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Russian
00:00:18
Hello, everyone. Thank you again for showing up, so00:00:24
tonight00:00:26
We're going to finish off the story of Noah and also00:00:31
the story of00:00:33
the Tower of Babel00:00:35
and I don't think that'll take very long and00:00:39
then we're going to00:00:42
turn to the abrahamic Stories and00:00:46
They're a very complex set of stories. They sit between00:00:51
the00:00:52
Earliest stories in Genesis that I would say end with the tower of babel00:00:56
And then the stories of moses which are extraordinarily well-developed00:01:02
Abrahamic stories, there's a whole sequence of them00:01:05
multiple stories00:01:07
conjoined together and00:01:09
There I found them very daunting00:01:11
they're very difficult to understand and00:01:14
so00:01:15
I'm going to stumble through them the best that I can I would say that's that's probably the best way to think about this because00:01:21
they00:01:23
Have a narrative content. That's quite strange00:01:27
I00:01:30
was reading a book while doing this called the disappearance of God that I found quite helpful, and00:01:39
the author of that book argues that00:01:43
one of the things that happens in the old testament is that00:01:47
God is very manifest at the beginning00:01:51
in terms of personal appearances even and then that00:01:55
proclivity fades away as the old testament develops, and there's a00:02:02
parallel development00:02:04
That it's maybe maybe causally linked. I'm not exactly sure how to conceptualize it, but that appears to be causally linked is that?00:02:12
the00:02:14
Stories about individuals become more and more well-developed so it says in it's as if as God fades away, so to speak00:02:22
the individual becomes more and more manifest and00:02:27
There's a statement in the old testament the location of which. I don't recall00:02:32
But I'll tell you about it in future lectures where God essentially tells00:02:38
Whoever he's speaking with and I don't remember who that is that he's going to disappear and let man essentially go his own way00:02:45
And see what happens not a complete disappearance, but maybe a transformations is something that00:02:51
Modern people regard more as a psychological phenomena rather than the sort of objective entity that God seems to be in00:03:00
the beginning of the biblical stories00:03:02
and so I've been wrestling with that a lot because00:03:05
the notion that00:03:08
God, I got appears to Abraham multiple times and00:03:13
that's not a concept that's easy for modern people to00:03:17
to grasp in00:03:19
for us00:03:20
generally speaking apart from say issues of Faith00:03:24
God is it some?00:03:26
thing00:03:28
someone who makes himself personally manifest in our lives00:03:32
He doesn't appear to us00:03:36
That's I suppose why the question of belief is so paramount for modern people00:03:40
I presume that if God had within the habit of appearing to you you likely wouldn't have a problem with belief00:03:46
I mean it might be more complicated than that, but that's how it seems to me, and so when we read stories about00:03:55
God making himself manifest either to a nation say in the case of israel or to individuals00:04:01
It's not easy to understand00:04:04
It's not easy to understand why people would write stories like that if they thought like we thought and I mean it really it wasn't00:04:10
That long ago that the Bible was written say from a biological perspective. It's really only yesterday00:04:15
It's a couple thousand years say four thousand years something like that00:04:19
That's not very long ago from a biological perspective, it's it's nothing00:04:26
so00:04:27
the first thing I tried to do is to00:04:29
see if I could figure out how to understand that and so else the lecture once we finish the the00:04:35
remains of the story of Noah, I'll start the lecture with a with an attempt to00:04:42
Situate the abrahamic stories in a context that might make them more accessible00:04:48
These two contexts that work for me to make them more accessible00:04:52
Let's conclude00:04:54
the Noah Story00:04:56
first however when we00:04:59
ended last time00:05:01
The ark had come to its resting place and Noah and his family had00:05:08
debarked00:05:10
and00:05:11
so this is the stories of00:05:14
What occurs immediately after afterwards?00:05:17
it's a very short story, but I think it's it's very relevant for00:05:22
both00:05:23
Of these stories the tower of babel is well very relevant for our current times and the sons of Noah00:05:28
That went forth of the ark were shem, and ham and Japheth and ham00:05:33
Is the father of Canaan?00:05:36
These are the three sons of Noah and of them was the whole Earth overspread and Noah began to be a husbandman00:05:42
and he planted a vine yard and00:05:45
he drank of the wine and was drunken and he was uncovered within his tent and00:05:50
Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without?00:05:57
and shem and Japheth took a garment and laid upon both their shoulders and went backward and00:06:02
Covered the nakedness of their father and their faces were backward and they saw not their fathers nakedness00:06:07
And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son00:06:10
had done unto him and he said curse had to be Canaan a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren and00:06:19
He said blessed shall be the lord. God of shem and Canaan Shall be his servant and God shall enlarge Japheth00:06:25
And he shall dwell in the tents of shem and Canaan Shall be his servant00:06:29
and Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years and all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died and00:06:37
the whole Earth was of one language and of one speech okay, so00:06:42
I remember thinking about this story00:06:47
It's got to be 30 years ago00:06:51
And I think the meaning of the story stood out for me sometimes00:06:58
When you read complicated material sometimes a piece of it will stand out. It's for some reason. It's like it glitters00:07:04
I suppose that might be one way of thinking about it. It's00:07:07
it00:07:08
You're in sync with it, and you can understand what it means. I've really experienced that reading the Dao. De Jing which is document00:07:14
I would really like to do a lecture on at some point because some of the verses00:07:18
I don't understand but others stand right out00:07:20
and I can understand them and I think I understood what this part of the story of Noah meant and I00:07:24
think it means you know we talked a little bit about what nakedness meant in the story of Adam and Eve and00:07:30
The idea essentially was that to know yourself naked is to become aware of your vulnerability00:07:37
the physical Your physical boundaries in time and space and00:07:41
Your your your physiological00:07:46
your fundamental physiological00:07:48
Insufficiencies as they mate might be judged by others, so there's biological00:07:52
Insufficiency that sort of built into you because you're a fragile Mortal vulnerable half insane creature00:07:57
And that's that's just an existential truth, and then of course00:08:01
even00:08:02
merely as a00:08:04
Human being even with all those faults there are faults that you have that are particular to you that might be00:08:09
judged harshly by the group00:08:11
Well might be will definitely be judged00:08:13
Harshly by the group and so to become aware of your nakedness is to become self-conscious and and to and to00:08:19
Know your limits and to know your vulnerability, and that's what is00:08:23
revealed00:08:25
To ham when he comes across his father naked and so the question is00:08:30
What does it mean to see your father naked and it seems to me and especially in an inappropriate Manner like this it it?00:08:38
it's it's it's as if00:08:41
ham00:08:43
He does the same thing that happens in the mesopotamian creation myth00:08:47
When when time out and absolute give rise to the first gods00:08:52
there there the father of the eventual00:08:56
deity of00:08:57
redemption Marduk00:08:58
they're very careless and noisy and they kill apps, ooh their father and00:09:03
attempt to inhabit his corpse and that makes timeout enraged and so she00:09:08
Bursts Forth from The Darkness to00:09:10
To do them in it's like a precursor to the flood story or an analogue to the flood story00:09:15
And I see the same thing happening here with ham. Is that he's is00:09:20
insufficiently respectful of his father and00:09:23
The question is exactly what does the father represent and you can say well there's there's?00:09:28
There's the father that you have and that's a human being that's the demand like other men a man among men00:09:33
but then there's the farther as such and that's the spirit of the father and00:09:38
Insofar as you have a father you have both at the same time you have the personal father00:09:44
That's a man among other men00:09:46
just like anyone others father, but insofar as that man is your father that means that he's something different than just another person and00:09:54
what he is is the00:09:56
incarnation of the spirit of the Father and00:09:59
to see that to take it to what to00:10:03
Disrespect that carelessly, maybe even he's like no one makes a mistake right? He?00:10:09
produces wine and gets himself drunk and you might say well00:10:12
you know if he sprawled out there for everyone to see it's hardly hams fault if he stumbles across them but00:10:18
The book is laying out a danger and the danger is that well maybe you catch your father at00:10:25
his most vulnerable moment and if you're00:10:29
disrespectful00:10:30
Then you transgress against the spirit of the father and if you transgress against the spirit of father and lose00:10:36
Spirit of the father and lose respect for the spirit of the father then that is likely to transform you into a slave00:10:44
That's a very interesting idea and I think it's particularly interesting00:10:48
Maybe not particularly interesting, but it's it's particularly germane. I think to our current cultural situation because I think that00:10:57
We're pushed constantly to see the nakedness of our father so to speak00:11:02
because of the intense criticism, that's00:11:06
Directed towards our culture and the patriarch of culture, so to speak00:11:11
we're constantly exposing its weaknesses and vulnerabilities and let's say nakedness and00:11:18
There's nothing wrong with criticism, but the thing about Criticism is the purpose of criticism is to separate the wheat from the chaff00:11:25
It's not to burn everything to the ground00:11:27
Right, it's to say well. We're going to carefully look at this we're going to carefully differentiate00:11:32
We're going to keep what's good and we're going to move away from what's bad00:11:35
But the point of the Criticism isn't to identify everything is bad. It's to00:11:40
Separate what's good from what's bad so that you can retain. What's good and move towards it and00:11:45
And to be careless at that is deadly because you're inhabited by the spirit of the father right insofar as you're a cultural00:11:54
Construction which of course is something that the that the postmodern neo-Marxists are absolutely?00:11:59
emphatic about you're a cultural construction insofar as you're a cultural construction, then you're inhabited by the spirit of the father and to be00:12:08
Disrespectful towards that means to undermine the very structure that makes you not all of what you are certainly00:12:15
Certainly not all of what you are00:12:16
But a good portion of what you are insofar as you're a socialized cultural entity and if you pull out00:12:23
If you pull the foundation out from underneath that what do you have left you can hardly manage on your own?00:12:30
You know it's just not possible. You're a cultural creation. And00:12:35
so Ham makes this desperate00:12:38
error and is Careless about00:12:43
Exposing himself to the vulnerability of his father something like that. He doesn't without sufficient respect. And the judgment is that00:12:50
not only will he be a slave, but so will all of his descendants, and he's contrasted with the other two sons who I00:12:58
Suppose are willing to give their father the benefit of the doubt something like that, and so when they see him in a compromising position00:13:06
they handle it with respect and and and00:13:09
don't capitalize on it and00:13:12
Maybe that makes them strong. That's what it seems to me, and so I think that's what that story means00:13:21
It has something to do with respect00:13:24
you know and the funny thing about having respect for your culture, and I suppose that's partly why I'm doing the biblical stories is because00:13:30
They're part of a they're part of my culture00:13:34
they're part of our culture perhaps, but they're certainly part of my culture and00:13:39
It seems to me that00:13:42
it's worthwhile to treat that with respect to see what you can glean from it and00:13:47
And not kick it when it's down. Let's say00:13:51
so00:13:59
and so that's how the story of no ends you know and the thing too is Noah is actually a00:14:06
Pretty decent incarnation of the Spirit of the father that which I suppose is one of the things that makes hams00:14:13
Misstep more egregious is that I mean noah just built an ark and got everybody through the flood man00:14:19
You know it's not so bad, and so maybe the fact that he happened to drink too much wine one day wasn't enough to justify00:14:27
humiliating him and00:14:29
You know I don't think it's pushing the limits of symbolic interpretation00:14:33
To note on a daily basis that we're all contained in an ark00:14:38
Right, and that's the ark that you could think about that as the ark that's been bequeathed to us by our forefathers. That's the00:14:45
Tremendous infrastructure that we inhabit that we take for granted00:14:49
Because it works so well00:14:51
that protects us from things that we can't even imagine and we don't have to imagine because we're so well protected and00:14:58
So one of the things that's really struck me hard. I would say about the00:15:03
Disintegration and corruption of the universities is the absolute ingratitude that goes along with that00:15:09
You know what?00:15:10
Criticism as I said it's a fine thing if it's done in the spirit in a proper spirit00:15:15
And that's the spirit of separating the wheat from the chaff, but it needs to be accompanied by gratitude00:15:21
And it does seem to me that anyone who lives in in the west in the western culture at this time00:15:29
in history and in this place and who hasn't00:15:33
simultaneously grateful for that is is00:15:36
half-blind00:15:38
at least because it's never been better than this and00:15:42
It could be so much worse and it's highly likely that it will be so much worse because for most of human history00:15:49
So much worse is the norm00:15:53
so00:15:58
then there's this little story that00:16:00
Crops up that seems in some ways unrelated to everything that's gone before it00:16:06
But I think it's also an extremely profound little story it took me a long time to figure it out. It's the tower of babel00:16:15
and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of shinar and dwelt there that's00:16:22
Noah's Descendants and the whole Earth was of one language and of one speech00:16:26
And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of shinar and they dwelt there00:16:31
And they said to one another00:16:33
Go let us make brick and burn them thoroughly and they had brick for stone and slime they head for mortar00:16:40
So they're establishing a city and they said go let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach00:16:47
Unto heaven and let us make a name lest. We be scattered abroad upon the face of the Earth00:16:54
and00:16:55
the Lord came down to see the city in the tower which the children of men built and00:17:01
The Lord said behold the people is one and they all have one language and now this they begin to do00:17:07
And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do00:17:12
Go to let us go down and there confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech00:17:19
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off to build the city00:17:27
therefore is the name of it called babel because the lord did there confound the language of all the Earth and00:17:32
From thence did the Lord scattered them abroad00:17:35
Upon the face of all the Earth00:17:38
It's a very difficult story to understand and it's on the face of it. It doesn't seem to show00:17:43
God in a very good light although that happens fairly frequently in the old testament as far as I can tell but00:17:51
You know the thing to do if you're reading in the spirit of the text let's say is to remember that00:17:58
It's God that you're talking about and so00:18:02
Even though you might think that00:18:04
He's appearing in a bad light00:18:06
Your duty as a reader. I suppose is to assume that you're wrong and that what he did was right00:18:12
And then you're supposed to figure out well, how could it possibly be right because the axiomatic00:18:16
Presupposition is that it's God and whatever he does is right, and you might say well, you can disagree with that00:18:21
And it's it's also the case that some of the people that God talks to in the old testament00:18:25
Actually disagree with him and convinced him to alter his actions, but the point still remains that it's God and if he's doing it then00:18:33
By definition. There's a good reason00:18:40
There's an idea much later that John Milton develops in in00:18:45
Paradise lost00:18:46
Which is an amazing poem00:18:49
And It's it's it's a it's it's a profound enough poem so that it's almost been incorporated into the biblical structure I would say so00:18:58
the Corpus of Christianity00:19:01
Post Milton00:19:04
was Saturated by00:19:06
the Miltonic stories of Satan's Rebellion none of us in the in the in the00:19:11
Biblical texts or it's only hinted at in very brief passages and Milton wrote his poem00:19:18
To justify the word the ways of God to man, which is quite an ambition really!00:19:25
It's an amazing profound ambition00:19:28
To try to produce something00:19:30
to produce a literary work00:19:32
That justifies being to human beings, because that's what Milton was trying to do, so one of my readers here00:19:38
Sent me a link the other day for viewers00:19:42
To a work of philosophy by an australian Philosopher whose name I don't remember00:19:48
Who basically wrote a book saying that:00:19:51
being as such, human experience, is so corrupt and so00:19:55
Permeated by suffering that it would be better if it had never existed at all00:20:00
sort of the ultimate expression of Nihilism and00:20:02
Goethe in in Faust his Mephistopheles who's a Satanic character obviously has that as a credo00:20:10
That's that Satan's fundamental motivation is00:20:14
His objection to creation itself is that creation is so flawed and so rife with suffering that it would be better if it had never00:20:21
existed at all and so that's his motivation for attempting to00:20:25
continue to Destroy it but in00:20:29
Milton's Paradise lost00:20:31
Satan is an intellectual figure, and you see that motif emerged very frequently by the way in00:20:37
popular culture, so for example in the lion king the figure of Skaar who's a Satanic figure is also hyper intellectual and00:20:46
That's very common that you know it's the evil scientist motif or the or the evil advisor to the king the same motif it00:20:52
Encapsulates something about rationality and it what it seems to encapsulate is the idea that00:20:57
Rationality like Satan is the highest angel in God's heavenly Kingdom. It's a psychological idea. You know that the most powerful00:21:06
Sub element of the human psyche is the intellect and and it's the thing that shines out above all00:21:12
within the domain of humanity and maybe across the00:21:17
Domain of life itself the human intellect there's something absolutely remarkable about it00:21:21
but it has a flaw and the flaw is that it tends to00:21:24
Fall in love with its own productions and to assume that their total00:21:28
