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- [00:08]
A
Welcome to Simplify. I'm Caitlin Schiller.
- [00:10]
B
I'm Ben Schuman Soler.
- [00:11]
A
Hello, Ben.
- [00:12]
B
What's up today?
- [00:14]
A
I'm very excited about this episode.
- [00:16]
B
I can hear you can hear it in my voice.
- [00:18]
A
Yeah. I'm really curious to hear what you have to say because you're working on projects that are sort of laterally related to a lot of the ideas here. But this episode is featuring our first mythologist ever.
- [00:30]
B
Yes, that's true.
- [00:32]
A
This person is a mythologist. She is formerly an advertising person. And the two actually do go hand in hand pretty well, which we'll talk about in the interview. And she also happens to be one of my best friends, also one of my favorite writers. Her name's Angela Natividad. She used to be a writer for Adweek and serves as an editorial director for all kinds of things. She's owned companies and then she took a turn and studied myth and. And now she is working on various projects related to that.
- [01:01]
B
Very cool.
- [01:01]
A
Very cool. She also wrote a book. It's called Remember His Unmasking the Faceless God of the West. The drama of this, I mean, it
- [01:10]
B
is the second time we're foregrounding myths, right. In the last couple weeks. Cause we had Jane Borden who talked about the American Monomyth, a cool episode. If people wanna check that out.
- [01:20]
A
That's true.
- [01:21]
B
But what should we pay attention for? I mean, let's hash out the details in the bookend. Right, but what should we really pay attention to in the interview? And why did you want to have Angela on besides that she sounds like a total badass?
- [01:33]
A
Well, I wanted to have her on and I wanted to be able to talk about her book because she treats story as a technology, which it absolutely is. Story is a world maker. And she has this theory that stories are not passive. They have their own agenda, almost as beings. And they can heal or they can harm us, which is why pre colonial cultures treated certain stories as medicine. The argument that she makes in here is that capitalism is a religious structure. And when you understand it that way, it becomes very fascinating and transparent. So, yeah, I think that those are good enough reasons to want to have her own.
- [02:11]
B
All right, cool. Let's play the tape.
- [02:13]
A
Let's go. Hi, Angela. Thanks for joining me today.
- [02:19]
C
Hey, Caitlin.
- [02:20]
A
It's a pleasure, Such a pleasure. I feel like I should disclose to the audience, and maybe I will also do this in the introduction that today I'm very excited because I get to speak to one of my favorite people in the entire world about Part of her body of work. This is Angela Natividad, who is many, many things, but one of those things is one of my dearest friends. So she deserves more of an introduction than that, but I'm gonna let her tell you who she is. Angela, how do you like to describe yourself?
- [02:51]
C
Definitely being Caitlin's friend is the first way I describe myself. Like, that's what I like to open with, just so people know where they stand in the hierarchy of things.
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A
I'm so touched.
- [03:06]
C
Yes. So I'm Angela, obviously. I'm an editorial director in my day job, but I'm also a mythologist and a writer.
- [03:17]
A
You are what I would consider to be an expert storyteller. I am spellbound by the way that you tell stories. You've also done quite a career in advertising, and you are a mythologist, as you said. And that is a very powerful trifecta when you think about how elemental narrative is to our identity as individuals and a species. Yeah. You say in your book something like. Something that I love. It's. I experience as. As very. You, actually. It's a balance of serious and scholarly and irreverent. And you write from a reductivist standpoint. Stories are a contagious technology that can affect people at scale, even when the premises are silly. How did you get into studying myth and story?
- [04:05]
C
So I think in many ways, we are all doing this all the time. Like, we live in and swim in stories. We use stories to cohere our sense of the universe. And I like to. I got into advertising and was really good in my advertising career because I'm a really gullible person, and I'm okay with that.
- [04:26]
A
I always say I'm an enthusiast. I can find something to be excited about, about almost anything. And that's why I was good at advertising.
- [04:32]
C
Yeah. Yeah. I think. I think we're kind of. We're kind of in the same place, except we're using different euphemisms. Yes. But, yeah, like, I would say. I would say. Okay, so the first ad. Because I think this is relevant, the first ad that I know that fell in love with was called Lola. It was a Levi's ad. It's really. It's this woman who's a painter. She's sleeping with a lot of guys. The song from that song, Whatever Lola Wants is in the background. Yeah. And she's sleeping with all these guys. And while sleeping with them, they sort of roll around in her paint. And at the end of the ad, all of these guys are together in this exhibit they've been invited to.
- [05:16]
A
Wow.
- [05:17]
C
Yeah. And all of their jeans that they apparently left at her house covered in paint are the exhibit. Like, they're all just hanging there and the guys are looking at each other in an uncomfortable way. And. And it was like, I really love this ad because it inverted this idea of a woman sleeps with a lot of people and the discomfort is for her and not for the men. Like, this ad turns that around. So it made me like the Ninet was just a really good time for the specific sort of Levi's storytelling. It made me a really big Levi's fan, and I spent probably the next 20 years of my life trying to get Levi's the jeans to work for me.
