Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Dante #11: Purgatory Cantos 15-25

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

Watch on YouTube: https://link-to-youtube.s.gy/dante11

Good morning. Welcome back. So any questions from yesterday? Any questions or comments? Yes. I had this weird dream last night. Okay. So in the dream, like, very disgusting. You were like doing compare and contrast between Final Fantasy 7 and the other like stories. And all of a sudden, I was, I was set on a journey to look for a answer right and and like like intuitively I'm sorry like I know I feel like there's a tree and and I knew like the tree probably has the answer that I'm looking for and and I found the tree right but between me and the tree, there's like a huge lake or like a gigantic water between me and the tree. Yeah.

And there's no way for me to reach the tree, right? Yeah. And so I'm standing there, like gating the tree. I'm like, I'm trying to figure out, like, figure out a way to, to get to the tree. And then, like, as I'm gating the tree and I realize the reflection of the tree is like a very, go, it's like more vivid than the tree itself, the reflection of the tree on the water, right? And as if the reflection of the tree is talking to me, and then I heard this voice, and he said, uh, stop looking outward, start looking inward and I'm always with you.

And then I opened my eye and woke up. And the first thought that came to me, my mind is I suppose so below and I'm still thinking about it yeah yeah I just won't share yeah that's beautiful dream and actually it's very interesting first of all how vivid the dream is how you're able to remember it so clearly and vividly that's pretty rare with dreams second of all what's really interesting is like when dunday ascends purgatory higher he's going to have a vision very similar to your vision yes where they're going to go meet a tree and the tree's going to talk to them. And it's very interesting why this happens. Does anyone want to try to interpret his dream? Try to think like why this is happening. He sees a tree and he thinks this tree

is his goal, but there's a river that blocks access to the tree. So instead he sees a reflection. And this reflection talks to him. That's a very vivid dream. And this is something that actually Dante, it's a vision that Dante would have. And we'll see a vision very similar to this as we climb up Mount Purgatory. So what is the stream about? Yes? I would just do a simple interpretation from lines that I remember that we read. I remember there was a line where it said that the seed was more than the plant that grows in the end.

Yes. And so maybe it's a reference that it has to grow within you and you can't seek out the finished plant. And then another line was that God's will is on the other side of a river that no human can dam. So maybe it's like the flow of time, the flow of change, and that you're so tempted to look on the other side of the bank. But really, you just have to stay on your side and try and think about it for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great interpretation.

So in Pulitzeroy, Dante uses the metaphor, plant a lot. And usually it refers to family. So when he says plant and seed, it means just because you're born as family does not actually confine your fate. You're still independent of this family. The seed and the plant are not the same thing. But he uses the metaphor of plant a lot to describe family. And also plant, of course, also refers to the tree of knowledge. And so the idea is we shouldn't be condemned to original sin, right, just because of what Adam and Eve did.

So plant is a very important metaphor. Planet tree are very important metaphors in purgatory. Any other thoughts or interpretations? Okay, so as you read Divine Comedy, the interpretation will become a lot more clear, okay? All right. So I want to begin today's class by talking about, yes? Yes. I have a question about the logistics of purgatory.

Yes. And we have people moving up, but let's use Picarda as an example. So Picarda moved through purgatory and then ended up in her spot? So Picarda actually went straight to heaven. Yeah, she'd actually go for Percotory because she lived a sinless life, right? She was about sin. She was without blame. So because I was under the impression that maybe Elijah and Ila, who I'm giving you.

They went straight to heaven. They went straight to heaven. Yes. But everybody else, even everybody else has some sort of sin. And so they went through purgatory. But, okay, so Picard is a bad example, but anybody else who's going to extend through purgatory, are they going to snap instant end up in their part of Paradisio that they expect? Or I didn't get any idea that we moved through Paradisio also.

That's a great question. Okay. So the idea is there's certain individuals who go straight to have. right these include mary um rachel roof um beatrice and so the um but in paradise there is a hierarchy as well the hierarchy um is really your proximity to god and this is determined by your understanding your faith your willingness to be by god okay so the people are closest to God, of course, are people who are seated in the red rose. And so the question then is, okay, let's think of this.

If you ascend for proletary, what determines your place in heaven? Well, it will be the same criteria, right? Because progatory, it's meant to purge you of your sins. but once you're a purge of your sins then what remains is your understanding of God your faith in God and your willingness to be to be in your God and Picarda

she did lead a sinless life but it was one about real faith right so it was kind of passive and that showed a limited understanding of God that showed limited faith, that showed limited willingness to be God. So she got, she got to Yale.

So she did all, everything required, checked all the boxes. But she's basically like the worst student at Yale. Because she's not willing to take the hardest classes. She, you know, she's not really pushing herself to her limit. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. All right.

All right. So let's talk about the schematics of, um, the, divine comedy. So we know from Paradise, because we had Paradise first, that ultimately the end goal of the universe

is for us to co-quate with God. How? Through faith, hope, and love. And what we also discuss is that faith it's really about imagination. You have to

imagine that God exists you have to imagine that God is all loving all journalists all merciful you have to imagine that you have a special divine mission on earth okay this is all things that you cannot prove you just have to imagine them you have to believe them okay that's the idea of faith then hope is one of arrogance which is to say like I matter what what I do on this earth matters and I can be like a nobody right doesn't matter I still have responsibility to love those around me, to seek justice, to be generous with others. So think of Rachel, who didn't really do much, but because when presented with a choice, right,

Leah had already married Jacob, she still chose to love Jacob and marry him and, like, endure the pain of being with her sister for the rest of her life, okay? So that's the idea of hope. And then love is one of action. Okay? If you truly love someone, then you will pray for this person for all eternity. Okay. So that's the grand thesis that Donnie is presenting.

A truly good life that draws you closer to God is one of faith, hope, and love. And this counters the traditional understanding of what these terms met historically, as presented by Paul. and Augustine right faith is one of compliance don't question things just believe things hope is one of humility you are safe by the grace of God there's something you can do to change your fate just it just be humble before God and then you will ascend to heaven and love is really one of obedience to obey the church to be a sheep and let the church be the shepherd okay so So again, this framework subverts the traditional church teachings.

When we went to Inferno, what we appreciated is that the nine circles of hell are designed in a way as to promote these ideas on Earth and to punish those who subvert these ideas. okay so as you remember the nine circles are limbo lust gluttony greed and anger okay so these five are outside the capital of hell this so they're not that serious okay and then within this there's heresy violence fraud, and then treachery. Okay? And these are the nine. And again, it makes sense because these four disrupt others' capacity to practice faith, love, and hope.

Okay? So right now, we completely understand what's going on. We get to purgatory their problems, okay? Because there are seven terrorists now. And these seven terrorists are pride. envy sloff greed

is it wrath lust and then there's glutton actually you know what I think I can screw this up

I think anyway it doesn't matter okay all right so what we also discuss is that

there are certain punishments that just would replicate themselves in hell. Okay, so for example, there's no circle of envy, but the punishment is to be blindfolded, to be blind, basically. Your eyes are shut, and you have to hold on to other people

in order to get around, okay? You have to depend on other people to get around. And this is punishment for trying to, for envying other people, okay? Because before you saw yourself separate from other people, now you're completely dependent on other people, okay? And in hell, it'd be the same thing. But what we said is, like, the results would be different because in purgatory, because

they're trying to seek redemption, they're trying to push themselves on their envy, they're actually working together. Okay? And they're looking inward to be a better person. Whereas in hell, if this is the same situation, then they would not work together. They push each other around, and they would all imagine that each is better than the rest. and because you're blind, they can't see that they're actually the same, they would go crazy, okay? They would be very angry.

So the question for us is, how would this system further this system? Okay, do you understand? This is a totality, there's a unity of coherence to this Dante cosmology. I'm trying to figure out the logic of this. I understand why you be punished for disrupting this system. But how would this actually help us get to this? Okay? All right.

So before I do that, I just wanted to basically summarize what the punishment. So for pride, you have to learn humility, right? So what happens is that you are like stones are put on top of you and you have to like crawl. Okay. So you're always humbled. Okay. For Slav, you are forced to run around a lot. You're active.

You're running around a lot. For greed, you're crawling. Why you're crawling? Because before on Earth, you were so greedy, you want to power, right? So you're always ascending. But as punishment, now you are crawling. With Raff, what happens is you're blinded by smoke. and the idea is that your anger blinds you, right?

And so you have to learn to see with your heart. Gluttony is you basically starve. You're starving. Lust is that you're burning, you're burned by a flame. Okay. So this is the structure of purgatory. And I want to figure out why it's like this. How would constructing a system like this,

Procatory, help advance the larger goal of ensuring that everyone lives a life of faith, hope, and love? Any suggestions? So, first of all, is it easy to get into progatory? Yeah, it's pretty easy, okay? There are lots of ways you get into progatory, okay? So one is to repent at the last minute, right? You can live a life of total sin, but the very last minute you're like,

I seek God. Okay? That's one way. The way is if you do an act of charity, an act of goodness, in your life once, okay? That goes against the church, which is like, if you do an act of sin once, you're screwed. But here it's like, no, you do an act of good once, and then you're saved.

Your family members could pray for you, right? There are lots of ways to get into purgatory. So one really interesting thing about purgatory is that it's easy to get into, it's easy to get into hard to advance okay does that make sense like anyone can go to

proletory but to graduate you have to work really hard and it could take you a million years okay that's the first characteristic about progatory okay the second is what else about what's another distinct

characteristic about progatory that's important for us to appreciate yes that if people pay for you then you serve like less time exactly okay people's peers matter okay so you have to figure out who prays for you right and we discussed yesterday i might have like 10 million fans they're gonna pray for me for all of eternity when i die okay so i better treat my kids and my parents and my neighbors my friends well because they might pray for me but not my fans okay um so that's really important to appreciate uh did you

have a that you can't look back otherwise you'll go right back to the beginning yes okay you have to have conviction and devotion

okay yes the moment you go in you have to commit yourself to complete cleansing yourself the moment you doubt you're out of there okay uh yes

no I was going to say same okay all right okay so again there's some some any other characteristic about purgatory yes just a question

because you said if you don't have the conviction, you get out of them. But I thought in one of the last classes, you said, everyone who gets into purgatory, get out. No, no, no. I said, if you get into purgatory, you can now have the opportunity to go to heaven, right?

But that doesn't mean you go unacted to heaven because it's hard to graduate, right? Excuse me? But eventually, but as long as you maintain your conviction, right? The moment you're like, you know, I don't want to do this anymore, then you're kicked out. Okay.

All right. Any more interesting about purgatory? Yes? It requires cycles of self-reflection and

inward looks like the traveling by day only, ascending by light. Yes, that's right. That's right. The self-reflection is very important. Is there a hierarchy to progatory?

There's a hierarchy to hell and heaven, right? But there's a hierarchy to progatory. There is really not a hierarchy, right? There's really no, it isn't saying like, oh, this, like the higher you go, the worse the sin or like the least the sin, okay? It's all equal. So what happens is rather than doing all seven terrorists, you just do one terrorist, you fulfill your, you purge your sin, and then you go straight to heaven, okay?

So you just assign to one terrorist and then that's good enough. Okay, so there's, it's basically, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, no higher. Okay. All right. So explain me why Progatories construct the way it is. And again, we need to remember that there is a unity, a totality to divine comedy. And so all three have to line up perfectly, right? So we've been to Paradise, we know what Paradise is about, we've been to hell, we know what Hell is about. Explain me what Perketry is about. Yes? Well, one thing it does it inverses the sense of, in fact, or hell because lust is at the very first in inferno, but it's at the very top in purgatory.

Yeah, it's really weird this way, right? There's an inversion going on, right? Yeah. No, the structure is very clever this way, where in inferno, the four sins, lust, gluttony, greed, anger. they're inverted in in proletary. Why would he do that? Yes? You're of the layer of the purgatory.

You're closer to heaven. So the sin is not as severe as the ones at the bottom layers. That's interesting. Okay. That's an interesting idea. Huh. But I don't understand why. Oh, yeah, you're right.

Actually, yeah. This does make sense. Yes. Right. Okay. So there is a hierarchy. I'm wrong. Okay.

Yeah, because you're closer to heaven. And this year and then this is like further from heaven. You're right. No, no, you're right. Okay. Yes, there is a hierarchy. Like the high you go, the less serious, the sin. Yes.

Uh, yes? And it's very interesting that the punishment is kind of the same except as the attitude to the partaker. So then it's all about attitude and it's all matching. Right, right. So I'm trying to figure out, but why, okay? We're trying to figure out the logic of this. structure. Okay. So whenever we encounter a situation where we're trying to figure something out,

okay? What we always want to do is figure out the kind of factual. You understand? Okay? So let's do the kind of factual. Let's just say, um, we don't do it this way, and we just do it the way the Catholic Church wants to do it. Right? Okay. This is progatory. Someone explained to me what is being taught about progatory at this point in history. Okay. Um, you know, um, you Yes? That you'll be punished until you repent. And that it's like hell, but you suppose that you'll feel bad enough that eventually you'll turn to God because it's so unhappy to be there. Okay, explain me who gets into the hell, who gets into purgatory, according to Catholic Church, after some of the history, but your 1300.

I think you can basically buy your way into purgatory through money or good deeds. So what's really important to understand is the church determines who goes to purgatory, okay? Right? That's number one. Number two is for indulgences, indulgences, the church can also determine how long you stay in progatory. Do you understand? So what progatory really is is a back door in the heaven, right? So you really screwed up, but you're a trillionaire. And you're like, well, you know what?

I'll give you $200. And the church is like, fine. then we'll give you a back door into heaven. Okay? And as long as your family continues to pay us off, then we'll lessen your time in purgatory. You understand? So at this time in history, progatory, it's really a back door.

That's point one, okay? What else about proletary at this point in history? Do you guys remember? Yes? I remember a lot of fire in the imagery. like there's just a lot of burning. So the purging is like how you extract finer metals from ore and bad substances. Okay.

So what's really important to appreciate is that before Dante, heaven, hell, purportory, they were not actually fleshed out. Okay. What's genius about Dante is that he actually does flesh out them out into real worlds. He's a world maker. He's a world builder. But before that, hell, proletary in heaven, we're just concepts, right?

So in Augustine, state of God, who will say that what heaven is, is every day you're seeing with God, okay? Which is a great image, but it's a concept. It's not a world where astronomy will actually build the world, okay? So I'm just saying, like, conceptually, how is progetarian being described at this time in history? The first is, like, it's really a back door into heaven, all right?

It's an escape clause. You should be burning in hell, but if you give us a $200, we'll put you in purgatory. Okay? Who else is in purgatory? Infants, right? Okay, infants. So another way of saying this is like, this is a theological loophole. Do you guys understand the idea where if I can't actually explain something using heaven and hell, purgatory, okay?

Well, I can't explain babies who die, right, because they're innocent, but they weren't baptized, so they can't belong in hell, but they don't belong in heaven either. So, progatory, okay? Do you guys understand what's going on? If there's ever a special case, like, I don't know what's going on, purgatory. Right? So at this time in history, progatory is not really developed. Okay?

And in reality, progatory is only like very special cases. But what Donnie does is he turns progatory into an, in a way. world equal to that of hell and heaven. Right? And at this time in history, most people aren't even think of purgatory. Because you can't be that rich to buy people place in purgatory, right? You have to be rich. You have to provide indulgences in order to get your relative into purgatory.

And so this doesn't apply to most people. Right. So explain me what the difference is now. Yes? To tie it all together, I think the fundamental. message of Dante in the Divine Comedy is on the heaven side, right? It's unity, it's faith, hope, and love. Fundamentally, God is love, right?

So that's a very simple message. And then you try to break it down. As you try to break it down, I guess what I take purgatory to mean is that no matter which stage of purgatory you're in, there's a fundamental lesson to be learned. And if you learn that lesson, it doesn't matter where you are at in purgatory. you would be with self-reflection, with prayer, with conviction, you'd be able to learn that fundamental truth and propel yourself up to heaven. So I guess in my mind, that ties it all together.

Whereas in hell, you're not learning, right? There's no growth mindset, right? So the real distinction is between hell, like the extremes of hell and heaven. Pergatory is just the process. Okay, all right. So let's just list the differences, okay? The difference between this and this is, first of all, it's democratic. It means anyone, everyone participates in this system.

Procatory was designed for special cases. Now it's like anyone, everyone can participate. If you're poor, you can still pray for your loved one in purgatory. Right? Before if you were poor, you were screwed because you didn't have money to grab the church. So first of all, it's democratic where everyone, can participate. That's point one.

Point two is that it's really hopeful, right? Where, no matter how bad a person you are, as long as you are willing to repent, or as long as someone really loves you, or you, in the past, did someone a good favor, you would still be granted access to purgatory.

So it's hopeful. Whereas at this time in history, the Catholic Church teaches you not have any hope, okay? Don't have hope. Just believe in God, yes? And it's also action-based rather than having to pay money or...

Exactly, okay? So, yeah, so it incentivizes action, right? Whereas this system, it's really about obedience, right? Incentenize it's obedience. Obey what the church says, and you'll be granted purgatory. Here, it's individual action, right? And the other thing is that this is a much more merciful and just system. Does that make sense?

Right? Because before the idea was only a few people could access heaven. Now it's like anyone, everyone can access heaven. But you have to work hard. Okay? Okay. So this is So this is a radically different conception of procuratory. Explain why this has to be the case.

Why does it have to be democratic, hopeful, in some of action, and it has been merciful and just, in order for this to be unified. Yes? It's consistent with his cosmology that God is loved, because if it's not, democratic not everyone can participate it's only for the elite or the rich then the kingdom of heaven is not for the poor like jesus said in a sermon on the month and so everything has to confirm to that's right yes yeah that's also what i wanted to say and to add on to that i feel like for these different layers within purgatory it's also separated by no love at a bottom which is like

pride and then like whatever and then like going upwards is like not enough love like i don't know like envy and etc and at the end is like too much love yes then what you're supposed to have exactly you're right exactly right so it's structured the sorry it's structured the way it is because this the last four okay they are it's really a like misdirection of love right either too much or too little love yes great all right Anyone else? Yes? Can we say the ego dissipates as we go up? So pride, you're loving yourself, and by the end,

greed, gluttony, and lust, you're loving the thing. Yes. And so you're getting less and less of yourself. Yes. Exactly. That's great, yes. Yes? Going back to the beatitudes, this would be how the beatitudes would work.

Because the church almost at that time supports that. Right, right. Exactly. Yes. Any other thoughts or comments? Yes? I'm going back to a comment. A really smart person told me yesterday. Why does envy exist? Like somebody, one of our classmates, was commented that it's actually pretty simple for you to get rid of envy if you're sufficiently smart enough. So I'm looking at all these things in purgatory, and I'm realizing it's one in the same. In some sense, all these challenges that we have in purgatory is because of the lack of blood. love and the lack of compassion and the lack of imagination right so so um if we can i know overcoming one

is equivalent to overcoming all of them yes thank you yes um i've started to think about the whole structure a little bit like um physically structured like a christmas cracker yes where like there's a handle on either side and got one one up one way and one the other way and that the middle section is like a even cylinder, and the other two sections are like mountains, or in the top case, like a V. And so I think this kind of explains how there's a hierarchy, but no hierarchy that none of them are better than the other.

But I want to ask if you think that pride is the most fundamental of the seven deadly sins. It's like the father of sins. Pride. Huh. Okay. Can you, can you, can you, do you have an answer? Well, I think it's like the bedrock of the other sins because it's what fundamentally stops you from dealing with your faults. I guess it's like arrogant, like the bad form of arrogance. Explain me why pride leads to laziness, slav.

Because you believe your innate ability requires less action. and energy to achieve your goals than the truth, than in reality. So, but I don't really understand how pride would give you wrath or pride would give you gluttony.

I mean, it just seems like the basis for misdirection. Right. Yeah. So, so starting we're not to say pride, he would say eagle, right? It's the ego.

That's the basis of everything. So the ego is basically how do you perceive your self? You take yourself seriously, right? What do you think your role in the universe is? How much agency do you have? So the main thing undergruding everything, okay, is the idea of free will.

