Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #0104_ STORY INSPIRE: Lost Your Way? — How to Find Yourself, Rebuild Your Purpose & Move Forward

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#0104_ STORY INSPIRE: Lost Your Way? — How to Find Yourself, Rebuild Your Purpose & Move Forward · INSPIRE STORY

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody.
0:01
Speaker 2: I hope you find this week's lecture interesting, compelling and useful.
0:06
Speaker 2: I've also written and posted a diatribe against the climate
0:10
Speaker 2: change apocalypse mongers, outlining the true ecological significance of industrial
0:17
Speaker 2: carbon dioxide production.
0:19
Speaker 1: It's not what you think. It's certainly not what you've
0:21
Speaker 1: been told.
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Speaker 2: Anyways, check it out if you're interested. I think it's
0:26
Speaker 2: one of the better journalism pieces that I've written. I
0:30
Speaker 2: have been writing a bit lately, so I think that's
0:33
Speaker 2: a good thing.
0:33
Speaker 1: I hope you agree. Note, the essay, the diatribe, is
0:39
Speaker 1: available on X at Jordan B.
0:41
Speaker 2: Peterson and on my blog. If you sign up to
0:44
Speaker 2: my newsletter, you'll get notified of these essays early. You
0:48
Speaker 2: can do that at jordanbpeterson.com.
0:52
Speaker 1: On with the show. Thank you all. So I want
1:32
Speaker 1: to talk to you tonight about.
1:33
Speaker 3: The last part of the story of Moses and the Israelites.
1:46
Speaker 1: After the commandments. And I want to do that because
1:57
Speaker 1: The story of Moses and the Israelites is an archetypal story.
2:02
Speaker 1: And what that means is that it's a story that
2:06
Speaker 1: has been stripped to its essence. The essence of the
2:13
Speaker 1: story is a story that is always happening. That's how
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Speaker 1: it's true. It's true in that it happened and it's
2:23
Speaker 1: always happening and it will continue to happen. And that's
2:27
Speaker 1: a very interesting form of truth. That's the truth of
2:31
Speaker 1: the eternal narrative. It's the truth of the story of
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Speaker 1: the individual and man and God. Always and forever. That's
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Speaker 1: a good way of thinking about it. Now, there's a
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Speaker 1: particular reason that Moses gets the commandments. And this is...
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Speaker 1: perhaps how they should be most deeply understood. After the
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Speaker 1: Israelites are led away from tyranny and across the chaos
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Speaker 1: of the Red Sea, they enter the desert where they
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Speaker 1: wander for three generations, 40 years. And it's not that
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Speaker 1: long a trip. Not geographically, but the duration of their
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Speaker 1: wanderings indicate that the eternal truth that if you're lost,
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Speaker 1: it can take you forever to get to where you're headed. Right.
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Speaker 1: It reflects also the fact that the fact of their
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Speaker 1: sojourn in the desert also reflects something that's very much
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Speaker 1: worth knowing. It's a crucial realization in relationship to individual
3:57
Speaker 1: and social psychology, we all face the threat of tyranny.
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Speaker 1: That's why the story of Moses is a universal and
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Speaker 1: eternally true story. Every person has to contend with the
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Speaker 1: reality of tyranny and slavery. So, for example, you might
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Speaker 1: be the slave of your habits or the slave of
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Speaker 1: your presumptions. or the slave of your pride, or the
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Speaker 1: slave of your appetites. Those are all forces that tyrannize
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Speaker 1: over you, but that you enable with your slavish habits.
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Speaker 1: That's a good way of thinking about it. You might
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Speaker 1: be a tyrant in your marriage. You might be a
4:43
Speaker 1: tyrant in your workplace. You might be a tyrant in
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Speaker 1: your utterances on X. You might be a tyrant to
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Speaker 1: your children. You might live under a political tyranny. And
5:05
Speaker 1: you have to contend with the fact of your own
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Speaker 1: proclivity to slavish conduct. And so, the landscape of tyranny
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Speaker 1: and slavery is the landscape that everyone by necessity traverses.
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Speaker 1: And the genuine leader, which is what Moses is, is
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Speaker 1: the is the man who learns to stand up against
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Speaker 1: the forces of tyranny and who forever leads those who
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Speaker 1: are enslaved away from the tyrant, across the sea of chaos,
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Speaker 1: into the desert, and toward the promised land. And the
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Speaker 1: reason for that is that we're always moving to some
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Speaker 1: destination that we desire. That's the journey of life, is
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Speaker 1: to move from the State or condition that we presently occupy.
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Speaker 1: To the next highest mountaintop. And then after that to
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Speaker 1: the mountaintop above that. And then past that to the
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Speaker 1: mountaintop past that. And so on. Until the journey comes
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Speaker 1: to an end. And then you might ask as well.
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Speaker 1: Why do you cross the Red Sea? Before you enter
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Speaker 1: the desert. After freeing yourself from tyranny. And the answer is. Well,
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Speaker 1: when you're under the thumb of a tyrant, you're dependent
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Speaker 1: and infantile and slavish and possessed of a false certainty.
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Speaker 1: But when you abandon that or move beyond it, and
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Speaker 1: that all falls apart, you don't instantaneously find yourself with
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Speaker 1: the habits of a free and responsible person. you find
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Speaker 1: yourself in the chaos that's the inevitable bloody aftermath of
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Speaker 1: the collapse of a tyranny, and then in a period
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Speaker 1: of chaos and confusion that can last for decades or
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Speaker 1: lifetimes in the aftermath of that. And if you want
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Speaker 1: to know why people are willing to be the slaves
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Speaker 1: even of their own tyranny, one answer to that is
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Speaker 1: that they're very loath to experience the Red Sea chaos
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Speaker 1: and the sojourn in the desert lost. That's the inevitable
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Speaker 1: consequence of moving beyond even the foolish assumptions of a
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Speaker 1: tyrannical state. Sometimes before you move from being bad to better,
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Speaker 1: you move from bad to worse. And the fact that
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Speaker 1: you can move from bad to worse before moving to
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Speaker 1: better is one of the things that forever keeps you
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Speaker 1: locked in the kingdom of what's undesirable. It's a great mystery, right?
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Speaker 1: Because it's a very curious thing that it's unlikely that
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Speaker 1: people will stand up Against tyranny or reject. Even in
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Speaker 1: the microcosm of their own life. Within the confines of
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Speaker 1: their own mind. Within the strictures of their own marriage.
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Speaker 1: If you understand that when you leave tyranny you're lost.
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Speaker 1: Then you understand why people are afraid. To move forward
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Speaker 1: even beyond that which is not. Desirable or acceptable to them.
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Speaker 1: And Moses is the person who. Leads. He's the embodiment
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Speaker 1: of the spirit. That forever leads people. Away from tyranny.
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Speaker 1: Across the Red Sea. And then through the lost desert.
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Speaker 1: Now what happens in the desert. Is that the Israelites
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Speaker 1: lose faith. And what does that mean? Well it means that.
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Speaker 1: When you're lost. It's easy for you to. Despair. To
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Speaker 1: lose the faith in the future. That's a necessary precondition
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Speaker 1: of the commitment to move forward. Even to lose faith
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Speaker 1: in the goodness of not only being, but also of
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Speaker 1: transformation itself. A cataclysmic loss of faith. And the lost
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Speaker 1: Israelites lose faith continually and in consequence. And they have
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Speaker 1: the habits of fractious slaves. And Because they were slaves
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Speaker 1: for so long, they no longer know how to take
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Speaker 1: responsibility for themselves. They're not integrated psychologically. They're not mature.
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Speaker 1: They're immature. They're infantile. They can't regulate their own behavior.
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Speaker 1: They're hedonistic. They're desirous of power. And they fight amongst
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Speaker 1: themselves because they don't have the experience or the good
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Speaker 1: sense or the wisdom or even the desire to adopt
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Speaker 1: responsibility for regulating their own conduct. And that's part of
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Speaker 1: the attraction of the hedonism that makes itself manifest in
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Speaker 1: the story that I'll talk to you about tonight. And
9:58
Speaker 1: instead of stepping forward to take responsibility so that they
10:01
Speaker 1: can adjudicate their own conflicts, they call upon Moses to
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Speaker 1: act as their judge. And that's how fractious, infantile, dependent
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Speaker 1: slaves rekindle tyranny around them. And so they ask Moses
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Speaker 1: to sit as judge.
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Speaker 4: And.
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Speaker 1: He's already somewhat contemptuous of them because they're so faithless
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Speaker 1: and hedonistic and immature and puerile and whiny and impossible
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Speaker 1: to lead and pining for the tyranny and irresponsible. And
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Speaker 1: he agrees to sit as judge. And the Israelites bring
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Speaker 1: their troubles to him from dawn till midnight for a decade.
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Speaker 1: And all he does is hear their squabbles and adjudicate
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Speaker 1: their disputes like the father of fighting siblings. Imagine your
10:54
Speaker 1: favorite lecture. Dial that up on Macs, put that on steroids,
10:59
Speaker 1: and then add some cinematic elements to it. That's the
11:01
Speaker 1: best way I could describe a Peterson Academy lecture. I
11:07
Speaker 1: went to college because I had to. I go to
11:09
Speaker 1: Peterson Academy because I want to. I'm still paying off
11:11
Speaker 1: college from 10 years ago, and I'm also still questioning
11:14
Speaker 1: the value that I got out of college. In traditional universities,
11:17
Speaker 1: a lot of times, it's just pretty dry. They don't
11:20
Speaker 1: bring the same energy as the professors at Peterson Academy.
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Speaker 1: It is a completely different experience to learn from somebody
11:26
Speaker 1: who actually wants to teach you. If you've been on
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Speaker 1: the events about this, this is the time. That thing
11:32
Speaker 1: that's calling to you, you won't have an answer for
11:33
Speaker 1: it unless you enroll and see for yourself. You have
11:36
Speaker 1: the opportunity to investigate that calling. Now you could understand
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Speaker 1: that if you perform that role, as perhaps you do
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Speaker 1: in your positions of responsibility as parents and in the
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Speaker 1: broader community, that In order to render a judgment that holds,
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Speaker 1: you have to abide by the principles of natural justice.
