The Weird and The Sacred - with my doppelganger JF Martel

JF Martel is a filmmaker, an author, a cultural commentator and the co-host of a podcast called Weird Studies. My strange doppelganger, JF and I discuss art, stories and the relationship with the weird and the sacred.
You can find JF's content from his website:
www.reclaimingart.com/
The new opening for my video was made by Jak Wilmot of the Disrupt youtube channel:
/ @disruptreality
My links:
Merch: teespring.com/stores/the-symb...
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thesymbolicworld.com/support/
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Website and blog: www.thesymbolicworld.com
facebook: / thesymbolicworld
twitter: / pageaujonathan
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Dtube: steemit.com/@symbolism
The unofficial facebook discussion group:
/ 1989208418065298
The outro to my videos was written by Matthew Wilkinson
My website designers, Anomalist Design: www.anomalistdesign.com/

[@NathanielBartholomew92]

I would love if these guys had conversations on a regular basis.

[@islyfe]

Weird studies squad!

[@chrisc7265]

I'm gonna read this guy's book cause he's right up my alley, but my coarse first impression: Art can have the effect of jolting us out of our comfortable assumptions or of reframing as strange something that was mundane or reminding us of the deep question mark that is our existence. But that isn't _fundamental_ to art, it's a side effect Art need not be subversive at all (it can be, though in our current mania of subverting everything, I'd say in our time the art that _does not_ subvert is more valuable). One of the purest expressions of art is elucidating something like beauty in a way we hadn't conceptualized before. Not in a way that subverts our expectations of beauty, but in a way that we intuitively feel and know to be beautiful, that fits properly into the ideal of beauty, yet it shows us an angle, a thread, a shadow, a wrinkle, a deeper appreciation, a deeper sensitivity for that ideal. The category of beauty is not subverted; it's elaborated on, perhaps expanded, perhaps its borders are slightly redrawn. There is a little something living in beauty we hadn't seen before that the artist reveals. On the one hand something like HP Lovecraft can shock us into a cosmic angst at the vastness of the dark maw that surrounds us, promising to swallow. In the same way art can reveal an equally unseen sense of purpose, grace, wonder at the beauty of everything and gratitude for every moment of it we're given. Not cosmic horror, but cosmic belonging. These are both art. While I agree that the artist needs to delve into depths of chaos (because that's where the raw material is the artist must mine to produce their works), I don't see this purely as a way to reframe things in weird, monstrous, or subversive ways. The artist is reaching out and intuiting, fishing for abstractions, and using their insight and tools to solidify those abstractions that dance outside the perceptions of ordinary life into something material that can be easily grasped by artists and non-artists alike. That could be a sunflower that is very much a sunflower, yet it's even _more_ a sunflower than your previous conception of sunflowers. It could also be a subversive Tim Burton sunflower full of monsters that shocks and subverts. These are both art.

[@ybrueckner5589]

Motives are as plentiful as artists. To subvert is to seize power from conventional dullards. Some artists are obsessed with that. Most of us are simply hedonists

[@michel-jeantailleur]

Huysmans is a fascinating literary character who charts the movement from naturalism to symbolism and French Catholicism. His later works are difficult (tedious) but worthwhile, if only for the exercise of patience. I'm really pleased to hear him mentioned, because he rarely is...

[@Aestheticaye]

"Huysman's contemporary Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly once said of A Rebours, 'After a book like this one, the author is left no choice but the mouth of a pistol or the feet of the cross'. Huysmans chose the cross"

[@mostlydead3261]

www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/10/angelic-monster 'Only the French, for instance, could have perfected a form of Christian literature consisting almost entirely in the negation of Christian piety. Call it a kind of Christian Tantra, or Aghori Catholicism, or Catholicism of the left-hand path. Baudelaire (1821-1867) provides perhaps the prime example, having so brilliantly succeeded at concealing his deep if eccentric faith in his journaux intimes while presenting the public with a façade of dissipation, wantonness, blasphemy, and even Satanism, as if hoping to shock bourgeois society into acknowledging the reality of the diabolical, and therefore (ineluctably) of the divine.'