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A
Yeah.
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C
But all of this is to say I've thought about this ad a lot, and I've thought about it while progressing through my advertising career. And I've also thought about it a lot while, like, when I started to sort of slide away from advertising and move more into mythology, because obviously, off to the side of that Greek mythology specifically was something I was always into as a kid. And I guess one of the things that I realized is that story is a technology that does something to us. It impacts us in this very deep way. Like my example of how I've been trying to have a relationship with Levi's for 20 years. And I think when you're in advertising, you're just learning how to manipulate stories, Right. Like, you're making that your profession. But it's not really a mastery or an understanding yet of what stories do. It's just a use of stories as a technology. So when you're in advertising, you're like, I know that I can use stories just like I can use nostalgic music, or just like I can use certain cues in order to get people to do and buy what I want. And I do that by making them feel a certain thing, by making them have certain associations. Right. But I think what I realized when I actually started to study mythology and think about the sort of mythic tropes that appear over and over in advertising, I realized that actually storytelling is not a passive technology. It's something that has its own agenda. It's like they impact us in ways that are really difficult to quantify or control. And that's why in a lot of pre colonial communities, there were really specific people designated for telling what were considered medicinal stories. In the same way that you had to be really careful with plants, certain stories could heal you or harm you, and you had to be considerate of those effects, even if you didn't totally know precisely how a story was going to metabolize inside a person. For example, there are certain stories that are only told to children that the villagers think are sort of weird. And they're probably not gonna go down the normal community path. They're probably gonna end up on some kind of shamanic path. So they need to be told certain stories to prepare them and in many ways to warn them. So all of this is to say, yeah, like, I just started seeing the impacts of stories everywhere. I know this is like a very long answer, but.
- [08:55]
A
No, no, it was a really wonderful, thorough answer.
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C
Yeah.
- [09:00]
A
So then, of course, if this is the thing that ties your experience of the world together and sort of helps orient you. And really, all of us, whether we like it or not, we are constantly being oriented and reoriented by stories told in our own minds by the people who love us, by the news. Gross.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And by politicians, which we're seeing a lot of now. And so your. Your book is called Remember His Name? Unmasking the Faceless God of the West. It was very intriguing to me because, of course, as soon as you say unmask and. And faceless, you're just like, ooh, what could possibly be behind that? So I imagine that being oriented by mythology as you are, you started to understand capitalism, one of the big isms of. Of the world, perhaps the biggest, as a. As a God. And just tell me about that realization a little bit.
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C
I would say capitalism is a religious system. It's a religious structure. So, yes. Yeah.
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A
Thank you for setting me straight as you always do.
- [10:03]
C
Oh, thanks. Like, you set me straight on all kinds of stuff. So it started with a. I was read. I just happened to be reading a couple of books at the same time that were coalescing in my brain. There was a David's Graeber and Wingro, the dawn of Everything, and Serge Latouche's how to Re. Enchant the World. And. Yeah, so Serge Latouche was talking specifically about how the west kind of thinks. It's not even agnostic, it's atheistic. It's sort of left all these silly superstitions of gods behind in favor of this logic of progress. And, you know, we're. We're these rational beings now. Like, we care about math and science, blah, blah, blah. And that's why we have this economy that sort of decides everything for us because it's the most rational thing. And. But basically, his book, which is very thin, but it makes its point really efficiently. It's kind of like the closer you get to this structure, the closer you look at it, the more you're like, yeah, this doesn't really make sense. There's nothing very rational about rationalist culture. Everything that sort of upholds this logic of sort of the international economy and, like, its value in our lives. And I think if you're a normal person, you just know that. Right. Like, they're. Especially for millennials, like, in the last 30 or so years, it's always like. I think we get really tired of presidents saying, you got to stimulate the economy, because I think, like, we now know in our skin like, that, like, that doesn't do shit for us.
- [11:46]
A
Yeah, Right.
