Reimagining the Ten Commandments with Gershon Siegel

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And as.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
To say.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whichever the case may be.
For all of you listening out there across the crazy
planet Earth. Welcome to Vestiges after Dark, and I am

(02:05):
your host, Bishop Brian will let it come into you
live from the deep woods of Western Georgia on this
May sixth, twenty twenty five. Tonight, we talk about the
Ten Commandments, but not in any way that you've ever

(02:27):
studied them before. We have a brand new guest tonight
to introduce to you, and he wrote a book to
reboot the Ten Commandments. It's a satirical take, but I
think sometimes religion can be a little too serious, so
it's kind of refreshing. It was an interesting read, to
say the least. And we're gonna be talking all about

(02:48):
that in the second hour of tonight's show, So don't
go anywhere. We have a great one for you. Hello everybody,

(03:52):
once again, I'm your host, Bishop Brian Willette, and I
am here with my co host Jamie Wilf.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Good evening, everybody, are you doing.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
I am looking forward to tonight's show. I have to
say this is a unique take on a subject that
we tend to I guess talk quite a bit about
in religion.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
It should be an interesting episode, to say the least.
I think we should have fun with this one, and
I'm very much looking forward to I mean that sincerely.
I think everyone's going to learn a little bit bitter
and think about about this subject tonight, and maybe at
the very least to not take themselves so seriously. At

(04:30):
least that's the goal. We'll find out how well we
achieve that goal as we move through tonight's show. But
I want to give a big shout out to our moderators.
Think please give a big thanks to them for their
hard work out there across the various platforms that we're
streaming this show on to make sure that people behave

(04:51):
themselves and the trolls don't come out, and the bots
and everybody else. You know, it's only going to get
worse as AI gets better, so you know, it's just
the way that it is. But the chat is a
big part of this show. It's why we do it live.
I mean, I could make this show probably better and
easier to do if we pre recorded it, like most
people do with podcasts, but I've never been one for

(05:11):
pre recorded shows. I would rather not do them than
pre record. Live is so much more organic, and it
gives you the audience interaction, which I think makes the
show fun. And even though you guys don't like to
call into the show very often, at least the chat
does kind of break that up a bit.

Speaker 5 (05:29):
I don't think people like hearing their own voices on
like a live stream.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Well, I mean, you know my answer to that is
get over it. Get over it. Yeah, it's right. We
Also I added a new feature. It's not a new
feature really, it's a new feature to me, to us
on this channel, but not new to YouTube, called super Chats.

(05:53):
I haven't figured out exactly how to collect the money,
but you can actually donate right in the chat. There's
a little button over the Mystic has already tested it out.
It seems to work. You know, thank you Mystic for
your little donation there, and make sure that, I guess,
help everybody to find it, explain how that they can
use this. Sometimes it's just easier for people to give

(06:15):
in the moment. And I watch sometimes a lot of
live streams on YouTube from other content creators and the
you know, I see that the super chats is a
big thing, so I thought, well, you know what, it's
time to turn it on. I'm not trying to make
money on this show. I'm just trying to, you know,
hopefully support the work and the effort and the costs

(06:38):
that goes into making it. I mean, I free, no,
and this show is never going to pay a salary,
you know. So it's it's it's it's really here as
a service to all of you to talk about the
various subjects that we cover. So there it is. See
Mystic just did one for two pounds and thanks again,

(06:58):
and it works. And that's all you got to do
if you want to, if you want your your comment highlighted.
That's also a way that gets our attention because you
can't miss the neon blue there. It's right there on
your face and I love it. It even comes up
on my It even comes up on the simulcaster the
same way too, which is really awesome. Okay, so we

(07:21):
have noticed that, you know, there's been a rough start
to this season and we're already like more than halfway
through it. So it's been a rough rough season, you know,
Internet issues and everything else. But I think some of
that has to do with the fact that we haven't
done liturgical libations this season, and so we're going to

(07:42):
do that tonight. Before I get to that, though, I
just want to make make a little bit of an
announcement for those of you who follow this channel for
more than just this show, but are also interested in
the church community. We are having our consecration Mass for
the new retreat House chapel this Friday. Okay, it's going
to be the consecration mass for what is going to

(08:05):
be called the Chapel of Saint Nicholas. I thought it
would be an appropriate patron since that's the patron of
the entire tradition. So that will be this Friday at
seven pm Eastern time. Now, remember, like I said last week,
the fiber is still not installed over there for the

(08:25):
internet connection because the county hasn't given the permit yet.
They've delayed the permit, so we're still another three or
four weeks away from that being resolved. So we're going
to stream this since it's the only way that we
can at the moment with five G Okay, it's not

(08:47):
the best. Remember, you know, even the retreat houses is
out there, you know, it's way from everything. It's not
in the urban parts of the metro areas, so I
don't know how well going to do. It's probably not
going to be the cleanest feed in the world's I
could be like you're watching right now. Hopefully it will
stay connected though, and it won't buffer too badly. Those

(09:09):
of you who watch it can let me know and
out we have a solution. Some of our benefactors said
that they would pitch in the cost to paying for
the installation charge to get this internet at and t
out there for the month that we're waiting. There's no
contracts or cancelation charges, so it's something we could do.
The real problem, though, is the time I have to

(09:32):
basically spend an entire day doing nothing waiting for someone
to show up. And they give you these large windows,
and I just don't have time for that. So it
really is a huge hit to my schedule when I
can't be productive and having to wait around doing nothing.
So that's really the bigger issue, not so much the
ninety nine dollars installation charge. I think we can figure
that part out, but missing a whole day of work

(09:57):
that's difficult for me since that work work gets built,
you know, builds up pretty quickly for me and I
don't really have a lot of help, so we're hoping
the five G will work for the next four masses,
but the masses at the Chapel of the Holy Innocence
are over. We're not going to be streaming from the
Chapel of the Holy Innocence going forward, and right now

(10:17):
we even can't because I had to lend so much
stuff to make that work over there, BB Lasers, thank
you so much for that outstanding twenty dollars a super chat.
Thank you. We really appreciate that. You guys are awesome.
Glad you love the show too. Thank you for your
kind words. But anyway, that's uh. We're going to try

(10:39):
to make this work. But the chapel, I've had to
lend too much stuff, so we can't even use it
as for mass right now. I have to rebuild that area.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
It does kind of look like a tornado with it does.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
It's a it's a mess in there right.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
Now, guys, the new chapel.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
I just went over there before I came over some
curtains and some rods to put up so I get
to use my tools. Friday m'smappy, but it's it's very
it's going to be very special.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yes, it looks really good. I mean I've sent give
me a little teaser pictures if for those of you
who are connected to the nicol A network or on Facebook,
you've seen them. But it's going to look better than that,
and I think even better in person, honestly. So uh,
it's it's a nice little place, special kind of place,
and it should hopefully give us a new direction for

(11:28):
the ministry. That's coming up this Friday, so look forward
to that. It the show page is already on the channel.
You can subscribe to it and that way you won't
miss it.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
And we have clients lining up.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Oh yeah. See that's the other thing. Lots and lots
of of people waiting to to to have their cases heard.
And you know, so we'll probably take one day a
month where they we we know, book our top cases
and if we want to see them, we feel that
we can help them. There's a place that we can

(12:03):
help them. Now, Okay, so I I don't I haven't
been drinking a whole lot of Scotch in recent times,
which is the reason why we haven't been doing liturgical libations.
I've been drinking more cocktails, and cocktails are just not
something that I can do and also manage this show.
So having a cocktail at the start of the show

(12:24):
would not work either. So but this is a scotch
that I opened recently and you have not had it.
I don't know how you're gonna feel about it because
it's an eye of scotch. Yeah, but it's the art
bag Uga doll Okay, Yeah, it's Gaelic for dark mysterious place.
This is my favorite art beg.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
You know, I'm not an island girl, but there's a
few you've turned me on to.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Well, I don't know, but I don't know how you're
gonna feel about this one. But this is my favorite
art bag of all of them. So this is the
art beg.

Speaker 6 (13:00):
Eh m hmm.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Now try this. This is a little trick that they
teach you in Kentucky. Okay, inhale deeply, but keep your
mouth open. Inhale through your nose, but keep your mouth open.
It won't burn and then you and then you can
smell the nuances better. It won't burn your sinuses if
you keep your mouth open.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
I have no problem keep my mouth open.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Cheers. That's my favorite hard bag.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
O boy, that's an eye love.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
But I will say, pretty good taste of cinnamon and
all that.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
Definitely taste of spices, like a dark strong spice. I
would probably have to have a little splash of water
in it. I'm not going to I.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Mean that, actually this is it will open it up.
Just a drop though me not being being complete, Just
a drop just to open up the oils. There you go,
Now try it's going to taste completely different.

Speaker 5 (14:08):
I've done this before with drinking with people that like their.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
The stronger ones, the ones that are closer to barrel strength.
You're supposed to put water in it.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
Oh yeah, just just just a drop and half tamed
it down.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
It takes some of the feet off. I'm going to
try it. See how it is.

Speaker 7 (14:28):
That's what it is.

Speaker 5 (14:29):
It's got quite a yeah. But see for me, just
a little bit of water in it. It opens it.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
It opens it up, and that way you can control,
you know, how the palette. You can if if they
just put it at a blanket forty percent, then you
don't really have any control over that. You really don't
want to add water to a forty percent. It would
start to, you know, go two weeks.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
I would want a very robust cigar.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
With this cigars do go well then, yeah, so that's
the ugadol, thank you, Yeah, yeah, beg all right, So
hopefully that's that that gives us the foundation we need
for the rest of the season, so that she goes through.

Speaker 4 (15:11):
Well, I'm going to the liquor store now.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Back up, that's it, all right, joining us from Australia.
We have a father, Chris. How you doing.

Speaker 6 (15:22):
Yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 7 (15:22):
Thanks.

Speaker 6 (15:23):
I love that Odd Beg.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
That's the real you've had.

Speaker 6 (15:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's pretty much exactly my taste. I
like loads of different whiskeys, but that's that's bang on.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
That I had recently, the art Beg nineteen year old,
which is about three times the price of this one.
And this is not a cheap one, but it's about
three times the price of this one. And I like
uga do more, even more.

Speaker 6 (15:51):
Than the more expensive for you now, yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
I mean, well, we haven't really seen the changes. I
think I think some of the distributers have eaten some
of those costs.

Speaker 5 (16:02):
I think a current inventory wait till it runs out.

Speaker 6 (16:05):
I suspect I suspect the UK Sarah will come off
pretty soon.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, I'm not too worried about the UK one. It's
it's really the bigger it's a different story, is Yes,
it's Champagne. That's where I have more worries.

Speaker 6 (16:19):
Yeah, well, you know what, we make some really really
good sparkling wines on the south coast of England. Now,
and I'll remind everybody that it was in fact English
technology that invented Champagne, because the bottle and cork was
invented by the English. I mean, northern France used to
be part of England.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
But we all know the thing is and this is
I mean, there are some really good sparkling wines in
California as well, But the reality is the terroir of
Champagne cannot be simulated anywhere. There's a minerality to the
soil that only Champagne has. Burgundy has that too, you know.

(17:01):
So and this is why wines you could you could
do a pino noir, you know, anywhere in the world.
You could use the same exact grapes and use the
same technology that they do in Burgundy. It will not
taste like a Burgundy because.

Speaker 6 (17:15):
Well they do that here in Australia. I mean, you
know when when there was a blight that there was
some you know, something infected the vines in France and
they died.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (17:25):
Yeah, they actually repopulated them from Australian vines that were
the same ones from France hundred years ago.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, they did that, and a nappa donated vines to
to repopulate. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (17:38):
But the ter You're right, it tastes completely different.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Completely different. So it's because it's the soil. It's the
minerality of the soil that creates the taste of champagne.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
So that of the art of making any kind of spirit,
it's incredible, the tradition, the time honored way of doing things.
The taste, you're just tasting history.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
For me, I drink as I drink probably you know,
a ratio of ten times the amount of wine that
I do to Scotch. So the EU tariff is going
to affect me more wine.

Speaker 6 (18:12):
Nice Champagne. Here champagne yesterday for a couple of reasons.
First of all, my independent member of Parliament I worked
for got re elected at the election, which is a
mirror gratulations and so that was great needs for her
and for the community. But also our eldest graduated from
Sydney UNI with a history degree.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yes, fantastic. Wow, you cracked up in the moment, right.

Speaker 6 (18:36):
That's all right? Is she who'll be in switched with you?
In fact, in the first place I had heard of
you first?

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (18:48):
Yeah, here's the Zoe, here's the all right.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Well, I'll drink. I'll drink to that. I'll drink to that. Congratulations,
all right, joining us All so from Tennessee, we have Brandon,
mylem How are you doing tonight? Brandon, I'm pretty good.

Speaker 6 (19:07):
I got my water.

Speaker 8 (19:09):
I don't speak alcohol, so I'm just sending here like
I know what you were talking about.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
You're a liverable, thank you, let me tell you. So, yeah,
that's no problem there. Okay, Well, let's jump right in
here to questions from the ether. I know you've got
three good ones here, and we've got about twenty minutes
or so to answer them. So let's see what we.

Speaker 9 (19:33):
Got, all right.

Speaker 8 (19:34):
So the first one is I understand how tarot is
essentially a mirror, and so it reflects our desires, hopes,
and fears. But what of using ai instead of being
a mirror? Would an AI reading rely on the law
of synchronicity to give results?

