RadixJournal - Myth, Symbol, & Religion： An Introduction to REM

00:00:00.000 Let's nail some of these big categories, like myth itself.

00:00:25.740 I would say that the most common use of the word myth in contemporary parlance is something

00:00:32.980 that is false or wrong, that it is just a myth or something like that, or perhaps in a more

00:00:41.420 benign form, it is viewed as some heroic story, heroic and implausible and perhaps fantastical

00:00:50.260 and magical story from long ago.

00:00:52.680 But obviously, I'd like for us to go a lot deeper than just those rather trite definitions.

00:01:02.680 So, just to start out the conversation, how would you define what myth is and how it has

00:01:10.760 functioned historically and continues to function?

00:01:13.680 Well, let me start with a definition that I think that is very interesting that Aristotle

00:01:20.180 developed about myth.

00:01:21.680 And he called it mythos.

00:01:23.680 And he was talking about theater at the time.

00:01:26.380 But there, mythos means, really, it means plot in the context of theater, right?

00:01:32.680 So, in other words, if you think of mythos or myth as being plot, and you apply that to

00:01:40.260 our understanding of myth, right?

00:01:42.180 And this would include, you know, films like Star Wars or, you know, kind of salient myth

00:01:49.180 forms that exist in our civilization, in our society.

00:01:54.180 An idea emerges that, in a way, a myth is kind of setting a plot or it's a narrative.

00:01:59.180 That's another term that we like to use, right?

00:02:01.180 We like to talk about the media setting the narrative.

00:02:04.180 So myth is, I think that that is kind of one way of looking at myth.

00:02:08.180 It's a kind of definition of myth in the sense that it's directing human thought and human

00:02:14.040 behavior.

00:02:15.040 Ultimately, it's setting up a kind of model for human behavior, and it's directing human

00:02:20.260 behavior.

00:02:21.260 And the other thing that Aristotle develops, too, is the word ethos, right?

00:02:27.980 Now we're all familiar with the word ethos.

00:02:31.220 And that, in our understanding of it, it's a reference to kind of the morals or attitudes

00:02:37.720 of a time or a society or a place.

00:02:41.160 The way that Aristotle uses it in the context of theater is that ethos is character, but not

00:02:46.400 just, you know, a person's character, a person's moral character, but actually like the character

00:02:54.380 in a play, right?

00:02:57.600 So ethos, and that has a way of kind of crystallizing the idea that a character in a play becomes

00:03:04.200 a kind of moral paragon or becomes a model for people to follow, right?

00:03:09.700 And the way the myth, the mythos becomes the plot, becomes sort of the trajectory of the

00:03:14.560 character or the ethos.

00:03:16.660 So, I mean, I think those are kind of interesting ways to look at myth, but a more generally

00:03:22.160 myth, you know, I argue that myth and art, I think, I argue that myth and art and religion

00:03:27.420 are all kind of of the same, are all essentially, ultimately the same phenomenon.

00:03:32.380 And that is a kind of, it's one of many sort of manifestations of a kind of human mating

00:03:40.420 call, as it were, right?

00:03:41.840 So, and especially if it's cultivated in a kind of intelligent and conscious way, or

00:03:46.120 that's when it's kind of, it's at its most effective, that myth, religion, and art are

00:03:52.520 mating call.

00:03:54.660 Yeah, mating call.

00:03:55.560 It's, and it's, anyways, I have a sense that you're about to say something.

00:03:59.400 Well, yeah, I mean, I want to talk about the mating call, but I want to go back even deeper.

00:04:05.500 I mean, one thing that you recognize when you have children in particular is the power of

00:04:15.260 story and how even a child as young as two or three or four has an, something that must

00:04:27.000 be built in, must be hardwired.

00:04:30.300 This isn't just something that is bequeathed to them by their parents or by schools or by

00:04:35.980 television or anything like that.

00:04:37.520 They have this hardwired desire or way of functioning through stories.

00:04:46.460 And there's a beginning, a middle, and an end to something.

00:04:49.560 They want to hear stories.

00:04:51.280 They understand the world very often in terms of stories.

00:04:54.940 Um, young, very young children, again, in two and three will tell stories and the stories

00:05:02.340 actually have a bit of a plot to them, even if they're silly and, and, and, and a bit

00:05:07.160 ridiculous, they'll have a beginning, middle of an end.

00:05:09.840 There'll be a major turning point.

00:05:11.280 There'll be actually trying to give you a moral to the story that they tell you.

00:05:14.960 And this is something again, that I've seen among my own children who are quite young.

00:05:20.160 And so I don't, I, you know, I don't believe this is something that I educated them to believe.

00:05:26.540 I think this is actually a deeply human, uh, trait in the sense that we understand information

00:05:33.720 through story.

00:05:34.780 We understand our own life as a story.

00:05:37.560 We understand relationships to other people and institutions, et cetera, as a story.

00:05:42.500 And that this is a kind of primal way of conveying information, particularly in a pre-digital

00:05:48.800 age and particularly in a pre-literate age and the sense that, you know, we're not altogether

00:05:56.100 too different from ancient hominids or at least early versions of ourselves, say five or

00:06:04.840 6,000 years ago, uh, in the sense that, you know, we, we didn't have the internet where

00:06:11.220 there's a tremendous amount of information at your fingertips.

00:06:14.540 We didn't have the printing press, uh, or in, in most cases, wide scale use of written

00:06:22.240 material where you could look something up and find information.

00:06:26.240 No information was conveyed to you through a narrative.

00:06:30.960 Uh, and so, or, you know, the oral tradition precedes all other traditions and the basic story

00:06:38.540 around the campfire precedes any other form of knowledge and, and information.

00:06:45.000 And I think we should recognize the power and importance of that, um, that we desperately

00:06:51.840 need this.

00:06:52.940 Um, I, I think, you know, one, you know, I'm not, I'm not a clinical physician, but I would

00:06:59.760 say one impulse towards suicide is the fact that you can't tell a coherent story about your

00:07:07.100 life and you just want to gain control of it however you can.

00:07:11.340 And, and that, that is a, uh, a drive towards death.

00:07:14.700 And I'm using, using an extreme example here to, to make a point is the sense that we crave

00:07:19.980 stories.

00:07:20.600 We, when you read a, a, a article in a newspaper, it's going to tell a story and even an argument

00:07:26.600 tells a story.

00:07:28.180 Uh, a photographic essay tells a story, a news that tells a story.

00:07:33.560 And that's why it captures your imagination and it's how you are able to understand it.

00:07:39.200 Um, and so myth is a part of that in a pre literate, certainly pre digital world.

00:07:47.800 Uh, the mythic story was how you were able to understand yourself and how you were able

00:07:53.940 to understand the world.

00:07:54.920 And in fact, you couldn't understand both of those things without the narrative.

00:07:59.180 Um, the stories become a way, uh, the, the most effective way I would argue of conveying

00:08:05.820 morals and, uh, in viewing ethos and, uh, presenting models for people to follow, for example.

00:08:12.760 So in other words, there's a reason, um, you know, I'm, I'm not someone who believes, for

00:08:17.500 example, the, the stories in the Bible, uh, the Hebrew Bible are true stories.

00:08:21.260 I think, I think it's a kind of work of genius.

00:08:23.740 And the, these are parables that are being told, um, and they're, they're parables that

00:08:28.340 are conveying morals and conveying ideas.

00:08:31.340 And they're these sort of riddles, um, that are, uh, just describing how one should behave

00:08:37.640 and conduct themselves, uh, uh, whether it's, uh, vis-a-vis adversaries or friends, right.

00:08:43.840 Or, or, or, or allies, as it were.

00:08:45.660 Um, so what I would say is that that becomes, and one, that, that becomes the most effective

00:08:54.140 way of imbuing morals.

00:08:56.580 Uh, so if someone, let's imagine someone, um, you know, conducting a sermon at a church

00:09:03.000 and telling people, you know, you, you've got to not cheat on your wife.

00:09:06.460 You, you've got to, um, not, you know, be a drunk or an alcoholic.

00:09:09.860 Uh, in some ways that is a kind of cruder form of moralizing that's less effective ultimately,

00:09:17.240 uh, in the sense that what's, what's really appealing about storytelling and conveying

00:09:22.200 morals through story is that it's appealing to one's vanity, right.

00:09:25.860 Because you're not commanding or ordering someone to do something, right.

00:09:29.860 So in other words, if we imagine that we have a society, a kind of, uh, let's say a more

00:09:34.060 moral society where, you know, I guess it's, it's a kind of, uh, uh, uh, presumptuous thing

00:09:39.920 to say, but where people, more people more like us are in charge of the society and, and

00:09:44.340 we're the ones kind of regulating what kind of media that's being developed and is being

00:09:48.920 disseminated to the population.

00:09:51.760 Um, we do that through stories and that becomes the more effective way of creating a moral population

00:09:58.960 by showing them good models and showing good models succeed in stories.

00:10:03.740 You know, there, there, there are some distinctions that are usefully made between say ancients

00:10:09.860 and moderns.

00:10:10.800 And, and, and I think here we should make a distinction, um, between what you could call

00:10:16.880 Rankian history and contemporary ethics involving journalism and the way that the ancients understood

00:10:26.900 a narrative.

00:10:28.560 Um, you know, and I'll, and I'll just use Rank as a kind of placeholder for a, a

00:10:33.600 general trajectory in terms of historiography.

00:10:37.180 So, uh, there was a major point in the 19th century when there was the development of history

00:10:44.780 writing as we know it today.

00:10:46.940 And that, that actually coincided with a, um, basically a textural critique of the Bible,

00:10:52.660 in fact.

00:10:53.320 Um, but it was a, a notion of using the facts, um, using facts to convey an argument, um, not

00:11:03.420 reaching a conclusion that is based on facts and data and, um, and, and, and so forth.

00:11:10.520 It kind of almost kind of legalistic way of making an argument about history.

00:11:14.680 You see this in contemporary, or at least what people say contemporary journalism is, uh,

00:11:19.800 in the sense of, you know, just the facts, uh, let's, let, let, let's, you know, let's

00:11:24.820 get to the truth of the matter, the objective indisputable truth, and then let's kind of reach

00:11:31.260 conclusions or tell a story.

