☯ Heaven and Earth: The Architecture of Reality

Symbolism Masterclass #2: How Symbolism manifests at every level of reality.

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Mont Saint-Michel: An Image of Heavenly and Earthly Hierarchy

"We want heaven to manifest itself on Earth. We want the will of that which is invisible and above to form and to give a shape to the earth." Jonathan Pageau

Hello dear readers, I’m back with a summary of the second lecture of Jonathan Pageau’s Symbolism Masterclass, which runs from April 23 - May 28, 2025. (If you missed my free post on Lecture 1, you can find the link below.) Over the course of six lessons, Jonathan will unpack the symbolic structures that shape our world but are often hidden or indiscernible to those who hold a materialist, nominalist, or reductive view of reality.

How Meaning Structures the World

I’m taking this course to enhance my ability to interpret symbols and recognize universal patterns in literature and history. As you may recall from my discussion on the 4 senses of meaning in medieval exegesis, the second sense is allegorical—meaning conveyed through symbols or archetypes. This mode of interpretation allows us to think diachronically—across time through evolving language and ideas—when studying the works of the Western tradition (just think of all the symbolism in Dante!)

Jonathan’s aim is to help us recover a sense of embodied meaning and hierarchy in a world that modernism has flattened and drained of its purpose. I suspect I speak for most of his acolytes when I say we’ll never see the world the same again—rather, by means of symbolic thinking and its ability to unite heaven and earth, we perceive an enchanted view of the cosmos beginning to re-emerge.