This is quantum healing with Candace, and it is the 4th of August, 2018. And it's been a while since we've had a show, and the first thing I wanna know from people out there is can you see me? Can you hear me? And how is our image quality? Because the last time I did this, I had a little bit of problem, so I wanna make sure that that is working out okay so that we can continue going. And let's see, I'm gonna click on my other computer over here. And all right, there we go. Oh my gosh, guess who's watching? Pamela, oh, Pamela. Crystal and I love you so much. Oh my goodness, okay, so it looks like we are on. Welcome, everyone, and welcome, Chrysola Lewis, who is coming to us all the way from across the pond in Ellsbury, England, and we are going to talk today about modern day spiritualism. Now, I personally didn't know much about spiritualism, and then I had me a visit over at Chrysola's and went to a spiritualist church, and we thought it would be a fun show today to talk about that a little bit. So welcome, welcome. How is everything in your hometown right now? It's raining cats and dogs where I am. What's the weather like for you? Just so hot, Candice. Again, it's just this unbearable heat that we haven't had in many years. So it's just dealing with that, yeah. But it's lovely, it's lovely. We can't complain. If I had a pool, I would be next to the pool all day. All right, well, very, very well. So why don't you go ahead and give us a little bit of background about what spiritualism even is and what the heck is a spiritualist church for those of us who haven't heard of it before or don't know what that is? Yes. So I guess there'll be a lot of fascinating facts that will come out today. And I feel like I probably will have to start with a bit of a history lesson. So in the mid 1800s, there was a family called the Fox family, especially the Fox sisters. Have you heard of them before? Nope, this is new for me. So I'm sitting at the edge of my chair. Tell us about the Fox sisters. So the Fox sisters started hearing noises in the house and it was like clicks or knocks. And this was in America in Heightsville. I believe that's in New York. So they established a form of communication for the spirit world through knocks and they established it was a intelligent spirit by saying, two knocks for a yes, one knock for a no. But then even further, they would say, or they'll do 10 knocks or clicks and then the spirit would mimic that. Now part of our religion is science. So they went through various experiments of how this works, how the spirit side communicates. And this raised a great interest within society. You know, what is spiritualism? Does it mean there's life after this life? What happens when we die? And not only that, there was a lot of other people that came forth to say, I'm having similar experiences. I'm hearing noises, I'm being touched. What is happening with all these paranormal stuff happening around me? Can we explain that? So very fascinating. And with controlled experiments with science, there was through, I guess scientists would set up controlled conditions for them for the communication. And through an experiment, you would record your findings and you'd report back on them. But there was occasions where things just didn't happen. So they'd have communication one evening and the next there probably wasn't anything because they said spirit wasn't there to communicate. And hideful is very much celebrated within the spiritual field. We celebrate hideful as part of our spiritual religion. And I don't really like the word religion because I feel it's a way of life. It's just who we are with spiritual beings. But later in life, the fox's sisters, unfortunately, did come forth. And I believe they said that they made the clicks and the knocks through their knuckles. But nevertheless, it helped spiritualism. It boosted us and it brought people back into the churches where they belonged, right? So lovely. And even today in our own spiritualist church, our church is full and it's so lovely to see these evenings where we panic that we don't have enough chairs to sit the people. But yeah, that's the start of modern day spiritualism. And even when you think of back in the day in the mid 1800s, you still had the witchcraft act in play. So if you were found out to be doing things that is supernatural that the people didn't like, you would be called out to be a witch. Now, I don't know how that applied to the fox's sisters exactly because I didn't think they were affected under the witchcraft act. But later in later years, to skip a bit of history, we had an amazing medium called Helen Duncan. So she was Scottish and she was the last medium to be prosecuted under the witchcraft act of 1735. And that was her just being a medium and she did physical mediumship as well, especially through the wartime era. She helped a lot of people and I guess a lot of people wanted to communicate with those lost loved ones who have crossed over in the wartimes. But the thing is with the witchcraft act that was still in play, you were only really protected if you were in the spiritualist national union here in the UK because if you operated within the church they were able to protect you. And she was warned that if you work outside of the church that you stand a chance to be prosecuted and you are at risk. But she didn't really take any notice of that because she were working for spirits and she knew it was the right thing to do. So she traveled all around the country up and down doing her physical mediumship and I'll go into that in a little while to explain what that is. But she was eventually prosecuted and I think now she has been cleared a name has been cleared recently but the fraudulent mediums act was taken to the High Court with the SNU. The SNU did step in when that happened. What's the SNU? The Spiritualist National Union. Okay, got it. The Spiritualist National Union did step in and they did try and help her and they did stand up not only for her but for all of us that are spiritualists because basically just performing what we believe is natural and a way of life was illegal for many of us. We couldn't perform anywhere that was seen not right or not within the church. So we were seen as charlatans working on the streets taking people's money and the Witchcraft Act through the help of the Spiritualist National Union was taken away but when you take something away you have to replace it with something else. So it was replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act and that was 1951. So if you were seen to be a fraudulent medium then again you would be prosecuted but that meant that mediums all over the world was able to practice their mediumship and the communication with spirit freely without the fear of being prosecuted, killed or thrown into jail. So let me ask a couple of questions. Not that I expect you to have an inside outside know all across the world but how did it compare with the Salem Witch Trials and the things that are very famous in America during the time what was going on in England was it about the same kind of thing going on in both places at the same time? Did it affect each other? Yep, well funny you say that I was reading about the Salem Witches last week and it seemed like yes it did affect them as well but even the Salem Witches what they believe in was also passed as a religion. So I don't know much about what they believed in or how they practiced but I believe that they were also assisted or helped by becoming a religion themselves and moving away from being called a witch. Crystal, you and I had the most amazing opportunity didn't we in May? We got to spend some time with beautiful Magenta Pixie and we were in this quaint little village and I'm gonna forget the name of the woman who lived there what was her name and then she wasn't she the one who like moved sailed to America and then wasn't it Salem and wasn't isn't that how it all started? I'm not remembering very well I'm afraid but interesting how all these dots are together and Magenta was telling us a little bit about how this woman actually started a lot of this you know state sign. Well I guess if you look back in history there's a whole lot of things we can discuss and you know we have so much and so many pioneers that have made their footprint and mark within our spiritualist religion from healers to mediums to trans mediums and moving into physical mediumship you know it's so vast and the mediums back in the day they were astonishable, astonish, amazing what's astonishable? Astonishing, yes amazing. You know they started practicing at a really young age and they were brilliant and amazing but they lived in a different time than what we live now as well so we can't really compare ourselves even though it does seem like we don't have as many physical mediums or trans mediums now than what we had back then and it doesn't seem like there are as many powerful mediums now as what they were back then but time's changing and we have to think about when all those popular mediums and pioneers were at work was during the war times and through death and violence and people were filling the churches because they wanted to know what's going on. Yeah, another connection we have is we both were at the College of Psychic Studies in London and you know before I even got there you prepped me for all of those amazing photographs and newspaper articles and things on the wall you know you and I didn't even have time to go through and look at all of those but it may be a good time to talk about that right now because I saw some things that I really wondered about some of the photos I looked at I thought you know I don't care even if they are cocky to somebody I'm not buying that photo I mean I'm too good with Photoshop to be fooled by what I think I saw in some of those photos and yet one of the newspaper articles and one of the ones that I know that you had mentioned and that I noticed in red was the one with the hands. Oh, fascinating. Yeah, so tell everyone about that because that was crazy and that's part of all of this, right? Yeah, definitely, most definitely. So I can't remember who the hand was from but I know there's a mold of this hand in the College of, the other family college in Stansted, I've seen this hand and it's quite a big hand so what happened was a spirit person was manifested through physical mediumship, okay? Now, when we talk about physical mediumship is when someone can go deep enough to basically step out of their body they're not disconnected completely they're still them but they're disconnected enough so that the spirit beings or re-halem can come into you, okay? And through the ectoplasm within your body I think it is held within the liver can be used and it comes out of any or every hole, okay? It can come out of anywhere. I can't hear that. Okay, sorry. Okay, so the ectoplasm comes out of the medium and through this can manifest a physical person that you would be able to see and recognize as they were when they lived here on the earthquake.  