The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - The Phenomenology of the Divine

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00:00:52.000 Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

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00:01:13.000 Hello, everyone. Thank you again for showing up.

00:01:34.000 So, tonight, we're going to finish off the story of Noah and also the story of the Tower of Babel.

00:01:48.000 I don't think that'll take very long.

00:01:51.000 And then we're going to turn to the Abrahamic stories.

00:01:57.000 And they're a very complex set of stories. They sit between the earliest stories in Genesis that I would say end with the Tower of Babel.

00:02:09.000 And then the stories of Moses, which are extraordinarily well developed.

00:02:14.000 The Abrahamic stories, there's a whole sequence of them.

00:02:17.000 Multiple stories conjoined together.

00:02:20.000 And they're... I found them very daunting. They're very difficult to understand.

00:02:26.000 And so, I'm going to stumble through them the best that I can, I would say.

00:02:31.000 That's probably the best way to think about this.

00:02:33.000 Because they have a narrative content that's quite strange.

00:02:39.000 I was reading a book while doing this called The Disappearance of God that I found quite helpful.

00:02:49.000 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.

00:03:03.000 In terms of personal appearances, even.

00:03:06.000 And then that proclivity fades away as the Old Testament develops.

00:03:11.000 And there's a parallel development that's maybe causally linked.

00:03:19.000 I'm not exactly sure how to conceptualize it, but that appears to be causally linked.

00:03:23.000 Is that the stories about individuals become more and more well developed.

00:03:30.000 So, it's as if, as God fades away, so to speak, the individual becomes more and more manifest.

00:03:38.000 And there's a statement in the Old Testament, the location of which I don't recall.

00:03:44.000 But I'll tell you about it in future lectures.

00:03:47.000 Where God essentially tells whoever he's speaking with, and I don't remember who that is.

00:03:54.000 That he's going to disappear and let man essentially go his own way.

00:03:58.000 And see what happens.

00:04:00.000 Not a complete disappearance, but maybe a transformation to something that modern people regard more as a psychological phenomena.

00:04:08.000 Rather than the sort of objective entity that God seems to be in the beginning of the biblical stories.

00:04:15.000 And so, I've been wrestling with that a lot.

00:04:17.000 Because the notion that God appears to Abraham multiple times.

00:04:25.000 And that's not a concept that's easy for modern people to grasp.

00:04:31.000 For us, generally speaking, apart from, say, issues of faith.

00:04:37.000 God isn't something, someone, who makes himself personally manifest in our lives.

00:04:45.000 He doesn't appear to us.

00:04:47.000 That's, I suppose, why the question of belief is so paramount for modern people.

00:04:53.000 I presume that if God was in the habit of appearing to you, you likely wouldn't have a problem with belief.

00:04:59.000 I mean, it might be more complicated than that, but that's how it seems to me.

00:05:03.000 And so, when we read stories about God making himself manifest, either to a nation, say in the case of Israel, or to individuals.

00:05:14.000 It's not easy to understand.

00:05:17.000 It's not easy to understand why people would write stories like that, if they thought like we thought.

00:05:22.000 And I mean, really, it wasn't that long ago that the Bible was written, say, from a biological perspective.

00:05:26.000 It's really only yesterday, it's a couple of thousand years.

00:05:29.000 Say, four thousand years, something like that.

00:05:32.000 That's not very long ago, from a biological perspective.

00:05:35.000 It's nothing.

00:05:38.000 So, the first thing I tried to do was to see if I could figure out how to understand that.

00:05:44.000 And so, I'll start the lecture, once we finish the remains of the story of Noah.

00:05:50.000 I'll start the lecture with an attempt to situate the Abrahamic stories in a context that might make them more accessible.

00:06:00.000 At least a context that worked for me to make them more accessible.

00:06:05.000 Let's conclude the Noah story first.

00:06:09.000 However, when we ended last time, the ark had come to its resting place and Noah and his family had debarked.

00:06:21.000 And so, this is the stories of what occurs immediately afterwards.

00:06:29.000 It's a very short story, but I think it's very relevant for both of these stories.

00:06:36.000 The Tower of Babel as well, very relevant for our current times.

00:06:39.000 And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth. 0.81

00:06:45.000 And Ham is the father of Canaan. 0.97

00:06:48.000 These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread.

00:06:52.000 And Noah began to be a husbandsman, and he planted a vineyard.

00:06:57.000 And he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent.

00:07:02.000 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without.

00:07:09.000 And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward,

00:07:14.000 and covered the nakedness of their father.

00:07:16.000 And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

00:07:20.000 And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

00:07:24.000 And he said, Cursed to be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

00:07:30.000 And he said, Blessed shall be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. 0.89

00:07:36.000 And God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. 0.96

00:07:42.000 And Noah lived after the flood 350 years, and all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

00:07:49.000 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

00:07:53.000 Okay, so, I remember thinking about this story.

00:07:59.000 It's got to be 30 years ago.

00:08:02.000 And I think the meaning of this story stood out for me.

00:08:08.000 Sometimes, when you read complicated material, sometimes a piece of it will stand out.

00:08:13.000 It's, for some reason, it's like it glitters, I suppose.

00:08:17.000 That might be one way of thinking about it.

00:08:19.000 It's, you're in sync with it, and you can understand what it means.

00:08:23.000 I've really experienced that reading the Dao Te Ching, which is a document I would really like to do a lecture on at some point.

00:08:29.000 Because some of the verses I don't understand, but others stand right out, and I can understand them.

00:08:33.000 And I think I understood what this part of the story of Noah meant.

00:08:36.000 And I think it means, you know, we talked a little bit about what nakedness meant in the story of Adam and Eve.

00:08:42.000 And the idea, essentially, was that to know yourself naked is to become aware of your vulnerability.

00:08:49.000 The physical, your physical boundaries in time and space, and your physiological, your fundamental physiological insufficiencies as they might be judged by others.

00:09:03.000 So, there's biological insufficiency that's sort of built into you because you're a fragile, mortal, vulnerable, half-insane creature.

00:09:10.000 And that's, that's just an existential truth.

00:09:12.000 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 that might be judged harshly by the group.

00:09:23.000 Well, might be, will definitely be judged harshly by the group.

00:09:27.000 And so, to become aware of your nakedness is to become self-conscious, and to know your limits, and to know your vulnerability.

00:09:34.000 And that's what is revealed to Ham when he comes across his father naked.

00:09:41.000 And so, the question is, what does it mean to see your father naked?

00:09:46.000 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, he does the same thing that happens in the Mesopotamian creation myth.

00:10:00.000 When, when Tiamat and Apsu give rise to the first gods, they're, they're the father of the eventual deity of redemption, Marduk.

00:10:11.000 They're very careless and noisy, and they kill Apsu, their father, and attempt to inhabit his corpse. 0.80

00:10:17.000 And that makes Tiamat enraged, and so she bursts forth from the darkness to, to do them in. 0.96

00:10:24.000 It's, it's like a precursor to the flood story, or, or an analog to the flood story.

00:10:28.000 And I, I see the same thing happening here with Ham, is that he's, he's insufficiently respectful of his father.

00:10:35.000 And, and the question is exactly, what does the father represent?

00:10:38.000 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.

00:10:46.000 But then there's the father as such, and that's the spirit of the father.

00:10:49.000 And, in so far as you have a father, you have both at the same time.

00:10:53.000 You have the personal father, that's a man among other men, just like any one other's father.

00:10:59.000 But, in so far as that man is your father, that means that he's something different than just another person.

00:11:06.000 And what he is, is the incarnation of the spirit of the father.

00:11:11.000 And, to see that, to take it, to what? To disrespect that carelessly.

00:11:17.000 Maybe even, like, Noah makes a mistake, right? He, he produces wine and gets himself drunk.

00:11:23.000 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 them.

00:11:30.000 But, the, the, the book is laying out a danger.

00:11:34.000 And, the danger is that, well, maybe you catch your father at his most vulnerable moment.

00:11:40.000 And, if you're disrespectful, then you transgress against the spirit of the father.

00:11:46.000 And, if you transgress against the spirit of the father, and lose respect for the spirit of the father.

00:11:52.000 Then, that is likely to transform you into a slave.

00:11:56.000 That's a very interesting idea.

00:11:58.000 And, I think it's particularly interesting.

00:12:00.000 Maybe not particularly interesting.

00:12:02.000 But, it's, it's particularly germane, I think, to our current cultural situation.

00:12:07.000 Because, I think that, we're pushed constantly to see the nakedness of our father, so to speak.

00:12:13.000 Because of the intense criticism that's directed towards our culture.

00:12:20.000 And, the patriarchal culture, so to speak.

00:12:23.000 We're constantly exposing its weaknesses and vulnerabilities and, let's say, nakedness.

00:12:28.000 And, there's nothing wrong with criticism.

00:12:32.000 But, the thing about criticism is, the purpose of criticism is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

00:12:37.000 It's not to burn everything to the ground, right?

00:12:40.000 It's to say, well, we're going to carefully look at this.

00:12:43.000 We're going to carefully differentiate.

00:12:44.000 We're going to keep what's good.

00:12:45.000 And, we're going to move away from what's bad.

00:12:47.000 But, the point of the criticism isn't to identify everything as bad.

00:12:51.000 It's to separate what's good from what's bad.

00:12:54.000 So that you can retain what's good and move towards it.

00:12:57.000 And, to be careless at that is deadly.

00:13:01.000 Because, you're inhabited by the spirit of the father, right?

00:13:04.000 Insofar as you're a cultural construction.

00:13:06.000 Which, of course, is something that the post-modern neo-Marxists are absolutely emphatic about.

00:13:12.000 You're a cultural construction.

00:13:14.000 Insofar as you're a cultural construction, then you're inhabited by the spirit of the father.

00:13:18.000 And, to be disrespectful towards that, means to undermine the very structure that makes you, not all of what you are, certainly, certainly not all of what you are.

00:13:28.000 But, a good portion of what you are, insofar as you're a socialized cultural entity.

00:13:33.000 And, if you pull out the...

00:13:36.000 If you pull the foundation out from underneath that, what do you have left?

00:13:40.000 You can hardly manage on your own.

00:13:43.000 You know, it's just not possible.

00:13:45.000 You're a cultural creation.

00:13:47.000 And, so, Ham makes this desperate error.

00:13:51.000 And, is careless about exposing himself to the vulnerability of his father.

00:13:58.000 Something like that.

00:13:59.000 He does it without sufficient respect.

00:14:01.000 And, the judgment is that, not only will he be a slave, but so will all of his descendants.

00:14:06.000 And, he's contrasted with the other two sons who, I suppose, are willing to give their father the benefit of the doubt.

00:14:14.000 Something like that.

00:14:15.000 And, so, when they see him in a compromising position, they handle it with respect.

00:14:20.000 And, don't capitalize on it.

00:14:24.000 And, maybe that makes them strong.

00:14:26.000 That's what it seems to me.

00:14:28.000 And, so, I think that's what that story means.

00:14:33.000 It has something to do with respect.

00:14:35.000 You know, and the funny thing about having respect for your culture.

00:14:40.000 And, I suppose that's partly why I'm doing the biblical stories.

00:14:42.000 Is because, they're part of our, they're part of my culture.

00:14:46.000 They're part of our culture, perhaps.

00:14:48.000 But, they're certainly part of my culture.

00:14:50.000 And, it seems to me that, it's worthwhile to treat that with respect.

00:14:56.000 To see what you can glean from it.

00:14:59.000 And, and not kick it when it's down, let's say.

00:15:04.000 So.

00:15:12.000 And, so, that's how the story of Noah ends.

00:15:14.000 You know, and, the thing too is, Noah is actually, a pretty decent incarnation of the spirit of the father.

00:15:21.000 That, which I suppose is one of the things that makes Ham's misstep more egregious.

00:15:27.000 Is that, I mean, Noah just built an ark and got everybody through the flood.

00:15:31.000 Man, you know.

00:15:32.000 It's not so bad.

00:15:33.000 And, so maybe, the fact that he happened to drink too much wine one day wasn't enough to justify humiliating him.

00:15:40.000 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.

00:15:50.000 Right?

00:15:51.000 And that's the ark that, you can think about that as the ark that's been bequeathed to us by our forefathers.

00:15:56.000 That's the tremendous infrastructure that we inhabit.

00:16:00.000 That we take for granted.

00:16:02.000 Because it works so well.

00:16:04.000 That protects us from things that we can't even imagine.

00:16:07.000 And we don't have to imagine because we're so well protected.

00:16:10.000 And so, one of the things that's really struck me hard, I would say, about the disintegration and corruption of the universities.

00:16:18.000 Is the absolute ingratitude that goes along with that.

00:16:21.000 You know, criticism, as I said, is a fine thing.

00:16:25.000 If it's done in the spirit, in a proper spirit.

00:16:28.000 And that's the spirit of separating the wheat from the chaff.

00:16:31.000 But it needs to be accompanied by gratitude.

00:16:33.000 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.

00:16:44.000 And who isn't simultaneously grateful for that, is half blind at least. 1.00

00:16:51.000 Because it's never been better than this.

00:16:54.000 And it could be so much worse.

00:16:56.000 And it's highly likely that it will be so much worse.

00:16:59.000 Because for most of human history, so much worse is the norm.

00:17:05.000 So...

00:17:11.000 Then there's this little story that crops up.

00:17:14.000 That seems in some ways unrelated to everything that's gone before it.

00:17:18.000 But I think it's also an extremely profound little story.

00:17:22.000 It took me a long time to figure it out.

00:17:24.000 It's the Tower of Babel. 0.97

00:17:27.000 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there.

00:17:33.000 That's Noah's descendants. 0.91

00:17:36.000 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

00:17:39.000 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar.

00:17:43.000 And they dwelt there.

00:17:44.000 And they said to one another, 0.98

00:17:46.000 Go, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly.

00:17:48.000 And they had brick for stone and slime they had for mortar.

00:17:52.000 So they're establishing a city.

00:17:55.000 And they said,

00:17:56.000 Go, let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven.

00:18:01.000 And let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.

00:18:06.000 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. 0.82

00:18:13.000 And the Lord said,

00:18:15.000 Behold, the people is one, and they all have one language.

00:18:18.000 And now this they begin to do.

00:18:20.000 And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.

00:18:25.000 Go to, let us go down in their confound, their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

00:18:31.000 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence,

00:18:34.000 upon the face of all the earth.

00:18:36.000 And they left off to build the city.

00:18:38.000 Therefore, is the name of it called Babel.

00:18:42.000 Because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.

00:18:45.000 And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. 0.93

00:18:50.000 It's a very difficult story to understand.

00:18:53.000 It's, on the face of it, it doesn't seem to show God in a very good light.

00:18:57.000 Although that happens fairly frequently in the Old Testament as far as I can tell.

00:19:01.000 But, you know, the thing to do if you're reading in the spirit of the text, let's say,

00:19:09.000 is to remember that it's God that you're talking about.

00:19:12.000 And so, even though you might think that he's appearing in a bad light,

00:19:18.000 your duty as a reader, I suppose, is to assume that you're wrong and that what he did was right.

00:19:24.000 And then you're supposed to figure out, well, how could it possibly be right?

00:19:27.000 Because the axiomatic presupposition is that it's God and whatever he does is right.

00:19:31.000 And you might say, well, you can disagree with that.

00:19:33.000 And it's also the case that some of the people that God talks to in the Old Testament

00:19:38.000 actually disagree with him and convince him to alter his actions.

00:19:41.000 But the point still remains that it's God and if he's doing it then, by definition, there's a good reason.

00:19:48.000 There's an idea much later that John Milton develops in Paradise Lost, which is an amazing poem.

00:20:01.000 And it's a profound enough poem so that it's almost been incorporated into the biblical structure, I would say.

00:20:09.000 So, the corpus of Christianity post-Milton was saturated by the Miltonic stories of Satan's rebellion.

00:20:21.000 None of that's in the biblical texts.

00:20:24.000 It's only hinted at in very brief passages.

00:20:27.000 And Milton wrote his poem to justify the ways of God to man, which is quite an ambition.

00:20:36.000 Really, it's an amazing, profound ambition to try to produce something, to produce a literary work that justifies being to human beings.

00:20:48.000 Because that's what Milton was trying to do.

00:20:50.000 One of my readers here sent me a link the other day, for viewers, to a work of philosophy by an Australian philosopher,

00:20:58.000 whose name I don't remember, who basically wrote a book saying that being as such, human experience is so corrupt and so permeated by suffering,

00:21:08.000 that it would be better if it had never existed at all.

00:21:12.000 It's sort of the ultimate expression of nihilism.

00:21:14.000 And Goethe, in Faust, his Mephistopheles, who's a satanic character, obviously, has that as a credo.

00:21:22.000 That's Satan's fundamental motivation is his objection to creation itself,

00:21:29.000 is that creation is so flawed and so rife with suffering that it would be better if it had never existed at all.

00:21:34.000 And so that's his motivation for attempting to continue to destroy it.

00:21:39.000 In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan is an intellectual figure.

00:21:45.000 And you see that motif emerge very frequently, by the way, in popular culture.

00:21:50.000 So, for example, in The Lion King, the figure of Scar, who's a satanic figure, is also hyper-intellectual.

00:21:57.000 And that's very common that, you know, it's the evil scientist motif, or the evil advisor to the king, the same motif.

00:22:04.000 It encapsulates something about rationality, and what it seems to encapsulate is the idea that rationality, like Satan,

00:22:11.000 is the highest angel in God's heavenly kingdom.

00:22:14.000 It's a psychological idea, you know, that the most powerful sub-element of the human psyche is the intellect.

00:22:21.000 And it's the thing that shines out above all, within the domain of humanity, and maybe across the domain of life itself.

00:22:31.000 The human intellect, there's something absolutely remarkable about it, but it has a flaw.

00:22:35.000 And the flaw is that it tends to fall in love with its own productions, and to assume that they're total.

00:22:40.000 Solzhenitsyn, when he was writing The Gulag Archipelago, had a warning about that, with regards to totalitarian ideology.

00:22:48.000 And he said that, the price of selling your God-given soul to the entrapments of human dogma was slavery and death, essentially.

00:22:59.000 And Satan, in Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan decides that he can do without the transcendent.

00:23:11.000 He can do without God, and that's why he foments rebellion.

00:23:14.000 It's something like that. And the consequence of that, the immediate consequence from Milton's perspective was that,

00:23:20.000 as soon as Satan decided that what he knew was sufficient, and that he could do without the transcendent,

00:23:28.000 which you might think about as the domain outside of what you know, something like that,

00:23:33.000 immediately he was in hell.

00:23:35.000 And, when I read Paradise Lost, I was studying totalitarianism, and I thought, you know, the poet,

00:23:42.000 the true poet, like a prophet, is someone who has intimations of the future.

00:23:49.000 And maybe that's because the poetic mind, the philosophical or prophetic mind, is a pattern detector,

00:23:55.000 and there are people who can detect the underlying, it's like the melody of a nation.

00:24:01.000 Melody, as in song, the song of a nation, and can see how it's going to develop across.

00:24:08.000 Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

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00:27:10.000 Hello, everyone.

00:27:31.000 Thank you again for showing up.

00:27:34.000 So, tonight, we're going to finish off the story of Noah and also the story of the Tower of Babel.

00:27:47.000 And I don't think that'll take very long.

00:27:50.000 And then we're going to turn to the Abrahamic stories.

00:27:56.000 And they're a very complex set of stories.

00:28:00.000 They sit between the earliest stories in Genesis that I would say end with the Tower of Babel.

00:28:08.000 And then the stories of Moses, which are extraordinarily well-developed.

00:28:13.000 The Abrahamic stories, there's a whole sequence of them.

00:28:16.000 Multiple stories conjoined together.

00:28:19.000 And I found them very daunting.

00:28:23.000 They're very difficult to understand.

00:28:26.000 And so, I'm going to stumble through them the best that I can, I would say.

00:28:30.000 That's probably the best way to think about this.

00:28:32.000 Because they have a narrative content that's quite strange.

00:28:38.000 I was reading a book while doing this called The Disappearance of God that I found quite helpful.

00:28:48.000 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.

00:29:01.000 In terms of personal appearances even.

00:29:05.000 And then that proclivity fades away as the Old Testament develops.

00:29:10.000 And there's a parallel development that's maybe causally linked.

00:29:18.000 I'm not exactly sure how to conceptualize it, but it appears to be causally linked.

00:29:22.000 Is that the stories about individuals become more and more well-developed.

00:29:29.000 So it's as if, as God fades away, so to speak, the individual becomes more and more manifest.

00:29:37.000 And there's a statement in the Old Testament, the location of which I don't recall.

00:29:44.000 But I'll tell you about it in future lectures.

00:29:46.000 Where God essentially tells whoever he's speaking with.

00:29:51.000 And I don't remember who that is.

00:29:53.000 That he's going to disappear and let man essentially go his own way.

00:29:57.000 And see what happens.

00:29:58.000 Not a complete disappearance, but maybe a transformation into something that modern people regard more as a psychological phenomena.

00:30:06.000 Rather than the sort of objective entity that God seems to be in the beginning of the biblical stories.

00:30:13.000 And so I've been wrestling with that a lot.

00:30:16.000 Because the notion that God appears to Abraham multiple times.

00:30:23.000 And that's not a concept that's easy for modern people to grasp.

00:30:29.000 For us, generally speaking, apart from, say, issues of faith.

00:30:36.000 God isn't something, someone, who makes himself personally manifest in our lives.

00:30:44.000 He doesn't appear to us.

00:30:46.000 That's, I suppose, why the question of belief is so paramount for modern people.

00:30:52.000 I presume that if God was in the habit of appearing to you, you likely wouldn't have a problem with belief.

00:30:58.000 I mean, it might be more complicated than that, but that's how it seems to me.

00:31:02.000 And so when we read stories about God making himself manifest, either to a nation, say in the case of Israel, or to individuals.

00:31:13.000 It's not easy to understand.

00:31:16.000 It's not easy to understand why people would write stories like that, if they thought like we thought.

00:31:21.000 And I mean, really, it wasn't that long ago that the Bible was written, say, from a biological perspective.

00:31:25.000 It's really only yesterday, it's a couple of thousand years.

00:31:28.000 Say, four thousand years, something like that.

00:31:31.000 That's not very long ago, from a biological perspective.

00:31:34.000 It's nothing.

00:31:37.000 So, the first thing I tried to do was to see if I could figure out how to understand that.

00:31:43.000 And so I'll start the lecture, once we finish the remains of the story of Noah.

00:31:49.000 I'll start the lecture with an attempt to situate the Abrahamic stories in a context that might make them more accessible.

00:31:59.000 At least a context that worked for me to make them more accessible.

00:32:03.000 Let's conclude the Noah story first, however.

00:32:09.000 When we ended last time, the ark had come to its resting place, and Noah and his family had debarked.

00:32:20.000 And so this is the stories of what occurs immediately afterwards.

00:32:28.000 It's a very short story, but I think it's very relevant for both of these stories.

00:32:35.000 The Tower of Babel as well, very relevant for our current times.

00:32:38.000 And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth. 0.81

00:32:43.000 And Ham is the father of Canaan. 0.97

00:32:46.000 These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread.

00:32:51.000 And Noah began to be a husbandsman, and he planted a vineyard.

00:32:56.000 And he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent.

00:33:01.000 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

00:33:08.000 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward,

00:33:13.000 and covered the nakedness of their father.

00:33:15.000 And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

00:33:19.000 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

00:33:23.000 And he said, Cursed to be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

00:33:30.000 And he said, Blessed shall be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. 0.89

00:33:35.000 And God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. 0.96

00:33:41.000 And Noah lived after the flood 350 years, and all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

00:33:48.000 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

00:33:52.000 Okay, so, I remember thinking about this story.

00:33:58.000 It's got to be 30 years ago.

00:34:01.000 And I think the meaning of this story stood out for me.

00:34:07.000 Sometimes, when you read complicated material, sometimes a piece of it will stand out.

00:34:13.000 It's, for some reason, it's like it glitters, I suppose.

00:34:16.000 That might be one way of thinking about it.

00:34:18.000 It's, you're in sync with it, and you can understand what it means.

00:34:22.000 I've really experienced that reading the Dao Te Ching, which is a document I would really like to do a lecture on at some point.

00:34:28.000 Because some of the verses I don't understand, but others stand right out, and I can understand them.

00:34:32.000 And I think I understood what this part of the story of Noah meant.

00:34:35.000 And I think it means, you know, we talked a little bit about what nakedness meant in the story of Adam and Eve.

00:34:41.000 And the idea, essentially, was that to know yourself naked, is to become aware of your vulnerability.

00:34:48.000 The physical, your physical boundaries in time and space, and your physiological, your fundamental physiological insufficiencies, as they might be judged by others.

00:35:02.000 So, there's biological insufficiency that's sort of built into you, because you're a fragile, mortal, vulnerable, half-insane creature.

00:35:09.000 And that's just an existential truth.

00:35:11.000 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, that might be judged harshly by the group.

00:35:22.000 Well, might be, will definitely be judged harshly by the group.

00:35:26.000 And so, to become aware of your nakedness, is to become self-conscious, and to know your limits, and to know your vulnerability.

00:35:33.000 And that's what is revealed to Ham, when he comes across his father naked.

00:35:40.000 And so, the question is, what does it mean to see your father naked?

00:35:44.000 And it seems to me, and especially in an inappropriate manner like this, it's as if Ham...

00:35:55.000 He does the same thing that happens in the Mesopotamian creation myth, when Taimat and Apsu give rise to the first gods.

00:36:04.000 They're the father of the eventual deity of redemption, Marduk.

00:36:10.000 They're very careless and noisy, and they kill Apsu, their father, and attempt to inhabit his corpse. 0.80

00:36:16.000 And that makes Taimat enraged, and so she bursts forth from the darkness to do them in. 0.92

00:36:23.000 It's like a precursor to the flood story, or an analog to the flood story.

00:36:27.000 And I see the same thing happening here with Ham, is that he's insufficiently respectful of his father.

00:36:34.000 And the question is, exactly what does the father represent?

00:36:37.000 And you could say, well, there's the father that you have, and that's a human being, that's a man like other men.

00:36:44.000 A man among men.

00:36:45.000 But then there's the father as such, and that's the spirit of the father.

00:36:48.000 And insofar as you have a father, you have both at the same time.

00:36:52.000 You have the personal father, that's a man among other men, just like anyone other's father.

00:36:58.000 But insofar as that man is your father, that means that he's something different than just another person.

00:37:05.000 And what he is, is the incarnation of the spirit of the father.

00:37:10.000 And to see that, to take it to what? To disrespect that carelessly.

00:37:17.000 Maybe even, like, Noah makes a mistake, right?

00:37:20.000 He produces wine and gets himself drunk.

00:37:23.000 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 them.

00:37:29.000 But the book is laying out a danger.

00:37:33.000 And the danger is that, well, maybe you catch your father at his most vulnerable moment.

00:37:39.000 And if you're disrespectful, then you transgress against the spirit of the father.

00:37:45.000 And if you transgress against the spirit of the father, and lose respect for the spirit of the father,

00:37:51.000 then that is likely to transform you into a slave.

00:37:56.000 That's a very interesting idea. And I think it's particularly interesting.

00:38:00.000 Maybe not particularly interesting, but it's particularly germane, I think, to our current cultural situation.

00:38:07.000 Because I think that we're pushed constantly to see the nakedness of our father, so to speak.

00:38:14.000 Because of the intense criticism that's directed towards our culture, and the patriarchal culture, so to speak.

00:38:23.000 We're constantly exposing its weaknesses and vulnerabilities and, let's say, nakedness.

00:38:28.000 And there's nothing wrong with criticism.

00:38:31.000 But the thing about criticism is the purpose of criticism is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

00:38:36.000 It's not to burn everything to the ground, right?

00:38:39.000 It's to say, well, we're going to carefully look at this.

00:38:42.000 We're going to carefully differentiate.

00:38:44.000 We're going to keep what's good, and we're going to move away from what's bad.

00:38:46.000 But the point of the criticism isn't to identify everything as bad.

00:38:50.000 It's to separate what's good from what's bad so that you can retain what's good and move towards it.

00:38:56.000 And to be careless at that is deadly because you're inhabited by the spirit of the father, right?

00:39:03.000 Insofar as you're a cultural construction, which, of course, is something that the postmodern neo-Marxists are absolutely emphatic about.

00:39:12.000 You're a cultural construction.

00:39:13.000 Insofar as you're a cultural construction, then you're inhabited by the spirit of the father.

00:39:17.000 And to be disrespectful towards that means to undermine the very structure that makes you not all of what you are, certainly.

00:39:26.000 Certainly not all of what you are, but a good portion of what you are, insofar as you're a socialized cultural entity.

00:39:33.000 And if you pull the foundation out from underneath that, what do you have left?

00:39:40.000 You can hardly manage on your own.

00:39:42.000 You know, it's just not possible. You're a cultural creation.

00:39:47.000 And so Ham makes this desperate error and is careless about exposing himself to the vulnerability of his father, something like that.

00:39:58.000 He does it without sufficient respect.

00:40:00.000 And the judgment is that not only will he be a slave, but so will all of his descendants. 0.74

00:40:06.000 And he's contrasted with the other two sons who, I suppose, are willing to give their father the benefit of the doubt, something like that.

