Mythic Mind

Andrew Snyder
  • 4.9 (29)
  • Philosophy
  • Biweekly

Pursuing wisdom through primary and secondary worlds. Mythic Mind is a conversation about stories, thought, and the inner life. We read literature and philosophy, talk through film and games when they help, and ask what these works reveal about the soul, the good life, and the Christian imagination. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis and Narnia, Kierkegaard, Beowulf, myth and fairy stories, Tolstoy, and the great books all take their turn at the table. Hosted by Andrew Snyder, Ph.D., the show gathers fellow readers and thinkers around a common table. Some episodes are lessons. Most are recorded discussions. All of them aim at seeing more clearly, not merely consuming more content. New seasons take up a shared theme across the Fellowship. Listen on your own, then join the wider conversation in the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/membership Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

  1. 1d ago

    198 - You Have Forgotten Who You Are: Boethius' Consolation, Book I

    Watch the video: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/you-have-forgotten-who-you-are-mythic-mind-ep-198/ Boethius has lost his place in the world, and Lady Philosophy tells him that he has forgotten who he is. Fortune had given him so much that he began to expect permanence from things that could never promise it. Now those things are gone, and the muses helping him turn his misery into poetry are making his despair worse. In this lesson on Book I of The Consolation of Philosophy, I follow Lady Philosophy's first efforts to restore his sight. Her treatment begins with recovering what it means to be human: a rational creature receptive to divine reason, with a place in an ordered cosmos. The inward light she calls him to remember has its source in God. Trying to manufacture meaning out of ourselves leaves us isolated from the reality in which we could find our bearings. Through the medieval picture of the heavens and Socrates' faithfulness even unto death, we consider what remains ours when fortune turns. We ought to receive the good things of this life with gratitude and hold them in an open hand. Our freedom depends on how we relate to the eternal good, and Lady Philosophy's diagnosis leads us toward Kierkegaard's account of despair in The Sickness unto Death. This episode shares a lesson from Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius. The full course is coming to the Mythic Mind Fellowship, including eight videos that have not otherwise been released. Related videos: Who Failed Anakin Skywalker? (Mythic Mind, ep. 197): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKs8fvJ24Z4 Oblivion's Sheogorath and Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death (Mythic Mind Games, ep. 34): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZUgEUzaBXU 📚 Books discussed The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius (Victor Watts translation): https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780140447804 The Sickness unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard: https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780691020280 Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/membership Listen to/watch the Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies #MythicMind #Boethius #ConsolationOfPhilosophy #Philosophy #Kierkegaard #Despair #Freedom Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

    198 - You Have Forgotten Who You Are: Boethius' Consolation, Book I

  2. Nov 2

    197 - Who Failed Anakin Skywalker?

    Watch the video: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/who-failed-anakin-skywalker-mythic-mind-ep-197/ Right-wing X has been full of pro-Anakin posts, including one Elon Musk shared of an AI image of Emperor Anakin with Padme and their children in Imperial uniforms, captioned "This is what they took from us." Some of that is just meme energy. Underneath it sits a real claim: that the Jedi, read as a bloated liberal order, failed a gifted young man, and that Palpatine at least affirmed his passions and offered a path of belonging. On Mythic Mind Exploring the Psyche, Dr. Andrew Snyder asks who actually failed Anakin Skywalker. Was it the Jedi who raised him, the chancellor who empowered him, or Anakin himself? He grants plenty of the grievance. Qui-Gon dies early. Obi-Wan clearly loves Anakin, yet treats as a brother the young man who needed a father. The Order treats love as a liability to manage more than as a fire to order toward the good, and the council wants Anakin's power while withholding the rank of master. Palpatine, though, loves him the way the witch loved Hansel. The candy is real sugar, and the house is still a trap. Anakin's fall rides disordered desires that each begin in something genuine: a love of Padme that becomes the glory of being her savior, a hunger for justice that becomes impatient revolutionary will, a longing for paternal affirmation that accepts a false name from a devourer, and underneath them an attempt to make fortune's wheel stand still under his hand. Drawing on Kierkegaard's call to be "in the truth," Boethius on the wheel of fortune, C. S. Lewis's men without chests, and Edmund Burke on inheritance across the living, the dead, and the yet unborn, Andrew argues that soft licentiousness and hard empire are two faces of the same refusal of ordered love. Luke does not save his father by matching power with power. He lays down the saber. The harder freedom is responsibility under what is true, good, and beautiful. The Abolition of Man, Part 1: Men Without Chests (Mythic Mind, ep. 111): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voOEKAzHrk0 Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety: Anxiety Is Not an Ailment to Be Removed (Mythic Mind, ep. 196): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqA5coEKKnk Oblivion's Sheogorath and Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death (Mythic Mind Games, ep. 34): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZUgEUzaBXU 📚 Books discussed The Sickness unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard: https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780691020280 The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius (Relihan translation): https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780872205833 The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis: https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780060652944 Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke: https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780199539024 Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/membership Listen to/watch the Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies #MythicMind #StarWars #AnakinSkywalker #Philosophy #Psychology #CSLewis #Kierkegaard #Boethius Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

