[Music]
that's a hell of a welcome for someone
who's gonna talk about the Bible so I
thought I would get farther than through
Genesis by by this point but I'm not
unhappy about the pace either I've
learned a tremendous amount and so
hopefully what we'll do today is finish
Genesis completely and then I think I'll
try to start up with Exodus in May
depending on what happens next year I
have a busy travel schedule and but I
would really like to do it I really like
the Exodus story and I understand it
very well a lot of the stories in
Genesis especially after the first few
stories say up to the Tower of Babel I
had to do a tremendous amount of
learning about which is really good but
I do know the Exodus story so I'm really
looking forward to that so so let's dive
right into it and see how far we can get
today so we'll review first so Joseph's
father is Jacob and Jacob is the
patriarch of Israel essentially that the
father of the twelve tribes and we might
remember that he had a very morally
ambivalent pathway through life and it's
one of the things that I think so
interesting about the stories in the in
the Old Testament is that these so
called patriarchal figures are very
realistic and it's something that I was
also being struck by that accounts in
the New Testament that way there's lots
of things that Christ does that you'd
think would have been edited out over
time and sanitized but they're not and
that the Old Testament is definitely not
a book that's been sanitized and that's
it
quite interesting that that's the case
so you sort of see people with all their
flaws and I've been trying to also
derive some general conclusions about
them the moral of the story of the
Genesis stories and because these
stories are fundamentally moral and
moral as far as I'm concerned has to do
with action right because moral
decisions are the decisions that you
make when you're structuring action when
you decide to do one thing or another
generally you want to do things that are
the best things that you can think of to
do and hence good but sometimes you also
want to do things that are they're worse
things you can do you know because
you're angry or resentful or bitter and
so the moral decisions that you make
that govern your actions are really the
most important decisions that you make
in your life and it's not that easy to
figure out how to make moral decisions
we don't have an unerring technology for
that the same way as we do for say
making decisions about empirical reality
which in some ways seem a lot simpler
partly because we can work collectively
at it partly because we have a rigorous
methodology for deciding what's true and
what's not so one of the things that's
really struck me like it's an
overarching theme I would say that the
emerges out of Genesis especially after
the really ancient stories say
especially after the stories of Cain and
Abel and Noah and the Tower of Babel
when you get to the accounts of the
historically or historically real people
one injunction seems to be get the hell
out there and do something you know one
of the major themes for all of the
patriarchs that we've talked about
Abraham say Jacob and Joseph is move out
into the world regardless of the
circumstances at hand now that's in in
in the Old Testament stories that's
basically portrayed as harkening to the
voice of God something like that maybe
you could think about
his destiny or a psychological calling
and the funny thing too is is that it's
not that these people have an easy time
of it when they heed that call so what's
what's fascinating is that they often
run into extreme difficulties right away
and I think that's very interesting
first of all because life is obviously
full of extreme difficulties and second
it's another example of the failure to
sugarcoat things which is one of the
things I think makes a mockery of anti
religious theories that are even quite
sophisticated say like Freud's because
Freud thought of religion as a and it
was a wish fulfillment essentially and
and also Marx who thought about religion
as the opiate of the masses it's if
those were true it seems to me that
there'd be a lot more wish and a lot
less reality a lot less stark harsh
reality you know in the first thing that
Abraham encounters is a famine and then
he has to hide his wife and then he he
basically journeys into a tyranny so
that's about as bad as it gets in some
ways and those themes recur continually
and no one ever lives where they're
supposed to live they'll even live in
Canaan and not the promised land and so
it's a pretty rough it's a pretty rough
series of stories but the fundamental
idea is something like there's no time
for sitting around there's time to go
out into the world and engage and then
there's there's hints about the proper
and improper ways of engaging right so
clearly the improper way to engage is I
think most clearly delineated in the
Cain and Abel story and with Cain
exemplifying the inappropriate way to
engage with the world and that's to
engage with the world in a bitter
jealous and resentful manner now one of
the things that I really like about the
Cain and Abel story and that theme
recurs continually with the with the
duality of the brothers right there's
there's constant conflict between a
perspective that's essentially like
Cain's and and the and the opposite
perspective which all which I'll get to
in a minute
but Caine sees that the world is a very
tragic place and that the rewards are
distributed unfairly and that there are
people who do better and people who do
worse and as a consequence of that he
becomes bitter and resentful and curses
God and then he becomes homicidal
fratricidal which is even worse than he
destroys his own ideal then his
descendants basically become genocide or
something like that so that seems to be
the wrong way to go about things you
know unless your goal is to make things
worse like it's not like it has a
limited number of things has nothing to
object to he's got plenty to object to
his situation actually is bad he's
overshadowed terribly by his brother who
everyone loves who does extraordinarily
well and who's good at everything and
the story is a bit of nivel inton for
Keynes failure although a fair bit of
its laid at his own feet
but he's definitely failing and so you
can understand why he would have this
terrible attitude
but the problem is all it does is make
it worse so it doesn't seem to be one of
the things I've also learned as a
psychologist sort of pondering these
sorts of things it's often a lot easier
to identify what you shouldn't do than
what you should do like it's I think
evil is easier to identify than good I
think good is trickier but evil stands
out to some degree and then at least you
can say if you're trying to get as far
away from that as possible we could even
say just for practical reasons so your
life doesn't become hell and your family
life doesn't become hell at least you
could get as far away from that as
possible even if you weren't able to
conjure up what would constitute the
good as a name you could at least avoid
those sorts of pitfalls and I do also
think that its pitfalls like that that
really threaten our society right now
you know that I see a tremendous rise in
resentment fueling almost all of the
political polarization that's taking
place and seems unfortunate given that
by and by large everyone on the planet
is richer than they've ever been
now that doesn't mean there's no
disparity there's but there's always
disparity anyways Jacob of course Jacob
on
see so and so the and Jacob ends up with
with with Isaac's blessing and so that's
that's a moral catastrophe and then he
has to run because his brother wants to
kill him
and so that's the fratricidal motif
again I like that too I think that's
real really realistic you know one of
the things that Freud noted constantly
and this is where Freud really is a
genius is that the most intense hatreds
and also sometimes the most intense love
is within families you know and in the
Freudian world of psychopathology it's
all it's all inside the family and in
fact the pathology in the Freudian world
is actually the fact that it's all
inside the family because people who get
tangled up in the Freudian familial
nightmare which is roughly eatable in
structure can only conceptualize the
world in terms of their familial
relationships they've been so damaged by
the enmeshment and the trauma and the
deceit and the betrayal and the blurred
lines and all of that that they just
can't expand past the family and go out
in the world so the idea that brothers
can be at each other's throats I think
is that's a very powerful idea and it's
not something that people like to think
about so so Jacob has to leave and it's
not surprising because I mean what he
did was pretty reprehensible he betrayed
his brother but nonetheless he's the
person who dreams of the ladder that
unites heaven and earth and that's a
very perverse thing you know what but
one of the things I think it does is
give in some sense it gives hope to
everyone because it isn't you know if
only the good guys win we're really in
trouble right because it's not that easy
to be a good guy it's it's it's really
not that easy and most people are pretty
keenly aware of all the ways that they
fall short even of their own ideals and
so if there was no hope except for the
good guys almost all of us would be lost
and so that's one of the things I really
liked and was more surprised about with
the Old Testament stories is that these
people are a very complex
and they make very major moral errors by
anyone's standard and yet if and yet the
overall message is still hopeful and the
the message that runs contrary to the
message of evil say that message of good
is something like well there's a lot of
emphasis on faith right and the that's a
tough one because cynics people who are
cynical about religious structures like
to think of faith as the willingness to
demolish your intellect in the service
of superstition and well there's there's
something to be said for that
perspective but not a lot because the
reality is much more sophisticated part
of the faith that's that that is being
insisted upon in the old testament is
something like and I'm speaking
psychologically here again that it's
useful to pause it a high high good and
to aim at it so and I really think
that's practically useful to the
research we've done with the Future
authoring program for example indicates
pretty clearly that if you get people to
conceptualize an ideal and a balanced
ideal you know so what do you want for
your family what do you want for your
career what do you want for your
education what do you want for your
character development how are you going
to use your time outside of work how are
you going to structure your use of drugs
and alcohol in places where you might
get impulsive how can you avoid falling
into a horrible pit if you really think
that through and you come up with an
integrated ideal and you you put it
above you as something to reach for
then you're more committed to the world
in a positive way and you're less
tormented by anxiety and uncertainty and
so and that makes sense right because
here you are alive and everything and so
unless you were capable if you're not
capable of manifesting some positive
relationship with the fact of your being
then how could that be anything other
than hellish because you it would just
be anxiety provoking and terrible
because you're vulnerable and there'd be
nothing useful or worthwhile to do well
that's just not I just can't see that as
a winning strategy for anyone you can
make a rational case for adopting that
strategy in that you know you can say
well there's no evidence for for a
transcendent morality or for an ultimate
meaning there's no hard empirical
evidence but it seems to me that there's
existential evidence as well that has to
be taken into account
and of course psych psychologists have
talked about this a lot Carl Rogers for
example in Hume for that matter Freud
for that matter most of the great
psychologists have pointed out that you
know you can derive reasonable
information that's that's solid from
your own experience especially if you
also talk to other people and you can
kind of see in your own life when you're
on a productive path that sort of in
Nobles and enlightens you or a
destructive path and I think it's kind
of useful to think that maybe the
dichotomy between those two paths might
be real you know and and because that
also allows you to give credence to your
intuitions about that sort of thing but
I don't anyways I don't think it's
unreasonable to posit that since you're
alive adopting the highest possible
regard for the fact that you're alive
and that you're surrounded by other
creatures that are alive I just can't
see how that can possibly be construed
as a losing strategy and so that's the
first thing so that's something like
faith right it's faith it's not it's not
only faith in your being but it's faith
in being as such and the faith would be
something like if you could orient your
being properly then maybe that would
orient you with being as such and you
never know like I mean it might be true
there's no reason to assume that it
wouldn't be true I mean even if you just
take a strict biological perspective on
this and think about us as the product
of three and a half billion years of
evolution I mean we have struggled over
all those billions of years to be alive
and to match ourselves with reality and
so because one of the things I've often
wondered is you know life is definitely
difficult there's no doubt about that
and that's unfair and there's inequality
and all of those things and people are
subject to all sorts of terrible things
but I also wonder if you weren't
actively striving to make things
worse just how much better could they be
you know because people are very they
like houses that are divided amongst
themselves they're pointing in six
different directions at the same time
they're working at cross-purposes to
themselves because of bitterness or
began and resentment and on what
unprocessed memories and childhood
hatreds and unexamined assumptions all
sorts of things and you you just gotta
wonder if you could push that aside and
or int yourself properly and then the
other thing that of course is stressed
very heavily in the Old Testament and of
course that goes through the entire
biblical corpus is that it's not only
enough to establish a positive
relationship with being which I think is
the essential it's a good description of
faith you have to make that decision
right because being is very ambivalent
and you can make the case that maybe
it's something that should have never
happened
but that doesn't seem to be productive
to me and faith seems to be I'm going to
act as if being is ultimately
justifiable and that if I partake in it
properly I will improve it rather than
making it worse so I think that's the
statement of faith and then what seems
to go along with that is something like
truth in conception and action you know
even people like Jacob who are pretty
damn morally ambivalent to begin with
get hammered a lot by what they go
through and what seems to happen is that
they're hammered into some sort of
ethical shape right so by the mid point
of their life's journey there are people
who are solidly planted who you can
trust and who don't betray being or
themselves or their fellow man and so
it's an interesting I mean it seems
reasonable to me to first assume that
you have to establish a relationship
with something that's transcendent it
might even be just the future version of
you but and then second that you have to
align yourself with reality in a
truthful manner and that that's your
best bet
and
the biblical stories are actually quite
realistic about that too because they
don't really say that if you do that
you're going to be instantly transported
to the promised land
like even Moses as we'll find out in the
Exodus stories he never makes it to the
Promised Land and so it's not like
you're offered instantaneous final
Redemption if you move out forthrightly
into the world establish a faithful
relationship with being an attempt to
conduct yourself with integrity but it's
your best bet and it might be good
enough and even if it's not good enough
it's really preferable to the
alternative which seems to be something
closely akin to hell both personal and
social so Joseph's father is Jacob later
Israel he who wrestles with God and
we've talked about that a little bit
it's sort of implicit and what I've been
saying is that I think we all do that to
some degree we wrestle with reality
itself that's for sure not only the
reality we understand but the reality we
don't understand which is sort of a
transcendent reality and then maybe
whatever reality is outside of that you
know because the classic judeo-christian
conception of God is that there's time
and space and of course there's lots of
things about what exists in time and
space that we're completely ignorant of
and that's transcendent in that sense
but then there's an idea that there's a
realm outside of that which is a well
it's an interesting idea it's a very
sophisticated idea I think rather than a
simple idea it's it's difficult to know
what to make of it but it doesn't really
matter because I think regardless of
what your attitude is towards those
sorts of things intellectually you still
end up in the same position as Jacob for
all intents and purposes practically
speaking because I don't think that
there's anyone who at some point in
their life or perhaps even everyday
doesn't at some level wrestle with God
and you could just call it well the
nature of reality I suppose if you want
to be say reductionistic about it but I
don't think it makes any difference it's
still something you're stuck with and
it's not only the nature of reality
itself that you
have to struggle with but it's also the
nature of your moral relationship to it
your behavioral relationship to it so
that's how you should perceive it and
how you should conduct yourself and then
whether or not the the advantages of
doing it properly are worth the
difficulty and the disadvantages so that
seems to me just a straight existential
statement then you know Jacob gets
damaged by his wrestling which is also
very realistic so anyways he also ends
up his father of Joseph who's the
favorite son son who's born in his old
age to his favorite wife and that's who
we're gonna talk about to you today so
you remember so Jacob is the forefather
of the twelve tribes of Israel and
there's his his wives and this son and
the offspring that resulted those are
all the sons there's a daughter named
Dinah as well and rachel is the woman he
really loved and the first son he had
with Rachel was Joseph and that was when
he was older and so that's in some sense
why Joseph is his favorite so this is
the beginning of the story of Joseph now
Israel Jacob loved Joseph more than all
his children because he was the son of
his old age and he made him a coat of
many colors and there's a lot packed
into those two sentences you know the
first is that now Israel loved Joseph
more than all his other children that's
probably not so good one of the things
we've seen in the stories that have
