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Biting All The Apples
Biting All The Apples is an unhinged bookclub-ish conversation that channels the sassy wisdom of long dead victorian feminists to analyze the puritanical influences still messing with our world today. We start off with the 1895 best seller "The Woman's Bible" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Each week we cover their 19th century feminist analysis of a book in the bible and ponder, laugh, and cry over the similarities to the issues of today.
This is a great listen for anyone interested in the patriarchal influence in religion, politics, and social order. As well as anyone that is GenX or any generation, anyone that likes comedy, books, history, and thinkin.
Biting All The Apples
The Real Deal on Revelation: Women, astrology, and dragons rule
The gods of our fathers are our devils. That's what the victorian feminists say an ancient Arabic proverb says. Knowing how much the people of the 19th century liked to embellish the mystical and such, we're not sure if that's actually a thing but it's a thing now because MJG said it. In this episode we tackle Peter and John’s epistles, then flip the script on Revelation with Matilda Joslyn Gage, reading it through symbols, numbers, and stars to uncover a fiercely feminist core. We push back on literalism, call out control, and dream of a world full of Jezebels.
Some highlights:
• subjection verses in Peter and John, Stanton’s rebuttal to wealth and “weaker vessels”
• apostles and patronage, “elect ladies,” class and comfort
• contested authorship of Revelation, the 9,200-word “letter”
• astrology, numerology, Kabbalah as interpretive keys
• the woman, the dragon, twelve stars: feminine principle vs material power
• literalism as a tool of control, symbolism as a path to agency
• speech, censorship, and why we refuse to quiet down
• closing the book proper; next up, Stanton’s appendix and letters
Join us. Join us. We must rebel. And that starts with a podcast of course.
This episode recorded in Bob's Basement Studios.
Credits
Recorded at Troubadour Studios in Lansing, MI
Audio Engineer Corey DeRushia
Edited by Rie Daisies at Nighttime Girlfriend Studio
Music: ‘Shifting pt. 2 (instrumental)’ by Rie Daisies
Have some feedback? Praise? General thoughts? Know how to pronounce something? Are you a religious scholar? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a message right from your phone or computer by clicking here. Recordings may be used in future episodes.
Website
Yeah, you're just rich and gross. You're not you're stupid. And I don't even like money. Yeah. I just like the things it buys me.
SPEAKER_01:Like global conquest. Buys me small countries. I love it.
SPEAKER_02:It's the podcast that Sly Serpent warned you about. Welcome to Biting All the Apples, where two gals discuss one radical book.
SPEAKER_01:The best-selling, critical, and comedic masterpiece from 1895, The Woman's Bible by Elizabeth Katie Stanton. We love her.
SPEAKER_02:I'm Sarah Kay. I'm Joanna V.
SPEAKER_01:This episode will be a revelation. You can count on it. Especially because we're in the last bits and books of the woman's Bible. That's very spooky the way I said it. Bits and bobs. That's good for two and newts, eyes of the woman's Bible. We're going to discuss our reaction to our favorite Victorian feminist response. Reaction, response, get it? Responses. To the epistles, to Peter and John and the Book of Revelation. Ooh. Revealing. It's very revealing. It is. Wait till you see. Just when you think to yourself, girl, girl, self, these Victorian thinkers have enlightened and expanded so many nooks and crannies of an old book everyone takes for granted, or worse, at its actual word, you think, is it possible to learn or be surprised by anything else? Well, the great Matilda Jocelyn Gage returns to give fascinating insight into the book of Revelation. And it involves astrology, women, and dragons. Yeah. So yeah, this is gonna be cool. But first, it's been a couple weeks since we last spoke to y'all, so it wouldn't be cool if we didn't remind you of our disclaimers. Gotta have them.
SPEAKER_02:Biting all the apples covers analysis of religious texts. Some listeners that are religious out of the need for the illusion of certainty may find the content offensive. Biting all the apples also discusses historic texts and feminist movements. We recognize that individuals, groups, and alternative movements have been left out of the mainstream history. We will note that whenever possible. We are open to additional information provided to us in the spirit of expanding knowledge. Knowledge?
SPEAKER_01:We're just talking about we're just talking about knowledge. It's gonna be the new currency. And we'd probably be rich. We would be so rich. If knowledge was money, I'd have a lot of it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That was really cool analogy.
unknown:If I had be rich.
SPEAKER_02:It is late. Our analogies are weak.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So Joanna was gallivanting around. I was. And so we had to do a quick check up, check, check in. Yeah, I haven't been. And that lasted probably five times as long as this podcast was.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's important. You had to fill me in. I was like, I checked out. And then I was like, oh, I wish I was still checked out.
