WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:01.120 Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us. 00:00:01.190 --> 00:00:03.230 Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free. 00:00:03.410 --> 00:00:06.810 I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of 00:00:06.830 --> 00:00:08.389 The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home. 00:00:08.450 --> 00:00:13.089 Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our 00:00:13.089 --> 00:00:14.989 audience, for helping to make this happen. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:15.949 I have a request. 00:00:16.219 --> 00:00:19.750 If you like what we do here, please give it a thumbs up, 00:00:19.799 --> 00:00:22.380 like, subscribe, tell a friend. 00:00:22.770 --> 00:00:24.910 It really, really helps us to make the pro. 00:00:24.910 --> 00:00:28.930 To find out about our certification courses, online video libraries, 00:00:29.435 --> 00:00:33.815 books, and other courses, please go to rupertisakson. 00:00:33.894 --> 00:00:34.195 com. 00:00:34.894 --> 00:00:36.125 So now let's jump in. 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:38.550 Welcome back to Live Free. 00:00:38.610 --> 00:00:44.190 Ride Free Self-Actualization comes in many forms um, following your 00:00:44.340 --> 00:00:47.580 passions, following your interests, following your obsessions. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:53.430 Nerding out and being able to eventually make that one's profession is I think 00:00:53.430 --> 00:00:56.616 something that we all regard been 00:00:56.726 --> 00:01:02.766 following this man just in Sledge for quite a while on YouTube. 00:01:03.186 --> 00:01:08.526 And I urge you, in fact, I could make a little pun and 00:01:08.526 --> 00:01:10.176 I could say I demy urge you. 00:01:10.656 --> 00:01:12.156 Which he will explain what that pun is. 00:01:12.516 --> 00:01:13.686 To follow him too. 00:01:13.686 --> 00:01:18.996 He, he has a, a YouTube channel called Esoterica, the esoteric, 00:01:19.433 --> 00:01:27.053 the arcane, the mythological, the occult, but looked at through the lens of a 00:01:27.053 --> 00:01:31.073 scholar while being pretty entertaining. 00:01:32.333 --> 00:01:33.605 I can't resist that stuff. 00:01:33.605 --> 00:01:37.480 Ex adjunct professor of philosophy and religion at Wayne State University. 00:01:38.380 --> 00:01:46.120 Now full-time sharer of the esoteric muse with the rest of us. 00:01:46.220 --> 00:01:46.520 Dr. 00:01:46.520 --> 00:01:48.440 Sledge, what an honor to have you on. 00:01:48.590 --> 00:01:51.260 Please, can you give us a bit of an idea about who you are and 00:01:51.260 --> 00:01:52.460 what you do and why you do it? 00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:54.020 Justin Sledge: Thank you. 00:01:54.020 --> 00:01:55.310 Thank you for having me on. 00:01:56.060 --> 00:01:56.360 Yeah. 00:01:56.360 --> 00:01:57.860 My name is Justin Sledge. 00:01:57.950 --> 00:02:03.050 I'm full-time public educator on topics in the study of Western as Aism. 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:07.500 So I study as Aism, which as you mentioned, those things like the, the 00:02:07.500 --> 00:02:10.380 occult and alchemy and Kabbalah and magic. 00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:14.490 But studying those through an academic lens not that the academic lens is the 00:02:14.490 --> 00:02:18.120 only, or even maybe even the best way of studying them, but it's certainly 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:22.290 one of them and it has its own set of rigors, which are, are useful. 00:02:22.810 --> 00:02:28.310 But yeah, I, I study this material and I do public education on my YouTube channel. 00:02:28.360 --> 00:02:32.250 I also teach in the university here locally in the philosophy and religion 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:36.930 department, but mostly transitioned to being a full-time public educator. 00:02:36.930 --> 00:02:39.660 You know, I think any educator, if you could say, look, if you 00:02:39.660 --> 00:02:43.710 could reach a, an audience of 30 students, that's pretty impressive. 00:02:43.710 --> 00:02:46.230 What if you can reach an audience of 30,000 students? 00:02:46.830 --> 00:02:49.260 And so I think most educators want to do something like that. 00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:52.840 And so I've been very blessed and very lucky to have a built 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:55.540 up a pretty substantial audience on my YouTube channel and. 00:02:56.435 --> 00:02:58.535 That's basically what I focus most of my time on though. 00:02:58.535 --> 00:03:02.165 I've done some publishing and recently returned from Egypt where 00:03:02.165 --> 00:03:04.055 I did some tours and seminars there. 00:03:04.055 --> 00:03:10.055 And so really building out kind of a educational system one might say, for 00:03:10.055 --> 00:03:13.465 really making this information, which historically is quite difficult to 00:03:13.465 --> 00:03:18.145 access and even difficult to access now, but making that much easier for 00:03:18.145 --> 00:03:21.385 people to access for for whatever reasons they, they choose to study it, 00:03:22.105 --> 00:03:22.555 Rupert Isaacson: right? 00:03:23.905 --> 00:03:25.855 History and philosophy. 00:03:25.855 --> 00:03:29.365 Most people like, oh, I was just gonna leave the room immediately. 00:03:29.365 --> 00:03:32.305 And that I never understood because I always loved it. 00:03:32.395 --> 00:03:36.505 'cause I'm a massive nerd until I actually had to study it at school. 00:03:36.925 --> 00:03:42.055 And then I thought, Jesus, these guys suck all the life out of it. 00:03:42.385 --> 00:03:46.105 I absolutely understand now why everybody hates it. 00:03:46.475 --> 00:03:51.815 Because it's presented not as it should be, which is a, as a sort of a game of 00:03:51.815 --> 00:03:56.525 throne zest, sex, drugs, and rock and roll of the past, allowing us to understand the 00:03:56.783 --> 00:04:00.773 states, which never did anyone any good. 00:04:01.013 --> 00:04:08.933 You managed to present history and philosophy and make it feel. 00:04:09.998 --> 00:04:12.248 Like you are sort of in the room with the guys. 00:04:12.458 --> 00:04:16.688 So for the listeners I want you to imagine things like questions you 00:04:16.688 --> 00:04:19.658 might have had about witchcraft, questions you might have had about 00:04:20.138 --> 00:04:23.288 the Salem Witch trials, questions you might have had about Kabbalah. 00:04:23.528 --> 00:04:25.748 These words that you hear, questions that you might have had about, 00:04:25.748 --> 00:04:30.608 about Angels and Demonology and the seal of Solomon and all. 00:04:32.288 --> 00:04:33.968 Justin Sledge gonna tell you all about 'em. 00:04:35.348 --> 00:04:35.768 What, 00:04:35.768 --> 00:04:36.308 Justin Sledge: something about them 00:04:38.078 --> 00:04:39.428 Rupert Isaacson: a lot more than a lot of others. 00:04:39.768 --> 00:04:40.518 Perhaps, yeah. 00:04:40.518 --> 00:04:43.428 What prompted you to do this? 00:04:43.518 --> 00:04:46.638 Take us back to when you were a boy, you, you grew up in Mississippi, which 00:04:46.638 --> 00:04:51.558 is not known necessarily as, as the, one of the great seats of Western ESO Terra. 00:04:51.618 --> 00:04:56.228 Well, maybe it is because of Ole Miss and you know, the Greek 00:04:56.228 --> 00:04:57.788 revival thing of the old South. 00:04:57.788 --> 00:04:58.148 I dunno. 00:04:58.388 --> 00:05:03.158 But, you know, we tend to think of Miss Zippy as a state sort of defined 00:05:03.158 --> 00:05:04.628 by racism and things like that. 00:05:04.898 --> 00:05:09.518 So you are down there and somehow you get interested in all this and 00:05:09.518 --> 00:05:10.598 you now make your career in it. 00:05:10.838 --> 00:05:11.468 Tell us the story. 00:05:11.468 --> 00:05:12.608 How did it, how did it all happen? 00:05:14.438 --> 00:05:16.178 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I've gotten asked this question a lot, and the 00:05:16.178 --> 00:05:19.418 more that I think about it, the more the, the question, the, the more I 00:05:19.418 --> 00:05:22.178 think about it, the more the answer becomes more and more complex. 00:05:22.178 --> 00:05:25.868 Because I think more and more about my own, my own childhood, it, it must 00:05:25.868 --> 00:05:27.938 have been several redundant things. 00:05:28.038 --> 00:05:30.528 Mississippi as a place is kind of a pressure cooker. 00:05:30.588 --> 00:05:33.108 And which is to say that if you're not going to conform, you 00:05:33.108 --> 00:05:34.698 have to not conform all the way. 00:05:34.918 --> 00:05:39.928 'Cause the social pressures are so severe that you have to really achieve 00:05:39.928 --> 00:05:43.678 an enormous escape velocity if you're going to be unique in any specific way. 00:05:44.128 --> 00:05:46.198 And you can see this in the kind of writers that we produce. 00:05:46.348 --> 00:05:50.568 You know, we think people like Udo Welty are are William Faulkner. 00:05:50.658 --> 00:05:50.868 Yeah. 00:05:51.198 --> 00:05:54.498 Justin Sledge: You know, so it produces people like that not to compare myself 00:05:54.498 --> 00:05:56.148 in any way to, to those great titans. 00:05:56.748 --> 00:06:01.498 But I think that I, I grew up watching a lot of the shows that I think a lot of 00:06:01.498 --> 00:06:05.218 people in my generation watch with sort of author c Clark's Mysterious World 00:06:05.638 --> 00:06:07.528 and in search of with Leonard Nemoy. 00:06:07.558 --> 00:06:11.068 And these are shows that are, are unsolved mysteries Robert 00:06:11.068 --> 00:06:12.568 Stack walking out of the fog. 00:06:12.568 --> 00:06:16.308 And you know, and it would be these sort of shows that highlight 00:06:16.428 --> 00:06:18.468 unusual aspects about history. 00:06:18.468 --> 00:06:23.938 You know, things like Atlantis or Ghosts or Sasquatch or the Bermuda 00:06:23.938 --> 00:06:25.498 Triangle or something like that. 00:06:26.338 --> 00:06:29.368 Those kinds of shows just fascinated me because they basically told 00:06:29.368 --> 00:06:31.858 me that the world was much weirder than I thought it was. 00:06:32.458 --> 00:06:35.848 And I just, you know, it was the kind of thing where I couldn't let it go. 00:06:35.848 --> 00:06:39.448 It was just interesting whether or not they really were ghosts or they 00:06:39.448 --> 00:06:42.578 really were UFOs or, or what have you. 00:06:43.298 --> 00:06:47.948 And I think what what ended up happening was that I maintained a 00:06:47.948 --> 00:06:51.698 deep interest in that material, but I also became pretty skeptical of it. 00:06:51.728 --> 00:06:56.288 I, I began to think to myself, alright, if there is a lochness monster and 00:06:56.288 --> 00:06:58.928 that Lochness monster doesn't have magical properties and it's just an 00:06:58.928 --> 00:07:02.348 animal, then it has to be able to eat. 00:07:02.798 --> 00:07:08.798 So how much fish would need to be in the lochness for a family of lochness 00:07:08.798 --> 00:07:10.298 monsters to be able to survive? 00:07:11.348 --> 00:07:12.458 And you start doing some math. 00:07:12.878 --> 00:07:14.321 They eat haggis, they eat haggis, they eat haggis. 00:07:14.326 --> 00:07:14.978 Yes, of course. 00:07:14.978 --> 00:07:17.858 They, you know, they, they come up a common shore and they drink scotch too. 00:07:17.863 --> 00:07:21.578 They do la fig and lulin or the lochness monster that's on the 00:07:21.578 --> 00:07:23.378 Rupert Isaacson: western end of the lock on the eastern end. 00:07:23.653 --> 00:07:24.728 They, they drink the space sides. 00:07:24.728 --> 00:07:24.908 Yeah, 00:07:24.968 --> 00:07:25.868 Justin Sledge: exactly right. 00:07:25.868 --> 00:07:26.138 Yeah. 00:07:26.168 --> 00:07:27.278 It all depends on where they are. 00:07:27.908 --> 00:07:31.148 And so these kind of questions is, you know, vampires, right? 00:07:31.148 --> 00:07:33.248 Like, if we're interested in vampires, and I'm like, all right, well if 00:07:33.338 --> 00:07:36.818 there is a vampire and they bite one person and they don't turn them into 00:07:36.818 --> 00:07:38.288 a, that person becomes a vampire. 00:07:38.288 --> 00:07:40.268 How long until the world becomes all vampires. 00:07:40.958 --> 00:07:42.548 And at these, the questions just like. 00:07:43.658 --> 00:07:44.468 Vexed me. 00:07:44.528 --> 00:07:44.888 Right. 00:07:44.938 --> 00:07:47.813 And it became the case where the skepticism, how old you at this 00:07:47.813 --> 00:07:49.213 Rupert Isaacson: point getting vexed by vampires? 00:07:49.393 --> 00:07:51.238 Justin Sledge: Oh, I must have been in middle school. 00:07:51.298 --> 00:07:51.628 Okay. 00:07:51.628 --> 00:07:53.158 In fact, I must maybe even earlier than that. 00:07:53.158 --> 00:07:56.548 'cause I distinctly remember being in fifth grade and thinking that a girl in 00:07:56.548 --> 00:08:00.688 the sixth grade was in fact a vampire and becoming very terrified of her to 00:08:00.688 --> 00:08:02.428 this very bright, vibrant red hair. 00:08:02.428 --> 00:08:04.558 And, you know, for whatever reason I was convinced. 00:08:04.558 --> 00:08:07.978 And I remember the moment where I was like talking to a friend in hushed tones, 00:08:07.978 --> 00:08:09.388 and I'm like, I think she's a vampire. 00:08:09.718 --> 00:08:13.108 And she looked over at me with like these glaring eyes and smiled at me. 00:08:13.408 --> 00:08:16.858 And of course, fifth grade me didn't think, oh, that's a girl smiling at you. 00:08:16.858 --> 00:08:19.858 That's the beginning of like flirting fifth grade me was 00:08:19.858 --> 00:08:21.418 like, oh god, she's a vampire. 00:08:21.418 --> 00:08:25.018 And she can read my thoughts and she knows that I know it's over. 00:08:25.078 --> 00:08:25.498 Like, I'm dead. 00:08:25.498 --> 00:08:25.678 But what 00:08:25.678 --> 00:08:27.178 Rupert Isaacson: could be more compellingly attractive? 00:08:27.508 --> 00:08:29.698 I hope you immediately became her loyal slave. 00:08:30.208 --> 00:08:31.408 Justin Sledge: I wouldn't one would hope. 00:08:31.408 --> 00:08:32.848 But I don't know if you know what happened with her. 00:08:32.848 --> 00:08:35.998 I would, I should look her up and, you know, see if she's still a vampire. 00:08:36.468 --> 00:08:37.548 She looks exactly the same. 00:08:37.548 --> 00:08:38.508 She's still 12 years old. 00:08:38.628 --> 00:08:41.813 But yeah, so these kinds of things just fascinated me, Uhhuh. 00:08:41.898 --> 00:08:45.068 And I think that typically people go one of two ways. 00:08:45.068 --> 00:08:49.868 They sort of grow up and become a skeptic in the most boring sense of that word. 00:08:50.168 --> 00:08:53.648 They, their world becomes completely disenchanted and they live a life 00:08:53.648 --> 00:08:58.508 of of, slavish adherence to a fundamentally disenchanted world. 00:08:58.958 --> 00:08:59.348 Joylessness 00:08:59.798 --> 00:08:59.978 Yeah. 00:09:00.398 --> 00:09:02.888 Justin Sledge: Joylessness, but also kind of like very boring, 00:09:02.888 --> 00:09:06.548 incorrect version of like 18th century mechanical or something like that. 00:09:06.728 --> 00:09:06.818 Yeah. 00:09:06.968 --> 00:09:10.778 Or they become sort of the other side of it where you become convinced that 00:09:10.898 --> 00:09:13.148 basically every unusual thing is real. 00:09:13.538 --> 00:09:13.598 Yeah. 00:09:13.598 --> 00:09:16.478 Is sort of what I refer to as like conspiracy comorbidity. 00:09:16.718 --> 00:09:19.748 You don't really meet the person who believes just in Atlantis. 00:09:20.018 --> 00:09:24.278 They typically are part of a nexus of all kinds of other in my opinion, 00:09:24.278 --> 00:09:25.748 unwarranted and unfounded beliefs. 00:09:26.558 --> 00:09:29.258 And what happened to me was that I maintained both positions. 00:09:29.318 --> 00:09:33.038 I maintained a deep interest in those kind of topics, and I developed a kind 00:09:33.038 --> 00:09:36.308 of pretty rigorous skepticism about them. 00:09:37.118 --> 00:09:39.368 And this led me eventually to discovering people like Dr. 00:09:39.368 --> 00:09:41.708 John D and his conversations with angels. 00:09:42.188 --> 00:09:43.568 I was learning Latin at the time, and that's who John, 00:09:43.598 --> 00:09:45.308 Rupert Isaacson: not everyone knows who John D was. 00:09:45.308 --> 00:09:48.218 I know who John D was, but please tell the listeners quickly who John D was. 00:09:48.368 --> 00:09:51.268 Justin Sledge: John D was a 16th century scientist. 00:09:51.318 --> 00:09:52.668 He was a hermetic philosopher. 00:09:52.728 --> 00:09:54.378 He was a mathematician. 00:09:54.708 --> 00:09:56.748 He was court astrologer to Elizabeth. 00:09:57.348 --> 00:09:59.688 I he was a spy. 00:09:59.688 --> 00:10:00.858 I mean, he was sort of everything. 00:10:00.858 --> 00:10:02.688 He was just a really strange in interesting guy. 00:10:02.688 --> 00:10:03.228 A renaissance 00:10:03.228 --> 00:10:04.548 Rupert Isaacson: man with an occult twist. 00:10:04.938 --> 00:10:05.418 Justin Sledge: Yes. 00:10:05.478 --> 00:10:08.508 I mean, not that there weren't any Renaissance men without occult twists. 00:10:08.508 --> 00:10:10.788 That was kind of what made Renaissance men renaissance men. 00:10:10.788 --> 00:10:15.458 And one of the things we've carefully excised from, from history we don't 00:10:15.458 --> 00:10:16.748 like that occult part of them. 00:10:16.748 --> 00:10:17.498 And so we have. 00:10:17.843 --> 00:10:22.403 Promptly forgotten that Newton wrote far more on Bible interpretation and alchemy 00:10:22.403 --> 00:10:24.323 than he ever did on physics or chemistry. 00:10:24.473 --> 00:10:26.123 Physics or, or optics. 00:10:26.543 --> 00:10:28.553 It's an inconvenient fact about Newton. 00:10:29.183 --> 00:10:31.673 But but yeah, I sort of became interested in, in Dr. 00:10:31.673 --> 00:10:36.413 John d and folks may know that he worked through a medium and had these 00:10:36.413 --> 00:10:39.583 long conversations with angels, which eventually revealed the language 00:10:39.583 --> 00:10:43.453 of the angels, what is called the celestial speech or the Ian language. 00:10:44.083 --> 00:10:48.633 And I think I was learning Latin at the time in high school, and it was a moment 00:10:48.633 --> 00:10:51.663 where I was looking at this and I could see the fact that this angelic language 00:10:51.663 --> 00:10:53.643 had conjugations that had decension. 00:10:54.003 --> 00:10:57.753 It was deriving nouns from verbs or verbs from nouns. 00:10:57.753 --> 00:10:58.083 We're reading 00:10:58.083 --> 00:11:00.063 Rupert Isaacson: original 16th century sources at this point. 00:11:00.183 --> 00:11:00.483 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:11:00.483 --> 00:11:00.723 Oh yeah. 00:11:00.723 --> 00:11:02.763 I was reading, yeah, reading the, the, the text at age 00:11:02.823 --> 00:11:03.303 Rupert Isaacson: 12. 00:11:04.113 --> 00:11:04.593 Justin Sledge: No, no, no. 00:11:04.593 --> 00:11:05.613 I was in high school by then. 00:11:05.613 --> 00:11:08.493 I must have been 15, 14 at the time. 00:11:08.583 --> 00:11:08.853 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:11:08.883 --> 00:11:13.443 But not your average 14-year-old is not running around reading original 00:11:13.473 --> 00:11:14.943 16th century sources in Latin. 00:11:15.423 --> 00:11:16.143 Justin Sledge: No, no, no. 00:11:16.143 --> 00:11:16.773 Probably not. 00:11:16.773 --> 00:11:19.893 I mean, my, my Latin, my Latin teacher, God bless her, really put up with a lot. 00:11:20.413 --> 00:11:24.163 She let me translate a, an alchemical text from the 16th 00:11:24.163 --> 00:11:25.963 century as my Latin two project. 00:11:26.563 --> 00:11:29.203 Far more interesting than reading Cicero. 00:11:29.233 --> 00:11:31.983 But but yeah, so I got interested in that stuff and, and there was a 00:11:31.983 --> 00:11:34.863 moment where I was looking at this and I was like, it can't be random. 00:11:34.863 --> 00:11:37.953 You, if you're just generating random gibberish, you don't 00:11:37.953 --> 00:11:39.273 get conjugations into clin. 00:11:39.273 --> 00:11:40.533 Something's going on here. 00:11:40.563 --> 00:11:42.003 Like, this is really weird. 00:11:42.813 --> 00:11:46.353 And it became obvious to me as I ultimately transitioned into, 00:11:46.653 --> 00:11:50.323 into college, which was a very accidental and slow transition. 00:11:50.323 --> 00:11:51.493 I never intended to go to college. 00:11:52.383 --> 00:11:57.603 My dad was a working class guy from Mississippi who was a, a pipe fitter, 00:11:57.633 --> 00:12:00.093 and I worked with him and I thought basically that my life would more 00:12:00.093 --> 00:12:01.323 or less be some version of that. 00:12:01.953 --> 00:12:06.353 And yeah, and it was a moment where these questions just didn't let go of me and I 00:12:06.353 --> 00:12:11.453 had to, you know, settle my earth while philosophical conscious to quote marks. 00:12:12.023 --> 00:12:14.783 And eventually when I got into college, I just turned my full 00:12:14.783 --> 00:12:17.483 attention to these kinds of questions. 00:12:17.513 --> 00:12:24.443 Like, what, what is the, the upside down of the history of philosophy, the history 00:12:24.443 --> 00:12:26.903 of science, the history of spirituality. 00:12:27.383 --> 00:12:30.453 The history of history what is the upside down of that world? 00:12:30.453 --> 00:12:36.213 And it turns out there's an enormous upside down and it it's still collectively 00:12:36.213 --> 00:12:38.763 forgotten, still collectively repressed. 00:12:39.403 --> 00:12:42.973 I could tell you shocking stories about graduate school when I was 00:12:42.973 --> 00:12:46.093 in graduate school for philosophy, where I was literally told 00:12:46.153 --> 00:12:47.773 that things just didn't happen. 00:12:47.773 --> 00:12:49.483 Things just didn't go that way. 00:12:49.973 --> 00:12:51.323 Not because they gimme a shocking 00:12:51.323 --> 00:12:51.833 Rupert Isaacson: example. 00:12:51.833 --> 00:12:52.493 Please shock me. 00:12:53.213 --> 00:12:55.993 Justin Sledge: So, one of the things that I'm pretty interested in is the 00:12:56.023 --> 00:13:00.223 foundations of what is we now call rationalism, the philosophical school that 00:13:00.223 --> 00:13:01.603 is associated with the en enlightenment. 00:13:01.603 --> 00:13:04.963 It comes roaring out of people like Descartes en Leni 00:13:04.963 --> 00:13:04.965 Rupert Isaacson: and Spinoza. 00:13:04.970 --> 00:13:05.018 Right. 00:13:05.293 --> 00:13:07.243 And a and a reaction to the church. 00:13:07.243 --> 00:13:08.923 Repression of the Middle Ages. 00:13:08.923 --> 00:13:09.553 To some degree. 00:13:09.613 --> 00:13:09.853 Yeah. 00:13:09.883 --> 00:13:10.633 Justin Sledge: To some degree, yeah. 00:13:10.633 --> 00:13:14.173 And, you know, and it's, that's, you know, it's a complicated story, but at 00:13:14.173 --> 00:13:17.653 the heart of the story, at least one of the important aspects of the story 00:13:18.103 --> 00:13:22.903 is that insofar as Descartes is at the lynchpin of the rise of modernity and 00:13:22.903 --> 00:13:28.213 the rise of rationalism, and I think that he is, is that it's not often talked 00:13:28.213 --> 00:13:31.303 about that the fact that he started his entire philosophical program because 00:13:31.303 --> 00:13:36.313 he had a bunch of mystical dreams and these mystical dreams involved a divine 00:13:36.313 --> 00:13:40.303 being, coming to him in his dream and revealing to him this new philosophy. 00:13:40.333 --> 00:13:40.753 Okay. 00:13:41.728 --> 00:13:45.328 If you read his philosophical works, beginning with the regular and going 00:13:45.328 --> 00:13:49.288 all the way through the discourse on method, the meditations and the principles 00:13:49.618 --> 00:13:53.458 he's writing and rewriting the exact same book over and over and over again. 00:13:53.458 --> 00:13:55.288 It's like a Beethoven, dun, dun. 00:13:56.158 --> 00:13:57.028 It's obsessive. 00:13:57.658 --> 00:14:02.128 And it's because he's working out what was revealed to him in a dream years ago. 00:14:03.028 --> 00:14:06.838 And I wanted to really focus in on the fact that, and one of the things I really 00:14:06.838 --> 00:14:11.578 wanted to focus in on was like that the origins of modernity and rationalism 00:14:11.968 --> 00:14:16.588 have their fundamental building block in a series of mystical dreams. 00:14:17.518 --> 00:14:17.908 Why? 00:14:17.998 --> 00:14:20.308 And I was told that that didn't happen. 00:14:20.788 --> 00:14:22.138 You can't talk that way. 00:14:22.198 --> 00:14:23.338 You can't focus on that. 00:14:23.398 --> 00:14:24.298 Please repeat that. 00:14:24.568 --> 00:14:25.738 Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna write that down. 00:14:25.738 --> 00:14:30.568 The, the foundation, I'm paraphrasing, so correct me. 00:14:30.838 --> 00:14:34.318 The foundation of western empiricism. 00:14:34.708 --> 00:14:35.518 Rationalism. 00:14:35.668 --> 00:14:36.268 Rationalism. 00:14:36.268 --> 00:14:37.378 Not empiricism, rationalism. 00:14:37.378 --> 00:14:38.098 Rationalism. 00:14:38.338 --> 00:14:38.548 Right. 00:14:40.288 --> 00:14:42.208 I believe it when I see it type stuff. 00:14:42.268 --> 00:14:42.358 Sure. 00:14:42.448 --> 00:14:46.948 Rationalism has its foundation. 00:14:47.248 --> 00:14:56.128 What is roots in a series of mystical dreams. 00:14:56.608 --> 00:14:56.788 Right. 00:14:57.058 --> 00:14:58.513 Experienced by a man called Dick Art. 00:14:58.983 --> 00:14:59.273 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:15:00.183 --> 00:15:00.473 Yeah. 00:15:01.108 --> 00:15:02.578 Leman was reading Kabbalah. 00:15:02.858 --> 00:15:04.103 Newton was, was reading Kabbalah. 00:15:04.478 --> 00:15:08.068 Leitz, the guy invented calculus co-invented calculus. 00:15:08.168 --> 00:15:11.738 As I mentioned, Newton was knee deep in alchemy and biblical numerology. 00:15:12.278 --> 00:15:16.038 And so, and, and again, I'm not saying that that all of modernity 00:15:16.038 --> 00:15:18.948 is downstream of this stuff that I study called Western as a terrorism. 00:15:19.278 --> 00:15:23.328 What I'm saying is, is that it, it's there, it played a role, it played 00:15:23.328 --> 00:15:28.488 an important role, and yet there's something about it that, that we can't 00:15:28.488 --> 00:15:29.838 term, we can't come to grips with. 00:15:29.868 --> 00:15:30.768 We don't want to admit. 00:15:30.768 --> 00:15:33.648 It's there again, I was, I was told in graduate school, it 00:15:33.648 --> 00:15:34.608 just didn't happen that way. 00:15:34.758 --> 00:15:38.898 And if you say that it happened that way, they're, they're, you're going to, like, 00:15:39.438 --> 00:15:41.058 you're gonna scuttle your entire career. 00:15:41.088 --> 00:15:41.388 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 00:15:42.478 --> 00:15:42.718 Yeah. 00:15:42.718 --> 00:15:48.728 My, my step-grandfather was a professor of philosophy at Boston University, and 00:15:48.778 --> 00:15:56.008 he was the first to say you that, that you just have to tow a line, and if you 00:15:56.008 --> 00:15:57.448 don't tow that line, you won't get a job. 00:15:57.838 --> 00:15:58.018 Yep. 00:15:58.118 --> 00:16:00.428 Rupert Isaacson: And I, I think that's true of actually most of academia. 00:16:00.478 --> 00:16:01.558 It's true of all of academia. 00:16:01.708 --> 00:16:01.918 Yeah. 00:16:01.978 --> 00:16:06.388 Justin Sledge: But it's, especially somehow, and again, I came up through 00:16:06.388 --> 00:16:10.588 the philosophical ranks, you know, I was, you know, I, I remember finding 00:16:10.588 --> 00:16:13.618 Aristotle when I was in middle school and really, like, remember 00:16:13.618 --> 00:16:15.628 reading an a, you know, an Aristotle. 00:16:15.628 --> 00:16:17.308 That philosophy begins in awe. 00:16:18.223 --> 00:16:19.663 And I didn't come from a middle class family. 00:16:19.663 --> 00:16:20.773 I came from a working class family. 00:16:20.773 --> 00:16:20.863 And 00:16:20.863 --> 00:16:23.413 Rupert Isaacson: I, philosophy begins in, or you can't just say these 00:16:23.413 --> 00:16:27.553 things, Justin, and not like pause for like a power cord, but hold on. 00:16:27.883 --> 00:16:30.058 Philosophy begins, it 00:16:30.063 --> 00:16:30.883 Justin Sledge: begins in awe. 00:16:31.063 --> 00:16:33.493 A bewilderment is even a better, a better translation. 00:16:33.493 --> 00:16:33.523 I, 00:16:34.813 --> 00:16:35.203 Rupert Isaacson: all right. 00:16:35.953 --> 00:16:36.163 Okay. 00:16:36.163 --> 00:16:36.733 Philosophy began 00:16:36.783 --> 00:16:38.913 Justin Sledge: and, and that stuff stuck with me. 00:16:38.973 --> 00:16:42.813 And when I got into the academic side of, of philosophy, I found that 00:16:42.813 --> 00:16:47.703 it, it, it in some way, in some ways had betrayed so much of the things 00:16:47.703 --> 00:16:49.083 that led me to it to begin with. 00:16:49.383 --> 00:16:49.593 Mm-hmm. 00:16:49.623 --> 00:16:51.063 And I, I really gristle with it. 00:16:51.063 --> 00:16:51.363 I did. 00:16:51.363 --> 00:16:54.273 I never, I, I found that my philosophical training in graduate 00:16:54.273 --> 00:16:55.413 school was very unpleasant. 00:16:56.013 --> 00:16:57.483 I often bucked against things. 00:16:57.483 --> 00:17:00.393 I, I asked questions that were apparently inappropriate. 00:17:00.423 --> 00:17:03.603 I was told, yeah, tell the line, tell the story. 00:17:04.383 --> 00:17:07.593 You know, modernity begins with Descartes and it begins with doubt. 00:17:07.683 --> 00:17:09.153 And we doubt our way to the truth. 00:17:09.183 --> 00:17:10.983 And therefore, what really matters is doubt. 00:17:10.983 --> 00:17:13.413 And the most important things you doubt is God and religion. 00:17:13.953 --> 00:17:14.073 Right. 00:17:14.103 --> 00:17:17.613 And, and then I was like, that's not what de Hart's arguing. 00:17:17.613 --> 00:17:22.323 And that's not why ta hart's arguing that like Descartes structures the meditations 00:17:22.773 --> 00:17:25.683 in order to prove God, to get certainty. 