Reading Life Through The Principle - Day 1

Hello everyone, I'm William Haines. I'm very happy to be here with you all today. This workshop is part of a series that aims to read life through the Divine Principle. In the previous workshop led by Uncle William, many of you attended, and it was called 'Joining the Thoughts'. Now, we will read life through the principles, and Uncle William will be reflecting on stories that illustrate the principles by which we can heal familial relationships. The calls will be recorded, so you don't have to worry about that, and you will receive a link soon after the workshop finishes.

To begin this workshop, I want to express my gratitude for this opportunity to be here. I'm very happy to see all these people, some of whom I know and some I don't. I'm grateful that Uncle William decided to share his knowledge and wisdom with us. I hope you can be present and enjoy this experience. I noticed interactions happening before the workshop even started, which is wonderful. I hope we can connect better through this workshop and really dig deep into our familial relationships.

I'd like to welcome you all. It's so nice to see so many familiar faces—people I've talked to in workshops before or met in different parts of the world. I feel so grateful and lucky to be able to teach. I love teaching, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so. For those of you who don't know me, I'll start off by introducing myself a little bit. I'm going to share my screen to show you some pictures of my family, so you can see a little bit about where I come from.

This series is about reading our lives through the Divine Principle. I remember when I joined, one of the main questions was how do these stories relate to our own lives? This may have happened thousands of years ago, but how can we relate these ideas and stories to our own lives? First, a little about me: this is my wife. I always use this picture because I had a bit more hair than I do now. We were blessed in Madison Square Gardens in 1975. We have four children: our oldest son Robert and his wife Christabel, who have a daughter named Charlotte and a son born just ten days ago. There's our second son Jonathan and his wife Arena, who live and work in Singapore, and they have a son named Alexander. Our daughter Elizabeth is the only one living with us now.

When someone asks you to tell them about yourself, what would you say? You might mention your nationality, weight, or religion. These are different ways we define ourselves and present ourselves to others. However, if we really wanted to reveal ourselves so that someone could understand us, we would tell our life story. Often, we talk about sharing our testimony, which helps others understand where we've come from and the experiences we've gone through. In that way, they can understand why we are the way we are. It's also how we define ourselves.

If I tell you a bit about my story, this is a picture of my dad, my mum, my sister, and me. This is the family I grew up with. Going back a bit further, this is my dad and me, and this is my dad's dad, my grandfather. My dad was born in Bangkok, Thailand. Here he is with his mum and dad. This little boy is my dad, and you might think this doesn't look much like England because it's not; it's in Australia. My father's mother was Australian, and this lady in the middle is my father's grandmother. This is my father's family, including uncles, aunts, and cousins in Australia, whom I haven't had the chance to meet.

On my mother's side, this is my mother, and these are my grandparents. You can see my grandfather wearing a uniform; he was in the Palestine Police for 30 years. He was born in England but went to Palestine after the First World War. While there, he met my grandmother, who was born in Israel. These are my grandfather's parents from Livingstone in Hampshire. This is my mother with her mother and my aunt. This lady is my grandmother's mother, and this is my grandmother's husband. You can see four generations here, along with other brothers and cousins. My great-grandfather was one of the pioneers of the first new town built in Israel, and there's a plaque about him and his wife establishing the oldest house still standing in Peta Tikva.

When people ask me about my religion, I say I'm Jewish by birth because my mother's mother is Jewish. I'm Christian by upbringing because my father is a Christian from the Church of England. I have 16 immediate ancestors who were priests in the Church of England. When I was 18, I was introduced to the Divine Principle in Oxford Street, London, and it made a lot more sense to me than what I heard in the Church of England. So, I'm Jewish by birth, Christian by upbringing, and Unificationist by choice. Some people say I must be one or the other, but I can't deny my lineage or heritage. Each part is part of who I am, and in that sense, my religion is a work in progress.

What I believe today is very different from what I believed 50 years ago, and it's also different from what I believed 40, 30, or 20 years ago. I've been learning, searching, growing, and hopefully improving my understanding of God, the Divine Principle, and the Bible stories. I always say to people when I'm teaching a workshop that I don't expect you to believe everything I say. If you believe everything I say, I would be disappointed because I'm not here to persuade you to believe this or that. I'm here to help you develop your own faith and figure these things out for yourself, rather than having a second-hand faith or opinions. This is what I believe and the reasons why I believe it. If you listen to one of my workshops and come back a couple of years later, you'll find that I'm saying and teaching different things because my own understanding has been developing and changing as well.

This is what we're looking at: my way of reframing the Divine Principle. You might wonder why stories are important. Some of you may have come across the book by Yuval Noah Harari. He is a Jew who doesn't believe in God, but there are many interesting insights in his account of human history. He discusses the difference between Homo sapiens and other human species, like Neanderthals. Why did Homo sapiens survive and thrive while Neanderthals became extinct? Harari suggests that about 70,000 years ago, there was a cognitive revolution that allowed Homo sapiens to cooperate in large groups. Neanderthals could only form groups of about 150 individuals, as they could only work with people they knew personally.

