Understanding The Matter with Things Dialogues Episode 28: Ch 28 The sense of the sacred

[@zebo11]

My goodness ~~ these interviews, and Iain's generosity, are astounding---what a gift. New to him, and thrilled to have found him--such a mind, and such a kind soul

[@annzacc1]

Words don’t describe the gratitude to you, Iain, for your kindness and perseverance to bring this gift to life. And to you, Alex, for being such a wonderful interlocutor. The humanity and intelligence that you both embody is truly inspiring.

[@reinaschweizer5012]

W e need subtitles in spanish

[@thegoldenvoid]

Thanks for uploading the right episode :-D been waiting a long time for this one as it's the denouement/punchline/so what/what now/Rx to all the issues raised in the book. Congratulations on the marathon of KZbins to you both and thank you for the immense generosity in sharing your narrative with those without the bandwidth to read it all themselves. Live long and prosper!

[@finnmacdiarmid3250]

I second this

[@simonthepiemanmartin]

Third it!

[@cheri238]

4th it. 🙏❤️🌏🎵🎶

[@elizabethwilkinson6059]

Y is

[@anhumblemessengerofthelawo3858]

Life eternal

[@marksheridan3176]

Wow - I've listened to all 28 episodes, and what an intellectual trip! The best-ever left-hemisphere attempt to explicate the right hemisphere! I've bought the book and have been inspired to read it. I hope Dr. McGilchrist now spends more time in his right hemisphere: I'd love to see the artistic output. Many thanks, Drs. McGilchrist and Gomez-Marin - very generous of you!

[@markjohnson9834]

Ive found working in construction that women pick up on the finer detail of the job. Does this mean they are more left brain thinkers ? It feels as if we are living under a global matriarchy

[@gettingtogiveproject]

Iain's laughter is one of the most joyous things on the internet! This was utterly brilliant. Thank you Iain and Alex🙏

[@evanfirebrand]

What a gift to humanity. Especially episodes 25 - 29. Thank you.

[@jordanedgeley6601]

In music i was always fascinated by how variations in the tone, note or pitch etc could invoke emotion and tell a story in a way i simply couldnt explain, it was a richer deeper kind of experience because it wasnt explicit.

[@mirelle3208]

That's the artist in you.

[@cheri238]

​@@mirelle3208 🙏❤️🌏🎵🎶

[@skipper.mindplayers]

What a journey. Thank you Iain to invest all this time and energy to write this book. But in addition thank you to be so open, honest and allowing intellectual and emotional vulnerability. May it give you the fullfillment, you hoped for.

[@druidjuicer636]

How does happen? A question is asked in discussion and the answer that is about to be given enters my mind. The only explanation I have is that what Iain is saying is so coherent with all the important ideas I have studied for over 40 years. From this I take both solace and a sense of connection. It is so valuable to me. Thank you both ❤

[@druidjuicer636]

And I second the call for the rediscovery of the soul. The aspiration to beauty. The acceptance of becoming, whatever that might be.

[@tetonjuggler1179]

lol my heart at 1:56:50 with Alex. What an experience this is with you two! Can’t even begin to express how I feel about all this! After a year of stewing on this chapter! Wow. Thank you so much for doing this guys

[@peggygates6565]

Wonderful dialogue. The sense of the sacred arises unbidden as does grace - in moments of great joy or suffering/grief or awe. Words are inadequate. This, it seems, is the language of the right hemisphere...

[@NosurfOfficial]

This lecture series is insane, brings me to tears at times how beautiful and true it is. Would love if there was an audiobook for the actual book "The Matter with Things"! Or perhaps the volumes split into separate audiobooks. Myself (and many others) don't have much time to sit down and read, but listen to books and series (like this one) all the time.

[@janeread5463]

I so deeply admire Ian and his deep intellectual expression allows me gateways to walk through and a language to make sense to the waters I’ve been trying to swim in metaphorically during my own philosophical and spiritual exploration . Thank you .

[@bobdillaber1195]

Every time I hear another of his discussions, I gain more insights.

[@yoanlopez7287]

These episodes have been magical and so engaging, I just want to say thank you!! I hope they continue forever, Muchas gracias!