preceded this is that whenever there's
marked preference on the part of parents
for one child over the other and in with
with with with Jacob and Esau it was
Rachel was Jacob was Rachel's favorite
and ISA was Isaac's fav
that didn't work out so well that put a
real twist in the entire structure of
the family and so there's a warning
there right off the bat you might say
well you can't help having a preference
for one child or for another but I don't
know if that's true and it's certainly
something that you should be very
cautious about because it doesn't seem
to work out very well because he was the
son of his old age fair enough and he
made him a coat of many colors that's a
very interesting image that coat of many
colors that that idea and so I'm gonna
delve into that idea because it sets the
stage like it says what sort of person
Joseph is he's favored he's younger he's
favored but he also has this particular
garment that characterizes him you know
and one of the things I've really
learned from analyzing women's dreams in
particular is that women very frequently
in my experience very frequently dream
of clothing as a role and so if you're
interpreting women's dreams then if they
put on the shoes of their grandmother
for example then you understand very
rapidly that the dream is trying to make
an association between their own
behavior and something that's
characteristic of either the state of
being a grandmother or the particular
grandmother and it makes sense right
because clothing protects but it also
signifies a role and it's interesting in
in the Old Testament stories often if
someone is going to act deceitfully they
change their they change their outfit
and that's kind of what you do when you
act deceitfully right you dress up like
someone else you present yourself like
someone else so anyways back to the coat
of many colors well for something to be
many colored it sort of spans the entire
gamut of possibility and so there's a
hint there that if you want to be a
full-fledged person that you have to
manifest a very large number of traits
and so I want to go into that idea a bit
the first thing I want to talk about is
some of the things that we've learned
about what happens to you when you go to
a new environment now there's this idea
in very deep idea in clinical psychology
a fundamental idea which is that if
someone's a
just about something what you do is you
and it's getting in their way you take
what they're anxious about and you
define it because that already delimits
it right because one of the problems
with being anxious about something is
you won't speak of it
it's like Voldemort and then if you
don't speak of it you it's way bigger
than it should be as soon as you start
talking about it you cut it down to size
and so and it it's for a bunch of
reasons it's because you're not as
afraid you're not as afraid of as many
things as you think and you're braver
than you know and more and more capable
so as soon as you're brave enough to
start talking about what you're afraid
of then you see that there's more to you
than you thought and that there's less
to the problem than you thought and then
you can decompose it further into
smaller problems and then you can figure
out how to approach those smaller
problems and so and then it doesn't seem
to me to be that you get less frightened
it seems to be that you get more
courageous which is way better than
being less frightened because there's
lots of things to be frightened about so
if you're courageous that that really
does the trick now the question is what
happens if you like let's say that
you're very socially inept and you don't
know how to introduce yourself or to
make any establish the initial parts of
a relationship with anyone and so then
you start putting yourself in situations
where you're required to do that and so
then the question is how is it
technically that you transform you say
well you learn well we want to be more
specific about that what does it mean
that you learned well if you're dealing
with someone who's particularly socially
inept and you're doing psychotherapy
with them you might teach them how to
shake someone's hand properly and say
their name and remember the other
person's name and so you just practice
that with them so that they have the
motoric routine down so that form of
knowledge is built right into your body
it's like look at the person put out
your hand shake it don't not like a dead
halibut but you know with a reasonable
grip say your name don't mumble it look
look at them so that they can hear you
and then when they say their name try to
remember it and that's then so you can
practice that with people and so then
they develop something that's motoric
right it's embedded right in their body
and so and then you can say to them well
the other thing you can do is when you
start a conversation is
don't sit there thinking about what
you're gonna say next because then you
won't be paying attention to the person
and you'll make a fool out of yourself
because you'll manifest non sequiturs
right because you'll get out it's like
if you're dancing and all you're paying
attention to is where your feet are and
you're gonna step on the other person
all the time so you want to pay
attention to the other person and then
whatever automatized social knowledge
you have will come to the forefront so
it's a good thing to know if you're
socially anxious right if you're
socially anxious one of the things you
should do is pay way more attention to
the person you're talking to rather than
less and you should pay as little
attention as possible to yourself so if
you feel yourself falling in because
you're anxious then what you do is you
push your attention out and pay
attention to the person because to the
degree that you've been socialized then
all your automatic responses will kick
in so but anyway so you go out into the
social world and you learn to shake
someone's hand and you learn how to
listen to them and ask them questions
because that's the next thing because
people love you can't just ask them
random questions obviously but if they
start talking to you and you don't
understand something about what they're
saying or maybe something they said is
interesting and you ask them a question
they're pretty damn happy about that
because it means you're actually paying
attention to them and people actually
love to be paid attention to because it
hardly ever happens so they really
really like it and so okay so so what's
happening well first of all your
mastering them automated motor movements
right where to point your eyes where to
put your hands how to move your lips
like really embodied knowledge it's a
special kind of memory and you're
practicing them so that's building new
skills for you and then by listening to
the person and watching yourself
interact you're also generating new new
abstract information that enables you to
conceptualize the world in a different
way so if you go out to ten you go out
and talk to ten different people or 50
different people then you get to listen
to what those 50 people said you get to
watch how they're how they express
themselves and you gather a corpus of
knowledge that changes the way you
perceive that broadens you as a social
agent okay so that's two forms of
knowledge but then there's a third one
which is real
interesting which is that you know you
have a lot of biological potential and
it's hard to know what potential is but
part of it is that you're capable of
generating proteins that you haven't
been generating so you should get right
on that by the way so but what the way
that works in part is that if you put
yourself in a radically new situation
then your brain that there are genetic
switches that turn on because of the
demands of the new situation that code
for new proteins so it's as if you have
latent software that would be one way of
thinking about that will only be turned
on if you go into the situation where
that's necessary and so then you might
think well if that's the case how much
of you could be turned on if you went a
whole bunch of different places and
that's a really really that's a profound
question because one of the deep answers
to how you should get your life together
is you should go a very large number of
places and turn yourself on and I want
to walk through that a little bit
because there's a very rich symbolic
world that expresses that so now the
idea about having a coat of many colors
would be that the person who is the
appropriate leader because remember or
the proper person which would be the
same thing one of the things that these
old stories are trying to express and to
figure out is how is it that you should
act which is the same as what
constitutes the ideal those are the same
question and the hand here with Joseph
is well you should wear a coat of many
colors which means that you should be
able to go have a drink in the pub with
the guys who are you know drywalling
your your house and you should be able
to have a sophisticated conversation
with someone who's more educated in an
abstract way and that maybe you should
be equally comfortable in both
situations right because you might think
well there's more one of the indications
that there's more to you is that you can
be put more places and function properly
and that would be a good thing to aim at
because here's the other issue is that
you know perfectly well that the fun
the mental tragedies of life and your
exposure to malevolence in the course of
that life so those being the worst
things there's not a lot you can do to
to alter that fundamentally because
their conditions of existence you're
going to be subject to your
vulnerability and you're going to be
subject to malevolence that's that and
you can't hide from it because it
actually makes it worse so you're stuck
with it so then the question is well
what are your options and one option is
to curse the structure of being for
being malevolent and tragic and fair
enough and now there is to make yourself
so damn differentiated and dynamic and
able that you're more than a match for
that now that's not an easy thing but
doesn't matter because like what what's
the alternative
there's no good alternative and that's
also worth knowing so you see these
ideas expressed in the strangest places
and so we've talked a little bit I think
in this video series about Pinocchio but
if we haven't it doesn't matter
you see there's Jiminy Cricket at the
opening of the Pinocchio movie pointing
to a star which is roughly the nativity
star for all intents and purposes and
it's a it's a symbolic indicator of
something Dimond like and pure right
glimmering in the darkness that's
transcendent and above the horizon upon
which to fix your eyes and so that's the
thing is you need that technically and
the reason you need that is because we
know enough about psychology now to know
that almost all of the positive emotion
that you're going to experience in your
life and positive emotion is analgesic
by the way right it actually quells pain
so it's not just positive it also gets
rid of negative which is a big plus
almost all the positive emotion that
you're going to feel you're going to
feel in relationship to a goal because
you feel positive emotion as you
approach a goal and so if you want to
feel positive emotion then you need a
goal and then you might think well if
you want to maximize that positive
emotion which is enthusiasm and also
what pulls you out into the world as
well as feeling good then you need the
possible goal well not because that's
gonna engage the largest segments of
your being like if your goal is too
narrow then a bunch of you isn't gonna
be on board for it you know if the goal
is well-developed and multifaceted then
all of you can partake in that even your
negative elements even your anger and
and your fear can get on board with that
let's say so you need a goal man that's
worthy you've got us thank you good you
need a goal that justifies the tragedy
and malevolence of life that seems to be
the bottom line now maybe you think well
there's no goal that can do that it's
like well there are still better and
worse goals so and I'm not convinced
that there are no goals that can do that
I think that's an open question you'd
never know that until you pursued the
proper goal long enough to find out who
you would be as a consequence of
pursuing it so that's also your destiny
or your existential voyage right it's
also not something that anyone else can
do for you someone can say get your act
together for Christ's sake and get it
get get at it that's that'll make the
world unfold best for you but there's no
way you can know that without doing it
so and unless you think you've done a
particularly stellar job of that then
you have no reason to doubt its
potential validity so plus like crickets
are telling you this and so you know
they're a very reliable source okay so
you see the star the star recurs as a
motif in Pinocchio and one of the more
interesting elements of it here is that
when Geppetto wants to transform his
puppet the marionette who's being played
by forces that operate behind the scenes
which is a really good definition of the
persona from a union perspective right
and also something indicative of
something like an ideological or
conceptual possession Geppetto who's a
good guy is positive father figure Reid
lifts his even though he's a patriarchal
figure right and a very competent one he
still even lifts his eyes up to
something that transcends his mode of
being positive as it is and wishes that
his
creation would undertake the kind of
transformation that would make it
autonomous and fully functional as a
moral agent no strings right so that's
very interesting I think Solzhenitsyn
said the salvation of mankind lies only
in making everything the concern of all
that's a pretty decent star-like goal I
would say and so what happens in the
Pinocchio story is that because and I
think this is a symbolic representative
of what I just described you that
happens at a genetic level if you put
yourself in new situations so Geppetto
is roughly culture in the Pinocchio
story right he's he's a craftsman he's
he's a and and he makes Pinocchio so
he's he's who's his son he's the
socializing agent and he aims for
something above mere socialization which
is I think part of the mysterious
element of human beings you know in our
scientific models we basically have
socialization and biology but there's
always a third element in mythological
stories which is whatever you might
construe as the spontaneous action of
consciousness that's associated with
freewill and you know that's just
basically being conceptualized in
religious terms as something akin to the
soul now we don't have a category for
that scientifically because what we try
to do scientifically is to reduce
everything either to socialization or to
biology but it isn't clear to me that
that's it's perfectly reasonable from
the perspective of practicality at a
scientific level you don't want to
multiply explanatory principles beyond
necessity but there's many things that
that doesn't come to terms with such as
the fact that we all treat each other as
autonomous beings with freewill and that
that seems to work and that if we stop
doing that then things go to hell very
very rapidly so and the mere fact that
we have been able to conceptualize what
that conscious freewill might be
metaphysically or physically doesn't
mean it doesn't exist it just means that
we don't understand it I mean what it
was only in the last 15 years that we
discovered that 95 percent of the
universe was made out of some kind of
matter that we can't even
whose properties we can't even imagine
except that it seems to have mass so
anyways what happens is when Geppetto
reach lifts his eyes up to the star he
so it's society aligning itself with the
proper goal with regards to individual
development right so so the instead of
society being at odds with the
individual they line up and then what
happens is nature comes onboard and
that's the blue fairy in the in the
Pinocchio story and that seems to me to
be a symbolic representation of what
happens biologically when when you set
the goal properly get your culture
behind you and move into the world it's
that there's a biological transformation
that occurs as a consequence of that
which means that a bunch of you that
hasn't been turned on turns on and I
guess one question would be is what
would you be like if you turned on
everything inside of you that could be
turned on well that's a good goal that's
a good thing to find out so now I'm
going to introduce a couple of other
ideas so there's this idea in union
psychology called the circumambulation
and you only had this idea that you had
a potential future self which would be
in potential everything that you could
be and that it manifests itself moment
to moment in your present life by making
you interested in things and the things
that you're interested in are the things
that would guide you along the path that
would lead you to maximal development
now it sounds of like a metaphysical
idea or a or a mystical idea even but
but it's not it's it's not it's a really
profoundly biological idea the idea is
something like well you're set up so
that you're automatically interested in
those things that was fully expand you
as a well adapted creature well like
there's nothing radical about that idea
how else what else could possibly be the
case unless there's something
fundamentally flawed about you that is
what the the situation would be it's
kind of interesting to think about how
that would be manifest moment to moment
but the idea is something like well your
interest is captured by those things
that lead you down the path of
development
well that better be the case okay so
that's fine and so there's some utility
in pursuing those things that you're
interested in that's the call to
adventure let's say so and the call to
adventure takes you all sorts of places
now the problem with the call to
adventure is like what the hell do you
know you might be interested in things
that are kind of warped and bent and
often it's the case that when new parts
of people manifest themselves and grip
their interest say they do it very badly
and shoddily and so you stumble around
like an idiot when you try to do
something new that's where the fool is
the precursor to the savior from the
from the symbolic perspectives because
you have to be a fool before you can be
a master and if you're not willing to be
a fool then you can't be a master so so
you're gonna it's it's an error mmm
error ridden process and that's also
laid out in the Old Testament stories
because the first thing that happens to
all these patriarchal figures when God
kicks them out of their father's house
when they're like 84 is that they they
run into all sorts of trouble and some
of its social and some of its natural
and some of it's a consequence of their
own moral inadequacy so they're fools
and but but the thing that's so
interesting is that despite the fact
that they're fools they're still
supposed to go on the adventure and that
they're capable of learning enough as a
consequence of moving forward on the
adventure so that they straighten
themselves out across time and so it's
