You see, something's going to happen.
What What's going to happen?
Heine? What help?
What is?
What is Plato? But Moses speaking Attic Greek right right, and he's he's he's Numinius is subtle like he's making a point there and what and and that point speaks to what American conclusions are that that rabbis in exile encountered the writings of Plato, probably at the library of Alexandria, and those writings particularly were the Tamaeis and the laws, and whether or not the Torah existed in some form
prior to that. He demonstrates it argues very very well that if it did exist, it was rewritten after the encounter with Plato. Plato's work after their encounter with Hellenism, which explains why we get like a mercaba, you know, a soul, the sole chariot that has no precedent other than the okeema that which means chariot. And it's this sole vehicle, right, So lots of problems there, if you know what I mean.
That plays into the the you know, the whole origin of the septuagen translation, which took place in right and right there in Alexandria at that time, and it's it really points to Okay, so like why is it called Genesis?
Why is it called exo Thos? Why is it called.
You know, du These are Greek words.
Yeah, the titles of the books are Greek.
And the substugen number as itself, I think beckons to the harmony of the spheres and the sevenfold celebration of that. The Alexandria really the average person would have known about and you know, realized that title might have beckoned to.
I wonder, and even the allegory of the cave too, I feel like is similar to, if not influential on the Genesis Garden of Eden, right, And I wonder too, what does it say the relationship of the influence, But also that it would seem that there's different expressions and sayings in the Bible from Paul that beckoned directly to Plato. And I wonder, I wonder if you guys have looked into that or just seen seeing that and what that might say.
That Well, yeah, I mean.
Paul Is is very much associated with uh, not not necessarily Greek philosophy, but certainly with with a place like Athens, right, because he goes there to the ari Opagas rock and he makes that which if you're standing on the ari O Pagas, you can see the acropolis directly across, and it would would have been just above the the the Uh, the Placauy and the Agora where everybody met in central
Athens converting people. And if you if you go there today, there's still there's a plaque with with you know that famous speech about telling people like you don't know what you worship. But in Christianity it's different. We understand these and so on and so forth.
To me, it it.
I think that he was part of a deeper tradition, a more profound tradition having to do with a platonic worldview. And here's the thing. If you were educated your science in that time, your science was basically platonic, this whole idea of the cosmos and the nested spheres and stuff like that. The first time we understand the harmony of
the spheres, really that is later. It's in neo Pythagoreanism and the fragments of the early Pythagoreans like Philo Lais, and they're they're more interested in politics and community living and what you shouldn't eat and what you should eat, and that kind of stuff is really all the number and harmony stuff comes around this time that we're talking about, you know, Hellenistic period, maybe three hundred years before the first Entry, so on and so forth.
But all of that stuff.
You get this, this this cosmology of nested spheres and things like this, these eight spheres. The first time that we see that it's positive almost contemporaneous.
These two things. You have Eudoxus who gives us that model.
He puts that forth into the UH, into the you know, the the learned society of that time. And right around that same time, like within a year or two, you know, most scholars agree, is when Plato writes or finishes the Republic. And at the end of book ten of the Republic, there's this little section called the myth of Earth that gives us that whole kind of nested sphere cosmology. And you'll see in the writings of Paul, which kind of tie into what pt was saying about the Mrkova tradition.
He talks about how.
You know, he most uh, you know, biblical scholars and you know, people engaging in hermanutics, they'll say that he was talking about himself. I don't know, but sure he's talking about I once knew a brother who was assumed, who was taken up into the Third Heaven. So he's using Platonic verbiage to discuss this is But I don't I don't necessarily know that he's like specifically part of a of a Platonic I don't know, a Neil, you know, you know, a Hellenistic sort of like mystery cult.
So much as it's like if you just.
Look around at the knowledge of the world at that time, the ancient Mediterranean's all based on Plato already, you know. So it's like that's like me coming and talking about gravity, and then like you know, in a thousand years people are like, well, maybe this guy.
Was in like you know, the cult of Newton, you know. It's like, no, it's just everybody fucking knew it. Every everybody knows that guy.
Everybody knows it's taught widely so and that's how we orient like think of that. That's weird, right, the entire globe almost or orients. There were, at least in the in the educated aspects. They already they know the concept of gravity.
And stuff like that.
So I think it's a similar concept there where Paul is.
It's just the vernacular that he's using, uh, is so embedded in any kind of learned society. And we know he you know, he had to have been somewhat learned because he wrote you know, people people Again, you know p D pointed out earlier, like the ancient worldview and that experience. We've been completely abstracted from that, so we don't think about like, oh, not everybody could read and write. As a matter of fact, most people couldn't read or write,
you know. So if he's if he's dealing in these circles, he likely has some grounding in the quote unquote science of his time, which was which was very much so platonic.
Yeah, just my thought.
The entire tradition of a sacred book, Yeah, incredibly new idea. And in the ancient world, religion was something that was practiced, it was physical, it was you were completely immersed in it. There wasn't a sacred text that those kinds of things entered with these mystery traditions when you would get the symbolon the password to get into whatever tradition it is you're exploring, and in regard to Paul. You know, I think it's there's great. What I said is spot on
about him ascending into the third heaven. Again, this is another confirmation of a Greek cosmo conception. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. But as as far as what he might have been involved with, I can't remember the author's name. There's a book on Paul in the Mysteries of Baptism. I've got it in the other room, but I don't. I don't want to leave you guys and go dig it up. But I can.
I can.
If anybody's interested, reach out to me later. I'll give you the title of the book. But it's looking at Paul's very likely involvement with non Christian mystery traditions prior to his conversion. And he is a soldier type figure, which really makes the cult of Methras of very possible.
And and they have that same model of assent of of traveling up through the through the heavens, right to get to the final grade of Pater of Father, to meet with the Father, become one with the Father, and then embody the Father as a as a higher event on earth. So it's been argued that he was involved
with them. But as to whether he was and whether he's even talking about him self, like I said, we we don't know that, but the but we can be certain that he's drawing on Greek tradition when he says that.
