The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
You can support our work and gain access to more unique content if you visit our Patreon: www.patreon.com/ccseminary
The Light in Every Thing
Facing Evil, Ep. 2: Between Beasts and Angels
Between Beasts and Angels
In this episode, Patrick and Jonah continue their new series on the mystery of evil, turning to Mark’s image of Christ in the wilderness—“with the wild beasts and the angels.” What does it mean for the human being to stand in this balance, and how might Christ reveal a way that is neither despair nor false light, but freedom and love?
For full show notes and ongoing reflections, visit our Patreon: www.patreon.com/c/ccseminary.
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
¶¶.
Speaker 3:Afternoon Jonah, good afternoon. Well, good morning, good morning to you. It's 8 am in Atlanta.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, the kids are off to school.
Speaker 3:Beautiful and you're so right. It is good afternoon. I'm in the beautiful city of Barcelona. It is quite magnificent.
Speaker 2:I've never been. My brother, when he was just out of high school, did this Europe trip and he went to a lot of places. But when he arrived at Barcelona he fell head over heels. So ever since then I knew like that's got to be a place. That's just pretty special, magical.
Speaker 3:It is Yesterday. I got lost in what's called the Gothic area in these little lanes, and I came to this magnificent cathedral called the St Maria, and it was just, it was mystical beautiful, wow, maria, and it was just, it was mystical.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, wow, yeah, isn't that where? Also like this extraordinary, almost like drip sand castle, cathedral by Goya is yeah.
Speaker 3:Gaudi, gaudi.
Speaker 2:Gaudi, sorry, gaudi.
Speaker 3:Goya, is it right, another artist Painting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's been being built since the 1800s and it's been being built since the 1800s and it's meant to be finished next year.
Speaker 3:Whoa I didn't know, they were still working on it, wow, and so I tried to get in, but the tickets were too expensive last minute. So I'm going to go next year, because it's a nice little hop before the Lanker Conference.
Speaker 2:Nice, yeah, well, welcome everyone else to the Light in Everything. Yeah, where two human beings, two priests discuss the mysteries of Christ and the world and God. Yeah, and we open our sessions with a word out of the gospel of john, where this person, this being, characterizes himself in a particular way. Again, jesus spoke to them, saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, patrick, we've just started a new theme, a new series, and you opened yesterday with this, pointing us to this darkness that this being the light of life is guiding us through, and opened in a way. That said, we're going to start to try to look at this darkness, the theme being trying to approach and orientate ourselves with how to recognize and understand and navigate evil in our time and when I was. I woke up this morning thinking about our conversation last time and what stayed with me was it was kind of like we began with just broad strokes of trying to start to characterize different kinds of darkness and we had the story that stayed with me. The strongest was this story you told about your experience with your family life and your parents and a kind of darkness that felt like ripping your reality asunder, ripping your heart and soul asunder. That's what stuck with me and that you didn't want to, so much so that you didn't want to be here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was very powerful as a kind of expression of darkness is an expression of, of even something we could call evil, but it has a characteristic in that it's wounding, but it also because I know how interested you are in trying to live socially with other human beings in such a way that you listen to them deeply and that you can bridge that, that gap between the self and the other. It has a redemptive quality. The wound has a kind of possibility in it of something new being born, so that as a first kind of characteristic right I described then, I also described a kind of darkness that was more old, thoughts and feelings that were actually hindering me. Now, yeah, so a wound, kind of potentiality, characteristic and a kind of parasite.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well also. I guess I just want to say this, this, uh, the Well also. I guess I just want to say this this, uh, the particular experience of the being where I felt that wound was this divider.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:That which takes what is whole and in a in a, in a shared fabric, and creates a tear which reminds me very much of this other element that you mentioned and is fed out of tearing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:There's a being that receives forces from tearing things apart.
Speaker 3:Right, that was exactly that was very much present in my experience, that a kind of evil entity that showed itself as a serpent was fed by certain thoughts and feelings and in a way, like you just said, maybe the expression evil for you feeds on the division.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that particular one yeah.
