The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Biblical Series： The Phenomenology of the Divine

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00:00:57.000 Welcome to Season 3, Episode 8 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

00:01:04.000 I'm Mikayla Peterson, Jordan's daughter.

00:01:07.000 I hope you enjoy this episode. It's called The Phenomenology of the Divine.

00:01:11.000 I asked Instagram the other day where in the world it was normal out.

00:01:15.000 I got feedback. Florida and Texas are apparently kind of normal.

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00:01:24.000 Croatia and Greece and Sweden are also pretty good, apparently.

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00:01:30.000 My podcast is out! The Mikayla Peterson Podcast.

00:01:33.000 The first episode was with Aubrey Marcus and it was released yesterday.

00:01:37.000 I also released one with Hamilton Morris, Max Lugavere, and Greg Ogalliter.

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00:01:47.000 I'm pretty proud of it. I did all the graphics and everything myself.

00:01:51.000 I do have a handy podcast man helping me out with sound, though.

00:01:54.000 Anyway, enough about me, and on to the episode.

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00:03:14.000 Season three, episode eight,

00:03:19.000 The Phenomenology of the Divine, a Jordan B. Peterson lecture.

00:03:23.000 Hello, everyone. Thank you again for showing up.

00:03:35.000 So, tonight, we're going to finish off the story of Noah and also the story of the Tower of Babel.

00:03:48.000 And I don't think that'll take very long.

00:03:51.000 And then we're going to turn to the Abrahamic stories.

00:03:57.000 And they're a very complex set of stories.

00:04:01.000 They sit between the earliest stories in Genesis that I would say end with the Tower of Babel

00:04:09.000 and then the stories of Moses, which are extraordinarily well developed.

00:04:14.000 The Abrahamic stories, there's a whole sequence of them, multiple stories conjoined together.

00:04:21.000 And they're... I found them very daunting.

00:04:24.000 They're very difficult to understand.

00:04:26.000 And so, I'm going to stumble through them the best that I can, I would say.

00:04:31.000 That's probably the best way to think about this.

00:04:33.000 Because they have a narrative content that's quite strange.

00:04:43.000 I was reading a book while doing this called The Disappearance of God that I found quite helpful.

00:04:49.000 And the author of that book argues that one of the things that happens in the Old Testament is that God is very manifest at the beginning.

00:05:04.000 In terms of personal appearances even.

00:05:06.000 And then that proclivity fades away as the Old Testament develops.

00:05:11.000 And there's a parallel development that's maybe causally linked.

00:05:19.000 I'm not exactly sure how to conceptualize it, but that appears to be causally linked.

00:05:23.000 Is that the stories about individuals become more and more well developed.

00:05:30.000 So, it's as if, as God fades away, so to speak, the individual becomes more and more manifest.

00:05:38.000 And there's a statement in the Old Testament, the location of which I don't recall.

00:05:45.000 But I'll tell you about it in future lectures.

00:05:47.000 Where God essentially tells whoever he's speaking with.

00:05:52.000 And I don't remember who that is.

00:05:54.000 That he's going to disappear and let man essentially go his own way.

00:05:58.000 And see what happens.

00:06:00.000 Not a complete disappearance, but maybe a transformation to something that modern people regard more as a psychological phenomena.

00:06:07.000 Rather than the sort of objective entity that God seems to be in the beginning of the biblical stories.

00:06:14.000 And so, I've been wrestling with that a lot.

00:06:17.000 Because the notion that God, like God appears to Abraham multiple times.

00:06:24.000 And that's not a concept that's easy for modern people to grasp.

00:06:31.000 For us, generally speaking, apart from, say, issues of faith.

00:06:37.000 God isn't something, someone, who makes himself personally manifest in our lives.

00:06:45.000 He doesn't appear to us.

00:06:47.000 That's, I suppose, why the question of belief is so paramount for modern people.

00:06:53.000 I presume that if God was in the habit of appearing to you, you likely wouldn't have a problem with belief.

00:06:59.000 I mean, it might be more complicated than that, but that's how it seems to me.

00:07:03.000 And so, when we read stories about God making himself manifest, either to a nation, say in the case of Israel, or to individuals.

00:07:14.000 It's not easy to understand.

00:07:17.000 It's not easy to understand why people would write stories like that, if they thought like we thought.

00:07:22.000 And I mean, really, it wasn't that long ago that the Bible was written, say from a biological perspective.

00:07:26.000 It's really only yesterday, it's a couple of thousand years.

00:07:29.000 Say, four thousand years, something like that.

00:07:31.000 That's not very long ago, from a biological perspective.

00:07:35.000 It's nothing.

00:07:38.000 So, the first thing I tried to do was to see if I could figure out how to understand that.

00:07:44.000 And so, I'll start the lecture once we finish the remains of the story of Noah.

00:07:51.000 I'll start the lecture with an attempt to situate the Abrahamic stories in a context that might make them more accessible.

00:08:01.000 At least a context that worked for me to make them more accessible.

00:08:05.000 Let's conclude the Noah story first.

00:08:10.000 However, when we ended last time, the ark had come to its resting place, and Noah and his family had debarked.

00:08:24.000 And so, this is the stories of what occurs immediately afterwards.

00:08:30.000 It's a very short story, but I think it's very relevant for both of these stories.

00:08:36.000 The Tower of Babel, as well, very relevant for our current times.

00:08:39.000 And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth.

00:08:45.000 And Ham is the father of Canaan.

00:08:48.000 These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread.

00:08:52.000 And Noah began to be a husbandsman, and he planted a vineyard.

00:08:57.000 And he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent.

00:09:02.000 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

00:09:09.000 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward,

00:09:14.000 and covered the nakedness of their father.

00:09:16.000 And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

00:09:20.000 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

00:09:24.000 And he said,

00:09:26.000 Blessed to be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

00:09:32.000 And he said, Blessed shall be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.

00:09:37.000 And God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.

00:09:43.000 And Noah lived after the flood 350 years, and all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

00:09:50.000 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

00:09:53.000 Okay, so, I remember thinking about this story.

00:10:00.000 It's got to be 30 years ago.

00:10:05.000 And I think the meaning of this story stood out for me.

00:10:08.000 Sometimes, when you read complicated material, sometimes a piece of it will stand out.

00:10:14.000 It's, for some reason, it's like it glitters, I suppose.

00:10:17.000 That might be one way of thinking about it.

00:10:19.000 It's, you're in sync with it, and you can understand what it means.

00:10:23.000 I've really experienced that reading the Dao Te Ching,

00:10:26.000 which is a document I would really like to do a lecture on at some point.

00:10:29.000 Because some of the verses I don't understand, but others stand right out, and I can understand them.

00:10:33.000 And I think I understood what this part of the story of Noah meant.

00:10:36.000 And I think it means, you know, we talked a little bit about what nakedness meant in the story of Adam and Eve.

00:10:42.000 And the idea, essentially, was that to know yourself naked is to become aware of your vulnerability.

00:10:49.000 The physical, your physical boundaries in time and space.

00:10:53.000 And your physiological, your fundamental physiological insufficiencies as they might be judged by others.

00:11:03.000 So, there's biological insufficiency that's sort of built into you because you're a fragile, mortal, vulnerable, half-insane creature.

00:11:09.000 And that's, that's just an existential truth.

00:11:12.000 And then, of course, even merely as a human being, even with all those faults, there are faults that you have that are particular to you.

00:11:20.000 That might be judged harshly by the group.

00:11:23.000 Well, might be, will definitely be judged harshly by the group.

00:11:26.000 And so, to become aware of your nakedness is to become self-conscious, and to know your limits, and to know your vulnerability.

00:11:33.000 And that's what is revealed to Ham when he comes across his father naked.

00:11:41.000 And so, the question is, what does it mean to see your father naked?

00:11:46.000 And it seems to me, and especially in an inappropriate manner like this, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's as if Ham,

00:11:56.000 He does the same thing that happens in the Mesopotamian creation myth, when, when Tiamat and Apsu give rise to the first gods.

00:12:05.000 They're, they're the father of the eventual deity of, of redemption, Marduk.

00:12:11.000 They're very careless and noisy, and they kill Apsu, their father, and attempt to inhabit his corpse, and that makes Tiamat enraged.

00:12:20.000 And so, she bursts forth from the darkness to, to do them in.

00:12:24.000 It's, it's like a precursor to the flood story, or, or an analog to the flood story.

00:12:28.000 And I, I see the same thing happening here with Ham, is that he's, he's insufficiently respectful of his father.

00:12:35.000 And, and the question is, exactly, what does the father represent?

00:12:38.000 And you could say, well, there's, there's, there's the father that you have, and that's a human being, that's, that's a man like other men, a man among men.

00:12:46.000 But then there's the father as such, and that's the spirit of the father.

00:12:49.000 And, insofar as you have a father, you have both at the same time.

00:12:53.000 You have the personal father, that's a man among other men, just like any one other's father.

00:13:00.000 But, insofar as that man is your father, that means that he's something different than just another person.

00:13:06.000 And what he is, is the incarnation of the spirit of the father.

00:13:11.000 And, to see that, to take it, to what? To disrespect that, carelessly.

00:13:17.000 Maybe even, like, Noah makes a mistake, right? He, he, he produces wine and gets himself drunk.

00:13:23.000 And, you might say, well, you know, if he's sprawled out there, for everyone to see, it's hardly Ham's fault if he stumbles across him.

00:13:30.000 But, the, the, the book is laying out a danger.

00:13:34.000 And, the danger is that, well, maybe you catch your father at his most vulnerable moment.

00:13:40.000 And, if you're disrespectful, then you transgress against the spirit of the father.

00:13:46.000 And, if you transgress against the spirit of the father, and lose, spirit of the father, and lose respect for the spirit of the father.

00:13:52.000 Then, that is likely to transform you into a slave.

00:13:57.000 That's a very interesting idea.

00:13:59.000 And, I think it's particularly interesting.

00:14:01.000 Maybe not particularly interesting, but it's, it's particularly germane, I think, to our current cultural situation.

00:14:08.000 Because, I think that, we're pushed constantly to see the nakedness of our father, so to speak.

00:14:15.000 Because of the intense criticism that's directed towards our culture.

00:14:21.000 And, the patriarchal culture, so to speak.

00:14:24.000 We're constantly exposing its weaknesses and vulnerabilities and, let's say, nakedness.

00:14:29.000 And, there's nothing wrong with criticism.

00:14:32.000 But, the thing about criticism is, the purpose of criticism is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

00:14:37.000 It's not to burn everything to the ground.

00:14:39.000 Right?

00:14:40.000 It's to say, well, we're going to carefully look at this.

00:14:43.000 We're going to carefully differentiate.

00:14:44.000 We're going to keep what's good.

00:14:45.000 And, we're going to move away from what's bad.

00:14:47.000 But, the point of the criticism isn't to identify everything as bad.

00:14:51.000 It's to separate what's good from what's bad, so that you can retain what's good and move towards it.

00:14:57.000 And, to be careless at that is deadly.

00:15:01.000 Because, you're inhabited by the spirit of the father.

00:15:04.000 Right?

00:15:05.000 Insofar as you're a cultural construction, which, of course, is something that the post-modern neo-Marxists are absolutely emphatic about.

00:15:12.000 You're a cultural construction.

00:15:14.000 Insofar as you're a cultural construction, then you're inhabited by the spirit of the father.

00:15:18.000 And, to be disrespectful towards that, means to undermine the very structure that makes you, not all of what you are, certainly.

00:15:27.000 Certainly not all of what you are, but a good portion of what you are, insofar as you're a socialized cultural entity.

00:15:33.000 And, if you pull out the, if you pull the foundation out from underneath that, what do you have left?

00:15:41.000 You can hardly manage on your own.

00:15:43.000 You know, it's just not possible.

00:15:45.000 You're a cultural creation.

00:15:48.000 And so, Ham makes this desperate error, and is careless about exposing himself to the vulnerability of his father.

00:15:58.000 Something like that.

00:15:59.000 He does it without sufficient respect.

00:16:01.000 And the judgment is that, not only will he be a slave, but so will all of his descendants.

00:16:07.000 And he's contrasted with the other two sons, who, I suppose, are willing to give their father the benefit of the doubt.

00:16:14.000 Something like that.

00:16:15.000 And so, when they see him in a compromising position, they handle it with respect, and don't capitalize on it.

00:16:24.000 And maybe that makes them strong.

00:16:27.000 That's what it seems to me.

00:16:29.000 And so, I think that's what that story means.

00:16:33.000 It has something to do with respect.

00:16:35.000 You know, and the funny thing about having respect for your culture, and I suppose that's partly why I'm doing the biblical stories,

00:16:42.000 is because they're part of my culture.

00:16:46.000 They're part of our culture, perhaps.

00:16:48.000 But they're certainly part of my culture.

00:16:50.000 And it seems to me that it's worthwhile to treat that with respect, to see what you can glean from it, and not kick it when it's down, let's say.

00:17:04.000 And so, that's how the story of Noah ends.

00:17:10.000 You know, and the thing, too, is Noah is actually a pretty decent incarnation of the spirit of the Father.

00:17:18.000 Which I suppose is one of the things that makes Ham's misstep more egregious.

00:17:24.000 Is that, I mean, Noah just built an ark and got everybody through the flood.

00:17:28.000 Man, you know, it's not so bad.

00:17:30.000 And so, maybe the fact that he happened to drink too much wine one day wasn't enough to justify humiliating him.

00:17:38.000 And, you know, I don't think it's pushing the limits of symbolic interpretation to note on a daily basis that we're all contained in an ark.

00:17:47.000 Right? And that's the ark that, you can think about that as the ark that's been bequeathed to us by our forefathers.

00:17:53.000 That's the tremendous infrastructure that we inhabit.

00:17:57.000 That we take for granted.

00:17:59.000 Because it works so well.

00:18:01.000 That protects us from things that we can't even imagine, and we don't have to imagine, because we're so well protected.

00:18:07.000 And so, one of the things that's really struck me hard, I would say, about the disintegration and corruption of the universities.

00:18:15.000 Is the absolute ingratitude that goes along with that.

00:18:18.000 You know, criticism, as I said, is a fine thing.

00:18:22.000 If it's done in the spirit, in a proper spirit.

00:18:25.000 And that's the spirit of separating the wheat from the chaff.

00:18:28.000 But it needs to be accompanied by gratitude.

00:18:30.000 And it does seem to me that anyone who lives in the West, in the Western culture, at this time in history, and in this place.

00:18:41.000 And who isn't simultaneously grateful for that, is half blind, at least.

00:18:48.000 Because it's never been better than this.

00:18:51.000 And it could be so much worse.

00:18:53.000 And it's highly likely that it will be so much worse.

00:18:56.000 Because for most of human history, so much worse is the norm.

00:19:00.000 So...

00:19:06.000 Then there's this little story that crops up, that seems, in some ways, unrelated to everything that's gone before it.

00:19:15.000 But I think it's also an extremely profound little story.

00:19:19.000 It took me a long time to figure it out.

00:19:21.000 It's the Tower of Babel.

00:19:23.000 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there.

00:19:30.000 That's Noah's descendants.

00:19:33.000 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

00:19:36.000 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

00:19:41.000 And they said to one another,

00:19:43.000 Go, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.

00:19:45.000 And they had brick for stone, and slime they had for mortar.

00:19:49.000 So they're establishing a city.

00:19:52.000 And they said,

00:19:53.000 Go, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.

00:19:58.000 And let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.

00:20:05.000 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built.

00:20:09.000 And the Lord said,

00:20:12.000 Behold, the people is one, and they all have one language, and now this they begin to do.

00:20:17.000 And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.

00:20:21.000 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

00:20:27.000 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city.

00:20:34.000 Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.

00:20:41.000 And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

00:20:47.000 It's a very difficult story to understand.

00:20:50.000 It's, on the face of it, it doesn't seem to show God in a very good light.

00:20:54.000 Although that happens fairly frequently in the Old Testament, as far as I can tell.

00:20:58.000 But,

00:21:01.000 you know, the thing to do,

00:21:03.000 if you're reading in the spirit of the text, let's say, is to remember that

00:21:07.000 it's God that you're talking about.

00:21:09.000 And so,

00:21:11.000 even though you might think that

00:21:13.000 he's appearing in a bad light,

00:21:15.000 your duty, as a reader,

00:21:17.000 I suppose,

00:21:18.000 is to assume that you're wrong, and that what he did was right.

00:21:21.000 And then you're supposed to figure out, well, how could it possibly be right?

00:21:24.000 Because the axiomatic presupposition is that it's God, and whatever he does is right.

00:21:28.000 And you might say, well, you can disagree with that.

00:21:30.000 And it's also the case that some of the people that God talks to in the Old Testament

00:21:35.000 actually disagree with him and convince him to alter his actions.

00:21:38.000 But the point still remains that it's God, and if he's doing it, then,

00:21:42.000 by definition, there's a good reason.

00:21:49.000 There's an idea, much later, that John Milton develops in Paradise Lost,

00:21:55.000 which is an amazing poem.

00:21:58.000 And it's a profound enough poem so that it's almost been incorporated into the biblical structure,

00:22:06.000 I would say.

00:22:07.000 So, the corpus of Christianity, post-Milton,

00:22:14.000 was saturated by the Miltonic stories of Satan's rebellion.

00:22:18.000 None of that's in the biblical texts.

00:22:21.000 It's only hinted at in very brief passages.

00:22:24.000 And Milton wrote his poem to justify the ways of God to man,

00:22:31.000 which is quite an ambition.

00:22:33.000 Really, it's an amazing, profound ambition

00:22:37.000 to try to produce something, to produce a literary work

00:22:41.000 that justifies being to human beings,

00:22:44.000 because that's what Milton was trying to do.

00:22:46.000 One of my readers here sent me a link the other day, or viewers, to a work of philosophy,

00:22:53.000 by an Australian philosopher, whose name I don't remember,

00:22:57.000 who basically wrote a book saying that

00:22:59.000 being as such, human experience is so corrupt and so permeated by suffering,

00:23:05.000 that it would be better if it had never existed at all.

00:23:08.000 It's sort of the ultimate expression of nihilism.

00:23:11.000 And Goethe, in Faust, his Mephistopheles, who's a Satanic character, obviously,

00:23:18.000 has that as a credo.

00:23:19.000 That's Satan's fundamental motivation, is

00:23:24.000 his objection to creation itself, is that creation is so flawed and so rife with suffering,

00:23:29.000 that it would be better if it had never existed at all.

00:23:32.000 And so that's his motivation for attempting to continue to destroy it.

00:23:38.000 In Milton's Paradise Lost,

00:23:40.000 Satan is an intellectual figure.

00:23:42.000 And you see that motif emerge very frequently, by the way, in popular culture.

00:23:47.000 So, for example, in The Lion King,

00:23:50.000 the figure of Scar, who's a Satanic figure, is also hyper-intellectual.

00:23:54.000 And that's very common, that, you know, it's the evil scientist motif,

00:23:58.000 or the evil advisor to the king, the same motif.

00:24:01.000 It encapsulates something about rationality.

00:24:03.000 And what it seems to encapsulate is the idea that rationality,

00:24:07.000 like Satan, is the highest angel in God's heavenly kingdom.

00:24:11.000 It's a psychological idea, you know,

00:24:13.000 that the most powerful sub-element of the human psyche is the intellect.

00:24:18.000 And it's the thing that shines out above all,

00:24:21.000 within the domain of humanity and maybe across the domain of life itself.

00:24:27.000 The human intellect, there's something absolutely remarkable about it.

00:24:30.000 But it has a flaw, and the flaw is that it tends to fall in love with its own productions,

00:24:35.000 and to assume that they're total.

00:24:37.000 Solzhenitsyn, when he was writing The Gulag Archipelago,

00:24:40.000 had a warning about that, with regards to totalitarian ideology.

00:24:45.000 And he said that the price of selling your God-given soul to the entrapments of human dogma was slavery and death, essentially.

