Stay Free - Russel Brand - The Memeification of Politics - SF730

00:00:07.000 Ladies and gentlemen, Russell Brand's action.

00:00:10.000 Russell Brand's controversial conspiracy theorist.

00:00:12.000 Trying to bring real journalism to the American people.

00:00:17.000 Hello there, you awakening wonders.

00:00:18.000 Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand. 0.99

00:00:22.000 Certainly, there will be no free Palestine. 0.99

00:00:25.000 Let's see if we get a free Palestine out of Jerry Seinfeld.

00:00:28.000 Oh, Jerry Seinfeld. 0.73

00:00:30.000 What up, Seinfeld?

00:00:31.000 What up? 1.00

00:00:32.000 Can we get a free Palestine? 0.99

00:00:34.000 Can we get a free Palestine?

00:00:37.000 Come on, give us one free Palestine. 1.00

00:00:41.000 It doesn't exist. 0.72

00:00:46.000 Whatever you think about the complex issue of Israel and Palestine, note that we are all now living in a kind of matrix world where everyone is an agent, everyone's in the media, everybody's making content, everyone's filming you.

00:00:58.000 There's a famous person who used to once have to worry about paparazzi, now the world is paparazzi.

00:01:04.000 It's a weird experience if you've never had it.

00:01:05.000 They're kind of like locusts crawling around you.

00:01:09.000 Dark, dark force.

00:01:11.000 I tell you that it's not for the benefit of our kind that everyone is recording each other all of the time and trying to trip each other up, and that every other news item is a murder or a stabbing, someone filming some brutality or a complex geopolitical historical story that includes genocide and brutality and negligence and evil.

00:01:33.000 I don't know what the solution is going to be.

00:01:34.000 Over the course of the show today, we're going to be talking a bit about Michael Jackson.

00:01:38.000 Contemptible paedophile or brilliant genius?

00:01:41.000 Let me know in the comments and Chat.

00:01:43.000 Personally, I'm not sure that guy operated on a sexual plane, but you know, there is a Netflix documentary condemning him.

00:01:49.000 But then I've had documentaries condemning me that are full of, well, I've got a trial, and it seems that half of the people involved in that trial, well, not even half actually, me, I'm not allowed to talk about those things.

00:02:03.000 But I can talk about Michael Jackson, and then we can talk together about whether or not Michael Jackson is innocent or guilty.

00:02:09.000 On the subject of UK politics, which we're going to talk about for a little while before our interview in a minute, and you're going to love that interview.

00:02:16.000 The Green Party are one of the beneficiaries of the changing political landscape. 0.65

00:02:22.000 In your country, the wave that brought Trump into power created ripples elsewhere that brought Mamdani to New York.

00:02:30.000 Me, I see that, I suppose, in a strange way, as a benefit of living in a democracy.

00:02:36.000 That you might have people that are conservative, is that how you describe Trump, or nationalist, is that how you describe Trump, or you might have people that are socialist, is that how you describe Mamdani?

00:02:47.000 In addition to nationalist parties like Reform or Restore in the UK, they are seeing an increase in support as people finally and belatedly recognise that the two main institutional parties,

00:03:00.000 in my country that's the Conservative Party and Labour Party, have no credibility, have no viability, are unelectable stooges and servants of the globalist imperial system that will soon control whatever parties grow in power and influence as a result of forthcoming elections.

00:03:19.000 It's a way off in my country.

00:03:21.000 Anyway, the Green Party are a kind of left wing party.

00:03:24.000 You might say a woke pie.

00:03:26.000 You might say, in some regards, a good, compassionate pie that care about the environment.

00:03:30.000 We should all care about the environment, obviously, and care about vulnerable people.

00:03:34.000 We should all care about vulnerable people.

00:03:35.000 We're all vulnerable people.

00:03:36.000 We're all ending up in the same place if we don't quickly repent and turn towards the everlasting light that transcends our limited senses.

00:03:45.000 I mean, just by wearing these glasses, everything looks different.

00:03:47.000 So, how permanent can sensory reality be if it can be so easily inflicted and ordered?

00:03:53.000 Let me know what you think about that.

00:03:54.000 In the comments and chat.

00:03:55.000 And if you don't have Rumble Premium yet, get Rumble Premium now.

00:03:57.000 You get additional content from me and from so many others.

00:04:00.000 Remember, my book, How to Become a Creation, is available now.

00:04:03.000 Here's a bit of it, read at random.

00:04:07.000 Sky is an expanse of hope, new horizons and new realms.

00:04:10.000 Some water flows, some water.

00:04:12.000 Vapor is suspended in air.

00:04:13.000 That's some commentary there on Genesis 1 6.

00:04:16.000 If the Lord can create the world in seven days, surely you can change your life in seven days, particularly if you've had enough of the world as it is.

00:04:24.000 And who among us hasn't?

00:04:25.000 And if you're living in the UK, you have particular cause for concern.

00:04:29.000 The political diorama continues to unfurl and unfold.

00:04:33.000 This is a moment where a reform candidate and a green candidate clashed over the subject of immigration, a very Contentious subject in the United Kingdom right now.

00:04:43.000 Rob Kenyon, who I believe is a reform representative, argues rationally and with some numerical reliability, one would assume that more people means greater housing demand.

00:04:57.000 And the Green Party, Sarah Wakefield, has made a facial expression that's become a meme.

00:05:01.000 Now, I've been a meme once or twice in my time, and there's no greater honour.

00:05:05.000 Let's have a look at Sarah Wakefield's facial expression and let me know in the comments and chat where you stand on this.

00:05:10.000 Difficult subject of migration. 0.99

00:05:12.000 How is it being used to divide us and exploit us?

00:05:15.000 How is it being used to protect the powerful as they continue to benefit from our endless quarrelling?

00:05:20.000 Is that the idea of blaming our housing crisis on immigration is absolutely wild to me, actually.

00:05:27.000 We've got, but like, what?

00:05:28.000 Do you think that.

00:05:29.000 We've got an extra 10, 20 million people coming to the country all the time.

00:05:32.000 Do you think that.

00:05:33.000 If.

00:05:35.000 Do you think that.

00:05:36.000 I see this now.

00:05:38.000 I wonder if this is my.

00:05:39.000 I might see this as an indication of an advancing spiritual state.

00:05:43.000 But it could equally be a kind of delirium.

00:05:45.000 I sort of see it like a puppet show, like Punch and Judy or like Sock Puppets.

00:05:50.000 You know, like that woman represents a certain type of mentality, sort of like, you know, beyond what she's saying, her facial expression is like, I know that mood.

00:05:58.000 I remember it from school.

00:06:00.000 And even the guy as well, I know that mood.

00:06:02.000 All right, love, come on.

00:06:03.000 Like, it's like they're archetypes.

00:06:05.000 Like, it's like an archetypal energy is just sort of outpouring and flowing through.

00:06:09.000 On the addition, issue of housing and migration, there's a simple solution.

00:06:14.000 Continual referenda on every single subject, ask constituents of various boroughs and districts what they want, then what they vote for using technology simply deploy.

00:06:25.000 Get rid of government and have instead administration.

00:06:28.000 Public officials become public servants, they're not allowed to financially benefit in the outrageous ways that someone like Nancy Pelosi has. 0.99

00:06:35.000 Strip away the glamour and the ideology from politics, make it purely about the administration of resources.

00:06:41.000 That's the idea, that's the idea that we can continue to tell you because when you remain within the limited paradigm of people that just Paul faces on television, you're not going to get any meaningful results.

00:06:52.000 Whether you vote for reform or the Green Party, you're remaining in too small of a box.

00:06:57.000 You're in a small box.

00:06:59.000 Break out of that box.

00:07:01.000 Do you not know that the most powerful interests in the world donate to both and all parties?

00:07:08.000 And if there is a sort of a minor adjustment that is no longer Labour and Conservative, but it's instead Green and reform, I wonder if those same interests will go, hey, it's not Labour and Conservative anymore.

00:07:19.000 It's reform and green.

00:07:19.000 So these are the people that we have to control in a number of insidious ways, whether that's compromising them in the way that the Epstein files reveal has been going on for ages, or just through bureaucratic inertia, or global institutions, or commercial incentives.

00:07:35.000 You have to know, you have to, like me, know that what the COVID pandemic revealed is that there are global imperial forces that ultimately determine the trajectory of world power and the world's resources.