00:11:32.900 You could say on top of that, um, that, you know, and look, we can deconstruct that and

00:11:39.620 say that, you know, even within supposedly objective journalism or objective history writing,

00:11:45.400 there, there are mythic elements and there are, um, biases and hopes and dreams that the

00:11:54.140 author is not willing to confront and kind of can't confront in a way it's not even aware

00:11:59.300 of that's all fair, but it is a different type of ethic in terms of history writing for

00:12:05.560 ancients, you know, expecting someone in the ancient world to give you just the facts or

00:12:13.400 to write like a journalist piece to, to expect, say the gospels to be pieces of objective journalism,

00:12:20.320 um, is to misunderstand them entirely.

00:12:23.820 And that not, that's not to say that facts and real life characters aren't involved.

00:12:30.660 Um, I, I, I, I'm not a, um, specialist in this field, but I tend to think that there in

00:12:39.020 all likelihood was a historical Jesus Christ and that many of the episodes in the Bible,

00:12:46.700 uh, are references, however, oblique and however twisted to, to things that might very well have

00:12:53.600 happened.

00:12:53.940 I think there is a historicity to, uh, to, to myth of all kinds, including, um, Jewish

00:13:00.340 and Christian myths, but to expect say the gospels or any ancient writer to think in the

00:13:08.080 way that a contemporary journalist thinks is ridiculous.

00:13:11.280 There, there was a fabulous element to everything.

00:13:15.120 You don't just simply collect facts.

00:13:17.880 You put them in an order.

00:13:19.520 You give the reader a sense of time and of development.

00:13:23.260 You tell a tale, you tell a story with a moral.

00:13:26.920 That is how they conceived of things.

00:13:29.240 And, you know, a, I think there's a little bit of blindness among contemporary historians

00:13:34.520 and contemporary journalists in terms of their, the own myths, their, their own myths that

00:13:38.640 are guiding their, their output.

00:13:40.400 Uh, but I think there's also a, a, a blindness to, again, projecting these ethics onto, um,

00:13:47.860 ancient people.

00:13:48.680 Um, they conveyed information.

00:13:50.600 They conveyed real life things, no question.

00:13:53.360 Uh, but they had no concept of a, of, of like an objectivity that was, you know, separated

00:14:01.680 off or segregated from, from fabulous tales and that need to channel people's dreams and

00:14:11.240 hopes and lives and that these, all of these things were one and we, they, they didn't buy

00:14:18.660 into the kind of, I could say myth of objectivity that, you know, we buy into now, but, you know,

00:14:25.620 over the, say the last 200 years or so of, of, um, you know, post enlightenment, um, history

00:14:32.400 writing and journalism.

00:14:33.660 Let's talk about symbol.

00:14:36.540 I think this is another term that people will frequently use.

00:14:41.320 They're, they're probably using it a little more accurately when they'll say, you know,

00:14:44.360 this is, um, uh, you know, the, the, when the, uh, when the baseball player struck out on

00:14:51.100 his last at bat, that was symbolic of the failures of the entire season.

00:14:54.860 And just to use a, you know, uh, a quick example that we have a notion that encapsulated

00:15:01.380 in one instance or perhaps one image, um, or one object, there is a whole story and narrative

00:15:11.700 encapsulated in it.

00:15:12.760 I, I, I think that is, um, you know, the, the contemporary notion of the word symbol and

00:15:18.100 it, um, you know, in, in, it, it does connect back with how ancients would conceive of it.

00:15:23.500 And I think much as with myth where you'll say something is just a myth and that means

00:15:27.800 that it's in fact false.

00:15:28.920 I think you would kind of, we, we also would tend to say something, oh, that's merely symbolic,

00:15:33.900 uh, or something like that is almost a dismissive way of thinking about it.

00:15:38.820 Um, but just as story is deeply important in terms of life on this earth, in terms of our

00:15:48.420 ability to understand the world, I think symbol is also equally important that, um, we think

00:15:56.380 symbolically, we dream symbolically, uh, we are able to grasp larger worlds of meaning

00:16:04.740 by capturing them in a symbol.

00:16:08.420 Yeah, no, I would agree.

00:16:09.480 And, uh, in, in the context of, uh, parable and myth, uh, symbol, you can, you could think

00:16:15.920 of symbol as almost sort of the words, almost of myth or parable or the, uh, or a kind of

00:16:22.040 smaller element that, um, is used to construct, um, myth and parable.

00:16:27.920 So symbol and, and myth and parable are very closely related.

00:16:32.820 Um, but I think that what we find most strikingly, uh, or what we find strikingly is among the

00:16:39.640 kind of more salient and important myths that come down to us from the ancient world is that

00:16:44.780 there are some very clear kind of, uh, similarities and there's a clear sort of heritage between

00:16:49.960 these different myth bodies going all the way back to Sumer or going back to Egypt.

00:16:54.200 Um, and, um, and that what you see is it's, uh, myth and parable and these myths actually

00:17:01.440 have more durability than the civilization.

00:17:03.840 So in other words, you see civilizations develop, but they're not, they're not sort of reinventing

00:17:08.980 a kind of symbol or myth language.

00:17:10.980 They're actually importing a symbol and myth language from earlier civilizations in many cases,

00:17:16.400 right?

00:17:17.280 Um, so what develops you see is a kind of, I guess, uh, uh, Campbell might've referred to

00:17:22.940 it as a monomyth, but I, and I'm not even sure if that, um, uh, describes a phenomenon in

00:17:29.800 a kind of perfect or complete way.

00:17:31.400 I would argue that what you do see ultimately is a kind of shared symbol language, right?

00:17:36.580 One that, uh, is carried through successive civilizations.

00:17:40.400 So, so in other words, the Greeks are not suddenly inventing a whole new myth system, whole

00:17:46.140 cloth out of nothing, rather they're, they're, um, uh, they're bringing in myths from older

00:17:52.700 civilizations into their civilization.

00:17:54.700 And they're kind of, uh, they're reinventing them as they were.

00:17:58.020 So they're creating new myths, but often in these new myths, you're seeing references

00:18:02.440 to earlier myths and to, to, uh, earlier myths developed in earlier civilizations.

00:18:08.340 So I would argue what you see ultimately is a shared symbol language and that it is ultimately

00:18:14.660 that meanings in these symbols are much as words have meanings, uh, that they, they are

00:18:21.280 these kinds of definitive meanings that they're, they actually mean something specific and they

00:18:25.740 can't just like just interpreting them in a kind of, uh, willy nilly fashion is not the

00:18:31.260 way, the correct way to look at symbols.

00:18:33.000 That symbols actually, um, have, uh, uh, can be decoded and, um, do have meanings in many

00:18:40.840 cases.

00:18:41.840 Well, let's, let's get into that then.

00:18:45.220 Um, do you want to go to a, a, a Greek myth or do you want to go to a, a Christian myth

00:18:51.380 like the symbol of the cross or, uh, the symbol of Jesus Christ or, or do you want to

00:18:56.380 go to a, uh, you know, um, Venus arising out of a clamshell or, or something maybe a little

00:19:02.560 more friendly?

00:19:04.240 Sure.

00:19:04.740 Let's, let's start with Venus.

00:19:06.460 Um, so, uh, Venus, uh, is this goddess of love, um, that appears in Roman myth.

00:19:13.360 And she has a, an earlier Greek precedent who is Aphrodite.

00:19:17.660 I probably everyone listening to the podcast is familiar, uh, with Venus or Aphrodite who

00:19:22.180 are essentially the same figure.

00:19:24.380 Um, they have earlier precedents, um, in the near East, um, in Mesopotamia.

00:19:30.080 Uh, we have, uh, Ishtar and Nana who are essentially the same figure, right?

00:19:35.980 Going all, all the way back to when myth develops in, uh, Sumer.

00:19:40.500 Um, and the, these are, so in other words, Venus, Ishtar, they ultimately are the same

00:19:47.260 figures.

00:19:47.680 So when Venus or Aphrodite develop or Aphrodite develops in Greece, it's a reference to Ishtar.

00:19:54.220 It's the same character, the same figure.

00:19:56.180 And this is something, you know, mythographers understand.

00:19:59.440 Um, do you think that would have been recognized by an average Joe in the sense of, because

00:20:06.580 you are making an, you, you're making an important claim and I just want to put a little pressure

00:20:10.840 on it in the sense of, you know, again, you know, it may be a contemporary, somewhat ignorant

00:20:18.360 notion of myth might be that, you know, they're just these crazy characters, you know, Zeus

00:20:21.960 and Aphrodite and she was the goddess of love and blah, blah, blah.

00:20:25.580 Um, but you're making a, an important claim, which is that, um, you know, Aphrodite herself

00:20:32.000 had a history and she was evoking other myths, even myths that could have arisen in a different

00:20:37.280 context.

00:20:37.880 Um, and it's not, we're not claiming, or you're not claiming, I don't think, um, some kind

00:20:44.400 of union, you know, archetypal monomyth in this sense of these, you know, there, there

00:20:52.280 are these deep, uh, categories in our minds of, of certain gods.

00:20:57.620 Uh, but you, you are, you're, you're claiming, you're making a more historical claim that there

00:21:02.680 are, there, there, there, there's, you know, thousands of years of myth history and that

00:21:07.440 these are developed, they are adopted in different contexts by other cultures, their, their meanings

00:21:13.620 can transfigure a little bit, although you're, you're also claiming that they, they do have

00:21:19.140 a core meaning that remains.

00:21:21.100 Um, but do, do you think that, that, that, you know, Aphrodite's history in that way would

00:21:27.440 have been, would have been recognized in that way by an average Joe in the ancient world?

00:21:32.460 Well, I don't know about the average Joe.

00:21:34.220 I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily claim that the average Joe would be able to make these

00:21:38.420 connections.

00:21:39.460 Um, so the demos, for example, would they, you know, would everyone understand that, um,

00:21:45.760 uh, you know, Aphrodite was derived from Ishtar?

00:21:48.640 Um, well, so what I would say is that they, you know, both in the Roman and Greek system,

00:21:54.340 we have this idea of Greek interpretation or Roman interpretation.

00:21:57.740 So in other words, uh, the Greeks are consciously looking at other cultures and other, uh, uh,

00:22:03.360 other civilizations and seeing their gods among these other civilizations.

00:22:08.620 So one example would be Ishtar, right?

00:22:10.720 So they would say Aphrodite is Ishtar effectively through a Greek interpretation.

00:22:15.780 Now, um, people, uh, people, the, in a kind of more Jungian understanding of this would

00:22:23.560 be, you know, exactly what you're saying is that, um, I mean, well, a couple of things.

00:22:29.080 So people are aware of myths being imported, right?

00:22:32.820 So the myth of Adonis, for example, that's, that's a Phoenician import to Greece.

