Check out the Nathan Jacobs Podcast: CZcams: www.youtube.com/@TheNathanJacobsPodcast Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/0hSskUtCwDT40uFbqTk3QS Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nathan-jacobs-podcast/id1747994475 Join me and Richard Rohlin for our new Universal History course on Dante’s Divine Comedy: Purgatorio. Patrons at the Involved tier or higher qualify for 10% discount. Apply your unique discount code at checkout. Class starts August 27th. Register today: thesymbolicworld.com/courses/dantes-purgatorio
Nathan Jacobs blew my mind with this video. He really helped ground the abstract beliefs that I had listening to Pageau. I have been waiting for this moment where I can stop merely intellectualizing, but also implement this thinking into my life. This is so important to me as I am raising 3 kids and coming from a secular family, really need to get this understanding of reality right so that my children are protected from the disordered worldviews of my upbringing so that they don't suffer what I have.
I think it’s wild that people don’t think and see in symbolism. It’s why stories were always so compelling to me. It’s like reading poetry and how a good poet can help you feel/experience through images, symbols, and analogies. I thought most ppl thought this way but I was definitely mistaken lol.
As far as I can tell each person has a central narrative. Even if its naturalistic or reductive. I think the difficulty is that too few people have humility about their own perspective and we also lack a common metric. When two people measure all truth and goodness against a private, subjective and non negotiable worldview there is little room for peace and cooperation.
I try and utilize symbolism in my work as an anti-communist political activist, and it is quite potent regardless of whether or not people actively believe in it. Operating at the level of symbolism and mythology is effective on the battlefield. That’s all you need to know. It doesn’t matter what you believe because you will believe the story that is rich and full of life Over a set of dead facts If you go to my channel you will see videos where I confront the radical left, and I utilize an inverted form of their dialectical methods.
*Larry Burkett's book on "Giving and Tithing" drew me closer to God and helped my spirituality. 2020 was a year I literally lived it. I cashed in my life savings and gave it all away. My total giving amounted to 40,000 dollars. Everyone thought I was delusional. Today, 1 receive 85,000 dollars every two months. I have a property in Calabasas, CA, and travel a lot. God has promoted me more than once and opened doors for me to live beyond my dreams. God kept to his promises to and for me*
It is the digital market. That's been the secret to this wealth transfer. A lot of folks in the US and abroad are getting so much from it, God has been good to my household Thank you Jesus
What fantastic conversation. It really helped me understand why so many of my friends are open to talking about spirits and astrology but are allergic to conversations about God. Do you also think there is a subconscious bias against accountability to a higher power at play with many unaffiliated?
Definitely on your side with the accountability thing. I personally stayed very much away from religion most of my life because of a fear of someone looking over my shoulder all the time, judging my every moves, basically having 0 privacy in anything and being accounted for everything did. I just didn't dare to believe that whomever that person was he loved me and was begging to forgive me no matter what I had done. How did that come about ? People praying for me is actually my best guess at this point. I never believed in the occult but not in a God though, so I'm defi nitely not part of the folks being discussed here, can't speak for them. I always thought that a distaste for the institutionalization of the spiritual was the main vector behind people leaving church, not the occult.
This is the most exciting stuff I have ever come across! I love this guy, so clear, so succint, talking so much sense, putting the puzzle pieces in the right places - this might not be everybody's favourite area of study but it definitely fired up my little engine! Thank you both, I will seek Nathan out!
@@bhante1345 the elderly people in the West of Ireland used to say it rather often when i was young. Anyway i left Ireland in the early 90s and i don't know the person you are referring to .
am reading Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" within which he discusses the ''social imaginary' and maps out how it has transformed through the ages. This podcast is a great compliment to that. Ty for a great interview
Great interview/monologue. First time I have heard my life experience generally described before. At about age seven I made what I thought was an obvious observation that the 'world' was an artificial environment, with obviously created creatures, including 'us'. But what was most confusing to me as I grew up was that everyone around me seemed oblivious to it and its implications. I find myself in virtually the same position seventy years later.
You reminded me of the Atheist bus campaign "don't worry there is no God.." ironically they were making people think about God in a campaign that was supposed to be a counter to him. Great discussion for believers and non believers alike!
whats happening is the right hemisphere of the brain has been starved by culture and memetic forces for too long. Its crashing the left hemispeheres party.
1) What they call "groups" can be defined as "labels" (or perhaps "general labels.") 2) It's not immediate, if you are feeling really sleepy you can sort of notice how your mind is trying to find an appropriate term (or group) for a thing that you perceive. 3) It's not only sight - it's almost as if we have something like an "avatar" of us in our mind that can operate with concepts. For example: "let's MOVE to a different subject," "let's not JUMP to conclusions," etc. It's not only "I SEE," or "let's REVIEW." 4) There is also an "Image" step between perceiving a thing and finding a term (or a group) for it. So we perceive it, then we "remember" it, and then we "remember" the definition of what that is. 5) Our consciousness can switch between topics, or different things, or groups, in the stream of information our mind receives. That is how our Will manifest itself, and I would go as far as to call it the Willpower. Because the Willpower is a process where your mind keeps concentrating on a topic or a task or an idea despite distractions. (For example, if you are working out in a gym, your main enemy is the idea that you can't continue with an exercise, which stops you long before your body would reach it's limit. You would think that it's a physical ability, but it also boils down to your ability to concentrate.) Ah, I did a report on that topic years ago, fun times... :) I have to say (again) - I like the way Nathan thinks :)
1:01:54 - speaking (writing, drawing) things into existence is absolutely a real effective magical practice and the way “things” in general are made manifest. We are strongly told to say "Thy will be done" and trust the outcome will be good, instead of using magic.
These inspiring exchanges from Jonathan Pageau and guests offer views of an Orthodox way that leads to ever more adventures in Truth, not less. The journey towards Theosis provides fresh realizations...
You just have to balance your thinking. There should be reason and intuition, deductive and inductive logic l, science and spirituality, literal and symbolic meaning
Are you guys familiar with Carl Jung’s work and takes on these same topics you’re discussing? It would be interesting to see you both again talking about his ideas and views on God and on the God-concept (God as an archetype) in the human psyche. I know Jordan Peterson knows about this, so maybe he should be added to the conversation… if it would to take place and time. Blessings
I’ve been fascinated by this question since I was a kid. I think I was only about 12 yo when I first noticed that little kids - toddlers even sometimes - once they learn what a cat is, can identify the category in an uncanny breadth of manifestations. A domestic kitten, a cheetah, and an adult male lion don’t look that much alike analytically. Yet even a small child will look at each of them and say, immediately and confidently, “Cat!”