00:07:46.000 It's obvious.

00:07:47.000 You know it already.

00:07:48.000 And if you do know it, why are you arguing about it? 0.97

00:07:51.000 Identity politics and race and ideology, it's ridiculous, it's over, stop doing it, let's watch a bit more of this puppet show.

00:07:58.000 Do you not think an extra 10 million people is going to have an effect on housing?

00:08:01.000 Do you think that if we lock down our borders, we're going to solve the housing crisis?

00:08:05.000 The thing is, the more people you have in a country, the more houses you're going to need.

00:08:05.000 Is that going to solve it?

00:08:08.000 I know it might sound.

00:08:09.000 He's really good at explaining things like this, isn't he?

00:08:13.000 Okay, we can't make this content without the support of our partners.

00:08:15.000 Here's a message from one now.

00:08:18.000 Have you been using old fashioned money, you square?

00:08:20.000 What?

00:08:20.000 Coins?

00:08:21.000 Bits of paper?

00:08:22.000 Who are you?

00:08:23.000 Benjamin Franklin?

00:08:24.000 Who are you? 0.89

00:08:25.000 That lady what sewed stars on a flag? 1.00

00:08:27.000 Get a grip. 0.99

00:08:28.000 It ain't the old days no more.

00:08:29.000 What are you going to do next?

00:08:30.000 Barter and trade?

00:08:32.000 Trade.

00:08:34.000 I'm saving it for special trade.

00:08:35.000 Offer someone a cupcake in exchange for them making you a shelf? 1.00

00:08:39.000 What are you, Amish? 1.00

00:08:40.000 Are you Amish? 0.99

00:08:42.000 If you're going to be Amish, be blockchain Amish. 1.00

00:08:44.000 The system is coming for you. 1.00

00:08:45.000 Protect your money, get a Rumble wallet right now.

00:08:48.000 If you've got a Rumble wallet, you can trade, you can interact, you can support protests that the British government, for example, and the Canadian government would ban you from participating in.

00:08:58.000 Trudeau, I've seen the photos, you're Fidel Castro.

00:09:02.000 And what are you doing with my ex wife?

00:09:04.000 Something that I deeply, deeply regret.

00:09:09.000 Get yourself a Rumble wallet, cancel all debt.

00:09:12.000 Let's have a debt jubilee, ban usury, break down any systems of corruption and control.

00:09:17.000 Start with Rumble wallet.

00:09:18.000 There's a link in the description.

00:09:20.000 Use the code BRAND10 and you will get $10 in US stablecoin.

00:09:24.000 It's got its own symbol.

00:09:25.000 Look, there's its little symbol.

00:09:26.000 And MoonPay have teamed up with Rumble to make this all the more simple.

00:09:30.000 You can use it, in fact, to support me.

00:09:33.000 You can tip your fumble creators, I heard on Twitter.

00:09:36.000 I won't call it that ever again.

00:09:37.000 That was an error.

00:09:38.000 It was regrettable.

00:09:39.000 It was a mistake.

00:09:39.000 And you caused me to do it by moving in my peripheral.

00:09:42.000 That's right.

00:09:43.000 I own the edges of my vision as well as the centre.

00:09:46.000 All right, so there it is.

00:09:47.000 It's everything you've ever needed or wanted and more.

00:09:49.000 Praise Jesus.

00:09:55.000 Yeah. 0.73

00:09:57.000 Using immigration on the issue of housing, I think is absolutely. 0.98

00:10:01.000 Are you saying it has no impact on housing?

00:10:04.000 I think Andy wanted to come in.

00:10:06.000 See that dude?

00:10:07.000 He has got a much better understanding, I would suggest, of the mood of the UK right now.

00:10:14.000 What I see of it.

00:10:16.000 It appears to me that people are just really exhausted and pissed off.

00:10:21.000 There's a kind of a drain, a repression, a compression.

00:10:25.000 It could explode at any moment.

00:10:27.000 And migration is one of the locusts of attention.

00:10:31.000 Housing is another of them.

00:10:32.000 People are just. 1.00

00:10:34.000 You'd probably be better off in a Soviet country where they go, there's your house, there's your job, there's your car, shut your mouth, eat your gruel. 0.99

00:10:42.000 Because the UK has become ugly and contentious and disgusting. 0.99

00:10:46.000 Not everywhere and not for everyone.

00:10:48.000 But when it comes to the sort of low ceiling of expectation, hope, optimism, spiritual connection, meaning in your life, purpose, identity, all that thing's just out the window. 1.00

00:10:57.000 Almost the most exciting and best thing you could do is go out and protest over the latest murder of some little child or person walking through the street by a Somali refugee. 1.00

00:11:05.000 At least there's some energy in it derived from tragedy, admittedly. 1.00

00:11:10.000 But at least there's something because you're not going to get anything else out of the world.

00:11:14.000 And people, I think, are waking up to that, that this sort of endless chain of consuming, of acquiring the latest.

00:11:19.000 Phone or hanging around some bar drinking expensive alcohol to deaden your senses for a half hour or hour or so before watching a World Cup that's been diluted to the level where it's about as effective as the piss weak alcohol they sell you.

00:11:34.000 This is a country, an ideological crisis, and you're not going to solve that by changing the hues of the political inflections.

00:11:41.000 The hues or political inflections green, reform, purple, beige.

00:11:45.000 It don't matter who you put in those institutions.

00:11:47.000 The institutions, by their nature, can you see what I'm miming, is a box.

00:11:51.000 They can't break out of the box and they never will.

00:11:54.000 We have to do it for them.

00:11:56.000 Indeed, you have to create a political system where both that common sense bloke and the lady there from the Greens, who I'm struggling to find adjectives for, they say well meaning woman, like that, they can operate. 0.92

00:12:07.000 If they're called into public service, good. 0.99

00:12:09.000 Have them do public service.

00:12:10.000 Public service is boring and it should be boring.

00:12:13.000 It should be about this is when trash gets collected, this is how much money we have for potholes in the road. 1.00

00:12:17.000 These people here really desperately want to help refugees, so can we divert some of our funding into refugee hospitals? 0.59

00:12:25.000 But these people over here, they've voted to have no refugee.

00:12:29.000 To have no refugees in their entire community, so we don't need a budget for it there.

00:12:33.000 Everything should be decentralized. 0.99

00:12:34.000 It's possible.

00:12:36.000 It ends the fuel.

00:12:38.000 Do you not see?

00:12:39.000 It's like a sun.

00:12:40.000 It's like a black sun. 0.61

00:12:42.000 Centralized, corrupt, fallen forces, false light.

00:12:46.000 All of it is all in here.

00:12:49.000 And some of it, that's the Bible, and some of it is in here.

00:12:53.000 This book is available now.

00:12:54.000 Click the link in the description.

00:12:55.000 If you want the audio book of me reading it, you can have it for free just to let you know that I'm not motivated by.

00:12:59.000 Profit, at least not spelt with an F anymore.

00:13:02.000 Let's get back to that puppet show.

00:13:03.000 I think Andy wanted to come in.

00:13:05.000 Do you want to just ask that question, bro?

00:13:07.000 Does immigration have an effect on housing?

00:13:10.000 Whoever lives in this country. 0.94

00:13:12.000 That's the British people sat there, and they're people that have bothered to go to a record of a political program.

00:13:17.000 Look how, like, can't you read their faces and read their minds? 1.00

00:13:21.000 They're thinking, oh, fuck off. 0.99

00:13:23.000 I've been on that show, that Question Time show, because I remember I've been in this system, I've been a participant in it. 1.00

00:13:29.000 That's a television show.

00:13:30.000 All that, like, Even that, they're like pretending to care.

00:13:33.000 It's a TV program.

00:13:34.000 They're just looking for memes and clicks and clips, like everyone.

00:13:37.000 Like the BBC is all full of pomp.

00:13:40.000 The BBC, they defended and protected paedophiles, right?

00:13:43.000 That's a matter of common knowledge.

00:13:46.000 They have a near-confiscatory or at least mandatory tax that funds them.

00:13:50.000 They support the government.

00:13:51.000 They lie about war.

00:13:52.000 Their days are numbered.

00:13:53.000 They know that.

00:13:54.000 Everyone knows that these systems are collapsing, and the only way to sustain them, even temporarily, is to.

00:14:01.000 Demand that they are required because this country is in so much crisis.

