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Speaker 1: Want to welcome everyone back to our reading of on
Speaker 1: Resistance to Evil by four by Ivan Eileen doctor Johnson.
Speaker 1: Are you doing today?
Speaker 2: You know when I got during my divorce hearings because
Speaker 2: I took them. I didn't take them seriously. I didn't
Speaker 2: even have a lawyer. This was not in front of
Speaker 2: a judge. But my ex wife's lawyer asked me, big
Speaker 2: mistake on her part. How I would like to be addressed,
Speaker 2: and I said, well, please refer to the list of
Speaker 2: titles that the present dictator of North Korea has. They're
Speaker 2: like two hundred of them, and pick one. She said, well,
Speaker 2: I'm he said, my favorite, my personal favorite, Ruler of Dominica.
Speaker 2: She said, okay, And so wasn't the final decree, but
Speaker 2: the early paperwork, says Matthew R. Johnson, aka Ruler of Dominica.
Speaker 2: My divorce papers, early early divorce paper. That's how seriously
Speaker 2: I took it.
Speaker 1: Did she get divorced during COVID?
Speaker 2: Me? No, No, twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, okay, it was a long time ago I
Speaker 1: got I got divorced during COVID and there was like
Speaker 1: no nothing. It was all paperwork, no meeting, no nothing.
Speaker 2: Oh no, we met. And this was not in front
Speaker 2: of a judge. I wouldn't I'm not stupid. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say that in front of a judge. But it was
Speaker 2: in front of one of these. In Pennsylvania, we have
Speaker 2: these masters, divorce masters, where the hell they're called. And
Speaker 2: I got a smile from her. So and the paperwork says,
Speaker 2: AKA ruler of Dominica. I'm telling you. Oh. And also
Speaker 2: there's a law in Nebraska that says that whale hunting
Speaker 2: is not permitted. And since there are no whales within
Speaker 2: a huge you know, one thousand miles from Nebraska, I'm
Speaker 2: assuming it refers to fat girls. I'm not one hundred
Speaker 2: percent sure. See how weird the state is. I'm telling
Speaker 2: you it's the weirdest state on the planet, especially Lincoln.
Speaker 1: I think it's episode sixty one of Two Hundred Years Together,
Speaker 1: where at the beginning doctor Johnson goes over his experiences
Speaker 1: in Nebraska. People want to go check for that. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it's it's definitely in the sixties.
Speaker 2: So yes, it's I miss it sometimes I do. But
Speaker 2: it was the weirdest place. I was there for five years.
Speaker 2: The weirdest place I've ever lived. And even I mean,
Speaker 2: every state has these weird loss but Nebraska has the weirdest.
Speaker 2: And just you know, almost every day I saw something
Speaker 2: bizarre coming up or down the street. So uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I could go on and on for hours about.
Speaker 1: The alrighty, let's go on with the with the text. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen, on the Modifications of Love. The beginning of
Speaker 1: the spiritual life modifies the internal structure of love in
Speaker 1: the form it takes. Usually or often only one of
Speaker 1: its varieties is called love, and the last spiritual one
Speaker 1: at that the lower form of love is structured according
Speaker 1: to the formula one is good because one is attractive,
Speaker 1: and is sometimes reduced to instinctive enjoyment of another's presence
Speaker 1: or sometimes exhausted by pity for another's physical and mental suffering.
Speaker 1: In contrast, the spiritual principle limiting the senseless outpouring of
Speaker 1: sensitivity and pointing out to love its true worthy object
Speaker 1: constantly trains it to not idealize what one pleases it
Speaker 1: is good because it is attractive, but to delighten what
Speaker 1: is perfect. It is attractive because it is good. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: it imparts to love the inner flexibility and the diversity
Speaker 1: of outward expressions essential to spirit for a spiritual life.
Speaker 2: Those two phrases are extremely important, and it almost marks
Speaker 2: the difference, uh just and thos you know a few
Speaker 2: words between medieval and modern or or medieval and utilitarianism.
Speaker 2: You know, what he's really talking about here is errors
Speaker 2: to be attracted to something the least of all, the
Speaker 2: lowest of all the levels of love. So and it
Speaker 2: takes the form either of just you know, lusting after somebody,
Speaker 2: or this endless pity for the world suffering, or something
Speaker 2: like that. And so this is how he's introducing all
Speaker 2: the limitations of the concept of love and the forms
Speaker 2: that it takes, because it has to be limited because
Speaker 2: we're human beings and we have very limited capacities for this.
Speaker 1: In a spiritually undeveloped and helpless person, love begins where
Speaker 1: they like something or where they enjoy something. It flows
Speaker 1: on the plane of a soulless connection and strives for
Speaker 1: maximum inner and outer pleasure. The soulless love is most
Speaker 1: often diverted from will and reason and turn into imagination
Speaker 1: and sensation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is based on fantasy. You know. This is
Speaker 2: how demons get to us. They create an image for us.
Speaker 2: They can't create, but they can invent images. And the
Speaker 2: fantasy we may have, the fantasy never even if we
Speaker 2: get what we want, it's never, it never comes true.
Speaker 2: But he has love here in quotes. He has quotes
Speaker 2: in the original, and it is a soulless connection. This
Speaker 2: is how Americans seem to function these days. It's it's
Speaker 2: not it's not to say it doesn't have a place,
Speaker 2: but it is still the lowest place you know, and
Speaker 2: diverted from will and reason to the lower levels of
Speaker 2: imagination and sensation. And we all know how the regime
Speaker 2: can use imagination to make money, especially from men. And
Speaker 2: so he's still talking about the lower forms of love,
Speaker 2: which again it's it's it's a it's a necessity, but
Speaker 2: it has to know its place, just like passion. It's
Speaker 2: a necessity, but it has to be controlled by reason.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, spiritual love has the power to turn
Speaker 1: away from the pleasance. It has the power to establish
Speaker 1: itself at the level of a persistent rejection. It is
Speaker 1: capable of taking the form of a difficult and joyless service.
