Diary, 2023

Most of the entries on this page are collected from my Dreamwidth blog.

26 Mar 2023

I just noticed something. In his Life of Plotinus, Porphyry notes that he became suicidal after some years in Rome:

I myself at one period had formed the intention of ending my life; Plotinus discerned my purpose; he came unexpectedly to my house where I had secluded myself, told me that my decision sprang not from reason but from mere melancholy and advised me to leave Rome. I obeyed and left for Sicily, which I chose because I heard that one Probus, a man of scholarly repute, was living there not far from Lilybæum. Thus I was induced to abandon my first intention but was prevented from being with Plotinus between that time and his death.

Plotinus mostly only wrote his essays because Amelius and Porphyry nagged him so, but Porphyry indicates that he continued to mail essays to him while he was in Sicily:

The following five [essays] Plotinus wrote and sent to me while I was living in Sicily, where I had gone about the fifteenth year of Gallienus:

46. On True Happiness [I 4]
47. On Providence (1) [III 2]
48. On Providence (2) [III 3]
49. On the Knowing Hypostases and the Transcendent [V 3]
50. On Love [III 5]

Do you notice anything about these? The first three are encouragement for Porphyry, and the latter two are a reminder of what work remains ahead of him.

This seems to me to be a reminder that Plotinus—certainly no intellectual weakling—believed Reason is, and ought to be, in the service of Love.

26 Mar 2023

I was whining a few weeks ago about how trying to build a metaphysical system is stupid, since any given system cannot be powerful enough to prove itself, let alone more powerful systems: that is, metaphysics, being more powerful than physics by definition, can't be apprehended physically. In particular, I expressed frustration with modern commentators who criticized the Neoplatonists for failing to build a system or indeed assuming that's what they were up to. Since those commentators usually pointed to Proclus' Elements of Theology, I wondered whether Proclus himself considered that the goal.

I dug a little ways into the Elements to see for myself, and it seems obvious to me that Proclus was to teach rather than prove. One who wants to prove works bottom-up, from irrefutable axioms rooted in everyday experience; but the one who wants to teach works top-down, from simple to complex. That Proclus has borrowed the form of Euclid's Elements doesn't mean he has borrowed the means; his references to prior propositions seem to me to be an aid to the student, rather than a mathematical demonstration.

21 Apr 2023

@violetcabra mentioned hexafoils lately, which are a neat little geometric construction with evident spiritual properties:

I was curious what other kinds of "foils" there were. Turns out there's only two: a "tetrafoil" with four petals, and a "pentafoil" with five:

Let's consider why. First, a "foil" obviously connects the vertices of a regular polygon with circular arcs through the center of its circumscribed circle. Thus there no such thing as a "monofoil" or "difoil" since you can't have a polygon with fewer than three vertices. The "trifoil" is simply a degenerate hexafoil with half of its petals removed, and so there seems no reason to count it. (This isn't just pique, either: to construct a trifoil with a compass, one has to construct the full hexfoil first!) The "tetrafoil", "pentafoil", and hexafoil are shown above. The "heptafoil" cannot be constructed with a compass and straightedge, but even if it could, it's petals would overlap each other: this is because they are both wider and closer together than the hexafoil's. This is true for any number of petals greater than six, in fact, which means that the hexafoil is as high as we can go.

The "tetrafoil" is unusual compared to the other two in that arcs connect its adjacent vertices, rather than every other vertex. (If we connected every other vertex, the arcs would be of infinite radius—that is, they'd be straight lines—and we'd have a sun cross.) In this respect, the "tetrafoil" is more like a degenerate "octafoil," where we removed the extra petals that overlap.

The hexafoil is trivial to construct with a compass alone, but the others are quite complicated: the "tetrafoil" took me fourteen circles to make, and the "pentafoil," fifteen. (They're both pretty easy if you allow a straightedge, though.) I think this is reflected in their elegance: the hexafoil strikes me as by far the most orderly and beautiful of these, though the "pentafoil" reminds me of a sand-dollar, which has its charms...

30 Apr 2023: How the One Becomes Many

Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to everything.
But everything carries yin and embraces yang.
And yin and yang, together, are One.

(Laozi, Tao Te Ching XLII.)

I am One transformed into Two;
I am Two transformed into Four;
I am Four transformed into Eight;
I am, after this, One.

(The Coffin of Petamun.)

As all things were produced by the mediation of the one,
so all things were produced from the one by adaption.

(The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus.)

I was trying to explain Neoplatonist metaphysics to a computer programmer friend the other day and stumbled onto a useful analogy which might help to explain the idea of hypostases.

Are you familiar with the fundamental theorem of arithmetic? It states that every integer greater than one can be uniquely represented as a product of prime numbers, that is, that every number is equivalent to 2^a·3^b·5^c·7^d·11^e·13^f⋯. Wikipedia gives the useful example that the number 1200=2⁴·3¹·5².

So, suppose you have a box somewhere which can contain exactly one number. It doesn't matter how large this number is, just that it can only contain one of them. If you want to store a single number, great, you can just stuff it into the box and you're done.

But what if you want to store two numbers? Well, thanks to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, we can cheat: suppose we call the first a and the second b, then we can find 2^a·3^b. This is fine since the result will be a unique number, we can stuff it into the box, and we'll always be able to pull a and b back out of it again if we need to.

If we want to store three or ten or a hundred numbers, it's the same thing again: we need more prime numbers, but we'll still get one resulting number in the end. The more numbers we want to store, the more ridiculously huge that result will be, but the box doesn't care how big it is, and so it's no problem. In fact, we can do this no matter how many numbers we have.

So in this way, a single box is, in fact, equivalent to a row of pseudo-boxes. But wait, there's no reason we have to stop there: each pseudo-box in the row is equivalent to a row of its own, right? So by repeating the process on each pseudo-box in the row, that single real box is equivalent to a two-dimensional grid represented by rows and columns of pseudo-pseudo-boxes. And we can repeat the process again on each pseudo-pseudo-box, making something of a cube of pseudo-pseudo-pseudo-boxes. And we can repeat the process again, and so on. We started with a zero-dimensional grid of boxes (that is, a point), but through a transformation process, found we could produce a one-dimensional grid of boxes (that is, a line), or a two-dimensional grid of boxes (that is, an area), or a three-dimensional grid of boxes (that is, a volume), or as many dimensions as you like. And these productions are inherent simply from the original box existing—it doesn't involve doing anything, it's just a matter of how we interpret it.

The connection to Neoplatonism is that the only thing that exists is the One, which is our single box, the only one that really exists; but this box is virtually a line of boxes, which is like all of the distinct ideas of the Intellect; but this line of boxes is virtually a grid of boxes, which is like all the distinct beings of the Soul; but this grid of boxes is virtually a volume of boxes, which is like all the various lives of those souls; but this volume of boxes is...

6 May 2023: First Steps in Neoplatonist Cosmology

Back when I was doing my On the Gods and the World series, I ran face-first into a lot of things I didn't understand because I didn't have the right mental model to make sense of it. If others are interested in starting to study Neoplatonism, here are a few core concepts that I wish I had known from the get-go in order to make sense of what I was reading:

1. There are two levels of reality relevant to us: the "intellectual" (e.g. the spiritual world, heaven) and the "sensible" (e.g. the material world, earth).

2. The "intellectual" is something of a misnomer: it was so called because it refers to things apprehended by the mind rather than by the senses, but this should be understood as intuition or inspiration rather than as reason, as George Bernard Shaw says of Saint Joan:

   ROBERT DE BAUDRICOURT. What did you mean when you said that St. Catherine and St. Margaret talked to you every day?

   SAINT JOAN. They do.

   ROBERT. What are they like?

   JOAN (suddenly obstinate). I will tell you nothing about that: they have not given me leave.

   ROBERT. But you actually see them; and they talk to you just as I am talking to you?

   JOAN. No: it is quite different. I cannot tell you: you must not talk to me about my voices.

   ROBERT. How do you mean? Voices?

   JOAN. I hear voices telling me what to do. They come from God.

   ROBERT. They come from your imagination.

   JOAN. Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.

3. The intellectual is more real than the sensible, because it is eternal and unchanging, while the sensible is always in flux. The sensible may be thought of as the reflection of the intellectual, with matter being the mirror. Because it is a reflection of something eternal, the sensible as a whole is similarly eternal and cannot be said to have been created, even as the things within it are born and die.

4. The gods are the native inhabitants of the intellectual, and there are many kinds of them, ranging from truly mighty to very minor. Animals and plants and minerals are the native inhabitants of the sensible. "Daimons" live at the interface between the two. (In modern English, we generally call these "angels" if they live on the intellectual side and "spirits" if they live on the sensible side.)

5. Humans have a sort of amphibious existence, possessing both an intellectual soul and a sensible body. The higher gods (e.g. the Olympians of the Greeks) do not possess a body at all. The lower gods (e.g. the sun and moon and planets) are amphibious like we are (though their souls and bodies are much greater than ours).

6. The higher gods are impersonal and, indeed, so fundamental to existence that it is difficult to conceive of them as people. (They are more like "forces," though unlike our modern notion of forces, they are sentient—or, rather, super-sentient.) Personal gods, like the Athena of the Odyssey, are, properly speaking, daimons.

7. Since one is prior to many at every level of existence, there is, in fact, a highest god. (Various authors call it "the God" as opposed to "a god" or "the gods." Plotinus calls this god "Soul.") In this sense, Neoplatonism is both monotheistic and polytheistic.

8. The intellectual is itself a being, of an even higher sort than the gods. (Porphyry calls it "the father of the gods.") There is, in fact, an even more fundamental reality than the intellectual, called "the One" or "the Good," but it is impossible to reason about and may only be experienced.

9. The intellectual world is characterized by unity, while the sensible world is characterized by separation. Conflict between the gods is not possible, and it is silly to think that, e.g., there was a war between the Greek gods and the Christian god: to the Neoplatonists, the Greek gods gracefully gave way to the Christian god as times moved on.

10. To the Neoplatonists, the Greek myths generally aren't literally talking about the gods at all. (Trying to find theology in Homer or Hesiod requires a lot of mental gymnastics.) Instead they're using mythic language to describe other phenomena. (For example, the myths of Hades and Persephone, or Aphrodite and Adonis, etc., are actually about human souls.)

11 May 2023: Xenophon on Socrates' Daimon

I have often wondered by what arguments those who drew up the indictment against Socrates could persuade the Athenians that his life was forfeit to the state. The indictment against him was to this effect: "Socrates is guilty of rejecting the gods acknowledged by the state and of bringing in strange deities: he is also guilty of corrupting the youth."

First then, that he rejected the gods acknowledged by the state—what evidence did they produce of that? He offered sacrifices constantly, and made no secret of it, now in his home, now at the altars of the state temples, and he made use of divination with as little secrecy. Indeed it had become notorious that Socrates claimed to be guided by "the deity:" it was out of this claim, I think, that the charge of bringing in strange deities arose. He was no more bringing in anything strange than are other believers in divination, who rely on augury, oracles, coincidences, and sacrifices. For these men's belief is not that the birds or the folk met by accident know what profits the inquirer, but that they are the instruments by which the gods make this known; and that was Socrates' belief too. Only, whereas most men say that the birds or the folk they meet dissuade or encourage them, Socrates said what he meant: for he said that the deity gave him a sign. Many of his companions were counselled by him to do this or not to do that in accordance with the warnings of the deity: and those who followed his advice prospered, and those who rejected it had cause for regret. And yet who would not admit that he wished to appear neither a knave nor a fool to his companions? but he would have been thought both, had he proved to be mistaken when he alleged that his counsel was in accordance with divine revelation. Obviously, then, he would not have given the counsel if he had not been confident that what he said would come true. And who could have inspired him with that confidence but a god? And since he had confidence in the gods, how can he have disbelieved in the existence of the gods?

(Xenophon, Memorabilia I i, as translated by Otis Johnson Todd.)

[Euthydemus and Socrates are discussing how the gods are provident to man.]

"With you, Socrates, [the gods] seem to deal even more friendly than with other men, if it is true that, even unasked, they warn you by signs what to do and what not to do."

"Yes, and you will realise the truth of what I say if, instead of waiting for the gods to appear to you in bodily presence, you are content to praise and worship them because you see their works. Mark that the gods themselves give the reason for doing so; for when they bestow on us their good gifts, not one of them ever appears before us gift in hand; and especially he who co-ordinates and holds together the universe, wherein all things are fair and good, and presents them ever unimpaired and sound and ageless for our use, and quicker than thought to serve us unerringly, is manifest in his supreme works, and yet is unseen by us in the ordering of them. Mark that even the sun, who seems to reveal himself to all, permits not man to behold him closely, but if any attempts to gaze recklessly upon him, blinds their eyes. And the gods' ministers too you will find to be invisible. That the thunderbolt is hurled from heaven, and that he overwhelms all on whom he falls, is evident, but he is seen neither coming nor striking nor going. And the winds are themselves invisible, yet their deeds are manifest to us, and we perceive their approach. Moreover, the soul of man, which more than all else that is human partakes of the divine, reigns manifestly within us, and yet is itself unseen.

"For these reasons it behoves us not to despise the things that are unseen, but, realizing their power in their manifestations, to honor the godhead."

(Xenophon, Memorabilia IV iii, as translated by Otis Johnson Todd.)

(There are also two references to the daimon in Xenophon's Apology (which are duplicated word-for-word in Memorabilia IV viii) and one (joking) reference in his Symposium. I believe that these are all of Xenophon's references to the daimon.)

12 May 2023

Here is an analogy that might help to illuminate how Plotinus thinks of daimons:

• Luna's daimon is Earth.
• Earth's daimon is Sol.
• Sol's daimon is Sagittarius A*.

Note that Luna's nature (a bare rocky body) is different from Earth's nature (a rocky body with various bio/atmo/magnetospheres) is different from Sol's nature (a star) is different from Sagittarius A*'s nature (a black hole), and yet each loves, is loved by, and guides.

20 May 2023

A Duck was about in the yard
When Fox said, "Sir, put up your guard!"
 Duck sighed with regret
 As he stretched out his neck,
"'Twere only the Hour of Mars!"

THE PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD

24 May 2023: Thomas Taylor on Daimons

I got Thomas Taylor'd again, this time in a footnote to Proclus' Hymn to Helios:

According to the most accurate division of the dæmoniacal order, there are six species of dæmons, as we learn from the excellent Olympiodorus, in his Commentary on the Phædo of Plato. The first of these species is called divine, from subsisting according to the one, or that which is superessential in the mundane gods; the second is denominated intellectual, from subsisting according to the intellect of these gods; the third is rational, from subsisting according to the soul with which the mundane gods are connected; the fourth is natural, being characterized from the nature which depends on these gods; the fifth is corporeal, subsisting according to their bodies; and the sixth is material, subsisting according to the matter which depends on these divinities. Or, we may say, that some of these dæmons are celestial, others ætherial, and others ærial; that some are aquatic, others terrestrial, and others subterranean. Olympiodorus adds, that irrational dæmons commence from the ærial species; in proof of which he cites the following verse from some oracles, (most probably from the Zoroastrian oracles):

Being the charioteer of the ærial, terrestrial, and aquatic dogs.

For evil dæmons, as I have shown in my Dissertation on the Mysteries, appear in the shape of dogs. [...] I only add, that when irrational dæmons are said to be evil, this must not be understood as if they were essentially evil, but that they are noxious only from their employment; that is, from their either calling forth the vices of depraved souls that they may be punished and cured, or from their inflicting punishment alone; for, indeed, there is not any thing essentially evil in the universe; for as the cause of all is goodness itself, every thing subsisting from thence must be endued with the form of good; since it is not the property of fire to refrigerate, nor of light to give obscurity, nor of goodness to produce from itself any thing evil.

Oh dear, I'm going to need to put Olympiodorus on the reading list, too...

28 May 2023

My eldest daughter was born on a Wednesday, and she lives up to a Mercurial nature: she loves to read, and we go through many books every evening. (The library has a program called "1000 Books Before Kindergarten" and we go through that many in a couple months, easy.) Surely, though, I am not the only parent around here, and I thought it might be fun to pick out and share some of her favorites in case others are hunting around for good stories for their children.

And, because I'm a nerd, I figured I'd pick one for each planet.

The Sun. Iktomi Loses His Eyes, from Iktomi (series), Paul Goble

Everyone loves "trickster tales:" Anansi, Br'er Rabbit, Coyote, and the like. Iktomi is the Lakota variant of this character, whose ego and hubris are matched only by how he always seems to come out on top of all the trouble he gets himself into. My daughter loves the entire series, but says that "Iktomi Loses His Eyes" is her favorite: in it, Iktomi learns a magic spell which goes awry (of course).

The Moon. Burger Boy, Alan Durant

This is a tale of gluttony and metamorphosis, both lunar themes. My daughter cackles in glee at the wackiness of the fable, but I liked how the author didn't stoop to teach a cheap moral, but properly completed the story arc with a sophisticated one.

Mars. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, from Aladdin (Great Fairy Tale Classics), Peter Holeinone

I found this collection of stories retold from the Arabian Nights at a thrift store, I think, and it was perhaps one of the best finds we've ever had: we've read it a dozen or more times. It has some very familiar stories, like Aladdin, and some less familiar ones, like the Parrot Shah or the Weeping Princess, but my daughter is as morbid as I am, and her favorite is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Full of gods, spirits, and magic.

Mercury. The Boy of the Three Year Nap, Dianne Snyder

This is a mischief story and no mistake, where a player gets played at his own game. Notably for this blog, the story prominently features a genii loci as well (well, sort of).

Jupiter. Dear Mili, Wilhelm Karl Grimm

This is a story of prayer, beneficence, and guardian angels. I was very proud that as I read it to my daughter the first time, she correctly identified every single spiritual theme: one of those moments where one pauses to themselves and says, "Wow, she really has been listening!" (Until at least, she points at the book and says, "Keep reading, daddy.")

Venus. Chirri and Chirra, from Chirri and Chirra (series), Kaya Doi

Two little girls go and play in the forest with the animals. No grown ups, no morals, just fun. (I wish we had a forest cafe to go hang out at.)

Saturn. Farmer Boy, from The Little House on the Prairie (series), Laura Ingalls Wilder

My daughter is getting old enough now that we're starting to get into chapter books, but these are hit and miss. The single biggest hit has been Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series: we've read most of them and my daughter is simply fascinated by it all. I asked her which of the series has been her favorite, and she said Farmer Boy, and I think it's my favorite, too: while it purports to tell "a year in the life" of a farmer's child in the 1800's, it possesses a good, clear story arc, and the characters are all relatable and interesting.

9 Jun 2023: Proclus on Magic

I found this extract concerning magic from Proclus' Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato in The Platonist vol. 1, nos. 8–10, p. 116 (and translated by Thomas Taylor). I thought it might be of interest to others.

(I apologize for the hasty transcription, but I haven't much time today! Please forgive any errors.)

[There is no doubt but what the following treatise on Magic formed a part of Proclus' Commentary on the First Alcibiades, though the original Greek of it is not extant. It exists only in the Latin version of Marsilius Ficinus, and was first published at Venice in 1497, in a volume entitled "Procli de Anima ac Dæmone, de Sacrificio et Magia."

"Magic," according to Psellos in his work on Dæmons, "formed the last part of the sacerdotal science. It investigates the nature, power, and quality of everything sublunary, viz.: of the elements and their parts, of animals, all various plants and their fruits, of stones and herbs; and, in short, it explores the essence and power of everything. From hence, therefore, it produces its effects. And it forms statues which procure health, makes all-various figures, and things which become the instruments of disease. It asserts, too, that eagles and dragons contribute to health; but that cats, dogs, and crows are symbols of vigilance, to which therefore they contribute. But for the fashioning of certain parts, wax and clay are used. Often, too, celestial fire is made to appear through magic; and then statues laugh, and lamps are spontaneously enkindled."

It will doubtless be objected by most of the present period, who believe in nothing beyond the information of their senses, that plants, animals, and stones no longer possess those wonderful sympathetic powers which are mentioned by Proclus in the following extract. In answer to any such objector, whose little soul, in the language of the Emperor Julianus, is indeed acute, but sees nothing with a vision healthy and sound, it must be said that this is not at all wonderful at a period when, as the author of the Ascleplan dialogue justly observes, "there is a lamentable departure of divinity from man, when nothing worthy of heaven or celestial concerns is heard or believed, and when every divine voice is by a necessary silence dumb." But to the philosophic reader it must be observed that, as in the realms of generation, or in other words the sublunary region, wholes, viz. the spheres of the different elements remain perpetually according to nature; but their parts are sometimes according, and sometimes contrary, to nature—this must also be true of the parts of the earth. When those circulations, therefore, take place, during which the parts of the earth subsist according to nature, and which are justly called by Plato fertile periods, the powers of plants, animals, and stones magically sympathize with superior natures, in consequence of a more abundant participation of them, through a greater degree of aptitude to receive, and alliance to the participated powers. But during those circulations, in which the parts of the earth subsist contrary to nature, as at present, and which Plato calls barren periods, the powers of plants, animals, and stones no longer possess a magic sympathy, and consequently are no longer capable of producing magical operations.

