Open Lines/Open Topics for May 13, 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:34):
And as at the.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whichever the case may be.
For all of you listening out there across the crazy
planet Earth, Welcome to Vestiges after Dark and I'm your host,

(02:09):
Bishop Brian will Let It coming to you lie from
the deep woods of western Georgia on this May thirteenth,
twenty twenty five tonight. It is your favorite show and
mine open lines, open topics, where you are the guests,

(02:32):
and you ask us whatever questions might be on your
mind about anything at all, and we as the panel,
will do our best to answer those questions. You never
know which direction it's going to go on open lines,
open topics don't go anyway. Well, everybody, welcome again to

(03:56):
Vestiges after Dark. I'm your host, Bishop Brian will Let,
with my co host Jamie Wolf.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Hey, good evening, morning and afternoon everyone.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
I mean, you never know out there, because I mean
there's people listening from all over the place. I've learned
that just by looking at the statistics for this show.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
It's which is pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Definitely not a local show. We don't get any answerment
from Georgia. I don't think they I don't know what
they think of themselves to be honest with you. But
we've got a good show for you tonight. It's it's
open lines, open topics, and I know, you know you
guys love this one. I enjoy it because it's kind
of the show where we get to relax. We don't

(04:33):
have to worry about you.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Don't have that guest stress.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
There's guests, particularly it's a new guest, because you never
know what you're in for. You know, you never know
if they're going to be, you know, a little off
the wall or on this show, anything's possible. We've had
some really good guests most of the time, though, I'd
say about ninety percent of them have been fantastic, and
maybe even higher number than.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
That less they figure out we're not those Catholics.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well see, that's the thing. It's I think people are
a little taken aback by the fact that there are
churches like ours out there that are open to people
like them because they're so used to being well they're
used to being well bullied, I think to some degree.
But at the same time, I think a lot of them,

(05:18):
a lot of the guests on this show, you know,
grew up in a Christian atmosphere and left it behind
because they were not accepted for the things that they
were interested in. And so it's a sad reality, but
it is what it is. So hopefully this show and
this church are doing its part to make that better.
And I think that by doing so makes the world

(05:40):
a better place because philosophical exploration, I think is central.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well, the more you know about people who aren't like you,
the easier it is to extend that hand of friendship
and have more things in common than you think.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
I could not agree more, you know, I could not
agree more. So joining us on this journey tonight. Of course,
you can't do open lines open topics without the great
Father christiates in Australia. How you're doing tonight, Father, Yeah,
I'm good.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
Just I was just thinking when you said, you know,
Georgia doesn't know what to make of you, that you know,
a prophet's never welcome in his homecow.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Ha, Isn't that the true? That that is very true? Yes,
the Gospels have continued to maintain that.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Jesus was pretty smart. I reckon you buy have been
onto something.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, so yeah, so you know that's the way it is.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
But I think, you know, we go through life overconcerned.
There's two extremes. Well, you can either be completely unconcerned
what people think about you, in which case you likely
to be an asshole, likely or be or being far
too concerned about what people think about you, in which
case your likely has been eurotic and.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, never get anything done eccentric.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
So yeah, so you know you have to have a
healthy degree of Oh, well, yeah, try my best. You know,
if my heart's in the right place, then I don't
need to be unconcerned about the outcomes. That's important. But
you know, if I get something wrong, I can say sorry,
but there's nothing I can do to back out. Put
the toothpaste back in the tube.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
You know, I mean that's true. I mean, honestly, if
I'm wrong about what I see in the stats, please
let me know. If you are a listener of this show,
UH and you're from the state of Georgia, I would
love to to know, so email the church at office
at nicol Yeah, yeah, a office at Yeah. We have

(07:43):
a lot of people in tennesseee. You know, in the
West Coast has always been a pretty strong uh audience,
but a lot of people. I mean, I would think
last time I checked the stats a very large majority
are outside the country.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
So it's it's I bet you have a few in Australia.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh yeah, more than a few. Actually, there's quite a
few in Asia too, so you know, I find that interesting.
There's a there was a while back when I haven't
checked in a while, but a while back I noticed
that there was a lot of hits coming in from
both India and Japan. Of all places, I wouldn't have thought.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
Can you do a good job of during them? You know,
people who have a more Buddhist background drawing them to
you know, an understanding of the Catholic faith that you
know is apathic in walk down.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, I think I think so. And I think just
like a lot of Christians in Asia, there's a bit
of a syncretism that's been going on. Anytime you go
to a new location with Christianity, there's always going to
be some integration of the former religion into the new
and maybe they see and what we talk about some

(08:56):
kind of familiarity with what they already know, since you know,
that's been a lot of my backstory too, So I
get it, I understand it, and I think it's a
wonderful thing. Honestly, I also think as.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
A result, Asians are you know, I mean I'm speaking
in a massive generality here, but I work with a
lot of it of Southeast Asian, so you know, I'm
kind of going from my own experience as well. Sure,
but partly because of their sort of cultural background, they
are more interested in engaged with deeper questions of life.

(09:30):
In the West, we was so you know, anesthetized by
social media, the social media trap myself included, and you know,
and hedonism that that's not me included. Okay, I think,

(09:52):
you know, this far less inquiry. There's also far more
need as a result, by the way, but it's much
harder to get Western people to think about one day
you're going to die, Yeah, what's the ultimate meaning of life?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
I agree with that. I think I think Asia as
a as a culture is.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Too busy in the rat race.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Well, but I mean Japan is too, but they seem
to do it without losing their philosophical connection. I'm not
gonna say all of them, we're talking very junt generalizations.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Take care of their workers. I mean they have like
mandatory breaks during the day.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Well that's because they have like like sixteen hour work
days long quite extraordinary. Yes, yes, I mean they they
don't really, I don't know if they even need to
have a home. They can just like set up shop
in the office and the Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
The Americans who have like two weeks holiday a year.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, right, because yeah, it's true. No, it's true. We're
finally starting to come out of the dark ages with that,
you know, with eternity to leave and things of that nature.
But it's it's been a rough I mean, Americans are workaholics,
they absolutely are, and they they really look down on

(11:10):
you if you're not. You know, if you're not if
you don't follow or maintain what they see to be
that ideal, then you are a loser. You're a drain
on society.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
That is, it is certainly not workaholics. That has to
be said. Productivity is a real problem here, yeah, as
a result, so there's a balance to be strug somewhere.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. Well, hey, you know, I guess there's there's good
and bad to everything. But you know, I can tell
you do you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (11:42):
For clergy, that is a real trap, especially in western countries.
And I remember, you know, when I was in a
mainstream busy parish here there was almost like no matter
how lazy the people in the congregation were, there was
a sort of expectation that I'd submit my weekly schedule,
you know, to check what I'm up to and if

(12:03):
I'm earning my keep, and I think, well, not long
in they realize they didn't need to do that, because
I was, in fact probably a workaholic, but which I'm
not defending. It's not a good thing to be. But
also I was making the point that actually there are
different roles in life, and clergy aren't aren't employed to

(12:24):
pull up trees, you know, they're employed to or rather
they're not employed at all. They're they're given an office
and a stipend so that they can embody a very
different way of existing. And so for any clergy listening
or religious, don't fall into that trap of thinking you're

(12:46):
on a flipping work schedule and you know, yeah, because
it kind of the ends up being exploited at both ends.
You know, oh, it's a vocation and it's your calling.
When when you've got to work, you know, at night
at all weekend, but you know you should expect to
work with modern practices on a on a Monday afternoon,

(13:07):
you know.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
I mean, it's one of the excuses that they give,
one of the practical excuses outside of the more you know,
theological one that they give for for a celibate priesthood.
You know, of course we all.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Know glgical arguments for it.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Well, just Jesus was a celibate, so you want to
be like him kind of thing. But you know, the
the the the real practical reason that they give today
is that if you've got a family, then you can't
be focused on your distraction. It's a distraction from your
parish that should be your family. And I disagree with
that because the Orthodox don't have that problem, you know,

(13:43):
and they have no you know, they have wives and kids,
and and they're they're they're both the entire family unit.
The the the pastor's wife as well as even the
kids when they get older, are a major part of
the parish family. So it can work.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
I had a conversation with I wouldn't say who, but
with with you know, Roman Catholic clergy who the house.
There's two of them that live in this house. And
before the the current parish priest moved in the bottom
of the house was used by by anyone in the

(14:20):
parish like they had a key to it, go upstairs,
they had keys to it. When they kind of you know,
I mean, they put it right. They pushed them out actually,
and they used to call it the parish house instead
of the presbytery like you know, so anyway, it is
a presbytery now and they have the whole run of

(14:42):
the house. But there was shock horror that why would
you need the whole place. You know, you have the upstairs,
you have the downstairs. It's mental go in your own house.
And I remember, you know, people say, oh, you know,
you don't invite people around, and you know when I
was living in a press for you and I said,
you've not invited me around either.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Right your fridge. You know, I had some really good.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
White people around, but you know, I mean the idea
that I had some obligation to entertain everybody in the
ridiculous I had.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
I had some good, good meals there in in my
in my parish when I was a seminary and I
get vited over and they had a commercial kitchen. I
mean it was I mean it was like a restaurant kitchen.
And he threw some veal porterhouses. This thick on there

(15:38):
and we had a wonderful glass of convarsier XO. You
know it was a nice day. They very well. One thing, priest,
did they like.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Poster.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
I've never known a praise that didn't. No good food,
not one, not one joining us from Tennessee. We have
Brandon Mylam. How are you doing tonight, Brandon, I'm.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
Doing good kind of. With the whole job situation, I
think it's it's changed a lot as over the past
couple generations, because I keep seeing posts, memes and whatnot
of back in the fifties and sixties, an entire family
can live off of the income of the father, and

(16:32):
nowadays we're working two to three jobs to afford half
of what they did back then.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
That's true.

Speaker 5 (16:40):
It's it's an interesting situation to be in when it
comes to just working and being able to manage work life,
personal life, or just having a life at all and
just work.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
The oh, we have a lowest time they're living than
our grandparents. The I mean when you look technologically, but
worse economically.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
When you look at the prices of things in the
fifties and then adjust them for inflation, there is still
no comparison between the cost of things today and even
adjusting for inflation. So what that says about the cost

(17:18):
of living today is that it's not inflation that made
it happen. It is it's great, plain and simple, the price.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
It's also you know, net zero obsession, it's you know,
sort of the renewable scare tactics. Basically, energy is them
is what decides how expensive things are, whether it's filling
up trucks to drive products to your house or supermarket
or you know. But the push for renewables, and I'll

(17:53):
let people decide for themselves whether that's a good idea
or not. But the one thing they can't deny is
that it's the most expensive energy you can possibly produce,
and that's why people are poorer. It's very very simple.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
I mean, there's no doubt about it that you know,
when if you control energy, you control the world. I've
always said, the only way we'll ever get to a
point where we don't need money anymore, you know, is
if you can get to a point where energy is
not just renewable, but you know, it costs less to

(18:28):
make than it does to you know, it costs you
can use more of it, then I mean, you're producing
more of it than you actually use. It's kind of like,
you know why I use star Trek as an example.
But if we could ever get to a point where
where energy becomes infinite, it's not a scarcity anymore, like

(18:48):
literally being able to harness the power of a sun
for example, where you have you know, billions of years
of power that is just there. Then you know, then
we could get to perhaps a point where we move
beyond the economics of scarcity. But you'll always have scarcity
until we do. And as long as you have scarcity,

(19:12):
well you're going to have You're going to have exploitation.
You know. It's just it's just the way that it is.
You know, for you to have a dollar, that means
someone else can't have that dollar. It's just the way
it is, you know, and you have we can print
more dollars, yeah, but but then you do that, then

(19:32):
you deflate the value of it. So you can't really
do it that way. I mean, they do do that,
but but that just creates a different type of scarcity.
So you know, there there really is a limited amount
of wealth to be had, and you have to make
the choice to whether or not you want to be
one of the ones that has control of that wealth

(19:54):
or one of the ones that are exploited by that wealth.
There's really no other option for you, you know, and
we're in the first world. We're kind of lucky. Even
the poor in the first world are kind of lucky
because they have more of the chunk of that wealth
than the third world does. I don't like the fact
that that's that life is that way, but that is
the fall in nature. I think Jamie and I were

(20:15):
talking about actually that last week before the show, and uh,
it's you know, what's the solution. There is no solution.
The solution is that that we live now the fallen
world is survival of the fittest. We might not like it,
but it's the way that it is. You know. There's
this wonderful movie that I watch that I watch from

(20:35):
time to time, and it's it's called Margin Call. Has
some good actors, big actors in it, and it's very
well done. And there is a point and there's a
moment in that movie where the character has a realization

(20:56):
and Jeremy Irons is the is one of the one
of the the He's sort of like the It's basically
about the financial crisis of two thousand and eight, what
led up to it and all that? Germany Irons plays
one of the top executives of this securities brokerage firm,

(21:17):
and and you know, one of his employees is having
sort of a moral conundrum with what they're being tasked
to do. And he makes this argument. It's kind of interesting,
he says, you know, he says, what you know, money,
it doesn't exist. He says, it's it's it's pictures of paper.
It's picture it's it's pieces of paper with little pictures

(21:38):
on it. So we don't have to kill each other
to get something to eat, you know. And the reality
is that we're still playing. It is still a jungle
out there. You know. It is still basically tribalism. It
is still basically you know, eat or be eaten. It's
just instead of killing people, we we imparished them and

(22:02):
then we enrich ourselves. It's basically the same thing, only
we don't feel so bad about it because we're not
technically committing murder. But there is I don't say that
to be like, boy, we're so horrible and there needs
to be a better way. There is no better way.
I don't know. I think that's I think that's a bit.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
Slightly Marxist worldview. I think, well, you're right, the first
law of economics is scarcity. The first law of politics
is to ignore the first law of economics, so so
that there is a relationship between between you know, what
politicians do and and and how it impacts on the economy.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Obviously, but you know, father, if you have every single
person in the world with a song.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
Being wealthy doesn't make me poor though you know, well
in terms of in terms of opportunities are made wealth.
But that's not even of course I'm not making that argument.
But you know, if somebody makes makes a resource more
useful by in their labor with it, this is John
Locke right, then you know, it's kind of a fractal approach,

(23:06):
Like you know, there's no limits to I mean, there's
there's an ultimate limit to how many things are able
to be produced from what's present in the earth. It's
like this, but there's a fractal kind of approach to that,
Like you will you know, it won't be exhausted before

(23:26):
the sun goes sup and over and destroys everything. Anyway.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
No, I don't think I don't I don't say that
it's exhausted, but we can create false scarcity, like like diamonds,
for example, diamonds are not rare, right, they're not rare
at all, extremely common thing. But the reason that they
can create this an insane market, you know, to convince
every every woman that you're not loved by your guy
unless he buys you the biggest one. You know, you know,

(23:56):
then then you gotta you gotta, you gotta, you know,
dominate the market, create a little monopoly for yourself, and
uh and and you know you can. You can make
billions or trillions doing it, you know. But I think
I I would say though that one of the fundamental
problems that I see in the fallen world, okay, is

(24:16):
that even if every single person had an absolutely perfect
worth ethic, you could never have them all living a nice,
comfortable life. Wouldn't be possible. It wouldn't be possible.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
But it's probably not a good aim either.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Well, I don't know. I mean, it's good, it's.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
Maybe it's a good aim to want to help people
who are worse off than.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
You, But I shouldn't have to rely on like a
you know, eight year old picking my cocoa beans so
I can have a bar of chocolate. Sure, you know
what I mean, and that happens. You know, this is
this is one of the deficits. So that I can
eat chocolate. Some kid out there lives a hell for
an existence.