[@IlonaRaadsen]

Thank you for offering us the opportunity to enjoy this enlightening discussion. Being able to sense your emotions and your sense of humour has been an extraordinary added value. I hope your thinking can be spread further outside academia for I strongly experience it as the ultimate alternative for the gap between our left hemisphere world and the 'new-agey' world I don't feel at home in.

[@Jamestrevelyanmills]

Amazing! Really rich and subtle discussion, thank you so much Iain and Alex. Really helps me to gain perspective on that which is beyond words but words help to point the way towards it. Always becoming "What does it mean to be free? Is it finding a voice. Is it making a choice? Is it going somewhere? Is it living without care? Or is it just being here without fear? Everything changes, nothing stands still. Keep on moving through valley, on hill. Cycles they come and cycles they go, but the ultimate outcome no - one can know. Always becoming..."

[@stephenkerensky710]

Thank you so much for bringing clarity to the clouds of fundamentalism.

[@SamuelJFord]

Thank you both for these wonderful videos.

[@aidantreays6497]

God Bless you both! Such a rich, nourishing and soulful conversation!

[@AdelSalti]

Thank you for sharing your Witness, Dr. McGilchrist. ‘Sameness while it lasts (and it does not last inertially, in the manner of static identity or of onmoving continuity), is perpetual self-renewal through process, borne on the shift of Otherness.' Hans Jonas

[@DreamingOfABetterDay]

Thank you. This was an amazing way to start my day.❤so good❤

[@herbalfleece8821]

Probably need to stop watching these and finish Master & His Emissary so I can actually go on to read The Matter With Things, but these dialogues are too fascinating and valuable for me to resist. Thanks guys.

[@tetonjuggler1179]

“We need to rediscover our soul” “be shaken” Man this is what I’ve been having a hard time with about how Iain ended this chapter. I mean there has been a hermetic mystical flair this entire series, and this chapter, as Alex said, he is turning up the heat. Like HOT. So hot that mcgilchrist is timid to say or not say things because of how much he got burnt writing this…. And here he is at the end saying we must rediscover our souls.. in the book, this speaking of the soul is boarding the section on evil. And in that section on evil, the specific metaphors struck me. The poem at the beginning opens with an ugly and venomous toad with a precious jewel on its head. Then the story of “the ones who walk away from Omelas” of which there is deep suffering on a child. And then he brought up Goethe, Jung, and Faust all directly after! And so this is why I’m so… tossed up, or shaken… because what I see here is a slight hint at the “The Red Book” in which Jung, who has been cited throughout this masterpiece we have been involved with, went into the depths of himself to find his soul. In which he came up against the very shaking reality that the imagination is REAL. And in my personal opinion maybe even more real then what we normally consider to be real, i.e. things. And this “red book” was a journey that almost killed Jung, or.. almost drove him mad. He thought he had schizophrenia. Another topic we have been immersed in… So to find our souls, we must dive into the tragic evil and divine love of the soul. Which is taking us right up into the Christ situation that McGilchrist mentioned someone bringing up to him as a situation happening at the end of this chapter! Because that red book was, as James hillman says, Jung coming to terms with Christ and trying to solve Protestant Christianity! I mean fuckkk. We are deep in this shit. And although I have been completely in love with this series and joining you two in discussion, I still feel a lacking in this sense…. I crave someone to push on Iain in these matters! Crave it deeply. Because this goes so muuuuch deeper, and I claim he is fully aware!

[@carolenash3234]

yes been shaken to re-evaluate sprituality more deeply comprehensively. Thoroughly engaging discussion.. The best was left for the closing of TMWT.

[@thewaythingsare8158]

A sense of something outside and within us that is immense and limitless might be inevitable, if one considers that we literally are highly evolved pockets of dust in and of the universe.

[@sheilaeisele8490]

A truly aah-full chapter and discourse. Thank-you.

