TrueLife - Dr. David Salomon - The Codex Chronicles; Margery Kempe

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Welcome to The Codex Chronicles… A professor’s Tale of Manuscripts.https://davidsalomonblog.wordpress.comhttps://cnu.edu/people/davidsalomon/Dr. David A. Salomon holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Connecticut and an MA from the City University of New York. A specialist in the literature, religion and culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance England, he most recently spent thirteen years as a professor of English at the Sage Colleges in Troy and Albany, NY. During his time there, he also served as chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages, director of general education, director of study abroad, chair of the Faculty Development Committee, faculty advisor for the student newspaper, and was the founding director of the Kathleen Donnelly Center for Undergraduate Research. He joined CNU as the inaugural Director of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity in September 2017.His book on the medieval glossed Bible was published by the University of Wales Press in 2013. In 2015, he co-edited and co-authored a monograph, Redefining the Paradigm, which discussed new models for faculty evaluation to improve student learning. His new book, The Seven Deadly Sins: How Sin Influenced the West from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era, was published by Praeger in April 2019. He has published essays on everything from medieval mysticism to anger in the Bible, and has given presentations on teaching and faculty evaluation models at conferences, such as the Teaching Professor and the annual AACU Conference. Medieval manuscripts are perceived differently by the human senses compared to common text today, offering a unique and multisensory experience: 1. Visual Aesthetics: Medieval manuscripts, often handwritten and lavishly decorated, showcase intricate calligraphy, elaborate illustrations, and vibrant colors. The visual aesthetics of these manuscripts evoke a sense of artistry and craftsmanship that is distinct from modern printed text. 2. Tactile Sensation: The parchment or vellum used for medieval manuscripts provides a tactile experience as one feels the texture of the material beneath their fingers. This physical interaction with the medium adds a sensory dimension to reading and handling these historical texts. 3. Aged Scent: Over time, medieval manuscripts develop a distinct aroma, carrying the scent of antiquity. This aged smell can evoke a feeling of connection to the past and contribute to the overall sensory experience. 4. Historical Connection: Reading medieval manuscripts allows individuals to connect with the past in a way that digital or modern printed texts cannot replicate. The physicality of holding an ancient document establishes a direct link to the historical era in which it was created. 5. Auditory Silence: Unlike the electronic devices that accompany much of modern reading, medieval manuscripts invite a quieter environment for exploration. The absence of electronic buzz allows readers to immerse themselves in the silence of the written word. 6. Cultural Imagination: The experience of reading medieval manuscripts transports readers into a different cultural mindset, understanding the context in which these texts were written, interpreted, and appreciated. 7. Spiritual and Mystical Essence: For manuscripts related to religion and mysticism, the act of reading becomes a spiritual journey, as the physicality of the text and the esoteric content converge to create a unique spiritual experience.In summary, medieval manuscripts offer a multisensory encounter that goes beyond the mere act of reading. The visual aesthetics, tactile sensation, historical connection, and spiritual essence create a captivating journey that connects readers to both the words on the page and the distant world from which they emerged. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I have an incredible individual, the one and only Dr. David Solomon. a true embodiment of creativity in its most extraordinary form. Dr. David's element, we are getting me into some really interesting topics here.

The Codex Chronicles, The Life of Marjorie Camp. Yeah. I'm so excited to have you. Thank you. Yeah. Maybe you can explain to people where you were coming from and what you got going on. Sure. So I'm currently the direct.

Director of Student Research and Creative Activity, Christopher Newport University in Virginia, and I've been a professor of medieval literature, religion, and culture for about 30 years. Really started my studies in graduate school by looking at mysticism, specifically focused on the English mystics. And what we're discussing in this sort of arc of podcasts for a few weeks here are various mystics. Today we're talking about the Book of Marjorie Kemp. So I do have a little bit of echo on my side, David. Okay. So I'm going to throw it back to you and lean on you for this particular podcast here.

No problem. So let me just begin with the question. Marjorie Kim. Who is she and what makes her unique in the world of mysticism? No, it's a great question because she's an interesting figure. So she lives in the late 14th century in England, born around 1373, died around 1433. And kind of an unremarkable woman by birth. She marries a guy named John Kemp.

And then almost immediately, once they get married and after she has her first child, she experiences a kind of mental breakdown. And I say first child, she had 14 children. And so after the first child's born, she experiences what we probably would call now, postpartum depression or some psychologists, even postpartum psychosis. It takes about a year for her to recover, and she devotes herself to God at that point after she has a vision of Jesus. And it sets her up for a very interesting life thereafter, which culminates finally in what is probably the first autobiography in the English language that we have, which is called the

Book of Marjorie Kemp, which ironically, she probably didn't write. And we can talk about that a little bit. But she went on to become really infamous in her lifetime, traveling quite a bit, and not very much appreciated by locals, aka most men, because they were concerned that she was exerting power that would basically influence their wives and daughters in a negative way as far as patriarchy and obedience, questions of authority. Really, I think, you know, one of the most important issues in this whole question of Marjorie Kemp is the question of voices, and we'll talk about that a little bit.

But let me explain a little bit why I say she probably didn't write the book before we actually get into talking about the text. She went along throughout her life having these experiences, what now we would term mystical experiences, which when you look back at the text, some of them are questionable. There's a question about whether or not she had epilepsy. There's a question at one point about whether or not she was experiencing a bout of appendicitis with the way that she describes her physical pain. And she is convinced that her story should be written down really in the last years of her life. but as she claims in the book, she was illiterate.

