I Understand the Inversion --But Why the Weirdness? | Jay Dyer & Jonathan Pageau

what about um liturgical abuse uh uh and I bring that up because when it comes to mostly the Roman Catholic world mostly uh maybe I guess you could say the Protestant world to a degree they don't really have allergies some of them have liturgy but um Do You See how can I phrase this we both have talked you and I both in in different shows podcasts we've talked about inversion a lot and how that's uh it seems to be a pattern that we see in dark spiritual forces to take things that are good we see this with symbolism and invert it right if you think of the pentacle or the pentagram That's a classic symbol of man and then the inverted pentagram is like the inversion of man it's like man pointing down man die man go down right so do you see that in the the abuses of liturgy that seem to be really prominent in the last say 50 years in different traditions and even in the Orthodox Church to a degree and that maybe not as bad as uh the the Roman caldian Protestant worlds but is do you see that inversion and an attack on the Liturgy as something that is a a demonic Spirit basically oh yeah I think yeah I think that that some of these have become so egregious that they're nothing less than just just satanics like some of these are and I mean I'm not saying that the people who do them are sadness or anything like that but I think they're animated they're animated by a spirit of inversion uh you know one of the craziest examples I don't know if you saw that that uh they um in the in England in England they're losing their minds they they put up this like Carnival slide in the Nave you saw this right and the bishop like went up there did his homily and then slid them down and I was thinking like could you get like it's like snake it's like snakes and ladders right he's basically like going down the snake as he's in church and it's a carnival and I'm thinking like so I think that a lot of these have become so egregious that they're actually they're actually sometimes worth paying attention to to kind of understand what the upside down looks like because you know you could have had warnings of saints you know a few hundred years ago about about the Antichrist or about you know what you know and it was vague but now there's nothing of it is vague because you can actually see you know things become you know like these clown masses that are that that the Catholic Church uh not all I mean that some weird Catholic churches are engaging in and uh you know this also just the desire to make everything as informal as possible yeah and then in the liturgical space that's also a kind of breakdown of uh of meaning it's just an image of this this kind of breakdown the Disco Masters I mean there's so many there are so many that we could that we could that we could say and obvious obviously now the big one that's going to take up space and is already doing it in kind of liberal Episcopalian type churches is the celebration of of the LGBT agenda as becoming let's say like for them like an actual image of sanctity like an image of what is Holy that inclusivity is that is the image of Holiness itself and that openness and inclusivity and and variability is the very image of of God and so it ends up being really the the upside down of what is is true which is that God is calling us towards one calling us towards transcending our our our idiosyncrasies and our divisions and our tribalism doesn't mean that those can't exist that is right we do exist in particular but that that Christ is calling us to move into him as much as possible and move Beyond these these these uh these idiosyncrasies but now they're using this kind of weird inclusivity as an image of that like they think that inclusivity is an image is kind of inclusivity without judgment I don't know if you have you seen the um the dancing freeze of Saints have you ever seen this I'm not sure oh man you you'll have you need to look at this you have a blast it's Church in California it's an Episcopalian it's actually it's actually Saint Gregor meets the church which is sad but uh but it's uh it there have a freeze of saints up in the uh up in the middle of the church and it's all these Saints doing the can-can they're all dancing uh and and there are legitimate Saints in there you know let's say there's Augustine and there's the same as or whatever but there's also you know like uh Ella Fitzgerald and Harvey Milk and and like John Coltrane and and uh and I Albert Einstein and so they're all and they're dancing they're doing the can-can um and so you can really see this kind of just complete breakdown of hierarchy this complete breakdown of meaning you know what it means to be a saint what it means to be holy you know it just ends up but it ends up looking upside down because they're actually celebrating them right they're actually putting them up in the church as images to look at you know while you're worshiping God it's like man it reminds me when I was uh 18 and and I had just began reading the Bible at the time I didn't really know much of anything I was kind of getting a little bit of a sense of Good and Evil because I've been just totally a wild party degenerate guy in high school and and I took a senior trip to New York and we toured a bunch of big Cathedrals and churches there and I want to say I don't remember I want to say this was a Methodist Church and I didn't know anything about the Bible at the time I just started reading like maybe the Beatitudes you know the gospel of Matthew or something and I remember we went in this I think it was a Methodist Cathedral and they literally had had just installed a uh stained glass window that had the apostles riding around in a Corvette and I was like I'm not joking I was like what and so we we did you know the Saint John the Divine Cathedral the big Episcopal Cathedral there too and I remember thinking how weird and kind of new agey it was and what what do you mean what do you make of the weirdness I mean I get like the inversion in the sense of like the really satanic stuff but yeah I don't understand the weirdness what's with the apostles in our Corvette I don't get that yeah well it it has it really has to do with uh the end it has to do at the end I'm sorry to say so if you if you kind of understand you know what we talked about the idea that uh I talked about the medieval manuscript you know and how you have the image in the center and then on the border you'll have the the ornamentation and then you also have idiosyncrasy