1 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:04,480 You can make fun of the strange hat of a pope or of a bishop, 2 00:00:04,480 --> 00:00:08,080 and you think that that's funny, But somehow you still understand why you 3 00:00:08,119 --> 00:00:12,080 need a uniform to play sports. You know, It's like these are all 4 00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:29,160 different levels of the same reality. This is Jonathan Pjel Welcome to the symbolic 5 00:00:29,239 --> 00:00:43,759 world. One of the reasons why it's difficult for several people to understand religion 6 00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:49,079 and religious behavior is because they tend to want to isolate religious behavior from other 7 00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:53,359 human behavior, and so they have this little category here called religion, and 8 00:00:53,439 --> 00:00:57,200 it's broken off from all the other things that humans do. So because of 9 00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:02,439 that, the religious behavior can appear arbitrary, superstitious, ridiculous. Sometimes also, 10 00:01:02,439 --> 00:01:06,959 people want to reduce religion to a set of things that you believe, 11 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:14,040 rather than understanding it as a coherent set of behaviors and beliefs that kind of 12 00:01:14,079 --> 00:01:19,400 go together. I found that the best way to understand religion from a secularist 13 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:25,359 perspective, or even from a purely materialist perspective, is to see it as 14 00:01:25,359 --> 00:01:30,120 an extension of other types of behaviors, and even I would say as an 15 00:01:30,159 --> 00:01:37,120 extension or similar in nature to some behaviors that animals have. And so one 16 00:01:37,159 --> 00:01:41,400 of the things that I've noticed is that looking at the way that animals ritualize 17 00:01:41,439 --> 00:01:46,400 behavior is actually a good way for humans to understand why does it we ritualize 18 00:01:46,439 --> 00:01:52,079 behavior and what it is that ritualizing behavior can do. And so the first 19 00:01:52,079 --> 00:01:56,879 thing to understand is that actually all behavior is ritualized. That is, anything 20 00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:00,000 which is moving towards a goal has to be ordered. And so if you 21 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,640 don't like the word behavior, let's just use the word ordered. So ordered 22 00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:08,520 behavior will happen as you move towards a goal. So if you have a 23 00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:14,360 purpose, the things you do, you know will You'll probably experiment a little 24 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:16,319 bit at the outset, but at some point you'll realize that, you know, 25 00:02:16,319 --> 00:02:19,800 if I want to get to the river, this is the best way 26 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:21,960 to go. At first, maybe I'll zigzag, I'll do this, but 27 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,639 then a trail will set itself up in the forest to go to the river, 28 00:02:24,879 --> 00:02:29,240 and then that behavior going from the village to the river, for example, 29 00:02:29,479 --> 00:02:32,159 will become ritualized in the sense that it will become ordered and will have 30 00:02:32,319 --> 00:02:37,159 kind of reduced itself to its best to its best line. You could say, 31 00:02:37,199 --> 00:02:40,439 to get to the river. And so this is something which happens in 32 00:02:40,479 --> 00:02:44,680 all types of behaviors where there it is, you know, the way to 33 00:02:44,759 --> 00:02:49,439 hunt or the way to prepare food, all of these will become ordered, 34 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:53,719 not like one hundred percent order, but there will always be a little aspect 35 00:02:53,759 --> 00:02:57,560 of variability on the on the out, on the margins, but the behavior 36 00:02:57,599 --> 00:03:00,199 will become ordered. And so you could say that when you order behavior, 37 00:03:00,319 --> 00:03:04,960 the more you order it, you do it in order to avoid the cost 38 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:07,080 of the behavior. So you know, it's like if I could get to 39 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:10,240 the river by going all around and going in circles and doing all this, 40 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:13,479 and then I get to the river, and it's like, okay, but 41 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:15,199 that's very costly. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot 42 00:03:15,199 --> 00:03:19,039 of effort. And so what I'll do is that I'll start to order my 43 00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:22,800 behavior in order to reduce the cost that it has, you know, in 44 00:03:22,879 --> 00:03:24,039 terms of energy, in terms of time and all of that, and in 45 00:03:24,120 --> 00:03:29,240 terms of consequences, you could say. And so you can imagine that this 46 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:32,039 is something that happens even in animal ritual behavior. So think of, for 47 00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:38,800 example, ritualized conflict between animals. The animals will ritualize their conflict and will 48 00:03:38,879 --> 00:03:45,280 ritualize their capacity to recognize who is the superior and who is the inferior. 