00:24:57.000 And Satan, in Milton's Paradise Lost,

00:25:03.000 Satan decides that he can do without the transcendent.

00:25:08.000 He can do without God.

00:25:09.000 And that's why he foments rebellion.

00:25:11.000 It's something like that.

00:25:12.000 And the consequence of that, the immediate consequence from Milton's perspective,

00:25:16.000 was that as soon as Satan decided that what he knew was sufficient,

00:25:22.000 and that he could do without the transcendent,

00:25:25.000 which you might think about as the domain outside of what you know, something like that,

00:25:30.000 immediately he was in hell.

00:25:32.000 And when I read Paradise Lost, I was studying totalitarianism,

00:25:36.000 and I thought, you know, the poet, the true poet, like a prophet,

00:25:42.000 is someone who has intimations of the future.

00:25:46.000 And maybe that's because the poetic mind, the philosophical or prophetic mind,

00:25:51.000 is a pattern detector, and there are people who can detect the underlying,

00:25:55.000 it's like the melody of a nation.

00:25:58.000 Melody as in song, the song of a nation.

00:26:01.000 And can see how it's going to develop across the centuries.

00:26:03.000 You see this, you see that in Nietzsche.

00:26:05.000 Because Nietzsche, for example, in the mid, you know, around 1860 or so,

00:26:09.000 I mean, he prophesied what was going to happen in the 20th century.

00:26:12.000 He said that, he said specifically that the specter of communism would kill millions of people in the 20th century.

00:26:19.000 It's an amazing prophecy.

00:26:21.000 He said that in the notes that became Will to Power.

00:26:23.000 And Dostoevsky was of the same sort of mind,

00:26:26.000 someone who was in touch enough with the fundamental patterns of human movement

00:26:33.000 that they could extrapolate out into the future and see what was coming.

00:26:37.000 And I mean, some people are very good at detecting patterns, you know.

00:26:41.000 And Milton, I think, was of that sort.

00:26:45.000 And I think he had intimations of what was coming as human rationality became more and more powerful,

00:26:52.000 and technology became more and more powerful.

00:26:54.000 And the intimation was that we would produce systems that dispensed with God,

00:26:58.000 that were completely rational and completely total,

00:27:02.000 that would immediately turn everything they touched into something indistinguishable from hell.

00:27:08.000 And Milton's warning was, and it's embodied in the poem, is that

00:27:13.000 the rational mind that generates a production and then worships it as if its absolute immediately occupies hell.

00:27:22.000 So what does that have to do with the Tower of Babel?

00:27:26.000 Well, you know what? Back in 2008, when we had that economic collapse,

00:27:35.000 this strange idea emerged politically, and that was the idea of too big to fail.

00:27:41.000 And I thought about that idea for a long time, because I thought,

00:27:45.000 there's something deeply wrong with that.

00:27:48.000 Because one of the things that made Marx wrong

00:27:52.000 was Marx believed that capital would flow into the hands of fewer and fewer people,

00:27:59.000 and that the dissociation between the rich and the poor would become more extreme as capitalism developed.

00:28:05.000 And like so many things that Marx said, it's kind of true.

00:28:12.000 It's kind of true in that the distribution of wealth,

00:28:17.000 in fact, the distribution of anything that's produced, follows a Pareto pattern.

00:28:22.000 And the Pareto pattern basically is that a small proportion of people end up with the bulk of the goods.

00:28:27.000 And it isn't just money. It's anything that people produce creatively

00:28:32.000 ends up in that distribution.

00:28:35.000 And that's actually, the economists call that the Matthew Principle.

00:28:39.000 And they take that from a statement in the New Testament.

00:28:41.000 And the statement is,

00:28:42.000 To those who have everything, more will be given.

00:28:44.000 And from those who have nothing, everything will be taken.

00:28:47.000 And it's a map of the manner in which the world manifests itself,

00:28:52.000 where human creative production is involved.

00:28:55.000 And the map seems to indicate that as you start to produce, and you're successful,

00:28:58.000 the probability that you will continue to be successful or accelerate increases as you're successful.

00:29:04.000 And as you fail, the probability that you will fail starts to accelerate.

00:29:08.000 So, your progress through life looks like this, or like this.

00:29:13.000 Something like that.

00:29:14.000 And the reason that Marx was right was because he noted that as a feature of the capitalist system.

00:29:21.000 The reason that he was wrong is that it's not a feature that's specific to a capitalist system.

00:29:27.000 It's a feature that's general to all systems of creative production that are known.

00:29:31.000 And so, it's like a natural law.

00:29:33.000 And it's enough of a natural law, by the way,

00:29:36.000 that the distribution of wealth can be modeled by physical models using the same equations

00:29:42.000 that govern the distribution of gas molecules in a vacuum.

00:29:45.000 So, it's a really profound, it's a fundamentally profound observation about the world,

00:29:50.000 the way the world lays itself out.

00:29:52.000 And it's problematic, because if resources accrue unfairly to a small minority of people,

00:30:03.000 and there's a natural law-like element to that, that has to be dealt with from a social perspective,

00:30:08.000 because if the inequality becomes too extreme, then the whole system will destabilize.

00:30:15.000 And so, you can have an intelligent discussion about how to mitigate the effects of the transfer of creative production

00:30:24.000 into the hands of a small number of people.

00:30:27.000 Now, the other reason, however, having said that, the other reason that Marx was wrong, there's a number of them,

00:30:33.000 one is that, even though creative products end up in the hands of a small number of people,

00:30:43.000 it's not the same people consistently across time.

00:30:46.000 It's the same proportion of people.

00:30:48.000 And that's not the same thing.

00:30:50.000 You know, like, imagine that there's water going down a drain,

00:30:53.000 and you say, well, look at the spiral, it's permanent.

00:30:56.000 You think, well, the spiral's permanent, but the water molecules aren't, they're moving through it.

00:31:00.000 And it's the same, in some sense, with the Pareto distribution, is that there's a 1%,

00:31:05.000 and there's always a 1%, but it's not the same people.

00:31:08.000 And the stability of it differs from culture to culture.

00:31:14.000 But there's a lot of movement in the upper 1%, a tremendous amount of movement.

00:31:18.000 And one of the reasons for that movement is that things get large,

00:31:23.000 and then they get too large, and then they collapse.

00:31:26.000 And so, in 2008, when the politicians said, too big to fail,

00:31:32.000 they got something truly backwards, as far as I can tell.

00:31:36.000 And that was, it was a reverse, the statement was reversed.

00:31:42.000 It should have been so big it had to fail.

00:31:45.000 And that's what I think the story of the Tower of Babel is about.

00:31:49.000 It's a warning against the expansion of a system until it encompasses everything.

00:31:58.000 It's a warning against totalitarian presumption.

00:32:01.000 So what happens, for example, when people set out to build the Tower of Babel,

00:32:05.000 is they want to build a structure that reaches to heaven.

00:32:08.000 Right? So the idea is that it can replace the role of God.

00:32:15.000 It's something like that. It can erase the distinction between earth and heaven.

00:32:20.000 And so there's a utopian kind of vision there, as well.

00:32:22.000 We can build a structure that's so large and encompassing that it can replace heaven itself.

00:32:30.000 And that's an interesting...

00:32:33.000 The fact that that doesn't work, and that God objects to it, is also extraordinarily interesting.

00:32:37.000 And it's an indication to me of the unbelievable profundity of these stories.

00:32:42.000 It's like, I think one thing we should have learned from the 20th century, but of course didn't,

00:32:47.000 was that there's something extraordinarily dangerous about totalitarian utopian visions.

00:32:52.000 That's something Dostoevsky wrote about, by the way, in his great book, Notes from Underground.

00:32:57.000 Because Dostoevsky had figured out by the early 1900s that there was something very, very pathological about a utopian vision of perfection.

00:33:06.000 That it was profoundly anti-human.

00:33:08.000 And in Notes from Underground, he demolishes the notion of utopia.

00:33:13.000 One of the things he says that I loved, it's so brilliant.

00:33:16.000 He said, imagine that you brought the socialist utopia into being.

00:33:20.000 And Dostoevsky says that human beings had nothing to do except eat, drink, and busy themselves with the continuation of the species.

00:33:33.000 He said that the first thing that would happen, under circumstances like that, would be that human beings would go mad and break the system.

00:33:42.000 Smash it.

00:33:43.000 Just so that something unexpected and crazy could happen.

00:33:46.000 Because human beings don't want utopian comfort and certainty.

00:33:51.000 They want adventure and chaos and uncertainty.

00:33:55.000 And so that the very notion of a utopia was anti-human.

00:33:58.000 Because we're not built for static utopia.

00:34:02.000 We're built for a dynamic situation where there's demands placed on us.

00:34:10.000 And where there's the optimal amount of uncertainty.

00:34:14.000 Well, we know what happened in the 20th century as a consequence of the widespread promulgation of utopian schemes.

00:34:23.000 And what happened was mayhem on a scale that had never been matched in the entire history of humanity.

00:34:30.000 And that's really saying something because there was plenty of mayhem before the 20th century.

00:34:38.000 I guess there wasn't as much industrial clout behind it.

00:34:42.000 And so, so early, you see, so early in the biblical narrative you have a warning against hubris.

00:34:50.000 And some indication that properly functioning systems have an appropriate scale.

00:34:58.000 I read an article in The Economist magazine this week about the rise of nationalist movements all over the world.

00:35:07.000 As a counterbalance to globalization.

00:35:10.000 Maybe it's most marked with the European economic community.

00:35:14.000 And the Economist writers were curious about why that counter-movement has been developing.

00:35:20.000 But it seems to me that it's also a Tower of Babel phenomena.

00:35:24.000 Is that, and maybe this is most evident in the European economic community.

00:35:31.000 To bring all of that multiplicity under the, what would you call it, under the umbrella of a single unity.

00:35:41.000 Is to simultaneously erect a system where the top is so far from the bottom.

00:35:46.000 That the bottom has no connection to the top.

00:35:49.000 You know, your social systems have to be large enough so they protect you.

00:35:54.000 But small enough so that you have a place in them.

00:35:58.000 And it seems to me, perhaps, that's what's happened in places like the EEC.

00:36:03.000 Is that the distance between the typical citizen and the bureaucracy that runs the entire structure.

00:36:10.000 Has got so great that it's an element of destabilization in and of itself.

00:36:17.000 And so people revert back to say nationalistic identities.

00:36:21.000 Because it's something that they can relate to.

00:36:27.000 There's a history there and a shared identity.

00:36:30.000 A genuine identity.

00:36:32.000 An identity of language and tradition.

00:36:35.000 That's not an artificial imposition from the top.

00:36:37.000 An artificial abstract imposition.

00:36:39.000 In the Egyptian creation myth.

00:36:43.000 The version I'm familiar, most familiar with.

00:36:46.000 In the previous creation myth.

00:36:49.000 An older one.

00:36:50.000 The Mesopotamian creation myth.

00:36:52.000 Mostly what you see menacing humanity is Tiamat.

00:36:57.000 She's the dragon of chaos.

00:36:58.000 And so that's nature.

00:36:59.000 It's really, it's really mother nature.

00:37:02.000 Red in tooth and claw.

00:37:04.000 But by the time the Egyptians come along.

00:37:07.000 It isn't only nature that threatens humanity.

00:37:13.000 It's the social structure itself.

00:37:15.000 And so the Egyptians had two deities that represented the social structure.

00:37:20.000 And one was Osiris who was like the spirit of the father.

00:37:24.000 He was a great hero who established Egypt.

00:37:26.000 But became old and willfully blind and senile.

00:37:34.000 And he had an evil brother named Seth.

00:37:37.000 And Seth was always conspiring to overthrow him.

00:37:41.000 And because Osiris ignored him long enough.

00:37:45.000 Seth did overthrow him.

00:37:47.000 Chopped him into pieces and distributed him all around the kingdom.

00:37:51.000 And his son Horus had to come back and fight.

00:37:54.000 Osiris' son Horus had to come back and defeat Seth to take the kingdom back.

00:37:59.000 And that's how that story ends.

00:38:01.000 But the Egyptians seem to have realized.

00:38:03.000 Maybe because they had become bureaucratized to quite a substantial degree.

00:38:06.000 That it wasn't only nature that threatened humankind.

00:38:10.000 It was also the proclivity of human organizations.

00:38:13.000 To become too large.

00:38:15.000 Too unwieldy.

00:38:16.000 Too deceitful.

00:38:17.000 And too willfully blind.

00:38:19.000 And therefore liable to collapse.

00:38:21.000 And again, I see echoes of that in this story of the Tower of Babel.

00:38:26.000 So, it's a calling for a kind of humility of social engineering.

00:38:36.000 One of the other things I've learned as a social scientist.

00:38:40.000 And I've been warned about this by, I would say, great social scientists.

00:38:46.000 That you want to be very careful about doing large scale experimentation with large scale systems.

00:38:55.000 Because the probability that if you implement a scheme in a large scale social system.

00:39:01.000 That that scheme will have the result you intended is negligible.

00:39:05.000 What will happen will be something that you don't intend.

00:39:08.000 And even worse, something that works at counter purposes to your original intent.

00:39:13.000 And so, and that makes sense.

00:39:17.000 Because if you have a very, very complex system.

00:39:20.000 And you perturb it.

00:39:22.000 The probability that you can predict the consequence of the perturbation is extraordinarily low.

00:39:27.000 Obviously.

00:39:29.000 If the system works though, you think you understand it.

00:39:32.000 Because it works.

00:39:33.000 And so you think it's simpler than it actually is.

00:39:35.000 And so then you think that your model of it is correct.

00:39:38.000 And then you think that your manipulation of the model.

00:39:41.000 Which produces the outcome you model.

00:39:44.000 Will be the outcome that's actually produced in the world.

00:39:47.000 And that doesn't work at all.

00:39:49.000 I thought about that an awful lot.

00:39:52.000 Thinking about how to remediate social systems.

00:39:56.000 Because obviously they need careful attention and adjustment.

00:40:01.000 And it struck me that the proper strategy for implementing social change is to stay within your domain of competence.

00:40:13.000 And that requires humility.

00:40:16.000 Which is a virtue that is never promoted in modern culture, I would say.

00:40:23.000 It's a virtue that you can hardly even talk about.

00:40:27.000 But humility means.

00:40:29.000 You're probably not as smart as you think you are.

00:40:31.000 And you should be careful.

00:40:33.000 And so then the question might be.

00:40:35.000 Well, okay.

00:40:36.000 You should be careful.

00:40:37.000 But perhaps you still want to do good.

00:40:39.000 You want to make some positive changes.

00:40:41.000 How can you be careful and do good?

00:40:43.000 And then I would say.

00:40:44.000 Well, you try not to step outside of the boundaries of your competence.

00:40:47.000 And you start small.

00:40:49.000 And you start with things that you actually could adjust.

00:40:51.000 That you actually do understand.

00:40:52.000 That you actually could fix.

00:40:54.000 I mentioned to you at one point that one of the things Carl Jung said was that modern men don't see God because they don't look low enough.

00:41:02.000 It's a very interesting phrase.

00:41:04.000 And one of the things that I've been promoting, I suppose, online is the idea that you should restrict your attempts to fix things to what's at hand.

00:41:21.000 So there's probably things about you that you could fix, right?

00:41:24.000 Things that you know that aren't right.

00:41:26.000 Not anyone else's opinion.

00:41:28.000 Your own opinion that aren't right.

00:41:29.000 You can fix them.

00:41:30.000 Maybe there's some things that you could adjust in your family.

00:41:32.000 Well, that gets hard.

00:41:33.000 You have to have your act together a lot before you can start to adjust your family.

00:41:37.000 Because things can kick back on you really hard.

00:41:39.000 And you think, well, it's hard to put yourself together.

00:41:42.000 It's really hard to put your family together.

00:41:44.000 Why the hell do you think you can put the world together?

00:41:46.000 Right?

00:41:47.000 Because obviously the world is more complicated than you and your family.

00:41:50.000 And so if you're stymied in your attempts even to set your own house in order, which of course you are,

00:41:56.000 then you would think that what that would do would be to make you very, very leery about announcing your broad-scale plans for social revolution.

00:42:04.000 Well, it's a peculiar thing because that isn't how it works.

00:42:09.000 Because people are much more likely to announce their plans for broad-scale social revolution than they are to try to set themselves straight or to set their families straight.

00:42:17.000 And I think the reason for that is that as soon as they try to set themselves straight or their families,

00:42:22.000 the system immediately kicks back at them.

00:42:25.000 Right? Instantly.

00:42:26.000 Whereas if they announce their plans for large-scale social revolution,

00:42:30.000 the lag between the announcement and the kickback is so long that they don't recognize that there's any error there.

00:42:38.000 And so, you know, you can get away with being wrong if nothing falls on you for a while.

00:42:45.000 And so, and it's also an incitement to hubris because you can announce your plans for large-scale social revolution

00:42:54.000 and stand back and you don't get hit by lightning and you think,

00:42:57.000 well, I might be right, even though you're not. You're seriously not right.

00:43:01.000 I might be right and then you think, well, how wonderful is that?

00:43:05.000 Especially if you could do it without any real effort.

00:43:08.000 And I really do think, fundamentally, I believe, that that's what universities teach students now.

00:43:13.000 That's what they teach them to do. I really believe that.

00:43:16.000 And I think it's absolutely appalling.

00:43:20.000 And I think it's horribly dangerous.

00:43:23.000 Because it's not that easy to fix things.

00:43:25.000 Especially if you don't,

00:43:28.000 especially if you're not committed to it.

00:43:30.000 And I think you know if you're committed because what you try to do is you try to straighten out your own life first.

00:43:35.000 And that's enough. Like, there's a, I think it's a statement in the New Testament that it's,

00:43:39.000 I think it's in the New Testament, that it's more difficult to rule yourself than to rule the city.

00:43:45.000 And that's not a metaphor.

00:43:46.000 It's like all of you who've made announcements to yourself about changing your diet and going to the gym every January.

00:43:54.000 Know perfectly well how difficult it is to regulate your own impulses and to bring yourself under the control of some,

00:44:03.000 what would you say,

00:44:06.000 well-structured and ethical,

00:44:10.000 attentive structure of values.

00:44:13.000 It's extraordinarily difficult.

00:44:15.000 And so people don't do it.

00:44:16.000 And instead they wander off.

00:44:19.000 And I think they create towers of Babel.

00:44:22.000 And the story indicates,

00:44:24.000 well, those things collapse under their own weight.

00:44:26.000 And everyone goes their own direction.

00:44:31.000 I think I see that happening with the LGBT community.

00:44:34.000 I think because one of the things I've noticed,

00:44:38.000 it's very interesting because the community is,

00:44:41.000 is some sense,

00:44:42.000 it's not a community,

00:44:43.000 but that's a technical error.

00:44:46.000 But it's,

00:44:48.000 it's composed of outsiders, let's say.

00:44:51.000 And what you notice across the decades is that the acronym list keeps growing.

00:44:56.000 And I think that's because there's an infinite number of ways to be an outsider.

00:45:01.000 And so once you open the door to the construction of a group that's characterized by

00:45:08.000 failing to fit into the group,

00:45:11.000 then you immediately create a category that's infinitely expandable.

00:45:15.000 And so I don't know how long the acronym list is now.

00:45:19.000 It depends on which acronym list you consult.

00:45:21.000 But I've seen lists of 10 or more acronyms.

00:45:26.000 And one of the things that's happening is that

00:45:29.000 the community is starting to fragment

00:45:32.000 in its, in its interior.

00:45:34.000 Because there is no unity.

00:45:36.000 Once you put a sufficient plurality under the sheltering

00:45:42.000 structure of a single umbrella, say,

00:45:46.000 the disunity starts to appear within.

00:45:49.000 And I think that's also a,

00:45:51.000 it's a manifestation of the same issue that this particular story is dealing with.

00:45:56.000 So that ends, I would say,

00:46:02.000 the most archaic stories in the,

00:46:05.000 in the Bible.