We don't know what that means. It may be true. It may not be true. There are some questionable things in her account of her life that sort of begged the question of whether she could read. But she claims that she couldn't read or write. And so the first person that she narrates her story to, she describes him as an Englishman who lived in Germany. It was probably her son, but he died, unfortunately, before she can complete the work. And then it was taken up by a priest who said that the work was so badly written by the

previous writer that he had to start all over again. And during the course of his trying to write down her story, he was discouraged because he had heard some bad gossip about her and was worried about its effect on him, so he delayed working on the project for about four years. And he directed Marjorie Kemp to a third man who had at one time been in correspondence with the first man, maybe her son, and that scribe couldn't understand the text. So he couldn't do anything with it. So the priest now began to suffer some feelings of guilt, prayed to God to be able to understand the work, says that he was miraculously then,

able to complete the book, and that's where it comes down to. So we really are, again, talking about the question of an amanuensis, a scribe, who listens to someone's words and writes down what they say. But we are more than probably any other text that we have in English dealing with the telephone story here. And what's the true story here? We don't know. because it's come down through so many different hands and been told to so many different people that we're not really sure what the original story is. There's only one manuscript that survives of the work. I'm written by a scribe named Salt House in the 15th century.

And the book was largely lost. We knew it existed because it had been mentioned in other places, but it was largely lost until the 1930s. when an English scholar named Hope Emily Allen discovered it in a library in England, and it was then published in the late 1930s. And we have the Middle English edition, and then we have multiple translations into modern English. The Barry Windy, which is the Penguin, I think, is one of the most readable for non-academic. And it's a really intriguing story. So if I'm not echoing through your head too much.

No, it's a beautiful story. And I think it's important to understand the, the let me just start with one of the questions I have right here. That kind of gets in deep. What do you think of the relationship between Marjorie Kemp's personal experiences and the broader themes of divine love and the quest for spiritual truth? in her work. It's interesting because again, you know, we don't,

you know, as far as her personal experiences are concerned, it's kind of tough to look at this because we don't know how much of it's actually true. You know,

now that said, when I deal with this text with my students, I always say, well, you know, so we have to acknowledge that that's a problem with the text.

And we have to put that in a drawer and put it away because all we have is the text. We have nothing. nothing else. So we have nothing else to go on. We can read it with the assumption that it may or might not be true, but we don't have choice to other than to accept it because it's the only version of the story that we have. I do think that there is a really intriguing story to be told here in her work, which is the, and it's so completely different from the text we talked about last week in the cloud of unknowing. Because Marjorie's approach to things really is the polar opposite. She is engaged in what's called effective piety. Effective piety is the emotion that is evoked in an individual connected to their devotion.

The cloud of a knowing author really wants to put that completely away and not have really any emotion, any intellect, just leave yourself open to the experience. the unknowing. Marjorie is experiencing the divine in a very personal, very physical way, whether that is her physical health, which is greatly affected by her visions, or just the fact that she is, you know, we used to joke about her in graduate school. We always called her the wailing woman because on every other page, she's crying. And she's crying as a result, as a response to those experiences that she's having. And, you know, the interesting thing here is that what we're really looking at is a study in how a mystical experience affects the interior of an individual.

And by that, I mean not just her physical health, but her mental health. You know, a lot of folks have dismissed her as being hysterical. She's a hysteric. And for the those who know, you know, that word hysteria is a Greek word that is only applied to women because hyster is the same is the word for womb, hysterectomy. And so if you're hysterical, you were a woman. And it was used as a diagnosis, a psychological diagnosis, well until the 19th century in diagnosing women. And a lot of people would look at Marjorie and say, well, she's a hysteric. She's just hysterical and we just dismiss it. But what's happened really in the last 30 years is this incredible cottage industry in medieval studies in literature and religion is looking at Marjorie instead as really a proto-feminist.

And she really has gained a lot of ground when it comes to that. And there's volume after volume study after study of her as a feminist. And moving away from looking at her and dismissing her is just, oh, she's hysterical. it seems that it's not uncommon that in the world of religion the people who have the mystical experience are often looked down upon the people that wish they had the mystical experience and that time it could be you could see that women and women's role being that yeah yeah i mean i i i think part you know there is an aspect of that that that um that comes from jealousy right but there's also an a big aspect of that that comes especially in marjorie's story from fear because one of the great fears was that people were having these kinds of experiences were possessed by the devil, that it was the devil trying to fool them and fool others around them by giving them these experiences. And she's worried about this throughout her book,

talking about being, and that's one of the early reasons why she says she didn't tell anybody, which is often the case in a lot of these mystical passages that we say, these mystical works that we find the person, experiencing it is afraid to tell anyone because they're afraid what the reaction is going to be. Because remember in the Middle Ages, if you were deemed as quote unquote crazy, that meant by extension you were possessed by the devil, which meant that the devil had gotten literally into your head. And the big treatment for getting the devil out of your head was to bore a hole in your head,

to let the spirit, the bad spirit escape so that you. your soul could be saved. And so, you know, there is danger, really actual physical danger to saying, oh, you know, I saw God last night and he came down and talked to me because you might be thought to be possessed and that may be what happened. You know, I went through the text this morning and just, you know, pulled out a couple of particular passages that I thought might be helpful for those folks who haven't, who aren't familiar with the text, and I hope you'll indulge me, and I'll read a couple of things here, if that's okay. So, I mean, right in the opening, the chapter, the book begins in the middle of her life. We know nothing about her youth, her childhood. It begins when she's

20 years old. The opening line is when this creature was 20 years of age. And she refers to herself often as this creature. It's not written in first, person. It's written in third person. And she refers to herself as this creature. And that's a sign of humility, right? To be sure. But she talks about the fact that, you know, once her first child was born, and I'm quoting the text here, this creature went out of her mind and was amazingly disturbed and tormented with spirits for half a year, eight weeks and odd days. In this time she saw, as she thought, devils opening their mouths all light with burning flames of fire. And she engages then in this physical abuse, self-abuse, because she thinks she's possessed by the devil.