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Speaker 1: That's a good way of thinking about it. So if
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Speaker 1: I'm sitting as a psychotherapist, and I'm speaking to two
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Speaker 1: married individuals who are having a conflict, and I'm listening
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Speaker 1: to their complaints, in order for me to mediate between
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Speaker 1: them so that they can come together without further conflict,
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Speaker 1: Tension and and turmoil I have to render a judgment
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Speaker 1: Let's say if I'm acting in the role of Moses
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Speaker 1: in that situation after render a judgment that they actually
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Speaker 1: both find Not only acceptable, but perhaps even desirable. It's
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Speaker 1: a very difficult thing to manage and A judge whose
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Speaker 1: judgment stands isn't someone who forces either party to abide
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Speaker 1: by an arbitrary dictate, but someone who mediates the conflict
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Speaker 1: such that both parties who are disagreeing view the new
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Speaker 1: arrangement as preferable to the previous arrangement and to the conflict.
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Speaker 1: And even perhaps if the judgment isn't perfect, it will
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Speaker 1: stand if they themselves can't come up with a better solution.
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Speaker 1: And so now imagine Moses becomes the master of such judgment.
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Speaker 1: And he does that for a generation. He builds up
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Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of implicit knowledge about the structure of social,
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Speaker 1: psychological and social order itself. And that sets the stage. Now,
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Speaker 1: his father-in-law Jethro comes to him during this time and
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Speaker 1: says something terrible. of extraordinary importance for the entire history
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Speaker 1: of Western civilization, and likely the world. He says, you
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Speaker 1: can't continue to do this. And Moses says, why not?
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Speaker 1: And he says, well, first of all, you're wearing yourself out.
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Speaker 1: You're taking responsibility for 100,000 people or more, and no
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Speaker 1: one can bear that burden and survive. And so it's
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Speaker 1: not good for you, and it can't sustain itself, and so...
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Speaker 1: That's not acceptable. It's certainly not ideal, and it's not
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Speaker 1: even acceptable. And then Jethro says, but it's worse than that,
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Speaker 1: what you're doing, because by mediating the Israelites' disputes for them,
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Speaker 1: you take away from them the necessity for their own maturation,
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Speaker 1: that development. You leave them as slaves, and you're setting
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Speaker 1: yourself up again as a pharaoh in the desert. And
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Speaker 1: so he tells Moses, in essence, that... the man who's
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Speaker 1: supposed to be the prophet of God is being tempted
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Speaker 1: by the offer of power, and that that's a spiritual
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Speaker 1: danger to him and a catastrophe for the Israelites, even
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Speaker 1: though they might be happy about it, because it means
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Speaker 1: they wouldn't have to bear any responsibility for determining their
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Speaker 1: own way forward. And so, Jethro tells Moses to have
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Speaker 1: the people divide themselves into groups of ten, And to
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Speaker 1: appoint from within that group of ten the best person
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Speaker 1: to represent that group. And then to gather the representatives
15:06
Speaker 1: together in groups of ten. And have them elect a
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Speaker 1: representative of representatives. And to do that all the way
15:12
Speaker 1: up in groups of ten and fifty. Up to the
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Speaker 1: level of ten thousands. And for them to mediate their
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Speaker 1: disputes in accordance with that hierarchy. So if you and
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Speaker 1: your wife can't get along, you can go to the
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Speaker 1: local representative. Of ten. And perhaps he can render a judgment.
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Speaker 1: And if he's unable to solve the problem. Then he
15:32
Speaker 1: can bump it up. The new hierarchy of distributed responsibility.
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Speaker 1: To his representative. And if that doesn't work. Then it
15:40
Speaker 1: can go up the chain of command. Another level. And
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Speaker 1: if it goes all the way up to the ten thousands.
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Speaker 1: And it can't be mediated. Then Moses who's the prophet
15:48
Speaker 1: of God can step in. And only then can he
15:51
Speaker 1: render a judgment. And that's. That is the erection of
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Speaker 1: a distributed hierarchy of responsibility as the alternative to the
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Speaker 1: tyrant and the slave. And that's the model for your country. Right.
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Speaker 1: And that model only works if people take responsibility at
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Speaker 1: every single level of the hierarchy. And to the degree
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Speaker 1: that they take responsibility, they don't need a tyrant. And
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Speaker 1: they're not slaves. And that means that the absence of
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Speaker 1: tyranny in your country and the absence of slavery is
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Speaker 1: not a consequence of the fact that you have rights,
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Speaker 1: but a reflection of the fact that you bear the
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Speaker 1: responsibility for governing yourself. Right.
16:33
Speaker 5: Right.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 1: And the politicians who wish to turn the polity into
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Speaker 1: a nanny state that does nothing but cater to hedonistic
16:46
Speaker 1: infants should remember that all that does is call forth
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Speaker 1: the spirit of tyranny. Right. And that's what happens in
16:53
Speaker 1: this story. So Moses is well prepared for the revelation
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Speaker 1: of the law because he's... put himself in a position
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Speaker 1: to understand the structure of the law by rendering judgment
17:12
Speaker 1: in a professional capacity for many, many years, for thousands
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Speaker 1: and thousands of hours. And he receives the revelation of
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Speaker 1: the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments are the law.
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Speaker 1: And you might ask yourself, well, what is the law?
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Speaker 1: And you could say, well, it's the word received from
17:29
Speaker 1: on high. And there's truth in that, but... It's an
17:33
Speaker 1: incomplete truth because the law is also a reflection of
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Speaker 1: the customs and the behaviors of the people, of any
17:42
Speaker 1: people who've managed to organize a mature self and a
17:47
Speaker 1: collective community that functions as a consensual structure across time.
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Speaker 1: So imagine that as you mature, you move away from
18:03
Speaker 1: The demand that every one of your instinctive whims be
18:08
Speaker 1: gratified now to the realization that at times you have
18:14
Speaker 1: to forego what's of immediate value so that you can
18:22
Speaker 1: thrive and develop over the medium and long run. And
18:27
Speaker 1: so as you mature, you substitute your narrow self bound
18:31
Speaker 1: to the moment You substitute for that the iteration of
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Speaker 1: your future self out into the decades of your adulthood.
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Speaker 1: And you make the sacrifices of your whim in the
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Speaker 1: present that increase the probability of your future well-being and
18:48
Speaker 1: continued growth. That's part of maturation. But that's not the
18:52
Speaker 1: only part of maturation. The other part of maturation is
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Speaker 1: that You learn to take turns, let's say, when you're
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Speaker 1: somewhere between two and four and learning to be a
19:04
Speaker 1: social creature or a communal creature. And what that means
19:07
Speaker 1: is that you sacrifice your immediate demands for the sake
19:12
Speaker 1: of the reciprocal relationship with others. And then you could
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Speaker 1: imagine that the pattern of sacrifice that serves you as
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Speaker 1: an individual best in the future and you as an
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Speaker 1: individual in communal relationship with other people is the same pattern.
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Speaker 1: And that's the pattern of maturity. And that pattern of
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Speaker 1: Future sacrifice and communal maturity is the essence of the
19:39
Speaker 1: behavioral patterns of a sustainable, productive, hospitable, and generous society.
19:47
Speaker 1: And there's nothing about that that's morally relative. It's very
19:52
Speaker 1: unlikely that that situation, balanced that well, will emerge. Just
19:57
Speaker 1: as unlikely as it is that you'll attain a continual
20:00
Speaker 1: state of productive and generous harmony within the confines of
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Speaker 1: your marriage or your family. But that doesn't mean that
20:07
Speaker 1: that state... has no existence, and it doesn't mean that
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Speaker 1: the pattern of that existence is arbitrary. Quite the contrary.
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Speaker 1: It means that the harmony that prevails between your current
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Speaker 1: self and your future self, and you as an isolated
20:21
Speaker 1: individual and everyone else, is the straight, narrow path that
20:25
Speaker 1: leads up Jacob's ladder to the kingdom of God. That's
20:28
Speaker 1: what it means symbolically, right? And that's built into the
20:32
Speaker 1: structure of That's built into the structure of reality itself.
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Speaker 1: And the law that comes to Moses is an explicit
20:40
Speaker 1: representation of that underlying reality. And Moses has access to
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Speaker 1: it first because he sits as judge. And second, because
20:47
Speaker 1: in a burst of revelatory intuition, he can make explicit
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Speaker 1: what up till then has only been implicit ritual and custom.
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Speaker 1: The emergence of the law is the description of the
21:04
Speaker 1: customs and rituals that unite a society and that constitute maturity.
21:08
Speaker 1: And that's what Moses offers his people. Straight from the
21:13
Speaker 1: lips of God. It takes Moses 40 days to journey
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Speaker 1: up the mountain and to confer with God and to
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Speaker 1: receive the revelation and to descend. And during that time,
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Speaker 1: the state falls into the hands of Aaron. And Aaron
21:31
Speaker 1: is Moses' political wing. So when Moses is called upon
21:37
Speaker 1: to be a leader, which happens when he encounters the
21:41
Speaker 1: burning bush, which is a symbol of life, it's a
21:45
Speaker 1: symbol of life and its transformations, he objects to the
21:50
Speaker 1: call telling God that he's not the right man for
21:54
Speaker 1: the job because he's incapable of speaking in a manner
22:00
Speaker 1: that is attractive to the public, and God says to
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Speaker 1: Moses two things. Nothing is impossible when it comes to God,
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Speaker 1: and second, that Moses' inadequacy is no excuse for his
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Speaker 1: failure to adopt the responsibility of leadership. And so, and
22:21
Speaker 1: that's the case for all of us. Because you might think,
22:24
Speaker 1: not me, but... And you might have a list of
22:27
Speaker 1: reasons why not you, but none of those reasons suffice.