I do recall reading about Paul as far as Saul of Tarsus and Tarsus there was a figure called Z's that was a dead and as sinded god that actually rose to become Osdi's, which is light. So there was a tradition in that region of these this ascended form that kind of and you see this, that's this development of transcendentalism from going to you know, Shoal, you know this place, or with the Zoroastrians, the idea of burning off the bad parts so that you could return to
the to the monad. It kind of you just see this evolving and like you said, as far traveling out and then you have the various night journeys that begin of all the different profits and how they're taken into the heavens and showing the workings of the cosmos. So you're seeing this evolution of these transcendental forms of people realizing that there are you know, higher realms of understanding, you know, in time and space.
Yeah, you get a perfect example of that in the Greek magical PAPYRII if you look at the the Methrist liturgy. In the ritual, they call it a ritual apothenitismos, which means of not dying, of becoming a mortal. But it's it's interesting because this applethitismos isn't permanent. When you come down from the ascent, you are thanitismos again. You can die, You're no longer mortal, you know. So immortality is this
glimpse into eternity. And and yeah, and like the language is so problematic because if if you say to someone, well, I experienced eternity, logically, know the fuck you didn't. You're you you weren't at the beginning, there is no end, You're right here. How can you say that you participated in eternity. But that's that's how we know that. It's it's not about a duration of time. It's it's it's
that methraic, aon that transcends time, something more like the pleroma. Right, it's it's outside of time, which young would say that means it's it's a it's a quality of a quality of consciousness, not a quanta that we can count and say there's the beginning, there's the end. So in the in that assent ritual really I think the best example of one uh from from that era. It's wrapped up
with the same expansion of vision, expansion of consciousness. But we always have to come back down, and I think that's important because we're useless as a hermit on top of a mountain praying for the world somewhere like Zarathustra in Nietzsche, you have to come back down the mountain. Enlightenment isn't climbing the top of the mountain staying there. Enlightenment is is summiting the mountain, coming back down and then allowing what you saw from that perspective to inform
your behavior. When you're late for work, right or when you're trying to check out at the grocery store, or you're beginning to have road rage. You know, that's the real enlightenment experience. If we don't come back down, we don't complete the cycle. And that's what I was mentioning moment A of these cycles that Proclust talks so much about, we have the Pruodos, the descent, into a body that
coming down from the mountain. But then we have that epistrophae, the return, that anagogic ascent, and it's this cyclic process that maintains a connection between the to you know, to use a spatial category, which is really fallacious, but we have to think about it. Somehow maintains that connection between the gods and man at the bottom of the chain. We have to go up and come back down over and over and over, even to the point of death and rebirth.
Right.
But but really there's no motion, there's no movement. It's happening every second. Genesis is happening constantly, is what the
Kabbala is saying, and I believe that. And then there's a there's an article that came out a few years ago in Esquire about this guy who went to a ten deboot retreat and they're practicing vipisana and he goes psychotic, ends up being carried away in handcuffs and taken to a mental institution because he enters that space where the world is simultaneously dying and being reborn every second, you know, every second, right, So the idea of going up and
going down, it's just a convenient way to articulate something that is really ineffable, but is so close and so present that it's like the fish asking what is water? You know, it's it's you can't put your finger on it.
Yeah, and it's it's.
We have this is This is an issue I find with people that come to magic and learn things like the kabbala and and or at least the hermatic kabala, right, the magical kabala, but especially also in taking students through the Platonic dialogue is something that I that I I kind of have to combat where it's like, you know, this stuff should be a scaffolding to to the project of what should be an internal experience, a nosis.
Somebody asked me.
I spoke at the Sacred Space between the World's Conference yesterday in Maryland, and I gave a whole thing on theorgy, right, but magic and myth in it. And I got a question that was as a valid question. It's like, would
you consider theurgy mystical? I said no, because it's ceremonial, But theorgy should make you a mystic because the experiences that we are having are here in the in the eye of the soul, you know, type of thing, and again in the active imagination that's being seized by the divine and divinized.
This is a big, big thing. When we say catharsis right.
Purification, A lot of people think it's it's this moral things like.
My soul feels pure, I don't feel like any you know.
It's purification is the removal of obstructions to write view. A lot of people think insight is the accumulation of information in reality. To PD's point, the top of that mountain is you divesting yourself of things that you that you accumulated from that perspective, and so insight is clarity. It's not, you know, it's not about how much of this stuff you can pack into your brain if you're gonna like put the cart before the horse, you know. So it's every all this stuff has to remain a
scaffolding for us to approach and talk about. And this is very big in the Platonic Dialogue, particularly in the time Aus. When the chief interlocutor of that dialogue, Timius, is about to start talking about time and eternity, that's how he starts his discussion of cosmogony. He distinguishes, Okay, there's an eternal component that the demiurge some for some reason looks at and sees perfection in eternity and decides to make a copy of it. And that copy he
calls the moving image of Eternity. And it's based on space and therefore time. And if you notice, there's a threefold nature to it, right, And this might be a little lesoteric for people, but I'm assuming if you're if you're into me and what PD do, you're kind of.
Familiar with this stuff.
He takes the circuit of the same in the circuit of the different comprised of this kind of even an odd quality. They're two dimensional, the circles two dimensional. Now how do you create three dimensions from two dimensional figures? Insert them into each other, and now you've created a sphere. You've created three dimensions beginning middle an end. That is, he's creating the paradigm of time. Right, Because then he says, this isn't the cosmos. This is the blueprint of the cosmos, right,
time cyclical nature? But what time ason talking about all this? He says, listen, there's really no way that we're going to be able to actually put this shit into words. So I'm going to do my best to talk about it mythopoetically, I like to say, rather than mythologically, because there's.
A stigma to that.
Mythopoetically we we only have recourse to mythology to really really show this to us. And as Socrates says, I think, I think at the end of the myth of Er in book ten, he does a brief digression where he says, I if the myth had convinced us, it would save.
Us well with tim Ais in that cosmology. You also see a very similar aspect in Zoraster in regard to the beginning, the middle, and the end and bringing about the end Time's philosophy through Judaism into modern Christianity and is.