She tears at her skin until her skin is raw. In fact, at one point, her husband has to essentially lock her up because he's afraid she's just going to kill herself by hurting herself. self. And it's at that point when she tells us that Jesus appeared to her in a vision. And he says to her, the first thing he says in the book is, Daughter, why have you forsaken me? And I never forsook you. And as soon as she hears these words, she tells us, the air opened as bright as any lightning. right she has the light experience of seeing the divine of conversing with the divine and all of a sudden she's she seems healed she's she's no longer acting insane um and her husband of course is is completely confused by this doesn't understand what's going on with her throughout the work he seemed

very devoted to her. She is not a wallflower. In fact, she is a successful businesswoman in her town. For a while, she has a brewery, and it's a successful brewery. It's one of the greatest ones we're told in the town that she had. At another point, she had horses at a horse mill. And all of this was successful. Which, you know, it begs the question then about the relationship she has with her husband.

Because women didn't do this at this time, as far as we know. And, you know, it had to have no doubt confused the relationship. Because eventually then, she says to her husband, as a result of her visions and what she's experiencing, she does not want to have sex with him any longer. She asks for a chaste marriage. She wants to stay married to him. She loves him, but she long longer wants to have sex. And his initial response to this is, no way, I'm not doing that.

He refuses. She begins to engage in a more. more bodily penance than she ever had. She does extreme fasting. She wears a hair shirt every day. And during that time, she actually bore him more children, she says, in the book. So they continued to have sexual relations. She continued to get pregnant, even though she was going through all these penitential experiences of, you know,

this extraordinary fasting and physical punishment. the really intriguing thing then is that when she says, I don't want to have sex anymore, his response is, you know, I don't accept that. And later on, she explicitly says to him, well, he asks her, he says, Marjorie, if there came a man with a sword who would strike off my head unless I made love with you as I used to do before, tell me on your conscience whether you would allow my head to be cut off or else allow me to make love with you again as I did at one time. Because now at this point she's refusing to have sex with her. Alas, sir, she says, why are you raising this matter? We've been chased for these past eight weeks. He says, I want to know what the truth is in your heart. She says, truly, I would rather see you being killed than that we should turn back to our uncleanness.

And he has the greatest response. He says, and I quote, you are no good wife. It's a great answer. It's a great answer. So, you know, she says, I would like to have this vow of chastity. And she asked him, she says, I want to go to the bishop because the bishop can officially grant us this vow. of chastity. We'll stay married, but we will have a chaste marriage. He says, no, I'm not going to do that because now I can have sex with you and it's not a mortal sin. But if the bishop granted this

and we had sex, it would be a mortal sin because I'd be breaking the church's vow. And this goes on for a while. It's an interesting part of their story, to be sure. But, you know, it's more than that because eventually they do get the vow. He agrees. It takes quite a while for this to happen. I'm just looking for the spot here. Well, before that occurs, she says that she wants to go on pilgrimages. She said, God has forgiven her her sin.

She wants to go to the places where God was born, where he suffered his passion, where he died, and other holy places. Now, in the Middle Ages, making a pilgrimage was an important part of the Christian life. You know, folks know the Canterbury tales. It's about a pilgrimage to Canterbury to the monument to Thomas Abackett. The three big pilgrimage sites in the Middle Ages were Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Campa Stella, which is on the northern coast of Portugal. And she wanted to go to those. She had money because, as I say, she had successive businesses,

but her husband wouldn't give it to her. So she wanted to go to these places, and she says, you know, I don't have any money. Actually, God in a vision comes and says, I want you to go to these three spots, Rome, Jerusalem, Santiago, the Campostela. her response is, I don't have any money to go. How am I going to get money? And God responds in a vision to her, I'm going to send you enough friends along the way that they will help you. And she ends up going on these pilgrimages. And she is not well accepted in the towns that she visits. Most often she is feared by the men. So one example,

is when she gets to, I believe it's the town of Lester in England, and she has now, by this point, taken up the practice of wearing all white. And the mayor of the town approaches her when she gets there. He says, I want to know why you go about in white clothes, for I believe you've come here to lure away our wives from us and lead them off with you. essentially they believe that she's what now we would call a cult leader right um and the mayor eventually just just wants her to leave that's what ultimately happens because they as she goes from town to town they accuse her of heresy several times she's actually put on trial they

can't find her guilty and so the men ultimately their ultimate judgment is just go away we don't want you here anymore. They feared her and and as a result, you know, she is constantly kind of on the move. Probably the most significant passage in the book is chapter 35 of book one when God basically asked her to marry him. So I'll read this passage if you don't mind. So as this creature, again, she refers to herself as a creature, was in the Church of the Holy Apostles at Rome on St. Latrin's Day. The Father of Heaven said to her, daughter, I am well pleased with you, in as much as you believe in all the sacraments of Holy Church and in all faith involved in that.

