Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we produsue wisdom in the past between Primary second eight worlds. I'm Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. All right, Hello, and welcome back to Mythic Mind. I'm really excited about everything that we have going on here. I know what a little bit early. I know it's still springtime, but I'm going to go ahead and declare this this Summer of Mythic Mind because we have so many exciting things that are coming up on the horizon here on the very
near horizon. First of all, on a personal note, I'm no longer teaching on campus. I had my last day on Thursday, last Thursday, as I record this, and so now I'm just I'm grating finishing things up, but I'm not going to be going back to campus for a while, the very least until the next calendar year, maybe even
beyond that. I'm just teaching all online at this point, in working on my book and trying to get that finished, I'm pursuing my various independent ventures, trying to really build up the Mythic Mind fellowship even more than already is. And so with that in mind, we're just really moving in a lot of very exciting directions here. First of all, we are as a record of this. We're about to
begin our book club on Augustin's Confessions. Although if you're listening to this on the public feed, then that probably just happened, because our first meeting is April twenty eighth at nine pm Eastern, and I hope that you have participated in that if you're listening to this after the fact, But if you haven't, then no worries. You can just jump in next time. We've got total of eight sessions here.
We're meeting every other Monday, and so our next session will be oh listen, see let me look at the calendar here. The next session will be on the fifth, again at nine pm Eastern. If you want to be part of that, then all you need to do is become a member of the Mythic Mind Patreon community. And here's the thing. One thing that's unique about this book club is that you don't even have to be a paid patron. You can literally be a free patron, and
so it doesn't have to cost you anything. Now, of course, you'll get more benefits out of becoming a paid patron and I always appreciate the financial support that allows me to keep doing more of these things. But at the same time, it's not required. I'm not going to guilt
you into paying anything. Is If you want to sign off for free just because you want to read Augustine's Confessions for the first time, you want to read it again, you want to join this community, then by all means, just become a free patron, and I'm more than happy to have you along for that. Now beyond that, looking towards May, on May the fourth, we're kicking off our
Star Wars series. I mean, we'll still be doing other things along the way, like, for example, the book club will come through the podcast feed as well, but we're also going to be doing a series on Star Wars. I think that that would I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. You know, we've mostly taken a
literary focus up to this point. I think be fun to deal with popular media, you know, something so wide reaching, something so gripping, something so attractive as the Star Wars franchise, and we'll you know, talk about what we've enjoyed about it, what our history is with it, what we'll talk about, what it does well why it's so gripping as well as, of course where it's gone off the rails a little bit.
And so we'll be doing a live stream to kick that off on May the fourth at nine pm Eastern, and so make sure that you follow along for that. That'll be on YouTube, and so make sure that you subscribe to my channel. You can find that link in the show notes if you're not already subscribed. And then a little bit later in the month, just a couple of weeks after that, we'll be kicking off a number of courses coming out of Mythic Mind. One of them will be my course on a Brief History of Ideas,
which is a six week course. It's like an intro to philosophy course, although and I don't mean to sound arrogant and saying this, but it's going to be better than most of what you would get from an intro to philosophy course on a college campus. And I say that as somebody who has taught to philosophy on college campuses for a number of years that unfortunately, most philosophy courses, especially on the intro level, but even beyond, most philosophy
courses really don't prioritize primary sources. I definitely do, and so with me, you'll be reading these these foundational philosophers, some representatives from each of the major eras of Western thought, and you know, you'll become better equipped with dealing with them firsthand, and as you deal with them, you'll be better equipped to honestly deal with yourself and deal with
the world around us. Now, my course does prioritize the pre modern eras of philosophy, and so we get two weeks for the ancient period, mostly focusing on Plato and Aristotle, and then we'll have two weeks on the medieval period, and then we'll have one week on the moderns and
one week on the postmoderns. And that's because the modern and postmodern philosophers are going to sound a lot more familiar to you once you kind of start to get your mind around what they're saying, because I mean, these are the ideas that you've lived in, These are the ideas that are around you all the time, even if you've never studied them in a direct and intentional sense, they'll become familiar to you as you come to understand them.
And so that the pre modern era, it can potentially provide some correctives for us, provide another perspective, and honestly, I think it's more interesting because they tend to believe in reality that everything's not just made up, so that tends to make for much more rewarding study and conversation.
And so for each week of that course will be I'll be putting out a video that goes along with the assigned readings, and all the readings will be available as PDFs of some kind that you know that can kind of dig up through the course through the Google Classroom, although I will make some recommendations for other translations along the way if you want to get some hard copies, which is always a good idea, especially for the kinds of text that we'll be dealing with. And so there's that.
But I'm not the only one leading a course. We have three Mythic Mind Fellowship course creators that are coming up here out of the ranks. First we have Hannah Gilmour, who will be teaching introductory Latin. We have Joshua Traylor who will be teaching a course on Paradise Lost and then looking I believe towards the Fall. We have Judah Bruce who'll be teaching a course on American government, and so we've got just some really exciting things that are
playing out here. And what follows, I'm going to provide you with a conversation that I recently had with all three of them, and just as an opportunity to talk a little bit more about their backgrounds, their their interests, what led them to teach these courses, and what you
can expect from these courses. I should mention that in there in our conversation, Josh didn't even mention that he had studied Paradise Lost at the graduate level at Memorial College, and so I don't know, maybe this is all too humble in his part, But all of these creators here are very much qualified to do what they're doing. They all have some experience in this arena, whether it be academic or practical, and so I would really look forward
myself to personally following along with them. You know, Paradise Law, it's such a central text for the Western Canon from the seventeenth century on the late seventeenth century on. You know, if you like Lewis, if you like I mean, honestly just I mean so many things in the Western Canon, then you're gonna want to learn a little bit about Paradise Lost, and Josh is gonna be a good guide
for you in that. And with Latin. I mean, we get into the value of Latin in our conversation, but you know, there's so much value there in understanding language and dealing with the some of the classical authors in their own words. And I took a semester of Latin college. I very much look forward to kind of holding that in sharpening what I have picked up over time and getting really intentional about well knowing and using the language.