Law and these these these the necessity of these myths, Like I said, it's what allows us to discuss this. Our minds need a picture, it needs something to hang on to. Without that, what we're left with is what's called apo faticism, apophatic mysticism, which is is a mysticism of negation. Anything we say about the divine is wrong because it's limiting it to that thing. Anything we could
possibly say. So we deconstruct our picture of the transcendent step by step until we face what Deonysius the Areopagit called the bright darkness, you know. But he doesn't leave
us with that. He goes on to say, but we need cataphatic mysticism and cataphatic meaning to bring it down, to bring that high, lofty transcended something down into something we can discuss and talk about, like a crucifix or a tree of life, you know, something that can give us a picture, because the human mind needs a picture to hang onto. Even if that picture is completely superfluous, fallacious,
it'll never do justice to what we're talking about. But without that picture, without that myth, there's nothing to talk about, you know. And then you fall into that that zen that zen trap. And you know, a zen master they're fine in that trap. But trying to take a novice into that territory without something like a cone or something they can hold onto, h it's an insurmountable gap.
Yeah.
So the myths, I agree with you. It's they're essential, but really cannot get us there. But if anything's going to they will.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that's that's a good way to put it. If anything can I get us there, that will. My myths will or because it's it's really I kind of characterize it as a symbolic vocabulary. You know, that's almost like algebraic. It's trying to break right, like the Pythagorean theorem. You're taking two knowns to find an unknown. And that's that's we know these images, We understand these relationships between a hawk and the sun, you know, Horus and raw and so on and so forth, and we're using two known
things to find an unknown. The one thing I would recommend people who are interested in studying Plato first start with the first Alcibiety's and you, I would say, move through the twelve dialogues of the Iamblikian curriculum.
But in editing those right now, so maybe in six months I'll have it published.
That's incredible, that's incredible.
And I would say when you when you do dive into these dialogues, keep this mythopoetic structure in mind. There's a lot that you will extract from the for instance, in the cratalysts, right the sort of prologue to the epistemological tetrad. For anybody who's caught up on that term, it's just you know, epistemology is what can and cannot be known?
Why or why not?
And and there's a series of dialogues where it's it's it becomes very mercurial. Now in the Cratalysts, he's talking about the suitability of names and things of the person that Socrates is talking to. His name is Hermogeny's right, her born of Hermes, right.
So it's there's little there's.
Tons of stuff like that all over the dialogues. There's completely saturated with little things like that, little tells, little layers, little tiny things. I mean, you look at there's the there's the divided line. There's the allegory of the cave. There's the myth of er, there's the myth of the afterlife in in in Fato uh. You know, there's that cosmogon or cosmological uh, a scent caravan of the feedris up in the the the celestial vault. He's constantly using myths,
he's constantly creating myths. So it's if you look at those dialogues like that, I think that you're going to extract much more. And like what was ancient Greece famous for mythology, you know, Orpheus, even pythography, Pythagoras or Pythagoras is quote unquote teacher, especially Pherisiites, they were mythographers. If you look at the Dervani Papyrus, which is the oldest actual primary source in Europe in terms of that literature,
it's the oldest document. It's it appears to be this pedagogical commentary on philosophically and ontologically interpreting mythology through through the lens of Orpheus. So so this was kind of like what ped was saying before they would have known this stuff, especially people in the academy. And the final point I want to put on that and I'm interested to say what what Pedia has to say about this. I've had a couple of confirmations from others that I
really really respect. But when I started taking I take students through this this curriculum, we do the the the Eamblikian curriculum plus porphyrish Isago gay uh, the organ On of Aristotlin. Of course the Republic. You can't not do the Republic. And then from there we move into we go into uh like uh uh introductions to arithmetic, start getting into the quadrivium sort of thing like Nicomachus Theano Smyrna.
All these guys.
But then you get into the geometric stuff. Okay, the geometry and what was over you know, the fabled uh inscription over the gate to Platonic Academy. Let no one enter here who is ignorant of geometry. And I always wondered why that was the case, And I said, Okay, the divided line is geometric. There's a whole way to geometrically kind of recreate that line and show the golden ratio. You've got things like the moving image of Eternity and
the time. It's very geometric, the geometric proof in the Mino. But here's the interesting thing. When you begin to actually practice geometry. I use starting out, I use Lawlor, not Euclid, because Euclid is tough for people.
That don't understand this stuff.
And it's all about proofs, it's all about logic. There's nothing there's no spiritual commentary, there's no metaphysical commentary. So in using the first couple of books of Lawler, who translated through the Ono Smyrna, so it's nice, it fits in nicely where there's a gap in the literature, because there is there's a tremendous gap in the in the
ancient neopythagorea and geometric stuff. What you realize is that in just silence of practicing that geometry and understanding it, you realize this, I am learning literally the coding for the universe. Now, what the Platonists and Neoplatonists say is you are assimilating yourself to the way that the divine thinks.
And I personally believe that the reason why you couldn't be ignorant of geometry to enter into Plato's academy, even if it's just a fable, is because it isn't was in the practice of geometry that taught these people how to think philosophically, not.
The other way around. The practice.
What geometry does, the practice of geometry does to your fucking mind is teaches you how to think philosophically. It's like going to the gym for like, you know, noetic assent. You know, it's just practicing geometry. It's unbelievable, But I'm I'm interested to hear if that sounds just like batshit crazy off the rails to.
You, No, I don't at all. I don't at all. I think another aspect of why it's so important has to do with with beauty, right, we get we get these when the forms are discussed directly, the ones that are confirmed. We hear about the form of the good, the form of the beautiful, and the form of the true right and and the truth and the beauty are hallmarks of the good. If we see that, we know it's close to and participating in the form of the good.
And I think the beauty and the truth of it I have a lot to do with why it's so effective in that regard. We know it's true because true we're talking about when that word is used in in freemasonry, we're talking about something that's square right, that's that that works mathematically, it's going to fit together perfectly. So when we're talking about is something true, we're really saying is
does it fit together in a harmonious manner. But the beauty aspect geometry is is arguably arguably the most beautiful thing about existing on on this planet in this domain. But there is word play that Socrates uses that proclus unpacks where he he uses the word against claytor because the word for beauty in claytor, which means to call to call out, are almost identical. And you know how how Plato is with his wordplay, it's almost if you if you don't know the Greek, you miss it. But
it's it's all through the dialogues. But what he's getting at is like, where does a rose.
End?
Is it?