00:40:14.000 And so when they see him in a compromising position, they handle it with respect and don't capitalize on it.

00:40:23.000 And maybe that makes them strong. That's what it seems to me.

00:40:27.000 And so I think that's what that story means.

00:40:30.000 It has something to do with respect.

00:40:35.000 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,

00:40:41.000 is because they're part of my culture.

00:40:45.000 They're part of our culture, perhaps, but they're certainly part of my culture.

00:40:49.000 And it seems to me that it's worthwhile to treat that with respect to see what you can glean from it.

00:40:58.000 And not kick it when it's down, let's say.

00:41:03.000 So...

00:41:11.000 And so that's how the story of Noah ends.

00:41:13.000 You know, and the thing too is, Noah is actually a pretty decent incarnation of the spirit of the Father.

00:41:20.000 Which I suppose is one of the things that makes Ham's misstep more egregious.

00:41:27.000 Is that, I mean, Noah just built an ark and got everybody through the flood.

00:41:31.000 Man, you know, it's not so bad.

00:41:33.000 And so maybe the fact that he happened to drink too much wine one day wasn't enough to justify humiliating him.

00:41:40.000 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.

00:41:49.000 Right? And that's the ark that, you can think about that as the ark that's been bequeathed to us by our forefathers.

00:41:55.000 That's the tremendous infrastructure that we inhabit.

00:41:59.000 That we take for granted.

00:42:01.000 Because it works so well.

00:42:03.000 That protects us from things that we can't even imagine.

00:42:06.000 And we don't have to imagine because we're so well protected.

00:42:09.000 And so, one of the things that's really struck me hard, I would say, about the disintegration and corruption of the universities.

00:42:16.000 Is the absolute ingratitude that goes along with that.

00:42:20.000 You know, criticism, as I said, is a fine thing.

00:42:24.000 If it's done in the spirit, in a proper spirit.

00:42:27.000 And that's the spirit of separating the wheat from the chaff.

00:42:30.000 But it needs to be accompanied by gratitude.

00:42:32.000 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.

00:42:43.000 And who isn't simultaneously grateful for that, is half blind, at least. 1.00

00:42:50.000 Because it's never been better than this.

00:42:53.000 And it could be so much worse.

00:42:55.000 And it's highly likely that it will be so much worse.

00:42:58.000 Because for most of human history, so much worse is the norm.

00:43:04.000 So...

00:43:05.000 Then there's this little story that crops up.

00:43:13.000 That seems, in some ways, unrelated to everything that's gone before it.

00:43:17.000 But I think it's also an extremely profound little story.

00:43:21.000 It took me a long time to figure it out.

00:43:23.000 It's the Tower of Babel. 0.97

00:43:25.000 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there.

00:43:32.000 That's Noah's descendants. 0.91

00:43:35.000 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.

00:43:38.000 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.

00:43:43.000 And they said to one another,

00:43:45.000 Go, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.

00:43:47.000 And they had brick for stone, and slime they had for mortar.

00:43:52.000 So they're establishing a city.

00:43:54.000 And they said,

00:43:55.000 Go, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.

00:44:00.000 And let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.

00:44:07.000 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. 0.82

00:44:11.000 And the Lord said,

00:44:14.000 Behold, the people is one, and they all have one language, and now this they begin to do.

00:44:19.000 And now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

00:44:23.000 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

00:44:30.000 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city.

00:44:37.000 Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth. 0.96

00:44:44.000 And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. 0.93

00:44:49.000 It's a very difficult story to understand.

00:44:52.000 On the face of it, it doesn't seem to show God in a very good light.

00:44:56.000 Although that happens fairly frequently in the Old Testament, as far as I can tell.

00:45:00.000 But, you know, the thing to do, if you're reading in the spirit of the text, let's say, is to remember that it's God that you're talking about.

00:45:11.000 And so, even though you might think that he's appearing in a bad light, your duty, as a reader, I suppose, is to assume that you're wrong and that what he did was right.

00:45:23.000 And then you're supposed to figure out, well, how could it possibly be right?

00:45:26.000 Because the axiomatic presupposition is that it's God, and whatever he does is right.

00:45:30.000 And you might say, well, you can disagree with that.

00:45:32.000 And it's also the case that some of the people that God talks to in the Old Testament actually disagree with him and convince him to alter his actions.

00:45:40.000 But the point still remains that it's God, and if he's doing it, then, by definition, there's a good reason.

00:45:51.000 There's an idea much later that John Milton develops in Paradise Lost, which is an amazing poem.

00:46:00.000 It's a profound enough poem so that it's almost being incorporated into the biblical structure, I would say.

00:46:08.000 So, the corpus of Christianity, post-Milton, was saturated by the Miltonic stories of Satan's rebellion.

00:46:19.000 None of that's in the biblical texts. It's only hinted at in very brief passages.

00:46:26.000 And Milton wrote his poem to justify the ways of God to man, which is quite an ambition, really.

00:46:36.000 It's an amazing, profound ambition to try to produce something, to produce a literary work that justifies being to human beings.

00:46:47.000 Because that's what Milton was trying to do. One of my readers here sent me a link the other day, or viewers, to a work of philosophy by an Australian philosopher,

00:46:57.000 whose name I don't remember, who basically wrote a book saying that, being as such, human experience is so corrupt and so permeated by suffering,

00:47:07.000 that it would be better if it had never existed at all.

00:47:11.000 It's sort of the ultimate expression of nihilism.

00:47:13.000 And Goethe, in Faust, his Mephistopheles, who's a satanic character, obviously, has that as a credo.

00:47:21.000 That's Satan's fundamental motivation, is his objection to creation itself, is that creation is so flawed and so rife with suffering,

00:47:31.000 that it would be better if it had never existed at all.

00:47:34.000 And so that's his motivation for attempting to continue to destroy it.

00:47:39.000 In Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan is an intellectual figure, and you see that motif emerge very frequently, by the way, in popular culture.

00:47:50.000 So, for example, in The Lion King, the figure of Scar, who's a satanic figure, is also hyper-intellectual.

00:47:57.000 And that's very common, that, you know, it's the evil scientist motif, or the evil advisor to the king, the same motif.

00:48:04.000 It encapsulates something about rationality, and what it seems to encapsulate is the idea that rationality, like Satan, is the highest angel in God's heavenly kingdom.

00:48:13.000 It's a psychological idea, you know, that the most powerful sub-element of the human psyche is the intellect.

00:48:20.000 And it's the thing that shines out above all, within the domain of humanity, and maybe across the domain of life itself.

00:48:30.000 The human intellect, there's something absolutely remarkable about it, but it has a flaw.

00:48:34.000 And the flaw is that it tends to fall in love with its own productions, and to assume that they are total.

00:48:39.000 Solzhenitsyn, when he was writing The Gulag Archipelago, had a warning about that, with regards to totalitarian ideology.

00:48:48.000 And he said that, the price of selling your God-given soul to the entrapments of human dogma was slavery and death, essentially.

00:48:57.000 And Satan, in Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan decides that he can do without the transcendent, he can do without God.

00:49:11.000 And that's why he foments rebellion. It's something like that.

00:49:14.000 And the consequence of that, the immediate consequence from Milton's perspective, was that as soon as Satan decided that what he knew was sufficient,

00:49:24.000 and that he could do without the transcendent, which you might think about as the domain outside of what you know, something like that, immediately he was in hell.

00:49:34.000 And, when I read Paradise Lost, I was studying totalitarianism, and I thought, you know, the poet, the true poet, like a prophet, is someone who has intimations of the future.

00:49:48.000 And maybe that's because the poetic mind, the philosophical or prophetic mind, is a pattern detector, and there are people who can detect the underlying, it's like the melody of a nation.

00:50:00.000 Melody, as in song, the song of a nation, and can see how it's going to develop across the centuries.

00:50:05.000 You see this, you see that in Nietzsche, because Nietzsche, for example, in the mid, you know, around 1860 or so, I mean, he prophesied what was going to happen in the 20th century.

00:50:14.000 He said that, he said specifically that the specter of communism would kill millions of people in the 20th century.

00:50:21.000 It's an amazing prophecy. He said that in the notes that became Will to Power.

00:50:25.000 And Dostoevsky was of the same sort of mind, someone who was in touch enough with the fundamental patterns of human movement that they could extrapolate out into the future and see what was coming.

00:50:39.000 And, I mean, some people are very good at detecting patterns, you know, and Milton, I think, was of that sort.

00:50:47.000 And, I think he had intimations of what was coming as human rationality became more and more powerful and technology became more and more powerful.

00:50:56.000 And the intimation was that we would produce systems that dispensed with God, that were completely rational and completely total, that would immediately turn everything they touched into something indistinguishable from hell.

00:51:10.000 And Milton's warning was, it's embodied in the poem, is that the rational mind that generates a production and then worships it as if it's absolute immediately occupies hell.

00:51:25.000 So what does that have to do with the Tower of Babel?

00:51:29.000 Well, you know what, back in 2008, when we had that economic collapse, this strange idea emerged politically, and that was the idea of too big to fail.

00:51:44.000 And I thought about that idea for a long time, because I thought, there's something deeply wrong with that.

00:51:50.000 Because one of the things that made Marx wrong was, Marx believed that capital would flow into the hands of fewer and fewer people.

00:52:01.000 And that the dissociation between the rich and the poor would become more extreme as capitalism developed.

00:52:07.000 And, like so many things that Marx said, that's, it's kind of true. 1.00

00:52:14.000 It's kind of true in that, the distribution of wealth, in fact, the distribution of anything that's produced, follows a Pareto pattern.

00:52:24.000 And the Pareto pattern, basically, is that a small proportion of people end up with the bulk of the goods.

00:52:29.000 And it isn't just money, it's anything that people produce creatively, ends up in that distribution.

00:52:37.000 And that's actually, the economists call that the Matthew Principle, and they take that from a statement in the New Testament.

00:52:43.000 And the statement is, to those who have everything, more will be given, and from those who have nothing, everything will be taken.

00:52:49.000 And it's, it's a map of the manner in which the world manifests itself, where human creative production is involved.

00:52:57.000 And the map seems to indicate that as you start to produce, and you're successful, the probability that you will continue to be successful or accelerate increases as you're successful.

00:53:06.000 And as you fail, the probability that you will fail starts to accelerate.

00:53:10.000 So, your progress through life looks like this, or like this, something like that.

00:53:16.000 And the reason that Marx was right, was because he noted that as a feature of the capitalist system.

00:53:24.000 The reason that he was wrong is that it's not a feature that's specific to a capitalist system.

00:53:29.000 It's a feature that's general to all systems of creative production that are known.

00:53:34.000 And so it's like a natural law, and it's enough of a natural law, by the way, that the distribution of wealth can be modeled by physical models,

00:53:42.000 using the same equations that govern the distribution of gas molecules in a vacuum.

00:53:47.000 So it's a really profound, it's a fundamentally profound observation about the world, the way the world lays itself out.

00:53:54.000 And it's problematic, because if resources accrue unfairly to a small minority of people, and there's a natural law-like element to that, that has to be dealt with from a social perspective.

00:54:10.000 Because if the inequality becomes too extreme, then the whole system will destabilize.

00:54:17.000 And so you can have an intelligent discussion about how to mitigate the effects of the transfer of creative production into the hands of a small number of people.

00:54:29.000 Now, the other reason, however, having said that, the other reason that Marx was wrong, there's a number of them.

00:54:36.000 One is that, even though creative products end up in the hands of a small number of people, it's not the same people consistently across time.

00:54:49.000 It's the same proportion of people. And that's not the same thing.

00:54:53.000 You know, like, imagine that there's water going down a drain, and you say, well, look at the spiral.

00:54:58.000 It's permanent. You think, well, the spiral's permanent, but the water molecules aren't. They're moving through it.

00:55:03.000 And it's the same, in some sense, with the Pareto distribution, is that there's a 1%, and there's always a 1%, but it's not the same people.

00:55:10.000 And the stability of it differs from culture to culture.

00:55:16.000 But there's a lot of movement in the upper 1%, a tremendous amount of movement.

00:55:20.000 And one of the reasons for that movement is that things get large, and then they get too large, and then they collapse.

00:55:29.000 And so, in 2008, when the politicians said, too big to fail, they got something truly backwards, as far as I can tell.

00:55:38.000 And that was, it was a reverse, the statement was reversed. It should have been, so big it had to fail.

00:55:48.000 And that's what I think the story of the Tower of Babel is about. It's a warning against the expansion of a system until it encompasses everything. 0.87

00:56:01.000 It's a warning against totalitarian presumption.

00:56:04.000 So what happens, for example, when people set out to build the Tower of Babel, is they want to build a structure that reaches to Heaven. 0.62

00:56:11.000 Right? So the idea is that it can replace the role of God. It's something like that.

00:56:19.000 It can erase the distinction between Earth and Heaven. And so there's a utopian kind of vision there, as well.

00:56:25.000 We can build a structure that's so large and encompassing, that it can replace Heaven itself.

00:56:34.000 And that's an interesting, the fact that that doesn't work, and that God objects to it, is also extraordinarily interesting.

00:56:40.000 And it's an indication to me of the unbelievable profundity of these stories.

00:56:44.000 It's like, I think one thing we should have learned from the 20th century, but of course didn't, was that there's something extraordinarily dangerous about totalitarian utopian visions.

00:56:54.000 That's something Dostoevsky wrote about, by the way, in his great book, Notes from Underground.

00:56:59.000 Because Dostoevsky had figured out, by the early 1900s, that there was something very, very pathological about a utopian vision of perfection.

00:57:08.000 That it was profoundly anti-human.

00:57:10.000 And in Notes from Underground, he demolishes the notion of utopia.

00:57:15.000 One of the things he says that I loved, it's so brilliant.

00:57:18.000 He said, imagine that you brought the socialist utopia into being.

00:57:22.000 And Dostoevsky says that human beings had nothing to do, except eat, drink, and busy themselves with the continuation of the species.

00:57:35.000 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.

00:57:44.000 Smash it.

00:57:45.000 Just so that something unexpected and crazy could happen.

00:57:48.000 Because human beings don't want utopian comfort and certainty.

00:57:53.000 They want adventure and chaos and uncertainty.

00:57:57.000 And so that the very notion of a utopia was anti-human.

00:58:00.000 Because we're not built for static utopia.

00:58:04.000 We're built for a dynamic situation where there's demands placed on us.

00:58:12.000 And where there's the optimal amount of uncertainty.

00:58:16.000 Well, we know what happened in the 20th century as a consequence of the widespread promulgation of utopian schemes.

00:58:25.000 And what happened was mayhem on a scale that had never been matched in the entire history of humanity.

00:58:32.000 And that's really saying something, because there was plenty of mayhem before the 20th century.

00:58:40.000 I guess there wasn't as much industrial clout behind it.

00:58:44.000 And so, so early, you see, so early in the biblical narrative you have a warning against hubris.

00:58:52.000 And some indication that properly functioning systems have an appropriate scale.

00:59:01.000 I read an article in The Economist magazine this week about the rise of nationalist movements all over the world.

00:59:09.000 As a counterbalance to globalization.

00:59:12.000 Maybe it's most marked with the European economic community.

00:59:16.000 And the Economist writers were curious about why that counter-movement has been developing.

00:59:22.000 But it seems to me that it's also a Tower of Babel phenomena.

00:59:26.000 Is that, and maybe this is most evident in the European economic community.

00:59:33.000 To bring all of that multiplicity under the, what would you call it, under the umbrella of a single unity.

00:59:43.000 Is to simultaneously erect a system where the top is so far from the bottom.

00:59:48.000 That the bottom has no connection to the top.

00:59:51.000 You know, your social systems have to be large enough so they protect you.

00:59:57.000 But small enough so that you have a place in them.

01:00:00.000 And it seems to me, perhaps, that's what's happened in places like the EEC.

01:00:05.000 Is that the distance between the typical citizen and the bureaucracy that runs the entire structure.

01:00:12.000 Has got so great that it's an element of destabilization in and of itself.

01:00:19.000 And so people revert back to say nationalistic identities.

01:00:23.000 Because it's something that they can relate to.

01:00:29.000 There's a history there and a shared identity. A genuine identity.

01:00:34.000 An identity of language and tradition.

01:00:37.000 That's not an artificial imposition from the top.

01:00:39.000 An artificial abstract imposition.

01:00:50.000 In the Egyptian creation myth.

01:00:54.000 The version I'm familiar, most familiar with.

01:00:57.000 In the previous creation myth, an older one, the Mesopotamian creation myth.

01:01:02.000 Mostly what you see menacing humanity is Tiamat. 1.00

01:01:07.000 She's the dragon of chaos. 1.00

01:01:09.000 And so that's nature.

01:01:10.000 It's really, it's really mother nature.

01:01:13.000 Red in tooth and claw.

01:01:15.000 But by the time the Egyptians come along. 1.00

01:01:20.000 It isn't only nature that threatens humanity.

01:01:24.000 It's the social structure itself.

01:01:26.000 And so the Egyptians had two deities that represented the social structure.

01:01:30.000 And one was Osiris who was like the spirit of the father.

01:01:34.000 He was a great hero who established Egypt.

01:01:37.000 But became old and willfully blind and senile.

01:01:45.000 And he had an evil brother named Seth.

01:01:47.000 And Seth was always conspiring to overthrow him.

01:01:51.000 And because Osiris ignored him long enough, Seth did overthrow him.

01:01:57.000 Chopped him into pieces and distributed him all around the kingdom.

01:02:01.000 And his son Horus had to come back and fight.

01:02:04.000 Osiris' son Horus had to come back and defeat Seth to take the kingdom back.

01:02:09.000 And that's how that story ends.

01:02:11.000 But the Egyptians seem to have realized. 0.94

01:02:13.000 Maybe because they had become bureaucratized to quite a substantial degree.

01:02:17.000 That it wasn't only nature that threatened humankind.

01:02:21.000 It was also the proclivity of human organizations.

01:02:24.000 To become too large, too unwieldy.

01:02:27.000 Too deceitful and too willfully blind.

01:02:30.000 And therefore liable to collapse.

01:02:33.000 And again, I see echoes of that in this story of the Tower of Babel.

01:02:36.000 So, it's a calling for a kind of humility of social engineering.

01:02:47.000 One of the other things I've learned as a social scientist.

01:02:53.000 And I've been warned about this by, I would say, great social scientists.

01:02:57.000 That you want to be very careful about doing large-scale experimentation with large-scale systems.

01:03:05.000 Because the probability that if you implement a scheme in a large-scale social system.

01:03:11.000 That that scheme will have the result you intended.

01:03:14.000 Is negligible.

01:03:15.000 What will happen will be something that you don't intend.

01:03:18.000 And even worse.

01:03:20.000 Something that works at counter purposes to your original intent.

01:03:23.000 And so.

01:03:25.000 And that makes sense.

01:03:27.000 Because.

01:03:28.000 If you have a very, very complex system.

01:03:30.000 And you perturb it.

01:03:32.000 The probability that you can predict the consequence of the perturbation is extraordinarily low.

01:03:37.000 Obviously.

01:03:39.000 If the system works though, you think you understand it.

01:03:42.000 Because it works.

01:03:43.000 And so you think it's simpler than it actually is.

01:03:45.000 And so then you think that your model of it is correct.

01:03:48.000 And then you think that your manipulation of the model.

01:03:52.000 Which produces the outcome you model.

01:03:55.000 Will be the outcome that's actually produced in the world.

01:03:58.000 And that doesn't work at all.

01:04:01.000 I thought about that an awful lot.

01:04:04.000 Thinking about how to remediate social systems.

01:04:07.000 Because obviously they need careful attention and adjustment.

01:04:11.000 And it struck me that the proper.

01:04:18.000 Strategy for implementing social change.

01:04:21.000 Is to stay within your domain of competence.

01:04:24.000 And that requires humility.

01:04:26.000 Which is a virtue that is never.

01:04:32.000 Promoted in modern culture I would say.

01:04:34.000 It's a virtue that you can hardly even talk about.

01:04:37.000 But humility means.

01:04:39.000 You're probably not as smart as you think you are.

01:04:42.000 And you should be careful.

01:04:43.000 And so then the question might be.

01:04:45.000 Well, okay.

01:04:46.000 You should be careful.

01:04:47.000 But perhaps you still want to do good.

01:04:49.000 Or you want to make some positive changes.

01:04:51.000 How can you be careful and do good?

01:04:53.000 And then I would say.

01:04:54.000 Well, you try not to step outside of the boundaries of your competence.

01:04:57.000 And you start small.

01:04:59.000 And you start with things that you actually could adjust.

01:05:01.000 That you actually do understand.

01:05:03.000 That you actually could fix.

01:05:04.000 I mentioned to you at one point.

01:05:06.000 That one of the things Carl Jung said was that.

01:05:08.000 Modern men don't see God because they don't look low enough. 0.98

01:05:12.000 It's a very interesting phrase.

01:05:14.000 And one of the things that I've been promoting I suppose.

01:05:19.000 Online is the idea that.

01:05:21.000 You should restrict your attempts to fix things.

01:05:25.000 To what's at hand.

01:05:31.000 So there's probably things about you that you could fix.

01:05:34.000 Right?

01:05:35.000 Things that you know that aren't right.

01:05:36.000 Not anyone else's opinion.

01:05:38.000 Your own opinion.

01:05:39.000 That aren't right.

01:05:40.000 You can fix them.

01:05:41.000 Maybe there's some things that you could adjust in your family.

01:05:43.000 Although that gets hard.

01:05:44.000 You have to have your act together a lot.

01:05:46.000 Before you can start to adjust your family.

01:05:48.000 Because things can kick back on you really hard.

01:05:50.000 And you think well.

01:05:51.000 It's hard to put yourself together.

01:05:52.000 It's really hard to put your family together.

01:05:54.000 Why the hell do you think you can put the world together?

01:05:57.000 Right? 0.71

01:05:58.000 Because obviously the world is more complicated than you and your family.

01:06:01.000 And so if you're stymied in your attempts even to set your own house in order.

01:06:05.000 Which of course you are.

01:06:06.000 Then you would think that what that would do.

01:06:08.000 Would be to make you very very leery about.

01:06:11.000 Announcing your broad scale plans for social revolution.

01:06:15.000 Well it's a peculiar thing because that isn't how it works.

01:06:19.000 Because people are much more likely to announce their plans for broad scale social revolution.

01:06:24.000 Than they are to try to set themselves straight or to set their families straight.

01:06:27.000 And I think the reason for that is that.

01:06:29.000 As soon as they try to set themselves straight or their families.

01:06:32.000 The system immediately kicks back at them.

01:06:35.000 Right?

01:06:36.000 Instantly.

01:06:37.000 Whereas if they announce their plans for large scale social revolution.

01:06:40.000 The lag between the announcement and the kickback.

01:06:44.000 Is so long.

01:06:46.000 That they don't recognize that there's any error there.

01:06:49.000 And so.

01:06:50.000 You know.

01:06:51.000 You can get away with being wrong.

01:06:52.000 If nothing falls on you for a while.

01:06:56.000 And so.

01:06:57.000 And it's also.

01:06:59.000 An incitement to hubris.

01:07:01.000 Because you can announce your plans for large scale social revolution.

01:07:05.000 And stand back.

01:07:06.000 And you don't get hit by lightning.

01:07:07.000 And you think.

01:07:08.000 Well I might be right.

01:07:09.000 Even though you're not.

01:07:10.000 You're seriously not right.

01:07:12.000 I might be right.

01:07:13.000 And then you think.

01:07:14.000 Well.

01:07:15.000 How wonderful is that?

01:07:16.000 Especially if you could do it without any real effort.

01:07:18.000 And I really do think.

01:07:20.000 Fundamentally.

01:07:21.000 I believe.

01:07:22.000 That that's what universities teach students now.

01:07:24.000 That's what they teach them to do.

01:07:25.000 I really believe that.

01:07:27.000 And I think it's absolutely appalling.

01:07:29.000 And I think it's horribly dangerous.

01:07:33.000 Because it's not that easy to fix things.

01:07:36.000 Especially if you don't.

01:07:38.000 Especially if you're not committed to it.

01:07:41.000 And I think you know if you're committed.

01:07:43.000 Because what you try to do.

01:07:44.000 Is you try to straighten out your own life first.

01:07:46.000 And that's enough.

01:07:47.000 Like there's a.

01:07:48.000 I think it's a statement in the New Testament.

01:07:49.000 That it's.

01:07:50.000 I think it's in the New Testament.

01:07:51.000 That it's more difficult to rule yourself.

01:07:53.000 Than to rule the city. 0.81

01:07:55.000 And.

01:07:56.000 That's not a metaphor.

01:07:57.000 It's like.

01:07:58.000 All of you who've made.

01:08:00.000 Announcements to yourself about.

01:08:02.000 Changing your diet.

01:08:03.000 And going to the gym.

01:08:04.000 Every January.

01:08:05.000 Know perfectly well.

01:08:06.000 How difficult it is.

01:08:07.000 To regulate your own.

01:08:08.000 Impulses.

01:08:09.000 And to bring.

01:08:10.000 Yourself under.

01:08:11.000 The control of some.

01:08:13.000 What would you say.

01:08:16.000 Well structured.

01:08:18.000 And.

01:08:19.000 Ethical.

01:08:20.000 Attentive.

01:08:22.000 Structure of values.

01:08:24.000 It's extraordinarily difficult.

01:08:26.000 And so people don't do it.

01:08:27.000 And then.

01:08:28.000 Instead they.

01:08:29.000 Wander off.

01:08:30.000 And I think they create.

01:08:31.000 Towers of Babel.

01:08:32.000 And.

01:08:33.000 The story indicates.

01:08:34.000 Well.

01:08:35.000 Those things collapse.

01:08:36.000 Under their own weight.

01:08:37.000 And.

01:08:38.000 Everyone goes their own direction.

01:08:41.000 I think I see that happening.

01:08:43.000 With the LGBT community.

01:08:45.000 I think.

01:08:47.000 Because one of the things I've noticed.

01:08:48.000 It's very interesting.

01:08:49.000 Because.

01:08:50.000 The community.

01:08:51.000 Is.

01:08:52.000 Is some sense.

01:08:53.000 It's not a community.

01:08:54.000 But.

01:08:55.000 That's a technical error.

01:08:57.000 But.

01:08:58.000 It's.

01:08:59.000 It's composed of outsiders. 0.82

01:09:00.000 Let's say.

01:09:01.000 And.

01:09:02.000 What you notice across the decades.

01:09:04.000 Is that.

01:09:05.000 The acronym list.

01:09:06.000 Keeps growing.

01:09:07.000 And.

01:09:08.000 I think that's because.

01:09:09.000 There's.

01:09:10.000 An infinite number of ways.

01:09:11.000 To be an outsider.

01:09:12.000 And so once you open.

01:09:13.000 The door.

01:09:14.000 To the construction.

01:09:15.000 Of a group.

01:09:16.000 That's characterized.

01:09:17.000 By.

01:09:18.000 Failing to fit into the group.

01:09:21.000 Then you.

01:09:22.000 Immediately.

01:09:23.000 Create a category.

01:09:24.000 That's infinitely expandable.

01:09:25.000 And so.

01:09:26.000 I don't know.

01:09:27.000 How long the acronym list.

01:09:28.000 Is now.

01:09:29.000 It depends on which acronym list.

01:09:30.000 You consult.

01:09:31.000 But.

01:09:32.000 I've seen.

01:09:33.000 Lists.

01:09:34.000 Of.

01:09:35.000 Ten or more acronyms.

01:09:36.000 And one of the things.

01:09:37.000 That's happening.

01:09:38.000 Is that.

01:09:39.000 The community.

01:09:40.000 Is starting to fragment.

01:09:41.000 In it's.

01:09:43.000 In it's interior.

01:09:44.000 Because there is no unity.

01:09:46.000 Once you.

01:09:47.000 Put a sufficient.

01:09:48.000 Plurality.

01:09:49.000 Under.

01:09:50.000 The.

01:09:51.000 Sheltering.

01:09:52.000 Structure.

01:09:53.000 Of a single.

01:09:54.000 Umbrella.

01:09:55.000 Say.

01:09:56.000 The disunity.

01:09:57.000 Starts to appear.

01:09:58.000 Within.

01:09:59.000 And I think.

01:10:00.000 That's also.

01:10:01.000 A.

01:10:02.000 It's a manifestation.

01:10:03.000 Of the same issue.

01:10:04.000 That this particular story.

01:10:05.000 Is dealing with.

01:10:11.000 So that ends.

01:10:12.000 I would say.

01:10:13.000 The most.

01:10:14.000 Archaic.

01:10:15.000 Stories.

01:10:16.000 In the.

01:10:17.000 In the bible.

01:10:18.000 There's something.

01:10:19.000 About the flood story.

01:10:20.000 And.

01:10:21.000 And also.

01:10:22.000 The tower of babel.

01:10:23.000 I think.

01:10:24.000 They outline.

01:10:25.000 The two.

01:10:26.000 Fundamental dangers.

01:10:27.000 That beset mankind.

01:10:28.000 One is.

01:10:29.000 The probability.

01:10:30.000 That.

01:10:31.000 Blindness.

01:10:32.000 And sin.

01:10:33.000 Will produce.

01:10:34.000 A natural catastrophe.