[@paulywantsacracker69]

Maybe the best conversation I’ve seen on this channel

[@kokotepeyac]

Loved this conversation! It was like Jonathan Pageau talking to the Catholic version of himself. It is true that Catholicism has been historically more willing to explore innovation over time than our Eastern brothers (but still very very slowly overall). There is of course the danger of going off the rails which is essential to the act of exploration. See GK Chesterton when he talks about icons.

[@Xanaseb]

On that note, I love Chesterton's saying: 'I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.'

[@robhuck2828]

Great conversation. Very interested to hear you two speak again. And I love the intro!

[@JiveTurkey1618]

My life has largely been an attempt to make my weirdness sacred. Unlike the blind leading the blind, it’s more like having the craziness leading the sanity. Thanks gentlemen, I needed this. 😊

[@JesusIsKingAndSavior]

hashtag Me Too Brother

[@JesusIsKingAndSavior]

How has that been evolving for you?

[@JiveTurkey1618]

@@JesusIsKingAndSavior like learning the hard way a bunch of times and going crazy a bunch of times and then just ending up Christian. I hope I gained wisdom from my folly. I don’t recommend it but we all have our own journey to go through. I have bipolar disorder anyway so my beliefs are painfully complicated. I have to sort good beliefs out from the few times I had psychotic delusions, plus the natural confusion, doubt and misunderstanding we all experience. It’s going better than it used to. 🤷‍♂️

[@nbinghi]

You just described my ventures in first years as a painter I the early 80s. Good thing you found JPs channel before going down a darker tunnel.

[@edvenify]

This was so nice to watch. There's something almost beautiful about the meeting of two minds both so aligned that they immediately find connection and common ground.

[@SeekerAppleSwordSerpent]

This is a fun conversation. Thanks Jonathan!

[@Whodidthis12345]

Very interesting conversation. I’ve been watching/listening to your videos for roughly a year- and am starting to understand more and more. Thank you, Jonathan.

[@dontbothertoreply9755]

What a fantastic conversation, I wish I could have one like that with even my friends.

[@SoulconversationDuo]

I know what you mean. My friends just want to blab on about politicians they hate, how religion is bad and how everyone is a racist..

[@boohoo746]

@@SoulconversationDuo time to make some new friends?

[@brotherbroseph1416]

My friends are all low res low iq. It’s so frustrating

[@StephenBrash]

Great discussion, thank you. Also love the new intro.

[@NeanderdeOliveira]

Loved the conversation! “Wake up!” Yet even wokefulness has become some artificial merchandise, processed food of meaning. I recommend Tarkovsky’s book Sculpting in Time for anyone on the lookout for a great book about the artist’s role.

[@4comment0nly76]

'' What is art? '' by Tolstoy. that essay was the highlight of my high school years. that and my holidays in Prague and the Balaeric Islands

[@greatmomentsofopera7170]

Very interesting interview. And I love the new logo title sequence!

[@Nunofurbiznus]

This is my favourite video thus far, wow!

[@razvan_anton]

Fantastic talk and congratulations on your new video opening : It looks amazing !! I also just got your Cosmic Mountain long sleeve and it is really beautiful ! Wearing it right now..lol.... Really enjoyed this conversation , it touched on so many interesting topics and speaking of Left Hand Path and Maenads, I just curated an Art Show this weekend for the Flambeau Noir where I made a modern version of the Maenads !

[@samuelneville3150]

Man, I’ve been praying that I’d see a crossover with Weird Studies! Blessings be with you, Jonathan!

[@maire83]

Jonathan: 1) This was a great talk. I loved looking back and forth between the two of you, it's so funny you really do look alike 2) I usually hate it when logos are even slightly changed but I love what you've done with your intro.

[@DerekDibbern]

Finally! I always hoped this would happen!