What changed was the development of language. While other creatures can communicate, Homo sapiens can use language to imagine abstract entities. For example, we can talk about heaven, which no one has seen, but we can persuade someone to change their life for the promise of going there. In contrast, a monkey wouldn't understand the concept of giving up a banana today for more bananas in heaven. This ability to tell stories, whether fairy tales or historical accounts, allows Homo sapiens to develop a common sense of identity. This is unique to our species and enables us to cooperate and fight for causes beyond our immediate relationships. This is why Homo sapiens consistently triumphed over Neanderthals, leading to their extinction.

The importance of storytelling was first developed by a Catholic philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, who started off as a Marxist but eventually became a Catholic. He said that man is essentially a storytelling animal; he becomes, through his history, a teller of stories that aspire to truth. This is significant because we often question how stories can be true. For instance, fairy stories might seem trivial, but they often begin with 'Once upon a time,' introducing characters like a king and queen who are unhappy because they have no children. When the queen finally gives birth, the joy of the king and queen is palpable, and for the child listening, this story resonates as truth. It conveys that their existence is a source of joy for their parents, instilling a sense of worth and meaning in their life. Thus, through these fairy stories, deeper spiritual and moral truths are communicated, making them true in a different sense than mere factual accuracy.

Jesus told parables for similar reasons. One might wonder if the Good Samaritan was a real person or if those events truly occurred, but the essence of these stories lies in the truths they reveal. They communicate spiritual and moral lessons far more effectively than abstract statements. The key question for individuals is not about the authorship of stories but rather about the narratives they identify with. Many people experience identity crises, questioning their purpose in life. This confusion often stems from not knowing which story they belong to. For example, when Prince William was interviewed at 21, he reflected on how he realised he would become the future king of England. This realisation came from observing his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, and understanding the implications of his royal lineage. As he grew older, he recognised that his options in life were limited by this role, leading him to prepare for his future responsibilities.

MacIntyre suggests that we enter human society with certain roles assigned to us, such as being the oldest or youngest sibling. We do not choose these roles, but we must learn to navigate them. Understanding our roles helps us comprehend how others perceive us and how we respond to them. For instance, the dynamics between the oldest and youngest siblings can be quite different, and behaving out of character can lead to confusion. Stories help us understand these roles and the expectations that come with them. Fairy tales often illustrate these dynamics, such as the story of Snow White and her wicked stepmother. These narratives convey important lessons about relationships and identity, teaching children about the complexities of familial and societal roles.

Depriving children of stories leaves them anxious and unscripted in their actions and words. Understanding any society, including our own, requires an appreciation of the stories that constitute its cultural fabric. Each country has its own fairy tales that reflect its values and traditions. For example, German fairy tales, like those of the Brothers Grimm, often delve into complex themes, while English stories typically feature characters like Jack, who embodies a more straightforward heroism. Similarly, Irish, Russian, and French fairy tales each express unique cultural identities. These stories not only convey national values but also serve as a means of passing down traditions and cultural heritage from one generation to the next.

In our spiritual community, we can only understand ourselves through the stories that form our foundation. Biblical narratives, such as those of Lucifer, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and Abraham and Isaac, are integral to our spiritual identity. These stories shape our relationships within the community and influence how we interact with one another. It is crucial to engage with these narratives, as they provide context and meaning to our shared experiences. Bruce Feiler, in his book 'Secrets of Happy Families,' emphasises the importance of developing a strong family narrative. He argues that such narratives connect children to something larger than themselves, helping them understand their place in the world and fostering a sense of identity and confidence.

For instance, when my granddaughter was born, I took her to visit my father, who was thrilled to see four generations together. He expressed a desire to start a trust fund for his great-grandchildren's education, prompting me to reflect on our family history. My grandfather, who faced financial challenges after losing his father, managed to secure scholarships that allowed him to pursue education. He later worked abroad to support his family, ensuring that his children could also receive an education. This legacy of valuing education has been passed down through generations, and I encouraged my son to share our family story with his children. Understanding our family narrative connects us across generations, reinforcing the importance of education and the values we hold dear.

For me, my parents made sure I had a very good education. That's why I am so concerned about education; it is very important to me. I realised how the value of education was passed on through these kinds of stories. Therefore, it is essential to ask your grandparents about their lives if they are still alive. Whenever I visited my grandmother, my mother, who lives in South Africa, would always tell me family stories. I would take one of my children with me, and when my mother started recounting the old family stories, which I had heard a thousand times, I would say, 'Look, Mum, I've heard it before, but tell my kids.' This way, I could do something else while my mother shared these important stories with her grandchildren. I believe this is crucial for developing a sense of roots and identity, understanding who we are and the values that pass through our lineage.

Lineage is about continuity; it is not just DNA in biology. It encompasses the continuity of tradition, values, and a certain way of life. This continuity is evident in criminal families, such as the mafia, as well as in Jewish and Christian families. We should also be passing on our own stories within our families, sharing our testimonies with our children so they can understand what makes us tick. They will hopefully inherit those values themselves. Again, returning to stories, we are effectively stories. The great questions we ask ourselves include: Who are we? Why are we here? How did we get to be here? These questions can often be answered through storytelling.