00:22:36.960 And that was understood as a Phoenician import to Greece, right?

00:22:40.520 Um, but then you also have this phenomena of Greek interpretation where they're looking

00:22:46.000 at other civilizations and, you know, what someone might argue is that, well, what they're

00:22:51.160 doing is the Greeks are, are looking at a goddess that has developed independently and

00:22:56.820 there are signing, they have also developed a goddess independently.

00:23:00.400 And they're saying, well, this goddess is like, uh, you know, the goddess that we've

00:23:03.920 developed independently.

00:23:04.700 The process though is, is, is more like this, I would argue.

00:23:09.960 Um, it's more, what's happening is you're, uh, as civilizations are, you know, Greece is

00:23:15.840 forming in a, in a later way than civilizations or at a later date than civilizations developing

00:23:22.060 in the near East.

00:23:23.060 And myth is being developed as references to these earlier goddesses, right?

00:23:27.500 So, and in some cases there were veiled references effectively, right?

00:23:31.840 So in, in, in other words, Ishtar, for example, is a goddess that you could argue developed

00:23:36.720 a kind of bad reputation in Mesopotamia.

00:23:39.260 It became associated with, um, sacred prostitution, for example, right?

00:23:43.980 So as myth is developing in Greece, you know, artists who are trying to tell stories in a

00:23:49.300 kind of esoteric way want to reference Ishtar.

00:23:52.940 And so they develop a goddess like Aphrodite.

00:23:55.500 Um, and the, you know, this is kind of one theory that might explain it.

00:23:59.280 And, and so this becomes a reference, um, Aphrodite becomes a reference to Ishtar as it

00:24:05.380 were.

00:24:06.060 Um, and through a Greek interpretation, uh, the Greeks are aware of this, right?

00:24:10.940 They understand that this is the same goddess, um, and they understand it as the same goddess,

00:24:15.660 regardless of how Aphrodite arrived in Greece.

00:24:18.100 They understand it as the same goddess with the same significance and having the same meaning.

00:24:22.260 Um, but, uh, you know, but you, I mean, I, and this is something that mythographers have

00:24:27.820 long recognized is that there is a kind of lineage.

00:24:30.300 There's a heritage of myth where these myths have earlier precedences and they're not, I

00:24:37.280 would argue, I, much as artists are developing, uh, myth in a conscious way, uh, you know, if

00:24:43.360 we use the example of comic books, for example, they're consciously making references to earlier

00:24:47.860 myths.

00:24:48.460 This is also what's happening in the ancient world is that they're consciously making these

00:24:52.060 references.

00:24:52.740 So they're not just having a kind of Jungian revelation, um, and inventing very similar

00:24:58.960 myths in a, you know, in a kind of adjacent civilization, they are, um, consciously referencing

00:25:05.840 these earlier myth figures.

00:25:07.720 And I, I, I do want to talk about, you know, how we can understand Jewish and Christian gods

00:25:15.760 in this context.

00:25:16.440 But, uh, before that, I mean, one striking thing about your general thesis and work is that

00:25:26.540 you put stress on the cultivation of these myths.

00:25:30.780 And I, I think what, what, what I'll often hear in a kind of new age context, or even among

00:25:39.100 right wingers or white nationalist or, or what have you, is that these, these myths will

00:25:46.960 kind of, uh, they'll kind of emerge much like Athena came out of Zeus's head.

00:25:52.480 These, these myths, these myths will just kind of pop out of our collective soul.

00:25:56.580 And that, you know, this is the white man's religion or something like that is that I've

00:26:01.380 heard, or this is the, he all human religion.

00:26:03.900 And it's all the same from a kind of more traditionalist or new age, uh, context.

00:26:09.620 But I think what you stress, and this, this might come from your own artistic background

00:26:15.780 to a degree, but what you stress is the deliberate conscious cultivation of myths and

00:26:23.120 a symbolic and to a large degree, esoteric language by sophisticated artists and myth makers.

00:26:31.680 And that, you know, yes, there's, there probably are some kind of primal, you know, urges going

00:26:39.660 on there with this stuff.

00:26:41.060 But if we're going to really understand it and criticize it and attempt to, you know,

00:26:48.440 transfigure it in a way that is productive for our people and civilization, we have to

00:26:54.160 understand it as cultivated.

00:26:56.320 It can't, most things in terms of culture come top down.

00:27:00.580 And this seems to come from priestly and artistic orders down to the people, but they are not

00:27:08.140 just, you know, burping up, uh, archetypal notions from their collective soul.

00:27:14.620 No, they are consciously crafting something that is pushing society and individual people

00:27:23.060 in a particular direction.

00:27:26.080 Yeah, no, and I, and I think I, yeah, and I threw in an, and, you know, I come to this

00:27:32.420 conclusion through a kind of careful analysis of myth and, you know, and making and trying

00:27:38.340 to figure out what sort of reference is being made in this or that myth.

00:27:42.460 And often it is something that can, is sort of clearly discoverable.

00:27:46.840 Um, and I, and I apply this especially, I mean, obviously there can be an organic, uh, myth

00:27:53.160 formation, for example.

00:27:54.700 Um, let's think of the myth of, uh, Sasquatch or Bigfoot, right?

00:27:59.580 So this could have been a, just an incident, uh, an instance of, um, you know, I don't know,

00:28:04.760 I, I'm actually not very familiar with how that myth developed, but maybe, and so I, I

00:28:10.600 haven't studied Bigfoot, but maybe it could have just been, you know, some guys saw like

00:28:15.380 a mountain man out in the woods and he was a, you know, especially shaggy guy.

00:28:19.080 And that's actually, that was actually the sort of the origin or the first formation of

00:28:23.240 that myth is that they saw a guy that was especially hairy and they came up with a myth

00:28:28.240 called Bigfoot.

00:28:29.020 Oh, there was, you know, and, and it maybe wasn't called Bigfoot at the time, but that

00:28:32.580 it evolved into this myth called Bigfoot.

00:28:34.740 Yeah.

00:28:35.260 Um, and it entered pop culture and all, you know.

00:28:38.200 Yeah.

00:28:38.580 Yeah.

00:28:38.720 And that's not to say that it doesn't have some greater Jungian significance as well that like,

00:28:43.400 because obviously then at some point, uh, you know, to use a kind of internet term at

00:28:48.080 some point, that myth or that meme went viral as it were, and people were like, oh, there's

00:28:53.880 this guy named Bigfoot.

00:28:54.820 So something, uh, you know, preexisting in the human mind became fascinated by the.

00:29:00.060 And Bigfoot kind of became almost a fantasy of our, like an earlier version of ourselves,

00:29:05.080 a little more connected to nature.

00:29:06.960 And I mean, you, you could do a Freudian Jungian reading of it like that.

00:29:10.620 And I think that's actually probably pretty accurate.

00:29:12.740 That's why, you know, when we were walking around in Whitefish today, you could easily

00:29:16.560 have bought a Bigfoot t-shirt or a mug.

00:29:18.600 If you went to, it's entered the pop culture.

00:29:20.640 It resonates for some reason.

00:29:22.960 Uh, but it's, I don't think that one, and again, I don't know a tremendous about it either,

00:29:27.040 but I don't think that one was consciously crafted.

00:29:31.220 And, and it is rather benign or neutral in the sense that, you know, there, there aren't

00:29:37.300 a lot of consequences to, you know, believing that Bigfoot exists or, or, or just kind of

00:29:43.860 thinking that he's a fun pop culture image.

00:29:46.420 There, there are no real consequences to your life.

00:29:48.760 There are no political consequences.

00:29:50.420 There are no really religious consequences.

00:29:52.520 It's just kind of a, a benign fantasy.

00:29:55.280 Uh, but obviously religion is not this benign individual thing where we just happen to believe

00:30:03.900 in Bigfoot or a spaghetti monster or whatever the, the atheists say.

00:30:07.440 No, religion is a collective exercise.

00:30:11.260 It is an inherently political exercise.

00:30:13.920 Uh, the notion, the liberal or modern notion of the separation and church of state would be

00:30:21.100 unthinkable to someone in the ancient world.

00:30:25.360 They would be almost as unthinkable as atheism.

00:30:28.160 Um, the idea that you had just a, a private experience with a God, uh, is also equally unthinkable.

00:30:38.920 Religion is inherently collective.

00:30:41.020 Uh, and just to kind of, you know, evoke Ed Dutton here for a little bit, um, you know,

00:30:47.120 religion is a way of making a society conform, channeling energies in a society, giving a

00:30:55.200 society an up and down and a right and left through, you could say non-physical means

00:31:02.840 through S not supernatural, cause it's very natural, but through, you know, outside of

00:31:08.440 ordering someone at the point of a gun or a knife to do something, um, to beating them

00:31:14.240 over the head with some, you know, dictate religion is this ability to, to make the tribe

00:31:21.400 conform, make the tribe do things that it might otherwise not channel who in the tribe

00:31:27.300 is marrying whom.

00:31:28.840 Um, it's an, a, a kind of non-physical means of doing this.

00:31:34.120 And those tribes that were, that had better religions, let's just put it that way, that

00:31:39.160 had more powerful group oriented, even domineering religions are going to survive the battle of

00:31:46.740 group selection.

00:31:48.200 Um, they are going to dominate other tribes that might not have these, you know, deeply

00:31:55.260 instilled mythos that might have actually bad religions that are teaching them wrong things,

00:32:01.260 teaching them ways of becoming less powerful.

00:32:03.520 So I, I think all religions are kind of different.

00:32:06.360 I mean, the, you know, there, there's, there are different versions of good and evil and

00:32:11.340 up and down and right and left and in different among different ethnicities and races and regions,

00:32:16.680 uh, et cetera.

00:32:18.380 But all of these religions do share something in common in the sense that they are channeling

00:32:24.580 the people towards an end.

00:32:27.960 And that is how they are powerful and actually essential in world, you know, world human evolution.

00:32:36.360 In Rome and Greece, the religion is a public and civic religion.

00:32:40.820 So it's not a personal religion.

00:32:43.200 It's actually a kind of collectivist religion in that regard.

00:32:46.060 And that's a very important point.

00:32:47.640 And that makes it distinct from Christian, uh, Christianity in a lot of ways.

00:32:51.860 Christianity is a personal salvation cult, right?

00:32:55.460 So the emphasis is on the salvation of the individual soul.