    197 - Who Failed Anakin Skywalker?

  3. Oct 26

    196 - Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety: Anxiety Is Not an Ailment to Be Removed

    Watch the video: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/kierkegaards-concept-of-anxiety-anxiety-is-not-an-ailment-to-be-removed-mythic-mind-ep-196/ Today I'm giving you a free look into my Mythic Mind Fellowship course, The Psychology of Søren Kierkegaard: Life in Anxiety & Despair, as we begin with the preface and introduction to The Concept of Anxiety. Before the argument proper, Kierkegaard's pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis, the Watchman of Copenhagen, tells us what kind of book this is and what kind of book it is not: not a clinical study, not a self-help manual, and not a theology textbook borrowing a psychological title. He is a psychologist with theology in view, writing a monograph rather than a system. The course is underway now and is included with Fellow and Companion memberships, so joining the Fellowship gets you the rest of it. We look at what happens when sin is handled in the wrong field (aesthetics, metaphysics, or psychology on its own), why earnestness is the proper mood for this book, and how Haufniensis maps four neighboring disciplines: first ethics, dogmatics, psychology, and second ethics. Psychology can trace the real possibility of sin, but it cannot cross the qualitative leap. That is why its proper object is anxiety, which is not an ailment to be removed but the threshold where we face either despair or faith. Chapters: 0:00 A free look at the Kierkegaard course 0:30 The texts for this study 5:53 The preface and introduction 6:52 Vigilius Haufniensis and Kierkegaard's pseudonyms 8:28 A psychologist with theology in view 10:40 The Watchman of Copenhagen: a monograph, not a system 16:49 Sin out of place: the false moods 19:39 Earnestness, the proper mood 22:35 Four disciplines: first ethics, dogmatics, psychology, second ethics 27:44 Psychology's limit and the qualitative leap 29:43 Takeaways and what comes next The Psychology of Søren Kierkegaard: Life in Anxiety and Despair (course introduction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ6KDO2mNPY Anxiety Means You Can Choose (Mythic Mind, ep. 189): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKDIRfQGQY Kierkegaard on Man’s Highest Perfection (Mythic Mind, ep. 193): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJXOC2PfR3M The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Am I Guilty? (Mythic Mind, ep. 194): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIgiz_wQbXk Oblivion's Sheogorath and Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death (Mythic Mind Games, ep. 34): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZUgEUzaBXU 📚 Books discussed The Concept of Anxiety by Søren Kierkegaard (Thomte translation): https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780691020112 Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard by Clare Carlisle: https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9781250798428 Freedom and Its Misuses: Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Despair by Gregory R. Beabout Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/membership Listen to/watch the Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies #Kierkegaard #TheConceptOfAnxiety #Philosophy #ChristianPsychology #Existentialism #MythicMind Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

    196 - Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety: Anxiety Is Not an Ailment to Be Removed

  4. Oct 19

    195 - Eschatology in Arda: Did Middle-earth Know Its Ending?