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Speaker 1: Not least because the abandonment of that responsibility, even in
22:34
Speaker 1: the face of your own inadequacy, is the pathway to
22:37
Speaker 1: slavery and tyranny. And so... When Moses leaves, so this
22:50
Speaker 1: is when God vanishes, right? Because Moses is the prophetic voice.
22:54
Speaker 1: When Moses leaves, the fractious slaves conspire with the political
23:00
Speaker 1: voice to regress into a state of materialistic hedonism. That's
23:08
Speaker 1: what the worship of the golden calf signifies. So a
23:12
Speaker 1: calf is a form of... A calf... In a tribal community,
23:19
Speaker 1: in a nomadic tribal community of herders, wealth is flock.
23:26
Speaker 1: And a calf is a symbol of stored value. If
23:31
Speaker 1: you have a calf, you have something to eat. If
23:35
Speaker 1: you have a calf, you have something to offer your guests.
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Speaker 1: It's wealth. A golden calf is wealth as such. And
23:43
Speaker 1: the worship of the golden calf is the worship of
23:46
Speaker 1: material wealth. It's the worship of the treasure that rusts
23:50
Speaker 1: on earth. The worship of the treasure that moths can destroy.
23:54
Speaker 1: And not the worship of the treasure that's properly stored
23:57
Speaker 1: in heaven that nothing earthly can demolish. Right? The worship
24:03
Speaker 1: of the golden calf that emerges as a consequence of
24:07
Speaker 1: the absence of the divine word mediated through Moses is
24:11
Speaker 1: accompanied by Orgeastic, hedonistic celebration. Because Moses returns to find
24:18
Speaker 1: the Israelites not only worshipping an idol, which is the
24:23
Speaker 1: idol of materialistic wealth, but also dancing drunkenly naked in
24:29
Speaker 1: a manner that makes them the laughing stock of their enemies.
24:35
Speaker 1: And if you can't see the relevance of that situation
24:40
Speaker 1: to the current state of the West, then You're part
24:43
Speaker 1: of the problem and not part of the solution. So
24:53
Speaker 1: Moses is enraged as a consequence of the faithlessness of
24:57
Speaker 1: his people. Now, you have to understand too that the
25:01
Speaker 1: Israelites conspire with Aaron to bring about this state of worship.
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Speaker 1: And what that means is that the political voice unmoored from...
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Speaker 1: its concordance with the divine will serve as the handmaid
25:20
Speaker 1: of the materialistic hedonism of the masses. Right. That's the
25:25
Speaker 1: danger of an unbridled populism.
25:28
Speaker 3: Right.
25:29
Speaker 1: It's consensus to the whim, unmoored by respect for tradition
25:34
Speaker 1: and upward aim. And it's also the invitation to tyranny.
25:40
Speaker 1: Because just as the slavish Israelites attempted to transform Moses
25:48
Speaker 1: into the Pharaoh, being unwilling as they were to bear
25:52
Speaker 1: the responsibility for their own life, so the hedonistic materialists
25:56
Speaker 1: of the golden calf worship look to Aaron to become
26:01
Speaker 1: the tyrant that has to regulate everyone if they insist
26:07
Speaker 1: upon acting like impulsive toddlers. Moses is enraged by what's
26:19
Speaker 1: happened and by the faithlessness of his people. And this
26:25
Speaker 1: is also reflective of something that happens politically. So you
26:29
Speaker 1: could imagine that as the mob degenerates into hedonism and materialism,
26:37
Speaker 1: the rulers... called upon to bear the responsibility that the
26:42
Speaker 1: infantile rabble has abdicated, become increasingly contemptuous of them, and
26:50
Speaker 1: more and more likely to tyrannize over them in a
26:53
Speaker 1: manner that is reflective of nothing but the power that's
26:57
Speaker 1: granted to them by the abdication of responsibility. And so
27:02
Speaker 1: there's a vicious spiral, right, as the Populist degenerates into short-term, immature,
27:09
Speaker 1: materialist hedonism, and the rulers gather up all the responsibility
27:14
Speaker 1: and use it as power. They become simultaneously contemptuous of
27:18
Speaker 1: the people they're called upon to regulate and treat them
27:22
Speaker 1: worse and worse. And that's the spiral between hedonism and
27:26
Speaker 1: tyranny that demolishes the state and produces hell. Right? Always. Always. Always.
27:34
Speaker 1: Now too. God, Moses demolishes the tablets in a fit
27:46
Speaker 1: of pique. And maybe as a manifestation of his proclivity
27:50
Speaker 1: to use excess force. Which is Moses' temptation. Because the
27:55
Speaker 1: temptation to power is always the temptation of the person
27:58
Speaker 1: who's called to lead. And it's the temptation of power
28:02
Speaker 1: that's actually Moses' Achilles heel and the eventual reason why
28:05
Speaker 1: he's forbidden to enter the promised land. There's another meaning
28:11
Speaker 1: of the dashing of the tablets. It's the demolition of
28:17
Speaker 1: the divine presence. And what that means is that as
28:21
Speaker 1: individuals and societies degenerate into an immature and infantile state,
28:27
Speaker 1: power-mad materialistic hedonism, their ability to attend to the divine
28:37
Speaker 1: voice of adventure and truth that calls them forth, and
28:43
Speaker 1: the willingness and capacity to attend to the dictates of
28:46
Speaker 1: their own conscience becomes muddied and unclear. In the Gospels,
28:52
Speaker 1: Christ tells us those who search for the sins of
28:56
Speaker 1: others to take the beam out of their own eye,
28:59
Speaker 1: the log, before searching for the dust mote in the
29:02
Speaker 1: eye of their neighbor. And it's a reflection of the
29:04
Speaker 1: same idea, that as you practice what is immature and
29:09
Speaker 1: narrowly self-serving, instead of aiming upward and sacrificing responsibly, your
29:16
Speaker 1: ability to maintain contact with the divine instinct that moves
29:21
Speaker 1: you properly forward is... Damaged and possibly beyond repair. And
29:28
Speaker 1: even in the aftermath of your foolishness. If you repent
29:32
Speaker 1: and atone. It's not necessarily the case that. You'll be
29:36
Speaker 1: able to put Humpty Dumpty back together. And what happens.
29:40
Speaker 1: in the Exodus story is that the Israelites get a
29:44
Speaker 1: second set of commandments, but this time they're written by
29:46
Speaker 1: man and not God. And that's an indication of the fact,
29:50
Speaker 1: twofold fact, that God has decided to recede into the
29:54
Speaker 1: distance as a consequence of the faithlessness and sin of
29:58
Speaker 1: the Israelites. And a consequence of the fact that the
30:02
Speaker 1: secondary covenant that's thereby generated by even Moses, the prophet
30:07
Speaker 1: of God, is of secondary value compared to the genuine
30:12
Speaker 1: voice of adventure and calling and conscience that speaks to
30:17
Speaker 1: everyone from within that would guide them properly even in
30:20
Speaker 1: the absence of law if they refuse to pervert their
30:23
Speaker 1: own vision. Right. God tells the Israelites at the same time, well,
30:34
Speaker 1: first of all, he threatens to destroy them, which he
30:37
Speaker 1: does quite with some stunning regularity. And that's a characteristic
30:42
Speaker 1: of the Old Testament God that makes the atheist materialists
30:46
Speaker 1: of the modern age into prideful critics of the spirit
30:50
Speaker 1: of the Old Testament, claiming as they might that no
30:53
Speaker 1: good God would act in such a way. And it's
30:56
Speaker 1: an absolute mystery to me that in the... Aftermath of
31:01
Speaker 1: the bloody and catastrophic 20th century where we saw the
31:07
Speaker 1: dismal descent of states, of massive states like Nazi Germany
31:14
Speaker 1: and Maoist China and Soviet Socialist China. Soviet Union into
31:22
Speaker 1: abysses of hell that anyone would dare to claim that
31:26
Speaker 1: the wages of sin weren't death because that's exactly what
31:30
Speaker 1: happened there and that's evidence in its purest form That
31:36
Speaker 1: when people abdicate the responsibility for their own self-governance and
31:41
Speaker 1: erect a tyrant as a replacement for the divine order
31:44
Speaker 1: that would properly guide them, that the necessary and inevitable
31:48
Speaker 1: consequence of that is the opening up of the abyss
31:52
Speaker 1: of hell and everyone's descent into it. And that is
31:57
Speaker 1: a reality that threatens continually, that's portrayed in the Old
32:02
Speaker 1: Testament corpus as the inevitable consequences of departure from the
32:08
Speaker 1: straight and narrow path. And there's nothing about that, however
32:13
Speaker 1: terrible that might be, that isn't 100% true. It's like,
32:19
Speaker 1: Walk off the path, not only at your peril, but
32:23
Speaker 1: at the peril of everyone you love and everything you
32:27
Speaker 1: hold dear.
32:29
Speaker 5: Right.
32:29
Speaker 1: And you people in the United States have remembered that
32:32
Speaker 1: well for some 250 years. And God help us all
32:37
Speaker 1: if you forget it. Moses maintains faith with God, and
32:50
Speaker 1: that means that the fate of the Israelites themselves is
32:54
Speaker 1: now dependent on the unmarred relationship between one man and
33:01
Speaker 1: the divine pathway forward. And that's a terrifying state, but
33:08
Speaker 1: there's a psychological truth that's embedded in it as well,
33:11
Speaker 1: which is that it's akin to the realization that The
33:18
Speaker 1: pathway forward specified by the Christian sacrifice is the hoisting
33:23
Speaker 1: of the cross of ultimate responsibility onto the shoulders of
33:27
Speaker 1: the individuals who are true followers of the spirit of divinity.
33:31
Speaker 1: It's the same idea. And that means everyone.
33:36
Speaker 3: Right?