00:32:59.040 Um, and it wasn't a kind of a, it, it, it's not alone in being in this category, uh, earlier

00:33:05.280 myths, um, or earlier myth bodies and earlier cults rather, um, from which Christianity, uh,

00:33:12.020 is evidently derived in my view.

00:33:13.900 Uh, this would include, uh, the cult of Dionysus, uh, the cult of Adonis, for example.

00:33:19.680 Uh, these are also, uh, personal salvation, uh, cults, you know, especially in the case of,

00:33:24.500 uh, the cult of Dionysus or Bacchus.

00:33:26.920 So they're personal salvation cults.

00:33:28.580 The interest is in the salvation of the individual soul.

00:33:31.920 Now, from a, uh, Roman or Greek perspective, this is a, these are kind of, these are degenerate

00:33:37.820 cults.

00:33:38.220 They're thonic degenerate cults.

00:33:40.020 And one of the reasons we can imagine, and I'm sure that ancients also probably highlighted

00:33:45.620 this specifically, is the idea that they're personal salvation cults as opposed to the sort

00:33:51.200 of celestial public cults where you have chieftain gods like Jupiter or Zeus or Apollo, um, who

00:33:58.860 are gods of, uh, you know, of the public, of, you know, of the assembly, as it were, of the

00:34:04.800 people, um, and you, that you can understand them, uh, they were ancestral gods.

00:34:11.420 Um, so that makes these, these other cults distinct, these, um, cults arriving from the

00:34:18.260 Near East, which include Christianity, uh, um, you know, uh, the Adonis cult.

00:34:24.140 And I guess there's some debate as to whether or not, um, uh, the Bacchus or Dionysus cult

00:34:28.960 arrived, um, uh, from the Near East.

00:34:31.520 I would, I would, uh, argue, I would, um, put myself on the side of the Orientalists on

00:34:37.360 that one because he's clearly, in fact, in the myth of Dionysus, the name Dionysus means

00:34:42.860 Zeus of Nysa, and Nysa is, um, a mythical realm that's, uh, is either, you know, somewhere

00:34:51.140 in the South in Africa or in Arabia, right?

00:34:53.720 So he, it's, it's in the East or South, right?

00:34:56.400 So he's understood as a, especially, essentially a Zeus of the East or a Zeus of the South,

00:35:03.020 right?

00:35:03.340 So he's understood as a foreign god, effectively.

00:35:06.420 Um, would you say in, in terms of understanding Greco-Roman religion there, if we're, if we're

00:35:12.080 looking at these structural components, there, there seem to be two things that you're stressing.

00:35:16.100 The first is that these are ancestor gods in the sense that the Olympians are a family.

00:35:22.560 They are a big family and Zeus is at the head of it.

00:35:26.260 And he's, you know, either symbolic or, or even kind of literally at the head of our family.

00:35:32.580 Uh, so it is an ancestral tribal god at its deepest level.

00:35:37.320 Um, but it's also a celestial god.

00:35:40.480 Um, it is a solar deity.

00:35:43.260 I mean, particularly in the case of Apollo.

00:35:46.160 Um, but Olympia itself is on a mountaintop in the heavens.

00:35:51.540 It, it is something that is up and, you know, pointing upwards and so on.

00:35:56.740 And there are elements of that in Christianity, or at least those have been kind of syncretically

00:36:01.960 added to Christianity.

00:36:03.580 A very important aspect, um, you know, both of the Greek and Roman world is this idea of

00:36:09.260 family, right?

00:36:10.260 So in Rome, uh, you have the idea of gens, uh, which means race actually.

00:36:15.800 And you also have the idea of familia, which means family.

00:36:18.640 And these become ultimately the way of organizing the society.

00:36:22.520 Uh, you know, not just culturally, but also politically, right?

00:36:26.300 Uh, the patricians are, the patricians are descended from a hundred men who, uh, became

00:36:34.000 the, Romulus, uh, you know, basically appointed a hundred men as the patricians.

00:36:39.040 And the patricians in Rome are, were the, you know, effectively the aristocracy and they

00:36:45.060 were the good families that were the, at the kind of center of the society.

00:36:49.920 Um, so the whole structure of the society is based on family and it's based on, um, you

00:36:56.280 know, and, and it's based on race ultimately, right?

00:36:58.340 Because we're talking about, ultimately we're talking about Arians in Rome.

00:37:02.100 Um, and, but in, among the gods, we, we essentially see a family that represents

00:37:08.800 uh, this Aryan family as well.

00:37:11.300 Uh, the, the words gens and familia are sometimes used interchangeably.

00:37:15.700 In other words, in Rome, we have the idea that race is also family.

00:37:19.760 I mean, this is a kind of very profound point, uh, that we sometimes miss, you know, in our,

00:37:24.800 you know, in other words, in, in, uh, you know, I'm certainly not the first one to say

00:37:29.940 it, but other, uh, nationalists have come, you know, have, uh, said the expression, for

00:37:34.400 example, that race is one's extended family, right?

00:37:37.300 So this was something that was just kind of understood in Rome, uh, the gods are themselves

00:37:42.920 a family, right?

00:37:43.700 And they represent a family now.

00:37:45.780 Um, and you know, and there are what happens in, I don't know if it's correct necessarily

00:37:52.280 to call them corruptions, but maybe it is also correct to call it corruptions, but there

00:37:56.620 are obviously examples in Roman myth and in Greek myth where we see, you know, effectively

00:38:02.740 degenerate behavior among the gods as it were, and this would especially be the case with

00:38:07.640 figures like Bacchus or Dionysus.

00:38:09.800 But in that case though, we understand effectively, we're talking about a thonic God and I would

00:38:14.980 argue, um, a Semitic God.

00:38:16.780 And there's many reasons actually to believe that.

00:38:18.900 In fact, Dionysus was, uh, or Bacchus, I should say, in the Roman world was widely understood

00:38:26.280 as the same figure of Yahweh.

00:38:27.960 I mean, this is, I mean, it was just kind of, that was an understanding in Rome, right?

00:38:32.740 So Yahweh and Bacchus are understood in the same figure.

00:38:35.460 I mean, I understood as the same figure that should, you know, people listening to, uh,

00:38:40.260 to this, uh, podcast should understand this is a very profound point, right?

00:38:45.360 So the hero, uh, deity in, uh, the old Testament Yahweh is Bacchus.

00:38:51.980 So that becomes a kind of new lens to look at, uh, the old Testament, right?

00:38:57.140 And he is a kind of, uh, you know, when you read the, uh, old Testament, he is this kind

00:39:01.980 of tricky character, right?

00:39:03.940 He's, he's a kind of dishonest, uh, tricky character.

00:39:07.220 Um, so, so that would be one example.

00:39:10.440 But then you also see examples of, uh, degenerate behavior from these ostensibly celestial gods

00:39:16.060 like Jupiter, for example.

00:39:17.620 I mean, Jupiter is not necessarily the biggest family man as it were, right?

00:39:22.120 But, but again, you can see these as kind of corruptions because there were artists in,

00:39:26.440 you know, I, in some cases I argue, you know, some, uh, you can see some examples of, of

00:39:32.880 degenerate behavior among gods in the myths and you can, and you can say, well, part of

00:39:38.420 the reason there might be because the civilization on some level is degenerating.

00:39:41.900 So the morals are becoming looser.

00:39:44.000 So that's reflected in the gods as well.

00:39:46.700 Another answer to that as well, which I think is a kind of important answer to it is that,

00:39:50.620 um, what you see in the, uh, the Roman world as well as this phenomenon of what I call proto-Jews,

00:39:56.680 right?

00:39:57.060 So in other words, um, proto-Jews, uh, I'll give you, I'll give you an example of a proto-Jewish

00:40:03.200 cult, one that was identified by Tacitus, for example, uh, or was relayed rather by Tacitus.

00:40:09.060 Uh, I, the idea is, um, Judaism or, uh, Jews emerged from the Saturn cult and this is something

00:40:15.260 that Tacitus says, for example.

00:40:16.800 And then I already gave you the example of Bacchus.

00:40:19.280 So Bacchus or Dionysus would be another example of a proto-Jewish cult.

00:40:23.680 And a Vulcan, I think, is also another kind of clear example of a proto-Jewish cult.

00:40:29.020 Um, and when you look at the myths with that understanding, they become much more kind of interesting

00:40:35.840 and comprehensible because then you start to actually understand, yeah, Vulcan is kind of

00:40:40.340 this Jewish character.

00:40:41.600 He's a character that's interceding.

00:40:43.740 He's coming between, uh, uh, Juno and Jupiter in arguments and siding with the woman, siding

00:40:50.500 with Juno.

00:40:51.220 And this is what causes Jupiter to throw him out of Olympus.

00:40:54.360 So in a way he becomes a kind of proto-feminist figure, as it were.

00:40:58.080 And, and Jupiter, as this Aryan god, becomes irritated or frustrated with him and throws him

00:41:02.800 out of Olympus.

00:41:03.460 But examples of, uh, where you see kind of degeneracy or decadence with, um, Jupiter outside

00:41:10.240 of the idea that he's kind of this philanderer and he's always cheating on his wife, or he's

00:41:14.240 a kind of, uh, you know, he's ultimately a kind of polygamous figure.

00:41:17.500 Um, one example would be, uh, he impregnates Maya, who is the mother, you know, who I identify

00:41:25.320 as a Semitic goddess, um, is the mother of Hermes or Mercury, who is another god that I identify

00:41:32.420 effectively as a Semitic god.

00:41:34.320 Um, so you see the myths become a way of also describing a kind of, you could argue, a kind

00:41:40.100 of degeneracy that's occurring in the civilization as well.

00:41:43.000 I think there's also a level at which the, the myths are acknowledging history.

00:41:49.100 They're, they're, they're acknowledging their own place in time.

00:41:52.300 I mean, the, the Greco-Roman myths have a concept of agriculture.

00:41:55.960 So there, they, these aren't, you know, extremely ancient myths where that concept was unknown.

00:42:04.160 That is integrated into their myth body.

00:42:06.580 And then even within the Olympians, there is a notion of time and overcoming other gods.

00:42:14.480 Uh, so, I mean, with Zeus himself, uh, he is, they are overcoming the old Titans, including

00:42:22.080 Kronos or Saturn, most especially.

00:42:25.760 Uh, so just to remind you of this myth, um, Saturn was, uh, a, he is not a god.

00:42:32.480 He is a Titan and he was, uh, there was a prophecy that his sons would overcome him, that they

00:42:39.460 would not, not just be his, you know, offspring, but actually create a new order that didn't

00:42:45.160 involve him.

