00:00 - 00:38 Introduction 00:38 - 02:14 Sponsorship 02:14 - 03:43 START OF INTERVIEW - Does Jonathan ever get tired of talking about symbolism? 03:43 - 07:13 What is the fundamental distinction between how we perceive reality today compared to ancient humans? 07:13 - 12:52 How does a model of abstraction differ from a symbol? 12:52 - 16:47 Are modern people less mythologically minded than our ancestors? 16:47 - 18:37 The Queen’s death and our ever-present underlying symbolic reality 18:37 - 22:26 Which came first, Jonathan’s Christianity or his symbolic fascination? 22:26 - 24:35 What is the meta-pattern (The pattern of patterns)? 24:35 - 26:52 How present is the meta pattern in every other pattern we encounter? 26:52 - 43:18 The biggest problem with psychedelics 43:18 - 52:06 What is the relationship between consciousness and reality? 52:06 - 54:04 The Nihilism of “Everything is just an illusion” 54:04 - 58:03 How to understand the Nihilism “trick” 58:03 - 01:06:28 Is thinking symbolically a skill to be developed or a default state? (the alienation of thinking symbolically) God bless 🕊
Amazing interview! Jonathan is a pearl of wisdom. I feel very grateful for the opportunity to listen to his message. He’s helped me rediscover the enchantment in the world.
When I hear about psychedelics and Elusinian mysteries these days, I think of St Paul’s words in Colossians 2: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ…Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not sholding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” Spiritual knowledge does not come from experiences through psychedelics (the “elemental spirits” or στοιχεία you might experience say, on a mushroom trip), nor does it come through harsh ascetic practice, although fasting and discipline are good. Spiritual knowledge comes from God, who is revealed in Christ and who we partake in through the Word and through the Eucharist and Baptism.
In regards to visions, ken Wilber suggests we have episodes of visions/enlightenment, (episodes that we fall into, but cant recreate) . He says that we still need the spiritual development (stage by stage) to carry us, the episodes of vision cant really take us anywhere.
At 6:20 Jonathan says how the solar system is an abstraction, because it cannot be experienced (phenomenologically). This reminds me how the American logician C.S. Peirce divides scientific observations into two categories: 1) Phenomenological observations (our everyday experience, which is the object of inquiry for philosophy) 2) Special observations (the use of observational instruments like telescopes, through which the observations in sciences like physics or chemistry are done) Jonathan points at the common mistake of viewing special observations as more real than the phenomenological observations. This is putting the cart before the horse. Namely, even the observation through telescope is embedded in the phenomenological observation. Therefore, the phenomenological observation is primary. There is no way to escape from this fact. That is why we must have a robust understanding of our everyday (phenomenological) experience and perception of the world.
That logician u mentioned did a really good job dividing those truths! I had never considered how the embeddedness of scientific truth makes it primary.
"Promestheus, you have suffered enough. Christ has died for all your iniquities, your debt has been paid, time to climb the Spiral Staircase . Mankind rejoices. The cycle is broken. .. " -Hercules
12:45 right and then how are we selecting out of the hundreds of events and details that took place at each of those stages of life which of those is relevant in defining who we are today
6:37 "There is nothing wrong with abstract models". Abstract is marginal to concrete (place where things are together, where unity of heaven and earth happens) and if people allow abstract to become more central and take place of concrete then they participate in the same pattern that Jonathan describes (marginal becoming central).
Jonathan, we are starting to understand what you are saying. Personally, I see the religion of the future being and amalgam of Christian Daoist Indigenous traditions. As far as psychedelics are concerned, the only way that they can work is to use them as a sacrament to be used only at major milestones like adolescence/coming of age and such . If they become habitual then you have Prometheus again. If you take them too frequently they become a crutch instead of key to a hidden door. And even when the door is open, you have to walk through it on your own. Mushrooms and such will not take you to heaven and keep you there. You have to have a daily practice that opens the door so that you can enter the kingdom of heaven minute by minute and day by day. To me this is what theosis is.
Interesting comment. I’ve wondered where religion will go being able to observe it become less and less dogmatic. I too think something like a symbolic experience with Christianity and Taoism might be right. But I am wondering when more Christian leaders will feel free to not have to speak with such allegiance to a Christian faith, maintaining an appreciation of it without it being THE way and THE path to meaning.