Speaker 1: The only constant function of spiritual love is benevolence. This
Speaker 1: means that it always and since yearly wishes for everyone,
Speaker 1: not pleasure, not enjoyment, not success, not happiness, and not
Speaker 1: even the absence of suffering, but spiritual perfection, even when
Speaker 1: it can only be acquired at the cost of suffering
Speaker 1: and happy and unhappiness.
Speaker 2: If that's truly your goal, and that's truly the goal
Speaker 2: you have for people, then it is a loving benevolence.
Speaker 2: It is a spiritual love. People may not like you
Speaker 2: because of it. They may not understand why you're rejecting
Speaker 2: rejecting certain things because it's harmful pensior in raising the children,
Speaker 2: for example, just realizing how irrational people can be, and
Speaker 2: how powerful the passions are and who controls the passion
Speaker 2: this imagination when he's talking about so spiritual love, however,
Speaker 2: comes from a certain level of suffering, and if that's
Speaker 2: your true goal, then yeah, the path to that goal
Speaker 2: is often extremely difficult, and the person in the middle
Speaker 2: of it, you know, main not understand. I may not
Speaker 2: like you as a result.
Speaker 1: The next function of spiritual love, the experiential and intuitive
Speaker 1: perception of another's personality brought in its fullness to the
Speaker 1: point of artistic identification is far from always realized. At
Speaker 1: the lower levels of spiritual self education, it is realized
Speaker 1: primarily in relation to ideal perfect human models, saints and heroes.
Speaker 1: At the middle levels it can only be in relation
Speaker 1: to God, meditation and solitude, and at the highest levels
Speaker 1: only in God and through God, and among people only
Speaker 1: in relation to those who themselves ask for help.
Speaker 2: I think this is a specifically orthodox point of view,
Speaker 2: where man can be the greatest saints can be defined,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And again, there's nothing wrong with having
Speaker 2: your favorite saints. I certainly do trying to approach the
Speaker 2: logos through meditation and solentnsuit absolutely, which is always a struggle.
Speaker 2: You're always being diverted, You're always being distracted, and I'm
Speaker 2: certainly no teacher of that. I need a distance myself,
Speaker 2: though I've been asked. But if someone knows what they want,
Speaker 2: and if they want the right things, you know, you'll
Speaker 2: understand that it's not going to be easy. Any a
Speaker 2: master of anything, I don't care if it's a musical
Speaker 2: instrument or anything at a very high level is not
Speaker 2: going to be easy. Greatness never comes through indulgence, and
Speaker 2: love certainly doesn't refer to indulgence.
Speaker 1: Love at this level always wishes well, but does not
Speaker 1: always identify, and when identified, he does not always accept,
Speaker 1: approve or pity. When he approves, it is not at
Speaker 1: all out of kindness, but when he pities another, it
Speaker 1: is not with the weak willed softening either of themselves
Speaker 1: or of the sufferer. Their love is for the perfection
Speaker 1: of the beloved, and this love for the perfection of
Speaker 1: the beloved always remains stronger than the fear of their
Speaker 1: possible suffering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost a definition of being weak willed, right,
Speaker 2: that you can't handle pain, so you just won't do it.
Speaker 2: And that goes for anything worthwhile. Anything worthwhile in the
Speaker 2: world comes through pain, a discomfort of some kind or another.
Speaker 2: But this, you know this, This you're using words like identifying, identification.
Speaker 2: You know this could have been written again the other day.
Speaker 2: This stood the test of time. Wishing well is almost
Speaker 2: like saying goodbye to somebody saying I wish you well,
Speaker 2: but I certainly don't accept what you're doing. And the approval,
Speaker 2: as he says here, is not just because oh, I
Speaker 2: love you so much, but because it's leading you to
Speaker 2: the right direction. And it's hard to do that you see,
Speaker 2: there's in raising children sometimes the abbot of of a
Speaker 2: of a of a monastery. There's a million situations like
Speaker 2: that where you have to bring people through the crucible,
Speaker 2: so they come out extraordinary people on the other end.
Speaker 2: And this is uh, you know. And so the week
Speaker 2: will don't want to do any of that. They want
Speaker 2: to give in to them, They want to cheat. They
Speaker 2: they you know, they want to take shortcuts. And that
Speaker 2: happens all the time. And and but you know, true love,
Speaker 2: and of course the final land, of course is God himself.
Speaker 2: You know, Saint Augustine would say that one end that
Speaker 2: never changes, because love placing your love on something on
Speaker 2: this earth, you could lose it tomorrow. So that's only
Speaker 2: a very conditional love. But even there, that's just one
Speaker 2: step to the proper worship and love of God, and
Speaker 2: bringing someone to that can be very difficult.
Speaker 1: Ordinary love comes to love the earthly composition of an
Speaker 1: individual person and knows nothing greater. Hence its results is
Speaker 1: essensual and sugary morality, which places above all else objectless
Speaker 1: affection and unprincipled kindness.