00:46:08.000 There's something about the flood story and,

00:46:10.000 and also the Tower of Babel.

00:46:11.000 I think they outline the two fundamental dangers that beset mankind.

00:46:15.000 One is the probability that blindness and sin will produce a natural catastrophe or entice one.

00:46:24.000 That's something modern people are very aware of in principle, right?

00:46:27.000 Because we're all hyper concerned about environmental degradation and catastrophe.

00:46:30.000 And so, that's the continual reactivation of an archetypal idea in our, in our unconscious minds.

00:46:39.000 That there's something about the way we're living that's unsustainable and that will create a catastrophe.

00:46:44.000 It's so interesting because people believe that firmly and deeply.

00:46:49.000 And, but they don't see the relationship between that and the archetypal stories.

00:46:53.000 Because it's the same story.

00:46:56.000 Over consumption, greed, all of that is producing an unstable state and nature will rebel and take us down.

00:47:03.000 Right? You hear that every day, in every newspaper, in every TV station.

00:47:08.000 It's broadcast to you constantly.

00:47:10.000 And so that idea is presented in, in Genesis, in the story of Noah.

00:47:15.000 And then, the other warning that exists in the stories.

00:47:19.000 One is, beware of natural catastrophe that's produced as a consequence of blindness and greed, we'll say.

00:47:25.000 The other is, beware of social structures that overreach.

00:47:30.000 Because they'll also produce fragmentation and disintegration.

00:47:35.000 And so, it's quite remarkable, I think, that that, with, at the close of the story of the Tower of Babel.

00:47:43.000 We've got both of the permanent existential dangers that present themselves to humanity, already identified.

00:47:52.000 At the end of the story of Adam and Eve, there's like a fall into history.

00:48:03.000 Right? So, in one way, history begins with the fall.

00:48:06.000 But there's like a second fall, I think, with the flood in the Tower of Babel.

00:48:10.000 And history, in an even more real sense, begins now.

00:48:14.000 It begins with the story of Abraham.

00:48:16.000 And it's, it's, we're no longer precisely in the realm of the purely mythical.

00:48:22.000 That would be another way of thinking about it.

00:48:24.000 We have an identifiable person, who's part of an identifiable tribe, who's doing identifiable things.

00:48:29.000 We're in the realm of history.

00:48:30.000 And so, history begins twice in the Old Testament.

00:48:34.000 I suppose it begins again after Moses, as well.

00:48:37.000 But, we've moved out of the domain of the purely mythical into the realm of history, with, with the emergence of the stories about Abraham.

00:48:46.000 This is from Aldous Huxley.

00:48:48.000 So, the first thing that, that I want to talk about, in relationship to the Abrahamic stories, is this idea of the experience of God.

00:48:54.000 Because, Abraham, although quite identifiable as an actual individual, is also characterized by this peculiarity.

00:49:04.000 And the peculiarity is that God manifests himself to Abraham.

00:49:09.000 Both as a voice, but also as a presence.

00:49:12.000 The stories never describe exactly how God manifests himself, except now and then he comes in the form of an angel.

00:49:20.000 That's fairly concrete.

00:49:21.000 But, it's a funny thing that the author of, or authors of the Abrahamic stories, seems to take the idea that God would make an appearance, more or less for granted.

00:49:34.000 And so, it's very, I think that part of the reason that I've struggled so much with the Abrahamic stories is because it's so hard to get a handle on that, and to understand what that might mean.

00:49:45.000 And so, I'm going to hit it from a bunch of different perspectives, and we'll see if we can come up with some understanding of it.

00:49:54.000 The first thing I'll do is tell you a story about a female neurologist, whose name escapes me at the moment.

00:50:02.000 She wrote a book called, My Stroke of Insight.

00:50:04.000 Jill Bolte, I think is her name.

00:50:07.000 And, she was a Harvard trained.

00:50:10.000 She was, she had, she had medical training from Harvard in neuropsychological function, and knew a lot about hemispheric specialization.

00:50:18.000 We talked a little bit about hemispheric specialization before.

00:50:21.000 One of the ways of conceptualizing the difference between the two hemispheres is that the left hemisphere operates in known territory, and the right hemisphere operates in unknown territory.

00:50:31.000 That's one way of thinking about it. The left hemisphere operates in the orderly domain, and the right hemisphere operates in the chaotic domain.

00:50:38.000 Or the left hemisphere operates in the domain of detail, and the right hemisphere operates in the domain of the large picture.

00:50:46.000 It's something like that. Now, people differ in their neurological wiring, so those are overgeneralizations, but that's okay.

00:50:54.000 We'll live with that for the time being.

00:50:56.000 It's certainly not an overgeneralization to point out that you do, in fact, have two hemispheres, and that their structures differ.

00:51:01.000 And if the connections between them are cut, which could happen, for example, if you had surgery for intractable epilepsy,

00:51:06.000 that each hemisphere would be capable of housing its own consciousness.

00:51:10.000 That's been well documented by a neurologist named Ghazanaga, and Sperry, who did split-brain experiments, must be 30 years ago now.

00:51:22.000 So, and we know that the right and the left hemisphere are specialized for different functions.

00:51:28.000 The right hemisphere, for example, seems to be more involved in the generation of negative emotion, and the left hemisphere more involved in the generation of positive emotion and approach.

00:51:36.000 So the right hemisphere stops you, and the left hemisphere moves you forward.

00:51:39.000 Anyways, Jill Bolte, I hope I've got that right, had a stroke, and maintained consciousness during the stroke, and analyzed it while it was happening.

00:51:53.000 And she was able, while it was happening, to hypothesize about what part of her brain was being destroyed.

00:52:00.000 And what, so she had a congenital blood vessel malformation, and had an aneurysm.

00:52:07.000 And it just about killed her.

00:52:09.000 But she said that it affected her left hemisphere.

00:52:14.000 And she said that she experienced a sense of divine unity as a consequence of the stroke.

00:52:22.000 Because the left hemisphere function was disrupted and destroyed.

00:52:25.000 And so she became right hemisphere dominant.

00:52:28.000 And her experience of that was the dissolution of the specific ego into the, into absolute consciousness, something like that.

00:52:36.000 Now, that's only a case study, and you don't want to make too much of case studies.

00:52:41.000 But there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that those two kinds of consciousness exist.

00:52:48.000 One being your consciousness of you as a localized and specified being.

00:52:55.000 And the other being this capacity to experience oceanic dissolution, and the sense of the cosmos being one.

00:53:07.000 Now, why we have those capacities for different conscious experiences is very difficult to understand.

00:53:15.000 I mean, part of me thinks that maybe we have a generic human brain.

00:53:21.000 That's the brain of the species.

00:53:24.000 And allied with that we have a specific individual brain.

00:53:28.000 And one is the left hemisphere, and the other is the right hemisphere.

00:53:31.000 The left hemisphere being the specific individual brain.

00:53:33.000 And usually it's on and working.

00:53:35.000 Because you obviously have to take care of yourself as a specific entity.

00:53:39.000 And not as a generalized cosmic phenomena.

00:53:42.000 It's hard to dice salary when you're a generalized cosmic phenomena.

00:53:47.000 Right? So you have to be more pointed than that.

00:53:50.000 But look, let's make no mistake about it.

00:53:53.000 The fact that those different states of consciousness exist is not disputable.

00:53:58.000 They can be elicited in all sorts of ways.

00:54:02.000 And so, I'm gonna read you something that Aldous Huxley wrote about this back, I think in 1956.

00:54:08.000 This was after he started his experimentation with mescaline.

00:54:15.000 Because the psychedelics were introduced into Western culture in the 1950s.

00:54:19.000 In a whole bunch of different ways.

00:54:21.000 Psilocybin mushrooms.

00:54:22.000 LSD.

00:54:23.000 That was discovered right after the end of World War II.

00:54:26.000 It was discovered by accident actually.

00:54:28.000 Laboratory Sandoz Labs.

00:54:30.000 The guy who discovered it.

00:54:31.000 Albert Hoffman.

00:54:32.000 It spilled some on his hands.

00:54:34.000 You can absorb it through your skin.

00:54:35.000 And he was biking home and had the world's first LSD trip.

00:54:40.000 Which was somewhat of a shock to him.

00:54:42.000 And then to the entire world.

00:54:44.000 Huxley, who was a great literary figure.

00:54:47.000 A real genius.

00:54:49.000 Experimented with mescaline in the late 50s.

00:54:52.000 And he wrote a book called The Doors of Perception.

00:54:55.000 Which had a huge impact on the emerging psychedelic culture.

00:54:58.000 Both on the East Coast at Harvard.

00:55:01.000 And on the West Coast.

00:55:03.000 With Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.

00:55:05.000 The people who popularized LSD.

00:55:07.000 That's all documented in a book called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

00:55:09.000 Which I would highly recommend.

00:55:11.000 It's Tom Wolfe.

00:55:12.000 It's a brilliant book.

00:55:13.000 On the East Coast it was Timothy Leary.

00:55:15.000 I had Timothy Leary's old job.

00:55:17.000 At Harvard.

00:55:19.000 So that was kind of cool.

00:55:21.000 You know.

00:55:22.000 Warped way.

00:55:23.000 So.

00:55:24.000 I met people there who knew him.

00:55:26.000 Who didn't think much of him.

00:55:27.000 Also.

00:55:28.000 But.

00:55:29.000 Who did know him.

00:55:30.000 But.

00:55:31.000 Huxley had this mescaline experience.

00:55:32.000 And it transported him.

00:55:34.000 To this.

00:55:35.000 Alternative consciousness.

00:55:36.000 And.

00:55:37.000 He said that during his mescaline experience.

00:55:39.000 That the entire world glowed.

00:55:41.000 From within.

00:55:42.000 Like if there was an inner light.

00:55:43.000 Like a paradisal inner light.

00:55:45.000 And that everything was deeply meaningful.

00:55:47.000 And symbolically suggestive.

00:55:49.000 And overwhelming.

00:55:50.000 And beautiful.

00:55:51.000 And timeless.

00:55:52.000 So.

00:55:53.000 He had an experience of divine.

00:55:55.000 Eternity.

00:55:56.000 I suppose.

00:55:57.000 Is the most straightforward way to put that.

00:55:59.000 And we know.

00:56:00.000 Perfectly well.

00:56:01.000 That.

00:56:02.000 The psychedelic drugs.

00:56:03.000 That all share the same chemical structure.

00:56:05.000 They interact with the brain chemical called serotonin.

00:56:07.000 Which is a very very fundamental neurotransmitter.

00:56:10.000 They all have approximately the same.

00:56:12.000 Range of effects.

00:56:14.000 Although those effects are very.

00:56:16.000 There's a very large multitude of effects.

00:56:19.000 That sort of exist.

00:56:21.000 Underneath that umbrella.

00:56:22.000 Um.

00:56:23.000 Huxley was.

00:56:28.000 Staggered by his mescaline experience.

00:56:30.000 He.

00:56:31.000 He didn't really know what to make of it.

00:56:32.000 And I think that that's.

00:56:34.000 The common experience of people who have.

00:56:37.000 Exceptionally profound psychedelic experiences.

00:56:40.000 And I'll.

00:56:41.000 I'll.

00:56:42.000 Tell you some documentation about that in a moment.

00:56:44.000 But he spent quite a long time.

00:56:46.000 Trying to come to grips with what this might mean.

00:56:49.000 From an intellectual perspective.

00:56:50.000 And.

00:56:51.000 And Huxley had a great brain.

00:56:52.000 I mean.

00:56:53.000 If someone was going to wrestle with a problem like that.

00:56:55.000 He was a good candidate.

00:56:56.000 He must have had a verbal IQ of 180.

00:56:58.000 I mean.

00:56:59.000 His books are incredibly literate.

00:57:01.000 Incredible.

00:57:02.000 Incredible mastery of language.

00:57:03.000 And.

00:57:04.000 And complexity of characterization.

00:57:05.000 And.

00:57:06.000 And intellectual discourse.

00:57:07.000 Really remarkable.

00:57:10.000 So this is what Huxley had to say.

00:57:12.000 After his mescaline experience.

00:57:13.000 He talked about heaven and hell.

00:57:15.000 And.

00:57:16.000 He talked about that in reference to.

00:57:17.000 Bad trips.

00:57:18.000 Essentially.

00:57:19.000 Because.

00:57:20.000 It was known.

00:57:21.000 By that point.

00:57:22.000 That.

00:57:23.000 A psychedelic experience could.

00:57:24.000 Transport you to.

00:57:25.000 An ecstatic.

00:57:26.000 Domain.

00:57:27.000 Of divine revelation.

00:57:28.000 But could take you to the worst.

00:57:30.000 Imaginable place as well.

00:57:31.000 And.

00:57:32.000 Huxley was very interested in.

00:57:33.000 Why you would even have the capacity.

00:57:35.000 For experiences like that.

00:57:37.000 And.

00:57:38.000 Which I think is a very good question.

00:57:39.000 And it's a completely unanswered question.

00:57:40.000 I mean.

00:57:41.000 We don't know much about consciousness.

00:57:42.000 And we know even less about psychedelics.

00:57:44.000 I would say.

00:57:45.000 They are.

00:57:46.000 An absolute mystery.

00:57:47.000 I don't think we understand them.

00:57:49.000 In the least.

00:57:50.000 Huxley did a good job of starting to.

00:57:53.000 At least map out the mysteries of the terrain.

00:57:55.000 He said.

00:57:56.000 Like the earth of a hundred years ago.

00:57:57.000 Our mind still has its darkest Africa's.

00:57:59.000 It's unmapped.

00:58:00.000 Borneo's and Amazonian basins.

00:58:02.000 In relation to the fauna.

00:58:05.000 Of these regions.

00:58:06.000 We are not yet zoologists.

00:58:08.000 We are mere naturalists.

00:58:09.000 And collectors of specimens.

00:58:11.000 The fact is unfortunate.

00:58:12.000 But we have to accept it.

00:58:14.000 We have to make the best of it.

00:58:16.000 However lowly.

00:58:17.000 The work of the collector must be done.

00:58:19.000 Before we can proceed.

00:58:20.000 To the higher scientific tasks.

00:58:22.000 Of classification.

00:58:23.000 Analysis.

00:58:24.000 Experiment.

00:58:25.000 And theory making.

00:58:26.000 Like the giraffe.

00:58:27.000 And the duck-billed platypus.

00:58:28.000 The creatures.

00:58:29.000 Inhabiting these remoter regions.

00:58:30.000 Of the mind.

00:58:31.000 Are exceedingly improbable.

00:58:33.000 Nevertheless.

00:58:34.000 They exist.

00:58:35.000 They are facts of observation.

00:58:37.000 And as such.

00:58:38.000 They cannot be ignored.

00:58:39.000 Honestly trying to understand.

00:58:40.000 The world.

00:58:41.000 In which he lives.

00:58:47.000 When psychiatrists.

00:58:48.000 Started to study LSD.

00:58:50.000 That was mostly in the late 50's.

00:58:52.000 And running forward from that.

00:58:54.000 They thought about.

00:58:55.000 The drug.

00:58:56.000 As a psychotomimetic.

00:58:58.000 Which was.

00:58:59.000 A chemical substance.

00:59:00.000 That would induce psychosis.

00:59:02.000 But that turned out.

00:59:03.000 To not be true.

00:59:04.000 Not with.

00:59:05.000 The psychedelics.

00:59:06.000 Because.

00:59:07.000 Schizophrenics.

00:59:08.000 Were given LSD.

00:59:10.000 And the schizophrenics.

00:59:11.000 Reported that.

00:59:12.000 While.

00:59:13.000 The experience.

00:59:14.000 Experience.

00:59:15.000 Was certainly.

00:59:16.000 Extraordinarily strange.

00:59:17.000 It wasn't like.

00:59:19.000 Being schizophrenic.

00:59:20.000 And then.

00:59:21.000 It was found later.

00:59:22.000 That if you gave.

00:59:23.000 Schizophrenics.

00:59:24.000 Amphetamines.

00:59:25.000 That made them worse.

00:59:26.000 In fact.

00:59:27.000 You can.

00:59:28.000 Induce.

00:59:29.000 A paranoid.

00:59:30.000 Psychosis.

00:59:31.000 In a normal person.

00:59:32.000 By overdosing them.

00:59:33.000 With amphetamines.

00:59:34.000 So.

00:59:35.000 Whatever.

00:59:36.000 The hallucinogens.

00:59:37.000 It's not.

00:59:38.000 The same thing.

00:59:39.000 As.

00:59:40.000 Mania.

00:59:41.000 And it's not.

00:59:42.000 The same thing.

00:59:43.000 As.

00:59:44.000 Schizophrenia.

00:59:45.000 Not at all.

00:59:46.000 So.

00:59:51.000 So.

00:59:52.000 You can't.

00:59:53.000 Just write.

00:59:54.000 The experience.

00:59:55.000 Off.

00:59:56.000 As.

00:59:57.000 An induced.

00:59:58.000 Psychosis.

00:59:59.000 Independent.

01:00:00.000 Independent.

01:00:01.000 Of.

01:00:02.000 Its.

01:00:03.000 Utility.

01:00:04.000 Or.

01:00:05.000 Lack.

01:00:06.000 Thereof.

01:00:07.000 It's not that.

01:00:08.000 Now.

01:00:09.000 It can be induced.

01:00:10.000 By drugs.

01:00:11.000 Can be induced.

01:00:12.000 By deprivation.

01:00:13.000 Right.

01:00:14.000 Themselves.

01:00:15.000 In extreme.

01:00:16.000 Physiological.

01:00:17.000 Situations.

01:00:18.000 In order to.

01:00:19.000 Induce.

01:00:20.000 Transformations.

01:00:21.000 Of consciousness.

01:00:22.000 Fasting.

01:00:23.000 Is one of the routes.

01:00:24.000 To doing that.

01:00:25.000 Dancing.

01:00:26.000 Is another route.

01:00:27.000 Isolation.

01:00:28.000 Prolonged periods.

01:00:29.000 You could say.

01:00:30.000 That.

01:00:31.000 Exposing yourself.

01:00:32.000 To any of those.

01:00:33.000 In excess.

01:00:34.000 Produces.

01:00:35.000 A state.

01:00:36.000 That's.

01:00:37.000 Indistinguishable.

01:00:38.000 From illness.

01:00:39.000 And.

01:00:40.000 That.

01:00:41.000 There's no reason.

01:00:42.000 To assume.

01:00:43.000 That.

01:00:44.000 The phenomena.

01:00:45.000 That are associated.

01:00:46.000 With illness.

01:00:47.000 Have any.

01:00:48.000 Utility.

01:00:49.000 Whatsoever.

01:00:50.000 Although.

01:00:51.000 It's interesting.

01:00:52.000 To me.

01:00:53.000 That.

01:00:54.000 A disrupted.

01:00:55.000 Consciousness.

01:00:56.000 Can produce.

01:00:57.000 Coherent.

01:00:58.000 Experiences.

01:00:59.000 Develops.

01:01:00.000 A.

01:01:01.000 High fever.

01:01:02.000 Your experience.

01:01:03.000 Isn't.

01:01:04.000 Transcendent.

01:01:05.000 And.

01:01:06.000 Coherent.

01:01:07.000 It's.

01:01:08.000 Fragmented.

01:01:09.000 And.

01:01:10.000 And.

01:01:11.000 The.

01:01:12.000 Difference.

01:01:13.000 I think.

01:01:14.000 Is quite.

01:01:15.000 Distinct.

01:01:16.000 Although.

01:01:17.000 We don't.

01:01:18.000 Only.

01:01:19.000 We don't.

01:01:20.000 Only.

01:01:21.000 We don't.

01:01:22.000 Have to.

01:01:23.000 Only.

01:01:24.000 Speculate.

01:01:25.000 About.

01:01:26.000 That.

01:01:27.000 It's.

01:01:28.000 A matter.

01:01:29.000 Of.