Proclus, in the 140th proposition of his Elements of Theology, says: "Hence also in last natures there are representations of such as are first, and all things sympathize with all; secondary indeed pre-existing in first natures, but first natures presenting themselves to the view in such as are second. For everything subsists in a threefold manner, either according to cause, or according to hyparxis, or according to participation." Thus, too, Hippocrates: "There is one conflux, one conspiration, and all things sympathize with all" He who under stands this will see that the magic cultivated by the ancient philosophers is founded in a theory no less sublime than rational and true. Such a one will survey the universe as one great animal, all of whose parts are in union and consent with each other; so that nothing is foreign and detached; nothing, strictly speaking, void of sympathy and life. For though various parts of the world, when considered as separated from the whole, are destitute of peculiar life; yet they possess some degree of animation, however inconsiderable, when viewed with relation to the universe. Life indeed may be compared to a perpetual and universal sound; and the soul of the world resembles a lyre, or some other musical iustrument, from which we may suppose this sound to be emitted. But from the unbounded diffusion as it were of the mundane soul, every thing participates of this harmonical sound, in greater or less perfection, according to the dignity of its nature. So that while life everywhere resounds, the most abject of beings may be said to retain a faint echo of the melody produced by the mundane lyre. It was doubtless from profoundly considering this sympathy between the mundane soul and the parts of the world that the ancient philosophers were enabled to procure the presence of divinity, and produce effects beyond the comprehension of the vulgar. And that this was the opinion of Plotinus, the following passage evinces: "It appears to me that the ancient wise men, who wished to procure the presence of the deities, by fabricating statues and performing sacred rites, directed their Intellectual eye to the nature of the universe, and perceived that the nature of soul was everywhere easy to be attracted when a proper subject was at hand, easily passive to its influence. But everything adapted to imitation is readily passive, and is, like a mirror, able to seize a certain form and reflect it to the view." (Enneads IV iii.)]

By the first of these instructors they are taught the magic of Zoroaster the son of Ahura Mazda, by which magic is meant the worship of the Divinities.

(Plato, First Alcibiades.)

In the same manner as lovers gradually advance from that beauty which is apparent in sensible forms to that which is divine; so the ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity. Thus they recognized things supreme in such as are subordinate, and the subordinate in the supreme—in the celestial regions terrene properties subsisting in a causal and celestial manner, and in earth celestial properties, existing according to a terrene condition. For how shall we account for those plants called heliotropes—that is, attendants on the sun—moving in correspondence with the revolution of its orb; and selenotropes, or attendants on the moon, turning in exact conformity to her motion? It is because all things pray, and hymn the leaders of their respective orders; some intellectually, and others rationally; some in a natural, and others after a sensible manner. Hence the sunflower, as far as it is able, moves in a circular dance toward the sun; so that if any one could hear the pulsation made by its circuit in the air, he would perceive something composed by a sound of this kind in honor of its king, such as a plant is capable of framing. Hence, too, we may behold the sun and moon in the earth, but according to a terrene quality; and in the celestial regions all plants, and stones, and animals possessing an intellectual life according to a celestial nature. Now, the ancients, having contemplated this mutual sympathy of things, applied for occult purposes both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode. For, indeed, similitude itself is a sufficient cause of binding things together in union and consent. Thus, if a piece of paper is heated and after wards placed near a lamp, though it does not touch the fire, the paper will be suddenly inflamed, and the flames will descend from the superior to the inferior parts. This heated paper we may compare to a certain relation of inferiors to superiors; and its approximation to the lamp, to the opportune use of things according to time, place, and matter. But the procession of fire into the paper aptly represents the presence of divine light, to that nature which is capable of its reception. Lastly, the inflammation of the paper may be compared to the deification of mortals and to the illumination of material natures, which are afterwards carried upward like the enkindled paper, from a certain participation of divine seed.

Again: the lotus, before the rising of the Sun, folds its leaves into itself, but gradually expands them on its rising; unfolding them in proportion to the Sun’s ascent to the zenith, and as gradually contracting them as that luminary descends to the west. Hence this plant, by the expansion and contraction of its leaves, appears no less to honor the Sun, than men by the gesture of their eyelids, and the motion of their lips. But this imitation and certain participation of supernal light is not only visible in plants, which possess nothing more than a vestige of life, but likewise in particular stones. Thus the sun-stone by its golden rays imitates those of the Sun; but the stone called the eye of heaven, or of the Sun, has a figure similar to the pupil of an eye, and a ray shines from the middle of the pupil. Thus too the lunar stone, which has a figure similar to the Moon when horned, by a certain change of itself follows the lunar motion. Lastly, the stone called helioselenus—i.e., of the Sun and Moon —imitates after a manner the congress of those luminaries, which it images by its color. So that all things are full of divine natures; terrestial natures receiving the plenitude of such as are celestial, but celestial of supercelestial essences; while every order of things proceeds gradually in a beautiful descent from the highest to the lowest. For whatever particulars are collected into one above the order of things, are afterwards dilated in descending, various souls being distributed under various ruling divinities.

In the next place there are many solar animals, such as lions and cocks, which participate, according to their nature, of a certain solar divinity; whence it is wonderful how much inferiors yield to superiors in the same order, though they do not yield jn magnitude and power. Hence it is said that a cock is very much feared and, as it were, reverenced by a lion; the reason of which we cannot assign from matter or sense, but from the contemplation alone of a supernal order. For thus we shall find that the presence of the solar virtue accords more with a cock than with a lion. This will be evident from considering that the cock as it were with certain hymns applauds and calls to the rising Sun when he bends his course to us from the antipodes; and that solar angels sometimes appear in forms of this kind, who, though they are without shape, yet present themselves to us who are connected with shape, in some sensible form. Sometimes, too, there are dæmons with a leonine front who, when a cock is placed before them, unless they are of a solar order, suddenly disappear; and this because those natures which have an inferior rank in the same order always reverence their superiors; just as many, on beholding the images of divine men, are accustomed from the very view to be fearful of perpetrating anything base.

In fine, some things turn round correspondent to the revolutions of the Sun, as the plants which we have mentioned, and others, after a manner, imitate the solar rays, as the palm and date; and some the fiery nature of the Sun, as the laurel; and others a different property. For indeed we may perceive that the properties which are collected in the Sun are everywhere distributed to subsequent natures constituted in a solar order; that is, to angels, dæmons, souls, animals, plants, and stones. Hence, the authors of the ancient priesthood discovered from things apparent the worship of superior powers, while they mingled some things and purified others. They mingled many things indeed together, because they saw that some simple substances possessed a divine property (though not taken singly) sufficient to call down that particular power of which they were participants.

Hence, by the mingling of many things together, they attracted upon us a supernal influx; and by the composition of one thing from many, they produced an assimilation to that one which is above many, and composed statues from the mixture of various substances conspiring in sympathy and consent. Besides this, they collected composite odors by a divine art into one, comprehending a multitude of powers, and symbolizing with the unity of a divine essence; considering that division debilitates each of those, but that mingling them together restores them to the idea of their exemplar.

But sometimes one herb or one stone is sufficient to a divine operation. Thus, as a thistle is sufficient to procure the sudden appearance of some superior power; but a laurel, vaccinum (or a thorny kind of a sprig), the land and sea onion, the coral, the diamond, and the jasper, operate as a safeguard. The heart of a mole is subservient to divination, but sulphur and marine water to purification. Hence the ancient priests, by the mutual relation and sympathy of things to each other, collected their virtues into one, but expelled them by repugnancy and antipathy; purifying where it was requisite, with sulphur and bitumen, and sprinkling with marine water. For sulphur purifies from the sharpness of its odor; but marine water on account of its fiery portion. Besides this, in the worship of the gods they offered animals, and other substances congruous to their nature; and received in the first place the powers of dæmons, as proximate to natural substances and operations, and by these natural substances they convoked into their presence those powers to which they approached. Afterwards they proceeded from dæmon to the powers and energies of the gods; partly, indeed, from dæmoniacal instruction, but partly from their own industry, interpreting convenient symbols, and ascending to a proper intelligence of the gods. And lastly, laying aside natural substances and their operations, they received themselves into the communion and fellowship of the gods.

21 Jun 2023

A butterfly in 8 circles.

21 Jun 2023

This evening, I happened across the story of Star Boy (Mercury), son of the Morning and Evening Stars (Venus), grandson of the Sun and Moon. It is a myth every bit as worthy of contemplation as those of the Mysteries. On this longest day of the year, I share it in gratitude, and I pray that our dazzling, mundane reflection of the Father of All take away your scars and make your heart new again, too.

24 Jun 2023: The Teachings of Ammonius Saccas

(Nemesius of Emesa on the Nature of Man XX–XXI, as translated by William Telfer. See also Enneads I i and IV iii, and Sentences I–V, XVII–XVIII, XXXI.)

The second concerns the incorporeality of soul:

Now, as regards those who assign corporeity to the soul, it suffices to recall the argument of Ammonius, the master of Plotinus, and of Numenius the Pythagoraean. It runs thus:

Bodies, by their absolute nature, are mutable, dissoluble, and, throughout their extent, divisible indefinitely, without their remaining anything of body that is not thus liable to change. Therefore a body requires some principle keeping it together, assembling its constituents, and (so to speak) binding and holding them in union. And this principle we call soul. But if the soul is, in any kind of way, corporeal, even though its body were of the most rarefied stuff, the question is, what is the principle that holds it together? For it has been demonstrated that everything corporeal needs a principle of cohesion. And so the argument is carried back indefinitely, until we arrive at an incorporeal soul.

(Nemesius of Emesa on the Nature of Man XII, as translated by William Telfer.)

Telfer notes that the scholarly consensus appears to be that Nemesius is quoting a commentary of Porphyry's, probably of Aristotle on the Soul. If so, this quotation of Ammonius is at fourth hand (Ammonius→Plotinus→Porphyry→Nemesius).

25 Jun 2023

An eye in seven circles. (Appropriate, that.)

26 Jun 2023

But, if unification is in itself good, and all good tends to create unity, then the Good unqualified and the One unqualified merge in a single principle, a principle which makes things one and in doing so makes them good. Hence it is that things which in some fashion have fallen away from their good are at the same stroke deprived of participation of unity; and in like manner things which have lost their portion in unity, being infected with division, are deprived of their good.

(Proclus, Elements of Theology XIII (excerpt), as translated by E. R. Dodds.)

If unity is goodness, why on earth would you pay any attention to the multitude?

29 Jun 2023

Diogenes Laertius (The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII i 4) tells us, speaking of Pythagoras,

Heraclides Ponticus says, that he was accustomed to speak of himself in this manner; that he had formerly been Æthalides, and had been accounted the son of Mercury; and that Mercury had desired him to select any gift he pleased except immortality. And that he accordingly had requested that, whether living or dead, he might preserve the memory of what had happened to him. While, therefore, he was alive, he recollected everything; and when he was dead, he retained the same memory. And at a subsequent period he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus [c.f. Iliad XVI–XVII]. And while he was Euphorbus, he used to say that he had formerly been Æthalides; and that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased; and he had also received the gift of knowing and recollecting all that his soul had suffered in hell, and what sufferings too are endured by the rest of the souls.

But after Euphorbus died, he said that his soul had passed into Hermotimus; and when he wished to convince people of this, he went into the territory of the Branchidæ, and going into the temple of Apollo, he showed his shield which Menelaus had dedicated there as an offering. For he said that he, when he sailed from Troy, had offered up his shield which was already getting worn out, to Apollo, and that nothing remained but the ivory face which was on it. And when Hermotimus died, then he said that he had become Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos; and that he still recollected everything, how he had been formerly Æthalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. And when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still recollected all the circumstances that I have been mentioning.

I had seen this when I was going through The Lives, collecting anecdotes about the Cynics (I still gotta write up all the hilarious back-and-forth between Plato and Diogenes—they really had it out for each other!), thought it was interesting but not terribly useful, and promptly forgot about it. But it seems the Neopythagoreans made hay of it! I found this in the Theology of Arithmetic VI (attributed to Iamblichus, but more likely the lecture notes of some anonymous student):

Since 6³=216, the period pertaining to seven-month offspring, when to the seven months are added the six days in which the [fertilized egg takes to implant in the uterus], then Androcydes the Pythagorean, who wrote On the Maxims, and Eubulides the Pythagorean, Aristoxenus, Hippobotus, and Neanthes—who all recorded Pythagoras' deeds—said that the transmigrations of soul which he underwent occurred at 216-year intervals, that after this many years, at all events, he came to reincarnation and rebirth as Pythagoras, as it were after the first cycle and return of the soul-generating cube of six (and this number is in fact recurrent because of being spherical [e.g. 6² is circular, since 36 contains 6, so 6³ is spherical, having one more dimension]), and that he was born at other times after these intervals. This is consistent with him having had the soul of Euphorbus during that period: for there are about 514 years of history from the Trojan War until the time of [Pythagoras]. [...]

So evidently, the Neopythagoreans considered it to take 216 years between lives. John Dillon wonders whether this were true of Proclus, too: since Marinus (Life of Proclus XXVIII) says that "on the authority of a dream, he was convinced that his was the reincarnated soul of the Pythagorean Nicomachus;" and since, while we don't know the date of his death, it is plausible that Nicomachus died in AD 196 (216 years prior to Proclus' birth). (Certainly, it is plausible that Proclus, a compiler turned up to eleven, is the reincarnation of another compiler!)

As for whether this is generally true, who knows? What little I possess of my previous life suggests it happened almost immediately prior to this one, rather than in colonial times. But on the one hand, I'm not super confident in those memories; and on the other, that little time elapses between lives now doesn't rule out that hundreds of years elapsed between lives back then.

30 Jun 2023: Olympiodorus and Taylor on Suicide

I've been sick—on top of the last few weeks of bad summer allergies, I caught a pretty bad cold a few days ago—and since Proclus is pretty tough going at the best of times, I've been turning to Plato for light reading. (Yes. Yes, I know. I know. Shut up.) People have been reading Plato for a long time and for all that time they've had opinions on the best order to read his books in. (On the one side we have Thrasyllus, from ~100 BC, and Albinus, from ~AD 100; on the other side, the list I selected to work from was from a few years ago.) I started by reading them in such an order, but man oh man was it boring. The point of this is to be fun, right? So why waste time on pesky politics or ethics (or even Alcibiades, sweet treat though he was), when what I really care about is metaphysics?

So I gave up on the reading order (I'll get back to early dialogues eventually—maybe) and jumped right into the books that Plotinus references. So right now I'm reading the Phædo (a better title would be On the Immortality of the Soul) and I'm enjoying myself. It's good.

But that's not why I'm writing right now. While I'm reading a modern translation (Jowett's, as it happens), I of course have Thomas Taylor's copious notes to hand, and it is of little surprise to find gems in there. Since I just went back over Plotinus on Suicide, it was convenient (to use no stronger or more mystical term) to find a four-page long footnote containing Olympiodorus' and Taylor's thoughts on the same. Since it's interesting, I figured I'd transcribe it for you all:

Socrates says, that perhaps the philosopher will not destroy himself, for this is not lawful. This the text shows through two arguments, the one mythical and Orphic, but the other dialectic and philosophic. But before we consider the text, says Olympiodorus, let us show by appropriate arguments that suicide is not lawful. Divinity possesses twofold powers, anagogic and providential; and the powers which are providential of things secondary are not impeded by the anagogic, and which are converted to them, but he energizes at once according to both. In like manner, nothing hinders but that a philosopher, since he is an imitator of Divinity, (for philosophy is an assimilation to Deity,) may at once energize cathartically, and with a providential care of secondary natures: for there is nothing great in living cathartically when separated from the body after death; but, while detained in the body, it is generous to be intent on purification. The second argument is this: As a divine nature is always present to all things, and some things participate of it more or less, through their proper aptitude or inaptitude; so also it is necessary that the soul should be present to the body, and should not separate itself from it. But the body participates or does not participate of it, through its proper aptitude or inaptitude. Thus, in the Theætetus, the Coryphæan philosopher is represented as not knowing where the Forum is situated, but as being even ignorant that he is ignorant of sensible particulars; and this while he is in the body. The third argument is as follows: It is necessary that a voluntary bond should be voluntarily dissolved; but that an involuntary bond should be dissolved with an involuntary solution, and not in a promiscuous manner. Hence a physical life, being involuntary, must be dissolved with an involuntary solution, i. e. by a physical death; but the impassioned life in us, which subsists according to pre-election or free will, must be dissolved with a voluntary solution, i. e. with purification, or the exercise of the cathartic virtues.

With respect to the text, it shows through two arguments, as we have observed, that suicide is not lawful; and of these the mythical argument, according to Olympiodorus, is as follows:—According to Orpheus, there are four governments: the first that of Heaven, which Saturn received, cutting off the genitals of his father. After Saturn, Jupiter reigned, who hurled his father into Tartarus. And after Jupiter Bacchus reigned, who they fay was lacerated by the Titans, through the stratagems of Juno. It is also said that the Titans tasted his flesh, and that Jupiter being enraged hurled his thunder at them; and that from the ashes of their burnt bodies men were generated. Suicide, therefore, is not proper, not, as the text seems to say, because we are in a certain bond the body, (for this is evident, and he would not have called this arcane,) but suicide is not lawful, because our body is Dionysiacal: for we are a part of Bacchus, if we are composed from the ashes of the Titans who tasted his flesh. Socrates, therefore, fearful of disclosing this arcane narration, because it pertained to the mysteries, adds nothing more than that we are in the body, as in a prison secured by a guard; but the interpreters, when the mysteries were declining, and almost extinct, owing to the establishment of a new religion, openly disclosed the fable.

But the allegory of this fable, says Olympiodorus, is of that kind as when Empedocles asserts that the intelligible and sensible worlds were generated according to parts; not that they were produced at different times, for they always are, but because our soul at one time lives according to the intelligible, and then the intelligible world is said to be generated, and at another time according to the sensible world, and then the sensible world is said to be generated. So likewise with Orpheus, those four governments do not subsist at one time, and at another not, for they always are; but they obscurely signify the gradations of the virtues according to which our foul contains the symbols of all the virtues, the theoretic and cathartic, the politic and ethic. For it either energizes according to the theoretic virtues, the paradigm of which is the government of Heaven, and on this account Heaven receives its denomination from beholding the things above; or it lives cathartically, the paradigm of which is the kingdom of Saturn, and on this account Saturn is denominated as a pure intellect, through beholding himself; and hence he is said to devour his own offspring, as converting himself to himself: or it energizes according to the political virtues, the symbol of which is the government of Jupiter; and hence Jupiter is the demiurgus, as energizing about secondary natures: or it lives according to the ethical and physical virtues, the symbol of which is the kingdom of Bacchus; and hence it is lacerated, because the virtues do not alternately follow each other.

But Bacchus being lacerated by the Titans signifies his procession to the last of things; for of these the Titans are the artificers, and Bacchus is the monad of the Titans. This was effected by the stratagems of Juno, because this goddess is the inspective guardian of motion and progression; and hence, in the Iliad, she continually excites Jupiter to a providential attention to secondary natures. Bacchus also, says Olympiodorus, presides over generation, because he presides over life and death. Over life, because over generation; but over death, because wine produces an enthusiastic energy, and at the time of death we become more enthusiastic, as Proclus testifies together with Homer; for he became prophetic when he was dying. Tragedy and comedy also are referred to Bacchus; comedy from its being the sport of life, and tragedy through the calamities and the death in it. Comic [writers], therefore, do not properly accuse tragic writers as not being Dionysiacal, when they assert that these things do not pertain to Bacchus. But Jupiter hurled his thunder at the Titans, the thunder manifesting conversion: for fire moves upwards. Jupiter, therefore, converts them to himself. And this is the mythical argument.

But the dialectic and philosophic argument is as follows:—The Gods take care of us, and we are their possessions: it is not proper, therefore, to free ourselves from life, but we ought to convert ourselves to them. For if one of these two things took place, either that we are the possessions of the Gods, but they take no care of us; or, on the contrary, that we are not the possessions of the Gods, it might be rational to liberate ourselves from the body: but now, as neither of these takes place, it is not proper to dissolve our bonds.

On the contrary, however, it may be said that suicide according to Plato is necessary. And, in the first place, he here says that a philosopher will not perhaps commit suicide, unless Divinity sends some great necessity, such as the present: for the word perhaps affords a suspicion that suicide may fometimes be necessary. In the second place, Plato admits that suicide may be proper to the worthy man, to him of a middle character, and to the multitude and depraved: to the worthy man, as in this place; to the middle character, as in the Republic, where he says that suicide is necessary to him who is afflicted with a long and incurable disease, as such a one is useless to the city, because Plato’s intention was that his citizens should be useful to the city, and not to themselves; and to the vulgar character, as in the Laws, when he says that suicide is necessary to him who is possessed with certain incurable passions, such as being in love with his mother, sacrilege, or any thing else of this kind.

Again it may be said, from the authority of Plotinus, that suicide is sometimes necessary, and also from the authority of the Stoics, who said that there were five ways in which suicide was rational. For they assimilated, says Olympiodorus, life to a banquet, and asserted that it is necessary to dissolve life through such-like causes as occasion the dissoution of a banquet. A banquet, therefore, is dissolved either through a great necessity unexpectedly intervening, as through the presence of a friend suddenly coming; or it is dissolved through intoxication taking place; and through what is placed on the table being morbid. Further still, it is dissolved after another manner through a want of things necessary to the entertainment; and also through obscene and base language. In like manner life may be dissolved in five ways. And, in the first place, as at a banquet, it may be dissolved through some great necessity, as when a man sacrifices himself for the good of his country. In the second place, as a banquet is dissolved through intoxication, so likewise it is necessary to dissolve life through a delirium following the body: for a delirium is a physical intoxication. In the third place, as a banquet is dissolved through what is placed on the table being morbid, thus too it is necessary that life should be dissolved when the body labors under incurable diseases, and is no longer capable of being ministrant to the soul. In the fourth place, as a banquet is dissolved through a want of things necessary to the entertainment, so suicide is proper when the necessaries of life are wanting. For they are not to be received from depraved characters; since gifts from the defiled are small, and it is not proper for a man to pollute himself with these. And, in the fifth place, as a banquet is dissolved through obscene language, so likewise it is necessary to dissolve life when compelled by a tyrant to speak things arcane, or belonging to the mysteries, which a certain female Pythagorean is said to have done. For, being compelled to tell why she did not eat beans, she said, "I may eat them if I tell." And afterwards being compelled to eat them, she said, "I may tell if I eat them;" and at length bit off her tongue, as the organ of speech and taste.