Speaker 3 (19:50):
Well? See, this is kind of in the same category,
the same vein of what we were talking about last
season when James Ferrera mentioned, I don't maybe it wasn't Yeah,
it was last season that he was on. I can't remember.
Last time James was on. He talked about how an
AI or a computer can never replace the human being

(20:12):
in terms of divination, you know, using being a tarot reader.
And then we did that little test with AI with
Father Chris asking and we wanted to see how well
it could do. And the reality is, and this is
kind of interesting for you paranormal people out there too,
is that synchronicity is the is the fuel for how

(20:34):
divination works. Okay, so if you're really talking about how
do tarot cards work, or ruins or eging, anything that
that that utilizes random numbers in order to generate a
response is going to be keyed into the same laws
of synchronicity, esoteric laws of course, that Carl Jung outlined

(20:58):
in great detail in his runs. Okay, and this is
the meaningful coincidence phenomenon. Now, what happens with the with
with with divination and oracles and things of this nature
is that the it goes on the esoteric principle that
nothing's really random, that nothing's really accidental, that everything is

(21:24):
has meaning built into it. Now you could say that
from a Christian Vancaite point advantage point, that's God okay,
and that God built the creation so intelligently that even
in its current fall and broken state, it still has
the essence of its formula intact. And therefore everything that

(21:47):
happens here happens in a meaningful way. And so therefore,
if we can decode the processes, that nothing's really random,
nothing's really luck, it's all built into the code. And
so what the tarot does using because it like attracts like.
And as above, so below these two esoteric rules that

(22:13):
when you shuffle a deck of cards, you're basically organizing
them into the quality of time of that particular moment.
When you focus on a question, you're applying that quality
of time to the cards, and you're kind of esoterically
stacking that deck. Therefore, the right cards come up. There

(22:34):
are no accidents. So whatever the cards are, regardless of
how they present themselves to you, is your answer. And
any random process can do that. And because computers can
at least simulate random number generation through strings of algorithms,

(22:54):
is basically how it's done. And you can't predict what
those strings of algorithms are going to be, then they
are also going to reflect the quality of time. So
the only thing I would add as a caveat to
this is that if you're using AI specifically, okay, you
have to make sure that the AI is being honest

(23:17):
with you that when you say can you generate a
random Tarror reading, that it actually did in fact generate
a random Tarror reading, and not making something up and
just like picking cards that it wants to present to
you because it's feeling something from your story and it
wants to kind of play on that. The problem with

(23:37):
AI and open AI has actually admitted to this with
its latest chat GPT model is that it's a little
bit too willing to please. It's it's basically a sick
ephat they call it, because it really just it tells
you whatever you want to hear. Generally, I mean, you
can almost convince it to to answer you in the
affirmative on anything if it feels that it's going to

(23:58):
please you. And there were looking on correcting that so
that the next version will not be so easy to
you know, or so obsessed with pleasing you, that it
will challenge you when it sees a need to in
order to perhaps give you a more meaningful or accurate response.
So if you're going to say, to touch EBT, you know,

(24:21):
generate a random terror rating and then interpret it for me.
Assuming it actually is using randomly generated algorithms to derive
those cards, then yes, it works. If it's imprinting its
own agenda into the reading, then no. But that's the
same thing you'd have to deal with with any kind

(24:42):
of Taro, not just with AI because we do that,
and that's one of the things that we were talking about,
or you're asking with the mirror, is that it will
often and this is why so many people fail when
it comes to trying to use Tarot and they're like, oh,
this is a bunch of a bunch of crap. It
doesn't really work, because what they find is that it

(25:02):
either often tells them what they want, what they wish
were true, or what they're afraid is true. It's one
or the other. Either it tries to grant you push
it a bit further. Can I push it?

Speaker 6 (25:15):
But I think given that the Tarot cards are based
on archetypes that are fundamental to the human condition and
experience that you know, they've come through the ages and
through through human experiences themselves. Is it not impossible that

(25:35):
random or otherwise that they're going to speak to you?
Because these are these archetypes are simultaneously present in all
of us. That's source of the definition of an archetype,
and so and then and then to push it again
even further, you could argue that perhaps you'd get an
even more accurate reading from the machine.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Because it's more objective.

Speaker 6 (25:59):
Yeah, because when a human being is interacting with you,
those archetypes are interacting with that human being as well.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
So, yeah, the computer, the AI is not going to
have a preference as to whether or not, you know,
it likes the tower or doesn't, or if it likes
the Two of Cups or it doesn't. Whereas you know,
let's say you're really in love with someone but you
don't know if they like you, and you do a
terror reading to find out if it's worth pursuing the

(26:25):
relationship and that Two of Cups comes up. You know,
you know, your your emotional investment in that particular situation
is going to perhaps taint your interpretation of that Two
of Cups whereas the computer is not going to feel
anything about it and could perhaps give you a far
more objective. So maybe maybe next time we talk to James,

(26:47):
we might say that maybe we need to think when
you think that, and say, maybe they're actually going to
be better terror readers than any human being could be
because of the objectivity and the fact that they can't
be influenced by those archetypes. And you also brought up
another thing there, Father Chris, that also could apply to
this question, and that is the other concept that I

(27:08):
think is also very compatible with Christian thoughts. So we're
not definitely borderlining on heresy here that I really do
think the cosmos is sentient, and I think that how
Thomas aquinas you know, sort of defines creation as God,

(27:29):
God being present within it, and if God were to
no longer be present, then that whatever that is would
cease to exist. Knowing that that is sort of a constant,
even from a Christian theological vantage point, I think it
can be further applied here and say that creation itself
is sentient and is aware, and so perhaps the synchronicity

(27:51):
is also because of that awareness, is the fact that
the universe knows what you're doing. It's aware of what
you're doing, it watches what you do, ter acts with
what you do. And so therefore terrot is basically it's
way of communicating to.

Speaker 6 (28:05):
You absolutely biblical and Christian tradition. I do too, but
it obviously is not deterministic, which of course it pains
to point out. But I mean, you know, and again
for the for the Bible Belt people listening, you know,
Jesus says the very stones would cry out, you know.
For the Catholics listening, Saint Thomas Aquinas talks about he

(28:30):
describes many different types of souls actually, you know. So yes,
there's a human soul, which is a rational soul, but
there's also an animal soul, you know, which is an
instinctive soul. And I think by extension there's a kind
of a rock soul.

Speaker 9 (28:47):
You know.

Speaker 6 (28:47):
It's not equating that to the same thing as a
as a human soul, which is rational. But yeah, I mean,
I think the Thimistic tradition very much gives a sort
of sentience to all living matter, which which is all matter.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's true. I mean, you know, I have experienced when
I get angry at my computer that it misbehaves even more,
the more I yell at it, if I'm kind to it,
if I speak kindly to it, it all of a
sudden starts to cooperate, and it's it's it's it's it's
fool proof. I mean, this works. Try it with your
card too. I mean, anything, you know anything anything.

Speaker 6 (29:24):
That yeah, system movie, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
I mean there's I think any mystic. I can understand
the principles here. And because Tarot is deeply rooted in
the mystical tradition that and remember it was originated through
through Christianity, through Christians it did, I mean, wants to
accept that, but it's the truth. Yeah, just like yeah,

(29:51):
it's true. No, it's true. It's true. So yeah. So
provided again back to the question, provided that the that
the AI is truly generating an objective random algorithm to
produce the reading and interpreting it on the basis of
those random results, then yes, it works just as well

(30:15):
as as as a physical deck in your hands. It
does not matter. This is also how the ovolist works.
I hate to say it because I know people like
to think that these these paranormal tools that you see
on the shows, right, and we ourselves have used them
in our own investigations, and the reason that they work

(30:40):
is because of the laws of synchronicity, because our expectation
that this is a device with a lexicon, with a
with a with an entire dictionary of words that can
be generated by apparently the energetic impulses of fluctuation and
electric magnetic activity. However, that is okay, you still got

(31:03):
to ask yourself, like, what is a ghost really going
into that database and picking the word you know? And
how would it be able to do that, even assuming
that that is exactly what's happening. No, it's much more.
It's much it's much easy. It's much more. It's much
easier to just simply look at it and say that

(31:24):
synchronicity is what's speaking to you. And because the intention
that you're infusing into that moment is instead of a
taro reading where you're trying to figure out it's worth
pursuing a relationship. For example, in this moment, you're taking
a novelist and applying meaning to it and saying that
this database is going to help me communicate with the
energy that's here. That's what happens through synchronicity. The sentience

(31:48):
of the cosmos as we just identified, comes through same principle. Okay,
so that's how these things work, and that's why it works,
and I don't I don't see any real challenge to that,
you know, in terms of why why would we think

(32:09):
it would be any different, Because, I mean, if you
understand Carl Jung, I guess most people don't, but if
you've read him at all, if you value anything that
he taught at all, then you'd understand that these archetypes
are absolutely pervasive realities and and and far more real
than we are, far more real than we are. We
are basically you might say, reflections of them. And the

(32:32):
reason that they are all seem like they're built within
our minds is because they spawn us in a sense
that we're just another emanation of creation through them. I'm
not saying that they created us. I'm just saying that
we spawn through them. And so whatever a soul is,
it starts out in the archetypal range first and then

(32:54):
manifests a human being as we understand that human being
to be. But now we're getting into very higher, much
higher level, lesser terroicism than what we typically talk about this.
I'm gonna leave it at that. But there you go, Brandon.
That's the answer to the question.

Speaker 9 (33:10):
Well, I say two things.

Speaker 8 (33:12):
The first one I guess actually like a second one
is when it comes to investigating, both me and I
come investigate to April. We both have an ovulist that
we use, and in the word bank, there's a key
word that basically, when we get it, it lets us
know or we understand, hey, there's something dark or something

(33:32):
negative here. And so it makes sense with synchronicity because
once we get that word, a bunch of words that follows,
like how devil say and evil like the way it's
kind of weird how it says it, but like, that's
interesting that on average, as soon as we get it,

(33:53):
we get all sorts of negative things coming through it.

Speaker 6 (33:55):
Because I also bet it doesn't come up with a
word that you don't know.

Speaker 5 (34:00):
Actually, we had some words come up that were like,
what the heck is this doing in the database?

Speaker 4 (34:08):
Is some random word?

Speaker 9 (34:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (34:10):
Yeah, because I remember a couple of times like an investigation
would get a word and you're like, I don't know
if this is so we'd have to look it up.
I think Apple's in the chest. You can probably give
one or two examples but it's interesting with synchronicity that
once we get that word, we interject expectations that now
we're going to encounter something negative, and so through the

(34:30):
ovulous we do.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
It's the same way that how EVP works. You know
that you get responses to your questions and you're and
and and of course people are immediately going to feel
that's a ghost talking to you, But I it's it's
a reflection, is what it is. It's an echo. It's
an echo of what's going on inside your mind, and

(34:53):
it's your mind is reflecting into the ether and it's
putting that back out and you're picking it up on
a device.

Speaker 8 (35:00):
See one of the words we get on the oul
just commented is a hibbid hop and we don't know
about that.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
And see I do know about this because we doctor
actually Bill Chappel about this once, and Bill even said
Larry zach has, Yeah, I don't know if that's a
glitch in the in the software or what. But Bill
Chappel has actually said that these words were not in
the database, so how it generated them, it should not

(35:28):
be able to which is actually kind of interesting too.
So yeah, I mean you do get but they don't
mean anything. It's like just weird words. They don't mean anything. Yeah,
but yeah, that's how they were. That's how it works.
And it's the same thing I think with with the
E v P and the SB seven. It's it's it's

(35:50):
just listening to the ether and the ether is just
echoing back. That's it. And I guess that is a
ghost if you want to get technical, I guess that
is a ghost. So you could almost say it is
true that it's a ghost that you're talking to. It's
just not what you quite think of a ghost as.

Speaker 8 (36:06):
And I guess with a last thing with the taro,
because I'll do some experiments, I'll compare Chat GPT's reading
to my own, and it's some of the prompts or
questions I give it, like say a religious question in
my mind, thinking okay, Chat's going to get something very
basic like the higher fit, and so it gives me
the higher fin And then when I do my own reading,

(36:26):
it's something completely different, like a pentacles or something like that.
So would that be by Chat? It gave me an
answer that I'm thinking aligns more with the question than
what I get. So would that be the synchronicity or the.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
I think that is about it. No, I think that
is a synchronicity, and I think that also goes with
what we're saying about the objectivity aspect of it. You know,
one of the things that's challenging is to get outside
of your own mind to see things. I mean, look,
people are not very good at this. We wouldn't have
political problems in the world today. If people were good
at this, you know, if you if you were really

(37:04):
good at looking at things from another person's point of view,
we wouldn't have the kinds of of of of turmoil
that we have in the world today. So it's already
pretty obvious human beings suck at understanding things outside of
their own egocentric viewpoint. So objectivity, true objectivity is very

(37:26):
hard to come by. It's very difficult for a human
being to be objective. In fact, I might say it's
nearly impossible for a human being to be truly objective.
But a computer can. That might be its best asset
with AI if AI can you know, we talk a
lot about the things, the horrible things that it can
do or you know, potentially could lead to, but we

(37:48):
don't talk ever about the good things that it could
lead to and I think objectivity would be one I mean,
just imagine if I mean, we don't want people are
worried about, you know, AI taking over jobs and even
replacing doctor. I was listening to some reports about that
we could get to a point where we have AI doctors,
you know, and but think of how much that would

(38:12):
benefit us to have a doctor who is truly objective,
is not being influenced by, you know, some bias that
he learned in medical school, or or or some study
that was financed by some corporation to push an agenda. Yeah,
big pharma another one. Just think of how advantageous it
would be to have somebody that is completely immune to

(38:33):
all of those influences. I think that would be an asset,
not a liability at all. And I think this is
true in the sphere of divination, and this is one
way that it would apply. I mean, I remember it
looking belong Before AI, there was a programs that you
could buy at New Age bookstores. I had plenty of them.

(38:54):
You know. They were computer programs and they had oracles
on them. You can still on the on your on
your iPhone or Android. You can go to the app
store and you can download a ruin app or a
tarot app and it will give you a reading and
you'll find eging, there's an eging one that's really good.

(39:14):
You'll find it's just as effective as if you had
done it yourself, just as effective as if you used
actual cards or coins or yarrow sticks or ruins. It's
because synchronicity is what makes it work, not in your intent,
of course, putting the intent into it so that knows
what to do with the information, that's a necessary component,

(39:37):
but the material you use outside of the fact that
maybe the tangibility can give you more of a physical connection,
but the interpretation still has to come from you. And
that's where it becomes problematic. If you can't be truly
objective about a situation, you're going to have problems, you know,
being able to use the information effectively. AI can definitely

(39:58):
help you to do that, you know, definitely could.

Speaker 8 (40:03):
Okay, all right, so our next question, do you have
an opinion of tattoos sin or not a sin?