something like this so this
circumambulation that young talked about
was this continual will return to this
this continual circling in some sense of
who you could be you might notice for
example that there are themes in your
life you know when you go back across
your experiences you see you kind of
have your typical experience that sort
of repeats itself and there might be
variation on it like a musical theme but
it's it's like you're circling yourself
and getting closer to yourself as you
move across time
that's the circumambulation now you
remember that for a second as well go
back to it okay so imagine that
something glimmers before you it's an
interest that's dawning and you decide
well first of all you're paralyzed you
think well how do I know if I should
pursue that it's probably a stupid idea
and the proper response to that is
you're right it probably is a stupid
idea because almost all
all ideas are stupid and so the
probability that as you move forward on
your adventure that you're gonna get it
right the first time is zero it's just
not gonna happen
and so then you might think well maybe
I'll just wait around until I get the
right idea
and which people do right so they're
like 40 year old thirteen year olds
which is not a good idea so they wait
around until it's Waiting for Godot
until they finally got it right but the
problem is you're too stupid to know
when you've got it right so waiting
around isn't gonna help
because even if it the perfect
opportunity manifested itself to you in
your incomplete form the probability
that you would recognize it as the
perfect opportunity is zero you might
even think it's the worst possible idea
that you've ever heard of anywhere
highly likely highly likely so so you
had there's niches nature called data
will will - stupidity which I really
liked so because he thought of stupidity
as being it you know it's it's you have
to take it into account fundamentally
and work with it and so and so you can
take these tentative steps on your
pathway to destiny and you can assume
that you're gonna do it badly and that's
really useful because you don't have to
beat yourself up it's pretty easy to do
it badly but the thing is it's way
better to do it badly than not to do it
at all and that's the continual message
that echoes through these historical
stories in Genesis it's like these are
flawed people they should have got the
hell out of their house way before they
did and they go out and they stumble
around in tyranny and famine and self
betrayal and and violence and but it's a
hell of a lot better than just rotting
away at home and that's the that's great
so that's good and so why is that well
okay so you you start your path and you
think that you're heading you know
towards your star and so you go in that
direction and then because you're here
the world looks a particular way but
then when you move here the world looks
different and you're different as a
consequence of having made that voyage
and so what that means is that now that
thing that glimmers in front of you is
going to have shifted
location because you weren't very good
at specifying it to begin with and now
that you're a little sharper and more
focused than you were it's it's going to
reveal itself with more accuracy to you
and so then you have to take you know
it's almost like 180 degree reversal but
it isn't because you know you've
I mean you've gone this far and that's a
long ways to get that far but that's a
lot farther than you would be if you
just stayed where you were waiting and
so it doesn't matter that you overshoot
continually because as you overshoot
even if you don't learn what you should
have done you're going to continually
learn what you shouldn't keep doing and
if you learn enough about what you
shouldn't keep doing then that's
tantamount at some point to learning at
the same time what you should be doing
so it's okay so it's like this now
what's cool about it though I think is
that as you progress the degree of
overshooting starts to decline right and
that we know that there's nothing
hypothetical about that as you learn a
new skill like even to play it play a
song on the piano for example you over
shoot madly you're making all sorts of
mistakes to begin with and then the
mistakes they disappear there's a great
TED talk I think it was about this guy
set up a really advanced computational
recording system in his home and
recorded every single utterance his
young child made while learning to speak
and then he put together the child's
attempts to say certain phonemes and put
them in the list and you can hear the
child deviating madly to begin with and
then after hundreds and hundreds of
repetitions just zeroing right in on the
exact phoneme so you know I you might
not know this but when kids babble
because they start babbling when they're
quite young they babble every human
phoneme including all sorts of phonemes
that adults can't say and then they they
die into their language so that after
they learn say English then there's all
sorts of phonemes they can no longer
hear or pronounce but to begin with it's
all there
which is really quite interesting but so
they zip as they learn a particular
language they zero in on the proper way
to pronounce that and their errors
minimize and every time you learn
something that's how it is and that's
really useful to know too because it
means that it's okay to wander around
stupidly before you fix your destination
now you see that echoed in exodus right
because what happens is that the
Egyptians or the Hebrews escaped a
tyranny which is kind of whatever you do
personally and psychologically when you
escape from your previous set of
stupidly held and ignorant and stubborn
axioms it's like away from that tyranny
it's like great I freed myself from that
well then what well you think well now
I'm on the way it's no you're not now
you're in the desert where you wander
around stupidly you know and worship the
wrong things until you finally organize
yourself morally again and head in the
proper direction so that's worth knowing
too because you think well I got rid of
a lot of things baggage excess baggage
that I didn't need in my life and now
everything's okay it's like no it's not
you've got rid of a whole set of
scaffolds that were keeping you in place
even though they were pathological now
you have nothing and nothing actually
turns out to be better than something
pathological but you're still stuck with
the problem of nothing and and that's
well that's exactly why exodus is
structured the way that it is it's that
you escape from eternity its terrain
we're no longer slaves yeah well now
you're nihilistic and lost it's not
necessarily an improvement but it is but
it is the pre see it's also useful to
know that because you can also be
deluded into the idea that imagine that
you're trying to become enlightened
which might mean to turn all those parts
of you on that could be turned on you
think well that's just a linear pathway
uphill you know it's just from one
success to another it's no it's not it's
like here you are and you're not doing
too badly and the first step is a
complete bloody catastrophe it's worse
and then maybe you can pull yourself
together and you hit a new plateau and
then that crumbles and shakes and bang
it's worse again and so
because part of the reason that people
don't become enlightened is because it's
punctuated by intermittent deserts
essentially by intermittent catastrophes
and if you don't know that well then
you're basically screwed because you go
ahead on your movement forward and you
collapse and you think well that didn't
work I collapsed it's like no that's par
for the course it's not indication that
you failed it's just indication that
it's really hard and that when you learn
something you also unlearn something and
the thing you unlearned is probably
useful and unlearning it actually is
painful
you know let's say if you have to get
out of a bad relationship it's like not
every not any real there isn't any
relationship that's a hundred percent
bad and so when you jump out of it well
maybe you're in better shape but you're
still lonesome and disoriented and you
don't know what your past was and you
don't know what your present is and you
don't know what your future is it's
that's not that's why people stay with
the devil they know instead of you know
looking for the devil they don't know so
so anyways the fact that you're full of
faults doesn't mean you have to stop and
thank God for that that's a really
useful thing and the fact that you're
full of faults doesn't mean that you
can't learn and so you can pause it an
ideal and you're gonna be wrong about it
but it doesn't matter because what
you're right about is positing the ideal
moving towards it if the actual ideal
isn't conceptualize perfectly well first
surprise surprise cuz like what are you
going to do that's perfect so it doesn't
matter that it's imperfect imperfect it
just matters that you do it and that you
move forward so that's really that's
really positive news as far as I'm
concerned because you can actually do
that right you can do it badly anyone
can do that so that's that's useful okay
so like if you were an efficient person
you would have just done that but you're
not but who cares you know you still end
up in the in the same place and maybe
the trip is even more interesting who
knows probably two interesting young I
began to understand that the goal of
psychic development by which he means
psychological development or spiritual
development is the self there's no
linear evolution
there's only a circumambulation of the
self a getting closer it's like it's
like you're spiraling into something
something like that and the thing that
you're spiraling into recedes as you
move towards it and gets more and more
sophisticated and well developed as you
move towards it because you're not gonna
run out of goals right no matter how
much you have your act together
there's probably undoubtedly 30
dimensions along which you could get
your act together a lot more so and some
of those aren't even conceivable to you
when you're in your initial on carved
state let's say uniform development
exists at most at the beginning later
everything points towards the center
this insight gave me stability and
gradually my inner peace returned so
this is fun
on the left there that's the short
Cathedral that's the one that has the
maze in it that I told you about they
actually light that up with lasers now
and so that's it lit up with lasers and
so so they're turning it into a
Cathedral of light which i think is
really fascinating and it's a it's a
continuation of the same idea right
because the stained glass windows were
obviously I wouldn't call them primitive
attempts to do that I mean stained glass
windows are pretty impressive you know
buddy it's an elaboration of the same
thing so now you can go to that
Cathedral they light up the whole town
like that which is really something and
so there and there's how the cathedral
is built it's a cross and remember the
cross is an X that marks the center of
the world and the cross is the place
where each individual is and I think
that's the fundamental message of
Christianity is the cross marks the
place where every single individual is
and it's a tragic place that consists of
suffering and exposure to malevolence
and that the only way to come to terms
with it is to accept it and that seems
to me I don't see anything metaphysical
about that statement whatsoever it's
like well x marks the spot
fair enough you're in a spot you're
right in the center of your world it's
right in the center of the world as far
as you're concerned and the same with
the rest of us it's characterized by
suffering and exposure to malevolence
there's no doubt about that what are you
gonna do about that
bitter resentful hateful all that does
is make it worse so you have to accept
it now that's not an easy thing because
that's actually I would say a heroic
task to voluntarily accept the
conditions of your own existence and
that happens out the cross so that's
fine and that's associated with light
well that's good that that's associated
with light you wouldn't want that to be
associated with darkness that would be a
bad thing so and so there's the there's
the the labyrinth that was built in 1280
and so the idea is you walk in here it's
the same idea as that star sequence of
slides that I just showed you so here's
the ideas that north south west and east
so that's the whole world laid out in
two dimensions and so the question is
how do you get to the center now we
already know what the center is the
center is the center of the cross that's
the place of maximal suffering you could
say maximal malevolence as well but it's
also the place where that's transcendent
so how do you get there well the answer
is well you don't just stand on the
outside looking in
that's not gonna help so and you can't
just run right to the center even if
you're in California and so you have to
walk in here and then you see you go
like this and you go to every single
place every single place on that on that
little cosmos and then once you've gone
to every single place and expanded
yourself as a consequence of going north
and west and east and south then there's
enough of you so that you're at so that
you can tolerate being first of all that
you could figure out where the center is
but also that you can tolerate being at
the center and so that's what that
represents that's pretty and look I mean
let's make no mistake about it hey
people were pretty damn serious about
those ideas like that's a that's quite
the piece of work for people in the 12th
century
you know those some of those damn
cathedrals took 300 years to build we
don't build anything that takes 300
years
people were putting a lot of effort into
whatever these things meant you know and
if you think they meant bearded man in
the sky then you know it's hard to it's
hard to account for the kind of
motivation that would produce these
buildings with that kind of paucity of
conceptualization you know the towns and
and it was certainly the case in charge
is that they groaned under the tax
burden that was required to produce
these now you might think well that's
partly tyrannical and no doubt that's
the case but but that's not the whole
story the whole story is that the people
who produce those buildings they thought
about every bit of it it's nothing's
accidental and they're trying to portray
something just like that window is
trying to portray something that's the
same thing as this it's the center from
which all things manifest themselves you
see it
that's Christ there and being portrayed
as as that center or the center within
him something like that very much like
the chakras and in in yogic practice
same basic idea it's the opening up of
the internal structure and and and its
proper realization so there are people
walking the labyrinth so that's the coat
of many colors right that's that's this
differentiated mode of being that
enables you to be competent and at home
in the widest possible number of places
and that that's a real differentiation
of your personality it's a breaking
through the boundaries of your
personality including the ones that you
impose on yourself to become someone
who's useful wherever they're put and
that's really relevant to this story of
Joseph - because one of the things that
happens to Joseph is that well a lot of
bad things happen to him because he's
the favorite of his father his brothers
hate him and so the first they're gonna
throw him in a pit I think they do throw
him in a pit then they sell them to be a
slave then he ends up in we'll go
through the story
he ends up some places where you
probably wouldn't want to go prison
being one of them but it doesn't matter
because even when they put him in prison
he's actually not imprisoned he just
figures out how to make the prison work
way better and then he's in control of
the prison and it really it's an
interesting I had this friend you know
and he was very smart but very cynical
and he wasn't employed very well and he
got a little older and he should have
given his level of intelligence and
employability and so he had to take jobs
that weren't very intellectually
challenging you know and one of the
things I tried to convince him of was
that even if he worked he wanted to work
behind the parts department in an
automotive store because he liked cars
but it was beneath him you know because
it was sort of a as far as he was
concerned it was a he was too smart for
a job like that which actually turned
out not to be true he wasn't smart
enough for a job like that or he wasn't
wise enough but you know what one of the
things I tried to tell him was then
you're looking at the situation wrong
because even in a simple job so-called
simple job like let's say dishwashing in
a restaurant which I did an awful lot of
it's not that simple you're dealing with
a lot of other people very fast staff
changeover you're feeding people you're
helping them have a celebration you're
helping them take a break like you can
do it really well and then the kitchen
can operate properly and then people can
come out to the restaurant it's not a
bloody catastrophe and like your even
when you're doing something that's a
menial job so to speak like dishwashing
there are ways of doing it really badly
resentfully and horribly and doing it
really well and as soon as you do it
really well it's not a menial job
anymore
it immediately transforms no I mean you
can be around people who won't let that
happen and you should go get another job
if that's the case but if you do it
properly then it's not menial at all and
that's also a good way out of resentment
you think well I've just got this you
know two-bit job it's like yeah what if
you did it as well as you possibly could
you know what would happen well the
first thing that would happen is you'd
get a lot smarter that's for sure and
that that's hardly
a negative thing okay so that's the coat
of many colors so it's an intimation of
what Joseph is like and what we're
seeing with all of these patriarchal
figures is the continual realization of
the ideal person right you could think
about it as successive approximations of
the ideal person and the story is
exploring all sorts of different
possibilities including ones that are
very violent and catastrophic and
malevolent it's trying to cover the
entire territory and to focus in on
what's the proper way through the maze
the maze of life the labyrinth and the
hint here is that while you should be
multi-dimensional these are the
generations of Jacob Joseph being 17
years old was feeding the flock with his
brethren and the lad was with his sons
of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah
his father's wives and Joseph brought
unto his father their evil report well
we already know that Joseph is Jacob's
favorite so that doesn't make him very
popular among his brothers he's younger
and now we also find out that he's been
set up more or less as you might say a
snitch because that's what this phrase
means is that he goes out and watches
his older brothers and if they do
something they shouldn't do then he
comes trotting back to Jacob and reports
well that's not gonna make you popular
