You need to be using your talents, whatever they are, for the greater good of European spirituality.

Of course, some people will be able to do more than others, for various reasons. I'm just some guy who reads philosophy and poetry after work, and I try to share some of that with you. But we all have to contribute as much as we can, in whatever ways we can.

If you're artistic or musical, make art and music. If you're into history, use that knowledge to educate and defend. If you're into philosophy, use it to clarify, defend, and elaborate European spirituality. If you're good at planning and organizing, plan and organize meetings and the like.

Ideally, use your talents, not simply for self-expression or your own enjoyment, but for the betterment of the community. Make music for us. We need a common music. We need prayer books. We need solid defenses against common objections. We need guides, devotionals, journals. We need everything.

And in everything you do, hold yourself to a high standard. Do it as if your descendants will be using it for centuries. Put everything you can into it.

There's something for everyone to do.

- CWT Admin

"According to [Platonic] theology therefore, from the immense principle of principles [i.e., The One], in which all things causally subsist, absorbed in super-essential light, and involved in unfathomable depths, a beauteous progeny of principles [i.e., the Gods] proceed, all largely partaking of the ineffable, all stamped with the occult characters of deity, all possessing an overflowing fullness of good. From these dazzling summits, these ineffable blossoms, these divine propagations, being, life, intellect, soul, nature, and body, depend; monads suspended from unities, deified natures proceeding from deities. ... 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."

Thomas Taylor, Introduction to Proclus' Theology of Plato

"The supervisor of the universe has arranged everything with an eye to its preservation and excellence, and its individual parts play appropriate active or passive roles according to their various capacities. These parts, down to the smallest details of their active and passive functions, have each been put under the control of ruling powers that have perfected the minutest constituents of the universe. Now then, you perverse fellow, one such part - a mere speck that nevertheless constantly contributes to the good of the whole - is you, you who have forgotten that nothing is created except to provide the entire universe with a life of prosperity. You forget that creation is not for your benefit: you exist for the sake of the universe. Every doctor, you see, and every skilled craftsman always works for the sake of some end-product as a whole; he handles his materials so that they will give the best results in general, and makes the parts contribute to the good of the whole, not vice versa."

Plato, Laws 903b-d

When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

Epictetus

"But again, if unification is in itself good, and all good tends to create unity, then the Good unqualified and the One unqualified merge in a single principle, a principle which makes things one and in doing so makes them good. Hence it is that things which in some fashion have fallen away from their good are at the same stroke deprived of participation of unity; and in like manner things which have lost their portion in unity, being infected with division, are deprived of their good. Goodness, then, is unification, and unification is goodness; the Good is one, and the One is primal good."

Proclus, Elements of Theology 13

Whenever I quote passages like the above which talk about unity, oneness, etc., I always know I will get a negative reaction.

I want to try to address this topic of unity directly because I think it's a cause of much misunderstanding and confusion.

First of all, unity does not mean mixture. I believe that the two words are wrongly used interchangeably, as if "unity" means removing all difference by creating some sort of smoothie out of everything (it doesn't mean that). In fact, mixture is in many cases opposed to unity. If you mix things together that shouldn't be mixed together, you will destroy the unity they had before.

But let's take a step back and try to understand what guys like Proclus and Plotinus meant by unity and why they thought it's important. Bear with me for a second.

Read again what Proclus says here: "Hence it is that things which in some fashion have fallen away from their good are at the same stroke deprived of participation of unity." This sentence is key because it makes clear what Proclus doesn't mean: he is not saying that you should try to "unite" anything and everything. Instead, he's observing that anytime something loses its quality, or its health, or whatever, it's losing those things - it's losing its good - precisely because it is, in some way, losing its unity as a particular thing.

To be something - anything whatsoever - is to be a particular thing with particular qualities and characteristics. To be a horse, for example, is to have horsey characteristics. But a horse is a composite creature: they have eyes, legs, internal organs, teeth, they feel pain, they run really fast, etc. Therefore, what makes the horse a horse is the unification of all these horsey qualities and characteristics. But what happens if the poor horse loses some of those things? He will have lost some of the unity of his nature, he will be out of whack, he will no longer be a thriving, flourishing horse. If he loses too many of them, he will die.

The loss of unity is the loss of identity. And it is in this sense that The One, or The Good, is good: it is ultimately the source of wholeness, togetherness, health; it is the necessary prerequisite for anything to be anything at all. That is why it is the most holy of all holy things.

