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Pre-Christian Era of Western Philosophy:  The modern history of philosophy and its relation to spirituality

The Sun as a Universal Deity

“The adoration of the sun was one of the earliest and most natural forms of religious expression,” Manly P. Hall writes in The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

The Sun was the fire of Nature; author of Life, heat and ignition; immense, indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present.  It symbolized the regenerating principle; fecundity which perpetuates and rejuvenates the world’s existence; and the supreme authority of the Creator itself.

The Sun is identified with the following deities: Brahma, Mithras, Athom, Amun, Phtha and Osiris, Bel, Adonai, Adonis and Apollo, Bacchus, Dionysos, Sabazius, Hercules, Jason, Ulysses, Zeus, Uranus, and Vulcan; Balder the Beautiful, Odin, Ra, Anubis, Hermes; Ammon and Typhon the destroyer; Serapis; and Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl.

Golden ornaments were used by the priestcraft and kings of the various world religions to reference the all-powerful solar energy.

Manly P. Hall tells us, “With the growth of man’s knowledge of the constitution and periodicity of the heavenly bodies, astronomical principles and terminology were introduced into his religious systems. The tutelary gods were given planetary thrones, the celestial bodies being named after the deities assigned to them.”

God the Father – Creator of the World – is symbolized by the dawn.

God the Son – the illuminating one – is symbolized by noon as that is the time when the sun is most radiant and magnificent.

God the Holy Ghost is symbolized by the sunset phase, “when the orb of day, robed in flaming red, rests for a moment upon the horizon line and then vanishes into the darkness of the night to wander in the lower worlds and later rise again triumphant from the embrace of darkness.”

To the Egyptians the sun was the symbol of immortality.  The symbol of the sun changed depending on the House of the Zodiac: it became a bull in Taurus, called Apis by the Egyptians and Bel, Baal, or Bul by the Assyrians.  In Leo it became a Lion-slayer Hercules; and Archer in Sagittarius and in Pisces, a fish, Dagon or Vishnu.

Visit Article 264 for more information on Ancient Mystery religions.

Though many of the philosophers discussed below are held up as some of the most brilliant minds within the history of humanity, there is a darker elitist side to some of them including Plato, Aristotle and Heraclitus.  The paradox of intelligent humans developing a positive philosophy, yet suppressing its positive powers for only the elite or initiated few – therefore turning it into something negative – is something we come up against again and again throughout history.  We will call attention to this in more detail below.

Milesian school in Ionia – Ancient Greece, modern day Turkey – 6th century BC

The word ‘physis’ refers to the endeavor of seeing the essential nature of all things.  Incidentally, the pineal gland is called the ‘epiphysis’ – ‘to see the essential nature of all things’.  The word ‘physics’ is derived from this word.  Physics originally referred to “applied philosophy” and later as “natural philosophy”.

Milesians were called ‘hylozoists’ – ‘those who think matter is alive’.  They saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter.  This is called panpsychism today and it is gaining academic credibility in our modern times.  Visit: The idea that everything from spoons to stones is conscious is gaining academic credibility.

Thales (624-546 BC) declared all things to be full of gods, or divine spirits.  Anaximander (610-546 BC) saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by ‘pneuma’, the cosmic breath.  He declared measureless and indefinable infinity to be the principle from which all things were generated.

Anaxagoras (510-428 BC) held God to be “an infinite self-moving mind; that this divine infinite Mind, not enclosed in any body, is the efficient cause of all things; out of the infinite matter consisting of similar parts, everything being made according to its species by the divine mind, who when all things were at first confusedly mingled together, came and reduced them to order.”

“In Anaxagoras,” writes Jeremy Naydler in The Future of the Ancient World, “we meet a highly intellectualized conception of the divine as a mind which is ‘mixed with nothing but is alone by itself,’ white matter is conceived as a realm of independently functioning causes.  The sun, moon, and stars are divested of divinity: for Anaxagoras they are merely ‘red-hot stones’, and the reason why we do not feel the heat of the stars is because they are so far away.  In an equally materialistic vein, the origin of life on Earth is explained not in terms of any divine activity but is attributed to the air, which ‘contains the seeds of all things,’  Anaxagoras seems to have delighted in debunking the divinatory consciousness.  For him, such phenomena as the eclipse of the moon or sun, or the appearance of a rainbow, which would normally have ominous import, could be explained in purely physical terms…

For the new mentality, so clearly represented in Anaxagoras, the realm of spiritual causes is superfluous.  Both so-called omens and the outcome of human affairs can be explained perfectly adequately without recourse to extraneous spiritual causes…We recognize Anaxagoras as one of us – a modern man.  And ye should we not also feel just a little uneasy at his blithe dismissal of the gods as to all intents and purposes redundant?  Is it not possible that both views were right?”

Heraclitus (536-470 BC) believed in a world of perpetual change, of eternal ‘becoming’.  He taught that all changes in the world arise from the dynamic and cyclic interplay of opposites.  Heraclitus had implied that the universe itself was eternal, and that it was the changes which took place in it that gave rise to the experience of time beginnings and endings.  His ideas were reflective of eastern mysticism, specifically Taoism.  He saw any pair of opposites as a unity, called Logos.  Logos, to him, referred to the underlying organizational principle of the universe – the ultimate whole experience – through which “all things are one” and according to which “all things come to pass”.

Jeremy Naydler writes, “Heraclitus really sets the agenda for all subsequent Greek thinking, which is characterized by this fundamental assumption: that the human faculty of thinking is, at its deepest level, of the same essential nature as the creative power that gives rise to the universe.  Later philosophers, like Anaxagoras and Aristotle, referred to both as Mind (Nous).”

Heraclitus was a believer that fire was the fundamental element that gave rise to all other elements.  According to Heraclitus, “This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made. But it always was and will be: an ever-living fire, with measures of it kindling, and measures going out.”  This belief in the supremacy of fire is related to the Yuga cycles, of which Heraclitus knew much of.  It is even possible that he was a member of a secret priestly ‘fire cult’ which relates to the idea that the earth is regularly cleansed through the destruction of fire (the negative side of this relates to the ‘cleansing’ of inferior people so that the superior elites could  rule the world as the ‘gods’ they believed themselves to be).