Speaker 4 (25:04):
And then if he decides to boycott easy chocolate in
the name of that, that eight year old has no
job at all.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Well that's the other side of the corner. Well, that's
what I mean. It's like, That's what I'm trying to say,
is that I'm not arguing a Marxist or socialist solution,
although I'm not although I'm saying that, but I would
say that you know, Karl Marx didn't exactly wasn't wrong
about identifying the problems. He was wrong about figuring out

(25:28):
the solution.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, very wrong.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
But my argument is that they lived on.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
The generosity of wealthy people himself.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Well there you go, yeah, of course, you know, then
his parents in law and then angles they usually do.
But I mean, my my, my idea is that there
is no I mean, it's like if if every single
animal in the world were a lion, well, then they'd
all have to start eating each other, wouldn't they. They'd
have to cannibalize each other, and somebody would have you

(25:58):
start eating the week. You'd eat the ones that were
the easiest ones to pick off and kill. And that's
what we do with economy, you know, we pick off
the week and so that we might the stronger can survive.
And uh, it's not a good thing. It's not a
nice thing. We don't like to talk about it in
those terms, but that is the reality of it. That's
the fallen world, you know. And I would say that nowhere,

(26:19):
you don't need to be theological to recognize the fallen world.
I think economics.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
Actually, I think you're right because there's another theological principle
that actually is now used in a political and economic sense,
but it comes from theology, which is subsidiarity. Because you're
making really there's no solution, there's only an offset, and
the offset is subsidiarity. So you know, within the sphere
closest to you, that's that's where you should interact the most.

(26:49):
And in other words, in political terms, that means your
local government should have more minute detailed control into like
it would be ridiculous if the federal government was deciding
what parking relations should be in your town. You know,
because it's too distant. Subsidiarity says that's a local council
issue and so but that you know, that applies economically

(27:10):
and politically, but it also applies in terms of love.
I mean jd. Vance was that was you know, we've
been in the headlines because he was, this is this
is an Augustinian principle of the sort of spheres of
love in your life. And he said, you know, you
begin with yourself and God, and then with your family

(27:30):
and then then out from there. And of course this
has been sort of parodied, is to say you don't
need to care about anybody that you don't know, which
is not actually what you're saying. But that is the
principle of subsidiarity that the closest to you should have
the most interaction with. Yeah, well, and the further away
the less it should impact on you directly.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
You know. Yeah, I can see that. I can definitely
see that. We'll probably get batter in the church.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
We've got a new pope. He's an American, and you know,
from what I can tell, he seems all.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Rights actually pretty cool. We all do.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
But the I think people have it's good in a
way that they're excited about all that, but really this
idea will we do X or will we do Y? No,
they don't understand the principle of subsidiarity, which is very
much from the Church and alive and well in the Church.
The pope can have any political or personal view he likes.
He's not going to change the dogmas and doctrines of
the Catholic Church.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
They always think that it's not it's not a president's
your parish priest. Yeah, Now his job is to defend.
If you want to know how to live the pope.
I mean, in a sense, he's the he's he's the
defend He's a guardian of the faith. He's not a
He's not to direct it in new and new and

(28:49):
innovative ways. He's to maintain the integrity of it. And
sometimes that does include clarifying things that become confusing from
generation to generation, but not innovation. If they're thinking that
he's going to, like, you know, open up the doors
to gay marriage or female priesthood or something, it's just

(29:11):
never going to happen. Maybe a married priest, that's that's
something that could happen innovatively. And I think it's going
to happen, but out of necessity one day, because I
don't think there's enough enough guys going into.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
You know, there's there's so many exceptions.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, that's how they start.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
Yeah, Okay, And the Eastern churches, Eastern Catholic Churches obviously
follow the Orthodox pattern.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
So they're married not here, not in America. They they
they're they're still trying to maintain the restriction on the
Eastern priests here in America. Really, yeah, because they say
it's it's, it's it's it would be culturally confusing to
the Roman Catholics. That's the excuse.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
How well they're not bound by the Latin No.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
And I've argued that point with them, and the bishops
just kind of clam up and they're like, well, that's
the way it is.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
It is, but that's their choice.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
That's not cathy, it is not doctrine. No, it's definitely
not dog ball if there's a difference. All right, Brandon,
let's start with our first question from the ether. I'm
sure we'll get back into some of these subjects tonight,
depending upon what the audience has for us.

Speaker 5 (30:22):
So the first question is, I've heard that the earliest
evidence archaeologists have when it comes to the worship of
the God of Israel, depict him as having a divine
profile of a storm deity similar to Baal, such as
the verse in Judges, Chapter five, Verses four through five,
Psalm twenty nine, and so on. Would this be accurate

(30:43):
to say that the earliest interpretation of God was a
storm deity, and with this also explained the conflict throughout
the Old Testament between God and Baal, since both were
considered storm deities.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Yes, I would. And because if you look at the
evolution of how theology develops, all of the more sophisticated
versions of religion that we recognize today in modernity. And
by modernity, I mean the last you know two three
thousand years stems from a far more ancient type of

(31:18):
universal animism. I mean you can see this in every culture.
It starts out in this more primitive animism that develops
into a more sophisticated version. We see that I'm getting
ready to teach my students the webinar just shifted to
a new unit. We're getting ready to study the Voudan
religion voodoos, and you can see it there where what

(31:43):
you see in new Orleans, for example, which is its
own little brand of voodoo. Voudon is a far more
sophisticated monotheistic same thing in Haiti. It's a monotheistic religion
that stems back from more Bible primitive versions of this religion,

(32:05):
like the Yoruba tribes practiced, and so the Oruba gods
became the spirits of Caribbean Vudan, you know. And if
you go back far enough beyond the shamanistic stage, which
is where the Yoruba where you start to see the
animism stage, which is basically animism is the belief that

(32:29):
all things inherently have a spiritual essence, which I actually
think is still true. But we see and we define
those things differently. We've talked about I think either the
last show or the show before, where Thomas Aquinas more
or less says that the Holy Spirit is essentially infused
within all of reality, and if God leaves the presence

(32:53):
of something, then that thing ceases to exist. It's the same.
It's basically that's a very sophisticated way of describing the
more ancient animism. So I would say, yes, that is
where it comes from now, but we need to make
something clear here. This is not to say that they
took some ancient God and reinterpreted him to meet their

(33:17):
conditions and then they change things. That's not what I'm
suggesting here. What I'm saying is people's understanding of God,
the only God there ever was and ever will be,
changes as they become more spiritually enlightened. And so when
you look at just the short span of time that
the Bible covers, which is again about thirty five hundred years,

(33:40):
really you know what you have in that is the
evolution of God revealing himself to humanity, and how it
develops and becomes more sophisticated as time goes on. And
where does the where does it at? You start at
the beginning Genesis. They don't know what the hell's going on, right,
Adam and Eve completely oblivious to really anything. And then

(34:03):
you get to the final verses of the of the
Book of Revelation and all is revealed. We basically become
one with God. It's perfect theosis described there. So that's
what's happening. Is It's not that God's changing or deriving
from some earlier thing. It's that our understanding improves as

(34:23):
we go through the journey of life. And that's all
part of the path of salvation, including the animism, including
the animism. That's that's the beauty of it, is that
even the things that are essentially recognizable as non Christian
actually in the perfect plan that God has orchestrated, the
plan of salvation, it all comes together and reinforces itself.

(34:46):
And that's the beauty of it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
And the prohibition on animism is not for them, it's
for now, yeah, because now we have had this food.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Right, so why do you need that right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
So and.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
You know you're describing herminetics.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yes, you know, I mean even how we how we.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
Read the scriptures, or if we're more honest, how the
scriptures read us, because you know, the scriptures are read,
they read they how a generation reads the scriptures says
says more about that generation than just about the scriptures.
And so yeah, you know, and you see this in

(35:24):
you see this within within the church. Now, you know,
people who who are more socialist in a political sense
will read socialism into the gospels.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
People, because there is elements of it there if I mean,
there's elements, but it's like it's not a complete picture.
It's just one thing. We're just to be aware of
what we're bringing in. It's like, look at what the
apostles do, right, Okay, the apostles live what some might
say is a very socialist kind of of of existence. Right, everybody,

(35:59):
everybody that came men to the choice the community. Well
that's the that's the way I'm getting at. But you know,
everyone comes into the community, they give up all their
possessions to the apostles, and the apostles redistribute those resources
to the you know that everybody, so that it's an
equal thing. And people will say, well, see, that's that's socialism.
I've talked about this before, and yes, in spirit, there

(36:21):
is a type of type of socialism going on there.
But when we use the word in a political sense,
you're talking about the government distributing resources against your will.
That's very different.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Every you know, every family should be socialists. Your own
family should.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Be so, yes, exactly.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
You don't want to see your kids on the street,
like you know, there should be a certain amount of
redistribution according according to the needs of your family. But
then but that's something that you enter into by choice.
You can opt out of your family. The problem with
political socialism is you can't opt out of it. So
and it's a little bit like the difference between if
you choose to join a religious community as a as

(37:01):
a monk or a nun, as a brother or a sister,
you're freely choosing to enter into essentially a communist way
of living. Yes, but it's your choice and you can
leave right so and that's the difference, you know. So
that's not supporting a socialist or communist system of government,
but it's to say that well, with it within the household,
which and whether that's how household is your family or

(37:25):
you know, a religious community, then you know, the Gospel
does say, in fact, to be quite we'll say social,
just to remove the kind of buzzwords, there should be
a high degree of social interaction and charity within that household,
and we should all strive for that in our houses.
The problem is when it spills over into wanting to

(37:46):
control other people's households.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
And that's the real thing I think is that people
forget that. It's it's it's how it is utilized. Like
there's many good Marxist concepts, but you can't utilize them
against people's will to deprive people of freedom, you know,

(38:10):
that's where it becomes problematic, and that's where the entire
system falls apart, so it can't be used as a
political system or an economic solution on that basis. I mean,
capitalism is a very broken system. But in the current
stage of our range of scarcity control, it's the best

(38:32):
we've got. It's the best we've got, you know, just like.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
Just like parliamentary democracy, you know, to paraphrase Churchill, it's
the least worst system we've get encountered.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean there are and there
will be better things, but you're going to get beyond. Well,
heaven will be perfect. But I'm talking about even before
we we and before this this earth passes away, there
will be better political economic systems to come, not after,
not before. There's a whole lot of pain involved in

(39:11):
making those transitions. But we're not there yet. We're not
ready for it yet, and it would be you can't
make those things happen quickly. I know a lot of
people would love to see that. Bernie Sanders is an
example of that in our country. But you can't. You can't.
You can't speed progressive liberalism can is you can't run
at that speed.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
Well, you kind of if you've got enough private jets
and you seem.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
To have prod Yeah, yeah, right, Ronment, Yeah yeah, yeah,
that's actual hypocrisy has never been in short supply when
it comes to politics, and that goes for both sides.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
I don't run again, but we'll give you five houses
and three cars.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:52):
You can't expect me to sit people in un airlines.
You can't expect lot. You know, if I'm going to
see all these people who I've paid to come to
my little gatherings, then I've got to take private private jet.
You stick with that. What have you done in the
forty years you've been in the public life.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Absolutely none of them do anything. They're useless.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
Legislature is over in America is a big problem. That's
a big problem. That's why everything's been done by executive order.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
It's not not what the founders no, no, but it's
it is. It's it's it's a mess. It's a mess, okay,
te hundred years. Yeah, yeah, what's our next one?

Speaker 4 (40:33):
Brandon Wilson started it?

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Sorry, Brandman Carroll, No, you're not wrong.

Speaker 5 (40:37):
I'm just trying to figure out how we go from nimism.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
Because that's I'm scared ewhere.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
We could we could change the name of open Lines
Open Topics to the tangent Show. I mean, that's you know,
we just call it, you know, random tangents. That'd be
actually a good patack tangents after dark. You know, just
do it. Just do an open Lines Open Topics as
a show. That's it. To see where it takes. You
start with one question and you just after dark there

(41:10):
you go.

Speaker 5 (41:13):
At least for me, when looking at the evolution of
the Old Testament, the different theological debates, to me, it's
far more fascinating than what my upbringing in a Baptist
church could ever have accomplished.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, I mean, you know, that's it's a nice thing,
but I mean I'm not sure it says much because
you know, the fact of the matter is what I
find with a lot of American Protestants at least, is
that their content to live in a small world. They
want a small world. They don't want to step.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
In to cod with a small world. Yeah, but you know,
I don't you know, it's some people need milk and
some people need meat, yes, you know, And so I'm
not condemning the Protestants are very very fixated on are
you saved because they have a they have a different
theology of salvation, and so if that's your entire focus,

(42:15):
then you know you're going to be a narrower. Now
there's not it's not all bad that, by the way,
it's an narrow path, as that the gate is small
and the path narrow to salvation. Jesus says that because
I would I would suggest he's saying that on the
basis that we are supposed to in fact engaging works
as a as a as a you know, cooperating with

(42:40):
that salvation of being made perfect like God. And so
so that's why there's there's a different sort of interaction
with with the breadth of theology, shall we say, all
the scriptures, or even just philosophy, because you know, at
the source of it, there's a different forus. And not ever,

(43:01):
not everyone can take thank God, not everyone's a philosopher,
you know, otherwise no want to get anything done.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
I mean, that's true, although I would say that when
you lead a church, if you're a religious leader, it's
kind of problematic for you not to be a philosopher though,
you know what I mean, of course, So that's where
it becomes a bit of an issue. Everyone should be, Yeah,
everyone should be.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
I once heard the clergy described us, and it went
very badly for the person that said it.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
But he was right.

Speaker 4 (43:31):
He said, he just a synod in the angling church.
He said, clergy should be like manure, like you know,
he spread thinly across a field. If they're all, if
we're all, if we're all piled up in one place,
we stink.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
And I think he was right. God only chooses the
worst of us. That's the that's the way it is.
That's the way it is. Okay, what's our next question, Brandon?

Speaker 5 (43:51):
So the next question is from the archive classes on
the justice slash adjustment to archetype. He said that when
a child is a boarded, their energy turns into demonic energy.
And you said the same was true for people who
commit suicide. But what happens to people who are killed
by somebody?

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Well, from my point of view, okay, as far as
I'm concerned, when a child being aborted is a person
being killed by somebody, that is a murder. Absolutely so,
I don't think there's a difference. If we're talking about,
you know, using that as the first example in saying, well,
what happens if someone gets killed. It's the same thing.
This is the issue, this is why it's a problem.

