readoldthings

Everyone knows the famous depiction of Plato and Aristotle that occupies the center of Raphael's School of Athens. It's worth taking a moment to study the image, as it says a very great deal without a single word, except for the inscriptions on the books each man carries. 

Plato stands in the background. Aged, barefooted, with his right hand he points upward, along a vertical line, toward the Heavens, with his left, he holds a copy of his Timaeus. Plato seems to be standing still, but this sense of stillness is belied by his feet, which are in motion. To his left, his pupil Aristotle, a much younger man, appears to move away and ahead of his teacher. The image is of a departure-- but notice, Aristotle's feet are still. In his left hand, he holds a copy of the Nichomachaean Ethics. With his right, he gestures outward and downward. His palm points toward the Earth, but his open hand suggests a horizontal line. The two figures look towards one another, while around them gather all the luminaries of ancient philosophy, science, and art. 

This single image captures much about the relationship between the two men-- or, rather, between the philosophical systems that each developed. Of their personal relationship we can only make guesses. Aristotle was the student of Plato for twenty years, during which time he lectured at Plato's Academy. Plato referred to Aristotle as the intellect of the academy; Aristotle eulogized Plato at his funeral. Their relationship during Plato's life appears to have been one of friendship between master and pupil. 

After Plato's death, the story changes. Plato was succeeded as head of the Academy by his nephew Speussipus. Following Speussipus, there seems to have been a dispute, with different factions within the academy favoring either Aristotle or Xenocrates. According to at least some accounts, while Aristotle was out of town Xenocrates was made head of the Academy, and following this Aristotle founded his own school. The works of Aristotle's that modern academics believe date from after this time reflect a very different perspective. Many of his works from this period open with an attack on Plato and the Academy, and then go on to contain continuous, tendentious and often tedious attacks throughout the remainder. 

The Whole or the Part? 

Of course, it's Aristotle's views on reincarnation that concern us here. Fortunately, he left us no doubt at all as to either his position or the reasoning behind it. Put simply, he thought the whole idea was ludicrous. In his commentary On the Soul he tells us why: 

Everyone knows the Twelve Olympian Gods. If you need a reminder, these are Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, Apollo, Mercury, and Vulcan; and Vesta, Ceres, Venus, Diana, Athena, and Juno. Yes, those are the Roman names; Thomas Taylor uses them exclusively in his translations, and I have those in mind just now.

The Twelve appear in Plato's Phaedrus, in a very specific role. In this dialogue we learn that each of us is ultimately gathered under one of the Twelve. We are, originally, immortal spirits, each of us one of the vast multitude of spirits that follows on each of the gods. It is in this dialogue that Plato gives us his famous image of the soul as a winged chariot drawn by two horses, which you may be familiar with from another source:




In any case, these Twelve play a specific and interesting role in the thought of Proclus, who discusses them in Book 6 of his Platonic Theology. For Proclus, the Twelve are divided in two ways. First, Jupiter and Vesta-- the king of the gods and the goddess of the hearthfire-- are the two most important; they are monads, the other ten gathered into a decad. Second, the Twelve may be gathered into four triads. These triads are shaped exactly the way we have seen Platonic triads structured before. One begins the series, one proceeds from it, and the third closes out the series, at once reflecting the first, returning to it, and beginning a new order.

This may also look familiar:




The four triads are named the demiurgic, the guardian, the vivific, and the anagogic.


"Demiurge" means "craftsman," and it is the term for the creator of the universe in Platonic thought. Plato's Timaeus is concerned with the original creation of the universe by the Demiurge. This Demiurge is unnamed in the Timaeus, and Plato leaves his identity open to question. For Proclus the question is closed; the Demiurge is Jupiter, or Zeus. This Jupiter is, in fact, the third in a triad of his own, a triad which begins with his father Saturn, procedes into his mother Rhea, and concludes with himself.

This Jupiter, however, isn't the Jupiter that we know and love. From him procedes another triad of demiurgic gods, consisting of a second Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, the three sons of Saturn. Jupiter governs all things, Neptune guides them into material existence, and Pluto closes the series, ruling matter-- and the release from matter, as god of the dead.

But-- and this will confuse you-- we still haven't reached the Jupiter of the Demiurgic Triad.

After the Three Sons of Saturn follows another order of gods, who are divided into a Tetrad-- that is, a group of four. There may or may not be a third Jupiter as part of this series; I'm not clear on this.

Finally we come to our Twelve, who are called the Liberated Gods. These are, again, divided into the Demiurgic, Guardian, Vivific, and Anagogic triads.

Let's look at them one at a time.