49 00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:49,439 And they will do that to avoid the cost, because if they go all 50 00:03:49,479 --> 00:03:53,840 out and they fight it out, then that becomes very costly, both for 51 00:03:53,879 --> 00:03:57,520 the one that ends up on top and for the one that ends up submitting 52 00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:01,039 to the higher power. And so because of that, the animals developed this 53 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:06,439 kind of ritualized version of a conflict which looks like a fight but isn't complete. 54 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:12,759 Does it reduces the cost towards something like meaning And we're going to use 55 00:04:12,759 --> 00:04:15,960 the word meaning for now. We could use other words, but purpose maybe 56 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:17,759 we could say is a good way to think about it. As you move 57 00:04:17,839 --> 00:04:23,959 towards purpose and meaning, and as you kind of encompass you know the reason 58 00:04:24,399 --> 00:04:28,680 why the fight is there in the first place, then you can ritualize it 59 00:04:28,759 --> 00:04:31,439 in order to avoid the cost. Right, so you can understand how that's 60 00:04:31,439 --> 00:04:36,199 as true for going to the river, as it's especially true for animals that 61 00:04:36,279 --> 00:04:44,079 will ritualize fighting behavior, or animals that will ritualize a type of mating behavior 62 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:46,839 as well, which is that the animal will have certain type of dance or 63 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:54,040 certain type of colors that will make the choice of a mate less costly than 64 00:04:54,079 --> 00:04:57,680 it would if those things weren't there. Like I said, all aspects of 65 00:04:57,720 --> 00:05:02,000 behavior are ritualized. They're just different levels of ritual So you could understand that 66 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:05,040 if you extend that into the human sphere, then you can see how we 67 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:10,480 of course do the same, which is that you know, we've developed short 68 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:15,319 cuts, shortcuts of meaning in order to avoid the cost of something. So 69 00:05:15,399 --> 00:05:19,000 a good example is when you meet someone, we shake hands, we look 70 00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:25,319 into each other's eyes. We have found ways in order to encounter someone in 71 00:05:25,399 --> 00:05:28,879 a manner that cuts to the change right, gets to the meaning of it, 72 00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:32,519 which is that we're meeting. We're not in conflict. We recognize that 73 00:05:32,519 --> 00:05:35,759 there's a kind of piece between us, there's an uncertain level of communion, 74 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:40,399 and so we've ritualized that in the type of behavior shaking hands, all the 75 00:05:40,399 --> 00:05:45,839 other ones that we have, which reduced the cost of figuring out, you 76 00:05:45,879 --> 00:05:48,000 know, how who this person is, what it is that they want for 77 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:51,600 me, trying to you know, trying to move around asking questions. I 78 00:05:51,639 --> 00:05:56,959 don't know what type of other types of behavior could exist in order to figure 79 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:00,920 out the intentions of the person in front of you. But you can imagine 80 00:06:00,959 --> 00:06:03,519 that these types of behaviors, shaking hands and all this, you know, 81 00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:09,680 was chosen out of a set of possible behaviors that were maybe a little more 82 00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:15,759 costly, okay. And so as you move towards more and more contracted behavior, 83 00:06:15,199 --> 00:06:18,519 which you do, is you move towards something like meaning. And so 84 00:06:18,759 --> 00:06:25,839 what happens in that type of behavior is that really what happens in religious rituals, 85 00:06:25,959 --> 00:06:29,680 especially those that we consider religious, is that the meaning becomes more and 86 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:33,240 more compressed, and more and more pure, more and more crystallized, which 87 00:06:33,279 --> 00:06:38,199 is that you know, if there's a manner in which, let's say we 88 00:06:38,319 --> 00:06:43,120 eat together as a people, and so we come together, we eat together, 89 00:06:43,439 --> 00:06:46,480 and what that does is it binds us together as a people. We 90 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:50,160 noticed that if we eat in a certain manner together, if we sit together 91 