00:14:06.000 They all benefit from a state of crisis.

00:14:09.000 Established institutions benefit from crisis because when there is a period of ease, people start to not be dependent, for example, on state or welfare, not dependent on sort of crisis information.

00:14:22.000 The BBC never had it so good as in the COVID crisis.

00:14:26.000 Look at the audience of people that have bothered to turn up.

00:14:26.000 You cannot trust them.

00:14:29.000 They still, it looks to me at least, feel a degree of contempt.

00:14:34.000 For probably all of the politicians, and in my view, they're right to not because of the individual characters of either the lady that did the face or the man with the sort of easy common sense rhetoric, but because the system that they're participating in is so deeply, deeply corrupt that by the time you get into it, oh, you're in trouble.

00:14:51.000 That's not to say there aren't brilliant people in it, there are, there are, but they're not going to get anywhere while they are in it.

00:14:58.000 This country has an impact on housing, of course.

00:15:01.000 All right, the numbers of people in a country that's not necessarily to do with immigration.

00:15:05.000 Let me let Andy answer this question.

00:15:06.000 I just want to say, incidentally.

00:15:07.000 I just want to say, all right, so this is the, oh dear, that's the meme.

00:15:12.000 Like, that's the meme.

00:15:13.000 So it's like, the facial view sickness, all right, they tried to re own it.

00:15:17.000 So this lady's the Bradford Green Party representative, and she's like, like they're trying to sort of own it kind of thing.

00:15:24.000 But lots of people, lots of people, the majority of people don't agree with it.

00:15:31.000 Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, it's not good.

00:15:35.000 Is this the same lady?

00:15:36.000 So this is the same, Oh dear. 0.97

00:15:40.000 What it is, is she's walked into the midst of things and now we're going to discover if she's equipped to cope in the furnace, the furnace of public life. 0.98

00:15:47.000 Let's see if she can handle it. 0.98

00:15:48.000 I mean, you know, you look at the Green Party politics, I think, policies, I think it makes the country a hell of a lot more dangerous with drugs on the streets and no prisons.

00:15:57.000 So when you, you know, when the Green candidate is telling you.

00:16:00.000 What are the Green Party suggesting?

00:16:01.000 No prisons?

00:16:02.000 They're one of them.

00:16:03.000 There's a lot of them faces.

00:16:04.000 You want to work on that, huh?

00:16:06.000 No prisons.

00:16:06.000 They're one of them did in Scotland.

00:16:08.000 It's not just Henry's parents that are worried about their son, and it's every single parent of a son, a daughter, who's worried and calling them up and saying, Make sure you take the safe way home tonight.

00:16:22.000 Make sure you're with a friend.

00:16:23.000 Yeah.

00:16:24.000 Because we don't know what's going to happen on our streets. 0.99

00:16:26.000 I know what'll solve that importing more people that could have been in the Taliban. 0.91

00:16:31.000 And I know for a fact that friends and neighbors are having those conversations with their children. 0.51

00:16:37.000 And that is something I do not believe we stand for as a country.

00:16:40.000 I believe we are a country that is tolerant. 1.00

00:16:43.000 In a just society, you would just tell this bitch to shut up and get off the stage. 1.00

00:16:48.000 This is the only point in, as far as I know, all of human history that. 1.00

00:16:53.000 We're even listening to this.

00:16:54.000 This is such a colossal waste of everybody's time to listen to this slop.

00:17:01.000 I would add to that both sides of the conversation, though, because the whole thing is just entertainment.

00:17:07.000 It's not there to do anything other than entertain you and distract you.

00:17:10.000 It's not there to inform you.

00:17:11.000 That's one of the first lies and one of the primary lies they tell. 0.73

00:17:14.000 The leader of the Conservative Party that seems to be becoming increasingly redundant in British politics is Kemi Badenoch.

00:17:21.000 Here she is talking about two tier policing and unfair treatment.

00:17:25.000 Divided Britain.

00:17:27.000 It's never been more divided.

00:17:29.000 But division is precisely what's required, at least if you see decentralisation as division.

00:17:34.000 Let people run their cities democratically.

00:17:36.000 Let people run their communities and their boroughs democratically. 1.00

00:17:39.000 The only way that you can insist that there's a requirement for centralised government is with the assumption that people are too stupid to run their own lives. 0.99

00:17:46.000 And sometimes it does seem like that's the case. 1.00

00:17:49.000 The problem is the people that we're charging with and paying to run it are, at best, stupid and at worst, extraordinarily pernicious. 1.00

00:17:58.000 Thank you very much. 1.00

00:18:00.000 You've just said you don't need to think about this stuff.

00:18:02.000 You should just know.

00:18:03.000 What would you say to the people that are listening to you today and think if you don't put this duty on public bodies to actively think about it, what you might be doing is damaging the cause of people who have faced discrimination for decades?

00:18:18.000 And can I ask, when you.

00:18:19.000 That's too boring for me to watch.

00:18:22.000 I'm sorry.

00:18:23.000 It was too boring.

00:18:24.000 I got too bored.

00:18:25.000 I got too bored. 1.00

00:18:26.000 It was too British. 1.00

00:18:26.000 It was too boring. 1.00

00:18:27.000 It bored me so badly.

00:18:29.000 I nearly drank a whole bottle of Methylene Blue.

00:18:31.000 Hey, by the way, if you subscribe to Reborn Products.

00:18:34.000 They're really good for you, man.

00:18:35.000 Creatine, I'm super lean.

00:18:37.000 Methylene blue, I'm sharp, man. 0.99

00:18:39.000 I'm sharp enough to absorb this crap. 0.69

00:18:41.000 Methylene blue, red lights, and red light technology. 0.98

00:18:45.000 Oh, now you're talking.

00:18:46.000 With a little urine?

00:18:49.000 No, no urine, Jake.

00:18:52.000 I thought we were doing that on subscription.

00:18:54.000 For subscription, I will sell you just a little tincture of piddle.

00:19:00.000 Oh, Rusty's tincture piddle available now.

00:19:02.000 No, Jonathan Otto's Red Life.

00:19:04.000 That's amazing stuff.

00:19:05.000 You could be laying back listening to Jake Smith's new album, link in the description.

00:19:08.000 Bad days behind.

00:19:12.000 Queuing up.

00:19:13.000 Lining up behind Jake.

00:19:14.000 Knowing an opportunity is there waiting.

00:19:16.000 I'm not homophobic.

00:19:17.000 I love everybody.

00:19:18.000 I don't care.

00:19:19.000 It's just an opportunity to torment Jake. 1.00

00:19:20.000 He's from the South.

00:19:21.000 He's susceptible to that kind of ridicule.

00:19:23.000 Get yourself some methylene blue.

00:19:25.000 Why don't you?

00:19:26.000 Annie, are you okay?

00:19:26.000 Okay.

00:19:27.000 Are you okay?

00:19:28.000 Annie, are you okay?

00:19:29.000 What about a cat like Kanye West?

00:19:31.000 That's the thing where Kanye West goes, you know, when I was a kid, I was like, I don't think she is okay.

00:19:31.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:19:36.000 Like, she's not okay.

00:19:37.000 That's the logical response.

00:19:39.000 I don't think so.

00:19:40.000 I don't think she is okay.

00:19:41.000 Kanye West has a Beautiful childlike quality.

00:19:45.000 Some of his songs have caused controversy.

00:19:48.000 Let's face it.

00:19:50.000 But who is more controversial than Pop's King?

00:19:55.000 Pop's now sadly departed King, Michael Jackson.

00:20:05.000 You're confident.

00:20:08.000 You're strong.

00:20:13.000 You're the greatest of all time.

00:20:13.000 You're beautiful.

00:20:20.000 Let me tell you something. 0.97

00:20:21.000 In this life, you're either a winner or you're a loser. 0.66

00:20:26.000 Y'all want to work in a steel mill like me for the rest of your days? 0.88

00:20:29.000 No, sir.

00:20:30.000 Yeah, because I sure as hell don't.

00:20:32.000 Y'all willing to fight for it?

00:20:34.000 Yes, sir.

00:20:35.000 I need to hear you a little louder.

00:20:36.000 Y'all willing to fight for it?

00:20:37.000 Yes, sir.

00:20:40.000 Ready whenever you are, Michael.

00:20:47.000 You know what I'm after?

00:20:50.000 You want to be the biggest slur in the world?

