Latest / SkyTalkDoc / E270 Was Jesus Mad About Money or Murder?
Transcript
- Dr. Michaela: James, I am so excited to have you on the Sky Talk Dog podcast. I first heard you on the Jesus Way podcast. We were actually on a long road trip. We have acres in the middle of the Nevada Desert. And so we have a lot of time to kill on the road. And we found one of the episodes that you guys have put out about NASFIT ⁓ vegetarianism and all things related to whether or not we're supposed to be eating animals. And We talk a lot on this podcast about how our primal wounds really impact our relationships, our health, and our well-being. I would love for you to jump over to sevenprimalwounds.com, take the free quiz, learn about your primal wound, and maybe pick up a copy of my new best-selling book, Primal Wounds. Break the patterns keeping you stuck. ⁓ it was just so apropos. I was at a time where I was really praying for guidance and insight about that. you guys covered so much on on that particular episode. And then we ended up doing another road trip up to Seattle, Washington, ⁓ spent about 12 hours listening to more of your episodes, including ⁓ the one on schizophrenics, which ⁓ something that I have said a lot. I've I've actually worked firsthand with schizophrenics and it does come out like demons. James: Wow. Dr. Michaela: ⁓ so there was just so much I was like, I gotta get these guys on this podcast. And then when I when I told some of my my tribe that you got you were coming on, they were like, No way. They were so stoked 'cause they listened to anyway, but before I start ranting and raving, could you just share with the listeners a little bit about about your backstory and what you do? James: No. Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. You know, I'm ⁓ I'm just a guy who's searching for the truth. That's really what it comes down to. But I own a company called Organic Muscle that makes organic plant-based supplements. I'm the co-host of the Jesus Way. ⁓ me, this original understanding about Christianity and the roots and history and spiritual philosophy ⁓ helped me a lot personally. in my own journey and and transform my own spiritual walk. So now I'm just really committed to and passionate about spreading the good word. Dr. Michaela: I love I love what you're saying because ⁓ my journey is similar. I had grown up in the Christian church. I had left, explored Buddhism and Hinduism and ⁓ into the new age and then came crawling back out of that. ⁓ I really found my way to Jesus and ⁓ part of that was through ⁓ of actually the Hebrew roots movement, which I've left quite a bit. ⁓ But there was so much that I'd realized had been manipulated in the way that the stories have been presented to us, going all the way back to Bible school when I was in Bible school. so I would love for you to share, ⁓ if you can, I know we have limited time, but I would love for you to dive into ⁓ you came to the realization that Jesus was a vegetarian and kind what you guys have found in terms of Nasphit. And I know that you've done some pretty fascinating stud like micro studies in terms of diet and and really realizing that it does not affect your muscle output. There's this whole movement on protein, protein, protein, right? And I've heard it too, the carnivore diet and all that sort of thing. And you know, I tell the story that when I was a kid, I made friends with the neighbor's cow. ⁓ the the cows would come up to the fence and I was like really when I realized that that that cow who was very sentient, right? Like had feelings and emotions and all these things and was connected with me on an emotional level, was going to be murdered for my benefit in some way. And, you know, I was a vegetarian immediately after that. And then I kind of fell back into pescatarianism, you know, through different kinds of pressures and life things. And I was making my way back out of that recently in the past year or so. ⁓ and in in after listening to your guys' episode, I was like, that's the answers that I needed, you know. I don't need to consume flesh in order to be healthy. So I'd love for you to share how you guys kind of found this and and where you've taken this. And I know one of your podcasts, one your podcast co-hosts also did an entire documentary on this, which I've watched. ⁓ you know, just crazy things like the turning over of the tables at the temples. When you when you really read Den of Thieves and what that really means, the translation was Den of Murderers, you know? And it wasn't about money at all. It was the killing of the animals. There's so much to unpack. We have limited time. You go. I'll let you take the floor. James: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, thanks for that amazing setup. What it reminded me of your experience with the cow Jesus saying that we must become like little children to it attend to enter the kingdom of heaven. And if you put a child in a room with a bunny rabbit or a piglet or a baby cow, what's that child going to do? They're going to love the animal, they're going to play with it. There is zero desire or instinct to violently murder and eat the flesh of that animal. So I there's so many different layers to these parables from Jesus. Those who follow me shall not taste death. Hmm, interesting. Taste death. But for us, the awakening came from studying the early Christians. We've told this story on the podcast, but Aaron and I were big steak eaters. We thought it was cool and masculine and made us strong. We would meet every Friday and eat steaks and study early Christianity. And eventually this friction started forming because we're like, wow. James the Just, the first leader of the church, Jesus' brother, grew up in the same house as Jesus, was a lifelong vegetarian from his mother's womb, which means he was raised a vegetarian. So