The Symbolic World

Dr. Martin Shaw will be a speaker at the Symbolic World Summit next year in Tarpon Springs, Florida. In this conversation we discuss pagan stories, including The Odyssey and The Iliad, our current moment in the West, the return of paganism and a desire for Kleos (imperishable glory) in modern life. We also talk about how much paganism differs from Christianity, wrestling with Scripture as a mythog...

Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick is Chief Content Officer of Ancient Faith Ministries. He has been podcasting since 2007 and is the host of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, Orthodox Engagement, and Roads from Emmaus, as well as co-host of The Lord of Spirits, The Areopagus, and Amon Sûl. I had a wonderful conversation with Fr. Andrew about his latest project, The Wolf and the Cross. This podcast series document...

Kendelle Hoyer is passionate about storytelling and art, which has been a life-long pursuit since childhood when she decided she wanted to work in animation. Since then, Kendelle has developed her craft of bringing fantastical stories to life. She has been privileged to work on feature films at major animation studios since 2008, and is currently working in Los Angeles as storyboard artist. In thi...

There is a tendency to isolate religious behavior from other human behavior, which can make religious behavior seem arbitrary or ridiculous. In this week's video, I argue that the best way to understand religion, even from a purely materialist perspective, is to understand it as an extension of other types of ritualized behavior, even those we can find among animals. 💻 Website and blog: http://ww...

I had a great discussion with Annie Crawford. She’s written two wonderful articles for the Symbolic World Blog and is offering a course on C.S. Lewis’ Ransom Trilogy on the Symbolic World website. Check out our discussion about C.S. Lewis, AI, progress, gender, laughter, science, and the mystical. Sign up for Annie’s course on the C.S. Lewis Ransom Trilogy. If you sign up now you will get the reco...

I had an amazing discussion with Jacob Howland about the fundamental question of technology. We investigate from both the Biblical and ancient Greek perspectives what technology is and its effects on the human spirit. We discuss the notion of memory and recollection, Plato’s Phaedrus, the Biblical notion of garments of skin, ChatGPT and AI, work and leisure, technology’s effects on human capabilit...

Fr. Stephen De Young is writing an article for our upcoming publication, the Symbolic World Magazine, and he will also join us as a speaker for the Symbolic World Summit in February 2024. He is an amazing writer and speaker and has really helped me reach new heights in my understanding of Scripture. In this discussion we specifically discuss certain sexual and revolutionary symbolism in the Bible,...

I sat down again with the American novelist and screenwriter, Gregg Hurwitz. Gregg was part of the Daily Wire+ Exodus series discussion panel with Jordan Peterson, so I thought it was a good time for us to talk about what we took away from those discussions, Exodus, Christianity, CS Lewis, the importance of ritual, temperance, and a nuanced approach to social matters. Previous discussions: - New T...

Apologies for the audio quality. In this lecture, I take you through contemporary art history and its desperate search for a proper means of participation in a desacralized world. This talk is a follow-up to a previous video I did, The End of Desacralization in Art. This time I want to explore with you some specifics on how contemporary art has to confront alienation, power dynamics, and the minim...

In this episode of the Universal History series, Richard Rohlin presents a talk about 4 things we must take into consideration in order to think like a pre-modern Christian. This is a primer for approaching old texts like Beowulf, the topic of our upcoming online course on the Symbolic World website. Original YouTube version of this episode: https://youtu.be/CyJaaX60QKw THE BEOWULF COURSE Learn mo...

Many of the Church Fathers talk about the notion that angels have what we call "subtle bodies", that angels are not completely incorporeal (God only is completely incorporeal) but their bodies are also not circumscribed in flesh, but in mind. In this formerly patron video, I explain what the Church means with this description of angels and how it's something we can relate to in the general human e...

I sit down with Ted Lewis to discuss the work of Jacques Ellul and his views, on technology, Christianity, civilization, and transpersonal agency. Ted Lewis is Executive Director of the International Jacques Ellul Society. Full bio: https://restorativechurch.org/about-ted-lewis/ International Jacques Ellul Society: https://ellul.org/ The Ellul Forum: https://ellulforum.weebly.com/ Original YouTube...