00:20:53.000 We need to capitalize on Michael's success.

00:20:57.000 Because the Jackson family is the brand.

00:20:59.000 That's our Coca-Cola.

00:21:01.000 And we need to start selling.

00:21:02.000 So I'm planning an international tour.

00:21:05.000 This is just the beginning.

00:21:10.000 I need to think.

00:21:11.000 I told you what to think.

00:21:17.000 I love my family.

00:21:19.000 I just want to do my own thing.

00:21:22.000 I just have all these ideas in my head.

00:21:24.000 Just gotta get him out.

00:21:27.000 And do it, Michael.

00:21:28.000 Not a little boy anymore.

00:21:32.000 Michael, I knew you were different the moment you were born.

00:21:38.000 You have a very special life.

00:21:43.000 I believe in music.

00:21:43.000 You can change the world.

00:21:51.000 Spread love, joy, and peace.

00:21:58.000 That is what I want the world to feel.

00:22:06.000 Magic.

00:22:11.000 A hagiographic biography has been released, and frankly, it's good.

00:22:16.000 Firstly, it's good because the lad that's playing him, Jamal, they say his name, Jafar.

00:22:20.000 Jafar.

00:22:21.000 That boy, like, I thought you can't get over the threshold.

00:22:25.000 Michael Jackson's too weird, too unusual, whether you love him or don't love him, and I actually love Michael Jackson.

00:22:31.000 He's so strange that someone can't play him in a film.

00:22:34.000 But the lad, Jafar, Plays him tight.

00:22:37.000 It's like from the first second you see him, you're like, oh, that's Michael Jackson.

00:22:40.000 No problem.

00:22:40.000 That's Michael.

00:22:41.000 Got it.

00:22:42.000 And then as the nose changes, it's like, that's Michael Moore.

00:22:45.000 That's him.

00:22:46.000 He's.

00:22:46.000 You enjoyed that?

00:22:47.000 Did you watch the nose getting chiseled out?

00:22:49.000 I did because it was a natural change.

00:22:52.000 A natural progression of Michael's nose.

00:22:54.000 Well, what I liked was the innocence and the genius, and that Michael Jackson was a bringer of light, a sort of oddly apolitical figure, though, of course, the film does frame the time he intervened in LA gangs with his wonderful innocence.

00:23:08.000 And he actually.

00:23:08.000 Got a quite kind of a Christ like quality in a way, like he's set apart, he has sort of a divine and blessed countenance.

00:23:15.000 Michael Jackson.

00:23:16.000 Now, of course, his later life, well, not covered by the film, understandably, was beset by allegation, accusation, rumour, gossip, and condemnation.

00:23:25.000 And what I felt like the film when I saw it was oh, no, this tells you, even though it's not like a good fellas or the Matrix, but as a but it ain't even like something like Rocket Man, a more expressive biographical film.

00:23:39.000 But Michael Jackson was, I think, a peerless genius as an entertainer.

00:23:43.000 Like, maybe the best entertainer the world has ever seen.

00:23:47.000 It might be, like, I mean, who's up there?

00:23:49.000 Elvis?

00:23:50.000 I mean, who's like the dancing, the singing, the creativity, the just otherness of him?

00:23:50.000 Prince?

00:23:56.000 He has an otherness.

00:23:57.000 And I thought in scenes like where the mum, his mum says to him, You're not like other boys, Michael, you never were. 0.91

00:24:02.000 Or when he wants to play Twisted with his brothers and they don't want to play because they're adults now and they're married and having sex with adult human females. 0.97

00:24:10.000 But he's like, You guys are no fun anymore. 0.96

00:24:13.000 And like me, I've had a lot of my opinions have been cast, I reckon, by South Park.

00:24:17.000 I really love South Park.

00:24:19.000 I love those guys.

00:24:20.000 So when, like, you know, like you, maybe, I was, when they handled the pandemic in the way they did, I was like, hmm.

00:24:26.000 Because when they did the Michael Jackson episodes, that really made me think, Yeah, they've got Michael Jackson. 0.93

00:24:31.000 Yes, ignorant. 0.97

00:24:32.000 Why do you not want to climb a tree? 0.99

00:24:34.000 And any man that wants to hang out with kids, well, hmm, you know, why would you want to?

00:24:39.000 And would you let your kids.

00:24:40.000 I mean, maybe you would get bowled over.

00:24:42.000 I mean, I really feel like I would not let my kids.

00:24:45.000 Sleep in a room with an adult man, no matter how much of a genius he was. 0.72

00:24:51.000 That's what I reckon.

00:24:52.000 But when you see him, I don't know, man.

00:24:54.000 I feel like he was on a plane of innocence.

00:24:56.000 Now, my mate Joe, who you guys know, did tell me that in that Netflix documentary, there are people saying, like bodyguards and that, saying, Well, I went in the shower and he was sadly, one has to say, performing a sex act on a child.

00:25:12.000 So that is an eyewitness account, which is a type of evidence.

00:25:16.000 But.

00:25:17.000 It's on a TV show and believe me, I know that a documentary is a TV show.

00:25:23.000 That is not a fact.

00:25:24.000 It's a TV show.

00:25:26.000 But, you know, an eyewitness is an eyewitness and that's a type of evidence.

00:25:29.000 Evidence is important in these matters.

00:25:32.000 So, right, but what I feel about Michael Jackson watching the movie and you can't, obviously it's a biography about real persons, you can't review the movie without reviewing the man.

00:25:40.000 And what the movie did so well is it gave us a chance to look at Michael Jackson once again as what I believe he was a genius, a very unusual genius who did some Unusual stuff, but my prayer at least is, and so far he's been found not guilty whenever he stood trial, now he's dead.

00:25:56.000 God rest his eternal soul.

00:25:57.000 My belief is that he's not a person that operated on that bandwidth, that he was an innocent, that he was a kind of an innocent, but hey, that's a controversy that other people can handle.

00:26:05.000 What is not controversial is that the light came through him.

00:26:09.000 And this I can tell you is that when someone has a propensity to bring light and love, and even in the most generalized way, says things like heal the world and we're all one, and it don't matter if you're black or white, you know, he's hardly Foucault, he's hardly Marx, he's hardly Sartre or Camus, he's not even Jordan Peterson or me and you.

00:26:28.000 He's an otherworldly person.

00:26:30.000 Character, but isn't that sad that even generalized love and kindness is seen as otherworldly?

00:26:36.000 What do we think of ourselves that even the word matter, the most solid thing, the word from which the mother is derived, means things that are solid?

00:26:45.000 What matters is what's solid, not as quantum physics would seem to suggest, that which creates matter, abides in matter, precedes matter, transcends matter.

00:26:59.000 Hey, complicated, but when someone can carry that and hold that in song, in Peculiar parody in taking the pulse of a nation, then I think you have to call them what they are a genius.

00:27:09.000 And you can see how the culture responds to them.

00:27:11.000 Commodify them and monetize them.

00:27:15.000 And if that stops working, destroy them. 0.92

00:27:18.000 And heaven forbid that someone should wake up in their pod like Michael Jackson did and start talking about, hey, these people are telling me this and this is corrupt.

00:27:25.000 So, yeah, no one will ever really know the story of Michael Jackson's private life.

00:27:30.000 And perhaps blessedly now, after dependency on prescribed drugs and stuff, he's no longer with us.

00:27:38.000 But what I feel is that Michael Jackson was destroyed by his genius, both inwardly to a degree, because he could never be at ease with himself, and outwardly by a culture that is dark.

00:27:49.000 There's a darkness in the entertainment industry that destroys light, because light illuminates us all, lights up our hearts, gives us all hope, gives us all joy.

00:27:59.000 And I know that the most powerful institutions, systems, elites, and individuals benefit from us hating one another.

00:28:08.000 Regarding everyone as a pity, if someone's great, oh, they're a pedophile, Martin Luther King was this, Gandhi was that, Michael Jackson, like anyone and everyone that does anything unusual or brilliant, there's a reason why we should hate them because they want you to hate yourself.

00:28:21.000 They don't even want avatars or examples of greatness.

00:28:24.000 They want us to live in a kind of perpetual drudgery of hopelessness and despair because then the best you're going to get is a pint of beer or a shot of smack or a hit on a pipe or a wank.

00:28:35.000 And that's exactly where they want you.

00:28:37.000 They want you in a metaverse.

