Latest / Mythic Mind Games / 17 - Elder Scrolls Creation Myth: Anu, Padomay, and Lorkhan's Sacrifice

Transcript

17 - Elder Scrolls Creation Myth: Anu, Padomay, and Lorkhan's Sacrifice · Mythic Mind Games

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, then welcome back to the Elder Scrolls and Philosophy.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: If you've not already done so, then make sure that
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: you go back and watch the last video that I
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: made in this series on the Elder Scrolls creation myth,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in which I really walked through this myth from using
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: in universe sources. You're going to be getting some of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: that again in this video, but really broken up because
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: in this video, what I'm doing is providing an analysis
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of that myth, relating the Elder Scrolls myth to creation
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: stories that we talk about from our primary world. And
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so we're going to talk some mythology, we're gonna talk
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  Speaker 1: some philosophy, we're going to talk some theology, sort of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: all wrap together here. And the way we're going to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: do that is I'm going to play my telling of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the creation myth again, but I'm going to keep interrupting myself,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and so it'll be helpful if you see the full
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: streamlined version before you do this. And just like with
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: last time, if you are listening through the podcast over
• 0:48
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• 0:53
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• 0:56
  Speaker 1: at some point when you're able to make sure you
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: click that YouTube blanket and watch the video. This is
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the last part of my introductory unit to the course,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and this is the last part that at least for
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: now is going to be publicly available. And so if
• 1:08
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  Speaker 1: October nineteenth, twenty twenty five, And so if you want
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• 1:24
  Speaker 1: then this is the time to do that. But all right, now,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get into my analysis of the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: creation myth from the Elder Scrolls. In the beginning, we're
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: onto and padome order and chaos, even more primordial than
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  Speaker 1: what we would call gods. On new and Padome stand
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: for form as such and void as such. All right now,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: in beginning with order and chaos, we're dealing with some
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  Speaker 1: archetypal realities that we find at the foundation of a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: great many creation myths. For example, in the Babylonian Anuma
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  Speaker 1: Leish we begin with two primordial horses, Apsu and tiamat.
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  Speaker 1: Apsu is associated with order and with fresh water, and
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  Speaker 1: so even apsu onu it sounds kind of similar here,
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  Speaker 1: and so Apsu stands for order, and then you have tiamat,
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  Speaker 1: which stands for chaos and is associated with with saltwater.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Apsu is masculine, Tiamot is feminine. And you find this
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  Speaker 1: very often in mythologies, that the masculine is associated with
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: order and the feminine is associated with chaos. And no, ladies,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you're crazy, but the idea here
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  Speaker 1: is that typically it's order that asserts itself. It's chaos
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  Speaker 1: that receives order, because I mean, to be chaotic is
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  Speaker 1: to be formless, right, and so the formless, the chaotic
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  Speaker 1: receives order and then gives rise to new life. And
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  Speaker 1: so masculine order asserts itself and provides something that feminine
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  Speaker 1: chaos receives, and out of that we get the birth
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  Speaker 1: of new life. And I mean that I don't think
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  Speaker 1: I really need to spell out how that works on
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  Speaker 1: an organic level, but I'm really focusing on the archetypa
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  Speaker 1: level here, and that's why order and chaos are often
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: gendered in the way that they are, and so we
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  Speaker 1: see this in the Babylonian story with Apsu and with Tiamat,
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  Speaker 1: and as the waters, so to speak of Apsu and
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  Speaker 1: Tiamot melt together, it gives rise. It gives birth to
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  Speaker 1: the gods, which then get really rambunctious and annoying. The
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: chaos of the gods upsets Apsu, the stand in for
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  Speaker 1: order as such, so Apsu begins plotting their demise, but
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  Speaker 1: the gods instead strike first, and so the gods kill
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  Speaker 1: their father, Apsu, and then they live on his corpse.
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  Speaker 1: And so now we see that the gods sort of
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  Speaker 1: as a second level of chaos as we see through
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  Speaker 1: their actions they establish a kind of order by living
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  Speaker 1: on the corpse of their father. And there's a lot
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: that we can do with that, but that's going to
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  Speaker 1: take a a little bit of field of the Central
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Elder Scrolls myth that we're dealing with here and now,
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  Speaker 1: in retaliation for killing Absu, Tiamat now plans to get
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  Speaker 1: vengeance on the gods, on her own children, the godkins,
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  Speaker 1: and so she intends to send this flood of monsters,
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  Speaker 1: of dragons and serpents, you know, these symbols of chaos,
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  Speaker 1: as well as a literal flood to wipe out the gods.
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  Speaker 1: But one of the gods, the chief among the gods,
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  Speaker 1: is named Marduke. Now Marduke has eyes all over his head,
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  Speaker 1: which points to the fact that he's all knowing. He's omniscient,
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  Speaker 1: and he is able to use magic words to manifest reality.
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  Speaker 1: And so this omniscient god, who's able to manifest reality
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  Speaker 1: by speaking the True Word, is able to defeat Tiamat,
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  Speaker 1: the primordial deity of chaos, and then out of her
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  Speaker 1: body he makes the world that we now inhabit. And
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  Speaker 1: so the omniscient god creates order out of chaos by
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  Speaker 1: speaking the true Word, and in so doing he creates
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  Speaker 1: this mortal plane in which we live, and humanity is
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  Speaker 1: created in this myth as the gods take the blood
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  Speaker 1: of Kingu, one of Tiamot's lover and advisor, and out
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  Speaker 1: of this divine blood makes humanity in order to serve
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  Speaker 1: the needs of the gods, and so we mortals are
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  Speaker 1: nothing more than servants of the God, doing the things
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  Speaker 1: for them that they just don't really want to do themselves.