33:36
Speaker 1: Because these stories represent human beings as such. And so...
33:42
Speaker 1: The fact that Moses maintains his connection with the divine.
33:47
Speaker 1: Even in the presence of the corruption of his people.
33:50
Speaker 1: And that that's sufficient to guide the world properly forward.
33:54
Speaker 1: Is a model for the manner in which you're to
33:56
Speaker 1: conduct your life. To stand up against tyranny and slavery.
34:01
Speaker 1: Insofar as you're capable of doing that within the confines
34:04
Speaker 1: of your own life. And thereby become the light on
34:08
Speaker 1: the hill that guides other people properly upward. Right. And
34:12
Speaker 1: that's the same idea as the voluntary acceptance of the responsibility,
34:21
Speaker 1: of the distributed responsibility of the state that's the alternative
34:26
Speaker 1: to tyranny and slavery. Those are the same ideas. Now,
34:33
Speaker 1: as a reward for Moses' faithfulness, God reveals himself even
34:38
Speaker 1: more fully to his disciples. And he hides Moses in
34:44
Speaker 1: the cleft of a rock and shields him and walks
34:47
Speaker 1: by and allows Moses to get a glimpse of his back.
34:55
Speaker 1: And the back of something is where it's already been.
34:59
Speaker 1: And the idea there is that as Moses deepens his
35:03
Speaker 1: relationship with the spirit that calls him forward as leader,
35:09
Speaker 1: his ability to apprehend the manifestations of the divine in
35:13
Speaker 1: the workings of the world increases and deepens. To the
35:18
Speaker 1: point where it's virtually unbearable. But that his intrinsic goodness
35:23
Speaker 1: and willingness to make the sacrifices necessary to transform as
35:28
Speaker 1: a leader protects him against the destruction that would otherwise
35:32
Speaker 1: visit him when exposed too cataclysmically to evil. To the
35:38
Speaker 1: divine fire itself. Moses sets up the tabernacle. Which is
35:46
Speaker 1: the church around which the community is founded. On the
35:49
Speaker 1: edge of the Israelite encampments. Because they've departed so badly.
35:54
Speaker 1: From their relationship. Their covenantal relationship with God. And he
36:00
Speaker 1: continues his dialogue. With the spirit that guides him. And he.
36:05
Speaker 1: In consequence of that, and the Israelites' forthright decision to
36:11
Speaker 1: repent and to return to the proper path, God relents
36:14
Speaker 1: and either emerges to lead the Israelites again, or sends
36:19
Speaker 1: an angel to guide them. If it's the angel or
36:24
Speaker 1: God himself, it's a worthy replacement for the secondary tablets,
36:30
Speaker 1: and it's an indication of the fact that even in
36:34
Speaker 1: the aftermath of egregious error, meditation on upward aim and
36:42
Speaker 1: willingness to confess, repent and atone can reestablish the relationship
36:51
Speaker 1: between the spirit of adventure, calling and conscience that serves
36:55
Speaker 1: as the alternative to subjugation to a tyrant. Right, and
37:00
Speaker 1: this is a good thing to know in your own
37:02
Speaker 1: life because it means that even if you've lost your
37:05
Speaker 1: way and are in the desert wandering blindly and hopelessly
37:08
Speaker 1: and ridden with anxiety and in a contentious and fractious
37:14
Speaker 1: and faithless mood, if you Make the sacrifices necessary. To
37:19
Speaker 1: put yourself back together. And approach the problem. With sufficient humility.
37:24
Speaker 1: And that would be a humility. Proportionate to the magnitude
37:27
Speaker 1: of your sins. Unfortunately. Then you have the. The offer.
37:33
Speaker 1: For you to reattain. The relationship with the. Even what
37:38
Speaker 1: would you say. Divine forces of instinct. That would otherwise
37:41
Speaker 1: lead you forward properly. You have the option of reestablishing.
37:45
Speaker 1: That relationship. And that's a wonderful thing to understand because
37:51
Speaker 1: it means that even if and when you wander, which
37:56
Speaker 1: is a certainty that there is still the possibility of
38:00
Speaker 1: return to the straight and narrow path. And so the
38:05
Speaker 1: Israelites continue their voyage forward. Onward into the desert. But
38:19
Speaker 1: their bad habits reemerge. Despite the fact that they're provided
38:29
Speaker 1: with sufficient sustenance as they move forward. The manna from heaven,
38:35
Speaker 1: which is spiritual food. And the quails, which represent food
38:42
Speaker 1: as such in its material form. The sustenance of the
38:46
Speaker 1: Israelites being the balance between wisdom and corporal nourishment that
38:51
Speaker 1: are necessary preconditions for life. The Israelites are provided with
38:55
Speaker 1: sufficient sustenance, spiritually and materially, but they begin to... They
39:11
Speaker 1: begin to cultivate their own desires. They fall prey to
39:14
Speaker 1: the sin of hedonistic gluttony. And they start to complain
39:19
Speaker 1: that the sufficiency with which they've been provided was inadequate.
39:25
Speaker 1: They come to despise the manna. and the quails and
39:31
Speaker 1: to demand even a return to the tyranny of Egypt
39:35
Speaker 1: so that they can enjoy a more diverse plethora of
39:40
Speaker 1: hedonistically enjoyable pleasure. They cultivate their own desires. They're ungrateful
39:56
Speaker 1: to be provided with what's strictly and appropriately necessary. And
40:02
Speaker 1: so they fall prey again to the pull of this
40:07
Speaker 1: immature demand for immediate gratification. And the punishment that God
40:12
Speaker 1: brings forward is twofold. The first is that He provides
40:21
Speaker 1: them with so many. With so much food. In the
40:25
Speaker 1: form of quails. That. It's literally stacked. Three feet high.
40:31
Speaker 1: As far as they can see. And coming out of
40:35
Speaker 1: their nostrils. And so. The. Consequence of their. Cultivation of their.
40:43
Speaker 1: Narcissistic desire. Is. The production of a surfite. That's so.
40:51
Speaker 1: Overwhelming that it. Destroys appetite itself. That's what we're doing
40:58
Speaker 1: with pornography. After the. Excess. Plague of the quails. Comes
41:10
Speaker 1: a genuine plague. And the Israelites. Not only perish in
41:15
Speaker 1: large numbers. As a consequence of their. Reversion to. ingratitude
41:22
Speaker 1: and immaturity, hedonistic gluttony. But they also move further into
41:30
Speaker 1: the desert. And what's the consequence of that? They encounter
41:48
Speaker 1: a drought. A drought. Now Christ describes himself as the
41:52
Speaker 1: living water. And the image of the drought in the
41:57
Speaker 1: biblical corpus has a two-fold meaning. It's the emergent sterility
42:03
Speaker 1: of the environment. You remember in the Lion King, most
42:07
Speaker 1: of you have seen that, when scar emerges to rule,
42:11
Speaker 1: the landscape parches and all the provision disappears. And what
42:16
Speaker 1: that means is that when... the state deteriorates, the natural
42:23
Speaker 1: resources vanish. And the reason for that is there's no
42:26
Speaker 1: such thing as a natural resource. There's the provision of
42:31
Speaker 1: what's necessary as a consequence of the establishment of the
42:34
Speaker 1: state that's functional enough to provide everyone within it what's sufficient,
42:41
Speaker 1: including water. For most of human history, it's been impossible
42:47
Speaker 1: for people to get access to clean water, because water
42:51
Speaker 1: is not a natural resource. If you have a large population,
42:54
Speaker 1: it takes a tremendous amount of organization to structure society
42:59
Speaker 1: such that a sufficient degree of technological expertise that's true
43:05
Speaker 1: can be devoted... to the problem of the provision of water,
43:08
Speaker 1: and so that water can be distributed without corruption, without enslavement,
43:13
Speaker 1: and without excess cost. And you might think that that's
43:16
Speaker 1: a technological issue with a technological solution, but it's not.
43:23
Speaker 1: It's a moral issue with a moral solution, because if
43:26
Speaker 1: the state organizes itself... in accordance with the principles that
43:32
Speaker 1: we already described, which is the adoption of maximal responsibility
43:37
Speaker 1: by the individuals within the state, by their sacrifice of
43:41
Speaker 1: their current whims to the benefit of their future selves
43:46
Speaker 1: and to the community, then the state organizes itself so
43:50
Speaker 1: that even the deserts can bloom. And that's a moral
43:53
Speaker 1: effort and not a technological effort, even though the technological
43:58
Speaker 1: effort can... Aid the moral effort. If the foundation is
44:01
Speaker 1: laid properly. Which is what's happened again in your country.
44:05
Speaker 1: In the maid. Now. The Israelites are very upset. Because
44:15
Speaker 1: they've gone deeper into the desert. And because they've corrupted
44:18
Speaker 1: their state to the point where they can't determine how
44:22
Speaker 1: to provision themselves with water. And so they get whiny
44:26
Speaker 1: and fractious and complaining and victim-y and bitter and miserable.
44:29
Speaker 1: And they go whine to Moses saying, Because they always
44:33
Speaker 1: turn to Moses when times are tough. And they ask
44:37
Speaker 1: Moses to intercede with God so that the water can
44:40
Speaker 1: flow once again. And so Moses goes and has a
44:43
Speaker 1: chat with God. And he intercedes on behalf of the Israelites,
44:47
Speaker 1: even though he's not very happy with them. And God
44:50
Speaker 1: says to Moses something very specific. He says... He specifies...
45:00
Speaker 1: a location, a rocky location in the desert. And he
45:04
Speaker 1: tells Moses to go to that location with his people
45:07
Speaker 1: and speak to the rocks and ask them to bring
45:11
Speaker 1: forth water. And Moses listens and he tells the Israelites
45:16
Speaker 1: and they follow him to the place of rocks. And Moses,
45:21
Speaker 1: with Aaron, takes out his staff, which is a symbol
45:26
Speaker 1: of his authority and a tool of coercion Force and power.