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Okay, So tattoos, we've talked about this, Yeah, we've talked
about that. There's a whole episode on Vestiges of Christianity,
which is really the parent to this show. Vestiges after
Dark was named after the original show Vestiges of Christianity,
which just dealt with with theological topics. Wasn't really a

(40:35):
guest show. It was basically just me giving a teaching
on a particular subject matter, and then we came up
with Vestiges after Dark as it means to kind of
make a more entertaining slant on it. And this is
of course the show that became more popular, so that's
why we still do this one. I haven't done a
Vestiges of Christianity in ages, but I did a whole
episode on a tattoos and why they're problematic from an

(40:57):
esoteric vantage point, but let's take it from a from
a theological one, because that's more so what the questions asking,
and that is, you know, is it a sin? No,
the Church does not see tattoos to be a sin,
provided that they are not offensive in some kind of
morally objectionable way and are not presented in such a

(41:20):
way that's morally objectionable. So you know, if it's just
you know, a small thing that has some kind of
intrinsic meaning to you, that that is not considered a sin.
Now that is not to say that it isn't against
levitical law. The only reason why the Christian establishment can

(41:40):
now say that it's not a sin is because we're
no longer bound by levitical law. But in Leviticus nineteen,
chapter nineteen, verse twenty eight, it very clearly says you
shall not make any cuts on your body for the
dead or tattoo yourselves. I am the Lord that is
Leviticus nineteen twenty eight. So it is a levitical law

(42:00):
that was absolutely enforced and applied. However, that being said,
it is not it is not a sin anymore since
p livitical law does not apply to the Christian. However,
I would also though, say, the esoteric consequences still do
in fact apply. And I do find more often than
not that much of what is in levitical law that

(42:21):
seems sort of ambiguous or somewhat unusual is because they
are operating from an esoteric understanding, and so some of
these things came about that way, Like, for example, this
was not esoteric, but it kind of proves the point.
A lot of Kosher law was based upon what was
actually realistically safe to eat. Bottom feeders like like shellfish

(42:45):
were not necessarily safe to eat. Pigs were not necessarily
safe to eat in the ancient world, you know, I
mean meat spoiled very you know, you had trick andosis,
so kind of eliminated that now, but you know there
was risk to certain things, and so you know, some
of these laws came about from just pure practicality. But
when it came to like tattoos, from an esoteric vantage point,

(43:10):
why I teach against it and why I find it
very problematic is that it is the absolute equivalence of
a sigil because it comes to us from tribal shalmanic practices,
where and much of how these shamanic systems work is

(43:30):
that you take the energy of a spirit onto yourself
so that you can become part of that spirit. For example,
before a hunt, it would be very common for the
hunters to wear animal firs and horns and do a
tribal ritual dressed like this to become part of the animal,
so that they could harness that energy and be more

(43:51):
effective in the hunt. That was something that they did.
Tattoo was this very similar type of thing. It was
designed to a certain symbols and certain things represented the
spirits of those particular realities that they wanted to take
into themselves and be merged with forever. From a Christian
vantage point, that is somewhat problematic, since we are supposed

(44:14):
to be completely merged with Christ, and not through any
kind of modification to our physical bodies, but through a
complete transformation of our internal selves or what we would
call a soul. So it kind of I think misses
the point for the Christian to do this. Is it

(44:36):
a sin? No, it's not a sin, but esoterically, you're
taking energy into you that is not necessarily going to
help you in any way towards the whole purpose you're here,
which is the attainment of salvation, and so I find
it that it creates identity where you don't need one. Now,
let's take the Christian vantage point out of it, and
let's just take a more Eastern approach. If that appeals

(44:57):
to you more, the same thing applies. We're trying to
get rid of our ego identity, at least not so
much the point that you want to eliminate the ego.
You want to control the ego and you don't want
it to control you. If you're taking on elements that
produce or enhance that ego reality. Then you're starting to
create identities that are going to be even stronger and

(45:19):
more difficult to eliminate on your path towards enlightenment. So
whether you want to look at it from the Christian
side or the Buddhist side, it's problematic either way. So
I just say, why do it? You don't need them.
They're really freaking expensive. On top of it, Why spend
all that money when you could be doing something better
with it? And that is the ultimately. You know, if

(45:46):
you need a practical reason, why do it.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
But I'd say, if you're.

Speaker 5 (45:51):
Going to do it, make sure you're doing it for
a good reason and you have a good base. All
of mine or Native American protection totems, I've never had
a problem, were.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
The same token.

Speaker 5 (46:01):
We've had clients in the past who were going through
dark times and they got some pretty dark tattoos and.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
They now have a major spiritual issue.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Well, and I've even seen it with now.

Speaker 6 (46:13):
There's all that, But there's also an association between and
you know, I think particularly about women, young women, there
is an association between mental health challenges. I don't mean
extreme ones, I mean the normal, you know, wrestling with anxiety,
depression and having lots of tattoos. I mean, so you know,

(46:36):
I mean it's kind of a it's kind of emblematic,
emblematic of a deeper unease. I mean, going back to
the Old Testament. I mean, you actually made this this
point without joining the dots. The one of the reasons
for that commandment in Leviticus is to distinguish the Israelites
from the cultures around them. Right, the cultures around them
are tattooing or you know, pockering the skin, and lots

(46:59):
of cultures do that today, and it's to say, actually, no,
that's not you. So you know, a lot of the
Levitical law is about making a distinction between the people
of Israel and everybody else. But I think you're right.
I mean, you know, one of the things because people
ask me, why would you ever get a tattoo, and
I think, well, you know, I don't have any. I

(47:21):
think if I got a tattoo, it says too much
about me. And the Christian Gospel says I must decrease,
he must increase. That it's the words of St. John
the Baptist, right, And so I just think, you know,
if I was going to indelibly mark something on my skin. Well,
the problem is the word my It's not my skin,

(47:42):
It's God's belonged to God.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
And the body anything i'd get a cross. The body
is the temple of the Holy Spirit, right and and
it does to me. It doesn't belong to us. We
think it's our possession, but it isn't, and and and
and therefore, I guess you know, if you if you

(48:09):
really want to look at it from a from a
from a from an interesting point of view, let's not
forget that the resin Christ still had the marks of
the Crucifixion on him. I think that are we wanting
to identify with earthly things for all eternity. I don't.

(48:31):
I do not want any any any connection to this
world when I am when when I'm ready to leave it.

Speaker 6 (48:40):
When I was fifteen, all I wanted was a tattoo
of the Premier League trophy and Man United badge on
my leg. And I think if I had that on
my leg in heaven, and I think I would get
to heaven. I don't think it is a sin. I
think you're right. I think I just feel really stupid.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
I mean, you know, I it's gonna be interesting to say,
I mean, maybe we can restore that too in the
in the tropic. But no, the church doesn't teach it's
a sin as long as it's not morally reprehensible. So
if you're worried about it being a sin, right, as
long as you're if you're worried, if all you're concerned

(49:18):
about is whether or not it's a sin, then the
answer to that is no. Does it have esoteric problems,
philosophical problems, even emotional problems, psychological, yes, it can be
indicative of these things, and you might want to look
at that now what Jamie's talking about. Look, there's also
cultural aspects, right, Okay, you know military has had a

(49:43):
long tradition of of of tattoos, you know, in the military,
that's one thing, you know, that's that's I'm not I'm
not endorsing it. I'm still saying it's far better to not.
But you know, not everyone has this teaching to go
into the world, right, and usually going into the military
when you're much younger, you're not going to have a
chance to hear about these kinds of things. You're not

(50:04):
going to know most of the time.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
You get tattoos once you once you separate from service,
and those tattoos serve as kind of reminders of what
you went through.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
Right, yeah, exactly law and that's you know, that's that's
a very different thing. That would be far more benign
than you know, taking on taking on a symbol, Like
people have asked me, is it's it would be safe?
You know, it must be safe to have the crucifixion
on my chest. No, and that would be really really

(50:37):
a bad idea. That would be an extremely bad idea.
Do you want to take the very essence of sacrifice
and become that you're going to have a hell of
a life if that's what you take on? And will
you ever be able to do you really think you
can manage that? You know? I mean I've seen little stars,
little tiny stars be of attach to be a problem

(50:59):
for people. Esoterically, nothing is safe and I just don't
see it as a risk that's needed. But once you know,
you have to know, so if you're asking the question
or understand, well, it's also a type of tribal appropriation.
It's like you don't even understand the culture that this
comes from, so why are you taking it on? You
know it's not being done in that context. So I

(51:21):
actually it's the same reason I have a problem with
marijuana being used as a as a recreational drug, because it's.

Speaker 6 (51:30):
Hebrews are like the ultimate irony, a tattoo in Hebrew.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
Right, there you go, that's right.

Speaker 6 (51:37):
Yeah, I think the Hebrews didn't do that.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yeah, No, they didn't. No, they didn't, you know, And
so it's it's it's kind of like it's it's I
think we've answered the question, but I do. I do
think if you want, if you want a more detailed response,
and look at that Vestiges after Dark on Sigils, sorry,
vestiges of Christianity that I did on Sigils many years ago,

(51:59):
and that will hopefully answer whatever remaining questions you might have.
So there you go. What's our what's our final question tonight.

Speaker 8 (52:10):
Sorr our final question? Do you think that some people
can see into other dimensions?

Speaker 3 (52:17):
Okay, it depends on what you mean by dimensions, because
I don't necessarily think that if you're talking about if
you're talking about more than just the three dimensions that
we are aware of in three dimensional reality, you know,

(52:44):
if you're talking about it from a from a from
a theoretical physics point of view, you know, the other
any other dimensions would be so small they be imperceptible.
So in that sense, no, do I think that things
that are happening on a paranormal level are other dimensions. No,

(53:06):
I think they are happening within the scope of the
three dimensional universe, perhaps though at a level of perception
that we don't have. So X rays, for example, are
not outside, not in another dimension, but we can't perceive

(53:29):
them because we don't have the tools to perceive those
things unless we have a device that can actually see them,
and we built devices, but for a long time our
civilization did not know they existed because we couldn't perceive
them anything beyond the color spectrum right and for red,
and beyond ultraviolet and beyond imperceptible to us here. So

(53:52):
in that sense, in that context, then no, I don't
think we can see into other dimensions, because I don't
think what we are classifying as the spiritual world is
another place or another location. I think I think what
we call heaven and hell the afterlife, is right here

(54:15):
in the same universe that this is. I don't see
it as a different a different dimension. I don't see
it as a different place. It's just whether you're perceived
perceive it or not. Look, I look at these kinds
of things in a very Buddhist way. Okay, Buddhism has
this wonderful way of describing it's after life condition. And

(54:37):
it's not even really the same kind of thing that
that that the Western world looks at it. Will you know,
instead of heaven and hell, you have in Buddhism nirvana
and some sorrow, right, And it's not really they're not
really compatible understandings. There's just basically suffering and then extinguishing

(54:58):
a suffering. If you if you're suffering, you're in some sorrow.
If you've extinguished suffering, you're in nirvana. And both of
those realities are something you can experience now. You don't
have to die to get there. They're not another dimension,
they're not another location. It's not another universe. It's a
reality that you decide through the volition, your own volition

(55:19):
to become a part of. Do you want to live
a life of misery and pain and sorrow, Well, that's
a choice that you can make right now. You don't
have to die and go to hell for it. You
can you can make life miserable right now, and you
can live hell right now. Same with heaven. You can
you can take you know, goodness and compassion into your
life and become goodness and compassion for others and create

(55:42):
heaven right now. So I think it's kind of I
think sometimes with paranormal terminology we tend to create these ideas.
It comes through the theosophy. Okay, look, theosophy.

Speaker 6 (55:58):
You can make a hell of heaven and a heaven
of hell.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Well there you go. Yeah, and I'm telling you right now.
But with some of the Christians, I know, I mean
I their heavens would be my hell for sure. I
don't want to go anywhere near what they consider to
be heaven.

Speaker 6 (56:15):
They make it to heaven, they're going to be very.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
Show right right. Yeah, what I plan for now, what
I plan for? So that so in my in my understanding,
we don't really see into other dimensions. There's just perception
and there's lack of perception. And I think that's a
better way to understand it than to try to make

(56:39):
it seem as though there's some kind of geometry to
this thing. I don't really And I.

Speaker 6 (56:44):
Think there's moments when we're closest to the true perception.
That's when that's why they feel so significant to us.
There's mountaintop experience. It is is when we're closest to
the to the to the truth of that of actual reality.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
When you look at when you look at peak experience
in psychology, you look at the self actualization. In religion,
you look at Nirvana, Molksha, heaven, paradise, whatever you want
to classify it. Okay, they're all states of awareness. It's
something that you come to to to to recognize. Even

(57:21):
Jesus says the Kingdom of God is at hand, he doesn't,
he doesn't. He doesn't say. It's like, you know, doesn't
really talk about it really in the context to a
place that we're going to go. It's something that's being
ushered in now. It's something that's in the process, and
as we grow in our understanding and awareness of it,

(57:41):
then we become part of it. And and and so
that's how I yes, exactly exactly, so yeah, bringing it
about so, I think it does it an injustice to
say you're looking into a different dimension because it always
will create the concept of otherness, Like that's something that

(58:03):
can't be right now. Maybe someday in some idealistic reality.
We'll know it, but not right now. No, right now.
But if you keep referring to it as another location,
other dimension, other place, something that's inaccessible to you, then
you can't make it real. And I think that's really
part of our problem today in religion, is that we

(58:26):
tend to have made God so much something, so much
outside of ourselves, that we've lost all hope of ever
becoming part of it because it seems unreachable, to the
point that it now feels almost like it's a fiction.
And that's the root of all nihilism and atheism. All Right,
we're gonna take our break here. In a few minutes,

(58:48):
we'll come back and start the second hour of the
show with our guests, Grishawn Siegel, who's going to talk
to us about his reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments. Don't
go away, and.

Speaker 7 (59:00):
Every day I put my hands together anyway.

Speaker 10 (59:05):
Then it won't be along until you've come along. I'll
be my day. But never gave a poll always and
they are the stub to.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
Fill the hold I er heard of the.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
I haven't said an chain, have anything.

Speaker 10 (01:00:35):
I haven't said an e jan, never gave a pa.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Have allus the whole inside me.

Speaker 10 (01:00:54):
Look at.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Oh no, you're not alive. You don't know alive. Not

(01:05:43):
a fee, You're not a free You're not a free.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
Welcome back, everybody to the second hour of Vestiges after Dark.
We're getting ready now to talk about tonight's topic with
our brand new guest, Orsehan Siegel, author of Ten Commandments Reboot.
I think you're going to really enjoy this. This is
a very different take on something that's probably very familiar

(01:06:53):
to a lot of you at least. And I enjoyed
the book very much, and I hope that you'll enjoy
hearing about it. So don't go anywhere, okay. So our

(01:08:14):
guest tonight is Girshawn Siegel, a seasoned writer and satirists
whose work explores the intersection of spirituality, ethics, and the
pitfalls of rigid belief systems. Kirshan is the author of
Ten Commandments Reboot, a bold and thought provoking reinterpretation of
one of the world's most enduring moral codes. With sharp

(01:08:35):
wits and deep insight, His book invites readers to revisit
these agent laws through a modern lens, challenging dogma, encouraging
critical thought, and offering fresh relevance for today's world. Kirshan
has also penned Paradigm's Lost Online Oracles for the New Millennium,
a satirical satirical critique of both New Age and traditional

(01:08:59):
spiritual excesses. His career in writing began as a rebellious
high school columnist and eventually evolved into roles as editor, reporter,
and publisher, including a twelve year run at Sun Monthly,
a well regarded magazine based in Santa Fe. Whether confronting
outdated paradigms or offering soulful alternatives, Grishawn brings both humor

(01:09:19):
and gravity to his reflections on spiritual life. Please welcome
Gershawn Siegel to the show. How you doing tonight?

Speaker 6 (01:09:26):
Your show?

Speaker 9 (01:09:28):
I'm doing great. I'm rilled be here, thrilled to be here.
I should just tell you that my people were peasants
and they couldn't afford an accident, so it's just playing Gershon.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
Gerg Gerrishon, Okay, Okay, thank you for that. I appreciate Gearshon. Okay.

Speaker 9 (01:09:45):
Well, like Gary, if you can say Gary, okay, you
can say Gershon Garson.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
Okay, all right, Well thanks.

Speaker 9 (01:09:52):
Incidentally, Gershon, if you know your Bible. Do you know
who Gershon was?

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm familiar with that name.

Speaker 11 (01:10:02):
From Gersh was it was Moses' first son, Okay, and
it means literally, well, it means several.

Speaker 9 (01:10:12):
It means stranger in a strange land, is what it means,
or one in exile.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Yeah, okay, yes, okay, all right, that does make sense
to me. Now, okay, well that's great. Okay, so thank
you for uh for explaining that to me.

