An Introduction to Symbolic Thought
A guide using Jonathan Pageau
The ideas of Jonathan Pageau can be hard to understand, especially if one comes from a very scientific background.
Here I attempt to provide a guide on how to best start understanding symbolism through his videos.
It's roughly divided into 3 parts. And they are by order of importance (the importance thing being useful and easy to understand).
You can watch 1 video from the 1st part, then another from the 2nd and then 3rd. Or you can watch all the ones listed in each part before moving on. Either (or any other combination) is fine. It's up to you and what interests you the most and the time you have.
It's important to remember that the more you watch, the easier it is to see the patterns. At first it seems weird, but eventually it clicks.
If you want to give an honest attempt at symbolism, I would encourage you to watch at least 2 videos, even if you didn't think the first made much sense.
A good place to start is his movie or story interpretations. This works best when you know the movie or story referenced, so I will leave several videos since I don't know what you're personally familiar with. If you watched Logan, I personally think that's the best one.
Symbolism in Logan - Ascending the Mountain (18 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU9LxgCGZY0
Symbolism in Gravity - Death and Resurrection (15 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtPYXHdNIjE
The Cosmic Significance of Puss in Boots (27 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZuXiJrAwq4
Symbolism in Blade Runner 2049 - Finding the Pattern of Reality (18 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPOQPkQCJoA
After you have watched at least one of those, I would encourage you to watch one of the following videos, which explain it in a bit more abstract form. The first two in particular are very important to truly understand the cosmology.
What is Symbolism? - With Matthieu Pageau (67 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VIRA6T33o4
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy Exist (19 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXnef2Ltklg
Symbolism Happens (27 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzdjUMkxsdE
If you want some extra material, I found these enlighting. However, they are likely not to make much sense unless you have watched some of the content previously covered.
A Full Frontal Attack on The Copernican Revolution (83 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v92aB64jio4
The Entire Cosmos in the Parable of the Sower (34 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIkGYXdSFNM
Anthropology of Mysticism (62 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orT1o51pHew
Following a Symbolic Thread - Heaven and Earth From Genesis to Christ (31 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ddf-9DXASQ
And the ultimate resource is Matthieu Pageau's (his brother) book. But it's heavy, so I would save it for last.
The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Creation-Symbolism-Genesis-Commentary/dp/1981549331/
Of course, this list is just my biased, personal opinion. You can watch any video, in any order. I just want to provide a simple guide.
If I had to narrow everything to 3 videos, my favorites would be:
Symbolism in Logan - Ascending the Mountain
What is Symbolism? - With Matthieu Pageau
The Entire Cosmos in the Parable of the Sower
If you want to watch more videos from him, there is over 200 in his YouTube channel.
And they are very nicely organized by playlists as well, which you can see here:
https://www.youtube.com/c/JonathanPageau/playlists
While not about not Jonathan specifically, I also have 2 podcast episodes that you may find helpful when thinking about religion:
J.P. Marceau - Ontology, Mind and Stories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAdJ8HM43To
Daniel Greig - The Cognitive Science of Enlightenment and Mysticism
This guide was made by Tiago Faleiro