45:33
Speaker 1: And he hits the rocks with his. With the rod
45:37
Speaker 1: of tradition. Thus using force when he's called upon by
45:43
Speaker 1: the divine itself. To offer even to the rocks an
45:46
Speaker 1: invitation and not a command. And the consequence of that
45:52
Speaker 1: is that the rocks do indeed bring forth water. But
45:57
Speaker 1: God tells Moses that as a consequence of his disobedience,
46:01
Speaker 1: despite the fact that he's led the Israelites for his
46:03
Speaker 1: whole life, away from tyranny, across the Red Sea, and
46:07
Speaker 1: through the desert, for 40 years, that he will die
46:10
Speaker 1: before he enters the promised land. And here's the reason.
46:14
Speaker 1: If you use force, when you're called upon to use invitation,
46:19
Speaker 1: you will corrupt the state, and you will fail to
46:22
Speaker 1: lead your people to the promised land. And that includes you. Right.
46:28
Speaker 1: And we've seen plenty of that, too. So it's worse
46:34
Speaker 1: than that, because not only is Moses now forbidden to
46:39
Speaker 1: enter the promised land, even though he can see it
46:41
Speaker 1: in front of him, Aaron dies. And what that means
46:45
Speaker 1: is that the state itself is in peril when it
46:48
Speaker 1: turns to force, when invitation will suffice. Right. Right. All
46:53
Speaker 1: policy based on force is bad policy. Right. It undermines trust.
46:59
Speaker 1: And it's the gateway to tyranny. Aaron dies. Worse. Previous
47:14
Speaker 1: to this. In the desert before the episode with the rocks.
47:23
Speaker 1: There's a rebellion in the desert. And it's led by
47:26
Speaker 1: a man named Korah. And the rebellion is extremely interesting.
47:32
Speaker 1: So the Israelites are all fractious and whiny and resentful
47:36
Speaker 1: and hedonistic and materialistic and faithless and without courage. And
47:44
Speaker 1: Korah comes along. And he offers them a revolution. And
47:48
Speaker 1: this is how he justifies the revolution. He tells Moses
47:52
Speaker 1: and Aaron... that what they claim as divine authority is
47:57
Speaker 1: nothing other than their use of arbitrary power. Right? It's
48:04
Speaker 1: exactly the same refrain you hear now. This is exactly
48:08
Speaker 1: the refrain that you hear from your so-called institutions of
48:11
Speaker 1: higher learning that insist that all manifestations of your culture,
48:17
Speaker 1: male ambition, marriage, family, patriarchal community, business, state, and government
48:26
Speaker 1: are nothing but the manifestations of power, and that that
48:30
Speaker 1: power is arbitrary, oppressive, and victimizing, and all of those
48:35
Speaker 1: who don't have, who aren't basking in success, are not
48:43
Speaker 1: failing in consequence of their own unwillingness to make the
48:47
Speaker 1: necessary sacrifices, but virtuous victims of arbitrary power. And that's
48:54
Speaker 1: what Torah tells the Israelites. Now, the thing is, is
48:58
Speaker 1: his accusation is justified to some degree because the primary
49:02
Speaker 1: temptation of Moses is the use of force, right? Early
49:06
Speaker 1: in his life, when he sees one of his Hebrew brothers,
49:10
Speaker 1: when he's an adolescent in Egypt, slayed or beaten by
49:15
Speaker 1: an Egyptian aristocrat, he kills the Egyptian. That's why he
49:18
Speaker 1: has to flee Egypt. from Egypt. Moses has a proclivity
49:22
Speaker 1: to use force, and this is the eternal temptation of
49:25
Speaker 1: the leader. And so when Korah emerges to tell the
49:28
Speaker 1: fractious Israelites that the reason they're followers in Moses as
49:33
Speaker 1: a leader is because he's the oppressive tyrant of power,
49:41
Speaker 1: there's a element of truth in the accusation that's sufficient
49:45
Speaker 1: to give it credibility and that's another indication of the
49:49
Speaker 1: terrible sin that moses makes manifest when he misuses his
49:55
Speaker 1: authority because he has this power granted to him not
50:00
Speaker 1: by power but by his alliance with the underlying structure
50:05
Speaker 1: of the moral world itself, and when he uses force,
50:10
Speaker 1: when it's not required, he validates the revolutionary tendencies of
50:16
Speaker 1: the usurpers and puts the state in danger. Now, the
50:21
Speaker 1: counter position to the notion that Moses is nothing but
50:24
Speaker 1: a wielder of power, an objection to which he, an
50:28
Speaker 1: accusation to which he objects, I've never taken anything for
50:32
Speaker 1: my services, is the counter proposition that it's of unbelievable
50:39
Speaker 1: convenience to those who fail to make the proper sacrifices,
50:45
Speaker 1: like Cain, who become bitter and resentful in consequence of
50:50
Speaker 1: their inevitable failure, who degenerate into a homicidal vengefulness as
50:56
Speaker 1: a consequence of their misery, and who strive to destroy
51:01
Speaker 1: the notion of success itself. It enables that spirit to
51:10
Speaker 1: take possession of people while they simultaneously make the claim
51:14
Speaker 1: that everything they do as oppressed victims is moral. That
51:22
Speaker 1: demolishes the notion of success itself and constitutes one eternal
51:28
Speaker 1: threat to the integrity of the functional state. And that's
51:32
Speaker 1: what's happening now too. Moses is replaced. Moses and Aaron
51:41
Speaker 1: are replaced by Caleb and Joshua. And Caleb means loyal
51:47
Speaker 1: follower and dog. And Joshua is the same name as Jesus.
51:52
Speaker 1: And Joshua means acting in the salvific spirit of God.
52:01
Speaker 1: The Old Testament stories are attempting at this point to
52:05
Speaker 1: formulate a conceptualization of the leader whose nature surpasses even Moses.
52:12
Speaker 1: And the initial foray into that conceptualization is the hypothesis
52:18
Speaker 1: that the joint combination of Joshua and Caleb is the
52:23
Speaker 1: appropriate replacement for Moses and Aaron. Now Joshua and Caleb
52:27
Speaker 1: were given a task as scouts by Moses when he
52:32
Speaker 1: was on the Brink of the promised land. He sent
52:36
Speaker 1: scouts out into Canaan. Which is the promised land. Already inhabited.
52:41
Speaker 1: To scope out the territory. And to report. And the
52:45
Speaker 1: scouts come back. And they divide themselves into two camps.
52:50
Speaker 1: One camp. Is allied with Joshua and Caleb. And the
52:53
Speaker 1: other camp is allied with the faithless scouts. And the
52:56
Speaker 1: faithless scouts report of the future. That it's a land
53:00
Speaker 1: inhabited by giants who cannot be defeated. And that the
53:04
Speaker 1: best pathway forward for the Israelites is to turn back
53:07
Speaker 1: in terror and flee. And that's what you're being told
53:11
Speaker 1: about your future. Right.
53:14
Speaker 3: And.
53:15
Speaker 1: And there's no doubt, there's no doubt that the state
53:19
Speaker 1: of your future is already inhabited by the... by the
53:23
Speaker 1: pathologized descendants of Canaan, because that's always the case. But
53:28
Speaker 1: the insistence in the Old Testament stories is that you
53:33
Speaker 1: are required to maintain faith in the ability of the
53:37
Speaker 1: human spirit to prevail, even in the face of the
53:40
Speaker 1: worst possible obstacles, if it is guided by the spirit
53:46
Speaker 1: that's capable of standing up against tyranny and freeing the slaves.
53:49
Speaker 1: And that's what Joshua and Caleb report. And so they
53:54
Speaker 1: observe the future and they tell the Israelites that with
53:58
Speaker 1: faith and goodwill, with the proper sacrifices and upward aim,
54:03
Speaker 1: that the chosen people of God can move into the
54:06
Speaker 1: future with courage and faith and make of it the
54:10
Speaker 1: place of glory. The land of milk and honey and
54:13
Speaker 1: the place of life more abundant. And that's how we're
54:16
Speaker 1: called upon to conceptualize the future as a function of
54:21
Speaker 1: our courageous faith. Right, and that's what Joshua and Caleb do.
54:26
Speaker 1: And they're allowed to cross the river Jordan and to
54:30
Speaker 1: lead the Israelites into the promised land. And that's a
54:33
Speaker 1: description of the... Attitude that's the opposite of cynicism but
54:39
Speaker 1: is not naivety that you're called upon to make manifest
54:43
Speaker 1: in relationship to the future. And as you can tell,
54:47
Speaker 1: the faithless scouts who tell the Israelites to free in
54:51
Speaker 1: terror fail to enter the promised land and invite them
54:55
Speaker 1: to return to tyranny, which is exactly the offer that's
54:59
Speaker 1: on the table to you at the moment. Right, right.
55:03
Speaker 1: The future is nothing but climate apocalypse, right? Give us
55:07
Speaker 1: all the power. Right, that's not how the people of
55:11
Speaker 1: this generation will enter the promised land. Right. Caleb is
55:25
Speaker 1: faithful and loyal to God. His name means faithfulness and loyalty.
55:30
Speaker 1: It also means dog. And the dog that Caleb embodies
55:37
Speaker 1: is loyalty, faithfulness, and optimistic voyaging forward. And Joshua is
55:44
Speaker 1: the type of Christ that leads forever towards the heavenly Jerusalem.
55:52
Speaker 1: That's how the story lays itself out. And then it
55:54
Speaker 1: does something stunningly remarkable. In its further investigation of. The
55:59
Speaker 1: characterization of the spirit. That must make itself manifest. For
56:04
Speaker 1: the promised land. To. To be occupied. The Israelites. Become
56:13
Speaker 1: even more fractious. And immature and whiny. And contemptible. Than
56:18
Speaker 1: they ever have been. Right on the very cusp of
56:21
Speaker 1: their movement. To the place that's been promised to them.