idiosyncrasy and monstrosity you'll have little little monsters little little weird figures in the in the borders and if you look at the first cycle let's say in scripture from the fall to the flood you get that same image right you have this movement down the mountain a mountain in Paradise moving out into the into the chaos and then what happens is you have mixture you have Giants you have monsters basically and so that's the weirdness weirdness is just a breakdown of meaning and so it it it's a breakdown of hierarchy it's coming to the edge of an of an identity yeah and now experimenting the idiosyncrasy of of that identity it's like you know you have the central the central the central image of the garden and then at the edge of that you have the monster think of like the plinis map is like that right you have the own pillows in the middle and then on the edge you have all these monsters racing creatures that's where we are we're we're that's where we're at the edge of the world with all the monsters coming out and it's manifesting itself in all kinds like something as silly as Sesame Street where all these monsters are your friends you know this ideal monstrosity as as and you know the idea of like uh How to Train Your Dragon where ultimately the dragons end up being better than us right all of this imagery it's in the Zeitgeist like it's in the it's in the air because we are at the end of something like we're reaching the end of something and so because of that you know that's why the 70 genders and you know all this breakdown of identity into idiosyncrasy that's the image and so the weirdness is it's like a it really is like this modern pulse like this modern like thrust to go against the meaning yeah and to manifest idiosyncrasy because because we think it's cool because we think it's because we think it's edgy you know even think about that word edgy like we're edging over there to the abyss yeah that's right and so I think that that's what it is and so that's why there's this this celebration of weirdness is almost like a value uh in itself and it has to do with the celebration mixture and has to do with the celebration of idiosyncrasy yeah well it makes me think of like the like like Hieronymus Bosch paintings right where you've got these like you know weird creatures with like that are supposed to signify the Demonic you know where it's like a fish head with like a man's body and like a giant butt you know coming out of his chest yeah literally like like like butt monsters walking around and and Bosch was doing that to I think make your point right to signify that the closer that you get to the the abyss and to the to the realm of the Demonic it gets into the madness right The Madness of the Demonic and the chaos and and things don't make sense you know you've got talking butt creatures to be yeah Frank I mean yeah hybridity is an image of the edge right that's what it is it's an image where so that's why like if you look at the image of uh of Saint George killing the dragon the traditional dragon in Orthodox iconography is always a hybrid he's always right he's a he's a lizard with with bird wings and with with uh mammal feet and so he's a he's a category that doesn't exist he's a he's a a breakdown of categories right this experience of the strange you know and so that's what it is like when you experience something strange when you experience something that you don't have a category for it's going to present itself at first as a monster to you as something which is a mixture of two categories right so you can imagine the first the first time Greeks saw uh hippopotamus right they don't have a category for it so they're like oh it's a river horse but it's obviously not genetically a river horse but it's because I don't have a category for it so I have to take I see it's in a river it kind of looks like a horse I'm going to give it some name because it just doesn't fit in my in my work it's an only font Mr photo it's an only font Mr Frodo it's an only problem so so that's what's going on and that's where we are now like we are in the world like you said yeah like a great and it it's upside down and it's hybrid and it's inverted you know those images you probably watch uh Monty Python and the Holy Grail right you know that image of like the guys blowing blowing trumpets out of their butts like that's an actual medieval image they didn't make that up like those exist in medieval manuscripts and they represent that edge that upside down where instead of air coming out of your mouth and being meaningful you have air coming from accidental air coming from behind where it's uncontrolled and it's funny and it's and it makes noise instead of meaning and so it's like it and so that's where we are today we have noise accident and hybridity and mixture and and all of these these images of the edge I remember when I was in high school uh I liked a lot of really weird music and you know just being uh people might not know but I was actually an artsy person in high school and I almost went to art school and all my buddies were you know artsy type guys and I remember you know we sort of celebrated that weirdness and we thought it was cool and and uh I remember one time when I started going to church back then it was a Protestant church but there was a guy I remember I don't remember his name but he was a pretty philosophically astute guy I was just getting into philosophy and and he was looking through you know like my CD collection or something like that he was like oh you got uh back you've got They Might Be Giants he's like you have a lot of nonsense music in here and I was like it's like what do you mean nonsense music he's like it's all post-modern I was like but then I realized the more that I learned you know got into philosophy later on I thought that guy was actually right like the music and I'm not saying that it's always wrong to listen to secular music or to enjoy you know absurdity and comedy and that kind of stuff but I I did eventually come to realize no he actually had a point that in those kinds of musical Trends even though we can to a degree I think appreciate them there is the notion of the breakdown of meaning and it is postmodern music because most of those songs are actually intentionally absurd and meaningless exactly you know you're right a good way to understand it traditionally like you said it's not that it's wrong in itself it's all about place it's all about things being in their proper place so traditional societies always had their Carnival right you