00:28:38.000 They want you locked.

00:28:39.000 In bolted down in some sort of virtual reality headset with piped in perennial advertising on a universal basic income dependent on their false system.

00:28:51.000 And Michael Jackson, for all of his innocence in his simple brilliance, showed us that love and light and God are real.

00:28:57.000 But that's just what I think.

00:28:58.000 Why don't you let me know what you think in the comments and chat?

00:29:01.000 Maybe you think he was a paedophile.

00:29:03.000 My prayer is that he wasn't.

00:29:04.000 I like to believe in the beauty and the greatness of people, but truth and justice are what they are.

00:29:08.000 Let's pray for them all, for all of us.

00:29:11.000 Do you know that me and my wife Laura, every single Sunday we do Sunday service.

00:29:15.000 We sit together, we read the Bible, we muck about, we have a laugh, we're honest.

00:29:19.000 And what we try and do is make God, the God that has saved our lives, accessible to you, at least for the duration of the podcast.

00:29:28.000 But my prayer is beyond that.

00:29:29.000 Have a look.

00:29:39.000 No Independent Self by Norman Grubb begins with his treatise in a single paragraph.

00:29:44.000 Check this out if you're a Christian.

00:29:45.000 Check this out if you're a non Christian, because it's a pretty profound statement, particularly if someone like me was fascinated and infatuated and adored both the journeys that one can undertake with the use of psychedelics. 0.53

00:29:59.000 Although, really, I mean, I'm saying that as if I was hanging out with a shaman in the Amazon.

00:30:03.000 I was at a bus stop in Grey's Essex, chewing acid tabs, or in squats in New Cross, South East London, doing acid with my mates.

00:30:11.000 Mm hmm.

00:30:12.000 Scared out of my wits thinking that the boiler on the wall was melting.

00:30:16.000 Boiler, AC unit, I guess is an American word for boiler.

00:30:19.000 Do they have the word boiler?

00:30:20.000 Yeah, I think they do.

00:30:21.000 It's a boiler.

00:30:22.000 I've never heard an American say boiler.

00:30:23.000 Hey, the boiler is broke.

00:30:25.000 They don't say boiler.

00:30:26.000 It's an English word.

00:30:27.000 I don't know then, but it's.

00:30:28.000 No, it's not an AC unit.

00:30:29.000 It's the opposite of an AC unit.

00:30:32.000 Can an AC unit have an opposite, an AC unit?

00:30:35.000 The basis of our total truth, says Norman Grubb.

00:30:38.000 Hey, up.

00:30:39.000 The basis of our total truth, which we're taking to the whole church in the whole world, Is that the human self has no nature of its own.

00:30:49.000 It is the expressor of a deity nature, a God nature.

00:30:53.000 Whether the nature of the false deity, the spirit of error, or the true deity, the spirit of truth, 1 John 4 6.

00:31:01.000 Because we have all become accustomed to speaking of ourselves as having a human nature, it may make it clearer if we speak of the self as never being an independent self.

00:31:12.000 It has never been a self operating self and thus has never operated by expressing a nature of its own.

00:31:19.000 Pause.

00:31:19.000 Norman Grubb is here claiming, and it's a claim that's similarly made in this book, Theosis, also sent to me by Rick from the Holy Monastery of St. Gregorius, Mount Athos, that there is no independent Russell or Laura.

00:31:34.000 We are expressors either, Norman Grubb says, of the nature of God, the Holy Creator, or the alternative deity nature, the false God, the fallen one, the enemy, Satan, Lucifer, the fallen angel, the principle, in fact, of.

00:31:49.000 Enclosed, circuitous selfhood.

00:31:52.000 That's what Lucifer wanted.

00:31:53.000 Right.

00:31:54.000 He wanted his own selfhood.

00:31:54.000 So you're either in God or you're in sin?

00:31:57.000 Yes.

00:31:58.000 Yes.

00:32:00.000 That was very succinct.

00:32:01.000 It actually undermines how many words I took to say it then.

00:32:05.000 Cut that out.

00:32:05.000 All right.

00:32:06.000 I don't mean you cut it out.

00:32:08.000 No, I know.

00:32:08.000 I don't edit it.

00:32:10.000 Actually, this show doesn't get edited.

00:32:11.000 It doesn't get edited.

00:32:11.000 So it's all in.

00:32:13.000 Dusting nice shots.

00:32:14.000 Yeah.

00:32:14.000 Puts that lovely music in.

00:32:16.000 Might, you know, make a few comedy references.

00:32:18.000 It gets edited in that way.

00:32:19.000 Yeah, but it doesn't get cut.

00:32:20.000 It doesn't get cut.

00:32:21.000 Yeah, there's no cut.

00:32:21.000 Nothing to hide.

00:32:22.000 Nothing to hide.

00:32:23.000 There is no independent self operating self in the universe except the one who calls himself I am, Exodus 3 14, and says, I am the Lord.

00:32:33.000 There is none else.

00:32:34.000 There is no God beside me.

00:32:37.000 That's from Isaiah 45 5.

00:32:40.000 So, this what is notable there, if you ask me, dear beloved Laura, is that the phrase I am is what, of course, is what when God asks Moses who's there.

00:32:53.000 Moses says to God, I am.

00:32:55.000 And later, when God makes further revelations, in particular, a revelation, not revelation, a response to the inquiry by Moses, look, I'm going back to this lot now, the Israelites, you know what they like? 0.71

00:33:05.000 They moan a lot, they don't listen, they're hard work, this bunch that you've put me in charge of. 0.99

00:33:10.000 Who am I going to tell them has sent me?

00:33:12.000 And Yahweh, in the Hebrew, says, Tell them I am sent you.

00:33:20.000 What fascinates me about that is when you say I am, and when I say I am, or when any of us say I am, We perhaps are expressing our true nature.

00:33:31.000 Indeed, isn't the great mystery the hard problem of consciousness?

00:33:34.000 No one can demonstrate how consciousness was generated.

00:33:37.000 And it doesn't matter how deeply we carom in neurological spaces, it still remains mysterious.

00:33:43.000 And what we believe as spiritual people is that consciousness precedes matter.

00:33:47.000 What the naturalists believe is that somehow consciousness evolves out of matter, even though that is equally unprovable and doesn't have the backup of unbelievable and incredible literature and leaves you with an abundance of problems, including how did the universe and all of its laws emerge from a sub molecular explosion 13.8 billion years ago?

00:34:05.000 Feel love and what is music and why geometry and why poetry and most of all why meaning and isn't it important, significant and defining that the maker of meaning comes into meaning as a storyteller who lives a story that renders the absolute meaning, the transcendent meaning that relieves us from the pagan world, the world of sacrifice, the world of sin and the world of self idolatry?

00:34:05.000 And why do we?

00:34:27.000 I'm having a lot of thoughts.

00:34:29.000 Hit me, baby.

00:34:30.000 Okay, they are not tangents, right?

00:34:32.000 So, um, this morning Herbie, uh, our two almost three year old woke up and he looked at me and he goes, I am me.

00:34:43.000 He says, I am me.

00:34:46.000 And I just thought it was so sweet.

00:34:48.000 And it just occurred to me when you're born, you are in the identity of your mother or the person that I suppose from birth raises you, the parent.

00:35:00.000 Then when you've moved through that, is when you, I suppose, you go through all these different phases of identity.

00:35:07.000 It starts with the mother and then quite probably around three, I guess, might be when the ego starts to.

00:35:14.000 Activate, like when you start recognizing, I'm not my mother, I'm not part of the same thing.

00:35:20.000 That's when you can get those phases.

00:35:22.000 I guess people refer to them as the terrible twos or whatever.

00:35:24.000 There's a lot of fighting and conflict as the child, the baby, starts to assert themselves.

00:35:32.000 And I suppose we're at the stage with him, and we've obviously been through it having two other children where it's, I am me before it becomes, hopefully, the journey.

00:35:45.000 Almost if you say no independence alpha site apart from God, that you want to get to the point that you accept your identity in God.

00:35:54.000 Wow.

00:35:55.000 So I just thought this morning, you said something just then, I am sent you.

00:35:55.000 Yeah.

00:36:02.000 And then it's just so sweet and also so telling that usually that's a baby will start to assert themselves.

00:36:09.000 And Herbie literally this morning said, I am me.

00:36:13.000 He says, Our Lord, come to me as little children, come in the kind of innocence that Herbie expressed.