Speaker 2: No one in the universe has ever fallen, has ever
Speaker 2: lusted after, the concept of a woman. It's always a
Speaker 2: very specific one. The earthly composition. It's never it's never
Speaker 2: the form, no one. You know, the love for the
Speaker 2: form of a woman. Man has no relationship to the
Speaker 2: love for the erotic, love for just an individual. And
Speaker 2: this is all nominalism understands. And when it comes down
Speaker 2: to morality, you know, it's a very you know, I
Speaker 2: love everyone kind of thing object list affection, which of
Speaker 2: course is never real. And you know, kindness he says
Speaker 2: unprincipled kindness when he's ranked. Ultimately, it's about what you want,
Speaker 2: and so there are no principles there, because what you
Speaker 2: want is not a principle, it's a given.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, spiritual love knows that this higher reality
Speaker 1: end in the face of it, is able to control
Speaker 1: both its tenderness and its kindness. It knows that between
Speaker 1: the two fundamental commandments of Christ, love for God and
Speaker 1: love for one's neighbor, apparent conflicts are possible, in which
Speaker 1: service to God's work may require merciless severity toward man,
Speaker 1: while pity for man can be tantamount to the betrayal
Speaker 1: of God's work. Knowing this, it is also it also
Speaker 1: can navigate these parent conflicts, but its relationship with God
Speaker 1: always remains the standards which it's relationships with others are subordinated.
Speaker 2: You know, He's we have to deal with this quite often.
Speaker 2: We have to cut people off, We have to cut
Speaker 2: people out of our lives because they are not interested
Speaker 2: in what we do. They have no real conception of
Speaker 2: what love is. Many people are not capable of love
Speaker 2: very much like in my opinion, many people are not
Speaker 2: capable of being free. Love of God and love for
Speaker 2: one's neighbor. They should be one and the same. But
Speaker 2: because we're human and we live in a society and
Speaker 2: we meet many, many different people over the course of
Speaker 2: a day or a month, or you know, it's very
Speaker 2: hard to keep that as one thing. And pity could
Speaker 2: lead us astray, just like LUs can lead us astray.
Speaker 1: Therefore, there can be no circumstances under which it would
Speaker 1: be appropriate to betray God's work out of pity for another.
Speaker 1: But situations are always possible in which, out of love
Speaker 1: for God, one can and should restrain love from man
Speaker 1: and reduce it to the strictness of spiritual benevolence, so
Speaker 1: that the second commandment remains unbroken. For generally speaking, love
Speaker 1: is not at all reducible to animal pity, which weakens
Speaker 1: both the one who pities and the one who is pitied.
Speaker 1: A person who has distinguished the image of God within
Speaker 1: himself needs not a weak and sympathetic acceptance, but a
Speaker 1: sternly condemning rejection. This rejection, which stops and sobers him.
Speaker 1: Canon should have its true source and love for God
Speaker 1: in heaven and for the divine and the fallen and
Speaker 1: spiritually extinguished soul.
Speaker 2: This is an extremely powerful paragraph, and for those who
Speaker 2: are reading along, they should probably read it a few times.
Speaker 2: You know, we may go way back with somebody, old friends, whatever,
Speaker 2: But if they're doing the wrong thing, if they've become
Speaker 2: an evil pert, we can't go along with it. We
Speaker 2: can't even we can't even pretend to accept it. They
Speaker 2: have to be cut off. Now. Sometimes a sternly condemning
Speaker 2: rejection is just what they need. Says here. Maybe it
Speaker 2: stops and sobers him, and because you know they respect us,
Speaker 2: we go way back for example, does use an example,
Speaker 2: go way back? And maybe he's right, But all of
Speaker 2: that should have the true source and love for God
Speaker 2: in heaven, and, as he says, for the divine in
Speaker 2: the fallen spiritually extinguished soul. Again, it comes back to
Speaker 2: the question whether or not localists can be completely extinguished
Speaker 2: in an individual. Because of its total saturation in the
Speaker 2: regime's morality, it's conceivable. I suppose there's some people who
Speaker 2: simply can't be rehabilitated, and the last thing his friends,
Speaker 2: if he has any left, should do is accept it,
Speaker 2: even just to get along. Going along. To get along
Speaker 2: is evil, it's a terrible thing. But when someone in
Speaker 2: their respect says no, I don't like this and you're
Speaker 2: doing the wrong thing, it may be exactly what they
Speaker 2: need to hear, and if that doesn't work, you may
Speaker 2: have to simply cut them off.
Speaker 1: Thus is born and formulated that negative face of love
Speaker 1: which has always led and will continue to tempt shortsighted
Speaker 1: and sentimental people, judging everything by its outward appearance, and
Speaker 1: seeing neither sweet sympathy nor tender pity in the manifestations
Speaker 1: of such love, they begin to speak indignantly of hatred
Speaker 1: or malice, expressing horror and calling for an anti spiritual
Speaker 1: and cowardly compassion.
Speaker 2: Well, most people know I have a very very good
Speaker 2: selling book on anomalism, and it's specifically its condemnation by
Speaker 2: the Church fathers, and to some extent, this very concept
Speaker 2: can be found there. Nominalism leads someone to judge things
Speaker 2: by their outward appearance because there is nothing else. You know,
Speaker 2: anomalist rejects any universal truths. There are no such things.
Speaker 2: What's left someone's material presence, and that's about it anything.
Speaker 2: And it does take a tremendous amount of strength. It
Speaker 2: was is why, you know. I mean when I when
Speaker 2: I first read Plato's Republic when I was seventeen, I
Speaker 2: was actually no, I was eighteen. I'm sorry. It absolutely
Speaker 2: blew my mind. I never heard any argument for a
Speaker 2: form or the spiritual life at all. That's such a thing.
Speaker 2: As you know, there's no faith, it's logic. You know,
Speaker 2: faith is fine, but it has to be based on
Speaker 2: a logical foundation. And Plato was extremely important. Uh in
Speaker 2: new early Church fathers, they always use his language. Although
Speaker 2: you can't accept Plato one hundred percent, we all know
Speaker 2: that Plato went about as far as naked reason could go.
Speaker 2: But coming across that for the first time, I began
Speaker 2: to realize then and be in my career almost has
Speaker 2: been expanding on that idea consistently. When you reject nomalism.