You guys understand this. This cosmology is constructed the way it is to ensure maximum free will. Okay? This entire structure is designed so like, at every point, You have to believe you have a choice. Never ever must you believe that this is God's will. This is everything can do about it. Okay?

Don't want to eliminate that possibility. So the cosmology is controlling the way, like you can reason everything out and appreciate that it's your choice, not God's choice, okay? Doesn't make sense. That's the real purpose of this cosmology. To convince you, it's all. always your choice, it's always your free will. Everything that happens is because of what you do.

Okay? Yes? Would this kind of be in contradiction to people like Anselm at the time who were really interested in describing how God was outside of time and that somehow his will was already in the universe? That's right. That's right. So again, most theologians, I would say every theologian would say that's just absurd. Like if we have all free will, what's the function of God in the universe, right? What is God doing? I mean, we can't, I mean, like, it would be so arrogant to think

that we can do whatever we want, right? So this goes against church theology. But this, again, is why this is a radical revolutionary poem for its time. It's not so radical for us, but for the year 1300, this is revolutionary idea.

Like, God is pure love. Pure love is to gift you free will and free choice. And the entire cosmology is designed to ensure maximum agency, maximum free will. Okay? Doesn't make sense, guys. All right. All right, let's go to Kendall 15. And I want to do as much as possible today, okay?

Because this is the last two days, okay? Believe it or not, we've been doing this for a long time, right? Ten days. Ten days. Okay. And how long does it feel to you guys? Does it feel like a long time? Okay.

Yes? Yes? Just a comment because I remember I read this in that same Manly Pee Hall piece, but he summarizes the sins of purgatory, I think, quite nicely. And he says that the first three sins are the effect of love perverted. The last three are profane love excessive and the middle one sloth is

love defective. That's right, exactly, yes. Okay, exactly. So it has to all has to do with love. Great, thank you so much. Okay, also, I want to apologize to everyone not learning your names. I'm

terrible names and I knew that there was going to be some shifting over the course of these two weeks. But now it's the second last day. I want to learn your names. I want to get to know you better, okay? All right.

So when I call on you, please let me know your name. All right, so this is candle 15. As many as the hours in which the sphere that's always playing like a child appears from daybreak to the end of the third hour. So many were the hours of light still left before the course of day had reached sunset. Vespers was there and where we are midnight. When sunlight struck directly at our faces, for we had circled so much of the mountain

that now we headed straight into the west, then I could feel my vision overcome by radiance greater than I'd sensed before. And unaccounted things left me amazed. At which that they might serve me as a shade, I lifted up my hands above my brow to limit some of that excessive splendor. As when a ray of light from water or mirror

leaps in the opposed direction rises at an angle equal to its angle of descent, and to each side the distance from the vertical is equal as science and experiment have shown so did it seem to me that i had been struck there by light reflected facing me at which my eyes turned elsewhere rapidly Kind Father, what is that against which I have tried in vain, I said, to screen my eyes. It seems to move toward us. And he replied, don't wonder if you're still dazzled by the family of heaven. A messenger has come, and he invites us to ascend. Soon in the sight of such things, there will be no difficulty for you, but delight as much as nature fashioned you to feel.

No sooner had we reached the blessed angel than with glad voice, he told us, enter here. These are less steep than where the other stairs. So what's happening is that now and then, Donnie is getting blinded. Why? Because an angel that is so radiant is coming down and to basically remove a pee from his forehead and allow him to stand further. And it seems like Virgil knows all this, right? You have done to the paradox here.

Where Virgil, he is a pagan and he has been in limbo all his life, but he knows how all this works. He knows the entire structure of purgatory as well as infernal. Why is this the case? Yes? Because he had the divine spark in him of the poet. That's right. He's a poet. That's exactly right, okay?

So it's something that you guys must appreciate. All poets are prophets. All prophets are poets. Jesus was a poet. You read his quotations in the Bible. It's poetry, okay? Uh, yes Then why doesn't Dante know the way?

Excuse me? Why doesn't Dante know the way? Because Dante is also a poet. Who says he doesn't know the way? He keeps asking questions. Um, okay. Let's think about this, okay? Why does he...

So let's just assume he... Don is a poet. He knows everything. What does he need Virgil to guide him? Explain this to me? Yes? I think he... I think people do this for themselves.

Like, when you talk to yourself, it's similar to that where you need an outside other entity to try and talk to you. And it's like your inner voice is giving you instruction, so you need to give that inner voice of being and a body of some kind so that it stops you against pride. or arrogance that it's you doing it yeah so i mean if you go to the gym everyone knows how to work out right

like you just watch youtube videos and it'll tell you exactly how to work out why do you need a trainer right is a trainer going to really add knowledge to your routine probably not but your trainers just tell you like just focus right that's all the trainers says focus focus focus focus that's what virgil is doing you're just saying focus focus focus focus right all right that doesn't make sense So Donnie would not be on this journey Unless he was a poet Unless he were a poet okay I keep on going

Line 37 We climbed already past that point Behind us we heard Vyati Misericordes sung and then rejoice You who have overcome I and my master journeyed on alone We two together upward as we walked

I thought I'd gather profit from his words And even as I turned toward him I asked what did the spirit of Romagna mean when he said sharing cannot have a part? And his reply, he knows the harm that lies in his worst vice. If he chastises it to ease its expiation, do not wonder. For when your longing center on things such that sharing them apportion is blessed to each, then envy stirs the bellows of your size. But if the love within the highest fear should turn your longing's heavenward, the fear inhabiting your breath would disappear. For there the more there are who should say,

hours, so much the greater is the good possessed by each. So much more love burns in that coister. I'm more hungry now for satisfaction, I said, than if I'd held my tongue before. I host a deeper doubt within my mind. How can a good that's shared by more possessors enable each to be more rich in it than if that good had been possessed by few? And he to me, but if you still persist in letting your mind mix on earthly things, then even from true light, you gather darkness. The good, ineffable and infinite which is above directs itself toward love as light directs itself to polished bodies. Where ardor is that good gives of itself and where more love is there that good confers a greater measure of eternal worth. And when there are more souls above love, there's more to love well there,

and they love more a mirror like each soul reflects the other. And if my speech has not a piece, your hunger you will see Beatrice. She will fulfill this in all of their longings that you feel. Now only strive So that the other five wounds May be cancelled quickly As the two already are The wounds contrition heals Okay so Virgil is just telling us

What we'll learn in paradise Right Like the unifying force of the universe is love The more we love The more God glows in In us And so we turn away from material obsessions Then we will recognize this

And we will create more and more love in the world So love can be infinite, but wealth has to be finite. Okay? Okay. Keep on reading. Line 82. But wanting then to say, you have appeased me. I saw that I had reached another circle in my desire and eyes made me keystone.

There I see him suddenly to be caught up in an ecstatic Christian and to see some people in temple. And a woman just as the threshold in the gentle manner that mothers use was saying, oh, my son, why have you done this to us? You can see how we have sought you. your father and I, and at this point as she fell still when it appeared at first now disappeared. Then there appeared to me another woman upon her cheeks, the tears that greet the stills when it is born of much sport for another. She said, if you ruler of that city to name which even goddesses one fly, where every sign is had its source of light, prevent yourself on the presumptuous arms that embrace our daughters, O pisestratus, and her lord seems to meet the nine and mild.

His aspect tempered as he replied, What shall we do to one who injure us if one who loves us earns our condemnation? Next, I saw people whom the fire wrath had kindles, and they stoned youth and kept on shouting loudly to each other. Kill, kill, kill. I saw him now, wait down by death, sink to the ground, although his eyes were bent and were always on heaven. They were heaven's gates.

Praying to his high Lord, despite the torture, to pardon those who were his persecutors, His look was such that in love compassion. And when my soul returned outside itself and that the things outside of that are real, I then could recognize my not false error. Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So there are three stories here, okay?

The first story is from the Gospel of Luke, where Mary and Joseph they lose Jesus when Jesus is 12. And why? Do you guys remember the Gospel of Luke? Where's Jesus when he's 12 years old? Uh, yes, sorry, what, what was your name? I'm Anna. Yes.

So he went to the temple to debate or argue with, or teach the rabbis, the teachers of the law, and they were amazed by his genius. That's right. And then it was at the end of a wedding feast. So the parents were probably busy with the guest and they couldn't find him and they found him finally. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a story from the gospel of looking.

You can imagine how angry Mary is at him, right? It's like, you know, you had us worried. We thought you were lost. but it turned out, no, there's nothing to worry about. There's nothing to be angry about. Jesus is just being Jesus, okay? The second story comes to us from Athens, where the wife or the ruler of Athens is angry that a man is chasing their daughter

and begging her for marriage. And the wife is like, how presumptuous this man is. he is beneath us, so we should punish him. And then, presidious, the king. Why are we punishing someone who flatters us, right? Isn't he flattering us that he wants our daughter in marriage? And if people who are nice to us, we punish, then people who are mean to us, what do we deal with? Okay.

All right? So it shows the ignorance of wrath, of anger. And the last example is also from the Bible, the story of St. Stephen, who is stoned to death for idolatry by the Jews in Jerusalem. He was the first martyr of the Christian tradition. You will find this in the acts of the apostles. And rather than be angry, what Stephen does is pray for their forgiveness. Okay. All right.

So these are three examples of how to deal with wrath. Okay, understanding and forgiveness. What are these things? How does Stanley see these things? Excuse me? But I'm saying like how does he actually see these things? Yes? Kind of like the artworks, maybe of prior taxes.

It's similar to the artwork, right? But are these artworks? These are movies kind of like visions? Because they disappear after a while. No, no, but how does he see them? Before, how did he have his visions? Dreaming was the first, right? Then it was the artwork, right?

Now what's happening? It's like the ecstatic visions of St. Teresa. These are daydreams. You guys understand. He's actually seeing them as he walks. All right? This is like lucid daydreaming. How does this happen?

Okay. We understand how dreams work. we understand how artwork works, right? We spend all the time discussing artwork, but how does this work? You just have visions. Like, you're just walking,

like, wow, like, I have this image in my head. Right? Yes? Oh, sorry, so what's your name? Fred. Fred, okay, yes. I guess it's like reflected light.

I don't want to say like psychedelics, but the cantos kind of start where he's saying, I'm trying to cover my eyes, but the light's bouncing in no matter what. So it's kind of like it's impossible for him not see it. The mechanism is very mysterious, I still think, do. Okay, it's possible, okay?

But that makes no sense. Reflected light, doesn't it blind you? I mean, I guess it blinds him and then he has these visions, right? But again, like, where are these visions coming from? We understand the art work. We understand the dreams. The dreams is from heaven. Yes?

Maybe it's just imagination, but it's another level. is at a higher level of imagination. Anyone else? It is definitely imagination, but I'm like, I'm trying to figure out how this works. Okay, so we will spend a lot of time discussing this idea, okay? So we're trying to figure out how the mind works today. Okay?

And who studied psychology? Okay, you study psychology, right? right? How do we have memories? Tell us. It's like the short-term and long-term memories. And so there's a transfer between, so first you have the knowledge that's going into your brain,

and it sucks very shortly, and then through a process of rethinking of it, so basically it's very loose memory in the short term, and then it goes to the long-term, and you need to work on it back and forth for it to strengthen. Okay, right. So what is your name?

Franzo. Francie. Okay. Okay. So let me explain the neuroscience, okay? What neuroscience believe how memory works. Okay, so the idea is you have, in the beginning, okay, short-term memory. The short-term memory is filtered for your senses into long-term memory.

And how the memory is then dealt with is that it's divided into categories determined by emotions. You do you understand? So if the emotion is anger, it goes in the anger box. If it's happy, it goes in a happy box. And then if it's sad, it goes in sad box. It's basically just emotions. So all your memories are categorized by their emotional value. And then based on the order of your emotions, this then leads to your worldview or your identity.

And then that becomes part of your senses, which then determines what memories you remember, what memories you don't remember. So in other words, first of all, you only remember things that have emotional value. That's why in school, you actually don't remember what you learn in the classroom, but you remember a lot what you do with your friends, okay? Yes? Two types where there is one link to emotions and one like only to knowledge, but it's right, it's harder to remember it. That's right, that's right. But there is two categories. You're going to use put force to.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. And because there's no recall also, then it's just hard to remember it. Yes. You learn math and you never think of math. That's right. Okay.

All right. So, yeah, so the memories are going to light into emotional values. You remember what has emotional value unless you use book memorization to remember useless facts, like mathematics, okay? And the entire point is to develop your worldview and why is the world view important? Because it tells you your place in society, right? It tells you who you are and what your relationship is for other people. It helps you navigate, okay? So, so really, this entire system is designed for us to be social animals, to enact with others, to work with others to compete with others, okay? All right.

So, yes? I'm Andy. Hi, Andy. So in this process, would you call the unconscious, like uncategorized things that are seeping into our dreams? Or would you call it like the divine speaking to us? Okay, yeah. So, again, this is neuroscience, okay? They do divide between a conscious and a subconscious, right?

Subconscious. The conscious is this decision-making, whereas subconscious determines your action. So what nervous I'm saying to say is that we are conscious robots. We have no control of ourselves, but we think we do, okay? We just rationalize our actions, but it's the emotions that determine our actions. So who you are is your subconscious, not really a conscious. Who you think you are is not really who you are. So this is from neuroscience.

Are we clear about this? Okay. This creates a lot of problems, right? Because obviously you're like, okay, if this is the case, where does the imagination come from? And how is it that people like Dante and Virgil and Shakespeare, they're able to create characters that are realistic and which is not part of their emotional experience?

Like, how does that work, right? If everything is stored in your brain and you can only know what you experience, then how does Dante know Virgil? Does it make sense? Yes? I'm just going along with the neuroscience explanation. Neuroscience would say that they're able to simulate these characters

in their kind of own networks and talk to them, talk to the simulation. Okay. Yes? It's going a bit far, but you can. I think you can, I'd never read of it, but you can prime yourself with imagination. And if you look and read a lot of books, look at art, then just it opens your mind into creating stuff. And maybe the more you see new things, then the more you're able to create stuff. Okay, I understand, okay?

But all you're telling me is like Virgil is projection of Dante, right? Virgil exists within Dante's larger imagination. But what we're doing is we're reading, The Divine Comedy, and we see Virgil as a completely different person from Dante, with his own contradictions, with his own worldview. Right? And if you read Shakespeare, you also have people like that in Shakespeare. You have Hamlet. You have, all these characters are distinct individuals.

So if they are all just projections of Shakespeare, I don't know how that works. I'm Edward. Yes. somehow he's managed to plug himself into the collective consciousness. Yeah, that's why I think, okay? We'll talk more about this later, okay? But yes? And just one more thing is that I think the reason why he's able to simulate

or create Virgil so well is that if you imagine like the subconscious, the field of consciousness of the universe is like Play-Doh or Clay, when he's reading the anead a lot and it's almost like he's feeling in closer and closer detail the sculpture that is the anead and so when he's really reading it he feels these thumbprints, these grooves of the nail where he's able to see the human mind of Virgil

as you say by reading the anead so closely that he's able to feel the poet behind the words and therefore have such a deep empathy for him that the empathy creates like a bubble of another being and that's how he plugs in. Okay, that's a very large explanation. I don't think that's what's happening. I don't think he's creating Virgil.

I think he's summoning Virgil. There's a difference. You know, you guys understand. There's, there's, you can create Virgil, right? Using the same process that you just described, and that's very logical. But I think what's happening is that he summoned Virgil. Because to me, I can't, I've read the in the ad,

and I don't think the Virgil, in the Divine Comedy can be extrapolated from reading the Indiana alone. Because Virgil, if you read Virgil and you just hear the way he speaks, right? It's like, it feels

like a real person. And why it feels like a real person is the contradictions, the nuance, the subtlety cannot be created by you alone. You have to summon this person. Doesn't make sense. So it's like he's

it's like he spent his entire life with Virgil as his best friend and they're just talking to each other all the time so he understands this guy's peculiarities right does that make sense? There's certain things they shouldn't kick quarks that like you cannot imagine it you cannot create it it just has to be that person yes Brett it just reminds me when I was reading about Machiavelli there was at the time some guy called Valentino Borgia

he got a letter of recommendation where this guy wrote that he was the reincarnation of Thomas Aquinas and it made the Catholic Church really, really afraid because they didn't want anybody to know about summoning angels and demons and stuff. Yeah. I think Donne has summoned Virgil here. It's very hard for me to explain how this could work otherwise, okay? Because like we're reading the relationship between Donnie and Virgil very closely, right? And like, I'm not finding a contradiction in Virgil.

Do you understand? Right? And like we're able to go into the very psychology of Virgil as an independent actor, right? Where you're going to say like, if Donnie's doing this, then this is Virgil's response. And it matches perfectly with the text. Yes? A friend that Dente was friend with. And then he just wrote Virgil and his name.

It's what I imagine. Same for Beatrice, you know, like it's so real that I think it's actually a friend in real life, just transferred a name. that is also a possibility, but then you raise the question of like, how is the Virgil that is created, right? How does the Virgil in Divine Comedy, how does it match perfectly with the Virgil who wrote the Inniad? Do you understand? Because when we talk to Virgil, if you read the Inniad, you're like, okay, this is the guy who wrote the Inniad. Right? Because when you read the Ineat, what you're reading is the persona.

of Virgil who wrote the and he had. Okay? Does that make sense? Because remember, in the Vinicom, there are three Dantes, right? There's Darnie the Pilgrim, the character, there's Dany of the historical person, the real person, and there's Dany of the poet.

And all three are different because Darned the Pilgrimov, obviously, is the protagonist. Dante, the real person is the real person. But Danty, the poet, is a person who is trying to talk to us. You understand? Okay?

So he's trying to create the divine company in a way that speaks to us. And I don't know how you do that unless you're a real person. Whereas, and in Virgil, yes, if you think about Virgil and you were to bring him outside and like ask him about the Ineat, he would know the Inniad like intimately, right? He's like, yeah, it's obviously he will be the Indian ad. So you're all providing good theories and hypothesis. But, I mean, having thought very deeply about this, I think he just summoned Virgil. and this is like the real Virgil, right?

And this is absurd because Donning lived around the year of 1300 and Virgil lived the year about like, you know, during the time of Jesus. Like, like, well, I'm not the time of Jesus, but a generation before, okay? So we're talking like 1,300 years difference. How is this possible? Yes? Yeah, you know, I think this Virgil is just usher, right? So I think Danny's to have read a lot of things about Virgil.

So maybe they just imagine this role in his mind, just like reason. Because sometimes we need to think about something by reason, but not by emotion. But you trace his emotion. So I write novels, okay? I write novels, okay? And I'll take my writing process. What happens is I get up in the morning and I have visions. I'm like, I need to write these visions down.

And like, if I don't write these visions down, then I'm just going to be haunted for the rest of my life. write these visions down and I'll be left alone. So I write these visions down, okay? And when I'm running these visions, I don't know what happens. It feels like when I'm writing, it feels like someone's sitting possession of me and I'm just writing things. And then I'm running about these characters. I'm like, I don't know these people, okay? It's like, it's like, it's not like I'm creating these people. It's like these people are being revealed to me. And then I, I finish the writing, and I look at these characters like, I don't know these people.

I've never met these people, and they feel real to me. But knowing that, but I feel as though these characters not only are talking to me, but they're talking to themselves independently. Okay? And then I'm exhausted after a day's work, and I fall asleep, and like, okay, well, my mind is blank, and I'm not gonna have any more visions.

Now, in the morning, I get up again, and I have more visions, okay? And then I keep on working, and then at the end of my novel, What happens is like, I look back when it's like, how's it possible for me to world build? Okay? How's it possible for me to create all these people that are independent of each other, have different personalities, but they are true to themselves and they're true to each other. Okay? And I'm like, I don't know these people.

I've never yet to spend my own my life. And like, I can't explain the process. And that's why I think that what's happened here is that Dawn has summoned Virgil. because these are two very different people. They're alike in some ways, but they're two different people. Okay? All right. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to present another theory of how this works.