The end of the Kali Yuga (the Iron Age) is associated with fire and the destruction of the entire creation into a kind of cyclonic, spiraling field of energy that dissolves all the elements back into the universal ether.  It is more likely that, when Heraclitus spoke of eternal change, he was referencing the massive creation and destruction cycles of the Yugas and the need for the elite to create extreme polarities in society to create chaos to bring on these cycles of destruction, rather than the eastern philosophical acceptance of the continual transformation and processes inherent in daily life and existence and the need ‘let go’ and embrace change.

Robert Lawlor explains what some of the goals of this priestly fire cult would be and how they would try to bring on cycles of destruction:

• Upon this vision of the All-Devouring the priests of Fire placed as on a pedestal their world vision: “At the foot of our altars we solemnly place first the sword, then a ploughshare, then minted coins.” All are gifts of Fire bestowed in our quest for world dominion, gifts from our artisans and magicians – the smiths and alchemists of metal.
• When the fire priests of the ancient Greeks, through unremitting war, empire expansion and constant ceremonial observances, had burned and stripped the surrounding countryside of timber, they replaced their funeral pyres with tombs hollowed out of limestone and named these coffins sarcophagi meaning “the eating of flesh” (sarkos = flesh and phagein = eating). The strong alkalinity of the limestone chemically reacted with the acidic fluids of the decomposing flesh causing disintegration of the corpses, not in minutes, as it would in flames, but in fourteen days.  The Hellenist priests then painted the walls of the limestone coffins scarlet red, emphasizing their fidelity to the Fire religion and blood sacrifice of their ancient ancestors.
• Like life and death, so too poverty and prosperity, hunger and satiation, life side by side, as fire and fuel. In this age of conflict, extreme polarities are always in a state of readiness, to be ignited into revolution or societal transformation, new empires created from crumbling ashes.  This power has fallen from the gods, kings and priests to be now at the fingertips of the mercantile-caste elite, the Pharisees, as they were called in biblical times or the Vaishya in Hindu society.  This mercantile caste, like the bankers and corporate rulers of today, maintained control over the research, development, storage, marketing, distribution, production and sale of knowledge and essential commodities.  Traditionally it was grain and wine and religion, today it is steel and petroleum and science as the mind and flesh and blood of the deity of the modern world metropolis.
• Some factions of power control by means of starvation and deprivation (Gastrolatres), others through indulgence and opulence (Engastromyths). These are the dual masks of the Grim Reaper in the carnival world of fire.

You see, Heraclitus, for all his apparent wisdom, was a proponent of totalitarian rule, like Plato and Aristotle as discussed below.  Heraclitus spoke of thirteen oligarchic families he called “Aristoi”.  In Gnosticism these same people are called “Archons”.  As Robert Lawlor discusses in The Geometry of the End of Time: “These families established educational, religious, governing and military systems designed to achieve two objectives: the generation of wealth and power for the oligarchy and the suppression of individual thought among the general populace.  They also forbade a real experience or concept of a ‘higher intelligence’ associated with the universe and the natural world.”

Brian Desborough writes in They Cast No Shadows: “Historians go to great lengths to conceal from the populace the fact that the oligarchic families, together with well-known members of the establishment, comprise thirteen bloodlines whose roots are traceable to the Babylonian era.  These bloodline families comprise the hierarchy of a secret society known as the Illuminati (The Illumined Ones)…the secret society which has ruled the world for millenniums, through its ability to control the historical, political and scientific flow of information to the masses.  Throughout history, the Illuminati have attempted to inhibit humankind from understanding the actions of this Supreme Intelligence, by creating the major religions, a particularly insidious form of mind control.”

Heraclitus was born into these aristocratic families and was a true elitist who did not believe in equality.  His aristocratic lineage is the fundamental reason as to how he was able to become a philosopher and not a “toiler” of the times; how he was fortunate enough to be exposed to hidden or suppressed knowledge; and why he is widely remembered in books to this day although he offered very little wisdom, and even less respect, to the human race.  The ‘cult of fire’ that he was most likely involved with would have been the Illuminati itself.  It can be seen that they would need to drive society into an increasingly fragmented situation so that they could control the factions and play each side against the other.  The goal would be worldwide destruction of the masses and the survival of and world control by the elites of which Heraclitus was a member.

Heraclitus was a misanthrope who generally loathed humanity, especially the masses, even comparing them to dogs.  He believed strife was necessary in life and that war was a positive occurrence.  Ironically, he loathed philosophy and those who strove for truth – asserting they could not find truth, only opinion; and of all the philosophers he had the most scorn for Pythagoras.

Pythagoras (570-495 BC?) was a great teacher of the Quadrivium: the sacred arts of Number, Geometry, Harmony/Music & Cosmology/Astronomy.  He believed that Number was the root of knowledge – that the eternal essence of number is the most providential principle of the universe, of heaven and earth and the intermediate nature.

Pythagoras is discussed several times throughout this website.  Here we provide an overview.

Pythagoras was born around 570 BCE and died around 495 BCE. Manly P. Hall tells us in the Secret Teachings of All Ages that strange legends surround his birth. His life parallels the life of Jesus in many fascinating ways leading us to believe that the accounts of his life are more mythological than strictly accurate.  “The name Pythagoras itself must be a conferred name,” Anne Macaulay tells us.  “For it means “pithia” Apollo’s temple and “agoras” the place.  As the Apollo establishments were in a crisis point at the time of Pythagoras, it would appear that he was commissioned to make the secret wisdom public for the first time.”

Pythagoras was believed to have come from an immaculate conception like Jesus. They were both natives of Mediterranean countries. They both had fathers who were prophetically informed that their wife would bring forth a son who would be a benefactor of mankind. They were both born when their mother was on a journey. Both of their mothers claimed to have had contact with a ‘holy ghost’ and both were known as the ‘son of God.’

Pythagoras was thoroughly knowledgeable in Oriental and Occidental esotericism (as was Jesus Christ).  He was instructed by Rabbis in the secret traditions of Moses and initiated into the following Mysteries: Egyptian, Babylonian, Chaldean, Isis (in Egypt), Adonis (in Syria); Chaldeans (in Babylon), and Brahmins (in Hindustan).

He coined the word philosopher – meaning ‘one who is attempting to find out’ and he demanded of all who came to him for study a familiarity with arithmetic, music, astronomy, and geometry.  Philosophy, in the beginning, was a word that meant the nurturing of a right relationship between the individual and the Universe or God.