[@samuelglenn123]

That is interesting when JF Martel says "it is the aloneness that we share". I am inclined to think that this is a uniquely Christian development. The reason for this is because I am reading a fascinating book called "Inventing the Individual" (2014) by Larry Sidentop. The book explores how Christianity, through monasticism (from the Greek 'monos' meaning alone), gradually formed our sense of 'individuality' in the West contra the ancient Roman model where there was a cult of the "familia" (family) and the "paterfamilias" (father of the family) was the basic social unit. The language of souls in the sight of God came to gradually shape the culture of Europe eventually being written into law and worked to subvert ancient notions of social hierarchy. As we see, for instance, in Plato's "Republic" or Aristotle's notions about slaves being naturally inferior. Hence the, uniquely Christian, sense of "community" emphasised 'will' or 'intent' or 'assent' or 'volition'. Thus an individuated sense of 'aloneness' was central to a sense of 'communion' in a group. Being one in spirit.

[@GITAHxgCoo]

I want to turn back time and try again.

[@sennewam]

@@GITAHxgCoo Time machines are so hot right now. Get 'em while you can.

[@AprendeMovimiento]

JF Martel is not incorrect about his intuition about art, but the reason why one art is called sacred and another secular is because one makes you participate in the kairos, eternity, and the other allows you to participate only in this specific era (Saecularis in Latin means "relative to this era or generation") . Sacred art is particaptory in a deeper sense, fuller of meaning and it allows you to participate in more levels of reality (including time itself) than secular art, that's why there is an ongoing tradition in sacred art that acts like a huge river that has been flowing for millenia and will continue to the end of the ages, the other kinds of arts are just like little extensions of that huge river but have an end, they are a short version of the river that flows to eternity. In terms of tradition (trade) secular art does not follow Tradition with capital "T" but rather little versions of that Tradition and often a distorted version of that, not an actual mirror of it.

[@tourist1313]

Wow. The cross over I never knew I needed.

[@djschneck]

Your remark about a “community of aloneness” is a great point!

[@JCImageInc.]

John, lovin' that new (to me) intro!

[@xisailuo]

Great discussion, very interesting to hear Jonathan talk with other artists!

[@Theodore_Pugin]

Even his Cadence and the way he clarifies things reminds me of Pageau's flow of speech.

[@ShowMeMoviesInc.]

“We don’t care, weather or not we care,” the turtle from never ending story is basically just the USA Today

[@PresterMike]

Love the new intro it’s great!

[@Pizzanakin]

hooly mother of new intros! that was epic :D

[@metacommentary6791]

Love the new intro!

[@dragonfriend6874]

This was a great conversation (but as an artist I'm quite biased). Relatedly, the new channel title sequence is a step up. Since encountering this channel and hearing about the significance of participation (I think that might be one of Pageau's favorite words), I've been exploring how digital content can be in any way more participatory. Purely from a visual design perspective, one of the possibilities I've considered is the preference for very real, very textured imagery over obviously computer generated graphics. It's something analogous to the feeling of something handcrafted versus it's mass produced counterpart. Another way of thinking about it is in the contrast of a three dimensional scrapbook versus a typical printed book. In both cases, the former invites more contemplation about the process of it's creation while the latter tends to skip over that and goes basically unconsciously into the thing's functionality.

[@nathanwoodsy]

A vase (rhymes with face) is under $50. A vase (rhymes with paws) is $50 or more.

[@lisaonthemargins]

Y'all should talk again. This was really nice

[@taratasarar]

thanks!

[@Yukon33]

Ahhh j'aimerais vraiment un vidéo en français un de ces jours :)

[@MoiLiberty]

Intro looks pretty awesome in my opinion. The shadows and 3D effect gives it a more serious vibe. I wonder if Jonathan Pageau selected the order in which the image was being revealed or what part of the image should get shadow effect?

[@aguy7808]

the new intro is awesome

[@mostlydead3261]

Martel correctly points out that there is no fixed, necessary tie between signifier and signified.. all signifiers float.. in creative act new associations are established..

[@KajiCarson]

To paraphrase an old Simpsons joke - "I'm seeing double: four Pageaus!"