- CWT Admin

"The Jews, like other separate nationalities, have established laws according to their national genius, and preserve a form of worship which has at least the merit of being ancestral and national, — for each nation has its own institutions, whatever they may chance to be. This seems an expedient arrangement, not only because different minds think differently, and because it is our duty to preserve what has been established in the interests of the state, but also because in all probability the parts of the earth were originally allotted to different overseers, and are now administered accordingly. To do what is pleasing to these overseers is to do what is right : to abolish the institutions that have existed in each place from the first is impiety."
- Celsus

Today I have shared some quotes from Platonists to dispel the false claims going about that:
-Platonists didn’t believe in the gods
-Platonists were against nationhood or “folkism”
-Platonists were not loyal to the gods
-Platonists saw the gods as mere attributes of a greater God
-Platonists were like Christians (they opposed Christianity for being materialistic)

Platonist paganism was indeed different from conventional paganism in some theological assumptions but not in practice. Pagan Platonists advocated for Nationalism, maintenance of ancient ritual sacrifices and reverence for the gods. I am myself critical of Platonism for certain things but NOT for made up things!

Here is Plotinus, probably the most important platonist besides Plato himself, unambiguously declaring that there are many Gods. Not only does he state that there are many Gods but he says that monotheism is a misunderstanding of the nature of the divine.

- CWT Admin

"Thus for instance, the poetic fable abounds in this - that we must not rest satisfied with the apparent meaning, but pass on to the occult truth. For who, endued with intellect, would believe that Jupiter was desirous of having connexion with Juno, and on the ground, without waiting to go into the bed-chamber?"

Thomas Taylor, The Mythology of the Greeks

"Then holy Janus, amazing in his double appearance, suddenly presented his pair of faces to my eyes. ... He held a staff in his right hand and a key in his left, and he uttered these words to me from his front-facing mouth:
'Put aside your fear, industrious bard of the days. Learn what you seek, and take in my words with your mind. The ancients - for I'm a primitive phenomenon - used to call me Chaos. See of how far a time I sing the history! The bright air here and the three elements that remain, fire, water, earth, used to be just one heap. When once this mass separated, because of discord in its parts, and broke apart and went off into new homes, flame sought the height, a nearer place caught air, and earth and sea settled in the middle region. At that time I, who had been a round mass and a bulk without form, resorted to a shape and limbs appropriate to a god. Even now, small indication of my once chaotic shape, what's in front and behind in me appears the same.
Hear the second reason for the shape you've asked about, so you may know this and my function together. Whatever you see all round, sky, sea, clouds, lands, everything is closed up and opened by my hand. The guardianship of the vast universe rests with me alone, and the right to turn the hinge is entirely mine.'"

Ovid, Fasti 1.95-120

Happy New Year’s Day!

I beseech you, Lord, father and guide of the reason in me,
remind me of my noble origin,
which I was deemed worthy to receive from you.
Act with me for the purification from the body's irrational emotions,
that I may be superior to them and rule them,
and that I may use them as instruments in the fitting way.
Act with me also for the precise correction of the reason in me
and its unification with the genuinely existent things
through the light of the truth. I beseech you,
completely remove the mist from the eye of my soul,
so that I may clearly know both God and man.

(Adapted from Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus' Handbook 454)

Simplicius does not identify who he means by "Lord" here but my best guess, based on the context, is Zeus. I often use this as a prayer to Zeus/Jupiter.

To our ears, "Lord" has a Christian ring to it, but it was not unusual for pagans to refer to Gods by noscripts such as Lord or Father. Simplicius was certainly pagan.

- CWT Admin

"And to be entangled by the Demiurgic God, who, determining (reward) for all in conformity with merit, both to the wheel of destiny and generation, which, according to Orpheus, we are unable to escape without the favor of the Gods:

'In which Zeus enjoined
to free the human souls from the circle (of births) and lift them from misery.'"

Simplicius, Scholion On Aristotle's De Caelo 284a14

Only he knows how to pay honour [to divinities] who does not confuse the worth of those being honoured and who renders above all himself as a sacrifice, crafting his own soul into a divine sculpture and making his own intellect a temple for the reception of the divine light.

Hierocles of Alexandria, Commentary on the Pythagorean Golden Verses

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

"For that element in us which is divine and intellectual and one - or, if you so wish to term it, intelligible - is aroused, then, clearly in prayer, and when aroused, strives primarily towards what is like to itself, and joins itself to essential perfection."

Iamblichus, On the Mysteries 1.15

"....Odysseus is the representation of a man who has passed through repeated generations (or incarnations), and thus has progressed to those who are beyond the wave and the infinite ocean:

'Until you have reached the men who do not know the Sea,
And eat no food mingled with salt.' (Homer, Odyssey 11.122-3)

Evidently 'sea' and 'salt' denote, even with Plato, material substance."

Numenius of Apamea, Fragments 35b