428 - Why they want you to think Christmas is pagan
The Symbolic World
Jonathan Pageau
4.8 • 933 Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
YouTube version: https://youtu.be/uh6rhiTrTnk
Christmas symbolism playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVX4HUUPrIY9MeGP5IILeRzu62Q1NPT4C
NEW COURSE: The Quest for the Holy Grail with Dr. Martin Shaw
In the dark heart of January, when the nights are long and the world draws close, Dr. Martin Shaw returns to Symbolic World Courses for an intensive week-long journey to tell one of the greatest stories of the Medieval imagination: Parzival and the Holy Grail.
Register now: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/the-quest-for-the-holy-grail
Cost: $160 USD
Dates of live course: January 12-16, 2026
Time: 12 PM-2 PM EST, except for Lecture 3 (January 14) which will be at 4PM-6PM EST
💻 Website and blog: http://www.thesymbolicworld.com
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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson: https://matthewwilkinson.net/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you paid attention to the secularist kind of critique of Christianity, one of the arguments you will have heard from the secularist camp, it also of from some of the more kind of radical Protestant sex is that Christmas is a pagan festival. |
| 0:18.3 | In my youth, I remember growing up, there were people in the church where I grew up |
| 0:23.5 | who argued for that and said that Christmas was a pagan festival, that it's not scriptural, it's not |
| 0:29.8 | in the Bible, and it was basically a Christians taking over the pagan myths, taking over the pagan myths, |
| 0:38.3 | taking over the pagan festival, specifically Sol Invictus, |
| 0:41.3 | which was on December 25th. |
| 0:43.3 | By the way, Solenvictus is a very late holiday. |
| 0:46.3 | But you probably might have seen other videos debunking this, |
| 0:50.3 | and so I obviously will give you the basics of why this is not true but we're |
| 0:55.4 | also going to try to look at the deeper reasons or the deeper um let's say questions that are happening |
| 1:02.3 | why is it that people want this to be true what what is uh motivating this kind of statement |
| 1:30.2 | and how it is that we can not only fight the details in terms of debunking the ridiculous connotation that Christmas is a pagan festival, but debunk it in a bigger way that is also debunked the very attitude and the very approach, which would lead people into saying such a thing. |
| 1:37.9 | Hello there. Well, this is Martin Shaw and I'm afraid whatever you had planned for January, |
| 1:45.0 | scrap it. I am returning to symbolic world gleefully with one of the great stories of our time, the epic of Parsival, the story of the Holy Grail itself. |
| 1:50.0 | Over five nights I will be telling the tale. |
| 1:53.0 | These will not be dry lectures or PowerPoint presentations. |
| 1:58.0 | This will be wild, old, philosophical storytelling in its deepest dimensions. It is |
| 2:05.7 | life-changing stuff, this story. I've written a book about it. I've been studying it for 20 years. |
| 2:12.1 | I've told it all over the world, but I have not shared it with you. I've not shared it with |
| 2:17.1 | symbolic world. So what else would you want to do in the great wintering time? |
| 2:21.3 | But to sit at the feet of this wonderful story and let me be your guide. |
| 2:26.3 | I'll see you there. |
... |
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