And especially because you believed in the manhood of my son, and because of the great compassion for his bitter passion. The father also said to this creature, Daughter, I will have you wedded to my Godhead because I shall show you my secrets and my counsels, for you shall live with me without end. Then this creature kept silence in her soul, did not answer to this because...

Are we back? Yeah, we're back. I lost you four seconds. And she had no knowledge of the conversation of the Godhead, for all her love and affection were fixed on the... manhood of Christ and of that she did have knowledge I would not be parted from that for anything so there's a good deal in in marjorie's book about her devotion to jesus christ to christ the man and it's i think it's part of her effective piety her focus on the physical

that when the father comes to her god the father comes to her and says these things she doesn't know how to react. She is used to the vision of Jesus and talking to the divine spirit is something which is essentially foreign to her. She eventually, as I say, makes these pilgrimages. And the last part of the book deals with a journey when she was going to Canterbury. and finally returns home her husband is ill she takes care of him as he dies and as far as we understand her book was finished before she died and she died rather unceremoniously we're unsure of what but she has continued to live on she is remembered in the church of england There's a commemoration for her on November 9th.

And she's remembered by the Episcopal Church in the United States on November 9th as well. There is a memorial set to her in the town of Kings Lynn, which is where she lived. I have not seen it, but there's a bench there that was unveiled just a few years ago that was dedicated to her, commemorates her. there is a society, there are statues, and people are probably reading her more now than they ever have, as we approach in about 10 years, the 100th anniversary of the rediscovery of the book. It was rediscovered in 1934. So I'm sure we'll be gearing up for a lot of centenary events related to Marjorie. Absolutely. How do you think Marjorie Kim's emphasis on physical manifestations of devotion challenge conventional notions of spiritual experience and the separation of body and soul?

Yeah. Well, very much, because I said earlier, you know, polar opposite from what the cloud of unknowing is asking. a real focus here on physical, the physical experience of the divine. This isn't necessarily only a spiritual or intellectual experience. This is a physical one. And we see that then, you know, there's a tradition of it, to be sure. I mean, you know, we have to go back to Francis of Assisi and folks like that to look at the physical effect of God's, of a vision of. of the divine. But what's different here, of course, is that she's a woman.

And that throws a whole different light onto things. Because we could expect that in her text, she would be devoted to Mary and be connected to Mary. And although Mary is mentioned, the connection that she has is to Jesus, which is quite different. I believe a cat has just knocked something over in your room. I know that sound, having two cats of my own.

And that's a very different thing. You know, so throughout the Middle Ages and throughout the history of Christianity, there has been something called the imitatio Christi, right? The imitation of Christ. There's a famous book called The Imitation of Christ, written by Thomas Acampus. And basically, the the imitation of Christ is a small handbook on how men, but really all people, all Christians, were to live their lives in imitation of Jesus. And it's down to physical stuff, how you're supposed to stand, how you're supposed to hold yourself,

and et cetera, et cetera. By the time we get to the early Middle Ages, I would say probably the 13th century, 14th century, as women become more important and more significant in society, particularly in England, but really all throughout continental Europe, a parallel text pops up called the imitatia Maria, imitation of Mary. We don't know how much about it. We don't understand the history of it. There's some debate about its authenticity. but I always, I appreciate that text as a kind of parallel text to the imitation of Christ because here was a handbook for women.

And we think that it became particularly popular once Mary was elevated in the church to Queen of Heaven, because now women had a role model as well. But all that said, again, when we go back to Marjorie, her role model is, not Mary. And it's not even that Jesus is a role model for her. It's that she is devoted. She feels wedded to God. And, you know, that tradition is something which in the Catholic Church, of course, we see to this day with most orders of nuns who do take wedding vows. When they take their final vows, they become wedded to Jesus.

And, you know, if you, if you bump into older nuns, as one does, you know, have a look and you'll see they're wearing a wedding ring because they're married to Jesus. Yeah, I've never noticed that before. Yeah. It's interesting to think the way in which still checking my sound here.

In some ways, I think the echo works with the mysticism we're talking about. So we've talked a little bit about the evolution of her work over time. It's interesting to see that relationship change. How it was kind of morphed into feminism now. Yeah. Maybe it was always a form of feminism and the way it was looked upon then. Yeah, maybe.

I mean, you know, it's interesting because there's a sort of tradition in medieval literature, which has just been teased out in the last few decades, really, with the new way of feminism of looking at characters like Chaucer's wife of Bath Marjorie Camp Julian of Norwich who we'll talk about in a couple of weeks

another English mystic these female figures and really reframing their position in our canon and in history you know it would be an interesting study

to go back and look at the reception of the book of Marjorie Kemp in the 1930s and 40s. I don't know how it was received, to be honest, when it was first published, and how it's looked at now. It is a book which I don't think is read as often as a devotional handbook, certainly not in the same way as Julian of Norwich is, who was very, very popular in devotional circles. I think Marjorie Kemp is largely studied by academics now. So in some ways, you can almost see the echoes of the threat the same way I can hear the echoes of my voice in my headphones. You know, can it be that reimagining what happened or reinterpreting what happened can change the future going forward of religion? Might that be dangerous? It can be dangerous.