SPEAKER_01:What a week to not wow. Not uh checking on any news. Good for you though. Look, and you're still alive.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because I mean I would have been worried. Actually, yeah, I was a little worried going um to I went to California right near the border there of Mexico. And I wasn't worried, but then my husband was like, you gotta keep a real good eye on our our kit because she's brown. And I was like, oh god, yeah, I haven't watched the news. And so that but nothing. Yeah, I had nothing to worry about. Like there was it was great. Um being in a big city. Almost everybody was brown. So it was like majority brown. It was lovely. I love SoCale. It was yeah, it made me very happy. It was glory, yeah, because I had no idea what was going on in the world. I tried very hard to just enjoy. And he came back, and now and now reality is I guess we're terrorists. Yeah. Who knew it was me that I had to worry about?
SPEAKER_01:I know, of the worst kind. Oh my gosh. So she hadn't heard of the executive order that came out. And then I read it on the crazy White House page. Woo! It's extensive. Usually the act of uh fiction. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it's very elaborate fiction. What is the title of it again? It's the viol political violence something. Yeah. Wham wham wham.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because usually I go on there and read them and they're like um 10 sentences long and ridiculous, of course. But this was like extensive ridiculousness with details of people messing with exposing reality.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:We will have nobody talk about. The man behind the curtain. Pay no attention to the man behind the orge facade.
SPEAKER_01:We're laughing because I mean, yeah, that it's probably terrifying, but also fuck off. Yeah, exactly. Definitely. The plan is to silence all opposition. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You want us all scared and chicken in our boots.
SPEAKER_01:I know. A little snowflake. They do a lot of projecting going on in these days. Yeah, it's funny. I know for the past well, actually, since we started this, we're like, we don't know how long we'll be able to do this. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And now we don't know how long we'll be able to do this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. We don't know how long we'll be able to speak. We don't know what's going on there. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. But check out that executive order. Although it is an executive order, it's not like there's any teeth. Although he's been going pretty far with all this far.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, because he he knows no one is checking it. Because, you know, I don't know if you've seen our Supreme Court like a top Obel Supreme.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. And so I stand by what I had told myself when all this started. The best way to say stay safe in opposition is to keep speaking up and to encourage other people to speak up. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Do not stay silent. No, get louder. Get louder, get louder, get louder.
SPEAKER_01:The alternative is everybody's like, just lay low. But then you will be left with the culture that brought us that memorial service.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That will be that'll be the predominant AI Christian speeches and stuff. So those are your choices. And it's not something that the I think people are starting to realize this kind of isn't something you can lay low through.
SPEAKER_02:No, and I've noticed it's not a lot of churches are speaking out now.
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're finally like, okay, guys. It's a little bit too much. Yeah. Uh it's time you speak to the congregation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And let's get real.
SPEAKER_01:Let's get real. For real. Yeah. How's it been for you to like do this religion-related project where now I'm like, I can't tell if it's just because we've been doing this, or if is it external? Like there's like a cosmic shift to this force of this type of American Christian nationalism that's now mainstreamed out. Yeah. It's so crazy. Yeah, just get talking out earlier today. I was like, I need more adjectives. I keep on being like, it's weird. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02:But it, I mean, yeah. But yes, I have seen a lot more just the whole construct of religion in general, like a whole turn of like, do it. Is this relevant? Right. Where do all the problems start?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And we're not different. You know, that's kind of how it started for me is like learning about all the religions and going, oh, well, they're very similar. Why are we fighting? And then learning through this experience that probably all the religions started with the control in mind. Yes. With the exception of like Native American spiritualism and Buddhism, um, where they are like just take care of the earth and the well a lot, yeah, the earth religions.
SPEAKER_01:The earth very much. Yeah. And then what we're seeing as we've worked through this book and then done the extra research, a lot of the stories are pulled from those religions. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And now I'm bummed, I'll have to put it in the this is a great one, but how do I control people with that? Right.
SPEAKER_01:We're like, we need to put an angry man at the top. We need a little, I need more drama. Yeah, we need a more king-like figure. There was uh, I wouldn't forget the name, but the Celtic mythology with the two brothers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Cain and Abel were like, oh my, yeah, they just picked this crap up.
SPEAKER_02:They were like, ooh, that's good. I'm gonna change, I'm gonna tweak that a little bit. Which is plagiarism. Exactly. They should know that.
SPEAKER_01:Citizens arrest.
SPEAKER_02:Citizens arrest. Going church to church and be like, get that book out of the rest of the book out of their plagiarism all the satanic plagiarism. You didn't you didn't make that story. Nobody prophesied that. He stole it from an Irishman. So I still so it's been a good one.
SPEAKER_01:In general, I'm just tripping out. Yeah. Oh yeah, every day. Every day. So I just did the lip smack. I'm like, so let's get into it. You know what we're getting into? This is episode 24, and we're in the last parts of this book. These ladies, if do you think they could have thought that they would help us through an authoritarian takeover?
SPEAKER_02:I think they would like it.
SPEAKER_01:I think they would like it. I think they would be very happy.
SPEAKER_02:Or they often look I often stare into Elizabeth's eyes on my book, and I'm like, we have little little chats. Maybe she's sending me prophecy.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe she'd start to be like, I saw prophecy.