Speaker 2: You realize there's a lot more than outward appearances, and
Speaker 2: people will not like you for this, people won't understand.
Speaker 2: And it was the first step for me personally and
Speaker 2: breaking out of this epistemological dependence on the system, the
Speaker 2: you know, the empirical locking an idea, you know, the
Speaker 2: positive idea, the we're all raised with. That's very hard
Speaker 2: to do. And reading Plato at such a young age,
Speaker 2: and he was you know, he's an excellent writer, so
Speaker 2: he was graspable by me and that that was my foundation,
Speaker 2: and it absolutely blew my mind that there was an
Speaker 2: actual logical argument for the spiritual life in his case
Speaker 2: was talking about the forms and the forms you know,
Speaker 2: later being collected into logos or the second person at
Speaker 2: the Trinity later on with someone like Saint Justin Martyr,
Speaker 2: Saint Justin Martyr. It was a full scale Platonist. Of course,
Speaker 2: he could reject certain aspects of play, don't course, you
Speaker 2: know he Plato didn't know the fullness of revelation. But
Speaker 2: the fullestor of revelation is too based on a logical foundation.
Speaker 2: That's what that's what apologetics is all about. But talking
Speaker 2: about this to your typical normy out there. It's either
Speaker 2: not going to understand you, or they're going to simply
Speaker 2: reject you. And they're going to and you'll be punished
Speaker 2: for it. The fact that you stay with it, and
Speaker 2: you stick with it, that's what love is.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, in reality, the spiritual formulation of love, so necessary
Speaker 1: for a man and so difficult to acquire, imparts to
Speaker 1: love a whole series of precious modifications, and in no
Speaker 1: way extinguishes or distorts its fundamental loving nature in saying
Speaker 1: no to some one. On this basis, man loves his
Speaker 1: real genuine object no less than his spiritual yes, and
Speaker 1: much more than in the typical nonspiritual approval. Moreover, love
Speaker 1: capable of taking on a spiritually negative face is always deeper,
Speaker 1: more intense, more faithfully devoted than the love which in
Speaker 1: a cowardly way turns away from evil in order to
Speaker 1: avoid seeing or even to compassionately accept yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Or simply denying it exists. You know, if you are
Speaker 2: truly convinced of God in logos and his truth, even
Speaker 2: if you're put in that sitsuing. The example I always
Speaker 2: use about being forced to work in the bar, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Et cetera. You will still say no every single day.
Speaker 2: That's almost the found that's almost a heroic no, because
Speaker 2: you know what the truth is. And these people are idiots.
Speaker 2: And when you're sober and I don't drink, but when
Speaker 2: you're sober and and you watch people who are drunk,
Speaker 2: you realize how stupid they look. And that goes for
Speaker 2: any fashion, not just not just an alcohol or drug
Speaker 2: goes or anything. So uh And and you can't have
Speaker 2: allies who will either just turn away from it or
Speaker 2: even pretend it's not real, because such a person will
Speaker 2: eventually come to accept it is true, and they will
Speaker 2: drag you down because of it.
Speaker 1: In order to understand this negative sort of love, it
Speaker 1: is necessary to keep in mind that spiritually objectified, informed love,
Speaker 1: while always remaining benevolent, desires nothing but the spiritual enlightenment
Speaker 1: and transformation for every person. It cannot love anything evil
Speaker 1: in man. Therefore, wherever it perceives evil in a person,
Speaker 1: not weakness, not error, and not a fall, not sinfulness,
Speaker 1: but self affirming anti spiritual malice, it finds itself forced
Speaker 1: to modify its individual attitude towards the person in accordance
Speaker 1: with the evil present in his soul, while always desiring
Speaker 1: his conversion and purification, and perhaps joyfully trembling at the
Speaker 1: mere thought of the possibility of such a transformation of
Speaker 1: an evil soul. A spiritually loving person necessarily experiences a
Speaker 1: whole series of modifications and all that and all the
Speaker 1: other functions of his life in sympathy, approval, assistance, creative acceptance,
Speaker 1: and the desire I are to identify with him, in
Speaker 1: the willingness to communicate, and finally, even in the ability
Speaker 1: to treat him with elementary pity.
Speaker 2: This is this is a dangerous thing. Let me break
Speaker 2: this down the most simple element. We see someone who
Speaker 2: we like, for we've liked for a long time, who
Speaker 2: is living an evil lifestyle. We attempt to talk him
Speaker 2: out of it. Well, sometimes that's like awakening a sleepwalker.
Speaker 2: You better be prepared for an extreme reaction. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's possible that they may be transformed, but not always.
Speaker 2: But then again, he's not talking about, you know, weakness,
Speaker 2: no error. He's talking about an anti spiritual malice, self
Speaker 2: conscious malads. You know, and you better you better be careful.
Speaker 2: You better know what you're doing. You can't just go
Speaker 2: to someone and start preaching to them I have, I
Speaker 2: have a long experience in this. You have to know
Speaker 2: how to approach them. You have to you have to
Speaker 2: know them to begin with. You know, on an individual level,
Speaker 2: you have to know how to talk about it, how
Speaker 2: to bring it up. And even then, the chances of
Speaker 2: you succeeding, especially today, are are on minimal, but that's
Speaker 2: still your obligation. You don't run away from it. Uh,
Speaker 2: if you actually, you know, love anything, that's that's part
Speaker 2: of our commission here on earth. But going off without
Speaker 2: fully knowing that you know you can you can't get
Speaker 2: yourself hurt doing this. Depending on what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2: You know it's a criminal drug dealer or something like this,
Speaker 2: you better watch what you say. But you know it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's still your obligation to maybe bring them
Speaker 2: out of this some way, and you know the chances
Speaker 2: of you doing it are probably extremely low, but you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't try, then then no one will and
Speaker 2: God knows what will happen as a result. Again, that's
Speaker 2: what love is, That's what true love is, and it's
Speaker 2: negative love. It's a rejection. But not doing anything or
Speaker 2: pretending it doesn't exist, is the opposite of love.