Okay? And this is more aligned with daunty theory of how this works. So we know the Doroast, okay? This is a standard theory of memory and identity, right? Right? I mean, this is what you're taught in school. Okay. Now I'm going to present to you a different.

different theory, okay? All right. So for Dante, we have the divine spark. The divine spark is not a light in us. It's our soul. And our soul is not a part of us. It is, it is us. It's basically like our electrical field. Okay. It's an, it's an all around us. Okay. That's the real soul. And the soul doesn't exist in our dimension. It exists in different dimensions. All right. And we also know from Dante that there is a god, and this god is the emanation of the universe, the source of the universe, and we're all connected to this god. So the entire cosmos is connected. So imagine the cosmos as this infinite eternal mind. And what happens is that when we have an emotion, okay, the emotion, the emotion.

emotions aren't stored inside our brains, they're stored inside this universal consciousness, as what Carl Young would say, as what Manning Hall would say, okay? Right. First of all, Edward, do you want to explain to us the theory before I explained it myself? I think it's just where you're going that there's this idea that rather than the memories are stored in our physical beings, there is some collective consciousness and through different methods that some people oppose. there is a way of channeling this.

And I don't know the exact stories of it, but I know that there, for example, even in sort of the contemporary world, there are some sources about, for example, like your very young children that have knowledge of things that there is no way that they would have known happening. So people really can't explain this.

So this is a separate theory that's- Yeah. So my eldest son, Chris, who you met, and you guys met him as well, because he came in and like this, you know, walk around. But when he was two years old, he told us, mom, dad, I'm an alien from another planet. Like, okay, we believe you. We really do, okay? Because we've seen him. And he's like, he's not like me. He's not his mother. He's his own person. And he's like, he was two years. So he told us, he's from another planet. So the first thing we asked him, of course, is like,

what planet? And he mentioned the name. I can't remember it. But like for him, it was real. Okay. So it seems as though that he came in with already memories of a past, of a past life and possibly many, many past lives. I'm not sure if you had a similar experience for your children, but you know. Yeah, like no, my, they're the aliens, yes. Okay, so, yeah, back to the series, okay? So there is a universal consciousness, okay?

And think of it as an infinite eternal grid. So what happens is that when we have emotions, they're not stored inside the brain, they're stored inside this universal mind, okay? And these memories go in different locations. So if it's a bad memory, like a bad emotion, hate, then it might be lower, but if it's a good emotion, like happiness and joy, bliss, then it's probably higher in the place, okay? Okay? So this is where the memories are stored, okay?

But knowing that, but evidence memories are stored here, right? So it's like the internet. And so what happens is that over time, certain regions become like alive themselves because they are being, because there's so much memories being stored in this place, right? It becomes alive itself. And that's where we get the idea of like ghosts and spirits and demons. Okay. And so in other words, what happens is like when we have memories, okay, not only do we

We store the memories in a certain place, but this place also communicates, connects with us. Okay? And so, basically, you, you're an independent person, but also your collection of different memories from different eras, which means you're also a collection of different individuals from different times. It doesn't make sense? Okay. Why is this important? Because now gives us insight into how art works.

Right? Because what art really is, it is a portal or a mechanism to enhance your connection to this universal consciousness, this Internet. It doesn't make sense. Okay? So when that happens, then not only do you feel? more, but you feel more. Remember, these emotions come with their own memories, with their own visions, then these visions come available to you. Okay? So that's what art and dreaming does. It connects you to this universal web, but if the connection is really strong,

they don't need these agents to provoke you. You just see them yourself. Okay, so that's what's happened to Dante. So what's happened is like he, he's now able to see this visions for himself without artwork. And the reason why he's able to see them, what is given him sight is the fact that he's cleansing himself of his sins, right? Because his sins, what sins really do is they brought you down to a material world, and they make you forget the universal truth, right, which is the universal consciousness. So the more virtuous a life you live, the more visions you have, because the greater your connection to the divide.

All right? Do you guys understand this? Any questions about this theory? Yes? But I understand you can summon this historical figures into your mind. It's like a seance, right? But can you like summon this like a fictional character? Like let's say you're writing a novel, right?

And these characters, they did not exist in the real world, right? So can you summon like fictional characters? But I mean like this is an infinite universe, right? So there's infinite people. So when you're writing fiction, all you're doing is you're summoning someone from here. Yes? So just to answer that through this lens, like the fictional characters are basically real characters. like they're not really different like we're all sort of part of the same collection of archetypes

yes because we read fiction where we read it because it's real to us right because it's explaining these universal truths to us uh yes so does that mean whenever a person writes a novel and the characters in their novel um is some cemented if he's a good writer yeah but he could be a bad writer in which case he's making crap up okay but but how's the The difference, like the, um, why do some writers write a good novel, novel and others write a bad novel? Because the writer has a different connection to the divine, okay? Like, no, no, no, no. It's really simple, okay?

If you choose me a writer, you're probably a crappy writer. You understand. It's like, I want to be a writer and be, I want to be famous. You're probably a copyrighter, okay? If you're a good writer, you're just born that way. I hate to say this, okay? Writers are not Writers are chosen by God

Donde was chosen The virtue was chosen too bad Okay Yes The fact of feeling lighter I feel like when you're lighter Your ideas come from a spiritual world Whereas if you're really heavy

Then it's just like material Or like oh I'm lacking money Or I'm late And so there's really a link into feeling lighter and having better ideas That's exactly right yes Remember in Sorry sorry

Sorry Anna Sorry let me respond So remember how in hell the lowest level is Lucifer, right? And he's become a machine. So he's lost all consciousness because he's lost the connection to this universal consciousness. Right? Yes? But I have a problem with this theory because in that way it's like Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. Everything we write in fiction is a real person in the past.

So then we actually lost our imagination because we don't create anything new. So Carol's shaking her head, yes. But, oh, okay. So, like, all this collective consciousness memories are not from the- There's no time. No time in space. Oh, okay, right. This is all the past.

It's also the future. Oh, I see, I see. Okay. Because otherwise, explain to me how Dante is able to have such revolutionary ideas in his time, right? Because these ideas that he's presenting never existed before, so what he's done is he's looked in the future. Okay. Right? Okay, doesn't make sense, guys.

Okay, so again, what's been important is, as Carol says, this is beyond time and space. Okay, this is literally God, okay, this system, okay? God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning in the end, everything that was and everything that will be. Okay, so when you actually access the system, not only are you accessing the past, but you're also accessing the future. Okay? Yeah? But do you have like a better imagery for like your concept because it's really hard to write down what you did here? Like do you have a better way to like do a drawing about like what's happening with like bubbles or stuff? Let's Google this. Okay, it's called Indra's Perl. Okay, can you Google this players?

Indra Pearl. Okay. All right. Uh, or injures, Injure's web? Yeah, just this. Yeah, does it make more sense to you? The web. Since you've studied the brain, synapses, right? Synapses, neurons, neuro connections. Okay, so the idea is that God is within us and we are within God. Does that make sense?

That's a trick. I don't understand that. We are, it's hard to draw because, both are two at the same time, right? We are within God and God is within us. So the universe is within us and we are the universe.

When you draw, you would collapse it into two dimensions, which is not. Also, you need to understand the fractals, right? Fractal. So you are just a fractal of the universe. And what was a fractal? Fractal is just a reflection of the universe,

right? So within you is the universe itself. but you're also a part of the universe. God is in you and you are inside God. Does it make sense, guys? All right? This is really important because once you know this, then the rest of Dante is easier to understand.

But the point is, like, now that he has this connection to divine because he's been inspired by artwork, he's committed to change, and because he's cleanses himself with more and more sins, the visions will become much more vibrant. Okay? Okay.

Okay, yeah, this is actually what I want it, okay? You guys see this, okay? This is the best we can probably do. You are inside God, God is inside you. Do you guys see this? Yes? I was just going to say also bringing it more to contemporary thought. Like we're talking about how Dante can clean himself.

Get better connection to the collective conscience. This is also quite similar to in Hinduism and in yoga. when they have the idea of kundalini right that if you abstain from all these desires you do very deep meditation over years and years yes many people reported that they have these visions and that's right connections to this high context exactly exactly i mean this is a universal true okay it's something that i've experienced my life where um when i write novels like i just don't i don't create i just you know channel if you if you if you create um honestly you're probably not very good So let me tell you a funny story.

So my mentor is Evergrammat, but also Gay Talese. Gay Talese is one most famous writers in America. He's 94 years old. And we were 25 years ago. We were on a cruise ship in Shanghai. And there was three of us. There was Gay Taliz, his wife, Nan Taliz, who is one of the most famous publishers in America. She published Margaret Atwood and all these famous writers.

including Joan Didion. And she was telling us how Phil Knight, you guys know who Phil Knight is, right? A billionaire. Nike, yeah, she's son of Nike. And she was telling us how obsessed Phil Knight is with writing a book. In fact, Phil Knight would just come to her office

every single day and sit there for like two hours just to meet her and talk to her about the book he wants to write. And Natalie's is like, he is awful. He's like the worst writer ever, okay? But I mean, eventually he did publish a book. It's called Shoot Dog, and it's a bestseller. But, you know, he's the richest, he's one of the richest men in the world, and he's like, you know, I want to be a writer.

And he spent, you know, these decades going through like these workshops, hiring writers, learning the craft. But then Nanth Lee's is like, you know, he's not a very good writer, but he is just so joyful and enthusiastic and happy about writing. He says he wants to write because he says he wants to write because it brings him tremendous joy. And then Gay-Talese said, well, if you're really stupid,

you could be very happy as a writer. Okay? All right, true story. Like, if you just suck, you would find tremendous pleasure in writing. But if you're really good, you would find only agony and suffering in writing because you recognize that when you write,

you're not actually in control. You're being possessed. You're channeling. Okay? All right. Does it make sense to you guys? All right. All right. Let's continue. Line 1.15. And when my soul returned outside itself and met the things outside it that are real, I then could recognize my not false errors. My guide on seeing me behave as if I were a man

who's freed himself from sleep said, what's wrong with you? You can't walk straight. For more than half a league now you have moved with clouded eyes and lurching legs as if you were a man whom wine or sleep has gripped. Oh, my kind father. if you hear me out, I'll tell you what appeared to me, I said, when I had lost the right youth of my leg, and he, although you had a hundred masks upon your face, that still would not conceal from me the thoughts you thought, however slight. What you have seen was shown lest you refuse to open your heart unto the waters of peace that pour from the eternal fountain. I did not ask what's wrong with you, as one who only sees with earthly eyes, which ones the body's stripped of soul, lies dead, can't see. I ask so that your feet, feet might find more force, so must one urge the indolent. Too slow to use their waking time when it returns. We made our way until the end of Vespers, peering as far ahead as sight could stretch,

at rays of light that, although late, were bright, but gradually smoke as black as night, began to overtake us. And there was no place where we could have avoided it of pure air in sight. Okay, so we were in the terrorist of law, but they're also busy you don't have time of talking, okay? Now we're moving up to the terrorist of rav and the theme of the rath

sort of the rap is all black smoke, okay? All right, that's one one. Canto 16. Darkness of hell and of a night deprived of every planet under meager skies as overcast by clouds that sky can be

had never served to veil my eyes so thickly nor covered them with such rough textured stuff as smoke that wrapped us there purgatory my eyes could not endure remaining open so that my faithful knowledgeable escort drew closer as he offered me his shoulder just as a blind man moves behind his guide that he not stray or strike against some thing that may do damage to or even kill him so i moved through the bitter filthy air while listening to my guide who kept repeating not cut off from me but i heard voices and each seem to pray unto the lamb of god who takes away our sins for peace and mercy agnes day with

sung repeatedly as their exhortium, words sung in such a way in unison that fullest concordes seemed to be among them. Master, are those whom I hear spirits, I asked him, you have grasped rightly, he replied, and as they go they lose the nod of anger. Then who are you whose body pierces through our smoke, who speak of us exactly like a man who uses months to measure time? A voice said this, on hearing it, my master turned round to me, replied to him, then ask if this way leads us to the upward path. And I, O creature who that you return fair unto him who made you cleanse yourself, you shall hear wonders if you follow me. I'll follow you as far as I'm allowed, he answered, and if smoke won't let us see, hearing will serve instead to keep us linked.

Then I began, with those same swaddling bands that death unwinds, I take my upward path. I've come here by way of health exactions. Since God so gathered me into His grace that he would have me in a manner most unusual for modern see his court. Do not conceal from me who you once were before your death and tell me if I go straight to the past, your words will be our escort. I was a lombard, and I was called Marco. I knew the world's ways, and I loved those good

for which the bows of all men now grows lack. The way you've taken leads directly upward. So he replied, and then he added, I pray you to pray for me when you're above, and I to him, I pledge my faith to you to do. do what you have asked, and yet a doubt will burst in me if it finds no way out. Before, my doubt was simple, but your statement has doubled it and made me sure that I'm right to couple your word with another's. The world indeed has been stripped utterly of every virtue. As you said

to me, it cloaks and is cloaked by perversity. Some place the cause in heaven's sun below, but I beseech you to define the cause, that seeing it I may show it to others, aside from which His sorrow formed an O was his beginning. Then he answered, Brother, the world is blind, and you come from the world. You living ones continue to assign to have in every cause, as of it were the necessary source of every motion. If this were so, then your free will would be destroyed,

and there would be no equity and joy for doing good and grief for evil. Okay, so Donnie meets a man named Marco Lombart, and they engage in the debate of discussion, okay? That's due with the nature of free will. And as we explained earlier, free will has to be the fundamental law of the universe for the universe to work properly. Okay? If you just think that God intervenes and that a lot of things are predetermined, you're not incentivized to do any good and evil. You become fidelistic.

And so he says that free will has to be the fundamental law of the universe. Okay? All right. Okay. number one seventy-three the heavens set your appetites in motion not all your appetites but even if that were the case you have received both light on good and evil and free will which though it struggled in its first wars with the heavens then conquers all if it has been well nurtured on greater power better nature you

who are free depend that force and genders the mind in you outside the heaven's way thus if the present world has gone astray and use the cause and you it's to be sought and now serve as your true exegette. Issuing from his hand the soul on which he thought with love before creating it is like a child who weeps and laughs in sport. That soul is simple, unaware, but since a joyful maker gave it motion, it turns willingly to things that bring delight. At first it savors trivial goods, these would beguile the soul, and it runs after them, unless there is guide or reign to rule its love. Therefore, one needed law to serve as curb, a rule or two was needed, one who would discern at least a

tower of the true city. The laws exist, but who applies them now? No one, the shepherd who proceeds his flock can chew the cut, but does not have cleft hoops. And thus the people who can see their guides notch only at that good for which they feel some greed, with feet on that and seek no further. Miss rule, you see, has caused the world to be malevolent. The cause is clearly not celestial forces. They do not corrupt. For Rome who made the world good use to have two sons, and they made visible two paths, the world's path and the pathway that is gods, each has eclipsed the other,

now the sword has joined the shepherd's crook. The two together must, of necessity, result in evil. Because so joined, one need not feed the other, fear the other. And if you doubt me, watch the fruit and flower, for every plant is known by what it seeds. Within the territory watered by Adige and Po, one used to find valor and courtesy.

That is, before Frederick, was met by strife. Now anyone ashamed of talking with the righteous or of meeting them can journey there secure. True, three old men are there in whom old times reproof the new, and they find God is slow in summoning them to a better life. Corrado de Palazzo, Good Gerardo, and Guido de Castel, whom it is better to call as do the French, the candid lombard. You can conclude, the Church of Rome confounds two powers in itself, into the fill that fall, and fowls itself in its new burden. Good Marco, I replied, you reason well and now understand why Levy's sons were not allowed to share in legacies. But what Garado is this,

whom you mention, as an example of the vanished people, his present would reproach the savage age? Either your speech deceives me or would tempt me, he answered then, for you whose speech is Tuscan seem to know nothing of the good Garardo. There's no other name by which I know him unless I speak of him as Gaias father. God, be with you. I come with you no farther. You see the rays that penetrate the smoke already whitening. I must take leave.

The angel has arrived before he sees me. So he turned back and would not hear me more. Okay, so just to summarize the speech. What he's doing is he's just explaining how the universe works as we'll learn in paradise, right? So God gave us free will. That is his greatest gift to us. And what allows us to know what's good,

what's bad is we're always seeking to return to him, right? We want to turn towards him, and that's what brings us eternal delight. But because we are young, we're immature, we don't appreciate that, so we get lost and get confused, and we seek material pleasures. And in this chaos, a ruler will come and try to organize us and stare us towards God. but eventually the ruler becomes corrupt himself and then what happens is God has sent a divine messenger like Jesus

or Homer or Dante to remind us of who we are to remind us that we are divine sparks that seek to return to God and then from this person will arise a religion, a church and at first that's good but then what happens is that the church and empire combined together and then this causes a lot of corruption But the main point is, yes, even though this is just a natural course of history, free will is the fundamental law of the universe,

and therefore we must take responsibility for all our actions on Earth. We can't be like, well, God made us this way or whatever. No, no, God gave us all free choice. Whatever we do is because we choose to, so if we don't like things the way they are, we have to go fix it. Okay? Yes? So the fundamental rule of universe is free will.

Then how to... But you said before, there are good writers and bad writers. Does that mean a kind of deterministic? No, no, no. Writers are... Yes? I think that the way I would answer this is just that bad writers are not good at organizing the inspiration they receive.

So they receive visions and characters and stories. But the way they write it means that other beings have a hard time putting their minds in the story. So they just miscommunicate whatever their inspiration is. Okay, so sorry. Let me explain what I mean, okay? What I mean are writers who become historical figures, writers who change the course of history, people like Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, okay? These are clearly divine prophets who are compelled. to be messengers for the Monad for the Vi.

What you're thinking about is, okay, is this guy a bestseller? Is he technically proficient? That doesn't matter. No one cares about these people, okay? You may care about these people because they're alive today, but 100 years from now, no one's gonna read, like, like, who's the famous writer?

Uh, uh, uh, see me? J.K.R.R. J.K. Ron, no one's gonna read J.K. Rionling a hundred years from now, okay? Um, so the profits are determined. determined before by god um yeah can can someone explaining him how this works uh anna can you try i think good writers are willing to kind of be a vessel for god's thing so you are very empty on the inside like yoga right like when you're doing the posture you empty yourself and then

these things come to you uh so if you are a bad yoga person then you do all your postures and then you make it look really good. You balance yourself very well, but then you are not a channel. So then you don't have that divine connection to write that kind of works that changed the course of history. Do? Did you want to say something? I think like I think those good writers are just born with a different filter, right? Because like you said, our body is basically a filter to filter to filter the reality. And they can choose to, they can be like either, like wardrobe or dente, they can choose like wardrobe to distort the celestial order to and rise the idiot, right? Or they can choose to be like dante to, to convey this divine

order to the secular world. Yeah. Okay. Bruce. Thank you. I saying there's so many famous writers, some of writers in America, for example, like, um, way, right? So all of these writers just get through some kind of painful, very painful memory, like in the war, you know, in the war time. So some people that have been tortured so much, they really want to write something, okay? And even the Harry Porter's writer, Jackie Rowling, who just been so poor, in poor conditions. So in this way, he imaginations been so, you know, so much better than others, and he even keep writing on the napicans about what they bumped it, right? And the Harry Potter is actually just a Jack Rowling's childhood. So,

Fred, did you want to say something? No, I think other than I have to agree with the filter point, but I just think I really agree with that it's about bad writers are people that let their own mind and biases and experience cloud the structure that would have come into them. Yeah, like Virgil, yes. It's good or bad. It's also, I think human success can be defined by talent, passion, and perseverance, or this filter. So, like, some people are born, like he said, like, to be better writers, because their filters are set in a way that they are more likely to have this invitation of divine revelation.

But then there were also other, you know. Do you guys read New Yorker magazine? just the most pretentious crap in this world, okay? They spent decades perfecting their crap. It's beautiful word after word after word, signifying nothing full of sound inferior, okay? That's what the New Yorker is. That's what bad writing looks like, okay?

