That's partly the archetypal underpinning and then with regards to the stories themselves
You're you're in a map
So to speak you're using a map and with any luck its detailed enough
so that you can use it to get to the place that you want to go and
sometimes you don't and that means that you have to
Recalibrate your your journey along the map which by the way is exactly what GPS systems do when you go off the pathway
Right, they stop
That's an anxiety response from the GPS system
They stop they recalibrate and they readjust the map now and then if you're unfortunate this very rarely happens anymore
You'll be on a road that isn't mapped. And then the GPS system doesn't know what to do
Well that happens in real life too. I mean, those are I'm using GPS for a very specific reason
Those are intelligent systems as far as I'm concerned
those are the closest things we've ever designed to intelligent systems because they can actually orient right they orient in real time and they're unbelievably
Sophisticated systems right because they rely on a huge satellite network and and so on and they're cybernetic systems. Technically speaking
They respond very much like the way that we respond so
so anyways, you know, you're in you inhabit a map you try to adjust the
Resolution of the map so that it's munot more complex than it needs to be to get you from point A to point B
That's it. You want minimal resolution? Because that enables efficient cognitive processing
It doesn't overload you too much like when I'm looking at this room if I look say I want to walk down this pathway
basically what my mind does my perceptual field and you can detect this if I look straight ahead I
Can barely see you people on the periphery. You're more like you're kind of like blurs
You too, I can tell that you have heads but that's about it when you move I can see your hand
I can probably see your eyes, but barely so you're all very low resolution
And even though I can't detect it at the very periphery of my vision
You guys are black and white so my color vision disappears at the periphery, even though I can't I can't actually perceive that
So what happens is if I want to walk down here this pathway becomes high-resolution. It becomes marked with positive emotion
All of this turns into low resolution back here
It's not even represented and then I find out well, am I doing this properly and the answer is well
I walk forward and if I get to the goal, then I've done it properly
Enough and if you know one of you stand up and get in my way
Then I'm gonna focus on you and assume instantly that I haven't mapped you properly right?
I put you in the category of irrelevant entity when in fact you happen to be in the category of strange
Object the thing that objects and so well, so then we inhabit those structures all the time
We're in a structure like that a perceptual structure
and if it's working then it's got the archetypal quality of
Paradise so to speak because it's axioms are correct
And it's functional and then now and then something comes along and that's what the snake is the eternal snake in the garden
That pops up inside a structure and it turns out that the things that you weren't attending to are
The most important things rather than the least important things and that what does that do? It blows the map into pieces and
That can happen at different levels of severity
But at the ultimate level of severity its apocalyptic
Right everything goes and that's a that's a traumatic intrusion
And essentially the story of the Garden of Eden is the story of a traumatic intrusion. That's exactly what it is
And so what happens is that Adam and Eve are living in unconscious bles. Roughly speaking
Everything's fine. They're in their walled garden. They're in a paradisal state. They're not aware of their own vulnerability or nakedness
so they they're not suffering from negative emotion something pops up that
Radically expands their vision and all of a sudden now, they can apprehend all sorts of things that exist as threats
So that's their own nakedness and vulnerability and temporality itself because they become aware of the future and bang that
State of being in that paradise is forever gone. That's the strange thing about human beings
Is this is what what happened to us? I think is that our
perceptions developed to such a degree that
We could no longer ignore what was irrelevant
We couldn't do it because we discovered roughly speaking once we discovered our finite limitations in time and space
We discovered that we surrounded by infinite threat
always and maybe that's why people are so hyper awake because
Threat wakes you up. Well, we're in a constant state of
existential threat now the advantage to that is that we take
We take arms up against a sea of troubles
constantly, that's the advantage right and we build enclosures and we take precautions for the future and we live a very long time and we
Generally live quite safe lives compared to the lives we could live and so we've traded pain for anxiety
That's another way of thinking about it now
It's still a pretty rough trade right because who wants to be nervous all the time
But you're alive and awake when you're nervous and it is a form of consciousness
elevating
Activation that's another way of thinking about it
So the story of Adam and Eve is the story of the eternal fall that that's what it is
It says look you exist in these walled enclosures, but there's something that lurks that will always knock you off your feet
And then the question is what is that? And and the answer to that is being formulated over very long periods of time partly
It's the probability of predation itself
that's the snake the thing that can come in subtly and undermine you okay, but then that's that's
What would you call it?
Expand it upward to include
The abstract snake which is that thing that can undermine your conceptual schemes, right?
So you have your actual territory and then you have your abstract to our territory and in your actual territory?
There are actual snakes and in your abstract territory. There are abstract snakes, right?