The Demiurgic Triad consists of Jupiter, Neptune, and Vulcan. Like the preceding demiurges, these gods are concerned with the creation of things. Jupiter (either the third or four Jupiter) begins the series, in Proclus's words "supernally from Intellect governing souls and bodies." The meaning of this will be apparent in a moment. Neptune governs the middle of the series, as he is especially concerned with motion and generation; he governs the soul, as the soul is "essentially motion." Finally, Vulcan closes out the demiurgic series, as he produces bodies, including what Proclus calls the "mundane seats of the gods"-- that is to say, the planets and stars. And so in the demiurgic series we have three gods ruling or producing the three levels of being below the divine, that is, the Intellectual (or Noetic), the Astral (or Psychic), and the Physical (Hylic).

After this we have the "Guardian and Immutable Triad." This series consists-- in order-- of Vesta, Minerva, and Mars. Vesta-- who was the goddess, above all, of the altar; I believe that altars at Rome were sometimes called "vestae"-- "contains the summits of wholes," another one of these difficult phrases. Minerva preserves "middle lives," and Mars sustains corporeal things. As is often the case with Proclus, it's easier to understand any of this if you work backward. If we start from Mars, we realize that these three gods perform the role of preserving and sustaining the existence of things. Mars sustains the corporeal and gives it power; Minerva rules the intellectual life; and Vesta preserves things as a whole.

The Vivific Triad gives life to all things; it consists of Ceres, the Earth Goddess; Juno, the queen of the gods; and Diana, the moon goddess. Ceres generates all life in the world, whether intellectual, psychic, or corporeal. Juno governs the generation of hte soul. Diana, finally, as moon goddess, governs the life of matter, "perfecting its imperfections," and "moving all natural reasons into energy." The latter sentence is qutie a difficult one, because we have to do some detective work to understand what Greek words are being translated here and what they mean. "Reasons" usually translate "logoi." Logoi, at least for Plotinus, are the emanations of the Ideas at another level down. The Ideas, remember, are those unchanging principles which unfold the whole of things. Reasons or logoi, then, are more specific ideas which conduct eternal powers further downward into matter. "Natural" reasons are reasons having to do with Nature, that is, with living things below the sphere of the Moon, and "energy" has the specific meaning of activity. To put it in very modern and incorrect terms, Diana rules the "laws of nature."

Finally, we have the Anagogic Triad. "Anagoge" means "to lead upward." As the Demiurgic Triad creates things, the Guardian Triad sustains created things, and the Vivific Triad gives life to things, the Anagogic Triad conducts things-- that is, souls-- back out of material existence, to return to union with the Divine. This series begins with Hermes, procedes with Venus, and concludes with Apollo. These three represent the three paths of ascent given in the Phaedrus, which are the ways of Philosophy, Love, and Music.

Way back in February, we looked at the idea of the daimon as a launching-off point for a discussion of American political philosophy. Or, to say it more correctly, American political theology.

 

The daimon, as we saw, is a power intermediate between gods and ordinary human beings. Actually, this is an oversimplification— there is another Order of beings intermediate between ordinary humans and daimones, as we will see shortly. For now it suffices to recall our descrption of the daimones as those powers which meet the following conditions:

1. To worship them is to court disaster;

2. Equally, to ignore or, even worse, to attempt to suppress them is to court disaster.

We gave the example of Eros. Eros, erotic love, is a force in human life whose role cannot be eliminated. Every attempt to do so simply ensures that he manifests in a way that is beyond the control, and far beyond the predictive capacity, of those who attempt the suppressing. The classic examples are the way that Victorian prudery led to the backlash of the Sexual Revolution, and the misguided attempts to impose celibacy on those unsuited for it have resulted in an epidemic of sexual abuse among Catholic clergy. 

Eros and his opposite number, Anteros, are examples are daimones, as we saw, but so too are the spirits of the natural world, who can respond to respectful overtures from human beings with friendship, or at least cooperation, but who make for bad gods and worse enemies. 

Having said all this by way of review, I want to turn now to a discussion of the Gods. 

The Limit and the Unlimited

Let's start with a few quotations.

Heresies

This is a speculation which I sometimes indulge in. I call it my most heretical thought, because I imagine both Christians and pagans finding it annoying.

I posted a link yesterday to an interview with an occult author who believes he has found "Neoplatonic survivals" in the Hagia Sophia which demonstrate that this most famous church of Christendom is truly a temple of Saturn. I think that he overstates his case and misunderstands certain aspects of Neoplatonism, but the interview is very interesting for all that, and he reveals some details which seem astonishing to the 21st century listener, such as the fact that one of the designers of Hagia Sophia was a student of none other than Proclus of Lysias.