00:06:50,319 --> 00:06:54,160 on a table or whatever. There are multiple ways to do it. But 92 00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:58,399 if we aim towards that purpose, there's a limited amount of ways that we 93 00:06:58,439 --> 00:07:00,519 can do it. That it binds us together. Then it makes us also 94 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:05,639 share in the food, makes us share in the identity, makes us recognize 95 00:07:05,639 --> 00:07:10,120 each other as one, for example, Then we realize it wait a minute, 96 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:14,959 if I can scale that up. And so if I meet together with 97 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:17,240 my family or with a friend and I eat, you know, that does 98 00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:20,920 something. But if I have like a banquet at the city, or a 99 00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:25,800 marriage banquet where we all kind of come together, or some ritual where we're 100 00:07:25,839 --> 00:07:29,920 it's a bigger meeting. Let's say we have a banquet to celebrate, you 101 00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:32,319 know, the thirtieth anniversary or the you know, one hundredth anniversary of a 102 00:07:32,399 --> 00:07:36,160 city. Then all of a sudden we realize that this type of behavior, 103 00:07:36,279 --> 00:07:43,120 these ritualizations, of ceremonies, of coming together, bind us together towards higher 104 00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:48,360 purposes. And so you can understand. Then at some point people inevitably started 105 00:07:48,399 --> 00:07:51,720 realizing that the more you ritualize it, and let's say, the higher you 106 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:57,360 aim, the more it binds reality together. And so religious ritual is an 107 00:07:57,399 --> 00:08:01,759 extension of the lower rituals or lower behaviors all the way up so that you're 108 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:05,000 like, oh, wait a minute. If I offer this up to God, 109 00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:11,560 if I offer this up to something which transcends my group or transcends you 110 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:16,519 know, the things down here, then I am in some ways bringing together 111 00:08:16,759 --> 00:08:20,160 all these little meals. Let's say let's talk about a sacrifice of food, 112 00:08:20,279 --> 00:08:24,399 all these little meals together, and so I'm giving you know, I'm pouring 113 00:08:24,439 --> 00:08:30,399 out a libation or I'm giving up food to the ancestors or to the gods. 114 00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:33,879 And what I'm doing that especially think about the ancestors for example, is 115 00:08:33,879 --> 00:08:37,240 a good example. It's like, if I give something to the ancestors, 116 00:08:37,639 --> 00:08:41,639 then I am doing more than if I eat with my parents, because I 117 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:46,879 am binding myself to something which is bigger, something which holds us all together. 118 00:08:46,279 --> 00:08:50,360 And so if I kind of play that out, at some point you 119 00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:54,039 realize that giving up to the gods, giving up to principalities which are higher 120 00:08:54,039 --> 00:08:58,840 above, whether it is something like paying taxes to the king, that if 121 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:03,960 I pay taxes to the king, then it binds us together as a society. 122 00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:07,960 Uh huh. But if I pay taxes to a higher level, if 123 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,080 I take my things and I bring and I give it up to a higher 124 00:09:11,159 --> 00:09:16,080 level, then it basically binds me up higher and higher. And you could 125 00:09:16,159 --> 00:09:18,720 imagine, you can see how people realize that at some point that kind of 126 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:22,440 moves up and up towards more and more meaning, until we reach something like 127 00:09:22,879 --> 00:09:26,639 the infinite source of all things right, the infinite source, which is the 128 00:09:26,879 --> 00:09:31,559 you know, the God that is being and non being. The God is 129 00:09:31,080 --> 00:09:35,200 that is love which binds the universe together. You know, the manner in 130 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:41,240 which the monotheists start to talk about omnipotence, all of these infinite qualities which 131 00:09:41,399 --> 00:09:46,480 end up binding everything together. And so if I act together with others towards 132 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:50,720 that, then I realize that it's an extension of you know, paying taxes 133 00:09:50,759 --> 00:09:54,440 to the king and also binding together as a family, but also even within 134 00:09:54,519 --> 00:10:01,960 yourself. So it's important to kind of see how ritualization in terms of religious 135 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:07,279 practice has to be seen in let's say, the scope of all the other 136 