01:10:35.000 Or entice one.

01:10:36.000 That's something.

01:10:37.000 Modern people.

01:10:38.000 Are very.

01:10:39.000 Aware of.

01:10:40.000 In principle.

01:10:41.000 Right.

01:10:42.000 And so.

01:10:43.000 That's the continual.

01:10:45.000 Reactivation.

01:10:46.000 Of an archetypal idea.

01:10:47.000 In our.

01:10:48.000 In our unconscious minds.

01:10:49.000 That there's something.

01:10:50.000 About the way we're living.

01:10:51.000 That's unsustainable.

01:10:52.000 And that will.

01:10:53.000 Create.

01:10:54.000 A catastrophe.

01:10:55.000 It's so interesting.

01:10:56.000 Because people believe that.

01:10:57.000 Firmly.

01:10:58.000 And deeply.

01:10:59.000 And.

01:11:00.000 But they don't see the relationship.

01:11:01.000 Between that.

01:11:02.000 And the archetypal stories.

01:11:03.000 Because it's the same story.

01:11:05.000 Over consumption.

01:11:07.000 Greed.

01:11:08.000 All of that.

01:11:09.000 Is producing an unstable state.

01:11:11.000 And nature will rebel.

01:11:12.000 And take us down.

01:11:13.000 And take us down.

01:11:14.000 Right.

01:11:15.000 You hear that every day.

01:11:16.000 In every newspaper.

01:11:17.000 And every TV station.

01:11:18.000 It's broadcast to you.

01:11:19.000 Constantly.

01:11:20.000 And so.

01:11:21.000 That.

01:11:22.000 Idea is presented in.

01:11:23.000 In Genesis.

01:11:24.000 In the story of Noah.

01:11:25.000 And then.

01:11:26.000 The other.

01:11:27.000 Warning.

01:11:28.000 That exists.

01:11:29.000 In the stories.

01:11:30.000 Beware.

01:11:31.000 Of natural catastrophe.

01:11:32.000 That's.

01:11:33.000 Produced.

01:11:34.000 As a consequence.

01:11:35.000 Of blindness.

01:11:36.000 And greed.

01:11:37.000 We'll say.

01:11:38.000 The other is.

01:11:39.000 Beware.

01:11:40.000 Of.

01:11:41.000 Social structures.

01:11:42.000 That overreach.

01:11:43.000 Because.

01:11:44.000 They'll also produce.

01:11:45.000 Fragmentation.

01:11:46.000 And disintegration.

01:11:47.000 And so.

01:11:48.000 It's quite remarkable.

01:11:49.000 I think.

01:11:50.000 That.

01:11:51.000 With.

01:11:52.000 At the close.

01:11:53.000 Of the story.

01:11:54.000 Of the.

01:11:55.000 Permanent.

01:11:56.000 Existential.

01:11:57.000 Dangers.

01:11:58.000 That.

01:11:59.000 Present.

01:12:00.000 Themselves.

01:12:01.000 To humanity.

01:12:02.000 Already.

01:12:03.000 Identified.

01:12:09.000 At the end.

01:12:10.000 Of the story.

01:12:11.000 Of Adam and Eve.

01:12:12.000 There's like.

01:12:13.000 A fall.

01:12:14.000 Into history.

01:12:15.000 Right.

01:12:16.000 So.

01:12:17.000 In one way.

01:12:18.000 History.

01:12:19.000 Begins.

01:12:20.000 With the fall.

01:12:21.000 And history.

01:12:22.000 In an.

01:12:23.000 Even more.

01:12:24.000 Real sense.

01:12:25.000 Begins.

01:12:26.000 Now.

01:12:27.000 It's.

01:12:28.000 It's.

01:12:29.000 We're.

01:12:30.000 No longer.

01:12:31.000 Precisely.

01:12:32.000 In the realm.

01:12:33.000 Of the purely.

01:12:34.000 Mythical.

01:12:35.000 That would be.

01:12:36.000 Another way.

01:12:37.000 Of thinking.

01:12:38.000 About it.

01:12:39.000 We have.

01:12:40.000 Identifiable.

01:12:41.000 Person.

01:12:42.000 History.

01:12:43.000 History.

01:12:44.000 In the old.

01:12:45.000 Testament.

01:12:46.000 I suppose.

01:12:47.000 It begins.

01:12:48.000 Again.

01:12:49.000 After.

01:12:50.000 Moses.

01:12:51.000 As well.

01:12:52.000 But.

01:12:53.000 We've.

01:12:54.000 Moved.

01:12:55.000 The stories.

01:12:56.000 The stories.

01:12:57.000 About Abraham.

01:12:58.000 About Abraham.

01:12:59.000 This is from.

01:13:00.000 Eldus Huxley.

01:13:01.000 So.

01:13:02.000 The first thing.

01:13:03.000 That.

01:13:04.000 That I want to talk about.

01:13:05.000 In relationship.

01:13:06.000 To the Abrahamic stories.

01:13:07.000 Is this idea.

01:13:08.000 Of the experience.

01:13:09.000 Of God.

01:13:10.000 Because.

01:13:11.000 Abraham.

01:13:12.000 Although.

01:13:13.000 Quite.

01:13:14.000 Identifiable.

01:13:15.000 And.

01:13:16.000 The peculiarity.

01:13:17.000 Is that.

01:13:18.000 God.

01:13:19.000 Manifests.

01:13:20.000 Himself.

01:13:21.000 To Abraham.

01:13:22.000 Both.

01:13:23.000 As a voice.

01:13:24.000 But.

01:13:25.000 Also.

01:13:26.000 As a presence.

01:13:27.000 The stories.

01:13:28.000 Never describe.

01:13:29.000 Exactly.

01:13:30.000 How God.

01:13:31.000 Manifests.

01:13:32.000 Himself.

01:13:33.000 Now.

01:13:34.000 And then.

01:13:35.000 He comes.

01:13:36.000 In the form of an angel.

01:13:38.000 That's fairly concrete.

01:13:40.000 But.

01:13:41.000 It's a funny thing.

01:13:42.000 That the author of.

01:13:43.000 Or authors.

01:13:44.000 Of the Abrahamic stories.

01:13:45.000 And so.

01:13:46.000 It's very.

01:13:47.000 I think.

01:13:48.000 The part of the reason.

01:13:49.000 That I've.

01:13:50.000 Struggled so much.

01:13:51.000 With the Abrahamic stories.

01:13:52.000 Is because.

01:13:53.000 It's so hard.

01:13:54.000 To get a handle.

01:13:55.000 On that.

01:13:56.000 And to understand.

01:13:57.000 What that might mean.

01:13:58.000 And so.

01:13:59.000 I'm going to hit it.

01:14:00.000 From a bunch.

01:14:01.000 Of different perspectives.

01:14:02.000 And we'll see.

01:14:03.000 If we can.

01:14:04.000 Come up with some.

01:14:05.000 Understanding of it.

01:14:06.000 The first thing.

01:14:07.000 I'll do.

01:14:08.000 Is tell you.

01:14:09.000 A story about.

01:14:10.000 Female.

01:14:11.000 Neurologist.

01:14:12.000 Whose name escapes me.

01:14:13.000 At the moment.

01:14:14.000 Of insight.

01:14:15.000 Jill Bolte.

01:14:16.000 I think.

01:14:17.000 Is her name.

01:14:18.000 And.

01:14:19.000 She was a Harvard trained.

01:14:21.000 She was.

01:14:22.000 She had.

01:14:23.000 She had.

01:14:24.000 Medical training.

01:14:25.000 From Harvard.

01:14:26.000 In.

01:14:27.000 Neuropsychological function.

01:14:28.000 And knew a lot.

01:14:29.000 About.

01:14:30.000 Hemispheric specialization.

01:14:31.000 Before.

01:14:32.000 One of the.

01:14:33.000 Ways.

01:14:34.000 Of.

01:14:35.000 Conceptualizing.

01:14:36.000 The difference.

01:14:37.000 Between.

01:14:38.000 The two.

01:14:39.000 Hemispheres.

01:14:40.000 Is that.

01:14:41.000 The left.

01:14:42.000 Hemisphere.

01:14:43.000 Operates.

01:14:44.000 Operates.

01:14:45.000 In the.

01:14:46.000 Orderly.

01:14:47.000 Domain.

01:14:48.000 In the.

01:14:49.000 Right.

01:14:50.000 Hemisphere.

01:14:51.000 Operates.

01:14:52.000 In the.

01:14:53.000 Domain.

01:14:54.000 Of detail.

01:14:55.000 And the.

01:14:56.000 Right.

01:14:57.000 Hemisphere.

01:14:58.000 Operates.

01:14:59.000 Now.

01:15:00.000 People differ.

01:15:01.000 In their neurological wiring.

01:15:02.000 So those are.

01:15:03.000 Overgeneralizations.

01:15:04.000 But.

01:15:05.000 That's okay.

01:15:06.000 We'll live with that.

01:15:07.000 For the time being.

01:15:08.000 It's certainly not an overgeneralization.

01:15:09.000 To point out.

01:15:10.000 That you do.

01:15:11.000 In fact.

01:15:12.000 Have two hemispheres.

01:15:13.000 Between them.

01:15:14.000 Are cut.

01:15:15.000 Which could happen.

01:15:16.000 For example.

01:15:17.000 If you had surgery.

01:15:18.000 For intractable epilepsy.

01:15:19.000 That each hemisphere.

01:15:20.000 Would be capable.

01:15:21.000 Of housing.

01:15:22.000 Its own consciousness.

01:15:23.000 That's been.

01:15:24.000 Well documented.

01:15:25.000 By a.

01:15:26.000 Neuro.

01:15:27.000 Neurologist.

01:15:28.000 Named.

01:15:29.000 Gazzaniga.

01:15:30.000 Who did.

01:15:31.000 And Sperry.

01:15:32.000 Who did.

01:15:33.000 Split brain experiments.

01:15:34.000 Must be.

01:15:35.000 Thirty years ago.

01:15:36.000 Now.

01:15:37.000 So.

01:15:38.000 And we know.

01:15:39.000 That the right.

01:15:40.000 And the left.

01:15:41.000 Hemisphere.

01:15:42.000 More.

01:15:43.000 Involved.

01:15:44.000 In the generation.

01:15:45.000 Of positive emotion.

01:15:46.000 And approach.

01:15:47.000 So the right.

01:15:48.000 Hemisphere.

01:15:49.000 Stops you.

01:15:50.000 And the left.

01:15:51.000 Hemisphere.

01:15:52.000 Moves you forward.

01:15:53.000 Anyways.

01:15:54.000 Jill.

01:15:55.000 Bolte.

01:15:56.000 I hope I've got that right.

01:15:57.000 Had a stroke.

01:15:58.000 And.

01:15:59.000 Maintained consciousness.

01:16:00.000 During the stroke.

01:16:01.000 And analyzed it.

01:16:02.000 While it was happening.

01:16:03.000 And.

01:16:04.000 She was able.

01:16:05.000 While it was happening.

01:16:06.000 To.

01:16:07.000 Hypothesize.

01:16:08.000 About.

01:16:09.000 What part of her brain.

01:16:10.000 Was being destroyed.

01:16:11.000 And what.

01:16:12.000 So she had a congenital.

01:16:14.000 Blood vessel.

01:16:15.000 Malformation. 0.75

01:16:16.000 And had an aneurysm.

01:16:17.000 And.

01:16:18.000 It just about.

01:16:19.000 Killed her.

01:16:20.000 But she said that. 0.98

01:16:22.000 It affected her left hemisphere.

01:16:24.000 And she said that.

01:16:26.000 She experienced a sense of.

01:16:29.000 Divine unity.

01:16:30.000 As a consequence of the stroke.

01:16:32.000 Because the left hemisphere function.

01:16:34.000 Was disrupted.

01:16:35.000 And destroyed.

01:16:36.000 And so she became.

01:16:37.000 Right hemisphere.

01:16:38.000 Dominant.

01:16:39.000 And.

01:16:40.000 Her experience of that.

01:16:41.000 Was the dissolution.

01:16:42.000 Of the specific ego.

01:16:43.000 Into the.

01:16:44.000 Into absolute consciousness.

01:16:46.000 Something like that.

01:16:47.000 Now.

01:16:48.000 That's only a case study.

01:16:49.000 And.

01:16:50.000 You don't want to make.

01:16:51.000 Too much of case studies.

01:16:52.000 But.

01:16:53.000 There is.

01:16:54.000 An overwhelming.

01:16:55.000 Amount of evidence.

01:16:56.000 That those.

01:16:57.000 Two kinds of consciousness.

01:16:58.000 Exist.

01:16:59.000 One being.

01:17:01.000 Your consciousness of you.

01:17:02.000 As a.

01:17:03.000 Localized.

01:17:04.000 And specified.

01:17:05.000 Being.

01:17:06.000 And the other being.

01:17:08.000 This.

01:17:09.000 Capacity to experience.

01:17:11.000 Oceanic.

01:17:12.000 Dissolution.

01:17:13.000 And.

01:17:14.000 The sense of.

01:17:15.000 The cosmos.

01:17:16.000 Being one.

01:17:17.000 Now.

01:17:18.000 Why we have those capacities.

01:17:20.000 For different.

01:17:21.000 Conscious.

01:17:22.000 Experiences.

01:17:23.000 Is.

01:17:24.000 Very difficult to understand.

01:17:26.000 I mean.

01:17:27.000 Part of me thinks that.

01:17:28.000 Maybe we have a.

01:17:29.000 Generic.

01:17:30.000 Human.

01:17:31.000 Brain.

01:17:32.000 That's.

01:17:33.000 The brain.

01:17:34.000 Of.

01:17:35.000 The species.

01:17:36.000 And.

01:17:37.000 Allied.

01:17:38.000 With that.

01:17:39.000 We have a.

01:17:40.000 Specific.

01:17:41.000 Individual.

01:17:42.000 Brain.

01:17:43.000 And.

01:17:44.000 Usually.

01:17:45.000 It's.

01:17:46.000 On.

01:17:47.000 And.

01:17:48.000 Working.

01:17:49.000 Because.

01:17:50.000 You obviously.

01:17:51.000 Have to take care of yourself.

01:17:52.000 As a.

01:17:53.000 Specific.

01:17:54.000 Entity.

01:17:55.000 And.

01:17:56.000 Not.

01:17:57.000 Phenomena.

01:17:58.000 Right.

01:17:59.000 So.

01:18:00.000 You have to be.

01:18:01.000 More pointed.

01:18:02.000 Than.

01:18:03.000 That.

01:18:04.000 But.

01:18:05.000 Look.

01:18:06.000 Let's make no mistake.

01:18:07.000 About it.

01:18:08.000 The fact.

01:18:09.000 That.

01:18:10.000 Those.

01:18:11.000 Different states.

01:18:12.000 That.

01:18:13.000 That.

01:18:14.000 That.

01:18:15.000 That.

01:18:16.000 That.

01:18:17.000 That.

01:18:18.000 That.

01:18:19.000 This was after he started his experimentation with mescaline.

01:18:26.500 Because the psychedelics were introduced into Western culture in the 1950s,

01:18:30.000 in a whole bunch of different ways.

01:18:31.500 Psilocybin mushrooms, LSD,

01:18:34.000 that was discovered right after the end of World War II.

01:18:37.000 It was discovered by accident, actually, at the laboratory, Sandoz Labs,

01:18:41.000 the guy who discovered it, Albert Hoffman, and spilled some on his hands.

01:18:44.500 You can absorb it through your skin.

01:18:46.500 And he was biking home and had the world's first LSD trip,

01:18:50.500 which was somewhat of a shock to him.

01:18:53.000 And then to the entire world.

01:18:55.000 Huxley, who was a great literary figure, a real genius,

01:19:00.000 experimented with mescaline in the late 50s.

01:19:03.000 And he wrote a book called The Doors of Perception,

01:19:06.000 which had a huge impact on the emerging psychedelic culture,

01:19:09.000 both on the East Coast at Harvard,

01:19:12.000 and on the West Coast with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters,

01:19:16.000 people who popularized LSD.

01:19:17.500 That's all documented in a book called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,

01:19:20.000 which I would highly recommend.

01:19:21.500 It's Tom Wolfe.

01:19:22.500 It's a brilliant book.

01:19:24.500 On the East Coast, it was Timothy Leary.

01:19:26.500 I had Timothy Leary's old job at Harvard.

01:19:29.500 So that was kind of cool, you know, warped way.

01:19:32.500 So I met people there who knew him, who didn't think much of him also,

01:19:38.000 but who did know him.

01:19:40.000 But Huxley had this mescaline experience,

01:19:42.500 and it transported him to this alternative consciousness.

01:19:47.000 And he said that during his mescaline experience,

01:19:50.000 that the entire world glowed from within,

01:19:52.000 like if there was an inner light, like a paradisal inner light,

01:19:55.000 and that everything was deeply meaningful and symbolically suggestive,

01:19:59.500 and overwhelming, and beautiful, and timeless.

01:20:02.500 So he had an experience of divine eternity, I suppose,

01:20:06.500 is the most straightforward way to put that.

01:20:09.500 And we know perfectly well that the psychedelic drugs

01:20:12.500 that all share the same chemical structure,

01:20:14.500 they interact with the brain chemical called serotonin,

01:20:17.500 which is a very, very fundamental neurotransmitter.

01:20:20.500 They all have approximately the same range of effects.

01:20:25.000 Although those effects are very,

01:20:27.000 there's a very large multitude of effects

01:20:30.000 that sort of exist underneath that umbrella.

01:20:33.000 Huxley was staggered by his mescaline experience.

01:20:41.000 He didn't really know what to make of it.

01:20:43.000 And I think that that's the common experience of people who have

01:20:48.000 exceptionally profound psychedelic experiences.

01:20:50.500 And I'll tell you some documentation about that in a moment.

01:20:54.500 But he spent quite a long time

01:20:56.500 trying to come to grips with what this might mean

01:20:59.500 from an intellectual perspective.

01:21:01.000 And Huxley had a great brain.

01:21:02.500 I mean, if someone was going to wrestle with a problem like that,

01:21:05.000 he was a good candidate.

01:21:06.500 He must have had a verbal IQ of 180.

01:21:08.500 I mean, his books are incredibly literate,

01:21:12.000 incredible mastery of language,

01:21:14.500 and complexity of characterization and intellectual discourse.

01:21:18.500 Really remarkable.

01:21:21.000 So this is what Huxley had to say after his mescaline experience.

01:21:24.000 He talked about heaven and hell.

01:21:26.000 And he talked about that in reference to bad trips, essentially.

01:21:29.000 Because it was known by that point

01:21:32.000 that a psychedelic experience could transport you

01:21:35.000 to an ecstatic domain of divine revelation,

01:21:39.000 but could take you to the worst imaginable place as well.

01:21:42.000 Huxley was very interested in why you would even have the capacity

01:21:46.000 for experiences like that.

01:21:47.500 And which I think is a very good question.

01:21:49.500 And it's a completely unanswered question.

01:21:51.000 I mean, we don't know much about consciousness,

01:21:53.000 and we know even less about psychedelics, I would say.

01:21:56.000 They are an absolute mystery.

01:21:58.500 I don't think we understand them in the least.

01:22:02.000 Huxley did a good job of starting to at least map out the mysteries of the terrain.

01:22:06.000 He said,

01:22:06.500 Like the Earth of a hundred years ago, our mind still has its darkest Africa's, 1.00

01:22:10.000 its unmapped Borneos and Amazonian basins.

01:22:13.000 In relation to the fauna of these regions, we are not yet zoologists.

01:22:18.500 We are mere naturalists and collectors of specimens.

01:22:21.500 The fact is unfortunate, but we have to accept it.

01:22:24.000 We have to make the best of it.

01:22:26.000 However lowly, the work of the collector must be done

01:22:29.500 before we can proceed to the higher scientific tasks of classification,

01:22:33.000 analysis, experiment and theory-making.

01:22:35.000 Like the giraffe and the duck-billed platypus,

01:22:37.500 the creatures inhabiting these remoter regions of the mind

01:22:40.500 are exceedingly improbable.

01:22:43.500 Nevertheless, they exist.

01:22:44.500 They are facts of observation.

01:22:46.500 And as such, they cannot be ignored by anyone

01:22:48.500 who is honestly trying to understand the world in which he lives.

01:22:52.500 When psychiatrists started to study LSD,

01:22:59.500 that was mostly in the late 50s and running forward from that,

01:23:03.500 they thought about the drug as a psychotomimetic,

01:23:07.500 which was a chemical substance that would induce psychosis.

01:23:11.500 But that turned out to not be true.

01:23:13.500 Not with the psychedelics.

01:23:15.500 Because schizophrenics were given LSD,

01:23:19.500 and the schizophrenics reported that,

01:23:22.500 while the experience was certainly extraordinarily strange,

01:23:27.500 it wasn't like being schizophrenic.

01:23:30.500 And then it was found later,

01:23:32.500 that if you gave schizophrenics amphetamines, 0.51

01:23:34.500 that made them worse.

01:23:35.500 In fact, you can induce a paranoid psychosis

01:23:39.500 in a normal person by overdosing them with amphetamines.

01:23:42.500 So whatever the hallucinogens or the psychedelics are doing,

01:23:46.500 it's not the same thing as mania.

01:23:49.500 And it's not the same thing as schizophrenia.

01:23:51.500 Not at all.

01:23:54.500 So...

01:24:01.500 So you can't just write the experience off,

01:24:03.500 as an induced psychosis.

01:24:07.500 Whatever it is,

01:24:09.500 independent of its utility or lack thereof,

01:24:12.500 it's not that.

01:24:15.500 Now, it can be induced by drugs.

01:24:18.500 It can be induced by deprivation, right?

01:24:20.500 I mean, there are accounts throughout history of people

01:24:23.500 putting themselves in extreme physiological situations

01:24:27.500 in order to induce transformations of consciousness.

01:24:30.500 Fasting is one of the routes to doing that.

01:24:32.500 Dancing is another route.

01:24:34.500 Isolation, prolonged periods of isolation will also do it.

01:24:38.500 Now, you could say that exposing yourself to any of those in excess

01:24:43.500 produces a state that's indistinguishable from illness.

01:24:47.500 And that there's no reason to assume that

01:24:51.500 the phenomena that are associated with illness

01:24:54.500 have any utility whatsoever.

01:24:56.500 Although, it's interesting to me that

01:24:59.500 a disrupted consciousness

01:25:04.500 can produce coherent experiences.

01:25:06.500 It's not exactly what you expect if it was just an illness.

01:25:08.500 You know, if you develop, say, a high fever.

01:25:11.500 Your experience

01:25:13.500 isn't transcendent and coherent.

01:25:16.500 It's fragmented and pathologized.

01:25:18.500 And the difference, I think, is quite distinct.

01:25:21.500 Although, we don't have to only speculate about that

01:25:24.500 because there's been enough experimental work done now with hallucinogens and psychedelics

01:25:29.500 to indicate that the notion that what they produce

01:25:32.500 is something that's only akin to pathology is wrong.

01:25:36.500 It's not a matter of opinion at this point

01:25:39.500 in the sequence of scientific and historical investigation.

01:25:43.500 In fact, there was a large-scale study done

01:25:45.500 ten years ago, five years ago,

01:25:47.500 of 200,000 people who had experimented with psychedelics.

01:25:51.500 and they were mentally and physically healthier

01:25:54.500 than people who hadn't

01:25:55.500 on virtually every parameter they examined.

01:25:58.500 In fact, the rate of flashbacks

01:26:01.500 you've heard of LSD flashbacks

01:26:03.500 mostly a hypothetical phenomena

01:26:05.500 but the rate of self-reported flashbacks

01:26:07.500 was higher among the non-psychedelic users

01:26:10.500 than among the psychedelic users.

01:26:12.500 So that was very interesting. It was a huge study.

01:26:14.500 Now, it might be that you could say

01:26:16.500 that those who had experimented with psychedelics

01:26:19.500 were prone to be healthier to begin with.

01:26:22.500 But that still contradicts the pathology argument.

01:26:25.500 So it doesn't matter. Either way,

01:26:27.500 the pathology argument is contradicted.

01:26:30.500 Now...

01:26:35.500 Oh, I did put that in.

01:26:37.500 It was Dr. Jill, Jill Bolt Taylor.

01:26:39.500 This is what she said about her stroke.

01:26:41.500 I remember that first day of the stroke

01:26:43.500 with terrific bitter sweetness

01:26:45.500 in the absence of the normal functioning

01:26:47.500 of my left orientation association area.

01:26:49.500 My perception of my physical boundaries

01:26:51.500 was no longer limited to where my skin met air.

01:26:54.500 I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle.

01:26:57.500 It's a good metaphor.

01:26:59.500 The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale

01:27:02.500 gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.

01:27:04.500 The absence of physical boundary was one of glorious bliss.

01:27:11.500 Recently,

01:27:14.500 Dr. Roland Griffith.

01:27:18.500 I met him once at a conference in San Francisco.

01:27:22.500 Surprise, surprise.

01:27:25.500 A conference on awe.

01:27:27.500 And this was just when he was embarking on his experiments

01:27:29.500 with psilocybin, which were the first experiments on hallucinogens

01:27:33.500 that were permitted by the National Institute of Mental Health

01:27:36.500 in some three, four decades.

01:27:39.500 He had to be very careful to lay out the scientific protocols

01:27:43.500 so that the ethics committees would approve the experiments

01:27:46.500 and so that the federal funding agencies would also allow the experiments to go through.

01:27:51.500 He started to experiment with psilocybin.

01:27:55.500 And he's found a number of and published a number of very interesting results.

01:28:02.500 One was that a single psilocybin trip

01:28:08.500 and I specify trip because

01:28:12.500 sometimes when people take psilocybin at the doses that Griffith uses

01:28:15.500 they don't have a psychedelic experience.

01:28:18.500 Most people who take the dose do, but not everyone.

01:28:21.500 Those who take the dose and don't have the mystical experience

01:28:24.500 don't experience the consequences of taking the drug.

01:28:28.500 And the consequences can be quite profound.

01:28:31.500 So, one consequence is that

01:28:33.500 if you have the mystical experience that's associated with psilocybin ingestion,

01:28:37.500 you're liable to represent that to others and yourself

01:28:42.500 as one of the two or three most important experiences of your entire life.

01:28:46.500 So that would be at the same level as the birth of your child or your marriage, let's say.

01:28:53.500 Assuming that those were transcendent experiences.

01:28:55.500 But that's how people describe them.

01:28:59.500 So that's very interesting in and of itself.

01:29:02.500 Then, the next thing that Griffith, another thing that Griffith reported was that

01:29:09.500 one year after

01:29:12.500 a psilocybin dose, a single psilocybin dose

01:29:15.500 profound enough to induce a mystical experience

01:29:17.500 the trait openness of the participants had increased one standard deviation.

01:29:23.500 which is a tremendous amount.

01:29:25.500 And so it looked like one dose produced a

01:29:27.500 permanent neurological and psychological transformation.

01:29:30.500 Now, you know, I'm not saying that that's a good thing.

01:29:33.500 I'm not saying that.

01:29:35.500 Because I don't think that openness is an untroubled blessing.

01:29:41.500 But it's certainly a testament to the unbelievable potency of the drugs.

01:29:46.500 There's about a 10% chance, by the way, with psilocybin ingestion of a trip to hell.

01:29:52.500 And so that's certainly something very much worth considering

01:29:55.500 when you're thinking about the potential effects of this kind of experience.

01:30:05.500 So, the mystical experience produced by psilocybin is rated by people as the most profound,

01:30:10.500 among the most profound experience of their life, as life-changing.

01:30:13.500 It produces permanent personality transformations.

01:30:16.500 85% success in smoking cessation with a single dose.

01:30:20.500 Right? That's another thing that Griffiths demonstrated.

01:30:23.500 Now, that is mind-boggling.

01:30:25.500 Because there are chemical treatments for smoking cessation.

01:30:30.500 Bupropion is one.

01:30:33.500 It reduces craving to some degree.

01:30:36.500 But its success rate is nowhere near 85%.

01:30:40.500 Certainly not with a single dose.

01:30:43.500 And so, we don't understand how it can be that that occurs.

01:30:49.500 But it's nicely documented by Griffiths' team.

01:30:52.500 In this experiment, he gave psilocybin to people who were dying of cancer.

01:30:58.500 Cancer patients often develop chronic, clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety.

01:31:05.500 Previous studies suggest that psilocybin may decrease depression and anxiety in cancer patients.

01:31:10.500 Aldous Huxley took LSD on his deathbed, by the way.

01:31:13.500 So, the idea that there was something about psychedelic substances that could buffer people against the catastrophes of mortality is an idea that's as old as experimentation with the drug itself.

01:31:31.500 The effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life-threatening diagnoses.

01:31:37.500 And symptoms of depression and or anxiety.

01:31:40.500 Unsurprisingly.

01:31:41.500 I don't really know if it's reasonable to describe the emotional state of people diagnosed with cancer of uncertain prognosis or mortal significance as depression, precisely.

01:31:58.500 You know what I mean, is that if you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have intractable fatal cancer.

01:32:04.500 The normative response is to be rather upset and anxious about that.

01:32:09.500 And so, one of the things that bothers me about clinical psychiatry and clinical psychology is the automatic presupposition that even overwhelming states of negative emotion are properly categorized as depression.