Speaker 3:That particular one. And then there was that more disturbing expression of a kind of possession that you described in your memory, of this horrible deed that this man committed one of your neighbors, which has a kind of taking possession of a human being quality and a destructive quality. It doesn't seem to have a, it doesn't seem to have a time and a place or a redemptive quality to. It just seems like it wants to destroy. Yeah, so I would that I was left with this kind of these three qualities of our beginning to paint these qualities of darkness.
Speaker 2:I, I don't know, before we go on, if you want to add anything or or say anything well, just that, where we ended too of similar to that feeling that I had as a child, like in the face of that darkness, I didn't want what this world was Like. If this is this world, I don't want it, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be a part of it which I had that deep feeling then as a young child I'm coming from another world into this world too. Like there is a place I'm from and it's not like this into this world too, like there is a place I'm from and it's not like this.
Speaker 2:But on the other side of it, too, there is a kind of thing I can recognize now is there is also, ultimately, a rejection of the world God has made, like the God and God's angels who've been involved in allowing this universe to come into being, in which such evil could exist, like why would a being make a world where that could happen? What happened across the street right, this horror, and I think that's such a deep feeling in the people I know in our time. Somewhere there's a feeling of rejection. What is and I felt us try to start the process of going is there a wisdom living in the spirit that wants us to face this?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Right? And if there is, how do we start to understand that right? Because this is, this is one of the I mean, I don't know about you, but most of the so-called atheists and agnostics that I speak with this is where they come down. How does God allow this as something good, something allowable, something okay at all? Okay, why do we have that? And it's a perfect segue into what I was kind of thinking of guiding us to today and laying a question at your feet, which is something you already pointed to in the last conversation, which is this revelation in the gospel, specifically the gospel of Mark, which says, right after Jesus is baptized, that the Holy Spirit, god's Spirit, actually leads him into the desert to encounter and to be tempted by the adversary. So clearly from the Gospel, the Gospel teaches us that the Holy Spirit has some deep meaning, deep purpose, because if the Holy Spirit leads the God human, the light of the world, to be tempted, then it must have a deep purpose and a deep place in our journey. Yeah, but how and why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes.
Speaker 3:Why so? And I thought it was really interesting. You pointed out last time that in Mark there's no description of the qualities of temptation that Jesus undergoes like there is in Matthew, for example. Yeah, In Matthew you have, you know, you have the three classic. Change these stones into bread, throw yourself down and the angels will from the parapet and then I'll give you the whole world if you bow down to me. But mark mark has none of that. But you pointed to something very interesting that it says. It says the Holy Spirit very quickly, very briefly, Holy Spirit leads him out into the desert to be tempted by the adversary, and he was with the wild beast and the angels were serving him or ministering to him. So I I just thought that was very interesting that you pointed to that, because in a way and that came to me this morning that picture replaces the actual detailed interactions of Jesus and the adversary.
Speaker 3:Oh interesting, Wow Cool If you just take that as a picture and you have something from above that he's in relationship with and the beasts are below. Yeah, so you have and was tempted by the adversary. And then you have this picture, yes, and I just thought can that tell us something about the nature of evil, this gesture of working with something from above and working with something from below as a key or a medicine or a weapon against the adversary, and I thought how would you take that further? Can you lead us a little bit further into that?
Speaker 2:I mean thank you, can you lead us a little bit further into that? Who himself found himself deeply compelled to wrestle with understanding and characterizing the nature of our adversaries. The nuances and depth with which he brought to that research gave me eyes to recognize a short line like that. Right, cause it's like a such a brief line, and I think in the past I just would have read over. It's like okay, great, great, no idea. Why have you told me at all that there were wild beasts there, like no description, right? What kind of wild beasts? How were they relating to him? Did they want to devour him or were they at his feet and he was petting them? You know, like what is it? What was the scene? Right? And then the angels are ministering. What does that mean? What's happening? Does that mean what's happening?
