The Symbolism in Jack and the Beanstalk

as you know we are currently crowdfunding Snow White and the Widow Queen so if you haven't backed that project yet please go ahead and do that this video is a patron only video that I put out a few years ago on Jack and the Beanstalk kind of interpreting the relationship between the seed hierarchy you know what exactly is going on it's a story that I've been very curious about since I was a child and it will be one of the stories that we'll we will be putting out in this fairy tale series that we're starting with Snow White and the Widow Queen so please enjoy [Music] this is Jonathan Pedro welcome to the symbolic world [Applause] the story of Jack and the Beanstalk is a story that we've all heard as North Americans we know that story quite well so I thought it would be interesting to explore that story to look at its structure to look at the symbolism inherent in it and uh also it will help us to see a certain perspective on symbolism a certain perspective on hierarchy which is the manner in which hierarchy can prevent let's say things from higher above from reaching us something like that so we'll uh it's a it's an aspect of hierarchy that I haven't looked at so much and so I hope that it'll be a good occasion to talk about that the story of Jack and the Beanstalk can be um brought into very simple elements you know there are different versions of it of course but the most known version the one remember I'm gonna tell it very briefly a young boy lives with his mother he's an orphan he uh his mother is quite poor and uh you know they're starving they have nothing to eat and finally his mother you know all they have is this one cow and they're at the end of their rope and finally his mother tells him you know go and sell our cow so that we can eat you know for one last time and then we can die something like that and so Jack goes out and um he goes out with the cow in order to sell it at the market and hoping to be able to buy some food but on the way Jack makes a strange old man and a strange old man is suggests that maybe Jack should trade his cow for these magic beans um and he tells them that these magic beans are very special very precious and Jack ends up accepting that deal he takes the magic beans brings them back to his mother and of course his mother is extremely annoyed what are these magic beans you've been duped you've been had and she tosses the magic beans outside the window the next morning Jack wakes up and the beans have transformed in this gigantic Beanstalk which goes all the way up into the sky into the clouds and so Jack starts to ascend this um this stock his mother of course doesn't want him to but Jack will go anyways he ascends the stock and arriving up in the clouds he finds there is a giant castle or a house or or or some kind of Lair and in in front of the lair is a giant woman and the woman tells him you know be careful be careful because my husband is coming my husband the ogre is coming and so his this giant comes in you know fee fifo thumb I smell the blood of an Englishman and uh the uh the woman hides Jack in their house so the the giant sits down and he uh he eats and after he's eaten he takes out his bag of money and then he and and he starts to count it Jack and see this from his hiding place and finally the giant falls asleep of course Jack goes in takes the bag of gold brings it down the Beanstalk to his mother and this happens three times where he goes up the second time he goes up the same thing happens but instead of a bag of coins usually it is a chicken that lays golden eggs and then the third time that he goes up usually what it is it's a magical harp which plays music on its own and when Jack takes it the sometimes the harp will call out to its master and uh the giant wakes up chases um chases Jack down the Beanstalk his mother cuts the Beanstalk and the giant falls down you know and uh and dies and then after that Jack and his mother live happily ever after so that's the basic elements of the structure but um let's look at some of the elements one by one and we'll see what it is it's trying to talk about what type of structure is it appealing to so of course this idea of the the Jack being a orphan living with his mother having no father and being poor those two things are related the notion of not having enough uh enough to to be able to survive enough money enough value you could call it because the father is gone the the uh he's left alone and poor with his mother so he's not receiving what he needs to receive from above you could call it you have this relationship between the rich and the poor the rich are meant to give to the poor in order to help them to to survive and the poor you know are meant to provide work provide you know uh support for those that are above them you know and that's how the the chain of value in terms of monetary uh relationship goes you know and so um they are they're orphaned they're not attached to any principle to any man to any uh they're just left on their own and so Jack goes to sell his cow and the cow is of course you know the another image of this this feminine image that is related to his mother herself related to the land related to you know the this this is what they have they have the land they they don't they don't have the they don't have an identity they don't have a family they're not connected to something which can give them value and uh and so Jack uh is the um the old man wants to sell jack these beans now Jack intuitively has understood the transaction he he knows that that's what he's looking for he's looking for seeds he's looking for the center for a core for a an attachment to meaning to an attachment to an identity an attachment to a family something which connects him you know and will give him value and so this seed is of course this image of the core you know the the Pearl the uh the littlest thing the center of the the wheel so that's what he gets for the cow so in in the Christian terms you could say that he has sold the field to get the Pearl that is in hidden in the field you know Christ talks about about this uh no if Christ actually no he says he buys the field to get the uh the Pearl but this is actually the opposite but it ends up being the same thing it's like you sacrifice the much for the few you sacrifice you remove the garments of skin you remove the animal in order to get the seed you you get rid of the cow and you get the center this this this uh the center of meaning now the the mother doesn't recognize the seed she doesn't see it as something that she can be attached to she doesn't see the value in the seed that's often the problem with the seed itself because the seed