Thank you for the Christian way of meditating and this clip, it is blows some fresh air through the mind and heart, and shows you that the Christ in you kept you and many others from harm and on another path than the one where you are looking at someone else's behind which is what you do when you follow the crowd. The sheep walk behind each other looking at each other's bum and once in France I saw a car come from behind and took the last two sheep from the herd and put them in the car, so it's not only that following can lead to walking of the cliff with the one's in front but you have to always be vigilant and pray for God to have your back as well and at the same time walk in faith and look forward to meeting your maker, Mr. Girard is very inspirational in the way he describes the story and what scapegoating is and does, Saludos, Bishop Richard Williamson has interesting presentations on Catholicism as well, your pieces inspire, kind regards.
I have a slightly different perspective I suppose : the denial by Peter is well documented in Matthew 26 versus 69 -74. It demonstrates his humanity for which he demonstrated great remorse, and wept bitterly. However, Christ told him this would happen.
Furthermore, in the same book of Matthew, chapter 26 (same chapter )go and read versus 39 -44.
Christ was the immaculately conceived son of God and yet he was also human. Obviously he was God incarnate. These verses demonstrate his humanity because as you read in these three verses, Christ, prayed to God three times "let this cup pass from me." in other words, God must I go through with this crucifixion ;He was praying to God at the time, but he knew the answer, and he followed with "thy will be done." To me the power of these three verses overwhelms me because it demonstrates to me that Christ was indeed, God incarnate. He was human and did not want to die, but knew that it was God's will, that the unblemished Lamb of God, who was without sin, had to suffer and die for the sins of mankind.
All I can say in very simplistic words is praise God, and thank you, Lord Jesus, my Lord and Savior 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️
When I was a young girl, I remember reading this in class, I was raised catholic, and thinking, what's the big deal, just tell them, (the percecutors) you do not believe in Jesus, so they do not kill you, Jesus really knows how you feel. Certainly lacking in integrity, I suppose so, as one is as a child. I fought catholicism fiercly as a child. Yet, finding Christ became life long search for me. Today would I deny? I have actually gone through my head, what would I do, say if here we were attacked over beliefs, it is different now, I would not deny. How fitting for the world Today, as I was capable of saying no to this attack now. which may be a prerequisite for what is to come. We, the world are being tested on so many levels, yet the greatest test may be simply, who do you choose. The world or Christ, who is all the great teachers in One.
Thank you, Celia. I've watched/listened twice and will likely do so again. I love Girard's analysis of this part of the Gospel. So much in under ten minutes.
Of particular note to me is Peter's recognition of what he's done "that changes everything." It prompted me to wonder if that moment will come to "the 'COVID' crowd." This crowd condemned, expelled, and denied family, friends, and colleagues -- and aided in destroying the world. When enough of that crowd realizes what they did, will that change everything? If so, what will 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 look like?
Christians know that Peter's denial and everything that came after had to happen. The other morning upon waking, the first words that came into my head were, "This had to happen." As horrendous as it's all been (and worse to come, IMO), it had to happen.
The general public speaks in our culture about scapegoating. But most do not know the scapegoating mechanism that Girard details. We have seen politicians, public health officials, the media give the public incentives to scapegoat any who would dissent from the official story of record of the past years. A personal sadness I have is how many people I know who have attended church for decades (some in my own congregation and others across North America) have not been able to detach themselves from the nightly news. Instead they have believed in every statement by Dr. Fauci, or in Canada Dr. Theresa Tam and others, as if they were Moses coming down Mount Sinai with a new iteration of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt socially distance. Thou shalt mask. Thou shalt get vaccinated. Thou shalt stay in a social bubble. Thou shalt adhere to the lockdowns. Thou shalt scorn the unvaccinated. Thou shalt take the PCR test. etc.
Thanks for this comment Ray, but would you be able to elaborate a little? In particular, you say “But most do not know the scapegoating mechanism that Girard details. We have seen politicians, public health officials, the media give the public incentives to scapegoat any who would dissent from the official story of record of the past years.” Do you mean that the public incentives add fuel to the fire of mimetic desires involved in the Girardian scapegoating mechanism? Anything more to say about that?
By the way, I’ve followed some of your work, though not closely, as there are so many and so much to follow. But I do appreciate a voice of sanity in an insane world.