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  Speaker 1: And honestly, in my reading, at least generally speaking, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, would be entirely incorrect to make a comparison
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  Speaker 1: between these babbelogy and gods and say the dadra or
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  Speaker 1: or at least the gods more broadly speaking, in the
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  Speaker 1: Elder Scrolls universe, and then shifting gears a little bit
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  Speaker 1: from mythology proper to sort of philosophical mythology. Consider Plato's
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  Speaker 1: creation account in the Timaeus, in which he talks about
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  Speaker 1: God the craftsman, seeing the chaotic, the formless material world,
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  Speaker 1: and then applying to this formless and chaotic world the
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  Speaker 1: eternal forms, which are kind of like the blueprint for existence,
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  Speaker 1: the ideal way that things are. And so in Plato's account,
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  Speaker 1: he takes the world that is formless and avoid he
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  Speaker 1: applies mind, He applies the ideals that the eternal realm
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  Speaker 1: of the forms to this chaotic world, and thereby fashions
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  Speaker 1: it in accordance with the way that things ought to be. However,
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  Speaker 1: according to Plato, the material world is has inherent chaos
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  Speaker 1: about it, you know, it's given over to entropy. Things
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  Speaker 1: naturally fall apart, things are naturally corrupted. Things are necessarily corrupted,
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  Speaker 1: like even at their best, earthly things are but copies
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  Speaker 1: of the original. And as you know, if you've ever
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  Speaker 1: made copies of anything, right you throw in the scanner
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  Speaker 1: and print it out, it's never going to be exactly
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  Speaker 1: the same as the original. And even if it gets
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  Speaker 1: to a point where you know you have a great copier,
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  Speaker 1: to the point where you know, maybe your eye can't
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  Speaker 1: tell a difference, even still you know it's a derivation.
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  Speaker 1: It is derivative of the original, thereby making it onto
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  Speaker 1: logically inferior to what is more foundational in the original.
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  Speaker 1: And so the original is always going to be superior
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  Speaker 1: to the copy. And so what these material copies of
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  Speaker 1: these eternal realities do is they continually move. The world,
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  Speaker 1: which moves in accordance with its spirit, moves in eternal
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  Speaker 1: approximation to the stable forms of ideal reality. Imagine if
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  Speaker 1: you had a perfectly uniform sphere and its spinning, Well,
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  Speaker 1: if it's perfectly uniform and it's spinning, then you wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: even really know that it is spinning, right, it would
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  Speaker 1: have the appearance of stability. And so that's why, according
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  Speaker 1: to Plato, the material world is constantly in motion in
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  Speaker 1: a spherical pattern. And this idea is going to continue
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  Speaker 1: into the Orisitilian framework that's going to really dominate the scene,
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  Speaker 1: moving all the way up to the Copernican Revolution. And
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  Speaker 1: so the world moves in imperfect approximation of this eternal reality,
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  Speaker 1: the eternal realm of ideals that the crafts span applies
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  Speaker 1: to that which is otherwise formless and void. And then
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  Speaker 1: of course let's look over to the Biblical creation account,
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  Speaker 1: where we're told in the beginning God created the heavens
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  Speaker 1: and the earth, and the earth was formless and void.
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  Speaker 1: And then God goes forth ordering this world in accordance
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  Speaker 1: with the True Word. He says, let there be, and
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  Speaker 1: then there was, Let there be, and then there was,
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  Speaker 1: or as we get at the beginning of the Gospel
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  Speaker 1: of John and our hologous ki Hologous and Prostontheon, in
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  Speaker 1: the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.
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  Speaker 1: The Word was God. All things were made through the Word.
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  Speaker 1: And so it is it is through the True Word
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  Speaker 1: that that which is formless and void is made to
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  Speaker 1: be in form. Now, the exact details of all these
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  Speaker 1: stories are indeed different, and so I don't mean to
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  Speaker 1: say that these are all the same story that they're not.
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  Speaker 1: But my point is that there are some thematic similarities
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  Speaker 1: in a broad range of creation accounts. Now, some major
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  Speaker 1: differences is that in the Babylonian account, we have these
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  Speaker 1: two primordial realities, but we don't get a firm, intentional creation.
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  Speaker 1: It's sort of like, you know, these things they come
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  Speaker 1: together and they end up just sort of producing this
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  Speaker 1: world of conflict, and out of this conflict we eventually
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  Speaker 1: get the world as we know it. That's very different
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  Speaker 1: than the Biblical creation account, in which there's not really conflict, right.
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  Speaker 1: God just does stuff. Right. God says, let there be,
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  Speaker 1: and then there is, and so this is more of
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  Speaker 1: an account of creation rather than a story that happens
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  Speaker 1: to have led to creation. Right. There's a difference there. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I would say that in this Elder Scrolls world, when
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  Speaker 1: we get here at the very beginning, with this interplay
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  Speaker 1: of ordering chaos, it's probably most similar out of these
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  Speaker 1: three that have laid out, the Babylonian account, the Platonic account,
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  Speaker 1: and the Biblical account. I would say this is probably
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  Speaker 1: closest to the Babylonian account, where you have these primordial
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  Speaker 1: forces of order as such, chaos as such just sort
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  Speaker 1: of mixing together and through this mixture of the movement
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  Speaker 1: of chaos and the form of order, we end up
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  Speaker 1: getting the structured reality in which everything else takes place.