Is it just at the rose itself? Or is it as far as I can smell that rose? And that smell is what Socrates is likening to a call. It's calling us, and that call is the mean that exists between the observer and the observed. And remember what Proclus says about the soul. The soul is a mean. It's a mean. It's a ratio between the physical and the non physical. Between suke and physicis like between noose and
physicis is what suke is. So when we see something and are attracted to its beauty, that's a physical, a visual call, and it tells us something about the radio between us. Where do I end and where does that begin? Is there a line where we can say it begins or ends? And to take the next step and say, well, that call, that beauty, that mean, that ratio, that's our soul. I think really speaks to the efficacy of geometry. Even
working at what we might call an unconscious level. It forces the harmonies of the universe, including ourselves and our interaction with the world, to be put right in our face.
And to that point when you look in what is it Piedeo where he talks about harmony in essence, when you create an instrument and you play that instrument and you bring these beautiful sounds out of it, that those aren't like you're talking about the line between where a thing ends and where thing begins. If you take that instrument and destroy it, you're in no way, you know, destroying the harmony, because you can build another instrument to
recreate it's it's always existing, It's always there. It's just a matter of how we're able to draw it.
Out yea, which requires skill and requires knowledge right to tune an instrument.
Particularly.
The one thing I want to add on to there is that in the ancient conception of harmonics, there were effectively three three ratios sesqui alters, sesquitertiin, and sesqui. Okay, so that's the root and octave, which are you know, basically the same thing. There's the fourth and the fifth, so there's there's three perfect ratios right there now in the in the uh Platonic Uh, the dialogue, the Fato that you were just mentioning talks about the three the
tripartite soul. This actually is an extension from the Pythagorean so where they thought there were three types of people. Okay, you know, the curious was the rational, the ambitious was the spirited, and the covetous was the appetitive, and Plato puts those into the tripartite nature of the soul.
Now, think of it this way.
These three ratios that have to have relationship to each other, the appetites, the emotions, and then.
The the rational. They have to be this they have to the same way. Think of it this way.
If you, if you understand the piano and music theory, a chord, a proper chord consists of three tones.
Okay, now if.
You if one tone is playing a blue note, it's off by a half step. We don't have harmony anymore. We have dissonance. Classically, classically, you know, the modern mind delights in ugly things. It's just what we've done. We've created a new paradigm of inversion, and it's one of the reasons why everything is fucked everybody looking out at this and that's like you like ugly shit, you love the disharmonious. What the fuck do you think you're gonna get?
You can get the harmony out of disarmony, you know. So It's the thing is now, if you if you orient that chord, that chordal structure, and it's right relationships to each other, and then you think about that as the three the tripartite nature of the soul. Everybody knows the discomfort automatically when you when you play a blue note, when you play something that's in accidental, something that's inharmonious,
it's ooh. Now can you imagine the existence discomfort, the existential discomfort of having one of those three parts of the soul not where it's supposed to be.
You know.
So, and now his his his medicine, his philosophical medicine for us, is the application of the four virtues. You see it in the Alcibiades, you see it in the Gorgeous you see it's fucking everywhere. A lot of people love to talk about it. In the context of the Republic.
He literally takes.
You through all four, all four of those cardinal virtues in almost every single dialogue in the in the.
Exactly why, because like this is the medicine.
These four things make it so that you will always be harmonious. If you conform yourself to these things, you will always be you will always be creating harmony.
And and to that point, in regard to the creation of the state, Plato even at one point talks about doing gymnastics in the womb in order to train. And basically you have to learn these things from the earliest ages and be edified in these things as you come up. And the building of that whole individual person is what creates the solidity of what is the macro to the micro the larger state, you know, in essence, So it's a matter of this this system of again like the
transcendent aspect of moving up towards the monad. You know, it's it's the same idea with the state in the individual within the state, and it's it's always in larger ideas, uh than then, you know, like it's it's the multi entendres.
You know.
I like to I like to cut your jib sailor.
I like what you said, like about about tritones and about you know, flattening the third and entering these these these you know, sustained to chords that that that they're they they do not qualify as beauty. You'll hear people say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Plato would say, get the fuck out of here with that bullshit. The the the weirdness of an off chord is interesting, right,
it's curious, it's fascinating. It's not beautiful. And this is coming from somebody that listens to Orni Coleman and John Zorn. You know, I love love chaotic, dissonant music, but I would never call it beautiful. Beauty is a specific form, and learning to recognize that is really the first step to getting anywhere in Platonism.
Right.
I think there's one point, and this is just recently in what I've been looking into in regard to the laws. I think it's four or five where they're talking about comedy and then he goes into the tragedyans and he says of a group of trail you know, a troop of tragedians showed up at the city and wanted to set up in the town square. It's like, first off, no, that's not gonna happen. You need to check what their
material is. You need to check like what the philosophy is and whether it's in accordance, in resonance with the structure of the state itself, and if it's not, then you run them off. So it's and you see this symbolically from lower levels to higher levels, talking about children, talking about comedy talking. It's in every aspect. What one does in their younger life, they'll do less than their older life. It's aschotomy between the play between the existence
and the non exist. In simlitude, I have I.
Have a question for for anyone who wants.
To answer.
And I and this is, you know, a legitimate, honest question. How how do you distinguish beyond beyond the understanding that republic is very much talking about the proper constitution of the of the soul of an individual, of the mind, of the of the body, because that that is acceptable to most people. But how do you defend, if you would even want to, the objection that what's being described as a totalitarian or.
Fascist it is one percent of fascist, totalitarian monarchical dictator state.
Well, here's the thing, though, here's here's where it differs. And this is the key to what you said before about the tragedians in the laws. He talks about that in the Republic. He basically says, look, we're not gonna have poets. That's not what's gonna happen. And he says it is much lamentable, very lamentable. But the thing is they can say things that are pleasant and convincing and not have the truth in them. In the same way
there's no beauty in a susscord. There's novelty and interest, you know, piquing your interest in the same way in poetry could sound you know, it could fill you with this sense of righteousness or what have you, but doesn't mean anything they're saying has any truth in it, even though it sounds good. Okay, that's something we all got to keep in mind today. Okay, Now, what's interesting is he says, he basically makes a caveat unless we know
we can definitively know that they have become philosophers. And it's the same thing with the philosopher regent, is that the only person who's fit to rule is the person who understands this shit and applies it to themselves. So here's the thing. If the ruler applies this system to themselves. It's not tyrannical, right, and therefore it's not tyrannical to apply it.