My observation is that people can go to church and hear a sermon about the passage in Leviticus about the scapegoat. The sermon may include reference to Girard's book The Scapegoat. There can be anecdotes about people being scapegoated in history. People will walk out of the sanctuary thinking how informative the sermon was. And yet, the same people will trust (perhaps they are impressionable) statements by people like Dr. Fauci that there is a "pandemic of the unvaccinated." The Toronto Star will run headlines with quotes from citizens in the street like "I hope the unvaccinated die." Though many unvaccinated people got Covid and developed natural immunity, in the midst of the hysteria the unvaccinated are scapegoated for being responsible for the spread, and being a clear and present danger to all. This despite the CDC had a conference (2023) full of vaccinated staff and they had a large outbreak of Covid at the conference. When public health officials, the media or politicians tell the public that someone is to blame for X, most people will believe it in an instant. We seem to be in Western society short on citizens who are given to scrutiny, skepticism and detachment from persons in authority, especially when we are being panicked (or if you were in the UK, nudged by MI6 to get the vaccine).
Yes, the view seems to be that when the witches were burned that occurred in a barbaric time, but since then we have progressed. So when the authorities cast blame they must be right because, well, we’ve outgrown those barbaric times. And there are very few who see that the same old mechanisms of scapegoating and herd mentality are still operating.
I've been reading a lot of Girard this year. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, along with some of his lit crit. .There are some sharp insights within but I also have difficulty fully understanding his arguments--in part that is my fault, but I find it frustrating that he applies universals while citing only one example. There are concepts that I am failing to understand--one of which has to do with memetic violence. If I understand correctly, he sees scapegoating as part of a process that in the end is healing, or cathartic to the group, which conversely (or so it seems to my perhaps untutored mind) seems to suggest that scapegoating is a necessary process. I would love to be pointed to any insightful discussions as I have a multitude of questions.
Fascinating, but, alas, I heard some missed notes.
One crucial missed note:
Jesus Christ is true God, true man - a great mystery, but a Christian truism.
When someone is examining the Gospels from an anthropological standpoint, one would expect they would ensure deeper knowledge of basic Christian theology.
Jesus was human - and Divine.
Yet, Mr. Girard misses that key point, thus placing a wee shadow over his thesis.
"The World of Rene Girard," a BIG book of interviews with him, just published... Watching this, & hearing about two al-Jazeera journalists critically wounded today, I can't help but point out that the Israeli targeting AI system is actually called "Gospel." It is quite demonic...
Thank you Ammiel. And I meant to say the other week, of COURSE I should have known you know Michel Moushabek. I keep wanting to call him up, as I keep wanting to call you up. I am stuck in some kind of vortex all the time. But it's getting a little better day by day.
Completely priceless. And this is the refutation of the "mass formation" nonsense from Mattias Desmet. I do not mean that as a blanket refutation or dismissal of Desmet, for I do think that he has raised a number of interesting issues, however, in the end his conclusion is rickety, in as much as he fails to recognize this mass-behavior as fundamental to human nature.
The reason Peter denies Jesus, is because he must, and we all must if we identify with our false self, our ego-self, which is the denial of truth. For if the ego is real, God is not. And the ego being unreal always tried to impress with numbers, as in the story of the evil spirit in the country of the Gadarenes in Mark 5:5: "My name is legion, for we are many." But Truth is Oneness, for it is Everything, Eternity, Infinity, Heaven, Love, and as it says in A Course in Miracles: ⁴What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him. (https://acim.org/acim/en/s/537#12:4 | W-132.12:4) In other words, in the condition of Heaven we are One with the Father, our Source. It is the ego idea (call it the devil, satan, ialdabaoth, whatever), which is the separation from God, the idea we can exist separate and independent from him. The Course calls that the tiny mad idea. The ego must deny Jesus, Truth, God, for it fears for its own reality, which IS in doubt, and based on quicksand and not on the rock of spirit. The ego (individual identity), is merely a temporary viewpoint, a very subjective experience, which we elevate to "reality," but all our protestations do not make it so.
Peter's denial occurred prior to baptism with the Holy Ghost, when Peter was just a man. But after Peter's baptism with the Holy Ghost (Jesus says in Acts 1:8, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be a witness unto me") Peter was no longer just a man, he had the power of Christ living in him, and Peter went on to be a great witness.
Personally, I once struggled to understand the King James version, but after spending my 2008 Christmas break watching teachings on the gospel (specifically, Andrew Wommack's, The War is Over, still available free online,) an instant came in which I felt as if a key to a lock had turned in my brain (baptism with the Holy Ghost? I don't know,) and suddenly the King James scripture came clear as if I were able to read a new language. It transformed my life. And to tie that experience in with previous posts on The Truth Barrier, in that instant, I also lost the sense of hate for anyone (though not a sense of hate for some things that people do.)
What a remarkable story, thank you for telling us. I mostly read NLT or some such but I know many are King James purists and yet others oppose it ferociously.
