Yet when the soul leaves the light of the soul behind,
you must go to the right thiasos, keeping everything very well.
Hail, after having had an experience such as you never had before.
You have been born a god, from the man that you were. A kid, you
fell into the milk.
Hail, hail; take the path to the right
towards the sacred meadows and groves of Persephone.

- L8 Tablet from Thurii, 4th cent. B.C., Naples Museum; 1st. ed. Fio relli (1879) 329 f.

In this world [sc. the soul] has no knowledge, except when it reaches the moment of death. It then undergoes an experience like that of those who participate in the great initiations. This is why they resemble each other so much, both in word [sc. ‘to die’ and ‘to be initiated’) and in action. First there is a wandering without direction, the tiring turns and running about in the darkness with the suspicion that they are never going to end, and then, before one reaches the actual end, all the terrors, shudders, trembling, sweat, and confusion. From here, however, a wonderful light comes to greet him, and he is received by pure places and meadows, full of sounds, dances, and the solemnity of sacred words and sacred visions. Once he has had his fill of this and has been initiated, he becomes free and walks as a free man. Crowned, he celebrates the mysteries and in the company of holy and pure men, he sees from there the uninitiated, impure crowd of living beings, in the midst of the mud and the darkness, trampling and pushing one another, persisting in the fear of death and the union of the malevolent, for lack of faith in the good things that are there.

- Plutarch

The biggest puzzle arising is that comprehension of the One is neither by scientific understanding nor by intellection, as it is in the case of other intelligibles. It corresponds rather to a presence which is better than scientific understanding. But the soul undergoes a departure from its unity and the fact that it is not altogether a unity, whenever it attains scientific understanding. For scientific understanding involves an account, and an account is multiple. The soul, then, passes by the One when it falls into number and multiplicity. So, it should run above scientific understanding, and in no way exit from its unity, and should depart from scientific understanding, and the objects of scientific understanding, indeed all else, even from the vision of Beauty. For everything beautiful is posterior to the One, and comes from it, just as all daylight comes from the sun.

Plotinus, 6.9.4

For the soul when looking at things posterior to herself, beholds the shadows and images of beings, but when she converts herself to herself she evolves her own essence, and the reasons which she contains. And at first indeed, she only as it were beholds herself; but, when she penetrates more profoundly into the knowledge of herself, she finds in herself both intellect, and the orders of beings. When however, she proceeds into her interior recesses, and into the adytum as it were of the soul, she perceives with her eye closed, the genius of the Gods, and the unities of beings. For all things are in us psychically, and through this we are naturally capable of knowing all things, by exciting the powers and the images of wholes which we contain.

Proclus, Theology of Plato Book 1 Chapter 3

First, he possessed an extreme delicacy of the senses, which may be called 'corporeal wisdom,' especially of our noblest senses, sight and hearing, which were given by the gods to man so that he might devote himself to philosophy, and to enjoy the sweetness of well-being. Our philosopher preserved them intact his life-long.

Secondly, his was a most robust constitution, which resisted the extremes of heat and cold, and which remained unaffected by irregularities, by his neglect of food, by excess of work by day and night, when occupied in prayers, pouring over scientific books, writing, conversing familiarly with his friends,----and all that so continuously as if each was his only occupation. Such power might justly be called corporeal bravery.

The third bodily quality he possessed is comparable to temperance, to which is properly related handsomeness. For as the former consists in the harmony and mutual agreement of the faculties of the soul, so the latter physical beauty may be discovered in a certain symmetry of its organic members. His appearance was most agreeable, for not only did he possess the beauty of just proportions, but from his soul exuded a certain living light, or miraculous efflorescence which shone over his whole body, and which is quite indescribable. ...

His fourth bodily virtue was health, which is often compared to justice in the soul. ...

So profoundly had this health been rooted in Proclus ever since his birth, that he was able to tell how many times he had been sick, which was twice or thrice during seventy-five completed years. Indeed, so true is this that during his last sickness he did not recognize his symptoms, so rarely had he felt them.

Marinus, Life of Proclus

Circumstances may make you treat this subject either light-heartedly or seriously; in either case you ought to bear in mind that when male and female come together in order to have a child, the pleasure they experience seems to arise entirely naturally. But homosexual intercourse and lesbianism seem to be unnatural crimes of the first rank, and are committed because men and women cannot control their desire for pleasure.