The poet affirms that basic perception is mystical and the poem is his evidence. Matter is language. The world is a poem. The Logos is The Poem of the Father.
Bonjour JoJo! One thing that amazes me is how people in the name of "progress" leave the belief in God in order to adhere to pre-historical types of religiosity. They should take a look at Africa where wizards and sourcerers abund next to extreme underdevelopment.
I have been an Orthodox Christian for many years but have always maintained a fascination with the hermetics, Rosicrucians and ceremonial and chaos magic. I see no contradictions at all. The goal of all these paths is the same: Theosis and Theoria. These paths are a testimony to the reality of the experience of Theoria and its attainment. I personally believe / know that Theoria and Theosis is why we are here on this planet. It’s just a very important fact. A great secret among those who have a taste for truth. These experiences and this form of knowledge was said to be common in the early church.
Love him or hate him, David Bentley Hart has been talking about God as always already human and man as always already divine for a while now, especially in "Ye Are Gods." People get worried about his metaphysic, but it's basically what Pageau is trying to talk around with the Adam Kadmon idea. Hart explicitly borrows from Bulgakov, who I think was also working through Jonathan's "problem."
Jonathan's point about bringing attention to things (invoking the name of gods) really echoes similar to what PVK brought up in a recent video about "The Symptom Pool".
Classical example of discussing how would-be should be, without being grounded in the fact that you do not know the things beyond your perception as real, but as mystical experiences that are definitely real. So mysticism becomes a lens. Personhood has not been touched once in this conversation as the witness of mystical reality through perception: experiencing another person means experiencing their mystical memory, and they extend your reality. Realism fails to count the extension of experience through other personhoods - ultimately God - and thus its stance that there is a mind-existence separation is wrong; The same can be said about nominalism, it fails to account for the relationship between people as existing and manifesting from the lowest forms of perception to the highest.
Fascinating. Jonathan, if you ever see this, I would like to have your opinion. Do you think a systematic and symbolic vision of the world can only be accounted for in a neo-platonic framework? It seems pretty straightforward to me once you have an ontology of participation at play. But it seems less straightforward in an ontology of substances (broad aristotelianism). Thanks a lot for your work! C'est encourageant de voir des Québécois offrir un contenu de telle qualité.
not to rain on your parade, but courtney raia of UC berkeley or stanford university did an entire course on the topic as of 23 minutes in called "History 2D science, magic, and religion" about 10-12 years ago, also she wore funny hats while doing it, but I am enjoying this topic with your guys framing as well, you brought some new insight she didn't
Hello orthodox brothers and sisters, I'm roman catholic and I have a question. If somebody identifies themselves as Christian Orthodox does it mean Catholic Orthodox? or are those 2 different things? Thank you
Those are two different things. Roman Catholic = Latin Church The official name of the Eastern Orthodox church is Orthodox Catholic Church, but it's still better to call it by its former name, to avoid confusion.
Good question. There's several different uses for the word "orthodox." Santiagor.z is right, but there's more. People will refer to themselves as "orthodox" when they mean "fundamentalist." Sedevacantists in the Catholic Church call themselves orthodox...even though tgey are not. [you and I are the Latin Rite of Catholicism]. People use the term to say they are "very serious." Orthodox is being misused, just like 90% of religious terminology. Dig into your CCC, and watch Reason & Theology on CZcams. It's a bit academic, but it helps clarify a lot of word misuse.
@54:27 if color is not verifiable then how is shape verifiable- touch is processed in our mind the same way as color, how else do explain the experience of amputees who still feel or sense a limb that is no longer there? I just listened to an amputee talk about the fact that the surgeon takes the muscle from the calf and fold it over the remaining bone to provide padding. She said it was a strange sensation when she touches the end of what is left of her leg the sensation is like touching the back of calf.
It's difficult to get away from dualism. Christian mysticism embraces physical trial and mortification, to a point where consensus reality gives in and opens itself up to the divine. Even if we accept the idea that reality is imbued with the mystical, we have to explain how the rules are regularly circumvented by miracles, apparitions (Marian and otherwise), and extreme manifestations of creativity that undermine rule-bound materialist reality.
@SavageHenry777 at times it can depending on the results. But you can conflate the issues or keep them separate. It doesn't really matter. It's always going to land on its feet because it has solid ground to land on.
I AM in french is Je suis. I AM READY is Jesuis Pret. Which sounds like Jesus Pray, or let's go. I am ready. Also, Jaime or James, Jaime is a version of Jamie. In french "j'aime" means "I love". A form also of Jacob, supplanted, to come after, to protect... also a form of Joseph.
Did not know anything about Man being there for the lower creation to participate in God as well. It's not just about Man being deified, but the rest of the cosmos as well.
An Omnist take on the simulation multiverse! Such a fun game once you don't rush to godhood, but take the time to smell the roses and be sure you aren't already in your own personal or collective Eden
But the simulation was obviously programmed and set in motion by something more intelligent and capable than us. It takes a killing lack of curiosity to ignore the implications.
@@OtterFlys The system and repeating patterns were set by God, but for the last 4.5 billion years, the Divine Council has been devising new versions of space-time while God played the game himself as every species that lived on this planet while it was being rebuilt and searched for the final chosen species. That's the real truth about the Christ Messiah suffering for your sins. It wasn't just one lifetime of suffering, but literally thousands of incarnations being sacrificed in almost every way imaginable. The kids got their revenge and then some on the old man for not sharing more of his innermost thoughts with the kids since his testy firstborn Lucifer first challenged daddy to a wrestling match for the Kingdom.
