Pints With Aquinas - Orthodoxy, Fairy Tales, & Neuralink (Jonathan Pageau)

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Jonathan Pageau is a French-Canadian icon carver, YouTuber and public speaker on symbolism, religion and the Orthodox faith. He is the editor of the Orthodox Arts Journal, the host of the Symbolic World blog and podcast and founder of Symbolic World Press. 🍺 Get episodes a week early, 🍺 score a free PWA beer stein, and 🍺 enjoy exclusive streams with me! Become an annual supporter at https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors: Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Strive21: https://strive21.com/matt 💻 Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas 👕 Store: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com/  

As many of you know, Pints with Aquinas is building a new studio and we would love to ask your help to build the studio. It's going to cost at least 38 grand for the electronics and new cameras and lights and things and so paintswithaquinas.com studio if you want to support us because people have said they do want it which is just so lovely. Let's be honest. I'm gonna do it regardless. You support me or not, I'm gonna figure this out. But if you do want to support us, go to www.pintswiththequinus.com and there's like different levels you can give and we give you free things in return like rosaries and books and things like that. So if you want to help us, we'd really appreciate it. Thanks so much. I'm not saying you shouldn't take care of your responsibilities, but if like, if that

becomes the purpose of your life, you know, it's like, that's not enough. There's no way you're going to dry up, you know? And so being worried, being worried about, you know, the money that's coming in or being worried about your bills and being worried about these things, not that you should be responsible, you should be, but that is not not that's not a way to live Yes, so how many times you get stopped are we ready How many times do you get stopped now because of it's weird it depends where I am where I am in Montreal Nobody stops me nobody knows me much. It's actually nice. It's actually nice But then the further I go south in the United States, the more I'll get recognized. If I go to Texas, I'll get recognized a few times a day, you know.

And so it's kind of funny. Why do you think that is? I mean, I think just the south is more conservative. You know, there's a real kind of Christian revival, I think, happening in the South, in the Orthodox Churches for sure. People don't know what to do. They just build these new parishes and now they're already bursting at the seams. So there's this wild thing going on. Yeah, what's going on in Orthodoxy? Why is it exploding? Well, I mean, I think that it's a double movement.

I think that the cradle Orthodox are are still leaking out, just like they've always been. So the people coming in, they lose their kids to the culture. But there's a definitely a wave of converts. And now we know because at first we were just going on hearsay and you know, asking priests and stuff. But now there's been some some people have done some of the studies to see that it's actually it's actually happening. And it's young men mostly that are coming in. My parish has tripled since COVID, and it's the same thing that's happening everywhere. It's mostly kind of young men coming in, intelligent young men, educated, looking for meaning. You know, you usually have the idea that people who end up in the church, usually like they

hit rock bottom and then they have like a kind of spiritual. These are not the same kinds of people. It's people that are really feel more like they're wandering and hopeless and, and they're looking for something solid to stand on. So that's, that's what I, that's the sense I get, you know? Yeah. And I've said this before on my shows, but like the curb appeal of orthodoxy is pretty impressive because it, it, it, um, it, um, it feels like, and I don't know if this is because orthodoxy has, has often been ethnic

in the United States. I know that's changing rapidly. Um, but there's a kind of a lure or a mystery about it that we thought was a good idea to get rid of as Catholics, which was a terrible idea. And I'm not saying we've done that wholesale, but in many places we have. And so I think people, they want mystery, they want beauty, they want their desire for the divine to be taken with great seriousness. And when I look at Orthodoxy from the outside, that's the sense I get. Well, I think a way to understand it too is we have to see it like, you know, for the past 100

years maybe, the different Catholic churches and Protestant churches, they've been trying to keep people in. And they had this idea that to do that, we have to just adapt to the world as much as possible to make sure that people don't go out and don't leave. So, you know, let's reduce the ritual, let's reduce the formality, let's have the guitar and let's have kind of disco ambiance for the mass,

trying to keep people in. The thing is that once people have actually left, those that are coming back, why would they want that? They want the real thing, the people coming back. They want like, well, if I'm going to become a Christian, I really want to be a Christian. And so I think there's part of that too. The converts, you see that both in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the converts tend to move towards more traditional forms because they're like, well, you know, I already

have concerts and entertainment. And it's way better than the crab gold one. Exactly. Exactly. So if I'm going to go for this, I want the real thing. Yeah. Yeah. People often make a distinction nowadays between Vatican II and the spirit of Vatican II. And Vatican II documents, I think, are very beautiful. I think there were a couple of ambiguities that have been sorted out. But this spirit, if you want to kind of frame it in different ways, but maybe ask kind of

chasing after the world. Yeah, we need to kill that. We need to stop that. That was a very bad idea. Yeah. Well, it's, I don't know. We'll see what happens. But it seems like when the rumors are gone, it's just naturally going to return because it's really their generation, it's really

their culture. You know, they fought for all of the libertine aspects of our society, and so they got them, now we have them, and now their grandchildren that are being raised in complete, you know, freedom to get anything you want, anytime you want. Now they want meaning. So yeah. Do you want some scotch on that? Yeah. Josiah, everything good? Do you mind? I think you should probably turn that down a little bit. It sounds quite loud. Okay. Well, don't worry. What do you think? So there was a big cheers. Yes. Cheers. It's really great to meet you. It's great to meet you

Do you like Scotch or busky on yes, I do There was a there was a big kind of wave of Protestant converts into Catholicism in the 80s and 90s and and early orts and Protestant converts into Catholicism in the 80s and 90s and early aughts. And we often, you know, it was beautiful and they brought a lot of life into the church and things like that. But undoubtedly, and I need to ask one of them about this, like, what baggage did you bring in? Like you're not a Catholic.

So like, what did you overlook? Like you're talking about how beautiful our liturgy is, but I mean, you probably didn't really have much of a liturgy where you came from, many of them, not all of them. So therefore, like how did that impact the church in a negative way, even if it was an overall burn? And my question for you is, what is it gonna look like when Orthodoxy is predominantly American or Western?

I mean, it's gonna be interesting to see. For sure, there are going to be conflicts that are going to appear. You know, there's a Puritan spirit in America that is very Anglo-Saxon, you know. And so when that Puritan spirit enters into the church, you have, yeah, you have kind of lay Athenite, you know, monastic attitude where I think traditional orthodoxy tended to move from the monastic very, very, let's say, rigorous, you know, down into a more, not, I wouldn't say casual, but we don't have all these different types of practice. We just have one. But then it's just applied differently depending on the level that you want to participate in, right? So ultimately we should all be praying 24 hours a day, doing night vigil service, everything. But then in reality it ends up being mitigated in the life of the church.

And so I think that there is, when some Protestants come with that kind of zeal, that Puritan zeal, they tend to approach the church with that attitude. It's like, I want to get it all right. I want it to be pure. I want it to be exactly the way that it should be. That's definitely a danger. And the other extreme danger, which would be the more kind of, let's say, charismatic side of American religion, would be more wishy-washy kind of sentimental version of orthodoxy.

The one thing that I think is actually wonderful coming from Protestantism that will help the Orthodox in America is the Bible. Because in the old world, people are just soaking, right, in the culture of Christianity. And so this idea that you would need something like Sunday school or like explicit, you know, teaching schools for lay people was not that big of a deal because you just lived in it. Everything about your life, the festivals, all the, everything was just soaking. Whereas when you come to America, you kind of need to know a little more. Also because you're faced with people that kind of need to know a little more. Also,

because you're faced with people that don't believe the same things you do. You're faced with all these things. And so I think that kind of Bible study mentality of the Protestants, right, the desire to actually really know the Bible very well, the Old Testament and the New Testament, I think is something that's actually positive that can come from Protestantism. Yeah, yeah, 100%. You know, I don't know what you think about this. What's that fella's name? Tim Marshall. What's his name? Tim Gordon.

He he had this line. He talked about the Miyagi complex where these white dudes without fathers go looking toward the east. Yeah. And I thought that was I don't know if that was his original idea or not, but I

thought it was brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much wisdom and beauty in the West But it's like we forsake it for the sake of something maybe elusive. What do you think of that? It's not to say that there isn't wisdom to be at least no, I think that's possible for sure There are some I mean, I remember when I became Orthodox I remember I had this idea, right? Read the Russian Pilgrim, this whole idea of the Jesus Prayer, and I was going to find the starets, and you know, he was going to teach me the Jesus Prayer. You know, that doesn't really exist very much.

Like, it's not the reality of Orthodoxy. The reality of Orthodoxy is more like, go to confession, you know, and do your prayers, and just live it in the everyday. So I think that there's definitely some of that. But at the same time, there's also a light. I do think there is a kind of light that comes from the East in terms of the mysticism. The Eastern mysticism has been really preserved in the life of the church. And so, right, the Jesus Prayer is the spiritual practice of the Orthodox Christians.

It's the same practice that leads to, you know, the fullness of the vision of the divine light, but it's like, again, it's mitigated into the life of people. It's not encouraged that people do the prayer all the time, but what I mean is that there isn't this special space for the mystics, you know, like, but it's really the whole church is mystical in its structure. And so I think that that's useful. I think that some of the fathers that are more prominent in the Eastern Church, like St. Maximus or St. Gregory of Nice, for example,

I think that they're very useful for us now because they offer that fullness of vision. I think that even St. Maximus offers almost like technical problems to some of the issues we have today in terms of subject-object, the problem of the place of the of consciousness, right, in the way that the reality unfolds. You know, my friend John Vervecky, who's a cognitive psychologist, has started reading some of these more mystical fathers and he's seeing a lot of connection, you know, in terms of how we talk about how reality unfolds. So at the same time, I think it's good. I think that this connection to the East will bring some

some freshness. Well, I don't know if you know this or not, but John Paul II wrote an encyclical called The Light of the East, where he talked about the beauty of the Eastern Catholic traditions and what we've received from Orthodoxy, perhaps. I don't know. I don't want to get into that, but it's a great way to make everyone angry. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, that's really, that's beautiful. So you grew up a Protestant. I grew up Baptist. Baptist now in Montreal. It's very weird. I'm a weird fellow. You might've noticed. My father was Catholic, so my parents were Catholic. Quebec was the most Catholic place in the world. Yeah. You know, and then the 1960s and 70s happened.

And now there's, don't you, I don't even want to say them, but aren't there like blasphemies about the, you said the Tabernacle or something like that? Oh yeah, well that was there when they were Catholic too. Like, oh yeah, the curses, all curses in Quebec are religious words, you know, and so, but that's actually, that has to do with the Catholic heritage.

Yeah, I guess so. In some ways, it's the Catholic peasants. It's the fact that it meant so much that it could then be used. But it was used by the Catholics. Like, I mean, when Quebec was Catholic, that type of language was already part of the peasant, the peasant world, right?

Just like, you know, just like you say the dirty words and, you know, even though it was like a Christian society, people would still say the dirty words. It's the same with the blasphemies, like people would use blasphemous words, then they would have to go to confession and confess them. But it's mostly that the 60s and 70s happened and we had this thing called the Quiet Revolution where everybody just left the Catholic Church in one generation. It was pretty crazy, you know, and it, you know, I think part of it was the overbearing of the Church before Vatican II, and then in some ways the kind of Vatican II opening up, all of those two things together seemed to have been part of the fact that everybody

was just like, well, you know what, actually, if the things you told us before weren't actually real, then, you know, what's the point? You know, and a lot of people left. So, and my parents, they also think that catechism was horrible, people just didn't know anything. So, my parents really found Christ in the Protestant faith. Wasn't the original Quebec flag, didn't it have the sacred heart of Christ on it? I don't know if it... Josiah, he looked that up, but for sure it has the Quebec flag right now, is like a cross with your Fleur-de-Lis, like it's a Christian flag, you know. Wow. Yeah. Okay, so they found Christ in a Baptist church. Yeah, well in a kind of a Protestant denomination. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

in denomination. Yeah, yeah. OK. And my dad. It did go me. Yeah, you're you're Canadian facts. That's my only fact. That and I like beaver tails. Yeah, so wild. I mean, how sad, eh?

How sad to go from which way? What is it? The top left? Yeah, look at that. The Quebec flag history. The sacred art of our Lord on it. Oh, my goodness. It's so embarrassing. Why? I literally have that flag in my house

Some like a Quebec a Quebec Catholic nationalist Person gave it to me and I have it folded in my basement. That's horrible. Yeah, but I don't remember that but um Yeah, so they became they became they became they became Protestant and I grew up so my dad became a pastor He was a Baptist pastor. So I grew up a pastor's dad became a pastor, he was a Baptist pastor. So I grew up a pastor's kid. Okay. Yeah. Was that weird? I mean, I guess a lot of your friends

probably were from this church as well, or no? It was weird, it was weird because on the one hand, I would say there was still a real hostility to Protestants in Quebec when my parents, when I grew up. So I would get beat up and stuff in school because I was a, because I was Baptist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't a big deal, whatever.

Yeah, but yeah, definitely there was- What sucks is there's gonna be people in the YouTube comment section being like, that's based. Yeah, no, it's not. Stop punching up the little Baptist boy. Exactly. And so I would get beat up in school, but you know, it was all, it was all good.

And then, yeah, but I grew up in a Baptist, so I was like a Baptist in a Catholic world still. So everybody in school would still do like a confirmation and all that and first communion. But I would be like, we went to something called morality school, morality class, because they still had Catholic teaching in the school. And then we went to this kind of morality class thing, which was, which wasn't great. But then also the Catholic teaching wasn't great either. And then it just slowly diminished. And then the Catholic Church, the Catholic schools became, they became French schools, they were taken out of the Catholic world and just became... And so it just... slow secularization, kind of planned, like a kind of slow planned secularization. Yeah. And so I grew up a pastor's kid until I was about

12 or 13, but it was nice. Did you embrace Christianity? Yeah. You didn't rebel right away? No, no. I was really... As much as I remember, I was always a Christian. You know, I always... I have this little moment, I remember, because when you a Christian. I always have this little moment. I remember because when you're Protestant, you have to find the conversion moment. It was like really young. It was like, I don't know, four or five years old that I remember. But my father was really very bright, even though he was, he is. He's a very bright man, very curious, very...

Still a pastor? No, no, no. He stopped being a pastor when I was 13. OK, and became a went to Wheaton College and studied psychology at Wheaton College. And so, yeah, I guess then I was a psychologist kid, I guess, you know, but still involved in the church, still really involved. I grew up really involved in. I was like a youth leader and did all that stuff and wrote all these like plays for for Protestant churches and.

Awesome. Yeah. How old are you these like plays for Protestant churches. Awesome. Yeah. How old are you now? So I am 49. Yeah. So we're similar age. Yeah. I'm 40.

I don't know. Two. 41. Thank you. Yeah. I'm still, you know, I'm kind of your elder, I would say. But you know what's funny is you are, but what's funny is because of the lag in the advancement of technology in Australia compared to North America, I

find that my childhood looked similar to Americans in their 50s. Flip that top bit up first. Oh yeah, okay. I was going to say. Yeah. Does that make sense? So my wife, I mean, she's my age, but she's a year or two older, but you know, she remembers, she doesn't remember not having some kind of computer or something.

Whereas the first time I used the internet, I was 15 or 16, 17 and no one had cell phones until about that time either. And so it's funny how I yeah. All right. That's cool. So Protestant, beautiful. Love Jesus read the Bible. Yeah, I love you're gonna need to torch that a bit more. Yeah, probably And then You like scars. Yeah. Yeah, I don't smoke a lot. I smoke cigars. Maybe every few weeks. I don't every three weeks. Mm-hmm This is so delicious It's funny when you get older you start to what? What it is of it yeah well I'm smoking a Cuban which wouldn't impress you because you're from Canada and can get them whenever you

want yeah you I'm so getting actual pints with a Qantas cigar look at that yeah notice it's the Eastern what do you call it the chasable what do you call it the the what's the fancy Greek word I don't know doesn't matter sorry I should know I should know. I should know. The Quebec flag. Exactly. You just just drop in knowledge here. But that's what it was some of the fellow who put that together. It's a company the cigars from Nicaragua, but the the fella put

points with the coinists and he kind of blended those things together. It's nice. You like it. Yeah, I do like it. I give you full permission to say you don't if you don't I love Cardinal Pell He was a absolute lion of a man. I know who that is. Well Australian Cardinal who was faithful to his church and the

Mainstream media hated him Because he was opposed to contraception and abortion and things like this and they absolutely Villainized him and then accused him falsely of doing things for which he went to prison. Whoa. And then the Australian high court eventually vindicated him fully. We're in this is after he's been in prison, uh, you know, solitary confinement. He was absolutely mistreated, but, um, and wrote these beautiful prison

journals, uh, in, and they're available for purchase. And I just love him and he's passed them. Yeah. Yeah. So I asked for his intercession just love him and ask him. He's passed them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I asked for his intercession and that's what that is. Yeah, I didn't know about him. Yeah, it's weird for me. Like I'm in a strange position, right? Because, you know, my ancestors were Catholic

and then grew up Protestant. And, you know, when I was in my twenties, I started to become interested in tradition and kind of understanding the royal tradition, not just really in terms of also an ontology, like understanding how Christianity is a way, it's like a structure of being. It actually shows you the structure of being. And I was interested in church architecture and iconography and noticing how that was being shown in the imagery and in the music and all that.

And I was obviously very impressed. And my first instinct would have been to become Catholic. That was my first instinct. But that can't, not, not in Quebec. Like it's not going to happen. Yeah. Has there ever been a part of you that thinks, you know, like natural piety, right? Like having a fidelity to your ancestors and what's been bequeathed to you, which doesn't sound like it was. So maybe that's the difference. The thing is, I grew up, I grew up, I was not a Baptist.

So it was never your, it was never your. It didn't feel like it was my history. And also, I think I also have a seat, not as maybe not so secret hostility towards the French Canadians, because of the betrayal of their own history. And so I don't know about that. I mean, I love obviously I love Quebec, but I also have this like, I'm just annoyed at how they end.

And the the thing is, too, is that the revolution, the quiet revolution, like it wasn't just a revolution, it was a betrayal that came from the church. It's like, it was the clergy itself, which had accepted these crazy kind of Marxist style ideas and then started to integrate them into the church only to be surprised that people didn't want anything

to do with it. Oh, but that they were just gonna leave, you know, that to be surprised that people didn't want anything to do with it. Oh, but that they were just going to leave, you know, that it was, that was what, in some ways that, sometimes I wonder if some of them secretly thought that that was normal, like a normal process of things, you know, it's like, well, we're modern now and moving towards modernity and we have to shepherd these people. Yeah, it's such a shame, isn't it? So because of that, you know, I looked into Latin Christianity. I was interested, you know, I contacted people from the fraternity of Saint Peter and these kinds of people, and it's just not much was going on, you know, and my experience with people

from the fraternity is that they're very... Careful. They're very... Not from me, but from everyone. Very harsh. Okay. You know, but do you see that in some Orthodoxy as well? Like, they're very harsh. But you see that in some Orthodoxy as well. Like they're very harsh and they have a desire for like 19th century Catholicism. What's weird is like when you put, when tradition comes to a crashing hold, unnaturally, how do you pick it up again? It's rough. And it's also, and one of the issues too, is that there were two issues, like becoming Catholic for me when I was Protestant. One was the Catholic Church in Quebec was running

full speed towards my position, right? They're basically like doing everything they could to be as Protestant as possible. And so it's like, why would I jump like out of a boat into a boat that's coming in my direction? And then the other possibility was to become a Latin Catholic and then spend my life fighting a hierarchy, you know, that I'm going to go into a church to become a rebel against the as like all of this. Yeah, it's just too much. And then, you know, and then I fell in love with with with iconography and also read Vladimir Lovsky's book on the mystical theology of the church and

just was completely enamored by what he was describing and it was just like it it just hit every note that I thought the world was like. I was like this is exactly what I... it resonated deeply into what I thought the world was like and yeah and then one day I was I found someone who was Orthodox and went into a church and that was it. It was a, it was a, it was a pre-sacrified liturgy, evening liturgy, you know, during Lent and, you know, with all the bowing and like, you know, head on the floor. It was like, yeah, that was it, you know. Yeah, it's been, I don't know how much you keep abreast of these things, but I just.