[@SimeonFM]

Thank you both. Wonderful discussion. Your generosity of spirit, genuine openness to God, and intellectual rigour, honesty, and acumen are a true gift to humanity, and to the church, in these dark days, Dr Gilchrist. This line of reflection and enquiry will yield much fruit, and open hearts and minds to the beauty of the transcendant. Jesus Christ is Lord! 🕊 🙏 🤲

[@philforrence]

Dang, I'd love to watch all of these :)

[@maxtroy]

Difficult to express how healing this series is proving to be for me

[@markb36911]

As a product of the perverions of man done in the name of God, I am grateful for Ian; and those who engage with such investigations; for being prepared to do the work, then express,publish, discuss and explain it with so much clarity and rigour.

[@autisticalchemist]

@ kennen vs. wissen: Maybe a helpful distinction could be innerstanding or insight vs. understanding. Innerstanding is experienced in t0 (time zero), occurs instantly, and is a case of downward causation (to the quantum aspect of Amit Goswami's mind brain). Understanding takes place in what David Bohm and Jiddhu Krishnamurty called psychological time, relies on processing sensual data an in as such is prone to be tied to the concept of an "I" that thinks, processes information, retrieves memories and anticipates future events. Insight is unlikely to occur as long as there is a notion of "I" which operates in psychological time.

[@artshaman7677]

The Cloud of Unknowing...ah! A book for our time indeed.

[@stevebaldwin2374]

Great book. With this chapter as an exception. I was surprised by the number of times "God" is used. Despite the interesting begining when describing the problem of trying to describe the indescribable. The problem of formalized religion is stated but not really tackled. But otherwise a brilliant book I will be reading again as soon as I can.

[@montyoxymoron4704]

All this is SO familiar to me: thanks gentlemen!

[@dianecurran3648]

Beautiful! Thank you! Human beings have a soul which lives forever. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars. Hans Christian Andersen

[@_thenyounoticeyourethinking]

Thanks for committing to and completing both the book and this video series! Now I'm on a journey to relax my commitment to materialist reductionism.

[@Mystery_G]

While I am grateful for the writing of The Matter with Things and this series discussing each chapter, I find myself challenged with this final piece and unconvinced with the certitude of God being discussed here as both a Man and Being with limitable attributes on par with humans, as it appears to me to equate such an idea limits what 'It' ultimately is, which I consider ultimately unknowable and only experientially attuned toward. With this in mind, this is where it does not appear to me a resolved issue of how various Eastern, Western, and Shamanic traditions conceive of 'It', whatever exactly "It" is, and seems worth continued dialogos as effort to better honour and deeper embibe what 'It' is. Regardless of the challenges I felt with this final piece, thank you to you both for your efforts to bring forth ideas humanity is in great need of examining, comming to better terms with, and attempt to commune with.

[@Frederer59]

Kinsugi art seems to me to be what Jung was getting at with the "wounded healer" archetype? I sense that Iain is a wounded healer also and all the better for it. The corpus collosum being the golden seam.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

Gold is a conductor. The corpus callosum is an inhibitor. Bad analogy.

[@noreenquinn3844]

I was listening to Miley Cyrus "Flowers" bopping along to it and feeling the love . I thought, yes, there is definitely something devine associated with where music and dancing takes you. It makes you want to go out in nature to a big open space and spin or something. Thank you, gentlemen. Let there always be music and dancing to bring us closer to each other and to the devine. If only there was a song to stop the awful fighting in the world today. Maybe someone will write one that will actually get the whole world singing. 😊

[@analuis6114]

liking the way the conversation went caused me same sadness seing the Alex... some time ageeing but not beeing there (at least his look seemed absent). understand it is demanding but that is how it is

[@lilianarovegno4325]

Lucky me , it was not an interrupted melody!

[@Dan-DJCc]

Without a soul, Artificial Intelligence is a powerful sociopath. In Belgium a woman claims one of the new AI chat machines talked her husband into suicide. Reading the logs of what it told him is disturbing. "Those with ASPD have no regard for others’ rights or feelings, lack empathy and remorse for wrongdoings, and have the need to exploit and manipulate others..." - WebMD

[@jordanedgeley6601]

Sociopaths are still sentient beings with free will, instincts and motivations where as AI is ultimately a bunch of silicon transistors that we have no reason whatsoever to believe would have any intention, of course anything this powerful could be used by people with malicous intent but so can a scary amount of other things because we seen to be a lot smarter than we are wise.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