Management consultants have realised that storytelling is vital in business. If a person is working on something mundane, they can become bored and demotivated. One of the best ways to motivate people is to tell them the story of what they are making and how it fits into a larger context. When they understand the significance of their work, they feel part of something bigger than just earning money; they see that their contributions are meaningful. The best way to answer those questions is to tell a story about the meaning of what a person is doing. I remember how my father would motivate us by telling stories, often going back to Adam and Eve, to help us understand the significance of our actions, whether it was fundraising or other activities.

We dream in narratives and remember things in terms of stories. We anticipate events as part of a narrative, and we learn, hate, and love through storytelling. Narratives are fundamental to everything about who we are and how we live. I came across a nice paragraph that states everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head all the time. That story shapes who we are. We build ourselves out of that story, whether it is about a negative encounter or a positive experience. The story we tell ourselves influences how we think, feel, and perceive the world. It shapes our health and everything about us, making the understanding of our stories incredibly important.

A Siberian elder once said, 'If you don't know the trees, you may be lost in the forest.' The forests in Russia are vast, and if you cannot identify one tree from another, you may indeed be lost. Similarly, if you don't know the stories, you may be lost in life. Understanding the stories behind our experiences helps us make sense of the world around us. Children's authors often create stories that give people enough space to think for themselves. The stories of Adam and Eve and Jesus' parables offer many interpretations, allowing us to explore different meanings. There is no single correct way to interpret these stories; they provide space for reflection and understanding.

Perhaps it is how we are made; perhaps the words of truth reach us best through the heart. Stories and songs are the language of the heart. People often think that truth should be abstract and logical, but the best way to communicate truth is through stories. This is why Jesus and other religious teachers used storytelling as a method of teaching. Some may believe that stories are shaped by people, but in reality, it is the other way around. As Michael Margolis, a famous children's writer, said, 'The stories we tell literally make the world.' When we tell a story, we create an environment that shapes how people perceive and understand the world. If we want to change the world, we need to change our story.

I remember a time when I was leading a New Hope team in London in the late 1970s. There was a boy on my team, about 17 years old, who was always angry and upset. I asked him why he felt that way, and he said, 'My life is ruined; my future is ruined.' I replied, 'You are only 17 years old; how can your future be ruined?' He explained that he had an accident with his moped, which led to a hospital stay and a long recovery. He felt that he could no longer hang out with his friends, and thus his life was ruined. I suggested that perhaps this event could lead him to witness the Divine Principle sooner. I encouraged him to consider that he had many years ahead of him and that his interpretation of these events was affecting how he felt. The past does not determine the future; rather, how we view the past influences our outlook on the future.

This brings me to an important point: if you want to change the world, you must change your story. Ivan Illich, an Austrian priest, educator, and anarchist, stated that neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society. We have seen revolutions and reformations, but often all that changes are the people in control. Instead, we must tell a new and powerful tale—one so persuasive that it sweeps away old myths and becomes a preferred story. This new narrative should be inclusive, gathering all aspects of our past and present into a coherent whole, shining light into the future. If we want to change society, we need to tell an alternative story.

Our own society and culture are shaped by stories, including the Greek myths and the biblical narratives. If we want to change the world, we need to tell a more powerful and persuasive alternative story that can replace the old narratives. This is what my father was doing; he was retelling the old stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and the life of Jesus in a more powerful way. He aimed to change how people think and the values they hold. His narrative was inclusive, encompassing other religions and finding a place for them within a larger story. This approach binds everyone together into a common identity as children of God. I believe that True Mother is now working towards this inclusive narrative with the concept of Holy Community, aiming to create a sense of belonging and break down barriers. In the last few years of his life, my father travelled the world sharing his peace messages, starting with Adam and Eve and recounting the story of God's providence of restoration. He hoped that as people engaged with these stories, their lives would be transformed and a new story would be passed on to the next generation.

Finally, I want to discuss myths. Myths are often seen as untrue, but the reality is that all cultures, religions, and political philosophies have myths. These myths serve as sacred narratives, holding significant meaning for those who tell them. They contribute to and express systems of thought and values. For example, the creation myths explain how evil came into the world, and even political philosophies like Marxism are based on myths about communal societies and the origins of class struggle. Myths, whether they are about King Arthur or Alfred the Great, help form a sense of national identity. While they may not always be historically accurate, they convey important truths about a nation or culture. Thus, a myth is a sacred narrative that holds deep respect and significance for those who embrace it.