Traditions on the rise again, obviously, in the West, people they're not interested in becoming Catholic for no reason. They're not interested in becoming priests for no reason. Like there's so there's a lot of very good happening. I think it's interesting because I was raised Catholic. Yeah, I became agnostic when I was 13 or something and then had a conversion in Rome when I was 17 years old. But I wonder if it's difficult for converts. I encounter converts to whatever right to Coptic Christianity, Orthodox Christianity,

whatever. And then I see a lot of them bouncing around, like leaving and then going somewhere else. And then they think this is the answer. And then they get kind of whatever disappointed. They go somewhere else. And I just think I'm really grateful that I was raised Catholic because I think there's just a, I feel stable. You know, like I look around, I see the mess. I see it. I'd be open. I've said this in the past, to the proposition that the Catholic Church is the most corrupt institution on the planet, even now. I'm open to that.

Yeah. But I just, I love being Catholic. And I guess I also maybe know, and I'm sure you know this too, that wherever you go, you're finding human beings who suck. Including yourself. Including yourself, that's right. Yeah, for sure. That disillusionment, I think, is very common today among converts who are so sick of the bland materialism that isn't

answering their deepest longings. They'll go somewhere for a little bit and maybe they think it will initially, but then it doesn't satisfy. They bounce and bounce and bounce and then it can become a game of like, how traditional can we get? So what does that look like in the Orthodox Church? Yeah, for sure. There are versions of that in the Orthodox tradition. You know, you get people who become converts and they go immediately to most radical forms. You know, they become all calenderistsists or they become schismatic groups within the Orthodox tradition. You see that happen. You know, and this is what I think, is that I think that rigor has a function, you know,

and I don't think that there's anything wrong with rigor. You know, if you read some of the great saints, you know, their lives were the most rigorous you've ever seen, you know, and you read some of the modern saints, their lives were the most rigorous you've ever seen, and you read some of the modern saints, and some are more on the, as they kind of compassionate and open side, and then some are on the more rigorous side, and I think those two sides are necessary. And so I have deep sympathy for people who look for that rigor for themselves, like who is like, I want something, some discipline, something to help me stop sinning, something to help me attach you know, you know, attach myself to Christ as much as possible.

And I think that's that can be really beautiful, you know, but what I always try, I don't know, like when I always try to maybe help the rigorous that are around me remember that rigors for yourself, it's like it's for you. It's if you if you if you take that rigor that you apply for yourself, it's like it's for you. If you take that rigor that you apply to yourself and then you start to just apply to everybody else, then you're gonna get in trouble, you know. And so that's what I would say to that. Like I, you know, I know people that are quite rigorous and that I admire immensely, you know. And then I

know some people that are quite rigorous but live in a kind of anger Yeah, against the world. It's a short the most impressive people other people who live rigorous lives Who are more compassionate than anybody else to the to the hooker or to the drug addict? Yeah, yeah, you know whereas we're barking at everybody and expecting everybody to be the way we want them to be Yeah, when we can't even make ourselves be the way we want ourselves to be. But I see that in people I would consider and call saintly. I see them just, there's a tremendous kindness that they have towards the poverty of others, but they're rigorous. Yeah, that's right. I think you have the right image of what it is.

There's stories, it's interesting because we have Elder Ephraim now, who's become legendary in America, who set up all these monasteries, a Greek monk, and he was quite rigorous. His monasteries are very, very demanding. But the same, I hear other stories of Elder Ephraim, where he would just stay out for hours and hours, hearing confessions from just people who came up, and just this generous, completely generous spirit, you know, and so

Yeah, I think I think that that's the that's the right way to see it. Yeah. So what is Because you talked about going to schism. What does that look like in orthodoxy or schismatic groups within orthodoxy? Yeah, so you you have You know And I know what that looks like in Catholicism because you're separating yourself from the authority of the Pope and those in communion with him. But what does that look like? Yeah, it's complicated.

In the Orthodox Church, things are, for example, there are schismatic groups in the Orthodox Church that I couldn't take communion with. Okay. What Orthodox are you in? I'm in the OCA, Orthodox Church of America, which is a you know It's a it's down the line from a from the Russian church, right? You know a bit. Yes story right a little bit Yep, so, you know, we're in we're in communion with the with the patriarch or communion with Moscow We're communion with so can you take communion at a Greek Orthodox Church? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah the clergy can right now

Can no they can't. Can't. Yeah, because of the conflict between the Greeks and the Russians, but the conflict doesn't apply to the parishioners, and they try to keep that away. So there are different types of excommunia. There are some excommunians that are excommunian not for theological reasons, you know, sometimes they're for ecclesiastical agents, and there are all these different reasons why there can be excommunication. And so like, let's say an old calendar is, for example,

like I don't think old calendars are heretics, you know, but because they didn't want to accept the new calendar, and there's maybe reason for that, I don't know, but they didn't, and now they've cut themselves away from- Isn't that a lot of Orthodox or no it depends no it depends I mean my mate these are people who celebrate Christmas and Easter at different times yeah I remember figuring that out I was I used to work at a cat as a cashier at a supermarket and there was this lovely lady Cindy I think her name was she was

Greek Orthodox and figuring out that she was celebrating Christmas or Easter later my what week later yeah but I Christmas or Easter later. I'm like, what? A week later, yeah. But I thought, okay. So, okay, so I'm actually asking because I'm interested. This is getting really complicated because it... So, the calendar... Are they considered more traditional? Yeah, they're more traditional. It depends. I've met old calendarists that are... Because also these things, when the schism happens, these things after that, you know, it's like the next generation, that's what they grew up in, that's their church, that's their... Right, they're not in rebellion against anything.

They can still be like extremely, you know, let's say generous of mind and and exploratory, even though they're in this tradition and they continue in this tradition, they don't want to go back. So there are different versions. There are Greek churches that are old calendarists that are kind of schismatic from the rest of the Greek church. And then there are the Russian churches, some of them are old calendarists, but they're not in schism. It's very complicated because it's a decentralized system. So I can, say, if I go to, let's say, a Rokor church, in theory, I should be able to take communion

even though many of the Rokor churches are old calendar. So it's, especially in America, it's really complicated. What about the old Russian believers? They fascinate me. Yeah, I don't know, I've never, well, I know someone who grew up an old Russian, an old believer, but do you find in Orthodoxy, this is a bigger, what I'm pointing at and what we're getting at is something bigger than orthodoxy, right?

It's this is this desire for tradition, you know in a time of modernity where we don't have roots anymore and want them That's what we're doing here, right? And so I I know in Catholicism that I see that and I know the temptation towards it It would be really weird to convert to like old believer orthodoxy. People don't become like... I think it might, it probably exists, but I would find that... It's like they're... Because it's so insular. The prayer mats are cool.

And then was it a Lestrovka? What's this called? The thing they have, the prayer rope. The prayer rope, yeah we have that. Yeah, but not the prayer, not the chotki, but the Lestrovka maybe? What does it look like? Can you look up what a Lestrovka... I'm butchering this. Hi everybody. Lestrovka maybe? What does it look like? Can you look up what a Lestrovka? I'm butchering this.

Hi, everybody. Lestrovka. No way that's right. It's like a leather prayer rope with that triangle at the bottom. It means ladder in Russian, I think. No, I bought one in Athens. That's so cool.

Yeah, I have one. Yeah. And then every little rung, which you shouldn't do, but this mind broke on me. And so I unraveled it. And of course, the Jesus prayer is written on every little wrapped up rung. Are you looking that up Josiah?

L-E-S-T-R. What's it called? Okay. I would like to apologize to all the Russian speakers. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I usually don't talk about this stuff because in some ways it's not the thing that interests me the most. And also because it's, you know, every group that exists has, you know, family squabbles in the details, you know?

And so it's true also in our families. And so sometimes it can be a little deceiving to just look at all those, you know, and to like pick them out. You know, I tend to... I try to stay away from that. You know, in reality the truth is, is that I have a bishop. That's the reality. You know, I have a bishop and I consider him to be like my spiritual authority and his priest is my spiritual spiritual authority. And that's really the way that I kind of deal with that stuff as much as possible. You know, Tell me the most awkward moment you've had with Jordan Peterson. It doesn't have to be with him specifically, but like maybe like you were with him and something happened and you're like this is wild.

maybe like you were with him and something happened, then you're like, this is wild. OK, am I supposed to say this? OK, so the the the. This is actually this is actually the funniest, the funniest moment with Jordan Peterson's Jordan. If you ever watch this, I'm sorry, but it was really hilarious. We you know, we were in Florida and we were filming the the Exodus Seminar. Yeah. Right. And so we did the Exodus seminar,

and then it's like, it's Saturday, and it's gonna be Sunday. So I said, come on. I said, Jordan, we looked at the Bible the whole week, so you just have to come to church with me, you know? And he's like, ah, you know, we'll see, I don't know. And so the next morning he texted me, and he's like, ah, you're such a bad influence,

I'm coming, you know? And so he comes to church with me, it's a cathedral in Florida and it's a beautiful cathedral, all painted and everything. And so Jordan is just amazed. Like he's looking, he's explaining the images to Tammy and is just really kind of amazed by the beauty of it. And the liturgy starts.

And then during the liturgy, Jordan keeps taking his phone out. And I'm like, what is he doing? And I'm standing right next to him. And he's like, and he's typing on his phone. And I'm like, what's happening? And I'm just trying to pay attention to liturgy and he's typing on his phone and I'm trying to pay attention. At some point, he's like, Jonathan, Jonathan, I want to show you something. This is during liturgy. And so he shows me his phone and then I

look on his phone and he's writing a chapter for his book, the book that just came out now. And I don't know if it's the one now or the next one. Anyways, he's writing a chapter in his book. And so I'm reading and he's like, and in the text that he's writing, he's talking about coming together and paying attention to the highest thing, you know, to bind us to it and to come together. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then I'm thinking like, all right, Jordan, let's do it. Like we're here, like let's do it now. So that was the funniest moment. One of the funniest moments that I've had with Jordan was like, you know, he's so like he's such a genius and he's like so he's in his mind. His mind is just going 100 miles an hour. And so it's like, oh, can't stop. Take his phone out. Start writing the chapter for his book.

Yes. Yeah. God bless him. Yeah. When I had him on the show, I think I think there's a lot of Christians who are fed up with him, maybe for good reason. But I think a lot of the time due to impatience, we have a really short. What do you say? We give people a short leash when they show interest in converting and then don't. Yeah, it's like you've got two weeks go. And if you haven't done it by then, you're somehow being deceptive or you're, you know the truth but you're just refusing to accept it. And that is not at all the impression I got. I mean, if, if, cause I think the argument goes something like this. Well, he's not committing to Christianity and we don't have to talk about Jordan Peterson.

I'm sure you're not Jordan Peterson. You don't speak for him. I'm sure of that. I'm positive. But I think it's okay to speak to that. I think that, you know, the thing about Jordan is that he's exactly what you see. Like the idea that he is planning or scheming or whatever, that's bullshit. Like he's just exactly what you see and the struggle that you see him having and the discoveries that you see him having in terms of Christianity,

all of those are real and they're happening at the same time in his life. And so, you know, I would tell people that are bothered with the fact that Jordan Peterson hasn't converted to Christianity to just like, just mind your own business and work out your salvation. If you're annoyed with that, then don't, you know, don't watch his podcast and don't read his books. But, you know, the truth is that Jordan Peterson has possibly been one of the biggest... How can I say this, one of the biggest like draw into the church that you know, that has been in the last 10 years. It's like a gateway drug to Christianity for the new atheists found a bridge, a lot of

them. And so, you know, it's like just thank God for that. And for the rest, it's you know, it's between him and God in the end. It's like you're not in charge of his soul and just let him, you know, and if and when he does become a Christian, you know for sure it's going to be 100% for real. Yeah. And you know, so yeah. Yeah, I often think that we want him like we want to make friends with the biggest kid in class. We want him on our side.

Exactly. It can become more like that than a desire for his good. I'm sure it's both, but yeah. Did you come up with that design? I'm looking at your lapel. Oh, Symbolic World Press. No, I didn't. So this is Heather Paulington. So, you know, we're starting publishing these kids books

now. We're publishing fairy tales. I should have, I should have bring one. I love reading fairy tales for my kids. I'm in the Russian fairy tales. Be proud of me right now. I should have brought you a copy. So sorry. It's so horrible. I definitely should have brought you a copy. Next time I'll bring you a copy. So we're publishing these fairy tales. There are many things, many reasons. One is that I love fairy tales. Second of all, I think fairy tales are second to the Scripture, really, in terms of

their capacity to kind of condense these very powerful truths. They're nowhere near the Scripture, but let's say still, like they're Scripture-like in the way that they tell stories. And also because the, you know, the progressives have dropped the fairy tales now, right? Disney's dropped them. They don't want them anymore. They basically would like either them to be completely ideologically skewed or they can't do it, right? They can't make Snow White now. Disney can't do it because they're so ideologically possessed that they can't do it. So I just thought this is the right time to do it.

And the thing is that our enemies have known this for a very long time. Talk to the kids. Forget the parents. Talk to the kids. And if we can get the kids, we don't need to just let the parents be and then we'll just draw them up. And that's why so many are drawn to education, go into education. And so I thought, well, we need to now put beautiful things

in the minds of the children. Like, let's do it instead of complaining about how woke nonsense is taken over our schools. Let's give parents something beautiful and powerful to replace it. And so and so I started writing these new versions of the fairy tales, which are very celebratory, you know, and very close to the to the it. And so I started writing these new versions of the fairy tales, which are very celebratory, you know, and very close to the original, but with some twist. And then Heather, she was a designer for like big franchises for Disney and Marvel and everything. And she also

kind of liked what I was doing and also loves fairy tales. And so, yeah, so now she works with us and she's our kind of artistic director. And she's amazing. I mean, she's she's world class. Yeah. And so she came up with this. We worked on this for months, like the logo for the press. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing people can take away from this is to reignite their love for fairy tales and read them to their children. I think this will be a podcast well worth well worth it. I my son every night. Dad, please. We'll pray that I read the to their children. I think this will be a podcast well worth it.

My son every night, like, Dad, please. We'll pray though. Are you reading the Russian fairy tale? Yeah. Like, Slavic fairy tales are amazing. They have that, they're really complex compared to the love. Could you please tell me who this Baba Yaga Sheila is? Because I've got no idea who Baba Yaga is. Well, I do because I read the fairy tales,

but she makes no sense to me. So could you, first of all, just introduce her to people who have no idea what we're talking about and then help me understand. So Baba Yaga is a crone, a witch or crone. She's actually ambiguous and she lives in the forest. She usually flies in a pestle. Not a pestle, a mortar.

What's that? So a mortar, I forget which one is which. That's all right. So the pestle and mortar, there's the... Oh, of course. Right, so there's... I know what you mean. Yeah. The bowl in which you crush something, and then there's the stick with you, which you crush it. So what does she fly on? She flies in the bowl with the stick, you know, it's pretty impressive. And she has a house that has chicken legs. Yes! You know what that is? It kind of moves around. Yeah, that moves around.

And you know, this is the thing about fairy tales is that, and it's actually the thing about scripture too, a lot of people, is that the stories are structural, you know, and so some elements in the story can play negative or positive aspects depending on the context. And so they're actually just like a structure of a world. And so in the Slavic fairy tales, Baba Yaga will sometimes be an absolute threat, but then sometimes will actually be more like a crone figure that will help the the female figure along her journey. And so that's what confuses people is because they always think that, you know, it's just the witch.

You know, but we have, you know, it's like what's the difference between the witch and the fairy godmother? You know, these characters have very similar structures, it's just that one is kind of in the way to help you along and the other is in the way to kind of to stop you. And so that's one of the ways to kind of understand these more complex fairy tales because they use these figures as like their place markers. Like this is the place in the story where this character belongs. I don't know if I'm making myself clear. Probably not. Like a good example would be in the Bible, there are examples like this actually, effeminate examples in the Bible. So it's like what's the difference between effeminate examples in the Bible. So it's like, what's the difference between what's the difference between Rahab and Delilah? It's like both of them are

traitors. Yeah. One of is a traitor for the good and one is a traitor. Or what's the difference between Delilah and jail? Jail's even better. It's like jail invites the man into her tent, calms him down, gives him milk, puts a blanket on him, and then drives a spike through his head. And then the other one does the same, cuts off Samson's hair, but she's the bad guy. But they're the same figure, like in terms of what they're doing. So that's the way to understand is that... But one is for good and one is for evil.

So that's a good example of understanding how Baba Yaga could function in fairy tales. And she functions as both yourself. So to use the same character to function in the tales. And she functions as both, you're saying? Yeah. So to use the same character to function in the two ways. That's very fascinating. So it's a confusing kind of figure. It can be, yeah. But it's also because it's...

Is that the point? Because she's a... Especially because she's a forest figure, you know, and the forest figures are always a little ambiguous, you know. Yeah. And so... I'm thinking of... What's his name from the Lord of the Rings?

Tom Bombadil. He's a forest figure. Yeah. Very confusing. Yeah, he's confusing. Yeah, he's more positive though. He's not as ambiguous, but you could imagine figures that are more, that could go one way or the other, you know, depending on the context, you know?

So you could think about it like actually a sphinx figure as a good example to understand. It's like, so the sphinx poses a riddle. If you answer the riddle, you know, you might get a boon, but if you don't, then it'll eat you. So is it a good figure? Is it a bad figure? It's like, that's the problem of the forest, or it's the problem of the ambiguous space, or the space of the challenge, or the space of the question, you could say, is that it is ambiguous in its nature, because it's a query, it's a question, it is ambiguity.

It's a good way of understanding it. So, yeah, so the sphinx is actually probably one of the best examples, like a guardian figure. I want to give a shout out to Deacon Nicholas Cotar. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you interviewed him. Yeah, and he was kind enough to send me his collection of Russian fairy tales. So people go check him out if you're interested in picking up his books. You can find them on Amazon. I don't know where else he sells them, but Deacon Nicholas Cotar.

Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, I've done quite a few projects with him. Okay. Like him a lot. But Deacon Nicholas, yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, I've done quite a few projects with them. Okay, I can lot I mean I love Well, there's a couple like what about the Grimms do you read Grimms? Yeah Robber bridegroom one. No, that's terrible. Absolutely terrifying. I was reading that to my kids one day Yeah, but the grim fairy tales are not all for kids. Well, I pressed on yeah, what's giving me one? I like so I wish you some of them not for kids true Yeah, no, this one's horrible. It's brilliant. I actually made it into my own horror story

I wrote it from a first-person perspective. Mm-hmm. But anyway, I also love obviously Hansel and Gretel Yeah, tell them please teach me about Hansel and Gretel. That's my fate It's obviously one of the most memorable fairy tales. Yeah I mean, what what is it that you're wondering about Hans Lengretl? Like, is there something that you find ambiguous that you're not sure about? Well, I just know that you've thought about this way longer than me and way deeper than me, and that you've probably got insights into this that are going to shatter my knucklehead skull. But I mean, what a wild story. First of all, what's interesting is like, I don't know, the thing I think is like, who's the witch here? Because you've got this stepmother who talks her idiot husband into starving their children to death because they don't have enough food for all of them. And he's like, all right. Yeah, that's wild.

