Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 58: Saint Hildegard von Bingen part 2

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Show 58: Saint Hildegard von Bingen part 2 · The Uncensored Catholic

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Hey, y'all, welcome today's show. We'll get back into talking about Saint
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Hildegarde von Mention here in just a few minutes. Before we do, as
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always, I want to get into a couple of questions and answers from the
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classic book Radio Replies, in which people would ask questions of two Catholic priests.
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Usually very people were very much opposed to Catholicism, so it's a good
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book on apologetics. The person who has been questioning them apparently somewhat of a
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m Well, this person seems to be both a communist and someone who believes
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in reincarnation. So we'll just imagine John Lennon. Okay, So someone the
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proto John Lennon asks, your doctrine of immortality supposes consciousness after death. I
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do not believe it. Otherwise the soul would be conscious under chloroform or when
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the body is not senseless in an accident. They answer, this fact is
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not invalidate the reasons given already, and it is also easily explained the soul,
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whilst in a state of union with the body, operates by using the
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faculties of the body. If the sense instruments instruments are incapacitated, the soul
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can no longer operate adequately whilst united to the body, but once released from
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the body its intelligence and will and power to love and it once assert themselves
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hydrogen and oxygen and unite to form a drop of water, they can operate
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as water only whilst united. I have trouble with the word whilst can they
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use it a lot anyway. Hydrogen is there, but it cannot operate as
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hydrogen until it is released from the union. Soul and body make one human
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being, and both elements must be fit to cooperate in the activities of a
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bodily human being. The soul cannot operate separately as it a snake unit whilst
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still united, but once released it can operate independently every bit as much as
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hydrogen when released from the essential union with oxygen to form water. In other
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words, so long as the soul of body are united, the soul is
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limited in its abilities and capacities by the physical limitations of a person's body.
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Once the soul is liberated from the body after death, the soul is no
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longer limited in any way, shape or form. The Bible tells us that
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the souls in heaven. The saints are like the angels and like Jesus in
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many ways. They're not limited by time or space, are no longer part
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of linear time. They're not limited by human knowledge. They have knowledge of
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all things they you know, just as the Holy Spirit could give to the
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apostles the ability to speak all languages, those in heaven are absolutely filled with
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the Holy Spirit, and so can understand all languages. That's why we can
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be so confident in praying to the saints and asking for their intercession. They're
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literally right here with us. Now. That's what Saint Paul meant when he
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said we were surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Our souls are
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limited. We are limited by our physical ability to see them. They are
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not limited by their physical ability to see and care and love us and act
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on our behalf the way we are. We can't. I mean, if
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I walk into a room and close the door, all I can see is
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what's in that room. Now, my mind may tell me there's something on
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the other side of that door, especially the hall I just walk down,
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and I have a memory of the rooms I've been in and all that,
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But that it's too incredibly limited the souls in heaven have full knowledge of everything,
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just as do the angels, because they have become like God. That's
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what the Bible actually promises. It's called deification. If Jesus said, if
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you eat my body and drink my blood, you will have life in you,
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eternal life, you actually become holy through the sacraments and once purified.
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Because the Bible says nothing impure can enter into heaven. The mind, the
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reason, the knowledge is also unlimited and pure. It's what you would call,
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in I guess philosophical terms, simple, not simple minded as an ignorant,
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but simple in that there is no confusion, there is no complexity,
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there is just what is. And the souls in heaven are joined to the
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infinite knowledge of God perfected because only what's perfect can enter heaven. If they
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lacked in anything, they would not be perfect. And Jesus said, you
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must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Well, that's impossib when
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human terms. It's only possible through the grace and ivanity of Jesus Christ.
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But it's also impossible to say that someone could be in heaven and not be
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perfect because Jesus said you had to be and to be perfect is to have
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perfect knowledge and perfect ability and simplicity. Actually, another person perhaps ask are
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the souls of animals immortal? Now this is interesting. They say, the
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souls of animals are non immortal. Animals are not capable of operations which transcend
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the conditions of matter, and do not rise above the sensitive and intelligible order.
