Open Lines/Open Topics for October 28, 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:29):
At the act be.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
A good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whichever the case

(01:55):
may be for all of you listening out there across
the crazy planet Earth. Welcome to vest Stages after Dark
and I'm your host, Bishop Brian will Let come into

(02:16):
you lie from the deep woods of Western Georgia on
this October twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. Well, it's everyone's
favorite show. I say that every time it's open lines,
open topics again this season we always try to throw

(02:36):
two of them in there because you guys have so
many great questions and so tonight on our semi Halloween special,
I guess you could call this one, we'll be taking
your questions, your comments, and any of your stories, anything
that's on your mind, we will talk about tonight on
Vestiges after Dark. Well, hold, everybody, Welcome to Vestiges after Dark.

(04:02):
Once again, I am your host, Bishop Brian will Lett
here with my co host Jamie Wolf.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Good evening, everyone, How are y'all doing.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
I hope you guys are ready for tonight with your questions,
so you can start putting them into the chat room
right now, and I'll have the phone number up on
the screen in the second and third hours, so that
you guys can call in. Always better when you call
into the show. But of course you can ask your
questions and start logging them in the various chat rooms
all across the internet anywhere we are simulcasting this broadcast,

(04:32):
be it YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, We're out there and
you can use any of those chat modules to ask
a question. Our moderators will look for them and bring
them to our attention. So what makes this show so
much fun? Really it is. And you know, I know
that there's been a lot of theology I think to

(04:54):
digest this season in particular, it turned in and we
didn't try to make it a fel logically heavy season,
but it sort of turned that way with the annihilation
asm episode. And we do have a question on that tonight,
so we'll be getting to that in Questions from the
Ether here in a moment. And we're also because it

(05:15):
is open lines, open topics, we decide to liturgical libation.
This is a wonderful two thousand and five saw turn cheers.
I think it's Jamie's.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
First time he's made a bleier out of me.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
You like Sarturn, Yeah, it's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Sweet anyway, so.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sweet and rotten. Right, that's how you like.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Spoilt.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
It's the noble rot as they call it, and it's wonderful.
It's a it's a fantastic wine from Bordeaux. Yeah it is.
It's it's very special, excellent with folk arras or something
of that nature, or something fatty. It really cuts through
the fat beautifully. It's usually served with that, or you
can actually have it with a dessert, but I think
that I think having it with something sweet kind of

(05:57):
ruins it for me. I think I like it with
like the con trust between the savory fat and yeah,
that's the way I like it. But it's also a
wonderful social wine just for.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
You.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Could you could do that because of the fat, but
but I mean you render it out in a lot
of the fat. But I mean you could do that.
I mean typically a Burgundy or or.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
You could.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
I mean I couldn't. I could see how it would happen, depends,
I think on how it's prepared. But I think strictly speaking,
it's considered to be sort of a dessert wine. But
I mean I think it's more versatile than justice, far
more versatile in port. Let me put it that way.
I think, but you know, it's different from port, and

(06:41):
it's more delicate than port. Definitely does not hold as
well as port. I mean, you can keep us aw
turn for decades if you have it properly stored at
cellar temperature. But if you uh, if you don't, it
starts going brown and it's ruined. Uh. Port you can
you can abuse Port, you can. You can. You can
leave it out in the sun for twenty years. It's

(07:02):
still being a drinkable. The port is just really robust.
I guess like the Portuguese people, they're very resilient people,
so I think.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
They're wine dry darkly.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
That's right, all right. Joining us from Australia. We have
a father, Chris Yates tonight. How you doing, father, and
doing well.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
I've had a kind of nice but hectic weekend. My
wife would an award at a conference and amongst the
speakers there was Dave Rubin. I've spent some time chatting
with Dave Rubin from the Ruben Report, and Andrew Neil,
who is a legend in British journalism, so editor of
the Spectator of the Economist.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
He's been.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
I did actually say to him my wife wore me.
I shouldn't, but I said, you know, I've grown up
with you. It's kind of reminding him he's old, right
because I've got white hair, and I started watching him.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
But it was really good.

Speaker 5 (07:55):
So, and you know he's famous for sort of well,
Benja Shapiro ran out on an interview with him once.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
In a buff He's scared, he's scared, Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
Yeah, well, Ben misread the room. You Ben called him
some BBC lefty, and this is the editor of the Spectator.
He's not a left right.

Speaker 5 (08:14):
He was just being an actual journalist, which which Ben
was very unfamiliar with. So actually I should credit Shapiro.
He did, in fact apologize for that. He's got it
wrong anyway. But yeah, So I had a kind of
crazy weekend meeting at least one of my idols anyway,
in Andrew Neil and so so.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
That's why I got my Tom of soultop on.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
He's also just released a new video with Peter Robinson's
worth listening to, so talking about his life rather than
his books. So ninety four still going, He's got a
book coming in.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I got all kinds of love for Thomas sal So.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
He's just awesome anyway, so yeah, big creative. But other
than that, it's like it's raining in sixty and sixty
one fahrenheit here, So it's a weird kind of day
for this time.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
That's about our weather right now, rainy and sixty one.
That's about what we've been doing. Well, it's getting cold
at night. It's been getting to the thirties at night,
but during the day it gets up to about sixty
and it's been wet. Yeah, freak weather. Yeah, definitely for
both of us. Yes, And I hate that because that's
when you get your cold. You know, it's when it
transitions like that and it kind of stays that way
and it gets a little wet. You know, it takes adjustment.

(09:21):
I don't know why it does it, but it does it.
You know, just get it to get it, Yeah, just
the way it is. Just take your vitamins and you
know you'll you'll get through it. That's that's the best way.

Speaker 5 (09:32):
Conference cold, you know, like you go to a conference
and everyone gets the same cold.

Speaker 4 (09:38):
But actually it does work.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
I came back and took double double ofsmens you're supposed
to take.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
It's watered it off.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
So that whole thing that I tell everybody I said
on the show, you know what you cursitan uh D.
Particularly if you're in like you're getting into well you're
getting into the summer months, you're going to get some
natural D. But I mean, if you're not sitting out
in the sun or getting a lot of sun exposure,
then taking a good D supplement is is really important

(10:08):
a thousand milligrams of vitamin C.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Australians have chronically LOA and D levels.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Cause they stay out and they stay out of the sun.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
Right well, well, because of the sun cancer campaign has
been so successful that everyone puts some cream on all
the time, which means whatsoever, so not not I I
hate putting cream on my skin.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
It's not good. It's actually not good for you.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
With sun everybody's got to get.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Some sunscreen is actually not good for your body. Actually
introduces chemicals into your body that are not healthy. But
then again, it's like I guess it's like anything else.
It's it's having to balance like my my pick your poison.
My wife has.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Plugging up your pores with with chemicals.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
My wife has this this, I mean she is the people.
I don't consider myself really white because I really inherited
most of this the Mediterranean skin from my Italians side,
and and yes pretty much. Yes, So she burns just
by like looking at a flashbulb. I mean it's she

(11:10):
just burns from anything. So she does need it. I
mean she couldn't even enjoy a swimming pool if she
didn't use it. But I I don't care for it.
I only will put it on if I'm no I'm
going to be in the sun all day. And it's like, yeah,
I'm not. I'm I'm just gonna. I don't want to
get burned. It's not really so much about avoiding skin
cancers as much as I just don't enjoy being burned.

(11:32):
But it takes a lot to burn this skin. I
mean I'd have to be in it all day for
at least three or four hours before I start getting red.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
She can just goes a long way. Is that hot?

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah that's true. Yeah, yeah, it's it's good joining us
from Tennessee. We have Brandon Milam. How are you doing tonight, Brandon?

Speaker 6 (11:56):
I'm pretty good. One of my favorite holidays is coming up,
so I went ahead and wore my as Halloween short
as I can get.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, the plague, I see it. You got the plague
doctors hanging out there. Yeah, all right, so you're you're
ready to to ward against the all those nasty viruses
that are out there right now. Huh.

Speaker 6 (12:18):
I haven't had it yet, but I think my time
is coming.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, I mean it's I'm due. I'm doing I haven't
been sick in years, and I know that that's bizarre,
but it's been since I've been doing the vitamin regiment,
and honestly, I really do not get sick anymore because
of that, ever since I started it.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, I mean emergency twice a day.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 7 (12:38):
When I start to feel ichy. So I'll take a
packet in the morning, packet at night and it'll be good. Yeah,
it helps hot toddy before bed, you know.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Tracy. Tracy said in the chat there, she says, I'm
so white. When I was a toddler, my mom thought
I had put blue marker on my arms, and she's like, nope,
just my veins. That's why it's not she's not kidding,
she's not even exaggerating. It's really a true story. Oh
my goodness, I don't have this on. Why don't I
have this on? Okay? I don't understand why that's not running.

(13:16):
I pushed it, but it didn't go. Okay, So what
we're gonna have to do is the the the recorder's
not working for some reason. It didn't take when I
pushed the button. So we're gonna have to I'm gonna
have to get the I'm gonna have to download this
episode and and convert it to an MP three. So anyway,

(13:37):
the audio only version of the show will be a
little late today because of that. I don't know why
I didn't do it. I hate when that happens, but
I didn't notice it till now. It's too late to
start over. Okay, so let's go ahead and get started
tonight with questions from the Ether. Now. I want to
preface this one because we got a couple questions. One

(13:59):
was from April that is basically continuation of the Annihilationism
episode or the two Annihilationism episodes. She asked a question
that's a really good one that I think will kind
of sum it all up and bring it in, reel
it in, I should say to the well, I mean

(14:22):
it just will. It really kind of bookends the entire
story of Annihilationism and everything that we've discussed about it
and it kind of wraps it up really nicely. So
we're going to get to that one. But before we do,
Jay had a question on the Nicolin Network that was
several questions, several somewhat long and nuanced questions that I said,

(14:47):
the best way to answer this is not in a post,
because I'm not going to write a dissertation on the
Nicolin Network. But I don't mind, you know, addressing each
one of these questions on the questions from the Ether segment,
particularly since today is open lines, open topics, So what
really works for this show to kind of get us
started with this? So she saw a Facebook post that

(15:09):
had a list of things that said, hey, you know
what else, what's really not in the Bible that you've
been told it is? And here's this list. So she
wanted to know how accurate the post was, and the
reality of it is is that each one of these
has a somewhat nuanced answer, not something that I really
had the time to really spend to write it out.

(15:31):
So we're going to get to all of those. So Brandon,
what I'd like for you to do is to start off,
perhaps with each one one at a time. Let's do
Jay's first we'll do April's last, even if we have
to run into the second hour for Aprils. I don't
think it will take the entire segment to get through
all of these, but just in case it does, we're

(15:52):
going to go through it. So we have more than
a half hour here to answer this. So again, just
go through the each one and we're going to answer
them the best that we can.

Speaker 6 (16:03):
All right, So to start, they they send that the
Bible never said three wise men and came bearing gifts.
It's just it just said wise men from the east.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well it said it said magi from the east bearing
three gifts, three gifts, and that's where they got They
inferred that each one brought their own so Frankinson's uh,
mirror and gold. Okay, so that's where we get the
three from, because they were three gifts that came. Now theoretically, yeah,

(16:37):
I guess you could say there was ten guys and
they all brought three of these gifts, or you could
say that it was two guys that brought this this,
you know, three gifts as possible, but it's not really important,
you know, it's not really an important theological, uh historical
factor here. The fact is is that the three gifts

(16:59):
frank Sense, Muhr, and Gold represent the roles of Christ
in our lives. So Frankinson's is his priestly duty to us.
Mr is his sacrifice for us, Gold is his kingly nature,
and that he is the exactly. So that's what's important,

(17:21):
is that that there were three gifts, not that there
were three wise men bearing gifts, but tradition says it
was three. They even have names, don't they Like Baltazzara,
thank you. Yeah, I couldn't remember. The Kaspar was on
the tip of my tie. I couldn't remember Melchior though,
But yeah, so you know they even have names that

(17:42):
tradition has a sign to them. Wasn't these historical figures?
You know, it doesn't matter. What matters. What's this is
what the lesson is teaching you, Okay, And that's what
this is teaching.

Speaker 5 (17:53):
It's holy tradition kind of reinforcing something by means that aren't.
As you said, nobody in the creed stands up and says,
and I believe in Caspar, bal Bazar and melecure. But
but it's a way, it's a way of reinforcing the
more important narrative, which is oh, there are three gifts,

(18:15):
and of course, as you've said, what the three gifts are,
there is by the way, lovely. And I think this
might be uniquely English, because when I came to Australia,
it was news to them tradition of on the feast of.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
Oh, come on.

Speaker 5 (18:31):
Epiphany. Sorry sorry, tired tired head. On the feast of
the Epiphany, we we bless water and chalk in the
church and people go home and with the blessed chalk
they write on C plus and plus B and the
year so Caspar melch Bathazar and the year and on
churches across England. You know you'll see these this written

(18:53):
sometimes with the crown on one side, you know, for
the king. But yeah, and so you write that on
your door post is kind of echoing that old Testament
that yeah, so well, yeah, I think it might be
unique English. And when you grow up in a culture
you don't really really know which of it is just yours.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
Yeah, but I sort of certainly reintroduced it in Australia
and it took off because it's a great thing to do.

Speaker 5 (19:15):
So then you've got the ext extension of the three
Wise Men, the three Gifts and now also that blessing
comes to your home, which is what happens every time
someone receives.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Christ beautifully said. Okay, so what's our next one from
this list?

Speaker 6 (19:31):
So the next one, Lucifer wasn't thrown out alone. Third
of heaven followed him.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Okay. Now this comes from a Revelation chapter twelve, I believe,
where it describes a dragon sweeping a third of the
stars and those that third being cast down. It is
true that the name Lucifer is not is not used
in that passage. But again, the Bible has never been

(20:00):
in isolation. This is the big problem with Protestantism, and
I'm sorry solo scriptura style theology, is that a lot
of pastors and evangelicals and Christians of these flavors of
Christianity think that you can just take a Bible verse

(20:21):
and because it has some kind of meaningful application to you,
and you can say that universally, this is what it
means in all circumstances. But it was never read this way.
This is why, again the magisterium of the Church, love
it or hate it, is an important and necessary thing
because what that does is it helps to keep the
cohesive nature of scripture together so that doesn't start falling

(20:45):
apart by everyone, you know, quoting this and quoting that
and using it in different ways. So when it comes
to something like this, you know, it was traditionally understood
that this is a symbolic representation of the fall of
the angels. Now we know that this largely comes from
also extra canonical sources, the Book of Enoch, particularly where

(21:09):
we get a lot of that extra stuff on the
angels and how the demons fell, and you know, and
of course the dragon has always been associated with the devil, Satan, whatever,
and Lucifer's the common name that people like to you,
so it would not be unrealistic for somebody teaching this,

(21:31):
maybe even to children and saying, you know, if you're
teaching a religious education class to kids, you know, trying
to teach them theology without getting too complicated, you might say,
this is the devil or this is Lucifer being you know,
thrown out of heaven and took a third of the
angels with him. But this is where that comes from.
So you know, when when they're saying this is why

(21:52):
I said, these things require nuanced answer because even though yes,
the literal thing that this person is saying is not
in the Bible literally the way that he's writing it.
The concepts are derived from the Bible and are utilized
by theologians of the last two thousand years to understand
and reflect this. So it's not exactly right also to

(22:17):
say that these things are not in the Bible, because
these are the these are the verses that inspire these ideas. Father.
Anything you can think about the third of Heaven following
the Dragon.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
Well, all I'd say is, I don't think they had
their logarithm out calculating exactly what one third was.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, I mean, you know, particularly when you're when you're
when you're deriving your theology from the Book of Revelation.
Revelation is entirely a symbolic book.