I respectfully suggest that the explanation for the frequency with which the disaffected religious turn to the occult is more complicated than this "dark side of the Enlightenment" theory. It is an odd thing that, while to me the mysticism of religion is essential, many people regard organized religion as a system of rules explaining and regulating everything, and I myself find, whether in religious or secular contexts, that I am extremely skeptical of people who "have it all figured out." The Church, having pretended to supreme knowledge for centuries, repeatedly failed to be all that it claimed to be, and over the course of history, as these failures accumulated, the Church weakened, and more and more people became disaffected. Having become disaffected, they look elsewhere. The unimaginative may have been satisfied with the scientific theories of the Enlightenment, but intelligent and spiritual individuals realized the need for more. The Church's explanations did not convince them, or they found them wanting in some way, so they turned to the occult, to hidden knowledge, to try to make sense of the strangeness of reality. I ultimately agree with the conclusion that reason and mysticism should work together and should not be so diametrically opposed as they typically are in the modern world. It is important to distinguish the Enlightenment from the occult, for the Enlightenment can be shown through the application of its own precious reason to be fallacious, whereas the occult exists in a different way. The Enlightenment claims all knowledge can fit into a rational Newtonian machine or a scientific encyclopedia, whereas the occultist seeks out knowledge in the abyss beyond the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment perhaps systematized the need people had to find knowledge in the occult, but to some extent, this was already true of the established Church, as people realized that the explanations given by the establishment were inadequate to their experience of the universe, and that is one of the reasons why the Enlightenment saw such historical success in the first place.
On the issue of universals Everything common (for example, it is easiest to consider the genera of living beings) from the point of view of the Christian faith and the Christian philosophy, that follows from it , exists quite realistically, but not in itself, but in specific hypostases. Catness exists! And the common human essence (nature) also exists! It is not a mental abstraction, as nominalists believe, and not an accidental temporary link in an eternally evolving protocell, as modern unscrupulous scientists believe, passing off their quasi-religious nominalistic views as science. And it is not even what Plato and Aristotle imagined, relying only on their observations and conjectures, and not on the truth of Revelation. Although both of them came close to the truth in their reflections, making this path, so to speak, from different sides. A completely different picture emerges if we take into account that the world was created by a personal triune and coessential God, and not by some impersonal force or arose by itself. 1) The eternal plan of God about the world to be created, which Saint Maximus the Confessor calls creative logoi (ideas, thoughts, verbs, etc. - this Greek word has many meanings), determines both everything common that unites the world and all its divisions. Each nature common to all creatures of one kind is the result of the realization of such a creative plan. The common nature is determined by the common logos of nature, but it is realized in specific hypostases - individual representatives of this nature - having their own trope (image, mode) of existence. Thus, it turns out that the cattish nature quite really exists in each specific cat. And the single human nature is realized in each specific person. This common nature is unchangeable, therefore, although its individual representatives may have some differences in the way of existence depending on the circumstances of birth and life (and for rational beings - and possible differences in the aspiration of the will - to be good or evil), but they cannot transgress the limits of their nature, turning into something else (from an "ape-like ancestor" into a person, for example). 2) Since man is created in the image of God, he is also given creative ability, although limited in comparison with God. So for clarity, we can draw a similarity with human creativity. We also create an engineering project or the simplest idea in our imagination before creating anything. This project is realized in the creation of the thing itself. We also first design a general idea of an automobile, a ship or an airplane, laying down various design principles, then we draw up a project for a specific ship or airplane and embody them in a specific product. We, of course, do not possess the omnipotence of God, our word cannot immediately become a deed, our creative process is divided into separate stages. Also, we cannot create out of nothing, but are only capable of transforming what has already been brought into being by God, in accordance with the laws of everything that exists already set by God. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between our creative process and God's creativity. Therefore, it is intuitively clear to us that at the basis of every work there must be a concept that determines the properties of a thing, and we can easily, seeing the amazing complexity of the world around us, guess that behind this superbly harmonious, finely tuned work there must be a Creator who surpasses all our ideas. The world, created by God from nothing, can be likened to the work of an artist, if it were drawn on water: as long as the artist continues the same movement of the brush (say, draws a circle), the work exists, but as soon as he takes away his brush, everything returns to non-existence. Likewise God also maintains His creations in existence if we keep in mind that He does not create from already available materials, as we do. He only has to take away His almighty hand, and all creation returns to its non-existence...
The basis for the discussion (at least at the start: I haven't heard the whole thing) doesn't hold water, logically. So the category of 'none' is distinguished from those who self-identify as 'atheist'. The first do have a belief in some sort of religious life, while the second deny the validity, indeed the value, of religion. So, how is it that you are surprised to find the 'none's -- who are to be distinguished from those who deny religiosity -- believe in spiritual beings? If they didn't, they would identify as atheist in the first place. Analogously, if I interviewed 60 or more pescatarians and found that every single one of them -- unlike vegans -- believed that it was moral to eat some animals, could I then announce how surprised I was?
Even the term "fully fleshed out metaphysics" is a red herring and strawman. "Not a trained philosopher" is a feble attempt at an appeal to authority. Just make the claim you really mean by appealing to "authority" i.e. openly force driven via doctrine presupposed as truth, not even Truth... (truth in relation to Truth due to self proclaimed "human inherent imperfection/wickedness" clinged to in "The Church")
I disagree with his comment about angels, dark matter, aliens, simulation, etc. Firstly the dark-matter argument is a great deal of math that he glosses over. Secondly, the distinction is interventionist. People are willing to believe in aliens, a simulation, or other intelligent-design ideas because they seem consistent with the laws of nature and don’t posit an interventionist being that performs miracles and requires purgation.
One point that you make around the 29 minute mark about dark matter I feel is a bit unfair or misses the point of what dark matter is. Rather than being a hand waving gesture, it is more like a placeholder name for a force that we don't yet understand. I have no doubt that we will discover the mechanics etc of dark matter sooner rather than later. That is not to comment on the existence or otherwise of God but I felt that comment missed the mark or was a bit of a mischaracterization. That being said, an enjoyable conversation, keep it up lads! 👍
Actually, dark matter isn't a placeholder. It's a fully made-up idea that is necessary to make our current model work. Basically "our numbers and ideas don't actually work out, so we will make up a special non-existant thing so we can force the numbers to do what we need them to do to justify our current assumptions." Dark matter is a cop-out. We have the model wrong.