All right, and so you're like, well, but, I mean, like, they're successful. No one cares, okay? All right, let's, sorry, sorry, I just hate the New Yorker. Let's move on. Canto 17. Remember, Reader, if you've ever been caught in the mountains by a mist through which you only saw as moles see through their skin, how when the thick damp vapors once begin to thin, the sun's sphere passes feebly through them, then your imagination will be quick to reach the point where it can see how I first came to see the sun again when it was almost at that point at which it sets. So my steps matched my master's trusty steps out of that cloud. I came reaching the rays that,

the shores below by now we're spent oh fantasy that at times would snatch us so from outward things we notice nothing although a thousand trumpets sound around us who moves you when the senses do not spur you a light that finds its form in heaven moves you directly or let downward by god's will within my fantasy i saw impressed the savagery the savagery of one who then transformed became the bird that most delights in song at this my mind withdrew to the within to what imagining might bring no thing that came from the without could enter in. Okay, so again, he's having visions now, okay?

These visions just come to him. He doesn't mean he can do about it. These are just visions that are sent down to him. Okay, so let's look at the visions. Then into my deep fantasy, there reigned one who was crucified, and as he died, he showed his savagery and disdain. Line 28, around him were great Ahasueras, and Esther, his wife, and the just more,

Mordesai, who sang and who's doing, were so upright. And when this image shattered of itself, just like a bubble that has lost the water beneath which it was formed, there then rose up in my envisioning a girl who wept most bitterly and said, O Queen, why did you and your wrath desire to be no more, so as to keep Lavinia, you killed yourself, now you have lost me. I am she, mother, who mourns your fall before another's. Even asleep is shattered when new light strikes suddenly against close eyes and once its shattered gleams before it dies completely. So my imagination fell away at soon as light, more powerful than light were accustomed to beat on my eyes. I looked about to

see where I might be, but when a voice said, here one can ascend, then I abandoned every other intent. That voice made my will keen to see the one who had spoken with the eagerness that cannot be still until it faces what it wants. But even as the sun becomes so strong, defeats art vision, unveiling its own form, so there my power of sight was overcome. This spirit is divine, and though unasked, he would conduct us to the upward path. He hides himself with that same light he sheds. He does with us as men do with themselves, for he who sees a need but waits to be asked has already set on cruel refusal.

Now let our steps accept his invitation, and let us try to climb before dark falls. Then, until day returns, we'll have to halt. so sat my guide and toward a stairway he and I together turned and just as soon as I was at the first step I sent something much like the motion of a wing and wind that beat against my face and words beat patsy passivichi those free of evil anger above us now the final rays before the fall of night were raised to such a height that we could see the stars on every side oh why my strength do you so melt away i said within myself because i felt the force within my legs compelled to halt. We'd reach a point at which the upward stairs no longer climbed, and we were halted there just like a ship when it was touched the shore. It has touched the shore. I listened for a while, hoping to hear whatever there might be in this new circle. Then I turned toward my master asking him, tell me, my gentle father, what offense is perched within the circle we have reached, although our feet must stop your words need not. And he to me,

precisely here the love of good that is too tepidly pursued is mended here the lazy or applies harder and so that you may understand more clearly now turn your mind to me and you will gather some useful fruit from our delaying here my son there's no creator and no creature whoever was without love natural or mental and you know that he began the natural is always without error but mental love may choose an evil object or earth through too much or too little vigor as long as it's directed toward the first good and tends towards secondary goods with measure, it cannot be the cause of evil pleasure. But when it twists toward evil or tends to good with more or less care than it should, those whom he made have worked against their maker. From this you see that of necessity, love is the seed in you of every virtue and of all acts to serving punishment. Now, since love never turns aside its eyes from the well-being of its subject,

things are surely free of hatred of themselves, and since no being can be seen as self-existing and divorced from the first being, each creature is cut off from hating him. Thus, if I have distinguished properly, ill love must mean to wish one's neighbor ill, and this love's born in three ways in your clay. There's he who, through abasement of another, hopes for supremacy. He only longs to see his neighbor's excellence cast down. Then there's one who, when he he's outdone fears his own loss of fame power honor favor his sadness loves misfortune for his neighbor and there's he who over injury received resentful for revenge grows greedy and angrily seeks out another's harm this threefold love expiated here below now i would have you understand the love that seeks the good

distortedly each apprehends confusedly a good in which the mind may rest and longs for it and thus all strive to reach that good. But if the love that urges you to know it or to reach that good is lax, this terrorist, after a just repentance, punishes for that. There's a different good which does not make men glad. It is not happiness. It's not true essence, fruit and root of every good. The love that profligately yields to that is wept on in three terraces above us. But I'll not say, what three shape that love takes. May you seek those to speak those to distinctions for yourself. Okay, so just like in hell, Virgil is explained to us how portatory is structured. He's saying that the last three terraces are the three

terraces of gluttony, lust, and greed, okay? Greed, gluttony, and last, or the last, on the top three. And the reason why they're the top three is they are love that is misguided. Okay. Greed is a love of power, right? When you should be actually loving God. Cluttony is the love of food. And then lust is just spurious love, random love. Okay?

So it is love that is misguided. And they are the ones which confuse you. Okay. All right. Let's go on at 18, okay? Cantor 18 The subtle teacher had completed his discourse to me attentively he watched my eyes to see if I seemed satisfied

An eye so goaded by new thirst was silent without Although within I said Perhaps I have displeased him with too many questions But that true father who had recognized the timid want I would not tell aloud by speaking gave me courage to speak out At which I said master my sight is so illumined by your light I recognize all that your words declare or analyze. Therefore, I pray you, gentle father, dear, to teach me what love is.

You have reduced to love both each good and its opposite. Okay, all right. So this is actually a really important cat, okay? And I want us to focus on this. Virgin now it's going to explain to us what love is. Why is it love can go astray? Okay, what is good love, what is bad love, okay? All right, so let us listen to his explanation.

Line 16. he said, direct your intellect's sharp eyes toward me and let the air of the blindhoods serve as guides be evident to you. The soul, which has created quick to love, responds to everything that pleases just as soon as beauty wakens it to act. Your apprehension draws an image from a real object

and expands upon that object until soul has turned to ward it. And if so turned, the soul tends steadfastly, Then that propensity is love. It's nature that joins the soul in you, anew through beauty. Then just as flames ascend because the form of fire was fashioned to fly upward toward the stuff of its own sphere where it lasts longest. So does the soul, when seeds, moved into longing, emotion of the spirit, never resting till the beloved thing has made it joyous. Now you can plainly see how deeply hidden truth is from scrutinists who would insist that every love is in itself, praise one.

worthy and they're led to error by the matter of love because it may seem always good but not each seal is fine although the wax is your speech and my own wit that followed it i answered him have shown me what love is but that has filled me with still greater doubt for if love's offered to us from without and is the only foot with which soul walks soul going straight or crooked has no merit and he to me what reason can see here i can impart pass that for truth of faith it's beatrice a love you must await. Every substantial form at once distinct from matter and conjoined to it and gathers the force that is distinctly its own. A force unknown to us until it acts it's never shown except in its effects just as green boughs display the life in plants. And thus man does not know the source of his intelligence of primal notion and his tending toward desires primal objects. Both are new just as in bees. There is the honey-making urge, such primal will deserves no praise, and it deserves no blame. Now that all other longings

may conform to this first will, there's in you inborn the power that counts those keeper of the threshold of your assent. This is the principle in which your merit may be judged, for it garners and winters good and evil belongings. Those reasoners who reached the roots of things learned of its inborn freedom, the bequest that thus they left unto the world is ethics, even if we allow necessity a source for every love that flames in you, the power to curb that love is still your own. This noble power is what Beatrice means by free will. Therefore, remember it. If she should ever speak of it to you. Okay, so again, this is a very important speech, okay? And this is really the defining speech, the defining dialogue between Dante and Virgil. Remember how we said that? At the end of Inferno,

Virgil gave birth to Dante. And throughout this process, it was Virgil that was guiding Dante. Well, at this point, this dialogue, this debate, is going to mark when Dante and Virgil have their separation, okay? So let's figure out why Dante and Virgil they must separate.

So, Virgil is saying this. You're walking the streets and sitting in the restaurant outside in the terrace is the most beautiful woman you've ever seen. If you're a woman, you're obviously the most handsome guy you've seen, okay? All right. But just for the sake of argument, let's use beautiful woman, okay, for the sake of simplicity. And what do you want to do now? come on yeah you want to go see hi

like hey how are you you sit down beside her okay and what happens next okay what happens next you're talking to her

you're like hey how are you what a beautiful day if you're a Virgil what do you aspire to do possess her yeah you want a possessor right if you actually read his speech

he's talking about about how what love is, it is your soul expanding outwards to possess another soul of beauty, okay? Your soul wants to encompass, okay? Literally, dominate control another person, okay? And so if Virgil wants to possess her, how is Donnie different? What does Donnie want to do?

Well, what should you do before you praise her? Come on, guys, have you never dated? Yes? Yes, Brad? Learn about her? I get to know her, guys. Okay? Not hard. Ask her. Hey, where are you from?

What do you like to do? Okay? Right. So what Virgil is saying is, that's what love is. Love is basically lust. You see someone beautiful and you want to have her, okay? And so what happens if she says, you're ugly or I don't like you? What would Virgil do?

Yes? with her in the hell well yeah that's what he does ultimately but what but what does he do beforehand um he'll get mad and he'll make like negative comments on like oh you're not that good either whatever but what do you do what do that makes you mad at her because she's not praising you back what would virgil do okay like like you know they have they have lunch and then And Virgil's like, wow, you're so beautiful. And then she's like, you know, I'm not that interested in you. What would Virgil do?

Come on. Yes? Well, he would say like, try to introduce a contract of duty between the two. So he said, I love you so much that you should love. No, he would not do that, yes? He'll write a poem like the, I forgot how to pronounce it, the Inia, something like that. Because I think that girl also kind of refused.

to talk to him I think okay okay like no seriously come on come it's not hard okay have you guys not dated okay yes he will ask why no he would he won't care what will he do to me no he won't maybe insult her be like no come on maybe he would just walk away no to me how how do you insist he will try to reason her out and pursue. No, guys, come on. How about her flowers? How about her chocolate?

How about her diamond ring? How about her Mercedes? How about, like, take her to Monaco for the Grand Prix? How about, like, you know, induce her to, like, Jackie Chan? How about her villa? Right? How about take her to the moon? Like, you know?

Right? He won't stop. And then if he gets rejected, what will he do? He'll put it in hell, man. He'll write the internet and put it in hell. You understand? That's what literally he will do. Right?

For like years and years, he will pursue you. And you'll be like, no, he'll try harder and harder. Okay? That's Virgil's conception of love. Tell me how Donnie is different. Yes, Edward? Did you want to... Try it.

If he was rejected, he would just continue to love her. Would he get rejected? Anna? Just getting to know her and praise her and then write poetry for her. And if she rejects him, usually she wouldn't, I guess, because he's so loving. But if she does, then he will continue to love her regardless of her reaction to him. but I love you because I love you I don't need you to love me back because the

true essence of love is like just love but you just flow and like if you don't love me that's fine yes so what is your name um Crystal and I was trying to make a similar point okay thanks Chris okay all right what does Virgil want at the end of the day

when he's sending her flowers and buy her a diamond ring what does he really want sex? Yeah he all he wants is sex man Okay, that's for him that's what love is. Okay, sex. Does the only want sex? Yes. Hard part of it. No, he does not, okay? Guys. Guys, yes? I think the answer to the first part, like how he would seduce her, he basically

try and get to know her as long as it took that it was impossible for her to deny that there was another soul present in her presence. but I think that he doesn't want sex because I think it was his love for Beatrice who he couldn't like who he never really had sex with that was like he was thinking how can I love this person so much but I'm not trying to procreate or I'm blocked from procreating because she died young right also historically this this is the time of the courtly love tradition court he loved tradition so you're supposed to like just worship a woman but not possess her Okay?

You're supposed to worship from afar. Usually it's a married woman. Usually it's someone you can never ever have. But you just write poetry in praise of her. It's something called a courtly love tradition, the trodadors or the provincials in France, and Sardello, who we met previously, was part of this troubadour tradition.

Okay? So Dante, he would not be interested in the sex. He would think that love is the perfect expression of his devotion, of his devotion. faith of his individuality okay does that make sense okay so these are two yes andy um we passed by we passed by canto 16 which is the the center of the whole comedy and that's the canto that focuses on free will and now we get this we don't we get a lecture on love which doesn't seem symmetrical from paradise or inferno and so it's like the free will kind of has led into this concept of love

the center of the whole comedy. Right. Okay. So you absolutely right. This is actually the very center of the divine comedy and this is where Donin Virgil, okay?

It's almost like this is the final battle between the two, okay? Where heaven and hell meet. And Doni obviously represents heaven and Virgil represents hell. This is a world of cosmos and they're going to discuss what love is. Okay? So you absolutely right.

This is crucial structurally. And they discuss what love is and we've already distinguished that Virgil sees love as the expression of your ego and you want to dominate the other person

you want to possess the other person whereas for Dante love is about giving and this is very clear when we reach paradise okay so this is where heaven and hell meet right this is the final battle between the two

and this is where they will ultimately separate and go there are separate ways. How does Virgil define free will here? What is free will? You see this beautiful woman, you talk to her, you buy her flowers, you buy her diamond ring, you give her money, and all you want to have sex with her.

What is free will in Virgil's understanding of things? That you're free to do whatever you want. So it doesn't really matter what she wants or what she wants to do, that you have the freedom to pursue her as much as you like and follow what you want as much as you. What is good and evil here? Francois. For Virgil is having what he wants, and for Dante is wanting what he wants.

Can you explain what the difference is? So for example, like Virgil, because he wants something, free will be having it, even though like a lot of things make it impossible. Whereas Dante, it's just, I think of it. And even though it doesn't reach that points, just the fact of I'm free to think and free to imagine having it. Okay. Yeah. That's right.

Yes. Okay. Does someone want to expand on that? Edward, did you want to say something? Okay. For Virgil, what is good and evil then? For Virgil, what is good and evil? Yes?

Jay, Jay, good and evil. I really like Frenchwap's comment. On having versus wanting, I think that is mind. It really guides my imagination. I think for Virgil, evil is having the wrong things, good is having the right things. For Dante, good is wanting the right things, and evil is wanting the wrong things.

Right, yes. Okay. Okay. Anna? I feel like for Virgil, like what's good is confirming to his will. And what's bad is what's really. refusing his ego's manifestation. So if the woman refuses him, then she, he condemns her to hell

ultimately. So it's not about whether the women's choice was right or wrong by the fact that she rejected him. No, no, that's not how Virgil will see it, okay? Because remember, we have to think that Virgil is a real person with real ideas, okay? You just say it to yourself. That doesn't really make sense. For Virgil, what is good and evil is, is love, and this is really important, okay, love is neither good or evil. If love takes you to a good place and you allow good to take you that place, that's good. But if love takes you to an evil place, you have to reject love. And that's what's good.

You understand? That's what free will is. Free will is to deny yourself when you know the thing is wrong. Okay? How does this conflict with Virgil then? Oh, sorry, how does this conflict with Dante? Because Virgil says love is neutral. Love can be good or bad. Free will is to know the difference and to act accordingly, right? What would Donnie say? Come on, we read Paradise. We know what Donnie says. Yes? It's like follow your heart. Good can never be evil. Sorry, love can never be evil. Sorry, love can never be

evil love is always good okay then then then how to explain when you see this bit of a woman and like you love her so much you want to give your life to her how how how how how how how how how how how how how how how how does this it's not love it's lust you understand if you see this woman you don't have sex with her. That's not love. That's lust. Okay? Love is giving yourself. Love is hoping the best for her.

Right? It's like, how can I help you? How can I be your friend? How can I support you? That's what love is. It's not like, I don't have sex with you. That's just what lust is. And Virgil does not know the difference. Whereas Donny does know the difference. That's why

Donda's stuck in limbo and why Virgil is stuck in limbo and Donnie's going to heaven. That's the difference. This is where they separate, okay? All right? Okay, is that clear, guys? Yes?

I still don't understand why this argument is even happening when Virgil knows the truth, right? He knows the truth about everything because he's a prophet, so a poet or prophet. So why are they arguing when when Virgil should know the truth and he doesn't have any obstacle to not speak the truth about love? that he should know to Dante. Okay, so again, this goes back to the idea of absolute will and contingent will, okay? Absent will is what your soul is, okay? Contingent will is what you choose to do. So Virgil knows the absolute truth of the universe,

but he's made certain choices that has clouded his understanding of things, okay? So he is a poet, he knows the complete truth of the universe, but he chose to write the Indian ad to serve emperse, empire and so that's going to cloud his understanding of the way things work right once you make an action you have to justify this action does that make sense right once you make this action you have to like this is a right action you can't be like oh it was it was a mistake so once you make this action you now have to go and justify it by changing your worldview okay so you know he knows the absolute truth he needs to make certain adjustments to

this theory in order to make his actions make sense to him right so he knows that love is giving yourself but then like why did you write this the poem the inniad and what did you let let you let you censor it and you know better right and you're like well okay it's and so what what you do is rather than just say i'm wrong you change your worldview doesn't make sense okay he's he's weighed down by his past actions that he can he's not able to change himself and that's what sin is right Sin is you are way down by your actions and you refuse to forgive yourself. And so you just, you just, you just, you just, you just basically, uh, put yourself in hell

for all of eternity. Okay. Doesn't make sense. Where's the problem is he refuses to admit. He's wrong. He would rather forget. He would rather just burn in hell than just admit, you know what? I was wrong to write the end of the ad. Okay.

All right, guys. So, so we'll take a break. We'll come back at lunch, after lunch. Okay, welcome back. Good afternoon. So to start, we have a special presentation from Francois. And he's going to talk about how he perceives how memory works. Okay, so Francois. Yeah, hello, everyone.

So I was just like looking at Zhang's work and how he represented things. And it was very messy and it seems like you were channeling the wrong guy, I feel like. Right. So yeah, it basically did this map on the right. So this was like our discussion before about psychology. So it is still like quite vague, but you understand the most of it. And on the right, so there's a big like circle where there's a source in the middle, which is the monad, so like energy and all.

And so it sparks like it's very vibrant from the middle and then it extends into some very flat circle. And so how I look at it is that on the exterior, it's more about present, material, and ego. And so if your consciousness is directed like in this realm, then you'll think about like money, time, house, material objects, about yourself, et cetera. And like depending on situations and moments in your life, then your consciousness is more directed in the center where you like think more of love, hope, and family. like etc. It's just like a whole idea. And also I saw something of like who is it

Rupert Scheldrake. Yes, yes. He is a physicist. Yes. Can you explain his theory? So basically I saw something about morphic resonance where there is some patterns and if people start thinking in a way I think there's like pattern and people like diverge into this kind of consciousness. So I feel like And so I feel like in today's world, there is, like, in curving, a converging point into, like, the exterior realm. Media, podics, and AI, where our consciousness is directed into thinking about money, time, fear, etc. Whereas I see the divine comedy as more directing us into the center of this consciousness. And so just, like, a point I made, like, think of this, I feel like angels are more meant to push us in. inward and demons outward in a way.

And I think it's really movable. So depending on the moment in your life and during the day, your consciousness just like moves around there. Okay, great. So a few points. First of all, this is great, by the way. This is fantastic. But my first point is, remember yesterday, Professor Bromers told us that William James, he believed goals actually exist. But they were really boring.

They didn't actually have much consciousness. And this is something that we experience in the violent and comedy as well, where there are angels and demons, but they don't really do anything, okay? But the thing is, like, they're all around us, and this is what the theory is. Like, we're surrounded always by these angels and demons who are torn in different directions. Okay, that's the first one.

Second point is that Rudolph Seljuk is really interesting. So if there's a chance, please watch his interviews, his presentations, um, online. But, but to show, So, but to prove a point, I'll do an experiment, okay? So, first of all, can you face the screen? Okay, you're going to face the screen, okay? And then I'm going to have Edward come.

And what else? Yes, no, no, no, no. Send behind him, send him, okay? Okay. And send him behind him, okay? All right. So I want you to turn away from him, okay? All right.

So we're going to see, okay, we'll do an experiment, okay? where Edwards going to turn around and look at Francois. Okay? And François, can you please close your eyes? Okay. Okay. So obviously if Frantzwar turns around, before Edward turns around, then Francois loses.

