"[If someone] won't allow that there are forms for things and won't mark off a form for each one, he won't have anywhere to turn his thought, since he doesn't allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same. In this way he will destroy the power of dialectic entirely."

Plato, Parmenides 135b

"Thought thinks itself by participation in the intelligible; for it becomes intelligible in touching and thinking, so that intellect and the intelligible are the same; for intellect is what is receptive of the intelligible, that is, of reality."

Aristotle, Metaphysics 1072b

"Now if you want to grasp the 'isolated and alone', you will not be thinking."

Plotinus, Enneads 5.3.13

"god: immortal living being, self-sufficient for happiness; eternal being, the cause of the nature of goodness.

soul: that which moves itself; the cause of vital processes in living creatures.

justice: the unanimity of the soul with itself, and the good discipline of the parts of the soul with respect to each other; the state that distributes to each person according to what is deserved; the state on account of which its possessor chooses what appears to him to be just; the state underlying a law-abiding way of life; social equality; the state of obedience to the laws.

piety: justice concerning the gods; the ability to serve the gods voluntarily; the correct conception of the honor due to the gods; knowledge of the honor due to gods.

good: that which is for its own sake.

cheerfulness: joy in doing what a temperate man does.

intuition: the starting point of knowledge."

pseudo-Plato, Definitions

“If these forms of worship were only human customs and received their authority from our cultural habits, one might argue that the cults of the gods were inventions created by our thinking. But in fact the one invoked in sacrifices is a god, and he presides over these sacrifices, and a great number of gods and angels surround him. And every race on earth is allotted a common guardian by this god, and every temple is also allotted a particular guardian.” Iamblichus

"Or have you ever grasped [the Just itself, Beauty, or the Good] with any of your bodily senses? I am speaking of all things such as Bigness, Health, Strength and, in a word, the reality of all other things, that which each of them essentially is. Is what is most true in them contemplated through the body, or is this the position: whoever of us prepares himself best and most accurately to grasp that thing itself which he is investigating will come closest to the knowledge of it? Then he will do this most perfectly who approaches the object with thought alone, without associating any sight with his thought, or dragging in any sense perception with his reasoning, but who, using pure thought alone, tries to track down each reality pure and by itself, freeing himself as far as possible from eyes and ears and, in a word, from the whole body, because the body confuses the soul and does not allow it to acquire truth and wisdom whenever it is associated with it. Will not that man reach reality, Simmias, if anyone does?"

Plato, Phaedo 65d-66a

People often wonder if there is a Western equivalent to meditation. This is it. This is the core of Platonism: the contemplation of Being, of reality in itself. Academics will write 500 page books about the Forms and somehow miss the most obvious fact: this is a meditation technique. By using our minds to peel open the metaphysical essence of things, we can gaze at pure Reality, pure Being.

Then, achieving holy silence, we move beyond Being.

Just open your eyes and see, for this alone is the eye that sees the great beauty.

Plotinus, Ennead 1.6.9

Let us now therefore, if ever, abandon multiform knowledge, exterminate from ourselves all the variety of life, and in perfect quiet approach near to the cause of all things. For this purpose, let not only opinion and phantasy be at rest, nor the passions alone which impede our anagogic impulse to the first, be at peace; but let the air be still, and the universe itself be still. And let all things extend us with a tranquil power to communion with the ineffable. Let us also, standing there, having transcended the intelligible (if we contain any thing of this kind), and with nearly closed eyes adoring as it were the rising sun, since it is not lawful for any being whatever intently to behold him - let us survey the sun whence the light of the intelligible Gods proceeds, emerging, as the poets say, from the bosom of the ocean; and again, from this divine tranquility descending into intellect, and from intellect, employing the reasonings of the soul, let us relate to ourselves what the natures are from which, in this progression, we shall consider the first God as exempt. And let us as it were celebrate him, not as establishing the earth and the heavens, nor as giving subsistence to souls, and the generations of all animals; for he produced these indeed, but among the last of things; but, prior to these, let us celebrate him as unfolding into light the whole intelligible and intellectual genus of Gods, together with all the supermundane and mundane divinities - as the God of all Gods, the unity of all unities, and beyond the first adyta, - as more ineffable than all silence, and more unknown than all essence, - as holy among the holies, and concealed in the intelligible Gods.

Proclus, Theology of Plato, 2.13

[The soul] loves then to be quiet, having closed its eyes to thoughts that go downward, having become speechless and silent in internal silence. For how else could it attach itself to the most ineffable of all things than by putting to sleep the chatter in it? Let it therefore become one, so that it may see the One, or rather not see the One. For by seeing, the soul will see an intelligible object and not what is beyond intellect, and it will think something that is one, not the One itself. … Thus, my friend, when someone actualises what really is the most divine activity of the soul, and entrusts himself only to the ‘flower of the intellect’ and brings himself to rest not only from the external motions, but also from the internal, he will become a god as far as this is possible for a soul, and will know only in the way the gods know everything in an ineffable manner, each according to their proper one.

Proclus, On Providence 31 & 32

But to refer injustice and crimes committed through lasciviousness and wantonness to fate, leaves us indeed good, but the gods evil and base: unless some one should endeavour to remove this consequence, by replying, that every thing which the world contains, and whatever has a natural subsistence, is good, but that the nature which is badly nourished, or which is of a more imbecile condition, changes the good proceeding from fate into something worse; just as the sun, though it is good itself, becomes noxious to the blear-eyed and feverish.

Sallust, On the Gods and the World Chapter 9

I have been working on a document which will address all of these topics, but as it is extremely labor intensive to produce (I am aiming for a very high standard of research), I can’t give a date when it will be ready. Please be patient. But I am optimistic that it will be helpful to people and to our movement generally.

This poll will help me understand what you think is most important and to know if there are any other important topics I haven’t thought about.

Also, it will be free and published here so that it can be easily shared.

'If, my fine fellow' (we should say) 'the whole course and movement of the heavens and all that is in them reflect the motion and revolution and calculation of reason, and operate in a corresponding fashion, then clearly we have to admit that it is the best kind of soul that cares for the entire universe and directs it along the best path.'

Plato, Laws 897c

Do we know of any place in the soul more divine than that which is the seat of knowledge and intelligence? This therefore in the soul resembles the divine nature. And a man, looking at this, and recognizing all that which is divine, and God and wisdom, would thus gain the most knowledge of himself. And to know oneself, we acknowledge to be wisdom.

Plato, Alcibiades I 133c

But now beauty alone has this privilege, to be the most clearly visible and the most loved. Of course a man who was initiated long ago or who has become defiled is not to be moved abruptly from here to a vision of Beauty itself when he sees what we call beauty here; so instead of gazing at the latter reverently, he surrenders to pleasure and sets out in the manner of a four-footed beast, eager to make babies; and, wallowing in vice, he goes after unnatural pleasure too, without a trace of fear or shame.

Plato, Phaedrus 250e

Never, from dawn forward, pour a shining libation of wine to Zeus or the other immortals, without washing your hands first.

Hesiod, Works and Days 724

Then, in place of all other pleasures, introduce that of being conscious that you’re obeying God, and that you’re accomplishing, not in mere word but in very deed, the work of a good and virtuous person.

Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.110