So Leviathan is represented as like God's pet, basically as kind of God's plaything
that he created in the waters to kind of play. But in the same
thing in the Book of Job, then the Leviathan is represented as an expression
of God's power. You know, it's like, can you can you control
the Leviathan? You human? Like, do you have enough power to master
this giant monster? This is Jonathan Peshel, Welcome to the symbolic world.
The Leviathan is a strange creature in the Bible and in the tradition, And
so I thought that it would be a great idea to kind of look at
the to think a bit about the sea serpent, the dragon, the relationship
to the devil, how all of these associations came to be what they can
mean. And also it can help us understand how symbolism can be polyvalent,
that symbolism can have multiple meanings at the same time, and that understanding those
multiple meanings can also help us understand how symbolism works, and then also help
us understand the specific meanings that are attributed to each symbol. And the Leviathan,
that great sea dragon, sea serpent seems like a great place to look
at that. So before we start, I just want to say two things
that are important. One is that, as many of you know, the
Symbolic World's Summit is coming very fast at the end of February. The tickets
are nearly sold out, and just in this last moment, we finally announced
who it is that our secret guest is going to be at the Symbolical Summit,
and as many of you guessed, it is in fact going to be
Jordan Peterson, who is going to come and spend those three days with us,
with his wife Tammy as well. I'm definitely looking forward to having him
and father, Stephen de Young and Martin Shaw and Neil de Graad and all
these Symbolic World people with Richard Roland. It's going to be absolutely crazy.
I think it's going to feel like it's my birthday. That's pretty much how
I'm going to feel during that entire weekend. And since the tickets are almost
really sold out and I know that it's difficult for a lot of people to
come, we have decided to offer online tickets. We're going to try to
stream it, but we are not going to guarantee that we'll stream it,
but we will at least deliver all the lectures on the same day, a
raw version of all the lectures so you can follow along. You can go
to the Symbolic World, a website you can discuss with other people about what
is going on at the submit while it's happening. And then after we've done
all the edits, you will also have access to the fully realized, four
camera view, final edited version of the entire summit. And we'll also add
some special stuff like we'll do a return on the summit with a bunch of
the speakers after the summit is done, maybe one or two weeks after it's
done, to kind of for all of us to kind of rethink about everything
that happened, because I know it's going to be a wild time. So
go to the Symbolic world dot com. You can look in the description of
the video. You will find the link to go get your online tickets.
Right now. We are offering it as a major discount before the summit because
we're going to offer the videos on the very same day after the summit.
We will still sell it but at a much higher price, and so now's
the time to get it so we can have as many people were kind of
participating and talking about this really possibly once in a lifetime event, So look
for that right now. The second thing I want to talk about is of
course related to our subject, the Leviathan, which is that we are now
crowdfunding God's Dog, and we are halfway at the halfway point of the crowdfunding
for the second book of this series, which deals with all these crazy legends
that we find in scripture and in the tradition, including the Leviathan, as
well as people that have been following the Symbolical Press and all the adventures.
You know that it's been a difficult time. We have struggled to kind of
get to be totally on top of everything. But I am telling you,
I promise you, I am going to master this. With all these amazing
people around us, We're going to get everybody everything that they that they participated
in in the crowdfunding, and we will continue to get better and better with
every one of these books we put out, you know, like the books
themselves, which are excellent world class art, you know, with great storytelling.
That is the same way we want to approach our business. And so
please, if you can go to the kickstarter and support the God's Dog Kickstarter
right now, all right, So enough advertising. So in this in the
first issue of God's Dog, we have a version of the Leviathan, and
so for those who haven't read it, going to put out the pages so
you can see there's this image of the end of the world where there's this
mound of bodies and all these these dead bodies that are there, and we
talk about this final battle and we see Saint Michael coming down from heaven with
the Mighty Sword hitting the waters, hitting the Leviathan and ending the world and
beginning the world anew. And in the same way in the new book,
we're also going to go deeper into the image of the Leviathan, and we're
going to talk about we're going to kind of go into this image of the
relationship between the Leviathan and the flood and the giants and what it is in
our story. How do we relate all of these ideas of chaos and of
the giants and then ultimately of the arc. As you can see in the
final image at the bottom of that third page, you can kind of see
the boat on the waters. So all of that is something that we're going
to talk about. But one of the things that people have often pointed out
to me is how a lot of these stories they're not in scripture. That
it is a lot of the associations are about the Leviathan and about the idea
that it's related to the Eurobaros, you know, the snake eating its tail,
the idea that it's related to the devil himself. That all of these
associations, a lot of people will point out that they're not directly in scripture.
