As it is, to dedicate your life to winning a victory at Delphi or Olympia keeps you far too busy to attend to other tasks; but a life devoted to the cultivation of every physical perfection and every moral virtue (the only life worth the name) will keep you at least twice as busy. Inessential business must never stop you taking proper food and exercise, or hinder your mental and moral training. To follow this regimen and to get the maximum benefit from it, the whole day and the whole night is scarcely time enough.

Plato, Laws 807c-d

One of the things the dialogues of Plato show us is how to dialogue with ourselves about a topic and, by using dialectic, move towards a vision of the real being of a thing.

"Priests or Priestesses of temples who have hereditary priesthoods should not be turned out of office. But if (as is quite likely in a new foundation) few or no temples are thus provided for, the deficiencies must be made good by appointing Priests and Priestesses to be Attendants in the temples of the gods. In all these cases the appointments should be made partly by election and partly by lot, so that a mixture of democratic and non-democratic methods in every rural and urban division may lead to the greatest possible feeling of solidarity. In electing Priests, one should leave it to the god himself to express his wishes, and allow him to guide the luck of the draw. But the man whom the lot favors must be screened to see that he is healthy and legitimate, reared in a family whose moral standards could hardly be higher, and that he himself and his father and mother have lived unpolluted by homicide and all such offenses against heaven. They must get laws on all religious matters from Delphi, and appoint Expounders of them; that will provide them with a code to be obeyed. Each priesthood must be held for a year and no longer, and anyone who intends to celebrate our rites in due conformity with religious law should not be less than sixty years old. The same rules should apply to Priestesses too."

Plato, Laws 759b-d

So, our soul is something divine and of another nature [than sensible objects], like the nature of all soul; it is perfect by having intellect. One part of intellect is that which engages in calculative reasoning and one part is that which makes calculative reasoning possible. The calculative reasoning part of soul is actually in need of no corporeal organ for its calculative reasoning, having its own activity in purity in order that it also be possible for it to reason purely. Someone who supposed it to be separate and not mixed with body and in the primary intelligible world would not be mistaken. ...

Since, then, there is soul that engages in calculative reasoning about just and beautiful things, that is, calculative reasoning that seeks to know if this is just or if this is beautiful, it is necessary that there exists permanently something that is just, from which the calculative reasoning in the soul arises. How else could it engage in calculative reasoning? And if soul sometimes engages in calculative reasoning about these things and sometimes does not, there must be Intellect that does not engage in calculative reasoning, but always possesses Justice, and there must be also the principle of Intellect and its cause and god. And it must be indivisible and unchanging; and while not changing place, it is seen in each of the many things that can receive it, in a way, as something other. Just as the centre of the circle exists in its own right, but each of the points on the circle contains it in itself, the radii add their unique character to it. For it is by something like this in ourselves that we are in contact with the One and are with it and depend on it. And if we converge on it, we would be settled in the intelligible world.

How, then, given that we have such great things in us, do we not grasp them, but rather are mostly inactive with respect to these activities; indeed, some people are altogether inactive? ... So, if there is going to be apprehension of things present in this way, then that which is to apprehend must revert inward, and focus its attention there. Just as if someone were waiting to hear a voice that he wanted to hear, and, distancing himself from other voices, were to prick up his ears to hear the best of sounds, waiting for the time when it will come - so, too, in this case one must let go of sensible sounds, except insofar as they are necessary, and guard the soul's pure power of apprehension and be ready to listen to the sounds from above.

Plotinus, Enneads 5.1.10-12

We do not need Hindu or Buddhist initiation in order to be legitimate. Please stop buying into this lie.

People like this always reveal their true colors sooner or later, because they have forsaken their heritage.

Which way, Western man?

We are not Hindus. We are not Buddhists. Despite historical connections, Buddhism and Hinduism are not a part of our heritage. We respect them and may choose to learn from them at times - but we do not need them.

We have clear instructions from Plato on how to set up a priest class and it has nothing to do with initiation.

CHOOSE WISELY! Embrace your heritage!

"The appointments [of priests] should be made partly by election and partly by lot ... In electing Priests, one should leave it to the god himself to express his wishes, and allow him to guide the luck of the draw." - Plato, Laws 759b-d

Praise be to the Fates and to the Gods of Europe who will decide this!

