In Ep. 32 Hansel takes a well deserved snooze while we contemplate the difference between Plan A and Plan B
Part 1 [04:40] - In which we do some late night thinking about Plan A
Part 2 [08:43] - In which we do some more thinking about Plan A, and find out what Plan B is all about
Part 3 [17:59] - In which the Grimms bring up a famous little point of Reformed theology
[brace yourselves!]
🎶 velveteen melody 🎶
[hello — hello? — HELLO!]
[the following presentation is intended only for immature audiences]
[Hi!]
[in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth]
😇 🎶 heavenly choir 🎶 😇
["And God said 'Let there be F-Bombs' — And they were good — And they multiplied — right here, in this podcast"]
🤖 F F F F F 🤖
🧨 🧨 🧨 [KABOOM] 💥︎ 💥︎ 💥︎
🎶 🎹 dramatic organ music 🎹 🎶
🎶 🔔 deep church bell 🔔 🎶
Bless me fader, for I have sinned, it’s been about tree weeks since my last episode
[who cares?]
well, I suppose my 2, 3 listeners do...
[fuggedaboudit!]
alright, alright...
🎶 ANACHRONIST 🎶
hey there, welcome back to the Hansel and Gretel Code...
this here is episode 32
[are you kidding me, I don’t have time for this. this is, this is literally ridiculous. I don't have time for this.]
[why are you so anxious to get away?]
In our last few episodes we took a deep dive into the symbolism of Hansel’s Moon Rocks and found ourselves immersed in the world of Hermeticism...
and that’s because those simple little pebbles Hansel collected by the light of the Moon have everything to do with the 3 so-called Hermetic, or Occult arts: Alchemy, Astrology, and Theurgy...
and it was our lengthy exploration of Theurgy, in particular, that led us to discover the true identity of Hermes Trismegistus — you know, Thrice Greatest Hermes ...
[hip, hip, hooray...!]
yeah... we even discovered the origin of the Magic 8-ball...
[that ball knows everything]
and well, the Magic 8-Ball may know everything but it can’t tell us exactly where each line of the fairytale is gonna take us...
so let’s get going and listen in as our storyteller extraordinaire, Jürgen Lexow reads the next line of the story... then I’ll chime in with the English translation...
[okee dokee]
just remember, we’re working with the original, 1810 manuscript version of the story...
although I AM gonna point out major revisions the Grimms made over the course of 45 years and 7 editions, because the symbolism we uncover in those revisions will not only have serious implications for Grimms Scholarship, but they’ll pretty much mark our exploration of Hansel and Gretel as a groundbreaking enterprise...
[alright already, get on with it!]
alright, alright...
but first a word from our sponsor:
[spaghetti]
[thank you]
Darauf ging er wieder zu seinem Schwesterchen ins Bett, und schlief ein.
After this, he returned to bed with his sister and fell asleep.
well, despite the fact that fairytales make for great bedtime reading... I just hope that last line didn’t uh, you know, uh, act as a subliminal suggestion...
😴 [Z Z Z ZZZ...] 😴
ha, ha... very funny...
*🎶*🎶*
PART ONE [04:40]
Teil eins: In which we do some late night thinking about Plan A
[🤖 do not panic. enter the trains in an orderly manner. do not try to run. do not try to escape. do not resist. 🤖 ]
[yikes!]
There’s a saying in Chinese Medicine that translates roughly as: “Poor digestion, poor sleep.”
[消化不好睡眠不好 xiāohuà bù hǎo shuìmián bù hǎo]
[eww. well isn’t it just Mr. Fancy Words]
yeah, yeah...
So while you and I might have had some difficulty digesting all of the symbolism in Hansel’s Moon Rocks, Hansel himself had no trouble at all.
Having made his secret — or shall we say, occult — preparations for an easy return to the house of the father, he reconnects with his sister and falls into the sleep of the just and blameless and brave.
[pirate says: that’s lovely, that is]
I probably tired the poor guy out with that busy excursion into the rabbit hole of Theurgy, so let’s just let him sleep while we ponder this ridiculously simple sentence of the fairytale.
[alright]
right away, I think we can all recognize the value of sleeping on a problem...
[no sir!]
yeah, well, better that, than doing what Hansel’s father did... and what plenty of us do... you know, tossing and turning all night long... expending all sorts of unnecessary psychic energy worrying about something...
of course, sometimes that’s easier said than done...
