Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind. We pursue wisdom in the past between
primary secondary world. I'm your host, Andrew Schnyder, and as always,
I am truly grateful for your company. This is going to be a short
episode for updates and recommendations, although I do plan a have some more interview
episodes coming very soon. But first I want to announce a name change for
the Mythic Mind community. I had been calling it the Mythic Mind Humanities Guild,
but that sounds a bit clunky and maybe even a little stodgy. Perhaps
for that reason, I found that some people thought that it was only for
academics, and well, we do have some scholars and educators in our midst.
This is a fellowship for everyone who enjoys Christian thought, reading, writing,
creating, and otherwise engaging with the true, the good, and the
beautiful. And so with that in mind, the Guild is now known as
the Mythic Mind Fellowship. Now some of you may be wondering what the Fellowship
is. Well, to be more direct about it, it's a group made
out of Mythic Mind patrons. We have a private discord server for discussing current
projects, books, and whatever else is on our mind. We have a
Fellowship substack which is open to submissions from all members and which can serve to
direct readers to your personal platforms as well. We also have a Fellowship podcast,
which also has recently been rebranded as the Mythic Mind Fellowship and so,
by the way, if you don't already listen to that podcast, be sure
to subscribe to the Mythic Mind Fellowship podcast. If you would like to join
the Fellowship, you can head over to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and
lend your support with as little as five dollars a month, although higher levels
of support are certainly appreciated and come with some extra perks. For now,
I'd like to thank the current Fellowship members and the super Patron tier in higher
so many thanks to Mark Cliff, Nick, Paul Aaron, Aaron, Andrew
Brandon, Emmy Harrison, Ian Jamie Jeremiah, Joscelyn, Joshua, Laura,
Matthew and William and also many thanks to the twenty or so members at the
Standard patron tier as well. As I rely on the thrones of adjunct work
for my primary income, your financial support is necessary for ensuring that I have
the time to continue investing in the continually growing branches of Mythic Mind, raising
the quality and utility for everyone involved. And again, if you would like
to become a member of the fellowship, head over to patreon dot com slash
Mythic Mind. Next, I'm starting to put together some summer plans. My
institutional course load is lighter in the summer, and so I'm turning my attention
to the broader community to offer some studies that I believe will be of some
value. I recently ran a poll on Twitter with some options, which receive
a total of four hundred and twenty nine votes. The options were intro to
Philosophy, Kirkey Guard, Tolkien and Lewis, and Life, Death and Meaning,
a version of which I'm going to be teaching on camp in the spring.
Tolkien and Lewis went out. However, each of these options had enough
interest to justify giving them a run with enough early commitment, and so here's
the current plan, although the details are subject to change. Introduction to Philosophy,
Kirkey Guard and Life, Death and Meaning will each beat twelve week studies,
and Lewis and Tolkien will be twenty weeks each week will include exclusive videos,
also available through a private podcast feed live discussion for anyone able to attend
a private discord server for anyone who likes to communicate throughout the week, and
encouraged, although it certainly not required, assignments such as short blog posts and
or recordings which will receive my feedback. With your consent, These assignments will
be published through Mythic Mind channels such as the Substack, podcast, Twitter and
so forth, and any content that you allow me to publish will include full
attribution and direction to any personal platforms that you would like to promote now so
I can afford the preparation and delivery time required to make these studies truly meaningful,
that will be a relatively small fee attached. The twelve week courses will
be three hundred dollars each and the twenty week course will be five hundred,
although there will be a midway hop on hop off point if you'd only like
to commit to Tolkien or Lewis. I'm posting more detailed course descriptions throughout this
week on Twitter, and I will offer more details in time to come regarding
platforms and whatnot. The best way to stay updated is to follow them.
I currently pin Twitter thread, although I will provide more details here, either
as a standalone episode or maybe in the next full episode. If you believe
that you would be likely to enroll in any of these courses, then please
let me know as soon as possible so I know what to expect and how
to prioritize. You can let me know on Twitter, you can reach out
to me through Patreon or discord if you're a member of the Fellowship, or
you can email me at Mythicmind podcast at gmail dot com. And so let
me know which of these courses you would be interested in enrolling in, and
the sooner that you let me know, the sooner that I can put some
plans in place. So now some recommendations. I recently read C. S.
Lewis's Ransom trilogy you'd sometimes refer to as his trilogy. Now, as
a general statement, I'm just gonna say that it's incredible. Now, I
know some of you may not be into science fiction, but it really isn't
science fiction. It is, first and foremost a drama regarding Christian spirituality.
It's a contest between God and devils and the natural alliances that the devils strike
up with a cult of empty progress that finds a natural residence in the heart
of men. If you've read and appreciated the Screwtape Letters, or if you
already feel some unease toward the path that we're headed as a society, you
will find in the Ransom Trilogy a cautionary, perhaps even a prophetic tale that
will open your mind even greater realities at play and will steal your resolve to
take the right side of this cosmic conflict. As Lewis writes in Perilandra,
the second book of the series, a man who has been in another world
does not come back unchanged. I think that statement certainly applies to your journeying
through the Ransom Trilogy. Oh and if you don't have time to sit down
and read a trilogy right now, you can also download the entire cities for
free from Audible if you have an account. It's a good recording and it's
a good route to go. But that's it for now. Be sure to
let me know if you're interested in any of the studies that I mentioned,
and I hope that you'll consider joining the Mythic Mind Fellowship. But until next
time, I wish you many meaningful roads ahead,