Speaker 5 (22:52):
I do have a kind of my own sort of
dream time interpretation of this, though, which is which is
to say, we believe that God is three and one,
you know, the Holy Trinity, the one in three is
sort of the reverse of So the image of the
Trinity is farther than a Holy Spirit, so completely bounded

(23:14):
by the unity of love, that they are in fact
a single that one God and not three.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
That the one in three is sort of the reverse
of that, which is, you know, and the fall from
heaven is about self worship. It's about the ego, you know.
And so you've got the sort of.

Speaker 5 (23:31):
Image of Lucifer the light Bringer, the most cherished of
the angels, who becomes turned in on himself, and you know,
I actually kind of like.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
The imagery of that.

Speaker 5 (23:43):
It was it was the fact that human beings were
made able to co create with God, in other words,
that they could reproduce where the angels couldn't.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
That his ego simply couldn't bear it, you know, that that.

Speaker 5 (23:58):
These animals would be allowed to to co create with God,
whereas these these angelic beings of which he.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Was supreme, couldn't. And therefore his ego the one in
three being the being the converse of the three and one.
So but that's just my little you know, I.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Think that's actually really good. I mean, no, I think
I think that is probably where they might have been
going with it, because Revelation was very much trying to
write in code Christian code that Christians could pick up
on stance. The reason that that.

Speaker 8 (24:30):
Would be yeah, not not gnostic code, no, no, no,
just you know, trying not to get killed code.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, we got to write this secretly because we could
be killed for it. Yeah, that kind of code.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Because we can receive martyrdom, but we're not allowed to
throw ourselves at it exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, that's right, all right, what's our next one?

Speaker 6 (24:55):
And just one other thing I did want to add,
because I mean, I did research that and it fascinates me.
But the problem is, and it's not specific to just
a King James, but I'm going to have to kind
of say it is because it's the more popular one.
But what you have in Isaiah fourteen twelve is you
have the entire verse translated but one word, which is Lucifer.

(25:20):
It's never used as a name. And even you have
Latin literature Denurtra drum Or on the Nature of the Gods,
where the word lucifer is used for the planet Venus.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Right.

Speaker 6 (25:33):
I think that's where we get kind of mixed up.
Where is it a term, is it a name?

Speaker 2 (25:39):
It's a In my opinion, so much of this as
semantics like well, I mean, that's one of the things
that we, you know, we're trying to address with the annihilationism,
is that you could actually say the same thing and
sound like you're disagreeing, you know, because things like words
like soul and spirit have been interchanged in so many
ways that we do really don't even know what they

(26:00):
mean anymore. It's why I'm trying to force myself to
more commonly use the great terms, because I think it's
more accurate to kind of stick to what the agents
meant by these things. And this is where we get
them anyway. It's not like, you know, these terms were
our own and we applied them to these ancient terms. No,
we everything we know, but the.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
Experience is our own. I mean, we're you know, we're
using language to explain and explore things which we intrinsically experience.

Speaker 5 (26:30):
So but I mean, just like just like we say
the word love for all sorts of things in English,
which Greek has better.

Speaker 4 (26:38):
Words for, you know, more sort of distinct forms of
those love.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
But you know, but I think it's we should be
careful to say that the way these things are described
have their origin in history and time and people, but
the experiences themselves are as old as humanity.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, I mean, that's the think that's a fair assessment.
But I do think when we're talking strict theology trying
to answer the mysteries and the question.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
We have to be precise.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
It should be as precise as possible and perhaps educate
the layperson, be like, okay, well words matter and what
the ancients a soul is not quite how we see
it today or what it means. And sometimes they you know,
we say soul when they meant spirit and that was
a big difference back then, you know, that kind of thing,
and that applies here too.

Speaker 5 (27:29):
You mentioned the effects of solar scripture as well. Yeah,
because because that's a doctrine that I completely reject.

Speaker 9 (27:35):
I know you do as well, very much.

Speaker 5 (27:39):
And of course you know those who are solo scriptures say,
oh yeah, you see you don't believe in the Bible
and thing that No, it's not you know, that's a
that's a false binary. But the obviously Brandon's questions are
steeked in the fact that he's been immersed in that tradition,
just like just like I didn't realize people in Australia
didn't use chalk on epiphany.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
To bless the how is.

Speaker 5 (28:01):
You know, all of the questions are couched in or
in the King James version of the Bible. This word
is using, this is not it's like, well, so what
you know? I mean, happy to answer the question obviously
to develop people away from from from actually something which
when when when Luther spoke about soul scriptura, This isn't

(28:22):
what you intended at all, I don't think. But you know,
so happy, don't get me wrong, And the questions are
legitimate and right to be asked, but the paradigm shifted
away from that makes you think every time you ask
a question like that, I'm like, can I get that
agitated about that?

Speaker 4 (28:41):
And I forget that other people are you know.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Oh yeah, I get that completely, And yeah, yeah, I
mean I think it's even more important now, is what
I'm I think what I'm basically getting at is now
that we're two thousand years into all this, you know,
I think it's even more important that we truly understand
because we are two thousand years culturally removed from the

(29:04):
mind of these ancient thinkers, and they think people, particularly
the arrogant Christians out there, the evangelical type of Bible
only people who think that you know, they they get
it and they are capable of sharing it, you know,
the right way at least, And I think they really

(29:28):
do not consider just how much they think they know
that they really don't know, just on the basis that
they think it. And that's when the Bible starts to
become more idle than inspiration, if that makes sense. All right,
what's our next one, Brandon?

Speaker 6 (29:44):
So the next one is Hell wasn't created for humans.
It was made for the devil and his angel Oh.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
This is a good one because see this did not
come up during the Annihilation. Well, see that's interesting because
it doesn't say mate, it's a prepared And where this
derives from is is a Matthew twenty five forty one.
The Eternal Fire prepared for the Devil and his angels
does not say the damned. That gets inferred from other

(30:14):
things that Jesus talks about. But this is when we
start to talk about like and we talked about this
with the Annihilation. Since what I was trying to say
is that we use just like for love, we'll use
hell for everything. Okay, we use hell for shale, we
use hell for g Hannah, we use hell for the
Second Death, we use hell for the the Lake of Fire.

(30:35):
All right, And I would argue that conceptually these are
very different things, particularly shale, you know, but we use
the word hell for all of it, and they were
not the same concept. Now, I could get very esoteric here,
and in continuation of what we talked about with annihilationism,

(30:58):
that I would argue Father Chris gave you his little
personal interpretation on on on on the the the one
third versus you know, the Holy Trinity and how it's
like a zero.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
In.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
So I'm going to give you Bishop Bryan's theological interpretation
on this one as an esoteric Catholic Okay, because I
think there's definitely some major validity here. You guys can
sit with it and see what you think. And I
presented it to my students because there are things in
the esoteric tradition and the Western mystery tradition that I

(31:37):
can't get into right now. But a lot of this
study is what brought me to this particular realization that
I'm going to share with you right now. And why
I I I maintain this one. I actually think it's
it's the correct answer. But I'm going to explain this
to you because I say what you all think. Because
I shared it with my students, it's time for you
guys now, my audience. All right, what is when when

(32:02):
when we're talking about the fires of hell, whether it
be the eternal fire in Matthew chapter twenty five, or
if we're talking about geh Hannah the fire's Gehennah, or
the lake of fire, or the purifying fire of purgatory.
What is that fire? Now, I'm gonna I'm going to

(32:24):
deposit that, I would say, suggest that the fire of hell,
and by hell, we're going to use the generic English
concept here, which it sort of lumps it all into
one thing. You could say, you know, the alternative to
going to heaven from a modern Christian standpoint. Okay, let's

(32:44):
not talk about the annihilationism just yet. But you know
you've got hell and it's equated to fire, and the
New Testament reinforces this imagery. So what is that fire? Well,
I'm going to first suggest that the purifying fire of
purgatory and the destroying or eradicating or punishing or torturing

(33:08):
fire of Hell, whichever interpretation of Hell you take, are
actually the same fire. You agree, Yeah, I don't think
they're two separate things. And this is why I say
purgatory is not a place. Well, now you're getting where
you're getting one step ahead of me, because I agree,
I agree on that. I'm going to even give you
one in this one, and I think Father Chris is

(33:29):
going to agree with this one. I'm going to suggest
that the fire that you're encounter this is why purgatory
is not a place, and hell's not a place. These
are not locations you go. These are experiences you have
based upon your particular condition. So if your condition is
the grace of salvation but still holding on to attachments

(33:52):
that lead to imperfection, well that has to be eliminated
from you before you can enter into the kingdom, because
nothing imperfect can enter the kingdom. Fair enough, that's good
Christian theology. So purgatory exists as as the means to
burn away the remaining imperfections. Now, because by virtue of

(34:14):
that grace of eternal life salvation that you've received through
the grace of the cross that Jesus died on for
your sake, you now are inherently immortal. And I'm talking
about it in the universal Christian theology sense, not the
annihilationism sense. We'll talk about that later. And therefore the

(34:34):
fire cannot destroy you. It just burns away the imperfections.
Anything that is not immortal, anything that is corruptible is
removed in that moment. That's purgatory. It hurts, but it's
there because it hurts because you don't want to let go,
not because they're part of you so that you haven't
learned to separate yourself from it. But once purgatory is fired,

(34:56):
is complete, then you enter into the kingdom. But what
if you don't have the grace to endure that fire.
But if you don't have the gift of more of
every eternal life that the Cross gives you because of damnation,
because you chose not to choose to pursue salvation, well
then the fire consumes you.

Speaker 10 (35:14):
And now we'll call that hell. It's the same fire.
But what is the fire?

Speaker 2 (35:19):
What is that? Is it something that God created for
you know, a place that you go? No, what happened
when Moses encountered God and God said, do not look,
because you will surely die. And what Moses was actually
burnt on one side the fire? The face of God

(35:41):
is in a consuming fire that will destroy us. Nothing
imperfect can look at the face of God. Thus why
we need Jesus, because Jesus can become like us so
that we can interact with God on a level that
won't kill us. But if we were to interact with
the Father directly, this is what ends up happening. Okay,
that's the face of God. So I would say that

(36:01):
the fire of Hell, and the fire of g Hannah,
and the Lake of Fire and the Second Death, and
there the internal fire that is prepared for the devil
and all his angels, and the fire purgatory that purifies
you from your remaining imperfections is the face of God
looking at you. Which is why hell would be eternal
torture to a person who doesn't like God, because it's

(36:22):
looking at the face of God and you can't stand it.
And the same with purgatory being the fire that forces
you away from your attachments or your imperfections. It's the
same fire. So I would say that there is no
fire of Hell. I would say that is the face
of God. And whether it's Hell or purgatory or Heaven

(36:43):
is up to where you are in your particular state
with God. If you hate God, well then it's going
to be hell. If you have a lot of attachments,
you're not ready for heaven, but you have the grace
of salvation, well then you're going to have to burn
away all that before you're you're able to go in
and you dinastate of perf for grace. You're welcomed into
the light of God's face, and it's a wonderful thing

(37:03):
because it won't consume you. You become part of it.
That's the theosis that we talk about in the East.
That's the beatific vision that we talk about in the West.
So I don't think when we say Hell wasn't created
for heavens, it was made for the I don't think
hell was made at all. But Father Chris, you're already
way ahead of it. I only Hell was made at all.
I don't. I don't think there is such a thing

(37:24):
or a place. I think it's a condition that's caused
by where you stand with God. I think the fire
of Hell is God's face. It really is. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 7 (37:34):
Find I was just saying it reminds me that it
reminds me the passage of being put into the silver,
being purified seven times in the in the furnace.

Speaker 4 (37:44):
Yeah, yeah, Look, it fits into all. I think this
is the image of heaven.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
Helen Burgatry, the the you know, the Orthodoxy Church does
stress this teaching more. They're actually better at because they
follow the sort of teachings of the fathers. That they
emphasize this teaching of the fathers, And I think that's
a good thing because it makes sense of the beatific

(38:11):
vision itself and of all the other sort of really
like traditionalist Catholic points of view, even Fulton Sheen who says,
you know, the difference between purgatory and Hell is that
purgatory is suffering for the sake of salvation. So in
other words, it's like medicine that tastes disgusting but make
but heals you, as opposed to Hell, which is suffering

(38:34):
for the sake of suffering. Yes, and that itsself and
that it's self imposed, that what you're suffering is because
you have rejected God and you and you're you're turning
yourself for all eternity because you can't forgive yourself. So yeah,
I think this is this is the best image of
something we're trying. We're trying to use language to describe

(38:55):
something which is beyond time and space, and because we're
creatures of time and space, we find that difficult. But
I think this is the best image of what we
mean by heaven.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Helen Purgatry I agree. And regardless of how you want
to interpret the ultimate eschatology here, whether you take the
more annihilationist annihilationist stance that I have, or if you
take the more traditional stance that the Church takes, you know,
at least more in the in in that traditional theological

(39:25):
standpoint than I think this fits in both directions. It
fits for both of them, which makes it, i think,
more likely to be true because there's less that you
can argue with there, you know, it just sort of
makes good sense from all perspectives involved. So there must
be some truth there, all right. What's our next one?

Speaker 6 (39:45):
Next one is the serpent in the Garden of Eden
could speak before the curse, and an apple was never
mentioned and just said fruit.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Okay, So yes, there's no apple. In fact, most I
think histori and think it was probably a pomegranate, not
an apple. The apple thing that's just a that that
just became attached much much later, several hundred years later,

(40:16):
and maybe even more than that. I don't even think.
I'm not even sure medieval. I'd have to check this.
I don't know. I don't know off the top of
my head, but I'm not even sure medieval theologians talked
about in terms of an apple. I think it's more
modern than that, but that is kind of how people
refer to it when they're you know, referencing it apple

(40:37):
tree kind of thing. I don't think apple trees, you know,
were really in the mind of the author of Genesis.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
It was translated as that in the authorized version. And
so you know, we have lots of.

Speaker 5 (40:50):
Lots of creative tradition associated with it, you know, hymns
and I mean Mandregal's you know, it's developed alongside our core.
So it's it's it's as convenient to say apples not right.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:07):
The important thing is not is not the genus of
fruit that was on the tree. The important thing is
that it gave us consciousness and the abilities.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
To know right from wrong and and the consequences of that.

Speaker 5 (41:17):
Whether whether even atheists accept that imagery as useful, you
know that we the fact that we know we can
discern right from wrong is why we are moral beings.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yes, as far as the talking serpent, I would just
say that that's just not explained in any you know,
it's just it's sort of just accepted as speaking precursor
and and and You've got to remember also that the
story of Adam and Eve is perhaps the ultimate allegory.

(41:49):
So you're going to have inconsistencies if you're reading it
as history, you know, reading it like as if it's
some kind of historical record you're missing, You're going to
miss the entire point of it. You might have will
not bother So those kinds of things are not going
to matter so much. Apple speaking serpents, that kind of
thing is not really relevant. Again, it's a theological story.

(42:12):
It's something to describe an event, perhaps, yes, but an
event that is ineffable outside of the context of what
humanity understands to be today. And so therefore the only
way to really address some of this ineffable wisdom of
God is to convey it an allegory of metaphor, because
our minds can wrap our heads around that easier than

(42:35):
trying to understand something that is so beyond us that
no one gets the point. And that's really all that is.
I wouldn't worry too much about that. But again, it's
not really important for somebody to list this off as
saying see the Bible doesn't say this. It's it's kind
of like I mean, really you're mincing words. Now, that's

(42:55):
just silliness. But okay, what's our what's our next? One?