(44:33):
So to kind of backtrack a little bit, you know,
the you know, if you're not one of my students,
you might see that as a bit of a left field,
you know, sort of statement to say that the aborted
child's energy turns into a demonic energy. What I mean

(44:54):
by that for those who might be new to the
model that I use when it comes to exorcism, ministry,
and spiritual problem resolution, is that I what demonic energy
is is essentially at the most basic level, And we
can talk in detail about this tonight if you guys

(45:17):
want to, but just to keep it simple for right now,
at the most basic level, demonic energy is just person
destruction personified. That's it. So anything that participates in destruction,
either as a victim or as a victimizer, is essentially

(45:37):
creating a demonic condition, so that anything associated with that
event becomes a personified mark that, for all intentsive purposes
from our vantage point, becomes a demon. Now that doesn't
mean the child becomes a demon. It just means the
energy of that situation becomes a demon that often needs

(46:00):
to be contented with, which is why you have hauntings
that take place in traumatic situations, and the more violent
the trauma, typically the more hostile the haunting, leading to
any number of demonic events that could be an infestation
or if people live there, an oppression of a session,

(46:21):
you know, or even a possession. So that's what I
mean by that. But it is absolutely no different if
you're having an abortion or if you're killing someone. Someone
is dying either way. Someone is being murdered against their
will either way, and it is an act of destruction
either way, and that energy has to go somewhere because

(46:44):
just think of the laws of thermodynamics. Okay, it applies
here too. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Okay, it
transfers across various things, it transforms itself into different things,
but the energy still remains regardless. So all that destructive
energy has to be channeled into something, and usually for

(47:07):
our purposes, it becomes a thought form, and thank God
that it does. You know, we might not like the
fact that demons exist, but you should be thanking God
that they do, because what demons give us is a
means to take care of it, because if it got
just transferred into all of us, we'd be a whole
hell of a lot worse off than we already are.
But at least it gets channeled into a thought form

(47:29):
that can now be dealt with. And if you have
somebody who's skilled in exorcism, they know how to deal
with it. And that's how it works. Okay, that's the
basic metaphysics. I'm not giving you a theological answer here,
I'm giving you a very metaphysical one.

Speaker 4 (47:44):
And you can apply that description to the psychology of
people who've had abortions too. Yes, absolutely, I don't think
there's any difference between what you've just described and what
happens within the I would say soul of the person.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
They become haunted. Yeah, and look, I know you're to that.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
Will will will be shocking to the ears because abortion
is is Abortion is itself a euphemism, and it's so
it's interesting that we now have a euphemism for the
for the euphemistic word abortion, you know, like like health care.
You know, so health care is a euphemism for abortion
used as a euphom vision for abortion and abortion, women's

(48:23):
reproductive women's reproductive health. Ye, right, So it's euphemism and
therefore it takes you two times away from the truth.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Absolutely, And that's why, that's why it recks people's lives,
because they're told it's it's healthcare. It's great, it's wonderful,
it's a virtue.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
I know, they bill it as think about that father,
think of the the the abomination that that is, to
equate abortion to the healing instrument of health care. I mean,
it's it's it's It just shows you the corruption demonic.
It is truly demonic. It's taking something wholly and sacred,

(49:07):
which is one of the corporate works of mercy, to heal,
to cure, and it's turning it into a vehicle to kill.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
Yep. It's it's a it's a mocking.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah, it is a mocking. So that's that's and it
doesn't help.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
And the irony is it's the opposite of health careful women.
It makes them neurotic and depressed.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
And I know because you know, and I have.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
Some close friends that made that decision when they were
young and naive and were pressured to do it, and
they still aren't right.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
They never are.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
They were later able to have children, they still think
about the one that they aborted.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
They almost always regret it.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
You know, this is not about condemning.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
But you know, come and be healed. Healed, but you know,
at least in the confessional, you know, come and at
least be able to encounter the truth of that be
told that God has forgiven you, and that then you
can start to try and reintegrate yourself.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Well, this is one of the things I talked about
at one of my previous sermons. I mentioned abortion, and
I was talking about, you know that the Holy Nikola
and Catholic Church, you know, doesn't have to follow the
Magisterium of Rome. I mean, you were an independent autocephalist church.

(50:35):
We can kind of draft all of our own canons
if we wanted to, as long as we don't violate
any of the primary tenants of Christianity, like the Nisian Creede.
But I was talking about how even though we're not
bound by the Catechism of the Church of Rome, we
still use it and we are in almost perfect agreement
minus just a few points and our canon by natural law.

(50:59):
Well let's it. Yeah, well yeah, right right, But there's
like specific there's specifics in the Catechism, certain specifics that
we we we do challenge from our canons, and so
our canons on our website deal with those differences, and
there's not many. Well, like a married priesthood is I
guess you could say one of the things that we

(51:20):
do differently, that's not really a problematic thing. It's just
this is how our tradition operates, and the Church of
Rome even recognizes that that's perfectly valid. But when it
comes to abortion, one of the things that we take
a different stance on is that we absolutely disagree that
a person who commits abortion, or participates in one, or

(51:45):
finances one, or or or or is the doctor that
performs it. You know, that they commit automatic excommunication. In
our opinion, we feel that's when these sinners need the
church most grace of the Church is most needed in
those times. Not to be said apart because I understand

(52:06):
that maybe in the Middle Ages, when you excommunicated excommunicated someone,
they felt the loss. Today people are just like, well
screw them, I'm just not going.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
What happened to the acquaintance of mine is she she
was Catholic and left the church because she was told
she was no longer welcome.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
So he goes to a Protestant Church.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
So they just move on and right.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
I don't think they addressed the issue.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Now when the church had political.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Hurt inside her, and it's not being addressed.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
When the healthy church.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
But the way back, there is a way back to
the Catholic Church. It's the confession. Yeah, and I know
that that sin is reserved to the Holy See. But actually, well,
I think I think you have to go to every
bishop faculty.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
I don't know here. I think you have to go
to a bishop to get that resolved.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
I think that's true in America, in Australia, it's been
extended to every pre Yeah, it should also to the
bishop's conference of each country.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
We talked about her going back to the Catholic Church
and it fell on deaf fears. So now she's I know,
and and you know she preferring the I don't call it,
uh you know, the rock concert. Nothing's nothing that serious.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
As ever addressed, because it's too much fun. There for
the show.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Your tambourine and your in, your your guitar and have fun.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
You're there for the show. You're not there for the
for the depth, because there.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Is still go home utterly depressed.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
That is the way it is. So I mean, that's
that's kind of and it's not even it's not even
a difference in and and and and in understanding. It's
just a difference in approach. I just don't feel that
telling people, Okay, you've just automatically excommunicated yourself is helpful.
Do they need to come for confession? Absolutely, But you know,

(53:58):
this is where I think the church it's to actually
go out of its way to reach out to people
in this situation and and and and kind of help
them back. Yeah, And so I just think elimiting the
excommunication part of it is one good step in that direction.
Whereas when you just have that listed as a as

(54:19):
a as a well, I guess I don't know if
I would call it a doctorom but when you have
it listed as a point in the catechism, it it
really is. It's exclusionary. And I know that's what they
want you to feel, but it's like people don't receive
it the same way today, not in a helpful way.
There's better ways to do it, and this is one

(54:40):
I think that needs to change. But I mean it's
not really disagreement, it's just our approaches. This way is
how we handle it. We don't really disagree with anything
in the Catechism. We just have different approaches with a
handful of things. Everything else is about the same. Church
was like that with divorce. Yeah, Moosh says, Church was
like that with divorce, and the US also seems like

(55:00):
they were shunned and they and they largely still are.
If you can't get in at least in the Church
of Rome, at least Orthodoxy does so much better job
with this. But in the Church of Rome, if you
can't get an annulment, okay, you're basically screwed. Because if
you want to move on and start a new life

(55:21):
with a with a you know, get remarried, getting remarried,
now you're an adulterer. You can't ever go to Communion again,
confessions useless to you. Because Frances did change that they
can go.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
So people in civil marriages who who you know, if
the Church doesn't recognize their marriages, are allowed to go
to Communion. Now they're not as getting married, but they're
allowed to go to Communion. And that's what because when
Pope Francis did it.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Yeah, but I think the caveat they can't they can't
have intimate relations with that person.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
I think that's what was removed. I think I think
that's why it caused. There were lots of you know,
senior theologians that argue, you know, that didn't like that.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
But so you know, I think it is now allowed Orthodoxy.
I had not heard that. I have not. I mean,
because the problem is the Church doesn't recognize civil marriage
from a divorce.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
It's definitely not recognizing that. But it's basically what.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
I'm trying to say is, if you're married, if you're married,
if you have a man and woman who are married
in their twenties, Let's say in the Catholic Church, both Catholics,
they get married in the Catholic Church, they have kids,
then the marriage falls apart for some reason later on
in life. There and there. Now they're in their forties
and they want to go their separate ways, so they

(56:41):
do and they try to get an annulment. The church
denies the annulment. Natural law takes over. And let's say
they both start relationships with new people that as far
as the Church is concerned, they are still married. They

(57:01):
cannot go and have a relationship with another person sexually
and not be committing adultery or you know, or in
fortification both because and that's the problem with communion. That's
the reason that prohibits them from going. Now, if they
stay celibate, then yes, you wouldn't be denied communion on

(57:22):
the basis of simply having gotten a divorce but not
getting the annulment approved. It's the being sexually involved with
someone who's not your spouse. That's where you have excluded
yourself from commune because now you're staying. You're in a
state of mortal sin that you cannot get out of
because what are you gonna do go to confession and say,
you know, I fell along with someone else, so I'm

(57:43):
living with them. Now I'm married to them, you know,
like we got a civil marriage or something. Wait, but
the church is like, but you're still married to your
wife because we did not grant you an annulment. So
now you're committing adultery, you're committing fortnication, you're in mortal sin.
You can't go to communion and I can't grant you up.
So because you're gonna you're not gonna leave her. It
creates a huge disaster. So the Orthodox Church has a

(58:07):
so much more of a sound approach to this. You
know what they do. There's no annulment process, you know
they do. They simply say get you get to get
out of jail free cards, okay, case basically get two
Mulligan's okay. So the first marriage didn't work out, they
see that as a product of the fallen world. Sometimes
this happens, you go to confession. There's a penance involved,

(58:28):
and it's usually a very severe one, particularly if you're
doing it for the second time. So they'll let you
get married a second time, and then to let you
get married, I think you can get one more divorce
in a third but you can't do any more after that.
They will not give you anything if it doesn't work
out your third marriage and you're out exactly. So that's

(58:49):
the issue that you can't resolve that theologically because as
the church would have to be permissive. So the only
way to get around it is to is to grant
through grace and an annulment through confession.

Speaker 4 (59:06):
And it's that much more generous for the element process
these days.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Just so people they are getting better, but you still
have to get a lawyer involved, a canon lawyer. It's
it's sometimes fifteen to twenty five thousand dollars to even
have the case tried. It's ridiculous. We're in the Orthodox Church.
It's it's it's basically a.

Speaker 4 (59:26):
He was about four hundred US dollars just so you know.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Well, that's that's crazy. It changed a lot.

Speaker 4 (59:32):
Four hundred US dollars is a donation. And by the way,
if you can't afford it.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Is that in Australia.

Speaker 6 (59:37):
I mean that.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
I don't think that's the way it is here, really don't.
In fact, because because we have had a we had
a client and they wanted what thirty grand.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
It had gotten up that he'd been fighting it for years,
for years, and this was like this is it has
to do something about It's like bruh that I have.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
No pull with any of the bishops in thes he'd.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Been fighting seven years. They spent about that much, probably
on his attorneys trying to father.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
I think it's kind of like the price of drugs.
It's the price of drugs. We pay a whole lot
more for everything here in the United States, including anulance.
And that's what Trump's trying to change. That's what he
claims he's trying to change. He wants he wants to
normalize it. Okay, we're going to take our first break.
Let's say we'll say we're going to take our first break.
Care when we come back. More questions from the ether

(01:00:27):
and your questions as well.

Speaker 7 (01:00:28):
Don't go away, sail A Sweet Puss, Sat and Sat,

(01:01:29):
Scott Su Su.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Conclusa, Sousas of the Southatsu Saaaaaa South and Southa Souafa

(01:02:47):
south As Faaaaaaa South sat As Su.

Speaker 6 (01:03:04):
And Sal Sat.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Ship and Salt Sting, Shot to Shata, Shot, shot to Shuta,
Sheer Shuter Sa Sa Sa Shota shotation us anything and

(01:05:20):
in the n y Times and anything at anything anything.

(01:06:55):
Do not a wave me, do not aweve me. Note

(01:07:40):
you're not feet, you're not a free.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Welcome back everyone to the second hour of Vestiges after Dark.
We've already had such an engaging conversation about some you know,
real deep things, and we're gonna go further. I'm sure
we still have some questions from the ether, and you
can also start logging your questions for us now in
the chat rooms, or you can call into the show

(01:08:46):
two O seven five four four nineteen eighty three. That's
two O seven five four four nineteen eighty three and
we're still having problems with teams. Skype turned into teams,
so I can't take internetional of calls yet. I did
the transfer, but my passwords not accepted, so we're gonna
have to wait on that. If you're international, just ask

(01:09:08):
your questions in the chat. We'll get to them, all right,
So second hour coming up. Okay, so what's our next

(01:10:11):
question from the ether? Brandon?

Speaker 5 (01:10:14):
So this question's a little interesting. And a person who
has dissociative identity disorder or did, since they create new
personalities as a sort of copy mechanism, does that also
mean that they have different projected realities. Let me clarify,
if I remember you talking about the world around us

(01:10:34):
is just a projection or a reflection of what we
think is real. So when you talk about multiple personalities,
they would have, in my opinion, several different reality projections
because they adopt several different personas, whereas individuals without d
ID would only have one projection of reality.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Okay, again, kind of a deeper metaphysical question, not really
a theological one, And this is something we've covered rather
extensively in previous classes of the Forbidden Truth webinar that
I teach on Saturday afternoons, which you also joined, by
the way, Yeah, people should. I mean, honestly, you know,

(01:11:15):
most people love it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
You want your mind blown.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
It's a good start, and there's and it's not like
you're going to miss anything because we've preserved the archives
eight years I've been doing this class. We have all
eight years of content on the Nicola Network, so plenty
to keep yourself occupied for a very very long time.
And of course a new class every Saturday, and we're

(01:11:39):
just starting a new unit right now on Voodan, So
if you're interested in that, that's a chance to get
in on something. And then of course, like the previous
classes that we've covered on archetypes and everything else. But
so essentially my metaphysical approach towards this is that I see, well,
I mean, I guess you could say that I take

(01:12:02):
a firm stance between Plato and Buddha, which kind of
they came to the same basic conclusions about for different reasons,
but they basically saw it the same way Hindus do too.
They see the phenomenal world as an illusion the maya.

(01:12:22):
I think theoretical physics we've talked about, you know, simulation theory,
on this show. You know, I think we're getting to
the point where we're starting to see that this is
indeed probably true. But I want to make sure that
we understand something here. That doesn't mean there isn't an
essential reality. It just means that the one that we

(01:12:45):
see through and I'm going to use now Christian terminology
through the fallen eyes of a fallen individual and reflected
into a broken creation, that we don't see things the
way they are. And I think that's perfectly consistent with
Christian theology. So as that goes, now we see through

(01:13:05):
through a glass darkly, thank you. Then I face yeah,
and there it is. There it is too. And Plato,
you know, of course, with Plato's Cave, and of course
with with the Maya of Hinduism, which of course is
part of Buddhism too, all talks about the fact that
there is an essential reality. We just don't see it.
We project a false reality upon the ether of it.