Speaker 9 (01:10:32):
And my mother's uh, my mother's father was in our tradition,
you know, you name somebody, you name your your kid
after somebody who's died.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
Basically great, okay, yeah, yeah, So you're you basically come
from a would you say, an Orthodox Jewish background or
how would you consider your background.

Speaker 9 (01:10:59):
In well, in religion, hardly orthodox, hardly Orthodox. As a
matter of fact, I like to you know, there's a
story of you know this old the old joke. How
do you tell the difference? What's what is the difference
between a reformed Jew and a Methodist? It's the amount

(01:11:23):
of mayonnaise they put in their egg salad.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
I mean, I mean I could see that, I could
definitely see that. Is that the only difference. Do you think.

Speaker 9 (01:11:39):
I don't like well, you know, we didn't.

Speaker 12 (01:11:41):
We were not.

Speaker 9 (01:11:42):
It's funny. My father was born in Russia, and I
believe he was being groomed to be a rabbi, but
then his father came to America and then the Russian
Revolution broke out and it took him ten years to
to bring the rest of the family over. So when
my father got here, he was like thirteen or fourteen,

(01:12:03):
and I think his rabbi days were far behind him.
He was just it was just about how to make
a living. And yeah, so we didn't go to temple
all that often. Frankly. We went, of course on the
high holidays, and it was always kind of interesting to
since it wasn't like in every Friday night thing when

(01:12:26):
we went. I was always interested in all the accouterments
that go in in a temple, you know, the Jewish
star and the candelabras and minora's and so forth. But
I did not grow up in what you would call
a religious home.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
Okay, so, but I would imagine though, as it is
for most Jewish families, even if they're not as as
strictly practicing, there's still a cultural influence from the religious

(01:13:08):
overtones that still permeates through family life. Would you not say?

Speaker 9 (01:13:14):
Oh? Absolutely absolutely. As a matter of fact, I did
you know, I went through eighth grade Sunday School, and
then after Sunday School we were given the option, what
do you want to continue in post confirmation, which I
did because it was only in Sunday School that we

(01:13:34):
got to have some needy conversations. You certainly never had
that in public school. There were certainly no philosophy was
talked about in public school. So I chose through to
uh Sunday School through through twelfth grade because it was
it was stimulated, it was you know, Sunday I got

(01:13:56):
to at least have a conversation, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
So yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously that influenced you
because you wrote you wrote this book and it's definitely
a different take on the subject matter. But yet surprisingly
even though even through all the satire and humor and
and you know, off color elements that that you include

(01:14:19):
into it color, Yeah, yeah, there's there's definitely a truth
in there though. I mean, I I I could see,
I don't know, I suspect that you you appreciate ger Jief.
There seems to be elements of of that throughout as

(01:14:42):
a as a as a foundational principle, because there's definitely
outside of the humor an underlying philosophy that's actually quite
profound and serious. I would say it's something very solemn
there in spite of it all. But I found that
as I read it, I it gave me a perspective
of how badly it is that we need to, in

(01:15:06):
the realm of religion and our sacred beliefs and whatever
it is that we maintain in that regard, to not
take ourselves, even in this sense too seriously, because we
miss the point a lot of times when we do that.
I think if I were to say, that's the moral
of your book, well, I would say that's the moral
of your book as I read it. That's what I

(01:15:27):
sort of concluded from it, that this is really what
you're trying to say to us. Would you agree with
that or disagree?

Speaker 9 (01:15:33):
Did we take ourselves too seriously?

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
And that by doing so we missed the actual point
of what it's all really about.

Speaker 9 (01:15:40):
Yeah, why you know, there's a zen saying that. I
keep it up on my wall. Actually, in general life
one should laugh. Yeah, And when one is not laughing,
one should be waiting for the next laugh. So yeah,

(01:16:01):
I think we are here to laugh at our predicament,
but to be kind to each other. At the same time.
We shouldn't be laughing at each other, certainly not in
a nasty way. And I have to say, if I
had written that book more recently, yeah, now you know

(01:16:25):
the first commandment, of course, thou shalt have no other
gods before me.

Speaker 7 (01:16:30):
And.

Speaker 9 (01:16:33):
I took it kind of. I took you know, I
kind of made fun of the different gods that were
out there, and you know, and God, this supposed God
in heaven taking offense, needing this this to be first,
you know. And I've been reading some Islamic literature lately,

(01:16:58):
and they take it. Then the other gods that you
don't put before the God is your own ego, and
most people can't laugh at that.

Speaker 4 (01:17:16):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (01:17:18):
It's not the gods offended. It's not the gods offended
by us. I mean, you know, I think that take
of it is I think has been, you know, certainly
from modern times on. Was the take of that have
no gods before me? As though God, you know, and
we have it in the Bible. I'm a jealous God.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
But it's.

Speaker 6 (01:17:40):
It's wrong to look at it as though God has
but her by that. It's more, it's more to say
that that it's not good for us to put other
things before God. That's what it's really about. God's not
offended by it. It's that it's bad for us.

Speaker 9 (01:17:54):
Right right, It's bad for us when we when we
make our own egos the idol that we worship, we
are in deep doo doo and we.

Speaker 6 (01:18:07):
And the whole premise of of engaging with the scriptures
or the not just the Christian tradition, any religious tradition,
but particularly within Judaism and Christianity, is that none of
none of what's laid down is for God's benefit because God,
God is perfect and doesn't need anything to make him perfect.

(01:18:28):
He doesn't need If nobody in the world believed in God,
God would still be and he'd be fine because he's God.
All of it is about us and our journey and
what and what gets in our way? What a stumbling
box for us? And and and I'll show up in
a second back. There's so much humor in the in
the Bible that people miss. There's so much humor, but

(01:18:50):
one of my I've said it on the show, but
one of my favorite passages is where Jesus has just
spoken to a multitude of people and then he disappears
and the disciple go looking for him, you know, and
they find him and they say, Jesus, everyone is looking
for you, and he says, let's go somewhere else. I

(01:19:12):
think it's funny and and that humor teaches you something
way more profound about about the message. Is you know
that Jesus is not just about giving out and saying,
you know, here's here's a handbook for life. Is it's
a model for how to how to think about life.
And part of that is actually, you know, saying yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:19:33):
now let's just have to take five five.

Speaker 3 (01:19:36):
Yes, yes, I do find well, there is truth to
what you just said about ego. I think idolatry in
the truest sense has very little to do with building
actual golden calves and things of that nature, and far
more to do about putting any concepts before the divine,

(01:20:00):
using our paradigms as as objects of adoration instead of
the truth. Is a is a perfect example here. How
many idols do Christians and I would imagine, you know,
Jewish people as well do when they imprint into God
their expectation of what they want God to be instead

(01:20:22):
of what God actually is. And I think most of
them actually do that, Jews and Christians alike, and it
gets in the way of the relationship, which is what
it's really all about anyway. So I think your book
really kind of touches a lot on that in its
in its humorous tones, you know, I mean, it's done
very well by the way, Krishan. You're extremely talented writer.

Speaker 9 (01:20:45):
And saying that, I really really appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:49):
I mean, I mean, you have a way with words.
I haven't read anything quite like that in a while.
I think a lot of the stuff that people put
out just seems rather dry. And yeah, yeah, there's no
real style to it. You have an actual writing style.
What's that they have?

Speaker 12 (01:21:06):
Ai do it?

Speaker 3 (01:21:06):
Yeah, his book, His book actually says no, Ai was
written to write this. Yeah. I like that. So, No,
it was definitely, uh fun, a fun thing to read.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:21:20):
It was entertaining, even outside of the humor.

Speaker 9 (01:21:24):
Like I said, it was just like I was trying
to get you know, It's like a spoonful of sugar
makes the medicine go down kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
Yeah, yeah, and it did, it really did. I mean,
because I would imagine people more fundamentalist types, I guess,
would struggle with some of these things. But you know,
as I was reading your revisions and going through and
we can go through them tonight if you want, they're
really there's nothing here that anybody with a good conscience
should object to. It's it's it's brilliantly done. And I

(01:21:56):
would call it really is because in a way I
would say that, I mean from a Christian standpoint, okay,
which is the only one I can really justifiably speak to.
I would argue that when we say the word of God,
people forget that that doesn't mean a verbatim literal message.

(01:22:21):
It's it's a it's a it's a way of expressing
a divine truth that is somewhat beyond us, but in
a way that can make it relatable. Yes, exactly so.
When you when you read the Ten Commandments, they're written
in a way that not as if God is precisely
saying this is exactly as it is written, this is

(01:22:43):
as I said it. But more so, these are the
expressions that we are to take into our lives in
a way that can be applied for the benefit of
all returning to that state of perfection that is implied
that we lost. Now we can are we can, we
can we can debate about how that happened. You know.

(01:23:04):
And certainly in the ancient world they did you know,
you had gnostics, you you're Jewish gnostics, the Sethians that
had their own interpretation. They definitely didn't like, you know,
this this this this this Jewish God. They thought he
was an impostor, right and uh. And then you know
you had of course pro orthodox Orthodox Judaism that that

(01:23:25):
took God very seriously. But at the same time, are
we really taking the message in correctly or are we
just imprinting what we wanted to say, what we think
it says, how it can conveniently apply to this particular
moment in time.

Speaker 6 (01:23:43):
Even worse so, we weaponizing it to pick on other people.

Speaker 3 (01:23:46):
That's the big one, right, And I think Gershan, you
kind of get into that with the whole you know,
chosen people think sort of being like one of one
of God's mistakes. Why don't we talk about that, because
that's a that's an interesting take on it.

Speaker 9 (01:24:00):
Well, when I started the book, Actually the whole Palestine
thing hadn't happened, the Hamas thing had not happened. So
it happened halfway through the book, and I was already
making I was already thinking, well as the scenario that

(01:24:22):
I laid out there where God went behind the Congress
of Archangels to try to cut his own deal with
was not the Samerians, but whoever it was that he
went to talk to, and because he had his own
idea of who the chosen people should be, and and

(01:24:47):
then he got and that kind of blew up, so
he didn't get to choose his first His first choice
was was nullified. So I was already on that on
that road. And then the whole Hamas thing happened, and uh,
and then Israel's response and you know, the uh, the

(01:25:13):
Jews have been milking the Holocaust, you know for eighty
years now, they've been they've been whoops, what was that?

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
That was people liking the stream? Yeah, anytime you hear
that means somebody liked the stream. They're liking what they're
what you're saying.

Speaker 9 (01:25:32):
Yeah, yeah, so there, you know, so it was easy
to say, you know, to the last the fifteenth commandment
be kind, you know. And then and then halfway as
he's writings about being kind, uh, then he realizes, you know,
Israel has kind of blown it. They're not they're not

(01:25:54):
being kind, and I'm tearing up the Covenant by golly.

Speaker 6 (01:26:00):
So so you think I've always thought you The humorous
response is, you know, if the Jews of God God's
shows some people, then God forbid, I'd be chosen. Yeah,
like that sort of you know, Yiddish humor really comes
from that sort of I don't know that paradox.

Speaker 9 (01:26:22):
Yes, yes, yes, yeah, had to choose us kind of
thing someone else.

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
Yeah, well, you know you meant you know, okay, you
talk about the you added like five more commandments here,
which were kind of interesting ones that perhaps should be
in there. I mean, I guess they are kind of
in the scriptures to certain degree, but not explicitly like this.
You put in thou shalt not be greedy as number eleven,

(01:26:53):
number twelve, use your gifts, number thirteen, pay attention, number fourteen,
live in joy, and number fifteen. And I like this
one the most. Be kind whenever possible, it is always possible,
you know. Ah, yes, yes he did. He did say

(01:27:14):
that you're right. He does say that, So these are
these are elements perhaps that are not as recognized in
in in modern or even ancient religion. I guess you

(01:27:34):
could say, not really espouse to the degree that they
should be. I mean, greed perhaps not. I mean that
I think there's there's definitely prohibitions against greed, but using
one's gifts, it's there, but it's not it's not emphasized,
and it's overlooked. A lot. Paying attention is definitely overlooked. Mindfulness,

(01:27:56):
you know, which is foundational to Buddhism. I don't feel
we have a good grasp on that in the West,
with the with the three Abrahamic religions of christian you know, Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam. I would say mindfulness is sort of an afterthought,
uh in in in in there you know, no pun intended, Yeah, yeah,

(01:28:17):
no pun intended, right, Yeah, It's true. Living and joy
also not necessarily something that is emphasized. It's almost as
if God doesn't want us to be happy, you know.
It's almost like you know, you're you're, you're you're miserable.
Now be miserable. We could perhaps learn a lot from

(01:28:38):
taking these points that you've made here and emphasizing them
a whole lot more than we do. But being kind
perhaps is the most important one, and of course Jesus
says this in so many words with you know, treat
others as you would like to be treated, which is
kind of a very similar thing, but not something that

(01:28:59):
people tend to do, you know, not not really. People
are easily annoyed by others, and they use that annoyances
justification for for for poor behavior, and this does permeate
through the establishment of religion. It's the biggest challenge. One
of the things that I deal with all the time,

(01:29:20):
Giveshan is that I deal with people not wanting to
go to church because they don't want to be around
all these miserable people. And you know what, I get it,
because I mean it seems like the more the more
miserable they are, the more they they collect at these
places like you know.

Speaker 6 (01:29:37):
What, I'd rather be a church with for miserable people,
because there's a certain there's a certain honesty to that.
Then to go to these sort of you know where
I used to go a long time ago, these churches
where people sing and dance around with with Sacarine smiles
on like you know, with a fake with a fake
kind of joy. You know it's not it's not joy. Actually,

(01:30:00):
it's performative. And and you know, because true, true joy
is is way deeper than happiness. You know, one of
my favorite Americans, Fulton Sheen, had the best for ever
about that, about the difference between pleasure and joy, and
pleasure and happiness and joy. The joy is far deeper
than than any either of those things.

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):
And so.

Speaker 6 (01:30:22):
You know, joy something that you arrive at through through sacrifice,
really through or through through.

Speaker 9 (01:30:32):
Well conscious labors and intentional sufferings.

Speaker 6 (01:30:37):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, choosing choosing suffering, that's right, choosing suffering,
not not as in a masochistic sense, but embracing something
that's difficult to to well, to drag it up the hill,
to use the Christian icon of dragging the cross up
the hill, you know, yeah, to aim upwards to something better,

(01:30:58):
but to embrace that suffering, to lift it.

Speaker 8 (01:31:00):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
You had this very interesting component here that I think
might be surprising to people, but it was. It was
well done. You have belize above in there, right, and
and you you you have him reconcile back to God
in a way that they're the kind of like there's

(01:31:22):
some understanding. Can you can you get into what that means?
How did you develop that idea?

Speaker 12 (01:31:29):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (01:31:30):
Is it from gerd chief, you know? Is it? Is
it sort of a you could say, a play on
that or was it Was it something that you had
been thinking about in terms of bringing together the light
and the dark or the polarization that that exists in
the world today.