"Believing in ghosts?" It isn't the same thing as what we mean when we say we believe in God. We mean God is an important part of life. Believing that ghosts exist is scriptural in the sense that God wouldn't warn us against talking to ghosts, and God wouldn't say the dead know nothing. He is telling us no to believe "in" them - to treat them as insignificant and irrelevant to our lives. But if they didn't exist at all, God wouldn't have taught us how to treat them. We don't exist enough in their dimension to know exactly what they are, and there was a researcher who wrote a book, "Hungry Ghosts", that theorized that ghosts were demonic spirits that try to draw people away from dealing with reality. They can imitate dead relatives and people are easily fooled. I would expect a Christian to say that ghost phenomena do exist, but that we are not to treat them as significant to our world. We are not to believe in them as meaningful in any way. Or as having anything meaningful to say to us. I've always believed, all weird theories aside, that we are supposed to deal with reality pretty much as it seems to our rational minds. We have to have our feet on the Earth. I always joked about people who claim to channel spirits: If you can channel spirits, why bother with Ashtar Command or angels or beings from another planet? Just channel God. If they can't channel God, they have to wonder why they have a bad relationship with God. And they better do something about that. You want advice or help? Why do you go to anybody but God? If I were God, I would be offended that people would rather talk to random spirits and demons. Talk to your creator.
In regards to realism and categories, it seems that everyone's categories are slightly different at the edges. What someone might call a stool someone else might categories as a table. Would that not indicate that the mind is creating fictional groupings based of personal experience and social conditioning in order to better predict how an object might act based off how it looks, sounds, smells, ect and from this how the object should be treated in regards to survival? It's not that the mind is identifying eternal objective structures? @jonathanpageau
The most important lesson to get the most out of the simulation you're in is the first law of improv, "Yes, and". Don't automatically reject and shut down other's ideas with marxist "critical thinking" negation, but find at least a comical integration of both ideas to help suspend disbelief. That keeps the cultural exchange going long enough to get past blind prejudice. Everyone should tak a good basic improv class, even if you the shyest wallflower. You might well meet your surprise soul mate. And many demons can be fun to play with, as long as the angels respect their boundaries and their consciousness level is close to parity. The most exciting sex comes from angel-demon pairings, even if the relationships don't last very long. The nuns at the local Temple of Karma will be happy to raise your child if you can't deal like adult souls with custody and visitation negotiations.
Realists are Luciferian souls, not godly souls. Realists are the ones that get stuck playing the same basic kind of incarnation over and over in the physical universe, believing Lucifer the lord of physics and chemistry is the "almighty". The real God is not such a serious, literalist soul as Lucifer, and likes to party with his current favorite peeps most nights. A good model for understanding God is the captain Russell Crowe plays in "Master and Commander" - a great leader who knows authoritarian tyrants attract rebellions
I don't get all this "realism" stuff. I am a translator, I've read Wittgenstein's theory about "language games" and I have pondered deeply unto Lyotard's postmodern condition which relies on the assumption of the nonexistence of a metalanguage. And all that delving into these "communities of practice" which preserve the meaning of the texts was the main reason I converted to Christianism, because of the need of belonging to the Chruch, and to be in communion with the Body of Christ in order to glympse at the Word. If you tell me there are universal archetypes which reside in the names of the existing things, then there's no use for a Church. The Truth is in the mystical experience of this universe, I am my own Church, I am capable of prefect knowledge, and my mind is as powerful as God's.
great chat. kashmir shaivism has a much better vocabulary for these ideas. the classical elements, tanmatras, etc. recognition sutras way more direct than these metaphors
Check out the Nathan Jacobs Podcast:
CZcams: www.youtube.com/@TheNathanJacobsPodcast
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/0hSskUtCwDT40uFbqTk3QS
Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nathan-jacobs-podcast/id1747994475
Join me and Richard Rohlin for our new Universal History course on Dante’s Divine Comedy: Purgatorio. Patrons at the Involved tier or higher qualify for 10% discount. Apply your unique discount code at checkout. Class starts August 27th. Register today: thesymbolicworld.com/courses/dantes-purgatorio
Jonathan sitting and listening to Nathan for over an hour is the ultimate compliment any guest could receive in this channel.
Nathan Jacobs blew my mind with this video. He really helped ground the abstract beliefs that I had listening to Pageau. I have been waiting for this moment where I can stop merely intellectualizing, but also implement this thinking into my life. This is so important to me as I am raising 3 kids and coming from a secular family, really need to get this understanding of reality right so that my children are protected from the disordered worldviews of my upbringing so that they don't suffer what I have.
God bless you, brother, and your dear family. They are blessed to have a loving, protective father.
I spent years enjoying your Biblical stuff, but now I come to this channel for the metaphysical discussions. Thanks so much to you and JPMarceau
I think it’s wild that people don’t think and see in symbolism. It’s why stories were always so compelling to me. It’s like reading poetry and how a good poet can help you feel/experience through images, symbols, and analogies. I thought most ppl thought this way but I was definitely mistaken lol.
As far as I can tell each person has a central narrative. Even if its naturalistic or reductive. I think the difficulty is that too few people have humility about their own perspective and we also lack a common metric. When two people measure all truth and goodness against a private, subjective and non negotiable worldview there is little room for peace and cooperation.
I try and utilize symbolism in my work as an anti-communist political activist, and it is quite potent regardless of whether or not people actively believe in it. Operating at the level of symbolism and mythology is effective on the battlefield. That’s all you need to know. It doesn’t matter what you believe because you will believe the story that is rich and full of life Over a set of dead facts
If you go to my channel you will see videos where I confront the radical left, and I utilize an inverted form of their dialectical methods.
So glad to see him back on your channel! I’ve been ripping through his podcast. He is one of the best (if not THE best) communicator out there.
*Larry Burkett's book on "Giving and Tithing" drew me closer to God and helped my spirituality. 2020 was a year I literally lived it. I cashed in my life savings and gave it all away. My total giving amounted to 40,000 dollars. Everyone thought I was delusional. Today, 1 receive 85,000 dollars every two months. I have a property in Calabasas, CA, and travel a lot. God has promoted me more than once and opened doors for me to live beyond my dreams. God kept to his promises to and for me*
There's wonder working power in following Kingdom principles on giving and tithing. Hallelujah!
But then, how do you get all that in that period of time? What is it you do please, mind sharing?
