📖BOOK RELEASE
"A viable non-Christian European spirituality has long been lacking. The steady decline of Christianity since the 16th century has coincided on one hand with the technological, economic, and political ascent of Europe and the United States, but on the other, with social breakdown, moral erosion, and atheism. While some urge a return to the Church and others look East, we believe the answers lie in Athens and Rome. The Western classical corpus—for Europe what the Upanishads are for India—undergirds and guides our civilization, and we risk losing our way forever if we continue to abandon it. From the wisdom of Plato and Homer to the teleological science of Aristotle and Hippocrates, our inheritance is profound and by no means limited to Christianity—the cave has been with us longer than the cross."

We are pleased to release Volume One of The Flower of the Mind. A treasury of timeless ethical writings, this book is for those seeking an alternative or supplemental spirituality rooted in tradition.

"As prior to the greater mysteries the lesser are delivered, so a disciplinary training must precede the study and acquisition of philosophy."

Iamblichus, Exhortation to Philosophy Chapter 2 gnômê 13

"We first require the training which comes from the ethical works, in which we receive ethical teachings not demonstratively, but in conformity with correct opinion, in accordance with the natural innate concepts we have concerning beings. If Aristotle’s Ethics were merely hortatory and undemonstrated catechisms, of the kind that used often to be uttered by the Pythagoreans, it would be correct to start with them and use them to give preliminary training to our characters."

Simplicius, On Aristotle’s Categories 5.20–6.5 (emphasis mine)

Though not the main purpose of the book (which is moral education), I do also provide short, intuitive denoscriptions of the Olympian gods, as understood by the Platonic tradition. Having these handy will make the reading of mythology more interesting and informative. I think you will find them useful.

"But after earth had covered this generation [the golden race of men]—they are called pure spirits dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, guardians of mortal men: they roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist, keep watch over judgments and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal honor they received."

Hesiod, Works and Days 121–139

"It is sure you will not know either friend or foe unless you encounter him in a serious matter."

Theognis, Elegies 641-642

"He is a wise man, and beloved by divinity, who studies how to labor for the good of his soul as much as others labor for the sake of the body."

The Pythagorean Sentences of Demophilus 40

"There is in fact one way to preserve [proportion], and that is not to exercise the soul without exercising the body, nor the body without the soul, so that each may be balanced by the other and so be sound."

Plato, Timaeus 87d-88b

Classical spirituality as a practice has a sequential structure, meaning that you must complete the first part before moving on to the second, and so on. It is essential that we go in the proper order without skipping any steps.

The first part is moral education, which is the process of acquiring the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. It is critically important and should not be rushed.

Most of us will spend most of our lives practicing the first two steps (i.e., purification of the irrational soul), and that's OK.

The collection of texts in Protreptikos, including The Handbook and Works and Days among others, is ideal for moral education.

"It is requisite that those who are willing to hear concerning the gods should have been well informed from their childhood, and not nourished with foolish opinions. It is likewise necessary that they should be naturally prudent and good, that they may receive, and properly understand, the discourses which they hear. The knowledge likewise of common conceptions is necessary; but common conceptions are such things as all men, when interrogated, acknowledge to be indubitably certain; such as, that every god is good, without passivity, and free from all mutations ..."

Sallust, On the Gods and the World Chapter 1

"Do not demand that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will do well."

Epictetus, The Handbook 8

"It is necessary that he who hastens to reach virtue as if it were his homeland should pass by pleasures, as he would the Sirens."

The Similitudes of Demophilus 23

"Do not neglect the health of your body;
but give it drink, food, and exercise in due measure."

The Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans 32-33

A subtle but basic shift in perspective is necessary for European peoples to most effectively advance our spirituality: we must see that our classical inheritance is spiritual in nature and is the Western analog of the Vedic tradition.

The average person no longer perceives e.g. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the great Poets as figures of spiritual wisdom, but they do so perceive Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tze, and others. The first group is thought to inhabit a tedious academic realm of no real importance. Westerners—tragically—do not even understand that their deepest well of spiritual wisdom is spiritual.

How many people know, for example, that Platonism is a polytheistic spiritual path involving the purification of the soul over a series of reincarnations, ending in apotheosis? Nobody leaves a college philosophy course with that understanding, but it is the vision which animates the whole Platonic project. How many people know that there's an ancient tradition of reading Homer, not as a mere story teller, but as a divinely inspired sage?

But this situation we find ourselves in is not only a spiritual matter. We're losing more than a wisdom tradition. To know ourselves, says the Platonic tradition, is to know our causes; to look deep inside ourselves is to, eventually, find something higher than ourselves, that which we descend from, and this inner vision refreshes and energizes us—it gives us form. I believe the same idea applies at the level of civilization. A civilization that no longer remembers its causes, its traditions, is a civilization in disintegration. We are losing our identity because we are disconnected from the past.

Our people will likely continue to turn to Buddha or Jesus or (worst of all) atheism until this change of perspective occurs.

- CWT admin

"Do not let a woman with a fancy rear coax and cozen and deceive you: she is after your barn."

Hesiod, Works and Days 373-374