To a civilization.
Why because the definition Plato gives us a tyranny, he says. First of all, he says democracy inevitably leads to tyranny because it allows us too many liberties. Every time he says, the democratic man is the father of the tyrant. Why because the tyrant is not just somebody who has control. The tyrant is somebody who abuses that control because they are a slave. What are they a slave to their own appetites? The tyrant is actually the fucking slave in
the Platonic system. This is a system of liberation through philosophy. Okay, So I don't consider that fascistic.
It well, and that's the whole thing. You can call it these things. But at the same time, because it's based on this idea of ascendance and the higher thought forms, it's an alternate way to look at the monarchy or a system that becomes fascist in essence, but you know, in accordance with the higher realms. That's one thing. This
is very utopian in essence as far as philosophy. But when you sink into the more crystallized, you know, realm of doggy dog and greed and everyone out for their own it turns into this corrupted every you know, everything's corrupted. So it's it's this idea of in this realm. It's like, you know, communism works on a small level, but once it gets so big, you know, it creates a cast system.
Whereas with this, because you know, we're in the physical realm, this utopian idea, this mindset of higher forms, unfortunately, because of the corrupted state of man, has a tendency to eat itself.
I I also have an idea to answer your question, PD, and that idea is that I think we forget not maybe anyone here, but that this is a dialogue and
that this is a drama. And the idea of this being a drama would mean that there are outrageous things that are going to be stated, like the ideals of eugenics, the ideals of you know, different ideas of like only the philosopher kings now know whose children are parented to who, and all these strange things that we today in a modern society would deem to be a totalitarian or be fascist or see murderous and really it is what it's
meant to do. And I think this is a really important distinction, is that it's meant to show the contradictory nature of not only the human soul and not only the police, but that when we are taken outside of our normal, everyday nois we can start to understand the true nature of what Plato through Socrates, was trying to do.
And he's trying to teach us how to philosophize.
And we we don't know what Plato thought. That's what That's what you're getting at as well, is that as a dialogue.
That's exactly that is exactly.
Says that too. And well, again we don't.
We don't.
Scholars are are It's a coin toss whether or not they it's authentic. But in his second letter, Plato says, the thoughts of the the beliefs of Plato will never be written down. The dialogues are Socrates made beautiful?
Yeah, And I wanted to bring up one more thing in regard to the Abrahamic religion. I find it interesting. I've been going through the Talmood lately, and I'm about a tenth of the way through it, and I find it's very much set up in the same methodology of the Platonic philosophies in regard to the rabbi is coming together and basically having a dialogue about a subject matter
that oftentimes has never resolved. So I think there you may also have kind of a carry because that wasn't written until what four to six hundred AD, So I think there you may also have some carryover with kind of these ideas and how the philosophy has kind of played into the growing strands of the different religions as well.
And I want to just point out one thing that was that was pointed out to me by David kim Smith.
Uh.
You know, he had studied with he's you know, one of my kabala teachers, but he had studied with with some Hasidics, right, And there's a very richly preserved tradition of Hebrew kabbala in there. And also there's a rich preservation within their Cabalistic vernacular of Greek words like, for instance, there's the name for them of like matter, or the first principle of of of formation is huli. That's you know, the the el or the the hula of the Greeks.
There's all sorts of ship like that all over there capitalism. But what he said is when he went in and he and to to engage in this pedagogical kind of discourse at a long table like banquet style, and at either end there was a rabbi on one side and an acolyte on the other.
They were only working with each other.
Similar way you'd see people playing chess and they would have their the text open in front of them, and the idea was not that the text has the answers, but that the text is a prompting for further insight. And so this is having understood that, I see the influence of the dialectic of the Platonic school the Deocratic school, and now I apply that to the dialogues with students saying, we're not this is not our Bible, it's not gospel.
But what it is is we're going to use this to do what they're doing about about what they're doing in dialectic.
Of elevating the spirit and finding the wholeness of the self and the soul.
And yes, yes, well, I think it just to reiterate the idea that Socrates is bringing upon the precarious and the subversive position of the philosopher and how the philosopher is the true rebel in the Republic and in Athens at that time, due to obviously Socrates trying to prove the point.
And I would think, and I think Leo.
Strauss and a few other philosophers in that timeframe, Alan Bloom being one of them in our time frame, is saying how important it is to know that the apology, the actual true apology, was the Republic.
And I think that's really fascinating to think about.
Hm.
Well, I just want to say, man, Danny pd every time I learned so much, every time I talk to you, dude, I really you know, I love you.
I miss you. I got to come out and see you.
Definitely, definitely we need you out here.
Yeah, you need to go.
I need to come to I need to come to you. Next, we're supposed to do some some crystal digging.
Oh that's right. Yeah, yeah at the gem minds over.
Here, Yeah, yeah, your place next.
Yes, I really wanted to ask a question. You were talking about purification, right, It made me think of Platinus and he reiterates over and over this stripping of what's alien to yourself, and I think that's like Marx was saying, I think like you were all saying, like that is the process of dialectic to an extent, at least dialectic
of yourself. But it made me think of this other concept of Plato's that is very unique to Plato, which is the idea of the intelligibles and of them as like these divine beings, right, and the further that you kind of ascend and strip yourself of those alien things, you know, you kind of assent and and if you compare those intelligibles to humans, right, a big difference is that those intelligibles, I mean obviously, not only do they
not have the sensory faculties, but they are not necessarily human. You know, they're almost mechanical. They have they don't have like perhaps changing will. But a big question that I always have is, you know, when when we're looking at these hierarchies, when we're looking at these intelligences, how I know this is kind of off base, perhaps, but how do you differentiate the planetary forces or intelligences and the angelic ones.
That's that's a good question. I'll take a quick stab and I think Ike, I know, Ike has a good answer for this because We've talked about something similar at New Hermopolis. When we're talking about the hierarchy of being, let's refer back to the principles the limit and the limitless. At the top is pure limit, at the bottom is pure limitlessness, the indefinite diad. As we progress from the top to the bottom, towards the middle, these become mixed.