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C
So Serge Latouche basically argues that the closer you look at this, the more you realize, like, there's nothing rational about this. This is essentially religious dogma. Like, you're. You're operating inside a religious system, and you know that you're operating inside a religious system because anytime you try to veer away from it, you are punished. And you are also. You're also rewarded if you sort of uphold the tenets of the religious system. And I think one of the more potent examples he gives is that there's this. There's this tribal people called the Givadi of the Amazon who go to Spain, and they're kind of like, you know, they spend some time there sort of studying the culture, and they're like, okay, we get it. Yeah. Like, we understand how your culture works. There are a lot of parallels. Your shamans are bankers. All right, like, it all, like, once you, you know, once you've established who the shamans are, everything kind of falls together. So. Yeah, so he essentially, he makes this case that capitalism is a religious structure with, you know, really specific religious designs. And he sort of explains, like, how the language, like debt and credit that we associate with the economy actually comes from mystic language that's not originally economic language. That's language that comes directly from religion and was related to ideas of, like, what we owe each other. So I started from this premise that I found really compelling because it also tied into what we learn, for example, in school. Like, if you go to college and you learn something about capitalism, you might have learned about, like, Max Weber and the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Oh, yes. Yeah. And he talks about how, like, there's no way you can design a culture this brutal toward other people in your same community unless there's a really strong religious motivation. And this particular religion is Christianity. In his view. So. So there are a lot of things that sort of point to capitalism, the sort of culture of the west that we call it being like fundamentally a dogmatically religious structure, probably tied to Abrahamic religion and a lot of the principles that come from there. But like, yeah, so all of that is to say it was like, okay, this is a religion, well then where is the God? And lots of people have all kinds of theories about who the God is. It's like, well, it's money or it's progress, blah, blah, blah. Like Serge Latouche says that too. Neil Gaiman suggests that too, like in American Gods, when he talks about like the old gods being superseded by technology and media. But the problem with this is those are just things, they're just tools or concepts. And gods specifically took on human form because they could operate more effectively as archetypes and also as egregores and these, these gods.
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A
I want to drill down on that. Can you explain what an egregore is?
- [15:13]
C
Yeah, so this is a really good question. An egregore is a kind of. It's a kind of spirit that is created by a collective energy. So let me explain myself in a clear way. So when I say spirit, I'm saying it's a thing that feels like it has agency. It's an invisible thing that feels like it has agency. And it can impact you and it can impact you in big or small ways. The United States of America, like a country, for example, is an egregore in the sense that you can look at a country and like a person. The US and France, for example, have really different perspectives on the separation of church and state that are particular to their cultures and sort of feed into their egregores. And there's this idea of Americanness and Frenchness. So this is an egregore. It can be big and strong like this, or it can be small and local. So for example, if you went to a really big sports match and people were enlivened and you were sort of caught up in that energy, you know, like everybody's singing and, you know, everybody cheering like you are creating an egregore that will probably disperse some hours or maybe even days after you have attended that match. It's the same for concerts, right? Like you feel infused by a collective spirit that you're co creating.
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A
So it's like the energetic spirit of a place or a thing.
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C
It's a kind of spirit that is created specifically by collective energy. Like you actually need collective energy to invest in this in what is ultimately a kind of spirit, and it can disperse very quickly, like in the example of a match or a concert. It still has an impact on you, but, you know, it will probably go away after, like, a couple weeks or something, or it can build in power. Like the concept of countries or religious figures, like, you know, certain gods. We know, the concept of Jesus, for example, historical figure, but also very strong egregore in our culture. I think what's interesting about this egregore, and one of the things that I go into in my book once I kind of identify who this God is that we're dealing with, is the egregore can obviously be impacted by people, like, in the same way, like different presidents, different leaders, different sort of social issues and events can impact the identity and personality of a country. But a notable characteristic of an egregore is that it also has a direct impact on those same people. And when you look at those impacts, you can see the characteristic of a nature. You can see the characteristic of a. Maybe personality is not a perfect word, but it's like, you know. Yeah, go ahead.
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A
I'm so sorry, I just interrupted. That's a very bad form. Is it, like, a brand?
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C
Yeah, brands are. Yeah, brands are great egregores. Yes.
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A
Okay. I think I get it now.
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C
Yeah. So, like, I'm really.
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A
Of course, I'm understanding this through consumerism.
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C
Yeah. No, but it's. It's perfect. So Coca Cola is the reason why we have this picture of Santa in our brains, right? Yeah, because those were. Those were Coca Cola ads, and they've sort of, like, entered our minds, and it's part of, like, this idea of Americana and the idea of Christmas. And, you know, it's just like. It's this really specific spirit of a brand that is sort of woven into our sense of culture and history and even of. Of self in some ways. And it's. But it's still very specifically tied to the characteristics of a brand, which are, like, happiness and a certain aspect of, like, frivolity and festive spirit, you know? Yeah.
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A
Okay. Awesome. Thank you for taking us into the egregore side car. I really appreciate it.
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C
Yeah, happy to.
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A
Okay, so you said that. That you started to wonder, so who is this God? And you're. You're looking to unmask him? Can I. Can you reveal who this God is? Now?
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C
This is tricky. I feel like. I feel like I shouldn't just perform, even if I feel like the answer is really obvious. I think. Yeah. So I think I won't for now. Maybe I'll change my mind in like 20 minutes. But. But I think what I'll say is I. I think it's interesting to see how human politics affects the evolution of this God. But also this God has really specific characteristics that are particular to his nature that sort of draw a red thread from his origins to the present day when you look at the characteristics of capitalism. So for example, I just opened my book to a random place and it happened to have a good example inside.
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A
Great, go for it.
