Richard Lloyd Jones: It's tantalizing memory of a lost golden age of uninterrupted peace and happiness infuses the oral and written traditions of all peoples on earth. Poets, mystics, and monks have labored to keep the spark going inside the human soul. When we think with these heads, the idea that we're evolving becomes patently ridiculous. In fact, we were born into, but rejected, paradise. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and today I'm Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.
We'll look at an intriguing concept that's been much considered in human historical thought, but completely ridiculed and discounted in our strictly materialistic modern view, the idea that we've fallen from a paradisal state. In this view, we're not evolving from the cosmic mud, but spinning away from beauty and perfection. Before we begin, I'd like to reopen my book offer on the podcast.
Norberto Keppe's book, Liberation of the People, The Pathology of Power, has been well received by many of you, and I'd like to make this book available to as many others of you who would like it. So drop me an email at rich at richjonesvoice.com, and I'll send you all the info you need to get your copy of this seminal book. You know, most of us have no idea about how the thoughts of historical figures affect our way of seeing the world today.
Most of us are under the impression that our thought has evolved rather naturally and that our philosophies of life and perceptions of the world are more or less arrived at through experience and natural development. But this is very naive. Thought has always been influenced. For example, back in the 4th and 5th centuries, St. Augustine was enormously influential. He followed Plato's philosophy of the world of universal ideas and infused knowledge.
Human beings were born with something for Augustine, not empty vessels who are filled by experience and interaction with society. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas began to lead the thinking away from Plato's universalism by reintroducing Aristotle's orientation. We are products of our experience, of our senses. The impact of this change in thinking was immense. Science began to orient itself more to materialistic evidence than to theological universal concepts.
We experienced a continuing erosion of the influence of theological and even philosophical wisdom in our worldview, to the point where we can say quite unequivocally that we have no philosophers anymore. Now we favor only what we can see or measure. In this modern world, all is relative. The universal questions, good and evil, from where do we come, what's the purpose of our lives, are seldom considered.
Today you go to university to get trained for a job, not to think about how to develop the human spirit. Well, all of this is the reason I named this podcast Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, because I wanted to explore the way we saw the world and how it always came from other people's heads. And if those heads made fundamental mistakes, then structuring a worldview based on their ideas would be fraught with inconsistencies at best and downright lunacy at worst.
Norberto Keppe's work gives us a roadmap to follow based on solid principles of goodness, truth, and beauty. Universal reality, if you will. Today, Cláudia Pacheco joins me to look at an idea that's existed as long as human beings have existed. That we are golden creatures that once inhabited a golden age, but fell from it. Keppe's been talking recently about Paradise Lost, Cláudia, but how we could reclaim that reality any time we like by becoming conscious of our envy.
When Keppe talks about paradise, what does he mean?
Cláudia Bernhardt Pacheco: You know, Richard, in fact, this is the theme of my book, The Secret History of Brazil, Millennium and Universal Man. So I have this thesis in this book developed. And besides reuniting all the research that I did in Brazil, North America, Europe, and in many, many books of the Eastern civilization. And, well, it was a very extensive and deep research I did for years and years to study this concept, this universal concept of paradise, of the golden age, of this hope of being one day living in a planet which has justice, peace, food for everybody and happiness for everybody and health.
And considering some revelations, some prophecies of this future of the planet, some maya calendars and some christian prophecies and some jewish prophecies and not only that but all religions, even buddhism has buddha did a prophecy on that, and even giving some idea of the time when this world of brotherhood and peace and spirituality would be accomplished on the face of the earth.
And you know Richard many many peoples many countries fought for this. They they battled for this in in wars and they they still have some wars going on because of these religious conflicts. And because, you know, Jones, more even than money, esoteric power, spiritual power rules the world. And you have some groups using money to have the control of the planet. But in reality, within us, in every human being, We would like to have a good place in this planet for us and for our children in the future.
And this is the most important universal concept we have within us. Now, as you said, what would be the connection of our science and these prophecies or people who had this in their religious writings and Bibles and scriptures and philosophies, etc. So the connection is, Jones, that there is an enormous material to reinforce the veracity of these concepts.
I
Richard: think every, even primitive culture, has a story of a fall from a time of, as you called, beauty and peace and everything being harmonious. So we all have deep within us this memory of a time when human beings lived like that. So this is
Cláudia: a strong call. And all cultures hope for the coming back of this, even Indian cultures. Mostly Indian cultures because they have this connection with the primitive which would not be primitive in our understanding would be the first civilizations.