And so what I want to do is I want to kind of go
through the imagery of the Leviathan and the symbolism around it, the iconography of
the Leviathan, and it will help us also see how the imagery develops and
how it is in fact related to scripture and to other traditions. But everything
is already there in scripture if you know how to read it. And I've
often said that traditions, extra biblical traditions are often there to point out things
that are already in scripture, but that are sometimes difficult to perceive because if
you don't have the right intuition, you won't be able to see it.
But if you look at it with the right intuition, then all of a
sudden it pops out, and so some of these extracurricular, extra curricular extra
biblical books are there to kind of reconnect the dots for you, so you
can kind of see how this works. And so if we want to understand
the iconography of the leviatin the way that it's represented in Western art and the
way that it ends up being represented in Western culture, one of the things
that we need to think about right away is the image of Jonah's monster.
And so this is a second century marble, two second century marbles that represent
Jonah being eaten by the sea monster. So we often think of Jonah and
a whale. There's absolutely, obviously there's no indication that Jonah was eaten by
a whale. And traditionally, although whale is a fine way to understand it,
because the whale is very much a monster that moves between, you know,
breathing air and going to the bottom, it's like this, it's liminal
figure that is neither mammal nor fish. So it is definitely a monster,
but the way that it's represented additionally is more as this sea monster with the
body of a fish, you know, even the legs sometimes of a mammal.
The head of a dog, sometimes the head of a dog, you
know, that's like a snake dog. And you can see even this figure
has wings. So the sea monster is really a dragon in the way that
we talk about what it is that dragons mean. That is, the dragons
are hybrids. Dragons are chaos. They are the mixture of different identities,
and that is how they're represented in early imagery. That's how they're related to
all these different images of hybrids and griffins and all of these types of images.
And that is the way the ancients understood it. That is the way
the ancients understood the sea monster, which is why Jonah here in the second
century. You know, don't tell me that Christians didn't have art in the
early centuries. This is a second century carving of Jonah being eaten by the
whale. Now what you have to look at are a few things, of
course, the monstrous aspect of Jonah. But then already if you look at
the image, you'll notice that there is a suggestion of a circular movement in
both images, one which is Jonah coming out on the left, Jonah coming
out of the monster, and the other which is Jonah going into the monster
on the right side. But nonetheless, you can see how there's this interesting
circularity to the way in which the dragon and the human is represented. Now
it's not exactly an a Robaros, but you'll see how that circularity is something
which happens almost intuitively in the way that the serpent is represented. Doesn't mean
that the people were necessarily conscious about using that type of imagery, but it
does end up being in the image nonetheless, and will see why that is
the case. And so just to show you, here is a version of
mind which is a carved version of my version of and the Sea Monster,
and also a drawn version, the one that appears on the prints and the
t shirts and stuff. So in the more recent versions, a lot of
the aspects of the monster, that is that the legs and the you know,
the dog face is reduced, but it's still there. As you can
see, the fish has ears, you know, And so the fact that
the fish has ears can kind of show you that this that this you know,
this aspect of the monster is not completely gone. And again, just
like in the other image that you saw before, I tried to suggest a
kind of circularity in the monster. First in the tail, which circles on
itself, but then also in the figure coming out, which kind of connects
or almost connects to the to the tail. And so what's important to understand
is that this image of Jonah is one of the earliest image of death in
Christian iconography, and so it was shown on the sarcopha guy, that is
on the tombs, the not the tombs, but the actual you know,
boxes that the dead people were put into. The image of Jonah was one
of the most used images, where on the tomb you would see Jonah get
thrown into the fish, and then on the other side you would see Jonah
being ejected from the fish. And so this idea of the sea monster eating
the person became an image of death and of resurrection, which is why I
was put on the sarcopha guy in the first place, and which is why
you know, this is of course based on the very let's say, the
very saying of Christ, which is the only sign that I will give this
generation, is the sign of Jonah and the sign of the of the death
and resurrection, the going into the monster and the coming out of the monster.