Solzhenitsyn when he was writing the Gulag Archipelago00:21:31
had a warning about that with regards to00:21:35
totalitarian Ideology, and he said that the price of selling your god-given soul to the entrapments of00:21:43
human dogma was slavery and death essentially and00:21:48
Satan00:21:51
in Milton's Paradise Lost Satan00:21:55
decides that00:21:56
He can do without the transcendent he can do without God and that's why he foments rebellion00:22:02
It's something like that and the consequence of that the immediate consequence from Milton's perspective was that as soon as Satan00:22:09
Decided that what he knew was sufficient00:22:13
That he could do without the transcendent which he might think about as the domain outside of what you know something like that00:22:21
immediately he was in hell and00:22:24
When I read Paradise lost I was studying totalitarianism, and I thought you know the poet00:22:30
the true Poet like a prophet00:22:33
if someone who has00:22:35
intimations of the future00:22:37
and maybe that's because the poetic mind the philosophical or prophetic mind is a pattern detector and00:22:43
And there are people who can detect the underlying it's like the malady of a nation00:22:49
Melody is in song the song of a nation and can see how it's going to develop across the centuries you see this you see00:22:54
That Nietzsche because Nietzsche for example in the mid you know in 1860 or so. I mean he prophesied00:23:01
What was going to happen in the 20th century said that he said specifically that the spectre of Communism would kill00:23:08
Millions of people in the 20th century, it's amazing prophecy. He said that in the notes that became will to power and00:23:15
Dostoyevsky was of the same sort of mind someone who was in touch enough with the fundamental patterns of00:23:23
Human movement that they could extrapolate out into the future and see what was coming00:23:27
and I mean some people are very good at detecting patterns you know and and uh00:23:34
Milton, I think was of that, sort and00:23:36
I00:23:37
think he had intimations of what was coming as human rationality became more and more powerful and technology became more and more powerful and the00:23:45
Information was that we would produce systems that dispensed with God00:23:49
That were completely rational and completely total that would immediately turn everything they touched into something00:23:57
indistinguishable from Hell, and00:23:59
then Milton's warning was00:24:02
embodied in the poem is that00:24:04
the rational mind that00:24:07
Generates a production and then worships it as if it's absolute immediately occupies hell00:24:15
So what does that have to do with the tower of babel?00:24:20
we know it back into 2008 when the00:24:24
When we had that economic collapse?00:24:27
the strange idea emerged politically and that00:24:30
was the idea of too big to fail and00:24:33
I thought about that idea for a long time because I thought00:24:36
There's something deeply wrong with that is one of the things that made Marx wrong00:24:43
was Marx believed that capital would flow into the hands of fewer and fewer people and that the00:24:51
dissociation between the rich and the poor would become more extreme as capitalism developed and00:24:58
Like so many things that Marx said that's it's kind of true. It's kind of true in that00:25:06
The distribution of wealth and in fact a distribution of anything, that's produced00:25:11
Follows a Pareto00:25:12
Pattern and the Pareto Pattern basically is that a small proportion of people end up with the bulk of the goods00:25:18
And it isn't just money it's it's anything that people produce creatively00:25:24
ends up in that distribution and00:25:26
That's actually the economists call that the Matthieu principle00:25:30
And they take that from a statement in the new testament00:25:32
and the statement is to those who have everything more will be given and from those who have nothing everything will be taken and00:25:38
It's it's a map of the manner in which the world manifests itself where00:25:44
Human creative production is involved and the map seems to indicate that as you start to produce and you're successful00:25:49
The probability that you will continue to be successful or accelerate00:25:53
Increases as you're successful and as you fail the probability that you will fail starts to accelerate00:25:58
So if your progress to life looks like this or like this00:26:03
something like that and the reason that Marx was right was because he noted that as a00:26:10
Feature of the capitalist system the reason that he was wrong. Is that it's not a feature that's specific to a capitalist system00:26:17
it's a feature that's general to all systems of creative production that are known and00:26:22
so it's like a natural law and it's enough of a natural law by the way that the distribution of wealth can be modeled by00:26:30
Physical models using the same equations that govern the distribution of gas molecules in a vacuum, so it's a really profound00:26:37
It's a fundamentally00:26:39
profound observation about the world way the world lays itself out, and it's problematic because if00:26:47
resources accrue00:26:51
unfairly to a small minority of people00:26:53
and there's a natural law like element to that that has to be dealt with from a social perspective because if the00:27:01
Inequality becomes too extreme then the whole system will destabilize and so you can have an intelligent00:27:07
discussion about how to mitigate the effects of00:27:11
the transfer of creative00:27:14
production into the hands of a small number of people00:27:17
Now the other reason however having said that the other reason that Marx was wrong. There's a number of them00:27:24
One is that even though00:27:29
creative products end00:27:31
Up in the hands of a small number of people it's not the same people consistently across time00:27:37
It's the same proportion of people, and that's not the same thing00:27:41
you know like imagine that there's water going down a drain and you say well look at the00:27:46
Spiral it's permanent, you think well the spiral is permanent, but the water Molecules aren't they're moving through it00:27:51
And it's the same in some sense with the pareto distribution00:27:54
is that there's a 1% and there's always a 1%, but it's not the same people it's00:28:01
the stability of it differs from00:28:04
culture to culture00:28:05
but there's a lot of movement in the upper 1% a tremendous amount of movement and one of the reasons for that movement is that00:28:12
things get large and then they get too large and then they collapse and00:28:17
so in00:28:19
2008 when the politicians said too big to fail00:28:23
They got something truly backwards as far as I can tell and that was00:28:30
With a reverse the statement was reversed it should have been so big it had to fail00:28:36
And that's what I think the story of the tower of babel is about it's it's a warning00:28:42
against the00:28:44
expansion of the system00:28:47
Until it encompasses everything it's a warning against00:28:51
Totalitarian presumption so what happens for example00:28:54
When people set out to build the tower of babel as they want to build a structure that reaches to heaven00:28:59
right so the idea is that00:29:01
It can it can it can replace it can replace the role of God00:29:06
it's something like that it can erase the distinction between00:29:10
Earth and Heaven, and so there's a utopian kind of vision there as well as we can build a structure00:29:14
That's so large and encompassing that that00:29:18
That it can replace heaven itself00:29:22
That's an interesting00:29:24
The fact that that doesn't work and that God objects to it is also extraordinarily interesting and it's an indication to me of the unbelievable00:29:31
Profundity of these stories. It's like I think one thing we should have learned from the 20th century, but of course didn't was that00:29:39
There's something extraordinary dangerous about totalitarian utopian visions. That's something dostoevsky wrote about by the way in his great book00:29:47
Notes from Underground because Dostoevsky figured out by the early 1900's that there was something very very00:29:54
Pathological about a utopian vision of perfection that it was profoundly anti-human and and notes in notes from underground00:30:01
He demolishes the notion of utopia one of the things he says that I loved it's so Brilliant said imagine that you00:30:08
brought the Socialist utopia into being and00:30:12
dostoyevsky says and that human beings had nothing to do except00:30:17
eat00:30:19
Drink and busy themselves with the continuation of the species00:30:24
He said that the first thing that would happen under circumstances like that00:30:28
Would be that00:30:30
Human beings would go mad and break the system smash it just so that something unexpected00:30:35
And crazy could happen because human beings don't want00:30:39
utopian comfort and certainty they want adventure and Chaos and uncertainty and00:30:45
so that the very notion of a utopia was anti-human because we're not built for00:30:51
static utopia00:30:53
we're built for a00:30:55
dynamic situation where there's00:30:59
Demands placed on us and where there's the optimal amount of uncertainty00:31:07
Well, we know what happened in the 20th century as a consequence of the widespread00:31:11
promulgation of utopian schemes and00:31:14
what happened was00:31:16
mayhem on a scale that had never been matched in the entire history of humanity, and that's really saying something because00:31:26
There was plenty of Mayhem before the 20th century00:31:28
I guess there wasn't as much industrial clout behind it and so so early you00:31:35
see00:31:36
so early in the biblical narrative you have a warning against Hubris and00:31:41
and00:31:42
some indication that00:31:45
properly functioning systems have an appropriate scale I00:31:49
read an article in the economist magazine this week about the00:31:54
rise of Nationalist Movements all over the world as a counterbalance to00:32:00
globalization maybe it's most marked with the European economic community00:32:05
And the economist writers were curious about why00:32:08
that counter movement has been developing, but it seems to me that it's also a tower of Babel phenomena is that00:32:17
And maybe this is most evident in the European economic community00:32:22
to bring all of that multiplicity under the00:32:28
What would you call it under the umbrella of a single unity is?00:32:32
To simultaneously erect a system where the top is so far from the bottom that the bottom has no connection to the top00:32:40
You know your your your social systems have to be large enough, so they protect you, but small enough00:32:46
So that you have a place in them, and it seems to me perhaps. That's what's happened in00:32:52
in places like the EEC is that the distance between the typical citizen and the00:32:58
Bureaucracy that runs the entire structure has got so great00:33:03
that00:33:04
it's an element of00:33:06
destabilization in and of itself and so people revert back to say nationalistic identities because00:33:13
It's something that they can00:33:16
relate to00:33:18
If there's a there's a history there and a shared identity a genuine identity00:33:23
An identity of language and tradition it's not an artificial imposition from the top an artificial abstract imposition00:33:38
in in the egyptian creation myth00:33:42
the version I'm most familiar with00:33:46
in the previous00:33:47
Creation myth the older one the Mesopotamian creation myth00:33:51
Mostly what you see00:33:53
Menacing humanity is Tiamat she's the dragon of Chaos and so that's nature. It's really00:33:59
It's really mother nature00:34:01
red in tooth and claw00:34:04
but by the time the egyptians come along00:34:09
It isn't only nature that threatens humanity00:34:12
it's the social structure itself and so the00:34:15
egyptians had two deities that represented the social structure and one was Osiris who was00:34:21
Like the spirit of the father. He was a great hero who established egypt, but became old and and00:34:28
Willfully blind and and and00:34:31
and00:34:32
senile and he had an evil brother named Seth and00:34:36
Seth was always conspiring to overthrow him and00:34:41
because00:34:42
Osiris ignored him long enough Seth did overthrow chopped him into pieces and distributed all around the kingdom and00:34:50
His son Horus had to come back and fight00:34:53
Osiris his son Horus had to come back and defeat00:34:56
Seth to take the Kingdom back. That's how that story ends00:34:59
But the egyptians seem to have realized maybe because they had become bureaucratized to quite a substantial degree00:35:05
That it wasn't only nature that threatened00:35:09
Humankind it was also the proclivity of human organizations to become too large too unwieldy00:35:15
too deceitful and to willfully blind and therefore liable to collapse and00:35:21
Again, I see echoes of that in the story of the tower of babel00:35:25
so00:35:26
It's a calling for00:35:30
A00:35:32
kind of humility of social engineering00:35:36
one of the other things I've learned as a social scientist and00:35:41
I've been warned about this by I would say great social scientists that00:35:48
You want to be very careful about00:35:50
doing large-scale00:35:52
experimentation with large scale systems because the probability that if you implement a00:35:57
Scheme in a large-scale social system that that scheme will have the result you intended is00:36:03
Negligible what will happen will be something that you don't intend and even worse00:36:08
something that works at counter purposes to your original intent and00:36:13
so and that makes sense because00:36:16
If you have a very very complex system00:36:18
And you perturb it the probability that you can predict the consequence of the perturbation is extraordinary low obviously00:36:27
If the system works though you think you understand it because it works and so you think it's simpler than it actually is and so00:36:34
Then you think that your model of it is correct00:36:37
and then you think that your manipulation of the model which produces00:36:42
The outcome you model will be the outcome that's actually produced in the world that doesn't work at all00:36:50
I Thought about that an awful lot00:36:53
thinking about how to remediate social systems because obviously they need00:36:58
Careful attention and adjustment, and it struck me that the proper00:37:06
strategy for implementing social change is to stay within your domain of competence and that00:37:13
Requires humility which is a virtue that is never00:37:20
Promoted in Modern culture. I would say it's it's a virtue that you can hardly even talk about00:37:26
but humility means00:37:28
You're probably not as smart as you think you are and you should be careful and so then the question might be well00:37:34
Ok you should be careful, but perhaps you still want to do good you want to make some positive changes?00:37:39
how can you be careful and do good and then I would say well you try not to step out the boundaries of your00:37:45
competence and you start small and you00:37:48
start with things that you actually could adjust that you actually do understand that you actually could fix I00:37:53
Mentioned to you at one point that one of the things carl jung said was that00:37:57
Modern men don't see God because they don't look low enough. It's a very interesting Phrase and00:38:03
one of the things that I've been00:38:06
Promoting I suppose00:38:08
Online is the idea that00:38:10
You should restrict your attempts to fix things00:38:15
to what's00:38:18
at hand00:38:20
So there's probably things about you that you could fix right things that you know that aren't right?00:38:25
Not anyone else's opinion your own opinion that aren't right you can fix them00:38:29
Maybe there's some things that you could adjust in your family that gets hard you00:38:32
Have to have your act together a lot before you can start to adjust your family because things can kick back on you really hard00:38:38
And you think well it's hard to put yourself together. It's really hard to put your family together00:38:42
Why the hell do you think you can put the world together?00:38:45
right because obviously the world is more complicated than you and your family and so if you if you're stymied in your attempts00:38:51
Even to set your own house in order which of course you are00:38:55
Then you would think that what that would do would be to make you very very leery about00:38:59
announcing your broad-scale plans for social revolution00:39:05
Well, it's a peculiar thing because that isn't how it works because people are much more likely to announce their plans for Broad-scale social revolution00:39:12
Than they are to try to set themselves straight or to set their family straight00:39:16
And I think the reason for that is that as soon as they try to set themselves straight or their families the system immediately00:39:22
kicks back at them right instantly whereas if they announced their plans for large-scale social revolution00:39:29
the lag between the00:39:31
announcement and the kickback is so long that. They don't recognize that00:39:36
there's any error there and so you know you can get away with being wrong if if nothing falls on you for a while, and00:39:44
so and it's also00:39:46
An incitement to hubris because you can now see your your plans for large-scale social revolution and stand back00:39:54
And you don't get hit by lightning and you think well00:39:56
I might be right even though you're not you're seriously not right. I might be right and then you think well00:40:02
How wonderful is that especially if you could do it without any real effort, and I really do think fundamentally I believe that00:40:10
That's what the universities teach students now. That's what they teach them to do. I really believe that and I think it's absolutely appalling00:40:18
And I think it's horribly dangerous00:40:22
Because it's not that easy to fix things especially if you don't00:40:27
especially if you're not committed to it and00:40:30
I think you know if you're committed because what you try to do is you try to straighten out your own life first00:40:34
and that's enough like there's a I think it's a statement in the new testament that it's I think it's in the new testament that it's00:40:40
More difficult to rule yourself than to rule the city00:40:43
And that's not a metaphor. It's like all of you. Who've made00:40:48
announcements to yourself about00:40:50
Changing your diet and going to the gym every January know perfectly well how difficult it is to regulate your own00:40:57
impulses and to bring yourself under the control of some00:41:03
What would you say?00:41:05
well-structured and00:41:08
ethical00:41:09
attentive00:41:11
structure of values00:41:13
it's extraordinarily difficult and so people don't do it and instead they wander off, and I think they create towers of Babel and00:41:21
the story indicates well those things collapse under their own weight and00:41:26
everyone goes their own Direction I00:41:29
Think I see that happening00:41:32
with the LGBT community I00:41:34
think because one of the things I've noticed it's very interesting because the community is in some sense, it's not a community but00:41:44
That's a technical error, but it's it's composed of outsiders. Let's say and00:41:50
what you notice across the decades is that the acronym list keeps growing and00:41:56
I think that's because there's an infinite number of ways to be an outsider and so once you open the door00:42:02
to the construction of a group that's characterized by00:42:07
Failing to fit into the group then you immediately create a category that's infinitely00:42:13
expandable and so I don't know how long the acronym list is now it depends on which acronym list you consult but I've seen00:42:21
lists of 10 or more acronyms and one of the things that's happening is that00:42:27
The Community is starting to fragment in00:42:30
Its in its interior because there is no unity00:42:34
once you put a sufficient plurality under the00:42:39