What then shall we say?—for the discourse is brought to a contradiction. And how can it be admitted that suicide is unlawful? Or, may we not say that a liberation from life is not necessary so far as pertains to the body; but that it is rational when it contributes a greater good to the soul? Thus, for instance, suicide is lawful when the soul is injured by the body. As, therefore, it is unholy not to give assistance to a friend when he is scourged, but, if he is scourged by his father, it is not becoming to assist him, so here suicide is unlawful when committed for the sake of the body, but rational when committed for the sake of the soul; since this is sometimes advantageous to it.

I only add, that according to Macrobius it is said, in the arcane discourses concerning the return of the soul, “that the wicked in this life resemble those who fall upon smooth ground, and who cannot rise again without difficulty; but that souls departing from the present life with the defilements of guilt are to be compared to those who fall from a lofty and precipitous place, from whence they are never able to rise again.” [Somn, Scip. cap. xiii.] Suicide, therefore, is in general unlawful, because it is not proper to depart from life in an unpurified state.

1 Jul 2023

Some philosophers extend immortality from rational soul to the animate condition of the body, e.g. Numenius [frg. 46a]; others as far as nature, e.g. Plotinus in certain passages [IV vii 14]; others, again, as far as irrational life, e.g. of the ancients Xenocrates [frg. 75] and Speusippus [frg. 55] and, of more recent authorities, Iamblichus and Plutarch; others confine it to rational soul, such as Proclus and Porphyry; others limit it further to intelligence alone, making the opinionative function perishable, as many Peripatetics do; others to the universal soul, by which they think individual souls are absorbed.

(Damascius' commentary on Plato's Phædo, as translated by L. G. Westerink. Taylor has the same comment, but put more abstrusely, and apparently misattributed to Olympiodorus.)

I've been trying to sort through this for a while, and, well, there we have it from a primary source: what is your immortal part? Turns out there's six schools of thought among the Platonists alone.

2 Jul 2023

[Socrates is in prison, awaiting his imminent execution in the company of several of his closest friends. One of these said to him,] "Evenus, the poet, wanted to know why you, who never before wrote a line of poetry, now that you are in prison are turning Æsop’s fables into verse." [...]

[Socrates replied,] "In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams 'that I should compose music.' [...] And hitherto I had imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music. [...] But I was not certain of this; for the dream might have meant music in the popular sense of the word, and being under sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that it would be safer for me to satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, to compose a few verses before I departed. And first I made a hymn in honor of the god of the festival, and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet, should not only put together words, but should invent stories."

(Plato, Phædo, as translated by Benjamin Jowett.)

Maybe it's a trifle, but I found it fun that in his last month that Socrates should turn from philosophizing to storytelling. Of the higher deities, both of these are the domain of Apollo; but of the lower, I should think that this is a shift from the Sun to the Moon. The Sun, after all, shines plainly, and philosophy is—at least ostensibly, and certainly to Socrates—the direct means of attempting to apprehend and communicate knowledge. But the Moon is a luminary as well: She shines, but with reflected light. And so storytelling is also a means, but an indirect one, of apprehending and communicating knowledge.

A Socrates would begin with a "wise" man and make him a "fool" using truths, so that his now-unclouded eyes could see clearly in the light. But a Scheherazade would begin with a fool and make him wise using lies, so that his now-beguiled eyes could navigate in the darkness.

Different means, but the same goal. I wondered that Socrates' friends thought such a thing so odd; but I suppose they all went and lamented his death even after he spent three hours telling them not to, so...

4 Jul 2023: Proclus on Love

Oh dear, I got Thomas Taylor'd again. I was following up on a prior question I had when I fell down another four-page-long footnote, once again from Proclus' commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, but this time on Love:

There are different properties of different Gods: for some are artificers of wholes, of the form of beings, and of their essential ornament; but others are the suppliers of life, and are the sources of its various genera; but others preserve the unchangeable order, and guard the indissoluble connection of things; and others, lastly, who are allotted a different power, preserve all things by their beneficent energies. In like manner every amatory order is the cause to all things of conversion to divine beauty, leading back, conjoining, and establishing all secondary natures in the beautiful, replenishing them from thence, and irradiating all things with the gifts of its light. On this account it is asserted in the Banquet that Love is a great dæmon, because Love first demonstrates in itself a power of this kind, and is the medium between the object of desire and the desiring nature, and is the cause of the conversion of subsequent to prior natures. The whole amatory series, therefore, being established in the vestibule of the cause of beauty, calls upwards all things to this cause, and forms a middle progression between the object of Love and the natures which are recalled by Love. Hence it pre-establishes in itself the exemplar of the whole dæmoniacal order, obtaining the same middle situation among the Gods as dæmons between divine and mortal natures. Since, therefore, every amatory series possesses this property among the Gods, we must consider its uniform and occult summit as ineffably established in the first orders of the Gods, and conjoined with the first and intelligible beauty; but its middle process as shining forth among the supermundane Gods, with an intellectual condition; but its third progression as possessing an exempt power among the liberated Gods; and its fourth as multifariously distributed about the world, producing many orders and powers from itself, and distributing gifts of this kind to the different parts of the world. But after the unific and first principle of Love, and after the tripartite essence perfected from thence, a various multitude of Loves shines forth with divine light, from whence the choirs of angels are filled with Love; and the herds of dæmons full of this God attend on the Gods who are recalled to intelligible beauty. Add too, that the army of heroes, together with dæmons and angels, are agitated about the participation of the beautiful with divine bacchanalian fury. Lastly, all things are excited, revive, and flourish, through the influx of the beautiful. But the souls of such men as receive an inspiration of this kind, and are naturally allied to the God, assiduously move about beauty, and fall into the realms of generation, for the purpose of benefiting more imperfect souls, and providing for those natures which require to be saved. The Gods indeed and the attendants on the Gods, abiding in their proper habits, benefit all following natures, and convert them to themselves: but the souls of men defending, and touching on the coast of generation, imitate the beneficent providence of the Gods. As, therefore, souls established according to some other God defend with purity into the regions of mortality, and benefit souls that revolve in it; and some indeed benefit more imperfect souls by prophecy, others by mystic ceremonies, and others by divine medicinal skill: so likewise souls that choose an amatory life are moved about the deity who presides over beautiful natures, for the purpose of taking care of well-born souls. But from apparent beauty they are led back to divine beauty, and together with themselves elevate those who are the objects of their love. And this also divine Love primarily effects in intelligibles: for he unites himself to the object of love, extends to it the participants of his power, and inserts in all things one bond, and one indissoluble friendship with each other, and with the beautiful itself. Souls, therefore, possessed with love, and participating the inspiration thence derived, in confequence of using an undefiled vehicle, are led from apparent to intelligible beauty, and make this the end of their energy. Likewise enkindling a light in more imperfect souls, they also lead these back to a divine nature, and are divinely agitated together with them about the fountain of all-perfect beauty.

But such souls as from a perverse education fall from the gift which is thence derived, but are allotted an amatory nature, these through their ignorance of true beauty, are busily employed about that which is material and divisible, at which also they are astonished in consequence of not knowing the passion which they suffer. Hence they abandon every thing divine, and gradually decline into impiety and the darkness of matter. They appear indeed to hasten to a union with the beautiful, in the same manner as perfectly amatory souls; but they are ignorant of the union, and tend to a dissipated condition of life, and to the sea of dissimilitude. They are also conjoined with the base itself, and material privation of form. For where are material natures able to pervade through each other? Or where is apparent beauty, pure and genuine, being thus mingled with matter, and replete with the deformity of its subject? Some souls, therefore, genuinely participate the gifts of Love, and by others these gifts are perverted. For as according to Plotinus the defluxion of intellect produces craft, and an erroneous participation of wisdom sophistry, so likewise the illumination of Love, when it meets with a depraved recipient, produces a tyrannic and intemperate life. [...]

Love is neither to be placed in the first nor among the last of beings. Not in the first, because the object of Love is superior to Love: nor yet among the last, because the lover participates of Love. It is requisite, therefore, that Love should be established between the object of love and the lover, and that it should be posterior to the beautiful, but prior to every nature endued with love. Where then does it first subsist? How does it extend itself through the universe, and with what monads does it leap forth?

There are three hypostases, therefore, among the intelligible and occult Gods; and the first indeed is characterized by the good, understanding the good itself, and residing in that place where according to the oracle the paternal monad abides: but the second is characterized by wisdom, where the first intelligence flourishes; and the third by the beautiful, where, as Timæus says, the most beautiful of intelligibles abides. But there are three monads according to these intelligible causes subsisting uniformly according to cause in intelligibles, but first unfolding themselves into light in the ineffable order of the Gods, I mean faith, truth, and love. And faith indeed establishes all things in good; but truth unfolds all the knowledge in beings; and lastly, love converts all things, and congregates them into the nature of the beautiful. This triad indeed thence proceeds through all the orders of the Gods, and imparts to all things by its light a union with intelligible itself. It also unfolds itself differently in different orders, every where combining its powers with the idioms of the Gods. And among some it subsists ineffably, incomprehensibly, and unifically; but among others, as the cause of connecting and binding; and among others, as endued with a perfective and forming power. Here again it subsists intellectually and paternally; there, in a manner entirely motive, vivific, and effective: here, as governing and assimilating; there, in a liberated and undefiled manner; and elsewhere, according to a multiplied and divisive mode. Love, therefore, supernally descends from intelligibles to mundane concerns, calling all things upwards to divine beauty. Truth also proceeds through all things, illuminating all things with knowledge. And lastly, faith proceeds through the universe, establishing all things unically in good. Hence the oracles assert that all things are governed by, and abide in, these. And on this account they order Theurgists to conjoin themselves to divinity through this triad. Intelligibles themselves, indeed, do not require the amatory medium, on account of their ineffable union. But where there is a union and separation of beings, there also Love abides. For it is the binder and conciliator of natures posterior and prior to itself; but the convertor of subsequent into prior, and the anagogic and perfecting cause of imperfect natures.

The oracles, therefore, speak of Love as binding, and residing in all things: and hence, if it connects all things, it also copulates us with the governments of dæmons. But Diotima calls Love a great dæmon, because it every where fills up the medium between desiring and desirable natures. And, indeed, that which is the object of Love vindicates to itself the first order, but that which loves is in the third order from the beloved object. Lastly, Love usurps a middle situation between each, congregating and collecting together that which desires and that which is desired, and filling subordinate from better natures. But among the intelligible and occult Gods it unites intelligible intellect to the first and secret beauty by a certain life better than intelligence. Hence, the theologist of the Greeks calls this Love blind; for he says "feeding in his breast blind, rapid Love." But in natures posterior to intelligibles, it imparts by illumination an indissoluble bond to all things perfected by itself: for a bond is a certain union, but accompanied with much separation. On this account the oracles are accustomed to call the fire of this Love a copulator: for, proceeding from intelligible intellect, it binds all following natures with each other, and with itself. Hence, it conjoins all the Gods with intelligible beauty, and dæmons with Gods; but it conjoins us with both Gods and dæmons. In the Gods, indeed, it has a primary subsistence, in dæmons a secondary one, and in partial souls a subsistence through a certain third procession from principles. Again, in the Gods it subsists above essence: for every genus of Gods is superessential. But in dæmons it subsists according to essence; and in souls according to illumination. And this triple order appears similar to the triple power of intellect. For one intellect subsists as imparticipable, being exempt from all partial genera; but another as participated, of which also the souls of the Gods participate as of a better nature; and another is from this ingenerated in souls, and which is, indeed, their perfection. And these three distinctions of intellect Timæus himself signifies. That Love, therefore, which subsists in the Gods must be considered as analogous to imparticipable intellect: for this is exempt from all the beings which receive and are illuminated by its nature. But dæmoniacal Love is analogous to participated intellect: for this is essential, and is perfected from itself, in the same manner as participated intellect is proximately resident in souls. And the third Love is analogous to intellect which subsists as a habit, and which inserts an illumination in souls. Nor is it unjustly that we confider Love as coordinate with this intellectual difference: for in intelligible intellect it possesses its first and occult hypostasis: and if it thence leaps forth, it is also established there according to cause. And it appears to me that Plato, finding that intelligible intellect was called by Orpheus both Love and a great dæmon, was himself pleased to celebrate Love in a similar manner. Very properly, therefore, does Diotima call it a great dæmon; and Socrates conjoins the discourse about Love with that concerning dæmons. For, as every thing dæmoniacal is suspended from the amatory medium, so also the discourse concerning a dæmoniacal nature is conjoined with that concerning Love, and is allied to it. For Love is a medium between the object of love and the lover; and a dæmon is a medium between man and divinity.

7 Jul 2023: Iamblichus, Proclus, and Taylor on Ruling Daimons

Thomas Taylor'd again, this time in the additional notes to Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians:

Proclus in the fragments of his Ten Doubts Concerning Providence, preserved by Fabricius in the eighth volume of his Bibliotheca Græca, observes, "That the Gods, with an exempt transcendency, extend their providence to all things, but that dæmons, dividing their superessential subsistence, receive the guardianship of different herds of animals, distributing the providence of the Gods, as Plato says, as far as to the most ultimate division. Hence some of them preside over men, others over lions or other animals, and others over plants; and still more partially, some are the inspective guardians of the eye, others of the heart, and others of the liver." He adds, "all things, however, are full of Gods, some of whom exert their providential energies immediately, but others through dæmons as media: not that the Gods are incapable of being present to all things, but that ultimate are themselves unable to participate primary natures.” Hence it must be said that there is one principal dæmon, who is the guardian and governor of every thing that is in us, and many dæmons subordinate to him, who preside over our parts.

Taylor's comment at the end is in explicit disagreement with Iamblichus, who says, "For the peculiar dæmon does not rule over one of the parts in us, but, in short, over all the parts at once, and extends to every principle within us, in the same manner as he was distributed to us from the total orders in the universe. [...] For every where the natures that govern are more simple than the natures that are governed."

Boy, does Proclus sure like to make everything complicated!

11 Jul 2023

I've posted about Napoleon's problem before: can you inscribe a square in a given circle using no more than six circles total (e.g. including the given one)? It's tricky, but in fact you can, and there's a bunch of ways to do it. If your given circle has a radius of 1, the resulting square has a side length of √2.

Later on, I found a way of circumscribing a square around the given circle, still using six circles. This square has a side length of 2.

Later still, I found a way of making this strange one, again using six circles. It's got a side length of √6.

Now, I've played around quite a bit and figured that those were the only three sizes to find—I hadn't tried to prove it or anything, just hadn't seen anything else come up for a while. But I was playing around some more today, trying to see if there's a way to make an octagon out eight circles (my previous best was nine), and I was very surprised that there's another six-circle square out there!

Bonkers! That square has a side length of 2√2. Finding it inspired me to write a quick computer program to look for every possible size of square that can be made in only six circles, but unfortunately there are no others. I've caught 'em all.

Since I had the program put together, I went ahead and searched to see if I could make any eight-circle octagons from any of those squares, but nope, it's not possible. (There may yet be eight-circle octagons that don't start from a square, but this strikes me as pretty unlikely.) Regardless, it's amazing to me that there was more to find over ground I've gone over so many times already! It seems to be good practice to periodically double-check things one thinks one understands.

13 Jul 2023

One summer, when I was a child, I went to visit my grandparents. We were sitting around the dinner table, which looked out over their forested backyard, and I saw a bird feeder standing in the middle of it, with a squirrel sitting on it and eating the birdseed as if it was all for him.

"Grandpa, it looks like a squirrel is stealing the birdseed."

He didn't even look. "That he is."

"I wonder if there's anything you can do about it."

"Well, originally, I had a normal bird feeder—the kind that hangs from a tree branch, with a little tray in the bottom that the feed falls into and that the birds can eat from. But the squirrels would just climb down the cord, sit on the perch, and gobble up all the birdseed as if it was theirs.

"So I went to the hardware store and asked the clerk about it. He recommended getting a 'squirrel-proof' bird feeder: the perch is like a scale, and if weight is placed on it, it closes the bird feeder shut. This way, the birds—who are too light to trip the scale—can eat what they want, while the squirrels—who are too heavy—can't get anything. So I went and bought it and installed it. The squirrels couldn't get at the birdseed at first, but it didn't take them long to figure out that if they climbed up under the middle of the bird feeder, clinging there like a bat, and reached their little arms up and over the perch, they could still grab the seed and eat it without tripping the scale.

"So I went back to the hardware store and asked the clerk about it again. This time he recommended putting the bird feeder on a pole, with a wide disc like a frisbee beneath it. The squirrels would be able to climb up the pole, but they wouldn't be able to climb around the frisbee, and so the birdseed would be safe. So I bought it and installed it, and sure enough, the squirrels couldn't get around the frisbee. They just sorta sat and watched the birds eating the seed. The next day, though, I noticed the birdseed was all gone, and the birds wouldn't have eaten it so fast. So I refilled it and watched. The squirrels had learned to take a running leap from the branches way, way above—if they did it just right, they'd land on the birdfeeder, and then be able to eat as much as they liked, just as before.

"So I went back to the hardware store a third time and asked the clerk about it again. He thought about it for a minute and said, 'I'm sorry, mister, but I don't think we can help you. You see, we may be smarter than the squirrels, but we're only trying to spend a few minutes to keep them out; meanwhile, they're spending their entire lives trying to get in!'"

16 Jul 2023: A History of America in One Sentence

First to enter a city is luxury; second, gluttony; third, insolence; fourth, destruction.

(Pythagoras, as quoted by Stobæus, and adapted by yours truly.)

17 Jul 2023: The Seven Sages

We have dug up a whole mess of Mesopotamian texts describing ten legendary kings who lived before the great flood. You may have heard of a few of them: the first is Alulim, known to Judaism as Adam; the sixth is Dumizid the shepherd (consort of Inanna), known to the Greeks as Adonis (consort of Aphrodite); the seventh is Enmeduranki (in the Uruk List of Kings and Sages) or Euedoreschus (in Berossus), known to Judaism as Enoch and Islam as Idris; the tenth is Ziusudra or Utnapishtim, known to Judaism as Noah and to the Greeks as Deucalion.

A couple of these texts say the first seven of these kings were advised by seven sages, fish-men who came from the sea to teach the Mesopotamians all the arts of civilization. Alexander Polyhistor records that these sages would come and teach during the day, and then plunge back into the sea at night. These seven sages are named in several places, and the bit meseri (an Assyrian magic spell that is still extant) even tells us a little about them:

1. Uanna, who completes the plans of heaven and earth
2. Uannedugga, who is all-wise
3. Enmedugga, who is given good fortune
4. Enmegalamma, who is born in a house
5. Enmebulugga, who grew up on pasture land
6. Anenlilda, the wizard of Eridu
7. Utuabzu, who ascended to heaven

I had researched all this a year or two ago. I thought this was an interesting and bizarre little legend, but what's really odd is how widespread it is: we see traces of it preserved in many different places against all odds. But why? Back then, I assumed it all had something to do with Atlantis: maybe this is a folk recollection of a seafaring civilization who came and taught the Mesopotamians the arts of civilization before a flood swallowed them up or whatever.

I was thinking about it again today, since I just read Plato's Critias (where he talks about Atlantis) and Critias lists the "ten kings" of Atlantis. (And yes, the names very roughly match the ten kings given elsewhere, so maybe Plato's legend comes from Mesopotamia, rather than Egypt as he claims.) But it struck me that these seven sages, who confer all knowledge on mankind, are merely the planets.

Consider that the seven planets are "fish-men" of a sort, being stars swimming in a sea of stars but being special among them, just as intelligent fish would be among normal fish. Just like Alexander Polyhistor records of the Sages, the planets spend half their time above the horizon and the other half beneath it.

Consider also the order in which the sages are given, compared to the Chaldean order of the planets. Saturn is the lord of limits ("completes the plans of heaven and earth"); Jupiter is the lord of wisdom ("all-wise"); Mars is successful ("given good fortune"). "Born in a house" is odd, but perhaps the translation I have is garbled; but while "grew up on pasture land" is similarly a little weird, Venus is known to have fallen for a shepherd. Calling Mercury, the lord of erudition and magic, a "wizard" is sensible enough; and certainly, as someone who is so often beckoned upward by the lovely Moon, saying that She "ascends to heaven" is no great stretch.

Consider also that these sages are invoked in magical spells and rituals, even at a supposed remove of hundreds of thousands of years—an impressive longevity for any being below a divinity.

Consider also that the legendary kings of Mesopotamia—at a minimum Dumuzid, Utnapishtim, and the post-flood Gilgamesh—serve not as historical personages but rather vehicles for spiritual lessons and mysteries: the mysteries of Dumuzid (later known to the Greeks via Adonis) and the legends of Gilgamesh (later known to the Greeks via Heracles) were stories about the descent and re-ascent of souls, and the former of these explicitly calls out the seven spheres of the planets in the process.

No, I think these antediluvian kings are mythic because they aren't mean to be real, rather they are didactic; and the sages are therefore the Seven who show us the way home if only we ask Them to. If I'm correct, then the widespread echoes of it are no surprise: Babylon exported its mysteries to all and sundry, but as the mysteries died, so did the keys unlocking them.

20 Jul 2023

I was whining to my angel about why life feels unbearable, and they said, simply, "some fruits need a frost to get sweet."

26 Jul 2023: Martianus Capella on Daimons

Those beings whom we see to be of fiery and flaming substance, passing from the ether itself and the cycle of the highest sphere down to the solar circle, they are called the very gods—also known as the celestials—and they arrange the secrets of the hidden causes (of all things). For they are purer, and the prayers over human cares do not concern them at all; they are called "unaffectable" (apatheis). It is most certain that Jupiter rules there.