00:42:45.780 And so he was, in fact, eating all of his offspring.

00:42:49.780 Um, there are, you know, very famous paintings involving this and Goy's the most famous, but

00:42:53.980 there, there are others, and it is actually a rather terrifying notion, to be honest.

00:42:58.400 Um, uh, but his, uh, um, Zeus's mother, uh, you know, felt for him and loved him.

00:43:08.220 And she actually gave a, uh, as opposed to giving Kronos the, you know, infant body of

00:43:14.740 Zeus, she gave him a rock, which he swallowed.

00:43:16.660 And Zeus later saved his siblings, uh, who became the Olympians, uh, when he overthrew

00:43:23.400 Kronos.

00:43:24.060 So there, there is, there, there's almost an, uh, a built in or embedded history to different

00:43:31.560 cults in competition with each other and kind of overcoming one another, but also being derived

00:43:37.920 from one another to some degree, uh, within the, the, the Greco-Roman body itself.

00:43:43.860 There's, there's kind of like a mythic narrative within all of the narratives that is probably

00:43:48.880 the most prominent, uh, in the sense that the Olympians wouldn't exist without that, but

00:43:53.300 it's about, I mean, it seems to indicate that there was an older God system involving Titans

00:43:59.840 and involving maybe Semitic deities like Kronos that from which the Olympians are derived to

00:44:07.800 some degree, but, but which they also overcame and engaged in competition.

00:44:12.180 I mean, there's other examples of, um, Apollo, I believe is defeating Python by descending upon

00:44:18.100 this, you know, fiery scene, uh, with a, you know, horrifying snake like figure, uh, in

00:44:25.280 a golden chariot and covering it in arrows there, there, there's, there's an almost kind

00:44:29.640 of explicit reference to other cults, you know, again, from which these are derived to

00:44:34.580 a degree, but also which they overcome and supplant in creating a new order.

00:44:39.440 Yeah, no, that's absolutely the case.

00:44:42.420 And I mean, I think that the other thing I would say too, because some, sometimes people

00:44:45.600 become irritated with the idea that like Vulcan is a Semitic God or, or that, uh, Mercury is

00:44:50.860 a Semitic God, like people in the DR, let's just say, um, become irritated with this idea

00:44:57.320 because they're kind of, and maybe it's because they're sort of attracted to these figures or

00:45:01.840 they like this idea that Greece was this sort of just racially homogeneous society that,

00:45:07.820 yeah, which, which it, it was not in, as we know it was not right.

00:45:11.980 So, um, and it was influenced by all these other civilizations, but what are in all these

00:45:17.540 other peoples, um, and it was, yeah.

00:45:21.200 So, but what I would say is the following is that, um, those examples, because what you

00:45:27.420 do see in the myth, you see examples of like these Semitic gods effectively collaborating

00:45:31.700 with, um, Arian gods, you see, uh, a Vulcan, uh, supplying the, uh, the lightning bolts to

00:45:40.040 Jupiter, for example, to fight the Titans.

00:45:42.300 You see, um, Mercury, uh, serving as the herald of the gods, right?

00:45:46.980 As the messenger and the herald of the gods.

00:45:49.040 And so, and so, so we can still identify these as kind of Semitic figures within a kind of

00:45:55.820 hierarchy or pantheon of gods.

00:45:57.660 And really the key there is that, um, what, what the Greeks are, what the ancients and

00:46:03.800 the Romans were doing is that they were establishing a hierarchy of gods and also a hierarchy of

00:46:09.720 races implicitly within those societies.

00:46:12.400 So, um, so we might understand, for example, Jupiter is a god that would represent, um, the

00:46:18.820 patricians, for example, he represents the Arians.

00:46:21.160 Um, so you see in, in, in, one of the reasons, uh, something like this becomes valuable.

00:46:27.760 And I, this is what I argue is that, so it's not, it's describing effectively Semitic figures

00:46:34.540 in servile roles to Aryan figures.

00:46:37.900 Now, you know, someone in the DR will be like, well, you know, the perfect society is when

00:46:43.320 all the Semitic elements are basically expelled and that that's, and we have a, a homogeneous

00:46:48.880 society.

00:46:49.520 Well, you know, you know, and, and I don't, I think that there were probably certainly

00:46:53.820 cases in, you know, in the past and certainly in the future where a kind of a racial separation

00:46:58.880 is desirable, uh, among, you know, different elements.

00:47:02.700 But, and we see examples of that in myth, for example, where we see Vulcan being expelled

00:47:08.060 from Olympus and landing in Lemnos, which I argue is a, um, a proto-Jewish, you know, uh,

00:47:15.700 site, um, where the, the cult of Vulcan develops, right?

00:47:20.500 Um, so, but I think that the problem though, really ultimately with this interaction between

00:47:27.300 the Aryan and the, the Semite and between, and I think it's actually a clearer to say

00:47:32.400 Jews or proto-Jews because they become sort of the kind of the most powerful and sophisticated,

00:47:37.520 um, element of, you know, of, of, of this other, as it were.

00:47:42.980 Um, I think the key is that there is an element of crypsis effectively among Jews or proto-Jews

00:47:50.020 where, whereby they were able to kind of, um, you know, in, uh, effectively infiltrate or,

00:47:57.360 you know, insinuate themselves into a society that is Aryan.

00:48:01.880 And I think that the Greek and Roman myth and religion system understood this, that effectively

00:48:09.220 you can, so even if you were to kind of, for example, expel Jews, uh, from, uh, Rome or

00:48:15.440 from Greece, that because of this cryptic element in this, the idea that basically Jews can pretend

00:48:23.760 not to be Jews, they can pretend to be Aryans to, you know, uh, to, uh, uh, varying degrees

00:48:29.140 of success.

00:48:29.720 And they, they are kind of along a racial spectrum that allows them to do that.

00:48:34.560 They're these kind of more white looking Jews, as it were, um, uh, because of that cryptic

00:48:40.920 element to Jews, the value of the religion of the, uh, the ancient Greek and the ancient

00:48:47.520 Roman, the Greco-Roman religion is that you're establishing hierarchy, right?

00:48:51.760 And this becomes a kind of moralizing aspect to the Aryans in the society and allows them

00:48:57.840 to dominate in the way that they're sort of representative gods or dominating other, uh,

00:49:03.840 sort of lesser Semitic gods, if that makes sense to you.

00:49:07.560 Um, so Roman religion, I, I argue that one of the geniuses of the Greco-Roman religion system

00:49:14.980 is that it establishes racial hierarchy and it does it in, it does it in an explicit way

00:49:21.580 in the sense that, you know, to the people that do understand the myths, who understand

00:49:25.580 Roman interpretation, for example, you know, know what's being conveyed there, but also

00:49:30.820 on a kind of a subliminal and implicit level, you know, in the way that art or in the way

00:49:35.720 that religion, um, operates on the subconscious or on the psyche, right?

00:49:40.760 So it, it has a moralizing effect to the Aryans who are kind of moralized to rule the society

00:49:46.840 and has a demoralizing effect on the Semites who are put in a kind of servile role to the

00:49:53.700 extent that they're, uh, you know, permitted within the society at all.

00:49:56.900 And again, I, I don't think that you can control to the extent, uh, in, in a lot of cases to

00:50:01.940 which they appear in the society.

00:50:03.660 So religion becomes a solution to that problem of crypsis and this idea that, um, every society

00:50:11.200 is ultimately infiltrated, right?

00:50:13.000 There's always going to be some element of, uh, I mean, Aryans are always going to have

00:50:18.400 this other element that's crowding in on them because it's, we are in, in exceptionally

00:50:24.660 productive, uh, and, uh, um, what's the, yeah, we're a very productive race in the sense

00:50:31.620 that we create these very desirable civilizations that are very rich and productive and they

00:50:37.820 create all this sort of additional wealth that people want access to.

00:50:41.580 Um, and also, uh, you know, people want access to our genes as well.

00:50:45.680 I mean, and this is another aspect of Judaism, which I argue is ultimately a kind of bridegathering

00:50:51.500 cult, as it were, in the sense that Jews are very interested in the best genes, you know,

00:50:57.680 wherever those genes lie and that, um, there is always a, of course, a kind of Semitic element

00:51:02.880 to Judaism.

00:51:04.200 Um, and that's something that the religion accounts for, but that they have a way of, um, essentially,

00:51:10.700 you know, through their religion, um, you know, accessing, um, desirable genes in non-Jewish

00:51:19.380 civilizations, but, you know, in particularly, in particularly, uh, Aryan civilizations.

00:51:23.760 Well, we can talk about the impact really of, of the adoption of Christianity and, and, and

00:51:36.040 I think we probably should understand it as Judeo-Christianity in the sense that it is,

00:51:41.600 uh, not, not to say that there aren't hot conflicts between, uh, Judaism and, and, and

00:51:49.140 Christianity or that Judaism hasn't in some ways rejected Christ as a Messiah.

00:51:54.000 But the, even the notion of a Messiah is quite, which is a, you know, the literal translation

00:51:59.640 of Christ, um, is a Jewish notion.

00:52:03.220 It is a Jewish vision that Christianity is born from, and it is a fulfillment of that

00:52:10.360 vision, one that is rejected by Jews, no question, but it is a fulfillment of that bigger

00:52:16.040 vision and just what, what is the impact of the adoption of Christianity in the West, you

00:52:25.360 know, particularly the latter stages of the Roman empire.

00:52:29.360 Uh, I mean, one, one can, you know, moving from say a solar deity, you know, worshiping the

00:52:37.760 most primal kind of originary religion, which is the sun as what gives us life and allows

00:52:46.500 us to be productive.

00:52:47.460 Uh, and this, you know, beacon out there that is untouchable and bright and light that shines

00:52:55.760 light into darkness, that is, is ultimately a kind of source of truth.

00:53:00.620 Um, and adopting a dying God on a cross, um, as its most fundamental symbol and, and the

00:53:10.220 kind of hierarchy that is implied in that, uh, as you were saying, moving away from a fundamentally

00:53:17.200 solar family of gods, um, to a, a dying God that has a different origin ethnically, tribally,

00:53:26.320 racially, uh, than the people who worship him.

00:53:31.220 Yeah, it's a, it's a kind of direct inversion of the Roman system as it were.

00:53:35.480 And it's, it's, uh, it certainly was consciously devised in my view, uh, with that intention

00:53:42.100 of effectively inverting the Roman system, right.