sheltering00:42:41
structure of a single umbrella say00:42:44
the disunity starts to appear within and I think that's also uh00:42:50
It's a manifestation of the same issue that this particular story is dealing with00:42:59
So that ends. I would say the most archaic stories in the in the bible00:43:07
There's something about the flood story and and also the tower of babel00:43:10
I think they outline the two fundamental dangers that beset Mankind one is00:43:15
the probability that00:43:18
Blindness and sin will produce a natural catastrophe or entice one00:43:22
That's something modern people are very aware of in principle right because we're all hyper concerned about environmental degradation and catastrophe and so00:43:31
That's the continual00:43:34
Reactivation of an archetypal idea in our in our unconscious minds that there's something about the way00:43:39
we're living that's unsustainable and that will create a00:43:43
catastrophe it's so interesting because people believe that firmly and deeply and00:43:48
But they don't see the relationship between that and the archetypal stories because it's the same story00:43:55
Overconsumption greed all of that is producing an unstable state and nature will rebel and take us down00:44:02
You hear that every day in every newspaper and every TV station?00:44:06
It's broadcast to you constantly so that idea is presented in in Genesis in the story of Noah and then the other00:44:15
Warning that exists in the stories one is Beware of Natural Catastrophe00:44:19
That's produced as a consequence of blindness and greed will say the other is00:44:25
Beware of00:44:28
social structures that overreach00:44:30
Because they'll also produce fragmentation and disintegration, and so it's quite remarkable. I think that that00:44:37
With at the close of the story of the tower of babel?00:44:41
we've got both of00:44:43
the permanent existential dangers that00:44:47
present themselves to humanity00:44:50
already identified00:44:57
At the end of the story of Adam and eve. There's like a fall into history00:45:01
Right so in one way history begins with the fall, but there's like a second fall00:45:06
I think with the flood and the tower of Babel and00:45:09
history and even more real sense begins now it begins with this story of Abraham and and it's00:45:16
it's00:45:17
We're no longer precisely in the realm of the purely mythical. That would be another way of thinking about it00:45:23
We have identifiable person who's part of an identifiable tribe is doing identifiable things00:45:28
We're in the realm of history and so history begins twice in the old testament I00:45:34
suppose it begins again after moses as well, but00:45:37
We've moved out of the domain of the purely mythical into the realm of history with with the emergence of the stories about abraham00:45:45
This is from aldous huxley00:45:47
So the first thing that that I want to talk about in00:45:49
relationship to the abrahamic stories is this idea of the experience of God because00:45:54
Abraham although quite identifiable as an actual individual is00:46:00
Also, characterized by this peculiarity and the peculiarity is that God manifests himself to Abraham00:46:08
Both as a voice and but also as a presence00:46:11
The stories never describe exactly how god manifests himself except now and then he comes in the form of an angel00:46:19
That's fairly concrete00:46:20
But it's a funny thing that the author of or authors of the abrahamic story00:46:25
seems to take00:46:27
The idea that God would make an appearance00:46:31
more or less for granted and so00:46:35
It's very00:46:36
I think the part of the reason that I've struggled so much with the abrahamic stories is because it's so hard to get a handle00:46:42
on that and to understand what that might mean and00:46:44
So I'm going to hit it from a bunch of different perspectives and let's see if we can00:46:48
Come up with some00:46:51
Understanding of it the first thing I'll do is tell you a story about a female00:46:58
Neurologist whose name escapes me at the moment. She wrote a book called my stroke of insight00:47:03
Jill Bolte I think is her name and00:47:07
She was a harvard-trained00:47:09
She was she had she had00:47:12
medical training from Harvard in Neuropsychological function and knew a lot about hemispheric specialization00:47:17
we talked a little bit about hemispheric specialization before one of the00:47:22
Ways of conceptualizing the difference between the two hemispheres is that the left hemisphere?00:47:26
Operates in known territory and the right hemisphere operates in unknown territory. That's one way of thinking about or the left hemisphere operates00:47:33
in the orderly domain and the right hemisphere operates in the chaotic domain or the left hemisphere operates in the00:47:40
Domain of detail and the right hemisphere operates in the domain of the large picture00:47:45
It's something like that now people differ in their neurological wiring, so those are00:47:51
Over generalizations, but that's okay00:47:53
we live with that for the time being it's certainly not an00:47:55
overgeneralization to point out that you do in fact have two hemispheres and that their structures differ and if the connections between them are cut00:48:02
Which could happen for example if you had surgery for intractable epilepsy that each hemisphere would be capable of housing its own consciousness00:48:09
That's been well documented by a neural neural neurologist in Gazzaniga00:48:15
Who did and Sperry who did split brain experiments must be 30 years ago now?00:48:21
so00:48:22
And we know that the right in the left hemisphere are specialized for different00:48:26
Functions the right hemisphere for example seems to be more involved in the generation of negative emotion and the left hemisphere more00:48:32
Involved in the generation of positive emotion an approach so the right hemisphere stops you and the left hemisphere moves you forward00:48:38
anyways00:48:40
Jill00:48:41
Bolte I hope I've got that right00:48:44
had a stroke00:48:46
and00:48:47
Maintained consciousness during the stroke and analyzed it while it was happening and she was able00:48:53
while it was happening to00:48:56
hypothesize about what part of her brain was being destroyed and00:49:00
what so she had a congenital blood vessel malformation and had an aneurysm and00:49:06
It just about killed her00:49:09
but she said that00:49:11
It affected her left hemisphere00:49:13
And she said that she experienced a sense of divine unity as a consequence of the stroke00:49:21
because the left hemisphere function was disrupted and destroyed and so she became a right hemisphere dominant and00:49:28
her experience of that was the dissolution of the specific ego into the00:49:33
Absolute consciousness something like that now that's only a case study, and you don't want to make too much of case studies00:49:40
But there is an overwhelming amount of evidence00:49:44
that those two kinds of consciousness exist00:49:48
one being00:49:49
your consciousness of you as a00:49:51
localized and specified being and the other being00:49:57
this00:49:58
capacity to experience00:50:00
oceanic dissolution and the sense of the cosmos being one00:50:06
Now why we have those capacities for different conscious00:50:11
experiences00:50:12
Is very difficult to understand. I mean part of me thinks that00:50:16
Maybe we have a generic human brain00:50:20
it's the brain of the species and00:50:23
Allied with that we have a specific00:50:25
individual brain and one is the left hemisphere and the other is the right hemisphere the left hemisphere being the00:50:31
specific individual brain and usually it's on and working because you obviously have to take care of yourself as a00:50:37
specific entity and not as a generalized00:50:40
Cosmic phenomena, it's hard to dice celery when you're a generalized cosmic phenomena00:50:46
Right so you have to be more pointed than that but but look let's make no mistake about it00:50:51
The fact that those different states of consciousness exists is not00:50:56
Disputable they can be elicited in all sorts of ways and so00:51:02
I'm going to read you something that Aldous Huxley wrote about this back, I think, in 1956 this was after he00:51:11
Started his experimentation with mescaline00:51:15
The psychedelics were introduced into western culture in the 1950s in a whole bunch of different ways psilocybin mushrooms00:51:21
LsD. I was discovered right at the end of World War two00:51:25
Was discovered by accident actually?00:51:28
laboratory Sandoz labs the guy who discovered it Albert Hofmann had spilled some on his hands you can absorb it through your skin and00:51:35
He was biking home and had the world's first LSD trip which was somewhat of a shock to him and then to the entire world00:51:44
Huxley who was a great literary figure, a real genius00:51:49
experimented with mescaline in the late fifties and00:51:52
He wrote a book called the doors of perception which had a huge impact on the emerging psychedelic culture both on00:51:58
The East coast at Harvard and on the West coast with Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters the people who popularized LSD00:52:05
That's all documented in a book called the electric Kool-Aid acid test; Which I would highly recommend00:52:10
It's Tom Wolfe it's a brilliant book on the east coast it was timothy leary00:52:14
I had timothy leary's old job at Harvard. So that was kind of cool. You know in a warped way00:52:21
So I met people there who knew him00:52:24
Who didn't think much of them also, but who did know him but00:52:29
Huxley had this mescaline experience, and it transported him to this00:52:34
alternative consciousness00:52:35
And he said that during his mescaline experience that the entire world glowed from within like if there was an inner light00:52:41
like a paradisal inner light and that everything was deeply meaningful and00:52:47
Symbolically suggestive and overwhelming and beautiful and timeless so he had an experience of divine00:52:54
Eternity I suppose is the most straightforward way to to put that and we know perfectly well that00:53:00
the psychedelic drugs that all share the same chemical structure they interact with the brain chemical called Serotonin00:53:06
Which is a very very fundamental?00:53:08
Neurotransmitter they all have approximately the same00:53:12
range of effects00:53:14
Although those effects are very00:53:16
There's a very large multitude of effects that sort of exist underneath that umbrella00:53:23
Huxley was00:53:27
staggered by his mescaline experience he he didn't really know what to make of it, and I think that that's00:53:33
the common experience of people who have00:53:36
exceptionally profound psychedelic experiences and I'll00:53:40
Tell you some documentation about that in a moment, but he spent quite a long time00:53:45
Trying to come to grips with what this might mean from an intellectual perspective and huxley had a great brain00:53:51
I mean someone was going to wrestle with the problem like that. He was a good candidate00:53:54
He must have had a verbal IQ of 180. I mean he's00:53:58
his books are incredibly literate Incredible credible mastery of language and complexity of characterization and and00:54:05
intellectual Discourse really remarkable00:54:09
So this is what Huxley had to say after his mescaline experience he talked about heaven and hell00:54:14
and he talked about that in reference to bad trips essentially because00:54:18
it was known by that point that a Psychedelic experience could transport you to an00:54:24
Ecstatic domain of Divine revelation00:54:27
but could take you to the worst imaginable place as well huxley was very interested in why you would even have the capacity for00:54:35
Experiences like that and which I think is a very good question and it's completely unanswered question00:54:39
I mean, we don't know much about consciousness and we know even less about psychedelics00:54:44
I would say they are an absolute mystery. I don't think we understand them in the least00:54:50
Huxley did a good job of starting to at least map out the mysteries of the terrain he said like the earth of a hundred00:54:56
Years ago our mind still has its darkest Africa's its unmapped Borneo's and Amazonian basin in00:55:03
Relation to the Fauna of these regions. We are not yet zoologists00:55:07
We are mere naturalist sand collectors of specimens the fact is unfortunate00:55:12
But we have to accept it we have to make the best of it00:55:15
However, lowly the work of the collector must be done before we can proceed to the higher scientific tasks of classification analysis experiment and theory00:55:23
Making like the giraffe and the duck-billed platypus the creatures inhabit these remoter regions of the mind00:55:30
Are exceedingly improbable.00:55:32
Nevertheless they exist they're facts of observation00:55:35
And as such they cannot be ignored by anyone who is honestly trying to understand the world in which he lives00:55:45
when psychiatrists started to study LSD that00:55:49
was mostly in the late 50s and running forward from that they thought about00:55:54
The drug as a psychedelic which was a chemical substance that would induce psychosis, but that turned out to not be true00:56:02
not with the psychedelics because00:56:06
schizophrenics were given LSD and00:56:09
The schizophrenics reported that00:56:11
while the experience experience was certainly00:56:15
extraordinarily strange, it wasn't like being schizophrenic and00:56:19
then it was found later that if you gave schizophrenics amphetamines that made them worse in fact you can induce a00:56:27
Paranoid psychosis in a normal person by overdosing them with amphetamines00:56:31
So whatever the hallucinogens are the psychedelics are doing00:56:35
It's not the same thing as mania and it's not the same thing as schizophrenia not at all00:56:43
so00:56:49
So you can't just write the experience off as an induced psychosis, whatever it is00:56:59
Independent of its utility or lack thereof it's not that00:57:04
Now can be induced by drugs00:57:07
Can be induced by deprivation right? I mean there are accounts throughout history of people00:57:12
putting themselves in Extreme00:57:14
Physiological situations in order to induce transformations of consciousness fasting is one of the routes to doing that00:57:22
Dancing is another route00:57:24
Isolation prolonged periods of isolation will also do it now you could say that exposing yourself to any of those in excess00:57:32
produces a state that's00:57:34
indistinguishable from illness and00:57:37
That there's no reason to assume that the phenomena that are associated with illness have any00:57:44
Utility Whatsoever although, it's interesting to me that00:57:50
A Disrupted consciousness can Produce coherent experiences. It's not exactly what you expect00:57:56
It was just an illness you know if you develop say a high fever00:58:00
your experience00:58:02
Isn't transcendent and coherent its fragmented and pathologized and and the difference00:58:09
I think is quite distinct although00:58:11
We don't only we don't have to only speculate about that because there's been enough experimental work done00:58:15
Now with hallucinogens and psychedelics to indicate that00:58:19
The notion that what they produce is something that's only akin to Pathology is wrong00:58:24
because00:58:26
It's not a matter of opinion at this point in the sequence of scientific and historical00:58:31
Investigation in fact there was a large-scale study done00:58:34
Ten Years ago? five years ago? of two hundred thousand people who had experimented with pSychedelics00:58:40
And they were mentally and physically healthier than people who hadn't on virtually every parameter they examined in00:58:47
fact the rate of00:58:49
Flashbacks, you've heard of LSD flashbacks mostly a hypothetical phenomena00:58:54
But the rate of self-reported flashbacks was higher among the non psychedelic users than among the psychedelic users00:59:01
so that was very interesting was a huge study now it might be you could say that those who had experimented with00:59:07
Psychedelics were prone to be healthier to begin with but he that still contradicts the Pathology argument00:59:14
So it doesn't matter either way the Pathology argument is contradicted00:59:19
now,00:59:24
oh I did put that in it was Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor00:59:28
This is what she said about her stroke I00:59:31
Remember that first day of the stroke with terrific bittersweetness in the absence of the normal functioning of my left00:59:36
Orientation association area my perception of my physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air. I felt like a genie00:59:45
Liberated from its bottle it's good metaphor00:59:48
The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent00:59:53
Euphoria the absence of Physical Boundary was one of glorious bliss01:00:00
Recently this Dr. Roland Griffith I01:00:07
met him once at a conference in San Francisco surprised surprised a01:00:14
Conference on awe and this was just when he was embarking on his experiments with psilocybin which were the first experiments on01:00:21
hallucinogens that were permitted by the01:00:24
National Institute of Mental Health in some three four decades he had to be very careful to01:00:30
Lay out the scientific protocols so that the ethics committees would approve the experiments and so that the federal funding agencies would01:00:38
also allow the experiments to go through he started to experiment with01:00:43
psilocybin and01:00:45
He's found a number of and published a number of very interesting01:00:49
Results one was that a single psilocybin trip01:00:57
and I01:00:59
specified trip because01:01:01
Sometimes when people take psilocybin out the doses that griffith uses. They don't have a psychedelic experience01:01:07
Most people who take the dose do but not everyone those who take the dose and don't have the mystical experience don't01:01:15
Experience the consequences of taking the drug and the consequences can be quite profound01:01:20
So one consequence is that if you have the mystical experience that's associated with psilocybin ingestion01:01:27
You're liable to01:01:30
Represent that to others and yourself as one of the two or three most experienced important experiences of your entire life01:01:36
So that would be at the same level as the birth of your child or your marriage01:01:41
let's say assuming that those were transcendent experiences, but that's01:01:47
But that's how people describe them so that's that's very interesting in and of itself01:01:53
then01:01:55
the next thing that griffith another thing that griffith reported was that one year after a01:02:02
Psilocybin dose a single psilocybin dose profound enough to induce a mystical experience01:02:06
the trait01:02:08
openness of the participants had increased one standard deviation01:02:12
Which is a tremendous amount and so it looked like one dose produced a permanent neurological and psychological transformation now01:02:19
You know I'm not saying that that's a good thing01:02:22
I'm not saying that because I don't think that openness is a01:02:28
Untroubled blessing, but it's certainly a testament to the unbelievable potency of the of the drugs01:02:35
There's about a 10% chance by the way with psilocybin ingestion of a trip to hell01:02:41
and so that's certainly something very much worth considering when you're thinking about the potential effects of this kind of01:02:49
experience01:02:54
so the the mystical experience produced by psilocybin is rated by people as the most profound among the most profound experience of their life as01:03:01
life-Changing it produces permanent personality01:03:04
transformations eighty-five percent success in smoking cessation with a single dose01:03:09
Right that's another thing that griffiths demonstrated now that is mind boggling because there are chemical treatments for smoking cessation01:03:19
bupropion is one it01:03:23
Reduces craving to some degree, but its success rate is01:03:27
Nowhere Near 85%01:03:29
certainly not with a single dose and01:03:33