And then Judah is still putting his course together, but again I really look forward to what he has to offer with laying down some foundational principles for what American governance is all about and how that relates to current events. It's something a bit more foundational, something a bit more then we're likely to get from your political pundits that
you may listen to. And so all these courses have something of great value to offer, and I hope that really comes through in the conversation that you're about to listen to. And now let's go ahead and get into it, all right, Welcome back to mythic mind. Today I'm joined by Judah Bruce, Hannah Gilmour, and Josh Taylor to talk a little bit about some of these courses coming up.
And if you've been listening for a while, you've you've heard some of the ads, You've heard me plug it a few times here and there, but this is just an opportunity to hear a little bit more about who they are, what they have planned, and why you should continue on with us. I started this aspect of Mythic Mind last summer with the Fiction and Philosophy of C. S. Lewis course. I had no idea what was going to
happen with that. It was an adventure. It was me just stepping out and trying something new, and it went very well between the live run and people who have enrolled since that time, and I've had about seventy eighty people enroll in that course, so very successful, very enjoyable on my end, and that really led me to just
keep on doing this, you know. I jumped right into the bey Wolf and Bowethia's course currently finishing up Lord of the Rings, got four more courses on the schedule on my end, but for a while now it's really been my objective, my desire to have this be more than just me, to have it truly be a fellowship, a fellowship of creators with a variety of interests of expertise, so that way we can all learn from each other and benefit from each other and provide that kind of
academic experience but beyond the walls of institutional academia. I think there's a lot of value in that. And so with that in mind, we've got our first course creators coming up beyond myself, and this is an opportunity to hear a little bit more from them. Hannah, you were the first one to step into this, and so we'll start with you. I want you tell us just a little bit about yourself and what is leading you to lead introductory Latin.
Okay, Hi everyone, I'm Hannah and I'm an undergraduate student at Boys College, shedding humanities and classical education. And I've had an interest in Latin ever since my freshman year of high school when I was able to take my first Latin course and I was probably the most excited over declension chart like ever. I think my teacher was just like, what is wrong with her? That was even
before getting to the fun stuff. Like Cicero and the Amian and especially poetry I love, and ever since then, that's just been a great passion of mine.
And I've tutored Latin.
I have taught introductory Latin before, and so yeah, that's just a little bit about me.
Okay, So, so obviously you enjoy Latin. What about teaching Latin appeals to you?
So I do love teaching I think I would love to see more people steady Latin. I think it's something that has not been taught very often. You'll see it in classical schools, and some have at school. Still, I was very fortunate I went to a public school and they did have Latin, but it's pretty rare, and I would say it's something that Americans today just don't really
have any value for. Really, they don't really see value in it because in our utilitarian culture, it's not really seen as having a practical use, although I would argue it does have practical uses. But actually, I'm passionate about teaching Latin, especially with this course. I'm excited to teach it to some adults because a lot of times, like kids these days are who are involved in classical schools
and private schools are getting Latin. There's been a resurgence in people seeing the value of it, but a lot of adults did not get that in school. And I would love to expand people's Latin knowledge and allow them to access these great works of Western tradition for themselves and come face to face with these authors and be able to read it for themselves.
Well, I mean, we have translations, right, and so what's the benefit of actually reading it first in Well, actually.
We only have translations for just small percentage of the texts that are out there. But certainly reading through a translation is kind of like reading through a veil. Certainly there are some popular works where it the translation will be pretty accurate, But actually studying the language itself, especially with poetry, I would say, is very valuable and it's
going to it's going to be a transformative experience. You know, it's more than just the actual information, but coming face to face with the authors and what they've written themselves is very valuable. And it's hard to describe to someone who's never done this before, but if you've ever studied a language, you know that reading something in the original language is a very powerful and different experience than just reading a translation, especially when it comes to poetry.
Yeah, that's very true. I'm not proficient in Latin, so I myself look forward to going along with this course. I took a semester in college just because I needed some elective credits, and so I decided to go with Latin. I'd already fulfilled my language credits elsewhere, so I definitely look forward to honing in on that. But I mean,
I can speak from studying other languages, you know. I did Greek and Hebrew in seminary, and there's just there's a different way of thinking within the language that you're dealing with, and that can't always be It actually really
can't be completely translated into another language. Meaning worldview ways of reasoning are built into the language itself, and so there's so much value in getting past that veil, you know, as you said, to coming face to face with what was actually said in the way of thinking of the culture. And so yeah, absolutely sympathize with that. So who should sign up for this course?
Okay, Well, this course is really open to anyone who has an interest, but I think I especially have in mind people who, you know, they're past their college years and they have an interest in studying Latin. Maybe they want to be able to read some of these texts in the original language. Maybe they have kids who are in a class school in private school learning Latin, and they want to catch up and keep up with their kids and be able to help them. I think this
course would be a great option for those people. But honestly, anyone who has an interest in studying Latin, just at an introductory level and getting that that headstart they need to embark on their Latin journey is welcome.