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Also, they are devoid of moral intuition. Animal souls are therefore dependent
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upon matter both for their being and their operation, and cease to exist with
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death. That is what was actually taught. I believe it was by Aquinas,
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and it's what has been believed by the Church. And now well the
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Church doesn't actually have a real definitive teaching on this anymore. It's one of
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those things. In fact, I've mentioned Father Dan before Dan in Heartsfull South
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Carolina. Father Dan, who was married and had a daughter before he became
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a priest, has had several visions of heaven. He's spoken when their blessed
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Mother, He's seen Jesus. He's been able to hug and kiss his wife
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and daughter in heaven. He's been to heaven many times. And what Father
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Dan says is that your pets, your beloved pets are in heaven because again,
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you have perfect happiness in heaven, and if you love your pets,
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everything you love is in heaven. That is good and pure. God would
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not provide you of the love of your beloved dog or cat. That would
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be basically an insult to the human experience. So it's not that the animal
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soul and all know, all animals have an animal soul. It's not capable
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of reason and morality and such as we understand as a human soul. But
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the animal soul is in heaven if loved by the human So just as you
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feel like your petspire your family according to Father Dan, and he's actually been
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there, and it actually makes a whole lot of sense when we think about
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it in theological terms. You know, your your dog, your cat is
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going to be with you for all eternity, not through their merits, but
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through your merits, because you know, God said man is the crown of
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creation, all creation is subject to him. Well, that only stands to
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reason. Then if man has such a pure attachment to a pet, and
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pets love us with a pure love, and we love them with a pure
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love, they can do nothing for us. You know what I mean?
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You know, they can be service animals and all that, but a you
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know, barring some odd perversity, the love of an animal is absolutely pure,
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and the love of a person towards their pet is the most simple and
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basic love that we experience, except for a love of a child, you
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know, a family member, a parent, and so of course, of
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course they're going to be with us in heaven. It's only a shame that
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that has been a question, but that is part of the development of doctrine.
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And as I said, this is not official doctrine. I'm telling you
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what a priest told me, who's been to heaven, and he's an honest
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man, and I believe a living saint, and I believe him. I
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trust him in what he says. He's an eyewitness. Then a court of
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law, he would be the one sitting understand saying I was there, I
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saw it. This is what happened, you know. But this is like
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you know, someone on their deathbed confession, this actually happened. I actually
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did this. I actually saw this, So that makes him a reliable witness.
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And another person asked them very odd question, why should the fact our
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being born give us the right to exist forever? As if somehow that's something
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of an accomplishment. I mean, yeah, all rights were given by God.
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I get that. It's just odd that they would say it in that
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way, as if you had actually accomplished something by being born. I don't
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know. They say it is not the mere fact of being born, but
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of being born with such a nature. The soul is fitted by its very
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nature to live on forever, for a spiritual entity cannot disintegrate and die.
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Why should we have been endowed with such a nature? Well, because he
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who made us chose to give us such a nature. Since we did not
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make ourselves, we did not give ourselves our rights. I think that's sort
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of the point. That's sort of the confusion of the person's question. They
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almost see a right as like something you've you know, a reward. I
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think they're confusing, Yes, I think they're confusing like an achievement with a
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right. Rights are given by God to all humanity. No one does anything
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to deserve a right. Yes, that is the problem with their question.
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Anyway, they say they came up all right. We did not give ourselves
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our rights. They came from the one who is responsible for our being.
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If an artist painted an image of a girl in a canvas, and the
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image were endowed with the power of speech, the girl might say, what
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right have you to give me brown hair? The artist would rightly reply,
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since I made you, I have the right to give you whatever color hair
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I wish. God has the right to create indestructible souls if he wishes,
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and he did so, and our right to live on is invest in his
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will to endow us with an immortal nature. All right, So now let's
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get to Saint Hildegard. And it's amazing all of this always ties together.