[yes sir!]
so, if worry is the product of a Thinking Function gone into over-drive, I don’t think we’re wrong in seeing the Father as a symbol of the Thinking Function
[maybe]
well, the main job of the Thinking Function is to apply logic to a problem and come up with a logical solution
[of course]
except sometimes, there IS no logical solution, or at least one that doesn’t create its own set of problems...
and in the case of our fairytale famine, the only logical options are: starving to death as a family or killing (and possibly eating) the children...
[ugh! ew!]
so what did our poor, humble woodcutter decide to do...?
[what?]
he took the counsel of his wife, whose practical, albeit narcissistic, solution tends to mark her as the Sensate Function...
[how?]
well the job and strength of the Sensate Function is to take a clear and objective view of the physical facts...
so it was obvious to her that in the face of those facts, the only practical solution was Plan A: get rid of the kids... meaning, get rid of those extra mouths to feed...
[boo]
see, Plan A is always skewed towards me first — survival of the fittest — and survival at any cost...
so Logic — the Thinking Function — paired up with the Practical and clear-eyed Sensate Function and chose Plan A... and that was, of course, the smart move...
[it's the smart move]
[oh brother]
*🎶*🎶*
PART Two [08:43]
Teil zwei: In which we do some more thinking about Plan A, and find out what Plan B is all about
[it's all complicated]
So, in most instances, Plan A really IS the smart move...
and while we tend to call our second and third options Plan B and Plan C, we’re still just talking about logical options... which really means they’re all just sub-sets of Plan A...
normally, in simple matters, none of those logical options involve a guilt trip or taking somebody for a ride...
[hello, Carlo]
[ahem]
but when we’re up against the wall, or stuck between a rock and a hard place, that’s when desperation sets in, and as logical and practical as Plan A is... it most often comes to us as an offer we can’t refuse...
[uh oh]
yeah, and that’s because it usually involves someone taking US for a ride...
[leave the gun. take the cannolis]
we all know that desperate times call for desperate measures...
[naturally]
so not only is that the time we most need Plan B... it’s the only time we’re forced to even consider it...
[agreed]
but what I’m calling Plan B is NOT one of those logical options... in fact, it’s something that can only be labeled as Illogical... or better yet, Irrational... crazy even... because Plan B...
Plan B calls for Intuition...
[a confused what?]
you heard me... Plan B calls for Intuition... and of course that’s the kind of situation this fairytale family is in... a situation that calls for Plan B and Intuition...
[you can escape the situation]
uh, no... Plan B has nothing to do with escape... instead, it has everything to do with transformation... because it means going through the situation and finding yourself changed by having listened to and followed your Intuition...
[now well that sounds like grade A bullshit]
aha, said by a true advocate of Plan A...
and whaddya know, we’ve just witnessed Hansel hatching Plan B and making preparations to carry it out...
[really?]
yup... and if Hansel really is symbolic of our own Intuition, this sentence of the fairytale is telling us we can trust our Intuition to come through for us... ESPECIALLY when we find ourselves out of good logical options...
[okay, now what?]
so we’ve just been made privy to the plans of Intuition... or at least the preparations Intuition is making for us... but that’s hardly ever the case in real life...because we normally figure our Intuition is fast asleep...
[yup!]
yet the reality is that Intuition is on the job although most obviously so when Logic goes to sleep, which is to say when we stop thinking and worrying... which normally only happens when we fall asleep (or meditate)...
[this is really confusing for me]
see, once we’ve done our due diligence and given our logical Thinking Function and our clear-eyed, practical Sensate Function a chance to come up with Plan A... that’s when it’s time to back off and patiently wait for Intuition to present us with Plan B...
[I’m sorry, what?]
hey, by waiting, I don’t mean procrastinating or letting ourselves get paralyzed by fear...
I’m talking attentive waiting...
Intuitive waiting...
in fact, what I’m talking about is Alchemical waiting...
[now, just whadda we mean by that?]
In medicine, it’s called Tincture of Time, and believe it or not it’s an especially powerful surgical tool...
[huh?]
hey, surgeons are best known for attacking a problem by grabbing a knife and cutting... right?
[precisely]
sure, when you’re a hammer, every problem is a nail... even when it’s not... and that, of course, can sometimes make a bad situation worse...
[definitely]
but a surgeon with plenty of experience and even just a dash of wisdom knows that in some cases, the body knows best, and will start healing itself... and while surgery may still be necessary, Tincture of Time can allow things to improve enough for an eventual operation to be properly successful...
[ooh]
***
shout out to Dr. Arjun Gupta who taught me this valuable lesson in my first few months of residency, back in 1980...