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C
Yeah. So I'm going to go back on what I just said. I'm just going to reveal the God because it's just more practical to talk about him this way. So it's Yahweh, which is one of the names for the Abrahamic God. And it's really sort of interesting just how he comes to be the way that he is, but also what he was like initially. It's also sort of interesting to dig into. Cause this God also has a really clear trajectory and evolution. What I wrote here is Yahweh is characterized by the exertion of his will. And nature responds to his command according to the coursing of life through matter became secondary to his omnipotent control. The split between nature and God was finalized. And also he's a God without kin. So a couple of details about Yahweh, origin stories of sort of the world, they tend to follow specific kinds of patterns. And when you talk about like gods creating Earth or creating the land that you're on, it's really like, there's typically a lot of work related to doing that or a sacrifice of some kind. Like, it's not unusual for an origin story to involve a fight between gods and then one of the gods dies. Like let's say, for example. So a thousand years before. A thousand years before Abrahamic religion, you have obviously Sumerian, Sumerian religion. And so in their holy story, the Enuma Eilish, you have this fight between the snake goddess, like the goddess who has created all of the other gods. Her name is Tiamat, and one of her sons, Marduk. So this is like a very strange story. So Tiamat is like a little annoyed by her, like, what she's created. Like she thinks the gods are too noisy. I love this.
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A
Yeah. What a sensitive queen.
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C
Yeah. Like, but this is also like a weirdly common feature in the Enuma Eilish. Like gods, like making really dramatic decisions because they're just like, there's too much noise. Like, let's Flood the world.
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A
I get pretty upset when there's too much noise.
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C
I mean. Yeah, I understand.
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A
Can you just tell me quickly, the Enuma Eilish, is this the. The world origin story from. Is this the Sumerian origin story?
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C
Yeah. So the Enuma Eilish is like the great sort of epic of the gods. And. Yeah, it also contains the sort of the. The origin story. Yeah, from this sort of like Mesopotamian perspective. It's very, very old. So Tiamat is massively annoyed and she's like, you know, these guys gotta go, like, I'm just gonna murder them all. And so all gods freak out and they choose, I guess, a hero among them, Marduk, who to fight their mother. Like, to kill their mother. And Marduk is like, yeah, so Marduk. And this is like, this is also weirdly common feature, like the death of a parent to create the world. Like, it's also a feature of Greek mythology. Like, it's all over the place. But. So Marduk is like, I will do this, but if I succeed, then I basically get to be the boss of all of you.
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A
I see.
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C
Yeah. And they're like, okay, so they all agree to this. And he has this huge epic fight with his mom, the snake goddess, and he kills her. And basically what he does is he takes her on trails and different parts of her body and he creates the world that we know over seven days. Like basically the Genesis story in Abrahamic religion. Cause Abrahamic religion is also coming out of this tradition. I'm not to. That's not to say it's like. It's to say that like all mystic stories, all mythologies sort of build on each other and it has to do with like, location and time. Anyway, so, yeah, so there's this like seven day story of Marduk basically, like taking his mom apart and creating the world and the stars. And here's where the gods live and here's humans and all this stuff. And this seven day story is kind of like sort of frame for frame lifted for the story of Genesis. Like, you kind of have the same story of like Yahweh creating the world. But weird characteristic, Yahweh is alone when he creates the world. This is very unique in a world where most belief systems are polytheistic and the gods are collaborative. The gods are always doing stuff together. So Yahweh is alone. There is no mother, there is no sacrifice. There is not even much effort on his part. He basically just speaks and everything. Just kind of does what he says. The world just. Yeah, light arrives and it's like, okay, now there's water because he said so.
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A
Oh, my God. Did he just sign a bunch of executive orders?
- [25:54]
C
Yeah, exactly. It's like. It's very. It's got executive order energy. See, you're already, like, drawing this red thread. Yeah. So this is really unique and weird. And the other feature is he has no kin, he has no family, until, like, much later with the introduction of Jesus. Right. Like, he goes into the family hustle, which does something specific to him. But, yeah, these are really specific characteristics of Yahweh that, when you think about it like this and a collective of other details sort of feed into how we think about one, our relationship to nature. It was very strange to think of gods, like, not interacting with nature or, like, you know, like. But actually, like, creating the universe. That was a weird idea. Like, in a lot of these old stories, the gods are already in the universe. The universe is neither created nor destroyed, it just is. And then maybe the gods create, like, a world inside it. But Yahweh is like, he just creates everything by himself without speaking, and he has no family. So it's like. Yeah. So, you know, like, trace that to today. There's, like, a bunch of stuff, like, we're not getting into right now. Right. Like, how does Yahweh sort of, like, contribute to the enlightenment and the arrival of capitalism? Blah, blah, blah. But trace that to today, and you've got, like, this really intense, solitary, sort of belligerent individualism and this really bad attitude toward nature. Like, it should really just do what we say. It doesn't have its own will or personality. Like, it should really just bend to our will. These are Yahweh characteristics, and they were weird characteristics for gods of that time. So this is just, like, an example.
- [27:52]
B
Wow.