01:32:20.500 Because I don't think you're depressed when you get a cancer diagnosis.

01:32:24.500 I don't think that's the right way to think about it.

01:32:26.500 I think that you have a big problem.

01:32:28.500 And it's not surprising that you're overwhelmed by negative emotion.

01:32:31.500 And to think about that as a psychiatric malfunction is a major error.

01:32:35.500 But anyways, it's a side issue with regards to this study.

01:32:41.500 The effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life-threatening diagnosis and symptoms of depression and or anxiety.

01:32:48.500 I cannot imagine how they got this through an ethics committee.

01:32:51.500 It's just...

01:32:52.500 We're gonna take people who have uncertain diagnosis of cancer that are potentially life-threatening and we're going to give them psychedelics.

01:32:59.500 It's like...

01:33:01.500 But they did it. They did it.

01:33:02.500 And I think it's a testament to Griffith's stature as a researcher that that was allowable.

01:33:08.500 This is a randomized double-blind crossover trial.

01:33:11.500 Very carefully designed clinical investigation.

01:33:14.500 People were assigned to the treatment group or to the drug group or the non-drug group randomly, blindly.

01:33:21.500 And investigated the effects of the drug also with different doses, which is another hallmark of a well-designed pharmacological study.

01:33:30.500 Very low placebo-like dose.

01:33:32.500 One or three milligrams per 70 kilograms of body weight.

01:33:35.500 Versus a high dose.

01:33:36.500 22 or 30 milligrams per 70 kilograms of psilocybin.

01:33:41.500 Chemical psilocybin administered in counterbalance sequence with five weeks between sessions and a six-month follow-up.

01:33:47.500 Instructions to participants and staff minimized the effects of expectancy.

01:33:53.500 Participant staff and community observers rated participant moods, attitudes and behaviors throughout the study.

01:33:59.500 That's also the hallmark of a well-designed study because they didn't rely on a single source of information for the outcome data, right?

01:34:06.500 They got self-reports, that's fine, but they had relatively objective observers also gather data at the same time.

01:34:12.500 High dose psilocybin produced large decreases in clinician and self-related measures of depressed mood and anxiety.

01:34:19.500 Along with increases in quality of life, life meaning and optimism.

01:34:23.500 And decreases in death anxiety.

01:34:25.500 And that's an interesting, it's a subtle and scientifically sparse statement, but it's a very interesting one.

01:34:32.500 It was the, there's a, there's an intimation of a causal relationship here.

01:34:39.500 Increases in quality of life, life meaning and decreases in death anxiety.

01:34:44.500 I mean the intimation there is that one of the ways of decreasing your anxiety about death is to increase the felt meaning in your life.

01:34:53.500 And the psilocybin dosages potentiate that, but it's a good thing to know in a general manner if it happens to be a generalizable truth, right?

01:35:02.500 If you're terrified of mortality, terrified of vulnerability.

01:35:06.500 There's always the possibility that the life path that you're following isn't rich enough to buffer you against the negative element of existence.

01:35:17.500 It's a reasonable hypothesis.

01:35:20.500 And an optimistic one I think, although a difficult one.

01:35:23.500 At six month follow-up, these changes were sustained.

01:35:26.500 With about 80% of participants continuing to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety.

01:35:34.500 Steven Ross, commenting about this, he was a co-investigator, said,

01:35:37.500 It is simply unprecedented in psychiatry that a single dose of a medicine produces these kinds of dramatic and enduring results.

01:35:44.500 Right, which means we have no idea why this happens.

01:35:51.500 Participants attributed improvements in attitudes about life, self, mood, relationships, and spirituality to the high dose experience with more than 80% endorsing moderately or greater increased wellbeing and life satisfaction.

01:36:06.500 Community observers showed corresponding changes.

01:36:09.500 Mystical type psilocybin experience on session day mediated the effect of psilocybin dose on therapeutic outcomes.

01:36:17.500 What that means is that, well, when researchers were trying to look at a causal relationship between drug ingestion and the positive outcome.

01:36:25.500 The causal relationship was drug ingestion, mystical experience, positive outcome.

01:36:30.500 It wasn't drug ingestion, positive outcome.

01:36:33.500 There had to be the experience produced by the pharmaceutical agent in order for the pharmaceutical agent to have had its effect.

01:36:40.500 Now, we don't, again, we don't know why that is either.

01:36:43.500 I mean, maybe some people needed a higher dose.

01:36:45.500 Who knows?

01:36:46.500 Because people vary tremendously in their sensitivity to pharmaceutical substances.

01:36:50.500 Now, why am I telling you all this?

01:36:52.500 Well, I'm telling you for a variety of reasons.

01:36:55.500 One is, the first is, make no mistake about it.

01:36:59.500 Human beings have the capacity for forms of consciousness that are radically unlike our normative forms of consciousness.

01:37:07.500 And the evidence that those alternative forms of consciousness are purely pathological,

01:37:14.500 which is the simplest explanation, right?

01:37:16.500 You perturb a system, it produces pathology, that's negative.

01:37:20.500 That is the simplest explanation.

01:37:21.500 The evidence for that is weak, at best.

01:37:25.500 Leaving out the bad trip issue, which is non-trivial.

01:37:28.500 The empirical evidence, as it accrues, in fact, seems to suggest that the consequence of mystical,

01:37:35.500 positive mystical experiences associated with psychedelic intake is overwhelmingly positive,

01:37:41.500 even in extreme situations.

01:37:43.500 And you really can't find a more extreme situation than uncertain cancer diagnosis with concomitant depression and anxiety.

01:37:52.500 Like, I mean, that's not as bad as it gets, but it's kind of in the ballpark.

01:37:56.500 And so, the fact that, even under circumstances like that, there was the overwhelming probability that the experience would be positive,

01:38:03.500 because that's another thing you wouldn't expect, you know?

01:38:05.500 Even from some of the earliest discussions about psychedelic use that were put forth by people, including Timothy Leary,

01:38:13.500 describing the importance of set, right?

01:38:15.500 So that the early experimenters noted that, if you had a psychedelic experience, and you were in a bad state, or in a bad place,

01:38:24.500 that that was one of the precursors to a bad trip.

01:38:27.500 That the negative emotion that you entered the experience with could be magnified tremendously by the chemical substances,

01:38:36.500 so that it was necessary to be somewhere safe, to be around people that you trust, to be in a familiar environment,

01:38:42.500 to get all the variables that you could control under control.

01:38:47.500 But here's the situation where that isn't what's happening at all, because people have this cancer diagnosis of unspecified outcome,

01:38:56.500 and they still, the vast majority of them, had a positive experience, and the positive experience had long-lasting positive consequences.

01:39:04.500 So, so the case that the transcendent experience is not real, that's wrong.

01:39:14.500 It's real.

01:39:15.500 Now, we don't know what that means,

01:39:17.500 because it actually challenges, to some degree, our concepts of what constitutes real.

01:39:22.500 But it's certainly well within the realm of normative human experience.

01:39:25.500 So it's part of the human capacity.

01:39:27.500 And you know, there's been other neurological experiments, too.

01:39:30.500 There's, there's a researcher, a Canadian researcher, if I remember correctly, who invented something he called the God Helmet.

01:39:36.500 And it used electromagnetic stimulation, brain stimulation, to induce mystical experiences.

01:39:43.500 Now, I don't remember what part of the brain he was shutting off, or activating with that particular gadget.

01:39:48.500 But, and you know, there's, there's, there's all, there's all sorts of other indications of this sort of thing,

01:39:56.500 that have cropped up in a, in other domains of the neurological literature, for example.

01:40:02.500 It's very common for people who are epileptic, to have religious experiences, as part of the prodroma to the actual seizure.

01:40:12.500 That was the case with Dostoevsky, for example.

01:40:14.500 Who had incredibly intense religious experiences, that would culminate in epileptic seizure.

01:40:20.500 And he said that they were of sufficient quality, that he would give up his whole life, to have had them.

01:40:26.500 And the funny thing, too, is that, in my reading of Dostoevsky, at least, is that,

01:40:31.500 I think that epileptic seizures, and the associated mystical experiences, were part of what made him a transcendently brilliant author.

01:40:39.500 I don't think that he would have broken through, into the domains of insight, that he possessed, without those strange neurological experiences.

01:40:47.500 And it was certainly not the case, that his epilepsy, or the experiences that were associated with it,

01:40:52.500 produced, what you might describe as an impairment in his cognitive functions.

01:40:57.500 Quite the contrary, at least that's how it looks to me.

01:41:00.500 Here's another, here's another something worth considering.

01:41:08.500 And I don't know how important it is, but it might be really important.

01:41:11.500 Depends on how important, this is something that Carl Jung said, so it depends on how important Jung is.

01:41:17.500 Now, Freud established the field of psychoanalysis, and with it, investigation, I would say.

01:41:26.500 Rigorous investigation into the contents of the unconscious.

01:41:29.500 A modern psychologist and psychiatrist like to, what would you say, denigrate Freud.

01:41:35.500 But, and I think there's a reason for that.

01:41:37.500 I think that Freud's fundamental insights were so profound, and so valuable, that they got immediately absorbed into our culture.

01:41:43.500 And now they seem self-evident, and so that all that's left of Freud is his errors.

01:41:47.500 You know, because we believe everything else, we believe all the profound things he discovered.

01:41:52.500 We just take them for granted, and so we don't believe the things that he said that weren't quite on the money.

01:41:57.500 And that's all we credit him with now.

01:42:00.500 But he was certainly the first person who brought up the idea of the unconscious in a rigorous manner.

01:42:06.500 And he was the first person to do a rigorous examination of dreams.

01:42:10.500 Because the interpretation of dreams is a great book, it's well worth reading.

01:42:13.500 And he was the first person to note that people were, in some sense, inhabited by sub-personalities that had a certain degree of autonomy and independent life.

01:42:23.500 Brilliant observation. The cognitive psychologists haven't caught up with that at all yet.

01:42:28.500 Jung was profoundly affected by Freud. Jung was profoundly affected by Nietzsche and by Freud. Those were his two main intellectual influences.

01:42:41.500 I don't think one more than the other.

01:42:44.500 He split with Freud on the religious issue. That was what caused the disruption in their relationship.

01:42:51.500 And I think it's an extremely interesting historical occurrence. It might be of profound significance.

01:42:57.500 Freud believed that the fundamental myth of the human being was the Oedipal myth.

01:43:03.500 And the Oedipal myth, from a broader perspective, is a failed hero story.

01:43:08.500 So the Oedipal myth is the myth of a man who develops, who grows up, but then accidentally becomes too close to his mother, sleeps with her.

01:43:20.500 He doesn't know who she is and, as a consequence, blinds himself.

01:43:23.500 And there's a warning about human development gone wrong in that story.

01:43:30.500 And I think that Freud put his finger on it extraordinarily well.

01:43:33.500 Because human beings have a very long period of dependency.

01:43:37.500 And one of the things that you do see in clinical practice is that many people's problems are associated with their inability to break free of their family.

01:43:48.500 Like they're consumed by the family drama, right?

01:43:51.500 They can't get beyond what happened to them in their family.

01:43:54.500 They're stuck in the past.

01:43:56.500 And that's equivalent, symbolically speaking, you might say, to the idea of being too close to your mother.

01:44:03.500 Of the boundaries being improperly specified.

01:44:06.500 And that happens far more often than anyone would like to think.

01:44:10.500 As I said, Freud thought it was a universal.

01:44:13.500 But Jung, see, he had a different idea.

01:44:17.500 And his idea was that it wasn't the failed hero story that was the universal human myth.

01:44:22.500 It was the successful hero story.

01:44:25.500 And that's a big difference.

01:44:27.500 Like it's seriously a big difference.

01:44:29.500 Because the successful hero story is, remember in Sleeping Beauty.

01:44:35.500 You may remember this in the Disney movie.

01:44:37.500 The evil queen traps the prince in a dungeon.

01:44:40.500 And she's not going to let him out till he's old, right?

01:44:43.500 And so there's this comical scene where she's down in the dungeon. 0.80

01:44:46.500 He's all in chains.

01:44:48.500 And she's laughing at him.

01:44:49.500 Telling him what his future is going to be like. 0.70

01:44:51.500 She's quite evil. 1.00

01:44:52.500 And, you know, she paints this wonderful picture of him being freed in like 80 years.

01:44:58.500 And hobbling out of the castle on his horse that's so old he can barely stand up.

01:45:02.500 And him with grey hair.

01:45:03.500 And, you know, she recites this story of his eventual triumphant departure from the castle.

01:45:09.500 As an old and decrepit man.

01:45:11.500 And she has a great laugh about it.

01:45:13.500 And it's nice.

01:45:14.500 You know, it's a real punchy story.

01:45:16.500 It's really something wonderful for children.

01:45:18.500 That story.

01:45:19.500 And he gets free of the shackles.

01:45:26.500 And the things that free him are three little female fairies. 1.00

01:45:29.500 So it's the positive aspect of the feminine that frees him from the dungeon. 0.88

01:45:33.500 So it's very interesting and very accurate from a psychological perspective.

01:45:37.500 It's the negative element of the feminine that encapsulates him in the dungeon. 1.00

01:45:41.500 And it's the positive element of the feminine that frees him.

01:45:43.500 And then he has the queen.

01:45:46.500 The evil queen is not very happy when he escapes.

01:45:49.500 You may remember that she stands on top of her castle tower.

01:45:52.500 And starts to spin off cosmic sparks.

01:45:55.500 I mean, she's quite the creature. 0.52

01:45:57.500 Enveloped in flame.

01:45:58.500 And then she turns into a dragon. 0.89

01:46:00.500 And then the prince has to fight with her.

01:46:03.500 In order to make contact with Sleeping Beauty.

01:46:07.500 And awaken her from her comatose existence.

01:46:11.500 As her unconscious existence.

01:46:14.500 And it's a brilliant representation of a successful hero myth.

01:46:22.500 He doesn't end up staying in an unholy relationship with his mother.

01:46:30.500 Let's say.

01:46:31.500 He escapes.

01:46:33.500 And then conquers the worst thing that can be imagined.

01:46:38.500 And is ennobled by that.

01:46:39.500 And that, as a consequence, he's able to wake the slumbering feminine from its coma. 1.00

01:46:45.500 And that's a Jungian story.

01:46:48.500 And that's the story that he juxtaposed against Freud.

01:46:50.500 See, Freud thought of religious phenomena as part of an occult tide.

01:46:56.500 That would drown rationality.

01:46:59.500 That's why Freud was so vehemently anti-religious.

01:47:02.500 And Jung thought, no.

01:47:05.500 It's not the case.

01:47:07.500 You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

01:47:09.500 There's something profound.

01:47:11.500 And central.

01:47:12.500 To the hero myth.

01:47:14.500 And Jungian clinical work is essentially.

01:47:18.500 The awakening of the hero myth in the.

01:47:21.500 In the.

01:47:22.500 In the.

01:47:23.500 In the client.

01:47:24.500 Or in the patient.

01:47:25.500 To conceptualize yourself as.

01:47:27.500 That which can confront chaos and triumph.

01:47:30.500 And that that's associated with an.

01:47:32.500 Ennobling of the.

01:47:33.500 Of consciousness.

01:47:34.500 And the establishment of.

01:47:36.500 Proper.

01:47:37.500 Positive relationships between male and female.

01:47:40.500 And.

01:47:41.500 You know, I'm a skeptical person.

01:47:43.500 I'm a very, very skeptical person.

01:47:46.500 And I've.

01:47:47.500 Tried with.

01:47:48.500 Every trick I have.

01:47:50.500 To.

01:47:51.500 Put a.

01:47:52.500 Lever underneath Jung's story.

01:47:53.500 And lift it up.

01:47:54.500 And.

01:47:55.500 Disrupt it.

01:47:56.500 I.

01:47:57.500 I can't do it.

01:47:58.500 I think he was right.

01:47:59.500 And that Freud was wrong.

01:48:00.500 I mean, I have great respect for Freud.

01:48:02.500 I think he got the problem.

01:48:03.500 Problem diagnosed.

01:48:04.500 Very, very nicely.

01:48:05.500 And.

01:48:06.500 In my clinical work.

01:48:07.500 I see the phenomena that Freud described.

01:48:09.500 Emerge.

01:48:10.500 Continually.

01:48:11.500 Constantly.

01:48:12.500 That the best.

01:48:13.500 If you're interested in that.

01:48:14.500 There's a documentary you should watch.

01:48:16.500 I may have mentioned it before.

01:48:17.500 I think it's the best documentary ever made.

01:48:19.500 Certainly the best one I've ever seen.

01:48:21.500 It's called Crumb.

01:48:22.500 And it's about a underground cartoonist.

01:48:25.500 Robert Crumb.

01:48:26.500 Who.

01:48:27.500 Who was part of the hippie movement.

01:48:28.500 And.

01:48:29.500 Although he hated hippies.

01:48:30.500 He was part of the hippie movement.

01:48:32.500 In the sixties.

01:48:33.500 In San Francisco.

01:48:34.500 And started the entire underground comic.

01:48:36.500 What.

01:48:37.500 Culture.

01:48:38.500 That manifested itself.

01:48:39.500 Eventually.

01:48:40.500 In.

01:48:41.500 Graphic novels.

01:48:42.500 He's quite a.

01:48:43.500 Significant figure.

01:48:44.500 From the perspective of.

01:48:46.500 Popular art.

01:48:47.500 And a very, very intelligent man.

01:48:49.500 And also.

01:48:50.500 I would say a hero.

01:48:51.500 Although a very bent. 0.96

01:48:52.500 And depraved. 0.97

01:48:53.500 And warped one. 0.99

01:48:54.500 Ah.

01:48:55.500 Someone very acutely aware of his own shadow.

01:48:57.500 And.

01:48:58.500 The documentary outlines his.

01:49:00.500 Attempts.

01:49:01.500 To escape from his. 0.98

01:49:02.500 Absolutely dreadful mother. 0.95

01:49:04.500 And.

01:49:05.500 The failure of his two brothers.

01:49:07.500 To do the same thing.

01:49:08.500 One of whom.

01:49:09.500 Ended up as a street beggar. 0.85

01:49:10.500 In San Francisco.

01:49:11.500 And the other.

01:49:12.500 Who drank furniture polish.

01:49:13.500 And died.

01:49:14.500 Six months after the documentary.

01:49:15.500 Was produced.

01:49:16.500 It's an unbelievably shocking.

01:49:17.500 Documentary.

01:49:18.500 It's the only piece of.

01:49:20.500 Film.

01:49:21.500 That I've ever seen.

01:49:23.500 That captures.

01:49:24.500 Freudian pathology.

01:49:26.500 I've never seen anything.

01:49:27.500 Because you can't see it generally.

01:49:29.500 Unless you're in a clinical.

01:49:30.500 Situation.

01:49:31.500 Unless you know the details.

01:49:32.500 Of someone's lives.

01:49:33.500 The personal.

01:49:34.500 Intimate details.

01:49:35.500 You cannot communicate it.

01:49:37.500 But.

01:49:38.500 The documentarist.

01:49:39.500 Who made the film.

01:49:40.500 Was Robert Zwigoff.

01:49:41.500 If I remember correctly.

01:49:42.500 Was a friend of the crumbs.

01:49:44.500 And so he got access.

01:49:45.500 In a way.

01:49:46.500 That no one else would have.

01:49:47.500 And they were also very forthright.

01:49:48.500 And forthcoming.

01:49:49.500 About their situation.

01:49:50.500 In general.

01:49:51.500 I would highly recommend that.

01:49:52.500 It's.

01:49:53.500 It's a real punch.

01:49:54.500 If you want to know. 0.99

01:49:55.500 How a rapist thinks. 0.88

01:49:57.500 Like if you actually.

01:49:58.500 Want to know.

01:49:59.500 Because maybe you don't want to know.

01:50:00.500 In fact.

01:50:01.500 You probably don't want to know.

01:50:02.500 Right.

01:50:03.500 Because.

01:50:04.500 Do you really want to know that?

01:50:05.500 Because to understand that.

01:50:06.500 Means to put yourself in that position.

01:50:08.500 And to understand it.

01:50:09.500 If you really want to know. 0.99

01:50:10.500 How a serial sexual predator. 0.99

01:50:12.500 Thinks. 0.99

01:50:13.500 And why.

01:50:14.500 If you watch Crumb.

01:50:15.500 And you pay attention.

01:50:16.500 You'll know.

01:50:17.500 And that's only a tiny.

01:50:19.500 Bit.

01:50:20.500 Of what the film has to offer.

01:50:21.500 It's really quite remarkable.

01:50:22.500 Anyways.

01:50:23.500 Jung split with Freud.

01:50:24.500 On the issue.

01:50:25.500 Of.

01:50:26.500 The oedipal story.

01:50:27.500 As the fundamental myth.

01:50:28.500 Of humankind.

01:50:29.500 And on.

01:50:30.500 The issue of the.

01:50:31.500 Validity of the religious viewpoint.

01:50:32.500 And Jung.

01:50:33.500 Came down heavily.

01:50:34.500 The oedipal story.

01:50:35.500 As the fundamental myth.

01:50:37.500 Of humankind.

01:50:38.500 And on.

01:50:39.500 The issue of the.

01:50:40.500 Validity of the religious viewpoint.

01:50:43.500 And Jung.

01:50:44.500 Came down heavily.

01:50:45.500 On the side of the validity.

01:50:47.500 Of the religious viewpoint.

01:50:48.500 And he established that.

01:50:49.500 In a book called.

01:50:50.500 Symbols of Transformation.

01:50:51.500 Which was written in 1914.

01:50:53.500 And that's the book that broke.

01:50:55.500 That produced the break.

01:50:56.500 Permanent split with Freud.

01:50:57.500 Split with Freud.

01:50:58.500 And that book.

01:50:59.500 I would say.

01:51:00.500 That book's actually been written.

01:51:02.500 Three times.

01:51:03.500 It was written as symbols of.

01:51:05.500 Four times.

01:51:06.500 Written as symbols of transformation.

01:51:07.500 Which Jung.

01:51:08.500 Extensively revised.

01:51:09.500 When he was old.

01:51:10.500 And then it was rewritten.

01:51:11.500 In a sense.

01:51:12.500 By.

01:51:13.500 A student of.

01:51:14.500 Jung's. 0.74

01:51:15.500 Called Eric Neumann.

01:51:16.500 Who's also something.

01:51:17.500 Someone I would really recommend.

01:51:19.500 Eric Neumann.

01:51:20.500 I think is Jung's.

01:51:21.500 Greatest student.

01:51:22.500 And.

01:51:23.500 He wrote two books.

01:51:24.500 He wrote one called.

01:51:25.500 The origins and history of consciousness.

01:51:26.500 Consciousness.

01:51:27.500 Which is a description.

01:51:28.500 Of the development of consciousness.

01:51:29.500 Out of unconsciousness.

01:51:31.500 Using the hero myth.

01:51:32.500 As a.

01:51:33.500 As an.

01:51:34.500 As a.

01:51:35.500 As a.

01:51:36.500 What would you say.

01:51:37.500 As a.

01:51:38.500 As an interpretive skeleton.

01:51:39.500 So.

01:51:40.500 Neumann viewed.

01:51:41.500 The hero myth.

01:51:42.500 As.

01:51:43.500 The dramatized story.

01:51:44.500 Of the emergence.

01:51:45.500 Of human consciousness.

01:51:46.500 Out of the.

01:51:47.500 Surrounding unconsciousness.

01:51:48.500 In which it was embedded.

01:51:49.500 The struggle for consciousness.

01:51:51.500 The struggle of consciousness.

01:51:53.500 Upward towards the light.

01:51:54.500 Like a lotus flower.

01:51:55.500 Struggles up through.

01:51:56.500 The muck.

01:51:57.500 And they.

01:51:58.500 And the water.

01:51:59.500 To.

01:52:00.500 To lay itself.

01:52:01.500 On the surface of the.

01:52:02.500 Water and.

01:52:03.500 And bloom. 0.73

01:52:04.500 And reveal the Buddha.

01:52:05.500 Which is.

01:52:06.500 Of course.

01:52:07.500 What the lotus flower does.

01:52:08.500 From a symbolic perspective.

01:52:09.500 For.

01:52:10.500 Is the story.

01:52:11.500 Of the development.

01:52:12.500 The successful development.

01:52:13.500 Of consciousness.

01:52:14.500 The origins.

01:52:15.500 The origins and history.

01:52:16.500 Of consciousness.

01:52:17.500 Is a great book.

01:52:18.500 Interestingly.

01:52:19.500 Camille Paglia.

01:52:20.500 Wrote.

01:52:21.500 Read.

01:52:22.500 The origins and history.

01:52:23.500 Of consciousness.

01:52:24.500 Consciousness.

01:52:25.500 She's one of the few.

01:52:27.500 intellectuals.

01:52:28.500 That I've ever.

01:52:29.500 Encountered.

01:52:30.500 Who read that.

01:52:31.500 And commented on it.

01:52:32.500 That it would be sufficient.

01:52:34.500 Antidote.

01:52:35.500 To postmodern denigration.

01:52:37.500 Of literature.

01:52:38.500 She thought.

01:52:39.500 It was that powerful.

01:52:40.500 A work.

01:52:41.500 And I.

01:52:42.500 I.

01:52:43.500 Believe that.

01:52:44.500 I.

01:52:45.500 I think it's a remarkable.

01:52:46.500 Book.

01:52:47.500 Carl Jung.

01:52:48.500 Wrote the forward.

01:52:49.500 To that book.

01:52:50.500 And he said.

01:52:51.500 In the forward.

01:52:52.500 That it was the book.

01:52:53.500 That he wished.

01:52:54.500 He would have written.

01:52:55.500 So it's sort of like.

01:52:56.500 Jung.

01:52:57.500 He wrote.

01:52:58.500 I don't remember.

01:52:59.500 How many volumes.

01:53:00.500 Dozens of.

01:53:01.500 Very thick.

01:53:02.500 Difficult volumes.

01:53:03.500 It was like.

01:53:04.500 Neumann was able to.

01:53:05.500 What.

01:53:06.500 Distill those.

01:53:07.500 Single.

01:53:08.500 Volume statement.

01:53:09.500 And so.

01:53:10.500 I would also say.

01:53:11.500 If you're interested.

01:53:12.500 In Jung.

01:53:13.500 The best book.

01:53:14.500 To read.

01:53:15.500 Is the origins.

01:53:16.500 And history.

01:53:17.500 Of consciousness.

01:53:18.500 It's the best.

01:53:19.500 Intro.

01:53:20.500 Into.

01:53:21.500 Into the union world.

01:53:22.500 So Jung's very difficult.

01:53:23.500 To.

01:53:24.500 Very difficult.

01:53:25.500 To understand.

01:53:26.500 Requires a real.

01:53:27.500 Shift of.

01:53:28.500 Perspective.

01:53:29.500 In order.

01:53:30.500 To understand.

01:53:31.500 What he's talking about.

01:53:32.500 And.

01:53:33.500 Norman wrote.

01:53:34.500 Another book.

01:53:35.500 Called The Great Mother.

01:53:36.500 The Archetype.

01:53:37.500 Of Chaos.

01:53:38.500 And it's representation.

01:53:39.500 As feminine.

01:53:40.500 It's a brilliant book.

01:53:41.500 As well.

01:53:42.500 And.

01:53:43.500 Highly worth.

01:53:44.500 Highly worth reading.

01:53:45.500 Both those books.

01:53:46.500 Anyways.

01:53:48.500 Jung was a very strange person.

01:53:51.500 And a visionary.

01:53:52.500 And.

01:53:53.500 And so.

01:53:54.500 He.

01:53:55.500 That's kept him outside of.

01:53:56.500 The academic realm.

01:53:57.500 Almost entirely.

01:53:58.500 I mean.

01:53:59.500 Was constantly warned.

01:54:00.500 As an undergraduate.

01:54:01.500 And then a graduate student.

01:54:02.500 And then a professor.

01:54:03.500 Against.

01:54:04.500 Ever.

01:54:05.500 Talking about Jung.

01:54:06.500 In any.

01:54:07.500 Way.

01:54:08.500 Whatsoever.

01:54:09.500 When I went on the job market.

01:54:10.500 When I was at McGill.

01:54:11.500 When I had graduated from McGill.

01:54:13.500 I had done my scientific research.

01:54:14.500 On alcoholism.

01:54:15.500 And I had a fairly lengthy publication record.

01:54:17.500 That was pure empirical research.

01:54:19.500 And really.

01:54:20.500 Neuro.

01:54:21.500 Physiological research.

01:54:23.500 Into the pharmacology of alcoholism.

01:54:26.500 And.

01:54:27.500 I.

01:54:28.500 Established a reasonably.

01:54:29.500 Solid.

01:54:30.500 Dossier of publications.

01:54:32.500 But at the same time.

01:54:33.500 I was writing this book.

01:54:34.500 That became Maps of Meaning.

01:54:35.500 And.

01:54:36.500 So I'd split my time.

01:54:37.500 In graduate student.

01:54:38.500 School.

01:54:39.500 Between these two.

01:54:40.500 Endeavors.

01:54:41.500 One.

01:54:42.500 Very.

01:54:43.500 Specifically.

01:54:44.500 Neurological.