00:17:25.683 --> 00:17:30.873 And he structured them around a, a cycle of meditations that are religious 00:17:30.873 --> 00:17:34.443 in character and for six days, because that's how long God made the world. 00:17:35.043 --> 00:17:36.243 And you rest on the seventh, 00:17:38.343 --> 00:17:42.783 the story you're telling is just ipso facto like you, like 00:17:43.448 --> 00:17:45.993 you, you, you have, you have a mythology that you want to tell. 00:17:46.308 --> 00:17:47.418 Right about modernity. 00:17:48.528 --> 00:17:52.938 And I'm not saying that one earth is better than the other, but I'm saying 00:17:52.938 --> 00:17:59.328 you can't pretend to be the purveyors of truth and philosophical wisdom and 00:17:59.328 --> 00:18:07.408 also be part of this semi-conscious myth building that that you're contributing to 00:18:08.608 --> 00:18:11.878 at this at one level, but telling yourself that it's really true on the other. 00:18:12.658 --> 00:18:12.988 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 00:18:12.988 --> 00:18:15.778 I think what you're putting your finger on is that one can't say, 00:18:16.168 --> 00:18:18.928 given that everything is myth, we create mythologies about everything. 00:18:18.928 --> 00:18:19.138 Right? 00:18:19.138 --> 00:18:22.798 So as you said, your, your professors there we're creating mythologies about 00:18:23.528 --> 00:18:26.258 which were dogmas, which, which is just another word for mythology, right? 00:18:26.258 --> 00:18:32.168 Just means a mythology that I, I might punish you for not believing, but doing 00:18:32.168 --> 00:18:36.488 that in reaction to another mythology, IEA religion or something, and saying, 00:18:36.488 --> 00:18:40.598 well, our mythology is the mythology that mythology is not the mythology. 00:18:40.603 --> 00:18:40.863 Right. 00:18:40.898 --> 00:18:41.378 You know? 00:18:41.588 --> 00:18:43.658 But it's all actually a mythology, you know? 00:18:43.718 --> 00:18:48.338 And at some point it's got to be all right to say if it's all mythology, 00:18:49.238 --> 00:18:50.588 what isn't that kind of interesting. 00:18:51.638 --> 00:18:51.938 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:18:51.938 --> 00:18:54.428 And I'm not sure that I would go so far as to say it's all mythology. 00:18:54.428 --> 00:18:55.808 I would say that, that I. 00:18:57.233 --> 00:18:59.183 And I'm, I'm, I'm a child of the Enlightenment. 00:18:59.183 --> 00:19:03.203 I'm pretty convinced that there is a, there is a, a, a better way of 00:19:03.203 --> 00:19:05.033 telling the, the history of philosophy. 00:19:05.423 --> 00:19:07.343 And that's part of why I'm committed to doing what I'm doing. 00:19:07.343 --> 00:19:10.043 It's not because I believe in any of the things I talk about. 00:19:10.073 --> 00:19:14.093 I'm not a believer in, as a tism, I'm a believer in OC Cultism. 00:19:14.093 --> 00:19:18.203 I don't believe, you know, metaphysically I'm not committed to any of it. 00:19:18.863 --> 00:19:22.463 But what I'm committed to is telling the history, telling our history better 00:19:22.463 --> 00:19:23.993 so that we can live in a better future. 00:19:24.413 --> 00:19:29.303 Because the more that we live in this sort of the semi formed semi-conscious 00:19:29.303 --> 00:19:34.013 mythology, I don't think that's good, a good predictor for building 00:19:34.013 --> 00:19:36.623 a good future because we haven't come to terms with our own past yet. 00:19:37.228 --> 00:19:37.688 And so, 00:19:38.398 --> 00:19:38.688 Rupert Isaacson: yeah. 00:19:39.388 --> 00:19:42.233 Justin Sledge: And so for me, it's just holding up a, a mirror to say 00:19:42.503 --> 00:19:47.483 this is part of the, the past and it's part of the present and it's 00:19:47.483 --> 00:19:48.803 gonna be part of the future, frankly. 00:19:49.343 --> 00:19:53.963 And until we come to terms with it and stop telling ourselves that rationalism 00:19:53.963 --> 00:19:58.463 was born out of a hatred of the church and a hatred of religion, and we 00:19:58.463 --> 00:20:02.453 rejected superstition for the clarity of science, that just didn't happen. 00:20:03.353 --> 00:20:05.153 It just simply did not happen that way. 00:20:05.843 --> 00:20:10.373 And the more we continued, the more we continued to tell that story and not 00:20:10.673 --> 00:20:13.043 admit to us that it is in fact a story. 00:20:13.533 --> 00:20:15.543 We need to have a more nuanced view of this stuff. 00:20:15.543 --> 00:20:20.883 And I, that's my goal is to say, it doesn't matter whether you believe in. 00:20:21.708 --> 00:20:24.798 Whether Descartes doesn't really matter whether or not you believe that 00:20:24.798 --> 00:20:28.188 there a divine being came to Descartes and really told him the truth about 00:20:29.448 --> 00:20:32.808 history, philosophy, science, or whatever, what matters is that happened. 00:20:32.808 --> 00:20:33.828 He believed it happened, 00:20:34.428 --> 00:20:34.998 Rupert Isaacson: right? 00:20:36.108 --> 00:20:36.708 So, and I've got questions and we need to 00:20:36.708 --> 00:20:38.178 Justin Sledge: wrestle with that, come to terms with it, right? 00:20:38.508 --> 00:20:40.218 Rupert Isaacson: So I've got some questions about that. 00:20:40.218 --> 00:20:43.968 But quickly before we go there, one of the things I love about what you've done 00:20:43.968 --> 00:20:46.098 is you've then traced those mythologies. 00:20:46.908 --> 00:20:52.078 So in your YouTube series, which I just can't recommend listeners to you 00:20:52.078 --> 00:20:54.538 to listen enough, just while you're driving around, just listen to them. 00:20:54.538 --> 00:20:55.198 They're brilliant. 00:20:55.828 --> 00:20:59.788 But you, you more or less start it, you know, as far early as 00:20:59.788 --> 00:21:04.288 you can in Mesopotamia more, I, I haven't found one earlier than that. 00:21:04.708 --> 00:21:07.288 If you have done one about earlier than that, then I dunno. 00:21:07.618 --> 00:21:12.688 And then you, you, you trace through all of the different Mesopotamian, 00:21:13.348 --> 00:21:16.468 historical belief, philosophical systems. 00:21:16.468 --> 00:21:17.218 'cause there were many. 00:21:17.548 --> 00:21:22.198 And then so Sumaria, Acadia, Babylonian, I'm missing one, you know, 00:21:22.198 --> 00:21:24.508 hit heights, medians, blah, blah. 00:21:24.748 --> 00:21:28.378 And then you get to, you, you take us through Egypt in many, 00:21:28.378 --> 00:21:30.118 it's many, many permutations. 00:21:30.118 --> 00:21:32.608 You take us through Greece in its many, many permutations. 00:21:32.848 --> 00:21:38.878 You take us through Hellenic Greek, Egypt in its many permutations. 00:21:38.878 --> 00:21:41.818 You take us through Roman into early Christian stuff, and then 00:21:41.818 --> 00:21:49.798 you take us through pretty much up to, well, the enlightenment. 00:21:50.473 --> 00:21:50.683 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:21:50.743 --> 00:21:53.203 Basically the, my, the minute of the channel ends sometime in 00:21:53.203 --> 00:21:54.973 the 18th century, 1750, which is 00:21:54.973 --> 00:21:56.683 Rupert Isaacson: about a 6,000 year timeline. 00:21:56.683 --> 00:21:56.863 Right. 00:21:56.863 --> 00:22:01.003 It's, it's, it's, it's a solid chunk of, and it's where we all come from. 00:22:01.213 --> 00:22:05.813 You were the son of a pipe fitter in Mississippi, but Mississippi, 00:22:05.813 --> 00:22:08.153 as we also know, is actually quite a deeply spiritual place. 00:22:08.303 --> 00:22:08.393 Mm-hmm. 00:22:08.913 --> 00:22:11.643 Both from the black point of view, African American point of view, 00:22:11.643 --> 00:22:13.023 and from the white point of view. 00:22:13.623 --> 00:22:16.083 Were, was your family a religious family? 00:22:16.083 --> 00:22:20.403 Were, were you Southern Baptist, were you taking up rattlesnakes and things, or were 00:22:20.403 --> 00:22:23.203 you, you know, going to ecstatic services? 00:22:23.523 --> 00:22:26.523 Or were you actually born into a pretty secular household? 00:22:27.093 --> 00:22:30.963 Justin Sledge: I was born into sort of a, my, my father is a, a a bit of a 00:22:30.963 --> 00:22:35.283 pessimistic man, so I think that his view of religion was always relatively gloomy. 00:22:35.773 --> 00:22:37.453 So I don't think he was terribly ever religious. 00:22:37.453 --> 00:22:40.603 And I think that my family, I wouldn't describe them as being very religious 00:22:40.753 --> 00:22:43.183 Rupert Isaacson: because there's pressure on you to be religious in, in the south. 00:22:45.013 --> 00:22:45.793 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:22:46.258 --> 00:22:46.888 Rupert Isaacson: South is strange. 00:22:46.888 --> 00:22:47.169 I lived in the south. 00:22:47.174 --> 00:22:47.803 There's some pressure. 00:22:48.193 --> 00:22:48.403 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:22:48.403 --> 00:22:52.573 The south is a weird place where there's a pressure to conform and there's a pressure 00:22:52.573 --> 00:22:57.103 to be religious, but deep into the south, there's also a cynicism about things. 00:22:57.103 --> 00:22:57.133 Okay. 00:22:57.313 --> 00:23:00.903 Southern attitudes, you know, yeah. 00:23:00.903 --> 00:23:05.133 There, there's sort of a credulity to cynicism, you know, circuit that, 00:23:05.133 --> 00:23:07.233 that runs around a pendulum almost. 00:23:07.533 --> 00:23:07.983 Yeah. 00:23:08.763 --> 00:23:11.613 And and you can see this and you know, again, I mentioned Faulkner, you read the 00:23:11.613 --> 00:23:15.123 sound on the Fury and they're religious, but also they're like, no, there's no God. 00:23:15.123 --> 00:23:15.393 Come on. 00:23:15.393 --> 00:23:15.453 Yeah. 00:23:15.963 --> 00:23:19.793 And so, but it was a strange journey because my biological 00:23:19.793 --> 00:23:21.413 father died when I was quite young. 00:23:21.463 --> 00:23:27.243 And my mother was kind of held on to some aspects of, of him and was like, look, 00:23:27.243 --> 00:23:31.183 you know, just so you know, like your, your dad was Jewish and if that's a thing 00:23:31.183 --> 00:23:34.993 you're interested in, you know, I called the local rabbi and he set up a meeting 00:23:34.993 --> 00:23:36.343 and he's happy to talk to you about it. 00:23:36.553 --> 00:23:37.783 They allowed you in Mississippi. 00:23:37.783 --> 00:23:38.833 Sorry, I didn't have, sorry. 00:23:38.833 --> 00:23:39.133 I'm kidding. 00:23:39.163 --> 00:23:39.283 Yeah. 00:23:39.403 --> 00:23:41.113 There, there, there are 200 families. 00:23:41.163 --> 00:23:46.133 And in fact, you know, the Jew Southern Jews are a strange breed. 00:23:46.133 --> 00:23:49.943 All, all their own, you know, they, they, the, they were one of the largest chunks 00:23:49.943 --> 00:23:51.653 of people to fight for the Confederacy. 00:23:51.683 --> 00:23:52.333 And interesting. 00:23:52.558 --> 00:23:56.768 And happily will, some of them will happily tell you that the only Jewish 00:23:56.768 --> 00:24:00.998 person to ever occur on Amer on, on money in this hemisphere where 00:24:00.998 --> 00:24:04.208 we are was Judah p Benjamin, the Secretary of State for the Confederacy. 00:24:04.718 --> 00:24:05.498 Interesting. 00:24:06.068 --> 00:24:07.568 Rupert Isaacson: I myself am half Ashkenazi. 00:24:08.288 --> 00:24:08.708 Oh, really? 00:24:08.798 --> 00:24:09.578 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:24:09.638 --> 00:24:09.968 Wrong. 00:24:10.148 --> 00:24:10.928 The wrong kind. 00:24:11.258 --> 00:24:12.668 That's why I can make all the Jewish jokes. 00:24:12.758 --> 00:24:16.348 So it's my dad which means I get all the anxiety, neurosis, and guilt. 00:24:16.348 --> 00:24:17.248 But no cigar? 00:24:17.248 --> 00:24:18.148 No, no. 00:24:18.748 --> 00:24:19.168 For the club. 00:24:20.038 --> 00:24:21.478 Justin Sledge: I mean, you could, you could, you could fix that. 00:24:21.478 --> 00:24:22.228 You could have both. 00:24:22.288 --> 00:24:27.708 But I guess if, if you were inclined, but but no, it was, you know, I was like 12. 00:24:27.708 --> 00:24:29.928 My mom was like, you're gonna go meet with the synagogue. 00:24:29.928 --> 00:24:32.418 I remember it was like a rainy cold Tuesday night. 00:24:32.628 --> 00:24:32.778 Mm-hmm. 00:24:33.048 --> 00:24:35.478 And met with the, you know, Jimmy golfer, rabbi by Jimmy 00:24:35.478 --> 00:24:37.668 Golfer was a big imposing guy. 00:24:37.668 --> 00:24:40.278 And he was, was sort of stare at you until you said something. 00:24:40.848 --> 00:24:42.138 And he was like, why are you here? 00:24:43.098 --> 00:24:44.958 And I'm like, I have no idea why I'm here. 00:24:45.288 --> 00:24:46.463 Like, you know, good answer. 00:24:46.938 --> 00:24:49.208 And it was and he was like, well, what do you want from being here? 00:24:49.238 --> 00:24:49.988 And I'm like, I don't know. 00:24:50.018 --> 00:24:50.678 What is this? 00:24:51.438 --> 00:24:53.928 And it, it was a sort of an interesting journey. 00:24:54.348 --> 00:24:55.398 How old are you at that point? 00:24:55.938 --> 00:24:56.508 Like 12. 00:24:56.958 --> 00:24:57.138 Okay. 00:24:57.948 --> 00:25:01.458 And yeah, that resulted in, you know, learning Hebrew, going, 00:25:01.458 --> 00:25:02.478 starting going to synagogue. 00:25:02.478 --> 00:25:07.018 And I think much of my parents' horror I became religious, although 00:25:07.018 --> 00:25:09.388 in a, a strange way and remain religious in a very strange way. 00:25:09.388 --> 00:25:10.798 I'm married to a rabbi. 00:25:11.378 --> 00:25:13.538 I would consider myself pretty religious. 00:25:13.608 --> 00:25:14.898 In, in, in many ways. 00:25:15.558 --> 00:25:16.058 But well, 00:25:16.058 --> 00:25:18.668 Rupert Isaacson: given that you just said that you don't necessarily buy 00:25:19.028 --> 00:25:25.748 all of the philosophical occult, mythological and religious things that 00:25:25.748 --> 00:25:30.638 you cover in your, episodes, and I think people could sometimes be misled into 00:25:30.638 --> 00:25:34.508 feeling that you do, because I think you, you, one of your great traits 00:25:34.508 --> 00:25:40.088 is that you can empathize with the people who are presenting these things. 00:25:40.268 --> 00:25:42.758 So it can sound sometimes like, oh, well, Dr. 00:25:42.758 --> 00:25:47.438 Sledge must be a, you know, a capitalist, or he must be a believer in witchcraft, 00:25:47.438 --> 00:25:50.948 or he must be because the way you present it, it's very immediate and real. 00:25:51.368 --> 00:25:58.118 So as skeptical then as, or as, as dispassionate as you are with ghosts 00:25:58.118 --> 00:26:03.788 and demons and things how does that marry up to being religious, not just 00:26:03.788 --> 00:26:05.288 spiritual, but actually religious? 00:26:05.348 --> 00:26:07.388 How does religiosity come into that? 00:26:08.768 --> 00:26:12.308 Justin Sledge: For me, religion is how we navigate the world through 00:26:12.308 --> 00:26:16.598 the, in the way that we produce, meaning through systems of symbols. 00:26:17.288 --> 00:26:21.748 And I think that those systems of symbols they, they make 00:26:21.778 --> 00:26:22.978 the world make sense to us. 00:26:22.978 --> 00:26:25.648 They provide meaning, they provide structures like community. 00:26:25.648 --> 00:26:29.678 They provide rituals and, and these kinds of mechanisms that I think 00:26:29.858 --> 00:26:33.888 basically everyone has or everyone needs whether, whether they know it or not. 00:26:34.458 --> 00:26:36.348 And to me, I am 00:26:38.518 --> 00:26:39.388 what's the right way of putting it? 00:26:39.388 --> 00:26:43.378 I can take my mythology very seriously without taking any of it literally. 00:26:44.938 --> 00:26:45.388 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:26:45.748 --> 00:26:50.668 So what you're, am I right in saying that what you are saying is that 00:26:50.668 --> 00:26:53.518 this is a mythology that has a. 00:26:55.753 --> 00:26:59.143 Way of making sense of the world that you find helpful. 00:26:59.413 --> 00:26:59.533 Mm-hmm. 00:27:00.133 --> 00:27:04.543 Rupert Isaacson: But you are not necessarily saying that every 00:27:04.543 --> 00:27:08.983 word of, as you point out, that library of books, which we've come 00:27:08.983 --> 00:27:15.373 to call the Torah or the Bible is necessarily a sacred text by which 00:27:15.373 --> 00:27:16.843 you must live your life or be damned. 00:27:18.313 --> 00:27:21.013 Justin Sledge: Or that it even contains historical facts. 00:27:21.103 --> 00:27:21.343 Yeah. 00:27:21.343 --> 00:27:22.873 That I don't know that the exodus happened. 00:27:22.873 --> 00:27:24.733 I don't know that Moses was really a real person. 00:27:24.733 --> 00:27:26.473 I don't think Abraham was really a real person. 00:27:26.473 --> 00:27:29.143 You know, I, these are the kind of questions where someone's like, well, 00:27:29.143 --> 00:27:31.693 do you, if you don't believe that Moses really was a real person and 00:27:31.693 --> 00:27:35.443 really went up on mountain and really got rules, then why follow the rules? 00:27:35.863 --> 00:27:38.383 I'm like, because it's the following of the rules that builds 00:27:38.383 --> 00:27:41.608 the meaning, not the not well. 00:27:41.608 --> 00:27:41.808 Why 00:27:41.808 --> 00:27:43.693 Rupert Isaacson: those rules and why not other rules, 00:27:44.503 --> 00:27:44.773 Justin Sledge: I guess. 00:27:44.803 --> 00:27:48.853 'cause I, those other rules don't make any sense to me and they're foreign to me. 00:27:48.853 --> 00:27:49.423 Mm-hmm. 00:27:49.479 --> 00:27:50.829 And that doesn't make them bad. 00:27:51.009 --> 00:27:53.559 It just makes 'em not the rules that are compelling to me, but, right. 00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:56.679 Rupert Isaacson: For example, Buddhism, you know, classic common sense. 00:27:56.679 --> 00:27:59.739 You know, don't be a dick basically. 00:28:00.129 --> 00:28:00.579 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:28:01.209 --> 00:28:01.929 Rupert Isaacson: Why not that? 00:28:02.499 --> 00:28:04.929 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I guess I, I find that I don't like sitting 00:28:04.929 --> 00:28:06.999 around a lot, a lot being quiet. 00:28:08.949 --> 00:28:11.649 Like I don't find enlightenment to be, you know. 00:28:12.354 --> 00:28:14.874 Yeah, it just seems like a lot of work for something I'm not very interested in. 00:28:15.354 --> 00:28:19.034 I know that sounds very flippant, but if, if someone, if I had to, if 00:28:19.034 --> 00:28:23.569 I have to sit down for an hour a day being quiet but the Buddhism doesn't 00:28:23.569 --> 00:28:24.529 Rupert Isaacson: tell you you have to do that. 00:28:24.919 --> 00:28:25.339 I mean Yeah. 00:28:25.339 --> 00:28:27.919 Or just, or, or the Don't be a dick. 00:28:28.249 --> 00:28:31.159 And don't be a dick in the way that suits you best. 00:28:31.399 --> 00:28:31.789 Yeah. 00:28:31.789 --> 00:28:34.609 If you want to meditate, then by all means meditate, but you don't have to. 00:28:35.149 --> 00:28:35.629 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:28:35.719 --> 00:28:38.809 I mean, in that sense that I'm like, yeah, I guess I don't speak poly. 00:28:38.869 --> 00:28:40.999 I don't live in a culture that operates in poly. 00:28:40.999 --> 00:28:42.439 I don't believe in reincarnation. 00:28:42.529 --> 00:28:44.779 Reincarnation strike me as a terribly inter karma does, strikes 00:28:44.779 --> 00:28:46.249 me as a horrifying belief system. 00:28:46.849 --> 00:28:46.999 Right. 00:28:47.099 --> 00:28:47.399 Yeah. 00:28:47.399 --> 00:28:50.069 So it's, it's the system of rules that makes the most sense to me. 00:28:50.399 --> 00:28:50.609 Got it. 00:28:50.639 --> 00:28:54.149 And also it's because they're, they're diaphanous. 00:28:54.359 --> 00:28:56.639 I don't even notice them as rules. 00:28:56.699 --> 00:28:58.289 They're just the way that I live my life. 00:28:58.899 --> 00:28:59.169 Right. 00:28:59.189 --> 00:29:03.154 Rupert Isaacson: And I think you also, you know, pointed out that culturally, you 00:29:03.154 --> 00:29:05.104 know, what you are looking at is western. 00:29:05.614 --> 00:29:05.854 Right. 00:29:05.944 --> 00:29:10.864 Esotericism, we can include Judaism in that, you know, because even though it's 00:29:10.864 --> 00:29:15.094 confusing, because Judaism and Mesopotamia and all that places, we think of it as 00:29:15.094 --> 00:29:21.694 the Middle East, but really it's what engenders Western are, Western culture 00:29:21.814 --> 00:29:25.684 comes outta that because the Greeks and the Romans borrow it, basically Nick it. 00:29:25.689 --> 00:29:25.729 Right. 00:29:25.954 --> 00:29:26.494 Basically. 00:29:26.924 --> 00:29:27.974 Or our products of it. 00:29:28.544 --> 00:29:31.314 So in a funny way, we're all Middle Eastern without knowing it. 00:29:31.704 --> 00:29:31.944 Yeah. 00:29:32.004 --> 00:29:32.574 To some degree. 00:29:32.724 --> 00:29:33.354 To some degree. 00:29:33.514 --> 00:29:33.964 But 00:29:34.054 --> 00:29:37.119 Justin Sledge: yeah, it's a thing where, you know, I, I, I. 00:29:38.149 --> 00:29:41.959 Same with, you know, Christianity seems like a, a often a very, for like, in 00:29:41.959 --> 00:29:47.629 many ways I was just in Egypt and Islam seems like a much closer religion to me, 00:29:47.929 --> 00:29:49.459 for instance, I could easily imagine. 00:29:49.579 --> 00:29:51.379 And I have like, I could pray in a mosque. 00:29:51.679 --> 00:29:55.159 That is, that's the kind of thing that makes them very easy sense to me. 00:29:55.159 --> 00:29:57.019 It's a very like, transparent how that would work. 00:29:57.619 --> 00:30:00.924 Churches seem very foreign places to me when I go inside of a, a 00:30:00.979 --> 00:30:04.159 Coptic Orthodox church or you know, a know sort of Catholic church. 00:30:04.159 --> 00:30:09.059 I'm like, it was funny 'cause I had a friend of mine who she switched from being 00:30:09.059 --> 00:30:11.709 Catholic to being pagan sort of spirit. 00:30:11.769 --> 00:30:12.279 Nah, same thing. 00:30:12.939 --> 00:30:13.269 Yeah, yeah. 00:30:13.269 --> 00:30:15.699 Spirit sort of, you know, so you kind, and that was my opinion. 00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:18.039 I was like, oh, that's, there's, they're basically the same. 00:30:18.039 --> 00:30:23.049 I, I tend to look at Catholicism and Paganism as being very similar, 00:30:23.049 --> 00:30:27.009 like, and with all their saints and all these rituals and all these like 00:30:27.009 --> 00:30:30.609 lighting candles and you know, the, these like, it's the incense and stuff. 00:30:31.059 --> 00:30:32.889 I'm like, those look very similar to me. 00:30:32.919 --> 00:30:36.939 And she was horrified, but because for her, she had abandoned something 00:30:37.419 --> 00:30:40.689 as a rebellion against it and transferred to something else that she 00:30:40.689 --> 00:30:42.129 thought was completely the opposite. 00:30:42.519 --> 00:30:43.869 And it was something very shocking to her dear. 00:30:43.929 --> 00:30:46.899 Someone say, you know, and for, and it's funny 'cause I was talking to my, one 00:30:46.899 --> 00:30:51.229 of my Muslim tour guides when we were in Egypt and we also were, we shared 00:30:51.229 --> 00:30:55.429 in common the fact that, that we didn't understand, you know, it was like a very. 00:30:55.849 --> 00:30:59.969 It was a very that the, that the, that the churches were very foreign to us. 00:31:00.029 --> 00:31:04.499 And it's funny that we couldn't be more different in terms of our geographical 00:31:04.499 --> 00:31:09.689 history, our language history, but mythologically we were closer in the way 00:31:09.689 --> 00:31:14.099 that we made sense of the world than we were, you know, to the Catholic cathedral 00:31:14.099 --> 00:31:15.149 that's literally in my neighborhood. 00:31:15.479 --> 00:31:19.769 Rupert Isaacson: And it's interesting to me when you say that, because I had this 00:31:19.769 --> 00:31:23.609 weird upbringing where I was listening this morning while I was picking my 00:31:23.609 --> 00:31:29.289 horse's poo to your one of your and I was actually a coer at the temple in London. 00:31:29.469 --> 00:31:32.409 So that's the second oldest building in London. 00:31:32.749 --> 00:31:36.379 It's now the seat of law, you know, the judges and the barristers. 00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:37.669 It's their church. 00:31:38.039 --> 00:31:42.329 And the school I went to provided the choir boys either for that church 00:31:42.629 --> 00:31:47.159 or the Chapel Royal, which was the, at that point, the Queen's chapel. 00:31:47.459 --> 00:31:48.059 Now the kings. 00:31:48.419 --> 00:31:50.399 And you would be drafted into one or the other. 00:31:50.609 --> 00:31:54.619 And interestingly, you know, you, you are there. 00:31:54.619 --> 00:31:57.829 I, I'm not baptized, I'm not circumcised. 00:31:57.859 --> 00:31:59.539 I'm neither Jewish nor Christian. 00:32:00.069 --> 00:32:02.829 And some of the other boys in the choir were like Muslims and Hindus. 00:32:02.829 --> 00:32:04.149 We were just picked for our voices. 00:32:05.019 --> 00:32:08.019 But it was very, very clear that you were in this kind of seat of power. 00:32:08.889 --> 00:32:11.789 And there are the effigies of all the Marshall family or the 00:32:11.819 --> 00:32:13.649 English Knights Temple lying there. 00:32:13.649 --> 00:32:17.069 There's a copy of Magna Carta, but they don't talk to you about any of that. 00:32:17.369 --> 00:32:22.799 But the ritual of it, the high Anglican ritual, which is effectively Catholic, 00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:27.389 you know, while being Protestant, I don't see much difference between 00:32:27.389 --> 00:32:30.689 that and a synagogue, honestly. 00:32:31.049 --> 00:32:34.349 And perhaps that's because I had this perspective of being Colonial 00:32:34.349 --> 00:32:36.329 African, even though we grew. 00:32:36.359 --> 00:32:41.369 So I worked a lot with these people behind me in their systems of the 00:32:41.369 --> 00:32:47.039 hunter gatherer shamanic traditions, and which is effectively very similar 00:32:47.039 --> 00:32:50.789 to mysticism within any religion really. 00:32:51.359 --> 00:32:56.399 So I don't see a lot of difference in any organized religion. 00:32:56.399 --> 00:33:00.449 I, I lived in India for a bit too, and I, I remember going into temples, 00:33:00.805 --> 00:33:07.195 but effectively chanting in these particular tones and big resonant stone 00:33:07.195 --> 00:33:11.095 buildings and chaps wondering about telling you what to do and what not to do. 00:33:11.545 --> 00:33:15.355 And with a sort of slight air of you'll be in trouble if you don't type thing. 00:33:15.835 --> 00:33:18.145 And this idea of, you know, punishment and reward. 00:33:18.755 --> 00:33:22.805 And that's not, for example, in the hunter gatherer sense, 00:33:22.955 --> 00:33:23.915 that's just not even there. 00:33:24.155 --> 00:33:26.255 And, but there is divinity. 00:33:27.020 --> 00:33:29.120 And there are ancestors and there are, 00:33:31.130 --> 00:33:36.590 there is the divine, but not in a sort of an organized way, which not, 00:33:36.590 --> 00:33:39.380 and also not in a way that you have to, you don't have to be reverent. 00:33:39.830 --> 00:33:43.580 So let's say for example, there is a healing going on. 00:33:44.150 --> 00:33:47.090 It usually comes out with healing and the healer is there going into 00:33:47.090 --> 00:33:51.020 an alter state of consciousness and you'll see them bleeding and pulling 00:33:51.140 --> 00:33:54.350 stuff out of people and it's like, whoa, I'm actually seeing that. 00:33:55.100 --> 00:33:59.240 But right next to 'em, there's a bloke smoking a cigarette, like flirting with 00:33:59.240 --> 00:34:03.710 a girl and there's kids just running about, and no one is supposed to be 00:34:04.190 --> 00:34:07.040 approaching it with a sense of reverence. 00:34:07.160 --> 00:34:13.480 Yet at the same time, there is awe this much greater thing that, 00:34:15.640 --> 00:34:20.950 and presumably given that we all sort of come from that and then we found 00:34:20.950 --> 00:34:22.570 all these ways of expressing it. 00:34:23.560 --> 00:34:27.100 But what we're really are or are we not, I shouldn't say what 00:34:27.100 --> 00:34:31.900 we're already doing 'cause that's a really misled thing to say, 00:34:32.470 --> 00:34:34.030 are we not just all talking about love? 00:34:36.310 --> 00:34:36.940 Justin Sledge: I don't know. 00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:40.990 I mean, I, I I, I guess there's two things that, that I would think is that I 00:34:40.990 --> 00:34:43.660 would be slow to compare hunter gatherer. 00:34:45.145 --> 00:34:48.265 Religion today with what we may have come from, because I don't know 00:34:48.265 --> 00:34:53.545 that we know, you know, in lieu of texts, we don't really know what 00:34:53.545 --> 00:34:56.185 they, what they were doing in, you know, a hundred thousand years ago. 00:34:56.675 --> 00:35:02.495 So I'm, I'm, I'm slow to extrapolate from the present too far back into the past. 00:35:03.305 --> 00:35:06.140 And then I think that that religion, 00:35:08.990 --> 00:35:10.550 when I look at, I'll give an example. 00:35:10.550 --> 00:35:11.690 For instance, ancient Israelite religion. 00:35:11.720 --> 00:35:15.470 There's not much love there that is a god of, that is a tribal God 00:35:15.470 --> 00:35:16.250 who's there we're talking about. 00:35:16.250 --> 00:35:19.820 Rupert Isaacson: And lil more or less aren't, we we're talking about a, that's 00:35:19.820 --> 00:35:22.490 the first bloke coming along with a big beard who's gonna slap you on the 00:35:22.490 --> 00:35:24.710 bottom for being a naughty boy, right? 00:35:24.740 --> 00:35:24.920 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:35:24.920 --> 00:35:26.670 I mean, in Lil Yahweh Indra. 00:35:26.670 --> 00:35:26.760 Yeah. 00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:30.310 You know, I think that once you get once you get territorial, 00:35:31.330 --> 00:35:32.590 once you get city states, yeah. 00:35:32.590 --> 00:35:34.990 The gods start to look a lot like the people ruling those city states. 