It gets this game, okay? Right? So we're trying to figure out how long it will take for... Edward's going to turn around, okay? And when Edward turns around, I want us... I want us to count how. how long it takes for Francois to turn around, okay? And you remember, if Francois turns around first,

and he obviously loses. Okay? That doesn't make sense, guys. This is an experiment, okay? It's on a test. But let's start, okay? On account three. And again, it's entirely Edward's choice

when it turn around. He could choose not to turn around if he wants to. I mean, we could be here for them two hours, okay? But we're going to count how long it takes silently for Francois'o to turn around. to turn around when Edward turns around, okay? All right, so let's start. One, two, three, go.

Wow, you guys see that? That was pretty fast, man. Thank you, thank you both, okay? You see, I, you guys saw that? So, Francois, how did you, how did you know? Can you, can you, big, because like, we waited a long time, I was getting impatient. I was like, what's going on here, man?

Just through, like, so I was focusing on my respiration and I felt there was a moment I was like, control of the situation. I felt it was the right moment. Okay. That was pretty fast, right? I mean, I was, I was, I was impressed. Because, like, I think it was like less than two seconds. Like, like, like, how long was it? Yeah. And like, everyone was being sneaky about it, too, right? He was like, I'm going to trick him and like, but were you surprised? Right. So this is actually what Rupert Seltrick does. He does the sort of research and he's trying to figure out how this happens.

Like, how does this happen? Right? If you use standard neuroscience, it gets you nowhere, right? But if you believe, though, that we actually exist in different dimensions, and we have morphic fields, okay? So basically, we project outwards. And so this sort of stuff is possible, but also, if you think about it, telepathy, telekinness is also possible to a certain degree, okay?

And this is something we'll discuss as we continue to divine comedy, how, what our souls are. Our souls are essentially these morphic fields. And so when Edward is turning around and staring at Friends are, Friends are turning around because there's a connection at the soul level, okay? And that's why the reaction is so fast. Weird, right? Okay. Well, there you go.

All right, let's continue Divine Comedy. Have you guys not seen? this before again like the point is there's so much interesting stuff out there but we close our minds to it right we we have these prejudices about how the world works and so we shut up our minds to these possibilities well what's your impression of that but like but like when we saw it happen when you kind of like shot yeah it was kind of shocking right because like I knew it happened to but like I didn't know what it would happen that instant in right that fast

were you surprised yeah It's like we said. Also, you put us all in tune. Yes. You put us all in tune. We've been doing this for 10, 11 days. Yes. Okay.

Yes. Excuse me? I just like, yeah, I waited a long time. Yeah, you did. I was getting, I was like, why, man. So I'd waited so long. So I thought when I finally turned around, you know, it might take a while then to turn around. Yeah.

Yeah. And then he, basically, as soon as I turned around, looked at him, man, he turned around. Yeah, yeah, it happens pretty fast. Okay, all right, guys. Let's continue divine comedy, okay? Canto 18, line 76. The moon with midnight now behind us made the star seem scarcer to us. It was shaped just like a copper basin, gleaming new, and countercourse.

It crossed those paths the sun ignites when those in Rome can see it set between the Corsicans and the Sardinians. That gracious shade for whom Piotola won more renowned than any Manchuan town had freed me from the weight of doubt I bore, so that I, having harvested his clear and open answers to my question, stood like one who nearing sleep has random visions. But readiness for sleep was suddenly taken from me by people who, behind our backs already turned in our direction,

just as of old, ismenous, and Asipus at night along their banks saw crowds and clamor whenever Thebans had to summon buckets. Such was the arching crowd that curved around that circle driven on as I made out. By righteous will as well as by just love. Soon all that mighty throng drew near us, for they ran and ran and two in front of them who wept were crying. In her journey, Mary made haste to reach the mountain in order to conquer Lareda, for Caesar thrust against Mofse and then to Spain he rushed following them the others cried quick quick less time be lost through a sufficient love where urge for good is keen grace finds new green oh people in

whom eager fervor now may compensate for sloth and negligence he showed in doing good half-heartedly he who's alive and surely I don't lie to you would climb above as soon as he has seen the sun shed light on us again then tell us where the passage lies at hand my guide said this one of the souls replied come follow us and you will find the gap we're so fully anxious to advance we cannot halt and do forgive us should you take our penance for discuracy i would st zinos abbot and verona under the rule of valiant barbarossa of whom milan still speaks with so much sorrow and there's one with one foot in the grave who soon will weep over that monastery lamenting that he once had power there because in place of its true shepherd, he put one who was in sound of body and still more of mind, and born in sin, his son. I don't know if he had said more or was silent. He had already raised so far beyond us, but I heard this much and was pleased to hear it. And he who was my help in every need said, turn around, see those two coming, they whose words mock sloth? And I heard those

who say behind all of the rest, the ones for whom the sea parted were dead before the Jordan saw those who had inherited its lands, and those who did not suffer trials until the end together with Ankesa's son gave themselves up to life without renown. Then when those shades were so far off from us that seeing them became impossible, a new thought rose inside me, and from that thought till others, many and diverse were born. I was so drawn from random thought to thought that wandering in mind I shut my eyes transforming thought on thought to dream so a new thought rose instead of me and it kept on going okay so that's what happens as you become much more virtuous you become much more connected to the divine consciousness and more visions or download it into you

okay that's a process at work all right let's keep on going canto 19 in that hour when the heat of day defeated by Earth, and sometimes Saturn can no longer warm up the moon, scent cold. When June answers can, in the east, see their Fortuna Major rising before the dawn along a path that will be darkened for it only briefly. A stammering woman came to me in dream. Her eyes askew and crooked on her feet, her hands were crippled, her complexion, sallow. I looked at her and just as sun revives cold limbs that night made numb. So did my gaze loosen her tongue, and then in little time set her contorted limbs in perfect order. And with the coloring that love prefers, my eyes transformed the wanness of her features.

And when her speech had set free, then she began to sing so that it would have been most difficult for me to turn aside. I am, she sang, I'm the pleasing siren who in mid-sea lead mariners astray. There's so much delight in hearing me. I turned aside Ulysses, although he had long to journey who grows used to me seldom departs. I satisfy him so. Her lips were not yet done when there beside me a woman showed herself, alert and saintly, to cast the siren into much confusion. Oh, Virgil, Virgil, tell me who is this. She asked most scornfully, and he came forward, his eyes intent upon that honest one. He sees the other, bearing her in front, tearing her clothes, and showing me her belly. The stench

that came from there awakened me. I moved my eyes and my good master cried, at least three times I've called you rise and come let's find the opening where you may enter okay all right so this is another dream okay so again as Virgil is kind of higher more more visions come to him and this is a very strange dream right because Donne is being seduced by the siren right the siren who seduced the Ulysses and then a woman barges in and shouts oh Virgil Virgil tell me who is this and then Virgil comes forward and then he seizes the siren and tears her clothes apart what's going on here okay let's try to figure out what the stream is about remember the last dream that Donne had was a vision from heaven where Lucia as an eagle picks him up and

delivers him to the gates of purgatory what is going on here and again again i don't know the answer it's all interpretation right it's all speculation so can someone tell me what is going on here what is this dream about in our understanding of the divine comedy who is the siren to me uh okay yeah i i know the siren is a woman but i'm saying like so far in our story who should be the who should be the siren yeah i That's Virgil, right? Okay? So if we think, if we see this, we think maybe it's Virgil,

because Virgil is one seducing Donate throughout, right? With his poetry, and throughout all this time, Dante has been a student, a child of Virgil's, right? So it seems as though it sounds like Virgil is one seducing Dante and leading him astray. But then something weird happens. Beatrice comes in I think it's Beatrice

You know Maybe it's Beatrice She's like Virgil Virgil tell me Who is this Where is Dante here Yes

When Virgil comes forward He's behind Dante So Because he's barring her in front It's almost like He's hiding herself And I think that When he's showing

Dante her belly It's a message From Beatrice saying like you are please don't get still born in Virgil such that you would start to rot as a baby and that the siren is like a love that has been left to fester and that's why it wait that's why it smells okay that's really interesting okay but first answer me this question um what should beatrice be really saying what should what should what should beatrice be saying to me no no no so So it seems as though Donnie's being seduced, right?

Beatrice comes in and what she should be saying rather than, oh, Virgil or Virgil? Tell me, who is this? And be like, she'll probably be like... She is pissed right now. Yeah. But she asks squornfully. Yeah. But what is strange or paradoxical about what she's saying?

Because Virgil should be the siren, but now there's another siren. Yeah. Why is she talking to Virgil? She'd be talking to Dante, right? It's Donny's dream. Beatrice is sonny's beloved. right this is a dream thought so it so visualizes Dante is staring on a siren he's being seduced by the siren can you explain so in this dream Dante is Virgil yeah and why is this a problem

what does this tell Dante it's a clarion call that he's gone too far in his bond with Virgil. Okay. Yes. Anyone else? Yes? I think in the moment when you have to kill your father as a man or whatever the case may be, that final moment is when you realize your greatest affinity with the father.

So you're thinking, these are the things that make me like him. This is how I am him. And you use him as a final projection. You say, I'm him, now I'm going to, it's over. Yeah. Have you guys watched Star Wars? Right? You, I know you watched Star Wars. Yeah. But you remember the scene where, um, is it, is it episode two? Um, but, but, you know, like, like Luke has to kill his father, right? So he kills someone, he discovers it's his father. Yeah. Right? When it opens it, it's, it's like himself, right? Okay. So it's playing to that idea. It doesn't make sense, guys. Okay. So, so that conversation, that, that dialogue between Dante and virtual. It's a turning point now because it sounds correct, but there's a part to it that he knows it's not correct. And now his connection to the divine is giving his images to show him

it's not correct. In fact, the universe is not warning him. Be aware of Virgil. You are now Virgil, right? Okay. Doesn't make sense, guys. Yes. It's especially because after It's right after Virgil delivered his speech about love. And so Dante is almost like inhibiting his worldview to his, right? So he's like becoming virtual in that aspect. And especially like understanding love is like the most important thing for Dante that he gets it right. Yes, exactly. Yes.

Thank you. Okay. All right. But you see how like once you connect the divine, the divine will steer you in the right direction. Do you understand? Like what's important is to connect yourself to the vine for love. Once that happens, the vine will give you messages to show you the way, even though you may yourself may be corrupted. All right, let's keep on going.

Does anyone else want to add something to the stream? Because again, this is very complex stream. I don't want to oversimplify it. Yes? I think it's quite telling that Beatrice asked Virgil to identify the siren because it's kind of the love that we, we were talking about that Virgil has that turns the ugly lady into a beautiful one. Yeah. The idea that he could possess her makes her beautiful when in fact it's she's like sallow and ugly and malformed. Anna? Yeah, it also makes me think about this whole idea in the

Greek tradition that the first two or three gods like before Zeus, they were all father killing. So this idea of almost epitist theory like you have to kill your father to become yourself it's also the turning point like past 16 right like halfway to uh purgatory that now your first half of your life is childhood you're imitating your dad and you know you want to be him or you battle him a little bit in teenage you know when you're a teenager and then finally i guess maybe this is the turning point in which he becomes adulthood which is killing of one's father okay um the other thing i will point out is like how the universe talks to you is through images that evoke

emotions. You understand? Right? The images don't really mean that much. The images are meant to convey emotion to, like, provoke an emotion in you that leads you to a correct path. So, I mean, what I think, my interpretation

is this, okay? If I'm Dante, I see this dream and I'm extremely uncomfortable I'm extremely anxious. And the reason why is I feel as though Beatrice and Virgil

might become one with each other. Does that make sense? Because it's Virgil who goes and does Beatrice bidding. Okay? So it's one of like... Virgil is my competitor now. You understand? That's the emotion now.

Before it's like Virgil's my father. Now he's like, no, no, no, no. Virgil is my competitor. I need to watch out. I mean, like, if I really want to keep Beatriz, I need to show I am more worried than Virgil that I am more willing to do, sacrifice myself for Beatrice. Yeah, which in a way is very edipus complex too, right?

The Freudian concept is that the first few years of your life and the little boy wants to imitate the father. And after that, he's like, oh, he's a competitor to my mom. you know, for me, so I have to kill him. Right, okay. But you see how with Dante, just a few lines are so rich, right? They're so pregnant.

You can go on and on trying to analyze what's going on. But there's so many different layers, right? Okay. So I think, you know, again, what's causing this dream is Virgil's exposition of love, right? And Donaghan, his heart knows, no, no, no. This doesn't make any sense. But he doesn't know why it doesn't make any sense

because he's not mature enough, right? So the universe gives him these dreams that reveal to him. Virgil is your competitor. Be wary of what he just said. Does it make sense, guys? Okay. All right. Let's keep on going.

I'm 37. I rose. The daylight had already filled the circles of the sacred mountain. We were journeying with new sun at our back. I followed him, bearing my brow, like one whose thoughts have weighed him down, who bends as if he were this semi-arch that forms a bridge. And then I heard, draw near, the pass is here, said in a manner so benign and gentle, as in our mortal land one cannot hear.

He who addressed us, so had open wings, white as the swans, and he directed us upward between two walls of the hard rock. And then he moved his plumes and fanning us, affirmed that those quilugent would be blessed. Their souls would be possessed of consolation. What makes you keep your eyes upon the ground? My guide began to say to me when both the first. us had climbed a little past the angel. And I, what makes me move with such misgiving is a new

vision. It has so beguiled me that I cannot relinquish thoughts of it. Okay, so again, this vision has unsettled Dante. Now it's forced to come to terms with both the emotion and the vision, okay? Keep on going. The one you saw, he said, that ancient witch, for her alone one must atone above. You saw how man can free himself from her. Let that suffice and hurry on your way, fasten your eyes upon the lure that spun by the eternal king with his great spheres. Just like a falcon who at first looks down, then when the falconer has called, bends forward, craving the food that's ready for him there, so I became, and so remained until through the cleft rock that lets one climb above,

I reached the point at which the circle starts. When I was in the clearing the fifth level, my eyes discovered people there who wept, lying upon the ground, all turned face down. Atesit pavimento, anima, maia, amima, I heard them say, would sigh so deep that it was hard to comprehend the word they spoke. O God's elect, whose sufferings both hope and justice make less difficult, direct us to the stairway meant for our assent. If you come here but do not need to be prostrate,

and you would find the path most quickly, then keep your right hand always to the outside. So did the poet as, so did reply come from a little way ahead, and I, hearing that voice reply, learned what was hidden. I turned my eyes to find my master's eyes, at this with a glad sign he ratified what I had asked, for with my eager eyes when free to do as I had wanted to I moved ahead and bent over that soul whose words before had made me notice him saying spirit with them whom

weeping ripens that without which there's no return to God suspend a while for me your greater care tell me who were you and why your backs turned up and there were I alive set out which you have me beseech some good for you and he to me why heaven turns our backs against itself you are to know but first she is quote, ego, foo, successor, Petri. Between Cestri and Chiavari descends a handsome river, and its name is set upon the upper portion of my crest. For one month and a little more, I learned how the great mantle weighs on him who'd keep it out of the mire, all other way it seemed feathers. Alas, how tardy my conversion was, but when I had been named the Roman Shepherd,

then I discovered the deceit of life. I saw that there the heart was not at rest, nor could I in that life ascend more high, so that in me love for this life was kindled. Until that point, I was a squalid soul, for God divided, holy avaricious. Now, as you see, I'm punished here for that. When Aver's an axe here declared, is the purgation of converted souls. The mountain has no punishment more bitter. Just as we did not lift our eyes on high, but set our sight on earthly things instead, so justice here impels our eyes toward earth.

As avarice annulled, and as the love of any other good, and thus we lost our chance for righteous works, so justice here fetters our hands and feet and holds us captive. And for as long as it may please our just Lord, here will be outstretched and motionless. Okay, so they are now in a terrorist of greed or avarice, and they're talking to Pope Adrian, who said that as Pope, he was extremely ambitious,

he did whatever he could to climb the ladder of power. And now, after repented, he is forced to, basically lie on the ground to focus on the president, to focus on on lowering himself. Okay? All right. Give my way. Line one to seven. I'd kneeled, wishing to speak, but just as I began and through my voice alone, he sensed that I had meant to do him reverence. What reason makes you bend your body so, he said an eye to him. Your dignity made conscience sting me as I stood erect. Brother, straighten your legs, rise up, he answered. Don't be

mistaken, I with you and others am but a fellow servant of one power. If you have ever understood the holy sound of the gospel that says, Neckh Kui Nubent, then you will see why I have spoken so. Now go your way, I'd not have you stop longer. You're staying here disturbs my lamentations. The tears that help me ripen what you mentioned. Beyond, I have a niece whose name Elagia. She and herself is good, as long as our house, by example, brings her not to evil. And she, alone is left to me beyond. Okay, all right. Let's go on going.

Conto 20. Against a better will, the will fights weakly. Therefore, to please him, though against my pleasure, I drew my unquenched sponge out of the water. I moved on and my guide moved through the unencumbered space hugging the rock as one walks on a wall close to the battlements. For those whose eyes would melt down drop by drop, the evil that possesses all the world were too close to the edge

on the far side. May you be damned, O ancient wolf, whose power can claim more prey than all the other beasts. Your hungering and steep and ever-ending. Oh, heavens through whose revolutions, many think things on earth are changed. When will he come? The one whose works will drive that wolf away. Our steps were short and slow as we moved on. I was attentive to the shades. I heard the sorrow in their tears and lamentations. Then I by chance heard one ahead of us crying in his lament, sweet Mary, as a woman would outcry in labor pains. And he continued, in that hostile where you had set down your holy burden, there one could discover just how poor you were.

Following this I heard, oh good, Fabricius, you chose as your possessions, indigence with virtue, rather than much wealth with vice. These words have been so pleasing to me, I moved forward so that I might come to know the spirit from whom they had seemed to come. He kept on speaking, telling the largesse of Nicholas, the gifts he gave the maiden so that they might be honorably wed. Oh, soul who speaks of so much righteousness, do tell me who you were, said, and why just you alone renew these seemly praises? Your speaking to me will not go and thanked when I return to finish the short span of that life which now hurries toward its end.

And he, I'll tell you, not because I hope for solace from your world, but for such grace as shines in you before your deaths arrived. I was the root of the obnoxious plant that overshadows all the Christian land so that the fine fruit can rarely rise from them. Okay, so his name is Hugh Capad, and he is the founder of the current dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire, okay? So his family now controls the Holy Roman Empire. As we know,

the Holy Roman Empire is at war with the Vatican. And this is causing all sorts of chaos throughout the world. So he's the root of that obnoxious family that is now overshadding all Christian lands. Okay? And

his name is Hugh Caphat. Okay, all right. Line 46. But if If Duai and Lille and Bruges and Grintz have had power, they would soon take vengeance on it. And this I beg of him who judges all. The name I bore beyond was Hugh Capet. If me was born the Louise and Phillips by whom France has been ruled most recently.

I was the son of a Parisian butcher when all the line of ancient kings was done and only one a monk and gray survived. I found the reins that ruled the kingdom tight within my hands, and I held so much new, gained power and possessed so many friends that, to the widowed crown, my own son's head was elevated, and from him began the consecrated bones of all those kings. Until the giant dowry of Provence removed all sense of shame within my house, my line was not worth much, but did no wrong. There, its repean began with lies and force, and then it sees that it might make mints, Pontieu and Normandy and Gascany. Charles came to Italy, and for amends, made Corardin a victim,

and then thrust back Thomas into heaven for immense. I see a time not too far off in which another child's advances out of France to make himself and his descendants famous. He does not carry weapons when he comes only the lands that Judas tilted. This he couches so he twist the punch of Florence.