And then the worst snake of all is malevolence
and that's I think that's
technically, correct because one of the things that you view for example
When you're looking at post-traumatic stress disorder is that it's almost always the case that someone who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder
Which you might think of as a real
real-life
Reincarnation of the fall is that people encounter something malevolent? And
It breaks them because it's the worst thing to understand. It's like suffering is one thing man. That's that's bad enough
vulnerability and suffering
That's bad enough but to encounter someone who will is that upon you and we'll work to bring it about
That's a whole different category of horrible. Especially what it also
Reflects something back to you about yourself because if someone else can do that to you and they're human
That means that you partake of the same essence strangely enough
That's actually the cure to some degree to post-traumatic stress disorder
is
it like if you've been victimized you're naive and you've been victimized the way out of that is to no longer be naive and to
No longer be victimized and that means that you you see this reflected in the Harry Potter idea
For example that the reason that Harry Potter can withstand Voldemort is because he's got a piece of him
But he's been touched by it and the way that you the way that you keep the psychopaths at bay is to develop the inner
Psychopath so that you know one when you see one, right and then but that's a voluntary thing
It's it's so it's like a it's like a set of tools that you have at your disposal
Which is full knowledge of evil and that does
Nietzsche said if you look into an abyss for too long you risk having the abyss gaze back into you, right?
The idea is that if you look at something monstrous you have a tendency to turn into a monster and people are often very
Afraid of looking at monstrous things exactly for that reason and then the question is well
Should you turn into a monster? And the answer to that is?
Yes
You should but you should do it voluntarily and not accidentally and you should do it with the good in mind
Rather than falling prey to it by possession essentially because that's the alternative. How does it possess you? That's easy
Your suffering makes you better your bitterness makes you resentful you're resentful
Means me it makes you vengeful. And once you're on that road you go down that a little bit farther man
Well you end up it
Fantasizing in your basement about shooting up the local high school and then killing yourself, right?
Because that's sort of the ultimate end of that line of pathological reasoning being should be eradicated because of its intrinsic evil
And I'm exactly the person to do it and I'll cap it off with an indication of my own lack of worth just to hammer
the point home right and if I can garner a little post
Post posthumous Fame along the way. Well that'll satisfy my primordial primate dominance hierarchy
Jennings - at least in fantasy so you know
It's the full package
If you want to go down that route, and of course people don't like to think about that sort of thing
And it's no bloody wonder but without the capability for mayhem Europe
You're you're a you're a potential victim - may have so you need your sword?
It should be sheath but you need to have it and it's very frequently the case if you treat someone with post-traumatic stress disorder
There's two things you have to do. You have to help them develop a very
articulated philosophy of evil
Because otherwise their brain bothers them over and over and over. What why were you so mean with naive? How did you become victimized?
Why were you such a sucker? These are good questions. You don't want to have that happen to you again
You don't want to be exploited twice. Okay, so your eyes have to open up
We know the price of that from them Egyptian myth right you come into contact with Seth
What happens even if you're a god you lose an eye? It's no joke, man
It's no joke, and then the cure for that is the movement down into the underworld and with the revitalization of the Father
That's the identification with the force that created culture right and that then there's you and that together then you can withstand
Malevolence, maybe you can withstand tragedy and malevolence and then that's the whole secret, right?
Because that's what you want in life
You need to be able to withstand tragedy and you need to be able to withstand
malevolence because those are the forces they're always working against you and so it's just this is
Associated with the Union idea of incorporation of the shadow, right? You have to be we know this God
We know how predators work with regards to children. Even if you're a
pedophilic predator and you're
Looking at a landscape of children the child that you're going to go after is the one that's timid and won't fight back
You've picked your victim and predatory people in general or exactly like that man. They're because they're predators
They're not going to attack someone who's who's gonna fight back?
In fact, the issue is likely not to even come up
they're going to be looking for someone one way or another that cannot conceptualize what they are and
Then perfect it's a it's an open season and it's open season. And so if you're treating someone with post-traumatic stress disorder
First they need an intraday to the philosophy of malevolence and second
They have to learn to become dangerous because that's the only way out. What's the alternative?
To get these recurrent thoughts about their vulnerability in the face of malevolence and their own
Naivety because by definition if someone's psychopathic has exploited you you're too naive
It's a definitional issue. You can say well that's no fault of mine
How the hell could I be prepared fair enough, man?
A perfectly reasonable objection doesn't solve your problem because it's an it's an eternal problem, right?
The internal problem is how do you deal with tragedy and malevolence? And you can say well I'm not prepared. It's like yeah fair enough
Unsurprising especially if you were over protected as a child
It's not a good idea to overprotect your kids because the snakes are going to come into the garden
No matter what you do. And so then you instead of trying to keep the damn snakes away
What you do is you arm your child with something that can help them chop them into pieces
And make the world out of them so that the trick for human
Thriving in the face of suffering and malevolence is strength not protection. It's a completely different idea
You