56:25
Speaker 1: And Israel. God is at his wit's end and decides
56:31
Speaker 1: in a fit of just retribution to take the annoying, miserable, victim-y, whiny, complain-y, faithless,
56:44
Speaker 1: immature Israelites who are already having a pretty miserable time
56:48
Speaker 1: of it in their self-imposed terror and cowardice and he
56:56
Speaker 1: visits a plague of poisonous snakes upon them. And you
57:00
Speaker 1: might say, well, why would a good God do that?
57:03
Speaker 1: And the answer is, there is no situation so dire
57:06
Speaker 1: that some stupid son of a bitch can't make it worse. Right.
57:11
Speaker 1: And I mean that. And that's why hell is a
57:13
Speaker 1: bottomless pit. And even if your material circumstances are dire,
57:18
Speaker 1: you can be absolutely sure that your reversion to a faithless, hedonistic, power-mad,
57:24
Speaker 1: Immaturity will do nothing but open up a new pit
57:27
Speaker 1: of hell. Underneath the hell that you're already occupying. And
57:31
Speaker 1: that you can continue that. You can continue that in
57:35
Speaker 1: a manner that literally has no end. Right. Which is
57:39
Speaker 1: why hell is a bottomless pit. And so. That's what happens.
57:45
Speaker 1: Is the Israelites fall apart. And more misery makes itself manifest.
57:51
Speaker 1: And so the snakes bite them. A lot. Which is
57:56
Speaker 1: exactly what they deserve. And they eventually get to the
58:00
Speaker 1: point where instead of conducting themselves so that Even more
58:04
Speaker 1: snakes appear, which is what the Pharaoh did, by the way,
58:07
Speaker 1: when he was called upon to repent. They decide that
58:11
Speaker 1: they've had enough yet again. They call themselves to order
58:15
Speaker 1: and they go to Moses and they say to him,
58:18
Speaker 1: we know you have a pipeline to the divine. Do
58:20
Speaker 1: you think you could find it in your heart to
58:22
Speaker 1: have a chat with God and get him to call
58:24
Speaker 1: off the snakes? And Moses says, I'll see what I
58:29
Speaker 1: can do. And so he has a chat with God,
58:33
Speaker 1: and God says something extraordinarily strange. He says, he doesn't say,
58:39
Speaker 1: all right, I'm pretty sick of these people, but they
58:42
Speaker 1: put themselves together yet again, and I kind of like you, so,
58:45
Speaker 1: you know, I'll call off the snakes, which is the
58:47
Speaker 1: most straightforward way out of the conundrum, and also something
58:51
Speaker 1: akin to what's happened previously when God and the Israelites
58:55
Speaker 1: are having a scrap. But that isn't what happens here.
58:58
Speaker 1: And it's partly because the story is now setting the
59:00
Speaker 1: pathway for the adoption of a new mode of being
59:04
Speaker 1: in the promised land. The mode of being that's characterized
59:07
Speaker 1: by the emergence of Joshua as the new Lord. God
59:11
Speaker 1: says to Moses, take your brazen, your bronze items. Take
59:16
Speaker 1: the bronze items of your people. And cast a staff.
59:22
Speaker 1: And put a serpent on it. And plant it in
59:25
Speaker 1: the ground. So that all the Israelites can see it.
59:30
Speaker 1: So this is a substantial sculpture. So that all the
59:36
Speaker 1: Israelites can see it. And if they come and gaze
59:39
Speaker 1: upon it, they will be immune to the poison of
59:43
Speaker 1: the serpents. Okay, what does that mean? The first thing
59:48
Speaker 1: it means is the same thing that the symbol of
59:51
Speaker 1: the physician has meant for 3,000 years. Right? Because the
59:56
Speaker 1: symbol of the physician is a staff with a serpent
59:59
Speaker 1: wrapped around it. And that's the Asclepius symbol of healing.
1:00:05
Speaker 1: And it's a representation of the snake and tree motif
1:00:11
Speaker 1: that's also characteristic of Moses' staff. Because in the story
1:00:15
Speaker 1: of Moses, when he encounters the magicians of the Egyptian court,
1:00:20
Speaker 1: Moses throws his staff upon the ground. That's tradition. It
1:00:25
Speaker 1: transforms itself into chaos. That's the serpent. And Moses is
1:00:30
Speaker 1: the master of order and chaos. And the Egyptian magicians
1:00:36
Speaker 1: duplicate the feat, throwing their staffs to the ground, turning
1:00:40
Speaker 1: them into serpents. And the serpent from Moses' staff eats
1:00:43
Speaker 1: all the serpents of the Egyptian magicians, which indicates that
1:00:49
Speaker 1: The real thing is more than the match for the
1:00:54
Speaker 1: propagandistic magic of the corrupt court. Right. All that's echoed
1:01:02
Speaker 1: in the image of the serpent on the staff. There's
1:01:07
Speaker 1: an idea associated with healing that comes from the Greeks.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: Embodied in the word pharmacon, which is the source of
1:01:16
Speaker 1: the word pharmacy. And pharmacon means poison and cure. And
1:01:21
Speaker 1: what it means is a little bit of what poisons you,
1:01:23
Speaker 1: cures you. And what that means is that you'll grow
1:01:28
Speaker 1: and develop in proportion to your ability to face the
1:01:31
Speaker 1: things that terrify you. Right, and that's what Moses calls
1:01:36
Speaker 1: upon his people to do. Inspired by the word of God.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: Not to become. The inhabitants of a. Of a landscape
1:01:49
Speaker 1: devoid of threat. And safe like infants are safe in
1:01:54
Speaker 1: the home. But to become masters of even what's poisonous.
1:01:59
Speaker 1: So that they can be immune to the worst things
1:02:03
Speaker 1: that can possibly be thrown at them. Which is what
1:02:06
Speaker 1: you do when you encourage your children to develop like
1:02:09
Speaker 1: they should develop. Right? Competence, not safety. That's what encouragement means.
1:02:15
Speaker 1: And that's... What happens symbolically when God calls upon the
1:02:20
Speaker 1: Israelites to face what terrifies them so they can become
1:02:25
Speaker 1: immune to the poison even of their own sins. Right.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: All right. We'll cap that off. That's a development of
1:02:37
Speaker 1: the theme of Joshua who bears the same name as Christ.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: Now thousands of years later, Christ himself says something exceptionally
1:02:49
Speaker 1: mysterious and virtually incomprehensible that relates back to the brazen serpent,
1:02:56
Speaker 1: to the idea of the pharmacon, to the notion that
1:02:59
Speaker 1: a little bit of poison redeems you if it's administered voluntarily.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: He says, unless I be lifted up, Unless I be
1:03:14
Speaker 1: lifted up like the serpent in the desert, no man
1:03:17
Speaker 1: can be redeemed. Now that's an unbelievably strange thing for
1:03:24
Speaker 1: anyone to say. First of all, the notion that Christ
1:03:29
Speaker 1: would associate himself with a crucified serpent is strange enough
1:03:34
Speaker 1: in itself, but the allusion itself is very difficult to comprehend.
1:03:42
Speaker 1: Unless you understand it. In which case it becomes. Deep.
1:03:46
Speaker 1: Beyond comprehension. In a manner that's. As close to miraculous.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: As anything I've ever seen in print. What does it mean?
1:04:00
Speaker 1: One of the oldest stories we have. Is the story
1:04:02
Speaker 1: of the encounter. With the dragon. Mesopotamian creation myth. Talks
1:04:08
Speaker 1: about creation. As the encounter with. The serpent of chaos.
1:04:14
Speaker 1: The story of St. George is the story of the
1:04:16
Speaker 1: man who confronts the dragon that threatens the state and
1:04:21
Speaker 1: frees the treasure that the dragon guards. What's the theme?
1:04:26
Speaker 1: Confront what is terrifying and find what is redeeming. That's
1:04:33
Speaker 1: the story of human development. That's the story of the
1:04:35
Speaker 1: movement up Jacob's ladder. That's the story of the ascent
1:04:38
Speaker 1: to the city on the hill. That's the story of
1:04:41
Speaker 1: taking your life out from under the bushel that hides
1:04:44
Speaker 1: it and revealing it to the world. That's the story
1:04:47
Speaker 1: of courage and adventure and truth. It's the redemptive story.
1:04:52
Speaker 1: Why does Christ assimilate himself to the serpent? The Israelites
1:04:57
Speaker 1: are called upon to look forthrightly and voluntarily at that
1:05:02
Speaker 1: which poisons them. Christ's life is a Hydra of serpents.
1:05:13
Speaker 4: Why?
1:05:15
Speaker 1: Because it's an archetypal tragedy. What does that mean? It's
1:05:18
Speaker 1: a distillation of catastrophe itself. Imagine that you had a
1:05:23
Speaker 1: hundred people tell you the worst thing that had ever
1:05:26
Speaker 1: happened to them in their life. And then you gathered
1:05:29
Speaker 1: all those terrible things, which is what occurs, for example,
1:05:33
Speaker 1: in the story of Job. You gathered all those terrible
1:05:37
Speaker 1: things and you visited that fate on one person. That
1:05:42
Speaker 1: would be the archetypal tragedy. What's the archetypal tragedy? What's
1:05:46
Speaker 1: a tragedy? A terrible thing befalls someone. What if he's
1:05:50
Speaker 1: a criminal? Well, then it's not so tragic. Maybe then
1:05:54
Speaker 1: it's justice. A terrible thing befalls someone innocent. The worst
1:05:59
Speaker 1: set of possible things befalls the person who is innocent.
1:06:03
Speaker 1: Most innocent. The archetypal tragedy. What's the worst thing? Death. No.
1:06:13
Speaker 1: Pain and death. No. Prolonged pain and death. At the
1:06:17
Speaker 1: hands of a tyrant. No. Prolonged pain and death. Young.
1:06:23
Speaker 1: At the hands of a tyrant. Delivered by the mob.