(01:13:27):
You know, every time I tell you see out there
in the ether, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, So
that's what I mean here now. So the answer the
question not exactly. Okay, The phenomenal world is indeed a projection.
But that doesn't mean the same thing for the ego reality. Okay,

(01:13:48):
the ego reality is constructed by a further fragmentation that
is entirely, well almost entirely, an internal process that can
affect and change in the phenomenal world and and do
so in very you know, unique ways. But it's still

(01:14:08):
what creates cohesion is the fact that it's a shared experience. Okay,
So it's not entirely internal, clearly, because if it were,
we'd all be in our own personal dream and only
we could affect anything from that dream, and we could
do whatever we want in that dream. That is not
true of the phenomenal world. There are there are still

(01:14:29):
fundamentals that we have to follow within it. Okay, we
can all agree that Jamie and I are sitting at
a desk right now. We all see this, and we know,
unless we're psychotic, we know this is a desk. So
the phenomenal world has consistencies, and even our projections of
those consistencies are agreed upon between the ego realities. But

(01:14:49):
we don't. We don't project the ego reality. The ego
reality as a construct made up of infinite numbers of
ratios of various archet types, which become what I call
the aggregate structure, all right, very similar to the aggregates,
the five aggregates of Buddhism, just perhaps more defined towards

(01:15:12):
the various uniqueness of each individual's made up by the
various archetypes they contain. What do I mean by that, Well,
there's some people that are just naturally heroic. They clearly
have a larger ratio of heroic based archetypes or hero
based archetypes of the as the root archetype the hero
and Carl Yume's model within them. And you've got people

(01:15:36):
that are just cold blooded killers, sociopaths, antisocial personality disorder.
Clearly they are ruled by the shadow archetype. Right. You
got you got people that are devious and and and
don't even feel remorse. You know, that's very much the
trickster archetype. You have people that are they're forever young, right,

(01:15:59):
They're they're youthful, they are just they just everything's fun
in games. They just never grow up. You know, people
like this, they have the eternal child archetype. These are
all core parental archetypes that that and there's various divisions.
Now why do we talk about things like astrology on
this show and even in class? What business is a

(01:16:21):
Christian bishop talking about that? You know? Have talking about that?
And this is why, because what astrology shows us is
the archetypal breakdown of that individual's aggregate structure. And once
you understand what archetypes are making up what you call you,
then you can understand what's going on here and overcome
the deficits of that ego reality, and then the ego

(01:16:44):
becomes a tool to use rather than a source of
being a victim. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:49):
So I ironically what people look at superstitious is actually
to undo superstition is to be able to It's the
opposite of saying everything's predetermined. It's saying no, no. By
analyzing these things, you're not you're opting out of determinism.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Yes, correct. So people might say where does all of
that archetypal energy come from? Like why is there a hero,
a great mother, a trickster, a shadow, all of these
you know, and then of course all the ones that
derive from them. Because the tarot has seventy eight archetypes

(01:17:28):
within it, each card represents a different archetype, and Goung
didn't really identify seventy eight. So where do these other
ones come from? Well, he didn't, you know, the Taro
doesn't have the shadow or the trickster, And I'm like, sure,
there's the Devil, isn't there? Who do you think that is? Right?
Doesn't have the Great Mother? Who do you think the
the empresses? You know? So it's all in there, just

(01:17:51):
different names, but the same meaning. And what we need
to understand is that the wholeness of God. Think of
the archetypes as the building blocks of creation itself, right,
and God creates through word. Right, He speaks creation into existence.
He says, let there be light, and then there's light.
We even call it God's word. We use that to

(01:18:13):
refer to Jesus as the logos. We use that to
refer to the Bible. Okay, the word is how things
come into being. So God speaks them into reality. And
so therefore the archetypes are literally the very alphabet that
makes up his language, and those are the building blocks

(01:18:33):
for this thing we call creation or reality. If you're
not a religious person, you might just call it reality.
And in the pre fallen state, it was a state
of absolute wholeness. Okay, there, it's so funny to me
when people are like, where did God come from? You

(01:18:54):
have to get beyond linear thinking that is a product
of the fallen world. Time gets moments, get the one
moment gets fractured. Now we have a past, present, and
future as the result of the fallen universe, but outside
of it, before it was fallen, it was all one moment.
And the same was true of the archetypes. They were
all one. They fractured into all of the different ones

(01:19:18):
that now make up all of us as a continuation
of that fracture. So think of having a perfect beautiful
ming dynasty vase, all right, and then you and then
you shatter on the ground, and then now you get
all these pieces, and then you take up those pieces
and you shatter it again. We're the second shatter. Okay,
I call it the second reflection, and so did. Dissociative

(01:19:41):
identity disorder formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is an
extreme fracture within the fracture, So it's almost like a
third fracture.

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
So it's kind of like if you were looking in
the mirror and through the mirror to the ground and
all those little fractures, you still see yourself in there.
But they're all all warped pieces of you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
Correct, yeah, and then you and then then you take
those work pieces and you stop on them again. Now
you've got even more.

Speaker 3 (01:20:08):
And the more you destroy it, the more you break
it up, the less you recognize throw.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
So this gets me back to the other thing that
people always ask me, and they don't like the answer
because it's true. No one likes the truth, and that
is weird. Then, you know, how do you tell the
difference between a possessed person and somebody who's mentally ill
or psychotic? And I come back to where do you

(01:20:37):
see the difference? Because in the end, it is all
a product of the fallen nature, which you can always
baste back to the demonic fracture. And honestly, the really
the only thing that matters in these cases is which
is the better cure. So basically, we always go with

(01:20:58):
the clasic why not both why not? And it usually
is but we always go We always go with the
right there's always pastoral care, okay, and then we always
go with the psychological solution first. It's only after the
psychological solution repeatedly fails do we then explore an exclusively

(01:21:23):
religious one, which that's when we would start looking at
things like exorcism. And I'm talking solemn not the minor rights,
because minor rights is just another type of pastoral blessing.
And people think exorcism like this awful thing, like this,
it's a blessing. It's a different degrees, every single every
single one. You know, if you haven't been baptized, you

(01:21:45):
go to get baptized in the Catholic Church, you're gonna
be icy blessings. Blessing, yeah, but still a blessing.

Speaker 4 (01:21:52):
Even in Protestant churches. Most Protestant church is still in
the right of baptism includes an exorcism, right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. So it's like when
people ask me, when people ask me, like, you know,
or say that I'm being irresponsible by you know, by
by giving people a spiritual answer to a clearly mental
illness problem. And I'm saying, that's not at all what
I'm doing. I mean, And and tell me this, if

(01:22:22):
you might not be a person of faith, but maybe
they are. And what because their mental ill they don't
deserve blessings?

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
Yeah, are you telling me secular secular scientific research psychiatrists
and psychologists, Yes, recognize the effectiveness of exorcism. Yes, Now
they may explain it from the points of view if
the client is very religious and believes that this will
heal them, that's what heals them. But they don't care.

(01:22:50):
They still they still refer so that they still use
the church for that purpose. And so for an exorcist,
that's the ideal is you get a phone go from
a psychiatrist saying I've assessed this person and I think
they should have an exorcism. That's like perfect. Every bishop's
going to say yes to that exorism because the medical
profession is saying, please come and do this right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
And that has happened to us, you know, And there's
you know, if it gets the person, well what are
you bitching about? I mean, yeah, that's what they don't like.
And that's what I said. It's like, people are not
going to like this answer, but this is because it's true.
And people don't like the truth, but this is the truth.
You know. There isn't really a difference between the two.

(01:23:34):
It's really just what what is the better approach to
healing the individual? Sometimes that can be done. A lot
of it has to go with with where the trauma
comes from is the trauma largely internalized or has it
been externalized? There's two ways to deal with trauma psychologically,
all right, two ways. You can internalize it. That's what
most people do. That's when it becomes a neurosis or

(01:23:57):
it could even turn into a psychosis. It could, but
usually it's a type of neurotic behavior, an anxiety condition,
a depressive disorder, or any number of other things that
could manifest OCD, whatever. And that's what most people do.
They internalize. It becomes a mental illness. Okay, they become
they have a stress reaction. At the very least, they

(01:24:18):
get stressed out. Okay, even that is an internalization. So
if you've ever been stressed, if you find yourself dealing
with anxiety a lot, you're an internalizer. There are other
people that are externalizers. Okay. Now, sometimes externalization means they
go and they create victims so that they don't feel
like victims. This happens a lot with pedophiles. They go

(01:24:40):
and look for they've been abused. So now they go
and look to see if they can abuse someone so
that they can externalize the trauma and not have to
feel it inside. Okay, And it just creates obviously a
deeper problem, but they at the moment don't think so,
so they do it. That's one way. So that's a
very munch Dane way of doing it, horrible as it

(01:25:01):
is mundane. Nonetheless, there are people that it becomes an
internal projection into the external world, and that becomes the
rarer form that we would see as a thought form
of tulpa or even an eggrigor. And the more toxic
that trauma, the more likely it's going to resemble what

(01:25:26):
we would call a demon. So you were so people
will say, well, now you're saying demons don't exist. No,
I'm actually saying quite the opposite. This proves they exist,
but their nature is very different than what we've been taught.
You're thinking that demons are like some kind of thing
that was created outside of this reality and then sort

(01:25:47):
of affected this one after the fact. And it's like, well,
if that's true, you know, if that, if the Book
of Enoch was correct, then we're not really responsible for
the fall, are we? But if I don't take I
don't accept that answer. What I say is that that
there are two forces in the universe. Okay, there's creative force,

(01:26:11):
the Chinese called that young and there's the there's for
what for our purposes, the destructive force, but it's not
really destruction. It's more like reabsorptions, like the recycling system. Okay.
And that's what the Chinese would call the yen. So
you have yin and yang, right, and those two principles,

(01:26:33):
the passive and the active, the masculine and feminine, the
creative and and and the the the the internal intuitive, okay?
Are are these are what make up creation. This is
the fundamentals of Daoism. I think we're going to have
a Daoist on later in the season so we can
talk more about this. Yeah, so you know this is

(01:26:55):
this is how that works in that system, and it
perfectly applies here the Christian system the same way. But
what happens is when we when are egos, the fallen nature,
the broken fracture of God's creation, which is us all right,

(01:27:16):
comes in contact with these divine angelic, spiritual celestial forces.
These things fall through us, and this is where you
get a fallen angel. So where's the war in heaven?
It's right in here, Okay, That's where the war in
heaven was. And we are our fall is what brings

(01:27:38):
about the fall of these other forces. So now what
from our vantage point, what looks like, you know, the
good guys, the good angels. Okay, that's the creative side,
those celestial forces that build on the creative principle. They
are they govern the creative creative principle. They're the ones
that you know, we would equate to like Saint my Goal, Saint,

(01:28:01):
you know, Gabriel, Saint Raphael, the you know, the good guys, Okay,
you're Guardian Angel, all that stuff. The things that we
would call fall angels of the demonic are the forces
of the destructive or reabsorption principle of the universe interacting
with us. We were never supposed to interact with them.
The fallen nature fractures us to now we interact with

(01:28:21):
both sides of the universe, the creative and the destructive side,
and we were never supposed to interact with that side.
We were supposed to be in the perfect state of
e tropy, not entropy, ec tropy, the perfection of God,
the constant renewal of ourselves, and not be fractioned at all,
be whole. And this is this is ultimately the participation

(01:28:45):
of the demonic. So when you hear me say, and
this is perfect good Catholic theology. So what I'm talking
about is a lot of metaphysics with bishops Bishop Brian's
own personal model for describing it, with a lot of
really good, solid stuff traditional Catholic theology. So the Catholic
theology part of this is that the devil has no

(01:29:07):
power outside of that which you give him to act.
How do you think that's possible? If they were able
to fall themselves because they're jealous or they're angry and
they want to destroy God's creation making their own choices
in that sense, in the same way that we do,
they would be made in the image of God, which
we know they're not. Only we're making the image of God.

(01:29:28):
That's where they say they're jealous of us because we
get something special that they don't have. But what is
that special thing?

Speaker 4 (01:29:34):
Because they're super smart, they can in a sense, the
rejection of God means they can only make wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
Choices, only make wrong choices.

Speaker 4 (01:29:44):
But that's their hell, right, they can only make the
wrong choice every single time.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
Right, But it's only the reason it becomes a wrong
choice is because it has to intersect with the point
of reality, where choices can be made, and there's only
one place where choices can be made, and that's the
human condition. Because if you're in, if you're one part

(01:30:11):
of the reabsorption side of the cosmos, then destruction is
all there is. There's no other choice but to destroy.
If you're one hundred percent part of the creative side
of the universe, then there's you have no choice but
to create. You don't destroy, you only can. But we
can do both. We're the only thing in creation that
really can do both willfully. Yeah, animals can go and

(01:30:36):
and hunt and kill, but this is just them having
to survive through the fallen universe, and it's all instinctual.
They're not making choice now, they're not doing it. Maybe
a cat does. I think a cat might. He looks
at that mouse, He's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna fuck
with that thing. But mostly animals don't make choices. I
think they've been living with us too long. They're kind

(01:30:57):
of getting some of our some of our bleed over. Yeah,
a little bleed over, our of our of our free will.
But overall, you know, yes, your what father said is right.
They don't make choices. It's an instinctual part of the.

Speaker 4 (01:31:10):
Ask an agator, why it bit you.

Speaker 3 (01:31:12):
No, No, you know, I'm an alligator.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
But we can make choices. So if if the demonic
wants to act, it has to act through us. It
can't act on its own. And so that's what I
mean when I say they fall and resist it. That's
exactly right where they also the last line of defense

(01:31:35):
against the demonic because it has to begin and end
with us. It's going to go one way or the other.
And I think that's the easiest way to try to
understand and explain this. And it goes back to April's question.
Uh here, I believe that was April's question. You know
that what is the I d You know that they're

(01:31:56):
not they're not projecting different person personas as much as
they are fracturing the one that they've got. So instead
of having a you know, somewhat of a cohesive whole,
of an aggregate structure where there's a perfect ratio of
of of certain archetypes, they're breaking that ratio even further
into as as Jamie said, you know, taking a broken mirror,

(01:32:19):
taking the shards and then shattering them even again, and
now you even have more reflections that don't even show.

Speaker 3 (01:32:26):
The whole person be able to put together, and nor would.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
You be able to look into the fractures and be
able to even recognize who.

Speaker 3 (01:32:33):
You are because shadow, at some point shadow.

Speaker 2 (01:32:36):
You would see a shadow. And that's what people what
happens to.

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):
People, That's literally what happens to people in there. You know,
how many people do you find who are just complete
prisoners to but you know, their their own previous thoughts.
They're bitterness, they're over dwelling on wrongs done to them
by others. All see, it's so all of this makes

(01:33:02):
sense of what Jesus means when he says you have
to forgive others, like in the Lord's prayer, forgive us
our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us.
The reason to do that isn't for the.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Sake of them.

Speaker 4 (01:33:17):
It's for your sake, because it just chews you apart.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
Most people who were really.

Speaker 4 (01:33:21):
Screwed up and twisted and all the rest of it, Yeah,
they've done evil things. A lot of had evil things
done to them. And you know, when you actually encounter
someone who is malevolent, you know, maturity is understanding that
not everyone's your friend, not everyone's got your your best
interest at their heart, and so if you encounter a

(01:33:42):
malevolent person who damages you, the greater damage is how
much it twists your mind into not being able to
let go right, which is what forgiveness is correct.

Speaker 2 (01:33:55):
So all, yeah, this is.

Speaker 4 (01:33:56):
Really what you know, what you're describing is really important
because it's not just about I mean, you're using metaphysical
language to try and explain it, which is useful, But
this is not just some philosophical treatise. This really impacts
everyone's life all the time. And the heart of the
heart of the Gospel is to is to not to
resist encounter with damaging things, but to to see where

(01:34:22):
the resurrection is beyond the cross.

Speaker 2 (01:34:24):
I think for me it's about clarity. So I don't
reject anything that came before this. I just in the
true spirit of the Holy Spirit. I see that our
relationship with God evolves, it grows, it gets better every day.
And I think we're at a point in time where
you know, the fallen angel story worked for a while.

