Back with Gib Strange for a post-retreat conversation, on belief & disbelief, heaven & hell, the Devil & God, Jesus & Job, & connecting to a guiding principal of goodness.

Part One: Mapping Hell (0 – 36 mins)

Returning to dark research, mapping the history of trauma, seeking the hidden angelic, the feel-good industry, paper-thin reasons to be cheerful, angsty teens and cheerleading jocks, creativity & articulating new insights, distrusting positivity, the magical method of “what-if,” trying on belief & disbelief, using a nail to knock out a nail, the spectrum of belief, truly liminal, dealing with the dogmatists, negative identity complex, a guiding principal of good, faith in the midst of delusion & malevolence, the shadow as proof of light, God & pain, testing Job, imagination experiments, science & theology, the problem with atheism, Rene Girard’s conversion, Jordan Peterson & Sam Harris, Thomas Ligotti, the contradiction of nihilist philosophy, man’s evolving awareness of God, how God becomes conscious, tests of faith, spiritual autolysis, Christ’s temptation, doubting everything but God, heaven stormers driven by doubt, bootstrapping into galactic consciousness, forcing God to show his face, how children drive parents to prove their love, punishment as love, why Christians believe in Hell, Hell as proof of God’s love, mapping Hell on Earth, finding evidence for Heaven.

Part Two: A Probe from Elsewhere (36 mins – 1 hour 13 mins)

The Kingdom of Heaven where no one talks of God, aligning with the Sun, a personal turning point, the awareness of an absence, the God who wasn’t there, the most natural pain-killer, an incapacity to love, the numbness of damned souls, reigning in an S & M dungeon, kings of pain, love & powerlessness, the Christians’ reliance on the Bible, God-Satan-humanity power spectrum, the guide to avoiding Hell, an unnatural onus on scripture, observance & guidance, the body & sin, extending awareness into hidden dimensions of being, remembering to believe, a permanent record, Big Mother & the gods of capitalism, getting lost in mazes to map them, sending & receiving intel from central command, a probe from elsewhere, the alien-sorcerers underground network, distorting reality via 2nd-hand testimonials, spokespeople for the mysteries, Philip K. Dick & the success of failure, the virtue of keeping on going, seekers who claim to have found, completing a mission, the maze of the mind, the ever-changing nature of the maze, The Shining, God’s eye view, the error of using a knowledge base to seek freedom, the devil’s trick.

Part Three:  Trust the Process & Wait (1 hour 13 mins – end)

A temptation, a newfound sense of freedom, outside the mind, the journey of zero distance, something to look forward to, the opposite of a carrot, becoming unmotivated, a lifetime’s habit, chopping wood & carrying water, fruit-picking in the summer, a real carrot.

Outtakes: (40 mins, 25 MB)

https://boxes.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/wp-content/uploads/Gib-Outtakes-June-2019.mp3

Gib Strange's site

Songs: “Knob Wobbler,” by Gib Strange; "Standing" by Norman Fagg; "Applegate" by Little Teeth; “These Words” by Hazelwood Motel.