Plato, Laws 636c

Modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.

Werner Heisenberg, a pioneer of quantum physics

O gods, don’t let me savor pleasures to excess,
but put a limit onto them, in case there comes
from them some evil to my body or my soul.
Don’t let me be insatiable for resources,
but measured, and in those things that the body needs
be moderate, so independence I enjoy.
Don’t let me be enslaved to false and empty words,
but let me judge as useful only those of them
that bring divine and genuine excellence.

Plethon, Book of Laws Hymn 23

Incense: storax
I call Proteus, keeper of the keys
of the sea, the first born, who has revealed
the origin of all nature, changing
holy matter into many different
forms. All-honored, great counselor, who knows
what is, what was, and what will be hereafter.
For he holds everything himself; and he
can change himself, unlike some other gods,
who have their thrones on snowy Olympos
and fly through the air, over land and sea.
For nature first placed everything in him,
Proteus; Father, come to these mystic
rites with your holy foresight; send a good
end to a life rich in accomplishments.

Orphic Hymn For Proteus

So, I draw this distinction: On one side are those you just now called lovers of sights, lovers of crafts, and practical people; on the other side are those we are now arguing about and whom one would alone call philosophers.

How do you mean?

The lovers of sights and sounds like beautiful sounds, colors, shapes, and everything fashioned out of them, but their thought is unable to see and embrace the nature of the beautiful itself.

That's for sure.

In fact, there are very few people who would be able to reach the beautiful itself and see it by itself. Isn't that so?

Certainly.

What about someone who believes in beautiful things, but doesn't believe in the beautiful itself and isn't able to follow anyone who could lead him to the knowledge of it? Don't you think he is living in a dream rather than a wakened state? Isn't this dreaming: whether asleep or awake, to think that a likeness is not a likeness but rather the thing itself that it is like?

I certainly think that someone who does that is dreaming.

But someone who, to take the opposite case, believes in the beautiful itself, can see both it and the things that participate in it and doesn't believe that the participants are it or that it itself is the participants - is he living in a dream or is he awake?

He's very much awake.

Plato, Republic 475e - 476d

I have long been surprised at my own wisdom - and doubtful of it, too. That's why I think it's necessary to keep re-investigating whatever I say, since self-deception is the worst thing of all. How could it not be terrible, indeed, when the deceiver never deserts you even for an instant but is always right there with you? Therefore, I think we have to turn back frequently to what we've already said, in order to test it by looking at it "backwards and forwards simultaneously," as [Homer] puts it.

Plato, Cratylus 428d

At the start of the day tell yourself: I shall meet people who are officious, ungrateful, abusive, treacherous, malicious, and selfish. In every case, they’ve got like this because of their ignorance of good and bad. But I have seen goodness and badness for what they are, and I know that what is good is what is morally right, and what is bad is what is morally wrong; and I’ve seen the true nature of the wrongdoer himself and know that he’s related to me – not in the sense that we share blood and seed, but by virtue of the fact that we both partake of the same intelligence, and so of a portion of the divine. None of them can harm me, anyway, because none of them can infect me with immorality, nor can I become angry with someone who’s related to me, or hate him, because we were born to work together, like feet or hands or eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. To work against each other is therefore unnatural – and anger and rejection count as “working against.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1

And you must not be careless of the health of your body,
But maintain moderation in drink and food and exercise.

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Every habit and capacity is supported and strengthened by corresponding actions, that of walking by walking, that of running by running. If you want to be a good reader, read, or a good writer, write. But if you pass thirty days without reading and turn to something else, you'll notice the consequences. So also if you lie in bed for ten days, and then get up and try to walk a fair distance, you'll see how weak your legs are. In general, then, if you want to do something, make a habit of doing it; and if you don't want to do something, don't do it, but get into the habit of doing something else instead. The same also applies to states of mind. When you lose your temper, you should recognize not only that something has happened to you at present, but also that you've reinforced a bad habit, and you have, so to speak, added fresh fuel to the fire. When you've yielded to sexual desire, don't count that as being just a slight defeat, but recognize that you've fortified your incontinence, you've given it added strength. For it cannot fail to come about that, as a result of the corresponding actions, some habits and capacities will be developed if they didn't previously exist, wile others that were already present will be reinforced and strengthened.