So there's there's When you say they're mechanical, I don't take you to mean robotic, but rather they have more limit than they do limitlessness. They don't they can't swerve, for instance, from the orbit for which they exist. If I understood you properly there.
Yes, exactly like they they are more restricted. They have like a certain role, or they're maybe closer to the forms, and so they they have more distinct and consolidated properties or identifiers about themselves, their way of behaving, maybe even metaphysical properties of you know, the further up that you go, like I would say that the planetary intelligences are also metaphysical properties of the universe.
That's a great way. And if you look at Proclus's breakdown with the hierarchy of being, and you see it earlier and Iamblicus.
But there's the when he talks about the n cosm gods, he also refers to as the visible gods, and we're like, what do you mean visible gods where you're seeing them?
He's talking about the planets, you know, these are these are in cosmic gods that we can see visibly, but in cosmic meaning, they're in matter, so they have more connection with the limitless than they do with limit Whereas the further we go up the chain beyond the sun is Helios, right, which has even more limit less limitlessness. So we're really talking about the tension, like Ike said earlier,
between these two extreme opposites. And I think it is at Heraclitis that talks about the tension of the bowstring that that is necessary that produces the music that shoots the arrow. It's it's that same tension. But when you say, how do you distinguish an angelic being from a planetary being, the real criteria is how much or how much less of limit or limitlessness do they participate in?
That's a great answer, yeah, I And of course I look at it in the same way where we're looking at like ontological chains. Again, this is an analogy the verticality of it like the tree of life. We're not saying that it's literally like a beam of consciousness being projected downward, but it's you're meeting the same consciousness at different you know, I have to be a little new agy about it, at a different frequency level.
You know.
It's it's kind of like, here's a good example, like a cladney plate, right, So the cladney plate is people associate with heart with simatics. I made one and did a demo for the Institute of Hermetic Studies a couple of years ago. And you you you you connect a a piece of metal sheet piece of sheet metal to a speaker. There's a sophisticated way to do this because you don't want to deaden it. You just want the
vibrations to go into it. And then I have like a frequency generator that's hooked up to the to this to this speaker, and I'm moving up and down these frequency lines. Okay, you pour a little bit of very very very fine sand or very very fine salt on it, and once you hit a certain frequency, that will the sand will begin to generate a geometric shape. That's not the shape of the frequency. That's the shape of the piece of metal. It's geometry that's holding it together. It's
geometric signature. Now you move a little bit further, and the frequent the sand doesn't do anything.
You keep going, you keep going boom.
Okay, look now there's another frequency and for some reason the sands moving again. Maybe it's kind of like quadrupled. And it's what's the reason for that, The relationships that these frequencies have to each other. There's frequencies all throughout.
You could move all the way down that line, you know, just do this weird thing.
But for a specific phenomenal object, there's just there's a specific frequency that reveals its inherent patterns. Is geometric patterns. To me, this is evidence of the synthema though. Okay, this is like what they were intuiting. You know, it's like there's the God in there and it has different levels or expressions on that specific frequency line, like a musical scale, like a diatonic musical scale.
So when you're.
Tuning into these different beings, I think of it in that way. I'm working this frequency, working the I'm playing I'm playing the scale of Mars. I'm you know, I'm I'm working the scale of the sun and pd makes a very very good point which is at the core of Platonism, neo Platonism, uh and early Christianity.
Free will.
That's what that unlimit is free well, he said, you know, if there's more limit, they can't like turn it there, right.
Free will is really really important.
So a lot of times in working with them practically, which is kind of outside of the scope of this particular conversation, but in say saying something of you know, we work with the pseudo a derivative of the pseudo Deanesian hierarchies in the Golden Dawn, because that's what Agrippa's mostly using, and that's where we get our our things. The the type of and let's not forget these images of the of the deities, of the of the angels of the.
That's not what they are.
Okay, we have to create an image in order to interact. This is what what he what Pete was saying before. Our mind needs an image, right, otherwise just things start talking to you.
What happens you go to the mental hospital. Oh yeah, like you need you need to set this.
Up so that I'm intentionally this is you. I want you to talk to me through this. It's an agreed upon image that is ultimately relying on your available imagery. The type of the Amlicus talks about this, he's he he delineates what he calls theurgic appearance, he says, and it all has to do with how much light they give off and what quality it is. So gods will give off this pure white, overwhelming light, whereas like daimone is or they're a little darker, little murkier, a little ruddier.
And I write light is also synonymous with intelligence in these these traditions as as uh, you know, the great professor Valter Honograph has pointed out many times there's an etymological connection between the word noose and light, particularly in the Hermetica. So there's that quality of consciousness. But I want to just sum it up by also kind of bringing it full circle to what we've spoken about in terms of Platonism. In the Platonic Paedia by the right means education.
What is that?
It's because what do you think education was not the learning of new information but the recollection of things your soul already knows. An omnisis okay, the word the Greek word for truth is alithia. That means not forgotten. It's all about remembering, and it ties into this free will. Okay, the ethical training in the beginning of the Platonic padia
allows you more free will. You can you have a greater ability to make choices based on what you know is best, which is allowing the rational part of the soul to govern the other two. Okay, that's the beginning of you gain more free will.
Right.
As Jocko Willink, very very philosophically puts it, discipline is freedom.
Discipline is freedom.
And they there's this word for discipline, self control, and temperance that gets translated across the board, and depending on which translation you're using a Plato Sofrosini, it can mean balance, but it also gets translated as self control or discipline, and it is appropriate in all those contexts. Now, that's a little bit lower down the ontological line. As you go through the theurgic theophania and the the anosis, right, the revelation of deities, and then the the eventual union,
you gain more free will higher up the line. Okay, why because you're constantly identifying with what you actually are and not having this this not the the the rational soul, not being impelled to the the imperatives and the pulses of physical matter, because they're they're they're fundamentally different, the soul and the and the body in terms of their natures. The soul is effervescent, it rises up, It is immortal, It is not spatially specific.
The body is different.
You know.
The soul has no needs.
Plato says, the only time the soul needs anything is when it's in a body and it has to get into the noetic realm to be nourished by the beauty there.
Okay, but it.
Inherently has no needs. The body is different. The body has needs. I gotta pee, I gotta eat, I gotta sleep.
