Wow, the last portion of this conversation gave me goosebumps because it so closely resembled much of my early experience with spirituality. I was exactly one of those people who wanted the non-dual enlightenment without any of the intermediary wisdom. I spent a tremendous amount of hours in solitary meditation, and ultimately I did come to experience spiritual non-dualism. But eventually I had to open my eyes and stand up. And when I returned to tend to my family and friends, my job, my responsibilities as a man, I would feel all my own frustrations and flaws return very rapidly. I felt like a true Buddha, but only when I was in meditation. As soon as I had to return to the world, Buddhahood was gone. Something about that struck me as wrong. The highest form of enlightenment couldn’t be one that only obtained during meditative practice, it had to be one which could be carried out into the world. This was intensified when I learned that my spiritual hero of that time, Alan Watts, had never been able to sort out his own personal life, despite having a deep understanding of eastern spirituality. He could never manifest it in a wise way in his own life, and couldn’t maintain a healthy marriage, and ultimately died an alcoholic. It took me years of reflection and tough work to ultimately come around to Christianity and the wisdom traditions. But it was startling to hear you and John acknowledge something that was such a difficult and long part of my own spiritual journey.
I was watching a lecture with Watts the other day. He was talking about the etymology of the word "illusion." The point of the lecture was to say the world was simply a ride, to let go, that the eastern mystics believed the world is an illusion, and the etymology of illusion is the Latin word "Ludere" which means to play. So because of this we should simply play! See, the world means, to play. Very much a Wattism. What he left out was the "ill" part. The etymology of illusion is not "Ludere" but "ill-ludere" meaning to be "against play." The world and it's deceptions are against play. We cannot simply "let go." No! Because we will be swept away with the deceptions, and we ourselves will be against play. To be an illness.
@@mathewhill5556 thanks for this thoughtful and meaningful info. Growing up Christian and Loving Christmas (not just the Santa stuff), I was annually enthralled in the story of Christ's birth, and the joy of singing the most beautiful songs at church (and caroling out in the cold, being invited into neighbors homes to warm up and drink cocoa...It was the BEST! I felt like I was an angel as a child in the choir in a white robe praising God to the highest and singing my heart out. I Loved Advent and candles and the prayers... the week of JOY always stuck with me. I grew up believing God wants us to be joyful and happy and free and praise him together as we take care of each other and share our joy with the world. This automatically translates to Play for me now. When I find myself feeling joy in midlife, with children and friends and family, it often feels HOLY and my heart is filled with gratitude. Watts is great! Do u know Akira the Don?
@@lizbec1085 O yes! I love Akira the Don's music. my favorite album is Jocko's "Get some." I put it on when I need to buckle down and work. I have an interesting anecdote that shows how the world is against play. In the story of the grasshopper, all the little critters of the forest began to prepare for winter, the squirrel tucked away his nuts, the bear fatten himself for hibernation, but all the little grasshopper did was play. When winter came he didn't have enough food. Interestingly I have only ever heard this anecdote about the value of hard labor, and preparation, not about the harsh reality of how the world is set against us. I'm not sure where the deception lies, or why the word illusion, who's etymology means to be against play, began to be known as deception. I loved your stories of caroling, that sounds wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
“The sickness unto death” by Kierkegaard is started with one of the most intriguing and complex paragraphs I’ve ever read in my life. I will never forget it and also never fully understand it. His thought and writing was absolutely beautifully articulated.
I have for many years now viewed Plato as a great teacher, and his writings are like textbooks of philosophy. They are not encyclopedias of logical solutions, but guides to examining different kinds of problems, debating with other students of philosophy, and ultimately pursuing truth. Different dialogues focus on different kinds of problems and different perspectives, thus favoring different styles of approach, neither always refusing to offer solutions or to describe systems nor always insisting upon some simple, propositional answer. I'm far from an expert on Platonic philosophy, but this approach has worked for me in what I have studied of it.
I've only done one kind of quick read of Plato's dialogues and I think that text did more than any text, video, or argument to convince me of the existence of a soul that continues to exist after death. I really appreciate Plato/Socrates for that.
@@Hereticbliss322 Here is a long lecture about some Platonists like Thomas More and Augustine fighting the banking empire of the Venetians and British. I'm listening to it slowly and looking up all sorts of things they bring up in the lecture, its great: th-cam.com/video/z65PyzQ01S0/w-d-xo.html
Pageau has to talk to Bishop Maximos. And Pageau needs to get with Peterson with James Lindsay and Jay Dyer even if there’s some heated debate there. Gotta have an #AwakeningToTheGnosticismCrisis
1:05:45 *"The absolute that does not include the relative is not the abaolute."* I want to underline that quote from Schindler... This statement and it's implications completely refute gnostisism and relativism at the same time. I feel like those are the two things the West has been struggling with since the beggining of the axial age.
1:07:29 I have the impression that this convergence have been already intuited in the Catholic church, and that's why they integrated Plato thinking in the Canon. Don't you think the "Sola Scriptura" would get in the way of a broader convergence?. Just look what happened with the critique to Vervaeky's Luther take.
Even when I was an atheist Kierkegaard was my favorite philosopher as a student of existentialism in the 90’s. So glad he’s in play with Vevaeke’s team.
Johnathan, I hope to see more dialogues between you and Chris M. I feel like you bring out the best in each other. I watched Chris for the first time in “The illusive I” and heard him talk about Kierkegaard. It seemed like he resonated with Christianity as he expressed the Christianity of Kierkegaard. He argued it so well it was hard to imagine he didn’t in some way believe the truth of what he was saying .
With regards to the consciousness of cities or countries etc., there does seem to be such thing as 'mass consciousness', when a group becomes governed by one consciousness, for example the horrific event at Astroworld or such things as 'mass hysteria', these are negative examples, but positive ones surely exist too. I think from a psychological perspective you can make this case. And then if you think about Jung, the collective unconscious opens up the space to different levels of being, higher or lower, angels or demons. We are also connected to each other in ways we don't 'see', for example when a loved one dies, you might intuitively know immediately even before you find out, this is fairly common I think. I do think the unconscious is a mysterious and immense reality that we do not understand.
I always love the dialogue between the two of you. You approach things from such different points of view, but always with the intention of discovering the truth instead of proving that you're right. It's so refreshing given most of the discourse between opposing points of view these days
I don't know why but this verse intuitively screams out as holding the key to John and Jonathan's discussion... "And he saith to him: Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." - John 1:51
The idea John Vervaeke mentioned in the beginning, of having 'extra homework' at the end of each video, got me really enthused for his upcoming project. I like the idea of having an action item at the end to help me integrate the topics discussed, I feel like that will make these videos feel that much more relevant and practical.
Second person perspective like Jesus is the second person in the Trinity and is called by John, the Word of God present from the beginning who was with God and is God maybe? Glad to hear Kirkegaard brought into this interesting discussion. Looking forward to hearing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy woven into this transfigurative movement. Thank you. Wow.
DC Schindler needs to get in on this - I read 'Love and the Postmodern Predicament' and I have to re-read it because it is so dense with insight. Amazing book for when you get those "Eureka!" moments where things click.
1:05:52 I'm not sure this is Christian unless I'm misunderstanding. Saying the relative is necessary for the Absolute/God is putting something higher than God, or we create each other dialectically. Necessity isn't applicable to God, in this case community. Because the Father is loving and a person with freedom, the Father begets the Son and Spirit. Communion becomes a free act, not a necessity for God to exist. Created things exist in the realm of necessity, we need God in order to exist.
For St. Augustine and St. Thomas there’s actions of God that are necessary and those that are freely willed. He necessarily can’t lie or sin, but he created the universe freely.
@@bman5257 Saying God can't sin is like saying God can't fall into non-being. Catholics have a different ontology. It's not a moral thing for EO. Everything he does is personal (because it begins with the hypostasis of the Father) and free, not necessary due to some external force constraining God.
@@bradspitt3896 It seems Catholics and Orthodox both agree that there are aspects of God that are necessary: He is necessarily eternal, the Father necessarily begets the Son, spirates the Spirit, etc.
@@bman5257 Saying it's necessary means it's not out of an act of love. He's compelled. The book Being as Communion talks about this. Also Lossky talks about necessity.
@@bradspitt3896 I think that’s dangerous theology. If the begetting of the Son is not necessary then the Son isn’t necessary which means He isn’t God. Same with the Spirit.
I have to admit a lot of this conversation went above my head, but I do want to leave two comments 1) When Socrates says he doesn't know anything, it is becuase his dialectical method can only prove what is false, and no what is true. The exception being if one can prove a certain number of alternatives and disprove all but one so as only one option remains. The general interpretation of his saying meaning "the wise man knows what he doesn't know" isn't precise enough I think. The ability to demonstrate positive truth came with Aristotle's deductive reasoning. If Socrates had known this method he wouldn't have to say "I know nothing". Which leads me to my second comment. 2) What does neoplatonism has to do with scholasticism? Isn't scholasticism based on Aristotle's reasoning? Otherwise, very interesting conversation!
Thank you, Gentlemen! Can't wait for John's upcoming content! On a side note, I wish everyone "argued" in the ways that these Two brilliant, kind, and classy Dudes "argue." If only more of us with different ideas and experiences could discuss difficult, controversial, and important topics AND disagree and continue their discorse.. My 2023 resolution is to try to speak to others like J&J! 😃✌🏾🙏 Happy New Year!
@@missh1774 It is no small feat, for sure, and requires so much patience. I think it's more than just patience...it's a peaceful intelligence that we can all access...which to many is Grace, and others, a comfort in one's self and acceptance of life, and being able to turn our hearts to the good in life, and there is so much good if we allow ourselves to see it and participate in it...These conversations give me so much hope during this tumultuous, intense, confusing world. I choose the White Pill! (Shout-out to Michael Malice for that one). 😄🙏
00:13:48 - The dialogue format It should be noted that Plato didn't write dialogues - he wrote (philosophical) dramas or plays (often containing dialogues) - one reason that he wrote dramas was that drama and poetry held huge sway in the classical world - every city had a theatre as the centre of social and political life. It is not usually considered by readers of Plato that he was writing in a format that was persuasive in his own era. The power of the format greatly diminished in the Roman, or middle ages, or modern era - and you wouldn't use it to be taken seriously in the eras following Athens. The Roman format was the 'letter', Middle ages was the 'treatise'. And if you want to be persuasive today you should write your philosophy in the format of the Excel spreadsheet! :)
Hmm. Perhaps this is simply going over my head.. but Pageau's account of angels/souls is still somewhat problematic in a traditional Christian framework. There is an on-going desire in this conversation to root spiritual realities within monistic-materialist frameworks of causation (this is obvious due to the fact that non-dualism is a goal of modernity), in Christian theology we call this theory "physicalism".. Clearly, Cartesian substance-dualism is antithetical to Christianity and to Platonism, _BUT_ dualism is still an essential feature of both classical Christianity and Neoplatonism. (That angels exist as conscious intelligences apart from subtle bodies/human interaction; souls existing in the presence of Christ prior to the Resurrection... how do you think saintly intercession works? How do you deal with Christ's two natures? Does God exist apart from the physical creation? etc. These are essential teachings of traditional Christianity). It is difficult to have a conversation about recovering Neoplatonic thought if it's simultaneously done with a refusal to reject modernist hang-ups (materialist frameworks, etc). I think part of the problem is in the fact that both the Ancient and Modern conceptions "link" _mental reality_ and _spiritual reality_ ... However, it is important *how* and in what order the two are linked. For the Ancient mind, "'mental' is basically the same as spiritual"; for the Modern mind, "'spiritual' is basically the same as mental".. if we're not careful we can assume that the two are basically in agreement, when the truth is they're opposite perspectives. (For e.g. the phrase: "angels are ideas" -- has a very different connotation depending on how you order the relation of spirit to mind.)
I think it’s problematic, but I don’t think it’s his intent. I think he’s trying to find an overlapping area that he puts below the ancient conception and he can point to as a possibility built off a shared area of psychological l/scientific possibility that they have to admit. I think it’s easy to remain entangled in that area and also gives them the ability to disagree and reduce the spiritual, but they are going to do that anyways. At least with Jonathan he can present a way to the ancient belief and show everything that Christianity can integrate into its proper place, and someone from the church is also coming to debate/dialogue with John on dialogos from a less artistic standpoint, so coming from both directions I think is a good thing.