1:06:27
Speaker 1: Betrayed by your friends. In the presence of your mother.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Accompanied by the betrayal of your acolytes. Well occupied by
1:06:40
Speaker 1: an imperial force. Despite doing nothing but working for the good.
1:06:46
Speaker 1: And simultaneously be known for doing so. Even by those
1:06:50
Speaker 1: that persecute you. Right. Face that. The transformation of the
1:07:02
Speaker 1: story of the brazen serpent into the meta-tragedy of Christianity
1:07:08
Speaker 1: is the insistence that redemption is to be found by
1:07:14
Speaker 1: confronting the sum total of all that's terrifying. The story
1:07:20
Speaker 1: of Christ is a meta-tragedy, and it doesn't end with death,
1:07:24
Speaker 1: because painful and undeserved death at the hands of a
1:07:30
Speaker 1: treacherous mob is not the worst thing that can happen
1:07:33
Speaker 1: to you. The worst thing that can happen to you
1:07:36
Speaker 1: is that, plus a full-fledged encounter with the forces of
1:07:40
Speaker 1: malevolence itself. That happens to Christ when he encounters Satan
1:07:45
Speaker 1: in the desert, after the Holy Spirit descends upon him.
1:07:49
Speaker 1: And it happens when he harrows hell after his death.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: And so the calling of Christianity, which is the crucifix
1:07:56
Speaker 1: at the center of the community, is the calling to
1:08:00
Speaker 1: the followers of the divine to confront not only everything
1:08:05
Speaker 1: that terrifies them about life, but death. The deepest and
1:08:09
Speaker 1: most abysmal spirit of evil itself. In the belief that
1:08:13
Speaker 1: that courageous confrontation will invigorate and defend and make the
1:08:22
Speaker 1: forthright and courageous and open-eyed disciple immune from the poison
1:08:32
Speaker 1: of the serpent. Right. And that's the story and the
1:08:36
Speaker 1: principle upon which the free states of the West are predicated.
1:08:40
Speaker 3: Right.
1:08:47
Speaker 1: And that's the story of the last third of Exodus.
1:08:53
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. All right, my dear.
1:09:30
Speaker 5: Hello there.
1:09:51
Speaker 1: That was awesome. Oh, thank you, dear. That was awesome. Yeah,
1:09:55
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, have a nice story. Yes, well, thank
1:10:00
Speaker 1: you all for listening to that. I'm sorry to inflict
1:10:03
Speaker 1: it on you.
1:10:09
Speaker 4: It's a crazy story, eh?
1:10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:10:27
Speaker 1: I think the reason that the meaning of those stories
1:10:33
Speaker 1: is so stark and clear now is because the patterns
1:10:40
Speaker 1: that the biblical stories refer to have always been present.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: They're the patterns of life. But things are happening so
1:10:50
Speaker 1: fast now that you can see it unfolding. All right,
1:10:55
Speaker 1: as the rate of transformation in our culture accelerates, the
1:10:59
Speaker 1: patterns are dancing. Patterns that might have taken centuries to
1:11:03
Speaker 1: move are now dancing within weeks. And you can see
1:11:06
Speaker 1: the realm of the spirits reemerge. That's really the case,
1:11:10
Speaker 1: and it's a terrifying thing. So hang on to your hats, people,
1:11:18
Speaker 1: and get your houses in order, right now.
1:11:24
Speaker 6: Question number one.
1:11:26
Speaker 1: Dr.
1:11:26
Speaker 6: Peterson, in what way does love expand consciousness?
1:11:46
Speaker 1: Well, you become what you aim at. So that's why
1:11:50
Speaker 1: you're called upon in the foundational stories of the West
1:11:55
Speaker 1: to turn your attention, to turn your eyes upward to
1:12:01
Speaker 1: the highest that you can imagine. Because in the effort
1:12:07
Speaker 1: to align yourself with that highest goal, you'll transform yourself
1:12:14
Speaker 1: into the carrier of that spirit. And you'll become your
1:12:21
Speaker 1: deepest self. The promise in Genesis 1 is that human
1:12:25
Speaker 1: beings are made in the image of God, but we
1:12:27
Speaker 1: obscure that reflection with our presumption and pride. The great
1:12:41
Speaker 1: commandment that underlies the Ten Commandments is that you are
1:12:44
Speaker 1: to love the God that is one with all your
1:12:48
Speaker 1: heart and all your soul, and to conceptualize and attend
1:12:55
Speaker 1: to and act in relationship to others as if they
1:12:59
Speaker 1: were you. A vertical orientation and a horizontal orientation. That's
1:13:08
Speaker 1: the spirit of love. And love is the desire that
1:13:10
Speaker 1: all things flourish. And so you want to allow the
1:13:15
Speaker 1: spirit that Has that aim to possess you. And that's
1:13:19
Speaker 1: the goal of religious practice. Is to invite that spirit
1:13:22
Speaker 1: to possess you. Now what does that mean? Well imagine
1:13:25
Speaker 1: that you decided. To. Practice. Devoutly. The love that. That
1:13:38
Speaker 1: led you to your marriage. We know that people are.
1:13:43
Speaker 1: Enticed into. Partnerships. as a consequence of love. We know
1:13:48
Speaker 1: that the foundation of our relationship with our children and
1:13:52
Speaker 1: our parents is love. We know that in the first
1:13:56
Speaker 1: throes of a romantic relationship, that love is offered as
1:13:59
Speaker 1: a gift. But you might imagine that it's incumbent upon
1:14:04
Speaker 1: you to make the fostering and nurturance of that love
1:14:09
Speaker 1: a religious duty. And that if you practice that, it
1:14:13
Speaker 1: would Your ability to inhabit that realm would expand. Now,
1:14:19
Speaker 1: what would that mean? It would mean that you would
1:14:23
Speaker 1: remember when you were interacting with your wife or your
1:14:25
Speaker 1: children or your parents. That you would remember that you
1:14:29
Speaker 1: loved them. And you would remember what that implied. And
1:14:33
Speaker 1: what it would imply is that you would interact with
1:14:35
Speaker 1: them in a manner that would be best for them.
1:14:38
Speaker 1: Insofar as you were capable of that. Insofar as that
1:14:41
Speaker 1: was commensurate with your understanding. But that that would be
1:14:44
Speaker 1: your aim. And if that was your aim. You would
1:14:48
Speaker 1: see the world in accordance with that aim. And your
1:14:51
Speaker 1: deviation from that aim. Would. Make its appearance to you
1:14:57
Speaker 1: as error. As error that you could correct. Or as.
1:15:04
Speaker 1: Desired response from the target of your love. And you
1:15:09
Speaker 1: could learn from. That error... Perceived in relationship to your aim...
1:15:15
Speaker 1: How to... Rectify your... Attention and action... So that... The
1:15:22
Speaker 1: spirit of love was... Ever more present... And that would
1:15:26
Speaker 1: be a consequence of you... Gathering information... That is offered
1:15:32
Speaker 1: to you... In consequence of your aim... But that's not all...
1:15:38
Speaker 1: You become what you practice... Imagine that a challenge emerges,
1:15:44
Speaker 1: and that there's two ways you can respond to it.
1:15:47
Speaker 1: One is resentfully and with the mien of a victim,
1:15:51
Speaker 1: as if the challenge has been arbitrarily imposed on you
1:15:54
Speaker 1: by an unjust tyrant. Alternatively, you could face that challenge
1:16:00
Speaker 1: with faith and hope, like Caleb and Joshua, and you
1:16:03
Speaker 1: could construe it as the dragon that guards it as
1:16:09
Speaker 1: of yet unrevealed treasure. And you could embody the spirit
1:16:15
Speaker 1: of St. George and move forward in strength to grapple
1:16:21
Speaker 1: with the challenge. What happens if you do that? Everything changes.
1:16:30
Speaker 1: Psychophysiological analysis of stress response indicates that the difference in
1:16:38
Speaker 1: those two patterns of response... is so profound that it
1:16:43
Speaker 1: makes itself manifest in neurological activity, psychophysiological patterning, muscular movement,
1:16:55
Speaker 1: blood flow, hormonal preparation, and cellular transformation all the way
1:17:04
Speaker 1: down to the genetic levels. When you approach a new
1:17:10
Speaker 1: situation in a given spirit, the spirit in which you
1:17:16
Speaker 1: approach the situation manifests itself as a physiological pattern, and
1:17:22
Speaker 1: that transforms the way genes themselves code for proteins. If
1:17:27
Speaker 1: you practice love, you change yourself physiologically all the way
1:17:35
Speaker 1: down to the molecular level, and you Free. You release
1:17:44
Speaker 1: from the domain of implicit physiological potential the you that
1:17:50
Speaker 1: would be what it could be if it was the
1:17:54
Speaker 1: purest possible manifestation of love. Right. That's possible. And you
1:18:08
Speaker 1: know that. You see the people around you. And you
1:18:11
Speaker 1: die for this. You see the people around you clearly
1:18:15
Speaker 1: at their best. Clearly at their best. When they're motivated
1:18:19
Speaker 1: by love. And if you're spiteful and resentful and bitter
1:18:21
Speaker 1: and miserable, and you're shaking your fist at God, the
1:18:25
Speaker 1: sight of that love might burn you to the core
1:18:27
Speaker 1: and further embitter you. But you know in your deepest
1:18:31
Speaker 1: heart of hearts that if you could live anywhere, that's
1:18:33
Speaker 1: where you would live.
1:18:35
Speaker 4: And so.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: The religious call is a call to live like that.
1:18:39
Speaker 1: And it isn't a call to believe in that. It's
1:18:42
Speaker 1: a call to do that. Because that's the deepest form
1:18:45
Speaker 1: of belief. And to practice it. What's the purpose? What's
1:18:52
Speaker 1: the purpose of prayer? God grant me the wisdom to
1:18:57
Speaker 1: have the humility to transform myself into the man who
1:19:03
Speaker 1: could properly love his wife and children. That's a prayer
1:19:06
Speaker 1: that will be answered.