So good. A good way to understand it is, is to understand the mother and the witch as either the same figure or as opposite figures. Right. And so you could say the stepmother in this case is the figure that wants to, let's say, reject or push away the children, you know, in order to have her husband. So, or to have the man. It doesn't have to be her husband. So the witch in Snow White, that's what she does, right? She basically sees the children as a competition for what she wants. And so she wants to get rid of Snow White because she's a competition for what she wants. And so she wants to get rid of Snow White because she's a competition for her as the most beautiful in the world, you know, so she gets rid of her. And then you have the other version, you could say it's the witch in Rapunzel's, is a good example, where the witch in

Rapunzel, she wants to like protect and like she's the devouring mother character, right? She wants to kind of keep the children and give them, give her everything she wants as long as she doesn't leave, you know? And so, in the story of Hansel and Gretel, those two figures play on each other. So you have the stepmother that wants the kids to basically die in the woods.

That's the witch in Snow White, you know? She sends them out into the woods to die. And then you have the Rapunzel witch, you could say the one, the witch in the house, which has a candy house. And it's like, you can have all the witch in the house, which has a candy house. And it's like, you can have all the candy you want. You can eat anything you want. You can have everything you want as long as you don't leave,

as long as you stay with me and I keep you safe, you know? And ultimately what she's doing is she's gonna eat the children, right? That's the devouring mother. It's the most classic example of that character But you can so you can see how yeah You can see how these these tropes they play out in different fairy tales in different ways But Hans and Gretel you it's beautiful because you have both at the same time. Yeah, so I guess my question is Was there a point to the husband?

Freely giving up his children because obviously they come back to him and he embraces them. That's a weird Yeah, that one's it so I guess I'm wondering like is that did they not think it through when they put this together or? children because obviously they come back to him and he embraces them. That's a weird part of the story. Yeah, that one's rough. So I guess I'm wondering like, is that, did they not think it through when they put this together or is there something there that I don't understand? It's probably that one. No, I think that the way that it's presented in the story is that it's just presented that it's the woman who's an obstacle in the story. And so if the obstacle is removed, then there's a restoration to the father. You know, obviously in psychological terms, it doesn't make much sense. You have to understand it on a different level. You have to understand it more on the level of that

in this relationship, it's the mother that it's an obstacle for the children to have a proper relationship with the father. And once that goes away, then the children can have a proper relationship with the father. And once that goes away then the children can have the proper relationship. But it's like you said emotionally it doesn't make much sense. But it makes sense structurally. Like if you understand the story as a structure and you understand how those two aspects of the feminine are two excesses that have to that can prevent a normal family from being together. I know fairy tales are written by cultures, not just a fella sitting down and writing it, but I feel like today,

if we tried to write something like fairy tales, it would be the bloke who'd be the threat. So what- But those exist in stories too. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and Rob is Brigham, which I brought up earlier, the fiance is this crazy murderer who eats women. But why is, I don't know, I think of the most classic fairy tales, you have a lot of mothers

who are doing it. Yeah, no, but they're super balanced. The fairy tales will always have, you'll always be able to find a counterweight to one fairy tale in another and always be able to see the story of the ogre, for example, who keeps the woman, the ogre that keeps the woman in her house and that you have to steal his heart. There are many, many versions of that. Like the story of Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast is a good example of a kind of tyrannical, where you actually see the weak man, but then the weak man cedes to a tyrannical, where you actually see the weak man, right? But then the weak man cedes to a tyrannical man.

So in the story of Hansel and Gretel, the weak man cedes to a tyrannical woman, or to like a controlling woman, but you also have versions where a weak man will cede to a tyrannical man. So you can understand it like, a girl that doesn't have a father will be attracted to, will be attracted to like a really controlling man, something like that.

Yeah. Could be. What's your favorite of the Brothers Grimm's? Hmm. What's my favorite of the Brothers Grimm? I don't function that way. It's weird. I see, I see fairy tales together. Like I see them as a symphony. And so I always like to see them in relationship to each other So you saw what I'm doing like when I'm talking about Hansel and Gretel Sorry my cigars going up. Yeah, I think you want to light it while you're kind of puffing on it to get it fully lit If I may give some cigar of less, but you got it

So I that's how I see them it's the same with Bible stories. I see them as symphonic. So it's like my mind is always looking for counterpoint. And so if I see a story with a character I'm always looking for, I'm always looking for the counterpoint. What's the opposite? Or what's an example of this but in the other way? Like I did with jail and rehab. That's the way I think. And so I don't have like a favorite fairy tale. Although I love Jack and so I don't have, like a favorite fairy tale. Although, I love Jack and the Beanstalk. Tell me about that. Men, do you feel stuck in old idols or burdened by the pharaohs of our time? Do you know that you're capable of so much more than you're giving today? Exodus 90 is the number one freedom app to help you become the man you were created to be. Exodus 90 is a powerful 90-day journey to freedom in Jesus Christ and it starts on January 20th.

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journey to greater freedom in Jesus Christ. So go to Exodus90.com slash Matt to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus90.com slash Matt to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus90.com slash Matt to join tens of thousands of men from all around the world for Exodus 90, starting Monday, January 20th and leading up to Easter Sunday. I love Jack and the Beanstalk. Like, tell me about that. I remember it's funny what impresses itself upon our imagination when we're children, isn't it? And it's interesting how as parents, we don't know the kind of impact it's having on children. I watched a little cartoon of Jack and the Beanstalk

as a kid and it frightens me. I think back on it and I remember being frightened. Yeah. Well, that's the one we just published. It's called Jack and the Fallen Giants. Like I'm gonna plug my book, even though I don't have it.. It's called Jack and the Fallen Giants. Like, I'm going to plug my book, even though I don't have it. So it's called Jack and the Fallen Giants, and it really is my kind of desire to struggle with or like, you know, wrestle with this story, because it's very powerful, but it's

also very confusing, you know, because when you look at it at the outset, it's like, okay, so this boy, his mother is poor, and then then she has a cow but now he has to sell the cow and he sells them for magic beans and then he puts the magic then you know her mother can't recognize the value the magic beans throw them out beanstalk climbs up the beanstalk and encounters a giant you think what the hell what is happening with a chicken laying gold yeah so the first one usually it's a he goes three times so the first time usually it's a bag of gold okay Okay. And then he comes down, gives the bag of gold to his mother, then goes back up, then finds the chicken that lays

golden eggs, then brings that, and then goes back up, and then finds the golden harp, right, that sings on its own. Okay. You know. And so, yeah, when I was a kid I loved that story, but I also struggled with it a lot because I wondered Jack is a thief he goes up there and steals things like is he the good guy? Is he a bad guy? You know what what is happening in the story and also what's the relationship between the things that he steals right? So he steals a bag of gold then a chicken that lays golden eggs and he steals a heart. Like is there some structure it's like some relationship, or is it just random? And really, in meditating on that for years, that I finally, I think I understood the story,

and was able to kind of open it up, I think, when I wrote it, to like, open it up to, to, to, to help people see a little more what it, what it means. And, do you want me to tell you what it means? Very much would like that. All right, so what I think it means, you know, and you'll see when I say, when I tell you what it means, I'm never gonna tell you what it means. Like, just like I did with jail and rehab,

I don't tell people what things mean. I try to just show you the pattern and hope you kind of see it yourself because it's not, it doesn't actually mean something like, doesn't mean like, oh, this means. It's like the morals of Aesop's fables were inserted well after Aesop's fables were written. Exactly, yeah.

And maybe have. They're not stories with morals, that's for sure. Fairy tales are really not stories with morals. Like you can kind of try to make them that way, but they're more than that, Bible stories either. Okay, fair enough. So you can try to make them like that. So my question to you is, are you afraid that you're trying to impose a structure that just isn't there on it? When you find the relation between the bag of gold, etc. Maybe. But then what I'm gonna do is, hopefully, is

that when I tell the story, I'm gonna do it in the story. So if I tell it, do it in the story, then there isn't... I'm not telling you like this is what it means. I'm saying, hey, look at how I'm putting these things together and notice how they shine a light on each other, you could say. And so, I do think though that like most fairy tales with characters of that age, you know, that are like 10, 11, 12, it's a coming-of-age story mostly, right? It does have to do with the transition in life.

You know, most of the female fairy tales, they do, they're not only about puberty, but they are about puberty to some extent. And they use puberty as a way of understanding transformation in general, or as a way of understanding how something becomes something else. And I think that that's what you see in the story of Jack. So Jack doesn't have a father, he has a mother, and they're poor. And so the poverty of the family

is akin to not having a father, because the father is the one who gives the identity, and the mother gives the body. That's the traditional understanding, you know. And so, and they also have a cow, which is kind of tongue-in-cheek, but it's, that's what it is. She has a cow that's running out of milk, and he has a mother that doesn't have a husband. It's like, right, those two things are related to each other. And so she's, but without without a husband she's running out of potential it's a good way of thinking on it's like it's like the widow in the story of

Elijah you know I'm gonna turn this heater up so it's like it's like the widow in the story of Elijah, you know, where she's running out of food because she doesn't have a husband, but also because there's no rain from heaven. Those two things are related. She's not connected to heaven. She doesn't have a father, doesn't have a husband,

and therefore she's running out of potential. You know, she's running out of food. And that's what Jack's mother is the problem. And so Jack goes and brings the cow to town to sell it. What was wrong with the cow? It's running out of milk. It's getting older. Is that the idea?

Well, it's because a cow runs out of milk if it hasn't been inseminated. And so it's, yeah, that's, that's what, if it doesn't have a baby, it runs out of milk. It like runs out of potential, right? Okay. So those things are kind of connected. Okay, thanks. It's also like a body, right?

It's a cow, it's an animal, it's a body. And so she's like, well, this is not enough. We need to trade this for value. We need to trade it for money so that we can then buy food and we can live. And that's really what the story is about. But it's also about a boy becoming a man and learning what value is,

learning, understanding what patterns in the world yield value. And so he trades the cow. What does he trade it for? Do you remember what he trades them for? Beans? Yeah. Bacca beans? So why would he trade the cow for beans?

Well, isn't he told that they're magic beans? Yeah. Well, if he believed that they were magic beans, that seems like a good trade. Yeah. So what's the difference? If you had to make the difference between a cow and beans, what would you say the difference is?

I mean, there are many differences, Jonathan. I'm not sure what you want from me. So let me, let me, let me, I'll get it. So, well, I mean, beans have potential, right? To become something else. There you go. Whereas you have a cow that has used up its potential. So the cow is running out of milk because it doesn't have seed.

Right. And the seed doesn't have body. So they're related to each other. So it's like, this is seed. So he's he's 12 years old for all intents and purposes. And now he's discovering magic seed. He doesn't know what it's for. He has no idea what this magic seed is for, you know, but the man says this is magic. But the thing is that beans are magic. Like seed is magic

because it's a pattern. It has the whole pattern of the entire plant in it, but it has no body. Wow. Right. And so it is a coming of age. There's a sexual element to it, but it's not just that. It's also, it's him discovering his own seed, you could say, but it's also the idea of like, he has to now understand what masculinity is. What is this? Like, what is a pattern without a body?

And how does that become body? Like, how does that, how do you have a seed that has no body? How does that become body? He brings the seed back to his mother. His mother doesn't recognize the value in it. Partly because she's, she doesn't have a husband and also because she's living in the immediate, right? She's like, I need food now. And the seed are for the future. The seeds are something that can become something in the future, right? And so, the beanstalk, so you throw the beans out,

Jack goes to sleep, wakes up, there's the beanstalk, right? So the beanstalk... Does the mother ever comment on the beanstalk? No. Well, yeah, she doesn't want him to climb it. You know. Because the beanstalk is a lot of things, you know. It's obviously, to some extent, waking up in the morning, you know, because the beanstalk is a lot of things, you know, it's obviously to some extent waking up in the morning, you know, when you're 12 years old. That is part of it. It's not the only thing.

Like, I hate it because I don't want people to think that this story is about sex. It's not about sex. But it does, there are sexual elements to it. Just like in the Bible, there are sexual elements in the Bible, but they're not about sex. They're using sex to help you understand something more powerful. So it is that becoming a man, becoming like entering into the world of masculinity, but it's that's so it's a hierarchy, right? It's a hierarchy that goes up into heaven. So he has to climb the hierarchy and then deal with what he finds there. So first of all, he encounters a giant. So every, it's like every young man in the world has this experience.

It's like you go into the world and you come into contact with older men that basically don't want, you don't want to leave you, give you room in their world They're happy for you to work for them, right? They'll just devour you like they'll take your energy for their own purposes, but they don't want you to participate in the hierarchy Everybody's had that experience. You know, you work for a boss you work for someone who basically doesn't want to let you ascend properly and so

That's one of one of the aspects of what's happening there, right? It's like the giant who wants to eat the young man, you know, and like I said, it's, you could say, call it like the negative aspect of hierarchy, right? So hierarchies aren't all positive. Some aspects are negative and everybody has experienced that. Yep, yep, yep. So Jack, so Jack, first of all, he steals a bag of gold. So he takes the bag of gold down and it's like, he's discovered something about the world, right? It's like, oh, wait a minute, what's better than food?

Well, what's better than food, actually, secretly it's the seed because it's the future food, right? But now he's trying, he's playing it out. He goes up in the world, finds money. Money's great because money can buy food. It's like, if you have money, then you can buy food. It's like a higher form of causality. It's like a vertical causality, right?

But you bring the money and then what happens? You run out of money. So what's better than money in terms of a pattern? Well, something that keeps giving. The thing that makes money, whatever that is, it doesn't matter. It's a chicken that lays golden eggs. But if you can discover what the thing is that makes money, oh That's much better. You've gotten a pattern that's much higher in the world. It's the give a man a fish. Exactly. Teach him how to fish. Exactly. So it's like that's higher up in the hierarchy of causality Right it's like if I can get the thing that makes money then I can have money, and then I can get food Good stuff, and then you think that's where the story should end

Right because now I've got wealth. I've got the money. I can make I can generate wealth, and I'm good But he goes up a third time. That's the weirdest one. That's the one that took me a very long time to kind of understand. Yeah, because the question is, what do you need now? You have everything. So, he gets a harp. What is he getting?

He, it's like, he's getting the pattern. He's getting, he's getting the music of the spheres for all intents and purposes. He's getting the pattern that yields other patterns. He's actually, you could say, in a Christian way, you'd say he's getting the logos. You know, that's not what it is, it's not a Christian story, but he's getting something that akin to the logos in the sense that it's the pattern that yields other patterns, that yields the way that you can have value in the world. And that's why that's the last thing that he gets. It's similar to the story of Jacob,

very similar. I'm thinking of Jacob's letter. Yeah, but also Jacob is similar to Jack because he tricks people to get the blessing. Yeah. It's very ambiguous in that sense. Like, is it good? Is Jacob doing good? He like tricks, fights with the angel, he fights with his father, he tricks his father, tricks his brother in order to get, to ascend the hierarchy, you know, that's what he's doing, getting the blessings from heaven. And so you could say that what Jack gets is the blessing from heaven, that's what he gets, the last thing, it's like the music of the spheres. And so it's a really powerful story, like it really does have a kind of, it's really cosmic in its implications, you know. So is it the harp you talk about patterns, talk about meaning, is this sort of like where we're meant to ascend in life? Like we're meant to go beyond the material?

go beyond the material. I think so. I think so. And you think of men that you've known who've stayed in one place or the other. Right. So you've got some men who maybe are impulsive and want things to use them immediately. They don't look ahead. And then you perhaps have others and maybe we find this within ourselves who are

greedy. Yeah. But then you meet like the gentle old man who neither of those things are as important to him as the greater meaning in life. Yeah. You could see it like, um, you know, the story of Jack and it's, it's hierarchy. You see it happen with people, you know, even people who become very wealthy. You kind of see it.

They, they make all the money, they do everything they wanted. And then at like 45 or 50, they're like, okay, now what? And then they start giving their money away, they start getting involved in causes, they start... Sometimes for good or ill, sometimes... Or they blow everything up and go looking for the bag of gold again. Yeah, exactly. Or you have that happen, like some guys, you know, when they turn 50 or whatever, like around... They go looking for magic beans again. Then they... Yeah, exactly. they're looking for a cow. They just want the cow.

And they lose their mind and they get the young girlfriend in the sports car and all that stuff, but that's definitely the course that steers you. Yeah, it's definitely the incapacity to see what true participation is. Because when you reach that age, what you should become is like a mentor, or you should be giving.

Yeah. But if you don't understand that, then you continue to take and that doesn't end well. Yeah, it doesn't end well. And we see people that do that happen. I always share this story. And I mean, no disrespect to this individual who's since passed away,

but he, uh, he lived in our town and he abandoned his family. Yeah. He, uh, he, my, one of my best friends, he abandoned their family. I'm being very careful not to give anything away here, but went to a country near our country. That's more like a party country. Yeah. Came back really fat, uh, bleach blonde hair beach, bleached blonde hair, bleached blonde hair, even though he was a darker skinned fella,

and lived in governmental housing, had a shell necklace, was just so unattractive. And the reason I think about that is not to shame him, but to remind myself that I can also destroy everything and become that man, and I don't want to. Yeah, but you can feel it. Everybody feels it. Every man in the world has a moment when they're like,

it's like, I could just give in. Like I could just give, because it's all, it's there, right? It's present, you know, and you're right that these types of stories and the personal stories that we know of people who have gone that direction and have ended. And I guess there's two sides of this, you tell me what you think, but on one,

you've got the passionate man who gives free rein to his passion, destroys everything around him in search for the beans. But then maybe you also have the man who had a dry obligation, kind of remains with everybody, but is very unhappy. And it's like, I don't wanna be either of those men. No, you don't to be either of those men. No, you don't.

You don't want to be either of those. Like, you have to continue to ascend in some ways. You have to continue to go up. Like, if you just settle, then you're just going to dry up. Like you said, neither of those is good. And like you said, you can immediately pull up examples of people who just completely settle and just become, yeah, just dry out. And then people who like lose their mind and then go wild. And I think that those are never the people you admire.

No. I don't admire those parts of myself. Yeah. And I know they're like they're like hurting parts of myself. They're not like me, you know, banging on all cylinders. It's the crippled part of me that's in need of a healer. All what we do is we kind of, we tame, we find like little passions that don't destroy us, but they become idols nonetheless, whether that be the father who's doing his crossword puzzles all day long, getting drunk, you know, and abandoning his family in that way. You know, like he hasn't technically left,

but he's checked out, right? And that's like a way to kind of cope with the pain of existence and the pain of your own demise, which is on its way. Yeah. Golly. Right? Yeah. And the thing, this is the thing thing the thing too is like this is horrible difficult, but you know, I think that

There's actually like a limited amount of time that we have you know, or not a limited amount of time It's like it's like a clock winding down, you know, because you know as you reach a certain age, you know, because, you know, as you reach a certain age, you know, change becomes harder. And so it's not that it's impossible, like we know stories of people that have, you know, radically changed, you know, later in life. It's not impossible, but it becomes more difficult if you're not careful and you let, you know, either of those, like, take over your life when you're like in your late 20s and early 30s, you 30s, I think that you can really be in trouble, you know, because at some point it's just very difficult to change.

What is it saying? Set in your ways. It's like cement and it's a lot harder to move. Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, I think the answer is, the answer is, yeah, remembering God and attention, you know, and you know, I think confession, like for me, attention. Attention, attention.