01:54:45.500 And pharmacological.

01:54:46.500 And really.

01:54:47.500 Biologically based.

01:54:48.500 And the other.

01:54:49.500 Very.

01:54:50.500 Abstract.

01:54:51.500 Religious.

01:54:52.500 Symbolic.

01:54:53.500 Psychoanalytic.

01:54:54.500 The complete opposite.

01:54:55.500 But I could see.

01:54:56.500 That the two things.

01:54:57.500 Overlapped.

01:54:58.500 Really nicely.

01:54:59.500 And there was a number of.

01:55:00.500 Scientists at the time.

01:55:01.500 The same.

01:55:02.500 Relationship.

01:55:03.500 Between.

01:55:04.500 The biology.

01:55:05.500 And the psychoanalysis.

01:55:06.500 Jack Panksepp.

01:55:07.500 Who wrote a book called.

01:55:08.500 Affective Neuroscience.

01:55:09.500 Which is a great classic.

01:55:10.500 Is.

01:55:11.500 Is one of those people.

01:55:12.500 Who.

01:55:13.500 Who saw the.

01:55:14.500 Relationship.

01:55:15.500 Between.

01:55:16.500 The neurobiology.

01:55:17.500 Of emotion.

01:55:18.500 And motivation.

01:55:19.500 And the psychoanalytic insights.

01:55:20.500 Never became a mainstream view.

01:55:21.500 But I think it's too complex.

01:55:22.500 I think that.

01:55:23.500 Bridging the gap.

01:55:24.500 Between the biology.

01:55:25.500 And the symbolic.

01:55:26.500 Is too much.

01:55:27.500 For people.

01:55:28.500 Generally speaking.

01:55:29.500 You know.

01:55:30.500 Especially.

01:55:31.500 Too much for me.

01:55:32.500 Because I got quite ill.

01:55:33.500 When I was a graduate student.

01:55:34.500 I think.

01:55:35.500 For a variety of reasons.

01:55:36.500 I also.

01:55:37.500 Like.

01:55:38.500 Would go out and party.

01:55:39.500 Three nights a week.

01:55:40.500 And so.

01:55:41.500 That probably.

01:55:42.500 Had something to do with it.

01:55:43.500 But.

01:55:44.500 But.

01:55:45.500 Working.

01:55:46.500 On those two things.

01:55:47.500 Simultaneously.

01:55:48.500 Was a tremendously.

01:55:49.500 Insightful.

01:55:50.500 Clinician.

01:55:51.500 And he was a strange person.

01:55:52.500 Introverted.

01:55:53.500 Visionary.

01:55:54.500 High in introversion.

01:55:55.500 Very.

01:55:56.500 Very.

01:55:57.500 Very.

01:55:58.500 Very.

01:55:59.500 Very.

01:56:00.500 High in openness.

01:56:01.500 Like.

01:56:02.500 Off the charts.

01:56:03.500 Like reading Nietzsche.

01:56:04.500 It's terrifying.

01:56:05.500 Because.

01:56:06.500 You know.

01:56:07.500 He's.

01:56:08.500 He's so. 0.98

01:56:09.500 Damn smart. 0.99

01:56:10.500 That he can think up. 0.99

01:56:11.500 Answers to questions.

01:56:12.500 That you don't even.

01:56:13.500 It's not like.

01:56:14.500 You don't understand.

01:56:15.500 The answers.

01:56:16.500 You never conceptualize. 1.00

01:56:17.500 The damn. 1.00

01:56:18.500 Questions. 1.00

01:56:19.500 It's really something.

01:56:20.500 To read someone like that.

01:56:21.500 Right.

01:56:22.500 Who.

01:56:23.500 Says.

01:56:24.500 That's.

01:56:25.500 That's.

01:56:26.500 That's something.

01:56:27.500 You know.

01:56:28.500 And he.

01:56:29.500 Could read.

01:56:30.500 Greek.

01:56:31.500 And he could read.

01:56:32.500 He read all the ancient.

01:56:33.500 He read a very large.

01:56:34.500 Variety of ancient languages.

01:56:35.500 And was very familiar.

01:56:36.500 With.

01:56:37.500 The entire corpus.

01:56:38.500 Of.

01:56:39.500 Astrological thought.

01:56:40.500 And of.

01:56:41.500 Alchemical thought.

01:56:42.500 And of.

01:56:43.500 Classic.

01:56:44.500 Literature.

01:56:45.500 And.

01:56:46.500 Biblical stories.

01:56:47.500 And I mean.

01:56:48.500 Educated in a way.

01:56:49.500 That no one is educated.

01:56:50.500 Now.

01:56:51.500 And.

01:56:52.500 So he's very daunting person.

01:56:53.500 To encounter.

01:56:54.500 And terrifying.

01:56:55.500 Absolutely terrifying.

01:56:56.500 His book.

01:56:57.500 Ion.

01:56:58.500 Which is the second volume of.

01:57:00.500 Of.

01:57:01.500 It's the second volume of volume nine.

01:57:03.500 Which is the archetypes of the collective unconscious. 1.00

01:57:05.500 That damn book is just. 1.00

01:57:06.500 Absolutely terrifying. 1.00

01:57:07.500 Because Jung.

01:57:08.500 He's one of these visionaries.

01:57:09.500 Who can see.

01:57:10.500 Way.

01:57:11.500 Underneath.

01:57:12.500 The social structures.

01:57:13.500 And.

01:57:14.500 Look at patterns.

01:57:15.500 That are developing across.

01:57:16.500 For you.

01:57:17.500 In Jung's case.

01:57:18.500 Across thousands of years.

01:57:19.500 And lays them out.

01:57:20.500 And so.

01:57:21.500 That's a really.

01:57:22.500 That's really something.

01:57:23.500 It's a terrifying book.

01:57:24.500 Um.

01:57:25.500 Anyways.

01:57:26.500 One.

01:57:27.500 Question might be.

01:57:28.500 Well.

01:57:29.500 Because I read Jung.

01:57:30.500 And I think.

01:57:31.500 How the hell did he know these things?

01:57:32.500 How could he figure these things out?

01:57:33.500 I can't understand.

01:57:34.500 How he could possibly know these things.

01:57:36.500 Well.

01:57:37.500 Here's a partial answer.

01:57:39.500 Jung.

01:57:41.500 Was a visionary.

01:57:43.500 And so what that means.

01:57:44.500 As far as I can tell.

01:57:45.500 And.

01:57:46.500 Like.

01:57:47.500 We could do a little quick.

01:57:48.500 Survey here.

01:57:49.500 How many of you think you think in words?

01:57:51.500 Put up your hands.

01:57:52.500 Do you think in words?

01:57:53.500 Okay.

01:57:54.500 So it looks like.

01:57:56.500 What about pictures?

01:57:57.500 How many of you think in pictures?

01:57:59.500 Okay.

01:58:00.500 So that's interesting.

01:58:01.500 How many of you think.

01:58:02.500 That's about half and half.

01:58:03.500 By the way.

01:58:04.500 Probably fewer on the word side.

01:58:05.500 How many of you think in pictures and words?

01:58:07.500 Okay.

01:58:08.500 And so.

01:58:09.500 Alright.

01:58:10.500 So.

01:58:11.500 Alright.

01:58:12.500 So.

01:58:13.500 It was roughly a third in each category.

01:58:14.500 But.

01:58:15.500 That's also something that I really haven't.

01:58:16.500 Encountered.

01:58:17.500 Any research on.

01:58:18.500 From the neuropsychological perspective.

01:58:20.500 It's like.

01:58:21.500 Well.

01:58:22.500 Do you think in pictures?

01:58:23.500 Or do you think in words?

01:58:24.500 And.

01:58:25.500 Is that actually a reliable distinction?

01:58:26.500 I think I think in words.

01:58:28.500 Most of the time.

01:58:30.500 But I can think in pictures.

01:58:31.500 Like.

01:58:32.500 If I'm trying to build something.

01:58:33.500 I can think in pictures.

01:58:34.500 Very.

01:58:35.500 Almost instantaneously.

01:58:36.500 But it isn't my natural mode of thinking.

01:58:38.500 I'm hyper verbal.

01:58:39.500 And so.

01:58:40.500 My natural mode of thinking.

01:58:41.500 Is to think everything through in words.

01:58:42.500 But.

01:58:43.500 I know.

01:58:44.500 My wife isn't like that. 1.00

01:58:45.500 She thinks in images.

01:58:46.500 And then has to translate them into words.

01:58:47.500 And so.

01:58:48.500 Anyways.

01:58:49.500 Jung.

01:58:50.500 Was very literate.

01:58:51.500 And he.

01:58:52.500 Could really think in words.

01:58:53.500 But he could really think in images.

01:58:54.500 Also.

01:58:55.500 Talking to my wife.

01:58:56.500 Quite extensively.

01:58:57.500 Like her.

01:58:58.500 The.

01:58:59.500 Intensity of her visualization.

01:59:01.500 Vastly exceeds mine.

01:59:02.500 So.

01:59:03.500 For example.

01:59:04.500 If I close my eyes.

01:59:05.500 And I try to imagine the crowd.

01:59:06.500 In front of me.

01:59:07.500 Low resolution.

01:59:08.500 And vague.

01:59:09.500 And not brilliantly colored.

01:59:11.500 And vivid.

01:59:12.500 You know.

01:59:13.500 It's.

01:59:14.500 It's.

01:59:15.500 It's like I'm seeing through a glass.

01:59:16.500 Darkly.

01:59:17.500 Let's say.

01:59:18.500 I can't bring images to mind.

01:59:19.500 With that.

01:59:20.500 With spectacular clarity.

01:59:21.500 But my wife is very good at that. 0.98

01:59:22.500 And.

01:59:23.500 Jung seemed to be.

01:59:24.500 Absolutely.

01:59:25.500 A genius.

01:59:26.500 At that kind of thinking.

01:59:27.500 And he had a lot of visionaries.

01:59:28.500 In his family history.

01:59:29.500 As well.

01:59:30.500 I don't know.

01:59:31.500 To what degree.

01:59:32.500 There's a hereditary component.

01:59:33.500 Of that.

01:59:34.500 And I don't know.

01:59:35.500 To what degree.

01:59:36.500 That's actually.

01:59:37.500 Like a neurological specialization.

01:59:38.500 I presume.

01:59:39.500 It would be associated.

01:59:40.500 With.

01:59:41.500 The trade openness.

01:59:42.500 Distinguishes itself.

01:59:43.500 Differentiates itself.

01:59:44.500 Into interest in ideas.

01:59:45.500 And interest in aesthetics.

01:59:46.500 And my suspicion are.

01:59:47.500 Is.

01:59:48.500 That the people.

01:59:49.500 Who are more interested in aesthetics.

01:59:50.500 Are the visionary types.

01:59:51.500 The ones that think in images.

01:59:53.500 Anyways.

01:59:54.500 Jung could really think in images.

01:59:55.500 And he could imagine.

01:59:56.500 Beings.

01:59:57.500 And.

01:59:58.500 I had a client once.

02:00:00.500 Who was a lucid dreamer.

02:00:02.500 And.

02:00:03.500 How many of you.

02:00:04.500 Have had a lucid dream?

02:00:05.500 So you know you're dreaming.

02:00:06.500 Well you're.

02:00:07.500 Okay.

02:00:08.500 Many.

02:00:09.500 That.

02:00:10.500 That phenomena.

02:00:11.500 Wasn't really.

02:00:12.500 Even.

02:00:13.500 Identified.

02:00:14.500 As a phenomena.

02:00:15.500 Until.

02:00:16.500 Freud tried to get his hands on.

02:00:18.500 But couldn't.

02:00:19.500 Because it was a very rare book.

02:00:20.500 And then.

02:00:21.500 There was a.

02:00:22.500 Researcher.

02:00:23.500 About 30 years ago.

02:00:24.500 Who started to study lucid dreams.

02:00:25.500 But.

02:00:26.500 Anyways.

02:00:27.500 I had a client.

02:00:28.500 Who was a lucid dreamer.

02:00:29.500 And one of the things.

02:00:30.500 She could do.

02:00:31.500 Was.

02:00:32.500 Ask her dream characters.

02:00:33.500 What.

02:00:34.500 Information.

02:00:35.500 They were trying to convey.

02:00:36.500 And they would tell her.

02:00:38.500 So that was very interesting.

02:00:40.500 And.

02:00:41.500 One of the consequences of that.

02:00:42.500 Was.

02:00:43.500 I don't have this story.

02:00:44.500 Completely right in my memory.

02:00:45.500 But it's close enough.

02:00:46.500 And.

02:00:47.500 She was.

02:00:48.500 Afraid of a very large.

02:00:49.500 Number of things.

02:00:50.500 And.

02:00:51.500 In.

02:00:52.500 Her dream.

02:00:53.500 I think it was a gypsy. 1.00

02:00:54.500 Standing by a wagon.

02:00:55.500 Told her that.

02:00:56.500 If she was.

02:00:57.500 Going to.

02:00:58.500 Be successful.

02:00:59.500 In university.

02:01:00.500 In university.

02:01:01.500 That she would have to.

02:01:02.500 Visit.

02:01:03.500 A slaughterhouse.

02:01:04.500 And.

02:01:05.500 That was something that.

02:01:06.500 Was way beyond her.

02:01:07.500 Capacity to tolerate.

02:01:09.500 She was a vegetarian.

02:01:10.500 She couldn't stand.

02:01:11.500 The sight of raw meat even.

02:01:12.500 And so.

02:01:13.500 And she was very.

02:01:14.500 Oppressed.

02:01:15.500 And depressed.

02:01:16.500 And anxious.

02:01:17.500 Because of the slaughterhouse.

02:01:18.500 Nature of existence.

02:01:19.500 And so.

02:01:20.500 Her dream.

02:01:21.500 Focused on that.

02:01:22.500 And.

02:01:23.500 One of the consequences of that.

02:01:25.500 Because.

02:01:26.500 The slaughterhouse.

02:01:27.500 Was out of the question.

02:01:28.500 As a clinical intervention.

02:01:29.500 Um.

02:01:30.500 I took her to an embalming.

02:01:32.500 Right.

02:01:33.500 Because.

02:01:34.500 Because I asked her.

02:01:35.500 I asked her.

02:01:36.500 What.

02:01:37.500 What.

02:01:38.500 What might be.

02:01:39.500 Equivalent to that.

02:01:40.500 And so.

02:01:41.500 She suggested that.

02:01:42.500 And you know.

02:01:43.500 Exposure therapy.

02:01:44.500 Is a hallmark.

02:01:45.500 Of clinical psychology.

02:01:46.500 Right.

02:01:47.500 One of the things.

02:01:48.500 You do with people.

02:01:49.500 As a clinician.

02:01:50.500 Is you find out.

02:01:51.500 What they're afraid of.

02:01:52.500 And you gradually.

02:01:53.500 And voluntarily.

02:01:54.500 Expose them to that.

02:01:55.500 And that cures them.

02:01:56.500 And that's associated.

02:01:57.500 With the hero myth.

02:01:58.500 Right.

02:01:59.500 It's exactly the same thing.

02:02:00.500 It's like.

02:02:01.500 Because there's lots of dragons.

02:02:02.500 Most of them aren't stopping you.

02:02:03.500 You can ignore them.

02:02:04.500 You don't have to just go.

02:02:05.500 You know.

02:02:06.500 Slash away. 0.81

02:02:07.500 Randomly.

02:02:08.500 You're not supposed to be fighting dragons.

02:02:09.500 That aren't in your way.

02:02:11.500 But if they are in your way.

02:02:12.500 You can't ignore them.

02:02:13.500 And then you decompose them.

02:02:14.500 Into sub dragons.

02:02:15.500 And you have people.

02:02:16.500 You know.

02:02:17.500 Take them on.

02:02:18.500 And as they take them on.

02:02:19.500 They dispense with the dragon.

02:02:21.500 And they gain.

02:02:22.500 The power of the dragon.

02:02:23.500 It's like a video game.

02:02:24.500 Actually.

02:02:25.500 A video game is like that.

02:02:26.500 That's why people like the video games.

02:02:28.500 Well.

02:02:29.500 That's right.

02:02:30.500 Absorb power.

02:02:31.500 When you overcome things.

02:02:32.500 When you play a video game.

02:02:33.500 It's not like that's.

02:02:35.500 Intrinsic to the video game structure.

02:02:37.500 That's an archetypal idea.

02:02:38.500 Anyways.

02:02:39.500 We went and saw an embalming.

02:02:40.500 Which was a very interesting.

02:02:41.500 Experience.

02:02:42.500 And.

02:02:43.500 And.

02:02:44.500 Quite.

02:02:45.500 Quite.

02:02:46.500 Quite useful.

02:02:47.500 For her.

02:02:48.500 Because.

02:02:49.500 She knew.

02:02:50.500 What she could tolerate.

02:02:51.500 After that.

02:02:52.500 And it was a hell of a lot more.

02:02:53.500 Than she thought.

02:02:54.500 She could tolerate.

02:02:55.500 And so.

02:02:56.500 That's very useful.

02:02:57.500 To know.

02:02:58.500 Back to you.

02:02:59.500 He's a visionary thinker.

02:03:00.500 Now.

02:03:01.500 My client.

02:03:02.500 I said.

02:03:03.500 She could lucid dream.

02:03:04.500 And she could ask her.

02:03:06.500 Dream.

02:03:07.500 Characters.

02:03:08.500 What they wanted.

02:03:09.500 And what they were trying to.

02:03:11.500 Communicate to her.

02:03:12.500 So that was pretty interesting.

02:03:13.500 That happened spontaneously.

02:03:14.500 Had nothing to do with me.

02:03:15.500 I mean.

02:03:16.500 I'm interested in dreams.

02:03:17.500 And many of my clients.

02:03:18.500 Are great dreamers.

02:03:19.500 Especially the creative ones.

02:03:21.500 Because I think it's a hallmark.

02:03:22.500 Of creativity.

02:03:23.500 To have vivid dreams.

02:03:24.500 And to be able to remember them.

02:03:25.500 But.

02:03:26.500 That was.

02:03:27.500 A faculty that.

02:03:28.500 Was natural to her.

02:03:31.500 Jung.

02:03:33.500 Had this other client.

02:03:34.500 At one time.

02:03:35.500 At one point.

02:03:36.500 And she had a variety of fears.

02:03:38.500 And she had this dream.

02:03:39.500 That she told me.

02:03:40.500 And she was walking down a beach.

02:03:42.500 And on the side of the beach.

02:03:44.500 Up.

02:03:45.500 A dune.

02:03:46.500 A small dune.

02:03:47.500 There was this old man.

02:03:48.500 With a snake.

02:03:49.500 A big python.

02:03:50.500 And there's a crowd around him.

02:03:51.500 And.

02:03:52.500 She was walking by the. 0.84

02:03:54.500 Snake handler.

02:03:55.500 And the snake.

02:03:56.500 And the crowd.

02:03:57.500 And she didn't want to have anything.

02:03:58.500 To do with them.

02:03:59.500 He was sort of showing people.

02:04:00.500 This snake.

02:04:01.500 And.

02:04:02.500 She told me that dream.

02:04:03.500 And I thought.

02:04:04.500 Well.

02:04:05.500 You know.

02:04:06.500 You probably need to go see that snake.

02:04:07.500 And so I.

02:04:08.500 Relaxed her.

02:04:09.500 Quasi hypnotic.

02:04:10.500 Technique.

02:04:11.500 And.

02:04:12.500 It's very straightforward.

02:04:13.500 Hypnosis is generally nothing but.

02:04:15.500 Pronounced relaxation.

02:04:16.500 Though you have to be susceptible to hypnosis.

02:04:18.500 To actually fall into a hypnotic trance.

02:04:20.500 As a consequence of being relaxed.

02:04:22.500 I just relaxed her.

02:04:23.500 I had her breathe deeply.

02:04:24.500 And.

02:04:25.500 Pay attention to different parts of her body.

02:04:27.500 And just relax her muscles. 0.99

02:04:28.500 One by one essentially.

02:04:29.500 So that she could concentrate.

02:04:30.500 And then.

02:04:31.500 I told her.

02:04:32.500 We play with the dream a little bit.

02:04:34.500 It's a Jungian technique.

02:04:36.500 I said.

02:04:37.500 Well.

02:04:38.500 So call the dream image to mind.

02:04:39.500 Which she could do quite well.

02:04:40.500 I said.

02:04:41.500 Okay.

02:04:42.500 So let's.

02:04:43.500 Let's explore it.

02:04:44.500 It's like pretend.

02:04:45.500 It's like pretend play.

02:04:46.500 You know.

02:04:47.500 If you're a kid.

02:04:48.500 And you're pretend playing.

02:04:49.500 You don't exactly direct the game.

02:04:50.500 Right?

02:04:51.500 You.

02:04:52.500 So it's partly.

02:04:53.500 Your direction.

02:04:54.500 Obviously.

02:04:55.500 Because you're the player.

02:04:56.500 But.

02:04:57.500 The thing also happens.

02:04:58.500 Spontaneously.

02:04:59.500 Of it's own accord.

02:05:00.500 And you could think about that.

02:05:01.500 As a dialogue.

02:05:02.500 Between the conscious mind.

02:05:03.500 And the unconscious mind.

02:05:04.500 In some sense.

02:05:05.500 It's a developmental dialogue.

02:05:06.500 It's not a fun game.

02:05:07.500 If you just direct it.

02:05:08.500 It's only a fun game.

02:05:09.500 If.

02:05:10.500 You're inviting.

02:05:11.500 And something is.

02:05:12.500 Welling up.

02:05:13.500 As a consequence.

02:05:14.500 It's the same thing.

02:05:15.500 That happens.

02:05:16.500 When you're.

02:05:17.500 You're engaged in.

02:05:18.500 Some kind of artistic.

02:05:19.500 Or literary production.

02:05:20.500 If it's all.

02:05:21.500 You're forcing it.

02:05:22.500 Then it's propaganda.

02:05:23.500 It's empty.

02:05:24.500 What you want to sort of.

02:05:25.500 Is put yourself.

02:05:26.500 In a receptive state of mind.

02:05:27.500 In an imaginative state of mind.

02:05:28.500 And.

02:05:29.500 It's sort of.

02:05:30.500 Half you. 0.76

02:05:31.500 And half.

02:05:32.500 Nature itself.

02:05:33.500 Manifesting itself.

02:05:34.500 In your creative imagination.

02:05:36.500 And that was the sort of state.

02:05:37.500 That.

02:05:38.500 We were striving for.

02:05:39.500 And.

02:05:40.500 She. 0.93

02:05:41.500 I asked her.

02:05:42.500 When she was in.

02:05:43.500 Relaxed.

02:05:44.500 I said.

02:05:45.500 Well what do you think.

02:05:46.500 About the snake handler.

02:05:47.500 And she said. 0.94

02:05:48.500 Well he's probably a charlatan. 0.97

02:05:49.500 And. 0.88

02:05:50.500 She was afraid.

02:05:51.500 To go up there.

02:05:52.500 Because she thought.

02:05:53.500 People would push her.

02:05:54.500 Towards the snake.

02:05:55.500 And she'd have to touch it.

02:05:56.500 And.

02:05:57.500 So there was a fear.

02:05:58.500 Of the crowd issue.

02:05:59.500 Going on there too.

02:06:00.500 And I said.

02:06:01.500 Well just.

02:06:02.500 Look.

02:06:03.500 Go up there.

02:06:04.500 People get pushy.

02:06:05.500 What are you going to tell them.

02:06:06.500 And so we figured out something.

02:06:07.500 He said.

02:06:08.500 Look.

02:06:09.500 Just tell them that.

02:06:10.500 You know.

02:06:11.500 You want to.

02:06:12.500 Look at the snake.

02:06:13.500 At your own pace.

02:06:14.500 And that you don't need.

02:06:15.500 Any encouragement.

02:06:16.500 Or help.

02:06:17.500 And it would be.

02:06:18.500 Good if.

02:06:19.500 You were just left alone.

02:06:20.500 So that enabled her.

02:06:21.500 To defend herself.

02:06:22.500 To do something.

02:06:23.500 That she didn't want to do.

02:06:24.500 That was part of the theme.

02:06:25.500 Of the dream.

02:06:26.500 So anyway.

02:06:27.500 She. 0.93

02:06:28.500 Climbed the dune.

02:06:29.500 In her imagination.

02:06:30.500 And went into the crowd.

02:06:31.500 And the crowd turned out.

02:06:32.500 To be quite welcoming.

02:06:33.500 And not hostile.

02:06:34.500 And not pushy.

02:06:35.500 Which isn't what you'd expect.

02:06:36.500 Right?

02:06:37.500 Because the.

02:06:38.500 You'd think the crowd.

02:06:39.500 Would have.

02:06:40.500 Reacted in accordance.

02:06:41.500 With her fears.

02:06:42.500 Since it was her fantasy.

02:06:43.500 But that's the thing about fantasies.

02:06:44.500 They have this autonomous quality.

02:06:46.500 But the crowd was welcoming.

02:06:47.500 And not hostile.

02:06:48.500 And it turned out.

02:06:49.500 That the snake handler.

02:06:50.500 Wasn't a charlatan.

02:06:51.500 He was just an old guy.

02:06:52.500 Who had this snake.

02:06:53.500 And he was out there.

02:06:54.500 Just showing it to people.

02:06:55.500 Because he thought.

02:06:56.500 It was a cool thing.

02:06:57.500 And.

02:06:58.500 And.

02:06:59.500 And that maybe.

02:07:00.500 It was good for people.

02:07:01.500 To come and look at a snake.

02:07:02.500 And so.

02:07:03.500 She got close enough.

02:07:04.500 To the snake.

02:07:05.500 To touch it.

02:07:06.500 And so.

02:07:07.500 So I'm telling you that.

02:07:08.500 Because I want you to understand.

02:07:09.500 A bit more.

02:07:10.500 About what Jung.

02:07:11.500 Was trying to do.

02:07:12.500 And so.

02:07:13.500 He wrote these books.

02:07:14.500 Notebooks.

02:07:15.500 That haven't been published yet.

02:07:16.500 Called the black books.

02:07:17.500 And the black books.

02:07:18.500 Are.

02:07:19.500 The documentation.

02:07:20.500 Of his experiments.

02:07:21.500 With his imagination.

02:07:22.500 And.

02:07:24.500 What he would do.

02:07:25.500 Is.

02:07:26.500 Like.

02:07:27.500 Like a child daydreams.

02:07:28.500 He regained that faculty.

02:07:29.500 Although I think.

02:07:30.500 With Jung.

02:07:31.500 It was a faculty.

02:07:32.500 That had never really disappeared.

02:07:33.500 And.

02:07:34.500 He had figures of imagination.

02:07:36.500 That came to him.

02:07:37.500 That he could speak with.

02:07:39.500 And he spoke with.

02:07:40.500 These figures of imagination.

02:07:42.500 And documented that.

02:07:43.500 Over.

02:07:44.500 A very long period of time.

02:07:45.500 And that was originally.

02:07:46.500 That was.

02:07:47.500 Eventually.

02:07:48.500 Distilled into.

02:07:51.500 A book called.

02:07:52.500 The red book.

02:07:53.500 Which was published.

02:07:54.500 About.

02:07:55.500 Three or four years ago.

02:07:56.500 And.

02:07:57.500 It was a book.

02:07:58.500 That Jung regarded.

02:07:59.500 As the.

02:08:00.500 Central.

02:08:01.500 Source.

02:08:02.500 From which.

02:08:03.500 All his inspiration.

02:08:04.500 Emerged.

02:08:05.500 It was sort of.

02:08:07.500 The way.

02:08:08.500 It looks to me.

02:08:09.500 Is that.

02:08:10.500 We embody.

02:08:11.500 A lot of information.

02:08:12.500 In our action.

02:08:13.500 Right.

02:08:14.500 Has.

02:08:15.500 Developed.

02:08:16.500 As a consequence.

02:08:17.500 Of imitating.

02:08:18.500 Other people.

02:08:19.500 And.

02:08:20.500 Not only.

02:08:21.500 The people.

02:08:22.500 The people around us.

02:08:23.500 But.

02:08:24.500 Of course.

02:08:25.500 The people around us.

02:08:26.500 Imitated the people.

02:08:27.500 Who came before them.

02:08:28.500 And.

02:08:29.500 So on.

02:08:30.500 So far back.

02:08:31.500 That.

02:08:32.500 It's as far back.

02:08:33.500 As you can go.

02:08:34.500 And so.

02:08:35.500 You embody.

02:08:36.500 These patterns.

02:08:37.500 Of behavior.

02:08:38.500 That are.

02:08:39.500 Extremely informative.

02:08:40.500 That you don't understand.

02:08:41.500 That are a consequence.

02:08:42.500 Of collective imitation.

02:08:43.500 Can become.

02:08:44.500 Manifest.

02:08:45.500 As figures.

02:08:46.500 Of the imagination.

02:08:47.500 And those figures.

02:08:48.500 Of imagination.

02:08:49.500 Are the.

02:08:50.500 Distillations.

02:08:51.500 Of patterns.

02:08:52.500 Of behavior.

02:08:53.500 And so.

02:08:54.500 As the.

02:08:55.500 Distillations.

02:08:56.500 Of patterns.

02:08:57.500 Of behavior.