    Did the people of Middle-earth know how their story ends? Rev. Jeffrey Wade joins Andrew Snyder and Josh to discuss his master's thesis on eschatology in Arda. His question is not only what Tolkien believed, but whether the inhabitants of Arda themselves know their telos: the promise of resurrection, reunion, and the setting right of all things. Letting the text stand on its own rather than reading it through a scholar's agenda, he argues that this hope is woven into the story from the Ainulindalë onward. One striking thread is water. The music of Ilúvatar lingers in the waters of Arda, and Rev. Wade traces moments of grace and eucatastrophe that happen near water, from Bilbo's riddle game and Lake-town to the Ford of Bruinen, Nimrodel, and Mirrormere. He also shows how hope is handed down through song and story among Men, hobbits, Dwarves, and Ents, and points to the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth in Morgoth's Ring as one of its clearest statements. The conversation then asks how much of this hope survives in Peter Jackson's films and why Hollywood struggles with virtuous characters. It closes with Rev. Wade's story of how the films led him to the books, and why he calls The Lord of the Rings a love letter to creation. Rev. Jeffrey Wade is a Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod pastor in Iowa, with an MDiv from Concordia Seminary (2014) and an MA in Language and Literature from Signum University (2025). Chapters 00:00 Introducing Rev. Jeffrey Wade 01:12 The thesis: do the inhabitants of Arda know their eschatology? 03:21 Reading theologically and letting the text stand 05:24 Water and the music of Ilúvatar 07:28 What is Arda? 11:12 What makes this approach unique in Tolkien scholarship 15:50 Best sources: the Ainulindalë and the Athrabeth 19:57 The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: hope at the water's edge 23:33 Why water? Baptismal echoes 24:22 How the hope is handed down: lore, song, and catechesis 27:51 Bombadil vs. the Barrow-wight: hope vs. despair 29:20 Eschatology in the Peter Jackson films 34:26 Can film viewers catch it? Hollywood and virtue 37:00 Recommended reading on Tolkien and theology 39:50 How the films led Rev. Wade to Tolkien 43:36 Closing Get the book: Morgoth's Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien): https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780261103009 Get the book: Tolkien's Theology of Beauty (Lisa Coutras): https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9781137553447 Get the book: The Flame Imperishable (Jonathan S. McIntosh): https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9781621382942 Get the book: Tolkien On Fairy-stories (J.R.R. Tolkien): https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780007582914 Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/membership Listen to/watch the Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

    195 - Eschatology in Arda: Did Middle-earth Know Its Ending?

  5. Oct 12

    194 - The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Am I Guilty?

    Watch the video: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/the-death-of-ivan-ilyich-am-i-guilty-mythic-mind-ep-194/ We all know we will die one day. It is another thing to consider that it is I who am going to die. In this Mythic Mind conversation, Dr. Andrew Snyder (professor of philosophy and theology) is joined by David and Jack to read Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich. We trace a man who did everything "properly," climbed the ladder, decorated the right house, and still ended up utterly alone, until suffering forces him to ask the one question he has always avoided: am I guilty? Topics include how ordinary people keep death at arm's length, why suffering can become a grace, and what it means to finally take responsibility for the life you've lived. Along the way we find Tolstoy reaching some of the same places as Lewis and Kierkegaard by a very different road. Related: • Kierkegaard on Man's Highest Perfection (Mythic Mind, ep. 193): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJXOC2PfR3M • Till We Have Faces, Part One: Orual Behind the Veil (Mythic Mind, ep. 114): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KhXO9V0PRw Get the book: The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780140449617 Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/membership Listen to/watch the Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies #MythicMind #Tolstoy #DeathOfIvanIlyich #BookClub #Philosophy #Theology #CSLewis Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

    194 - The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Am I Guilty?

  6. Oct 5

    193 - Kierkegaard on Man's Highest Perfection

    Watch the video: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/kierkegaard-on-mans-highest-perfection-mythic-mind-ep-193/ We are pressed to dissolve into the mass, to wear a demographic as a self, or to win identity from whatever community we most esteem. Kierkegaard’s answer cuts the other way: the glory of the human being is to recognize utter dependency on God. In Mythic Mind episode 193, Dr. Andrew Snyder is joined by Zach and David for an Exploring the Psyche conversation on Kierkegaard’s discourse “To Need God Is a Human Being’s Highest Perfection.” They push past the easy proverb that a person needs only a little, through Job and vanity that can even dress itself as renunciation, to the Christian claim that greatness is not pagan self-sufficiency but knowing how much we need God. Along the way: first self and deeper self, the moving wheel of fortune versus the eternal, inwardness against self-enclosure, Christendom versus contemporaneity with Christ, and why casting Kierkegaard as a secular existentialist misses the Christian (even Boethian) grain of the text. Topics include needing little versus needing God, praying for the powerful because they need God most, grace and being capable of nothing, the hard wine before the good wine, and how anchoring in God frees the temporal self for real community rather than atomism. Get the book: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses by Søren Kierkegaard https://bookshop.org/a/129785/9780691020877 Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com Fellows and Companions can join The Psychology of Søren Kierkegaard: Life in Anxiety and Despair, beginning the week of October 4, plus Academy courses, Inkwell essays, and the fuller life of the community. Listen to and watch Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies & Shows #MythicMind #ExploringThePsyche #Kierkegaard #ToNeedGod #Philosophy #Theology #Psyche #ChristianExistentialism Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