00:53:45.820 And placing, um, a Jewish God or a Jewish deity above, um, you know, Arians effectively.

00:53:53.780 Right.

00:53:54.280 So inverting, uh, this, uh, inverting the hierarchy that I just described, uh, you know, one example

00:53:59.800 we can think of is, uh, so we have this, uh, you know, again, I argue a Semitic messenger

00:54:06.280 God in the form of Mercury, and he's subservient to Jupiter, who is the chieftain God, the king

00:54:12.480 of, of, in the, uh, Greco-Roman system.

00:54:15.580 Um, and in Judaism, uh, we see, you know, uh, because Judaism, part of Judaism, or rather

00:54:23.200 not in Judaism, Christianity rather, but, uh, you know, though I think Christianity is

00:54:29.040 best understood as a kind of tendril of Judaism, for example.

00:54:32.440 And the Old Testament has always been important to Christianity.

00:54:36.680 You know, it's referenced throughout the New Testament.

00:54:38.720 It's part of, uh, Christianity.

00:54:41.220 And there is a common God as well, um, you know, through the Old Testament into the New

00:54:47.420 Testament as well.

00:54:49.080 Um, so what I would say is, uh, we, let's look at the figure of, um, the archangel, the

00:54:55.560 archangel, uh, Michael, uh, he becomes a subservient figure to Yahweh, the Lord.

00:55:01.880 Um, and I would argue that that, you know, I, there's many reasons to believe that, uh,

00:55:09.640 Michael is kind of a form of Apollo, as it were, as it were.

00:55:12.860 He's a dragon slayer in Revelations, for example.

00:55:16.100 He's fighting a dragon.

00:55:18.200 And, uh, there are more kind of esoteric reasons why you might believe that, for example, in

00:55:22.520 the, the Kabbalah, he's, uh, I think, I believe it's called the Tiferet.

00:55:26.380 He's, um, it's, you know, he's, uh, Michael is associated in esoteric, uh, you know, Kabbalah.

00:55:34.920 Michael is, uh, associated with Tiferet, the Tiferet, which is kind of the sixth sphere

00:55:39.900 of the Kabbalah, and, um, which is also associated with the sun and man, right?

00:55:46.080 So you could, you could argue that that's another indication that he's a kind of Apollonian

00:55:51.020 figure.

00:55:51.820 He's understood as solar.

00:55:52.980 Michael has understood as solar.

00:55:54.260 Um, so, but you see an inversion there, right?

00:55:57.140 So angel, the word angel means messenger.

00:55:59.860 So now the, now Yahweh is the master and the Arian is the messenger, is the servant.

00:56:07.540 Um, so that would be one example.

00:56:09.980 Um, but in general, of course, you're, uh, in Christianity, you're bound down to a Jewish

00:56:16.520 God in Jesus Christ.

00:56:19.260 Yeah, we see an inversion.

00:56:20.840 And I think that ultimately the goal there is to, um, demoralize, uh, the Arian race and

00:56:28.980 to, through parable and religion, express a Jewish superiority over Arians in the sense

00:56:37.100 that, you know, you know, however you interpret or view that parable, not only, you know, I,

00:56:44.560 I argue that the Jewish God ultimately represents Jewry collectively.

00:56:48.220 And I make the argument for that.

00:56:49.600 And I think that that is the case.

00:56:51.220 But even if you take a kind of more literalist view of Christianity and you say that, well,

00:56:57.900 Jesus was a Jew, um, right, right then it's, you know, uh, Arians understand that, um, uh,

00:57:06.560 that their God is a member of the Jewish race, right?

00:57:11.380 So in other words, you know, how, how can we not understand that as demoralizing on some

00:57:16.180 level or understand ourselves as inferior to Jews if that is the case?

00:57:21.460 If, in other words, uh, if, if they're able to, from their race, uh, generate our God,

00:57:29.260 right?

00:57:29.560 So doesn't that make them on some level, if not a race of gods, a race, uh, capable of

00:57:35.620 producing gods?

00:57:36.720 So that has, I would argue, a deeply kind of psychological, uh, psychologically depressive

00:57:42.160 effect on, on Arians, uh, vis-a-vis Jews.

00:57:45.180 And I think that that is something that Jews, I think that there's a lot of evidence that

00:57:49.300 Jews understand that, that understand that to be, um, a way of psychologically dominating

00:57:55.220 Arians, it leads to a kind of deeply ambivalent relationship towards Jews on behalf of Christians

00:58:05.740 as well.

00:58:06.600 And the sense that there, there is this kind of schizophrenic ambivalence, mixed bag of feelings,

00:58:14.840 you know, absolute admiration and hostility, uh, towards Jews that is, that is simply pathological,

00:58:23.700 um, that a Christian in some ways can't see Jews in the Jewish tradition straight.

00:58:29.500 They can't look upon it objectively and criticize it objectively, uh, due to the, the nature of

00:58:36.980 their own religion and mythic structure.

00:58:40.120 Uh, someone who has extracted himself from Judaism and Christianity can, um, look upon Jews

00:58:49.980 straight.

00:58:50.640 He can objectively examine them and reach a certain compromises and under mutual understanding

00:58:58.160 in a way that a Christian simply cannot, uh, Jews are to a degree, the villain, uh, of their

00:59:05.600 story and the sense of the rejection of the Christ Messiah and the execution of the Christ

00:59:11.500 Messiah.

00:59:12.320 Um, at the same time, the fact that they have even a notion of the word Christ, which is Messiah,

00:59:18.960 it's a, it is coming from an old Testament, uh, Jewish myth of, you know, if you look at a famous

00:59:26.600 passage from Isaiah of the lion lying down with the lamb, um, and this egalitarian kind of seem,

00:59:34.660 you know, a topsy turvy even kind of communistic type situation, uh, where the child will lead the

00:59:42.540 lion and the lamb into a new age of peace and perfection and the end of predator and prey and

00:59:50.680 the seeming end of all hierarchy, even though that's obviously not the case.

00:59:54.700 Uh, and so the, I, I think a, a Christian nationalist or a, a Christian who is critical of Judaism

01:00:03.880 or even critical of say Zionism and so on is kind of left in this fundamental ambivalence.

01:00:09.560 And you can kind of see this with a lot of American fundamentalists, um, who want to convert

01:00:16.360 the Jews to Christianity, uh, who imagine world history as leading towards a coming apocalypse,

01:00:24.380 which of course has a lot of precedence with Jesus Christ and his message, but a, a coming

01:00:29.140 apocalypse, uh, based around Jews, you know, gaining control once again of Israel and that

01:00:37.620 land.

01:00:38.120 And so they're, they're often viewed, these Christian fundamentalists or the evangelicals are

01:00:42.720 often viewed as anti-Semitic after, and why not?

01:00:45.960 After all, they want to convert them all to Christianity.

01:00:48.620 They are, you know, um, urging on the apocalypse.

01:00:53.120 They want to bring it upon more quickly.

01:00:55.400 It's, it's, it's, at the very least, it's a deeply important aspect of their religion and

01:01:00.740 their, their view of the world.

01:01:01.940 In fact, right now, um, at the same time, you have to understand Christians in general and

01:01:09.440 evangelicals and fundamentalists in particular, or especially as a Jewish phenomenon.

01:01:15.660 Uh, they, their entire religion is based on this.

01:01:20.100 Their entire religion is based on this ambivalence about Jews to the point that any perspective

01:01:27.260 they have on the Jewish race is just schizophrenic and pathological and, and, and, and, and huge

01:01:35.340 has, has, has huge blind spots and is just twisted due to the very nature of their belief.

01:01:42.320 Um, and, and I, I think in some ways there, there is an opportunity with the, you know,

01:01:47.960 gradual decline of Christianity, which is, which has been happening for some time.

01:01:51.960 And it's even led to a, a rather, uh, uh, not so attractive kind of atheist movement and

01:01:58.860 so on.

01:01:59.980 Um, but, but also through the, this new look at religion, a newer Roman perspective on

01:02:08.800 religion, um, for us to kind of extricate ourselves from the Christian mythos and be able to look

01:02:15.940 at the Jews properly, to see them straight and to actually reach a kind of proper understanding

01:02:21.720 understanding of them, even a mutual understanding, you could say, um, and, and a better hope for

01:02:26.840 peace that is divorced from Christian antisemitism, um, on the one hand, um, and a kind of Jewish

01:02:37.080 apocalypses, apocalyptism on the other, that we need to understand them and these crucial issues

01:02:45.900 outside in it from another lens than Christianity, which is itself a fulfillment of

01:02:51.640 Judaism.

01:02:53.800 Yeah.

01:02:54.340 I mean, and I think that one of the things that, uh, well, just, I'll just call them

01:02:58.480 Christian antisemites.

01:03:00.340 Um, one of the things that they'll point to as to a reason why Christianity is not pro-Jewish

01:03:07.900 as it were, and I, and that's kind of a, a simplification of what we're saying.

01:03:12.100 Right.

01:03:12.720 Um, but the, one of the reasons that they, I mean, ultimately it is, I would argue pro-Jewish

01:03:18.920 in the sense that it, it becomes a way of, again, of dominating Aryans psychologically

01:03:23.780 vis-a-vis Jews.

01:03:25.660 Um, and I think this was the intention of that religion.

01:03:28.740 This is something that Nietzsche also suspected.

01:03:31.020 Um, but what I think that, uh, one thing that they get caught up on is that there are

01:03:37.500 these kind of Jewish villains that appear in the gospels, for example, uh, the Pharisees

01:03:43.140 there.

01:03:43.780 So in other words, um, we see kind of evil Jews as it were, and there are, um, in the

01:03:50.380 New Testament, there are, uh, kind of striking passages where, um, uh, you know, Christ is,

01:03:57.100 uh, describing them as the, you know, the, the children of Satan as it were.

01:04:01.680 Um, so in, but not Jews, but in, but the language is used in a very kind of careful way.

01:04:07.300 So he's not describing all Jews as the, and that's something that needs to be pointed out

01:04:11.300 to people who bring up, you know, um, uh, quotes like that.

01:04:15.740 He's not pointing to all Jews and he doesn't say all Jews, but he's talking about particular

01:04:19.760 Jews that are opposing his ministry, for example.

01:04:22.340 Right.

01:04:23.380 Um, but I think that the gospels and Christianity is a kind of genius myth in the sense that it

01:04:30.920 does create these characters who are, who are effectively Jewish villains.