They had more contact with this gorgeous golden past of the earth much closer to them than to us, so that's why they agreed to that one day we'll have back this wondrous paradise here. Now, studying the human being and society, Jones, we got to the conclusion that Freud was right, Melanie Klein was right, and some other psychopathologists were right, when they say that the basic pathology of human beings, or the main root of pathology, is envy.
Envy is the beginning of all. Envy of God, as Keppe says. Envy of other people. Envy of beauty. Envy of goodness. Envy of happiness. Which causes inversion. So we see the world upside down. Meaning, we see happiness as we say in Portuguese, a quimera. How would you translate that?
Richard: That's a good question. Chimera
Cláudia: is like a faraway idea, like a symbol or distant concept that would never, like a dream, very difficult to be achieved.
Because
Richard: you've talked about envy before on our program, and I think that it comes down to maybe this, that Keppe says in one of his books, he says, "human beings find doing evil very pleasurable." And so this seems strange to us because of this idea that we all want to be happy.
Cláudia: The pursuit of happiness is in the American Constitution. But actually, the psychopathology of human beings tells us a completely different story.
We look for happiness in inverted things. This is the thing. We look for happiness, yes, all of us do. But we look for it in total opposite direction. So we are totally upside down we look for happiness in money In romance, in terms of psychotic delirium, that I would be the goddess of a life of a man, or a man would be the god of my life.
So all this theomania, these delirious ideas about grandiosity and power and money, prestige, sensorialism, materialism, consumerism, and having and having, and especially this idea of power, arrogance, mask, idealizing ourselves so much. And at the same time, Jones, you see that self-esteem is very weak in people and people don't want to be what they are, they want to be another person. So they do plastic surgeries, they change everything in their lives many times they reject their parents, their family, their background the towns, the places where they grew up, their teachers.
So people want to cut off with their past most of the time. They want to be another person, a different person. So they are looking for life-changing experiences. So anything that they don't trust in what they are. So where does this come from? And we see in science that the root of this is envy. Envy is the root. Meaning I don't accept what I have, I envy, I want what I imagine other people have or what I imagine I could be.
I envy the megalomaniac idea I built up for myself and for the world. And this coincides, Jones, with the theological concept of the original sin. And this is amazing. Gregorio de Lisa, which is one of the theologians, a doctor of the church, says envy, and mostly envy of God, envy of the creator, is the original sin. And the original sin, which is, I don't want paradise as it is.
I don't appreciate what God made for me and for my fellow man, and I don't want this life to live.
I want another life. I want to be different. I want another paradise. So I don't want what I have, what I got.
Richard: We're not conscious of this, really. No,
Cláudia: we are not. But if you start analysis, and if you start going deeper in your inner self, you will find it there. Very, very clear. Very clear. So, it's an experimental thing. It's very experimental.
Meaning in scientific terms, you can prove it. In scientific research, when we see people in clinical experience, this is very clear. You can have difficulties in seeing this intellectually, but in a clinical experience, this becomes very clear and open envy.
Richard: You know, one of the things I see in the classroom a lot, Cláudia, is that people don't have much contact with themselves.
And you talked a minute ago about this strange thing between arrogance, theomania on one hand, and this kind of low self-esteem on the other.
And I see this a lot with students that they're, I'll say to them, "well, when do you feel confident?" And they'll say, "well, it depends."
Cláudia: Like how they are in the world depends on what's happening on the outside. So they don't have this contact with what's going on inside. Or maybe it's all this kind of illusion about what they think they are.
Freud said that neuroses or neurotic behavior, the complexes start because the person has not a strong ego. His ego is weak. He's not strong enough to face problems, to face challenges. So the problem is not the problem, but the problem is the weak ego that the person has, and it's not able to confront anything in life, and can't stand any frustrations. They want to be spoiled by everybody as they were by their parents.
Richard: And how is this related to envy, Cláudia?
Cláudia: You mean the weak ego?
Richard: Yes, the
Cláudia: weak ego, yes, because when we envy who we are, so, Richard, if you start thinking, the previous times of your life, if you go back and back in your memory, you can recollect the sensations when you look yourself in the mirror and then you don't like what you see. You may not like your hair which is curled and beautiful but you you would prefer something different.
You envy what you have you don't want what you have. You don't like your blue eyes you would prefer rather a black eye or be less tall than what you are and have a different voice or different shape of whatever. So this is a manifestation of envy you idealize yourself as another person. So you see a friend of yours and he's very successful with the girls.