Speaker 2:And during my seminary training in Stuttgart, germany, back when we only had one seminary still, I think it was actually, though, in my second year, 2001. And the tradition at that time was everyone in the second year would get assigned one entire lecture series by Rudolf Steiner and to live with it and digest it over a whole summer and come back and give a 30-minute presentation bringing out the essence of that entire lecture series and in your own words, and retell it. This is an amazing project. I remember working on it through the whole summer, going over every lecture and carefully trying to track all the ideas and digest it. And my gift of destiny was I was assigned the lecture series the Sending of my Kyle. The Sending of my Kyle. This is in the collected works of Rudolf Steiner, ga 194. And in that lecture cycle Rudolf Steiner takes up this thing we talked about last time, which is the dualism that dominated Christianity and its worldview.
Speaker 2:Like the earthly is evil, the heavenly is good, anything of the senses and the desires that are connected to the senses, and anything you know desire for power, anything in the body that's like, it's just bad by nature, yeah, yeah, and medieval humanity is basically waiting to die so that it can go to heaven. And your passage to heaven is your relationship with Jesus right? And that carries into American Christianity, of course, with all of the great music that was born of it and the white gospel tradition, for example. I'll fly away. I'll fly away Some bright morning when this life is over, like, please take me from this veil of tears and suffering and take me to the pearly gates. You know, like just this, there's this other world away from earth, which is the goal. Right? So this is super thick in our Christian history. Right, so this is super thick in our christian history. It's not biblical or scriptural necessarily. Yeah, which even you know, thank god, in the last 30 years, a lot of bible scholars have really worked to try to help people see, no, no, no, wait, let's take a closer look at this. This is a relic of the medieval age, not necessarily of scripture, and one of those relics is what we talked about with the angel and the devil on your shoulders. The angel is the good voice and the devil is the bad voice, the one who wants you to do things just for yourself. And what Rudolf Steiner then? What he does is he looks a little bit at the presentation also of good and evil in Milton's Paradise Lost, the dark scheming, you know, using all his intelligence for personal gain and making promises to you. If you come into league with him, he'll give you what you really long for. And then this angelic world, which is like totally not oriented towards the earth, and this dichotomy and the soul between these two. And Rudolf Steiner actually says actually, if you live into the characteristic, there's something not right in these angels. Actually they're Luciferic and that matches more the scripture In the story of the creation of the human being, in chapter two of Genesis, for example.
Speaker 2:There we see the human being formed out of earthly substance, dust and water. So part of what makes up who we are, thanks to God, is something earthly. So we can't condemn the earthly through scripture. So we can't condemn the earthly through Scripture. And the other side of us is God breathes into this substance and water that has been formed, so something of the inner breath and the warmed breath, so the innerness of God, the soul and spirit, spirit being connected with breath, is breathed into this earthly matter. So the human being, in its very description of the creation of the human being in Genesis 2, is made up of heaven and earth.
Speaker 2:And then the next thing we see, like Adam, the human being, the humanity do, is God brings the beasts, the animals, to him and Adam names them. And what God is looking for is someone who is his complement. Is there a perfect complement to you? Let's look at all of the animals and the answer is no. They too have an innerness, they have a soul force, they too have a body, but they are not a name giver. That power, that power of the word and the power of the name I have gifted to you. That differentiates You're not an animal. So the beginning of this differentiation between the human and the animal is starting to come in there in a beautiful way, and you will never find your complement in the animal world.
Speaker 2:And so the human being is put to sleep into a deep trance, and out of the side of the human being the feminine element is drawn out, and this feminine element is then approached by an animal, but it's not a regular animal. Clearly, the word for it too is connected to this word seraphim, snake, esoteric knowledge. It's a being who knows about God, who knows more about what's happening in God's world than the human beings do. It's like an older brother. Did God really say you couldn't eat from any of the trees? You know? And you're like this, innocent, you know, younger sibling like no, no, just from these trees. Oh, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:That's just because God doesn't want you to become like you know, because if you eat of this, you're not going to die, you're going to become like God. So this being steps in and says hey, humans, I'm going to lift you into godhood before it's time. I'm going to try to skip steps. So you see, right in the beginning, the human being between animals and the beasts, and a being who wants to speed up, develop and take us into angelic reality. But the human is neither. The human has to go through this stage between the angels and the animals. It's a state of being between the animals and the upper hierarchies, the sons of God, of which this serpent is clearly a member. So this Lucifer being is a temptation to skip earth, yes, to skip the cross.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to get out of the darkness.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be in the desert.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:In your formation of your selfhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to just lift you up into the glory world and you don't have to go through that.