01:01:30.000 Opinion.

01:01:31.000 At.

01:01:32.000 This point.

01:01:33.000 In.

01:01:34.000 The sequence.

01:01:35.000 Of.

01:01:36.000 Scientific.

01:01:37.000 And.

01:01:38.000 Of.

01:01:39.000 Two hundred.

01:01:40.000 Thousand.

01:01:41.000 People.

01:01:42.000 Who had.

01:01:43.000 Experimented.

01:01:44.000 With.

01:01:45.000 Psychedelics.

01:01:46.000 And.

01:01:47.000 They.

01:01:48.000 Were.

01:01:49.000 About.

01:01:50.000 Or.

01:01:51.000 Than.

01:01:52.000 The rate.

01:01:53.000 Of.

01:01:54.000 Easier.

01:01:55.000 Like.

01:01:56.000 The rate.

01:01:57.000 Of.

01:01:58.000 Lamont.

01:01:59.000 Than.

01:02:00.000 Among.

01:02:01.000 The.

01:02:02.000 Psychedelic.

01:02:03.000 Users.

01:02:04.000 huge study. Now it might be, you could say, that those who had experimented with

01:02:08.440 psychedelics were prone to be healthier to begin with, but that still

01:02:13.220 contradicts the pathology argument. So it doesn't matter, either way, the pathology

01:02:18.160 argument is contradicted. Now, oh I did put that in. It was Dr. Jill, Jill Bolt

01:02:28.300 Taylor. This is what she said about her stroke. I remember that first day of the

01:02:33.400 stroke with terrific bitter sweetness in the absence of the normal functioning

01:02:36.700 of my left orientation association area. My perception of my physical boundaries

01:02:41.140 was no longer limited to where my skin met air. I felt like a genie liberated from

01:02:46.660 its bottle. It's a good metaphor. The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a

01:02:51.940 great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria. The absence of physical

01:02:56.120 boundary was one of glorious bliss.

01:03:01.420 Recently, this Dr. Roland Griffith, I met him once at a conference in San Francisco, surprise, surprise.

01:03:13.420 A conference on awe, and this was just when he was embarking on his

01:03:18.820 experiments with psilocybin, which were the first experiments on hallucinogens that

01:03:23.260 were permitted by the National Institute of Mental Health in some three, four

01:03:28.660 decades. He had to be very careful to lay out the scientific protocols so that the

01:03:34.840 ethics committees would approve the experiments and so that the federal funding

01:03:38.660 agencies would allow also allow the experiments to go through. He started to

01:03:42.560 experiment with psilocybin. And he's found a number of, and published, a number of

01:03:48.680 very interesting results. One was that a single psilocybin trip, and I specify trip

01:04:00.800 because sometimes when people take psilocybin at the doses that Griffith uses, they

01:04:05.800 don't have a psychedelic experience. Most people who take the dose do, but not

01:04:10.400 everyone. Those who take the dose and don't have the mystical experience don't

01:04:15.680 experience the consequences of taking the drug. And the consequences can be quite

01:04:20.820 profound. So one consequence is that if you have the mystical experience that's

01:04:25.880 associated with psilocybin ingestion, you're liable to represent that to

01:04:32.180 others and yourself as one of the two or three most important experiences of your

01:04:36.060 entire life. So that would be at the same level as the birth of your child or your

01:04:42.200 marriage, let's say. Assuming that those were transcendent experiences. But that's how

01:04:49.080 people describe them. So that's very interesting in and of itself.

01:04:52.400 Then, the next thing that Griffith, another thing that Griffith reported was that one year after

01:05:01.400 a psilocybin dose, a single psilocybin dose, profound enough to induce a mystical experience,

01:05:08.100 the trait openness of the participants had increased one standard deviation, which is a tremendous

01:05:14.500 amount. And so it looked like one dose produced a permanent neurological and psychological

01:05:19.460 transformation. Now, you know, I'm not saying that that's a good thing. I'm not saying that because

01:05:25.760 I don't think that openness is a untroubled blessing. But it's certainly a testament to the

01:05:33.420 unbelievable potency of the drugs. There's about a 10% chance, by the way, with psilocybin

01:05:40.520 ingestion of a trip to hell. And so that's certainly something very much worth considering when you're

01:05:46.520 thinking about the potential effects of this kind of experience.

01:05:55.260 So, the mystical experience produced by psilocybin is rated by people as the most profound, among the most

01:06:01.220 profound experience of their life, as life-changing. It produces permanent personality

01:06:04.820 transformations. 85% success in smoking cessation with a single dose.

01:06:09.600 Right? That's another thing that Griffiths demonstrated. Now, that is mind-boggling, because there are chemical

01:06:17.060 treatments for smoking cessation. Bupropion is one. It reduces craving to some degree, but its success

01:06:27.420 rate is nowhere near 85%. Certainly not with a single dose. And so, we don't understand how it can be that

01:06:38.020 that occurs. But it's nicely documented by Griffiths' team. In this experiment, he gave psilocybin to people

01:06:46.980 who were dying of cancer. Cancer patients often develop chronic, clinically significant symptoms of

01:06:54.280 depression and anxiety. Previous studies suggest that psilocybin may decrease depression and anxiety

01:06:59.580 in cancer patients. Aldous Huxley took LSD on his deathbed, by the way. So, the idea that there was

01:07:06.840 something about psychedelic substances that could buffer people against the catastrophes of mortality

01:07:17.080 is an idea that's as old as experimentation with the drug itself. The effects of psilocybin were

01:07:23.400 studied in 51 cancer patients with life-threatening diagnoses and symptoms of depression and or anxiety,

01:07:29.320 unsurprisingly.

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01:10:18.240 I don't really know if it's reasonable to describe the emotional state of people diagnosed with

01:10:28.720 cancer of uncertain prognosis or mortal significance as depression precisely. You know what I mean is that

01:10:37.360 if you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have intractable fatal cancer, the normative response

01:10:43.840 is to be rather upset and anxious about that. And so it one of the things that bothers me about

01:10:49.920 clinical psychiatry and clinical psychology is the automatic presupposition that even overwhelming

01:10:54.960 states of negative emotion are properly categorized as depression. Because I don't think you're depressed

01:10:59.760 when you get a cancer diagnosis. I don't think that's the right way to think about it. I think that you

01:11:04.480 have a big problem and it's not surprising that you're overwhelmed by negative emotion and to think

01:11:09.280 about that as a psychiatric malfunction is a major error. But anyways, it's a side issue with regards

01:11:15.920 to this study. The effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life-threatening

01:11:22.800 diagnosis and symptoms of depression and or anxiety. I cannot imagine how they got this through an ethics

01:11:28.160 committee. It's just, we're going to take people who have uncertain diagnosis of cancer that are

01:11:33.680 potentially life-threatening and we're going to give them psychedelics. It's like, but they did it. They

01:11:39.120 did it. And I think it's a testament to Griffith's stature as a researcher that that was allowable.

01:11:46.320 This is a randomized double-blind crossover trial, very carefully designed clinical investigation.

01:11:52.480 People were assigned to the treatment group or to the drug group or the non-drug group randomly,

01:11:57.680 blindly, and investigated the effects of the drug also at different doses, which is another hallmark of

01:12:05.200 a well-designed pharmacological study. Very low placebo-like dose, one or three milligrams per 70

01:12:11.600 kilograms of body weight versus a high dose, 22 or 30 milligrams per 70 kilograms of psilocybin,

01:12:19.040 chemical psilocybin administered in counterbalance sequence with five weeks between sessions and a six

01:12:23.760 month follow-up. Instructions to participants and staff minimized the effects of expectancy.

01:12:31.040 Participant staff and community observers rated participant moods, attitudes, and behaviors

01:12:35.760 throughout the study. That's also the hallmark of a well-designed study because they didn't rely

01:12:40.400 on a single source of information for the outcome data, right? They got self-reports, that's fine,

01:12:45.120 but they had relatively objective observers also gather data at the same time.

01:12:50.800 High dose psilocybin produced large decreases in clinician and self-related measures of depressed mood

01:12:56.320 and anxiety, along with increases in quality of life, life meaning, and optimism, and decreases in death

01:13:02.480 anxiety. And that's an interesting, it's a subtle and scientifically sparse statement, but it's a very

01:13:09.360 interesting one. There's an intimation of a causal relationship here, increases in quality of life,

01:13:18.720 life meaning, and decreases in death anxiety. I mean the intimation there is that one of the ways of

01:13:26.800 decreasing your anxiety about death is to increase the felt meaning in your life, and the psilocybin

01:13:33.840 dosages potentiate that, but it's a good thing to know in a general manner if it happens to be a

01:13:38.960 generalizable truth, right? If you're terrified of mortality, terrified of vulnerability, there's always the

01:13:45.280 possibility that the life path that you're following isn't rich enough to buffer you against the

01:13:51.840 negative element of existence. It's a reasonable hypothesis, and an optimistic one I think, although

01:13:59.360 a difficult one. At six-month follow-up, these changes were sustained with about 80 percent of

01:14:04.960 participants continuing to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety.

01:14:09.920 Stephen Ross, commenting about this, he was a co-investigator, said, it is simply unprecedented in

01:14:16.480 psychiatry that a single dose of a medicine produces these kinds of dramatic and enduring results.

01:14:21.840 Right, which means we have no idea why this happens.

01:14:29.360 Participants attributed improvements in attitudes about life-slash-self-mood relationships

01:14:34.640 and spirituality to the high dose experience, with more than 80 percent endorsing moderately or greater

01:14:41.440 increased well-being and life satisfaction. Community observers showed corresponding changes.

01:14:47.040 Mystical type psilocybin experience on session day mediated the effect of psilocybin dose on therapeutic

01:14:54.080 outcomes. What that means is that, well, when researchers were trying to look at a causal relationship

01:15:00.720 between drug ingestion and the positive outcome, the causal relationship was drug ingestion, mystical

01:15:06.800 experience, positive outcome. It wasn't drug ingestion, positive outcome. There had to be the experience

01:15:12.160 produced by the pharmaceutical agent in order for the pharmaceutical agent to have had its effect.

01:15:18.480 Now, we don't, again, we don't know why that is either. I mean, maybe some people needed a higher dose.

01:15:22.960 Who knows? Because people vary tremendously in their sensitivity to pharmaceutical substances.

01:15:28.240 Now, why am I telling you all this? Well, I'm telling you for a variety of reasons. One is,

01:15:33.680 the first is, make no mistake about it. Human beings have the capacity for forms of consciousness

01:15:41.680 that are radically unlike our normative forms of consciousness. And the evidence that those

01:15:47.280 alternative forms of consciousness are purely pathological, which is the simplest explanation,

01:15:53.600 right? You perturb a system, it produces pathology, that's negative. That is the simplest explanation.

01:15:59.280 The evidence for that is weak at best, leaving out the bad trip issue, which is non-trivial.

01:16:06.720 The empirical evidence, as it accrues, in fact seems to suggest that the consequence of mystical,

01:16:13.440 positive mystical experiences associated with psychedelic intake is overwhelmingly positive, even in extreme

01:16:20.000 situations. And you really can't find a more extreme situation than uncertain cancer diagnosis with

01:16:27.360 concomitant depression and anxiety. Like, I mean, that's not as bad as it gets, but it's kind of in

01:16:32.400 the ballpark. And so the fact that, even under circumstances like that, there was the overwhelming

01:16:38.400 probability that the experience would be positive, because that's another thing you wouldn't expect,

01:16:42.400 you know? Even from some of the earlier, earliest discussions about psychedelic use that were put forth

01:16:47.520 by people, including Timothy Leary, describing the importance of set, right? So that the early

01:16:53.920 experimenters noted that, if you had a psychedelic experience, and you were in a bad state, or in a

01:17:01.040 bad place, that that was one of the precursors to a bad trip. That the negative emotion that you entered

01:17:07.360 the experience with could be magnified tremendously by the chemical substances, so that it was necessary

01:17:14.880 to be somewhere safe, to be around people that you trust, to be in a familiar environment, to get all the

01:17:20.880 variables that you could control under control. But here is the situation where that isn't what's

01:17:27.280 happening at all, because people have this cancer diagnosis of unspecified outcome, and they still,

01:17:33.920 the vast majority of them, had a positive experience, and the positive experience had long-lasting

01:17:39.680 positive consequences. So, so the case that the transcendent experience is not real, that's wrong.

01:17:51.600 It's real. Now, we don't know what that means, because it actually challenges, to some degree,

01:17:56.640 our concepts of what constitutes real. But it's certainly well within the realm of normative human

01:18:02.000 experience. So, it's part of the human capacity. And you know, there's been other neurological

01:18:06.800 experiments, too. There's, there's a researcher, a Canadian researcher, if I remember correctly,

01:18:11.360 who invented something he called the God Helmet. And it used electromagnetic stimulation, brain

01:18:17.760 stimulation, to induce mystical experiences. Now, I don't remember what part of the brain he was

01:18:23.360 shutting off, or activating with that particular gadget. But, and you know, there's, there's, there's all,

01:18:30.480 there's all sorts of other indications of this sort of thing, that have cropped up in, in other

01:18:37.680 domains of the neurological literature, for example. It's very common for people who are epileptic,

01:18:43.440 to have religious experiences, as part of the prodroma to the actual seizure. That was the case with

01:18:50.320 Dostoevsky, for example, who had incredibly intense religious experiences, that would culminate in

01:18:57.040 an epileptic seizure. And he said that they were of sufficient quality, that he would give up his

01:19:02.000 whole life to have had them. And the funny thing, too, is that, in my reading of Dostoevsky, at least, is

01:19:08.240 that, I think that epileptic seizures, and the associated mystical experiences, were part of what made him

01:19:14.800 a transcendently brilliant author. I don't think that he would have broken through into the domains of

01:19:20.400 insight that he possessed, without those strange neurological experiences. And it was certainly not

01:19:25.920 the case that his epilepsy, or the experiences that were associated with it, produced what you might

01:19:32.000 describe as an impairment in his cognitive functions. Quite the contrary, at least that's how it looks to me.

01:19:41.600 Here's another, here's another something worth considering, and I don't know how important it is,

01:19:46.720 but it might be really important. It depends on how important, this is something that Carl Jung said,

01:19:52.240 so it depends on how important Jung is. Now, Freud established the field of psychoanalysis, and

01:19:59.840 with it, investigation, I would say, rigorous investigation into the contents of the unconscious.

01:20:06.960 A modern psychologist and psychiatrist like to, what would you say, denigrate Freud. But, and I think

01:20:13.920 there's a reason for that, I think that Freud's fundamental insights were so profound, and so

01:20:18.480 valuable, that they got immediately absorbed into our culture, and now they seem self-evident, and so

01:20:22.880 that all that's left of Freud is his errors. You know, because we believe everything else, we believe

01:20:28.240 all the profound things he discovered, we just take them for granted, and so we don't believe the things

01:20:32.160 that he said that weren't quite on the money, and that's all we credit him with now. But he was certainly

01:20:38.640 the first person who brought up the idea of the unconscious in a rigorous manner, and he was

01:20:44.640 the first person to do a rigorous examination of dreams, because the interpretation of dreams

01:20:49.280 is a great book, it's well worth reading. And he was the first person to note that people were,

01:20:54.240 in some sense, inhabited by sub-personalities that had a certain degree of autonomy and independent

01:21:00.960 life, brilliant observation, the cognitive psychologists haven't caught up with that at all yet.

01:21:09.040 Jung was profoundly affected by Freud, Jung was profoundly affected by Nietzsche and by Freud,

01:21:14.000 those were his two main intellectual influences. I don't think one more than the other.

01:21:23.360 He split with Freud on the religious issue, that was what caused the disruption in their relationship,

01:21:28.960 and I think it's an extremely interesting historical occurrence. It might be of profound significance.

01:21:35.600 Freud believed that the fundamental myth of the human being was the Oedipal myth. And the Oedipal myth,

01:21:42.960 from a broader perspective, is a failed hero story. So the Oedipal myth is the myth of a man who

01:21:49.680 develops, who grows up, but then accidentally becomes too close to his mother, sleeps with her. He doesn't know

01:21:57.680 who she is, and as a consequence, blinds himself. And there's a warning about human development gone

01:22:06.240 wrong in that story. And I think that Freud put his finger on it extraordinarily well, because human

01:22:12.240 beings have a very long period of dependency. And one of the things that you do see in clinical practice

01:22:18.000 is that many people's problems are associated with their inability to break free of their family.

01:22:25.680 Like they're consumed by the family drama, right? They can't get beyond what happened to them in their

01:22:31.120 family. They're stuck in the past. And that's equivalent, symbolically speaking, you might say,

01:22:37.600 to the idea of being too close to your mother, of the boundaries being improperly specified. And that

01:22:44.480 happens far more often than anyone would like to think. As I said, Freud thought it was a universal.

01:22:52.400 But Jung, see, he had a different idea. And his idea was that it wasn't the failed hero story that was

01:22:58.640 the universal human myth. It was the successful hero story. And that's a big difference. Like it's

01:23:05.120 seriously a big difference. Because the successful hero story is, remember in Sleeping Beauty,

01:23:12.240 you may remember this in the Disney movie, the evil queen traps the prince in a dungeon. And she's not

01:23:18.320 going to let him out until he's old, right? And so there's this comical scene where she's down in

01:23:23.200 the dungeon, he's all in chains, and she's laughing at him, telling him what his future is going to be

01:23:28.160 like. She's quite evil. And, you know, she paints this wonderful picture of him being freed in like 80

01:23:34.720 years, and hobbling out of the castle on his horse that's so old he can barely stand up, and him with

01:23:39.920 grey hair. And, you know, she recites this story of his eventual triumphant departure from the castle

01:23:46.800 as an old and decrepit man. And she has a great laugh about it. And it's nice, you know, it's a real punchy story.

01:23:53.520 It's really something wonderful for children, that story. And he gets free of the shackles. And the

01:24:04.800 things that free him are three little female fairies. It's the positive aspect of the feminine that

01:24:09.200 frees him from the dungeon. So it's very interesting and very accurate from a psychological perspective.

01:24:14.560 It's the negative element of the feminine that encapsulates him in the dungeon. And it's the

01:24:18.640 positive element of the feminine that frees him. And then he has a, the queen, the evil queen,

01:24:24.240 is not very happy when he escapes. You may remember that she stands on top of her castle tower and

01:24:30.240 starts to spin off cosmic sparks. I mean, she's quite the creature, enveloped in flame. And then she

01:24:35.680 turns into a dragon. And she, then the prince has to fight with her in order to make contact with

01:24:43.280 sleeping beauty and awaken her from her comatose existence as her unconscious existence. And

01:24:54.080 what's a brilliant, it's a brilliant representation of a successful hero myth. He, he doesn't end up

01:25:03.600 staying in an unholy relationship with his mother, let's say. He escapes and then conquers the worst

01:25:12.880 thing that can be imagined. And is ennobled by that. And that, as a consequence, he's able to wake

01:25:19.600 the slumbering feminine from its coma. And that's a Jungian story. And that's the story that he

01:25:26.400 juxtaposed against Freud. See, Freud thought of religious phenomena as part of an occult tide that

01:25:33.920 would be, that would drown rational, rationality. That's why Freud was so vehemently anti-religious.

01:25:40.880 And Jung thought, no, it's not the case. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's

01:25:46.800 something profound and central to the hero myth. And Jungian clinical work is essentially

01:25:56.160 the awakening of the hero myth in the, in the, in the, in the, in the client or in the patient.

01:26:02.000 To conceptualize yourself as that which can confront chaos and triumph. And that that's associated with

01:26:09.200 an ennobling of the, of consciousness and the establishment of proper positive relationships

01:26:16.080 between male and female. And, you know, I'm a skeptical person. I'm a very, very skeptical person.