02:08:58.500 They have.

02:08:59.500 Content.

02:09:00.500 And it's not.

02:09:01.500 You.

02:09:02.500 That content.

02:09:03.500 It's.

02:09:04.500 You could even.

02:09:05.500 Think about it.

02:09:06.500 As content.

02:09:07.500 That's evolved.

02:09:08.500 And so.

02:09:09.500 These figures.

02:09:10.500 Of the imagination.

02:09:11.500 Can reveal.

02:09:12.500 And that's what happened.

02:09:13.500 With Jung.

02:09:14.500 And that's what he described.

02:09:15.500 In the red book.

02:09:16.500 And that was what.

02:09:17.500 Permeated his.

02:09:18.500 Psychology.

02:09:19.500 A psychology.

02:09:20.500 That was based on.

02:09:21.500 The presupposition.

02:09:22.500 That the fundamental.

02:09:23.500 Archetypal structures.

02:09:25.500 Of religious belief.

02:09:26.500 Were.

02:09:27.500 Not.

02:09:28.500 Pathological.

02:09:29.500 Not.

02:09:30.500 Deceitful.

02:09:31.500 Not.

02:09:32.500 Protective.

02:09:33.500 In some.

02:09:34.500 Delusional sense.

02:09:35.500 Against the fear of death.

02:09:36.500 But quite the contrary.

02:09:37.500 The very stories.

02:09:38.500 That.

02:09:39.500 Enabled us.

02:09:40.500 To.

02:09:41.500 Move forward.

02:09:42.500 As confident.

02:09:43.500 Human beings.

02:09:44.500 In the face.

02:09:45.500 Of chaos.

02:09:46.500 Itself.

02:09:47.500 And it's conceivable.

02:09:48.500 I think.

02:09:49.500 Perhaps.

02:09:50.500 Probable.

02:09:52.500 That nothing more important.

02:09:54.500 Conceptually.

02:09:55.500 Happened.

02:09:56.500 In the 20th century.

02:09:57.500 Than that.

02:09:58.500 That.

02:09:59.500 Because it was the first time.

02:10:01.500 Post.

02:10:02.500 Enlightenment.

02:10:03.500 That a rapprochement.

02:10:04.500 Between.

02:10:05.500 The intellect.

02:10:06.500 And the underlying.

02:10:08.500 Religious.

02:10:09.500 Archetypal.

02:10:10.500 Substructure.

02:10:11.500 Occurred.

02:10:12.500 You have.

02:10:13.500 In the capacious.

02:10:14.500 Intellect of Jung.

02:10:15.500 The same thing happened.

02:10:16.500 To some degree.

02:10:17.500 With Piaget.

02:10:18.500 The religious domain.

02:10:19.500 And the factual domain.

02:10:20.500 Were brought back together.

02:10:23.500 And.

02:10:24.500 The fact of Jung's.

02:10:25.500 Enduring and.

02:10:26.500 Increasing popularity.

02:10:27.500 And influence.

02:10:28.500 I would say.

02:10:29.500 Is a direct consequence.

02:10:30.500 Of that.

02:10:31.500 Now.

02:10:35.500 Some of his work.

02:10:36.500 Was spun off.

02:10:37.500 Into the new age.

02:10:38.500 And.

02:10:39.500 And the new age.

02:10:40.500 Is a very optimistic.

02:10:41.500 And naive movement.

02:10:42.500 And it's predicated.

02:10:43.500 On the idea.

02:10:44.500 That you can do nothing.

02:10:45.500 Say.

02:10:46.500 But follow your bliss.

02:10:47.500 And that will take you.

02:10:48.500 Ever higher.

02:10:49.500 To enlightenment.

02:10:50.500 And that's not.

02:10:51.500 The Jungian.

02:10:52.500 Idea.

02:10:53.500 At all.

02:10:54.500 The Jungian idea.

02:10:55.500 Is that.

02:10:56.500 What you most need.

02:10:58.500 Will be found.

02:10:59.500 Where you least.

02:11:00.500 Want to look.

02:11:01.500 So there's this story.

02:11:02.500 King Arthur.

02:11:03.500 There's this story.

02:11:04.500 Of King Arthur.

02:11:05.500 They're all in a round table.

02:11:06.500 Right?

02:11:07.500 King Arthur and his knights.

02:11:08.500 They're all equals.

02:11:09.500 They're all.

02:11:10.500 Superordinate.

02:11:11.500 But they're all equals.

02:11:12.500 And they go off.

02:11:13.500 To look for the Holy Grail.

02:11:14.500 And the Holy Grail.

02:11:15.500 Is.

02:11:16.500 The container.

02:11:17.500 Of the redemptive substance.

02:11:19.500 Whatever that is.

02:11:20.500 Might be the.

02:11:21.500 The cup.

02:11:22.500 That Christ used. 0.92

02:11:23.500 At the last supper.

02:11:24.500 Or it might be.

02:11:25.500 A chalice.

02:11:26.500 That was used.

02:11:27.500 To capture his blood.

02:11:28.500 On the cross.

02:11:29.500 Right?

02:11:30.500 When he was pierced.

02:11:31.500 By a sword.

02:11:32.500 The stories differ.

02:11:33.500 But that's the Holy Grail.

02:11:34.500 And the Holy Grail.

02:11:35.500 Is lost.

02:11:36.500 That's the redemptive substance.

02:11:37.500 And the knights of.

02:11:38.500 King Arthur.

02:11:39.500 Go off.

02:11:40.500 To search.

02:11:41.500 So.

02:11:42.500 Where do you look.

02:11:43.500 When you don't know.

02:11:44.500 Where to look.

02:11:45.500 For something.

02:11:46.500 You need.

02:11:47.500 Desperately.

02:11:48.500 But have lost.

02:11:49.500 Well.

02:11:50.500 Each of the knights.

02:11:51.500 Goes into the forest.

02:11:52.500 At the point.

02:11:53.500 That looks.

02:11:54.500 Darkest. 0.94

02:11:55.500 To him.

02:11:56.500 And that's.

02:11:57.500 Union.

02:11:58.500 Psychoanalysis.

02:11:59.500 In a nutshell.

02:12:00.500 It's like.

02:12:01.500 That which you fear.

02:12:02.500 And avoid.

02:12:03.500 That which.

02:12:04.500 Disgusts you.

02:12:05.500 And that you avoid.

02:12:06.500 That's the.

02:12:07.500 Gateway.

02:12:08.500 To what you need.

02:12:09.500 To know.

02:12:10.500 Something new age.

02:12:11.500 About that.

02:12:12.500 That's for sure.

02:12:13.500 Now.

02:12:14.500 Jung.

02:12:15.500 When he started.

02:12:16.500 This endeavor.

02:12:17.500 He started.

02:12:18.500 With this.

02:12:19.500 This is part.

02:12:20.500 Of the notebooks.

02:12:21.500 From the black book.

02:12:22.500 He said.

02:12:23.500 He wrote.

02:12:24.500 My soul.

02:12:25.500 My soul.

02:12:26.500 Where are you?

02:12:27.500 Do you hear me?

02:12:28.500 I speak.

02:12:29.500 I call you.

02:12:30.500 Are you there?

02:12:31.500 I've returned.

02:12:33.500 I'm here again.

02:12:35.500 I've shaken the dust.

02:12:36.500 Of all the lands.

02:12:37.500 From my feet.

02:12:38.500 And I've come to you.

02:12:39.500 I've come to you.

02:12:40.500 I am with you.

02:12:41.500 After long years.

02:12:42.500 Of long wandering.

02:12:43.500 I have come to you again.

02:12:47.500 For the Jungians.

02:12:48.500 The.

02:12:49.500 The hero's journey.

02:12:50.500 Is a journey within.

02:12:51.500 And.

02:12:52.500 And I think.

02:12:53.500 That that's probably.

02:12:54.500 The.

02:12:55.500 Bias of introverts. 0.59

02:12:57.500 To believe.

02:12:58.500 That the hero's journey.

02:12:59.500 Is an.

02:13:00.500 Only an inward journey.

02:13:01.500 It.

02:13:02.500 It can be an outward journey too.

02:13:03.500 Because I don't think.

02:13:04.500 It matters.

02:13:05.500 Where you confront.

02:13:06.500 The unknown.

02:13:07.500 Whether it's within.

02:13:08.500 Without.

02:13:09.500 What matters.

02:13:10.500 Is whether or not.

02:13:11.500 You.

02:13:12.500 Confront the unknown.

02:13:13.500 That's what matters.

02:13:14.500 That he found.

02:13:19.500 That what he had.

02:13:20.500 Ignored.

02:13:21.500 Was an undiscovered.

02:13:23.500 Part of himself.

02:13:24.500 So that might be something.

02:13:25.500 That was equivalent.

02:13:26.500 To Huxley's.

02:13:27.500 Notion.

02:13:28.500 That.

02:13:29.500 There were.

02:13:30.500 Tremend.

02:13:31.500 There's tremendous.

02:13:32.500 Potential breadth.

02:13:33.500 In the realm.

02:13:34.500 Of human conscious experience.

02:13:35.500 And.

02:13:36.500 Huxley was influenced.

02:13:37.500 To some degree.

02:13:38.500 By Jung.

02:13:39.500 Now.

02:13:40.500 Jung.

02:13:41.500 Knew of.

02:13:42.500 Huxley's experiments.

02:13:43.500 And had commented.

02:13:44.500 On psychedelic use.

02:13:45.500 And he said something.

02:13:46.500 Like.

02:13:47.500 Beware of wisdom.

02:13:48.500 You did not earn.

02:13:49.500 And.

02:13:50.500 Jung was very good.

02:13:51.500 At stating things.

02:13:52.500 Very profoundly.

02:13:53.500 Very simply.

02:13:54.500 And.

02:13:55.500 Wisdom.

02:13:56.500 You did not earn.

02:13:57.500 He wrote a paper.

02:13:58.500 If you're interested.

02:13:59.500 In this sort of thing.

02:14:00.500 He wrote a paper.

02:14:01.500 Be called.

02:14:02.500 The relations.

02:14:03.500 Between the ego.

02:14:04.500 And the unconscious.

02:14:05.500 Which is an absolute.

02:14:06.500 Masterwork.

02:14:07.500 But completely.

02:14:08.500 Incomprehensible.

02:14:09.500 Unless you know.

02:14:10.500 What it.

02:14:11.500 Unless you know.

02:14:12.500 What it's about.

02:14:13.500 Is.

02:14:14.500 The danger.

02:14:15.500 Of what he called.

02:14:16.500 Ego inflation.

02:14:17.500 And so.

02:14:18.500 One of the things.

02:14:19.500 That can happen.

02:14:20.500 Is that.

02:14:21.500 The.

02:14:22.500 The division.

02:14:23.500 Between the individual.

02:14:24.500 Ego.

02:14:25.500 And the.

02:14:26.500 And.

02:14:27.500 What would you call.

02:14:28.500 So hard.

02:14:29.500 To come up.

02:14:30.500 With a word.

02:14:31.500 That isn't.

02:14:32.500 Somehow naive.

02:14:33.500 Or.

02:14:34.500 Or.

02:14:35.500 Or cliched.

02:14:36.500 To erase.

02:14:37.500 The relationship.

02:14:38.500 The boundary.

02:14:39.500 Between.

02:14:40.500 The specific consciousness.

02:14:41.500 Of the ego.

02:14:42.500 And the more generalized.

02:14:43.500 Consciousness.

02:14:44.500 And more generalized consciousness.

02:14:46.500 As such.

02:14:48.500 Is a dangerous thing.

02:14:49.500 To do.

02:14:50.500 Is a dangerous thing.

02:14:51.500 To do.

02:14:52.500 Because you can start.

02:14:53.500 To equate.

02:14:54.500 Yourself.

02:14:55.500 Your specific self.

02:14:56.500 With that more generalized.

02:14:57.500 Consciousness.

02:14:58.500 As such.

02:14:59.500 And.

02:15:00.500 Jung thought about that.

02:15:01.500 Inflation.

02:15:02.500 And.

02:15:03.500 The paper.

02:15:04.500 Relations between the ego.

02:15:05.500 And the unconscious.

02:15:06.500 Is a document.

02:15:07.500 That tells you.

02:15:08.500 How to avoid that.

02:15:09.500 If you're.

02:15:14.500 Playing in this kind of realm.

02:15:15.500 And.

02:15:16.500 One of the.

02:15:17.500 Injunctions.

02:15:18.500 Is.

02:15:19.500 To keep your feet.

02:15:20.500 On the ground.

02:15:21.500 He thought.

02:15:22.500 That was what.

02:15:23.500 Partly.

02:15:24.500 What happened to Nietzsche.

02:15:25.500 Was that Nietzsche.

02:15:26.500 Wasn't grounded enough.

02:15:27.500 In life.

02:15:28.500 He wasn't.

02:15:29.500 Grounded enough.

02:15:30.500 In day-to-day.

02:15:31.500 Rituals.

02:15:32.500 And routines.

02:15:33.500 And the mundane.

02:15:34.500 Now.

02:15:35.500 You can debate.

02:15:36.500 Whether or not.

02:15:37.500 That's a reasonable argument.

02:15:38.500 But.

02:15:39.500 That was still.

02:15:40.500 What Jung believed.

02:15:41.500 Okay.

02:15:42.500 So.

02:15:43.500 Why am I telling you.

02:15:44.500 I'll finish with this.

02:15:45.500 From December 1913 onward.

02:15:47.500 Jung carried on.

02:15:48.500 In the same procedure.

02:15:49.500 Deliberately.

02:15:50.500 Evoking a fantasy.

02:15:51.500 In a waking state.

02:15:52.500 And then entering into it.

02:15:53.500 As a drama.

02:15:54.500 These fantasies.

02:15:55.500 May be understood.

02:15:56.500 As a type of dramatized thinking.

02:15:57.500 In pictorial form.

02:15:58.500 In retrospect.

02:15:59.500 He recalled.

02:16:00.500 That his scientific question.

02:16:01.500 Was to see.

02:16:02.500 What took place.

02:16:03.500 When he switched off.

02:16:04.500 Consciousness.

02:16:05.500 The example of dreams.

02:16:07.500 Indicated the existence.

02:16:08.500 Of background activity.

02:16:09.500 And he wanted to give this.

02:16:10.500 A possibility of emerging.

02:16:11.500 Just as one does.

02:16:12.500 When taking mescaline.

02:16:13.500 These journals.

02:16:14.500 Are Jung's. 0.97

02:16:15.500 Contemporaneous.

02:16:16.500 Contemporaneous.

02:16:17.500 Clinical ledger.

02:16:18.500 To his most difficult.

02:16:19.500 Experiment.

02:16:20.500 Or what he later.

02:16:21.500 Describes.

02:16:22.500 As a voyage of discovery.

02:16:23.500 To the other pole.

02:16:24.500 Of the world.

02:16:25.500 Jung believed.

02:16:26.500 That we were dreaming.

02:16:27.500 All the time.

02:16:28.500 But that.

02:16:29.500 During waking life.

02:16:30.500 The pressure.

02:16:31.500 Of external images.

02:16:32.500 Was such.

02:16:33.500 That the.

02:16:34.500 Unconscious.

02:16:35.500 Fantasy imagery.

02:16:36.500 Was.

02:16:37.500 Or that.

02:16:38.500 The fantasy imagery.

02:16:39.500 Was.

02:16:40.500 Of insufficient.

02:16:41.500 Magnitude.

02:16:42.500 To be conscious.

02:16:43.500 But that.

02:16:44.500 We were always.

02:16:45.500 Situated.

02:16:46.500 In a dream.

02:16:47.500 In relationship.

02:16:48.500 To the world.

02:16:49.500 In a dream.

02:16:50.500 In a dream.

02:16:51.500 In a dream.

02:16:52.500 In a dream.

02:16:53.500 In a dream.

02:16:54.500 In a dream.

02:16:55.500 In a dream.

02:16:56.500 When we started.

02:16:57.500 Speaking about.

02:16:59.500 The creation.

02:17:00.500 Of the universe.

02:17:01.500 At the beginning.

02:17:02.500 Of the genesis.

02:17:03.500 Stories.

02:17:04.500 I spent.

02:17:05.500 Quite a long time.

02:17:06.500 Setting the stage.

02:17:07.500 For the stories.

02:17:08.500 Because.

02:17:09.500 There's no point.

02:17:10.500 In having a conversation.

02:17:11.500 About.

02:17:12.500 The God.

02:17:13.500 Who gives rise.

02:17:14.500 To being.

02:17:15.500 Unless.

02:17:16.500 You have some sense.

02:17:18.500 Of what.

02:17:19.500 That might.

02:17:20.500 Conceivably.

02:17:21.500 In a dream.

02:17:22.500 To the modern mind.

02:17:23.500 And.

02:17:24.500 I felt.

02:17:25.500 understand and articulate more clearly

02:17:27.900 what it might mean,

02:17:29.900 how a modern person might understand

02:17:34.800 a direct experience of God, and the first question would be,

02:17:38.600 is such a thing possible?

02:17:40.600 And the answer to that seems to be

02:17:42.600 a qualified yes. First of all, it's a universal human experience. That's a very strange thing.

02:17:47.500 It's not something that people have made up, as Freud might have it, as a defense against death.

02:17:53.000 It's not a tenable hypothesis.

02:17:55.000 It's a realm of potential experience.

02:17:58.500 Now, that experience doesn't necessarily have to have the Judeo-Christian content that we've been discussing.

02:18:03.500 Quite the contrary, there are manifestations of this,

02:18:06.500 these alternative forms of consciousness all over the world that take on their own peculiar forms,

02:18:11.500 although they're patterned to some degree.

02:18:13.000 That's like the hero myth, for example.

02:18:14.500 The myth of the fight against the dragon seems to be unbelievably widespread.

02:18:18.500 And so, it's not as if it's random.

02:18:21.000 Sorry, I should just see what time it is here.

02:18:26.500 But there's not much point in having a discussion about what happens to Abraham,

02:18:38.000 unless you can conceptualize it in terms that are amenable to modern skeptical consciousness.

02:18:44.000 So, we can establish the proposition that mystical experience is not only possible,

02:18:48.500 it's quite common.

02:18:49.500 And it's inducible in a variety of ways.

02:18:51.500 And the manner in which it's inducible is reliable.

02:18:54.500 And there's no evidence, as well, that it's pathological.

02:18:57.500 In fact, there's a fair bit of evidence that the patterns of behavior that are associated with the mystical experience

02:19:02.500 are core elements of proper human adaptation in the world.

02:19:15.000 In today's chaotic world, many of us are searching for a way to aim higher and find spiritual peace.

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02:20:50.500 The Abrahamic stories open up with a manifest God.

02:20:52.500 Now, I'm going to read you some things from Friedman, who wrote The Disappearance of God.

02:20:58.500 He was trying to look at the underlying structure of the stories.

02:21:01.500 Now, you know, Friedman noted that the books in the Old Testament were written by a lot of different people,

02:21:07.500 at very different times.

02:21:09.500 And then they were sequenced by other people,

02:21:12.500 for reasons that we don't exactly understand.

02:21:16.500 But there's still an underlying narrative.

02:21:19.500 There's multiple underlying narrative unities,

02:21:22.500 despite the fact of that rather arbitrary sequencing.

02:21:25.500 And that's a strange thing.

02:21:27.500 You know, I guess you could say,

02:21:29.500 if you had a collection of ancient books and you were trying to put them together,

02:21:32.500 you'd try to put them together in some way that made sense.

02:21:35.500 Right? And it wouldn't make sense unless you stumbled across some kind of underlying narrative

02:21:40.500 that allowed you to order them.

02:21:42.500 And so it's not entirely surprising that they're ordered in a manner that's comprehensible.

02:21:47.500 But Friedman's comments on the underlying narrative structure,

02:21:51.500 part of it was, well, we'll go through this.

02:21:55.500 The books of the Old Testament were composed by a great many authors,

02:21:58.500 according to both traditional religious views and modern critical scholarship.

02:22:01.500 The phenomenon of the diminishing apparent presence of God across so many stories,

02:22:06.500 through so many books, by so many authors,

02:22:08.500 spread over so many centuries,

02:22:10.500 is consistent enough to be striking, impressive, and ultimately mysterious.

02:22:16.500 But the hiding of the divine face is only half the story.

02:22:19.500 There's another development,

02:22:20.500 also extending across the course of the entire narrative of the Hebrew Bible,

02:22:24.500 which we must see before we can appreciate the full force of this phenomena,

02:22:28.500 and before we can pose a solution to the mystery of this, of how this happened.

02:22:32.500 Gradually, from Genesis to Ezra and Esther,

02:22:34.500 there is a transition from divine to human responsibility for life on Earth.

02:22:40.500 The story begins in Genesis with God in complete control of the creation,

02:22:44.500 but by the end, humans have arrived at a stage at which, in all apparent ways,

02:22:48.500 they have responsibility for the fate of the world.

02:22:51.500 The first two human beings, Adam and Eve, take little responsibility themselves.

02:22:57.500 They do not design or build anything.

02:23:00.500 When they're embarrassed over their nudity, they do not make clothes.

02:23:03.500 They cover themselves with leaves.

02:23:05.500 It's God who makes their first clothing for them.

02:23:07.500 Noah, by no means a fully developed personality,

02:23:12.500 Noah is not an everyman either.

02:23:14.500 Broadly speaking, he reflects a step beyond Adam and Eve in human character and responsibility.

02:23:18.500 Abraham, beyond the counts of divine commands that Abraham does carry out, 0.63

02:23:24.500 the narrative also includes a variety of stories in which Abraham acts on his own initiative.

02:23:29.500 He divides land with his nephew, Lot.

02:23:31.500 He battles kings.

02:23:32.500 He takes concubines.

02:23:33.500 He argues with his wife, Sarah.

02:23:35.500 On two occasions, he tells kings that Sarah is his sister,

02:23:38.500 out of fear that they will kill him to get his wife.

02:23:41.500 And he arranges his son's marriage.

02:23:43.500 In the place of the single story of Noah's drunkenness,

02:23:45.500 there are, in the case of Abraham, the stories of a man's life.

02:23:49.500 The Abraham section thus develops the personality and character of a man,

02:23:53.500 of a man to a new degree in biblical narrative,

02:23:55.500 while picturing in him a new degree of responsibility.

02:23:57.500 It is not just that Abraham is kinder, gentler, more intrepid, more ethical,

02:24:02.500 or a better debater than his ancestor Noah.

02:24:05.500 Rather, both the Noah and the Abraham stories are pieces of a development

02:24:08.500 of an increasingly stronger stance of humans relative to the deity.

02:24:12.500 Before the story is over, humans will become a great deal stronger and bolder than Abraham.

02:24:26.500 I don't know what that means, you know.

02:24:28.500 See, it isn't, it is certainly the case that the individual exists in the modern world.

02:24:38.500 The differentiated, self-aware, self-conscious individual.

02:24:41.500 And it's certainly the case that that wasn't the case at some point in the past.

02:24:45.500 And so it's the case that there's been a development,

02:24:48.500 I don't know if you could call it a progression,

02:24:50.500 but a development of the autonomous individual over some span of historical time.

02:24:55.500 Now, we don't know how long that's been, but my suspicions are it hasn't been that long.

02:25:00.500 I mean, I read once about a Neolithic ceremony that involved the particular placement of a bear skull in a cave.

02:25:12.500 And then I read that, and they had found these placements in caves that were at least 25,000 years old.

02:25:20.500 And then I read that they found caves in Japan among the Ainu,

02:25:24.500 who were the indigenous inhabitants of Japanese territory and rather archaic people,

02:25:29.500 who had the same ceremony with the bear and that put the skull in the same orientation and place in caves.

02:25:36.500 And that that tradition remained unbroken for about 25,000 years.

02:25:40.500 And you think, well, is it possible for an oral or ritual tradition to remain unbroken for spans of tens of thousands of years?

02:25:47.500 And the answer to that is not only is it possible, it's actually the norm.

02:25:51.500 Because like, one chimpanzee is like the next chimpanzee, right?

02:25:56.500 In the progression, in the biological progression.

02:25:59.500 If you took a chimpanzee troop now, and you went back 25,000 years and you looked at a chimpanzee troop, 0.99

02:26:04.500 it'd be the same thing. There's no historical progression.

02:26:06.500 That's how you can tell that chimps really don't have culture. 1.00

02:26:09.500 Because if they could even accrete one one-thousandth of a percent of culture,

02:26:14.500 transmissible culture, per generation, it wouldn't take more than about a million years before they'd have a whole civilization.

02:26:20.500 And they don't. They're the same as they were.

02:26:23.500 And so, the continuity, the stability and unchanging nature of a species, essentially speaking, is the rule.

02:26:31.500 The variant is us.

02:26:34.500 It's like, what the hell happened after the last ice age?

02:26:37.500 15,000 years ago.

02:26:39.500 We went from tribal, uniform, stable, to whatever the hell we are now.

02:26:45.500 It's this transition from generic to specific.

02:26:50.500 It's something like that.

02:26:51.500 And I can't help but think that that's reflected in this text.

02:26:54.500 And that it has something to do with this transition of consciousness from, from what?

02:27:00.500 From possession by the generic divine to dominance by the specific individual?

02:27:05.500 It's something like that.

02:27:06.500 Is that a neurological transformation?

02:27:08.500 Is that what this is a record of?

02:27:10.500 I mean, we don't know.

02:27:12.500 One of the things Jung said about God, because Jung's relationship with God as an object of belief is very complex.

02:27:20.500 In his technical writing, he always talks about the image of God.

02:27:25.500 He never talks about God.

02:27:26.500 He talks about the image of God.

02:27:28.500 He said that the image of God dwells within.

02:27:30.500 That's not the same thing as God dwelling within, right?

02:27:33.500 Because we could, I mean, all of these capacities that we have for transcendent consciousness could be a byproduct of biological evolution.

02:27:41.500 They can have no reflection.

02:27:42.500 They can have no relationship whatsoever to an actual transcendent reality.

02:27:47.500 There's no way of telling.

02:27:49.500 The transcendent reality seems to manifest itself as an element of experience.

02:27:52.500 But that doesn't mean that it has a reality outside of the subjective.

02:27:55.500 Even if it's, even if it exists, as it clearly does.

02:27:59.500 But, Friedman suggests that what's happening in the biblical narrative is the sequential emergence of the individual as a redemptive force.

02:28:20.500 And that the Old Testament documents that implicitly, unconsciously, as a consequence of descriptive fantasy.

02:28:29.500 And that that's what's going on in the book.

02:28:31.500 And that, so, the cosmos is under the control of generic deity to begin with, something like that.

02:28:40.500 And then that control shifts to localized, identifiable, increasingly personal and detailed individuals.

02:28:49.500 And you see that in Noah, and then you see it in Abraham, and then you see it in Moses.

02:28:54.500 And then there's this working out of what it would mean to be a fully developed individual.

02:28:59.500 And that's what these stories, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're like prototypes.

02:29:04.500 They're, they're attempts to, to, to bring about the proper mode of being.

02:29:09.500 Right? And so Abraham is a, is a manifestation of that.

02:29:12.500 Because he enters into a covenant with God.

02:29:14.500 He's selected by God, or enters into a partnership with God.

02:29:16.500 It's not exactly obvious.

02:29:18.500 God provides him with forward motion and intuition.

02:29:23.500 And leads him towards a successful mode of being.

02:29:27.500 And it's complex successful mode of being.

02:29:29.500 Because Abraham has a very complex life.

02:29:31.500 There's plenty of ups and downs.

02:29:32.500 Right? It's, it's not unbroken purity of being towards a divine end.

02:29:39.500 Abraham lies and cheats and deceives and does all sorts of things that, that a real person would do.

02:29:44.500 And, and Moses, for example, kills someone.

02:29:48.500 And so these people, the biblical people, are very genuine individuals.

02:29:52.500 But they're given, with all their faults.

02:29:55.500 Right? With all their sins.

02:29:56.500 With all their deceit.

02:29:57.500 They're still put forth as potential modes of proper, models of potential, proper being in the world.

02:30:04.500 And the entire corpus of the Bible seems to be nothing but an attempt to keep throwing up variants of the personality.

02:30:12.500 Trying to experiment to find out what personality works in the world.

02:30:18.500 And, of course, from a Christian perspective, that culminates in the figure of Christ as the redemptive word.

02:30:24.500 And that's associated, as we've already talked about, with the force that brought order out of chaos at the beginning of time.

02:30:32.500 And so, well, that's my attempt to provide proper context for the understanding of the Abrahamic stories.

02:30:44.500 And so, hopefully, with that context, we can move forward, being able to swallow the camel, so to speak, of the initial presence of God in the stories.

02:30:57.500 And so, we'll return to all of that, next week.

02:31:02.500 Thank you.

02:31:19.500 Let's wait one second.

02:31:21.500 Okay, until people have an opportunity to leave.

02:31:24.500 I would very much like to ask the people who are asking the questions, to take a few seconds before they ask the question, and make sure that the mic is positioned properly, so that everyone can hear you.

02:31:35.500 Because people keep writing and complaining that, while they're very happy with the questions, and I would say the questions have been of very high caliber so far, but they're not very happy that they can't hear them.

02:31:45.500 So, I know that, you know, you're obviously nervous and in a hurry when you want to ask a question, but take a second or two to set the mic up properly, and make sure that everyone can hear you.