He conceived mathematics to be the most sacred and exact of all the sciences yet he was primarily a ‘religious’ teacher.  “Pythagoras’s bringing of these three together – religious, scientific and philosophic – in a new way, with a social and artistic vision also,” writes Christopher Bamford, “is what from ancient times accorded him the status, quite specifically, of a religious genius, one blessed with a religious revelation or mission.”

All show us Pythagoras as a man who, because of his views on cosmic order, felt called upon to form and lead a human community to teach people to take their appropriate place in the cosmos.  He thus established a community where all the members were of mutual assistance to one another in the common attainment of the higher sciences.  He affirmed as cosmic law the primary principle of universal amity or friendship which could be achieved by temperance, responsibility, affection, honesty, respect and spontaneity.

“The tension between scientific investigation and a religious life which creates so much discord in our age seems to have produced harmony for the Pythagoreans,” writes Arthur G. Zajonc

He introduced the discipline of retrospection as essential to the development of the spiritual mind. He taught nothing to his disciples before the discipline of silence – silence being the first rudiment of contemplation.

Christopher Bamford explains the process of entry to the Pythagorean community: “First, an oral interview; next, a probationary period of observation; then a period of neglect, a three year residency on the periphery of the community; then, finally, entrance into the community, which began with a five-year silence.  During this period one could listen, but not question; music and chanting were daily employed, both as purification and as worship – and there was dancing.  At then center of these he placed a religious emphasis: for the young, philosophy; for the Elders, the Temple of the Muses; and for the women, leadership in devotion.

Next came the real mathematics or practices; arithmetic, geometry, theory of music, stereometry, astronomy, music.  These were still a means and not an end…The one end of Pythagorean philosophy was to become a producer of genuine knowledge.  That through which the mind understands is one with that through which the world is created, so that knowledge of mind is knowledge of creation.”

They key is thus the reunion of mind and nature, being and becoming, humanity and the universe…in short, the redemption and transfiguration of the Cosmos.

The God of Pythagoras was the Monad, or the ‘One that is Everything’, “the Supreme Mind distributed throughout all parts of the universe – the Cause of all things, the Intelligence of all things, and the Power within all things,” writes Manly P. Hall.  The Pythagorean Monad can be described as a homogeneous field of imperishable monadic units, analogous to the cosmic Aether of Western science and to the mythic image of creation arising from a vast, undifferentiated vibratory ocean.  This Monad also refers to Universal Consciousness defined as pure Unity infinitely replicating itself as monadic units.  “The undifferentiated monadic field must be configured as Form-Idea in order to express its being,” Robert Lawlor tells us.  “Everything which exists has a form.  Form is the antagonist of limitlessness and makes possible both quantity and quality.  Form is the fixing of Number into realized relationships.”

The ‘Motion of God’ was circular and the ‘Nature of God’ was truth.

The ‘Body of God’ was composed of light.  Pythagorean science was attempting to build an entire cosmology on observations of the laws of sound frequencies assuming a fundamental qualitative identity between light and sound.  Thus the symbolism and essence of light actually figured very heavily into Pythagorean philosophy.  Robert Lawlor explains: “The Pythagorean philosophy begins with the examination of the structure of number and geometric symbol, exploring their inner relationships with the natural world and the worlds of mind, both of which are, in the Pythagorean sense, fabrications of light…Visible light is of the same nature as sound except that it has attained a critical velocity.  The expression of this velocity in perception is form-color.  Pythagoras said ‘Color is Form, and Form is color.’

Audible sound is then analogous to invisible light (pure light, or darkness), but at a lower octave of vibration and in a pre-formative or rudimentary phase of form expression.  The fact that sound is a form-bearing stage of vibratory organization has been amply verified in our day by audio-holography and by the science of Cymatics.  The logic of Pythagoras is [thus] the logic of light and vibration.  It is inclusive of the concept of an octave contained within an octave, but it also understands that the essential form-nature of an octave (the consonance of its proportions) is connected to all other octaves through resonance…The Pythagorean inquiry into the relationship between symbol and reality does not have an historical termination, but continues whenever we understand more precisely the world of light in which we live and which lives in us.”

Pythagoras taught reincarnation. Proclus says that the Pythagoreans recognized that everything we call learning is remembering.  Robert Lawlor explains, “Pythagoras believed that only by gaining control over the release of the KA [the emanating energy field or ‘double’] and by remembering what was learned and experienced during the journeys could one gain access to memories of previous incarnations and thus consciously participate in the developmental process occurring lifetime after lifetime.  The value of the conscious journey of the double was the revelation of the interrelatedness of the individual with his complete ancestral lineage as well as of one’s destiny within the entire cosmic process.  The other important aspect of what should be a universal human initiatic process is that the fear of death subsides as one develops a sense of and familiarity with the presence and control of the double…The KA [double] is that which generates all that is truly physically beautiful or repellent and deceitful. Like Narcissus, if we do not acknowledge the soul as the source of Truth, Beauty and Reality within our own nature, we lock ourselves into illusionary, materialistic fascinations and empty egoistic conquest.”

Pythagoras also taught moderation in all things rather than excess in anything. He warned his disciples when they pray they should not pray for themselves. He declared eating meat clouded the reasoning faculties, and he discovered music had great therapeutic power.

He was opposed to surgery in all its forms and would not permit the disfigurement of the body. He also believed all planets were alive and suns and planets were magnificent deities worthy of adoration and respect.

“Pythagoras was felt to augur a new kind of being, the possibility of a new kind of being,” Robert Lawlor writes.  “Or rather that consciousness manifested a new religious or redemptive possibility in Pythagoras.”

He taught the following things:

“All bonds without friendship are shackles, and there is no virtue in their maintenance.”

“Knowledge is the fruitage of mental accumulation.”

“Wisdom is the understanding of the source or cause of all things.”

“Above all things, respect yourself.”

“Do not yield to temptation except when you agree to be untrue to yourself.”

“Men come to life as to a festival: most come to buy and sell and compete in the many competitions that are offered, but some come simply to observe, revere and contemplate the order, beauty and purpose of what is occurring, the golden unifying thread of essential wisdom that holds, binds all together.”