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  Speaker 1: All right, let's go just a little bit further here
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  Speaker 1: before I interrupt myself again. Desiring to reflect upon himself
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  Speaker 1: with consciousness, Anu projected forth from his own being a
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  Speaker 1: soul which was named Anu e l the everlasting Light
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  Speaker 1: and the soul of all things. Patame did likewise, and
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  Speaker 1: thus came to be a sythus the nothingness, the void,
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  Speaker 1: and as some would know him, the Dreadfather. Now with
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  Speaker 1: this emanation concept, a couple of things come into mind.
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  Speaker 1: First of all, we have gnosissism. Now narcissism is not
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: an organized religion as such bits nature. It's kind of decentralized,
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  Speaker 1: and so they're different gnostic teaching, different gnostic visions of cosmology,
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  Speaker 1: creation and all that. But the primary idea is that
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  Speaker 1: you have at the root of existence, you have the
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  Speaker 1: monad or the one. You have one thing, and then
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  Speaker 1: out of this one thing you get the emanations known
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  Speaker 1: as the AONs. These AONs maybe we could call them gods,
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  Speaker 1: maybe not, but they are divine realities that are not
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  Speaker 1: entirely distinct from the Monad, but they are sort of
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  Speaker 1: these I mean picture like a tiered fountain where water
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  Speaker 1: bubbles up and then comes back down. We can talk
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  Speaker 1: about different levels of the fountain, but it's all the
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  Speaker 1: same fountain. That's kind of what's happening here where the gods.
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  Speaker 1: These AONs are that which is sort of bubble up
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  Speaker 1: from the monad, from the one, and eventually we get
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  Speaker 1: to the aon known as Sofia or wisdom. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: we think the wisdom, okay, well, wisdom knows what to do, obviously,
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  Speaker 1: that's kind of what wisdom means, is that which knows
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  Speaker 1: what is and that which is best, that which is
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  Speaker 1: the best course of action. But part of Sophia in
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  Speaker 1: this understanding is, well, it's a kind of curiosity, right said,
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  Speaker 1: desire to know that which doesn't yet know. And Sofia
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  Speaker 1: in particular, once to no creation. It wants to imitate
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  Speaker 1: that out of which Sofia originates, wants to imitate the
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  Speaker 1: creation that come out of the monad, and so out
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  Speaker 1: of herself. Sofia creates the Demiurge, which is sometimes identified
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  Speaker 1: with the God of the Old Testament, because this is
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  Speaker 1: the deity that's chiefly responsible for creating the material world,
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  Speaker 1: which in the Gnostic understanding, is itself a fall. It
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  Speaker 1: is a misstep. It is something that should not have happened.
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  Speaker 1: Because the Monad, which is pure spirit, is good. And
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  Speaker 1: so the further a way we get from that goodness,
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  Speaker 1: a purity of spirit, the more that we are falling
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  Speaker 1: into corruption, the more that we're approaching, well, the void,
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  Speaker 1: the more that we're approaching chaos, that which is undifferentiated,
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  Speaker 1: that which doesn't properly belong to the Monad, that which
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  Speaker 1: is nothing. And so the material world is it's an
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  Speaker 1: approach toward nothingness, an approach toward the void. And so Sophia,
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  Speaker 1: because of its responsibility in leading to this creation, Sofia
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  Speaker 1: gets trapped within this material world order and then has
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  Speaker 1: to go a process of redemption because there's still a divinity,
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  Speaker 1: there's still spirit that works through this material world, this
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  Speaker 1: material order, because I mean, ultimately, all things that do exist,
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  Speaker 1: to the extent that they do exist, exists within the Monad,
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  Speaker 1: who is spirit. And so this includes humanity, humanity who
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  Speaker 1: has a spark of the divine. Despite the fact that
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  Speaker 1: we are trapped and we are corrupted by this material form.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: And so there are a number of different kinds of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Christian heresies that draw on this gnostic idea to say
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  Speaker 1: that Jesus is an incarnation of Sophia or a messenger
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  Speaker 1: of Sophia in order to provide us with this knowledge
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  Speaker 1: of our true spiritual identity in a way that allow
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  Speaker 1: us to transcend the mortal flesh, transcend our limitations, and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: reapproach the monad and eventually get reincorporated into the monad folly.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And so again, there are various ways of understanding narcissism,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: but this is the general trajectory, and we definitely see
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  Speaker 1: elements of this in the Elder Scrolls creation account. There's
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: no doubt about that that we see traces of that there.
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  Speaker 1: Now we could also talk about it kind of a
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: related philosophical approach, that of Neoplatonism, which also deals with
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: this idea of emanation. Now, Neoplatonism really hits its stride
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: in the first few centuries AD, especially leading up to Augustine,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Who's going to make substantial use of neoplatonic models. He's
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: going to baptize them within the context of Christianity. Now,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: what is neoplatonism, Well, Neoplatonism in its original Pagan context
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  Speaker 1: draws as you would expect on Plato, sort of filtered
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: through Aristotle as well as a number of other philosophies
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: that it's gained along the way, and it also makes
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: use of this emanation idea now in Neoplatonism, going to
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the likes of Platinus, Platinus refers to what we would
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  Speaker 1: chiefly refer to God and his system as the One.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So again we're dealing with a monad, we're dealing with
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  Speaker 1: a one. We're dealing with a kind of pantheism here
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  Speaker 1: in which all things are God in a sense, all
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  Speaker 1: things emanate from God, they're not truly distinct from God.