@@vngelicath1580 Oh I think that will happen, and the reductive take will win. As it already is. But we can at least show more people the way to Christ and real religion while drawing a line and asserting the difference (as you are right now). That's better than less.
Sergei Bulgakov's Sophiology has a lot to say about the interaction of the relative and the Absolute. I know Jonathan is aware of Bulgakov's work but wonder if he thinks Bulgakov is close to creating a Christian goddess cult? I understand the underlying concern but Bulgakov develops his definitions after striking down any ideas that there could be a goddess figure that would compare to the Trinity or that any entity could be added. I hope that he addresses this soon. Bulgakov and other Russian intellectuals of the past two centuries would be a great addition to these discussions. Not to mention I think that the working definition of Sophia/Wisdom that Vervaeke is working with could have been hammered down more precisely in this discussion, I am sure he has a much better explication of his use of the term wisdom elsewhere but I would be interested in a Sophiological discussion between these two, or perhaps between Vervaeke and someone who is more familiar with Bulgakov's ideas.
I love the part about preexistence, but i do have a question, you said if we shatter the body enough their is no being but what about brain damaged individuals? I would think their essence is still there but the connection the essence uses to manevuer in this world is damaged. In other words the consciousness( the way the essence controls the body) is damaged and the essence can no longer use the body in the way it can but i wouldnt say that the being is no longer there only that the way it controls the body is now limited. Their ""soul"" or ""spirit"" or essence isnt gone but the ability to fully utilize the mechanism(brain) is gone.
John’s conversation with the Orthodox Bishop on the Christian transfiguration of Neoplatonism vs the scholastic and chiliastic escape of it in the west can’t come soon enough.
When you talk about this move of moses going up the mountain, shedding garments and going into the divine darkness and coming back with the tabernacle im wondering if the same pattern plays itself out in the difference between people who try to prove God objectively, or experience proof of God in their experience. What im wondering is if by moving away from the objective arguments from God, not because they are wrong, to cultivate an actual grounded phenomenological experience of reality and personal experience with God actually glorifies orignially those objective arguments from God. I feel like this pattern playing out in our modern context actually follows the pattern I have expeirenced in my life, from being focused on objective arguments of God, to being captivated by beauty and personal expierence with God, to coming back to realising there is absolutely no contradiction. would love to know your thoughts
Jonathan, Thank you for your insights and explanations. Could you help me understand something I'm curious about? It seems to me that humans, as self-conscious beings, are also influenced or affected by trans-human, causal influences (fear, lust, compassion, jealousy, etc.), which are often called "spirits" (winds, breaths). This may even be a common aspect of all "persons". My questions are this: If those "spirits" are themselves self-conscious beings, are they also affected by causal influences? In other words, why do angels and demons choose to behave as they do? What "causes" their actions? Can they experience insight and metanoia? Are they influenced by greater forces? Greater demons? If so, going straight to the top of the demonic hierarchy, what causes Satan to act as he does, and would that "cause" then also be a self-conscious being? Could Satan experience metanoia? I'm worried that the personification of the "causes" or "spirits" into self-conscious beings creates an infinite regress. Thank you.
1:01:20 This is the genius of British Christianity and an area in which it far exceeds Orthodoxy and the reason why I remain within the Anglo-Catholic tradition.
The guru problem is unavoidable. Christ predicted gurus, sorcerers, and demons pretending to carry his way, and even pretending to be angels and the Holy Spirit even to the point that after a long time they would be followed instead of him in antichrist. He offered a straight and narrow path as well as leaving an apostolic tradition that discerned these experiences specifically to tell the difference. It didn't involve all traditions, just as Christ rejects the miracle as the core of his work in the desert (and still performs them) he rejects all the kingdoms of the world, which includes much from all of their religious traditions. Not everything gets in. Now RATNAR that has headless gods and sides so much with democratization and the prevailing vision of our time is very rife for the guru problem. John and company who are good faith actors should pick up their cross and police the project. It has become a gnostic cesspool looking to bring in a new age, and be part of that against a group of Christian conservatives who make up half the project with the discipline to actually show up and meditate and police the problem. And it is certainly not meta-political. This is not to dismiss John's project. The chiliastic unification that rejects Christ is coming, no matter who does it and though he is a good faith actor it is the spirit of the times and in all the thinkers of the west for 1000 years in escalating fashion. He is at least a good faith actor who is giving the tools to see the value and participate in the existing religion. I could see the transfiguration of neoplatonism and stoicism and archetypal sophistication thanks to him, Peterson, Jung, and their massive works and reading lists, and John's practices. However, I think it is still wrong. The guru problem and way a philosophy connects to the spirit of the times can often be an issue of hundreds of years as we see with Hume, Kant, and Descartes who could live unharmed and reasonable lives of comfort as those in academia. In spite of the fact Peterson is less scientifically and philosophically robust and more dated than John (and also coming out of those problems with Jung, science and western Christianity) he still helps more people in a simple way, has and has kept a wife, raised two kids, and we see the way the church is full of this and actually buttresses these more than psychology and academia. Sorry, but I have to side with the works as part of my decision to take what works for Christianity from John and reject the rest of this project. For all the problems and fanatics in Christianity, or with Peterson, what is it about those things that attract a higher rate of conscientious people willing to submit themselves and live well, while John says "The next Sangha is the Buddha. *It's not about you*." And so many more people come in as if they heard "I get to be the Buddha, oooohhhh." And that whole wing of game B "We need another attractor, we need a game B, we need distributed cognition. But not a utopia. Neither nostalgia or utopia, I put it on my tombstone." and they seem to hear "we're the distributed cognition Buddha, we're gonna make an egalitarian game B utopia and save the world." There's something going on there. And the guiltiest parties seem to have a lot of Ken Wilbur and desire to save/evolve out of “green” ie post modernism, and game B isn’t just a peripheral issue for them as it is for John, it’s as central to their aim as their circling based religion, and enmeshed with it. John should look at that deviance and where it is infecting his project, and what minor errors in his total work that allow it immediately rather than after a good 1,000 year run. Another good thing about church versus discord is you can see what everyone is doing and everyone has to have clothes on, and can’t just pretend to be engaged before the end of meditation, then jump in before five minutes of meditation discussion to talk about politics, TH-cam views and arguments in the meaning corners, taking bong rips and talking about so called “chaos magic” etc.
@@denniszaychik8625 yeah, he talked about it a bit under the comments of the copernican revolution video, mostly highlighting the differences between his and Eliade's thought. Maybe you'd find it interesting
@@santiagodiaz3358 The only thing that makes it interesting is the reveal of how Jonathan's view of the world and the cosmos parallel those of Jorge de Burgos (Name of the Rose).
@@denniszaychik8625 I'm not familiar with De Burgos so I'd have to look him up. But Jonathan's comment was certainly influenced by St Maximos the Confessor's idea of the logoi Edit: I thought Jorge de Burgos was an actual person lol, just looked him up
i wonder, i wonder, what you would do when not choosing to influence, if influence chose you for in this comedy of the divine, the mate of fortune must be deeply sublime
You seem to be sure there is a “you” which is conscious. A flower turns towards the sun. That is a form of consciousness. Doesn’t require a “you” as observer. That you is just an actor on the stage of evolution.
I deeply respect John and look forward to listening to the series. Though I am much less qualified to contribute from theism than Jonathan and Paul, I hope to be able to put in my 2 cents from time to time.
Thank you Jonathan. I am wondering if you could elaborate a bit more about Ian McGilchrist and his work on the two brain hemispheres. If modern materialist people can understand that this left hand, right hand, and spiritual understanding of the world is grounded in our most basic biology, it could help build a bridge. Plus there is nothing else as convergent in science and spirituality than you talking about the left hand & Ian Mcgilchrist talking about the left brain & vice versa. Thanks again!
The bit about the imaginal controversy in Orthodoxy: Don’t these hesychasts come back down and give prophecies i.e images? So isn’t the problem about whether you get these images going up or coming back down?
Yes! and even a heretical thinker like Corbin, and a Greek Orthodox proponent of his says to have true Imaginal things requires a tradition to structure and discern them, that it is dangerous and can become demonic, and 99% of what we call “imagination” is just fancy, prelest, and fantasy. They valued the Imaginal so much that they said God would forgive those who reject his gifts out of the prudence of trying not to be deceived by the enemy, and even if there are failures are harder on false miracles than other churches. That’s to make sure the visionary experiences such as had by St. Silouan and his theophanic vision of Christ are authentic and support the hesychasm, and aren’t put in the hands of people who can’t handle the full Imaginal. The Icons heirarchal distribute that down, and Jonathan’s case for a discernment and heirarchal integration of fairy tales and the archetypal landscape puts those things where they belong: outside and below the Church. The saints also take on the full ascetic path and investment in the other world, but not only give images and prophecy, but more often care for the world at the point of paradox, both fully accepting and rejecting the world. They pray for and tend to the sick, teach others, weep for us, show the possibility of transcending the flesh and passions for those that can’t, and even weep/pray for their killers and torturers. This is a refutation of John’s Neitsczhian case that the two worlds mythology ONLY removes intrinsic value in this world for the next, as well as the Buddhist case that we should not be too tight (ascetic) or too loose. The full body of the church has both ends of the bow and the same correct tension he McgilChrist and Heraclitus call for dispersed in proper proportion and the meeting point of just being with purpose, instead of the total rationalist/Neoplatonic/leftist/eastern dominance of just being and at one-ment through Meister Eckhart given oversalience. St. Sophrony rejects Eckhart and the mistake of at-one-ment with God saying instead that God prays through me. We also exist in hierarchy with the supermen who actually have transcended their humanity instead of democratically removing excellence and hoping game B will help everyone have enough time and money to follow John’s wisdom path without too much stress and we can all just be.
It is not easy to take all of this in in one go. I don't expect to. But there are snippets. Aspects that seem to resonate with me where I said the same thing in my head as an answer. Other times I questioned my assumptions, not what I felt, but my be the narrative I gave something I thought 30 years ago. There is something about not excluding past wisdoms from older eras/ cultures. They can and should still contribute. There is something about including the decent as well as the ascent, the absolute involved withe relative. Especially with respect to spiritual by passing. Nice start to the retreat I begin tomorrow. It also contributes to my new hope that the conversations much needed are beginning to happen. Early stages and at a more visceral level. Between people not at an ideological multimedia level ,which is so un-nuanced or lived.
00:24:08 - Mythos and narrative in this section they talk about the Symposium and the Aristophanes speech - this speech might be one of the most entertaining (except for Socrates') but it certainly is not the best in terms of its understanding of Eros - and in fact it is the worse (both in Plato's view and mine), as its message is we should desire to replace God and also sleep with as many people as possible, which is not a form of Eros that will get you very far (however it is the modern view so attractive for that reason)...
Socrates in the Republic, is focusing on the coitus and conception of Christ in relation to a given epoch and people; while Christ is the actual birth in such an always particular new Nation, as a then also always once again newly Universal Civilization epically grown in the wilderness like the US today, and Rome and others before.