he was raised in a vegetable one kid vegetarian and the other carnivore. That doesn't make sense. And then we have You know, Eusebius, the father of church history, talking about how all the disciples were vegetarian. there's attestations about the Apostle Matthew not eating flesh. And if you dig into it, there's so much history that's been totally swept under the rug and censored, a rich vegetarian history from even before Christianity through the birth of Christianity and through ⁓ hundreds saints. Some of the most righteous people in Christian history were vegetarian, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint John Chrysostom, all of these people. So yeah, there's just this massive and beautiful history that's been completely suppressed. Dr. Michaela: Well, two years ago, a friend of mine, Chris, I think you guys have had him on Six Foot Seven podcast. He ⁓ he recommended a book on the Essenes and a book on the Ebionites. And I and after that I was like, I I'm a big Dead Sea Scrolls person. My mom and I actually went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls when they came to San Diego like a decade ago, more than a decade ago. and so that's when I really had learned about the that. ⁓ at that time I was in the new age. I was still kind I still kind of aligned with Buddhist morals and James: ⁓ yeah. Dr. Michaela: philosophy and I had started to read a book by Tishnot Han called Living Living Christ. And and I'm thinking about these different things and I'm thinking, wow, you know, every every monk I've known is a vegetarian and they draw all these connections to to Jesus in this book. ⁓ And it's fascinating when you start to dive into it. And then I th I thought, well, I'm a words person. I'm a big words person. Linguistics is important to me. And There was all these things that were playing out in the scriptures as I was reading it. And I said, I said to my partner, I told him, The person that wrote this didn't write this. And he goes, Well, how do you know? I said, People don't change their voice. I said, You know, think of Owen Wilson in every movie you've ever seen Owen Wilson in. He's Owen Wilson. He might be playing a different character, but you know his voice. You know him. You know the way he speaks. You know the way that he enunciates. You know the way that his his language comes across. Doesn't matter what character he's playing. And if you read these, these different books that are in like, the K KGB version of the KGV version of the Bible, you'll start to realize that this is not the same person. So this means this has been adulterated in some way. ⁓ when I really looked at this ⁓ at the Sephiroth scripture, I started realizing like, well, people will say, well, Jesus ate meat at the Last Supper. I'm like, actually, we go to the original scrolls, there's nothing in there that says that. You know, the version that you might be reading That's been translated about 400 times in a game. A telephone says that, but not the original words. And and you to your point about kids, you know, I I asked ⁓ our kiddos the other day, I said, you know, they they said, well, Jojo, why don't you eat chicken? And I said, because I've killed a chicken. and that was enough for me. ⁓ James: Yeah. Dr. Michaela: And then you start to realize, like you said, kids don't gravitate towards violence to animals. They gravitate toward loving them no matter what they are. James: Yeah, and if your kid gravitates towards killing animals, you've got a problem. You might have a serial killer on your hands. So that's that's the biggest sign of ⁓ that a child is mentally ill and may develop violent tendencies is if they abuse animals. Dr. Michaela: Yeah. So so how so so tell me just for the sake of time here, you guys had done a bit of a study you went a a month with tracking your protein and and looking at how it would affect your weightlifting. I I'm really curious about that part because I know that's a big thing for a lot of people is they're afraid, especially with the GLP ones and stuff, which is a whole nother conversation. But you know, people being afraid of losing muscle and not getting enough protein. I'm curious about that part of things. James: Yeah, for sure. That fear is very common and it's a fear I experienced for years. You think if you don't get enough protein, you're gonna wither wither away and blow away like a fart in the wind. And it's it's just not true. Anyone can try it. As long as you're keeping your carbs high with healthy carbs, fruits, and starches, you're just going to and this is what we've experienced is we've continuously gotten stronger and stronger and stronger, eating 50 to 70 grams of protein per day. And if you look at it's amazing. If you research on Chat GPT, it's like, get enough protein, get enough protein, get enough protein. You need protein. You need lots of it. And then I'm like, well, what about all of the longevity studies that show the the most long-lived people in the world eat low protein diets? And they're like, Chat GPT is like, ⁓ yeah, that's a good point. That's totally correct. And I'm like, why are you recommending so much protein then? They're like, okay, I'll think about that. Anyways, we Dr. Michaela: Ha ha. Right. James: Aaron just hit 500 pound deadlift, 400-pound squat, 300-pound bench, the strongest he's ever been on his life. And he's lean with abs, eating 50 to 70 grams of protein per day. I've gotten stronger on almost every lift substantially, and leaner and more athletic and all of the things. So it's really been an eye-opening experiment for us to prove that this is legit. So if you can have the strength and Athleticism with the longevity, that's the best of both worlds. Dr. Michaela: I really feel like I mean there's a whole nother conversation here, but I really feel like if you're going to