[@PresterMike]

This is trippy af

[@rachelparradelong]

Okay your graphics totally rock !

[@ibelieve3111]

Thanks

[@lucaslejeune2780]

Amazing intro!

[@thethricegreat]

Ich bin alleine. I am alone. I am aligned? perhaps. Je suis seule. I am soul? Am I all one? Great talk. Digestable by all.

[@confectionarysound]

I could have watched this for two more hours easy. Hope to hear you chat again!

[@nancyd001]

Jonathan, I think you would really benefit from reading Rudolf Otto's relatively short book, "The Idea of the Holy," which JP mentioned. It was a seminal work of extraordinary insight, written in the 1910s.

[@nancyd001]

I meant JF.

[@bmoc64]

I legitimately thought the thumbnail image of JF was a digitally altered photo of Jonathan to look like he was 20 years older.

[@carolinafine8050]

That’s not your doppelgänger... that’s the mean prison guard from The Green Mile!!

[@chrisc7265]

good to see he's turned his life around!

[@admerius5737]

"There is nothing left but surfaces"

[@Paula-pv7ep]

I'm a Christian, raised RC ,became S Baptist. I m a artist an run a art site ..I have this one artist .He is really different person .I see his art .Think he does the most interesting art .Out on a limb .Not gross not demonic .Just diffrent .Definitely encourage,him .Have to encourage all of my artist .They are awesome.My job ,is to lift up an encourage others artist .Have to throw my art work out there also .Very thankful God gave me my hands .God is always Good .praise him forever an ever .God bless brothers .thank you for your talking .

[@Indie0]

The thumbnail image had me convinced this was a before/after plastic surgery video.

[@mostlydead3261]

the philosopher Dugin believes that Orthodox christianity can accommodate a left hand path which is a genuine element of any authentic sacred tradition..

[@samplesamplings]

the strategist known for his fascist views

[@dontbothertoreply9755]

I take him with a grain of salt a boulder size grain of salt in fact. He started as a Marxist, he likes to be associated with both left and right and believes on destabilize the west.

[@JakubFerenc1911]

Related to McLuhan, he describes artists and creatives in general as "antennae of human race". Artists are necessary for the humanity because they create what McLuhan calls "anti-environment" in which the hidden effects of the assimilated media and technologies are revealed for the first time for the human consciousness to phenomenologically notice those effects. The reason being that in the normal, daily contexts, the media technology does everything it can to hide itself (which is partly due to the designer's intention to do so) and thus we are prone to be captured by the media effects which could render us dependent, addicted, "amputated" (the term "user" is used for both the addict and technology user). According to McLuhan, artists are in a privileged position thanks to their artistic training in the sense perception abilities to notice the effects beforehand and through their art create anti-context that will reveal the hidden of the technological unconscious. It is this moment in McLuhan's work that I find strangely phenomenologically-influenced, although McLuhan himself in Laws of Media (1988) claims that he started reading on phenomenology rather late. But he does say that he has been doing phenomenology all along, albeit without the jargon.

[@spacemule1]

BRAHH the inntro!!!

[@daejin9245]

😯😯 New intro...😮😮😮

[@jkdbuck7670]

For every bearded man with an opinion, there is a bearded man with an equal and opposite opinion.

[@MarcumDavid]

Listening to JF at the tail end I was reminded of this Martha Nussbaum lecture... www.law.uchicago.edu/news/martha-c-nussbaums-jefferson-lecture-powerlessness-and-politics-blame

[@MarcumDavid]

^^^ The video link -- facebook.com/nehgov/videos/1653654471312201/

[@ALLHEART_]

46:29 *Jonathan Pageau and the Great Hope*

[@heatherepperson1392]

I'd love to know how you both feel about modern art. I recently read that there was a how-to manual about turning a country communist over time. One of the points was making art that is not recognizable as anything. Sort of shapeless, unrecognizable figures. I see a lot of modern art that fits that description. Do you think that's a natural sort of evolution in art?