@@carolm753 In my mind, this will happen when people open their interpretation of John 14:6. Personally, I like Contemplative Christianity and authors/speakers like Richard Rohr, and Marshall Davis for this. Ultimately, I believe that there must be a religion/spirituality that is true for all of Creation and is available to all of us all the time, in other words truly universal and perennial. I like William Douglas Horden for for this. His book The Five Emanations is a good place to start.
I understan symbolism even i dont get it all. There is important value in it as Truth value. Its prove, its like mathematics and physics to understand things in some level. But it makes me wonder should actual Life be in a way its greatest enemy ? :) You cant run away the fact that you cant encapsulate Spirit. Map is not the territory. Take this verse as reverense point : Joh. 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And _ye will _*_not come to me_*_ , that ye might have _*_life_* This means that you actually can ( and need ) to get real relationship with God as people have with each other. And to enter in to it you actually need to loose your reasoning as you cant reason with God. Otherwice you are in controlling position with Him. and : Joh. 17:3 And _this is life eternal, that they might _*_know_*_ thee_ the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Joh. 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Jesus is Life Himself. And also the Truth. e.g fruits of the spirit are things that is in Him and so is needed to have a Life, he wants to grow them in us. ( longsuffering and patiense and maybe all of them needs a bit pain to gain )
also Tit. 3:5 ..by the washing of regeneration, and *renewing* of the Holy Ghost; This means you when you have given HolySpirit its just starting point and He starts to make you ready for The Bridegroom
"I hear people say "Everything's just an illusion", but that's not helpful, where do we go from there?" "Just immediately slap someone in the face when they say that. And then smile." Hahahaha Jonathan both making a brilliant point and being hilarious as always.
I’ve never understood the “Everything is an illusion” crowd. They want to explain reality without God, but in doing so still allude to an infinitely powerful entity capable of creating an illusion so realistic it’s indistinguishable from reality. In the end, they believe in a god, but it’s a malicious and deceptive god.
I'm glad Jon brought up the description as explanation phenomenon. Example: Mental activity and the experience thereof is often 'explained' as neurochemicals interacting amongst themselves via electrical stimulation. That's a description of a process, not an explanation. And yes, it is all over the place. Think K - 12 and 'higher education'. And of course, Neil Degrasse Tyson. 😃👍🌿
I've always had a huge issue with the way people try to marry psychadelics to Christianity or spirituality, but I never could state it very eloquently. Jonathan, on the other hand, knocks it out of the park at 34:07. Incredibily well said
Such well articulated expressions of the profundity of the mundane I couldn't quite explain or understand myself. Glad to find you through Jonathan, Dylan! P. S. Just punny: Don't be as Nihil as Degrasse Ty, Sons!
Thanks man. You did a great job in this conversation and it was one of Jonathan's better ones. Plenty of takeaways. Plenty of clarity this gave me. It comforts me to know another person like me is out there, peering up the same mountain
I feel the same way. Part of the joy of the journey is to walk it together, and I feel something good when I see in Jonathan or in Jordan Peterson or in your comment this desire to climb this mountain. Makes it easier to climb myself. I hope that someday it will feel like all our families and friends and the wider culture climbs it. But for now it is comfort enough to see the seeds of what is to come. Blessings to you and all you fellow strangers on the internet, may you find joy and serve your neighbors (and pray for me that I can too)
Another aspect to keep in mind when discussing ancient vs. modern views of reality is that our very experience of life is different. People used to see giant angels appear by the altar during the transubstantiation of the Latin Mass. And religious practices all over the world BEFORE the incarnation were based on interacting with BEINGS who existed (and still exist) and who were more directly experienced than they are now. That's what is meant by a creation that is alive versus a creation that is dead matter. I think we're swinging back towards the realization that the creation is alive and that it is alive with beings from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic; beings who are above us, with us, and below us. Ancient symbolism was not made up in an attempt to understand the world, rather it is an attempt to depict actual spiritual experience. For example, if someone had a vision of a spiritual being who presented itself as feminine, with a golden aura, wearing a full-length garment that was deep blue, that had the starry firmament WITHIN the garment, that is the stars were alive IN the garment, then an artist might do his/her best to re-create that by painting the garment a deep blue and placing stars on the garment. But those stars are not merely a symbol of what the figure is about, although they are that, but they are as accurate a depiction of how that being presented herself to humans. That is what she looks like.