Speaker 6 (43:00):
One is that Jesus was not born in December.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Well yeah, I mean that. I don't think any biblical historian,
Catholic or otherwise teaches that it was history. He was
historically born in December. The reason December twenty fifth was
chosen as the liturgical celebration date for the Feast of
the Nativity is because the more ancient feast of the

(43:25):
Annunciation where nine months before it March twenty fifth. Now
that did exist in an ancient church. Christmas wasn't celebrated
till much later, believe it or not, but the Annunciation
was celebrated very early on, perhaps one of the earliest feasts,
and it was March twenty first, so of twenty fifth
rather sorry, March twenty fifth. So if you're you know,

(43:46):
going to now say, well we need a feast for
the Jesus' birth, well, naturally, what you're going to be like, Well,
it's go nine months after the feast of the Annunciation
when he was conceived, and that will be the date.
It wasn't They were not trying to say he was
born in December. No one would know that. The Bible
doesn't record that. All of the theologians going back to

(44:07):
the beginning knew that no one knew what this day
because it wasn't important. It wasn't even the Nativity of
Jesus wasn't really important in the early Church. That came
about a couple hundred years after the fact. What was
important is that he came here, he was incarnated, and
the way that he incarnated through the Virgin and through
her willing acceptance of it.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
Like she she so many people get get wrong. I think.

Speaker 5 (44:36):
On Christmas Day we celebrate the incarnation. No, we celebrate
the incarnation at the annunciation.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah, because that's when he Yeah, maybe it's because.

Speaker 5 (44:46):
Of you know, certain views on We don't need to
get into it, but it could be they might suit
better to celebrate the incarnation of Nativity instead of the Annunciation.
But the yeah, as she said, the Nativity is I.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
Mean the really important.

Speaker 5 (45:02):
There are two three, three, sorry, three most important things
about the life of Jesus. Actually his teaching isn't one
of them that becomes important, but it's important because of
these three things, God becomes a man. That's the incarnation,
God dies on across the god man dies on.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
A cross, and he rises from the dead.

Speaker 5 (45:21):
Yes, they're the three most important things about Jesus for
who he is, and they're the ultimate achievements and the
reason for him coming here. And because of those three things,
that's why we take his teaching seriously, because now we
know he's God, so therefore what he said is really important.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
It's important. Yeah, you're right. I mean I don't like
when he gets reduced down to just a teacher. That's
very problematic for me because again it tells me that
the person is saying that's missing the point entirely.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
Actually, just as an aside, when people complain about calling
me father, and I really don't care what people call me.
I've been called a lot worse on the streets of
London as a policeman, I can assure you. But but
people never have a problem with the word teacher. It's
in the same context, of course, yes, you know, so.

(46:17):
I always find it interesting how selective that is that
ultra Protestants don't like the term father or people.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Because it said something told no one but your heavenly
Father above.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
It's it's from that again, completely.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
It's not call anybody's teacher either.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't get well, they don't
get bent out of shape on that one though, like.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
Professor to be called professor.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
No, I was saying that.

Speaker 7 (46:50):
It's just it's comical how they try to micromanage scripture.
They pick one little word out of it and try
to blow the whole thing out of the water, when
it's their ignorance that they completely just don't.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Then they want to micromanage how you how you think
about it. They're not satisfied with you having your own view.

Speaker 7 (47:08):
Just pick any sentence out of the Bible anywhere, open
it up and put your finger down, read the passage,
and you're going to twist it to your paradigm.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yep, yep, that's exactly right. Okay, what's our next one?

Speaker 6 (47:19):
Next one is the word trinity never appears in the Bible.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
That is correct, It was not in the Bible. The
concept is holy father, son, and Holy Spirit. But that
is a theological term that was developed to I guess,
make it. I would I would guess to make it
easier to talk about so you don't have to keep
saying father, son and Holy Spirit constantly you could say
the Holy Trinity, you know, as an overall pervading concept

(47:44):
as they developed the idea of God. This came about
under Tertullian in the second and third centuries. Though the
doctrine is though in scripture, it's just not that word
trinity is not in there, and who cares? The concept
is why.

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Would it be?

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Why would it be? Yeah, why would it be? Why
would you think it needs to be? It's such a.

Speaker 5 (48:07):
Ridiculous substantiation isn't in the Bible either, doesn't mean that
we don't believe in the real presence of Christ. And
the second, you know, the word cretiates isn't in the
Bible book, creciates exists. It's yeah, these things again, these
are problems of sola scripturer. And you see, we even
have atheist solar scripture scripturists, you know.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
What I mean? Mm hmm.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
Like you've got people who reject Christianity, who are very
hostile to Christianity, and they do so in a solar
scriptural way.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Mm hmm. They sure do so.

Speaker 5 (48:37):
They're actually they're still Protestants even though they're atheists.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
That's the way to put it, all, Right's o, next one.

Speaker 6 (48:45):
Next one, is Satan still appears before God in the
Book of Job.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yes, And and this is because in the Book of Job,
Satan is represented as part of God's court, not in
opposition to it. This gets us into a lot of Again,
the theology of surrounding are how the devil evolved and
what it started out as, which is very different than
what Christians consider. Now, all of this got attached onto

(49:14):
these Old Testament concepts. But let's make no mistake about it.
There is no devil in Judaism. There isn't, plain and
simple it large. I mean, I know I get in
trouble for this, but you know, the Catholic answers would
hate me. They actually, hey, no, right, Catholic Answers actually
had an article about this very thing not too long ago.

(49:37):
So they're gonna, if they're listening right now, they're gonna
hate me again for this one. But I think it's
absolutely impossible to suggest and they do suggest this, But
I would say it's impossible to suggest that our concept
of the devil as a competitor to God, that to
say that it didn't come from Zoroastrianism. It absolutely it

(50:00):
did not come from Judaism. It came from outside influences. Now,
Catholic Answers was arguing that this proves that the devil
exists because look at all the religions like Zoroasteranism that
recognize that there's this ultimate evil. But I don't think
there is such a thing as an ultimate evil outside
of the yet Sahara that we very much fully participate
in through our own will. You know, the problem you

(50:24):
get into when you start making the devil too important
in Christianity is that you start to forget that the
devil's already defeated and he doesn't really matter anymore. And
the only reason why you still have to contend with
him is because you keep feeding him out of your
own fear and sin. But as soon as you wake
up and realize that he has no hold on you
and no power over you. Christ defeated him, it's done.

(50:47):
It's a done deal. Well, then you get to catch
up to God's level and you can move on. But
I guess a lot of these kinds of Christians haven't
moved on yet. Again, you know, Satan is not in
the in the Old Testament and an opposer to God.
He is a sort of like a prosecuting attorney that
works for the courts to sort of test men to

(51:10):
test their fortitude. God allows Satan to do what he
does to Job to test Job's fortitude. Again, it's an
allegorical story too, it's not a history. So when you
get into the solo scriptrare like we've been talking about,
then it becomes more problematic for you because now you're
wanting to look and say that this was an event
that happened versus a story that's telling you something about

(51:32):
the nature of how God works, and that you know,
again you missed the point when you do that. So
so yes, technically speaking, I mean that is right. Satan
does appear before God and works for God and is
part of his court, because that's what real satan is.
The word Satan itself is not the devil, you know,

(51:55):
it's it's the devil's advocate, right literally, I mean it's
it's it's it's one who opposes or stands in opposition
to but but not to God, but to ourselves in
the sense that it becomes an obstacle, an accuser it
means accuser, actually means Satan means accusers accuser. Yes, but

(52:17):
in the sense that anytime you see the word satan
using the Old Testament, it's it's something that's standing in
the way of a person and a pivotal point where
God's will is being compromised by the decision that that
individual makes. Now Christians like to look at that and say, oh,
that's the devil seducing and tempting them to do the

(52:38):
wrong thing. But that's not what the Jewish people were writing.
That came about with Christian understandings much much later. What
the Jewish people, or the original Jewish Jewish authors were
trying to write here was to show how our conscience
works in that we have this little voice in our
hand that tells us to do the right thing, and

(52:58):
we constantly disobey it by doing self interested things instead,
that our conscience ultimately does know what we should be doing,
but we choose to not follow it because self serving
interests get in the way. And that's what that comes from.
And so the Satan is this accuser to accuse you
of doing this, all right, very different from this beastly

(53:22):
creature that is so powerful that he's just going to
steal your soul and take you to hell, which a
lot of Christians believe in.

Speaker 7 (53:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, the devil's got my soul.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
He stole my soul. I sold it to him like
any of that. Correct, No, no, he didn't.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
And you know, if you don't believe me, read Brandon's book.
He goes into more detail about than I do. So
what's your book called Let's plug it right now, what's
your book called again.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
Brandon Advocate?

Speaker 2 (53:53):
See there you go, there it is, there it is, Yeah,
there you go.

Speaker 6 (54:00):
But the only thing else I would add is if
someone engages with the Old Testament and they look in
the Book of Job and they translate ha Satan as
Satan the devil, that's going to open up a whole
bunch of other problems because in the Old Testament you
have an angel who's understood as a Satan, an adversary
to be.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
That's what I was getting it. Yeah, the one that
stands in opposition is this the seton? And then you
have say, but but also accuser, you know, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 6 (54:29):
And then you also have a future Keen David labeled
as a seton. You have multiple humans labeled as a setan.
So it's more more on some henticks.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Again, because where is where is the devil? In Jewish
and thought, it's it's your yet, Sahara, it's it's it's
it's yeah, it's it's it's it's the side of you
that does wrong. Is what it ultimately is. To the
Jewish mind. It only became a beast, a creature because

(55:02):
of the Zoroastrian influence side of Judaism it did. And
I know, Catholic answers, you don't want to under you
don't want to accept this because you're so stuck in
your rigid ways. But you have to step outside your
paradigms eventually, you know, because you're doing a disservice to people.
You are when you teach something that is just such
such strict tradition that you forget that. You know, tradition

(55:25):
evolves too. And who are we to say that the
Holy Spirit still not guiding the church? Of course it
is the Church I know teaches this, but yeah, it
doesn't accept it when it happens to any time. God,
we're to give you a theology that clarifies something. You'd
reject it right out because it doesn't match what came before. Well,
of course it's not going to match what came before,
because it's any more enlightened more evolved understanding. I mean,

(55:49):
this is just the problem that I have. But you know,
it doesn't mean you have to throw the baby out
with the bath water. It just means that, you know,
sometimes change the bath water from time to time so
the baby doesn't get an infection. How about that? All right?
What's our next one?

Speaker 6 (56:01):
The next one is even demons recognize and obey Jesus immediately.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Yes, and they're saying this is not in.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
There the first chapter of max Gospel.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Yeah, Matthew Mark chapter one.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
We know who you are, the Holy One of God,
Jesus says, be silent. I don't if they could authority
over him.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
So what are they What are they arguing that is
in scripture or shouldn't or is not in scripture? From
this one, I'm not understanding.

Speaker 6 (56:35):
This one you're understanding is as good as mine.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Well, that doesn't make any sense at all. So let's
just move on.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
What's argue?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
What's our next one? Because there's nothing to refute there.
It's right in there. What's our next one?

Speaker 6 (56:50):
The next one? Yeshua wasn't a European. He was from
the Middle East, dark skin, brown eyes.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Nobody disputed that either. But if you go to Ethiopia,
you're gonna find that all the iconography of Jesus as
him as a black man. And if you go to
some black churches that have representation of images of Jesus,
he's going to be represented as a black man there too.
And if you go to Europe, well, I mean, we

(57:18):
all know. I think the most quintessential Catholic looking Jesus
is actually one of the sons of the the Borges,
you know. I mean, look, look, art was the art
of history in the religious art that became sort of
fundamental to the church because up until really the last

(57:40):
five hundred years, religion actually mattered to people and it
was part of one's daily lifestyle. Art was always depicted
as to the cultural representations of that time to be
relatable to the people that it was teaching. So yeah,
we always make our understands, like Santa Claus, you know,

(58:01):
I mean, there's there's I've seen black Santas.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
You know, and.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
You know, obviously Saint Nicholas wasn't a black man. But
I mean, is there a problem here if someone wants
to represent uh in an iconic figure of importance a
certain way that makes them feel more comfortable or more
more relatable. I mean, this is all this is. But
you know, when you look at more modern pieces of

(58:30):
or depictions of Jesus, he is tend to be the
more of a dark skinned Middle Easterner. And you know,
we also have to remember that, you know, he Israelite.
Skin is very multifacet There's a lot of Jewish people
that look whiter than I do, you know, I mean,
they really do. So skin color is I mean.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
And in a way, I mean the most important.

Speaker 5 (58:55):
Like I said that among of the three most important
things about Jesus is that he became incarnate.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
That he became a man and so.

Speaker 5 (59:05):
And that humanity that he takes on encompasses all humanity.
So there's absolutely zero problem with any racial group depicting Jesus.

Speaker 4 (59:16):
In that fashion. It makes you know, in a way,
it's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
It is a good thing.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
Trying to pick apart.

Speaker 5 (59:25):
Object to or blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus with white skin,
that's the that's the only image of Jesus objected to.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
They don't object to the to the black African.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
Images of Jesus, or the or the Mayan Mayan inspired
images of Jesus.

Speaker 4 (59:37):
There's one there's one it's just raised politics.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
There's a pre Nis scene. There's a pre Nis scene
sect of Christians that left for the East. We're talking
like probably somewhere between the two hundred and thirties to
the three hundreds. It's interesting from a historical point of
view because reading their documents and uncovering what they taught

(01:00:02):
in practice kind of shows a peek into one of
the groups that existed in Christianity prior to the Nisseane
Creed sort of unifying theology. So you get a really
rare insight. They made it all the way to Tibet,
all right, and then it developed in Tibet, and it
came became part of a Christian sect in the western

(01:00:24):
parts of China or what's today China. Okay, it was Tibet. Well,
you know, I'm not sure what it was in the
year two hundred. I don't know what they would have
called it, but it h I mean, have to look
to look at that one. But you know, anyway, what's
western China today. And there are there are images that

(01:00:45):
that that have been found, these stone tablets of scripture
from this group, their own scripture of course, their own
writings and images of Jesus, and you know what, he
looks like. He looks like a Buddha, he looks like

(01:01:06):
he looks like Yeah, he's very Asian, he's got Asian characteristics.
You know. No one ever complains about that one either.
Of course that's not as well known, but still, uh,
it's not uncommon for because of the univers universality of Jesus,
it's not uncommon to depict him in ways that are

(01:01:27):
relatable to the people that you're communicating this to. So
I don't see a probably no, but the Bible doesn't.
I mean, look, the Bible doesn't say he's a white
man either. It says he's a Jew. So I don't
know why this would be on this list either, because
it doesn't say he's a white man.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
It's another is a non star doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Yeah, I don't get this one either, But here you go.
You know, we're past time, but there's only one left.
So let's finish with this. This next one will go
a little bit over and then we'll come back answer
April's question and then get to everyone else's tonight. So
what's the last one on the list?

Speaker 6 (01:02:03):
Last one? You say the best for a last the
word rapture doesn't appear in anti Bibles.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
Okay, that's not entirely true, because it is somewhat it's ironic.
It's actually the concept is in the Vulgate. But you
have to understand though, that they're not talking about the
rapture that evangelicals are waiting for. It wasn't the same thing.
There was a there would be a caught up. I mean, first,

(01:02:31):
the Thessalonians four seventeen says that we will be caught up.
This is the paras it's talking about. It's not talking
about the tribulation where the Christians get to leave and
everyone else is, you know, has to fight it out.
But the Latin word for that being caught up is
I'm going to butcher this because I don't pronounce this well.

(01:02:52):
Rap it more, I believe, is how you say it
in Latin, and it and it can be translated as
rapture as rapture caught up. But the concept is very
much debated, and it does not imply that that Saint
Jerome taught this kind of rapture dispensationalism, because he didn't. Okay,

(01:03:14):
so it's not entirely true to say that it doesn't
appear in the Bible. But at the same time, the
concept that is being taught does not is not in
the Bible. The Thessalonians is not talking about being caught
up in in in in the tribulation to say to
save Christians from the suffering. That's not how it works
if Jesus had to die. So do you all right?

(01:03:36):
When we come back here, we'll get to April's question,
and then get to all yours. Don't go away.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Found bound.

Speaker 11 (01:04:26):
Bound up from the hand, canst.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Eat and.

Speaker 12 (01:09:20):
S not away?