Philosophy is a perfecting of every knowledge, music is preparatory to paideia. Philosophy is precise because it is an accomplishment that, through calling things to mind, makes up in full what was shed by the souls through circumstance in the course of creation; music is an initiation into the Mysteries and an agreeable preliminary sacrifice that presents a little something and gives a foretaste of things brought to perfection in philosophy; and music transmits the beginnings of every kind of learning, philosophy the extremes.

Aristides Quintilianus, On Music 3.27

"We can attain likeness to God, first of all, if we are endowed with a suitable nature, then if we develop proper habits, way of life, and good practice according to law, and, most importantly, if we use reason, and education, and the correct philosophical tradition, in such a way as to distance ourselves from the great majority of human concerns, and always to be in close contact with intelligible reality.

The introductory ceremonies, so to speak, and preliminary purifications of our innate spirit, if one is to be initiated into the greater sciences, will be constituted by music, arithmetic, astronomy, and geometry, while at the same time we must care for our body by means of gymnastics, which will prepare the body properly for the demands of both war and peace."

Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism 28.4

"We ought to learn by heart the hymns in honour of the gods—and many and beautiful they are, composed by men of old and of our own time—though indeed we ought to try to know also those which are being sung in the temples. For the greater number were bestowed on us by the gods themselves, in answer to prayer, though some few also were written by men, and were composed in honour of the gods by the aid of divine inspiration and a soul inaccessible to things evil.

All this, at least, we ought to study to do, and we ought also to pray often to the gods, both in private and in public, if possible three times a day, but if not so often, certainly at dawn and in the evening."

Emperor Julian, Letter to a Priest 302a-b

A very quick guide to getting started:

1. On a regular basis, wash your hands, make an offering, and pray. While washing your hands, ask for purity of body and mind. If you don’t currently have incense, wine, food, or other such things to offer, offer a hymn.
2. If you have no idea what to pray about, pray for understanding of the goodness of the Gods and that they may give to you what they know to be best.
3. Read and study the Golden Verses (they’re quite short), a chapter or two of The Handbook by Epictetus, or some other appropriate text. Both are available for free online.
4. Every night before you sleep, examine yourself and your day. Acknowledge as cold fact everything you did and didn’t do, the good and the bad. It is not about guilt, it is about becoming Godlike - but that requires radical self-honesty.

You will learn the rest as you go.

"Let not your feeble eyes expect to sleep
Until you have rehearsed each of the day's deeds three times:
'Where have I transgressed? what have I done? what duty not fulfilled?'
Beginning from the first go through them in detail, and then
Rebuke yourself for the mean things you have done, but delight in the good."

To honour the beings superior by nature according to their substantial rank; to accord parents and relatives the highest esteem; to welcome and befriend good men; to prevail over our bodily functions; to feel shame before oneself everywhere; to engage in justice; to know beforehand that our possessions and ephemeral lives are easily destroyed; to welcome our lot in life as assigned to us by divine judgement; to use prudent thought that is pleasing to god and to change one's thinking for the better; to practise the love of speaking, using real arguments; to be immune to deception and slavishness for the preservation of virtue; to use good counsel before we act, as a result of which our actions will be free from regret; to be pure of conceit; to pursue a life informed by knowledge; to reform the body and externals to make them cooperate with virtue. These are the prenoscriptions of the lawgiving intellect for souls. Our reflective power, after it has accepted these, becomes an untiring judge of itself, often saying to itself, 'Where have I transgressed? what have I done?', and undertaking to remember everything in orderly succession for the sake of virtue.

Hierocles, Commentary on the Golden Verses 19.3-4

The philosopher Hierocles explains how we can use the first half of the Golden Verses, which he neatly summarizes here, to examine ourselves nightly, using the standards suggested in the verses as the metric.

This technique of daily self-examination was widely practiced in antiquity, and it was important to the Pythagoreans and Stoics in particular. It is useful in our attempt to live according to the Delphic maxim Know Thyself.

[Pythagoras] ordered that libations should be made thrice, observing that Apollo delivered oracles from the tripod, the triad being the first number. Sacrifices to Venus were to be made on the sixth day, because this number is the first to partake of every number, and when divided in every possible way, receives the power of the numbers subtracted, and those that remain. Sacrifices to Hercules, however, should be made on the eighth day of the month, counting from the beginning, commemorating his birth in the seventh month.