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C
Yeah. Yeah. But, like, to your question of what comes before capitalism from a storytelling perspective, I think, like, obviously there's a lot of stuff that come before capitalism. Like, I think David's Graeber and Wingrove. I just call them David's Grave Wingrove. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think that's proper English, but I just.
- [28:18]
A
No, I love it. And neither one of us really speaks proper English anymore, so it's fine.
- [28:23]
C
That's true. I don't know if that really exists anymore in this day and age, but.
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A
Yeah, Right.
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C
So the main point that they make in the dawn of everything is actually there were tons of different humans, like, humanoid beings that were not all Homo sapiens, that were all living at the same time. And There were also tons of different ways that we lived and tons of different ways that societies were structured. And alongside that, you know, tons of different stories. So we kind of. We have lost a lot of that diversity. So it seems over time, I think it's harder to talk about, like, what came before capitalism, because in fact, so much came before capitalism. And that's one of the points of the story. I think what's really more interesting is this idea, this received idea we have that capitalism is inevitable. And it's just. Yeah, it's how progress is and it's how humans are. And you know, like, there, there we have these weird stories that we tell ourselves about human nature and advancement. And, you know, it was always going to be this way because that is what a civilization is like. And I think one of the beautiful points that the Davids make make in their book is they say something like, when we are talking about civilizations, we're usually talking about something really specific, which is social structures that are built on sort of like violence and the sort of like, radical subordination of women and also domination. Like, that's what we mean when we say civilization. And. Yeah, and the fact that that is what we're talking about when we're talking about progress and civilization is kind of. It kind of gives us a sense of the egregore that we're in from a social perspective. Like, this is a rough place and we tell each other hard stories both to justify it and also to make ourselves feel better about it. And the many sort of weird details that make that. Why, that is because there are so many, like, there are so many things that have sort of like, put the scaffolding together to make this seem inevitable. But. Yeah, but like, the more you look at it, the more you're like, well, this doesn't make sense. Like, why would it be moral for me to work myself to death? Like, how do those things sort of go together, you know? Yeah, yeah.
- [31:04]
A
As you were talking, I'm not sure exactly how this is connected, but I think it is. As you were talking, I was thinking about how in order to scale anything, really, you need to get rid of originality in some ways. You need templates. You need something that can be mass produced. You need less, like, Byzantine detail because the more detailed and diverse things are, the less easy it is to scale them. And it strikes me that that for progress or. Or for to generate wealth, of course, we would need a monotheistic system that sort of smoothed the edges and removed the detail that would make producing More and more workers difficult. Yeah, yeah. That's neither here nor there. It was just the thing I was thinking about.
- [31:59]
C
No, you're right, because that's a. This is also a big component of what happens when you get the introduction of the New Testament and the arrival of Jesus. Right. Like, there are a couple of things that happen in this moment that sort of point to what you're getting. And God is not even a thing. The Bible never actually. The Old Testament specifically, never actually refers to him as the only God or the one God. And even Yahweh knows that there are others. So there's this really interesting question of, like, well, how did he come to be the one? And, like, they're like, this is like a totally separate thing. But so Yahweh actually is part of this big group of gods that each get a parcel of land and a parcel of a people. So he didn't even get a complete people. He got, like, some random bunch of people in the desert that are just, like, one part of a family.
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A
Okay.
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C
This is like his allocation. And the book kind of goes into, you know, like, where that mythology comes from. Like, and the ancient Jews, they also understood that Yahweh was not the only one. Like, there are a lot of, like, if you read the Bible, like, where they're having, like, all of these land disputes, like, they'll actually say things like, well, if your God was so powerful, then why didn't he hold your land for you? Like, if you took over our land, you would be claiming it for your God too. So why can't we, like, claim it for our God? Like, it's very clear that there's, like, tons of other gods out there. And Yahweh is often cited as jealous. Like, he's, like, really pissy about his people constantly making offerings or mixing with other people with other gods. Like, he gets really upset about it. And this is also true of polytheistic cultures. It's an unusual characteristic for a God. That's why it's brought up over and over. So there's this interesting progression of how Yahweh comes to be the one God.
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A
Okay, so another thing that you say about Yahweh is that this. This faceless God's functioning has three characteristics. It uses human sacrifice as nourishment. It benefits from its own abstraction and illusion, or rather, delusion enables it to hold power. Can you speak a little bit about what you mean by that and how you see that alive in the world today?