(01:34:47):
I think you know, the whole war in Heaven story
worked for a time. We always knew that that was
an allegory for something else, something that was largely different,
you know, impossible for the human mind to comprehend. But
because you know, we didn't have the tools of psychology
today or the writings of people like Carl Jung, you know.

(01:35:09):
And and so now we're at a point where we
can we can maybe update tell the same story, but
updated in a way that modern heirs can can comprehend
and and and receive it better. And and so that's why, yeah,
make connections. And that's why I use it this way.
I mean, if you look, if you are more comfortable
with the war in Heaven story, then stick with it.

(01:35:30):
If that speaks to you, if that helps, then go
with it. I never go into a client's home and
start talking about archetypes unless I feel that they're needing
that conversation. But I mean, most of the time when
people come to me, they think they have a demon
from the pits of Hell in there in their body,

(01:35:52):
and they want to be freed of this. And I
don't need to go into any details about the metaph
It's best I don't, right, I mean, it's just go
in there as the pastor and do my pastoral duty,
and we'd use the language of the church. It's what
they understand, and that's how we handle it. But that
doesn't mean that you know, I don't see the larger picture,

(01:36:13):
because I do, and this show is about the larger picture.
This show is not for clients. This show is for
those of you who are looking to enhance your understanding
of these things, and hopefully we have done that. So Brandon,
those are the questions from the ether. Is there anything
you'd like to add or anything I left out?

Speaker 5 (01:36:33):
No, there's gonna be a lot I'm gonna have to
memorize later and just.

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
Guess well, it's it's been archive for all posterity just now,
so you can always go back and reference this show
and listen to it as many times as you need to.
And that goes for all of you.

Speaker 4 (01:36:51):
I'm just I'll just have the thought that you know,
my children and hopefully grandchildren great grandchildren will actually be
able to watch videos of me being being this person.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
I mean, I think I think you're being a little
too a little too humble. There there could be you know,
great great great great great grandchildren that are watching this,
and it depends on how the digital age preserves what
we're creating.

Speaker 1 (01:37:18):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:37:19):
Well, I mean the problem with digital content is that
you know, it could get wiped out. There's nothing tangible.
But you know, with AI becoming what it is, maybe
one of the other good things that AI can do
is is better preserve everything so that it always gets
properly transferred to whatever new format exists, you know. I mean, look,

(01:37:43):
I took a whole lot of VHS tapes when I
was a kid with my video camera. I've transferred all
of them at one point to to DVDs, and now
they're all transferred to MP four MP four. Yeah, so
I've been mad annually preserving the content and transferring it

(01:38:03):
to the next format system. And I'm sure there'll be
something beyond that, you know, before I die, be a
new format that I'll have to transfer everything to. But
you know, maybe we'll get to a point where AI
does that automatically, and so these shows could be, you know,
watched by people a thousand years from now for all
we know, and it'll be very interesting to see what
they think of it. It could be curious, you know.

(01:38:27):
I'd love to say them too far. I don't think
we've done that. I don't think so I'd be more
likely to do that than you. I think all right,
do we have any questions in the chat so far?

Speaker 3 (01:38:44):
She asks, how is someone assigned or determined to be
or to become a saint?

Speaker 4 (01:38:52):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:38:52):
Okay, that's an interesting process in now again, just like
all things that we're talking about, divorce, Well, it's no different.
Orthodox Church is as much easier to become a saint.
They have a whole lot more of them as a
result of it than in the in the Catholic Church.
So let's let's let's clarify a few things. We'll talk
about it. It's true, true, but we'll talk about it

(01:39:16):
from the Roman, the Church of Rome perspective, which is
kind of the one that you know, we don't in
the nicolay and Church create saints, we don't canonize saints,
so we just go with whatever Rome goes. But and
we see the Eastern saints as saints too, so we
kind of see both sides here, and they both have
very different processes. Okay, it's very simple. In the Eastern Church,
they just kind of declare it, Bishop declares it, and

(01:39:38):
it's it's kind of done. But in the in the yeah,
I believe, so I believe, I believe, so, yeah, I
don't even think it has to go to the patriarchs.
I think it can just be done so in the
in the in the Church of Rome. It's it's a
it's a lengthy process. Okay, So generally how it starts

(01:39:58):
is that, well, let me start with a caveat first.
Just because a person is not a saint doesn't mean
that they're really not one. What I mean by that
is canonization doesn't really make you a saint. Attaining salvation
makes you a saint. It's just canonization is the church
recognizing that you made it. But there are yes, yes,

(01:40:21):
there are countless, countless, infinite number of people practically that
have attained salvation over the the history of humanity, or
at least you know, well yeah, because if you consider
the powering of Hell, then yet anybody before too. So
there's there's countless people that have attained to salvation that

(01:40:41):
we don't know their names. The church will never canonize
them because they don't know. But they're saints. Okay. So
saint is someone who attains salvation. That's the definition. Canonization
is the process of declaring that this specific person attained salvation.
And so that's the difference. So the church doesn't really
make saints. Attaining salvation makes a saint. So you basically

(01:41:05):
you work it out with Christ and through his grace
of the cross. If you if you did everything you
needed to do, then you basically become a saint through
your participation in the path of salvation. It simply means
someone who is in heaven. Yeah, it's the same. That's
the same thing exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:41:25):
But what the church has has a winnowing process of
you know, most people, I hope that my grandmother's a saint.
I hope she is. Yeah, I've got every reason to
hope that she is.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
But you know, but Lea's not going to come out
here and declear her a saint.

Speaker 4 (01:41:40):
That's the thing, No, because actually somebody living in Bangkok
doesn't need to particularly remember her life. And you know,
so there's all sorts of other caveats that go with it,
you know, lives that are of heroic virtue or that
have led to deepening of faith or teaching across the world.
You know, it's no different from you know, in the

(01:42:01):
honors system. I know you Americans are a bit queasy
about honors systems, but you know, if somebody's given a knighthood,
it's not well apart from the ones that get it
just for being a politician or donating.

Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
But but what they're really for.

Speaker 4 (01:42:14):
For people who have, you know, lived lives, community service
that loads of people do. But we're going to this person,
We're going to say we're going to give this person
a knighthood and make a big song and doubt about
it in many ways in recognition of the fact that
loads of other people do this as well. Yes, and
so that's really what the church is doing when they
declare a person a saint, is to say, look at

(01:42:35):
this life of virtue or success for the Gospel, wherever
it is. They personify what it means to be successful
in the life of faith, but also what many many
other people have done who have attained the path to sainthood.
And then I'll let you carry on. I'll answer the
rest of it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:54):
No, No, you're good, you're good. No, I mean, you
might even be to add a lot of questions. You
might be able to add a lot. So what I'm
about to say, so, yeah, that would be the next thing.
So basically what happens is there's usually a local interest
in a person that has had a meaningful impact on
a lot of lives, usually someone in the church, Okay,

(01:43:14):
someone that is a big part of the church and
has had a big impact on the church in their
local communities to the degree that they are well known
and have been recognized while they were alive for things
that they did. Think Mother Teresa as an example. Okay.
So what ends up happening is that people will eventually,

(01:43:36):
when that person dies, assuming they seem to or appear
to live what would be an exemplary moral life, they
people can make a petition to their local bishop to
have the person considered for beatification. Okay, And what will
happen is the bishop will take that petition if he

(01:43:57):
is in agreement with it, and it goes to a
special department at the Vatican where they then start to
explore and investigate the claim. Now, what usually is part
of this process also is that there's some type of
extraordinary aspect after they die, usually miracles, and as I recall,

(01:44:19):
the church looks to confirm three of them that I
think it's two two Now I thought it was three,
or maybe it's always been two. I couldn't tell you exactly,
but for some reason I remember three, but at least
two miracles then and uh. And then at that point,

(01:44:41):
you know, that would be where people have already started
praying for the intercession of this person, and some miraculous
event took place as the result of it that other
people can confirm. So the church investigates.

Speaker 4 (01:44:54):
It's not so much about the miracle but the fact
that people are in fact seeking the intercession of Yes,
that people in the community are seeking the intercession of
somebody tells you they're already held in very high esteem.

Speaker 2 (01:45:08):
Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, so there's like something going on there.

Speaker 4 (01:45:11):
It's a bit bottom up, really, it is.

Speaker 2 (01:45:13):
And they were also looking to investigate to make sure
the person did indeed live the exemplary life that is
fitting of of a of a saintly figure. For again,
not necessarily because they attained salvation, as much as the
church recognizing that this would be a person that did
and and the miracle aspect of it is important on

(01:45:38):
that basis because what canonization ultimately is, and that's what
it is. You start with beatification, you work your way up,
you know, venerable, beautified, you know, be outified, and then
all the way to to to saint, which is canonization.
But what you're really trying to look for is to
the Church is trying to determine that this person is

(01:45:59):
has indeed made it. They are in the Church triumphant.
And one of the ways the Church Triumphant interacts with
us is through the extraordinary expression of grace in intercession.
And so the miracles become important for the basis to
say that, Okay, this person we investigated, they lived an
exemplary life. You know, there's this local they call it

(01:46:21):
a cult. It's don't think of it as like a
cult of of not a modern cult. Not a modern cult.
The original meaning of the war, which is a cult.
You know, when you had a following of people that
were you know, uh interested in a in a particular
individual that was that was a cult was buildings how

(01:46:44):
they would say that, And so you have the you
have the cult present. It's active. You have people making
lots of claims about this person the Church investigates they
lived the moral, morally exemplary life they were.

Speaker 4 (01:46:57):
You know, I think just inter on that what we
mean by morally exemplary isn't that they were perfect?

Speaker 2 (01:47:04):
Yeah right, yeah, it means that in the end that
you know.

Speaker 4 (01:47:08):
So Central Gustin, for example, was a shocking sinner. Some
ambrose too, but they had this encounter and change their lives.

Speaker 2 (01:47:16):
St. Paul.

Speaker 4 (01:47:17):
St. Paul murdered the early followers of Jesus, persecuted Christians.

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
But there's there's a point of conversion there. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:47:26):
So they actually reach a point of encounter with Christ
and it makes a difference in their life to their
virtue and for the virtue of others.

Speaker 2 (01:47:36):
So maybe they killed people, but by the time they died,
they had converted, and there's proof of that, is what
I'm saying. What we're looking at. Okay, And so as
long as all those things check out and you know,
then the process goes through. And then several years later,
though some popes try to expedite it, and you know,

(01:47:56):
if there's a lot of interest, alexpe, I think Pope
John Paul the Second know made it to spinion far
too fast fast. Yeah, I think there should be a
two hundred year waiting minimum. And honestly, I I I
actually had reservations about that declaration, I do.

Speaker 4 (01:48:14):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:14):
I I'm sure he would have too, Yeah, I'm sure
he would have. My problem was largely how he handled
a lot of the the the church abuse scandals, and
you know, indirectly, perhaps maybe not directly so much, but
indirectly did not do enough, I think, to to find

(01:48:36):
remove these people and and and and get them out
of of where they could harm others. I I find
I kind of find him a bit complicit in that.
Maybe that's the judgment I shouldn't be making. I don't know,
but I don't think even if there's speculation, that that
makes really a good saint to canonize.

Speaker 4 (01:48:55):
But people love I just canonizing somebody who who people
knew or were related to in living memory, it's just
a bad idea, you know. I mean, you know it
to reason of Calcutta. I mean, I don't doubt that.
I don't doubt that she's in heaven, and I don't
doubt that her life is worthy of imitation and that
she should be a saint. But you know, I knew

(01:49:17):
people that knew Mother Theresa, and they said, bloody ell,
she was a difficult woman, you know, I know what
she had to do, you know, and like none of
that detracts from the fact that someone could be a saint.
I don't misunderstand me, but I just think when people
know you in living memory, it makes life difficult because

(01:49:37):
with that and people can always commit calumny, right, So
you know, someone's made a saying, oh I knew that
bloke and needed this to me. Well, actually, if they
make him a saint long after you're dead, that can't happen, right,
And I think that's what I'm really saying. I just
think that it just doesn't make sense for me to
and to expedite John Paul the second. If they're going

(01:49:58):
to then that draws the question, and so what about
Pious the twelfth? Then I think he should be a saint.
I think he is a saint. If we're going to
start expedising people within living memory, then I'd start with
him and not jump all the second.

Speaker 2 (01:50:12):
And then let's let's just canaize, let's just Canon and
his father Chris, and start doing people while they're alive,
you know, I mean, you see, I just.

Speaker 4 (01:50:26):
Think there should just be a two hundred year full stop.
Nothing can happen for tw hundred years.

Speaker 2 (01:50:31):
I think that's not a bad idea, you know. But again,
the Church, like everything in the West, makes a big
production out of everything, and the in the Eastern Church
it's it's a much more subdued affair. It's not seen
with the same grandeur celebrity culture. Not celebrity culture exactly exactly.
It's just you know, a formal recognition for a life

(01:50:52):
well lived. And it's just that, you know, and that's
all it really is. People make me It becomes a
bit problem because sometimes Catholics have a tendency that's maybe
so much the younger ones, but the older ones definitely
put too much emphasis on the saints, almost to the point.

Speaker 4 (01:51:11):
It can be a distraction from the Gospel.

Speaker 2 (01:51:13):
Yes, like they just feel that you know, they'll they'll,
they'll they'll be saying these novenas to Saint Jude or something,
rather than just you know, realizing that all of that
grace comes from Christ and and you know, it's it's
we don't have to be solitary focused on Yeah it was, Yeah,

(01:51:36):
it was.

Speaker 4 (01:51:36):
You're right and was right to you know, I mean,
and you know a lot of the Reformers, you know,
although I'm not a Protestant, but you know, the source
of a lot of the contention of the Protestant Reformation
were right. You know. I mean, you know, when if
you're at risk of idolatry, you know, let me go

(01:51:57):
and get a vial of the blessed version is breast filled.
That is a that is a problem. That is a problem,
and human beings have we have that like relics is
relics can be a problem. Right, I'm all for relics. Right,
I'm all for relics. I've got them in context. This
is not a talisman. This is not I'm not worshiping
this instead of God. This is a kind of reminder

(01:52:19):
that you know, of those that have gone before us.
The healthy integration of relics.

Speaker 3 (01:52:23):
Help me focus.

Speaker 4 (01:52:24):
I can see how relics can very easily become a distraction.

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Yeah, I mean crucifixes can become distractions. Holy water. People
can make too much out of these things, metals of
the saints.

Speaker 3 (01:52:37):
You know, it gives yourself in tangible to focus on.
But yeah, you think that it's gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
I know people that.

Speaker 4 (01:52:49):
You know, the answers and whitewashed walls, constants go to
the extreme where they go, well we have any of
that stuff. Well, actually there's a sort of superstition in
that as well. If you can't actually, if you can
integrate into your life, you know, objects, objects of faith. Yeah,
then I think I think your faith is pretty weak,
and and you're just going to have other objects like

(01:53:10):
a drum kit and an electric guitar for example, that
will end up becoming that that focus of worship.

Speaker 2 (01:53:16):
You know. I know people that.

Speaker 5 (01:53:19):
God, don't forget the giant flight screen TVs that you
have to have. Don't forget those.

Speaker 2 (01:53:24):
Yeah, I know people that are bouncing the lyrics. I
know people that won't leave the house without you know,
a crucifix on around their neck, and and and and
they really feel like, oh, I need I'm not protected
without this, And it's it's like you're you're you know
that you're missing the point. You know, what is your faith?