so and you would say well is that
Joseph's problem or jacob's problem and
I would say and this is something I
learned from reading dealing to is that
that's a conspiratorial problem right is
it's the parents at fault but so is the
child who agrees to do that they've
they've got a little cabal going and you
might say well it's only the parents
fault but the son will be taking
advantage of every advantage that offers
him because he could say no to I won't
do that so anyway so Joseph is the
favorite he's a bit of a teacher's pet
that's what it looks like now Israel
loved Joseph more than all his colors
because he was the son of his old age
and he made him a coat of many colors
and when his brethren saw that their
father loved him more than
all his brethren they hated him and
could not speak peaceably unto him so
let's say you have a child or number of
children and one of them is your
favorite how should you treat that child
well it isn't obvious that you do them
any favors by overtly making them your
favorite right I mean first of all maybe
you don't challenge them as much as you
should and second of all you definitely
set up a Cain and Abel like scenario in
the household and that or maybe it's an
eatable situation too because you happen
to love your child more than you love
your your spouse which is that's not a
recipe for familial harmony so it seems
to be a bad idea okay so now we have two
reasons that Joseph is not liked by his
brothers is one is well he's a bit of a
Rat Fink and the other is that he's the
peas the favorite and he's playing that
to the hilt by the looks of things and
when his brethren saw that their father
loved him more than all his brethren
then all his brethren they hated him and
could not speak peaceably unto him okay
and Joseph dreamed a dream and he told
it to his brethren and they hated him
the more he said unto them hear I pray
you this dream which I have dreamed for
behold we were binding wheat sheaves in
the field and lo my sheaf arose and
behold your sheaves stood round about
and bowed to my sheaf and his and
remember he's yeah the young one right
and and also the daughter of the
favorite wife which is another thing
that's or the son of the favorite wife
which is another thing not really
working in his favor and his brethren
said to him shalt thou indeed reign over
us or shalt thou indeed have dominion
over us and they hated them yet the more
for his dreams and for his words well
there there's a shock you know that
makes perfect sense so and it gets worse
so you see here well there's the wheat
sheaves bowing there and and then you
see this what's going on here well
that's not the end of his let's call it
grandiosity and there's an idea to in in
the Old Testament especially in the
stories of Joseph that if God sends you
a dream twice he really means it and so
I don't know if that's true although I
do know that people have repeating
dreams it might be true that the a dream
you have twice is really trying to punch
something home you know it's certainly
the case that recurrent nightmares are
meaningful and that recurrent nightmares
are associated quite tightly with
decreased states of mental health and
that if you can treat the nightmare
which is often quite easy by the way
then the some of the mental health
problems will decrease so repeated
dreams seem to be important anyways he
dreamed yet another dream and told it to
his brethren and said behold I've had
another dream and be and behold the Sun
and the moon and the Eleven stars bowed
to me and he told it to his father and
to his brothers and his father rebuked
him and said unto you unto Him what is
this dream that thou has dreamed shall I
in my and your mother and your brothers
indeed come to bow down ourselves to
thee to the earth and his brethren
envied him but his father observed to
saying well what the hell do you make of
something like that right if someone
tells you that it's like are they
responsible for their dreams
we don't really seem we don't really
hold ourselves responsible for for the
dreams we have at night and what do you
make of a dream is like one of the
things that Jung pointed out this is
where he differed from Freud
substantially as Freud tended to think
that the dream hid its meaning because
its contents weren't acceptable to the
conscious mind and Jung said no no you
don't understand that's not what happens
what happens is the dream is doing the
best it can to express something that
the person doesn't yet really know and
Jung thought about the dream as a
manifestation of nature it wasn't
associated with the ego at all it was
just like you have a dream and there are
things happening and it the same way
that when you walk into a dinner party
there are things happening there you
know it's not the dream isn't something
that's subject to your capacity for
manipulation it's something that happens
to you not something that you do and so
so if someone has a dream like that well
you've got three options you can just
discount dreams altogether which is what
people in the modern world tend to do
which is a very bad idea because there
are thoughts and you shouldn't discount
them you know I mean and they're hardly
random as some neuroscientists claim
that's
absolutely cockeyed theory that random
he like television snow on a TV set if
it was random so so one is while you
just discount dreams the other is that
you consider the person a liar and a
braggart and a narcissist and the third
is well what's the third it's like he
dreamt that the Sun and the moon and the
stars bowed down to him you might think
about that two or three times so but
it's not necessarily something that's
going to make you happy and his brethren
went to feed their father's flock and
shechem so they took off and Israel said
unto Joseph do you not thy brethren feed
the flock and Shechem come and I will
send thee unto Him and he said him and
he said to him here here am I and when
they saw him afar off even before he
came near unto them they conspired
against him to slay him rough people
back then right this is this sort of
thing is happening quite frequently and
they said to one another behold the
dreamer cometh come now therefore let us
slay him cast him into some pit and we
will say some evil beast hath devoured
him and we shall see what becomes of his
dreams so there's an echo of the Cain
and Abel story there obviously you know
I mean it's not quite as clear because
in the Cain and Abel story Abel is
clearly just doing well and here you
can't quite get a handle on Joseph's
character you can't tell if he is
actually the elect or if he's just a
spoiled brat with delusions of grandeur
you know and but it doesn't matter
because his brothers are so irritated at
his the fact that he's favored and
perhaps even the fact that he might be
someone destined for for something
special that they find it perfectly
reasonable to destroy that and it's so
hard so interesting how often that motif
of pulling down an ideal manifests
itself in these old stories right it's
it's the pattern is established in the
Cain and Abel story it just repeats and
repeats and repeats and I think that's
dead true I think it just repeats all
the time so that people are annoyed
about how tragic their lives are
annoyed that they're subject to
malevolence and they're annoyed that
they're not doing as well as other
people are doing and that makes them
that puts them exactly into this state
of mind
now maybe with modern people if you're
gonna kill someone because you're
resentful as a modern person you don't
generally slay them and throw them into
a pit you know what you do is you just
kill them slowly over a few decades and
it isn't obvious to me that that's any
better so I've seen plenty of married
couples who were in that situation it's
like it's like yeah well there is this
mitch hedberg he used to complain about
turtlenecks hey so it was like being
strangled by a really weak it's
probably really politically incorrect
jokes but it's a funny joke so and then
you see you see relationships that are
like that it's like each person has
their hands around the neck of the other
person but they don't have enough
courage to actually to squeeze they just
put enough pressure on just cut the
circulation off a tiny bit so the person
just gets like they die over a 30-year
period something like that so yeah and
you all laugh because you know it's true
that's why and we will say some evil
beast half devoured him which would be
true actually it would be the evil beast
that's inside the brothers and we shall
see what will become of his dreams
haha that's a that's interesting too
because so they want to spite themselves
because maybe Joseph is something
special and then they want to spite
their father which is probably not the
wisest idea because they owe him some
gratitude I mean maybe he's acting like
a pain in the neck there's some evidence
for that but this is a little bit harsh
but they also want to spite God just
like Cain did because that's what it
means we shall see what will become of
his dreams right because then as soon as
you're in some sense trying to fight
against the intuition of someone the
natural intuition of someone you set
yourself up against the structure of
being itself and so pretty bad
and Ruben heard it and he delivered them
out of their hands and said no let us
not kill him and Ruben said unto them
shed no blood but cast him into this pit
that's in the wilderness
it's like Rubens the good guy in this
story yeah and and there's no water in
the pit by the way inlay no hand upon
him that he might rid him out of their
hands to deliver him to his father again
hmm
so Ruben was actually trying to save him
said he might rid him out of their hands
to deliver him to his father again and
it came to pass when Joseph came unto
his brethren that they stripped him of
his coat his coat of many colors that
was on him and they took him and cast
him into a pit and the pit was empty and
there was no water in it and then they
sat down to eat bread and lifted up
their eyes and looked and behold a
company of Ishmaelites come came from
Gilead with their camels bearing spices
and balm and myrrh going to carry it
down to Egypt and Judah said unto his
brethren how does it profit us if we
kill our brother and conceal his blood
so he's the practical guy here's what
why would we kill him when we can sell
him it's like come let us sell him to
the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be
upon him for he is our brother in our
flesh and his brethren were content then
there passed by Midianites merchantman
and they drew and lifted up joseph out
of the pit and sold joseph to the
Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver it's
a amount that echoes through into the
future and they brought Joseph into
Egypt I'm never really sure how these
slavery stories work it's like so it's
two 2,500 3,000 years ago and I decided
I'm gonna sell you to the Ishmaelites
and that just works out they I get the
money you get to be a slave and they
take you away I don't really understand
how that works I can't figure out how
people weren't just selling each other
all the time
but maybe if your family you can do it
so they're they sold him and Reuben
returned to the pit and behold Joseph
was not there and Reuben rent his
clothes so Reubens very upset about this
and he returned unto his brothers and
said the child is not and I where shall
I go
and they conspired they took Joseph's
coat and killed a kid of the goats and
dipped the coat in the blood that's
interesting too because blood is
actually another color right so he's got
this coat of many colors and blood is
definitely a color and so this is the
addition in some sense of the color of
blood to Joseph's coat and I would say
it's probably a necessary color because
I don't think that you're serious enough
till your coat has been dipped in blood
that can happen in many ways and they
sent the coat of many colors and they
brought it to their father and said so
they lied to him it's very very nasty
business this they they sell his son to
slavery they claim that he's dead they
lied to him they they put him into an
extreme state of grief there's a lot of
hatred underneath that right tremendous
amount of hatred for Joseph and also for
Jacob this we have found know now
whether it be thy sons coat or not and
he knew it he said it's my son's coat
and evil beast has devoured him Joseph
is without doubt rent in pieces and
Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth
on his loins and mourned for many days
and all his sons and daughters rose up
to comfort him but he refused to be
comforted and he said I'll go down unto
my grave mourning my son does his father
wept for him so that's Jacob collapsing
at the news and the Midianites sold
Joseph into Egypt unto Potiphar an
officer of Pharaohs and captain of the
guard and Joseph was brought down to
Egypt and port afar an officer of
Pharaoh captain of the guard and
Egyptian bought him of the hands of the
Ishmaelites which had brought him down
thither so now he's a slave so now you'd
think well that would be this is a man
who has a lot of reason to be irritated
at the structure of reality right he's
gone from being the favorite to being
betrayed by all of his brothers that's
pretty rough and then he's being
transformed into a slave and now he's
being he's being sold to work as a slave
so you'd think that that would corrupt
his character because
you know one of the things I think this
is the case anyways I think people are
always looking for an excuse to have
their character corrupted because if
your character is corrupted then you get
to lie and you get to cheat you get to
steal and you get to betray and you get
to act resentfully and you get to do
nothing and that's all easy it's easier
to lie than to tell the truth it's
easier to do nothing than to do
something so there's always part of you
thinking well I need a justification for
being useless and horrible because
that'd be a lot less work and so then if
something terrible comes along you think
AHA that's just exactly the excuse that
I was waiting for and then out all that
comes you know Solzhenitsyn when he was
in the concentration camps in Russia
watching how people behaved you know he
said that there were people that were
put in the camps who immediately became
trustees or guards and they were even
more vicious than the people who had
been hired as guards and his idea was
that they had collected all that he
called it foul Ness if I remember
correctly around them in normal life but
they didn't have the opportunity to
express it but as soon as you gave them
the opportunity it was like there it was
right away and so so one of the messages
that seems to echo through these old
testament stories is that just because
something terrible happens to you
doesn't mean that you get to be that you
get to wander off the path and make
things worse and maybe it doesn't matter
how terrible it is that what happens to
you that's a tough call you know because
you see people now and then in life who
they've really got it rough man like 50
bad things are happening to them at the
same time and you think oh it's no
wonder if you were bitter and resentful
and hostile be like yeah no wonder but
then you meet people and Solzhenitsyn
again talked about this in the Gulag
Archipelago he said he met lots of
people in the North Lodz
he met enough people to impress him in
the concentration camp system who didn't
allow their misfortunes to corrupt them
and that's something because maybe the
only real misfortune is to become
corrupted that's a really useful thing
to think you know maybe the rest of it
maybe the rest of it is trivial in
comparison
I know that's a rough thing because you
can be in very harsh circumstances but I
do think there's something to that and
the Lord was with Joseph and he was a
prosperous man and he was in the house
of his master the Egyptian and his
master saw that the Lord was with him
and that Lord made all that he did to
prosper in his hand so that's an echo of
the idea that we encountered earlier
about walking with God right so Adam
walked with God before he ate the fruit
with Eve and then he wouldn't walk with
God and then Noah walked with God and
Abraham walked with God and so the idea
is well that's that alignment with the
highest ideal I think it's something
like that and you know we could think
about that as a metaphysical claim as
well but I don't think it is I mean I've
got thousands of letters now in the last
year from people who have told me that
they were in a pit that's exactly right
and that they decided that they were
going to try to put their lives together
and that it worked and so that's really
something you know when they write
surprised it's like well I decided that
I was gonna work hard at what I was
doing and I wasn't gonna lie any more
than absolutely necessary I thought I'd
give it a try for a few months you know
and all sorts of good things started to
happen to me it's like maybe that's how
the world works now obviously it doesn't
work like that all the time right
because you can get sliced off at the
knees I mean there's an arbitrary
element to existence that that you can't
wish away but that doesn't mean that
there are it doesn't mean that there
aren't bad strategies and good
strategies and so I do think that one of
the most fundamental existential
questions is like if things aren't going
well for you and your life is are you
absolutely certain that you're doing
absolutely everything you can to put
things in order because if you're not
then you shouldn't complain because you
don't know to what degree you're
actually contributing or even causing
the circumstance now that's a very
annoying thing to think and I'm not
trying to blame the victim
you know I know that people end up with
lung cancer because they were exposed to
asbestos you know and I'm not trying to
although I also know too that if you
have lung cancer because you've been
exposed to asbestos that can be a
tragedy or it can be hell and to some
degree
that depends on how you conduct yourself
so I mean I know that's pretty gloomy
possibilities right but so anyway so
Joseph is a slave but it turns out that
he's uh he hasn't sacrificed the
integrity of his character and so it
turns out that being it turns out that
he's not a slave it's just that everyone
around him thinks he's a slave but he's
not so that's pretty interesting he was
a goodly person and well favored well so
he's a good guy and he's an impressive
specimen as well this is pretty
interesting given the current political
climate I would say and it came to pass
after these things that his master's
wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and she
said lie with me that means that
actually has two meanings right but he
refused and said unto his master's wife
behold my master does not know what's
with me in the house and he's committed
all that he has to my hand there's no
one greater in this house than I neither
hath he kept back anything for me but
you because you are his wife how then
can I do this great wickedness
wickedness and sin against God and it
came to pass as she spake to Joseph day
by day that he hearkened not unto her to
lie by her or be with her it's being