So we can understand how this image of this monstrous thing that is kind
of from below that comes up and swallows up the person. Is an image
of death, and there's a relationship between the image of death and of course
the image of chaos. So this image of the monstrous head that is Jonah's
head, that kind of comes up and swallows the people then becomes an image
of what we call the hell mouth. So the hell mouth is an image
that we see in Christian iconography where at the you know, in different ways,
either it is in the image of the Last Judgment, which you see
here on the left, or whether it is an image here again of Christ
harrowing hades. You know, it doesn't really matter. It's the idea that
there is this monstrous head which is the head of death, the head of
hell, the head of decomposition, the head of chaos, which is below.
The people are kind of stuck in this monster like Jonah was stuck in
the sea monster, and then out of the out of that comes the resurrected
ones. Here and on the right side you can see how it's Christ's harrowing
haites, harrowing hell and getting people out of the death, the monster's death.
But then on the other side, when you see the Last judgment.
What you see is the opposite. You see Christ casting people into the mouth
of death, right. And so this is already an image of how you
can understand what you could call the polysemic or the polyvalent function of symbolism is
that the place ontologically, the place in the image of being that the head
of the monster occupies is the same, but the relationship is different. That
is, on the one hand, it's Christ getting people out of death,
and on the other hand it's Christ sending people into the fire and into the
final death. And so this is important to keep in mind that this poly
valance and this duality of the symbolism will appear all through the imagery of the
Monster, of the Dragon, and of course of the Leviathan as well,
which is that it's the place in relationship to other things which is more important.
And like I've said many times, symbolism is not moral in itself.
It can have moral connotation in its application, but it is not moral in
itself, and it can have it can go either way depending on the manner
in which it's used. And so of course there are these are just two
versions of these images, but there are plenty of virgins. If you want
to look them up of the Mouth of Hell. You can find them online,
uh, both east, both east and west as this kind of monster
thing. And you can see that there's still a remainder of the image of
Jonah, which is that the image is something of a snake, it's something
of a fish, but it also has ears, you know. You can
see that you can see the ears on the at the bottom of the of
the head. And here again and again also in this one you can see
the ears on the on the monster. I'll show you one last time in
a in the bigger image, you can see that the monster has ears.
So one of these is like Russian and the other, you know, is
is like Northern European or Western European. And so this image really crossed all
over the place. Now, okay, so what's important to understand in this
case is that what you will see in scripture is these sea monsters and the
Leviathan in particular, represented in many guises, represented in different ways, but
that are always the serpent always has the same place, but that the way
that it's treated is different depending on the context. So of course it's important
to understand that the monsters, the sea monsters were created are mentioned in the
creation narrative, and so on the day that God creates the fish and the
birds, it says, so God created great sea creatures and every living thing
that moves with which the waters abounded according to the kind, and every wing
bird according to according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
But the great sea creatures is a Hebrew word called the tannin, which
is the sea monsters really, and so it is a kind of generic term
for these massive, giant sea creatures that are that are considered monsters of which
you know the Levithan or there are also different of different versions of which I
forget the name at this moment. It'll come back to me, sorry,
And so there's different these different sea monsters that exist in the sea. And
so in scripture, think about it now, as they are these kind of
monstrous things that exist in the waters, and what they end up representing often
is they end up representing the waters themselves. They end up representing chaos itself,
because they are these monsters at the bottom of the world, in the
in the waters, and that is what the Levithan ends up representing very much
as well. But the thing about chaos is that chaos is also potential.
Chaos is also power. And so think about how you have an authority and
that authority wants to increase its reach. So what it will do is it
will try to reach out into the thing that it doesn't master yet and in
mastering them or incorporating them, what it will do it will increase its power.
Right. So by you know, the Roman Empire, by invading the
Northern Barbarians and by including the Barbarians into their fold, what they're doing is
they're increasing their power. And so this is the way to kind of understand
that or even understand the warrior that is this on the edge of an army
that is going crazy and he's kind of killing people because he's this expression of
power. Okay, So chaos and potential can also be represented as power.