Each of them express and contribute to, and perpetuate values and ways of thinking about the world. The use of the term by scholars implies neither the truth nor the falseness of the narrative to the source culture. However, a myth, by definition, is true in that it embodies beliefs, concepts, and ways of questioning and making sense of the world. So, that's a sense of a myth; myths are true because they embody beliefs, concepts, and ways of questioning, making sense of the world. Now, whether they have a historical basis or not is neither here nor there. Some kings claim to be descended from gods; for example, some of the Anglo-Saxon kings claimed to be descended from Wotan, the Norse god. It's just a myth, but it is there for a reason, this way of looking at the world. If you're interested in myths, the best book to read is by Jordan Peterson; it's called 'Maps of Meaning'. This is a serious book. His book about rules is kind of a bit of a doodle, really. Yes, we are my favourite. Okay, you're first. He's sick. Okay, sorry, Sandra, could you move people if they start?

It's a very good book; it's hard work, it's very scholarly, but it's really worth reading. I wish I'd read it 50 years ago, but he hadn't written it then. I wish I had read it 30 years ago, but he hadn't written it then either. So, if you are in your 20s, please read it or hold it. He makes an important distinction here between science and myth. He says science may be considered as a description of the world with regards to those aspects that are consensually apprehensible. For example, it's a description of the world; it's the way the world works. Everyone around the world is able to watch an apple drop. In that sense, everyone can see it; everyone is aware of that. You can describe the world in that way; things, when you let go of them, drop. Based upon that description, you can develop an understanding. Isaac Newton came along with the laws of gravity, which describe how things fall and the rate of acceleration when things fall. So, that's science; it's a description of the world in that kind of way, using theories and particularly using mathematics.

Another way the use of science we need is the specification of the most effective mode of reaching an end. For example, if you want to reach the moon, then obviously you need to know a lot about aerodynamics, you need to know a lot about fuel, you need a lot of engineering, and you need to know a lot of science and how to translate that science into technology. Science can describe the world and it can tell you about how to reach an end, but science can't tell you whether it's worth going to the moon or not. Science can't tell you whether it's worth developing this technology or that technology. Science can't answer any of these kinds of questions; these are all different kinds of questions, questions which are much more to do with myth. Peterson says myth can be regarded as a description of the world as it signifies for action. In other words, shall we invest all this money to go to the moon or not? Shall we take that action? Shall we invest this money and do this, buy a car, or should we invest in something else? Science can't answer that question. These kinds of questions about what actions we should take are connected to the world of myth.

So, myth then, he says, is not primitive proto-science. Sometimes people look at the story of Adam and Eve or the creation of the world in six days and say, 'Well, that's not very scientific, is it?' But it's not supposed to be. Myth is not proto-science; that's not what it is. Myth is not historical in that sense; myth is about meaning. In other words, it's about what is the meaning of the current state of affairs. You can describe the current state of affairs, the way things are, and describe it very accurately using photographs and measuring things, but what is the meaning of the current state of affairs is not a scientific question. The meaning of this state of politics today is this or that, and then at the same time, the question is, 'Well, should it be like this, yes or no?' If it shouldn't be like this, well, how should it be? What should it be like? Science can't explain that either. In other words, to what end should we be moving? What should be the basis of the decisions that we make so we can get to the state of affairs that we want to be? What should our actions be?

Then, of course, there's the third one: how, therefore, should we act in order to transform the present state of affairs to make things the way we'd like them to be? What should we do? Again, these are all connected to myth. Peterson said this is one of his drawings from his book. What is the unbearable present? We look at the world, we watch the news; it's pretty unbearable for a lot of people around the world. What should it be like? It should be very different than it is. So, how can we change things? How can we have a planned sequence of behaviour that's going to get from where we are to where it should be? What's important then is to understand the nature of reality. If you don't understand the nature of reality, then you might start having a planned sequence of behaviour, but instead of ending up in an ideal future, you can actually end up in hell. That's the reality of a lot of revolutionary movements. They felt this injustice in this world in which we're living is unbearable; we want to create a different kind of society, so we're going to do this. But often, instead of creating that ideal future, they created hell. So, that's why it's really important to have the right stories and to understand the stories in the right way so we can get from where we are to where we want to be.

Okay, so I'm going to have a break now for 15 minutes. Sorry, I've talked a bit longer than I expected. I'm going to make myself a cup of coffee and go to the loo, and I'll be back soon if anybody wants to chat. Then Andy will introduce the next session. Thank you very much, everyone. Welcome back, everyone, from the break. We're going to start now the second part of today's lectures from Uncle William. I just wanted to mention I saw in the chat there was someone already asking about recordings. All the days will be recorded, and recordings will be uploaded to YouTube, so no worries about that. For general questions, yes, please post them into the chat. I see already one big question from Terry in the chat, and there's going to be a Q&A session after the lectures and the breakout rooms. Other than that, we're going to jump into the second part of today's lecture. William, please take it away.

This is another Jordan Peterson thought. Thinking about what's been going on in the 20th century, he said the individual cannot live without belief. This is just a reality; this is just an empirical fact. Whether people like it or not, they cannot live without having a series of beliefs about themselves, about the world in which they live, and about other people and about the way things work. Without beliefs, if you have no beliefs, you can't act; you can't make any decisions. 'Oh, I'm going to buy these clothes instead of those clothes.' What kind of career? What kind of image do I want to create? What kind of designer things do I want to have? How do I evaluate this? Would this be more important than that? All actions and evaluations depend upon one system of beliefs. As he says, science cannot provide that belief. Since the rise of science, people have started to abandon religious beliefs. They started to say, 'Oh, we don't need religion; now we have science.' This is very prominent now. Whereas in the past, people would have asked the priest or the archbishop for advice and guidance about what to do during a pandemic, now they just turn to science. 'Oh, we're doing what the science tells us to do,' instead of actually turning to some deeper source of wisdom because science can't tell you what to do. There is application responsibility when you do that.