How conspiracies work. It's time to change how we think about conspiracies and get a more nuanced view. While secretive conspiracies also exist, many of them emerge quite spontaneously and openly according to incentives and common attention. You don't have to imagine top-down control at every level of operation for the conspiracy to still be in effect. Original YouTube version of this episode: htt...

This is a discussion from the Princeton Scala Foundation conference that took place in April 2023 with the title, “The Transfiguration: Glory and Grace in the World”. I sat down with Margarita Mooney Clayton and iconographer and author Aidan Hart to discuss the Transfiguration of Christ, how God's glory fills the world, and that the ultimate goal of the spiritual life is encountering God face to f...

This is a talk I gave in April at the Scala Foundation's April 2023 conference on Art, the Sacred, and the Common Good held at the Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. Featuring in-depth discussions with artists Jonathan Pageau, Aidan Hart, and Rifle Paper Company Co-Founder Anna Bond. In this talk, I address art and its relation to memory and identity, especially as applicable...

Paula Boddington returns to the channel for us to discuss new developments in artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, ethics, healthcare, the meaning of intelligence, and how AI is exposing how some of our current ways of doing things don’t work, and maybe they haven’t been working for a while. Paula Boddington is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Healthcare at the University of West London where sh...

I had a wonderful discussion with writer Mary Harrington about conspiracies, myth and memes, the internet, artificial intelligence, and meaning-making. Mary Harrington is a columnist and editor for UnHerd and runs her own weekly Substack Reactionary Feminist. She's interested in the political and cultural side-effects of globalization, the replacement of class politics by identity politics, the jo...

This is the last video in the fairy tale series I am making public from my patron archive. This fascinating fairy tale has a lot to tell us about money, power, credit, turning death into glory, and resurrection. Support our Snow White and the Widow Queen Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/symbolicworldpress/snow-white-and-the-widow-queen YouTube version: https://youtu.be/73Olkr2y45Y...

This is the fourth video of a series of fairy tale analyses I did for my patrons a few years ago. I meditate on the meaning of the story of The Princess and the Pea. Support our Kickstarter for the Snow White storybook: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/symbolicworldpress/snow-white-and-the-widow-queen YouTube version: https://youtu.be/QRXNV_bQzWk

This is the third video of a series of fairy tale analyses I did for my patrons a few years ago. I meditate on the meaning of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and even how it relates to Jacob in the Old Testament of the Bible. Support our Kickstarter for the Snow White storybook: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/symbolicworldpress/snow-white-and-the-widow-queen YouTube version: https://yout...

This is the first of a series of videos I will release from my patron-only archive, analyzing symbolism in various fairy tales. We start with Sleeping Beauty and the meaning of being pricked by a spindle, how it might relate to a woman's cycle, sexuality, and broader patterns of change. I also give you a glimpse into how I tend to think about stories over a long time. Support our Snow White Kickst...

I catch up with Jordan Hall in light of recent developments about artificial intelligence, how people are responding to it and conceptualizing it, Ai and ChatGPT in Biblical terms, understanding the weight and ramifications of terms like "god", agency, angels and demons, wisdom, virtue, and technical knowledge and application. Jordan's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMzT-mdCqoyE...

I had an interview with the wonderful artist, Heather Pollington. Together we created a book called 'Snow White and the Widow Queen' that is currently being crowdfunding through Kickstarter. Here we take you through our creative process, the inspiration behind the illustrations, and our grand vision for this and upcoming fairy tale projects. YouTube version: https://youtu.be/DFtACMCLMwA ----------...

A discussion between me and John Vervaeke at The Quest for a Spiritual Home conference in Chino, California in May 2023. A big part of our discussion was about eschatological imagery, talking about death and sacrifice, the past, and the future, inventio, and resurrection. -Original YouTube video: https://youtu.be/s5Y73Vig_ec -My talk at the same event: https://youtu.be/jPgV2yNEkcM -Event info: htt...

My talk at The Quest for a Spiritual Home conference in Chino, California in May 2023 with Paul VanderKlay, John Vervaeke, and John Van Donk. Title: The Importance of Disappointment This was the second talk after Paul VanderKlay. Event info: https://thesymbolicworld.com/news/estuary-chino-2023-event-with-jonathan-pageau-john-vervaeke-and-paul-vanderklay -------------- 💻 Website and blog: http://w...