I think that's what a lot of the folks feared about her when she was alive, is that it could reframe and refocus what religion and what Christianity meant going forward. You know, you talk about the echo that you're hearing. I mean, you know, it's interesting because as I mentioned when we first started, I mean, really this is that this is a question about voices, right? I mean, she hears voices, the question of, about her voice and what that means because it's it's it's somewhat difficult to hear her in this book because of the way that it's written and because we know that it's been written down and

and passed through it's only men so what have they done to it what have they changed we haven't got any idea i mean there is a chapter in which the the writer slash marjorie suggests that maybe she had epilepsy. Now, was that Marjorie talking or was that a man later on making that judgment and inserting it in the text? We have no idea. You know, we've talked often about the fact that in our, you know, rational, modern world, we want to look for a reason for everything. And, you know, one of the interesting things that's happened in the past few decades, especially when it comes to the female mystics, is a, a kind of spat of interesting articles that have been published, oddly enough, in medical journals

that have looked at and trying to try to reinterpret their experiences in terms of pathology. We've seen it with Marjorie, we've seen it with Julian, we've seen it with Hildegarde of Bingham, who had visions and who, you know, a lot of those visions have been discounted by modern medicine as, oh, well, the woman had migraines, right? what she's describing as a migraine headache. Yeah, but which came first, right? Did the vision, the divine vision and her mystical experience induce a migraine headache or did the migraine headache present itself as a mystical vision?

Who knows? We don't know. But again, you know, we, because we talk about that today, right? I mean, anybody out there who's listening who gets migraines, you know, we talk. about, you know, one of the first indications that you're getting one is you see the aura, right? Well, I mean, in the Middle Ages, that was a mystical experience. Right? It wasn't a reason to take an accedron. It was a reason to, you know, go to church and say, oh my gosh, you know, God is talking to me. Let me talk to my priest. And I think that

probably as with a migraine headache, that experience is pretty damn scary. You know, I mean, just think about that. You know, for folks who do get, you know, and I get migraines, I don't know if you do, George. Yeah, I mean, you know. I mean, when you experience that, it's horrible. And you're, you know, I know, I know oftentimes if I get one,

a bad one, you start to wonder, you know, am I ever going to get rid of this? This is just going to be the way it is now. And, I mean, think about a mystical experience being that kind of situation where, you know, you can't close your eyes without having a vision of the divine. Or, you know, I mean, Julian of Norwich, as I say, we'll talk about in two weeks because next week I think we'll do Richard Roll. Julian, I mean, tells us in her book about, you know, she was laying on her bed and God came down and sat on her bed and talked to her. I mean, you know, today we would say, I mean, somebody came in and told you that. You say, oh, you know, here's the number for my therapist.

Because we don't understand. We don't believe that that can happen. And, you know, as Carl Young said, you know, to believe that only the physical is what's real is just really just stupid. There's more to existence than that. Yeah. I think it's scary to people in the positions of authority, too. Imagine tons of people. tons of people with this incredible imagination running around

that are saying, I am a divine God, I can do all these miracles. Yeah. You don't want that. That's hard to get that person in a factory. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that was, and that's really, I mean, you know, authority is such an issue throughout the history of organized religion, right? I mean, organized religion is about authority and having authority over others.

And, you know, one of the, I mean, as we've talked about, one of the great revolutions is the printing press because, you know, it relieves people of authority because now I can read the text myself. And I'll decide what it means on my own. I don't have to listen to you. And that for people who are in authority who want to be in authority is an incredibly dangerous thing, right? You know, it's what leads to fascist governments, doesn't it? You know, I mean, it really does. I mean, I was reading there are a couple of new books out, apparently, about David Koresh and the Waco incident in the early 90s. I was reading there's a review in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago.

I was just reading it this morning. It was very interesting. I mean, I didn't know some of those things about what went on out there and how he came to do what he did and sort of hunkered down with these people. I mean, it's an offshoot of the seventh-day Adventists. And it's a very interesting story. But you know, you can see how. And of course, you know, the truth when it comes to the Waco incident is fuzzy at best. Sure.

But you can see how the government came in and said, you know, we're not, you know, this is dangerous. Now, the justification was apparently they thought they were building up arms illegally and selling illegal. arms. But I mean, who knows? You know, I mean, it's the old thing about, you know, if Jesus Christ actually did come back, who would believe him? You know, I mean, I don't know. You know, there's a great line in a, what was it? Oh, it's in a Woody Allen film in, it's in Hannah or sisters, I think, where one of the characters says, you know, if Jesus came back, he, he wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't stop throwing up at what he what he's seeing it just would be disgusting to him um but i mean you know it really speaks to something about how we approach and regard people who claim to have had these experiences and again you can see why they are so hesitant to to share that because you could then become the target of unbelievable ridicule and because we just don't we don't we don't

really deal with that very well. I mean, I think I've told you the story about my French teacher when I was in high school, most devout woman I've ever met, and her devoutness just baffled me. I admired it. I didn't understand it. I really didn't. But I admired it.

And it just baffled me, though. How could you be this devout and this committed, given what's going on in the world? and then for her individually, what ended up happening with her? I mean, I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. I mean, she was a French teacher, excellent, amazing teacher. I believe she had been a nun when she was younger, but we only found this out years, years later.