***
in Zen this is known as Wu Wei. Active non-intervention... letting the grass grow by itself.
and that means giving our Intuition the space and time it needs to sort things through and come up with a creative solution to a really tough problem — a solution that logic is otherwise powerless to come up with on its own...
[ah so]
In Alchemy, this is known as waiting for the Third Thing.
[what did you say that was called?]
well, in theory, Alchemy means waiting for two equal and opposite things to combine and resolve themselves into something new... a Third Thing
Normally (and logically), we think the only way for Opposites to resolve themselves is to cancel each other out (-1 & +1 = 0) either that or one side is gonna win and the other side is gonna lose...
[game over]
🎶 game over sound 🎶
But Alchemy is no game... and it’s certainly not a zero sum game...
instead of cancelling each other out, Alchemy allows for opposites to combine and produce something completely unexpected and amazingly valuable...
[are you crazy much?]
The fact that logic dictates otherwise is one of the main reasons that Alchemy was (and is) considered an activity for fools, heretics and, of course, dreamers.
see, as one of the 3 Hermetic Arts, Alchemy really means applying our Intuition to a problem... which itself means attentively waiting for a solution that at first glance is totally illogical, and would otherwise be, literally, unthinkable...
and that requires more than just patience... it requires confidence (or faith) in our Intuition... and I think you know from experience, when it comes to patience and Intuition neither of them is something our culture knows how to provide or to nurture.
[true, dat]
so the next time you’re in dire straits, you have to know that Intuition is on the job... and when it shows up to Consciousness, it’s gonna offer you something wild and crazy... it’s gonna offer you Plan B
yup...
Plan B is always the scary option...
[oh no!]
oh yeah...bthat’s because Plan B, means abandoning logic and taking a huge leap of faith...
🎶 🔔 deep church bell 🔔 🎶
👻 [yell] 👻
*🎶*🎶*
PART THREE [17:59]
Teil drei: In which the Grimms bring up a famous little point of Reformed theology
[certs is a candy mint! certs is a breath mint! Stop! you're both right]
[ah, say halleluja! yeah, say halleluja!]
[ahem]
over the course of 45 years — and through 7 editions of their collection — the Grimms made plenty of revisions to the original story of Hansel and Gretel... the most obvious being their initial polishing up of the manuscript version, AND changing its title...
and the line we’re dealing with in this episode wasn’t altered all that much... not until — the 5th edition, in 1843, when Wilhelm — the brother responsible for most, if not all of the editing — made significant changes to just about every line of the story, including this one...
so here’s that revision:
Dann gieng er wieder zurück, sprach zu Grethel „sei getrost, liebes Schwesterchen und schlaf nur ruhig ein, Gott wird uns nicht verlassen,“ und legte sich wieder in sein Bett.
Then he went back and said to Grethel, "Be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in peace, God will not forsake us," and he lay down again in his bed.
👏 short applause 👏
the only change Wilhelm made to the first edition of 1812, was the little detail of Hansel confidently telling his sister to rest easy... then in 1843 he made one final change by adding that extra business of God not forsaking them...
[yeah, so what?]
well, once again, the Grimms insisted on bringing an apparently Christian God into the picture, and in this line, they directly name Him as the source of Hansel's confidence.
and that makes perfect sense...
[oh absolutely]
well, right, it certainly makes sense culturally...
see it’s highly unlikely the Grimms understood Hansel to be symbolic of Intuition, and that’s because they were probably unaware of their own Intuition... after all, they had their own, conservative Calvinist faith to rely on... and religious faith in God is the necessary cultural substitute for faith in Intuition...
[oh really?]
well, yeah...
so I gotta say, having been educated by Jesuits — who made sure never to teach us anything about Protestant theology that wasn’t otherwise derogatory — I wasn’t too familiar with Calvinist or Reformed Theology,
[uh, excuse you]
yeah well, I thought maybe the Grimms were just implying that God helps those who help themselves...
[yeah...]
but here’s where it gets interesting, because what little I now know of Calvinism can be summed up in a couple of sentences on predestination from the Wikipedia article on Max Weber’s famous book: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism...
[(a slightly exasperated) oh boy, oh boy, oh boy]
hey, wait, wait... check this out:
...from the beginning God chose some people for salvation and others for damnation. so for Calvin's followers it (was) an absolute duty to believe that (you were) chosen for salvation... (and so any) lack of self-confidence was evidence of insufficient faith and (therefore) a sign of damnation.
😱 😱 😱 scream 😱 😱 😱
[ahem]
what Max Weber was saying was that for Calvinists like the Grimms, self-confidence took the place of an assurance of God's grace and salvation... that had previously been supplied by the Catholic Church and its priests.