Speaker 3:Right, and you could just feel elements of that in your story, where the feeling in you was I don't want to be in this darkness, I don't want to do this.
Speaker 2:I want the harmony of the world. I've come from the truth of it, the beauty of it, the goodness of it. I don't want this place where things fall apart, where people turn on each other, they don't understand each other, can't work together, where marriages split, where love doesn't just reign so painful. Yeah, so then, in that same lecture series, rudolf Steiner then works to unfold. Yes, there is a figure that in the biblical tradition is often called Satan or Satanos, the dark prince of this world. I think John would call him this earth-oriented being who wants to rule here and wants nothing to do with the heavenly rulers, and a being who doesn't want to do the whole earth thing but just wants to do only heaven, but just wants to do only heaven. And the good guide and spiritual creator being who wants heaven and earth in a special union, dust and breath coming together, something of the inner and the outer in marriage, in true union.
Speaker 3:Yeah, beautiful, and so you can maybe see that a little bit in this animal game. Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the whole paradisical story, right of the casting out, going into the desert, the death realm, which happens then to Adam and Eve After they do fall to the temptation of this snake being. The result is that they are cast out of the life realm with God in the garden. They have to go into the desert and there try to have a relationship with God. And what we see then in the whole story is how, over and over and over again, in the desert realm, far from God, even God's people keeps falling away, unable to be true, falling into self-service, falling into the worship of false gods, unable to be true to themselves or to the one who has shaped and made them and given them life. And so the early readers then, of that temptation scene, I think, as Mark describes it, would feel he's recapitulating the Adam story.
Speaker 2:Recapitulating the Adam story, he's finding himself between these two powers to fall into animalness or to be drawn away. And the animals, of course, are turned towards the earth, their heads are down, rather than, in this kind of balance, a perpendicular relationship, my feet are on the ground, but my head is up towards heaven. They are four feet on the ground, nose to the ground. That's why the pig, I think, is a really difficult animal in the Hebrew tradition Just utterly desires are oriented down in the slop. The human being in this balance between these two extremes of heaven only or earth only, and and so seeing, uh, that is there's the true adam. He stood the test.
Speaker 3:He was tempted, but he stood the test actually that's beautiful, that also, yeah, so in in that sense, then we can connect it also to the light of the world that we're trying to follow as a model of one who can navigate these two power it's another way of looking at being a disciple of Christ is learning to find the balance between the force that would lead us away from anything earthly and the force that would just us away from anything earthly and the force that would just have us grovel in the pig pen. I wonder, I wonder if we can describe then also then some some other experiences or qualities of these two these two forces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what comes to mind for you, like what are some of the key places for you in your own discernment work?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'd love to hear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a good. I was just kind of thinking about that, um, because I don't know. I don't know if I've ever had an experience like you did in terms of the feeling I don't want to be here here, but I have. I have had experiences where I'm so convinced of a kind of ideal, a kind of seemingly good thing that I think everyone or the people around me should have and should be. Yeah, like a good that becomes kind of fanatical and violent. I mean, think back to the conversations when we had about, you know, trying to be being converted where the Bible becomes a kind of weapon. Trying to be being converted where the bible becomes a kind of weapon that feels like it's a little bit trying to avoid the realities of just what is and push something into a goodness in a violent way. That feels a bit like these angels of the serpent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so is it fair to say like what's happening there? You recognize I could give a good example for me in that direction. I remember the moment I learned what it takes. You know, in North America our nutrition is very much founded in eggs.