She was living with her mother when I first met her. Her mother became very, very ill. She committed to taking care of her. So her mother stayed living in the house. I used to go over there in a hospital bed. And she nursed her for a couple of years, never married. And then her mother passed and she, quote unquote, got on with her life. She had retired from teaching by then.

She met a man, fell in love. They got married. And six months later, she got breast cancer. and within a year she was dead. And so as someone who is intrigued by the question of devotion and questions of religion, watching this woman was just incredible to me. She remained devout to the end. But, I mean, how?

Given what she had gone through, wouldn't that cause someone, to question if not completely give up their faith. I don't know. You know, I'm sure there are people who are listening would say, no, that would just reinforce it. I don't know if it would for me. I really don't. It's a beautiful question.

And I think it harkens back even all the way to Marjorie Kim. What is this power, be it religion or mysticism? What is this power of belief, devotion, and divinity that scares so many people? It's like it can bring us together or set the world on fire or both. Yeah, well, I mean, it reminds me of going back to the Old Testament where, you know, no one saw God, right? If you saw God, it meant you died. That was the only way you could see God was to die. And so, you know, the fact that there are several Old Testament.

figures who, you know, claim to have had that kind of communion with God and seen God. I mean, that they're few and far between. And, you know, even when Moses goes up to Mount Sinai, he doesn't see God. God presents himself to him in a burning bush. He hears God, but he doesn't see God because there's an unwritten or written rule really throughout the Old Testament that if you see God, it means you're going to die. And I think that part of it is, you know, something it's related to what we've talked about before, which is because God not just as an idea, but as an entity is ineffable.

It's beyond our imagination, beyond our words, beyond our language, beyond description. and so there's something awful, and I'm hyphenated that word, well said, full of awe, about that experience that, you know, quite literally, you know, knocks people on their ass. And it can be really, I think, really frightening to experience that. I mean, you know, we've talked about it before. I mean, I was, years ago, I was standing in a synagogue on, on Russia Shana and I could have sworn I heard my grandmother over my shoulder.

And so much so that I stopped, I turned around. I mean, it was the most incredible experience. And it was scary. It was scary to think that, to think either that it was real and it was her voice and she was speaking to me. or by the same token that it wasn't, and it was a quote unquote voice in my head, and what does that mean about me? Right.

You know, so I think that there's so much about this that becomes just confusing for people. But it's part of what, I mean, you know, George, I think it's what so much of your podcast is devoted to is, you know, when it comes to psychic experience, we don't really understand what the hell is going on. still, right? We don't get it. And we probably never will. And in some ways, I hope we don't. It's something about the mystery of existence. It's some, you know, there's a reason why, you know,

the book of Marjorie Kemp is so damn interesting is because we don't know. You know, did it really happen? Is it true? How much of it's true? You know, it, so for the devout, I would think that reading it would be a solve, right, a bomb to say, oh, yes, you can have this kind of experience and isn't it wonderful and isn't it beautiful? Whereas, you know, if I bring this over to my colleagues in the psych department, they're going to try to psychoanalyze her and, you know, write it up according to the DSM and figure out what meds to put her on. And I think that's the way people often deal with these experiences today. Because we don't understand them and we are afraid of them.

You know, we hear all the time, right? I mean, in the literature, and I'm sure that you talk with folks, you know, who quote-unquote hear voices, right? Now, that for us in the modern world has become a euphemism from being schizophrenic. But look at a mystical experience. person has that, they are hearing voices. And do we just discount that and say, well, it's a psychological pathology. There's something wrong with them. I don't know.

That's the problem, I think, is that people stop listening to the voices. What about the voice of inspiration? What about the voice of mystery? What about the artistic whisper that comes to you on the North Wind? Like all these divine forms of inspiration. all of these small echoes that you can hear in the back of your mind. Yeah. It's fascinating to me.

And I think that that is the very foundation of what is possible in reality. It begins with the voice, whether it's Marjorie Kemp or whether it's your aunt on Rochechishana or a voice you hear in the bathtub on some idle Tuesday at midnight. It can be from any place. I mean, you know, and probably one of the best traditions that embraces that is, is the various Native American spiritual traditions, which, you know, we'll say, you know, what is the wind saying? Right? I mean, you know, listening to, you know, what does the water say?

It's really listening to what's out there and listening to those various voices. I think there's certainly a significant place for that in our culture that we seem to have lost in the name of rationality. Yeah, it's all over the length. It's like a babbling brook. Yeah. Or a babbling person on a podcast. Yeah, I mean, you know, we do talk about, you know, we have those those, those, those euphemisms, those those turns or phrase that are really, really kind of interesting, aren't they?

Yeah, I think 100%. It's interesting to think, too, in today's world, someone may be considered a schizophrenic if they hear voices. And even in medieval times, Marjorie Kemp was an outsider. She was someone who was cast aside. It's weird how even we get this far away, things still remain the same. Well, I think because a lot of it is we don't understand the psychic experience. Right. Right. We don't get that.

We don't know how to deal with it. Right. We don't know how to deal with it as individuals if we have them, and we don't know how to deal with them when they're experienced by other individuals. and if they claim them. You know, it's why last week when we were talking, I said, you know, no one's going to put on their tax return that their occupation is a mystic, right?