00:36:18.000 Breast there because, like, he ain't gonna follow that.

00:36:22.000 That's not a prelude to I am me, therefore do exactly what I tell you.

00:36:26.000 I am me, and I'm better than you.

00:36:28.000 I am me, I can do whatever I want.

00:36:31.000 I am me, I am in the flow of me.

00:36:34.000 And in fact, the reason it's so sweet when it's our little boy, and maybe your guys' kids too, that you feel the love and the openness of him.

00:36:43.000 And when I think our Lord says, Come to me as little children, it's with innocence.

00:36:48.000 Is with open heartedness.

00:36:50.000 Knowing that if your heart is open, open heartedness, when things become an idiom, you forget to examine what they both etymologically but also symbolically may mean.

00:36:50.000 Yeah.

00:37:02.000 Open heartedness might mean that something can flow into you.

00:37:05.000 In this instance, the love of God, the ever present love of God.

00:37:08.000 Now, this process of individuation and individualization, separation from, well, yes, in psychological terms, but many of us that believe in God would dispute much of the provenance, heritage, and objectives of psychiatry and psychology, in so much as Freud, in particular, was attempting to negate the idea of a spiritual aspect to man's nature, saying everything could be reduced to the desire for sex, as a matter of fact.

00:37:35.000 Oh, Freud.

00:37:36.000 But that's because he was putting all that.

00:37:39.000 All their wasp name up is Uta.

00:37:41.000 Oh, gosh.

00:37:41.000 Oh, right.

00:37:42.000 I mean, that's a very English idiom.

00:37:44.000 I really don't.

00:37:44.000 Cocaine.

00:37:45.000 Well, I guess that's what you meant.

00:37:47.000 Well, I don't really actually know that much about.

00:37:49.000 You don't need to know much, my dear.

00:37:50.000 All he thought was as we were all.

00:37:52.000 I mean, I. With our mums and dads.

00:37:54.000 Yeah.

00:37:54.000 The 50 definitely were.

00:37:56.000 I know enough, but also I'm just thinking, what's that film with him and Jung?

00:38:00.000 That's.

00:38:00.000 Vigo Mortensen and.

00:38:02.000 And Fassbender.

00:38:03.000 What's it called?

00:38:03.000 I can't remember, but it's like their relationship and their correspondence and the fundamental sort of schism that occurred between them where Jung.

00:38:09.000 Continue to believe that there was some sort of meta reality, some ultimate spiritual reality.

00:38:16.000 Freud kept shutting it down.

00:38:18.000 Freud's like, no, no, it's all just to do with your mum.

00:38:21.000 Give me another line.

00:38:22.000 Anyway, we don't want to get into that.

00:38:24.000 No, no, no, not on a Sunday.

00:38:25.000 No, no, Lord.

00:38:26.000 Forgive us, Father.

00:38:37.000 All right, thanks very much for joining us today.

00:38:39.000 We'll be back next time, not with more of the same, but with more of the different.

00:38:41.000 Until then, if you wait a minute, I've not introduced the guest.

00:38:44.000 We've got a guest.

00:38:45.000 Now, I could tell you a million things about that guest, but I couldn't put it as well as this.

00:38:50.000 What's up, you guys?

00:38:51.000 Ben Peterson here with Engage Your Destiny.

00:38:53.000 Ben Peterson is a combat veteran, author, speaker, and founder of Engage Your Destiny, a ministry serving active duty military personnel, veterans, and their families.

00:39:04.000 Through his work and on the Ben Peterson show, he explores faith, purpose, Leadership and the challenges facing modern culture.

00:39:12.000 I recently joined Ben on his podcast, and what you're about to watch is the first part of that conversation.

00:39:18.000 If you'd like to see the full interview, subscribe to the Ben Peterson Show on YouTube, where the complete episode will soon be released.

00:39:28.000 All right, well, welcome to the Ben Peterson Show Faith for the Way Forward for our military veterans and the warriors at heart.

00:39:35.000 I have the honor today to interview my new friend, Russell Brand.

00:39:41.000 Russell, we met.

00:39:42.000 Uh, Gali at an airport, we were both holding our babies, and you walked over and we bonded over our children, and we've been staying in touch ever since.

00:39:51.000 I'm so glad we could chat today.

00:39:53.000 Yeah, thank you, mate.

00:39:54.000 It's good to see you.

00:39:57.000 Yeah, it's good to see you too.

00:39:59.000 So, um, we've been chatting a little bit, and um, I've been very inspired by what God has been doing in your life.

00:40:09.000 Um, and I would just like to start off with a simple question: um, where were you?

00:40:15.000 Pre-Jesus, and what did you believe, and why did you believe it before Christ ever got a hold of your heart?

00:40:21.000 Like, what did you believe, and why?

00:40:24.000 For Christ, I believed that God was real, and even that God was the ultimate reality.

00:40:32.000 That, as C.S. Lewis says, even when you press a person on why they envisage God as God the Father, and that their paternal image of God is sort of.

00:40:47.000 In a way, not that far advanced as someone envisaging Santa Claus.

00:40:52.000 One can understand it because of the paternal imagery in like scripture and because of the artistic depictions of God as a kind of a type of super man.

00:41:05.000 You can kind of understand why people would see it that way.

00:41:08.000 But he goes on to say, C.S. Lewis does, that even if someone said they believed in like the force of the universe, if you pushed them on that, they would have to end up saying words like, I don't know, like a gas.

00:41:19.000 Like, people wouldn't have a very sophisticated idea of what an all encompassing, immersive, ubiquitous, omniscient, omnipotent force would be because it's because of one, epistemological limitation, the limit of knowledge, and two, ontological limitation.

00:41:39.000 Our beingness is held within a somewhat narrow frame because of the hardware, the bio hardware, the body.

00:41:48.000 So, me, I suppose I'd done a bunch of drugs. 0.52

00:41:52.000 And also, have the advantage of coming from a place where a countercultural perspective, if you don't find one, would be a great loss.

00:42:01.000 If you come from, like I do, Grey's Essex, which is like coming from somewhere like New Jersey, we're not talking about the projects, we're not talking about absolute destitution, we're talking about normal working class life.

00:42:14.000 In my case, only son of a single mum.

00:42:18.000 Now, that ain't deprivation of a kind that would make the thrilling subject of a galling documentary, but it's enough to know that if you are born, blessed as I am, with an enormous appetite for God, a great tendency for worship, it's enough to sort of know and intuit that the world is not going to provide you with it.

00:42:44.000 But the world does offer you pathways.

00:42:47.000 Now, in a way, what I'm describing is nothing other than.

00:42:50.000 Bog standard addiction, and my spiritual precondition prior to Christ was an abstinent drug addict.

00:42:56.000 I've been free from drugs and alcohol for 23 years. 0.97

00:43:00.000 Most people that are addicted to drugs, you could argue all, are looking for a spiritual solution and trying to synthesize that solution through chemicals or, you know, including alcohol or through behavior, sex, and food.

00:43:14.000 Trying to kind of defibrillate dead and inert flesh into some kind of spiritual.

00:43:21.000 Experience.

00:43:22.000 So I can't, but what was hidden from me, what I didn't know and didn't understand till our Lord came, that I was worshipping myself.

00:43:31.000 The reason I would have never thought that I was worshipping myself is because inside I knew that I didn't like myself very much.

00:43:38.000 And the idea that I was worshipping something that I simultaneously didn't like seems anathema.

00:43:46.000 But the truth is that most of the time, even though I had done a Some philanthropic work, even though I was very outspoken about human corruption, even though I think I've offered some pretty accurate diagnosis on some of the problems of imperialism, colonialism, globalism, the fallen condition of the world.

00:44:08.000 What I didn't know was why that was happening and how it was happening.

00:44:11.000 And importantly, when it comes to a personal spiritual question, which I guess is what you've asked, even though eventually the boundaries between the personal and the global or the cosmic collapse.

00:44:23.000 Because where would those boundaries be?

00:44:27.000 You know, at the edge of your skin, at the edge of the planet, at the edge of your breath.

00:44:32.000 Who's determining where these contexts begin and end?

00:44:35.000 Nonetheless, it was a kind of new age spirituality that I think is common to people that have taken hallucinogens, have autodidacts, have, or maybe not, you know, because I've met academically educated people that have pretty similar perspectives and have seen enough of the world.

