A very useful collection of historical prayers to the Roman gods.

http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Prayers

All beings proceed from One First Cause.

For either there is no cause of any being, or the causes of all finite things revolve in a circle, or the as­cent (progression) is to infinity, and one thing is the cause of another, and the presubsistence of essence (cause) will in no respect cease. If, however, there is no cause of beings, there will be neither an order of things second and first, of things perfecting and perfec­ted, of things adorning and adorned, of things generat­ing and generated, and of agents and patients, nor will there be any science of beings. For the knowledge of causes is the work of science, and we are then said to know scientifically when we know the causes of things. But if causes revolve in a circle, the same things will be prior and posterior, more powerful and more imbecile. For every thing which produces is better than the nature of that which is produced. Nor does it make a differ­ence to conjoin cause to effect, and through many or fewer media to produce from cause. For cause will be superior to all the intermediate natures of which it is the cause; and the more numerous the media the greater is the causality of the cause.

And if the addition of causes is to infinity, and there is always again a cause prior to another, there will be no science of any being: for there is not a knowledge of any thing infinite. But causes being unknown, neither will there be a science of the things consequent to the causes. If, therefore, it is necessary that there should be a cause of beings, and causes are distinct from the things caused, and there is not an ascent to infinity, there is a First Cause of beings, from which as from a root every thing proceeds,—some things indeed being nearer to but others more remote from it. The neces­sity of the existence of One Principle has been demon­strated, because all multitude is secondary to The One.

Proclus, Elements of Theology, Proposition 11

An index of our dispositions is afforded by the pleasure or pain that accompanies our actions. A man is temperate if he abstains from bodily pleasures and finds this abstinence itself enjoyable, profligate if he feels it irksome; he is brave if he faces danger with pleasure or at all events without pain, cowardly if he does so with pain.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II.iii.1

Plato on dialectic as a means of seeing pure Good and Being:

Then isn't this at last, Glaucon, the song that dialectic sings? It is intelligible, but it is imitated by the power of sight. We said that sight tries at last to look at the animals themselves, the stars themselves, and in the end, at the sun itself. In the same way, whenever someone tries through argument and apart from all sense perceptions to find the being itself of each thing and doesn't give up until he grasps the good itself with understanding itself, he reaches the end of the intelligible, just as the other reached the end of the visible. ... Don't you call [this] dialectic? ... No one will dispute it when we say that there is no other inquiry that systematically attempts to grasp with respect to each thing itself what the being of it is, for all the other crafts are concerned with human opinions and desires, with growing or construction, or with the care of growing or constructed things. And as for the rest, I mean geometry and the subjects that follow it, we described them as to some extent grasping what is, for we saw that, while they do dream about what is, they are unable to command a waking view of it as long as they make use of hypotheses that they leave untouched and they cannot give any account of. What mechanism could possibly turn any agreement into knowledge when it begins with something unknown and puts together the conclusion and the steps in between from what is unknown? ... Therefore, dialectic is the only inquiry that travels this road, doing away with hypotheses and proceeding to the first principle itself, so as to be secure. And when the eye of the soul is really buried in a sort of barbaric bog, dialectic gently pulls it out and leads it upwards, using the crafts we described to help it and cooperate with it in turning the soul around. ... Then, do you call someone who is able to give an account of the being of each thing dialectical? But insofar as he's unable to give an account of something, either to himself or to another, do you deny that he has any understanding of it?

Republic, 532a - 534b

There will be a conference of Neoplatonic scholars starting June 10. The conference is accessible via Zoom and costs 60 Euros for nonstudents.

http://www.isns.us/ISNS-2020/index.html

The Pythagoreans had a mid-day break for exercise, Plato was a wrestler, Cleanthes was a boxer, Socrates and Plotinus were soldiers.

These were men.

Don’t fall into the modernist trap of thinking that philosopher = nerdy dweeb.

The command that we should know ourselves means that we should know our souls.

Plato, First Alcibiades, 130e

PYTHAGOREAN MAXIMS (From Hierocles.)

1. Go not beyond the balance. (Transgress not Justice).
2. Sit not down on the bushel. (Do not loaf on your job).
3. Tear not to pieces the crown. (Do not be a joy-killer).
5. Do not poke the fire with a sword. (Do not further inflame the quarrelsome).
6. Having arrived at the frontiers, turn not back. (Do not wish to live over your life).
7. Go not by the public way. (Go not the broad popular way, which leads to destruction).
9. Wear not the image of God on your ring. (Profane not the name of God).
12. Leave no the least mark of the pot on the ashes. (After reconciliation, forget the disagreement).
13. Sow mallows, but never eat them. (Use mildness to others, but not to yourself).
16. Feed not the animals that have crooked claws. (To your family admit no thief or traitor).
26. Put not meat in a foul vessel. (Do not give good precepts to a vicious soul).
31. Do not urinate against the sun. (Be modest).
32. Speak not in the face of the sun. (Make not public the thoughts of your heart).
35. Never sing without harp-accompaniment. (Make of life a whole).
38. Cut not wood on the public road. (Never turn to private use what belongs to the public).
46. Adore the gods, and sacrifice bare-foot. (Pray and sacrifice in humility of heart).
48. Sit down when you worship. (Never worship in a hurry).
58. Plant not the palm-tee. (Do nothing but what is good and useful).
59. Make thy libations to the gods by the ear. (Beautify thy worship by music).
67. Feed not yourself with your left hand. (Support yourself with honest toil, not robbery).
68. It is a horrible crime to wipe off the sweat with iron. (It is a criminal to deprive a man by force of what he earned by labor).
74. Place not the candle against the wall. (Persist not in enlightening the stupid).
75. Write not in the snow. (Trust not your precepts to persons of an inconstant character).