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Do not away, not age, they're not await, do not agree, and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Welcome back everyone to the second hour of Vestiges after dark.
We got one more question from the ether that we're
going to get to sort of is a continuation to
as I said in the last hour, to kind of
close up our discussion on annihilationism from this season. And
I thought it was such a good question that we
really should give it justice and answer it. So we'll

(01:11:44):
spend a little time on that. I see that there's
a lot of questions in the chat, so we'll and
they're all over the place, aren't they. So we'll be
getting through as many of those as we can and
any others. You can also call into the show at
two O seven five four four nineteen eighty three. That's
two O seven five four four nineteen eighty three. Feel
free to call in with any question, comment or story

(01:12:05):
that you'd like to share, and we'll take you on
the air.

Speaker 10 (01:12:07):
Don't go away, all right, So if you all interested.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
In the wine we're drinking tonight, this is the wine
right here. I'll leave it there for you guys to uh.

Speaker 4 (01:13:12):
By the way, do you like.

Speaker 5 (01:13:15):
Do you know what there's Famously my great food hero
Keith Floyd said there's no wine that goes with curry
Indian food.

Speaker 9 (01:13:23):
He means, and but I think so does go with
with hot food. You want something sweet, I think as well,
and Fatten think I think that would be a good
a good.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Match for it. I also like, you know a German sweet,
reasoning too that that can work with with Indian food.
But maybe that might actually be better because so it
turns a little more viscous, it's a little bit thicker,
which helps to kind of cut the fat, I think
a little bit when you're when you're doing something that's
buttery like like Indian food can be, and that works. Yeah,

(01:13:58):
I'll have to try that sometime. Be an expensive drink
to have with it. Most of our turns are priced wine.
It's not cheap wine, particularly to get a good, you know,
something that's got some age on it. Because turn saw
turn tastes a lot better after about ten fifteen years.
I mean, you can drink it young, but you lose
so much of the refinement, so it's kind of hard.
This one's twenty years old. So it's a really very

(01:14:20):
nice color and wonderful flavor.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
It was tasty.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Yeah, you like it? Huh, that's your first first time
with it? Yeah? Great. I'm trying to get you into
all the wines.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
He got me drinking Scotch and now he's got.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Me drinking wine. The wine, drink the wines.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
Do you need to expand my palette past cabernet seven?

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
He's not wrong with cabernet.

Speaker 4 (01:14:40):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 10 (01:14:41):
I mean, you don't really have to go much further
than cabandet.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
I mean, I honestly, there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
My go to got a cab I'll drink it. Anything else,
I'm not quite sure, all.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Right, what's our question? Our last question on the ether?
This one's from April Brandon. You want to do it,
you want me to do it, I can do it, okad.

Speaker 6 (01:15:00):
She asks, if our numa returns to God, and if
in that state, why do we need to be restored
to our body, psyche, etc. If that is restoring us
to our former selves, wouldn't that be going back into
the delusion?

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Okay? So April is a student. She is asking this
question somewhat from a student's vantage point because she's using
some language that is more common in esoteric mysticism than
it would be in Christian circles. The delusion is not
something that Christians really talk about. You might find some
gnosticks that talk about it, but you're not going to
find traditional Christians talking about the delusion. That's more of

(01:15:34):
an Eastern philosophical thing that is built into the Esoteric
Mysticism series that I teach every Saturday afternoon. But this
is I think we can kind of answer this from
multiple perspectives, because this is one of the reasons why,
in my opinion, annihilationism is so important to consider in

(01:15:56):
one's reflection of these things outside of already what we've
talked about, because what we did not and I perhaps
meant or intended to get into this when we discussed
it over the last you know, those last two episodes
where we covered the subject. But what I didn't really
get into and I wanted to, and I should have

(01:16:16):
because it's so important, is what are we talking about
when we say that a person's annihilated, that the damned
are annihilated? Because I think again, Christians today tend to
see mind, or no, let me even go back further
than that. They tend to see the body, the soul,

(01:16:38):
and the spirit as all one thing that makes up
their identity. They don't see them as separate. They see
them as their identity. The reality is is your identity. Now,
I'm gonna sound a little bit Eastern here, We're gonna
sound a little bit esoteric here. I'm not gonna sound
very Christian here. But the reality is your identity as

(01:17:01):
a byproduct of those three things when they come together. Now,
where the semantics is so important, and why I don't
like using words like soul and spirit is because they've
been so interchangeably used that now no one really knows
what you're actually talking about when you say it. It's like, well,
the soul's eternal Plato said, the soul's immortal and irrational. Well,

(01:17:22):
what are we talking about when we say that, and
what did Plato mean when he said it? And what
does the church mean when they adopt that language and
use it? And how do theologians from the past, the
doctors of the church, how did they address it. That's
where it becomes important and right now that I think
we need to address because one of the contention points
might be that there's a contradiction. And I did meant

(01:17:45):
to get to this last time last week because we
started off talking about one of the big elephants in
the room for this theology, as the church teaches the immortal,
rational soul that Plato gives us. And we talked about
how that happened and why that happened. But it's more

(01:18:05):
important than this, because I am not actually arguing that
the Well, let's go through each one. Let's just go
through each one and I'll explain, okay. So we talked
about how each human being, according to Christian theology, is
made up of three things, the soma, which is translated

(01:18:28):
as body in English, the psyche, which is translated as
soul in English, but also in the concept of the
ancient understanding was also the mind, which is why we
get the word psychology from the word psyche, because to
the ancient person, the soul and the mind were the
same thing, and the world of the mind was the

(01:18:52):
spiritual world. And then you have this final component called
the numa that is translated as spirit, that is the
breath of God. So when the scripture talks about we're
made in the image of God, it's it's it's large,
or even better yet says that that God breathes his

(01:19:13):
spirit into us, that we are temples for the Holy Spirit.
When we understand this, what it's what we are is
sort of containing the Numa. The numa because it is
literally an a an aspect of the Holy Spirit that
lives within us and is what gives life, makes life possible,

(01:19:34):
animates us, gives us our ability to exist, is eternal. Absolutely,
that goes on forever. That cannot be annihilated. Okay, that
cannot be annihilated, so that goes back to God in
the damned Okay, Now, what about the psyche in the soma. Well,
let's deal with the soma because the soma is easier.
We know what happens to the body because we get

(01:19:56):
to see that part. That's the one thing we get
to see at death. It decomposed, es, it rots away,
he gets cremated, turned into ash. Even scripture says ash Wednesday.
You know, remember that you are dust, and to dust
you shall return. So we know what happens to the soma.

(01:20:18):
It gets it gets wiped out, right, and then so
that leaves us with the psyche. Now a lot of
people might say, well, there, that's got to be that's
got to be the seat of consciousness. That's got to
be the identity largely, largely, yes, but not entirely, because
the problem is here is that your consciousness largely comes

(01:20:41):
from your brain, which is part of the soma. Now
it interacts in a unique way with the with the psyche,
but it is not the psyche. The brain is part
of the soma. Okay, So your biases, your intellections, your

(01:21:02):
conscious awareness is almost entirely made up of the soma,
which we know what happens to the soma gets wiped out.
So the psyche is what romates. So what is the psyche?
That's what has been called soul, and from Plato's vantage point,
is eternal and rational. Now I would argue, it's only
rational when it joins with the soma. When it has
a brain, it's rational. When it loses its brain, it

(01:21:24):
becomes instinctual, not rational. Now, I don't know what exactly
if he meant rational in the same way we mean
it today, I'd have to look into that to really
get a better understanding as to what he really meant
by that. But for our purposes, let's just say that
the eternal parts what matters. So is it eternal? Well,
in a way, yes, it is. Yes, it is can't
be annihilated because the soul itself is the substance of

(01:21:50):
the incorporeal, and that death, the body rots away, the
numa returns to God, that rejoins it's nature. So why
does the body return to the earth, Because it's made
from the earth. From dust, you shall from dust, you
are us, you shall return It's made, so everything returns

(01:22:10):
to its base nature. The numa is the part of
God that resides with us, that returns to God because
that's its base nature. So what's the psyche's based nature. Well,
it's the archetypes. That's why I say to you. The
archetypal realm is what we call the spiritual world and
all of the archetypes make up all these various spirits.
And when you look at these spirits, they can always
be linked to the same archetypes that Ung talked about,

(01:22:33):
what we see in the tarot decks. Same thing, okay,
And these are eternal concepts. Look, you might not be
here forever, but I guarantee you concepts like the wise
Old Man, the eternal Child, the Great Mother, the Trickster,
the hero, the Shadow will live on forever. They're eternal.
And these your psyche returns to those principles and lives

(01:22:59):
on eternally, but not your identity in any circumstance until
the resurrection. And this is why the resurrection is necessary
and important to get to April's question, because you are
not the Numa, You are not the psyche, you are
not the Soma. You are only you because those three
things came together at a very special moment in time,

(01:23:21):
and by the grace of God, you are allowed to exist.
And when you choose to damnation over salvation, everything returns
to its base nature and you cease to be. Now
does the other thing was about an annihilationism? Does is
there eating eternal suffering? I think so, but not in
the conscious way that you think of it. It's more

(01:23:43):
in a way of their being a complete and utter
separation from what it was intended to be. And perhaps
there is something instinctual within the psyche that does indeed
feel that instinctively, but not consciously. Okay, not con just
say it's more like a like like a like like
these these goat. I know I have a paranormal audience.

(01:24:05):
This is not a perfect analogy by any stretch of
the imagination, but uh, you know, you'll you'll relate to this.
You know those ghost hauntings where it's more like it's
a replay that keeps happening over and over again, like
the Lady in White Stories and yeah, residual haunting. Yeah,
it's kind of like that. They they are reliving the trauma,
but they're not really thinking about it or experiencing it

(01:24:27):
and saying, oh God, this is terrible. When will let
it ever? And it's just they are forever locked in
the misery of whatever it is that happened, and that
energy stays there and does that what becomes ghosts in
some circumstances, But ultimately that is an eternal principle unless
God decides to stop it after the parasea, which I
would argue he probably does because that most likely gets

(01:24:50):
thrown into the like a fire too. But then again
we have to decide on what all that means, and
that's beyond the scope of this question. So this is
why the resurrection is important because think about it this way.
If all, if all you were was the Numa or
the psyche or whatever, then you know what, then you
can have this erroneous Christian understanding that a lot of
people have today where Grandma immediately goes to heaven because
she's so great, Because why wouldn't you, Why wouldn't you

(01:25:13):
just be able to Christ dies for your sins and
then you die and you go to heaven. You live
in some incorporeal perfection some way. But that's not what
the Bible teaches happens to us. That's not what the
Nissan Creed teaches happens to us. That's not what Christian
theology teaches that happens to us. We are resurrected from
the dead. Why would God need to do that if
that wasn't important. Clearly it's important to his overall plan,

(01:25:34):
you know why, because you need all those street components
to come back together again. In order for you to
be you, in order for you to exist and to
be fully aware of what you are, to have the
free will that makes you what you are, those three components,
the Soma, the Psyche, and the Numa, must be reconstituted
into the person that you are, but this time perfected,

(01:25:55):
this time devoid of all of the things that brought
sin into your life life and made you resist God's
will and grace. So, in a sense, when I say
annihilationism is my philosophy, I'm not talking about Numa's being
destroyed or Psyche's being destroyed. I'm talking about egos being destroyed.

(01:26:18):
I don't think you get to keep your ego without salvation.
I don't The Rosicrucians didn't teach that. The Masons don't
teach that. The basically every single, every single esoteric system
in European esoteric system going back from the earliest ones,

(01:26:39):
do not teach that. They all, in fact, they teach
the oppos They teach you have to build immortality, you
have to actually build immortality. Now, they kind of sometimes
take God too much out of the equation. He's there,
but they don't necessarily see that's more of a of
a you know, working with God. So I would reject
that because as a christ I feel that that's part

(01:27:02):
of the relationship is to come back into Him in
the way we were intended to be, the way we
were designed to be. So the ultimate slap in the face,
you could say to God, which it doesn't hurt him,
but it hurts us, is to reject salvations because you
are literally choosing to not be what you were created for,
and therefore you cannot exist in that state. Yes, your

(01:27:24):
psyche goes into some kind of eternal archetypal state, and yes,
your numa returns to God, but that's not what he wanted.
He wanted you to keep that numa. He wanted you
to use that psyche, and he wanted your soma to
become perfect in the same sense that Jesus becomes a
perfected part of himself. Because remember he took on our

(01:27:45):
nature and always but sin all right, So even though
he didn't sin, he still had all of the weaknesses
of humanity in the sense of feeling pain or being
able to get sick. Jesus could still experience those imperfections
because he humble himself to our level, just couldn't sin,
but he humbled himself to be limited in that way.

(01:28:05):
So in that sense, that's what resurrects in a perfect
nature at the resurrection, and we also will do this.
So the only real contention point is what about the damned,
because big surprise to some of you, the damned resurrect too.
The resurrection of the dead is not just for the righteous.
Everyone resurrects to judgment. What's judgment the face of God

(01:28:27):
that in consuming fire, if you have the grace, you
endure it and you live forever. You don't have that grace, well,
then you know, we could then argue that this becomes
part of the discussion of well, maybe everything is wiped out,
maybe it isn't. I can't answer that for you, definitively.
I have my suspicions.

Speaker 4 (01:28:45):
Can I Can I go back to as a good summary?
Can I go back to the idea of ego?

Speaker 5 (01:28:51):
Because you know, I think and this is a contemporary
problem actually for people that you know who have nothing
to do with the Church.

Speaker 4 (01:29:00):
There's a view of history.

Speaker 5 (01:29:02):
Look, I'm a great defender of Western civilization, not because
I worship it, but because I think it's.

Speaker 4 (01:29:09):
The best worst system we've got in this side of eternity.

Speaker 5 (01:29:13):
But people, I think have a misconception that, oh, we
didn't really need Christianity, or you know, that's incidental because
you know, the Greco Roman world was pointing in this direction.

Speaker 4 (01:29:27):
That's not true. What we have is in and the
significance of.

Speaker 5 (01:29:34):
Just the teaching of Jesus let alone who he was,
although I think because of who he was, the teaching
penetrated is actually a very a huge reversal of this
idea of the self, of the ego in the Greco
Roman world, you know, I mean decent people. The very
famous letter of a decent Roman soldier who's writing to

(01:29:57):
his wife who actually shows rare ten and it's like
he obviously loves her, and she says she's pregnant.

Speaker 4 (01:30:03):
He says, oh, that's fantastic news. You know, if it's
a if it's a boy, keeping if it's a girl,
put it on the rubbish tip.

Speaker 11 (01:30:10):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:30:10):
So this is not some evil man.

Speaker 5 (01:30:12):
This is just a normal actually probably quite a kind,
relatively kind Roman.

Speaker 4 (01:30:16):
That's how he wrote to his wife. Well, and that's
because the idea of ego was that things need to
fit serve ourselves, like if it serves our family, then
we'll keep this baby if he doesn't throw away. You
have a reversal of what of this in Jesus.

Speaker 5 (01:30:35):
So, for example, John the Baptist, when approached by followers
basically saying, you know, oh, who should we follow you?
Or this Jesus person, John about to says I must decrease,
he must increase. The word for I is a go
in Greek, so the eye is decreased. Then, of course

(01:30:57):
you have Jesus says I am.

Speaker 4 (01:31:03):
The I am. When does he say it when when
questioned by the.

Speaker 5 (01:31:09):
Chief priest and Pontius Pilot. In other words, he only
ever plays the I am when that I am will
get him crucified, when it will need sacrifice. And that's
why in Philippians too, perhaps the greatest passage in the
New Testament, you have this amazing paradox where where we

(01:31:37):
get this description of Jesus who humbles himself. In other words,
the ego gets put down, humbles himself as a slave,
even to death, death on a cross. Therefore, God has
highly exalted him and given the name above all names.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
So in Christianity we have this total reversal of the ego,
the ego to be completely.

Speaker 5 (01:32:03):
Not not muffled, but by free choice, the self is
offered to become Christ.

