#neo-platonism

[dark-forest-witchcraft]

Cultural Appropriation or “Closed Traditions” in Occultism

What does borrowing mean in Occultism? Hermetic Qabalists are pagans.  We spell Qabalah, with a Q, to indicate that we are pagan Qabalists. 

[canadianabroadvery]

Emery now and then I like to go for a swim in the deep end. This lecture goes there but remember these are intellectuals they do not shall we say, have a talent for presentation . Skip the introduction go for the meat like Neo-Platonism teaches :

Dorothy Tarrant Lecture: Homeric Authority in the Service of Pagan Polemic. Poetic Allusions in Eunapius’ 'Lives of Philosophers and Sophists'

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

I love all of this for you Ficino.

Marsilio, never change

He’s dead so he can’t

[academicatheism]

The depiction of the god of Genesis as ignorant, foolish, and even malicious may be the feature of Gnostic mythology that most offended other ancient Christians and still puzzles modern readers. We have already noted that philosophically inclined Jews and Christians agreed that the creator god in Genesis resembled the craftsman god of Plato’s Timaeus and was not the highest God, but the Gnostics took a much less positive view of this divine being. Their view most likely developed from passages in the Bible that portray God as ignorant and wrathful. The god of Genesis, after all, walks in an earthly garden and must ask where Adam is (Genesis 3:8–9); he concludes that his creation of humanity and animals was a mistake and decides to destroy all people, except for a single family and a few beasts (6:5–22); and he later annihilates entire cities by raining sulfur and fire down upon them (19:24–25). Such passages troubled many pious readers of the Bible in antiquity: some learned interpreters argued that these events are not literally true, but have spiritual meanings; others attributed these actions to a lower, less perfect manifestation of God, his “presence” or his “word.” The Gnostics solved this problem simply: this god is as ignorant, vain, and hostile to human beings as he appears. Therefore, he must not be truly divine, not truly God, but Ialdabaoth. Moses failed to recognize this fact, and thus Genesis, which he wrote, provides only a partially reliable account of creation, Adam and Eve, and their progeny.

Brakke, David. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. 64. Print. 

[natasa-pantovic]

History repeats itself and Plato about Arts History repeats itself. And people forget about history. There is no easy fix. It is easy to think that wars are in the past, that society has changed and it will never happen again. As memory fades, Gaia’s…

#Plato in the Republic rejects any form of illusionism in art. He calls it mimesis or ‘imitation’. This has also created a question what is the Greek word “mimesis”? And why does this matter?

What we have not full knowledge of, we cannot reproduce. Presumably this is the reason why all the monotheistic religions (Protestant Christianity, Islam, Judaism) had an explicit problem with art and artists trying to imitate the knowledge of god, its image, his son, soul, Universe, etc. The imitation occurs in many instances, when an artist uses a portrait of a dead person to recreate his-own interpretation of the person. But Plato goes beyond it. #philosophy #history @natasa-pantovic​

[artofthemindblog]

“Plato seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were - a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.”

-- Aldous Huxley,

The Doors of Perception

image

[suraanahita]

“Hence the inscrutable God is called silent by the divine ones*, and is said to consent with Mind, and to be known to human souls through the power of the Mind alone.”

(Proclus in Theologiam Platonis, 321.)

• • •

The mind or “the lights of the mind”(consciousness) is called the seat of the soul in the account of the world and its relationship to the body in the Bundahishn. Also noted is its equivalence as Ahura Mazda. :)

“[...] Life, and every light along with life, intelligence, conscience, and others of this class belong to Ohrmazd.”

“Just as the seat of Ohrmazd is in the endless lights, his access is to the abode of harmony, and His energy has reached everywhere, the seat of the soul too is in the crown of the head, its home is in the heart, and its energy has reached the entire body.”

Known to human souls through the power of the Mind alone... Hmm. Even disregarding the above points, I remember now how Asho Zartosht received Ahura Mazda’s wisdom and became enlightened...

It was by (his) Vohu Manah, aka “Good Mind.”

“In Yasna 28.4, 1st rhymed verse line, “the higher sense/good intuitive mind” vôhü man.aηhá takes the soul, consciousness ûrván to the abode of music/songs gairæ and heaven of inspiring ideas méñ dadæ.” (Herbad Farahmand)

• • •

*Concerning Neo-Platonic (Proclus specifically) thought, these are the Henads...

“The particular characteristic of Proclus's system is his elaboration of a level of individual ones, called henads, between the One (monad) which is before being and intelligible divinity. The henads exist "superabundantly," also beyond being, but they stand at the head of chains of causation...”

Proclus identifies these as the Greek gods. So in the Zoroastrian case, we can understand these instead as the Amesha Spentas or Yazatas! :-)

[the-funtime-autocrat]

Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.

Plato.