[@trucid2]

Yes, art is yet another vector of attack on our culture. Modern art is also used for money laundering by the elites. It helps with money laundering if the quality of art (the way it looks) is completely decoupled from its market value.

[@heatherepperson1392]

@@trucid2 I haven’t heard about the money laundering. It makes perfect sense though.

[@trucid2]

@@heatherepperson1392 There are other shenanigans with art as well. They pump a new artist, have her artwork appear in galleries, and suddently an otherwise unknown artist is worth millions of dollars, entirely through marketing. This is possible because the price of art is entirely disconnected from reality.

[@MoiLiberty]

Interesting that such a how-to book explains the importance of creating art that is unrecognisable. Making the image worth no words. No insights or truth. Post modern philosophy is the era live in. By this I mean there is a meaningless to ideas because they can be interpreted in many ways and there is no correct grand narrative. So modern art has adopted this meaninglessness into art by saying everything is art. Art becomes more and more shocking as it moves to the edge of our culture/order to chaos. No rules. No boundaries. No tradition. No gran narrative. No truth. Pretty sure I didn't capture that right but its something like that. Pageau explains in some of his videos.

[@heatherepperson1392]

@@MoiLiberty no I completely understand what you’re saying. I agree.

[@ybrueckner5589]

Glad you did this in English Americans need this more than French Canadians

[@TheDonovanMcCormick]

New intro with effects. Glad to see more conversations. I don’t think you two resemble one another though, other than having a beard and long hair. God bless you both.

[@hollisarkham]

is that intro new? it's awesome

[@sapientum8]

You should do it in French for a change, at least once. I would understand.

[@DavidMadueke]

Came in for one JP, stayed for two

[@trucid2]

I came here from JP.

[@oleghrozman4172]

Ok, i just subscribed to your channel. I love and appreciate your videos. And i have a question to mr.Jonathan - have you ever heard about Peter Kingsley? He is a interesting thinker. And i hope you could make a similar stream/video with him. You should just check his books ("Reality", "Catafalque").

[@pamcollins2178]

“ I believe all art is sacred - if it is art.” That reminds me of something that I believe - once saved, always saved - if saved.

[@nickporter574]

So weird. They look so similar.

[@garfunkelcatandtheparliame72]

LVB's 9th set to Milk was just a Clockwork Orange...

[@juicerino]

had way more ideas about 'what art is' before listening to Pageau

[@OneMansOdyssey]

Around 42:30, it's interesting that you point out that art itself has become a resource for us to consume and be sold. It seems like people don't know how to make participative art anymore so we end up with trite, repetitive art like George Floyd murals and the inaugural poem. Participative art now acts only as an affirmation, not as bringing things to being as the Hammer says.

[@chrisc7265]

ironically the George Floyd stuff is mimicking liturgical participation --- it's more participatory than Marvel or Star Wars

[@eltonbormes]

Good content.

[@randallb.7180]

I like the new introductory image. It reminds me of the Game Of Thrones opening credits.

[@mostlydead3261]

we want to find the same in the Other rather than accepting its otherness.. thus Pageau expects to find the reflection of the chsistian moral discourse behind the monstrous Other.. yet the Other is necessary heterogenous, is different.. experience of the Sacred means breaking out of binaries, of fixed discourse..

[@PetrusSolus]

Well... not if the search for what is Christian is the search for the Universal, as many Christians continue to assert. It does not mean that distinctions are not to made, as that would lack intelligence. But to continuing positing a "monstrous Other" is either setting up another straw dog or a disingenuous roadblock that will prevent the dissolution of any binaries.

[@mostlydead3261]

@@PetrusSolus it is the positing of universals that locks one within discourse.. for it leaves us only with iteration and repetition.. the new is always the same.. no place for difference..

[@PetrusSolus]

@@mostlydead3261 Are we really "locked" within discourse... as opposed to what? What would end the ongoing trap of dialectics?