“And thou shalt know that Law hath established the inner nature of all things alike.”

A symbol of his thinking was the “Pythagorean Y” which represented the “Forking of the Ways”.  It symbolized the power of choice and the responsibility of free will.  Manly P. Hall explains, “The neophyte must then choose whether he will take the left-hand path and, following the dictates of his lower nature, enter upon a span of folly and thoughtlessness which will inevitably result in his undoing, or whether he will take the right-hand road and through integrity, industry, and sincerity ultimately regain union with the immortals in the superior spheres.”

Hall continues, “Pythagoras believed that ultimately man would reach a state where he would cast off his gross nature and function in a body of spiritualized aether which would be in juxtaposition to his physical form at all times and which might be the eighth sphere.”

Pythagoras, as is discussed in other articles, developed a complex and beautiful system of mathematics, geometry, music and color.  He said: “All things consist of three” and “Establish the triangle and the problem is two-thirds solved.”  For him numbers began at 3 (triangle) and 4 (square).  Adding to those 1 & 2, the parents of numbers, gave 10.  Ten, the Decad, represented the great number of all things and the archetype of the universe.  He also regarded the symmetric (Platonic) solids with the greatest importance.

Symbolic Aphorism of Pythagoras

39 sayings were gathered together by Iamblichus and translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor.  Ten of the most representative are included here from Manly P. Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

1. “Declining from the public ways, walk in unfrequented paths.” – Those who desire wisdom must seek it in solitude.
2. “Govern your tongue before all other things, following the gods.” – warns man that his words, instead of representing him, misrepresent him; when in doubt as to what to say, say nothing.
3. “The wind blowing, adore the sound.” – the fiat of God is heard in the elements; all things in Nature manifest through harmony, rhythm, and order.
4. “Assist a man in raising a burden; but do not assist him in laying it down.” – aid the diligent but never assist those who seek to evade their responsibilities.
5. “Speak not about Pythagoric concerns without light.” – do not attempt to interpret the mysteries of God without spiritual and intellectual illumination.
6. “Having departed from your house, turn not back; for the furies will be your attendants.” – Any who begin the search for truth and after having learned part of the mystery, become discouraged and attempt to return again to their former ways of vice and ignorance, will suffer exceedingly, for it is better to know nothing about Divinity than to learn a little and then stop without learning all.
7. “Nourish a cock, but sacrifice it not; for it is sacred to the sun and moon.” – do not sacrifice living things, all life is sacred; and the human body (referred to as a cock) is sacred to the sun (God) and the moon (Nature) and should be guarded and preserved.
8. “Receive not a swallow into your house.” – do not allow drifting thoughts to come into the mind nor shiftless persons to enter your life.  Surround yourself with rationally inspired thinkers and conscientious workers.
9. “Offer not your right hand easily to anyone.” – do not offer wisdom and knowledge to those incapable of appreciating them. Those who do not desire wisdom would rather cut off the hand.  Time alone can effect the redemption of the masses.
10. “When rising from the bedclothes, roll them together, and obliterate the impression of the body.” – those awakening from the sleep of ignorance, eliminate from all memory their former spiritual darkness; for a wise man in passing leaves no form behind him which others less intelligent, seeing, shall use as a mold for the casting of idols.

The Beginning of the End

Robert Lawlor tells us: “The sixth century held the lives of Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao-Tse, all of the Hebrew prophets along with all the major Greek poets, artists, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians.  The acclaimed historic encyclopedia The Timetables of History, reports the sixth century BC as ‘the zenith of human wisdom and achievement’.

By the time of Pythagoras, however, it seemed as though meaning and object were coming apart, the Gods were growing silent, meaning seemed to be moving to another dimension.  As it did so, the senses were increasingly seen to betray and mislead.

Pythagorean philosophy following the Renaissance divided into the two branches which can be recognized in contemporary society as the extremes of religion or mysticism versus empirical sciences and productivity drive economies.”  Thus the split of Unity had begun and the extreme polarities of religious dogma and scientific dogma were slowly gaining ground.

Eleatic School – The Beginning Split of Unity – 570-480 BC

The Eleatic School was founded by Xenophanes (570-475 BC) who declared God was “one and incorporeal, in substance and figure round, in no way resembling man; that He is all sight and all hearing, but breathes not; that He is all things, the mind and wisdom, not generate but eternal, impassible, immutable, and rational.”

He believed all existing things were eternal, that the world was without beginning or end, and that everything which was generated was subject to corruption.

Parmenides (515-460 BC) from Greater Greece/Southern Italy studied under Xenophanes.  He believed in a basic principle of the universe – that it was a unique and unchangeable Being.  He declared the senses to be uncertain and reason the only criterion of truth and he considered change to be impossible and regarded the changes we seem to perceive in the world as mere illusions of the senses.  Note a major split here in thinking from Heraclitus.

Parmenides

Zeno of Elea (490-430 BC) was another of the Eleatic school who rejected the idea of a vacuum in space and conceived Deity to be spherical in shape (like Xenophanes).  He invented dialectic which was popularized by Socrates and Plato.  Dialectic is the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions.

Melissus (5th century BC) was third and last in Eleatic school.  He declared the universe was an immovable universe and he also rejected the theory of a vacuum in space.

Greek Atomists – Early Dualistic Materialism

The Greek Atomists drew a clear line between spirit and matter, picturing matter as being made of several ‘basic building blocks’ – purely passive and intrinsically dead particles moving in the void.  The cause of their motion was not explained.  It was often associated with external forces which were assumed to be of spiritual origin and fundamentally different from matter.

Leucippus (5th century BC) held the Universe to consist of two parts: one full, the other vacuum.  He said, “From the Infinite a host of minute fragmentary bodies descended into the vacuum, where, through continual agitation, they organized themselves into spheres of substance.”

Democritus (460-370 BC) reduced all phenomena to the motions and interactions of hard indestructible atoms and declared the principles of all things to be twofold: atoms and vacuum.  He said both are infinite – atoms in number and vacuum in magnitude.  Atoms possessed two properties:  form and size, both characterized by infinite variety.  He also conceived the Soul to be atomic in structure and dissolved with the body.  The mind, he thought, was composed of “spiritual atoms”.