Amen, brother. It's about attention. Yeah. That's huge. Yeah, you know, the Hesychastic Fathers, they say, remember God, remember your sins. If you can do that, remember God and remember your sins, you'd probably be pretty good, because you know all the things that will lead you into chaos, and also know what is driving you forward because if you just have one Or just you know, if you just have one you're in danger. You need you need kind of you need both

And like you said to always know that that part of you that could go wild or could lose it is always there And if you're not careful, you just kind of and you just skirt, you know You kind of flirt with it or skirt with it like yeah that the door can the door just skirt, you know, you kind of flirt with it or skirt with it. Like, yeah, the, the door can, the door can open, you know? So this is a verse that I just love. It's from Luke 21, 34, and I'll explain why it blows me away. And I'd love your take on it. Right. Our blessed Lord says, be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with

carousing drunkenness and the anxieties of life. I remember reading this and like, wait, your hearts will grow drowsy because of these things? We all think that's the solution. Like, I'm drowsy, therefore what I'm going to do is I'm going to like give myself over to sexual dissipation, become drunk. And then, I don't know, I'm reading a lot into this at this point, but the anxieties of life, I mean, how many of us choose the anxieties of life by just continually refreshing our news feeds and getting angry? But it's interesting to me that Christ is saying, like, no, no, no, these are the things that will make you drowsy. But we think of them as the antidote to drowsiness.

I'm exhausted. I need to just let loose a little. Yeah, yeah. Or, yeah, or I'm a really serious person. I'm really serious and I have to take care of all my responsibilities. Wait, I'm not saying you shouldn't take care of your responsibilities, but if that becomes

the purpose of your life, it's like that's not enough. There's no way, you're gonna dry up. And so being worried about the money that's coming in or being worried about your bills and being worried about these things, not that you should be responsible, you know, being worried about, you know, the money that's coming in or being worried about your bills and being worried about these things Not that you should be responsible You should be but that is not that's not a way to live, you know And you I mean and also we can also set ourselves up in a way I think that can avoid that

You know, it's like you can make decisions that will avoid that pressing down on you like I Yeah, anyways, I think it also depends I I mean, it depends also on our lives. It depends on our circumstances. But, you know, I've been very fortunate. For example, my wife, she likes being poor. That's been really a blessing to me. It's been a real blessing to me because she's never like pressed on me this like this need to be you know to to make sure that everything that we're you know they were generating all this revenue or whatever like she she's fine with us being poor she's also happy when we have money like she's not you know yeah but but that's to me at least for me that's been

very helpful you know so anyways yeah god bless her and that that helpful you being an artist yeah exactly you're a talented artist or else i wouldn't there's no way i could been very helpful, you know, so anyways. Yeah, bless her and that helpful you being an artist. Yeah, exactly. You're a talented artist. Or else I wouldn't. There's no way I could have become an icon carver if. If I didn't have that possibility, you know, did you have a float with atheism as a kid?

No, it's weird. No, it's it's like my. It's weird because I read a lot of postmodern authors when I was in college, but they never brought me to atheism. I was reading some pretty dark, so Emile Siorin, who's a French kind of mystic nihilist, who talked about nothingness in a kind of mystical way, and I would read him, and there was something in it that was attractive to me. And I discovered negative theology and I was like actually no this is what this is driving towards this is actually the the productive

aspect of this you know and and actually Jacques Derrida was the who's the you know the famous French post-structuralist like the the father of postmodernism he wrote a little book he wrote a little book called He wrote a little book called, Sofus Le Noms, Save the Name, right? Which was like a postmodern introduction to negative theology. It was a 17th century text called The Sherabinic Wanderer. And I was blown away.

And it actually led me deeper actually into my faith, strangely enough, who would have thought. But it led me to kind of understand this more negative aspect of God, right? The idea that God is not a being, that God is not some big whatever invisible being in the sky, that He's actually, you know, the infinite source of being and therefore is not a thing, is not... Yeah, not within our categories. Yeah, doesn't have a, you know... And then there's the positive aspect of that as well, but like the negative aspect to me was helpful. And so it's weird, I never, I don't know, I never flirted with atheism.

You know how you look back on your life. Did you flirt with atheism? Did I? That's what I was about to say. You know, you look back on your teenage years and I'm trying to be really honest, you know, because you can, you know, over the years you tell your story to people and sometimes it might slip away from reality. So I'm trying to go, what was I, you know, I think I liked, I didn't like going to church.

It seemed more likely that God didn't exist and that this Jesus thing was a fairy tale that parents told their kids to behave. That was a simple narrative that I could adopt. And I don't know, I know that there are, I think, atheists of goodwill, right, who, you know, people will accuse them of not wanting there to be a God so they can live however they wanna live.

And I'm sure that's true, but I'm sure it's not true for certain people. And for me, I don't know, I think it probably was true. You know, I was getting into all sorts of things and I liked the idea of the mystery of life that didn't have any kind of demand on me, which I think is what maybe led me to look into kind of New Age spirituality, Buddhism, because that didn't tell me not to have sex with my girlfriend,

not to look at porn, and not to steal. Maybe it did, I don't know. I wasn't listening that attentively. It probably did. It was the California Buddhist site. That's what I call them. These like fake American Buddhists that want the Buddhism, but not the actual implications on their life. Like you meet, like I always say, you know, you meet an actual real Buddhist, and that actual real Buddhist is closer to my Catholic grandmother than they are to like some California yoga Buddhist.

You know, it's like, they just basically use it as an excuse. What do you think that is? Because what I wanted was the mystery and goodness that came with religion, but not the moral demands. I mean, it's it's not that it's not that novel. I think we all get it. Yeah, of course. But it was this this desire that there had to be more. Yeah. But I didn't want that more to tell me what to do. Yeah.

And I even remember like trying to practice meditation and this was as the internet was coming in, it was very rudimentary websites, I would look up these little kind of new age meditations. If it would use religious language like heaven, even if it wasn't referring to the Christian heaven, it would turn me off. Oh really? I would nothing to do with that. Interesting. Well, to me the solution, you know, I don't think I was to answer your question, I don't think I was an atheist because I'm not even sure what I what the word meant and I I didn't have any good arguments. Maybe I did have good evidence for God's existence, but I didn't have any good evidence for atheism. It also was kind of like it was kind of cool to be an atheist.

It was like this faux sophistication. It's so funny because I grew up in a very different, I don't know where you were in those contexts you grew up in. I grew up in a context where everybody around me was pretty much an atheist. Did they have, were they philosophical? Yeah, every teacher I had, every, you know, like go to college, every teacher hates religion. And so I was like punk rock. I was a Christian. I felt like I actually funneled my rebellion into being a Christian all through my teenage years. I think we're seeing that today.

Yeah, because I was like an exception and I was happy to kind of flaunt that exception. There was probably some pride in that, but I would say that it did save me from that kind of easy atheism because I was like, no, I'm different from you. You know, I'm like, I'm not like you guys. And so I kind of remained a Christian my whole, my whole life. And then it feels like also the, my readings that say grew up with me. And so when I was, when I would have been ready to kind of be annoyed with the moralistic aspect of Christianity, Then I read certain Christian authors that presented the faith in these mystical terms

that made the morality downstream from true being. You know, and so if you read Boethius, you know, I read Boethius in my like... Journey of the Mind. Oh, which one? The Consolation of Philosophy? Beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful because he really presents

the consequences of evil as being, so it's not like someone wagging a finger at you, it's like here is a way of being that if you don't live that way, you will be less. And it's a true thing. And I think that, you know, and you see it, you see it in your own life, the moments when you kind of give up the moral life, then you actually become less.

Yes. Right? You know, and it's not about finger wagging. It really is about being a more of a person. So to me, once I saw that, it was like, oh, it doesn't mean that I didn't sin. Obviously, I sin all the time. But it means that at least I didn't see that as I didn't see like a justification for it. Like I never had this idea like, oh, this is fine, this is okay. Which is why Aristotle's idea of eudaimonia is so important. What Thomas Aquinas means by happiness, for example, is not what my modern people mean by happiness, this sort of emotional contentment. Yeah. If it were that, then yeah, sure, the drug addict in the orgy is happy. But no, according to Christianity, the Blessed Mother weeping at the foot of the cross is actually happier than the fellow in the orgy. And that's why Boethius really, I mean, for me, it was a strong argument.

You know, he basically says, all the other pleasures, they're all external to you, you know, and if you take them away, then you're miserable. So what is that? Like, what is that if you depend on these external things, that if you take it away, then all of a sudden you feel like you're completely lost. So then that's not real. What is real is something that has to be within you, or else it's actually you're a slave to something whatever it is So as soon as I kind of understood that I was like, okay. Yeah, I mean this seems pretty Yeah difficult to to to attack. Let's say as a vision. She ever read Pascal Some yeah, I'm not getting into his wage or anything. Although I think it's excellent, but I think he has this wonderful line He says something I'm paraphrasing, but all of the ills of man or humanity can be traced back to the fact

that a man does not know how to sit alone in a dark room silently. Something similar to that, like when everything's taken away. Yeah, when you stay alone with yourself. Exactly. I asked, so Peterson was sitting there and I asked him, I don't know if you saw this, what's the best argument for atheism? I didn't, I didn't, I haven't seen the conversation. Yeah. And he said, there isn't one.

It's an illegal chess move. Yeah. But when he said that, I thought, well, maybe you and I don't mean the same thing by God. And I don't know what he means by God. But if a man by God meant existence or something, as we commonly understand it, then to say what's the best argument against God is a stupid question, because you're asking what's the best argument against existence, and existence is apparent. Yeah. But what do you think the best argument for atheism is? Or do you not think like that? No, I don't think that way, but I do think that the best argument for atheism is suffering. I don't think that that's a surprise.

I think it might be the only one. I don't think it works. I think that meaningless suffering is the best argument, but I also agree that I don't think it works. I think that actually Jordan Peterson has been able to really formulate it beautifully, is that, you know, you actually have to... In the world that we live in, you have to suffer for meaning all the time. You actually, you always have to suffer in order to attain something more. It's actually absolutely necessary. And so people who don't suffer enough will like go to the gym

and like make themselves suffer in order to attain something more. It's like people join the army to suffer so that they can like turn that suffering towards meaning. And so, you know, we actually, I think once we understand that, that in fact suffering is suffering and sacrifice, you could say, is necessary for all purposes that we have, then we realize that, yeah, in fact, that the only thing you can do when you suffer is to turn towards meaning. It's actually the only thing you can do. And then when you see the lives of the saints,

and I think there are particularly stunning examples of that, for example, even in modern Catholic saints, which is that you see these characters that are completely crippled, like their body is just withering, you know. Francis. Yeah. And then, but then nonetheless, they are so full, you know, and they wouldn't trade their spot with you at all. And so you think, how horrible, like why would God do that to someone, right? And then you're like, that person doesn't think that. That person actually is in their suffering because of their great suffering.

That great suffering becomes a kind of portal towards more transcendent meaning. Now I don't want to suffer. I hate saying that. Every time I say that there's a shiver that goes down my spine. I'm like, please God don't make me martyr. Exactly. But I can see in the story, like I can see it, you know, and I can see it at a little scale in my life.

Like the things that I find valuable are the things that I suffered for, right? Yes. Because if something just comes, like, you know, it's like... It doesn't mean anything, does it? No. You know, like if a child just is given everything and given the inheritance and never has to work for anything.

And it doesn't mean that, like, it doesn't mean that we're masochists at all. Like, it doesn't mean that at all. It just means that... It just means that. It means that suffering can become glory in the right context, if it's aimed at something higher. And that's one of the greatest revelations I think that Christ brings to us. That Christ didn't... You know, Christ came and He did a few things that

are interesting. On the one hand, He did relieve suffering, like He did, but then He ultimately pointed that and said there's actually a higher way, because if you really want to find the highest way, it's actually through suffering. It's like if you go through the suffering, you know, that's why the martyrs are the highest saints, because they, their suffering has become glory. That's interesting. So if the atheist says that suffering, okay, is an argument against God's existence, and then you have Christ saying, unless you pick up your cross daily and follow me. Yeah. Like, unless you suffer. Yeah, that's a rough one, you know, because it's like the

You know the argument in the In the Brothers Carousel like that, of course that the child that's being tortured or the you know All these things are difficult to ponder like they're difficult Oh my god Because we have to we definitely have to to not be naive about this, you know And then the only thing you can think is that you know, and mean, atheists watching this will just hate what I'm going to say, but it's like it's the trusted crisis with the people suffering. I want to tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world.

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Brothers Carousel, like the, of course, the child that's being tortured or the, you know, all these things are difficult to ponder. Like they're difficult. Oh my God. Because we have to, we definitely have to, to not be naive about this, you know. And then the only thing you can think is that, you know, and I mean, atheists watching this will just hate what I'm going to say, but it's like it's the trust that Christ is with the people suffering.

Right, and I'm with you. And I think you have to distinguish too between, you know, what would make you an atheist and what should make you an atheist, because there are times that I think about the suffering in the world, stories I've heard about what has happened to different people, and I hear those stories and it doesn't feel like God exists. I feel like God might not exist. Yeah. But then I think about it and I can't make the argument run. Yeah. Does that make sense? So fair enough. Yeah. And it's the same thing with the atheist. Maybe he Yeah, does that make sense? Yeah, so fair enough. Yeah, yeah

And it's the same thing with the it's also like it's maybe he experiences meaning and feels like there could be this great plan To the universe. All right, fair enough like that There's feelings and then there's arguments and we shouldn't be but then there's there's a bigger There's a harder question and this is and I think this is also one of the things that Jordan Peterson has brought out very clearly Is you know what? You are going to suffer. And so you can argue against reality. Right? And so this is something that I hear sometimes with some of the celebrity atheists, that in some ways they're arguing against reality.

It's like suffering shouldn't exist. Well, it's like, well, suffering does exist. Now what? Yeah. You haven't made it better, right? By getting rid of God, what are you left with now? Exactly. Now you're just left with suffering. Yeah. And so the idea that the only thing we can do with suffering in our lives is to turn it towards purpose. That's actually the only thing we can do. And so it's like, so if that's not, so that seems to show something about reality, about how reality functions, which is that if you turn suffering towards purpose,

you know, it transforms suffering into something else. And it makes you a more full, beautiful human being that everybody recognizes as such. That's right. And that's weird too, because the people that we admire often are people that have suffered greatly, you know, because they've been able to not become bitter, not turn that suffering against others, not use that as an excuse to do evil, but have transformed it into some jewel that they hold, and it's beautiful. What do you say when people come up to you and they say, I'm an atheist and I'd love to believe in God? I presume you're not the kind of fellow who lays out a syllogism for them, but maybe you are.

No, I don't. I don't. I mean, I just, I just think that people who say that they're just, they're just lying that they're just like, you know, I'd like to believe in God. I, you hear people say that like, oh, I'm an atheist, but I really admire people who believe that I can't believe in it And it's like, yeah, whatever. It's like you believe you believe in smaller gods. You definitely have to. There's no way around it.

You you have little gods that you follow. You have little gods that that that provide you the meaning every single day in order to be able to finish your day and to and to not kill yourself. Like you need to have those little glimmers of something that bring you into the next step. It's like ride those, right? Like see if you ride those and you see how they're embedded in higher goods and just kind of move in that direction.

And then it'll just happen on its own. Like, so I don't have, I mean, whatever. I'm not gonna argue with someone who says that to me, but I usually don't have I mean whatever I'm not gonna I'm not gonna argue with someone who says that to me but I usually don't find it very convincing you know yeah when people more I was in Ireland recently and a fella stopped me on the street because he had heard he'd started watching points and he was an atheist and he was beautiful encounter he said I want to believe in God that I just I don't have any I don't see any reason like I would

just just believe in him just just choose to it's like well that would be hypocritical no who cares just be a hypocrite what's the problem with being a hypocrite just give up just do it yeah and it's like unless you've got good reasons to think that what Christians mean by God isn't real and you want to believe in him just go ahead one of the things you can do, you know, if you don't believe in God is to pray. I know that sounds weird, but it's like... Pascal said that.

Yeah, okay. That way, after his wager, he's like, well, what if I can't believe? He's like, do what Christians do. Take holy water. Like, go to mass, pray, say your prayers. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, because it's not something that happens just in your mind, too

It's not something that you're like, I'm just gonna wait until like all the sudden I keep got up on the chalkboard until that's the other thing that's bizarre I mean, we you know, like when you and I were kids I mean you lived in a bigger city than I did. I lived in a small country town but what a simple life it was to grow up in a small country town and Unless you were reading books by the great atheists and Christians, you're just encountering like the Baptist pastor, the Catholic priest, the town atheist. And like, that's who you're deciding, you know, between. But now there's always someone who could argue you under the table. Yeah, unless you are one of these really

brilliant folks. I mean, there's always someone out there who could destroy you under the table. Yeah, unless you are one of these really brilliant folks. I mean, there's always someone out there who could destroy you or if not destroy you, at least appear that they do or get you to a point where you don't know what to say anymore. So you can't kind of, you can't wait until you can respond to all objections before you believe something because then you'd never believe something. You'd never give your life over something.

This is the way, like this is actually how I see faith. You know, I see faith as the assurance of things invisible. And you can understand it in terms of God, but you could also understand it in terms of every purpose that you have in life is invisible. Like, every purpose that you have cannot life is invisible. Like every purpose that you have cannot be this cannot be defended from the phenomena, you know, it's like and that invisible... What does that mean, defended from the phenomena?

So, so here's a purpose. I love my wife and I want to love her radically until she dies or until I do. There's a purpose. Yeah. I can't find that anywhere. No, it's not. How can I say this?

Like, you can never have enough proof of that love or the love that that person has for you or whatever. Like, it's not there. Because you have to kind of trust in the purpose and move the world towards the purpose. Because especially like the idea that you say, I want to love my wife as much as possible until the day that I die. And I would ask you like, do you love your wife enough now? You would say no. Yeah. So it's like, oh, so you see something that is beyond what you're now. Yeah, I see a deficiency. And you want to move into that. And so it's

not there. It's not there. Right. But that's true of every purpose. Every single purpose you have when you start moving towards it, it's not there. Because that's why it's a purpose. Because you have to change the world into that purpose. And so everything you do is based on faith in that sense. Because there's an invisible thing drawing your action towards it. And you don't have it. Even if it's like, I want to make a million dollars. Well, you don't have a million dollars, right? And therefore, it's through faith that you're going to move towards that because you don't have it. And so you have to organize the world in faith towards that purpose so that you reach an invisible goal, a goal invisible in the sense of something that is not part of your world right now. It's not actualized. There you go. And so

I think that once people can maybe understand that, it's like actually faith is part of your world right now. Not yet actualized. It's not actualized, there you go. And so I think that once people can maybe understand that, it's like actually faith is part of your life all the time. Every time you have a purpose, you are moving in faith towards that purpose. And so, you know, the idea that those scale, you could think about it that way. It's like, I mean, you ask someone, it's like, you know, I want to finish college.

Like I want to finish college. So like, why do you want to finish college? What is that going to give you? And it's like, you know, you want, I want to finish college. Like, I want to, I want to finish college. So like, why do you want to finish college? What is that going to give you? And it's like, well, because I want, I don't know, I want a career. Like, why do you want a career? Well, maybe because I want to have money or maybe because I want to be respected by people or whatever. And so it's like, if you, if you start to scale those goods into each other,

you'll notice that they keep, they keep going up. If you ride that at some point. This is the Nick and Mickey in ethics, right? I mean, this is what he starts the argument with. Yeah, eventually you get to something where you say, I want to be happy. And no one's ever said, why do you want to be happy? Like at that point you've hit metaphysical bedrock with a shovel of a stupid question to quote Sam Harris in a different context. Because people say, I want to be rich so I can be happy, but no one has ever said I want to be happy so I can be rich.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also because most people, once they are rich, they realize that they ain't going to do it. Yeah. And then rich, what does rich mean, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's something that can also continue to, it's definitely not the right God to follow because it doesn't satisfy. Do you mind if I pass it? Have you read much of Descartes? And are you into this stuff?