@@Hereticbliss322 The Republic and OT and NT have many connections. Socrates’ delineation of the decline of monarchy and nobility into oligarchy and democracy can be shown to relate to the man of metals smashed by the stone of Christ - (Plymouth Rock today as the white stone in Revelation 2, having the new name of Jesus Christ doctrinally written upon it historically and culturally no less than nationally by scripture in prophecy) - in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream - (or our now American dream in such Anglo-Saxon Protestant foundations) - in Daniel 2, where he was troubled in his sleep like a Rip Van Winkle, and “his sleep brake from him”, in such previous Old World monarchs, and such a newly democratic nation; just as Socrates in contrast to Paul, states that they are not as those who see through a glass darkly. The allegory of the cave - (and as that also into which Lot flees in the destruction of Sodom) - is an epical birthing canal for Christ in such New Worlds and new Nations - (indeed, this is the Nativity flight in Matthew from Judea to Egypt to Nazareth via Joseph, as the Joseph equally of the OT sold into Egypt by his Protestant brethren as Joseph Smith and the sort of national religion of Mormonism today, grown epically with our nation). The image of the beast - (or our military industrialization and its Federal and Corporate grounding in the mass media, forming the actors creating the fires and shadows on the walls of the cave) - is also the popular birthing of new kingdoms through Christ as those to come over the next epoch in our New World now, just as the previous Western European kings of Christendom arose out of the collapse of Rome. The guardians who are being designed to guard the Republic, are the flaming sword turning every direction with the Axis Powers and World War II, as they are the beast of Revelation 13, rising up out of the sea, and followed by our now Universal Empire of the US today, as the beast rising up in turn out of the dry land of a New World. Such once again wholly gathered culturally communistic communities like those of Acts 2 and 1st century Christianity, and coming with Christ at such newly universal heights, not only become the religious and saintly foundations of the future kingdoms to come. But they are the communality of men and women wrestling naked in the Republic as they form the guardians having a sexual equality; even as Socrates - (in that observation on the political degradation following that of Monarchy) - connects that degradation - (like the many miraculous births in scripture from the previously barren) - to a fecundity and an otherwise barren state. Just a few examples. Peter states in scripture, my beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years - (in the millennial rise of kingdoms, for example, like those of Christendom before) - and a thousand years as a day - (in such newly Universal Civilizations and Empires to epically grow anew in the wilderness of another New World like the US today, or like Rome two thousand years ago now, and in relation to the previous two millennia in the Greco-Oriental origins of Hellenism upon such same events in Egypt and Babylon).
Great talk, thanks so much, very informative: Participatory and perspectival but individualistic, which is the issue IMHO. Socrates is just 'questioning everything' as a way to find the edges of reality, but that is a small (perhaps necessary, but I doubt it) part of what Christianity has to offer. Glad you won't be alone in a room with a whiteboard, that is likely going to make it better. Ah, no public, note that Jordan Peterson did for the majority of his work - might be a hint there about what makes these things successful. I doubt conversation is going to save the world (I really need to write an article on that someday) for various reasons, mostly complexity and Post Modernism makes this impossible. The conversation with Chris was EXCELLENT. Highly recommend. Why are we stuck on Socrates when Plato is still the man? No one got past him. Reality is a trasjective between the material and ethereal, connected by us (not entirely) through us. Not all that hard, we co-manifest reality with creation, assuming being is good. Wait, what is the 'this' way of life? A definition would help here. I doubt anything non-Christian has anything like midwifery but I'm anxious to hear how that will be pulled together. Exactly, Socrates doesn't argue for anything, likely ever, it's just him questioning to allow people to recognize their own limitations and perhaps the limitation of knowledge as such. That is more likely a way to think about this, knowledge has limits and likely is not even required for a good life, which I'd say was Socrates core message, I know that I know nothing. Yes, asking questions is for education, not for training (giving people answers). The way to learn critical thinking is to do critical thinking, to have your thought critiqued, which is what Socrates embodies. It's almost as if returning to the cave is all about participation. Accepting the fact of the cave, not avoiding it, but continually interfacing the cave to make things better for everyone, rather than just being outside the cave alone. Plato, they guy who didn't want things written down and spent more time in the gym than the academy wasn't stressing propositional knowledge? Was this somehow unclear to someone at any point in time? I should hope not, sounds like materialism, putting propositional knowledge up front. I'm still trying to find the difference between neoPlatonism and Platonism. I don't see a way of life there, you need something larger, with stories, a theme, a reason, etc. Perhaps a story big enough to live in. Seems like Plato and Aristotle tried to get rid of story, but ended up having to bring all that back. They were just early Post Moderns, ultimately, but unlike those that came later (chronological snobbery, anyone?) they rediscovered the value and requirement of story to be a person (else you try to become the impossible, an individual). Jonathan has a symbolic playbook?! When is that being published?! :) I wonder if the 'guru' problem is not something that most people can overcome. Imagine a world where gurus were managed in a better way and the modern guru problem is just the result of the individualist materialist curse of the post modern lie. They do think ancients were stupid and wrong, it is clearly chronological snobbery. I think that much more importantly, when we allow the myth of the individual to continue, we encourage a rejection of the idea of creation and therefore a rejection of the past. When we overload the signal with 'You can do anything' instead of talking about cooperation through submission, we give people little reason to acknowledge the past. This isn't enlightenment to me, it's much different indeed. Often, what I have found, especially with modern philosophy, the ancient actually had the same critiques, often better ones, but we don't know this anymore, because we've lots the idea of the historical grounding into which we were born. I think it's not just their mythological world views, lots of people today, public figures, PHD's, seem to not understand that the questions they are asking have answers from the past (maybe not satisfying answers) that aren't mythological at all. This is a much bigger problem. Make emanation great again! Requires submission and an acknowledgement of the idea of creation. Self Similar fractal nature of reality confirmed. This try it at your scale and imagine that pattern is similar at all other levels is correct, Can Confirm. I love this stability argument, perfect. You have to preexist, or are primary over your body due to slower rate of change. That totally make sense. Containers can change out all parts but there is a limit indeed to change. Nassim Taleb talks about this, fragile vs. anti-fragile. Co-exist. So a 'program' cannot operation with a computer, co...operation. Cooperation. Yes, lots of things are being mixed up. People have flattened the world. Coming to them with a more complex way of relating is a problem for people. Plus, I think that they are missing skills around being able to relating the poetic information in the world, which makes symbolism somewhat impenetrable to them. So, closed world, which is flat, but 'works' is preferable to complex (but open) world that requires poetic information to even understand. Makes sense that people would attack something they cannot understand. I have no idea why anyone would be able to accept distributed cognition and not understand a distributed consciousness. I suspect that John needs consciousness to be special to resolve the is/ought gap. Don't make humans just something small in the universe, then we aren't quite so special and are submitted to something larger than us, like creation. What I'm hearing is that you cannot have a Rover on Mars without the components that we would (post 1530) call religion. So I'll go back to my favorite new saying: If you believe you do not have a religion, one will be provided to you without your knowledge or consent. What if the imaginal is a way to connect to that which is larger than us? It's a space that allows us to slowly interface with what is outside us, a limited container for potential that we have some control over. What I hear Jonathan saying is that in order for a Mars Rover to work you need to give the folks involved a container (body) and the other components of religion as John mentioned earlier. The imaginal is dangerous, in fact, it's the problem we face today, too many people were forced to focus their cognition on the physical (material) and end up getting stuck in the imaginal space and therefore disconnect from reality as such. This leads to a loss of intimacy (see my videos on the intimacy crisis) which causes a loss of meaning. Imagine if the imaginal is where we connect to story (narrative is a different thing, see my video on story, narrative and archetype on Navigating Patterns - which PVK has mentioned). The narrative is the intermediary between you today and who you could become. I find it odd that people say 'I am a non-dualist' then immediately go into binary thinking, false dichotomies and lots of strange contradictions. This isn't non-duality. People confuse the absolute with the universal because they have flattened the world. Unique personal experience - sounds like a drug trip. Profound but not transformative.
"what if the imaginal is how we connect to something larger... story + narrative" and "what if the imaginal is dangerous." It's both, but "to connect to something larger" isn't just a connection of story and and rational ways of keeping this stuff in tidy categories, it's also the place of theophany and can be active with subtle bodies, visions, voices and figures. The church fathers knew this, as did the bible, having concepts such as demons pretending to be holy images, fancy and prelest (a prideful possesion of ego taking over the experience or allowing demons and spirits in.) There was a careful discernment and training for "imaginal" practices which John reduces to "serious play" and democratizes them for everyone, rather than having a special place for monks who have a chance at sainthood, bishops, priests from the laity who can actually have families (a layers of feedback) and the normal people who can't do these things all day (hence the attractiveness of this project to gnostic cesspit-ists). I always hated your points against Neoplatonism but have changed my mind. Christianity has integrated it in a way that improves it and Stoicism. The book by Orthodox Fr Damascene Christ the Eternal Tao shows that in a manner it can superimpose Christ and Christianity over the truths of the Tao without once violating Christianity. I think in the manner the left hemisphere is focused on the parts, John is looking at all the neoplatonic and mystic elements as the best parts of each religion, then sowing them together the way Dr. Victor Frankenstein thought he had cultivated all the strongest limbs for his creature. I think it's what Jonathan terms necromancy.
@@Ac-ip5hd Half agree. Well argued in any case. I doubt the existence of serious play as a concept, it's just play, but I can see the utility in calling it 'serious' but that only works for a while. Make play great again. I wasn't trying to make a statement about imaginal and all that it did, just that it's a buffer, more than anything else. Peterson makes this case from a strictly psychological perspective, but it's bigger than mere rationality can reveal.
@@marklefebvre5758 I agree with all that. I think you had some points on that concept thing too. What I'm addressing here though, you have to look at Vervaeke's model, he specifically brings this up when he brings in the Neoplatonists to improve the Stoics "No , no, your not doing enough serious play." What he's talking about is reducing gaurdian angels and theophanic exeriences to forms of active imagination to have a container for the imaginal, in a rationalist model. He's literally reducing the highest religious experiences to serious play by taking that and putting it into an ecology that also has things like physical activity such as Thai Chi and can plug into hikes nature etc (this part I'm not against), but then he includes these spiritual activities as "university" which you graduate to after three months of meditation videos and a gnostic cesspool to do so called distributed cognition over it while everyone comes in iwith competeing opinions, jockeying for position and getting political all the time.
@@Ac-ip5hd I'm not a big fan of John's model, we have our own models that are far more powerful it seems. While I agree with your characterization, I think there is a BIG problem, in fact, I was talking to a friend of mine today about it. That is the issue of language. Christians have a hard time with Vervaeke because he's got a different cognitive cultural grammar and is using unenchanted words for concepts best expressed with religious words. However, I've argued (several times with PVK about this on his channel) that Peterson and Vervaeke reach an audience Christians will never reach because of this change in grammar. This is to say jumping too quickly to 'the devine' is likely the issue and of course you want to go all the way to God, Creator, which is far too many steps at once. Interestingly, we aren't the only folks seeing this, I hope to have a clip up soon about this, from a live stream I did not too long ago.
@@marklefebvre5758 Yes, you messaged your model. I agree that it's a BIG problem. And it is exactly what he is doing so that it has to be taken serious in science which is what makes his and Peterson's model so powerful and is problematic from Christianity, especially in light of evolution. However, they pick and choose when and how they want to enchant things and use the word God, and there are still major dangers there. And I say this as someone who previously was in much greater agreement with John and Jordan's projects, sources etc. It's powerful and even if it's not John's specific model, the secular, supraecunumical, worldly science based project will likely be seen some day as a unifying religion that can "do Christianity better." I mean it's literally the prediction of the Bible that real Christianity will be co-opted for a worldly religion that can pose as "christian" while being antichristian to it's core, ie rejecting Christ. That's the spirit of the times and the people interested in these projects. Even Peterson who is trying to do the exact opposite and make the case for it reduces it to a scientific model that in between the lines implies it is part of a religious evolution and has to evolve incorporating all new truths, rather than discern what from science, world religions, philosophy etc doesn't get in. On those grounds the discussion should continue, but that should be stated in it. The reciprocal reconstruction forces this ecunimicism, and forces religions that want to stand next to it and these models pulling from all religions to play the game if they want to be accepted, implicitly even if it isn't John's intent. And all the people following him, interested in RATNAR, Ken Wilbur, Chardin (who many people at the Vatican itself, talking to Yale and leaning to one world government and the magic word ecology) are all interested in these that intent.
1:05:40 - I have this part on loop cause I really want to understand it properly lol. It feels like an Ian Mcgilchrist right/left brain thing. Something that reaches throughout everything, not something true but contained in a box and understood fully.
Perhaps consider the practice of music. We play a Bach Brandenburg Concerto, the notes are written on the pages, the musicians commune together to perform the piece as a collective, we get to the point via rehearsal where we are breathing as one creature, us violinists playing the cellos notes as much as our own. The piece is "brought to life" and the sounds are manifested into the temporal and can be received and responded to by listeners. However, is the music experiencing itself? Is the "spirit of Bach" actually present in that moment? Both yes and no. The human man has been dead for several centuries but his psyche is re-presented in the world through us in the orchestra. But the music itself is neither "conscious" nor "self-conscious" in that there is not "something it is like to be" a Brandenburg Concerto. I love these discussions so much! ❤🙏🎻
Woooo! Nice rally up at the end there John!👏 Will certainly be trying to get my friends round for this! I feel like I need to read some Socrates now! So much of this went so far over my head, but all tied together at the end. 🎁 Thanks both! Keep up the brilliant work.