02:31:55.500 And so, have a way at it.

02:31:58.500 Hello, Dr. Peterson.

02:31:59.500 Hey, there we go.

02:32:00.500 Tonight, I'd like to ask you about two different psychological disorders.

02:32:04.500 The first being borderline personality disorder.

02:32:07.500 So, two lectures ago, somebody asked you about it, and you gave a very sparse answer.

02:32:14.500 I can't remember exactly what you said, but it seemed like it was, there was too much complexity to just answer it right there and then.

02:32:23.500 And then somebody else also asked you about the same disorder in your Patreon livestream recently.

02:32:30.500 And when they asked you that, you kind of stopped for a moment, and something, I don't know, something kind of flicked on in your head, it seemed like.

02:32:40.500 And you thought for a couple seconds, and then you said, you know what, I don't think that I can answer that right now, because it's just too, it's just too bloody complex.

02:32:49.500 And I was wondering, just like many young men have gravitated towards your lectures, do you think that there's something about this particular disorder that, there's something about people with this particular disorder that might gravitate to your insights and your lectures?

02:33:08.500 Okay, okay, so, I would say probably no to the second one, but I could comment more about borderline personality disorder.

02:33:15.500 I think I have enough mental energy to do that tonight.

02:33:18.500 So, technically speaking, it's often considered the female variant of antisocial personality disorder. 0.96

02:33:26.500 So, it's classified in the domain of externalizing disorders, acting out disorders.

02:33:35.500 And I think what happens, we don't understand borderline personality disorder very well.

02:33:41.500 And it's characterized by tremendous impulsivity, radical confusion of identity, and then this pattern of idealization of people with whom the person afflicted with the disorder is associating with radical idealization of those people, and then radical devaluation of them.

02:34:07.500 And then there's another theme that sort of weaves along with it, which is the proclivity of people with borderline personality disorder to presume that they will be abandoned.

02:34:18.500 And then to act in a manner that makes such abandonment virtually certain.

02:34:23.500 And so, it's a very complicated disorder, but that, I think, gets at the crux of it.

02:34:31.500 One of the things that's interesting about people with borderline personality disorder, in my experience, is that they're often quite intelligent.

02:34:40.500 And you see in the person with borderline personality disorder something like the waste or the squandering of tremendous potential.

02:34:50.500 They seem capable of thinking through the nature of their problems, and analyzing them, and discussing it, but not capable whatsoever of implementing any solutions.

02:35:01.500 Technically, there's no relationship between IQ and conscientiousness.

02:35:17.500 It's very weird.

02:35:19.500 Because if you read the neuropsychological literature,

02:35:23.500 And you read about the functions of the prefrontal cortex, they're usually conceptualized in intellectual terms.

02:35:28.500 And they're associated with planning and strategizing and so forth.

02:35:32.500 And...

02:35:35.500 That's what conscientiousness is, is planning and strategizing and implementation.

02:35:39.500 But the correlation between IQ and conscientiousness is zero.

02:35:43.500 And so is the correlation between working memory and conscientiousness.

02:35:47.500 Zero! 0.90

02:35:48.500 And zero is a very low correlation, right?

02:35:51.500 I mean, really, it's hard to find things in psychology that are correlated at zero.

02:35:56.500 Things tend to be correlated to some degree. They tend to be interrelated.

02:36:00.500 The borderline seems to be able to strategize, and to abstract, but not to be able to implement.

02:36:09.500 And so, the intellect, per se, seems to be functional.

02:36:14.500 But it's not embodied in action.

02:36:18.500 It's very... so it can be frustrating to be associated with someone who has borderline personality disorder.

02:36:24.500 Because they can tell you what the problem is, and even tell you what the solution might be.

02:36:29.500 But there's no implementation.

02:36:31.500 So, maybe something went wrong developmentally.

02:36:36.500 We don't know exactly how these sorts of things come about.

02:36:39.500 The other thing that seems to be characteristic of borderline...

02:36:41.500 People with borderline personality disorder is that...

02:36:44.500 They... they remind me very much of people who are two years old.

02:36:48.500 In some manner.

02:36:50.500 Like...

02:36:51.500 People with borderline personality disorder can have temper tantrums.

02:36:54.500 In fact, they often do.

02:36:55.500 And, you know, now and then you see a temper tantrum,

02:36:58.500 and they're usually thrown by two-year-olds, right?

02:37:01.500 Most people grow out of temper tantrums by the time they're about three.

02:37:04.500 They're very rare at four.

02:37:05.500 Which is a good thing.

02:37:06.500 Because if they're still there at four, that is not a good diagnostic predictor.

02:37:10.500 That's actually a good diagnostic predictor.

02:37:13.500 But it's not the kind that you want.

02:37:15.500 And, you know, it's funny the way that we respond to two-year-old temper tantrums.

02:37:20.500 Because the two-year-old will throw themself on the ground and beat their hands and their legs on the floor.

02:37:25.500 And scream and yell and turn red or even blue.

02:37:28.500 I saw a child once who was capable of holding his breath during a temper tantrum until he turned blue.

02:37:33.500 Which was really an impressive feat.

02:37:35.500 You should try that, right?

02:37:36.500 It's really hard.

02:37:37.500 You really have to work at it.

02:37:39.500 And you see that in adult borderlines.

02:37:42.500 They'll have temper tantrums. 1.00

02:37:43.500 And the funny thing is, when a two-year-old does it, it's like it's, you know, it's a little off-putting.

02:37:48.500 But when an adult does it, it's completely bloody terrifying.

02:37:53.500 And it happens very frequently with borderlines.

02:37:55.500 And so, I would also say to some degree, they didn't get properly socialized between that critical period of development between two and four.

02:38:03.500 And you see the same thing with adult males who grow up to be antisocial.

02:38:06.500 Because a large proportion of adult males who grow up to be antisocial are aggressive as children.

02:38:12.500 As two-year-olds.

02:38:13.500 And so, there's a small proportion of two-year-olds who are quite aggressive.

02:38:16.500 They'll kick and hit and bite and steal.

02:38:18.500 If you put them with other two-year-olds.

02:38:20.500 It's about five percent of the males.

02:38:22.500 Smaller fraction of the females. 0.60

02:38:24.500 But most of them are socialized by the time they're four.

02:38:27.500 But there's a small percentage who aren't.

02:38:29.500 And they tend to stay antisocial.

02:38:31.500 And they tend to turn into long-term offenders.

02:38:33.500 And the critical period for socialization development seems to be between two and four.

02:38:38.500 And it seems to be mediated by pretend play and rough-and-tumble play and those sorts of mechanisms.

02:38:43.500 And if it isn't instantiated by the age of four, it doesn't happen.

02:38:47.500 And it doesn't look like it's addressable.

02:38:50.500 Now, there are dialectic behavioral therapies that have been developed for people with borderline personality disorder.

02:38:56.500 And they're purported to be successful.

02:38:59.500 But...

02:39:01.500 Okay, thank you.

02:39:03.500 If I may, so the second psychological disorder I wanted to ask you about is psychopathy.

02:39:08.500 So, you've mentioned that psychopaths tend to switch from dominance hierarchy to dominance hierarchy

02:39:14.500 because people get tired of their shenanigans and they have to move on to fresh people.

02:39:18.500 And psychopaths also tend to be very low in conscientiousness.

02:39:23.500 And you said that when you see some of these protestors at your speeches,

02:39:28.500 some of the men in particular, your clinical intuition tells you that there's something seriously pathological about them.

02:39:37.500 And I was wondering if you would suspect that some of these men might be psychopathic as...

02:39:42.500 Well, some of them likely are.

02:39:44.500 But I don't know if a higher proportion of the ones who show up at protests and sort of creep me out are...

02:39:49.500 I don't know if there's a higher proportion of people like that at the protests or not.

02:39:54.500 I mean, I suspect in general that regardless of the protest,

02:39:59.500 the proportion of people who have personality disorders among protestors is higher than the proportion of people who have personality disorders in the general population.

02:40:07.500 Because you just expect that. You just expect that kind of acting out behavior.

02:40:11.500 I'm not, believe me, I'm not saying that all protest is associated with personality disorder.

02:40:15.500 I'm not saying that at all. There's plenty of reason for protest.

02:40:18.500 But some of the reason for protests are credible reasons and some of them aren't credible reasons.

02:40:23.500 And I was just thinking that, like, the social justice hierarchy, so to speak, would be one of the last that these confused men...

02:40:31.500 That's, that's, that's a different issue. You know, there are, there are analysis of the dangers of agreeableness.

02:40:38.500 So agreeableness is a personality trait that underlies the radical egalitarian ethos.

02:40:44.500 Because agreeable people want everything to be shared equally.

02:40:47.500 And it's a good, I think it's a good ethos for a small group, for a family.

02:40:51.500 Because a family is kind of a communist system in some sense, right?

02:40:55.500 It's like, you want the food to be divided up equally among the children, clearly.

02:40:59.500 And you want all the children, sort of regardless of their inherent abilities, to have the same opportunities and perhaps even the same outcomes.

02:41:06.500 So I think agreeableness, which is associated, at least in part, with maternal, maternal, the maternal instinct, let's say.

02:41:13.500 Maternal patterns of behavior. I think it's a, it's a good first-pass motivational approximation to a localized familial ethic.

02:41:23.500 I think it's a catastrophe at larger scales. I don't think it scales at all.

02:41:28.500 I actually think that's why we evolved conscientiousness.

02:41:31.500 Because conscientiousness is the principle that allows larger scale organizations to exist.

02:41:36.500 Agreeableness won't do it.

02:41:38.500 Now, conscientiousness is a mystery, right?

02:41:41.500 We don't have a neurological model.

02:41:43.500 We don't have a conceptual model.

02:41:46.500 We don't have an animal model.

02:41:48.500 We don't have a pharmacological model.

02:41:50.500 And we really only have one way of assessing it, which is self and other reports of personality proclivity.

02:41:56.500 So, anyways, the problem with agreeableness, this has been modeled by game theorists, is that a population of cooperative people can be dominated by a single shark.

02:42:11.500 So, agreeableness is insufficient as a principle.

02:42:16.500 Because it opens itself up to, um, what do you call that?

02:42:23.500 Manipulation and...

02:42:32.500 Manipulation, let's, let's leave it at that.

02:42:34.500 To manipulation and, and, and, and exploitation.

02:42:37.500 That's the other thing.

02:42:39.500 Exploitation.

02:42:40.500 So...

02:42:43.500 Thank you.

02:42:49.500 Hi, Dr. Peterson.

02:42:50.500 I had, uh, one quick comment and a question.

02:42:52.500 Uh, so my comment was about your idea of, um, sub-personalities as, uh, one-eyed monsters.

02:42:57.500 Now, there's the idea of, uh, multiple personality or split personality disorders controversial as to whether or not it exists.

02:43:04.500 But there's some research, recent research that suggests that, um, you may actually have multiple personalities that use different parts of the brain.

02:43:13.500 So they have differential access to the hippocampus.

02:43:15.500 They have their own memories.

02:43:16.500 And, um, they can, um, they, they use the brain differently.

02:43:20.500 But that seems to be an exaggeration of, um, sub-personalities to me, which is quite interesting.

02:43:26.500 Um, the question I had was about, um, so you talked about Jung and how, um, you should confront that which you don't want to confront the most or you're most afraid of or disgusted by.

02:43:40.500 That you have the most resistance to.

02:43:41.500 Um, so, but we were talking about psychedelics and, uh, and the experience of hell.

02:43:46.500 So, uh, at least some of the people I've talked to, they describe negative trips as, um, an experience of, uh, of constant fear, prolonged fear.

02:43:58.500 And, um, some of the most, um, dramatic and personalized fear that they've ever experienced.

02:44:04.500 So, shouldn't, uh, negative, um, psychedelic trips elicit the kind of confrontation that, uh, Jung thought you should engage in?

02:44:13.500 Could be.

02:44:15.500 Could, could well be.

02:44:17.500 You know, it, it, I, it's conceivable that, I read this strange book once that made the claim that what was in the Ark of the Covenant was a mixture

02:44:33.500 that was made from Amanita Muscaria mushrooms.

02:44:37.500 And that's not as far-fetched as you might think.

02:44:40.500 Because there was a mycologist, an amateur mycologist named Gordon Wasson,

02:44:45.500 who established credibly the notion that it was Amanita Muscaria potions that was the soma of the Rig Veda.

02:44:56.500 And so, it's a strange idea, but, it's not an idea that's completely outside of the realm of possibility.

02:45:05.500 Um, and the Amanita Muscaria is the fly agaric, a red mushroom with white dots.

02:45:14.500 And it's used in shamanic rituals in across Asia.

02:45:17.500 And it's apparently not toxic in its dried form, although that is not a recommendation.

02:45:24.500 You know, this is serious, serious and dangerous speculation and material.

02:45:31.500 One of the things that the priests had to do before they communed with what was ever in the Ark of the Covenant was purify themselves.

02:45:42.500 And so, one possibility is that the bad psychedelic experience is a involuntary confrontation with what Jung would describe as the shadow.

02:45:56.500 It's like, so, beware of experimenting with substances that produce divine revelations if you're in a serious state of disorder.

02:46:08.500 And I do think that is what happens to people, is that they encounter everything about them that's chaotic and out of place.

02:46:17.500 And some people get trapped in that and they can't get beyond it.

02:46:20.500 And that's because there's so much of it.

02:46:23.500 And so, but we don't know enough to know.

02:46:27.500 So...

02:46:29.500 Yeah.

02:46:30.500 .

02:46:43.500 Citizen Peterson. 1.00

02:46:44.500 You son of a bitch. 1.00

02:46:45.500 How are you? 1.00

02:46:46.500 I'm not too bad.

02:46:47.500 You got a question?

02:46:48.500 .

02:46:49.500 I'm not too bad.

02:46:52.140 You got a question?

02:46:55.820 That's a question.

02:46:56.980 No, I've got a real question.

02:46:58.060 I've got a good question.

02:46:58.940 You're going to like this one.

02:46:59.960 It's about inspiration, because you talk about inspiration quite a bit in this lecture series.

02:47:04.560 And also, I wanted to point out, you have, I guess, a 45-minute armchair discussion,

02:47:10.520 which you have a video of, of one paragraph of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, which you posted.

02:47:15.240 And it seems like you're awestruck at the structure and the choices and, I guess, the ideas contained in various layers of this paragraph.

02:47:26.620 And you're inspired, and that inspires you to, I guess, do your work that you do.

02:47:31.980 I encountered, I guess, a similar phenomenon here with one sentence written by the great Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

02:47:41.040 And, I mean, this one sentence answers the question, why do people search for God?

02:47:47.820 And if you could read it out and then deconstruct it, it's one sentence.

02:47:56.340 It's at the end of page 105, if you want to read it from the book, or I just...

02:48:00.600 That's the question that human existence not only poses, but itself is.

02:48:07.840 The inconclusiveness inherent in it, the bounds it comes up against, and that yet yearn for the unbounded.

02:48:14.640 More or less in the sense of Nietzsche's assertion that all pleasure yearns for eternity, yet experiences itself as a moment.

02:48:20.760 This simultaneity of being limited and of yearning for the unbounded and open has always prevented man from resting in himself.

02:48:29.040 Made him sense that he is not self-sufficient, but only comes to himself by going outside himself and moving toward the entirely other and infinitely greater.

02:48:39.300 Well, it's a hell of a sentence.

02:48:40.780 Like, when I read that sentence, I decided I wanted to write like Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

02:48:47.840 I had a very similar experience when I watched the Joe Rogan podcast, 877.

02:48:52.540 I said, I want to speak like Jordan Peterson.

02:48:56.220 That's what I wanted to do.

02:48:57.620 So, I had this discussion with a Patreon supporter this week, a young guy from Australia.

02:49:06.980 And he said something very interesting that's related to this.

02:49:10.780 And it's something that's very profound, I said, I think.

02:49:16.660 There's this idea in Christianity that we've discussed briefly that the judge and the redeemer are the same figure.

02:49:23.820 Now, you know, in the book of Revelation, you may know this or you may not.

02:49:27.460 Christ comes back as a judge.

02:49:30.960 And he has a sword coming.

02:49:31.920 It's a revelatory vision, that book.

02:49:35.060 It's a very strange...

02:49:36.920 It's the last thing you'd expect conservative Christians to believe in.

02:49:40.500 Believe me.

02:49:41.180 It's such a visionary hallucination, the book of Revelation.

02:49:44.640 But Christ comes back with a sword coming out of his mouth.

02:49:47.600 And he comes back as a judge.

02:49:49.620 And he divides the damned from the redeemed.

02:49:52.180 And most are damned and some are redeemed.

02:49:54.300 It's very, very harsh.

02:49:55.460 Now, Jung believed that the figure of Christ in the Gospels was too agreeable, too merciful, too tilted towards mercy.

02:50:03.100 And that that called out for a counterposition.

02:50:06.320 And that was the counterposition of judgment.

02:50:08.600 Very interesting hypothesis.

02:50:10.720 But then there's this melding of the two ideas that the judge and the redeemer are the same thing.

02:50:16.040 Okay.

02:50:18.300 Now, this young man told me that his life lacked purpose and direction and meaning.

02:50:25.460 And that he was nihilistic.

02:50:27.180 Until he started...

02:50:29.100 He read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

02:50:31.760 Which is a book I actually like quite a bit.

02:50:33.620 I've read it three times in different decades of my life.

02:50:36.120 And one of the things that's very interesting about that book is that it's an examination of the idea of quality.

02:50:41.080 Of the idea that there are qualitative distinctions between things.

02:50:45.400 And that we have an instinct to make qualitative distinctions.

02:50:48.800 And so a qualitative distinction is simply, this is better than that.

02:50:53.640 Which is a judgment.

02:50:55.700 Okay.

02:50:56.000 Now, what Ratzinger is hypothesizing is that the person in and of...

02:51:02.600 You know how the idea, the modern idea is you're supposed to accept yourself.

02:51:05.980 I think that's an insane idea, by the way.

02:51:08.380 Really.

02:51:08.860 I think...

02:51:09.140 I can't think of a more nihilistic idea than that you're already okay.

02:51:13.500 It's like, no, you're not.

02:51:14.720 And the reason you're not is that you could be way more than you are.

02:51:18.080 And so what do you want to be?

02:51:18.900 You want to be okay as you are?

02:51:20.440 Or do you want to strive towards what's better?

02:51:23.940 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...

02:51:31.120 Because he wasn't happy with his current mode of being, right?

02:51:34.760 He didn't consider the manner in which he conducted himself sufficient.

02:51:40.160 And the fact that the author of Zen and it was Persig laid out the notion that you could make qualitative distinctions.

02:51:47.960 And there really was a difference between good things and bad things or great things and evil things.

02:51:52.840 It gives you direction.

02:51:54.900 It gives you the possibility of moving upward.

02:51:58.420 And Ratzinger is pointing out, at least to some degree, that human beings are insufficient in and of themselves and need the movement upward.

02:52:06.980 And so they need to conceptualize something like the highest good.

02:52:10.540 And then to strive for that.

02:52:11.740 And the thing is, is that there isn't any difference between conceptualizing the good and being judged.

02:52:20.020 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.

02:52:28.940 And that's why the Redeemer and the Judge are the same thing.

02:52:32.500 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.

02:52:39.540 You say, well, we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by saying that one thing is better than another.

02:52:44.780 It's like, okay, fair enough. 0.99

02:52:46.100 It's not fun to be cast off with the damned. 0.98

02:52:50.160 That's for sure. 0.90

02:52:51.600 But if people are, in fact, insufficient in their present condition, which seems to be the case.

02:52:58.480 I mean, try finding someone who isn't.

02:53:00.820 Then if you deny the possibility of qualitative distinction because you want to promote a radical egalitarianism.

02:53:08.620 Then you remove the possibility of redemption.

02:53:11.380 Because there's no movement towards the good.

02:53:13.640 And it seems to me that it's a catastrophe to sacrifice the good for...

02:53:18.820 Well, it's a catastrophe to sacrifice the good for the equal.

02:53:22.860 Because for us to be equal would mean, as far as I can tell, that we would all be equally unredeemed and miserable.

02:53:29.520 And so...

02:53:31.520 He also mentions in the previous paragraph, I believe, that even in the case when you experience the human life at its fullest,

02:53:44.900 at its most beautiful, at its most meaningful, you have a deep, I guess, understanding that you have something to be thankful for.

02:53:52.780 Or you need to thank somebody for that.

02:53:54.600 It's not based entirely on your own merit.

02:53:57.160 And that points you towards something else.

02:53:59.140 And also...

02:53:59.680 I don't think that you can have a profoundly positive experience.

02:54:04.680 You know, in the best sense, without that accompanying it.

02:54:08.160 That's a feeling of being blessed.

02:54:09.860 It's something like that.

02:54:10.800 Yeah.

02:54:11.600 Exactly.

02:54:12.300 That's good.

02:54:12.720 You need to look back and also I'd like to talk...

02:54:14.600 Oh, wait.

02:54:15.420 Hold it.

02:54:15.940 I'm going to stop you.

02:54:17.320 Okay?

02:54:17.640 Because I'm going to ask this person.

02:54:19.380 But I would like to say that those were remarkably good questions.

02:54:23.480 Thank you.

02:54:23.740 So...

02:54:24.220 Dr. Peterson, thank you for the wonderful lecture.

02:54:35.300 Given your working definition of truth,

02:54:37.180 and let's say within the Abrahamic religious tradition,

02:54:42.600 would you say that the more perhaps mystical sects and denominations,

02:54:47.980 which place more emphasis on the transcendental experience of God,

02:54:52.660 of the all-induced experience,

02:54:55.140 as opposed to the more fundamentalist, orthodox, literalist,

02:55:00.000 which perhaps emphasized what I've noticed,

02:55:05.140 moral policing of behaviors?

02:55:08.120 Yeah.

02:55:08.640 Would you say that the former is more true than the latter?

02:55:12.300 No.

02:55:12.880 And...

02:55:13.340 No.

02:55:14.400 And...

02:55:14.960 Okay, sorry.

02:55:15.780 Continue.

02:55:16.380 And B, could the former in some way serve as an antidote

02:55:21.100 to extremist, literalism, jihadism, fundamentalism?

02:55:25.380 Okay, so yes to the second part.

02:55:27.500 But the first part, it's a great question.

02:55:30.640 We did some research on this a while back,

02:55:33.360 because we were looking at

02:55:34.400 the different religious proclivities of liberals and conservatives.

02:55:38.980 And liberals, like, if you're liberal,

02:55:40.780 it means you're high in openness and low in conscientiousness.

02:55:43.280 And if you're conservative,

02:55:44.380 then you're high in conscientiousness and low in openness.

02:55:46.760 And that the liberals are spiritual,

02:55:48.760 and the conservatives are dogmatic.

02:55:51.220 But it's best to think of those as partners.

02:55:54.900 Right?

02:55:55.320 Because the spiritual, mystical end is where the revelations emerge,

02:56:01.420 and the renewal.

02:56:02.860 But that's where there's chaos and discord as well.

02:56:06.420 Because what's new disrupts what's stable.

02:56:09.340 And so, what's new has to be turned into,

02:56:12.220 it has to be integrated into what's stable.

02:56:14.180 And so you need both those poles.

02:56:15.680 And of course, if the dogmatists get the upper hand,

02:56:17.800 then everything turns into a tyranny of stone.

02:56:21.120 That's Egypt in the Old Testament.

02:56:22.860 But if the mystics get the upper hand,

02:56:27.740 then everything floats off the earth

02:56:29.640 into some impractical ether

02:56:31.480 that is equally counterproductive.

02:56:33.880 And so there has to be a dialogue

02:56:35.660 between those different poles.

02:56:37.500 And I think you see that

02:56:38.600 in the distribution of human temperament.

02:56:40.680 You know, the conscientious types,

02:56:42.000 they tend to be orderly.

02:56:43.340 The orderly types tend towards

02:56:45.800 kind of a right-wing totalitarianism.

02:56:48.400 That's their proclivity

02:56:49.360 when things get out of hand,

02:56:51.800 especially if they're low in openness.

02:56:53.280 That's a danger.

02:56:55.580 But, you see the same thing

02:56:58.060 with the people who are too open

02:56:59.220 and not conscientious at all.

02:57:00.760 They're dreaming all the time.

02:57:02.540 But they never do anything.

02:57:03.720 There's never anything implemented.

02:57:05.060 And that's a bad thing.

02:57:07.980 So, I don't think that you can say

02:57:09.840 that the dogmatic structure is necessary

02:57:11.800 because that perpetuates the system.

02:57:13.980 And the revelatory element is necessary

02:57:15.860 because that renews it

02:57:16.820 when renewal is necessary.

02:57:18.360 And there has to be a continual dialogue

02:57:20.000 between those elements

02:57:20.880 so that neither of them

02:57:22.460 fall prey to their own

02:57:24.100 particular form of pathology.

02:57:25.940 That's one of the problems

02:57:26.800 with the current political,

02:57:28.800 what would you call it,

02:57:30.980 polarization that's occurring

02:57:32.900 across the West

02:57:33.900 is that the right and the left

02:57:35.080 are not talking to each other anymore.

02:57:36.720 That's a very bad thing

02:57:37.780 because the left will

02:57:38.700 wander into a pit

02:57:40.380 and fail

02:57:41.280 without boundaries.

02:57:44.220 And the right will

02:57:45.100 enclose itself

02:57:46.260 in smaller and smaller spaces

02:57:47.860 until it can't move

02:57:48.880 without the left.

02:57:50.140 And one of the reasons

02:57:50.900 that democracy works

02:57:51.860 is because it makes people talk

02:57:53.820 or allows them to talk.

02:57:55.940 You can have it either way.

02:57:57.960 But it's because

02:57:59.540 every virtue has its vice.

02:58:03.420 Right?

02:58:03.720 And so,

02:58:04.660 a meta-virtue is something like

02:58:06.380 the amalgamation of singular virtues

02:58:08.460 into something that's

02:58:09.480 a transcendent structure

02:58:10.860 that has more to do

02:58:12.220 with the harmony of virtues

02:58:13.520 rather than with any given virtue.

02:58:15.040 even though I think

02:58:16.340 that freedom of speech

02:58:17.600 is the clearest manifestation

02:58:19.120 of that harmony of virtues.

02:58:21.960 So...

02:58:22.260 And so awe could be a lubricant

02:58:25.420 for the beginning

02:58:25.880 of this discussion,

02:58:27.100 do you think?

02:58:28.300 Between liberals

02:58:29.120 and conservatives?

02:58:29.900 I don't know

02:58:36.120 how to answer that.

02:58:39.880 It doesn't follow immediately

02:58:41.760 from your initial presupposition.

02:58:44.160 So the awe experience

02:58:45.200 is a different issue.

02:58:46.940 The transcendental experience

02:58:48.780 is more associated with methods.

02:58:51.200 Yes.

02:58:51.820 At least exposing conservatives

02:58:53.120 to some form of experience.

02:58:55.520 Could it be a prerequisite

02:58:56.700 for a more productive dialogue?

02:58:59.900 See, I mean

02:59:03.020 in the church

02:59:04.960 in a church ceremony

02:59:06.000 let's say

02:59:06.460 a classical church ceremony

02:59:07.640 there's some intermingling

02:59:09.140 of both, right?

02:59:10.180 I mean, you think about

02:59:10.880 a church ceremony

02:59:11.540 that takes place

02:59:12.220 in a gothic cathedral.

02:59:13.820 You've certainly got

02:59:14.320 the dogma

02:59:15.060 and the relatively

02:59:17.100 rigid rule structure

02:59:18.560 but at the same time

02:59:19.720 that's aligned

02:59:20.280 with intense beauty

02:59:21.500 in the architectural forms

02:59:23.780 in the light

02:59:24.700 that's streaming

02:59:25.260 in through the

02:59:26.280 stained glass windows

02:59:27.360 and the music

02:59:28.360 and I mean

02:59:29.040 the gothic cathedral

02:59:29.820 is a forest, right?

02:59:30.780 It's a stone forest

02:59:32.140 with sunlight

02:59:33.080 streaming in

02:59:33.900 through the trees

02:59:34.720 and it's a balance

02:59:36.620 between structure and light.

02:59:37.900 They're absolutely

02:59:38.380 unbelievable structures

02:59:39.840 and they speak

02:59:41.300 of the transcendent

02:59:42.240 but inside that

02:59:43.820 there's a structure

02:59:44.600 and so

02:59:45.060 it seems that

02:59:46.400 in order for the religious impulse

02:59:47.900 to be balanced properly

02:59:49.020 there has to be

02:59:49.800 a reasonable

02:59:50.720 dialogue

02:59:52.300 even in practice

02:59:53.260 between

02:59:53.680 the mystical

02:59:54.620 awe-inspiring

02:59:55.600 transcendent

02:59:56.320 and the dogmatic.

02:59:57.500 Yeah.

02:59:58.140 Either of those

02:59:58.800 can go as

03:00:00.140 either of those

03:00:00.720 goes astray

03:00:01.260 without the other.

03:00:01.900 If you're too dogmatic

03:00:03.420 do you need awe?

03:00:06.140 Likely.