00:35:35.020 --> 00:35:35.710 Yeah, exactly. 00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:40.420 And so, you know, and I think that underneath it all is 00:35:40.420 --> 00:35:41.500 there is no underneath at all. 00:35:41.950 --> 00:35:46.000 It, it depends on the material, historical circumstances upon 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:48.440 which rests these religious 00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:49.130 Rupert Isaacson: expressions. 00:35:49.610 --> 00:35:50.510 Justin Sledge: And I think, but, but there is, is 00:35:50.810 --> 00:35:53.690 Rupert Isaacson: is there not a mystical thread that runs through 00:35:53.690 --> 00:35:57.980 most religions where people seem to be able to find common ground? 00:35:58.740 --> 00:35:59.430 I don't think so. 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:00.780 Or you don't think so? 00:36:01.050 --> 00:36:01.290 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:36:01.290 --> 00:36:04.560 I'm, I'm, I, I am notoriously a, a, a non perennial. 00:36:05.530 --> 00:36:09.060 I'm this is a, a notorious fact about me in the religious studies world 00:36:09.060 --> 00:36:13.260 is that m many people who come to Western as a tism or as a tism and 00:36:13.260 --> 00:36:15.990 mysticism typically come at it from the point of view of perennialism. 00:36:16.260 --> 00:36:16.380 What 00:36:16.380 --> 00:36:17.130 Rupert Isaacson: does perennialism 00:36:17.130 --> 00:36:17.490 Justin Sledge: mean? 00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:22.260 And so it says that at the core of religion is sort of a mystical center, 00:36:22.710 --> 00:36:27.850 and that at, and then, then that at that mystical center religions grow out 00:36:27.850 --> 00:36:31.790 of that mystical center and therefore Judaism is an expression of it. 00:36:31.900 --> 00:36:35.230 You know, shamanism, all the different religions are somehow grow out of that 00:36:35.230 --> 00:36:38.620 core mystical that core mysticism. 00:36:38.690 --> 00:36:43.250 And so this is a position held by people like ETA and Yung and William 00:36:43.250 --> 00:36:44.960 James and sort of classic peral list. 00:36:45.270 --> 00:36:48.760 I tend to come from the traditionalist camp which is very unpopular 00:36:49.150 --> 00:36:50.680 for both the right and the left. 00:36:50.710 --> 00:36:51.760 Don't like traditionalism. 00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:52.030 Well, if you're 00:36:52.030 --> 00:36:53.650 Rupert Isaacson: pissing off both sides, it's usually means 00:36:53.680 --> 00:36:54.490 you're onto something good. 00:36:54.820 --> 00:36:55.780 Justin Sledge: Maybe, maybe. 00:36:56.230 --> 00:36:57.910 Or are you just gonna get yourself in a lot of trouble? 00:36:58.270 --> 00:37:02.310 But I'm of the camp traditional typically that says that there, that there 00:37:02.310 --> 00:37:07.290 is no core, that when you study the religions closely enough, they're much 00:37:07.290 --> 00:37:09.210 more different than they are the same. 00:37:09.780 --> 00:37:15.780 And that, that if there is a universal, it can only be known through the 00:37:15.780 --> 00:37:19.780 particular and therefore only individual. 00:37:20.410 --> 00:37:21.430 Traditions exist. 00:37:21.850 --> 00:37:26.870 And those are hyper-local, hyper-specific, and often are more marked by their 00:37:26.930 --> 00:37:29.000 discontinuity than by their continuity. 00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:34.260 So, I'll, you know, the, for instance, a good example of this is we tend to 00:37:34.260 --> 00:37:37.810 think that there's a lot of continuity between Israelite religion and Judaism. 00:37:38.290 --> 00:37:41.830 But if you study the two, they couldn't be more discontinuous. 00:37:41.830 --> 00:37:43.750 They're extraordinarily different from each other. 00:37:44.170 --> 00:37:48.040 Now, of course there's connective tissue, the uniting them, but if you were to drop 00:37:48.040 --> 00:37:53.800 a modern orthodox Jew into the temple 2000 years ago, they would be as lost 00:37:53.800 --> 00:37:55.450 as anyone else as to what, what would be 00:37:55.450 --> 00:37:56.980 Rupert Isaacson: the major difference that they would see? 00:37:58.120 --> 00:37:59.800 Justin Sledge: They would be in a giant building, killing 00:37:59.800 --> 00:38:01.660 animals and burning things. 00:38:02.350 --> 00:38:05.140 And that would be the principle mechanism by which you would 00:38:05.170 --> 00:38:10.430 interact with your God is by killing, killing animals and burning stuff. 00:38:10.490 --> 00:38:14.490 Typically and you would not be, most of us would not be allowed into that building. 00:38:15.720 --> 00:38:16.050 Rupert Isaacson: Okay? 00:38:16.050 --> 00:38:16.140 There 00:38:16.140 --> 00:38:18.960 Justin Sledge: would be a distinct group of people allowed in, and you would 00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:22.350 not be, you would very statistically be unlikely to be one of them. 00:38:22.620 --> 00:38:24.270 Rupert Isaacson: So that would be the Jewish temple, right? 00:38:24.270 --> 00:38:28.470 About the time that the Romans go in there and destroy it, and the diaspora begins. 00:38:28.530 --> 00:38:32.490 Okay, let's go back a thousand years before that, what would the Jewish temple, 00:38:32.520 --> 00:38:33.690 what would the temple look like then? 00:38:34.410 --> 00:38:34.680 Lot 00:38:34.680 --> 00:38:35.910 Justin Sledge: smaller, but similar. 00:38:36.300 --> 00:38:41.860 It's still mostly a, a priesthood run by very small, basically a family. 00:38:41.920 --> 00:38:46.000 And then there would be a, a, a monarch and that monarch would be in relationship 00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:49.750 to that priesthood, somehow often married into it or part of that family. 00:38:50.170 --> 00:38:53.050 And yeah, there would be a series of pilgrimage festivals in which people 00:38:53.050 --> 00:38:54.670 would be expected to come to that temple. 00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:58.670 And it would be, again, mostly slaughtering animals and burning things. 00:38:58.670 --> 00:38:59.330 And since 00:38:59.480 --> 00:39:04.820 Rupert Isaacson: at that stage, if we're now 3000 years back mm-hmm. 00:39:04.821 --> 00:39:07.580 Would that, would that Jewish temple be a monotheistic or a polytheistic 00:39:08.420 --> 00:39:10.400 or probably polytheistic, right? 00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:13.010 Or that seems to make a big difference, right? 00:39:13.010 --> 00:39:13.070 Yeah, 00:39:13.525 --> 00:39:16.430 Justin Sledge: henotheistic probably, if you're thinking about sort of 1000 00:39:16.430 --> 00:39:19.790 BCE, it probably would've been the case that the Israelites would've 00:39:19.790 --> 00:39:23.810 worshiped their God as the best God, sort of like, my dad can beat up 00:39:23.810 --> 00:39:25.760 your dad, but your dad still exists. 00:39:25.910 --> 00:39:26.150 Okay. 00:39:26.150 --> 00:39:26.840 He's just not the dad. 00:39:26.840 --> 00:39:27.680 He's just not my dad. 00:39:28.070 --> 00:39:31.850 Rupert Isaacson: And in that temple, would we hedge our bets by sacrificing 00:39:31.850 --> 00:39:33.560 to your dad as well, just in case? 00:39:33.590 --> 00:39:34.910 'cause you never know type thing. 00:39:34.910 --> 00:39:35.510 Justin Sledge: Depends on the mon. 00:39:35.510 --> 00:39:36.350 Depends on the monarch. 00:39:36.410 --> 00:39:40.860 But yeah, in many cases it seems like the monarchs typically I'll give one 00:39:40.860 --> 00:39:45.090 example is that if you marry, if you married a woman from a local powerful 00:39:45.090 --> 00:39:48.750 nation like the Phoenician, then she's gonna bring along her gods and 00:39:48.750 --> 00:39:50.040 there's gonna be an expectation that. 00:39:50.355 --> 00:39:51.285 But would they be allowed 00:39:51.285 --> 00:39:53.265 Rupert Isaacson: in your temple or would they have to have their own temple? 00:39:53.445 --> 00:39:54.735 Justin Sledge: They'd probably be allowed in your temple. 00:39:54.795 --> 00:39:57.825 I mean, that's that, you know, we have evidence for that in the Hebrew Bible. 00:39:57.825 --> 00:39:57.855 Okay. 00:39:58.275 --> 00:40:00.915 And some of that, some, some people did not like that. 00:40:01.095 --> 00:40:05.205 So the prophets did not like that 'cause they were really on team, our dad, 00:40:05.205 --> 00:40:06.285 and they didn't think anyone else was. 00:40:06.285 --> 00:40:07.215 Dad should be in there. 00:40:07.220 --> 00:40:07.540 Mm-hmm. 00:40:07.640 --> 00:40:10.600 But but no, you, you would go back in time far enough and you would see 00:40:10.600 --> 00:40:12.580 that this God, Yahweh had a wife. 00:40:13.030 --> 00:40:15.690 Rupert Isaacson: As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm 00:40:15.690 --> 00:40:22.870 an autism dad and we have a whole career before this podcast in helping 00:40:22.870 --> 00:40:27.590 people with neurodivergence, either who are professionals in the field. 00:40:27.670 --> 00:40:28.510 Are you a therapist? 00:40:28.930 --> 00:40:30.200 Are you a caregiver? 00:40:30.590 --> 00:40:31.600 Are you a parent? 00:40:32.035 --> 00:40:34.065 Or are you somebody with neurodivergence? 00:40:35.505 --> 00:40:40.445 When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004, 00:40:40.485 --> 00:40:42.115 I really didn't know what to do. 00:40:42.315 --> 00:40:47.585 So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult 00:40:47.625 --> 00:40:50.425 autistic woman who's very famous, Dr. 00:40:50.575 --> 00:40:51.465 Temple Grandin. 00:40:51.665 --> 00:40:53.305 And she told me what to do. 00:40:53.355 --> 00:40:57.595 And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years. 00:40:57.945 --> 00:41:02.395 That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped 00:41:02.655 --> 00:41:06.405 countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal. 00:41:06.745 --> 00:41:10.645 Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings. 00:41:11.675 --> 00:41:16.115 If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed 00:41:16.335 --> 00:41:18.375 approach, it's called Movement Method. 00:41:19.035 --> 00:41:22.392 You can learn it online, you can learn it very, very simply. 00:41:22.392 --> 00:41:24.655 It's almost laughably simple. 00:41:25.595 --> 00:41:28.295 The important thing is to begin. 00:41:29.225 --> 00:41:32.375 Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr. 00:41:32.375 --> 00:41:35.665 Grandin and see what results can follow. 00:41:36.695 --> 00:41:39.625 Go to this website, newtrailslearning. 00:41:41.895 --> 00:41:44.400 com Sign up as a gold member. 00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:47.730 Take the online movement method course. 00:41:48.220 --> 00:41:49.590 It's in 40 countries. 00:41:50.200 --> 00:41:52.260 Let us know how it goes for you. 00:41:52.460 --> 00:41:53.230 We really want to know. 00:41:53.240 --> 00:41:57.740 We really want to help people like me, people like you, out there 00:41:58.090 --> 00:42:01.370 live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens. 00:42:02.360 --> 00:42:02.600 Right. 00:42:02.600 --> 00:42:04.130 Well, that's what, that was my next question. 00:42:04.130 --> 00:42:08.300 So at what point does my dad become only my dad? 00:42:08.300 --> 00:42:12.890 And what about dad and mom and dad, mom, brother and his mates. 00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:13.730 Like, yeah. 00:42:13.850 --> 00:42:18.050 What point does Yahweh become a single thing? 00:42:18.710 --> 00:42:19.580 It's a huge debate. 00:42:19.580 --> 00:42:20.570 One of several things. 00:42:20.900 --> 00:42:21.830 Justin Sledge: A huge debate. 00:42:21.890 --> 00:42:24.620 Some scholars would say not until second and third sec. 00:42:24.650 --> 00:42:26.330 Second and third centuries of a common era. 00:42:26.760 --> 00:42:28.380 I tend to think it's a bit earlier than that. 00:42:28.410 --> 00:42:28.680 Yeah. 00:42:29.700 --> 00:42:29.940 Yeah. 00:42:29.940 --> 00:42:30.870 They, the evidence to 00:42:30.870 --> 00:42:31.200 Rupert Isaacson: support 00:42:31.200 --> 00:42:31.470 Justin Sledge: that. 00:42:32.380 --> 00:42:36.550 There's evidence to say that, that the, the Israelites continue to believe 00:42:36.550 --> 00:42:42.340 in deities, mostly sort of like sub deities in the sense of angels and Okay. 00:42:42.340 --> 00:42:45.100 And, and in entities being converted into sub. 00:42:45.890 --> 00:42:48.700 Rupert Isaacson: So do you think that those original multi gods, got 00:42:48.700 --> 00:42:52.390 subverted just became, okay, well we'll make those guys angels and demons. 00:42:52.420 --> 00:42:52.570 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:42:52.570 --> 00:42:54.130 They got demoted into angels and demons. 00:42:54.130 --> 00:42:55.930 We certainly know that happened in, in Christianity. 00:42:56.200 --> 00:42:59.580 I tend to think that we see the first expressions of monotheism in Deutero 00:42:59.580 --> 00:43:01.800 Isaiah, so during the Babylonian exile. 00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:02.940 But give 00:43:02.940 --> 00:43:03.930 Rupert Isaacson: us a, a timeline 00:43:03.930 --> 00:43:04.230 Justin Sledge: on that. 00:43:04.230 --> 00:43:07.620 That would be what, so 5 86 is when the Babylonian exile begins. 00:43:07.620 --> 00:43:08.236 So I would say it's quite late. 00:43:09.060 --> 00:43:11.635 It sixth century, BCEI think we get Right. 00:43:11.635 --> 00:43:11.676 So it's 00:43:11.681 --> 00:43:15.260 Rupert Isaacson: contemporary with like Mythe and Greece and Homer and stuff. 00:43:15.590 --> 00:43:17.570 More or less, give or take a little, a little later 00:43:17.570 --> 00:43:17.990 Justin Sledge: actually. 00:43:18.110 --> 00:43:18.440 Yeah. 00:43:18.470 --> 00:43:18.890 Okay. 00:43:19.550 --> 00:43:20.240 Yeah, I think it's late. 00:43:20.270 --> 00:43:21.650 I it's much later than people think it is. 00:43:21.860 --> 00:43:22.250 Okay. 00:43:22.440 --> 00:43:22.680 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 00:43:22.685 --> 00:43:22.925 Right. 00:43:22.930 --> 00:43:24.390 It's not how it's presented right at all. 00:43:24.390 --> 00:43:24.660 You know? 00:43:24.780 --> 00:43:28.950 So when Moses goes up the mountain, is he talking to Yahweh? 00:43:29.280 --> 00:43:29.610 Yahweh's brother? 00:43:29.610 --> 00:43:31.380 Yahweh's wife or Yahweh's mates? 00:43:31.980 --> 00:43:34.830 Justin Sledge: I mean, I think by then the Moses story is pretty late. 00:43:34.930 --> 00:43:36.220 And when is the Moses story? 00:43:36.790 --> 00:43:41.140 Well, it's set historically around thir 1500, 1300 BCE, but I think it was 00:43:41.140 --> 00:43:44.290 probably written closer to five 600 BCE. 00:43:44.290 --> 00:43:44.590 Right. 00:43:44.590 --> 00:43:46.450 So I think the story is, is a bit's really quite late. 00:43:47.180 --> 00:43:49.400 I think that there's memories of something that go back earlier, 00:43:49.400 --> 00:43:54.140 but I think the Moses story itself is, is relatively, relatively late 00:43:54.200 --> 00:43:59.300 Rupert Isaacson: because that's not much before, you know, your Socrates 00:43:59.300 --> 00:44:01.160 and Neo Platos start coming along. 00:44:01.160 --> 00:44:02.540 I mean, there's only about a hundred years in it. 00:44:03.215 --> 00:44:05.105 Justin Sledge: Yeah, it's, it's a, you know, this is the 00:44:05.105 --> 00:44:06.275 so-called axial age, right? 00:44:06.275 --> 00:44:12.985 Where Ezekiel and you know, Socrates and Parmenides and, you know, 00:44:13.105 --> 00:44:15.865 Confucius and all those guys were around and almost, you know, within 00:44:15.865 --> 00:44:16.945 a couple hundred years of each other 00:44:17.169 --> 00:44:18.936 Rupert Isaacson: It almost makes you wonder if they were meeting in 00:44:18.936 --> 00:44:22.926 some altered state of consciousness place elsewhere and saying, why 00:44:22.926 --> 00:44:25.176 don't we just come up with a bunch of stuff that sounds really the same 00:44:25.386 --> 00:44:27.306 and just out of everybody later, 00:44:28.146 --> 00:44:29.826 Justin Sledge: I think that they, I mean, I, I can't imagine 00:44:29.826 --> 00:44:30.696 they would've liked each other. 00:44:30.726 --> 00:44:35.176 I, I imagine that that Socrates and Confucius would not have seen eye to eye. 00:44:35.206 --> 00:44:37.816 I think his Socrates would've bothered Confucius to the ends of the earth. 00:44:38.566 --> 00:44:39.316 Why Ezekiel? 00:44:39.766 --> 00:44:42.826 Because I think the Confucius had a very clear idea about how the world should be 00:44:42.826 --> 00:44:44.326 structured after the warring state period. 00:44:44.326 --> 00:44:48.446 And I think Socrates had a very clear idea that no one had a clear idea of anything. 00:44:49.286 --> 00:44:52.766 And I think that Ezekiel would've hated them because he would've he'd 00:44:52.766 --> 00:44:56.456 have seen them as idolaters and, and, and he was really all about like 00:44:56.546 --> 00:44:58.406 reinstituting the power of his God. 00:44:58.976 --> 00:45:02.186 And quickly bringing back a third temple and ushering in some kind of 00:45:02.186 --> 00:45:03.806 apocalyptic renovation of the world. 00:45:04.046 --> 00:45:05.426 I don't think they'd have gotten along at all. 00:45:08.051 --> 00:45:09.341 Rupert Isaacson: Fascinating. 00:45:09.671 --> 00:45:14.801 Okay, so, let's go back to your discovery then of, of John d as your are. 00:45:14.801 --> 00:45:16.691 You, you we're in your teenage self. 00:45:16.991 --> 00:45:23.471 You are reading an Elizabethan, a cultist, who's also, as you say, a courtier, a 00:45:23.471 --> 00:45:28.901 spy, an ambassador, an advisor to Good Queen Bess, who is still to this day, one 00:45:28.901 --> 00:45:30.911 of our most successful British monarchs. 00:45:30.911 --> 00:45:34.511 She lays the foundations for the British Empire and the Bank of England 00:45:34.511 --> 00:45:38.071 and everything that followed our great greatest act of piracy that, 00:45:38.071 --> 00:45:39.961 you know, we still to some degree. 00:45:40.365 --> 00:45:42.105 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I mean, it was John d that found, that 00:45:42.105 --> 00:45:43.395 coined the phrase British Empire. 00:45:44.325 --> 00:45:45.105 That's his phrase. 00:45:45.578 --> 00:45:46.028 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:45:46.088 --> 00:45:53.738 So you have a guy who's fairly practical and savvy and can also navigate the 00:45:54.098 --> 00:45:59.618 inter Nissan conflict of a court like that and have some longevity there 00:46:00.368 --> 00:46:02.378 because it was easy to fall out of favor. 00:46:03.218 --> 00:46:06.938 Particularly if you're pretending to talk to the divine, because any, any mo 00:46:06.998 --> 00:46:10.118 Monarch worth their salt's gonna say, all right, well then, you know, gimme 00:46:10.118 --> 00:46:13.658 lots of goodies and if you can't come up with the goodies, then you know, 00:46:13.838 --> 00:46:15.038 things might not go so well for you. 00:46:15.998 --> 00:46:18.098 So what's he talking to Angels? 00:46:18.668 --> 00:46:21.158 And if he wasn't talking to Angels, why was he spending 00:46:21.608 --> 00:46:23.378 so much time saying he was. 00:46:24.788 --> 00:46:26.858 Justin Sledge: So he never talked to the angels directly, right? 00:46:26.858 --> 00:46:29.408 He always talked to them indirectly via his reer. 00:46:29.408 --> 00:46:32.888 A dude named Edward Kelly, right, who was a convicted conman. 00:46:32.888 --> 00:46:37.048 In fact, he had his ears cut off for for previous con jobs. 00:46:37.568 --> 00:46:40.988 And he even presented himself to Dee as a, under a false name, an alias. 00:46:40.988 --> 00:46:42.728 He called himself Edward, but Dee was not, was 00:46:42.728 --> 00:46:43.568 Rupert Isaacson: not a gullible man. 00:46:45.038 --> 00:46:46.508 Justin Sledge: He, I think he was a very gullible man. 00:46:46.508 --> 00:46:47.768 I think he was very smart. 00:46:47.828 --> 00:46:51.608 I've met lots of smart people who are also extremely gullible because the 00:46:51.608 --> 00:46:53.228 people tell them what they want to hear. 00:46:53.648 --> 00:46:59.018 And I think that Dee Dee had run up basically up against a wall and he 00:46:59.018 --> 00:47:02.258 admits as much, and he was on this quest for what he calls radical truths. 00:47:03.728 --> 00:47:07.448 And you know, he, he, he, I think he had grown exhausted with trying 00:47:07.448 --> 00:47:11.688 to find them the conventional way, which is to say, you know, using 00:47:11.778 --> 00:47:14.088 equipment and using reason to do it. 00:47:14.568 --> 00:47:18.978 And I think that for him, he wanted to short the circuit. 00:47:18.978 --> 00:47:21.888 And the way you shorten the circuit is go straight to the people that designed 00:47:21.888 --> 00:47:26.118 the whole world, and you go right back to God and you interact via the people that 00:47:26.118 --> 00:47:27.468 built the world, and that's the angels. 00:47:28.188 --> 00:47:30.488 Rupert Isaacson: And so, but this was a risky thing to do. 00:47:30.488 --> 00:47:36.578 I mean, okay, he wasn't in Spain or Rome, but previous to 00:47:36.578 --> 00:47:38.558 Elizabeth, you have Bloody Mary. 00:47:38.558 --> 00:47:40.568 She's burning everyone in sight. 00:47:41.108 --> 00:47:44.498 After Elizabeth, you've got King James comes in, he burns everyone in sight. 00:47:45.218 --> 00:47:47.258 It is dangerous to go around saying. 00:47:47.663 --> 00:47:48.803 You're doing this sort of thing. 00:47:48.833 --> 00:47:49.883 Justin Sledge: Oh, he didn't go around saying it. 00:47:49.883 --> 00:47:50.903 He kept it very quiet. 00:47:50.933 --> 00:47:51.143 Yeah. 00:47:51.143 --> 00:47:52.493 This was a very quiet thing. 00:47:52.493 --> 00:47:52.913 And, you know, he 00:47:52.973 --> 00:47:55.433 Rupert Isaacson: was, he was he telling Queen Bess that he was doing 00:47:55.433 --> 00:47:55.553 Justin Sledge: it? 00:47:56.843 --> 00:47:59.993 I don't know that he communicated to her. 00:47:59.993 --> 00:48:03.863 And also remember just a year after he starts this business of talking 00:48:03.863 --> 00:48:07.763 to Angels, he's on the continent for the next six years, and he's in the 00:48:07.763 --> 00:48:11.753 Holy Roman empire, basically under the protection of Rudolph ii, who himself 00:48:11.753 --> 00:48:15.023 was a very mercurial, strange guy. 00:48:15.023 --> 00:48:17.333 And so I think that there was a lot more latitude. 00:48:17.633 --> 00:48:18.593 Rupert Isaacson: He was an occultist. 00:48:18.593 --> 00:48:18.983 It's true. 00:48:19.013 --> 00:48:19.283 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:48:19.403 --> 00:48:19.643 Yeah. 00:48:19.643 --> 00:48:21.983 And he was able to move around and, and the Inquisition did try 00:48:21.983 --> 00:48:23.273 to get him, they did invite him. 00:48:23.273 --> 00:48:23.448 Oh, they did. 00:48:23.868 --> 00:48:24.169 They did. 00:48:24.498 --> 00:48:26.268 And they knew that something was going on. 00:48:26.988 --> 00:48:28.698 But I mean, Dee was cautious. 00:48:28.748 --> 00:48:30.068 Edward Kelly was not cautious. 00:48:30.068 --> 00:48:31.958 He got them in a, a good bit of trouble. 00:48:32.648 --> 00:48:38.438 But I think that, I think also that Elizabeth needed Dee 00:48:38.438 --> 00:48:40.208 alive because he was useful. 00:48:40.208 --> 00:48:43.898 He was a, and I don't think she cared what he, the weird things he got up 00:48:43.898 --> 00:48:46.598 to at night, as long as he didn't make a big deal about it, because 00:48:46.598 --> 00:48:48.998 there was lots of people doing strange things and don't do it in the street 00:48:48.998 --> 00:48:49.868 Rupert Isaacson: and frighten the horses stuff. 00:48:49.868 --> 00:48:50.108 Yeah. 00:48:50.348 --> 00:48:50.678 Justin Sledge: Right. 00:48:51.008 --> 00:48:54.308 And I think even James, James knew that he was doing this stuff, and 00:48:54.308 --> 00:48:57.098 Dee publicly told James, well, put me on trial for witchcraft. 00:48:57.548 --> 00:48:59.738 I'll prove to you that I'm not doing anything bad. 00:49:00.308 --> 00:49:03.938 And James declined it, you know, and this is the days of the witch finder 00:49:03.938 --> 00:49:05.048 General and all that, you know? 00:49:05.053 --> 00:49:05.258 Yeah, yeah. 00:49:05.258 --> 00:49:05.858 Killed 200 women. 00:49:06.308 --> 00:49:09.698 James knew that killing Dee would be a bad look. 00:49:09.728 --> 00:49:12.158 And so basically we gave him a pension and, and let him alone. 00:49:13.028 --> 00:49:17.648 So, again, this is the kind of thing where we, we typically think 00:49:17.648 --> 00:49:21.908 of the witch, the period of the witch trials as being a no-no time 00:49:21.908 --> 00:49:23.888 for any kind of occult shenanigans. 00:49:24.368 --> 00:49:27.588 But there were lots of occultists at that time, publishing. 00:49:28.368 --> 00:49:32.268 I mean, Cornelius Agrippa published the three books of occult philosophy in 1533. 00:49:33.108 --> 00:49:36.288 You know, the Inquisition tried to intervene, but ultimately they were 00:49:36.288 --> 00:49:38.328 shut down by the local archbishop. 00:49:38.358 --> 00:49:40.098 The local archbishop shut them down. 00:49:40.303 --> 00:49:45.528 So the local Archbishop where in cologne in Germany, and, you know, that's the 00:49:45.528 --> 00:49:49.998 heart of the trials, which trials were, you know, horrifying in, in, in Germany. 00:49:50.268 --> 00:49:50.928 Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely. 00:49:50.928 --> 00:49:55.438 Where I'm sitting is in a village called Eden Hausen, which is next 00:49:55.438 --> 00:49:58.018 door to a town called Ich ine. 00:49:58.538 --> 00:50:00.698 And Ich INE has a tower called the Witches Tower. 00:50:00.843 --> 00:50:01.263 Mm-hmm. 00:50:01.348 --> 00:50:05.678 And outside they have a monument to all of the witches that were 00:50:05.678 --> 00:50:08.228 kept there before execution. 00:50:08.528 --> 00:50:11.778 All of the names, 'cause they're all in the Paris Regi parish Register. 00:50:12.288 --> 00:50:12.378 Yeah. 00:50:12.378 --> 00:50:14.388 Interestingly, about a third of them are men. 00:50:14.663 --> 00:50:14.953 Yeah. 00:50:14.958 --> 00:50:15.078 Yeah. 00:50:15.188 --> 00:50:18.158 Rupert Isaacson: And the hill, which we pass on the way to Itchin, which 00:50:18.188 --> 00:50:21.398 interestingly you also leave the Roman Empire and there's, you go through 00:50:21.398 --> 00:50:25.028 what's called the Lemus, which was, you probably know is the line of 00:50:25.028 --> 00:50:28.298 embankments that went from the mouth of the Rhine down to the Danube. 00:50:28.508 --> 00:50:31.178 You pass over that and there's a reconstructed Roman tower. 00:50:31.328 --> 00:50:33.488 And then very quickly on your right there's the hill 00:50:33.488 --> 00:50:34.268 where they killed them all. 00:50:34.688 --> 00:50:35.108 And then. 00:50:35.528 --> 00:50:36.998 Down the road in Bamberg. 00:50:37.028 --> 00:50:37.238 Yeah. 00:50:37.238 --> 00:50:40.658 They invented a special furnace where, 'cause they cut down so many, 00:50:40.958 --> 00:50:44.438 so much forest to, to, to burn so many people that they had to come 00:50:44.438 --> 00:50:48.338 up with a more efficient furnace to burn whole families at one time. 00:50:48.338 --> 00:50:50.528 That not run outta fire would crazy. 00:50:51.038 --> 00:50:56.018 So in that case, why could some people get away with it? 00:50:57.053 --> 00:51:02.948 Justin Sledge: Because they were wealthy, educated men and not poor people. 00:51:03.048 --> 00:51:04.668 And also because 00:51:04.668 --> 00:51:07.908 Rupert Isaacson: typically, but they did put to death wealthy, educated men if 00:51:07.908 --> 00:51:09.378 they, if it was politically expedient, 00:51:10.308 --> 00:51:12.738 Justin Sledge: often for political reasons and not for reasons of sorcery. 00:51:12.738 --> 00:51:13.248 It did happen. 00:51:13.248 --> 00:51:15.918 I mean, we do have people that were executed like Czech Oli, who 00:51:15.918 --> 00:51:17.208 was executed in the 14th century. 00:51:17.628 --> 00:51:20.868 But almost always, when you see an execution for sorcery, it's, 00:51:21.018 --> 00:51:25.308 it's, it's a precursor for some other kind of political move. 00:51:25.308 --> 00:51:26.388 It's a game of their own thing. 00:51:26.688 --> 00:51:28.673 Rupert Isaacson: Like with the temps, they're all Yeah. 00:51:28.673 --> 00:51:30.768 The temps, the debt. 00:51:30.858 --> 00:51:31.398 Right, right. 00:51:31.398 --> 00:51:33.948 Justin Sledge: The temps are, are executed because the, the king, you 00:51:33.948 --> 00:51:35.838 know, Philip ViiV is badly in debt. 00:51:36.288 --> 00:51:36.498 Yeah. 00:51:36.528 --> 00:51:37.008 To them. 00:51:37.038 --> 00:51:39.168 And so that's the best way of dealing with your creditors is. 00:51:39.468 --> 00:51:40.158 Killing them all. 00:51:40.848 --> 00:51:44.988 So, but in the cases, the witch trials, is that the, that the crime that you 00:51:44.988 --> 00:51:48.528 were accused of in the witch trials was a very specific crime called Maia. 00:51:49.728 --> 00:51:53.388 And this was a, what is now called by scholars, the elaborated theory 00:51:53.388 --> 00:51:56.568 of witchcraft, which meant that you signed a pact with the devil 00:51:56.568 --> 00:51:58.548 to wage a war against Christianity. 00:51:59.208 --> 00:52:05.208 And clearly John d is, is a Christian Agrippa was a Christian Bruno, not so much 00:52:05.268 --> 00:52:09.978 that that's what got him ultimately burned alive, although even then it was the case 00:52:09.978 --> 00:52:14.948 that he was a a, an ex priest who had, who had said things about the Trinity that 00:52:14.948 --> 00:52:17.438 were heretical and refused to recant them. 00:52:18.068 --> 00:52:23.738 But you'd be surprised how few educated Occultists were executed. 00:52:23.738 --> 00:52:25.958 Paracelsus never persecuted. 