To join this course.
Good fantastic, Judah, Josh, do you have any thoughts? Three questions for handa on that?
Oh, this isn't too loaded of a question, but if it is, can you give me, like, like a two minute or less summary of your opinions on the like the grammar translate method of learning versus the naturalized method of learning. I've like right into this, so I'm just curious what you think of that.
Yes, so I haven't done like a ton of research, but from my experience of how I've been taught and how I'm.
Teaching it, I taking a balanced approach.
So I believe that what you can do is have that learning from you know, reading, listening speaking grow naturally alongside actual grammar instruction. I find that both are helpful because obviously there's some people who just want to teach thought and straight from a textbook. And first of all, there's that's not very much fun for students, especially if
you're teaching middle schoolers, elementary schoolers, high schoolers. But also it kind of ignores the way that we learn language, because people think, oh, work, it's a dead language, no one speaks it anymore, So why should we speak Latin class Why should we listen to it? Why should we, you know, try try to read it rather than just translating. And I would say that that kind of ignores the
way that humans learn language. And so I do think that that is a great thing to incorporate into the classroom, lots of spoken la and lots of listening exercises.
But I also think that, you know, not everyone.
I'd say most students are not going to necessarily be able to pick up on everything and all the nuances of Latin grammar just from picking it up by listening. I do think in a classroom setting, especially, it's good to actually provide formal grammar instruction and provide the basic rules so that people, you know, not everyone is linguistically gifted enough, just pick up on that, especially when you're just in a classroom setting and you're not fully immersed
in the language. I'd say some grammar instruction is necessary as well. So the way I'm teaching the course is there will be grammar lessons and homework that's testing grammar concepts, but there's also going to be different projects that are
going to involve speaking and writing. They'll be like weekly stories, while I'll be reading out stories and helping people work through and translate and other things like that to help provide a balanced approach between actual grammatical instruction, but then also having people practice use the language, which will help them hopefully retain those concepts and be able to translate and read better. So that's kind of where I stand.
I know it's kind of a middle ground position, but I see the benefits of both sides.
Yeah, I like that answer a lot. I usually find myself in the middle and in a more balanced view on that and most things as well, so I appreciate that answer. Plus, we can all be you know, Michael Monte, and then just have our dads servant just speak to us in Latin only until we're eighteen years old. I don't have any servants, by the way, I don't know about you all.
Yeah, I would say it would take a lot of effort and something a lot more than this course could offer to have a full immersion experience. Obviously, there's conferences you could go to where people will just speak Latin and some really cool things. But you know, I do think just to be practical in the modern world, there is going to have to be some level of grammar instruction because we don't have a bunch of servants speaking just Latin to us.
Yeah.
Finally, yeah, we'll hold off for our study of broad trip at the Vatican or something. I don't know. Yes, you kind of hinted at this, But what's the week to week flow of your course look like?
Okay, awesome, So let's just go over a brief isshion overview of what each week will include. So every week we'll have a main grammar video all the presentation. I'll also work through some examples in that video, and then there'll be a history or culture video.
Which I'm very excited about.
It'll usually alternate every week like culture history, and I've tried to target to line up the history and culture with the vocabulary as much as I can, because I like to have every week have some sort of overarching theme or topic. Didn't always line up perfectly, but just for the sake of everyone out there, if you want to know what the history and culture videos are, we're
gonna have. Our history videos will be ROMs Founding Mythology, Rome's Kings, the Roman Republic, Roman Empire Part one, Roman Empire Part two, and the Fall of Rome, and then our culture will be first of all, just an introductory presentation why Latin is valuable, which I've gotten to some of that in this, but I go into more depth,
both quantitative and qualitative reasons why it's worth studying. And then Latin phrase is common in English, Roman names, the Roman household, the most mayorum, and Roman social norms, and then famous Roman authors. So just trying to give a little overview of Roman history and culture. Obviously all these things, every presentation topic could really be its own course or area of study, but I want to give people an overview.
And that's how I learned Latin. Obviously I did it in a high school setting, so you know, it was kind of woven into the curriculum of learning about Roman culture and history, and I think it's just valuable to equip people because you can't assume that everyone has had that knowledge. I certainly learned a lot when I took Latin in high school about Roman history and culture that I didn't know, and that really helped me to approach the authors better. And I think that that is a
valuable part of the course. So then in addition to those, every week we'll have a vocabulary video. There'll be a weekly vocabulist, and I'll actually have a video reading through it so people will know how to pronounce the words, and I'll also just talk about any English words that might be derived to help people remember. And then I'll also have like a quizlet, which is basically just digital flash cards so people don't have to spend time working on that.
And then there'll be a.
Live meeting every week for questions and discussion. And there'll also be like a weekly project. The first weeks, because people won't know enough to really write much. It'll be something fun like cook a Roman recipe or label a Roman home drawing. But then later on it'll be some some more exciting projects that will involve some creative writing in Latin and some other exercises like that, so I'm very excited about those, and that's where you would present
your project. It's optional, obviously, like people are paying for this course, you don't have to do anything. But if you want to enrich yourself further, these projects are there for that. And then there'll also be a weekly homework document and then I'll provide feedback on that so that I can actually monitor how you're doing and help give you personalized feedback on the grammar concepts you're learning. There also be a video with guided story translation for every week.