The world is characterized both by flux and by constancy. The material world is the world of flux. But there is an eternal world which “pervades” the material one (i.e., that the material world participates in), and this is the world perceived by the Knowing part of our souls.

This Knowing part of us is the immortal part. We can know that it is immortal by turning inwards and seeing how it contemplates the eternal. It is of like kind.

Reference: Phaedo 79d etc

A difference between Platonic “meditation” and much of popular meditation (not all) is that Platonic meditation is a process of moving towards Knowing truth in an immediate, intuitive sense of mental “perception.” It is not a method for emptying your mind nor a method for relaxation. It is a mental, analytic focusing towards pure Being guided by Desire for Wisdom and Beauty.

Anger in essence is a desire to re-order and correct. Thus, it can be a very good and proper thing. Anger says, “That isn’t right!” and seeks to correct. But it must be guided by and subordinate to Wisdom.

Just shut your eyes, and change your way of looking, and wake up.

Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.8

This YouTube channel is a good source of information about Platonism from a spiritual, non-academic perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkyZX8sdB4JVQilm3cCAvJQ/videos

It is important that we effect a shift of perspective and attitude towards our own spiritual and intellectual heritage.

The works of the ancient European philosophical tradition - the tradition flowing through the Orphics, the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Plotinus, and others - are the Upanishads of the West.

Philosophy is not dry academia; it is not hairsplitting pedantry; it is not a debate club for nerds. It is a journey towards godlikeness and wisdom.

“The soul is self-moved. That which is self-moved is perpetually moved. That which is perpetually moved is immortal. The soul, therefore, is immortal. … By motion here, we must understand the life of the soul. The soul therefore is self-vital, containing in itself the principle and fountain of motion.”

Syllogism from Hermeas’ commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus 245c - 245e.

"Sin should be abstained from, not through fear, but for the sake of the becoming."

The Golden Sentences of Democrates 7

Plotinus, Ennead 5.9.3, on how to perceive the intellectual nature of reality and how this relates to soul:

It is better to ask if intellect is such as we say it is, and if it is something separate, and if this is identical with Being and if the nature of Forms is here. Regarding this, it remains for the following to be said.

We certainly see that all things that are said to be are composites not one of which is simple, both whatever craft fashions and whatever is constituted by nature. For the products of craft are just bronze or wood or stone, and nothing is made from them until a particular craft fashions a statue or a bed or a house, introducing the form which it has in itself.

Further, the same goes for the things constituted by nature, some of which are multiply composited and are called compounds; these can be analysed into the form and the compounded elements that it governs. For example, a human being can be analysed into soul and body, and the body into the four elements. And when you find that each of these is composite of matter and something that shapes it - for matter by itself is without shape - you will investigate where the form comes to matter from. You will investigate, again, whether the soul is among the simples already or whether there is something in it that is composed of matter and form; and whether the intellect in it has one part which is like the shape in the bronze and another part which is like the one who produces the shape in the bronze.

And, then transferring these considerations onto the whole universe, one will ascend to posit Intellect, too, as the true producer or creator, and one will say that the substrate, having received shapes, becomes fire, water, air, and earth. These shapes come from another. This is the soul; it is soul, again, that gives to the four elements the shape of the cosmos. But it is Intellect that supplies the expressed principles for this to be generated, just as the expressed principle comes from the crafts to the souls of the craftsmen to actualize. Intellect is, then, the form of the soul, analogous to the shape, and that which provides the shape is analogous to one who produced the statue, in whom everything which he imposed, pre-existed. That which Intellect gives to the soul is near to the truth; what the body receives are already images and imitations.

To summarise the reasons that made them [i.e., people like Socrates] adopt the hypothesis of Ideas, let us say that all visible things, both heavenly and sublunary, exist either by chance or by a cause. But that it should be by chance is impossible, for in that case superiors and inferiors will be classed together—intellect, reason-principle, and cause along with things derived from causes—and thus products will be superior to principles. Besides, as Aristotle says, essential causes must be prior to accidental ones, for the accidental cause is a by-product of essential causes—so that what comes about causally would be prior to the accidental if even the divinest parts of the visible world have come about by accident. And if there are causes of all things, they will be either many and unconnected, or one. But if they are many, we shall be unable to say what makes the universe one; and yet the one is superior to the many, and the whole to the parts. But if there is one cause of the unitary universe with respect to which all things are ordered, it will be absurd if this cause is without reason; for again there will be something superior to the universal cause among its effects, viz. whatever being acts according to reason and knowledge, which will be within the All and a part of it and be the kind of thing it is from an irrational cause. But if this cause has reason and knows itself, it obviously knows itself as the cause of all things; otherwise, being ignorant of this, it would be ignorant of its own nature. And if it knows that it is by its own essence the cause of the All, it knows also the effect of which it is the cause. For what knows the cause determinately, necessarily knows also the effect. Therefore it knows also determinately the effect which it causes. Consequently it knows both the All and everything of which the All consists and of which it is also the cause. And if this is true, it is by looking to itself and knowing itself that it knows what comes after it. Hence it is by immaterial reason-principles and forms that it knows the reason principles in the cosmos and the Ideas of which the All consists; and the All is in it as in a cause separate from Matter.

Proclus, Commentary on the Parmenides 799

Epictetus, Discourses chapter 2