00:52:26.228 --> 00:52:29.993 I don't wanna say they had good lives, and they certainly had to be careful 00:52:29.993 --> 00:52:31.208 and they had to be on the move. 00:52:31.718 --> 00:52:36.838 But you know, Kelly also the guy literally talking to the angels, he, you know, 00:52:36.838 --> 00:52:38.398 he rats them out on several occasions. 00:52:38.398 --> 00:52:40.018 He tells the truth about what's going on. 00:52:40.448 --> 00:52:42.908 He ultimately dies jumping out of a prison cell. 00:52:43.068 --> 00:52:47.398 He's ultimately arrested for trying to, or ultimately arrested and put under 00:52:47.398 --> 00:52:51.028 house arrest so that he could do alchemy and tries to escape and ultimately 00:52:51.158 --> 00:52:53.048 breaks his leg badly and, and dies. 00:52:53.468 --> 00:52:53.948 So. 00:52:54.823 --> 00:52:59.053 Being an OC cultist in the 16th century wasn't the desonance that people thought 00:52:59.053 --> 00:53:03.853 that it is, but being a poor woman who curses a lot and on is on the out with her 00:53:03.853 --> 00:53:05.833 neighbors, that was probably a sentence 00:53:06.583 --> 00:53:08.193 Rupert Isaacson: if you were Kelly. 00:53:08.313 --> 00:53:15.813 And so you, you were reading the language of the angels there at and as a teenager 00:53:15.813 --> 00:53:17.613 and asking this question, well, hold on. 00:53:17.613 --> 00:53:19.293 This seems very, very structured. 00:53:19.293 --> 00:53:22.683 This seems very, very, this isn't some random thing. 00:53:23.913 --> 00:53:25.773 So was there any truth in it? 00:53:26.133 --> 00:53:29.583 What, and what I mean by that, do you think Kelly actually did think, was, was 00:53:29.583 --> 00:53:33.933 Kelly in an altered state of consciousness where he was somehow downloading 00:53:33.933 --> 00:53:39.513 some sort of information or it was bubbling into his perception somehow? 00:53:39.633 --> 00:53:42.843 Or do you think he actually sat down, said, I need to make up something pretty 00:53:43.203 --> 00:53:45.003 complex even though I'm not a linguist? 00:53:45.303 --> 00:53:47.313 You know, what, what, what was going on? 00:53:47.823 --> 00:53:48.393 I think it was 00:53:48.393 --> 00:53:48.933 Justin Sledge: both. 00:53:48.963 --> 00:53:53.433 I think that we have these sort of binary ways of thinking that either 00:53:53.433 --> 00:53:55.353 it was fraud or it was revelation. 00:53:55.413 --> 00:53:59.643 And I think that it's the mind can operate in both at once. 00:54:00.603 --> 00:54:01.503 Ululation Yeah. 00:54:01.503 --> 00:54:01.923 Fraudulent. 00:54:02.353 --> 00:54:07.183 I, I, I think it someone like Joseph Smith, right, who channeled 00:54:07.243 --> 00:54:10.313 the, the Book of Mormon people are like, oh, he's just a fraud. 00:54:10.313 --> 00:54:11.903 And I'm like, I don't think he's just a fraud. 00:54:11.993 --> 00:54:14.333 And, and this is the same way I think of Kelly. 00:54:14.783 --> 00:54:17.273 I think there's a way of thinking about what they're doing that 00:54:17.273 --> 00:54:19.823 is neither fraud nor revelation. 00:54:19.823 --> 00:54:19.883 I. 00:54:20.093 --> 00:54:23.213 And I do, I do think that Kelly was in an alter state of consciousness. 00:54:23.258 --> 00:54:27.143 I, I think there's good reason to believe that from the diaries, but do 00:54:27.143 --> 00:54:28.553 I think that he was talking to angels? 00:54:28.553 --> 00:54:29.063 I don't know. 00:54:29.303 --> 00:54:31.933 I just the data for that is inconclusive to me. 00:54:32.113 --> 00:54:38.803 What I will say is that while the language isn't random, it 00:54:38.803 --> 00:54:42.013 never betrays non-English syntax. 00:54:42.133 --> 00:54:46.213 It seems to derive words from languages that Kelly knew. 00:54:46.823 --> 00:54:51.053 The angels that Kelly speaks to make mistakes, both in arithmetic and in Latin. 00:54:51.473 --> 00:54:54.383 Dee has to correct their arithmetic and their Latin at times. 00:54:54.983 --> 00:54:58.613 The angels to strategically know things and not know things that 00:54:58.613 --> 00:55:00.203 Kelly knows and doesn't know. 00:55:00.783 --> 00:55:03.153 The angels seemed to plagiarize Agrippa at times. 00:55:03.603 --> 00:55:07.893 So when you get to reading them, and again, when I was 14 and 15 reading 00:55:07.893 --> 00:55:12.393 them, it was just bewildering because I had never, how good is my Latin? 00:55:12.393 --> 00:55:13.983 How much do I know about Cornelius Agrippa? 00:55:13.983 --> 00:55:15.603 How much do I know, really know about Alchemy? 00:55:16.233 --> 00:55:20.103 Now that I'm a bit older and, and a and a and I have read this 00:55:20.103 --> 00:55:21.513 material and I, you know, I know it. 00:55:21.873 --> 00:55:22.623 I'm like, hold on. 00:55:22.653 --> 00:55:25.473 The angels are making very conspicuous kinds of mistakes. 00:55:25.653 --> 00:55:26.043 Hmm. 00:55:26.253 --> 00:55:28.353 And they're the kind of mistakes that Kelly makes. 00:55:28.903 --> 00:55:31.333 And so again, am I gonna get into the business of saying 00:55:31.333 --> 00:55:32.653 they weren't talking to angels? 00:55:32.658 --> 00:55:33.703 Well, I can't say they weren't. 00:55:33.793 --> 00:55:37.153 'cause you can't prove a negative that's just philosophically not possible. 00:55:37.903 --> 00:55:42.193 But is it conspicuous that the Ian language doesn't have. 00:55:43.108 --> 00:55:47.458 Any non-English pH names, right? 00:55:47.488 --> 00:55:50.918 There are no glottal stops, you know, looking at the, the hunter gatherer 00:55:50.918 --> 00:55:54.738 in the background, there's no like, sounds like there's no clicks, right? 00:55:55.068 --> 00:55:57.858 And if, and if, if, you know, if I, if they were speaking a language and 00:55:57.858 --> 00:56:02.148 all of a sudden there was a sound that you hear only in Ulsa, that would 00:56:02.148 --> 00:56:06.708 be weird For an Englishman who had never been to, to the land of Bantu 00:56:06.708 --> 00:56:11.988 people to do that, or a glottal stop or a a, a voice pharyngeal fricative. 00:56:12.168 --> 00:56:14.718 Rupert Isaacson: W wouldn't, wouldn't somebody like Dee just say, oh, well, 00:56:14.718 --> 00:56:18.168 of course divine revelation comes, you know, in the form that the brain 00:56:18.168 --> 00:56:21.708 of the person, the mind of the person receiving it can best understand because 00:56:21.918 --> 00:56:23.418 God speaks all languages, blah, blah. 00:56:23.808 --> 00:56:24.468 Justin Sledge: Yeah, he could. 00:56:24.468 --> 00:56:25.938 I mean, then why just not do it in English? 00:56:25.968 --> 00:56:28.608 I mean, you know, when the Angel Gabriel tells the prophet Muhammad, 00:56:28.608 --> 00:56:31.818 I've given to you a ko, an Arabic Koran, so you can understand it. 00:56:31.848 --> 00:56:32.868 Well, that's pretty convenient. 00:56:32.928 --> 00:56:33.288 Fair enough. 00:56:33.288 --> 00:56:34.758 It been, it'd been, it'd been a thing. 00:56:34.758 --> 00:56:37.608 Well, if they'd have given him a Mayan Koran, that would've been impressive. 00:56:38.538 --> 00:56:39.048 You know? 00:56:39.108 --> 00:56:42.348 If, if, if, if Mohammed would've gotten the Quran and Mayan, I 00:56:42.348 --> 00:56:44.838 would convert to Islam immediately. 00:56:45.408 --> 00:56:45.618 Right. 00:56:45.658 --> 00:56:47.908 That would tell me something really weird had happened. 00:56:48.628 --> 00:56:50.468 But the Ian language you know, 00:56:50.568 --> 00:56:53.058 Rupert Isaacson: Okay, I, I've, that's something that confuses me. 00:56:53.058 --> 00:56:53.718 Why Enoch? 00:56:53.718 --> 00:56:55.788 And it's got nothing to do with the book of Enoch, right? 00:56:55.968 --> 00:56:59.168 Justin Sledge: So it, it does and it doesn't so to be clear, Dean Kelly 00:56:59.168 --> 00:57:02.678 and the Angels never call it Ocion, that's a modern thing that we call it. 00:57:02.748 --> 00:57:06.558 They always refer to it as the celestial speech or the Adam iCal speech. 00:57:07.278 --> 00:57:10.758 So the reason why it's associated with Enoch is because Enoch wrote it down 00:57:11.208 --> 00:57:14.508 and allegedly wrote it down in a series of tablets, and those tablets were 00:57:14.508 --> 00:57:17.438 preserved and ultimately destroyed. 00:57:17.438 --> 00:57:19.418 And then the angels reve it. 00:57:19.838 --> 00:57:22.868 And so the last time anyone had access to it was Enoch. 00:57:23.978 --> 00:57:25.448 And so that's why it gets called in Noian. 00:57:25.448 --> 00:57:26.828 And do the angels 00:57:26.828 --> 00:57:28.718 Rupert Isaacson: say this to Kelly and Dee? 00:57:28.808 --> 00:57:28.988 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 00:57:29.708 --> 00:57:30.098 I see. 00:57:30.098 --> 00:57:30.308 Yeah. 00:57:30.788 --> 00:57:35.528 And there, and there, there are, there are at least two Antiochian languages. 00:57:35.838 --> 00:57:42.468 In the text, there's the, the se there's a series of 49 by 49 grids that are 00:57:42.688 --> 00:57:45.358 filled with letters and numbers, which are said to be the kochia language. 00:57:45.358 --> 00:57:48.838 And then there's the system of calls, which are like Psalms. 00:57:49.288 --> 00:57:50.608 And those have glosses. 00:57:50.698 --> 00:57:53.548 And we, we, we have translations of those. 00:57:53.878 --> 00:57:57.498 And so we can know, we can see for instance, that the word earth in that 00:57:57.498 --> 00:58:04.498 text is Kas, C-H-A-O-S-G, which seems to be derivative of the Greek cows. 00:58:05.008 --> 00:58:05.788 But Okay. 00:58:05.938 --> 00:58:10.738 Rupert Isaacson: So let's, let's assume that people like these, these 00:58:10.768 --> 00:58:13.258 occultists were somewhere between. 00:58:14.593 --> 00:58:16.843 Credulous of their own experiences. 00:58:16.963 --> 00:58:21.043 Somewhere between altered state subconsciousness, somewhere between 00:58:21.253 --> 00:58:25.063 true seekers after truth, somewhere between con men when it suited 00:58:25.063 --> 00:58:28.423 them, and various points in between. 00:58:28.423 --> 00:58:35.953 And sort of created a, a cannon, if you like, of AOC cult philosophy that 00:58:36.675 --> 00:58:41.595 the Enoch thing talking about Mytho mythologies and canons of mythologies. 00:58:41.925 --> 00:58:43.515 So Enoch, the Book of Enoch. 00:58:43.515 --> 00:58:47.115 So again, for listeners that dunno about it, super interesting thing. 00:58:47.115 --> 00:58:47.505 Why? 00:58:47.805 --> 00:58:51.285 'cause it's a bloke going up to heaven and encountering 00:58:51.345 --> 00:58:52.965 effectively the celestial throne. 00:58:53.205 --> 00:58:56.025 And there's a bunch of, if I get this right, there's a bunch of 00:58:56.025 --> 00:59:00.825 angels or celestial beings arguing about whether we monkeys down here 00:59:01.005 --> 00:59:02.415 should be allowed to continue. 00:59:02.475 --> 00:59:04.245 And then there's, 'cause we're disruptive. 00:59:04.245 --> 00:59:09.105 And then there's a, a Satan, a Satan, not the Satan a judge, a prosecutor. 00:59:09.585 --> 00:59:10.815 So it seems to be what it means. 00:59:11.295 --> 00:59:14.655 And, but it seems that we get a reprieve somehow. 00:59:14.895 --> 00:59:20.535 And then Enoch comes back down and says, lads, you know, gotta pull our socks up. 00:59:20.865 --> 00:59:24.675 And then after he dies, he somehow he goes back up again and somehow 00:59:24.765 --> 00:59:26.895 becomes the angel Metatron later on. 00:59:29.295 --> 00:59:30.165 Mythologies. 00:59:30.375 --> 00:59:31.995 Now, as you know. 00:59:32.580 --> 00:59:34.470 I'm gonna use the Anki word. 00:59:35.160 --> 00:59:40.200 So one of, to my mind, one of the great fun mythologies that's come out of the 00:59:41.670 --> 00:59:46.860 more modern age is the whole ancient astronauts theory because it's enjoyable. 00:59:47.440 --> 00:59:54.910 And it also ties in with the ancient Sumerian old, older stuff that we know 00:59:54.910 --> 00:59:58.710 of written downy stuff saying, you know, we had these kings who lived 00:59:58.710 --> 01:00:02.610 for, you know, way, way longer than anyone possibly could because they 01:00:02.610 --> 01:00:03.720 sort of came from somewhere there. 01:00:03.720 --> 01:00:06.390 And that these gods actually were among us because they were 01:00:06.390 --> 01:00:07.380 actually from somewhere else. 01:00:07.380 --> 01:00:12.150 And they came down and they made us so that, you know, we could in various ways. 01:00:12.420 --> 01:00:16.860 And then you, later on you have someone like Zacharia Sitin coming along as, 01:00:17.880 --> 01:00:23.830 as Ajani or Armenian can't remember but saying, okay, I have translated 01:00:23.830 --> 01:00:26.500 these ancient Kune form things. 01:00:26.500 --> 01:00:31.480 And they say that, yes, this happened, and actually these old Gods Anky 01:00:31.480 --> 01:00:34.570 and lil and all of these things from Mesopotamia, these are actually aliens. 01:00:34.570 --> 01:00:36.970 And then they become mythologized later on. 01:00:36.970 --> 01:00:42.700 They bugger off somewhere around a thousand BC or so because they're, somehow 01:00:42.700 --> 01:00:46.810 the work here is done, but they leave us with a memory and we keep it going 01:00:46.810 --> 01:00:48.910 through the deities and blah, blah, blah. 01:00:48.910 --> 01:00:50.980 Well, maybe they're still around or maybe there's lizard people, 01:00:50.980 --> 01:00:51.880 or maybe there's, or maybe that. 01:00:53.380 --> 01:00:56.290 I'm always interested in this because people get very, have 01:00:56.500 --> 01:00:57.880 big emotional reactions to this. 01:00:57.880 --> 01:01:01.420 Like they either seem to go for full on credulity. 01:01:01.720 --> 01:01:02.080 Yes. 01:01:02.080 --> 01:01:03.100 It's ancient aliens. 01:01:03.400 --> 01:01:05.860 And part of me goes, well, honestly, why not? 01:01:05.920 --> 01:01:11.200 You know, if you've got an Atlantis and Lumia, but you've got Plato 01:01:11.200 --> 01:01:13.390 saying, yeah, there's this thing, there's this Atlantis thing. 01:01:13.390 --> 01:01:14.110 Is it allegory? 01:01:14.110 --> 01:01:15.640 I don't know, but they're talking about it. 01:01:16.480 --> 01:01:18.940 Or you know, it's the, the other way. 01:01:18.940 --> 01:01:20.560 No, you know, absolutely not. 01:01:20.620 --> 01:01:21.340 Blah, blah, blah. 01:01:21.340 --> 01:01:25.150 And the timeline is as we know it, and then they find places like 01:01:25.180 --> 01:01:30.460 Gobekli Tepi in Anatolia, which seems to be earlier than Sumeria, maybe. 01:01:30.460 --> 01:01:30.970 I don't know. 01:01:31.340 --> 01:01:32.415 People, people argue about it. 01:01:32.415 --> 01:01:34.095 People will continue to argue about it. 01:01:34.095 --> 01:01:34.335 Right. 01:01:34.665 --> 01:01:38.115 But isn't it in those arguments, in those mythologies that the fund lies 01:01:38.475 --> 01:01:40.185 or what do you think of all that? 01:01:41.595 --> 01:01:43.395 Justin Sledge: I don't know that, I don't know that the arguing about the 01:01:43.395 --> 01:01:44.985 ancient Illian stuff to me is very fun. 01:01:44.985 --> 01:01:50.115 I think it's a very I mean, it would be, it would be fun if, like 01:01:50.115 --> 01:01:53.865 Zacharia Chen's translations of these texts were at all reliable. 01:01:54.135 --> 01:01:54.165 Mm. 01:01:54.165 --> 01:01:55.095 And they're just not. 01:01:56.205 --> 01:02:02.235 So, I, I'm, I'm all about having academic fun when we're actually, you know, when 01:02:02.235 --> 01:02:03.675 we're all playing by the same rules. 01:02:03.705 --> 01:02:07.305 And if the rules are, I get to make up stuff and, and call it translations, 01:02:07.305 --> 01:02:10.605 and then we're not playing by the same rules anymore in the same way that, 01:02:10.665 --> 01:02:13.845 you know you can take the net down, but you can't call that tennis anymore. 01:02:14.283 --> 01:02:15.093 But you're doing something. 01:02:15.093 --> 01:02:17.343 And it might be fun, but it's not tennis. 01:02:18.063 --> 01:02:22.203 And so when the ancient alien folks want to take the net down, 01:02:22.263 --> 01:02:24.753 then I can just say, well, we're not playing the same game anymore. 01:02:25.293 --> 01:02:25.323 Mm. 01:02:25.563 --> 01:02:28.803 Justin Sledge: And therefore, to me it's not, it's not a fun conversation. 01:02:29.043 --> 01:02:32.188 Rupert Isaacson: But if we're, if we're looking at mythologies, what 01:02:32.283 --> 01:02:38.643 makes one mythology okay to look at and discuss, and another one not, 01:02:39.273 --> 01:02:41.853 Justin Sledge: I would say that they don't think that what 01:02:41.853 --> 01:02:42.993 they're doing is a mythology. 01:02:43.023 --> 01:02:44.853 They think that what they're doing is actually telling the 01:02:44.853 --> 01:02:45.903 history of, but I would say that, 01:02:46.323 --> 01:02:48.363 Rupert Isaacson: but that's not limited to the ancient alien people. 01:02:48.363 --> 01:02:48.513 Right. 01:02:48.513 --> 01:02:52.593 I mean, there's lots of people who believe mythologies that are questionable. 01:02:52.593 --> 01:02:52.863 Right, 01:02:53.133 --> 01:02:53.553 Justin Sledge: right, right. 01:02:53.553 --> 01:02:56.613 In the same way that I would, you know, if someone, if a Jewish person came to 01:02:56.613 --> 01:03:00.453 me and says, you have to believe that Moses went up on a mountain and got rules, 01:03:00.543 --> 01:03:05.973 literally that actually happened, I would say it's fun to play Dungeons and Dragons. 01:03:05.973 --> 01:03:07.413 It's another thing to think you're an elf. 01:03:09.663 --> 01:03:10.473 Can't I be an elf? 01:03:11.793 --> 01:03:14.943 You can think you are one and you, you can coplay and you can dress up as an elf. 01:03:14.973 --> 01:03:15.243 Exactly. 01:03:15.243 --> 01:03:17.673 But the moment you think that you really are an elf, you've crossed 01:03:17.673 --> 01:03:19.383 over into some kind of psychosis. 01:03:19.923 --> 01:03:20.403 Rupert Isaacson: Well, sure. 01:03:21.063 --> 01:03:22.533 Or state of consciousness. 01:03:22.533 --> 01:03:24.238 I mean, it's a fine line between, right, right. 01:03:24.813 --> 01:03:26.553 Justin Sledge: Well, I think that an state of consciousness 01:03:26.613 --> 01:03:28.563 is, is not a belief system. 01:03:28.593 --> 01:03:33.853 I think it's when you, when you, when you concretize, beliefs that are 01:03:33.853 --> 01:03:38.953 derivative of bad data and zacharia is a great example of just bad data. 01:03:39.583 --> 01:03:43.423 Then the, that becomes you're believing in, in, in a state of affairs that's 01:03:43.423 --> 01:03:46.693 contrary to what we know about what those uniform tablets actually say. 01:03:47.293 --> 01:03:47.923 And 01:03:48.023 --> 01:03:51.773 Rupert Isaacson: what do Thefor tablets actually say about 01:03:52.493 --> 01:03:52.733 Justin Sledge: Donna 01:03:53.453 --> 01:03:53.873 Rupert Isaacson: and stuff? 01:03:54.713 --> 01:03:56.873 Justin Sledge: Nothing that's not, but they do, 01:03:56.873 --> 01:04:00.773 Rupert Isaacson: do they, do they not say there was on the king list, for 01:04:00.773 --> 01:04:04.913 example, do they not say there were these chaps who lived impossibly long lives 01:04:05.183 --> 01:04:05.363 Yeah. 01:04:05.453 --> 01:04:06.803 Rupert Isaacson: In the mythological sort of way. 01:04:07.073 --> 01:04:10.673 And it was this king, this king, this king starts with sort of almost 01:04:10.673 --> 01:04:12.173 tens of thousands of years and then 01:04:12.323 --> 01:04:12.473 Right. 01:04:12.533 --> 01:04:14.123 Rupert Isaacson: Whittles down to thousands of years and whittles 01:04:14.123 --> 01:04:14.783 down to hundreds of years. 01:04:14.783 --> 01:04:20.813 And then there's us lot, you know, living normal lifespans. 01:04:21.113 --> 01:04:21.503 Mm-hmm. 01:04:21.693 --> 01:04:26.403 And is there not, is there not some stuff in the K form script saying 01:04:26.703 --> 01:04:30.633 we got knowledge from the gods or 01:04:31.083 --> 01:04:31.443 Justin Sledge: there at all? 01:04:31.473 --> 01:04:31.833 Right. 01:04:31.833 --> 01:04:32.013 Right. 01:04:32.013 --> 01:04:35.853 It's there in the sense that, you know, in lil and you know, the, that 01:04:35.883 --> 01:04:38.493 these other gods EA and stuff, they communicate with people, but that's 01:04:38.493 --> 01:04:42.663 just true of most religion, that the gods show up and teach people stuff. 01:04:42.793 --> 01:04:43.063 But this 01:04:43.063 --> 01:04:44.653 Rupert Isaacson: is the earliest religion that we know of. 01:04:44.653 --> 01:04:45.043 Right. 01:04:45.463 --> 01:04:48.313 Justin Sledge: I don't know if it's the early, it's the earliest written text 01:04:48.313 --> 01:04:49.994 of a religious religion that we know of. 01:04:49.999 --> 01:04:50.018 Right. 01:04:50.053 --> 01:04:51.043 It's, but I would say 01:04:51.163 --> 01:04:52.903 Rupert Isaacson: it's canon that we have access to. 01:04:52.908 --> 01:04:53.018 Right. 01:04:53.018 --> 01:04:53.383 Justin Sledge: You're right. 01:04:53.383 --> 01:04:56.563 But I would say that Goble, Tepi and Chat Holyoke are. 01:04:57.118 --> 01:04:57.988 They had religions. 01:04:57.988 --> 01:04:58.588 We don't know. 01:04:58.708 --> 01:05:00.718 It's hard to interpret what those sites mean. 01:05:00.838 --> 01:05:02.638 'cause they didn't, they didn't write things down. 01:05:03.148 --> 01:05:03.238 Sure. 01:05:03.298 --> 01:05:07.738 But mean Africans were having religious beliefs for 200,000 years prior to that. 01:05:07.888 --> 01:05:08.278 Indeed. 01:05:08.358 --> 01:05:10.848 You know, the, whatever the, whatever the strange animals they were 01:05:10.848 --> 01:05:12.828 painting in the caves of Las Co. 01:05:13.308 --> 01:05:15.708 Fairly confident that something like religion. 01:05:16.288 --> 01:05:17.728 So I would say it would be very slow. 01:05:17.758 --> 01:05:22.258 I mean, the Sumerians are the first people to write down things, but even the 01:05:22.258 --> 01:05:23.728 Sumerians don't agree with each other. 01:05:23.758 --> 01:05:25.258 Like from city, state to city state. 01:05:25.258 --> 01:05:30.388 They have disagreements about, about which gods are really the best gods and which 01:05:30.388 --> 01:05:35.968 ones are why the world got flooded or so if you even look at the, the Sumerian 01:05:35.968 --> 01:05:38.068 literature, we're not getting one story. 01:05:38.488 --> 01:05:38.668 Yeah. 01:05:38.698 --> 01:05:45.268 We're getting rival city states and their stories about why, you know, you know, why 01:05:45.268 --> 01:05:46.828 this happened as opposed to that happened. 01:05:47.198 --> 01:05:53.598 And because there's no, unlike in Egypt, there's no hegemon binding the city states 01:05:53.598 --> 01:05:57.258 of ancient Sumeria together until you get to Sargon and Sargon iss not Sumerian. 01:05:57.918 --> 01:05:58.728 He's Acadian. 01:05:59.418 --> 01:06:01.128 And so, what's the difference? 01:06:01.848 --> 01:06:04.248 The Sumerians were, because they're all people living in 01:06:04.248 --> 01:06:05.148 Rupert Isaacson: the same area, right? 01:06:05.148 --> 01:06:05.478 More or less. 01:06:05.478 --> 01:06:05.628 They're 01:06:05.628 --> 01:06:07.698 Justin Sledge: living in, they're living in somewhat the same area. 01:06:07.698 --> 01:06:10.068 The Sumerians are primarily living in Southern Mesopotamia. 01:06:10.468 --> 01:06:11.638 We don't know where they came from. 01:06:11.638 --> 01:06:14.098 They're very, they mean they're admittedly mysterious and their 01:06:14.098 --> 01:06:16.498 language isn't related to any other languages that we know of. 01:06:16.988 --> 01:06:18.698 The Acadians aliens, sorry. 01:06:20.528 --> 01:06:23.718 I mean, I mean that's, if you know that it could be, I mean, there's, but there's 01:06:23.718 --> 01:06:25.278 lots of languages, like their languages. 01:06:25.278 --> 01:06:25.308 Oh. 01:06:25.338 --> 01:06:29.548 You know, we have Basque and caucuses languages that are similar structurally 01:06:30.038 --> 01:06:33.158 to, to Sumerian and, and their tivity and, and stuff like that. 01:06:33.488 --> 01:06:33.548 Okay. 01:06:33.618 --> 01:06:35.118 Being a glu of languages and stuff. 01:06:35.198 --> 01:06:35.708 But, but okay. 01:06:35.708 --> 01:06:39.488 Rupert Isaacson: You, you've got these different people living in this area 01:06:39.488 --> 01:06:43.238 between these two rivers, not, you know, Tigris and Euphrates Right. 01:06:43.238 --> 01:06:47.438 Over some thousands of years making these city states and we don't know of anything 01:06:47.438 --> 01:06:49.178 before them that was that organized. 01:06:49.178 --> 01:06:49.478 Right. 01:06:51.248 --> 01:06:52.898 Justin Sledge: Well, we don't know of anything organized 01:06:52.898 --> 01:06:54.648 in terms of living in cities. 01:06:54.978 --> 01:06:55.308 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 01:06:55.308 --> 01:06:59.628 And it, writing stuff down that we can recover and translate 01:06:59.868 --> 01:07:00.408 Justin Sledge: and read. 01:07:00.408 --> 01:07:00.918 I mean, yeah. 01:07:00.918 --> 01:07:03.288 We can't, we can't read the industry River valley script. 01:07:03.438 --> 01:07:07.068 And we can't, it doesn't seem like the people at Goble Tepi and Chateau 01:07:07.068 --> 01:07:09.468 Holyoke in those sites in Turkey wrote. 01:07:09.888 --> 01:07:13.428 And, and also we know why writing emerged in Sumer and 01:07:13.428 --> 01:07:14.568 the places that it did emerge. 01:07:15.108 --> 01:07:17.748 It was because they needed it for bureaucratic reasons. 01:07:17.958 --> 01:07:18.408 Rupert Isaacson: They had. 01:07:18.798 --> 01:07:21.678 Why did, why did the other people not need it for bureaucratic reasons, do you think? 01:07:21.678 --> 01:07:25.098 Why, why do you think Gobekli Tappi people didn't need a bureaucracy? 01:07:25.123 --> 01:07:28.968 'cause they were doing massively organized building projects and things. 01:07:29.478 --> 01:07:31.428 Justin Sledge: Well, I mean, that site's not that big. 01:07:31.488 --> 01:07:34.158 If you look at, you know, you look at it, if you're, you go to it and 01:07:34.158 --> 01:07:37.518 look at it and measure it, it's, it's monumental, but it's not very big. 01:07:38.238 --> 01:07:41.178 And so, you know, they, that building project would've taken. 01:07:42.378 --> 01:07:45.978 Some degree of central planning and organization, but nothing 01:07:45.978 --> 01:07:48.408 on the register of, or yeah. 01:07:48.408 --> 01:07:53.028 Where you have irrigation and, you know, elaborate agriculture and trade. 01:07:53.568 --> 01:07:57.168 You know, so those are orders of magnitude in terms of, of difference. 01:07:57.378 --> 01:08:00.378 In fact, to me the most impressive thing about go about Goble Tepi is 01:08:00.378 --> 01:08:02.508 not the fact that they build it, but the fact that they buried it. 01:08:03.198 --> 01:08:07.038 Why in the world go through all the trouble to build that thing then to 01:08:07.038 --> 01:08:11.988 use it for a while, then to bury it burying It must have been just as in 01:08:11.988 --> 01:08:16.638 many ways, just as Herculean use of resources and calories and building it. 01:08:17.148 --> 01:08:19.758 That to me is the more interesting thing about Go Lucky Tepy. 01:08:20.328 --> 01:08:20.718 But there 01:08:20.718 --> 01:08:22.368 Rupert Isaacson: is Did they bury it or was it buried? 01:08:23.448 --> 01:08:25.728 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I don't think it was, I don't think it was buried on accident. 01:08:25.758 --> 01:08:28.888 I think that the, I think the data indicates that it was intentionally 01:08:29.228 --> 01:08:30.878 filled in, built, filled in. 01:08:30.988 --> 01:08:34.048 That's why it's so well preserved is because some, some people 01:08:34.048 --> 01:08:35.398 decide to fill in and that's weird. 01:08:35.908 --> 01:08:36.448 Can you just, 01:08:36.448 --> 01:08:38.233 Rupert Isaacson: for the people that dunno what Gobekli Tepi 01:08:38.238 --> 01:08:39.418 is, just give us a timeline. 01:08:39.418 --> 01:08:42.388 What's, what's go Beckley Tepi and why is it older and how much older 01:08:42.388 --> 01:08:43.828 is it than the Sumerian stuff? 01:08:43.888 --> 01:08:48.178 Justin Sledge: I think that the data on Go Tepi now is 10,000 BCE 12,000 BCE, 01:08:48.208 --> 01:08:48.448 Rupert Isaacson: right? 01:08:48.448 --> 01:08:49.288 I forget exactly on that. 01:08:49.288 --> 01:08:52.888 Basically it's as old behind Sumer as we are in front of it, more or less. 01:08:52.963 --> 01:08:53.023 Yeah. 01:08:53.293 --> 01:08:53.683 Yeah. 01:08:53.923 --> 01:08:54.223 And it's, 01:08:54.283 --> 01:08:57.763 Justin Sledge: it's, it's part of the, yeah, it seems to be part of the same 01:08:57.763 --> 01:09:02.773 culture that Chateau Holyoke and, and tho Jericho and those neolithic societies 01:09:02.833 --> 01:09:04.813 were part of some kind of trade systems. 01:09:05.383 --> 01:09:07.003 We don't know what go lucky Tempe was. 01:09:07.003 --> 01:09:10.003 It may have been a religious site, it may have been a site for trade. 01:09:10.003 --> 01:09:10.843 It may have been both. 01:09:10.843 --> 01:09:13.573 They may have come there for pilgrimages and then traded stuff like 01:09:13.573 --> 01:09:14.923 seeds and stuff, and then moved on. 01:09:15.343 --> 01:09:20.083 Agriculture, it seems like emerged in Anatolio through selective breeding of 01:09:20.083 --> 01:09:23.323 grass, and those grasses became grains. 01:09:23.423 --> 01:09:26.633 Rupert Isaacson: Did the grass domesticate us or did we domesticate the grass? 01:09:26.633 --> 01:09:27.533 That seems to be the, 01:09:28.133 --> 01:09:30.383 Justin Sledge: I mean, it seems like, I mean, at least in that area 01:09:30.793 --> 01:09:33.373 you know, that's where you get some primitive emmer and stuff like that. 01:09:33.373 --> 01:09:35.263 And so I think that it probably goes both ways. 01:09:35.263 --> 01:09:36.883 I think there's an accident that's involved. 01:09:36.983 --> 01:09:37.943 Also probably women did it. 01:09:38.003 --> 01:09:40.043 I mean, that's who's doing the gathering at that time. 01:09:40.043 --> 01:09:43.703 So I imagine that that breakthrough was pioneered by some lady 01:09:43.703 --> 01:09:47.273 scientist who's will be, whose name will be mysterious forever. 