- [34:35]
C
So one of the things that we know about gods is gods need to eat. Like, they need to eat all the time. So just like toddlers. So often this can be in the form of, like, you know, burning animal fat. They're really into animal fat and, like, the smell of fat. Or human sacrifice. Human sacrifice is a fun one, right. And it's also a very potent way to gather energy. So the question that I had in my mind was, like, okay, what kind of God would benefit from a human sacrifice perspective? Or how does he eat if you can't see him? And he is abstracted? And there are a lot of things. One of the things that I learned about Yahweh is he has benefited historically from not being visible or from being kind of forgotten about the before. And also, like, in these interim moments where he's sort of, like, not being thought about by his people, they're in states of confusion. They're upset. They're like. They're sort of lost. And he's sort of like. I think there's this moment where, like, the Israelites or the ancient Judeans, like, they're. They're, like, lost. And all this bad stuff is happening, like, for ages and ages. And they go to a prophet, and the prophet is, like, possessed by Yahweh to sort of explain, like, what happened. And. And Yahveh, through this prophet, basically says, ha, ha. Like, like, many years ago, like, your ancient ancestors, like, super upset me because they were constantly, like, flirting with other gods. So I made up all of these rules that they had to adhere to that were going to ruin their lives and descend down to you. And this is. This is what you're living now. Yay. You know, and it's just like, he loves the strategy. So. So. So Yahweh doesn't necessarily care about recognition. That's not how he eats. The way that he eats is by human sacrifice. So what's the main way that he gets human sacrifice today? One of the gods that I talked about a lot in the book is Huitilopochtli, the Aztec God for whom.
- [36:50]
A
I'm so glad I heard you say that. I read it and I just thought. I don't. I don't think I can do this. I can speak three languages, but I don'. To do with this. Go ahead.
- [36:58]
C
Yeah, Nahuatl is crazy. Like, I would really like to learn it, but, yeah, like, it's just like you have all of these scary Spanish stories about, like, how the Aztecs were just constantly, like, cutting off heads. They were, like, rolling down the templ Mayor. Like, it was just like they were constantly sacrificing people because of the particular myth logic of that God. But basically it came down to he needed human sacrifice for his purposes of, like, you know, just keeping the world running. Basically. That religion didn't last. Like, it didn't exist for very long. When the Spanish founded, it was only about 100 years old. Very similar, according to the Spanish friars, to Christianity. They found it quite similar, in fact, in terms of behavior, the types of priests they had. Anyway, Yahweh cannot be this frank and survive for this long. Like Huitilopochtli survived a couple hundred years, like, manically visibly killing people. But there are many different ways that you can engage in human sacrifice. Right? And one of the ways that you can do it is to get people to expend their energy, like, to sort of, like. Yeah. And one way you can do this is to work them to death and get them to sleep less. And a lot of this is sort of explained as, you know, like there were ancient terms for this. Like, for what our energy was like our life force. Like, you know, the Hawaiians called it mana. It could be like, you could attribute a price to it. It was something that was. That was almost tangible in terms of its value. So you can take life force. Like, that's also a way of engaging in human sacrifice. And one of the interesting things about Enlightenment logic is because it's totally based on Christian tenets, like dickouts, who gives us rationalism was trying to justify that a God exists. Like, it's. It's totally in there. It's totally baked in there. But it's confusing to see. You can't really see it. And because you can't really see it, you're pretty insistent that it's not there. Like, there is no God. I'm doing this for my own benefit. Like, I'm working hard for my kids or because it's moral or whatever. And meanwhile our retirement ages are getting higher and higher. Like, there's just a. And there's like, parts. You can also feel this a lot in American culture. Like, it's not really looked upon well to enjoy yourself or complain or, you know, like. Or do really do anything besides work. And in this way, you. You expend life force. Yeah. And it's really hard to sort of like, to sort of understand the underpinnings to that. Like, why is it moral to live this way? Why is that? But it is a human sacrifice characteristic. And in fact, Serge Latouche talks about a headhunter tribe that I think it's also the Juvadi. Like, they look at our culture and they're like, yeah. Like, you can't really judge headhunters because you're kind of doing the same thing, right? Like, you're sort of, like, chasing after money, and it's like, it's a really hysterical behavior. Like, you can't seem to stop. Like, you kind of think you're gonna die if you don't do it. And everything about you is sort of reliant on being able to acquire essentially more and more heads.
- [40:25]
A
Wow.
- [40:25]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, this is a short way to say the particular way that Yahweh gets to eat and the way that he eats is by human sacrifice, is he benefits from the abstraction of the Enlightenment. Like, we think that we're doing this not for him or for anybody else, but specifically for ourselves. And the irony is we're kind of killing ourselves. Like, we're literally slaying ourselves on the altar of the economy, which is like his big feasting table kind of thing.
- [40:58]
A
Wow. So I always ask, if there is one thing that you'd like people to remember or to understand about your subject matter, what would it be?