There are other elements of Neoplatonism to be seen in Catholic and Orthodox worship. Now, many of these are known; St. Augustine was profoundly influenced by Plotinus; St. Dionysius the Areopagite was probably a student of Proclus who pretended to have been a student of St. Paul; and so on. No one denies these things, and, only recently, it was common to acknowledge and to celebrate them. (The discussion between Bishop Maximos and John Vervaeke, which continues here, suggests that this acknowledgement is making a come back in our time, and we will all be the better for it.)

But if you look closely, it's possible to see other, hidden, survivals of Neoplatonic philosophy and practice in traditional Christian worship. Let me give two examples:

1. Easter is always celebrated on the Day of the Sun, while the Sun is in the sign of his Exaltation (Aries) and separating from an opposition to the Moon. Oh, and in addition to being the Exaltation of the Sun, Aries is also the sign specifically dedicated to the gods, and the gate through which they enter the world, according to Porphyry.

Proclus writes that the Demiurge-- that is to say, the God who created the visible universe-- especially constitutes the Sun among the planets, so that the visible Sun, itself a god in its own right, is also an image of the Demiurge. He tells us the identity of hte Demiurge: it is none other than Jupiter, the king of the Gods and son of Saturn.

2. According to an interview I listened to many years ago by an American priest, the clergy in an Orthodox church always move counter-clockwise. The meaning of black-clad clergy moving counterclockwise around a temple would have been immediately apparent in the ancient world. Black is the color of Saturn, the Father of Jupiter. And the counterclockwise movement? That has a very particular meaning.

According to the fable narrated in Plato's Statesman, the day will come when the Sun will stand still and then begin to move backwards, rising in the West, setting in the East-- in other words, moving counterclockwise. On that day, Jupiter will step down from his thrown, and Saturn will return to his seat of power and rule the universe directly. On Earth, the Dead will rise up from their graves, and the gods will descend and live among us. And the Golden Age will come again. We will grow young, instead of growing old with time, and there will be no war or killing, and the Earth will give up her fruits without struggle. To move counterclockwise, against the Sun, clad in black and invoking the Father of the Creator-God, is quite simply to invoke the Golden Age and bring it down to Earth, at least for a time.

Saturn the Terrible
 

But wait-- I hear you say-- Wasn't Saturn that creepy cannibal who ate his children? And didn't Jupiter overthrow Saturn and bind him with chains? Doesn't that suggest that they don't really like one another?



Well, yes, and no.

Many people are aware of the famous-- or infamous-- passage in Plato's Republic, in which poets, especially Homer, are to be either censored or banned outright. Plato is often condemned for this sort of thing, but his reasons are clear. In the Republic specifically-- leave aside his discussions of the poets in other dialogues-- he is at pains to remove any poetic description of the Gods, or Heroes (sons of Gods) in which they are shown to act in ways that are evil or which might inspire evil or vicious behavior in a listener.


And

The meaning of all this and its solution will become clear as we consider Plato's discussion of the myths associated with Saturn in particular:


The Father of the Gods

Let us suppose the following to be true:

• There is a creator God, through whom all things were made.

• The creator-God can be understood as the Son of a Father-God, who abides beyond the created world.

• There is a Golden Age which will come again either in historical time or (more likely) in a time beyond time as we understand it, in which the spirits of the Dead will dwell with the Father and the lesser divine beings.

And let us also assume the following to be true:

• The nature and activity of the Gods is expressed allegorically through myth, but

• Many myths seem to depict obscene or evil behavior on the part of the Gods, and

• Most people take the myths about the Gods literally.

Suppose that all of this were the case, and suppose that you came across a different set of myths, one which didn't depict the Gods as occasionally evil, or fearful, or quarrelsome, but rather as good-- All Good, superlatively good? A set of myths that would be suitable for anyone to read, regardless of their station in life?

Now it does not matter for this speculation whether the myths in question happened to also relate true historical events as they happened or nearly as they happened. That's not the point; they aren't being considered as works of journalism, but as myths.

Would it not make sense, in such a situation, to adopt the better myths, and hide the old ones away? Might it not then be that traditional Christianity seems, under the surface, to invoke Saturn (the Father) and Jupiter (the Son) because that's exactly what it's doing? Perhaps the Father is the Father, regardless of the name; and the Son is the Son. And it's also just possible that those who designed the sacraments of the Christian Church knew exactly what they were doing, and had in mind just the passages from Plato that I quoted above when they were doing it.

But again, all of this is speculative. You might take it seriously, but please don't take it literally; it could be wrong down to the details.

Rushing to work today to make an 11:30 appointment, I looked down at my phone to make sure I had the time correct and discovered that the appointment had been canceled sometime between the time I left the house and that moment. And, looking at my phone, I managed to miss my exit, and drove some 20 more minutes into the mountains of Western Virginia before realizing what I had done. I now find myself sitting at a coffeeshop in a place called Purcellville, with several hours to kill, or to use.