01:09:47.913 --> 01:09:52.113 She must have noticed, right, that the, this type of grass produces these 01:09:52.113 --> 01:09:57.093 type of seeds, and that if you plant these two together, they grow big and 01:09:57.093 --> 01:09:58.473 you have to manually knock them off. 01:09:58.473 --> 01:09:59.973 The, the wind doesn't knock them off. 01:10:00.463 --> 01:10:01.843 You have to manually knock them off. 01:10:01.843 --> 01:10:05.443 But they do fall off just by shaking them, and they kept breeding and breeding and 01:10:05.443 --> 01:10:07.153 breeding until eventually they get Yeah. 01:10:07.153 --> 01:10:07.963 Things like hammer. 01:10:08.653 --> 01:10:11.743 Rupert Isaacson: So, okay, let's, so Gobekli Tepi older 01:10:11.743 --> 01:10:14.743 than Sumera gets buried now. 01:10:15.353 --> 01:10:16.523 Let's go back to some myths. 01:10:16.573 --> 01:10:17.293 Flood myths. 01:10:17.443 --> 01:10:19.303 So we know everyone's got one. 01:10:19.793 --> 01:10:22.973 And they seem to pop up all in every corner of the planet, more or less. 01:10:23.493 --> 01:10:24.363 What's going on there? 01:10:24.513 --> 01:10:27.453 And do you believe in the younger dryers stuff? 01:10:27.483 --> 01:10:30.843 And again, for the listeners, I just give them a quick background. 01:10:30.873 --> 01:10:31.083 Yeah. 01:10:31.173 --> 01:10:35.403 Younger dryers being the last ice age, some people believed that there was some 01:10:36.483 --> 01:10:45.153 environmental cataclysm perhaps induced by stuff going on around our planet in 01:10:45.153 --> 01:10:50.613 one form or another that caused a big flood, big melting of ice caps and so on. 01:10:50.613 --> 01:10:54.273 And, but what we do know is there was some sort of flood and everyone 01:10:54.273 --> 01:10:59.223 seems to talk about it and it seems to affect everybody's worldview. 01:11:00.153 --> 01:11:01.743 What's going on with that do you think? 01:11:03.033 --> 01:11:05.313 Justin Sledge: I mean, I'm not, so I have to be, be careful. 01:11:05.313 --> 01:11:07.383 I'm not sure that every culture has a flood story. 01:11:07.413 --> 01:11:08.313 I mean, let's just 01:11:08.313 --> 01:11:09.033 Rupert Isaacson: say a lot of them do. 01:11:09.063 --> 01:11:09.843 Justin Sledge: Yeah, some do. 01:11:09.903 --> 01:11:12.423 And I, I can say that, I mean, I don't know if the ancient Chinese had 01:11:12.423 --> 01:11:15.543 a flood story or, you know, I think there are Chinese flood stories. 01:11:15.543 --> 01:11:16.024 Yeah, yeah, 01:11:16.203 --> 01:11:16.413 yeah. 01:11:16.473 --> 01:11:17.073 Justin Sledge: That I don't know. 01:11:17.073 --> 01:11:19.323 I mean, not being an expert in those mythologies, so I have to 01:11:19.323 --> 01:11:22.553 see, I'd be careful to say that the like the ancient Egyptians, I'm not 01:11:22.553 --> 01:11:24.413 sure had a, an a, a flood story. 01:11:24.633 --> 01:11:27.723 But I think the reason why the Mesopotamians had a flood story 01:11:28.023 --> 01:11:31.113 is because they had floods and they had very cataclysmic floods. 01:11:31.623 --> 01:11:34.113 If you compare the flooding of the Nile to the flooding of the tigers 01:11:34.143 --> 01:11:36.663 and the Euphrates, the flooding of the Nile was very predictable. 01:11:37.173 --> 01:11:41.023 And, in fact, some anthropologists even linked to the relatively positive 01:11:41.023 --> 01:11:44.233 outlook of the Egyptians both on the afterlife and on this life to 01:11:44.233 --> 01:11:48.623 the relatively stable society that you had in ancient Egypt where the 01:11:48.623 --> 01:11:50.573 floods came, they were predictable. 01:11:50.573 --> 01:11:51.953 It was hard to invade Egypt. 01:11:51.958 --> 01:11:52.158 Mm-hmm. 01:11:52.443 --> 01:11:54.903 That they had relatively, you know, not to say it didn't get invaded. 01:11:54.903 --> 01:11:55.563 It did get invaded. 01:11:55.563 --> 01:11:59.403 The hick invaded it and stuff, but even when they invaded, it didn't cause 01:11:59.463 --> 01:12:01.533 a huge amount of social disruption. 01:12:02.133 --> 01:12:06.323 And that's unlike Mesopotamia, which was the Nile, the Euphrates 01:12:06.323 --> 01:12:09.863 and the Tigris flood randomly, they flood catastrophically. 01:12:10.343 --> 01:12:12.023 Their cities are not built out of stone. 01:12:12.023 --> 01:12:13.163 They're built out of mud brick. 01:12:13.583 --> 01:12:16.943 And when the tigers and your Freddy flooded, it destroyed whole cities. 01:12:16.943 --> 01:12:19.313 I mean, you could wipe an entire city out in a day. 01:12:19.673 --> 01:12:19.913 Mm. 01:12:20.023 --> 01:12:22.093 And it, I mean, literally wipe them off the face of the earth. 01:12:22.093 --> 01:12:25.553 I mean, you take mud brick structures like a zig garrot and you have 01:12:25.553 --> 01:12:27.143 a category aro type of pyramid. 01:12:27.143 --> 01:12:27.353 Right. 01:12:27.383 --> 01:12:28.193 Kind of, kind of pyramid. 01:12:28.223 --> 01:12:28.343 Yeah. 01:12:28.343 --> 01:12:30.663 Step pyramid that's built a mud brick. 01:12:30.873 --> 01:12:33.663 That's nothing compared to, you know, a flood. 01:12:34.203 --> 01:12:37.113 And if you look at the literature of the Sumerians and the, the 01:12:37.113 --> 01:12:41.453 Acadians it's extremely pessimistic, very pessimistic literature. 01:12:41.453 --> 01:12:44.603 They have a very dower point of, you know, Dow or outlook on life. 01:12:45.233 --> 01:12:49.883 And I would say that the, the flood myth develops because they dealt 01:12:49.883 --> 01:12:52.823 with floods and they dealt with floods that ended their world. 01:12:53.193 --> 01:12:57.493 That is to say they had cities that were just wiped out and the, this became sort 01:12:57.493 --> 01:13:00.593 of a an archetypal story that they told. 01:13:01.433 --> 01:13:05.253 And when the Hebrew Bible, the writers of the Hebrew Bible they tended to 01:13:05.253 --> 01:13:10.443 look much more toward the mesopotamians for their cultic information, 01:13:10.743 --> 01:13:13.683 mostly because they were under the imperial thumb of those people. 01:13:14.253 --> 01:13:15.783 And they tended to copy them. 01:13:15.783 --> 01:13:19.523 And I think that's where we get the, the Noah story being copied. 01:13:20.043 --> 01:13:23.373 Not word for word by no means, but, you know, there's certainly enough 01:13:23.373 --> 01:13:28.933 similarities between the utna num AK story that we get in the Mesopotamia 01:13:28.933 --> 01:13:31.303 mythology to the, to the Noah story. 01:13:31.783 --> 01:13:34.633 But even the Noah story doesn't internally make sense. 01:13:35.143 --> 01:13:39.653 For instance, when, when God tells Noah to go put the animals on the ark one story 01:13:39.653 --> 01:13:43.553 has clearly you should take seven of the clean animals and two of the unclean. 01:13:44.193 --> 01:13:46.353 Well, how does Noah even know which ones are clean and unclean? 01:13:46.353 --> 01:13:50.913 That's not been disclosed since, that won't be disclosed until no Moses' day. 01:13:51.543 --> 01:13:54.303 And then a few lines later it says, oh, take two of every kind. 01:13:54.303 --> 01:13:58.873 And that's what we see in all the pictures of Noah's Ark is two of every kind. 01:13:58.903 --> 01:14:01.723 But the text seems to have two different versions of the story sitting side by 01:14:01.723 --> 01:14:06.443 side where there clearly was a, some version of it where Moses was gonna 01:14:06.443 --> 01:14:07.553 take a lot more animals with him. 01:14:08.273 --> 01:14:13.583 So, so yeah, I'm, I'm reticent to say that it is a, a worldwide. 01:14:14.423 --> 01:14:15.803 Ubiquitous flood story. 01:14:16.013 --> 01:14:20.943 I think there is a, there are mesopotamian flood stories of which 01:14:20.973 --> 01:14:23.913 some variant of that flood story does end up in the Hebrew Bible. 01:14:24.363 --> 01:14:24.753 Rupert Isaacson: Right? 01:14:25.263 --> 01:14:28.353 I mean, there are definitely flood stories, mythologically, 01:14:30.183 --> 01:14:35.493 far East, central America, Africa, that they definitely exist. 01:14:35.853 --> 01:14:36.093 Yeah. 01:14:36.753 --> 01:14:38.313 Rupert Isaacson: You know, these are open questions that are 01:14:38.313 --> 01:14:40.683 just, I think, fun to discuss. 01:14:41.073 --> 01:14:41.313 Right. 01:14:41.823 --> 01:14:44.553 Justin Sledge: And without me knowing more about those flood stories, it's hard for 01:14:44.553 --> 01:14:45.868 Rupert Isaacson: me to, to weigh in. 01:14:45.868 --> 01:14:48.783 I think your point about the flooding of the rivers is, is, is a very good one. 01:14:49.233 --> 01:14:51.573 Okay, so let's go to another myth, Atlantis. 01:14:51.573 --> 01:14:58.283 So you've got Plato saying, my ancestor Solon went to Egypt, and some lads 01:14:58.283 --> 01:15:03.053 there in a temple said, listen here, Solon, there was this thing called 01:15:03.053 --> 01:15:05.473 Atlantis and it was this and it was that. 01:15:06.223 --> 01:15:09.073 And then it disappeared in a great cataclysm. 01:15:09.403 --> 01:15:13.843 And then Plato, of course, you know, bequeaths the myth to us. 01:15:14.603 --> 01:15:17.393 And it goes on and becomes all the things that it's become. 01:15:18.833 --> 01:15:19.343 Justin Sledge: What are your thoughts? 01:15:19.348 --> 01:15:22.913 Mostly, mostly because of a, a confederate ex Confederate soldier. 01:15:23.093 --> 01:15:23.483 Oh. 01:15:23.483 --> 01:15:23.753 Do tell. 01:15:24.488 --> 01:15:26.558 Yeah, it's William Donnelly, I think was his name. 01:15:26.678 --> 01:15:27.098 Okay. 01:15:27.408 --> 01:15:29.208 It, it's Don, I think, I think it was Donnelly. 01:15:29.208 --> 01:15:33.088 Donnelly was a ex confederate soldier who wrote the first book that really 01:15:33.088 --> 01:15:36.268 popularized the idea that Atlantis might be a real place before that, 01:15:36.268 --> 01:15:37.798 I don't think anyone believed that. 01:15:37.828 --> 01:15:40.828 I don't think that, or I don't know of any data to indicate that people thought 01:15:40.828 --> 01:15:42.178 it was anything other than a myth. 01:15:42.718 --> 01:15:45.958 Because Plato often will put myths at the end of his dialogues. 01:15:46.078 --> 01:15:46.168 Sure. 01:15:46.628 --> 01:15:48.908 Like the myth of ER and other myths at the end of the republic. 01:15:48.908 --> 01:15:52.448 The myth of Atlantis, I think occurs at the end of the tus. 01:15:53.078 --> 01:15:54.758 I can't remember Crito one of them, but, but 01:15:54.758 --> 01:15:55.478 Rupert Isaacson: it's tricky, isn't it? 01:15:55.478 --> 01:15:57.638 Because he talks about an actual ancestor of his own. 01:15:58.388 --> 01:15:58.688 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:15:58.688 --> 01:15:59.048 I mean, 01:15:59.228 --> 01:15:59.408 Rupert Isaacson: in 01:15:59.408 --> 01:16:00.008 Justin Sledge: the way that, 01:16:00.038 --> 01:16:01.658 Rupert Isaacson: that's also the name of a real place. 01:16:01.658 --> 01:16:03.848 So what's going on with that, with that? 01:16:04.373 --> 01:16:06.803 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I mean it's, you know, I think that it's creative, 01:16:06.833 --> 01:16:08.003 you know, historical fiction, right? 01:16:08.003 --> 01:16:11.213 He tells the story of Solon going to Heliopolis and learning all this stuff. 01:16:11.683 --> 01:16:15.163 You know, the, the, the, the question for me when it comes to, and then 01:16:15.163 --> 01:16:18.523 of course we have the new age Atlan stuff that kicks up with Edward Casey. 01:16:19.043 --> 01:16:22.203 So, where he thinks that it's by the Isle of Bimini. 01:16:22.203 --> 01:16:24.393 And then people find the called BI and Tell, tell, tell us 01:16:24.393 --> 01:16:24.543 Rupert Isaacson: this. 01:16:24.843 --> 01:16:26.973 They not everyone's gonna know who Edward ca Edmond. 01:16:26.973 --> 01:16:27.033 So, 01:16:27.033 --> 01:16:29.163 Justin Sledge: Edward Casey was a trance medium. 01:16:29.213 --> 01:16:31.073 Who went to, he was called the sleeping Prophet. 01:16:31.073 --> 01:16:32.993 He would go into Ultras of consciousness and 01:16:33.383 --> 01:16:34.943 Rupert Isaacson: 1920s or so, right? 01:16:35.003 --> 01:16:35.663 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I think so. 01:16:35.663 --> 01:16:36.593 Early 20th century. 01:16:36.593 --> 01:16:36.893 Yeah. 01:16:36.893 --> 01:16:39.773 And he would reveal all kinds of, everything from medical 01:16:39.773 --> 01:16:42.303 treatments to mythological history. 01:16:42.303 --> 01:16:45.588 And Atlantis played a big role in, in his and he was the 01:16:45.588 --> 01:16:47.388 Rupert Isaacson: guy who said he was tapping into something 01:16:47.388 --> 01:16:48.738 called the Akashic Record. 01:16:48.948 --> 01:16:49.728 I think so. 01:16:49.728 --> 01:16:52.558 Justin Sledge: Or, and this is a relationship to Blavatsky and 01:16:52.558 --> 01:16:54.238 Theosophy and, and stuff like this. 01:16:54.598 --> 01:16:54.748 Yeah. 01:16:54.828 --> 01:17:01.278 I think that the Atlantis story is, so for me, the question is historically, 01:17:01.278 --> 01:17:04.008 when did people begin to believe that it was a potentially real place? 01:17:04.008 --> 01:17:06.288 And I think that that's Dateable to Connolly. 01:17:06.828 --> 01:17:07.008 So after 01:17:07.008 --> 01:17:07.878 Rupert Isaacson: the American Civil War? 01:17:08.118 --> 01:17:08.358 Justin Sledge: Yep. 01:17:08.628 --> 01:17:08.898 Yep. 01:17:09.018 --> 01:17:13.418 I don't think that prior to that people thought that it was a, a real place. 01:17:13.418 --> 01:17:16.538 You sometimes have maps that people sort of guess that it may have been over there. 01:17:16.538 --> 01:17:18.968 They'll, they'll be land masses, they think were atlan or so, whatever. 01:17:19.628 --> 01:17:22.118 But I think that part of the reason why that story, people like 01:17:22.118 --> 01:17:25.898 that story is it's, it's about imperial arrogance being punished. 01:17:26.498 --> 01:17:29.408 And I think we like to see bullies get their comeuppance. 01:17:29.468 --> 01:17:33.368 And Atlantis was a bully, which is a really interesting story because we 01:17:33.368 --> 01:17:37.088 now tell it as if, and again, there's lots of variants of it in the New age 01:17:37.088 --> 01:17:39.668 movement and other kinds of things where they think of it as sort of a 01:17:39.668 --> 01:17:43.718 utopia that seeded all the world's knowledge and, and this kind of stuff. 01:17:43.718 --> 01:17:48.518 But it's pretty clearly a bully country in, in the original telling. 01:17:48.548 --> 01:17:52.568 And they were just mean and arrogant, and the gods destroyed them for good reason. 01:17:52.748 --> 01:17:53.018 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 01:17:53.178 --> 01:17:53.203 Justin Sledge: I just 01:17:54.018 --> 01:17:54.438 Rupert Isaacson: basically, 01:17:54.888 --> 01:17:58.248 Justin Sledge: yeah, they, they mean, I mean, I, I, but I like the fact that the, 01:17:58.308 --> 01:18:04.608 this story, this mythology has changed that it goes from, this is a story, this 01:18:04.608 --> 01:18:09.408 is a cautionary tale of, you know, again, Plato's writing to Athenians who are 01:18:09.408 --> 01:18:16.818 themselves known at that time for having just lost, you know, a a, you know, just 01:18:16.878 --> 01:18:21.888 the Peloponnesian War in which their heroic navy did not ultimately save them. 01:18:21.888 --> 01:18:25.578 And they were under the rule of the, the, the tyranny of the 30 and 01:18:25.578 --> 01:18:28.638 all of the stuff that, like this is a moment of, of their own fall. 01:18:28.998 --> 01:18:30.498 And they had just murdered Socrates. 01:18:30.498 --> 01:18:33.018 And, and, and Playdoh really wants to rub their nose in it. 01:18:33.258 --> 01:18:33.468 Right. 01:18:33.468 --> 01:18:34.368 And he tells a myth 01:18:34.608 --> 01:18:35.958 Rupert Isaacson: the opinions are perfectly capable of being 01:18:35.958 --> 01:18:37.218 bullies themselves as we know. 01:18:37.278 --> 01:18:37.338 Yeah. 01:18:37.338 --> 01:18:37.458 They 01:18:37.458 --> 01:18:38.868 Justin Sledge: were, I mean, the deal thing about what they did to 01:18:38.868 --> 01:18:40.698 the, the, the Deion League Yeah. 01:18:40.698 --> 01:18:42.168 Has massacred those people. 01:18:42.168 --> 01:18:42.228 Yeah. 01:18:43.053 --> 01:18:45.333 And, and they were bullies. 01:18:45.453 --> 01:18:47.913 I mean, they, you know, they, they were bullies to, to in 01:18:47.913 --> 01:18:49.203 the, in the Peloponnesian War. 01:18:49.203 --> 01:18:52.653 They, they went to neutral parties and told them, we're gonna murder 01:18:52.653 --> 01:18:54.213 you all if you don't side with us. 01:18:54.213 --> 01:18:55.683 And gladly did it when they didn't. 01:18:56.403 --> 01:19:00.303 And I think Plato's rubbing the Athenians nose and the fact 01:19:00.303 --> 01:19:01.623 that they, they were bullies. 01:19:01.623 --> 01:19:05.553 They just got handed, they just got a black eye by the, the Spartans. 01:19:05.973 --> 01:19:07.803 They'd just been ruled by the tyranny of the 30. 01:19:08.373 --> 01:19:10.443 And when they finally did get some freedom, the first thing 01:19:10.443 --> 01:19:11.673 they do is kill Socrates. 01:19:12.633 --> 01:19:17.763 And the, and you know, the Republic and other kinds of texts are, I 01:19:17.763 --> 01:19:22.083 think part of what they're doing is Plato's rubbing the Athenians nose and 01:19:22.083 --> 01:19:27.363 that, and I think Atlantis is meant to be, this is what you get, right? 01:19:27.363 --> 01:19:27.768 It's an all 01:19:28.713 --> 01:19:31.083 Rupert Isaacson: right for them gonna get your US handed to you if you 01:19:32.013 --> 01:19:32.283 Justin Sledge: Right. 01:19:32.403 --> 01:19:35.163 And what to me is interesting is how that mythology has changed. 01:19:35.403 --> 01:19:40.293 It went from what I think of as social criticism, thinly veiled, frankly 01:19:40.293 --> 01:19:45.423 social criticism of by Plato to this is where all the white people came from. 01:19:45.423 --> 01:19:48.003 And they like made all of the great civilizations. 01:19:48.003 --> 01:19:50.253 And it becomes this sort of like neo-Nazi. 01:19:50.908 --> 01:19:55.658 Mythology that you see in, you know, some ridiculous YouTubers videos and stuff. 01:19:56.438 --> 01:20:00.788 So to me that's just, it, it, it's, to me, what's most interesting about Atlantis is 01:20:00.788 --> 01:20:04.328 not whether there really was a historical Atlantis that, that I think the data for, 01:20:04.328 --> 01:20:08.918 that's pretty clear that there wasn't like islands that size just don't sink. 01:20:08.918 --> 01:20:10.328 That's not what islands do. 01:20:10.418 --> 01:20:12.038 Like, well, there's the thing, islands aren't 01:20:12.038 --> 01:20:15.638 Rupert Isaacson: something tectonic happened in with the younger dryas. 01:20:16.748 --> 01:20:19.208 I mean, water coming down from the ice sheets, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 01:20:19.208 --> 01:20:19.838 And so, yeah, I mean, 01:20:19.838 --> 01:20:22.748 Justin Sledge: it would have to be, if ice Plato's descriptions of it are accurate. 01:20:22.748 --> 01:20:22.898 Right? 01:20:22.898 --> 01:20:24.128 It was a size of Libya. 01:20:24.128 --> 01:20:25.628 I mean, it would've been massive. 01:20:25.778 --> 01:20:26.048 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:20:26.168 --> 01:20:27.338 Justin Sledge: I mean, it, it would've been, it would've been 01:20:27.338 --> 01:20:30.548 the size of like, Texas, like in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. 01:20:30.938 --> 01:20:31.118 Rupert Isaacson: Ooh. 01:20:31.118 --> 01:20:32.888 Is that an cautionary tell for Texas? 01:20:32.918 --> 01:20:33.308 Justin Sledge: Texas? 01:20:33.308 --> 01:20:33.608 Yeah. 01:20:33.608 --> 01:20:35.158 You know, nothing's big as Texas. 01:20:35.908 --> 01:20:40.048 But again, to just look at the, if, if Plato is, if we're gonna take Play-Doh as 01:20:40.048 --> 01:20:41.608 accurate, we gotta take Plato as accurate. 01:20:41.668 --> 01:20:43.738 And he's telling us a story that it's this size and it's 01:20:43.738 --> 01:20:45.088 beyond the pillars of Hercules. 01:20:45.418 --> 01:20:46.618 It would need to be massive. 01:20:47.008 --> 01:20:52.678 And any tectonic event in the Atlantic we have really good maps 01:20:52.678 --> 01:20:53.968 of the sea floor or the Atlantic. 01:20:54.238 --> 01:20:56.848 It would, we would see remnant, we would see some archeological 01:20:56.848 --> 01:20:57.928 evidence of something. 01:20:58.078 --> 01:21:01.528 Rupert Isaacson: Why do you think this guy Donnelly, this ex confederate soldier, 01:21:01.948 --> 01:21:08.518 was so enamored of it, and how did he manage to get it into the public con. 01:21:09.713 --> 01:21:11.513 Justin Sledge: There's a great video if you wanna learn more about this. 01:21:11.513 --> 01:21:15.753 A good friend of mine Andy films did a great documentary on, on Donnelley. 01:21:15.753 --> 01:21:15.963 I'd love to. 01:21:15.963 --> 01:21:18.218 What's, how did he find out 01:21:18.218 --> 01:21:20.613 Rupert Isaacson: about, 'cause this, this guy Donnelley is not known about Really. 01:21:20.853 --> 01:21:21.543 Justin Sledge: I've never, he's not known about. 01:21:21.543 --> 01:21:21.723 No. 01:21:21.723 --> 01:21:24.483 This is part of this is, and this is part of how these mythologies 01:21:24.483 --> 01:21:28.713 get a life with our own, is that we often don't know that the mythologies 01:21:28.713 --> 01:21:30.333 that we're telling have a history. 01:21:30.633 --> 01:21:31.383 You mentioned, did he publish a 01:21:31.383 --> 01:21:31.953 Rupert Isaacson: bestseller? 01:21:31.953 --> 01:21:32.883 19th Century bestseller? 01:21:32.883 --> 01:21:33.093 Yeah, it was 01:21:33.093 --> 01:21:33.663 Justin Sledge: very popular. 01:21:33.663 --> 01:21:33.843 It was 01:21:33.843 --> 01:21:34.653 Rupert Isaacson: a very popular book. 01:21:34.893 --> 01:21:35.553 Justin Sledge: What was the name of the 01:21:35.553 --> 01:21:35.823 Rupert Isaacson: book? 01:21:36.253 --> 01:21:38.083 Justin Sledge: Atlantis the something something, let me see. 01:21:38.083 --> 01:21:38.563 Okay. 01:21:38.923 --> 01:21:39.853 Don Lee Atlantis. 01:21:39.853 --> 01:21:40.633 Rupert Isaacson: I'll just google it. 01:21:40.813 --> 01:21:41.203 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:21:41.683 --> 01:21:43.363 Rupert Isaacson: And do you know what he did in the Civil War? 01:21:43.573 --> 01:21:44.263 Bernie Chance? 01:21:44.353 --> 01:21:45.073 He was a soldier. 01:21:45.073 --> 01:21:47.203 Yeah, but was he an officer? 01:21:47.203 --> 01:21:48.703 Was he a grunt? 01:21:48.703 --> 01:21:49.783 Was he a cavalryman? 01:21:49.783 --> 01:21:50.443 Was he Ignatius 01:21:50.443 --> 01:21:50.893 Justin Sledge: Donnelly? 01:21:50.893 --> 01:21:51.643 What was he? 01:21:51.793 --> 01:21:53.413 He was a congress ignatious man. 01:21:53.593 --> 01:21:54.313 Yeah, you can look him up. 01:21:54.313 --> 01:21:54.463 Mean. 01:21:54.463 --> 01:21:57.673 He was kind of, I mean, but he was a sort of a cultist in, 01:21:57.673 --> 01:21:59.293 into, into theosophy and stuff. 01:21:59.713 --> 01:22:02.728 But but comes up in 1882. 01:22:03.518 --> 01:22:03.938 Okay. 01:22:04.448 --> 01:22:06.448 But it's called Atlantis, the anti-dilution world. 01:22:06.508 --> 01:22:08.818 And again, as you mentioned earlier about Zechariah ci, right? 01:22:08.818 --> 01:22:12.418 That that people don't also link back to Eric Von Danigan, who's really 01:22:12.418 --> 01:22:16.378 the, the primordial all father of this sort of ancient alien stuff. 01:22:16.678 --> 01:22:20.088 Rupert Isaacson: If you made it this far into the podcast, then I'm 01:22:20.088 --> 01:22:24.768 guessing you're somebody that, like me, loves to read books about not 01:22:24.768 --> 01:22:28.668 just how people have achieved self actualization, but particularly 01:22:28.688 --> 01:22:32.378 about the relationship with nature. 01:22:32.828 --> 01:22:36.008 Spirituality, life, the universe, and everything. 01:22:36.748 --> 01:22:39.698 And I'd like to draw your attention to my books. 01:22:39.708 --> 01:22:44.388 If you would like to read the story of how we even arrived here, perhaps 01:22:44.388 --> 01:22:48.848 you'd like to check out the two New York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy 01:22:49.548 --> 01:22:54.518 and The Long Ride Home, and come on an adventure with us and see what engendered, 01:22:54.578 --> 01:22:56.728 what started Live Free Ride Free. 01:22:56.748 --> 01:23:00.528 And before we go back to the podcast, also check out The Healing 01:23:00.528 --> 01:23:03.018 Land, which tells the story of. 01:23:03.723 --> 01:23:09.113 My years spent in the Kalahari with the Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people 01:23:09.113 --> 01:23:13.273 there, and all that they taught me, and mentored me in, and all that I learned. 01:23:13.523 --> 01:23:14.783 Come on that adventure with me. 01:23:14.807 --> 01:23:17.477 Tell us about him, because again, not, not, not a lot of 01:23:17.477 --> 01:23:18.857 people know who's listening. 01:23:18.857 --> 01:23:19.667 Maybe he wrote 01:23:19.667 --> 01:23:21.107 Justin Sledge: a book, he wrote a book called The Chariots of 01:23:21.107 --> 01:23:22.787 the Gods and the Swiss guy, 01:23:22.787 --> 01:23:23.147 Rupert Isaacson: right? 01:23:23.147 --> 01:23:23.477 Swiss 01:23:23.477 --> 01:23:23.867 Justin Sledge: German. 01:23:24.137 --> 01:23:24.677 Makes sense? 01:23:24.677 --> 01:23:25.367 Yeah, I think so. 01:23:25.607 --> 01:23:25.757 Yeah. 01:23:25.757 --> 01:23:29.267 And he makes this argument the same kind of argument that the, the, all 01:23:29.267 --> 01:23:30.917 the old gods are in fact, aliens. 01:23:30.917 --> 01:23:35.267 And, you know, again, very selectively goes and looks at the, I don't 01:23:35.267 --> 01:23:40.607 know, the top of the burial shroud and, and, and Mayan territory 01:23:40.607 --> 01:23:41.717 and says, that's the spaceship. 01:23:41.717 --> 01:23:43.607 And then sees the spaceship and this thing, and sees the 01:23:43.607 --> 01:23:44.357 spaceship here and there. 01:23:44.687 --> 01:23:48.657 And again, you know, it's the kind of it's the kind of thing that would be fun 01:23:49.467 --> 01:23:55.077 if it didn't lead to what I think is like real damage to the field of archeology. 01:23:55.717 --> 01:23:56.257 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:23:57.397 --> 01:24:02.857 I mean, as an ex I did archeology and history and I actually switched to 01:24:02.857 --> 01:24:07.477 just history because unfortunately the archeology department at York 01:24:07.477 --> 01:24:11.647 University where I went to in the uk, they were after bastards. 01:24:11.647 --> 01:24:12.217 They really were. 01:24:12.487 --> 01:24:16.507 And I got into terrible trouble and was actually threatened with being kicked 01:24:16.507 --> 01:24:24.427 out for writing up an essay, just one essay in which I likened the mean river. 01:24:25.152 --> 01:24:33.932 Iron Age smelting culture which was a Celtic pre Roman place where they 01:24:33.932 --> 01:24:36.362 were doing a lot of metal working along a river in England, which was, 01:24:36.572 --> 01:24:39.632 they were busy excavating at the time. 01:24:40.742 --> 01:24:45.452 And I said, I likened, I made a an analogy to it being like a, a sort of 01:24:46.262 --> 01:24:51.362 ancient world, black country, black country being the area around Birmingham 01:24:51.782 --> 01:24:55.772 where the industrial revolution sort of got going and that I got 01:24:55.772 --> 01:24:57.872 hauled in and hauled over the coals. 01:24:58.052 --> 01:25:01.562 And I remember saying, but guys, it sort of was, I'm not saying it was on 01:25:01.562 --> 01:25:04.742 the same scale, but I'm saying that if you walked along that river, you'd 01:25:04.742 --> 01:25:08.972 have seen a lot of industrial activity that have been guys dumping shit in 01:25:08.972 --> 01:25:13.262 the river, that have been piles of slag there would 'cause you found them. 01:25:13.292 --> 01:25:18.602 'cause you are excavating those piles of say that and or if I say that and 01:25:18.602 --> 01:25:20.792 you think it's wrong, okay, that's fine. 01:25:20.792 --> 01:25:22.832 But why are you threatening with kicking me with being kicked out? 01:25:22.982 --> 01:25:30.422 It was really odd and I saw this time and time again among the archeologists. 01:25:30.422 --> 01:25:34.622 And the archeologists were also sort of a bit of an old boys club of 01:25:34.862 --> 01:25:42.182 certainly the uk It was very much a sort of private boys school thing. 01:25:42.182 --> 01:25:45.302 And I come out of that culture myself. 01:25:45.302 --> 01:25:48.962 I went to one of those schools, but I also know how protectionist. 01:25:49.757 --> 01:25:53.837 They are in the same way that Oxford Dons are very protectionists and 01:25:53.837 --> 01:25:58.307 so on, and, and they're often, you know, frankly wrong, you know, about 01:25:58.307 --> 01:26:00.737 things or at least not open to. 01:26:01.397 --> 01:26:04.967 And so the fact that one could say something as kind of innocent as that 01:26:05.597 --> 01:26:09.737 and you know, not be taken to task for like, well, you know, Rupert, we just 01:26:09.737 --> 01:26:13.817 want you to qualify this essay with saying by no means on the same scale, which I 01:26:13.817 --> 01:26:15.287 would've said, yes, of course, absolutely. 01:26:15.287 --> 01:26:20.057 I will happily put that clause in there, silly old, 18-year-old me. 01:26:20.807 --> 01:26:23.717 But no, it was aggressive and it was hostile and it 01:26:23.717 --> 01:26:25.397 was strange and it was weird. 01:26:25.667 --> 01:26:30.797 And then when I transferred to do history, it wasn't much different actually. 01:26:31.037 --> 01:26:34.757 And then it got to the point, I'm sure you've had this where I realized I 01:26:34.757 --> 01:26:37.817 knew a bit more about certain things than I, some of my professors did. 01:26:38.117 --> 01:26:41.447 And then that became very uncomfortable and you just had to keep your mouth shut. 01:26:41.447 --> 01:26:45.257 For example, I specialized in the Bo war as well as the medieval stuff 01:26:46.007 --> 01:26:47.327 and the, and the French Revolution. 01:26:47.327 --> 01:26:50.807 I did two modern things, the Bo war, what My family fought on 01:26:50.807 --> 01:26:52.667 Every, every side of the Bo War. 01:26:52.702 --> 01:26:55.307 And what I mean by that is the, the English and 01:26:55.623 --> 01:26:58.623 sort of non-white mercenaries in that. 01:26:58.743 --> 01:27:04.413 So we have a whole record within our family of original texts and 01:27:04.413 --> 01:27:07.203 letters and documents and this and that, and blah, blah, blah. 01:27:07.683 --> 01:27:08.283 And. 01:27:08.673 --> 01:27:14.083 So anyway, it, it didn't make me by any means antis history, but it did 01:27:14.083 --> 01:27:17.683 make me wary of academics a bit. 01:27:17.833 --> 01:27:19.753 That said, I met some very good ones too and had some 01:27:19.753 --> 01:27:21.103 wonderful professors and so on. 01:27:21.493 --> 01:27:28.393 But I, I guess that thing of, of when, I guess what, what I was responding 01:27:28.393 --> 01:27:31.843 to there is when you said they do the, the people that believe in Atlantis or 01:27:31.933 --> 01:27:34.063 ancient aliens do damage to archeology. 01:27:34.183 --> 01:27:37.183 Do they, I mean, do they really The people, the 01:27:37.183 --> 01:27:38.533 Justin Sledge: people that believe in it don't. 01:27:38.533 --> 01:27:41.293 I think the people that popularize it on Netflix do, 01:27:42.643 --> 01:27:44.503 Rupert Isaacson: but it comes, that's what I view it as. 01:27:44.503 --> 01:27:45.493 Another mythology. 01:27:46.063 --> 01:27:48.013 Justin Sledge: If they, if they, if, if at the very beginning they 01:27:48.013 --> 01:27:52.483 said, what I'm presenting to you is a myth, that's not what they do. 01:27:52.513 --> 01:27:56.503 What they say is archeologists are all involved in a conspiracy of 01:27:56.503 --> 01:28:01.603 silence about about a civilization that existed at 10,000 BCE and seeded 01:28:01.603 --> 01:28:03.013 all the civilizations in the world. 01:28:03.133 --> 01:28:03.433 Right. 01:28:03.823 --> 01:28:05.623 Those are very different kinds of claims. 01:28:05.863 --> 01:28:05.983 Mm-hmm. 01:28:07.183 --> 01:28:11.143 You know, it's the difference between me getting on TV and saying, you 01:28:11.143 --> 01:28:14.653 know, a guy named Moses went up a mountain and got rules as opposed 01:28:14.653 --> 01:28:16.633 to, this is Israelite mythology. 01:28:16.903 --> 01:28:20.683 We don't have any archeological evidence to suggests that the exodus ever happened. 01:28:21.763 --> 01:28:24.343 Rupert Isaacson: There is this naughty part of me that likes to see all the 01:28:24.343 --> 01:28:28.813 archeologists hopping about jumping up and down and getting upset, but that's. 01:28:29.278 --> 01:28:32.068 In that interrogation room at York University. 01:28:32.398 --> 01:28:33.028 But I agree. 01:28:33.033 --> 01:28:33.173 Yeah, 01:28:34.468 --> 01:28:34.681 Justin Sledge: I mean that, that, yeah. 01:28:34.681 --> 01:28:37.408 I mean, I, and, and again, I also like the, the, that I 01:28:37.408 --> 01:28:38.848 do think that, that there is, 01:28:41.008 --> 01:28:41.878 what's the right way of putting it? 01:28:41.938 --> 01:28:48.148 I, I do like the idea of hand grenades being thrown into dogma. 01:28:48.478 --> 01:28:51.988 And I do think that academia functions with a lot of dogma. 01:28:52.498 --> 01:28:52.528 Mm. 01:28:52.798 --> 01:28:57.478 Justin Sledge: But I think you combat dogma not with more dogma. 01:28:57.508 --> 01:29:04.468 You, you, you combat it with problematizing and showing that the, that 01:29:04.468 --> 01:29:07.768 the very stories they're telling don't make sense given their own internal data. 01:29:08.098 --> 01:29:12.238 Another way of putting this is the way that I go about doing the work that I 01:29:12.238 --> 01:29:14.038 do is I don't do external criticism. 01:29:14.428 --> 01:29:14.518 Mm-hmm. 01:29:14.518 --> 01:29:16.168 For instance, I don't debunk anybody. 01:29:16.768 --> 01:29:18.478 I've never done a debunking video ever. 01:29:18.483 --> 01:29:18.613 That's 01:29:18.643 --> 01:29:19.198 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, that's true. 01:29:19.198 --> 01:29:19.348 You don't. 01:29:19.348 --> 01:29:24.148 And, and interestingly, I think that causes some people to mistake 01:29:24.148 --> 01:29:28.078 that maybe you are bel espousing or believing it might, even though you 01:29:28.078 --> 01:29:29.393 frequently say that you're not yeah. 01:29:29.653 --> 01:29:30.553 Or hear what they hear. 01:29:30.803 --> 01:29:31.513 And it might, 01:29:31.603 --> 01:29:32.323 Justin Sledge: and then that's fine. 01:29:32.323 --> 01:29:33.013 I'd rather take that. 01:29:33.013 --> 01:29:37.963 I'd rather risk that danger because I don't want to do, I'd rather just tell 01:29:37.963 --> 01:29:42.493 the history in its complicatedness and leave it at that, as opposed to say, well, 01:29:42.493 --> 01:29:46.363 they, we've told this elaborate story about Descartes and it's false because 01:29:46.363 --> 01:29:50.503 that lets the false story lead in the same way that I'm not going to say, well, 01:29:50.503 --> 01:29:53.053 the Anki or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 01:29:53.113 --> 01:29:54.163 I'm not gonna like. 01:29:54.988 --> 01:29:56.698 I'm gonna say, if I'm gonna do an episode on the Anunnaki, I'm 01:29:56.698 --> 01:30:00.988 gonna say, here are the 15 UNIFOR tablets that describe the Anunnaki. 01:30:01.108 --> 01:30:03.178 Here's what the Sumerian says. 01:30:03.988 --> 01:30:05.278 This is the best data we have. 01:30:06.388 --> 01:30:06.808 Have you done? 01:30:06.808 --> 01:30:07.083 I'm not 01:30:07.088 --> 01:30:07.168 Rupert Isaacson: gonna 01:30:07.498 --> 01:30:08.638 Justin Sledge: episode on the Anki. 01:30:08.878 --> 01:30:11.278 No, they're not very interesting. 01:30:12.118 --> 01:30:15.628 I, I mean, I hate to tell people, but they're just like underworld spirits. 01:30:15.748 --> 01:30:16.018 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:30:16.583 --> 01:30:18.028 Justin Sledge: They're just, they're the kind, like, they're 01:30:18.028 --> 01:30:20.488 like, it's the same reason why some ask me like, you've, you've done 01:30:20.488 --> 01:30:21.958 Rupert Isaacson: episodes on other underworld spirits. 01:30:22.318 --> 01:30:23.008 I haven't though. 01:30:23.218 --> 01:30:23.458 I mean, 01:30:23.458 --> 01:30:23.878 Justin Sledge: maybe. 01:30:24.118 --> 01:30:26.728 And people, like, I always ask people like, why are you so interested in 01:30:26.728 --> 01:30:28.708 the Anki and not the gala demons? 01:30:28.918 --> 01:30:31.828 'cause the gala demons actually have an active role and maybe they haven't 01:30:31.828 --> 01:30:32.278 Rupert Isaacson: heard of them. 01:30:33.028 --> 01:30:33.358 And that's 01:30:33.358 --> 01:30:34.978 Justin Sledge: just, that's the funny thing is that yeah, they're just 01:30:34.978 --> 01:30:38.218 underworld spirits that that Dezi and other folks have to deal with. 01:30:38.218 --> 01:30:40.858 And they're, you know, they're like sort of cathartic beings 01:30:40.858 --> 01:30:43.858 that seem to have existed prior to the creation, which is weird. 01:30:44.338 --> 01:30:44.488 Okay. 01:30:44.538 --> 01:30:46.940 Justin Sledge: They're the standard creation love craft stuff. 01:30:46.940 --> 01:30:46.941 Yeah. 01:30:46.946 --> 01:30:47.898 Lovecraftian kind of stuff. 01:30:48.168 --> 01:30:48.318 Yeah. 01:30:48.318 --> 01:30:52.818 And I think that the, the gala demons are far more weird than Anki, but 01:30:52.918 --> 01:30:56.578 but yeah, it's like, it's the, I don't do the debunking stuff because 01:30:56.578 --> 01:31:03.058 I don't want the, what I take to be a bad history to lead the story. 01:31:03.178 --> 01:31:05.218 I'd rather just say, this is the data. 01:31:05.998 --> 01:31:09.538 And if someone says, I disagree with it, I can say, you can 01:31:09.538 --> 01:31:10.648 disagree with whatever you like. 01:31:10.708 --> 01:31:11.998 I don't get to control the data. 01:31:12.508 --> 01:31:15.178 I can all, all I can say is like, these are the six tablets 01:31:15.178 --> 01:31:16.288 where the stuff is described. 01:31:17.038 --> 01:31:20.548 Here are here, here's the, here are the debates among scholars 01:31:20.548 --> 01:31:21.658 about how to read those tablets. 01:31:21.688 --> 01:31:22.918 'cause that's not even agreed upon. 01:31:22.948 --> 01:31:23.038 Mm-hmm. 01:31:23.278 --> 01:31:26.248 And that's, to me, the thing that strikes me as the most shockingly egregious 01:31:26.248 --> 01:31:31.018 about, you know, someone like Zacharia or something, is that the idea that he 01:31:31.018 --> 01:31:37.648 knows what they say when Sumerian scholars are like, we're not clear even how to 01:31:37.648 --> 01:31:42.028 read some of this because we don't even totally understand Sumerian as a language. 01:31:42.598 --> 01:31:43.618 Rupert Isaacson: That actually is a question. 01:31:43.618 --> 01:31:46.318 How did people decode Sumerian? 01:31:47.278 --> 01:31:50.038 Justin Sledge: So we have, so we know, and again, to be careful 01:31:50.038 --> 01:31:54.788 'cause I'm not a, a ologist, but we know Sumerian through Acadian. 01:31:54.818 --> 01:31:58.628 So Acadian is a language that we do know a lot about because it's related to, 01:31:58.658 --> 01:32:00.188 it's a Semitic language like Hebrew. 01:32:00.788 --> 01:32:06.488 Like in Hebrew, if you wanna say like, I, you could say Nu and in, 01:32:06.488 --> 01:32:08.438 in Aca in an Acadians ku Okay. 01:32:08.798 --> 01:32:10.088 They're very similar languages. 01:32:10.178 --> 01:32:10.538 Okay. 01:32:10.538 --> 01:32:11.588 They're not identical, but they're similar. 01:32:12.148 --> 01:32:16.888 But we have text, we have bilingual texts in Acadian and Sumerian, and 01:32:16.888 --> 01:32:20.548 they were able, scholars were able to decode Sumerian by reading it. 01:32:21.238 --> 01:32:21.448 Okay. 01:32:21.628 --> 01:32:22.978 You know, it's like Rosetta Stones. 01:32:23.038 --> 01:32:23.368 Got it. 01:32:23.578 --> 01:32:24.238 Lots of them. 01:32:24.748 --> 01:32:28.168 And one of the big texts that the Acadians produced, because Sumerian was a 01:32:28.168 --> 01:32:31.918 language, a bit like Latin, it was a dead language, but it was a language they, they 01:32:31.918 --> 01:32:34.048 preserved as a kind of academic language. 01:32:34.438 --> 01:32:36.598 And so we have lots of basically word lists. 01:32:38.128 --> 01:32:39.778 And we have text in both languages. 01:32:40.318 --> 01:32:44.278 And so scholars were able to do this, and so they, they can read Sumerian 01:32:44.278 --> 01:32:46.758 with a high degree of, of accuracy. 01:32:47.388 --> 01:32:50.508 But the, the problem is, is that the older you go back, the less 01:32:50.748 --> 01:32:52.098 standardized the language is. 01:32:52.098 --> 01:32:56.178 The less the more idio, the more idiosyncratic it becomes, the 01:32:56.178 --> 01:32:59.868 more, the more they tend to use a lot more audiograms as opposed 01:32:59.868 --> 01:33:03.448 to syllabic spelling, which the syllabic spelling's a lot clearer. 01:33:03.928 --> 01:33:05.698 There's a lot less guesswork involved. 01:33:06.268 --> 01:33:10.738 And so when I hear people say like, you know, this Sumerian tablet says 01:33:10.738 --> 01:33:15.658 this, well, that immediately jumps my hackles up where I'm like, I doubt it. 01:33:16.468 --> 01:33:18.778 I bet it, I bet there's debate about what it says. 01:33:19.628 --> 01:33:23.498 And, and any, and, and it's almost always when I read text about 01:33:23.498 --> 01:33:27.578 Atlantis or the Anunnaki or the ancient aliens, there's no debate. 01:33:27.638 --> 01:33:28.418 This is what happened. 01:33:28.718 --> 01:33:29.018 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:33:29.048 --> 01:33:32.188 It's I think your point about replacing dogma with dogmas is fair. 01:33:32.608 --> 01:33:37.678 I, I'm, I'm still on Team Cat among the pigeons, and at the same time, I'm very 01:33:37.678 --> 01:33:41.488 grateful that people like you come along and say, yeah, but listen, lads, actually, 01:33:41.548 --> 01:33:43.738 here's what we really know to date. 01:33:43.798 --> 01:33:44.128 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:33:44.248 --> 01:33:45.238 We need one means 01:33:45.238 --> 01:33:45.598 Rupert Isaacson: both. 01:33:45.598 --> 01:33:45.898 Right, 01:33:46.198 --> 01:33:46.438 Justin Sledge: right. 01:33:46.618 --> 01:33:51.088 And, and again, I, I feel like the, any, the more that I see, I'll 01:33:51.088 --> 01:33:52.348 give an example in my field, right. 01:33:52.618 --> 01:33:56.758 The, you mentioned earlier the key of Solomon, the Quila Soleimani. 01:33:56.758 --> 01:34:00.388 This is the most important book of magic produced in the Western world. 01:34:00.838 --> 01:34:04.558 We know of a hundred and different 150 different manuscripts of it. 01:34:04.828 --> 01:34:05.878 We know that they exist. 01:34:06.568 --> 01:34:08.338 Those are the ones we know of so far. 01:34:08.728 --> 01:34:12.418 There is no standard edition of this text, and no one has ever looked at all 150. 01:34:14.128 --> 01:34:16.738 It's just, we don't even know what they all look like. 01:34:16.978 --> 01:34:18.178 We don't even what they all say. 01:34:18.538 --> 01:34:19.258 They're not in private. 01:34:19.258 --> 01:34:21.088 Some of them are private hands, some of them in public hands. 01:34:21.088 --> 01:34:21.628 It's a mess. 01:34:22.468 --> 01:34:26.308 When I make episodes talking about Solomonic Magic, one of the things I have 01:34:26.308 --> 01:34:34.588 to remind people is this is so provisional because in 50 years, 30 more manuscripts 01:34:34.588 --> 01:34:37.558 will be found, 15 more will be published. 01:34:37.558 --> 01:34:38.758 Maybe all of 'em will be published. 01:34:39.328 --> 01:34:41.128 And everything I'm saying now is provisional. 01:34:41.548 --> 01:34:41.908 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 01:34:41.908 --> 01:34:42.028 And 01:34:42.028 --> 01:34:43.018 Justin Sledge: I think that's 01:34:43.813 --> 01:34:45.718 Rupert Isaacson: like, like the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 01:34:45.718 --> 01:34:49.378 and then we find a whole bunch not muddy library and, you know. 01:34:49.528 --> 01:34:50.098 Yeah, yeah. 01:34:50.578 --> 01:34:54.808 Justin Sledge: The more that, the more that I find, you know, one of the things 01:34:54.808 --> 01:35:01.588 that makes myth interesting to me is that the mythological texts are almost always 01:35:01.588 --> 01:35:03.118 disagreeing with each other internally. 01:35:03.118 --> 01:35:03.448 Mm-hmm. 01:35:03.973 --> 01:35:06.043 The, the Bible Sumerian text and the text. 01:35:06.043 --> 01:35:06.433 I know. 01:35:06.913 --> 01:35:09.733 You know, if someone goes to tell you what is North mythology, 01:35:10.183 --> 01:35:13.363 which ones the, the have the stories all contradict each other. 01:35:13.753 --> 01:35:13.933 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 01:35:13.933 --> 01:35:15.073 Justin Sledge: They're, they're not coherent. 01:35:15.703 --> 01:35:16.723 And when I, Christianity 01:35:16.723 --> 01:35:17.863 Rupert Isaacson: rather than Christianity. 01:35:17.868 --> 01:35:18.338 Christianity, 01:35:18.943 --> 01:35:19.183 Justin Sledge: yeah. 01:35:19.273 --> 01:35:19.573 Right. 01:35:19.573 --> 01:35:21.703 The, the myths are, the myths are internally incoherent. 01:35:21.703 --> 01:35:23.473 That doesn't make 'em any more or less right. 01:35:23.473 --> 01:35:27.073 Or any more or less valuable, but it makes them authentically human. 01:35:27.103 --> 01:35:28.333 'cause that's what human beings do. 01:35:28.873 --> 01:35:28.903 Mm. 01:35:28.933 --> 01:35:33.763 But when you see these, these new mythologies that emerge, they emerge 01:35:34.663 --> 01:35:38.023 from the same point of view and the same mindset as the enlightenment. 01:35:38.023 --> 01:35:39.283 We have gotta figured it all out. 01:35:39.793 --> 01:35:41.803 It's just totalitarian impulse. 01:35:41.953 --> 01:35:43.213 Rupert Isaacson: Totalitarian good word. 01:35:43.273 --> 01:35:43.663 Yes. 01:35:43.933 --> 01:35:46.018 Justin Sledge: And in that totalitarian impulse in science, 01:35:46.088 --> 01:35:47.623 that science has figured it all out. 01:35:47.653 --> 01:35:49.033 I'm very skeptical of that. 01:35:49.963 --> 01:35:53.893 But also I see the exact same kind of impulse in the mythological 01:35:53.893 --> 01:35:57.373 world where like, you know, for instance, the perennials will tell 01:35:57.373 --> 01:36:01.303 me, we figured it all out, every religion comes from this mystical 01:36:01.303 --> 01:36:04.123 core, and they're all, I'm like, huh. 01:36:05.203 --> 01:36:06.643 Like that, that impulse. 01:36:06.703 --> 01:36:11.533 As a historian, as a, as a scholar of this material, anyone who beats the drum 01:36:11.533 --> 01:36:17.233 of, this is the answer, when I hear that drum, I know which direction to run. 01:36:19.123 --> 01:36:19.603 And 01:36:20.323 --> 01:36:22.963 Rupert Isaacson: let's go to the biggest, the biggest mythology of all. 01:36:22.963 --> 01:36:28.753 Then you study everyone in the Western world's belief in the afterlife. 01:36:30.463 --> 01:36:32.353 What conclusions have you drawn? 01:36:33.598 --> 01:36:34.498 Justin Sledge: In the afterlife. 01:36:34.558 --> 01:36:34.738 Yeah. 01:36:35.308 --> 01:36:39.118 Rupert Isaacson: Because every, every, every mythology, every religion, every 01:36:39.508 --> 01:36:43.678 occult group that you are looking at in the esoterica series, they all 01:36:43.678 --> 01:36:46.108 have a position on it, more or less. 01:36:46.708 --> 01:36:49.618 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I mean, they're not, I would say they're by no means coherent. 01:36:49.648 --> 01:36:49.948 Rupert Isaacson: No. 01:36:49.948 --> 01:36:50.768 By for sure. 01:36:50.948 --> 01:36:51.068 Yeah. 01:36:51.218 --> 01:36:52.898 What's your, what, what have you gleaned? 01:36:52.898 --> 01:36:55.418 What, what, what, what do you, what rings true for you out of 01:36:55.418 --> 01:36:56.588 all the stuff that you've studied? 01:36:57.278 --> 01:36:58.118 Justin Sledge: Oh, I don't know. 01:36:58.118 --> 01:36:59.288 I hope there is no afterlife. 01:36:59.318 --> 01:37:00.578 That's what I've gleaned. 01:37:01.218 --> 01:37:06.738 If I wake up after my death and to anything, I'm going to be pissed. 01:37:06.768 --> 01:37:10.408 I'm gonna write a letter if I would, God forbid I wake up and I'm in 01:37:10.408 --> 01:37:13.258 heaven and everything is perfect, and I have to be there forever. 01:37:13.558 --> 01:37:16.828 That is the most miserable imaginable situation possible. 01:37:17.068 --> 01:37:17.608 Watering pot 01:37:17.818 --> 01:37:18.178 Rupert Isaacson: plants. 01:37:18.183 --> 01:37:18.393 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:37:19.168 --> 01:37:19.468 Yeah. 01:37:19.468 --> 01:37:21.058 Just anything, anything. 01:37:21.088 --> 01:37:24.758 If, if there is any afterlife at all I'm going to be, 01:37:27.098 --> 01:37:27.368 yeah. 01:37:27.368 --> 01:37:28.238 Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna be enraged. 01:37:28.328 --> 01:37:28.628 Yeah. 01:37:28.628 --> 01:37:33.128 So many of these, of these traditions that you're studying are convinced of it. 01:37:33.548 --> 01:37:33.818 Yeah, 01:37:33.998 --> 01:37:34.328 Rupert Isaacson: of course. 01:37:34.358 --> 01:37:35.258 Where does that come from? 01:37:37.328 --> 01:37:38.468 Not the desire for one. 01:37:38.468 --> 01:37:40.988 I think we can understand that, but 01:37:42.968 --> 01:37:45.818 Justin Sledge: yeah, it just, I think it's the human beings have the worst 01:37:45.818 --> 01:37:47.678 case of Megan Character syndrome. 01:37:48.488 --> 01:37:50.708 Maybe that is of main character syndrome. 01:37:50.828 --> 01:37:51.368 Ooh. 01:37:51.848 --> 01:37:57.218 You know, like we, we built a universe that was designed for us, 01:37:57.578 --> 01:37:59.378 you know, we're the center of it. 01:37:59.798 --> 01:38:02.048 God made us, were they made in the image of God? 01:38:02.318 --> 01:38:03.578 But could we not be, be in the image of 01:38:03.578 --> 01:38:03.848 Rupert Isaacson: God? 01:38:03.848 --> 01:38:04.448 Could there not be? 01:38:04.448 --> 01:38:05.528 I mean, could, could not. 01:38:05.648 --> 01:38:07.418 Let's say there's life on a billion planets. 01:38:07.598 --> 01:38:09.728 Could not, could they not all be images of God? 01:38:10.058 --> 01:38:10.718 Justin Sledge: Maybe. 01:38:10.868 --> 01:38:11.198 Maybe. 01:38:11.198 --> 01:38:15.038 But that's not the way that, that medieval people and other people that formulated 01:38:15.038 --> 01:38:16.268 these mythologies thought about it. 01:38:16.268 --> 01:38:17.648 They thought they were the center of everything. 01:38:17.978 --> 01:38:18.158 Yeah. 01:38:18.488 --> 01:38:20.078 Justin Sledge: The earth is right there at the middle of everything. 01:38:20.078 --> 01:38:24.098 And, and I, I think that, you know, the hu the human being can 01:38:24.098 --> 01:38:28.148 imagine almost anything aside from there not being human beings. 01:38:29.258 --> 01:38:29.888 Mm. 01:38:30.758 --> 01:38:33.788 Like we can imagine the end of God, we can imagine the death of God. 01:38:33.788 --> 01:38:35.468 We can imagine God being a mythology. 01:38:35.468 --> 01:38:40.208 We can imagine all being superstition, but we can't imagine us not being around it. 01:38:40.208 --> 01:38:44.258 It's the, it's the narcissistic impulse that the human being will endear forever. 01:38:45.128 --> 01:38:46.448 That death, is it narcissistic 01:38:46.448 --> 01:38:50.228 Rupert Isaacson: or is it just the just a, a a the feature of our biology that 01:38:50.228 --> 01:38:53.588 we are, we are in the consciousness that we're in, and that's just that. 01:38:53.588 --> 01:38:54.758 So we, we look through the lens. 01:38:54.758 --> 01:38:55.958 We look through we have no choice. 01:38:56.438 --> 01:38:56.888 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:38:56.948 --> 01:38:57.278 Yeah. 01:38:57.278 --> 01:39:01.118 But I think the idea that, like, you know, again, with the, you know, I 01:39:01.118 --> 01:39:03.998 always imagine like when I look at different diversions of the afterlife, 01:39:03.998 --> 01:39:07.808 that there are no animals there or that ev or that there are no like, 01:39:08.288 --> 01:39:11.798 you know, dinosaurs there or you know, what about all the other life? 01:39:12.308 --> 01:39:16.688 You know, if you get married twice and your first wife dies, 01:39:16.958 --> 01:39:19.358 what, what's gonna happen when you get there with your new wife? 01:39:19.358 --> 01:39:20.108 She's gonna get pissed. 01:39:20.828 --> 01:39:21.578 You know, the. 01:39:22.418 --> 01:39:23.498 The no, because we're with 01:39:23.498 --> 01:39:24.488 Rupert Isaacson: God and we're beyond all that. 01:39:24.488 --> 01:39:26.828 We're, we've now grown, grown up and we're nice to each other. 01:39:27.248 --> 01:39:27.548 Justin Sledge: Right? 01:39:27.548 --> 01:39:29.738 And then what's the point of there being an afterlife? 01:39:29.738 --> 01:39:32.378 Because if it's so unlike what it is to be a human being that it's 01:39:32.378 --> 01:39:36.638 unrecognizable in the next one, then there's no continuity at all. 01:39:37.808 --> 01:39:41.348 You know, Decart even says this, like, memory has to persist 01:39:41.348 --> 01:39:43.748 through death, because otherwise there's no point in an afterlife, 01:39:46.148 --> 01:39:46.478 right? 01:39:46.538 --> 01:39:48.428 Because otherwise you're just a different, you're just, it's, you're 01:39:48.428 --> 01:39:50.078 just, there's no connection to this world. 01:39:50.078 --> 01:39:55.188 The whole point is there's continuity between the two that somehow you survive. 01:39:55.698 --> 01:39:56.118 Right? 01:39:56.628 --> 01:39:59.568 But if there's no memory, then there is no survival. 01:40:00.228 --> 01:40:03.058 If I were to, God forbid, hit someone on the head hard enough and they're 01:40:03.058 --> 01:40:08.008 completely erase their memory, they're not the same person in any, 01:40:08.188 --> 01:40:09.688 in any meaningful sense of the term. 01:40:10.358 --> 01:40:10.838 Right. 01:40:10.838 --> 01:40:13.988 Rupert Isaacson: And so let, let's play devil's advocate with that one, just the 01:40:13.988 --> 01:40:16.448 other, well, I'm just trying to think what the devil's advocate would say. 01:40:16.448 --> 01:40:17.048 What would they say? 01:40:17.048 --> 01:40:24.828 They might say, well, yes, Justin, but what if because life comes in infinite 01:40:24.828 --> 01:40:31.398 forms of expression, there could be infinite forms of expression of life 01:40:33.438 --> 01:40:37.518 in a sort of an of which our idea of a linear 01:40:39.738 --> 01:40:43.188 born live die is one expression. 01:40:43.998 --> 01:40:46.248 But perhaps is, could it be that. 01:40:46.653 --> 01:40:54.663 In fact, there's a much more complex picture there that you could transmute 01:40:55.203 --> 01:41:00.843 into other things or, you know, the, the, the end of a physical life. 01:41:00.843 --> 01:41:06.693 I mean, you, the, the, the traditions that you study, you know, talk about 01:41:09.063 --> 01:41:18.063 being a soul, being embodied, and then when the body dies, the soul is, is 01:41:18.063 --> 01:41:19.833 still there, the spirit is still there. 01:41:20.763 --> 01:41:23.193 But whether it's still there in terms of the personality of 01:41:23.193 --> 01:41:24.783 that person or not, who knows? 01:41:25.653 --> 01:41:26.493 Justin Sledge: I think most of them Do you, I 01:41:26.493 --> 01:41:28.383 Rupert Isaacson: mean, you, you studied this, so you must 01:41:28.383 --> 01:41:29.493 have pondered these questions. 01:41:29.703 --> 01:41:30.303 Justin Sledge: Yeah, sure. 01:41:30.303 --> 01:41:34.053 I mean, I think that most of them imagine that, at least the Western 01:41:34.053 --> 01:41:37.113 traditions, imagine that the soul becomes disentangled from the body, 01:41:37.113 --> 01:41:38.283 but the body will come back later. 01:41:38.823 --> 01:41:42.458 That's standard view in Christianity, Islamic Judaism that the, you get, 01:41:42.758 --> 01:41:47.198 you get a better body later somehow, but you do get put back into a body. 01:41:47.203 --> 01:41:47.414 Hopefully you 01:41:47.419 --> 01:41:48.038 Rupert Isaacson: get an upgrade. 01:41:48.098 --> 01:41:48.368 Yeah, 01:41:48.698 --> 01:41:48.938 Justin Sledge: yeah. 01:41:48.938 --> 01:41:50.828 It's some glorified body or something like that. 01:41:51.608 --> 01:41:54.338 But far be it for me to know exactly what all that means. 01:41:54.398 --> 01:41:54.668 Yeah. 01:41:54.938 --> 01:41:58.568 Justin Sledge: But if it were the case that the afterlife is somehow 01:41:59.618 --> 01:42:04.478 sufficiently unrecognizable from this life, then I simply would have no interest 01:42:04.478 --> 01:42:07.808 in it because if it's so different than what I understand of this life. 01:42:08.528 --> 01:42:09.783 Then it will be unpredictable. 01:42:09.783 --> 01:42:12.278 So unpredictable about it will be on the other side that I 01:42:12.278 --> 01:42:13.328 don't have any interest in. 01:42:15.338 --> 01:42:17.778 I wouldn't have any, I mean, I wouldn't have any interest in it 01:42:17.898 --> 01:42:18.828 because it just, but you, you, you're 01:42:18.828 --> 01:42:19.398 Rupert Isaacson: a skeptic. 01:42:19.398 --> 01:42:22.518 You, you, you don't necessarily believe in an afterlife or, 01:42:22.598 --> 01:42:25.388 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I don't, I, yeah, I don't know that there is an afterlife. 01:42:25.808 --> 01:42:28.118 Rupert Isaacson: What does Judaism say? 01:42:28.178 --> 01:42:33.128 Because you, you're a practicing Jew, so, I'm a never having practiced Jew. 01:42:33.648 --> 01:42:37.578 So what does, given that there have been, as you say, many Judaisms in the same 01:42:37.578 --> 01:42:38.748 way that there are many Christianity, 01:42:41.748 --> 01:42:47.538 give us like three points historically about what Judaism says about 01:42:47.838 --> 01:42:55.848 afterlife from sort of pri Moses, Moses e Jesusy, that millennium 01:42:56.148 --> 01:42:58.278 to now, what, what do they say? 01:42:58.788 --> 01:43:00.678 Justin Sledge: So the earliest Israelite literature seems to 01:43:00.678 --> 01:43:04.038 have believed in a place called Sheol, which is just sort of a dark 01:43:04.608 --> 01:43:06.828 underground place where dead people go. 01:43:07.068 --> 01:43:07.458 Mm-hmm. 01:43:07.558 --> 01:43:12.298 You're, yeah, you're there, but you're not very conscious. 01:43:12.298 --> 01:43:13.678 You're not really doing anything. 01:43:13.978 --> 01:43:15.298 It's a place of inactivity. 01:43:15.938 --> 01:43:16.658 God doesn't know. 01:43:16.658 --> 01:43:16.898 Are you, 01:43:16.903 --> 01:43:19.228 Rupert Isaacson: are you there as yourself just kind of bored or are you It's 01:43:19.228 --> 01:43:20.308 Justin Sledge: not even, it's not clear. 01:43:20.338 --> 01:43:24.118 I mean, the references to it are so few and so vague. 01:43:24.578 --> 01:43:25.418 Everyone goes there. 01:43:25.418 --> 01:43:27.668 It doesn't matter whether you're good or bad, everyone goes there. 01:43:28.178 --> 01:43:30.368 Rupert Isaacson: Are you broken down into a sort of primordial soup and 01:43:30.368 --> 01:43:32.768 then reconfigured for later use? 01:43:32.768 --> 01:43:33.068 No. 01:43:33.128 --> 01:43:33.848 Justin Sledge: You've stared forever. 01:43:33.848 --> 01:43:35.408 There's no sense of you ever come out of there. 01:43:35.498 --> 01:43:37.058 It's just that's where everyone goes. 01:43:37.208 --> 01:43:40.088 You sit around, it seems to be similar to Hades, the Greek Hades. 01:43:40.118 --> 01:43:40.238 Okay. 01:43:40.238 --> 01:43:42.728 You know that it's not great and not bad either. 01:43:42.788 --> 01:43:43.808 But you don't want to go there. 01:43:43.838 --> 01:43:45.278 Like no one's looking forward to going there. 