Let's slow down here. So the physical medium opened up one of their bodily holes and out of it came ectoplasm like out of the nose like out of the ears, yeah. And a stream of it comes out into space and created this hand. Yes, so great at a hand. And because the spirit was so intelligent they had a wax already prepared and the spirit person put their hand into the wax and was able to form a physical hand mold from this person who walked the earth plane. And if I remember correctly, and if I'm right, in my remembering, they did send this mold off because there was actual fingerprints within this mold which they were able to analyze. I was just gonna ask about the fingerprints. Wow, that's crazy. But it was done in a day when I'm, you know, I mean, kind of thank goodness we're not all fingerprinted yet but how interesting is that they were able to get that much detail from ectoplasm? I have a picture here I can show you. Hopefully it comes up on the camera. So basically that is how it will look like. Yeah, oh my goodness. So normally in normal conditions this would be done in the dark and not in daylight. And it is so amazing when in a trance state, in deep physical trance state that with the same ectoplasm, they can form a trumpet next to the medium. And if there isn't a physical form, there could be a voice. And through this trumpet, they could speak to you as they did in their own voice when they walked on the earth plane. Sometimes they struggle, sometimes they struggle because they need to remember. They need to remember how to do this. So the trumpet itself is made out of the same stuff that the hand was. Yes, yeah. And when you look at a physical seance where you will attend these things, normally the rooms would be really clean because it's like a Muslim. It's sticky, it will feel like cloth when you touch it for what I've read. And it will pick up any dirt or anything that's around it. So the normal conditions need to be clean and very hygienic as much as possible. And when a medium is in such a high state of, you know, when you go into trance, you go into just a very, very high state of, I forgot the word. But you cannot, it's like when you're in deep meditation and someone walks into you, you will jolt, right? Now, when a physical medium is in such a sensitive state you cannot disturb the medium in any way because that ectoplasm will bolt back into the body and will leave burns and scars on the medium. So I was gonna ask that anyway, after the ectoplasm comes out and it forms whatever, it always goes back into the medium? Yeah, it does. And so that ectoplasm then, does that mean it is a part of the medium's physical form? It's just, interesting. So, okay, I'm sorry, I'm gonna be, I'm trying not to be flip about this or anything, and not that you would know this answer, but so I'm wanting to poke holes in this. So if like a trumpet or a hand was there, someone were to come in and like, I don't know, grab that and take it out of the room. What would happen? I mean, what's that? What would that be like? What would happen to that stop when you left the room? Well, that's exactly what happened to Helen Duncan when she was, it was her physical mediumship that killed her in the end, not because she was doing physical mediumship, but because people, the police were blasting into the room, trying to catch her in the act doing fraudulent mediumship. So when they did that, exactly that happened, right? You had these things manifested and the police went for her, dashed, tried to catch this Muslim, or what they said was like a Muslim, and it just went through their hands. They couldn't grab hold of it. And as that happened, the ectoplasm moved back into the medium and there was reports of, oh, it was a piece of cloth, the cloth was thrown out the window, she must have swallowed the cloth. So yeah, it just moves back into the body. But then if you're in a physical circle, you will know the risks of the medium. You'll respect the conditions and the medium and know what can hurt the medium, what is allowed and what's not allowed. Like you can't, no bright lights is allowed, for example, because that will hurt the medium and because the ectoplasm is from within your body, it's not used to bright lights, unless they're accustomed to become used to it, used to the white light. But I think we've jumped a few steps. Yeah, I'm sorry, I got excited to ask you these questions. It's just kind of so amazing, some of these stories. So the interesting thing is, like you said, the police ran in to try to prove fraudulent mediumship. So does that mean if they could grab onto the whatever and it would have been real then, it wouldn't have been fraud, it would have been real mediumship? I mean, how weird is that? I mean, it's a very, very strange situation. I know, and it was really difficult for her as well because this all happened during the Second World War and the High Courts just didn't have time for cases like this. So even Churchill said, you know, I can't deal with this right now. And she was just jailed. She, and even though the spiritualist wanted to prove mediumship was within the courts, they said, no, we don't have time for that. We have more important matters at hand. So she didn't even really get a chance to prove herself innocent. All right, so back me up, Priscilla. What did we jump over? Yeah, I got excited to ask you questions. No, that's okay. Well, okay, so we've gone through the Fox Sisters and that's really what started the movement into spiritualism. We've gone through the Witchcrafts Act and where we are now in modern day spiritualism where we can perform mediumship within our churches. So let's talk about more about what the church is about. Now, even though I don't like the word church, but we are a religion and I know there's a lot of people who find... Religion is a touchy subject, isn't it? And even a church. But for me, I grew up Christian and even though the Christian churches were okay, I didn't think it really aligned with what I questioned and believed in because what my parents told me what happened after this life really just didn't make sense. I just couldn't accept their answers. But even when you look at the spiritualist church, when I went in there for the first time, it didn't feel like a church at all. It just felt so homely and so lovely. And yes, you sing hymns and there's prayers, but that is what religion is about. And it's just amazing how people come together and hear spirit talk through normal people and they've just refined their abilities and worked on their abilities as a medium. And all of us are mediums, all of us. And it's just about practicing and fine-tuning that ability. So we have a normal spiritualist church who would have three services. They'll have a healing service, a mediumship service and a divine worship service. So a healing service is where you can go and receive spiritual healing. Instead of asking for Kuan Hian or angels, you would just ask for spirit to come in and do the healing. So we'll just be spirits working. Yes, maybe other beings would come in as well if you call them in yourself as the patient. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. So spiritual healing. And most churches just work on a donation, which is amazing, right? You don't have to pay a lot of money. Sorry for all those out there that does do professional healing. But yeah, for the spiritual, we give spiritual healing and normally it's a small fee or a donation. And the same goes for the mediumship evenings. I wanna say clairvoyant because lots of them say clairvoyant evenings, but it's mediumship evenings where you'll have 45 minutes, those services are normally an hour with notices, prayers and a hymn or two, but you'll have 45 minutes where it's just mediumship, where a medium will stand there and connect with you, connect with your loved ones and you don't feed the medium, right? You don't feed them any information. So they will just literally come to you and give you all the information that Spirit gives them, okay? And how amazing is that?  So the same as a healing, you can give a donation and each church is different or there could be a small fee. Now when it comes to divine worship service, which is normally on a Sunday, the only added things to the service, those services are normally longer, will be a reading, a reading out of any spiritual book, which is really nice. It could be the re-invert you, it could be conversations through God, it could be poems, mindfulness readings, it could be anything that you feel will inspire the congregation for the week. And then on top of the reading, the medium will give an address on what you've just said, which is philosophy and philosophy is also a major part of our religion to teach about the way of life and us as spiritualists. And it's funny because I go to philosophy class once a month and this week, the person running the class said, please talk about the rising interest rates. I think that was interest rates and make it spiritual. So that's all we had to do. And it's possible and you can do it. You can take anything and turn it into a spiritual conversation or debate and talk about how we are so much more than what we think and we'll ever know. You know, that's a, there's a very common saying that the mark of genius is to be able to connect to disparate ideas. And those seem like some pretty disparate ideas. I'd be really interested in knowing what did everybody stand up and say something then in your class? Is that the way that works? Yes. Yeah, well, all of us spoke or did a talk and philosophy on rising interest rate, which was very interesting. I don't know what's interesting about rising interest rate, but lots of, there was one that did spirit communication because she has a test coming up and she needed to practice and to do that, to get certain qualifications because the spiritual national union does have a standard. We do want to be the voice of spiritualism and we wanna set a good example for those who come through our churches. So we want good mediums on the platform. So we do put them through testing and we do make them practice, go to other churches, talk about philosophy. So one person did the mediumship practicing for today. So I hope they're past. And the other person did a talk on philosophy because she will also be tested today. So hers was very specific to also the history and what our religion is really about. That's amazing. I had so much fun going with you to the church because you are very active in the church there, aren't you? Yes, yeah, I do chair the odd service and I'm the secretary of the church. So I do have a lot of involvement with what's going on and what events to put on and I've input with that. So it's really nice. I love doing it and I wouldn't think of not doing it or doing anything else. So, yes. And the divine worship services are free because that is what makes us a church and a religion. So if ever you feel you don't have a bit of money to give and you need to hear from spirit or from someone in the spirit will just go and see where your nearest spiritualist church is. But it's also important to note that when you walk into a church or any medium for that matter, it's difficult when someone says, I wanna connect with A, B or C because that's not always possible. They could be in a place of healing. They could be not, I don't wanna say advanced enough but they might not have the energy to come forth to communicate. But you will get communication and the communication you will receive is exactly what you need. So, and you will take the people that come through. You know, might be someone that you're not expecting but you'll get what you need. And spirit's always there, which is amazing because they will come through with evidence with things that you've done recently or talked about or maybe looked at pictures and the medium would tell that to you and say, oh well, that person was there while you were doing that which is incredible. Crystal, how did you first get interested in all this? How did this land in your life? Well, I've always had an interest in spiritualism. My room was haunted as a child so I guess that was a peaked interest. And when I came over to the UK, that don't go away, I've always been interested but I guess moving here just boosted it because I had unlimited internet, resources, I could Google and search and educate myself. And that's a big part of spiritualism as education and educating yourself that there is more to this life. But how did I come into it? Ghost adventurers. I started watching ghost adventurers and I started doing ghost hunting, you know? Just, and I don't like the word ghost hunting, but it's just going to these really old historic sites and working with the energy there, the spirits there, through means of little say answers where you'll do table tipping or you'll play with a yes, no board known as the Ouija board. But that is where I learned that you don't play around with the things that you don't know anything about. And I guess that opened me up to a different world. I love doing that. I went to loads of events to these ghost hunting events and I soon realized that I loved ones can come through on these events and people that are also stuck. And when I spoke to one of these mediums at the event because there's always a medium, I asked her, oh, are you a medium, right? Very enthusiastic. No, I'm a large, she said. And it's a joke. I'm a large, I'm not a medium. Okay, get it now. Yeah. And I just sort of started talking to her and she said, well, anyone can do it if you like. And she sort of said, go find yourself a psychic development circle or a church circle where you could sit in and that just sort of set me off. I went on a spiritualist church or a circle and I joined the psychic circle for two years which helped me immensely with my psychic abilities and connecting psychically. But that is also where my spiritual journey started with mediumship. And through that circle, I found the spiritualist church and that is how I joined the spiritualist church. I was there at almost every service and it didn't take me long to become part of the committee because I was so committed and that's how I started on my spiritual development. I still sit in circle. I don't think we ever stop learning where you open up, you learn how to sit in the power of spirit.  