SPEAKER_02:Women. Elizabeth came to me and she said, We must band together and overthrow. She's she talks like she's from ladies. Mrs.
SPEAKER_01:Snipping.
SPEAKER_02:Ladies, it's enough of the chit-chat.
SPEAKER_01:Get out on the streets. I again I think they actually wouldn't believe how this is still the same.
SPEAKER_02:Which definitely the closing line is like we're on the upward swing. And I'm like, oh, we were. And then we hit a big wall. But I'll tell you what. If you can swing up once, you can do it again. Yeah, and even better. Because I mean you would they do say what, like two steps back, no, one step back, two step forwards. But I do think we are in it three steps back. Um, sadly, one step forward.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, what are we doing? We're do you know what we're getting into this? Epistles.
SPEAKER_02:Epistles, another letter. They're but this is different. This is Peter and John. This is not Paul.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so Peter and John wrote this?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. To whom? Well, I did not look that up, but I'm assuming they wrote to some they're like a general letter. General letters to letter to the editor.
SPEAKER_01:All the churches that they touched. And this is only two pages in the women's Bible. The epistles of Peter and John. And you're not gonna believe what the topic is. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. That if any obey not the word, they may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.
SPEAKER_02:Because the wives are just gonna say what the husband says.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and then he then he goes on to talk about adorning.
SPEAKER_02:I really like the last one. It's like, likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to the knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel. So, like we're a weaker vessel. Like you're pouring your knowledge into your wife so she can pour it out to somebody else.
SPEAKER_01:It's so clear that these dudes were like, Oh my god, women can have babies. We have got to write this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's like they probably really want to make babies. They do they do go through like a thing. They're like, I can't make a baby. Come on, that probably is like a big problem. I mean, that's from the beginning of time. Like they're like, wait a minute, I want to grow a shit.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like it was always a problem. This is just when it became yeah, yeah. So, and then yeah, it's only th three little verses, and he talks about adorning again, don't plate the hair, which I believe is braiding. Yeah. Or wearing gold. So, some more picky dude shit. And Elizabeth is the one that responds to this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and the biggest thing I love this little paragraph here. Um, because she is about, she's like, Why do they want to control us? All this stuff, and they're like, have these good virtues, but yet control your wife. Then she picks out women's love of satins, velvets, laces, and jewels has its corresponding expression in man's love of wealth, of position, and his ambition for personal and family aggrandizement. So, like, money pours into everything, even back then. And she said, There's much talk of the poor and needy, especially during political campaigns. Oh. In the autumn of 1896, when the working man's interests formed the warp and woof of every speech, 3,000 children stood in the streets of New York City, for whom there was no room in the schoolhouses and no playgrounds, and yet thousands of dollars were spent in buying boats. Large, well-ventilated homes for those who do the work of the world, plenty of schoolhouses and playgrounds for children of the poor would be much more beneficial to the race than expensive monuments to dead men and large appropriations from the public treasury for holiday and convivial occasions to honor men in high places. And this is when they were putting up the statues of the Confederates.
SPEAKER_01:That was all part of trying to scare the shit out of freed people. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:They're like, vote for me. The poor need help, but uh, I'm gonna spend all this money putting up a statue and these poor kids standing on the street. So sorry. Same thing of the women doing all the work in a church and all the laws are against them.
SPEAKER_01:So exactly. Exactly. This could be if you just replaced um thousands of dollars with millions, billions. Billions, actually. Yeah, billions. That's another thing I don't understand why modern citizens just do not rise up because every election, billions get spent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:This last election was nuts.
SPEAKER_02:Where did that money go? I'm very um curious.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you won't know because some of the money is hidden. But the fact that it's been like that, it can't continue to be like that.
SPEAKER_02:But they tell us right here. Do tell. It's fair to infer that what he has done in the past, he will continue to do in the future. Unless she, that means women, yep, yeah, rebels outright. He will make her a slave, a subject, the mere reflection of another human will.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so as a terrorist, I want to say that we as an hey gals, ladies, it actually is up to us.
SPEAKER_02:It's up to us. Time to stop and make the world notice. We're not gonna take it. No, we're gonna take it. We're not gonna take it anymore. Join us. Join us. It's time. It is time. This is the future. We must rebel outright. We must.
SPEAKER_01:But we can't do it alone. Yeah, and we gotta finish this episode. But before we right after this, at Join us. Yeah, join us.
SPEAKER_02:October 18th.
SPEAKER_01:No, see, there's so many tangents here, but she brought up politics, and I couldn't help.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's good. No, it was perfect. And obviously, we should take her advice.
SPEAKER_01:We take her advice, so I hope you appreciate that call to action. Okay, next, what's the next situation? Oh, this is good because this is an another very modern thing. Oh, the John. So they she but she picked four verses from John's epistle. And in the verses, I'm like, but it's just some crap about fancy people. Yeah. But the main thing is So she's talking about the elder unto the elect lady. It's about this whole eminent and honorable Christian women and treating them.