so01:03:34
We don't understand how it can be that that occurs, but it's nicely documented by griffiths team in this01:03:43
Experiment he gave psilocybin to people who are dying of cancer01:03:49
cancer patients often develop Chronic clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety01:03:54
Previous studies suggest that psilocybin may decrease depression and anxiety in cancer patients aldous huxley took LSD on his deathbed by the way01:04:03
so the idea that there was something about01:04:07
psychedelic substances that could01:04:12
Buffer people against the catastrophes of mortality is an idea. That's as old as experimentation with the drug itself01:04:20
the effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life threatening diagnosis and symptoms of depression and/or anxiety01:04:29
unsurprisingly01:04:34
I don't really know if it's reasonable to describe the emotional state of people diagnosed with cancer of uncertain Prognosis or01:04:43
Mortal significance as depression precisely01:04:47
You know you know what I mean is that if you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have intractable01:04:52
fatal cancer01:04:53
The normative response is to be rather upset and anxious about that and so it01:04:59
One of the things that bothers me about clinical psychiatry and clinical psychology is the automatic01:05:04
Presupposition that even overwhelming states of negative emotion are properly categorized as depression01:05:09
I don't think you're depressed when you get a cancer diagnosis. I don't think that's the right way to think about it01:05:15
I think that you have a big problem01:05:17
And it's not surprising that you're overwhelmed by negative emotion and to think about that as a psychiatric malfunction is a major error01:05:24
but anyways01:05:25
It's a side issue with regards to this study01:05:30
the effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life threatening diagnosis and symptoms of depression01:05:36
And/or anxiety I cannot imagine how they got this through an ethics committee. It's just01:05:41
We're going to take people who have uncertain diagnosis of cancer that are potentially life-threatening, and we're going to give them psychedelics. It's like01:05:49
But they did it they did it and I think it's a testament to griffiths stature as a researcher that01:05:55
That that was allowable01:05:57
This is a randomized double-blind crossover trial very carefully designed clinical investigation01:06:04
people were assigned to the treatment group or the to the drug group or the non drug group randomly blindly and01:06:12
Investigated the effects of the drug also with different doses which is another hallmark of a well-designed01:06:18
Pharmacological study very low Placebo like dose 1 or 3 milligrams per 70 kilograms of body weight versus a high dose01:06:25
22 or 30 milligrams per 70 kilograms of01:06:29
psilocybin01:06:30
chemical psilocybin administered in counterbalance sequence with five weeks between sessions and a six-month follow-up01:06:37
instructions to participants and staff minimized the effects of expectancy participant staff and community observers rated01:06:45
Participant Moods attitudes and behaviors throughout the study, that's also01:06:49
The Hallmark of a well-designed study because they didn't rely on a single source of information for the outcome data right they got self reports01:06:56
That's fine, but they had01:06:57
Relatively objective observers also Gathered data at the same time01:07:02
High-dose psilocybin produced large decreases in Clinician and self related measures of depressed mood and anxiety01:07:08
along with increases in quality of Life life meaning and Optimism and01:07:13
decreases in death anxiety01:07:15
That's interesting. It's a subtle and01:07:19
Scientifically Sparse statement, but it's a very interesting one01:07:23
it was the in01:07:24
there's a there's an intimation of a causal relationship here increases in quality of Life life meaning and01:07:31
decreases in death anxiety01:07:36
I mean the intimation there is that one of the ways of decreasing your anxiety about death is to increase the01:07:41
felt meaning in your life and the psilocybin01:07:45
Dosages potentiate that but it's a good thing to know in a general manner if it happens to be a generalizable truth01:07:51
right if you're terrified of mortality01:07:54
terrified of vulnerability01:07:55
there's always the possibility that the life path that you're following isn't rich enough to buffer you against the01:08:03
negative01:08:04
element of01:08:05
Existence. It's a reasonable hypothesis and an optimistic one01:08:10
I think although a difficult one that six-month follow-up01:08:13
these changes were sustained with about 80% of participants continuing to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and01:08:20
anxiety01:08:23
Steven Ross commenting about this01:08:25
He was a co-investigator said it is simply unprecedented in01:08:28
Psychiatry that a single dose of a medicine produces these kinds of dramatic and enduring results01:08:33
Right which means we have no idea01:08:36
Why this happens01:08:41
participants attributed improvements in attitudes about life/self mood relationships and01:08:46
spirituality to the High-dose experience with more than 80% endorsing01:08:52
Moderately or greater increased well-being in life satisfaction01:08:55
Community Observers showed corresponding changes01:08:58
mystical types psilocybin experience on session day01:09:03
Mediated the effect of psilocybin dose on therapeutic outcomes. What that means is that01:09:08
well01:09:09
When researchers were trying to look at a causal relationship between drug ingestion and the positive outcome01:09:15
The causal relationship was drug ingestion mystical experience positive outcome it wasn't drug ingestion positive outcome there had to be the experience01:09:23
Produced by the pharmaceutical agent in order for the pharmaceutical agent to have had its effect now. We don't again01:09:31
We don't know why that is either?01:09:32
Maybe some people needed a higher dose who knows because people vary tremendously in their sensitivity to pharmaceutical substances01:09:39
Now why am I telling you all this well? I'm telling you for a variety of reasons one is the first is01:09:46
Make no mistake about it01:09:49
human beings have the capacity for forms of consciousness that are radically unlike our normative forms of consciousness and01:09:57
the evidence that those alternative forms of consciousness are01:10:01
purely01:10:03
Pathological which is the simplest explanation right? You perturb the system it produces Pathology that's negative that is the simplest explanation01:10:10
the Evidence for that is01:10:12
weak at Best01:10:14
Leaving out the bad trip issue which which is non-trivial01:10:18
the empirical evidence as it accrues in fact seems to suggest that the consequence of mystical01:10:25
positive mystical experiences associated with psychedelic intake is01:10:29
overwhelmingly positive even in extreme situations, and you really can't find a more extreme situation than01:10:36
uncertain Cancer diagnosis with01:10:38
Concomitant and depression and anxiety like I mean that's not as bad as it gets01:10:43
But it's kind of in the ballpark and so the fact that even under circumstances like that. There is the overwhelming01:10:50
Probability that the experience would be positive because that's another thing you wouldn't expect you know01:10:54
Even from some of the earlier earliest discussions about psychedelic use that were put forth by people01:11:00
including Timothy Leary01:11:02
Describing the importance of set right so that the early experimenters01:11:07
noted that01:11:08
if you had a psychedelic experience01:11:10
and you were in a bad state or in a bad place that that was one of the precursors to a bad trip that the01:11:16
negative emotion that you entered the01:11:19
experience with could be magnified tremendously by the by the chemical substance and so that it was necessary to01:11:27
be somewhere safe to be around people that you trust to be in a familiar environment to get all the01:11:32
Variables that you couldn't control under control, but here is a situation where that isn't what's happening at all because people have this01:11:41
cancer diagnosis of cancer diagnosis of unspecified outcome01:11:44
And they still the vast majority of them had a positive experience and the positive experience experience had long lasting positive consequences01:11:53
so01:11:55
so the case that01:11:57
the transcendent experience is not real01:12:01
That's wrong01:12:03
It's real. now, We don't know what that means because it actually challenges to some degree our concepts of what two dudes real01:12:10
But it's certainly well within the realm of normative human experience01:12:14
So it's part of the human capacity and you know there's been other neurological experiments too. There's01:12:20
there's a researcher Canadian researcher if I remember correctly who invented something he called the God helmet and01:12:25
It used Electromagnetic stimulation brain stimulation to induce mystical experiences now01:12:33
I don't remember what part of the brain. He was shutting off or activating with that particular Gadget, but01:12:39
And you know there's also. There's all sorts of other01:12:44
indications of this sort of thing that have cropped up in other01:12:49
domains of the Neurological literature for example01:12:52
It's very common for people who are epileptic to have01:12:56
religious experiences as01:12:58
part of the prodrome to the actual seizure that was the case with dostoyevsky for example who had01:13:05
Incredibly intense religious experiences that would culminate an epileptic seizure01:13:09
and he said that they were of sufficient quality that he would give up his whole life to have had them and01:13:15
the funny thing too is that01:13:17
In my reading of dostoevsky at least is that I think that01:13:22
epileptic seizures and the associated mystical experiences were part of what made him a01:13:27
Transcendently Brilliant author01:13:28
I don't think that he would have broken through into the domains of insight that he possessed without those strange neurological experiences01:13:36
And it was certainly not the case that his epilepsy or the experiences that were associated with it01:13:42
Produced what you might describe as an impairment in his cognitive functions quite the contrary at least that's how it looks to me01:13:53
here's another01:13:55
Here's another something worth considering01:13:57
And I don't know how important it is but it might be really important it depends on how important01:14:01
This is something that carl jung said so depends on how important jung is01:14:06
now freud01:14:08
Established the field of psychoanalysis and with it01:14:12
investigation I would say01:14:15
Rigorous investigation into the contents of the unconscious a modern psychologists and psychiatrists like to01:14:22
What would you say? denigrate freud, but I think there's a reason for that01:14:26
I think that freud's01:14:27
Fundamental insights were so profound and so valuable that they got immediately absorbed into our culture and now they seem self-evident and so that all01:14:34
That's left of freud is his errors01:14:37
You know because we believed everything else. We believe all the profound things he discovered01:14:41
We just take them for granted and so we don't believe the things that he said that weren't quite on the money01:14:46
And that's all we credit with him with now01:14:49
But he was certainly the first person who brought up the idea of the unconscious in a in a rigorous manner01:14:55
And he was the first person to do a rigorous examination of dreams the interpretation of dreams is a great book01:15:01
it's well worth reading and he was the first person to note that people were in some sense inhabited by01:15:08
subpersonalities that had a certain degree of autonomy and and and independent life01:15:13
Brilliant observation the cognitive psychologists haven't caught up with that at all yet01:15:20
Jung was profoundly affected by freud jung was profoundly affected by Nietzsche and by freud those were his two main intellectual01:15:29
Influences, I don't think one more than the other01:15:34
He split with freud on the religious issue01:15:37
That was what caused the disruption in their relationship01:15:40
And I think it's an extremely interesting historical occurrence and it might be of profound significance01:15:47
freud believed that the fundamental myths of the human being was the Oedipal myth, and the Eda pole myths01:15:54
From a broader perspective is a failed hero story, so the Oedipal myth is the myth of a man who?01:16:01
Develops who grows up, but then01:16:04
accidentally01:16:05
becomes too close to his mother sleeps with her. He doesn't know who she is and as a consequence blinds himself and there's a01:16:14
There's a there's a warning about human development gone wrong in that story01:16:18
and I think that freud put his finger on it extraordinarily well because01:16:23
human beings have a very long period Of dependency and one of the things that you do see in clinical practice is that01:16:30
many People's problems are01:16:34
Associated with their inability to break free of their family like they're consumed by the family drama right they can't get Beyond01:16:41
What happened to them in their family?01:16:43
They're stuck in the past. It's and that's01:16:46
That's equivalent symbolically speaking you might say to the idea of being too close to your mother of01:16:52
the Boundaries being01:16:54
Improperly specified and that happens far more often than anyone would like to think01:16:59
As I said freud thought it was a universal01:17:03
but Jung01:17:05
See he had a different idea and his idea was that it wasn't the failed hero story. That was the universal human myth01:17:11
it was the successful hero story, and that's a big difference like it's seriously a big difference because01:17:20
the successful Hero's story is01:17:22
Remembering sleeping beauty you may remember this in the disney movie01:17:26
The Evil queen traps the prince in a dungeon, and she's not going to let him out till he's old right01:17:31
And so there's this comical scene where she's down in the dungeon. He's all in chains, and she's laughing at him01:17:38
telling him what his future is going to be like it's quite evil and01:17:42
you know she01:17:43
Paints this wonderful picture of him being freed in like 80 years and hobbling out of the castle on his his horse01:17:49
That's old it can barely stand up in him with Grey hair and you know she and she recites this story of his eventual01:17:56
Triumphant departure from the castle as a old and decrepit man and she has a great laugh about it, and it's nice01:18:03
You know it's a real punchy story. It's really something wonderful for children. That's story and01:18:10
he gets free of the of01:18:13
the01:18:15
Shackles and the things that free em are three little female fairies?01:18:18
It's the positive aspect of the feminine that frees him from the dungeon, so it's very interesting and very accurate from a psychological perspective01:18:26
it's the negative element of the feminine that encapsulates him in the dungeon and suppose development of the feminine would freeze him and01:18:32
and then he has a the queen the evil queen is not very happy when he01:18:37
Escapes, you may remember that she stands on top of her castle tower and starts to spin off Cosmic Sparks01:18:44
I mean, she's quite the creature01:18:45
enveloped in flame, and then she turns into a dragon and she then the prince has to fight with her in order to01:18:53
Make contact with sleeping beauty and and awaken her from her01:18:58
comatose existence as her unconscious existence and01:19:05
That's a brilliant, It's a brilliant representation of a successful hero myth. He01:19:12
He doesn't end up01:19:15
staying in an unholy relationship with his mother let's say he escapes and01:19:22
then conquers the worst thing that can be imagined and01:19:27
Is Noble by that and not as a consequence, He's able to wake the slumbering feminine from its coma and01:19:35
That's a Jungian story01:19:36
And that's the story that he juxtaposed against freud see freud thought of religious phenomena01:19:42
As part of an occult tide that would be they would drown rational rationality01:19:48
that's why freud was so dominant Lee anti-religious and01:19:52
Jung thought no01:19:54
It's not the case you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's something profound and01:20:00
Central to the Hero myth and Jungian Clinical work01:20:05
is essentially the awakening of the hero myth in the01:20:11
analysand in the in the client or in the patient to01:20:14
conceptualize yourself as that which can confront Chaos and triumph and that that's associated with an01:20:21
ennobling of the of consciousness and the establishment of01:20:25
proper positive relationships between male and female and01:20:30
You know I'm a skeptical person01:20:33
I'm a very very skeptical person and I've01:20:36
Tried with every trick. I have to put a01:20:40
Lever underneath Jung story and lift it up and and disrupt it and I I can't do it I01:20:47
Think he was right and that freud was wrong. I mean I have great respect for freud01:20:50
I think he got the program problem diagnosed very very nicely and in my clinical work I01:20:56
See the phenomena that freud described emerged continually constantly that the best if you're interested in that01:21:03
There's a documentary you should watch. I may have mentioned it before01:21:06
I think it's the best documentary ever made certainly the best one01:21:09
I've ever seen it's called crumb01:21:11
And it's about an underground cartoonist Robert crumb who who is part of a hippie movement and although he hated hippies01:21:19
He was part of the hippie movement in the 60s in San Francisco and started the entire underground comic01:21:25
What? culture that manifested itself eventually in in01:21:29
graphic novels, there's quite a01:21:32
significant figure01:21:33
from the perspective of popular art and a very very intelligent man and01:21:38
Also, I would say a hero although a very bent and depraved and warped one01:21:43
Someone very acutely aware of his own shadow and the documentary outlines his attempts to escape from his01:21:52
absolutely dreadful mother and01:21:54
The failure of his two brothers to do the same thing01:21:57
one of whom01:21:58
Ended up as a street beggar in San Francisco the other who drank furniture polish and died six months after the documentary was produced01:22:04
It's an unbelievably shocking01:22:07
documentary it's the only piece of01:22:10
Film that I've ever seen that captures01:22:14
Freudian Pathology I've never seen anything because you can't see it. Generally unless you're in a clinical01:22:20
Situation unless you know the details of someone's lives the personal intimate details you cannot communicate it01:22:26
but the01:22:27
documentarist who made the film01:22:29
Who's Robert zwigoff if I remember correctly was a friend of the crumbs and so he got access in a way that no one else?01:22:35
Would have and they were also very forthright and forthcoming about their situation in general01:22:39
I would highly recommend that it's it's a real punch if you want to know how a rapist thinks01:22:46
Like if actually want to know because maybe you don't want to know in fact you probably don't want to know01:22:52
Right because do you really want to know that?01:22:54
Because the understand that means to put yourself in that position and to understand it if you really want to know how a serial sexual01:23:01
Predator thinks and why if you watch crumb and you pay attention?01:23:06
you'll know and01:23:07
That's only a tiny bit of what the film has to offer. It's really quite remarkable01:23:14
anyways01:23:18
Jung split with freud on the issue of01:23:23
Beautiful story as the fundamental myth of humankind and on the issue of the validity01:23:30
of the religious Viewpoint and01:23:33