I mean, it just because, and I think there is something to that because, and Marjorie experiences that as well, is there's a humility involved, right? I don't, I'm not bragging to people that I, that I have this, had this experience. I mean, we'll talk about Richard Roll next week, and he talks about that in his book, is, you know, not going out and saying, you know, holding, up a flag and saying, hey, look at me, I, I talk to God, which is why, you know, so many folks today are put off by the so-called religious folks who do claim that, right? And I'm not just talking about the 2am TV, but, you know, the, the, the things that you hear about where

you have a leader, again, like David Koresh, who claimed to have, you know, some inside knowledge and inside experience. But really what we're taught really throughout all religious traditions and all spiritual traditions is humility is the most important thing. And so if you did have that experience, you wouldn't really talk about it. It's interesting. You know, we spoke previously about trying to describe the ineffable or God or when you saw God, it might mean you were going to die. In some ways, we can still see echoes of that in the Muslim tradition,

while you're forbidden to draw. Right. Images, yep. Yeah, right, it's similar. Yeah, yeah, it's very, I mean, you know, and to this day in Judaism, you know, not writing the name of God, right? I mean, Orthodox, religious Jews will write G-D-G-D-G-D. because the idea is that you can't, you don't take God's name in vain, as it were.

And so, you know, there is something really interesting about that. And I was just reading, we've talked about Ginsburg's Legends of the Jews, and I was reading this section on Moses. And just this morning, actually, and there's a terrific paragraph about where God is explaining what his name is. And I'll read it. It says, Persuaded now of God's unalterable resolve to use him as his instrument in the redemption of Israel from Egypt, Moses entreated God to impart to him the knowledge of his great name, that he be not confounded if the children of Israel ask for it. Now we hear this in the Bible in Exodus, right? I mean, and Moses says, you know, who shall I say sent me?

and God says, you know, I am sent you. And so there's a lot about, you know, what is God's name? Well, here, I mean, in Ginsburg's book, he says, God answered saying, thou desires to know my name. My name is according to my acts. When I judge my creatures, I'm called Elohim, judge. When I rise up to do battle against the sinners, I am Lord Zebot, the Lord of hosts. When I wait with long-suffering patience for the improvement of the sinner, my name is El Shaddai. when I have mercy upon the world I am adenai but unto the children of Israel shalt I say that I am he that was that is and ever will be and I am he that is with them in their bondage now and he that shall be with them in the bondage of the time to come

you know and so there's a lot of discussion in in the religious literature particularly in the Hebrewic literature about the hundred names of God right that there isn't just one name and again you know we're getting at this, so what is God? You know, Augustine asked that question in his confessions, right? What does it mean? And we still don't know. I'm so drawn to the ideas of the mystical experience. It's so beautiful. And it's something that everybody can explore and do their best to make sense of. And I think in doing so, you make sense of your own life. Have you found it to be similar? Yeah, and as I say, I mean, I really prescribed to that bit from Young when he says, you know, to only believe that the physical is what's real is just ridiculous. There's a spiritual aspect to our existence that we should be embracing and we should be acknowledging and honoring. And instead, what we do too often, especially in our contemporary world, is it gets squelched in the name of, you know,

know, what's real. And only that. And so, you know, this comes in, as you mentioned earlier, with questions about inspiration, imagination. Right. You know, I mean, I have students who, you know, they're majoring in English literature, and they're reading fiction. And, you know, the work is dismissed by folks who are in STEM fields who say, you know, oh, well, that's, you know, that's just play, right?

It's not real. You're reading made up stories. What's, how is that helpful? And, you know, we talk all the time these days about the fact that science moves fast and humanities is always catching up. But we need the humanities to explain whether the things that science can do should be done. And I think, you know, when it comes to looking at the mystics, there's still some real validity to that when you look at it. As I say, if you take a look at some of the really interesting medical studies that have come out in the last few years, I mean, they're really intriguing. And they're like, okay, yeah, maybe.

We don't know. You know, you can't prove it any more than I can prove that, you know, Marjorie talked to God. You can't prove that she had migraines. You know, I mean, there's just no way. And I think that one of the, again, the mysteries of existence is that you could explain it as either way. Yeah, I agree. As someone who has studied the medieval mystics and has a burning passion for teaching people to see the world in such a creative way, do you see a new wave of mysticism, a new wave of imagination, making you? which way in the world today?

I'd like to say yes. I don't know. I mean, I think the opportunity is there. We certainly have the potential. But, you know, our humanity is so much about potential and whether or not we fulfill it. And it's up to us. So we make the decision about whether we're going to do that.

You know, one of the big discussions that's going on right now as we gear up for the new academic year is about artificial intelligence, right? And, you know, my colleagues are all just flipping out about chat GPT. We got to have a statement in our syllabi about, you know, whether you can use it, can you not use it, what does it mean? And a lot of the discussion, especially in the humanity circles, is that it will kill imagination because it just allows you to put in a question and it's going to give you the response. But, you know, I don't see it that way. And what I'm hoping is, I mean, you know, I wrote a statement for my syllabi that I'm using this semester.

But as I've said to my colleagues when, you know, we had a discussion about this and I showed them mine. and I said, you know, this is what I've come up with, but this is just for the moment until we get this sorted out because it's a tool that we're going to use. But, you know, one of the things, the closing statements and my statement on AI in the syllabus is please remember the primary objective of this course is to enhance your knowledge, skills,

and understanding of the subject matter. Embrace the learning experience. Challenge yourself. and seek help from the instructor if you encounter difficulties. Right? I mean, it's that learning experience. And for those who say, well, you know, chat EBT should be, you know, forbidden in the classroom. People protested when they wanted to use calculators.