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  Speaker 1: And so out of the One again we get bubbling
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  Speaker 1: out these divine things. We get bubbling out these emanations,
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  Speaker 1: the first emanation according to the Neoplatonic model. And we
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: also find this in the middle Platonism, with the likes
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: of Philo, of Alexandrium, this idea that the first emanation
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  Speaker 1: out of the One is the lagos, the word this
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  Speaker 1: might even be identified with Plato's forms. Certainly there are
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: some connections here with the Christian idea of the lagos,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: but we do want to differentiate those ideas, because in
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the Christian understanding, the Lagos is truly God. He is,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: as the Creed say, very God, of very God. He
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  Speaker 1: is homeusius with the Father. He is of the same substance.
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  Speaker 1: And so the Christian Lagos, who is incarnated as the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: man Jesus Christ, is of the same substance of God.
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  Speaker 1: He's not an emanation of God, He's not less than God. Well,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the neoplatonic Lagoss is an emanation, and so in so
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  Speaker 1: doing he is one step removed from the One itself,
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  Speaker 1: sort of the central reality, that is, and then from
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  Speaker 1: the Lagoss we get spirit and so forth, and eventually
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  Speaker 1: we get down to the material plane, which is just
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: on the kind of the border of non existence. And
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: so we, as spiritual beings who are by nature attached
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  Speaker 1: to the material world, we have this dual reality within us,
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  Speaker 1: where on one hand, we can direct ourselves toward material things,
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  Speaker 1: and in so doing we are approaching the non existence
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  Speaker 1: that is implicit in material reality. Or we can direct
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  Speaker 1: ourself towards spiritual things, toward the life of the mind,
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  Speaker 1: toward ultimately in the direction of the monad, and in
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: so doing we achieve this harmony between ourselves and fundamental reality,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and this can present itself as a kind of mysticism,
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  Speaker 1: it can present itself as a kind of spiritual euphoria
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  Speaker 1: when we achieve this sort of transcendence by so identifying
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  Speaker 1: ourself with not even that which is reasonable that we
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  Speaker 1: should rational, but that which stands above and beyond reason itself,
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  Speaker 1: which is a platonic idea, because I mean, if we
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: say that reason is good, then what we mean is
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: that whatever reason is, it participates in the idea of goodness,
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  Speaker 1: which must come before reason. Otherwise doesn't make sense to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: say that reason participates in goodness. So whatever goodness is
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: stands above and beyond what we can rationally understand. And
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: so for the neoplatonists, the ideal spiritual orientation or the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: ideal spiritual state is in perfect union with that which
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: stands even above reason, and so the life of the
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  Speaker 1: mind is good, but it's not ultimate. The ultimate good
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  Speaker 1: is achieved through this transcendence that involves this sort of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: euphoric mystical encounter with the one that stands above and
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  Speaker 1: beyond what rationality can comprehend, what rationality can achieve, And
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: so we definitely see some of these neo platonic ideas
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  Speaker 1: playing out here in this entire mythological narrative that's playing
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: out here, and so between this order chaos dialectic that
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: I brought up and the neoplatonic and gnostic ideas of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: creation and redemption, like, we're gonna see a lot of
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: these ideas play out as we continue forward. All right,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: let's keep going through the order chaos dialectic of a Nuiel.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: In scythis the gray center or orbis, was made. This
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: ambiguous creation is the womb of worlds that would give
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: rise the planes of ethereus, oblivion and eventually the mortal
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: realm of Mundus, as well as those that would inhabit them.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: As with many aspects of this mythology, it is debatable
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: whether a Nuiel or Cithis are principally responsible for the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: creation of arbists. Many cultures honor Annuiel for his active
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: role in creation, but he is often seen as a
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: catalyst rather than the principal actor. As it is written
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: in monomyth scythis is held in highest esteem because he
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: is the one that causes the reaction. Cythis is thus
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the original creator, an entity who intrinsically causes change, without design.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Even the hist acknowledged this being being an emanation of order.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Anwi yel is associated with stability, which changes. Not Cythis, however,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: as an emanation of chaos, is associated with change, and
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: never has there been a greater change than the beginning
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of the cosmos that previously was not. However, the formation
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of new things requires form, which is supplied by a nuiel.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Thus Cythis is the active agent of creation, although anwiel
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: is its order and its life. All right, so some
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: interesting things are happening here regarding the relationship between order
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and chaos, especially regarding agency. Right, who is moving first?
