you know you can say things to people
like tell tell the truth and be good and
those aren't those are cliches obviously
and so they lack power because they're
cliches but you can take them apart and
utilize them in a manner that stops
being a cliche and you do that by being
more humble about them I would say
because maybe you can't tell the truth
because you don't know what the truth is
but one thing you can do is you can stop
saying things that you know to be untrue
and you might say well how do I know
that they're untrue and the answer to
that is well you need a whole philosophy
of truth the elaboration of an entire
philosophy of truth to answer that
question and so we're not going to
bother answering that question because
in some sense at the moment it's beside
the point that isn't the issue the issue
is there are times in your life where
you know that the thing that you're
saying is not true it's a deception it's
a lie of some sort and you're using it
to manipulate yourself or another person
or the world and you're also possessed
fully possessed of the idea that you can
get away with it and there's a satanic
arrogance about that in fact that is the
archetypal arrogance that's portrayed in
the mythological character of Satan
because Satan is precisely the archetype
of the element of the mind that believes
that it can twist and and bend the
structure of reality without paying the
price for that and you can't imagine
anything that's more arrogant than that
because really do you really think that
you can twist the structure of a reality
and that that's going to work out for
you without it snapping back it's so
obvious that that can't work that that
everyone knows it but anyways back to
the initial point is that you know by
the rules of the game that you yourself
are playing that some of the times
you're violating the rules of the game
that you're playing and the first issue
with regards to say stating the truth or
behaving in a responsible manner would
be merely stopped cheating at whatever
game it is that you've chosen to play
that's a good start and that'll
straitened that'll straighten out your
life it'll start in a straight start to
straighten out your life and so well the
flood what how does the flood tie into
well you know we live in a corrupt
structure we're corrupt as individuals
we live in a corrupt structure and part
of that corruption has just happenstance
it's the way things fall apart but the
other part of it is that not only are we
not aiming up we're actually aiming down
and the flood story is a warning and
it's a very clear warning and the
warning is if you aim down enough and
then if enough of you aim down at the
same time everything will degenerate
into something that's indistinguishable
from the chaos from which things emerged
at the beginning of time it's something
like that because the the cosmos that's
presented in mythological
representations is chaos versus order
right the order is on top you might say
and the chaos is always underneath and
the chaos can break through or the order
can crumble and you can fall into the
chaos and that chaos is intermingle
intermingled potential and the way that
you destroy the order and let the chaos
rise back up which which is exactly how
it's portrayed in the flood story is by
well by inhabiting the corpse of your
father that's one mythological motif and
feeding on the remains and with no
gratitude and no attempt to replenish
what it is that you're taking from and
the warning in the flood story is don't
do that for very long because things
will happen that are so awful you cannot
possibly imagine it and that'll happen
to you personally it'll happen to your
family and it'll happen to your
community and it's happened to people
over and over throughout history and
it's it's quite interesting you know
it's it's very soon after the story of
Cain and Abel when you see evil enter
the world in the story of Adam and Eve
along with self-consciousness and evil
there is the the ability that's the
knowledge of good and evil that's the
ability to hurt other people
self-consciously to know what you're
doing and then of course instantly Cain
takes that to the absolute extreme and
he uses that capacity to to destroy
really what he loves best he gets as
close as a human being can to destroying
the divine ideal because of course his
brother is Abel and Abel is favored by
God and Cain destroys him which Cain
tells God at the end of that episode
that his punishment is more than he can
bear and I think the reason for that is
where are you one
so you destroy your own ideal what's
left for you
there's nowhere to go there's no up and
when there's no up there's a lot of down
and you know there's an idea that was
put forth very nicely in Milton's
Paradise Lost when he was describing
from a psychological perspective
essentially what hell is and hell is
you're in hell to the degree that you're
distant from the good that that might be
a good way of thinking about it and if
you destroy your own ideal which you do
with jealousy and resentment and and the
desire to pull down people who you would
like to be let's say then you end up in
a situation that's indistinguishable
from hell and and the way the story the
biblical story unfolds as well it's it's
it's Cain and then it's the flood and so
Cain adopts this mode of being that's
antithetical to being itself at least a
positive being itself he does it
voluntarily he does it knowing full well
what he's doing and the net consequence
of this that as it ripples through the
entire social structure is that God
stands back and says this whole thing is
got so bad the only thing we can do is
is wipe it to the ground and that is
that is no joke
that's exactly how things work and one
of the things that's extraordinarily
terrifying about that sequence of
stories and I believe this to be true I
think I realized this independently of
any of the analysis that I was doing of
mythological stories because I looked at
what happened in places like the Soviet
Union and Mao's China and and Nazi
Germany and the most penetrating
observers of those societies the people
who were most interested in how it was
that those absolute catastrophes came
about all said the same thing it was
rooted in the degeneration of the
individuals who made up the society you
know you hear what people will thought
were following orders it's like no that
that explanation doesn't hold water or
that you'd be punished if you resisted
well there was some truth in that but
nowhere near as much as people might
think especially at the beginnings of
the process more it was that people
decided each and every one of them to
turn a blind eye to the catastrophes and
to participate in the lies and that
warped the entire societies and they
went as you know they they feared their
way down
to something as closely approximating
hell as you could hope to manage
especially in places like Nazi Germany
and well in all three of those places
and in Mao is China and in the Soviet
Union and so the thing that's so
frightening about one of the things
that's so frightening about the stories
in Genesis is they say something very
clear which is that your moral
degeneration contributes in no small way
to the degeneration of the entire cosmos
and you say well I would like my life to
be meaningful people say that really
would you really you really would like
your life to be meaningful you think
maybe people would trade a little
nihilism to not have to face that
particular realization and I think
people do that all the time it's a
terrible way to to to realize but we are
networked together in it and that that's
the the price of or let's say that's the
vulnerability that's associated with our
intense capacity to communicate and it
is certainly possible that the ripples
of our individual actions have
consequences that are far beyond the
limits of our immediate consciousness
and I also think people know that too
they know that in the way that people
know things when they don't want to know
them which means they know them embodied
they can feel them they can sense them
they have an emotional response to them
but there's no damn way they're gonna
let them become articulate because they
don't want to know and when you're
feeling guilty and ashamed about the
things you've done or not done and I
know that can get out of hand as well
it's often because there is a crooked
little part of you that's aiming at the
worst possible outcome you know one of
the things Young said about the shadow
you know that young famous idea that
everyone has a dark side and that that
dark side needs to be incorporated and
made conscious young said the the the
shadow of the human being reaches all
the way to hell and he actually that's
the thing that's so interest about
interesting about reading Carl Jung is
he actually means what he says it's not
a metaphor it's like the the part of you
that's twisted against being is aligned
with the part of the cosmos let's say
the conscious cosmos that's aiming at
making everything as terrible as it can
possibly be
and you know it's a terrible shock to
realize that it's partly why people
don't realize that it's it's something
that people keep at an arm's length it's
it's the same as recognizing yourself as
a Nazi concentration gap camp guard
which is a very useful exercise because
there's absolutely no reason why you
couldn't have been or still could be one
so and if you think otherwise then all
the more reason for assuming that you
would be unable to resist the temptation
if it was in fact offered to you and if
you don't think it's a temptation then
the then there's so much that you don't
know about human beings that you're not
even in the game because if it wasn't a
temptation then people bloody well
wouldn't have done it and plenty of
people did it and it's no wonder