[@samplesamplings]

deviations are doing wonders right now

[@livingbeings]

next have on Adam Skelter from The Art of Story

[@annasurf595]

Very thought provoking, especially the part "seeing my face would destroy you". Many thanks.

[@sallyjom-cooper470]

What do you both think of Alex Grey?

[@pallmall7385]

Kinda weird how similar orthodox people are physically. As well as mentally... Could it be genetics? Psychological genetics? You all would be one to deny such a thing exists.

[@dionysis_]

It’s the beard 😉

[@Moneyman-33]

Who knows but i don’t want to think about it cause there’s so much mixing going on and if you say a damn thing about it you get your career destroyed. Nothing spells freedom like damn near forced race mixing.

[@pallmall7385]

@@Moneyman-33 Freedom is a heresy. lol

[@timonalexandr151]

He's catholic though.

[@pallmall7385]

@@timonalexandr151 Well I guess I'm the asshole now!

[@KirbyYardley]

Who is the author they keep referring to? Riesman? Griesman?

[@jmanderson84]

Huysmans

[@SP-ny1fk]

A beard is mandatory.

[@solsticelakshmi4639]

Have you ever watched the series The Chosen? Your other doppelganger is Sharhar Isaac who plays Simon. Not only do you look like one another you also have a similar voice. Ironically the show is also about Jesus!

[@theangryslav9115]

Everytime Jonathan does the french accent a get a bit more gnosis of the transcendent.

[@pontification7891]

hahahahahaha

[@Sahl-Dohr]

Ayyye 😎👍

[@fitz3540]

I'd have to agree with him about there not being any profane 'Art'. The 'creations' we see that are profane are something else entirely...

[@AndreawiththeBangs]

“Is the Real something that is good, brining joy, or does it bring absolute horror”....that is an absolutely fascinating question!!!!

[@lisaonthemargins]

Oee new intro

[@pamcollins2178]

Hmmm, I will ponder if God’s face is monstrous. If that is so - to be described that way - then the only thing that makes sense to me is that God’s face is beauteously monstrous. So beautiful that to my senses it is horrific to behold.

[@cuthbertsboots5733]

I lost you at about 9:35 when you started talking about vozzes.

[@muadek]

6:00 that's defamiliarization...

[@Sahl-Dohr]

This episode makes me feel fancy, too much French going on. Lol

[@chrisc7265]

I had to chug a PBR and say three pledge of allegiances every 10 minutes or I'd turn gay

[@Sahl-Dohr]

@@chrisc7265 Hahaha. Too late. I embraced it all the way. I'm now super serious, proper, and eating baguettes every day. Merci! 🧐

[@emmereffing]

I'm seeing double... There's four of them!

[@noelletham7275]

Jonathan must be running out of people to interview because he’s just interviewing himself now smh 👀😆

[@scienceandmatter8739]

TRIBVTES FROM.GERMANY EUROPE . ...WISH MORE CONTENT LIKE YOURS....MAYBE DO AN AUDIO PODCAST ABOUT TRUE CRIME SYMBOLISM? OR RATHER NOT

[@CK-dp6je]

Look like siblings!

[@mannytps9986]

Jonathan’s twin brother

[@TopoAhogado]

I would love to hear you guys having these discussions in French.

[@ninstar8165]

Comment.

[@boohoo746]

reply

[@ninstar8165]

@@boohoo746 There's a lot to be said, but I always get stuck in a rabbit hole!

[@guillaumeparent6599]

S’il vous plaît 🙏🏻 faites quelque chose en français, l’univers spirituel du Québec est en sécheresse. Les québécois n’ont que très peu de chemins vers la transcendance.

[@jmanderson84]

The terrible side of mystery reminds me of Sartre in Being and Nothingness, and how people are truly horrified by their freedom.

[@samplesamplings]

indeed, it's like that old guy from Shawshank Redemption who finally gets out of prison but doesn't know how to live in the world, so he commits a crime to go back.

[@waylonwraith5266]

@17:20 Arjuna, not Nagarjuna. (Nagarjuna was a Buddhist philosopher.)