I don’t know how to begin talking to my friends about any of it. I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the absurdities of Christianity in their isolated lanes but JP has challenged and changed a lot of how I thought. Now I don’t know how to change tune.
john vervaeke has good material as a gateway drug to symbolic world, then move into jordan peterson and carl jung etc. then J and M Pageau's work. If you go direct to orthodox, it might be too much in one hit.
a lot of ppl work around by not mentioning the G word, or the J word, as it spooks people. First get comfortable throwing in some symbolic, dare I say, religious or spiritual language.
When Jonathan was talking about how you would tell a story about your life I think he was also meaning that our minds focus attention on certain events/actions. We don’t list out every arbitrary event (1. I moved my left foot 2. I moved my right foot 3. I looked at the clock etc) you naturally pull out the most important details. It’s something we do so naturally that we don’t even notice our brains discarding the massive amounts of detail of our experience.
37:37 quick thought here. Do pastors and preachers not do the same thing? I have been a minister so I understand the urge to embody a type of voice and presentation expected of me. And I have seen the difference of the pastoral/preacher voice and language compared with the manner of real life. It is common in any idealized leadership role.
The triumph of modernist painting is that it returned , " the canvas" to the integrity of the 2dimentional . In other words what painting is. Modernism at the turn of the last century rescued it from the alienism and illusion of the 3 dimensional . Materialism continually interfears with this integrity. This is also a problem with iconography now but not on the so called level of the picture plane but metaphically.
I would just say that something is more than the sum of its parts, and then explore some examples. The splashes of paint which result in the painting contribute to a higher reality which we experience as art. Focus on what we actually experience and not on just the components alone.
@@andrew_blank Hi Andrew, I think your example is a part of it, but within the context of the conversation we meant reductive speech like: a statue is just a bunch of rocks; a human is just a bag of chemicals, the universe is just a bunch of atoms, etc. Reducing things down to their components. Of course, something is much more than just the sum of its parts. Thank you for your comment! Feel free to email me dylan@dylangous.com if you have any questions.
@@dylangous Ah, I see! I was about 3/4 in when I wrote the comment but in the Nihilism part now and seeing what you're talking about. Thanks for the response and email!
And as far as the psychedelic topic? Many people feel exactly that way. But i developed a creative dependence on uppers. This held true over time. Spirituality is a biproduct because it was a focusing agent. When i wasnt focused on music, my mind wandered to topics that were relevant to life. To learn...
Always God. Never church. Always Jesus. Not what they said Jesus taught. But what Jesus taught. He is in all of us. Not even the spirit. The psychological balance acheived to reach that level of awareness and existence...
Thank you for you comment, and for sharing your thoughts. I used to share the same view, but I kept running into the point that Christ established a Church, so I found it difficult to say: only God and no church. What do you think?
@@dylangous I don't believe Christ really established a church. I think Christ was a living example of God's honest truth. And what Christ was attempting to teach people was failing to truly be understood. Christ wanted people to know that everybody has the capacity to do exactly what he was doing. We are all God's children. Church was established as a place to worship, using Christ's story as the foundation. But people being people, misplaced their faith in Christ himself instead of following his example. Scripture is an essential formula for life. And grasping the meaning of it. Except it is all being presented by allegorical tales. You can take them literally or you can take them as metaphores. Either one works. But neither one works if we are unable to read between the lines, as opposed to graspin onto every word. People think if they can recite every passage by heart, it means they are doing what God wants. But God doesnt want that. God wants people to know who we are inside. We are Him. He is Us. Worldwide. Particular faiths have no bearing on the Truth. And some people may require these methods in order to reach the necessary conscious state it takes to transcend them. I'm far from a saint. I have plenty of faulty characteristics. I've never been able to go to church because I wasnt born for that. I was born for this... The personal experience and pain it takes to develop these understandings and to share what I Know. Life is church. But the intended messages of the Word have been altered over the course of time to serve the agenda of people who don't quite understand where we can evolve to if we were to ultimately unify with one another. I am a student of God. A lot of information isnt available to those who cant see it. But it's there. And I'm here. WE are everywhere. What else is to do about that but this?
@@AetherialSatori The body of Christ is the church. The building is simply the physical place for believers to congregate, but as you have likely seen already, most churches today do not align with the true church of the body of Christ. You must worship, study scripture, and pray with sincere faith as well as finding other like-minded believers who are also sincere in their search for the truth of scripture. Those are the people you want to congregate with, but you are not likely to find many of them in normal churches today. This does not negate the need for discernment and abstaining from cherry picking certain interpretations, but rather, it frees you to fully search for the truth of scripture without being trapped in the suffocating tyranny of many manmade denominational dogmas, allowing you to gain fuller understanding as long as it is done in sincere faith.
