Hey fellow GTers, those of us like our spirituality with a twist. So we are in the midst of what is kind of like a bigger series, the America what the hell series as we kind of try to help people uh figure out where the country where we live kind of implodes on itself from the inside. And I think other people do things like news of the week, but us being the kind of podcast that we are, we're trying to give people bigger picture ideas that I think help inform what we're looking at in the world around us, but also are kind of like bigger picture ideas, too. So, we're in the midst of a thing called the emotional plague. This comes from the great and quirky psychologist one Wilhelm Reich. And this is his idea that societies and cultures can have these sort of psychologically toxic ideas that are in a sense kind of contagious. You know, they spread around and all of a sudden you see the whole the whole society, the whole culture kind of like infused with this pathological stuff. Wild in that he came up with this idea before social media even he was already recognizing this was a thing that happened. Um the other part of this is that uh if you haven't heard previous episodes, one of his ideas is that not only does damage to the mind, but it does damage to the body, too. And it's his idea that the body and the mind are linked in this way that you can kind of see they feed back off of one another. So if you have damage to the mind, it'll damage the body. Body damage to the body will damage the mind. And that got us into like part of our home base with this, which we've been talking, which is traditional Chinese medicine. Like that's our day jobs. And uh and you can kind of like combine these two notions. You can almost see like how the emotional plague negatively affects the way Chinese medicine thinks about the body. Our episode for today is specifically focused on the problems of the liver, which Chinese medicine ties into ideas of problems with anger. Definitely a social problem, right? So we wanted to do this one next. And then as as far as like the positive personality traits that can be undermined when you have problems with this is they talk about a problem being benevolent, a problem being magnanimous and and uh open to sharing with others. So it kind of kills those parts of the person. And you have more Okay, let me do the other thing first and I'll throw it off to Dana. So let me do the thing that I always have to do and I'll forget which is my first. if you could do the thing that everyone asked you to do, help us overcome the emotional plague of the algorithm for our little podcast. Um, so many podcasts out there, it's a crowded space, but you know, we we really try our best to bring really valuable materials out to people. So, if you can give us a shout out, either a like or positive review or share the podcast with other people and just kind of help us get the word out of what we're trying to do, that would be greatly appreciated. Um, anyways, you have some more you want to say about the general concept of that before we dive into the specifics?

Uh, no.

No, you're good. All right.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess the only thing I'll say, and we'll probably get to it when we get in it, is that like, you know, the the the liver or the gallbladder also, um, both are part of the wood element for those of our very few Chinese medicine folks who are listening. Um, but it it not only is it When there is a disruption in that system, you will be frustrated and angry simultaneously. If you are frustrated and angry, there will be a disruption in that system. So, you mentioned it earlier that it goes kind of in both directions. I didn't say go both ways because that has sexual connotation to it and that's not what we're talking about right now.

You have to make America great again. And that's not obvious that it's making America great again either. Going both ways.

Right. Right.

Yes.

So, um, but so I guess what I'm saying is that like you can have something that you can have something in your mind that is affecting your body and like you said something in your body that is affecting your mind. You can have something that you ingest that affects your body therefore affects your mind and other way around. And so things like alcohol and and we we'll probably get into that more towards the end, but these things can certainly affect those systems. Um, which you know maybe we'll we'll I'll leave it for now. So sort of forecasting as to how or foreshadowing as to how substances or foods or lifestyles can affect this system and then those things will look very similar to many of the habits that people have. But we'll leave that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's like foreshadowing or something like that of like things to come.

Yeah. So sorry if you tuned if you're tuning out after right now, you're going to miss all the good stuff. But you know

Well, no, that's like when you really like kind of think about it, it's not it's almost like beyond going both ways. It's like you can get it from every direction or something like that, so to speak.

Yeah. Uh and not in the best sense of that word, in negative senses of that word.

Yeah. No, this not this is not a positive orgy. This is the negative one.

This is a negative angry toxic orgy.

Much worse than walking out with chlamyia or something like that. Much

worse. Yeah.