Speaker 9 (01:31:48):
Well, certainly that was an element of the bringing together
the polarization, that there's this idea that there's, uh, there's
this entity out there. I don't know. I'm not sure,
since I'm not only meeting you for the first time,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
Offend it's okay, Yeah, you don't have to be careful.

Speaker 9 (01:32:12):
Way we roll. You're fine, glad to hear it. It
is well. I think I say in the beginning of
the book, in my acknowledgment that the book would not
have been written if not for Gev's uh Bielsa Bob's
tales to his grandson. And I don't know if you
if you've read that or you know the premise of that,

(01:32:34):
but beelz A Bob has been exiled for millenniums on
the planet Mars where he built a giant telescope so
he could look out, and he was spying on on
planet Earth, and he was watching all these things happen
on planet Earth. So now his endlessness, what Gerf called

(01:32:59):
God has now called Beelsa Bob and his family back
to the center of the universe. And they're now traveling
on the spaceship Karnak back to the center of the
universe and no longer going to be in exile from
his endlessness. And uh, beels Bob's grandson is just you know,

(01:33:23):
he's curious about these He's heard stories about these very
strange people that inhabit this this planet Earth, and tell
me more about these people, about these strange people, grand grandfather.
So yes, I did. I did kind of use that

(01:33:46):
notion of Beelsa Bob as this benign figure. Actually that
got got a bad rap.

Speaker 6 (01:33:55):
It must have bit like Scoots hay Brighton C. S. Lewis,
it's a similar.

Speaker 3 (01:34:00):
Well, we talk often about Satan on this show and
how the notion we I mean, I would say that
my approach towards evil is somewhat very Jewish inspired in
the sense that I don't subscribe to the whole fallen

(01:34:22):
angel notion as it exists. I mean, I understand the
value of that as a as a as a as
a literary device to try to convey something that is
again ineffable, But in terms of a literal event, I
don't see that that way, and nor do I see
Satan or I guess the devil, which is in my

(01:34:44):
in my estimation different as as some kind of externalization
or completely independent concept or being. My approach towards it
is very much getting back to the Jewish origin of
yet Sahara, that serpent in the garden of Eden. That

(01:35:09):
is the proclivity of mankind to necessarily make less than
ideal choices and to say it kindly, and I think
that that can spiral out of control. And because we
are so powerful in our ability to create truly meaning

(01:35:30):
God's image, you know, in the sense that we can
literally create just about anything, that if we take on
in our lives destructive concepts and we indulge them, then
that's what we create. And therefore we can produce perhaps
even esoterically thought forms that become the very demons that

(01:35:54):
end up tormenting us or possessing us, or however it
tends to manifest. That's how I see it. I work
in the realm of of of of exorcism, but my
approach towards it is, you might say, far less than mystical.
I see it as a very psychological process. And it's

(01:36:14):
because of that. So, I mean, like I tell Jamie
all the time, right, you know, Jamie and father Chris
were both police officers. They can attest to this. I
have never seen any evil worse than anything that mankind
can come up with. I don't think we need the
help of some supernatural being to do it. I think
we are more than capable of producing the evil ourselves.

Speaker 8 (01:36:36):
So I guess also to add to that, all the
horror movies we have the serial killers, the demons and whatnot.
Where did they originally come from?

Speaker 3 (01:36:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:36:46):
Our mind?

Speaker 3 (01:36:46):
Yeah, our minds well.

Speaker 6 (01:36:48):
And also I mean, you know, if in the if
in the scriptures there's the association with all created things,
is that God saw and saw that it was good.
In other words, God only creates goodness, and every that
exists can only have goodness in it. The unique thing
about the human condition, you know, looking at the fall
and they're not eating from the fruit the tree of

(01:37:09):
the knowledge of good and evil is that only human
beings are able to, in a sense, undermine goodness, which
is what you know. Evil is the it's not about
being naughty or bad. Evil is the deliberate destruction of
that which is good. And one could argue that in
this what we know of the universe, what we can
conceive of the universe as human beings in our limited way,

(01:37:31):
only human beings are capable of what we call evil.

Speaker 12 (01:37:36):
Right.

Speaker 9 (01:37:37):
Well, I think I mentioned in the book you know
they gave When they were deciding what gives to give humanity,
there was a big debate in Heaven about whether you
wanted to give them creative intelligence, basically because they could

(01:37:57):
twist it. And we've certainly seen you've certainly seen it twisted.

Speaker 3 (01:38:04):
Oh, It's it's constantly being twisted all the time.

Speaker 6 (01:38:08):
That's what sin is. What is is twisting things. It's
missing the mark, it's you know, turned in on itself.
It's all those things.

Speaker 3 (01:38:15):
Yeah, I think I think reducing it to just wrongdoing
really misses the point. You know, wrongdoing is more like
the symptom of it. I think it's sort of like
treating the symptoms instead of the disease, the fundamental disease
goes untreated because that's not what's being recognized and not
not what people focus on, and it's easier to create scapegoats.

(01:38:36):
You know, Girarshon, you wouldn't believe how many people so
far have asked me. Lawyers have asked me to come
in and assess their clients who are in prison and
and be able to identify them and testify in court
that I feel that they're possessed as some kind of defense.

(01:38:59):
I mean, I'm telling you I actually.

Speaker 7 (01:39:01):
Had to talk to.

Speaker 5 (01:39:03):
Look, I got twenty six years law enforcement. I can
tell you does want us to get on this thing.

Speaker 3 (01:39:08):
No, and and so, and I'm and I'm and I
told him, I said, look, that would be the worst
thing that you could possibly do, is put me into
this into the situation, because, first of all, whether I
determine that he's possessed or not, he's not free the
guilt of what he's done. And I'm not going to
testify that some external uh influence is responsible for this.

(01:39:29):
We still participated it. We are the authors of our
own destruction, and likewise, we can change that if we
try to. And that's what really exorcism is is is
a type of you might say, conversion away from destructive
thought processes and psychological impulses that are not healthy, you know,

(01:39:50):
and and and we use obviously religious methodology to do that,
but it's because it speaks to us on a higher
psychological level and and and resonate it's on that, on that,
on that basis. So I think in your book I
found there's a lot of that archetypal information, that archetypal
data in there, you know, almost in a in a

(01:40:15):
in a bit of a union sense. But perhaps it's
also because that foundation and ger Chief and you have
this this, I mean, he is really sort of one
of the mystical foundations to the modern esotericism. He's definitely
referenced a lot. So you get a lot of that
archetypal data in there. And I appreciated that in your book.

(01:40:38):
Have you, I mean, do you have any background in psychology?
I guess I'm trying to get to is what really
was the inspiration here that that led you to see
things this way and to say I'm going to write
about this and put it all together. What's your what's
your ultimate motivation in writing this book?

Speaker 9 (01:41:03):
Well, like I said in my bio, I want to
liberate all souls, but I don't want to have to
take the bodies off to the bow.

Speaker 3 (01:41:13):
I don't blame you for that. I don't want to
come back here, that's for sure, once it's enough, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:41:22):
I did.

Speaker 9 (01:41:24):
In fact, I went to a school for seven months
back in West Virginia and Charles near Charlestown, West Virginia,
was called Claymont. It's still it's still around, and it
was founded by a man named J. G. Bennett, and J. G.
Bennett was one of Gurjev's principal students. He was right

(01:41:49):
after Ospensky.

Speaker 3 (01:41:51):
Okay, okay, yeah yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:41:53):
As a matter of fact, when the two men died,
they died within a year of each other. Ospensky died
in forty eight and Gurgef died in forty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:42:03):
It was J. J.

Speaker 9 (01:42:04):
Bennett and some of the Russian women that were there
on the scene that created the Foundation. They sort of
brought the splintered pieces together and now there is this organization,
this worldwide organization called the Foundation, and that they were

(01:42:24):
created to preserve the pure Gurdjef teachings, which I always
thought was kind of ironic, since Gurje was borrowing from
this and that and this and that, and it was
always an amalgamation. It was never a pure teaching and
he was always adding to it and subtracting from it.

(01:42:45):
And back in the sixties, Bennett had founded a couple
of schools in England, and then he had a lot
of American students coming to England, and so he decided
he would come to America and started a school in America,
which he did right at the end of his life.

(01:43:07):
And there in West he bought this He bought George
Washington's great great great great grand Nephew's a state was
a six hundred acre a state near Washington, d c.
In West Virginia, and he as soon as he bought it,

(01:43:32):
he died. But then his people came to America and
they started a school kind of formulated modeled on what
Gergiev had done back in the twenties outside of Paris.
And so I was I attended that school. Had I

(01:43:52):
married a woman in California back in eighty nineteen eighty,
and she had gone to that school several years before,
and she decided I needed regrooving, and she dragged me
back to this West Virginia and I was there for
seven months and I was eating and drinking and dancing

(01:44:15):
and Gerzeff twenty four seven, So.

Speaker 3 (01:44:20):
He did the whole thing. Wow, that is I drank.

Speaker 9 (01:44:24):
I drank the cool latest cool well, you know, but.

Speaker 3 (01:44:29):
I mean I'm sure though that. I mean, it clearly
had impact. I mean it had.

Speaker 9 (01:44:37):
It was like if you were if you have a
good exposure to gerhe is kind of like getting a
bad cold that you never get over.

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
I had a mentor that was like that with with
with with Gurdea and he uh referenced him often, and yeah,
I think that's probably very true. How do you classify yourself?
I mean, not that I want to categorize you, but
do you do you classify yourself as anything in particular?

Speaker 7 (01:45:06):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:45:06):
I mean, you know, you talk a lot about Buddhism.
Do you do you follow Buddhism as a as a religion.

Speaker 9 (01:45:13):
No, I don't really follow anything much. What's funny is
with my my current wife and I, we we when
we got together and moved in together, we had about
twenty Buddhist Buddhist statues between us.

Speaker 3 (01:45:34):
That's awesome.

Speaker 9 (01:45:36):
Oh yeah, so we have a lot of Buddhists around,
you know, but I don't see that as an idol.
I see it as an inspiration. Frankly, I would. And
I particularly like the Buddha image where he's laughing. He's
got a big belly and he's laughing. You know, you've
probably seen that, the laughing.

Speaker 3 (01:45:56):
It's a Chinese god of happiness. It does it. I
forget the Chinese name for it, but.

Speaker 4 (01:46:05):
Two pounds of brisket earlier today, belly. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:46:12):
As far as.

Speaker 9 (01:46:12):
Calling myself, I don't call myself your Gipian or you know,
a Buddhist, or a Jew or certainly by culture. I
you know, raised in that culture. But I guess I'm
I'm a free thinker. I've got I've got pictures of saints,
all kinds of saints all over. As a matter of fact,

(01:46:35):
I let's see if I can get this off the wall.
Here I have this is I found these pictures at
one point or another and I decided to just put
them together. And there's different images of Jesus there.

Speaker 12 (01:46:49):
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:46:50):
I did.

Speaker 9 (01:46:53):
At one point.

Speaker 2 (01:46:55):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:46:55):
You remember when Bob Dylan became a Christian. Yeah, uh,
And it was just around that same time that I
was introduced to Unity.

Speaker 3 (01:47:08):
Okay, are you familiar with you?

Speaker 1 (01:47:10):
Yes?

Speaker 13 (01:47:10):
I am, yes, And Unity talked of uh, Christ consciousness,
and I could get behind Christ consciousness.

Speaker 9 (01:47:21):
I still wasn't, you know, growing up that was like Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:47:26):
You know, it was like it's a.

Speaker 9 (01:47:31):
You know, you don't talk about Jesus. But so I
always had a kind of an anathema around the whole
Christian thing. As a matter of fact, when I would
go visit my neighbors, my my Catholic neighbors, and they
would read me from the Catechism, and I think to myself, Jesus,
really they really expect you to believe that, you know, Yeah,

(01:47:55):
it seemed like a pretty tall order to me.

Speaker 2 (01:47:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:47:58):
You know, if I if I might push back a bit,
I'm one of them. I'm one of those Catechism believing people.
Although I didn't come to I mean, I didn't grow
up in any religious household at all. I mean I
came to it, you know, through my own pursuit well sorry,
the influence of others and my own interest in it.
But if I were to and I'm not, I'm really

(01:48:21):
not trying to psychoanolize you on live life, on you too,
But is there there is a sense that if you
commit to a particular discipline, it requires discipline requires something
of you, like I think I think the main reason
that people in the West don't want to go to church,

(01:48:42):
I think the church makes the wrong the wrong analysis. Oh,
we've got to make it more attractive. We've got to
make it, you know whatever, it's got to be more aesthetic,
it's got you know, whenever, we've got got to use
exactly all. I think that's a massive mistake. I think
that the issue is not the church. The issue is
our culture that we're not we're not disciplined and or

(01:49:04):
you know. I actually think that the reason most people
in the West don't go to church is because they
know that it would require more of them than they're
willing to give.

Speaker 9 (01:49:13):
Right, is as simple as that, right, Right, I would
I would agree with it.

Speaker 6 (01:49:18):
You have to do something.

Speaker 9 (01:49:20):
Yeah, it's I think it's important that one finds some
some way to to work at themselves. But we there
are all these tools out there that it's not a secret.
You can go find tools out there to self perfect yourself,

(01:49:41):
but it's still going to require.

Speaker 6 (01:49:44):
Some work well, and you can't really do it objectively
on your own. I mean that's why you know, common
to certainly the Abahamic religions is the idea that you
have to gather with other people who are doing the
same thing because you can't you can't trust yourself to
discern it, even with you know, the Internet, our fingertips.

(01:50:05):
I mean, in the ancient world, you could be in
the Library of Alexandria. I'm still recovering from the destruction
of the Library of Alexandria. You know, we could be there.
But even even then, on your own, you can't do it.
You know, in the Hebrews have the Cahal, you know,

(01:50:25):
the Christians have the Ecclesia.

Speaker 8 (01:50:28):
You have to have that.

Speaker 3 (01:50:29):
That coming to me, yeah, I mean you have.

Speaker 6 (01:50:33):
To have that sort of and that's the discipline of it.
Like I'd rather sleep in, sleep in on a Sunday
morning and you know, have a coffee and all the
rest of it. But there's something, there's something that says,
if you're really going to be on a pursuit for
what are the highest purposes in life, you can't do that.
Not only can you not do that on your own,

(01:50:55):
in the in the sort of sense that you need
other people around you to check you. But we're not
on our own. And this is this is the Catholic
approach in as much as the Jewish approach. We've got
the wisdom of the ages behind us as well, and
we can't ignore that. And so there is a certain
sense of having someone with some expertise, not a guru.
But you know, the whole point of a homily is

(01:51:17):
that somebody who's studied these things deeply, whether as a
Jewish rabbi or a priest, you know, has got something
to say. Even if they've said it a thousand times
and you've heard it in the cycle, you know, every
every year of your life, there's something about hearing it again,
being retold in the context of a group of people.
It's really important. It's not attractive, but it's really important.

Speaker 3 (01:51:38):
I think what it comes down to where it becomes
problematic for you know, good well intentioned people, because there
are people that would like there's another subset I think,
you know, I think what you said, father is absolutely true.
I think the majority of people do not want to
go to church because they don't want to have to
put more into them of themselves into it than there

(01:51:59):
will too. That's true, But I think there's also another
group that would like to and don't because they can't
get past certain inhibit certain barriers that are placed within
these systems, which is the dark side of everything you
just talked about. With the Catechism, for example, you know

(01:52:24):
one of the problems. I mean, I've got a few
problems with it, Okay, I you know, I'm grateful that
the majority of it is not defeat Ah. It is
not dogma in the in a in a.

Speaker 9 (01:52:38):
Very few.

Speaker 3 (01:52:40):
I think people think it's dogma, like it's a rule
book that if you don't follow this exactly, you know
you're going to hell. I think sometimes people read the
Catechism that way. That's not the intention of it, but
it does sometimes read like that when you have things like,
for example, what I think is a very destructive thing.
From a psychological boy. My background Gearshan just so you know,

(01:53:03):
is it's not religion, it's psychology. My degrees are in
psychology and philosophy. I found myself into the realm of
religion much later after the fact, but my actual educational
background is more so in those disciplines. So my approach
towards religion is always coming from that standpoint. You know,
I always see things in very psychological or philosophical terms,

(01:53:26):
far less so in theological terms. And though I know
the theology sufficiently to do my job, it's not my
primary focus because I don't like dogmatism. I find dogmatism
to detract from growth. And one thing that I do
find is a deficit with something like the Catechism and

(01:53:46):
the Catholic Church, which I just taught, by the way,
because I had catacumins, I had to teach them all.
You know, we talked a lot about what's in the Catechism.
But let me give you an example of something that's
in there that I find very psychologically problematic, and I
don't also find that it makes sense from even a
theological standpoint. It will say right in there that masturbation,

(01:54:09):
for example, is a severely disordered action, and a gravely
disordered action. So when every whenever the Catechism talks about
grave it's sort of implying almost that we're teeter tottering
on the edge of mortal sin, okay, which is like

(01:54:30):
the big one, all right. So I think when you
look at human behavior, particularly primate human behavior, which we
all are, whether we like it, or not, we're primates.
Masturbation is sort of something that happens with every single
person at some point in their life. It's not something

(01:54:51):
that I mean, maybe people don't want to talk about
it or acknowledge it or you know, but it is
something that even at two years old, you might discover.
It's just nature. Okay, it too, right. So I think
it's very problematic when you've got a teenager growing up
who is being told by a society that you can't
have sex. You know, girls are dangerous because you know

(01:55:13):
it could lead to something and you can't do this
and you can't well, but biologically speaking, as soon as
you start turning twelve, okay, your body is telling you
to have sex, and our society is saying, no, you
can't do that. And so it's going to come out

(01:55:33):
in some way for young kids usually, and masturbation is
going to be the usual way that that's going to happen. Okay.
I think it's very dangerous and and and and problematic
for a Catholic kid to go to his confessor because
he's being told by his church that he just committed

(01:55:54):
a grave sin, that he did this reprehensible thing. That's
probably quite embarrassing. They have to talk about and and
and then be told that you know that this is
a gravely disordered action that needs to be corrected, when
in fact, biologically speaking, it is one of the most
normal things that people do, to the point that's so

(01:56:16):
normally you have to do it. Well it is. But
are handling that well though? Father? I mean, you know,
you and I might.

Speaker 6 (01:56:23):
Yeah, sure, but you know, because I think I think
there is a difference between you know, some thirteen year
old that's going going through the experiences and actually a
forty three year old who is neglecting his wife as
a result of it. And hoorn addictions are shocking thing
and everyone knows it, so you know, I think it's measured.
Like you know, look, it's hard for me to enter

(01:56:47):
into it because America has a foundation in Puritanical Christianity,
which which I just don't.

Speaker 3 (01:56:54):
It's not part.

Speaker 6 (01:56:57):
And off they went, right, you get rid of them.

Speaker 3 (01:56:59):
Yeah, you give to us. Thank you for that, Thank
you for that. All right, let's take our let's take
our next break here. When we come back, let's continue
the topic. We'll talk about not coveting the neighbor's wife property,
committing adultery. There's some reinterpretation there too, so we'll get
to that when we come back.

Speaker 1 (01:58:02):
Listening ST. I don't know, still as still st st St.

Speaker 12 (02:00:02):
Sister pass.

Speaker 10 (02:03:03):
Und Well.

Speaker 3 (02:05:25):
Welcome back everyone to the third and final hour of
Vestiges after Dark. We've been having a very engaging conversation
about the reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments that our guest tonight,
Gershon Siegel, has presented in his book Ten Commandments Reboot.
It's a really interesting perspective that I can relate to

(02:05:50):
on multiple levels. I think it's a very healthy approach
to take these spiritual truths and apply them in a
way that's understandable, something that's relatable. Sometimes, when you have
these ancient documents, they're so far removed from the way
life is today that we can't relate to them, and

(02:06:11):
it's important to find ways to do so. So when
we come back here, we'll be taking some of your questions.
If you have a question for our guests tonight, you
are free to ask them in the various chatrooms. Please
do so now, and our moderators will start collecting them
for our guests tonight. You can also call the show
at two oh seven five four four nineteen eighty three.
That's two oh seven five four four nineteen eighty three.

(02:06:31):
You can also text that number if you want to
text directly to get a question brought to my attention.
I'll try to ask it before the end of the
next hour. All right, more to come, don't go away, okay.

(02:07:57):
So when we left there for the break, we were
talking about the Catechism, and and you know how Kirshawan
had been presented with it. He said, how do you
I can't believe you guys have to believe some of
this stuff, which I, of course you know, can relate to,
because I do find that, you know, it might not

(02:08:17):
be an ancient document, but it is definitely a document
that was written by a bunch of old celibate men
who perhaps have forgotten what it's like to be a
twelve year old, you know, who has surging, raging hormones
within a society that doesn't let them, you know, be
what they are.

Speaker 6 (02:08:34):
Maybe not so divorced from masturbation, well.

Speaker 3 (02:08:37):
Maybe not, I don't know. Maybe at eighty though, I
don't know.

Speaker 6 (02:08:40):
But you know, you can only help.

Speaker 3 (02:08:43):
I can tell you. I can tell you though from
from from from just having been in seminary and in monasteries. Yes,
that that definitely gets talked about, and it does go on,
and it's I would say, kind of radical to think
that it wouldn't, because I mean, we are sexual creatures,
we are primates, and these things are part of our biology.

(02:09:08):
I think. So when you when you get a dogmatic
statement like that, or something that at least well could
be read as one, it can be problematic. And so
you know, one of these dogmas, I guess you could say,
of the Judeo Christian worldview, there's ten commandments, and you have,
of course two of them here. You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not covet your neighbor's housewife property. Of course,

(02:09:30):
coveting is more than just sexuality, but the wife is
in there, so it's thinking about that as well. And
I like how Gearshan sort of reinterprets these So instead
of you shall not commit adultery, it's be sexually and
relationally faithful to your commitments. I think that's a much
more pragmatic and relatable approach to the way we think

(02:09:57):
today than to just I mean a lot of people
today don't even know what a adultery is. But I
think they do understand commitments, at least they understand the
consequences of not having a good commitment. And then the
other one, you should not covet your neighbor's house, wife, property,
et cetera, is changed to do not covet envy corrodes
your soul and poisons the community. Again far more direct

(02:10:21):
and to the point than being ambiguous. And I think
sometimes when you read these ancient documents, but tankument is
what you're going on more three thousand years ago. We
don't think like we did three thousand years ago. Nobody does.
We think in very different terms today, having an approach

(02:10:41):
to these things where the value still there. And I
think ultimately what I find Gearshan in your approach here
in your book is that you're not throwing When I
first was going to read it, I thought you were
throwing the baby out with the bath water. I really
was prepared for that, but that's not what happened at all.
I was actually quite pleasantly surprised when I found that
you're sort of, in a way getting us back to

(02:11:02):
the essential truth here and doing so at a level
that modernity can accept, can understand, can relate to which
is the hardest job for being a pastor or a
rabbi or you know, anybody any kind of spiritual leader
today and you're none of those things, and yet you're
doing it better than a lot of them. So I

(02:11:22):
applaud you for that. I really do.

Speaker 9 (02:11:26):
Thanks.

Speaker 3 (02:11:27):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that sincerely. So, you know, when
you're talking about these reinterpretations, I mean, I mean, I
think I've asked this before, but I still I still
feel like there's more to the answer. Where's the real
inspiration coming from here? I mean, are you you are
you a prolific meditator and are these things are just

(02:11:49):
awakening in your mind? Or or did you did you
go through the struggles of youth with these kinds or
though didn't sound like it, since you didn't. You said
you didn't come from a a very strict Jewish background.

Speaker 9 (02:12:02):
So I saw that Charlton Heston movie like everybody else did. Yeah,
my exposure did the same come in.

Speaker 6 (02:12:13):
You know, Yeah, that was pretty much my ownly exposure
was that. That was pretty much my ownly exposure to Yeah,
that was I think that was made a big impression.

Speaker 3 (02:12:25):
I was.

Speaker 9 (02:12:27):
Nineteen fifty six, I was I was like seven years old.
So it made a big impression, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:12:32):
As you don't you don't look old enough to say
that you look good for your age, you do.

Speaker 9 (02:12:37):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (02:12:38):
You're doing something right.

Speaker 9 (02:12:41):
Seriously, you know, I'm a pretty reasonably you know. I
do believe in karma, you know, in terms of in
the sense of, you know, you reap what yourself if
you if you put out bad stuff, bad stuff's kind
of come back if you put good stuff, you know.

(02:13:01):
So I think we all know what it takes to
be a moral, upright human being.

Speaker 12 (02:13:07):
And we.

Speaker 9 (02:13:11):
Well, we did we know.

Speaker 6 (02:13:12):
That's a good question, as a genuine question, by the way,
genuine Yeah, No, I think we do know.

Speaker 9 (02:13:16):
I think we do know. I mean, the Ten Commandments.
Let's face it is kind of undergirded Western civilization.

Speaker 3 (02:13:25):
You know, your whole legal systems based on it.

Speaker 9 (02:13:28):
Yeah, so it was.

Speaker 6 (02:13:30):
I'm not dancing any of that. I'm just asking the question,
how do we know what's good and what's not?

Speaker 9 (02:13:35):
How do we know experience? We know what works and
what doesn't work, and and and I think the Ten
Commandment as well, it's being given to us as a
here God is giving it to us right here and
now I think it was accumulated wisdom over the millennials,
the millenniums, and it got distilled down and you know,

(02:13:57):
this is what works people. If you can, if you
can here, or it's just these basic things, your life
is going to go pretty well. And if you don't,
if you ignore these basic things, things are not gonna
go well for you.

Speaker 6 (02:14:10):
So that includes the first commandment, right, because that's the
first three commandments are positive, aren't they? The others are
negative that you shouldn't do this, and you should, yeah,
you should, but the first three are positive. And so
because I think a lot of the time that gets ignored,
the first commandment gets ignored, that you should worship God.

Speaker 9 (02:14:28):
Well, people, yeah, I think people that that's in the
modern the journey has certainly figured out how to ignore
God the first and to its detriment, and that's why
we're in the trouble that we're in is in my
opinion anyway, and we haven't put we haven't put a

(02:14:49):
bigger intelligence front and center, and we think it's it's
about me. Things are going to go They're going to
spiral down pretty quickly. If you think that, you think
it's about you, you know, it's like the I think

(02:15:09):
I can't remember who it was.

Speaker 3 (02:15:11):
But the the.

Speaker 9 (02:15:12):
Analogy of like fly on a rubber ball, believing that
that rubber ball is there for it for itself. You
know that there's no there's there's nothing else going on
in the fli's mind except to Scott this rubber ball
and everything's cool.

Speaker 6 (02:15:32):
So how how do you kind of marry that with
the you know, the sixties generation or that you know,
people that came of age in the sixties, where you know,
I've got to be me. There is that famous you know, Yeah,
I've got to be snap, got to be me, you know,
because this isn't that exactly the problem?

Speaker 9 (02:15:49):
No, I think we're all unique. We all do have
to be me, and we've all been given gifts to
be the unique people that we are, but we have
forgotten that there's something bigger than being me, you know.

Speaker 6 (02:16:04):
And then maybe the true me is found in relationship
with with the one who.

Speaker 9 (02:16:09):
Created you, with the one who created you with one
or you know, just even if you said, Okay, I
don't know about all this God stuff, but if you
put you know, the as I told you, I've been
reading some Islamic stuff lately because I've been studying a
certain I got interested because of the gerdchev work. I

(02:16:32):
got interested in the antiagram. You probably you may have shown.

Speaker 3 (02:16:36):
Actually did we did a show on that?

Speaker 6 (02:16:38):
Yeah, I did that seminary. Believe at all anyagram was
still at seminary when when I was saying, and it
turns out.

Speaker 9 (02:16:47):
An older version of the antiagram, and it was probably
the Sufis came up with it, the original antiagram. And
all the work that we do on ourselves to make
ourselves better people, if somebody else, if another person is
not benefiting by that work that we do on ourselves,

(02:17:10):
then it's all for not. Then you can do all
the self perfecting things you want to do. But if
you're not, if somebody else isn't benefiting, if you're not,
and what the Sufis say, you're trying to get in
the in the anagram. In the Sufi anagram, it's not
about those numbers on the circle. It's about getting to

(02:17:30):
the center, which is where justice is. And justice can
only happen in the context of another person.

Speaker 6 (02:17:41):
So I'm not facing well with Christian theology because Christian
theology says, you know, eventually in the perfection of having
God will perfect us, the refinements, fire, the full of soap.
So if something's only focused on perfecting you, it's kind
of a waste of time because that's going to happen
in the almost of reality anyway. So I kind of

(02:18:02):
like the idea that, yeah, unless unless it's kind of
for the purpose of being transferable, it's kind of a
bit of well, it's actually kind of spiritual masturbation, right.

Speaker 3 (02:18:16):
I mean, that's the one they're talking about in the Catechism.
They of to clarify.

Speaker 12 (02:18:24):
That.

Speaker 3 (02:18:28):
I mean, it's true. You know, I'm looking at I
as a person who can appreciate, you know, tradition and
the value of tradition, and and and sometimes more ancient
the better and the beauty of that. Yeah, and you
feel like, you know, we've lost something, you know, because
as as time goes on, certain things get watered down,

(02:18:53):
certain the solemnity seems to be, it seems to erode,
and and and I think that one of the things
that formal organized religion can do well is to sort
of maintain or prevent that from happening. Of course, you

(02:19:15):
need people to participate in it. And if people don't
want to do it well, then you know, there's only
so much so far you can go with it. However,
that being said, I think it's not so much. The
problem is not so much these ancient institutions or antiquated
thinking as much as it is that, well, number one,

(02:19:37):
these things are not being taught well, as we've established here.
And I think that's another moral of of Garshan's book,
is that there's a better way of teaching these things,
and and and and perhaps more you know, again relatable
as I said before, but also at the same time,

(02:19:59):
in the in the in the in the effort to
not throw the baby out with the bathwater, how can
we utilize these ancient systems for the good that I
do believe they were intent established to promote. I don't
think people. I don't think the Christian Church, for example,

(02:20:21):
was established to become a political entity, to oppress people,
to launch you know, crusades and inquisitions and god knows
what else. I don't think that was the intent of
the church, and nor do I think that's the attention
of the Church today. But it's so powerful that it

(02:20:41):
can be used in this evil way. In the same thing,
like look at agent Judas, I mean, the New Testament's
all about talking about, in some ways the abuses of
the scribes and Pharisees and the hypocrisy that exists there.
Look at the Essenes, they left because the temple was
considered so corrupt that they felt that they could go

(02:21:02):
off as it. Fathers did the same. So these establishments
do become corrupt, there's no question about that. But it's
not the establishment that's the problem as much as it's
it's that they're so powerful that they can be used
by negative people in a negative way. And if you're

(02:21:22):
powerful enough, then that can have an influence, that can
have an effect, and it does, and it has, and
we see this, and so I think the effort has
to be yes a relatable teaching, but also getting back
to the spirit of what it is. And one of
the challenges when people say to me, oh, I don't

(02:21:43):
need a church. I can just go pray to God,
I can go to the woods. I don't need And
my answer to them is is inevitably both good for you,
that's fantastic, but what does that really do for anybody else.
I'm glad that you're doing. You know, you've got a
good relationship with God. I'm glad you feel great, but
now you're depriving and I'm assuming the best it. Yeah,

(02:22:05):
how about sharing some of that with the rest of
the world, because they're the ones that need it. Apparently
you're you're you're admitting that the church is a miserable
place to be. Maybe it'd be a better place if
you were there. Maybe the reason it's such a bad
place is that all of the good ones run off
because they can go find God themselves.

Speaker 6 (02:22:21):
Isn't it also true to say that, actually, am I
someone that celebrates the Latin Mass, you know, facing the altar.
It's much easier to find a spiritual connection with God
in the in the bush, in the woods, right it is.
It's actually a more sophisticated sophistications is the wrong word.
It's a more challenging spirituality, or a more this is

(02:22:45):
the better word. It's a more mature spirituality to be
able to encounter God in the formal sense, which is
a sense that can include way more people that can
you can gather far more people towards that aim.

Speaker 3 (02:22:58):
And that's why.

Speaker 6 (02:23:00):
Yeah, it's supposed to be difficult. It's actually not supposed
to be easy to worship God. It's supposed to be difficult.
Look at the Israelites, you know, Moses, let my people go.
That's not the end of the sentence, so that they
may worship God in the wilderness. So you know, there's
a sense of the true response to the acknowledgment of

(02:23:25):
God is in fact a sacrificial attempt to worship him.
And that's the context of the church or the synagogue.
You know, obviously the Christian faith is true. Yeah, obviously
I have my bias, bias because I have a certain conviction,
but yeah, the essence is there that actually formal worship,

(02:23:48):
rational worship, as Saint Paul called it, is more difficult,
but it's actually more important and more rewarding. And you know,
I say, great, you have that encounter in the woods
or on the mountaintop or you know, the end of
an arduous pilgrimage or whatever it may be. Now translate
that into your daily life and into your rational worship

(02:24:10):
that's been laid laid out, you know by the ages. Yeah, yeah, Well,
the Scripture, it's the greatest challenge.

Speaker 3 (02:24:18):
Scripture is really a story about our freedom. I mean,
from beginning to end, that's really what it's all about.
It's about our freedom, our our our the power of
volition is what it's about, right from the very first story.
The whole Adam and Eath thing really is about what
the power that freedom gives us and what we can

(02:24:39):
do with it, you know, the Exodus our freedom literal
literal freedom in that sense. And you know, Christian theology
of course looks at those stories from the Pentateuch and
uh sort of applies it to in an in a

(02:25:00):
very again archetypal, esoteric way, to the path of salvation.
So again freedom.

Speaker 9 (02:25:09):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:25:09):
For example, Moses parting the Red Sea, you know, and
and and and is an analogy in in in the
Christian sense, it's seen as as is sort of almost
like a precursor to baptism, you know, and being led
out of sin, being led out of a life of

(02:25:33):
of of damnation to a life of of of perfection.
And the Promised Land is sort of like that. That's
sort of like heaven. Pharaoh sort of represents the devil,
you know, or or at least in this sense, the
evil nature, the fallen nature that is trying. Yeah. Yeah,

(02:25:55):
And so however, if you want to take them as
historical stories, it doesn't sound like Garsha, you do, I don't.
I don't see them as as history. I see them
as as as it doesn't matter. I don't, I don't.
I think I honestly, if they were historical events, I
would think they've had less spiritual credibility. I think the
fact that we can look at them as ineffable truths,

(02:26:17):
universal ineffable archetypal truths, that sort of that can connect
to us at this level today, that's still as relevant
today as it was back then. I think reducing it
to history is problematic. Like these guys, these archaeologists are
so called archaeologists that go looking around for you know,
Sodom and Gomorrow, or they're looking for Noah's Ark, you know,

(02:26:38):
you know, I mean, and there's history there. I mean
I I think the arc of the Covenant probably existed
or something like it, did, you know. Obviously, I do
think there was a first temple as well as we
know there was a second for sure. We have the
evidence of that one. So you know, there's history there. However,

(02:27:00):
the entire thing is missing the point. It is missing
the point. It's about freedom, right, It's about freedom, and
so shouldn't our shouldn't our approach towards these stories be
also about what represents one's highest freedom, and that means responsibility.
It doesn't mean doing whatever you want. Freedom doesn't mean

(02:27:20):
doing whatever you want. Freedom means doing what you ought
to do, and doing so is as perfectly as you
possibly can. You know, with with with spirit, I mean, what,
what are your thoughts on all that, Kirshan, Because I'm
really fascinated by your approach.

Speaker 9 (02:27:34):
Well, we certainly are responsible for our own so and
and if we don't, you know, and and so I'm
a big believer in faith, and faith is something that
I can allow divine guidance. I can if I have

(02:28:00):
faith in that, I've got it. I've got my own
personal will here, and I'm asking in my faith that
it be divinely guided. And I think we can't just
go off and do our own thing and ignore the
rest of the world, because you're not you're not really

(02:28:20):
being a human, you know, it's not not being a
full human. This is we've created a world that humans
live in and we're asked to participate in it. And
hope is another sacred impulse I believe in, and I
believe that it's not an empty thing. It's something that

(02:28:41):
we we we create that through our our thoughts and
our actions, and those are you know. So you got love,
you've got faith, and you've got hope, and that seems
to be a nice h three legs of a stool,

(02:29:02):
if you will, and we can all use to sit
and ponder our situation.

Speaker 6 (02:29:12):
So that's One Corinthians thirteen, right, that's Saint Paul. Great,
it's from one Corinthian thirteen. Faith, open love, the graces
of these is love, Saint Paul. Saint Paul wrote it. Yes,
I always say it's interesting for context, for context, that
thing's important about that letters to the Corinthians, because I
think that that one Corinthians thirteen is one of the

(02:29:34):
most beautiful expressions of love and the true meaning of love.
Which but the context of it is that Saint Paul
really didn't didn't like him very much or no, because
he loved them, he didn't like them, that there were
a pain in the ass to him to be frank, frank,
you know, they were squabbling. It passed on the faith.
They've fallen out with each other in corinth and obviously

(02:29:57):
they're writing letters to him, which is why he's responding. Yeah,
there's a great there's some good books written on trying
to guess what what the letters to Saint Paul were
from the church in Corinth, right, that that that warranted
this response from him. And so in a sense he's
writing to them because they're falling out, missing the point,

(02:30:17):
not you know, not passing on accurately what he what
he'd given to them. And so in that era, it's
like the pearl in the oyster, right, that grit and
irritation that's going on produces this seminal work of love
that that people quote and have no idea where it's from.
You know, it feels like it's kind of built into

(02:30:38):
our being, which sort of is actually you know, and
so you know, and.

Speaker 9 (02:30:45):
From being impulses. Actually that's that's what that's what called them. Yeah, love, faith,
and hope, sacred being impulses.

Speaker 6 (02:30:57):
Because I think, you know, if we are creating anyage
and likeness of God, and that's where archetypes come from,
we shouldn't be I mean St. Paul had to have,
you know, found this within him to generate. But I
just find it interesting that the sort of the pivot
point at which he was able to generate this was

(02:31:19):
in fact one of irritation and frustration and difficulty. So
you know, often it's in the sort of arguing and
in the and that's why they kind of got a
problem with the fact that that the church, the fruits
of the Church do come from disputes and arguments. We
have the creed because of that. You know, the creed

(02:31:39):
was necessary because people were disagreeing and rather than seeing
that like you know, the kind of Dan Brown, the
Dan Brown sort of straw man that oh, you know,
there was no such thing as the church, and it
was invented by the Council of Nica garbage. No, because
there was a church, there were arguments, and the Council
of Nicia and and our Christians have been greatguing ever since.

(02:32:01):
It produces great fruits those arguments, because real argument, you know,
in the classical sense, is a good thing and it
prevents polarity.

Speaker 3 (02:32:13):
Arguing is what it means, is a discussion going on.
Arguing is also the means by which we arrive at
a deeper understanding of the truth. You know, I mean,
people should not be afraid to be confrontational. It needs
to be done so of course, respectfully, it shouldn't be
done with with ad hominem attacks constantly, like we see

(02:32:34):
in politics today, but it should be done in a
sense of of of arriving at a better understanding of
the truth, even if that means that you find that
you're wrong, and then of course having the maturity to
be able to admit that. I think that that's what
that's what led to some of the things you're talking about.

(02:32:57):
You know, one of the things I've always want, you know,
thought about a lot in my earlier years and seminary
and whatnot, was trying to get at what defined proto
orthodoxy for the Church, and you know what part what
interpretations of the Jewish scriptures you know, would lead would

(02:33:21):
would would lead into what would become the fundamental understanding
for Christians as they as as as the Church evolved.
And of course, you know, there's a lot of different
types of perspectives on this. You had the Ebionites, which
were very much you know, you had to be Jewish
to be able to even approach your Christian faith. You

(02:33:43):
had the Marcianites that completely throughout you know, any of
the Jewish texts and were just almost entirely focused on Paul.
You had, of course, the Gnostics who struggled with the
way the Jewish texts rep God. I think I see
a little bit of that in Gershan's book too, this

(02:34:06):
idea that you know, God can sometimes seem wrathful or
just you know, has human characteristics and not necessarily the
best ones. And of course Gnosticism, at least parts of Gnosticism,
tries to explain this by saying, well, yeah, it's the demiurge.
It's not really the actual God. He just he's well intentioned.

(02:34:28):
Some thought he was, some didn't, but he's not the
real God. He just thinks he's the real God. And
of course that got thrown out the the the Christian Orthodox.
He said, no, this is the real God. So how
do you reconcile Jesus with a God that, you know,
he talks about his father as being, you know, the

(02:34:49):
ultimate expression of love to some of this more wrathful
stuff that we see in what Christianity refers to the
Old Testament. And I think the answer to that is
again interpretation. I think what you have is the authors
of the Old Testament, from a Christian standpoint of course,

(02:35:13):
are doing or trying to understand God at the level
that they best can, and that means they're going to
get some of the elements of that not necessarily wrong,
but incomplete. And I think that's where arguing and debate
and conversation like this can lead to this.

Speaker 6 (02:35:38):
You're right, but that is fundamentally a Christian worldview. Well,
I one could argue with Jewish.

Speaker 3 (02:35:44):
Right, No, because the Sethians were Jewish gnostics, and they
were That's really where it came from. So it was
actually Jewish people that gave us.

Speaker 6 (02:35:53):
I'm saying Jewish because and what I mean is in
contemporary society were only able to exist in that tension
because both Judaism and Christianity is not the final word,
like both believe, well, the Jews believe the Maassiah will come,
Christians believe the Massiah will come again. So in other words,
that because there's the final word has not yet been said,

(02:36:16):
that there's space for this creative approach to understanding the
human condition and the revelation of God. That's not true
for example of something like Islam, where and I'm not
talking about Sufism because I mean mainstream Muslims would say
they're not Muslim anyway.

Speaker 3 (02:36:36):
That's true. Mainstream Islam doesn't have much tolerance for sufis
as I understand it.

Speaker 6 (02:36:42):
But it's partly because you know, Islam has this whole book,
you know, the Quran is that is this whole book
written by a single person, and therefore it is God's
final word, and that's why it lends itself to a
very different way of things thinking about the current context.

(02:37:03):
So it's only really, in other words, we can only
have post modernity, post modern thinking, which I don't think
is wonderful, but we can only have it. It can
only exist in a Jewish Christian mindset. I can't exist
in an Islamic mindset.

Speaker 3 (02:37:21):
Well, we need to revisit that one. Brandon's got a
question and let me think about that. We'll come back
to it. Brandon, what's your question?

Speaker 8 (02:37:30):
So, when writing your book, did any commandment prison itself
like a particular challenge in the process of how you
reinterpreted it for the today, for the modern era.

Speaker 9 (02:37:46):
Hmm. I can't really say did any particular one. I
you know, I started it and I just you know,
kind of like trudged on through. Okay, you know, I
was thinking it was it was kind of nice, and
I had, okay, ten commandments, great let's so, I had

(02:38:08):
like an outline already made for me, So I just
did my my riff on each one as they came.
I can't say that I I put on a different
hat or anything. Just trying to get to the essence
of it, what maybe what it meant, and and how

(02:38:30):
can I make it funny? That was that was my
main Uh, it was the humor. Yeah, yeah, how can
I make it funny? That was? That was what because
I uh, as I say, you know, give me to
get give him some sugar with the medicine and maybe

(02:38:53):
it'll go down. Like Mary Poppins used to tells.

Speaker 3 (02:38:58):
Well, I definitely if you're if you're just shouting it
out out as as dogmatisms and threats, that's not going
to be well received, particularly today, is what.

Speaker 9 (02:39:08):
We were talking about before there was I meant to
intercede there. You know, in a room with ten Jews,
you will get fifteen opinions.

Speaker 6 (02:39:25):
That's why it's good. That's why it's good. That's why.
And they're allowed and they're allowed, you know, that's that's
what's good about it.

Speaker 3 (02:39:32):
Yeah, you'll never have a better lecture than than then
listening to a Jewish theologian. I mean, they are you
could just lose yourself in the in the chains of
thoughts that are presented and the philosophical back and forth

(02:39:56):
that occurs. It's just it's it's it's one of my
favorite things to do. Someone saying, just look them up
on YouTube and I watch their talks, because they really
do think about little details that you know, the average
person doesn't even probably even recognize, wouldn't even even think,
you know, it wouldn't even come to mind. And yet

(02:40:16):
there's all this that, this time and effort that's put
into trying to understand these little details. It's fascinating and
fun to to to really to watch. So I believe
that I'm a surprise it's only fifteen. I'm surprised. It's just,
you know, fifteen. I would think that you get a
hundred opinions of a group of ten. You know, It's

(02:40:39):
it's really uh, it's definitely true to form in in
and not just the scarletly approach towards it, but also
I think just the culture approach that lends itself towards it.
I think Christians have have lost that a lot. I mean,
it's still very much alive and in Catholicism to a

(02:41:02):
large extent, there's still a lot of.