the the meaning the name the spiritual aspect of something usually doesn't it's difficult for people to see their value because it doesn't appear as quantity it appears as as quality you know you look at a seed of of a tree and you think what is this this little thing it's not worth anything it doesn't have value you know you don't realize that if you plant it into the ground then it will become this gigantic tree you can't see that people the the naive person cannot see that in the tree but Jack has perceived that if he has the seed then he will have in the end he could have uh I mean he doesn't necessarily consciously do that but the idea is that if he has the seed then later he can have more because he can plant those seeds and receive more now the the mother tosses the seeds out and then you have this stock which goes up into the sky now the stock which goes into the sky is this connection is the connection to heaven it is the hierarchy it is the mountain it is all those things it is all these things which connect Heaven and Earth so it is a it's a connection between Heaven and Earth a ladder like I said um but it is a connection to heaven and earth seen from Below so you could imagine something like a ray of light coming from above um you can imagine that type of imagery with something coming from above or you know a a stream of water coming from above or like I said array of light um a glory from above but now it's from the it's from the bottom up and so it is this this vegetable stock which goes up and reaches into the the sky and so uh so Jack will Ascend the stock and what is he going to get he's going to get value he's trying to connect to meaning to to to meaning in all the the ways that that appears you know in terms of identity in terms of having value on Earth and so he goes up into the heaven and he first off steals gold itself so that's the first step it's like it's like a hierarchy of things that he gets the first is gold and and gold is of course in our world it's value it's also the highest metal it has to do with light which comes down you can imagine all these structures of the Golden Age The Silver age the Bronze Age you can imagine it as the the statue in the dream of uh of the Prophet Daniel where the head of the statue is gold and then silver bronze and all the way down to Clay so it's it is this hierarchy he gets the gold the second thing he gets is he gets the production of gold he gets the uh uh you know chicken which produces golden eggs and in the golden egg what you get is both the image of gold of value of this Ray of Light which comes down from above but also you can get it you can imagine it also as the seed it is this egg it is this this this uh the same as the it's the Heavenly version of The Bean that uh Jack got on earth now he's getting the Heavenly version of that being the seed that which comes from above and provides uh anger provides meaning all of that and then finally the third one is of course the highest uh version which is he receives this Golden Harp which plays music on his own on its own and so here it's related to the idea of a kind of highest meaning in the sense of The Music of the Spheres the patterns of reality itself that is what he is accessing when he gets the heart he's accessing the the deepest meaning the the pattern like I said the very pattern by which the world is functioning so you can see this hierarchy of things that he's accessing as he is getting the different things from the uh from the Giant now and then Jack what he does is he brings the light down from heaven down to earth and so he he it's of course the the traditional hero's journey he goes to get the Boon brings it back and that's what he's doing he's going up into heaven and he's getting some light from Heaven he's getting some gold some seed some patterns and he's bringing them down to the Earth in order for them to have their effect on the earth um and so that's what he's doing now the question comes is why is it that Jack has to steal those from the Giants why is it that Jack has to trick the lady giant has to trick the Giants in order to get that light from above and here is where you can see the hierarchy represented as an obstacle and this is this is what is being shown in the image now you can understand it very simply cosmically or phenomenologically you know you have you have this experience of light where does light come from light comes from above that's where meaning comes from because light get shows us the world and so meaning comes from above and then suddenly what happens this giant gray cloud comes uh you know in front of the sunlight and blocks the sunlight from you and so this is what this story is referring to in terms of just phenomena it's referring to the big dark clouds the giant clouds that block the Sun from us and prevent the sun its golden Rays from coming down to us and so Jack has to go up the Beanstalk has to go up what he has he has to ascend this organic this bottom-up uh ladder and get from get from Heaven what it can get by by stealing it from Heaven um and so in that imagery you see there are plenty of stories that have that type of imagery this whole Promethean notion of stealing fire from the gods and bringing it down to earth this is what Jack is doing he's stealing fire from above he's stealing gold Fire Light all these are the same types of imagery meaning all of this he's bringing down from above in order for it to be able to to to uh in order for it to to be able to be beneficial to the Earth um and that is also the reason why you have you know and I've talked about this before you have this notion of uh at every level of transition you can have monsters you can have monsters below you but you can also have monsters above you because the world is made of these of a ladder of of of transcendence and so at every step of the ladder you can encounter some obstacle you can encounter something which is going to prevent you from going up further and that can appear as some kind of a monster you know like we've talked about the the leprechaun that saves the goal that's at the end of the rainbow there are many images of uh we've talked about the Sphinx or the Griffin which guards holy places or even the Cherub which guards the holy place you know on the veil and so this idea that as you're coming there's an obstacle or even the Cherub at the Gate of the Garden of Eden as you're moving in towards light towards meaning towards identity there's all there are also these obstacles which can manifest themselves to you okay and so the natural function of a hierarchy is to distribute let's say the light down to you so the idea you can imagine a hierarchy of angels that distribute