Socrates (469-399 BC)

Through questionings Socrates caused each man to give expression to his own philosophy.  He conceived every place as appropriate for teaching in that the whole world was a school of virtue.  He held that the soul existed before the body and prior to immersion therein, was endowed with all knowledge.  When the soul entered into the material form it became stupefied, but that by discourses upon sensible objects it was caused to reawaken and to recover its original knowledge.  Socrates also declared philosophy to be the way of true happiness and its purpose twofold: to contemplate God and to abstract the soul from corporeal sense.

In general, Socrates was not an ascetic though he did profess a love of virtue, an indifference to wealth and had a disdain for general opinion.

Jeremy Nadlyer writes that Socrates was “less concerned to know the will of the gods than to follow the Delphic maxim of knowing oneself, and from this starting point to strive to know how to act rightly, in conformity with virtue.  This, for Socrates, is the key to human happiness.”

Socrates was Plato’s teacher.  They were both members of the elite aristocratic bloodlines.

Menedemus (345-260 BC) – member of little known Elean sect (later Eretrian)

When his opinions were demanded, he answered that he was free, intimating that most men were enslaved to their opinions.  He had a somewhat belligerent temperament and often returned from his lectures badly bruised.  He is relatively unknown but included here because he sounds humorous.

Cynics – founded by Antisthenes of Athens (444-365? BC)

The Cynics taught a doctrine of extreme individualism which considered man as existing for himself alone and advocated surrounding him by disharmony, suffering and direst need that he may thereby be driven to retire more completely into his own nature.  They often renounced all worldly possessions and lived in the rudest shelters and subsisted upon the coarsest and simplest food.  They also affirmed those whose needs were fewest consequently approached closest to the divinities.  They were called to reject all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame and were told to live a life free of all possessions.  Basically they were taking the teachings of Socrates to extreme levels.

Antisthenes of Athens

This belief system corresponds to some eastern ascetic sects of Hinduism and Buddhism and has strong parallels with early Christianity.  Some even view Jesus Christ as a Jewish Cynic.

Cyrenaic Sect – founded by Aristippus of Cyrene (435-365? BC) – Hedonism

The Cyreniacs lived the philosophy that the quest of pleasure was the chief purpose in life.  They were hedonists.  Their beliefs include:

• “All that is actually known concerning any object or condition is the feeling which it awakens in man’s own nature.”
• “Pleasure (especially of a physical nature) is the true end of existence and exceeds in every way mental and spiritual enjoyments.”
• “Pleasure, furthermore, is limited wholly to the moment; Now is the only time.”

Academics – founded by Plato (427-347 BC)

There was a threefold constitution of Platonic philosophy – ethics; physics; and dialectics.  The Platonists defined good as threefold in character:  good in the soul, expressed through the virtues; good in the body, expressed through the symmetry and endurance of the parts; and good in the external world, expressed through social position and companionship.

They thought: “The One is the term most suitable for defining the Absolute, since the whole precedes the parts and diversity is dependent on unity, but unity not on diversity.”

They believed learning is really reminiscence, or the bringing into objectivity of knowledge formerly acquired by the soul in a previous state of existence.

Written above the entrance of the Platonic school in the academy was: “Let none ignorant of geometry enter here.”  Geometry was obviously a very important part of Platonism and this stemmed from the teachings of Pythagoras.

Plato and his student Plotinus agreed that the universe was divinely created and that nonhuman intelligences, including the stars, share in the immortal soul.

Plato believed that there is a divine element without the human psyche and that if one is to attain eudaimonia (happiness) then it is not to the gods without, but the psyche within, that one must turn one’s attention.

John Michell writes in The Dimensions of Paradise, “Constantly in mind was the problem of translating [Plato’s] knowledge into practical effect. Realizing how hopeless would be the task of persuading the mass of his fellow citizens of the benefits to be gained by social reform on ideal principles, he concentrated his influence on those who were in a position to put his ideas into practice.  At the court of Sicily he incurred the reputation of a dangerous eccentric by trying to convince the ruler, Dionysius, that he could make himself happy by devoting his life to the welfare of his subjects, and he wasted more time as tutor to the old tyrant’s son in the hope of educating him as a philosopher.  The courtiers intervened, and the ungrateful youth, hearing from them that Plato was scheming against him, not only dismissed his tutor but also sold him off as a slave.  Fortunately, a young Greek racing driver (of chariots) recognized a bargain and made himself famous as the man who purchased Plato and set him at large again.  After that experience, Plato must have realized how slim were his chances of finding a ruler qualified to play the part of philosopher-king.”

Michell continues, “If he could have written openly , he said, he would have done so.  But the result would have been to arouse the contempt and enmity of pedants and to encourage in silly people “vain aspirations as if they had learnt some sublime mystery.”

Plato – A Totalitarian Tyrant or a Wise Philosopher?

There is a debate, of course, of whether Plato was a good man – a wise philosopher – or a totalitarian tyrant and member of the negative elite.  Personally speaking, I previously held the belief that Plato was a good and righteous man who tried to uplift humanity as a whole – as Pythagoras did.  I no longer hold this belief.  Here again we meet the paradox of a group of people discovering or holding a positive belief system, yet keeping it hidden for themselves and in doing so turning it into a negative force used against humanity.

Robert Lawlor explains using the work of I.F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates, that Plato, a devoted follower of Socrates, was from a highly refined aristocratic lineage; what one would call a “genetically born ruler or Archon.”  Furthermore, Plato assumed that the “knowledge” and “virtue” necessary for rulers had been genetically bequeathed to himself.

Plato was also a believer in the institution of slavery.  This pitted him against the Sophists of the time.  The Sophist philosophers believed or proclaimed “all of humanity should be considered equal under the law: Mankind should observe carefully the ways of the natural world and deduce their laws from those observations.  Life in a city however, required additional laws that must emerge from a ‘common consent’ and affirmation by the people ‘to be governed’.  The Sophist academics wrote “The Creator has made all men free; nature has made none a slave”.  The Sophists argued against Plato’s ban on citizens learning the methods of logic, reasoning and rhetoric, and very skills that would enable them to participate in the Senate and popular assemblies.  For this, Plato, who never questioned slavery, wrote with disgust and disdain against the Sophist movement.