Um All right. So, what can you say about this? you know, you get anger and this whole system and uh obviously the culture is like really angry and you know, if you like look around, part of what we were talking about last episode was there are like a compassion vacuum. I think Yeah. Right. And uh now you get to the point where you're talking about like not an anger vacuum but like an anger like uh just flood right all over the place. Now one of the things I know you like to talk about Daniel is sort of like the social media aspects and the media overall is sort of an anger anger creating machine. I don't know if you want to do a little bit on that as you like to do or not but that's obviously one of the things that you know comes up a lot the whole way in which you know everything is kind of tweaked to induce these angry states.

Yeah. I mean we've talked about it many times before. So for our, you know, regular audience, sorry for the repetition, but for our new audience, I the the algorithm specifically on Facebook, but probably on Instagram as well, but I think from Facebook a little bit more, um, is designed to trap your attention. And your attention is more easily trapped when you're pissed off about things, you know, and negativity spreads so much faster than positivity. Just think about a business. you can find a business, you know, like I say, a Google business page. And I know this because, you know, I have my own uh and many of my friends who are, you know, small business owners, entrepreneurs, they have their own as well. You know, you get one or two negative reviews that really hurts. So, you kind you're you're almost like it's we don't have one of those social scores like they do in China, thankfully, you know, but through this way, we kind of do. And if you hear something negative about somebody that really outweighs all of the positive work that they've done, you know, it really really

bizarre, isn't it? On some level, it's really true, but it's bizarre that it's like that.

And so with the social media aspect that's already been keyed into long ago, long ago as to what to feed people. And so then the algorithm feeds you more what you you know what it is that they they believe you're paying attention to because that's beneficial for them to sell you ad revenue and to keep you engaged in the app because we said like we said many times before right now you know gold is booming. Okay. But what is else is he booming even more? Your attention is is on a parabolic rise. And so you'll see this in in many different ways. And the one way that I'll mention now is apps will want to keep you on their app. So they get you to quote unquote unlock things and they want to offer you stuff because there's so many places that you can put your attention. They need you to stay in their system. Not just so that they can get you to buy things or whatever. Of course, that's the end goal, but it's even larger than that. They want you to they want your attention there because the more that you're ingrained in something, the more that you're used to it, the more that it becomes a part of your life, you don't even realize its uh effect on your time, how much more time you're you're inputting onto a particular thing. And so you become closer to this, you know, enigmatic application, if you will. You know, whatever that application is, gambling or social media or whatever, you don't realize how much time you're spending on it until it's like a, you know, you're spending a lot of time on that thing. So the more in which somebody, you know, some being, right, we we'll call it the algorithm, but can keep you engaged with things, the more that they have your attention, the more that they can you do something with that. And in most cases, you're going to spend more time being pissed off than you are going to be probably watching, you know, random uh cat videos and smiling and moving on with your day. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

and that's this

Yeah. I didn't even with the apps thing. I heard a wild stat today and I didn't have a chance to fact check it but like when you know like in the gambling apps or something like that. You know, there's like statistics that kind of show that Sunday comes through and everyone loses on the football things, like domestic violence apparently just goes up. Like you can see a statistical surge like it correlates, right?

And you can tie it into like the NFL schedule and that's when everyone found out that their parlay bets all lost. And then, you know, you get this surge of like domestic violence and I again I didn't have chance to fact check it, but it fits into all of that. you know, these surges of anger that I kind of like start to be mitigated by people's engagement with these things. Um, I like little case studies. So, I happened to stumble across one and I can't remember the name of the journalist, but she was writing about her father who was like a vet. I remember if it was Korea or something like that, you know, older guy, kind of peaceful, you know, greatest generation probably kind of dude and then something happened where he got like tuned into Fox News. It's like sort of like one of those hatemongering kind of, you know, um what would you even call it? It's cultish obviously, but it's also trying to like generate all of these like emotions, right? Always trying to tweak on people's emotions.

As these outlets do, and he went to like he got more and more fanatical and he started to get like depressed and show all these problems and eventually they're just like we got to cut him off of this. So they just cut him off and he started to like renormalize back, you know, towards the person he was before. So I mean maybe that's something we can all look at. Um I'm like not pleased with the state of the world, but there is a part where all of us as spiritual beings have to like take a step back.