Speaker 4 (01:32:12):
Like this is theosis.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Yeah, let this mind be in you, that is also
in Christ Jesus. That's two five Philippians two five, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:32:19):
Yeah, And the mind is the important thing about The
first words of Jesus are metanoiitae.

Speaker 4 (01:32:24):
You know, change your mind allows your mind to be changed.
And so ego.

Speaker 5 (01:32:31):
In the context of heaven is actually that ego, the
perfected ego that has been humble and that has taken
on the likeness of Jesus Christ. Now doesn't mean that
we are all identical in heaven, that we're all just
like little Jesus is in heaven.

Speaker 4 (01:32:49):
That's not.

Speaker 5 (01:32:50):
You still have those things that make you distinctive, that
God makes you, knows every hair on your head and
all those things. But because your ego is con formed
to the sacrificial vision of what it means to serve God, neighbor,
and self, it's it's nothing like the ego that we

(01:33:10):
talk about in egomania.

Speaker 4 (01:33:12):
It's nothing like the ego of of of self serving.
It's the total opposite.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
The transformation of that yes, yes, and so this is
why to answer April's question as to again, just to reiterate,
she says, if our numer returns to God, and if
in that state, and if in that state, why do
we need to be restored to our body psyche, et cetera.
If if that is restoring us to our former selves,

(01:33:38):
wouldn't that be going back into the delusion? No, we're
talking about a perfected reality. So yes, in the in
the sense that and this is why the resurrection is
the way that it is, because yeah, he could have
just kept us as little spirits, you know, floating around
in heaven. That's not the plan. The plan is to

(01:33:59):
be what we are. There is importance to our corporeality. Corporeality,
all right, So the soma is necessary, and I would
say the brain too. I would say the brain too. Now,
the real mystery is how does this reconstitute, particularly after
decomposition or cremation or all the other things that could happen.

(01:34:21):
You know, uh, but you know that's that is true mystery.
We don't understand all of that. But I mean, certainly,
with God, all things are possible, so we trust in that.
And and and there's so much focus on this resurrection
of the body, not the resurrection of the south, and
even Gnostics, modern Gnostics mostly, but modern Gnostics have taken
on this idea that, oh, well, that's just an allegory

(01:34:42):
for our ascension into the kingdom. It's like, no, it's not.
In fact, that's one of the more literal things. And
this is why doubting Thomas is so important as a story.
It's it's it's not just about his doubt and having
to have the proof. It's also about proving to us
that Thomas was touching the nail marks, this resurrected body

(01:35:04):
was the same one that had died on that cross.
It was to emphasize that this was not a spirit,
this was not a ghost. It really was the same
body that came back. And therefore, this is why it
becomes so essential that these three parts Soma, psyche, and
Numa are brought together again. That is, by the virtue

(01:35:26):
of that that is the resurrection. That is actually what
the resurrection is, is those three things returning to the
one cohesive reality that we enjoy right now and take
for granted and continuously send through. But we won't have
to send through that because salvation takes that away perfects
what's imperfect in us. It removes the incorrect, the corruptibility,

(01:35:50):
you could say. And yes, and it's an interesting that
that there was a separate word for ego that wasn't
just synonymous with the psyche or or even the high thing.
It was its own thing. It's an, I would say,
an accident of being alive in that very perfect way
of having free will. You know, ego is sort of

(01:36:14):
forged accidentally out of the ability to make choices and
to be aware of those choices. But I don't think
I would say that that only becomes eternal once we
are brought into that state of resurrection and kept there,
because I do think we lose that at death. I do.

(01:36:36):
I think we will experience the separation of that at death,
and it won't be until the resurrection of the dead
that we will feel as we do now. So when
people think that they become a ghost and that they
will just be like floating around in some invisible form somewhere,
watching their families and helping out here and there and
like having the same conscience, like kind of like the

(01:36:56):
movie Ghosts with Whoopee Goldberg and or yeah, like you're
not gonna You're not going to exist like that. I'm sorry.
Your your consciousness is truly locked into your brain. You'll
have awareness, but it won't be like what you think.
You won't be able to rationalize that you think right now.
It will be a very different type of reality, not
something that you can even begin to comprehend because you've

(01:37:17):
never been separated like that. The closest I could say
that a person could come to experiencing that would be
traumatic brain injury. They experienced something that's like that, particularly
very serious ones. Have you ever met someone that's that's
been so seriously neurologically damaged that people will kind of

(01:37:38):
irreverently call them, you know, they're like a vegetable, Yeah,
that veget vegetative. That vegetative state that some people unfortunately
end up in after a major brain trauma is almost
identical to what a ghost ultimately is. It's just instinctual.
There's still feeling there, but there's no real rational thought.

(01:38:00):
There's no real this is me and I'm experiencing this,
and that's you, and I'm watching over you. That's gone.
The only time you'll experience that again is if you
achieve in my mind, well, at the resurrection of the dead,
and we can debate as to what happens to the
damned after the Parasa. That's I think ultimately where the
annihilation is an episode was trying to answer, is to say,

(01:38:22):
eternal conscious torment versus you know, the eternal life of heaven.
You know, is that eternity is that? Is that a
gift from God? Or is that innate? I would say
it's not innate only because of what we've discussed here
in this question, but it does regardless of where we
could go with that. We'll leave that to maybe future subjects,
future episodes to discuss. Regardless, the Numa, the Psyche, and

(01:38:47):
the Soma are important, and the resurrection that brings them
all back together again. I think there's a reason for that. Okay,
So all right, let's get to now your questions because
I don't want to take too much time now. If
you guys want to talk more about annihilation, is just
you guys tell me. But I know that there's other
questions out there in the chat, So Brandon, let's start
with whatever question you want to start with from the chat.

Speaker 6 (01:39:11):
There's a good one to start off. It's from Jennifer.
What does it as.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
Above, so below mean okay, so that is a cult axiom. Okay,
that comes from the Western ministry tradition as above, so below.
So that's represented in the figure of Baphomet, which we
have over here. You can see that he has one
hand that points up, one hand that points down. That

(01:39:37):
represents that the macro cosmos, which is the eternal cosmic principle,
you could say, the divine nature of God the heavens,
and Chinese philosophy perhaps you could say, is whatever happens
there is reflected in the microcosm that we experience as

(01:39:58):
corporeal limited being. So when we unite as Baphomet unite,
it's not an evil figure. They've made him evil. But
when when when you unite in this sense that you
can have one hand in heaven and one hand touching
the earth, then what that gives you is a certain
type of mastery to be able to to manage both

(01:40:23):
worlds so that what happens in one is perfectly reflected
in the other. So you could also to make put
it in more Christian terms, that by unifying ourselves to
the will of God the heavens, we then bring a
reflection of that will into earth. So when Christians do charity,

(01:40:44):
because God wills Christian charity, when he gives us the
corporal works of mercy to feed the hungry and clothe
the naked, and and and and and heal the sick,
we are literally taking in the heavens and making them
reflected on earth. So as above so below. So the
perfection of heaven is brought here through us as instruments

(01:41:06):
of that divine nature. But in a cult terms, they
kind of will often separate that from Christian theology, although
not entirely, because you know, the Western mystery tradition evolved
out of Christians. It did involved out of you know,
atheists or something. You know, it was a Christian offshoot
or people that were part of it were Christians, so
they Christian philosophy was always part of it. It also

(01:41:28):
means that we can use let me give you a
pagan example, I give you a Christian one. Okay. Pagan
example would be that by manifesting something on a on
a macrocosmic level, we can make it happen in the microcosmos.
So one example of this would be in in tribal societies,

(01:41:51):
shamanic societies. It would be common for before a big hunt,
because let's face it, if you needed to survive, you
needed to eat, and food wasn't always easy to come by.
You couldn't go to the supermarket and just take it
out of the cell aphane. You had to go and
hunt it. And something had to yield its life to you,
and you have to be good enough to be able
to be skillful enough to be able to get it,
and so sometimes you could be unsuccessful. So what they

(01:42:13):
would often do is a ritual the night before a
big hunt. The tribe would get together and they'd put
on animal skins and wear animal horns and become the
animal because the higher archetypal cosmic principle would be brought
down into themselves so that they could manifest that success
on earth as above so below. Okay, so it's really

(01:42:37):
a reflection of that same thing with sympathetic magic. Okay,
what do they do in voodoo or what even witchcraft
does this? You know, you get to get nail, fingernail
clippings or hair clippings, You put them into a voodoo doll.
You consecrate that almost in a mock baptism, to be
the person that is your target. Not always for evil means,
by the way, you can use voodoo dolls to do

(01:42:58):
good things too. If a person and I know there
are voodon priestess that I know of Vudan priests that
actually will create a voodoo doll of a client who's
sick to make the help them become better. So she
makes a voodoo doll in the same way you would
to do something harmful, she does something helpful to them.
And what that is is it puts because she puts

(01:43:19):
the hair clippings and the fingernail clippings into the doll,
it becomes a sympathetic reflection of that higher principle. So
in this case, the person, the client's the higher principle,
the dolls the microcosmic lesser principle. But as above, so
below it reflects down into it. So there's multiple layers
of this. You know, look at the sky, Okay, you

(01:43:42):
see galaxies. You see you see galactic clusters that look
like neurons. I mean, you look at what it looks
like when you see these whole strings of galaxies. All
you know, if you assuming you could come out far
enough into the universe to actually look down on galaxies
in that way, they would look like little neuron connections.
You look at galaxies, they look like the eyes of

(01:44:04):
a human being. You know, when you look at the
way planets circle or orbit a sun, it's very similar
to the neutrons and protons electrons. It's orbiting an atom,
all right, So as above so below. So basically we
live in a microcosmic reflection of a higher cosmic principle

(01:44:26):
that is outside of our understanding completely because it's God's realm,
not ours, Okay, and that's ultimately what that means. Father.
I don't know if there's anything you'd like to contribute
to that. I tried to put a Christian example.

Speaker 4 (01:44:41):
Yeah, I mean not really. I don't really have a
dog in the fire.

Speaker 5 (01:44:44):
I mean, although you did say one thing which and
this isn't quite on the point, but you said one
thing that.

Speaker 4 (01:44:51):
Really, sorry, I'll keep it clean, annoys me about New
agey or neopagan sort of groups, which you know, one
of my.

Speaker 5 (01:45:03):
Friends, he's got this narrative of somehow, you know, the
Christians invaded Britain and killed all the Druids and Pagans
and you know, persecuted them and their religion like or
maybe they converted to Christianity because it was better and
made more sense, which is in fact the truth.

Speaker 4 (01:45:24):
So there's no mass graves of druids in Wales or
what have you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:30):
So but yeah, not authentic ones anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:45:35):
But in other words, just like the new atheists, I mean,
the sort of new age critics of Christianity are entirely
dependent upon Christianity.

Speaker 2 (01:45:45):
Yeah, they's a bit like it's a bit like, you know,
like the new media talking about legacy media as though
they're evil, you know, and.

Speaker 4 (01:45:55):
But of course all of their reflections are based on
reading legacy media.

Speaker 2 (01:46:01):
Buckler Bland's Buckland's Guide to Witchcraft. It's a real popular
It's Bucklin, right, I think I'm saying that it's a
big blue book of witchcraft that lou Allen published. It's
very popular. I've never not seen it at a bookstore.
It seems like they always keep reprinting it. But when
you when you read through it, it's basically just a

(01:46:23):
copy and paste of the Anglican Service, you know, it
really is just modified for pagan language, because why because
we don't have anything now. Part of the reason we
don't have anything is the Church did destroy a lot
of it, it did. I mean the Christianization of Europe.

Speaker 4 (01:46:41):
And also there was feedback between the two. Yeah, you so,
but yeah, a lot of it was just but you know,
if something, if something works and has has an intrinsic truth,
meaning it will survive.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
That's true. That's true.

Speaker 4 (01:46:59):
If it does, it won't I agree with that. And
the truth movements within the Church as well, And.

Speaker 2 (01:47:04):
Let's let's not forget it.

Speaker 4 (01:47:06):
It'll fade away.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):
And let's not forget that the Pagans became the Christians
and they're the ones that chose to get rid of
this older stuff. It wasn't like they were two separate
groups and the Church came in and said, Okay, we're
stealing all your books, We're going to burn everything you've got. No,
they were the people that did it. They forget that, Yeah, yeah,
exactly my point. Yeah, yeah, so let's not forget that one. Okay,

(01:47:31):
So what's our next one? Father, Chris, do you have
one from the chat did you like to pull?

Speaker 4 (01:47:37):
There was a brief one about.

Speaker 5 (01:47:41):
Well, the specific question was about other of the gods
and what about you know, j Jovia's witnesses views on
X and again from Jennifer the I guess I'm going
to give a high handed reply, which is that.

Speaker 4 (01:47:57):
We know the truth and those things and not the truth,
and that so so very arrogantly, I'm going to tell
you there is one God and Father's on the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 5 (01:48:06):
Anyone that doesn't believe in that doesn't doesn't believe in
the whole truth. Now that's not to disregard what other
people think or say, but to ask, you know, what
about this sect or this view or this you know
these people don't agree. Well, we can only teach you, Well,
I can only teach you what the what the Church

(01:48:27):
has authorized. Well, I can tell you whatever I like,
but I'll tell you what the authorized teaching of the
Church is. And this is based upon not just you know,
political whims and will but actually we were really talking
about this just now, what has been the consistent revealed truth.

Speaker 4 (01:48:45):
So you could do your own research. But Joe's Witnesses
is a.

Speaker 5 (01:48:53):
More recent incarnation of Arianism, which was a heresy which
was in the backdrop of the Council of Nicea.

Speaker 4 (01:49:01):
So you can you can look that up to sort
of decide.

Speaker 2 (01:49:06):
Basically, Aroanism taught that Jesus was a created being. That's
the big issue there.

Speaker 4 (01:49:12):
Half God, half man like Apollo, and so you know.
But anyway, so the great what we're trying to get
to is.

Speaker 5 (01:49:24):
Ways of interacting with what has been the revealed truth,
because we believe there is a God that created all things.
Because you also made reference to the Old Testament, which
of course we see as part of that revelation. But
we're not Martianists. We don't dismiss the Old Testament for
the New, but neither do we think that the entirety

(01:49:47):
of God's revelation is restricted to the hebrewscriptures or the
Old Testament. So it's kind of the question is really
or sorry? My answer is really about a mindset that
says literally, the word Catholic is of two Greek words
that means of the whole. And what we seek to
do is to take in the whole of the revelation

(01:50:10):
of things good or ill, heresy and what becomes orthodoxy,
and to synthesize that in a way that communicates to
an age really doesn't know these things, because you know,
we've got three four generations of people who have not
been taught basic Christian theology just as part of the norm.

Speaker 4 (01:50:28):
You know, I don't mean which have a church you
should go to.

Speaker 2 (01:50:31):
I would add to the question about whether or not
these other gods exist, is I could tell you what
they are to hopefully sort of bridge the gap and
not completely say, well, they don't really exist. Well, yeah,
that's true. They really don't exist as these divine competitors too.
It's not like Jehovah's out there and he's like he's

(01:50:55):
the king of the real One, like he's above Zeus
and he's like constantly keeping Zeus down. He knows the
Zeus out there. But it's not like that. Okay, what
Father Chris said is absolutely correct. There was just one
God most perfectly identified in the Holy Trinity, and how
Christians identy at least in my opinion, in his opinion,

(01:51:16):
in the Church's opinion, and in the opinion of two
thousand years of Western civilization, we consider that to be
the best model to understand it. However, who was Zeus
and who is the Athena and all of these other
Egyptian gods, because clearly these things were important still are
Look at all of the gods of Hinduism. Okay, but

(01:51:39):
I think actually Hinduism is the way to answer this
question because most people, most Christians would say that Hinduism
is another polytheistic sect. It is not. It is actually
a very very much a monotheistic religion. What they see though,
is thirty thousand and gods, of which Jesus is actually

(01:52:01):
one of them. In they're at pantheon and they say, well, see,
that's that's polytheism. They got all these gods, they got
tens of thousands of gods. Okay, yeah, but what are
they saying it is? Okay, so in in in Hinduism
you have the ultimate reality of God. Okay, that's called
that's that is, that is called Brahman. Just like in Christianity,

(01:52:24):
Brahmin creates in his own image and in in in
in Hinduism, people are the Atman, which is the reflection
of Brahmin. It as above, so below, it's the reflection
of Brahmen in in the physical world. So just like
it's almost the exact same theology, almost exactly the same. Okay.