But below the course of the Sun, down to the lunar orb, there are deities (numina) of secondary blessedness and unequal power, by whom nevertheless prophecies, dreams and prodigies are created. They divide the admonishing innards in haruspicy, and they send voices and speak in augural omens; they also give advice to queriers by the course of a star, a missile of lightning or a prodigious marvel.

Now, each one of them serves some one of the higher gods, and by the decision of the latter and the obedience of the former, there was appointed one general Genius presiding over all, and a specific genius for each mortal, whom they have also called Præstes, because he presides (praesit) over all their deeds. For on the one hand, supplications are made to the genius of the people when the general one is invoked, and on the other hand, each person pays respect to their own ruler, and he is called genius because, when any human being is born, he is quickly joined to it. This guardian and most faithful brother protects the souls and intellects of all people, and because he relates the secrets of their thoughts to the power above, he can also be called an angel.

The Greeks call all of these "dæmons" from being distributed (apo tou daiomenou), but in Latin people are wont to call them "mediators" (medioximi). Although they have a less bright and resplendent nature than those celestials show—as you can see—yet they are not so corporeal as to be grasped by the human eye.

Here, then, are the Lares, and here dwell the purer souls after the bond with the body's organs (is dissolved), although, if they are carried up by the excellence of their merits, they can often overleap the sphere of the Sun and the boundary of flame.

(Martianus Capella on the Marriage of Philology and Mercury, as translated by Martiana, with some minor editing for readability by yours truly.)

Following this, Martianus describes how demigods and heroes fill the space between the atmosphere and the moon, while humans and animals and so on live on the land; but the above is the interesting part and anyway I didn't want to quote beyond what I'm permitted under Fair Use.

This is a vision of daimons very different than the Platonic one—and, I think, less accurate—but fascinating nonetheless and helpful in understanding various myths and legends.

31 Jul 2023

If you identify with your body, then everyone is separate from you. If you identify with your soul, then everyone is your brothers and sisters. If you identify with the Intellect, then everyone is you. If you identify with the One, then there is nobody at all, not even you.

31 Jul 2023: Psyche's Four Tasks

In the fable of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche is required to undertake various tasks on behalf of Venus in order to reascend from the sensible world to the intellectual world. Each of these is meant to destroy her, but each time, she receives aid:

• Her first task is to sort a large pile of seeds and grains by type under severe time constraints. She is aided by a colony of ants, a creature of the earth.

• Her second task is to collect fleece from a flock of man-eating sheep. She is advised by a reed, a creature of the water.

• Her third task is to fill a pitcher from a Stygian spring guarded by fierce dragons. She is aided by an eagle, a creature of the air.

• Her fourth task is to descend to Hades and fetch some of Proserpine's beauty. She is advised by an tower enchanted by a spirit, a creature of fire.

That the elements give aid to Psyche is a riddling way of saying that our sojourn here in the sensible world is governed by Providence: it is not a punishment for sin but rather how we learn to apprehend Love.

The tasks themselves, too, are representative of what we need to learn in the body: the tedium of manual labor (growing and managing of grain), the crafts of civilized life (animal husbandry and the spinning of wool), the mastery of social custom (the Styx is representative of oaths), and finally the overcoming of death itself (going to and returning alive from Hades).

4 Aug 2023

When the God saw the waggoner kneel,
Crying, "Hercules! Lift me my wheel
 From the mud where 'tis stuck!"
 He laughed—"No such luck;
Set your shoulder yourself to the wheel!"

THE GODS HELP THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES

(Walter Crane (tr.) and Edmund Evans (illust.), Baby's Own Æsop.)

But it is important [...] to be clear about the reasons why Plotinus disliked [the Gnostics] so intensely and thought their influence so harmful. [...] They reject the only true way of salvation through wisdom and virtue, the slow patient study of truth and pursuit of perfection by men who respect the wisdom of the ancients and know their place in the universe. They claim to be a privileged caste of beings, in whom alone God is interested, and who are saved not by their own efforts but by some dramatic and arbitrary divine proceeding; and this, Plotinus says, leads to immorality.

(A. H. Armstrong, Introduction to Enneads II ix "Against the Gnostics.")

We ourselves possess beauty when we are true to our own being; our ugliness is in going over to another order; our self-knowledge, that is to say, is our beauty; in self-ignorance we are ugly. Thus beauty is of the Divine and comes Thence only.

(Plotinus, Enneads V viii "On the Intelligible Beauty" §13, as translated by Stephen MacKenna.)

Is it not, then, out of place for you, who are confident that there exists in you both the savior and that which is saved and the destroyer and that which is destroyed, [...] to yearn for the shadow of a leader as though you do not have the true leader within yourself?

(Porphyry to Marcella, as translated by Kathleen O'Brien Wicker.)

Yes, gods and daimons alike help us in that last and greatest task of overcoming death—but just like I always tell my daughter, "help" doesn't mean "doing it for you."

7 Aug 2023

I was looking at a pentagram the other day and noticed something. It has a threefold vertical structure to it: it has one "head" on top, two "arms" in the middle, and two "legs" on the bottom. This is a lot like the structure of a human being, both physically (you have a head, two arms, and two legs—at least, I hope you do!) and metaphysically. See, there are three worlds: the transcendent Good, the intelligible, and the sensible. The Good is inherently unitary, but you have two parts in each of the intelligible and sensible worlds, at least according to Porphyry:

(The pneumatic vehicle is, I think, what Plotinus calls the "lower soul." It's your mind, your imagination. Also please forgive my crude table: the pneumatic vehicle isn't a "level of reality" in the same way the others are, and exists at the level of nature alongside your body.)

Each limb of the pentagram, therefore, represents a power you possess. The head is your being (thanks to the Good). The arms are your thinking capacities: the intuitive (thanks to the Intellect) and the rational (thanks to your soul). The legs are your sensing capacities: the imaginative (thanks to your pneumatic vehicle) and the perceptive (thanks to your body). The head and arms are eternal (indeed, only one of the arms can be said to be "yours"—the other arm and head are common to all), but you periodically lose the legs and regrow them until you learn how to get around without them.

While you technically have all of these capacities, most of us are weighted towards the bottom. The point of practicing meditation is to climb your way back up the ladder as far as you're able.

11 Aug 2023

I've seen a little legend referenced in a number of places concerning Rome, a Plague, and the three magi tasked with ending it. I managed to track down the reference: it comes from Anastasius Sinaita, Quæstiones et Responsiones:

When Rome was suffering from a plague, the emperor Domitian summoned three magi to the city and asked for their help. Apuleius [of Madaura, Platonist and author of the Golden Ass,] told the emperor that he could put an end to the plague in a third of the city within fifteen days. Apollonius [of Tyana, Pythagorean and wandering miracle worker,] claimed that he could perform the same feat in another third of the city within only ten days. But Julianus [the Theurgist, author of the Chaldean Oracles], objecting that the plague would destroy the city before fifteen days could pass, put an end to it immediately in the remaining third of the city. Domitian then asked Julianus to free the other two-thirds of Rome from the plague, and he quickly did so.

It is, of course, a very doubtful story, as it is clearly hagiographic and the lifetimes of the four people in question don't align.

17 Aug 2023

I get a lot of criticism of how I assign the elements. "But air is intellect! How can you be so intellectual if you have no air?" That kind of thing. I get frustrated with this: in my experience, the popular assignment of elements—fire is action, air is intellect, water is emotion, earth is structure—works in neither the forms of astrology I've studied nor in geomancy. As an example, my natal chart is mostly water, and so occult-type people tend assume I'm very emotional; but in fact it's the opposite, and most people who know me tend to consider me "cold" or "robotic."

Instead, the assessment of the elements that I've found to work is this:

• Fire is creative. A purely fiery person might be an artist, a musician, a designer.

• Air is social. A purely airy person might be a public speaker, a writer, a socialite, someone who likes to communicate.

• Water is reflective. A purely watery person might be a hermit, a contemplative.

• Earth is practical. A purely earthy person might be a manual laborer, a farmer, somebody who does handicrafts, a salt-of-the-earth kind of person.

From this, you can see that there are two sorts of axes being defined:

• Fire and air are masculine, they express; while water and earth are feminine and receive.

• Fire and water are "inner," they're abstract, impractical; while air and earth are "outer," they're grounded in the physical world and actually make changes to it.

In my opinion, all of them have an intellectual capacity of a sort: fire generates ideas, air communicates ideas, water refines ideas, and earth carries out ideas. Each, however, is very limited and has severe disadvantages on its own—for example, far from being an "intellectual," I would normally consider an airy person to be a dilettante, someone who goes broad but not deep.

Normally one needs multiple elements to balance out, though some of these balance better than others. For example, besides water, my only other halfway solid element is fire: this helps keep me from being fixated on constantly retreading the same ground (since instead of just reflecting on the same things over and over, I have an inner wellspring of new things to reflect on), but on the other hand it does nothing whatsoever to help me be practical (since fire and water are both "inner" elements).

19 Aug 2023

I was chasing down a reference to Berossus—you know, the sort of thing everyone does on a Saturday morning—and found this in Seneca's Natural Questions III xxix (emphasis mine):

Berossus, the translator of [the records of] Belus, affirms that the whole issue [of the destruction of the world] is brought about by the course of the planets. So positive is he on the point that he assigns a definite date both for the conflagration and the deluge. All that the earth inherits will, he assures us, be consigned to flame when the planets, which now move in different orbits, all assemble in Cancer, so arranged in one row that a straight line may pass through their spheres. When the same gathering takes place in Capricorn, then we are in danger of the deluge. Midsummer is at present brought round by the former, midwinter by the latter. They are zodiacal signs of great power seeing that they are the determining influences in the two great changes of the year. I should myself quite admit causes of the kind. The destruction of the world will not be determined by a single reason.

This calls to mind a line from the Timaeus (which begins the story continued in the Critias, emphasis mine):

There have been and there will be many and divers destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means. For in truth the story that is told in your country as well as ours, how once upon a time Phæthon, son of Helios, yoked his father's chariot, and, because he was unable to drive it along the course taken by his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth and himself perished by a thunderbolt,—that story, as it is told, has the fashion of a legend, but the truth of it lies in the occurrence of a shifting of the bodies in the heavens which move round the earth, and a destruction of the things on the earth by fierce fire, which recurs at long intervals. At such times all they that dwell on the mountains and in high and dry places suffer destruction more than those who dwell near to rivers or the sea; and in our case the Nile, our Saviour in other ways, saves us also at such times from this calamity by rising high. And when, on the other hand, the Gods purge the earth with a flood of waters, all the herdsmen and shepherds that are in the mountains are saved, but those in the cities of your land are swept into the sea by the streams.

Unfortunately, by Plato's day, Egypt had been conquered by Persia and Mesopotamian star-lore had displaced their native astrology, so it's probably impossible to know where this lore really comes from. My best guess is that Plato got it from Egypt, but Egypt got it from Mesopotamia. (But where did they get it—from Egypt or from elsewhere?)

23 Aug 2023

Soul bears Desire a daughter whom Apuleius calls Voluptas. Lewis and Short translate this as "satisfaction, enjoyment, pleasure, or delight," either sensual or spiritual.

Every source I've seen equates her with Hedone ("sensual pleasure"), but I think this is wrong: Apuleius was a Platonist, and she is only born after Soul evolves (not before). Rather, I wonder if Voluptas was an attempt to render Eudaimonia ("well-being, happiness") in Latin.

25 Aug 2023: An Outline of Cupid and Psyche

Cupid and Psyche is obviously an allegory of the descent and reascent of the soul, and keys to unlocking it can be found in Plato's Republic and Symposium and Plotinus' Enneads (III v, VI ix). But it is helpful to have an outline of the fable so one can unpack it, point by point. On this day of Venus, in the hopes of helping any who are interested in hazarding the attempt, here is a first draft of such an outline—I do not believe I have missed any salient points, but I'll do another pass over it at some point to double-check (and welcome any corrections in the comments)!

Going through the story like this, so as to pick out each important feature, was a very valuable exercise! There were a number of points in the story that I hadn't noticed or paid much attention to, and which are crucial to the philosophy behind it.

1. A king and queen have three beautiful daughters. The youngest and loveliest daughter is named Psyche.

2. The multitude worships Psyche instead of Venus.

3. Venus is enraged and summons Cupid to punish Psyche by causing her to fall in love with the most wretched of men.

4. Cupid is enchanted with Psyche, pricks Himself with one of His arrows, and resolves to marry her.

5. Psyche's sisters are happily married. Psyche, worshipped only from afar, sorrows her loneliness and hates her beauty.

6. Psyche is told in an oracle that she is to be wed to a monster fearsome even to Jove. Her family laments and her wedding is celebrated as if it were a funeral, but Psyche resigns herself to her fate.

7. Psyche is left alone on a lofty mountain. Zephyr carries her to a richly decorated palace in a beautiful valley.

8. Psyche discovers that the palace is hers by marriage and is filled with servants which she can hear but not see. She enjoys the palace.

9. Cupid and Psyche are illicitly wed. Cupid comes to Psyche every night, but always leaves before morning and Psyche never sees Him.

10. Psyche's family is in mourning.

11. Cupid warns Psyche against her sisters. Psyche sorrows her loneliness and begs permission to see her sisters and give them gifts. Cupid consents on the condition that Psyche tell her sisters nothing of Him and that she never attempt to look at Him.

12. Psyche entertains her sisters at her palace and gives them lavish gifts. The sisters inquire after her husband, but Psyche keeps Him a secret. The sisters burn with envy and resolve to destroy her.

13. Cupid tells Psyche that she is pregnant, and again warns her against her sisters, saying that if she keeps Him a secret from them, the child will be divine; but if she reveals Him, the child will be mortal. Psyche rejoices.

14. Psyche again entertains her sisters at her palace. The sisters again inquire after her husband, but Psyche keeps Him a secret. Psyche's sisters nonetheless deduce that she has married a god and burn with greater envy.

15. Psyche's sisters convince her that her husband is a monster and urge her to take a lamp and a dagger in the middle of the night, look upon him, and slay him. Psyche is tormented by fear and worry.

16. Psyche discovers her husband is Cupid and intentionally pricks herself with one of His arrows. Cupid awakens, sees that his wife has broken her promise, admonishes her, and takes flight.

17. Psyche throws herself into a river, intending to kill herself, but the river carries her to a riverbank downstream.

18. Psyche meets Pan. Pan advises her to cease attempting suicide, lay aside her sorrow, and instead assuage Cupid through worship.

19. Psyche wanders. She chances to meet her sisters, one after the other, telling them that her husband was Cupid, and that, as punishment for her attempted murder, banished her and would wed the sister, instead. Each sister, blind with lust, rushes to Cupid's palace and dies.

20. A seagull gossips Cupid and Psyche's story to Venus. Venus is scandalized. She berates Cupid and locks Him in a room, but is prevented from punishing Him further through the intervention of Ceres and Juno.

21. Psyche wanders. She eventually chances upon a temple of Ceres and a temple of Juno, one after the other, and beseeches aid. Ceres and Juno each refuse, but do not detain Psyche.

22. Venus summons Mercury to proclaim to all that She has placed a bounty on Psyche. Psyche hears of it and hastens to the temple of Venus.

23. Venus taunts and torments Psyche.

24. Venus assigns Psyche the task of sorting a large heap of mixed grains under a severe time limit. Psyche is stupified by the enormity of the task. A colony of ants take pity on Psyche and complete the task for her.

25. Venus assigns Psyche the task of collecting fleece from a flock of violent sheep. Psyche attempts to drown herself in a neighboring river, but a reed takes pity on Psyche and advises her on how to complete the task safely, and she does so.

26. Venus assigns Psyche the task of filling a jar from a Stygian spring guarded by fierce dragons. The spring advises Psyche not to make the attempt and she is petrified with fear. An eagle takes pity on Psyche and fills the jar for her.

27. Venus assigns Psyche the final task of taking a box to Hades and asking Proserpine to fill it with some of Her beauty. Psyche climbs a lofty tower with the intent of jumping from its top, but the tower takes pity on Psyche and advises her on how to complete the task safely, even amid traps laid by Venus, and she does so.

28. Anxious to be reunited with Cupid and hopeful of claiming a little of the beauty within, Psyche opens the box before delivering it to Venus; however, the box contains only death. Psyche dies.

29. Cupid escapes confinement, puts death back into its box, and awakens Psyche with one of his arrows.

30. Psyche delivers the box to Venus.

31. Cupid pleads his case to Jove. Jove summons all the gods and legitimates Cupid and Psyche's marriage.

32. Psyche is fetched to Olympus and given ambrosia, making her divine. A wedding feast is held.

33. Psyche bears Cupid a daughter, whom they name Pleasure.

27 Aug 2023: Things Betwixt

For ah! what is there, of inferior birth,
That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth,
What wretched creature of what wretched kind,
Than man more weak, calamitous, and blind?

(Zeus speaking. Homer, Iliad XVII, as translated by Alexander Pope.)

ἄλλα δὲ μυρία λυγρὰ κατ' ἀνθρώπους ἀλάληται:
πλείη μὲν γὰρ γαῖα κακῶν, πλείη δὲ θάλασσα.

But myriad miseries stray against men
For earth is full of evil, as is the sea.

(Hesiod, Works and Days 100–1.)

In the meanwhile you will have two kinds of animals, Gods very much differing from men, in sublimity of place, in perpetuity of life, in perfection of nature, and having no proximate communication with them; since those supreme are separated from the lowest habitations by such an interval of altitude; and the life there is eternal and never-failing, but is here decaying and interrupted; and the natures there are elevated to beatitude, but those that are here are depressed to calamity. What then? Does nature connect itself by no bond, but leave itself separated into the divine and human part, and suffer itself to be interrupted, and as it were debile? [... No,] there are certain middle powers, [...] called by the Greek name dæmons.

(Apuleius, On the God of Socrates, as translated by Thomas Taylor.)

Many occult schools seem teach that humanity is in the middle of the universe—that above us is happiness, below us is misery, and we are poised on the balance between them, partaking of both. I can't see that, at all, at all: it seems to me that, as Homer says, humans have only misery as their lot. Consequently, if the gods are happy, then it must fall to daimons who partake of both natures.

Just as the highest daimons are like gods, the highest humans are like daimons. So, even if you attain—and blessed indeed are you who do!—the work does not end here, and the rewards is, perhaps, only a partial respite from your labors.

I am anxious for a respite, of course, but that mustn't be the reason why we strive.

Indeed, I have found further confirmation that we are in Hades in a number of sources:

Pythagoras thought that the empire of Pluto began downwards from the milky way, because souls falling from thence appear to have already receded from the Gods.

(Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio XII.)

Certain things he declared mystically, symbolically, most of which were collected by Aristotle, as when he called [...] the Planets, the dogs of Persephone.

(Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras XLI, emphasis mine.)

Death is what we see when awake, when we are asleep it is dreams.

The death of the soul is our life, and our death is the soul's life.

(Heraclitus.)

29 Aug 2023

Sallustius on the Gods and the World is often described, following Gilbert Murray, as a sort of creed or catechism of pagan faith. But did you know that Thomas Taylor—bless him, he's nearly as consistent as the stars themselves—penned a literal Platonist creed? He cribs from Sallustius here and there, but in the main it's Proclus all the way.

2 Sep 2023: Plato's Third Eye

It is said, in fact, that having found the theory of ideas, [Plato] dreamt that he had a third eye.

(Anonymous, Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, as translated by L. G. Westerink.)

Among the wisest of the Greeks there was a proverb that Plato had three eyes: one by which human, another by which natural, and a third by which divine concerns were surveyed by him, which last eye was in his forehead, the others being under it.

(Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato's Philebus, as translated by Thomas Taylor.)

Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence. You can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas.

(Henry Thomas Buckle, as quoted by Charles Stewart.)

That there is a lot of modern occult discussion of a third eye in the middle of the forehead that can see divine things notwithstanding, it seems to me that Plato's three eyes are simply the sense-eye of the physical vehicle, the imagination-eye of the pneumatic vehicle, and the intuition-eye of the luminous vehicle.

4 Sep 2023: An Interpretation of Cupid and Psyche

As an exercise, I have attempted an interpretation of each point in the myth of Cupid and Psyche. I am starting, here, from the knowledge that Apuleius was both an initiate of the Mysteries (those of Dionysus and Isis for sure, and possibly others) and a Platonist. Further, it seems to me that since versions of the tale of the Golden Ass are known to predate Apuleius, but the fable of Cupid and Psyche is not, that Apuleius intentionally retold a popular story but inserted a fable of his own construction in order to more widely disseminate the Mysteries while not breaking his oaths of silence; but more than that, it's plausible that he gave the fable a firmly Platonist slant which may not have been present in the original Mystery teachings.

However, some caveats are in order: I am a half-baked scholar at best, I have not studied Plato very deeply, and neither am I very familiar with the middle Platonists besides Apuleius and Numenius. I have relied heavily on Plotinus in my unpacking, but this almost certainly contains a number of assumptions that Apuleius would not have made, and I am unfortunately blind to those. Thomas Taylor also gives an interpretation of the fable, but he departs even more widely, being firmly wedded (as in all things) to Proclus. In some instances I have agreed with him, and in others I have disagreed; but while I figure we're both correct in the broad strokes, we probably both fall short of apprehending the fable exactly. In any event, right or wrong, this is an attempt to understand the myth by what it meant to the Hellenistic Platonists, and it does not necessarily represent my own personal beliefs.

I have placed the interpretation below a cut, as it is lengthy and in case you wish to avoid it (for example, if you want to attempt your own study without contamination).