So that's what ends up happening. In scripture is that the Levithan is represented
in different ways. Sometimes the so so for example, so in in the
Psalms, for example, there's this text that talks about the the Levithan and
it says, here's the sea. It talks about the power of God and
like God's creation, how God interacts with creation he says, here's the sea,
vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number, living things both large
and small. There the ships go to and fro and Leviathan, which you
form to frolic there. So Leviathan is represented as like God's pet, basically
as kind of God's plaything that he created in the waters to kind of play
and too and to frolic in these giant, you know, waters. And
so here it's this sense that the you know, it's it's almost like the
kind of chaotic playfulness of God is represented in this giant sea monster that just
rides through the through the waters. But in the same thing in the Book
of Job, then the Leviathan is represented as an expression of God's power.
You know. It's like, who can you can you control the Leviathan?
You human, like, do you have enough power to master this giant monster?
And the answer is, of course no. And this is an example
to show how are capacity, our power is limited compared to the capacity and
power of God. Okay, and so but in the way that it's represented
in the idea that it's a kind of chaos. This is the relationship between
the serpent, the sea monster and what we call the ouroboros, that is,
the idea that of a serpent eating its own tail. And so why
do we have this image of a serpent eating in its own tail? What's
the relationship between the rest? And you know, if you read my brother's
book, we'll see an image of his cover, you'll understand that it has
to do exactly what that. It has to do with a type of causality
which is not linear and logical and coherent, but rather a circularity, right,
a kind of breakdown of linear causality, which is which is changed,
which is transformation, and is represented as the ridiculous idea. Not ridiculous,
but like the idea of the serpent basically feeding on its own tail, which
is obviously an impossibility you can't have. It's basically a kind of cannibalism.
Like cannibalism, self eating is not possible. If you do that, you
obviously you'll degenerate, you know. But then it becomes an image of this
idea. But then it can easily then become an image of the edge of
something, right, in the sense that it's the place where an identity starts
to lose its coherence, and so it ends up being the rim or the
periphery around an identity, because it is exactly that it is the the you
know, an identity has a kind of coherence, It lays itself out in
a regular pattern. But then when you reach the edge of that identity,
you reach the place where it starts to contry itself, where it starts to
not be completely logical, and that is represented can be represented as this circle
of chaos, this rim of chaos, which is of course the ocean itself,
you know, that is around the giant island of the world. But
then also you know, mythologically represented as a serpent. Now, this image
of the serpent eating its tail is of course extremely ancient, you know.
I'll just show you one very old image version of it that you can find
in Egypt, where you see, of course the serpent with the head at
the top eating its tail, and then the pharaoh representing the center, representing
the order part. I don't know if it's a faraoh, but it's like
the human the person who's there is representing the identity, the order. And
then around that identity and order is this kind of circle of limit of chaos.
Now, this image happens everywhere, right and so my brother use it
in his book as this image of the serpent that goes around the tree,
the tree being now the identity in the center, and then the the a
robos going around the tree being this kind of change or transformation or chaos or
power or potential. There's all these different analogies to what it is that is
outside of the current identity. And you know, I just want to say
a little thing. I usually don't get into polemics too much, but it's
interesting because you know, you have you know, James Lindsay, who kind
of came after me and came after Jordan Peterson and a bunch of people.
He started saying how the arobos is the symbol that is from occultism, that
it's from alchemy, that is from gnoscissism. And it's like, well,
yeah, it does appear there, but it's not the only place it appears.
The image of the serpent turning on itself is an image which is completely
coherent and is there in the tradition as well. It's there in Christianity,
it's there in Judaism, and we'll see examples of it as we move forward
to show that just because gnostics or occultists or whatever. Use a symbol,
you know, does not reduce it to that use. And often all these
weird magical people they try to take symbolism for their own purpose. But that
doesn't mean that you can limit that symbolism to that use, Right, It's
a it's a pretty simple thing. Like it's not. It's not that complicated
to understand that if you see an eye in a triangle, it doesn't mean
Freemasonry, Like it doesn't mean Illuminati. It means it means the eye of
Eternity, it means the Trinity, it means the all seeing eye. And
it was used by these organizations as in a kind of parasitic way in order
to you know, to at least to that was more related to their own
particular use. But the symbolism itself is not cannot be limited to that in
the same way, like a swastika. The idea that a swastika as a
Nazi symbol is one of the most ridiculous things you can think. It's like,
swastika is one of the most universal symbols, one of the most universal
symbols ever created. Anyways, I've talked about this many times, and so
what I want to show you is I want to show you some images.