  7. Sep 28

    192 - Exploring the Psyche: Why Socialism Is Poison to the Soul

    Watch the video: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/exploring-the-psyche-why-socialism-is-poison-to-the-soul-mythic-mind-ep-192/ Socialism is often sold as justice, necessity, or the only way to win. This Exploring the Psyche episode asks a harder question: what does that bargain do to the soul? In Mythic Mind episode 192, Dr. Andrew Snyder takes up a live Right-wing temptation around redistribution, democratic appetite politics, and seizing power "for our side." He grants the real injustice (vote-buying, short-sighted majorities, a disenfranchised base), steelmans the classical and Lewisian fears about democracy's degeneration and spiritual leveling, then refuses the conclusion that remakes persons into instruments. The court can sentence Socrates. Only Socrates can harm Socrates. Drawing on Plato and Aristotle, C. S. Lewis, Kierkegaard (and Gregory Beabout), Dostoevsky's Crystal Palace, and Tolkien on the Machine and coerced wills, the talk argues that envy baptized as entitlement, managed security without risk, and power that treats neighbors as tools all shrink the self before God. Freedom requires gratitude, courage, and faithful action. A managed win for any base is still a loss for the person. Topics include democracy and demagoguery, envy and false entitlement, facticity and possibility, despair and the spiritless crowd, welfare soft slavery, Tolkien's Machine versus sub-creation, and why refusing the smaller victory is the psyche's first win. Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com Fellows receive Academy courses (including The Psychology of Søren Kierkegaard: Life in Anxiety and Despair, beginning the week of October 4), Inkwell essays, and the fuller life of the community. Since the fall season began, podcast downloads have nearly doubled. Membership is the deeper layer of the work you hear here. Listen to and watch Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies & Shows #MythicMind #ExploringThePsyche #Socialism #Kierkegaard #CSLewis #Tolkien #Philosophy #Theology #Psyche Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

  8. Sep 21

    191 - Exploring the Psyche: Identity and Becoming a Self

    Watch the video: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/exploring-the-psyche-identity-and-becoming-a-self-mythic-mind-ep-191/ When Boethius lost everything, Lady Philosophy told him the wound beneath the wound: you have forgotten who you are. That diagnosis still lands. Who are you when the roles, tests, and labels fall away? In this Mythic Mind Exploring the Psyche conversation, Dr. Andrew Snyder (professor of philosophy and theology) talks with licensed therapists Jeremy Key and Tyler Finders about identity: Myers-Briggs and Enneagram snapshots, the trap of "I am my diagnosis," agency that will not go away, and Kierkegaard's claim that the self is a relation in motion rather than a fixed type. Topics include authenticity versus persona, how suffering clarifies what is real, and why identity often arrives when you stop hunting for it and start seeking what is good. Related: • Exploring the Psyche: The Importance of Home (Mythic Mind, ep. 190): https://youtu.be/9__99dsKwiU • Anxiety Means You Can Choose (Mythic Mind, ep. 189): https://youtu.be/DwKDIRfQGQY • A Life Well Lived (Mythic Mind, ep. 188): https://youtu.be/2Dgj68PWXdQ • Fall Season: Exploring the Psyche (Mythic Mind, ep. 187): https://youtu.be/_Lbvd79c0d8 Join the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com Listen to/watch the Mythic Mind podcasts: - Mythic Mind - Mythic Mind Games - Mythic Mind Movies & Shows #MythicMind #ExploringThePsyche #Identity #Kierkegaard #Boethius #Psychology #Philosophy #Theology Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

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4.9
out of 5
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About

Pursuing wisdom through primary and secondary worlds. Mythic Mind is a conversation about stories, thought, and the inner life. We read literature and philosophy, talk through film and games when they help, and ask what these works reveal about the soul, the good life, and the Christian imagination. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis and Narnia, Kierkegaard, Beowulf, myth and fairy stories, Tolstoy, and the great books all take their turn at the table. Hosted by Andrew Snyder, Ph.D., the show gathers fellow readers and thinkers around a common table. Some episodes are lessons. Most are recorded discussions. All of them aim at seeing more clearly, not merely consuming more content. New seasons take up a shared theme across the Fellowship. Listen on your own, then join the wider conversation in the Mythic Mind Fellowship: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/membership Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

Information

  • Creator
    Andrew Snyder
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    200
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Andrew Snyder
  • Show Website
    Mythic Mind

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