He ordained that those who entered into a temple should be clothed in a clean garment, in which no one had slept; because sleep, just as black and brown, indicates sluggishness, while cleanliness is a sign of equality and justice in reasoning. ...

Libations were to be performed before the altar of Zeus the Savior, of Hercules, and the Dioscuri, thus celebrating Zeus as the presiding cause and leader of the meal, Hercules as the power of Nature, and the Dioscuri, as the symphony of all things. Libations should not be offered with closed eyes, as nothing beautiful should be undertaken with bashfulness and shame.

When it thundered, he said one ought to touch the earth, in remembrance of the generation of things.

Temples should be entered from places on the right hand, and exited from the left hand; for the right hand is the principle of what is called the odd number, and is divine; while the left hand is a symbol of the even number, and of dissolution.

Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras 28

Greek religion might almost be called a religion without priests: there is no priestly caste as a closed group with fixed tradition, education, initiation, and hierarchy ... among the Greeks, sacrifice can be performed by anyone who is possessed of the desire and the means, including housewives and slaves.

... Priests are installed; as early as the Iliad it is said that the Trojans established Theano as priestess of Athena. As with other posts, the appointment is decided by the community, usually the political assembly. Sortition may be seen as an intimation of divine will.

... In Greece the priesthood is not a way of life, but a part time and honorary office; it may involve expense, but it brings great prestige. ... His hair is usually long and he wears a head-band, a garland, costly robes of white or purple, and a special waistband; he carries a staff in his hand. The priestess is often represented carrying the large key to the temple, kleidouchos. In the theatre, seats of honor are reserved for the priests. The priest is 'honored among the people as a god', as the Iliad says.

Walter Burkert, Greek Religion 2.6

No one shall have gods for himself, either new gods or alien gods, unless they have been recognized by the state. Privately they shall worship those gods that they have duly received from their ancestors. In cities they shall have shrines; in the country they shall have groves and places for the Lares. They shall preserve the rites of the family and their ancestors.

Cicero, On the Laws 2.19

There is a lot of paganism in Shakespeare.

It is important to promote awareness of facts like this, because it means that being pagan doesn't have to place you at odds with your heritage. In fact, so much of our heritage is pagan or was deeply influenced by paganism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_v6rocErK4

Only a very gifted man can come to know that for each thing there is some kind, a being itself by itself; but only a prodigy more remarkable still will discover that and be able to teach someone else who has sifted all these difficulties thoroughly and critically for himself. ... Yet, on the other hand, Socrates, said Parmenides, if someone, having an eye on all the difficulties we have just brought up and others of the same sort, 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-c

Mind, which is the most penetrating of all the divine thoughts, has for its body fire, the most penetrating of all the elements. And since mind is the craftsman of all beings, it uses fire as an instrument in its craftwork. The mind of all is the craftsman of all beings; the human mind is the craftsman only of the things that exist on earth. Since it is stripped of fire, the mind in humans is powerless to craft divine things because it is human in its habitation. The human soul - not every soul, that is, but only the reverent - is in a sense demonic and divine. Such a soul becomes wholly mind after getting free of the body and fighting the fight of reverence. (Knowing the divine and doing wrong to no person is the fight of reverence.)

Corpus Hermeticum X 18-19

... Zeus, appears to have a very excellent name, but it is not easy to understand; for the name of Zeus is exactly like a sentence; we divide it into two parts, and some of us use one part, others the other; for some call him Zena (Ζῆνα), and others Dia (Δία); but the two in combination express the nature of the god, which is just what we said a name should be able to do. For certainly no one is so much the author of life (ζῆν) for us and all others as the ruler and king of all. Thus this god is correctly named, through whom (δι᾽ ὅν) all living beings have the gift of life (ζῆν). But, as I say, the name is divided, though it is one name, into the two parts, Dia and Zena. And it might seem, at first hearing, highly irreverent to call him the son of Cronus and reasonable to say that Zeus is the offspring of some great intellect; and so he is, for κόρος (for Κρόνος) signifies not child, but the purity (καθαρόν) and unblemished nature of his mind. And Cronus, according to tradition, is the son of Uranus; but the upward gaze is rightly called by the name urania (οὐρανία), looking at the things above (ὁρῶ τὰ ἄνω), and the astronomers say, Hermogenes, that from this looking people acquire a pure mind, and Uranus is correctly named.

Plato, Cratylus 395e-396b