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I want to well, I had one issue, A big issue is the
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article from Wikipedia on St. Hilgard that I quote from extensively yesterday. It
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said that Sat Hilda Guard's medical works were based on the monastic medicine of the
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time and not from divine revelation, which is absurd, absolutely absurd. That's
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written by someone who knows nothing of monastic medicine. I am. I wouldn't,
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okay, I would venture to say I know more about the tradition of
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monastic medicine, especially herbalism, than most anyone in the modern world, at
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least in the United States. I have spoken with college professors. I have
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spoken with other master urbalists. I have spoken with historians and scholars. I
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have done more research on the medicine as practiced by the Benedictines and Franciscans,
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and even the Jesuits and several other orders who operated hospitals throughout the Western world
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by which they help spread Christianity. I know more about it than name I
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have ever encountered. Now, you know, probably someday someone will step up
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and say, hey, I know more than you. Dad. I'll say,
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okay, I acknowledge your expertise on this matter, and now I have
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some questions for you, obviously. But I have read works in Latin,
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in German, in Old English. I have researched French works. I have
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researched Dutch works. I have I mean, I have researched Polish and Ukrainian,
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Roman, Greek, Roman, Turkish. I have researched the medicine of
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the Middle Ages more than anyone of whom I'm aware, And I think if
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anyone did more work on this subject than I have, I would have encountered
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their books. At some point. I have gone to original sources. I
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have learned to speak Latin just to be able to read this stuff. I
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have gone through tedious translations. Saint Hildegarde's system of medicine, as described in
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Physica and Cause a Cure is entirely unique. Okay, I would say it's
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in. I would say it is. There's going to be crossover in the
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use of herbs. Obviously, if you say sage is good for a furth
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road, okay, well, anybody that uses a sage is gonna say sage
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is good for a sourthroad. I don't care if you're talking to a person
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of a Chinese tradition or a person of a Greek tradition or a Native American
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tradition. They never met each other and they lived five hundred years apart.
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You know, if they know that this herb is good for this purpose,
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they're going to say this herb is good for this purpose. Saint Hildegard did,
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have, of course, some crossover, a good deal, a good
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deal crossover, but in the vast majority of herbal remedies, she used them
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in ways that were not prescribed by her contemporaries, either of those who came
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before and many who came after, but especially those who came before, because
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many who came after were very much influenced by her work, but certainly not
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certainly not based on monastic medicine. In fact, many, many, many
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of her her remedies, her cures had a very strong spiritual context that we
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do not understand. We do not understand, and she did not limit her
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work in curing two medicinal herbs. She used various woods just to be held
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in a person his hand. She believed these woods were given by God that
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had certain curative and harmonizing powers. Then there's a word, I'm gonna use
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harmonizing. She used gems and crystals. Yeah, you like the New Age?
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You know who witchee people. She actually did. She was documented use
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of these herbs in the eleven hundreds in ways that were totally foreign to Western
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monastic medicine, and she did not have knowledge of other cultures that may have
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been using these Again, we'll get to that in a minute. Don't think
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she's you know, wooho witchie. This is a doctor of the church.
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This is a saint. This is one of the most enlightened Christian mystics of
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all time. We call her a mystic because she got her knowledge directly from
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conversations with Jesus, angels and saints, the voice of the Living Light,
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as she called it. She used various meats and fishes. That's not entirely
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foreign to the herbal medicine or the medicine i should say, of the Middle
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Ages, but in the way she used them it was. She even used
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cookies made with spices for basically what we would call now add Nobody knew what
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add and adhd was back then. They may have known another one of her
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diagnosis, like melancholy, which we would now call it depression. Yeah,
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she used cookies, spice cookies. Really, that's totally totally foreign, Okay.
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She came up with many formulas that would lead to the Swedish bidders to
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Vermouth, the Vermouth that has began as a medicinal wine, mainly using wormwood
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as the herb, but several others in combination. Wormwood is actually come and
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vermouth come from an Old German word for the same plant. She called it
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wormouth. In fact, now it's mixed with cocktails, but it's an additional
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wine. She came up with amazing things. I mean, she had this
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vision of healing which is very modern to the Western world and very it would
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have been foreign to those she was speaking with. I can tell you that
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much. It did not come from Abbott Wallerford Strabo, who wrote Hortualists in
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seven hundred. It did not come from DS Cords, or Galen, or
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Hippocrates, or Planning the Elder, or Theophrastus, all of whom I have
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read. It did not come from German folk medicine, much of which I
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have read. This is really unique, Okay. For instance, she said
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to for general healing, especially to help the vision, but to help with
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all sickness and depression melancholy, she recommended gazing at greenfields and woodlands on a
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sunny day. Why She called it riditas the force of life in nature,
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in light, in green things specifically. Why. Well, this is where
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we actually get into some synchronicity between different medicinal traditions going back thousands of years,
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in different cultures that had no crossover. In the Greeks, you had
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the theory of the humors. In Chinese medicine, you have yin and yang
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in Ira Vada, you have the doshas. This is energetics. What Saint
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Hildegarde realized that modern physicists would not come to a full understanding of until I
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mean Einstein, you know the other some working before him, But he really
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had the greatest grasp all matter, whether it's something you could touch, or
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a gas or a light, well, it doesn't matter. On Earth and
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space everywhere is comprised at its most basic form of energy. That energy can
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neither be created nor destroyed. That energy cannot create itself. Everything in the
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universe was created by a creator that is outside of the universe. And even
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though I might pick up a glass or a stone or my banjo, and
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to me it's a tangible object. If you can get down into the subatomic
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level, it's nothing but energy arranged in a certain frequency. When that frequency
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is disrupted, disharmony enters now. In Saint Hildegarde's concept of health, for
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instance, she would say that God created the universe and it was good.
