
parts of things I'd seen, not inthe womb but later, like teeth
from a dog live next door or thejaws of a shark that mommy had
shown me at the art museum inPhiladelphia, and I put them
(36:58):
together to create thesemonsters.
And I asked my mother oh, mommy, please, please, i have a
wonderful idea, mommy, i wantyou to have this rope.
I break gave her a rope And I'mgoing to give it to you, mommy,
and I want you to hold it inyour bedroom And I will hold the
other end in my bed And whenI'm very afraid, i will pull on
(37:21):
the rope, and you will pull onthe rope on your end to assure
me that you're there.
Well, it doesn't take a PhD inmythological studies to discern
the relationship to theumbilical cord.
I wanted it.
(37:43):
I wanted that security again,and and what did I done?
I created a little liturgybased on my experience in the
womb.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I took whatever was his hand, which was a course
rope, to reconstitute this life,this experience.
Now there's another inventionof mine that came some years
later, and this involved mysiblings.
I invented maybe the world'sdumbest game, but my siblings
(38:19):
loved it.
My siblings are Anthony, dannyand Cecilia, and we would lie on
the bed crossways because itcouldn't all fit in a little bed
crossways and I'd shut out thelights and I would take two
flashlights and I would shinethem on the ceiling.
(38:41):
The first one I'd shine wascalled Good Buzz Buzz.
Good Buzz Buzz was oftenaccompanied by song.
My mother was an excellentsinger.
Good Buzz Buzz with dance.
It's across the ceiling And itwas very placid, even pastoral,
(39:05):
and the kids would sing as we,as we watched the play of light.
And then came bad Buzz Buzz,which was the other flashlight,
and bad Buzz Buzz would sneak upon Good Buzz Buzz And she would
be thrown out of the universeentirely and bad Buzz Buzz, with
(39:25):
his erratic motions, wouldreign supreme until Good Buzz
Buzz snuck up behind him andkicked him out of the arena and
alone stood victorious.
Silly game.
Here's how I interpret that,although I suspect you're ahead
(39:46):
of me.
The Buzz Buzz to me is thevibrational aspect of their
voices My mother's good BuzzBuzz, the singing Buzz Buzz, my
father's somewhat tempestuousBuzz Buzz And my unstated hope
(40:07):
that I made a value judgment.
I essentially said mom is theholds a high moral card in all
this, not my dad.
And with this in mind, i thinkI was already on the road to my
theoretical work at the age ofseven when we moved out of that
(40:31):
little brick house where Iexperienced those terrors and
those insights.
So I believe that answers yourquestion as to Yes.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Yes, it does, it does , it does.
So you mentioned the fact thatyou have one daughter who is an
obstetrician And I forgot.
And what does your son do?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
My son is a liaison between Verizon that behemoth of
the phone company andconnectivity.
Now I speak as an older man,remembering when it was derived
from the Bell telephone company.
Now it is far beyond that Andhe is a liaison between that
(41:24):
company and the Department ofDefense, among other things.
He's a highly placed young manand has worked as an assistant
at the cabinet level inWashington for the Department of
Transportation.
He's a man at 33, 35 now whoknows more about the world than
(41:48):
I ever have.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So my question is do any of your children, or both of
them, follow sort of in yourwell, not exactly footsteps, but
do they understand your workand do they agree with it?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I think they understand it.
Remember, they've had to endureit.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
So it almost makes them laugh when I bring it up
And I don't know what to sayabout my daughter.
My whole life, my adult life,most of it has been spent in
studying things as small as thelittle gap between the
(42:38):
blastocyst and the endometriallining, and that's an area of
focus for my daughter.
Now This is her life.
She practices woman-centeredmedicine and deals with these
very subjects at the level ofgenuine practicality.
(42:59):
In a sense, i can't help butthink I may have influenced her.
Do they agree with it?
They've never been so rude asto disagree.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Okay, very good, very good, very good answer.
So what would you say?
you have learned from all thework that you have done so far,
and hopefully there's much moreahead.
But what have you learned sofar about life that you can
(43:37):
apply to the way you live, fromall the work that you have done?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
I have learned this, and for your listeners who may
be young especially, or choosingvocations, and for those who
are older and sit in judgment ofthose who are young, be
(44:07):
especially sensitive to the manor woman who has not apparently
found their direction.
You know, years ago a belovedman said to me, my father, i
loved him.
He said, john John, stopdabbling, you should be becoming
(44:33):
good at one thing.
And I wish I could have said tohim Dad, i am becoming good at
one thing, i just don't knowwhat it is.
Yet, and that has been my story, i finally found the tip of
that intellectual period pyramidlate in life.
(44:58):
You know, the great pyramid atGiza is missing its top 15 feet.
Well, my personal intellectualpyramid was missing its top 15
feet, but no longer, thomas.
I found that tip.
I found that summation of allmy efforts in art and in biology
(45:25):
and in music.
There is a culminating point,and I believe I found it.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Well, i think you have, and congratulations and
thank you for sharing it with usand the world.
I think that I would like verymuch to ask you perhaps to write
a paper for the Preimperial andAtal Psychology Association
(45:53):
Journal.
I am the associate editor.
If you could write a paperabout mythology, particularly,
you know, on the subjects thatwe have been speaking about, the
journey of the blastocyst andall that stuff, that would be of
(46:14):
great interest to our readers,i think, and you can just send
the paper to me directly AndI'll make sure Very good, i'll
maybe I'll be honored.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I'll be absolutely honored, and may I presume then
that there might be an avenuefor some cross talk between us?
Yes, if I need to.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely Yes,
because we are very much on thesame page, if one can put it
that way.
Like you know, your interestsand my interests are meeting.
So, yes, definitely, let's stayin touch, and thank you, thomas
.
And this podcast will be, asthey say, live, in other words
(46:59):
on the Internet, next Sunday, soin a few days.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Next Sunday.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
What time.
Whenever I get to put it onWonderful, probably by afternoon
I will send you an email letyou know exactly when it's on
and where you can get it, thankyou.
Thank you for being with me andthank you for just opening up
this whole new area ofinvestigation.
(47:31):
It's absolutely fascinating.
I congratulate you on some verycreative and far reaching,
really, really important work.
So thank you for doing this Andlet's stay in touch.
Until then, take care Bye-bye.
(47:51):
Thanks for to挺s it.
Goodbye, commenters.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.