01:04:35.660 So both the greatest hero of the new Testament, Jesus Christ, uh, uh, is contained in this parable,

01:04:43.580 but also in this parable are these villainous Jews, right?

01:04:47.300 And what this becomes, this is actually a way of making the cult saleable as it were to, uh,

01:04:54.220 Gentiles who are kind of the ultimate audience of the myth.

01:04:57.640 I mean, you know, early Christians are Jews, but then the, the goal is actually to spread

01:05:03.260 the cult to Gentiles.

01:05:05.000 I mean, that's kind of the purpose of Christianity as it were, Paul becomes, uh, uh, the apostle

01:05:10.620 to the Gentiles.

01:05:11.800 Um, Peter is understood as the apostle to the Jews.

01:05:15.960 Uh, but in any case, so the myth becomes, because we have to understand in Rome, you know,

01:05:24.040 people just don't, people are very wary and don't like Jews generally, and they're a very

01:05:29.320 kind of, they're understood as very troublesome and these revolts are put down in Judea.

01:05:33.480 Uh, and so there, no one, you know, the, the, the popular view in Rome is not to join a Jewish

01:05:39.800 cult or to trust Jews as it were.

01:05:42.040 So we can imagine what we would call today is, is highly sort of anti-Semitic conditions

01:05:47.600 in Rome.

01:05:48.600 So how do you sell a cult, uh, to the Romans?

01:05:53.420 Uh, well, one way of doing it is basically having these, these, uh, Jewish scapegoats

01:05:58.480 or, or throwing Jews under the bus as it were in the cult.

01:06:01.400 I mean, that becomes almost a kind of necessary, uh, or that becomes almost requisite as a point

01:06:06.300 of entry, right?

01:06:07.180 You have to kind of concede that there are these bad Jews as it were, right?

01:06:11.740 Um, so I think that that's something that people get caught up on.

01:06:14.380 And, uh, you know, it's the term that I've come up with to describe this phenomena in

01:06:18.800 Jewish religion and art is the Caducean, right?

01:06:21.640 It's also a term that you can apply to politics as well.

01:06:24.240 But this idea that there are, there is effectively a false opposition, right?

01:06:29.200 And I argue that Christianity and Christ represents that false opposition, right?

01:06:34.620 So it'd be Christianity represents something that is, that is, uh, you know, maybe it's not

01:06:41.700 as ideal as a kind of, uh, you know, Gentiles becoming completely bacchanal or liberal as

01:06:47.120 it were, but it becomes a kind of controllable opposition in the sense that it's, it's not

01:06:52.780 that bad.

01:06:53.400 Jews can deal with Christianity and they've dealt with Christianity for a very long time.

01:06:57.860 And, you know, people talk about, um, you know, uh, sometimes people in the DR will crow

01:07:04.580 about, um, how Jews have been kicked out of 109 countries and 110 is coming up.

01:07:11.420 Well, you know, that's a very kind of terrible record.

01:07:13.800 I mean, that's not something that people should be proud of.

01:07:16.060 It's not, you know, first of all, uh, you know, the sort of kind of human suffering that

01:07:22.320 causes in general, whether to Jews or Gentiles is undesirable, of course.

01:07:26.200 Uh, but the other thing is, well, you know, how is it that, uh, Jews have persisted among

01:07:32.660 Europeans for so long if Christianity is actually really that antisemitic?

01:07:37.160 The truth is Christianity has not been historically antisemitic.

01:07:40.940 It's often been a kind of sanctuary as it were for Jews.

01:07:44.800 Um, and I mean, that's something that, you know, uh, guys like, uh, Joyce will write about,

01:07:49.800 for example.

01:07:50.300 So the, you know, the, so it, it is not the case that Christianity is antisemitic in any

01:07:56.140 really, in any real kind of meaningful way.

01:07:58.800 And this is outside of the fact, obviously, that, uh, the God, the savior there is Jewish,

01:08:05.000 which by definition makes it not antisemitic.

01:08:08.680 And, you know, the other aspect of Christianity is it seeks to convert both Gentiles and Jews,

01:08:14.220 right?

01:08:14.680 So the Christian answer ultimately to the Jewish problem, as it were, is conversion.

01:08:19.140 This is what, um, Michael E. Jones talks about.

01:08:22.640 Um, but, uh, you know, conversion is not, you know, the, this is, this is the design of

01:08:29.000 the religion.

01:08:29.420 I mean, Jews are not disinterested in intermarrying with, uh, Arians, but they're, they, they're

01:08:36.480 only, they're interested in intermarrying with them on their own terms, right?

01:08:40.960 So in other words, ideally there are, uh, necessarily and certainly they're remaining Jews, but they're,

01:08:47.480 they're bringing in, um, you know, desirable stock from the Aryan gene pool.

01:08:52.980 Uh, and the genetics show this very clearly that, you know, the, uh, Jews are, you know,

01:08:58.400 roughly 40% European and, and most of that is from a female line, right?

01:09:03.600 So it means that Jewish males are marrying, uh, desired, uh, Aryan stock among Aryan populations

01:09:09.640 and often gaining very desirable genes because they're in a somewhat advantageous position

01:09:15.500 in those, uh, societies, whether it's through their wealth or their cultural sophistication

01:09:19.940 or whatever the case may be.

01:09:21.060 You have said that religion is an answer to many of these issues.

01:09:28.980 And, uh, you know, I, again, one of the frequent criticisms that I've heard, and these have

01:09:34.920 all come before you, we've published the book, but, uh, I think many people have a, at least

01:09:41.660 a vague grasp on where we're going with this, but, uh, that religion is the proper, it's the

01:09:49.380 ultimate solution to a lot of these problems.

01:09:53.080 And that isn't just a, uh, say Jewish question, but it is a, uh, the, the, the question of channeling

01:10:01.460 our civilization in a proper direction, uh, resisting demoralization or what you could,

01:10:06.460 you know, you could Nietzsche would call nihilism, uh, and so in valuing life and actually actively

01:10:14.100 cultivating higher levels of life at cultivating human flourishing and our flourishing, especially,

01:10:21.300 uh, and that religion is the solution to this.

01:10:24.720 Well, how do you address kind of one of the common critiques, which is that, oh, you're

01:10:32.020 just another, you're just another new age guy out there inventing a new religion like

01:10:38.680 Scientology or, or one of these kinds of things and that no one actually believes in Apollo or

01:10:46.440 something.

01:10:46.760 It's almost kind of cynical interpretation of what you're doing.

01:10:50.980 Um, I, I think that there, there at least is a little bit of plausibility, uh, to the

01:10:57.260 fact that, you know, we're trying to change directions on a civilizational level.

01:11:06.580 And that's such a project is so huge, um, that it's, you know, it's, it's, it's rightly

01:11:14.200 criticized.

01:11:15.580 Um, but, but how, how can we kind of understand religion in a new term, understand even like

01:11:23.700 things like faith in a new way, um, that we can, you know, find ultimate solutions to this,

01:11:31.980 these problems of nihilism, you know, writ large, but, but then also just the, the Jewish

01:11:39.100 question, you know, writ small as it were.

01:11:42.980 The criticism that I'm inventing a new religion, uh, well, well, first of all, religions are

01:11:49.640 at some point invented at some point religions come into being.

01:11:52.940 I mean, that's just, you know, ostensibly this happened, uh, with the birth of Jesus Christ,

01:11:58.180 right?

01:11:58.440 If we, if we're taking a, uh, literalist interpretation of, um, Christianity or it happened, you know,

01:12:04.740 some 70 years later or 60 years later when they're writing the gospels, right?

01:12:09.820 So at some point religion is developed in a, and it is an invented thing.

01:12:15.260 It's a consciously invented thing.

01:12:17.140 And that's what I argue.

01:12:18.080 And that's based on my analysis of myth and religion in world history is that I see that

01:12:23.640 I see these myths as consciously developed with coherent symbolic meaning.

01:12:28.560 Um, so that becomes, and, you know, to Richard's point, this is the way of organizing societies.

01:12:35.220 This is the way of cohering people to a goal, um, in a direction to give, it's a way of giving

01:12:42.840 a people and a civilization or direction and a goal and forming them ultimately forming

01:12:48.420 them into something, ideally something better, uh, than their ancestors, ideally.

01:12:54.120 Right.

01:12:55.000 Um, so, and I guess the other part of this question too, is that, well, no one believes in it.

01:13:00.660 Right.

01:13:00.900 So, so no one believes that Apollo is this God that's in a chariot in the heavens.

01:13:05.560 Right.

01:13:06.180 Well, I would say the following is that I think that, again, I, I argue that these myths are

01:13:10.900 developed, uh, cynically.

01:13:12.220 So one of the critiques against me, um, or one of the arguments against me, which I think

01:13:17.260 ultimately comes from, you know, it comes from a place of people who are actually not

01:13:21.920 really that familiar with myth and actually haven't really studied it in any sort of like

01:13:25.960 long, uh, and, um, consistent manner in the manner that I have.

01:13:31.300 Um, they argue that, well, these myths just arise kind of mystically.

01:13:35.780 Right.

01:13:36.100 So, and you might even argue, you know, they might even be kind of taking a Jungian view of

01:13:40.960 myth development, though.

01:13:41.980 This is not, I don't think that that is kind of the, the fairest characterization of Jung's,

01:13:47.580 uh, views on myth development, but this idea of a collective unconsciousness.

01:13:51.620 So, you know, let's, let's, even if, um, you know, what I would call the Christ myth,

01:13:57.240 even, even if Christianity is untrue, that the stories and the parables that are, are developed

01:14:04.820 there are kind of just arising in a kind of mystical or more sort of intuitive, uh, way.

01:14:11.660 Right.

01:14:12.540 Um, and I, you know, look, I don't discount, discount that there is a kind of intuitive aspect

01:14:17.040 to the development of myth and art in general, of course, obviously.

01:14:19.960 And there's some examples of art being developed in an entirely intuitive and creative way,

01:14:24.360 um, and not in a kind of conscious and encoded way in the way that I argue that Christianity

01:14:29.920 is developed.

01:14:30.980 But, so here's the difference that, you know, I argue that in, in, in religion generally,

01:14:37.460 there are what, you know, we call Gnostics, right?

01:14:40.980 Now, people are familiar with the Gnostic movement, which was a kind of early, uh, uh, you know,

01:14:45.940 form of Christianity, um, uh, which was ostensibly more mystical in nature.

01:14:52.020 But the word Gnostic actually means knower, right?

01:14:55.720 And so it's referring to someone who has esoteric or hidden knowledge.