Yeah. reenter ourselves,

you know, maybe not avoid and tune out totally in some state of denial, but also like make sure that you don't get so, you know, um, entwined with what's happening that you, you sort of lose that part of yourself that can keep that healthy psychological frame, right?

Yeah. And to the you know to those who are you know listening who have influence on other people you know I'm you know I hosted an event on Sunday and the the majority of the people who came are healers and teachers you know massage people you know all kinds of people who they treat other people they work with other people and it's nice to see first of all it's an honor to be able to do that work with those folks who touch so many other people because indirectly I feel like I can help other people through them, which is great number one. But for those who are listening to this, you know, if you have influence over other people, it, you know, Eric and I both talk about, you know, re real life while we're on here because it's important to stay engaged because you do have to know the struggles of others. You have to I I you know, especially if you're living in this world, right? If you're going to leave this world, then it doesn't matter anymore. And I don't mean kill yourself. I mean um

renounce or something. Yeah. Yeah, renounce and just say, "Okay, I'm I'm selling everything and I'm moving on." That's what I'm talking about. But if you're going to find balance here and try and maintain yourself so that you can help to guide other people intentionally or unintentionally, you it it's it really important to try and find the enough engagement that you feel like you understand what's happening, but not so much that you lose yourself in the process because then you're not really good to other people, let alone yourself, you know? And I don't know where that line is. That line is certainly different from everybody. I think it depends on kind of how sensitive you are, you know, and how easily you can detach from stuff. So, some people can totally tune in and and then just turn their phone off, turn a TV off, whatever, and then go about their life, no problem. And they can be totally in and then not. And other people, if they see a little bit, they're like totally blown away, and they're just so energetically sensitive that it's very they get very attached very easily. And I think for those people, they have to kind of uh take their consumption down a little bit. So, I'm we're certainly can't tell anybody what to do. We're just talking. We're making a recording and people hopefully are going to listen to it at some point, you know, but this is a reminder for everybody's engagement to find a balance that you feel good that you understand or you know about what's happening in the world and you could share your compassion, but that simultaneously simultaneously it is not changing who you are in the in the process of you doing that. Yeah, I find this kind of fascinating. I had this a little bit in how I was thinking about the episode for today because when you get like if you filter it through this idea of emotional plague which is the theme of the episode right in different ways doing getting back to the anger aspects of this but you know on an individual level you sort of realize

in the context of this concept of emotional plague if you want to

be a spiritually free individual or an artistically free individual there's like certain kinds of ways if you want to be that way in the world then there's a certain certain thing on an individual where individual level where you I think you really do have to say okay I'm stepping away from this emotional plague I'm going to step away from it and it's almost like the ability to jettison whatever parts of those that we might have taken on in the course of our getting the contagions of the emotional plague

have to go right

I stumbled on a quote from Jung about this concept kind of he says well you know on the one hand psychospiritual growth comes from you know learning new things and all this kind of stuff. But I'm paraphrasing. But on the other hand, psychological stuff improvement comes from like purging the negative.

And in some ways that's a much more difficult and unpleasant process. But you have to do that, right? And

Reich's idea is that a lot of that stuff will be toxicities that are kind of around you,

right? And you have to learn how to get out of that. I think especially if you want to be a spiritual person or a creative person that like because that'll hold you back, you know, and even if you're not one of those kinds of people, it is something to be if those aren't your goals, right? If you don't identify with those kinds of things in particular, it's still something to be aware of because you get it's really a way to get kind of like sucked down into the muck of things, right? And there's an individual level. On the other hand, there's kind of a collective level of this too, right? where you know at times the emotional plague goes really really toxic and in Reich he wrote the book mass psychology of fascism about this you know what happens when things go really toxic in a society and everything starts to really go darkened and when I look at him as kind of an example he's interesting because he did get that you have to like on some psychological level pull yourself away so you don't get devoured by the things around you and yet

as far as him and in terms of his life he was a pretty bold person and He kept like communicating and standing up to powerful forces saying okay no we have to keep you know trying to build more awareness build more education build more tolerance and love and whatever more knowledge right and ultimately you know we didn't talk a lot about his story in these episodes but you know he gets put in president of the United States and he dies right as part of the emotional plague in the United States you know dies in the 1950s so you know people go after him right for doing this He's kind of martyed in a way.