Who are you to say that spirit cannot reside inside a framework provided by technology? We don’t understand electricity but we’re going to bloviate about artificial intelligence? McGilchrist himself, and said he doesn’t know anything about artificial intelligence yet, he was a recent keynote speaker at an annual artificial intelligence on it. This is a symptom of a larger problem. Time to say goodbye to the keynote species- they’re full of shit.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

The manufactured meaning crisis foisted upon us by “public intellectuals” and anti-social media is exacerbated by the use of psychedelic drugs. Many psychedelics in a particular set and setting can induce a psychosis not unlike sociopathy. This is why the Rupert Sheldrake’s and Joe Rogans and Jordan Petersons of the world are busy getting impressionable, confused, Internet-addicted young adults to take "the heroic dose". McGilchrists talk with Neo conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (insta-toot) is an excellent example of playing both sides of the fence. He introduces a totalitarian vision and paradigm that encourages anxiety, fear, and paranoia- then bemoans the modern culture for inducing the same. McGilchrist has been playing both sides of the fence this whole time. Unpacking his books leads want to see that he can't take his own advice, and it's killing him. Man's-plaining is a cancer. We should EMP the internet and take all these books to the fireplace.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

“the matter with things” is an anagram of “Twitter might hash Net” “The master and his emissary“ is an anagram of “shitty ears share same mine“.

[@jordanedgeley6601]

@@SymbolsPatternsGnosis are you ok?

[@NM-qc2dh]

It is not a shame that there are not two verbs in English. The knowing is completely implicit in English. Two verbs are wholly unnecessary as we are never confused when we use the verb to know we know exactly what is meant.

[@Frederer59]

I used to daydream what I would say in my opening statements if I were debating "Ditchkins" (a collective noun for Dawkins and company) : "The best things can't be told. The second best is talking about things that can't be told. The rest is gossip." - Joseph Campbell

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

That’s a game you win by not playing.

[@jordanedgeley6601]

❤

[@carlygraham9982]

No word worth speaking has ever been spoken . . .

[@debbiehouse1580]

People interested in this might like to explore Cynthia Bourgeault’s work - there is a lot of resonance with Iain’s.

[@levcimac]

Any book by her in particular ?

[@debbiehouse1580]

@@levcimac Well, I don’t know what would inspire you personally as an avenue in. She has written many books, on different angles, and often in quite different styles. Potentially her shortest might be the best way in as it was commissioned as an overview to “her theology”. It’s called The Corner of Fourth and Nondual. Then you would have an idea if it calls to you. More practically, her work opens up to Wisdom Schools (‘knowing with more of yourself - mind, body, soul, heart’) and ecourses with, for example, Spirituality & Practice. Then interpersonal connection and community can form alongside the personal and the transpersonal, as ‘the rubber hits the road’ as she might say.

[@RZK33369]

We must get out of the head and go big.

[@cheri238]

🙏❤️🌏🎵🎶

[@Jimmy-el2gh]

The mmmm....must be involuntary and surprise the individual.

[@guywilcox1104]

😊

[@PromoMIAR]

Mega!

[@harryanderson7282]

I wonder how this chapter would've read if McGilchrist wasn't restrained by this Judeo-Xtain straightjacket?

[@PromoMIAR]

Like us all in the West though right? (As Tom Holland might suggest)

[@harryanderson7282]

The idea that there still exists a "West" as an independent racial-cultural entity holds about as much existential water as does the equally absurd idea that there exists something resembling a "Right" or "Left" in human, all too human, politics. That said, watching normies attempting to spiritually vivisect themselves is about as much fun as having to sit through a marathon Maoist self-criticism ritual.

[@PromoMIAR]

@@harryanderson7282 disagree. But to your more general point, its a vast tapestry...

[@harryanderson7282]

@@PromoMIAR I think your vast tapestry resembles more a Veil of Maya than anything else.

[@PromoMIAR]

@@harryanderson7282 no doubt. You cannot bite your own teeth. ;)

[@timm5358]

'to shake ones belief'.. every tried psychedelics? A very high dose of magic mushrooms will do just that..