So in the Jewish tradition, the image of the Leviathan as this particularly round
fish or around you know, sea monster was quite prominent in the Middle Ages,
you know. And so you can see that the fish is not biting
its tail, but it does have that kind of circular motion, and it
does have this kind of peripheral idea that it is a a periphery that is
around something in the middle. So here you have this red part in the
center. Here you have these kind of flames that are in the middle with
the with the fish that is going around and kind of touching its own tail,
as this sea monster, chaotic monster, chaotic fish, all of this
type of imagery. And so in the in the scripture, the the this
dragon or the Leviathan then again ends up having these two aspects of symbolism.
So for example, in the Book of Isaiah, now we have this image
of the Leviathan as the chaos, which is opposing order, right, the
chaos which is fighting order. The dragon in the sense of Saint George,
right, that is coming to like eat the virgin, and the warrior has
to spear this dragon. And so it says that in the day of the
Lord, you know, in that day, that final day, that final
day of all revelation, you know, the end of the world, that
in that day the Lord with his with his sore and great and strong sword,
will punish Leviathan the giant serpent, and Leviathan the tortuous serpent, and
he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. Right. And so
this is the image that we are represented, that we're representing in the in
God's Dog right. And so in God's Dog we have this image of the
of Saint Michael coming down and now slaying Leviathan in the sea. But you'll
say that's weird because it doesn't say Saint Michael, right, it says God
slew the Leviathan in the sea. And so just keep track of that,
and as we move forward you'll get a sense of how all these things ultimately
come together. But like I said, there's also an image that is represented
positively, like I said before, and in the image I just showed you,
which is in the Jewish tradition, that is how it's represented in the
Jewish tradition. So below here what you have is something called the Feast of
the Leviathan, and so there are Jewish traditions we talk about how in the
Messianic time, at the end of the world, when all is finished,
there will be a great feast where we will eat eat the flesh of the
Leviathan, and the skin of the Levithan will be used to cover Jerusalem,
and that the people will wear the skin of the Leviathan, and that we
like a glorious skin, and so they'll eat the flesh of the Levithan and
they will wear the skin of the Leviathan as this kind of glorious image.
And you think, well, that is weird. That is a very strange
image. Why would they have an image like that? And what's weirdest about
it is, by the way, if you know about God's dog is look
at how all these people at the end of the world in the Messianic age
have animal heads. If you notice, it's not exactly for the same reasons
that we have animal heads in our story. In these it's more about kind
of specific characteristics. I think it's hard to know exactly what the meaning of
these images are, but it seems more like the idea like specific characteristics which
are in their glory right. So they're where crowns, but they represent,
you know, different parts of the of what humanity is. What's interesting,
though, is that there is a donkey there, and so there's definitely pure
and impure in the Messianic age coming together. But why would we have that?
But the thing is that we have something similar in Christianity, which is
this image of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the heavenly Jerusalem is civilization. But
now it's like, right, you think it's so weird because you think civilization
isn't chaos, is it? Civilization is power? Right? This image of
the garments of skin that I've talked about many times, which is this image
of this covering that God gives men that turns into basically everything that man uses
to cover himself, you know, and civilization being like the big part of
that. And in the end you have this glorious version of civilization where civilization
basically is filled with the glory of God and it and what was dangerous in
chaotic and potential is now eliminated and you have a sea of crystal. Right
in the Book of Revelation, the seed is no more, there's no more
ocean, there's no more Leviathan there the Divithan has been has been conquered,
and everything that is the exterior part, all the skin, has now been
turned into glory, which is in revelation represented as the heavenly Jerusalem as the
city the covering that is filled with glory. But the image of the Leviathan
and the feast of the serpent, and how then it is turned into these
skins that people wear and that Jerusalem is covered in is very similar imagery in
terms of what it means, and it shows the two aspects of how it
is that chaos and order relate together. Is that sometimes order is shown as
subjugating chaos and d and uh, you know, and and ruling over it.