Jung came down heavily on the side of the validity of the religious Viewpoint and he established that in a book called symbols of01:23:40
Transformation which was written in 1914 and that's the book that broke that produced the break01:23:45
permanent split with freud and that book I01:23:49
Would say that books actually been written three times01:23:53
it was written as symbols of four times written in symbols of transformation which jung01:23:57
extensively revised when he was all and then it was rewritten in his innocence by a student of Jung's called01:24:04
Erich Neumann who is also something someone I would really recommend Erich Neumann I think is Jung's greatest student and01:24:12
He wrote two books. He wrote one called the origins and history of consciousness01:24:15
Which is a description of the development of consciousness out of unconsciousness01:24:20
Using the hero myth as a...01:24:24
what would you say? as a as an interpretive Skeleton, so Neumann viewed the hero myth as01:24:31
The dramatized story of the emergence of human consciousness out of the surrounding01:24:36
Unconsciousness in which it was embedded the struggle for consciousness the struggle of consciousness upward towards the light like a lotus flower01:24:44
Struggles up through the muck and and the water to to lay itself on the surface of the01:24:49
Water and bloom and reveal the Buddha which is of course what the lotus flower does from the symbolic perspective?01:24:56
for Neumann01:24:57
The Hero's story was the story of the development success development of consciousness and the origins of consciousness01:25:03
The origins and history of consciousness is a great book01:25:07
interestingly01:25:08
Camille Paglia wrote read01:25:11
The origins and history of consciousness. She's one of the few01:25:15
Mainstream intellectuals that I've ever encountered who read that and commented on it and she believed that it would be sufficient01:25:23
antidote to postmodern denigration of literature, she thought it was that powerful of work and I01:25:32
Believe that I I think it's a remarkable01:25:34
Book carl jung wrote the foreword to that book and he said in the foreword that it was the book that he wished he would01:25:40
Have written so sort of like Jung he. Wrote I don't remember how many volumes01:25:46
dozens of very thick difficult volumes was like Neumann was able to01:25:53
What? Distill those into a single01:25:56
volume statement01:25:57
And so I would also say if you're interested in Jung the best book to read is the origins and history of consciousness01:26:02
It's the best intro into into the Jungian world seems very difficult to01:26:08
very difficult to understand it requires a real shift of perspective in order to understand what he's talking about and01:26:16
Neumann wrote another book called the great mother01:26:18
Which is a little bit more specialized in some sense01:26:22
but it's also extremely interesting because it flashes out the archetype of Chaos and01:26:27
It's representation as feminine. It's a brilliant book as well, and01:26:32
highly worth Highly worth reading both those books01:26:36
anyways01:26:38
Young was a very strange person and a visionary and and01:26:42
So he that's kept him outside of01:26:45
The academic realm almost entirely I mean I was constantly warned as an undergraduate, and then a graduate student and then a professor01:26:52
against ever talking about jung in any way whatsoever01:26:57
When I went on the job market when I was at McGill when I had graduated from McGill01:27:01
I'd done my scientific research in alcoholism, and I had a fairly Lengthy publication record01:27:06
That was pure empirical research and really neural01:27:10
physiological research01:27:12
into the pharmacology of alcoholism and I01:27:16
established a reasonably solid01:27:19
dossier of publications01:27:21
but at the same time I was writing this book that became maps of meaning and sorry split my time and graduate student school between01:27:27
these two endeavors one very01:27:30
Specifically neurological and pharmacological and really biologically based on the other very01:27:36
Abstract religious symbolic psychoanalytic01:27:39
The complete opposite, but I could see that the two things01:27:43
overlapped really nicely and there was a number of01:27:46
Scientists at the time that were also drawing the same01:27:49
conclusions the same01:27:50
Relationship between the biology and the psychoanalysis jacques panksepp who wrote a book called effective neuroscience which is a great classic is01:27:59
one of those people who who saw the01:28:02
relationship between the Neurobiology of emotion and motivation and the psychoanalytic insights01:28:07
Never became a mainstream view but I think it's too complex01:28:10
I think that bridging the gap between the biology and and the symbolic is too much for people generally speaking01:28:17
You know it was certainly virtually too much for me because I got quite ill when I was a graduate student I think01:28:22
for a variety of reasons01:28:24
I also like with glug party three nights a week, and so that probably had something to do with it, but01:28:30
But working on those two things simultaneously was also rather exhausting now01:28:36
Jung01:28:37
Was a tremendously insightful clinician01:28:39
And he was a strange person introverted visionary01:28:42
High in introversion very very very very very high in openness like off-the-charts and also God only knows what his IQ was I mean01:28:50
Every time I read you it's like reading Nietzsche01:28:52
It's terrifying because you know he's so damn smart that he can think up01:28:57
Answers to questions that you don't even it's not like you don't understand the answers they never conceptualized the damn questions01:29:03
It's really something to read someone like that right who says well01:29:07
Here's the mystery and you think wow I never thought of that as a mystery and here's the solution. It's like okay. That's that's01:29:15
That's something you know and he could read Greek and he could read01:29:19
He read all the ancient... He read a very large variety of ancient languages and was very familiar with the entire corpus of01:29:27
astrological thought and of alchemical thought and of01:29:32
classic literature and biblical stories, and I mean educated in a way that no one is educated now and01:29:40
So he's very daunting person to encounter and terrifying absolutely terrifying his book ion01:29:47
which is the second volume of01:29:50
it's the second volume of Volume 9 which is the archetypes of the collective unconscious that damn book is just01:29:55
Absolutely terrifying because jung is one of these visionaries who can see?01:29:59
Way underneath the social structures and look at patterns that are developing across for in Jung's case across01:30:05
Thousands of years and lays them out and so that's a really that's really something to to encounter ion is a terrifying book01:30:15
anyways one01:30:17
Question might be well because I read Jung and I think how the hell did he know these things how could he figure these things?01:30:21
Out I can't understand how he could possibly know these things01:30:26
Well, here's a partial answer01:30:29
Jung01:30:31
Was a visionary and so what that means as far as I can tell and like we could do a little quick survey here01:30:38
How many of you think you think in words?01:30:41
Put up your hands. Do you think in words?01:30:44
Ok so it looks like what about pictures. How many of you think in pictures?01:30:49
Ok so that's interesting how many of you think that's about half and half by the way probably a few err on the word side01:30:54
How many of you think in pictures and words?01:30:58
Ok and so alright, so it was Roughly 1/3 in each category01:31:02
But that's also something that I really haven't encountered any research on01:31:07
from the neuropsychological perspective, it's like01:31:10
Well, do you think in pictures or do you think in words and and is that actually a reliable distinction?01:31:15
I think I think in words01:31:17
Most of the time, but I can think in pictures like if I'm trying to build something I can think in pictures very01:31:23
Almost instantaneously, but it isn't my natural mode of thinking01:31:26
I'm hyper verbal and so my natural mode of thinking is to think everything through in words01:31:31
But I know my wife isn't like that. She thinks and images and then has to translate them into words and so01:31:37
Anyways, you was very literate, and he could really think in words01:31:41
but he could really think in images also talking to my wife quite extensively like her the01:31:47
intensity of her visualization vastly exceeds mine01:31:51
So for example if I close my eyes and then try to imagine the crowd in front of me01:31:54
it's pretty low resolution and vague and not brilliantly colored and vivid you know it's it's it's01:32:02
Like I'm seeing through a glass darkly. Let's say01:32:05
I can't bring images to mind with that with spectacular clarity01:32:08
but my wife is very good at that and you seem to be absolutely a01:32:13
Genius at that kind of thinking and he had a lot of visionaries in his family history as well01:32:18
So I don't know to what degree there's a hereditary component of that01:32:21
And I don't know to what degree that's actually like a neurological specialization. I presume it would be associated with01:32:28
the trait Openness01:32:31
Distinguishes itself differentiates itself into interesting ideas and interest in aesthetics01:32:35
And my suspicion are is that the people who are more interested in aesthetics are the visionary types the ones that think in images.01:32:41
Anyways Jung could really think in images and he could imagine01:32:45
beings and I had a client once who was a lucid dreamer and01:32:51
How many of you had lucid dream? So you know you're dreaming? Well you well you're okay many01:32:56
That's that phenomena wasn't really even even identified as a phenomena until the end of the 19th century01:33:03
There was a book written about it that01:33:05
freud tried to get his hands on but couldn't because it was a very rare book and then there was a01:33:11
researcher about 30 years ago who started to study lucid dreams01:33:14
But anyways, I had a client who was a lucid dreamer and one of the things she could do was01:33:19
Ask her dream characters what01:33:22
Information they were trying to convey and they would tell her.01:33:26
So that was very interesting; and one of the consequences of that was I don't have this story completely right in my memory01:33:34
But it's close enough01:33:35
She was afraid of a very large number of things and in her dream. I think it was a gypsy01:33:42
Standing by a wagon told her that if she was going to be successful in university01:33:49
that she would have to visit the slaughterhouse and01:33:53
That was something that was way beyond her capacity of tolerate she was a vegetarian01:33:58
she couldn't stand the sight of raw meat even and so and01:34:02
She was very oppressed and depressed and anxious because of the slaughterhouse nature of existence and so her dream01:34:09
focused on that and01:34:12
One of the consequences of that because the slaughterhouse was out of the question as a clinical intervention01:34:18
I01:34:19
Took her to an embalming01:34:22
Right because because I asked her I asked her what what?01:34:26
What might be equivalent to that and so she suggested that and you know exposure therapy is a hallmark of Clinical psychology?01:34:33
right one of the things you do with people as a clinician is you find out what they're afraid of and01:34:39
You gradually and voluntarily expose them to that and that cures them and that's associated with the hero myth, right?01:34:45
It's exactly the same thing. It's like. There's a dragon01:34:48
It's stopping you because there's lots of dragons most of them aren't stopping you. You can ignore them01:34:53
You don't have to just go you know slash away it randomly01:34:57
You're not supposed to be fighting dragons that aren't in your way, but if they are in your way01:35:01
You can't ignore them and then you decompose them into sub dragons01:35:04
And you have people you know take them on and as they take them on01:35:08
They dispense with the dragon and they gain the power of the drag. It's like a video game01:35:13
Actually a video game is like that. That's why people like the video games. Well, that's right, right?01:35:17
There's a reason that you absorb power when you overcome things when you play a video game. It's not like that's01:35:24
Intrinsic to the video game structure, that's an archetypal idea01:35:27
Anyways, we went and saw an embalmbng which was a very interesting01:35:32
experience and01:35:34
and01:35:35
quite quite useful for her because she knew what she could tolerate after that and it was a hell of a lot more than she01:35:42
Thought she could tolerate and so that's very useful to know01:35:46
Back to Jung01:35:48
He's a visionary thinker now my client. I said she could lucid dream, and she could ask her dream01:35:57
characters01:35:58
What they wanted and what they were trying to communicate to her so that was pretty interesting01:36:02
That happens spontaneously had nothing to do with me01:36:05
I mean, I'm interested in dreams and many of my clients are great dreamers01:36:09
Especially the creative ones because I think it's a hallmark of creativity to have vivid dreams and to be able to remember them01:36:14
But that was a faculty that was natural to her01:36:20
Jung01:36:22
Had this other client at One time at one point01:36:25
And she had a variety of fears and she had this dream that01:36:29
She told me and she was walking down a beach01:36:32
And on the side of the beach up a dune a small dune01:36:35
there was this old man with a snake a big python, and there's a crowd around him and01:36:41
she was walking by the01:36:43
Snake handler and the snake in the crowd and she didn't want to have anything to do with them01:36:47
he was sort of showing people the snake and01:36:50
She told me that dream, and I thought well. You know you probably need to go see that snake01:36:55
and so I01:36:57
Relaxed hers quasi hypnotic technique, and it's very straightforward01:37:01
Hypnosis is generally nothing but01:37:04
pronounced relaxation well you have to be susceptible to hypnosis to actually fall into a hypnotic trance as a01:37:09
Consequence of being relaxed I just relaxed her01:37:12
I had her breathe deeply and pay attention to different parts of her body and just relax her muscles01:37:17
One by one essentially so that she could concentrate and then I told her we play with the dream a little bit01:37:23
It's a Jungian technique said well, so call the dream image to mind which she could do quite well said okay01:37:29
So let's let's explore it. It's like pretend. It's like pretend play01:37:34
You know if you're a kid in your pretend playing you don't exactly direct the game right you you play the game?01:37:41
So it's partly your direction obviously because you're the player01:37:45
But the thing also happens spontaneously01:37:47
Out of its own accord and you can think about that as a dialogue between the conscious mind in the unconscious mind in some sense01:37:53
It's a developmental dialogue. It's not a fun game. If you just direct it. It's only a fun game if01:37:59
you're inviting and something is well as a consequence the same thing that happens when you're01:38:04
You're engaged in some kind of artistic or literary production if it's all top down01:38:09
You know if you're forcing it then it's Propaganda01:38:12
It's empty what you want to sort of put yourself in a receptive state of mind in an imaginative state of mind01:38:17
And it's sort of half you in half01:38:20
Nature itself01:38:22
Manifesting itself in your creative imagination, and that was the sort of state that we were striving for, and she, I01:38:30
Asked her when she was in relaxed. I said well, what do you think about the snake handler and she said well?01:38:35
He's probably a Charlatan and he's just their turn to impress the crowd and to show off and she was afraid to go up there01:38:40
Because she thought people would push her towards the snake and she'd have to touch it01:38:43
And so there was a fear of the crowd issue going on there too, and I said well, just look go up there01:38:49
About do it under these conditions. Is that you know if people get pushy01:38:53
What are you going to tell them and so we figured out something said look?01:38:57
Just tell them that01:38:59
You know you want to01:39:00
look at the snake at your own pace and that you don't need any encouragement or help and it would be good if you01:39:05
Were just left alone so that enabled her to defend yourself01:39:08
so she was afraid that the crowd would push her to do something that01:39:12
She didn't want to do that was part of the theme of the dream01:39:15
So anyway she01:39:16
Eventually climbed the dune in her imagination01:39:18
And went into the crowd and the crowd turned out to be quite welcoming and not hostile and not pushy01:39:22
Which isn't what you'd expect right because the you'd think the crowd would have,01:39:27
Reacted in accordance with her fears since it was her fantasy, but that's the thing about fantasies. They have this autonomous quality01:39:34
But the crowd was welcoming and not hostile and it turned out that the snake handler wasn't a Charlatan01:39:39
He was just an old guy who had this snake and he was out there01:39:42
just showing it to people because he thought it was a cool thing and and01:39:46
And that maybe it was good for people to come and look at a snake and so she got close enough to the snake to01:39:52
touch it and so01:39:54
So I'm telling you that because I want you to understand a bit more about what jung was trying to do and so01:39:59
He wrote these books01:40:02
notebooks that haven't been published yet called the black books and the black books are the01:40:08
documentation of his experiments with his imagination01:40:11
and01:40:12
What he would do is he dream like a child daydreams. He regained that faculty although01:40:18
I think with Jung it was a faculty that had never really disappeared and01:40:22
he had figures of imagination that came to him that he could speak with and01:40:28
He spoke with these figures of imagination and documented that over a very long period of time, and that was originally that was01:40:36
eventually01:40:39
Distilled into a book called the red book which was published about three or four years ago01:40:44
and it was a book that jung regarded as the01:40:49
Central source from which all his inspiration01:40:53
emerged01:40:55
it was sort of the way it looks to me is that01:40:59
we embody a lot of information in our action right and our action has01:41:05
Developed as a consequence of imitating other people and not only the people the people around us01:41:11
But of course the people around us imitated the people who came before them and those people imitated the people who came before them01:41:16
And so on so far back that it's as far back as you can go and so you embody these patterns of behavior that are01:41:24
Extremely informative that you don't understand that are a consequence of collective imitation across the centuries and so then those01:41:31
patterns can become manifest as figures of the imagination and those figures of01:41:37
imagination are the distillation of patterns of behavior and01:41:42
so as01:41:43
The distillation of patterns of behavior they have content and it's not you that content. It's you could even think about it as content01:41:51
That's evolves although01:41:52
It's culturally transmitted this01:41:54
content that's evolved and so these figures of the imagination can reveal the structure of reality to you and01:42:01
That's what happened with jung, and that's what he described in the red book, and that was what permeated his01:42:06
psychology, A01:42:08
Psychology that was based on the presupposition01:42:11
That the fundamental archetypal structures of religious belief were not01:42:17
pathological not deceitful not01:42:20