sexually harassed Joseph and it came to
pass well its rounds right I mean look
look at the painting and it came to pass
about this time that Joseph went into
the house to do his business and there
was none of the men of the house there
with in and she caught him by his
garment saying lie with me and he left
his garment in her hand and fled and got
him out so that's so kind of
embarrassing for poor Joseph I would say
and a bit on the suspicious side and it
came to pass when she saw that he had
left his garment in her hand and was
fled forth that she called unto the men
of her house and spake unto them see see
he hath brought in a Hebrew to mark us
he came in unto
you lie with me and I cried with a loud
voice so what is it hell hath no fury
like a woman scorned that's the proper
commentary on that and it came to pass
when he heard that I lifted up my voice
and cried that he left his garment with
me and fled and got himself out and it
came to pass when his master heard the
words of his wife so that's the farro
which she spake unto him saying after
this manner did thy servant to me his
wrath was kindled and joseph's master
took him and put him in prison a place
where the Kings prisoners were was were
bound and he was there in the prison
well that sort of sucks it's like first
his brothers betray him and throw him in
a pit and then he gets made a slave
which is probably better than being in
the pit and then he becomes sort of like
King slaves so that's working out pretty
well and now someone lies about him he
gets betrayed again and now it's into
the prison with him and so it's this
it's this again right it's the same
thing it's Sisyphus up with the rock and
then down and it's order chaos order
chaos and then you have to think well
are you the order or you the chaos or
you the thing that's moving between them
because that's the right thing to be
because otherwise you're just order and
that's a really bad idea or you're just
chaos and that's a really bad idea you
can be the thing that's dynamically
mediating between them and that's what
he's doing but the Lord was with Joseph
and showed him mercy and gave him favor
in the sight of the keeper of the prison
that's no easy thing to do I would think
you know it's like you're thrown in
prison and now the jailer likes you now
how exactly are you going to manage that
it's a good thing to think about because
you might think well if you were really
in dire straits how is it that you
should conduct yourself so that you have
the highest probability of having things
work out and it's not saying well Joseph
took over the thumbscrew you know and
started using that on the other
prisoners that that's not the indication
here at all it's that he's doing
something he's acting like a person who
isn't a prisoner even though he's in the
prison just like he was acting like
someone who wasn't a slave when he was a
slave and so
it makes you wonder who you can be
despite the fact that other people think
that you're whatever you appear to be
and the keeper of the prison committed
to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that
were in the prison and whatsoever they
did there he was the doer of it the
keeper of the prison looked not to
anything that was under his hand because
the Lord was with him and that which he
did the Lord made it to prosper so it's
a repeat its a repeat of exactly what
happened when he was the slave of the
Pharaoh except it's one rung deeper into
hell so to speak right so it's slave
Pharaoh and here it's prisoner jail
master but it doesn't matter the same
thing happens so now Joseph is
imprisonment the Pharaoh has a fit one
day of peak and throws the chief of his
Butler's into prison and the chief of
his Baker's and they have a dream
each of them and Joseph interprets the
dreams seems to be something that he can
do and he tells the butler that his
dream means that the Pharaoh was going
to forgive him and put him back in his
position and he tells the baker that the
Pharaoh isn't going to forgive him and
that he's going to take off his head and
hang him in a tree which was rather
rough dream but that is what huh that's
what happens so anyways that the Baker
or the butler goes free and Joseph says
look you know maybe you could just keep
in mind the fact that I did you a bit of
a favor here and told you something that
was accurate but the chief didn't really
remember once he once he was freed
interpreting dreams in prison and so now
the Pharaoh has a dream and he actually
has two dreams so it's another one of
those doubled motifs so the ideas these
are really important dreams because they
came in a pair and behold there came out
of the river seven well-favored kind and
fat flesh so cattle and they fed the men
Oh
meadow and behold seven other cattle
came up after the Mount of the river
ill-favored and lean fleshed starving
and stood by the other cows on the brink
of the river and the ill-favored and
lean flesh
I did eat up the seven well-favored and
fat so Pharaoh awoke hey fair enough
it's pretty nasty dream and then he has
another dream to hit it home and he
slept and dreamt the second time and
behold seven years of corn came up upon
one stalk rankin good and behold seven
thin ears and blasted with the east wind
sprung up after them and the seven thin
ears devoured the seven rank and full
ears and Pharaoh awoke and beheld it was
a dream and then it says a little later
and for that the dream was doubled unto
Pharaoh twice it is because the thing is
established by God and God will shortly
bring it to pass it's interesting you
know because one of the better theories
about dreams is that they're part of the
way that the right and left hemisphere
communicate or maybe the nonverbal part
of the brain communicates with the
verbal brand verbal part of the brain
and so the nonverbal part of the brain
which is less differentiated and thinks
more globally is looking for patterns
and anomalies in the world things that
don't fit well with the current way of
conceptualizing the world things that
make you anxious and uncertain and those
are things you haven't mastered right so
they don't fit well into your
conceptualization of the world by
definition because if you had mastered
them they wouldn't make you anxious
nervous and so the the nonverbal parts
of your brain are like an alarm system
they're looking around for places where
you're probably wrong and then they put
those in images and try to conceptualize
them so that you can update your model
of reality to take them into account but
that also produces a fair bit of
negative emotion especially at night and
so so we know that we know if you
deprive people of dreams that they go
insane very rapidly animals as well
necessary part of mental equilibrium the
way you do that with rats in case you
want to know is that you've got rats
that you want to drive insane this is
how you do it
so you put the rat on a like a pedestal
that's pretty small and then when you
fall it's surrounded by water and then
when he falls asleep his nose hits the
water then he wakes up and so you can
deprive the rat of sleep and that
doesn't the rats don't respond to
very well after some period of time so
that's one of the ways that that's been
discovered but anyways the dream does
seem to be an update mechanism and so if
if you have a very powerful dream like a
nightmare especially if it's repeating
it's like something is trying to hammer
on the door that needs to be let in and
often you don't know how to let it in
that's that's a problem so but then
Pharaoh sent and called Joseph because
he had talked to his his Butler and they
brought him hastily out of the dungeon
and Joseph shaved himself and changed
his clothes and came in unto Pharaoh I
guess he didn't want a shark Pharaoh
with how people dressed in the prison
and Pharaoh said unto Joseph I've
dreamed a dream and there's none that
can interpret it I've heard say of thee
that you could understand a dream to
interpret it and Joseph said it's not me
God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace
it's so Jacob isn't taking credit for
his ability to interpret dreams which
also indicates quite interestingly
there's there's nothing that despite the
fact that he's successful incompetent
he's not narcissistic like if he happens
to have this gift he regards it as a
gift and not as something that you know
renounced his favor it's just something
that he happens to be able to do and so
that's that's a hallmark of someone
who's got a pretty well put-together
personality as far as I'm concerned
because you know people have gifts that
they didn't really earn those would be
your talents your intelligence your good
looks if you happen to have good looks
etc and they're not there's no sense
being all puffed up about that because
it's it's great it's luck of the draw
though and the proper attitude is to
note that it's luck of the draw to be
grateful for it it's quite a fine
painting that one behold there come
seven years of great plenty throughout
the island of Egypt and then there shall
arise after them seven years of famine
and all the plenty shall be forgotten
and the famine shall consume the land
and the Plenty shall not be known in the
land by reason of that famine following
issue for it shall be very Grievous so
now we
to that Jacob he can interpret dreams
but he's also the sort of person who can
look into the future and think this is
sort of what Adam was called on to do
when he got kicked out of the garden of
paradise is you're going to be able to
conceptualize that even if things are
going well now that that doesn't mean
that they're going to go well into the
future and so he's the aunt and not the
grasshopper right in the grasshopper and
the ant story it's like everything's
good but you should wake the hell up and
you should test to see how things can go
wrong and you can see if your systems
can survive them things going wrong and
which is something that I think we could
all hearken to because I think we do a
very bad job in the modern world of
testing to see if our systems can go
wrong okay so the Pharaoh was pretty
impressed by this dream interpretation
and pretty worried about it and I guess
he's a reasonable person despite the
fact that he put Joseph in jail I guess
he didn't have much choice now therefore
let Pharaoh look for a man dis discreet
and wise and set him over the land of
Egypt let Pharaoh do this and let him
appoint officers over the land this is
what Joseph is saying and take up the
fifth part of the land of Egypt in the
seven plenteous years and let them
gather all the food of those good years
that come and lay up corn under the hand
of Pharaoh and let them keep food in the
cities and just like that Joseph is
restored to his position so Pharaoh said
unto Joseph I am Pharaoh and without
thee shall no man lift up his hand or
foot in all of the land of Egypt and so
he comes out of the prison and he really
in some sense as far as I'm concerned he
actually occupies a position that's
higher than the position of the Pharaoh
depends on how you look at it because
the Pharaoh has relegated himself to
ceremonial status right Joseph has all
the responsibilities makes all the
decisions so de-facto he's the pharaoh
he doesn't get the glory precisely
although he's not doing too bad for
himself not there's a lesson in that too
I wrote these rules for Quora a long
time ago and one of them I've written
them into this some of them into this
book you guys got a pamphlet about today
one of the rules that I didn't write
about was
um note that responsive note that
opportunity lurks where responsibility
has been abdicated which is really
interesting I think I mean I've seen
people in their jobs they say things
like well my the guy I work with doesn't
do any work it's like well you could do
it I mean I know there's limits to that
but one of the things you can do at work
is make yourself indispensable I mean
you might get the cane types against you
if you do that but there's something to
be said for being indispensable because
when people start to be dispensed with
you probably won't be one of them or
even if you are then the fact that
you're indispensable just means you can
go somewhere else and be indispensable
there and that's just as useful so it's
very very difficult to permanently put
down someone who's really good at doing
things because they can just go off and
do them somewhere else and one of the
ways that you get like that is to take
responsibility when someone else is
failing to do so and you think well I
shouldn't have to do that that's one way
of thinking about it another way of
thinking about it is oh good I get to do
that and the seven years of plenty estas
that was in the land of Egypt were ended
and the seven years of dearth began to
come according as joseph has said and
the dearth was in all the lands well
that's an archetypal story right in the
archetypal story it's the business cycle
story it's a little harsher when you're
starving obviously but that's not the
point the point is is that sometimes
things are getting good and sometimes
things are getting bad and that's you
can be sure that that's the case that's
gonna happen to you and so the wise
person takes stock of the fact that
things are going to get bad is this is
the same thing that happens with Noah
it's like assume the flood cuz it's
gonna happen and you think well it's a
hell of a world that has floods it's
like not if you have a boat right it it
helps a lot if you if there's a flood
and you have a boat it's like you can
float on the flood and then it's not
such a problem and so if you refuse to
look not the fact that things are going
to be going downhill bad
and that you're going to be in a pit at
some point you and your family perhaps
then when it happens it will be as bad
as it possibly can be but if you're
awake and alert to that possibility then
you can mitigate it and the dearth was
in all the lands but in the land of
Egypt there was bread and when the land
of Egypt was famished the people cried
to Pharaoh for bread and Pharaoh said
unto the Egyptians go to Joseph what he
says to you to do you do that and the
famine was all over the face of the
earth and Joe Joseph opened up the
storehouses and sold to the Egyptians
and the famine waxed sore in the land of
Egypt and all the countries came into
Egypt to buy to Joseph to buy corn
because the famine was sore in all the
lands now when Jacob saw that there was
corn in Egypt Jacob said unto his sons
why are you standing around looking at
each other
he said I've heard that there's corn in
Egypt get down there and buy from by for
us so that we may live and not die it's
a pretty straightforward advice that and
Joseph's ten brothers went down to buy
corn in Egypt but Benjamin Joseph's
brother so that's the youngest one right
the only one left it's the one that was
younger than Joseph the only youngest
one and also rachel's other son but Jeb
Benjamin Joseph's brother Jacob didn't
send because he was worried that
something bad would happen to him which
kind of indicates to me that maybe Jacob
was a bit suspicious about what had
happened to Joseph the last time he sent
all the brothers on a adventure and
Joseph was the governor over all the
land and and he it was that sold to all
the people of the land and Joseph's
brothers came and bowed down themselves
before him with their faces to the earth
well there's the dream now the thing is
too is that one question you have in
your life is who should you bow down to
and you might say no one that's not
exactly the right answer because that
means that you don't have an ideal
because you bow down to your ideal
that's what makes it an ideal and if you
don't have an ideal then what the hell
are you
do so you have to bow down to something
and so what happens here is well
the brothers are bowing down to the
person who's so bloody resilient and
competent that they can take themselves
out of a prison and become the ruler of
the land that happened to vaclav havel
right in czechoslovakia it also happened
to Mandela in South Africa like these
things actually happen it's really
something
so you god only knows what you might
learn in prison so so they bow down to
Joseph and properly so you know he's he
is even without his coat he's still the
person with the coat of many colors and
Joseph saw his brothers and he knew them
but he made them so strange unto them
it's a number of years have passed and
he spoke roughly unto them and he said
unto them where do you come from and
they said from the land of Canaan to buy
food and Joseph knew whose brothers were
but they didn't know who he was and they
came back to Jacob their father and told
him all that befell him and said the man
whose Lord of the country spoke roughly
to us and took us for spies
and we said to him where were true men
honest men we're not spies we be twelve
brothers sons of our fathers one is not
and the youngest is this day with our
Father in the land of Canaan and the man
said here's how I'll know that you're
honest men leave one of the brothers
here with me and take some food for the
famine of your households and be gone
and then bring your youngest brother to
me then I'll know that you're not spies
but that you're honest men and I'll
deliver the other brother and he shall
trade in the land so you don't have to
starve to death and it came to pass as
they emptied their sacks that behold
every man's bundle of money was in his
sock and when both they and their father
saw the bundles of money they were
afraid so
they had bought food from Joseph and he
gave them the food and then he put all
their money back and their socks which I
could imagine would worry them to some
degree and Jacob said me you have
already believed of my children Joseph
is not as Simeon is not now you'll take
Benjamin Benjamin away all these things
are against me and Reuben spake unto his
father saying slay my two sons if
bring him not to thee deliver him into
my hand and I will bring him to the
again and he and he said no my son shall
not go down with you for his brother is
dead and he's left alone if mischief
befall him by the way in the which you
shall go then you shall bring down my
great gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave now there's a hint see what
happens in the last part of the Jacob
storage the Joseph's story is and this
is associated with the idea of putting
your house in order your individual
house in order and then putting your
family's house in order let's say
reversed a little bit in this story
because Joseph puts himself together and
then he puts the state of Egypt in order
which is really quite interesting
because Egypt is the canonical tyranny
right in the Old Testament and so the
idea is very very clear here that the
person who wears the coat of many colors
can put the tyranny right and then the
next extension is well he has to put his
family right now you know generally the
progression would be put yourself right
then put your family right then put the
state right something like that it
doesn't really hit if you can do it in a
different order that's probably ok too
but so so that's what happens at the end
of the story is that you know Joseph is
doing pretty damn well and so is the
state that he serves but that isn't good
