"Athena is the intelligence of Zeus, being the same thing as his providence [pronoia], which is why temples are founded to ‘Athena Pronoia.’ She is said to have been born from the head of Zeus perhaps because the ancients got the idea that the ruling part of our souls is there—as others after them have thought—but perhaps because the head is the highest part of the human body, as the aether, which is its ruling part and the substance of its wisdom, is the highest part of the cosmos. ... Her virginity is a symbol of her being pure and unstained: that is what virtue is like. Athena is depicted armed, and the story is that she was born like that, which points out that wisdom is sufficiently well equipped for the greatest and most difficult deeds—for martial [deeds] strike us as the greatest."

Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, Greek Theology 20

"Hence the world is the statue of the intelligible Gods ... But it is a statue in motion, and full of life, and deity; fashioned from all things within itself; preserving all things, and filled with an at-once-collected abundance of all good from the father."

Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato 239B

"Hail unto you, O Lord Jupiter, you blessed one, happy and serene, Lord of Law, Justice, Fairness and Conscientiousness, you who are wise in religion, ascetic [sic], mighty, high-minded, bringer of good fortune, noble, elevated, powerful, subjugator, granting honour, you who keep treaties, who are upright in love and of noble nature! We ask you, O father, by your noble, beautiful attributes and your precious deeds, grant us wealth and prosperity, and a portion of that which one desires in this world, O source of good deeds, fulfiller of wishes. Hail unto you, you exalted magnificent great star, good-natured, you who take care of the concerns of the wise and who prepare a way for the spirits of the pure and who help those drowning in the depths of the sea and calling for help! From your light, from your spirit, from your pneuma, overflow on us, that thereby our concern may be furthered, that the completion of our affairs be good and the impurity of our nature washed from us. O Rufija'il, you angel who are set over Jupiter, Lord of the Sixth Sphere, joyful and serene, complete, consummate, pious, lord of beautiful garb, of dignity and of insight, far from all that is filthy, far from vulgar speech! We invoke you by all your names: in Arabic O MUSTARI, in Persian O BIRGIS, in Iranian O HURMUZ, in Greek O ZEUS, in Hindi O WIHASFATI! By the Lord of the Highest Edifice, of good deeds and mercy, let flow upon us and our children and those who belong to us your peace and the light of your noble pneuma, which is bound to higher powers, that thereby you may watch over our affairs, increase our goods and take away from us all care for our earthly sustenance, that our life be blessed, comfortable, pleasant, and overflow with fullness. Come, grant us a sign of thy presence!"

This very Indo-European prayer is actually preserved in a medieval Arabic book of astrology called Picatrix but which evidently preserved ancient European traditions.

"[Dialectic] is actually the capacity to say what each thing is, and in what way it differs from other things, and what it has in common with them, and in what and where each of these is, and if it is what it is, and how many Beings there are and, again, how many non-Beings there are, different from Beings. ... Then, it remains still, in stillness to the extent that it is in the intelligible world, no longer busying itself with many things, but having become one [with its objects], it just looks."

Plotinus, Enneads 1.3.4

I'm begging you to stop proclaiming your strong opinions about ancient philosophical traditions if you have not made a serious, good faith effort to learn about them on their own terms. You are being irresponsible.

- CWT Admin

"The reason it is hard to fight against passion is that it buys what it wants at the expense of the soul."

Heraclitus, fragment KRS 240

Where are the Vedas of Europe?

They are in front of us and have been with us for millennia: we only need to recognize them for what they are.

Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Virgil, Ovid, Plotinus, Proclus, and all the rest - these form the Golden Chain of Western spiritual wisdom.

- CWT Admin

"Then Lucilius said: 'The first point seems scarcely to need affirming. What can be so obvious and clear, as we gaze up at the sky and observe the heavenly bodies, as that there is some divine power of surpassing intelligence by which they are ordered? If this were not the case, how could Ennius have won general assent with the words

Behold this dazzling vault on high, which all
Invoke as Jupiter!

and not merely as Jupiter, but also as the lord of creation, governing all things by his nod, and ... as 'father of gods and men', an attentive and supremely powerful God?'"

Cicero, The Nature of the Gods 2.4

"Bacchus therefore, is the mundane intellect, from which the soul and body of the world are suspended."

Thomas Taylor/Proclus, Theology of Plato 7.33

"A man was chopping wood by a certain river when he dropped his axe and it was carried away by the current. The man then sat down on the riverbank and began to weep. The god Hermes finally took pity on the man and appeared before him. When Hermes learned the reason for his sorrow, he brought up a golden axe and asked whether that was the man's axe. The man said that it was not his. A second time, Hermes brought up a silver axe, and again asked the man if this was the axe he had lost but the man said that it was not. The third time Hermes brought up the axe that the man had lost and when the man recognized his axe, Hermes rewarded the man's honesty by giving all of the axes to him as a gift. The man took the axes and went to tell his friends what had happened. One of the men was jealous and wanted to do the same thing, so he took his axe and went to the river. He began chopping some wood and then intentionally let his axe fall into the whirling waters. As he was weeping, Hermes appeared and asked him what had happened, and the man said that he had lost his axe. When Hermes brought up the golden axe and asked the man if that was the axe he had lost, the greedy man got excited and said that it was the one. Not only did the man fail to receive any gifts from the god, he didn't even retrieve his own axe."