01:43:45.278 --> 01:43:45.428 But de 01:43:45.428 --> 01:43:45.503 here is better. 01:43:46.118 --> 01:43:46.658 Justin Sledge: Here is better. 01:43:46.658 --> 01:43:46.898 Yeah. 01:43:47.048 --> 01:43:50.488 I mean, I think of that famous line in the Odyssey where, or 01:43:50.488 --> 01:43:54.328 Achilles says to Odysseus better a living dog than a dead Achilles. 01:43:55.018 --> 01:43:57.508 You know, that he'd rather be a living dog than a dead Achilles. 01:43:57.508 --> 01:43:59.968 So I, I think of that, it's like no one wants to go there, but it's 01:43:59.968 --> 01:44:01.468 not You're, but you're have to 01:44:01.468 --> 01:44:01.828 Rupert Isaacson: go there. 01:44:02.608 --> 01:44:03.328 Justin Sledge: Everyone goes there. 01:44:03.328 --> 01:44:03.478 Yeah. 01:44:03.478 --> 01:44:06.598 Every, everyone who dies goes to Shaul and we're not even 01:44:06.598 --> 01:44:07.978 sure what the word Shaul means. 01:44:08.008 --> 01:44:09.418 It's a very strange word, 01:44:09.448 --> 01:44:10.348 Rupert Isaacson: but it's not pleasant. 01:44:11.068 --> 01:44:11.278 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:44:11.278 --> 01:44:12.118 You don't want to go there. 01:44:12.148 --> 01:44:13.738 It's, it's, yeah, 01:44:14.158 --> 01:44:15.748 Rupert Isaacson: you don't want to go there, but you're gonna have to go there. 01:44:15.748 --> 01:44:19.948 It's kind of like the D dv dv the driving, yeah. 01:44:19.948 --> 01:44:21.058 The DMV, yeah. 01:44:21.083 --> 01:44:21.483 The DM V. 01:44:21.483 --> 01:44:21.723 Yeah. 01:44:22.138 --> 01:44:22.558 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:44:22.668 --> 01:44:24.288 Fast forward to Jesus' time. 01:44:24.318 --> 01:44:27.568 There's definitely Jews have interacted with Raan and they 01:44:27.568 --> 01:44:29.338 picked up heaven and hell. 01:44:29.728 --> 01:44:31.108 Rupert Isaacson: Is that where we get heaven and hell 01:44:31.108 --> 01:44:32.188 from the Iranians, it seems, 01:44:32.398 --> 01:44:32.608 Justin Sledge: yeah. 01:44:32.608 --> 01:44:37.408 It seems to be as, as a, a, seems to be a raan influence when the 01:44:37.408 --> 01:44:38.938 Jews were in the exile in Babylon. 01:44:39.508 --> 01:44:41.488 So that seems to be where that idea comes from. 01:44:42.238 --> 01:44:45.808 And there, there's the idea that you go into the sky. 01:44:46.363 --> 01:44:49.753 Where the God lives and you live there if you're good, and if you're bad, you 01:44:49.753 --> 01:44:53.473 go to some place and you get tortured for some period of time, maybe forever, 01:44:53.473 --> 01:44:54.913 but maybe for some period of time. 01:44:55.503 --> 01:44:57.843 Rupert Isaacson: Are the Egyptians are not saying something slightly 01:44:57.843 --> 01:44:59.133 similar as well at that time. 01:44:59.493 --> 01:45:03.513 Justin Sledge: So they, the Egyptians in the New Kingdom have the belief 01:45:03.513 --> 01:45:08.553 that if you have a good soul, then you can go into the duo, the afterlife. 01:45:08.553 --> 01:45:11.073 But if you have a bad one, then you get your soul gets 01:45:11.073 --> 01:45:13.023 eaten by a monster called Amit. 01:45:13.383 --> 01:45:15.963 And then after there's no bad afterlife, but there's just, 01:45:15.993 --> 01:45:17.373 there's a good one and no bad one. 01:45:17.733 --> 01:45:18.153 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:45:18.153 --> 01:45:18.528 You just get destroyed. 01:45:18.603 --> 01:45:19.053 You go, it's 01:45:19.053 --> 01:45:19.563 Justin Sledge: oblivion. 01:45:19.563 --> 01:45:20.613 It's like good or oblivion. 01:45:20.883 --> 01:45:21.153 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:45:21.423 --> 01:45:22.773 Justin Sledge: Which doesn't seem that bad actually. 01:45:22.863 --> 01:45:24.063 No, I just, that's right. 01:45:24.063 --> 01:45:25.143 Actually, it's like, yeah. 01:45:25.143 --> 01:45:26.133 So that's not, you know. 01:45:27.023 --> 01:45:30.413 And then after Heaven and hell, that becomes so associated with Christianity 01:45:30.413 --> 01:45:33.413 that Judaism distances itself from heaven and hell and basically 01:45:33.413 --> 01:45:35.363 quits contemplating much of it. 01:45:35.573 --> 01:45:36.323 Rupert Isaacson: At what point? 01:45:37.043 --> 01:45:38.333 Justin Sledge: Sometime third, fourth century. 01:45:38.333 --> 01:45:43.373 It seems like Judaism drifts away from talking about the afterlife. 01:45:43.403 --> 01:45:43.703 Fine. 01:45:43.703 --> 01:45:43.823 You 01:45:43.823 --> 01:45:44.873 Rupert Isaacson: guys can have heaven and hell. 01:45:44.873 --> 01:45:45.443 We didn't want, in the 01:45:45.443 --> 01:45:47.843 Justin Sledge: divorce, they got heaven and hell and exorcism and stuff. 01:45:48.493 --> 01:45:53.823 And then in the, in the 16th century you have reincarnation appears in the kabbah. 01:45:54.153 --> 01:45:56.403 Rupert Isaacson: Why, why so suddenly? 01:45:56.763 --> 01:45:57.573 Justin Sledge: So it seems 01:45:58.208 --> 01:45:58.498 Rupert Isaacson: from. 01:45:59.433 --> 01:46:01.533 Justin Sledge: So the, well, the Kabbala has a very long, complicated 01:46:01.533 --> 01:46:06.393 history going back to the, the 13th century, if not prior, but the, the, 01:46:06.478 --> 01:46:10.193 the big idea seems to come from a guy named Isaac Luria and his student Al. 01:46:10.253 --> 01:46:16.583 And they developed this idea of Gil Goul, which means something like Ole, 01:46:16.943 --> 01:46:19.163 and this is the idea that souls roll. 01:46:19.163 --> 01:46:19.343 Where are 01:46:19.343 --> 01:46:19.763 Rupert Isaacson: they living? 01:46:19.763 --> 01:46:21.113 These two guys, these two Rabbi. 01:46:21.113 --> 01:46:21.413 So 01:46:21.683 --> 01:46:23.893 Justin Sledge: its like Luria is living in Cairo. 01:46:23.923 --> 01:46:26.833 He ultimately immigrates, this is all inside of the Ottoman Empire. 01:46:27.133 --> 01:46:32.083 So he immigrates to what is now the Galilee, and k Vita is living in 01:46:32.083 --> 01:46:36.343 the Galilee, and ultimately he goes to Damascus and then reincarnation 01:46:36.343 --> 01:46:38.773 enters into Judaism as a, as a viable 01:46:38.903 --> 01:46:40.703 Rupert Isaacson: and where do you think they picked that up from? 01:46:41.573 --> 01:46:42.863 It's not clear talking to Hindus. 01:46:42.863 --> 01:46:43.943 Were they talking to 01:46:44.363 --> 01:46:47.123 Justin Sledge: No, because the, the hin there's no sense of karma 01:46:47.303 --> 01:46:51.623 and there's no sense of you can't, you can't, there's no sense of cat. 01:46:51.623 --> 01:46:55.123 You can't go from you, you don't go from if you, if you commit bad 01:46:55.123 --> 01:46:57.973 stuff in this life, you don't get sent to be a woman in the next life 01:46:58.183 --> 01:46:59.833 or made into an animal or something. 01:46:59.983 --> 01:47:02.953 You can't be reincarnated down the food chain, so to speak. 01:47:03.643 --> 01:47:08.203 But it seems to be tied up to their theory of redemption and the idea that 01:47:08.203 --> 01:47:12.463 there's a finite number of souls and that in order for the redemption to occur, 01:47:13.213 --> 01:47:18.853 one has to make reparations for all the sins committed in one's past life. 01:47:19.003 --> 01:47:19.813 And how does one kind 01:47:19.813 --> 01:47:20.053 Justin Sledge: of. 01:47:20.113 --> 01:47:20.173 Yeah. 01:47:20.803 --> 01:47:24.933 So you, you undergo a kind of past life regression and there's 01:47:24.933 --> 01:47:27.813 a kind of ritual expert that does the past life regression for you. 01:47:27.813 --> 01:47:28.923 A kind of Jewish shaman. 01:47:29.493 --> 01:47:30.303 This happens before 01:47:30.303 --> 01:47:30.663 Rupert Isaacson: you die. 01:47:30.688 --> 01:47:31.833 You, you, you say, yeah, you 01:47:31.833 --> 01:47:33.033 Justin Sledge: figure this out before you die. 01:47:33.033 --> 01:47:35.213 And then they tell you it worked or not. 01:47:35.273 --> 01:47:37.193 Who, who, who were your past lives? 01:47:37.193 --> 01:47:40.643 What their ma, what the major sins they committed were and how to fix them. 01:47:40.883 --> 01:47:43.903 K vial his, and these called soul roots. 01:47:43.953 --> 01:47:46.323 The idea that this is the root of your soul. 01:47:46.623 --> 01:47:51.623 And for instance, K Vial, who was lu student, his soul route was Cain. 01:47:52.133 --> 01:47:56.603 He was the primordial murderer, and they're responsible for all murders. 01:47:57.453 --> 01:48:01.303 Which made him, because he was, if he could redeem that sin he 01:48:01.303 --> 01:48:03.563 could have been he could have been the Messiah or whatever. 01:48:04.223 --> 01:48:06.893 So you get this, and there's still people out there today in the 01:48:06.893 --> 01:48:10.793 kabbalistic world that will do this past life regression with you. 01:48:10.798 --> 01:48:11.543 But that's similar to, 01:48:11.573 --> 01:48:12.293 Rupert Isaacson: to Buddhism. 01:48:12.293 --> 01:48:12.713 Hinduism. 01:48:12.713 --> 01:48:14.783 Then you sort of get off the karmic wheel, even though you 01:48:14.783 --> 01:48:15.743 say there's no karma there. 01:48:15.743 --> 01:48:17.753 But isn't that something, a similar idea? 01:48:17.993 --> 01:48:22.913 Okay, I've, I've expunged this, these sins, but you could call that karma. 01:48:23.303 --> 01:48:25.283 Well, you do it and now I could do something else. 01:48:25.703 --> 01:48:26.123 Well, you, 01:48:26.123 --> 01:48:29.303 Justin Sledge: you, the, you do it in order to usher in the Messiah, and so 01:48:29.363 --> 01:48:35.183 that some point, the, the, the Messianic age will be ushered in once enough sin 01:48:35.183 --> 01:48:38.843 has been expunged and then the Messiah mess, the Messianic era will start, 01:48:39.263 --> 01:48:40.463 but it's not expected for normal. 01:48:40.463 --> 01:48:40.763 Like the 01:48:40.763 --> 01:48:43.373 Rupert Isaacson: Rastafarian idea of chant down Babylon sort of thing. 01:48:43.373 --> 01:48:44.453 Just we. 01:48:45.668 --> 01:48:50.348 Put enough good stuff out there in all these ways and the bad stuff, 01:48:50.648 --> 01:48:51.248 Justin Sledge: the battle stuff. 01:48:51.308 --> 01:48:51.638 Yeah. 01:48:51.638 --> 01:48:54.698 And Judaism has sort of two minds about how the Messiah will come. 01:48:55.158 --> 01:48:58.758 Either it'll get so bad that only the Messiah can fix it, or it'll get so good 01:48:58.758 --> 01:49:02.868 that the Messiah will be happily welcomed into the world, that there's no medium. 01:49:02.968 --> 01:49:05.368 But in general, you know, if you go to a local rabbi and ask them, 01:49:05.368 --> 01:49:06.478 what happens to me when I die? 01:49:06.508 --> 01:49:08.668 The rabbi will tell you, I'll let you know when I get there. 01:49:08.998 --> 01:49:09.388 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:49:09.388 --> 01:49:11.458 That's the, that's the predominant view now. 01:49:11.638 --> 01:49:11.878 Right. 01:49:12.118 --> 01:49:12.553 And that's the view. 01:49:12.553 --> 01:49:14.488 So when you're going in synagogue, they're not threatening you 01:49:14.488 --> 01:49:15.938 with hell, fire and brimstone? 01:49:15.938 --> 01:49:15.998 No. 01:49:16.223 --> 01:49:16.513 Okay. 01:49:17.258 --> 01:49:19.538 Justin Sledge: No, there's no, yeah. 01:49:19.838 --> 01:49:20.498 Historically saying, be a 01:49:20.708 --> 01:49:21.008 Rupert Isaacson: inch. 01:49:21.488 --> 01:49:22.358 Justin Sledge: Yeah, be a inch. 01:49:22.508 --> 01:49:25.118 And, and the idea is that, you know, the, you know, and if you 01:49:25.118 --> 01:49:27.938 look at the Torah, the rewards are always this worldly, follow the 01:49:27.938 --> 01:49:33.908 rules and you'll get children, land, agriculture, life will be good for you. 01:49:33.968 --> 01:49:36.728 Rupert Isaacson: Your, your bonds will be bursting at the seams 01:49:36.728 --> 01:49:37.868 and your cut will runeth over. 01:49:38.288 --> 01:49:38.528 Justin Sledge: Eth over. 01:49:38.648 --> 01:49:41.528 And so that's the kind of, it's, it's a very, this worldly religion. 01:49:42.458 --> 01:49:42.488 Okay. 01:49:42.488 --> 01:49:45.638 And there's even a line in the Talman that says that people who do the 01:49:45.638 --> 01:49:48.728 right thing with the expectation of reward have that reward. 01:49:49.508 --> 01:49:50.708 But that's like a child. 01:49:51.368 --> 01:49:55.898 It is like a, it's like a toddler version of religion that if you do 01:49:55.898 --> 01:49:57.668 the right thing to get a reward. 01:49:58.613 --> 01:50:00.353 God's like pat you on the head. 01:50:00.443 --> 01:50:01.163 Good for you. 01:50:01.583 --> 01:50:07.493 But like, it's a, it's a, it's an in, it's an ins ultimately insufficient 01:50:07.553 --> 01:50:10.973 way of getting people to do the good, because then you only do good, do the good 01:50:10.973 --> 01:50:14.953 when you get reward or only do the good when you get public recognition for it. 01:50:15.823 --> 01:50:18.253 And the rabbis are very skeptical of the idea that you should be 01:50:18.253 --> 01:50:21.043 rewarded in the afterlife for having done the good in this world. 01:50:21.653 --> 01:50:22.328 Because it, it's interesting. 01:50:22.328 --> 01:50:25.763 It sets up a, a bad idea about why you should do the good. 01:50:25.763 --> 01:50:27.473 You shouldn't do the good 'cause you get something you should do 01:50:27.473 --> 01:50:28.493 the good because it's a good, 01:50:29.093 --> 01:50:32.843 Rupert Isaacson: this feels to me almost like a parallel with Ana Buddhism or 01:50:32.943 --> 01:50:36.063 not the sort of, you know, Buddhism of Tibetan, which is sort of like 01:50:36.063 --> 01:50:37.683 high Catholic Buddhism or whatever. 01:50:37.683 --> 01:50:42.333 But it seems again, very similar to the kind of golden rule thing. 01:50:42.333 --> 01:50:47.733 Just, you know, don't be a dick because your life is worse if you are be mentor. 01:50:47.733 --> 01:50:47.793 Yeah. 01:50:47.913 --> 01:50:49.773 I, because things kind of go better if you are. 01:50:51.033 --> 01:50:53.613 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I guess, I mean, I think that, you know, Spinoza 01:50:53.613 --> 01:50:56.943 famously said that religion can be boiled down to two things, right? 01:50:56.973 --> 01:51:00.453 That, that there's a, that something made all this so there's probably 01:51:00.453 --> 01:51:04.233 a God and that whatever is hateful to you don't do to your neighbor. 01:51:05.253 --> 01:51:08.403 And he thought basically religion could be boiled down to those two things. 01:51:08.403 --> 01:51:10.823 And everything else he thought of was he called superstition. 01:51:11.583 --> 01:51:13.563 He said those two things can be logically proved. 01:51:13.593 --> 01:51:17.103 The rest of it is just cultural fad and, and superstition. 01:51:17.103 --> 01:51:17.853 I'm not sure I go that quickly. 01:51:17.853 --> 01:51:17.913 Who 01:51:18.393 --> 01:51:18.573 Rupert Isaacson: knows? 01:51:18.573 --> 01:51:19.923 It was, 'cause again, not everyone knows. 01:51:20.448 --> 01:51:24.818 Justin Sledge: Espinoza was a 17th century rationalist philosopher, famous for being 01:51:24.848 --> 01:51:26.408 excommunicated by the Jewish community. 01:51:27.078 --> 01:51:29.058 He was living in the Netherlands, right? 01:51:29.058 --> 01:51:29.928 The Netherlands, that's right. 01:51:29.988 --> 01:51:30.318 Yeah. 01:51:30.628 --> 01:51:32.398 I've been to his house on many occasions. 01:51:32.398 --> 01:51:35.213 He's kind of a you know, one of the, I don't know if he's one 01:51:35.213 --> 01:51:37.308 of my favorite philosophers, but he's certainly a philosopher that 01:51:37.308 --> 01:51:38.868 I Why, why should we, why should 01:51:38.868 --> 01:51:39.558 Rupert Isaacson: we know about him? 01:51:41.238 --> 01:51:45.498 Justin Sledge: I think that he pioneered the idea that one could 01:51:45.618 --> 01:51:50.838 believe in a transcendent reality without being part of a religion. 01:51:51.438 --> 01:51:52.638 That you could be secular. 01:51:53.238 --> 01:51:55.158 I mean, Spinoza was the first secular person. 01:51:55.188 --> 01:51:57.408 He was kicked out of a religion, but he never joined another one. 01:51:57.408 --> 01:52:01.488 But he didn't give up believing in something like God was Descartes secular. 01:52:01.938 --> 01:52:02.358 Mm-hmm. 01:52:02.478 --> 01:52:05.418 Justin Sledge: No, he, he continued to be a, a pious Catholic. 01:52:05.418 --> 01:52:08.988 I mean, he got in trouble with them, but he, I think if you'd asked him if 01:52:08.988 --> 01:52:10.308 he were a Catholic, he would say yes. 01:52:10.368 --> 01:52:11.118 He took confession. 01:52:11.218 --> 01:52:12.568 But Spinoza was excommunicated. 01:52:13.048 --> 01:52:15.208 Rupert Isaacson: And so if, if, if, okay, so sorry. 01:52:15.208 --> 01:52:19.378 He, so he said, he's saying, I interrupted you for why we should know about him. 01:52:19.798 --> 01:52:20.338 Please go on. 01:52:20.758 --> 01:52:20.938 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:52:20.938 --> 01:52:24.718 I think that he's important because if you've ever left a religion and 01:52:24.718 --> 01:52:28.618 didn't join another one and you still believe in God, then you, you can 01:52:28.618 --> 01:52:30.118 thank him 'cause he did it first. 01:52:31.918 --> 01:52:33.208 Rupert Isaacson: That sort of describes to me, 01:52:35.248 --> 01:52:35.753 you might have 01:52:35.753 --> 01:52:37.528 Justin Sledge: a, you might have a grandfather in Spinoza. 01:52:37.918 --> 01:52:41.368 Rupert Isaacson: I might, you know, I mean, hey, I've got Dutch roots as 01:52:41.368 --> 01:52:42.388 well as everything else there, you. 01:52:44.263 --> 01:52:44.443 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 01:52:44.443 --> 01:52:47.233 He, you know, he also made the first protest sign that we know of in history. 01:52:47.683 --> 01:52:47.923 Really. 01:52:47.923 --> 01:52:52.153 He ever held up a, yeah, after the, the mob murdered the Det Brothers 01:52:52.213 --> 01:52:55.423 he wanted to hang a protest sign outside of his apartment saying, you 01:52:55.423 --> 01:52:57.553 know, this is the worst Barbarity. 01:52:57.973 --> 01:53:00.133 And his land Leddy was like, are you crazy? 01:53:00.163 --> 01:53:01.333 They'll tear those guys apart. 01:53:01.333 --> 01:53:02.293 They'll tear you apart. 01:53:02.323 --> 01:53:02.503 Like, 01:53:02.503 --> 01:53:03.193 Rupert Isaacson: don't do that. 01:53:03.198 --> 01:53:05.083 Who were the Det brothers and why were they murdered? 01:53:05.303 --> 01:53:07.943 Justin Sledge: The Det brothers were the head of the of the Dutch 01:53:07.943 --> 01:53:13.073 Republic and royalist Mob who wanted to restore the house of Orange 01:53:13.143 --> 01:53:14.343 which was eventually restored. 01:53:14.343 --> 01:53:14.823 Lynch them. 01:53:15.363 --> 01:53:19.313 And if you wanna see a, a nightmare fuel painting, there's a painting 01:53:19.313 --> 01:53:21.803 made from life of what they look like after they were lynched. 01:53:21.803 --> 01:53:22.973 And it's really horrifying. 01:53:22.973 --> 01:53:25.133 They're emasculated faces torn off. 01:53:25.373 --> 01:53:27.113 Rupert Isaacson: Where do you, where does one find this painting? 01:53:27.743 --> 01:53:32.333 You can Google it, I'm sure if you just Google the murder of the DVI Brothers I'm 01:53:32.333 --> 01:53:35.723 gonna make And, and how did that play out? 01:53:35.823 --> 01:53:39.123 Because they must have had a whole power structure around them, the Devet brothers. 01:53:39.123 --> 01:53:41.553 I mean, how could, how did the mob get hold of them so easily? 01:53:41.763 --> 01:53:42.873 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I wonder this too. 01:53:42.873 --> 01:53:43.198 And I can say that. 01:53:43.203 --> 01:53:43.743 Why were they so 01:53:43.743 --> 01:53:44.403 Rupert Isaacson: enraged? 01:53:44.433 --> 01:53:46.833 'cause they, you know, they're sort of Dutch people, you know, who Yeah, they're 01:53:46.833 --> 01:53:47.253 Justin Sledge: Dutch people. 01:53:47.253 --> 01:53:48.273 I don't have any emotions. 01:53:48.333 --> 01:53:51.873 I think that the, I think that they, again, the, the politics and inspires, 01:53:51.973 --> 01:53:54.673 you know, people to do bizarre, crazy things, including hateful, 01:53:54.763 --> 01:53:59.983 murderous things was Nietzsche said that insanity in individuals is rare, 01:53:59.983 --> 01:54:01.843 but insanity in crowds is the rule. 01:54:02.563 --> 01:54:03.133 Mm-hmm. 01:54:03.223 --> 01:54:05.533 And so I, I think Nietzche said that that's the kind of thing Nietzche 01:54:05.533 --> 01:54:09.023 would say, but yeah, I think that they, again, it was political tensions 01:54:09.023 --> 01:54:12.473 were pretty high, and the royalists and the Republican through h Joe's 01:54:12.473 --> 01:54:18.613 throats and ultimately the English were able to reinstall their whatever, 01:54:18.613 --> 01:54:20.113 cousins or whatever on the throne 01:54:20.383 --> 01:54:21.313 Rupert Isaacson: ah, we were behind it. 01:54:21.373 --> 01:54:22.303 That makes sense. 01:54:22.303 --> 01:54:22.663 Yes. 01:54:22.663 --> 01:54:23.293 The Brits, 01:54:23.773 --> 01:54:25.693 Justin Sledge: I mean, they, they were behind in the sense that, you know, 01:54:25.693 --> 01:54:29.083 they definitely did not want to continue dealing with the Dutch Republic as a 01:54:29.083 --> 01:54:32.563 naval enemy, and they wanted to have, you know, and so they, you know, I 01:54:32.563 --> 01:54:36.473 mean that's the reason why the oh, I found the painting, the ulcer royalists 01:54:36.533 --> 01:54:39.893 and and Northern Ireland to this day still have orange the same way the Yes. 01:54:39.893 --> 01:54:40.343 Of orange. 01:54:40.643 --> 01:54:41.423 They're all connected. 01:54:41.513 --> 01:54:43.283 It's all part of the one big royal family. 01:54:43.673 --> 01:54:46.493 Rupert Isaacson: I have found the painting and trigger alert guys. 01:54:46.833 --> 01:54:46.953 Yeah, 01:54:47.313 --> 01:54:48.003 Justin Sledge: I don't, I don't recommend it. 01:54:48.123 --> 01:54:49.263 Rupert Isaacson: I wouldn't recommend looking at it. 01:54:50.103 --> 01:54:50.373 Yep. 01:54:50.463 --> 01:54:50.703 Yeah. 01:54:50.913 --> 01:54:51.483 Fair warning. 01:54:51.483 --> 01:54:51.693 Yep. 01:54:51.963 --> 01:54:52.233 Yeah. 01:54:52.233 --> 01:54:52.863 I, I, yeah. 01:54:53.163 --> 01:54:53.343 Yeah. 01:54:53.343 --> 01:54:57.423 Justin Sledge: It's, you know, but it is, you know, that's how Democracy dies. 01:54:57.543 --> 01:54:59.583 That is a painting about the death of a republic. 01:54:59.663 --> 01:55:00.053 And. 01:55:00.918 --> 01:55:05.388 For all of us people who believe in rule by the people, for the people, you know, 01:55:05.388 --> 01:55:07.248 that's a, it's a gruesome painting. 01:55:07.248 --> 01:55:08.298 Well worth contemplating. 01:55:09.078 --> 01:55:09.823 'cause to me it's 01:55:09.823 --> 01:55:09.983 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 01:55:09.988 --> 01:55:12.198 And of course, you know, rule by the people, for the people can 01:55:12.198 --> 01:55:14.748 easily turn into oligarchies and 01:55:14.808 --> 01:55:15.168 Sure. 01:55:15.468 --> 01:55:17.238 Rupert Isaacson: Mafias as we know. 01:55:17.488 --> 01:55:17.758 Yep. 01:55:17.998 --> 01:55:22.408 So there's arguments for monarchies, IE the devils, you know, the mafia, you know. 01:55:22.978 --> 01:55:23.188 Right. 01:55:23.268 --> 01:55:24.648 Stability with that. 01:55:24.738 --> 01:55:26.268 It is the office, not the person. 01:55:27.228 --> 01:55:33.078 And changing your gangsters up every four, two, however many years. 01:55:33.078 --> 01:55:33.348 Yeah, 01:55:33.498 --> 01:55:33.918 Justin Sledge: yeah. 01:55:34.188 --> 01:55:34.608 No, no. 01:55:34.608 --> 01:55:34.908 Who knows? 01:55:34.908 --> 01:55:36.588 We, maybe it could be just be the case. 01:55:36.588 --> 01:55:38.778 We're all shuffling the deck, the deck chairs in the Titanic. 01:55:38.898 --> 01:55:40.038 But indeed, indeed. 01:55:40.138 --> 01:55:42.538 But no, I I like Hobbes. 01:55:42.538 --> 01:55:46.948 Hobbes says, you know, I don't care if it's a, a king or a republic 01:55:46.978 --> 01:55:48.538 or a whatever, it doesn't matter. 01:55:48.778 --> 01:55:53.218 What matters is the, the sovereignty of the people that kings sit on their thrones 01:55:53.218 --> 01:55:54.598 as long as the people want them to. 01:55:55.318 --> 01:55:55.348 Mm. 01:55:55.738 --> 01:55:57.448 And then tell us who Hobbes was. 01:55:57.998 --> 01:56:02.298 So another 17th century political philosopher and translator. 01:56:02.308 --> 01:56:04.648 People often sit on, they really sleep on Hobbes's translation. 01:56:04.648 --> 01:56:07.828 So he did street really great translations of like, acidities and stuff. 01:56:08.218 --> 01:56:09.358 Did a translation of Homer. 01:56:09.418 --> 01:56:12.448 But he was an important political philosopher, especially a political 01:56:12.448 --> 01:56:13.858 philosopher of sovereignty. 01:56:13.948 --> 01:56:16.828 Rupert Isaacson: Was he in Oxford, Don, like, how, how was he funding 01:56:16.828 --> 01:56:18.808 himself to, that's a good question. 01:56:18.928 --> 01:56:19.888 I forget exactly where he 01:56:19.888 --> 01:56:20.608 Justin Sledge: graduated from. 01:56:20.608 --> 01:56:23.098 He was, you know, worked for one of these wealthy, right. 01:56:23.473 --> 01:56:24.763 Wealthy got a patron or whatever. 01:56:24.823 --> 01:56:25.033 Yeah. 01:56:25.033 --> 01:56:25.423 Patron. 01:56:25.423 --> 01:56:26.353 That's, I think so. 01:56:27.493 --> 01:56:27.553 So, 01:56:29.263 --> 01:56:33.373 Rupert Isaacson: and that sort of brings us to YouTube because one of the things 01:56:33.373 --> 01:56:39.133 I find really fascinating about channels like yours, it's a big channel now. 01:56:39.133 --> 01:56:42.943 I mean, if I look at your views, you know, it's in the hundreds of thousands 01:56:43.093 --> 01:56:47.173 which is brilliant because, you know, it, it, it's, for me, it's revenge of 01:56:47.173 --> 01:56:51.793 the nerds because it vindicates that people say, oh, history's so boring. 01:56:51.793 --> 01:56:53.053 It's like, oh yeah, oh yeah. 01:56:53.083 --> 01:56:57.013 Well look at Justin Church's esoterica thing then, and, and look how many, 01:56:57.073 --> 01:57:00.223 you know, because it's brilliant. 01:57:00.583 --> 01:57:01.093 Frankly. 01:57:01.093 --> 01:57:03.283 Your, your channel is brilliant, Justin. 01:57:03.283 --> 01:57:04.288 I mean, it's, I appreciate that. 01:57:05.238 --> 01:57:08.233 It's, I'd say it's beyond brilliant because it's entertaining, 01:57:08.233 --> 01:57:14.173 informative, deeply non-partisan and 01:57:16.213 --> 01:57:17.773 fair and humorous. 01:57:18.523 --> 01:57:22.723 You know, there's so many chuckles through, through the whole thing, and 01:57:22.723 --> 01:57:24.853 you've made a real success of this. 01:57:24.903 --> 01:57:29.643 I think there's a lot of people out there who, just switching gears completely 01:57:29.763 --> 01:57:33.273 now you lead a very different life now, I should imagine, to when you were an 01:57:33.273 --> 01:57:39.159 adjunct professor To explore and study what you want to, to showcase what 01:57:39.159 --> 01:57:41.139 you want to, to sort of inform people. 01:57:41.289 --> 01:57:45.219 And it's vindicated because people are voting with their feet, with their views. 01:57:45.549 --> 01:57:47.889 So you must be making a living from this. 01:57:47.889 --> 01:57:48.309 Now. 01:57:48.789 --> 01:57:51.729 How did you manage to evolve that? 01:57:51.909 --> 01:57:55.059 And I watched videos of yours from four years ago to now sort of thing, 01:57:55.059 --> 01:57:59.229 and it's, it's, I find it really interesting that you can present 01:58:01.389 --> 01:58:05.979 material that if I was to go to the bank and say, could you give me a loan, please 01:58:05.979 --> 01:58:11.949 so that I can do a, a YouTube channel on really, really esoteric stuff that 01:58:11.949 --> 01:58:13.389 people might or might not be interested. 01:58:13.389 --> 01:58:14.709 I dunno, but I'm interested in it. 01:58:14.919 --> 01:58:16.539 And they probably say, Rupert bugger off. 01:58:17.139 --> 01:58:18.999 You've made such a go of it. 01:58:19.209 --> 01:58:19.839 How, 01:58:22.149 --> 01:58:22.689 Justin Sledge: what do you mean? 01:58:22.689 --> 01:58:23.229 How, just 01:58:23.859 --> 01:58:26.289 Rupert Isaacson: in terms of, yeah, because I mean, like, literally 01:58:26.289 --> 01:58:29.649 what, what's, if you were to write a bio, your autobiography and 01:58:29.649 --> 01:58:33.879 say, I started here and I got here and these were sort of the steps. 01:58:34.089 --> 01:58:36.309 I said, 'cause it must have been a real voyage of discovery for you. 01:58:36.309 --> 01:58:39.849 You must have, you didn't come out of your mother's womb knowing how to do YouTube. 01:58:39.879 --> 01:58:40.299 I mean, 01:58:40.329 --> 01:58:40.719 Justin Sledge: yeah. 01:58:40.719 --> 01:58:42.129 No, I still don't know how to do YouTube. 01:58:42.189 --> 01:58:43.269 Still have no idea what I'm doing. 01:58:43.979 --> 01:58:47.909 You know, I, so maybe the, the easy way to answer it was that 01:58:47.909 --> 01:58:50.879 before I was an academic, I was in the entrepreneurial world. 01:58:50.939 --> 01:58:52.319 I was in like the tech world. 01:58:52.319 --> 01:58:52.349 Okay. 01:58:52.409 --> 01:58:54.089 And I knew a good bit about. 01:58:54.524 --> 01:58:58.424 How to start a business and like, and how to run a business and 01:58:58.429 --> 01:59:00.074 how to, like what did you do in the tech world out of interest? 01:59:00.109 --> 01:59:02.894 I, I worked in like security, like tech security. 01:59:02.894 --> 01:59:02.924 Okay. 01:59:04.094 --> 01:59:07.384 And you know, I, when I, it was my brother that ultimately convinced me to 01:59:07.384 --> 01:59:12.424 do the channel and after he convinced me, I spent, I spent five months 01:59:12.484 --> 01:59:17.044 planning how I wanted the channel, what I wanted it to look like, what I wanted 01:59:17.044 --> 01:59:23.164 to cover, the cadence of the channel, you know, almost all the major things. 