SPEAKER_02:But I think that the ba the basic thing is that apostles relied on the well-to-do ladies to take care of them as they traveled around spreading the word.
SPEAKER_01:And they preferred that to just sleeping like in sackcloth or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, do you think they'd find them in a stable? Yeah. Not a change.
SPEAKER_01:So that is very interesting. Yeah, because um You see this here. In in their travels about the country, the apostles especially enjoyed the hospitality of families of rank through democrat oh, sorry, though democratic in their principles, they were susceptible to the attractions of wealth and of culture.
SPEAKER_02:They're like, we're important. And I can no longer sleep on a floor of hay.
SPEAKER_01:What would Jesus think? I know, and I think you got upset. You really went against the thing. I told you my own note says star fuckers.
unknown:Yes, that's right.
SPEAKER_02:That is true. Just true. They're like, ooh, they got a little taste of fame. They're like, wealthy late, all the ladies. Who wants an apostle?
SPEAKER_01:So he even wrote it down. He was like, You put me up for the night, I'll write an epistle. Put your name in it, sweet lady. Lady elect. Yeah, this is in case there's any biblical people following. It was what's the say? Two, John, one verse. One, five, six, and twelve. They're kind of like, don't even read it. It's really boring.
SPEAKER_02:It's just the elder onto the elect lady and her children. The children were probably lovely. But now, yeah, that was it.
SPEAKER_01:That was it. That's the epistles. There's only one thing left to do with a Bible.
SPEAKER_02:It's the heavy hitter. It's the most contested. Is it real? Is it not? Does it belong in the Bible? Does it not depends on your religion? Some people don't like it. We're like, what book? And no one understands it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, maybe somebody knows. The timing is great. Because how does Revelation fit into uh the rapture?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it is. Is it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. Yes, Revelation is where they get sucked up and then Well, no, the rapture is like a made-up thing from the 19th century. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:But it ties into like good over evil. So, but whoever took Revelation and was like, oh, that must mean all us good people are gonna get sucked up to live in the clouds, and all the bad people are just gonna live in the sewage pit of Earth.
SPEAKER_01:Oh. As we are right now. I love living in the sewage of the phone. So we have Revelation chapter one. Is this um MJ MJG? So remember um Matilda Jocelyn Gage was the super smart lady. She's part of the Freethinkers. Her son-in-law was inspired by her. He was Frank Baum who wrote The Wizard of Oz. Wizard of Oz. The term Matilda effect is named after her. So we see a return of her words, and she comes back and she's really good. So they get so it says uh Revelation chapter one, Revelation one through four. And this is when he's talking about the seven churches. Is it Asia specifically? So explain this. This is Roman Empire crap.
SPEAKER_02:It is Roman. So the person that wrote this is named John, and that is something that we've learned that like they're like, we don't know who this John is. But he had a vision and he wrote it down. So some people think it's like revelations. It's just one revel, it was one vision with a lot of detail.
SPEAKER_01:Tons of detail. How many so much detail? Okay, so this is what Joanna told me before we started. The book of Revelation is how many? It's like a bajillion pages.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's just it's the longest letter. No, it's it was so most letters in that time were like 97 to 200 words. This letter had 9,200 words. That's quite a vision. And it was like a thousand percent increase.
SPEAKER_01:It was a thousand percent increase. Nobody's seen anything like it. Nothing. It was the big leaf. It was the greatest letter. People tell me this is the greatest book ever. It's the best one. The best book. That's what people say. That's what people say. Um they're just saying that they revealed it in revelations.
SPEAKER_02:And he sent it to seven churches, this this revelation. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein for the time is at hand. And if it was at hand back then, boy, boy. This time at hand is really long.
SPEAKER_01:That's how yeah, it's a big hand. Also, want to point out so this entire book, Revelation, we have another example of a gentleman having a vision. Oh yeah, all alone and just being like, just trust me. Jesus came back and he told me this shit.
SPEAKER_02:Told me, he said, I'm gonna show you a bunch of stuff, write it in a book. Yeah, write it down. There will be destruction of anything you write down. Yeah, just keep it between me and you, and you're the only one that knows, but share it with everybody. And if people don't believe you, tell them they'll get murdered.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and they're not welcome into the next kingdom. So, and we'll see, as Batilla's gonna point out, and then some of the research we did, the there is so much symbolism in this. Seven is a recurring theme.
SPEAKER_02:I thought this was like your chapter because you are into astrology. I am, and that is what um they were saying. And I love this crap. So, John Morley, he must be one of the um people that like looked at the Bible and gave their viewpoints. Um, once said, I forgot what they're gonna commentators or whatever. We're like, it's very late. We're like, what are they? Thinkers, they're the thinkers.
SPEAKER_01:He's a biblical pundit.