01:14:59.160 That's what a Gnostic means.

01:15:00.620 So I think that the phenomena of Gnostics is ultimately a phenomena that's as old as religion

01:15:05.900 itself.

01:15:06.360 So dating back to Sumer, dating, uh, you know, dating back to the origin of religion in Sumer

01:15:12.220 or Egypt, uh, you have Gnostics, you have people who understand what the symbols mean,

01:15:17.800 right?

01:15:18.800 And, and the, and the symbols that have been kind of intelligently and consciously developed.

01:15:24.080 And then you have a lady or you have a herd that doesn't understand it and it will experience

01:15:29.040 it mystically or spiritually.

01:15:31.360 Or another word that, uh, the modern word we use today that we should understand as a

01:15:35.540 synonym of spiritual is psychologically, right?

01:15:38.780 They understand it psychologically, or they, they have an emotive, uh, reaction to it.

01:15:43.680 That's a more kind of visceral response to it.

01:15:46.100 And, and that's what people in the DR are thinking.

01:15:49.320 They're thinking that religion in, in, in, there's a kind of passive aspect to this where

01:15:54.480 they just, they want us to suddenly be inhabited with this spirit words, whether it's the spirit

01:15:59.980 of Christ or the spirit of some Hindu God or whatever the case may be.

01:16:04.020 And that, that, this sort of mystical inhabitation of spirit will motivate us to save the white

01:16:10.260 race or whatever, whatever the kind of like actual utilitarian goal they're thinking of.

01:16:15.180 Um, but I, I think that that is a kind of passive and ultimately incorrect approach because again,

01:16:21.600 these religions are developed consciously with an understanding of symbol and using symbol

01:16:27.140 as a way of moralizing, uh, this group or that group, whether it's, it's being used to moralize

01:16:32.840 Jews or whether it's being used to moralize Aryans.

01:16:35.660 Um, and that it, that is not, you know, so in other words, you have a passive approach,

01:16:41.140 which is imagining that we're somehow going to be kind of mystically inspired to save the

01:16:48.340 civilization or save the white race or whatever the real goal is, right?

01:16:52.380 Because let's actually talk about the real goal, right?

01:16:56.500 Yeah, exactly.

01:16:57.400 Let's talk about the real goal.

01:16:59.100 And that, so in what I've just described is the real goal.

01:17:02.240 So we, you know, so we should be taking intelligent and conscious steps toward that rather than being,

01:17:09.380 you know, uh, inhabited by this sort of drunk spirit of mysticism.

01:17:14.160 And, you know, and, and we see this, you know, when we contrast the Apollonian and the Dionysian,

01:17:19.720 we see this as well.

01:17:21.100 The Dionysian is all, is connected to this mystical drunken, uh, you know, consciousness.

01:17:28.640 Uh, the Apollonian on the other hand is connected to a sober, conscious and ordering aspect of,

01:17:35.720 of the human mind, right?

01:17:37.560 It's, and, and that's the way that we have to approach the future is in an Apollonian way.

01:17:43.020 We have to be deciding in an intelligent direction.

01:17:46.820 I mean, it's, it's like anything else you would do in your life, but now, but the thing

01:17:50.880 that's kind of scary about it is that we're doing it on a much wider collective scale,

01:17:54.960 right?

01:17:55.960 Um, but if you were going to build a house, you would have a kind of intelligent, conscious

01:18:00.920 plan of building the house.

01:18:02.400 You wouldn't be inhabited by some artistic, mystical, spiritual, you know, uh, spirit that

01:18:08.140 would allow you to build the house.

01:18:10.100 So it's similar in that regard.

01:18:12.060 Um, and I think that, so I think that the, you know, I think a lot of that sort of resistance

01:18:17.540 ultimately comes from, you know, it comes from a couple of sources.

01:18:22.000 One is a fear, um, you know, an understandable fear and which is probably related to, uh, the

01:18:29.980 disappearance of Christianity and maybe a kind of sadness connected to that as well.

01:18:34.480 That, um, you know, in maybe even a fear of damnation.

01:18:39.780 Uh, so I think that those objections, uh, come from that quarter.

01:18:45.080 And then I think other objections just come from people who are kind of just, you know,

01:18:50.000 just kind of shitty people who just don't really, you know, who would rather just kind

01:18:54.440 of, uh, who kind of like the world the way it is.

01:18:57.460 And like, um, you know, being part of this sort of kind of depressive group where people

01:19:03.720 don't feel, um, that they have the spirit within themselves, but rather have to look

01:19:10.220 to, you know, a Jewish deity, for example, to save them.

01:19:14.420 Um, or a spirit or some kind of, uh, inhabitation that we can anticipate or maybe somehow through

01:19:21.600 shamanistic ritual generate, but that's not the way forward in my view.

01:19:27.200 And I, I mean, I think, um, to sort of logical and intelligent people who, who also come to

01:19:32.860 the conclusion that religion is important and it, and it is a way of structuring society.

01:19:37.740 Um, and it, it, it's both a kind of, you know, it's both the culture and art of a future society

01:19:44.020 and, and religion, culture, art all, all become ultimately synonyms and that we have to create

01:19:50.480 a culture that is a non-degenerate culture.

01:19:53.440 Um, and the root of that is religion because that is sacred, you know, are, are the, the

01:19:58.760 continuance of the white race, the amelioration of the white race, the, there is nothing more

01:20:05.000 sacred in my mind than that.

01:20:06.800 I mean, whether it's, you know, whether we're just considering the white race or we're considering

01:20:11.020 the human species, there's nothing more sacred than that.

01:20:13.880 Um, so, and if now, if it comes to the question of God, does God exist or is there an afterworld?

01:20:22.800 Um, I, you know, my answer to that is the following.

01:20:25.860 Well, you know, God becomes a kind of a difficult term even to define on some level.

01:20:31.640 You know what I mean?

01:20:32.000 People sort of have a different definition of it, but if God means, um, you know, us having

01:20:36.980 a purpose on this earth, uh, and, you know, living in life, being valuable and the improvement

01:20:43.520 of life being valuable and a useful goal, then yeah, I, I mean, I think that I, I believe

01:20:48.740 in God, if that's how we're defining it.

01:20:51.140 Um, and I, in, I, you know, in the other question, well, is there an afterlife?

01:20:57.600 Well, you know, there is, we know that there is an afterlife or at least empirically, we understand

01:21:02.560 that there is an afterlife in our children, right?

01:21:04.720 We have children.

01:21:06.100 We, you know, we continue through our families.

01:21:09.000 We continue through our, our gens, through our familia.

01:21:12.500 That is an afterlife that we know is a kind of tangible and real thing, at least so far

01:21:19.700 as we can perceive the world, right?

01:21:21.260 Um, as far as like a personal afterlife, will, you know, we be, uh, thrown into a flaming pit

01:21:30.200 or, uh, for eternity or whatever, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:21:35.760 Or will we, um, you know, send to heaven for, uh, you know, saying the right words during

01:21:42.020 our life or bowing to the right God?

01:21:44.400 Well, I would say the following.

01:21:45.580 I, I just don't think that that doesn't seem to me like a benevolent God, right?

01:21:50.160 So in other words, I think that we were obligated to follow the good gods as it were,

01:21:56.340 right?

01:21:56.560 And a God that decides that you're condemned to hell for, you know, not believing in fables

01:22:04.820 that are not believable and, and not worshiping a foreign God of a people that appear to be

01:22:11.900 largely adversarial to us.

01:22:14.000 Uh, if that's a sort of kind of mind fuckery, like a benevolent God does, I, it doesn't strike

01:22:21.300 me as a benevolent God.

01:22:22.460 I mean, you know, in, uh, so, um, that's what I would say about that.

01:22:28.040 Um, so I, I think that to the extent, let's, let's assume that Jesus is real, right?

01:22:33.460 Um, and that Christianity is real.

01:22:36.080 I think, I, I think that I have a kinder and more benevolent view of Christ than almost any

01:22:43.400 Christian alive.

01:22:44.380 In the sense that I don't think I would be punished for the things that I'm saying, you

01:22:49.240 know what I mean?

01:22:49.560 If he is indeed a benevolent and perfect God, right?

01:22:53.200 And so maybe that's kind of the riddle of the new Testament on some level, right?

01:22:58.800 Yeah.

01:22:59.500 I, I would stress something that, um, I've said as well in some of my speeches.

01:23:06.640 Um, and, and I, and I probably did say it through a little bit of concealment.

01:23:13.940 I didn't directly oppose it to Christianity, although, although it always was in opposition

01:23:19.520 to Christianity and Judaism.

01:23:21.280 Um, but this notion of eternity and how eternity is achieved in, on this planet, um, that if you

01:23:32.160 look at yourself, you see a reflection of yourself in your child's eye, you are achieving a kind

01:23:38.160 of eternity.

01:23:38.780 If you die and your children and your grandchildren are there with you in a very happy circumstance,

01:23:45.120 uh, that is an achievement of an eternal line on this planet.

01:23:51.640 Uh, and that is the kind of eternity that we should be striving for.

01:23:57.120 Um, yes, maybe worms will be eating us and there's oblivion after this, after this life.

01:24:05.280 Sure.

01:24:05.920 And that is deeply terrifying on some level and, and not to be wished for.

01:24:11.340 Uh, but the, there, there is a kind of salvation and, and solace to be found in continuing our

01:24:19.280 people forever.

01:24:21.220 Uh, and that is a mark of, of, of eternity.

01:24:24.240 I think architecture can sometimes, or sculpture can sometimes achieve that long lasting achievement

01:24:32.580 art in general, sometimes your words, uh, but the ultimate form of eternity is children

01:24:39.660 and their, and their children and their connection in one line or one long story or narrative as

01:24:47.840 it were.

01:24:48.160 So that's what we should be striving for.

01:24:52.580 And that's where we will find salvation.

01:25:18.160 Yeah.

01:25:20.500 Yeah.

01:25:22.660 Yeah.

01:25:25.500 Yeah.

01:25:27.000 Yeah.

01:25:29.880 Yeah.

01:25:40.060 Yeah.

01:25:43.920 We'll be right back.

01:26:13.920 We'll be right back.

01:26:43.920 We'll be right back.

01:27:13.920 We'll be right back.

01:27:43.920 We'll be right back.

01:28:13.920 We'll be right back.

01:28:43.920 We'll be right back.

RadixJournal - December 25, 2020

Myth, Symbol, & Religion： An Introduction to REM

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript