The remodeled Mythic Mind site, Arda's end, and hope in despair

A look around the new site, plus Mythic Mind ep. 195 and Games ep. 55.

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Rembrandt, Philosopher in Meditation, 1632: a scholar sits by a sunlit window at the foot of a spiral stair.
The Weekly Letter
Mythic Mind
October 23, 2026
 
 
Friends,
“The ‘space’ of modern astronomy may arouse terror, or bewilderment or vague reverie; the spheres of the old present us with an object in which the mind can rest, overwhelming in its greatness but satisfying in its harmony.”
C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image
Here are a few things happening around the hearth:
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The new Mythic Mind Fellowship site is live
The full remodel of mythicmindfellowship.com went live on Thursday!
Here is a short tour of what is new:
The Mythic Mind Cosmos: a map of the medieval heavens, with an introduction on the left and the nested spheres around the Earth on the right.
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The Mythic Mind Cosmos
A free interactive map of the medieval heavens, drawn from C. S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image. Every episode, essay, and course has a place in one of the spheres. Turn on the sound with the speaker button.
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Which of the heavens is yours?
A quiz that places you in one of the medieval spheres.
Antonello da Messina, Saint Jerome in His Study, about 1474: a scholar reading at his desk among shelves of books.
The Reading Room
The home of the Mythic Mind Academy, with the courses, the book clubs, and the full-screen Old World Study of paintings and quotations.
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The Inkwell
Our writing room, with essays on anxiety, despair, identity, and freedom. The Articles menu is now called The Inkwell.
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The Gallery
Every episode of all three shows in one place, with filters to search by world, such as Augustine, Tolkien, Narnia, Final Fantasy, Star Wars, and The Elder Scrolls.
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Also new
Voices from the Fellowship on the home page, a new About page, the Fellowship Hall and Companions pages, a simpler membership page, and a new header and footer menu.
 
If you have been following along as a free member, membership opens the courses and the live conversations.
View Membership Options
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New on Mythic Mind
Thumbnail for Mythic Mind episode 195: Did Middle-earth know its end? With Rev. Jeffrey Wade.
Eschatology in Arda: Did Middle-earth Know Its Ending? (ep. 195)
Rev. Jeffrey Wade joins Josh and me to discuss his master’s thesis on eschatology in Arda. His question is whether the inhabitants of Middle-earth themselves know how their story ends. He traces the hope of resurrection and the setting right of all things from the Ainulindalë onward, with a good deal of attention to water. We also ask how much of that hope survives in Peter Jackson’s films.
Listen here →
 
Out today on Mythic Mind Games
Image for Mythic Mind Games ep. 55: The Stanley Parable, Left or Right?
Is Choosing From a Script Still Freedom? The Stanley Parable (ep. 55)
Max, David, and I compare our runs through The Stanley Parable and its Ultra Deluxe edition: obeying or defying the narrator, the escape ending, and whether a script you did not write is necessarily a prison. Along the way we bring in Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death, C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, and we discuss what generative AI means for human freedom.
Watch Games ep. 55 →
 
In The Inkwell
Image for the Inkwell article: Søren Kierkegaard beside a line from The Sickness unto Death, "The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all."
The Sickness unto Death: Kierkegaard on Despair and the Self
I look at where our most fundamental decisions place us, and why the opposite of despair is not happiness but faith. The article takes up Kierkegaard’s most penetrating psychological work, published in 1849 under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus.
Read the article →
 
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Sincerely,
Andrew Snyder, Ph.D.
Mythic Mind
Header: Rembrandt (attributed), Philosopher in Meditation, 1632, Louvre. Reading Room: Antonello da Messina, Saint Jerome in His Study, about 1474, National Gallery, London. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.