enough for him he wants his family to be
functional and put together properly
even though they did terrible things to
him and that's very interesting because
once someone does terrible things to you
then the logical thing or a logical
thing to think is well go to hell in a
handbasket you know like you deserve
exactly what you get but it's not a very
productive attitude especially if you're
around people that you have to be around
you know so like if it's your family and
you go have a family dinner and one of
you punches the other and then the other
punches you back and then that's like
the family dinner for the next thirty
years it doesn't seem to be very
productive even if you're the person who
happened to get in the last blow because
you're gonna have to put up with them at
minimum it might be nice to just let
what you can go go and work to make
towards making things better
have to get rid of the idea of revenge
and resentment and all those things that
you carry along but but it's probably
better to think about how your family
could be if it was really functioning
well and then just a money Ringley at
that no no that's not easy I mean people
are very screw in there's no end to the
depths of Pathology within families but
of course this story states that very
clearly I mean they tried to kill him
they've sold him into slavery it's it's
a pathological family let's put it that
way and but Joseph's attitude is well we
got to set this right not least because
of his father but it isn't only because
of his father as you see and as the
story unfolds and the famine was sore in
the land and it came to pass when they
had eaten up the corn which they had
brought out of Egypt their father said
unto them go again and buy us a little
food and Judah spake unto him saying the
man did solemnly protest unto us you not
see you will not see my face except your
brother be with you they can't go back
to Egypt without Benjamin and they said
the man asked us straightly of our state
and of her kindred saying is your father
yet alive have you another brother and
we told him according to the tenor of
those words could we know that he would
say bring your brother down and Judah
said unto Israel his father send the
loud with me and will arise and go that
we may live and not die both we and vow
and also our little ones I will be
surety for him my hand shall they'll
require him if I bring him not unto thee
and set them before thee then let me
bear the blame forever well so Judah who
played a pretty dismal role in the
original selling Joseph into slavery
seems to obviously have learned
something by this point since he's
willing to put himself on the line you
know to take responsibility for the
situation and to put himself on the line
and to stand in for Benjamin so he's
making himself into a sacrificial object
of sorts and so the game that
Joseph's playing cuz he's sort of
teasing his brothers but he's also
testing them the game that he's playing
is tuefel is one is have you bloody well
learned anything or are you just as
corrupt and useless as you were before
that's game number one in game number
two is maybe if I poke and prod you and
put you into a relatively difficult and
mysterious situation I can get you to
clue the hell in and the Dorp some
responsibilities and we can move this
whole mess forward and so that seems to
be happening so Judah is taking
responsibility and Reuben did that as
well and the men took presence and they
took double money in their hand and
Benjamin and rose up and went down to
Egypt and stood before Joseph and when
Joseph saw Benjamin with them he said to
the ruler of his house bring these men
home and slay and make ready food for
these men shall dine with me at noon and
the men man did as Joseph bade and the
man brought the men into Joseph's house
and when Joseph came home they brought
him the presents which was in their hand
and bowed themselves again to him to the
earth and he asked them of their welfare
and said is your father well the old man
of whom you spake is whom you spake is
he yet alive and they answered thy
servant our Father is in good health
he's yet alive and they bowed down their
heads and made obeisance and he lifted
up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin
his mother's son and said is this your
younger brother of whom you spake unto
me and he said God be gracious unto thee
my son and Joseph made haste for his
bowels did yearn upon his brother and he
saw it where to weep and he entered into
his chamber and wept there and he washed
his face and went out and refrained
himself and said set on the bread and
they sat before them now he plays
another trick on his brother so he has
them all sit at the table but he lines
them up according to age and so he's
trying to what is he trying to do start
to freak them out fundamentally and so
it and he manages that because they have
no idea how in the world they could
possibly he could possibly pull
something like that off they think it's
magic and the men marvelled at one
another and he took and sent messes unto
them from before him but Benjamin's mess
was five times as much as any of theirs
so what's he doing
well he's testing his brothers again the
fact that when he was the child Joseph
that he got more meant that his brothers
got terribly jealous and then murderous
right and so now he's doing the same
thing with Benjamin he's thinking okay
well I'll give this kid more mm-hmm
then he is share you know what how these
reprobates behave and see if they've
learned anything and so and he commanded
the steward of his house saying fill the
men's sock with food as much as they can
carry and put every money man's money in
the sock as well and put my cup the
silver cup in the sacks mouth of the
youngest and his corn money and the
steward did according to the word that
Joseph had spoken as soon as the morning
was light the men were sent away along
with their transportation the cup is
found in Benjamin's sack well so
Benjamin is kind of young and Joseph
sends out people to find out where the
cup has gone and they find it in
Benjamin's in Benjamin's sock and
they're very upset about this they said
that a harsh punishment would befall
whoever had the cup in his sock they
rent their clothes and laid it every man
his house and returned to this city and
Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's
house for he was they yet there and they
fell before him on the ground
very unhappy and apologetic and Joseph
said unto them what deed is this that
you have done ha ha ha don't you know
that a man like I can certainly divine I
know what's going on and Judah said what
shall we say what shall we speak or how
can we possibly clear ourselves God
found out the iniquity of thy servants
behold we are your servants both we and
also he with whom the cup is found and
he said God forbid that I should do so
but the man in whose cup and whose hand
the cup has found he shall be my servant
and as for you get you up in peace to
your father it's the discovery of the
cup
Judis says now therefore when I come to
this servant thy father my father and
the loud be not with us and seeing that
his life is bound up in the lads life it
shall come to pass when he sees that the
lad is not with us that he will die and
the servants shall bring down the gray
hairs of thy servant or father with
sorrow to the grave for thy servant
became surety for the lad unto my father
saying if I bring him not unto thee then
I shall bear the blame to my father
forever now therefore I pray thee let me
stay instead of the lad and let the lad
go with his brothers for how shall I go
up to my brother and the loud be not
with me
lest peradventure I shall see the evil
that will come on my father ok so what's
happened well they learned a lesson
so now Judah again is willing to stand
in the place of Benjamin and become a
slave himself and so now Joseph has
determined that his brothers have
developed their character to the point
where reconciliation might be possible
you know it says you should forgive and
forget
but the conditions for that are quite
are quite specific you know if you're if
you have a dispute with someone and
they've wronged you in some sense and
they apologize the question is what's
the apology well it's a it's layout of a
rationale it's something like as far as
I can tell here's the reasons I did this
horrible thing and here's what I've
learned from it
and here's what I'm gonna do to try not
to do it again and would you give me
another crack at it that's the proper
repentance right and then you forgive
because you're an idiot too and you'll
probably do something stupid and maybe
you'd like the same kind of break at
some point and and besides if we all
held each other completely to account at
all possible times for everything then
it'd just be hopeless because there
would be no room for error
so the forgiveness which Joseph is
showing is wise forgiveness he's not
gonna put himself out on the line for
people who haven't learned so that the
same stupid thing can happen again so
that they can continue to spread misery
wherever they go
oh he's gonna find out if they've clued
in a little bit and then if so then they
can move on with putting a family
together and so that breaks him up he
says Joseph could not refrain himself
before all of them that stood by him and
he cried and then he said get every man
away from me so all the people except
for Joseph's brother left and there
stood no man with him well Joseph made
himself known unto his brothers and
Joseph said I'm Joseph is my father
still alive and his brothers could not
answer for they were troubled at his
presence it's like yeah understatement
of the decade there mmm
when Joseph said unto his brothers come
nearer to me I pray you and they came
nearer and he said I am Joseph your
brother who you sold into Egypt but
don't be grieved or angry with yourself
that you sold me hither for God did send
me before you to preserve life so now it
was not you that sent me here but God
and he's made me a father to Pharaoh and
Lord of all his house and a ruler
throughout all the land of Egypt
hurry and go to my father and say unto
Him thus say thy son Joseph God has made
me Lord of all GE gypped come down unto
me and Terry nod and thou shalt dwell in
the land of Goshen and thou shalt be
near unto me thou and thy children and
their children's children and thy flocks
and they herds and all that thou hast
and I there I will nourish you for yet
there are five years of famine lest thou
and I household and all that thou hast
come to poverty so that's the other
thing that another bit of a hint it's a
bread hint here who's the what's the
most reliable source of bread well it
isn't bread itself it's whatever it is
that gives rise to bread and that's what
Joseph is in this story he's the force
that gives ride rise to nourishment
that's an Joseph is often considered a
type of Christ which means like a
precursor in some sense that's that's
one way of thinking about it and you can
see that echoed right there it's like
well what do you store up
for famine you stir up character that's
the best way through now that doesn't
mean you don't also store up bread andd
they went out of Egypt and came into the
land of Canaan unto Jacob and told him
Josephus is still alive and he's
governor and Jacob's heart fainted for
he didn't believe them they told him all
the words of Joseph which he said to
them and when he saw all the wagons
which Joseph had sent to carry him the
spirit of Jacob their father revived and
Israel said it is enough Joseph my son
is yet alive I will go and see him
before I die and Israel took his journey
with all that he had and came to
Beersheba and offered sacrifices unto
the God of his father Isaac and God
spake unto Israel in the visions of the
night and said Jacob and he said here am
i he said I am God the God of thy father
don't fear to go to eat down into Egypt
for I will make you a great nation there
and so that's how they Israelites end up
in Egypt I will go down with the into
Egypt and I will also surely bring the
up again and Jacob shall put his hand
upon thy eyes die dies and Jacob rose up
from Beersheba and the sons of Israel
carried Jacob their father and their
little ones and their wives in the
wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry
him so the families now all united in
the proper state of being that joseph
has arranged and they took their cattle
and their goods it's so interesting too
because of course Joseph isn't even he's
a foreigner as well as being a former
slave and prisoner foreigner slave and
prisoner and yet he ends up ruling Egypt
sure surely because of the force of his
character and competence and that's
really something to think about and they
took their cattle because that story
there is that there isn't anything
stronger than that doesn't matter what
the circumstances are that there isn't a
force that's more powerful than that and
I don't think that that's naive in fact
I think it's the exact opposite of naive
no matter where you are you can
generally make things better if that's
what you want to do and unless you're
inside in that place that's really hell
itself not usually is something that
elevates you and elevates the people
around you and you can do that wherever
you are because there isn't a place that
sews
all that you can't do that that's the
message of the prison and they took
their cattle and their goods which they
had gotten in the land of Canaan and
came into Egypt Jacob and all his seed
with him and he sent Judah before him
unto Joseph to direct his face unto
Gorshin and they came into the land of
gaussian and Joseph made ready his
chariot and went to meet Israel his
father and presented himself to him and
fell on his neck and wept on his neck a
good while and Israel said I can now die
because I've seen your face because
you're still alive
and Pharaoh spake unto Joseph saying thy
father and thy brethren are come unto
thee and the land of Egypt is before
thee and the best of the land your
father and brothers can dwell in the
land of gaash and let them dwell and if
there now know any man of activity among
them then make them rulers over my
cattle gives them a job and Joseph
brought in Jacob is farther and set him
before Pharaoh and Jacob blessed Pharaoh
that's a very interesting little turn of
events because you'd expect the opposite
under those circumstances so it appears
that Jacob was a man of relatively great
self possession because that's not it
you wouldn't bless Queen Elizabeth in
all likelihood su had a lot of gall and
pharaoh said unto Jacob how old are you
and Jacob said I'm a hundred and thirty
years whew and evil have been the days
of the years of my life and I've not
attained unto the days of the years of
my love the life of my fathers in the
days of their pilgrimage Jacob blessed
the Pharaoh and went out from before
Pharaoh and Israel dwelt in the land of
Egypt in the country of Gaussian and
grew and multiplied exceedingly and
Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17
years so the whole age of Jacob was 147
years and the time drew nigh that Israel
must die and he called his son Joseph
and said unto Him if I have now found
grace in it in thy sight put I pray thee
the hand under my thigh and deal kindly
and truly with me bury me not I pray
thee in Egypt but I will lie with my
fathers and thou shall carry me out of
Egypt and bury me in their burying place
and Joseph said I will do as you have
said
and it came to pass after these things
that one told Joseph behold thy father
is sick and he took with him his two
sons Manasseh and Ephraim and one told
Jacob and said behold thy son and one
told Jacob and said behold thy son
Joseph cometh unto thee and his real
strength in himself and sat upon the bed
and he Israel said unto Joseph I'd not
thought to see your face and lo God also
showed me your children and Joseph
brought them out from between his knees
and bowed himself with his face to the
earth and Joseph took them both Ephraim
in his right hand towards Israel's left
hand and menace' and his left hand
toward Israel's right hand and brought
them near unto Him and Israel stretched
out his right hand and laid it upon
ephram's head who was the younger and
his left hand upon manases head guiding
his hands purposefully for manna so was
the firstborn and when Joseph saw that
his father laid his right hand on the
head of Ephraim it displeased him and he
held up his father's hand to remove it
from Ephraim's head unto manases head
and joseph said unto his father not not
so my father for this is the firstborn
put the right hand upon his head head
and his father refused and said I know
it my son I know it he shall also become
a people and he shall also be great but
truly his younger brother shall be
greater than he and his seed shall
become a multitude of Nations another
repeat of the same thing that happens
continually it says when when God wants
to intervene in human affairs what he
does is invert tradition it's something
like that and so that's a sign that that
there's something new and special going
on and that gives precedence to the
younger child rather than the older
child precedents to what is new rather
than what's traditional of course
sometimes that's necessary because
tradition is insufficient and sometimes
something new has to come into being in
order to update it and Jacob called
together his sons and said gather
together so that I can tell you that
which shall befall you in the last days
gather yourself together and here you
sons of Jacob and hearken unto Israel
your father Reuben I'm not going to go
through all 12 of these Reuben thou art
my firstborn my might and the beginning
of my strength the excellency of dignity
and the excellency of power now the
stories
interesting here because Jacob blesses
Joseph's sons before he blesses his own
sons and so what he's doing is placing
the rights of the firstborn into the
sons of his favorite son and then he
goes to his sons and so that has
implications for the way the biblical
stories lay themselves out from
thenceforward the excellency of dignity
and the excellency of power unstable as
water thou shalt not excel because thou
wentest up to thy father's bed then
defiled it he went up to my couch you
may remember that Reuben slept with his
father's cucum concubine Simeon and Levi
are brethren instruments of cruelty are
in their habitations stop painting there
what happened with Simeon and Levi was
that somebody lay with their sister
Dinah and then offered to marry her and
then head and then became circumcised
because that was part of the deal and
then held her older men circumcised and
then Simeon and Levi went in when they
were recovering and killed them all and
then Jacob and all his people had to
leave because all that irritated their
relatives so see me Simeon and Levi are
brethren instruments of Cruelty are in
their habitations o my soul come not
thou into their secret unto their
assembly mine honor be not thou United
for in their anger they slew a man and
in their self self will they dig down a
wall cursed be their anger for it was
fierce and their route for it was cruel
I will divide them in Jacob and scatter
them in Israel Judah thou art he whom my
