Mythic Mind: Exploring the Psyche
Friends,
This fall, we're doing something new at Mythic Mind.
Over the years, Mythic Mind has grown in a number of different directions: philosophy and theology, literature, movies, video games, courses, essays, and conversations within the Fellowship.
Beginning this fall, we're going to start bringing those different worlds together.
For the first time, Mythic Mind will be organized around a common seasonal theme—a set of questions we'll pursue across our podcasts, the Inkwell, Mythic Mind Academy, and the Fellowship.
And for our first season, we're turning inward.
Exploring the Psyche
At the heart of the season is a deceptively simple question:
What does it mean to become a self?
What is anxiety? What is despair? What do our desires reveal about us? What does it mean to be free? How are we shaped by the stories we tell about ourselves? And ultimately, what does Christianity have to say about who we are—and who we are meant to become?
These are philosophical and theological questions. But they're also questions we encounter constantly in stories and ideas across literature, movies, television, and games.
That's what makes them such a natural fit for Mythic Mind.
Throughout the fall, we'll approach the psyche through both primary and secondary worlds, allowing philosophers, theologians, clinical psychotherapists, stories, and one another to illuminate different dimensions of the same human mystery.
Watch: Introducing Exploring the Psyche
I've recorded a short video introducing the new seasonal approach, why we're beginning with the psyche, and some of what you can expect over the coming months.
Our First Guide: Søren Kierkegaard
One thinker will loom particularly large this fall: Søren Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard is one of the great Christian explorers of the inner life. He writes about anxiety and despair, freedom and possibility, identity and self-deception—and about the difficulty of actually becoming a self.
But for Kierkegaard, these aren't merely psychological problems.
They are ultimately questions about our relationship to God.
I've begun a new series of Inkwell articles on Kierkegaard's psychological insights and framing here: The Necessarily Christian Psychology of Søren Kierkegaard.
Also, in October, we will begin a 8-week study titled "The Psychology of Søren Kierkegaard: Life in Anxiety and Despair, but I will say more about that as we get a bit closer.
What does it mean to become a self?
I'm looking forward to exploring this question with you this fall, whether you become a paid member and join in the conversations or just engage with the free avenues that call out to you.