That is a rabbit hole I went down some years back. In a nutshell, two streams of texts were used to translate the English language bible- one stream, consisting of ~97% of texts was used by those writing the KJV, and the other 3%, including primarily Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Sinaiticus, were the source texts for every other translation, including the NKJV.
The Codex Sinaiticus, often described as "the oldest and best bible," was "discovered" in the 1840's in a monastery in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, by a German Protestant named Tischendorf, who had met with the Pope shortly before his trip. David W. Daniels details that story in his book, Is The World's Oldest Bible a Fake?, including the contemporaneous claim by Greek, Constantin Simonides, that he wrote the Codex Sinaiticus for his uncle, a Greek Orthodox theologian.
Around 1880, two English Anglicans (I think both were,) Westcott and Hort, wrote a Greek language translation of the old and new testaments using the 3% of texts mentioned. In their personal correspondance, both wrote of seeking to Romanize the KJV, and gave detailed reasons for omitting or altering key passages in the KJV that were contrary to Rome's teachings. Their Greek text was used to create the first of the new English language translations, the English Revised Version in 1885.
I know it's yet one more coincidence, but each edition of the new versions makes a few more changes away from the KJV. And while the changes are minimal on a word count basis, they alter such foundational teachings as the ascension of Christ, the perfection of Christ, the virgin birth of Christ, Christ as part of the Trinity, and creation by Christ, among others. I do use other versions to better understand some passages, especially that in the old testament, but the KJV is my touchstone regarding the Word of God.
Thank you for posting this, and the vision of Girard, who gives a beautiful analysis of this story.
All rings so true to me. It hurts a bit too, is that what it means to be human?
Maybe it should be a human expectation to be abandoned and betrayed, I know it has given me some comfort expecting that the last 3 yrs… (haha, or just my Judeo -Christian upbringing )
Thank you for the Christian way of meditating and this clip, it is blows some fresh air through the mind and heart, and shows you that the Christ in you kept you and many others from harm and on another path than the one where you are looking at someone else's behind which is what you do when you follow the crowd. The sheep walk behind each other looking at each other's bum and once in France I saw a car come from behind and took the last two sheep from the herd and put them in the car, so it's not only that following can lead to walking of the cliff with the one's in front but you have to always be vigilant and pray for God to have your back as well and at the same time walk in faith and look forward to meeting your maker, Mr. Girard is very inspirational in the way he describes the story and what scapegoating is and does, Saludos, Bishop Richard Williamson has interesting presentations on Catholicism as well, your pieces inspire, kind regards.
I have a slightly different perspective I suppose : the denial by Peter is well documented in Matthew 26 versus 69 -74. It demonstrates his humanity for which he demonstrated great remorse, and wept bitterly. However, Christ told him this would happen.
Furthermore, in the same book of Matthew, chapter 26 (same chapter )go and read versus 39 -44.
Christ was the immaculately conceived son of God and yet he was also human. Obviously he was God incarnate. These verses demonstrate his humanity because as you read in these three verses, Christ, prayed to God three times "let this cup pass from me." in other words, God must I go through with this crucifixion ;He was praying to God at the time, but he knew the answer, and he followed with "thy will be done." To me the power of these three verses overwhelms me because it demonstrates to me that Christ was indeed, God incarnate. He was human and did not want to die, but knew that it was God's will, that the unblemished Lamb of God, who was without sin, had to suffer and die for the sins of mankind.
All I can say in very simplistic words is praise God, and thank you, Lord Jesus, my Lord and Savior 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️
When I was a young girl, I remember reading this in class, I was raised catholic, and thinking, what's the big deal, just tell them, (the percecutors) you do not believe in Jesus, so they do not kill you, Jesus really knows how you feel. Certainly lacking in integrity, I suppose so, as one is as a child. I fought catholicism fiercly as a child. Yet, finding Christ became life long search for me. Today would I deny? I have actually gone through my head, what would I do, say if here we were attacked over beliefs, it is different now, I would not deny. How fitting for the world Today, as I was capable of saying no to this attack now. which may be a prerequisite for what is to come. We, the world are being tested on so many levels, yet the greatest test may be simply, who do you choose. The world or Christ, who is all the great teachers in One.
The best 10-minute clip (on any subject) I've seen in years. Thank you for posting.
Really? I'm so happy I was able then to make the introduction. I love it too.
Yep, I'd never heard of René Girard before, and have been reseaching him since. Interesting guy.
Thank you, Celia. I've watched/listened twice and will likely do so again. I love Girard's analysis of this part of the Gospel. So much in under ten minutes.
