Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief — Season 1, Episode 7: Images of Story and Metastory

Episode synopsis

In this lecture, I discuss how the basic or archetypal categories we use to frame the world are represented in image, where they existed long before their nature could be articulated. These categories include the individual (hero/adversary), culture (wise king/tyrant), and nature (destruction/creation). The heroic individual (the knower) is typically masculine, as is culture (the known), while the unknown is feminine. These categories can be conceptualized, as well, as explorer, explored territory, and unexplored territory. The most abstract category is the dragon of chaos, the monster who guards what is most valuable. It is from this most primordial of categories that the other three emerge. Our existence as prey and predator is reflected in the ambivalent representation of the absolute unknown.

About Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

This lecture series lays bare the grammar of mythology, and describes the relevance of that grammar for interpretation of narrative and religion, comprehension of ideological identification and understanding of individual choice.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Context and Background
• E2Marionettes and Individuals (Part 1)
• E3Marionettes and Individuals (Part 2)
• E4Marionettes and Individuals (Part 3)
• E5Story and Metastory (Part 1)
• E6Story and Metastory (Part 2)
• E8Neuropsychology of Symbolic Representation
• E9Patterns of Symbolic Representation
• E10Genesis and the Buddha
• E11The Flood and the Tower
• E12Final: The Divinity of the Individual