Protective in some delusional sense against the fear of death, but quite the contrary the very stories that in01:42:27
enabled us to move forward as01:42:31
confident human beings in the face of Chaos itself01:42:35
And it's conceivable. I think perhaps probable01:42:40
That nothing more important01:42:43
Conceptually happened in the 20th century than that01:42:48
Because it was the first time01:42:50
post enlightenment01:42:52
that a rapprochement between01:42:54
the intellect and the underlying01:42:57
religious archetypal sub structure01:42:59
Occurred you have in the capacious intellect of young the same thing happened to some degree with Piaget01:43:07
the religious domain and the factual domain were brought back together and01:43:12
the fact of Jung's enduring and01:43:15
Increasing popularity and influence, I would say is a direct consequence of that now01:43:23
some of his work was spun off into the new age and01:43:27
And the new age is a very optimistic and naive movement01:43:31
It's predicated on the idea that you can do nothing say, but follow your bliss and that will take you01:43:37
Ever higher to enlightenment, and that's not the Jungian idea at all01:43:43
the Jungian idea is that01:43:46
What you most need will be found where you least want to look01:43:50
So there's this story king arthur01:43:52
There's this story of king arthur that they're all in a round table right king arthur and his knights. They're all equals. They're all01:43:58
superordinate, but they're all equals and they go off to look for the holy Grail and01:44:02
The holy Grail is the container of the redemptive substance whatever that is01:44:09
It might be the cup that christ used at the last supper might be01:44:14
Chalice that was used to capture his blood on the cross right when he was pierced by a sword the stories differ01:44:20
But that's the holy grail and the holy grail is lost01:44:22
that's the redemptive substance and the knights of king arthur go off to search for the holy Grail and01:44:28
But they don't know where to look01:44:30
So where do you look when you don't know where to look for something you need?01:44:35
desperately01:44:36
But have lost01:44:38
well each of the knights goes into the forest at the point of the Darkest to him and01:44:43
That's Jungian psychoanalysis in a nutshell01:44:47
It's like that which you fear and avoid that's what you hold in contempt that which disgusts you and that you avoid01:44:54
That's the Gateway to what you need to know01:44:58
There's nothing new age about that. That's for sure01:45:03
Now Jung when he started this endeavor, He started with this this is part of the notebooks from the black book he said01:45:12
He wrote my soul01:45:14
For my soul. Where are you? Do you hear me? I speak I call you are you there?01:45:20
I've returned I'm01:45:22
Here again, I've Shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I've come to you. I am with you01:45:29
After long years of long wandering I have come to you again01:45:35
for the Jungians the01:45:37
Hero's journey is a journey within and and I think that that's probably01:45:42
the01:45:44
Bias of introverts to believe that the Hero's journey isn't only an inward Journey01:45:49
I think that it can be an outward journey too because I don't think it matters where you confront the unknown whether it's within or01:45:56
Without what matters is whether or not you confront the unknown. That's what matters01:46:07
But he found that what he had ignored01:46:10
Was an undiscovered part of himself so that might be something that was equivalent to huxley's01:46:16
Notion that there were tremendous01:46:19
Tremendous Potential breath in the realm of human Conscious experience and Huxley was influenced to some degree by Jung01:46:26
now Jung knew of Huxley's experiments and had commented on psychedelic use and he said something like01:46:33
Beware of wisdom you did not earn and01:46:37
Jung was very good at stating things very profoundly very simply and that's a very intelligent piece of advice Beware of01:46:44
Wisdom you did not earn he wrote a paper01:46:47
If you're interested in this sort of thing he wrote a paper be called the relations between the ego and the unconscious01:46:53
Which is an absolute masterwork, but completely incomprehensible unless you know what it unless you know what it's about01:46:59
And what it's about is the danger of what he called ego inflation01:47:04
And so one of the things that can happen as a consequence of a revelatory experience is01:47:09
that the01:47:11
Division between the individual ego and and and what would you call it?01:47:16
So hard to come up with a word that isn't01:47:19
somehow naive or01:47:21
or cliched01:47:24
To erase the relationship the boundary between the specific consciousness of the ego and the more generalized01:47:32
consciousness01:47:33
And more generalized consciousness as such is01:47:37
A dangerous thing to do because you can start to equate yourself your specific self with that more generalized01:47:45
consciousness as such and Jung thought about that is it something akin to a psychotic inflation and01:47:51
the paper relations between the ego and the unconscious is a document that tells you how to avoid that if you're01:48:02
playing in this kind of realm and01:48:05
one of the01:48:07
Injunctions is to keep your feet on the ground01:48:10
He thought that was what partly what happened to Nietzsche was that Nietzsche wasn't grounded enough in life01:48:16
He wasn't grounded enough in Day-To-day rituals and routines and the mundane now you could debate whether or not01:48:22
That's the case whether or not that's a reasonable argument, but that was still what Jung believed01:48:28
Okay, so why am I telling you all this?01:48:33
I'll finish with this from December 1913 onward jung carried on in the same procedure01:48:38
Deliberately evoke a fantasy in a waking state01:48:41
And then entering into it as a drama these fantasies may be understood as a type of dramatized thinking in pictorial form in01:48:48
Retrospect he recalled that his scientific question was to see what took place when he switched off consciousness01:48:54
the example of dreams indicated the01:48:56
existence of background activity01:48:58
And he wanted to give this a possibility of emerging just as one does when taking mescaline. These journals are jung's contemporary?01:49:05
Contemporaneous clinical ledger to his most difficult experiment or what later describes as a voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world?01:49:14
You'll believe that we were dreaming all the time01:49:16
but that during waking life the pressure of external images was such that the01:49:23
Unconscious fantasy imagery was or that the fantasy imagery was of insufficient magnitude to be conscious01:49:30
But that we were always situated in a dream in relationship to the world01:49:35
so01:49:44
When we started talking about01:49:47
The creation of the universe at the beginning of the genesis stories, I spent quite a long time setting the stage for the stories because01:49:56
There's no point in having a conversation about the God who gives rise to being01:50:01
Unless you have some sense of what that might conceivably mean to the modern mind, and I felt the same way about01:50:08
the Abrahamic stories is I couldn't get a handle on them01:50:12
Until I could understand and articulate more clearly01:50:16
What it might mean?01:50:18
how a modern person might understand a01:50:23
direct experience of God in the first question would be01:50:27
is such a thing possible and the answer to that seems to be a01:50:31
Qualified yes, first of all it's a universal human experience. That's a very strange thing01:50:36
It's not something that people have made up as freud might have it as a defense against death. It's not a tenable hypothesis01:50:43
it's a realm of potential experience now that experience doesn't necessarily have to have the01:50:50
Judeo-Christian content that we've been discussing quite the contrary there are01:50:54
Manifestations of this these alternative forms of consciousness all over the world that take on their own peculiar forms although01:51:00
They're patterned to some degree01:51:01
that's like the hero myth for example of myth of the fight against the dragon seems to be unbelievably widespread and01:51:07
So it's not as if it's random01:51:13
Sorry, I should just see what time it is here01:51:21
But there's not much point in having a discussion about what happens to abraham01:51:26
Unless you can conceptualize it in terms that are amenable to modern skeptical consciousness01:51:32
So we can establish the proposition that01:51:35
Mystical experience is not only possible It's quite common01:51:38
and It's inducible in a variety of ways and the manner in which it's inducible is reliable and there's no evidence as well that it's pathological01:51:45
In fact there's a fair bit of evidence that the patterns of behavior that are associated with the mystical experience are01:51:52
core elements of proper Human adaptation in the world01:52:19
The abrahamic stories open up with a manifest God now I'm going to read you some things from Friedman who wrote the disappearance of God01:52:28
He was trying to look at the underlying structure of the stories now. You know Friedman noted that01:52:33
The books in the old testament were written by a lot of different people01:52:37
At very different times and then they were sequenced by other people for reasons that we don't exactly understand01:52:46
But there's still an underlying narrative01:52:48
There's multiple underlying narrative unities despite the fact of that rather arbitrary sequencing, and that's a strange thing01:52:56
You know I guess you could say01:52:58
If you had a collection of ancient books and you were trying to put them together you'd try to put them together in some way01:53:03
that made sense01:53:05
right and it wouldn't make sense unless you stumbled across some kind of underlying narrative that allowed you to order them and01:53:11
So it's not entirely surprising that that they're ordered in a manner that's comprehensible, but01:53:17
Friedman's comments on the Underlying narrative structure01:53:22
part of it was01:53:23
well, we'll go through this the books of the old testament were composed by a great many authors according to both traditional religious views in01:53:29
Modern Critical scholarship the phenomenon of the diminishing apparent presence of God across so many stories01:53:35
Through so many books by so many authors spread over so many centuries is01:53:40
Consistent enough to be striking impressive and ultimately mysterious01:53:45
But the hiding of the divine face is only half the story01:53:48
There's another development also extending across the course of the entire narrative of the Hebrew Bible01:53:53
which we must see before we can appreciate the full force of this phenomena and01:53:58
before we can pose a solution to the mystery of this of how this happened gradually from01:54:02
Genesis to Ezra and Esther there is a transition from Divine to human responsibility for life on Earth01:54:09
the story begins in Genesis with God in complete control of the creation01:54:13
But by the end humans have arrived at a stage at which in all apparent ways they have responsibility for the fate of the world01:54:20
the first two human beings01:54:24
Adam and Eve. Take little responsibility themselves they do not design or build anything when they're embarrassed over there nudity01:54:31
They do not make clothes they cover themselves with leaves. It's God who makes their first clothing for them01:54:38
Noah01:54:39
By no means a fully developed personality Noah is not an everyman either broadly speaking01:54:44
He reflects a step Beyond Adam and eve in human character and responsibility01:54:49
Abraham01:54:50
Beyond the counts of Divine commands that abraham does carry out the narrative also includes a variety of stories in Which abraham01:54:57
Acts on his own initiative he divides land with his nephew lot01:55:00
He battles kings he takes concubines he argues with his wife Sarah on two occasions01:55:05
he tells kings that Sarah is his sister out of fear that they will kill him to get his wife and01:55:10
He arranges in son's marriage in the place of the single story of Noah's drunkenness01:55:15
There are in the case of Abraham the stories of man's life01:55:18
The Abraham section thus develops the personality and character of a man a man01:55:22
To a new degree in biblical narrative while picturing in him a new degree of responsibility it is not just that Abraham is kind lured01:55:29
Kinder gentler More Intrepid more ethical or a better debater than his ancestor, Noah?01:55:34
Rather both the Noah and the Abraham stories are pieces of a development of an increasingly stronger stance of humans relative to the deity01:55:41
Before the story is over humans will become a great deal stronger and bolder than abraham01:55:55
I don't know what that means you know01:55:59
see01:56:01
It isn't it is certainly the case that01:56:04
the individual exists in the Modern world the differentiated01:56:08
Self-Aware self conscious individual and it's certainly the case that that wasn't the case at some point in the past and01:56:14
So it's the case that there's been a development01:56:17
I don't know if you could call it a progression01:56:19
But a development of the autonomous individual over some span of historical time now01:56:25
We don't know how long that's been but my suspicions are it hasn't been that long01:56:30
I mean,01:56:33
I read once01:56:36
about a neolithic ceremony that involved the particular placement of a bear skull in a cave, and then I read that and01:56:45
They had found these placements in caves that were at least 25,000 years old01:56:50
And then I read that they found caves in Japan among the Ainu who were01:56:54
the indigenous inhabitants of Japanese territory and Rather Archaic people who01:56:59
Had the same ceremony with the bear and that put the skull in the same orientation01:57:04
And place in caves and that that tradition remained unbroken for about 25,000 years01:57:09
And you think:01:57:11
Well is it possible for an oral or ritual tradition to remain unbroken for?01:57:15
Spans of tens of thousands of years and the answer to that is not only is it possible. It's actually the norm01:57:21
because like01:57:22
One Chimpanzee is like the next chimpanzee right in the in the progression in the biological01:57:28
Progression if you took a chimpanzee troop now, and he went back 25,000 years and you looked at a chimpanzee troop01:57:33
It'd be the same thing. There's no historical progression01:57:36
That's how you can tell the chimps really don't have culture01:57:39
Because it's bigger it could even accrete one one thousandth of a percent of culture transmissible culture per generation01:57:46
It wouldn't take more than about a million years before01:57:48
They'd have a whole civilization01:57:49
And they don't they're the same as they were and so the continuity the stability and unchanging nature of the species01:57:59
Essentially speaking is the rule that the variant is us01:58:03
It's like what the hell happened after the last ice age01:58:07
fifteen thousand years ago01:58:09
We went from Tribal01:58:11
Uniform stable to whatever the hell. We are now it's this transition from01:58:18
Generic to specific, it's something like that, and I can't help but think that that's reflective in this text01:58:23
and it has something to do with this transition of consciousness from01:58:28
From what from possession by the Generic divine to dominance by the specific individual?01:58:34
It's something like that. Is that a neurological transformation?01:58:37
is that what this is a record of being that we don't know one of the things young said about God because01:58:44
Humans relationship with God as an object of belief is very complex01:58:51
He in his technical writing01:58:53
He always talks about the image of God he never talks about God he talks about the image of God01:58:57
He said that the image of God dwells within that's not the same thing as God dwelling within right we could mean all of these01:59:05
Capacities that we have for transcended consciousness could be a byproduct of biological evolution they could have no reflection01:59:11
They could have no relationship whatsoever to an actual transcendent reality01:59:16
There's no way of telling the transcendent reality seems to manifest itself as an element of experience01:59:22
But that doesn't mean that it has in reality outside of the subjective01:59:25
even if it's even if it exists as it is it clearly does but01:59:41
Friedman suggests that what's happening in the biblical narrative is the sequential emergence of the individual as a redemptive?01:59:48
Force and01:59:50
that the old testament documents that01:59:53
implicitly unconsciously as a consequence of01:59:57
Descriptive fantasy and that that's what's going on in the book and that02:00:02
so the cosmos is under the control of02:00:06
Generic Deity to begin with something like that and then that control shifts to02:00:13
localized identifiable02:00:15
increasingly personal and detailed individuals02:00:19
you see that in Noah, and then you see the neighbor ham and then you Moses and02:00:24
Then there's this working out of what it would mean to be a fully developed individual, and that's what these stories. They're...02:00:32
They're like prototype, they're attempts to...02:00:36
To bring about the proper mode of being right and so Abraham is a is a manifestation about because he enters into a covenant with02:00:42
God he's selected by God or enters into a partnership with God. It's not exactly obvious. God02:00:49
provides him with forward motion and intuition and02:00:53
Leads them towards a successful mode of being and it's complex successful mode of being cuz Abraham is a very complex life02:01:00
There's plenty of ups and downs right it's it's not02:01:03
unbroken02:01:06
purity of being02:01:07
Towards a divine and abraham lies and cheats and deceives and does all sorts of things that that a real person would do and02:01:14
And moses for example kills someone and so these people that the biblical people are very02:01:20
Genuine individuals, but they're given with all their faults right with all their sins with all their deceit02:01:26
They're still put forth as potential modes of proper models of potential02:01:32
proper being in the world and the entire corpus of the02:01:35
Bible seems to be nothing but an attempt to keep throwing up variants of the02:01:41
Personality trying to experiment to find out what personality works in the world02:01:48
of course from a Christian perspective that culminates in the figure of christ as the redemptive word and that's02:01:54
associated as we've already talked about with the force that brought order out of Chaos at the beginning of time and02:02:02
so02:02:05
well, that's my attempt to02:02:08
provide proper context for the understanding of the abrahamic stories02:02:13
And so hopefully with that context we can move forward02:02:18
being able to02:02:20
swallow the camel so to speak of the initial presence of God in the stories and02:02:27
So we'll return to all of that next week02:02:48
Let's wait one second. Okay till people02:02:52
Have an opportunity to leave02:02:53
I would very much like to ask the people who are asking the questions02:02:57
To take a few seconds before they ask the question and make sure that the mic is positioned properly02:03:02
So that everyone can hear you because people keep writing and complaining that while they're very happy with the questions02:03:09
And I would say the questions have been a very high caliber so far, but they're not very happy that they can't hear them02:03:14
So I know that you know you're obviously nervous and in a hurry when you want to ask you a question02:03:19
but take a second or two to02:03:21
Set the mic up properly and make sure that everyone can hear you and so02:03:26
Have a way at it.02:03:27
"Hello Dr. Peterson"02:03:28
Hey, there we go02:03:30