Thanks to both of you for a great presentation. // I have one comment to make regarding the 'spiritual but not religious'. I worked at a spiritual bookstore for decades (I retired last year). I don't see the spiritual but not religious as engaged in the ascent to The One and The Good, to that which is beyond being. I almost never heard their relationship to the spiritual spoken of in those terms. In this sense I don't see this group as mystically oriented, in the sense of 'Mystical Theology'. Rather I see them as deeply involved in that intermediate realm of image, archetype, symbol, and spirits that you refer to. For example, the widespread interest in the Tarot is focused on exploring, and accessing, and becoming familiar with, this kind of image-based reality. And that's just one example. // I see this group as heavily influenced by Jung and his archetype-centered views, along with Jung's hostility to full transcendence. It is also influenced by psychology in general. // I think what this group means by not being 'religious' is that they do not want to associate with religious organizations. That has its drawbacks; but it has to be admitted that there are good reasons for having a negative evaluation of religious organizations. I mean that this hostility towards them has a basis. // Again, thanks for taking the time to upload this conversation.
That was such a convoluted sputtering of communication in the beginning introduction before they start this TH-cam episode that I decided not to watch the rest of it. I get what he was attempting to say, but if it's going to be that torturous to put it all together in over an hours time it's not worth it. I've already read and listened to Joseph Campbell and Jordan Peterson basically say the same thing about Christianity and other religions mythology of the world. P.s. the off putting thumbnail picture of Socrates, and the title didn't help either.
For more insight into "his" personality, look to Buddha, for they're the same character. Don't bother trying to convince me "they" lived at the same time because "they" didn't. The further "we" move from the past, the more condensed (illusory) timelines become. Every awareness, through whatever form it's animating, perceives and distorts the concepts of space and time through finite senses and limited reasoning. Socrates is currently alive and well in this 🌎, still attempting to enlighten its denizens of "their" true nature., with as much success as before.
Although I have compassion for John there comes a point where you have to confront the differences and push on that fact, because at this point he has nothing fruitful to share and doesn’t push you for much more fruitful conversation. But I understand why you Jonathan engage in this and your goal but that maybe was the case a few years ago. It’s time to take a stand and let the heresies be exposed
A very close look at the Hebrew wording of day three of creation seems like the seed of emergent intelligence, then day six for consciousness with a close look at the word nephesh/soul. I truly hope you two take time to look at this together soon since I believe it would be a powerful point of convergence. I know JP has focused more in this area so if there is a way to have triologos that would be incredible. I sincerely appreciate both of your willingness to be in dialogue. Happy New Year!
@JonathanPageau The essay by Fr. Dumitru Staniloae titled "Revelation through Acts, Words and Images" in the book titled "Theology and the Church" could be a good one to engage with on the imaginal space in Orthodoxy, especially the section where he discusses visions of God and their expression in words/images. You may object to how he uses the word "myth," but youll see he is using it that way to combat those trying to demythologize Scripture. Anyway, thats my suggestion :)
The immuno-response analogy works perfectly because it’s the transpersonal being’s body which is responding. If anything it shows that their is more consciousness with the trans personal being and not less. There is also something to be explored of the extended phenotype argument that Bret Weinstein made in his argument with Dawkins. I can quite explicate it at the moment though, only intuit it.
Jonathan, many people are trying to get Inspiring Philosophy onto the Joe Rohan show to answer Joe’s statements made in this clip: th-cam.com/users/shortsaYX-mnai1Bo?feature=share It would be amazing if both you and Mike Jones (Inspiring Philosophy) could have this convo with Joe!
I recently watched both angels in scientific terms videos and now this discussion and would like to throw an idea out there. Is it possible that both of you are correct in regards to consciousness/self-consciousness of higher beings when time is taken into consideration? Vervaeke makes the point that the connectivity of humans is not high enough to warrant consciousness at the group level. This connectivity argument made me think of revelation and to my understanding the concept that we will eventually all be pointing towards and under one authority of good. Bringing these two concepts together, it makes me wonder if consciousness and potentially self-conscuousness may be possible at higher levels in the future within a post-revelation world. Maybe at that point in time, the connectivity of humans all participating under the same authority will provide a high enough resolution of which consciousness will emerge. I hope this makes sense. I am fairly new to these concepts and am not always good communicating my thoughts using these terms. With this said, it has been a reoccurring thought that I wanted to attempt to express. Thank you both for all you do.
I’m trying to think why Plato would have thought dialogos was the way towards The One and the way John explains it reminds me of syllogism and dialectic and then on to Hegel’s social upheavals as society wends its way towards Absolute Spirit. Was Plato thinking in this way or was he bringing the many into the one in a conceptual (nominal) and also a progressive, anagogic sense towards The One? I doubt that John, or Jonathan, care that much for syllogism or nominalism in themselves and tend to care more about human relations. I suppose dialogos is the art of communication in human relationship and achieves more than just the facts that come from synthesis. It’s bonding, isn’t it? Religio. Human connection, and not just logical connection.
The philosopher of mind Eric Schwitzgebel has made arguments very similar to yours, Jonathan. Here he argues that materialism entails that the USA are a conscious entity: th-cam.com/video/_gAKFJ3aHjc/w-d-xo.html Maybe he would be an interesting interview guest
Jonathan Pageau, what do you think about Pierre Grimes explanation of the "divided line" in Plato's Republic. The same way we cannot see our own eyes, we cannot understand understanding (aka Logos or nous). th-cam.com/video/Pf4KlHmpTY4L/w-d-xo.htmlooking forward to it.
What a brilliant discussion. It seems to me that our understanding of “higher beings” is limited by our unconscious bias for modernist reductionistic thinking, which regards such beings as simply emergent from the material brain. It discourages us from taking seriously what has been taught about them over history in countless mystical traditions. Do “angelic beings”, which have agency (ability to act) and intentionality (ability to generate goals) "from their own side"? or are they just artefacts of human projection/origin. Attempts to explain the concept in terms of phenomena in our manifest world of space-time world fails as "they are not of this world". Hence the confusion when questions have a finite space-time framing since they require a response in finite space-time terms (e.g. "did I exist before I was born") . This is not possible as they, like us, are of infinite consciousness (God), with dimensions not only in the familiar mundane space-time dimension, but also in the transcendental pure consciousness (mind of god or "heavenly" realm) transcending the question's frame. It is in the mystical experiences of mankind that we find the gateway to understanding this material. Mystics can only offer their personal experience of the infinite in 'altered states' of consciousness, and these must always remain "hearsay" in the manifest finite frame of space time we all mostly occupy. But we can strengthen the circumstantial evidence for the self-consciousness of transcendental beings by a) its explanatory power - they act AS IF they are really self-conscious, with intentionality and b) we can access their point of view through direct experience. (For example the we cultivate the practises and understandings by such non-dual teachers as Early church fathers, Thomas Merton, or such medieval mystics like John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, the author of "the Cloud of Unknowing" among many others like Mooji, Bernardo Kastrup & Rupert Spira). These practises take us beyond mere hearsay "tales from the unknown" (unprovable) to "guides to the destination" (unarguable). From "I believe" to "I know".
It is so sad to see such curious people unwilling to explore any philosophical systems further east or older than the Greek. Such as sankhya philosophy by Kapila Deva, Shankar Acharya philosophy of non-dualism, Madhvacharya philosophy, Ramanuja philosophy, Vaisheshika, Acintya bheda-abheda tattva ... Plato's Republic is nothing but a description of the Varnashrama-dharma system as well as many other things My suggestion is that you try to host the very informed and rational explainer Swami Sarvapriyananda
I studied Plato in college, and years later when I began studying Hinduism on my own (including listening to talks by Sarvapriyananda) I realized that Plato was just putting forth Hindu metaphysics. There was a cross-pollination between ancient India, Persia and Greece. As you said it’s a shame that these bright guys won’t venture beyond the Greeks, but then that would force them into perennialist conclusions which they want to avoid.
@@Christianity_and_Perennialism Thank you very much for your support dear person! I see that you also have a very interesting channel. I'd like to share some information with you that I've never heard anyone recognize, and I find it absolutely astounding. I will do it in a comment on one of your videos.
You’re dismissed because your motivation is, in actuality, self-glorification. It seeps through your proclamations of altruism whether you’re aware of it or not. In essence, you want to be the guy that “figured out God” for rational atheists. We don’t engage with you because you obviously cannot and will not grasp the Truth while maintaining such a motive. The reason Jonathan should not be dismissed - aside from the fact that’s he’s largely correct - is because he is, in his own words, “passing it up, beyond himself.” You cannot bring yourself to do this - except maybe when it comes to discussions of Guatama. But even there in those beliefs it is easy to see how your intellectual word salad is really more about you and your academic career than anything else. But sure, dismissal should be dismissed. Makes sense.
The Gospel: Plain and Simple “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” - 2 Corithians 11:3 Ask someone today if they are saved and you will most likely hear responses like these: “I have accepted Jesus into my heart.” Or “I have made him Lord of my life.” “I’ve been baptized.” “I said a prayer.” Sounds all good and churchy don’t it; but it is difficult to de-termine whether or not a person actually knows the gospel that saves them. These useless phrases don’t describe a thing about what the gospel is and has left a devastating effect of people not knowing what it is that they are saved from nor how they are saved; which leaves a more serious effect of people questioning their salvation. Let’s not muddy the simplicity of salvation that is in Christ with vague church sounding phrases that do not communicate anything. But rather present God’s word with clarity and assuredness. So here is the gospel: plain and simple. Sin was passed upon all men by one man Adam, and death is a consequence of this sin (Rom 5:12). Mankind has an eternal destiny of condemnation and wrath - Hell - because of this sin (Rom 6:23). No matter what good works one might do we are still found sinners in the sight of our Creator God. And all unrighteousness and those who follow get indignation and wrath. We cannot be found righteous for by God’s law we are found sinners (Rom 3:19-20). If we have broken even one law we are found guilty. It is for this reason of not being able to create our own righteousness and being born in a sinful flesh that we need a savior (Titus 3:5). Christ is that Savior, God manifested in the flesh, sinless, died in our place on a cross 2000 years ago. Taking upon him the wrath and judgement that was intended for us sinners. And it is through his bloodshed, burial, and resurrection on our behalf that we are able to have peace with God and forgiveness of our sins (1 Cor 15:1-4, Col 3:14). This good news is unto all but only those that believe in it are made righteous in Christ (Romans 3:22). It is then after we have heard this good news of Christ’s righteousness available to us freely, that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit and we are now part of Christ’s body the church (Eph 1:13) There is nothing that we need to do, no good works that are required, and no bad works that can separate us from our new position in Christ (Romans 8:35-39). Faith and belief in this information from God’s word is the gospel. The gospel is not accepting Jesus into your heart. The gospel is not making him lord of your life, it is not saying a prayer and it is not being baptized with water. So next time someone asks you if you are saved. Give them the clear assured answer “Yes! And let me tell you why!” Find more free resources at: www.graceambassadors.com
Wow, the last portion of this conversation gave me goosebumps because it so closely resembled much of my early experience with spirituality.
I was exactly one of those people who wanted the non-dual enlightenment without any of the intermediary wisdom.
I spent a tremendous amount of hours in solitary meditation, and ultimately I did come to experience spiritual non-dualism.
But eventually I had to open my eyes and stand up. And when I returned to tend to my family and friends, my job, my responsibilities as a man, I would feel all my own frustrations and flaws return very rapidly.
I felt like a true Buddha, but only when I was in meditation. As soon as I had to return to the world, Buddhahood was gone.
Something about that struck me as wrong. The highest form of enlightenment couldn’t be one that only obtained during meditative practice, it had to be one which could be carried out into the world.