(The numbers of each section do not correspond to my previous post: I have grouped related points together.)

I. A king and queen have three beautiful daughters. The youngest and loveliest daughter is named Psyche.

This first part of the story doesn't technically take place—it happens "before the soul exists", but souls are eternal—but we are bound by time in our storytelling, so this part of the story exists for narrative expedience. In any case, the king, queen, the city they rule, etc., play no meaningful part in the story.

Properly speaking, souls are indivisible and do not have parts; but nonetheless the three sisters collectively represent the three faculties of an individual human soul as recounted in the Republic: the elder sisters are Desire and Fight, and Psyche is Reason. They are the daughters of a king because souls are inherently noble, and they are beautiful because souls are indescribably beautiful and infinitely precious. Psyche is the youngest because Reason matures the slowest of the three (or else the soul wouldn't descend into matter at all), and Psyche is the loveliest because Reason is the crown of the soul. Psyche is also used to represent the entire soul in the myth.

II. The multitude worships Psyche instead of Venus.

Venus represents the principle of beauty and harmony in the cosmos, a facet of the Intellect, rather than a god proper (who would otherwise be the highest kind of soul).

The multitude represents matter, the limit of division, a falling away from divinity (which is, ultimately, unitary). The multitude worships Psyche since the soul is necessary to give form to matter. (To give it form is to give it beauty, though the material beauty a soul imparts is as pale an imitation of true Beauty as Psyche is a pale imitation of Venus.)

III. Venus is enraged and summons Cupid to punish Psyche by causing her to fall in love with the most wretched of men.

Cupid is desire: in this context, the soul's action, it's motion, it's life. He is the son of Venus because beauty (whether true Beauty or material beauty) provokes love. For the soul to fall in love with the most wretched of men is for the soul to desire to go as far away from the light of the One as possible, which is another way of saying to lose itself in matter as deeply as it can.

Venus' angry tirades are merely for comedic effect: division is contrary to the nature of divinity (and harmony, for that matter). Nonetheless, whether or not the fall of the soul is a punishment for sin or merely its involuntary nature was a topic of debate among the philosophers: Apuleius seems to take the "sin and punishment" side of things; Plotinus, at least, was ambivalent about it.

IV. Cupid is enchanted with Psyche, pricks Himself with one of His arrows, and resolves to marry her.

Life attaches itself to the soul. This very life is the remembrance of and upward tendency towards divinity that each soul contains within it; this upward tendency counters its downward path towards matter, preventing it from falling too quickly or too completely, and is also how it returns upwards again.

We're going to see a lot of being pricked by Cupid's arrows in this story. It always means to fall in love with the next thing one sees.

V. Psyche's sisters are happily married. Psyche, worshipped only from afar, sorrows her loneliness and hates her beauty.

The soul is not naturally self-sufficient—only the Intellect is—but rather it needs to acquire this self-sufficiency through experience. Instead, just as matter clamors for the soul, the soul itself has a natural tendency towards division (and is thus pulled in both directions, up and down, which is perhaps we all are so confused all the time).

I think, also, that Desire and Fight are happy to foolishly rush ahead into things—Reason takes much longer to understand and make use of its powers. Hence, Psyche's sisters are active in their pursuits, yet Psyche herself is extremely passive for quite some time.

VI. Psyche is told in an oracle that she is to be wed to a monster fearsome even to Jove. Her family laments and her wedding is celebrated as if it were a funeral, but Psyche resigns herself to her fate. Psyche is left alone on a lofty mountain. Zephyr carries her to a richly decorated palace in a beautiful valley.

The soul is "born," coming into existence from the Intellect into the intelligible world, a beautiful and idyllic place made by divine craftsmanship.

VII. Psyche discovers that the palace is hers by marriage and is filled with servants which she can hear but not see. She enjoys the palace. Cupid and Psyche are illicitly wed. Cupid comes to Psyche every night, but always leaves before morning and Psyche never sees Him.

And life comes to the soul and it begins to desire. To the Neoplatonists, the goal for a soul is to be content with itself, and at first, Psyche is satisfied with such an arrangement. Her unseen servants and husband are a reference to the nature of the intelligible world itself: the soul does not have eyes or seeing organs, but knows its surroundings instantly and intuitively. Psyche, too, comes to love her unseen husband: this indicates a pure desire, without concern for outward appearance which appeals to the senses, but only for the essential nature of the thing loved.

VIII. Psyche's family is in mourning. Cupid warns Psyche against her sisters. Psyche sorrows her loneliness and begs permission to see her sisters and give them gifts. Cupid consents on the condition that Psyche tell her sisters nothing of Him and that she never attempt to look at Him. Psyche entertains her sisters at her palace and gives them lavish gifts. The sisters inquire after her husband, but Psyche keeps Him a secret. The sisters burn with envy and resolve to destroy her.

The other faculties of the soul, both less temperate and less simple than Reason, vie for control over the soul's activity. The soul is pulled in two directions, seeking both self-sufficiency and division.

IX. Cupid tells Psyche that she is pregnant, and again warns her against her sisters, saying that if she keeps Him a secret from them, the child will be divine; but if she reveals Him, the child will be mortal. Psyche rejoices.

The soul's action is how it produces: if the soul is turned inward, it's productions will be intelligible; but if the soul is turned towards division, it's production will be sensible (e.g. will be a body). (As we shall see, the child is Pleasure: but the turning of the soul indicates whether this is a spiritual Pleasure or a mere sensual pleasure.)

X. Psyche again entertains her sisters at her palace. The sisters again inquire after her husband, but Psyche keeps Him a secret. Psyche's sisters nonetheless deduce that she has married a god and burn with greater envy. Psyche's sisters convince her that her husband is a monster and urge her to take a lamp and a dagger in the middle of the night, look upon him, and slay him. Psyche is tormented by fear and worry.

Plato likens Reason to the leadership of a state: it is always in charge of the other faculties, but the clamoring of the other faculties can cause the leadership to make foolish decisions. So it is that Psyche's sisters cannot overpower her but can only cause mischief through bad counsel. Here the soul convinces itself that maybe, just maybe, sensual pleasures might be more desirable than a pure life in the intelligible.

XI. Psyche discovers her husband is Cupid and intentionally pricks herself with one of His arrows. Cupid awakens, sees that his wife has broken her promise, admonishes her, and takes flight. Psyche throws herself into a river, intending to kill herself, but the river carries her to a riverbank downstream. Psyche meets Pan. Pan advises her to cease attempting suicide, lay aside her sorrow, and instead assuage Cupid through worship.

This is the first circumstance in the story where Psyche takes action, rather than passively accepting what comes to her. But oh!—a foolish action! The soul abandons its pure love of unseen things for the outward love of beauty, trading its intelligible desire for sensible desire. Consequently, the soul loses itself in the sensible world, constructing a body for itself in order to fulfil its sensible desires. (There was a debate among the philosophers on whether the soul literally travels into the physical body. Plotinus, at least, says that the soul in fact remains in the intelligible world but is asleep, in a sense, and completely bedazzled by the sensations of its body and insensate to what is right around it.) The river represents her transition into sensory experience, being born into her first body of many. Cupid flees, indicating the Psyche no longer can return to her previous home—only the memory of it lingers and beckons her upward again.

Pan represents the soul of the world. His advice to Psyche is what the sensible world is here to teach us: cease your descent, turn your eyes upward to the place you have left behind, and remember.

XII. Psyche wanders. She chances to meet her sisters, one after the other, telling them that her husband was Cupid, and that, as punishment for her attempted murder, banished her and would wed the sister, instead. Each sister, blind with lust, rushes to Cupid's palace and dies.

The wandering is the soul's long and hard experience in the world, reincarnating in body after body. In time, the soul finally learns to place its faculties all under the control of Reason, "killing" the desires and passions.

XIII. A seagull gossips Cupid and Psyche's story to Venus. Venus is scandalized. She berates Cupid and locks Him in a room, but is prevented from punishing Him further through the intervention of Ceres and Juno. Psyche wanders. She eventually chances upon a temple of Ceres and a temple of Juno, one after the other, and beseeches aid. Ceres and Juno each refuse, but do not detain Psyche.

Venus is sometimes described as the Mother of Necessity (for example, in the Orphic Hymn)—this is because, in order for the cosmos to be an ordered and harmonious whole, actions often have necessary consequences. Venus locking up Cupid is, here, a representation that the soul's descent is "locked in" until the necessary consequences of its actions are brought to completion—that is, until its karma is paid.

I think that Ceres is a representation of mundane deities and that Juno is a representation of celestial deities; that they placate Venus is descriptive that while circumstances here in the sensible world are difficult, they are not devoid of Providence. That Psyche approaches them shows that, after submitting itself to Reason, the soul appropriately turns itself to divinity in seeking release from the cycle of reincarnation. Nonetheless, while divinity supports the soul's efforts, it may not intervene directly: the soul must save itself from the consequences of its actions.

XIV. Venus summons Mercury to proclaim to all that She has placed a bounty on Psyche. Psyche hears of it and hastens to the temple of Venus. Venus taunts and torments Psyche.

After a certain point in the cycle of reincarnation, the soul begins to hear a very insistent siren's song towards the spiritual—one can't help it and must pursue it at any cost, and the cost can be substantial (at least from a bodily perspective). This is, I think, what Mercury's proclamation, Psyche's hastening to the temple of Venus, and the torments she receives there represents: the soul has now placed itself at the service of divinity: that is, cosmic harmony.

XV. Venus assigns Psyche four tasks. The first is to sort a large heap of mixed grains under a severe time limit: Psyche is stupified by the enormity of the task, but a colony of ants take pity on Psyche and complete the task for her. The second is to collect fleece from a flock of violent sheep: Psyche attempts to drown herself in a neighboring river, but a reed takes pity on Psyche and advises her on how to complete the task safely. The third is to fill a jar from a Stygian spring guarded by fierce dragons: Psyche is petrified with fear, but an eagle takes pity on Psyche and fills the jar for her. The fourth is to take a box to Hades and ask Prosperine to fill it with some of Her beauty: Psyche climbs a lofty tower in an inept attempt to accomplish the task, but the tower advises her on how to complete the task safely, even amid traps laid by Venus, and she does so.

Now that the soul has set reason in charge and placed itself in the service of cosmic harmony, it begins to master the state it finds itself in. Each task is representative a domain of human endeavor the soul is to master: the grain is representative of self-sustenance and the soul is aided by the powers of earth (solidity, strength); the wool is representative of crafts of civilized life and the soul is aided by the powers of water (reflection, understanding); the spring is representative of social life and the soul is aided by the powers of air (communication, flexibility); and going to, and returning alive from, Hades is representative of life and death itself, and the soul is aided by the powers of fire (creativity, optimism).

This last task is especially interesting as it has a great many additional allegorical symbols in it. The unusual customs that must be followed represent the various spiritual capacities one must develop, be they mystical or magical. The many snares laid by Venus are the dangers of the misuse of spiritual capacities. Proserpine herself represents the Mysteries, and the box of beauty she gives to Psyche is philosophy.

XVI. Anxious to be reunited with Cupid and hopeful of claiming a little of the beauty within, Psyche opens the box before delivering it to Venus; however, the box contains only death. Psyche dies. Cupid escapes confinement, puts death back into its box, and awakens Psyche with one of His arrows. Psyche delivers the box to Venus.

As Socrates says, the philosopher is, in fact, a disciple of death; by opening the box (representing philosophy), the soul dies to the body and is reborn into the spiritual.

What the soul loves—that is, what its action is directed towards—governs where its attention is. The soul's attention, when directed towards the sensible world, is what produces a body and is why the soul is completely invested in the body. But Cupid, here, is not the beautiful boy with the golden hair, but once again the pure, unseen being that Psyche was originally familiar with: Cupid reawakening Psyche with an arrow is the soul reawakening to true love, rather than the love of outward form: by turning it's attention away from the sensible world, the soul will no longer clothe itself in a body once its current one expires.

Cupid awakening Psyche is the point in the story where artists begin to depict Psyche as having little butterfly wings: she is semi-divine already, awaiting only the formality of living in the intelligible world. This is when the soul has finally paid off its "karmic debts" (as Cupid has escaped His room) and is free to take flight as soon as its last body ceases to hold it. But note that there is still a little work to be done, the last of the tasks to be completed, and the soul must finish it before it returns to its original estate.

XVII. Cupid pleads his case to Jove. Jove summons all the gods and legitimates Cupid and Psyche's marriage. Psyche is fetched to Olympus and given ambrosia, making her divine. A wedding feast is held.

Jove, here, is acting in the same capacity as Venus was earlier: the aspect of the Intellect relating to the harmony and order of the cosmos. Thus He tells Venus to relent in Her hostility towards Psyche, as the soul has returned to a state of purity.

The wedding being legitimated demonstrates the maturation of Psyche. At first she loved Cupid, not by choice, but because she was too innocent to know otherwise. The soul, through it's long and painful sojourn in the sensible world, now has the experience to understand and commit to its choices with their various ramifictions.

The wedding feast, of course, represents joy and celebration: not only of the soul itself, finally going Home, but of the many friends and relations that await it there.

XVIII. Psyche bears Cupid a daughter, whom they name Pleasure.

Even after it is restored to its eternal state, the soul continues to act, continues to produce. The overcoming of death is not the end of the story, rather just the beginning of it. Plotinus says that the world of soul is vast, much larger than the sensible cosmos: so big is it, that who can say what it is like to be there, and what it is we will be doing there? Whatever it is, though, being divine and closer to Good, it is certain that Life there is happier than life here.

10 Sep 2023: Three Days More

No god is responsible for a man’s evils, for he has chosen his lot himself.

(Porphyry to Marcella XXIV.)

Two hands clap and there is a sound, but what is the sound of one hand?

(attr. Hakuin Ekaku.)

Suiwo, the disciple of Hakuin, was a good teacher. During one summer seclusion period, a pupil came to him from a southern island of Japan.

Suiwo gave him the problem: "Hear the sound of one hand."

The pupil remained three years but could not pass this test. One night he came in tears to Suiwo. "I must return south in shame and embarrassment," he said, "for I cannot solve my problem."

"Wait one week more and meditate constantly," advised Suiwo. Still no enlightenment came to the pupil. "Try for another week," said Suiwo. The pupil obeyed, but in vain.

"Still another week." Yet this was of no avail. In despair the student begged to be released, but Suiwo requested another meditation of five days. They were without result. Then he said: "Meditate for three days longer, then if you fail to attain enlightenment, you had better kill yourself."

On the second day the pupil was enlightened.

(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories XXV "Three Days More.")

I repeatedly think that this present moment in time, when everything is on fire, is a high-risk, high-reward time for souls: so many billions choose to incarnate now, not because it is a good or fun time, but because the three days before killing oneself are the most productive of all.

So, sit. Meditate for three days longer. Hear the sound of one hand.

12 Sep 2023: Reading the Philosophers

• Proclus. Huh? Okay, so that's super wrong, but it's fascinating—where the hell did you find it?

• Porphyry. *nods along*

• Plotinus. Huh? What on earth are you talking ab... Oh! Oh. Oh. That's really elegant. Hrm. Now I just need to rethink all my assumptions, again...

• Apuleius. Okay, that's honestly pretty funny, but would you just get to the point already?

• Diogenes. ✊

• Plato. ARGH WHAT THE FUCK SOCRATES *flings book across room*

12 Sep 2023: Richard Bartle on the Pneumatic Vehicle

When I was a kid, I remember we had this mysterious box called "The Lost Treasures of Infocom." It came with a bunch of floppy disks in it, and if you put those disks into the computer, they contained a great many games on them. These games were of a kind known as "text adventures," and they're a lot like role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons: the game would tell you (in prose) what was going on, and you would write back to it what you would like to do, and it would respond with what effects that had, and so on. These were a joy to play and the reading skills I gained from them were part of the reason why I was several grades advanced in school.

Video games were a big part of my life and I even worked in the video game industry for a while, but eventually I lost interest. I was thinking about this a bit today and wondered what it was that pushed me away from the field... and I remembered that Richard Bartle—an early pioneer in multiplayer video games similar to those of Infocom—laid out the exact reason in an interview he did for the documentary GET LAMP. I've transcribed (and lightly edited) it below.

Let's have a little thought experiment here.

You're playing [a game] in a virtual world and it's got these pictures and they're looking pretty good. [... But] it's a 3D world, and I'm only seeing it in 2D on a screen. So maybe if I got like a little headset and put that on, now I can see it in 3D. But if I move my head a bit too much [it breaks the illusion.] Well, maybe if you put a sensor on it so I can move my head around and, ah, yeah, now I can see it properly. But I'm still only seeing things. Maybe I could have some feeling as well? So I put on a little "data glove" and oh! it feels warm! But even then I haven't got this sense of being in a place. Maybe I want to be able to move. So, maybe, let's get these big coffin-like things and fill them full of gels and I'll take off all my clothes and put on all these different devices and I'll lay down in it and put these little electric currents through the gels to make it feel hard or soft so that it gives me the impression that I'm actually walking through grass or whatever. And now, now I'm beginning to feel that I'm really in one of these places. But, of course, really all that's happening here is that my senses are being fooled into this. What would happen if I maybe cut out all of that business, stick a jack in the back of your head and send signals right into the spinal cord and talk straight to the brain? But you're still not, you're still only pretending to be the senses: the brain may be being told there's a big dragon flying in front of you, and it's seeing this big dragon, but it's still only seeing it.

It's not the brain that you want to talk to: it's the mind. If you could talk straight to the imagination and cut out all the senses, then it would be impossible to ignore it: you couldn't say "oh, that's just an image of a dragon," it would be a dragon. If only there was some kind of technology which could enable you to talk straight to the imagination!

Well, there is. It's called "text." It's been around for several thousand years and I've seen people leap out of their chairs when they've read that that there is an immense, fire-breathing dragon in front of them.

It occurs to me that he's speaking remarkably lucidly about the body and the pneumatic vehicle: why settle for mere senses when the imagination is so much greater? And once one discovers that there are higher capacities even than the imagination, why stop there?

22 Sep 2023: The Three Paths and Their Classical Exemplars

The Bhagavad Gita describes three paths ("yogas") to divinity: the path of action, the path of knowledge, and the path of devotion. These three paths don't seem to be described in classical sources, but it seems to me that the myth of Eris and Her golden apple does an adequate job of mythologizing it: Eris throws the apple between the three goddesses (symbolizing the split nature of our appetition, here in the sensible world) and Zeus (symbol of divine law) delegates adjudication to Paris (who represents the human soul). Which goddess does he give the apple to?

Hera, here, represents power and action, and Her path to divinity is to live one's entire life as a form of prayer or offering. I think this is visible in her mythic champion Hercules and the path is classically exemplified by Diogenes.

Athena, here, represents reason and knowledge, and Her path to divinity is the training of the mind to go beyond material concerns. Given that Athens was especially dedicated to Her, this is the path most heavily emphasized in classical times, and we have our pick of exemplars, from Pythagoras to Plato to Proclus.

Aphrodite, here, represents love and beauty, and Her path to divinity is explicit devotion or love to some divinity. The Greeks generally and the philosophers specifically were pretty negative on Aphrodite—as seen in the myth, no good comes of Paris giving the apple to Her—and yet I still think we see this path exemplified by Plotinus and Porphyry (though perhaps it's fairer to say of those two that they divided the apple between Aphrodite and Athena).

Socrates makes an interesting case study, here as elsewhere, as it seems to me that he balanced all three paths in roughly equal measure.

These three seem to relate to Plato's three faculties of the soul in the Republic: Athena is reason, Hera is spirit, and Aphrodite is desire. While I think that model has its issues, it's certainly natural to assume that souls tend towards the path that plays to its specific strengths.

22 Sep 2023: Treason and Robots

I'm starting to study Ancient Greek. There's a famous Italian adage, "traduttore, traditore"—in English, we might say "translation is treason"—and the biggest hurdle I've had in studying the classics is that I've had to contend with the biases of translators. Most of them clearly don't understand the material, but even Thomas Taylor—bless him—is so obsessed with Proclus that he reads Proclus, and writes Proclus, into everyone. So being able to bypass such gatekeeping is valuable. But to be honest, I'd content myself with translation if there were translations of everything I wanted to read—but I really want to read Stobæus, and nobody's translated him!

But that's not what this post is about: this post is about blind faith. I was mentioning the above to a friend, who asked, in all seriousness, "Why not just ask ChatGPT to translate him for you?"

I stared, incredulously, for a moment, and answered, "How would I know if it was right?"

He was quite surprised by this and conceded the point.

Now, this seems a very obvious thing to me—the whole point was that I can't trust a translator of any kind, human or robot—but it's not as if my friend is a dummy! Rather, it seems there's something of an insidious meme of the infallibility or inevitability of machine learning which is polluting people's abilities to think clearly about it. I think it's worth bearing in mind that a meme is all it is, and this meme is pushed by people who are neither honest nor have your best interests at heart.

Remember that your highest self is essentially independent. To be your best, think for yourself!

28 Sep 2023

Plotinus maintained that human souls were divine at root, and only had to shed their bodies to return to it. Iamblichus and Proclus maintained that human souls were not divine, but could strive towards and gain similitude to divinity through certain practices.

What if they were both right?

Thomas Taylor notes in his essay on the Wanderings of Ulysses that there are three categories of souls that incarnate as humans. The lowest are those are haven't even the strength to turn their eyes heavenward. The middle are those who possess enough strength to save themselves, but not enough to save others. The highest, though, are those souls that are strong enough that they needn't take on a body at all, but only do so out of compassion for others, in order to teach and guide: the likes of Pythagoras, Laozi, Sakyamuni, Jesus, Bodhidarma, etc. etc.