00:10:07,399 --> 00:10:11,200 types of behavior which are ordered. Now, once again, as I say 137 00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:16,960 this, you have to remember that all behavior is ordered, and so it's 138 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:22,200 not like religious behavior is ordered, but this other regular behavior we do isn't. 139 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:24,960 No, that's not true. It's like as you move towards religious behavior, 140 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:30,080 it's more and more ordered, more and more containing meaning. And as 141 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:33,200 you move to the more common space than it is ordered maybe less. And 142 00:10:33,279 --> 00:10:37,679 the trade off is the trade off between meaning and power, universal meaning and 143 00:10:37,799 --> 00:10:41,799 particularity. That's the way to understand the trade off and sometimes you actually need 144 00:10:43,159 --> 00:10:46,960 to make that trade off. It's not you know, if you ritualize brushing 145 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:50,600 your teeth in the same way that you ritualize the eucharists, or you ritualize 146 00:10:50,919 --> 00:10:56,200 a sacrifice to the gods, then you would lose some of the particularity, 147 00:10:56,519 --> 00:11:01,840 and so it would actually become a actually not be the right fit of ordered 148 00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:07,039 behavior and the thing you're doing. A good example to understand this is to 149 00:11:07,159 --> 00:11:11,120 understand the way that martial arts develop themselves. So you can imagine that martial 150 00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:16,200 arts start as fighting. Right, people are fighting fighting, and they realize 151 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:22,080 that if I order my fighting, if I have a technique, then I 152 00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:28,679 can beat the other person because I'm kind of I am contracting my behavior towards 153 00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:31,399 a certain thing. But then there's also a meta thing which starts to happen, 154 00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:37,639 which is that if I understand certain rules, certain ways of doing martial 155 00:11:37,759 --> 00:11:43,200 arts, then I'm also going to limit the all out cost of fighting, 156 00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:48,039 you know, just even very similar to the way that animals ritualized behavior. 157 00:11:48,120 --> 00:11:52,879 So people notice that in tribal warfare, for example, there is extreme ritualization, 158 00:11:54,399 --> 00:11:58,039 which means that there's still a fight, but often the fight because it's 159 00:11:58,039 --> 00:12:03,919 so ritualized, it will avoid massive, massive casualties because the ritualization, you 160 00:12:03,919 --> 00:12:07,320 know, and it's kind of not even it doesn't even have to be conscious. 161 00:12:07,440 --> 00:12:11,279 People just kind of learn this behavior and perform it. The ritualization will 162 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:16,279 be able to show who's winning the fight without completely decimating everything. So you 163 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:20,159 can imagine that even in the world of martial arts, that will happen where 164 00:12:20,559 --> 00:12:24,519 certain behaviors are there to manifest. You know, it's say a kind of 165 00:12:24,679 --> 00:12:28,000 imagine like a knight, the way that the Knights had certain ethics about fighting. 166 00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:31,240 It's like the gentlemanly way of fighting, right, you don't hit someone 167 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:33,080 in the back, you know, you look at them in the face. 168 00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:39,679 All of these types of behaviors are there to avoid the massive cost of fighting 169 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:45,200 and push it towards more meaning, but still keeping within the the the arena 170 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:48,120 of beating your opponent. Now you can imagine that in the world of martial 171 00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:54,039 arts, especially in Asian cultures, people started to notice that if you ritualize 172 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:58,320 martial arts more and more, it can encompass more and more meaning, to 173 00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:03,279 the point where it also almost becomes a type of ritual behavior where it is 174 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:07,919 almost metaphysical in the way in which the movements are capturing more and more meaning. 