"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

"You should be extending your stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will find a lasting place in your mind. To be everywhere is to be nowhere. People who spend their whole life travelling abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find hospitality but no real friendships. The same must needs be the case with people who never set about acquiring an intimate acquaintanceship with any one great writer, but skip from one to another, paying flying visits to them all."

Seneca, Letter II

Who then is the Mother of the Gods? She is the source of the intellectual and creative gods, who in their turn guide the visible gods: she is both the mother and the spouse of mighty Zeus; she came into being next to and together with the great creator; she is in control of every form of life, and the cause of all generation; she easily brings to perfection all things that are made; without pain she brings to birth, and with the father's aid creates all things that are; she is the motherless maiden, enthroned at the side of Zeus, and in very truth is the Mother of all the Gods.

Emperor Julian, "Hymn to the Mother of the Gods," 362 AD

"For like most people he [ = Socrates] believed that the gods have a care for humankind, but with an important difference: whereas they think that the gods know about some things but not others, Socrates thought that they know all things, our words and deeds and secret purposes; that they are present everywhere, and send signals to humans about all that concerns humankind.

So I wonder how the Athenians were ever persuaded that Socrates was a maverick as regards the gods, when he never said or did anything irreverent regarding gods, and his words and behavior regarding gods were the words and behavior of one who is, and is acknowledged to be, truly pious."

Xenophon, Memorabilia I.1.19-20

"Think about what kind of person you must be, in body and soul, when overtaken by death. Contemplate the shortness of life, the yawning gulf of time behind and before you, the frailty of all matter."

Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.7

My son loves Aesop’s fables too

The view that abortion is wrong beyond a certain point of the pregnancy goes back at least as far as Aristotle.

"...The line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive." Politics 7.16

A Daily Practice for Acquiring Civic Virtue

Civic virtue - also called political virtue - is the kind of virtue that relates to our lives as social creatures. "By these virtues upright men devote themselves to their commonwealths, protect cities, revere parents, love their children, and cherish relatives; by these they direct the welfare of the citizens, and by these they safeguard their allies with anxious forethought and bind them with the liberality of their justice; by these 'They have won remembrance among men'" (Macrobius).

Jupiter is the presiding God of civic virtue, and when we achieve civic virtue we will rule ourselves and command our lives in a manner which imitates Jupiter's rulership over the universe.

Each of the four classical virtues - Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice - have a civic mode.

Civic Wisdom: One must direct all thoughts and actions by the standard of reason, and wish for or do nothing but what is right, and have regard for human affairs as one would for divine authority. In wisdom we find reason, understanding, circumspection, foresight, willingness to learn, and caution.
Civic Courage: One must exalt his mind above all dread of danger, fear nothing except disgrace, and bear manfully both adversity and prosperity. Courage endows one with magnanimity, confidence, composure, nobleness, constancy, endurance, and steadfastness.
Civic Temperance: One must strive after nothing that is base, in no instance overstepping the bounds of moderation but subduing all immodest desires beneath the yoke of reason.
Civic Justice: One must safeguard for each man that which belongs to him. From justice comes uprightness, friendship, harmony, sense of duty, piety, love, human sympathy.

As we learn from Hierocles in his Commentary, the first half of the Golden Verses of Pythagoras can be understood as an outline of how to achieve civic virtue. Conveniently, Hierocles summarizes the verses into a kind of checklist. Every night, we are to examine our day and determine whether we lived up to these standards. And when we have, we should rejoice, but when we haven't, we should reprimand ourselves. We always keep in mind three questions: Where have I transgressed? What did I accomplish? What duty did I neglect?

"These are the prenoscriptions of the lawgiving intellect for souls," says Hierocles.
1. To honor the beings superior by nature according to their substantial rank.
2. To accord parents and relatives the highest esteem.
3. To welcome and befriend good men.
4. To prevail over our bodily functions [i.e., our lusts and appetites].
5. To feel shame before oneself everywhere [i.e., to hold oneself accountable].
6. To engage in justice.
7. To know beforehand that our possessions and ephemeral lives are easily destroyed.
8. To welcome our lot in life as assigned to us by divine judgement.
9. To use prudent thought that is pleasing to God and to change one's thinking for the better.
10. To practice the love of speaking, using real arguments.
11. To be immune to deception and slavishness for the preservation of virtue.
12. To use good counsel before we act, as a result of which our actions will be free from regret.
13. To be pure of conceit.
14. To pursue a life informed by knowledge.
15. To reform the body and externals to make them cooperate with virtue.

Sources: Hierocles, Commentary on the Golden Verses 19.3-4; Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.8.3-12

Music training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul.

Plato

"When Dionysus had projected his reflection into the mirror, he followed it and was thus scattered over the universe. Apollo gathers him and brings him back to heaven, for he is the purifying God and truly the savior of Dionysus, and therefore he is celebrated as the 'Dionysus-Giver'.

Like Kore, the soul descends into genesis, like Dionysus she is scattered by generation, like Prometheus and the Titans she is chained to the body. She frees herself by acquiring the strength of Hercules, gathers herself together through the help of Apollo and of Athena the Savior, i.e. by truly purifying philosophy, and she elevates herself to the causes of her being with Demeter."

Damascius, Commentary on Plato's Phaedo 1.129-130

"...Hermes indeed is the supplier of philosophy, and through this elevates souls, and by the dialectic powers, sends upward both total and partial souls to the good itself. But Venus is the first-effective cause of the amatory inspiration which pervades through wholes, and familiarizes to the beautiful the lives that are elevated by her. And Apollo perfects and converts all things through music, convolving, as Socrates says [in the Cratylus], and through harmony and rhythm attracting to intellectual truth, and the light which is there."

Proclus, Theology of Plato 6.22

"Should anyone feel the presence of an evil spirit, tempting him to injustice, he should go into a temple, remain at the altar, or into sacred groves, flying from injustice as from an impious and harmful mistress, supplicating the divinities to cooperate with him in turning it away from himself. He should also seek the company of men known for their virtue, in order to hear them discourse about a blessed life and the punishment of bad men, that he may be deterred from bad deeds, dreading none but the avenging divinities."

Preface to the Laws of Zaleucus the Locrian

"Well then, they say that those who live according to their own essence - that is, as they were born to live - have the divine daimon allotted to them, and for this reason we can see that these people are held in high esteem in whatever walk of life they pursue. Now to live 'according to essence' is to choose the life that befits the chain from which one is suspended: for example, to live the military life, if one is suspended from the chain of Ares; or the life of words and ideas, if from that of Hermes; or the healing or prophetic life, if from that of Apollo; or quite simply, as was said earlier, to live just as one was born to live. But if someone sets before himself a life that is not according to his essence, but some other life that differs from this, and focuses in his undertakings on someone else's work - they say that the intellective daimon is allotted to this person, and for this reason, because he is doing someone else's work, he fails to hit the mark in some instances."

Olympiodorus, On Plato's First Alcibiades 20