Articles
On Lot’s Life after Sodom and the Dangers of Symbolic Thinking
The Lord begins His commandments to Moses with “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:2–3). Ergo the most foundational, most important distinction one...
The Transformative Power of the Mother’s Embrace
A Reflection on The Divine Feminine, Hugs, and The Lion King Reflecting on my relationship with my mom during some conversations with others from the Symbolic World around Mother’s Day last year, I made a mental note to collect some thoughts that surfaced on the...
Nassim Taleb’s Empirical Symbolism
In his book The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb makes a powerful argument for symbolism, along with a powerful critique. He doesn’t quite use that language, but a frequent reader of this blog (or a frequent listener of John Vervaeke) would immediately understand the...
Jonathan & St Maximus vs JP & St Thomas: Is Symbolism Dangerous?
Jonathan and JP have a cordial debate about how to approach symbolism and whether symbolism is dangerous.
The Inverted World and Saint Christopher in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
(For my narrative analysis of Majora’s Mask, read here.) The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was released in April 2000, to both commercial and critical success. It is one of the only direct sequels in the series, and is the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of...
On the Symbolism of ESG
One of the more curious phenomena of the West’s meaning crisis has been the turn of CEOs and business school professors towards the use of explicitly theological language. The Financial Times and World Economic Forum are full of talk of highest principles, generative...
Heaven and Earth
The following is a translated and transcribed version of a french podcast recorded in March 2021 by Jonathan Pageau and Jean-Philippe Marceau. Thanks to Norm Grondin for the translation, transcription and edition. JP: Welcome to this new episode of The Symbolic Life...
Religious Symbolism and the Modern City, Part Two: Capitalism and Corporations
Preamble The previous part of this article accounted for the evolution of the city in the West since the sixteenth century, a period loosely described as ‘modernity’ since it succeeds the medieval period, the Protestant Reformation, and the Renaissance. It traced the...
A Statute Forever: Reading Leviticus 16 Symbolically.
Introduction In my last article I suggested Saint Ambrose's approach to the Old Testament as a way of deepening engagement with the Scriptures. The task that remains is to apply this style of reading to specific texts. This practice will both illustrate the richness...
On the Symbolic Meaning of Domes, part five
This is the fifth and final part of a five-part article. The Plan of the Article:((I call this kind of structure a “ksiasmus.” It is related to the chiasmus, but whereas chiasmus is named after the Greek letter chi (Χ) because of its inverse parallel structure, a...