It is the digital market. That's been the secret to this wealth transfer. A lot of folks in the US and abroad are getting so much from it, God has been good to my household Thank you Jesus
And thanks to my co-worker (Michael) who suggested Ms Susan Jane Christy
How can I start this digital market, any guidelines and how can I reach out to her?
What fantastic conversation. It really helped me understand why so many of my friends are open to talking about spirits and astrology but are allergic to conversations about God. Do you also think there is a subconscious bias against accountability to a higher power at play with many unaffiliated?
I think that the 80s and 90s Christians left a bad taste in people’s mouths.
Definitely on your side with the accountability thing. I personally stayed very much away from religion most of my life because of a fear of someone looking over my shoulder all the time, judging my every moves, basically having 0 privacy in anything and being accounted for everything did. I just didn't dare to believe that whomever that person was he loved me and was begging to forgive me no matter what I had done. How did that come about ? People praying for me is actually my best guess at this point. I never believed in the occult but not in a God though, so I'm defi nitely not part of the folks being discussed here, can't speak for them. I always thought that a distaste for the institutionalization of the spiritual was the main vector behind people leaving church, not the occult.
God requires responsibility. Spirits and astrology don’t require anything of you.
This is the most exciting stuff I have ever come across! I love this guy, so clear, so succint, talking so much sense, putting the puzzle pieces in the right places - this might not be everybody's favourite area of study but it definitely fired up my little engine! Thank you both, I will seek Nathan out!
As they say in Ireland, 'its all in the telling'.
Thank you for another great interview and guest Jonathan.
Not once in my life have I heard anyone say that here. I don't know, maybe Ryan Tuburdy used to bandy it about.
@@bhante1345 the elderly people in the West of Ireland used to say it rather often when i was young. Anyway i left Ireland in the early 90s and i don't know the person you are referring to .
What a nice surprise to see these two talking to each other, nice, very nice
am reading Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" within which he discusses the ''social imaginary' and maps out how it has transformed through the ages. This podcast is a great compliment to that. Ty for a great interview
one of my priests recommended that book!
I've been a fan of his since I found Dr Jacobs podcast. Very cool
Finally thankyou!!!!!
Putting words to what I’ve always felt
Great interview/monologue. First time I have heard my life experience generally described before. At about age seven I made what I thought was an obvious observation that the 'world' was an artificial environment, with obviously created creatures, including 'us'. But what was most confusing to me as I grew up was that everyone around me seemed oblivious to it and its implications. I find myself in virtually the same position seventy years later.
His podcast is great and I'm learning a ton. His very clear, concise communication skills arent too lofty but are packed with a perspective needed.
Listening to Nathan is like drinking from a firehose, but in a good way.
You reminded me of the Atheist bus campaign "don't worry there is no God.." ironically they were making people think about God in a campaign that was supposed to be a counter to him. Great discussion for believers and non believers alike!
whats happening is the right hemisphere of the brain has been starved by culture and memetic forces for too long. Its crashing the left hemispeheres party.
I came for the free stuff but stayed for the talk. Excellent discussion.
1) What they call "groups" can be defined as "labels" (or perhaps "general labels.")
2) It's not immediate, if you are feeling really sleepy you can sort of notice how your mind is trying to find an appropriate term (or group) for a thing that you perceive.
3) It's not only sight - it's almost as if we have something like an "avatar" of us in our mind that can operate with concepts. For example: "let's MOVE to a different subject," "let's not JUMP to conclusions," etc. It's not only "I SEE," or "let's REVIEW."
4) There is also an "Image" step between perceiving a thing and finding a term (or a group) for it. So we perceive it, then we "remember" it, and then we "remember" the definition of what that is.
5) Our consciousness can switch between topics, or different things, or groups, in the stream of information our mind receives. That is how our Will manifest itself, and I would go as far as to call it the Willpower. Because the Willpower is a process where your mind keeps concentrating on a topic or a task or an idea despite distractions. (For example, if you are working out in a gym, your main enemy is the idea that you can't continue with an exercise, which stops you long before your body would reach it's limit. You would think that it's a physical ability, but it also boils down to your ability to concentrate.)
Ah, I did a report on that topic years ago, fun times... :) I have to say (again) - I like the way Nathan thinks :)
THANK YOU I've been saying this but no one was listening. Because this is 10000% what's going on.
Great conversation! Glad to hear yet another substantial line of inquiry converging on re-enchantment in this little corner of the internet.
Lets go! I check for Pageau content every single day.
Great articulation and it seems a similar journey to the line of thought I followed when I became a realist and eventually Christian
So glad Nathan started a podcast! I've subscribed
1:01:54 - speaking (writing, drawing) things into existence is absolutely a real effective magical practice and the way “things” in general are made manifest. We are strongly told to say "Thy will be done" and trust the outcome will be good, instead of using magic.
These inspiring exchanges from Jonathan Pageau and guests offer views of an Orthodox way that leads to ever more adventures in Truth, not less. The journey towards Theosis provides fresh realizations...
I am so grateful to have such men and minds to listen to. 1:04:00 - 1:18:00 really struck me.
This was the best conversation I’ve witnessed in a long time. Holy smokes gentleman ❤️🔥
Great episode! Probably one of my favorites of late. Learned so much its amazing 👏 the more I watch and learn the more i realize the truth of God.
Wonderful interview, my experience is that we create the meaning of life thru our experience.
I thought Dr. Jacobs might recited the entire Lord of Spirits podcast intro for a moment there.
Great interview! ☦️☦️☦️
Outstanding
You just have to balance your thinking. There should be reason and intuition, deductive and inductive logic l, science and spirituality, literal and symbolic meaning
Two of my favorite peeps!
Even the term human is imposing religion. Mysticism doesn't impose religion but is rather the escape from being imposed upon
At 48:20 all I could think was, "you best start believing in ghost stories miss Turner, you're in one"
Are you guys familiar with Carl Jung’s work and takes on these same topics you’re discussing? It would be interesting to see you both again talking about his ideas and views on God and on the God-concept (God as an archetype) in the human psyche. I know Jordan Peterson knows about this, so maybe he should be added to the conversation… if it would to take place and time. Blessings
Delightful conversation
I’ve been fascinated by this question since I was a kid. I think I was only about 12 yo when I first noticed that little kids - toddlers even sometimes - once they learn what a cat is, can identify the category in an uncanny breadth of manifestations. A domestic kitten, a cheetah, and an adult male lion don’t look that much alike analytically. Yet even a small child will look at each of them and say, immediately and confidently, “Cat!”