Um,

but you know, we're in this kind of weird time where like we're all going to have to figure out, okay, I think we we do have to stay engaged somehow, right? Otherwise, we've been wouldn't be doing these episodes, right? What would the point, right? we do some do something that was escapism, but we're trying to not do escapism, but we're also trying not to to also make the point of like there's an individual level of like spiritual development that involves working on oneself still and purging this out while you try to keep one foot in the world of like let me try to make a difference to help during a time that's like chaotic and toxic.

Right.

Right. So, we're still out there trying to make a difference. I guess that's trying to be a bodhicatta.

Well, that Eric, that's

right. That's the Buddhist idea, right?

Who who said spiritual growth through learning or purging? Who said that? You you just said that.

I was I was talking about Carl Jung.

Yeah. I mean that I you know that's a that's a deep not to belleaguer the point, but that's like a real deep observation.

Yeah.

Because I I I feel like I know a few people who, you know, learn through purging and those are people are pretty hardcore.

You know what I mean? like those are those are those are medicine work kind of people you know what I'm saying um but then people have this idea that like they're going to they're going to grow like through learning you know and there's a lot of iconography in the Buddhist tradition obviously we don't have to name every all of them because that was just not worth worth our time but um there's a lot of that because that's almost like taking on new things there's a dopamine aspect to that right? That you're you're always being inundated with something new. Let me learn something new. Let me learn something new. And maybe this is just a kind of like a a moment of realization for me. That's definitely what I do. Always trying to learn maybe not new things, but deeper things less much less than the the purggation. Much less

because purging is hard.

Yeah. Purging. Purging requires effort.

And in a weird way, it's like kind of I know it's a strange way to put it, but in a weird way, it's kind of like less sexy.

Oh, it's way less sexy. It's hard work. I mean, I you know, I lead these breath work and meditation workshops, you know, where there's it's highly highly highly cathartic for sure. And um people are really exhausted afterwards. They feel very relaxed but and and some of which are in beautifully deep states of samadei without you know without a ton of meditation at all actually. They just they're just there. You know people are yelling around them. There's drums and gongs being played and they're like, you know, not asleep but definitely not awake and not bothered by anything and that comes from all that work. So, I don't know. That's just a

We ran our we ran our G&T retreat together earlier in the year and you could get to those places, right?

So, for you know, for people who are listening, obviously this is um a kind of discussion that you're not going to hear on TV. You're not going to hear it from your favorite influencer. It it's a it's a conversation that I don't even know if that that gets had even unless you're on a retreat really that or or taking some uh education you know via uh generally like East Asian spiritual traditions where enlightenment is the central focus not an aspect of the teaching. It is the focus and then whatever teaching you have is is moving you towards that final path towards that path towards that state you know and it may be windy or there may be multiple paths but that's the goal you know what I'm saying that that is the goal of we we've talked about this but I think it's been a while that is the goal of the the overarching we talked about this before we went on mic Eric and sorry audience for always doubling back but like that is when you have um a northstar, if you will, of something that transcends the mundane. Then the

and I'll use this for your word, Eric, this abstract view of the potentiality of life is not parallel to most people. Okay? meaning that the things that they value and you value are not going to be different and similar. So Eric might value electronics cuz he really loves them, but I might value cars cuz that's just they're cool for me and but they're both worldly that we can save our money and buy. That's not what you know and you just put fill in the blanks on those things and make them individual for you or your brother or sister or friends or whatever. This is different. What I'm saying is this doesn't line up with those things. Yes, of course the people would love to be on retreat in a beautiful place and and be able to take time off and relax and learn. Yes. But their overarching life theme is very different than other people. And therefore, they're able to kind of like roll with the punches in a different way than those who don't have that north star of enlightenment or of a deep realization or of deep compassion or you know some of these things that are sort of transcendent of just everyday experience. And I think that that is not talked about. It's not talked about at all. Period. Because don't nobody really care. It's heaven, hell, God, no God. These are the questions. That's kind of it, you know. And then if there is a God, then which one? What's their name? I'm sorry. What's his name? Because it's never there. They don't like that. God definitely most people's eyes has a penis, you know, even which makes no sense.