This was intensified when I learned that my spiritual hero of that time, Alan Watts, had never been able to sort out his own personal life, despite having a deep understanding of eastern spirituality. He could never manifest it in a wise way in his own life, and couldn’t maintain a healthy marriage, and ultimately died an alcoholic.
It took me years of reflection and tough work to ultimately come around to Christianity and the wisdom traditions. But it was startling to hear you and John acknowledge something that was such a difficult and long part of my own spiritual journey.
Well put. I think you're absolutely right, and what they discuss I've seen mirrored in my own experience.
I was watching a lecture with Watts the other day. He was talking about the etymology of the word "illusion." The point of the lecture was to say the world was simply a ride, to let go, that the eastern mystics believed the world is an illusion, and the etymology of illusion is the Latin word "Ludere" which means to play.
So because of this we should simply play! See, the world means, to play. Very much a Wattism.
What he left out was the "ill" part. The etymology of illusion is not "Ludere" but "ill-ludere" meaning to be "against play." The world and it's deceptions are against play. We cannot simply "let go." No! Because we will be swept away with the deceptions, and we ourselves will be against play. To be an illness.
Been there too, my friend! Stay Based and Enjoy the ride!
@@mathewhill5556 thanks for this thoughtful and meaningful info. Growing up Christian and Loving Christmas (not just the Santa stuff), I was annually enthralled in the story of Christ's birth, and the joy of singing the most beautiful songs at church (and caroling out in the cold, being invited into neighbors homes to warm up and drink cocoa...It was the BEST! I felt like I was an angel as a child in the choir in a white robe praising God to the highest and singing my heart out. I Loved Advent and candles and the prayers... the week of JOY always stuck with me. I grew up believing God wants us to be joyful and happy and free and praise him together as we take care of each other and share our joy with the world. This automatically translates to Play for me now. When I find myself feeling joy in midlife, with children and friends and family, it often feels HOLY and my heart is filled with gratitude.
Watts is great! Do u know Akira the Don?
@@lizbec1085 O yes! I love Akira the Don's music. my favorite album is Jocko's "Get some." I put it on when I need to buckle down and work.
I have an interesting anecdote that shows how the world is against play. In the story of the grasshopper, all the little critters of the forest began to prepare for winter, the squirrel tucked away his nuts, the bear fatten himself for hibernation, but all the little grasshopper did was play. When winter came he didn't have enough food.
Interestingly I have only ever heard this anecdote about the value of hard labor, and preparation, not about the harsh reality of how the world is set against us.
I'm not sure where the deception lies, or why the word illusion, who's etymology means to be against play, began to be known as deception.
I loved your stories of caroling, that sounds wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
“The sickness unto death” by Kierkegaard is started with one of the most intriguing and complex paragraphs I’ve ever read in my life. I will never forget it and also never fully understand it. His thought and writing was absolutely beautifully articulated.
I have for many years now viewed Plato as a great teacher, and his writings are like textbooks of philosophy. They are not encyclopedias of logical solutions, but guides to examining different kinds of problems, debating with other students of philosophy, and ultimately pursuing truth. Different dialogues focus on different kinds of problems and different perspectives, thus favoring different styles of approach, neither always refusing to offer solutions or to describe systems nor always insisting upon some simple, propositional answer. I'm far from an expert on Platonic philosophy, but this approach has worked for me in what I have studied of it.
I've only done one kind of quick read of Plato's dialogues and I think that text did more than any text, video, or argument to convince me of the existence of a soul that continues to exist after death. I really appreciate Plato/Socrates for that.
Plato should be read continuously until death. That is my honest opinion.
@@Hereticbliss322 Here is a long lecture about some Platonists like Thomas More and Augustine fighting the banking empire of the Venetians and British. I'm listening to it slowly and looking up all sorts of things they bring up in the lecture, its great: th-cam.com/video/z65PyzQ01S0/w-d-xo.html
@@iBishopEsquire awesome, I’ll check it out. Thanks!
Pageau has to talk to D.C. Schindler
Pageau has to talk to Bishop Maximos. And Pageau needs to get with Peterson with James Lindsay and Jay Dyer even if there’s some heated debate there. Gotta have an #AwakeningToTheGnosticismCrisis
1:05:45
*"The absolute that does not include the relative is not the abaolute."*
I want to underline that quote from Schindler... This statement and it's implications completely refute gnostisism and relativism at the same time. I feel like those are the two things the West has been struggling with since the beggining of the axial age.
Yes.
Still waiting for a Pageau and Schindler podcast!
Glad to see John back in his living room!
The horse painting has returned. I'm relieved personally
Our comfort zone
1:07:29 I have the impression that this convergence have been already intuited in the Catholic church, and that's why they integrated Plato thinking in the Canon. Don't you think the "Sola Scriptura" would get in the way of a broader convergence?. Just look what happened with the critique to Vervaeky's Luther take.
I think Voegelin's thesis on Hegel could possibly bring this conversation further.
Loved the talk, can’t wait for more
Oh man i'm looking forward to this.
Even when I was an atheist Kierkegaard was my favorite philosopher as a student of existentialism in the 90’s. So glad he’s in play with Vevaeke’s team.
Johnathan, I hope to see more dialogues between you and Chris M. I feel like you bring out the best in each other. I watched Chris for the first time in “The illusive I” and heard him talk about Kierkegaard. It seemed like he resonated with Christianity as he expressed the Christianity of Kierkegaard. He argued it so well it was hard to imagine he didn’t in some way believe the truth of what he was saying .
Yes! That last conversation was great.
With regards to the consciousness of cities or countries etc., there does seem to be such thing as 'mass consciousness', when a group becomes governed by one consciousness, for example the horrific event at Astroworld or such things as 'mass hysteria', these are negative examples, but positive ones surely exist too. I think from a psychological perspective you can make this case. And then if you think about Jung, the collective unconscious opens up the space to different levels of being, higher or lower, angels or demons. We are also connected to each other in ways we don't 'see', for example when a loved one dies, you might intuitively know immediately even before you find out, this is fairly common I think. I do think the unconscious is a mysterious and immense reality that we do not understand.
Consciousness is primary
Thanks
Do you have to go through the Awakening from a Meaning Crisis series before listening to this new series?
I always love the dialogue between the two of you. You approach things from such different points of view, but always with the intention of discovering the truth instead of proving that you're right. It's so refreshing given most of the discourse between opposing points of view these days
I don't know why but this verse intuitively screams out as holding the key to John and Jonathan's discussion...
"And he saith to him: Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." - John 1:51
Thanks John and Jonathan!
The idea John Vervaeke mentioned in the beginning, of having 'extra homework' at the end of each video, got me really enthused for his upcoming project. I like the idea of having an action item at the end to help me integrate the topics discussed, I feel like that will make these videos feel that much more relevant and practical.
Second person perspective like Jesus is the second person in the Trinity and is called by John, the Word of God present from the beginning who was with God and is God maybe? Glad to hear Kirkegaard brought into this interesting discussion. Looking forward to hearing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy woven into this transfigurative movement. Thank you. Wow.
Thank you for your commentary on the absolute and the relative. Looking forward again. Gracias. Eucharista.?
DC Schindler needs to get in on this - I read 'Love and the Postmodern Predicament' and I have to re-read it because it is so dense with insight. Amazing book for when you get those "Eureka!" moments where things click.
1:05:52 I'm not sure this is Christian unless I'm misunderstanding. Saying the relative is necessary for the Absolute/God is putting something higher than God, or we create each other dialectically. Necessity isn't applicable to God, in this case community. Because the Father is loving and a person with freedom, the Father begets the Son and Spirit. Communion becomes a free act, not a necessity for God to exist.
Created things exist in the realm of necessity, we need God in order to exist.
For St. Augustine and St. Thomas there’s actions of God that are necessary and those that are freely willed. He necessarily can’t lie or sin, but he created the universe freely.
@@bman5257 Saying God can't sin is like saying God can't fall into non-being. Catholics have a different ontology. It's not a moral thing for EO. Everything he does is personal (because it begins with the hypostasis of the Father) and free, not necessary due to some external force constraining God.
@@bradspitt3896 It seems Catholics and Orthodox both agree that there are aspects of God that are necessary: He is necessarily eternal, the Father necessarily begets the Son, spirates the Spirit, etc.
@@bman5257 Saying it's necessary means it's not out of an act of love. He's compelled. The book Being as Communion talks about this. Also Lossky talks about necessity.
@@bradspitt3896 I think that’s dangerous theology. If the begetting of the Son is not necessary then the Son isn’t necessary which means He isn’t God. Same with the Spirit.
I have to admit a lot of this conversation went above my head, but I do want to leave two comments
1) When Socrates says he doesn't know anything, it is becuase his dialectical method can only prove what is false, and no what is true. The exception being if one can prove a certain number of alternatives and disprove all but one so as only one option remains. The general interpretation of his saying meaning "the wise man knows what he doesn't know" isn't precise enough I think.
The ability to demonstrate positive truth came with Aristotle's deductive reasoning. If Socrates had known this method he wouldn't have to say "I know nothing". Which leads me to my second comment.
2) What does neoplatonism has to do with scholasticism? Isn't scholasticism based on Aristotle's reasoning?
Otherwise, very interesting conversation!
Thank you, Gentlemen! Can't wait for John's upcoming content!
On a side note, I wish everyone "argued" in the ways that these Two brilliant, kind, and classy Dudes "argue." If only more of us with different ideas and experiences could discuss difficult, controversial, and important topics AND disagree and continue their discorse.. My 2023 resolution is to try to speak to others like J&J! 😃✌🏾🙏
Happy New Year!
Amen to that! A complete absence or poverty in my own human cluster 🤦🏽♀️. It takes patience to a whole new level.
@@missh1774 It is no small feat, for sure, and requires so much patience. I think it's more than just patience...it's a peaceful intelligence that we can all access...which to many is Grace, and others, a comfort in one's self and acceptance of life, and being able to turn our hearts to the good in life, and there is so much good if we allow ourselves to see it and participate in it...These conversations give me so much hope during this tumultuous, intense, confusing world.
I choose the White Pill! (Shout-out to Michael Malice for that one). 😄🙏
That’s the goal!
@@fishosoficaldebaitsphiloso7760 YES!!!!!!
00:13:48 - The dialogue format
It should be noted that Plato didn't write dialogues - he wrote (philosophical) dramas or plays (often containing dialogues) - one reason that he wrote dramas was that drama and poetry held huge sway in the classical world - every city had a theatre as the centre of social and political life.
It is not usually considered by readers of Plato that he was writing in a format that was persuasive in his own era. The power of the format greatly diminished in the Roman, or middle ages, or modern era - and you wouldn't use it to be taken seriously in the eras following Athens. The Roman format was the 'letter', Middle ages was the 'treatise'. And if you want to be persuasive today you should write your philosophy in the format of the Excel spreadsheet! :)
Great point, thanks!
Shorts also help being persuasive in the modern age ;)
Hmm. Perhaps this is simply going over my head.. but Pageau's account of angels/souls is still somewhat problematic in a traditional Christian framework. There is an on-going desire in this conversation to root spiritual realities within monistic-materialist frameworks of causation (this is obvious due to the fact that non-dualism is a goal of modernity), in Christian theology we call this theory "physicalism"..
Clearly, Cartesian substance-dualism is antithetical to Christianity and to Platonism, _BUT_ dualism is still an essential feature of both classical Christianity and Neoplatonism. (That angels exist as conscious intelligences apart from subtle bodies/human interaction; souls existing in the presence of Christ prior to the Resurrection... how do you think saintly intercession works? How do you deal with Christ's two natures? Does God exist apart from the physical creation? etc. These are essential teachings of traditional Christianity).
It is difficult to have a conversation about recovering Neoplatonic thought if it's simultaneously done with a refusal to reject modernist hang-ups (materialist frameworks, etc).
I think part of the problem is in the fact that both the Ancient and Modern conceptions "link" _mental reality_ and _spiritual reality_ ... However, it is important *how* and in what order the two are linked. For the Ancient mind, "'mental' is basically the same as spiritual"; for the Modern mind, "'spiritual' is basically the same as mental".. if we're not careful we can assume that the two are basically in agreement, when the truth is they're opposite perspectives. (For e.g. the phrase: "angels are ideas" -- has a very different connotation depending on how you order the relation of spirit to mind.)