@Drednaught I totally agree with you, as it's applicable to people who abide by a one chosen faith. Personally? I've never been religious but I've always believed in God. You could say I have Christian roots because I grew up in America where that's the most predominant belief system... My mom was raised Catholic and i'm not even certain of my father's denomination. But it's of Christian faith. One of the 54,000 denominations that exist. I was raised with more exposure to ideas of spirituality. In my mind, church was not necessary because I knew that life would show me what I needed to learn. And if something was imperative, God would be sure to place it along my journey. That being said, I've experienced divine intervention in it's purest sense. And it's become a fairly consistent part of my life. I have faith based in Christianity but also believe every religion to be Truth. Some of which, I would still like research. But they're all different aspects and interpretations of an ultimate Truth - God is All - So my mission has been to learn all that I can about every facet, in order to incorporate them into my overall perspective. I've managed to become involved with a lot of esoteric material from various traditions. I can't say I've physically attended any of the mystery schools but I've been granted access to a lot of the information from their teachings. Which has served for a far deeper existential understanding. The idea is to develop a single belief system that's rooted in all existing traditions. Judaisim, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, Paganism, etc... I also like to include concepts from physics, metaphysics, spiritual science, philosophy, sociology, all of the more tangible subjects. There's too much to learn in a single lifetime but i'm comfortable with not be able to know all there is to know. The core concept is what's fundamental. So hopefully, I can manage to establish a solid basis for the world to share and expand on. Seems like the sorta thing that would require a collective effort because, afterall, the entire point behind it is to eliminate the widely accepted illusion of separation from one another. The first Hermetic Principle is Divine Oneness. If the people of the world ever decide they would like to evolve and grow beyond the unnecessary problems we always seem to find ourselves in the midst of, this would be a good place to begin. Every religion is based around cosmic/universal/natural law... But expressed in allegorical format, so that they can be related to in human terms by example of scenario. People have a tendency to grasp at the wrong straws. The moral teachings are far more important than the details of the stories used to illustrate them. Which is why I have difficulty understanding the need for 50,000 denominations of a single religion. Needless separation
@@dylangous Wow, that's awesome, I'll check out some more of your work. Would be interested to know how you made this interview happen. I don't know many South Africans interested in JP
I don’t know. Isn’t there something dishonest about Pageaus longing for the “symbolic perspective“ ? What if the divine has been in a constant recession from the world since it began and in that case aren’t Being , immediacy , meaning all things to be mourned ? Maybe god is silent because he cares less than he used to, maybe there’s nothing to return to
"You cannot experience the solar system?" Is Johnathan seriously suggesting he cannot see & feel the reality of the sun? His thinking is pure make believe that you see as his eyes turn upwards in a physical sign of creative thinking.
No he is not suggesting that he doesn't experience the sun, he is saying that he experiences the sun and not the solar system. The category of 'solar system' is an abstraction, it is not an experiental category. You don't experience anything at the level of the solar system - what you experience is the concrete reality of the sun rising in the morning, giving light and warmth, and going down in the evening. There is nothing make belief about this, it is simply the contention that experiental categories are better suited to describe our experience of reality, than are scientific, abstract ones.
A come back to my comment could be something like: 'You do experience the solar system through the experience of the sun or the moon, as the sun & moon are part of the solar system. The sun & moon are smaller means by which we perceive the larger category that is the solar system'. And while that is true in some sense, the question arises, why do you feel the need to abstract the actual, direct experience of perceiving the moon or the sun, into some larger category to which you have no direct access to? The only reason we talk about the 'solar system' as a category is because of abstract knowledge we have - it is completely removed from our direct experience. A person looking into the sky doesn't perceive things at the level of 'solar system' - he perceives a very bright light governing the day, and a lesser light governing the night (like is said in the bible). The point is not that the abstract knowledge is wrong, it's that seeing the abstract knowledge as primary and more important than our direct experience, is why modern Man feels so alienated.
Well guys, all l tell you is that the appearance of the sun rising in the morning is optical illusion caused by the rotation of mother earth. Johnathan gave his flat earth confusion in the lecture he gave in LA l think. The one Jordan Peterson put up on his channel.