Plato had a habit of creating propagandist myths which increased the deformation and falsification of our history.  He manipulated an ancient legend called “The Birth of Athens”.  His goal with this falsification was to imbue this sketch, supporting his ideal totalitarian society, with a halo of great antiquity.  “It was a well-recognized principle in the circle of people close to Plato:,” Peter Kingsley tells us in The Dark Places of Wisdom, “rearrange the past to suit your purposes, put ideas of your own into the mouths of famous figures from the past, have no concern for historical details.  And Plato himself had no scruples about inventing the most elaborate fictions, about recreating history, altering people’s ages, moving dates around…The whole of Parmenides is a deliberate fiction.  It has Parmenides debate abstract Platonic theories in a way he never could have or would have: what Plato describes never happened.”

Plato also consolidated the philosopher-scholarly caste into the aristocracy, thus reviving a variation from a period in Babylonian history of the Philosopher/Priest Kings.  This same form of absolute supreme authority was re-established early in the medieval Christian Empire in the institution of the Roman Catholic Papacy.  The Roman church had undoubtedly adopted from the Platonic legacy, this form of Philosopher/Priestly Kinghood.

Another aspect of Platonic Christianity was the utilization of an ancient geometric and harmonic proportional system which Plato had co-opted from Pythagorean knowledge.  It was this harmonic design that gave the temples in Roman Christianity a tangible psycho-physical sense of other-worldly beauty and power.  The proportional spacing swept the sensibility of common people into an awe and reverence from which the church derived an element of subliminal domination and control.

The next key element in the Platonic totalitarian ideal state was the infamous “noble lie” which Plato placed on the lips of Socrates in the Republic.  Its purpose was to inculcate a sense of ineradicable inferiority in the lower and middle classes and ‘program’ them, as we would now say, for submission to the Philosopher Kings.  This aspect of Plato’s power structure became, in Roman Catholicism, the “doctrine of original sin”.  Plato not only utilizes the subliminal structure of the caste system for his “brain-washing” campaign but also a psycho-social version of “debt peonage.”  His solution was an elaborate system of state-imposed ideological indoctrination by which the ‘masses’ from childhood, would be accustomed to think of themselves as inferiors.  They were to be taught that they were born – and must remain – un-free and unequal.  They would, Plato theorized, willingly obey their self-appointed betters.  Plato’s system bears a resemblance to the compulsory public education system imposed in most modern capitalistic systems.

The next step in Plato’s transformation agenda was to restructure the military.  This meant an army of mercenary troops from foreign origins.  These ideas re-echoed in contemporary time with the United Nations plans for a “New World Order”.  Plato’s goal was to completely disarm the citizenry and to maintain foreign mercenary troops.

Thus we see the real nature of Plato’s Utopian Republic and why he forbade independent, freedom loving minds like artists and poets.  Plato’s fantasy was a utopia for totalitarian tyrants only.

One can recognize the work of Plato as the underlying doctrine of Illuminism.  Why? And who has elevated the cruel and repressive doctrines of Plato and Socrates, placing these characterizations, for centuries, upon the pedestal of academic acclaim?

Furthermore, Plato urged the bizarre practice of holding a “community of wives”, that is a group of women having the desired qualities that could reinforce certain breeding traits in the offspring of this Guardian caste.  In other words, Plato believed in a breeding program for Guardians in much the same way as breeding thoroughbred horses.

Plato and Socrates refer to the human community as “the herd” and recommend for the improvement of “the herd”, periodic episodes of “thinning-out” by its “wise shepherds” and “natural rulers.”

With Plato and Socrates we have a well-documented example of a secretly organized eugenics program.  This concept, emerging out of Plato’s secret academy also re-emerges in the 19^th century from a secret society called the “lunar circle”.  It was this clandestine group who brought forth the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin as well as the vicious eugenics breeding program of Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton.  One can also cite the obsessive goals of the 19^th century American mining magnate John D. Rockefeller who frequently pronounced the necessity of depopulation programs and who contributed large grants for eugenic research.

Plato also did not have much respect for women.  He agreed with Aristotle in the Republic that women were inferior to men. In the Timaeus, he proclaimed that unjust men who live corrupted lives would be reincarnated as women or various animal kinds.  Plato furthermoremisrepresented the popular matriarchal idea of Parmenides.  As Plato reports, Socrates at this time proclaimed, “Womanhood and maternity are simply an imitation of the birth-giving capacity of the planet.”  Socrates follows this proclamation by coining the epithet Mother-Earth and Earth-Mother.  With Plato’s mastery of language he expresses this epithet so that the signifier (Earth) systematically reduces or destroys the signified (Mother).  In effect the equivalency of Earth and the feminine reduced the role of women and maternity as having no other reality, qualities, origins nor metaphysics than that of an extended semblance of an Earthly process.

Plato also tactfully but clearly stated that it was justifiable to kill or banish any individual who did not comply in word or action with this totalitarian control.

John Michell, on the other hand, has the perspective that Plato was actually trying to help humanity.  He writes in The Dimensions of Paradise, “The strictness with which Plato defines its laws and the civic duties of its inhabitants has provided an excuse for those who dislike his hard logic to dismiss him as a totalitarian and opponent of liberty.  In fact, he was the very opposite of those things.  Plato’s intention was to free his fellow citizens from slavery and tyranny by discovering the social and psychological causes of such evils.  In the Republic is his famous account of how even the best constitutions tend to dissolve into an anarchic form of democracy, which is enjoyable for a time because everyone does exactly what he or she wants, but ultimately becomes intolerable for lack of standards, all distinctions between good and evil having been abolished.  The inevitable outcome, says Plato, is that a dictator is acclaimed to power, and he indeed provides standards of a sort, but they are merely to support his own rule.  Thus the natural, equitable laws of a canonically structured society are replaced by the arbitrary decrees of a tyrant.”

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

“The end of Aristotle’s moral philosophy is perfection through the virtues, and the end of his contemplative philosophy and union with the one principle of all things,” Manly P. Hall tells us.

Aristotle had a twofold philosophy: practical (ethics and politics); and theoretical (physics and logic).  He was one of the first to argue that space was a plenum (a background substructure filled with things) and taught his pupil Alexander the Great to feel that if he had not done a good deed he had not reined that day.  Aristotle tutored Alexander up to the age of 16.  Alexander and Aristotle were both from aristocratic bloodlines.