You know.
The body is spatially specific. The body is not immortal. It will die. So there's this constant like we're confounded, which direction do we orient our our intelligence? Which which which direction are we are we working in? And it all has to do with with with with free will. So I think, believe it or not, as you get higher up the line, these things have less free will. In my experience, they have great power and less free will.
Why because there and an the Amblicus says this, when deities appear in theretic appearance, they're accompanied by their diamones,
they're accompanied by the there they're entourage. Why because it's those things that that that like execute its divine will there, which yeah, which is which is kind of interesting, but but I know it's interesting to me also how like the soul is really the only thing that gains more free will as it as it rises, which in that and that's just my personal anecdotal experience of these things. Is nothing like definitively tying anything I said to Platonism.
No, that's that's it does You're you're absolutely right. We see. There's a great quote in Usta Vinis where he says, he says, philophy in the ancient world entailed trials and ordeals and modes of initiation, you know, And he said, and most importantly, it consolidated all of one's ethics, politics, economy into one thing, he said. So to philosophize is
essentially to orientate yourself properly to the world. And he describes as he illustrates this by saying, it's like moving through a sacred calendar like the liturgical cycle, and following the natural patterns that the demi urge has laid forth because the urgy, first and foremost is demi urgy, participating in the demi urge by Mathexis through Mesis, by mimicking him. So he says, to to philosophize, then it's not to be a radical exception to the rule to have some
new idea, to try and make your mark. To philosophize is to do exactly what you came here to do, which is the most liberating thing, because it's the most limiting thing. And we see echoes of that, and Mike Alister Crowley, do find your true will, do only that nothing else. That's a very Platonic idea, which speaks again to where do we see Plato in these modern traditions. Crowley is a great example when you look at his text,
it's very obscure these days. But and the Oto we received a copy of Atlantis, a text called Atlantis which is completely based around the Republic, Crowley's picture of the republic for a thelemic for thlymic group of people. But that idea that that you're talking about, the further you get and in the in progress, the less free will
we have. And uh cast but Bernardo Castrom, you familiar with him, Now Philosophy recently wrote a book on the Damon, but one of the points he makes is that really the closer we get to embodying our damon, the less free will we really have, because it's it's all about a surrender to the daemon. And we could say, well, I'm not going to do what the Damon has set forth for me. I'm going to pretend that I have free will and do something else. You still do what
the Daman has set forth for you. The question is do I surrend under and surf on this title wave or do I get crushed by the tidal wave and still go that fucking direction, because that's where the chips fall. Where the daemons say they fall, and the daemons say where they fall based on what the gods have already decreed is the nature of reality. This is truth, right.
So the further we get in the direction of of our daemon, and especially of the head of our chain, of our of our Syrah, free will is non existent.
M yeah.
Yeah.
The only free will that we that we attain here is freedom from the illusion that we are the body. And then we move up and dedicate ourselves. And that's interesting too because the Amlicus talks about the punishing di daemon, you know, which is like there there are yeah, this is these these are are to These are spirits that are meant to sort of smack your hand or smack your face if you know, like he give you a little bit of punishment.
They also contain, like he mentions that their job is to keep us from spilling out of ourselves. Right, and if if man has to occupy this segment in the hierarchy of being, or there's a gap, there's no continuation of the flow.
Right.
So if I want to ascend, like i Amboa says, first I need to be making offerings to my damon, you know, and then hopefully eventually to the god. But that punishing damon, it's punishing because it won't take its hand off of us saying you're going to be contained in this form in this you know, it's like a parent holding a kid down that you know, it's it's punishing, and but it's also containing so that the universe doesn't fall apart because there's a gaping black hole where I should be you know.
Yeah, yeah, And that's an important point I think for a lot of people that are interested in some of the things that we're interested in, because that idea of punishment slash containment to to our society feels oppressive, you know. And really it's like some in my in my life's experience, I mean a lot of times, punishment and containment was an ultimate mercy. It was an ultimate benevolence, right, because it gets you to sort of you know, uh, straightened out and fly right type of situation.
There is no love without correction. It's an old baddage.
I like that, that's true. Ye, when you have kids, you definitely definitely know the importance of containment.
Yes, what could really be better than living aligned anyway?
I agree?
Yeah, Yeah, every anything else is basically that existential dissonance, right, that's right, which is not comfortable at all. But we you know, we've I think and this is just me, you know, right, because I'm always I'm a little outspoken about things, but I think we've normalized that that dissonance.
That's that's existential state.
Of music and art and media. You just see it consistently.
Yeah.
Yeah, you guys are beautiful.
Everybody here is beautiful.
Yeah, I agree. This has been a great grill.
Yeah, Unfortunately, we do have people that need to leave too, so probably just gonna have a wrapping here.
We didn't even get to talk about Atlantis.
Yeah, I know, and.
You know what, our buddy, you know what, At first I was actually going to be like but I was like, you know, I don't want to be a fascist censor. But I did won't even say I didn't even want to touch Atlantis because you're gonna get people fucking bitching and arguing about stuff that's stupid in my opinion.
Oh yeah, that's that's the best way to get people in the peanut gallery start ringing their bellies.
Is defeated Atlantis. And that's the end.
Of it, right, That's what.
Well, the thing is to a lot of and I'll just say this orienting it a platonic context. The the time ass which is where it's mentioned, is Socrates has traveled to the Pures, which is the port for these uh Athenian games. The other dialogue where that happens is the Republic. So it is typically thought, even though we don't have the definitive connective tissue, historically typically thought that the timeus is the next day. It's a con and
you even have the same interlock. Hue tears with one missing, right, Socrates says, I see the three, where's the fourth? Uh, one of one of the guys is missing. So he just talked about the right way to govern, the police and the internal police, and now we're looking at Atlantis, which is the dark twin of the Republic, which is like this is how you fuck.
Up destroy society or yourself.
And also aliens and Bigfoot and all that they were. They were all there with the muppets. They were all yeah, synthetic Mercabas and Cimerassen.
Thank you very much, Bob, both of you guys.
Uh, let me start off with Brandon real quick, because I know he's going to leave it in sort of Brandon, please let everybody know what's up with you and where they can find all your amazing words.
Thank you, Nick, Cardinal electric Head, Thank you Ike, and thank you P. D.