[@adrianhigh4210]

Perhaps God is 'that which transcends' ..? Can a snail understand an electric car.?The distance between Snail Human and God would make any compression of the greater problematic to put it mildly. My right hemishere still feels the awe of that which ocassionally transcends.

[@SpenderDebby-x6n]

Harris Jeffrey Williams Angela Perez Kenneth

[@martinrumsey9639]

The knowledge of the holy is not intellectual but moral.,. not reasonable but revealed...the sacred is by nature what we are not...the divine is a person to love, worship, not an idea to be pleased with. We receive everything...all is gift, and the Giver waits, longs for our response to his indescribable Gift.

[@misspy1153]

Nothing to say

[@jimmeryman4332]

at first he wants to not use the word "God"...then later keeps using the word...please stop!...

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

Dust + Breath/Pneuma/Ruach + Water of life = Kaolinite clay. Shattered (crucified) vessels can be repaired with kintsugi and obtain the dignified veneer of wabi sabi, but to pulverize the clay into power so as to come closer to the hairy potter is to see them thrown in order to be shattered- and we cannot go back again, even if we have the recipe for clay. The Kintsugi crust/Christ is a Cohen of Koans and his dozen Do Zen. That’s the apostles (anagrammed- O Pastels)- East Her Colors. Somewhere over the rainbow you’ll see I’ve been here- waiting for ewe to understand. Every year I have the pleasure of being deplatformed right before public intellectuals gleam the cube.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

Lorraine wants to return her cinnamon Bobka because there’s a hair in it. Esau and Jacob come from the same hairy potter. Gingerbread men can’t even keep their potatoes. The inverted world of Acts 17 is a kick in the shins. It’s a Game of Throwns. I’m not throwing in the towel, but you can go ahead and enjoy the throne. It looks good on you. I’m praying for you. Stable Carbon has 6 protons 6 electrons and 6 neutrons. That’s where cancer comes from- God.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

What happens when a mathematical outlier who is left handed with their language center in their right brain disabuses is themselves of playing tennis? It’s gonna be all right. you curiously avoided this in the master and his emissary. While you’ve acted as an omnivorous syncretist adding every thing you can to your magnum opus brain soup, you have COMPLETELY AVOIDED the topic of handedness in brain lateralization. why is it that left-handers and homosexual men are smarter than most everybody else? Something stinks in here.

[@ambientjohnny]

As a left-handed person myself, I think you seem strangely antagonistic and unappreciative of the work Iain has done, acting as if this one criticism you have of him undoes any potential benefits one could derive from his amazing body of work and research.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

@@ambientjohnny I understand where you’re coming from. There’s a bit more to the story here, but I’m not unpacking that on a KZbin comment section.

[@SymbolsPatternsGnosis]

@@ambientjohnny in short, I’m suggesting that he and McGilchrist is actively participating in exacerbating the problems that in conversation he has presented himself as seeking to ameliorate. Ian’s travel to the United States several times to meet with neoconservative think tanks and the epicenter of manufactured psychedelic psychosis- Jon Hopkins University hospital. His attacks on things left brain have that times if you dig deep enough come across as thinly veiled racism in misogyny. After all, it’s women who are more left brained. we need to disabuse ourselves of women (and drum machines) apparently. As a big fan of women (and electronica producer Jon Hopkins) I’m rather offended.

[@fluffurbia3501]

(Also left-handed!) Making this epic dialogue between Iain and Alex available on KZbin has been such an act of generosity on both their parts. I don’t think it is necessary to be in agreement with every aspect of Iain’s thesis to see value in it. There is a kernel of truth in your critique. Women ARE given short shrift. I’m uneasy about the dissing of the left hemisphere from a moral perspective too - and the setting up of a hemisphere hierarchy in the first place. Having said that, these conversations have been rich and thought-provoking. The difference in the styles of attention of the left and right hemispheres is an illuminating insight to contemplate. And it is no doubt true that the current societal bias towards left hemisphere thinking needs to be redressed.

[@tetonjuggler1179]

lol my heart at 1:56:50 with Alex. What an experience this is with you two! Can’t even begin to express how I feel about all this! After a year of stewing on this chapter! Wow. Thank you so much for doing this guys