From this he'll gain not land just shame and sin which will be all the heavier for him as he would reckon lightly such disgrace. The other who once left his ship as prisoner I see himself his daughter bargaining as pirates haggle over female slaves. O'Avarez my house.

is now you're captive. It traffics in the flesh of its own children. What more is left for you to do to us? That past and future evil may seem less. I see the flirt release enter anani and his vicar, Christ made prisoner. I see him mocked a second time. I see the vinegar and gall renewed and he's slain between two sleeves who are still alive. And I see the new pilot, one so cruel that still not say that he without decree carries his greed, sails into the temple. Oh, you, my lord, when will you let me be happy on seeing vengeance that concealed makes sweet your anger in your secrecy? What have I said about the only bride the Holy Ghost has known, the words that made you turn to me for commentary? These words serve as answer to our prayers as long as it is day, but when night falls, when we recite examples that

are contrary, then we tell over how Pygmalion out of his greedy lust for gold became a thief and traitor and a parasite. The wretchedness of Averishus Midas resulting from his ravenous request, the consequence that always makes men laugh. And each of us recalls the foolish acon, how he had robbed the spoil so that the anger of Joshua still seems to sting him here. Then we accused Sophia and her husband, we praised the cakes, Piliadurus suffered, and Paul Nestor, who killed Pallidorus, resounds an infamy around all this mountain. And finally, what we cry here is, Crasses tell us because you know how does gold taste.

At times one speaks aloud another low, according to the sentiment that goats us now to be more swift and now more slow. Thus, I was not alone in speaking of the good sight by day, but here nearby no other spirit raised his voice as high. We had already taken leave of him and were already struggling to advance along that road as far as we were able,

when I could feel the mountain tremble like a failing thing. at which a chill seized me as cold grips one who goes to me to death. Delos had surely not been buffeted so hard before Latona planted there the nest in which to bear the sky's two eyes. Then such a shout rose up on every side that drawn near to me, my master said, Don't be afraid, as long as I'm your guide. Gloria in a shell's day, they all cried. So did I understand from those nearby, who shouted words were able to be heard.

Just like the shepherds who first heard that song, we stood but did not move in expectation until the trembling stopped. The song was done. Then we took up again our holy path, watching the shades who lay along the ground who had resumed their customary tears. My ignorance has never struggled so, has never made me long so much to know if memory does not mislead me now. As it seemed then to long within my thoughts, nor did I dare to ask, we were so rushed, nor by myself could I do not do. by myself could I discern the cause so timid pensive I pursued my way okay so two points the first point is that again there's a lot of symmetry in Dante so this mirrors the um in paradise where peter the first pope he lambas he criticizes the Catholic church right well the founder of

the current holy woman empire Hugh Kabat criticizes his own family and demands divine justice divine retribution for all their crimes. Second point is, like, as they're climbing up, the mountain, there's an earthquake, it shakes. The reason why the mountain does that is whenever a soul completes his purgation, that soul is made into heaven, and the universe celebrates by, with an earthquake, okay, to signify that a soul has been released and will now ascend to heaven. And next counten, we will meet the soul.

And I want you to pay careful attention to how the soul interacts with Virgil. Because this soul, his name is Statius, okay? Statius. So the symmetry, okay? So remember, before Virgil met Sudello. Okay, this is Virgil. Sodello is a troubadour, which is say he is a love, he's a poet of the courtly love tradition. And he was living around the time of Dante, maybe the 13th century.

Okay. So do you remember when Virgil met with Sodelo what it was like? Yeah, they were from the same place. What else? Okay. And Sodelo bowed before Virgil, right? And how did Virgil feel about all this? He was ecstatic, right?

He was ecstatic. Okay. And now what's going to happen is this. Virgil is going to meet Statius. And Statius is, he is a Latin poet. Okay, a Latin epic poet. Very similar to Virgil, okay? And Stattis worships Virgil.

And how does Virgil feel about this? What would you guess? Yeah, he'd be very, he'd be very, happy as well right well Sordello worship Virgil you think another poet worshipping Virgil we have the same reaction but it's the opposite reaction okay he is not happy about about this okay so so let's read Kanso 21 okay Kanto 21 the natural thirst that never can be quenched except by water that gives praise the drop that the simple women of Samaria sought tormented me hay

spurred me on the path crowded with souls behind my guide and I I felt pity, though their pain was justified. And here, even as Luke records for us, that Christ knew, risen from his burial cave, appeared to two along his way, a shade appeared, and he advanced behind our bags while we were careful not to trample on the outstretched crowd. We don't notice him until he had addressed us with, God give you, oh, my brother's peace. We turned it once, then, after offering suitable response, Virgil began, and may that just tribunal, which has consigned me to eternal exile, place you in peace within the blessed

assembly. What? he exclaimed as we moved forward quickly. If God's not deemed you worthy of assent, who's guided you so far along his stairs? If you observed the signs the angel traced upon this man, my teacher said, you'll see plainly he's meant to reign with all the righteous. But since she who spends night and day had not yet spun this spool that clothe, sets upon the distaff and adjusts for everyone, his soul, the sister of your soul and mine in its ascent, could not alone have climbed here, for it does not see the way we see. Therefore, I was brought forth from hell's broad jaws to guide him in his going. I shall lead him just as far as where I teach can reach. But tell me, if you can, why? Just before the mountain shook and shouted all of it, for so it seemed

down to its sea-bathed shore. His question threaded so the needle's eye of my desire that just the hope alone of knowing left my thirst more satisfied. The other shade began. The sanctity of these slips does not suffer anything that's without order or uncustomary. This place is free from every perturbation what has in from itself and in itself receives may serve us cause here, nothing else. Therefore, no rain, no hail, no snow, no dew, no hoarfrost falls here any higher than the stairs of entry with their three brief steps. Neither thick clouds nor thin appear nor flash of lightning, Thomas's daughter, who so often shifts places in our world, is absent here. Dry vapor cannot climb up any higher than to the top of the three steps of which I spoke, where Peter's vicar plants its feet.

Below that point, there may be smaller ample tremors, but here above, I know not why. No wind concealed in earth has ever caused a tremor, for it only trembles here when some soul feels its cleanse, so that it rises or stirs to climb on high, and that shout follows. The will alone is proof of purity and fully free surprises soul into a change of dwelling place. effectively. Soul had the will to climb before, but that will was opposed by longing to do penance as ones to sin, instilled by divine justice. And I who have lain in this suffering 500 years and more just now have felt my free will for a better threshold. Okay, stop. Okay. Why are souls being punished in progatory? So had the will to climb before, but that will was opposed by longing to do penance

instilled by divine justice. Why are souls suffering in purgatory? What do these three lines mean? Anyone? Fred? I think it's to test whether their mindset is true and whether their mindset is different from those in hell

and that it's changed. Okay, read the lines to yourself, okay? And tell me, try to paraphrase these lines. Okay. Anna? I said they had the will to climb before but that way was supposed

by longing to do penance that means they want to climb but it's not wanting to do penance so that's why it's Nope Nope what does he mean here Why are they being punished

Yes Well they have to cleanse themselves Of their sin because they sin The weight of the sin is weighing them down To climb further Why do they have to do that though Well if they don't cleanse themselves Then they can't advance

Says who? Use yourself. Excuse me? Yourself. Yourself. Do you understand the idea here? What this is saying is this? Yes, we have the desire to climb, but we also want to make ourselves worthy of God.

It's not God punching us. It's we're punishing ourselves to make ourselves worthy of God. We are cleansing ourselves of our sins by doing penance. Do you understand? This idea of complete free will. No one's making you do these punishments. You want to do these punishments. these punishments because they make you a better person.

And when you face God, you want to be the best person possible. You don't want to have any doubt. You don't want any sin in you. Okay? I mean, like, it's like going to the prom and like, you know, dressing up really, really nicely. Okay? You want to be the, you want to be your best.

And that's where you do penance. That's why you, that's why you suffer. Okay? Keep on going. Seventy. Thus you heard the earthquake and the pious spirits throughout the mountain as they praise the Lord. And may he send them.

speedily upward. So did he speak to us. And just as joy is greater when we quench a greater thirst, the joy he brought cannot be told in words. And my wise guide, I now can see the net impeding you how one slips through and wide quakes here and what makes you all rejoice. And now may it please you to tell me who you were in your words, may I find why you've lain here for so many centuries? Okay, stop. Okay. So we keep this in mind, okay? This guy has been doing this crap for 500 years. every single day for 500 years. And now he's completed his mission. So he is the happiest soul in the universe at this moment.

And he cannot wait to go meet God, okay? All he wants is to go meet God. He sees starting and version and say, hey, guys, get out of the way, man. I'm going to go to God. Okay? So this is his mental state. This is an emotional state.

Okay. Keep on going. 82. in that age when the worthy Titus with help from the highest king avenged the wounds from which the blood that Judas sold had flowed. And what year is this? When worthy Titus avenged the wounds from which the blood that Judas sold had flowed. Do you guys know what year this is? Do you guys not not know your Christian history?

No. It's 70. Do you understand? 70. 70 is the year when the Romans burned down the second temple. Okay, Titus is the emperor and he burned down the second temple. All right? And the Christians believe this is vengeance for the crucifixion of Jesus.

All right, keep on going. In 85, I had sufficient fame beyond that spirit replied, I bore the name that lasts the longest and honors most, but faith was not yet mine. So gentle was the spirit of my verse that roamed drew me on, son of Toulouse, to her, and there my brow deserved a crown of my mantle. On earth my name is still remembered, Stacius. I sang of Thebes and then of great Achilles,

I fell along the way of that last labor. The sparks that warmed me, the seeds of my ardor were from the holy fire, the same that gave more than a thousand poets light and flame. I speak of the aneneid when I wrote first. It was mother to me, it was nurse. My work without it would not weigh an ounce and to have lived on earth when Virgil lived, for that I would extend by one more year the time I owe before my exiles end.

Okay, so like what he's saying is this? Okay? The guy has spent 500 years in the same crap over and over to make himself worthy of God. But there's one person he admires more than God and it's Virgil, right? Because Virgil is the Holy Fire. And he says, you know what?

If I had a chance to meet Virgil just once, I would keep on going for another year. Okay? And Virgil is next to him, right? So how is Virgil feeling right now? He should be ecstatic, right? He'd be like, oh wow, I'm Virgil. Yeah.

I'm better than God. Yeah. Wow. I'm the Holy Fire. Yeah. I nursed you. Yeah. That's me, man.

Okay? You understand? All right. And now we're going to read this and appreciate there's no way Darnan could have created Virgil. You have to summon Virgil, okay? Because it's too real.

Okay? Keep our reading. Verse 103. These words made Virgil turn to me, and as he turned his face through silence, said, Be still. And yet the powerful will cannot do all, for tears and smiles are both so faithful to the feelings

that have prompted them that true feeling escapes the will that would subdue. But I smiled like a man whose eyes would signal at this. The shade was silent, and he stared where sentiment is clearest at my eyes. Stop. Sorry. Okay. This is really important, okay?

Okay. Do you guys know what's going on? on here? This is, you have to actually seen this yourself. You can actually just make the stuff up. What's going on here? Yes, Fred? Virgil is like, I'm not better than God. This guy's like too much of a superfan. Dante, please don't leak it. Yes. But Dante's eyes are so like wide. And the, the shades just like look at him. It's like, it's like in a pantomime where he's like he's behind you or something. Yes. And the shade and he basically betray. Virgil's identity to the shape just with his expression.

So much happens, right? And so much emotion, so realistic. And it's all just like micro expressions, right? It's just like the, like, you know, like the, like Virgil's just like a quick look at him, right? He doesn't even say anything. He's like, he's like just a quick look, like, you know? And then Virgil, and then Donnie's like, like he can't stop himself. He's just full of emotion and satist looks and says, hmm, you know something, okay?

All right. So this is all really realistic. Right. Keep on going. Line 112, and said, So may your trying labor end successfully. Do tell me why just now your face showed me the flashing of a smile. Now I am held by one side and the other.

One keeps me still. The other conjures me to speak, but when therefore I sigh, my master knows why and tells me. Do not be afraid to speak, but speak and answer what he has asked you to tell him with such earnestness. At this I answered, ancient spirit you perhaps are wondering at the smile I smiled, but I would have you feel still more surprised. He who is guide who leads my eyes on

highest, that same Virgil from whom you derived the power to sing of men and of the gods. Do not suppose my smile had any source beyond the speech you spoke, be sure. It was those words you said of him that were the cause. Now he had bent to kiss my teacher's feet, but Virgil told him, brother there's no need your shade a shade is what you see and rising he now you can understand how much love burns in me for you

when I forget our insubstantiality treating the shades as one treats solid things okay all right again the contrast right when where Soudolo meets Virgil Virgil tells him right away I'm Virgil and Sandoz saw us wow man I'm your biggest fan and then Soudaulubal bows before Virgil and Virgil is ecstatic

Now, Sadius is like, I'm your biggest fan. And Virgil's like, oh, okay. Like, he doesn't want him to know, I'm Virgil. And then Donnie tells him and Stadius kisses his feet. Okay? He lowers himself and kisses the feet of Virgil, right? And you remember where, you know, when sort of talks to Virgil, Virgil, it's like, yeah, I'll give my autograph and let's do it.

selfie and like, you know, Virgil is like just loving the moment. But here, Virgil's like, could you please stop? Just stop, man. Just stop. Right? Why is Virgil being like this? And again, it's impossible to create a Virgil. You have to summon this guy.

Yes? I think because he realizes that it's like really hitting in his head that his poetry is kind of undermining the true message of the universe. And so like, he's like, if I, if my work has made someone at the very height of purgatory act this way, it just kind of makes him feel embarrassed. And he's like, this really isn't what I should have done. I should not have inspired someone to behave this way. And it's kind of making himself conscious about what he wanted before.

Okay, yes. And also this act of kissing someone's feet is what happens in the Bible where a woman with her hair, she wipes his feet with oil and kisses. his feet. So it's kind of the same act of worshiping God in a way. And this guy is literally going to God in a split second. But he's like, oh, by the way, before that, you're better than God. And then he makes Virgil's like, oh my gosh, I hope this guy doesn't get sent back to somewhere or like get into trouble or maybe, I don't know. Yeah, okay. But then why is Virgil? You're saying that Virgil's a humble guy. But when Serdello

kiss, bows before him, Virgil's ecstatic. Right? There's a paradox here. And the symmetry shows you there's a paradox. To explain what's going on. And the answer is not because he's embarrassed at the idea that he's God. He's not. He wants to be God, right? Why is he behaving like this?

Yes? Does he resent that this guy's going to heaven? Why would he resent this guy going to heaven? He didn't resent Sorreltau going to heaven, right? Why would he resent this guy, Stadio? going to heaven. He's also a pagan poet. Yeah, right?

Do you understand? Okay, remember how awkward it is for Virgil to meet with Cato, right? Virgil does it really, really doesn't want to talk to Cato, and Cato really doesn't want to talk to him. They hate each other. Here, okay, it's different

because Thadis worships Virgil, but Virgil really doesn't want to talk to him because he's a pagan, he's not supposed to go to heaven. You understand? Like, he is a... a Roman epic poet. He is a pagan who did not convert. Same as Virgil. So if you're Virgil, you're like, what's going on here? Right? Okay. So let's think of this. Okay. We talked how when

Virgil just engaged in kind of dissonance, right? He just forgot that Cato is a pagan, okay? But here he is able to recognize the fact that, yes, Satis is a pagan and I'm a pagan and he's better than I am. How is he able to do this? Okay, okay, we're not enough time, but, but like, I'll fool an idea out there for you guys, okay? You cannot fool yourself ever, okay?

you think you can fool yourself, but you cannot fool yourself ever. Why? Because you exist in infinite dimensions. And in some parts, you still know the truth. In most parts, you may not know the truth. Does that make sense? Okay? Remember this.

There's no way you can ever fool yourself. Maybe you can fool everyone in the world, but you cannot fool yourself. Okay? So Virgil in his heart, he does know that it is not true that pagans cannot. not go to heaven. It is not true at all. He knows that. But he does not want to admit it to Dante because he's more concerned about his face than he is about the truth. Okay, doesn't make sense. Yes? But that still doesn't explain why he doesn't, why he's so humble about him worshiping him? He's not humble. He's just annoyed. Okay, okay. So imagine this, okay? Like, imagine this. So

we've been here for two weeks, okay? And then, and then, 20 years later, sorry, so what, what's your name? Okay, Ivy, okay? 20 years later, Ivy and I running each other in New York City.

Paris, who cares, okay? But, like, we're walking the streets, and, like, I'm walking, and, like, she sees me, and, like, she recognized me and says, hey, Professor Jiang, you remember me? I'm like, I don't remember you. And then she's like, Oh, and then she goes on like, oh, we took the seminar.

And like, yeah, I remember you, you know, you were shy. You were very smart. Yeah, sure. And I'm very happy because she remembers me. And obviously, the course had a huge impact on her. And I ask her. So Ivy, what are you doing now? And she says, oh, I'm teaching Dante at Harvard or Yale.

Okay. What do I do now? Sorry, I have, I have an appointment. later, Ivy, okay? I'm not... Why would I do that? Like, sorry, I'm an appointment right now. I'll talk to you later.

Why would I do that? Well, if you were Jill, then I guess you're jealous, but if you'd be Dante, then you'd be happy for her, right? Huh. So it's my problem, you think. Well, I mean, you could be happy for her, but you can also be

jealous that you didn't make it that far. Yeah, I mean, I think everyone would be a bit jealous. right and it's not like Donde or Virgil it's just like human nature

It's just human nature Yeah okay So so again That's why I say like Virgil cannot be created He can only be summoned

Because this reaction is so human right Okay It's very hard to make something like this up You need to have like seen it yourself to appreciate this

Okay Does that make sense Okay? So Virgil is really angry and really jealous at status because status has reached heaven. But it's also about the bird. It's kind of like a burden, right? He says, there's no need you are a shade. A shade is what you see.

I'm like, like, he, the studies puts like a burden on Virgil and Virgil can't really deal with that. Because like he can't deal with the love of statues. Yeah, and it's also like absurd, right? You're both like shades, right? So if you kneel down, I can't actually feel you kissing my feet. Like, this is absurd. Yes, Fred? I guess the other thing, other than summoning Virgil that he could have done,

is in real life, if Dante met Beatrice's husband. So historically, she died young, but married like a banker. Yeah, that's right. So it's like if the banker came to, maybe Dante felt this for one second. Like, the banker came to Dante and, like, I'm your biggest fan of all time. And he's like, well, you married my one true love and then she died. So like how much can you, I don't really care that you're my fan or upset. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just human nature, okay? And that's why the line comedy is such literature because it's something that resonates with you. Okay, you just feel it's true. And it gives you tremendous insight into yourself as well as human nature. And it's just a natural reaction, right? Okay. The other thing I will point out is Okay, okay, we'll keep our reading 21, okay?

Oh, 22 now, yeah, sure. Canto 22. The angel now has left behind us, He who had directed us to Six terrorists, having erased one P that scarred my face, he had declared that those who longed for justice are blessed, and his voice concluded that message with Situent without the rest.

And while I climbed behind the two swift spirits not laboring at all, for I was lighter than I had been along the other stairs Virgil began. Love that is kindled by virtue will in another find reply. As long as that love's flame appears without, so from the time when juvenile descending among us in hell's limbo had made plain the fondness that you felt for me. My own benevolence towards you has been much richer than any ever given to a person when it has not seen. Thus now these stares seem short. But tell me, and as a friend forgive me if excessive candor lets my reins relax, and as a friend exchange your words,

words with me. How is it that you found within your breast a place for avarice when you possess the wisdom you had nurtured with such care? These words at first brought something of a smile to Stasias, then he answered, every word you speak to me is a dear sign of love. Indeed, because true causes are concealed, we often face deceptive reasoning and things provoke perplexity in us. Your question makes me sure that you're convinced, perhaps because my circle was the that in the life I once lived, Averis had been my sin. No, then, that I was far from Averis.

It was my lack of measure. Thousands of months have punished. And if I had not corrected my assessment by my understanding what your verses meant when you, as if it raged by human nature, exclaimed, why cannot you, a holy hunger for gold, restrained the appetite of mortals? I'd now, while rolling weights, no sorry, joust.