Newman.
Thank you. It's wonderful to meet you.
PD.
This is fantastic. I've been reading through your book. It's on my nightstand. It's amazing and I tell everybody to read it. I've posted it on my Instagram as well. An X so I am an avid pusher of your documentation. So again, thank you for showing up and I'd love to chat with you more another day. Everyone, like I always say thank you to the occult rejects for all things, head over to Magas in the media, where we break down myth, magic and meaning in the stories that we love.
The world is wild, aliens are real, and reality is bending in its Epstein strings. Let's make sure we understand the meaning within the soul with stories like this and the media that is breaking, it's breaking its stranglehold on our conscious. Please like, subscribe and share not only to my channel, but everyone here, buy all their things, and make sure you know that no matter what happens out in reality, it's not the true reality we stem from
the mind. Thank you again, Nick and everyone, have a wonderful evening.
Of course, thank you for joining us. Awesome, Liwesome and Judith the Loon. What is going on, guys?
Thank you for having me.
Thank you Ike and PD.
You put a different perspective on Plato for me, which I didn't even fathom. So I thank you for that you could catch you could find me on YouTube and on X as the Loon. I almost said Twitter there as the Loon and just feel free to drop by and join our conversations there.
Thank you again, of course, no, thank you.
And Jules my man, what is going on? Oh?
This was a great show. Uh learned a lot, maybe a little too much, man ah Man. I have a lot of questions myself, but I didn't feel the need to ask them right now. So maybe we can do it, you know, I'm sure I'll see you guys on another episode.
It was really good.
Meeting you all though. Great pilled Pod on Twitter.
We we may be streaming later.
I don't know.
Brandon will be on my show soon, hopefully this next week or so, Grey Horn, Pagan's coming on Fair Toss Road and a on Bite and a few other people I think I have getting scheduled. So this this this was a banger. And like I said, I didn't know anything about Plato, hardly anything before this. So it's good to know where a lot of these ideas come from. And I think it is important for people to focus on their spirit.
You know, someone had mentioned earlier.
People kind to focus on or maybe it was this morning, even they focus on the afterlife, you know, they kind of don't focus on here and now and doing the work that can help you ascend to that final level, and so I think it's important to have these conversations and to get that information out there. So thank you guys for coming on, and it's good to see all all my fellow rejects. Again, as always, thank.
You, Guls and Robbie Boxx. What is up?
Yeah, this was a great talk. It was great to meet you Ike and always good to hang out PD. It's just some beautiful stuff to get into these ideas, you know. As far as myself, I'm Robbie or R Marx and I'm an artist illustrator And if you want to check out my other stuff, I have my metamind Cast podcast as well as all my artwork, you can go to my website. All my links you can find at my link tree, which are link tree, R M
A ar X and always a pleasure. Nick, thanks for for getting me out of the little hermit hole on me.
Thank you for doing man, thank you appreciating it. And Arrows what is up? Arrows?
Hello? This was great. I learned so much. I really especially liked all the biblical history, a lot of that I didn't know, so this was great. Thanks for coming on and having this discussion with us and it was great to hang out with all of you rejects again. You can find me on YouTube at arrows up. I post a lot about Platinus and chaos and order and multiplicity and all sorts of things, so definitely go check that out if you're interested, and then you can find me at arrows to Ethos on x as well.
Thank you very much. I was, and Ethan sir.
Well, Thank you everyone. I PD that was awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge and wisdom. And everyone always appreciate communicating with you guys. Ethan Indigo Smith on all the social media YouTube even and yeah, I'm easy to find and appreciate everyone's communication if they decide to reach out.
Thank you very much, Ethan, appreciate it. And I please let everybody know where they can find all your amazing work.
Ikebager dot com I K E b A k E R. I'll put that in the chat. You can check me out there. I've got my.
The latest YouTube video.
I do documentary style presentations on the history, theory, and practice of the Western esoteric traditions. A bunch of it's platonic. The last one I did actually was a while ago. But it's it's basically an introduction to theoretic neoplatonism. I've got the latest three episodes of my podcast that you can stream from there.
You can read my.
Blog find out a little bit more about what it is I do. I give quarterly group classes that are open to the public at an extremely somebody has said fair rate, but it's not really fair to me, but it's fair to everyone else. Yeah, so you can check that out if you're interested. I have a newsletter that goes out just about every Thursday, and it's completely free. You can sign up for it there and then also check out the Arcanem podcast that put that in the
chat as well. And again, I cannot understate how much I respect you PD and how much I think you are contributing to the dialogue here in ways that are unprecedented, and I think we'll influence the way we go forward in the future with these subjects, which, as you know, they're close to my heart.
So and therefore so are you well.
Thank you so much, I thank you for inviting me. I've had so much fun these past We've been doing this for two and a half hoursat Yeah, this is this has been this has been great, So thank you' all all for having me. What I've got coming up. My partner in crime, Alan Hawkins and I we are wrapping up a documentary that we've been working on for the last three years that traces the trajectory of a certain tradition of alchemy from late antiquity into the Enlightenment.
Hopefully that we'll be done in April and we'll start putting it in some film festivals and then release it properly. We were in talks with a couple of different streamers, and beyond that, I will be speaking at the Anthropology of Consciousness conference. It's happening in Las Vegas from March twenty ninth to April first, and I will be asking the question is AI the new la uh? And you might be surprised by my answers, So if any of y'all are in the Las Vegas area, come see me.
Awesome, very interesting on that idea.
Thank you both very much, Ike PD that was an amazing episode. I thank you all to the Rejects again. You know, hopefully maybe one day in the future we can continue this talk on more of his other stuff, but I think that would be if you ever make your way up to Jackson.
I'll I'll be sure to buy you a beer man, so.
I'll be there.
Yeah, I'll be there.
But uh yeah again, I thought this was amazing and I can't really you know, I don't want to kind of reiterate what Ike says, but I do think having these discussions and having you guys on and talk about this stuff really helps a lot for us to understand, like maybe you know where some of our ideas are coming from.
This was an amazing show.
I really can't thank you guys enough, and all the rejects and everybody in the chat that's what's up. I appreciate it. And until the next one, everybody be well, oh yeah, dog doll.
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