Speaker 2:You know, not only do we love scrambled eggs and fried eggs and poached eggs and boiled eggs and egg salad sandwiches and all that kind of direct eating of eggs, it's also in a lot of our baked goods and, oh yeah, right, pancakes and waffles and eggs, like you know so, every single day, right? Just think of the number of eggs that are just like being cracked and cooked in North America. It's like millions and millions and millions, right, just like incredible 300 million people in the United States alone. How many eggs are cracked every day? I mean, in Georgia, like, I once saw a photo recently on Instagram. There was a photo where in that one photo, you could see three different waffle houses and it was like this is Georgia Waffle house, georgia, I mean how many?
Speaker 2:eggs, just the waffle houses alone are being cracked every day. So you know what's kind of nice in terms of those who are compassionately considerate of animals is you're like well, the eggs aren't fertilized. Hens have to lay them every day. It's nice that they're gathered and we do something with them. Like it's on the lower end maybe of a violence against any kind of other creature, right, it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:And then there was this article that came out in. You know, let's just say it this way, I was at peace in the world out of ignorance, like I just didn't know what it means. What's all involved for this egg production at this level? We're not talking about your friend's got some chickens in the backyard. You know this has to be industrial-level egg production, right? So you have farmed then with like how many hens do you think? You know? Of course you can look like just the conditions the hens are living, that can start to turn your stomach and bring you into a state of like, am I okay with this? But the thing that got me was this article from the Washington Post at that time showed that we don't have the technology to determine, when an egg is fertilized, whether that chicken will become a hen or a rooster. That means we have to hatch all the eggs.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:We have to hatch all the eggs. Oh, you have to hatch all the eggs, mm-hmm. The problem is Roosters don't lay eggs. Roosters don't lay eggs. So you know. Okay, you could turn them into meat. Roosters are terrible meat and they're horrible creatures for socially. They war against each other, they tear up the hens. They're too loud. They're a real problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's 50% of the eggs are hatching as roosters. So what they do is that as soon as the eggs hatch and they've determined, then if it's rooster, all of those chicks and this is hard, it's just hard to even say they have to kill them and they kill them in a way that's difficult. How are you going to kill? You know we were talking about every day, thousands of eggs are hatching in a given plant, let's say, and hundreds of those, some hundreds of those, are roosters. So little chicks are on a conveyor belt every day, headed towards a grinder that just chops them up Chicks. You know, you got that feeling. If you've ever been around a chick, you're like this is sweet, dear, beautiful little being. And I learned that news and it becomes very difficult for me to eat eggs Personal, yeah. But now it also becomes a challenge because of the pain of that and the horror of it. Yeah, you see, everybody's peace is resting on the fact they don't know this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and there's so many things that are like that and in the middle of that pain, you could want it to stop. I want the pain to stop. We can't do this anymore, and you could just take to the streets and, like you know, be out there like save the roosters you know, or whatever Like stop eating eggs.
Speaker 2:You know and you see, these dear brothers and sister, human beings who've come to a compassionate experience of the animals, the plight of the animals, in the age of industry, and where we can survive. Fine, we don't need the egg protein. Like it's not, like we don't need it to survive anymore. Right, we can generate all the proteins we need in a million other ways now, chickpeas and right, we don't actually need it, but we like it, we like eggs. Eggs are good. My children love eggs, sure. So you get into this dilemma. What do I do? How do I live with what I know? I can't, in this instance, stop all the suffering. Now, now that I know what's happening, either, I can try to be like la, la, la, hear no evil, see no evil, and thereby have peace. How do I come into relationship to these horrors in a way that is Christ-oriented, human-oriented?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I could also which seems a little related to these kind of snake-like angels I could also go around and kind of force people to not eat eggs anymore.
Speaker 2:I'd be very fanatical. Every household I met like just like guilt them.
Speaker 2:We're killing roosters don't you know, and a kind of violence coming out of me everywhere, at everyone, which you know, those people who are doing work to share more information to people so they can make their free decisions in these things. I don't want to say don't do it, but that this quality of the way, that then, the way we work with this difficult thing we're doing in life, that's causing this harm. Then it's very often the case that in this fanaticism like we think, for example, that then the world will be saved, like if once we stop slaughtering the roosters like this, then we can be at peace.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just a total lie. There's. How many things are we going to have to solve before where, where there's no, no one and nothing suffering, you start to go? I had an experience where I don't know how it is. Recently I had an experience. We have such a wonderful location here in Decatur, georgia. Now I mean, it's just the best shopping situation I've ever had in my life. Right, it's like you can get to everything you need within like a five minute journey.
Speaker 2:You know it's awesome and one of the things that's here is a Walmart. You know, and I've been spared this experience. I've had it at different times in my life. But I'm back in there, I'm in this super store, like if you ask one of the people who work there like where's the cake baking stuff? And they don't know. They don't know Unless it's their department. They've got to pull out like a tablet and like search the thousands of aisles and like enter stuff Like it's, and that's just one right they're everywhere and walking through there the other day, I just I got overwhelmed by our consumerism.
Speaker 2:I just got, and they're just the trash generating packaging plastic like it can happen, right? You're like I'm trash-generating packaging plastic Like it can happen, right? You're like I'm participating in a world that is so generative of trash and a life of consumption that is so destructive. You start to look into who's making the things that are so destructive. You start to look into who's making the things that are so cheap in here. What are their conditions? We just talked about chicks, we're not talking about humans. Sure, why are these clothes, why are these socks? $1? Sure, you know. And you start to go down and you realize you're embedded in a whole field of relationships that are imbalanced, where there's abuse going on, where there's oppression going on, where there's extraction going on, where the earth is getting. It's so intense, yeah, yeah, so intense.
Speaker 3:And so yeah, because I can hear a good question, be like well, why not be fanatical, why not make someone feel guilty? Because we need to change? These things Got to change, and that's a good question.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, there is a place for a prophetic word, yeah Right. An awakening place for a prophetic word yeah Right, an awakening, conscience-stirring word. Friends, you realize if we continue to do this how destructive this will be. We need to awaken, we cannot just continue down this road for example, right Somebody in some form.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I could imagine one way to look at that is just glancing at the one that we follow. If he as the model of the human archetype that finds the right balance between heaven and earth, if he did it by proclaiming a teaching and telling everyone what they had to do, right, only then that would probably be the way. But he doesn't do that. He does say, he speaks and teaches, but his primary medicine is a deed of sacrifice, of bearing something different.
Speaker 2:And I think it's, I think right. It's like we're getting at well. It's not that one can't talk about these things and say, in the right timing, right in the right place, something that might have been revealed to me. It's important to proclaim and tell human beings this is happening and in doing this, we're desecrating ourselves and desecrating something else.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not good, but just to say it also isn't very generative or creative either. For number one, it's like well, what am I doing, you know, beyond telling everyone else to change their behaviors? How do I change? How am I taking responsibility? How am I finding creative solutions? How am I working with people? Again, it's like is there a generative, building up, creative element in the way I approach the problem, or is my way of fanaticism? And this discovery of a truth and then deciding desiring to be a kind of tyrant and force the world to follow my will, has a deep evil in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a new evil in it that doesn't allow for freedom, that doesn't allow for other choices.
Speaker 3:And that's the thing I think is key, because I find it like the way you just spoke it now, where you're just speaking a truth and you're allowing it to fall where it will, as opposed to it, would be different if you said that and then you said, jonah, and you need to stop eating eggs.
Speaker 2:I see you eating an omelet.
Speaker 3:We're not going to be friends anymore. If you eat an omelet, you know I'm going to post it on Instagram.
Speaker 2:What a horrible person you are.