"Tonight, I'd like to ask you about two different psychological disorders the first being Borderline personality disorder02:03:37
so two lectures ago02:03:39
Somebody asks you about it, and you gave a very sparse answer02:03:43
I can't remember exactly what you said, but it seemed like it was uh02:03:48
It would there was too much complexity to just answer it right there and then and then somebody else also acts02:03:54
Asked you about the same disorder in02:03:57
your patreon livestream recently and when they when they asked you that you kind of you kind of Stopped for a moment and02:04:05
Something I don't know something kind of flicked on in your head02:04:08
It seemed like and you and you thought for a couple seconds02:04:12
And then you said you know what I don't think02:04:14
That I can answer that right now because just - it's just too bloody complex, and I was wondering just like02:04:22
Many young men have gravitated towards your lectures. Do you think that there's something about this particular disorder that02:04:31
There's something about people with this particular disorder that might gravitate to your insights and your lectures"02:04:37
Okay, okay, so now I would say probably no to the second one, but I could comment more about Borderline personality disorder02:04:44
I think I have enough mental energy to do that tonight, so02:04:49
technically speaking02:04:50
It's often considered the female variant of antisocial personality disorder02:04:56
So it's it's it's it's classified02:04:58
or it's classified in the domain of externalizing disorders acting out disorders and02:05:05
I think what happens,02:05:08
We don't understand Borderline personality disorder very well, and it's characterized by02:05:13
Tremendous impulsivity02:05:18
Radical confusion of identity02:05:21
and then this pattern of idealization of02:05:25
people with whom the02:05:28
person afflicted with the disorder is02:05:31
Associating with radical idealization of those people and then radical devaluation of them02:05:36
and then there's another theme that sort of weaves along with it, which is02:05:40
the proclivity of02:05:42
people with Borderline personality disorder to presume that they will be abandoned and02:05:48
then to act in a manner that makes such abandonment virtually certain and02:05:53
So it's a very complicated02:05:56
disorder, but that I02:05:58
Think gets at the Crux of it02:06:01
One of the things that's interesting about people with Borderline personality disorder in my experience. Is that they're often02:06:08
quite intelligent and02:06:11
You you see in the person with Borderline personality02:06:14
Disorder something like the waste or the squandering of tremendous potential02:06:20
they seem capable of02:06:22
thinking through the Nature of their problems and02:06:25
analyzing it and discussing it but not capable whatsoever of implementing any solutions and02:06:41
Technically, there's no relationship between IQ and conscientiousness02:06:46
It's very weird02:06:48
because if you read the neuropsychological literature and you02:06:52
Read about the functions of the prefrontal Cortex. They're usually conceptualized in intellectual terms and02:06:57
they're associated with planning and strategizing and so forth and02:07:04
That's what conscientiousness is is planning and strategizing and implementation?02:07:08
But the correlation between IQ and conscientiousness is zero and so as the correlation between working memory and conscientiousness02:07:16
zero and Zero02:07:18
Is a very low correlation right? I mean really it's hard to find things in psychology that are correlated at zero02:07:25
Things tend to be correlated to some degree. They tend to be interrelated02:07:30
the Borderline seems to be able to strategize and to abstract but not to be able to implement and02:07:39
And so this the intellect per se seems to be functional02:07:44
But it's not embodied in action02:07:48
It's very so it can be02:07:50
frustrating to be associated with someone who has borderline personality disorder because02:07:54
They can tell you what the problem is and even tell you what the solution might be but there's no implementation02:08:03
So maybe something went wrong developmentally02:08:05
We don't know exactly how these sorts of things come about the other thing that seems to be characteristic of Borderline people with Borderline personality02:08:12
disorder is that they they remind me very much of people who are 2 years old and02:08:18
in some Manner like02:08:20
people with Borderline personality02:08:22
Disorder can have temper tantrums in fact they often do and we know now and then you see a temper tantrum02:08:27
And they're usually thrown by two-year-olds right most people go out of temper tantrums by the time they're about three02:08:33
They're very rare at four it. Which is a good thing because if they're still there at four that is not a good diagnostic predictor02:08:40
that's a actually good diagnostic predictor, but it's not the kind that you want and02:08:45
You know it's funny the way that we respond to two-year-old temper tantrums because the two-Year-old will throw themselves on the ground02:08:52
beat their hands and their legs on the floor and scream and yell and turn red or even blue02:08:57
I saw a child once who was capable of holding his breath during a temper tantrum until he turned blue02:09:02
Which was really an impressive feat you should try that right? It's really hard is you really have to work at it and02:09:09
You see that in adult borderlines. They'll have temper tantrums, and the funny thing is when a two-year-old does it it's like02:09:15
It's you know, it's little02:09:17
off-putting02:09:18
but when an adult does it it's02:09:20
Completely bloody terrifying and it happens very frequently with borderlines, and so I would also say to some degree02:09:27
they didn't get properly socialized between that critical period Of development between two and four and you02:09:33
See the same thing with adult males who grow up to the anti-social02:09:36
Because a large proportion of adult males who grow up to be antisocial are aggressive as children as two-year-Olds02:09:43
So there's a small proportion of two-Year-olds who are quite aggressive02:09:46
They'll kick and hit and bite and steal if you put them with other two-year-olds it's about five percent of the of the Male's02:09:52
Smaller fraction of the females, but most of them are socialized by the time, they're four02:09:56
but there's a small percentage who aren't and they tend to stay antisocial and they tend to turn into long term offenders and02:10:03
then attend the devel the critical period for socialization development seems to be between two and four and it seems to be mediated by02:10:10
pretend play and Rough-and-Tumble play and those sorts of mechanisms, and if it isn't instantiated by the age of four02:10:15
It doesn't happen, and it doesn't look like it's addressable now there are02:10:22
dialectic behavioural therapies that have been developed for people with borderline personality disorder, and they're purported to be successful, but02:10:31
"Okay, thank you. If I may so the second02:10:35
Psychological disorder I want to ask you about is psychopathy02:10:38
So you've mentioned that02:10:40
Psychopaths tend to switch from dominance Hierarchy to dominance Hierarchy because people get tired of their shenanigans. They have to move on to fresh people02:10:48
and02:10:49
Psychopaths also tend to be very low in conscientiousness, and you said that when you see some of these protesters02:10:56
at your speeches02:10:58
some of the men in particular,02:11:00
your02:11:01
Clinical intuition tells you that there's something seriously pathological about them and I was wondering if you would suspect02:11:09
That some of these men might be02:11:11
Psychopathic as..." well some of them likely are but I don't know if a higher proportion of the ones who show up at02:11:16
Protests and sort of creep me out02:11:18
Or I don't know if there's a higher proportion of people like that at the protests or not02:11:23
I mean02:11:24
I suspect in general that regardless of the protest the proportion of people who have personality disorders among02:11:31
Protesters is higher than the proportion of people who have personality disorders in the general02:11:36
Population because you just expect that you just expect that kind of acting out behavior. I'm not believe me02:11:42
I'm not saying that all protest is associated with personality disorder. I'm not saying that at all02:11:46
There's plenty of reason for protest02:11:48
But some of the reason for protests are02:11:50
Credible reasons and some of them aren't credible reasons that -- "I was just thinking that like the social justice02:11:56
Hierarchy so to speak would be one of the last that these02:12:00
Confusing--", that's that's that's a different issue. You know there are02:12:04
There are analysis of the dangers of agreeableness, so agreeable02:12:09
This is a personality trait that underlies the radical02:12:12
Egalitarian ethos because agreeable people want everything to be shared equally and it's a good02:12:17
I think it's a good ethos for a small group for a family because family is kind of a communist system in some sense02:12:24
Right it's like you want the food to be divided up equally among the children02:12:28
clearly and you want all the children sort of regardless of their02:12:31
Inherent abilities to have the same opportunities and perhaps even the same outcomes02:12:35
So I think agreeableness which is associated at least in part with maternal02:12:40
Maternal the Maternal Instinct let's say maternal patterns of Behavior. I think it's02:12:46
It's a good02:12:48
first Pass02:12:49
Motivational approximation to a localized familial ethic I think it's a catastrophe at larger scales02:12:55
I don't think it scales at all. I actually think that's why we evolved conscientiousness02:13:01
Because conscientiousness is the principle that allows larger scale organizations to exist agreeableness won't do it02:13:08
now02:13:09
Conscientiousness is a mystery right we don't have a neurological model02:13:13
We don't have a conceptual model02:13:15
We don't have an animal model. We don't have a pharmacological model, and we really only have one way of assessing it which is02:13:22
self and other reports of personality proclivity02:13:26
so02:13:28
anyways02:13:29
The problem with agreeableness. This has been modeled a game theorist is that a02:13:35
Population of cooperative people can be dominated by a single shark02:13:42
So agreeable this is insufficient as a principle because it opens itself up to02:13:51
you call that manipulation and02:13:54
"infiltration?"02:13:57
"I thought that was part of.. [unintelligible]"02:14:02
Manipulation let's let's leave it at that to manipulation and and and and exploitation. That's the other thing02:14:09
exploitation02:14:10
so02:14:12
"Thank you"02:14:18
"Hi, Dr. Peterson. I had one quick comment and a question so my comment was about your idea of but02:14:25
Subpersonalities as one-eyed monsters now. There's the idea of multiple personality or split personality disorder02:14:31
It's controversial as to whether or not it exists02:14:34
But there's some research recent research that suggests that you may actually have multiple personalities02:14:41
That use different parts of the brain so they have differential access to the hippocampus. They have their own memories02:14:46
They can02:14:48
they use the brain differently, but that seems to be an exaggeration of sub personalities02:14:55
Which is quite interesting.02:14:57
The question I had was about02:14:59
So you talked about Jung and how02:15:03
You should confront that which you don't want to confront the most02:15:07
so you're most afraid or disgusted by that you've the most resistance to arm, so but we were talking about psychedelics and02:15:14
in the experience of hell, so02:15:17
at least some of the people I've talked to they describe negative trips as02:15:21
an experience of a02:15:25
constant fear prolonged fear and02:15:28
some of the most02:15:30
Dramatic and personalized fear that they've ever experienced; so shouldn't negative on02:15:36
psychedelic trips02:15:38
Elicit the kind of concentration that Jung thought you should engage them?" Could be.02:15:44
Could could well be you know it02:15:49
It's conceivable that...02:15:55
I read this strange book once that02:15:58
made the claim that what was in the ark of the covenant was a mixture that was made from02:16:04
Amanita Muscaria mushrooms02:16:07
And that's not as far-fetched as you might think02:16:10
Because there's a mycologist an amateur mycologist named Gordon Wasson02:16:15
who02:16:16
Established, credibly, the notion that it was Amanita Muscaria02:16:21
potions that was the soma of the Rig veda and02:16:26
so it's a strange idea but02:16:30
it's not an idea that's completely outside of the realm of possibility and02:16:37
the Amanita02:16:39
Muscaria is the fly agaric in the red mushroom with white dots, and it's used in shamanic rituals in Cross Asia02:16:47
and02:16:48
It's apparently not toxic in its dried form although that is not a recommendation02:16:54
You know this is serious serious and dangerous02:16:59
speculation and material02:17:01
One of the things that the priests had to do02:17:07
before they commune with what was ever in the ark of the covenant was purify themselves and02:17:13
So one possibility is that?02:17:16
the bad02:17:18
psychedelic experience is a02:17:21
Involuntary02:17:22
Confrontation with what you would describe as the shadow02:17:25
It's like so02:17:27
Beware of02:17:29
experimenting with02:17:33
substances that produce divine revelations if you're in a serious state of disorder02:17:37
And I do think that is what happens to people is that they encounter?02:17:43
Everything about them that's chaotic and out of place.02:17:46
And some people get trapped in that and they can't get beyond it and that's because there's so much of it02:17:53
and so02:17:55
But we don't know enough to know02:17:58
so02:18:12
"Citizen Peterson, you son of a bitch02:18:17
How are you?" I'm not too bad you got a question?02:18:24
"That's the question. No I've got a real question. I got a great question you're going to like this one, okay?02:18:29
It's about inspiration because you talk about inspiration quite a bit in this lecture series and also I wanted to point out02:18:34
you have a I guess a02:18:37
45-minute Armchair discussion, which you have a video of one paragraph of Nietzsche's Beyond good and evil02:18:43
You posted and it seems like you're awestruck at the structure and the choices and I guess02:18:51
the ideas contained in various layers of this paragraph02:18:55
And you're inspired and that inspires you to I guess do your work that you do..?02:19:01
I encountered, I guess a similar02:19:04
Phenomenon here with one sentence written by the great Joseph Cardinal ratzinger and02:19:10
I mean this one sentence answers the question why do people search for God and if you could read it out and then02:19:18
Deconstruct it. It's on sentence02:19:20
I've copied the original pages02:19:25
It's at the end of page 105 if you want to read it from the book or I just--" that's 'the question that02:19:32
human existence not only poses02:19:34
but itself is the in conclusiveness inherent in it the bounds it comes up against and that yet yearn for the02:19:42
Unbounded more or less in the sense of Nietzsche's assertion that all pleasures yearns for eternity02:19:47
It experiences itself as a moment02:19:50
This simultaneity of being limited and of yearning for the unbounded and open has always prevented man from resting in himself02:19:57
Made him sense that he is not02:20:00
Self-sufficient, but only comes to himself by going outside himself and moving toward the entirely other and infinitely greater'02:20:08
Well, it's a hell of a sentence02:20:10
"Like when I read that sentence. I decided I wanted to write like Joseph Cardinal ratzinger02:20:16
I had a very similar experience when I watched the Joe Rogan podcast02:20:20
877 I said I want to speak like Jordan Peterson02:20:25
That's what I wanted to do" so I had this...02:20:29
I had this discussion with a patreon supporter this week a young guy02:20:34
from Australia and02:20:36
He said something very interesting that's related to this and it's a bit. It's something that's very profound. I said I think02:20:45
There's this idea in Christianity that we've discussed briefly that the judge and the redeemer are the same figure now02:20:53
You know in the book of revelation you may know this and you may not02:20:56
Christ comes back as a02:20:59
Judge he has a sword coming out.. it's a revelatory vision. Not that that book it's a very strange02:21:05
It's the last thing you'd expect conservative Christians to believe and believe me and such a visionary02:21:12
hallucination the book of revelation02:21:13
but christ comes back with a sword coming out of his mouth and he comes back as a judge and he02:21:19
Divides the damned from the redeemed and most are damned and some are redeemed02:21:23
It's very very harsh Jung believed that the figure of christ in the gospels was too agreeable02:21:29
To merciful to tilted towards mercy and that that called out for a counter02:21:34
position and that the counter position of judgment very interesting hypothesis02:21:39
But then but then there's this this melding of the two ideas that the judge and the redeemer are the same thing02:21:46
Okay02:21:47
now02:21:48
This young man told me that his life lacked02:21:52
Purpose and direction and meaning and that he was nihilistic until he started he read "zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance"02:22:00
Which is a book I actually like quite a bit02:22:02
I've read it three times at different decades of my life and one of the things that's very interesting about that book is that it's02:22:07
an examination of the idea of quality of the idea that there are02:22:12
Qualitative distinctions between things and that we have an instinct to make qualitative distinctions and so a qualitative distinction is02:22:20
Simply this is better than that which is a judgment02:22:24
Okay, now what ratzinger is02:22:27
hypothesizing is that02:22:30
The person in enough you know how you the idea of the modern idea is you're supposed to accept yourself02:22:35
I think that's an insane idea by the way really I think I can't think of a more nihilistic idea than that you're already ok02:22:42
It's like no02:22:43
You're not and the reason you're not is could you could be way more?02:22:46
Than you are so what do you want to be you want to be ok as you are or do you want to strive02:22:50
towards what's better? and02:22:53
This young man this australian02:22:55
he said that the reason that 'zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance' had such a02:22:59
Impact on him was because he wasn't happy with his current mode of being right he didn't02:23:04
Consider the Manner in which he conducted himself02:23:08
sufficient and the fact that02:23:11
The author of Zen and, it was Persik laid out the notion that you could make qualitative distinctions,02:23:17
And there really was a difference between good things and bad things or great things and evil things, it gives you direction02:23:23
it gives you gives you the possibility of moving upward and02:23:28
Ratzinger is pointing out at least to some degree that02:23:31
Human beings are insufficient in and of themselves and need the movement upward and so they need to02:23:36
conceptualize something like the highest good and then to strive for that and02:23:41
The thing is is that there isn't any difference02:23:45
between conceptualizing the good and being judged02:23:49
because if you're going to02:23:50
conceptualize the good and move towards it what you have to do is separate from yourself all those things that aren't good and02:23:56
leave them behind and that's where the redeemer and the judge are the same thing and02:24:01
One of the things that's really appalling02:24:03
I think about our modern world is that we're rejecting the notion of qualitative distinctions02:24:08