01:26:23.280 And I've tried with every trick I have to put a lever underneath Jung's story and lift it up and,

01:26:32.080 and disrupt it. And I, I can't do it. I think he was right and that Freud was wrong. I mean,

01:26:38.000 I have great respect for Freud. I think he got the problem, problem diagnosed very,

01:26:42.320 very nicely. And in my clinical work, I see the phenomena that Freud described emerge continually,

01:26:48.480 constantly. The, the best, if you're interested in that, there's a documentary you should watch. I

01:26:53.600 may have mentioned it before. I think it's the best documentary ever made. It's certainly the

01:26:57.120 best one I've ever seen. It's called Crumb. And it's about a underground cartoonist, Robert Crumb,

01:27:03.600 who, who was part of the hippie movement in, although he hated hippies. He was part of the hippie movement

01:27:09.280 in, in the sixties in San Francisco and started the entire underground comic, what, culture that,

01:27:14.640 that manifested itself eventually in, in graphic novels. He's quite a significant figure from the

01:27:21.680 perspective of popular art. And a very, very intelligent man. And also, I would say a hero,

01:27:27.280 although a very bent and depraved and warped one. Uh, someone very acutely aware of his own shadow. And

01:27:34.560 the documentary outlines his attempts to escape from his absolutely dreadful mother. And the failure of his

01:27:43.520 his two brothers to do the same thing, one of whom ended up as a street beggar in San Francisco,

01:27:48.480 and the other who drank furniture polish and died six months after the documentary was produced.

01:27:52.560 It's an unbelievably shocking documentary. It's the only piece of film that I've ever seen that

01:28:00.640 captures Freudian pathology. I've never seen anything. Because you can't see it generally,

01:28:06.000 unless you're in a clinical situation, unless you know the details of someone's lives,

01:28:10.240 the personal, intimate details. You cannot communicate it. But the documentarist who made

01:28:16.000 the film, who's Robert Zwigoff, if I remember correctly, was a friend of the crumbs. And so he

01:28:21.040 got access in a way that no one else would have. And they were also very forthright and forthcoming

01:28:25.440 about their situation in general. I would highly recommend that. It's, it's a real punch. If you want to

01:28:31.200 know how a rapist thinks, like if you actually want to know, because maybe you don't want to know,

01:28:37.520 in fact, you probably don't want to know, right? Because do you really want to know that? Because

01:28:42.560 to understand that means to put yourself in that position and to understand it. If you really want

01:28:46.720 to know how a serial sexual predator thinks and why, if you watch Crumb and you pay attention,

01:28:53.840 you'll know. And that's only a tiny bit of what the film has to offer. It's really quite remarkable.

01:29:02.240 Anyways, Jung split with Freud on the issue of the Oedipal story as the fundamental myth of humankind,

01:29:12.000 and on the issue of the validity of the religious viewpoint. And Jung came down heavily on the side of

01:29:20.080 the validity of the religious viewpoint. And he established that in a book called Symbols of

01:29:24.320 Transformation, which was written in 1914. And that's the book that broke, that produced the break,

01:29:30.080 permanent split with Freud. And that book, I would say that book's actually been written

01:29:36.000 three times. It was written as symbols of, four times, written as symbols of transformation,

01:29:41.120 which Jung extensively revised when he was old. And then it was rewritten,

01:29:44.560 in a sense, by a student of Jung's called Eric Neumann, who's also something, someone I would really

01:29:51.840 recommend. Eric Neumann, I think, is Jung's greatest student. And he wrote two books. He wrote one called

01:29:58.000 The Origins and History of Consciousness, which is a description of the development of consciousness out

01:30:03.040 of unconsciousness, using the hero myth as an interpretive skeleton. So,

01:30:13.360 Neumann viewed the hero myth as the dramatized story of the emergence of human consciousness out of the

01:30:20.320 surrounding unconsciousness in which it was embedded. The struggle for consciousness,

01:30:24.880 the struggle of consciousness upward towards the light, like a lotus flower struggles up through

01:30:29.440 the muck and the water to lay itself on the surface of the water and bloom and reveal the Buddha,

01:30:36.080 which is, of course, what the lotus flower does from a symbolic perspective. And for Neumann,

01:30:42.320 the hero's story was the story of the development, the successful development of consciousness.

01:30:46.080 And The Origins of Consciousness, The Origins and History of Consciousness is a great book.

01:30:51.360 Interestingly, Camille Paglia wrote, read The Origins and History of Consciousness. She's one of the few

01:30:59.440 mainstream intellectuals that I've ever encountered, who read that and commented on it,

01:31:04.080 and she believed that it would be sufficient antidote to postmodern denigration of literature.

01:31:12.400 She thought it was that powerful a work, and I believe that. I think it's a remarkable book.

01:31:19.920 Carl Jung wrote the foreword to that book, and he said in the foreword that it was the book that he

01:31:24.400 wished he would have written. So it's sort of like Jung, he wrote, I don't remember how many volumes,

01:31:30.560 dozens of very thick, difficult volumes. It was like Neumann was able to

01:31:37.680 what? Distill those into a single volume statement. And so I would also say, if you're interested in

01:31:43.040 Jung, the best book to read is The Origins and History of Consciousness. It's the best intro into

01:31:49.360 the Jungian world. So Jung's very difficult to, very difficult to understand. It requires a real

01:31:55.600 shift of perspective in order to understand what he's talking about. And Neumann wrote another book

01:32:01.440 called The Great Mother, which is a little bit more specialized in some sense, but it's also extremely

01:32:07.200 interesting because it fleshes out the archetype of chaos and its representation as feminine.

01:32:14.080 It's a brilliant book as well, and highly worth reading, both those books.

01:32:20.480 Anyways, Jung was a very strange person and a visionary, and so that's kept him outside of

01:32:29.680 the academic realm almost entirely. I mean, I was constantly warned as an undergraduate,

01:32:34.000 and then a graduate student, and then a professor, against ever talking about Jung in any way

01:32:40.560 whatsoever. When I went on the job market when I was at McGill, when I had graduated from McGill,

01:32:46.000 I had done my scientific research on alcoholism, and I had a fairly lengthy publication record that

01:32:50.640 was pure empirical research, and really neurophysiological research into the pharmacology

01:32:57.920 of alcoholism. And I had established a reasonably solid dossier of publications, but at the same time

01:33:06.320 I was writing this book that became Maps of Meaning, and so I'd split my time in graduate student school

01:33:11.040 between these two endeavors, one very specifically neurological and pharmacological and really

01:33:17.600 biologically based, and the other very abstract, religious, symbolic, psychoanalytic,

01:33:23.280 scientific. The complete opposite, but I could see that the two things overlapped really nicely,

01:33:28.720 and there was a number of scientists at the time that were also drawing the same conclusions,

01:33:34.080 the same relationship between the biology and the psychoanalysis. Jach Panksepp, who wrote a book

01:33:39.920 called Affective Neuroscience, which is a great classic, is one of those people who saw the relationship

01:33:46.720 between the neurobiology of emotion and motivation and the psychoanalytic insights.

01:33:51.120 It never became a mainstream view, but I think it's too complex. I think that bridging the gap between

01:33:56.720 the biology and the symbolic is too much for people, generally speaking. You know, it was certainly

01:34:02.960 virtually too much for me, because I got quite ill when I was a graduate student, I think, for a variety

01:34:07.920 of reasons. I also, like, would go out and party three nights a week, and so that probably had something to

01:34:12.000 do with it, but working on those two things simultaneously was also rather exhausting.

01:34:19.200 Now, Jung was a tremendously insightful clinician, and he was a strange person, introverted visionary,

01:34:26.880 high in introversion, very, very, very, very, very high in openness, like off the charts. And also,

01:34:32.720 God only knows what his IQ was. I mean, every time I read Jung, it's like reading Nietzsche. It's terrifying,

01:34:37.520 because, you know, he's so damn smart that he can think up answers to questions that you don't even,

01:34:43.840 it's not like you don't understand the answers. He never conceptualized the damn questions. It's

01:34:48.560 really something to read someone like that, right, who says, well, here's a mystery, and you think,

01:34:52.640 wow, I never thought of that as a mystery, and here's the solution. It's like, okay, that's, that's,

01:34:59.360 that's something. You know, and he could read Greek, and he could read,

01:35:02.160 read, he read all the ancient, he read a very large variety of ancient languages, and was very

01:35:08.560 familiar with the entire corpus of, of astrological thought, and of alchemical thought, and of classic

01:35:17.200 literature, and biblical stories, and I mean, educated in a way that no one is educated now. And so he's

01:35:25.280 a very daunting person to encounter, and terrifying, absolutely terrifying. His book, Ion, which is the

01:35:32.160 second volume of, of, it's the second volume of volume nine, which is the archetypes of the collective

01:35:37.680 unconscious. That damn book is just absolutely terrifying, because Jung, he's one of these

01:35:42.240 visionaries who can see way underneath the social structures, and look at patterns that are developing

01:35:47.680 across, for, in Jung's case, across thousands of years, and lays them out. And so that's a really,

01:35:53.040 that's really something to, to encounter. Ion is a terrifying book.

01:35:59.360 Anyways, one question might be, well, because I read Jung, and I think, how the hell did he know

01:36:04.480 these things? How could he figure these things out? I can't understand how he could possibly know these

01:36:08.880 things. Well, here's a partial answer. Jung was a visionary, and so what that means, as far as I can tell,

01:36:18.800 and, like, we could do a little quick survey here. How many of you think you think in words?

01:36:25.680 Put up your hands. Do you think in words?

01:36:29.280 Okay, so it looks like, what about pictures? How many of you think in pictures?

01:36:34.320 Okay, so that's interesting. How many of you think, that's about half and half, by the way,

01:36:37.680 probably fewer on the word side. How many of you think in pictures and words?

01:36:41.040 Okay, and so, alright, so it was roughly a third in each category, but that's also something that I

01:36:47.840 really haven't encountered any research on, from the neuropsychological perspective. It's like,

01:36:54.720 well, do you think in pictures, or do you think in words? And, and is that actually a reliable

01:36:58.800 distinction? I think I think in words, most of the time. But I can think in pictures. Like, if I'm

01:37:04.880 trying to build something, I can think in pictures very, almost instantaneously, but it isn't my

01:37:09.360 natural mode of thinking. I'm hyper-verbal, and so my natural mode of thinking is to think everything

01:37:14.160 through in words. But I know my wife isn't like that. She thinks in images, and then has to translate

01:37:19.280 them into words. And so, anyways, Jung was very literate, and he could really think in words, but he

01:37:25.600 could really think in images. Also, talking to my wife quite extensively, like her, the intensity of her

01:37:32.640 visualization vastly exceeds mine. So, for example, if I close my eyes, and I try to imagine the crowd

01:37:38.400 in front of me, it's pretty low resolution, and vague, and not brilliantly colored, and vivid. You

01:37:45.200 know, it's, it's, it's like I'm seeing through a glass darkly, let's say. I can't bring images to

01:37:50.640 mind with that, with spectacular clarity, but my wife is very good at that, and Jung seemed to be absolutely

01:37:55.920 a genius at that kind of thinking. And he had a lot of visionaries in his family history as well, so

01:38:02.960 I don't know to what degree there's a hereditary component of that, and I don't know to what degree

01:38:07.360 that's actually like a neurological specialization. I presume it would be associated with

01:38:11.920 the trade openness distinguishes itself, differentiates itself into interest in ideas,

01:38:18.560 and interest in aesthetics. And my suspicion are, is that the people who are more interested in

01:38:23.120 aesthetics are the visionary types, the ones that think in images. Anyways, Jung could really think in

01:38:27.840 images, and he could imagine beings. And I had a client once, who was a lucid dreamer,

01:38:36.000 and how many of you have had a lucid dream? So, you know you're dreaming, well, you're, okay, many.

01:38:40.880 That, that phenomena wasn't really even, even identified as a phenomena until the end of the 19th century.

01:38:48.180 There was a book written about it that Freud tried to get his hands on, but couldn't,

01:38:51.980 because it was a very rare book. And then there was a researcher about 30 years ago,

01:38:56.700 who started to study lucid dreams. But anyways, I had a client who was a lucid dreamer,

01:39:01.180 and one of the things she could do was ask her dream characters what information they were trying

01:39:08.060 to convey, and they would tell her. So that was very interesting. And one of the consequences of that was,

01:39:15.500 and I don't have this story completely right in my memory, but it's close enough.

01:39:20.220 She was afraid of a very large number of things, and in her dream, I think it was a gypsy standing by a wagon,

01:39:28.540 told her that if she was going to be successful in university,

01:39:33.420 that she would have to visit a slaughterhouse. And that was something that was way beyond her

01:39:40.140 capacity to tolerate. She was a vegetarian, she couldn't stand the sight of raw meat even. And so,

01:39:46.460 and she was very oppressed and depressed and anxious, because of the slaughterhouse nature of existence.

01:39:52.140 And so her dream focused on that, and one of the consequences of that, because the slaughterhouse

01:39:59.580 was out of the question as a clinical intervention, I took her to an embalming,

01:40:06.780 right? Because I asked her, I asked her what might be equivalent to that, and so she suggested that.

01:40:14.620 And you know, exposure therapy is a hallmark of clinical psychology, right? One of the things you do

01:40:19.420 with people, as a clinician, is you find out what they're afraid of, and you gradually and voluntarily

01:40:25.420 expose them to that, and that cures them. And that's associated with the hero myth, right? It's exactly

01:40:30.380 the same thing. It's like, there's a dragon, it's stopping you, because there's lots of dragons,

01:40:35.340 most of them aren't stopping you. You can ignore them. You don't have to just go, you know,

01:40:39.660 slash away it randomly. You're not supposed to be fighting dragons that aren't in your way.

01:40:44.460 But if they are in your way, you can't ignore them, and then you decompose them into sub-dragons,

01:40:48.220 and you have people, you know, take them on. And as they take them on, they dispense with the dragon,

01:40:54.140 and they gain the power of the dragon. It's like a video game. Actually, a video game is like that.

01:40:59.260 That's why people like the video games. Well, that's right, right? There's a reason that you absorb power

01:41:04.540 when you overcome things when you play a video game. It's not like that's intrinsic to the video game

01:41:09.820 structure. That's an archetypal idea. Anyways, we went and saw an embalming, which was a very interesting

01:41:15.100 experience. And quite useful for her, because she knew what she could tolerate after that. And it was

01:41:25.180 a hell of a lot more than she thought she could tolerate. And so that's very useful to know.

01:41:31.020 Back to Jung. He's a visionary thinker. Now, my client, I said, she could lucid dream, and she could ask her

01:41:39.260 dream characters what they wanted and what they were trying to communicate to her. So that was pretty

01:41:46.220 interesting. That happened spontaneously. It had nothing to do with me. I mean, I'm interested in

01:41:50.700 dreams, and many of my clients are great dreamers, especially the creative ones, because I think it's

01:41:55.180 a hallmark of creativity to have vivid dreams and to be able to remember them. But that was a faculty that

01:42:01.900 was natural to her. Jung had this other client at one time, at one point. And she had a variety of

01:42:11.260 fears. And she had this dream that she told me. And she was walking down a beach, and on the side of

01:42:17.740 the beach, up a dune, a small dune, there was this old man with a snake, a big python. And there's a crowd

01:42:23.820 around him. And she was walking by the snake handler, and the snake, and the crowd. And she didn't want

01:42:30.860 to have anything to do with him. He was sort of showing people this snake. And she told me that

01:42:35.420 dream. And I thought, well, you know, you probably need to go see that snake. And so I relaxed her.

01:42:42.300 It's a quasi-hypnotic technique, and it's very straightforward. Hypnosis is generally nothing but

01:42:48.300 pronounced relaxation. Though you have to be susceptible to hypnosis to actually fall into a

01:42:52.620 hypnotic trance as a consequence of being relaxed. I just relaxed her. I had her breathe deeply, and

01:42:58.700 pay attention to different parts of her body, and just relax her muscles, one by one, essentially,

01:43:03.100 so that she could concentrate. And then I told her we'd play with the dream a little bit.

01:43:07.980 It's a Jungian technique. I said, well, so call the dream image to mind, which she could do quite well.

01:43:13.500 I said, okay, so let's explore it. It's like pretend play. You know, if you're a kid, and you're

01:43:20.060 pretend playing, you don't exactly direct the game, right? You play the game. So it's partly

01:43:27.260 your direction, obviously, because you're the player, but the thing also happens spontaneously

01:43:31.660 of its own accord. And you can think about that as a dialogue between the conscious mind and the

01:43:35.980 unconscious mind, in some sense. It's a developmental dialogue. It's not a fun game if you just direct

01:43:41.340 it. It's only a fun game if you're inviting and something is welling up as a consequence. It's the same

01:43:46.860 thing that happens when you're engaged in some kind of artistic or literary production. If it's all

01:43:52.620 top-down, you know, if you're forcing it, then it's propaganda. It's empty. What you want to sort of

01:43:58.620 is put yourself in a receptive state of mind, in an imaginative state of mind, and it's sort of half you

01:44:03.660 and half nature itself manifesting itself in your creative imagination. And that was the sort of state

01:44:10.220 that we were striving for. And she, I asked her when she was in relaxed, I said, well, what do you

01:44:17.340 think about the snake handler? And she said, well, he's probably a charlatan and he's just there trying

01:44:21.580 to impress the crowd and to show off. And she was afraid to go up there because she thought people

01:44:25.420 would push her towards the snake and she'd have to touch it. And so there was a fear of the crowd

01:44:29.260 issue going on there too. And I said, well, just look, go up there, but do it under these conditions.

01:44:35.580 Is that, you know, if people get pushy, what are you going to tell them? And so we figured out

01:44:40.140 something. He said, look, just tell them that, you know, you want to look at the snake at your own pace

01:44:46.540 and that you don't need any encouragement or help. And it would be good if you were just left alone.

01:44:51.340 So that enabled her to defend herself. So she was afraid that the crowd would push her to do something

01:44:56.300 that she didn't want to do. That was part of the theme of the dream. So anyway, she eventually

01:45:01.100 climbed the dune in her imagination and went into the crowd. And the crowd turned out to be quite

01:45:04.940 welcoming and not hostile and not pushy, which isn't what you'd expect, right? Because you'd think

01:45:10.060 the crowd would have reacted in accordance with her fears, since it was her fantasy. But that's the

01:45:15.820 thing about fantasies. They have this autonomous quality. But the crowd was welcoming and not hostile.

01:45:21.020 And it turned out that the snake handler wasn't a charlatan. He was just an old guy who had this snake

01:45:26.060 and he was out there just showing it to people because he thought it was a cool thing and

01:45:31.100 and that maybe it was good for people to come and look at a snake. And so she got close enough to

01:45:35.980 the snake to touch it. And so, so I'm telling you that because I want you to understand a bit more

01:45:41.100 about what Jung was trying to do. And so he wrote these books, notebooks that haven't been published

01:45:48.380 yet, called the black books. And the black books are the documentation of his experiments with his

01:45:54.300 imagination. And what he would do is daydream, like a child daydreams. He regained that faculty,

01:46:02.700 although I think with Jung it was a faculty that had never really disappeared. And he had figures of

01:46:08.380 imagination that came to him that he could speak with. And he spoke with these figures of imagination and

01:46:15.420 and documented that over a very long period of time. And that was originally, that was eventually

01:46:23.740 distilled into a book called The Red Book, which was published about three or four years ago. And it was a

01:46:30.060 book that Jung regarded as the central source from which all his inspiration emerged. It was sort of,

01:46:40.460 the way it looks to me is that we embody a lot of information in our action, right? And our action

01:46:48.860 has developed as a consequence of imitating other people. And not only the people, the people around

01:46:55.100 us, but of course the people around us imitated the people who came before them. And those people

01:46:58.620 imitated the people who came before them. And so on, so far back that it's as far back as you can go. And so,

01:47:05.260 you embody these patterns of behavior that are extremely informative, that you don't understand,

01:47:10.860 that are a consequence of collective imitation across the centuries. And so, then those patterns can

01:47:16.300 become manifest as figures of the imagination. And those figures of imagination are the distillations of

01:47:24.060 patterns of behavior. And so, as the distillations of patterns of behavior, they have content. And it's not

01:47:31.900 you that content. You could even think about it as content that's evolved, although it's culturally

01:47:37.260 transmitted. It's content that's evolved. And so, these figures of the imagination can reveal

01:47:42.620 the structure of reality to you. And that's what happened with Jung. And that's what he described

01:47:47.900 in the Red Book. And that was what permeated his psychology. A psychology that was based on the

01:47:54.140 presupposition that the fundamental archetypal structures of religious belief were not pathological,

01:48:02.540 not deceitful, not protective in some delusional sense against the fear of death, but quite the

01:48:09.020 contrary. The very stories that enabled us to move forward as confident human beings in the face of chaos

01:48:18.460 itself. And it's conceivable, I think, perhaps probable, that nothing more important conceptually

01:48:28.620 happened in the 20th century than that. Because it was the first time post-enlightenment that a

01:48:37.020 rapprochement between the intellect and the underlying religious archetypal substructure occurred.