No, I know. Well, I won't worry about it. I was able to, why did read Descartes? I read Descartes when I was 18, 19. That was a long time ago for me. I love Descartes, you know. I think there's a solid argument that he wasn't a sort of epistemological skeptic as people portray him, but that he was using it as a methodological way of arriving at the truth. He's living in a turbulent time in Europe, Protestant Reformation, Galileo.

People are, what can we trust? And so he's like, well, I'm gonna turn inward and find what I can trust and build from there. And I like to think of it as a sort of ladder that he's trying to escape Plato's cave, but the whole edifice collapses. You've got Hume not long after him saying, well, the cogito, like I think therefore I am,

is like, what do you mean by I? Like, I don't think I exist. I think the self exists. So now you've just got this like epistemology as a train wreck because we're trying to build it on these indubitable, incorrigible beliefs that we never have about anything ever. And why think we should? Yeah. So there's this, there's this other idea of phenomenal conservatism. So instead of sort of Cartesian epistemology that would say, you know, I'm not going to believe something until it's absolutely true. Phenomenal conservatism would say, I'm going to believe what seems to be the case to me until I've got good reason to doubt it. In taking that approach, because you do that all the time. That's how we live.

That's how you walk on the road. It's like, I think that... You don't ask yourself, like, is this road gonna crumble if I walk on it? All of our beliefs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything about you. Every time you move, everything you do. Like, is my... You know, like, if you pressed me on how I know my wife's not a Russian spy, eventually, like, very quickly, I wouldn't have much to say. You know, if you pressed me on how I know Australia is an island, I've got like three arguments

and I don't even know how to defend them. My fear is that this sort of Cartesian epistemology has seeped into modern culture such that Christians are of the opinion that they ought to have a sort of incorrigible, indubitable belief, and if they don't, it's not worthy of the name. But it's just so inhuman and unnecessary. You know? Like, how do I know you're who you say you are? I just trust. And if I don't trust, I'm in a much worse state. Yeah, but it's also like you, this is the thing, it's a, it's a, I see it as a kind of fractal participation. So, you know, you, you, you trust a little and then you move a little

and then you see the result. It's not, it's not just like this blind idiocy. It's like, oh, it's like I pray, then I see the changes in my life. And then I, oh, okay. And then I pray and I see the changes. It's like, oh, if I align myself this way, it actually yields. It's like a man in a dark room. If I walk this way, I can make him progress. Sin is you turn this way, you walk into a wall. All right, stop that. That's not working for you. You're going to need to turn somewhere differently and aim yourself. That might not be a good analogy. But sin feels like that, doesn't it?

It's like it's the opposite. It's like nature, you know, God will forgive you, but nature won't. If you make really bad decisions. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. Like, you know, the descriptions, the descriptions about sin in scripture, they're not like, again, they're just not moral finger wagging. They are descriptions of reality.

Like if you lie, you will go to hell, you know, and your life will become hell if you lie because you know it, because the time that you have lied and then hold on to that lie, then you have to start justifying it. You have to start skirting around it and you have to start making up other lies in order to hold up that one lie You know, it's like you know that that leads you into absolute chaos So and that's true about everything like every every commandment in Scripture is is not a just a more It's not it's actually not morality in the way that modern people understand it. It's like if you live this way

You will live if you don't you will die and the world will collapse around you. You will be an agent of future fraction for your family, for people around you. You'll bring everything down, including yourself. You know, you don't... You already can enter into like the, you know, into the portico of hell right now. Like you don't have to wait until you die. You can see it happen in your own life So, you know, these are not

Like I said, they're not ethics like not in the way that modern people understand ethics. That's right Yeah, they're like is the path that you walk and you live that way. What what is your opinion of what is your understanding of hell? What is my understanding? Do you believe in hell? Oh, yeah, who goes to hell? Oh What do Christians in your opinion understanding of hell? Do you believe in hell? Well yeah, of course. Who goes to hell? Oh. What do Christians in your opinion misunderstand about hell? I mean I think that the biggest... I think that hell is a true, you know, ontological state, you know, and it is the state of obsession and sin that takes over your

life and that in some ways captures you, right, until you can't escape. You know, I think that that's what hell is. And so that's the way that I understand it, you know, and I think that that, you know, the image that we have of the of the Gehenna, you know, this image that that can become permanent, that you can, in sin, become completely captured in a manner that almost devours you completely. There's not much left of you except that. I think that that's what hell is.

And so, I think the idea that this reveals itself at the end is not a stupid idea. Like the idea that, you know, when you reach the end of something... How can I say this? It's like... You've played out, right? So if you've played out your life and you've played it out in a way that has made you live in hell, then you're in hell. I forget which saint it was. Maybe it wasn't a saint at all. But I think someone said, no one will be surprised. It's hell all the way to hell, heaven all the way to heaven.

That might not, you know. Well, I mean, in Dante, it's beautiful. Beautiful. It's kind of horrific. But in Dante, you see that the people in hell want to be in hell. Beautiful, beautiful, it's kind of horrific, but in Dante you see that the people in hell want to be in hell. Yeah. Yeah. Because they know, like they, because they're captured, you know, and it's like, and you know that the moments that you've been taken up by sin and you've hold on to that sin, you can feel it already. It's like, why am I holding on to this? I know it's destroying me. Yeah.

I know that it's destroying me. Why am I holding on to it? Why do I keep circling in this thing? Why do I feel like I can't let it go? Yeah, you know, and that's what I think, that's what I think hell is. I think, you know, yeah, I love C.S. Lewis's great divorce. I think it's one of the most powerful ways for modern people to understand hell. You know, he describes it very, very beautifully. So that's what I think, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

What do you think about hell? Well, it's like Lewis said, if there was one Christian doctrine I could get rid of, it would be that. Yeah. And yet it has the full weight of scripture and tradition. You know, the wise man proportions his belief to the strength of the evidence. And therefore I have to accept it. You know, as a reality, I don't know what it means. It scares me. I'm scared about it.

I'm scared about it because there's a lot of accusations today about people, especially in the political world, about like they're lying. You hear this a lot on YouTube, that people attack each other, like he's just, he's a liar. Maybe, but I often wonder how I know I'm not a liar. Because I have to think that some of these people who believe these horrible things,

let's say about big topics of the day, like child mutilation, abortion who believe these horrible things, let's say about big topics of the day, like child mutilation, abortion, all these horrific things, like actually think they believe that they're good. Yeah. And they believe that they're right. Yeah. And I know that they're wrong, but I'm like, okay, but that just makes me nervous. I'm like, what is it that I believe that I'm wrong about?

And how would I ever know that? Oh, Jesus have mercy on me. Well, I mean, that's the, I think that that's the way to do it, you know I Hope these people are self-reflective in that way. I Yeah, I hope I am I Was telling you earlier st. Ephraim the Syrian that beautiful prayer, you know If I've made fun of my brother sin when my own faults faults are countless. Ooh, just crushes me every time. Yeah. Yeah.

In some ways, I think the best. How do you know you're not lying? Like, do you ever struggle with that? Sometimes, you know. I mean, I guess if by lying, we mean believing or telling an intentional falsehood. All right, fair enough. I think that's pretty easy for me to gauge, I think, but the human heart is a wicked thing.

And I know there are times that I try to appear humble because I'm arrogant. I know that maybe I even said that to be humble. I think we lie. We often lie. I mean, I lie in the personal stuff. Like in the, you know, I convince myself. It's like, I convince myself that I'm right, you know, to be angry with my wife, you know, for several days. And I think like,

I'm totally right, you know, I am completely in the right here. And, you know, and it's like, that's definitely a lie. It's a lie. And it's a lie that destroys me. And it will destroy me, destroy my relationship. And so I think that in that sense, we lie to ourselves all the time. Isn't that weird, hey, like, I've've had that experience as well where I'm just so pissed with my wife and. Yeah, it's like this. It's like this desire to be sad, this desire almost. And I think that might be what hell's like, or it's like, I will not be made well. Piss off. I want to be upset. I want to suffer. But not for any good meaning. No, no

I want to lick my wounds. Yeah. Yeah, that's desky is good about this I want to I want to feel I want to feel sorry for myself. Yeah, I want to do all that. Yeah Yeah, it's like that is definitely a little glimpse of health. I'm so glad I'm married You know, like we were saying earlier about like reality like doesn't forgive. I think it would be It's really lovely to be in a relationship with somebody where you can see how your sin manifests itself and does damage. You get like an immediate, what's the word? Like feedback, immediate feedback. Yeah. Kids will do that too. It's like, man, if you're, when do you,

when you, when you become kind of selfish and self-absorbed and you have kids, man, it appears pretty fast. So you were a solid Christian when you had kids. Yeah. What is something you learned along the way of parenting? Yeah, I think I mean obviously I think you see your selfishness you know you just see it because sometimes it's like you know you just want your own space, you just would like to be able to do whatever you want and you can't. And the kids, obviously they kind of, they take up all that space. And I definitely, it's something that I learned and I think one of the things that I learned, now my kids are older and they're teenagers and they're you know I've learned that

every moment that I was able to go beyond that you know and basically just be there you know it's it's yielded a thousand fold like it's yielded amazingly um and it's a death to self yeah it's the end of the night when you're exhausted and you just want some time alone with your wife and or a book. But you can't because they're there. And then you've got two choices. Do I get angry and kind of bark or do I just give in to it? Which, not to be dramatic, but can feel like a death because it's a death to my preference.

And it's always the beautiful thing. I know it's the beautiful thing. Why don't I do it? I'm an idiot. Man, I think so. Like I can see, you know, in my children that the moment that I've spent where I've been completely there and generous have yielded fruit, you know, and every obstacle, let's say to my relationship with my older kids is my fault. That's how I see it. Like it's, it's something, it's something that I, I mean, I hate to say that because

I don't want, I don't want to like, you know, I'm not saying that sometimes they get, there are all kinds of external factors that can bring about difficulties, But I think that at least in my case, that's been healthy to notice that, you know? Yeah, and then try to readjust yourself all the time and say, okay, like it's not too late. I can still be that father, you know? Yeah, but I's, I would say, it's the, being a father is the greatest thing

in terms of my spiritual development. Like it's one of the greatest things that has happened to me, you know, being a husband too. Don't tell my wife though. She won't watch this. Yeah, because they, they, you know, it. You won't watch this. Yeah, because they... You know, it's funny because it's like in some ways we don't... Sometimes we don't have it enough inside us. Like, you know, I'm not a monk, I'm not a... We don't have it inside us to be able to get through our own passions, you could say.

But it's sometimes these external... These people that are there surrounding you, they're like mirrors and you can see yourself in them and you can see your sins and you can see, it's like, it can obviously can be very sobering, but it can also be a great and the temptation is to blame them for reflecting your sin. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, that's true of whether you're a parent or not, right? To blame everything and everybody and every circumstance around you. Yeah. Yeah. And it, you know, it's also one of the things that I think that for sure being a father

has done for me is it also made me appreciate my own parents greatly. It's like, you know, just all the sacrifices they've made and realizing that, you know, things that I thought were just obvious and that, you know, they owed this to me. It's like, Oh no, wait a minute. No, they could have chosen at any time to check out or to, you know, and it's like, no, they stayed and they remain involved. And it's like, it's made me definitely appreciate my parents way more. Definitely.

Someone once said to me in this broke my heart. He's like, there'll be a last time that your children ask something as they're growing up and you won't know when that is. So there'll be a last time when your son's like, back, you lay in bed with me. The last time he's like, he read me a story. Yeah. Can you watch me ride my bike? There'll be a last time and you will not know when that last time is makes you want to cry. But I also I've shared this a bunch of times on my on my show. So people will forgive me if they've heard me say this, but I think it's worth saying again, I sometimes I'll do this thought experiment. Yeah. Where I'll think, imagine if in the future

we find a way to build a time machine and you can go back in time to whenever you want. There's only one catch when you're back in time, you won't know that you went back in time to whenever you want. There's only one catch. When you're back in time, you won't know that you went back in time. It'll seem to you like you're doing this for the first time. Yeah. And so I'll be, you know, my beautiful son, Peter, he's such a good boy. He'll have me lay in bed with him and I'm kind of I'm done. I'm tired. I'm tapped out. And I'll think what if this is, you know, I'm, I'm aware that this is a thought experiment, but like, what if this is the time that I took a I took a time machine back, which is just a very complicated sci-fi way of saying,

what is the good in this moment that I should be seeing that I'm not seeing? Like, these are the good old days right now. So how do I how I live in them and love my children? Yeah, that's right. I have beautiful children. Oh, they're so good and funny and good looking and. Yeah, that's not true. Some people have ugly kids, but I've got really beautiful kids. I mean, they're so good.

Do you find I don't know if it's a your kids way better than you were when you were a kid, you sound like you had a pretty you were pretty good. But yeah, I would say in some respects, for sure. I think that's been beautiful to me. Like one of the great things has been, like my son, for example, like he's very different from me. And he's developed all these other skills and other interests and stuff.

And it's been exciting for me, actually. I really enjoyed watching him kind of become something different and something else. Sometimes a bit of a sadness that I can't guide him in the things that he wants, you know, like some things he's like, oh, dad, I really like to do that. I'm like, if you wanted to be an outcome copy, you could, like, I'd be fine. But it's like if he wants to, like, you know, become more like an engineer, like it's like, but it's been really I really enjoyed watching that happen. You know, I found it very beautiful.

And so, you know, and then at some points you really realize that your kids are just different people. Like they're not they're part of you, but they're not like they're not independent. Yeah, they're just basically, you know, and yeah, it's scary. Yeah, but it's also one of the hardest lessons I learned at the time was to, as your children get older, to give them more leash, as it were. You know, you have to let them make bad decisions and trust them. That's that was really hard for me. I think parents, many of us kind of become parents and we say to ourselves, I'm not going

to do what my parents did. We have a litmus test. Yeah. Like, here's what it means to be a good dad. You know what I, I love my dad. I think for him, it was like, I need my son, me to have good grades and get a good job. That was his kind of thing. I think, you know, whereas for me, cause I was so wrecked by pornography, like my litmus test was my kids will not be like damaged by pornography.

And it's almost like I forget all the other things that I should be doing. Like the tenderness, the kindness, the guidance, just this one, you become kind of myopic in you. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. I yeah, it's been, it's definitely been, it's been fascinating to, to, to see my kids are my oldest is 19 and 17 and 14. so it's like right in that. Are they your oldest boys? Yeah, boy and two girls. How do they feel about the work that you do? Do they watch your interviews? Do they know who Jordan Peterson is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't watch my, I don't think they watched my content which would be really weird if they did probably but you know it's been actually, it's

been wonderful in some ways to be able to like take them along. I think it's been very fruitful. Like I took them to Europe to do some things, you know, and sometimes I'll take them to conferences and stuff. And, you know, it's been it's been great to watch them kind of discover a bigger world. And I really enjoyed that and very grateful for that opportunity. You know, so so it's been it's been great. I've enjoyed it. What do you do for fun that's not impressive?

Ah, what do I do for fun? Like if you could take a day off right now, like next week, the day's completely yours. You can do whatever you want. Be wherever you want. What would you do? Well, this is the thing is that I would just do the things that I do. I love what I do so much.

You know, I wish I had more time much. I wish I had more time. Like sometimes I wish I had more hours in the day because I'm not doing a lot of icon carving now. And so I kind of wish I had time to do that. But it's okay. It's not painful. It's just like, oh man, I wish I could do more of that. And but usually like if I have a day off,

off, I usually pretty much just sit on a chair, like stare, just stare out. Like I don't, I actually don't do much. I'm like that. I think I wish I was because it's like, there aren't that many of those days. They're very few. And so when they come, you know recently, what's been fun is,

you know, my actually my two older kids are gone. They left the house. They're studying and I'm just with my youngest daughter, 14, and I realized that, you know, I because she's the youngest one in some ways, I had less time with her than I did with two older ones, you know, just naturally, because obviously my first, my first, my boy, my first born, like, you know, it was just all him, you know, and then the second one and the third one, then by the time you're the third, we have to spread your attention on the three.

Yeah. And so I kind of realized that I had less time and stuff, and now with my two older children leaving, all of a sudden I have this amazing opportunity with my daughter to just spend time. So yesterday, my wife was out of the house for the weekend, and yeah, we just spent all day making Christmas ornaments, and we just put up the tree, and did all this stuff. It was just great. I thought it was difficult for my children to leave. You know, it's painful, you know, but then also there's this interesting possibility, which is, oh, wow, I guess that's what happens when, you know, the youngest kids, sometimes they get it a little rough because, you know, and so it's, that's been, I really enjoy that. I'm really happy about that.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I would just, I love doing this. That's why I feel like people are like, what are you into? I'm like, I'm really happy about that. Yeah. Yeah, I think I would just I love doing this. That's why I feel like people like, what are you into? I'm like, I just like talking. I like smoking cigars and having good conversations. That's what I love. I have to read books, I have to sit in my chair and just read a book. That's what I want to do. Reading. Since I've, yeah, for sure, I'm doing a lot less reading.

And so if I ever sit down and read like it's very enjoyable Yeah, but I don't have not a lot of that going on Yeah, for sure. I got some questions. Yes, the questions from the internet the inner webs the inner webs from our local supporters There's gonna be a billion here. So I'm gonna do I haven't seen these obviously but What is the symbolism of? neurolink Symbolism neurolink asks Matt. Yeah obviously, but what is the symbolism of Neuralink? What's the symbolism of Neuralink? Asks Matt.

Yeah, well. What does that even, I don't even know what the question means. Well, I think they're trying to understand what the, like what it means that we're merging with computers. How do you feel about that? Well. I mean, we're already doing it.

Yeah, we're already doing it. This is part of my album. I think that it's a, you know, it's definitely like you said, it's a process that's been happening for a while, like the technification of the human. It's in some ways, the way that I understand it is that it's the idea of the garments of skin in Scripture, where the idea that we add things to ourselves in order to make us more powerful and also to protect us against the world outside. It's a tricky process, but for sure this has definitely been out of control.

It's definitely out of control. And so I think the idea of Neuralink is mistaking power for wisdom, just like most technology, actually. It's the idea that if I could have a processor in my mind, then I would all of a sudden be this greater person. You know, and that's just not the case because that actually has nothing to do with being human. Or like what it is that you find valuable in being human. And Neuralink's got to make not going to make you a better person or a better father or a better husband or, you know, just a better human being. It's just going to make you more powerful. So I think that in Neuralink, we see the extreme version of what technology always

does, which is it just makes us more powerful. And if we don't have the wisdom to implement it, then it then it's then it's actually quite dangerous. And so I was showing my wife the other day chat GPT. Yeah. And I was they have this new feature now where you can like talk, you can talk to it. Yeah. And I'm just that's wild. And it looks like you can interrupt it and stop and talk back to you. And I'm like, how long until we're embedding this in dolls in our house that we talk to and then robots that walk around

that we chat with? Yeah. Have you thought a lot about like in 50 years from now what do you think we're going to be seeing? No, I don't think it's sustainable. You know, I think that it will get out of control, but I don't think that this is human. What does that mean out of control? Well what I think is that, you know, so think about it like how the boomers desire for, you know, freedom and everything and their desire to experience all the pleasures has led now many of the youngest generation to kind of turn away from that and move towards more meaning. Yeah, exactly. So I think that the technification of the human will also create a backlash, which might

be quite powerful because one of the things that technology can do, actually not just technology, but one of the things that the fall can do, and technology is in some ways part of the fall, I know that sounds weird for people to understand, but in some ways, you know, the garments of skin are a reaction to the fall, right? So Adam and Eve fall, and then God covers them in order to protect them from the outside world, which is now hostile to them, you know, and then that becomes a city. Cain builds a city and then that becomes technology and becomes civilization. And so in some ways it... how can I say this? Like because of this increase in power and this increase in facility,

one of the things it does is it can make us act more deliberately than our ancestors. That is possible. So it's simple, like in a village, in an ancient world, there was just a limit of what was possible. So because of that, the church was the highest building, and just naturally you would have to interact with others, and they would create a kind of harmony around you with people, you know, because it just was necessary. If you wanted to survive, you had to do it.