And then sometimes it's shown as order or the heaven filling up the chaos
and filling it up with light and with glory and with radiance. And so
those two images are important to maintain in that kind of balance or in a
kind of in attention, because they both represent important aspects of how it is
it heaven and earth joined together. Now, this image of the circular dragon
or the circular serpent that represents the Leviathan is one which you find as Christianity
as well. Here are two examples. So here is Antichrist now who is
sitting on the great beasts that is represented in Revelation, and the great beast
that comes out of the sea, you remember, and so there's there's great
beast that comes out of the sea. Is also a circular structure. Like
I said, it doesn't it's not exactly the serpent eating its tail in this
case on the one on the left, but it does still have the same
structure of the dragon, the beasts, the serpent coming out of the sea.
And now of having this circular image on which the Antichrist is sitting on
the on the right side. Here now you have the image of the dragon
really eating its tail. This is from a twelfth century image where you see
the dragon kind of eating his own tail. And there are different versions of
this. I didn't take so many, but if you look up medieval croziers,
for example, that is the bishop's staff that happened in the Middle Ages,
you'll see the same structure as as this. You'll see the same structure
as the this circular serpent, but now in the center often will be Saint
Michael spearing the serpent sometimes and then other times what you'll see in the middle
will be something like the Lamb of God that's in the center and the serpent
that is around it. Now think again about this image of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
You know of the Lamb of God that is in the middle of the
city and around the city, around the Lamb of God or the walls of
the city, and the civilizational multiple aspects of civilization, and you can represent
that as the lamb in the center and a serpent or a dragon circling around
it, right, And so you can see that when I talk about how
the feasts of the Leviathan in the Hebrew tradition and the Jewish tradition and the
Heavenly Jerusalem are similar in their meaning, right, they kind of they play
with the same type of imagery. And of course there are different versions of
this, Like I just want to show you an image or here is the
image of the Bronz serpent, where again the circularity of the serpent is made
prominent. You know, it's like, it's actually kind of awkward to draw
a serpent like this, but clearly what the artist wanted to do was to
emphasize this kind of shape that is robaros like, right, that has that
kind of circular structure to it. Okay, all right, Now, the
thing about this is is that this image of the serpent eating its tail,
the serpent turning on himself, is an image that is there from the very
beginning. It's there in the Book of Genesis. Not in the Book of
Genesis, but in the way that we represent the Book of Genesis. So
we often think just of the serpent eating its tail, you know, directly,
But a better way of representing how this circularity works is actually like this.
So it's not just like one wheel of a serpent, but it's multiple
wheels of a serpent. And so the serpent wrapped around a tree is just
the same as the levithan wrapped around the world. It's exactly the same as
the image that my brother put on his book, which is that you have
the tree in the center, you have the identity of the structure, you
have the thing that is ordered, and then around it you have these circles,
these rings of chaos. And I did it on purpose to show that
in the Middle Ages they often understood that this serpent wasn't just a serpent,
was really like a kind of monstrous dragon character which you see here on the
right side. You know that's often identified as lilith or as different kind of
monstrous demonic characters. But you can see here that the serpent has legs.
You know that the serpent has a human face and is also also has that,
So it really is a monster or a dragon. It's not just a
serpent in the most simple sense. But the serpent is fine. But what
I want you to see is that, like this is how symbolism works,
is that it's a serpent, it's a fish, it's a monster, it's
a dragon. It's like you have to be able to see se how of
course, these all these images are distinct, and they can be used to
show something distinct, but they can also become analogies for each other and easily
slip back and forth into each other without there being any problem because you can
understand them where their place is in the story, right, It's like there's
the place where they're put. Is there to help you see the analogies that
exist between these these different images. And so so now we have to get
into like the crux of things. And so in the Book of Revelation,
there is also something about this which is that it says in the Book of
Revelation twelve, verse seven to nine, it says, now a war arose
in heaven, and Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the
dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated. There was no longer
any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down the
ancient serpent, who is called the devil in Satan, the deceiver of the
whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown
down with him. And so look at what's going on here, Like it's
very powerful, what is happening. So here the serpent and the dragon is
identified with Satan and the devil. Now in the text it doesn't say Leviathan
anymore, but anybody who knows their scripture will remember that in Isaiah it says
on that day the Lord will kill Leviathan, the Lord will defeat Levithan.