Aristotle systematized and organized the scientific knowledge of antiquity and created the scheme which was to be the basis of Western view of the universe for 2000 years – the scientific view of reductionism and the scientific process that fragments knowledge into ever-more complex parts and pieces with no unifying principle to hold them together.

Robert Lawlor explains: “Aristotle replaced the Platonic Ideal reality with a theory of mental abstractions which enables scientific investigation to detach or isolate with qualities or quantities from the whole and from any or all of its content.  The extended implication of Aristotle’s thought technique is well-known:  objects of sense wither away and become only items or carriers of useful data.

While Platonic ideals provide for an elevated detachment from the sensorial world, Aristotle’s thought opens onto a strange, possessive yet indifferent view of matter.  With Aristotle concreteness and exactitude belong to the sensible, empirical world, and the movement from the concrete sensible world towards abstraction means an increase in vagueness and imprecision in some instances, or precise but reductionist schemas in others.”

Jeremy Nadlyer writes in The Future of the Ancient World: “Aristotle’s philosophy marked a radical departure from the spiritual traditions of which Plato was one of the last representatives.  In his philosophy is enshrined a spirituality that does not require an ascent to the heavens in order to discover the spiritual source either of the world or of ourselves, for Spirit is engaged in the natural world and can be discovered everywhere in nature.  For Aristotle nature is the outpouring of Spirit, which is the active or creative principle in all things.  For him, the concept form does not belong to a World of Ideas separate from the world that we perceive with our senses.  The sense-perceptible world is not a copy or pale imitation of a transcendent world of spiritual archetypes.  Rather, these archetypes are embodied in the sense-perceptible world.  Spirit is utterly committed to nature.  Furthermore, in human consciousnesses Spirit has the possibility of knowing and recognizing itself.”

In this way Aristotle represents the principle of the individual reshaping philosophy for oneself, while Plato is the spokesman for a tradition.  They both, however, considered God as abstracted or distinct from the natural world.  This is in contrast to the ancient Egyptians who considered God and nature as making one whole, or all things together as making one universe.

He also believed that questions concerning the human soul and the contemplation of God’s perfection were much more valuable than investigations of the material world.  The Aristotelian model remained unchallenged for so long because of the strong hold of the Christian church which supported his doctrines throughout the Middle Ages, and this lack of interest in the material world.

Aristotle

Aristotle, of course, was a member of the aristocratic elite.  He believed unquestioningly, just as Plato did, that there are those who are born to serve and those who are born to rule.

Aristotle valued the science of projecting phantasms onto society as a useful tool for the implementation of any hierarchical power system.  This is called phantasmic activation and control.  Phantasms can emit generative seeds which fertilize notions and ideas in the collective mind so that they have a greater chance of manifesting in the real world.  In this sense they are used in the same way “predictive programming” is used today.  At its core it is psychological manipulation, pure and simple.

Robert Lawlor writes, “Aristotle and others laid particular emphasis on the power of phantasm over the masses.  Phantasms aren’t unlike the persuasive powers of modern entertainment and media.  In addition to popular cinema-graphic methods of projecting phantasmic materializations into the public mind, one must suspect that there are some less obvious aspects of this pernicious “art”.  It is possible, for example, to detect phantasmic technique operating in any consistently repeated media format in which there is a choice of content.  The audiences of these poplar formats are generally unaware of the motives for the selection of content and the implication of the order of presentation or any of the intended subliminal effects of conditioning objectives of so-called “news” items.  This sort of focusing and meddling with the so-called “factual” content of daily life renders it comparable to prepared dramas and television serials with audience empathy causing a gradual mutation in collective and individual self-esteem and identity.

The ritual of competitive sports continues to generate the heroics and phantasmic nobility of war.  The phantasm of sport is especially pernicious.  The male-dominated varieties of competitive sports incorporate physical contact, including throwing or kicking at other players various missiles that imitate rocks or bombs, or alternatively, aggressively wielding clubs, bats or spear like objects.  We are conditioned to believe these sorts of sports are the natural rough-and-tumble extension and maturation of the universal tendency of young children to “play”.  However, these sports are not “play”, they are the ritual re-enactment and reinforcement of the serious competitive instincts and skills to hunt, slay, procure and protect access to and availability of food, water, tribal territory and sexual reproduction.

“Play” is something entirely different.  As the word itself implies, it is a kind of theatrical imitation of otherness – other phase of human life, the movements, behavior or sounds of other animals, creatures or plants.  Play invariably includes interactions with other, parallel dimensions such as that of the ancestors or dreams or the realm of the dead.  These forms of play are a major aspect of indigenous culture throughout the world.  These cultures do not overemphasize the enactments of war and hunting nor, as we do, glorify the “games” of dead game and gain.

Competitive sports elevate the enactment of contentiousness and aggression within an artificial conflict situation.  The simplistic focus on winning and losing ultimately results in injury or physical disablement as well a psychological immaturity.  Competitive sport has become the mind-control device of militarily maintained hierarchical civilizations.

The frequent marching parades and public rituals, such as those for sporting events, allow governments and political organizers who employ such methods to enthrall the throngs, thus engendering a pliable national psychosis.  There is also pop music utilizing the enunciation of repetitious words accompanied by rhythms and beat patterns form implanting emotional, religious, rebellious, sentimental or sexual imagery, behavior or appetites.  One must also credit the cult of celebrity with inducing delusional identities or distractive desires for glamorous lifestyles and relationships among the impressionable.

Among the greatest phantasmic phenomena moving throughout the world, exploiting and enslaving, are money, banking and usury.”

Skeptics – propounded by Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 BC)

The Skeptics were strongly opposed to Dogmatists.  They were agnostics and held the accepted theories regarding Deity to be self-contradictory and indemonstrable.  Absolute knowledge was considered unattainable.

Stoics – founded by Zeno of Citium (340-265 BC)

Stoic philosophy was probably the most influential philosophy from the 3rd century BC to 2nd century AD.  The Stoics maintained a semi-materialistic, semi-metaphysical cosmology and philosophy.  Meekness marked the Stoic attitude.  Followers were taught to subdue rebelliousness and find holiness in subservience.  Joseph Atwill writes in Caesar’s Messiah, “The Stoic philosopher Seneca (though immensely wealthy himself) summarized his teaching as follows:

‘We talk much about despising money, and we give advice on this subject in the lengthiest of speeches, that mankind may believe true riches to exist in the mind and not in one’s bank account, and that the man who adapts himself to his slender means and makes himself wealthy on a little sum, is the truly rich man…’

Zeno of Citium

Persius’ description of the ‘benefits’ of Stoic philosophy makes it clear who really benefited from the underclass’s acceptance of it – the ruling class.  Persius wrote:

‘O poor wretches, learn, and come to know the causes of things, what we are, for what life we are born, what the assigned order is, where the turning point of the course is to be rounded gently, what limit to set on money, for what it is right to pray, what is the use of hard cash, how much you ought to spend on your country and on those near and dear to you, what kind of man God ordered you to be and where as a man you are placed.’”

It is interesting to note that in the New Testament Jesus advocates a position very close to Stoicism.  There are some, such as German philosopher and historian Bruno Bauer (1809-1882), who concluded that Christianity was an attempt by the Roman Imperial family at the time led by the Flavian Emperors to implement Stoicism on a large scale.  It would certainly be handy for wealthy elites to rule over human masses who were indoctrinated with the desire to avoid building personal wealth and power that could potentially compete with those same elites.

They were essentially pantheists who maintained there is nothing better than the world – the world is God.  Since good and evil were contrary, both were believed to be necessary since each sustains the other.  The Soul was regarded as a body distributed through the physical form and subject to dissolution with it.

In addition, as is stated in Wikipedia, “Both Stoicism and Christianity assert an inner freedom in the face of the external world, a belief in human kinship with Nature or God, a sense of the innate depravity—or “persistent evil”—of humankind, and the futility and temporary nature of worldly possessions and attachments. Both encourage Ascesis with respect to the passions and inferior emotions, such as lust, and envy, so that the higher possibilities of one’s humanity can be awakened and developed.”

“Stoicism,” writes Jeremy Naydler “was able to hold a kind of middle ground between the old consciousness and the new.  For the Stoics, God’s substance consists of the whole cosmos, within which the divine is immanent as an active ordering principle or logos. Although essentially monotheistic, Stoicism was not antipolytheisitic, embracing the old spiritual order of gods and daimones as the manifestation in diverse forms of the One.  What was different about this new cosmopolitan philosophy was the more materialistic mindset that characterized Stoic thinkers…for the Stoics, our freedom lies not in our ability to change our fate but in our ability to change our attitude toward our fate, from one of resistance and antagonism to one of acceptance.”

The philosophy of the Stoics plays an important role in the writing of the New Testament of the Bible.  This is discussed in great detail in Joseph Atwill’s Caesar’s Messiah.

Epicureans – founded by Epicurus of Samos (341-270 BC)

The Epicureans posited pleasure as the most desirable state, but conceived it to be a grave and dignified state achieved through renunciation of those mental and emotional inconsistencies which are productive of pain and sorrow.  They held that as the pains of the mind and soul are more grievous than those of the body, so the joys of the mind and soul exceed those of the body.

They also had a belief in the probabilistic path of atoms which is in line with contemporary quantum mechanics.

Epicurus of Samos

Library of Alexandria

One of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world was the Library of Alexandria in Egypt.  It included maps, mathematics, science, art, philosophy, ancient history and ancient mystery teachings.  It was founded around 295 BC by Ptolemy, a general of Alexander the Great.  It was targeted and destroyed several times:

1. First burning – 48 BC by Julius Caesar – partial destruction
2. Second burning – (270-275 AD) by Emperor Aurelian
3. Third destruction – 391 AD by Emporer Theodosius 1 – made paganism illegal by decree
4. Fourth possible destruction – AD 642 – Muslim conquest of Egypt by Amr ibn al Aas, however this is generally believed to be untrue.

There are strong beliefs that reasonably assume the documents were not destroyed but moved to the Vatican Library and hidden away to be accessed only by those in the elite Catholic power structure.  There are also beliefs that maintain these documents were hidden in the Alhambra in Spain and later stolen and taken to the Vatican.  This infusion of knowledge into the Muslim cultures would explain the Islamic Golden Age – a period of cultural, economic, artistic and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam from the 8^th century to the 14^th century.  During the Islamic Golden Age the Europeans were plunged into ignorance and remained in the “Dark Ages” until the Renaissance began in the 15^th and 16^th centuries when this same mathematical, scientific and artistic knowledge became available in Italy – home of the Vatican.

Neo-Platonism – (204-269 BC)

In the teachings of Neo-Platonism ancient idealism found its most perfect expression.  It was concerned almost exclusively with the problems of higher metaphysics.  As Manly P Hall wrote, they “conceived every physical or concrete body of doctrine to be merely the shell of a spiritual verity which may be discovered through meditation and certain exercises of a mystic nature.”  Corporeal bodies of religion and philosophy were thus considered relatively of little value.

Hypatia – daughter of Theon the mathematician – was for many years the central figure in the Alexandrian school.  She was virtuous, charming, and intelligent, with integrity and absolute devotion to the principles of Truth and Right.  She proved the pagan origin of the Christian faith and exposed the miracles of divine preference by demonstrating the natural laws controlling the phenomena. She also explained in her lectures how Christianity had evolved out of the Mystery schools and pagan religions of the past and she argued that no single tradition or doctrine could have exclusive claim to the truth.

Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, was the cause of her tragic end.  He saw her as a menace to the promulgation of Christianity.  Therefore she was attacked and brutally murdered in 415 AD, putting an end to Neo-Platonism in Alexandria.

Neo-Pythagoreans – 1st century of the Christian era – Alexandria

Neo-Pythagoreans put a special emphasis on the mystery of numbers, as the original Pythagoreans had.  They hoped to stimulate interest in the deeper systems of learning.  Not surprisingly this did not take well.  The mass of humanity was awakening to the importance of physical life and physical phenomena and were more interested in things of a materialist nature.

There have been many seekers and many perspectives of truth.  To that end Michael Schneider reminds us, “We cannot and should not expect to rediscover the full body of ancient wisdom by studying dusty monuments and myths full of idioms and subtle references understood only by those who lived at the time.  The perennial wisdom requires each individual and age to discover it anew in external mathematics, expressing it in ways and symbols suitable for those times and culture.”

In the next few articles we will deeply examine the origins, concepts and politics surrounding Christianity.  It is fascinating stuff!

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