And so you kind of embody these principles almost naturally. Yeah. You know, what technology does is it makes it possible not to embody those things. Yeah. So you can end up alone in your house, order from Amazon every day, not talk to anyone for years if you want to. You could just live there and be completely isolated from everyone. And so what it does is it forces people to be more deliberate.

We have to now be more deliberate about community. We have to be more deliberate. We have to now be more deliberate about community, we have to be more deliberate about our relationships and so I think that that can become a good thing. It won't necessarily become a good thing but for some it will. For some it'll be a kind of you know it'll turn the fall into a kind of self-awareness that is positive, you know, but a lot of people will get lost in the process, that's for sure. Yeah, but we see it, like, you know, it's funny because my kids, right, we actually, like my kids, we actually, we didn't want them to have phones until they were quite old, and it's complicated, our life was complicated, we had a big crisis in our life that

forced us to put them in school, and then in school, they had to have a phone. Like even the teachers wanted them to have a phone, you know. But now my own kids, you know, they realize, they realize. And so they are the ones managing their own screen time. They're like every day they're watching their screen time. They're like, I need to take 50 minutes off, half an hour off. Like they're just like trying to reduce their own screen time. Because in some because they,

in some ways they, how can I say this? It's like, they have to be deliberate about things. Like now they have to, you know, before when I was a kid, I would just go outside and there'd be kids there. And I would just play with them. And it was just normal. But now there's no one outside. And so my kids, they have to be deliberate

about their friendships, they have to be deliberate about their relationships, that you deliberate about the relationships. And so I think that it can be an opportunity for great growth. But yeah, it's a good point. I mean, you think of like men's groups. Yeah, exactly. Bible studies like these things. I don't know. Did my dad have men's groups? No, he probably just had men that he had to interact with.

Because that's the way life was. And so there's something about about it that it's funny funny because in some ways it shows that we're weakened. The fact that we need men's groups means that we're weakened. But it also means that there's an opportunity, like I said, to become more... to be more deliberate about our relationships. So, you know, trying to turn this Neuralink thing into positive. Right. So it's not easy. But I'm not getting the Neural, right. So it's not easy. Yeah, but I'm not I'm not getting the new ruling folks

It's not happening. It's not I I wonder To I've said this before like things have to maybe burn through culture before we learn our lesson I often say like I've been speaking about the negative effects of porn for a while I think I can do it pretty convincingly, but I don't think any Thing I said back in the 70s, if I lived then, no matter how big my microphone was, it would have helped. No, exactly. But now it's like people like porn is like disgusting, it's stupid.

Why would you, why would you masturbate to people pretending to like you? This doesn't seem like a good thing. I mean, we know why you would do it, of course, but like, why wouldn't you want to be better than that? But it almost had to, we had to become so pornified for a kind of negative reaction to it. And I think something similar is happening now where you see these teenagers who are like, I'm not getting a smartphone. But we never would have thought that when the first came out, it was, it was magic. In some ways it's like, this is, this is the secret of the fall in some ways, you know, a secret. I mean, it's like, okay, so you didn't want God.

Well, you're still gonna get there. It's just gonna be very painful. Like, it's just gonna be painful. You're gonna have to suffer to get there. And I think that that's the case with this. You know, if you had listened to a Catholic priest in Quebec, you know, in the early 19th century, you know, if you read what he would said,

you would have been like, actually, you know what? He was absolutely right about everything. And so we went completely the other way. And at the time, you wouldn't have known because the secular world hadn't materialized itself. But now we have it. Now everything that the enlightenment promised us, we have. And we see what it does.

And we've seen how it destroys, how it destroys community, how it destroys family, how it just ravages. And so, at least now, like you said, at least now it's become, at least for some people, it becomes painfully obvious that no, this can't work. You know, Peter Hitchens is, he was in an interview recently just saying,

basically my whole life has been a waste. Like all the things that I wrote, all the things that I said, no one listened to, I should have just went and sat on a beach. He's a pretty pessimistic fella. I like him a lot. He's fun to listen to, but like his brother. All right. Let's keep going. Romanus says, when starting an icon, what are some of your first considerations for the composition? Well, you know, it depends. Obviously the tradition, you know, when you're making icons,

you want to be the idea is you want to make something that will be recognized by the community. That's one aspect, right? And so there's no, it's not that there's no room for innovation, but the idea is you want it to be received and therefore you want to follow the tradition sufficiently for it to be received by the community as something that they recognize, you know, and that's something, you know, and it's people will sometimes formulate it in theological terms. Like you follow the tradition, like these has all the symbolism and all the theology. And I think that's right.

There's also a more practical element, which is you're actually there to serve the church. That's why you're making the icon. You're not there to just express your whims or express your, your thing. You're there to serve the people that you're making the icon for and to serve, you know, to serve Christ, obviously, and then obviously to serve the church. And so that's the first thing you want to consider is you want to, if you're going to make an icon, you want to see what the tradition has about that particular icon. So if it's a saint, how has the saint been represented?

If it's a feast, how has the feast been represented? And if you don't understand it, like just copy, seriously, like just copy. And then you also want to adapt it to the needs of the person commissioning it. Because most of the time you don't make icons just because you're hanging out and you just want to make an icon. You actually make an icon for someone.

And so, what is their need? Is it for an object? Is it for personal devotion? Is it for a church? All of these things will make the composition and will help you kind of decide what it is that you put or don't put in the icon. How small it is, how big it is. These are all really kind of boring, because maybe you expect me to say I have some like big theological thing, but you know, But the tradition has it all. And so then it's just adapting it to the particular case, the particular situation.

This is a little, some of these questions are too long. Father Bolts says, Jonathan, can you ask Matt why he hasn't given Meme Monday responsibilities to Josiah yet? Okay. What? I don't even know what that means. So I have a locals account where we have a community and every Monday we have meme Monday where I post a funny meme and everyone tries to come up with the funniest meme. I think sometimes I forget. So that's the answer father. There you go. Uh, DJ Krug says, no question,

just thanks for your recent work with Dr. Martin Shaw on Christian wonder tales and also really enjoyed your appearance on foundations of the West. Thank you, Matt, for such an amazing guest. He says, yeah, yeah. Dr. Martin Shaw. If you don't know him, he's a, he's an astounding voice right now. You know, he is a, he's a mythographer. He's a storyteller. He's one of the greatest storytellers alive. He's really, you know, he can tell the Iliad in 20 minutes and he can tell it in nine days. And he does it. Like he does these insane bard-like events where he just tells these stories for days on end.

And he recently, I think about three years ago, had a conversion to Christianity. And now he is just bringing all of his skill into the... And so we had this course called Christian Wonder Tales where he explores all these weird Christian stories in Irish folklore that have been kind of pushed to the side because they're too strange. And so he kind of goes in there. It's really amazing.

Wow. Caleb Cunningham says, "'If you could only read three books or authors for the rest of your life, what would they be? And I'm going to add, you can't say the Bible. Oh yeah, it's going to say, you can't say the Bible. You know, I'm so boring. Everybody who's listened to me always, I always say the same, you know, it's like,

I think St. Gregory of Nice's Life of Moses is astounding. And St. Ephraim the Syrian, The Hymns on Paradise, these two books have been really, you know, crucial to me. And then St. Maximus, the confessor, you know, these three saints, they they really kind of given me the yeah, given me the. That's a much holier answer than I would have given. I would have said talking to us.

What would you say you said, Dostoevsky? Yeah, well, yeah, I get it. I get it. I get it. You know, but if you're saying if you only had three, that's a good answer. So I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called strive 21.com slash Matt. You go there right now. Or if you text strive to six, six, eight, six866, we'll send you the link.

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text Strive to 668 six to get started today. You won't regret it. I had a question for you, and I don't know if I'm going to understand your answer. And I wish I could. You know, when you read like the stories of the Desert Fathers and there are, you know, the flowers of St. Francis, I think is what it's called, like little stories of him or St. Louis de Montfort talking about experiences people

have had with the Rosary. I'm just going to say it really offensively. Like sometimes I'm like, this just seems like bullshit. These stories just seem like bullshit. Okay. Now I'm so afraid that you're going to tell me, but they weren't. They were exactly true. But I'm like, nah, but I don't think they were, though. I think some of them didn't happen. Hmm. And so, but I don't know, like sometimes I listen to you and it feels like the literal and the metaphorical are the same thing.

No, so it's not that I'm open to miracles taking place. I believe in the splitting of the Red Sea. So I'm not saying that these things can't happen. Yeah. So it just, they're an obstacle to me I want to learn from these people but I start listening or reading their books. I'm like, I just can't get past. Yeah some of these Fantastic these fantastical tales. Well, what's wrong with me? Yeah. Well, I know I know it's so one of the issues is One of the issues is

You know people are gonna find this is weird but like when you watch a is, you know, people are going to find this is weird, but like when you watch a movie, you know, you, you, when you start to watch a movie, you suspend disbelief. That's what you do. That's how, that's how you can watch a movie or else you just been unbearable to watch a movie. You have to, you actually have to suspend disbelief and enter into the story and then let the story do what the story does. And so what I would suggest is that for those types of stories, that's the first thing you need to do, is to basically just take the story for what it is. Okay. You know, literal in that sense, you know,

because literal doesn't, literal means what's in the text. That's what literal means. Literal means that's what we, it's literary, right? Literal and literary are the same root. So you look at the story and you take the story for what's there and then you just take it seriously, right? Now the difficulty is when you try to elucidate the mechanical causes of some of these stories. Now there's a reason why the mechanical causes aren't described is because they don't matter to the story. They're not important to the story. Like how it is that this is possible is not important to the

story. And so that's the way that I approach it. I just, I read the story for what it is and, you know, I trust, especially if it's from a saint, you know, I trust the story and I just read the story. Now the truth is that the way that events are described by the ancients are just not the same way that we describe them in journalistic, you know, kind of police, you know, form ideas. Like it just, it is not the same. And so we just have to accept that. It's like the text describes something that happened in the best... This is the way that I say it. Like the text describes something that happened with the best words possible to describe what it is that happened. And that's all you need to know. You don't have to understand all the mechanical causes. It doesn't... You know,

that's the way that I approach, that's the way I approach Scripture. Like I think everything in Scripture happened. Like Like did it happen? Because one of the problems, like this is actually one of the problems. Like the text says this happened. And then the secular kind of materialist asks, well, what really happened? And you're like, what do you mean? The text says. And it's like, yeah, but what happened?

Like, you know, how did the, how did the, the, the, the, the sea, red sea split? Like, you know, was Like, you know, how did the sea, red sea split? Like, you know, was it, you know, what did it look like? You know, what were the material causes or what, you know, what is it? And he's like, well, that story doesn't say that. The story doesn't describe that. It's like, the reason why you remember the story is because what it means.

That's why you remember. That's why you care about it. You don't care about it because of you can describe the material causes. You don't care about anything because you can describe the material causes. You care about what it means. That's why you remember a story in the first place. And that's what you need to just kind of hold on to, at least in my case. And then one of the things you discover, I think, as you move forward,

is that you find that the world is far more enchanted than you think. And as you kind of notice that, you know, just ask yourself, you know, it's like, how far does this go? But how much does the world of meaning and the world of factuality interpenetrate? And if I see glimmers of that in my own little sinful, you know, boring life, you know, what happens to people whose lives are completely dedicated to a life in God? Is it possible that their world is more full of that kind of stuff? Like all the little miracle coincidences that happen in my life that show me something about my sinful aspect

or kind of reveal something about the world to me. Everybody's had those experiences where all of a sudden it's like, oh man, this is pointing me to something. Well, how far does that go? You don't know because, yeah, because you live a wretched life. And so it's like, because I live a wretched life, I don't see the limit of that. But I know people and I've seen enough miracles in my life to know that definitely miracles happen. Because I think it's a, I think it is a reasonable question.

I mean, Alex O'Connor pressed Jordan Peterson on this, right? Because you do have these heretics, even some prominent Catholic priests back in the day, who would say, well, Christ rose spiritually, and it was written down as if he had risen physically. When someone says that, okay, well, now there's a distinction that has to be made here. So I think it's a reasonable question to say no I'm actually asking did he walk out of his tomb or not that makes a difference Yeah, well, I would have to say this is I'm gonna be very literal with you like the text doesn't say that he walked out of

the tomb Right the text says something read the text the text both The text says something. Read the text. The text both talks about the resurrections and befuddles you in every way. Because the text doesn't say that Jesus stood up and walked out of his tomb. What the text says is that the disciples arrived,

the tomb was empty. What the text says is that Mary Magdalene saw someone in the garden, didn't recognize him, and then suddenly saw that it was him. What the text says is that the disciples saw them and didn't recognize him, and then suddenly saw that it was him. What the text says is that the disciples saw them and didn't recognize them. And then all of a sudden they revealed that it was him. That's what the text says.

The text doesn't say that Jesus... So I'm just saying to be careful because you want to... I would say be very literal, like in the sense that stay close to the story. I think that's why we say in the Creed, you know, we say, He resurrected according to the Scriptures. It's like, don't try to add anything. Don't try to, like, try to make it some phenomena that you can grasp or that you can put your

hands around. You know, I do believe Jesus Christ resurrected bodily, but the idea that I know what that is is like, I don't know what that is. How could I know what that is? It, I don't know what that is. How could I know what that is? It's like, it's the craziest thing ever. And the text describes it in a way that makes you understand that you cannot completely master this. Like if the disciples themselves didn't recognize him after the resurrection, it's like, don't

think that you can totally... Do you see what I mean? Like... I do. What do you say to the person who says he rose spiritually from the dead? Oh, that's bullshit. That's just not what the text says. And also like, what the hell is that anyways?

Like, what is, what Christianity is that? Christianity is about the body. It's like Christianity is about the heavenly Jerusalem, which will be the entirety of creation coming together and becoming the body for the risen Christ. And so it's like the idea that he not risen bodily, like the entire story of the Bible is about that. And it's about it more than you think

in the sense that it's about his body resurrecting and then becoming the seed for everything else joining into that body. And so I'm also not, I'm not giving you a materialist description. I'm saying this is what the Scripture says. When the Scripture says that we are the body of Christ, we are the body of Christ, we are the body of the resurrected Christ, it doesn't mean that oh no, now you've you found a good way of saying it. Now it's like, oh we, he

resurrected, I remember hearing someone say that, he resurrected as a community and I'm like no, no, no. No, no, that's not what the text says. The text says he rose bodily and we are joining in that body and we are going to become a cosmic version of his resurrection. And so it's like, that's what the text talks about.

So, I don't know how to say this. It's like, I'm sorry if you can't see. Like I'm sorry for the people that would like to know what happened. The Bible actually doesn't describe the resurrection. It's out of the... It's not in the story. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty amazing. It's like, leave a little mystery. But it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It definitely did.

The tomb was empty. And yeah. Yeah. What it says showing up, asking what it says. It's like, and yeah, and it's a, yeah, it's very, very mysterious. And I think it's mysterious on purpose because it's not as simple as what we'd like to make it. Yeah. Awesome.

Tim pool, Paul, not the actual, not the, well, maybe this is the actual temple. Sneaking inle, Paul, not the actual Tim Poole. Well, maybe this is the actual Tim Poole. Sneaking in your chat there, Matt. He says, how does music factor into the symbolic world, into your symbolic world? Do you love music? Do you like? Do you listen to music? I do. I feel like I don't understand music well enough. But I do understand it in the way that I talked about the harp in the story of Jack, that music is a version of patterns that is one of the purest versions of patterns.

It's actually quite disembodied in the sense that it makes us want to move, but itself is just a relationship of proportions that we hear. And then it makes us want to move. It's a pretty astounding thing. It is in some ways the image. That's why I like the idea that C.S. Lewis says that Aslan sung the world into existence. You know, there are traditions that say that Adam and Eve

in the Garden spoke in verse, for example. Like that they were in some ways maybe singing when they were speaking, because they were closer to the pattern, right? Do you like a little of the rings? Yeah, I do. Gosh, have you read the Silmarillion? I mean, this idea of singing the world into existence

was exactly how Tolkien. Oh yeah, that's right, yeah, I know. But I know I have my, how can I say, I like Tolkien, but there's a limit to how much I like Tolkien. And is there a limit, is that your fault or is that his fault? It's possibly my fault. I don't know.

I think that... Yeah, I think that this is a weird thing to say, but I think that in some ways what Tolkien did and what C.S. Lewis did with Narnia and what Tolkien did, in some ways they created something that opened up a possibility of types of storytelling. And I think that it's funny because in some ways you can ask yourself, like, why is it that Tolkien didn't write it in the Christian world?

You know, and why is it that she has to also didn't write it in the Christian world? I don't totally have an answer for that, but I think that now is it, now is possibly a time where we can do that, where we can actually tell stories like that within the Christian mythos, you could say. Not mythos in a bad sense, but mythos in the sense of like a world structure and that we can tell stories in it. So one of the things that I'm doing,

wrote a graphic novel with my brother called God's Dog. And it's basically trying to do that. So we're trying to tell a kind of epic story but that the character, so like the main character, St. Christopher, who's a dog-headed man, who's like this kind of monster. And St. George is in this story.

And we put in all of these kind of cosmic elements of Christianity, like the Leviathan, and there are angels and demons. And like trying to tell that kind of token-esque epic story but not in a imaginary world but actually in the the Christian mythology you know kind of like I mean in some ways what Dante did or what Milton did but you know with a with a contemporary medium. Where do people get these books? What's your website? Yeah so symbolicworld.com, people go to symbolicworld.com and then we have a store there.

For now, we're just selling them on our own Shopify store. And we will move at some point towards kind of bigger distribution, but kind of scaling. Did you find a publisher or are you...? No, no, we're doing it ourselves. Who are you getting to do the printing and the binding? Yeah, we're, I mean, just fine printers. We have some printers in Europe and some printers in, depending on what we're doing, printers in China, obviously, trying to.

This is another example, right, of things that have to burn through culture until we get sick of them. You know, like, no offense. I know Amazon does not a terrible job, I guess, at mass producing books. But I mean, you get an Amazon book, you know, it's an Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. If you want your book to be beautiful. Yeah. In some ways, we're doing we're kind of aiming in the other direction, I think. So for our fairy tale books, for example, the fairy tale books are really heirloom objects. You know, they're cloth bound with like foiling

and debossing and full color printing. Oh, I'm going to get all these books. Yeah. We want, in some ways we want the parent to like sit there with their child and like read the story of Snow White. And like, you know, I remember when I was a kid there were these books in the in the bookcase that were like the beautiful precious books. Yeah, some of these up here. Exactly. Like the Sumer, yeah. And so kids books now they become throwaway because people just leave them and the kids just you know throw them around and stuff. Like I want a book that the parents actually, you know what?