(01:52:45):
This is one of the beautiful things about syncretism is
that when you really look, you see that they're not
really saying the same, They're not really saying different things.
They've just got a lot of different semantics in a
different culture to go with it. So it makes it
look very foreign, but it really isn't. And it's this
is one example. Brahmin, just like in Christianity, is made
up of three distinctive parts, which is Brahma the creator aspect,

(01:53:10):
Shiva the destroyer aspect, and Vishnu, yes, the preserver aspect.
In a lot of ways, you could say that's very
much reflected in the creator being or Brahma being the
father okay. Vishnu the preserver is very much like the
Holy Spirit okay, and the destroyer Shiva. It's very much Jesus.

(01:53:34):
Why you say it's a story because of the sacrifice
of the cross and because of the parasa and that
he is the one that takes on the destruction of
the old heaven and the old earth. And you know,
so in a way, Jesus is very much a Shiva
figure if we were going to try to compare the
two archetypes in that sense, and that makes up Brahmin.
But outside of that that that trinity in Hinduism are

(01:53:59):
all of the thirty thousand plus gods that are all
like like Ganesha, you know, Kali, you know, there's all
these different ones and who are they okay, well, they
are aspects of the functions of the cosmos that these

(01:54:20):
higher principles of Brahma put into Brahman puts into the cosmos.
So in a sense, for our modern Christian Western minds,
you could say that the pagan gods are the archetypes
that were worshiped and deified ass as deities. But they

(01:54:43):
were not. They were just because they did not understand archetypes.
But what they did understand is that archetypes were very
much in control of everything they did. It's why where
they were thought, well, that's got to be a god.
And if you communicate with an archetype in the sense
that you honor it, you give offerings to it, and

(01:55:04):
they do something for you, but in a very impersonal way,
because the archetypes are very impersonal, it will feel as
though they've granted you their favor. But they didn't have
the benefit of of of the Jewish understanding. And part
of that's because the Jewish people really kept that very
much to themselves. They did, but the rest of the

(01:55:25):
world didn't really want it. So it wasn't like they
were trying to keep it secret. It was just that,
you know, the world the rest of the world had
their thing, Jews had their thing, and even in Egypt
there was a monotheistic sect for a while. So, you
know it it gets around a little bit. You know,
it was trying to poke its head through people were
starting to arrive at this understanding. But what the pagan

(01:55:47):
guards are are essentially for our purposes, you can say
they are people. They are they are the they are
the functions of God that people have deified an object
divide into some kind of of godlike form. Now, the

(01:56:12):
things that God does exists. But you know, when when
God's wrath is present in the world, we don't worship
that as Christians, as as Mars, you know, but Pagan's
will they'll be like, well, that's it's all. That's a deity.
Then we can appeal to that deity. But it's just
the power of God that you're and you shouldn't be

(01:56:33):
worshiping the power of God. You should be worshiping God
that grants that power. Okay, So that's the problem, But
it doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means that
they're mistaken as to what they are. And because they're archetypes,
because and archetypes are somewhat sentient. They will behave for
our purposes because they're so linked to consciousness, they will

(01:56:54):
behave as though they are individual beings. Now, to understan Dan,
this helps one to understand how thought forms are created
Tulpa's aggrigors, and anybody interested in the paranormal could benefit
from understanding how this dynamic works because archetypes are just
that powerful. You can talk to an archetype. Doesn't mean

(01:57:15):
they're God though. Now they can do godlike things because
it is the power of God. But it's actually sentient,
because God's will is actually sentient. Sentience is a product
of the cosmos. You see. The only reason you're able
to be aware of yourself is because it's part of
the cosmos itself. Everything in the cosmos is sentient. Doesn't

(01:57:37):
mean it's rational, and it doesn't mean it's conscious, just
means it's sentient.

Speaker 5 (01:57:43):
Every time he speaks with therapist, you're speaking to an archetide, absolutely.
I mean, that's really their job is to help you
see that.

Speaker 1 (01:57:52):
It is.

Speaker 2 (01:57:52):
And it's really just basically a way to bridge ancient
thought with modern psychology and to put it into a
package that the way we think today, we can understand
and make it work. So you know, I would say
Pagans don't need those gods anymore. They've got a better
option now. But you know, some people think they've been

(01:58:15):
wronged by the Church and they've got all these different reasons,
and so they go on these rebellious pursuits and take
that into their spirituality. So you know, I guess maybe
worshiping the power of God is better than not worshiping
God at all. But you know, it is a mistaken thing,
it really is. And I would say that oftentimes paganism
done right, done for the right reasons, can actually lead

(01:58:37):
one back to a truer understanding of God down the road.
So I never really criticized pagans for their current state.
I don't see them as lesser than me. I don't
look down on them, and I would never criticize them
for their beliefs. I see that as a direction in

(01:58:59):
the life of God that hopefully will enlighten them even
further to get a better understanding for themselves as to
whatever that might mean. So you know, overall, I have
great relationships with pagans. We even have pagan benefactors in
our church. We do we do, we have benefactors that
have been donating to this church for years that are pagan,

(01:59:22):
and you know what, I think they wouldn't do that
if they didn't see value in in in what this
church does. And I think what this church has done
for them is instead of dismissing them and saying that
they're wrong and you're going to hell for it, we
say you're on the path, talk about it. Let's talk. Yeah,

(01:59:43):
how's your experience with this and what does it lead to?
And then I'll share. I will share that this is
what I think. And you know what, not one has
ever said, you know what, Bishop, you're completely wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:59:57):
Of gods.

Speaker 3 (01:59:57):
I share a shared experience and you trapolate from that.

Speaker 2 (02:00:01):
You know, everyone has said to me, and you've been
there for some of these conversations, every single one has
said to me, you know what, you're right, These are archetypes.
And where do the archetypes come from? Comes from a
higher principle. That's what we call God. You know, maybe
you don't want to call it God, but you are right.
But all the Pagans recognize there is a higher principle.
And that's the beauty of Hinduism is that they've always

(02:00:22):
recognized that this is one higher principle that can be
reflected in numerous different faces, and they do interact with
those individual faces. But even Hindus would know that these
are archetypes that they're interacting with. They're not really interacting
with something that is in competition to the One True God,
which is Brahman to them. And I personally don't think

(02:00:44):
there's a difference between Brahman and the God of Christians
or the trinitarian God of the Christians. I don't think
there's the difference between the two. I really don't. I
think they're the same God. I absolutely do. Now. I
know evangelicals would fight me on that one, but you know,
when you break down, you see, right, and that's and

(02:01:04):
they and if if they recognize that this is the
one God, that's what they call them, I'm not going
to dispute that. So, yeah, there you go. That's a good, great, great,
great question. Though, Jamie, have you seen one that you
want to grab?

Speaker 3 (02:01:17):
It goes back to the bapha met.

Speaker 7 (02:01:19):
Jennifer asked, who or what actually is bapha met because obviously,
like most of us, we were taught that it's a
Satanic symbol growing up, and it's absolutely the opposite.

Speaker 2 (02:01:28):
It became a Satanic symbol when the Church of Satan
I think it was. It was either the Church of
Satan or the the other one temple.

Speaker 3 (02:01:36):
Satanic Temple adopted it back in the seventies.

Speaker 2 (02:01:39):
Where's well, I can't I get the all mixed up,
but one of the Satanic groups, one of the bigger
Satanic groups, did grab this this symbol because it's a
very devil like looking creature. And then there is some
lore behind it. It was there was some urban legends
if you can call them that, or myths back in

(02:02:02):
medieval times. Yeah. There it is medieval times of the
knights templar being disbanded by the pope and many of
them were actually executed for pagan beliefs and profane beliefs.

(02:02:23):
And there was apparently found on the altar. Yes and uh,
and that was I think largely written off to myth
and not actual history. But what it's a it's an
a cult symbol and it's actually a fairly modern thing.

(02:02:43):
It's the occultist. I will look for it. Just make
sure I'm saying the name right. Let me let me,
let me bring it up. Elephis levi Elfus, yeah, elphis

(02:03:04):
le yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:03:05):
He he.

Speaker 2 (02:03:08):
Was the one that actually constructed the image as I
understand it, and and it was to represent the as
above so below principle. It was a personification of that principle.
So it's not the devil. It's not even closely related
to the devil, not on any level. And the the

(02:03:30):
the the horns are not devil horns. The horns are
representative of of wisdom that leads into cosmic wisdom, that
that leads down into the mind that by by raising
one's mind to the heavens, we absorb that cosmic wisdom.

Speaker 3 (02:03:47):
We have the flame above his head.

Speaker 2 (02:03:49):
Yes, and it's also an adrogynous figure. If you notice,
he's got breast, but also a penis, and the penis
is a wrect representing the potential of will because surprise, surprise,
but all you all you you you parents out there
that bought your little girl's magic wands and for for
a Halloween to go around as a princess or a phallic.

(02:04:10):
It's a phallic. It's it's a phallus, a magic wand
is a penis arect penis to project through the orgasmatic
ecstasy one's will into the world. So a magic wand
is basically a erect penis, you know, so you might
want to, you know, either come to terms with that
and be like, okay with it, because that's what it is.

(02:04:33):
Or if you have a problem with it, maybe you
shouldn't get your little girl's magic wands anymore and teach
them not to be wanting to be fairies or witches
or whatever. But now, and regardless, belphamet's not a real
it's not an entity. It's not a spirit, it's not
a demon, it's not the devil. It is a principle

(02:04:54):
that's been given a anthropomorphized principle. That's it. It's the
as above so below, anthropomorphised into an image of a
of an archetype being. And yes, it is used in
tarot carts for the devil, but remember what the devil represents,
you know, constraint.

Speaker 4 (02:05:12):
We prefer, we prefer on earth as it is in heaven.

Speaker 2 (02:05:15):
Yes, yeah, and in a way that is the same thing, right,
But I mean it means the same thing. It does
mean the same thing. But I think Jesus said it better,
and that's his words, not ours. So you know, let's
go with Jesus on that one. But you know, don't
be if you're a Christian, don't be afraid of Bapha
met befa me. It's it's that's silly. Okay, that's silly.

(02:05:36):
It's not it's not a demon, all right, all right?
Uh Brandon, what's our next one's?

Speaker 6 (02:05:42):
The next question comes from val? She asks, after my
previous husband passed away, he called the landline, which showed
on the caller id iphroze and no message was left.
How is that possible?

Speaker 2 (02:05:54):
All right, well, answer this one that we'll go to break.
So that is actually a very common, a somewhat common thing.
Even my own family experienced something similar to this. I
can give you that story if you're interested, let me know.
But this is actually something that happens often, and particularly
in the modern era, this is something that seems to

(02:06:17):
be happening more frequently because now everyone's got color idy.
I remember back in the days in the eighties where
you had to pay extra for that service. You know,
you had this little plastic box that you set on
top of your phone where it would show the number
coming up, and we thought we were so cool for
being able to see her star sixty nine call him back. Yeah,
And so what this seems to be, okay, is remember

(02:06:43):
what I told you about death. Okay, Again, we tend
to think in very black and white terms. So you know,
either you're live, then you're dead. In medical science wants
to proclaim death occur at at you know, twelve hundred
and three hours or something. You know, it's always like
we have these definitive concepts. Nothing's definitive. Nothing. Death is

(02:07:03):
a process that unfolds over times. Why the Buddhists won't
even touch a body for three days or at least
they're not supposed to after death, because it takes about
three days for things to start to settle, all right,
there's a lot of confusion and stuff. And so in
those initial days of death, even though the body might

(02:07:24):
not be showing any signs of life and that brain
is not active in any way that could be detected,
I can guarantee you that that person's soul, their psyche,
is very much active and having experiences through that time
and trying to figure out how to rationalize without the
brain what they're experiencing, because all they are now is instinct, Okay,

(02:07:47):
So what they will do is instinctively produce manifestations that
correspond to their quest for understanding and that can even
be projected into the phenomenal world and effect usually technology,
because technology is a little more ethereal. It operates on

(02:08:10):
electrical principles, which are incorporeal principles and can be effected.
This is why paranormal equipment works when it scientifically has
no valid reason to work. All right, there's really no
reason why an SB seven or a novelists should do
anything at all. But the reason these things produce results

(02:08:31):
and that certain paranormal investigators will swear by them, even
though hardcore scientists will say that's all bullshit, pseudoscience, there's
no validity to it. Is because that the electrical environment
that is made up of the electromagnetic system all around
us can be manipulated by these forces. When a person's
recently deceased, they're very much still connected to that, and

(02:08:55):
so you can sometimes have manifestations, and what it will
manifest as is what that person no. So perhaps in
this particular state, this husband was a former husband, yes, okay,
was trying to reach out to you, trying to call you,
And so what it did was produce a manifestation of
what do I need to do to call? Well, it

(02:09:15):
still has the image of that, it can still produce
the image I need to call, I need to get information,
I need to make a phone call, I need to
call my wife, and that will produce a corresponding effect.
So as above, so below, same principle at work here
in this and that's what explains a lot of these
strange paranormal after death experiences. We've gone a little bit

(02:09:36):
over here. We're gonna take our next break, our last
break actually, and when we come back, more of your questions.
So go away.

Speaker 1 (02:10:27):
The s s F F of the sas as a.

Speaker 12 (02:10:45):
Fat fat fat three sass s s sas sassa Saa

(02:11:54):
Saa Sasha and as half as far as.

Speaker 1 (02:12:30):
Sat for the.

Speaker 13 (02:12:37):
Ers, this commissionisi.

Speaker 2 (02:16:52):
No no, no.

Speaker 1 (02:17:35):
Support.

Speaker 2 (02:17:36):
The welcome back everyone to Vestiges after dark. This is

(02:18:19):
the third and final hour and your last chance to
get a question, comment or story into us by calling
into the show at two seven five four four nineteen
eighty three. That's two seven five four four nineteen eighty three,
or we'll just be continuing to take your questions from
the chats. That's fine too, all right, let me come

(02:18:40):
back here more from whatever it is that's on your mind.
I'll go away. Okay, So Mooge had followed up on

(02:20:54):
that question that she asked before the break, So we
actually called home and I responded in the chat his
psyche did. And this goes to show you just how
seductive your conventions are, because again it's still easy to
keep seeing as these afterlife realities and all the individual

(02:21:15):
parts that split and go their separate ways as still
the same thing. They are not the same thing. So
this is not Musha's husband calling her. It's the psyche
residual calling her, which is very different than the person
she knew when he was alive. It is only at
the resurrection of the dead where her husband will be

(02:21:38):
reconstituted into the person that he was. And then the
final judgment, which is not by the way Jesus being like, oh,
you got too many sins, You're going to hell. Oh wait, wait,
you got You've you've done enough, you can go in.
It's not like that, not that kind of judgment. Okay.
The judgment is the face of God. Can you endure it?
Can you face God face to face and live? If yes,

(02:21:59):
that's salvation. If not, well, that's hell. And you know,
like I said, we can we can debate till we're
blue in the face as to what annihilationism has in
store for us after that. But overall, I don't care
about annihilationism as much as I care about eternal life.
And that's the one that I focus on. It's the
one that you should be focused on. And I'm confident

(02:22:20):
that a great number of us will achieve to it
if we try, all right, if we if we pursue
the will of God, all right, the sacraments, his grace,
and an understanding of the Cross. I think that's that's
that's half the battle right there. Okay, Brandon, what's our
next question?