SPEAKER_02:But he talked to the priests and he said, We shall not attack you, we shall explain you. The book of Revelation, properly revealings, um, which is just another name they're revealing. This is Matilda's words, yeah. Cannot even be approximately explained without some knowledge of astrology. It is purely esoteric work, largely referring to women, her intuition, her spiritual powers, and all she represents. Even the name of its puitive author, John, is identical in meaning with Dove, which is the emblem of the Holy Ghost, the female principle in the divinity. And I actually looked that up because apparently the Holy Ghost in Hebrew is feminine in its what is that, entomology? Yes, yeah. So it's a feminine word. Um, so the Holy Spirit, apparently, according to our lady and many other scholars throughout the years, was always feminine. Interesting. Um, so maybe John Morley was maybe a a guy that was um with the priest because he says, We we won't attack you, we'll explain you, I'll tell you what the revelation is. And she's like, Okay. She's like, fine.
SPEAKER_01:But she but bring back the women. The other thing, the uh Victorian gals, they are in an era where the occult in spiritualism was very big. So I'm sure she was pretty well versed in all of this stuff.
SPEAKER_02:So my god, yeah, because she that's why I said I was like, ooh, Sarah's gonna explain this to me.
SPEAKER_01:So this I'm gonna explain, I'll explain everything. Open the revelation. She writes the book came down from old Egyptian mystery, doesn't quote times, and was one of the profoundly sacred and profoundly secret books of the great temple of Luxor. The words sacred and secret possessing the same meaning during these mysteries. All knowledge was anciently concealed in the mysteries, letters, numbers, astrology, is in parentheses, until the 16th century, identical with astronomy, alchemy, the parent of chemistry, these and all other sciences were hidden from the common people. Even to all initiates, the most important part of the mysteries was not revealed. This is where, and I know other people are doing this work, but I love the idea, you know, we were going over the Kabbalah. Oh, yeah, yep. The numerology and the tarot stuff involved in that. It is it is all connected. And then going back to Pythagoreans, yeah, they're like, it's all math.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. Which is funny because my father-in-law has always told me everything is math. Isn't that trippy? It's true, and it's true, and I'm not good at it.
SPEAKER_01:No, you're thinking I'm not good at the math that the old uh capitalist meat grinder school tried to tell you what math was.
SPEAKER_02:But math of the universe, I might be really good at exactly like empathy plus humanity equals equals a thousand percent.
SPEAKER_01:This is where I do wish that I had a visual because apparently there's like a wheel of revelation, and there's a lot of stuff about how you can overlay that with the 12 astrological signs. Yeah, yeah. Where my knowledge, because I was like, oh, I want to know more about this, but people gotta remember when we're talking about astrology, like the astrology, I know you know, been a hobbyist or whatever. That's Western astrology. Okay. There are different, you know, houses. I did look up the Hebrew astrology, they do have the same names like Virgo, Gemini, and but the the idea that the planets possess certain qualities, and that mimics a lot of what you'll see in like Greek mythology. Yeah, because even their gods were named after planets, they were named after planets, but you know, stuff like uh the planet of Saturn is is very male and controlling and sometimes angry, and Venus is love, love, and beauty, aestheticism, and all that jazz. So interesting. What's Uranus? Uranus. Actually, Uranus. So um people like Albert Einstein have like strong Uranus Uranus is how am I saying Uranus?
SPEAKER_02:Well, they used to say Uranus and now they say Uranus.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna say Uranus. People make fun of me when I say symbolus.
SPEAKER_02:I know 80s.
SPEAKER_01:And I forget, I think the other thing to remember is back then the belief that there were like seven planets, but they also believe that like the moon was a planet. Yeah. So I don't I don't know that timeline of that. Anyways, but Uranus is or Uranus usually symbolizes unorthodox, new, outside of the box thinking, like revolutionary.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I like that one. Yeah. How do you get in that house? I'll check your I'll check your chart. Check my oh, I gotta find my bird. Oh, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:All right. There's so much so Matilda's response to this is so fascinating. So she goes through this list of these different religious leaders and talking about how they're everybody's pish poshing in Revelation. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Can I read this? Because so she said some people dispute it and say like it shouldn't belong in the Bible. And then she says its mystic character has been vaguely surmised by the later church, which while claiming to be an ex the explanation. Exponent of spiritual things has yet taught the grossest materialism and from no part of the Bible more fully than from Revelation. This is my favorite part because she uses the word literal like 10 times. I know. I'm like, I have this so highlighted. It asserts a literal coming of Christ in the literal clouds of heaven, riding a literal horse, while Gabriel, angel of the moon, with a literal trump with a literal trumpet sounds time. This um, oh sorry, a literal trumpet sounds the blast of the earth's destruction. A literal devil is to be bound for a thousand years, during which the time saints are to dwell on earth. She's like, guys, literally, are you literally it says this?