There are other myths we've turned to since the rise of science, more sophisticated, less dangerous, and more complete than those we've rejected. The ideological structures that dominated the social relations of the 20th century are things like Nazism, which is based upon the science of eugenics, the idea that one race is superior to another race and therefore we shouldn't have interbreeding. One race is justified to try and exterminate another race, the lower race. We have communism, which is based upon the science of economics, scientific atheism, as they called it. The ideological structures that dominated social relations in the 20th century appear no less absurd on the face of it than the older belief systems they supplanted. After the collapse of fascism and Nazism, we saw the reality of the Holocaust and everything else. After the collapse of communism, we saw it created the Gulag. On the face of it, no less absurd than the older belief systems they supplanted. One ended up in the Holocaust, one in the Gulag. They lacked, in addition, any of the incomprehensible mystery that necessarily remains a part of genuinely artistic and creative production. Trying to reduce everything to the scientific and to the rational leaves out the idea that there might be something which is mysterious, which cannot be grasped by the rational, by the logic. If you're living in the Soviet Union and you're a writer or a poet, you had to belong to the writers' union. If you didn't belong to the writers' union, you didn't have permission to publish anything. If you didn't belong to a particular state association of poets, you weren't allowed to have your poetry published either. So, there was no genuine artistic and creative production. The fundamental propositions of fascism and communism are rational, logical, stateable, comprehensible, and they claim to be based upon science. This was what their great calling was: 'We are modern; we are scientific; we're based upon the science of economics or the science of eugenics or whatever.' But terribly wrong. No great ideological struggle presently tears at the soul of the world, but it's difficult to believe we've outgrown our gullibility.

You need to look at the date that was published, 1999, pre-9/11. But of course, we have the rise of Islamism and again this huge ideological struggle tearing at the soul of the world. Beyond that, we've seen the rise of all kinds of other movements: Black Lives Matter, identity politics, cancel culture, a huge struggle, Brexit, all these things which are leading to incredible struggles in the world. So, Peterson was a bit naive there. This is someone called Friedrich Nietzsche; he is a very profound analyst of the social condition and spiritual and social reality of 19th-century Europe, and he is able to predict very accurately where things were going. He is one of the profoundest thinkers of European thought. He recognised this and said, 'When one gives up Christian belief,' which is what people were doing in the 19th century, embracing science, Darwinism, the theory of evolution, 'we don't believe in Adam and Eve,' etc. When one gives up, we don't need God anymore. When one gives up Christian belief, one deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. This is an important point. For the latter, Christian morality is absolutely not self-evident. It's not self-evident that one should behave in a certain kind of way. It's not self-evident that one should observe the Ten Commandments. It's not self-evident that one should love one's neighbours or oneself. It's not self-evident that one should forgive one's enemies. These aren't self-evident truths of morality. One must make this point clear again and again, in spite of English shallow paths.

Here, he is speaking dismissively of English intellectuals who thought you could have morality, Christian morality, without God and Christian belief. Nietzsche said Christianity is a consistently thought-out and complete view of things. If one breaks out of it, a fundamental idea, namely the belief in God, one breaks the whole thing to pieces. One has nothing of any consequence in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know and cannot know what is good for him and what is evil. God alone knows. Christian morality possesses the truth only if God is true; truth stands or falls with belief in God. Modern people really do believe they know, of their own accord, intuitively. If they think they no longer have need of Christianity as a guarantor of morality, that is merely a consequence of the ascendancy of Christian evaluation. This is the idea that people think, 'Oh, we can be good without God; we can live moral lives without God; we don't need God; we know what it is to be a decent moral person.' But the point Nietzsche is making is that their whole understanding of what it is to be a decent person, the whole understanding of what it is to be a moral person, the whole criteria of what is right and what is wrong comes from a Christian root. They have inherited the Christian values, but they haven't inherited the root of which these values and stories are an expression. They think they can do that, but that just shows how far Christianity has permeated our society. Even though for many years not many people have gone to church in England, for example, you can still say it is a Christian country because the values have permeated the culture, although this is very rapidly falling to pieces as well. The origin of modern morality has been forgotten; the origin of modern morality is the Bible. This has been forgotten, so the highly conditional nature of its right to exist is no longer felt. With the loss of belief in God, people think, 'Well, why is this right?' People assumed this is right and this is wrong because that's what they heard from their parents and their grandparents who were Christians. But then, a couple of generations later, people think, 'Well, why is this right and wrong? What is the basis for this morality?' We can see this with the rise of post-modernism, the whole collapse now of social morality, of sexual morality. All kinds of things are just falling to pieces and collapsing, including the rise of paedophilia and sexual abuse, all these things which are becoming tolerated now, even paedophilia.