This was awesome. Please consider a discussion with Matt Dillahunty!
Truly enjoyed the discussion on the focal point of man. The ending of the discussion was so very beautifully said.
49:14 the implications of that are life altering. I’m a longtime Catholic listener, I’m under immense attack and could use prayers.
Really liked this one.
Look they are friends thats nice🎉
The poet affirms that basic perception is mystical and the poem is his evidence.
Matter is language. The world is a poem. The Logos is The Poem of the Father.
Bonjour JoJo! One thing that amazes me is how people in the name of "progress" leave the belief in God in order to adhere to pre-historical types of religiosity. They should take a look at Africa where wizards and sourcerers abund next to extreme underdevelopment.
Jonathan's understanding of extramission being true because human attention wreaked my mind😂😂😂
I have been an Orthodox Christian for many years but have always maintained a fascination with the hermetics, Rosicrucians and ceremonial and chaos magic. I see no contradictions at all. The goal of all these paths is the same: Theosis and Theoria. These paths are a testimony to the reality of the experience of Theoria and its attainment.
I personally believe / know that Theoria and Theosis is why we are here on this planet. It’s just a very important fact. A great secret among those who have a taste for truth.
These experiences and this form of knowledge was said to be common in the early church.
Love him or hate him, David Bentley Hart has been talking about God as always already human and man as always already divine for a while now, especially in "Ye Are Gods." People get worried about his metaphysic, but it's basically what Pageau is trying to talk around with the Adam Kadmon idea. Hart explicitly borrows from Bulgakov, who I think was also working through Jonathan's "problem."
Jonathan's point about bringing attention to things (invoking the name of gods) really echoes similar to what PVK brought up in a recent video about "The Symptom Pool".
Thanks
"social instinct" is referring to "distrust in preconceived notions aimed at constraining the freethought of others"
Living in the creation, in awareness of the miracle, is living in the Kingdom of God. Leaving the mundane behind with Messiah.
Does Dr.Jacobs have an opinion on "Semiotic Realism", per John Deely, Peirce, Kemple?
Great stuff
The world is real, your perception of it is mystical and imperfect. But that's all you have to go on...
Classical example of discussing how would-be should be, without being grounded in the fact that you do not know the things beyond your perception as real, but as mystical experiences that are definitely real. So mysticism becomes a lens. Personhood has not been touched once in this conversation as the witness of mystical reality through perception: experiencing another person means experiencing their mystical memory, and they extend your reality. Realism fails to count the extension of experience through other personhoods - ultimately God - and thus its stance that there is a mind-existence separation is wrong; The same can be said about nominalism, it fails to account for the relationship between people as existing and manifesting from the lowest forms of perception to the highest.
Thirst not hunger correctly describes our search for the numinous. Hence alcoholic's drink and liquor is described as spirits
Fascinating. Jonathan, if you ever see this, I would like to have your opinion. Do you think a systematic and symbolic vision of the world can only be accounted for in a neo-platonic framework? It seems pretty straightforward to me once you have an ontology of participation at play. But it seems less straightforward in an ontology of substances (broad aristotelianism).
Thanks a lot for your work! C'est encourageant de voir des Québécois offrir un contenu de telle qualité.
not to rain on your parade, but courtney raia of UC berkeley or stanford university did an entire course on the topic as of 23 minutes in called "History 2D science, magic, and religion" about 10-12 years ago, also she wore funny hats while doing it, but I am enjoying this topic with your guys framing as well, you brought some new insight she didn't
Hello orthodox brothers and sisters, I'm roman catholic and I have a question.
If somebody identifies themselves as Christian Orthodox does it mean Catholic Orthodox? or are those 2 different things? Thank you
Those are two different things.
Roman Catholic = Latin Church
The official name of the Eastern Orthodox church is Orthodox Catholic Church, but it's still better to call it by its former name, to avoid confusion.
Good question. There's several different uses for the word "orthodox." Santiagor.z is right, but there's more. People will refer to themselves as "orthodox" when they mean "fundamentalist." Sedevacantists in the Catholic Church call themselves orthodox...even though tgey are not. [you and I are the Latin Rite of Catholicism]. People use the term to say they are "very serious."
Orthodox is being misused, just like 90% of religious terminology.
Dig into your CCC, and watch Reason & Theology on CZcams. It's a bit academic, but it helps clarify a lot of word misuse.
Why is it that people are experiencing the Paranormal and occult and not God via the orthodoxy of church and bible etc?
Because it's easier.
discernment : Hamavdil. Sometimes we need to leave reason aside, to explore the sense and nonsense...(Carl Jung)
@54:27 if color is not verifiable then how is shape verifiable- touch is processed in our mind the same way as color, how else do explain the experience of amputees who still feel or sense a limb that is no longer there? I just listened to an amputee talk about the fact that the surgeon takes the muscle from the calf and fold it over the remaining bone to provide padding. She said it was a strange sensation when she touches the end of what is left of her leg the sensation is like touching the back of calf.
The description of "realism" i'm hearing sounds a lot like neoplatonism.
It's difficult to get away from dualism. Christian mysticism embraces physical trial and mortification, to a point where consensus reality gives in and opens itself up to the divine. Even if we accept the idea that reality is imbued with the mystical, we have to explain how the rules are regularly circumvented by miracles, apparitions (Marian and otherwise), and extreme manifestations of creativity that undermine rule-bound materialist reality.
That the world is, is the mystical.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
🚬👀 sound theology is a must
Sound internally? Theology can't be tested against reality. I mean, morality can, to a degree, but not metaphysical speculation.
@SavageHenry777 at times it can depending on the results. But you can conflate the issues or keep them separate. It doesn't really matter. It's always going to land on its feet because it has solid ground to land on.
The Symbolic is the Symbolic for Magic ...😂🎉❤
"Nothing exists so something can be." - JC Have you read the book Faith and Reason by Pope St. John Paul II?
Wasn't it Kant who read Swedenborg? Or did Hegel do so as well?
Reason = Intuition...Proof: explain one without embodying the other
God spoke to me and told me His name was “I AM” He told me “I AM gonna use your bullheadedness “ I have never even said that word or heard it
I think the idiom is better translated "stiff neck" but the point is a reference to the golden calf incident because thats a trait of cattle.