So sitting in the power of you in stillness, not with a guided meditation, just still ground yourself and open yourself up and let all your thoughts go. You need to be like almost in a hibernation status, you know? Just quiet, feel the energy. You can call in your guides if you like but just feel them, feel how you are your mind. I don't know how else to explain it. It's really such a simple exercise. You will start to feel your energy rise. Your energy will quicken as your energetic body starts to increase in vibration as you sit in the power and the connection of spirit.  But that is, you know, when almost like you have an out of body experience, your etheric body just starts pulsing really quickly and that is you just feeling your true essence. And when you're in that state, you know, ah, this is the state I need to be in when doing psychic work or communication with spirit. That's so beautiful. Crystal, tell me some of your, some of the favorite things that you ever saw in a spiritualist reading or, you know, during that part where the medium gives messages to others out there. You know, I went with you to the one service and it was amazing. And what I noticed was how happy the older people were when the younger people showed up. I noticed that.  So I only went to the one, but it makes me wonder about some of your favorite services, what you might have seen or experienced during some of your more memorable ones. Well, when I'm in a church, especially when I'm chairing, it's nice to look out to the congregation because you can sort of see their auras. And as you're observing your audience, you can feel or sense the energy where the medium might be going next, which is really fascinating for me. The most, the evidence that comes through which is the best kind of evidence is a medium that can give you exact details. Like, oh, she did, instead of just saying nothing, she did crochet and she did it in these colors, or instead of people on the medium saying that, oh, I have the month of May, you know, to give more specific details to say, ah, I have the 21st of May for you, you know, and get the names. It's amazing at a medium the other night who was able to give names exactly. Wow, you need to have the clear audience ability to be able to hear that. So that is very fascinating.  And with that, it's a photography that basically picks up the aura and the energy fields around you, but not just that, it sort of monitors the energy and the light around you. And this medium, Gordon Smith, I was there today, this was a video image of him. While he was doing mediumship, he was saying, I have your father here. And as he was saying that, this spirit energy basically just popped out of his camera. You could just see the full spectrum red next to the medium as he was giving this message. I'm knowing to him what was happening. The spirit manifested right next to him as he was giving the message. On other occasions, you can feel the energy when you're on the platform, where the energy gets really hot and you get very emotional. I have had, I've started crying in a service where a message can be so emotional. So it is beautiful. Every experience is unique, Anders. It's difficult to say points to one, because what you get might be just so personal to you and I wouldn't understand why that is. And that is what a medium does when they come to you. They don't have a clue what they're talking about. I have to give you this red bat. I don't know what it is, but you should know. Oh, yes, yeah, I remember the red bat. So something like that. For me, personally, I never knew my grandmother on my mom's side, our pictures of her and she is always the person that comes through for a message. She's one of my guides. She's always with me. And she's the one when I need a kick up the bum, she comes through and she will come forward with the message that I need that week or not specifically every week, but when she feels that upliftment is needed or motivation, she comes through. And the mediums have, for example, said that we have such a strong bond and she helped me before I incarnated and was born because she passed along before I was born. And she's always with me. And I speak to her, because today the lady said, you speak to your grandmother in pictures. I said, yeah, I do. She says, I know, she's telling me that, which is lovely, yes. So I know so much about my grandmother now, more than, I don't wanna say, I don't know when she lived, but it's like you get to know the loved ones more when they cross over them, when you did, when they were on the airplane. Boy, howdy. I could say that about a couple of people that I've been in communication with. You know, though, some of the more interesting experiences I've had of mediumship-wise, as I'm sitting here listening to you talk is, for me, it's like in my dream state, I was thinking about you talking about that you don't even know like about the object. And I actually had a friend, and I'm gonna try to remember what it was, but I had this dream about her brother that had passed. And I know my friend very well, didn't know the brother very well, and had this dream about my friend's brother, who I just didn't know really at all, right? And who I'd met maybe, I don't know, 30, 35 years ago, a long time ago, maybe in passing. And I dreamed that he was showing me, I think it was something like a purple coffee table, a purple coffee table that something, something and something was on it. And he was so insistent, so insistent. The next day, I contacted my friend, and I went, look, I had a dream about your brother. And it was, it was really strange, but he was very insistent about this purple coffee table with, and I don't even remember what the object was, but she just burst in the crying because it was so incredibly specific and special, and she knew exactly what it was about, and it was this huge message for her. And she felt very disconnected from, because she'd lost him and another member of her family recently, and it was a beautiful thing. But for me, those things are, they kind of come out of the blue, and they're very rare, but it's so strange because I've had more than one of these people who I don't know come to me in my dreams to give me information for people that I do know, but it's not a weekly thing for me. This is kind of a, you know, this is, so I know I've got something, right? All of us do, all of us do, and you are definitely one of the sensitive ones, definitely. But then, you know, you have all these added things. You have precognition, you have retrocognition, you have the ability to just go in an altered state and do Akashic records readings. You know, this is all form of communication and using your abilities. And we use our abilities by seeing, but not seeing with our eyes, but through our third eye.  But it's important to note that whenever you have a reading with any medium, it should always be an uplifting one. Spirit will not come with doom and gloom. Yes, I will say you're stuck, but I will also tell you how to move forward. It should always be uplifting, because then you know that you as a medium has done healing and given the message that they needed. So Stella, let me ask you, your involvement with modern day spiritualism, how has that helped you in your BQH practitioner world in life and dealing with clients? How do those things combine or do they? I think they combine all the time, especially when doing healing or when loved ones come through in our sessions, then I know exactly how to deal with that and call the loved one forward. So quantum healing definitely in BQH comes to the forefront or all the time in my mediumship and in the spiritual field because it is so vast. When I was looking at this Galilean photography today, the first thing that went through my mind is, oh my gosh, I need to get this program so I can get it recording when the client is sitting in the couch. So when healing takes place, I want to see it happening. Like how cool that be, you know? Amazing, amazing, that was so cool. I want to be devil's advocate here for a second and say something that everybody out there knows me, knows I don't really mean. Could you ever turn that off? Yeah. In your session? You could turn off your connection to the spirit world. You could say I don't want it right now? Well, for our different Pamela, I'm sure it's different. But for all the mediums that I have worked with, yes. We are in control of us and if spirit is doing things that we don't like, we could say, or put a boundary down and say, please, you can talk to me when I am in the power or I set the intention to work. Otherwise, please do not disturb my day-to-day life. But I think it's natural. When they see an opportunity to connect, they will jump right in, they will, right? But imagine getting a spirit message which I do all the time, right? Doesn't mean I'm always switched on but when you do go in a hypestate, which sometimes we do, I can't go up to the random person and say, oh, hey, I've got a spirit being or a loved one here and they want to give you this message. I do at work and I all think I'm crazy but it's just the laugh at work. They're not taking, I'm not taking them seriously at all because they don't believe in that and which is fine. Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they believe but I find it funny that they watch Star Wars and do gently the realistic agency and they don't believe in anything that I do but they believe it in their own way, which is fine. But okay, devil's advocate, can we switch it off? Yes, yeah, yeah. Because I wouldn't want to my mind working all the time. I don't want to be in that altered state, high frequency energy all the time. Even though it's nice, it's nice to be up there and you feel energetic when you work up there. You come back feeling uplifted and energized and it's incredible. So yeah, I would love to live up there all the time but no, I wouldn't want to work all the time. So when I spent that one night, oh well, I spent actually two nights at the college but only one night in that giant building all by myself the second night. At least there was somebody else in the building. Something about that just made it, I don't know. Let's just say I was a little less jumpy.  I need to, I have things I've got to do tomorrow and I need to sleep.  They respected me. They didn't stop their party. The party continued, but it continued outside my door and it was kind of like being in a dorm room in a busy college dorm where I was, you know, the nerd trying to sleep and everybody out there was having a party. Well, you set the boundaries, right? Which is great. And if everyone can just do that because as I said earlier, the spiritual wants to communicate with you. They want to make their presence known. I'm okay, you know? So let's make a noise. Let's make a bang.  