the glory of God down to to the Earth or you can imagine a hierarchy in terms of a social hierarchy the purpose of the hierarchy let's say to have a president or a king or whatever it is that's above you in terms of uh of uh of hierarchy is that they are supposed to distribute what they get from above them down to the lower levels they're supposed to be a conduit by which Grace by which uh value by which identity all of these things are supposed to come down to you but like I said because of the very manner in which hierarchy works it is possible for the the the levels above you to act as an obstacle and to prevent let's say what's above from coming down and that's the image the whole image of the tyrannical King if you think of King John and the story of Robin Hood who only takes from below and doesn't give from above you know and that that can't work there has to be an exchange between Heaven and Earth and so of course in the darker side of this type of representation of uh of of a hierarchy of course there is an extreme version of this which is you know the kind of uh the Revolutionary idea which is that we have to go up and get the Tower of Babel is also part of of this imagery of the idea that we have to go up the tower in order to reach to reach the highest you know we have to go up and get it ourselves because you know there is this idea that it's not coming down the way that we think it should come down or that it it's being prevented from coming down by the different levels of of an ontological hierarchy um and usually you know that's quite negative but it's not doesn't always have to be negative it just really depends on what is behind it and what you know there is also this idea that we do have to struggle there is a struggle that is necessary in order to be able to access you know it's a race we have to climb the ladder and uh the ultimate image of that is of course in the image of Jacob now Jack and Jacob same name same story I'm sorry to tell you that that uh Jacob in the Bible is very similar to Jack in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk because Jack and the Beanstalk of course is the trickster he goes up he tricks the the um he tricks the uh the Giant in order to get things from above and that is exactly what Jacob does in the Bible Jacob tricks his father to get the blessing because he sees his brother who's above him adds an obstacle for him to receive the blessing he tricks uh he tricks Laban in order to to get value to get uh to get rich um and then ultimately he struggles with an angel he fights an angel in order to get a blessing uh and that is this it's the same concept the whole story of Jacob is the same thing so he me he encounters an Angel and the angel is an obstacle for him to receive the blessing and so he struggles with the angel he fights with the angel and then he finally receives the blessing and so in the most positive aspect of this story we can see it as the need to struggle and the need to to be to to actively climb the ladder to active really engage in life and not let the not let things become obstacles for us to receive what is coming from above and on the opposite side or on the negative side and also the negative side of Jacob as well is the danger of the Revolutionary mindset which is that I will overthrow what is above me in order to get to to ascend in order to get what is above from me and in the the extreme version of that of course the extreme extreme extreme extreme version of that is of course is of course the the revolution in heaven or the revolution in the garden and it leads to death uh and so there are ways to recover let's say the the the positive aspect of the story of Jacob and of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and be careful of the dangerous and negative aspects of that story so I hope that this uh this version this explanation of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk was enlightening to you [Music] I'm Jonathan Pedro and I'm inviting you to participate with us in our retelling and our celebration of one of the most iconic fairy tales of all Snow White a beautifully Illustrated storybook Snow White and the Widow Queen places our iconic character at the beginning of eight upcoming fairy tales which will speak to each other and harmonize in surprising ways Snow White and the Widow Queen rekindles an adventure which will make you remember ReDiscover but also Marvel and wonder at our Rich Heritage of stories a Heritage that still has secrets to reveal even after centuries of being passed down to us in the past few decades we have watched many of our stories our fairy tales our myths become completely exhausted by efforts to deconstruct them to reinvent them and sometimes to even invert their original meaning it has come to a point where we've almost forgotten why we cared about these stories in the first place I firmly believe that for this reason it is now time to retell and redisrupt our original fairy tales in a spirit of celebration of admiration and unashamed joy I've spent the past two decades meditating on the strange narrative elements of Snow White and other fairy tales after much thinking I'm now bringing this story to our common Hearth we find in the fire of time ready to present Hidden Treasures most of us have never noticed to accomplish this I have paired up with Heather paulinton a world-class artist and designer who has worked on some of the most beloved film franchises of our time her work mirrors my writing and a collaboration that has produced a powerful synthesis of medieval style with the best of 19th and 20th Century illustration I love the kickstarter model because we can make the book more and more beautiful with every stretch book who can offer art prints a limited edition drawing by Heather and even a snow white illustration of my own planning a super exclusive leather-bound Edition which pulls out all the stops a storybook mantelpiece for sure the prophets of this crowdfunder will be used to start a new Publishing Company symbolic World Press whose christening publication will be this very fairy tale series each book illustrated by world-class artist Jack and the Beanstalk Cinderella the Valiant little Taylor and several more are next in line for publication all existing in the same world and all fitting together like a puzzle moving towards the final surprising resolution after all that there's no limit to what we can do it's time to reset the clock to retell our stories so please join us in this celebration and create Adventure [Music]

Channel: Jonathan Pageau

Views: 18,459

Keywords: symbolism, myths, religion

Id: pYo60wtDk28

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2023