Then I became aware that hands might open too wide, like wings in spending of, and of them, as of my other sins I did repent. How many are to rise again with heads cropped clothes whom ignorance prevents from reaching repentance in and at the end of life? And know that when a sin is countered by another fault directly opposite to it,

then hear both sins, see their green wither. Thus I joined those who pay for avarice in my purgation, though what brought me here was prodigality, its opposite. Now when you sang the savage wars of those twin sorrows of Jukastus at the singer of the Pacholic poems, it does not seem from those notes struck by you and Cleo there that you had not

that you had yet turned faithful to the faith without which righteousness works that do not suffice if that is so then what sun or what candles do you from darkness so that in their wake you set yourselves behind the fisherman and he to him you were the first to send me to drink within parnusus's caves and you the first who after god enlighten me you did as he who goes by night and carries the lamp behind him he's a no help to his own self, but teaches those who follow. When you declared, the ages are renewed, justice and man's first time on earth return from heaven a new progeny descends. Through you, I was a poet and through you a Christian, but that you may

see more plainly, I'll set my hand to color what I sketch. Okay, all right. So, um, so Virgil asked Stadius, why are you in the terrace of avarice? And, Sadist replies, okay, you may think that I was greedy in life, but I was the opposite. In fact, I was wasteful. But it's the laws of nature that one extreme, that two extremes are basically the same thing, okay? So if you are really greedy, but if you are very wasteful, it's the same thing. And so the punishment is the same, okay? And then what Virgil asked him is, how did you come to this place?

because in Virgil's understanding, only Christians are allowed access to heaven. And what Virgil, sorry, what Sadiah says is, well, I convert it secretly. Yeah, I convert secretly. And who convinced him to convert to Christianity? Poets and to you a Christian? Yeah, this is a paradox, right? We know Virgil is not a Christian. Christian. In fact, he's an anti-Christian

almost. And so Sadd is saying, like, for you, I became a poet, and we know because he keeps on quoting the Inniad, okay? He just memorized the Inniad. He keeps on quoting the Inniad. He says, like, for you, I've been able to become a Christian.

But we know the Inniad, how does this make any sense? Yeah, yeah? Using Aniyadh's the structure of empire that has kind of made it all kind of spread so powerfully. Okay.

Maybe. I know. Okay. Anyone else? Yes? The mercy of Christ becomes so much more apparent that it's the true way and it's like the divine truth when you're immersed in the Aeneid. So in the final moment when Aenea, I'm not the final moment, but the major moment when

Nias kills Ternus, if you're really moved by that and you meditate on that moment for a long time and you think what would it have to be for Ternus, for Aeneas not to kill Ternus, what mercy would he have had to have? That would have turned you, made you look for a preacher that would have changed your mind. Yeah, that's great.

That's fantastic, okay? And that's exactly what status is saying here. I read the Inniad, and the themes and ideas that you tell in the Inniad convince me that I must turn to Christ. But, okay, Didn't Virgil write the Inniad? So why didn't Virgo embrace Christianity, the way that status embraced Christianity?

Virgil is a poet. It's sadist a reader. What's going on here? It's like he changed the ending. Like Virgil ruined the ending of the Aeneid, which made it so powerful for empire, but ruined what could have been the Christian prelude. Yeah, but you just said that they moved Sadius to convert to Christianity. What's going on here?

It can move everybody except Virgil. It's like the unluckiest guy in the world where... Is this luck? Well, maybe it's... I don't know. Anyone else? He also follows saying in 74 that... But that you may see more plainly, I set my hand to color what I sketch.

Oh, no, no, no. He's trying to explain his life. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll explain his life story and how the exact details of how he converted. Okay, so let's try to figure this out, okay? All right. So remember, the poets are channeling the divine fire, the holy fire, okay?

And the poetry is meant to capture the holy fire so that others can be illuminated by it, okay? So you're trying to create this vessel. But we have free will, so we can do whatever you want. And then Virgil became seduced by power. So he turned this vessel into a weapon for empire. Okay? But, but the, so basically before, the vessel was meant to be like a, like a glass where everyone can just feel a light.

But now it's like this bronze vessel, a weapon, okay? But the holy fire is so strong that there are things that leak out. And if you're willing, if you are a perceptive enough reader, you're able to still feel that light. and that light will draw you to Christianity. Doesn't make sense. Okay? But the poet has committed evil and sin by trapped in the holy fire. And so the poet is convinced that this vessel, that this weapon is created is actually for good reasons.

And so this kind of dissonance blinds the poet from seeing the holy light. Does that make sense, guys? That's why Stadius can be converted by the Inniad, but Virgil cannot be converted by the Inniad. Okay? Fred, did you want to add something? It just, my mind keeps going back to the moment when Annius sees Palace's swordbelt. And in the Aeneid, that's, so the Aeneid portrays like Aeneas, he's really sad, he's really upset. He's so close to showing mercy to Ternus, but then he sees the sword belt of his feet.

friend, this young guy, Palace, who Turnus had killed. And it's almost, it's like the divine light leaking out. It's like Virgil going, I wish I could, I wish I had written it. I wish I want to write it. The Aeneas shows mercy. But it's almost like seeing the sword belt of one of your comrades is the, is empire. Yeah. It's like the people that come before you, you're trying to propagate your empire for them.

And that's what makes him change. So it's like Virgil's trying to say that he wished, he wished he hadn't written that, but he just did. Yeah. And Virgil did say he wished he didn't write that because he wanted to burn the manuscript. Right. So, so yeah, so that's what's going on here, okay? All right, let's, let's keep on reading. Line 76, disseminated by the messengers of the eternal kingdom, the true faith by then had penetrated all the world, and the new preachers preached in such accord with what you'd said, and I have just repeated that I was drawn into frequenting them. Then they appeared to me to be so saintly that when

Domitian persecuted them, my own. own laments accompanied their grief and while I could as long as I had live I helped them and their honest practices made me disdainful of all other sects. Before within my poem I'd led the Greeks unto the streams of Thebes I was baptized, but out of fear I was a secret Christian and for a long time showed myself as pagan. For this half-heartedness for more than four centuries I circled the fourth circle. And now may you who lifted up the lid that hid from me the good of which I speak while time has left us as we climb, tell me where's our ancient terrace and Cisilius and Ploutis, where is various, if you know,

tell me if they're damned and in what quarter. All these in Persia's eye and many other, my guide replied, are with that Greek to whom the muses gave their gifts in greatest measure. Our place is the blind prison, its first circle, and there we often talk about the mountain where those who are our nurses always dwell. Your repides is with us, Antiphon, Simonides, and Agathon, as well as many of other Greeks who once wore laurel upon their brow and there of your own people once the Antigone, Defele, de Feely, Ismeni, sad still, Argia as she was. There one can see the woman who showed Langia and there to Rosia's daughter, there's Thetus, and with her sisters there, De Damia. Both poets now were silent once again intent on their surroundings. They were free of stairs

and walls, with Dei's first four handmaidens already left behind, and with the fifth guiding the charit pull and lifting it so that its horn of flame rose always higher my master said i think it's time that we turn our right shoulders toward the terrace edge circling the mountain in the way we're used to and this way habits served us as a banner and when we chose that path our fear was less because that worthy soul gave his ascent those two were in the lead i walked alone behind them listening to their colloquy which taught me much concerning poetry but their delightful conversation soon was interrupted by a tree that blocked our path. Its fruits were fine, their scent was sweet, and even as a fir tree tapers upward from branch to branch, that tree there tapered downward,

so as I think to ward off any climber. Upon our left, where wall enclosed our path, rich, bright running water fell from the high rock and spread itself upon the leaves above. When the two poets had approached the tree, a voice emerging from within the leaves cried out, this food shall be denied to you. Then it cried, Mary's care was for the marriage feast being seemingly and complete, not for her mouth, which now would intercede for you.

And when they drank of old, the Roman women were satisfied with water, and young Daniel, through his disdain of food, acquired wisdom. The first age was as fair as gold, when hungry men found the taste of acorns good, when thirsty they found that every little stream was nectar. When he was in the wilderness, the Baptists had fed on nothing more than honey locusts.

For this, he was made great. As glorious as in the gospel is made plain to you. Okay, so they arrive in the terrace of gluttony. And in the terrace of gluttony, there's a tree with lots of fruit, and the sinners just look at it, and they're not able to touch it, and they become much more hungry. And as emancipated over time. Okay, so really important point is there's a really important point is,

Paradox, right? How is Stadius, who is a pagan? How is he able to ascend heaven? And what he tells Virgil is, well, I converted secretly. No one knows this, but I converted secretly. And yeah, that was lazy of me. That was slothful. That I showed lack of faith. And that's why I was in the terrorist of sloth for four centuries.

And it seems as though this relieves the paradox, right? The soft's paradox. Well, because he converted secretly. Well, the problem here, okay? Let's go to Paradise 20. Paradise 20, everyone. And in Paradise 20, there is going to be an eagle. Okay.

And then this eagle are the great kings of time, okay? Including David. And one of them, one of these people is Rufius. Okay? Rufius. And Rufius is a Trojan. What's the problem, guys? Why is this a problem?

Why is this a paradox? Yes? Yeah, so there's no way this could have happened, right? Because this is not just before the time of Jesus. It's also before the time of the Hebrews, man. So, like, this is, like, really confusing now for us. Okay? So, since, can we read Paradise 20,

please? Can we go go please? 20. And we'll skip to 37, okay? And this is the ego of light talking to daunt and saying like, who is the most worthy to be inside me, okay? 9.37. He who gleams in the center of my eyes pupil. He was the singer of the Holy Spirit who bore the ark from one town to another. Now he has learned the merit will can earn. His song had not been spurred by grace alone, but his own will in part had urged him on. Of those five flames that arching form my brow, he who is nearest to my beak is one who comforted the widow for her son. Now he has learned the prize when pays for not following Christ through

his experience of the sweet life and of its opposite. Okay, so there are certain individuals within this eagle who are divine holder, okay? The first one is David, that makes sense. Second one is Trajan, who is the Roman emperor. Let's keep on going. 49. 49. And he whose place is next on the circumference of which I speak along the upward arc delayed his death through truthful penitence. Now he has learned that the eternal judgment remains unchanged.

The worthy prayer below makes what falls to you today take place tomorrow. Okay. So Trajan convert to Christianity. Yes. Okay, that makes sense. Keep on going. 55. The next two follows, one whose good intention bore evil fruit to give place to the shepherd with both the laws and me made himself Greek. Now he has learned that even though the world be ruined by the evil that derives from his good act, that evil does not harm him. He whom you see along the downward arc was William, and the land that mourns his death for living Charles and Frederick now laments. Now he has learned how heaven loves the just ruler, and he would show this outwardly as well, so radiantly, visible. Who in the erring world below would hold that he who was the fifth among the lights that

formed the circle was the Trojan Rufius. Now he has learned much that the world cannot discern of God's own grace, although his sight cannot divine, not reach its deepest sight. As if it were, a lark at large in air, a lark that sings at first and then falls still, content with final sweetness that fulfills. Such see... Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So again, this makes sense, until we get to the fifth and last person, who is Riffius. And what the eagle says is like, okay,

well, Riffius, he was born before the time of Jesus, so he could not convert it. Trajan was born after Jesus, so he could have converted. How do we explain Rufius? This is a huge paradox, right?

Again, it's one thing for Stadius to convert secretly, and then he goes to purgatory, then through five, years of penance he climbs to heaven but up here in paradise is riphias a trojan who is born before the time of both the hebrews and of jesus and he makes it to heaven how is this possible okay uh yes i mean that just shows like virgin uh dantis democratic sense right everyone can make it to heaven if they that's right will it Like if they really want to.

Okay. Okay. But Riffith is couldn't have wielded because he didn't know heaven exists, right? He didn't know Jesus exists. He didn't know God exists. He doesn't know that stuff. But you can still follow your intuition and know what's good and right. Like you don't need the knowledge of heaven. You just need to be a good human. Exactly. Okay. Does that make sense? So that's what Donnie is saying. It's revolutionary. It can really counteracts the point that Virgil makes, which is like, you have to be a Christian in order to make it to heaven. So let me ask you this question.

Why is Virgil so adamant? Why is he so focused on this one rule? And why is, like, actually, no. Because it's basically his mask or excuse of not making it to heaven. It's like, oh, they kind of excluded me because I was just born at a wrong time. Okay, it's not my fault. like Jesus was so much later than me, it's, you know, taking the blame off him. But then now everybody else way older than him before him, who had never met Jesus or the concept of Hebrews,

they went to heaven. It's like kind of a slap in the face. It's like, you're just basically not a good enough guy, okay? Like to make it to heaven, face it, guy. Like, don't, you know. Yeah. Find excuse. Exactly.

So he's constantly excusing himself, right? He'd rather, again, burn in hell than just to admit he's wrong. Rufius is interesting because who creates Rufus this character? Virgil Dante only knows what Rufius speaks of Virgil Can we Google this? Let's Google Rufius and see what comes up, okay? Oh

Okay, okay, so just read Not that that comedy, sorry Go back Okay Yeah, just to do it. Sure. Just read that part here. Rufius was a Trojan hero in the name of a figure from the Anita Virgil

Okay, this is why we're know this guy Virgil created this guy okay and quite honestly all Virgil says is he is the most virtuous of all of all the Trojans that's that's entire line in the Inniad he's not a major character okay so so can we write what what Virgil writes just just open up you know Virgil writes uniquely the most just of all the Trojans the most faithful preserver of equity but the gods decided otherwise Okay, so this is a jab at Virgo, right? Virgil says, yeah, he's the wisest, the most just of the Trojans and the gods didn't care.

And Donner is like, no, the gods do care. Thank you very much. If you are righteous, if you are just, if you're virtuous, you will always sort of heaven regardless of time and space, regardless of your belief. Okay, regardless what Virgil says. Okay? So again, the divine comedy is a rejection of Virgil, but it's also born of Virgil. It's like the father-son relationship. Okay, let's go back to, um, uh, purgatory. One, oh, I think, are we done with this one?

Yes. Yeah, we're done. Yeah, 23. So you can see how clever Dante is, right? He doesn't tell you outright, but he gives you like these clues. And once you put the clues together, the answer is pretty obvious. Conso 23. When I was peering so intently through the green boughs,

like a hunter who so used would waste his life and chasing after birds, my more than father said to me, now come, son, for the time our journey can commit us to be used more fruitfully than this. I turned my eyes, and I was no less quick to turn my steps. I followed those two sages who talked with such. My going brought no less. And there, La Be a Man, Domine, was wept and sung and heard in such a manner that it gave birth to both delight and sorrow.

O gentle father, what is this I hear, asked, and he, perhaps there are shades who go loosening the knot of what they owe, even as pensive pilgrims do, who, when they've overtaken folk unknown to them along the way, will turn but will not stop. So overtaking us, they had come from behind, but were more swift, a crowd of souls, devout and silent, looked at us in wonder.

Each shade has dark and hollow eyes, their faces were pale and so maciated that their taut skin took its shape from bones, I don't believe that even Eryxothon had been so dried down to his very high by hunger when his fast made him fear most. Thinking, I told myself, I see the people who lost Jerusalem when Mary plunged her beak into her son. The orbits of their eyes seemed like a ring that's lost its gems, and he who in the face of man would read Omo would here have recognized the M. who if he knew not how would have believed that longing borne from odour of a tree odor of water could reduce soul so i was already wondering what had so famished them for i had not

learned the reason for their leanness and sad scurf when there a shade his eyes deep in his head turned toward me staring steadily and then he cried aloud what grace has granted me i never would have recognized him by his face and yet his voice made plain to me what his appearance had obliterated. This spark rekindled in me everything I knew about those altered features. Thus, I realized it was Farais's face. Oh, don't reproach me for the dried out scabs that stain my skin, he begged, nor for the lack of flesh on me, but do tell me the truth about yourself. Did tell me who those two souls there are, those who are scorting you. May you not keep yourself from speaking to me. Okay, stop. Okay. All right, so Ferreisei, Bonatti, Ferrese,

Bonatti, he is actually Donny's childhood best friend. He's also a poet, and they enjoy making fun of each other through their poetry. Forreira's sister is Picarda. We met Picarda in heaven. His brother is also Corso. Corso is the brother who adopted Picarda from the convent, because Corso was intent on power, and Corso will eventually die and burn in hell. Okay, but Forese is a very important character. Line 55, Your face, which I once wept on when you died, I answered to him. Now gives me no less cause for sad lament,

seeing you so deformed but tell me, for God's sake, what has unleaved you so? Don't make me speak while I'm amazed, he whose distracted answers clumsily, and he to me, from the eternal counsel, the water in the tree you left behind, received the power that makes me waste away. All of these souls who grieving sing

because their appetite was gluttonous, and thirst and hunger here resentify themselves. The fragrance of the fruit and of the water that sprayed through that green tree kindles and thus craving for food and drink, and not once only as we go around the space, our pains renewed. I speak of pain, but I should speak of solace, for we're guided to those trees by that same longing that had guided Christ when he had come to free us through the blood he shed, and in his joyousness called out Eli.

And I to him, phraise, from that day when you exchanged the world for better life until now, less than five years have evolved. And if you waited for the moment when the power to sin was gone before you found the hour of the good grief that succors us and wets us once again to God, how have you come so quickly here? I thought to find you down below where time must pay for time. And he to me, it is Manila, who with her abundant tears, has guided me to drink the sweet warm wood of torments. She, with sighs and prayers devout, has set me free of that slope where one waits and has freed me from. from circles underneath the circle.

She, my gentle widow, whom I loved most dearly, was all the more beloved and prized by God, as she's more alone in her good works. For even the Barbagia of Sardinia is far more modest in its women than that Barbagia when I loved her. Oh, sweet brother, what would you have had me say? A future time's already visible to me a time not too far off from now, when from the pulpit it shall be forbidden to those immodest ones,

Florentine women to go to slang bism with bare paps. What ordinances, spiritual, civil, were ever needed by barbarian or serrescent women to make them go covered. But if those shameless ones had certain knowledge of what swift, swift heavens readying for them, then they would have mouths open now to howl. For if our foresight here does not deceive me, they'll be sad before the cheeks of those whom lullabies can now apiece grow beards. Ah, brother, do not hide things any longer. You see that I'm not alone, for all these people stare at where you veil the sun. At this I said to him, if you should call to mine what you have been with me and I with you remembering now will still be heavy,

he who proceeds me, turned me from that life some days ago. When she who's the sister of him, I pointed to the sun, was showing her roundness to you. It is he who's led me through the deep night of the truly dead with this true flesh that follows after him. His help has drawn me up from there, climbing and circling around this mountain, which makes straight you whom the world made crooked. And he says that he will bear me company until I reach the place where Beatrice is. There, I must remain without him. It is Virgil who speaks to me in this way. And I point it to him, this other is the shade for whom just now your kingdom costs its very,

it's every slope to tremble as it freed him from itself. So Donnie meets his childhood best friend, and he's ecstatic to see Foresse again, right? But he's confused and he asked Foresa. I thought you were supposed to wait and end up to progatory for a long, long time. It's been five years since your death, and already you made it really high up.

And like, how is this possible for essay? And what does he, for essay, say? His widow, Nella, right? Prayed every day for him. And because Nella was particularly virtuous and beloved by God, then

Ferrese was able to come up very, very high. Okay? And this explains why there are certain infants in paradise, right? Because their parents were really virtuous and prayed for them every single day. Okay. Let's keep on going to counten to 24, please. Our talking did not slow our pace. Our pace not slowing our talking, but conversing we moved quickly like a boat, a fair wind drives.

I'm recognizing that I was alive, the shades, they seemed to be things twice dead, through amazement from the hollows of their eyes. and I, continuing my telling, added, perhaps he's more slow in his assent than he would had he not met the other, but tell me if you can, where's Picarda? And tell me if, among those staring at me, I can see any person I should note.