Speaker 1: Each of us must know this from our own experience.
Speaker 1: There are evil deeds to which we give neither sympathy
Speaker 1: nor approval. There are evil goals to which we cannot contribute,
Speaker 1: so that the mere idea that I was used to
Speaker 1: commit evil acts overwhelms the soul with mortal anguish. There
Speaker 1: are evil situations in life which the imagination finds repugnant
Speaker 1: to enter, and the will find and the will find unbearable.
Speaker 1: There are evil people from a simple conversation with whom
Speaker 1: the soul begins to groan as if wounded. There are
Speaker 1: villains towards whom the last flash of extinguished pity can
Speaker 1: only express itself in hastening their death sentence.
Speaker 2: Big image I have when I translated this was Tony
Speaker 2: Sopranos therapist. Initially, she thinks she can do she can
Speaker 2: do good by them. Later on in the in the series,
Speaker 2: she finds out, yeah, I was used to committee. Relax
Speaker 2: or at the very least her her colleagues, knowing who
Speaker 2: she was treating, explained to her that for that kind
Speaker 2: of mind, what you're doing is giving him uh ways
Speaker 2: to overcome the good in the future. They're just using you. Uh.
Speaker 2: You're you know, pointing out weaknesses. Well, that's great for them,
Speaker 2: not good for you. And I couldn't if you haven't
Speaker 2: seen the Sopranos, whether there's probably something wrong with you.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't help thinking of doctor Melphie, this whole,
Speaker 2: the whole, this whole paragraph, especially that phrase I was
Speaker 2: used to commit evil acts, because that's really the the
Speaker 2: the zenith of their relationship. When she realizes that's in
Speaker 2: fact true. You know, sociopaths use therapy. I'm not a
Speaker 2: big fan of therapy. I don't think it works, but
Speaker 2: sociopath use it uh to get someone on their side,
Speaker 2: to plead their case and to get someone sympathetic to
Speaker 2: them that will eventually accept what they do. But that's
Speaker 2: not the case here. She always maintained her distance and
Speaker 2: as any and as any therapist can do in therapy
Speaker 2: comes down to what comes down to comes down the logic.
Speaker 2: Your mind is confused. You know your your ends are wrong,
Speaker 2: and the means that you're even if you have good ends,
Speaker 2: the means that you're you can go about them are wrong.
Speaker 2: And you know, therapy is pretty much what it comes
Speaker 2: down to. There's kings like Kink and Hose and you're
Speaker 2: trying to un kink it. But for a criminal, that's good.
Speaker 2: You're making them a better criminal. And and yeah, I
Speaker 2: think doctor MELPe was just immediately rush into my mind
Speaker 2: when I saw this, because this is exactly a huge
Speaker 2: part of the plot of the Sopranos and their relationship.
Speaker 1: All these states and their fundamental essence and the element
Speaker 1: that saturates them, remain a modification of spirituality and love,
Speaker 1: and therefore they can and therefore they do not become
Speaker 1: evil states and do not lead to evil deeds. Only
Speaker 1: short sightedness and superficiality can characterize them as manifestations of
Speaker 1: evil and malice. However, within the limits of love accessible
Speaker 1: to man and possible moral perfection, and these states are
Speaker 1: of course incomplete and flawed. Only love for God can
Speaker 1: be absolutely whole and complete. Love for an absolutely whole
Speaker 1: and complete perfection such an attitude toward man.
Speaker 2: As such, I told a friend of mine that he
Speaker 2: was in pre list, which in Russian the Orthodox means
Speaker 2: that they're in a state of delusion. Preless is a
Speaker 2: Russian word for charm or charming, and it's it's not heresy,
Speaker 2: but it's you know, they think they think things that
Speaker 2: you simply aren't true. They believe themselves greater than they are.
Speaker 2: And he told me, if you were a friend, you
Speaker 2: would never you would never accuse me of prelest And
Speaker 2: I said, no, that's what friends are supposed to do.
Speaker 2: You know, that's exactly the obligation of a friend. It's
Speaker 2: to tell you when you're when you're going off the path.
Speaker 2: In fact, he was an old believer and he had
Speaker 2: just you know, so many converts to that. And I
Speaker 2: have a book out on the old believers. I respect
Speaker 2: them very much, and sometimes they go a little bonkers.
Speaker 2: And I started to get the impression that he was
Speaker 2: trying to find a church worthy of him. And that's
Speaker 2: when I said, Okay, there's something wrong here. And I
Speaker 2: told him then. And I haven't spoken to him since.
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone else has said the same thing.
Speaker 2: But he's not the only guy I've come across who
Speaker 2: thinks that they come to the strictest true Orthodox Church
Speaker 2: on calendars, not because they want to seek the truth,
Speaker 2: but because or serve God properly, because it makes them
Speaker 2: appear extraordinary and of great principle. Trying to find a
Speaker 2: church worthy of them. Sometimes that could be hard to detect.
Speaker 2: And I've detected it a few times in my life.
Speaker 2: And when you see it, you got to mention it.
Speaker 2: And among other things. That's what prelest means in Russian.
Speaker 2: It's a state of mind that you shouldn't be in.
Speaker 2: And it could go as far as actually being, you know,
Speaker 2: having total delusions about things, but it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: go that far. But when he said friends, don't, you know,
Speaker 2: make those accusations, I said, that's exactly what friends do,
Speaker 2: if they give a damn about the person. That's exactly
Speaker 2: what friends do. What is wrong with you? And well
Speaker 2: that was the end of that.
Speaker 1: To love, a person taking an isolation from God would
Speaker 1: always be incorrect based on blindness and idealization. In love,
Speaker 1: for a person who reveals the true source of evil,
Speaker 1: the necessity of curtailment and completeness becomes self evident. Here
Speaker 1: there is a substantively just measure and necessary and subject
Speaker 1: actively irremovable boundary. Of course, this measure of love does
Speaker 1: not lend itself to precise quantitative determination, and the mental
Speaker 1: dissection of a semi evil person into beloved virtue or
Speaker 1: unloved vice remain unrealizable. It is precisely. For this reason,
Speaker 1: the complexity of an incompletely loved object requires a corresponding
Speaker 1: complexity in the structure of an incompletely loving act. It
Speaker 1: demands self control and adaptability from love.
Speaker 2: Of course, there's nothing purely evil that we come across
Speaker 2: on earth. There's always some good in something. You know.
Speaker 2: What's the word perversion mean, you know, and it's rooted.
Speaker 2: It means to turn away or inversion turns something completely
Speaker 2: upsigned down, something that already exists. It's good in and
Speaker 2: of itself, but you use it for evil reasons. And
Speaker 2: he says something like semi evil. I mean, there's there's
Speaker 2: a chance here. Maybe he's just going along, Maybe there's
Speaker 2: some good in him. Maybe he's he's starting to be
Speaker 2: upset by what he does. Uh, maybe you notice that
Speaker 2: he is, you know, getting upset by by what he
Speaker 2: does in the group that he's with or whatever. Ah,
Speaker 2: that's a person and if especially if you know him,
Speaker 2: that's a person you may approach. You have to want
Speaker 2: yourself again, I speak from experience, just to be very
Speaker 2: careful with this kind of thing. And usually you can
Speaker 2: just come you know, blaring, You can't come straight out
Speaker 2: with it. Sometimes depends on depending on circumstances. But you know,
Speaker 2: he says that there's this is very very fuzzy. There's
Speaker 2: no you know, clear boundaries here. It just comes from experience.
Speaker 2: You have to know he doesn't have a certain intuition
Speaker 2: about this stuff. And it's it's difficult, which is why
Speaker 2: when you go on this path, you're gonna lose a
Speaker 2: lot of friends, you know, whether you're converting to orthodoxy
Speaker 2: and in course and nationalism that it implies royalism. Uh,
Speaker 2: answer Jewish question, You're going to lose a lot of friends.
Speaker 2: But we do this because we love the truth, and
Speaker 2: God said I am the truth Truth wait in a life. Uh,
Speaker 2: And that's why we do it. There's no hate involved
Speaker 2: there whatsoever. But this is this is why we This
Speaker 2: is why we do it, and that's what love ultimately is.
Speaker 2: And we know we're going to suffer. It is not
Speaker 2: in our interests to do any of the things that
Speaker 2: we do. Uh, you know, interest in the sense is
Speaker 2: socially or or financially or professional. It's not nor interest
Speaker 2: to do what we do. But we come to a
Speaker 2: certain realization and now we have no choice. We couldn't
Speaker 2: possibly lie about it. I couldn't possibly go in front
Speaker 2: of a group of students and start talking about the
Speaker 2: Holocaust is the most evil thing that ever happened, you know,
Speaker 2: and I didn't. But you simply can't. You simply can't
Speaker 2: go along with them. So you know this this, and
Speaker 2: this gets very complicated over time. But when you approach,
Speaker 2: he's really talking about teaching somebody, and any relationship that
Speaker 2: might exist, could be friends, could be in a monastery,
Speaker 2: it could be in a university, doesn't matter. Approaching them
Speaker 2: is a dangerous game, and you have to be very,
Speaker 2: very very careful in what you say. And the better
Speaker 2: you know the person, maybe the better the chance you have.
Speaker 2: But the fact that he uses this semi evil concept,
Speaker 2: he's referring to somebody who has shown signs that they
Speaker 2: don't like where their life is going. And now you
Speaker 2: really have an obligation.
Speaker 1: All these modifications of love brought about by the encounter
Speaker 1: between genuine spirituality and genuine evil boiled down to the
Speaker 1: loving acceptance becoming impoverished in its functions, curtailed in its fullness,
Speaker 1: and as the object deteriorates increasingly, approaching a well wishing rejection,
Speaker 1: negative love gradually finds its fulfillment in the earthly removal
Speaker 1: of the rejected evil doer. But even during this removal
Speaker 1: and after its spiritual love does not turn into malice
Speaker 1: or become evil. Man is given the power to pray
Speaker 1: for the executed evil doer, and the church knows this prayer.
Speaker 1: It's usually Psalm twenty three. The Lord is my shepherd,
Speaker 1: I shall not want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took me a little while. There is a
Speaker 2: several prayers both in Russian and Greek for inmate. There
Speaker 2: are special prayers for inmates who were there unjustly. There's
Speaker 2: prayers for them who are there justly. But for executions
Speaker 2: usually it's it's Psalm twenty three. And now you know
Speaker 2: whether that's something that someone like that is gonna ever accept,
Speaker 2: You know, you never know. But as I've said before, yeah,
Speaker 2: the old medieval concept still works here. He says, negative
Speaker 2: love gradually finds his fulfillment in the earth removal of
Speaker 2: the rejected evil doer, someone who has declared war on society.