I think it’s problematic, but I don’t think it’s his intent. I think he’s trying to find an overlapping area that he puts below the ancient conception and he can point to as a possibility built off a shared area of psychological l/scientific possibility that they have to admit.
I think it’s easy to remain entangled in that area and also gives them the ability to disagree and reduce the spiritual, but they are going to do that anyways.
At least with Jonathan he can present a way to the ancient belief and show everything that Christianity can integrate into its proper place, and someone from the church is also coming to debate/dialogue with John on dialogos from a less artistic standpoint, so coming from both directions I think is a good thing.
I think it's more problematic for Evangelical/Protestant metaphysical claims than for Orthodox.
@@Ac-ip5hd I agree that dialogue is good. I'm just concerned about equivocating and talking past each other.
@@prettycatlick4373 Would you elaborate on that?
@@vngelicath1580 Oh I think that will happen, and the reductive take will win. As it already is. But we can at least show more people the way to Christ and real religion while drawing a line and asserting the difference (as you are right now). That's better than less.
We are all swimming in the Ocean of History.
Sergei Bulgakov's Sophiology has a lot to say about the interaction of the relative and the Absolute. I know Jonathan is aware of Bulgakov's work but wonder if he thinks Bulgakov is close to creating a Christian goddess cult? I understand the underlying concern but Bulgakov develops his definitions after striking down any ideas that there could be a goddess figure that would compare to the Trinity or that any entity could be added. I hope that he addresses this soon. Bulgakov and other Russian intellectuals of the past two centuries would be a great addition to these discussions. Not to mention I think that the working definition of Sophia/Wisdom that Vervaeke is working with could have been hammered down more precisely in this discussion, I am sure he has a much better explication of his use of the term wisdom elsewhere but I would be interested in a Sophiological discussion between these two, or perhaps between Vervaeke and someone who is more familiar with Bulgakov's ideas.
Thank you both for providing such valuable insights free of charge.
I love the part about preexistence, but i do have a question, you said if we shatter the body enough their is no being but what about brain damaged individuals? I would think their essence is still there but the connection the essence uses to manevuer in this world is damaged. In other words the consciousness( the way the essence controls the body) is damaged and the essence can no longer use the body in the way it can but i wouldnt say that the being is no longer there only that the way it controls the body is now limited. Their ""soul"" or ""spirit"" or essence isnt gone but the ability to fully utilize the mechanism(brain) is gone.
Imagine still being here without any irony your search for truth.
John’s conversation with the Orthodox Bishop on the Christian transfiguration of Neoplatonism vs the scholastic and chiliastic escape of it in the west can’t come soon enough.
What is the strongest connection between Socrates and Christ?
When you talk about this move of moses going up the mountain, shedding garments and going into the divine darkness and coming back with the tabernacle im wondering if the same pattern plays itself out in the difference between people who try to prove God objectively, or experience proof of God in their experience.
What im wondering is if by moving away from the objective arguments from God, not because they are wrong, to cultivate an actual grounded phenomenological experience of reality and personal experience with God actually glorifies orignially those objective arguments from God.
I feel like this pattern playing out in our modern context actually follows the pattern I have expeirenced in my life, from being focused on objective arguments of God, to being captivated by beauty and personal expierence with God, to coming back to realising there is absolutely no contradiction.
would love to know your thoughts
Jonathan,
Thank you for your insights and explanations. Could you help me understand something I'm curious about?
It seems to me that humans, as self-conscious beings, are also influenced or affected by trans-human, causal influences (fear, lust, compassion, jealousy, etc.), which are often called "spirits" (winds, breaths). This may even be a common aspect of all "persons".
My questions are this:
If those "spirits" are themselves self-conscious beings, are they also affected by causal influences? In other words, why do angels and demons choose to behave as they do? What "causes" their actions? Can they experience insight and metanoia? Are they influenced by greater forces? Greater demons? If so, going straight to the top of the demonic hierarchy, what causes Satan to act as he does, and would that "cause" then also be a self-conscious being? Could Satan experience metanoia?
I'm worried that the personification of the "causes" or "spirits" into self-conscious beings creates an infinite regress. Thank you.
1:01:20 This is the genius of British Christianity and an area in which it far exceeds Orthodoxy and the reason why I remain within the Anglo-Catholic tradition.
I am looking forward to this
What’s the guru problem? Have they discussed this before?
The guru problem is unavoidable. Christ predicted gurus, sorcerers, and demons pretending to carry his way, and even pretending to be angels and the Holy Spirit even to the point that after a long time they would be followed instead of him in antichrist. He offered a straight and narrow path as well as leaving an apostolic tradition that discerned these experiences specifically to tell the difference. It didn't involve all traditions, just as Christ rejects the miracle as the core of his work in the desert (and still performs them) he rejects all the kingdoms of the world, which includes much from all of their religious traditions. Not everything gets in.
Now RATNAR that has headless gods and sides so much with democratization and the prevailing vision of our time is very rife for the guru problem. John and company who are good faith actors should pick up their cross and police the project. It has become a gnostic cesspool looking to bring in a new age, and be part of that against a group of Christian conservatives who make up half the project with the discipline to actually show up and meditate and police the problem. And it is certainly not meta-political. This is not to dismiss John's project. The chiliastic unification that rejects Christ is coming, no matter who does it and though he is a good faith actor it is the spirit of the times and in all the thinkers of the west for 1000 years in escalating fashion.
He is at least a good faith actor who is giving the tools to see the value and participate in the existing religion. I could see the transfiguration of neoplatonism and stoicism and archetypal sophistication thanks to him, Peterson, Jung, and their massive works and reading lists, and John's practices. However, I think it is still wrong. The guru problem and way a philosophy connects to the spirit of the times can often be an issue of hundreds of years as we see with Hume, Kant, and Descartes who could live unharmed and reasonable lives of comfort as those in academia. In spite of the fact Peterson is less scientifically and philosophically robust and more dated than John (and also coming out of those problems with Jung, science and western Christianity) he still helps more people in a simple way, has and has kept a wife, raised two kids, and we see the way the church is full of this and actually buttresses these more than psychology and academia. Sorry, but I have to side with the works as part of my decision to take what works for Christianity from John and reject the rest of this project.
For all the problems and fanatics in Christianity, or with Peterson, what is it about those things that attract a higher rate of conscientious people willing to submit themselves and live well, while John says "The next Sangha is the Buddha. *It's not about you*." And so many more people come in as if they heard "I get to be the Buddha, oooohhhh." And that whole wing of game B "We need another attractor, we need a game B, we need distributed cognition. But not a utopia. Neither nostalgia or utopia, I put it on my tombstone." and they seem to hear "we're the distributed cognition Buddha, we're gonna make an egalitarian game B utopia and save the world." There's something going on there. And the guiltiest parties seem to have a lot of Ken Wilbur and desire to save/evolve out of “green” ie post modernism, and game B isn’t just a peripheral issue for them as it is for John, it’s as central to their aim as their circling based religion, and enmeshed with it. John should look at that deviance and where it is infecting his project, and what minor errors in his total work that allow it immediately rather than after a good 1,000 year run.
Another good thing about church versus discord is you can see what everyone is doing and everyone has to have clothes on, and can’t just pretend to be engaged before the end of meditation, then jump in before five minutes of meditation discussion to talk about politics, TH-cam views and arguments in the meaning corners, taking bong rips and talking about so called “chaos magic” etc.
Yay! I can't wait!
I wonder what both of them think about the works of Neumann and Eliade.
Idk about Neumann but Jonathan has recommended Eliade's book Images and Symbols
@@santiagodiaz3358 What about "The Sacred and The Profane" (also by Eliade) ? Does he know of it ?
@@denniszaychik8625 yeah, he talked about it a bit under the comments of the copernican revolution video, mostly highlighting the differences between his and Eliade's thought. Maybe you'd find it interesting
@@santiagodiaz3358 The only thing that makes it interesting is the reveal of how Jonathan's view of the world and the cosmos parallel those of Jorge de Burgos (Name of the Rose).
@@denniszaychik8625 I'm not familiar with De Burgos so I'd have to look him up. But Jonathan's comment was certainly influenced by St Maximos the Confessor's idea of the logoi
Edit: I thought Jorge de Burgos was an actual person lol, just looked him up
i wonder, i wonder, what you would do
when not choosing to influence, if influence chose you
for in this comedy of the divine, the mate of fortune must be deeply sublime
Love the conversations you guys have
your consciousness extends down to the level of which you are conscious. If you are conscious of your cells your cells have consciousness.
You seem to be sure there is a “you” which is conscious. A flower turns towards the sun. That is a form of consciousness. Doesn’t require a “you” as observer. That you is just an actor on the stage of evolution.
@@bryanutility9609 whether i am me, or the flower, or nothing, or everything, I still am
I deeply respect John and look forward to listening to the series. Though I am much less qualified to contribute from theism than Jonathan and Paul, I hope to be able to put in my 2 cents from time to time.
Thank you Jonathan. I am wondering if you could elaborate a bit more about Ian McGilchrist and his work on the two brain hemispheres. If modern materialist people can understand that this left hand, right hand, and spiritual understanding of the world is grounded in our most basic biology, it could help build a bridge.
Plus there is nothing else as convergent in science and spirituality than you talking about the left hand & Ian Mcgilchrist talking about the left brain & vice versa. Thanks again!
I love this. Thank you both for your wonderful souls. I will be participating in the coming lecture series with great enthusiasm!
Epic. Especially 1hr+
The bit about the imaginal controversy in Orthodoxy:
Don’t these hesychasts come back down and give prophecies i.e images? So isn’t the problem about whether you get these images going up or coming back down?
Yes! and even a heretical thinker like Corbin, and a Greek Orthodox proponent of his says to have true Imaginal things requires a tradition to structure and discern them, that it is dangerous and can become demonic, and 99% of what we call “imagination” is just fancy, prelest, and fantasy.
They valued the Imaginal so much that they said God would forgive those who reject his gifts out of the prudence of trying not to be deceived by the enemy, and even if there are failures are harder on false miracles than other churches. That’s to make sure the visionary experiences such as had by St. Silouan and his theophanic vision of Christ are authentic and support the hesychasm, and aren’t put in the hands of people who can’t handle the full Imaginal.
The Icons heirarchal distribute that down, and Jonathan’s case for a discernment and heirarchal integration of fairy tales and the archetypal landscape puts those things where they belong: outside and below the Church.
The saints also take on the full ascetic path and investment in the other world, but not only give images and prophecy, but more often care for the world at the point of paradox, both fully accepting and rejecting the world. They pray for and tend to the sick, teach others, weep for us, show the possibility of transcending the flesh and passions for those that can’t, and even weep/pray for their killers and torturers.
This is a refutation of John’s Neitsczhian case that the two worlds mythology ONLY removes intrinsic value in this world for the next, as well as the Buddhist case that we should not be too tight (ascetic) or too loose. The full body of the church has both ends of the bow and the same correct tension he McgilChrist and Heraclitus call for dispersed in proper proportion and the meeting point of just being with purpose, instead of the total rationalist/Neoplatonic/leftist/eastern dominance of just being and at one-ment through Meister Eckhart given oversalience. St. Sophrony rejects Eckhart and the mistake of at-one-ment with God saying instead that God prays through me.
We also exist in hierarchy with the supermen who actually have transcended their humanity instead of democratically removing excellence and hoping game B will help everyone have enough time and money to follow John’s wisdom path without too much stress and we can all just be.
the whole is greater than the parts until the part realizes it's greater than the whole
It is not easy to take all of this in in one go. I don't expect to. But there are snippets. Aspects that seem to resonate with me where I said the same thing in my head as an answer. Other times I questioned my assumptions, not what I felt, but my be the narrative I gave something I thought 30 years ago. There is something about not excluding past wisdoms from older eras/ cultures. They can and should still contribute. There is something about including the decent as well as the ascent, the absolute involved withe relative. Especially with respect to spiritual by passing. Nice start to the retreat I begin tomorrow. It also contributes to my new hope that the conversations much needed are beginning to happen. Early stages and at a more visceral level. Between people not at an ideological multimedia level ,which is so un-nuanced or lived.