SPEAKER_01:And I wonder how much they actually used literal. These women write with such properness, and yeah, that's why you know how we I say literally all the time. Right. And people, you know, grammar people are like, that's not what it means. I'm like, well, that's what it means now. Now it does. But she's like, literal devil. And then just yeah, and every man to have a farm, as once I heard a devout Methodist declare, but there will not be land enough for that objected brother. Oh, well, the earth is now two-thirds water, and that will be dried up, was the reply. To such straits have Christians been driven in their efforts to comprehend this book. They're like, You sound like an idiot. Yeah, it would be literally so I in what she's trying to say, she's like, it is like looking at like an astrology wheel or a chart and being like, No, it says right here, like Venus is gonna come, and then Libra is gonna, and you're like, you're like that. Stop trying to think of it so literally. Yeah, it's more like it's so full of symbolism, and it makes me want to read the whole thing, but 9,000 words, who has the time? I gotta read more think pieces about the orange devil. Yeah, and she mentioned this whole thing. We always I think every episode, I'm like, you gotta read this. You're gonna read the whole thing, but it's so delicious, especially if you are into the occult. And back in the 19th century, people really took it seriously. This guy she mentioned, Elpheus Levi. Um, and he was an like a super occultist. Oops, I'm doing here. I wrote down something.
SPEAKER_02:Scientist.
SPEAKER_01:He was an occultist, and he considered the biblical book of Revelation to be a masterpiece of occult science. He believed that the book's complex imagery and prophecies could not be understood literally and required a secret esoteric key for interpretation. And his analysis draws on multiple esoteric systems, including the Kabbalah, astrology and numerology, and tarot. And he associated the 22 major arcana of the tarot with the Hebrew alphabet, which and you know the Hebrew alphabet is related to numbers, everything's about man. That's research. Send it to my accountant. Yeah. We can't. So she says, while even a partial comprehension of reveiling, some knowledge of astrology is required. It is no less true that the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation demands a knowledge of astrology, of letters, and of numbers with their interchangeable values as they were understood by those who wrote it. A book written by initiates for initiates. So here's think about that. And not only do they not look at the occult, you are told it's bad. It's demonic. Yeah. I remember I was checking my horoscope near my grandmother, and she was like, Oh, you know, like, what are you reading? Satan's that's that's some witchcraft. So here we have an intelligent woman who is part of the free thinker movement saying, You actually can't understand this. The common person can't understand this unless unless you have this stuff. But you have the people high up in the church being like, Oh, that stuff is satanic. So, what that tells you is they don't want you to understand it.
SPEAKER_02:Yet they believe in a man that said he was talking to a burning bush. Like, right.
SPEAKER_01:Make it well, it gives men power. Oh, yeah. Blind faith is way more useful than educated, um populist populist. Thank you. Yes, literally. Literally. Isn't that so? It's just fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:I I like so um John, they don't know which John it is. He wrote this, he was banished to an island because he was speaking about religion and and this revelation, whatever. But he wrote, he wrote it on this island when he was in exile. But it says that that's really in question. A man, Professor Goldwyn Smith, in a recent work, recent 1896-ish, um, guesses, it's called Guesses at the Riddle of Existence. I love that everybody was thinking about this even back then. It sounds like a great book. I know, so cool. Free thinkers. Um, he thinks that we have but little reliable information as to the writers of either the old or the new testaments. In this case, the style is so different from that of John that the same apostle could not have written both books. So she's like, it's definitely not the Apostle John. Whoever wrote the Revelation was evidently the victim of a terrible and extravagant imagination and of visions which make the blood curdle.
SPEAKER_00:East.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. Then they she picks um a couple of things. Revelation 2, 18 through 23, and I'll just read you the last verse in this. And I will kill her children, and all the churches shall know that I am he which searches searcheth the hearts, and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, my blood is curled! I know. I'm like, that's creepy, it's scary, and it's against women.
SPEAKER_01:I know. Well, and this reminds me of what we were talking about right before. So Revelation references the Old Testament, both in some of its symbolism, its stories, the places they're talking about, and in the super mean God. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, lots of children killing and stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Evidently.
SPEAKER_01:Evidently. Oh, and Jezebel. Oh yeah, reappears says, Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophet to teach and seduce my servants.
SPEAKER_02:Damn those women.
SPEAKER_01:Women can't call themselves. Oh no, it was not banned. She wasn't bad. And also, how come women can't have like why can't they prophesize? Yeah. But you have a dream and you get to write a whole book and it's still here two thousand years later. Come on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I told you what I think, or you said that actually, because I was like, We have the same thoughts. Because you know, we think things all the time, right? But I'm like, oh, maybe I just should say someone sent it to me, and it's a vision. Yeah. Instead of my own thoughts. Because maybe these people were like, I usually don't think. And all of a sudden I saw a bright light and I had all these thoughts. People be like, I'm a prophet! I'm a prophet, believe it.
SPEAKER_01:So this is more, and Elizabeth is talking again about the idea of like what's figurative, what's literal. I only had like the last sentence. Yeah, that's all I got. Satan and women. Yeah, Satan, Satan and women are the chief characters in all the frightful visions. And the sacred period of maternity is made to illustrate some of the most terrible upheavals in national life, as between the old dragon and the mother of the race. Whatever this book was intended to illustrate, its pictures are painfully vivid. There's no doubt, there's no questioning.