Epictetus, Discourses 2.18

For everything that is qualified is not what it is absolutely - for example, that which is qualifiedly beautiful or qualifiedly equal; quality, being a characteristic, makes something beautiful or equal in a particular way, so that quality is not to be applied to the One in the essential and absolute sense, in order that it may not become a particular kind of One instead of the One itself. If, then, the One Itself and the primal entity are the same, and the primal entity is God, it is plain that the One Itself and God are the same, and that is not some particular God, but God Himself. Those, then, who say that the first God is Demiurge or Father are not correct; for the Demiurge and the Father is a particular god. This is obvious, for not every god is demiurge or father, whereas the first principle is simply God and all gods are gods through it, but only some, such as are demiurges, through the Demiurge, and fathers, through the primary Demiurge or Father. Let the One then be termed simply God, as being the cause for all gods of their being gods, but not for some particular gods, as for instance demiurgic or paternal or any other particular type of godhead, which is a type of qualified divinity, not divinity in the simple sense.

Proclus, Commentary on the Parmenides 1096

Let me not cease, O Blissful Gods,
to owe You gratitude,
for all the good things I receive,
and for that which I have received in the past
under the patronage of Supreme Zeus.
Let me not neglect,
in accordance with my strength,
that which is good for my nation.
To serve willingly the common good,
and to consider that as a great benefit to myself.
Let me not be the cause for anything evil,
of the type which befall humans,
but rather of the good, as much as I am able,
so that I may become blissful,
in Your likeness.

Pletho, Hymn 22

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.

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

The Golden Sentences of Democrates 7

Thus all beings proceed from, and are comprehended in the first being; all intellects emanate from one first intellect; all souls from one first soul; all natures blossom from one first nature; and all bodies proceed from the vital and luminous body of the world. And lastly, all these great monads are comprehended in the first one, from which both they and all their depending series are unfolded into light. Hence this first one is truly the unity of unities, the monad of monads, the principle of principles, the God of Gods, one and all things, and yet one prior to all.

Thomas Taylor, The Theology of the Greeks

Hermes, the god who presides over rational discourse, has long been considered, quite rightly, to be the common patron of all priests; he who presides over true knowledge about the gods is one and the same always and everywhere. It is to him that our ancestors in particular dedicated the fruits of their wisdom, attributing all their own writings to Hermes.

Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1.1

Whoever then is advanced thus far in the mysteries of Love by a right and regular progress of contemplation, approaching now to perfect intuition, suddenly he will discover, bursting into view, a beauty astonishingly admirable; that very beauty, to the gaining a sight of which the aim of all his preceding studies and labours had been directed: a beauty, whose peculiar characters are these: In the first place, it never had a beginning, nor will ever have an end, but always IS, and always flourishes in perfection, unsusceptible of growth or of decay. ... It resides not in any other being, not in any animal, for instance; nor in the earth, nor in the heavens, nor in any other part of the universe: but, simple and separate from other things, it subsists alone with itself, and possesses an essence eternally uniform. All other forms which are beauteous participate of this; but in such a manner they participate, that by their generation or destruction this suffers no diminution, receives no addition, nor undergoes any kind of alteration. When from those lower beauties, reascending by the right way of Love, a man begins to gain a sight of this supreme beauty, he must have almost attained somewhat of his end. Now to go, or to be led by another, along the right way of Love, is this: Beginning from those beauties of lower rank, to proceed in a continual ascent, all the way proposing this highest beauty as the end; and using the rest but as so many steps in the ascent; to proceed from one to two, from two to all beauteous bodies; from the beauty of bodies to that of souls; from the beauty of souls to that of arts; from the beauty of arts to that of disciplines; until at length from the disciplines he arrives at that discipline which is the discipline of no other thing than of that supreme beauty; and thus finally attains to know what is the beautiful itself.

Plato, Symposium 210e - 211c

If you want to make progress, put up with being thought foolish and silly with regard to external things, and don’t even wish to give the impression of knowing anything about them; and if some people come to think that you’re somebody of note, regard yourself with distrust.

Epictetus, The Handbook 13