Content & Media
The Symbolic World provides content which attempts to awaken a new symbolic vision of the world. Jonathan Pageau explores traditional symbolism from religious imagery as well as other legends and stories. He also uses symbolic patterns to interpret the modern world, its cultural manifestation and historical movements. Most content featured here appears as YouTube videos, podcasts made by Jonathan as well as guest appearances on other platforms.
A Universal History: History through the Symbolic Lens | with Richard Rohlin
I interview Richard Rohlin, philologist and co-host of the Amon Sûl podcast. We talk about the “universal history” – ancient people understood themselves to part of fundamentally the same world approachable through different identities and particularities in time. The modern world has lost this natural coherence and instead sees identity and narrative as tyrannical and/or arbitrary. Richard and I talk about hagiography, the Middle Ages as our cultural backdrop, synchronism and how we can rediscover a shared and coherent narrative by understanding historical events symbolically.
Evil, Enlightenment and Easter
Happy Easter! In this article I explain how Easter makes the Christian narrative real and answers the problem of evil.
April Patron Video: What Makes an Inverted Pentagram Satanic?
This the Patron only video for April 2021. I look at the pentagram and inverted pentagram, at examples in Christian art, in magic and we explore why the inverted pentagram is a good and coherent image of what Satanism represents.
April 2021 Q&A
Montero and WandaVision: How Satanism Functions
In today’s video I discuss the symbolic coherence in Lil Nas X’s controversial music video titled Montero (Call Me By Your Name) and Marvel Studios’ miniseries WandaVision. These timely productions make use of powerful and coherent symbolic imagery that can help us better understand what Satanism and witchcraft are and exactly how they subvert their narrative source: a broken Christianity.
The Tripartite Symbolism of Man
One hundred men stand solemnly in a perfect circle. All eyes are focused on the single man, about 40, a tall and athletic viking of a man. He is called forward, and is blessed and anointed by the elder. In this ritual, he is to share a commitment of purpose from his soul with the circle of men. He steps towards the blazing fire and falls to his knees…
Environmentalism, the Tower of Babel and the Disintegration of Culture | with Paul Kingsnorth
In this video I interview Paul Kingsnorth, an English writer and thinker. We talk about environmentalism, the Tower of Babel, how he came to Orthodox Christianity, the decline of Christianity in the West and our current cultural crises, and finally, the counter-intuitive solution of true selflessness that Christ offers mankind.
The Tower of Babel and the Disintegration of Culture | with Paul Kingsnorth
In this video I interview Paul Kingsnorth, an English writer and thinker. We talk about environmentalism, the Tower of Babel, how he came to Orthodox Christianity, the decline of Christianity in the West and our current cultural crises, and finally, the counter-intuitive solution of true selflessness that Christ offers mankind.
A Call to Christian Artists
This is a transcript of a video from a few weeks ago, given for the Breath and the Clay's 2021 event. Thanks to Norm Grondin for the transcription. We are at a crossing. Can you feel this? Can you touch the fear and dizziness of our moment? Can you sense the ground...
Monkey Man | The Emergence of Chimeras in Our Culture
In this video we look at the meaning of hybrids: mixtures between categories of identity. With emerging technologies it’s become possible to artificially create hybrids of different types of animals, or even to interbreed between humans and animals. A recent development at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California has sparked public debate given their experimentation with a monkey-human hybrid embryo. The ancient word for such a hybrid is chimera. Like the sphinx and cherubim these mixed beings indicate a breakdown and confusion of identity and act as a buffer between existence and non-existence. What can the (quite literal) emergence of chimeras tell us about the state of our world today?