Speaker 3:Right, Right. So also this other way has a respect for the dignity and coming to something in freedom of the individual which clearly Christ demonstrates as a part of the medicine, as a part of the medicine, actually as a part of the medicine, to deal with the temptation of this serpent one, this upper one yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 2:It feels really important. You've brought that out, this, and I think it's for those of us who are drawn to spirituality, to morality, and you and you are getting initiated into the truths of the universe and you start to discover these things that are difficult to look at, choices and that human beings are are making, I would say, the theme in general. Then, as the veil is lifted on reality, do you lose your love for humanity? Are you tempted into a hatred of humanity? Are you tempted into a condemnation of people? Are you tempted to the desire for tyranny? Just put me in power and I will make it right.
Speaker 3:And I'll put my image of what I think is good on everything. Yeah.
Speaker 2:All of which, the divinity who did creation doesn't choose, right. It puts us in the garden and goes don't eat from these trees, so give some good advice. And then goes and does some other work yeah, not even in the scene and allows the snake to be present. Yes, to give us an idea, you could make a different choice. Yeah, of course we make a different choice, right? That's amazing.
Speaker 3:That is so important. The divine creator allows these things, you could even say. Of course, someone has to put create, the snake has to somehow be generated and allowed to go into the garden. So that seems to me to be also another quality of the medicine that we've mentioned before is can I accept and allow that these sufferings and temptations and darknesses are divinely ordained?
Speaker 2:to meet. Yeah, it's taken me and I'm still working on it, brother. I mean I will say I was at seminary. You know, in my early 20s I started seminary 24 years old, and I had to discover, while I was there and I've shared this before in the podcast, but I had to at a certain point in my self-knowledge work the Spirit. Let me see that one of the reasons I was at seminary.
Speaker 2:I looked at the world, I made a diagnosis and I said clearly we have lost touch with the spiritual wisdom of the universe. We've forgotten really core things about who we are as human beings the presence of God in things, the angelic world, the secrets of death and birth. Like we've forgotten all the wisdom that the ancient human beings knew. We just need to recover it. See how to do things right, kind of like how do you make a good car? You know clearly this car the human car and the earth is not going in a good direction. It's not working well. So I just need to go to the place where they teach how to make really good cars and then I need to be put into a position of power so I can implement the wisdom and I really I had this picture like, well, I'm drawn to this, I just need to go get it. And then I need to go tell everyone, and then they need to do it.
Speaker 1:And so this was what's that?
Speaker 3:That's the key. They need to do it.
Speaker 2:Like, because I literally thought like oh, people would be like oh, thanks man.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks for enlightening. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:That's great. I'll do it now. I thought you could just tell people I didn't yet know. Prophets and teachers for millennia have been telling us the way to do it. 600 years before Christ Buddha is there teaching the path of compassion and love. The Sermon on the Mount's been there for 2,000 years. Like what's our deal? Why can't we just get the instructions, take them in and do them? We're like, apparently very much not robots, very much not machines, and tyrants will continue to rise with the promise that everyone is also hoping for. Could someone just like make this good? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Fix it.
Speaker 2:Fix it and if anyone's off, exclude them, destroy them, get rid of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like my dad used to say, just nuke them, get rid of them. Yeah, like my dad used to say, just nuke them yeah, that's it nuke those bad guys and you can feel it.
Speaker 2:You feel you see it in the politics, you see it at any time and any time. Yeah, that spirit rises in the soul. Get rid of this being from the universe, whatever it is. I had a conversation like this with my daughter about mosquitoes recently. She's like what's their purpose? They have no purpose. They're just here to torture us. What is this? It was great. I was like, well, try to get all like a little bit wider view first. It's like dad, I just want to complain. It's like I understand, I understand and the deepest right, so like we.
Speaker 2:We've talked about this. This is, this is the Ephesians six thing, your thing. Your enemies are not a blood and flesh or flesh and blood. You have no enemies actually in human beings. That's an illusion. Your enemies are spiritual powers of the age of darkness, powers of the air, ranks of beings in the angels, archangels, archi, the upper beings. There are some who are serving other intentions and impulses, the Satan or the Lucifer and the war fields. The battlefield is our being, the human soul and humanity. That's the rich territory where they can get food, where they can realize their intentions on earth through us. However, christ's teaching is so clear love your enemies. What is the medicine, what is the way to face these powers and I think that's been probably the most radical and moving thing for me about the work of Rudolf Steiner is this tendency in Christianity to hate the devil is to give room for the devil in our soul.