The first few stories will be something that I've written. The first week there's a story because people won't know enough. They're just talking about now it's the first week. So but after that, the first few stories be like something about the farmer and things like that. But eventually I'm hoping to work people up to at least being able to do some excerpts from actual authors and we'll see how much I can find that people will actually be able to.
Like translate.
But that's the goal, and then let's see there also be independent practice and answer keys for every new grammar concept.
So people can practice on their own and continue that.
And then I have like cheat sheets and notes I've made for all the major grammar concepts, so people who aren't good note takers, who don't take nice notes, they can print those off or have them to refer to. And then there's also going to be like the live discord chat through the Mythic Mind for people to discuss. If they have questions or comments throughout the week, I'd be happy to answer. So that's just an overview of
what the course will look like. And by the end of the course, people will be able to read and to write basic indicative statements in Latin questions everything. We won't cover the subjunctive, but I will hopefully provide some resources.
To help people who want to continue in that route.
That's fantastic, and you got a lot built into that. There's a lot of value built into that. And obviously, for any of the courses that we teach, I mean, the level of involvement is up to the participant, but for those who wanted, there's a lot packed into that. And you know, as Twitter revealed, you know, a few months ago or so, everyone's thinking about the Roman Empire. Anyways, so let's go ahead and get intentional about that.
I agree.
I think all these guys who are out here thinking about the Roman Empire every day, I need to go and start learning Latin.
Take that to the next level.
Yeah.
Absolutely, let's go past the memes he.
Need look from like watching Ryan Holiday videos and actually like read the Stoics and Latin.
Yes, I remember the day I learned that Marcus Aurelius did not write his meditations in Latin. It was a sad day for me because I realized I couldn't read them. Hopefully I will be taking Greek soon at college, but.
I'm a bit more of a Greek fanboy actually, so I'm actually happy about that fact.
I'm sure i'll be happy about it once I am able to read the Greek as well.
So I have a good wrap up question. I think I took a couple semesters of Latin and undergraduate college, so I think your course sounds great but kind of wrapped up. Do you have any fun stories of how you've used Latin in everyday life or encountered it that might be interest to people who would be taking the course.
That's a good question.
I may definitely you see it everywhere. I mean, just terminology, mottos.
I'm trying to think.
There's definitely been times, even in class today. I was in class today and the teacher was like talking about just the kind of Roman saying if you want peace, prepare for war. And he's like, does anyone know the Latin for that? And I was like, yeah, I do. Things like that just come up on a day to
day basis and are just helpful in general. I mean when I'm studying theology or you know, reading a book and there's a word that I have no idea what that means, you know, Latin helps me to figure that out. And so I don't know if I have just some crazy fun story that I can think of off the top of my head, but I will say it is very useful in day to day life, and it does provide some fun moments of conversation. People are usually like Latin, like what.
So, yes, yeah, I mean I will say that, you know, even though I haven't formally studied Latin any great degree, I've picked up enough for etymological purposes between Latin and Greek. And all the times I'll be just talking, I'll say some commonplace word and instantly my mind started breaking it down, like reflecting on the meaning that's contained in here that often goes unnoticed. I just all the time in my lectures. Some of my students love it. Some just think I'm
a nerd, which isn't totally off. But at the same time, like there's a lot of wisdo them just packed into our language that often goes unnoticed. But as you get into Greek, as you get into Latin, language just comes alive with all this meaning that you just didn't recognize because it's so you know, in our face on a regular basis, and so it really does help you to kind of get underneath that a little bit. So that's some practical benefit of studying something like Latin. All right,
Oh cool, Josh. You also have a course coming up in May on Paradise Loss. So why can't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what leads you to this place?
Sure, so, I'm Josh. I've spound a couple of the podcast episodes, especially the Poetta discussions a couple of months ago. At least I am a husband, I am a father of too, and I am hoping to be teaching very soon. So that's kind of a unique thing about me actually is like I haven't had a full time teaching job. Yeah, However, between is like youth ministry, college ministry at churches, teaching like adult Sunday School, which I very recently finished a
h a ten week class on there. I certainly had a lot of experience with that as well as far
as like Paradise Lost actually goes. I've probably didn't read it till about like a year and a half ago, but it's one of those one of those books or even poems to be specific, that I just find myself continually going back to because there's just there's so much that Milton asks there over and over again, and the more it's one of those things we're like pretty much like any great book, where you the more questions you research and find answers to, the more questions just evolve
out of your answers. So if you like that kind of reading, it's definitely Paradise Loss is kind of like a cosmos in of itself, right, So there's there's so much there, and what I will not do is be able to provide you scholarly answers to all of the really hard questions because I'm not an expert on the work, but what I can do is for those who have no idea how to read it, or are intimidated by it, or even who have read it before but don't really
understand it or feel like they're just grasping at straws all the time, I believe I would be a sufficient guide to help somebody to get started into their journey into Milton and venture out from there.
So, what in particular draws you to Paradise Lost or what does cause you to attach yourself to it? You know, you say you just started reading it relatively recently, and so yeah, what what do you think leads that immediate pull for you?
Yeah, So a couple of things. And one thing is any Christian out there, Heck, there's probably even like non Christians out there that feel this way too, that find and something incredibly compelling about the like the first three chapters of the Genesis narrative or even maybe the Genesis poetry if you want to, I want to call it that, right, And there's things that are that God reveals to us
through that. But there's so many things that we don't know, right, like just the age old debate about you know, literal creation days or not, or like what happened before creation? Or how did we hear about you know, Lucifer falling?