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Who is principally responsible for change, for causing things to be? Now?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: In the myth at hand from the Elder Scrolls, we're
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: told that most cultures see Cythis as the primary creator
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: because he is somebody who intrinsically causes change. Right, He's chaotic.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: To be in chaos is to be in continual flux.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And so it kind of makes sense that you might
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: say that, Okay, Cythis has the active role here as
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: opposed to Annul, who's associated with order, orders associated with stability.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Stability doesn't move, and so it kind of makes sense
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that you might say that Cythus is moving, but because
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Cythis is chaotic, any kind of creation is going to
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: require the form that Annuil supplies within his ordered stability.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But see here, here's the problem. Can chaos as such
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: have that kind of intentionality? It seems like to have
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that sort of intentionality, it would have to first have
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: well intention, It would have to have order. And where
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: does that order come from? Is that if Cythis is
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: born entirely out of the void, or actually not even born, right,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that implies distinction. But Sythis emanates from the void. Cy
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: This emanates from chaos, and so Cynthis itself must be chaos, unless,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of course, it is somehow in the order of Anu.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't seem to be the case here, And
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: so in my reckoning, this is actually a flaw in
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the myth. Now, it is true that the sequence of
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: initiation and reception is not really laid out clearly in
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the Babylonian and Numa leash either, But in that myth, remember, Apsu,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: who is associated with order, is masculine, Tiamot, who is
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: associated with chaos, is feminine, And so there is a
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: natural relationship that's implicit in that myth. Within those gender
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: roles that one provides the other receives. That gives rise
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to new life. And so it's implied there that order
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: moves to chaos that produces new life. In the Genesis account,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: God initiates through the true word applied to that which
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is formless and void, that brings forth ordered creation. In
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Plato's myth, chaos doesn't have intentionality, right, That's what it
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: means to be chaotic. There is no implicit intention. And
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: so God the craftsman applies order to the chaos thereby
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: creates ordered reality. And so in all three of these
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: myths that I've been talking about, and by the way,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I should clarify when I say myth, I don't mean
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: something's not true, nor am I even putting all these
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: on the same level. And so these are all just
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: stories about how the world came to be. That doesn't
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: mean I'm putting them on the same level. That being said,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: in all these stories, all these creation myths, you have
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: order applying itself to chaos, because order has intentionality, whereas
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: chaos simply cannot. Now, the problem that perhaps the writers
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: of the Elder Scrolls are trying to deal with here
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: is again how do we get movement? Right, movement belongs
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to chaos, so how do we get change? And they
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: assume that must come through the agency of chaos, because
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: again chaos is what changes. However, what I don't think
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: they recognize here is the relationship between time and eternity.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: So even Plato and even Aristotle, who in many ways
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: takes Plato's creation model, I mean he adapts it to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: his own system, but it functionally there's a lot of
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: similarity at play here. And what Plato and especially Aristotle
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: maintain is that the world itself is eternal, even though
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: it's logically it's ontologically dependent on that which orders it,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: on that which sustains it. And even in a Christian understanding,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: and we go to the likes of Boethius, the Roman
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Christian philosopher, who says that the eternality of God is
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: related to time, as if God were occupying all of
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: time simultaneously. And so you could think of what we
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: would call the timeline of world history is for God
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: a single time point. It is the entirety of time
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: experienced as a simultaneous present. And so what that means
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: is that God, who is fully actualized, can be active
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: precisely because he is eternally active, meaning never is there
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: a point that God begins to act, because from the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: perspective of eternity, God is always doing everything that God
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: has always been doing, always will be doing, and always
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is doing as we would approach it from our perspective,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and so that is why God can have perfect order,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: perfect stability, but also have effects within time. And it
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: seems like in this Elder Scrolls myth that they're trying
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to kind of approach eternity as if it were a
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: firm timeline, despite the fact that, as we're going to
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: see in just a little bit, time hasn't even been
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: introduced yet, and so it seems like they're trying to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: solve a problem that they've actually already solved, precisely because
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: we are not yet dealing with time. And so all
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: of that to say that, in giving Scythus agency as
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the original creator, I think that they're getting something wrong.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Now that might seem like a weird thing to say
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: in a fictional account of a video game creation story,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: but I would say the same thing if we're dealing
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: with a myth that somebody in our primary world has
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: espoused at some point in history, right, I would say
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: that this is a point at which the myth is wrong,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: in that chaos doesn't produce order, but order can bring
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: that which is formless and void into a state of
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: ordered being, or at least say becoming that's approaching being. Now.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Of course, one value of giving us this myth from
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: in universe sources is that we could say that maybe
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: some of these in universe sources got the real myth wrong. Right.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: That's some flexibility we have in dealing with this kind
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: of media. All right, Now, let's continue within Arbists came
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: further emanations from a new eel, and Scythis from a
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: new eel came Aril, also known as Acotash, the dragon god,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: chief god of the divines, and lord of time, which
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: he gave to Arbis to provide stability. In sequence, as
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the altmroads, say, Ril bled through Arbists as a new
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: force called time. With time various aspects, the Arbists began
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to understand their natures in limitations. Now, again, this could
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: be an interesting mechanic when we only at this point
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: have the introduction of time. But it kind of seems
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: like functionally they've already included time, And look at what
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: time does so again, just to reiterate, I feel like
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: there is a misstep at play here, all right. With
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: this new stability came the host of original spirits or
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the et Ada, which would become the Adra and the Deadra,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: depending on whether they were attached to the light of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Anu or the void apatame from Scythis came forth the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: emanation that would be known as Lorcan, the missing god.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Lorcan was at least for a time, more of a
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: limit than in nature, so he can never last long anywhere.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: As he entered every aspect of a Nuiel, Lorcan would
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: plant an idea that was almost wholly based on limitation.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: He outlined a plan to create a soul for the arbis,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a place where the aspects of aspects might be allowed
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to self reflect. He gained many allies, including Ariel, and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: so they created Mundus. So it definitely seems like we
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: have some narcissism at play here, with Lorcan serving the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: role of the demiurge in creating the material world, or
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: in this case, inciting the creation of the material world.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: But it again just says they have scythus sort of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: incite creation by means of Annuiel. Lorcin does the same
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: thing by means of Aril, and note that this is
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: going to require great sacrifice, even as the gnostic Sophia
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: had to sacrifice some of its power and became constrained
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: within this material world that it caused. However, a key
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: difference here. Remember that Sofia is an emanation of the
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: monad of the one of being itself, whereas Lorcin is
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: an emanation of sit This, who is an emanation of Patamin.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So again the question ought to be asked, like, where
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: is this intentionality coming from? Where is this ordered thinking
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: coming from? Now? I think it could be argued that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: at this point, as we get further and further emanations,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: as everything's sort of getting mixed together, you know that
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: even if Lorcin is an emanation of sit This, maybe
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Loracan does have some kind of interplay with the order
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: that is emanating out from Anu to anu El to Aril,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Like maybe there is some borrowed order here. At this
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: point I could accept that a lot faster than I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: could accept the ordered mind of Sythus that we were
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: already given. However, we're also going to come to find
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: that maybe this isn't a Nasigdemir's thing, That this is
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: only one possible interpretation of what's happening, but we'll save
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: that for just a moment from now. Let's keep going now.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: The peoples of Tamriel do not agree on the intentions
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: or justifications with which Lorcan incited the creation of Mundus,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Whether the limitations of the mortal realm were intended to
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: be a boon for a reflection in transcendence, or whether
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: this was an attempt to weaken the gods and so
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: move Arbis back toward the void of which Lorcan himself
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: was born. These contrasting theologies give rise to the hostility
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that is often found between men and elves. The men
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of Siridil who know Lorcan, as Shazar write in Shazar Song,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Shasar spoke beautifully of creation and the ennoblement of sacrifice,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: inciting the Adria to create the mortal world. However, this
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: creation left them weakened and angry at their lessoned state.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: These gods of the elves vowed vengeance upon Shazar and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: his enemies and encourage the elves to be stoic against
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the harshness of mortality. Yet other Adra, the gods of
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: men and beast folk, led by Acotash, praise and cherish
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: their wards the mortal races, and said unto each other,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: let us teach the mortal races to live well, to
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: cherish beauty and honor, and to love one another as
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: we love them. Thus, the gods of men, often known
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: as the divines, were tender and patient, and thus are
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the men in beast folk, great in heart or joy
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: or suffering, and ambitious for greater wisdom and a better world. Thus,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: men often praise Lorcan, viewing the creation of Mundus as
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a divine mercy and enlightenment, whereby lesser creatures can reach immortality.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: The Almer, however, tend to view this act of creation
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: as a trick that sundered their connection to the spirit
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: playing For while men understand that they were created by
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the gods, the almer believed that they are actually descended
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: from the gods and thereby share to some degree in
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the essence of divinity. Thus, the weakening of the gods
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: is understood personally, and their mortal frame is despised as
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: a lesser state of being than the rights of their
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: nature would grant. So there we have it. Maybe Lorcan
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: is this demiurge figure, this aspect of an aon who
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: sins by inciting the creation of the material mortal world,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Like maybe that's the case, Or maybe Lorcan, out of love,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: out of a desire for greatness, incited the creation of
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the mortal world so that there could be mortals that
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the gods could shepherd and raise up out of the muck,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: out of the dirt of mortal existence, and rise to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: something greater. And maybe even the gods themselves could transcend
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: their station as they enter into the limitations of the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: material world, that that actually provides a greater means of
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: transcendence through the upward motion of overcoming those limitations. Like
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: maybe that's the case. Now, however we frame this, it
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: seems clear that we're to understand there's something inherently vulgar
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: about this material mortal world. And now that's kind of
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: tough to deal with. It's tough to analyze because on one hand,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: there is this gnostic idea that matter is inherently evil,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and then in Christian thought we get the idea that
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the material world is ontologically dependent on metaphysical realities and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: ultimately on God who is spirit. But at the same time,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: we aren't told that matter is inherently wrong. Matters not
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: inherently evil, it's not inherently wicked. It's not even something
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: that ultimately Christians expect to be freed from that. The
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: New Creation is just that it's a union and a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: reformation of heaven and earth, and earth doesn't lose its earthliness.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: You look at the gospel accounts of the risen Christ,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: and he eats in order to demonstrate that he has
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a real physical body. And so the Christian hope is
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: the full integration of spirit and matter in the way
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that it ought to be. And so matter, for for
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Christian thought, is not bad. At the same time, it
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: is clear that spirit has a metaphysical an ontological priority
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: relative to matter. As Psyche says in C. S. Lewis,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: is till we have faces, would not a dream feel
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: shame if we are walking about in the waking world.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with being material, but matter is in
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: a certain sense, and I want to be clear about that,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in a certain sense, matter is less than spirit. So
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: there we have it. Maybe Lorcan is this trickster God
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: who tricks the gods into creating the material world in
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: order to lessen them, in order to draw them off
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: into the void. In that case, he's sort of like
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: a Gnostic Satan figure, right, and that he lures the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: gods towards the limitations of the material mortal plane as
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: a way of constraining them, as a way of lessening
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: their divinity, a way of making making them more vulgar,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and thereby drawing them further and further back toward the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: void of which Lorcan was ultimately born instead of kind
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: of making this tricks to God as well as this
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: gnostic demi urge kind of figure. Or maybe Lorcan had
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: good intentions, right, Maybe Lorcan wanted to create mortals so
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that they could be shepherded by the gods and that
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: they could rise up out of their station and participate
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: in the great dance of the cosmos. Maybe that is
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the case, but definitely does seem like in either situation,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the material world is being framed as a bad thing
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: that ought to be escaped from and that's definitely a
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Gnostic idea. Now, at the same time, we were told
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: that the limitations of this material world could potentially provide
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: a means of a greater transcendence even for the gods,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: like obviously for mortals who don't exist, well, it's better
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: for them to exist and then to transcend that sort
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: of inferior existence. But even for the God, so there's
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: this idea that, okay, well, maybe the limitations imposed upon
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: their existence in the material sphere can allow them to
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: learn how to transcend those limitations, and through that upward
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: movement of transcendence, it can actually become something even greater
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: than they were originally. And so, even though the ontology
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: here seems to be very gnostic, I would argue that
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in some of these directional movements, in some of the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: process here, we have something like a Felix Kulpa theology
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: at play here, or a happy fall idea. This is
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the idea that, you know, even though the sin of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the first humans was obviously a bad thing, right, sin
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: is never good, at the same time, it provided the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: conditions for the incarnation of Christ. It provided the means
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: of our increased station in relation to God by means
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: of the Gospel of Christ. Right that you know, perhaps
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: if we never sinned, if humanity never fell from grace,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: then there wouldn't be an incarnation, if there wasn't an
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: InCAR nation, than we would never be glorified to the
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: extent that the Christian Gospel proclaims, and so even though
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the fall was a bad thing, it ultimately serves a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: good purpose in the course of redemptive history. And so
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: there is a greater grace that comes precisely because of
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: our great fall. And I would say that that kind
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of idea seems to be a play here, that the
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: limitations of the material world may be a bad thing,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: but it's a bad thing that can lead to a
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: greater good. And so again I think the best way
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: to frame this myth is probably with narcissism, but at
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the same time that there are some elements of historical
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Christian thought that are definitely at play here as well.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: All right, well, let's go ahead and continue. Regardless of
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Lorcan's intentions, many of the great spirits willingly underwent the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: sacrifice that would be required in establishing the mortal realm.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Many of the ada vanished completely with this act. Some
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: escaped like madness, and that is why there are no
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: limiteds to magic. Efree transformed into Eenophree the earth bones,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: so the whole world might not die. Okay, So this
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: is kind of interesting, and again it demonstrates the fact
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: that we're dealing with a number of different ideas and
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: mythologies and philosophies all sort of meshing together here, and
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: so here we have this idea that in the very
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: fibers of creation we have evidence of divine condescension, that
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: the gods truly do care about us, about this mortal world,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: even to the point of undergoing great sacrifice that we
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: might have life, and that this world might be preserved.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: And that is an idea that I think could be
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: very consonant with Christian theology. Now, obviously we're talking about gods, right,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that's the polytheistic context, but nonetheless, in this idea that
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the world itself is held together out of divine grace,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: like this world is fundamentally good, it's held together with love,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: It's held together with grace, a kind of love and
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: grace that summons us up to higher realities, to rise
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: out of the mundane of mundus in the direction of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: divine realities. These are ideas very consonant with a Christian
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: understanding of what the world fundamentally is. This is a
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: world held together by love, by grace, by the will
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of God, that we might seek after Him and that
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: our souls will be cultivated towards higher reality. Let's keep going.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: And according to the Altmer, some married, and each generation
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: of children was weaker until they became the Almer. And
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: if you haven't caught it, the Aldmer are definitely Gnostics
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: for the very least Neoplatonists, believing that our own divine
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: essence is ultimately traced back in emanation of the Monad,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: and so our goal is to despise and to shake
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: off these vulgar limitations of our mortal frame, and to
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: reascend and to join together with the Monad that undergirds
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: higher reality. The Data mocked the Atra for their sacrifice
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: in the creation of a world that is, in its
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: essence other than what they are, and they instead created
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: a world within themselves to be forever theirs and under
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: their complete control. However, the greater Dadra often found the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: passions and ambitions of mortals to be more entertaining than
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that of the lesser Dadra, and thus they often sought
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to court and to seduce certain amusing specimens of the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: mortal races, especially the passionate and the powerful. The Dedra
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: lords reveled in taking the best of mortals, thereby demonstrating
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the preferability of dadrech glory and power to the feeble
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: vulgarity of the Adra. All right, So when we look
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: at the difference between the Adra and the Dedra, we
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: definitely see a kind of Christian moral framework at play here,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: where you might expect, given the esthetics of this creation account,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: you might expect more of a pagan kind of morality.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: But what we see here is that the Adra are
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: given over to sacrifice, and they cultivate within their followers
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: charity and justice and love and these sorts of things,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: these virtues faith, open love, the cardinal spiritual virtues, whereas
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: the daydre are insular. They create a realm that allows
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: them to be autonomous. That they're not given over to sacrifice.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: They're interested in, well, they're interested in pagan power, right
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that they're interested in pagan understandings of greatness that Christianity critiques,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: intends to subvert or invert. And so the demons of
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: the Elder Scrolls Cosmos are well, they're they're demons. Instead
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: of producing enoughlifting, they seek to consume. They seek to
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: make thralls. They don't make people more themselves, they make
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: people more their own. And so Arbus continues to be
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the gray center the meeting place of order and chaos,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of being and void of etherius and oblivion. The limitations
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: of the mortal plane may either be a vile trick
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: of a nefarious god bent on returning all things to darkness,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: or they may be due to an act of divine
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: beneficence by which mortals and even gods might achieve higher
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: transcendence through the reflection made possible only by such limitations.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: For it is only through the limitations of being that
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: transcendence might be made possible. And now let us end
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: with a summary of such things found in the anonymously
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: written Spirit of Nern. Some wish to return to the
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: original estate, the spirit realm, and believe that Lorcan is
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: the demon that hinders their way. To them, Nern is
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a prison, an allusion to escape. Others think that Lorcan
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: created the world as a testing ground for transcendence. To them,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the spirit realm was already a prison, and that true