Let's understand myths and the way that they work. We'll come on to the Christian myth and biblical myths later on. We'll start off trying to understand the structure of a myth and how it works. I don't know how many of you have seen the film 'Slumdog Millionaire'. To me, this is a recent film, but if you're Andranik's age, it's like ancient history. Anyway, it's well worth watching; it's a great film. If you watch this film, you can see the incredible contrast between the very wealthy and the very poor. You can see some people, multi-millionaires and billionaires, living a life of sheer luxury, while other people are living in the street, living in the gutter, or living in rubbish dumps. That's where they find their food and everything. You might wonder how it is possible for Indians to accept and not question or challenge a society that appears to be very unfair and unjust, with these incredible extremes of wealth and poverty. How is it possible that such a society can be self-maintaining and that people haven't revolted to try to overthrow and establish a more just society?

When we analyse the society a bit more, we find there's something called a caste system. At the very bottom of the caste system is a group of people called the untouchables. They're actually outside of the caste system; they're not within the caste. Untouchables are born into their situation; their parents might be street sweepers or toilet cleaners, and they're born to do that. Their parents live on the streets or in rubbish dumps, and that's how they'll live their lives. Their children will be born the same way, and their children's children will also be untouchables. They can never get beyond that. There are other groups as well, such as commoners, peasants, and servants. People who work on the land as farmers are within that society, and then there are higher-level people who are businessmen, merchants, or landowners. Above that, in ancient society, were the warriors, or nowadays, it's usually bureaucrats and people like that running the society. At the top are the priests and the academics, the intellectuals.

The reality is that these people at the bottom are in absolute poverty, whereas those at the top might be living lives of incredible wealth. The people down here feel it's only right that they should be at the bottom of society. You might wonder why that is. It's because of the myth of reincarnation. In Hinduism, they believe that when someone is born, they live their life and then die. Depending on how they live their life, they will then be reborn. If they live their life in a good way, fulfilling all their duties and responsibilities, then when they come around the next time, they'll be promoted. If someone is born as an untouchable but doesn't complain, doesn't try to change their social situation, and is happy to live on the street or in the rubbish dump, then they believe that when they're reincarnated, they may get promoted to a peasant. If they're a peasant and they don't complain about being a peasant, they may become a merchant or a landowner in their next life.

This belief system teaches people that the way things are is the way things are supposed to be. They are encouraged not to complain, not to think it's unfair, and not to try to change anything because it's completely fair and just. The world they're living in is the best of all possible worlds. This is due to the law of karma, and therefore, they should not criticise or challenge the status quo. They should just accept the way things are and their lot in life. This illustrates how myths support the status quo. It's not only myths that you find in places like India and Hinduism; you find similar myths in European society as well. One of the myths that supported feudalism is the myth of the Divine Right of Kings. All these myths are there to support and legitimise the status quo and to make the people at the bottom not complain, just accept their position in life.

Now, let's think about what the myths are at the base of our own culture. I assume most people here are from a European culture. One of the myths at the base of our own culture, European or Western culture, is the Greek myths and Greek philosophy. These are one of the main sources of European culture, and the other is the Bible. We're going to look at both of these in depth. Let's start off by looking at the Greek myth and philosophy to see how these stories and philosophies have shaped European culture. Then we'll look at how the Bible has shaped culture and the different kinds of values that come from each of these root cultures.

For those of you who learned about the Greek myths, you might have come across Hesiod's cosmogeny about how all the gods live on Mount Olympus. In case you've forgotten, I have a little video here that will recap the story of the Greek myths. Today, we're going to understand the myths of the origin of the gods. We know this theory of origin from Hesiod's 'Theogony', which was a narrative of the Greeks' first mythical cosmogony. In the beginning, there was an abyss of darkness called Chaos. After this first god follows Gaia, the mother earth, Tartarus, the depths of the earth, and Eros, the god of sexual desire. To summarise, there's Chaos, Earth, the Underworld, and sexual desire, but remember, you can't see any of it because it is dark. From Chaos, the first deity, Gaia, asexually spawns Erebus, who is the darkness of the underworld, and Nyx, who is the darkness on earth. When they mix, they create an outer atmosphere that the gods breathe. Then night spawns day and brings light. Meanwhile, Gaia spawns Uranus, the sky, Ourea, the mountains, and Pontus, the sea. Let's stick with Gaia because Eros exists, and the gods could stop this unreasonable spawning and began to have children in the way we know it today.