[that’s it!]
right? that makes it obvious why Wilhelm Grimm decided to Baptize Hansel into the Calvinist Faith and give him such sang-froid and confidence... not to mention the faith of Job...
although unlike Job, Hansel doesn't take his suffering lying down... (not metaphorically)... he’s made sure to do something about Salvation for himself and his sister before settling down to take a nice confident snooze.
[oh wow, man]
In our next episode, well, we move on to the next line or two of the fairytale as Hansel and Gretel get woke...
[WTF?]
I mean...they get a big wake-up call...
[that’s more like it!]
so, just a reminder that I don’t got no sponsor, and I’m not looking for one... but I do gotta link to that buy me a coffee outfit, so if youse guys wanna support my work with fairytales, dere’s a link in da shownotes AND on da webpage...
you do know where, doncha?
[no!]
yeah, I didn’t think so
[visit us on the web @]
betweenthelines.xyz
alrighty then... ciao a tutti...
🎶 buggly freestyle melody 🎶
[goodbye]
got a question, or just want to say hi...?
*Chapter Titles read by Anna Jacobsen*
*Original German Fairytale Reading by Jürgen Lexow*
*Librivox recording of Hansel and Gretel (auf Deutsch) read by Stephan Gambke*
*Librivox recording of Hansel and Gretel (in English) read by Bob Neufeld*
Music Credits
*🎶*🎶* Bleeping Demo by Kevin MacLeod of filmmusic.io
🎶 Anachronist 🎶 by Kevin MacLeod and licensed under filmmusic.io/standard-license
kristo's awesome Peanut Gallery
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@00:22 "...immature audiences" courtesy of cognito perceptu and freesound.org
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@01:09 "who cares?" courtesy of ballOOnhead and freesound.org
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@01:15 "fuggedaboudit!" - Tony Lasagna
@01:30 "I don't have time for this..." courtesy of buggly and freesound.org
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@02:45 "that ball knows everything" - Nelson Muntz
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@03:54 "thank you" - Freddy Benson
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PART ONE / Teil eins @04:40
@04:48 🤖 “Plan A: do not resist...” 🤖 courtesy of Airborne80 and freesound.org
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@05:00 "Yikes!" courtesy of jorickhoofd and freesound.org
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@05:10 消化不好睡眠不好 - xiāohuà bù hǎo shuìmián bù hǎo - Poor Digestion, Poor Sleep
@05:14 "...Mr. Fancy Words" courtesy of cognito perceptu and freesound.org
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@05:45 "Pirate says...lovely" courtesy of Anzbot and freesound.org
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@06:33 "Yes Sir!" courtesy of theuncertainman and freesound.org
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@06:46 "maybe" courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@07:21 "ew!" courtesy of isabellaquintero97 and freesound.org
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@07:27 "what?" courtesy of Roses1401 and freesound.org
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@08:04 "boo! (couple of people)" courtesy of jayfrosting and freesound.org
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@08:34 "the smart move" - Michael Corleone
@08:38 "oh brother!" courtesy of max_cristos and freesound.org
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PART TWO / Teil zwei @08:43
@08:54 "it's all complicated” courtesy of Roses1401 and freesound.org
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@09:28 "Hello, Carlo" - Pete Clemenza
@09:35 "ahem" courtesy of Alivvie and freesound.org
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@10:15 "naturally" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@10:49 "(confused) what...??" courtesy of Alivvie and freesound.org
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@11:06 "you can escape the situation" courtesy of Duisterwho and freesound.org
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@11:28 "...Grade A bullshit" courtesy of cookies+policy and freesound.org
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@11:47 "really...?" courtesy of juror2 and freesound.org
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@12:09 "ok, now what?” courtesy of zein.hg and freesound.org
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@13:12 "I’m sorry, what?" courtesy of Alivvie and freesound.org
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@13:34 "now, just what do we mean by that???" - Soupy Sales
@13:48 "huh...?" courtesy of Adam_N and freesound.org
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@15:06 "ah, so" - Mr. Osato
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@17:14 "true, dat..." - Omar
@17:39 "oh, no!" courtesy of AmeAngelofSin and freesound.org
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***
Plan B @17:51
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***
PART THREE / Teil drei @17:59
@18:10 "Stop! You're both right." - 3 anonymous actors
@18:16 "say halleluja!" - Don Imus
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@23:33 "that's more like it!" - Homer Simpson
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got a question, or just want to say hi...?