(01:53:44):
Is your faith in the object or is your faith
in what the object represents? You know, people should wear
a crucifix around their neck as a as a declaration
of their faith, saying that this is this is a
mark that you know that I proudly take with me
because I am aligned to this path. It isn't you know,

(01:54:09):
like you said, a talisman to ward off the demons
that could be hiding around the corner. And when I'm
walking around out in the real world, you know, and
I think that's that's people do you're.

Speaker 4 (01:54:19):
Not willing to give an account for your faith to
people in the world, don't.

Speaker 2 (01:54:22):
Wear one, right, And that's exactly right, because that's the
whole point.

Speaker 4 (01:54:26):
You know, that's a sign that somebody can talk to
you about the gospel and also expect you to display
gospel living. Yes, now we all thought, we all fail
at that that. You know, just because you fail doesn't
mean you shouldn't do it. But you know your intentions
should be deliberate. You know, even though I'm going to fail,
I'm wearing this symbol as a sign of faith. We've

(01:54:48):
all got it indelibly marked on our heads anyway from baptism.
But you know, to wear that overtly is not an
act of like you know, I've got a nice diamond
encrusted gold cross that people we can admire. So it's
not a fashion item, nor is it a talisman. It's
actually it's a statement of intent to yourself that you're
willing to live the crucified life and give witness to

(01:55:11):
it by living. But also somebody wants to talk to
you about it.

Speaker 2 (01:55:15):
Yeah, I agree, I agree. So that's an imitation the
long answer to how a saint is made. That's our
next question, how you do it? I told you it
was a lot of process. I told you it was
a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:55:31):
But the important thing to know is it's grassroots up
and that's that's that's true in the East and the
Western Church. It is it is in fact, from from
the laity upwards. Really, you know, I mean, I'll give
you a concrete example of this would be since John
Henry Newman was canonized. Okay, he was a Church of

(01:55:53):
England vicar who converted to Catholicism, which meant in his
era he lost his job because he worked at the
University of Oxford and if you weren't an Anglican you
couldn't be a lecturer at the university or so eighteen
thirty seven the Emancipation of Catholics Act, that was true
for every public office in England. So you know, he

(01:56:14):
gave up a lot to convert. He ended up a
cardinal and you know, did a lot of good both
as an Anglican and as a Catholic. Wrote amazing books.
So you know he would have had a popular cause
for canonization that came from both the Church of England
and the Catholic Church in England. And so you know,
people were reading his stuff and talking about him. He

(01:56:36):
had a massive impact on Catholic life in the nineteenth
century and into the twentieth century.

Speaker 2 (01:56:42):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:56:46):
From the grassroots up really there was this sort of
call to have him recognized, and the church says, yeah,
he is an important figure, like this is this is
somebody that's worth putting in the calendar because he actually
was a conjurit for any Protestants becoming Catholics in England,
where where the Reformation had a massive effect, and so

(01:57:07):
there's both a sort of church political cause, but it
came from the grassroots. And then eventually there were miracles
attributed to him. I think one was in America because
he was only canonized under Benedict so relatively recently, and
I think it was it was it a deacon of
the church who had his spine heeled or something like

(01:57:29):
that through intercessions. So that you know, that's an example
of how that's worked in recent practice, but really important
to stress that it really is from the ground up
the canonization process. We get the Latin phrase sank to subuto.
Now you know, it's always the people that call that,

(01:57:49):
it's not it's not the pope that does that right,
It's not the bishops that do that.

Speaker 2 (01:57:52):
If people don't realize that, you know, from the outside
looking in. I don't think they necessarily understand that about
the process, but that is important that it does. It
starts with the people, you know. All right, let's before
we take any more questions, let's just take the top
of the hour break since we're close enough to it,
and when we come back here more of your questions.
Start asking them now, put them into the chat and

(01:58:13):
our moderators will get them over to us. We'll also
be taking your calls when we come back. No go away.

Speaker 6 (01:59:02):
By it.

Speaker 1 (01:59:23):
It's to say an Ana explain to the.

Speaker 8 (02:01:17):
The the.

Speaker 6 (02:01:37):
The body o a.

Speaker 1 (02:02:31):
Very un gives the very game plastiss schools, schools as

(02:03:59):
the game to the Ta speaks spects, episode.

Speaker 8 (02:05:51):
Stops nothing.

Speaker 2 (02:06:52):
Bob, Welcome back everyone to the third and final hour

(02:07:47):
of Vestiges after dark. We are taking your questions. If
you have any, put them into the chat, or you
can call into the show at two O seven five
four nineteen eighty three. That's two oh seven five four
four nineteen eighty three. We lost Skype turned into teams,

(02:08:08):
and teams has locked me out. I haven't been able
to get back into the account, so we can't take
any international calls for free. Of course, you are welcome
to call two O seven five four nineteen eighty three.
If you want to make the call from another country.
That's fine. Some of you have like like little plans,
you know, it's a little you know, international plans. It's fine.

(02:08:30):
But anyway, that's the only way I can take international
calls right now. Otherwise you can ask your questions in
the chat and our moderators will find them and bring
them to our attention. That's it where to come, they'll
go away?

Speaker 1 (02:09:27):
Is it only?

Speaker 2 (02:09:33):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (02:09:33):
The non?

Speaker 6 (02:09:39):
Is?

Speaker 4 (02:09:39):
That?

Speaker 1 (02:09:45):
Is it? Non?

Speaker 2 (02:10:15):
I want to give a good big thank you to
Mystic for the five dollars five pound I should say
super chat. I want to make clear though I should
mention this I forgot to do. So I set up
the super chat function on the YouTube channel last show,
and I realized, I don't even know where this money goes.

(02:10:36):
I don't know how do I collect it. And so
I went in and found where you do this and
they hold the money until you provide your tax information.
So I submitted the tax information for the church, and

(02:10:56):
I perceived a rejection back in email, stating that they
can't process this because the name on the tax information
is different from the name on the YouTube channel. So understand,
I created this YouTube channel when YouTube came out and

(02:11:19):
I wasn't even a deacon, let alone a let alone
a bishop. Back then, I wasn't running a church this
just because because it was the only channel I had,
the only YouTube account I had. When I started doing
church things, I just started using this channel and then
it kind of grew into what it is now. So

(02:11:40):
as of right now, it's looking like I'm going to
have to submit my personal tax data in order to
get the money out of the account. So what that
means is, if you're giving me a super chat, you're
given a gift to me because it's my taxes that
I have to pay taxes on that matter. So think

(02:12:01):
of it as a tip to me, not a donation
to the church. If you want to donate to the church,
then use the donation button, the QR code on the screen,
or the links that our moderators put in the chat
that goes to the church. If you want to give
a tip to me, use the super chat until I
can figure out how to switch it over. I'm not
sure I can. I haven't had a chance to sit

(02:12:23):
down and look at it, but I thought it was
only fair to mention that to you because I don't
take any money from the church, you know, and I
don't want you to think that you're giving donations to
the church when they're actually going to me. And I
have to pay taxes on the money that you submit
through the super chats, so it's up to you. Guys.

(02:12:45):
You don't have to give super chats until I fix it,
but I'll leave it up there if you want to
do it. Right now, I still can't.

Speaker 4 (02:12:51):
Get the money offd Way to get a must tip ends.

Speaker 2 (02:12:53):
I mean, you know, it would be I could say, hey,
look I'm finally getting paid. You know. Well, I'll try
not to, you know, I'll try scotch.

Speaker 5 (02:13:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:13:07):
Yeah, goodness.

Speaker 3 (02:13:10):
We have a really good question. I think we've discussed
it before, but it's it's something that a lot of people,
a lot of people have concerns about, and I gotta
scroll back up to see it. It's from Ace, Okay,
Baptism as a child. My wife thinks we should allow
our children to grow old enough to become aware of

(02:13:30):
the decision they are making by receiving baptism any different viewpoints,
perhaps to expand her knowledge and clear any confusion.

Speaker 2 (02:13:37):
Oh yeah, this is definitely something to clear up, because
first of all, by saying that, lets let's let's deal
with the heart of the issue and the heart of
the problem first, and then we'll talk about, you know,
how to make this work theologically? The issue is this? Okay,
actually this is a theological answer. So here you go.

(02:14:01):
What makes you think that your intention, your cognition, has
any effect on the grace that Christ can give you.
If you think that you have to be aware of
it in order to get it, then what about mentally
retarded people? I mean, I know that that people like

(02:14:23):
that term, but it is a medical term and I
came from the time where we used it, you know,
mental retardation. Okay, they might not be fully cognizant, but
they don't get the grace of Christ because they don't
fully understand it. I really have a problem with people
that take that position because you're depriving a child of

(02:14:45):
essential grace and just because you're giving it, you understand it. Yeah,
you would think, right, yeah, do any of us? Nobody
could nobody possibly could you can't understand grace, right, So
the other issue here is that why would you deprive
someone of grace? Baptizing someone doesn't force them into anything.

(02:15:10):
They can grow up and choose to live some other
life if they want to. But if they choose to
live the life of the church, now they've got the
grace and they've had it all along and you're deprived
of exactly because that's the whole point of it. It
is it is. So that's the largest argument here is
that when you say that the person needs to understand

(02:15:32):
what they're receiving, then you're saying that you have the
power to grant salvation, not God. That's exactly what.

Speaker 4 (02:15:38):
It's the same thing as saying, do you need to
ask your baby what food you should give in? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:15:43):
I mean you're you're their caretakers. They can't they can't
make decisions on their own.

Speaker 2 (02:15:47):
Oh, there's people you're going to change their.

Speaker 3 (02:15:49):
Their poopy diaper, right, you're not going to ask them permissions.

Speaker 2 (02:15:52):
I saw. I don't want to go off on this tangent,
but we might. I saw the most ridiculous argument for
I don't remember who it was because it was so stupid.

Speaker 3 (02:16:01):
I had bashing the question.

Speaker 2 (02:16:03):
No, no, I'm not bashing this person, but I'm saying
that I saw, I saw I saw this, this this
person that was arguing that you needed to ask the
permission of the baby to change the diaper. Because that's
where I got what you're talking about. Yeah, you know
what I'm talking about. I don't remember who it was.

Speaker 3 (02:16:22):
That's why I brought it up.

Speaker 2 (02:16:23):
I mean it, Oh we did, Yeah, I guess it
was okay, I don't remember if we had talked about.

Speaker 1 (02:16:28):
It or not.

Speaker 2 (02:16:29):
I can go, I can go one better than that.

Speaker 4 (02:16:31):
I saw a woman who was advertising for a pet groomer.
You might be able to identify with this bishop a
pet groomer because they were finally a challenge to find
a pet groomer, because they insisted that that that that
dog could only be brushed if it consented to, which

(02:16:51):
meant that some eye contact.

Speaker 2 (02:16:54):
But you know, it's like, oh God, grooms would never
get done if that were the kid.

Speaker 4 (02:17:02):
The booking.

Speaker 2 (02:17:05):
You know, it gets it gets crazy.

Speaker 3 (02:17:08):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:17:08):
I'm not arguing that that this this person is making
those clues that it can go down and go down
that road. And that's why I want I hopefully as
an argument, you can see how how much of a
disservice it is when you take that as you.

Speaker 3 (02:17:25):
Want to make good decisions for your child as the
parent to vouch for them until they are old enough
to either use the baptism or not.

Speaker 2 (02:17:36):
The other thing to take it to mind is that
the church, and the Church expects that if you are
a practicing member of the church in good standing, it
is your parental obligation to pass it on to your children.
They don't have to take it when they grow up.

(02:17:56):
They don't have to keep doing it. Look at look
at the last generation. Practically every baby boomer gave it up. Okay,
But the fact of the matter is you are obligated
as a Christian parent to do this. It's not a
choice that you have to make. I mean, you're not
living the Christian life if you are not passing it
on to your children. If they're rejected, that's on them.

(02:18:18):
But you did everything you were supposed to do to
give them the best chance they could at developing this
relationship with to Christ that the Church provides. So that's
the best answer I can give you. Father. I just
want to be and you were being too.

Speaker 4 (02:18:37):
I just want to be fair to the to the
questionnaire because there's obviously like there are different opinions within uh,
you know this believers baptism, which a lot of Protestants,
not all, by the way, a lot of a lot
of like Presbyterians bat sized babies, Anglicans batsized babies, So

(02:18:59):
it's not Protestant necessarily thing, but there is believers baptism,
I think. So I want to acknowledge that there are
different practices within the church. And you know, from my
point of view, like in more traditional churches, Catholic Church,
Orthodoxy churches, many Anglican churches, we also have confirmation, right,
and so that's what yeah, and Marina mentioned it in

(02:19:25):
the chat in the chat, so yes, it's true, that
is what confirmations for. But if somebody is coming, like
if your if your wife is from a is from
a different tradition that doesn't doesn't have that, it can
be helpful to explain the sort of that dynamic to say,
actually back because from a theological point of view, baptism
is about the removal original sin, you know, so baptism

(02:19:47):
is what is what lays the ground for a life
free of the burdens of the past.

Speaker 2 (02:19:55):
Yeah, why would you deprive someone of them? Why would
you not want that? So but you know, again, to
be fair to the to the right, we don't know
the dynamics.

Speaker 4 (02:20:04):
Spouse, he's got to argue with.

Speaker 3 (02:20:07):
Yeah, don't don't you ask your wife?

Speaker 2 (02:20:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's to.

Speaker 4 (02:20:11):
Say, look, we still acknowledge that baptism is just literally
the sort of the introductory right, literally the introductory right.
And so this doesn't this doesn't take away from the
fact that they will have to affirm that faith as
their own or reject it in their own lives. And

(02:20:32):
so if you're both Catholics, Ace, I've just seen him
put Yeah, if you both lose Catholics, then the answer,
the answer to the question is the Catholic Church says
you should definitely outsize your children, you should raise them
as Catholics or you know, and hopefully they will choose
to confirm their faith. And actually, I don't like the

(02:20:55):
whole Oh let's get confirmed when they're in eighth grade.
I don't like that.

Speaker 2 (02:21:00):
I think you like the Orthodox way all at once.

Speaker 4 (02:21:03):
Well, in terms of the I think I think confirmation
is a sacrament in search for theology. To be honest,
but for that reason, I don't think they should have
should have been separated. But what I mean is because
confirmation has taken the role of essentially an affirmation of faith.
When you when you you know, have your own mind
and your own will take on your own will. I
think in many ways it should be later.

Speaker 2 (02:21:26):
That's why a lot of these churches got rid of confirmation,
because they integrated it into the understanding into baptism where
it shouldn't have been there. But yeah, just as a
as a as an extra interest for those since we've
been talking a lot about East and West tonight, in
the Roman Catholic Church and the Catholic traditions in the
independent sacramentums, largely baptism is done when, you know, soon

(02:21:50):
after birth, you know, a few weeks when the baby's
ready to start going out in the world, and you
know about you know, maybe about a month after the days, yeah,
forty days, yeah uh, and then first communion would generally
come next the next that's the second sacrament of initiations.
What about seven, that's about six or seven, yes, I'm
about seven years old. And then the third and final

(02:22:14):
sacrament of initiations, confirmation, which uctually takes place around like thirteen.

Speaker 1 (02:22:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:22:20):
In the Protestant Church, I was fourteen.

Speaker 2 (02:22:22):
Fourteen, thirteen fourteen, yeah, so but in the Eastern Church,
and babies get it all at once. So babies go
to communion and babies received confirmation at their bats.

Speaker 4 (02:22:36):
Theology, by the way.

Speaker 2 (02:22:39):
Like the community or the confirmation are both well.