And then you think, oh, he got something that I did not get. So God or creation or their parents or life or what gave him things that I didn't get.
So this envy thing is present in the life of human beings since the very early times here.
Richard: I see it in my life and other people's lives too of a sort of a rejection of what I'm doing. What I'm doing is not good enough. I need to do something different or I need to move and try something new and this is a lot of this.
Cláudia: It's a constant insatisfaction. Insatisfaction is equal ungratefulness, is equal envy.
Richard: Now, if we think of the rejection, the enormous rejection human beings are doing of the physical planet that we live on through our pollution, through our overpopulation, through our tremendous destruction, the base of this has to be NV2.
Cláudia: Yes, it is. Never what we have is good enough. So we need other cars, we need other...
But interestingly, what people choose because of inversion, is the upside-down choice. Like, they think that they can create means of transportation that are much better than a more natural kind of transportation, which is a self-sustainable, non-pollutant kind of transportation.
So we have this discovery that Tesla did about free energy. So free energy would be something so simple, so easy, and so cheap, because it's free. You would just get it from the space. Now, power and envy also come together. So people who are very envious, they want a lot of power, because they want to be godlike creatures and step on other people and control other people's lives because of envy.
So this is a little bit difficult to explain in one podcast but if you get acquainted with these concepts and you start researching more and more this is what you will find. This is absolutely what you will find. Look
Richard: if we look at just the idea of like a nuclear reactor they use plutonium and radioactive processes to boil water. It's totally ridiculous it's
Cláudia: completely unnecessary to do that.
And also genetically transformed food, forests, flowers, animals.
This is all theomania. Scientists, they are the most theomania creatures because they think they are going to recreate nature and society according to their thoughts and not having this humble obedience to what is already perfect.
Richard: And they think that there's no ramifications to this, but when they mess with the vibrational essence of something, it completely changes that thing.
Cláudia: That's what is harming the bee population.
And this is very, very dangerous for the life existence, the existence of life in the planet. Einstein said when bees disappear, human beings will disappear too.
Richard: This is why Keppe's comment last night was so prophetic to me. He said, "we reenter paradise through conscientizing our
Cláudia: envy." So, if we left paradise, as Gregorio de Nisa said, and other theologians already revealed, because the knowledge of revelation, we could say that the true knowledge, the true concept is the same in theology, philosophy, and science.
If these three disciplines are correct. And they could and they should be together, reinforcing each other, cooperating with each other. But in theology, you have a direct revelation from God through the prophets or from Jesus, etc. And then we have this rational kind of understanding of things when you use the reason and the common sense. This is the true philosophy. You may have wrong philosophies, but the true philosophy reinforces theology.
So you can understand even better theology and revelation with the right philosophy. And this Thomas Aquinas said. Now, we have science, and science has the means to do the practical experimentation of the revelation and philosophies. To prove it. To prove it, if they are correct or not. So, the true science can prove that revelation is right and the true philosophy is right, too.
So, we got to a point much stronger in evidence, because we see that "envy is the cause of sickness, of unhappiness, injustice, war, ecological damage." So the same cause we see in science for all this unhappiness and losing this paradise, the same cause is what was revealed in theology. When they say, they tell, the revelation says, Moses' revelation said that human beings left or were exposed, but they left, they denied the paradise because of envy.
So, we created all these troubles and we are still creating. So, if we left the paradise out of envy, if we conscientize it and if we can correct it, we can go further and further back to it and enjoy it as much as possible. It's here. It's present.
Richard: Keppe said, "the purpose of my work of Analytical Trilogy is to lead the human being to the goodness for which he was created through the conscientization of the evil he chose out of envy of the goodness he always had or will have, even though he rejects it."
Cláudia: Yes, and you can see that all injustices, all this struggle of classes, struggling among countries, this is always envy behind, always envy behind. So if we perceive envy and if we accept that the world must be enjoyed, the world is big enough for humanity to live in. If we accept that other people can enjoy life and be happy and have the right to enjoy the richnesses of the planet as we have the same right.
So the moment we accept this and if we are grateful to what we already have, if we don't need to have more and more and more and more, more than other people. So at this point we can manage a true society in this planet which we might call paradise.
Richard: That's encouraging Cláudia. One thing more without an understanding of human psychopathology especially our envy and inversion it'll be very difficult to treat our problems sufficiently to return to the paradise we left.
I'm Richard Lloyd Jones thanks for listening