Speaker 2: It's like a cancer, and we are the chemotherapy. Or
Speaker 2: as you know, as many others example, many others have
Speaker 2: used a limb that's become saturated with gangreen. It has
Speaker 2: to be removed because if you don't remove it, it's
Speaker 2: gonna kill you. It's gonna take over your entire body,
Speaker 2: so you gotta chop it off. This is what capital
Speaker 2: punishment means to me. The way of course Americans do
Speaker 2: capital punishment is absurd since it's very rarely death penalty
Speaker 2: has ever rarely even for firstgree murder, rarely given, and
Speaker 2: when it is given, it takes what what's the average
Speaker 2: twenty five years before the before the execution. So you
Speaker 2: can't talk about whether or not this is deterrent or
Speaker 2: it's not a deterrent. I've known many people who reject
Speaker 2: the reject capital punishment, and they talk about that. I said, well,
Speaker 2: you don't. You don't talk about deterrent value if it's
Speaker 2: always for first three murder, let's say, or or childball station.
Speaker 2: It has passed that law in Florida a couple of
Speaker 2: other places. But it has to be every single person.
Speaker 2: Can't just be a handful of people. First green murder
Speaker 2: is usually life without parole, so you can talk about
Speaker 2: but if it was automatic first green murder, death penalty
Speaker 2: carried out in a relatively short span of time, yeah,
Speaker 2: after your appeal and all that stuff. Then we could
Speaker 2: talk about it's its value. But right now it's rarely
Speaker 2: used and the gang green has saturated so much of
Speaker 2: this country, as we will know. And but that's what
Speaker 2: But you know, that's also an act of love, getting
Speaker 2: rid of it for the sake of others, becoming the
Speaker 2: chemotherapy of a cantus element in society. That absolutely comes
Speaker 2: from love. Now there's others who might be on our
Speaker 2: side who will do that just because they you know,
Speaker 2: they love the the you know being being a you know,
Speaker 2: violence or whatever it is. That's not the person you're
Speaker 2: dealing with here. That is not that's not what we're
Speaker 2: talking about. It's done strictly for the love of God,
Speaker 2: a love of man, love of God, love of neighbor
Speaker 2: as being one and the same thing. And so Russia
Speaker 2: didn't have a death penalty for quite a while. It
Speaker 2: went back and forth on it, and that was unfortunate,
Speaker 2: esially near the end. But yes, ps I'm twenty three.
Speaker 2: Is that prayer that the church uses for the condemned,
Speaker 2: and usually at the act of execution, you know, just
Speaker 2: before it happens.
Speaker 1: In this objectively forced functional impoverishment and the gradual strengthening
Speaker 1: of the element of rejection within the bosom of acceptance.
Speaker 1: Spiritual love passes through a whole series of classical states
Speaker 1: spiritually necessary, objectively justified, and religiously true. These states expressed
Speaker 1: a gradual separation and removal of the one who loves
Speaker 1: from the one who loses the right to the fullness
Speaker 1: of love. They begin with the fullest possible love for
Speaker 1: a person and and with prayer for the executed criminal.
Speaker 1: These are in gradually increasing in grade, and see it
Speaker 1: start over again. These are in gradually increasing sequence disapproval,
Speaker 1: lack of sympathy, grief, reprimand condemnation, refusal to cooperate, protest, denunciation, demand, persistence,
Speaker 1: mental coercion, the infliction of mental suffering, severity, indignation, anger,
Speaker 1: refusing to communicate, boycott, physical coercion, disgust, disrespect, inability to
Speaker 1: understand their situation, suppression, ruthlessness, and execution.
Speaker 2: That that's you know, this is one of the more
Speaker 2: interesting passages. I think. I really hope to God I
Speaker 2: got this right. You know. Sometimes I use Google Translate,
Speaker 2: but you know, just a starting point, and it usually
Speaker 2: is pretty useless on stuff like this, so I have
Speaker 2: to use my own knowledge to go in and correct it.
Speaker 2: And this is something I had to go in and correct.
Speaker 2: This seems to be, you know, from the most basic
Speaker 2: you know, start off with with disapproval, show that you
Speaker 2: in of course grief, you know, you're very upset by this.
Speaker 2: And then this goes for individuals, This goes for you know, states,
Speaker 2: it goes for anything. Then you know, it goes to denunciation,
Speaker 2: which is a bunch of louder concepts, persistence of mental cores,
Speaker 2: and actually it is probably I shouldn't have a common there.
Speaker 2: Now you start getting into the affliction of mental suffering
Speaker 2: and the severity of the indignation. You know, not not
Speaker 2: because you enjoy causing pain. You're trying to get someone
Speaker 2: to see the light. And then if that's all that
Speaker 2: doesn't work, you go to discuss and disrespect because they
Speaker 2: don't understand their situation whatsoever. And then even after you
Speaker 2: do this on a ruthless level, maybe all you have left,
Speaker 2: if they're totally incapable of freedom or love and their
Speaker 2: you know, maybe executions, all you have left for an
Speaker 2: evil UH person in society. This isn't semi evil at
Speaker 2: this point. By the time you get to uh disrespect.
Speaker 2: Here you're starting to wonder maybe this person is incapable
Speaker 2: of loving whatsoever. This person is incapable of doing anything
Speaker 2: but being at war with society. And it's something that
Speaker 2: is absolutely you don't like it, but it's an absolute
Speaker 2: necessity if nothing else works. And he's been saying that
Speaker 2: from the very beginning, the confrontation of evil by force. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's only justified, as Saint Augustine said many times over,
Speaker 2: when all other aspects are all the other aspects fail.
Speaker 2: So if you get in by execution, it could be
Speaker 2: an excuse by the state, or can also simply be
Speaker 2: in our personal life, just cutting this person off, realizing
Speaker 2: that that logic doesn't mean anything, and you can't really
Speaker 2: talk to them anymore because they're they're they're just gone
Speaker 2: down this path. They're so deep into it. There's nothing
Speaker 2: you can do that would be that version of execution,
Speaker 2: because if you maintained any kind of if you maintain
Speaker 2: this any kind of connection with them, even that even
Speaker 2: at the level of disgust and disrespect, it might affect you.