Speaker 6 (02:22:36):
As this question comes from Facebook from Sondra We I
think we briefly touched on it earlier, but we can
just get answered.

Speaker 2 (02:22:45):
Okay, Yeah, and do you.

Speaker 6 (02:22:47):
Think that when we die we have no consciousness?

Speaker 2 (02:22:52):
Yes, but again that's not a definitive lack of consciousness.
There is something that's far deeper, which is instinctual instinctual awareness.
Now we're not used to that one because we're focused.
We always are processing everything through a brain. But if

(02:23:14):
you do meditation, you know you'll start to experience what
it's like to be able to think without rational thought,
without having to use your brain to intellectualize everything. That's
actually what meditation is teaching, and that's how Buddhists teach
their practitioners how to overcome attachments, because your brain is
what makes the attachment, right, I mean, your brain is

(02:23:36):
what attaches to people feelings, impermanent things, things that cause suffering.
But when you liberate yourself from that, you then arrive
at a deeper understanding that is more perfect. And Christians
would even consider that to be entering into the will
of God or a type of theophony in a way.

(02:24:00):
And I mean I would say that the same realities
when you hear them described, but no, there's no consciousness
with that. It's something much greater than consciousness because it's
not being individuated through an ego that makes mistakes. Okay, Now,
the problem is we become what we cultivated in life.

(02:24:22):
So if you spent your entire life jealous and a nasty,
bitchy son of a bitch of a person, okay, then
that's what you become in death. That's all you are.
You don't have a choice to be, like, well, I'm
going to be a better person now or you know what,
I'm feeling good today, So I'm not going to be
so cruel If cruelty is how you live, then cruelty
is what you become. That's not like you're like, now

(02:24:44):
you're this eternal cruel spirit. I'm saying that you become
cruelty itself. There's no consciousness in that, but there is
definitely awareness in that. Cruelty is aware of what it does.
Cruelty is worse than evil, Honestly, I think it's the
Actually the true evil cruelty is is suffering in the
infliction of pain and suffering and destruction for pain, suffering

(02:25:09):
destruction's sake. There's nothing more evil than that. Because you know,
certain things can be philosophically debatable. There's moral there's moral
judgments that you sometimes have to make. Ethics are not
always so clear. But cruelty, there's no justification for it.
It's just it's just for the sake of it. So

(02:25:30):
I say, cruelty is one of the worst evils, all right,
So but that if you live the life of cruelty,
then that's you become cruelty. You become the very embodiment
of cruelty. There's nothing left to you, there's no there's
no person there anymore, there's no thought process there anymore.
It's just cruelty is what you are. And that's the psyche.
The psyche becomes absorbed by the archetype that they represented

(02:25:50):
in life. Just like, though, what about a person who
lived a great life and died, You know, they were charitable,
They lived a life of love but did not cultivate salvation,
didn't care about at at all, didn't even believe in God.
Just by virtue of being good person's not enough to
get you to heaven. Being good person, it's not enough.

(02:26:13):
There has to be relationship there, There has to be
a conscious development in life when you have that conscious
ability to pursue it. Being a good person is not enough.
So what happens to you, Well, the psyche gets absorbed
into the archetypes of charity and it becomes charity itself.
Not a bad thing, But I wouldn't say that that's

(02:26:34):
an afterlife. You're not sitting in some clouds somewhere being like,
isn't this great where in the you know, it's charity
to be all around us and God's here? No, you're
not aware of it. You're just become charity, instinctual awareness.
But it's always through the lens of the higher principle.
There's no you there, it's no ego, there's no identity

(02:26:55):
to it, all right, it's just you become now a process,
you know, And this is this is very metaphysical. I'm
not teaching theology at this point.

Speaker 4 (02:27:05):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:27:05):
Theology doesn't cover this. Really, Buddhism does, but not Christian theology.
So yeah, it's not a bad question, honestly, because there
is much more that could be said about that, and
I'm glad that it was asked because maybe that qualifier
was needed. So but so I would say, no, consciousness
does not exist after death, how until the resurrection of

(02:27:27):
the dead, when because you need, you need your so
much to be conscious, Consciousness requires brain function, Okay, and
that's proven scientifically because we know what happens when a
brain is so badly damaged that it does not function.
You know, you can you can chart, you can map consciousness,

(02:27:51):
you know. I mean, we have equipment today that can
actually see consciousness functioning within the brain and what happens
when it doesn't have it. All right, So consciousness is deaf,
not a property of the of the of of of
the psyche. It is the psyche with the soma is
what produces consciousness. Okay, but doesn't mean you won't have

(02:28:13):
it again. Just doesn't mean you have it at death
until the parasea. Now for your purposes, okay, for your purposes,
the parasite is I mean, I'm gonna get very philosophical.

Speaker 1 (02:28:25):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:28:25):
This is again not theological, not even metaphysical. This is
just pure philosophy. Philosophically speaking. The parasite is instant at death.
It must be because because from your purpose, if you
don't have a consciousness and rationality, you're not going to
be tracking time and time. You're already entering into a
timeless state anyway, because time is really only a relevancy here.

(02:28:46):
It doesn't really hold weight beyond the construct of this
reality whatever this is. So from Jesus' standpoint, when he
says it's finished, he means it it's done. The world's
already been restored. That's why the question of why does
evil still exist is kind of silly because it's like, well,
it really doesn't, And so you keep dwelling in this

(02:29:07):
in this one moment in time that's already truly past.
You just can't let it go, so you keep evil.
And that's what sin really is, is just holding on, right,
It's it's a it's a type of attachment. So in
the end, I mean, you're gonna you're gonna wake up restored.
So in a way, it's instantaneous some time period. I mean,
you're gonna assume that the linear continues on into death.

(02:29:29):
It doesn't. The linear is only relevant here, and that's
only because we only understand what it's when it means
to be created and to die. You wouldn't even have
a concept of linear time if it weren't for the
fact that you die. That's why I say, what is
the fallen universe? It's the introduction of time. That's what
the fracture is because now instead of a whole moment,

(02:29:51):
the wholeness of God, now we experience individual moments that
come and then ends.

Speaker 5 (02:29:56):
Thus explicit, it's explicit in Genesis. It is need and
you've got you know, you've got everything. As soon as
the you're cast out of Eden, you'll have to toil
and die. Yeah, that literally is the definition of time.

Speaker 2 (02:30:13):
Really, it really is, It really is. Yeah, I mean,
you have this perfect moment that lasts forever and now
you I mean, why don't they need to eat?

Speaker 1 (02:30:21):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:30:21):
Well, why don't they need to, like, you know, suffer
because there's no time in which for things to pass.
You're not subject to entropy. We introduced entropy. I mean, really,
if you want to get really modern in our interpretations
of Genesis, you could say that the the the penalty
for sin, which you could say, instead of calling it sin,

(02:30:43):
you could just say unhealthy attachment to impermanent things. Is
the consequence of that is entropy. I mean, it means
the same thing. It's just these are more modern terms
that maybe are not so religious oriented. Person could maybe
better understand it that way. So I say it just
in case there's one of you out there that thinks
religion's bullshit. Well, here's a way of looking at it

(02:31:05):
without having to go through all the religious stuff. I'm
all for that. That that is what speaks to you,
then that's fine because.

Speaker 4 (02:31:12):
I agree with it, and I've just spent you know.

Speaker 5 (02:31:14):
I mean, one of my hobbies at the moment is
I engage in the political world, and people that you know,
are asking questions about what can Western civilization continue or
in these sorts of questions, And I keep asking them
classical liberals to use that term John Stuart Mill type people,

(02:31:38):
but who are overwhelmingly they're not like host they're not
the new atheists. They're just sort of agnostically atheist people
because they're products of that culture. I keep asking them,
do you not see that without Christianity all the things
that you value in classical liberalism literally can exist like that.

(02:32:00):
It's that's the foundation Christianity. The Enlightenment can happen because
of Christianity. Those two things interact to produce this, you know,
favorable culture compared to all.

Speaker 4 (02:32:14):
The others that we've experienced.

Speaker 5 (02:32:15):
And of course their answer is generally that they don't
either not you know, they'll be honest and say I'm
not really qualified to talk about that, or I've not
really thought.

Speaker 4 (02:32:23):
About it, or you know, oh, you know, I kind
of like Christianity, but I don't.

Speaker 5 (02:32:26):
I don't believe anything myself, and you know, I so
in order to sorry of getting back to what you
just said, I take a really minimalist view and say
you're not an atheist. We're all here, and even when
we're arguing in debating. It's because you believe there is
a truth that can be found.

Speaker 4 (02:32:45):
There is there is that.

Speaker 5 (02:32:46):
In other words, there is an objective truth. And of course,
you know, Saint Thomas Aquinas stimistic thinking.

Speaker 4 (02:32:52):
Says, if if you believe there is something that is
a truth that can be grasped at, then all that
you believe in.

Speaker 5 (02:33:02):
The source of all truth. Therefore you are in fact
of believer in God. It's just that you want to
call it truth, what you want to call.

Speaker 4 (02:33:09):
It, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:33:09):
But I think most people that call themselves atheists are
objecting to a all man in the sky motif they're
not necessarily objecting to a higher reality or some kind
of higher.

Speaker 4 (02:33:22):
Principle aspects of religious practice.

Speaker 2 (02:33:24):
That yeah, they are right, yeah, because they I think
they see that as a human construct.

Speaker 5 (02:33:30):
Yeah, and fundamentally, of course, I mean the cynic can
be says that they're also rejecting anything that requires anything
of them.

Speaker 2 (02:33:36):
Yeah, well yeah so.

Speaker 4 (02:33:39):
But anyway, but that's why I go with that, is
there an objective truth?

Speaker 5 (02:33:43):
And that's the sort of reversal, not that we go
back to Eden, but if we're saying that that, you know,
the fall from Eden leads to this entropy. The the
The opposite of that is that actually, in time we
can we can pursue truth, which actually leads us back
to the face of.

Speaker 7 (02:34:00):
Go yep, well, I can tell you being in a
coma or being in the bar, do there's that experience here?

Speaker 3 (02:34:07):
There There was no time.

Speaker 7 (02:34:08):
It's so hard to explain, but you had enough awareness
to know that. I had enough awareness to know that
there was just.

Speaker 3 (02:34:19):
Consciousness there, but you didn't.

Speaker 7 (02:34:21):
There was existence, but there wasn't. There wasn't any kind
of concept of time.

Speaker 2 (02:34:25):
And see, that's the thing. I'm trying to get it
because you can explain this better than I can, because
you lived it. Yeah, you said that. You you immediately
cried out to with Saint Michael St. Michael, and that's
when you felt that this hand pulled you out. Okay,
you didn't like you weren't sitting around in this walking
through these tunnels, being like I wonder if I.

Speaker 3 (02:34:45):
I was floating above my body and then there was
no body. It was just me.

Speaker 7 (02:34:50):
It was just blackness, but it was me, and I
remember the torment started and that's when I called out
to Christ.

Speaker 3 (02:34:56):
And I called it.

Speaker 2 (02:34:57):
But you did that instinctively. It was instinctive, it was,
Is it like a conscious thought like maybe if I
do this, I'll get a good result. You were just
it was instinct to say this is the course that
I take. It very was very much was yeah, yeah,
And you can only really rationalize it after you came back,
where you can go back and say, well, this is
the memory I had. It's kind of like being in
a dream and you don't really make unless you're having

(02:35:17):
a lucid dream. You don't really make conscious decisions in
a dream. You have experiences, but you can't really choose
or rationalize any of it until you come back to
being awake, when you can go back and reflect on it.
Unless it's a lucid dream, it's just an experience with
feeling and its depth of feeling, and they're usually very
powerful if you have a really good dream.

Speaker 7 (02:35:38):
That's why most dreams fade so quickly when you wake up.
Unless it's a lucid dream.

Speaker 2 (02:35:42):
You're right because your consciousness immediately supersedes it again. But
that's kind of what I'm trying to describe it as
I guess the best way to describe it for people
that are really curious, like, what do you mean there's
no consciousness. Well, this is what I mean. I'm not
saying there's no experience. I'm saying that you're not consciously
aware of it in the way that you are right now.
Very much like a dream. When you're in a dream,

(02:36:03):
you're just having the experience. You are the experience. In fact,
there's nothing else but the experience. Okay, very different than
waking life, where you're having to you know, manage your time,
figuring out what you got to do here and do there,
and there's this bill to pay and then you know,
I got to go get this thing done. You know,
you're making all these conscious decisions in your waking state,

(02:36:24):
that becomes very much an intellectual exercise. When you're dreaming,
it's just a passive experience, largely outside of your control.
And that's death. That's what it's like to be just
the psyche, because you know what dreams, it's the psyche.
Yourselma just goes completely out your Your pneuma is not
an experiential thing. It's a it's an animation thing, and

(02:36:47):
the psyche is what has experiences. But without the brain,
there's and without the brain being in its normal functioning state,
it can't consciously be aware of it. It can That's
why you're only aware of a dream after you wake up,
and like she said, you lose it very quickly, usually
unless you write it down.

Speaker 4 (02:37:05):
How freely people share their dreams because I think you know,
you're just telling me who you are.

Speaker 2 (02:37:13):
Yeah, it tells you a lot about them, right, Yeah,
because I mean, honestly, what if? What if? What did
you say about dreams? You know, people always ask me
what does the dream mean? What does that dream mean?
And I don't take an I don't take a real
theosophical view on dreams, like I don't necessarily think they
mean anything other than you know that it's a reflection

(02:37:34):
of self, reflection of you.

Speaker 3 (02:37:37):
So it's just defragging your brain.

Speaker 2 (02:37:39):
Well a lot of it is. But when you meet
someone in your dream, it is never a person. It
is always an aspect of you. So let's say you're
dreaming that you're being chased. That's a common dream when
you're under a lot of stress. You're you're dreaming that
you're being chased by something that's out to get you,
out to kill you. That person who's chasing you is

(02:38:01):
an aspect of you, something that you're not liking about yourself. Typically,
sometimes it's just something that you don't like about your
life that has become personified in this thing. But it's
never a monster. It's never a person. It's like, even
if you dream about your spouse or your children, it's
probably not them that you're dreaming about. It's you're dreaming

(02:38:24):
about something that they represent within you that's manifesting under
their face. That's how the psyche works. It's all archetypal, right,
So the soul is entirely an archetypal reality, and it's
an archetypal experience. So, you know, I think when the
Jews talk about shaol being this kind of like dreamlike

(02:38:46):
unconscious state, I think that's spot on because that sounds
just like the psyche to me. It's unconscious, but it's
a dreamlike state. So you're you're, you're something's happening, nothing
you can control anymore, but something's happening in your experience
say it, but you're just along for the ride. Yeah,
it's kind of hard to describe, but hopefully those those
examples help. Well, what's our next one?

Speaker 7 (02:39:09):
You see one, Jamie or the last one I saw
was the last one I talked about Okay, I think
someone was asking Aboueah.

Speaker 2 (02:39:19):
For Halloween Brandon's Halloween plans to go for it, Brandon,
I'll take a break here I could use it.

Speaker 6 (02:39:27):
So me and April will be going with a couple
of other people to the Civil War field hospital that
we help host investigations with, and we're going to be
hopefully staying all night and probably catch something hopefully.

Speaker 4 (02:39:42):
M H.

Speaker 2 (02:39:43):
Do you have like a like a like a website
or a channel on YouTube where you share your findings
or do you just keep that internally?

Speaker 4 (02:39:53):
So?

Speaker 6 (02:39:55):
I have a Facebook page, and April has one. Mine
spin dormant for several months. She is more active on hers.
She has a TikTok and everything else.

Speaker 4 (02:40:07):
I think I do.

Speaker 6 (02:40:10):
I don't know. But no, most of the stuff that
we get or that people share with me, I normally
keep in like my cloud.

Speaker 2 (02:40:19):
Okay, well, look for April's Facebook out there. I guess
it's a public page.

Speaker 6 (02:40:25):
Yes, I can put it in the group. We're on
the chat it's Curious Things Investigations.