03:00:07.800 Yes,

03:00:08.320 because that would show you

03:00:09.020 that there's something

03:00:09.600 beyond your own

03:00:10.340 presuppositions.

03:00:12.420 So

03:00:12.580 awe,

03:00:15.100 I should tell you

03:00:15.620 something interesting

03:00:16.300 about awe

03:00:16.960 as a physiological

03:00:18.460 phenomena.

03:00:19.620 You know how you're

03:00:20.200 listening to music

03:00:20.840 and you get chills?

03:00:22.680 Some people experience

03:00:23.740 that more than others.

03:00:24.720 Open people experience

03:00:25.660 that more

03:00:26.040 or music

03:00:26.980 is a pretty

03:00:27.580 reliable

03:00:29.800 elicitor

03:00:31.760 of

03:00:32.100 chills.

03:00:34.260 That's

03:00:34.700 piloerection.

03:00:35.640 That's your hair 0.74

03:00:36.080 standing on end.

03:00:37.220 You see a cat

03:00:38.100 when it sees a dog

03:00:39.000 puffs up.

03:00:40.640 That's awe.

03:00:42.300 It's the same thing.

03:00:43.960 Like that chill

03:00:44.800 is your hair

03:00:45.360 standing on end.

03:00:46.680 And that's the

03:00:47.280 sensation you get

03:00:49.100 in the presence

03:00:49.880 of a

03:00:50.720 meta-predator.

03:00:52.120 It's something like that.

03:00:53.060 And so the awe

03:00:54.540 experience is a

03:00:55.800 I mean obviously

03:00:57.580 it's become very

03:00:58.940 cognitively and

03:00:59.660 emotionally complex

03:01:00.420 in human beings

03:01:01.060 but it's fundamental

03:01:02.060 evolutionary

03:01:03.280 underpinning is

03:01:04.360 the instantaneous

03:01:05.780 piloerection

03:01:06.620 that you see

03:01:07.160 in prey animals

03:01:07.920 when they're

03:01:08.320 confronted by a

03:01:09.020 predator.

03:01:09.900 And of course

03:01:10.280 that would be

03:01:10.780 if you were a

03:01:11.720 rabbit you can 0.95

03:01:12.360 bloody well believe 0.99

03:01:13.120 that you see a

03:01:13.800 wolf and it

03:01:14.280 would inspire awe.

03:01:15.580 That's for sure.

03:01:16.500 I mean if a

03:01:17.460 wolf that was

03:01:18.380 20 feet high

03:01:19.080 came bounding in

03:01:19.920 here man

03:01:20.380 you'd feel awe.

03:01:22.320 So

03:01:22.460 that'll convince

03:01:24.840 you that there's

03:01:25.360 something that

03:01:25.840 you still need

03:01:26.400 to know.

03:01:30.300 Last

03:01:30.780 last question.

03:01:33.220 Perfect timing.

03:01:34.240 Hi Dr.

03:01:34.680 Peterson.

03:01:35.420 My name is Gary

03:01:35.960 and I'm a

03:01:36.420 clinical and

03:01:36.840 counseling master

03:01:37.420 student right now.

03:01:38.820 And so

03:01:39.200 one of the

03:01:39.960 key ideas

03:01:40.600 that's been

03:01:40.940 surfacing time

03:01:41.680 and time again

03:01:42.120 in your

03:01:42.600 lectures is

03:01:44.000 the idea that

03:01:44.780 phenomenology

03:01:45.700 is structured

03:01:46.940 and flows

03:01:47.760 mythologically.

03:01:48.680 and the

03:01:51.560 way that

03:01:51.900 plays out

03:01:52.600 is I'm

03:01:54.060 supposing

03:01:55.300 affectively

03:01:56.020 just pay

03:01:56.920 attention to

03:01:57.640 what comes

03:01:58.160 up kind

03:01:59.080 of naturally

03:02:00.220 and you

03:02:00.800 can locate

03:02:01.740 the chaotic

03:02:02.200 elements in

03:02:02.700 your experience

03:02:03.300 and prod

03:02:04.200 at them

03:02:04.660 with whatever

03:02:05.680 degree of

03:02:06.260 necessity

03:02:06.600 you think.

03:02:08.060 So

03:02:08.240 trying to

03:02:09.520 situate this

03:02:10.100 within the

03:02:10.500 clinical

03:02:10.820 context

03:02:12.100 we can

03:02:14.720 conceptualize

03:02:15.980 psychotherapy

03:02:17.420 as a kind

03:02:18.060 of guided

03:02:19.100 journey

03:02:19.620 just as

03:02:20.280 you touched

03:02:20.620 on in

03:02:21.060 this lecture

03:02:21.560 where it's

03:02:23.420 more of a

03:02:23.800 meta journey

03:02:24.260 in a sense

03:02:24.820 a meta heroic

03:02:25.680 journey

03:02:26.040 I don't know

03:02:26.380 how you want

03:02:26.700 to think

03:02:27.020 about it

03:02:27.420 but just

03:02:29.220 for those

03:02:30.040 of us

03:02:30.320 who are

03:02:30.500 interested

03:02:30.780 in kind

03:02:31.460 of grounding

03:02:32.460 and implementing

03:02:33.220 these ideas

03:02:33.980 within

03:02:34.480 psychotherapeutic

03:02:35.640 practice

03:02:36.200 what should

03:02:37.060 we watch

03:02:37.400 out for

03:02:37.840 in the

03:02:38.760 process

03:02:39.100 itself?

03:02:40.360 What

03:02:40.620 comes up?

03:02:41.240 What should

03:02:41.520 we be

03:02:42.060 afraid of

03:02:42.620 or fearful

03:02:43.100 of

03:02:43.380 or cautious

03:02:43.860 about

03:02:44.220 or what

03:02:44.900 should we

03:02:45.120 tend towards?

03:02:46.000 That's my

03:02:46.420 question.

03:02:48.500 Well I

03:02:49.160 think

03:02:49.420 one of

03:02:50.740 the people

03:02:53.300 who I've

03:02:54.460 read that's

03:02:54.900 had the

03:02:55.240 biggest

03:02:55.600 impact on

03:02:57.460 me as a

03:02:58.060 clinician

03:02:58.400 was Carl

03:02:59.260 Rogers

03:02:59.680 and the

03:03:02.360 reason for

03:03:02.760 that is

03:03:03.060 that Carl

03:03:03.460 Rogers put

03:03:04.020 tremendous

03:03:04.480 emphasis on

03:03:05.180 listening

03:03:05.660 like it's

03:03:07.460 almost impossible

03:03:08.200 to overestimate

03:03:09.080 how useful

03:03:09.720 it is to

03:03:10.280 listen to

03:03:10.780 your clients

03:03:11.360 like you

03:03:12.220 need a

03:03:13.100 meta

03:03:13.480 scheme

03:03:14.220 in some

03:03:14.920 sense

03:03:15.240 and the

03:03:16.460 meta

03:03:16.620 scheme

03:03:16.860 I think

03:03:17.320 is laid

03:03:18.240 out in

03:03:19.060 the Sermon

03:03:19.460 on the

03:03:19.700 Mount

03:03:19.900 it's

03:03:20.540 something

03:03:20.840 like

03:03:21.240 orient

03:03:22.740 yourself

03:03:23.240 and your

03:03:24.000 client

03:03:24.380 towards

03:03:25.900 the good

03:03:26.420 the client

03:03:28.480 has to

03:03:28.860 conceptualize

03:03:29.540 what that

03:03:29.920 might be

03:03:30.400 you can

03:03:30.880 serve as

03:03:31.460 a guide

03:03:31.780 but it

03:03:32.060 has to

03:03:32.380 come from

03:03:32.920 that person

03:03:33.820 because one

03:03:34.660 of the

03:03:34.860 things that

03:03:35.340 you want to

03:03:35.700 find out

03:03:36.020 from your

03:03:36.320 client is

03:03:36.840 okay

03:03:37.560 what's

03:03:38.200 wrong

03:03:38.640 they have

03:03:39.980 to tell

03:03:40.260 you

03:03:40.480 and

03:03:41.340 what would

03:03:42.520 not having

03:03:43.740 something wrong

03:03:44.300 look like

03:03:44.840 like what

03:03:45.780 is it

03:03:46.060 if you could

03:03:46.680 have what

03:03:47.060 you wanted

03:03:47.620 and that

03:03:48.680 and that

03:03:49.600 that would

03:03:49.940 be good

03:03:50.340 what would

03:03:50.720 that look

03:03:51.220 like

03:03:51.560 okay so

03:03:52.200 that establishes

03:03:53.060 your star

03:03:53.780 right

03:03:54.120 it's like

03:03:54.520 Geppetto

03:03:55.000 establishing the

03:03:56.020 relationship with

03:03:56.700 the star at

03:03:57.180 the beginning

03:03:57.500 of Pinocchio

03:03:58.060 here's what

03:03:58.740 we're aiming

03:03:59.160 at

03:03:59.500 okay so

03:04:00.500 now you've

03:04:00.880 got that

03:04:01.220 schema

03:04:01.580 here's what

03:04:02.100 we're aiming

03:04:02.440 at

03:04:02.620 now you might

03:04:03.700 say

03:04:04.080 you might

03:04:04.560 think

03:04:04.880 well now

03:04:05.280 what happens

03:04:05.940 to the client

03:04:06.460 is they

03:04:06.760 meet their

03:04:07.260 dragons

03:04:07.700 along the

03:04:08.180 way

03:04:08.440 and their

03:04:09.460 dragons

03:04:09.800 would be

03:04:10.280 well now

03:04:11.140 you know

03:04:11.420 what you

03:04:11.660 want

03:04:11.880 and there

03:04:12.220 are

03:04:12.380 things

03:04:12.700 in your

03:04:13.100 way

03:04:13.500 and some

03:04:14.660 of those

03:04:14.900 things

03:04:15.120 might

03:04:15.360 many of

03:04:16.200 those

03:04:16.380 things

03:04:16.580 are going

03:04:16.780 to be

03:04:16.920 intensely

03:04:17.380 practical

03:04:18.060 but they're

03:04:18.820 practical

03:04:19.340 psychological

03:04:20.220 so like

03:04:21.040 so maybe

03:04:21.480 someone

03:04:21.900 has a job

03:04:23.400 and they

03:04:23.660 would like

03:04:23.980 to move

03:04:24.380 forward

03:04:24.680 in their

03:04:24.900 job

03:04:25.080 but they're

03:04:25.380 terrified

03:04:25.800 of speaking

03:04:26.460 in public

03:04:27.080 well

03:04:27.760 you know

03:04:28.060 is that

03:04:28.300 a psychological

03:04:28.840 problem

03:04:29.300 or a practical

03:04:29.880 problem

03:04:30.340 it's both

03:04:31.680 it's also

03:04:32.200 a real

03:04:32.620 problem

03:04:33.100 in many

03:04:33.780 positions

03:04:34.240 unless you

03:04:34.740 can speak

03:04:35.100 fluently

03:04:35.560 publicly

03:04:36.220 you're

03:04:37.060 you're

03:04:37.640 going to

03:04:37.780 hit a

03:04:38.320 ceiling

03:04:38.620 and you're

03:04:39.260 not going

03:04:39.540 to go

03:04:39.760 anywhere

03:04:40.040 and so

03:04:40.420 for the

03:04:41.540 person to

03:04:42.100 move

03:04:42.820 towards

03:04:43.380 that

03:04:44.020 goal

03:04:44.620 then they

03:04:46.480 have to

03:04:46.800 confront

03:04:47.240 the obstacles

03:04:47.940 that manifest

03:04:48.660 themselves

03:04:49.380 within that

03:04:50.620 framework

03:04:51.100 and part

03:04:51.720 of your

03:04:51.960 job

03:04:52.240 as a

03:04:52.480 clinician

03:04:52.800 is to

03:04:53.200 identify

03:04:53.700 the

03:04:53.960 obstacles

03:04:54.440 and to

03:04:55.180 discriminate

03:04:55.700 them

03:04:56.100 from

03:04:56.300 things

03:04:56.640 they don't

03:04:57.200 have to

03:04:57.640 worry

03:04:57.940 about

03:04:58.280 right

03:04:58.560 part of

03:04:59.200 it

03:04:59.300 is

03:04:59.480 you know

03:05:00.480 you can't

03:05:01.000 just run

03:05:01.540 around and

03:05:02.020 try to

03:05:02.440 combat

03:05:03.300 all the

03:05:04.120 chaos

03:05:04.440 in the

03:05:04.760 world

03:05:05.020 some of

03:05:05.800 it

03:05:05.900 is

03:05:06.040 your

03:05:06.260 chaos

03:05:06.680 and a

03:05:06.960 bunch

03:05:07.120 of

03:05:07.220 it

03:05:07.300 isn't

03:05:07.700 and the

03:05:08.460 chaos

03:05:08.740 that's

03:05:09.020 yours

03:05:09.280 is the

03:05:09.620 chaos

03:05:09.880 that

03:05:10.060 emerges

03:05:10.400 as you

03:05:10.800 move

03:05:10.980 towards

03:05:11.340 a

03:05:11.480 necessary

03:05:11.880 goal

03:05:12.320 and so

03:05:13.080 partly

03:05:13.400 what you're

03:05:13.740 doing

03:05:13.920 by listening

03:05:14.380 to your

03:05:14.680 client

03:05:14.960 is to

03:05:15.220 help

03:05:15.400 them

03:05:15.600 cut

03:05:16.040 their

03:05:16.240 dragons

03:05:16.720 down

03:05:17.060 to

03:05:17.260 size

03:05:17.760 you know

03:05:18.520 because

03:05:18.820 what'll

03:05:19.380 happen

03:05:19.640 if you

03:05:19.920 start

03:05:20.140 to

03:05:20.280 talk

03:05:20.460 to

03:05:20.580 somebody

03:05:20.880 about

03:05:21.100 public

03:05:21.440 speaking

03:05:21.820 and you

03:05:22.060 really

03:05:22.320 talk

03:05:22.620 to

03:05:22.700 them

03:05:22.800 is

03:05:23.380 that

03:05:31.540 theory

03:05:32.020 of

03:05:32.300 public

03:05:33.640 speaking

03:05:34.060 do you

03:05:35.140 know

03:05:35.240 how

03:05:35.360 to

03:05:35.500 look

03:05:35.720 at

03:05:35.860 people

03:05:36.120 when

03:05:36.300 you're

03:05:36.440 talking

03:05:36.820 do you

03:05:37.520 know

03:05:37.620 how

03:05:37.720 to

03:05:37.840 speak

03:05:38.120 loudly

03:05:38.540 enough

03:05:38.860 so

03:05:39.040 that

03:05:39.180 people

03:05:39.380 can

03:05:39.580 hear

03:05:39.840 you

03:05:40.100 do you

03:05:40.860 have

03:05:40.980 a

03:05:41.140 philosophy

03:05:41.760 of

03:05:42.180 public

03:05:43.180 speaking

03:05:43.680 I mean

03:05:44.240 all those

03:05:44.540 things

03:05:44.720 are

03:05:44.840 necessary

03:05:45.240 in order

03:05:45.600 to

03:05:45.780 do

03:05:45.900 it

03:05:46.000 properly

03:05:46.300 you

03:05:46.420 need

03:05:46.560 to

03:05:46.680 decompose

03:05:47.280 that

03:05:47.520 with

03:05:47.740 the

03:05:47.880 client

03:05:48.160 and

03:05:48.300 then

03:05:48.460 to

03:05:48.640 make

03:05:49.320 those

03:05:49.580 problems

03:05:50.120 you

03:05:50.540 have

03:05:50.680 to

03:05:50.800 decompose

03:05:51.420 them

03:05:51.560 to

03:05:51.740 the

03:05:51.900 point

03:05:52.240 where

03:05:52.740 they

03:05:52.920 can

03:05:53.080 be

03:05:53.240 met

03:06:01.540 you

03:06:01.640 do

03:06:01.760 that

03:06:01.980 by

03:06:02.280 listening

03:06:03.060 it's

03:06:03.960 like

03:06:04.100 what

03:06:04.680 you

03:06:04.940 need

03:06:05.180 to

03:06:05.320 be

03:06:05.520 is

03:06:05.720 the

03:06:05.880 person

03:06:06.200 who

03:06:06.380 helps

03:06:06.740 the

03:06:07.000 person

03:06:07.360 that

03:06:07.940 you're

03:06:08.140 working

03:06:08.420 with

03:06:08.640 orient

03:06:09.000 themselves

03:06:09.420 towards

03:06:09.780 a

03:06:09.920 better

03:06:10.080 future

03:06:10.480 that's

03:06:11.100 the

03:06:11.240 compact

03:06:11.840 you

03:06:12.380 and

03:06:12.500 I

03:06:12.620 are

03:06:12.740 in

03:06:12.860 this

03:06:13.020 space

03:06:13.300 at

03:06:13.460 this

03:06:13.680 time

03:06:14.260 to

03:06:14.920 make

03:06:15.240 things

03:06:15.600 better

03:06:15.980 first

03:06:17.340 of all

03:06:17.560 we

03:06:17.700 have

03:06:17.840 to

03:06:17.960 decide

03:06:18.260 what

03:06:18.420 better

03:06:18.660 would

03:06:18.840 look

03:06:19.040 like

03:06:19.320 and

03:06:20.120 second

03:06:20.420 we

03:06:20.600 need

03:06:20.840 a

03:06:21.160 strategy

03:06:21.600 and

03:06:22.200 third

03:06:22.420 we

03:06:22.560 need

03:06:22.740 to

03:06:22.880 once

03:06:23.640 we

03:06:23.780 have

03:06:23.940 that

03:06:24.080 we

03:06:24.180 are

03:06:24.220 going

03:06:24.340 to

03:06:24.420 see

03:06:24.580 the

03:06:24.740 obstacles

03:06:25.260 and

03:06:25.800 some

03:06:25.960 of

03:06:26.040 those

03:06:26.160 are

03:06:26.260 going

03:06:26.340 to

03:06:26.380 be

03:06:26.500 psychological

03:06:26.940 and

03:06:27.220 some

03:06:27.380 of

03:06:27.460 them

03:06:27.540 are

03:06:27.620 going

03:06:27.720 to

03:06:27.740 be

03:06:27.860 practical

03:06:28.280 and

03:06:28.780 we're

03:06:28.920 going

03:06:29.040 to

03:06:29.140 engage

03:06:29.600 in

03:06:29.780 joint

03:06:30.180 problem

03:06:30.700 solving

03:06:31.200 of

03:06:31.780 whatever

03:06:32.020 sort

03:06:32.320 is

03:06:32.460 necessary

03:06:33.060 in

03:06:33.580 order

03:06:33.760 to

03:06:35.460 minimize

03:06:35.880 the impact

03:06:36.920 of those

03:06:37.200 problems

03:06:37.460 or to

03:06:37.700 gain

03:06:38.060 from

03:06:38.280 the

03:06:38.440 problems

03:06:38.740 dream

03:06:39.340 analysis

03:06:39.740 can

03:06:40.040 be

03:06:40.180 extremely

03:06:40.520 useful

03:06:40.900 for

03:06:41.080 that

03:06:41.280 by

03:06:41.440 the

03:06:41.560 way

03:06:41.760 it's

03:06:42.520 even

03:06:42.700 more

03:06:42.920 useful

03:06:43.240 for

03:06:43.840 helping

03:06:44.140 the

03:06:44.280 person

03:06:44.520 identify

03:06:45.020 what

03:06:45.260 the

03:06:45.400 goal

03:06:45.680 is

03:06:45.980 because

03:06:46.540 that's

03:06:46.780 often

03:06:47.020 difficult

03:06:47.400 for

03:06:47.640 people

03:06:47.940 it's

03:06:48.120 like

03:06:48.280 well

03:06:48.480 I

03:06:48.600 know

03:06:48.780 that

03:06:48.940 something

03:06:49.160 is

03:06:49.300 wrong

03:06:49.500 but

03:06:49.640 I

03:06:49.760 don't

03:06:49.940 know

03:06:50.080 what

03:06:50.280 I

03:06:50.400 want

03:06:50.800 sometimes

03:06:51.620 people

03:06:52.000 get

03:06:52.180 so

03:06:52.340 stuck

03:06:52.640 there

03:06:52.800 that

03:06:52.960 they

03:06:53.080 just

03:06:53.260 can't

03:06:53.520 get

03:06:53.680 out

03:06:54.980 of

03:06:55.100 it

03:06:55.300 so

03:06:56.600 and

03:06:56.800 then

03:06:56.920 what

03:06:57.100 would

03:06:57.240 you

03:06:57.360 watch

03:06:57.820 out

03:06:58.020 for

03:06:58.440 phenomenally

03:07:01.080 phenomenally

03:07:01.840 the way

03:07:02.740 it shows

03:07:03.080 up

03:07:03.260 the way

03:07:03.500 it's

03:07:03.620 experienced

03:07:04.140 well

03:07:05.980 I

03:07:06.120 would

03:07:06.240 say

03:07:06.400 as

03:07:06.540 a

03:07:06.620 clinician

03:07:07.020 one

03:07:07.280 of

03:07:07.380 the

03:07:07.480 things

03:07:07.680 that

03:07:07.840 you

03:07:07.980 should

03:07:08.120 watch

03:07:08.380 out

03:07:08.540 for

03:07:08.720 is

03:07:08.880 resentment

03:07:09.400 so

03:07:10.800 there's

03:07:11.320 a

03:07:11.440 couple

03:07:12.180 of

03:07:12.400 rules

03:07:12.900 of

03:07:13.060 thumb

03:07:13.240 that

03:07:13.420 I

03:07:13.540 think

03:07:13.720 are

03:07:13.820 useful

03:07:14.120 don't

03:07:14.640 do

03:07:14.760 anything

03:07:15.000 for

03:07:15.180 your

03:07:15.320 clients

03:07:15.640 that

03:07:15.800 they

03:07:15.920 can

03:07:16.060 do

03:07:16.160 for

03:07:16.300 themselves

03:07:16.740 and

03:07:17.740 don't

03:07:17.940 do

03:07:18.040 them

03:07:18.160 any

03:07:18.340 favors

03:07:18.740 now

03:07:20.240 I

03:07:20.960 think

03:07:21.160 you

03:07:21.300 can

03:07:21.440 step

03:07:21.920 beyond

03:07:23.420 the

03:07:24.100 confines

03:07:24.620 of

03:07:24.820 your

03:07:25.020 role

03:07:25.420 carefully

03:07:26.800 now

03:07:27.660 and

03:07:27.840 then

03:07:28.120 to

03:07:30.780 show

03:07:31.060 that

03:07:31.340 there's

03:07:32.720 there's

03:07:33.000 a more

03:07:33.940 human

03:07:34.260 connection

03:07:34.700 than

03:07:34.940 the

03:07:35.140 merely

03:07:35.480 contractual

03:07:36.380 I

03:07:37.060 think

03:07:37.200 that's

03:07:37.400 very

03:07:37.600 useful

03:07:37.960 but

03:07:38.880 their

03:07:40.540 problems

03:07:40.920 are

03:07:41.060 not

03:07:41.360 your

03:07:41.580 problems

03:07:42.020 you

03:07:42.300 do

03:07:42.460 not

03:07:42.620 have

03:07:42.780 any

03:07:42.920 right

03:07:43.120 to

03:07:43.260 their

03:07:43.420 problems

03:07:43.860 and

03:07:44.580 so

03:07:44.700 you

03:07:44.820 have

03:07:45.000 to

03:07:45.120 maintain

03:07:45.440 that

03:07:45.700 detachment

03:07:46.180 because

03:07:46.500 otherwise

03:07:46.740 you

03:07:46.940 can

03:07:47.100 steal

03:07:47.440 their

03:07:47.660 destiny

03:07:48.120 you

03:07:48.800 don't

03:07:49.000 want

03:07:49.180 to

03:07:49.260 be

03:07:49.340 the

03:07:49.480 person

03:07:49.760 that

03:07:49.920 solves

03:07:50.180 their

03:07:50.360 problems

03:07:50.820 because

03:07:51.460 you

03:07:51.620 steal

03:07:51.920 their

03:07:52.120 destiny

03:07:52.480 when

03:07:52.740 you

03:07:52.860 do

03:07:53.000 that

03:07:53.260 you

03:07:53.800 want

03:07:53.920 to

03:07:53.980 be

03:07:54.100 someone

03:07:54.420 with

03:07:55.100 whom

03:07:55.360 they

03:07:55.600 can

03:07:55.780 figure

03:07:56.100 things

03:07:56.500 out

03:07:56.720 for

03:07:56.940 themselves

03:07:57.380 and

03:07:58.260 so

03:07:58.480 there

03:07:58.740 can

03:07:59.140 be

03:07:59.280 hubris

03:07:59.720 in

03:07:59.900 being

03:08:07.960 and

03:08:08.260 things

03:08:08.460 will

03:08:08.600 kick 0.71

03:08:08.800 back

03:08:09.080 on

03:08:09.240 you

03:08:09.320 very

03:08:09.540 very

03:08:09.740 hard

03:08:10.060 because

03:08:10.820 what

03:08:11.060 the 0.99

03:08:11.220 hell 0.58

03:08:11.380 do 0.79

03:08:11.540 you

03:08:11.660 know

03:08:11.940 right

03:08:13.020 nothing

03:08:13.980 because

03:08:14.500 that

03:08:14.740 person

03:08:15.020 is

03:08:15.180 very

03:08:15.420 complicated

03:08:15.920 and

03:08:16.200 they

03:08:16.420 need

03:08:16.660 to

03:08:16.880 sort

03:08:18.320 themselves

03:08:18.840 out

03:08:19.240 but

03:08:20.040 you

03:08:20.220 can

03:08:20.380 be

03:08:20.500 a

03:08:20.620 facilitator

03:08:21.220 for

03:08:21.400 that

03:08:21.680 but

03:08:22.220 that's

03:08:22.440 all

03:08:22.540 you

03:08:22.680 should

03:08:22.880 be

03:08:23.160 and

03:08:23.980 so

03:08:24.120 you

03:08:24.260 have

03:08:24.440 to

03:08:24.560 watch

03:08:24.800 that

03:08:25.060 you

03:08:25.180 have

03:08:25.340 to

03:08:25.460 watch

03:08:25.680 becoming

03:08:27.140 overly

03:08:27.980 entangled

03:08:28.500 so

03:08:28.720 you

03:08:28.780 have

03:08:28.900 to

03:08:29.000 maintain

03:08:29.260 your

03:08:29.460 detachment

03:08:29.920 in

03:08:30.180 the

03:08:30.480 best

03:08:30.760 sense

03:08:31.180 and

03:08:32.160 you

03:08:32.260 have

03:08:32.420 to

03:08:32.540 not

03:08:32.720 overstep

03:08:33.300 your

03:08:33.620 it's

03:08:34.400 easy

03:08:34.560 to

03:08:34.700 become

03:08:34.940 hubristic

03:08:35.500 when

03:08:36.040 the

03:08:36.200 person

03:08:36.460 is

03:08:36.640 looking

03:08:36.980 to

03:08:37.220 you

03:08:37.380 for

03:08:37.540 the

03:08:37.700 answers

03:08:38.100 it's

03:08:39.140 like

03:08:39.320 you

03:08:39.580 might

03:08:39.820 you

03:08:40.340 don't

03:08:40.480 have

03:08:40.680 the

03:08:40.800 answers

03:08:41.100 although

03:08:41.340 you

03:08:41.520 might

03:08:41.720 be

03:08:41.840 able

03:08:41.940 to

03:08:42.100 find

03:08:42.440 help

03:08:42.860 the

03:08:43.040 person

03:08:43.380 find

03:08:43.820 their

03:08:44.120 way

03:08:44.540 that's

03:08:45.500 what

03:08:45.600 you

03:08:45.680 do

03:08:45.800 with

03:08:45.940 everyone

03:08:46.180 you

03:08:46.380 love

03:08:46.720 too

03:08:46.960 right

03:08:47.260 I

03:08:48.020 mean

03:08:48.200 you

03:08:48.760 don't

03:08:49.120 provide

03:08:49.560 them

03:08:49.720 with

03:08:49.860 the

03:08:50.000 answers

03:08:50.380 because

03:08:51.340 then

03:08:51.700 they

03:08:51.820 become

03:08:52.120 little

03:08:52.440 clones

03:08:52.940 of

03:08:53.180 you

03:08:53.560 and

03:08:54.560 unhappy

03:08:55.040 bitter

03:08:55.400 resentful

03:08:56.020 and

03:08:56.200 angry

03:08:56.540 little 0.96

03:08:56.840 clones

03:08:57.160 of

03:08:57.340 you

03:08:57.540 because

03:08:58.400 you

03:08:59.020 usurp

03:08:59.880 their

03:09:00.240 destiny

03:09:00.760 and

03:09:02.020 so

03:09:02.340 the

03:09:04.320 same

03:09:04.500 thing

03:09:04.660 applies

03:09:05.020 within

03:09:05.720 familial

03:09:06.240 arrangements

03:09:06.660 or

03:09:06.900 friendships

03:09:07.300 all

03:09:07.660 of

03:09:07.780 that

03:09:08.020 so

03:09:09.480 a

03:09:10.580 so

03:09:11.240 Thank you.

03:09:41.240 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - August 22, 2017

The Phenomenology of the Divine

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Summary

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