My sister, and I know not whether she was greater in her goodness or her beauty on High Olympus is in triumph. She rejoices in her crown already. He began, then added, It is not forbidden to name each shade here. Abstinence has eaten away our faces, and he pointed, this is bonadjunta bonadjunta de lucca the one beyond him even more emaciated than the rest had clasped the holy church he was from tour his fast-purchase balsanatia's eels renachia's wine and he named many others one by one and at their naming they all seemed content so that for this no face was overcast

i saw their teeth were biting emptiness both ubaldin de la pila and bonifane who shepherded so many with his staff i saw messer markeese and say, who once had more ease, less dryness, drinking it poorly, and yet could never satisfy his thirst. But just as he looks and then esteems one more than another, so did I prize him of Luca, for he seemed to know me better. He murmured, something like Gentuka, was what I heard from the place where he could feel the wound of justice that denudes them so. All soul, I said, who seemed so eager to converse with me, do speak so that I hear you, for speech may satisfy both you and me. He answered, although men condemn my city there is a woman born she wears no veil as yet because of whom you'll find it pleasing you're to journey with this prophecy as if there's something in my murmuring you doubt events themselves will bear me out but tell me if the man whom i see here is he who brought the new rhymes forth beginning ladies who have intelligence of love i answered i'm one who when love breathes in me takes note what he within dictates i in that way without which is in that way without which is one who when love breathes in me takes note what he within dictates i in that way without which

speak and shape. Oh, brother, now I see, he said. The knot that kept the notary, guitone, and me short of the sweet new manner that I hear, I clearly see how your pens follow closely behind him who dictates, and certainly that did not happen with our pence, and he who sets himself to ferreting profoundly can find no other difference between the two styles. He fell still, contentedly. Even as birds that winter on the Nile, at times will slow and form a flock and air, than speed their flight and form a file, so all the people who are mere moved much more swiftly, turning away their faces, hurrying their pace because of leanness and desire. And just as he who's tired of running lets his comrades go ahead and slows his steps

until he's eased the panting of his chest, so de Pharesi let the holy flock pass by and move, behind with me saying, how long before I shall see you again? I do not know, I said, how long I will live, and yet, however quick is my return, my longing for these shores would have me here sooner, because the place where I was set to live is day by day deprived of good and seams along the way to wretched ruin. Do not be vexed, he said, for I can see the guiltiest all dragged by a beast's tail to the valley where no sin is perched. At every step the beast moves faster, always gaining momentum till it smashes him and leaves his body squalately undone. those wheels and here he looked up at the sky do not have long to turn before you see plainly what i can't tell you more openly now you remain behind for time is costly here in this kingdom i should lose too much by moving with us thus at equal pace

just as a horseman sometimes gallops out leaving behind his troop of riders so that he may gain the honor of the first clash so with longer strides did he leave us and i remained along my path with those two who were such great marks of the world and when he'd gone so far ahead of us and that my eyes that my eyes strained to follow him just as my mind was straining after what he'd said the branches of another tree heavy with fruit a life with green appeared to me nearby just past a curve where I turned had turned beneath the tree I saw shades lifting hands crying I know not what up toward the branches like little eager empty-headed children who beg but he of whom they beg does not reply but to provoke their longing, he holds high and does not hide the thing they want. Then they departed

as if disabused, and we immediately reached that great tree, which turns aside so many prayers and tears. Continue on, but don't draw close to it. There is a tree above from which Eve ate, and from that tree above this plant was raised. Among the boughs a voice, I know not who spoke so, thus drawing close Virgil Stacias, and I eashed on, along the side that rises. It said, remember those with double chests the miserable ones born of the clouds whom this is battled when they gorged themselves and those

whom Gideon refused as comrades those Hebrews who had drunk too much avidly when he came down the hills to Midian so keeping close to one of that road's margins we moved ahead hearing of gluttonly it's since repaid by sorry penalties then with more space along the lonely path

a thousand steps and more had brought us forward each of us meditating wordlessly What are you thinking of you three who walk alone? A sudden voice called out, at which I started like a scared young animal. I raised my hat to see who it might be no glass or metal ever seen within a furnace was so glowing or so red, as one I saw who said, It viewed ascend, then you must turn at this point, for whoever would journey unto peace must pass this way. But its appearance had deprived me of my sight so that as one who used its hearing as guide, I turned and followed my two teachers

and liked the breeze of May that heralding the dawning of the day when it steeped in flowers and in grass or as fragrantly, so did I feel the wind that blew against the center of my brow and clearly scent the movement of his wings the air's ambrosia. And then I heard blessed are those who graze lumens

so that in their breast the love taste does not awake too much desire whose hungering is always in just measure. So do this is your dream right you told us you had a dream of a tree calling to you but there's a river that blocked the way and the tree was talking to you and now we have a similar situation right where this is a tree with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and everyone can only look at it longingly and the tree talks to them but

you can never eat the fruit what do you think is your dream similar to what's going on so so why do you think you have to have the dream no no no I'm saying like why do you think you have the dream I'm still trying to figure it out but like if I have to take a guess that like I'm looking for a change in my life right now and

and I've been thinking about like this all the classes that I took during this seminar and about like imagination and love and and especially like during like i felt i felt pretty comfortable when we in the paradise right but as but like once we enter the hill and the progatory i made me to reflect on my past life about all the wrongs i did to other people and stuff So maybe it's a way for me to seek redemption or something like that. Do you think when you had the dream, you saw the future?

Did you see the future in your dream? Well, do you know his dream, Brad? I think he had what we might call momentum in Indra's net. So like all of the images we've been learning before primed him and that his dream basically preempted what would follow in the poem, poem because the poem was so close a copy of these wonderful images that are in Indra's net so like everything we had been thinking about had led him up to this and it's like he just turned up to class early you know in in a sense okay that's interesting

it didn't feel like I'm like experience the future I mean the sense of time seems like didn't exist in the in my dream right where It's like all past and presence and future matched up together. Right, but that's what we said. In the universal unconscious, right? Which is beyond time and space. It's all happening at once. Okay.

Are you surprised at all by this? You dreamt of this scene yesterday, and now we're talking about this scene. And we're trying to decipher your dream through this scene. Not surprised, honestly, but like, I feel it's like it's destiny, it's that it's it's destined to be like this. Has anyone had a dream that was basically of the future? So this happens to you a lot?

Okay. Give us an example. It's nothing like special, but sometimes it's just like when I, enter like a building a hall or I just had a lunch with a with a with a stranger and it just clicks. I was like oh I knew what would happen like five minutes later or like a hour later. Yeah. Okay. Brad?

I just had some very strange ones where like I had an ex-girlfriend and I dreamt that her body had become like fully fertile and she was trying to feed me from her in large breasts and then like two days i had not spoken to her for many months and then two days later she like calls me and it was like one of the craziest moments on my life yeah but this happens a lot well when i count it as a lot it feels like this many months i'm saying like what what i meant is i'm not saying it happens a lot to you but i'm saying like it's actually pretty calm and in the world right yeah yeah i want to to Malaysia the night before I visited my godmother's house she had a dream from god saying i'm

gonna bring you a daughter and she was 40 something she's like there's no way i'm gonna have a daughter now i'm like gonna be sarah and next day i came to her house she's like ah you're the kid and so they accepted me immediately and then she told me long after about this dream yeah i mean like isn't it very common um that you figure of a friend right and then your friend calls you the next day or next week it's very common man right we've we've all have have this experience. If you think of someone that person just calls you and says, hey, I was thinking of you and I wanted to blah blah, blah, okay?

All right. So again, this gives credit to the idea of the universal unconscious. All right. Okay, let's keep on going. Conto 25. The hour when climbers cannot pause had come, the sun had left to Torres, the meridian, and night had left it to the scorpion.

Therefore, like one who will not stop, but moves along his path, no matter what he sees, if he's goaded by necessity, we made our way. away into the narrow gap and one behind the other took the stairs so straight that climbers there must separate. And as the fledgling stork will lift its wings because it wants to fly, but dares not try, to leave the nest and lets its wing drop back. So I, with my desire to question, Kindle, then spent, arrived as far as making ready to speak. But my dear father, though our steps were hurrying, did not stop talking, for he said, the iron of the arrows touched the long bow, let the shaft of speech fly off.

Then I had confidence enough to open my mouth and ask him, how can one grow lean when there's never need for nourishment? Okay, so this is a great question, okay? So Dottie saw these shades becoming much more emissated, okay? And Dyn's like, wait a minute here. They have no bodies, right? Therefore, you have no need for food. So why would you become emissated?

How do you starve as a soul? This makes no sense, okay? That's a question that Dante has. All right, so let's see what Virgil says. Line 22. If you recall how Malieger was consumed, he said, just when the firebrand was bent, this won't be hard to understand.

And if you think how, though, your body's swift, your image of the mirror captures it, then what perplexed will seem to you transparent? But that your will to know may be appeased he stasius, and I call on him and ask that he now be the heat. of your doubts. Okay, so what Virgil is saying is, well, so Maliga, Maliga is a story where Maliger, he, his soul is kept alive by, by a firewood. And as long as this firewood is not extinguid, so as long as his firewood is not broken,

then he lives. So what the mother does is hide the firewood, so it can never be broken. But Maligur then does something so outrageous that the mother wants to kill him, So then she finds a firewood and then burns it down and then Miller dies. Okay. So what he's saying is what you understand is a correspondence of things, okay? The correspondence between the body, the soul, and the spirit. So that one thing happens to one, then the other thing happens to the other. So if your soul is starving, then your body is starving.

If your body is starving, so is your soul starving. But what's a problem with this explanation? The body's gone, right? So this is really confusing. So he doesn't really answer. And he recognizes he doesn't really answer. So he says, let's Stadius answer, okay? All right, Satis, you try now.

Line 31. If I explain eternal ways to him, Stacey has replied, while you were present here, let my excuse me, I cannot refuse you. Then he began. If son, your mind receives and keeps my word, then what I say will serve as light. upon the how that you have asked.

The thirsty veins drink up the perfect blood, but not all of that blood, a portion's left like leavings that are taken from the table. Within the heart, that part acquires power to form all of another's human limbs. As blood that flows through veins feeds one's own limbs, digested yet again that part descends to what is best not named. From there it drips into the natural receptacle,

upon another's blood, the two bloods makes one ready to be passive one active because of a perfect place. The heart prepared them. The active, having reached the passive starts to work. First, it coagulates and then quickens the matter it has made more dense. Having become a soul, much like a plant, though with this difference, the plants complete, whereas the fetus still is journeying, the active virtual laborer, so the fetus may move and feel like a sea sponge, and then it starts to organize the power succeeded. At this point, Sun, the power that had come from the getter's heart unfolds and spreads, that nature may see every limb perfected, but how the animal becomes a speaking being you've not

yet seen. This point so hard, it led one wiser than you are to earn separating from the possible intellect, the soul, since he could see no organ for the mind, so did he teach. Open your heart truth. We now have reached and know that once the brain's articulation within the fetus has attained perfection, then the first mover turns toward it with joy on seeing so much art in nature and breathes into it new spirit. Vigorous. which draws all that is active in the fetus into its substance, it becomes one soul that lives and feels and has self-consciousness. That what I say may leave you less perplexed, consider the sun's heat that when combined with sap that flows from vines, it then made wine. And when lechises lacks more threat than souls divide it from the flesh, potentially it bears with it a human and divine.

But with the human powers mute, the rest, intelligence and memory and will are more acute in action than they were. with no delay the soul falls of itself astonishingly on one of two shores there it learns early what way it will journey there once the soul is circumscribed by space the power that gives form irradiates as and as much as ones it formed life limbs and even as the saturated air since it reflects the rays the sun has sent takes rainbow colors as its ornament so there where the soul stop the nearby air takes on the form that soul impressed on it a shape that is a shape that is a shape that is a light that is a shape that is a light which the sun is a shape that is, potentially real body and then just as the flame will follow after the fire whenever fire moves so that new form becomes the spirit's follower since from that airy body it takes on its semblance that soul is called shade that shape forms organs for each sense even for sight this airy body lets us speak and laugh with it we form the tears inside the sighs that you perhaps have heard

around this mountain just as we are held fast by longings and by other sentiments, our shade takes form. This is the cause of your astonishment. Okay, so let me explain what he's saying here, okay? And this goes back to the idea of the morphic fields that we discussed earlier, okay? So what he's saying is

this? We know how the fetus turns into a baby, which turns into a body, right? That makes sense. Okay? So the baby is in the womb, and at some point,

the fetus becomes a baby, okay? That is this biology. The problem is consciousness. How does consciousness happen? And so what he's saying is this. At a certain point, the baby is so developed, okay? The baby is so developed that God can now smile upon it. When God smiles upon it, what happens is that these,

universal unconscious that we've discussed, what it does is that it creates a soul inside the baby. Does that make sense? As the baby develops limbs and the full shape of the body, the soul itself starts to take shape as well. okay and we think that the soul oh it's a spark in us or it's part of the brain no it's actually the body itself okay and these are what we call morphic fields morphic fields so think as though your body's now emitting energy fields okay and that's how uh francois was able to easily uh notice when edward turn around it doesn't make sense because there are fields around you that feel the world spiritually around you and connect you to the universal consciousness.

Okay. So what happens is that, okay, these fields are now resembling your body. So each part of your body has its own field. Your organs have their own fields. Even when your body decomposes, these fields are still around that mimic your old body. And as such, you can still feel the way that your old body used to feel. Not as much, but there's still some elements to it. That's how people are able to feel pain both in hell and in purgatory. It doesn't make sense, guys. All right? Yes?

What about the souls in heaven? Do they also have like this? What about the souls in heaven? Yeah, yeah. So this is what we'll, what we'll, we'll, we learn in paradise right what happens in heaven is like once you ascend to the divine light all these fields have returned home so what they do so what they do is they bend to fit heaven now does it make sense before these fields bend it to fit your body once you go home to heaven because of the divine light they now bend to fit the divine light and so you lose basically uh the body form completely. Okay?

As a shade, you have like half half. But once you return to heaven, then you become part of the divine unity again. All right? So that's what he's saying here. Any questions about this? Yes? Then, so is it the soul

or the body that feels hunger when you're starving? Is it... Oh, excuse me? Is it the soul or the body that feels hunger because well normally would say it's the body needs food so it like says to the brain I need food but in your in that perception be different okay so on earth when we start it's a physical reaction right it's a physical reaction doesn't make sense if you if your body doesn't

have food the organs break down and you die okay but in proletary it's a different process So the idea is that this is the gluttony, okay? This is the terrorist of gluttony, and there's a tree calling into them and saying, you know, like, you can smell me, you can desire me, but you must resist me. Doesn't make sense. Okay? So what's happening is not longer at a body level, but a soul level. And so the soul to demonstrate its longing, yet it's restraint, it's restraint. it becomes much more emaciated.

Does that make sense? So it's a metaphorical fruit that... So it's not real hunger then, because you... Okay, well, they say it would be real hunger, right? Because only if it's real, does it have any meaning? If you have to feel real pain, real desire for it to have any meaning, right? Okay, so... But you need to understand, like, imagine two different.

two dimensions, okay? Your body is existing on one dimension, your soul is existing on another dimension. And here on earth, the both are combined together. But in purgatory, the body loses its physical form. You don't have a body, but the soul still maintains the semblance of the body. So you still hunger and you can still starve, but in a spiritual way. Doesn't make sense? So what's happening here is not at a physical level, but a spiritual level. Did they have food in the other circles? And the other... What I'm what darling's saying here.

There's no food. There's no need for food. Yes, yes? Yeah, it makes me think about David Psalms that my soul longs for the Lord as the deer longs for the stream or something and talking about drinking of this like eternal water or whatever. like his soul. So I guess it's kind of the same thing, like your soul can thirst for things. And so these ghosts or shadows are, yeah, longing for the same. And I think there's also a scientific experiment where, like, people who lose a limb, like your body thinks that you can still control that limb.

And that's how the robotics can work, right? So all the nuance near that aspect makes your brain still controls it. So it's kind of like your soul, as long as it thinks that it still has that body part, you can somehow have that move it, like to be able to control or feel it. Yeah, it's called phantom limbs, okay? Phantom limbs, okay? Where, like, you lose actually your entire arm, but you still, at some level, think it's still there. It's really strange, okay?

But you can Google phantom limbs. It's a very common psychological thing, okay? But the idea is this, okay? The idea is that our souls, okay, our souls, they only long for one thing, which is the divine light, okay, to be closer to God, right? That's the divine light. That's what our souls aspire to, the divine light. But the problem is that we're inside bodies, okay?

And our bodies have senses. We just say, like, we have these different desires, like for food. sex, water. Okay? And so we become really confused. We don't know what brings us happiness. Is it lots of sex? Is it a Mercedes?

Is it wine? We just become really, really confused. And so that's why we do stupid things. But once we shed our bodies, then the souls only desire the divine light. Okay? Doesn't make sense. The problem of gluttony is,

is the memory of these things, our desire for these things, are still there. And we want to pay penance for this. So our souls engage in a process of eminciation, which is say denial of divine light in order to compensate for our gluttony on earth. So it's a conscious choice on our part to starve ourselves in order to pay penance for our glutton on earth and how this isn't works is the tree um helps us remember our bodies through sense right it gives it gives us the like the scent of food and we desire it but we're but we're souls we can't actually eat food and so we have this emissiation going on

doesn't make sense you guys okay and okay okay all Right, let's keep on going. 109. By now we've reached, the final turning we would meet and took the pathway right at which we were preoccupied with other cares. There from the wall, the mountain hurls its flames, but from the terrace side, there whirls a wind that pushes back the fire and limits it, thus on the open side, proceeding one by one we went.

I feared the fire on the left and on the right, the precipice. My guide said, on this terrace, it is best to curb your eyes, the leaves distraction left and right, left or right can mean a step you will regret. Then from the heart of that great conflagration I heard Sumei Dave's Clemenciae sung and was not less keen to turn my eyes, and I saw spirits walking in the flame so that I looked at them and at my steps sharing the time. I had to look at each. After they reached that hymns and virum nonconioso were the words they cried aloud. Then they began the hymn in a low voice again, and done again they cried. Diana kept the woods and banished Heliche after she'd felt.

the force of Venus's poison. Then they return to singing, and they praise aloud those wives and husbands who were chased as virtue and as matrimony mandate. This is, I think, the way these spirits act as long as they are burned by fire. This is the cure and this, the nourishment with which one has to heal the final wound of all. Okay, all right. So we'll go over by like five minutes. It's fine.

Okay. One last question is, they are now in the final terrorist, which is the terrorist of lust. What would fire Like stepping for fire Help cure you of lust Yes Um Because if you're a lustful person

You're kind of like Consumed by this like burning desire that you have For like other people's body And then So if you want to purify yourself You need to be burned You need to be

You need to be able to like withstand the burning fire To withstand your burning desire For like lust like lust. Okay, that makes sense for hell, right? To be punished for your lust, for fire. But in purgatory, we want to prepare ourselves for heaven. We want to do penance and prepare ourselves for heaven. Is it like, because some of the times you're also like purified if you're like burned into like a very high temperature, like kind of like pottery and

stuff and I hear in purgatory you are purified through fire but then how you're just punished by being burned okay let yes uh I think um lust is not wrong but the people here they are kind of abusing the the pleasure or like the the power of lust so that they need to be they need to correct their um path okay all right yeah so so let's continue the ceramics metaphor okay Why do you have to put your ceramics into fire? To harden it, right? In hell, infernal, how are the lustful being punished? Yeah, because they are, you know, they're being whipped around, right?

Because they are not consistent. Because they are not hard enough, do you understand? They're not firm. You understand? So the fire, the entire point of fire is to make you firm, firm in your faith, firming your commitment, firm in your devotion, okay? That's what the fire is doing. Terrifying you, but also basically hardening you.

Okay? All right. So that's it. That's great. That's it for today. Any questions? Tomorrow, yes. One last question, Fred.

Just one quick question. There was a line that really confused me earlier this morning, which is you feel delight as nature fashioned you to feel. Is this Dante saying that some people are more ready to experience? experience the love of God while they're alive than others. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. Okay. In Dante, nature and God has the same thing.

Nature and God are not the same thing. It's really important for us to remember this because in Shakespeare, the same thing. We talked to this yesterday, right? Where Professor Baum was saying, well, nature, naturalistic. I'm like, yeah, but is your God? It's like, well, naturalistic, right? So in our world, in Shakespeare world, nature is God. But in Donny's world, it's different because nature gives us

us our bodies, but God gives us our soul. You understand? So the soul aspires to divine light, but the body aspires to material pleasures. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. All right. Thanks, guys.

So tomorrow is the last class. And so, yeah. So think of how this course has changed you. And think about how the divine economy has impacted you. And I love the idea that you guys have more dreams. This would be really important for tomorrow's discussion. All right, I'll see you everyone tomorrow.