And it's like, how does that tie into all of us? Right? Well, this is exactly the kind of journey that John Milton is trying to take us on here, right, He's trying to really invoke the imagination to to think about these kind of things, right, not saying that we can know and definitely all of the answers, but I think he's really ultimately drawing us in into that further, and not
just for mere philosophical speculation. Milton actually pushed against that in a lot of ways, especially some of the some of just like the metaphysical speculation that was popular in like Scholasticism in the Middle Ages. He pushed back on some of that and found it to be a bit too hyper focused on non practical issues. But he's really trying to, I think, take us on like a devotional journey to not just something about cosmology and metaphysics, but
also ethics in the Christian life. And really the key honestly in the whole poem in a lot of ways is just obedience to God and why God is worthy of our obedience? Why God is worthy of us following his commands? And there's many other aspects to it that tie in with that as well, But I would say those are probably a couple of the big ones as well. I think as a Christian it really is like just as much of a devotional journey as is an intellectual journey.
And those things certainly don't always have to be divorced from one another, but can be directly running in parallel with one another and even intertwine at times.
So a lot of people are kind of scared, honestly about jumping into epic poetry of some kind. So what would you say to that? I mean, you know, if we want a devotional that I don't even like bradening this, but I have to do it. You know, why not just read like a modern devotional, Like why go the epic poetry route and strain ourselves so much? What's the benefit of that?
Yeah, that's a next one question. I appreciate the Devil's advhate. By the way, this kind of reminds me of a quick side note here. It kind of reminds you in the Republic when like Socrates keeps asking through Cymachus questions, and it says he like turns his rudd as a tomato and starts sweating. I feel like that's what you're doing to be right now and Drew. But no excellent question, And there certainly could be value in those modern devotional
works as well. I'm certainly going to say there isn't, but kind of like first to tackle the intimidation factor. I think one thing that Paradise Loss simply has the benefit of versus even Homer, Virgil or Dante, is that this is like the one great epic poem of our literary canon that English natives can really claim as their
own right. And yes, there's going to be archaic references and illusions all throughout, certainly even sometimes depending on what version you have, especially that there's gonna be some odd spellings in there. But this is truly like our great
English epic poem. And you don't have to in a sense like rely on translations as much in this because you can actually you can understand a word for a word in a lot of ways, even if you have to pause here and there, like you know, suppose reading Shakespeare is hard, but there's still a level to where where you can actually do that without having to study a language for hundreds or thousands of hours like you would to read The Need right or to read the Odyssey.
There's a benefit there that's I think just it makes it accessible, right, And I would say even just in scope,
it's more accessible versus the other great Christian epic. Usually the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost are referred to certainly two of the greatest, if not the two greatest Christian epics, And honestly, I think Paradise Loss is more accessible than the Divine Comedy in a lot of ways, not just because of the Italian versus English aspect of it, but just because it's probably there's a lot less just archaic references in a sense, and it probably follows I think
the narratives is easier to follow, to be quite frank, honestly, it's really just it's a story we're all familiar with in a way, it's just kind of trying to fill in the gap of you know, that narrative of the creation story and the fall of Man. I think there's a lot in there. And I guess as far as the component of your question regarding like just this as
devotional material. I do, and and I love that you pointed out that we have a utilitarian culture, and I think people sometimes want like a really quick, easy like two plus two equals for answers sometimes even with the humanities, right, that's like almost never how it works, by the way, But I don't have like that symbol of an answer at the end of the day. But like I do, think practical benefit or not, there's a sense where Milton draws us in with the imagination in a way that
other works may not. And very specifically on this and this is like the conversation for tons of just like milton scholarship basically for going on four hundred years now is you know, why is Satan so charismatic and charming and why is he such a prominent character in Paradise Lost? And that's a very valid question. Let's see Shelley and Blake were not They're not right in this. He Milton was not a Satanist. He was not like some sort of classic closet, you know, worshiper or admired of Satan
himself in the biblical theological sense. But he's doing what makes us uncomfortable in a way as He's putting Satan on full display as a character in which we relate to him in a way because we are falling to at the end of the day, right through the transmission of original sin from Adam on down. And I think that and of itself is probably the most devotional aspect of it is realized. Wow, Like I'm I'm not like
Michael the Archangel. I'm not like Raphael who embody these Christian virtues so are really paragons of such Christian virtues. But I identify more with Satan in a lot of ways, where it's like I am envious and prideful, and I want to do whatever I want sometimes and turn inward rather than conforming outward to God at the top of the cosmological hierarchy, right, the transcendence of hierarchy itself. That's probably would be my long winded, slightly long winded answer to that.
Now, what's the I mean, Obviously, Paradise Loss has had a very influential role in the Western canon following the late teventeenth century on. I mean, so how would this course, I mean maybe help somebody just better understand or appreciate Western literature.
Yeah, I mean definitely definitely a good question as well. So as far as it's like speaking in terms of like the English letter very tradition. This is, you know, coming right out of right after Shakespeare in a sense, speaking like historically here, So there's certainly going to be those influential dimensions as well, but it comes before you know, people talk about like Shakespeare a lot, and people talk
about the Romantics a lot or the Victorians a lot. Right, So like the nineteenth century, Shakespeare being like really the best of his stuff in that first decade of the seventeenth century, whereas Milton's more towards the middle and end of the seventeenth century. But I think that Milton kind of helps bridge the gaps in a sense between those two, right Like, where you have Shakespeare, you have the nineteenth century, but what about the rest of the seventeenth century? What
about the eighteenth century? Right Like that's all this helps to tie it all in in a sense. And as far as speaking even broader outside of the English literary canon, especially the modern English literary canon, I think this is a good epic to start with in a sentence, especially as a Christian, where like you're just familiar with a lot of these themes and you're familiar, familiar with like the biblical stories and the like the narrative of the
Old Testament. Specifically, I think that this is a good kind of primer for understanding and reading the great epic poems of our Western tradition. And there's a lot of things in Milton that are just stylistically speaking, just very very Homeric. Certainly many things are pulling from Virgil and even in some ways indirectly Dante as well. Conversation for another day, But I think this is actually very a
good place to start for that, right. I mean, I've heard many people say that they picked up a copy of the Iliad and they're, you know, it's it's not all what they were expecting, right, they were expecting like the movie with Brad Pitt from two thousand and four, and it's no, this is really intimidate and Paradise Lost is too, But there's an aspect wanting to be it's more familiar and can help prime us to reading Homer, to reading Virgil and to reading Dante as well.
Yeah, and I will say that, I mean, most of the people listening to this have appreciation for C. S. Lewis, and if you have appreciation for CS. Lewis, you should have an appreciation for Paradise Lost. I mean, you know, if you want to get underneath Paralandra or even even Narnia to some degree, like these themes here are very important for Lewis, and so there's that inkling connection as well as well as just the broader literary canon. Cool, Juda, Hannah.
Do you have any questions or thoughts here for Josh.
I don't have any questions, but just thought wise, I agree with what you said about Paradise Lost being easier to follow than Divine Comedy, having almost a few cantons left finished my first full read through the Divine Comedy. Uh, I was reading it right before this. I definitely think that you're right like that. I think is a great place to start, and I'm actually excited. I'm hoping to take your class because I would like to further my Milton knowledge.
Yeah, which appreciated.
Yeah, I would agree with what you said, Josh about the value of an epic poem in English. In college I read Iliad and ned Odyssey all those, but you always have the sense that you're missing something because it's a translation there's no poetic features unless the translator does a lot of work to tweak the words, and then you feel like, you know, this isn't really the original.
But with Paradise Lost, you have an epic poem in the language that it was written in, and it's not so far back like Beowulf that you still need help to translate it. And so that I've thought that was really valuable and enjoyable when I was reading it, to get the sense and feeling and experience of what an epic poem should be like, because you can't get that when you're reading a foreign language.
Yeah, definitely, and yeah, especially Bao, Well, my gosh, that's that really. It truly is like a different language, right like people think people think like they cantuper retails is like a different language, and like it kind of is, but no, like, yeah, Middle Medieval English and like Anglo Saxon or Old Norse or just even those are different worlds, right, So yeah.
Definitely, Yeah, I've I've got to learn Old English, learn to learn English accent at some point. You know, I've read Baywolpen so many translations and it's just I just phone translations. I can tell is such an incredible language. I have to underneath that.
At some point, Hey, maybe we can find someone to teach a mythic mind course on that.
Yes, I would be a big fan of that. I would definitely take that myself. Let's see, there's something I was gonna say. It might come back to me. All right, Judo, wait you and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you have coming up.
Yeah. So I'm Judah Bruce. I have a bachelor's degree in Classical Communities from John Bilispoon College, and last year I completed a Master of Arts in American Government from Regent University and our own Andrew Snyder also studied at Regent for a while, so pretty cool with that. I'm hoping to teach in the late summer early fall. I
teach a course on American government. But what I want to do to make it more unique is I feel like a lot of government courses you just read a textbook and says what it is, but you don't get like any context or personal kind of perspective on it. But there's a whole lot of great resources throughout American history of speeches and books and writings that people have done. So I want to teach an American government course, but
focus on primary sources throughout it. And there's a lot of courses that will do that, for like the Founding era, and as great as the founding area is, you know, you got the Federalist papers and Constitutional Convention, all sorts of things that definitely I want to go over. But a lot of government courses that to include primary sources just seem to stop there and they don't continue on to go over great speeches and writings that happens later
in American history. So that's kind of my vision for what I want to put together. I want to go over the major structures of government how they function, but also incorporate a lot of primary sources along the way to show the development of the institutions in our government.
Cool. Yeah, I always appreciate the Regent connection. You know, there are one in addition to studying there that they're one of the online schools that I teach for. Hopefully i'll I think I'm going to be teaching the range some series with them in the fall. But that's that's a beside the point. So what interests you about American government?
Oh, well, there's a lot of things about it. I guess one simple reason is that there's a never ending fountain of new things happening. Government is never a static there's always tension or progress or sometimes regression going on, so there's always something new that you can learn in government. It's also, I feel like a very important topic because
it affects all of us. You know, everyone likes to, you know, complain about it or viewed as entertainment or whatever, but it does have a real impact on the world. And so I want to do my part to be well informed on government and if I have the privilege of influencing government decisions someday, being wise and prudent in what I would do. So I think government is important for everyone to know, especially in a country where we do have the ability to vote and petition our government leaders,
as the Constitution says. So yeah, I want to do my part for that, and I would love to help other people have that same experience of being informed and enjoyed the subject.
So what would your course offer someone that they couldn't get from their political podcast, you know, your daily wire whoever you know people listen to.
I would say it's just the foundation. Like this one thing I found going through college, you know, and being a young person in the Internet age, like you can get a fire hose of information on any topic you want, anything under the sun. But because of that, it's very easy to be overwhelmed, like you don't have any sort
of foundation in a topic that you're going into. So as I went through college, I really found that the value of an instructor was laying that foundation of Okay, this information is important, and this is the next step that we build on it. And then you see over time, as you build up that foundation, eventually you can go on to study more yourself and add more bricks to
your house of knowledge. So in the case of government specifically, when you have tons of podcasts and things, they're always talking about government and the latest stuff, but that doesn't give you the foundation of Okay, this is why our system is set up this way. These are the circumstances that led to where we are now and potentially what
could happen in the future. If you're just going on watching the news, you know, you're like, oh, yeah, the electoral college vote is this, but you know, we also should change the electoral college, and maybe that would be a better system. But you can't really be equipped to respond to that or understand it unless you know the foundation of the electoral college in the first place. As just a simple example.
So what would your course look like on a week to week basis?
I will say I'm still much more of an early phase of playing than Hannah or Josh, so I don't have that set in stone yet. Definitely some videos discussing what the week would look at, and then probably a
recap at the end of the week. And also I'm really hoping to have strong live discussion because I feel like, on the one hand, as I said earlier, government is always progressing and things are happening, so I feel like live discussion would be a really good way to go over current events and how what would be learning reflects or informs current events. And also I just really love
in person discussion when it comes to learning. When I was in college, in person, I found that I learned a lot in our outside of class discussions with my friends and classmates. And then when I switched to online school for graduate studies, I no longer had as much actual interaction, and I saw how much less I actually digested and synthesized because of that. So I'm really hoping that live discussion be a good part of the course.
Yeah, and I definitely agree with that as somebody who's studied some online as well as I've taught a good bit online. There's definitely a different dynamic at play. And when you're doing anything in the humanities, I mean that live communal aspect. It's just so important to making it real, having people talking to people about people things that that's
so essential to the humanities. But at the same time, obviously everyone has to busy schedules and so you know, it's nice to also have things available to go at their own speed. But if you can get invested in something like the actual live run of any of these courses, including something like government, that just adds so much more value to the whole experience. Hannah, Josh, you have any questions or thoughts for Judah.
This is kind of a fun question, but do you have a favorite branch of government?
And if so, why dear favorite branch? Well, you know they're all supposed to be equal, right, I would say the legislature is really important just to understand because they're supposed to be supreme, at least that's what the founder has said in the Federalist papers that the legislature is supposed to be supreme, So having a good knowledge of Congress and how it works is important in something I enjoy. Unfortunately, it's also a more complicated branch to understand. Another good one.
You know, the judiciary is very powerful, so it's really important to know how it works. But also I feel like it's probably the most neglected branch. You know, people can name the president, they can name pop members of Congress, but very few people can name many Supreme Court justices. So I think that's another great branch to look into.
I feel like, now we got to return that question in a Roman empire or public?
Oh hmm, that's a good question. I guess I would say the Republic, but I also yeah, I would say the Republic. I have to side with my I rested I should mind that but with Ciceroo and be in favor of the republic. However, I do think that learning about all the emperors is very cool, and I hope to expand my own knowledge as I'm studying for the course and teaching about that.
Fair enough entirely side question there, but I like I had to return that.
It's a great one.
All right, all right, any I mean anything else that you feel like you any of you need to share about your courses or any questions.
That you have. I have one more thing to share. One thing I didn't answer before is who would be a good fit for this course. So obviously this isn't going to be an introductory level course, so I think that means it would be best suited for maybe high schoolers dual enrollment type level I think would get a lot out of it. And then also any adults who maybe want to brush up on the type branches of government.
You know, lots of people take civics classes in high school, but unfortunately, when we're in high school, we're not necessarily equipped to really value that knowledge. So if there's anyone who wants to brush up on that information so that they can be a better citizen, more informed voter, or even just understand the news better, I think would take or have some good learning and takeaways from the course.
Yeah, and I will say that one value that we can offer that you don't necessarily get an institution is that when you go through high school, you go through college. You know, there are number of courses that you just kind of have to take. You're concerned about getting your
degree and moving forward. But if any of these courses that we're talking about seem interesting to you who are listening, then odds are you're gonna get a lot more value out of this course than you would an institutional course, simply for the reason that you would be choosing to engage with it. That as an entirely different dynamic. Now it's no longer simply something you have to do, now something you're pursuing for your own enrichment, which just adds
so much more value. It also tends to be a lot less expensive as well, because you know, there's gonna be a range of prices involved in the different courses that we're offering, but none of our courses are gonna be anything like the cost of college tuition. And so there's so much more value to be had by just people who want, who are interested in this material, who recognize the value on a deep level one to offer it to you, you recognize the value to be had.
It makes for a really good relationship there that you largely don't get in an institutional college or you know, especially lower than college class. And you know, I certainly found that in my own experience, cool, anything else anyone wants to throw in there.
I think just to emphasize too, that part of the value of any of these courses is that communal aspect of this. It may be different depending on each person this chat or anybody listening, but you may find yourself with a lot of people in your everyday life to talk to these things about. You may find some and some people may find that they're absolutely alone in there
just regular ordinary life with people to talk to. I know I feel that way a lot right where It's just like I right now, I work in corporate America, and I certainly just don't have a lot of personal friends that want to listen to me rand about this kind of stuff, even though I make them sometimes. But the beauty of this is like you can have people
to discuss these things with. There's a sense where like the digital age has pros and cons, of course, but one of the pros is that it does provide like a platform where you can discuss these things online with others. And one thing I've learned, even just like from like grad school, is you you learn the most from your professor, but you still learn a lot from other students. As well, whether that's their their writings or the comments that they
make in class, usually both of those things. But I think there's just really an aspect there where, like you, I can't overstate enough like how important it is to have those discussions, and it should be especially compelling. I would think if somebody feels like they don't have that a lot in their ordinary, everyday life, and I can certainly relate to that, Yeah.
