Dissent.02—Exploring Mysteries of Antiquity, Mind, & Soul w/ Chen Malul from The Library of Babel

Dearly beloved listener,

Welcome to Episode 2 of dog and pony show’s SPECTACLE OF DISSENT.

Our guest this week is Israeli writer and literature/history/mysticism/occult independent scholar

Chen Malul

who writes excellent pieces on the intersection of those subjects at

The Library of Babel

.

The man is an excellent writer who is digging into some really compelling subject matter—you should most definitely subscribe to him!

From what I recall, I came across Chen’s work after following him because I thought his Substack’s name “The Library of Babel” was cool, and I saw he had some really well-thought out pieces on some of my favorite subjects. He messaged me with his piece discussing William Blake’s watercolor paintings inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, “Why I'd actually prefer to be sent to the first circle of hell than to heaven”

After reading it, I had a feeling that we’d be able to have some really good conversation, and I’m very pleased to report that we certainly did!

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In Dissent.02, Chen and I have an excellent conversation that you’ll want to tune into if you have any interest in antiquity, literature, the classics, religion, mysticism, magic, conspiracy, spirituality, & Christianity:

• Introduction; Chen’s move from writing in Hebrew to English

• Chen’s education background

• Growing up in a traditional Jewish family in Israel

• The metaphysical aspect of history—How God is implicated in all of history

• Atheist v. literalist interpretation of history is not necessarily black and white

• The Jewish philosopher Maimonides

• Transition of Jews from ethno-religious people to a broader ethnic group (traditional vis a vis secular)

• Dynamic in the New Testament of the diverse ethnic makeup of Judea

• Chen’s view of the Gospel of Matthew as telling of Christ’s fulfillment of the law in opposition to the hypocritical Pharisees

• Chen’s views on Christianity’s relationship with contemporary Jews and the State of Israel

• Chen’s measured and thoughtful take that the contingent of evangelical Christians who “love Israel” and are pro-war in order to bring about Armageddon are problematic

• My harsher views on dispensationalist “Left Behind” Christians as being under a spell of delusion

• Chen compares this group to Messianic Jews

• Are there many Palestinian Christians?

• Chen’s perception of Palestinians growing up and the fact that there are moderate Palestinians

• Current posture of the war looks bleak

• Is the Tower of Babel literal and serve as a historical explanation of both differences in human cultures and similarities of mythos?

• Meaning of Babel in Hebrew

• How mysticism relates to this question

• Buddhist teachings

• Carl Jung’s universal unconsciousness

• My perception of a “universal unconsciousness” necessitates a metaphysical dimension

• Jung’s views on spirituality

• William Blake’s view of Jesus Christ

• Chen asks me whether the idea that humanity is essentially divine is blasphemous

• I answer partly with anecdotes of homeless schizo encounters in America

• Humanity’s purpose to glorify God

• Sola Gratia

• Mankind’s innate sensitivity to God’s natural law and ultimate truth

• Versus likewise susceptibility to sin and malevolence

• Christ as my guidepost in that

• The Western Church’s general loss of concern for the demonic and malevolent spiritual warfare

• Chen’s invitation to the Illuminati on Substack

• The cold reception to Chen’s writings on antiquity and mysticism from Hebrew readers versus the deep interest in the subjects from English readers

• Remembering Y2K; Crypto and the coming AI fueled robot Armageddon

• My qualifications on conspiratorial thinking

• Plato’s depiction of Socrates as having a “daemon”

• “Daemon” as a good/neutral entity in antiquity

• My general intuition that there are spiritual entities (aside from the angelic) that range from malevolent to neutral(ish)/mischievous

• The psychedelic experience’s connection to this

• Potions in antiquity were potentially psychoactive substances to commune with metaphysical entities

• The connection between natural psychedelic drugs and modern pharmacology

• “Rational” people balk at magic and witchcraft yet will take potions from a pharmacist

• Chen recommends “High Weirdness” by Eric Davis about Terrence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Phillip K. Dick in the 70s

• Tolkien’s thoughts relating to this regarding Fairy Tales

• Some UFOlogists believe aliens are metaphysical type entities

• John Milton’s Paradise Lost describes the gods of the ancient world as fallen angels

• Open rebellion against God did not work, so they had to resort to seduction

• I’m on the edge of my seat at this point lol

• “Yeah I pretty much track with all of that”

• My head canon that the fallen angels obviously would have loved LARPing as gods amongst the ancient peoples

• I talk about William Cooper’s “Behold a Pale Horse”

• The Western Church’s move away from the teaching that that the ancient gods were fallen angels

• Chen relates to all this from a secular perspective

• The messaging/realities of religion’s potential for evil

• The elite’s historical beliefs in the spiritual

• The Georgia Guidestones as a modern replication of the ancients

• Contemplating the lust for power

• Chen’s journey from Dawkins as a teenager to being open to spirituality today—his understanding that humans are unable to really know leaves the door open

• I relate how as a Christian the incomprehensibility of God is a wellspring of freedom and reprieve for me—through Christ I can avoid both the lust for power and the despair of being in a power-bound world

• Chen encourages me that my rambling is good because it allows the conversation to be expanded—I’m the first Christian he’s spoken to with these kinds of views

• Chen’s final message is that being open to learning and having conversations is good, even if you think you know what’s right and true

• fin