Speaker 2: And we said also from the beginning here, you can't
Speaker 2: allow this stuff to affect you as a person. You know,
Speaker 2: you know, soldiers and warfare never come back the same
Speaker 2: way if they've true, if if they've been killed somebody.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've said this before, but I
Speaker 2: think I have. My father used to you know, my
Speaker 2: father used to say, you're in the Marine corps in Korea.
Speaker 2: He said, you know, you could spot a phony war
Speaker 2: story when they just talk about it to just anybody,
Speaker 2: then you know it's not true. So but it gets
Speaker 2: to the point really where even on a social level,
Speaker 2: there's nothing more you can do than death. On the
Speaker 2: personal level, no matter what you say, it has to be.
Speaker 2: They have to be cut off by you, and that
Speaker 2: may affect you terribly. You may not be the same
Speaker 2: again even after that. That takes a lot to do
Speaker 2: that personally. I think all of us, I think everyone
Speaker 2: listening here has had to do that at least once
Speaker 2: in their life, including my people who very close to us.
Speaker 2: And I'm always very suspicious of someone who you know,
Speaker 2: my first thought when I'm in a conflict with someone
Speaker 2: individually is to is to what my first what I first?
Speaker 2: I usually write them, you know, here's my point of view,
Speaker 2: Please tell me yours, and if they refuse to answer,
Speaker 2: I'm suspicious. Now if they cut me off, then they don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think I have an answer that I am
Speaker 2: right about it, and they just don't want to be
Speaker 2: reminded of it. So yeah, I mean there is there
Speaker 2: is a possibility that there's people out there who are
Speaker 2: well in this case, I know that there are people
Speaker 2: who are incapable of love. It doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 2: they're evil and all they're doing, but but there are
Speaker 2: people who simply cannot think this way. They're incapable of
Speaker 2: looking to the heavens. They are they're they're animals where
Speaker 2: logic is just a way to get to their next passion,
Speaker 2: next next desire. That's all that logic is to them.
Speaker 2: And but if we know people like this, ultimately we
Speaker 2: have to cut them off. Depending on where we're from.
Speaker 2: You some of us have come to the church. You know,
Speaker 2: I converted in my twenties. So what do I do.
Speaker 2: I'm already you know, saturated with in evil society before then,
Speaker 2: I have to cut a lot of people off, and
Speaker 2: they haven't understand. So this is a very very heavy
Speaker 2: paragraph here. This works at the social level as well
Speaker 2: as in the individual level. But execution only when everything
Speaker 2: else has failed, and even then, you know, if you're
Speaker 2: a member of the firings. I was just listening to
Speaker 2: one of the members of the firing squad that killed
Speaker 2: Joe Chescu, and he was never quite the same again.
Speaker 2: He was never in combat before. But that didn't he
Speaker 2: was never the same again because you killed two people,
Speaker 2: and whether they deserved or not, it's not the point.
Speaker 2: He was not the same man again, and he did
Speaker 2: have nightmares and stuff like that. And so this kind
Speaker 2: of a life and you truly have principles and God
Speaker 2: is your ultimate end. You know, it's not going to
Speaker 2: be easy. You know, it's funny. We know the Gospels
Speaker 2: are true at least in part because Christ didn't offer us.
Speaker 2: Christ offers us what social rejection. We're probably gonna get killed,
Speaker 2: We're gonna be rejected by the world. You know what,
Speaker 2: if you're trying to start a religion, that's how you talk.
Speaker 2: It's could be miserable for you for a while. Yes,
Speaker 2: you have heaven if you if you stick to it.
Speaker 2: But Christ offered zero earthly goods by following him. What
Speaker 2: kind of religious cult leator does that. That's how you
Speaker 2: know the Gospels are true because no one would would
Speaker 2: actually advocate that unless he was truly from God, and
Speaker 2: that when people are so saturated in sin, you know,
Speaker 2: why did why? Why was Moses commanded just to slaughter
Speaker 2: entire groups of people? It was the same thing they had.
Speaker 2: They had been so saturated all the way down to
Speaker 2: everybody with evil that they simply couldn't exist anymore, same
Speaker 2: reason why God flooded the earth. Society had gotten that
Speaker 2: bad that their death was probably the best thing for them.
Speaker 2: And people don't like talking like that, people don't like
Speaker 2: even thinking about that stuff. But we have to and
Speaker 2: this list of things may not be the exact sequence
Speaker 2: for all of us, but that's basically what it is.
Speaker 2: And it's a lot of work, and it's a lot
Speaker 2: of pain, and but that's that's the life that that,
Speaker 2: you know, if we've choosed, if we choose this life,
Speaker 2: we have to expect this kind of thing, and we're
Speaker 2: never going to be the same again.
Speaker 1: All right, We should stop it there and complete the
Speaker 1: other half of the chapter on the next one. Jeez,
Speaker 1: my lord, heavy stuff, heavy stuff that a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't want to a lot of people don't want
Speaker 1: to consider it. Most people consider it, all right.
Speaker 2: It's it's a day to day struggle and everyone knows that.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you can't go to you can't go to
Speaker 2: a person and say, uh, you're gonna have a great
Speaker 2: life following this kind of thing, because you know they won't.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the truth and only the truth, and
Speaker 2: that's what provokes love, true love, and that's what this
Speaker 2: chapter has been about so far.
Speaker 1: M all right, everyone go over to the shout outs,
Speaker 1: go over to the descriptions in the videos. Donates to
Speaker 1: doctor Johnson's work, and we will be back in a
Speaker 1: few days with to finish up this chapter. Doctor Johnson,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it, my friend, thank you. Bye bye