Of particular note to me is Peter's recognition of what he's done "that changes everything." It prompted me to wonder if that moment will come to "the 'COVID' crowd." This crowd condemned, expelled, and denied family, friends, and colleagues -- and aided in destroying the world. When enough of that crowd realizes what they did, will that change everything? If so, what will 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 look like?
Christians know that Peter's denial and everything that came after had to happen. The other morning upon waking, the first words that came into my head were, "This had to happen." As horrendous as it's all been (and worse to come, IMO), it had to happen.
There have got to be moments in the mimesis world where we depart from script, cuz uggh, there's hardly anything to live for there.
Powerful stuff. Peter's denial had a powerful impact on me as a young Catholic. It stuck.
The general public speaks in our culture about scapegoating. But most do not know the scapegoating mechanism that Girard details. We have seen politicians, public health officials, the media give the public incentives to scapegoat any who would dissent from the official story of record of the past years. A personal sadness I have is how many people I know who have attended church for decades (some in my own congregation and others across North America) have not been able to detach themselves from the nightly news. Instead they have believed in every statement by Dr. Fauci, or in Canada Dr. Theresa Tam and others, as if they were Moses coming down Mount Sinai with a new iteration of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt socially distance. Thou shalt mask. Thou shalt get vaccinated. Thou shalt stay in a social bubble. Thou shalt adhere to the lockdowns. Thou shalt scorn the unvaccinated. Thou shalt take the PCR test. etc.
Thanks for this comment Ray, but would you be able to elaborate a little? In particular, you say “But most do not know the scapegoating mechanism that Girard details. We have seen politicians, public health officials, the media give the public incentives to scapegoat any who would dissent from the official story of record of the past years.” Do you mean that the public incentives add fuel to the fire of mimetic desires involved in the Girardian scapegoating mechanism? Anything more to say about that?
By the way, I’ve followed some of your work, though not closely, as there are so many and so much to follow. But I do appreciate a voice of sanity in an insane world.
Hi Andrew,
My observation is that people can go to church and hear a sermon about the passage in Leviticus about the scapegoat. The sermon may include reference to Girard's book The Scapegoat. There can be anecdotes about people being scapegoated in history. People will walk out of the sanctuary thinking how informative the sermon was. And yet, the same people will trust (perhaps they are impressionable) statements by people like Dr. Fauci that there is a "pandemic of the unvaccinated." The Toronto Star will run headlines with quotes from citizens in the street like "I hope the unvaccinated die." Though many unvaccinated people got Covid and developed natural immunity, in the midst of the hysteria the unvaccinated are scapegoated for being responsible for the spread, and being a clear and present danger to all. This despite the CDC had a conference (2023) full of vaccinated staff and they had a large outbreak of Covid at the conference. When public health officials, the media or politicians tell the public that someone is to blame for X, most people will believe it in an instant. We seem to be in Western society short on citizens who are given to scrutiny, skepticism and detachment from persons in authority, especially when we are being panicked (or if you were in the UK, nudged by MI6 to get the vaccine).
Yes, the view seems to be that when the witches were burned that occurred in a barbaric time, but since then we have progressed. So when the authorities cast blame they must be right because, well, we’ve outgrown those barbaric times. And there are very few who see that the same old mechanisms of scapegoating and herd mentality are still operating.
Yes we'll there are a lot of sketchy MFers in the MFM.
Eugene Webb's rethinking of Girard:
https://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1101/webb/
I read it. Thank you.
OF course, anything to take Christianity out of it.
Non sequitur, since Webb in that linked article actually restores St. Paul as affirming Girard's thesis, where Girard was overly critical.
I've been reading a lot of Girard this year. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, along with some of his lit crit. .There are some sharp insights within but I also have difficulty fully understanding his arguments--in part that is my fault, but I find it frustrating that he applies universals while citing only one example. There are concepts that I am failing to understand--one of which has to do with memetic violence. If I understand correctly, he sees scapegoating as part of a process that in the end is healing, or cathartic to the group, which conversely (or so it seems to my perhaps untutored mind) seems to suggest that scapegoating is a necessary process. I would love to be pointed to any insightful discussions as I have a multitude of questions.
Fascinating, but, alas, I heard some missed notes.
One crucial missed note:
Jesus Christ is true God, true man - a great mystery, but a Christian truism.
When someone is examining the Gospels from an anthropological standpoint, one would expect they would ensure deeper knowledge of basic Christian theology.
Jesus was human - and Divine.
Yet, Mr. Girard misses that key point, thus placing a wee shadow over his thesis.