- [41:09]
C
So one of the reasons why I wrote this is because I really suffer under this idea that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm lazy, and should I have done something different 10 years ago to make my career a different way? Like, I really. Is it my fault that my life is not massively optimized? I think it's also a very millennial concern, even though all the data says no, actually, millennials inherited a really hard lot. So what I realized was that these stories that I and maybe presumably other people have in their minds about, like, you're lazy, you're not making the most of your time. You're not being productive. Like, these are stories, but they're not just stories. They exist inside us because they're part of a certain egregore that feeds from the way our society is designed. So basically, what I wanted to do was sort of look at the scaffolding of this culture and start just sort of breaking down, pulling out one by one, the stories that hold up the scaffolding. Because I realized once you start to recognize these things as stories holding up, like, what from a distance looks like a strong structure, but up close is really quite a shaky structure, you can start to separate yourself from these stories. You can sort of be like, you know, this is not me. Like, I don't have to define myself in this way, but also outwardly, you can kind of look at the world and be like, the way things are is not inevitable. And in fact, like, there's a storytelling construct in the air that kind of wants me to think this entire outcome is inevitable. Like, I think I read a quote somewhere about, like, why is it harder for. Like, why is it easier for us to prepare for the end of the world than it is to imagine life beyond capitalism? Like, why would we rather die? But once you understand that stories are spirits, they can have their own intents. Like, you can sort of start to not only interact with them in a different way and maybe erect some boundaries between you and those stories, like the way you would in any relationship, but you can also start to think of, okay, this is like a big collection of stories here that construct our current sense of reality. Like, what are other stories we can look at? And this is. I think the answer is going to be different for everybody, but I think that's a fundamentally, not only optimistic, but also a creative perspective.
- [43:59]
A
Angela, thank you so much for talking today.
- [44:01]
C
I really appreciate it. I'm so honored. Thank you for asking me.
- [44:14]
B
Welcome to the bookend where we end with books.
- [44:19]
A
We end with books and mythical chatter.
- [44:21]
B
Yeah. You know what I think is cool about this, like, stepping back, is that this is kind of like simplify acting as a publisher, you're like scouting out there for really cool ideas and funky people always. Yes. And I don't know that the mix of the last few episodes you can get anywhere else, you know.
- [44:39]
A
Exactly.
- [44:39]
B
Radical justice beating stress at work. And the mythical snake God from a 2nd century Babylonian mythical text.
- [44:48]
C
Yes, but that's the whole point.
- [44:49]
A
Absolutely. Our lives are made of this tapestry of stuff, and that's what makes it interesting and meaningful and why we love to talk about ideas because this is how we live our lives. It's not one silo all the time. It's a stew of things that weave together to make sort of a cosmology of modern life.
- [45:08]
B
Absolutely. The quote that I wrote down is, it's easier to imagine the end of the world than life without capitalism. And you know, what if myths and stories are spirits with their own intents.
- [45:18]
A
Yes, very. Angela. She and I spend a lot of time talking about animism, perhaps unsurprisingly.
- [45:24]
B
Cool.
- [45:25]
A
I actually saw this very interesting argument today that the west is really afraid of AI because of our religious structures, and the east is less afraid because they've practiced animism for forever and they see an intelligent machine like AI just as another animistic force. So it's not that huge a deal.
- [45:44]
B
That's very cool. As opposed to a threat of domination or something.
- [45:47]
A
Exactly.
- [45:48]
B
Very cool.
- [45:48]
A
Anyhow, that was a little sidebar.
- [45:50]
B
So where do you want to start? I mean, I would be curious. I obviously want to connect it to other projects that I've worked on. But also, I want to hear that. I just, like. I just want to start by saying hard. Agree. That myths are important.
- [46:04]
A
Yes, Same. And actually, the quote that I wrote down. Wow, that was so loud. I get so excited. Same. And I wrote down this quote, actually, which I think was the thing that stayed with me a lot. She writes actually. Hang on. This is a quote from her book. She says that the myths that we harbor focus our energy and veneration. We continuously play them out, even if we don't know they're nested inside of us. And this is why myths are important. It's because if you don't know the stories that are defining your life, then you can't catch them and consider. Is this the best story to be invoking right now?
- [46:41]
B
Right.
- [46:42]
C
Yeah.
- [46:44]
B
Well, should we talk about some of the stories? Or, like, how do you want to get into this?
- [46:48]
A
No, I just want to hear your thoughts because I knew that you would have opinions about this.
- [46:53]
B
Yeah. I mean, this word egregor.
- [46:58]
A
Egregore.
- [46:59]
B
Sorry, this word egregore. I Googled it some more to try and understand it. It's really hard.
- [47:05]
A
It is really hard.
- [47:05]
B
You two talk about it, and I love how at some point you're like, is this a brand?
- [47:10]
A
I was just trying to find physical metaphors for it. No, it's good, but it's a vibe. It's a brand. It's a spirit.
- [47:15]
B
Well, there's one thing you didn't say, which I found Googling around, and that was a psychic force.
- [47:19]
A
Mm. Yeah.
- [47:20]
B
So I think that's really interesting.
- [47:23]
A
And it's a collective psychic force.
- [47:25]
B
That's right.
- [47:25]
A
Yeah.