01:48:44.620 You have in the capacious intellect of Jung, and the same thing happened to some degree with Piaget,

01:48:51.500 the religious domain and the factual domain were brought back together.

01:48:56.460 And the fact of Jung's enduring and increasing popularity and influence, I would say, is a direct

01:49:03.020 consequence of that. Now, some of his work was spun off into the New Age. And the New Age is a very

01:49:13.500 optimistic and naive movement. It's predicated on the idea that you can do nothing, say, but follow your

01:49:19.260 bliss, and that will take you ever higher to enlightenment. And that's not the Jungian idea at all.

01:49:27.500 The Jungian idea is that what you most need will be found where you least want to look.

01:49:33.420 So there's this story, King Arthur. There's this story of King Arthur. They're all in a round table,

01:49:39.340 right? King Arthur and his knights, they're all equals. They're all superordinate, but they're all

01:49:43.740 equals. And they go off to look for the Holy Grail. And the Holy Grail is the container of the

01:49:49.900 redemptive substance, whatever that is. It might be the cup that Christ used at the Last Supper, or it might be

01:49:57.740 a chalice that was used to capture his blood on the cross, right? When he was pierced by a sword.

01:50:03.660 The stories differ. But that's the Holy Grail. And the Holy Grail is lost. That's the redemptive

01:50:08.060 substance. And the knights of King Arthur go off to search for the Holy Grail. And, but they don't know

01:50:13.340 where to look. So where do you look when you don't know where to look for something you need desperately,

01:50:19.820 but have lost? Well, each of the knights goes into the forest at the point that looks darkest to him.

01:50:28.060 And that's Jungian psychoanalysis in a nutshell. It's like that which you fear and avoid. That's

01:50:34.060 which you hold in contempt. That which disgusts you and that you avoid. That's the gateway to what you

01:50:40.860 need to know. There's nothing new age about that. That's for sure. Now Jung, when he started this endeavor,

01:50:50.220 he started with this. This is part of the notebooks from the black book. He said,

01:50:56.540 he wrote, my soul, my soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak. I call you. Are you there?

01:51:05.100 I've returned. I'm here again. I've shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet. And I've come to you.

01:51:12.620 I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again.

01:51:16.860 And for the Jungians, the hero's journey is a journey within. And I think that that's probably

01:51:24.300 the bias of introverts, to believe that the hero's journey is only an inward journey. I think that

01:51:32.380 it can be an outward journey too, because I don't think it matters where you confront the unknown,

01:51:37.020 whether it's within or without. What matters is whether or not you confront the unknown. That's what matters.

01:51:43.900 But he found that what he had ignored was an undiscovered part of himself. So that might be

01:51:53.180 something that was equivalent to Huxley's notion that there's tremendous potential breadth in the

01:52:00.860 realm of human conscious experience. And Huxley was influenced to some degree by Jung. Now Jung knew of

01:52:07.180 Huxley's experiments, and had commented on psychedelic use. And he said something like,

01:52:13.100 beware of wisdom you did not earn. And Jung was very good at stating things very profoundly,

01:52:20.060 very simply. And that's a very intelligent piece of advice. Beware of wisdom you did not earn. He wrote

01:52:25.580 a paper, if you're interested in this sort of thing, he wrote a paper called The Relations Between

01:52:31.660 the Ego and the Unconscious. Which is an absolute masterwork, but completely incomprehensible,

01:52:36.620 unless you know what it, unless you know what it's about. And what it's about is the danger of what

01:52:42.860 he called Ego Inflation. And so one of the things that can happen as a consequence of a revelatory

01:52:47.100 experience, is that the division between the individual ego and, and the, and what would you call it,

01:52:56.700 it's so hard to come up with a word that isn't somehow naive or, or, or cliched.

01:53:04.380 To erase the relationship, the boundary between the specific consciousness of the ego,

01:53:09.660 and the more generalized consciousness, and more generalized consciousness as such,

01:53:16.940 is a dangerous thing to do. Because you can start to equate yourself,

01:53:21.660 your specific self, with that more generalized consciousness as such. And Jung thought about

01:53:27.420 that as something akin to a psychotic inflation. And the paper, Relations Between the Ego

01:53:34.140 and the Unconscious, is a document that tells you how to avoid that, if you're

01:53:42.380 playing in this kind of realm. And one of the injunctions is to keep your feet on the ground.

01:53:49.340 He thought that was what, partly what happened to Nietzsche, was that Nietzsche wasn't grounded

01:53:54.860 enough in life. He wasn't grounded enough in day-to-day rituals, and routines, and the mundane. Now,

01:54:01.020 you can debate whether or not that's the case, whether or not that's a reasonable argument, but

01:54:05.100 that was still what Jung believed. Okay, so why am I telling you all this?

01:54:10.380 I'll finish with this. From December 1913 onward, Jung carried on in the same procedure,

01:54:18.300 deliberately evoking a fantasy in a waking state, and then entering into it as a drama.

01:54:22.780 These fantasies may be understood as a type of dramatized thinking in pictorial form.

01:54:27.660 In retrospect, he recalled that his scientific question was to see what took place when he switched off

01:54:32.540 consciousness. The example of dreams indicated the existence of background activity, and he wanted to

01:54:38.540 give this a possibility of emerging, just as one does when taking mescaline. These journals are

01:54:43.740 Jung's contemporary, contemporaneous clinical ledger to his most difficult experiment, or what he later

01:54:48.620 describes as a voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world. Jung believed that we were dreaming all

01:54:55.340 the time, but that during waking life, the pressure of external images was such that the unconscious fantasy

01:55:04.860 imagery was, or that the fantasy imagery was of insufficient magnitude to be conscious, but that

01:55:10.380 we were always situated in a dream in relationship to the world. So, when we started talking about

01:55:20.460 the creation of the universe at the beginning of the Genesis stories, I spent quite a long time

01:55:25.340 setting the stage for the stories, because there's no point in having a conversation about the God who

01:55:32.540 gives rise to being, unless you have some sense of what that might conceivably mean to the modern mind. And

01:55:38.940 I felt the same way about the Abrahamic stories, as I couldn't get a handle on them until I could

01:55:46.540 understand and articulate more clearly what it might mean, how a modern person might understand

01:55:53.180 a direct experience of God. And the first question would be, is such a thing possible? And the answer

01:56:02.300 to that seems to be a qualified yes. First of all, it's a universal human experience. That's a very strange

01:56:08.140 thing. It's not something that people have made up, as Freud might have it, as a defense against death.

01:56:14.060 It's not a tenable hypothesis. It's a realm of potential experience. Now that experience doesn't necessarily

01:56:21.660 have to have the Judeo-Christian content that we've been discussing. Quite the contrary, there are

01:56:26.540 manifestations of these alternative forms of consciousness all over the world that take on

01:56:31.100 their own peculiar forms, although they're patterned to some degree. Like the hero myth, for example,

01:56:35.820 the myth of the fight against the dragon seems to be unbelievably widespread. And so, it's not as if it's

01:56:41.660 random. But there's not much point in having a discussion about what happens to Abraham, unless you can

01:56:49.260 conceptualize it in terms that are amenable to modern skeptical consciousness. So, we can establish

01:56:55.100 the proposition that mystical experience is not only possible, it's quite common, and it's inducible

01:57:00.540 in a variety of ways. And the manner in which it's inducible is reliable. And there's no evidence,

01:57:05.900 as well, that it's pathological. In fact, there's a fair bit of evidence that the patterns of behavior

01:57:10.620 that are associated with the mystical experience are core elements of proper human adaptation in the world.

01:57:16.780 The Abrahamic stories open up with a manifest God. Now, I'm going to read you some things from

01:57:21.100 Friedman, who wrote The Disappearance of God. He was trying to look at the underlying structure of the

01:57:26.540 stories. Now, you know, Friedman noted that the books in the Old Testament were written by a lot of

01:57:32.060 different people at very different times. And then they were sequenced by other people for reasons that we

01:57:39.180 don't exactly understand. But there's still an underlying narrative. There's multiple underlying

01:57:46.700 narrative unities, despite the fact of that rather arbitrary sequencing. And that's a strange thing.

01:57:52.860 You know, I guess you could say, if you had a collection of ancient books and you were trying

01:57:57.100 to put them together, you'd try to put them together in some way that made sense, right? And it wouldn't

01:58:02.540 make sense unless you stumbled across some kind of underlying narrative that allowed you to order

01:58:07.100 them. And so it's not entirely surprising that they're ordered in a manner that's comprehensible. But

01:58:13.580 Friedman's comments on the underlying narrative structure, part of it was, well, we'll go through

01:58:20.540 this. The books of the Old Testament were composed by a great many authors, according to both traditional

01:58:24.780 religious views and modern critical scholarship. The phenomenon of the diminishing apparent presence

01:58:29.900 of God across so many stories, through so many books, by so many authors, spread over so many

01:58:35.100 centuries, is consistent enough to be striking, impressive, and ultimately mysterious.

01:58:41.900 But the hiding of the divine face is only half the story. There's another development,

01:58:45.980 also extending across the course of the entire narrative of the Hebrew Bible,

01:58:49.820 which we must see before we can appreciate the full force of this phenomena, and before we can

01:58:54.540 pose a solution to the mystery of this, of how this happened. Gradually from Genesis to Ezra and

01:58:59.580 Esther, there is a transition from divine to human responsibility for life on earth.

01:59:05.820 The story begins in Genesis with God in complete control of the creation, but by the end humans have

01:59:10.620 arrived at a stage at which, in all apparent ways, they have responsibility for the fate of the world.

01:59:15.740 The first two human beings, Adam and Eve, take little responsibility themselves. They do not design or

01:59:24.780 build anything. When they're embarrassed over their nudity, they do not make clothes. They cover

01:59:29.100 themselves with leaves. It's God who makes their first clothing for them. Noah, by no means a fully

01:59:36.620 developed personality, Noah is not an everyman either. Broadly speaking, he reflects a step beyond Adam

01:59:41.820 and Eve in human character and responsibility. Abraham. Beyond the accounts of divine commands

01:59:48.700 that Abraham does carry out, the narrative also includes a variety of stories in which Abraham

01:59:53.500 acts on his own initiative. He divides land with his nephew Lot. He battles kings. He takes concubines.

01:59:59.180 He argues with his wife Sarah. On two occasions, he tells kings that Sarah is his sister out of fear

02:00:04.540 that they will kill him to get his wife. And he arranges his son's marriage. In the place of the

02:00:09.260 single story of Noah's drunkenness, there are, in the case of Abraham, the stories of a man's life.

02:00:14.620 The Abraham section thus develops the personality and character of a man to a new degree in biblical

02:00:20.220 narrative while picturing in him a new degree of responsibility. It is not just that Abraham is

02:00:24.700 kinder, gentler, more intrepid, more ethical, or a better debater than his ancestor Noah. Rather,

02:00:31.100 both the Noah and the Abraham stories are pieces of a development of an increasingly stronger stance of

02:00:35.820 humans relative to the deity. Before the story is over, humans will become a great deal stronger

02:00:41.180 and bolder than Abraham. I don't know what that means, you know.

02:00:47.100 See, it isn't, it is certainly the case that the individual exists in the modern world,

02:00:55.260 the differentiated, self-aware, self-conscious individual. And it's certainly the case that

02:00:59.660 that wasn't the case at some point in the past. And so it's the case that there's been a development,

02:01:05.100 I don't know if you could call it a progression, but a development of the autonomous individual over

02:01:11.020 some span of historical time. Now we don't know how long that's been, but my suspicions are it hasn't

02:01:16.460 been that long. I mean, I read once about a neolithic ceremony that involved the particular placement of

02:01:24.460 a bear skull in a cave. And then I read that, and they had found these placements in caves that were at

02:01:33.180 least 25,000 years old. And then I read that they found caves in Japan among the Ainu who were the

02:01:39.260 indigenous inhabitants of Japanese territory and rather archaic people who had the same ceremony

02:01:45.580 with the bear and that put the skull in the same orientation and place in caves. And that that

02:01:51.180 tradition remained unbroken for about 25,000 years. And you think, well, is it possible for an oral or

02:01:57.420 ritual tradition to remain unbroken for spans of tens of thousands of years? And the answer to that is

02:02:02.940 not only is it possible, it's actually the norm. Because like, one chimpanzee is like the next

02:02:09.420 chimpanzee, right? In the progression, in the biological progression. If you took a chimpanzee troop now,

02:02:15.260 and you went back 25,000 years and you looked at a chimpanzee troop, it'd be the same thing. There's

02:02:19.500 no historical progression. That's how you can tell the chimps really don't have culture. Because if they

02:02:24.860 could even accrete one one-thousandth of a percent of culture, transmissible culture,

02:02:29.900 per generation, it wouldn't take more than about a million years before they'd have a whole

02:02:34.060 civilization. And they don't. They're the same as they were. And so, the continuity, the stability,

02:02:40.540 and unchanging nature of a species, essentially speaking, is the rule. That the variant is us.

02:02:47.820 It's like, what the hell happened after the last ice age, 15,000 years ago? We went from tribal, uniform,

02:02:56.460 stable, to whatever the hell we are now. It's this transition from generic to specific. It's something

02:03:04.700 like that. And I can't help but think that that's reflected in this text, and that it has something to

02:03:09.020 do with this transition of consciousness from, from what? From possession by the generic divine,

02:03:16.780 to dominance by the specific individual? It's something like that. Is that a neurological

02:03:21.660 transformation? Is that what this is a record of? I mean, we don't know. One of the things Jung said

02:03:27.580 about God, because Jung's relationship with God as an object of belief is very complex.

02:03:33.900 He, in his technical writing, he always talks about the image of God. He never talks about God. He

02:03:40.460 talks about the image of God. He said that the image of God dwells within. That's not the same thing

02:03:45.500 as God dwelling within, right? Because we could, I mean, all of these capacities that we have for

02:03:51.580 transcendent consciousness could be a byproduct of biological evolution. They could have no reflection.

02:03:56.300 They can have no relationship whatsoever to an actual transcendent reality. There's no way of telling

02:04:03.100 the transcendent reality seems to manifest itself as an element of experience, but that doesn't mean

02:04:07.260 that it has a reality outside of the subjective, even if it's, even if it exists, as it clearly does. But

02:04:16.140 Friedman suggests that what's happening in the biblical narrative is the sequential emergence of the

02:04:21.900 individual as a redemptive force, and that the Old Testament documents that implicitly, unconsciously,

02:04:29.980 as a consequence of descriptive fantasy, and that that's what's going on in the book. And that,

02:04:37.820 so, the cosmos is under the control of generic deity to begin with, something like that. And then that

02:04:45.260 control shifts to localized, identifiable, increasingly personal and detailed individuals. And you see that in

02:04:55.820 Noah, and then you see it in Abraham, and then you see it in Moses. And then there's this working out of what

02:05:01.900 it would mean to be a fully developed individual. And that's what these stories, they're, they're, they're,

02:05:07.100 they're, they're like prototypes. They're, they're attempts to, to, to bring about the proper mode of

02:05:13.420 being, right? And so Abraham is a, is a manifestation of that, because he enters into a covenant with God.

02:05:18.460 He's selected by God, or enters into a partnership with God. It's not exactly obvious. God provides him with

02:05:25.660 forward motion and intuition, and leads him towards a successful mode of being. And it's complex successful

02:05:33.660 mode of being, because Abraham has a very complex life. There's plenty of ups and downs, right? It's, it's not unbroken

02:05:41.100 purity of being towards a divine end. Abraham lies, and cheats, and deceives, and does all sorts of things that, that a real

02:05:48.220 person would do. And, and Moses, for example, kills someone. And so these people, the biblical people, are very

02:05:55.980 genuine individuals. But they're given, with all their faults, right? With all their sins, with all their deceit,

02:06:01.580 they're still put forth as potential modes of proper, models of potential proper being in the world. And the

02:06:09.180 entire corpus of the Bible seems to be nothing but an attempt to keep throwing up variants of the

02:06:15.980 personality, trying to experiment to find out what personality works in the world.

02:06:23.660 And of course, from a Christian perspective, that culminates in the figure of Christ as the redemptive

02:06:28.220 word. And that's associated, as we've already talked about, with the force that brought order out of

02:06:35.260 chaos at the beginning of time. And so, well, that's my attempt to provide proper context for the

02:06:44.940 understanding of the Abrahamic stories. And so, hopefully, with that context, we can move forward

02:06:52.940 being able to swallow the camel, so to speak, of the initial presence of God in the stories.

02:07:00.220 And so, we'll return to all of that next week.

02:07:04.220 Thank you.

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02:08:40.300 Let's wait one second. Okay, until people have an opportunity to leave. I would very much like

02:08:46.460 to ask the people who are asking the questions to take a few seconds before they ask the question,

02:08:51.900 and make sure that the mic is positioned properly, so that everyone can hear you. Because people keep

02:08:57.260 writing and complaining that while they're very happy with the questions, and I would say the

02:09:01.660 questions have been a very high caliber so far, but they're not very happy that they can't hear them.

02:09:06.460 So, I know that, you know, you're obviously nervous and in a hurry when you want to ask a question,

02:09:11.420 but take a second or two to set the mic up properly and make sure that everyone can hear you. And so,

02:09:17.100 have a way at it. Hello, Dr. Peterson. Hey, there we go.

02:09:20.780 Tonight, I'd like to ask you about two different psychological disorders. The first being borderline

02:09:26.460 personality disorder. So, two lectures ago, somebody asked you about it, and you gave a very sparse

02:09:33.660 answer. I can't remember exactly what you said, but it seemed like it was, there was too much complexity

02:09:41.820 to just answer it right there and then. And then somebody else also asked you about the same

02:09:46.620 disorder in your Patreon live stream recently. And when they asked you that, you kind of

02:09:53.820 you kind of stopped for a moment and something, I don't know, something kind of flicked on in your

02:09:58.700 head, it seemed like. And you thought for a couple seconds, and then you said, you know what, I don't

02:10:04.220 think that I can answer that right now because it's just too, it's just too bloody complex. And I was

02:10:10.300 wondering, just like many young men have gravitated towards your lectures, do you think that there's

02:10:17.340 something about this particular disorder that, there's something about people with this particular

02:10:24.460 disorder that might gravitate to your insights and your lectures? Okay, okay. So, I would say probably

02:10:31.180 no to the second one, but I could comment more about borderline personality disorder. I think I have

02:10:35.900 enough mental energy to do that tonight. So, technically speaking, it's often considered the

02:10:43.420 female variant of antisocial personality disorder. So, it's classified in the domain of externalizing

02:10:53.660 disorders, acting out disorders. And I think what happens, we don't understand borderline personality

02:11:00.620 disorder very well. And it's characterized by tremendous impulsivity, radical confusion of identity,

02:11:11.420 and then this pattern of idealization of people with whom the person afflicted with the disorder

02:11:20.380 is associating with radical idealization of those people, and then radical devaluation of them.