Aesop, The Man, Hermes, and the Axes Perry 173

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God isn’t wonderful because he is fabulously wealthy, or because he’s so powerful he can control the thunder and lightning. What makes him so great is his limitless knowledge and awareness. The purpose of our work as priests and priestesses is to attain knowledge of him, the first, the supreme ruler, the ideal one.

The search for truth requires intense study and concentration. This quest is more holy than any other and is most pleasing to the goddess you worship. Indeed when Typhon, her enemy, rips the sacred texts to shreds, it is Isis who collects them together again, and entrusts them to those initiated in the holy mysteries.

Plutarch (Priest of Apollo) to Clea (Priestess of Isis)

"[Gobryas] learned from some bronze tablets, which Opis and Hecaerge had brought from the Hyperboreans, that the soul, after its release from the body, goes to the Place Unseen, to a dwelling beneath the earth. Here the palace of Pluto is not inferior to the court of Zeus ... The gates on the way to Pluto's palace are protected by iron bolts and bars. When the gates swing open, the river Acheron, and then the river Cocytus, receives those who are to be ferried across to Minos and Rhadamanthus, in what is called the Plain of Truth. There sit judges who interrogate everyone who arrives about what kind of life he has lived and what sorts of activities he engaged in while he dwelled in his body. It is impossible to lie.

Now those who were inspired by a good daemon during their lifetimes go to reside in a place for the pious ... There is a certain place of honor for those who are initiated, and there they perform their sacred rites. ... Legend tells us that Heracles and Dionysus, before their descents into the realm of Hades, were initiated in this world, and supplied by the Eluesinian goddess with courage for their journeys yonder.

But those who have wasted their lives in wickedness are led by the Erinyes to Erebus and Chaos through Tartarus, where there is a place for the impious ..."

pseudo-Plato, Axiochus 371a-e

The three core dogmas of classical theology:

1. The Gods exist.
The Gods really exist. They are not metaphors or social constructs, nor are they merely anthropomorphic depictions of natural phenomena. This does not mean myths should be understood literally.

2. The Gods govern the universe well and justly.

3. The Gods cannot be corrupted.
Gods cannot be bribed, manipulated, or tricked. They cannot be influenced for evil by anyone or anything.

I do not claim that all classical pagans accepted these three things, only that they are true, that there was something close to a consensus on them (especially in the philosophical literature) and that they are an excellent set of parameters for us to operate in.

- CWT Admin

"But what good and virtuous man can be miserable? Truly this is an ill-governed universe if Zeus doesn't set out to ensure that his own fellow citizens should be happy like himself. No, that is unthinkable; it is sheer impiety to suppose any such thing, and if Odysseus shed tears and wept, then he wasn't a good man. For how can someone be good if he doesn't know who he is? And who would know that if he'd forgotten that everything that comes into being is bound to perish, and that it isn't possible for one human being to live with another for ever and a day? What follows, then? That to desire the impossible is the mark of a slave and a fool; it is the behaviour of one who is a stranger in the world, and is fighting against God through the only means that is available to him, through his own judgements."

Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.18-21

"If a good man sacrifices to the gods and keeps them constant company in his prayers and offerings and every kind of worship he can give them, this will be the best and noblest policy he can follow."

Plato, Laws 716d

"Much more wonderful than these [kinds of friendship], however, were what [the Pythagoreans] established about partnership in divine goods, and about unity of intellect and the divine soul. For they often encouraged one another not to disperse the god within themselves. At any rate, all their zeal for friendship, both in words and deeds, aimed at some kind of mingling and union with God, and at communion with intellect and with the divine soul. For no one could find anything better, either in words spoken or in ways of life practiced, than this kind of friendship."

Iamblichus, De Vita Pythagorica 33.240

Metaphysics is good.

The earliest extant European examples of metaphysics are not terribly younger than the written record. It turns out that Europe has an awful lot of metaphysics and that it more than holds its own against the metaphysics of any other region or religion.

The idea that we should throw it out is absurd nonsense and a great example of the sort of self-defeating foolishness that has plagued the pagan community (and, I'm sorry to say, the Germanic pagan community in particular) for as long as I've been pagan.

Just like material science, metaphysics (and philosophy in general) is a product of curiosity about the reality we live in, a reality that derives from and is shaped by the Gods. It is, therefore, a pious pursuit, at its best. It informs us about God and brings us closer to divinity.

On a more practical note, we need it in order to defend ourselves against inevitable attacks from other religions. As paganism continues to grow, you can rest assured that we will, sooner or later, face serious challenges by intelligent and well-educated practitioners of Christianity, Islam, and other religions. We will not be treated with the kid gloves reserved for other ethnic traditions. Our debate opponents will not always be animecrusader123 on Twitter and the like. They will be sharp and sophisticated and polished. If we are not prepared for that, we will lose battles we should win.

But, more importantly, metaphysics and all spiritual sciences enlarge, clarify, and invigorate our spirituality and our communion with the Gods.

- CWT Admin

Socrates instead of Jesus; Plato instead of Paul. Proclus instead of Aquinas. Instead of the Psalms, the Homeric and Orphic Hymns. Instead of the Beatitudes, the Golden Verses. The Cave instead of the Crucifixion. Instead of the parables, the Choice and Labors of Hercules. Instead of the Old Testament histories, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Metamorphoses and the Aeneid.

The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.

Plotinus

"Accustom yourself to control these:
First of all, gluttony, sloth, lust,
and anger."

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras 9-11