- [47:26]
B
Yeah. And, you know, one thing that I like about her work, about Angela's work and that I'm really interested in and other projects, is how can we understand these myths and sort of take from them what we need for our agendas and our uses and our lives? Also, we live in a time where, especially politicians right now, but we live in a time where myths, especially religious myths, dominate a lot of the discourse. The Secretary of war has crusader tattoos and in his book said something like, if you like civilization, think a crusader and is in charge of an assault on the Middle East. So it is hard not to connect some of the myths of ancient books that clearly the people in charge are relying on to some extent. And of course, they're not one to one causes of any of this. I don't think that's what Angela's saying either. It's not like the Bible causes anybody to do anything or anything to happen in the world. But. But understanding it is an important way to sort of live against it or live through it or live in relationship with it. And so that's what I really walk away from this.
- [48:55]
C
Yeah.
- [48:55]
A
Same, really. Honestly, you killed that. I don't have a lot to add.
- [48:59]
C
That's it.
- [49:00]
B
Awesome.
- [49:00]
A
I would really recommend reading the book and we'll put a link to where you can find it in the show notes.
- [49:04]
B
That's cool.
- [49:05]
A
Yeah.
- [49:05]
B
I mean, we should also do some reels with some of these funky gods.
- [49:08]
A
I know.
- [49:09]
B
I love the gods.
- [49:10]
A
I love the gods too. Angela would be happy to do that for us.
- [49:13]
B
What books? Like, I have three different things, kind of. But I'm really curious what else you brought.
- [49:19]
A
Ah, well, I brought a very simple one that is more grounding than the mythological.
- [49:24]
B
Oh, good, because I go off kind of perfect.
- [49:26]
A
Then this is like the grounding. If we were still working at Blinkist, we would recommend this one.
- [49:31]
B
Okay.
- [49:31]
A
It's the Science of Storytelling by Will Storr. And it's great. It is a neuroscientific look at what we love about stories and the different parts of our brains that different elements of story lights up. It explains why we love underdogs. It explains why we find some things interesting and others not. And there's a whole section also on propaganda, which is fascinating. So that's the Science of Storytelling by Will Storr.
- [49:54]
B
Cool. All right. I have three things, but I'll do them quickly.
- [49:56]
A
Okay.
- [49:57]
B
One is read the texts, the Bible. I want to recommend people read Paul's letters, read the book of Esther, read Genesis, read surahs of the Quran, like the Avesta from. From Zoroastrianism.
- [50:10]
A
Like I've never even heard of some of these.
- [50:11]
B
Dip in, like, seriously, it's good fun. Dip in some of the. You know, I had never read a lot of the gospels. I find them amazing. You know what I mean? Like, you don't. You don't have to devote your life to studying them or whatever. Just dip in. They're really good, fun and quite interesting. Especially when you start to think like, oh yeah, many of the ideas in here Have. Have influenced people for the last thousands of years in a major way. And to that effect, the Kingdom, which is a fiction book. Well, in a very Frenchy kind of way, it's a fiction book. It's by Emmanuel Carrer. He's French, very meta, very. About his own life, but he also tries to really understand, explain, and like, with a lot of time and attention, go through, like, early followers of Jesus's life.
- [51:05]
A
Huh?
- [51:06]
B
Like, really try and understand what it felt like when these ideas that Jesus was talking about hit, like, what was the. What was going on over there? Who were these people, like, looking at all these texts and it's written, it only came out whatever in the last 10 years or something. So it's like a very modern book. It's very easy to read. And again, it uses these ancient texts and the myths that many of us are familiar with in the context of his own life, how they could help him or inspire him or not. So in this kind of project of applying these ancient myths in a contemporary way, it's definitely worth reading and also just an entertaining and kind of much beloved book over the last 20 years. And then lastly, I'm just gonna do a shout out to another podcast I make, please do. Called Bad Cousins, which is. It's with an anthropologist named Atan Kaminer. And it's exactly about that. It's about how ancient myths are used in the Middle east by politicians to push violent and often chaotic agendas. And we mostly focus on this story of Abraham, which you and Angela talk about, because the story of Abraham and his two sons. Two of his sons, Ishmael and Isaac. One Ishmael considered, you know, famously the father of all Muslims and Isaac being the father of all Jews. And so they're cousins. And so what does that mean? And going deeper into the myths and the mothers and this Abraham idea and the Christians and everything. And we go in through. We go through the ancient texts, we go through some fun medieval ones also that not everyone knows and all the way up to today. So. And we. We talk about the Abraham story and the Abrahamic myths like you and Angela did. And I think it's worth checking out if people are interested in that.
- [52:49]
A
Definitely. Bad Cousins. Give it a listen. Okay.
- [52:53]
B
Wow, that was fun.
- [52:53]
A
And with that, yes, what a romp.
- [52:55]
B
Oh, my God. But next time we're gonna have something a bit less mythological, right?
- [53:00]
C
Yes.
- [53:01]
A
We're gonna get grounded in the body next time. So if you wanna get grounded in the body, tune in.
- [53:06]
B
All right, cool. See you next time.
- [53:08]
A
See you next time. Simplify was produced by me, Caitlin Schiller, Ben Schuman, Stoller, Joao Lucas for Colo Media. And we are here at the lovely Chapters bookshop in Berlin, Germany. Check it out.