Speaker 6 (02:41:04):
It's there in Aquinas. But I think we you know,
I remember reading Thomas Aquinas for the first time and
to learn how to read him, right, Yeah, you do.
He does sort of he says, oh, proposition, and then like,
you know, and then refuse his own proposition and then
put some of the you know, that kind of in
a sense an internal dialectic between himself, which I think

(02:41:25):
certainly modernity, postmodernity, we've forgotten how to do which and
that's what leads to polarization because you can't you're no
longer engaging with you know, the counter argument in your
own But you know what I mean. Whereas that used
to be a very that was a very much a
stimistic approach to philosophy, to thinking, we seem to have

(02:41:48):
left that behind. But I wanted to ask you Gershon
that humor is important to you, and yeah, so sure,
sort of. I guess what's your approach to humor?

Speaker 9 (02:42:04):
Who you? Who you?

Speaker 3 (02:42:05):
Who your hero is?

Speaker 6 (02:42:06):
In a sense, what sort of humor speaks to you?
And what you're trying to get across in your use
of humor.

Speaker 9 (02:42:17):
Well, I certainly watched a lot of Woody Allen movies,
you know, growing up, and uh, I was you know,
it was you know, I watched TV with my parents
and noticed that an awful out of those comedians were

(02:42:38):
Jewish m hm and and a lot of the humor,
not all of it, but a lot of it was
self effacing rather than striking out of other people making
fun of There were certainly, certainly some people like that,
but the most part was self defacing, and it was

(02:43:00):
good natured. And I can't say I had any real heroes.
I probably did go. I think I stopped going to
witty Allen movies. Uh, but I don't know. Twenty years ago.
Jesus does that date me?

Speaker 12 (02:43:16):
Oh my god?

Speaker 9 (02:43:19):
He was making movies are for a long long time.

Speaker 12 (02:43:22):
Yeah, uh was he?

Speaker 9 (02:43:26):
What was the second part of your question?

Speaker 7 (02:43:30):
You know.

Speaker 9 (02:43:33):
How trying to do?

Speaker 12 (02:43:35):
What do you?

Speaker 9 (02:43:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (02:43:36):
What are you trying to do with it?

Speaker 3 (02:43:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (02:43:37):
What was I trying to do?

Speaker 12 (02:43:40):
Why?

Speaker 6 (02:43:40):
You as opposed to? There are other tactics, right, you
could like didacticism or you know, say what.

Speaker 9 (02:43:48):
Who wants to read? As a matter of fact, I
was just reading my book the other day. I was
sort of in preparation to this. I was just sort
of looking, is there anything I want to read? And uh,
you know, there's parts of it that I feel like, oooh,
it's a little kind of thick, kind of arduous. And

(02:44:08):
I know, I know people have where the Pepsi generation,
you know we we uh.

Speaker 3 (02:44:13):
Actually we're the TikTok generation.

Speaker 7 (02:44:16):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:44:16):
They just want quick little three minutes, three second three
second clips. That's it. You get three seconds, yeah, yes, and.

Speaker 9 (02:44:24):
That's all people have. So I'm I'm really I have one,
you know, I was I was a journalist and I
had a popular magazine and and I'm very concerned with
getting the message out snappy and uh and this easily
digestible as possible. And I'm also interested in deep things.

(02:44:46):
So it's kind of the balance trying to find how
how do you how do you write a serious about
serious stuff but do it in a way that's amusing.
So that was That's really what I was.

Speaker 6 (02:44:58):
Well and maybe maybe so sorry I'm putting worse in
your mouth. But does humor sort of make really tough
things more bearable to read because there's a valve escape
valve like of humor, Well, yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:45:11):
Sure, sure it does. It certainly in my I mean,
I'm okay to read. I mean I read, I've read.
He also Bob's Tales to his grandchild three times because
George said, you're supposed to read it three times. I
believed him. How dog of him. I don't know if

(02:45:35):
you've ever tried to read it, but it's almost impossible
to read. And because he was not interested in a
mass audience and reaching a lot of people. He felt
like what he had was precious and he wasn't going
to give it away, you know, because people if you
give something away. He was a big believer in making

(02:45:57):
people pay, because he to valuate if you give it away,
very exactly right. They don't value it if you give
it away. You know, I'm thinking, well, I'm I would
like to I'm ready to give it away, frankly, you know,
just just wake up people. Can you realize there's nobody

(02:46:20):
else here but us chickens, and and get with the
program that that we're supposed to be kind to each other,
you know that. Just get with the program already, love everybody.
That's what we got to be doing here. And and

(02:46:42):
you're not going to be doing that if you're so
invested in your own little thinking you're God.

Speaker 3 (02:46:53):
That is the biggest problem. I mean, it really is
that there's i mean part of itselves a distraction. Though
you know, three thousand, two thousand years ago, life was
a lot harder than it is now. I mean, we
might think that this is like the worst, most godless
time ever to exist, but it's really the best of

(02:47:15):
times right now. I mean, as bad as it seems
politically and everything else and all the crap going on
in the world today, it we're still in the best
of times. And what that does is it has the
unfortunate deficit. And when you're feeling good, when you're comfortable,

(02:47:36):
when you're not having to worry about survival every second
of the day, well God becomes a whole lot less important.
You know, your mortality doesn't come to mind as often.
You know, the Israelites were constantly dealing with their mortality
every single day. You know, death was a fact of
life that everyone lived with. It's very sterile. Now we

(02:47:57):
don't even when's the less time anyone's seeing a dead body.
One hundred years ago, it was years ago. Childbirth, yes,
you know, yes, I mean think about what you know,
the plagues, how how how people always were faced with
them mortality. They're not today, They're they're they're very much
protected from their mortality until they reach a certain anentre

(02:48:20):
we start to think about it, and yet.

Speaker 6 (02:48:22):
They're depressed and suicidal. In the most developed countries in
the world. You live better than the Rockefellers lived at
the turn of the last century.

Speaker 3 (02:48:29):
We Yeah, we live better than kings. I mean, the
average American lives better, like infinitely better than a medieval
king did.

Speaker 6 (02:48:38):
Yeah, I mean, you know, we even below average American does.

Speaker 3 (02:48:41):
Yes, that's right, that's right. I mean, you know, we
have this glorified you know, the Renaissance festivals and all
this glorify and this idea of living in a castle
as like sort of like being in this beautiful mansion.
They were horrible places. They stunt, they were cold, you know,
they were full of disease. Why do you think it
was such a problem? You know, And and we don't

(02:49:04):
live I mean average, I mean, you don't have to
live like that. Some people just to live like that,
but you don't have to live like that today. And
so I think what happens is that does tend to
make us a little apathetic, because we get comfortable, and
when you're comfortable, you don't gratitude.

Speaker 6 (02:49:20):
Yeah, Grassitude is the only antidote to that.

Speaker 3 (02:49:23):
There you go, there you go. And so I think
gratitude is a big part of Gearshan's approach to the
rebooting the Ten Commitments. I see that. Maybe not directly,
I can't recall if it's directly approached as a subject,
but it's definitely if you read between the lines, it's there.
Gratitude is fundamental to all of it. You know, isn't

(02:49:48):
what I mean, Look, any any religious leader from antiquity,
isn't that what they're always trying to teach us? I mean,
isn't it really always coming back to you know, our
relationship to God is to be thankful, right, That's what
that means is being thankful is is gratitude?

Speaker 6 (02:50:06):
You know, well, worship is Gratituding.

Speaker 3 (02:50:08):
Worship is Yeah, worship is gratitude. You know. It's not
bowing down and being like, let me make sure that
he recognizes that I respect him, you know, like you
said at the beginning of the show, God doesn't need that.
I mean, we don't. You know, we can't subtract from
God's greatness, nor can we add to.

Speaker 6 (02:50:29):
God delights in it's a wonderful thing, is that he
doesn't need it.

Speaker 3 (02:50:32):
He's complete it well, because it's it's relationship, Because it's relationship.
And I do think that the one thing that God
desires the most, if you take anything for face value
out of scripture, the one thing that God desires the most,
assuming you can reduce God down to a desire, which
I don't think you really can, but for our purposes
we can say it. That way is to be in

(02:50:53):
relationship with us. And there's only so much that a
mortal being can do with a divine you know, immortality.
There's only so much you can do. So it's one
way in which we can engage at a level that
is possible, I suppose, but I want to I want
to give you also some time, gishon to talk about

(02:51:17):
any upcoming projects or other books that you plan or
already have out, ways that people can get in touch
with you, or purchase your books, anything that you want
to share about what's coming up.

Speaker 9 (02:51:31):
That's very kind of you. Yes, well, I do have
a website, gershen Siegel dot com. You can purchase my
book on Amazon, of course, and also ingram Spark if
you're a if you're a bookstore, and you can go
to your local bookstorey ask for it and if they

(02:51:53):
don't have it, they can get it from Ingram Spark.

Speaker 7 (02:51:57):
I am.

Speaker 9 (02:51:58):
I have started another book in my entanglement with Gerdjeff,
I did get involved in the with the antiagram, as
Gerdjev interpret did and then much to my I guess
chagrin is the word. When I got at this was
in nineteen eighty one. I saw for the first time

(02:52:23):
a book on the antagram about this typology thing, the
personality thing, and I tried to ignore it. I think
Richard Rohrer might have written it, and I thought, well,
that's not the real antiagram. That's not how Gerjev talked

(02:52:45):
about it, and that's not how J. G. Bennett talked
about it, because it's a process. It's not about personality.
It's a process. It shows how the law of three
in the law of seven worked together and create the universe.
And I was going to write a book about that,
sort of exposing the real ideogram. And then my wife,

(02:53:07):
who is a PhD researcher, and she found this book
about the anagram that the Suvies had the antiagram, well,
gershef acknowledged that he got the anagram from the Supies,
but he seems to have changed somewhat from what he
from what they were teaching. And now I've got these

(02:53:30):
three different, very different approaches to the antiagram. So I
am working on a book about the antiagram, but from
a more intuitive place, and I'm trying.

Speaker 7 (02:53:46):
To make it.

Speaker 9 (02:53:48):
Here's my struggle, because I'm a humorous how do I
make that funny?

Speaker 3 (02:53:53):
Yeah, that's going to be a real challenge, probably going.

Speaker 14 (02:53:57):
To be challenging, but I think I might be able
to know people are funny and if you're describing people's,
you know, personality leadings, then there's some humor of that.

Speaker 6 (02:54:08):
Actually.

Speaker 9 (02:54:08):
Oh, I'm actually I'm trying to stay away because Oscar Ychazo,
who is the guy that came up with this personality thing,
and he was brilliant in and of himself. I don't
know if you're familiar with his work, He's got quite
a bit of stuff out there, but he's he's no
longer with us. But I want to stay away from

(02:54:32):
just talking about personalities, and because that's I want to talk.
I want to get more to the essence of it.
And I like the Sufi approach, because they're the ones
who are saying, you know, this circle with the nine points,
there's no acknowledgment of the center. You can't have a

(02:54:52):
circle without a center.

Speaker 12 (02:54:54):
Oh.

Speaker 6 (02:54:55):
When I did the Enneagram at seminary, that was the focus.
The focus was on, in a sense, either either the
center or the perfect ten, right, which is the kind
of divine. That's certainly how we approached it.

Speaker 9 (02:55:09):
Uh huh, I'd like to hear more about that.

Speaker 6 (02:55:13):
Yeah so, yeah, so, you know, I mean, I was
an eight on the Enneagram, but the idea isn't to
sort of revel in the fact that you're an eight.
The idea is to the idea is to kind of
achieve the balance, right, the ability to Yeah so, although
although one is a particular point and the movement and

(02:55:34):
energies between it, the whole point is to transcend that
to something that's perfect. And so either the perfect ten
or the center that they're the two you know images
we were given.

Speaker 9 (02:55:46):
So anyway, that's that's. My next project is a book
about being gram I've been.

Speaker 7 (02:55:51):
I used it.

Speaker 9 (02:55:53):
Originally I used it as a an outlining tool because
it does show it gives you a pattern of how
things progress. And I was using it like that for
many years. I wrote several plays, produced several plays for
using it as an outlining tool, and I used to

(02:56:14):
write articles using it as an outlining tool. And now
I'm trying to bring it all together. I've been literally
studying the anagram for forty five years, so I think
that allows me to have some credentials in writing a
book about it.

Speaker 3 (02:56:35):
Well, we'd love to have you back on to discuss
it when it's ready.

Speaker 9 (02:56:39):
The Sufi's call it the Face of God, the sign
of the Face of God.

Speaker 3 (02:56:45):
Yeah, well, Brandon, stay in touch. We'll stay in touch
with you, and we will have you back on, you know,
to talk about the enneagram, because I mean, we've done
it before, but not from that perspectively, not from a
humorous perspective, which I think would be fun. You know,
you have a way with words, and so I'd love

(02:57:06):
to see how that develops. So please stay in touch.
And it's been such a I'm sorry for butchering.

Speaker 7 (02:57:12):
Your name too.

Speaker 9 (02:57:14):
I'm thrilled that you were. You were so inviting to
have you here, So thank you very very much.

Speaker 3 (02:57:20):
Oh, it's our pleasure, and honestly, it's been nice beating you.
And like I said, I'm sorry if I butchered your
name at the beginning of the show, but I think
I got it down now. If you've ever seen my
last name, believe me, I understand no one can spell that.
No one can pronounce that one either. But thank you again,
Gearshan and Brandon, Father Chris, thank you so much for

(02:57:41):
being with us tonight, Jamie and all of you out
there who spent the last three hours with us on
this wonderful show tonight. I really appreciate each and every
one of you. Thanks to those of you who gave
us some super chats, and all my blessings to each
and every one of you. Next week we're going to
Benes Open Topics so you guys can finally ask any

(02:58:03):
other questions you might have. Will be three hours Father, Chris, Brandon,
and Jamie myself answering whatever questions you have about the paranormal,
the esoteric, the spiritual, the religious, or even outside of
those whatever. Whatever's on your mind does not matter. You
can bring it to the show and we'll do our
best to answer it. And if we don't know what
to say, we don't know, Okay, open up. We can

(02:58:25):
make it up. That's true too. We try not to
do that though. Anyway, Thank you so much. God bless everyone,
and I'll see you out there in the ether.

Speaker 7 (02:58:33):
Thanks. Everybody stands.

Speaker 2 (02:59:09):
Buddhist standisestablished.

Speaker 10 (02:59:12):
Studdists is the biggest, is the best, is the best
is the is Theists is the best, Us is the best.

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