175 00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:13,279 You know, if you think of putting Taoist principles into certain kung fu 176 00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:16,519 moves and kung fu forms, all of this is happening, and so it 177 00:13:16,639 --> 00:13:22,399 moves towards towards more meanings. So that actually, at some point the martial 178 00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:28,240 artist is transforming himself. He is learning about reality, He is moving towards 179 00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:33,440 higher and higher meanings as he is practicing his martial arts. Now, one 180 00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:37,720 of the things that happened in the twentieth century is that somebody realized that that 181 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:43,480 in terms of power, it was losing power as it was moving towards ritualization. 182 00:13:43,919 --> 00:13:46,879 So if you look at what the MMA fighters did is that they said, 183 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:50,960 no, forget all these forms, forget all of these these flighty things 184 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:54,559 that you're doing when you're prepared, when you're doing your martial arts forums. 185 00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:56,480 It's like, get to cut to the chase, use what you need to 186 00:13:56,639 --> 00:14:01,440 use in order to beat your opponent. And so what happened is that the 187 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:07,080 MMA fighters were able to make a trade off between ritualization and power, and 188 00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:09,480 they move towards power. Now, this is something which is there's nothing. 189 00:14:11,039 --> 00:14:13,960 It's like, it's not that one is better than the other, to be 190 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:16,679 honest, It's just that it's a trade off between ritual and power. So 191 00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:20,879 think of an animal. Imagine it now in the world of the animals, 192 00:14:20,879 --> 00:14:26,559 where the animals have a ritualized behavior and they understand and they're kind of dancing, 193 00:14:26,799 --> 00:14:28,440 where one person show you know that I don't know, the wolf shows 194 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:33,360 its neck and the other one kind of comes and kind of puts their paw 195 00:14:33,360 --> 00:14:35,879 on the other and to show that the one is submitting and the other is 196 00:14:35,919 --> 00:14:39,200 dominating. Now, I imagine if there was one wolf who is smart and 197 00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:43,240 said, man, forget all this rituals. It's like when the other wolf 198 00:14:43,279 --> 00:14:46,480 thinks I'm down and I'm showing my neck and he's put his paw on me, 199 00:14:46,519 --> 00:14:50,440 I'm just going to go for the throat what and that wolf would win 200 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:56,000 in the moment that wolf by breaking the ritual, the ritual would actually increase 201 00:14:56,080 --> 00:15:01,440 his power tremendously. But what would happen is, of course, that would 202 00:15:01,519 --> 00:15:05,039 also lead to let's say, in the long term, if a lot of 203 00:15:05,120 --> 00:15:07,559 a lot of wolves did that, it would lead to the all out conflict 204 00:15:07,559 --> 00:15:11,320 between between the wolves. And so this is the same thing that happened with 205 00:15:11,399 --> 00:15:15,320 MMA, and by the way, with MMA, you end up having now 206 00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:18,480 a new ritualization, which is that as you move towards more power, you 207 00:15:18,559 --> 00:15:22,080 have to have rules in the fight, because obviously you don't want to kill 208 00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:26,320 your opponent, And as you move towards power, that possibility of just killing 209 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:30,440 your opponent with one hit or in the right doing the right thing to kill 210 00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,320 your opponent, it becomes more and more possible. So the type of ritualization 211 00:15:33,759 --> 00:15:37,840 that happened in kung fu or in some of the in some of the more 212 00:15:37,879 --> 00:15:43,279 ancient martial arts gets re incapitulated in the meta rules of the fighting game, 213 00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:45,879 which is that you're not allowed to do this, and now these things are 214 00:15:45,919 --> 00:15:48,200 not allowed to do because you're just going to kill your opponent, And so 215 00:15:48,279 --> 00:15:54,279 the ritualization re establishes itself in another way. But what's important to understand is 216 00:15:54,320 --> 00:16:00,600 mostly to see just how it is to understand just this relationship between ordered behavior, 217 00:16:02,399 --> 00:16:07,759 moving towards more meaning and then finding the balance of order and power. 