SPEAKER_02:Women, you be bad, you little lover of slithering snakes. Disgust me. Yeah, speaking of snakes, what are we looking at? Snakey snake. Um, and this is MJG. Okay, women were fleeing to the wilderness to prepare a place for God. Oh, there's a dragon. That's what I love about it. Yeah, we promised dragon. I love a nice dragon. And when the dragon saw that he was cast onto the earth, he was wroth with the woman, angry. Because oh, so the woman sent him there. And went to make war with the remnant of her seed. Like, right? What? Go after the woman. I want to get her seed, that baby. Little baby blood. Oh, really? Yeah. That's so dark. Painfully vivid. So a woman, um, and it's funny because they this is astrology too. She was clothed, clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head 12 stars, which is so astrological, right? Absolutely. She had a child, and there she encountered the dragon that um sent and sent her sent him to Earth, and he was not happy about it. Um, and then she goes on and she talks about all the constellations and how that lines up to astrology. So basically it's like an astrolog explaining the stars. Right. At an early day, serpents were much respected. They were thought to have more pneuma. Was that I think of penumbre, like the thing, or spirit, because penumbre is the aura of the sun, right? Or the spirit than any other living thing, and they were termed fiery. For this cause, high initiates were called Naga or serpents of wisdom. And a living serpent was always carried in the celebration of mysteries. During the brilliant 18th and 19th Egyptian dynasties, Draco was a great god. But when this constellation lost its place in the heavens and Thubians ceased to be guiding side real divinity, it shared the fate of all fallen gods. Quote, the gods of our fathers are our devils, says an Arabic proverb, which I thought was like damn. That's pretty deep, right? That's very deep. Because I think about that and I'm like, oh. Really? Let that simmer in that. Let simmer in that.
SPEAKER_01:Put the lid on, let it simmer. Okay? That is good. I like here where she's talking. Colors and jewels are parts of astrology. And ancient cities, as ectabana. Sure. Sure. Were built and colored after the planets. Come on, is that true? It is. I looked it up. How fucking cool is that? What? Yeah, the new Jerusalem. But I'm like, I can't get over that actually. I'm just gonna go back to that. I'm like, I want to have a whole city where I'm like, welcome to the Ruby town of Mars. Yes! What if I got I would love it? The New Jerusalem of Reveilings is purely an astrological city, not to be understood without a knowledge of mystic numbers, letters, jewels, and colors. So also the four and twenty elders of reveilings are 24 stars of the Chaldean zodiac counselors or judges, which rose and set with it. See, there's there are so many, I think I'm familiar with like 12 different zodiac things. Things see that's how familiar I am. I'm an expert. Um, so astrology was brought into great prominence by the visit of the magi, the zodiacal constellation Virgo, the woman with a child ruling Palestine, in which country Bethlehem is situated.
SPEAKER_02:They are the chosen ones, and here we are. Here we are, um killing off an entire race as the world watches. Right. It's insane. When I read that, I was just like, oh yeah. When I read that, I was like, see, uh how did this all get misconstrued? And how did these people because I just I really obviously I think a lot of us in the world are half the time consumed with what's happening in these places where people are there's people living in an awful situation right now.
SPEAKER_01:Palestine, Sudan, Palestine, Sudan, um, I don't know. Where else? There's a like a um I don't know, don't get on a boat if you're in Venezuela. Oh yeah, don't let it. It's so yeah. It's crazy. I'm actually I have a special interest in Virgo too. And she is a woman with a child originally, and now Virgo is seen as a woman that's like holding like a harvest, or she's like from the earth, yeah. Oh, why did it change? I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Ooh, but well, you're gonna look that up. Find that for me. I am going to look that up. Yeah, so this is all um and and a lot of the constellation have to do with the women. So she talks about here the crown of twelve spar stars again above the head of the apocalyptic woman are the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Clothed with the sun, woman here represents the divinity of the feminine. Its spirituality as opposed to the materiality of the masculine. For in Egypt, the sun as the giver of life was regarded as feminine, while the moon, shining by reflected light off the sun, was looked upon as masculine. With her feet upon the moon, woman corresponding to and representing the soul, portrays the ultimate triumph of spiritual things over material things, over the body, which man or the male principle corresponds to and represents. Can we follow astrology? Can we just you know, materialism? It's ruined us.