02:11:26.140 And then there's another theme that sort of weaves along with it, which is the proclivity of

02:11:32.060 people with borderline personality disorder to presume that they will be abandoned,

02:11:37.340 and then to act in a manner that makes such abandonment virtually certain. And so, it's a very

02:11:44.060 complicated disorder, but that, I think, gets at the crux of it.

02:11:49.660 One of the things that's interesting about people with borderline personality disorder, in my experience,

02:11:55.820 is that they're often quite intelligent. And you see in the person with borderline personality disorder

02:12:04.460 something like the waste or the squandering of tremendous potential. They seem capable of thinking

02:12:12.220 through the nature of their problems and analyzing them and discussing it, but not capable whatsoever of

02:12:18.140 implementing any solutions. And technically, there's no relationship between IQ and conscientiousness.

02:12:28.700 It's very weird, because if you read the neuropsychological literature,

02:12:34.620 and you read about the functions of the prefrontal cortex, they're usually conceptualized in

02:12:38.220 intellectual terms. And they're associated with planning and strategizing and so forth. And

02:12:47.020 that's what conscientiousness is, is planning and strategizing and implementation. But the correlation

02:12:52.140 between IQ and conscientiousness is zero. And so is the correlation between working memory and

02:12:57.740 conscientiousness. Zero! And zero is a very low correlation, right? I mean, really, it's hard to find things

02:13:04.780 in psychology that are correlated at zero. Things tend to be correlated to some degree. They tend to be

02:13:10.780 interrelated. The borderline seems to be able to strategize and to abstract, but not to be able to implement.

02:13:21.260 And so the intellect per se seems to be functional, but it's not embodied in action.

02:13:29.260 It's very, so it can be frustrating to be associated with someone who has borderline personality disorder, because

02:13:36.940 they can tell you what the problem is, and even tell you what the solution might be, but there's no implementation.

02:13:43.820 So maybe something went wrong developmentally. We don't know exactly how these sorts of things come about. The other

02:13:49.340 thing that seems to be characteristic of borderline, people with borderline personality disorder, is that

02:13:53.980 they remind me very much of people who are two years old. And in some manner, like

02:14:01.180 people with borderline personality disorder can have temper tantrums. In fact, they often do. And you know, now and then you see a temper tantrum,

02:14:08.700 and they're usually thrown by two-year-olds, right? Most people grow out of temper tantrums by the time

02:14:13.020 they're about three. They're very rare at four, which is a good thing, because if they're still there at four,

02:14:17.820 that is not a good diagnostic predictor. That's actually a good diagnostic predictor, but it's not the kind

02:14:24.460 that you want. And, you know, it's funny the way that we respond to two-year-old temper tantrums, because

02:14:30.700 the two-year-old will throw themselves on the ground, and beat their hands and their legs on the floor,

02:14:35.580 and scream and yell, and turn red, or even blue. I saw a child once who was capable of holding his breath

02:14:41.020 during a temper tantrum until he turned blue, which was really an impressive feat. You should try that,

02:14:45.900 right? It's really hard. You really have to work at it. And you see that in adult borderlines. They'll

02:14:52.220 have temper tantrums. And the funny thing is, when a two-year-old does it, it's like it's, you know,

02:14:56.140 it's a little off-putting. But when an adult does it, it's completely bloody terrifying. And it happens

02:15:04.380 very frequently with borderlines. And so, I would also say to some degree, they didn't get properly

02:15:09.740 socialized between that critical period of development between two and four. And you see the same thing with

02:15:14.780 adult males who grow up to be anti-social. Because a large proportion of adult males who

02:15:19.100 grow up to be anti-social are aggressive as children, as two-year-olds. And so there's a small

02:15:25.020 proportion of two-year-olds who are quite aggressive. They'll kick and hit and bite and steal,

02:15:28.780 if you put them with other two-year-olds. It's about five percent of the of the males, smaller fraction

02:15:33.580 of the females. But most of them are socialized by the time they're four. But there's a small percentage

02:15:38.620 who aren't. And they tend to stay anti-social, and they tend to turn into long-term offenders.

02:15:43.660 And the critical period for socialization development seems to be between two and four.

02:15:48.620 And it seems to be mediated by pretend play, and rough and tumble play, and those sorts of mechanisms.

02:15:53.580 And if it isn't instantiated by the age of four, it doesn't happen. And it doesn't look like it's

02:15:59.500 addressable. Now, there are dialectic behavioral therapies that have been developed for people with

02:16:05.420 borderline personality disorder. And they're purported to be successful. But...

02:16:12.140 Okay, thank you. If I may, so the second psychological disorder I wanted to ask you about is

02:16:17.580 psychopathy. So you've mentioned that psychopaths tend to switch from dominance hierarchy to

02:16:23.740 dominance hierarchy, because people get tired of their shenanigans, and they have to move on to fresh

02:16:27.660 people. And psychopaths also tend to be very low in conscientiousness. And you said that when you see

02:16:34.860 some of these protesters at your speeches, some of the men in particular, your clinical intuition

02:16:43.660 tells you that there's something seriously pathological about them. And I was wondering

02:16:48.780 if you would suspect that some of these men might be psychopathic, as well, some of them likely are,

02:16:54.220 but I don't know if a higher proportion of the ones who show up at protests and sort of creep me out,

02:16:59.020 or I don't know if there's a higher proportion of people like that at the protests or not. I mean,

02:17:04.620 I suspect, in general, that regardless of the protest, the proportion of people who have

02:17:10.780 personality disorders among protesters is higher than the proportion of people who have personality

02:17:15.420 disorders in the general population. Because you just expect that, you just expect that kind of acting

02:17:20.940 out behavior. I'm not, believe me, I'm not saying that all protest is associated with personality

02:17:25.340 disorder. I'm not saying that at all. There's plenty of reason for protest, but some of the reason for

02:17:29.820 protests are credible reasons, and some of them aren't credible reasons. So I was just thinking that,

02:17:34.620 like, the social justice hierarchy, so to speak, would be one of the last that these confused men...

02:17:41.420 That's, that's, that's a different issue. You know, there are, there are analysis of the dangers of

02:17:47.580 agreeableness. So agreeableness is a personality trait that underlies the radical egalitarian ethos,

02:17:54.060 because agreeable people want everything to be shared equally. And it's a good, I think it's a good

02:17:58.940 ethos for a small group, for a family, because a family is kind of a communist system in some sense,

02:18:04.700 right? It's like, you want the food to be divided up equally among the children, clearly, and you want all

02:18:09.660 the children, sort of regardless of their inherent abilities, to have the same opportunities, and

02:18:14.860 perhaps even the same outcomes. So I think agreeableness, which is associated, at least in part, with

02:18:19.820 maternal, maternal, the maternal instinct, let's say, maternal patterns of behavior, I think it's, uh, it's a good

02:18:28.940 first-pass motivational approximation to a localized familial ethic. I think it's a catastrophe at larger

02:18:35.980 scales. I don't think it scales at all. I actually think that's why we evolved conscientiousness.

02:18:41.820 Because conscientiousness is the principle that allows larger scale organizations to exist.

02:18:46.860 Agreeableness won't do it. Now, conscientiousness is a mystery, right? We don't have a neurological model,

02:18:54.460 we don't have a conceptual model, we don't have an animal model, we don't have a pharmacological model,

02:19:00.060 and we really only have one way of assessing it, which is self and other reports of personality

02:19:05.420 proclivity. So, anyways, the problem with agreeableness, this has been modeled by game

02:19:14.060 theorists, is that a population of cooperative people can be dominated by a single shark.

02:19:21.180 So, agreeableness is insufficient, as a principle, because it opens itself up to, um, what do you call that?

02:19:33.260 Manipulation, and...

02:19:42.460 Manipulation, let's, let's leave it at that, to manipulation and, and, and, and exploitation. That's the other thing, exploitation.

02:19:49.980 Manipulation, so...

02:19:51.260 Manipulation, thank you.

02:19:59.420 Hi, Dr. Peterson. I had, uh, one quick comment and a question. Uh, so my comment was about your idea of, um,

02:20:05.260 sub-personalities as, uh, one-eyed monsters. Now, there's the idea of, uh, multiple personality or split

02:20:11.020 personality disorder is controversial as to whether or not it exists, but there's some recent research that

02:20:16.860 suggests that, um, you may actually have multiple personalities that use different parts of the

02:20:23.020 brain. So, they have differential access to the hippocampus, they have their own memories,

02:20:26.860 and, um, they can, um, they, they use the brain differently. But that seems to be an exaggeration of,

02:20:34.780 um, sub-personalities to me, which is quite interesting. Um, uh, the question I had was about,

02:20:39.580 um, so you talked about Jung and how, um, um, you should confront that which you don't want to

02:20:47.580 confront the most or you're most afraid of or disgusted by, that you have the most resistance to.

02:20:51.580 Um, so, but we were talking about psychedelics and, uh, and the experience of hell. So, uh, at least

02:20:58.860 some of the people I've talked to, they describe negative trips as, um, um, an experience of, uh, of

02:21:05.740 constant fear, prolonged fear, and, um, some of the most, um, dramatic and personalized fear

02:21:13.340 that they've ever experienced. So, shouldn't, uh, negative, um, psychedelic trips elicit the kind

02:21:20.140 of confrontation that, uh, Jung thought you should engage in? Could be. Could, could well be.

02:21:27.100 No, it, it, I, it's conceivable that...

02:21:36.140 I read this strange book once that made the claim that what was in the Ark of the Covenant was a mixture

02:21:43.100 that was made from Amanita muscaria mushrooms. And that's not as far-fetched as you might think,

02:21:50.620 because there was a mycologist, an amateur mycologist named Gordon Wasson,

02:21:55.820 who established, credibly, the notion that it was Amanita muscaria potions that was the soma

02:22:04.860 of the Rig Veda. And so, it's a strange idea, but it's not an idea that's completely outside of

02:22:13.500 the realm of possibility. Um, and the Amanita muscaria is the fly agaric, a red mushroom with white dots,

02:22:24.220 and it's used in shamanic rituals in across Asia, right? And it's apparently not toxic in its dried form, although that is not a recommendation.

02:22:34.940 You know, this is serious, serious and dangerous

02:22:37.740 speculation and material.

02:22:40.460 One of the things that the priests had to do

02:22:47.500 before they communed with what was ever in the Ark of the Covenant was purify themselves.

02:22:52.460 And so, one possibility is that the bad psychedelic experience is a

02:23:01.740 involuntary confrontation with what Jung would describe as the shadow.

02:23:06.460 It's like, so, beware of experimenting with

02:23:13.180 substances that produce divine revelations if you're in a serious state of disorder.

02:23:19.100 And I do think that is what happens to people, is that they encounter

02:23:24.380 everything about them that's chaotic and out of place.

02:23:27.660 And some people get trapped in that, and they can't get beyond it. And that's because there's so much of it.

02:23:32.860 And so, but we don't know enough to know.

02:23:39.420 So, yeah.

02:23:51.500 Citizen Peterson, you son of a bitch.

02:23:57.020 How are you?

02:23:58.780 I'm not too bad. You got a question?

02:24:03.740 That's my question. No, I've got a real question. I got a good question. You're going to like this one.

02:24:07.660 Okay.

02:24:07.980 It's about inspiration, because you talk about inspiration quite a bit in this lecture series.

02:24:12.380 And also, I wanted to point out, you have a, I guess, a 45-minute armchair discussion,

02:24:18.300 which you have a video of, of one paragraph of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, which you posted.

02:24:23.100 Yes.

02:24:23.740 And it seems like you're awestruck at the structure and the choices and, I guess,

02:24:30.300 the ideas contained in various layers of this paragraph.

02:24:34.700 And you're inspired, and that inspires you to, I guess, do your work that you do.

02:24:39.180 I encountered, I guess, a similar phenomenon here with one sentence written by the great Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

02:24:49.740 And, I mean, this one sentence answers the question, why do people search for God?

02:24:55.660 And if you could read it out and then deconstruct it, it's one sentence.

02:24:59.420 It's at the end of page 105, if you want to read it from the book, or I just...

02:25:03.420 That's the question that human existence not only poses, but itself is.

02:25:09.980 The inconclusiveness inherent in it, the bounds it comes up against, and that yet yearn for the unbounded,

02:25:17.500 more or less in the sense of Nietzsche's assertion that all pleasure yearns for eternity, yet experiences itself as a moment.

02:25:24.140 This simultaneity of being limited and of yearning for the unbounded and open

02:25:28.220 has always prevented man from resting in himself, made him sense that he is not self-sufficient,

02:25:34.440 but only comes to himself by going outside himself and moving toward the entirely other and infinitely greater.

02:25:42.080 Well, it's a hell of a sentence.

02:25:44.620 Like, when I read that sentence, I decided I wanted to write like Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

02:25:50.680 I had a very similar experience when I watched the Joe Rogan podcast, 877.

02:25:55.400 I said, I want to speak like Jordan Peterson.

02:25:59.020 That's what I wanted to do.

02:26:00.480 So, I had this discussion with a Patreon supporter this week, a young guy from Australia.

02:26:10.180 And he said something very interesting that's related to this.

02:26:13.800 And it's something that's very profound, I think.

02:26:18.440 There's this idea in Christianity that we've discussed briefly that the judge and the redeemer are the same figure.

02:26:25.740 Now, you know, in the book of Revelation, you may know this or you may not,

02:26:28.680 but Christ comes back as a judge and he has a sword coming.

02:26:33.900 It's a revelatory vision, that book.

02:26:36.960 It's a very strange, it's the last thing you'd expect conservative Christians to believe in.

02:26:42.420 Believe me, it's such a visionary hallucination, the book of Revelation.

02:26:46.560 But Christ comes back with a sword coming out of his mouth and he comes back as a judge.

02:26:50.800 And he divides the damned from the redeemed and most are damned and some are redeemed.

02:26:56.220 It's very, very harsh.

02:26:57.840 Now, Jung believed that the figure of Christ in the Gospels was too agreeable,

02:27:02.820 too merciful, too tilted towards mercy, and that that called out for a counterposition.

02:27:08.220 And that was the counterposition of judgment.

02:27:10.520 Very interesting hypothesis.

02:27:11.760 But then, but then there's this, this melding of the two ideas that the judge and the redeemer are the same thing.

02:27:18.800 Okay.

02:27:20.140 Now, this young man told me that his life lacked purpose and direction and meaning and that he was nihilistic.

02:27:29.060 Until he started, he read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

02:27:33.740 Which is a book I actually like quite a bit.

02:27:35.520 I've read it three times in different decades of my life.

02:27:38.020 And one of the things that's very interesting about that book is that it's an examination of the idea of quality.

02:27:43.280 Of the idea that there are qualitative distinctions between things and that we have an instinct to make qualitative distinctions.

02:27:50.520 And so a qualitative distinction is simply, this is better than that.

02:27:55.540 Which is a judgment.

02:27:56.460 Okay, now what Ratzinger is hypothesizing is that the person in and of, you know how you're, the idea, the modern idea is you're supposed to accept yourself.

02:28:07.880 I think that's an insane idea, by the way.

02:28:10.280 Really, I think, I can't think of a more nihilistic idea than that you're already okay.

02:28:15.440 It's like, no you're not.

02:28:17.000 And the reason you're not is because you could be way more than you are.

02:28:19.980 And so what do you want to be?

02:28:20.800 You want to be okay as you are?

02:28:22.340 Or do you want to strive towards what's better?

02:28:25.100 And this young man, this Australian, he said that the reason that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had such an impact on him was because he wasn't happy with his current mode of being.

02:28:36.460 Right?

02:28:36.700 He didn't consider the manner in which he conducted himself sufficient.

02:28:41.640 And the fact that the author of Zen, it was Persig, laid out the notion that you could make qualitative distinctions.

02:28:50.060 And there really was a difference between good things and bad things or great things and evil things.

02:28:54.560 It gives you direction.

02:28:56.820 It gives you the possibility of moving upward.

02:29:01.100 And Ratzinger is pointing out, at least to some degree, that human beings are insufficient in and of themselves and need the movement upward.

02:29:08.900 And so they need to conceptualize something like the highest good and then to strive for that.

02:29:13.640 And the thing is, is that there isn't any difference between conceptualizing the good and being judged.

02:29:21.920 Because if you're going to conceptualize the good and move towards it, what you have to do is separate from yourself all those things that aren't good and leave them behind.

02:29:30.540 And that's why the Redeemer and the Judge are the same thing.

02:29:33.500 And one of the things that's really appalling, I think, about our modern world is that we're rejecting the notion of qualitative distinctions.

02:29:41.960 You say, well, we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by saying that one thing is better than another.

02:29:46.680 It's like, okay, fair enough.

02:29:47.940 It's not fun to be cast off with the damned.

02:29:52.060 That's for sure.

02:29:53.500 But if people are, in fact, insufficient in their present condition, which seems to be the case.

02:30:00.360 I mean, try finding someone who isn't.

02:30:02.240 Then if you deny the possibility of qualitative distinction, because you want to promote a radical egalitarianism, then you remove the possibility of redemption.

02:30:13.280 Because there's no movement towards the good.

02:30:15.540 And it seems to me that it's a catastrophe to sacrifice the good for, well, it's a catastrophe to sacrifice the good for the equal.

02:30:23.380 Because for us to be equal would mean, as far as I can tell, that we would all be equally unredeemed and miserable.

02:30:30.120 And so...

02:30:32.120 He also mentions in the previous paragraph, I believe, that even in the case when you experience the human life at its fullest, at its most beautiful, at its most meaningful,

02:30:48.020 you have a deep, I guess, understanding that you have something to be thankful for.

02:30:53.520 You need to thank somebody for that.

02:30:55.220 It's not based entirely on your own merit.

02:30:57.760 And that points you towards something else.

02:30:59.640 And also...

02:31:00.300 I don't think that you can have a profoundly positive experience, you know, in the best sense, without that accompanying it.

02:31:08.720 That's a feeling of being blessed.

02:31:10.460 It's something like that.

02:31:11.960 Yeah.

02:31:12.220 Exactly.

02:31:12.880 That's good.

02:31:13.320 I'll do that book back, and also I'd like to...

02:31:15.200 Oh, wait.

02:31:16.020 Hold it.

02:31:16.500 I'm going to stop you.

02:31:17.900 Okay?

02:31:18.240 Because I'm going to ask this person.

02:31:19.940 But I would like to say that those were remarkably good questions.

02:31:23.680 Thank you.

02:31:24.280 Thank you.

02:31:24.340 Thank you.

02:31:24.940 So...

02:31:25.220 Dr. Peterson, thank you for the wonderful lecture.

02:31:34.520 Given your working definition of truth, and let's say within the Abrahamic religious tradition,

02:31:43.200 would you say that the more, perhaps, mystical sects and denominations, which place more emphasis

02:31:50.100 on the transcendental experience of God, of the all-induced experience, as opposed to

02:31:57.700 the more fundamentalist, orthodox, literalist, which perhaps emphasize what I've noticed,

02:32:04.760 the moral policing of behaviors?

02:32:08.720 Yep.

02:32:08.860 Would you say that the former is more true than the latter?

02:32:12.940 No.

02:32:13.480 And...

02:32:13.880 No.

02:32:15.000 And...

02:32:15.280 Okay.

02:32:15.920 Sorry.

02:32:16.380 Continue.

02:32:16.680 And B, could the former in some way serve as an antidote to extremist, literalism, jihadism,

02:32:25.240 fundamentalism?

02:32:25.980 Okay.

02:32:26.200 So yes to the second part.

02:32:27.920 But the first part, it's a great question.

02:32:31.240 We did some research on this a while back, because we were looking at the different religious

02:32:36.840 proclivities of liberals and conservatives.

02:32:38.860 And liberals, like, if you're liberal, it means you're high in openness and low in conscientiousness.

02:32:43.680 And if you're conservative, then you're high in conscientiousness and low in openness.