Let us suppose that different kinds of souls do exist and do incarnate as humans. Let us also suppose that Plotinus was of this highest, more divine category: this does not seem a stretch to me, as Plotinus' speech and actions seem too enigmatic and lofty to be properly called human, even when placed beside a Porphyry who, it seems to me, is an example of an upper limit of human endeavor. And let us suppose that the likes of Iamblichus and Proclus are of the same sort as Porphyry: great in their own way, but still mere men.

If all these things are so, then perhaps these were all simply and accurately describing their own inner experiences and revelations. Plotinus saw souls as divine because his, being of that highest category, was. Proclus and Iamblichus saw souls as less-than-divine because theirs, being of that middle category, were.

This is all very speculative, so don't trust it—I was just pondering, is all.

29 Sep 2023: Dædalian Depths

It probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone here that I'm an all-work-and-no-play kind of person. (It's a long story.) Now that I'm off work and have some breathing room, I'm trying to be a little more playful and spend a little more time doing things just for the fun of it. One of the things I've always liked is puzzles, and so I've been checking out puzzle books lately.

Perhaps the most famous of these is Christopher Manson's Maze, which I played years and years ago. Each page of the book has labelled doors leading to other pages in the book. It asks two questions: first, what is the shortest path from the entrance to the center of the maze and back out; second, what is the answer to the riddle in the center of the maze? Each room has puzzles of its own which tell you which way to go, but since I'm a computer scientist, I solved it using graph exploration algorithms (which I did by hand, as it's not a very large graph). Alas, the riddle at the center of the maze was so convoluted that it was basically unsolveable. Even so, it's a charming book and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon or two.

I recently discovered that somebody else—Rami Hansenne—has created a spiritual sequel of sorts, called Dædalian Depths. It's very similar in that it asks one to navigate the maze and then answer the puzzle at the end. I just finished it this afternoon: I think the writing and illustration is poorer than Maze, but the puzzles were composed fairly well and I enjoyed myself.

It seems that, once upon a time, the internet offered hints and solutions for the game, so one could check their work; as the internet rapidly disintegrates, however, these seem to be lost. (The game is only a few years old, too!) I'm posting the solution to the two puzzles here, mostly for my own future reference, but also in case anybody else comes across this page and wants to double-check their work. The solutions are each in a cut and encoded using ROT47 in order to avoid spoilers.

30 Sep 2023

Nothing in excess, including civilization.

2 Oct 2023: Xenophon's Anabasis

One of my goals after getting away from my tech job was to push myself to read more, and I've been managing a pace of about a book a week since April. In particular, I finished reading the Anabasis earlier today: it's a fascinating adventure story, of how a mercenary force, stranded hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, manages to bring itself safely home.

Here's a little synopsis of each of its seven books:

1. Prince Cyrus of Persia secretly gathers a large army, including ten thousand Greek mercenaries, to assassinate his brother, King Artaxerxes. They march on Babylon, but Cyrus is killed in battle.

2. The Greek mercenaries are stranded deep in enemy territory. They sign a truce with a Persian viceroy who guarantees their safe return. He betrays them and assassinates most of the Greek captains.

3. Xenophon urges the surviving Greek captains and lieutenants to action. He is elected captain of a unit. At his recommendation, the ten thousand destroy all nonessential equipment and march north with all haste. The Persians pursue and the Greeks suffer for it, but eventually make it to high ground and relative safety.

4. The Greeks decide to go over the mountains to the Black Sea, hoping that the Persians would not pursue through Kurdistan and Armenia. They did not, but the natives and harsh conditions prove worse and there are many casualties. Nonetheless, the Greeks scrape through and reach the Black Sea at Trapezous.

5. The Greeks fail to secure transport and provisions for a sea voyage and so march west, trading military services for guidance and safe passage through foreign territories, eventually reaching Sinope, from which they finally secure transport.

6. The Greek army sails to Heraclea. There, they suffer from internal disunity, diplomatic failures, disastrous skirmishes, and a lack of provisions, but they eventually stabilize and march as far as Chrysopolis.

7. The Greeks cross the Bosphorus into Byzantium, but the army has no money to buy needed provisions and so the city's governor fears that it will use force in desperation. He uses deceit to lure the army out of the city and closes it. Desperate, Xenophon trades the army's services to a local barbarian king for provisions and pay. When the term of service comes to an end, pay is withheld, but Xenophon manages to secure it with difficulty. Sparta begins a campaign against Persia and the recruits the army, but since Xenophon is not a formal member of the army, he finally returns home.

The whole thing is harrowing, and it seems a miracle that the Greeks managed to secure adequate provisions as they went: often they were a day away from being without food, and nobody—not even the Greek cities!—showed them hospitality.

One of the surprising things was that Xenophon, who was instrumental in saving eight thousand lives, wasn't even supposed to be there! He wasn't an officer or even a soldier (though, like all Athenians, he had a few years of mandatory service under his belt, so he wasn't green), he just happened to come along for fun and adventure as a friend of one of the captains, Proxenus. He ended up in charge by taking action when nobody else would, being of upstanding character, never asking others for something he wouldn't do himself, and by learning from his mistakes.

I'm also reading The Art of not Being Governed by James Scott, who suggests that barbarians aren't primitives—rather, they're peoples who specifically and actively reject statehood, and tend to mountains and violence as a deliberate reaction to state-making. Xenophon's account underscores that: as powerful as the Persian Empire is, the Greeks make a mockery of them even when greatly outnumbered—but the Kurds tear the Greeks to shreds: losing something like a tenth of their fighting force in weeks.

Amusingly, Socrates makes a cameo appearance! When Proxenus invited Xenophon to go with him, Xenophon had a bad feeling about it and asked Socrates what to do. Socrates advised Xenophon to ask the oracle of Delphi, but Xenophon botches his question and asks how best to travel (not whether to travel). Oops! When Xenophon tells Socrates about it, Socrates says, "Welp, you can't just ignore what Apollo told you to do, so I guess you're in for it now!" Xenophon certainly got more than he bargained for, but got through it none the worse for wear—in fact, he became famous!—so I guess the Oracle was right!

Also interesting is that Xenophon repeatedly describes prophetic dreams and omens. As he first sets out, an eagle cries out in a particular way and an augur divines for Xenophon from this that his path is difficult and would bring renoun but not wealth. He is induced to spur the Greeks to action by a dream in which Zeus leads him out of a burning building. In a seemingly hopeless situation where his army is trapped between the enemy and a deep river, he dreams that fetters which bind him fall open, and upon waking some of his men discover a safe ford. The army often only takes up, or drops, a course of action after the captains divine on it, and Xenophon frequently only seems to scrape through on the basis of divinatory advice.

Another thing I didn't expect was how all the different Greek nationalities all seem to come with stereotypes attached. Spartans, for example, are treated as courageous and morally upstanding, but also as grudge-bearing and perhaps less intelligent than most. Athenians are treated as clever but conniving (and Xenophon seems to surprise everyone with his openness and honesty). Arcadians and Achæans are treated as being of great physical strength and endurance, but also very quick to anger. I always thought Thrace was part of Greece, but here they're treated as barbarians! It was interesting to see all this, as they're all Greek to me—but to Xenophon and his army, it seems that the Greeks are completely different peoples united only by bonds of honor and language. It underscores, to me, just how radical Diogenes was being when he claimed to be "a citizen of the world."

Anyway, I found it a fun and interesting read and would recommend it if you're into military sorts of things.

10 Oct 2023

My family and I are on vacation: we're exploring the Rocky Mountains, which we've never seen before. I still do my daily divinations while on the road, of course, and I got another one of those funny charts today:

Once again, it's a felicitous chart. Of particular interest is Conjunctio rejoicing in the first in company with Albus in the second (of my property), fifth (of created objects, and given the Mercury association, I might assume books?), and eighth (of things owned by others). Looks like my angel's again got something set aside for me which they would like me to read. Just like before, Via rejoices (guidance, direction) and Lætitia rejoices (blessings).

We stopped in town to pick up some supplies and my wife suggested we go to a bookstore a friend of hers recommended. Sounds fine to me, of course, so I poke around. The only book that stood out to me was in the "Metaphysics" section, Susan Levitt's Taoist Feng Shui. I flipped through it and it seemed interesting, but I'm studying so many things already... I figure it's probably best to leave such a thing for another time.

As I'm putting the book back on the shelf, though, my angel says to me, clear as day, "You sure you want to put that one back?"

"Oh," I said, "is this what I was supposed to look for, today?"

"You should give it a try, I think you'll find something interesting in there."

So, I bought it. Indeed, after doing so, my family and I went over to a cafe next door and I read the first chapter while sipping some tea; and, indeed, I noticed something interesting. The first page of the book, introducing the Tao, quotes the Tao Te Ching XXV:

The Tao is great.
The universe is great.
Earth is great.
Each human is great.
These are the four great powers.

A human follows the earth.
Earth follows the universe.
The universe follows the Tao.
The Tao follows only itself.

Having read Plotinus, I can't help but see his four levels of reality in this: "the Tao" is the One, "the universe" (e.g. the cosmos, all that is) is the Intellect, Earth (e.g. the living world) is the level of souls, and "a human" is the level of bodies. Maybe it's time to give the Taoists another look, after all...

In any case, don't be too surprised if you start to see musings along those lines in the near future.

23 Oct 2023: Applying the Lessons of Art

One of the things I think we moderns get really wrong is "what is art." If I asked any of my friends what is great art, they will say that it is something that does a good job of making them feel a certain way. I would disagree very strongly: that's not art; it's kitsch, or propaganda, or something—art doesn't make you feel, it asks what you feel. Great art must be collaboration between the artist and the viewer.

Let's look at an example. One of my favorite paintings is "Diogenes Sitting in His Tub," by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1860):

(What can I say? I really like Diogenes!)

The reason I think this is great art is that you can keep looking at it and discovering more and more about it (and yourself). The painting doesn't have answers, it has questions, and you must find the answers within. For example, the painting has dogs sitting in a circle around Diogenes, as if learning from him. Why? Perhaps it's merely a nod to "Cynic" meaning "doglike," but that's too easy: look deeper.

Since Diogenes is preparing the lamp which he famously used to "search for a true man," perhaps the painter is implying that dogs are more true than men are.

Perhaps the dog on the left—lying down as if observing but not attentively—is Diogenes' teacher, Antisthenes; then there is Diogenes is in the middle; and the three of rapt attention on the right are the most famous of Diogenes' students: perhaps Crates, Hipparchia, and Monimus. So the dogs could represent the line of succession in the Cynic school. (Maybe the itsy-bitsy dog in the background wandering away is Zeno the Stoic!)

Perhaps what's important is the gap—it is as if there are dogs simply sitting in an even circle around Diogenes, learning from him, but there's a missing dog where the viewer is, implying that the viewer of the painting is the missing dog. This would be an implied exhortation to also learn from Diogenes' example.

Either way, what's important is not the painting itself, but what the painting provokes: it isn't about what the artist intended, it's about what you can learn from it. In many ways, studying great art is much like the process of contemplation: apply the same tools from the graphical to the allegorical, and one can study myths in the same way.

26 Oct 2023

A long time ago—one of the first things I ever posted to this blog—I opined how long life was and wondered why people always say otherwise. These days, time seems to crawl at around a third of the speed I remember as "normal"—that is, a day feels like three, a week feels nearly like a month, etc. The topic came up on this month's Open Post over at Ecosophia (prompted by Cointoss #23), where most responses have simply parroted the conventional wisdom which I disagree with. So the nature of time and why it seems so slow to me but not others has been on my mind today, but I couldn't come up with a solid answer.

Now, I read many fairy tales to my daughter, and ones with riddles are her favorites. Tonight, out of nowhere, she felt like quizzing me before we dug into our bedtime story. "What is the fastest thing in the world?"

"Oh, I know! I've heard this one told a few ways. Is it 'thought?' Or perhaps, 'the wind that travels over the steppes?'"

"Wrong! It's 'time,' daddy."

"Are you sure about that? I think time is pretty slow."

"It's fast for me," she said, and in a sing-song voice she added, "time flies when you're having fun." Then, suddenly serious, "Next riddle! What is the slowest thing in the world?"

Now I was curious what she'd say, so rather than answer her, I waited an appropriate interval and said, "I'm stumped. What's the slowest thing in the world?"

"It's 'time' again, but when you're bored."

Now, this struck me as a very astute observation—indeed, an obvious one, but one I'd totally missed. And, of course, my daughter knew nothing about the thoughts that were on my mind. So the synchronicity left me thoughtful. On reflection, I think she's right: human life, and indeed the material world as a whole, is very boring—perhaps this is because I've been at it too long, and perhaps this is why I am so fixedly determined to move beyond it, and why there is little save metaphysics and math that continues to hold much interest for me.

There's a silver lining, though: it seems most people have a very difficult time meditating, like sitting still for a few minutes will kill them or something. I've never had that problem: meditation is no more boring than anything else, and after a few years of practice it gets to be a lot less boring than most other things. Maybe that's another reason I keep at it so.

In any case, it's nice to have a solid answer that "feels right" to a question that's been plaguing me for years.

1 Nov 2023

1. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but may change from one form to another.

2. Consciousness is energy.

3. Therefore, consciousness may neither be created or destroyed, but may change from one form to another.

4. We typically call "creation of consciousness," "birth;" and "destruction of consciousness," "death."

5. Therefore, birth and death (of consciousness) are impossible, and merely represent changes in the form of consciousness.

(With all respect to Socrates in the Phædo.)

1 Nov 2023

I was musing with @boccaderlupo that light is consciousness and consciousness is light. Let's suppose this is so. (Certainly, Proclus thought so: he distinguished three individual bodies, calling the physical body the "shell-like vehicle," the lower (irrational) soul the "pneumatic vehicle," and the higher (rational) soul the "luminous vehicle.")

If that's the case, then the soul—which consists only of consciousness, and thus of light—must travel at the speed of light. But Einstein can tell you that the faster something moves, the slower time seems to pass—and that once you reach the speed of light, time stops altogether. Perhaps this is why people who are outside of their bodies, whether due to a near-death experience or astral projection or what have you, experience timelessness.

1 Nov 2023

Paraphrasing Plotinus, the body is matter to the soul, the soul is matter to the Intellect, and the Intellect is matter to the One. But if we are correct in the association of the soul to light, then we can go the other way, too: the One is light to the Intellect, the Intellect is light to the soul, and, as we have said, the soul is light to the body.

In many ways, the relation of each level of being to the next reminds me strongly of yang (among other things, sky and light) to yin (among other things, earth and darkness).

1 Nov 2023

I'm going back over parts of Diogenes Laertius for a research project, and noticed a reference to Empedocles' elements:

He used to assert that there were four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. And that that is friendship by which they are united, and discord by which they are separated. And he speaks thus on this subject:—

Bright Jove, life-giving Juno, Pluto dark,
And Nestis, who fills mortal eyes with tears.

Meaning by Jove fire, by Juno the earth, by Pluto the air, and by Nestis water. And these things, says he, never cease alternating with one another; inasmuch as this arrangement is perpetual.

I knew of the reference, of course, but when I was first digging into this, I had assumed Jove was fire, Juno was air, Proserpine was water, and Pluto was earth; I had been corrected on this citing a number of sources, including especially John Opsopaus, who gives Hades as fire, Jove as air, Proserpine as water, and Juno as earth! Well, here is Diogenes Laertius disagreeing with both of us and giving a third set of associations!

[Note from the future: his linking of Juno with earth and Pluto with is confusing at first blush, but makes sense under the assumption that Empedocles got these associations from Egypt, and that Juno is Isis and Pluto is Seth.]

2 Nov 2023

We cannot see light itself, but only those objects which it illuminates. So it is that we cannot see soul itself, but only those objects which it illuminates.

Consider also looking at the sky on a dark night. If one is not near a city, with its terrestrial lights, you see only the stars; though the Sun is shining brilliantly, we are blind to His effects because we are turned away from them. So it is with soul—if we look away from Divinity, we see only darkness, only matter, and none of the shining which Divinity emits.

4 Nov 2023

Evangeline Adams famously predicted (in a talk in 1931) the US entry into World War 2 on the basis of a simple observation: every Uranus cycle heralds a war in which the country, and its identity in the world, is transformed. In particular, the United States was formed—as an idea and ideal, if not legally—when the Declaration of Independence was signed, on 4 July 1776. On this date, Uranus was at 9° Gemini, and, of course, the the Revolutionary War was raging. This began the period of an independent, albeit fractured, American identity.

84 years and one Uranus cycle later, on 24 Dec 1860—when Uranus was again at 9° Gemini—South Carolina formally seceded from the United States, sparking the Civil War. This heralded a period of power centralization, of the idea of a unified American identity, and of America becoming an industrial powerhouse.

84 years and one Uranus cycle later, on 5 Jun 1944—when Uranus was again at 9° Gemini—America put boots on the ground during the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War 2. This quite literally began the period of American meddling in, and dominance of, European affairs, ultimately with America taking over custody of Europe and what remained of her colonial empires. (Adams actually was much more precise than this, stating that the US would enter a major war at the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942—as indeed it did—using mundane astrology techniques to refine the rough estimate that the Uranus transit provides by checking transits against the United States' natal chart.)

I bring this up because 84 years and one Uranus cycle later will occur in May of 2028, four and a half years from now. (Lucky us, an election year.) One might wonder if the US will again participate in a major war around that time, resulting in a transformation of how the country perceives itself and relates to the world. (Indeed, given current events, one might better wonder how we might not participate in a major war around that time.)

6 Nov 2023

Whenever [the Roman emperor Tiberius] sought counsel on [astrological] matters, he would make use of the top of the house and of the confidence of one freedman, quite illiterate and of great physical strength. The man always walked in front of the person whose science Tiberius had determined to test, through an unfrequented and precipitous path (for the house stood on rocks), and then, if any suspicion had arisen of imposture or of trickery, he hurled the astrologer, as he returned, into the sea beneath, that no one might live to betray the secret [of what Tiberius wished to divine]. Thrasyllus accordingly was led up the same cliffs, and when he had deeply impressed his questioner by cleverly revealing his imperial destiny and future career, he was asked whether he had also thoroughly ascertained his own horoscope, and the character of that particular year and day. After surveying the positions and relative distances of the stars, he first paused, then trembled, and the longer he gazed, the more was he agitated by amazement and terror, till at last he exclaimed that a perilous and well-nigh fatal crisis impended over him. Tiberius then embraced him and congratulated him on foreseeing his dangers and on being quite safe. Taking what he had said as an oracle, he retained him in the number of his intimate friends.

(Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals VI xxi, as translated by Alfred John Church.)

6 Nov 2023: John Varley on Uranus

My grandfather[, the "father of water-colour painting" John Varley,] was living at the time in Conduit Street, Regent Street. He had purchased or taken a lease of an hotel, which he used partly as a dwelling-house for his large family, and partly as a studio and gallery for his pictures.

He was, so I have been told, in the habit of consulting his own horoscope each morning, and bringing up directions, etc., to date. On one particular morning (I am sorry that I never took notes of these conversations, and I forget the dates, if indeed they were mentioned) my father related, he was evidently ill at ease and disturbed in mind, and though he had an appointment he did not go out, and about eleven in the forenoon he gave his watch to my father telling him to take it to a watchmaker in Regent Street and have it set to Greenwich time. When he returned with the watch my grandfather was still walking up and down the studio, a proceeding that impressed my father as most unusual, for my grandfather grudged actually every minute that he was away from his easel. At last he remarked, "What is it to be?" and explained that there were some evil aspects in his horoscope which would come into operation a few minutes to twelve on that day. He was so certain as to the evil effects, that he would not go out, fearing some street accident. He said, "I might be run over, or a slate might fall on my head;" that he was uncertain whether his life or his property was menaced, but he saw in the figure that it would be sudden. The difficulty arose from the fact that the effects of the planet Uranus were not yet understood by astrologers, and his agitation increased as the time approached. He asked if my father was sure that his watch was put to Greenwich time, and complained that he could not go on with his work. Sitting down he said two or three times, "I feel quite well—there is nothing the matter with me. I am not going to have a fit or anything of the sort." Then rising from his seat he came towards my father saying: "What is it to be? The time is past. Could I have made some mistake in my calculations?" He took some paper and a pencil to go through the figures again—just then there was a cry of fire from the street. He rapidly made a note in his astrological book as to the effects of Uranus. The house was burned down, all his property was destroyed, and unfortunately he was uninsured. It is a curious fact that on three occasions his property was destroyed by fire, and three times in his life he was tossed by bulls, and whatever warning he may have had from the stars, he was unable to prevent their effects.

(John Varley, Some Astrological Predictions of the Late John Varley, in the Occult Review XXIV i.)

6 Nov 2023

(As a disclaimer, before I begin, I should note that I am not a magician and everything I say here is entirely speculative. Don't rely on it for anything other than ideas!)

I have an idiosyncratic theory (per Plotinus and the other Neopythagoreans that I have read) that various types of numbers fall into three different categories based on their essential potency:

• The weakest numbers are the even numbers. This is because they may be divided into two equal groups and set against each other, tying their energies up and preventing action. (It is for this reason, I think, that the Pythagoreans considered even numbers passive.)

• The middle class of numbers are the odd composite numbers. These may not be set against themselves—there's always a "tie breaker," a majority, and so there is always direction and the possibility of action—but they may still be divided is some way or other, and thereby weakened.

• The strongest numbers are the odd prime numbers. These may not be divided at all, and thus always possess their essential unity. (And, as Proclus tells us, unity is power.)

(We may as well classify 1 with the prime numbers, even though it is not technically prime, since obviously it is as indivisible as it gets; further, within a class, smaller numbers have greater potency than larger numbers.)