Speaker 2 (02:40:33):
Oh okay, there you go, look it up.

Speaker 3 (02:40:35):
You can find her on TikTok under that cool.

Speaker 2 (02:40:38):
Yeah, see some stuff.

Speaker 6 (02:40:40):
Also, I will extend the question to you all, what
are your plans for Halloween?

Speaker 2 (02:40:45):
Jamie, what are you doing?

Speaker 7 (02:40:47):
Well, I'm leaving for Illinois Sunday, and so Halloween night
probably such a miser I'm probably gonna close my gate
and not take trick or treaders, which I doubt I'd
have in any way out where I'm at, and I'm
gonna have some bourbon and relax because I have masks
the next afternoon at noon and then Mass again at
seven and then I got to drive nine hundred miles

(02:41:09):
home Sunday sounds like away. So it'll be a quiet
It'll be a quiet, ghoulish night with some bourbon and
maybe maybe some scary movies or something that works.

Speaker 2 (02:41:19):
That works. Father Chris, you do you do anything for Halloween?

Speaker 5 (02:41:22):
Not I did when I was a kid. I mean,
you know, I was a trick or tree and all
that sort of thing. No, I mean, my my wedding
anniversary is on the thirtieth of October, and so now
my wife's out, she's booked for that eating, so we're
gonna have We're gonna celebrate our wedding anniversary on Halloween.

Speaker 4 (02:41:45):
So how about that?

Speaker 2 (02:41:47):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (02:41:47):
That works?

Speaker 2 (02:41:48):
That works? We do what we do every year. We
essentially go over to my sister in law's house because
they live in a a very large neighborhood with a
lot of little houses that it's really a great place
to just trick or treats and closed kind of neighborhood

(02:42:09):
where you know, Australia they don't really do it. Yeah,
it's more of an American thing, I think mostly now.

Speaker 3 (02:42:15):
We used to. We used to go to the Yeah,
we used to.

Speaker 7 (02:42:19):
We used to all grew up and grew group up
and go to the the nice area of town and
trick or treat Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, because they have the
full sized candy bars.

Speaker 1 (02:42:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:42:30):
Yeah, well yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (02:42:32):
The cornballs, I mean, all the good stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:42:33):
We don't live in our house now. See we live
in the woods and there's there.

Speaker 3 (02:42:38):
We don't have neighbors, so the same situation with me.
They won't have anybody coming in.

Speaker 2 (02:42:42):
There's just and I'm not gonna I don't want the
property open, right, So this would not be a good
place to I mean not even be open to trick
or treats. When we lived in neighborhoods, we would do
trick or treat things. But so we go over to
my sister in laws, and and Levi still goes and
does it. He gets, you know, get stressed up as something.
He's a little under the weather right now, so hopefully

(02:43:04):
he'll still be able to do it feel better by Friday,
but yeah, he plans to go, you know, trick or
treating when I always carve a punkin. I carve a
traditional looking jack o lantern, and Tracy usually carves a
sonic in jack o lantern. I think we typically post
those two Instagram so you'll see them up there. But yeah,
that's that's pretty much it. He goes trick or treating

(02:43:25):
and then once he's done with that, we just go
sit back on their porch and watch the trick or
treaters come and it's just like one after another for
several hours. It's that kind of neighborhood, so it's a
great place to go for it. Georgia really gets into it,
but usually in the neighborhoods it's not really kind of
like if you live off of a main street, if
you're not part of a subdivision, you tend to not
see much activity. But it's it's it's fun for what

(02:43:47):
it is to watch it. I mean For me, Halloween
is really all saints and old Soul's day, you know,
And that's what I've always seen Halloween as. Even when
I was a kid, I never really went trick or
treating ever. It was it was really just more understanding
the the spiritual aspects of it. But I was always
very much aware of the thinning of the veil, that's
for sure. So you know, I had an intrinsic feeling.

(02:44:08):
But I mean I was really kind of an ass
when I was a kid. I remember kind of. Yeah,
at one time, one time I got it in my
head to to hide in the bushes and as the
trick or treaders came back by, sprayed them with the hose. Yeah.
I was a pretty thousant asshole. Yeah, it was kind
of perfect. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:44:31):
We never did any egging or tepeen.

Speaker 11 (02:44:33):
Or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (02:44:34):
Yeah, it was just I just couldn't resist about.

Speaker 4 (02:44:38):
When I was a cap Halloween was a fricking nightmare.

Speaker 3 (02:44:41):
Yeah. Yeah, they want to.

Speaker 1 (02:44:45):
They want to.

Speaker 7 (02:44:46):
They wouldn't bring us in if we were off, but
they would have you kind of on standby in case,
in case people lost their minds, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:44:53):
Up in was it Detroit where they do Hell Night?
Do they still do Hell Night? I'd be worried about
working working on I know, I.

Speaker 2 (02:45:00):
Don't want to. Do you do Halloween in Detroit? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:45:05):
Want to get to Detroit for anything?

Speaker 3 (02:45:08):
There's an annual Hell Night? I believe it. It's Detroit.
Somewhere in Michigan.

Speaker 7 (02:45:13):
Chad helped me out where they do a hell Night
every year on Halloween and they literally it's almost.

Speaker 2 (02:45:19):
Like we get six flags over Georgia. Don't they do
one or that? Doing it right right night? Well, that's
our Halloween plans.

Speaker 3 (02:45:31):
Do we have a be movies that works?

Speaker 2 (02:45:34):
Do we have any other questions? We still get some
time here?

Speaker 6 (02:45:37):
I've actually got a question, since we're on the subject,
what is a brief history of Hagoween and why is
it that here? Recently you see this post with this
ex Satanist or ex Satanic priest saying Hagoween is a
one night stand with the devil. What's the actual history

(02:45:58):
of Halloween?

Speaker 4 (02:46:00):
Halloween Catholic thing, It's not not a pagan thing at all.

Speaker 2 (02:46:04):
I mean, you got, you got, you got, you got samme,
But I mean, but that was different than what we
I mean, it's kind of you could say it is
a bit of emerging of the two holidays, you know,
the the all Saints and all Souls being sort of
written into the past pagan festivities. But you know, now,

(02:46:27):
I mean, I'm not really the best one to ask this.
I mean, Father Chris might know more about its actual origin,
but I do know that a lot of the legends
and the the traditional things we do do have their
roots and actual things that meant something. For example, the
dressing up in costumes was so that the dead that
were able to walk the earth on that one night

(02:46:50):
right before the all the all the saints would you know,
close up the doors, you could say they would that
they would identify you and could cause you you harm.
So if you dressed as one of them, as a
ghost or as some kind of monstrous thing, you could
either float under the radar and they just think that
you're one of them walking the earth, or you could

(02:47:13):
maybe scare them even And that's what the Jack o'lantron
was for, is that it was kind of designed to
scare away as a talisman almost you know, the spirits
from a particular home. But the dressing and costumes was
really just idea that the veilist then at this time

(02:47:34):
of year. That probably does come from the the seming
kind of background. And and but I mean that was
more of a harvest feast anyway, wasn't it. It wasn't
really so much about the dead, I don't think, or
maybe some ancestral worship took place at that time. But overall,
you know, because the Church celebrates all saints and all

(02:47:58):
souls back to back and first and second and Halloween
literally means the eve of all hallows of the saints. Saints.

Speaker 4 (02:48:09):
Yeah, sorry, the whole thing is totally Catholic and Christian.

Speaker 5 (02:48:13):
You know, the idea, you know, sort of neopaganism grabs
onto it in the sam Hayn tradition, but that's not
the origin of this. The origin is even of dressing up.
It goes back to the soulding plays of medieval times.
So you know, they have big on the eve of
like you said, it's all hallows Eve. It takes in
the whole sort of.

Speaker 4 (02:48:36):
Gamut of.

Speaker 5 (02:48:38):
The church, to use traditional terms, the Church militant, suffering
and triumphant, so the Church on earth, the Church in purgatory,
in the Church in heaven. And it's a sense that
we sort of out the coming together of these because
we have these great days where we have the vigil
was obviously was often the party or saints. They was

(02:49:01):
the Mass for all saints and of course all souls,
the Mass for the holy souls.

Speaker 4 (02:49:05):
In purgatory, the church suffering.

Speaker 5 (02:49:07):
So they have souling plays to you know, again a
preliterate culture to act out the various you know, teachings
or interpretations of Church teaching of heaven, Hell, and purgatory.
So that's the origin Jack o'lantern's Irish Catholics brought that
to America.

Speaker 4 (02:49:25):
They would carve crosses in them.

Speaker 5 (02:49:28):
So yeah, this is this is entirely a Catholic thing,
which is why when Christians get worried and upset about it,
I just laughed to it.

Speaker 2 (02:49:38):
Might be also why the Orthodox don't like it, because
it isn't part of their culture.

Speaker 4 (02:49:42):
Catholic.

Speaker 2 (02:49:43):
Yeah, it's very Catholic. Yeah, they don't like that. I
mean Orthodox really don't, don't don't involve themselves with it.
They take a very almost almost Protestant stance towards it,
honestly they do. Yeah, they don't like it, and they
certainly don't like it. The Catholic Church doesn't like people
dressing up like devils and ghosts, and they say be something.

(02:50:04):
But once you dress up like a saint, they'll say, well,
you know, that kind of defeats the purpose for some
people because it is sort of a macab holiday. It's
a horror holiday.

Speaker 3 (02:50:14):
You know, Saint Teresa was avalon go around with the school.

Speaker 2 (02:50:18):
Well, you could be Saint Dennis and have your head
chopped up and carry it with you, you know what
I mean, there's some options. Saint Lucy carried her eyes,
you know.

Speaker 5 (02:50:33):
Traditionally, you know, Catholics would also do cemetery visits. Yeah,
so all of these things that you know, you now
see these these things traumatized into into the nineteen twentieth
century Romantic Gothic kind of images. But cemetery visits are
not supposed to be morbid. It's where you go and
pray for the souls. Yeah, it was departed, Yeah, you

(02:50:53):
know were they weren't visits of non semmeteries. You know,
they weren't like pagan burial piles. It was these were
Christian burials. So yeah, I mean obviously you know, yeah,
what it's morphed into dressing a Superman. You know, again,
I don't really care. It doesn't bother me. But no,
you know, if you're going to faithfully observe Halloween, then

(02:51:14):
you should do that praying for the holy souls. In
many ways, dressing as the skeleton has more to do
with it than dressing a Superman.

Speaker 2 (02:51:21):
Yeah, I agree with that. I've never had a problem
with it, and it's not something I participated in it,
but not because they didn't like it. It was just
it was I I kind of enjoyed the Shenanigan's part
of it more. Yeah, I was more about the trick
than the tree.

Speaker 3 (02:51:35):
When I was a kid, that was on.

Speaker 7 (02:51:37):
One day a year where I got to dress up
as one of my favorite heroes or you know, got
to be somebody else all night.

Speaker 3 (02:51:44):
Ye candy at the end.

Speaker 2 (02:51:45):
So we probably could do one more question if it's
a good one and quick one. Do we have one?

Speaker 1 (02:51:50):
Brandon?

Speaker 2 (02:51:50):
You see one?

Speaker 3 (02:51:51):
See one?

Speaker 6 (02:51:52):
So I think we finished the questions in each chap
but April did have a good one on the network. Okay,
shouldn't take too long, She asked, can spirits demon? Since
we're on the topic, can spirits demon's ghosts? Et cetera?
Killed you. They're always showing that on TV or movies.

Speaker 2 (02:52:12):
Yeah, that's a good one. Look, remember what we talked about,
this is actually really applicable. We already talked about the
psyche and how it diverts or sort of absorbs at
death into the archetype that it most closely resembled in life. Okay,
we all resemble something in life, you know, Like let's

(02:52:34):
say you didn't achieve salvation God forbid, you know, and
you just you know, your psyche would most likely be
absorbed in some hero archetype because you have that archetype
as part of your entire nature. You spent your life
as a cop, then you know, you're in the military,
you have this this this call to service. You you
you really do and you know, by nature want to

(02:52:57):
help people in crisis, and you you're protective by nature.
So all of that, your psyche would would return to
that state. That's the archetype that it would be sort
of absorbed back into. Yeah, it does, but that's most
likely what your psyche is a product of, and so
that's its base nature. And remember we go back to
our base nature. So when a person dies, you know,

(02:53:24):
then we become part of the archetype that we cultivated
in life. And so if we spend a lot of
our life being absorbed in very dark and and and
and and and death related like things, if we become

(02:53:44):
very absorbed by that, that's what gossic culture can be
somewhat dangerous. Vamporism can be somewhat dangerous because it is
a sort of exercise in that energy of death. We
take that energy in and it will manift, because that's
what archetypes do. They manifest into their core parts, and

(02:54:05):
as they become part of us, we become part of them.
And so a lot of times these darker spirits are
these demonic spirits or things we would classify as the demonic,
are manifestations of sin, which is what is sin. Sin
is basically the exercise in death. That there is the
energy of death, and so these are personifications of death

(02:54:29):
that come into our lives and sort of bleed that
energy into us and becomes absorbed into us. Now we're
going to experience that as sickness or even eventually, if
we don't do something about it could lead to death.
That's not a spirit coming in to kill you. It's
not like the demons. I want to go kill them.

(02:54:50):
It's just the energy is not conducive to life. The
archetype is not conducive to healthy living, and therefore we
start to become part of of the archetype we spend
our time with, which is why it's not healthy to
be depressed all the time. Why to depress people not
flourish in life?

Speaker 4 (02:55:08):
Why?

Speaker 2 (02:55:09):
Why does when an older person spends too much time
depressed that they don't live as long because they take
on that dark energy and it starts to become them
and eventually it wins, and so we don't want that
to happen. We shouldn't want that to happen anyway.

Speaker 3 (02:55:23):
It's exposed to radiation.

Speaker 4 (02:55:25):
It is.

Speaker 2 (02:55:25):
It's like, well, Brandon, you said it that I said.
I guess I said this at an earlier time. But
it's it's not murder because murder requires conscious, conscious decision.
It's like cancer. You acquire a disease that eventually slowly
consumes you, and that's how these spirits can harm us.

(02:55:47):
But it's not them making a conscious decision to say
I'm going to go and get that person. No, it
doesn't doesn't work like that. Good question, though, So we're
at the end of the show, and uh, I want
to just say thank you all of you for the
great questions you got us through and I always like these.
This last one this season unfortunately, unless there's a problem,
hopefully not, but we will of course continue to have

(02:56:10):
these and next season for sure. Next week, though, we
have James Ferrera coming on the show. He's been a
returning guest's I think this will be his third appearance
on this show. He's the guy that talks about tarot,
good friend of ours, and he's gonna be talked about
invoking angelic forces, angelic guides. He calls them to aid

(02:56:34):
you in your divination with the tarot, so kind of
a new aging the topic next week. I think they'll
be fun, but he takes it from a I think,
a deeper perspective, so I think you all will enjoy
what he has to share about that. That's next week
Tuesday at eight pm Eastern. Jamie will not be with
us because, as she said, she's going to be going traveling,

(02:56:55):
but but she she'll be here with us in spirit.
You can watch the rerun. Yes, Brandon, thank you, Father, Chris,
thank you Jamie, thank you. A big thanks to all
our moderators and all of you who support this show.
Remember we couldn't stay on the air without your support.
So if you like the show, please remember to donate
at Esotericcatholic dot or a click donation donation button and

(02:57:17):
a pledge would be wonderful. If you could give a
monthly pledge, that would be fantastic. We do not take
ads to keep the show on the air. And remember
our topics are not popular, so the algorithms don't promote
us either.

Speaker 1 (02:57:29):
You have to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:57:30):
That has to be your job. Okay, So thank you
all and we'll see you out there and ether God
bless everyone. Thank you.

Speaker 13 (02:58:29):
Indus Toss.

Speaker 1 (02:58:37):
The is, The West is the Is. The West is
the Last

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