Speaker 3:Wow, beautiful.
Speaker 2:Because God is love.
Speaker 3:And hate is not a part of that, even if it's for the devil.
Speaker 2:Or the spirit enemies. So when I'm in our circles right, we've grown up in Waldorf schools inspired by anthroposophy. We've grown up in the Christian community that met. This new spirituality has a place in it. So many people, for example, hate technology.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like the fact that we have a video podcast. If we had done this even seven years ago, we would face so much attack.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So much attack.
Speaker 3:And we still do a little bit, but it's not the same yeah, it's not the same level.
Speaker 2:Everyone's like trying to adjust. You know, yeah, but there was an illusion like we will be saved if we don't get involved in this technology. I'm just going to be. I want to name it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a really good point. We had that also during COVID time, where it was like, if we can just get away from all Wi-Fi in my congregation, we just find a place where there's no technology, we'll be protected. It's a kind of escapism impulse. Yeah, I think that's definitely another expression of this dark angel um temptation, yeah, or that there's a community somewhere yeah where people are going to be loving and kind and good and true, always, yeah.
Speaker 2:And people are like cause. They're looking for this place where that's out the same, as same impulse as my six year old self I don't want to be here in this world. Yeah, this world causes me pain. Where is the place where I can get around this?
Speaker 2:That is permeated by the pure guidance of true thoughts and ideas. And, my Lord, I've met some amazing horror, you know, really scary encounters with the false light of Lucifer acting in a tyrannical way in spiritual communities. Oh, yeah, oof, I arrived at my first congregation. Yeah, tell me. At Devon, pennsylvania, they had a weekday service where they had a breakfast.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I remember this story, right yeah. You know it's like no donuts.
Speaker 2:I brought donuts or something from Enten, you, whatever you know, and people were like oh, oh, and they said we weren't even allowed to bring cheese that wasn't organic that you're a take now, right now, listen organic cheese is good, love organic cheese. Oh yeah, oh yeah in a lot of ways. Donuts are really bad for you but it's, it's the condemnation spirit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is. That is difficult, that's the impression of that dark angel. That's it. Yeah, I would, I would. Another example you'll like this um, as we get close to our time, my girls got into while we're on vacation they got into a movie that's gone totally viral, um, in our time right now, and it's called k-pop demon hunters. Oh yeah, and at first I was like what is this? Because it's full of music and songs and I animation right animation it's.
Speaker 3:It's based on kind of the, the, the um fame of Korean pop stars girl bands girl bands and it's kind of a play on that.
Speaker 3:But so I sat down and watched it. I was blown away way. This is an incredibly deep movie, wow, children are watching all over the world, and and one aspect of it is the heroine uh rumi is her name. She goes through in order to it's a redemptive story in order to a stage of processing through to redemption. She goes through this tyrannical phase where she's got the truth, she knows what needs to happen, she has the goodness and she's trying to manipulate everyone to follow the plan that she knows will save her and save everyone, but it turns out to be destructive, selfish and leads her right into the evil she was trying to get rid of awesome and it's.
Speaker 2:We might have to have a whole session on k-pop. Oh, it's incredible.
Speaker 3:It's incredible, awesome we might have to have a whole session on K-pop. Oh, it's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah, that would be good. I mean it's a profound movie actually Many, many levels, and it actually goes through these two temptations the beastly and the more dark angel. Anyway, a little anecdote, nice.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe that's a good teaser for the next phase and I can feel that we're definitely taking some steps here today. Touching on a little bit the dichotomy that you brought in of between the human, the truly human, the divine human is between the angel and the wild beast, I feel like that, that as an icon that's guiding us, um, carrying over from last time also, the spirit seems to be wanting us to learn to face and know and meet this evil in our time.
Speaker 3:Amen. Thank you, Patrick.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Jenna ¶¶ ¶¶ © B Emily Beynon.