I AM in french is Je suis. I AM READY is Jesuis Pret. Which sounds like Jesus Pray, or let's go. I am ready. Also, Jaime or James, Jaime is a version of Jamie. In french "j'aime" means "I love". A form also of Jacob, supplanted, to come after, to protect... also a form of Joseph.
@@JonCrs10 He meant it to Acts 7
Great topic thanks!
Did not know anything about Man being there for the lower creation to participate in God as well. It's not just about Man being deified, but the rest of the cosmos as well.
If you’re European, why would your first and last religious consideration be Christianity?
Silly question
An Omnist take on the simulation multiverse! Such a fun game once you don't rush to godhood, but take the time to smell the roses and be sure you aren't already in your own personal or collective Eden
But the simulation was obviously programmed and set in motion by something more intelligent and capable than us. It takes a killing lack of curiosity to ignore the implications.
@@OtterFlys The system and repeating patterns were set by God, but for the last 4.5 billion years, the Divine Council has been devising new versions of space-time while God played the game himself as every species that lived on this planet while it was being rebuilt and searched for the final chosen species. That's the real truth about the Christ Messiah suffering for your sins. It wasn't just one lifetime of suffering, but literally thousands of incarnations being sacrificed in almost every way imaginable. The kids got their revenge and then some on the old man for not sharing more of his innermost thoughts with the kids since his testy firstborn Lucifer first challenged daddy to a wrestling match for the Kingdom.
You shall know them by their projections
I respectfully suggest that the explanation for the frequency with which the disaffected religious turn to the occult is more complicated than this "dark side of the Enlightenment" theory. It is an odd thing that, while to me the mysticism of religion is essential, many people regard organized religion as a system of rules explaining and regulating everything, and I myself find, whether in religious or secular contexts, that I am extremely skeptical of people who "have it all figured out." The Church, having pretended to supreme knowledge for centuries, repeatedly failed to be all that it claimed to be, and over the course of history, as these failures accumulated, the Church weakened, and more and more people became disaffected. Having become disaffected, they look elsewhere. The unimaginative may have been satisfied with the scientific theories of the Enlightenment, but intelligent and spiritual individuals realized the need for more. The Church's explanations did not convince them, or they found them wanting in some way, so they turned to the occult, to hidden knowledge, to try to make sense of the strangeness of reality. I ultimately agree with the conclusion that reason and mysticism should work together and should not be so diametrically opposed as they typically are in the modern world. It is important to distinguish the Enlightenment from the occult, for the Enlightenment can be shown through the application of its own precious reason to be fallacious, whereas the occult exists in a different way. The Enlightenment claims all knowledge can fit into a rational Newtonian machine or a scientific encyclopedia, whereas the occultist seeks out knowledge in the abyss beyond the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment perhaps systematized the need people had to find knowledge in the occult, but to some extent, this was already true of the established Church, as people realized that the explanations given by the establishment were inadequate to their experience of the universe, and that is one of the reasons why the Enlightenment saw such historical success in the first place.
On the issue of universals
Everything common (for example, it is easiest to consider the genera of living beings) from the point of view of the Christian faith and the Christian philosophy, that follows from it , exists quite realistically, but not in itself, but in specific hypostases.
Catness exists!
And the common human essence (nature) also exists! It is not a mental abstraction, as nominalists believe, and not an accidental temporary link in an eternally evolving protocell, as modern unscrupulous scientists believe, passing off their quasi-religious nominalistic views as science. And it is not even what Plato and Aristotle imagined, relying only on their observations and conjectures, and not on the truth of Revelation. Although both of them came close to the truth in their reflections, making this path, so to speak, from different sides.
A completely different picture emerges if we take into account that the world was created by a personal triune and coessential God, and not by some impersonal force or arose by itself.
1) The eternal plan of God about the world to be created, which Saint Maximus the Confessor calls creative logoi (ideas, thoughts, verbs, etc. - this Greek word has many meanings), determines both everything common that unites the world and all its divisions. Each nature common to all creatures of one kind is the result of the realization of such a creative plan. The common nature is determined by the common logos of nature, but it is realized in specific hypostases - individual representatives of this nature - having their own trope (image, mode) of existence.
Thus, it turns out that the cattish nature quite really exists in each specific cat. And the single human nature is realized in each specific person. This common nature is unchangeable, therefore, although its individual representatives may have some differences in the way of existence depending on the circumstances of birth and life (and for rational beings - and possible differences in the aspiration of the will - to be good or evil), but they cannot transgress the limits of their nature, turning into something else (from an "ape-like ancestor" into a person, for example).
2) Since man is created in the image of God, he is also given creative ability, although limited in comparison with God. So for clarity, we can draw a similarity with human creativity.
We also create an engineering project or the simplest idea in our imagination before creating anything. This project is realized in the creation of the thing itself.
We also first design a general idea of an automobile, a ship or an airplane, laying down various design principles, then we draw up a project for a specific ship or airplane and embody them in a specific product.
We, of course, do not possess the omnipotence of God, our word cannot immediately become a deed, our creative process is divided into separate stages. Also, we cannot create out of nothing, but are only capable of transforming what has already been brought into being by God, in accordance with the laws of everything that exists already set by God. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between our creative process and God's creativity. Therefore, it is intuitively clear to us that at the basis of every work there must be a concept that determines the properties of a thing, and we can easily, seeing the amazing complexity of the world around us, guess that behind this superbly harmonious, finely tuned work there must be a Creator who surpasses all our ideas.
The world, created by God from nothing, can be likened to the work of an artist, if it were drawn on water: as long as the artist continues the same movement of the brush (say, draws a circle), the work exists, but as soon as he takes away his brush, everything returns to non-existence. Likewise God also maintains His creations in existence if we keep in mind that He does not create from already available materials, as we do. He only has to take away His almighty hand, and all creation returns to its non-existence...
The basis for the discussion (at least at the start: I haven't heard the whole thing) doesn't hold water, logically.
So the category of 'none' is distinguished from those who self-identify as 'atheist'. The first do have a belief in some sort of religious life, while the second deny the validity, indeed the value, of religion.