01:59:23.164 --> 01:59:24.544 Nothing's fundamentally changed. 01:59:24.754 --> 01:59:25.084 Mm-hmm. 01:59:25.474 --> 01:59:26.404 I've gotten better at it. 01:59:26.494 --> 01:59:26.794 Yeah. 01:59:26.944 --> 01:59:28.114 I've found my own voice. 01:59:28.774 --> 01:59:32.104 You know, apparently people think that the bizarre things I say are funny 01:59:32.104 --> 01:59:35.524 and so I, I've, you know, I don't mind, you know, interjecting some 01:59:35.524 --> 01:59:39.154 degree of my whatever sense of humor, assuming, you know, that I have that. 01:59:39.724 --> 01:59:43.294 But you know, I think that part of why the channel has grown is because 01:59:43.324 --> 01:59:46.564 of the vacuum of other reliable data. 01:59:46.984 --> 01:59:52.774 I think that when I tell people this book says this, here is the book, here is the 01:59:52.774 --> 01:59:54.394 manuscript that the book is based on. 01:59:54.394 --> 01:59:55.654 Here is a link to the manuscript. 01:59:55.654 --> 01:59:56.704 You can read it yourself. 01:59:57.064 --> 01:59:59.794 Here is a thing to help you learn to read Latin so you can read the manuscript. 02:00:00.454 --> 02:00:00.814 Right. 02:00:00.864 --> 02:00:04.414 You know, I don't and also I don't tell people how history was. 02:00:04.414 --> 02:00:05.674 I say, look, this is the debates. 02:00:06.394 --> 02:00:09.424 You know, it's, these are, this is the data, these are the debates over the data. 02:00:09.424 --> 02:00:10.474 Here's the data for yourself. 02:00:10.534 --> 02:00:10.714 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 02:00:10.714 --> 02:00:14.254 But there's people out there that do that, and they're not you. 02:00:15.064 --> 02:00:15.574 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 02:00:15.574 --> 02:00:20.824 I mean, but I think that maybe they, I mean they don't do do in this field. 02:00:20.824 --> 02:00:23.644 I don't know anyone else really doing it, doing that in this field. 02:00:24.334 --> 02:00:28.084 There's other people doing that in, I don't know, maybe other fields, 02:00:28.114 --> 02:00:29.464 Beowulf or something, I don't know. 02:00:30.094 --> 02:00:30.184 Mm-hmm. 02:00:30.184 --> 02:00:33.004 But you know what, I think what people like is that they 02:00:33.004 --> 02:00:34.204 don't feel sold something. 02:00:34.804 --> 02:00:37.114 They don't feel told that this is the way that it is. 02:00:37.384 --> 02:00:37.714 Okay. 02:00:38.174 --> 02:00:41.264 I think people like saying, you know, people like knowing that these 02:00:41.264 --> 02:00:45.134 are my sources, you know, and also the whole channel is engineered 02:00:45.134 --> 02:00:48.194 around the idea that I'm empowering people to do the work themselves. 02:00:48.284 --> 02:00:48.434 Mm-hmm. 02:00:48.914 --> 02:00:50.684 Justin Sledge: You know, people get angry sometimes when I say, well, 02:00:50.684 --> 02:00:51.824 I'm not gonna summarize the book. 02:00:53.564 --> 02:00:55.334 And they're like, well, that's what I want. 02:00:55.334 --> 02:00:57.704 I want to, and I'm like, yeah, you think you want that? 02:00:58.064 --> 02:01:01.244 'cause that feels like you're learning, but you're not learning. 02:01:01.694 --> 02:01:04.694 Wikipedia feels like learning, but it's not learning. 02:01:05.204 --> 02:01:06.704 You need to read these books. 02:01:07.154 --> 02:01:08.564 You need to study the material. 02:01:08.654 --> 02:01:12.134 And the only way to do that is by feeling like you can, and the way 02:01:12.134 --> 02:01:16.154 that you prepare people is to say, look, Sumerian is not magical. 02:01:16.154 --> 02:01:17.594 It's a language like any other language. 02:01:17.624 --> 02:01:18.614 Latin's not magical. 02:01:18.614 --> 02:01:19.304 It's a language. 02:01:19.484 --> 02:01:22.904 You can learn it, you can learn to read medieval handwriting 02:01:23.114 --> 02:01:24.974 Rupert Isaacson: and you can read in translation too. 02:01:25.334 --> 02:01:25.574 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 02:01:25.694 --> 02:01:26.714 And here's a good translation. 02:01:26.924 --> 02:01:27.224 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah. 02:01:27.434 --> 02:01:29.654 Justin Sledge: And here's why it's a good translation, because the 02:01:29.654 --> 02:01:32.084 translator will tell you why they make the decisions they're making. 02:01:32.504 --> 02:01:32.834 Mm-hmm. 02:01:33.194 --> 02:01:35.024 Justin Sledge: And it's about empowerment. 02:01:35.294 --> 02:01:38.624 And I think people want to feel, people often come to education and they come 02:01:38.624 --> 02:01:40.694 away from education, feeling disempowered. 02:01:41.849 --> 02:01:44.159 And I want people to feel empowered. 02:01:45.059 --> 02:01:47.699 And the way you make people feel empowered is you make them feel like 02:01:48.059 --> 02:01:49.709 they can join the conversation too. 02:01:50.369 --> 02:01:56.879 And I do believe that eter, that esoterica allows people the tools to empower 02:01:56.879 --> 02:01:58.499 themselves to enter the conversation. 02:01:59.249 --> 02:02:03.899 Now, not at a high level and not at, you know, whatever, but it's certainly more 02:02:03.899 --> 02:02:09.239 empowering than, here's some stuff I heard in a dream, or here's some stuff that, 02:02:09.239 --> 02:02:13.649 like I read in a book that's not reliable, or Here's my personal beliefs about this. 02:02:14.099 --> 02:02:17.189 Very rarely will you ever hear me interject my personal beliefs 02:02:17.189 --> 02:02:18.329 into an esoteric episode. 02:02:19.169 --> 02:02:20.009 Almost never. 02:02:20.549 --> 02:02:23.609 Rupert Isaacson: Did you have any idea, did you plan that it would get this big? 02:02:23.609 --> 02:02:26.159 Did you have any idea that it would, or was it more just a question of, 02:02:26.159 --> 02:02:28.005 look, I'm surprised by how big it 02:02:28.005 --> 02:02:28.275 Justin Sledge: got. 02:02:28.875 --> 02:02:30.735 Yeah, no, I had no idea it would get this big. 02:02:30.810 --> 02:02:34.065 I'm, I'm, I'm flabbergasted every time I open up the analytics 02:02:34.065 --> 02:02:36.255 that it's, that it's this big. 02:02:36.675 --> 02:02:37.005 Yeah. 02:02:37.105 --> 02:02:37.435 Yeah. 02:02:37.495 --> 02:02:39.925 And, you know, that's great and terrible, right? 02:02:39.925 --> 02:02:42.415 Because that means I can make a living doing it. 02:02:42.415 --> 02:02:47.665 But it also means that the amount of eyes on me are enormous. 02:02:47.665 --> 02:02:49.975 And so making mistakes becomes a much bigger deal. 02:02:50.455 --> 02:02:54.325 And also it means that, you know, I was talking to my former teacher v Holograph 02:02:54.725 --> 02:02:58.655 who at the University of Amsterdam where I was trained, and he was like, it's 02:02:58.655 --> 02:03:01.595 great that your channel's gotten this big, but just know that any mistakes 02:03:01.595 --> 02:03:03.815 you make, we have to clean up later. 02:03:05.330 --> 02:03:05.450 Rupert Isaacson: And 02:03:05.450 --> 02:03:06.655 Justin Sledge: that's a lot of responsibility, but it keep 02:03:06.655 --> 02:03:08.390 Rupert Isaacson: the conversation going and at least it puts it out 02:03:08.390 --> 02:03:09.740 there in the public conscious earth. 02:03:10.550 --> 02:03:10.700 Right. 02:03:10.700 --> 02:03:14.870 I mean, if one was so afraid of making mistakes, one would never do anything. 02:03:15.110 --> 02:03:18.470 You should hear my German, it's terrible, but it's functional. 02:03:18.750 --> 02:03:21.150 And I don't mind sounding like a toddler because otherwise 02:03:21.150 --> 02:03:22.230 how will I learn, you know? 02:03:22.230 --> 02:03:24.240 It, its, but Okay. 02:03:24.240 --> 02:03:26.160 Well, you said you were trained at the University of Amsterdam. 02:03:26.160 --> 02:03:27.240 What were you trained in there? 02:03:27.750 --> 02:03:30.210 'cause you trained in the study out of your, the study of, 02:03:30.210 --> 02:03:31.500 Justin Sledge: Of Western as a terrorism. 02:03:31.500 --> 02:03:34.525 That's where I received sort of like my how to study Western as a tism. 02:03:34.525 --> 02:03:36.005 What Western as a terrorism is. 02:03:37.110 --> 02:03:38.310 Did you do that as an ma? 02:03:38.730 --> 02:03:39.240 Mm-hmm. 02:03:39.360 --> 02:03:40.080 Rupert Isaacson: Or MSC? 02:03:40.800 --> 02:03:41.010 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 02:03:41.010 --> 02:03:41.370 Or d 02:03:41.760 --> 02:03:43.710 Rupert Isaacson: you know, whatever the, whatever the, the Dutch. 02:03:43.800 --> 02:03:45.390 And why did you go to the Netherlands? 02:03:45.780 --> 02:03:46.680 Justin Sledge: It was the only place. 02:03:47.550 --> 02:03:47.910 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 02:03:48.810 --> 02:03:50.010 Did you have to self-fund that? 02:03:51.070 --> 02:03:51.790 Justin Sledge: I got a loan. 02:03:51.790 --> 02:03:53.260 Yeah, I got a loan and I got a scholarship. 02:03:54.640 --> 02:03:56.110 So, but because you must have come 02:03:56.110 --> 02:03:57.220 Rupert Isaacson: out of that in some debt. 02:03:58.360 --> 02:04:00.880 Justin Sledge: Yeah, I think I, I came out self some debt, but I, I think, 02:04:00.880 --> 02:04:03.430 you know, it wasn't, you know, I paid, I since paid it off, thank God. 02:04:03.430 --> 02:04:06.400 So, but yeah, it was the, it was just a task. 02:04:06.400 --> 02:04:08.980 It was, I remember finishing undergraduate and just being 02:04:08.980 --> 02:04:10.480 like, this is what I have to do. 02:04:11.170 --> 02:04:11.890 I gotta go. 02:04:12.730 --> 02:04:13.570 Rupert Isaacson: Why? 02:04:13.570 --> 02:04:17.320 Why is it the only place that teaches the history of Western Esoterism? 02:04:18.320 --> 02:04:19.340 Justin Sledge: Because everyone's interested 02:04:19.340 --> 02:04:19.610 Rupert Isaacson: in it. 02:04:20.735 --> 02:04:23.615 Justin Sledge: I don't know that everyone is, some people are, I mean, I think 02:04:23.615 --> 02:04:26.615 it's the only place because there are not many people skilled enough to teach it. 02:04:26.705 --> 02:04:30.635 And there's an endowed chair, a very wealthy woman decided that 02:04:30.635 --> 02:04:33.455 she was, decided she was really interested in it and decided she 02:04:33.455 --> 02:04:34.835 was going to endowed chair and 02:04:35.045 --> 02:04:35.315 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 02:04:35.675 --> 02:04:40.115 Justin Sledge: Threw millions of dollars at an institution and conjure in, in, into 02:04:40.115 --> 02:04:41.555 being the way that rich people can do. 02:04:42.035 --> 02:04:42.455 Yeah. 02:04:42.695 --> 02:04:45.395 Justin Sledge: So I think it has more to do with the accident. 02:04:45.395 --> 02:04:49.885 And, you know, V Va GRA is a, a, a Titanic scholar was a really 02:04:49.885 --> 02:04:50.965 intellectual hero of mine. 02:04:51.505 --> 02:04:51.865 And 02:04:51.905 --> 02:04:53.315 Rupert Isaacson: why so tell us about him. 02:04:54.695 --> 02:04:56.050 Justin Sledge: Voucher Ner Van DeGraff. 02:04:56.390 --> 02:04:56.680 RAF Vata. 02:04:57.040 --> 02:04:57.700 Raf, yeah. 02:04:58.000 --> 02:04:58.450 Raf, yeah. 02:04:58.450 --> 02:05:02.860 He's, you know, he, he's, he's just been able to shepherd the whole field in 02:05:02.860 --> 02:05:07.450 many ways by making it respectable, by publishing really great monographs and 02:05:07.450 --> 02:05:13.580 articles by, by making the department a collegial place where a range of 02:05:13.580 --> 02:05:16.650 opinions are appreciated and diverse. 02:05:16.710 --> 02:05:19.200 You know, it's a diverse field, you know, a diverse place with, you 02:05:19.200 --> 02:05:20.250 know, lots of different people there. 02:05:20.820 --> 02:05:24.420 Yeah, he's just, you know, the Dutch, you know, the, the Dutch are a 02:05:24.420 --> 02:05:28.530 practical people and he's a practical person with an obscure interest, 02:05:28.530 --> 02:05:30.060 and he's been able to make it work. 02:05:30.720 --> 02:05:34.980 And yeah, I've always, you know, the one thing I'll say personally 02:05:35.100 --> 02:05:38.700 is that every time I've ever been around him, he listens as a, you 02:05:38.700 --> 02:05:40.650 know, to me as a junior scholar, as a. 02:05:42.330 --> 02:05:45.480 First day in his classroom when I said something, he listened 02:05:45.540 --> 02:05:46.500 and he interacted with me. 02:05:46.890 --> 02:05:49.800 And there was never a moment from between then and now when I 02:05:49.800 --> 02:05:54.540 interact with him where I never feel like he's like just biting his 02:05:54.540 --> 02:05:55.770 time to correct me or something. 02:05:56.890 --> 02:05:57.730 He's a real educator. 02:05:57.730 --> 02:05:58.630 He's a real scholar. 02:05:58.630 --> 02:06:03.740 He he's done Titanic important things for the field and yeah, it's a real, like 02:06:03.740 --> 02:06:04.910 I said, an intellectual hero of mine. 02:06:05.750 --> 02:06:06.080 So 02:06:06.350 --> 02:06:10.280 Rupert Isaacson: if you were to put into a nutshell why we ought to study 02:06:10.430 --> 02:06:13.700 Western esotericism, why should we? 02:06:14.930 --> 02:06:16.280 Justin Sledge: It's, it's part of our history. 02:06:17.510 --> 02:06:17.960 Rupert Isaacson: Go on. 02:06:18.140 --> 02:06:18.830 There's more than that. 02:06:20.060 --> 02:06:24.560 Justin Sledge: I think it's a part of our history that systems of power 02:06:24.590 --> 02:06:33.590 have sought to repress, that modernity has sought to repress that myth, that 02:06:33.590 --> 02:06:38.570 modern peddlers and conspiracy theories distort for their own interests. 02:06:39.770 --> 02:06:42.890 And it's had a disproportionate impact on the development of modernity. 02:06:43.190 --> 02:06:43.790 Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely. 02:06:44.120 --> 02:06:44.900 Justin Sledge: And so why 02:06:45.230 --> 02:06:46.040 Rupert Isaacson: think what we think? 02:06:46.130 --> 02:06:46.400 Yeah, 02:06:46.490 --> 02:06:48.620 Justin Sledge: it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's right there at the heart of it all. 02:06:49.190 --> 02:06:53.420 And I think that those are reasons why it should be taken seriously. 02:06:53.495 --> 02:06:56.930 I don't think that every religious studies department needs a Western 02:06:56.930 --> 02:07:02.480 as Tism scholar, but I do think that there's no reason why, you know, there 02:07:02.480 --> 02:07:08.000 are not more of us out there as a, you know, as a, as a, as a, you know, 02:07:08.510 --> 02:07:10.640 Rupert Isaacson: it's astonishing really, that there aren't given that. 02:07:11.615 --> 02:07:16.685 Western Esotericism is the belief bedrock of all our stuff. 02:07:17.615 --> 02:07:18.875 Justin Sledge: Some of it, you know, a lot of it, you know. 02:07:18.875 --> 02:07:19.115 Yeah. 02:07:19.115 --> 02:07:23.015 It just, you know, but again, I can say in the United States, I, you 02:07:23.015 --> 02:07:25.895 have to beg, borrow, and still to get religious, religious studies classes. 02:07:26.585 --> 02:07:26.855 Yeah. 02:07:26.945 --> 02:07:28.955 Just reli basic religious studies classes. 02:07:29.495 --> 02:07:32.465 The idea that you would have a specialization in religious 02:07:32.465 --> 02:07:34.205 studies classes is beyond the pale. 02:07:36.095 --> 02:07:38.195 Rupert Isaacson: And do you think that just comes from dogmatic 02:07:38.195 --> 02:07:40.745 Christianity or dogmatic science? 02:07:41.495 --> 02:07:44.375 Science saity or somewhere in between 02:07:44.615 --> 02:07:45.185 Justin Sledge: scientism? 02:07:45.185 --> 02:07:45.425 Yeah. 02:07:45.425 --> 02:07:46.415 I think it's also just uni. 02:07:46.655 --> 02:07:51.425 Universities are often skeptical of, they don't wanna be perceived as pushing an 02:07:51.425 --> 02:07:53.465 agenda, especially a religious agenda. 02:07:53.885 --> 02:07:56.945 And religious studies tends to be academic. 02:07:56.945 --> 02:08:00.335 I mean, it's, we're not taking a side, we're just trying to teach religious 02:08:00.335 --> 02:08:04.125 studies and somehow that offends people that you're not taking a position, but 02:08:04.125 --> 02:08:05.805 also taking a position isn't allowed. 02:08:06.525 --> 02:08:08.055 So it's a complete catch 22. 02:08:08.655 --> 02:08:09.555 Rupert Isaacson: It's so interesting. 02:08:10.945 --> 02:08:11.125 Okay. 02:08:11.425 --> 02:08:12.115 So here's the thing. 02:08:12.445 --> 02:08:16.255 Somebody needs to understand and begin somewhere. 02:08:16.615 --> 02:08:19.585 What are like the five things that. 02:08:20.140 --> 02:08:25.870 Somebody should start with to take them from Sumer ish to here to get a 02:08:25.870 --> 02:08:28.120 bit of an understanding to get going. 02:08:28.150 --> 02:08:33.580 You're talking to a 14-year-old, you say, dude, look at these five things. 02:08:34.120 --> 02:08:34.600 What are they? 02:08:35.230 --> 02:08:35.590 Justin Sledge: Wow. 02:08:35.620 --> 02:08:36.730 Look at these five things. 02:08:38.830 --> 02:08:40.985 Well, I think there's no better place in the beginning. 02:08:41.315 --> 02:08:43.840 Look at the Keshe and the instructions of ak. 02:08:43.955 --> 02:08:46.655 Those are the first two literary documents ever written. 02:08:46.715 --> 02:08:47.675 The Keshe. 02:08:48.485 --> 02:08:48.725 Yeah. 02:08:48.755 --> 02:08:49.445 KeHE. 02:08:49.595 --> 02:08:51.245 And the instructions of she ak 02:08:51.455 --> 02:08:52.325 Rupert Isaacson: instructions of she ak. 02:08:52.325 --> 02:08:53.450 And that's Sumeria. 02:08:53.550 --> 02:08:54.575 Justin Sledge: That's Sumeria. 02:08:54.575 --> 02:08:57.485 Those are the first two literary documents ever written down that we have. 02:08:57.875 --> 02:08:59.525 It's the earliest we have, I dunno if they're the, the 02:08:59.525 --> 02:09:01.055 first or the earliest Yeah. 02:09:01.055 --> 02:09:01.865 That we've recovered. 02:09:03.485 --> 02:09:07.625 Skipping ahead further ahead than that. 02:09:07.695 --> 02:09:07.965 Oh God. 02:09:07.965 --> 02:09:09.495 This is like an impossible question. 02:09:09.705 --> 02:09:10.455 Rupert Isaacson: Are we in Egypt? 02:09:11.805 --> 02:09:12.465 Are we in Greece? 02:09:14.955 --> 02:09:15.435 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 02:09:15.435 --> 02:09:16.425 I, I think that, 02:09:18.615 --> 02:09:21.255 I mean, I would from Egypt, I would say that the text that I 02:09:21.285 --> 02:09:28.635 would read from ancient Egypt would be the pyramid text of Unes. 02:09:29.385 --> 02:09:32.355 That's the first appearance of the soul and the afterlife and the 02:09:32.355 --> 02:09:34.005 world that we know of in literature. 02:09:34.485 --> 02:09:34.905 Great. 02:09:35.685 --> 02:09:36.435 Uns, how do you spell it? 02:09:36.765 --> 02:09:38.025 UNAS. 02:09:39.675 --> 02:09:40.365 Rupert Isaacson: So that's the first. 02:09:40.365 --> 02:09:41.205 What's fun with that name? 02:09:42.225 --> 02:09:42.525 Justin Sledge: Hmm. 02:09:42.765 --> 02:09:44.175 Rupert Isaacson: You could have all sorts of fun with that name. 02:09:44.205 --> 02:09:44.445 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 02:09:44.445 --> 02:09:45.525 It's either wanes. 02:09:45.525 --> 02:09:47.475 We don't know how it was really pronounced in ancient Egyptian. 02:09:47.835 --> 02:09:48.195 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 02:09:48.195 --> 02:09:48.675 Justin Sledge: Greece. 02:09:48.675 --> 02:09:51.195 I would say that you could spend a lifetime with Parmenides. 02:09:51.615 --> 02:09:52.455 Parmenides. 02:09:52.455 --> 02:09:54.675 Rupert Isaacson: Not Plato, not Socrates. 02:09:54.855 --> 02:09:55.635 Not everything is a 02:09:55.635 --> 02:09:56.835 Justin Sledge: commentary to Parmenides. 02:09:57.015 --> 02:09:58.575 Everything is downstream of parities. 02:09:58.575 --> 02:10:01.455 Everything's downstream of Plato, but Plato's downstream of Parities. 02:10:01.530 --> 02:10:01.820 Okay. 02:10:02.265 --> 02:10:02.745 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 02:10:02.985 --> 02:10:03.585 Didn't know that. 02:10:04.005 --> 02:10:04.395 Okay. 02:10:04.995 --> 02:10:05.505 Parities. 02:10:05.895 --> 02:10:07.575 I'm gonna go have a look at Parities. 02:10:08.535 --> 02:10:09.135 Okay. 02:10:09.135 --> 02:10:12.705 Then I presume we hit Rome or, 02:10:14.445 --> 02:10:14.715 Justin Sledge: yeah. 02:10:14.745 --> 02:10:15.705 Or the Middle Ages. 02:10:16.335 --> 02:10:16.635 I don't know. 02:10:16.635 --> 02:10:18.075 Probably the Confessions by Augustine. 02:10:19.305 --> 02:10:23.385 That's the first time we get a person, like something like a subject. 02:10:24.495 --> 02:10:25.365 The confessions. 02:10:25.845 --> 02:10:25.965 Okay. 02:10:26.115 --> 02:10:28.815 Everything you need to know about Christianity is Western 02:10:28.815 --> 02:10:30.285 Christianity is in the Confessions. 02:10:30.465 --> 02:10:31.845 Rupert Isaacson: And that's fifth Century. 02:10:32.205 --> 02:10:32.445 Yeah. 02:10:32.715 --> 02:10:32.985 Yeah. 02:10:33.555 --> 02:10:34.845 Justin Sledge: Twilight of the Roman Empire. 02:10:35.235 --> 02:10:39.705 Rupert Isaacson: And he's also, he's been a Pagan, right? 02:10:40.065 --> 02:10:40.695 August Augustine. 02:10:40.695 --> 02:10:44.535 So he's, he, he's, he, he knows of what he rejected a bit, 02:10:44.625 --> 02:10:44.925 Justin Sledge: right? 02:10:45.135 --> 02:10:45.945 Yeah, he's a smart guy. 02:10:45.975 --> 02:10:49.035 I mean, maybe one of the smartest philosophers ever we've ever produced. 02:10:49.395 --> 02:10:49.425 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 02:10:49.425 --> 02:10:49.785 Alright. 02:10:49.785 --> 02:10:51.225 And then we're at five. 02:10:51.345 --> 02:10:52.185 Is it Spinoza? 02:10:53.895 --> 02:10:54.375 Justin Sledge: Oh, wow. 02:10:54.375 --> 02:10:55.635 Then we have to go over the Middle Ages. 02:10:56.175 --> 02:10:59.115 Nah, it's not, he's important, but I, I can't imagine he's 02:10:59.115 --> 02:11:00.195 that, that high on the list. 02:11:01.545 --> 02:11:04.425 God, this is like, these lists are just so impossible. 02:11:04.605 --> 02:11:05.835 Rupert Isaacson: Do we need to go to, 02:11:06.705 --> 02:11:07.515 Justin Sledge: might be Leonard Bernard 02:11:07.830 --> 02:11:08.690 Rupert Isaacson: Pvo or do we need to go? 02:11:08.690 --> 02:11:08.930 Yeah. 02:11:08.930 --> 02:11:09.970 Maister Eckhart Probably. 02:11:09.970 --> 02:11:10.850 Maister Eckhart. 02:11:12.320 --> 02:11:12.610 Okay. 02:11:13.545 --> 02:11:15.915 Why, why him and not Hildegard of Bing or someone. 02:11:16.515 --> 02:11:18.975 Justin Sledge: I mean, it's all, you know, Hildegard is doing a very different thing. 02:11:18.975 --> 02:11:23.205 I think that Maister Eckhart brings us the closest we ever got to 02:11:23.205 --> 02:11:28.915 a kind of radical philosophical spiritual mysticism in the West. 02:11:30.145 --> 02:11:32.215 And, and he only didn't get excommunicated. 02:11:32.215 --> 02:11:32.875 'cause he died. 02:11:33.385 --> 02:11:33.835 Okay. 02:11:34.675 --> 02:11:41.935 But he's, you know, Meister Eckhart is, he's so important that I literally copied 02:11:41.935 --> 02:11:48.055 out an entire sermon of his by hand in, in calligraphy once the Sermon on Hunger. 02:11:48.865 --> 02:11:51.595 I think it's such a brilliant, I copied it out just so I could meditate on it. 02:11:51.775 --> 02:11:52.585 Like letter by letter. 02:11:52.585 --> 02:11:54.085 I copied the entire thing out in Latin. 02:11:54.085 --> 02:11:54.115 Okay. 02:11:55.735 --> 02:11:56.995 Took me, took me weeks. 02:11:58.075 --> 02:11:59.545 But Okay. 02:11:59.545 --> 02:12:02.505 Any, any, anyone who says that I, you know, I, I don't I don't 02:12:02.505 --> 02:12:03.525 take this stuff seriously. 02:12:03.585 --> 02:12:07.005 I take it so seriously that I, I literally will copy it out by 02:12:07.005 --> 02:12:08.985 hand in a 14th century style. 02:12:11.255 --> 02:12:11.645 So listen, 02:12:11.645 --> 02:12:12.695 Rupert Isaacson: I know you have to run. 02:12:12.935 --> 02:12:14.285 Tell us how people can find you. 02:12:14.285 --> 02:12:18.785 How can they and lads listeners support this dude? 02:12:19.515 --> 02:12:24.285 Go to his Patreon buy his cool black metal merch, which I'm about 02:12:24.285 --> 02:12:26.735 to do and listen to his show. 02:12:26.885 --> 02:12:29.405 But how do they find you Justin and stuff? 02:12:29.435 --> 02:12:29.645 Justin Sledge: Yeah. 02:12:30.005 --> 02:12:31.775 And I apologize for the noise down below. 02:12:31.805 --> 02:12:33.965 I'm in the process of, you know, you notice my shelves are all 02:12:33.965 --> 02:12:36.485 empty in the process of about to renovate this whole study. 02:12:37.025 --> 02:12:37.985 I only have YouTube. 02:12:38.075 --> 02:12:39.095 You can find me on YouTube. 02:12:39.095 --> 02:12:42.395 But esoterica, I have a website where poking can learn a little bit more 02:12:42.395 --> 02:12:45.185 about me, but I don't have any other social media 'cause it scares me. 02:12:46.145 --> 02:12:46.295 Yeah. 02:12:46.325 --> 02:12:46.780 But that's it. 02:12:46.780 --> 02:12:47.135 But if people 02:12:47.135 --> 02:12:49.205 Rupert Isaacson: want to consult with you, can they, if people have 02:12:49.205 --> 02:12:55.025 questions, if people wanted to engage you as some sort of a mentor or tutor 02:12:55.025 --> 02:12:58.715 and pay you to do that, can they Or do you keep out completely back? 02:12:58.715 --> 02:12:58.955 Yeah, 02:12:58.955 --> 02:13:01.595 Justin Sledge: it's so, it, it's the kind of thing where, you know, I've done 02:13:01.595 --> 02:13:05.325 a little bit of that, but I've, I've found that to be not a very rewarding 02:13:05.325 --> 02:13:09.495 experience because often people, you know, time is expensive for me. 02:13:09.525 --> 02:13:09.885 Yeah, sure. 02:13:09.885 --> 02:13:14.445 And I don't, and charging people, if I give, if one person could pay me a lot 02:13:14.445 --> 02:13:18.885 of money, then that's taking time away that I could be serving lots more people. 02:13:19.095 --> 02:13:19.755 Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely. 02:13:20.265 --> 02:13:23.295 Justin Sledge: And so I've done that on, I've done that on a few occasions and I'm 02:13:23.295 --> 02:13:25.575 like, yeah, I don't feel good about it. 02:13:26.175 --> 02:13:29.385 'cause I feel like it's sort of like a, I feel like I'm medieval person where I'm 02:13:29.445 --> 02:13:35.355 bought as opposed to being able to give, and I'd rather give them than, and what, 02:13:35.355 --> 02:13:38.145 Rupert Isaacson: what you do is extremely generous and, you know, 02:13:38.145 --> 02:13:40.845 when I'm listening to your stuff, I feel like I'm kind of wandering 02:13:40.845 --> 02:13:45.585 through the library of Alexandria, you know, somewhere in, you know, I. 02:13:46.960 --> 02:13:50.145 The Hellenic Egypt at some point, and the books are just 02:13:50.145 --> 02:13:51.225 popping out and talking to me. 02:13:51.945 --> 02:13:54.225 Justin Sledge: No, I'm really glad that's so any educator wants to 02:13:54.225 --> 02:13:57.915 hear is that, that the, the past is coming to life in a rewarding way. 02:13:58.185 --> 02:14:01.335 Because, you know, again, the William William Faulkner 02:14:01.395 --> 02:14:03.505 said the the past isn't dead. 02:14:03.505 --> 02:14:04.585 It's not even past. 02:14:04.885 --> 02:14:05.155 Mm. 02:14:05.845 --> 02:14:07.965 Justin Sledge: And I think that that's what I wanna make clear to 02:14:07.965 --> 02:14:09.375 people is that the past isn't dead. 02:14:09.615 --> 02:14:10.425 You're living in it. 02:14:11.235 --> 02:14:12.585 Rupert Isaacson: That's very hunter gatherer of you. 02:14:12.855 --> 02:14:16.845 It's the non-linear time thing that Yeah, it passed, I guess. 02:14:16.845 --> 02:14:17.265 Yeah. 02:14:17.805 --> 02:14:18.015 Having 02:14:18.015 --> 02:14:20.385 Justin Sledge: not many hunter gatherers, I can't say, but I can say that. 02:14:21.005 --> 02:14:21.155 Yeah. 02:14:21.155 --> 02:14:23.885 I don't, I don't, I don't tend to think of the past as being a dead 02:14:23.885 --> 02:14:26.735 thing that influenced, influenced us. 02:14:26.945 --> 02:14:27.335 Yeah. 02:14:27.905 --> 02:14:29.735 It's a living thing that is influencing us. 02:14:30.665 --> 02:14:31.205 I so agree. 02:14:31.205 --> 02:14:32.945 We should be self-conscious of that influence. 02:14:35.135 --> 02:14:35.495 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 02:14:35.495 --> 02:14:37.235 I can't recommend it enough lads. 02:14:37.415 --> 02:14:38.885 Go listen to esoterica. 02:14:38.885 --> 02:14:41.645 Drive around P Poo with your horses, whatever you're doing, 02:14:41.645 --> 02:14:42.815 go to the toilet, listen to it. 02:14:42.845 --> 02:14:44.255 It's brilliant. 02:14:45.455 --> 02:14:47.885 Justin, it's been fantastic to have you on. 02:14:47.885 --> 02:14:49.825 I I'm, you're a hero. 02:14:49.855 --> 02:14:51.745 I'm a fanboy. 02:14:51.745 --> 02:14:53.185 It's fantastic. 02:14:53.185 --> 02:14:55.045 I, I, I can't thank you enough for coming on. 02:14:55.585 --> 02:14:56.125 Justin Sledge: I appreciate it. 02:14:56.125 --> 02:14:56.875 Thank you for having me on. 02:14:57.080 --> 02:15:00.460 Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did. 02:15:01.290 --> 02:15:05.040 If you did, please help us to make more. 02:15:05.040 --> 02:15:08.920 Please like, subscribe, tell a friend, give us a thumbs up. 02:15:09.370 --> 02:15:14.620 If you'd like to support us on Patreon, please go to my website, rupertisakson. 02:15:14.940 --> 02:15:15.290 com. 02:15:15.490 --> 02:15:18.670 And if you'd like to find out about our certification courses with. 02:15:19.060 --> 02:15:23.010 autism, education, horsemanship, everyday shamanism. 02:15:23.070 --> 02:15:25.410 There's a whole range of cool stuff. 02:15:25.830 --> 02:15:28.860 Putting a show together like this is not an easy task. 02:15:30.110 --> 02:15:35.040 If you'd like to support us, please consider going to our Patreon page 02:15:35.550 --> 02:15:36.780 and showing us some love there. 02:15:37.420 --> 02:15:42.870 Even the smallest donation, it really helps us to keep the good content coming. 02:15:43.250 --> 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