To speak to that right now, Like I'm at college and so I suddenly have this abundance of community to talk to about humanities things, which is such a blas but I try not to forget that not that long ago, I was in the public school system and I didn't have any friends who wanted to talk about the things I was interested in, or even really teachers who did.
And honest honestly with the mythic mind has meant a lot because of that during that time, especially with the Csluist course last spring mental Law, that was the first time that I met a community of like minded individuals who were passionate about similar things. And I grew a lot through that course and the community is my favorite, one of my favorite parts about that. So I can
definitely also relate to that sense of loneliness. And even though I now have a lot of friends in person who I can talk to, you know, not everyone has the opportunity, and so I definitely think that's one of the most valuable things about these courses.
Yeah, I definitely appreciate you you both of you speaking to that. And from my own experience, I mean, I teach, you know, up to this point, I've been teaching on campus at a state university, and I don't have a humanities community at my state university. So that's in my own experience, like this has been such a value of
mythic mind. I mean, and this segment where we really branched out beyond the podcast to this the fellowship as I've started calling it, really came because I just started reading basically everything that C. S. Lewis had to offer is really where that got started, and I didn't have anyone to talk to about it, and so I just put together this course and it gave birth that community.
And now it's just continuing to move in that direction and in various other directions now that you all are coming into the mix, and I just I'm excited about where things are going. I'm excited that there are other people coming along here to create their own courses, create their own subcommunities within the broader community that we all share together here. And so if you know, if you're listening to this and you know any of these courses sound appealing to you, then just go ahead and enroll.
Just just do it, because you know, even if maybe you feel like you have a lot going on, you know, maybe have work, family, institutional, school of your own, whatever you have going on, maybe it feels like a bit much.
But the good news about a course, about any of these courses, is like you can participate in a level that works for you and you have indefinite access and so, you know, maybe you fall behind, maybe you can't keep up, that's okay because you have access to the material and you have access to the community and definitely, whether that be through discord, whether that be through interactions with the course facilitators, whatever, by establishing those connections, you know, this
can work in your time, it can fit with what your particular needs are, even if you can't necessarily move along in you know, lifetime with the progress of the course. And so there's really no reason not to make it happen. And so I just encourage anybody here join this community, join with these subcommunities, join all of them, make it happen. As a reminder, if you're already in Mythic Mind, if you're already a patron, you can get half off here. And so this is just an incredible value here on
any and all of these courses. So I definitely appreciate you all coming on. Is there anything else that anyone wanted to say before we close it up? All right, Well, thanks again for coming on, Thank you for putting together these courses and expanding what the Mythic Mind Fellowship past offer. And I personally look forward to moving along with each of you in your own courses that you're leading, and I hope that many others come alongside us as well.
And until then, I'll see all around the discord and podcast and wherever else, and best of luck as you continue to put your courses together. All right, well, I really hope that you enjoyed learning, that you enjoyed hearing from these upcoming course creators, and I really hope that you'll take their courses now if you want the absolute best to you'll get the most value out of the whole Mythic Mind experience. Then here's what you're gonna want
to do. You're gonna want to go to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind, become a patron, become an annual patron at the tier three level as the apprentice level, because when you become an annual Tier three patron of Mythic Mind, you get access to all of my courses that are currently on the schedule that includes a brief history of Ideas, Plato Stoicism until we have Faces, the
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going up until my course starts in May. I've currently upped the annual discount for patronage up to twenty percent, And if you sign on at that level with an annual patronage, then next year, if you decide to renew, and I think you will based off everything we have to offer, then you actually get to keep that price at renewal, and so this is a great deal. You get all of my courses that are currently on the books, all the way up to the Summarullion, which will be
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go ahead and get access to this materials. Now, support our team and help all of us to continue going further up and further in so that way we have a growing array of option to provide for you, and so I hope that you will join us in some of these courses. I hope you'll join us in all of these courses. But if nothing else, I just appreciate you continuing to listen here and I look forward to
all that we have in store. And now before we sign off, I do want to thank all of my current patrons, and specifically by name, I want to thank all Tier three patrons and higher, and that is Mark, Amanda, Chase, Chas Clinton, Aaron Evy, Jamie, Justin, Justin, Kyle, Mariah, Paul, Roger Tyler and William and most of those Tier three patrons right there. I have taken the deal of annual patronage. You get access to all of those courses, and so I hope that you'll join them. I hope you'll join
this growing community at any level. All levels of support are very much appreciated and give you access to the mythic mind community, and so I hope to see you there. But until next time, godspeed. When you go to the roots of the word philosophy, you find the love of wisdom, which unfortunately is not what you find at the roots of all who call themselves philosophers. Now, how do we get here? What are the ideas that shape our world?
And what can the old world tell us in response to the perennial questions of what it means to be human, what is our purpose? And what, if anything, ought we aspire to? In a brief history of ideas, we will navigate major epics of thought and survey some of the most important figures in the Western canon, including Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Nietzsche, Sart and carec. Guard and of course we will consider even more names. But these are the thinkers that will
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