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That's what the Bible says. It was very good. He created man,
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He gave men free will, everything will find. And then man's sinned,
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original sin. And it's almost as if a clock had been built and through
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man's sin, one gear was damaged. Not only is that clock never going
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to run right again till that gear's fixed, but it's going to throw everything
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out of disharmony. So through that one sin, disharmony disrupted the frequencies at
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which the energies vibrate that make up the entire universe, specifically in an individual,
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that led to disease, decomposition, death. That's actually what the Bible
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says. Go back to Genesis and you will read that. And then I
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guess go to the Gospel of John and it will talk about how Jesus didn't
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just bring to redeem man, but to redeem the entire universe through man.
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And where the symbolism of the clock would kind of fall apart, the clock
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would actually see man as free will, so the clock would have to ask
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the clockmaker to fix it, you know. So that's not going to happen.
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But man, through unifying his will to God, through coming to repentance
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and fixing what is wrong within him, through partaking of the sacraments, can
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bring himself back into harmony. He can bring those around him through his influence,
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his family, back into harmony. And eventually, as our Blessed Mother
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tells us, and as the Book of Revelations states in apocalyptic terms, death
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and disease and disintegration and disharmony will be defeated, and heaven and earth will
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be made anew as they were intended to be in the first place. Had
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said not entered in the picture and messed it up. So with that energetic
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and spiritual understanding of of health, we can begin to understand that Saint Hildegard's
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work actually makes synergistic coherence of all traditional healing traditions of all peoples on the
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earth, Christian and non Christian. You know that really shouldn't surprise us.
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I mean, we read in the Bible that everyone shared knowledge before the Tower
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babble, before their you know, their languages were confused, Okay, probably
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allegorical. It was very interesting. I was listening to someone the other day
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who was talking about this whole these hearings on Capitol Hill about aliens and all
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that, and he said, you know, he going back through history and
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he finds that often people would go into ecstatic states, use lucinagistic drugs,
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et cetera, et cetera, and communicate with demons, and the emons would
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give them technological knowledge that would allow them to rise above their peers, conquer
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others, subjugate, others, et cetera. Very very very true, you
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know, in the Ancients, in the writings of ancient Egypt, certainly true
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in the Masonic Order and all that, and we're very much moving toward that
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in artificial intelligence and transhumanism. I mean, it's just like the Tower of
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Babel, the arrogance of man saying I will build a tower to Heaven,
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I'll become my own God, just as you know Satan said. It could
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be, of course that the Tower of Babel, they obviously could not build
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a physical tower to Heaven. Maybe an allegory teaching us about those very things
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where people were trying to tap in to that knowledge and the result was technology
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and God, you know, confused the languages to set them back. The
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very goal of the Masonic Order is to do that very thing, and that's
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the very goal of transhumanism as well. And I don't even know that the
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to inform each other, but you know, I guess that's why I'm not
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too worried that the end of the world's going to come any day now,
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because one, you know, our blessed Mother tells us that the Muslims and
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the Jews and Protestants will all convert to Christianity before that time comes. Essentially,
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that's my understanding of her prophecies. But also God will not be mocked,
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just as they built the Tower of Babel and he knocked him down.
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I firmly expect a solar flare or a nuclear accident or something to just set
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us back any day. And as far as aliens, hey, I don't
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know if aliens exists or not. I don't doubt there's life on other plant
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planets. It really doesn't affect me. It doesn't bother me. If their
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life on another planets, there's still one God, so it's not like it's
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going to disrupt my life or by belief system. You know, if there
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are life one of the plants, they may be a little more advanced,
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but they're just as screwed up as we are. Because all of the universe
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was affected by the fall of man, and we don't know that that man
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was on Earth or brazillion light years away on another planet. It's man in
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general. We don't have to try to make things fit our limited understanding.