Gaia tries to mate with her son Uranus, whom she's been holding above her, and gives birth to three Hecatoncheires, lovely monsters with a hundred hands and fifty heads each, and then three Cyclopes. After the mother and son produce these monsters, they have twelve gods called the Titans. Some say that Uranus hated the Hecatoncheires, so he hid his children on Crete. Others say that he hated the Titans, so he shoved them back into Gaia. Either way, Gaia was not happy and asked the Titans to help her out. Sticking with the second story, when Uranus comes to have sex with Gaia, Cronus, who has been growing up inside her, chops off whatever he can get out from his ankle. The blood hits the sea and creates more monsters, the Furies, Giants, and Nymphs. When his manliness hits the sea, it creates Aphrodite, the child of love and desire. Now the Titans are freed, and Cronus becomes king. Now that this is solved, everything is peaceful, right? Not quite. Cronus marries his sister Rhea, and they have children. However, Cronus hears a prophecy that one of his children will take his throne, which freaks him out. He decides that he must eat them. Rhea keeps having kids, but each time she gives birth, her husband gobbles one up. Understandably, this disturbs Rhea, so upon the birth of her sixth son, Zeus, she hands her husband a baby-sized stone. He thinks nothing of it and swallows the stone instead. Meanwhile, Zeus grows up on Crete, where the nymphs help him, and every time he cries, the guards bang their swords so Cronus won't hear him. When Zeus is older, he conspires with his grandma Gaia to get back at his dad. They make Cronus throw up all of Zeus's brothers and sisters. When Cronus figures out what's happening, there's a battle, and Zeus does the only proper thing by chopping off his father's genitals and tossing them into the sea. Now Zeus is king because he frees the rest of his family, including his siblings: Hera, the goddess of marriage; Poseidon, god of the sea; Hades, god of the underworld; Hestia, goddess of the earth; and Demeter, goddess of crops and harvest. These are the Olympians. Zeus keeps on taking control by banishing all the Titans of the last generation to the underworld. Zeus has one more great battle against a creature named Typhon, who is covered by flames and has a hundred heads. By now, Zeus has acquired the thunderbolt and is able to drag him down and sentence him to provide for volcanoes.

The story doesn't end there. Just like any other king, Zeus hears that one of his children is going to overthrow him. What does he do to make himself different? Rather than stuffing the kids back up or swallowing them himself, he just follows his wife before she has any kids. What about Athena? Wasn't she one of Zeus's children? No, when Zeus swallows his wife, it turns out she was already pregnant with a girl. So the child pops out of Zeus's head after he swallows her mother, and that child is none other than the cunning Athena. From then on, no one else really challenges Zeus. Other gods are born from incestuous relations with each other, and so on. You might take away from this something like darkness, some gods, light, Titan gods battling, a new king that swallows lefty, and gods that have wars between Titans and Olympians, sending Titans to the underworld. But that's just fine because remember that all this is interpreted from a poem that does not give us all the details. Many people read the story differently. The opening lines give no more detail than that, so if all you get is a concept of power, revenge, battle, sexism, familial love, and then familial love again, that should be good enough. These themes of gods with very messy relationships and very human emotions resonate throughout all of Greek mythology. I hope you found that interesting and that it refreshes your memory. You can see it's obviously a very different story than the one in the Bible, and it expresses a certain kind of values. A lot of these stories inform modern culture as well. What are the implications of this story? First of all, all the action takes place on Mount Olympus. Human beings don't figure very prominently at all in the Greek stories; the gods are the major characters, and humans are hardly present. They appear with Prometheus, but he gets punished for giving fire to human beings. We can also see there's a lot of sexual confusion; the gods are not moral. It's all about power; might is right. Whoever is the most powerful is the one that comes to rule. We can see this again in many societies; it's all about power. There's a lot of conflict and struggle, and if you look at the husband and wife relationships, they're hardly ideal. Parent-child relationships are also hardly ideal.

Where's my chariot? I know what was really going on. Creon and Tiresias were plotting to take over the kingdom. This wasn't the first time someone had been after my crown. I was lucky that my lady Jocasta showed up to calm me down. She told me all about how unreliable predictions can be. Like once someone told Laius that his son would kill him and marry her. Isn't that wild? But they got rid of that creepy cat. I mean, yeah, I did kill a few guys in a fight a while ago. Anyway, that's ancient history, totally unrelated. Then a messenger showed up and dropped the bombshell that my dad was dead. But he really wasn't my dad because apparently, I was adopted. A lonely king and queen were shopping around for a kid and got one off a local shepherd or on eBay or something. I decided to investigate this shepherd even though Jocasta didn't want me to. You'll be sorry! I probably should have listened to her because then I wouldn't have learned that I was Laius and Jocasta's kid. Which means... Sorry, a servant came in at this dramatic moment and told me that Jocasta had killed herself. I couldn't believe my wife—I mean, my mum—was dead. I was feeling a little emotionally fragile at this moment. I used to say I was a sight for sore eyes, but I guess hindsight's always 20/20, right? At least I'm not being kept in the dark anymore. Sorry, these puns are getting cornier and cornier again.