Speaker 4 (02:22:43):
The baptism is fundamentally joining the church. And so you know,
baptism confirmation in EU christ were not separated. They became
separated in the Western Church more for pastoral reasons than
for theological reasons. So you know, I'm not a big
I support the theology of the East or the Eastern practice.

(02:23:05):
Of course, you know Eastern right Catholics do the same.
The Catholic Church doesn't allow way, so I think that
makes more sense to me. But you know that then
comes the question for the Orthodox, well what then, what?
At what point do they sort of affirm the faith
as their own. But a lot of Orthodox would say,
I don't know what you mean by that.

Speaker 2 (02:23:28):
We in the Nicolean Church, we we we follow a
lot of Eastern practices, but that's not one of them.
I mean, we do part of that.

Speaker 4 (02:23:38):
So we do hard to do in the Western Church.

Speaker 2 (02:23:40):
We do baptism and first Eucharist together, but confirmation we
reserve for when they are able to be catechized and
understand the faith. And we see that as more as
the maturing into the faith. And it's also important to
note confirmation is not an essential sacrament. It's a reinforce one.
It is not a necessary one for salvation, Eucharist and.

Speaker 4 (02:24:04):
Baptist people in the Western right, even in the modern Roman.

Speaker 2 (02:24:08):
Rite, Well, you're getting the Holy Spirit. You are getting
the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 4 (02:24:13):
We al we put the other Chrism on their head.

Speaker 2 (02:24:16):
What is that? Well, that's true and and yeah, I mean,
in a way, you know, it is. It is a
continuation of that. I think kind of like I guess,
you know, not terribly different that the last rites and
and unction are kind of the same, you know, sacrament,
you know, I mean, it's just different parts of the

(02:24:37):
same sacrament. I think you're right. I think confirmation is
basically an extension about I.

Speaker 4 (02:24:41):
Once challenge an Anglican visue on this, because, of course,
in the Roman Catholic Church, the ability to confirm can
be delegated to priests and often is, you know, especially
in Australia, because Tony of distance and all the rest
of it. But of course for Anglicans, ironically, because because
they didn't have Vatican two, it's pertain to the bishop.

(02:25:02):
And I remember having this conversation with the bishop, and
I mean, basically the indignation was, well, what would I do,
you know, like, what would.

Speaker 2 (02:25:13):
Be the point of me if you could all do this?

Speaker 4 (02:25:15):
And I thought, well, that's a good question.

Speaker 2 (02:25:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean there you go. So yeah, I
think it's I mean, it's a good it's a good question,
and I hopefully I didn't answer it too harshly. It's
it's in your context, in the context of ace. In
your context, I would say that that you're coming at it,
You're you're coming at it from a better angle than
usually when I get this question, because most of the

(02:25:39):
time when I get this question, I'm getting it from
the angle of people who are nonpracticing who object to
their baptizing their kids just on the basis that they
don't want to choose their child's religion. And I kind
of as a as a as a person that has

(02:26:00):
to deal with the consequences of the problems that that causes,
which lead to any number of severe spiritual disorders. It's
such an easy thing that could fix as a as
a proactive primary prevention technique that people just don't see
any value in. And now you know, now I have

(02:26:21):
to deal with demonic attachments and everything else as the
result of it, which do in fact happen because this
is not being done and anywhere near the number that
it that it used to, and so it's a different
type of demand attached. You're not.

Speaker 4 (02:26:34):
You're not baptized into a denomination either. Right If a
Baptist converts to the church and they've been baptized, they're
not baptized again as long as the baptism is valid,
you know valid. It could can be seem to have
been done in the name.

Speaker 2 (02:26:51):
Of the file and it has been trinitarian.

Speaker 4 (02:26:53):
Yeah, you're not, So you're not baptized into denomination. The
problem is that a lot of a lot of strange
evangelical groups, you know, baptized people as many times as
they have days in their lives you've converted towards will
baptize you. That's that's that's actually not the doction of baptism,

(02:27:14):
certainly not the doction of baptism. Ace that you and
your wife are loosely affiliated with in the Catholic Church,
and so you're not baptized into denomination. You hear people say, oh,
but I was baptized Presbyterian, I was baptized Anglican. No,
you weren't. You're baptized into the Church of God. There's
only one. And that's not to say that's the Roman
Catholic Church. I'm not making that claim. I'm just saying
there is only one church in a universe, in a

(02:27:36):
in a true sense, the Church of Christ. And wherever
you were baptized, as long as it and whoever did it,
as long as it was in the name of the
Fathers and hoarly spirit with water, you are baptized.

Speaker 2 (02:27:46):
Yeah, absolutely, And to any and to any denomination. Yeah,
it's not denominational. That's very true. And and that's kind
of a reciprocity I think we have with most denominations.
Not Orthodox, ironically Orthodox will rebaptize you because I don't
think they see Catholic baptists valid, but.

Speaker 4 (02:28:06):
They just they just see so looser to the rules,
Like if they if they could be certain that every
Catholic priest did exactly what the Catholic Rights says, they.

Speaker 2 (02:28:17):
Would accept they worry about that.

Speaker 4 (02:28:18):
We all know, we all know that that's that's not.

Speaker 2 (02:28:21):
Been the case.

Speaker 4 (02:28:22):
Like there was a priest here in Brisbane, I've said
this on the show before who was baptizing people in
the name of the Creator, Redeemer.

Speaker 2 (02:28:30):
And san Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:28:31):
Yeah, and and priests had to be reordained. Yeah, because
they were baptized like that, became priests and then found
out their baptism.

Speaker 2 (02:28:42):
Was not, which means all the sacraments they had been
performing in their career prior to that were invalid too.
So it becomes this chain reaction. That's when you have
to depend on the grace of Christ. Right, and we
have this thing called baptism by desire, you know, which
covers some of the bases here. You know, I would
say that baptism by why.

Speaker 4 (02:29:04):
The Orthodox don't take any chances. They just yeah, they go, well,
it can't do any harm, you know, It's almost it's
almost conditional baptism.

Speaker 2 (02:29:13):
Yeah, almost, But in some ways I don't think they
see it that way. They kind of take it as
like it's only valid this way. But anyway, there you go,
there's the answer. Any other questions, So I have one, Yeah, we.

Speaker 5 (02:29:29):
Had mentioned earlier in the show talking about like archetypes
and God's language being archetypal, And before I found this church,
I'd never heard of that. So my question would be,
when did this notion or when did the idea that
God's language is archetypal? When did it originate? Was it
within the early Church fathers or was it later.

Speaker 2 (02:29:52):
It's not really part of the Church tradition. It's more
so part of the Western history tradition, of which of
course were made up of people from the Church, but
not really part of the not really, it wasn't like

(02:30:13):
a part of the magisterium that comes up with these
concept This is part of the Western mystery tradition, which
is the foundation of the esoteric well, I mean Western occultism. Essentially.

Speaker 4 (02:30:28):
You could make an argument though that certainly, you know,
traditional Catholic teaching is to talk about the types and shadows.
I mean, this language has got a dodgy anti Semitic history,
and so I'm being careful about this because I certainly
I'm not an anti semi But the types and shadows

(02:30:51):
of the Old Testament being fulfilled.

Speaker 2 (02:30:53):
In the New Oh, there's no question about it.

Speaker 4 (02:30:56):
And this is why the idea of the idea of
archetypes is ancient, you know, as old as the Church
in terms of you know St. Paul is doing this
in the Lessons of the Romans.

Speaker 2 (02:31:06):
It is, but it wasn't it wasn't really it was.
It was developed into the Western mystery tradition because those
that were were knowledgeable of such in such things, being
theologically educated, philosophically educated, these these people that made up

(02:31:27):
you know, the Church establishment, would have been able to
recognize and say, this is what's going on here. A
lot of it just comes back to Plato and and
and his in his concept. So you're talking about a
very ancient thing that evolved and it what it really
didn't start being called archetypes until Carl Jung, you know.
So it's a process. There's really no one origin point.

(02:31:50):
It's different points being brought together into a understanding. But
as far as God speaking through these principles, so these
universal principles that make up creation, I mean, that's his
agent as it gets because ultimately that is the foundation
of animism, is the idea that creation is alive, everything

(02:32:13):
has spirit. You know, you don't worship it. It's not pantheism.
You don't worship it like they would. You don't worship creation.
You see it as it's not God. But God is
within it. It doesn't make it God though, you know,
just like you don't worship yourself. You're a temple for
the Holy Spirit, but you don't worship you don't worship yourself.

(02:32:34):
You don't worship other people. You know, it's the same thing,
same principle here is that God is separate, that's the entity,
that's the the eternal reality that is worthy of all adoration.
But you know, He is present in all things, and
there are processes through which that came about. So the

(02:32:57):
Western mystery tradition isolated this and that's where eventually we
got the tarot. You know, tarot is made up by Christians.
I hate to break it to the Pagans who think
they got something special there, but you know that was
the Christians that came up with that too. And there
the Western mystery tradition, which is sort of the foundation
of modern paganism and witchcraft and wick and all that

(02:33:18):
all comes well, comes from the Church, it does. Yeah,
it all comes from the Church. You're just taking stuff
from the church, you know, You're it is it just
wasn't official theological doctrine because that's not the point of theological.

Speaker 4 (02:33:36):
And actually, not only did it not need to be,
then it doesn't need to be.

Speaker 2 (02:33:39):
Now that's right, it doesn't because it's a way of
understanding it. Because I mean, see, this is this is
like there are religions where metaphysics is far more important
than theology. Buddhism is one of them. That's why Buddhism,
and I've said this before, Buddhism has a far more
advanced metaphysics than Christianity does, far more advanced. However, that

(02:34:00):
being said, you don't need metaphysics for salvation. You need
good theology for salvation, okay, And so the church focuses
on that which the church is set up to do.
The church is not here to teach you metaphysics. The
church is here to make the path of salvation.

Speaker 4 (02:34:18):
It's quite minimal and it should be. Yeah, you know,
And it's why the pope isn't a politician. I mean,
obviously you just had an election, so everybody, everybody, it's
hot on everybody's mind, Oh what does he think about this?
And it doesn't matter, It doesn't matter. And that's why
you like there's two minimum requirements to be the pope,
be a male and be baptized.

Speaker 2 (02:34:40):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (02:34:41):
I mean, now they are chosen from the cardinals.

Speaker 2 (02:34:44):
Well, they'll be ordained. They will be ordained almost immediately
if if they were to they won't. But if they
were to choose a person that's not that's laity, which
they could do. It's valid to do and have done
in the past. Yeah, a long time ago. But they
you know, but they will be immediately, like they will

(02:35:05):
be ordained deacon, priest, bishop like like that. Yeah, it
will be a fast process through all three levels of
holy orders.

Speaker 4 (02:35:14):
I think there was one that he was elected and
before they could get round to ordaining him, he died.
So we have had one lay pope.

Speaker 2 (02:35:21):
That's interesting.

Speaker 4 (02:35:22):
That was never ordained.

Speaker 2 (02:35:23):
That's interesting. I don't know who that is. Do you
know the name?

Speaker 4 (02:35:26):
I can't remember. I think he was one of the Adrians.

Speaker 2 (02:35:29):
I'll have to look at it wasn't. It wasn't that
Pope Joan wasn't.

Speaker 8 (02:35:36):
Let's not go.

Speaker 2 (02:35:42):
There was a few anti popes in the in history.
They're kind of interesting. But yeah, there you go. So Brandon,
it's yeah. To answer the question, it's not part of
church tradition. It's it's extended.

Speaker 5 (02:35:57):
Chris, I think the pop you're referred to is Stephen
the Second, who march in seven fifty two days later
before he could be ordained as a bishop.

Speaker 2 (02:36:10):
That sounds like, yeah, I'm remembering, so.

Speaker 4 (02:36:12):
I think that's probably him.

Speaker 2 (02:36:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:36:14):
Did he pass away naturally or did he get a
little help?

Speaker 2 (02:36:16):
I think.

Speaker 3 (02:36:19):
Took him out replace him.

Speaker 2 (02:36:25):
I love The Last Kingdom, by the way, I just
think that's the most brilliant show.

Speaker 5 (02:36:30):
It says he it says he died of a stroke
four days after his election.

Speaker 2 (02:36:35):
Oh well, I mean it might giving I mean it
would give me a stroke if someone if they elected
me to do it, I wouldn't wonder it. Fortunately, they
have to ask you if you accept. Yeah, well, how
can you say no? Because I mean, who wants to
say no to the Holy Spirit?

Speaker 3 (02:36:54):
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:36:55):
But that doesn't mean that I would take it any easier.
You know, they're not choosing me because they think I'm
a nice guy. I mean, clearly the Holy Spirit would
have been involved in that. So it's like, I don't
know if I feel like I have the right to
say no if it were to be cho Yeah, I'm
telling you it is, and it really is. He gives

(02:37:15):
me a headache if it was.

Speaker 4 (02:37:19):
If it was, because you take.

Speaker 3 (02:37:21):
The yeah, you have to dig it out crown, you have.

Speaker 2 (02:37:26):
To dig it out. Well, it's a lot like the
Eastern crown, you know, the miter that's more like a crown.
In the East they don't wear they don't wear miterers.
I will say this though, the Western miner what it is,
both called miers. But in the East it looks like
a crown, and in the West it looks like that
little you know, some people think it looks like a

(02:37:47):
fish hat, like the mouth of a fish, and I honestly,
the symbology of the Western miners is actually quite nice.
It it represents the back, the back peak. There's one
of the back and one in the front. The back
peak represents the Old Testament, the front peak represents the

(02:38:07):
New Testament, and we're in the minor represents the merging
of the two as the path of salvation. So it's
a really kind of a nice symbology that I guess
the Eastern crown is. But the Eastern crown has icons,
so you can't beat that. I have both. I mean,
you've probably seen pictures of me went because I was
consecrated in the Eastern tradition. So youture, yeah I had

(02:38:32):
I did I have a full Orthodox beard? And uh
and yeah I still have that. That miner still here.

Speaker 4 (02:38:38):
It's it's it's considered part of the vestments, right.

Speaker 2 (02:38:43):
Oh, yes, you got to have the beard if you're Orthodox.

Speaker 4 (02:38:46):
Because I was going to be Orthodox.

Speaker 2 (02:38:48):
Yeah, I think you need to keep it because we
saw you without the beard. It's just not the same father,
just not the same.

Speaker 4 (02:38:57):
Well, you know, there's a saying that they they might
say there they say in Australia, you know, if your
dad hasn't got a beard, you've got two moms. That's
the you know, that's the that's the same.

Speaker 2 (02:39:07):
That's the same. What's the next question?

Speaker 5 (02:39:12):
So I don't did I miss one in the church?

Speaker 4 (02:39:19):
There was one before he gets a moose. There was
one much earlier on by someone that was probably a troll,
but it was a reason it was I think it
was a good question.

Speaker 3 (02:39:27):
You know, I think they were because they made which was.

Speaker 4 (02:39:30):
Because he talked about I mean, had also of eccentric things,
but I was talking about, oh, you know, the pope,
the successor of Christ, and of course he's not the
successor of Christ. Thee is the successor of Saint Peter.
But I thought that's worthy of note. Really troll or not,
you know, there is there's sometimes there is a tendency.
I've alluded to it earlier on as people think, oh,

(02:39:52):
is this my kind of pope? You know, is he
going to do the political things that I want? Well,
if he was the successor of Christ, that might be
a legit some question.

Speaker 2 (02:40:01):
So he was asking if he's the successor of Christ?
What was the question he assumed? So what was his question?

Speaker 3 (02:40:06):
He was, I can't remember it now.