And so I'd like to take the opportunity to discuss something that's frequently on my mind, which is the question of how we ought to read Plato's political writings, and what relevance they have to our modern politics. 

Plato and Politics

Modern treatments of Plato very often take him as some sort of weird old politician. In College I was forced to read the Crito in a Political Philosophy class, and told nothing of its author except that he was very old and very dead, but that we ought to know something about what he had thought on political topics merely as a way of saying "People have been talking about these matters for some time now."

Plato does indeed discuss politics-- or, rather, law-- in the Crito, but he treats of political matters much more fully in the Republic, the Statesman, and the Laws, three dialogues which come out to nearly 700 pages between them. As my own copy of the Complete Works of Plato comes out to around 1700 pages, these 3 dialogues between them make up some 40% of the entire body of Plato's work. Since Platonism has become so central to my thinking and to what I'm trying to do with this blog and my work in general, I thought it was worth spending some time on this issue. 

In this post, I'd like to give an overview of Plato's political views, discuss how we ought to approach Plato's politics and what relevance they have to our approach to Platonism as a spiritual discipline, and, finally, to see whether Platonic politics has any relevance to our modern world. 

Before we do that, though, it is critical that we understand what "politics" means in Plato's world.

The Polis

The word "politics," as you probably know, is derived from "polis," which is the ancient Greek word for a city. And, as you probably also know, the Greek world was composed of city-states, which were countries so small they were limited to a single city. This is what I was taught, at any rate, and if you know any better than this you're further along than I was just a short while ago. 

It is true that the political unit Plato was discussing was the polis and it is true that the polis is a city and that the reach of a particular government in ancient Greece did not extend beyond the reach of a particular polis. But matters are not as simple as that. The polis, you see, is not simply a smaller version of one of our modern states, nor is the government of a polis the equivalent to the US Congress on a smaller scale, or to the government of the town in which you live. The polis is not merely a smaller thing than the things that we have, it is a different kind of thing altogether.

The best book on this subject is The Ancient City, by a Frenchman named Fustel Coulanges; you ought to read the whole thing when you have a moment. In The Ancient City, Coulanges shows that, in the "cities" of the ancient world, the categories of human life that we currently separate under the headings "family" "religion" and "government" were not separate, but were a single category of experience called "the city" or "politics." 

To illustrate how such a thing is possible, let's think about it in reverse. In our society, the life-categories "marriage" "child-rearing" and "residence" are combined under the single heading, "family." A "family" consists, ideally, of a married couple, sharing a home, and raising their children. To us, nothing in the world could be more natural; even where this system breaks down, it is still there in the background as something which is missed. 

Imagine if we separated these things. Imagine a society in which husbands and wives don't live together-- the men live together with their friends and brothers in a dormitory or fraternity house, while the women have their own sorority, along with the youngest children. It's not that they don't get married-- they do. Husbands and wives go on dates and spend time together and sneak off into out of the way corners of town when they need some adult time. But they don't share a bed, and they don't share a house. And they don't raise children together-- the babies and young girls live with their mothers, yes, but men don't even raise their own sons. Instead, they raise their sisters' sons. When boys come of age, they are sent to live in their uncle's fraternity house, which is invariably in another city, since women move to a sorority house attached to their husband's fraternity, and it's considered somewhat incestuous to marry a girl from your home town. If a boy lacks an uncle, a suitable male relative is found for him, back in the mother's hometown-- but never his father.

Does that sound odd, or impossible? In fact, it's a very common social arrangement among certain tribes of the New Guinea highlands. So yes, it's very possible. 

Now let us suppose that a similar living arrangement is found among our own descendants living right here in America sometime around the year 4500. Categories of life that seem to us to be obviously connected seem to them to be completely separate. Moreover, just as we pride ourselves on having separated the categories of "religion" and "government"-- and both from "family"-- much of their identity as a people and a culture revolves around their having had the wisdom to separate residence from marriage and marriage from child-rearing.

Given such a set of circumstances, what would our descendants make of a modern philosopher who wrote at length about spiritual issues, but regularly connected them with the family-- an institution which they either no longer had, or no longer had in the same form? If a modern philosopher-- I give no examples as I don't know that there is one-- wrote several books of detailed advice on household-management, describing the proper roles of father, mother, and children, but also filled them with detailed discussions and hints and allegories of a grand and universal spiritual system, what could these descendants of ours do with it? Dismiss it out of hand? If so they would lose an enormous contribution to human wisdom and human excellence, as well as (let us imagine) the root of many of their own ideas. But if they attempted to adopt our philosopher's recommendations as far as household management whole-cloth, they would need to burn their own civilization to the ground and start again from scratch. And even if they managed it-- as they probably wouldn't-- it would be at the cost of an enormous amount of suffering and death. And they probably wouldn't manage it; they'd probably just get a lot of people killed. 

This, I argue, is precisely the position that we are in with regard to Plato's political writings. The polis that he wrote of does not exist, and the concepts that applied to it cannot be applied to our modern governments, as modern government-- this is critical-- is not the heir to the polis. 

The Fire, the House, and the King

Let's go back and discuss ancient society, drawing, again, on Coulanges.

The basic unit of that society is the fireplace. 

The fireplace? How is that possible?

In the ancient world the fire was-- as it still is today in India-- the living body of a god, or-- in the West-- a goddess, named Vesta at Rome and Hestia in Greece. Fire is a living being, and the fireplace-- the sacred hearth-- is a sacred altar. Every home has its fire, and lacking its fire, it is no home at all. The father, as head of the family, is also the high-priest of the religion of the hearth-fire. At the fire-- tended by his wife, the priestess-- the sacrifices are made every day to the spirits of the ancestors, the land on which the family lives, and the home in which they dwell. Sacrifices are made, too, to be sure, to the high gods and heroic ancestors that the family shares with its neighbors and its community as a whole, but at the microscopic level, each household is essentially a church and each family has its own, independent religion. 

And each family is also a kind of political unit, with the father as its king. 

In The Statesman, Plato discusses the nature of what he calls the True King, which is a leader who possesses the Science of Rulership. It's worth noting that, in the school of Iamblichus, The Statesman was read after The Sophist but before Philebus. In The Sophist, Plato discusses the nature of charlatan-philosophers called sophists, but the later Platonists understood him to also be discussing a being called the "Sublunar Demiurge," who is the trickster-god that creates the world that we experience with our senses, the exact equivalent of the Hindu Maya. The Philebus, meanwhile, is a discussion of the nature of the Good, which is the First God and Highest Principle. The Statesman must, therefore, also be understood as a dialogue about the nature of God Himself-- that is, the God that creates and governs the cosmos as a whole. 

In the Statesman, Plato is explicit about the relationship between rulership of a city and rule of a household:



Layers of Meaning

All of Plato's dialogues were understood to have multiple layers of meaning. The Statesman is about the Science of political leadership, but it is also about how God rules the universe. The Republic, meanwhile, is supposedly a discussion of the ideal city, but Plato is explicit at the beginning of the dialogue that the city in quetsion is intended as an allegory of the soul:


Summarizing

Let's summarize our argument before we proceed. Two major issues have emerged:

1. The polis of Plato is not a smaller form of a modern state. It is, rather, a different form of social organization, in which the categories of life that we currently separate under the headings "family," "religion," and "government" are combined. Plato's political arguments, therefore, cannot be applied to our current forms of government on a one to one basis.

2. Plato's political writings, like all of his writings, admit of more than one reading. What appears to be a discussion of an ideal ruler of a city can also be understood either as a description of God in his government of the universe, or as advice to the individual concerning the care of his own soul, which is regularly likened to a state with workers, soldiers, and leaders.

The Heir to the Polis

Let's consider the first issue. 

Given the foregoing, the questions become: Do Plato's political theories have any applicability to our modern world as political theories? And, if so, can they be understood as applying to government, or are there other structures or organizations which might better be understood as heirs to the ancient polis?

Now, to a real extent, this is where we leave the domain of Truth and enter into the realm of Opinion. There are no fixed answers to these questions, and certainly Plato himself could not have anticipated them and gives no explicit guidance concerning them. So the following can only be my own view of hte topic. 

That said, it's my view that Plato's writings on politics-- especially the three dialogues mentioned-- are very important, and very worth reading. But in a modern context, and perhaps especially in an American context, they have only minimal applicability to government as such. They work far better when applied to the lives of other heirs to the polis, including individuals and families, but also what are often called "civil society" organizations-- which can include anything from a church to a charity to a bowling league.

To illustrate what I mean, let's take another example from the Statesman, since it's currently open in front of me.

Toward the end of the dialogue, Plato describes the ways in which different virtues can be opposed to one another. Courage and Moderation, in particular, frequently come into conflict. Moreover, particular individuals often exhibit one personality type or the other, and these individuals then come into conflict. This leads to the ruin of hte state if individuals of either one type or hte other predominate. A state overrun by individuals of hte courageous type will be forever looking for conflicts with its neighbors, until it eventually antagonizes a larger power or a coalition of smaller powers and is overrun. A state dominated by the moderate type, meanwhile, will not fight even when it is necessary, and will soon find itself enslaved by its enemies. The wise statesman weaves together both types of individuals, so that they strengthen one another, allowing the state to fight or to make peace as necessary.

So far, this actually does seem like rather good advice as far as modern statecraft goes, even up to the level of global powers like the US and Russia. 

But in the next part, Plato strays well beyond what is possible for any modern government. Having described the sort of education that unites the moderate and courageous types as the "divine link" between them, he now sets out to describe how to link them on the human level:


Yes, he's arguing for exactly what we in the modern world call "eugenics," and which we know is a disaster in the hands of a government. 

But does that mean that it's bad advice?

Consider that what Plato is saying here is "Marry someone whose strengths balance your weaknesses." The exact same idea is found in Carl Jung under the heading "Animus and Anima." And note that Plato very explicitly does not say something like "Men are aggressive and should therefore look for passive women to find balance," as one might expect from some of our modern "conservatives." No-- he says "Any person can be of the more active or more passive type, and both are necessary for a society. In a good marriage, an active woman is balanced by a passive man, or an active man by a passive woman." To my mind, that's exceedingly good advice-- to individuals. From a spiritual perspective, it can also be described as balancing fire and water or yin and yang energies. 

As far as the Science of Kingship itself, this can be applied to any situation, from a political ruler to a church to a corporate boardroom. Anyone who has authority over any group of people, whether a nation or simply their own children, is a king, and can and should acquire and use the Science of Kingship. 

Concluding: Who Is Above The Law?

After all this, I have to tell you that the best way to come to understand Plato's political writings is simply to read them. The Republic, Statesman and Laws are fun to read and, if you practice it, great sources of themes for discursive meditation. While you read them, ask yourself: How can I apply these ideas to my own life? Not to the ancient world which no longer exists, much less to (God help us) reforming society according to some ideal image, but to becoming a True King over yourself above all, and in all those situations which call for the exercise of leadership, wisdom, justice, courage and self-mastery. 

Let me give one example before we go. 

The Laws is-- you may have guessed this-- an entire book of laws for a hypothetical colony. Early on in the dialogue, Plato tells us that the very best society doesn't need laws-- its people hold all things in common-- including wives-- and live together as one. Is he arguing for Communism? No-- Such a society cannot be found on this earth, but is suitable only for gods or demigods (Compare Jesus: "In Heaven there is no marrying or giving in marriage.) On this Earth the best we can do is to imitate the ideal, the heavenly society; and so the laws he gives are only the second-best form of society. And then he tells us, "But you're probably only going to end up with the third best." He promises to tell us what the third best form of society might look like... and then never gets around to it. 

Meanwhile, in the Statesman, Plato also discusses the nature of law. Here, he says that the worst sorts of societies are lawless. Does that mean that societies governed by law are best? No, not at all. Law is only an imitation of the statesmanship of the True King. In real life-- as you know and as I know-- the actual situations we encounter and the people we encounter in them are far too variable to be covered under any code of laws, no matter how extensive. The True King does not rule by laws, but by Science: That is, a True Knowledge of what is good and evil. Rather than legal codes of the "Thou shalt not" variety, he governs by applying unchanging, eternal principles, to everchanging, particular situations. 

Now, is it possible for our nations to be governed in this way? 

Of course not. Plato is literally saying that the True King is above the law, and he means it. When our leaders set themselves above the law, they merely cast themselves below it. At the political level, we must have laws and be governed by laws, and no one must be above them. 

But what about the other levels? How do Plato's insights apply to those other inheritors of the fragments of the polis-- that is, the family, and the church?

Are we really to suppose, for example, that God Himself governs according to a mere petty legalist, checking our good and bad deeds and, above all, our opinions against a written set of rules that decide whether we get into Heaven or get tossed into the fire? Or do we suppose that he is a True King, applying eternal principles which He knows best of all to the everchanging situations of our material universe? 

And, if we suppose that God is a True King-- as I believe He is-- how can we imitate him in our daily affairs, especially those under our own authority? Can we become better parents by rising above our own laws? Better managers? Better priests, teachers, ministers, spouses, friends? 

I think so. What do you think? 

Welcome back to our ongoing occult Bible study! I've selected just a few short lines for today, because we have a lot to talk about before we can go forward, and what we say here is going to shape everything we talk about from here on out.

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 3, Verses 1-2

Saint John the Baptist

Let me begin by wishing you a blessed Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist! Yes, it's today, and no, I didn't plan it this way-- it "just so happens" that he enters our discussion here on his Feast Day. If you follow this path for just a little while, you'll find a lot of things "just so happen."

Notice that his Feast falls on the 24th of June. This puts it at the opposite point on the Wheel of the Year from Christmas, and shows us that the two feasts, and the two figures commemorated therein, are connected. On Saint John's Day, the Summer Solstice is just past. The Light of the Sun has triumphed over the darkness, and high summer is here-- but now begins the long, slow decline that will culminate in the darkness of Midwinter.

John is, we are told, Jesus's cousin, born six months prior to him; we can therefore set the date of his birth at around 3BC. It seems worth noting that this is the High Summer and the beginning of the end of the Classical pagan civilization that will be replaced by Christendom. Jesus will later say, rather mysteriously, that John is the greatest of all the prophets, and yet the least in the Kingdom of Heaven are greater than he.

Magic Rites

Certain places are places of power, where magical works for good or ill are strengthened or particular spirits may be contacted; similarly, certain points on the calendar are times of power, when particular rites may be accomplished. These two types of power-points, geographic and temporal, are related to the two great currents of magical power. The Telluric current arises from the heart of the Earth, and governs magical places; the Solar current descends from the heart of the Sun, and governs magical times. 

Saint John's Day is a potent day for certain types of magic.

Traditionally, the herb known as Saint John's wort was gathered on this day. The flowers can be dried, blessed, and hung above doorways to protect the home from malefic magic. It was also customary to build bonfires on Saint John's Day or Saint John's Eve. The fires were blessed and piled with Saint John's Wort, and livestock were then driven through the smoke, in order to protect them from witchcraft and evil spirits. Of course, most Christians today are far too smart to do such things, because Christians today are actually atheists, and what Christians think is "paganism" is actually Christianity.

A Bit of Speculation

In the thinking of Rudolph Steiner, there are two different types of Evil, represented by the demons Lucifer and Ahriman. The evil of Ahriman is the evil of wallowing in gross matter and sensory pleasure, rejecting the life of the Spirit. In a sense, it is the evil which fueled every side of the 20th century's Cold War, as that was mainly a contest over which economic system was better at producing and distributing material goods. The Communist side was officially atheist, but the capitalist side was tacitly so, justifying itself in religious terms only to mollify certain reactionary forces in the United States.

Luciferic evil, on the other hand, is the total rejection of matter and physical existence.

Discussing Classical Pagan civilization, the civilization whose peak and decline is marked by the Birth of Christ, Steiner writes:


But why should this be the case?

Steiner tells us:

 

It was because through the millennia directly preceding Christianity, this Pagan wisdom was inspired from a place far away in Asia, inspired by a remarkable Being who had been incarnated in the distant East in the third millennium before Christ — namely, Lucifer.

To the many things we have learned about the evolution of humanity, this knowledge too must be added: that just as there was the incarnation which culminated in Golgotha, the incarnation of Christ in the man Jesus of Nazareth, there was an actual incarnation of Lucifer in far off Asia, in the third millennium B.C. And the source of inspiration for much ancient culture was what can only be described as an earthly incarnation of Lucifer in a man of flesh and blood.

The Wisdom of the Pagan World is rooted, ultimately, in an incarnation of Lucifer. This is why we see, in the High Philosophy of many pagan traditions, the total rejection of physical matter and incarnate existence.

According to Steiner, Lucifer was incarnated upon the Earth in Eastern Asia in the 3rd Millennium BC.

John tells his followers, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven" is at hand.

I don't know about you, but for most of my life and especially during my childhood, I thought those words meant something like this:


As amusing as that interpretation is, it isn't true. The word "repent" doesn't mean "Say you're sorry and be really sad." It's much more interesting that.

"Repent" in Greek is "metanoia." "Meta" means "change." "Noia" is derived from the word "nous," which means "mind."

To repent is to change one's mind. Often one will hear this described as a "change of heart," and there is a reason for this, which we'll get to momentarily.

And John says we must do this, because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, or "has drawn near," or "is among you." 

If the Kingdom of Heaven means anything, it is the sovereignty of God. But what sort of kingdom is it? The message we will see over and over in the Gospels is that it is not, and cannot be, a political kingdom. Heaven is not Earth, and Divine Power is, as we saw last time, not human political power. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is the reign of God within the human soul.

God, remember, is the Most High God, the Spirit who rules the Universe; and is identical to the One, which is also called goodness itself or The Good; and is that power by which we accomplish the Great Work, become that which we are meant to become, and gain mastery over our souls and our futures.

"Heaven" is the proper home of God, and since Heaven is, contra the '90s song, neither a place, nor on the Earth, it is not a location at all. Rather, it is a condition, and that condition must be the condition of the presence of God-- since Heaven is where God lives. Therefore, whenever we are in the presence of God, we are in Heaven. 

We attain the Kingdom of God by changing our minds-- or, rather, our nous. And so we'll have to talk about what that means.

More on the Kingdom of Heaven

On the magical worldview, the spiritual world is not separate from the material. Matter is only the last and most tenuous extension of spirit. Have you ever been to the sort of place-- perhaps a majestic cathedral, perhaps a natural setting like the ancient Redwood forests in the Pacific Northwest-- that filled you with a sense of awe, reverence and serenity all at once?

Those are places that border on Heaven, in which Heaven is made manifest.

On the other hand, have you ever driven through the kind of neighborhood that filled you with a sense of dread and foreboding, the kind of place that seemed marked by rage, violence and addiction?

That was a mouth of Hell. 

Lately, I've found that the sort of outwardly pleasant suburban neighborhoods where every person still goes about in a facemask, with a suspicious look in their eye, and the tension in the air is so thick you're afraid to breathe too heavilyand most of the lawns have signs that say 

IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE
BLACK LIVES MATTER
WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL
SCIENCE IS REAL
LOVE IS LOVE
KINDNESS IS EVERYTHING

Those are hellmouths, too.

One doesn't have to travel as far as a cathedral or a redwood forest to find Heaven on Earth. In the old story, a samurai approaches a Zen master and says "Teach me about Heaven and Hell."

The Zen master replies, "It's a real shame that they're letting dumbasses like you become samurai these days."

Enraged, the samurai draws his sword and prepares to cut the Zen master's head off.

"This is Hell," says Zen master.

The Samurai understands. In an instant, his heart is changed: He sheaths his sword and bows in gratitude.

"And this is Heaven," Zen master says.

Heaven is never far away, and neither is Hell. 

An Anatomy of the Soul

In the Republic, Plato tells us that the soul consists of three parts:

Nous
Thymos
Epithymia

Now "nous" is often translated into English as "reason," but that is incorrect. Reason, which is dianoia in Greek, is part of nous, but nous isn't limited to reason. Proclus tells us that nous also has three parts: the lowest is opinion (in Greek, doxa). Above this is dianoia, and above dianoia, nous proper, which is sometimes translated as "Intellection."

Intellection is not a familiar concept to most modern people. In the modern, scientific worldview, the highest capacity of the mind is reason; intellection does not exist. That is the literal meaning of the word "rationalism." In that way, we can see that Rationalism itself is already a debasement. In Intellection, the nous is functioning on its own, proper level-- the level of pure being which is above manifested, material reality. On this level, it is able to grasp the objects of knowledge immediately and entirely, without any intermediary thought process. This is very hard to describe in English. 

In Christian literature, the nous is sometimes called "the eye of the soul," and Intellection is the process through which the soul interacts directly with God and spiritual beings. Bear this in mind as we continue.

Thymos is another word which doesn't have an exact translation in English. It's often rendered "spirit," but what's meant by "spirit" in this case isn't the eternal soul, but, rather, what we mean when we say that someone is "in good spirits," or that a horse is "high-spirited." Sometimes it is rendered "anger," but that isn't exactly it, either. The Thymos is the inner strength or energy.

The best English translation of thymos is probably "heart," as that word is used by high school athletics coaches. Traditionally, the Thymos was seen as located in the heart, while the Nous is in the head and Epithymia, which means "appetite" and refers to all of those desires that we share with the lower animals, is in the abdomen. It is worth noting that this arrangement of powers in the human body corresponds exactly to the three dan tiens of Chinese Taoist inner alchemy. 

It is the failure of the Thymos in modern man that C.S. Lewis discussed in his essay, "Men Without Chests," in The Abolition of Man. Drawing directly on Plato, Lewis describes the proper relationship between the three parts of the soul:

Let's move on to Chapter 9 of The Art of War. I'm going to take the rest of the book somewhat quickly. 


The heading of this chapter is The Army on the March. Sun Tzu gives us details specific to actual military maneuvering, here. But are there general principles that we can tease out and apply to our own lives?

Let's see.

The point of telling us to "pass quickly over mountains," our translator notes, is that we need to not "linger among barren uplands, but keep close to supplies of water and grass."

Water and grass are fuel for men and horses. We can say for the soul generally, keeping in mind Plato's image of the soul as a winged chariot, pulled by two horses. "Barren uplands," then, are all those places in which the soul can find no nourishment, no water for the men nor grass for the horses.

What is it that nourishes the soul?

This varies from person to person, of course, depending on our individual needs and desires. There are some constants, though. Every soul is nourished by vital energy: Real food, fresh air, sunlight, the presence of other living beings. Every soul is nourished by beauty: In music, art, architecture, and stories. Every soul is nourished by purpose: By fulfilling that charge or set of charges which is its own to dispatch upon the Earth. 

And every soul without exception is nourished by Love. Love for God; for one's parents or mentors, one's children or students, one's friends, one's lover; for one's town and country, for a forest or mountain range, for one's own animals and plants-- relationship is another way to say this. 

Let us recall Plato's words in the Phaedrus:


Stay close to the air and the sunlight; don't linger in catacombs, even if they're well stocked with groceries. Find time every day to do the things that you are meant to do on this Earth. And abide not long in a life devoid of love!

Today, a note from Plato on the nature of the soul:

Later, in the same dialog, he elaborates: