Book 1: An Illumination of Matthew       

Part 1: The Dark Ground of Christ       

Chapter 2: Of Dreams & Magi         

This recording reflects my thinking process with respect to this chapter, which aims to be a commentary on Matthew 1:18-2:23.  I open up a discussion of a psychoanalytic picture of dreaming, and of Christianity's debt to Zoroastrian religion.   I have not clarified my theses yet, so the thinking here is circling around a center which remains dark.  I am including headings below to aid in following the train of thought.  I am looking for people to think with me, so please share any reflections or questions with me.        

0:15: Joseph & Joseph: the dream of grandiosity & the grandiosity of the dreamer - 

1:25: What does “dreaming” have to do with actual dream-specimens? - 

2:15:  Dreaming within Wilfred Bion’s metabolic model of ‘learning from experience’ - 

4:05:  Freud as pioneer opening up the terrain of dream exploration in the modern world - 

6:02:  The dream as the link, in the modern world, to myth and religion - 

8:35:  Teleology and trickery in dream life - 

10:30:  Jung and the creative unconscious - 

11:20:  Freud’s “historical-critical” approach to the sacred text of the dream - 

12:32: The will to conceal and the will to reveal in the dream-intelligence - 

13:30: Herod and the magi, Herod’s paranoia - 

15:07: Who are the magi? Christianity’s relationship to the religions of the East - 

16:41: The split between fundamentalism and “everything is the same” - 

18:15: “We saw his star rising in the east” - 

19:02:  Magi & the Zoroastrian religious development - 

21:58:  Zoroastrian concept of “Asha” as precursor of the logos - 

24:04: The Zoroastrian origin of the messianic golden age - 

25:14: Duality and the differentiation of Yahweh and Satan - 

28:16:  The 'Ransom' view of atonement vs. penal substitutionary atonement - 

29:57: Schelling’s ontotheological view and the “pre-temporal sequence” - 

33:28: The East-West gradient of religion - 

35:55: The heart of Zoroastrian dualism: the truth and the lie - 

36:48: 2nd temple Judaism, “the teacher of righteousness,” and messianic expectation - 

39:35: The radical humility & unusual self-interpretation of the exilic community