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: escape is now finally possible. Regardless of how one views
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: this active creation, the creation of the mortal plane, the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: mundus Nerne, is a source of mental anguish to all
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: living things. All souls know deep down that they came
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: originally from somewhere else, and that nern is a cruel
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: and crucial step to what comes next. Here we have
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: an idea that can still fit within the nosti framework
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: or even the Neoplatonism, but I think can be most
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: directly attributed to Plato proper in his dialogue The Fato,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: in which he is detailing the conversation leading up to
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the death of Socrates. Socrates makes the point that we
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: all have certain desires that this world cannot satisfy. We
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: all long to return to the realm of the ideals,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the way that things ought to be in their purest form.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: We long for beauty itself. I mean, for example, have
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: you ever experienced something just so overwhelmingly beautiful, Maybe just
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: a particularly glorious sunrise or sunset, or work of art,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: or maybe your bride on your wedding day or whatever.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: You experience something that is just so overwhelmingly beautiful that
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: it almost gives you a kind of pain, a kind
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: of longing, because whatever it is that you're experiencing, you
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: want more of that. You want to experience beauty as such,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: beauty in its fullness, as most ideal state. Well, Plato
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: argues that the reason why we have these desires for
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: perfect justice, right for all sorts of things that we're
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: never going to be able to experience fully in this
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: world is because part of us, by nature, belongs to
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: another world. And this is part of his argument as
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: to why we can rationally believe based off human experience
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: in a number of different factors. He's arguing in the
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Fato that this rational reason to believe that our souls
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: endore past death because they properly belong somewhere else. And
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: of course C. S. Lewis makes a very similar kind
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: of argument, very intentionally similar in Mere Christianity, in which
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: he argues that just as our thirst gives us good
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: reason to believe there is such a thing as drink,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: our hunger gives us good reason to believe there is
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: such a thing as food, so too, our deep spiritual
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: desires that cannot be fully satisfied in this world give
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: us good reason to believe that there is another world
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to which we properly belong. As Psyche says, until we
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: have faces. As she believes she is approaching death, she says,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: do you think it all meant? No? All the longing,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the longing for home, For indeed it now feels not
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: like going but like going back. Lewis says in Surprised
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: by Joy that it is in his greatest joys, and
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: this is echoed with psyche until we have faces. But
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: he says that in his greatest joys, that's when he
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: most wishes for death, not out of depression, not out
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: of despair, not out of abandonment of life and meaning,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: but out of this deep conviction, that this deep understanding
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: that this world, at least in its present state, is
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: not truly our home. We properly belong somewhere else. And
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: so what we see here is that, yes, in this
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: broad cosmological framework that we get in these Elder Scroll's
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: creation myth, it's very much shaped by Gnossism, by pagan mythology,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: by certain Neoplatonic elements, but they are also very Platonic
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and very Christian ideas all mixed in here. And so
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: we're dealing with a hodgepodge of ideas, which is to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: be fairly expected when we're dealing with a fictional creation
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: account operating in a world that has appreciation for the
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: pagan past but has been very much saturated with Christian ideas.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: And so all this is sort of mixed together here.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And it is worth reiterating that this Elder scrolls myth
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: that we're given it comes to us in universe by
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: conflicting sources, as I've already mentioned, and so you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: that kind of accounts for some of the haphazir nature here,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that not everything seems to perfectly fit together,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: because that's exactly what you would expect from this sort
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: of storytelling angle. And this also gives us a kind
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: of freedom here in that, you know, we sort putting
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: ourselves in universe can say that we can question some
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: of these sources and say that maybe this isn't the
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: true story, right, there's room for doing that in universe,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: for critiquing the story, saying maybe it didn't happen exactly
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: this way. But at the same time, this does give
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: us some positive elements here, some some things to aspire to.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, maybe the Elves are right, maybe the
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: all right in saying that this world is essentially a mistake,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: it never should have been, and that the best we
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: can do is to get ourselves out of this mess,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: transcend and go back to the spirit realm. Or maybe
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: more truth resides with the men and the beast folk
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: who say that this world is it's a staging ground
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: for what comes next, and so we need to prepare
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: ourselves accordingly, live in accordance with justice and charity and
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: virtue of various kinds, and so that way we can
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: transcend the limitations of vulgarity and ascend to something greater,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: a higher way of life that looks our rational rather
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: than our beastly soul lead the way. And so there's
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: a lot that we can do with this. But I
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: hope this was helpful, and I really look forward to
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: continuing moving forward as we take a philosophical lens toward
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: the Elder Scrolls universe, toward plots and different things that
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: exists within this cosmos. Some of what we do moving
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: forward will be kind of metaphysical and esoteric, like what
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: we're doing right now, but a lot of it can
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: be a lot more concrete, because I mean, the reality
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: is a lot of what we're talking about right now
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: in similar topics. They operate on the periphery. The writers
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: thought that it was important to include it, and obviously
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: this has some effect on the way that things are
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: shaped on the smaller scale. But at the same time,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: once you're actually playing the games. A lot of this
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: is not really explicit, and so we'll be taking a
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: high perspective as well as a more focused perspective moving forward.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: This is the last video that at least for now,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: that I am publicly posting on the Elder Scrolls and Philosophy,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: and so again, if you want to join us, then
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: head over to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind become
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: a Tier three patron, and that will give you access
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: to the course. We are beginning this course officially on
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the week of October nineteenth, twenty twenty five, and so
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: go ahead and join now if you're watching this soon
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: after it's posted, so that way you can join with
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: us live. Now. If you join late, that's okay. You know,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: if you watch this, you know, a while down the
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: road you can still become a patrion and get access
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: to the material. But it's a lot more fun that
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: you can join us live. But that's it for now
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: until next time. God speed O