One thing that is common in folk magical practice is the combining of harmonious elements into a whole (e.g. in an amulet, etc.). I wondered to myself whether it were possible to combine elements that were each individually strong (e.g. odd, prime) and strong in combination (e.g. odd, prime). For any two elements it is not, and the proof is trivial: two odd numbers, when summed, form an even number. Therefore, one must add an even number to an odd number to get another odd number, thereby introducing a weakness. However, it is possible with three elements: a couple trivial examples are 1+3+7=11 and 3+5+11=19.

I might suppose a prime number of ingredients, combined in prime terms into a prime total, might be more potent than other combinations. But an esoteric number theory of this sort does not seem to be well-developed: all systems I've seen only assign meanings to 1-10 (and higher numbers are considered in light of those). I'd be curious to see a theory treating the primes as conveyors of essential meaning, but there is an infinity of those...

12 Nov 2023: The Senility Hypothesis

I'm very tired of the "demonic hypothesis" being bandied about as a means of understanding why America is becoming schizophrenic and tearing itself to pieces right now. (In fairness to JMG, he only proposed it as a tentative hypothesis and does not seem to hold to it very tightly; but at least a significant segment of the Ecosophia community seems to have taken it as gospel.) I thought I might offer an alternative.

In her book Anyone Can See the Light, Dr. Dianne Morrissey talks about her near death experience and the things she learned from it. One of the things she discusses is senility: "I learned from being in the Light that if I continued to judge others as I had been doing, I would become senile before I died again! The Light of God told me that senility was created for those who would have a hard time accepting the reality of Heaven, once they had crossed over. So they are made childlike, and thus able to accept Heaven as it is."

Plotinus says something vaguely concordant in Enneads I ix, about how arguing for suicide as a response to senility is a pointless exercise, since a philosophical life—trying to accept and embrace what is—is prophylactic against senility.

I might suggest that human societies are creatures, just as much as humans are: they exhibit various stages of life, and in the same way they are born (from parent societies, no less), so too do they grow old and die. Some civilizations, for whatever reason, are mature and philosophical and die with grace; others may get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and are murdered before even coming to age. Ours, however, seems to me to be like the judgemental person Morrissey describes—it insists upon forcing its view of the world onto others, and is unable to accept or appreciate the world as it is. Consequently, as it ages, it seems to have grown senile and is too judgmental, too forgetful, too proud to make sense of the world around it any more. So it forgets and is confused and frustrated and flails and rattles apart as a side effect of allowing it a way to transition out of existence.

Consequently, it seems to me that climate change and the "green movement," Trump and the "Resistance," COVID and the anti-vaxxers, the divisive political climate, all are mere symptoms of a deeply flawed worldview which has been stuck in a rut for centuries. Indeed, I might suggest that the "demonic hypothesis" itself is born from that same worldview: one that assigns humans much greater agency than they in fact have, and doesn't recognize that maybe the West's great life is coming to an end exactly as it ought to.

I would urge people to look at the world in such a way that, rather than divide it into camps or try to assign blame, instead accepts that the gods are good and know what they are doing, and gracefully tries to cushion the blow as much as one reasonably can.

12 Nov 2023: Iron Triangle

All is one, unity is good, evil is: pick two.

15 Nov 2023

My wife and I were trying to sort out what to make for dinner, and settled on bibimbop, a Korean dish that we like. There's actually a children's book about it by Linda Sue Park, which my daughter enjoyed when she was very little; I went to the Internet Archive to search for it—but instead of finding it, I got only an academic paper titled, "Intoxication by Angel's Trumpet." Now, if you know anything about me, an article with a title like that is catnip—but no, it wasn't a historical survey of religious ecstasy, it was just a botanical article about a plant related to the datura.

The angel's trumpet plant looks evil, somehow, and I can't understand how they got their name. I sent some pictures of it to my wife, who is a trained botanist, and she said, "I wouldn't eat those." I replied, "Good, this article I found says they're toxic." None will be going into our bibimbop, of course.

The whole string of events had that feeling of synchronicity, or even of dream-logic, but no, I can't make heads or tails of it. Just silliness, perhaps.

16 Nov 2023

Plotinus calls "matter" that which is furthest away from the One, and it is upon this that souls are reflected. In this, he is following the definitions of his predecessors, but I disagree.

See, we say there is a "material" world (made of "matter") and a "spiritual" world (made of "spirit"). I think the latter's nomenclature is fine: if we call the Nous "Spirit," then the spiritual world is the world composed of (and existing within) It: the world in which souls inhabit. There is some chance of confusing this with the modern notion of "spirits" (e.g. "ghosts"), but calling the highest comprehensible divinity a Spirit is reasonable enough—everybody intuitively understands the American Indian notion of "the Great Spirit," for example. So perhaps the nomenclature is justified so long as we only speak of "Spirit" and never "spirits."

But what is this "matter" that the material world is composed of? We are told that matter and energy are interchangeable, and what is energy but light? (My understanding of physics is by no means up to date, but do not matter and energy both define the fields of spacetime, as well? So is it not the case that matter is energy is light is time is space?) But if light is soul, then we are just saying that the material world is the world made of souls. So either we should call this world the "psychic" world (e.g. consisting of "psyche," soul), or we should call souls "matter."

Either way, I think treating "matter" as a sort of limiting shore upon which the waters of the divine are breaking is mistaken: souls are the very thoughts of Spirit, and light (and the space and time and matter it gives rise to) is the movement of souls.

16 Nov 2023

I've mentioned before that for the last year or so, my angel has liked to gift me bird feathers. I've also been talking about light lately. I was just thinking about these today and thought I'd share something fun.

The prize feather from my collection is from a blue jay. (A distant cousin, perhaps—I'm a Jay myself, you know.) I didn't realize this until I was given the gift, but did you know that blue jays aren't blue? They're actually gray, but iridescent in such a way that, if the light hits them from the correct angle, they "shimmer" blue instead of show their normal color, sort of like moonstone or labradorite. I suppose we don't notice this on a live blue jay since their feathers are aligned in all sorts of angles, so some feathers are always hitting the light at the right angle and making them look blue—but with a single feather, it's very obvious: if you rotate it just right, it'll turn from dull gray to brilliant sky blue and back again.

18 Nov 2023: Caveat Emptor

I accidentally discovered that Wikipedia has a list of philosophers who were executed. What surprised me is how many names I recognized on that list! A full third of them are in Socrates' direct lineage: there's Socrates himself, two Academics, a Stoic, and five Neoplatonists.

It seems to me that a philosophical school, like a state or any other social construct, has a guardian angel guiding it. If you buy into that school, you come under the care and guidance of that angel, and it will presumably lead you along similar paths as it's led its prior wards. So, while Socrates is an excellent role model in many ways, it is worth remembering one takes the bad with the good: examine your teacher's life carefully and make sure you're willing to mirror it before you embark!

(On the other hand, I suppose it's also entirely plausible that Athens (under the spear of Athena) and Rome (under the sword of Mars) were simply more, er, martial than most states.)

22 Nov 2023

Plato (in the Symposium) and Plotinus (in III v "On Love" and VI ix "On the Good") made a pretty big deal of the distinction between vulgar love and heavenly love, treating the former as being of the sensible world and the latter as being of the intelligible world, and therefore capital-B Better. But I'm not so sure this is so: is it not the case that the nature of the sensible world is separation, while the nature of the intelligible world is unity?

This would lead me to expect that while there are many kinds of love here in the sensible world, all of them should blend together into a harmonious whole There in the intelligible world. Here we speak of physical sex, emotional affection, imaginal devotion; but There, Love is all of these at once and more. Here, we have Aphrodite Pandemos and Aphrodite Ourania; but There, there is only Aphrodite.

30 Nov 2023: The Way of the Lonely Ones

One set of virtues belongs to the citizen, and another to the contemplative. [...] The scope of the political virtues is to set a limit to the passions as far as regards the practical energies that have reference to nature, but that of the purificatory virtues is to free entirely from the passions. [...] Therefore, he who operates according to the practical virtues is a good neighbor, but he who operates according to the purificatory ones is a saint or even almost an angel.

(Porphyry, Sentences XXXIV.)

It is therefore evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal, and that he who is apolitical by nature and not by mere accident is either below humanity or above it.

(Aristotle, Politics I ii, emphasis mine.)

It is a shame that everyone who quote's Aristotle's "man is a political animal" statement neglects its corollary!

2 Dec 2023: φιλομειδής, the Laughter-Loving

Guillaume Seignac, Venus and Cupid

I seem to remember a story—perhaps in one of Alan Watts's books?—in which some English poet or other was asked, "What is heaven?" He got up from his chair, crossed to the window, opened the curtain, and gestured to the children playing in the field across the street. "That," he said, "that is heaven." I wish I could locate the reference today.

4 Dec 2023: Philosophy from Oracles

It is usually frowned upon to try to dig into occult philosophy using divination. (This is because, I think, symbolic divination exists at the imaginal level, and is therefore a sensible phenomenon; but one cannot use the sensible to apprehend the intelligible.) Nevertheless, I've had some successes with it; but I find those successes are primarily on the basis of contemplation, merely using divination as confirmatory of those things I have attempted to apprehend directly. I thought it might be fun to poke through an example which occurred recently.

Because of all the challenges my family faced last December, I now do a fair amount of natural magic utilizing the Orphic Hymns. I'm presently in the process of learning ancient Greek, and my angel suggested to me that my workings would be more efficacious if I recited those Hymns in their original language. It's hard to trust one's inner senses, though: while I've gotten more accurate with time, I'd still say only maybe 75–80% of the things I hear my angel say are true, while the rest are just my imagination. (This is at least much better than the 50–50 I started with!) As a result, I always check actionable things I hear from them with divination, and so I asked, "Would reciting the Orphic Hymns in ancient Greek possess greater potency than doing so in English?"

The chart perfects, affirming the question. This was very surprising to me, since my understanding is that I am calling to the angels of the relevant divinities, and angels don't communicate using language! In the chart, the querent is represented by Rubeus in the first house, indicating misdirection. The quesited is Conjunctio in the eighth house, indicating coming to understanding. Perfection is found through a mutation in the fourth and fifth houses, which indicates that resolution comes about in an unexpected manner. This is reinforced by the court, which says that I have too narrow a view (Cauda Draconis right witness), but that inspiration will come (Lætitia left witness) if I think about it (Conjunctio judge).

So, I spent a few days mulling it over. As I've said before, I like to spitball possibilities before I try to settle on any of them, and this was no different: I came up with four or five possibilities, ranging from the Hymns being a cunningly contrived spell themselves involving the specific sounds (which are, of course, lost in translation), to my experiences involving angels being idiosyncratic. Ultimately, though, the option that seemed to be most likely to me was that the language of the Hymn itself didn't matter, but rather that the effort of mastering it was. (Certainly, this was the solution I came up with that I felt directed towards.) So I asked whether this was the case:

And look, we have a winner! Perfection is brought about through a simple occupation of Tristitia—hard work—in the first and the ninth. Therefore it is simply the nature of making the sustained effort that brings the increased potency about. But I note something additionally interesting: Fortuna Major in the seventh (of the other party; in the case of a Hymn, the angel I'm invoking) and fifth (of pleasure), which indicates that not only does the extra effort itself matter, but that it brings satisfaction to those I'm working with.

It's going to be some months of work before I'm capable of making such use of the Hymns, but it seems the effort will be worthwhile.

7 Dec 2023

All, then, that is present in the sense realm as Idea comes from the Supreme. But what is not present as Idea, does not. Thus of things conflicting with nature, none is There: the inartistic is not contained in the arts; lameness is not in the seed; for a lame leg is either inborn through some thwarting of the Reason-principle or is a marring of the achieved form by accident.

(Plotinus, Enneads V ix §10.)

When something unusual or unnatural occurs to upset the harmony of the physical—a shock, a jolt, a broken habit, an intense un-appeased desire, sickness—in fact, anything which would cause a lack of perfect material co-ordination—there is always a jar to the astral.

(Sylvan J. Muldoon, The Projection of the Astral Body II.)

Long, long have I wondered why, when so many are caught up in chasing after money, that I long only for the spiritual even when I have that which they desperately seek. Muldoon spells it out explicitly: one strives for internal unity, even if one cannot even hope to attain to that first tier of Maslow's hierarchy. To put it another way, the greater Self tries to find a agreement between the astral vehicle and the body; but if no agreement is possible, then shedding the body may be the only way for unity to exist.

I guess this ties into another point I've wondered: angels tend to appear only to the distressed. So perhaps the reason I am so often distressed is not a failing, but a cause: my angel has brought such circumstances about so that I may develop a communion with Them. This would seem to mesh with my understanding of Providence.

7 Dec 2023

Sylvan J. Muldoon, in The Projection of the Astral Body, discusses his out-of-body experiences. In particular, he talks about the three different kinds of locomotion he experienced:

Third, is the supernormal travelling velocity—a speed beyond comprehension. It always occurs when the subject is unconscious, and is in play when the phantom is moving back and forth over great distances.

It would be utterly impossible to move across a vast area at such speed and realise the distance, for the conscious mind is too slow in its thinking, and before it could formulate one single thought the objective would already be reached.

It would stand to reason that, if thought is light and the astral body could move as fast as thought, that if it moves as fast as it can, thought can't keep up with it as it does so, and lapses during the interim.

9 Dec 2023

A lot of learning the ancient Greek language is inseparable from understanding the ancient Greek culture: for example, the word for "buy" is related to the word "agora;" the word for "sex" is related to the name "Aphrodite;" the word for "quarrel" is related to the name "Eris." If you don't understand what the agora, or Aphrodite, or Eris meant to somebody back then, then you can't understand the words: the agora wasn't merely a marketplace and Aphrodite isn't merely the archetype of sexuality—these are larger concepts, square pegs that don't fit into the round holes of modern English, and so simply saying that "ἀγοράζω" equals "buy" is a gross trivialization.

I think that mystical experience is like that, whether it be channeled writing (e.g. the G. Vale Owen scripts) or direct gnosis (e.g. Emmanuel Swedenborg's books) or whatever. The spiritual worlds are vast, and to write them down in words is impossible. Human language describes human experiences, and so it is inevitable that we don't have words for super-human experiences; but more than that, any translation from spiritual experience to human experience has to map not only to words but to cultural constructs that are encoded in those words.

A good example of this is that I find a lot of written mystical texts in English to be useless, because the worldview of English-speaking cultures is fundamentally a Christian worldview; the language presupposes this, and the assumptions are baked in to it. So if I am reading about, say, Lorna Byrne's mystical experiences, I have to account for a double-translation: she is translating her spiritual experiences into a Christian worldview just to merely be able to put it into words, and so when I read it, I need to not merely translate the words to experiences, but I need to try and generalize from her Christian model to try and get to the bigger reality that is hinted from it (since I am not a Christian and do not, cannot, subscribe to that worldview). But this is impossible: if translation is treason, then a translation of a translation is beyond treason, it is trash. If the original is like a live flesh-and-blood person, a translation is like a mere photograph, and a translation of a translation is more like a Picasso.

And let it not be thought I am just picking on Christianity here: we have many records of Greek mystical experiences, and they are likewise fraught. One simply can't understand the spiritual worlds by using human models.

Let me contrive a little example: very often, accounts of what heaven is like say that people go to various buildings and do God's work of making things or helping people or what have you. This strikes me as a very industrial, Western view of how a person in heaven lives, where one goes to a place and does a particular, specialized task for some kind of reward. Yes, there must certainly "work" of a sort in the spiritual world, but I can't imagine heaven to have anything remotely related to the "work" we do here on earth! I could very easily see somebody from a different culture treating heaven as constant sex—because isn't part of sex to know something completely, without barriers? And isn't that the kind of knowledge one has of things in heaven? This is not something that can be taken too literally, of course—there are no bodies in heaven!—but as an analogy, a translation of an experience, I can see it being valid. But of course if one said such a thing in an English-speaking context, even the few who are inclined to read of mystical experiences would decry the supposed mystic as speaking strictly in terms of wish fulfillment.

If one walks their own path to divinity—and so many of us here do, I think; not for nothing does Manly P. Hall call it "the way of the lonely ones"—then they are necessarily withdrawing themselves from the cultural context in which they are situated. And if one does so, then no account of spirituality can possibly fit them: it will always be lost in translation. The only experience that can fit into an isolated, idiosyncratic worldview is one's own; and so we must develop our spiritual eyes to see for ourselves.

10 Dec 2023

I walked in the park yesterday, which has a number of inspirational signs put up for children. One of these had a picture of two kids riding a tandem bicycle with the inscription, "Be connected: find the people who make you feel more like you!" Such people don't exist, of course, and this got me thinking:

The birth of the physical body is the separation from the parent's body. We see this in babies.

The birth of the "pneumatic vehicle"—the imagination—is the separation from the community's ideas and opinions. We typically see this in rebellious teenagers.

By analogy, I suppose the birth of the "luminous vehicle"—the soul—is separation from human meaning. We see the beginning of this process in saints and mystics who, no matter how many words they write, are never understood.

If so, is this not another reason why we spiritual sorts are lonely? Why there is no proper "community" in those striving to go beyond? One cannot simultaneously engage in human meaning and separate from human meaning—to do so is to try and walk north and south at the same time. When such a person looks for "the people that make them feel more like them," they will gravitate towards angels and gods, not other humans.

17 Dec 2023

I dreamed that I was doing a geomancy reading for a former co-worker, and made a point that she could expect problems with a day-laborer. This is odd, since she works in tech, which isn't a field known for day-labor, and so she asked how I knew this to be the case. "Well," I said, pointing, "this is Fortuna Minor, a figure of the Sun—a day—and it's in the sixth house, of somebody you pay to do a job—a laborer—and so, when you put them together, you have a day-laborer."

"Oh," she said, very impressed.

(I thought this was funny, since if you know geomancy, it's a dream-joke! I'll try to explain. The sixth house is indeed—among other things—the house of people you hire, but the figure in a house doesn't describe a specific person or profession, but rather the energy you can expect from that sphere of life. Fortuna Minor there would suggest that anybody you pay to do a job will give you a quick and easy, but temporary, sort of success. So it's not the day-related quality of the literal Sun that matters here, but rather it's symbolic qualities.)

19 Dec 2023

What happens when the impossible is finally achieved and we become light? Does time ultimately slow to a stop? To naturalists in 1911, Einstein remarked that what to us might be centuries would, to a living organism, be "a mere instant," provided the organism travels with nearly the speed of light. What about space? Does distance completely disappear? In his seminal 1905 paper, Einstein declared that, "For v=c all moving bodies—viewed from the 'resting' frame—shrivel up into plane figures." Everything is here and now, forever!

(Arthur Zajonc, Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind.)

So, if the soul is light, all time is "now" and all space is "here"—just like one would expect from metaphysics.

9 Jan 2024

I can't help but love this act of the Athenians: once, in a public assembly, Demades introduced a motion that Alexander the Great should be recognized by the state as the thirteenth Olympian. However, the people, unable to bear his ludicrous impiety, fined him a hundred talents for attempting to count a mortal among the Celestials.

(Ælian, Varia Historia V xii.)

Demades was a well-known agent of Macedon among the Athenians—while his antics caused a lot of grief, he did manage to prevent Alexander from razing Athens to the ground as he did with Thebes. A hundred talents was 2.6 metric tons of pure silver, worth around two million dollars today. I figure Demades got off easy—consider the price Niobe paid!

15 Jan 2024

Some things, though right, were considered wrong for generations. Since the value of righteousness may be recognized after centuries, there is no need to crave immediate appreciation.

(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories LXXVII.)

Let us suppose all influences flow down to us from divinity. Let us further suppose that all influences below the level of divinity are subject to time. Then, to be "ahead of the curve" implies that one receives those influences before others, and in turn that one is closer to divinity than others (at least along the path of those influences).

For example, I've had severe autoimmune problems for a couple decades. Now, it seems everyone has them. I was subject to those influences first, and therefore it may be surmised that I am closer to the source of that influence than others are.

It is worthy to consider what good such an apparently-negative influence may carry with it from divinity; but even ignoring that, there is good it can bring even here in isolation in the sensible world: since I have a lot of experience with autoimmunity, I can teach those who are new to it how to bear it. Thus, one who is ahead of the curve is the teacher of those who are behind.

Laozi says (Tao Te Ching XXVII), "What is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man but a good man's job?" As divinity teaches mankind, so too does an experienced person teach an inexperienced one. And this is just what I mean when I say that being "ahead of the curve" is to be closer to divinity.

So if one is out of step with the times, they should not be concerned. Do your work and don't worry what others think. Help where you can.

15 Jan 2024

I dreamed that I was a senior in high school and I showed up at some nearby after-school type of program, held I assume in the basement of a church or community center or something. When I got there, it turned out that I was much older than all the other kids, who were all seventh- or eighth-graders. "Oh, I'm sorry," the person running the program said, "while the program is meant for both junior-high and high-school, we only really have junior-high kids this year." "It's no problem," I said, "I'll stick around anyway; I brought my laptop and I'd only be reading at home, anyway, so the change of scenery is nice." I sat at a nearby table and started reading some book of mythology or other.

Now, one entire wall of the room was a great, big bookshelf, filled with all kinds of books. I overheard one of the other kids, who looked like she was of Pacific Islander extraction, complaining, "Why do people only print stupid European books? I don't care about knights or princesses, I want to hear about my people's history!" The other kids shrugged at her. I looked up at her and asked where her people were from. "Hawaii," she said. I said I knew just the book and asked the teacher if I could hook up my laptop to the projector they had on the ceiling, and a few minutes later I was reading a book about Pele to everyone, which I had borrowed from the Internet Archive, while I put the pictures up on the wall. After the story was over, we had an impromptu discussion about folklore and why it matters.