brethren shall praise thy hand shall be
in the neck of mine enemies thy father's
children shall bow down before thee
Judah is a lion's whelp from the prey my
son thou art gone up he stooped down he
couched as a lion and as an old lion who
shall rouse him up the scepter shall not
depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from
between his feet until shiloh come and
unto him shall the gathering of the
people be Joseph
a fruitful bough even a fruitful bough
by a well whose branch has run over the
wall the archers have sorely grieved him
and shot at him and hated him but his
bull abode in strength and the arms of
his hands were made strong by the hands
of the mighty God of Jacob for thence is
the shepherd the stone of Israel even by
the god of life farther who shall help
thee and by their almighty he shall
bless thee with the blessings of heavens
above blessings of the deep that lieth
under blessings of the beasts breasts
and of the womb the blessings of thy
father have prevailed above the
blessings of my progenitors unto the
utmost bound of the everlasting hills
they shall be on the head of Joseph and
on the crown of the head of him that was
separate from his brethren all these are
the twelve tribes of Israel and this is
it that their father spake unto them and
blessed them everyone according to his
blessing he blessed them so that what we
see here is an echo in some sense of
what happens in the Mesopotamian
creation story wind in the Mesopotamian
creation story is the dragon of chaos
timeout and her consort AB su freshwater
and saltwater respectively and their
mingled together and and that
combination of chaos and order gives
rise to the first Assembly of the
ancient gods and then the ancient gods
kill app soo casually and foolishly and
enraged time at with their foolishness
and ignorance and she comes back with a
vengeance in the meantime and then she
produces this huge army of monsters and
puts King knew the worst of the monsters
at its head and then decides she's going
to take out her creation and so that's a
little warning from 3,000 years ago
about foolishly undermining your
tradition so anyways the gods in their
frenzy go out and try to fight against
timeout and they come back with her
tails between their legs continually but
then a new God appears on the scene and
that's Marduk he's got eyes all the way
around his head and he can speak words
of magic and they know that there's
something new about this newest God it
his capacity for vision in this capacity
for articulate speech and so they say
well why don't you go out and try to
deal with the chaos and mardik says yeah
ok no problem but here's the deal you
elect me talk God and now I determine
the destiny of the world and so they're
desperate because like timeout is coming
to get them that's chaos with the worst
of all possible monsters they're
probably thinking he's not gonna win
anyways and so they agree and out he
goes and he confronts time out who's the
goddess of chaos he cuts her into pieces
and he makes the world out of her pieces
and one of his name's is he who makes
ingenious things out of the combat with
taya math which is so interesting that's
such a remarkable that's a remarkable
bit of nomenclature so who's should be
at the pinnacle the force that sees and
speaks and goes out to confront chaos
voluntarily you know how many years it
took people to figure that out that's
like the pinnacle discovery of humanity
that's what that is
it's echoed here you know you see Simeon
and Levi they're too angry the other
brothers they all have flaws and faults
of various sorts and so they're not
elevated to the highest place but Joseph
because he has his coat of many colors
and because he lands on his feet no
matter where he goes and because he's
not resentful and bitter and malevolent
and genocide 'el and and he's not
shaking his fist at the sky or yelling
at God because of Trump let's say then
he's the he's the right he's the right
representative of the 12 tribes and so
that's brilliant it's a brilliant story
all these are the twelve tribes of
Israel and this is it that their fathers
spake unto them and blessed them every
one according to his blessing he blessed
them and when Jacob had made an end of
commanding his son so it's the last
thing he does to state he knows that
these are the twelve tribes that will
progress into the future of this people
and now he's trying it the last thing he
does is to try to hierarchically
organized their relative virtues as an
indication of what has been learned
and when jacob has made an end of
commanding his sons he gathered up his
feet into the bed and yielded up the
ghost and was gathered unto his people
and joseph fell upon his father's face
and wept upon him and kissed him and
Joseph commanded his servants to the
physicians to embalm his father and the
physicians embalmed Israel when the days
of his mourning were passed Joseph spake
unto the house of Pharaoh saying if now
I have found grace in your eyes speak I
pray you in the ears of Pharaoh saying
my father made me swear saying lo I die
in my grave which I have digged for me
in the land of Canaan there shalt thou
bury me now therefore let me go up I
pray thee and bury my father and I will
come again and Pharaoh said go up and
bury thy father according as he made
thee swear for his sons carried him into
the land of Canaan and buried him in the
cave of the field of Machpelah which
Abraham bought with the field for a
possession of the burying place of
Ephraim the head
before Mamre and Joseph returned unto
Egypt he and his brethren and all that
went up to him and that all and all that
went up with him to burry his father
after he is buried after he had buried
his father and when Joseph's brethren
saw that their father was dead they said
Joseph will now hate us and will
certainly pay back to us all the evil
which we did unto him and they sent a
messenger saying my father did command
before he died saying for shall ye say
unto Joseph forgive I pray thee now the
trespass of thy brethren and their sin
pretty snively really for they did unto
the evil and now we pray they forgive
the trespass of the servants of the God
of thy father and Joseph wept when they
spake unto him and his brethren also
went and fell down before his face and
they said Behold we be thy servants and
Joseph said unto them fear not for am I
in the place of God but as for you you
thought evil against me but God meant it
unto good to bring to pass as it is this
day to save much people alive now
therefore fear ye not I will nourish you
and your little ones any comfort of them
and spake kindly unto them
so the the idea there is that there is
no evil so evil that good cannot triumph
over it and Joseph dwelt in Egypt he and
his father's house and Joseph lived 110
years and Joseph saw ephram's children
of the third generation the children
also of marker the son of menace' were
brought up upon Joseph's knees and
Joseph said unto his brethren I die and
God will surely visit you and bring you
out of this land unto the land where he
swear to Abraham to Isaac and Jacob and
Joseph took an oath of the children of
Israel saying God will surely visit you
and show and you shall carry my bones
from hence
so Joseph died being a hundred and ten
years old and they embalmed him and he
was put into a coffin in Egypt and
that's Genesis so
so thank you all for persevering
[Music]
thank you thank you well this has been
very worthwhile as far as I'm concerned
I learned an awful lot and so I'm very
much looking forward to continuing with
it and thank you all very much for your
support and your rapt attention and your
seriousness in this endeavor and your
care and all of that it's really being a
privilege to be able to do this it's a
completely surreal thing to manage and
so far you know I think about five
million people have watched it so that
seems to be a very good thing
okay so I'm gonna ask the questioners if
you've asked a question in the last
three sessions please don't ask a
question today because I I never get
through everyone and so I'd like to have
some questions from people that I
haven't answered questions from before
if that's okay hi professor Peterson
just a 2-second thank you very much from
my community in the Jewish community so
many people have been inspired you by
you to be better people and I wouldn't
be able to speak to you without saying
that so thank you very much a couple of
things the first thing I wanted to do is
make a quick comment that you might find
interesting that in the Jewish
astrological calendar we read the
'really cycle of the the five books of
Moses and it just so happens that we are
reading this part of the of the Torah
story school and synchronistic yeah
which brings me into a question I want
to ask you about which is one question
with two parts about your knowledge of
Hebrew because if you look at the Torah
scrolls that you find in a synagogue
there are no vowels there are no
sentences there it is it is chaos chaos
and order is trying to be bought into it
I'm wondering how knowledge of you
knowledgeable are you of the Hebrew
which has many layers of I'm staggering
the ignorant of it so you know I read a
lot of commentaries right I'm trying to
zero in on the like with each of the
phrases that we went through today I
probably looked at ten different
commentaries and so and then I have this
underlying psychoanalytic knowledge that
it's sort of like if you have a bunch of
different templates to look at things
through and then something shines
through all those templates at the same
time that's very unlikely and so then
you can you know a coincidence is one
thing but five coincidences that's no
longer a coincidence that's something
else and so I think I'm hoping that
despite the fact that there's many many
things that I don't know that there's
enough things that I do know to kind of
weave my way through this with some
degree of utility if not certainty yeah
cuz I just which is the second part
which I guess maybe you don't know but
the the majestic the Jewish oral stories
that date back almost
as long as these stories which fill in a
lot of mind-blowing ly crazy random so
many details about these stories and I
was just wondering if you had
encountered any of them before I've
encountered some of them but again it's
it's well as you know it's a very very
rich tradition and so I haven't
encountered enough of it
were you thinking of anything in
specific specifically in relationship to
this story not in particular I actually
forgot it I was I was intending to bring
you a book of majestic story that's a
hell of a thing to say now to say that
but yeah maybe for the exodus version
I'll bring you this all right all right
that would be good yeah okay
hi dr. Peterson I would just like to ask
you to please talk about what you called
a psychic death also known as an ego
death okay sorry say that again would
you please talk about what you refer to
as a psychic death also called an ego
death that's what happens when someone
who loves you betrays you right so
imagine that like the world is
complicated beyond comprehension
right and you only see a very little bit
of it and the way you structure your
understanding is you make assumptions
about things and they're simplifying
assumptions so if you trust someone you
reduce their complexity massively right
because like let's say we were married
then there's a whole bunch of ways that
you're going to act that are going to be
simpler okay so then I can tolerate
being around you in some sense because
you're not everything at once
now those simplifying structures are
hierarchically assembled and some of
them are far more important than others
Trust is one of them especially trust in
loved ones family members which is why
betrayal by a family member is really
catastrophic because it you know it
destabilizes your past right all the
memories you have it destabilizes your
present it destabilizes your future it
shakes your faith in human beings
including yourself and everything
collapses and that's an ego death
and so now underneath the ego as far as
Jung was concerned was another structure
that he called the self and the self is
the thing that remains constant across
ego deaths but it's it's deeper and less
personal
it's archetypal and it's the thing that
the Eagle collapses into when it
collapses and then that rebuilds the ego
something like that across time but
that's when an ego death is now there's
variants of that because you can have a
voluntary or involuntary ego death and a
voluntary ego death is when you learn a
bunch and you're willing to let go so
that would be your own emulation it's
like you're lighting you're a Phoenix
and your lighting yourself on fire
that's a much better idea even though it
can still be really harsh the
involuntary ego deaths they're really
hard on people people will do almost
anything to stop that from happening
which is partly why they fight to
maintain their group fostered axiomatic
simplifications it's not surprising
because it's very you'd lose your like
that ego death is a journey into the
underworld or it's a collapse into chaos
and that's not so bad if you do it
purposefully but in the Pinocchio story
for example that's exemplified by
Pinocchio going down to the depths to
rescue his father from the whale now he
does that voluntarily but a damn near
kills it right I mean first of all he
hardly gets out of the whale second he
actually drowns and dies but he comes
back to life so even if you do it
voluntarily it's still life it's just
better than doing it involuntarily
which is the other alternative so that's
what it is you bet hello Doctor Buddhism
so I've been listening to back to all of
these biblical lectures for the second
time now and I wanted to show you an
observation I came upon because I was
trying to find a question that you
haven't been asked before which is
harder than doing my ryerson exams
that's for sure
so so I've noticed I think you're
getting funnier oh yes oh no I think
Michael Coren said that this week I
think but the word he used was bizarre I
think actually I'm feeling better so
that's I actually have a sense of humor
it's it's hard to believe that but so it
sort of comes back when I'm not feeling
like I'm going to die at any moment so
yeah I basically noticed one you're
making more attempts at jokes so that's
great thank you thank you too those
jokes are landing more often all right
but then there's this third element
which I think was what Steve Martin quit
because of which is that I think the
audience is anticipating jokes more and
they're actually you know I've noticed
people laughing more at things that
aren't intending to be jokes so I was
just wondering what you make of that and
they're intended I'm hoping they're
intended just because I keep a straight
face doesn't mean they're not intended
to be jokes so yeah no it's good look
one of the things is like it's and I try
to keep this and the wild goal probably
about five years ago that even when
you're dealing with really serious
matters that if you're not handling it
with a light touch you're not an expert
at it you know what a master out it and
you think well there are some things
that are so deep and dark that you can't
handle it with a light touch and that's
actually not true you can that doesn't
mean you make light of them it doesn't
mean anything like that it's that you
don't it's minimal necessary force it's
something like that you don't hit it any
harder than you have to and it's a it's
an art when you're discussing serious
matters and so well one of the up shots
of that is that because we're discussing
serious Madison because serious matters
are being discussed in the ultra large
right now it would be really good if
everybody could keep their sense of
humor you know and I see positive signs
of that like there's a lot of satirical
activity on the net you know and that
could easily catalyze into horror mob
but it isn't it is it is you know that's
happening to some degree but a lot of
its satire in comedy and as long as we
can keep a sense of humor about this
then I think well
we're not as close to disaster as we
might be and so what one of the things
that I have found rather ominous is that
there are comedians first of all being
persecuted for under free speech
restriction legislation which i think is
absolutely appalling but also that there
are comedians now who won't perform on
university campuses John Cleese won't
Seinfeld that's like well you know how
offensive he is it's no wonder that I
mean he's like the straightest nicest
comedian you could possibly imagine he
won't perform on college campuses I
think louis c.k won't perform on or
anywhere else but it's a bad sign but no
humor humor is good and it's interesting
because I've been kind of watching how
I'm represented on the web weirdly
enough and there's all these memes that
have emerged I don't know thousands of
the bloody things and most of them are
comical and that's good like people are
are there hat there whatever it is that
they're doing I don't know what the hell
it is but it's being done with a
relatively light touch and that's really
really good
that's how it should be you got to have
a sense of humor I mean it's one of the
things that makes life bearable so or
maybe even better than bearable so you
bet
hello dr. Peterson just want to say what
a great lecture series and this is
lesson this year so merry Christmas to
you and your family thank you thank you
don't get too enthusiastic about that I
wrote you an essay of a question and
then I used the lecture of the essay
writing guide on it's like 2:30 to
narrow it down to just a few pages a few
lines and then during this at this
particular lecture like the zig zag
slide manifest again and I thought I
basically just had all my questions
answered so basically I just I want to
ask the idea of your you've made a
lecture that was on YouTube many years
ago and you keep referring to Cain and
Abel and the the death of Abel by Cain
and the curse in it and I think well
that that was the that was a single
brother two brothers conflict but but
here we have in the sense of Jacob the
twelve there was one who was one who's
good one who was an able archetype and
there were twelve eleven that came after
him so that I don't know maybe there's
something about the division or no
that's a good observation I didn't
thought about that
yeah well I mean there's a bit of
variability because Reuben and Reuben
isn't quite as bad as the rest but yeah
I would say it's probably easier for the
Cain side to multiply luckily it's not
as powerful because it doesn't do
anything like it yes yes and you know
you know there's young was often
included accused of manichaean isn't I'm
not pronouncing that properly but there
was a there was a variant of Christian
dogma that held that good and evil were
separate metaphysical realities and that
they were battling for the for
governance of the cosmos something like
that but they both had an independent
and the classical Christian idea which
one out over that was that no that good
was real but evil was the absence of
good now that produced all sorts of the
absence of good produces all sorts of
consequences and it is interesting to
read young because he does get kind of
