"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

The opening lines of Homer's Odyssey hit much harder when you read them in the light of the above.

"Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions."

Why Platonic Philosophy is Meditation

What follows is a sketch of why I think Platonic philosophy (as a practice) should be understood as a kind of meditation or yoga. Because the Platonic literature is often technical and theoretical, it's easy to think that Platonism is just geeky theorizing, but it isn't.

First, let me say why I think this is an important topic. Many people, probably the majority of people, believe that Europe has little if anything to offer that is analogous to Eastern-style meditation practice. Perhaps the closest we get to it, they think, is ordinary prayer. And because they believe this, they conclude that, if meditation is good, their only option is to practice meditation in a Buddhist or Hindu manner.

I believe this opinion is false, and I want to explain why I think it's false. But let me be clear: I don't have anything against Eastern meditation techniques, nor am I claiming that Western meditation is the same as Eastern meditation. I simply want to try to correct what I think is a misunderstanding.

But before I can do that, we do need (a little) theory under our belts. In Platonism, it's understood that, on the one hand, our world is always changing, in constant flux. But, on the other hand, there is stability in our world as well: things don't happen randomly; there are patterns, laws, things have intelligible form. So we must ask: from where does this stability come? Platonism claims that this unchanging form and order originates from immaterial causal principles. Furthermore, and this is the key part, it claims that these principles are accessible to the mind. And this brings us to the famous idea of 'contemplating the Forms.'

Now, if we simply re-write that phrase, we begin to see something very interesting reveal itself: "contemplation of the eternal causal principles of reality." Even still, though, this may sound rather academic, as if the point is to study a bunch of charts and diagrams or solve physics equations. But this is to misunderstand what the Platonists meant by contemplation.

They meant seeing. To contemplate the Forms is to commune with the creative 'forces' of reality directly – a pure, unmuddied togetherness with, and vision of, reality through the eye of the soul. The logic chopping and analysis are tools to get us there, but they are not the point. Through reason, we can clear away the confusions and ambiguities which conceal eternal reality from us - and then we can know reality itself in its radiant perfection. This is contemplation.

At this point, we can begin to understand that Plato's dialogues, for example, are anything in the world but mere dramatic records of debates – dramatic and entertaining though they often are. No, they are meditation guides.

"[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?" - Proclus

"Go into yourself and look. ... If you see that you have become [beautiful and virtuous], at that moment you have become sight, and you can be confident about yourself, and you have at this moment ascended here, no longer in need of someone to show you. Just open your eyes and see, for this alone is the eye that sees the great beauty." - Plotinus

- CWT Admin

It's hard for modern Western people to get this because they think thoughts are just things floating around mysteriously in their brains, unconnected with external reality. On this view, if we're lucky, the thoughts floating in our brains will sort of match external reality somehow, but who knows.

But that is not how the classical tradition understood it at all. Rather, they had a view that I think can be reasonably summarized as follows: when we truly know something, we are in communion with immaterial reality, and these immaterial realities are (basically) the causal principles of everything in the universe. It's not just a thing in your brain.

On this traditional model, then, careful thinking is - literally - purification. It's a kind of religious rite. That's why they cared about thinking so much, why they cared about logic so much. You are purifying your mind of what blocks it from the eternal.

- CWT Admin

"It must be that what can be spoken and thought is, for it is there for being
And there is no such thing as nothing. These are the guidelines I suggest for you."

Parmenides, fragment 5