00:44:57.000 To know that the world will never ever work for you.

00:44:59.000 Now, the additional privileges that I've had are that I've been granted some of the, you know, if we live in a stick and carrot society that offers penalty and incentives, I've, by God's grace, I suppose, you'd have to say, like, experienced some of those benefits.

00:45:18.000 When a culture tells you that what you're supposed to be is famous, well, I began not being famous and then I became famous.

00:45:26.000 And that, what was.

00:45:28.000 Interesting about that is it was something I was deliberately pursuing and it was spiritually motivated, but I was worshipping the wrong God.

00:45:34.000 It was like I will feel complete and fulfilled if I am able to become famous or wealthy, if I can overcome my economic conditions, if I can overcome my feelings of shame, if I can overcome my feelings of worthlessness.

00:45:47.000 So, the spiritual position I had, having become sort of not only famous, but famous in a very interesting way, i.e., I'm opinionated and I talk and people listen and people like.

00:46:00.000 Man, you know, I remember like a few years ago now, Ben, there's some magazine that annually publishes a list of who are the most influential spiritual thinkers of our time.

00:46:11.000 And they, you know, it's always like Oprah Winfrey, Eckhart Tolle, the Dalai Lama.

00:46:16.000 And, like, I was like number four on there, like me, Brene Brown.

00:46:20.000 You know, like, you know, I'm like, oh, wow, that's what I am.

00:46:23.000 I'm that.

00:46:23.000 I'm a spiritual philosopher.

00:46:25.000 Now, like a lot of people, I had sort of, certainly people with addiction issues, I struggle with the kind of peculiar paradox of being the piece of shit that the world revolves around. 0.99

00:46:37.000 I may not be much, but I'm all I think about. 0.97

00:46:40.000 A kind of low self esteem, but a peculiar sense of my own importance.

00:46:44.000 Now, what surprised me about.

00:46:47.000 Christ coming.

00:46:48.000 What I could never have anticipated, and what I still, you know, obviously, definitively can't understand, is the reason I held off the idea of Christianity.

00:46:59.000 There's a number.

00:47:00.000 One of the reasons is Christianity in my country, and I've met since coming to the Lord some really interesting and fascinating Christians, and to name them, you know, J. John, Nicky Gumball, Bear Grylls, Father, and, well, excuse me, now His Grace, Bishop Dave. Ball, I was lucky to encounter some like pretty early on in the walk and even prior to the conversion,

00:47:22.000 some interesting Christians that have really gone out of the way to educate me and hold me and help me in a number of ways. 0.83

00:47:31.000 But in general, in my opinion, my experience certainly of Christianity have been bloody boring like, really boring. 0.95

00:47:40.000 Like, hello, welcome to the church. 0.97

00:47:43.000 Oh, I am the Lord of the Dark Sentry. 0.95

00:47:45.000 It's like, what this ain't, I'm gonna kill myself. 0.63

00:47:49.000 Like, what the f is this ain't gonna work?

00:47:51.000 Well, what are you guys dealing in? 0.74

00:47:53.000 Like, this is some sort of Christianity for people that have given up and aren't gonna do anything anyway.

00:47:59.000 That's what it looked like to me.

00:48:00.000 Now, like, I recognize now that you know I brought a lot of those prejudices to the table, but now I've looked at a lot of different types of Christianity, and I'm gosh, you know, two years in willing to say that the challenge that Christianity has is one that I've noticed with other ideologies, specifically 12 steps, a willingness to be nested within the dominant culture. 0.96

00:48:21.000 And the problem that happens there is that the The dominant culture is the culture of the fool. 0.61

00:48:26.000 It is the culture of the accuser. 0.98

00:48:28.000 It is the culture of fundamentally evil.

00:48:33.000 But that's got scriptural precedent.

00:48:35.000 And the reason that after the visceral experience of Christ's coming, which happened on a dog walk on my own while feeling pretty despondent and despairing, something happened in my stomach that I described like this, although it's not entirely accurate.

00:48:53.000 Imagine if you can, an invisible magnetic field.

00:48:58.000 And that magnetic field is the shape of the cross.

00:49:02.000 Suddenly, I felt that shape in my stomach.

00:49:06.000 Then imagine this being a magnetic field that iron filings were in the environment of that magnetic field.

00:49:13.000 The filings would be sucked into it.

00:49:16.000 We've all done that with magnets, moved a coin under a desk, or seen what magnets do to iron filings.

00:49:21.000 Well, it's like that happened as if there was a shape of a cross in my stomach and the iron filings went like that.

00:49:28.000 Now, like, there's no reason why.

00:49:31.000 Before that, I was like, no, Jesus is probably a wise teacher.

00:49:35.000 And, you know, like Siddhartha or Krishna or whatever, you know, like, I mean, Krishna is a Godhead.

00:49:42.000 But what I mean to say is that I didn't see Christ as the Son of God come to earth and the triune God.

00:49:50.000 I just didn't have any particular understanding of it.

00:49:54.000 But after that experience, I just knew God's real.

00:50:01.000 Jesus is who he said he is.

00:50:03.000 And then from then, I just had to learn about it.

00:50:06.000 And thankfully, I was shown people to help me learn about it.

00:50:11.000 Wow, man.

00:50:13.000 What an incredible description.

00:50:14.000 I'm seeing a theme.

00:50:16.000 Even recently, I was with some powerful people in DC, in our military, and in our government.

00:50:24.000 And I'm seeing this theme, Russell, of men believing that they're not enough over and over and being driven to achieve and to fill that hole of I'm not enough.

00:50:38.000 And I think about your story and what you were sharing in this.

00:50:43.000 I mean, how lost you were and how low your self esteem was, yet you had so many things the world values.

00:50:49.000 And what is your thoughts or your heart or your opinion around that feeling of not being enough?

00:50:55.000 And where does that come from in men?

00:50:58.000 In Psalm 42, it says, now, you know, I have some precedent for taking a while sometimes to locate the correct verse, but in this instance, I do know what the verse I'm looking for is.

00:51:14.000 Psalm 42 says, as the deer pants for streams of water.

00:51:22.000 So, my soul pants for you, my God.

00:51:24.000 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

00:51:27.000 Where can I go and meet with God?

00:51:29.000 My tears have been my food day and night.

00:51:33.000 This longing, this yearning of a deer looking for a stream of water, that's the image, is an image and a psalm that Carl Jung referenced in his correspondence with Bill W., the founder of AA.

00:51:51.000 An alcoholic or a drug addict is looking to.

00:51:55.000 Address a deficit.

00:51:57.000 Now, perhaps all men, there may be many cultural reasons why a man is given an image of what a man is.

00:52:05.000 This is what a man looks like.

00:52:06.000 And some of the fiercest, most effective men I've ever met, if you have the good fortune to talk to them, will reveal that they themselves have feelings of deficiency and inadequacy and even worthlessness.

00:52:19.000 And I'm, you know, where I live now, mate, is in the Florida panhandle.

00:52:24.000 And you're probably aware that that has a sort of A lot of veterans and a lot of servicemen and a lot of special forces and men that, you know, by any sensible metric you would consider ultra masculine.

00:52:36.000 But I reckon the reason we feel deficient is because we're not told what the solution is.

00:52:42.000 We are not told that your real identity is your identity in God.

00:52:46.000 And if you don't reconcile or allow Christ's reconciliation to be effective in you by repenting and accepting Him as your Savior, you will be trying to undertake that work yourself using the tools.

00:53:00.000 Measurements and metrics of a culture that's actually on the contrary, not only will it not fulfill you, it's designed to prevent fulfillment.

00:53:08.000 It's designed to threshold you in constant need, constant deception, and constant want.

00:53:14.000 As it says in our word in Ephesians 6 12, we fight not against flesh and blood, but against dark forces in the heavenly realm.

00:53:22.000 As John says in his first epistle, children, watch out for false idols.

00:53:27.000 As our Lord says, the prince of this world is come for me.

00:53:32.000 The devil is in control of this world.

00:53:34.000 The devil.

00:53:36.000 And again, as Jung said in his important exchange between himself and Bill W, there is an evil principle prevailing in this world which leads the unacknowledged soul into perdition.

00:53:50.000 It's the idea that if you don't find God, if you are not shown God, if you don't exercise that feeling of deficiency or craving or worthlessness, that is longing.