"The World of Rene Girard," a BIG book of interviews with him, just published... Watching this, & hearing about two al-Jazeera journalists critically wounded today, I can't help but point out that the Israeli targeting AI system is actually called "Gospel." It is quite demonic...
Thank you Ammiel. And I meant to say the other week, of COURSE I should have known you know Michel Moushabek. I keep wanting to call him up, as I keep wanting to call you up. I am stuck in some kind of vortex all the time. But it's getting a little better day by day.
Completely priceless. And this is the refutation of the "mass formation" nonsense from Mattias Desmet. I do not mean that as a blanket refutation or dismissal of Desmet, for I do think that he has raised a number of interesting issues, however, in the end his conclusion is rickety, in as much as he fails to recognize this mass-behavior as fundamental to human nature.
The reason Peter denies Jesus, is because he must, and we all must if we identify with our false self, our ego-self, which is the denial of truth. For if the ego is real, God is not. And the ego being unreal always tried to impress with numbers, as in the story of the evil spirit in the country of the Gadarenes in Mark 5:5: "My name is legion, for we are many." But Truth is Oneness, for it is Everything, Eternity, Infinity, Heaven, Love, and as it says in A Course in Miracles: ⁴What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him. (https://acim.org/acim/en/s/537#12:4 | W-132.12:4) In other words, in the condition of Heaven we are One with the Father, our Source. It is the ego idea (call it the devil, satan, ialdabaoth, whatever), which is the separation from God, the idea we can exist separate and independent from him. The Course calls that the tiny mad idea. The ego must deny Jesus, Truth, God, for it fears for its own reality, which IS in doubt, and based on quicksand and not on the rock of spirit. The ego (individual identity), is merely a temporary viewpoint, a very subjective experience, which we elevate to "reality," but all our protestations do not make it so.
I never understood why people got so upset with Mattias Desmet. I've yet to read his book. One of countless failings on my part.
Peter's denial occurred prior to baptism with the Holy Ghost, when Peter was just a man. But after Peter's baptism with the Holy Ghost (Jesus says in Acts 1:8, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be a witness unto me") Peter was no longer just a man, he had the power of Christ living in him, and Peter went on to be a great witness.
Personally, I once struggled to understand the King James version, but after spending my 2008 Christmas break watching teachings on the gospel (specifically, Andrew Wommack's, The War is Over, still available free online,) an instant came in which I felt as if a key to a lock had turned in my brain (baptism with the Holy Ghost? I don't know,) and suddenly the King James scripture came clear as if I were able to read a new language. It transformed my life. And to tie that experience in with previous posts on The Truth Barrier, in that instant, I also lost the sense of hate for anyone (though not a sense of hate for some things that people do.)
What a remarkable story, thank you for telling us. I mostly read NLT or some such but I know many are King James purists and yet others oppose it ferociously.
That is a rabbit hole I went down some years back. In a nutshell, two streams of texts were used to translate the English language bible- one stream, consisting of ~97% of texts was used by those writing the KJV, and the other 3%, including primarily Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Sinaiticus, were the source texts for every other translation, including the NKJV.
The Codex Sinaiticus, often described as "the oldest and best bible," was "discovered" in the 1840's in a monastery in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, by a German Protestant named Tischendorf, who had met with the Pope shortly before his trip. David W. Daniels details that story in his book, Is The World's Oldest Bible a Fake?, including the contemporaneous claim by Greek, Constantin Simonides, that he wrote the Codex Sinaiticus for his uncle, a Greek Orthodox theologian.
Around 1880, two English Anglicans (I think both were,) Westcott and Hort, wrote a Greek language translation of the old and new testaments using the 3% of texts mentioned. In their personal correspondance, both wrote of seeking to Romanize the KJV, and gave detailed reasons for omitting or altering key passages in the KJV that were contrary to Rome's teachings. Their Greek text was used to create the first of the new English language translations, the English Revised Version in 1885.
I know it's yet one more coincidence, but each edition of the new versions makes a few more changes away from the KJV. And while the changes are minimal on a word count basis, they alter such foundational teachings as the ascension of Christ, the perfection of Christ, the virgin birth of Christ, Christ as part of the Trinity, and creation by Christ, among others. I do use other versions to better understand some passages, especially that in the old testament, but the KJV is my touchstone regarding the Word of God.
Thank you for posting this, and the vision of Girard, who gives a beautiful analysis of this story.
All rings so true to me. It hurts a bit too, is that what it means to be human?
Maybe it should be a human expectation to be abandoned and betrayed, I know it has given me some comfort expecting that the last 3 yrs… (haha, or just my Judeo -Christian upbringing )
Appreciate your writing, Celia.
Thank you.