Manichean in his discussions and I think
it was partly because he was so
concerned about what happened in Nazi
Germany and then with cold war
afterwards you know because evil seemed
to be a palpable force but I don't think
that it's as powerful as good but I do
think it's easier for it to multiply
because it's what's easier path it's
easy to be resentful and hostile and
bitter and and do nothing that's easy
it's horrible and it's hard on people
but it doesn't require a tremendous
amount of faith or effort so maybe that
is why it's multiplied in the final
story in Genesis yeah and I've been
reading ahead and for my own based on
the interest of the president presented
stories and I I keyed in on a few other
books and chapters in the Bible like
first Corinthians 13 which is the love
chapter and that cycles through the idea
of I can have all things in life
knowledge power but it's all passing and
now and forever our hope faith hope and
love and and of course love triumphs
over all yeah well the love issue see
I've been saying I thought a lot about
the relationship between love and truth
because I've thought and talked a lot
more about truth and I think partly
that's because love is a word that you
can hardly even say because it's been so
it's like it's being dragged behind a
car through mud puddles it's something
like that but so sorry let me just
finish it lab rating this idea but I
think that the the love idea is
associated with for me at least with
what I discussed at the beginning of
this lecture with regards to faith I
think you have to make a decision about
what your attitude towards being is
going to be and the proper attitude in
my estimation is that you're working for
its betterment you know and so maybe
maybe you have the same attitude towards
being as you do
towards someone that you love like a son
or a daughter or wife that you want
things to be better and that so that's
your aim so the aim is basically the aim
is motivated by love you want things to
be better because I think that's a good
definition of love like if you really
care for someone you can tell because
you want things to be better for them
and then I think truth is nested inside
that because I think that truth is the
best servant of love it's something like
that so I've been struggling with an
idea recently that I was thinking maybe
you'd be able to help me out with
basically in a recent interview you
talked about how myth is meant to
reconcile inherent contradictions in
reality right but but I'm sort of stuck
between two mythological or
psychoanalytic ideas that I think are
both really important but they seem to
have a inherent contradiction within
them that I've been trying to figure out
so on one hand you have this idea that
there's times in your life where you
have to identify things in yourself that
are insufficient or there's a problem
somehow that you have to kind of have a
controlled burn or like a Phoenix like
transformation where you discard part of
yourself that doesn't fit or is not
working but then on the other hand you
have talked about this this Union idea
where as you become really when you get
older you mature by reincorporating
things about yourself that you lost when
you were younger or that you know you're
trying to integrate your shadow or
you're trying to find parts of your
personality that that maybe you've been
rejecting and trying to figure out how
to bring them into into the folder in
the hole so he's got this quote that I
really like which is I'd rather behold
and good right right so so on one hand
you may identify something as a problem
and you want to get rid of it or burn it
off but then on the other hand it seems
like the the path to being stronger is
to figure out how to put everything
together so there's that there's a one
of the things Jung wrote about in his
works on alchemy was
an explanation of the prime alchemical
dictum which was solve a coagula which
meant dissolve and integrate right so so
imagine this imagine that imagine you
had a fairly hostile father who was not
very well controlled in his aggression
decent person other than that but let's
say that and so your reaction is I'm
never going to be aggressive and so
you've built a like a moral structure
that's part of your personality and
there's possibility floating around
outside of that did you you've denied an
ethical you've denied any ethical what
would you say you've stripped the idea
of aggression of any ethical utility
whatsoever okay so what happens this
burns off and then that comes back up
now you still have to integrate it so
it's associated in some sense with
Nietzsche's ideas morality as cowardice
because one of nature's most trenchant
critiques of traditional morality let's
say is that most of what passes for
morality isn't morality it's just
cowardice it's not that I'm a good
person and I don't hurt you it's that
I'm afraid to hurt you and because I
don't want to admit that I'm afraid to
hurt you and then I say I'm moral
because then I can mask my essential
fear and cowardice in a guise of
morality and that happens far more often
than you would think because harmless
and moral are by no means the same thing
so some of what you're burning off you
can sit and this is where Freud was such
a genius I think is because he
concentrated on aggression and sexuality
which are perhaps the two most difficult
parts of a personality to integrate said
that the the hyper simp
fied morality stops you from tapping
into deeper recesses of your psyche and
it's partly because there are primal
forces it's not surprising that you
don't want to have anything to do with
them that you stay away from situations
where they might make themselves
manifest but the problem is by denying
the worst in yourself in that manner
suppressing it you preclude the
possibility of the best because no one
can be a good person without integrating
their capacity for aggression because
without that capacity of a progression
you cannot say no because no means if
you really say it no means there isn't
anything that you can do to me that will
make me change my mind or or conversely
it means I will play for higher stakes
than you will and unless you've got your
aggression integrated there isn't a
chance you can say that and if you did
no one would take you seriously because
they'd know it was just a show so one of
the most useful things that Jung did I
think was to work on this idea of the
integration of the shadow because he was
really interested in the idea of evil
right especially working with trying to
parcel out what happened in Nazi Germany
and during the Second World War
what do you do with the part of you
that's aggressive and and potentially
malevolent do you just crush it that's
the super-ego response in some sense do
you just put it behind you so to speak
is that a possibility or do you admit to
its existence and bring it into the game
and that's see for Freud in some sense
morality was super-ego clamping down on
the it'd and they were fundamentally
opposed both young and Piaget had a
different idea and I think they were
right it's like no no you invite the bad
guys out to play and so you're an
aggressive hockey player but it's
disciplined aggression that makes you
gives you access to the whole source of
energy you wouldn't otherwise have and
then with regards to sexuality it's like
well untrammeled promiscuity doesn't
constitute a virtue but neither does
unavoidable virginity right in fact I
think that's worse because it also masks
itself with virtue it's like well you
should be able to
you should be able to do things that you
wouldn't do that's that's like the
definition of a genuinely moral person
they could do it but they don't and that
that's not cowardice and so that's you
burn off the things that get in the way
of that integration so when you say
dissolve and integrate it'd be a good
way to sort of bring the two ideas
together that the burning off and the
difficult process is necessary because
the elements of yourself are structured
together in a rigid way that is not
working properly and that's what happens
to Geppetto in the belly of the whale
he's so caught in his presuppositions
that he can't escape right and so
Pinocchio represents the new force so
it's very interesting so when you watch
Pinocchio try to rescue him the first
thing Geppetto does is confuse Pinocchio
with a fish because he wants something
to eat but Pinocchio is better than
something to eat because he could rescue
him so he doesn't need to eat and then
Pinocchio wants to make a fire in
Geppetto objects because he's gonna burn
up all the furniture it's like we don't
need the damn furniture if we're getting
out of the whale you know and so so
Geppetto and and he's old so that that
that's that that's the rigid structure
that's the old year that has to die off
before the new year can be born it's a
forest fire that allows for new growth
and and that's how those things are put
together and to see and it's useful to
know too because if you burn something
off you might think well there's nothing
left it's like that's not true if it's
dead wood then you have room for new
growth and you want to be doing that on
a fairly regular basis that's the that's
that's the snake that sheds its skin and
transforms itself right that's that's
the death and resurrection from a
psychological perspective it's exactly
the same idea now we don't know the
upper limit to that right because we
don't know what a person would be like
if they let everything that they could
let go let go and only let in what was
seemly let's say but you can see that's
funny we don't know that to some degree
you can see people vary from you can see
people start to do that without that's
not an rare experience
and people improve very rapidly they can
improve their lives very rapidly a lot
of its low-hanging fruit like if you
just stop doing really stupid things
that you know are stupid your life
improves a lot so and it frees you up it
also means there's a there's an element
there that's also associated with pride
because people tend to take pride in who
they are and that's a bad idea because
that stops you from becoming who you
could be because if you're proud of who
you are
you won't let that go when it's
necessary you won't step away from it
you know and then you end up being your
own parody something like that that's
also a very bad idea you want to be
continually stepping away from your
previous self and so big and I guess
part of that too is that you you have to
decide you know are you are you order or
you chaos or you the process that
mediates between them and if you're the
process that mediates between them you
you are the thing that transforms and
that's the right attitude for human
being because that's what we are we're
the thing that voluntarily confronts
chaos and transforms that's what we are
and so for better or worse you know
that's our deepest biological essence
you might say and so you can let things
go if you know that there's more growth
to come so
one more thank you for your time and
thank you for spending time with us hey
my pleasure so if I could since we are
at the end of Genesis I like the
opportunity to challenge or at least
have you take another look at your
position you've held with regards to
Cain's reflection on the murder of evil
I bring this up because it's actually a
part of Genesis that has bothered me for
a while and it's not like because not as
straightforward as its presented usually
and it's really I've been wrestling with
it so in this series as well as in a
couple of your maps of meaning lectures
you summarized that something to the
effect of Cain coming to the conclusion
that what he did leads to a punishment
which is more than he believes he can
face which I believe to be born out of a
natural reading of a specific
translation choices incorrectly made or
enter a innocently made by editors just
for readability sake so in Genesis 4:13
Cain does not say my punishment is
greater than I can bear he actually says
he meets my sin is greater than I can
bear which is this a.m. which is to say
it's not his past actions we just say
it's not his past sections its futures
consequences which it's just past action
it's not his future consequences which
he regrets for him to say our own
iniquity or sin that is too much for him
to bear as a reflection on the reality
of his corruption and not a plea of
Mercy to the deity to spare him mmm okay
well that's that seems to be a deeper
interpretation I would say and I think
it's more that's the same line of
reasoning that Dostoevsky pursued in
crime and punishment right because in
crime and punishment Raskolnikov gets
away with murder and then he cannot
stand it he cannot stand that he did it
because he's no longer the same person
but even more he cannot stand that he
got away with it
so that's more in keeping with with that
interpretation so this also is reflected
in the falling verse and 4:14 where he
states the consequences of his actions
mainly that God's presence will hot be
hidden from him and that he will be
killed the verse opens was the word hane
which means indeed more or less
and to note the sense of acceptance and
not a complaint it is the difference
between saying oh no well God now hide
his face from me and will I be hunted
versus of course God will hide his face
for me and I will be hunted and killed
which I've been wrestling with and I've
taken a way to possibly mean that there
are sins that we can do that will just
push us too far well okay there there
there are well okay so one of the well
one of the things that you see in
post-traumatic post-traumatic stress
disorder situations for example is that
people view themselves doing something
so terrible they don't know how to put
it right so that and so you could say
under those circumstances the face of
God is hidden from them because they
cannot they cannot atone for it they
can't reconcile themselves to it it's
there all the time and they can't see
anything good beyond it it's hell
essentially and so I mean sometimes when
you're working with people with
post-traumatic stress disorder you know
you you kind of in initiate them into a
philosophy of good and evil so that they
can see when Joseph talks to his
brothers and they've got all this guilt
right and and he doesn't want them to
have more guilt than necessary to fix
themselves because it just burdens them
otherwise he says look don't forget yeah
yeah it was you but it's also God's
doing and I had a client once who who
had obsessive-compulsive disorder and
he's a very smart guy he also happened
to work in a radioactive lab that had a
lot of radioactive materials which
wasn't the best place for someone with
OCD and he was worried that he would
make some mistake this is very common
with OCD that would result in someone's
suffering which you will you'll do that
and it wasn't until I could get him to
conceptualize himself and his life in
part as a force of nature that he was
able to reconcile himself to the
possibility that an error on his part
would produce catastrophic consequences
but people often find themselves in
situations where they just they cannot
reconcile themselves to what they've
done and that it makes sense to me that
that the interpretation that you're
describing that
that makes them that makes plenty of
sense from a psychological perspective
there are sins that will push us like
just beyond our limit that are too far
but there are also no consequences to
our actions that are devoid of a truth
we can accept and learn from and this is
what I've kind of dealt out of this bit
with Cain and Abel so if this is the
case why then does it take us so long
and with so much self - now before we
accept personal responsibility when
faced with tragedy especially when it's
self inflicted well I I don't think you
want to underestimate the contribution
of just sheer difficulty like you know
let's say you you you you're grieving
because someone close to you died it's
like well it isn't just that you've lost
them although that's a big part of it
it's that you have to rebuild yourself
and it's really hard to do that so and
it is sort of proportional to the
significance of your error so if you
commit an error and then you recognize
that it's an error if it's a sort of
surface error it's like well you can
just touch up the paint but sometimes
the whole under structure is just rotten
and then you don't know what to do and
then so that's one problems just sheer
bloody difficulty and I see this with
people very often it's like they're at a
point in their divorce let's say and
they don't know what to do they cannot
solve the problem it's too complicated
they just don't have the resources and
maybe they've squandered some of their
resources as well but sometimes they
just don't have the resources and then
if you add to that error and sin and
malevolence and blindness and all those
other things people there's a guy named
Thomas SAS who wrote this really
interesting article in the 1960s a book
actually called the myth of mental
illness and it was classic reading for
clinical psychologists when I was
training and the reason for that was is
that SAS pointed out and this is true is
that mmm-hmm lots of times if you're a
psychotherapist people don't come to you
because they have mental illnesses they
had come to you because they have
insoluble
problems in their life you know like
maybe they've had a two-year affair at
work their wife is alcoholic and they
have a very and their father has
Alzheimer's disease it's like they just
don't know what to do it's too much now
you know they shouldn't have had the
affair so there's a moral issue and
maybe they should have intervened in the
alcoholism in the family maybe they used
their wives alcoholism as an excuse to
have the affair you know like these
things get very tangled it's just it's
so bloody complicated that people can't
untangle it so and I would say that's in
keeping with the interpretation that you
laid forth with regards to cain is it
sounds like that's one of the reasons
why it's so useful to read multiple
translations right because nuances
matter it sounds to me from that
description that he actually woke up at
least briefly and noticed what he did
and said there's no coming back from
this and and it is you can easily get
places that you do not know how to come
back from now you know they say well all
things are possible with God and there's
always the possibility of redemption no
matter how serious the sin but I'll tell
you sometimes people have no idea how to
get back from where they went well and
you can understand often why people
wouldn't do that right yeah well that's
a funny thing because one of the things
Carl Rogers said too about psychotherapy
is that you can't do psychotherapy with
someone who hasn't recognized that they
have a problem so that it's a massive
thing to recognize that you have a
problem and it does open the door
perhaps to recovery but it also means
that you've recognized that you have a
problem and that can be very very it's
the desert right you're out of the
tyranny but you're in the desert and the
sun's beating down on you and there's no
necessary reason to presume that you're
going to survive so think you have
goodnight and stay thank you all
you