SPEAKER_01:And this is sending my brain off to um the moon and the sun and tarot. So the sun is about creative energy and like external creation and growth, and the moon reflects your inner thoughts. Ooh, that's in like tarot. But mind you, tarot is like new, oh is compared compared to like the Bible. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Now I was assuming that the tarot was directly related to the Kabbalah. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01:Tarot's tarot's like kind of I'm like no. No, but it matches. Well, I was right. I thought it was, I was gonna say like three or four hundred years, but it is um 580 years old.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that is not old.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's not that old.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. No idea. Absolutely. But the reason it made me think that is because even as we're reading symbols, if we're reading like, so she's reading these symbols from a 19th century perspective, this stuff can flip. Like, even the re you know, like what people thought um Scorpio represented. I mean, that could have changed over time. Okay. We could not, we don't really, you don't totally know. So even the idea of trying to be like, that's what this means, and crisis coming back on September 24th. I mean, where'd you get that? That's that's old news. So I had this. There was a war. Okay, this is I had this whole paragraph underlined, if I may. Go ahead. There was a war treat yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Treat yourself.
SPEAKER_01:This is MJG. There was a war in heaven, the wonderful progress and freedom of women as women within the last half century, despite the false interpretation of the Bible by the church and by masculine power, is the result of this great battle, and all attempts to destroy her will be futile. Who's who's she quoting? This is another sometimes these ladies do a quote as if we're it's like in popular culture.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:Anyway, sorry. Despite the false interpretation of the Bible by the church and by masculine power is the result of this great battle, and all attempts to destroy her will be futile. Her day and hour have arrived. The dragon of physical power over her, the supremacy of material things in the world, as depicted by the male principle, are yielding to the spiritual represented by women. The eagle, true bird of the sun, an emblem of our own great country, gives his wings to her aid, and the whole earth comes to help her against her destroyer. So she's like, You guys have read this all wrong. Revelation is about women being like, actually, we're taking the power back. We're taking the power back, and the power is in spirituality and not your materialistic bullshit. Yeah. So maybe Revelation will be our guidebook for these times. Actually, no, because I'd be like, I'll be like, you guys can read this, but you have to know numerology, astrology, astronomy. You have to be me to understand it.
SPEAKER_02:Um the writers of the Bible, this is ECS. Okay. The writers of the Bible are prone to make women the standard for all kinds of abominations. And even motherhood, which should be held most sacred, is used to illustrate the most revolting crimes. Gross. Um, this is the I just this whole last thing is fantastic. Um why because this this wraps it up, because this actually is the end. And actually, if you're listening to the Audible book, they're like, thank you. I will now recommend you a new book. So they don't have our appendix.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, which we'll talk about in a minute. But yeah, I can't believe we shouldn't just pause. This is like the it only took us 700 months to do this.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01:This is it. This is the end. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:This is the end. This is the final, this is your period on the woman's Bible. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And it did by the way, this episode did come with a call to action.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, it did. Yes, it did. And here, here it is. Why so many different revising committees of bishops and clergymen should have retained this book as holy and inspiring to the ordinary reader is a mystery. It does not seem possible that the divine John could have painted these dark pictures of the struggles of humanity with the spirit of evil. Verily, we need an exparrogated edition of the Old and New Testament. So they said, right now, we need to clear up this Bible, get rid of all this crap, and make it correct before they are fit to be placed in the hands of our youth to be read in the public schools and in the theological seminaries, especially if we wish to inspire our children with proper love and respect for the mothers of the race.
SPEAKER_01:Any questions? So, how do we transition from the mystical mystery of revelation to telling you all to share our podcast so everyone can get caught up before we go over the extensive appendix section of the women's Bible? We just did it! We just transitioned. So yes. In fact, I don't even know, I haven't even realized so we just finished the book. Well, I mean, we didn't finish it. What we're seeing I mean, we did though. We finished the Bible.
SPEAKER_02:The murder and and what was released, the meat and the potatoes.
SPEAKER_01:But we've got a side dish for y'all. Oh, I love a side dish. A little side dish. Side dishes always make it. Yeah. The women's bible, the copy that I have, or that we have, has a whole they call it an appendix, which usually is boring. Is boring or whatever, but this is like letters that Elizabeth has received and her responses to stuff, and some other commentators write about how they did research. So we, our next episode, we're going to be going through some or all of that. We'll see we'll see how that breaks up.
SPEAKER_02:And I love that because it's it's not gonna be like the Bible verses, it's gonna be like people of the time going, dang girl. What is this that you talk about?
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. So it's gonna be a real kicker. Oh, I can't wait. Yeah, it's good because I hate to, I don't like when you go through a big thing that's just abrupt. If we were just like, and thank you, bye.
SPEAKER_02:And thank you. That's the last episode. Peace. Right.
SPEAKER_01:But these but these episodes will live on forever. Yeah, you can re-listen to them. You can re-listen to them like we have to tell you. I bet you have already listened to all of our episodes several times. I know. I could, you know, we can see. Yes. We love you all. Well we're like on the wish. Yeah, we're so until our next episode, ask yourself, what would I do if a dragon showed up right now? What if you were to step on the moon? Ooh, yeah. Just get mystical this week.
SPEAKER_02:That'll help you. Get mystical. Just get mystical. Ask yourself, what would Jezebel do?
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. And report back. Tell me.
SPEAKER_02:Not Jezebel. Do it, lady. Get it. Come on, it's time. It's our time to rise. Peace out. Peace. In the Middle East.