know we had Mardi Gras we had meat fair you know the Jews have Purim Eve which is even straight out of the Bible where you have a festival where the meeting breaks down right and Purim for example the Jews dress up they wear weird costumes and it said that they have to drink and turn on themselves until they fall down right so that's a great example like getting drunk losing meaning everything kind of falling down and so you see that and in in the West for example they had the Feast of fools which was around the New Years where they would you know elect uh someone to like a child to be a bishop or they would they would have a mock King and then everybody would would kind of pretend that he's the king and it would be this upside down that they had even a crazy liturgical practice in the West in the Middle Ages which was that the uh the Feast of the ass they would bring a donkey into the church all the the way up to the Altar and then at the end of the mass instead of saying amen they would actually break people would break but it was just this one time right um and so it was these festivals of inversion and then it's like it's that moment at the end of the world at the end of the cycle at the end of the year where meaning breaks down and then there's a resurrection and then things kind of come back up and so there was always been a there's always been a little bit of room for that like if you think about like in the Orthodox tradition for example the the um meat Fair the the day before the the carnival that's what Carnival means right Carnival means meat fare meat fair is on the same day as the last judgment we celebrate the last judgment and need for on the same day which has to do with this idea of the end right it's like the end of breakdown of meaning then the judgment and then the world starts up again you could say uh and so that's the pattern everything so now you can understand it that we're basically in a Non-Stop Carnival like our whole world is just a carnival that's been going on for like uh you know since World War II just be kind of increasing since World War II it's like massive Carnival uh and and it's getting insane it's getting more and more insane and more and more apparent that it's a it's a kind of uh crazy Carnival and then it turns into like uh you know like those like horror carnivals like that's what it's becoming right the this kind of imagery of the horror Carnival when they all wear it all goes wrong and then the the kind of zombie clowns come out to devour us all uh you know that's that's pretty much where we are yeah so what you're saying is based basically there's a time and a place for when you're going to release your Mumble rap CD right there's a place for Mumble route and it's a certain year a certain once once a year but now it's non-stop mumbling you know it's been like that since the 1960s at least yeah um I don't uh I don't spend a whole lot of time in the uh notion of the prophetic or in the sense of the like when the saints have visions and this kind of so I'm not saying there's not a place for it it's just that we don't we don't talk about that a lot here because it's very speculative but one of the uh visions of the saints that did strike me as pretty prophetic over the years was uh the the dream that Saint John of kronstadt had where he uh saw the this what what sounds like a clown mask and it's it's amazing because this is you know 1880s 90s when he had this Vision so far it was even before you know the Socialists in Russia it was before uh you know the liturgical revolution of Vatican II and he talks about people dancing around the altar it sounds like a Liturgical Dance you know it's kind of weird stuff um uh have you ever looked at that kind of a of an analysis or or well I've never heard of that Vision so so I'm pretty impressed by he said he saw like a clown mask right literally I mean some people will say the vision is just predicting like the Bolshevik or the the Socialist Revolutions in Russia but it acts actually sounds it sounds like it does constantly but it sounds like more than that it sounds like because he doesn't say that the enemies of the church like come into the church and they defile the church he says the church adopts yeah this Liturgical Dance clown and he says they're painted like clowns and they're doing they're doing a dance liturgy that's amazing it is amazing that's pretty amazing and so the best way that for me to kind of understand it it's also like I always I'm always careful like I I'd like to tell people like we're at the end of something I'm not saying it's like the end of the world necessarily I don't know if only God knows but I think that we can recognize the end of patterns and what they look like like the edge of the world has a an objective reality to it it looks like something and and and it looks like a breakdown of meaning it looks all the things the carnival all the things we're talking about and so you can see like for example like in Weimar for example that's what happened like Weimar was a version of that moved into this kind of chaotic this chaotic space and then it went too far and then it brought a beast let's say it brought about a beast let's say you could say something like the Beast killed the [ __ ] right the [ __ ] was riding the beast and then at some point the Beast kills a [ __ ] and the Beast takes over and so you can kind of see that that like you get a sense that that's what's going on now like you get a sense that we're at the end of the carnival and the Beast is coming to Devour the horror and we have these systems of control which are looming in our face uh and you know this system of identification and control which are kind of looming on us and look like this moment which is described in Revelation as this flip between the moment of the horror and the Beast and so I think that these patterns like I think these are the patterns of reality and so and I so I think they have little manifestations and we can recognize them as they as they happen uh and I without and you don't have to say like okay at the end is nice the end of the world everything is you know Christ is returning tomorrow like I don't know any of that but but I do know that I can recognize that moment let's say that moment where the the Beast is about to kill the [ __ ] I can see it coming and it's like it's coming very fast

Channel: Jonathan Pageau - Clips

Views: 31,787

Keywords: jonathan pageau, symbolism

Id: W9MG1zKmblc

Length: 18min 27sec (1107 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2023