That's a very common story in Europe, very well known. So again, what are the implications of this story? What are the values and truths being told through the narrative? The first one is about fate. In other words, the future is closed and cannot be escaped. When Laius and Jocasta have a baby, they receive a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. They say, 'No, that's never going to happen. We're going to make sure it doesn't happen. We're going to give him to a servant.' But then the servant passes him on to a shepherd, etc. The idea here is that the future is closed; you cannot escape your fate. Everything is determined. This then fed into a Christian doctrine. As Christianity expanded, it embraced or adopted many of these ideas. You find this notion of fate in the Christian doctrine of predestination. The doctrine of predestination states that whether a person goes to heaven or hell is decided even before they are born. This is a more extreme doctrine; even before someone is born, God has decided if this person is going to heaven or hell. It's nothing to do with them, their beliefs, or how they live their lives.

This idea then leads to the belief that everything that happens is part of God's plan. In other words, God knows the future, and everything that happens has already been predestined and decided by God. It's all part of God's plan. The logic of this is, as Saint Augustine said, he talked about a 'felix culpa,' a happy fall. Augustine argued that the fall of Adam and Eve and the introduction of sin into the world was a happy fall because it gave God the opportunity to demonstrate His forgiveness. It allowed God to come into the world as God the Son to sacrifice His life for humanity. If there had been no fall, there would have been no opportunity for God to demonstrate His forgiving love. That's why Augustine said the fall of man was actually predestined by God and all part of God's plan.

This idea of predestination feeds into the modern world and into determinism. You can find this myth of fate, predestination, and determinism underlying much of modern culture, especially scientific culture. This is Ilya Prigogine, a Nobel laureate in non-linear thermodynamics. He said the basis of classical physics, or Newtonian physics, was the conviction that the future is determined by the present. In other words, the present is determined by the past. Therefore, a careful study of the present permits an unveiling of the future. We may perhaps even call it the founding myth of classical science. Scientists believe that the way things are today is all determined by what happened in the past, and the way things are today will determine what will happen in the future. In other words, freedom and free will are an illusion; it's just the chemicals running around in your head that give you the illusion that you're making decisions. But all the decisions you think you're making are predestined by the chemistry inside your head, which is all predetermined by scientific laws.

This also feeds into historical materialism. Historians often try to understand why events happened by looking for their causes in the past. Sometimes, the way history is written gives the impression that what happened had to happen. The actors who made these decisions had no alternative. Marx said that the economic forces of production determine the social structure and values. These people think they are making decisions, but they are merely making decisions that they were predestined or determined to make. That's why I talked about the inevitability of communism, for example. According to historical laws, communism's emergence is inevitable, and he regarded the theory of communism as scientific. You also find this idea in social sciences; the reason someone becomes a criminal is due to social deprivation and poverty. You cannot expect this person to become anything other than they are because of their social and economic background. However, when you look at the lives of particular individuals, you can see that this is not always the case. Many people come from extreme social and economic deprivation and broken families, yet because of the decisions they make, they turn out to be extraordinary people accomplishing remarkable things with their lives.

These ideas are prevalent in the world today. The notion of determinism is often mistaken for science. Digging back into another of the great Greek stories, this is the Iliad by Homer. This is where the Greeks go to sack Troy. Agamemnon, a king, does something wrong and attributes his bad behaviour to Zeus. He says, 'Not I was the cause of this act. Don't blame me for what I did; it's not my fault. The gods and my fate, Moira and the Furies, who walk in darkness, put wild folly in my understanding on that day when I arbitrarily took Achilles' prize from him.' In other words, Agamemnon is saying it's not his fault; he's not responsible for his actions. He's just a puppet on a string, and the gods decide what he will do. Many examples of this can be found in the Iliad, where the gods on Mount Olympus have their champions among humans and pull strings to make one human fight against the favourite of another god. The humans themselves attribute their actions to the gods. It's not my fault; don't blame me; I'm not responsible. This attitude is very common today, especially when people say, 'I'm a victim; don't blame me; I'm the victim here.' You might wonder why this is important and why we should even look at Greek myths. Cornford wrote a history of Greek philosophy, stating that in Hesiod's cosmogony, it is Moira, fate or destiny, which partitions the world, imposing order. This is something I talked about a lot in the 'Joining the Dots' workshop—the imposition of order. Moira is later replaced by Zeus, who is in turn superseded by reason, but the function of supreme power remains the same: to introduce distinction and order.

The reality is that most myths support the status quo. You see this in Hinduism and the caste system because the values of myths become embedded in cultural assumptions. In the Greek myths, I picked out two values: fatalism and victimhood. Let's look at an alternative myth, which is the other founding myth of European and Western civilization: the stories in the Bible, particularly the stories in Genesis. You might wonder how we should understand these stories in Genesis, such as the creation of the world in six days and Adam and Eve eating the fruit. John Paul II said that the Bible speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its makeup not to provide us with scientific treaties, as Peterson said; it's not proto-science. Instead, it states the correct relationship of man with God and the universe. The Pope said we shouldn't imagine that the story of the creation of the world in six days is scientific; we shouldn't try to understand it that way because that's not the way it is. I don't have time to go into this now because I just looked at my clock and it's ten to eight, so I guess I should have stopped a couple of minutes ago. We'll break up now; I'll stop sharing my screen, and then we can break up into discussion groups. After eight, Andy or Sandra will call us together. I'm sorry to have talked too long.