Penal God. Penal God.

Yeah. Penal God. you know and and never is there any ever real uh responsibility put on the individual to do development or to experience growth. And when you know you take this kind of desire upon yourself, your life changes and the way that you see things fitting into it changes. So I'm not trying to influence anybody to change their life or do anything else. I'm just saying that, you know, Eric and I and I'm sure many of our listeners do share this particular aspect of of understanding and and and ways of being, meaning enlightenment or realization, however you want to call it, you know, as kind of like the the light that illuminates our particular candle that's lighting the path to where we're going.

I like it because Young had I dug up the quote because I had a little snap on it from my phone when I came came across it. So he says one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light. Perfect. But by making the darkness conscious. That's a mix. You do kind of gather light and purge darkness. But okay, he's making a point.

Uh but he does say the latter procedure, the making the darkness conscious, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.

I like it. I thought that one cracked me up. Therefore not popular. Yeah. And I think as far as the emotional plague thing, I think what Reich is talking about is then you have to get a little bit of like have like that attitude like I'm going to target not my fellow citizens. I'm going to target instead those aspects of emotional plague inside of me that I can then recognize as being problematical and I'll start to get rid of them.

Right?

And then that sense and this is goes deep. This is like Jung's talking about it, but like every dowist or tantrica eventually makes this point, you know, Zen person, all of our shaman, all of our favorite people will ultimately do this to say, yeah, you got to target those aspects and then like target those aspects of like emotional plague inside yourself. And sometimes you can source them back and you can say, oh, that's a cultural thing from here or there that's kind of toxic. Some of it's personal, some of it's beyond just our own personal thing, you know, that are issues that are kind of like indicative of the place where we live and we know are kind of bad things that we should get rid of. So, you know, that's that's the that's the take-home. Mhm. How do you want to do this, Daniel? We'll end up having like two episodes on anger. How do you want to handle it? You want to call this a thing or should we

Let's call it a thing. And uh you know, we'll get to the anger stuff next time just because we don't have the time. You know, in 10 minutes, we're not going to be able to knock it out.

Yeah, there's so much anger. We're not going to be able to

There's so much anger. So, so sorry if you feel frustrated that we didn't get to the things that we talked about, you know, I don't know, do some deep breathing, you know what I mean? No, I think the thing in the end of this deal is that we did get to was whether it's anger or any of these emotions like there's a way in which you can see it as like a personal thing. I've got work with them myself.

I'll target emotional plague inside myself. I'll

I'll identify those things I feel are toxic within me and I'll target them.

Right? I might even study my culture and society to go, you know what, I don't like that in this culture and society. Yeah,

I think I got some of that in me. I'm going to target that and I'm going to work my way through that. I'm going to eliminate that,

right? And then the other side is like what we're getting to also like these things can be kind of like epidemic.

Emotional plague. And so we're trying to talk on two levels. So maybe it is nice that we set this episode up to kind of address that.

Yeah, I agree.

And more anger next week.

Yeah, for sure. Super pissed.

Yeah, don't worry. It's not going to get any less angry by next week.

Yeah, I know.

There's still going to be anger next week. I predict next week America will still be angry.

Let's bet on that.

How odds can I get on that? Zero.

Zero odds. All right. Thanks, Daniel.

Yeah. No, Eric, thanks so much. And audience, thank you for tuning in.

Uh, you know, we appreciate everybody who, you know, consumes our products. There's a lot of things that you could be putting your attention on at this point. And, you know, uh, we don't charge anything for obviously for what we do. So, uh, if you like our work, like, comment, subscribe, uh, send us an email. uh the Jin or Jyn and Tantragmail.com. You could hit us up on the gram at the jin and tantra podcast uh you know or if you know us personally what's up say what's up you know share your love your hate your indifference it matters kind of uh but we appreciate it so because it takes time and and that's a valuable resource apparently uh for those who understand time to be only in one direction. So, uh, yeah. So, thank you everybody for tuning in and for, uh, for your effort. For Eric, this is Daniel. We'll catch you guys in the next one.