439 - Pavel Shchelin - Plutarch: Symbolism of History with Dcn. Seraphim Rohlin
The Symbolic World
Jonathan Pageau
4.8 • 933 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2026
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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NEW COURSE: Plutarch: Symbolism in History with Pavel Shchelin
The problem with history is that you are in it. Plutarch teaches us to read power symbolically—asking "whom does the hero serve?" to predict leadership patterns before they play out.
Presenter: Pavel Shchelin
Duration: 8 weeks studying the lives of Greeks and Roman Lycurgus, Alcibiades, Lysander, Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian –as living patterns, not dead men.
Live classes are on Wednesdays at 4-6pm Eastern Time, starting March 18th through May 6th, 2026.
Price: $180 USD, get the early bird discount of 15% off if you register by March 18th.
Register now: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/plutarch-symbolism-in-history
SUMMIT 2026: Join us for the Symbolic World Summit 2026! Speakers include Fr. Josiah Trenham, Mary Harrington, Jonathan Pageau, Dn. Seraphim Rohlin, and others.
Date: May 14-16
Place: Broadview Heights, OH
Buy your tickets now and get $50 off with the early bird sale through March 12th. Don't miss out! Hope to see you there: https://symbolicworldsummit.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 - Coming up
01:32 - Intro music
01:58 - Introduction
03:47 - The separation of religion and politics
07:44 - Current politics
09:20 - How they met
10:46 - Why Plutarch?
18:46 - If you were pointing a video camera
20:20 - Great men
24:28 - Plutarch's Lives
26:57 - Influence
28:40 - Cicero
49:18 - Digging his own grave
56:58 - Word and will
01:05:48 - Cicero's lesson for us
01:10:58 - Course info
01:16:06 - The point of studying history
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You can look at this way. |
| 0:01.0 | Still history is a mirror. |
| 0:03.3 | Like if you, again, if you treat history from a modern science perspective, then yes, |
| 0:07.4 | you can definitely keep this impassionate element, let's say. |
| 0:11.2 | If you read it as the way ancients read history, which is effectively didactic, like the |
| 0:16.9 | point of starting history was a detective to teach you something about yourself. |
| 0:20.8 | If you're doing it honestly, it's still transformative experience. |
| 0:25.2 | And again, Luther doesn't speak about it directly, but he often talks about this passion's desire, |
| 0:31.0 | which passions run which system, effectively, or which character. |
| 0:35.8 | And what I think is super important nowadays and in different work |
| 0:40.7 | you do, in different work I do, is to kind of bring this opting back. I think, ultimate |
| 0:46.2 | thing what I'm trying to do is to show exactly the movement of passions, desires, |
| 0:51.5 | struggles, imitations at the realm of power. |
| 0:54.8 | I think if more people learn to see what is happening around us in the same way, we'll |
| 1:01.5 | build this true resilience and true subjectivity, which of course is not political in itself. |
| 1:07.9 | It's not about rights. |
| 1:09.3 | It's about conquering your own passions. |
| 1:11.1 | Yeah, conquering control. |
| 1:12.1 | With the grace, obviously, like, as you know, because otherwise, like, you will always |
| 1:18.6 | fall into the same trap. You will always step on the same rakes and you will be surprised, |
| 1:23.9 | how could have happened? Well, the same way it has happened to Rome, the same way it has |
| 1:27.2 | happened late in like Florentine, the same way it has happened to Rome, the same way it has happened late in Florentine, |
... |
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