You say well, we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by saying that one thing is better than another it's like okay fair enough02:24:15
It's not fun to be cast off with the damned. That's for sure02:24:20
But if people are in fact insufficient in their present condition02:24:25
Which seems to be the case; I mean try finding someone who isn't?02:24:29
Then if you deny the possibility of qualitative distinction because you want to promote a radical02:24:37
egalitarianism then you remove the possibility of redemption because there's no movement towards the good and it seems to me that it's a02:24:44
Catastrophe to sacrifice the good for02:24:48
Well, it's a catastrophe to sacrifice the good for the equal; because for us to be equal would be mean as far as I can02:24:55
tell that we would all be equally unredeemed and miserable and02:24:59
so02:25:05
"He also mentioned in the previous paragraph02:25:08
I believe that even in the case when you experience the human life at its fullest that it's most02:25:14
Beautiful as its most meaningful you have a deep I guess02:25:19
Understanding that you have something to be thankful for you need to thank somebody for that02:25:23
It's not based entirely on your own merit and that02:25:26
Points you towards something else and also, and-" I don't think that you can have a profoundly positive02:25:32
experience02:25:33
You know in the best sense without that accompanying it02:25:37
That's a feeling of being blessed. It's something like that. Yeah. That's a good oh02:25:43
Wait hold it. I'm going to stop you02:25:45
Okay, because I'm going to ask this person, but I would like to say that those were remarkably good questions02:25:52
so02:26:00
"Dr. Peterson, thank you for the wonderful lecture02:26:04
given your working definition of truth and02:26:07
And let's say within the abrahamic religious tradition would you say that the more perhaps02:26:14
mystical sects and denominations02:26:16
which place more emphasis on the02:26:20
transcendental experience of God also on this experience02:26:24
as opposed to the more fundamentalist, Orthodox02:26:28
literalist which perhaps02:26:30
Emphasize that what I've noticed02:26:35
Moral policing of behaviors" yeah? "would you say that the former is more true than the latter?" no. "and--"02:26:42
no. and and okay, sorry continue. "And B: could the former in some ways serve as an antidote to02:26:50
extremists literalism, Jihadism02:26:53
Fundamentalism?" okay, so yes to the second part, but the first part it's a great question02:26:59
We did some research on this a while back because we're looking at02:27:04
the different religious proclivities of liberals and conservatives and02:27:08
Liberals like if you're liberal it means you're high in openness and low in conscientiousness, and if you're conservative02:27:13
Then you're high and conscientiousness and low and openness and that the liberals are spiritual and the conservatives are dogmatic02:27:20
but it's best to think of those as02:27:23
partners, right? because the02:27:26
spiritual mystical end is where the revelations Emerge and the renewal, but that's where there's Chaos and and02:27:34
Discord as well, because what's new disrupts what's stable02:27:37
and so02:27:39
What's new has to be turned into...02:27:40
It has to be integrated into what's stable02:27:43
And so you need both those poles and of course if the dogmatists get the upper-hand then everything02:27:47
turns into a Tyranny of stone that that's egypt in the old testament, but if the if the if the02:27:55
Mystics get the upper hand then everything floats off the earth into some02:27:59
impractical ether that is equally counterproductive, and so there has to be a02:28:04
dialogue between those different poles02:28:06
And I think you see that in the distribution of human temperament02:28:09
You know the conscientious types there they tend to be orderly the orderly types tend to tend towards kind of a right-wing02:28:16
Totalitarianism that's their proclivity when they when they when things get out of hand especially if they're low in openness, that's a danger02:28:24
but02:28:25
You see the same thing with the people who are too open and not conscientious at all02:28:29
They're dreaming all the time, but they never do anything. There's never anything implemented and that that's bad. That's a bad thing02:28:36
So I don't think that you can say that like- the dogmatic structure is necessary because that perpetuates the system and the revelatory02:28:43
Element is necessary because that renews it when renewal is necessary and there has to be a continual dialogue between those elements02:28:50
So that neither of them fall prey to their own particular form of Pathology that's one of the problems with the current political02:28:58
What would you call it?02:29:00
Polarization that's occurring across the west is that the right and the left and are talking to each other anymore.02:29:05
That's a very bad thing because the left will02:29:08
wander into a pit and fail without02:29:12
boundaries and the right will enclose itself in smaller and smaller spaces until it can't move without the left and02:29:19
One of the reasons that democracy works is because it makes people talk; or allows them to talk you can have it either way02:29:26
but it's in its bits because02:29:29
Every virtue has its vice02:29:32
right and so a meta virtue is something like the amalgamation of singular virtues into something that's a02:29:39
Transcendent structure that has more to do with the harmony of virtues rather than with any given virtue02:29:44
even though I think that freedom of speech is the clearest manifestation of that harmony of virtues, so and02:29:52
"So all could be a lubricant for the beginning of this discussion. Do you think between the liberals and conservatives?"02:30:04
I don't know how to answer that02:30:08
It doesn't follow immediately from your from your initial presupposition, so the awe experience is a different issue02:30:15
"[Unintelligible]"02:30:17
Yeah, we'll be able02:30:20
Yes, "at least exposing conservatives to some form of that experience could it be if we requisite for a more productive dialogue?"02:30:31
See I mean in it in in in the church in church ceremony let's say a classical church ceremony02:30:36
There's some intermingling of both right you mean you think about a church ceremony that takes place in the Gothic cathedral02:30:42
We've certainly got the dogma and they're under and the relatively rigid rule structure02:30:47
but at the same time that's aligned with intense beauty and02:30:51
In the architectural forms in the in the light that's streaming in through the stained-glass02:30:55
windows and the music and I mean the Gothic cathedrals are forests right it's a stone forest with sunlight streaming in through the Trees and02:31:04
It's a balance between structure light there are absolutely02:31:07
unbelievable structures02:31:08
And they speak of the transcendent but but inside that there's a structure and so it02:31:14
Seems that in order for the religious impulse to be balanced properly there has to be a reasonable02:31:20
dialogue even in practice between the mystical awe-inspiring transcendent and the dogmatic yeah either of those can02:31:28
Can go as either those goes astray without the other if you're too dogmatic. Do you need aw?02:31:35
likely yes, because that would show you that there's something beyond your own presuppositions, so02:31:43
So awe, I should tell you something interesting about awe as a as a physiological phenomena02:31:48
You know how you're listening to music and you get chills?02:31:51
Some people experience that more than others open people experience that more or music is a pretty02:31:58
reliable02:32:00
elicitor of02:32:02
Chills, that's piloerection. That's your hair standing on end. You see a cat when it sees a dog puffs up. That's awe02:32:11
It's the same thing like that that chill is your hair standing on end02:32:14
And that's this that's sensation you get in the presence of a meta predator02:32:20
It's something like that and so the awe02:32:24
experience is a02:32:25
I mean obviously it's become very cognitively and emotionally complex in human beings, but it's fundamental02:32:31
evolutionary underpinning is02:32:33
the Instantaneous02:32:34
piloerection that you see in prey animals when they're confronted by a predator and of course that would be if you are a rabbit02:32:41
You can bloody well believe that you see a wolf and it would inspire. Awe that's for sure02:32:45
I mean if a wolf that was 20 feet high came bounding in here, man, you'd feel awe so02:32:52
Yeah, that will convince you that there's something that you still need to know02:32:59
last02:33:00
last question02:33:02
"Perfect timing. Hi, Dr. Peterson02:33:04
My name is Gary, and I'm a clinical and counseling master student right now and so one of the key ideas02:33:09
That's been surfacing time and time again in your02:33:12
Lectures is the idea that02:33:14
Phenomenology is structured and flows02:33:17
mythologically and02:33:20
the way that plays out is I'm02:33:23
supposing effectively just pay attention to what comes up kind of02:33:28
naturally and you can locate the chaotic elements in your experience and02:33:32
Prod at them with whatever degree of Necessity you think so02:33:37
trying to situate this within the clinical02:33:40
context02:33:43
We can conceptualize02:33:46
Psychotherapy as a kind of guided journey just as you touched on in this lecture02:33:51
Where it's more of a meta journey in a sense a meta heroic journey if I don't know how you want to think about it02:33:56
but02:33:57
Just for those of us who are interested in kind of grounding and implementing these ideas within?02:34:04
psychotherapeutic practice02:34:05
What should we watch out for in the process itself?02:34:09
What comes up? What should we be afraid of or fearful of or cautious about or what should we tend towards that's my question"02:34:17
Well, I think one of it02:34:21
One of the people who I've read that's had the biggest02:34:25
Impact on me as a Clinician was carl Rogers02:34:30
And the reason for that is that carl Rogers put tremendous emphasis on listening.02:34:35
Like it's almost impossible to overestimate how useful it is to listen to your clients like you need a meta02:34:42
Scheme in some sense and02:34:45
The meta Scheme, I think is laid out in the sermon on the mount. It's something like02:34:51
orient yourself and your client02:34:54
Towards the good02:34:56
The client has to conceptualize what that might be you can serve as a guide02:35:00
But it has to come from that person because one of the things that you want to find out from your client is okay02:35:06
What's wrong?02:35:08
they have to tell you and02:35:10
What would not having something wrong look like like what is it if you could have what you wanted and that and that...02:35:18
That would be good. What would that look like okay? So that establishes your star, right? It's like Geppetto02:35:24
Establishing the relationship with the star at the beginning of pinocchio. Here's what we're aiming at02:35:28
Okay, so now you've got that schema02:35:30
Here's what we're aiming at02:35:31
now you might say you might think well now that what happens to the client is they meet their dragons along the way and02:35:37
The dragons would be well now02:35:40
You know what you want, And there are things in your way and some of those things might many of those things are going to be intensely practical02:35:47
But they're practical/02:35:49
Psychological so like so maybe someone is has a job and they would like to move forward in the job02:35:54
But they're terrified of speaking in public02:35:56
Well, you know is that a psychological problem or a practical problem?02:35:59
It's both02:36:00
It's also a real problem in many positions unless you can speak fluently02:36:04
Publicly you're you're going to hit a ceiling and you're not going to go anywhere and so02:36:10
For the person to move towards that goal02:36:14
Then they have to confront the obstacles that manifest themselves02:36:18
Within that framework and part of your job as a clinician is to identify the obstacles02:36:23
And to discriminate them from things they don't have to worry about right part of it is02:36:28
you know you can't just run around and try to02:36:31
Combat all the Chaos in the world some of it is your Chaos and a bunch of it isn't and the Chaos02:36:37
That's yours is the Chaos that emerges as you move towards a necessary goal02:36:41
And so partly what you're doing by listening to your client is to help them cut their dragons down to size02:36:46
You know because what will happen if you start to talk to somebody about public speaking and you really talk to them02:36:51
Is that you decompose the problem into a set of maybe 20 subproblems like well02:36:57
Do you know exactly how to give a speech? What's your theory of02:37:02
Public speaking? Do you know how to look at people when you're talking? Do you know how to speak loudly enough?02:37:07
so that people can hear you? do you have a philosophy of02:37:11
Public speaking? you know all those things are necessary in order to do it properly you need to decompose that with the client and then to02:37:17
Make those problems you have to decompose them to the point where they can be met by a practical solution02:37:23
and then you have to guide the person through the implementation of the practical solution and02:37:30
Mostly you do that by by listening02:37:32
It's like the what you need to be is the person who helps the person02:37:36
That you're working with orient themselves towards a better future02:37:39
That's the compact you and I are in this space at this time to make things better02:37:45
first of all we have to decide what better would look like and02:37:49
Second we need a strategy and third02:37:51
we need to02:37:52
Once we have that we're going to see the obstacles and some of those are going to be02:37:55
Psychological and some of them are going to be practical and we're going to engage in joint02:37:59
problem-solving of whatever, sort is necessary in order to02:38:04
Minimize the impact of those problems or to gain from the problems and dream analysis can be extremely useful for that by the way02:38:11
It's even more useful for helping the person identify what the goal is because that's often difficult for people. It's like well02:38:17
I know that something's wrong02:38:18
But I don't know what I want. sometimes people get so stuck there that they just can't get they just can't get out of it02:38:25
So and then what would you watch out for?02:38:29
"Phenomenologically. The way it shows up, The way, It's experienced"02:38:34
Well, I would say the clinician one of the things that you should watch out for is resentment02:38:39
So there's a there's a couple of rules of thumb that I think are useful02:38:43
Don't do anything for your clients that they can do for themselves and don't do them any favors?02:38:48
Now I think you can step02:38:51
Beyond the confines of your role02:38:55
carefully now and then02:38:59
to show that02:39:01
There's there's there's a more human connection than the merely contractual. I think that's very useful but02:39:09
Their problems are not your problems you do not have any right to their problems02:39:12
And so you have to maintain that detachment because otherwise you can steal their destiny02:39:17
You don't want to be the person that solves their problems because you steal their destiny when you do that02:39:22
You want to be someone with whom they can figure things out for themselves?02:39:26
And so there can be hubris in being a clinician because you can be the problem solver and that elevates you to a position02:39:32
You elevate yourself to that position. You'll fall flat on your face02:39:35
You'll hurt your clients and things will kick back on you very very hard because what the hell. Do you know?02:39:41
right02:39:42
Nothing because that person is very complicated and they need to they need to sort themselves out and but you can be a facilitator02:39:49
For that, but that's all you should be02:39:52
And so you have to watch that you have to watch over02:39:55
becoming over and k over ly entangled so you have to maintain your detachment in the best sense, and you have to not overstep your02:40:02
It's easy to become hubristic when the person is looking to you for the answers02:40:07
It's like you might you don't have the answers although you might be able to find help the person find their way02:40:13
That's what you do with everyone. You love - right?02:40:16
I mean, you don't provide them with the answers because then they become little clones of you and02:40:23
unhappy bitter resentful and Angry little clones of you because you usurped their destiny and02:40:30
so02:40:32
the same thing applies within familiar Arrangements or friendships all about it, soDescription:
Watch Exodus available exclusively on DailyWire+: https://www.dailywire.com/show/exodus?cid=exodus&mid=na&xid=0 In the next series of stories, the Biblical patriarch Abram (later: Abraham) enters into a covenant with God. The history of Israel proper begins with these stories. Abram heeds the call to adventure, journeys courageously away from his country and family into the foreign and unknown, encounters the disasters of nature and the tyranny of mankind and maintains his relationship with the God who has sent him forth. He becomes in this manner a light in the world, and a father of nations. How is this all to be understood? I am attempting in this lecture to determine precisely that. How are we, as modern people, to make sense of the idea of the God who reveals himself to a personality? How can we relate the details of the Abramic stories to our own lives, in the current world? In what frame of reference can these stories be seen to make sense, and to reveal their meaning? Producer Credit and thanks to the following $200/month Patreon supporters. Without such support, this series would not have happened: Adam Clarke, Alexander Meckhai’el Beraeros, Andy Baker, Arden C. Armstrong, Badr Amari, BC, Ben Baker, Benjamin Cracknell, Brandon Yates, Chad Grills, Chris Martakis, Christopher Ballew, Craig Morrison, Daljeet Singh, Damian Fink, Dan Gaylinn, Daren Connel, David Johnson, David Tien, Donald Mitchell, Eleftheria Libertatem, Enrico Lejaru, George Diaz, GeorgeB, Holly Lindquist, Ian Trick, James Bradley, James N. Daniel, III, Jan Schanek, Jason R. Ferenc, Jesse Michalak, Joe Cairns, Joel Kurth, John Woolley, Johnny Vinje, Julie Byrne, Keith Jones, Kevin Fallon, Kevin Patrick McSurdy, Kevin Van Eekeren, Kristina Ripka, Louise Parberry, Matt Karamazov, Matt Sattler, Mayor Berkowitz , Michael Thiele, Nathan Claus, Nick Swenson , Patricia Newman, Robb Kelley, Robin Otto, Ryan Kane, Sabish Balan, Salman Alsabah, Scott Carter, Sean C., Sean Magin, Sebastian Thaci, Shiqi Hu, Soheil Daftarian, Srdan Pavlovic, Starting Ideas, Too Analytical, Trey McLemore, William Wilkinson, Yazz Troche, Zachary Vader --- SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL --- Direct Support: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/donate Merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/jordanbpeterson --- BOOKS --- 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-life/ Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/maps-of-meaning/ --- LINKS --- Website: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/ 12 Rules for Life Tour: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/events/ Blog: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/blog/ Podcast: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast/ Reading List: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/great-books/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser --- PRODUCTS --- Personality Course: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/personality Self Authoring Suite: https://selfauthoring.com/ Understand Myself personality test: https://understandmyself.com/ Merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/jordanbpeterson
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