218 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:11,399 You say in a behavior in order to accomplish what it is you want to 219 00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:15,679 accomplish, and if you do that, then you can understand everything from brushing 220 00:16:15,679 --> 00:16:21,200 your teeth to going to church, because all of these ordered behaviors kind of 221 00:16:21,279 --> 00:16:26,840 stack up and scale up towards the transcendent, towards the infinite good that binds 222 00:16:26,879 --> 00:16:30,320 the universe together. Then all the way down to when I'm learning something new 223 00:16:30,360 --> 00:16:33,000 and I don't know how to do it, and so I'm experimenting and I'm 224 00:16:33,039 --> 00:16:36,840 kind of fiddling, you know, I'm trying to figure it out. So 225 00:16:37,039 --> 00:16:40,360 it's messy and it's experimental, and then when I figure it out, I 226 00:16:40,399 --> 00:16:44,320 try to order it at the right level so that I can accomplish what it 227 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:48,159 is that I need to do, moving towards the purpose of what it is 228 00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:51,600 that I'm doing. And so hopefully this is helpful to kind of help you 229 00:16:51,759 --> 00:16:56,960 understand a little bit how ritualization works and how it is better and it's more 230 00:16:57,039 --> 00:17:03,799 productive for us to understand and religion in relationship to all the other behaviors that 231 00:17:03,879 --> 00:17:08,240 we do, rather than isolating it. When we isolate it, then we 232 00:17:08,039 --> 00:17:12,759 we just look at these weird types of behaviors and these strange hats and and 233 00:17:12,920 --> 00:17:15,160 you know, strange costumes, and we're like, what, you know, 234 00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:18,799 what's the what's the point. But if I can tell you that you can 235 00:17:18,839 --> 00:17:22,680 make if you you can make fun of the strange hat of a pope or 236 00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:26,480 of a bishop, and you think that that's funny, But somehow you still 237 00:17:26,559 --> 00:17:30,640 understand why you need a uniform to play sports. You know, it's like 238 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,039 these are all different levels of the same reality. And why you would want 239 00:17:34,079 --> 00:17:38,519 the policeman to wear a strange hat because you want the policeman to be recognized 240 00:17:38,799 --> 00:17:42,240 in his role as an authority. But you don't think that's weird, but 241 00:17:42,279 --> 00:17:48,119 you think that that the pope wearing a funny hat is hilarious and superstitious and 242 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:52,640 ridiculous. That's how if you're able to connect all these things together, then 243 00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:56,720 you'll be able to understand more appropriately why it is that religion looks the way 244 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:00,400 it does. So hopefully this was helpful, uh to understand to understand things. 245 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:03,960 And don't forget folks, And if you love what we're doing, if 246 00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:07,119 you appreciate what we're doing, please consider supporting the Symbolic World At the Symbolic 247 00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:11,000 World dot com. We've been growing quite a bit in the past few years. 248 00:18:11,279 --> 00:18:15,039 You know, I've now hired several people full time to kind of do 249 00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:18,279 this, and so all your support is there to make this grow as much 250 00:18:18,279 --> 00:18:21,000 as possible. So thanks everybody, and I'll talk to you very soon. 251 00:18:21,519 --> 00:18:23,839 Next year, February twenty nine to March second, we are going to have 252 00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:29,359 the very first Symbolic World Summit in Tarpan Springs, Florida. There'll be some 253 00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:32,519 amazing speakers. Of course I'll be speaking, but there will also be Father 254 00:18:32,599 --> 00:18:37,480 Stephen DeYoung of Lord of Spirit's Fame. You will also find their Martin Shaw, 255 00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:41,680 who's a mythographer and amazing storyteller. But a bunch of other people too. 256 00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:45,240 Of course, Richard Rowland will be there, Nicholas Kotar Neild Great and 257 00:18:45,279 --> 00:18:48,160 Dirt Poor Robbins are actually going to play a concert. They'll also be Vesper 258 00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:52,039 Stamper, but also a lot of other people involved in the Symbolic World community. 259 00:18:52,039 --> 00:18:59,119 Will come together to explore how we can recover rediscover the ancient cosmic image. 260 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:02,519 But it will also be time for people to connect together, to meet 261 00:19:02,599 --> 00:19:06,240 in real time, in real space, develop relationships, you know, find 262 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:10,559 people thinking in the same line as we are. To further this community and 263 00:19:10,559 --> 00:19:14,640 to further this type of thinking in the world. So I'm really looking forward 264 00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:19,000 to meeting you in person in Tarpan Springs February twenty ninth, so hopefully see 265 00:19:19,039 --> 00:19:19,400 you there.