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So anyway, but also when we think of Saint Hildegard being given her knowledge
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by the angels of the saints. We can think of another figure in Christian
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history, King Solomon. He was said to have been given all knowledge of
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plants and animals, all knowledge of medicinal herbs, given by God. So
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that's the wisdom of Solomon. If st Hi, if God wanted to give
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Saint Hildegard the wisdom of Solomon, boom, he did it right. God
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can do anything, and it's just kind of up to us to understand it.
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And hey, maybe if one of those aliens pops up one day,
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I'll hand him a copy of some of Saint hill Regard's work and say,
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you know, what do you think? And hopefully he won't eat me.
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But you know, that's just my opinion. I can tell you she certainly
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had more knowledge and insight into man, the universe, and the natural and
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spiritual world in relation to health than anyone whose knowledge has ever been recorded.
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In no way I believe that a barely educated woman, or even the best
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educated person of either sex could come to this knowledge through books or the wisdom
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of the day. Frankly, she wasn't particularly all that literate. I mean,
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her education was severely hindered by her physical ailments. Yeah, maybe she
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had access to a few. Maybe she had discordies book, but her cures,
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her remedies were not out demonteria medica, and they were not out of
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the apothecaries of the monks and nuns of the day. They just weren't except
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for a little common sense overlap. You know, if you say, yarrow,
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help stop bleeding, that's going to be true for any person, any
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part of the world, at any time. But frankly, a few people,
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if anyone, can grasp the and understand the full meaning of her writings
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on medicine today, much less her theological works her visionary works daily, I
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asked for the prayers of Saint Hildegard and many saints to help me understand the
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vast depth and breadth of verbal medicine. It's yeah, it could be quite
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overwhelming. Honestly, most people stick pick one tradition and stick with it.
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I chose to study all the herbal traditions of all the peoples on earth from
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the beginning of time. Most people don't do that. I mean, that's
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you know, it's it's it's constant reading, constant learning, and that's what
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informs my work. But to understand Saint Hilgard's medicine, one first has to
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start with her concept of man as a microcossum. To viewer medical writing separately
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from her theological writings is frankly absurd. If I were to say that an
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aspirin lower's fevers and reduces pain without providing you any evidence or any studies supporting
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the efficacy of aspirin, and no one had ever heard of aspirin before,
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no one would understand why I recommend aspirin. To try to understand Saint Hildegard's
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medicinal writings out of context is not possible, and giving her prolific prolific writing
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is wilful. Let's see if I get this right wilful, and I think
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that's a good place to stop for the day. We'll pick us up tomorrow.
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You've got some basic concepts now, and hopefully you understand why most people
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who read her writings misunderstand them completely, and why they confuse even the best
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herbalists, and why even the theologian has to just pray his way through it
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and try to understand. Because you know, I probably I'll probably quote this
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again. It's a great Buddhist quote. You know, Buddhists make great quotes
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the great storytellers, and they are good at making complex ideas simple. And
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the old Buddhist quote is wise words are like the finger pointing at the moon.
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Well, see, the wise words merely show you the way to the
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moon. If you're focused, if your vision is so constricted, if you
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were wearing blinders and you could only see the hand with the finger pointing,
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you have no idea what's pointing at. You know, you always have to
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remember even the most profound words, even the most deep meaning, is pointing
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you towards something greater. And that's really the way we need to approach Saint
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Hildegarde's philosophy of medicine, but even far more than that, her theology.
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This is a woman in you know, early eleven hundred two hundred stood physics
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and chemistry and microbiology and all kinds of astronomical stuff and etcetera, etcetera,
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a thousand years before anybody else did. And you know, it's not humanly
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possible that she did that, and she never once claimed it was humanly possible.
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She said she was told these things, so the voice of the Living
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light. So yeah, we'll pick this up tomorrow. It's been a half
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hour and I'm yeah, otherwise I'll just overwhelm you. So let's go ahead
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and wrap it up. Saint hilrigarvon Benjin Pray for us in the words of
31:59
Saint Padrick Pio. Pray hope and don't worry. Saint Padrick Pio, Pray
32:04
for us in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. I mean