Speaker 4 (02:40:08):
Well, he was talking about some of the claimant to
be the.

Speaker 3 (02:40:12):
Pope conspiracy theory stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:40:16):
And I'm not not particularly worried with what he was
going on about. But it's more the opportunity to affirm
the fact that the pope is a successor of Saint Peter.
And actually, if you look at the life of Saint
Peter in the Gospels, which I think he was. You know,
I'm of the tradition that says he is behind the

(02:40:37):
Gospel of Mark. I think that is that's from Peter,
not least because Peter's the.

Speaker 2 (02:40:45):
The fall guy.

Speaker 4 (02:40:46):
In it right, So you know, So the important thing
that I wanted to say from a kind of spiritual
point of view is the pope is successor of Saint Peter,
and Saint Peter is the biggest failure in the Gospels.

Speaker 2 (02:40:59):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:41:00):
He calls him the Rock, and I think that's a
joke because he was like a rock when he tried
to walk on water.

Speaker 1 (02:41:05):
And so.

Speaker 4 (02:41:08):
The successor of Saint Peter, it's very important to make
that distinction. He's not the successor of Christ. He's the
vicar of Christ.

Speaker 1 (02:41:17):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:41:18):
And that's a very different role because he's the successor
of somebody who was overtly flawed and yet restored, who
denied Christ and yet was given charge of the flock.
So that's how we should view the pope as as
somebody who is sort of sincere but not expected to

(02:41:39):
be perfect, yeah, and therefore not political and and not
not supposed to be some utopian leader. It's actually the
opposite of that. He is a successor of a of
a sincere, faithful man who gave his life of Christ, crucified,
upside down, heroic life, but nevertheless one that that was

(02:42:01):
instructive in the faith through his own flaws, not through
his perfection. Yeah, and I think that's a really important distinction.

Speaker 5 (02:42:11):
I mean it is.

Speaker 2 (02:42:12):
I mean, I don't know why people, I mean, I
know there's a lot of fallacies about the papacy, but
successor of Christ is definitely not what the pope is.
It's he means definitely a successor to a man. And yes,
as you said, the most flawed one of the of
well outside of Judas, I guess outside of Judas the

(02:42:34):
most thought flawed.

Speaker 4 (02:42:34):
Yeah, there is no successor of Christ because Christ is alive.

Speaker 2 (02:42:40):
Yeah, well he doesn't need a success that's right.

Speaker 4 (02:42:43):
There is God. There is no successor to God.

Speaker 2 (02:42:46):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. All right, what's our
next question?

Speaker 5 (02:42:51):
So the question comes from Mouche. We may have covered it,
but can animals since paranormal activity?

Speaker 2 (02:43:00):
Well, it's it's in our protocols when we go into
a case. One of the questions that we ask during
our investigations, during the initial you know, the on site
interview or if they're coming to us.

Speaker 3 (02:43:15):
Ask come on the first phone interview, do you have
any pets been acting?

Speaker 2 (02:43:19):
Yes? And the reason we asked that is because there
have been reports of animals reacting to a bad environment.
But you know, it's hard to say if they're responding
to actual paranormal activity or if they're just feeding off
of the negativity of the people who are experiencing whatever

(02:43:40):
is making them, you know, behave the way that they are. So,
I mean, I don't know about you, but if I
were a cat or a dog living in a house
with a possessed person, I'd probably be acting funny too.
I mean, so that doesn't necessarily mean, you know, I mean,
that doesn't exactly mean that, you know, they're sensing paranormal activity.
But you know, animals are more I think, tuned into

(02:44:03):
things that are that we're very distracted from. I wouldn't
say that they're any more capable. I think we're just
as capable capable as they are. But I just think
that they don't have the distractions we have. They don't
worry about jobs, they don't, you know, spend all their
time looking at their phones. They're not watching TV. You know.

Speaker 3 (02:44:21):
Now, one thing I will say, go ahead, I was
just gonna say, now, one thing I have noticed since
coming to work with you especially is and we talked
about it before as well, the longer you do this work,
the more sensitive you become. So, I mean we we've
walked into homes before where it's like boom, okay, you
know you automatically start feeling that the animals just said

(02:44:43):
them they're they're born with. But like you said, they
don't have the distraction.

Speaker 4 (02:44:48):
Yeah, if you do exercise, you build muscles, if you
if you're engaged exactly, if you don't use it, you
become more aware. But there are animals that have different
senses to us. You know, birds know which direction south is. Yeah,
so you know it's perfectly reasonable reasonable to me to
say that, Yeah, animals with different sense perceptions will sense

(02:45:11):
different things.

Speaker 3 (02:45:11):
You know, No, I know that.

Speaker 2 (02:45:13):
I mean if you have cats, if anybody, if you
have cats, if you've ever done I have cat tarot
or any kind of oracle, I can guarantee. I can
guarantee you when you lay out your tarot cards, that
cat is going to be all up in your business
every single time. They just they they're attracted to that
kind of energy and even prayer.

Speaker 3 (02:45:33):
My littlegitty hours, I always have a cat sit with me.

Speaker 2 (02:45:36):
Yeah, they they'll just come out likes to sit in
mass back when you know you probably saw him walk
in several times when we were having mass at the
private chapel here. He's probably going to be missing it
now that he's not going to see them anymore because
we're having masks now at the at the new location,
so you know, there's no mass here anymore. I'm sure

(02:45:58):
he's going to miss it. But he loves it, but
it's too loud for his ears, so he has to
leave because there's a lot of chanting and the bells
are particularly loud in small spaces, and that the chapel
here is pretty pretty small and smaller than the new location.
So yeah, I think I would say that animals do,

(02:46:19):
not because they have more of a sense than we do,
but perhaps but because they're less distracted than we are.
But yeah, I mean we asked that question, so you know,
it's part of the process because clearly somebody somewhere has
recognized that it happens. And what's our what's our next one?

Speaker 5 (02:46:38):
So the next one comes from ace our crystals.

Speaker 2 (02:46:41):
Idols, Well, I mean that depends on whether or not
you make them. Yeah, if you're making an into it,
you know, the Bible is an idol for a lot
of people. They put that far above God. You know,
they memorizing verses and using it as weapons against other people.
That's definitely idolatry. They think it's safe because it's the Bible,

(02:47:05):
but no, it's just as much an idol, and it's
just as much.

Speaker 4 (02:47:11):
And you can actually make an idol out of something virtuous,
so the Bible being one. But I think the greatest
idol of our age is the idol of family and
friendship mm hm. Family and friendship are great, virtuous and
important things, but they're not God and so.

Speaker 2 (02:47:31):
And you put your family above. When you put your
family above your Christian obligations, then you put them below.
You're putting God below. And yeah, well and actually you're
putting them, putting them below. Yeah yeah. You don't think
you are, but you are. And so.

Speaker 4 (02:47:47):
And it's so easy to make an idle out of
family because it's virtuous, right. You know how many times,
I mean, honestly, people that will say, oh, I won't
I won't be a mass on Sunday because it's Mother's
Day and the kids are taking me out. Really like,
you know, I understand that on a human level, but
think about that. Just take a step back and have

(02:48:09):
a little think about.

Speaker 2 (02:48:10):
I've had people tell me that they won't come to
Mass because it's their child's birthday.

Speaker 4 (02:48:15):
Yeah, you should bring him to Mass. And if it's
Mother's Day and you go to Mass, your your your
your adult children who have fallen away and aren't interested
in church. If they love you and want to give
you a gift on Mother's Day, they can come to
Mass with you, can't they? H You know, like that
that would be a greater gift. So it's easy to

(02:48:35):
make an idol out of family and people who are
completely divorced from the church altogether. I mean Western people,
you know, people whose great grandparents would have been baptized.
You know, the family has become their religion, and it
only takes a couple of questions to expose that. I
mean not suggesting you do this to your own family,

(02:48:56):
unless you want to have the fight. But you just
say so, so, oh, it's great that you've got these kids.
One day you're going to die and one day they're
going to die.

Speaker 2 (02:49:07):
Then what yeah, you know, and it could could it
could happen as soon as tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (02:49:12):
Well indeed momentum, you know. So making an idol out
of virtues is the easiest idol to make. It's very obvious.

Speaker 2 (02:49:22):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:49:22):
If I'm going to melt down some gold and form
it into a calf and worship it, that's really a
very obvious thing to do. Like, I know, I'm making
an idol, right, And.

Speaker 2 (02:49:31):
That's what is kind of getting into here. I think,
is he qualified by saying crystals to attract money? And
I'm going to say, look, yeah, I mean it can be.
But you know, in a sense, I take a little
bit of a of a of a of a more
liberal approach to this, because I know that some people
like tangibility, and I do recognize that in Christianity we

(02:49:53):
don't have a whole lot of tangibility, particularly in the
Protestant churches, where you don't even have the benefit of
crucifixes and i and holy water and stuff like that.
So I do recognize that people's minds do work in
more concrete ways, and that tangibility can help to focus
your mind. So I add a bit of of an

(02:50:15):
open mind to a degree. To a degree, Now, if
you're bypassing prayer to try to harness the occult forces
of some type of object, then that does start to
cross the line into idolatry. If, however, you're using crystals

(02:50:35):
in a mechanical sense as a way of focusing your
intent towards a particular outcome, to help clear your mind
for the process involved, I don't have as much of
a problem with that, because I don't think that's any
different than opening up a book on investing and trying
to make money that way. I mean, you're using a

(02:50:58):
tool to channel your mind to enhance your understanding so
that you can bring about a result, in this case,
to improve your income. There are occult ways to do that.
There's mundane ways to do that. People don't have any
problem in the Church when you use mundane ways, But
as soon as you use something from the occult, all
of a sudden, it's like, oh God, you know you're
as long as it doesn't bypass prayer, as long as

(02:51:19):
you're not using as a replacement for prayer, and as
long as you're using it in a mechanical sense, I
personally don't have a problem with that. Now, being that
being said, the Church does have a problem with it.
So I have to as my commitments as a bishop,
I have to teach you what the Church teaches in
a more universal sense and the Church. Basically, their position

(02:51:42):
is that if you are resorting to crystals, there's something
spiritually wrong there when you can resort to Christ, and
that there is something to be said for that too.
But at the same time, like I said, they don't
have a problem. You pick up a book, I'm investing,
and then you know, go and start getting skillful in
the stock market. That's okay because you use mundane means.
But if you use crystals to focus your mind, that's

(02:52:02):
too occult, and you know that's a person. I don't
see the difference as long as you're not turning it
into as Father Chris, as a talisman where it becomes
more important than the actual thing itself.

Speaker 4 (02:52:14):
Well, the deeper, the deeper question if I were your pastor,
that I would ask is what do you want money for?

Speaker 2 (02:52:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:52:23):
Money is not bad, it's neither good nor bad, so
it could be for good things, right, Yeah, But the
important thing is why do you want to attract money?
Like what's the what's the purpose of that in your life?

Speaker 2 (02:52:34):
Yeah? That's more important. Yeah, I think so too, And.

Speaker 4 (02:52:37):
Personally, I think you're better off using your book and
economics to figure out.

Speaker 2 (02:52:40):
How you might But I mean, then there's nothing to
say that you couldn't. I mean, yeah, I mean there
are there are, There are spiritual forces that that do
have magnetic properties in in in in the parts of creation,
and there are certain creative parts of creation that are

(02:53:02):
vibrationally aligned to certain events that can manifest particular types
of things.

Speaker 3 (02:53:09):
But you need to know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (02:53:11):
But you do need to know. You can't just go
and buy go to your New Age of cult store
but pick up some crystals that apparently attract money and
just like lay them out on your wallet or something.
Expect that that's going to happen. There's process involved in this,
and you have to get the divine involved. You have
to develop a relationship with the spirit that is contained
therein and that can sometimes be a very dicey process

(02:53:34):
if you don't know what you're doing. And this is
where it becomes problematic. So the church's position is, don't
get into all that, because you can get yourself into
trouble just you go to God. Yeah you can. So
that's my answer to that. I'm not going to say
it's wrong or sinful. I'm just going to say that
there's better ways, and that might be not one of them.
All right, we can probably in a very short couple

(02:53:58):
of minutes answer one more question.

Speaker 3 (02:54:00):
You said, Daniel's got one up thread somewhere.

Speaker 5 (02:54:03):
Yes, so Daniel is asking about her situation. Her house
was haunted, but since her father's death, they believe the
activity has stopped. So has the attachment that was haunting
their house gone with him?

Speaker 2 (02:54:19):
Well, that was actually a question that came in on
the on the Questions from the Ether. Well on the
on the Network, that becomes part of the Questions from
the Ether. So I guess we can answer that.

Speaker 3 (02:54:28):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:54:29):
All things, as I said in that in On the Network,
all things have come to entropy eventually, So even hauntings, attachments,
they all end organically, okay, because no energy can last indefinitely.
We talked about scarcity, economic scarcity, same principle. You know,

(02:54:50):
everything dies, including attachments, including hauntings. Ghosts die, they do
it basically all the ghost is just the remnants of
the last the last stages of death. But eventually that
eventually goes too. So you know, all attachments eventually succumb

(02:55:10):
to the same entropic principles that everything else in creation does.
In falling creation, Okay, So now that we're in the
fallen world, all things die. That's why, you know, people
are like, they've asked me, if if if we're responsible
for death? If if you know, if our original sin
is what brought death, why do animals die? Well, because

(02:55:32):
they didn't commit original sin. Well, because all things are
now subject to the entropic principle that we brought into
the universe. That's why the Orthodox are right when they
say that, you know, original sin is actually a stain
on the cosmos itself because it damaged It damaged creation,
not just us, it damaged everything, and now everything is
subject to death. Plants, animals, even the stars themselves burn out.

(02:55:56):
So attachments they end two you know, could take a while,
but they will end even without an exorcist. An exorcist
is going to speed that process along. And that's what
we do. When we go into a house that has
a haunting. What we are essentially doing, okay, is we
are merely going in there and expediting the entropic process

(02:56:22):
for that spirit so that they can they can we
can move move it out. And when you go this
is why I say, when people are like, where do
you send the demon? When you when you perform an exorcism,
I don't send them anywhere. I dissolve them because I
basically just expedite the natural entropic principle that takes them

(02:56:43):
out of reality ends, and that's what happens to all
of us. That's death. Christ, the light of Christ, the
grace of the Cross reverses that. And that's what salvation is.
That's why Christ eternal life because it specifically is just that.

(02:57:05):
But it's the only thing that can produce it. Otherwise
everything's subject to the entropy and eventually so comes to it.
All right, all right, that's the end of the show,
and I want to thank all of you, Father Chris, Brandon, Jamie. Yeah,
good discussion, Thank all of you for your great questions.
You keep the show interesting. Make sure if you did
not get your question answered, you save it for next time.

(02:57:26):
We'll have another one in August, I believe, and next
week it is discussions on the afterlife with a brand
new guests. So these are always interesting. I love hearing
different people's points of view on that subject because you
know mine, God knows you've heard mine. So it's always
good to hear another opinion, you know, another perspective. So

(02:57:48):
that's what's going to be happening next week Tuesday at
eight pm Eastern time. I want to also thank the
moderators for your participation in this. It really does help
make the chat you know, flow, so thank you. Anyway,
until next week, I will see you out there in
the ether. God bless everyone.

Speaker 3 (02:58:07):
Thanks everybody.

Speaker 6 (02:59:26):
Buddhist conditions is tost is the negest is, the best is,
the best is the rest is the egest is.

Speaker 3 (02:59:44):
The best.

Speaker 6 (02:59:45):
Song is the best listen

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