1:19:18
Speaker 6: How does one find a connection to God without following
1:19:22
Speaker 6: an organized religion? I desire relationship to God, but I
1:19:27
Speaker 6: am unconvinced by organized religions.
1:19:39
Speaker 1: Well, I'll say something rude to begin with. If you're
1:19:46
Speaker 1: capable of finding the path to God by yourself, why
1:19:49
Speaker 1: don't you go to church and help the lost church?
1:19:58
Speaker 1: I mean, because that's the claim you're making. You're saying
1:20:04
Speaker 1: you are sufficient unto yourself to find the divine pathway forward.
1:20:09
Speaker 1: If that's true, then why not revitalize the institutions while
1:20:12
Speaker 1: you're at it? And if you can't do that, then
1:20:14
Speaker 1: maybe your first presumption was wrong. And maybe you should
1:20:18
Speaker 1: go to.
1:20:20
Speaker 1: Maybe you could go to the church that's composed of
1:20:22
Speaker 1: people no worse than you, and you could participate with
1:20:26
Speaker 1: them in aiming up, and you could rectify the errors
1:20:30
Speaker 1: of the community and your own errors in relationship to
1:20:33
Speaker 1: what's highest simultaneously.
1:20:34
Speaker 5: Right.
1:20:35
Speaker 2: Right.
1:20:44
Speaker 1: I would also say that the end point of the
1:20:48
Speaker 1: presumption that you alone can find the divine path is
1:20:57
Speaker 1: no difference from the insistence of the postmodernists that what
1:21:02
Speaker 1: they feel is the final definition of reality. Those are
1:21:06
Speaker 1: the same thing. Right. I don't want to get too
1:21:14
Speaker 1: high and mighty about that. Because it's certainly the same
1:21:18
Speaker 1: thing I thought when I left the church when I
1:21:20
Speaker 1: was a teenager. And it's the same thing that so
1:21:23
Speaker 1: many people who've left the organized stream of religion think.
1:21:29
Speaker 1: It's understandable. And it's built into our rebellious, Enlightenment, demented, Protestant,
1:21:38
Speaker 1: Luciferian culture. And so, the fact, and I'm not singling
1:21:43
Speaker 1: out the Protestants. It's a deviant stream of heretical Protestantism.
1:21:51
Speaker 1: That's a way of thinking about it. Right? The notion
1:21:53
Speaker 1: that we can define ourselves. We have to step forward communally. So,
1:21:59
Speaker 1: it's incumbent upon you to participate in the process of
1:22:03
Speaker 1: communal organization. Because that's part of the manner in which
1:22:06
Speaker 1: you approach the divine. It's not a solitary pursuit. You can't...
1:22:11
Speaker 1: Buddha knew that. Buddha was offered the opportunity to enter
1:22:15
Speaker 1: the realm of the gods and to remain in Nirvana.
1:22:19
Speaker 1: And he abandoned that offer, which was genuine and hard-earned,
1:22:25
Speaker 1: because he determined that he would not step into paradise
1:22:29
Speaker 1: unless he could take everyone with him. Right? And maybe
1:22:34
Speaker 1: that's because there is no paradise for you alone. Right?
1:22:37
Speaker 1: How could that be paradise?
1:22:39
Speaker 3: Right?
1:22:39
Speaker 1: An eternity of you alone? That sounds a lot like hell.
1:22:55
Speaker 6: What has been your biggest hurdle in bridging the theology-science-cultural gap?
1:23:11
Speaker 1: Pride and lies. The pride in relationship to the first question,
1:23:22
Speaker 1: let's say, because I thought, when I was 13, and
1:23:27
Speaker 1: perplexed about the apparent paradoxical relationship between evolutionary theories and
1:23:33
Speaker 1: biblical accounts of creation, that I knew enough to dispense
1:23:38
Speaker 1: with the entire religious tradition of the Western world. Well,
1:23:43
Speaker 1: what's that? Pride, obviously. What kind of pride? The pride
1:23:48
Speaker 1: of the Luciferian intellect. Like 100% that. And I escaped
1:23:59
Speaker 1: from that to the degree that I have escaped because
1:24:01
Speaker 1: I came to understand first that I knew nothing. And second,
1:24:08
Speaker 1: that I truly knew nothing about evil itself. Even though
1:24:14
Speaker 1: I became unshakably convinced of its existence. And it was
1:24:19
Speaker 1: my investigation into the structure of hell that eradicated my
1:24:31
Speaker 1: Luciferian pride. I came to understand when I was about
1:24:35
Speaker 1: 20 that virtually everything I said was a performance and
1:24:45
Speaker 1: a lie. 95% of it. And I understood that as
1:24:57
Speaker 1: a consequence of my developing understanding of the misapprehensions that
1:25:00
Speaker 1: led to the development of totalitarian states. I was very
1:25:05
Speaker 1: curious about The relationship between individual misconduct. Of the sort
1:25:11
Speaker 1: that enabled people to remain silent. When atrocities were being committed.
1:25:17
Speaker 1: Of the sort that allowed people to luxuriate. In the
1:25:20
Speaker 1: opportunity to exact their sadistic revenge. And my own. Pride
1:25:27
Speaker 1: and presumption. And I. Aimed at. Eradicating that.
1:25:34
Speaker 3: And.
1:25:36
Speaker 1: The consequence of that was the dawning of my understanding
1:25:40
Speaker 1: that I was an actor and a fraud. That I
1:25:45
Speaker 1: said most of what I said to win arguments, to
1:25:50
Speaker 1: instrumentally manipulate, to be the smartest person in the room,
1:25:54
Speaker 1: to ensure that my intellect was celebrated, and to delight
1:26:00
Speaker 1: in the victory I obtained over others. And I learned
1:26:06
Speaker 1: that speaking words oriented by that aim made me weak, contemptible, desperate,
1:26:16
Speaker 1: and dangerous. And that on those few occasions when I
1:26:22
Speaker 1: strived instead to say instead only what I believed to
1:26:27
Speaker 1: be true, that the ground under my feet came back together,
1:26:31
Speaker 1: and that I was... thereby climbing uphill. And I learned
1:26:41
Speaker 1: to watch my words and burn off 95% of what
1:26:50
Speaker 1: was encumbering me.
1:26:52
Speaker 3: Right.
1:26:53
Speaker 1: So that was the obstacle, you might say. Yeah. What
1:26:57
Speaker 1: was the obstacle? 95% of who I was. That was
1:27:01
Speaker 1: the obstacle. Look. Look. When God throws Adam and Eve
1:27:07
Speaker 1: out of paradise for the sin of pride and presumption,
1:27:12
Speaker 1: he bars the gates with a sword that is on fire,
1:27:18
Speaker 1: that turns every which way. A sword that turns every
1:27:22
Speaker 1: which way is one that you cannot avoid. It burns
1:27:25
Speaker 1: and it cuts. And what does it burn away and cut?
1:27:29
Speaker 1: Everything that isn't fit to be in paradise. It's highly
1:27:33
Speaker 1: probable that that's a lot of you. And so, you
1:27:38
Speaker 1: might say that a vision of God is equivalent to
1:27:47
Speaker 1: a trial by fire. The trial by fire of hell
1:27:51
Speaker 1: in direct proportion to the magnitude of your sins. Yeah, well,
1:27:57
Speaker 1: there's an impediment for you. When Abraham proceeds on his
1:28:10
Speaker 1: voyage uphill, animated by the spirit of adventure, he's called
1:28:16
Speaker 1: upon to make sacrifices in sequence, commensurate with the expanding
1:28:22
Speaker 1: field of opportunity that reveals itself in front of him,
1:28:27
Speaker 1: until he transforms himself so completely by his willingness to
1:28:32
Speaker 1: undertake even the ultimate sacrifice, that he's awarded a new name.
1:28:37
Speaker 3: Right?
1:28:38
Speaker 1: That's equivalent to a death in rebirth and to movement
1:28:45
Speaker 1: toward the establishment of an earthly paradise but it requires
1:28:51
Speaker 1: a a secession of sacrifice that culminates in the sacrifice
1:28:57
Speaker 1: of everything And the transformation of identity that's so complete
1:29:01
Speaker 1: that it's as if you become born anew. Which is
1:29:05
Speaker 1: what happens to Abraham. And Jacob. Right? And Christ when baptized. Yeah.
1:29:13
Speaker 1: And all those who are visited and then abide by
1:29:16
Speaker 1: the call of the Holy Spirit. Terrible.
1:29:21
Speaker 3: Right.
1:29:21
Speaker 1: That's the terrible swift sword. Yeah. That's why when Christ
1:29:26
Speaker 1: comes back at the end of time or... why the
1:29:29
Speaker 1: spirit that makes itself manifest when the end times reveal themselves,
1:29:36
Speaker 1: Christ comes back with a sword in his mouth and
1:29:38
Speaker 1: he separates the sheep from the goats. And there's a
1:29:43
Speaker 1: lot more goats than sheep. And that's a psychological warning
1:29:48
Speaker 1: and a sociological warning. And it's a terrifying vision into
1:29:54
Speaker 1: the understructure of reality itself. Cain is doomed because he
1:30:00
Speaker 1: doesn't offer his best. That means that insofar as you
1:30:04
Speaker 1: haven't offered your best, all that is within you that
1:30:13
Speaker 1: has not been the offering of the best is doomed.
1:30:18
Speaker 1: That's a terrible thing to know. But it's the sort
1:30:21
Speaker 1: of thing that can scare you straight. And it's wisdom
1:30:25
Speaker 1: that says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
1:30:30
Speaker 1: So aim up because there's no better place to aim.
1:30:34
Speaker 1: But it's also aim up or else. Right. Really. And
1:30:48
Speaker 1: on those happy notes... Thank you very much, everybody.