00:24:08 - Mythos and narrative
in this section they talk about the Symposium and the Aristophanes speech - this speech might be one of the most entertaining (except for Socrates') but it certainly is not the best in terms of its understanding of Eros - and in fact it is the worse (both in Plato's view and mine), as its message is we should desire to replace God and also sleep with as many people as possible, which is not a form of Eros that will get you very far (however it is the modern view so attractive for that reason)...
Socrates in the Republic, is focusing on the coitus and conception of Christ in relation to a given epoch and people; while Christ is the actual birth in such an always particular new Nation, as a then also always once again newly Universal Civilization epically grown in the wilderness like the US today, and Rome and others before.
That’s a very bold claim to make with no backing argumentation whatsoever.
@@Hereticbliss322
The Republic and OT and NT have many connections.
Socrates’ delineation of the decline of monarchy and nobility into oligarchy and democracy can be shown to relate to the man of metals smashed by the stone of Christ - (Plymouth Rock today as the white stone in Revelation 2, having the new name of Jesus Christ doctrinally written upon it historically and culturally no less than nationally by scripture in prophecy) - in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream - (or our now American dream in such Anglo-Saxon Protestant foundations) - in Daniel 2, where he was troubled in his sleep like a Rip Van Winkle, and “his sleep brake from him”, in such previous Old World monarchs, and such a newly democratic nation; just as Socrates in contrast to Paul, states that they are not as those who see through a glass darkly.
The allegory of the cave - (and as that also into which Lot flees in the destruction of Sodom) - is an epical birthing canal for Christ in such New Worlds and new Nations - (indeed, this is the Nativity flight in Matthew from Judea to Egypt to Nazareth via Joseph, as the Joseph equally of the OT sold into Egypt by his Protestant brethren as Joseph Smith and the sort of national religion of Mormonism today, grown epically with our nation).
The image of the beast - (or our military industrialization and its Federal and Corporate grounding in the mass media, forming the actors creating the fires and shadows on the walls of the cave) - is also the popular birthing of new kingdoms through Christ as those to come over the next epoch in our New World now, just as the previous Western European kings of Christendom arose out of the collapse of Rome.
The guardians who are being designed to guard the Republic, are the flaming sword turning every direction with the Axis Powers and World War II, as they are the beast of Revelation 13, rising up out of the sea, and followed by our now Universal Empire of the US today, as the beast rising up in turn out of the dry land of a New World.
Such once again wholly gathered culturally communistic communities like those of Acts 2 and 1st century Christianity, and coming with Christ at such newly universal heights, not only become the religious and saintly foundations of the future kingdoms to come.
But they are the communality of men and women wrestling naked in the Republic as they form the guardians having a sexual equality; even as Socrates - (in that observation on the political degradation following that of Monarchy) - connects that degradation - (like the many miraculous births in scripture from the previously barren) - to a fecundity and an otherwise barren state.
Just a few examples.
Peter states in scripture, my beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years - (in the millennial rise of kingdoms, for example, like those of Christendom before) - and a thousand years as a day - (in such newly Universal Civilizations and Empires to epically grow anew in the wilderness of another New World like the US today, or like Rome two thousand years ago now, and in relation to the previous two millennia in the Greco-Oriental origins of Hellenism upon such same events in Egypt and Babylon).
Great talk, thanks so much, very informative:
Participatory and perspectival but individualistic, which is the issue IMHO.
Socrates is just 'questioning everything' as a way to find the edges of reality, but that is a small (perhaps necessary, but I doubt it) part of what Christianity has to offer.
Glad you won't be alone in a room with a whiteboard, that is likely going to make it better.
Ah, no public, note that Jordan Peterson did for the majority of his work - might be a hint there about what makes these things successful.
I doubt conversation is going to save the world (I really need to write an article on that someday) for various reasons, mostly complexity and Post Modernism makes this impossible.
The conversation with Chris was EXCELLENT. Highly recommend.
Why are we stuck on Socrates when Plato is still the man? No one got past him.
Reality is a trasjective between the material and ethereal, connected by us (not entirely) through us. Not all that hard, we co-manifest reality with creation, assuming being is good.
Wait, what is the 'this' way of life? A definition would help here.
I doubt anything non-Christian has anything like midwifery but I'm anxious to hear how that will be pulled together.
Exactly, Socrates doesn't argue for anything, likely ever, it's just him questioning to allow people to recognize their own limitations and perhaps the limitation of knowledge as such. That is more likely a way to think about this, knowledge has limits and likely is not even required for a good life, which I'd say was Socrates core message, I know that I know nothing.
Yes, asking questions is for education, not for training (giving people answers). The way to learn critical thinking is to do critical thinking, to have your thought critiqued, which is what Socrates embodies.
It's almost as if returning to the cave is all about participation. Accepting the fact of the cave, not avoiding it, but continually interfacing the cave to make things better for everyone, rather than just being outside the cave alone.
Plato, they guy who didn't want things written down and spent more time in the gym than the academy wasn't stressing propositional knowledge? Was this somehow unclear to someone at any point in time? I should hope not, sounds like materialism, putting propositional knowledge up front.
I'm still trying to find the difference between neoPlatonism and Platonism. I don't see a way of life there, you need something larger, with stories, a theme, a reason, etc. Perhaps a story big enough to live in. Seems like Plato and Aristotle tried to get rid of story, but ended up having to bring all that back. They were just early Post Moderns, ultimately, but unlike those that came later (chronological snobbery, anyone?) they rediscovered the value and requirement of story to be a person (else you try to become the impossible, an individual).
Jonathan has a symbolic playbook?! When is that being published?! :)
I wonder if the 'guru' problem is not something that most people can overcome. Imagine a world where gurus were managed in a better way and the modern guru problem is just the result of the individualist materialist curse of the post modern lie.
They do think ancients were stupid and wrong, it is clearly chronological snobbery. I think that much more importantly, when we allow the myth of the individual to continue, we encourage a rejection of the idea of creation and therefore a rejection of the past. When we overload the signal with 'You can do anything' instead of talking about cooperation through submission, we give people little reason to acknowledge the past. This isn't enlightenment to me, it's much different indeed.
Often, what I have found, especially with modern philosophy, the ancient actually had the same critiques, often better ones, but we don't know this anymore, because we've lots the idea of the historical grounding into which we were born.
I think it's not just their mythological world views, lots of people today, public figures, PHD's, seem to not understand that the questions they are asking have answers from the past (maybe not satisfying answers) that aren't mythological at all. This is a much bigger problem.
Make emanation great again! Requires submission and an acknowledgement of the idea of creation.
Self Similar fractal nature of reality confirmed. This try it at your scale and imagine that pattern is similar at all other levels is correct, Can Confirm.
I love this stability argument, perfect. You have to preexist, or are primary over your body due to slower rate of change. That totally make sense. Containers can change out all parts but there is a limit indeed to change. Nassim Taleb talks about this, fragile vs. anti-fragile.
Co-exist. So a 'program' cannot operation with a computer, co...operation. Cooperation.
Yes, lots of things are being mixed up. People have flattened the world. Coming to them with a more complex way of relating is a problem for people. Plus, I think that they are missing skills around being able to relating the poetic information in the world, which makes symbolism somewhat impenetrable to them. So, closed world, which is flat, but 'works' is preferable to complex (but open) world that requires poetic information to even understand. Makes sense that people would attack something they cannot understand.
I have no idea why anyone would be able to accept distributed cognition and not understand a distributed consciousness.
I suspect that John needs consciousness to be special to resolve the is/ought gap. Don't make humans just something small in the universe, then we aren't quite so special and are submitted to something larger than us, like creation.
What I'm hearing is that you cannot have a Rover on Mars without the components that we would (post 1530) call religion. So I'll go back to my favorite new saying: If you believe you do not have a religion, one will be provided to you without your knowledge or consent.
What if the imaginal is a way to connect to that which is larger than us? It's a space that allows us to slowly interface with what is outside us, a limited container for potential that we have some control over.
What I hear Jonathan saying is that in order for a Mars Rover to work you need to give the folks involved a container (body) and the other components of religion as John mentioned earlier.
The imaginal is dangerous, in fact, it's the problem we face today, too many people were forced to focus their cognition on the physical (material) and end up getting stuck in the imaginal space and therefore disconnect from reality as such. This leads to a loss of intimacy (see my videos on the intimacy crisis) which causes a loss of meaning.
Imagine if the imaginal is where we connect to story (narrative is a different thing, see my video on story, narrative and archetype on Navigating Patterns - which PVK has mentioned).
The narrative is the intermediary between you today and who you could become.
I find it odd that people say 'I am a non-dualist' then immediately go into binary thinking, false dichotomies and lots of strange contradictions. This isn't non-duality.
People confuse the absolute with the universal because they have flattened the world.
Unique personal experience - sounds like a drug trip. Profound but not transformative.
"what if the imaginal is how we connect to something larger... story + narrative" and "what if the imaginal is dangerous."
It's both, but "to connect to something larger" isn't just a connection of story and and rational ways of keeping this stuff in tidy categories, it's also the place of theophany and can be active with subtle bodies, visions, voices and figures. The church fathers knew this, as did the bible, having concepts such as demons pretending to be holy images, fancy and prelest (a prideful possesion of ego taking over the experience or allowing demons and spirits in.) There was a careful discernment and training for "imaginal" practices which John reduces to "serious play" and democratizes them for everyone, rather than having a special place for monks who have a chance at sainthood, bishops, priests from the laity who can actually have families (a layers of feedback) and the normal people who can't do these things all day (hence the attractiveness of this project to gnostic cesspit-ists).
I always hated your points against Neoplatonism but have changed my mind. Christianity has integrated it in a way that improves it and Stoicism. The book by Orthodox Fr Damascene Christ the Eternal Tao shows that in a manner it can superimpose Christ and Christianity over the truths of the Tao without once violating Christianity. I think in the manner the left hemisphere is focused on the parts, John is looking at all the neoplatonic and mystic elements as the best parts of each religion, then sowing them together the way Dr. Victor Frankenstein thought he had cultivated all the strongest limbs for his creature. I think it's what Jonathan terms necromancy.
@@Ac-ip5hd Half agree. Well argued in any case. I doubt the existence of serious play as a concept, it's just play, but I can see the utility in calling it 'serious' but that only works for a while. Make play great again.
I wasn't trying to make a statement about imaginal and all that it did, just that it's a buffer, more than anything else. Peterson makes this case from a strictly psychological perspective, but it's bigger than mere rationality can reveal.
@@marklefebvre5758 I agree with all that. I think you had some points on that concept thing too. What I'm addressing here though, you have to look at Vervaeke's model, he specifically brings this up when he brings in the Neoplatonists to improve the Stoics "No , no, your not doing enough serious play." What he's talking about is reducing gaurdian angels and theophanic exeriences to forms of active imagination to have a container for the imaginal, in a rationalist model. He's literally reducing the highest religious experiences to serious play by taking that and putting it into an ecology that also has things like physical activity such as Thai Chi and can plug into hikes nature etc (this part I'm not against), but then he includes these spiritual activities as "university" which you graduate to after three months of meditation videos and a gnostic cesspool to do so called distributed cognition over it while everyone comes in iwith competeing opinions, jockeying for position and getting political all the time.
@@Ac-ip5hd I'm not a big fan of John's model, we have our own models that are far more powerful it seems.
While I agree with your characterization, I think there is a BIG problem, in fact, I was talking to a friend of mine today about it. That is the issue of language. Christians have a hard time with Vervaeke because he's got a different cognitive cultural grammar and is using unenchanted words for concepts best expressed with religious words. However, I've argued (several times with PVK about this on his channel) that Peterson and Vervaeke reach an audience Christians will never reach because of this change in grammar. This is to say jumping too quickly to 'the devine' is likely the issue and of course you want to go all the way to God, Creator, which is far too many steps at once.
Interestingly, we aren't the only folks seeing this, I hope to have a clip up soon about this, from a live stream I did not too long ago.
@@marklefebvre5758 Yes, you messaged your model. I agree that it's a BIG problem. And it is exactly what he is doing so that it has to be taken serious in science which is what makes his and Peterson's model so powerful and is problematic from Christianity, especially in light of evolution. However, they pick and choose when and how they want to enchant things and use the word God, and there are still major dangers there.