So, how is it that you are surprised to find the 'none's -- who are to be distinguished from those who deny religiosity -- believe in spiritual beings? If they didn't, they would identify as atheist in the first place.
Analogously, if I interviewed 60 or more pescatarians and found that every single one of them -- unlike vegans -- believed that it was moral to eat some animals, could I then announce how surprised I was?
Even the term "fully fleshed out metaphysics" is a red herring and strawman. "Not a trained philosopher" is a feble attempt at an appeal to authority. Just make the claim you really mean by appealing to "authority" i.e. openly force driven via doctrine presupposed as truth, not even Truth... (truth in relation to Truth due to self proclaimed "human inherent imperfection/wickedness" clinged to in "The Church")
Which church ? / doctrine? Denomination?/ people? You spoke to them all ?
Can we get a bibliography on this belief in ghosts from Clay Routlegde and the Pew stats?
I disagree with his comment about angels, dark matter, aliens, simulation, etc. Firstly the dark-matter argument is a great deal of math that he glosses over. Secondly, the distinction is interventionist. People are willing to believe in aliens, a simulation, or other intelligent-design ideas because they seem consistent with the laws of nature and don’t posit an interventionist being that performs miracles and requires purgation.
The science says that we don’t understand the origin of life or where the information in DNA comes from. Many haven’t been exposed to that yet.
Can someone explain to me in crayon what esoteric means?
the graphite core we do not see
Esoteric means hidden or occult. Something that is kept "secret" and only meant to be understood by a select group of people.
One point that you make around the 29 minute mark about dark matter I feel is a bit unfair or misses the point of what dark matter is. Rather than being a hand waving gesture, it is more like a placeholder name for a force that we don't yet understand. I have no doubt that we will discover the mechanics etc of dark matter sooner rather than later. That is not to comment on the existence or otherwise of God but I felt that comment missed the mark or was a bit of a mischaracterization. That being said, an enjoyable conversation, keep it up lads! 👍
Actually, dark matter isn't a placeholder. It's a fully made-up idea that is necessary to make our current model work. Basically "our numbers and ideas don't actually work out, so we will make up a special non-existant thing so we can force the numbers to do what we need them to do to justify our current assumptions."
Dark matter is a cop-out. We have the model wrong.
22:47 "priors" in this context is slipperier than "slippery language"
"Believing in ghosts?"
It isn't the same thing as what we mean when we say we believe in God.
We mean God is an important part of life.
Believing that ghosts exist is scriptural in the sense that God wouldn't warn us against talking to ghosts, and God wouldn't say the dead know nothing.
He is telling us no to believe "in" them - to treat them as insignificant and irrelevant to our lives.
But if they didn't exist at all, God wouldn't have taught us how to treat them.
We don't exist enough in their dimension to know exactly what they are, and there was a researcher who wrote a book, "Hungry Ghosts", that theorized that ghosts were demonic spirits that try to draw people away from dealing with reality. They can imitate dead relatives and people are easily fooled.
I would expect a Christian to say that ghost phenomena do exist, but that we are not to treat them as significant to our world.
We are not to believe in them as meaningful in any way.
Or as having anything meaningful to say to us.
I've always believed, all weird theories aside, that we are supposed to deal with reality pretty much as it seems to our rational minds.
We have to have our feet on the Earth.
I always joked about people who claim to channel spirits: If you can channel spirits, why bother with Ashtar Command or angels or beings from another planet? Just channel God.
If they can't channel God, they have to wonder why they have a bad relationship with God.
And they better do something about that.
You want advice or help? Why do you go to anybody but God?
If I were God, I would be offended that people would rather talk to random spirits and demons.
Talk to your creator.
Why does one have to affiliate with an organization of people to believe in God?
In regards to realism and categories, it seems that everyone's categories are slightly different at the edges. What someone might call a stool someone else might categories as a table. Would that not indicate that the mind is creating fictional groupings based of personal experience and social conditioning in order to better predict how an object might act based off how it looks, sounds, smells, ect and from this how the object should be treated in regards to survival? It's not that the mind is identifying eternal objective structures? @jonathanpageau
* Reason itself is in some ways mystical * 40:00
it's not the mind. It's the spirit
Physically is not mystical as it implies an understanding of the Limitation of Limitation itself mysticism is anti limit
The most important lesson to get the most out of the simulation you're in is the first law of improv, "Yes, and". Don't automatically reject and shut down other's ideas with marxist "critical thinking" negation, but find at least a comical integration of both ideas to help suspend disbelief. That keeps the cultural exchange going long enough to get past blind prejudice. Everyone should tak a good basic improv class, even if you the shyest wallflower. You might well meet your surprise soul mate.
And many demons can be fun to play with, as long as the angels respect their boundaries and their consciousness level is close to parity. The most exciting sex comes from angel-demon pairings, even if the relationships don't last very long. The nuns at the local Temple of Karma will be happy to raise your child if you can't deal like adult souls with custody and visitation negotiations.
Realists are Luciferian souls, not godly souls. Realists are the ones that get stuck playing the same basic kind of incarnation over and over in the physical universe, believing Lucifer the lord of physics and chemistry is the "almighty". The real God is not such a serious, literalist soul as Lucifer, and likes to party with his current favorite peeps most nights.
A good model for understanding God is the captain Russell Crowe plays in "Master and Commander" - a great leader who knows authoritarian tyrants attract rebellions
I don't get all this "realism" stuff. I am a translator, I've read Wittgenstein's theory about "language games" and I have pondered deeply unto Lyotard's postmodern condition which relies on the assumption of the nonexistence of a metalanguage. And all that delving into these "communities of practice" which preserve the meaning of the texts was the main reason I converted to Christianism, because of the need of belonging to the Chruch, and to be in communion with the Body of Christ in order to glympse at the Word. If you tell me there are universal archetypes which reside in the names of the existing things, then there's no use for a Church. The Truth is in the mystical experience of this universe, I am my own Church, I am capable of prefect knowledge, and my mind is as powerful as God's.
great chat. kashmir shaivism has a much better vocabulary for these ideas. the classical elements, tanmatras, etc. recognition sutras way more direct than these metaphors
Please.... Explain to me what a "moral system" would look like, as opposed to a vague view of right/wrong?
Check out Dr Nathan's podcast, he has a episode on this
@@eliasa.2569 cool. Will do