I asked everyone, "At what times do we affect the population?" The kids inclined to answering called out, "When we're born and when we die." "Good," I said, "but you missed a time: now, in this very moment, in an ongoing manner." I emphasized that without an ongoing existence between birth and death, there's nothing to connect the two, nothing making a count at any point in time meaningful. That meaning has to come from somewhere: maybe God sustains your existence, or maybe your community sustains your existence, or maybe your existence is self-sustaining, or something, but if there's no reason for you to exist, then who cares? What's the point?

"That something which provides meaning," I said, "is called folklore. And that's why you," I pointed to the Hawaiian girl, "want stories that provide meaning to you. These aren't dead stories, after all: you take them into you, and you grow them and change them within you, and eventually you'll give new versions of those stories out again with your own meaning. For some people, your ancestry is where you find that source. I don't care much about mine, but I find meaning in the old Greek myths. But where you find meaning doesn't matter: what matters is that you do, and that you share it."

After the discussion, the person organizing the program asked me to come back the next week and read another story.

When I woke up, I laughed to myself, "Oh, dream-me is so much more eloquent than I am!" The above is my best recollection of what I said, but of course it feels pale indeed compared to whatever I said in the dream.

16 Jan 2024

I had speculated before that Socrates had been killed for introducing foreign gods. I was talking to a friend today and he suggested an alternate, simple hypothesis.

The elite had spent generations convincing everyone that the "good and beautiful," that is to say, the rich and well-bred, that is to say, themselves, were the ones worthy of the Isles of the Blessed. Socrates, however, made the effort to teach that goodness is knowledge, and the best knowledge is self-knowledge. That is, you don't need money or noble blood to go to heaven, merely humility and hard work.

Thus he was speaking against the elite, a textbook case of "corrupting" the youth, which was the charge laid against him.

27 Jan 2024

1. In ancient Greece, a drachma was the average daily wage of a skilled laborer, and was divided into six obols, which were silver coins. The dead would be buried with one, in order to pay the wage of Charon, who ferried the dead to the underworld.

2. Median income in the USA in 2023 was $44,225. That's ~$121 a day, and a sixth of that is ~$20.

3. The current spot price of silver is $23 an ounce, and an ounce is simply a silver coin.

4. That is to say, obols have kept their value over time. I suppose Charon still accepts them?

28 Jan 2024

Geoffrey Steadman, in his introduction to his didactic Greek edition of the Symposium, says,

The role of memory and oral history in the telling of the Symposium becomes even more meaningful when we realize that all the party’s guests were real Athenians whom Plato’s contemporary readers could place at a significant moment in the recent past. Imagine that instead of the Symposium we were reading about a nightlong seminar on the nature of love attended by the statesman Robert Kennedy, singer Mick Jagger, theologian Paul Tillich, actor Rock Hudson, minister and activist Martin Luther King, philosopher Michel Foucault and General William Westmoreland on the eve of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964. [...] Needless to say, there would be much more on our minds than the discussion of love. Our attention would turn not only to the topic of love but also to the past and often tragic, future lives of the speakers, their occupations, and the relationship between these figures and the view of love that each espouses.

Sometimes the gulf between the previous generation and my own seems unbreachable, as of the people and events Steadman lists, only one was familiar to me. (My wife didn't do much better, either, so it's not just me!) So I don't think his point holds: in trying to make the events of the distant past more relatable, he has only served to distance the recent past, since in many ways, the almost-archetypal characters of Socrates and Alcibiades are infinitely more relatable than those of the bizarre clown world of the 20th century.

30 Jan 2024

I mentioned Hipparchia's epitaph a while back; it turns out that Diogenes' is preserved for us, too:

εἰπὲ, κύον, τίνος ἀνδρὸς ἐφεστὼς σῆμα φυλάσσεις;
Τοῦ Κυνός. Ἀλλὰ τίς ἦν οὗτος ἀνὴρ ὁ Κύων;
Διογένης. Γένος εἰπέ. Σινωπεύς. Ὃς πίθον ᾤκει;
Καὶ μάλα· νῦν δὲ θανὼν ἀστέρας οἶκον ἔχει.

"Whose tomb is this, O Dog, thou watchest here?"
 "The Dog's." "Who's he?" "Diogenes the Seer."
"His town?" "Sinope." "Lived he in a jar?"
 "Yes—but in death, the stars his dwelling are."

(As quoted by the Greek Anthology VII lxiv, and as translated by W. H. D. Rouse. Apologies if I messed up the Greek, the scan I worked from was really bad.)

2 Feb 2024

I'm trying to learn ancient Greek, and am currently going through Thrasymachus, I think it's endearing how it introduces grammatical concepts and mythology together. The section I'm working on right now jokingly references the myth of Eris in order to teach superlatives (e.g. white, whiter, whitest):

Hera: How white is my robe!

Aphrodite: But mine is whiter.

Athena: But mine is the whitest.

Aphrodite: But I am rich.

Athena: But I am richer than Aphrodite.

Hera: But I am the richest of the gods.

Athena: (She gets huffy.) But I am sitting in a lofty chair!

Hera: (She gets huffier.) Of course, but I am in a loftier one!

Aphrodite: (She gets the huffiest.) But I am in the loftiest!

Athena: (She speaks arrogantly.) But I am lovely!

Hera: (She speaks more arrogantly.) But I am lovelier than Athena!

Aphrodite: (She speaks the most arrogantly.) But I am the loveliest of the gods!

"The loveliest," of course, being "καλλίστη," which was written on the golden apple. (Well, almost, there's a case difference, but whatever.)

Of course, one cannot get their theology from a grammar textbook, but the way I was raised, this would be considered blasphemous in the extreme—how dare one make light of the gods for being so petty! But, I was thinking about it, and rather than being blasphemous, I actually think that it makes a lovely little offering to Them. It made me laugh, and does not laughter honor Aphrodite? It is helping me to learn, and does not learning honor Athena? It made my wife glad to see me enjoying something (a rare occurrence, frankly), and does that not honor Hera?

I think blasphemy, then, is perhaps a misguided concept. By living (even living badly, if that is all we are capable of), we participate in the gods. By participating in them, we honor them.

9 Feb 2024

1. Spirit is unity: it is a limitless mind, endlessly contemplating itself (for there is nothing else to contemplate).

2. So potent is spirit that the very ideas it contemplates are alive, and we call these souls.

3. Souls are unique expressions of life: the greatest are prime and express a single, pure nature; the rest are composite, expressing a harmony of primal natures.

4. The more composite a soul is, the weaker it is, and souls that are too weak to exist of themselves animate bodies, which act as a sort of support or crutch, allowing the soul to function even while weak.

5. Spirit is unlimited, but souls are limited by their natures; consequently, the spiritual world (which souls inhabit) is unlimited by such constraints as space and time, while the world of soul (which bodies inhabit) is limited by these.

6. A soul cannot change its composite nature (it is "baked in" to its very existence); however, by focusing on some aspects of it at the expense of others, a soul inhabiting a body may concentrate its power and gain enough strength to no longer require a body, at the cost of losing some measure of its expressive potential. (That is, it must act within the constraints of this purer nature, or else return to needing a body.)

7. Therefore, one might assume that if a soul's goal is to live in the material world, and to live well in it, then it should deliberately pursue the strategy of balancing its various natures. However, if a soul's goal is to leave the material world and live in the spiritual, then it should deliberately pursue a strategy of focusing on some natures at the expense of others.

(I am not certain of these points—indeed, on the basis that "all models are wrong, but some are useful," I am certain that there is at least something incorrect about each one—but I have a vague feeling that there's something to it. Certainly, I am pursuing the latter goal; this life is very weird; and my angel tells me that it only gets weirder from here...)

14 Feb 2024

I woke up with the following dialogue still ringing in my ears:

A. Is there a God?

B. Yes.

A. Are there gods and goddesses?

B. Yes.

A. But the monotheists and polytheists can't both be right: that would be a paradox.

B. Yes, but divinity laughs at our categories and models. It invites us to participate.

A. That doesn't make sense.

B. Divinity is characterized by unity, while matter is characterized by division. Categorization is inherently separatory, it divides in order to understand. It is a method well suited to understanding matter, because matter can be divided indefinitely; but it is an inappropriate method for understanding divinity, because divinity is indivisible. Therefore, set aside your categories, and play together.

19 Feb 2024

And they asked the angel, “What then is heavenly joy?”

To which the angel replied in these few words: “It is the delight of doing something that is useful to ourselves and to others; and the delight of use derives its essence from love and its existence from wisdom. The delight of use springing from love by wisdom is the life and soul of all heavenly joys.

(Emanuel Swedenborg, The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugal Love, as translated by William Ross Woofenden.)

People who report having near-death experiences always say that life has two purposes: to learn and to love. I've wondered why it always two and only those two, and not one thing or many things. Swedenborg's angels have a ready answer: love is the source of life, wisdom is the means of life, and together these culminate in making oneself useful, which is joy.

This perhaps makes sense of what people mean when they say that "God is love;" in that sense, they are saying that God is the source, which is true (if tautological).

24 Feb 2024

I dreamed that my wife and I were in an unfamiliar town and saw that they had a farmer's market going on. She loves those, and so we went over to browse. One of the stalls had a tray piled with soap-like bricks of aromatics. My wife grabbed a turquoise-colored one, smelled it, and said, "Mmm, ephun! Yes, please!" and bought it on the spot. I had never heard of the plant before, so I looked at a nearby sign, which simply said, "Turquoise: ephun, good for dreams." I picked one up and smelled it, but just like in the waking world, my sense of smell didn't work and I could smell nothing.

I woke up and wrote the dream down, just like I always do, and did a web search for "ephun," but found nothing. While meditating today, I had the brainwave to try searching for it in Greek ("ἴφυον"), and it turns out it's simply spike lavender, which is, indeed, good for dreams.

It's a pretty specialized word and I've not encountered it in my studies, so it seems my dream has taught me something. (This wouldn't be the first time, though it is the first time I can say with certainty that it wasn't something that I could plausibly have known but forgotten.)

1 Mar 2024

Do your best. Don't worry. Trust providence.

6 Mar 2024: Thrice-Greatest Hermes

You cannot make a polygon with one or two sides: the first polygon is the triangle, which has three. One and two thus, in a sense, only exist in potential: they cannot take shape. But one plus two is three, so three gives one and two shape and makes the potential, actual. Indeed, the ancients didn't even consider one to be a number at all: Euclid, for example, says that number is the "multitude made of units," [Elements VII, def. 2] thus making one the measure of number and so beyond number. In that sense, one is doubly potential: it is number in potential and shape in potential. Two occupies a middle ground, being number in actuality but shape in potential. Three is finally what is both number in actuality and shape in actuality.

This is the kind of thing Porphyry talks about when he says that because "incorporeal forms and first principles could not be expressed in words, [the Pythagoreans] had recourse to demonstration by numbers." [Life of Pythagoras XLIX] So, metaphorically, one is heaven, spirit: that which is beyond and ever unreachable, even as it acts as a template. Two is earth, matter: both imminent in a sense and beyond in a sense, being infinitely divisible and never properly graspable. Three is the combination of the two, the things that exist from them, finally actual and sensible.

And the Neoplatonists loved to read these things into myth. Zeus is heaven, as the seed of all things. Maia is earth, that which receives and so gives form (but not form itself). Hermes is the result of their union, bringing the potential into actual, and so mediating between heaven and earth, and heralding the intelligible to the sensible.

Thus Zeus is spirit is one, Maia is matter is two, and Hermes is things is three. It is no mistake that Hermes is the patron of storytellers, for stories must have a beginning, middle, and end—three parts—in order to be complete; similarly, he is called thrice-greatest, because he brings perfection or completion or form to that which comes before.

Now, consider that you, yourself are a product of heaven and earth, possessing a spiritual soul and a material body. That means you are that which gives actuality to the potential. That means you are the mediator between potentials. That means you, yourself, are Hermes. When the Hermeticists say that Thrice-Greatest Hermes is their teacher, what they are really saying is that they are self-taught: truth does not come down from on high, it comes from within.

6 Mar 2024: An Addendum

A. But is all that true? That is, do you really believe it?

B. It is a truth. The truth is all things at once.

7 Mar 2024

Porphyry says, "all things are in all, but each in a manner consonant with the essence of each." I was considering this today, and think it would be a worthy exercise to take a symbol from a given system and consider its reflection in every other symbol, since these do not exist in isolation.

As an example, consider "love" in the context of astrology. Normally, we would consider this to be the domain of Venus, but that is too simplistic, I think; each planet is capable of ruling the fifth house (pleasure, children) or sixth house (employees) or seventh house (spouse) or eleventh house (friends), and so the nature of one's love for the things of a given house can vary depending on the ruler. I don't pretend to be an expert in astrology, but considering love through the lens of each planet, I might suggest each as follows:

• Moon: lust
• Mercury: mutual understanding
• Venus: romance
• Sun: compassion
• Mars: protection
• Jupiter: provision
• Saturn: duty

All of these things are parts of love, but none of them are the whole of love. I think if one is attempting to really master a symbolic system, it is worth taking the time to consider each of these facets for each of the symbols in the system...

11 Mar 2024

Why are there twelve gods? I suppose the traditional explanation would be that there are twelve signs to the zodiac, though I haven't seen any explanation of how or why the Babylonians came to this number. (There are twelve months in a year? Except a third of the time, when there aren't?) The philosophers, for their part, say it's because there are four functions with three phases each, making twelve total.

You may recall that I've been toying with the pseudo-neo-Pythagorean conception of unity being representative of the Intellect while numbers are representative of souls, with prime numbers being representative of indivisible natures (e.g. gods). Well, I woke up with an odd math problem in my head: what is the point at which there are more composites than primes? After all, the first number (two) is prime, so initially there are more primes than composites; but since every even number and some odd numbers are composite, there are eventually more composites than primes; so what is the point at which it crosses over?

It turns out that it's very easy to find by hand, and as you've probably guessed from my first paragraph, it's the twelfth number: at this point, there are six primes (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13) and six composites (4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12). After that, the composites dominate and the primes never catch up.

What's curious about this, to me, is that if you consider the Olympians, six of them are first-generation (Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus are Cronus's children, while Aphrodite was created from Uranus by Cronus' actions) and six of them are second-generation (Artemis, Apollo, Athena, Ares, Hephaestus, and Hermes are all Zeus's children). This is just like how of the first twelve numbers, six of them are prime, while the other six are generated from the first six.

This is not to say that looking at the prime numbers is where the Greeks (or, for that matter, the Babylonians) got their cosmogony; it seems quite likely to me that the number theory antedates the theology, and anyway the particular genealogy of the composites doesn't match Hesiod. (All of the second-generation Olympians are sired by Zeus, but there is no prime shared among all six composites.) So I don't have my answer for "why twelve?" But it is nonetheless interesting that my odd little number speculation has a parallel to the theology.

13 Mar 2024: Brief Research Notes on Western Cosmological Models

I've had a few books fall into my lap recently which spend a lot of time on cosmological theory from various perspectives. I spent some time tracing the history of these for my own interest and figured I'd put the notes here in case it's useful to anyone else. (This list isn't meant to be comprehensive, but I'm not presently aware of other systems. Furthermore, please note that I'm only really familiar with some of these, and so the others are largely based on second-hand references which I have not yet dug through in depth, and so errors or inconsistencies may be present.)

Planetary: Consisting of nine or ten levels of reality (depending on the source) stacked on top of each other: [the Empyrean], the fixed stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna, Earth. The soul originates in the sphere of fixed stars, becomes wedded to desire, falls to the sphere of Earth, and must climb back out, level by level, with the aid of some set of teachings or initiations. Apparently originated in Sumer (see Inana's Descent to the Underworld), with likely paths of transmission to posterity through Pythagoras, Plato (see Republic X "The Myth of Er"), Cicero (see Republic VI "The Dream of Scipio"), the Corpus Hermeticum, Macrobius (see Commentary on the Dream of Scipio), and Robert Fludd (see History of the Two Worlds). Apparently mostly common amongst Neoplatonists/theurgists in modern times.

Tree of Life: Consisting of ten "spheres", representing worlds of various natures, interconnected by various paths. Reality itself follows a path similar to the planetary sequence, from highest to lowest, but souls may traverse other paths between spheres in exploratory fashion. Apparently a derivative of the Sumerian planetary model, but when or by who is disputed: obvious candidates are the Neo-Assyrians (see Simo Parpola, The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy, 1993), the Neo-Pythagoreans and/or Neo-Platonists (see Porphyry, Isagoge, and subsequent developments of the Porphyrian Tree; and Pseudo-Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic), and the Jewish Cabalists (see The Bahir and The Zohar). Apparently near-universal in modern Western occult philosophy.

Plotinian: Consisting of four worlds characterized by increasing diversity and separation. Souls only exist in the third world but may experience other worlds by proxy. Developed by Plotinus (see The Enneads) based on his reading of Plato, but possibly also derived from or at least related to the teachings of Orpheus (see The Sacred Discourse in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies) and/or the Chaldean Oracles. Enormously influential as a general framework, but is so coarse-grained that other systems (usually planetary or the Tree of Life) are favored for most purposes.

Zodiacal: Consisting of an upward gate to heaven and a downward gate to earth (corresponding either to the intersections of the ecliptic plane and the galactic plane, or to the tropics), and twelve intermediary gates in between arranged in some fashion (corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac). Souls originate in the galactic plane, pass through one half of the ecliptic to enter into incarnation, and leave incarnation through the other half, only able to do so when the lessons of each gate have been mastered. Apparently originated in many places and times (see Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill; and William Sullivan, The Secret of the Incas), but for purposes of Western transmission, originated in Egypt (see the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and Papyrus of Ani, but note parallels with the contemporaneous Epic of Gilgamesh, below) and transmitted to posterity through Plato (see Republic X "The Myth of Er"), Numenius of Apameia and Porphyry (see On the Cave of the Nymphs), and the Mithras Liturgy. Obviously related somehow to the myths of Gilgamesh (the "marriage" of a god-man and a beast-man, the pursuit of immortality, the Bull of Heaven (Taurus) and the scorpion-men (Scorpio) which bookend the two halves of Gilgamesh's journey, etc.), of Heracles (leaving heaven through the Milky Way, the twelve labors representing the twelve gates, ultimate return to the fixed stars and immortality), and of Odysseus (twelve trials before he returns home, etc.), but surviving versions of the myths are incomplete and/or garbled. Apparently largely neglected in modern Western occult philosophy.

Enochian: Consisting of a series of 30 layered spiritual realms guarded by 91 governors, which souls traverse upwards from dense to subtle. A modern system, apparently constructed and/or revealed to John Dee and Edward Kelley (see The Five Books of Mystery and Liber Logaeth), and expanded and adapted by the Golden Dawn and it's offshoots. Apparently usually treated as a (risky?) source of additional potency to be layered atop another system, particularly the Tree of Life.

15 Mar 2024

When a delegation from Oenoanda in southwest Asia Minor traveled north toward the coast at Claros in the second century, they seem to have had something profounder in mind than nomenclature, for this is part of what they had carved on an altar when they came home:

Αὐτοφυὴς, ἀδίδακτος, ἀμήτωρ, ἀστυφέλκτος,
οὔνομα μὴ χωρῶν, πολυώνυμος, ἐν πυρὶ ναίων,
τοῦτο θεός· μεικρὰ δὲ θεοῦ μερὶς ἄνγελοι ἡμεῖς.

Self-born, untaught, motherless, unshakeable,
Giving place to no name, many-named, dwelling in fire,
Such is God: we are a portion of God, his angels.

(Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica.)

19 Mar 2024: The Subhuman

The Neoplatonists assume levels of ontological causation as a matter of course: matter, which we see, must be animated by a higher soul; soul, in turn, must be caused by a higher being; being, in turn, must be given wholeness by a higher unity. This means that, in their model, the world is divided into various levels of being depending on these qualities.

The Neoplatonists also assume that the best things are those that are closest to the One, which is to say, have the fewest causes. The worst things are those that are furthest from the One, which is to say, have the most causes. While some things are better than others, nothing is considered "evil" in the absolute sense: evil is considered to be more like "darkness," an absence of good rather than the presence of anything bad.

Human existence, being in the sensible world, is often equated with evil. But while humans are indeed pretty horrible, I can't imagine that we are any more or less horrible than animals, existing as we do at the same level of ontological causation. Therefore, I suppose most of our misery comes from another source, and these things must be things below us in the ontological hierarchy. But what could be below us?

Well, the things we are the ontological causes of. That is to say, the things we create. I am speaking here of things that require our continual input of effort, of energy, of belief to persist: things which do not have a physical basis, but only a social one. The embodiment of such things is ephemeral, as we must lend them our minds for them to exist. But because these things only really exist in our collective imagination, we are their connection to the divine, and thus these phantasms are further from the One than we are and partake in less light than we do.

What kinds of things have this property? AI is all the rage these days, and sure, that's one thing, but let us not forget those more traditional fictions: corporations, governments, organizations and social movements generally (including religions!), methodologies (like "science" or even my beloved "mathematics"), and even such "neutral" constructs as money. These are things that have no real, physical existence: they only exist insofar as we imbue them with belief. When that belief is withdrawn, watch how quickly the phantasms fade! And fade they do: I wonder if granting human rights to corporations—explicitly "subhuman" entities—is what numbered our society's days. Certainly it drained a lot of the good that could have been out of it!

I think it is dangerous to consider these fake things to be more real than they are, and this is why the Cynics took a stance of withdrawing from society in an effort to demonstrate it. I call these things "subhuman"—I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call them "demonic," since, as I said, the model doesn't consider things "evil," merely less good—but it is at least clearly the case that you can't go up by looking down.

I would urge spiritual people not to place their faith in any "subhuman" entities, as these will not lead you towards divinity, but rather away from it. Follow the guidance and example of angels, and everything else will fall into place.

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