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