And so everybody knows that this verse is referring back to that verse in Isaiah.
And so the dragon that is being spoken of is the Leviathan. It
is the great Dragon, but it is also the opposer. It is the
Satan, it is the so it is the devil that is the one that
separates, and it is the Satan that is the one that opposes. And
in this case you have this hostile image between order and chaos, between chaos
that opposes the identity, chaos that tries to revolt itself against the multiplicity that
sides to revolt itself against the unity. And that's why you have then images
like this right. So the one on the left is my carving. It
is Saint Michael killing the dragon in the Book of Revelation, Saint Michael killing
the Leviathan, if you understand it, from the Book of Isaiah. And
on the right now you have another version of this image, which is Saint
Michael killing the devil. And in this version, if you see on the
right, Saint Michael has the sword, because in Isaiah it says with his
mighty sword, will he kill the devil. And so if you remember,
if you remember the image I showed you of God's dog at the outset,
Saint Michael now is killing the Leviathan with a sword. But it's totally fine
to represent it as a lance as well. That is become the more traditional
way in the East of representing this relationship because what it is it's a spear,
it's it's basically an axis, right, it's a pole, it's an
identity, right, it's a one. And that one is now going to
fix the many and the slithering and the motion and the chaos and the division.
Right, So it's going to fix that in the ground. And so
that relationship of hostility between the idea of defeating the chaos and defeating the opposition
is there the in the text. It related to the devil, that is
that which divides, to the satan, that is that which opposes. And
then Saint Jerome, for example, he goes all out and he just says,
you know, the Levithan is the serpent in Genesis, you know,
he he he says that the Levithan is the same serpent that you see in
Genesis tempting Adam and e. And so he just kind of looped it all
together and just ties the Knight's bow in it to help you see how all
of these things are connected. Now, But in this symbolism, you have
to understand that the other symbolism, which is that the symbolism of the filling,
the symbolism of the glorification, doesn't need to go away, and it
can be maintained inside the way that we represent these different images, and that
that's where we get to this problem, which is that on the one side
you see God and his angel spearing, you know, completely dominating the chaos
and the disorder and the opposer. But on the other side, what you
see is God filling up and becoming death and being joined to death. And
that is why Christ on the cross looks like a serpent, and that's why
Christ's on the cross is represented as the bronze serpent. That's why Christ himself
says that he will be lifted up like the bronze serpent will be lifted up.
Now, the Cross does many things. It does both at the same
time, by the way, which is again the cross will always wreck you
if you try to think about it too much, because the Cross is both
God becoming the serpent and you know, entering into the chaos, into the
death and filling it with himself. But it is also at the same time
the spearing and the fixing of the serpent by the nails onto the structure of
reality. And so the true the serpent around the tree is nailed to the
tree, and so it's like he both but it's not just nailed to the
tree. He also becomes the serpent. So that duality or that fullness of
the paradox of God both coming into death becoming sin for us, all these
types of images that are completely crazy, but then also being while he's doing
that, being the one that is now going down into death and spearing the
devil. And so it brings you back to that image that I showed you
at the outset, you know, which is these two possibilities, like how
these different possibilities can coexist in the manner which they're represented. So here you
see Christ coming down with his cross, but his cross is a spear,
right, Look at the cross that Christ is bringing into death. So he's
spearing the mouth of death, just like Saint Michael is spearing the mouth of
death in the in the other image, you know, And now it's Christ
doing that, but he's at the same time going into death and coming to
take the people out of death. So you can see how all of these
are related and how the subtlety of the symbolism is important to maintain so that
we don't fall into kind of just simplistic and moralistic interpretations. Okay, And
so this type of imagery leads up to this image of the for example,
the bishop's staff, which has serpents on it. And so here you have
these two serpents that are represented around the cross. And of course it is
a version or you know, let's say, a similar to the Cadusius or
the rod of Asclepius, which is an image of medicine. And so why
why would we have that because a lot of people are annoyed, like when
they see the bishop like with this two serpents, they think this is pagan,
this is pagan, but it isn't pagan, right, it's right there,
it's right out of scripture. It's right out of the idea of Moses
taking his rod and then when he takes it it becomes rad and when he
lets it go, it becomes a serpent. And that's it, Like,
that's the whole thing. It's the tree, that is the identity, and
it's the one that is that is held right when you hold on to it,
when you when you grasp it, then you know that it is an
identity. And when you let go, when you drop it, when you
lose it, when you forget it, then it becomes a snake and it
becomes a monster, and he becomes something that doesn't have a clear identity,
and and so this is the type of imagery that is there in the Cross.