You'll feel wind coming on your face or something. And that's them, but if you don't like it, please tell them, don't do this or I'd rather you do to communicate, you know, leave me feathers and you're in control. If they scare you in any way, you know, just say, well, please don't do that. That's scary. I don't know what's going on and I don't like it. But, you know, that is why if you overcome the fear of the other side of bad and, you know, the good and evil and that there is nothing to fear, then you'll be in such a better place and you'll know that there's nothing to be scared about. So while we were talking, there's some people talking about possibly there being some online mediumship circles. That's pretty interesting. I didn't know that it seemed like the physical presence might be powerful in a mediumship circle, but it looks like some people are trying to do it online. What do you know about that? Okay, so I'm in a circle within the church and without outside the church, actually. But when I go to places like the Art of Finlay College in Stansted, similar to the College of Psychic Studies, you have people coming from all over the world and there's a lot of places in the world that don't agree with mediumship, don't have spiritualist churches, so the only way they can practice is via online. So they get each other's numbers or Skype details and they set a set time each week to get together and practice the mediumship, which is incredible. I think that's amazing. And I do that as well with my trans mediumship because I don't have a lot of people to practice with, so I do the same with people that I have met in trans circles and we practice online, which is give each other the power, because as you're sitting there, I would power you up, give you my energy so you have enough to go into trans and do communication. So until you can do that yourself, it's good to have a bit of a boost. I love that idea. Friend Wendy Liu is talking about, she basically took the words out of my mouth, she said, I prefer physical presence, but I'll take what I can get. Yeah, living in rural Kansas, I feel the exact same way. Pity, Wendy, we can get together with Priscilla and do something online like that. It doesn't matter if it's online, it all works the same. There's a fascinating story about the college of psychic studies because we know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a president of the college for a few years and he was also part of a psychic society and he fully committed himself to becoming a spiritualist and spreading the news of spiritualism during the war times. And this was the time he started writing or he was writing Sherlock Holmes. So for those of you who don't know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he wrote Sherlock Holmes and one evening when he decided, I need to commit myself fully to my spiritual beliefs, he said, tonight I will be killing someone. And he meant, I'm killing Sherlock Holmes.  That's a brilliant story. That's just such a great story. I had no idea you had that one up your sleeve. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. I think you brought him back to life eventually, but yeah. What's new in that? What's coming up new? Anything new in modern day spiritualism? I mean, new things running, you know, coming up other than maybe the Corellian photography thing, which, you know, I had some of the same thoughts when I first started doing Dolores Cannon's method. And there was a person out there who had, it was one of those, oh, what do they call it? Kickstarting. It was a kickstarting fun project that this person had invented. It was like a headband that would measure people's brainwaves, but, you know, without having to be in a laboratory with all the wires and stuff, it was like this portable thing for people like us who are interested in, well, what brainwave state are you in right now? And I was like, oh, yeah, man. And I was so excited and I like sent my money and everything, but the idea never went anywhere. But I just wanted even, I mean, could you imagine seeing somebody's brainwave state and then seeing what's going on with them and really, because we kind of only guess right now. I mean, we have clues and stuff, but I think some of that, you know, I am interested in the science and all of this. I'm interested, not in the skeptical part of science, but in more in the other side of skepticism, which is see how this actually is what we think it is. And like you said before, sometimes spirit's there and sometimes it's not and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And that's science for you anyway too, right? So what's new? What's coming up in the world of spiritualism? Well, science is a big part of it. And I guess the world of spiritualism as we know it is to try and get people more aware, to bring them in at the moment. We have people leaving the religions and we have all sorts of religions in our church where they are stepped away from what they believed in, if that sounds correct. But as you said, the science part is about repeating an experiment. And when you see a different medium at every service standing on the platform giving messages, it's about what different information do you get or do you get the same information? Do they correlate with what you know? Okay, where are we moving to? I feel like with the acceleration that's happening within all of us, we are becoming more aware, we know that, right? A lot of us know that. We are becoming more sensitive. So we are getting younger bodies in the church questioning what's going on, okay? Which is lovely because we have people here that are experienced enough to be able to help and educate them. And a lot of them do turn up and on our circles wanting to develop because why don't you wanna know who you truly are in essence. Once you have that question of who we are, how can you not investigate it? And as I said earlier, a lot of us have a fear of death, right? How many of us have that? And to know that you'll be okay is such a big step. I feel like we have gone backwards with regards to the quality of mediumship and we need to get that back. I feel like we don't have as many trans mediums or physical mediums anymore, but then we have to ask the question, do we really need that? It's a difficult, difficult question. I said, I have come to a point for myself where I have done the psychic work and it's like a journey, right? I've done the mediumship and I asked myself the same question. I kind of read every book. If I pick up a new book, it's like, it's nothing new for me. Like I need new challenges and new ideas to push boundaries. And that is when I stumbled into trans and it took me a while to think, okay, maybe I should go into trans mediumship. Which I really like to think that you can connect to a spirit person who'd be able to give you inspiration and maybe talk through you. Like who do we have? Cryon, Bashar, are my two favorites. That's amazing. But you don't typically get galactic being stalked through you. It would mainly be a normal person. I guess those are special people in the sense that they were lucky enough to be able to bring forth or were a vibrational match. You know Bashar or Darryl was a vibrational match for this amazing message to come through and it was meant to be. But we continue with our healing work. We continue awakening by spreading the message of spiritualism and educating. We're a teaching church. So if people come in, then we're there to teach and show them the way. But to compare that with quantum healing as well, how many times do you have a quantum healing session or beyond quantum healing session? Which you just brought out, which is such an amazing modality. And they already have the spiritual interest. They're so spiritually aware. So I can help them. I can help them as well and give them techniques and I can do that with beyond quantum healing and a system. All right, well we're getting down to probably the end of our time together. But I do want to ask you a couple more questions because I've watched you really blossom these last few months. And some of your connection with our mutual wonderful friend, Pamela Aralyn, when you're assisting her during her mediumship, what's that like for you as a budding medium? I know that when I was around Pamela, it was very informing to me in my own psychic development and my own mediumship skills. And you've hosted her multiple times now on some of her Patreon shows and classes. Talk to me a little bit about what that's been like and how that's been for you internally in your own mediumship. I can see how she works. And personally, by asking the questions, it's almost like I can have a personal communication with the communicator. And it's, I have a story there because the first session that I facilitated was Archangel Raphael. And I was sort of attuning myself because before a session, maybe mediumship, quantum healing or with Pamela's, I would have quiet time beforehand and I would set an intention. And this time I was on my way home on the train and I was looking up in the sky and I was just seeing the sun. And I looked at it as a halo, right? As an angel energy, the sun being so bright. But I didn't think anything of it. I was just looking at it and was penetrating my third eye. And when I got home, my Xbox switched on all by itself. And if you look at the sign of the Xbox, it's a green sign. And I don't have the Archangel energy of Raphael Ease Green, but it has a green cross across the Xbox sign. And then when the disc popped out, it was halo. So that was like, wow, wow, that's just incredible. But I absolutely love facilitating for Pamela. I don't know if she feels like, I think she thinks I'm a good facilitator. I enjoy it so thoroughly that I'd be able to do it all the time, you know? I enjoy watching her bring forth these amazing communications. And so naturally, almost with no effort. And she's an inspiration to me, you know? I can just, I want to be like that one day, you know?  And I do mediumship readings myself. And it's really an honor to do that, yeah. I'm getting a huge tone in my ear right now. I think maybe that's confirmation for you and maybe for me both. You know, that time that I spent with her right when Stephen Hawking had passed and I was there for her kind of impromptu channeling of him. That just kind of changed everything for me, watching. Just kind of being in Pamela Erlen's kitchen and, you know, hanging out with her, doing daily things. It was astonishing. It was eye-opening. It was such a gift. Those of us in the metaphysical community are so lucky to have her. And for those of you out there, anybody who might be watching this video who don't know about Pamela Erlen check her out. She's like my friend Michelle Walling said before I even knew who Pamela was. She's the real deal. And she's the real deal and all that and more and an amazing, inspirational human whom I adore just so much. And I just love watching you with her. There's something about you that just glows when you're assisting her. So, I hope that that continues. And it's amazing what she's now also doing mentorship programs because there's just so much more than just going for a reading, you know. You have all the answers within you and she teaches that as well and you do. You do have all the answers in you. Yep, you really do. All right, Crystal, I think we've come to the end of our time today. Why don't you tell people how to get ahold of you in case they may be interested in a medium shift reading or maybe a BQH session? Yes, either or both. You can find all the information you need on chrysillaloes.com. And my name, oh, my name's a complicated one. But it's, but I'm sure you'll find it. I'm sure Candice will tag me in the post. And it's my first and last name.com. Easy, easy. I guess I kept it easy. Absolutely. And if you can't find her there, of course, you can find her on quantumhealers.com. You can find her very easily. And for those of you who are interested, please know we're still offering the BQH course out there online and you can take it during your own free time. It's completely online and take it as you would like and it fits into your schedule. OK, Crystal, well, thanks for joining me on this Sunday. You know what? It stopped raining since we've been talking. Yeah, and maybe we can step outside a little bit, enjoy a little bit of this day. We've been inside and set up. Oh, there goes my tone again. Actually, you can. Getting a lot of upgrades here. It's been so nice spending this time with you. I love you so much. I love you too, Candice. And I love you, Pamela, if you're watching. All of our BQH community, too. But yes, I didn't mean to speak over you. No, no, it's fine. I guess we've touched a lot of, you know, small areas because it's such a vast subject. But thank you for having me. Sure, well, we'll do this again for sure. All right, thanks to Facebook people and other people who are catching this on the recording. And I want to say a very special thank you to my friend, Greg Prescott, at n5d.com, who sponsors this show, Quantum Healing with Candice. Love you, Greg. Thank you so much. All right, bye-bye, everyone. Till next time. Bye. Bye.


you have to let go, give up, let go of your need to be liked by certain people, to be validated, to be accepted, to be approved by them. It is a relational prison and it is relationally toxic when you have people who you are so afraid of not being liked by that you put your own development on hold.


Welcome to this lecture series on aspects of western philosophy module 34, we will see the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, arguably the most prominent 20th century thinker. As a philosopher Heidegger is nobody doubts his caliber, he is definitely one of the greatest thinkers in the history of western philosophy. But his political ideologies were controversial, he was a supporter of the national socialist party Nazi and that for that reason alone there was some time that he was not really welcomed in many places and his thoughts were also sort of received with caution. But his philosophy which can be termed as a philosophy of being is extremely significant and important to a student of philosophy, western philosophy and this lecture will actually try to address the following topics, we will see the whole idea of phenomenological hermeneutics because as we would see Heidegger charted his career as a phenomenologist, he worked with Husserl, but then later on he deviated from Husserlian original project of phenomenology to a different kind of interpretation of phenomenology. According to Heidegger, philosophy's prime concern is to address the problem of being and then connection with this he develops a concept of design which is being in the world the being of man and according to him again the western metaphysical tradition the so called great metaphysical tradition of the west was responsible for all the crisis European civilization was encountering that is all because of what he calls the forgetfulness of being or rather western tradition deviating from the problem of being which should have been at the core of its philosophical and other intellectual enterprises. So, with this background let us see his philosophy, but before that a little bit of about Heidegger's life and career, Heidegger was born on September 26th, 1889 and in his early life he was influenced by Franz Brantano the descriptive psychologist. Then later with Husserl's influence he turned attention to mathematics and philosophy and in 1919 became Husserl's assistant and they worked together for quite some time and during this period when he worked with Husserl he was his attention was primarily on phenomenology and he was so faithfully pursuing the original project of phenomenology as it was seen by Husserl back to things themselves. And by 1924 Heidegger became an associate at the university of Marburg where he wrote being and time which is a seminal work which is still considered as a classic and which is according to some philosophers or historians of philosophy the most important philosophical work of 20th century which is of course not really free from any controversy. And Heidegger influenced many thinkers including Herbert Marquess and Jean-Paul Sartre. And as I mentioned earlier his ideology was a bit controversial he associated himself with Hitler's Nazi party and in 1933 Heidegger became the rector of the university of Freiburg he joined the Nazi party and continued his involvement with it till 1945. But he brought with the national socialist party in 1945 but never publicly apologized for his involvement with national socialism many intellectuals in Germany was associated with Nazis with the Nazis later on apologized but Heidegger refused to do so. And after writing his seminal work being and time in 1927 Heidegger later had a turn in his thought which was a very important turning point in this philosophical career. And his later work influenced the developments in hermeneutics and poststructuralism Gadamer, Derrida and Foucault are some prominent thinkers who are influenced by Heidegger and his philosophy and he died in Freiburg on May 26th 1976. This is a brief summary of his life personal as well as professional. Now when we consider Heidegger's intellectual life his relationship with Hosell is extremely significant because as I mentioned earlier he worked with Hosell for quite some time and he initially carried out Hosell's original project of getting back to things themselves. But with being and time his most important work he deviated and started claiming that phenomenology is much older than Hosell and is actually a Greek way of thinking. In fact this is one very peculiar aspect of Heideggerian philosophy Heidegger and even his following Heidegger Gadamer also actually subscribed to this kind of a view where they all see the Greek tradition as the not only the origin of all their all the fundamental ideas of western philosophy. But also it was in the Greek tradition which most of these problems which western philosophy considered as important where initially discussed. So there is some meaning in going back to the tradition and try to understand how these problems were actually conceived by this original Greek thinkers. So both Heidegger and Gadamer actually conducts that kind of a what you call genealogical or rather a kind of historical analysis going back to the tradition and etymologically trying to analyze the terms the concepts and trying to find out its original meaning. But as I mentioned there was a time when Heidegger has deviated from Hosell's project and phenomenology is not mere a study of the intentional structures of consciousness according to Heidegger at this period and it is a fundamental study of the relationship between the design and being. So it is here he introduces the for what he considered is the most important problem in philosophy the problem of being raising the question of being and the question of being is always raised in relation with the being of man design being in the world. So but in spite of this important deviation which Heidegger makes from Hosell's project he had acknowledged Hosell's role in shaping his ideas Hosell has. But on the other hand Hosell has repudiated Heidegger because he was so disappointed he thought that Heidegger would take forward his original project but with his emphasis on the question of being Heidegger deviates and Hosell was visibly unhappy about this and complained that Heidegger has not really understood the real philosophical implications of phenomenology. Now this is a quote from Martin Heidegger's being entire I quote the following investigation would not have been possible if the ground had not been prepared by Edmund Hosell with his logical investigations phenomenology first emerged unquote. So this shows the importance or rather the importance of Hosellian philosophy on Heidegger's thought as conceived and acknowledged by Heidegger himself. We try to compare the two philosophers to the two great thinkers definitely the Hosellian phenomenology emphasizes on transcendental reduction as we have seen in the previous lecture and on the other hand the Gaul of philosophy according to Heidegger was basically a concern with being. And while for Hosell the transcendental subjectivity or pure ego was at the center of all his philosophical enterprises because that is the ultimate objective of phenomenology as conceived by Hosell for Heidegger it is being in the world design the being of man which is at the center all enquiries actually begins with an exploration into this idea. Then Hosell was emphasizing on transcendental phenomenology while Heidegger it is a form of anthropology because the science history that is again very important in Heideggerian project. Now let us see some original statements by these great thinkers this is what Hosell had to say in his idea he says that the wonder of all wonders is the pure ego and the pure consciousness. But on the other hand what Heidegger says in what is metaphysics is man alone of all existing things experiences the wonders of all wonders that there are things in being so if Hosell considered pure ego or transcendental ego as the wonder of all wonders Heidegger says that man alone of all existing things experiences the wonder of all wonders. So it is very important for him Heidegger begin with the being of man which is design and his philosophy surrounds this concept. Now these are the major issues to be discussed when we try to understand Heidegger's philosophy the question of being of course now then in that connection he talks about the forgetfulness of being then the overcoming of this forgetfulness which needs to be carried out by phenomenological enterprises or phenomenological analysis. So according to Heidegger phenomenology actually does this a kind of overcoming of the forgetfulness of being and this can be done with the destruction of the metaphysical tradition of the west and in this connection the enquiry the positive enquiry actually begins with design the being of man. Now let us start with the first issue the problem of being in fact before we actually begin our discussion on Heidegger's philosophy this is what Heidegger says about in general about philosophers or thinkers he says that every gate thinker thinks only one single thought every gate philosopher or every gate thinker will have one single thought and Heidegger's single thought that took him to greatness was the question of being. So let us see this is one poem which Heidegger has written in 1947 I read it out when the early morning light quietly grows above the mountains the world's darkness never reaches to the light of being we are too late for the gods and too early for beings beings poem just begun in man to head towards the star this only to think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world sky Heidegger so this is a poem which he has written so where he talks about there are two lines which are striking for me one is we are too late for the gods and too early for being then another one is to think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world sky now let us with this in background let us come to the problem of being as discussed by Heidegger the single thought of this great philosopher the question of being was a single thought Heidegger's lifelong project to answer the question of being and to understand being one must first understand the being of man the design or the being in the world I will explain why this is so but this is very fundamental to Heidegger's philosophical position to understand the being or the concept of being or the question of being one has to actually make an exploration into design which is the being of man design is a kind of being who ask the question of being it is only the design who is capable of asking the question or problematizing this to even ask the question implies that at some level the answer is already understood because being is so primordial and entity according to Heidegger and its hiddenness or its forgetfulness has created all the problems which modern man phases in this world and the phenomenological explorations which Heidegger expects to overcome this forgetfulness now phenomenology and the question of being the study of being is an ontology because it is ontology which studies the problem of being or the concept of being to distinguish being from beings actually this is another very important distinction which Heidegger makes in his philosophy there is a distinction between ontology and epistemology for instance in sciences we deal with epistemology a lot like knowledge about things in this world so epistemology deals with that but what is this thingness the being of things everything has a being so that general being that most abstract concept being what is it the study of that being is not done by epistemology that is done by ontology so in that sense Heidegger in sense ontology is even presupposed in epistemological enterprises so phenomenology is the only method by which we do ontology and phenomenology being has to be uncovered from its forgetfulness with phenomenology and phenomenology lets the phenomena show itself from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself this is something which we have seen in the previous lecture as well this quote from Heidegger Heidegger says that phenomenology lets the phenomena show itself from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself uncovering being is the task so the fundamental task of phenomenology is this uncovering the uncovering of of being which is which lies in which has been forgotten because of various reasons now Heidegger says the essence of truth is the disclosing of the meaning of that which we call being this is another very interesting quote from Heidegger which be examining this concept of truth in the next lecture because Heidegger has a very peculiar notion of truth truth is conceived as disclosure by Heidegger so here he says that the essence of truth is the disclosing of the meaning of that which we call being so the disclosure happens to man the being of man design that is why design is at the center so there is being there is disclosure of being there is truth only because there is the sign and design to which all these things are disclosed when we try to understand the concept of being etymologically the German zeme corresponds to English to be and either it means either the being of something in the particular its existence that being or its or its essence example for the being of something example design again being in abstract so there are two senses we can understand it being in abstract means either in the sense of that being or of what being for the being in general so we understand being the concept of being in all these senses but Heidegger says is that we cannot specify being as what or that being being for that matter is simply being it is I mean it is not a particular entity a particular entity we say that it has been for example this computer has been but being as such is not a particular entity it is something which is shared by all entities so that is it is not an entity but it is presupposed by all entities the existence of all entities presupposed being the most general feature of everything that is that exist the most universal concept according to Heidegger and a concept indefinable in terms of other concepts because in order to define you need to presuppose it so you cannot define it in terms of other concepts because all other concepts presuppose this concept of being so you cannot define the most primordial concept with the help of other concepts which are derivatives of that a self evident concept mostly taken for granted and the meaning of being is wailed in darkness so this is Heidegger's complaint it is wailed in darkness hence needs to be restated needs to restate the question of the meaning of being and as I mentioned in the beginning of this lecture Heidegger actually proposes a going back to the history of western philosophy to the Greek ancient Greek thinkers and he always considered the ancient Greek thinkers as much superior to other philosophers who followed them particularly the pre-socatic thinkers all these great cosmologists the first generation philosophers the contributions of which we have examined in our one of our previous lectures these thinkers according to Heidegger where most original thinkers and even philosophers like Plato and Aristotle who were considered as the greatest system builders of western philosophy were considered by Heidegger as much inferior to this original thinkers the reason is that all these important philosophical problems out of all important philosophical problems which western metaphysical and philosophical traditions have raised Heidegger considers the problem of being as the most important one and this problem of being was raised for the first time by these Greek philosophers in its most original form. So, Heidegger was proposing that we should try to understand in what sense these original Greek thinkers have understood it and articulated it. So, important for the Greeks define the nature of philosophical enterprises in Greek civilization because that was the that was the primordial concern for all the Greek philosophers hence this problem actually decided it defined the very nature of philosophical enterprise in Greek civilization it covered up, but unfortunately Heidegger says it was covered up by medieval and modern philosophers. Now, he examines how this problem was presented in the Greek philosophical traditions we can see in Parmenides who is one very important pre-Socratic thinkers distinguish being from non-being being is one and non-being is impossible we have already seen his contributions in the in our first or second lecture of this lecture series. So, I am not going to elaborate it here and now the question of being appears in the philosophy of Plato what Plato says is that Plato makes a distinction between two types of being something which is known by rational thought the ideas the forms or essences which is distinguished from beings which are objects of opinion the objects in this world. So, the objects in this world are entities which are beings, but the being the being of this beings that is the essence according to Plato is eternal and imperishable and on the other hand again you have in Aristotle even thought of a special science the first philosophy that studies being in so far as it is being the primordial things are studied by this philosophy the first philosophy also studies the properties of being in its own right and it is different from other sciences. So, that is the reason why it is called first philosophy by Aristotle. Now, let us try to this understand this concept called forgetfulness of being actually there are two types of forgetfulness. One is a kind of hiddenness which I am not going to discuss in detail in this lecture because though Heidegger makes references to both the terms hiddenness and forgetfulness it is the forgetfulness which Heidegger elaborately discusses, but according to him a phenomenological ontology is expected to unravel or rather overcome both the hiddenness as well as the forgetfulness of being. So, what is forgetfulness? So, he says that there is a definite forgetfulness of being by traditional metaphysical approaches. So, that is the reason why I just mentioned that the post Socratic philosophers or rather the pre Socratic philosophers were considered as much superior to philosophers who have come after Socrates Plato and Aristotle who actually developed grand metaphysical traditions in the west and after following them there are many other philosophers who developed metaphysical traditions, but according to Heidegger these traditional metaphysical approaches ultimately contributed to a kind of forgetfulness of being. Metaphysics misunderstood the nature of beings by understanding them as things as that which is simply there as present at hand something which is there in front of me. Say for example, this computer it is an entity the nature of beings by understanding them as things, but the fundamental question of metaphysics or rather philosophical question should have been what is the nature of things, what is the ultimate nature of things, what is the concept of being instead of raising that problem and pursuing an answer to that issue. What metaphysical traditions have done is that they have misunderstood this and they started concentrating on the being of things. So, being is misunderstood for or rather beings or beings the entities in this world where misunderstood as being. So, their focus was more on the entities in this world. So, for example, sciences the natural sciences would not raise the question of being, but rather they are interested in entities and try to understand their properties and nature. The attitude has this attitude of having a gaze on entities instead of on being needs to be overcome and being has to be distinguished from thing in being or what has being or beings. Any object for that matter has a is a thing in being, but the general being needs to be distinguished from this notion of being. Medieval and modern philosophers for instance he actually cites the examples of Descartes and Kant particularly. They have the meaning of being was covered up through their metaphysical enterprises according to Heidegger and they did not recognize the ontological difference between being and thing in being. So, there is a very important very significant ontological difference between these two being and things in being. This is the general forgetfulness of being and this forgetfulness is responsible for the decline of western civilization and crisis of man. So, what is forgetfulness? This is the answer to that question according to Heidegger forgetfulness of being means this that instead of focusing on the problem of being the western metaphysical tradition. They actually spend a lot of time contemplating on things in being. So, they neglected the important philosophical question. They failed to recognize the important ontological difference between being and things in being. To overcome this forgetfulness a phenomenological project has been proposed by Heidegger which is called a phenomenological ontology. It is ontological because it tries to ontologically distinguish being from things in being. It is phenomenological because it tries to capture the most directly given thing the primordial data. Again instead of a contemplation of being a study and technical use and subjugation of things in being is being conducted by the great western civilization. It is seen in all its great intellectual endeavors including natural sciences. Even in natural sciences this happens you know the technical use and subjugation of things in being. So, that is what all these endeavors aim at instead of looking at the problem of being or contemplating at the primordial issue. Metaphysics deals with things in being and the great metaphysical tradition neglects the fundamental ontological difference between being and the thing in being or being with and entities. There is being and there are multiplicity of entities. So, the concern is on the latter not on the former. Again its ontology that deals with the study of being. So, now instead of a metaphysics Heidegger proposes an ontology. It is ontology that deals with the study of being and metaphysics became the study of things in being and metaphysics, sciences and technology take place of ontology. In modern civilization this is what has happened. Metaphysics, science and technology take the place of ontology. Actually ontology would have uncovered the real nature of being, but instead of ontology the other disciplines became important. And their domination in history and culture leads to the forgetfulness and then ultimately to the crisis which western civilization encounters. Now, again modern philosophy had forgotten the question of being according to Heidegger and modern philosophy has become concerned with the ontic or beings. Again modern science also fail to give an account of being because they are also interested in this ontic reality. The beings the entities in this world and phenomenological ontology is expected to recapture the real essence of meaning or the real sense of meaning which is the primordial issue in philosophy and in human life. Phenomenology delineates the structures and explicates the meaning of being. So, the fundamental structures of existence or of reality is the being, the structure of being in one sense we can say and it explicates the meaning of being. It involves an ontological analysis return to the original data of man's experience. So, this return to the original data of man's experience actually initiates or actually makes phenomenological ontology carried out by Heidegger study on design, study on design a kind of hermeneutic of design which we will see in detail in the next lecture. So, here is it phenomenological ontology it has got two aspects first one is it reveals the essential structures of being and the second aspect to whom they are revealed to whom the essential structures of being are revealed that is to design. So, on the one hand the essential structures of being on the other hand the kind of existential analytic of design, design itself or the being of man itself becomes an object of enquiry. Let us see this distinction between being and entities. Let us take the example when I listen to music or read a book for instance or perceive an object I relate myself to this respective things you know when I read a book to the book music to music perceive an object say chair in front of me the chair and something to which I comport myself in all such instances this is what happens I comport myself to some object something the music or the object I perceive etcetera and I comport myself to them as something that is as in as an entity. So, that is an entity and what is it what it is for something to be. So, there is a distinction here what it is for something to be is not itself an entity that is being that is the question of being the being of entities itself is not an entity. So, any form of comportment I have just mentioned it to anything presupposes an understanding of being. So, that is the primordial presupposition without which you cannot understand you cannot approach you cannot comport yourself to anything without an understanding of being there cannot be a comport to entities or as entities entities as entities. So, without an understanding of being that is presupposed and before we raise the question of being we have already we must be having an understanding of being. So, that is again presupposed being is neither an entity nor a class of entities it is not that all the entities put together is being it is again in that sense not even the most general or universal concept. So, now we will try to understand the meaning of being understanding of being belongs to the very being of the activity which we ourselves are. I repeat understanding of being belongs to the being of the entity which we ourselves are. Heidegger is definitely a very difficult thinker very complex language he uses. So, here again you know it is it looks very metaphysical though he is proposing a kind of a destruction of metaphysical tradition he says that understanding of being belongs to the being of the entity which we ourselves are which is design which is the being of man. How far it is possible to study being in the independence of things in being that is the question how can you separate the things in being from the question of being by analyzing the specific thing in being the human being or the design it is here Heidegger brings in the concept of design and one zone the being of man is being analyzed how things are given to the being of man that becomes the subject matter of enquiry. So, in that sense it is it is not a kind of epistemological analysis. So, that is why it is said it is primordial ontology. So, here is a quote from Heidegger which would describe Heidegger's project phenomenological project I quote only by strict adherence to this phenomenological formula to the data themselves are we able to preclude all abstract constructions and formulations accidental findings acceptance of only apparently demonstrated concepts and adoption of pseudo questions which often present themselves as real problems. Again from being and time another quote I quote if the question of being to have its own history made transparent then this hardened tradition must be loosened up and the concealments which it has brought about must be dissolved. We understand this task as one in which by taking the question of being as our clue we are to destroy the traditional content of ancient ontology until we arrive at those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of being the ways which have guided us our sense. So, this the last sentence here those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of being. So, the phenomenological exercise is aiming at capturing these primordial experiences according to Heidegger. So, the phenomenological project thus involves the destruction or dismantling of a tradition of the tradition of history of philosophy which actually has resulted in the kind of forgetfulness of being which actually covered up the real problem from us by raising questions which are not really important. Recover the original existential ways of conceiving of phenomenon of human existence and go back to the Greek roots. So, one has to go back to the Greek roots, bracket the Kantian and Cartesian elements from your ways of thinking. So, this is what is known as the destruction of metaphysical tradition in Heidegger's philosophy involves in analysis of traditional metaphysics on the one hand traditional ways of asking questions have to be discarded because traditional ways of asking question presupposes all these ways actually presuppose certain assumptions certain assumptions which are related to our day to day life our day to day concerns. These traditional ways of asking questions have to be discarded a total reconstruction is required and this involves a radicalization of ontology. So, this is what ultimately he comes to he takes us to a kind of ontology and he proposes a kind of radicalization of ontology where philosophy has to acquire a destruction or dismantling of the tradition. So, what is destruction of tradition going back to the origins. So, destruction means one has to go back to the origins this is what I have mentioned I have just now I mentioned about the primordial experiences. Now, what is it by going back to the tradition you gain by going back to the tradition you gain an access to the context in which these questions were initially raised by these original thinkers without any influence of what later has become metaphysics without any influence of other metaphysical concepts or anything original fresh how these questions were raised for the first time real issues are concealed by tradition and traditional content of ancient ontology has to be destroyed until we arrive at primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of being. So, this also prompts us to go back to the Greek roots. So, this is what Heidegger says in being and time. Now, this involves a radical rejection of metaphysics metaphysics approaches the question of being in essentially wrong ways and it has misunderstood the nature of beings by understanding them as things by reducing their status. The real problem is the problem of being the nature of being, but instead of concentrating on this problem the substantial philosophical problem metaphysical tradition as always concentrated on things it simply describes things as they are the approach of metaphysics is not pure, but is based on certain assumptions. So, it involves a rejection of metaphysics metaphysical understanding is affected by the way we are drawn down into everyday existence. I have already mentioned this metaphysics itself is the result of our some of our day to day concerns some of our day to day life concerns. So, everyday set of assumptions about reality dominates here and it is misconceiving them as present at hand. So, this is what happens in metaphysics misconception of you know this real problem as present at hand and explore the question of human existence understand it in its own terms. So, this is what one has to do a phenomenology should do explore the question of human existence understand it in its own terms. So, the method is called the method of fundamental ontology which needs to be developed since the phenomena of existence requires interpretation it must be phenomenological hermeneutics. And it is in this context the meaning of being is explored where the etymology and grammar of the word zine the sense or final end of being is being contemplated. So, these are very important aspects of Heidegger's philosophy the sense or final end of being what is it that destination of being he talks about the destination of being. And the final end is that which makes a thing intelligible. So, anything which makes itself intelligible to us to design is the final goal of that thing. So, what is it the final goal of being what is the final destination of being. So, understanding being involves an understanding of the sense of being which is nothing, but the final destination of being and the final destination of being or the sense of anything is that which makes that thing intelligible to design. So, an enquiry of design becomes inevitable in this context. So, this is the importance of man this is the importance of the being of man it is the being of man which raises question of being the destination of being to be found in the being of man. He goes against the accepted epistemological practices which distinguishes the subject from object. Here he proposes actually what we would be discussing in the next lecture a conception of truth which consists in disclosure and concealment alitia truth is disclosure. So, the sense of something as the previous slide says the sense of something is that which makes that thing intelligible to us. So, here the destination of being which is a sense of being is to be found in the being of man. So, this needs to be found in design with an analysis of design only human existence can be with or without meaning because meaning is brought to the world by human existence. It is design which brings meaning to this world. So, it is design to which everything is revealed everything is uncovered everything is disclosed everything is what you call unconcealment happens to the design being has meaning only in so far as it has import for a human being or design. So, it is imported by design it is being intended by design. So, in that sense it is phenomenological the original intention of design is being explored by Heidegger's phenomenology in order to capture the real sense of being. An existential analytic of design is conducted here or is proposed here the structure of beings are the structures of being are revealed through the structures of human existence. So, this in summary is Heidegger's method we will see the details in the next lecture the first one is Heidegger's method is phenomenological number 1 it is ontological number 2 number 3 it is existential and number 4 it is hermeneutical it is phenomenological because as it looks for the directly given that which is directly given the sense of being as it is directly given to design. So, that is the destination of being the question of being or the problem of being can be resolved only by examining it only with a phenomenological analysis of design because the sense of being is given to the sign it is uncovered it is it comes as a disclosure to the sign. So, it is phenomenological in that sense because it tries to capture the directly given it is ontological because it distinguishes the ontology of being from the realm of things being from entities things in being that is very fundamental for Heidegger's project. Hence it is ontological it is existential because as it explores the existential structure of the of man of the sign the existential structure of the sign and it is hermeneutical as it involves interpretation because it is something which is revealed something which is unconcealed to the being of man and in that sense it is understanding involves interpretation because this unconcealment in different context is different in nature. It depends on the context in which the unconcealment happens it also depends on the history of the design. So, in that sense it is interpretative. So, it is phenomenological ontological existential and hermeneutical. Now, we will conclude our lecture here on this problem the problem of being. So, the most important points which we have noted is that Heidegger number one Heidegger is trying to raise restate the problem of being by claiming that that is the most important philosophical problem the primordial philosophical problem. Number two he says that there is a forgetfulness of being due to several factors. He lists the factors which have ultimately led to this forgetfulness and he says that he accuses the western metaphysical tradition for making this for resulting in this forgetfulness. Number three he proposes an overcoming of this forgetfulness by employing a method. The method is a phenomenological method which looks for the directly given a senses. The sense of being as it is directly given by exploring that by capturing that sense of being as it is directly given we can recapture it we can we can actually go back to things in themselves. Number four this sense of being is given to the being of man to the sign. So, his philosophy involves an existential analysis of the sign. So, it is called what is it an existential analytic of the sign. So, in that sense Heidegger's philosophy is extremely important existential philosophers like Jean Paul Sartre and many others whom we are going to discuss in this lecture series were tremendously influenced by Heidegger's method. Of course, Heidegger complains that they have misunderstood him and misinterpreted him, but misread him grossly, but at the same time his influence cannot be overruled cannot be overlooked. Then he has also influenced the hermeneutic tradition particularly Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics which involves a kind of linguistic turn in the hermeneutic tradition. Then it also encouraged many developments in post structuralism, deconstruction and even postmodernism. So, we have been discussing the contributions of a very important thinker arguably the most important thinker of tinted century and the next lecture also we will dedicate to examining his contributions particularly pertaining to issues like disclosure and truth. We will wind up this lecture here. Thank you.


Hi everyone, welcome to Barns Takeout. My name is Kaelen Jewel. I'm a senior instructor in adult education at the Barnes Foundation and I wanted to spend a few minutes with you talking about a really interesting manuscript illumination that is on display in Gallery 16 at the Barnes, which we're looking at right here. We're looking at the east wall. It's one of the busier rooms in the collection. There are works of art from ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome. There's jewelry from Native American to Native American Southwest. There are manuscripts pages from medieval Western Europe and from medieval Persia. And that's what I wanted to talk about today and specifically this one right here. But there is another one here and another one on the other side that were all made in the same workshop. They probably were made for the same book. As far as we can tell, we think that they come from the same book. And the book was called the Shanama, which was a medieval epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi. And it translates to the book of the king. And this was a very long poem that described the ancient kings of Iran, the heroic kings of Iran, and the mythological and legendary kings of Iran, which is what we have on display in the manuscript pages of the Barnes. So we see one here and you can see that they have a similar dimension. So let's go to the other side passing by other cultures, other time periods, and then over to these two here. You can see that these are very complicated scenes. They're outdoors, but there are a lot of figures, a lot of animals. They're very, very busy and they're battle scenes. So let's look at this one more closely. So here it is. Again, this is one of the three that were from the book called the Shanama. And the representation that we have here is a very specific moment in the story of the Shanama. It comes from one of the legendary stories of the heroic king Rufstang, who we have depicted here wearing a tiger skin coat and an animal, like a large cat's head on his helmet. And he is engaging in battle with a foe on the other side named Ashkaba. And this is the moment in the Shanama just before Rufstang kills both horse and rider of his enemy. It's set within a very kind of mysterious sort of outdoor setting. I mean, it's a rocky outcrop. It looks like maybe it's mountains, right? So we've got this mountain, this pinkish mountain in the foreground that acts as a backdrop for Ashkaba and Rufstang. We've got some purple rocks in the foreground. We've got this tree kind of jutting into the space. We've got some animals populating the scene that are just kind of hanging out here. We've got this deer like creature at the bottom. And then we've got all of these plants that sort of populate the hillside or this mountain craggy mountain scape. In the background, so behind the mountain that we see Rufstang and Ashkaba fighting against, we see a collection of soldiers, some on horseback, some carrying standards and flags, some carrying musical instruments and blowing horns. And then we have another mountain scape in the background that acts as a backdrop and a screen that we see some other figures standing behind. So it's an interesting representation of space here. We've got some stylized clouds here, very interesting shapes. And you see that some of these figures are holding onto spears and you can see that the spears extend over the edges, over the borders of this manuscript. These manuscript pages, when they were detached from their original manuscript, were cut out and then applied to a larger piece of paper that has gold collects on it. So this larger piece of paper that we have here is from that is not original to the manuscript. So it's this portion in the middle here, which has also a gold flecked pattern on it. But if we look at it closely, you can see that the gold flecking is a little bit different than we have in the outer border. So this was made in the mid 16th century and it was made in the Iranian city of Shiraz. Let's look at the map. So this is where Shiraz is located in this portion of Western Iran. Shiraz was the capital of the Farse province. Today it is the capital of the Farse province in Iran, modern-day Iran. And it was a center of production of illuminated manuscripts in the 16th century. The capital of the region at the time was Tabriz, which is located just about up here. And this was during the ruling dynasty of the Sabbathids. The Sabbathids were in charge of and in control of, I should say, of this portion really of what corresponds to much of modern-day Iran. And they were the political rivals to the Ottoman Turks who were located primarily in what is modern-day Turkey. And their capital was at Istanbul. And so these two territories, these two dynasties, really these two empires, the Ottoman Empire and the Sabbathid Empire, were vying for power. They were constantly, not constantly, but very often at battle. And in the mid-16th century, this was a period of pretty intense conflict between the Ottomans and the Sabbathids. So that's sort of the historical backdrop for the production of these types of manuscripts, which become, they are popular throughout Persian history, beginning in the 10th, 11th century, when the poet Ferdowsi first composed the Shanema. And then in the mid-16th century, they kind of ramp up again in production. And Shiraz was a place of what is often referred to by scholars as a place of commercial production for these manuscripts. So these were not made. This manuscript that we are looking at that we have at the barn was not made for a royal audience, but it was meant to imitate the styles or be in the style of those royal manuscripts made for the Sabbathid Shah, the king, in the capital of Tabriz. So let's look at one of those royal manuscripts of the same scene. So this is one that's at the Met in New York, and it's an image, again, of Rustam and Ashabas. This comes from the 16th century, so this is probably a little bit earlier, maybe 20 or 30 years earlier, of the the Shanema of Shah-Tazma. And if we look at this in more detail, we can see a similar configuration of figures. So we have Rustam here, we have Ashabas here. This is the moment after Rustam has actually killed Ashabas' horse. You can see the arrow here, and they are engaging in a one-on-one battle set against, in this case, a green mountain highlighted with some purple. And behind the mountain you have, again, these groups of soldiers on horseback carrying flags, carrying musical instruments and horns, and these interesting swirl-like clouds that we see in our example of the barns. There's another one that's at the Khalidu Museum of Art. This one was made in Shiraz, so this is not a royal example. This is one of those more commercially produced examples that were made for various wealthy patrons in commercial centers and busy cities like Shiraz. And so here we can see, again, Rustam with his tiger coat. In this case, he has just killed Ashabas, and there is yet another one, another one of these Shirazi manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Again, Rustam wearing his tiger coat and he is getting ready to attack Ashabas. So that's sort of the backdrop for the kind of context in which our example at the barns was created. But these types of manuscripts, while they were in a Persian context, meant to serve as images connecting various parts of legendary and historical figures to modern 16th century figures, like the modern Shahs in the 16th century Sabbath of court. They also, these manuscripts were used as gifts given to diplomatic gifts given to the Ottoman court. And so the royal examples of these made into breeze were often sent to the Ottoman court in Istanbul and the ones that were made in Shiraz were made for local patrons. But all of these manuscripts, and there are so many of them that were produced and there are so many that survive in various contexts around the world, were all served, have served in more recent years, in more recent centuries, as artistic inspiration for modern artists like Amir Matisse. And specifically it's the way that the landscapes are rendered, the flat kind of cut out like landscapes of these hill sides, the stacked nature of space that we see in all of the examples, are one of the things that inspired artists like European artists like Matisse, who was a collector of these Persian manuscripts. And here we have Gallery 19 at the barns, a painting that was painted by Matisse in 1917 called The Music Lessons. And it has a really interesting sense of space, it's very flat, it has no horizon line, right, he doesn't give us any horizon line, instead we have this very vertical sense of space represented and this this emphatic flatness. The piano is tipped forward so that we can see what's on it, for example, and so forth. If we go into another gallery at the barns, so this is gallery number 10 downstairs, which has a collection of really great paintings by a lot of artists, but some really wonderful ones by Matisse and really instructive ones. So we've got this very flat Matisse here, there's no sense of modeling or depth in that figure. There are also these three paintings which were painted in Nice in the 1920s. We've got a landscape here on the left by Matisse painted 1906, and then we've got a 1920s landscape here of two women against a hillside. And that sense of the hillside kind of being flatly the perspective being much flatter than we see in his earlier 1906 landscape is showing us the impact that Matisse's interest on Persian manuscripts had on his art production throughout his career. So it's interesting when we are in gallery number 16 at the barns and we are encountering these works from all over the world that have their very specific historical context like the Shanama manuscript pages that they served as not just diplomatic gift between various wealthy patrons or various ruling dynasties and imperial courts, but that they also served as inspiration for modern artists. So when you come to the barns, be sure to check them out. And for those of you who might be interested in learning more about the historical context of these types of manuscripts and of Islamic art in general from the medieval period, I would encourage you to sign up for my class which will begin on April 8th called the Arts of Medieval Islam. So thanks for joining me today. And I hope to see you in class or in the gallery. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks for watching and for your support of the Barnes Foundation.