Mathematicians picketed about it in the 80s. And, you know, we've got a whole movement now that's afoot. of removing cell phones from classrooms, that students shouldn't have cell phones in classrooms. It's like you're not going to be able to prevent this. You know, again, the genie's out of the bottle. You can't put it back in. So how are we going to deal with it? How can we use these things as tools that will help us to achieve that potential that we're talking about?

Because that's really what these, all these things are about. You know, the internet may be a horrible, horrible place, right? So how can we use it to help us achieve our potential as better, stronger, smarter human beings? That's the key. I think I have an answer. Yeah. So it seems to me we're entering into a new dimension, one where chat GPT as a tool works with us, not against us. Okay. And so instead of having a linear scale of A to P, the same way a 3D printer has an X or Y and a Z axis, so too should all schools have a Z axis when they're monitoring or they're grading their students. There should be a depth to the all grades that come out now. Maybe that should be a 3D, A or a 3D, however you want to make it. I love that.

But it should be, there should never be another boring paper ever written. If you have write a paper that's boring, you put that in a chat GPT and let chat GPT explain to you why it's boring and how to make it better. It should make our world just erupt with the flowers of rhetoric. The ways in which we can grade students now have evolved, the same way they can use chat GPT to spit out an answer. So too can teachers find ways to spit out a new test. And it should be dimensionality. Yeah. No, it's a great, it's a great idea. I mean, that's part of what I talked to with high school teachers about, you know, changing the way that we, that we grade and changing the way that we evaluate and assess work. You know, we're still largely doing it the same way that we did 100 years ago. And that's insane because the world has changed so much, right? I mean, how can we do that? It's just, it doesn't make any sense. But, but, you know, that's, that's, there's a lot of work involved in doing that. Right. Right. Um, right. Um, um, and. Um, um, um, And you need a lot of buy it.

You know, a lot of the blowback that I get from teachers when we talk about this is, well, the parents will never stand for it, right? The parents, the parents, the parents, the parents want, you know, because they're worried about kids getting into college. I mean, I talk about, you know, throw out grading. Don't use grades anymore. There's a whole process called ungrading. And they're like, that sounds wonderful.

The parents will kill us, right? Because they're worried about how the students are getting into college. And so they want them to have, you know, grades, grades, grades. But it's such a dangerous, a dangerous road. I mean, you know, I'm just looking at my syllabus. I mean, the statement right below what I read you is my grading guidelines. And the first thing it says is education is about more than grades. You know, that's what I say.

And then I say, unfortunately, grades are a necessary evil. And then, you know, I talk about the fact that, you know, I'll grade their work on a scale from A to F with pluses and minuses. And if at the end of the semester, the grade is teetering between two grades, that's where attendance and class participation become important. But I tell them, you know, right up front, I mean, I don't grade things numerically. I'm not using a calculator. I mean, I approach it holistically.

And for a lot of students, that makes them very uncomfortable. They're like, well, what does that mean? I said, well, I'm looking at all of your work holistically, what you've done over the course of the semester. Yes, this counted for so much, but I'm not plugging that into some kind of algorithm to figure out what your grade is then. And, you know, for students who are coming up through the system today, that's a little bit difficult for them because they're used to everything just is numbers. They're ready. Like, okay, imagine that chart. Imagine a parent looking, imagine a parent who desperately wants their kid to go to Harvard.

Okay, they're desperately looking for A's all the way through high test scores. What if you have an A versus another student who has like a A4 cube? And there's a depth chart that goes with it. Hey, how come this kid has an A4 cube? What does a four cube? Yeah. Well, that means all their stuff was original. Your kid did really good at repeating everything.

Congratulations. That would be a great factory worker. Yeah. They go to the best schools and they can maybe maybe even be a manager. Yeah. But this other kid over here, they have ideas that are original. Let's figure out how they get that. Yeah.

And then parents would want, hey, you need to get a four-cube. So the parents that think linear will be forced to branch out their horizons and begin to see things on an exponential level if the teachers train them that way. Yeah. No, that's great. I like that. I really love that idea. Well, I love talking to you. Well, I know I'm coming up on time here.

Yeah. I'm thoroughly and thankful for this whole conversation. I know it was a little challenging because of the echoes, but I think it played in well, and I'm kind of glad it happened. Well, I'm glad that it happened as well because I think George is having an experience here that we've got to investigate. Absolutely. I hope the listeners can investigate it as well. So before I let you go, please be kind of.

enough to tell people about the fabulous book that you've written called The Seven Deadly Sins, the new book you have coming up, where people can find you, what you have coming up and what you're excited about. Absolutely. So my website is David A. Solomon, S-A-O-M-O-M-O-N.com. And you can find links there to all my books and speaking stuff and consulting. The most recent book is a book on The Seven Deadly Sins. So it looks at the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins, really where they originated and then what it means today in our contemporary world, really stripped of religion and thinking about them more as ideas in our secular world. The new book, which probably will come out next year, is a book on angels and demons in pop culture. And what I'm excited about is we are gearing up for a new academic year.

and our freshmen will be moving in this weekend, so the campus will come to life. And I think that's always a fun time. And looking forward to getting back in the classroom myself and teaching my fall course. Well, fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, check out the show notes. Check out Dr. David Solomon.

His books are tremendous. And we'll be back next week with the Codex Chronicles. That's all we got. Aloha.