02:32:47.280 And that the liberals are spiritual and the conservatives are dogmatic.

02:32:51.800 But it's best to think of those as partners.

02:32:55.480 Right?

02:32:56.020 Because the spiritual, mystical end is where the revelations emerge, and the renewal,

02:33:03.380 but that's where there's chaos and discord as well.

02:33:06.800 Because what's new disrupts what's stable.

02:33:09.940 And so, what's new has to be turned into, it has to be integrated into what's stable.

02:33:14.780 And so you need both those poles.

02:33:16.300 And of course, if the dogmatists get the upper hand, then everything turns into a tyranny

02:33:20.780 of stone.

02:33:21.740 That's Egypt in the Old Testament.

02:33:23.460 But if the mystics get the upper hand, then everything floats off the earth into some impractical ether

02:33:32.080 that is equally counterproductive.

02:33:34.480 And so there has to be a dialogue between those different poles.

02:33:38.100 And I think you see that in the distribution of human temperament.

02:33:40.860 You know, the conscientious types, they tend to be orderly.

02:33:43.940 The orderly types tend towards kind of a right-wing totalitarianism.

02:33:49.020 That's their proclivity when things get out of hand, especially if they're low in openness.

02:33:53.880 That's a danger.

02:33:54.720 But, you see the same thing with the people who are too open and not conscientious at all.

02:34:01.360 They're dreaming all the time.

02:34:03.060 But they never do anything.

02:34:04.320 There's never anything implemented.

02:34:05.660 And that's a bad thing.

02:34:08.580 So, I don't think that you can say that, like, the dogmatic structure is necessary because

02:34:12.700 that perpetuates the system.

02:34:14.620 And the revelatory element is necessary because that renews it when renewal is necessary.

02:34:18.600 And there has to be a continual dialogue between those elements so that neither of them fall prey

02:34:24.120 to their own particular form of pathology.

02:34:26.560 That's one of the problems with the current political, what would you call it, polarization

02:34:32.480 that's occurring across the West is that the right and the left are not talking to each other anymore.

02:34:37.300 That's a very bad thing because the left will wander into a pit and fail without boundaries.

02:34:44.500 And the right will enclose itself in smaller and smaller spaces until it can't move without the left.

02:34:50.760 And one of the reasons that democracy works is because it makes people talk or allows them to talk.

02:34:56.360 You can have it either way.

02:34:58.560 But it's because every virtue has its vice.

02:35:04.000 Right?

02:35:04.320 And so, a meta-virtue is something like the amalgamation of singular virtues into something that's

02:35:10.080 a transcendent structure that has more to do with the harmony of virtues rather than with any given virtue.

02:35:16.240 Even though I think that freedom of speech is the clearest manifestation of that harmony of virtues.

02:35:22.580 So...

02:35:23.080 And so awe could be a lubricant for the beginning of this discussion, do you think?

02:35:28.900 Between liberals and conservatives?

02:35:30.500 I don't know how to answer that.

02:35:36.560 It doesn't follow immediately from your initial presupposition.

02:35:40.920 So the awe experience is a different issue.

02:35:43.680 The transcendental experience.

02:35:45.620 Yeah, well the...

02:35:46.220 More associated with ethics.

02:35:47.940 Yes.

02:35:48.380 At least exposing conservatives to some form of experience.

02:35:52.260 Could it be a prerequisite for a more productive dialogue?

02:35:55.680 See, I mean, in the church, in a church ceremony, let's say, a classical church ceremony,

02:36:02.920 there's some intermingling of both, right?

02:36:05.120 I mean, you think about a church ceremony that takes place in a gothic cathedral.

02:36:08.760 You've certainly got the dogma and the relatively rigid rule structure.

02:36:13.840 But at the same time, that's aligned with intense beauty in the architectural forms,

02:36:18.740 in the light that's streaming in through the stained glass windows, and the music.

02:36:23.320 And, I mean, the gothic cathedral is a forest, right?

02:36:25.740 It's a stone forest with sunlight streaming in through the trees.

02:36:30.280 And it's a balance between structure and light.

02:36:32.840 They're absolutely unbelievable structures.

02:36:35.360 And they speak of the transcendent, but inside that, there's a structure.

02:36:39.740 And so, it seems that in order for the religious impulse to be balanced properly,

02:36:44.080 there has to be a reasonable dialogue, even in practice,

02:36:48.220 between the mystical, awe-inspiring transcendent and the dogmatic.

02:36:52.100 Yeah, either of those can go as, either of those goes astray without the other.

02:36:57.360 If you're too dogmatic, do you need awe?

02:37:01.060 Likely.

02:37:02.760 Yes, because that would show you that there's something beyond your own presuppositions.

02:37:07.300 So,

02:37:08.180 so awe, I should tell you something interesting about awe as a physiological phenomena.

02:37:14.560 You know how you're listening to music and you get chills?

02:37:16.580 Some people experience that more than others.

02:37:19.680 Open people experience that more.

02:37:21.080 Or, music is a pretty reliable elicitor of chills.

02:37:29.220 That's piloerection.

02:37:30.600 That's your hair standing on end.

02:37:32.280 You see a cat when it sees a dog puffs up.

02:37:35.600 That's awe.

02:37:36.340 It's the same thing.

02:37:38.900 Like, that chill is your hair standing on end.

02:37:41.720 And that's the sensation you get in the presence of a meta-predator.

02:37:47.080 It's something like that.

02:37:48.680 And so, the awe experience is a...

02:37:51.900 I mean, obviously, it's become very cognitively and emotionally complex in human beings,

02:37:56.020 but it's fundamental evolutionary underpinning is

02:37:59.320 the instantaneous piloerection that you see in prey animals

02:38:02.880 when they're confronted by a predator.

02:38:04.860 And, of course, that would be...

02:38:06.080 If you are a rabbit, you can bloody well believe that you see a wolf

02:38:08.940 and it would inspire awe.

02:38:10.580 That's for sure.

02:38:11.440 I mean, if a wolf that was 20 feet high came bounding in here, man,

02:38:15.600 you'd feel awe.

02:38:17.240 So, yeah.

02:38:19.040 That'll convince you that there's something that you still need to know.

02:38:21.760 Thank you.

02:38:25.240 Last question.

02:38:28.120 Perfect timing.

02:38:29.200 Hi, Dr. Peterson.

02:38:30.360 My name is Gary, and I'm a clinical and counseling master's student right now.

02:38:33.780 And so, one of the key ideas that's been surfacing time and time again in your lectures

02:38:38.640 is the idea that phenomenology is structured and flows mythologically.

02:38:44.480 And the way that plays out is, I'm supposing affectively,

02:38:50.980 you just pay attention to what comes up kind of naturally,

02:38:55.460 and you can locate the chaotic elements in your experience

02:38:58.260 and prod at them with whatever degree of necessity you think.

02:39:02.980 So, trying to situate this within the clinical context,

02:39:09.240 we can conceptualize psychotherapy as a kind of guided journey,

02:39:14.760 just as you touched on in this lecture,

02:39:16.520 where it's more of a meta-journey in a sense,

02:39:20.000 a meta-heroic journey.

02:39:21.100 I don't know how you want to think about it.

02:39:22.720 But just for those of us who are interested in kind of grounding

02:39:27.420 and implementing these ideas within psychotherapeutic practice,

02:39:31.580 what should we watch out for in the process itself?

02:39:35.320 What comes up?

02:39:36.180 What should we be afraid of or fearful of or cautious about

02:39:39.180 or what should we tend towards?

02:39:40.680 That's my question.

02:39:43.380 Well, I think one of the people who I've read

02:39:49.620 that's had the biggest impact on me as a clinician

02:39:53.360 was Carl Rogers.

02:39:56.520 And the reason for that is that Carl Rogers

02:39:58.720 put tremendous emphasis on listening.

02:40:01.580 Like, it's almost impossible to overestimate

02:40:04.040 how useful it is to listen to your clients.

02:40:06.300 Like, you need a meta-scheme, in some sense.

02:40:11.100 And the meta-scheme, I think,

02:40:12.720 is laid out in the Sermon on the Mount.

02:40:15.300 It's something like,

02:40:17.420 orient yourself and your client

02:40:19.320 towards the good.

02:40:22.760 The client has to conceptualize what that might be.

02:40:25.460 You can serve as a guide,

02:40:26.820 but it has to come from that person.

02:40:29.080 Because one of the things that you want to find out from your client is,

02:40:32.280 okay, what's wrong?

02:40:34.600 They have to tell you.

02:40:35.420 And what would not having something wrong look like?

02:40:40.140 Like, what is it?

02:40:41.180 If you could have what you wanted,

02:40:43.080 and that that would be good,

02:40:45.380 what would that look like?

02:40:46.780 Okay, so that establishes your star, right?

02:40:49.120 It's like Geppetto establishing the relationship

02:40:51.400 with the star at the beginning of Pinocchio.

02:40:53.180 Here's what we're aiming at.

02:40:55.080 Okay, so now you've got that schema.

02:40:56.680 Here's what we're aiming at.

02:40:57.940 Now you might say, you might think,

02:40:59.920 well, now what happens to the client

02:41:01.400 is they meet their dragons along the way.

02:41:03.400 And the dragons would be,

02:41:05.680 well, now you know what you want,

02:41:06.920 and there are things in your way.

02:41:09.260 And some of those things might,

02:41:10.560 many of those things are going to be intensely practical.

02:41:13.280 But they're practical slash psychological.

02:41:15.640 So like, so maybe someone

02:41:16.860 has a job,

02:41:18.420 and they would like to move forward in their job,

02:41:20.080 but they're terrified of speaking in public.

02:41:22.000 Well, you know, is that a psychological problem

02:41:24.260 or a practical problem?

02:41:25.920 It's both.

02:41:26.780 It's also a real problem.

02:41:28.220 In many positions,

02:41:29.320 unless you can speak fluently, publicly,

02:41:31.660 you're going to hit a ceiling,

02:41:33.820 and you're not going to go anywhere.

02:41:35.140 And so,

02:41:36.160 for the person to move towards that goal,

02:41:40.680 then they have to confront the obstacles

02:41:42.900 that manifest themselves

02:41:44.400 within that framework.

02:41:46.040 And part of your job as a clinician

02:41:47.760 is to identify the obstacles

02:41:49.320 and to discriminate them

02:41:51.060 from things they don't have to worry about, right?

02:41:53.760 Part of it is,

02:41:55.200 you know,

02:41:55.500 you can't just run around

02:41:56.780 and try to combat

02:41:58.340 all the chaos in the world.

02:42:00.240 Some of it is your chaos,

02:42:01.740 and a bunch of it isn't.

02:42:03.100 And the chaos that's yours

02:42:04.240 is the chaos that emerges

02:42:05.360 as you move towards a necessary goal.

02:42:07.780 And so partly what you're doing

02:42:08.860 by listening to your client

02:42:09.900 is to help them

02:42:10.560 cut their dragons down to size.

02:42:13.280 You know,

02:42:13.540 because what'll happen

02:42:14.600 if you start to talk to somebody

02:42:15.820 about public speaking,

02:42:16.840 and you really talk to them,

02:42:18.140 is that you decompose the problem

02:42:20.100 into a set of

02:42:20.960 maybe 20 sub-problems.

02:42:23.020 Like,

02:42:23.560 well,

02:42:23.740 do you know exactly

02:42:24.420 how to give a speech?

02:42:25.620 Like,

02:42:26.160 what's your theory of

02:42:27.280 public speaking?

02:42:29.640 Do you know how to look at people

02:42:31.080 when you're talking?

02:42:32.300 Do you know how to speak loudly enough

02:42:33.820 so that people can hear you?

02:42:35.420 Do you have a philosophy

02:42:36.680 of public speaking?

02:42:39.040 I mean,

02:42:39.240 all those things are necessary

02:42:40.200 in order to do it properly.

02:42:41.320 You need to decompose that

02:42:42.500 with the client

02:42:43.100 and then to make those problems,

02:42:45.360 you have to decompose them

02:42:46.520 to the point

02:42:47.200 where they can be met

02:42:48.540 by a practical solution.

02:42:50.560 And then you have to guide the person

02:42:51.800 through the implementation

02:42:52.560 of the practical solution.

02:42:54.920 And,

02:42:55.300 mostly you do that

02:42:56.940 by listening.

02:42:58.820 It's like,

02:42:59.160 what you need to be

02:43:00.480 is the person

02:43:01.160 who helps the person

02:43:02.320 that you're working with

02:43:03.600 orient themselves

02:43:04.380 towards a better future.

02:43:05.740 That's the compact.

02:43:07.200 You and I are in this space

02:43:08.260 at this time

02:43:09.220 to make things better.

02:43:11.920 First of all,

02:43:12.580 we have to decide

02:43:13.220 what better would look like.

02:43:14.740 And second,

02:43:15.480 we need a strategy.

02:43:17.060 And third,

02:43:17.460 we need to,

02:43:18.380 once we have that,

02:43:19.080 we're going to see the obstacles.

02:43:20.620 And some of those

02:43:21.120 are going to be psychological

02:43:21.900 and some of them

02:43:22.500 are going to be practical.

02:43:23.560 And we're going to engage

02:43:24.560 in joint problem solving

02:43:26.160 of whatever sort is necessary

02:43:28.020 in order to

02:43:29.200 minimize the impact

02:43:31.860 of those problems

02:43:32.420 or to gain from the problems.

02:43:33.840 And dream analysis

02:43:34.680 can be extremely useful

02:43:35.860 for that,

02:43:36.240 by the way.

02:43:37.100 It's even more useful

02:43:38.200 for helping the person

02:43:39.480 identify what the goal is

02:43:40.940 because that's often

02:43:41.980 difficult for people.

02:43:43.020 It's like,

02:43:43.340 well,

02:43:43.480 I know that something's wrong

02:43:44.460 but I don't know

02:43:45.040 what I want.

02:43:46.300 Sometimes people get

02:43:47.140 so stuck there

02:43:47.760 that they just can't get,

02:43:48.800 they just can't get out of it.

02:43:51.200 So,

02:43:51.680 and then what would you

02:43:52.320 watch out for?

02:43:55.480 Phenomenologically,

02:43:56.420 the way it shows up,

02:43:57.340 the way it's experienced.

02:43:58.700 Well,

02:43:58.940 I would say as a clinician,

02:44:00.080 one of the things

02:44:00.600 that you should watch out for

02:44:01.640 is resentment.

02:44:03.400 So,

02:44:03.920 there's a couple of

02:44:05.300 rules of thumb

02:44:06.140 that I think are useful.

02:44:07.300 Don't do anything

02:44:07.900 for your clients

02:44:08.540 that they can do

02:44:09.080 for themselves.

02:44:10.320 And don't do them

02:44:11.080 any favors.

02:44:12.800 Now,

02:44:13.440 I think you can step

02:44:14.840 beyond

02:44:16.320 the confines

02:44:17.520 of your role

02:44:18.320 carefully

02:44:19.700 now and then

02:44:21.020 to show that

02:44:24.240 there's

02:44:25.620 a more human connection

02:44:27.600 than the merely

02:44:28.380 contractual.

02:44:29.780 I think that's

02:44:30.320 very useful.

02:44:31.600 But,

02:44:33.180 their problems

02:44:33.820 are not your problems.

02:44:34.900 You do not have

02:44:35.700 any right

02:44:36.040 to their problems.

02:44:37.420 And so,

02:44:37.680 you have to maintain

02:44:38.360 that detachment

02:44:39.100 because otherwise

02:44:39.640 you can steal

02:44:40.360 their destiny.

02:44:41.440 You don't want

02:44:42.100 to be the person

02:44:42.660 that solves

02:44:43.100 their problems

02:44:43.720 because you steal

02:44:44.840 their destiny

02:44:45.380 when you do that.

02:44:46.560 You want to be

02:44:47.020 someone with whom

02:44:48.260 they can figure

02:44:49.020 things out

02:44:49.620 for themselves.

02:44:51.100 And so,

02:44:51.580 there can be hubris

02:44:52.620 in being a clinician

02:44:53.500 because you can be

02:44:54.320 the problem solver

02:44:54.960 and that elevates

02:44:55.760 you to a position.

02:44:57.140 You elevate yourself

02:44:58.100 to that position,

02:44:58.680 you'll fall flat

02:44:59.360 on your face,

02:45:00.100 you'll hurt your clients

02:45:00.980 and things will kick

02:45:01.720 back on you

02:45:02.240 very,

02:45:02.560 very hard.

02:45:03.440 Because what the hell

02:45:04.280 do you know?

02:45:05.660 Right?

02:45:06.480 Nothing.

02:45:07.160 Because that person

02:45:07.940 is very complicated

02:45:08.820 and they need to,

02:45:09.940 they need to sort

02:45:11.240 themselves out.

02:45:12.780 And,

02:45:12.940 but you can be

02:45:13.400 a facilitator for that.

02:45:14.920 But that's all

02:45:15.460 you should be.

02:45:16.720 And so,

02:45:17.100 you have to watch that.

02:45:18.040 You have to watch

02:45:18.600 over,

02:45:19.680 becoming overly entangled.

02:45:21.540 So,

02:45:21.660 you have to maintain

02:45:22.180 your detachment

02:45:22.820 in the best sense.

02:45:24.680 And you have to

02:45:25.440 not overstep your,

02:45:26.980 it's easy to become

02:45:27.840 hubristic

02:45:28.420 when the person

02:45:29.360 is looking to you

02:45:30.300 for the answers.

02:45:31.820 It's like,

02:45:32.380 you might,

02:45:33.120 you don't have

02:45:33.580 the answers,

02:45:34.100 although you might

02:45:34.640 be able to find,

02:45:35.540 help the person

02:45:36.300 find their way.

02:45:38.100 That's what you do

02:45:38.700 with everyone you love

02:45:39.620 too,

02:45:39.960 right?

02:45:40.800 I mean,

02:45:41.500 you don't provide them

02:45:42.640 with the answers.

02:45:43.860 Because then they become

02:45:45.020 little clones of you.

02:45:47.260 And unhappy,

02:45:48.100 bitter,

02:45:48.500 resentful,

02:45:49.020 and angry little clones

02:45:50.060 of you.

02:45:50.840 Because you,

02:45:52.040 you usurp

02:45:52.820 their destiny.

02:45:54.820 And so,

02:45:56.120 the same thing

02:45:57.580 applies within

02:45:58.620 familiar arrangements

02:45:59.580 or friendships,

02:46:00.400 all of that.

02:46:02.220 So.

02:46:07.480 If you found

02:46:08.220 this conversation

02:46:08.940 meaningful,

02:46:09.720 you might think

02:46:10.260 about picking up

02:46:10.900 Dad's books,

02:46:11.640 Maps of Meaning,

02:46:12.340 The Architecture

02:46:12.880 of Belief,

02:46:13.960 or his newer

02:46:14.520 bestseller,

02:46:15.380 Twelve Rules for Life,

02:46:16.460 An Antidote to Chaos.

02:46:18.100 Both of these works

02:46:19.080 delve much deeper

02:46:19.880 into the topics

02:46:20.500 covered in the

02:46:21.100 Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

02:46:23.080 See jordanbpeterson.com

02:46:24.580 for audio,

02:46:25.300 e-book,

02:46:25.680 and text links,

02:46:26.640 or pick up the books

02:46:27.620 at your favorite

02:46:28.080 bookseller.

02:46:28.560 Remember to check out

02:46:30.180 jordanbpeterson.com

02:46:31.540 slash personality

02:46:32.360 for information

02:46:33.220 on his new course,

02:46:34.240 which is now

02:46:34.740 50% off.

02:46:36.220 I really hope

02:46:36.940 you enjoyed

02:46:37.340 this podcast.

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02:46:41.680 Next week's episode

02:46:42.600 is a continuation

02:46:43.300 of the Biblical Series

02:46:44.400 and is titled

02:46:45.280 The Call to Abraham.

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The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - May 31, 2020

Biblical Series： The Phenomenology of the Divine

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