invite you guys had said death it and it's and it's in scripture, it's in the red words, death leads to death, life leads to life, right? And I think that when you really look at what you're inviting in in terms of parasite parasites, etc., in terms of that flesh eating behavior. is really a game changer. Everyone on this podcast knows that I did a really intense detox to kill Epstein Barr virus in my body quite a few years ago. And I had some liver fallout from that. ⁓ ironically, what was recommended to me by the people that I was working with is to go on a pure grape grape diet, just grape juice, that's it, for two weeks. And ⁓ it amazing how my body recovered, my liver completely restored itself. From the damage that had been done. It was spectacular. And ⁓ that was a really eye-opening moment for me. one of the things that caused all the liver issues was massive death of parasites in my body. It was so ⁓ ⁓ I had been eating a lot of raw fish for a period of time in my life. And so, and you know what's funny is I would catch this fish, this halibut, out of the ocean, and I would see the par the the worms and and whatever in flesh. Like I mean, you can literally see it. And I don't think it freezes out. I think on a microscopic level it continues to thrive. you know, we see these tube worms in the ocean that can live in intense heat conditions and things like that. So why wouldn't parasites be able to? ⁓ ⁓ you look in scripture you really see that terminology around demons al always involves parasitic language. You know? James: ⁓ Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dr. Michaela: And now we're finding out Alzheimer Alzheimer's and things like this all caused, you know, MS of different things that can be directly linked to parasites in the brain and in the ⁓ nerve nerve tissues. It's it's pr or you know, the nerve pathways. It's pretty wild. James: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if parasites are demons, but I'm utterly convinced that there is a connection between parasites and demons. a model that is interesting is like they're almost the antennae for ⁓ spiritual forces to get ⁓ increased levels of power and influence over you. And this is exactly what the Essene Gospel of Peace says: that all of these mental illnesses and ⁓ demonic possession was caused by. By parasitic infestations, which interestingly are usually related to living out of alignment with natural law. So drinking drugs, eating flesh, know, ⁓ fornicate, all this stuff can lead to various types of parasites. And in the Essene Gospel, Yeshua fasting and then ⁓ lures out and The a huge worm comes out and he goes, Behold, this is Satan. So so I think it's one of the biggest problems in society, actually. I think a lot of in a lot of people who get so angry and defensive about flesh consumption, I think there's a worm in there that's manipulating them. It's almost like ⁓ you know, cats. There's a parasite associated with cats that will yeah, yeah. And they've done experiments with mice. Dr. Michaela: Toxoplasmosis. Yeah. Yeah. James: who have this have this parasite and they'll basically commit suicide and sacrifice themselves to the cat so ⁓ go against their own self-interest to ⁓ to their life in favor of the parasite's interest Dr. Michaela: Wow. Well the the whole crazy cat lady thing, right? Like that came from that. Like women that like a like an older woman that has thirty cats and the the bacteria and the parasites is just ⁓ inundated into the into the home environment. Yeah, it's wild. I have actually read about that in terms of like the mental health. There's such a connection there. Two things, ⁓ and I know we have to run, but James: Yeah. Dr. Michaela: We'll we'll have you back and we'll dive more into all this stuff. ⁓ I whenever these sorts of things happen, I always think there's forces that don't want these messages to be out, right? Like that it seems to be every time. so I'm curious, because I have not gleaned this from your episodes yet, on where you guys stand with Shabbat. I feel like my position is it is a commandment and we need it more than ever to be resting. James: Yeah. Dr. Michaela: ⁓ however I know the Saturn's Day, Saturday, there's things about the day of the week. I'm just curious where you guys stand on that. James: Yeah, we haven't really talked about it on the podcast. It's a really interesting topic because like you, I think I have mixed feelings. I think it's it it was a treasured commandment for the Essenes. If you read the ancient Essene texts, it was very important. And I think it is extremely beneficial, especially in the modern world, to take a day and commit it to God and get off technology and stop working. ⁓ to be fair, I don't I'm like, I pr I probably really, really do it, like less than half of the time, but every time I do, it's so spiritually beneficial for me. ⁓ I read an amazing book about it. I'm trying to remember the name. It'll come back to me. Dr. Michaela: If you find it, you'll have to send that my way. We we have ⁓ we have taken the Shabbat for a couple of years now. And ⁓ the amount of number one, just connection in our family is huge. Like the kids don't know it as that. The kids just know it as the time that we're having together on the weekend. ⁓ but we have had so many spiritual downloads come through during that downtime where there's no infiltration and James: Nice. Dr. Michaela: We've we've kind of morphed how it looks. At first we used to like do nothing, like we were home all day doing nothing. And now we've morphed it where it's like, Hey, we can go up to the lake and have a lake day together and that's still resting as a family. We've kind of morphed it a little bit, but James: Yeah. Yeah. I think people can ⁓ of fit it to your own individual life, but I think the key is to have a day that's different where you're not on autopilot anymore and it it's more intentional and and consecrated to God. But ⁓ you said, on the flip side, there's a lot of skepticism about anything Jewish right now. But Dr. Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. James: To me, this is a very ancient thing that kind of predates rabbinic Judaism and Talmudic Judaism and all this this stuff. And I think it can be very beneficial. Dr. Michaela: Yeah, that that has to be a conversation about Khazars as well then, right? And and we really have to look at the like what it has become versus what it was. ⁓ if you look at the ⁓ nature of the people at that time and how they saw that in context, just because we're using like a Hebrew term doesn't doesn't mean that it's Jewish, right? Like I and I mean I think that there there's there's this bulking of things that kind of happen. but if if we want to look at Judaism, we have to start with the Khazars. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. And then, you know, we start we start looking at the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all that different different, ⁓ know, political component at the time as well. and James: Yeah. Mm. Dr. Michaela: You know, some of the things that I lean towards may even sound more Gnostic at times than, you know, because of kind of the way that I approach it. James: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. The the Gnostic question is really interesting and there's a ton of overlap between our what we promote as what we believe is the original form of Christianity, the the Nazarenes. but I think the Gnostics were really tapped into a lot of these truths, and oftentimes it's just them kind of explaining the same thing in a different way. Like our understanding is that Jeho Jehovah Or Yahweh, whatever you want call it, the the eternal I am, the ever-present creator, is obviously all good, all love. And that that God is present in parts of the Hebrew Bible. But then the lying pen of the scribes, the devil, the adversary, gets his ⁓ fangs in there. And it's so basically you have a good and evil God in the Old Testament. ⁓ the Gnostic understanding is that the God of the Old Testament is purely evil, and our understanding. Dr. Michaela: The demiur. Yeah. James: The demiurge, yes. And we we have a more nuanced view about it. Dr. Michaela: I I I really want to have you back on to dive into this topic because I've actually started utilizing terminology like the most high because I feel so conflicted about this. And I haven't what's interesting is people that kind of run in the circles that I think we run in, what's what's fascinating to me is independently people are coming to their own conclusions that match. You know, people are saying, ⁓ this is some cult or something like that. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. James: Yeah. ⁓ Dr. Michaela: No, this is independent research that's being done, and people are finding this in a collective way, but not in a collective process, which is very fascinating to me. And ⁓ you know, Genesis 3 3 21 after the fall, and I did read the Restoring the Brain to Eden book, which was fascinating. We can dive into that sometime too, but it there, and Yahweh clothed them in skin. And this is where I feel like the demiurge notion can come up right from then, right? Because why would he clothe them in skin? If you know, so so I think that there's yeah. James: I think ⁓ actually if you look into some of the Kabbalistic teachings about that verse, what the like kind of esoteric meaning, and this kind of makes sense to me, is that the original form, Adam Adam and Eve were in a more spiritual state. They were more ethereal. So clothing and skin literally means giving them skin, giving ⁓ them fully into physical form in a physical environment. Yeah. Dr. Michaela: ⁓ Holy buckets, you're right. You're right. The fall was ⁓ my gosh. You're absolutely right. moly, I hadn't even thought about that. Okay. I gotta chew on this now. I ⁓ ⁓ my gosh. Yes. ⁓ look, I know we have to wrap up. I've got another meeting. You've got another meeting. ⁓ let's get you back on the calendar. This was a great teaser episode. I feel like people are gonna be like, thanks for that. But ⁓ yeah, yeah, let's get rescheduled and get you back on. This was fantastic. But where can people find out about NASFIT? James: Ha ha ha. Yeah, that one blew my mind too. Dr. Michaela: Obviously guys check out the Jesus Way podcast. We always put the links in the show notes. But what tell me about NasFit where they can find out about that. I downloaded the I I downloaded the book by the way. It's fantastic. James: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, that's a book Aaron and I wrote about the history and nutritional science and workout plans, meal plans, all of that. It's on organicmuscle.com, which is my website for my business. I also have a YouTube channel. It's my name, James Benefico. And I would love to have you on my podcast as well soon. Dr. Michaela: I would love that. hey, PS, if you make any version two change, there's just one thing in your book that I I would recommend that I I swapped out your your rice for Pharaoh and Bulgar. ⁓ grains. Yeah. So I was just gonna say maybe like put a little cliff note in there that if they want to, it's harder to find, but I go down to the Greek market and they've got it there and they the kids love it too. Yeah. James: Mm. Pharaoh's great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love ferrule and barley, things like that, yeah. It's good. Dr. Michaela: Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for having you on and we'll ha and we'll have you back for sure. Everyone, check out the show notes. They are doing great things over there at the Jesus Way podcast and organic muscle.com. James: Thank you.