And I say this as someone who previously was in much greater agreement with John and Jordan's projects, sources etc. It's powerful and even if it's not John's specific model, the secular, supraecunumical, worldly science based project will likely be seen some day as a unifying religion that can "do Christianity better." I mean it's literally the prediction of the Bible that real Christianity will be co-opted for a worldly religion that can pose as "christian" while being antichristian to it's core, ie rejecting Christ. That's the spirit of the times and the people interested in these projects. Even Peterson who is trying to do the exact opposite and make the case for it reduces it to a scientific model that in between the lines implies it is part of a religious evolution and has to evolve incorporating all new truths, rather than discern what from science, world religions, philosophy etc doesn't get in.
On those grounds the discussion should continue, but that should be stated in it. The reciprocal reconstruction forces this ecunimicism, and forces religions that want to stand next to it and these models pulling from all religions to play the game if they want to be accepted, implicitly even if it isn't John's intent. And all the people following him, interested in RATNAR, Ken Wilbur, Chardin (who many people at the Vatican itself, talking to Yale and leaning to one world government and the magic word ecology) are all interested in these that intent.
1:05:40 - I have this part on loop cause I really want to understand it properly lol. It feels like an Ian Mcgilchrist right/left brain thing. Something that reaches throughout everything, not something true but contained in a box and understood fully.
?Plato's Critique of Impure Reason_ by D.C. Schinder is where he gets it from. Highly recommend getting that book
Perhaps consider the practice of music. We play a Bach Brandenburg Concerto, the notes are written on the pages, the musicians commune together to perform the piece as a collective, we get to the point via rehearsal where we are breathing as one creature, us violinists playing the cellos notes as much as our own. The piece is "brought to life" and the sounds are manifested into the temporal and can be received and responded to by listeners. However, is the music experiencing itself? Is the "spirit of Bach" actually present in that moment? Both yes and no. The human man has been dead for several centuries but his psyche is re-presented in the world through us in the orchestra. But the music itself is neither "conscious" nor "self-conscious" in that there is not "something it is like to be" a Brandenburg Concerto. I love these discussions so much! ❤🙏🎻
Woooo! Nice rally up at the end there John!👏 Will certainly be trying to get my friends round for this! I feel like I need to read some Socrates now! So much of this went so far over my head, but all tied together at the end. 🎁 Thanks both! Keep up the brilliant work.
Thanks jonathan pageau
Thanks to both of you for a great presentation. // I have one comment to make regarding the 'spiritual but not religious'. I worked at a spiritual bookstore for decades (I retired last year). I don't see the spiritual but not religious as engaged in the ascent to The One and The Good, to that which is beyond being. I almost never heard their relationship to the spiritual spoken of in those terms. In this sense I don't see this group as mystically oriented, in the sense of 'Mystical Theology'. Rather I see them as deeply involved in that intermediate realm of image, archetype, symbol, and spirits that you refer to. For example, the widespread interest in the Tarot is focused on exploring, and accessing, and becoming familiar with, this kind of image-based reality. And that's just one example. // I see this group as heavily influenced by Jung and his archetype-centered views, along with Jung's hostility to full transcendence. It is also influenced by psychology in general. // I think what this group means by not being 'religious' is that they do not want to associate with religious organizations. That has its drawbacks; but it has to be admitted that there are good reasons for having a negative evaluation of religious organizations. I mean that this hostility towards them has a basis. // Again, thanks for taking the time to upload this conversation.
That was such a convoluted sputtering of communication in the beginning introduction before they start this TH-cam episode that I decided not to watch the rest of it. I get what he was attempting to say, but if it's going to be that torturous to put it all together in over an hours time it's not worth it. I've already read and listened to Joseph Campbell and Jordan Peterson basically say the same thing about Christianity and other religions mythology of the world.
P.s. the off putting thumbnail picture of Socrates, and the title didn't help either.
For more insight into "his" personality, look to Buddha, for they're the same character.
Don't bother trying to convince me "they" lived at the same time because "they" didn't.
The further "we" move from the past, the more condensed (illusory) timelines become.
Every awareness, through whatever form it's animating, perceives and distorts the concepts of space and time through finite senses and limited reasoning.
Socrates is currently alive and well in this 🌎, still attempting to enlighten its denizens of "their" true nature., with as much success as before.
shouldn't the highlite at the start of the video feature the guest rather than the host?
Although I have compassion for John there comes a point where you have to confront the differences and push on that fact, because at this point he has nothing fruitful to share and doesn’t push you for much more fruitful conversation.
But I understand why you Jonathan engage in this and your goal but that maybe was the case a few years ago. It’s time to take a stand and let the heresies be exposed
A very close look at the Hebrew wording of day three of creation seems like the seed of emergent intelligence, then day six for consciousness with a close look at the word nephesh/soul. I truly hope you two take time to look at this together soon since I believe it would be a powerful point of convergence. I know JP has focused more in this area so if there is a way to have triologos that would be incredible. I sincerely appreciate both of your willingness to be in dialogue. Happy New Year!
14:30
Great
@JonathanPageau The essay by Fr. Dumitru Staniloae titled "Revelation through Acts, Words and Images" in the book titled "Theology and the Church" could be a good one to engage with on the imaginal space in Orthodoxy, especially the section where he discusses visions of God and their expression in words/images.
You may object to how he uses the word "myth," but youll see he is using it that way to combat those trying to demythologize Scripture. Anyway, thats my suggestion :)
The immuno-response analogy works perfectly because it’s the transpersonal being’s body which is responding. If anything it shows that their is more consciousness with the trans personal being and not less. There is also something to be explored of the extended phenotype argument that Bret Weinstein made in his argument with Dawkins. I can quite explicate it at the moment though, only intuit it.
🌟✌
Jonathan, many people are trying to get Inspiring Philosophy onto the Joe Rohan show to answer Joe’s statements made in this clip: th-cam.com/users/shortsaYX-mnai1Bo?feature=share It would be amazing if both you and Mike Jones (Inspiring Philosophy) could have this convo with Joe!
I recently watched both angels in scientific terms videos and now this discussion and would like to throw an idea out there. Is it possible that both of you are correct in regards to consciousness/self-consciousness of higher beings when time is taken into consideration? Vervaeke makes the point that the connectivity of humans is not high enough to warrant consciousness at the group level. This connectivity argument made me think of revelation and to my understanding the concept that we will eventually all be pointing towards and under one authority of good. Bringing these two concepts together, it makes me wonder if consciousness and potentially self-conscuousness may be possible at higher levels in the future within a post-revelation world. Maybe at that point in time, the connectivity of humans all participating under the same authority will provide a high enough resolution of which consciousness will emerge. I hope this makes sense. I am fairly new to these concepts and am not always good communicating my thoughts using these terms. With this said, it has been a reoccurring thought that I wanted to attempt to express. Thank you both for all you do.
I think this doesn't work because of the tower of Babel.
'developing notion of the imaginal space' = opening pandoras box lol
I’m trying to think why Plato would have thought dialogos was the way towards The One and the way John explains it reminds me of syllogism and dialectic and then on to Hegel’s social upheavals as society wends its way towards Absolute Spirit. Was Plato thinking in this way or was he bringing the many into the one in a conceptual (nominal) and also a progressive, anagogic sense towards The One?
I doubt that John, or Jonathan, care that much for syllogism or nominalism in themselves and tend to care more about human relations. I suppose dialogos is the art of communication in human relationship and achieves more than just the facts that come from synthesis.
It’s bonding, isn’t it? Religio. Human connection, and not just logical connection.
The philosopher of mind Eric Schwitzgebel has made arguments very similar to yours, Jonathan. Here he argues that materialism entails that the USA are a conscious entity: th-cam.com/video/_gAKFJ3aHjc/w-d-xo.html Maybe he would be an interesting interview guest
I like the Greeks more than Judea
Jonathan Pageau, what do you think about Pierre Grimes explanation of the "divided line" in Plato's Republic. The same way we cannot see our own eyes, we cannot understand understanding (aka Logos or nous).
th-cam.com/video/Pf4KlHmpTY4L/w-d-xo.htmlooking forward to it.
👍😃🤙
What a brilliant discussion. It seems to me that our understanding of “higher beings” is limited by our unconscious bias for modernist reductionistic thinking, which regards such beings as simply emergent from the material brain. It discourages us from taking seriously what has been taught about them over history in countless mystical traditions. Do “angelic beings”, which have agency (ability to act) and intentionality (ability to generate goals) "from their own side"? or are they just artefacts of human projection/origin. Attempts to explain the concept in terms of phenomena in our manifest world of space-time world fails as "they are not of this world". Hence the confusion when questions have a finite space-time framing since they require a response in finite space-time terms (e.g. "did I exist before I was born") . This is not possible as they, like us, are of infinite consciousness (God), with dimensions not only in the familiar mundane space-time dimension, but also in the transcendental pure consciousness (mind of god or "heavenly" realm) transcending the question's frame. It is in the mystical experiences of mankind that we find the gateway to understanding this material. Mystics can only offer their personal experience of the infinite in 'altered states' of consciousness, and these must always remain "hearsay" in the manifest finite frame of space time we all mostly occupy. But we can strengthen the circumstantial evidence for the self-consciousness of transcendental beings by a) its explanatory power - they act AS IF they are really self-conscious, with intentionality and b) we can access their point of view through direct experience. (For example the we cultivate the practises and understandings by such non-dual teachers as Early church fathers, Thomas Merton, or such medieval mystics like John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, the author of "the Cloud of Unknowing" among many others like Mooji, Bernardo Kastrup & Rupert Spira). These practises take us beyond mere hearsay "tales from the unknown" (unprovable) to "guides to the destination" (unarguable). From "I believe" to "I know".
Two opposites coming together is the left and right brain.
Has anyone in Europe received their copy of God's Dog? I live in Finland, still waiting.
Unfortunately I'm still waiting, U.K.
It is so sad to see such curious people unwilling to explore any philosophical systems further east or older than the Greek. Such as sankhya philosophy by Kapila Deva, Shankar Acharya philosophy of non-dualism, Madhvacharya philosophy, Ramanuja philosophy, Vaisheshika, Acintya bheda-abheda tattva ...
Plato's Republic is nothing but a description of the Varnashrama-dharma system as well as many other things
My suggestion is that you try to host the very informed and rational explainer Swami Sarvapriyananda
I studied Plato in college, and years later when I began studying Hinduism on my own (including listening to talks by Sarvapriyananda) I realized that Plato was just putting forth Hindu metaphysics.
There was a cross-pollination between ancient India, Persia and Greece. As you said it’s a shame that these bright guys won’t venture beyond the Greeks, but then that would force them into perennialist conclusions which they want to avoid.
@@Christianity_and_Perennialism Thank you very much for your support dear person! I see that you also have a very interesting channel. I'd like to share some information with you that I've never heard anyone recognize, and I find it absolutely astounding. I will do it in a comment on one of your videos.
Reverse-engineer: Socrates’ dialogue becomes Socrates’ dinosaur
🌚☄️❤️💫
HAHAHAHA CCP-CONTROLLED GOGGLE TRYING TO CENSOR MY COMMENTS LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Mmmmkay dude
@@Vingul 😆
@@Vingul 😝😘👉👈❤
Happened to me 2 weeks ago when I quoted from the Bible.. I got hit for hate speech🤣🤣
@@Holycurative9610 Just wait brother. I got Google's fucking number lol.
Thinking they can thought-police & control people.
i love sitting here rubbing my chin while john and john also rub their chin
You’re dismissed because your motivation is, in actuality, self-glorification. It seeps through your proclamations of altruism whether you’re aware of it or not. In essence, you want to be the guy that “figured out God” for rational atheists. We don’t engage with you because you obviously cannot and will not grasp the Truth while maintaining such a motive. The reason Jonathan should not be dismissed - aside from the fact that’s he’s largely correct - is because he is, in his own words, “passing it up, beyond himself.” You cannot bring yourself to do this - except maybe when it comes to discussions of Guatama. But even there in those beliefs it is easy to see how your intellectual word salad is really more about you and your academic career than anything else. But sure, dismissal should be dismissed. Makes sense.
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