And there's a there's a surprise about this chaos is that it has two
sides. It both is on the one hand, that which can oppose,
that which can divide right, the satan and the devil. But it is
also, in the surprise, that which can also increase power and increase glory
and ultimately heal from the other side. So we have to be careful which
when we're dealing with because obviously, you know, many a hero, you
know, heretical idea has come from confusing that, you know, and you
see that in the kind of gnostic teaching. You do see that where they
say things like Adam listening to the serpent at eating the apple was in fact
the type of enlightenment that they were actually doing what was right. But that
is not the way we understand it. Really, the Cross is the way
that all of this is settled. The Cross, which is the opposite of
the kind of chaos or the multiplicity rising up to try to revolt itself against
identity, but is rather this giving up and this giving in, you know,
to to kind of offer yourself, and in that manner, the entering
into chaos then becomes a type of filling and a type of glory. And
so hopefully this is a little helpful kind of understand what this imagery of the
serpent can mean, you know why the imagery of the Leviathan can easily in
both have both of those images in them, whether it is this idea of
the great power of God and creating these monstrous, you know, chaotic beings,
but at the same time that those chaotic beings can of course become a
position and become an image for the devil and the Satan. That is the
like I said, the one that breaks down identity and the one that opposes
it. And if you're interested in that, put it in the description as
well. I wrote an article called the Serpents of Orthodoxy a long time ago,
like ten years or more than ten years ago, that you can look
up and you can read a bit more about this whole idea of the relationship
between the serpent and medicine and all that. And if you're also interested in
this idea, like I said, do not forget to support us with God's
dog two. This is the second book of five. This is going to
be a massively epics story, folks, that's going to move all through these
medieval legends, but then also through scripture and through a bunch of surprising things
as well. So everybody, thanks for your support and your attention, and
I hope to see some of you at the Symbolic World Summit, and if
not, we'll also discuss online. So thanks everybody, and I'll talk to
you very soon. Byebye. In twenty twenty one, my brother Mets you
and I, with the help of Poor Nielsen of Philip Carton, introduce all
of you to a new vision of storytelling. We launched a God's Dog Monster
graphic novel through crowdfunding, introducing the dog headed Saint Christopher, the dragon slang
Saint George to full view as a new epic story. Again. The response
was astounded, reaching over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and ultimately selling out
our first print of the book. Now book two of five in this series,
God's Dog Warrior moves into the meat of this epic story where our dog
headed stranger must be integrated, must be trained, and must fight the cosmic
stakes behind the story become clear, the characters shine, and heart wrenching choices
must be made. Book two will surprise you more monsters, more giants,
and a deeper exploration the mythology underlying it all. Since Book one of God's
Dog, I've also started a publishing company called Symbolic World Press with some amazing
partners to deal with the timely production, printing, and shipping of all future
books. We've already successfully published Snow White and The Widow Queen and will expand
our activities rapidly. The money we raise is to build this whole project and
even move towards other media. We now have three full time people working with
us, plus nine artists six writers collaborating towards at least fourteen upcoming books,
and all of these without any outside funding, no outside control. It's all
of you making this possible. This is why crowdfunding is so powerful. So
on this crowdfunding, We've partnered with professional comic artist Matt Chan, Jesse White,
to the Cartan, and Martin Krotz to bring together God's Dog Warrior.
But on top of that, I'm also introducing an entirely unique comic book series
called The Garments of Skin, which will explore the lore, the mythology around
God's dog, bring the story into the contemporary world where new heroes try to
resist the global system control. We are at a turning point and culture a
turning point in storytelling, and I know I can count on all of you
to make it possible. We have to take back the range of storyteller,
move past the gatekeepers, and I thank all of you for trusting us to
play a part in that. Thank you for backing Godzog Warrior on Kickstarter today.