00:54:02.000 That is, the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, God.

00:54:08.000 But if God is not real, if you're told you live in a chaotic universe, there is no God, or worse still, you are that God, and whatever you achieve is what you will be judged by, men, women, children, me, all of us feel insufficient because we are insufficient, part of our incomplete until we abide in Him.

00:54:34.000 And the culture hasn't, I wouldn't put it so gently as saying, lost that message.

00:54:42.000 The culture obfuscates, hides, denies, tarnishes that idea in favor of its antithesis.

00:54:53.000 That you, you are valuable, you are special.

00:54:57.000 You know, what did someone tell me?

00:54:59.000 Recently, someone said, We're looking for rock stars to work at Subway, was the language.

00:55:04.000 You know, like, you know, that you can somehow, even while being trapped in poverty, you know, role play some idea that you are an individual of value.

00:55:15.000 Actually, unless we find our value and our identity in Him, which has happened to me involuntarily and suddenly and as a result of crisis, then you are going to feel that.

00:55:23.000 And now I still feel sometimes deeply, but blessedly more frequently, peripherally, this sense of something's bugging me.

00:55:33.000 But our Lord, He felt tempted.

00:55:36.000 What He never did was glom or compound His holiness with the identity of temptation, of the doubter, of the accuser.

00:55:48.000 Of the divider, of the serpent, of the belly and the mouth, of the low thing, of the sibilant serpent crawling along the floor.

00:55:59.000 The problem is, I do do that.

00:56:01.000 I feel feelings of hatred or anger or insecurity or lust or greed or impatience, intolerance, could be anything.

00:56:08.000 And I allow myself to get glommed onto that.

00:56:12.000 I think that that is me.

00:56:13.000 That is not me.

00:56:15.000 That is a disruption signal, it's a stimulant that can perform a function in the world when redeemed.

00:56:21.000 Impatience can become zeal.

00:56:24.000 Greed can become generosity.

00:56:27.000 Even lust can become love and worship and devotion.

00:56:32.000 All if I don't see myself as being the sovereign on the throne.

00:56:36.000 He is on the throne.

00:56:38.000 And by accepting his sovereignty, of course, I'm invited to become a co heir with him.

00:56:44.000 The scripture that I find useful for illustrating this is Romans 6 8, where he outlines the problem.

00:56:52.000 Then illustrates his challenge in dealing with that problem before granting us once more that we are, as long as we're in him, he will work all things for good.

00:57:04.000 Now, this can only be practiced in the present moment.

00:57:07.000 So, my first problem before coming to Christ was Christianity is boring, it's not for me, or it's too traditional, it's too folky hokey, it's too.

00:57:16.000 a million ways to reject it.

00:57:18.000 Since coming to Christ, my inquiry of you who's probably been with the Lord longer is do you feel that the institutions of the church are.

00:57:27.000 Are doing enough to ensure that we understand and pay attention to ideas like the kingdom of heaven is all about us, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

00:57:38.000 I knew you before you were in your mother's womb, I set you apart.

00:57:43.000 I knew you.

00:57:44.000 I've never been to a church service where the pastor's gone, Hey, you have an identity in God before you were born.

00:57:52.000 I've heard people say knit it together in your mother's womb.

00:57:54.000 Normally, it's an abortion argument.

00:57:57.000 Like, you know, like, so, like, what the mystical aspect of God's real and present power is what I reckon, Ben, we must focus on.

00:58:08.000 Well, so in this discovery, and as you've had this transformation, we all have a calling and a specific assignment.

00:58:21.000 What is your mission now?

00:58:25.000 What's your assignment?

00:58:27.000 To make the mystical present.

00:58:32.000 Available to as many people as possible to help people to recognize that their relationship with Christ is fundamental and essential.

00:58:45.000 It's the most important thing they can be doing.

00:58:47.000 When I was approaching the same problem, the problem of evil being in control of the world, just to be specific, evil is in control of the world.

00:58:54.000 When I was addressing that same problem from a somewhat secularized form of spirituality, a kind of new age spirituality, just to address the problem with new age spirituality, if you're picking a little bit of Buddha, A little bit of the Upanishads, a little bit of Nietzsche, and conglomerate in and constructing your own little religion out of that.

00:59:15.000 And W.B. Yeats, the great Irish poet, said, All artists must create their own religion, and surely we must all create our own way or Tao or path in the present moment as we walk yoked to Him in His divine cadence and step, particular for each of us.

00:59:32.000 But the problem is when you create and curate your own religious ideology, You are at the center of it still.

00:59:41.000 And as Chesterton said, you know, in response to the times, in answer to your question, what's the problem with the world?

00:59:47.000 I am.

00:59:48.000 And isn't that curious that those are the words that Yahweh uses to determine his identity to Moses?

00:59:55.000 Who shall I say sent me?

00:59:57.000 Tell him, I am sent you.

01:00:00.000 Here in the most intimate part of our being is the dwelling place of God now.

01:00:05.000 He comes down once to the mountain, he comes down again for the cross, he comes down again in the Pentecost, and he's here now with.

01:00:13.000 Me and you, mate.

01:00:14.000 And like on a good day, I can live with that thread between my fingers and just trust and allow that I'm getting taken where I need to get taken.

01:00:23.000 And that while I might be suffering in any number of ways on any given day, he's in control and he's taking care of everything.

01:00:31.000 Sometimes I let go of that thread, absolutely.

01:00:33.000 I resume control and like, you know, trouble ensues maybe immediately, maybe 20 years down the line.

01:00:39.000 But trouble is coming.

01:00:43.000 Mate, that my mission is to tell you that this is a political issue.

01:00:48.000 It is about power.

01:00:49.000 It's about mankind under the stewardship of the fallen one, making ourselves gods.

01:00:56.000 We ate from the wrong tree.

01:00:58.000 There's the tree of life, there's the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

01:01:02.000 This establishes us as separate selves.

01:01:05.000 When you consider yourself a separate self, you are in a state of total fear.

01:01:09.000 Suddenly you're responsible for all your kids and all your food and all your finances.

01:01:13.000 Oh my God, if I don't sort this out, I'm going to die.

01:01:15.000 Yeah, you are.

01:01:16.000 The wages of sin is death.

01:01:18.000 And in this deep, deep surrender, the various stimulation signals that might surround you through your food, through your screens, through your culture, through the bad information, to try and find, address, and maintain the level of peace that he continually invites us to abide in with him, whether it's in the storm, whether it's after his apparent crucifixion.

01:01:38.000 Peace, peace, peace, peace.

01:01:40.000 Don't do anything that takes you out of that peace.

01:01:43.000 Don't do anything that takes you out of that peace.

01:01:44.000 You'll know when it's time to pick up a sword and fight.

01:01:46.000 He'll indicate that that's the moment.

01:01:49.000 Until then, peace, always peace, always peace.

01:01:52.000 I find, just this morning I was talking to my seven year old and she, like me, thinks peace is boredom.

01:01:58.000 She doesn't know what peace is.

01:01:59.000 I didn't know that either.

01:02:00.000 I grew up in a, like, to quote beloved Tupac, in a whirlwind.

01:02:05.000 So, like, I don't know peace.

01:02:07.000 All I know is, like, respite, occasional from chaos, usually induced by drugs or an orgasm or something.

01:02:14.000 Like, I don't know how to be in peace.

01:02:17.000 I wasn't told that I was even supposed to be looking for peace.

01:02:20.000 I don't know what it is.

01:02:21.000 You know, just look at that tree.

01:02:22.000 It's beautiful.

01:02:23.000 Be present with it.

01:02:24.000 See the God in it.

01:02:25.000 You know, if you're not working, Really hard to impress people, son.

01:02:28.000 You ain't nothing that, and I think that's the message that a lot of people live with and live through.

01:02:35.000 You best prove to us that you have some value, or out.

01:02:41.000 Thank you so much for joining us today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.

01:02:44.000 Remember, if you don't have Rumble Premium yet, get Rumble Premium now.

01:02:47.000 Locals, people, I love you guys, and all of you in the Rumble Premium chat, I love you too.

01:02:52.000 Remember, we will be back on Wednesday, not for more of the same, more of the different.

01:02:55.000 We'll be live with you, so get.

01:02:57.000 Get ready for a wild ride.

01:02:59.000 In the meantime, if you can, stay free.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - June 15, 2026

The Memeification of Politics - SF730

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