I'm gonna put this up in the library and if you want us to read it, I'll take it out and read it together because it's because I want you to give this to your children kind of thing. When you travel with Jordan, do you bring some of these books to sell? No, I mean, it's too difficult. It's very difficult in my context to do that. I think there will be a point where we're going to do that. I hope so. We're kind of scaling the production. Obviously, we've had some publishers approach us to publish the books, but

people are willing to pay a lot of money for something beautiful because we're so sick of things that are cheap and throw away. We basically said, look, we want to do this to the max. Like we want to make these absolutely wonderful and beautiful. And, and in some ways we felt like a publisher would be in the way of that. And so for now, this is how we're doing it. Symbolicworld.com? Yep, symbolicworld.com. Yeah.

Well, to that point, Silas says, for his current fairy tale series, I've got Snow White and have ordered Jack and the Fallen Giants. Why did he choose the stories he has for the series, and what are the threads that connect the stories? Ha ha. Yeah, so this is something we didn't mention. So one of the things I wanted to do is

I wanted to integrate some aspect of postmodern storytelling into the stories. Sounds weird, but. Well, what does that mean? What does that mean, aspect of postmodern? So one of the aspects of postmodern storytelling is collage, right? So one of the things people do is

you see it like Shrek is a good example where basically you take all the fairy tales, you mash them together. You saw that there was Into the Woods did that and there was a series called Once Upon a Time that Disney did for adults. So what they do is they take all the fairies, they mash them together and they try to do that in a way that is mature, right? In the sense that it's they tried to be, how can I say this? They tried to be adult about it, but usually what they mean by adult is just become really cynical and kind of dirty jokes and exposing power dynamics and you know, this really post-modern trope. That's what you see in Into the Woods, for example. It's like this dark version of story tales of them all crashing together. It's all about, you know, adultery and cheating on each other and it's all this kind of... And Shrek is full of kind of dirty humor, like even sex jokes like that are kind of on top of

the potty humor. So what we thought is like, couldn't we create a fairy tale mash-up where we have all the characters kind of symphonically interact with each other, but instead of doing it to create just dirty whatever cynical take, we could actually help the adult reading it get insight about what these stories are about. And so the stories will bleed into each other as we move forward. And so we started with Snow White, then we have Jack and the Beanstalk, we're going to have Rapunzel, and then the valent Little Taylor.

So we have two threads, one is like a girl thread and a boy thread. Okay. And then the characters will cross over. So a simple example is that, you know, the witch in Snow White becomes, the queen in Snow White becomes the witch in Rapunzel. And so trying to show how they're the two opposites that I said. So like the witch throws the girl,

the queen throws the girl out, and then she kind of falls, and then now she wants to protect her and like completely control her. And so then these characters will have arcs as it moves through. And so the stories were chosen in a way that there were the most memorable fairy tales, the one that most people know about. And then ultimately for me to be able to string them together so that by the time you get at the end, all the characters will kind of come together and there'll be like this like symphonic ending. The last book is Cinderella. Have you wanted to do this for a long time? Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah this is something I mean I've loved fairy tales for a very long time.

What I mean what how how come it's happening now? Well it's happening now because I'd written this version of Snow White for my kids you know uh when we were homeschooling and I'd written it as a play because I wanted my kids to put it together. And they didn't want to do it because they were too young and they're kind of shy because, you know, my son was going to like wake up Snow White and kiss her. And they were like, yeah, we can't do it. It's like too, you know, they thought it was,

they were too young. Like for them it was cringe, like it was too icky and whatever. And so I'm like, okay, whatever, we won't have to, but I had the play. And then when, actually when Disney, I found out around 2020, I think, or maybe before, that Disney was gonna put out a version of Snow White for their centennial, and I knew they couldn't. Like, I knew. I was like, they can't make this story. There's no way. They

can't have the prince kiss Snow White, wake her up. They can't have the dwarves. There's all these things about the story that they cannot do because they're so ideologically possessed and they don't understand the stories anymore. So I thought, what an opportunity to do it now because basically the guardians of these fairy tales have decided that they don't want them anymore. So it's like, you know what?

Yeah, we'll take them. Yeah, we'll take them and then we'll make them into something powerful and beautiful. And so that was the impetus in some ways was to kind of to end this moment when the big players are dropping these stories, like to say that we're going to pick up the pearls and we're going to make a beautiful necklace out of it. So beautiful. What's the latest with this Disney Snow White? I don't even I mean, they're going to put it out, but I mean, it's going to it's going to it's going to crash. I don't see how it's going be successful isn't that interesting a yeah

Cuz I wonder do they think it's gonna work I don't think they like Amazon for with no I don't think I think at this point I think at this point they just have to What oh yeah, what did he call it Yeah, there you go no you don't cut that Well, I'll cut it. San Brown and the Seven Diversity Hire. Yeah, there you go. No, don't cut that. Yeah. San Brown and the Seven Diversity Hire. In some ways, they, I think they're going to put it out,

but I think they already know that it's going to fail. They spent so much money on this. I think it's going to be one of the most expensive movies ever made, but it's going to be ridiculous. Do they even care that it fails, or does that just reinforce their virtue? I don't know. I think at this point they're basically just in... Disney is just in survival mode. They're just trying to survive. Have they realized? Will they realize?

I think they have. Yeah, their shareholder meetings are public and it's bad. I think they have because they're losing money like crazy. Isn't that lovely? Isn't that great? Well, this is what I'm talking about. When I say that the fairy tales and the gospel stories, they're actually representations of reality. They actually represent the real world, even though it sounds weird because it's dwarves and princesses, but in terms of the structure, they represent a structure of reality. And so, the idea that you could just fiddle with that in any way you want and that you'll still have people's attention.

It's like, no, actually no. Those stories have been refined over millennia through attention and remembering. It's like a story is remembered for a reason. Even if you don't know what it is, it doesn't matter. You remember a story for a reason and then you tell it for a reason.

And maybe when you tell it, you change it a little and you see what happens. Those that change it a little and it's remembered more than it's remembered. And those that change it a little and it's not remembered, it's just forgotten. So you get it. Also, it's almost like a Darwinian process. Like you can imagine that these stories get refined and refined and refined

just by memory and transmission. So the idea that you can take a story like that, that is maybe thousands of years old, we don't even know how old these stories are, and that you could just make it into your ideological tool, well, that's going to run out because people remember them for a reason. And so, in some ways, we have the world on our side. Like, you know, these stories, the Gospel stories, the fairy tales, you know, just making them shine again, you know, people will be attracted to them

because they're real. you know, just making them shine again, you know, people will be attracted to them because they're real. Yeah. Do you, you said earlier when I said about the Robbers Bridegroom that some of these aren't meant for children. But children love them. They love when things get killed and all the horrible details. Did you, did you try to, did you censor some of these things?

When I was a kid? Yeah, a little bit. So when I read to my kids, I made the mistake, don't make the mistake folks, you know, I made the mistakes. I was like, I want my kids to know the Bible stories. So I'm like, start a Genesis, go through the Bible stories. That was a bad idea. My kids were not ready for it. And so I had them crying and like, and I was trying, I wasn't playing it up or anything. I was just like, here's the story. And it's like, how is this possible? And so I'm like, eh, yeah, actually, I think there's probably then there's like a,

there's a- Different kids are different too. Yeah, and there's also like levels of maturation. I do think that, I do think that fairy tales, they are meant, I think they are meant to traumatize a little, you know, and, but it also, I think it depends on the children's capacity to handle trauma. I think that fairy tales are in some ways, you could say, something like trauma managing tools.

Because what they do is they present children with a traumatic experience in a way that's contained in a story that is very, it has elements that are fantastical. And so it's not as painful, right, as a real trauma, but it also contains the structure of the trauma. And so it's like, you know, every child has imagined that their parents don't love them. And so, and every child has feared that. And so that has to be in stories. It has to be in stories.

Every child and and you know, and then all the elements of, especially sexual development, you can understand like a, you know, an 11 year old girl or 12 year old boy, like they don't know what they're going into. Like they have no idea. And one of the things these fairy tales do is that they offer a kind of a kind of tuning fork, like a little structure to help the child have images in their mind. And it won't be conscious, it's unconscious, but it will give them tools, you could say, to get through the chaos. And so some people say, oh, the story of the prince that saves the princess.

What a stupid, ridiculous, patriarchal story. But it's like, you know what? A young girl reaches puberty, starts menstruating. It's like, what the hell is that about? It's like I'm bleeding, it's painful, like all of these changes, all of a sudden I get all this attention that I don't understand what it's for, what it's about, why are people looking at me? Where are these boys? Like, what's happening? And so it's like the idea that that should lead towards a marriage and towards children and that you should find the right person in order for that whole chaos to make sense. The idea that that's a stupid

patriarchal story, it's like no, that's actually what it should be. That's actually how you can get, especially like the young girls, they hit puberty earlier than the boys. And so all of a sudden they're literally surrounded by dwarfs, like literally surrounded by all these little boys that are definitely not the guys that I want to be with, but they're there and they're like, they're pestering me and they're around me and I don't know what to do. I don't know what this means. I don't know what's happening. And so I think that these stories, like both for the boys and for the girls, like one of the things they do, it's not the only thing they do, but one of the

things they do is they do kind of give a track to help people understand what these transformations are for, like what they're leading to. Like the same with the Jack story, it's like it's like you go through these transformations, you have this energy, you've got this erotic energy, but also this kind of aggressive energy. What do you do with it? Where does it go? How do you aim it? Like you know, and so it's like these stories are there to help you understand. It's like, no, climb the ladder, right? Climb the ladder, you know, enter into the world, you know, be careful. Those the guys up there are there to eat you. They will try that. But doesn't mean you can't make it.

Doesn't mean you can't find your way. It's like these are crucially important stories. Wow. Well, I want everyone to go get you a book, but give us one insight into Snow White and the Seven Dwarves then. You did a beautiful job with Jack and the Beanstalk. I don't expect you to do the whole thing, but I mean, just what you've said about the bleeding and the dwarves makes me think. Yeah, you can realize what it's about. So you can understand that Snow White, one of the aspects of Snow White, is in some ways a young girl discovering all the negative aspects of femininity,

and then trying to figure out what the purpose of this is. And then also, what is beauty for? Like, that's what the whole story is about, you know. Because on the one hand, she becomes the most beautiful, and then because of that, she's basically thrown out. And so you can imagine a girl, she kind of reaches puberty, she becomes attractive and beautiful and desirable. And therefore, she goes through this chaos.

Like, again, she's surrounded, all these boys, or even like the negative aspects of masculinity, that's what the dwarves can represent. Like itchy and whatever, sneezy and dark and stupid, and all of these like negative, all these like kind of these inappropriate men that are like little like sections of what masculinity is that is not what she needs to, that can't be her mate, that can't be like her prince,

the one that will make sense of all of these things that she's going through, right? And so that's one of the aspects. And then the queen comes and she tries to trick her into using beauty for power, right? Because... How does she do that? Well, that's...

It's difficult because people don't know, like in the grim version, the Queen comes three times. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So she comes and she brings a corset. Right, that's right. And she brings a comb.

And so ask yourself that question. Who's the most beautiful in the world? Snow White. So why is the Queen bringing her supplements to her beauty? Why is she saying, put on this beautiful corset, have this beautiful comb? What the hell's going on? What's happening?

Think of your 12-year-old daughter that all of a sudden wants to put makeup on. And she's like, how do I deal with this problem of beauty? And how do I deal with supplement to beauty? Like how much do I put my beauty in a way that will attract others? And how much do I keep it? All of these questions are very difficult to go through. And so that's what Snow White is dealing with. And then ultimately-

Interesting. This is my take on Snow White, people might disagree, but I was wondered again, just like in Jack. Jack goes from a bag of gold to a chicken that lays golden eggs to a harp. Yeah. Right? Snow White goes... The apple seems out of left field.

What's the apple? I don't know. So this is my take. People disagree with me if you want, right? I think it's related directly to Adam and Eve. I think the story is direct because she eats the apple and she dies. And I think that it has to do with knowledge of beauty. I never made that obvious connection. Yeah, it has to do with knowledge of beauty. I think that's why I said do. I never made that obvious connection. Yeah, it has to do with knowledge of beauty.

She's offering her something like knowledge of beauty. She's saying, it's like Snow White is beautiful because she doesn't know that she's beautiful. And the queen is trying to make her know that she's beautiful, but in like a twisted way, she's like, put on this beautiful comb, put this beautiful makeup on, it'll make you beautiful. Like you'll know that you're beautiful.

You'll see yourself in the mirror, right, just like the queen, and the mirror will tell you that you're the most beautiful. And I think that that's what the story is about. So it's like knowledge of beauty leads to her death, you know, and then ultimately that is what, and then the prince coming is this final restoration where she discovers what beauty is about.

Like she discovers what beauty is for. Like she discovers what beauty is for and what all of this transformation is for, which is to be united with the prince. He also kisses a dead woman. Well, that's the thing, is that this is harder. And I did change it a little bit in the story to help people understand what it's about, you know, just to help, because it's already about

that in the story. So in my version what I've done is I have the prince here at the outset. He comes and visits her in the castle and then he's enamored with her and then he's like come away with me, like I'll take you, you know, come with me, you know, and then he tries to kiss her and then she resists and she says don't awaken love until it's time. Beautiful. Right. Which comes from the Song of Song.

And then when the prince comes to the end, he remembers what she said, which is don't awaken love until it's time. So this is what it's about. In some ways it's about a lot of things. It's about the idea of coming into a relationship when you're ready to awake. Not before, like, you know, be very careful about,

it's a giving yourself before you're ready, before it's the time. And then at the same time, it's also, there's a more specific aspect, which the whole thing, like, sorry folks, I'm on Pies with the Quinites, we can talk about this stuff. It's like, the whole thing is also about menstruation, like the whole story is a cycle, it's like a cycle.

It has to do with the idea of when love is ready, like when is it time to join with the male? And it comes after death, you know? And so for people who don't know, like it's related to the story of Jairus' daughter in scripture. The story of Jairus' daughter in Scripture. The story of Jairus' daughter is actually a little version of Snow White, for those who don't know.

The story of Jairus' daughter is about ministration, folks. Not just about ministration, but it is about ministration, because Jesus comes off the boat and then Jairus comes and says, my daughter is sick, you know, would you come and help her? And then she's 12 years old, come and help her, right? And so he takes her away and then this woman comes and she's bleeding. She's been bleeding for 12 years, right? So this 12 year old girl needs help and then this woman has been bleeding for 12 years.

So Christ heals her bleeding, then comes to Jairus' daughter who's dead, and he resurrects her, like the prince resurrects Snow White, you know, and then she eats and moves on with her life. And so it's like, that's what it's about, like, some aspect of it, let's say. It's about the right time, you could say, you know, and also the understanding what the, the cycle, you know, of femininity, you know.

Yeah. Anyway, sorry folks. No, don't be sorry. I mean, we're Catholics who don't use contraception and know all about when the peak time to... Yeah, so there you go. So that's definitely part of what the story is about. Like when it's the right time and it's after death, you could say. But it's also a deeper story about resurrection in general. Like it's about... It is about how... it's about baptism, it's about

resurrection, it's about all of these things. Like it's not just about sex obviously, and neither is the story of Jairus' daughter. The story of Jairus' daughter is about, you know, using the image of the bleeding and impurity and of the falling as a sign for sickness and death so that Christ then raises up after that cycle. You know, it's like that's what that's also what it's about. That's beautiful. I'm so glad I asked you that question. Hey, let me ask you about this new series that Daily Wire is putting out about the Gospels. Yeah.

I mean, y'all did the Exodus thing. Can I be honest with you? I am gonna be, I opened it up and I just got so anxious seeing that many people around the table. I'm like, oh gosh. Did you like it? No, I haven't not yet. No, I want to, I will.

But I mean, I was just like, oh gosh, what's that like? I mean, there's that many people. Are you told just everyone needs to let everyone speak? No, it's really, it's actually quite beautiful. You know, I do feel like both in the Exodus series and in the Gospel series that we reach this kind of nice symphonic play where people build on each other's interaction and there's no one pontificating, like there's no one kind of getting out of control.

I didn't feel that during the series. And so for that reason, I think just for that reason alone, it's worth watching because in some ways it does model what conversation can be in what's possible. And the gospel series, it's really surprising. I would say, you know, I was obviously, I was scared. Everybody was kind of worried, you know, because actually this is one thing, but the gospels is something else. You take the most touchy book,

like if you get to choose, what is the most touchy story that would be the most controversial? And around the table, we had Christians, we had secular people, we had Dennis Prager who was there, and it's like, what's gonna happen? And the result is actually quite astounding. I was really surprised. So I think it's like, you know, what's gonna happen? And the result is actually quite astounding.

I was really surprised. So I think it's worth it. You know, for sure in my experience, it was worth it. I actually, during the talk, like just discussing, going through the entire story, like, and it was crazy idea to do that, you know. Like, let's go through the whole story of Jesus, man. That's nuts.

But we did it and we went through, and then I had some insights like crazy, things that I never understood in Scripture all of a sudden like just lit up for me. And I think that I think that'll happen for the people watching it too, so. What was the experience like? I mean, daily wire, they fly you to a place, is there any kind of preparation? How do you? No, we just, we just sit around the table. We just sit around the table, you know, in some ways.

Presumably you've become you know reacquainted with the scriptures to some extent yes and to some extent no in some ways one of the things that makes a conversation interesting is that around the table we had bishop baron there for the for most of the gospel good and you know myself and a few other like james oar for example you know people who know the by the scripture really well and then you had people there that didn't really know that like dennis brager didn't know the gospels the scripture really well. And then you had people there that didn't really know that, like Dennis Prager didn't know the Gospels that well. And John Ravecki had learned them as a child, but didn't know them very well. We had like Constantine Kirsten there for a while. He's like, he didn't know the script. And actually the interplay between all of those characters ended

up being really powerful, because you get the perspective of someone who's almost discovering it for the first time. Then you also have the wisdom of a Bishop baron who just like cuts right in, right? And just opens it up for you. And so it's actually, I thought it was a really an amazing experience, you know? Did you have people subbing in and out or was it the same group of people for the whole? So we had some people leave and come in and it was mostly due to schedule, you know. Was baron there the whole time? No, no, no. I mean man getting Bishop Barron for eight days that's crazy. That's how long it was. It was like I think it was seven days plus one

it's like around eight days if I remember. It was a lot. So it was I mean the fact that he even gave us I think it was like three or four days was to me it was amazing. I mean he is he's a bishop goodness sake, and he runs like an entire like media empire. It's wild that he was able to do that. But it was great to have him for sure. Yeah. Yeah. He's wonderful Baron. I'm so grateful for what he's doing. Yeah. It's definitely worth it, folks. And then if you want to know, like, we're already kind of working on it, I probably, I probably shouldn't announce it. But the next one will be probably the only thing that could be more controversial than the gospel. OK, we'll just leave it at that. Oh, yeah. Well, I loved your end of the world series. Oh, yeah.

Oh, I found that wonderful. Really did. In fact, that's what led me to reach out to you and beg you to come on my show. Yeah, this this idea that you talked about and you can say this better than I'm going to. But like at New Year's, you know, people will get dressed up as kind of and you're like, this is the end of a year. And like if you start seeing this kind of chaos, it's the end of a world. People should really go and watch that. Yeah. Yeah. Subscribe to Daily Wire.

Check it out. It's really good. I'm doing that. Yeah. And they did an excellent job with the editing. Yeah, they did really well. I was really happy with it. No, I was happy. It was a great experience. And also, I think that we also kind of need to understand that, especially what you said, like understand the carnival a little because we see the world is becoming a carnival.

We don't like, why? What's happening? Why is everything becoming so garish and so upside down? And I think there are ways to understand that for sure Yeah, well, I thought it was really good How you doing? I'm fine. Okay, I might have more water. Yeah Okay Okay, oh And then you guys were talking about St. Ephraim, so if you could say your favorite couple of St. Ephraim quotes and then look dead down the camera and go, hey, get off your phone, nerd.

Okay, sure. I can do both those things. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, Notre Dame. Yeah. It's a great place to be. I, sure, I can do both those things. Yeah. So Notre Dame is reopening. I don't actually know what it's gonna look like or how that- It seems it's mostly good. Yeah? I mean, the pictures I've seen are mostly good.

Wow. There's one glaring exception, which is that weird altar they put there. Have you seen the altar? It's kind of weird, but we shouldn't talk about that We should say that it's actually surprising that they made it so faithful to the to the original Did you think it was going to be? I was really worried. Oh my goodness. I am still I haven't seen the photos I mean, did you see some of the plans for it at the outset? It was like we're gonna make it into like a media space with like projections and stuff. It was crazy

But luckily, you know, luckily this is better. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. But see how come on piss off. That person should be excommunicated a hundred percent. That is disgusting. Yeah. And so but the rest is quite the rest is beautiful. Like they redid. They redid the vaulted, you know, the vaulted arches everywhere. I can't wait to go. It's kind of too bad because I went to Paris last year with my kids and it was like, we can go to Notre Dame. It kind of sucks.

I don't know if you've been to the church just outside where Joan of Arc was killed. No. But it's an ugly ass church. It is just disgusting. There's a modern. Oh, yeah. Well, because she was canonized very recently, right? That's why. Yeah, but she canonized in the 19th or 20th.

I don't know. You're the Catholic. You should know. I'm French. I should know. Right. Right. So these these are renderings, hey, like 3D animations. Is that the idea? That is what's in there, though, I think. Yeah, that's really unfortunate. I don't know why the church doesn't just admit that we made a mistake and start facing east again.

This is bothering me. Yeah, but you know, the truth is that, you know, I'm a short term pessimist, but I'm a long term optimist, you know, because I like that, because it's the truth will prevail. There's no way around it, because it's what's true, in the sense that it's actually what forms the world. And so... and it'll happen just naturally. For the same reason that your parents took out the shag carpeting, because it was garish and ridiculous. For the same reason.

It's like, these fashions, these ridiculous fashions that appeared in religious architecture in the 20th century, they will be forgotten. You know, because when people visit a city, they don't visit those churches. Even the tourists go to the old churches. Why? Because it's objectively better. It's like the fairy tales, right? So like these new modern churches are the new Snow White that no one's going gonna be interested in. And it's not something that it's like, it happens really at a, how can I say it, it happens just over one generation. So it's like, what do you care about? What do you want to transmit? What do you want to preserve? Because the idea that things just stay, they don't. Things get

destroyed really fast. If you don't maintain things, you know, they disappear quite rapidly. You can just go to some of the ruins of Christian churches in Turkey and realize that it doesn't take long if you don't have someone actually preserving some of these churches that they just basically fall apart. And so, in this case, it's good because all of these horrible modern churches will just vanish. Even as the church shrinks, as the Catholic Church shrinks there'll be an effort they'll have to decide which buildings to keep and they won't keep the ugly ass

buildings I hope not I mean it might be it might be like Disney going all in on ugly or maybe yeah because it's less expensive that is the that's the that's the dangerous part is that because it's less expensive. I do see I do see an uptick. Like I'm actually really optimistic about the state of the church. You know, like Bishop Barron, like this good men, there are good men who are giving their lives to the priesthood. And it takes a while. I don't know how long it takes for us to see starlight.

Yeah. But there are things happening in the church right now that are so good. And what we're seeing right now isn't really what's happening right now Yeah, it's what happened years ago. No, you're right. We will see I think that that's true And I think that you know at some point and at some point it's it's this is the purification that is it's you see how it naturally it is in some ways because as People leave the church the people that will stay ultimately, maybe not for again, a little while, but the people that will stay will be the people that actually care.

Want to be there. Because you know, the boomers might have been cynical, and you might have had a bunch of cynical boomer priests that really were there to destroy, even if they didn't totally understand it. But it's like, once things start to shake. Why would the younger people stay? There's no reason. How did orthodoxy, it seems to me as an outsider,

like not go down this stupid road. Ha ha. Well, I don't mean to give orthodoxy too much credit. But I would say decentralization is probably one of the aspects, you know, because in some ways, you know, it did almost go that way. If you think of the way that Peter the Great... I'm sure there are. Yeah, in Russia, like, things got crazy in Russia with Peter the Great and the turning the church into a state church and then kind of moving towards, you know, wacky stuff leading

to the revolution. There were some scary moments. In Greece too, there were some scary moments. But I would say that in the end, luckily the ground didn't move. It's also difficult. The centralization offers a great opportunity, which is you can act effectively,

and you can be pretty efficient. Which gets screwed up quickly too. Exactly, exactly. That's also the problem. And so in Orthodoxy, we can't even have a synod. We can't. And I thank God all the time that we didn't. It's like, I actually don't want a synod. Please, let's not have a synod.

Into way more damage. And so it's like, let's just, let's just, you know, and so in some ways that, in some ways our qualities and faults have been part of the preservation. Yeah. Gideon says, ask for his comments on the political, sorry, political state of Canada. It's bloody brutal up here. So he's a Canadian wanting to know. What's going on in Canada?

Yeah. You don't know what's going on in Canada. It seems like, No, no, I live in America now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't. Everyone else is interested in us as well. You don't have to see Justin. My family are writing to me talking to me about American politics. You don't have to see Justin too much. What's going on with him? It doesn't seem like people like him anymore.

They don't. I think he has the lowest approval rate in the history of like Prime Minister's that we know. Yeah, but he doesn't care. And so, I hopefully, I mean, hopefully that he will just go, like, hopefully he'll go. Can you explain to me the, it's not like a four-year term, so how does this work? It's a parliamentary system, right? So we don't have a president, which means that the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is in parliament.

He's arguing with the opposition. He's not like at all like a presidential figure. We tend to compare them. You know, nobody votes for the prime minister. Right, it's the same in Australia. Yeah, you vote for the party. For your representative, and then that representative is in a party,

and whichever party has the most seats will have the prime minister. Like the head of the party will be the prime minister. And so, you know, it's like, I mean, it's good because he's constantly being humiliated, you know, in parliament because he's because the Liberal Party is corrupt beyond belief and because of all the crazy things they've done. And now they're saying, all of a sudden, Justin Trudeau is like, well, you know, we're going to pull back on immigration now.

It's like, you moron. Like what have you done? It's like, you know, you just irresponsibly just let things happen. And now nobody can afford a house anymore. It's like the system is crashing. Everything is like, you know, the prices are through the roof. Everything is just out of control. And he's just like, you know, it's all good.

Let's have a carbon tax. He's like, they're trying to, they're trying to have a carbon tax. That breaks my heart because I love Canada. Yeah, well, we have hope. I mean, you know, it's like a beautiful country. You know, I think that I think that in some ways there's going to be a reckoning and possibly the next election will be that. So do you do you sense a lot of, you know, like here in America, the whole, you know, a let's go brand and bumper stickers. And it was very clear all over the place that I looked that people thought this guy's got to go.

Do you see that? We had it during the trucker convoy. Yeah, a little bit of that, you know, and we kind of it was really a shift. during the trucker convoy, there was a little bit of that, and we kind of, it was really a shift. Like the trucker convoy was a major shift in culture because the media just demonized them like crazy. I was there, I went to Ottawa for the protest and it was beautiful.

You know, like it was difficult. I imagine people in Ottawa didn't like horns going forever. I understand that, that that was difficult, but like it wasn't violent at all. It was like really... And so, and it was just regular people, like really regular Joes, like working people. Freaking love regular people. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're the salt of the earth, right? Like they're like the ground on which we stand. Regular people will go a long way before they start to grumble. Like they'll take a lot actually. But

when, if you watch out for like just the regular guys that just want to live their life, they start to grumble. Man, you pay attention because it's gonna get messy really fast, you know? And so I think that that's what, that's one of the things that happened during the trucker convoy. And so hopefully that will play out in the next election. What is the next election? It's, I think it's in the fall 2025. And so we still have a year.

You can vote for a different party in Trudeau will be out? Is that your idea? Yeah. But the thing is that we could, this is the problem. Like how much into Canadian politics do you want me to go? And so this is the problem. The problem is that in the parliamentary system, you can call an election, right?

So you don't just wait four years. So what Trudeau did is during COVID, he called an election, which was really smart. It was strategic because like everybody's afraid, everybody's scared. And then he called an election. And so then they reelected him for four years. And that's what's gonna run out.

Just call election whenever? Yeah. The party that's in charge can call an election and so then they re-elected him for four years. And that's what's going to run out. Just call an election whenever? Yeah. The party that's in charge can call an election whenever. Do they have to call an election? Can they not call an election? Every four years they have to. They have to. But in between the four years they can call an election if they feel that they have the... Upper ground. Yeah. But also they have to be careful because nobody likes an election.

And so it's like you can't just keep calling elections because people are going to get annoyed with you. And so he did that and he was like, oh, that's not, everybody was annoyed with him that he did that even though they still came in. He thought that he would have majority. That's why he called an election, but he didn't. He got a minority again. So then it was like, so what he did is he created

a coalition with the far left party, the NDP, and another party, it's complicated, it's called the Bloc in Quebec. And so they have the majority. The conservatives, as a Bloc, they have the majority, right? But the liberals themselves don't have the majority. So they're a minority government. And so the head of the Conservative Party has been pushing for an election now. He's like, because if you have a vote in parliament,

you can vote a non-confidence vote. And if you have a non-confidence vote in the government, then it automatically triggers an election. And he tried to do that, but he failed because the coalition held. And so it's kind of like, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens. You know, I hope that the momentum can continue. If the momentum continues, then the conservative sweep for sure.

Did you think Trump was going to win? It's weird because I thought... Okay, in 2016, I didn't think Trump was going to win. And then in 2020, I thought Trump was going to win. And then in 2024, I was like, I don't know, man. I have no idea. I have no idea. Well, a shout out to Josiah, because back in the day, this was shortly after.

Well, this is during the primaries, right, where all the Republicans were running, you know, DeSantis and all of them. And in 2023, first Republican primary, he said to me, Trump's going to win again. I'm like, there's no way he's going to win again. What are you talking about? But for sure, like when they attacked him legally, and when they indicted him. And then like actually attacked him by shooting him.

And then when they shot him, I was like. That's wild. Yeah, the indicting and the convicting, I would have, all of a sudden I was like, if I was American, I would vote for Trump every day just because of that, just because they weaponized the legal system against the former president. I was like, he has to be president.

I didn't think, I didn't know if it was possible. And then when they shot him, I was like, my goodness. Seriously. Someone said, I forget who it was. We say like, we're all just like, you know, in a Trump story. This is Trump's story. We're all just like, uh, be actors in the background because it's like,

he's got to win. It's like, it's so weird because I don't, I never really particularly liked him as a person, but at the same time, I don't know. I really like him. Yeah, I just think he's great. I'm pumped about him.

And I understand this. I like JD Vance. And to be nuanced seems a lot cooler, but I don't know. I really like him. Yeah, I just think he's great. I'm pumped about him. I understand this I like JD Vance and to be nuanced seems a lot cooler, but I don't care. I would love I would I just I'm so excited I'm excited too. I'm happy like I'm at I was really I stayed up, you know At first I was like they're not gonna announce this for a week and I'm like I'm going to bed So I was kind of staying off. I was on my computer. It's kind of watching the commentary and I'm like Wait a minute something's happening. I was watching of staying off my computer is kind of watching it here and I'm like Wait a minute something else. This is happening. I was watching the daily wire stream And I think it was Jordan Peterson who said to Ben Shapiro like you're terrifying when you're happy Shapiro was the funniest man in the world. He was so funny. I was I was just like I was cracked up the whole time

It's like if you I hope someone's put together a video that I want to watch it again. I didn't think he could be that funny. He was delightful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was funny. Yeah, I was watching it too because Jordan was there and I was like, like I'll watch the Daily Wire and see. And then, but then Bench Beer was hilarious. It was funny. Yeah. So I was, I would say that, you know, I'm kind of, you know, I'm, I'm somewhat hopeful. Like, you know, that there'll be like some kind of reprieve, I think. So I like JD Vance. I think if he's the future of the party, I appreciate that. I'm definitely a little worried that in some ways we just elected Bill Clinton and like we're all cheering about it. It's like that's a little, you know, it's like

he's not a Republican. He's not a conservative. He's basically like a 90s Democrat. No, I think like we're experiencing in this country on one end of the spectrum, like complete and utter despair. And then also sort of like euphoric jubilation. I think neither are probably good. Christ is king. He is our hope. That's right. That's for sure. And we've got to keep that in mind. But I mean, just to have the boot off our throat.

Oh, yeah. It does feel like that. It does feel like that, because we've seen now people back off from some of the madness. It's like already. And even though Biden seems to be, I mean, sorry, not Biden, whatever, whoever's in charge seems to be doing everything so that World War III starts before Trump gets in. You know, we've already seen Zelensky said that he has some terms that he's willing to discuss with Trump. And it's like, that's hopeful. And, you know, it's like

it just hope the world doesn't blow up before that, you know, because it seems like there are some people really want that to happen. It's just weird. It's weird. Why do people want nuclear war? What the hell is happening? What is this desire for nuclear war? I don't

understand it. I don't understand. I do not understand. Like, is it a desire for that? Or is that a desire just to get ahead without maybe wanting to fully look at the consequences? Or to... I don't know what it is. I don't totally understand it. It's like I mean I was in the I was a You know, I was a child in the 80s. I remember the Cold War like I remember The fear of nuclear war but it's like now nobody seems to care Everybody's like yeah, you know who might use nuclear weapons. I don't think we know what nuclear war means or entails Maybe we need to reeducate ourselves so we can be a little more afraid or means or entails maybe we need to reeducate ourselves so we can be a little more afraid

what is that thing that strider says to uh frodo are you afraid you're not nearly afraid enough yeah exactly yeah we should be afraid that's for sure this has been so fun thank you thank you thanks for having flying out first of all because flying is the worst yeah well i thought i have to meet this guy in person. The zoom calls don't do it. Zoom sucks. It is interesting how more and more people seem to be doing in-person interviews. I mean, obviously, I'm ripping off Joe Rogan by doing this. And I've been doing this for years now, but I've noticed more and more people

are moving away from the zoom thing. Yeah. Well, I'm still on this. I mean, it's a huge lot of I mean, I got logistics. Well, I could get a lot more people on. I mean, Dave Ramsey just said he'd come on my show if we do it by Skype I'm like no, I don't want to do that. Yeah, I mean not man. He's Dave Ramsey I'll probably end up saying yes, but like right now I'm like, I don't want to do that I want to sit with a human being and have a whiskey and have a You know, there's something beautiful about that. What do you have on the docket? What's coming up?

What's coming up and so, you know, you know, we're focusing on these books. That's what the big focus for me is, is trying to get these fairy tales out. And also this graphic novel, God's Dog. We've started doing courses on the symbolic world because I think people need, because I just do, like I just talk and, you know, I talk about things, but I think people want more deep dives. And so we did a course on on On the Divine Comedy we did to to with Richard Rowland one of the like people I podcast with and like you know And also Martin Shaw came and did a class on that so that's one of the things we're doing I don't think people get excited about that people want to a little deeper

And so that's the that's kind of the next step, I think. And the daily wire stuff on the side. Yeah. Yeah. Once in a while, you know, it's fun. No, how does it work with Peterson's? He's cool you up. It's like, I'm going to need you in. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. You know, it's like the thing is the thing with Jordan is like. You know, everything he so many things he brings up is like just so amazing, you know, and and so it's been great.

So for example, there's Ark in February. I don't know if you know about Ark. Well, I don't know if you know this, but someone invited me. They said you invited me. Maybe you didn't, because you don't think you remember. I did invite you. I'm so grateful.

I just don't know if I want to. I'm not going to, no. I just think it sounds great, but I have things I'm doing, and it's time away from the family I understand but I'm very grateful for this. So tell us what that is I mean until basically is it an invite only thing or what it is an invite only thing for now in some ways It's trying to and are you running that is that you're not me? Yeah, I mean, I'm on the board, but I'm not running it

It's basically it's independent. Although Jordan is heavily involved In some ways, it's trying to create an alliance. It's called Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. But in some ways, it's an alliance. This is gonna be funny. To counter the globalist narrative. I'm gonna ask my assistant, our manager right now, why I'm not going. And she's gonna write back and we're gonna play it live and see what happens. Hey Mel, remember how Jonathan Peugeot invited me to this arc thing?

I'm just wondering, what was the reason I'm not going again? We'll see if she gets that. And then we're going to play it live without telling her. Who knows what she'll say. She might be like, you see Jonathan was an asshole. Yeah, exactly. That didn't happen. But you probably wouldn't record it if you said that. But it you know, in some ways it's it basically the

the basic idea is to is to open up the, you know, in some ways it's, it basically, the basic idea is to, is to open up the, you know, the overton window and try to like prevent the drift that we've seen happening, obviously, for the last 20, 30 years, you know, where, you know, it's like there are certain things you can't talk about anymore. You know, like the environmental narrative has been completely anti-family. Like all of these drifts that has been pushed us away. And so it's kind of trying to reorient people towards... She's watching. She's about to respond. It's gonna be great. Or it could be just very boring. It could be just boring.

You're just busy. You want to stay with the family. Maybe she'll compliment you. Skitzo energy. She'll say if she she'll say. Hello, I think it is the week after you get back from Australia. Or no, sorry, Africa is at the summer. It's when you write right when you get back.

Is Africa is it in July? I mean August. No, it's in February. Yeah, it's because I get back from Australia. So I'm so grateful I'm getting to go the little yeah, I don't know when this will release but it'll probably right that time I get last week of January first week of February. I'm in Australia getting to evangelize. I'm so grateful to go home So I think it was like it's either overlapped. Yeah. Yeah, so that's what it is It's a way more of an explanation that you needed

Why I'm not coming? Okay, just went, yeah, I couldn't make it. Sorry. But you'll regret it for the rest of your life, is all I'm saying. What's the dates again? I forget the dates. They're late. Well, you know what it is too. I think it's because I'm gone that long

that I'm recording a bunch. I'm still explaining it. I'm going to stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But basically, it's the idea of gathering people together and to create an umbrella so that people can talk about things that they haven't been able to talk about. So we've actually seen progress, not just because of ARC, but some of the people involved in ARC,

where, for example, you notice that the Democrats didn't use the environmental narrative at all during the election. Yeah, now I do. That's right. It's because the needle has already shifted, right? Where people are... And they also weren't being like, what if we had women and men and women's sports? Yeah, that wasn't a thing. Exactly. And so I think that we've already... It's not just Arc, obviously,

but Arc is, I think, is already is playing a role, even through the people that are coming together, kind of open up the possibility of talking about things. And so, you know, the idea, for example, that we're, we have a kind of kids first idea and this like family first idea where we say that this is the ideal. Like the ideal is a family with a father and a mother and children, you know, and that, that is the most, that is the fullest vision of what can, can underlie society. And, you know, we understand that there are exceptions. We understand that there are people that can't fit that and that we need compassion and understanding for that, but that we can't take away the ideal for the exception.

And so that type of approach for many, many fields, trying to kind of, and also bringing the people together, because a lot of people, it's gonna be different now, but a lot of people for several years felt lonely. It's like, I think differently from the main narrative, but I don't, if I say it, I'm in danger. My life is in danger. And so if we can provide cover for people so that there, there's space for them to speak, you know, I think we could, I think we could move the needle to some extent. So that's the,

that's what art is for. Yeah. I'm glad you're doing that. That's it, dude. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks to you. This is fun. A lot of fun. That was lovely. Thank you.